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notapaladin · 3 years

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so say you’ll stay with me tonight (redux)

Hey, it’s ANOTHER fic I couldn’t leave alone because I wasn’t satisfied! This one fits the vibe I was going for better and is also like 2k words longer. In which Acatl has a bad day, but Teomitl walks him home and his night is so much better.

Original version here.

Also on AO3.

Tizoc is—regrettably—still Emperor today. Acatl’s trying very hard not to let it bother him, but it’s hard not to when the man has summoned all three High Priests and the master engineers to discuss his plans for the grand new renovation of the Great Temple currently underway. The renovation which, yes, is likely necessary, but not now. Not yet. It’s only been a year and a half since the plague. He meets Acamapichtli and Quenami’s gazes sidelong and knows they know it too.

Not that they say anything, of course. Cowards. Cowards and fools. Acatl shifts on his mat, calves aching, and grinds his teeth. (He wishes he were braver.)

They’re arrayed around a series of blueprints, some of them dating back to the very first iteration of the Great Temple. Wards and glyphs have been drawn in the corners of the later ones—the High Priests’ predecessors having planned ahead for their successors—but the oldest ones have no such guidelines. If those are damaged, they’ll have to use their best judgement. Or, more likely, the contents of the Temple archives which Quenami keeps under wards so heavy they give Acatl a nosebleed. The engineers don’t care about any of that; their job is solely to satisfy the Revered Speaker. One of them is currently leaning over a rendition of the current temple, gesturing to make his point. “Of course, my lord, if you wish the most dazzling effect for the end pieces it would be best to place the support beams for the underlying structure here and here, but...”

Tizoc’s eyes narrow. “But?”

“Ah. It may be less structurally sound. Not that it would collapse immediately, you understand, but in ten or fifteen years’ time...”

“Bah! I’ll handle it then. We can always remake it.”

Or you’ll leave it for your successor to handle? You’ll make Teomitl deal with this? His jaw tightens.

“As you wish, my lord. Now, that will require the scaffolding poles to be driven into the previous layer—yes, Acatl-tzin?”

He must have made an involuntary noise. Swallowing back the first three or four protestations that come to mind (there are so many wards written and carved into that layer which would have to be dismantled completely and the gods only know if they’re dependent on older ones, if even a single brick of Coyolxauhqui’s prison is exposed to moonlight all the hearts’ blood in the world won’t keep them safe), he says...

Nothing. He says nothing. Tizoc—he won’t distinguish the man with a -tzin, not anymore, not after what he did to Tlaloc’s clergy—is studying him like a particularly disgusting bug, and he thinks of his own priests and loses all his nerve. He shakes his head silently.

The engineers continue. Quenami, naturally, has plenty of suggestions. Yes, those dimensions for the new foundation are pleasing. Yes, of course there will be no problem procuring the limestone and basalt. Yes, it will be easy for us (this with a gloating look at Acamapichtli and Acatl that makes the High Priest of Tlaloc’s eyes go dark and furious and makes Acatl himself entertain vivid fantasies of strangulation) to weave the wards anew. There will be nothing to fear. All will know and glory to the name of Tizoc-tzin, who made the Temple great again.

And Tizoc preens. He knows nothing of wards or of magic beyond the most basic things they teach all noblemen’s children in the calmecac, and so he knows nothing of why everything he’s proposing is immensely dangerous for the safety of their world. He has never descended into the depths of the Temple to stand atop Coyolxauhqui’s prison and feel her hatred, her rage. He doesn’t care. He simply wants it expanded now, before anyone can somehow steal his glory—not that he says that, of course, but it shines greasily through in every word. Acatl tries very hard to let his voice wash over him without picking out specifics. That way lies only impotent fury, and they simply aren’t stable enough yet that he can risk drawing Tizoc’s ire. He may have Teomitl’s fondest regard, but Teomitl is still only Master of the House of Darts. Soon, he thinks. Soon.

“My lord, of course we can redo the steps down to the center as well, but...”

“Out with it.”

“Will we have enough sacrifices to remake the wards on them? They will need to be incised into the stone—”

Tizoc’s voice rises to a pitch that reminds him of a peccary with a chest cold. “You dare ask me that? Have we not won great victories? Have we not brought back dozens, hundreds of sacrifices already? Do you doubt the strength and valor of our armies?”

...Not soon enough.

He shifts again, allowing himself a brief grimace at the ache in his back and thighs. They’ve never been the same since his sojourn in the Heartlands. Every day he looks at Tizoc and thinks, I can’t believe I fought Itzpapalotl for your sake. But he did, and now they have a Revered Speaker who leads their warriors to be slaughtered and calls ir victory. He doubts whether Tizoc’s ever personally captured a prisoner in his life.

Teomitl could bring back more than enough captives, he thinks, if you only got out of his way and let him lead your army the way he’s supposed to. Between Teomitl and Neutemoc, he’s started to gain some secondhand knowledge of battle strategy, enough to understand that the relative failures of the campaigns under Tizoc’s reign are due in large part to the man’s own mix of paranoid micromanagement and reckless overconfidence. Teomitl’s not at all shy in voicing his opinions on it.

The engineer is sweating now. Rumors buzz like flies in the palace, and they say that the last person who publicly gainsaid the Revered Speaker simply disappeared. No official investigation was made, but that man’s widow had nevertheless been brave enough to contact Acatl. He didn’t find any magical residue, but of course that didn’t rule out foul play. They’d both known who the culprit was anyway. But this man is smarter or more cowardly, and so he lowers his head and says, “Never, my lord. They still sing of your latest campaign in the streets. It is merely that the reconsecration of the Great Temple is vital, and I wished to know whether you desired extra protection for the boundaries.”

If Tizoc was an intelligent man, he would say yes. The boundaries are still weak, terribly weak, due simply to his presence. Though they’ve been sewn up—thank the gods for Mihmatini—they’re far from impermeable. Acatl can feel them wiggle like a loose tooth if he presses too hard. And the Great Temple is their best and largest anchor with such a weak Revered Speaker on the throne. Until Teomitl is crowned, they need all the help they can get to keep the stars in the sky and She of the Silver Bells in chains.

Tizoc is not an intelligent man. He scoffs, shaking his head in a manner horribly reminiscent of Teomitl at his most arrogant. Except this is worse, because Teomitl has good qualities to make up for it. Tizoc has none. “That won’t be necessary. My High Priests will have it well in hand, won’t you?”

Quenami takes it upon himself to speak for them all. “Of course, my lord.”

Acatl remains silent. He can’t bear to look at Quenami just yet or he might snap, but when he turns his head he catches Acamapichtli’s eye and realizes he knows that expression. It’s the same one he almost certainly has on his own face. How dare he? After what Tizoc did to your clergy, and what he’s doing to the boundaries, he has the nerve to make our jobs even harder? And it will certainly be their jobs, because if Quenami bestirs himself for anything short of Coyolxauhqui physically manifesting on the Temple steps, Acatl will eat his own sandals. Without chili sauce.

Tizoc waves a hand. “You see? Proceed.”

The two engineers exchange looks before the man dubbed unofficial spokesman nods. “As you wish, my lord.”

It’s late by the time they get out of that meeting, and all he can think is that he does not want to spend one more second within the palace walls. He wants his own house, and his own mat, and his—

Well. He wants Teomitl. In general he doesn’t want to be alone, but in specific he wants Teomitl—wants to wrap his arms around him, hold him close, kiss that soft and smiling mouth. They haven’t made any promises or put words on what they are to each other. Teomitl’s optimism so far hasn’t extended itself to that, and Acatl isn’t sure he can be the first one to say it. But he knows his own heart well enough to tell how he feels. How he’s been feeling ever since that first day months ago, when Teomitl had turned back from that view of the city on his temple steps and smiled at him.

(Not, admittedly, that he’d said anything. Not then. It had taken them weeks of meeting for meals, of watching Teomitl patch up his relationship with Mihmatini, of nearly giving up—for surely he had no right to come between them. Of staring at his mouth and wondering what it might be like to kiss it. Had it not been for Teomitl showing up at his door the night before he left for his next campaign, he might still be wondering.)

His—lover? He supposes that’s the best word—is somewhere in the palace, but Acatl hasn’t seen him all day. This mess with the Great Temple has taken up all his time. He’s seriously debating the idea of going to look for him. Of finding him wherever he’s been spending his time, pulling him aside, telling him...

I want you.

I missed you.

Come home with me.

That idea makes his face heat. They’ve stolen plenty of time together, but never has Teomitl spent the night at his house. (He doesn’t count that time after Axayacatl’s death. He’d been asleep for that, and also still so deep in denial that he wouldn’t have been able to find his way out with a tall ladder and a map.) To do that now would be...well. His eyes have been opened, and he’s fairly sure they wouldn’t be spending too much time sleeping.

“Acatl!”

He jolts; he’s been so lost in thought that he didn’t even hear those impatient, beloved footfalls approaching from behind. The hallway is empty, so he doesn’t have that excuse either. Something in his heart clicks and settles into warm contentment as he turns around. “Teomitl,” he says, and adds—because it’s the truth—“I was just thinking about you.”

Teomitl doesn’t quite blush, but his smile goes measurably warmer around the edges. He looks good all in red and white, with gold earflares and a simple gold lip plug that draws Acatl’s eye to the curve of his lower lip. He’s loosened his hair and taken out the feather ornaments, so he must have finished his own work. “And I was just looking for you. Are you all done for the day?”

“...Unless some emergency beckons, yes.” He really hopes it doesn’t. Duality, just give him one night.

“I’m glad.” And Teomitl draws closer, slowing his pace to match. “Heading home?”

He nods, and then takes a breath. There’s no reason for him to be nervous, but asking for it while knowing what he wants makes his heart beat a little faster anyway. “Walk with me?”

Teomitl beams, and somehow he falls even deeper in love. “Of course.”

They’re quiet for a while. He knows he could break the silence; now that he’s fallen into the habit of speaking his feelings out loud with Teomitl, his lover always has an understanding ear to lend when he needs to unleash his frustrations. It had been a pleasant surprise to curse Quenami’s name and have Teomitl spare no vitriol in his own assessment of the man’s character. But it feels good just to walk side by side with him, and he doesn’t want to ruin the mood. Besides, walls in the palace always have ears, and he’s sure it would get back to Tizoc somehow. Instead he focuses on the warmth of Teomitl’s body next to his, almost close enough to touch. The scent of lingering copal incense and sun-warmed skin reaches him and he thinks, Oh, this is nice. (It could be nicer. They could be holding hands. But they have to be discreet, still, and so he can’t risk it.)

(Gods, he wants to see Teomitl crowned.)

It’s not until they leave the palace that Teomitl says, “So. Tizoc’s still going ahead with his...refurbishment.”

Acatl grimaces. “Indeed.”

“Didn’t listen to any of the reasons why he shouldn’t.”

He bites his lip. “I...”

Teomitl turns to look at him, frowning, but then understanding dawns. “...I see.” He looks like he wants to say something else—probably something angry—but all he does is sigh and shake his head. “I tried too, and he brushed me aside. He’s only thinking of his legacy and not what it might do to us. It’s probably for the best that you didn’t say anything; he’d think we were conspiring against him.”

Acatl considers this. Looks at him.

Teomitl looks mildly offended. “I did say I’d give him time.”

“You did.” And he slides his fingers against the back of Teomitl’s hand to show he’s not upset, nor holding a grudge. After all, he’d meant it when he’d said there was no need for apologies between them. It has the desired effect, because Teomitl’s eyes grow warm and bright.

And then he leans in and murmurs, “Unless you’d rather I not.”

“Teomitl,” he huffs, but he can’t be mad. Teomitl’s wearing the half-grin that means he’s not entirely serious—that says yes, he might still kill his own brother on Acatl’s orders, but it’s far more important to him that Acatl has asked him not to. Acatl trusts that now. “Please don’t.” After a moment’s thought he adds, “At least warn me and Mihmatini first when you do.”

Now Teomitl’s really smiling, though it’s somewhat rueful. “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything else. You know that.”

“I do.” He angles himself as he walks so that their arms brush and lets the tenderness he feels color his voice. I know you, my heart. And he’s suddenly more than mildly annoyed that they’re still in the Sacred Precinct, because the way Teomitl is looking at him with soft, shining eyes desperately makes him wish he could kiss him right here. If he were braver, he thinks he might even risk it; he knows where the shadows of the temple gates will hide them from prying eyes, and he knows how sweetly Teomitl presses against him when he’s pleased.

Though he says nothing, it must show on his face, because Teomitl takes advantage of the camouflage provided by their billowing cloaks to firmly lace their fingers together. His voice lowers, rich with promise. “We should fetch dinner before we reach your place. Unless you want to cook? I hope you do; we’ll need our energy.”

He knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s blushing. “I. Um.”

“Well?”

“...I leave a pot of stew on the hearth in the morning.” It’s a habit he’s gotten into since Tizoc’s begun these building preparations; they often go long enough that he’s ravenous by the time they’re over, and utterly unwilling to expend any more brainpower on exactly how to fill his stomach. It’s hard to overcook stew, after all. “Though I don’t know if it will be to your taste—”

Teomitl holds up a hand to stop him. “Acatl. You know my feelings on your cooking.”

He snorts, shaking his head. They’ve had this conversation before. “I still think you flatter me far too much.”

Teomitl pokes his side teasingly. “And I think you underestimate the effects of a meal made with care and devotion by a man I trust above all others in the Empire.” Acatl’s heart skips a beat, so of course the moment’s ruined when he follows it up with, “I’d eat what you made if it came out as charcoal.”

“Well, hopefully this won’t be that bad.” Honesty compels him to add, “It may be a bit spicy. I wasn’t expecting company when I put it all together.”

Teomitl huffs, “I can handle spice!”

He makes a mental note to serve plenty of flatbread on the side.

It’s not far to his home, and the stew—mostly beans and corn, with a long-simmering and very tough haunch of dog from an earlier sacrifice thrown in to cook until tender—is just about done when he takes it off the fire. Teomitl clearly wants to help, but after a moment’s searching forces him to realize he has no idea where Acatl keeps anything, he takes himself out to the courtyard with a terribly put-upon sigh. It’s adorable. Acatl wants to kiss his cheek.

So when he sets down their bowls, he does. Teomitl promptly blushes, which is so endearing that Acatl has to kiss him again. On the mouth this time, which turns long and lingering before Teomitl slowly pulls away. “Mmhm. Not that I’m complaining, but what prompted this?”

He really only needs one hand to eat, so he’s free to settle the other at Teomitl’s waist and revel in the way the man nestles against his side. (It’s no longer surprising that Teomitl is so tactile, but it will always—always—be delightful.) “I missed you.”

Because he had. Every time Tizoc had opened his mouth, he’d thought you are unworthy of your crown. Every time Quenami had worn that supercilious smirk of his, he’d thought Teomitl would never let you get away with that. He’d felt himself alone, and he’d wanted his lover by his side. Now that he is, there’s something going soft and warm in Acatl’s chest. They’d definitely be kissing again if it wasn’t for the stew, which he knows won’t be nearly as good cold.

Teomitl presses a kiss to his cheek, which makes him blush in turn, but then he’s applying himself to his dinner. Acatl waits as he takes the first spoonful.

To give him credit, his beloved doesn’t flinch. But he does turn red, and when Acatl hands him a piece of plain flatbread he shoves it into his mouth as though his life depends on it. When he can talk again, his voice is a little rough. “That’s—not bad.” And then, ruefully, “I should have expected that.”

“Mm.” He thinks briefly of seeing whether there’s anything else he could serve, but he knows Teomitl will turn it down. Even now, his lover thinks his own limits are mere suggestions.

It’s a quiet meal. Teomitl settles more firmly against him as they eat, one hand resting lightly on his thigh, and the promise of it makes him shiver. I won’t be suggesting he go home tonight, he thinks, and knows it for the truth. The silence between them feels good—feels comfortable—but though he doesn’t want to spoil it, there’s something he knows he has to say.

The sun is setting, bathing them in twilight. Their bowls are scraped clean, even Teomitl’s. (With the aid, Acatl can’t help but notice, of several cups of water and all of the flatbread.) Teomitl himself is resting his head on his shoulder, looking utterly content with his lot in life. Warm, callused fingers are tracing slow circles on his thigh. Even the air feels peaceful, with just enough of a breeze to keep them cool but not enough to raise the dust. Acatl takes a deep breath and realizes he’s not afraid. Maybe he should be—maybe this is too much, he’s moving too quickly—but he isn’t. Not with his man by his side. Haven’t they come this far?

“I love you,” he whispers, and it comes out so quietly that at first he doesn’t think Teomitl’s heard him. But then it must sink in, because Teomitl’s muscles tense, his eyes widen, and Acatl has a miniature eternity to think Oh, fuck. He’s wrong. This is too fast. Teomitl isn’t that serious about him. Hastily, he opens his mouth, scrambling to take it back.

Then Teomitl smiles, soft as the dawn, and breathes, “I love you, too.”

Oh. Oh, thank the Duality.

Teomitl turns towards him and they’re kissing again, and this time it’s much less sweet. There is some restraint—while Teomitl’s not precisely shy, he’s well aware of Acatl’s vows and has never pressed them—but it’s the easiest and most natural thing in the world to be tumbled backwards on the mat, to have strong hands buried in his hair, to feel the heat and the faintest suggestion of teeth in each press of Teomitl’s mouth down his throat. And yet, for all that, there’s still a gentleness to it, because he’s loved. And better than that, he’s respected. If he asked Teomitl to stop, he knows he would.

He doesn’t think he’s going to ask Teomitl to stop. He arches into another kiss, letting his head fall back, and breathes, “We should...nnh...” Words fail him, because there’s a featherlight press of lips to his collarbone and it’s a lovely little spark of pleasure.

“Mm?”

He shivers in anticipation at the warmth in his lover’s eyes. No, there’s no hesitation in his mind anymore. “Let’s go inside.” He swallows. “If you want to continue this.”

Teomitl jerks back a little to look at him. For an instant he looks surprised, but then the smile on his face turns teasing. “Oh, I do. But it’s getting late, and you should sleep.”

He’s suddenly very, very aware of his lover’s weight on him—of the way they’re touching, pressed together from very nearly the waist downwards, and how the building heat in his blood is moving with purpose. He shifts, rolling his hips a fraction, and feels Teomitl twitch in response. “I’m not that tired.”

Teomitl grins, all wicked hope. “Want me to help you with that?”

He sucks in a breath. I took vows is his first thought. But it’s followed fast by a second, stronger one—I don’t care. So instead of answering in words, he pulls Teomitl into a hungry, searing kiss.

He’s honestly not entirely clear on how they manage to get inside. While he’d be glad to kiss Teomitl forever, his lover is the sort of impatient man who comes up with plans; they’re barely on his sleeping mat before Teomitl’s scattering their cloaks and working at the knots to their loincloths, letting his hands roam shamelessly over every inch of bare skin. Acatl’s not idle; though he might kill something for a light so he could at least see the unveiled glory that is his naked lover, he’s free to map out the lay of the land with his palms.

And gods, but Teomitl melts into each touch. If he were the jaguar Acatl sometimes thinks of him as, he might even be purring. Experimentally he draws his nails down Teomitl’s back, and is rewarded when he moans into their kiss. “Mmm...”

Then there are warm, callused fingers trailing down his chest and he can’t quite muster up the ability to feel smug anymore when they find one nipple and start toying with it. “Oh, gods,” he gasps—he hadn’t thought he’d be sensitive there, but Teomitl is very effectively proving him wrong. He’s been half-hard since the moment his loincloth hit the floor, and Teomitl’s hands are getting him the rest of the way there. It’s even better when Teomitl moves to straddle him, half so they can grind against each other and half so his free hand can skate down the plane of his stomach.

Their eyes meet, and Acatl feels himself flush at the look in Teomitl’s eyes, the one that says without words that there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. When he speaks, his voice is soft. “You feel perfect.”

“Flatterer...mmm...” That one hand is sliding lower, shameless, and he wriggles a little to press their cocks together. He wishes again for light, but smoothing his hands over the solid muscles of his lover’s back and down over his frankly glorious ass will have to do. Teomitl must enjoy it, because his whole body trembles—and then Acatl’s being kissed, long and slow, and he arches with an utterly wanton groan.

“You are incredible,” Teomitl breathes when they pull apart. “Tell me how you want me to please you.” Acatl has to blush a little at that—it’s hardly as though Teomitl ought to need instruction, when he’s so hard against him and surely that presents a few obvious ideas—but well, he is asking. He’s owed an answer.

Still, saying it out loud makes him squirm. His skin feels like it’s on fire as he mutters, “...Touch me.” He rolls his hips, and his lover’s eyes spark fire. He doesn’t need to say anything else; Teomitl takes him in hand, and the friction that had been merely good builds into something he can fall into, something that sends pleasure coiling through his veins.

“Like this?” Teomitl’s setting a steady pace, fingers rippling; he needs his other hand to brace himself on the mat, bringing him in range to punctuate his words with a hungry mouth on Acatl’s collarbone. It scatters Acatl’s thoughts to the four winds; helpless, he scratches down Teomitl’s back again, and this time the vibrations of his lover’s moan sinks into his skin.

More, he thinks, and yes. He barely recognizes his own voice when it leaves his mouth. “Nngh, yes—no, wait, wait, I want to—” It’s not a want but a physical need, bone-deep, that has him working his hand between them to wrap around both their cocks at once. Teomitl’s roughly the same size but a little thicker, all rock-hard heat under his palm, and when he squeezes it pulls the most amazingly wrecked noise out of him.

“Oh,” Teomitl gasps. In the darkness, his eyes are wide with stunned hunger; his hips shudder, rocking in unconscious little circles like he’s not sure whether he should be letting Acatl set the pace or not.

“Like this,” he pants. All that stroking had been pleasurable, yes, but he needs to feel it properly when Teomitl falls apart against him, under his hand, sliding past his own cock with each thrust. He wonders, briefly, how it would feel with Teomitl inside him—but then Teomitl’s hand leaves his shaft to slide lower, and the first purposeful caress to his balls makes him whine.

Teomitl’s smug, “Hah,” comes out as more of a gasp than anything else. Even the attempt at a self-satisfied smirk is erased in the next instant because Acatl leans in to nip at his throat and grinds his hips up, a firm stroke making their cocks pulse in his grip, and his head falls back with a shaky cry. “Gods, keep doing that—”

Acatl hums against his lover’s skin. “Is this how you like it?” he breathes. There aren’t words for the feelings coursing through him, lust and the mounting lightning of his own pleasure mingling with a fierce joy that he’s the one doing this for Teomitl, that it’s his mouth and hands that are pulling such sweet sounds from his lover. A little more, he thinks. A little more. I need to see your face.

He gets his wish a moment later; no doubt Teomitl has a warrior’s stamina, but it can’t last against the way Acatl’s handling him. He gets increasingly vocal as he nears his peak, wordless cries ringing in the night air as Acatl bites at his shoulder. When he mouths a red mark into the thin skin at his collarbone, Teomitl nearly sobs. “Yes—yes, gods, Acatl—” Then he’s coming, hard and fast and all at once, spilling himself over their hands and bodies, and his voice cracks into a desperate keen.

It’s perfect. He’s still unfulfilled, but he almost doesn’t care. Almost. After a moment where Teomitl’s catching his breath and he thinks he might have to seek his own pleasure, his lover is grinning hot and hungrily down at him and oh gods, now that he’s not distracted by what Acatl’s doing with him he proves merciless. He settles back on his haunches, freeing both hands to squeeze and stroke and pump Acatl’s throbbing flesh, and all Acatl can do is take it. “Nnnh, Teomitl, please...”

“That’s it,” Teomitl breathes, and if it wasn’t so awestruck it would be a royal order. It feels like a royal order, like the words of the gods themselves when he growls, “Come for me, Acatl-tzin.”

He does. He can’t do anything else. It’s shattering knife-edge pleasure that pulls all his thoughts out of his head; for a small eternity, he can’t even feel his own limbs, lost in the white-hot spasms of his own release. Awareness filters back in slowly; there’s Teomitl slowly petting his thighs, there’s his hands settling at his lover’s hips. And there, shining in the darkness, is Teomitl’s tender gaze.

“...Duality,” he manages breathlessly. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this, but thank You. Thank You for this gift.

“We made a mess,” Teomitl murmurs. With a downright wicked smirk, he drags his fingers through it and slowly licks them clean.

Spent as he is, it still makes Acatl’s cock twitch. He has to close his eyes lest he do something that...well, something that seems like a very good idea, to be honest, but his body is letting him know he’d regret it later. He’s not that young anymore. “Teomitl.”

“You taste good.” It’s almost—almost—innocent, but then Teomitl does it again and that’s not innocent at all.

He draws in a shuddering breath. “I need to recover, damn you. Give me a moment before you do things like that!”

“I just wanted to clean us up, but you’re right.” Teomitl kisses him again, slowly, and he can taste himself on his lips. “I won’t tease, love.”

Love. He smiles at that, feeling his face warm. “You’d better not, after being so concerned about my sleep schedule.” It comes out as more of a mumble than anything else; he’s forgotten how draining orgasms can be, especially on a full stomach after a long day. Sleep really is sounding very tempting.

“Mmm.” It’s a warm, utterly contented hum. Even when Teomitl pulls away to clean them both up properly with a cotton towel, he doesn’t go far; indeed, the cleanup itself is slow and tender and interspersed with long, gentle kisses.

Acatl responds as best he can, but he really is very tired. When Teomitl slides his arms around him, it’s all he can do to nuzzle into his chest. “Mmhm.” He feels boneless. Weightless. Teomitl is stroking his hair, and he never wants it to stop. “Teomitl...”

Teomitl’s arms loosen. “I...” he begins.

He knows what Teomitl’s going to say—I should go, I shouldn’t be here in the morning. He knows it would be a good and prudent idea. He also knows he’s not going to let that happen. Not after the night they’ve shared; not after the love they’ve shared. “Stay,” he says.

Teomitl stays.

#acatl #teomitl #teocatl #quenami #tizoc #not work safe #obsidian and blood #paladin writes stuff

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notapaladin · 3 years

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and this faith is gettin' heavy (but you know it carries me) redux

This is literally and unironically the SECOND TIME i have added another thousand words to this fic but now it is finally done. Behold, over 10k words of food as metaphor for love/angst-with-a-happy-ending! In which Teomitl goes missing on a foreign battlefield, and Acatl mourns...but events in his dreams suggest Teomitl maybe isn’t gone for good.

Also on AO3

Acatl grimaced as he stepped from the coolness of his home into the day’s bright, punishing sunlight. Today was the day the army was due to return from their campaign in Mixtec lands, and so he was forced to don his skull mask and owl-trimmed cloak on a day that was far too hot for it. Not for the first time, he was thankful that priests of Lord Death weren’t required to paint their faces and bodies for special occasions; the thought of anything else touching his skin made him shudder.

He’d barely made it out of his courtyard when Acamapichtli strode up to him, face grave underneath his blue and black paint. “Ah, Acatl. I’m glad I could catch you.”

“Come to tell me that the army is at our gates again?” They would never be friends, he and Acamapichtli, but they had achieved something like a truce in the year since the plague. Still, Acatl couldn’t help but be on his guard. There was something...off about the expression on the other man’s face, and it took him a moment to realize what it was. He’d borne the same look when delivering the news of a death to a grieving family. Ah. A loss, then.

He’d expected Acamapichtli to spread his hands, a wordless statement of there having been nothing he could have done. He didn’t expect him to take a deep breath and slide his sightless eyes away. “I have. The runners all say it is a great victory; Tizoc-tzin has brought back several hundred prisoners.”

It should have pleased him. Instead, a cold chill slid down his spine. “What are you not telling me? I’ve no time for games.”

Acamapichtli let out a long sigh. “There were losses. A flood swept across the plain, carrying away several of our best warriors. Among them...the Master of the House of Darts. They looked—I’m assured that they looked!—but his body was not found.”

No. No. No. A yawning chasm cracked open beneath his ribs. He knew he was still breathing, but he couldn’t feel the air in his lungs. Even as he wanted, desperately, to grab Acamapichtli by the shoulders and shake him, to scream at him for being a liar, he knew the man was telling the truth. That his face and mannerisms, the careful movements of a man who knew he brought horrible news, showed his words to be honest. That Teomitl—who had left four months before with a kiss for Mihmatini and an affectionate clasp for Acatl’s arm—would not return.

It took real effort to focus on Acamapichtli’s next words. The man’s eyes were full of a horrible sympathy, and he wanted to scream. “I thought you should know in advance. Before—before they arrived.”

“Thank you,” he forced out through numb lips.

Acamapichtli turned away. “...I’m sorry, Acatl.”

After a long, long moment, he made himself start walking again. There was the rest of the army to greet, after all. Even if Teomitl wouldn’t be among them.

Even if he’d never return from war again.

Greeting the army was a ceremony, one he usually took some joy in—it had meant that Teomitl would be home, would be safe, and his sister would be happy. Now it passed in a blue, and he registered absolutely none of it. Someone must have already given the news to Mihmatini when he arrived; she was an utterly silent presence at his side, face pale and lips thin. She wouldn’t cry in public, but he saw the way her eyes glimmered when she blinked. He couldn’t bring himself to so much as lay a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. If he touched her, if he felt the fabric of her cloak beneath his hand, that meant it was real.

It couldn’t be real. Jade Skirt was Teomitl’s patron goddess, She wouldn’t let him simply drown. But there was an empty space to Tizoc’s left where Teomitl should have been, and no sign of his white-and-red regalia. Acatl’s eyes burned as he blinked away the sun.

Tizoc was still speaking, but Acatl heard none of his words. It was all too still, too quiet; everything was muffled, as though he was hearing it through water. If there was justice, came the first spinning thought, every wall would be crumbling. No...if there was justice, Teomitl would be...

He drew in a long breath, feeling chilled to the bone even as he sweated under his cloak. Now that his mind had chosen to rouse itself, its eye was relentless. He barely saw the plaza around him, packed with proud warriors and colorful nobles; it was too easy to imagine a far-flung province to the south, a jungle thick with trees and blood. A river bursting its banks, carrying Teomitl straight into his enemies’ arms. They would capture him, of course; he was a valiant fighter and he’d taken very well to the magic of living blood, but even he couldn’t hold off an army alone.

And once they had him, they would sacrifice him.

Somewhere behind the army, Acatl knew, were lines of captured warriors whose hearts would be removed to feed the Sun, whose bodies would be flung down the Temple steps to feed the beasts in the House of Animals, whose heads would hang on the skull-rack. It was necessary, and their deaths would serve a greater purpose. He’d seen it thousands of times. There was no use mourning them. It was simply the way nearly all captured warriors went.

It was what Teomitl would want. An honorable death on the sacrifice stone. It was better to die than to be a slave all your life. But at least he would have a life—all unbidden, the alternative rose clear in Acatl’s mind. Teomitl, face whitened with chalk. Teomitl, laying down on the stone. Teomitl, teeth clenched, meeting his death with open eyes. Teomitl’s blood on the priests’ hands.

Nausea rose hot and bitter in his throat, and he shut his eyes and focused on his breathing. In for a count of three, out for a count of five. Repeat. It didn’t hurt to breathe, but he felt as if it should. He felt as if everything should hurt. He felt a sudden, vicious urge to draw thorns through his earlobes until the pain erased all thoughts, but he made his hands still. If he started, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to stop.

Still, it seemed to take an eternity for the speeches and the dances to be over and done with. By the time they finished, he was light-headed with the strain of remaining upright, and Mihmatini had slipped a hand into his elbow. Even that single point of contact burned through his veins. They still hadn’t spoken. He wondered if she, too, couldn’t quite find her own voice under the screaming chasm of grief.

And then, after all that, when all he yearned for was to go home and lay down until the world felt right again—maybe until the Sixth Sun rose, that would probably be enough time—there was a banquet, and he was forced to attend.

Of course there’s a banquet, he thought dully. This is a victory, after all. Tizoc had wasted no time in promoting a new Master of the House of Darts to replace his fallen brother, with many empty platitudes about how Teomitl would surely be missed and how he’d not want them to linger in their grief, but to move on and keep earning glory for the Mexica. Moctezuma, his replacement, was seventeen and haughty; where Teomitl’s arrogance had begun to settle into firm, well-considered authority and the flames of his impatience had burnt down to embers, Moctezuma’s gaze swept the room and visibly dismissed everyone in it as not worth his concern. It reminded Acatl horribly of Quenami.

Mihmatini sat on the same mat she always did, but now there was a space beside her like a missing tooth. She still wore her hair in the twisted horn-braids of married women, and against all rules of mourning she had painted her face with the blue of the Duality. Underneath it, her face was set in an emotionless mask. She did not eat.

Neither did Acatl. He wasn’t sure he could stomach food. So instead his gaze flickered around the room, unable to settle, and he gradually realized that he and Mihmatini weren’t alone in the crowd. The assembled lords and warriors should have been celebrating, but there was a subdued air that hung over every stilted laugh and negligent bite of fine food. Neighbors avoided each other’s eyes; Neutemoc, sitting with his fellow Jaguar Warriors, was staring at his empty plate as though it held the secrets of the heavens. He looked well, until Acatl saw the expression on his face. It was a mirror of his own.

At least his fellow High Priests didn’t try to engage him in conversation, for which he was grateful. Acamapichtli kept glancing at him almost warily, but he hadn’t voiced any more empty platitudes—and when Quenami had opened his mouth to say something, he’d taken the unprecedented step of leaning around Acatl and glaring him into silence.

If they’d been friends, Acatl would have been touched; as it was, it made a burning ember of rage lodge itself in his throat. Don’t you pity me. Don’t you dare pity me. He ground his teeth until his jaw hurt, clenched his fists until his nails cut into his palms, and didn’t speak. If he spoke, he would scream.

Even the plates in front of him weren’t enough of a distraction. Roasted meats glistened in their vibrant red or green or orange sauces. Each breath brought the deliciously warm fragrance of chilies and pumpkin seeds and vanilla to his nose. The fish and lake shrimp, grilled in their own juices and arrayed on beds of corn husks, would at any other time have tempted him to take a bite. Soups and stews were carried from table to table by serving women in gleaming white cotton; he breathed in as one woman passed and nearly choked on the rich peppery scent. He didn’t need to look to know it was his usual favorite, chunks of firm white fish and bitter greens in what was sure to be a fiery broth. Teomitl had always teased him for that, saying it was a miracle he could even taste the greens with so much chili in the way.

Don’t look. Don’t think about it. The ember in his throat was slowly scorching a path through his gut. He couldn’t eat. Didn’t even try.

There were more courses, obviously. More fish, more vegetables, more haunches of venison or rabbits bathed in spicy-sweet sauce. More doves and quail, and even a spoonbill put back in its own pink feathers for a centerpiece. When the final course was triumphantly set in front of him—wedges and cubes of fruit, with a little cup of spiced honey—he was nearly sick over the sweet crimson pitaya split open on his plate. It had been Teomitl’s favorite.

Somehow, he held it together until after the dessert had been cleared away. He rose jerkily to his feet, legs trembling, and fixed his mind firmly on getting home in one piece. No one hailed him on his way out of the room, and for a hopeful moment he thought he was safe.

Quenami’s voice stopped him in the next hallway. “Ah, Acatl. A lovely banquet, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t turn around. “Mn.” Go away.

Quenami didn’t. In fact he took a step closer, as though they were friends, as though he’d never tried to have Acatl killed. His voice was like a mosquito in his ear. “You must not be feeling well; you hardly touched your food. Some might see that as an insult. I’m sure Tizoc-tzin would.”

“Mm.”

“Or is it worry over Teomitl that’s affecting you? You shouldn’t fret so, Acatl. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s not dead after all; there are plenty of cenotes in the southlands, and a determined man could easily hide out there for the rest of his life. He probably just took the coward’s way out, sick of his responsibilities—“

He whirled around, sucking in a breath that scorched his lungs. It was the last thing he felt before he let Mictlan’s chill spill through his veins and overflow. His suddenly-numb skin loosened on his neck; his fingers burned with the cold that came only from the underworld. He knew that his skin was black glass, his muscles smoke, his bones moonlight on ice, his eyes burning voids. All around him was the howling lament of the dead, the stench of decay and the dry, acrid scent of dust and dry bones. When he spoke, his voice echoed like a bell rung in a tomb.

“Silence.”

You do not call him a coward. You do not even speak his name. I could have your tongue for that. He stepped forward, gaze locked with Quenami’s. It would be easy, too. He could do it without even blinking—could take his tongue for slander, his eyes for that sneering gaze, could reach inside his skin and debone him like a turkey—all it would take would be a single wrong word—

Quenami recoiled, jaw going slack in terror. Silently—blessedly, mercifully, infuriatingly silently—he turned on his heel and left.

Acatl took one breath, two, and let the magic drain out of his shaking limbs. He hadn’t meant to do that. It should probably have sickened him that he’d nearly misused Lord Death’s power like that, especially on a man who ought to have been his superior and ally, but instead all he felt was a vicious sort of stymied rage—a jaguar missing a leap and coming up with nothing but air between his claws. He wanted to scream. He wanted blood under his nails, the shifting crack of breaking bones under his knuckles. He wanted to hurt something.

He made it to the next courtyard, blessedly empty of party guests, and collapsed on the nearest bench like a dead man. His stomach ached. I could have killed him. Gods, I wanted to kill him. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my life. All because...all because he said his name...

“...Acatl?”

Mihmatini’s voice, admirably controlled. He made himself lift his head and answer. “In here.”

She padded into the courtyard and took a seat on the opposite end of the bench, skirt swishing around her feet as she walked. Gold ornaments had been sewn into its hem, and he wondered if they’d been gifts from Teomitl. “I saw Quenami running like all the beasts of the underworld were on his tail. What did you do?”

Nothing. But that would have been a lie, and he refused to do that to his own flesh and blood. “...He said…” He swallowed past a lump in his throat. “He said that Teomitl might have deserted. He dared to say that—” The idea choked him, and he couldn’t finish the words. That Teomitl was a coward. That he would run from his responsibilities, from his destiny, at the first opportunity…

She tensed immediately, eyes going cold in a way that suggested Quenami had better be a very fast runner indeed. “He would never. You know that.”

Air seemed to be coming a bit easier now. “I do. But…”

Of course, she pounced on his hesitation. “But?”

I want him so badly to not be dead. “Nothing.”

Mihmatini was silent for a while, wringing her hands together. Finally, she spoke. “He would never have deserted. But...Acatl…”

“What?”

“I don’t know if he’s dead.” She set a hand on her chest. “The magic that connects us—I can still feel it in here. It’s faint, really faint, but it’s there. He might…” She took a breath, and tears welled up in her eyes. “He might still be alive.”

Alive. The word was a conch shell in his head, sounding to wake the dawn. For an instant, he let himself imagine it. Teomitl alive, maybe in hiding, maybe trying to find his way home to them.

Maybe held captive by the Mixteca, until such time as they can tear out his heart. He closed his eyes, shutting out everything but the sound of his own breathing. It didn’t help. He hated how pathetic his own voice sounded as he asked, “You think so?”

“It’s—” She scrubbed ineffectually at her eyes with the back of a hand. “It’s possible. Isn’t it?”

“...I suppose.” He took a breath. “I think it’s time for me to get some sleep. I’ll...see you tomorrow.”

He knew he wouldn’t sleep—knew, in fact, that he’d be lucky if he even managed to close his eyes—but he needed to get home. He refused to disgrace himself by weeping in public.

The first dream came a week later.

He’d managed to avoid them until then; he’d thrown himself headlong into his work, not stopping until he was so tired that his “sleep” was really more like “passing out.” But it seemed his body could adapt to the conditions he subjected it to much easier than he’d thought, because he woke with tears on his face and the scraps of a nightmare scattering in the dawn light. There had been blood and screaming and a ravaged and horrible face staring into his that somehow he’d known. He did his best to put it from his mind, and for a day he thought he’d succeeded. He shed blood for the gods, stood vigil for the dead, tallied up the ledgers for the living. Remembered, occasionally, to put food into his mouth, but he couldn’t have said what he was eating. Collapsed onto his mat and prayed that he wouldn’t have a dream like that again.

It wasn’t like that. It was worse.

He was walking through a jungle made of shadows, trees shedding gray dust from their leaves as he passed under them. There was no birdsong, no rippling of distant waters or crunching of underbrush, and he knew deep in his soul that nothing was alive here anymore. Not even himself. Though his legs ached and his lungs burned, it was pain that felt like it was happening to someone else. His gut held, not the stretched desiccation of Mictlan, but a nasty twisting feeling of wrongness; part of him wanted to be sick, but he couldn’t stop. Ahead of him, someone was making their way through the undergrowth, and it was a stride he’d know anywhere.

Teomitl. He thought he called out to him, but no sound escaped his mouth even though his throat hurt as though he’d been screaming. He tried again. Teomitl! This time, he managed a tiny squeak, something even an owl wouldn’t have heard.

Teomitl didn’t slow down, but somehow the distance between them shortened. Now Acatl could make out the tattered remains of his feather suit, singed and bloodstained until it was more red than white, and the way his bare feet had been cut to ribbons. He still wasn’t looking behind him. It was like Acatl wasn’t there at all. Ahead of them, the trees were thinning out.

And then they were on a flat plain strewn with corpses, bright crimson blood the only color Acatl could see. Teomitl was standing still in front of him as water slowly seeped out of the ground, covering his feet and lapping gently at his ankles. There were thin threads of red in it.

“Teomitl,” he said, and this time his voice obeyed him.

Teomitl turned to him, smiling as though he’d just noticed he was there. His chest was a red ruin, the bones of his ribcage snapped wide open to pull out his beating heart. A tiny ahuizotl curled in the space where it had been.

He took one step back. Another.

Teomitl’s smile grew sad, and he reached for him with a bloody hand. “Acatl, I’m sorry.”

He awoke suddenly and all at once, curling in on himself with a ragged sob. It was still dark out; the sun hadn’t made its appearance yet. There was no one to see when he shook himself to pieces around the space in his heart. It was a dream, he told himself sternly. Just a dream. My soul is only wandering through my own grief. It doesn’t mean anything.

But then it returned the next night, and the next. While the details differed—sometimes Teomitl was swimming a river that suddenly turned to blood and dissolved his flesh, sometimes one of his own ahuizotls turned into a jaguar and sprang for his face—the end was always the same. Teomitl dead and still walking, reaching for him with an apology on his lips. Sometimes it even lingered after he woke. Once he jolted awake utterly convinced that he wasn’t alone—that Teomitl was in the room, a sad smile on his lips and an outstretched hand hovering in the air. Only when he looked around, searching for that other presence, did reality reassert itself and he remembered with gutwrenching pain that it had only been a nightmare. That Teomitl was dead somewhere on a Mixtec altar, his heart an offering to the Sun.

He started timing his treks across the Sacred Precinct to avoid the Great Temple’s sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli. Sleep grew more and more difficult to achieve, and even when he caught a few hours’ rest it never seemed to help. He even thought, fleetingly, of asking the priests of Patecatl if anything they had would be useful, only to dismiss it the next day. He would survive this. It wasn’t worth baring his soul to anyone else’s prying eyes or clumsy but well-meaning words. He would work and pray, and that would keep him occupied. There was a haunting case that needed his attention; while he was tracking down the cause he had an excuse not to focus on anything else. He forgot to eat, no matter how much Ichtaca scolded him. The food tasted like ashes in his mouth, anyway.

Still, when one of Neutemoc’s slaves came to his door asking whether he would come to dinner at his house that night, he didn’t waste time in accepting. Dinner with Neutemoc’s family had become...normal. He needed normal, even if it still felt like walking on broken glass.

Up until the first course was served, he even thought he’d get it. Neutemoc had been nearly silent when he’d arrived, but he’d unbent enough to start a conversation about his daughters’ studies. Necalli and Mazatl were more subdued than they normally were, but they’d heard what happened to their newest uncle-by-marriage and were no doubt mourning in their own ways. Mihmatini’s face was as pale and set as white jade, but as the conversation wore on he thought he saw her smile.

He didn’t much feel like smiling himself. The smells of the meal were turning his stomach. It was simple enough fare—fish with peppers, lightly boiled vegetables in a salty, spicy sauce, plenty of soft flatbread to mop it up—but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. The last time he’d eaten a meal like this had been with Teomitl at his side, hugging Mazatl and fondly ruffling up Necalli’s hair and barely paying any attention to his own plate until Mazatl had swiped something off it and he’d tickled her as revenge, the both of them laughing. Acatl would never forget the look on his face the first time she’d called him uncle.

He was vaguely aware Neutemoc was frowning at him. “Eat. Before it gets cold.”

He put some fish onto his plate. He ate it. He couldn’t say what it tasted like. Peppers, mostly. It sat in his stomach like a lead weight, and he swallowed so roughly that for a moment he was afraid he’d choke. I can’t do this. But they would notice if he didn’t eat, and then they’d worry about him. He forced himself to take a few more bites, filling the yawning void within.

A second course arrived eventually. Roasted agave worms and greens, which he usually liked. He took a small portion, nibbled on it, and set his plate down.

“More greens?”

Neutemoc’s voice was too careful for his liking, but he nodded. Another portion of greens was duly set onto his plate, and he ate without really tasting it. He only managed a few bites before he had to give up, his gorge rising.

Mihmatini picked at her own dish, and Neutemoc frowned at her. “You’re not hungry?”

She shook her head.

Silence descended again, but It didn’t reign for long before Neutemoc said, “Acatl. Any interesting cases lately?” With a quick glance at his children, he added, “That we can talk about in front of the kids?”

“Aww, Dad...”

Neutemoc gave his eldest the same look his father had once given him. “When you go off to war, Necalli, I will let you listen to all the awful details.”

It wasn’t enough to make Acatl smile, but nevertheless the tension in his throat eased. “Well,” he began, “we’ve been trying to figure out what’s been strangling merchants in the featherworkers’ district…”

Laying out the facts of a suspicious death or two was always calming. He could forget the ache in his heart, even if only briefly. But even when he was done and had just started to relax, Neutemoc was still talking to him as though he expected to see his younger brother shatter any minute. The slaves, too, were unusually solicitous of him—rushing to fill up his cup, to heap delicacies on his plate. At any other time he might have suspected the whole thing to be a bribe or an awkward apology for some unremembered slight; now, he just felt uneasy.

When the meal was done, he declined Neutemoc’s offer of a pipe and got to his feet. “I think I’ll get some air.”

The courtyard outside was empty. He lifted his eyes to the heavens, charting the path of the four hundred stars above. Ceyaxochitl’s death hadn’t hit him anywhere near as hard as this, but gods, he thought he could recover in time if only the people around him stopped coddling him. Everywhere he went there were sympathetic glances and soft words, and even the priests of his own temple were stepping gingerly around him. As though he needed to be treated like...like...

Like a new widow. Like Mihmatini. He sat down hard, feeling like his legs had been cut out from under him. Air seemed to be in short supply, and the gulf in his chest yawned wide.

But I’m not. I care for Teomitl, of course, but it’s not like that. It’s not—

He thought about Teomitl sacrificed as a war captive or drowned in a river far from home, and nearly choked at the fist of grief that tightened around his heart. No. He shook his head as though that would clear it. He wouldn’t want me to grieve over him. He wouldn’t want me to think of him dead, drowned, sacrificed—he’d want me to remember him happy. I can do that much for him, at least.

He could. It was easy. He closed his eyes and remembered.

Remembered the smile that lit up rooms and outshone the Sun, the one that could pull an answering burst of happiness out of the depths of his soul. Remembered the way Teomitl had laughed and rolled around the floor with Mazatl, the way he’d helped Ollin to walk holding onto his hands, the way he sparred with Necalli and asked about Ohtli’s lessons in the calmecac, and how all of those moment strung together like pearls on a string into something that made Acatl’s heart warm as well. Remembered impatient haggling in the marketplace, haphazard rowing on the lake, strong arms flexing such that he couldn’t look away, the touch of a warm hand lingering even after Teomitl had withdrawn—

He remembered how it had felt, in that space between dreams and waking, where he’d thought Teomitl was by his side even in Mictlan. Where, for the span of a heartbeat, he’d been happy.

There was a sound—a soft, miserable whine. It took him a moment to realize it was coming from his own throat, that he’d drawn his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them. That he was shaking again, and had been for some time. As nausea oozed up in his throat, he regretted having eaten.

It was like that, after all.

And he’d realized too late. Even if he’d ever been able to do anything about it—which he never would anyway, the man was married to his sister—there was no chance of it now, because Teomitl was gone.

He forced his burning eyes to stay open. If he blinked, if he let his eyes close even for an instant, the tears would fall.

Approaching footsteps made him raise his head. Mihmatini was walking quietly and carefully towards him, as though she didn’t want to disturb him. As though I’m fragile. You too, Mihmatini?

“Ah. There you are.” Even her voice was soft.

He uncurled himself and arranged his limbs into a more dignified position, keeping his fists clenched to stop his hands from trembling. At least when he finally blinked, his eyes were dry. “Hm.”

She sat next to him, not touching. There was something calming about her company, but gods, he prayed she couldn’t see the thoughts written on his face. She stretched out a hand and he thought she’d lay it soothingly on his shoulder, but instead she traced a meaningless pattern in the dirt. “...It’s hard, isn’t it?”

His dry throat made a clicking noise when he swallowed. “It is.”

“At least we’re both in the same boat,” she murmured.

The words refused to make sense in his head at first—but then they did, and he reared back and stared at her. No. I’ve only just realized it myself, she can’t have...she can’t be thinking that I—! “I beg your pardon?”

Her voice lowered even further, so that he had to strain to hear her. There was a faint, sad smile on her face. “You love him just the same as I do, don’t you?”

He drew a long breath. He knew what he should say, what the right and proper words would be. No, like a son. Or like my brother. But he couldn’t lie to her, not even to spare what was left of her broken heart, and so what came out instead was, “Yes. Gods, yes.” Hate me for it. Tell me I have no right to love him, that you’re the one who has his heart. Tell me I’m a fool.

She lifted her head, and her faint smile grew to something bright and brittle. “Good.”

Good?! He blinked uselessly at her, gaping like a fish before he could find his voice again. “You—you approve?”

“You’re my favorite brother,” she said simply. “And...well.”

She fell silent, her smile fading until it vanished entirely. He waited. Finally, in a much softer voice, she continued, “If you love him, there’s no harm in telling you what he swore me to secrecy over.”

Dread gripped him. Of course Teomitl was entitled to his secrets, but he couldn’t imagine what would be so horrible that Mihmatini wouldn’t tell him. At least, not while he lived. He didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. “...What?”

She blinked rapidly, fingers going still. She’d traced something that looked, from a certain angle, like a flower glyph. “...He...he loved you, too.”

No.

But Mihmatini was still talking. “He didn’t want me to tell you; he was sure you’d scorn him. But he loved you the same way he loved me...gods, probably more than he loved me.”

It was the last straw. His nails bit into his palms hard enough to draw blood, and he barely recognized his own voice as rage filled it. “Why are you telling me this?!”

Mihmatini took a shuddering breath; he realized she was fighting tears, and had been since she’d spilled Teomitl’s heart to the night air. “In case he comes back. If he does...no, when he does...you should tell him how you feel.”

He rose on shaking legs. “I think I need to be alone.”

Without really seeing his surroundings, he walked until he came to the canal outside the house. The family’s boats were tied up outside, bobbing gently on the water. When he sat down, the stone under him was cold; the water he dipped his fingers in was colder still. Neither revived him. Neither was as cold as the pit cracking open in his gut. Mictlan was worse, true, but all the inexorable pains of Mictlan were dull aches compared to this.

In case he comes back. In case he comes back. I love him—I am in love, that’s what this pain is—and I will never see him again in this world. Mihmatini says he loves me too, and it doesn’t matter, because his bones lie somewhere in the jungle and his flesh feeds the crows and I will never get to tell him.

Between one breath and another, the tears came. They spilled hot and salty down his face; he let them, shoulders shaking, because he no longer had the strength to stop them. And nobody would come to offer unwanted sympathy, anyway. Mihmatini had her own grief, and the hurrying footsteps he’d grown so used to hearing would never run after him again.

Eventually, when he was spent, he wiped his face and left. It was time to go home.

The rest of the month ground on slowly, and his dreams began to change.

At first they were minor changes—the blood was less vibrant, the forests and plains brighter. Teomitl bled less. Acatl woke without feeling as though the inside of his chest had been hollowed out and replaced with ash. His appetite started to return; he still never felt properly hungry, and his meals didn’t exactly fill him with joy, but he could eat without feeling sick. The bones in his wrists were not quite so prominent as they’d been. And if that was all, he might have simply thought he was beginning to deal with his sorrow. Such things happened, after all. Eventually the knives scraping away at his chest would lose their edges, and he would face a life without Teomitl’s sunny smile.

But there was more than just a lessening of pain. He dreamed of a sunsoaked forest in the south, and woke feeling like a lizard basking on a rock, warm in a way he couldn’t blame on the heat of the rainy season. He dreamed that Teomitl was fording a fast-flowing river—one that did not turn to blood this time—and when dawn broke his legs were soaked up to the shins. That got him to visit a healing priest; he knew when he was out of his depth, and if his soul was wandering too far in his nightmares then he wanted to be sure it would come back to him by dawn. But the priest was as befuddled as he was, and only told him to call again if he woke in pain or with unexplained wounds.

Unexplained wounds? he thought bitterly. You mean, like the one where half my heart’s been torn from my chest? But he knew better than to say that out loud; his feelings for Teomitl were none of this man’s business. So he thanked him and left, paying a fistful of cacao beans for the consultation, and tried not to think about it until the next time he slept and the dreams returned.

And they were dreams now, and not nightmares. While he slept his soul seemed content to follow Teomitl’s solitary travels through the very outskirts of the Empire, and he no longer had to see him torn apart by monsters or smiling ruinously with bloody teeth. Teomitl barely bled at all now, and his wounds were only the normal ones a man might get from traversing hostile terrain alone—a scraped knee here, a bound-up cut there. He sang to himself as he walked, though the words slipped through Acatl’s mind like water. Once Acatl stood just over his shoulder at a smoky campfire while he roasted fish in the ashes, and his heart ached as he watched him cry.

“Acatl-tzin,” he whispered into his folded knees. “Acatl, I should have told you.”

“Should have told me what?” he tried to ask, but before he could form the words he woke up. There were tears in his own eyes.

It’s only because I miss him, he told himself. This is grief, that’s all. But there was the smell of smoke and the sweet fresh scent of cooked fish clinging to his skin, and a single damp leaf was stuck to the bottom of his bare foot. It hadn’t rained in Tenochtitlan last night. He stared at it for a long time.

Each night went on in the same vein. He would clean his teeth, lay down on his mat, and drift off to sleep—and in his dreams, there would be Teomitl, hale and whole and walking onwards. Despite himself, Acatl started to wake with a faint stirring of hope. Maybe Teomitl really had only been separated from the army. Maybe he truly was on his way home. And maybe I’m delusional, came the inevitable bitter thought when he’d finished his morning rituals. It had become much harder to listen to.

It was almost a surprise when he dreamed about a city he knew. It was a small but bustling place about half a day’s walk from Tenochtitlan, and as he walked through the streets he realized that the torches had been lit for a funeral. He could hear the chants ahead of him. There was a darker shape in the shadows which spilled down the dusty road, and he knew the man’s stride like he knew his own.

“Teomitl!” He hadn’t been mute in his dreams for a while now.

Teomitl didn’t turn. He never turned. But he stopped, and by the way his head tilted Acatl just knew he was smiling. Wordlessly, he pointed at the courtyard ahead.

A funeral pyre had been lit, and it was so like the rituals he presided over that he felt a distinct sense of deja vu. There was the priest singing a hymn to Lord Death; there were the weeping family members of the deceased. There were the marigolds and the other offerings, brilliant in the gloom.

“That could have been me,” Teomitl said, and Acatl heard his voice as though he was standing next to him in the waking world instead of only in a dream. “But it’s not yet, and it won’t be for a good long while. So you don’t need to fear for me. I keep my promises.”

They’d never touched before. But this time Teomitl turned to face him, and the hand he held out was free of blood entirely. Slowly, giving him time to pull away, Teomitl pressed his palm to his. Their fingers laced together, warm and strong and almost real.

“Teomitl,” he said helplessly.

“Acatl.” Teomitl’s smile was like the sun. “I’m sorry I made you worry, but I’ll be home soon.”

And then he woke up, the dream shredded apart by the blasts of the conch-shell horns that heralded the dawn. For a long moment, he stared blankly up at the ceiling. He could still feel Teomitl’s hand in his; each little scar and callus felt etched on his skin. He lives. The slow certainty of it welled up in him like blood. He lives, and he is coming back.

He rose and made his devotions before dressing, but now his hands shook with something that was no longer grief. As soon as he left for his temple, he could feel the change In the air. Scraps of excited conversation whirled past him, but he couldn’t focus long enough to pick any out. He concentrated on breathing steadily and walking with the dignity befitting a High Priest. He would not sprint for the temple, would not grab the nearest housewife or warrior or priest and demand answers. They would come soon enough.

They came in the form of Ezamahual, rushing out of the temple complex to meet him. “Acatl-tzin! Acatl-tzin, there is wonderful news!”

Briefly, he thought he should have worn the hated regalia. “What news?”

Ezamahual’s words tumbled out in a headlong rush, almost too fast to follow. “The Master of the House of Darts—Teomitl-tzin—he’s returned! Our warriors met him at the city gates!”

Even though he’d half expected it—even though the recurring dreams, his soul journeying through the night at Teomitl’s side, had kept alive the flickering flame of hope that now burned within him—he still briefly felt like fainting. He clenched his fists, the pain of his nails in his palms keeping him upright. “You’re sure?”

Ezamahual nodded enthusiastically. “The Revered Speaker has reinstated him to his old position, and there’s talk of a banquet at the palace to celebrate his safe return. I think he’s at the Duality House now, though—they’re like an anthill over there.”

Right. He exhaled slowly, forcing down joy and disappointment alike. Of course Teomitl would want to see his wife first above all, to reassure her that he was well, and of course he had no right to intrude. Nor would he even if he did—Mihmatini deserved her husband back in her life, deserved all the joy she would wring from it. The things she’d told him didn’t—couldn’t—matter in the face of their union. “I see. I suppose we’ll learn more later. Come—tell me if there’s been any new developments in those strangling cases.”

Ezamahual looked briefly baffled, but then he nodded. “Of course, Acatl-tzin. It’s like this…”

The latest crop of mysterious deaths turned out to be quite straightforward in the end, once they tracked down their newest lead and had him sing like a bird. He nodded at the appropriate times, sent out a double team of priests after the perpetrators, and had it very nearly wrapped up by lunch—a meal that, for once, he was almost looking forward to. He was settling down with the account ledgers to mark payment of two gold-filled quills to the priests of Mixcoatl for their aid when he heard footsteps outside.

Familiar footsteps.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the tightness in his chest eased. But he didn’t have a chance to revel in it, because he knew the voice calling his name.

“Acatl? Acatl!”

He dropped the ledgers and his pen, getting ink all over his fingers. As the entrance curtain was flung aside in a cacophony of copper bells, he scrambled to his feet. Had he been tired and listless before? That must have been a thousand years ago. He thought he might weep for the sheer relief of hearing that beloved voice again. “Gods—Teomitl—”

He had a confused impression of gold jewelry and feather ornaments, but then Teomitl was flinging himself into his arms and the only thing that sunk into his mind was warmth. There were strong arms wrapped around him and a head pressed against his temple, and Teomitl’s voice shook as he breathed, “Duality, I missed you so much.”

Slowly, he raised his shaking hands and set them at Teomitl’s shoulderblades. He could feel his racing heart, feel the way he sucked in each breath as though trying not to sob. It was overwhelming; his eyes burned as he fought to blink back his own tears. He couldn’t speak. If he opened his mouth, he knew he’d lose the battle—and there were no words for this, anyway.

Teomitl abruptly released him, turning his face away. His voice was a soft, ragged thing, and his expression was a careful blank. “Forgive me. I was...Mihmatini said you’d be glad to see me. I wanted to look less like I’d been dragged over the mountains backwards, first.”

He swallowed several times until he thought he could risk a response, even as his eyes drank in the sight of Teomitl in front of him. He looks the same, he thought. His skin had been further darkened by the sun, there were new scars looping across his arms and legs, and someone had talked him into a fortune in gold and jade with quetzal feathers tied into his hair, but he had the same face and body and sweet, sweet voice. “It’s—there’s nothing to forgive. I’m glad you’ve returned.”

“They told me everyone thought I was dead.” Teomitl bit his lip. “Except for Mihmatini. And you.”

He steered his mind firmly away from the shoals of crushing grief that still lurked under the joy of seeing Teomitl before him. He is here, and hale, and whole, just as I dreamed. I have nothing to weep over. “I knew you weren’t. You wouldn’t let something like a flood stop you.”

There was the first glimmer of a smile tugging at Teomitl’s lips. “You have such faith in me, Acatl.”

“You’re well deserving of it,” he replied. And I love you, and even in dreams I could not think of any other path than your survival. That, he refused to say.

Especially because Teomitl still wasn’t looking at him.

They stood in agonizing silence, and he couldn’t bring himself to break it. Teomitl was so close, still within arms’ range; if he was brave enough, he could reach out and pull him back into his arms. Could bury his face in his hair and crush the fabric of his cloak in his hands and tell him...what? It didn’t matter what Mihmatini had said to him. There was simply no space for him in the life Teomitl deserved, nothing beyond that Acatl already occupied. He wouldn’t burden him with useless feelings.

But then Teomitl shook himself like an ahuitzotl and turned back to him, holding his gaze. “Do you want to know what got me home, Acatl? What sustained me?”

Mutely, he nodded. He still didn’t trust his voice.

“You.”

He felt like he’d been gutted. “I...Teomitl…”

Whatever Teomitl saw in his face made his eyes soften. He took a step forward, hands coming up to rest like butterfly wings on Acatl’s waist, and Acatl let him. “I thought about you. I...Southern Hummingbird blind me, I dreamed about you. Every night! I made myself a promise while I was out there, in the event I ever saw you again. Scorn me for it all you’d like, but I’m going to keep it now.”

Oh, Teomitl. I could never scorn you. They were very, very close now, and Teomitl’s gaze had fallen to his parted lips. His mouth went dry.

And then Teomitl kissed him.

It started out soft and gentle, lips barely tracing Acatl’s own. Asking permission, he thought with an absurd spike of giddiness—and so, leaning in a little shyly, he gave it.

Teomitl wasted no time. The kiss grew harder, fingers digging into Acatl’s skin as he hauled their bodies together. They were pressed together from chest to hip but it still wasn’t enough, they weren’t close enough; blood roaring in his ears, he wrapped his arms around Teomitl’s back and clung tightly. His mouth opened with a breathy little whine stolen immediately by Teomitl’s invading tongue, and when he dared to do the same, Teomitl made a noise like a jaguar and let go of his waist in favor of clawing at the back of his cloak, grabbing fistfuls of fabric along with strands of his hair. It pulled too hard, but he didn’t care. The pain meant it was real, that this was really happening. That for once it wasn’t a dream.

Teomitl only drew away to breathe, “Gods—I love you—” before claiming his mouth again, as though he couldn’t bear to be apart.

Acatl twisted in his arms, knowing he was making a probably incoherent and definitely embarrassing noise, but shame wasn’t an emotion he was capable of at the moment. He loves me. By the Duality, he loves me. “I didn’t think—Mihmatini told me, but I didn’t think...”

Teomitl jerked back, brow furrowed. “Wait. Mihmatini told you?!”

His grip on the back of Teomitl’s cloak tightened at the memory. “She was trying to reassure me, I think. I’d just told her...well.” He couldn’t say it, even with Teomitl in his arms, and settled for uncurling one fist and running his hand up the back of Teomitl’s neck in lieu of words.

He was rewarded with a shiver, and the near-panic in Teomitl’s eyes ebbed into something soft. “What did you tell her, Acatl?”

He’d asked. He’d asked, and Acatl had always been honest with him. He’d be honest now, even if it made his heart race and his hands tremble. “That I love you.”

Teomitl made a desperate noise and kissed him again. There was no gentleness now; he kissed like a man possessed, hungry as a jaguar, and Acatl buried a hand in his hair to make sure he didn’t stop. Teeth caught at his lower lip, and he moaned out loud. This seemed to spur Teomitl on, because his mouth left Acatl’s to nip at his throat instead; the first sting of teeth sent a wave of arousal through him so strong it nearly swamped him. “Ah—!”

Teomitl soothed the skin with a delicate kiss that didn’t help at all, and then he returned his focus to Acath’s mouth. This time he was gentle, a careful little caress that gave Acatl just enough brainpower back to realize that he’d probably been a bit loud. Which is Teomitl’s fault, anyway, so he can’t complain. “Mmm...”

Even when they eventually pulled apart, they clung to each other for a long while. Acatl stroked up and down Teomitl’s spine, tracing each bump of vertebrae and the trembling muscles of his back. Teomitl dropped his head onto Acatl’s shoulder, breathing slow and deep. He’d twined locks of long hair through his fingers, gently running his fingers through the strands. Acatl had to close his eyes, overwhelmed. The stone beneath my feet is real. Teomitl’s skin under my hands is real. This—this is real. He is in my arms, and he loves me.

“I don’t want to let you go,” Teomitl whispered. “I never want to let you out of my sight again.”

Neither do I. He tilted his head, nosing at Teomitl’s hair. Gods, even cut to a proper length again it was so adorably fluffy. He sighed into it. “You’ll have to eventually.” Even though he hated the thought, he couldn’t help but smile. “You’re the Master of the House of Darts, aren’t you? You have an army to help lead. Wars to wage. Glory to bring to the Empire.”

“Hrmph.” The arms around him tightened in wordless refusal.

Joy bubbled up within him, and he chuckled quietly. Still such a stubborn young man. But now he was Acatl’s young man, and there was something wonderful about that. He felt loose as unspun cotton, ready to sink into the floor with the release of all the tension he’d been carrying, but it had left a void behind. A void that rumbled—loudly—to be filled. His face burned with embarrassment at the noise. “...Ah. Why don’t we see about lunch?”

Teomitl snorted. “I have been gone a long time. You’re remembering to eat for once.”

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually had an appetite for food, but he decided not to mention that. Teomitl would worry too much. But eating lunch meant that they had to be seen in public, which meant they both had to actually let go of each other. Reluctantly, he lifted his head and lowered his arms, finding himself stymied halfway through by Teomitl’s serpentlike hold on his ribs. “Teomitl.”

At least now he wasn’t the only one blushing. “Right. You’re right. We should eat.” Teomitl stepped back, clearing his throat, but the look in his eyes was more awestruck than awkward. He was staring at Acatl as though he couldn’t get enough of the sight.

And since Acatl found himself doing the same thing, he couldn’t blame him. Had his eyes always been that dark? Was that scar slicing a pale line across his skin new, or had he just never noticed it before? I might have gone my whole life without this. What an idiot I was.

It took longer than Acatl liked for he and Teomitl to be properly alone again, this time with a plate of food between them. Lunch was simple fare: a plate of grilled newts and amaranth dough with a vibrant red sauce so spicy it made his nose prickle. The serving priests had taken one look at Teomitl and thoughtfully put it on the side instead of directly on their meal, which he’d had to thank them for. As he sat down, inhaling the scent, he felt as though his body was waking up after a long slumber. It filled his lungs and swirled through his veins, and his mouth watered.

He dug in greedily. Gods, it had been so long since he’d properly tasted the food he put into his mouth. The juicy grilled meat was the most savory thing he’d had in ages, and he couldn’t blame his suddenly blurry vision on the sauce he dunked his next bite in. It was perfect. He had one of the amaranth dough sticks to smother the burn, finding it crunchy and slightly sweet with its dusting of seeds on top. “Mmm.”

A hand landed on his thigh. “Enjoying yourself?”

He lifted his head, face hot. “I was hungrier than I thought.”

“That’s good. You need to eat more, anyway.” Teomitl smiled, and he couldn’t help smiling in return. “Pass me some sauce?”

He passed the sauce. Teomitl tore at his own grilled newt with more manners but just as much enthusiasm. The long trek through the wilderness must have hardened him, because he didn’t wince at the heat of the accompanying sauce. Then again, he also didn’t use quite so much. “Mm. This is good.”

There was a fleck of bright red chili paste by the corner of Teomitl’s mouth. He wanted to kiss it away. A heartbeat later, he realized that he could. They were alone. Nothing was stopping him now.

So he did, and Teomitl went crimson. “Acatl!” he yelped delightedly, grinning even as he turned his head and kissed him back.

Chaste as it was, it lingered long enough that Acatl was flushed when he pulled away. His pulse thrummed under his skin; he felt like he’d drunk a cup of pulque, dizzy at his own daring as it sunk in. They were alone. Good food was in his belly for once, giving him the energy he hadn’t realized he’d been missing. They could do a lot more than kiss, if they wanted.

Teomitl’s grin turned teasing. “I missed doing that.”

“It hasn’t even been half an hour,” he muttered. “You’re insatiable.” But there was no heat to it, and he found his hand resting at Teomitl’s waist. The skin under his palm was just so warm. He’d felt cold bones and grave dust for too long.

An eyebrow went up in stunning imitation of Mihmatini. “And I’ve waited years for even one kiss, Acatl. There’s a backlog to get through, you know.”

The blush had just started to fade, but now it returned with a vengeance. “Years?”

“Mm-hmm.” Teomitl’s eyes gleamed. “I’d like to make up for lost time, if you wouldn’t mind.”

He swallowed hard. Now that he could think again he wanted to know how Teomitl had survived, how he’d managed to make it all the way back home—the unreal fragments he’d witnessed each night had not been informative—but his questions suddenly didn’t seem that important anymore. Not when there were other, more immediate desires to be sated. “...I would not.”

And so their mouths met. Teomitl’s idea of making up for lost time was long and hungry and tingled with the spice of their meal; Acatl’s lips parted for his tongue almost before he knew what he was doing, and that was still a little strange but far from unwelcome. Especially when Teomitl drew back, mouth wet and red, to catch his lower lip between his teeth in another one of those stinging little nips that made his blood sing. A breathy noise escaped him, but this time Teomitl didn’t soothe it.

No, this time he lowered his mouth to Acatl’s neck and did it again. It was light and delicate, unlikely to leave marks, but Teomitl’s teeth were sharp enough that he felt each one in a burst of light behind his closed eyelids. He had to bury one hand in Teomitl’s hair and wrap the other around his waist just to keep himself upright; he couldn’t entirely muffle his own gasps. “Ahh...gods...”

Teomitl hummed, low and wordless, and slid a hand down his stomach. Acatl’s fevered blood roared in his ears, and all of a sudden it was almost too much. “Teomitl.”

Teomitl lifted his head, eyes bright. “Mm?”

“You.” He sucked in a breath, willing his heartrate to slow down. There had to be some limits. Too much had already happened much too quickly. “You can’t keep doing that here.”

“You don’t like it?” Teomitl grinned at him. “Or do you like it too much, Acatl?”

If by some miracle all the rest of it hadn’t already made him blush, hearing Teomitl purr his name like that would definitely have done the trick. He had to turn his face away. “You know damned well it’s the latter. We both have our duties; we can’t very well take the rest of the day off to…” Flustered, he gestured between them.

“Hrmph,” Teomitl said, and kissed him again. This time it was slow and sweet and came with warm arms sliding around him, and he lingered in it for long, long minutes.

By the time they finally remembered the rest of their food, it was stone cold. They ate anyway; cold food was still good, especially with the chili sauce. Acatl was privately of the opinion that it even made the sauce taste better, but he’d learned that people tended to look at him strangely when he voiced it. Besides, Teomitl was leaning against him with one arm slung loosely around his waist, a reassuring weight against his side anchoring him to the earth. There wasn’t a need for speech in moments like this.

Not to mention that, strangely enough, he was still hungry. The joy he’d first felt at knowing Teomitl was safe and alive had opened the floodgates, but it felt as though his body was determined to make up for lost sustenance. Even after their plates were both thoroughly clean, he was still rather looking forward to dinner.

The afternoon light was turning the air gold when Teomitl reluctantly got to his feet. Acatl followed; they stood without touching for a moment that was just long enough to be awkward, and then Teomitl pulled him into a fierce hug. Acatl knew it was coming this time; he marveled at how they just seemed to fit together, with one hand buried in Teomitl’s hair and the other pressed flat between his shoulderblades to feel the steady beat of his heart.

Teomitl took a long, slow breath. “Lunch wasn’t long enough.”

“It wasn’t,” he agreed softly. “But there will be others. Many others.” With Teomitl by his side, he didn’t think he’d ever skip a meal again.

Despite the hint of dismissal—yes, he loved the man with all his heart, but they did both have other things to do—Teomitl made no move to let go of him. In fact, he squeezed a little tighter, turning to bury his face in Acatl’s hair. “Mrghh...”

He had to bite the inside of his cheek to quell the urge to laugh. As fond as he was, he knew it probably wouldn’t go over well. He made do with stroking Teomitl’s hair—gods, it was so soft—and taking a deliberate step back so that Teomitl had to release him or be pulled off-balance. Now Teomitl was glaring at him, but nothing would stop the slow upwell of joy in his veins. “Go on. I’ll see you at the banquet tonight.” He knew he’d enjoy this one.

Teomitl’s eyes were fierce as an eagle’s. “And afterwards? Will I see you afterwards, Acatl?”

He had a pretty good feeling he knew what Teomitl had in mind for a private celebration. Nerves twisted his gut, but only for a moment. He’d come this far, hadn’t he? “Yes,” he said simply.

The way Teomitl’s lips parted in wonder let him know he’d made the right choice. For the rest of my life. Whenever you want, for the rest of my life, I’ll be there.

Teomitl didn’t reach for him—he seemed to be deliberately holding himself still, tension ringing through his body like a drawn bowstring—but he looked like he wanted to. He looked like he wanted to yank Acatl back into his arms and finish what they’d started earlier, and the thought was exhilarating. “My chambers in the palace? They’re closest.”

Acatl flushed, shaking his head. That was a risk he refused to take. The palace had too many people, too many ears and eyes. Far too many chances to be interrupted. If he was going to do this, it would be somewhere safe. “My house. I’ll...I’ll be waiting.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” There was a wild, radiant smile.

He smiled back. Though he’d miss Teomitl while he worked—Duality, they’d been apart for so long—it would be fine. He was already looking forward to the banquet and what would come after, when nothing would part them again save the dawn.

Teomitl had promised, after all.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #teocatl #mihmatini #quenami #acamapichtli #paladin writes stuff

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notapaladin · 3 years

Text

and this faith is gettin’ heavy (but you know it carries me)

Me, a simple fool: what if I wrote heavy angst (with a happy ending!) with Teomitl MIA/presumed dead & Acatl only realizing he’s been in love this whole time while he mourns?

Me, crying at 2 AM over my own words: that would be fun!!

ANYWAY, here there be lots of grief, Acatl lashing out in anger (it’s at Quenami, though, so like...he deserves it), Mihm trying to help, a very tense family dinner, and significant dreams. Oh, and reunion makeouts. Also on AO3!

He’d barely made it out of his courtyard when Acamapichtli strode up to him, face grave underneath his blue and black paint. “Ah, Acatl. I’m glad I could catch you.”

It should have pleased him. Instead, a cold chill slid down his spine. “What are you not telling me? I’ve no time for games.”

“Thank you,” he forced out through numb lips.

Acamapichtli turned away. “...I’m sorry, Acatl.”

After a long, long moment, he made himself start walking again. There was the rest of the army to greet, after all. Even if Teomitl wouldn’t be among them.

Even if he’d never return from war again.

Greeting the army was a ceremony, one he usually took some joy in—it had meant that Teomitl would be home, would be safe, and his sister would be happy. Now it passed in a blue, and he registered absolutely none of it. Someone must have already given the news to Mihmatini when he arrived; she was an utterly silent presence at his side, face pale and lips thin. She wouldn’t cry in public, but he saw the way her eyes glimmered when she blinked. He knew he should offer her comfort, but he couldn’t bring himself to lay a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. If he touched her, if he felt the fabric of her cloak beneath his hand, that meant it was real.

And once they had him, they would sacrifice him.

Somehow, he held it together until after the final course had been cleared away. He rose jerkily to his feet, legs trembling, and fixed his mind firmly on getting home in one piece.

Quenami’s voice stopped him in the next hallway. “Ah, Acatl. A lovely banquet, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t turn around. “Mn.” Go away.

“Mm.”

“Silence.”

Quenami recoiled, jaw going slack in terror. Silently—blessedly, mercifully, infuriatingly silently—he turned on his heel and left.

Acatl took one breath, two, and let the magic drain out of his shaking limbs. He hadn’t meant to do that. He made it to the next courtyard, blessedly empty of party guests, and collapsed on the nearest bench like a dead man. I could have killed him. Gods, I wanted to kill him. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my life. All because...all because he said his name...

“...Acatl?”

Mihmatini’s voice, admirably controlled. He made himself lift his head and answer. “In here.”

“...He said…” He swallowed past a lump in his throat. “He said that Teomitl might have deserted. He dared to say that—“ The idea choked him, and he couldn’t finish the words. That Teomitl was a coward. That he would run from his responsibilities, from his destiny, at the first opportunity…

She tensed immediately, eyes going cold in a way that suggested Quenami had better be a very fast runner indeed. “He would never. You know that.”

Air seemed to be coming a bit easier now. “I do. But…”

Of course, she pounced on his hesitation. “But?”

I want him so badly to not be dead. “Nothing.”

Mihmatini was silent for a while, wringing her hands together. Finally, she spoke. “He would never have deserted. But...Acatl…”

“What?”

Alive. The word was a conch shell in his head, sounding to wake the dawn. For an instant, he let himself imagine it. Teomitl alive, maybe in hiding, maybe trying to find his way home.

“It’s—“ She scrubbed ineffectually at her eyes with the back of a hand. “It’s possible. Isn’t it?”

“...I suppose.” He took a breath. “I think it’s time for me to get some sleep. I’ll...see you tomorrow.”

He knew he wouldn’t sleep—knew, in fact, that he’d be lucky if he even managed to close his eyes—but he needed to get home. He refused to disgrace himself by weeping in public.

The first dream came a week later.

The next night was worse.

He was walking through a jungle made of shadows, trees shedding gray dust from their leaves as he passed under them. His legs ached and his lungs burned, but he couldn’t stop. Ahead of him, someone was making their way through the undergrowth, and it was a stride he’d know anywhere.

Teomitl didn’t slow down, but somehow the distance between them shortened. Now Acatl could make out the tattered remains of his feather suit, singed and bloodstained, and the way his bare feet had been cut to ribbons. He still wasn’t looking behind him. It was like Acatl wasn’t there at all. Ahead of them, the trees were thinning out.

“Teomitl,” he said, and this time his voice obeyed him.

He took one step back. Another.

Teomitl’s smile grew sad, and he reached for him with a bloody hand. “Acatl, I’m sorry.”

But then it returned the next night, and the next. While the details differed—sometimes Teomitl was swimming a river that suddenly turned to blood and dissolved his flesh, sometimes one of his own ahuizotls turned into a jaguar and sprang for his face—the end was always the same. Teomitl dead and still walking, reaching for him with an apology on his lips. Sometimes it even lingered afterwards, clinging stubbornly such that, just for a moment, he thought Teomitl was truly by his side and had a moment’s joy before reality reasserted itself. Those ones were the worst.

He started timing his treks across the Sacred Precinct to avoid the Great Temple’s sacrifices to Huitzilpochtli. Sleep grew more and more difficult to achieve, and even when he caught a few hours’ rest it never seemed to help. He even thought, fleetingly, of asking the priests of Patecatl if anything they had would be useful, only to dismiss it the next day. He would survive this. It wasn’t worth baring his soul to anyone else’s prying eyes or clumsy but well-meaning words.

Up until the second course was served, he even thought he’d get it. Neutemoc had been nearly silent when he’d arrived, but he’d unbent enough to start a conversation about his daughters’ studies. Necalli and Mazatl were more subdued than they normally were, but they’d heard what happened to their newest uncle-by-marriage and were no doubt mourning in their own ways. Mihmatini’s face was as pale and set as white jade, but as the meal wore on he thought he saw her smile.

“More fish?”

Neutemoc’s voice was too careful for his liking, but he nodded. Fish was duly set onto his plate, and he ate without really tasting it.

Mihmatini picked at her own dish, and Neutemoc frowned at her. “You’re not hungry?”

She shook her head.

“Aww, Dad...”

Neutemoc gave his eldest the same look his father had once given him. “When you go off to war, Necalli, I will let you listen to all the awful details.”

It was almost enough to make Acatl smile. “Well,” he began, “we’ve been trying to figure out what’s been strangling merchants in the featherworkers’ district…”

Laying out the facts of a suspicious death or two was always calming. He could forget the ache in his heart, even if only briefly. But even when he was done, when he’d started to relax, Neutemoc was still talking to him as though he expected to see his younger brother shatter any minute. The slaves, too, were unusually solicitous of him—rushing to fill up his cup, to heap delicacies on his plate. At any other time he might have suspected the whole thing to be a bribe or an awkward apology; now, he just felt uneasy.

When the meal was done, he declined Neutemoc’s offer of a pipe and got to his feet. “I think I’ll get some air.”

The courtyard outside was empty. He lifted his eyes to the heavens, charting the path of the four hundred stars above. Ceyaxochitl’s death hadn’t hit him anywhere near as hard as this, but gods, he thought he could recover if only the people around him stopped coddling him. Everywhere he went there were sympathetic glances and soft words, and even the priests of his own temple were stepping gingerly around him. As though he needed to be treated like...like...

Like a new widow. Like Mihmatini. He sat down hard, feeling like his legs had been cut out from under him. Air seemed to be in short supply, and the gulf in his chest yawned wide.

But I’m not. I care for Teomitl, of course, but it’s not like that. It’s not—

He could. It was easy. He closed his eyes and remembered.

He remembered how it had felt, in that space between dreams and waking, where he’d thought Teomitl was by his side even in Mictlan. Where, for the span of a heartbeat, he’d been happy.

It was like that, after all.

He forced his burning eyes to stay open. If he blinked, if he let his eyes close even for an instant, the tears would fall.

Approaching footsteps made him raise his head. Mihmatini was walking quietly and carefully, towards him, as though she didn’t want to disturb him. As though I’m fragile. You too, Mihmatini?

“Ah. There you are.” Even her voice was soft.

He uncurled himself and arranged his limbs into a more dignified position, keeping his fists clenched to stop his hands from trembling. At least when he finally blinked, his eyes were dry. “Hm.”

His dry throat made a clicking noise when he swallowed. “It is.”

“At least we’re both in the same boat,” she murmured.

Her voice lowered even further, so that he had to strain to hear her. There was a faint, sad smile on her face. “You love him just the same as I do, don’t you?”

She lifted her head, and her faint smile grew to something bright and brittle. “Good.”

Good?! He blinked uselessly at her, gaping like a fish before he could find his voice again. “You—you approve?”

“You’re my favorite brother,” she said simply. “And...well.”

She blinked rapidly, fingers going still. She’d traced something that looked, from a certain angle, like a flower glyph. “...He...he loved you, too.”

No.

But Mihmatini was still talking. “He didn’t want me to tell you; he was sure you’d scorn him. But he loved you the same way he loved me...gods, probably more than he loved me.”

It was the last straw. His nails bit into his palms hard enough to draw blood, and he barely recognized his own voice as rage filled it. “Why are you telling me this?!”

Mihmatini took a shuddering breath; he realized she was fighting tears, and had been since she’d spilled Teomitl’s heart to the night air. “In case he comes back. If he does...you should tell him.”

He rose on shaking legs. “I think I need to be alone.”

Eventually, when he was spent, he wiped his face and left. It was time to go home.

The rest of the month ground on slowly, and his dreams began to change.

At first they were minor changes—the blood was less vibrant, the forests and plains brighter. Teomitl bled less. He woke without tears welling in his eyes. And if that was all, he might have simply thought he was beginning to deal with his sorrow. Such things happened, after all. Eventually the knives scraping away at his chest would lose their edges, and he would face a life without Teomitl’s sunny smile.

But then other things intruded. He dreamed of a sunsoaked forest in the south, and woke feeling like a lizard basking on a rock. He dreamed that Teomitl was fording a fast-flowing river—one that did not turn to blood this time—and when dawn broke his legs were wet up to the shins. Teomitl barely bled at all in his dreams, now, and his wounds were only the normal ones a man might get from traversing hostile terrain alone. Despite himself, Acatl started to wake with a faint stirring of hope. Maybe he had only been separated from the army. Maybe he was on his way home. And maybe I’m delusional, came the inevitable bitter thought when he’d finished his morning rituals. It had become much harder to listen to.

“Teomitl!” He hadn’t been mute in his dreams for a while now.

Teomitl didn’t turn. He never turned. But he stopped, and by the way his head tilted Acatl just knew he was smiling. Wordlessly, he pointed at the courtyard ahead.

“Teomitl,” he said helplessly.

“Acatl.” Teomitl’s smile was like the sun. “I’m sorry I made you worry, but I’ll be home soon.”

They came in the form of Ezamahual, rushing out of the temple complex to meet him. “Acatl-tzin! Acatl-tzin, there is wonderful news!”

Briefly, he thought he should have worn the hated regalia. “What news?”

Ezamahual’s words tumbled out in a headlong rush, almost too fast to follow. “The Master of the House of Darts—Teomitl-tzin—he’s returned! Our warriors met him at the city gates!”

Ezamahual looked briefly baffled, but then he nodded. “Of course, Acatl-tzin. It’s like this…”

The latest crop of mysterious deaths turned out to be quite straightforward in the end, once they tracked down their newest lead and had him sing like a bird. He nodded at the appropriate times, sent out a double team of priests after the perpetrators, and had it very nearly wrapped up by lunch. He was settling down with the account ledgers to mark payment of two gold-filled quills to the priests of Mixcoatl for their aid when he heard footsteps outside.

Familiar footsteps.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the tightness in his chest eased. But he didn’t have a chance to revel in it, because he knew the voice calling his name.

“Acatl? Acatl!”

He dropped the ledgers and his pen, getting ink all over his fingers. As the entrance curtain was flung aside, he scrambled to his feet. Had he been tired and listless before? It seemed like it was a thousand years ago now. He thought he might weep for the sheer relief of hearing that beloved voice again. “Gods—Teomitl—“

He swallowed several times until he thought he could risk a response, even as his eyes drank in the sight of Teomitl in front of him. He looks the same, he thought. His skin had been further darkened by the sun and there were new scars looping across his arms and legs, but he had the same face and body and sweet, sweet voice. “It’s—there’s nothing to forgive. I’m glad you’ve returned.”

“They told me everyone thought I was dead.” Teomitl bit his lip. “Except for Mihmatini. And you.”

There was the first glimmer of a smile tugging at Teomitl’s lips. “You have such faith in me, Acatl.”

“You’re well deserving of it,” he replied. And I love you, and even in dreams I could not think of any other path than your survival. That, he refused to say.

Especially because Teomitl still wasn’t looking at him.

They stood in agonizing silence, and he couldn’t bring himself to break it. Teomitl was so close, still within arms’ range; if he was brave enough, he could reach out and pull him back into his arms. Could bury his face in his hair and crush the fabric of his cloak in his hands and tell him—what? It didn’t matter what Mihmatini had said to him. There was simply no space for him in the life Teomitl deserved, nothing beyond that Acatl already occupied. He wouldn’t burden him with useless feelings.

But then Teomitl shook himself like an ahuizotl and turned back to him, holding his gaze. “Do you want to know what got me home, Acatl? What sustained me?”

Mutely, he nodded. He still didn’t trust his voice.

“You.”

He felt like he’d been gutted. “I...Teomitl…”

Whatever Teomitl saw in his face made his eyes soften. He took a step forward, hands coming up to—gently, so gently—rest on Acatl’s waist, and Acatl let him. “I thought about you. I—Southern Hummingbird blind me, I dreamed about you. Every night! I made myself a promise while I was out there, in the event I ever saw you again. Scorn me for it all you’d like, but I’m going to keep it now.”

Oh, Teomitl. I could never scorn you. They were very, very close now, and Teomitl’s gaze had fallen to his parted lips. His mouth went dry.

And then Teomitl kissed him.

It started out soft and gentle, lips barely tracing Acatl’s own. Asking permission, he thought with an absurd spike of giddiness—and so, leaning in a little shyly, he gave it.

Teomitl only drew away to breathe, “Gods—I love you—“ before claiming his mouth again, as though he couldn’t bear to be apart.

Teomitl jerked back, brow furrowed. “Wait. Mihmatini told you?!”

He was rewarded with a shiver, and the near-panic in Teomitl’s eyes ebbed into something soft. “What did you tell her, Acatl?”

He’d asked. He’d asked, and Acatl had always been honest with him. He’d be honest now, even if it made his heart race and his hands tremble. “That I love you.”

“I don’t want to let you go,” Teomitl whispered. “I never want to let you out of my sight again.”

Neither do I. He tilted his head, nosing at the nearest and fluffiest bit of Teomitl’s hair, and let out a long sigh. “You’ll have to eventually.” Even though he hated the thought, he couldn’t help but smile. “You’re the Master of the House of Darts, aren’t you? You have an army to help lead. Wars to wage. Glory to bring to the Empire.”

“Hrmph.” The arms around him tightened in wordless refusal.

He smiled against Teomitl’s hair. “But first, why don’t we see about lunch?”

Teomitl made an undignified snorting noise. “I have been gone a long time. You’re remembering to eat for once.”

It was the first time in a month he could remember feeling actually hungry. He decided not to mention that. To his regret, however, lunch meant that they both had to actually let go of each other. Reluctantly, he began the process of disentangling them; after a significant period of hesitation, Teomitl deigned to help. Even when they were no longer wrapped in each other’s arms, though, he stared at Acatl as though he couldn’t get enough of the sight.

And since Acatl was doing the same thing, cataloging the precise shade of Teomitl’s brown eyes and the exact path each visible scar took, he couldn’t blame him. I might have gone my whole life without this. What an idiot I was.

It took longer than Acatl liked for he and Teomitl to be properly alone again. It wasn’t until they were finally ensconced in a small receiving room with a plate of fried newts to share and strict orders not to be disturbed that he could do more than look; just when he was getting up the nerve to maybe hold Teomitl’s hand, though, his beloved leaned in and kissed him. It was chaste, but it still made him blush.

Teomitl was smiling when he drew back. “I missed doing that.”

An eyebrow went up in stunning imitation of Mihmatini. “And I’ve waited years for even one kiss, Acatl. There’s a backlog to get through, you know.”

The blush had just started to fade, but now it returned with a vengeance. “Years?”

“Mm-hmm.” Teomitl’s eyes gleamed. “I’d like to make up for lost time, if you wouldn’t mind.”

He swallowed hard. He’d wanted to know how Teomitl had survived, how he’d managed to make it all the way back home, but his questions suddenly didn’t seem that important anymore. “...I would not.”

And so their mouths met. Teomitl’s idea of making up for lost time was long and hungry; Acatl’s lips parted for his tongue almost before he knew what he was doing, and that was a little strange but far from unwelcome. Especially when Teomitl drew back, mouth wet and red, to catch his lower lip between his teeth in another one of those stinging little nips that made his blood sing. A breathy noise escaped him, but this time Teomitl didn’t soothe it.

Teomitl hummed, low and wordless, and slid a hand down his stomach. Acatl’s fevered blood roared in his ears, and all of a sudden it was almost too much. “Teomitl.”

Teomitl lifted his head, eyes bright. “Mm?”

“You.” He sucked in a breath, willing his heartrate to slow down. “You can’t keep doing that here.”

“You don’t like it?” Teomitl grinned at him. “Or do you like it too much, Acatl?”

If by some miracle all the rest of it hadn’t already made him blush, hearing Teomitl purr his name like that would definitely have done the trick. He had to turn his face away. “You know damned well it’s the latter. I can’t very well take the rest of the day off to…” Flustered, he gestured between them.

“Hrmph,” Teomitl said, and kissed him again. This time it was slow and sweet and came with warm arms sliding around him, and he lingered in it for long, long minutes.

When the afternoon light started to turn gold, they reluctantly stood up. They stood without touching for a moment that was just long enough to be awkward, and then Teomitl pulled him into a fierce hug. Acatl knew it was coming this time; he marveled at how they just seemed to fit together, with one hand buried in Teomitl’s hair and the other pressed flat between his shoulderblades to feel the steady beat of his heart.

Teomitl took a long, slow breath. “Lunch wasn’t long enough.”

“It wasn’t,” he agreed softly. “But there will be others. Many others.”

Teomitl made no move to let go of him. In fact, he squeezed a little tighter, turning to bury his face in Acatl’s hair. “Mrghh...”

He wanted to laugh, and had to bite the inside of his cheek to quell the urge. He made do with stroking Teomitl’s hair—gods, it was so soft—and taking a deliberate step back so that Teomitl had to release him or be pulled off-balance. Now Teomitl was glaring at him, but nothing would stop the slow upwell of joy in his veins. “Go on,” he murmured. “I’ll see you at the banquet tonight.”

Teomitl’s eyes were fierce as an eagle’s. “And afterwards? Will I see you afterwards, Acatl?”

“Yes.” It wasn’t an answer he even needed to think about, not with the way Teomitl’s lips parted in wonder. For the rest of my life. Whenever you want, for the rest of my life, I’ll be there.

Acatl flushed, shaking his head. That was a risk he refused to take. “My house. I’ll—I’ll be waiting.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” There was a wild, radiant smile.

He smiled back.

Though he honestly hated the idea of separation too, he knew it would be alright. Teomitl had promised, after all.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #teocatl #mihmatini #quenami #acamapichtli #paladin writes stuff

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notapaladin · 3 years

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who should you fight? obsblood edition

Acatl: At first glance, Acatl looks like a pushover; he’s a skinny death priest who gets winded after a hard run. You might think you stand a chance if you fight him. You would be wrong. Did I mention the “death priest” part? Yeah, this guy has a minor underworld god on speed-dial. If there’s no magic involved, you might beat him—but you won’t get much time to enjoy your victory, because his family and underlings will not be happy with you. Do not fight Acatl.

Teomitl: Please fight Teomitl. Not because you’ll win (you won’t) but because he’ll be impressed by your daring and you might actually earn his respect if you last longer than two seconds. (Plus, sometimes he just plain deserves a punch in the face.) If on the other hand you plan to fight him seriously...don’t. Do not. He has friends who will erase you from existence if you go for the kill. Friendly sparring matches only.

Mihmatini: Are you insane? Why would you fight Mihmatini? This girl might look like your average Mexica housewife, but she is the epitome of “looks like a cinnamon roll but can kill you”—and make no mistake about it, if you threaten her loved ones, she will. And if you threaten her, those same loved ones (including the High Priest of the Dead and the Master of the House of Darts) will feed you your own ass. Do not so much as look at Mihmatini funny.

Nezahual: You could fight Nezahual. You’d probably win; he’s more of a lover than a fighter. On the other hand, this teenage asshole is the Revered Speaker of an entire city, so kicking his ass might cause a diplomatic incident. Up to you if you think it’s worth it!

Neutemoc: Ah, yes. Fight the esteemed Jaguar Knight. That will go over well. In all seriousness, Neutemoc kind of deserves it? Yeah, you’ll still lose, but even giving him a bloody nose feels damn good. Do fight Neutemoc, but preferably not in front of his kids.

Ceyaxochitl: Do not. No. Don’t even think about it. Sure, for all her magical power she’s still a middle-aged woman and physically you might win, but emotionally? Imagine the cost.

Tizoc: DEFINITELY fight Tizoc. Please. He’s no warrior, and after being brought back to life he’s got one foot in the grave anyway. Kick his ass. The Empire will thank you.

Quenami: On one hand, when Huitzilopochtli needs sacrifices, Quenami is the guy with the knife. On the other hand, it’s been years since he’s stabbed anything that can fight back, and he definitely deserves to be taken down a peg or ten. Please fight Quenami, ideally in a public space so we can point and laugh at his humiliation.

Acamapichtli: This man can strangle a jaguar. Do not fight Acamapichtli, even though he definitely deserves it. You will lose and then he will destroy your ego with a well-chosen snarky comment.

Chalchiuhnenetl: “Oh, she’s a little old lady,” you think, right before she crushes your mind with her magic. Don’t fight her, even though she definitely should be fought.

Ichtaca: Hasn’t this poor man been through enough? Don’t fight Ichtaca. You’ll win, but you’ve done something bad and should feel bad.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #acamapichtli #ceyaxochitl #chalchiuhnenetl #ichtaca #mihmatini #neutemoc #nezahual #quenami #teomitl #tizoc

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notapaladin · 3 years

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harmonic orchestra (the teocatl edition, pt 2)

yeah these mini-fills are STILL GOING. As always, can also be read on AO3, though I’m posting one a day there and they are not all teocatl. (not all of these are EXPLICITLY teocatl either, but know that they are in my heart)

(teomitl & acatl – a good influence)

In another world, he loses his temper. Tzutzumatzin tells him the springs of Coyoacan are unpredictable at best and dangerous at worse, and he sees only disrespect. How dare anyone tell him what to do? Is he not Emperor? And so he has the lord strangled and goes ahead with his plan, knowing none will gainsay him save for the gods themselves.

And they do. The aqueducts burst, the city floods, and Ahuitzotl—the man whose name signifies a terrifying, thorny water beast, the man chosen to rule Tenochtitlan, the man who led the Triple Alliance from one end of the sea-ringed world to the other—Ahuitzotl drowns. They say it is the wrath of the gods, but his own prickly nature led the way.

In this world, he stops. Waits. Breathes, the way Acatl is always telling him. And makes himself listen, really listen, to what the other man is saying about the springs that will fuel his aqueducts. Now he sees that no offense is meant, that he is truly trying to help and is merely somewhat less than courteous about it—and since he’s quite often been accused of the same, even by Mihmatini who loves him, he can’t be too angry. He’s sworn that he’ll never follow his brother’s hypocrisy.

He still can’t make himself be happy about it, but he sits back on his mat and meets Tzutzumatzin’s eyes. “What do you suggest instead? We must have that water.”

“...Well, Ahuitzotl-tzin…”

The floods still come. A different source for the city’s water helps, but Jade Skirt and the Storm Lord are still not in a helpful or even pleasant mood and there are always sorcerers who want to see him dead. Half of Tenochtitlan goes under, sparing not even his palace, and many die. But it isn’t as bad as it could be—thank the gods, that it isn’t as bad as it could be—and when he’s pulled from the water, it’s only three days until he opens his eyes. Battered, half-drowned, three-quarters lame, and with holes in his memory that will never close, but alive.

Acatl and Mihmatini don’t question why he keeps thanking them. They’re too busy clasping his hands in utter, wordless relief.

(acatl – noir au)

The office was dark. It was almost always dark—he hadn’t been able to afford anything better than this building, and the surrounding skyscrapers blocked all the natural light—but today was worse, because it had been raining for so long he couldn’t even remember how sunlight felt on his skin. Throwing wide the shades and guzzling cup after cup of cheap, terrible black coffee had woken him up earlier, but that had been earlier. The sun had gone down since then, and the flickering gas threw deep shadows. Acatl propped his chin on his hand, stared down at his blotter, and fought to keep his eyes open.

Christ, but he was tired. He thought he’d been born tired. His latest case had angered some very powerful people in the upper echelons of the mayor’s office, and Ceyaxochitl—who’d set him on it in the first place, shamelessly using her power as the unofficial boss of the city’s underworld—had been unwilling to throw him a line as the bigwigs went from simply unhelpful to actively threatening overnight. The viciously angry part of him hoped that Acamapichtli himself would stop by for a chat. Alone. It would give him an excuse to show the bastard why you didn’t threaten his family, no matter who you worked for.

He’d just picked up his notebook—maybe he’d go over the facts of Elueia’s disappearance one more time—when the bell over his door rang.

He set the notebook down.

The young man sidling in was tall and wiry and dark, hair buzzed almost unfashionably short. His eyes were dark too, filled with a nervous energy, and Acatl quickly swept his gaze over him. Brown trenchcoat, the shoulders wet from the rain. Equally brown hat. No visible bulges that could be hidden weapons, but he kept the desk between them anyway as he rose. “What can I do for you?”

The man—more of a boy, really—met his gaze head-on, unafraid. “My name is Teomitl. Ceyaxochitl sent me to help.”

(acatl/teomitl – sea of jade)

Teomitl's patron goddess is Chalchiuhtlicue, She Whose Skirt Is Jade, and sometimes that doesn't matter. Sometimes Teomitl's eyes and skin are just brown, his skin gleaming only with his own good health, and when he bleeds it is only an ordinary shade of red. (He is still beautiful, of course, but it's a beauty Acatl's grown accustomed to. Not that it doesn't still take his breath away! But when you've been loving the same man for so long, at some point you stop being completely dumbstruck when you wake up next to him in the morning.)

This is not one of those times. Teomitl's eyes are jade from end to end, his skin rippling with the green reflections of sunlight seen from the bottom of the lake, and the air is filled with the stench of churned mud and blood and algae. The ahuitzotls he commands are coiled savagery by his side, the clawed hands at the ends of their tails clenching rhythmically as they await his command to go for the eyes of their foes.

He's the most beautiful thing Acatl's ever seen, and it frightens him more than he can put into words.

(And then the battle is joined, and he has just enough time to be thankful that the goddess's power is on their side. He has none at all for fear.)

(acatl & teomitl – modern au: not answering the phone)

"You left me. On. Read."

Teomitl wondered if it was too late to hang up. Claim he'd wandered somewhere with no service. Throw his phone into the street to get crushed by a semi. Anything would be better than this conversation with the man who'd once been his mentor—this conversation he hadn't even intended to have, except that when he'd seen Acatl's name on the caller ID he'd picked it up without thinking, forgetting all the very good and logical reasons why that was a bad idea. "Look, Acatl—"

"You tried to get your brother removed from office and the department closed down, and you left me on read! You left my sister on read! Do you know what that plot of yours would have done to her degree credits?!"

Right. Mihmatini was going to kill him too. He shuddered, but then he remembered why. Through gritted teeth, he snapped back, "My brother is a paranoid megalomaniac who tried to have you fired! If he's left in charge of the city coroner's office, can you imagine the damage he'll do?"

"Yes." Acatl's voice on the other end was a snarl. "But if you'd told me—"

"You would have disapproved. You would have tried to stop me." Acatl was always cautious, never liked taking risks. Teomitl hadn't seen a single way forward that didn't go through him, so he'd removed him from consideration. No matter how much the thought hurt.

"I would have shown you some better ways to get what you want!" He'd never heard Acatl raise his voice before. It made him feel about an inch tall. "You could have confided in me, and I would have tried to help you."

He swallowed once. Twice. He wouldn't start crying now. "I thought…"

Acatl must have picked up on it—damn him—because his voice softened. "You can't run for his office in a few years if you have a criminal record, Teomitl."

He sucked in a long, slow breath. "...I'm going to hang up now. I'll be at that coffee place on your corner in half an hour."

That was probably enough time for a minor breakdown.

(acatl – a nice day where things go well)

The sun is shining, and for once he has time to enjoy it. He’s been up for a long time—there was a vigil the night before, and they’d needed their High Priest—but he’s not tired. Not enough to pass out yet, at any rate. No, now he’s going to make his devotions to the gods, grab a bite to eat, and...well. There’s nowhere in particular he has to be this morning. Maybe he’ll take a walk.

The temple kitchens furnish him with a delicious tamale. The breeze kicks up as he leaves the gates behind, cooling his skin and providing some measure of protection from what promises to be a warm day. He eats as he walks; he’s picking his way through the crowd with no real destination in mind, but somehow it isn’t surprising when he winds up in front of the Duality House.

He pauses. Mihmatini’s always telling him he should visit more often. But he hates to drop in unannounced, in case she’s sleeping or busy or simply doesn’t wish to see him—

“Acatl!”

His sister is beaming at him, bouncing up and down on her toes as though he could possibly miss her. “Come in!” she calls. “Come and eat breakfast with us!”

Even if he was full—he isn’t—he wouldn’t turn her down. Smiling, he walks in for a second breakfast and a wonderful, peaceful morning.

(teomitl/acatl – laughter)

Teomitl’s not sure how it happened, how their day went so bad so quickly—they’re both exhausted, both bleeding from a dozen please-gods-please-be-minor wounds, and even the monster that inflicted them laying dead at their feet doesn’t make it better—but he huffs out, “Well, that wasn’t the birthday present I’d had planned for you,” and Acatl—

Acatl stares at him for the space of one heartbeat, two, and then bursts out laughing.

He stares back. He’s sure he’s blushing, knows for a fact that his jaw’s just gone slack with shock, and both of those are reactions he needs to get better at controlling, but he can’t. He’s heard Acatl chuckle before, half-disbelieving little huffs of air that say he’s surprised at himself for finding amusement in something. He’s never heard him laugh. It’s not attractive, not really; it’s breathless and a little wheezy and turns his whole face red, and even when he pauses it’s only to suck in a long gasp of air and choke out, “A birthday present—” in a way that suggests he’s about to be set off again.

Oh no, comes Teomitl’s next conscious thought. Oh no, I love him.

Acatl, still wheezing, has to sit down to catch his breath. There are actual tears in his eyes when he looks up. “Ah...hah, forgive me...it was just...the battle, and the way you said it—“

He’s grinning like a fool and doesn’t care. “It’s more than alright. Come on, let’s—” Go back to my rooms. Have our wounds dressed. Join me in my private baths. Let me show you all the ways I can make your day better.

But then the Jaguar Knights are pounding along the streets towards them because they’ve finally heard the sounds of battle from the men they’re supposed to be guarding—he knows who’s next on his demotion lists—and he never gets a chance to finish the sentence.

(ollin – reflecting on his uncles)

The High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli is lighting incense for a funeral. He’s been doing little else for days; the men from across the sea have sent far, far too many of his people to a warrior’s death. But this one is not like the others, because tonight he stands vigil over the men who saved the rest of them. He closes his eyes, exhales, and remembers.

Uncle Acatl had never trusted the pale men in their shiny metal armor from the start. He’d hated their languages, their foul manners, the way they could barely go a sentence without trying to push their god on their listeners even though an interpreter. But he’d also been old and crotchety, and so Aunt Mihmatini and Uncle Teomitl had given the foreigners enough benefit of the doubt (and, as they’d pointed out, respect for the army of Tlaxcalans they’d brought with them) to allow their leaders into the city. Even their strange weapons couldn’t stand against a city blessed by the gods, could they?

Oh, how wrong they’d been. The clash of their cannons and horses against Huitzilopochtli’s righteous fury had nearly levelled the city itself, and then their leader—Cortes—had taken advantage of the chaos to break through Aunt Mihmatini’s guard and hold a blade to her throat to force a surrender.

And that had been his fatal mistake, because it had bought them—his uncles, the other High Priests, the Guardian herself—time to strike back. He’ll never forget the moment they had. That single, terrible moment when he’d dropped to his knees and watched the sky split open, watched his captors screaming and writhing in agony as their bones turned to obsidian and their skin to jade, their blood spilling to earth like juice from an overripe fruit.

Tenochtitlan was safe again, and all it had cost them was their connections to the gods. Oh, he can still feel them; souls are being ushered to their proper places, and Mictlan’s presence coils in his gut like a serpent. But the serpent is sleeping, its fangs tucked away, and none of them know when—or if—it will wake again. The new High Priest of Huitzilopochtli has not yet been able to offer the proper sacrifices, but the sun has risen anyway.

He inhales, feeling his eyes prickle in a way he can’t blame on the smoke. His uncles died as heroes, their names destined to live forever, but he wishes they were here. At least they’ll be burned on the same pyre, together in death as they were in life.

“Ollin-tzin?”

Ollin rises, brushes off his hands, and heads into the sunlight that they purchased for him.

acatl/teomitl – soup, pt 2 (“I love you. I want us both to eat well.”)

The temple accounts don't care for mortal frailty or the need for sustenance. They will loom there on the table, unyielding, until they are dealt with properly—and in his temple, he's going to be the one to do them. Of course Ichtaca could handle it for him—of course! the man is endlessly competent—but Duality curse him, this is his temple and his responsibility, and so Acatl sits down with a reed pen, several folded codices' worth of ledgers, and all his considerable stubbornness until he realizes—reluctantly—that he can't focus with his stomach trying to glue itself to his spine.

There are approaching footsteps—slow and measured, but still somehow familiar. He looks up just as Teomitl draws aside the entrance curtain. "Acatl-tzin," he says, and smiles, and Acatl feels himself blush.

"What brings you here?" It's a stupid question—he can smell the hot, spicy soup through the clay jug Teomitl's holding—but he has to say something to cover the rush of warmth at the realization that Teomitl's brought him dinner.

At least he's not the only one blushing. "I made you this," Teomitl mutters, and doesn't look at him as he sets it down. "I thought you'd be hungry—you never remember to eat—Mihmatini said this was your favorite, so..." He trails off in an inarticulate little murmur and adds, "I brought spoons."

It's delicious. It's even better when Acatl asks, "What on earth made you think of this?" and Teomitl—spoon halfway to his mouth—blurts out with absolutely no forethought whatsoever, "I love you, so—"

And then of course he drops the spoon, but neither of them care about that.

(acatl/teomitl, ezamahual – no accounting for taste)

"Literally, why?"

Ezamahual and Palli were not exactly best friends, but they were close as only two fellow Priests of the Dead could be—servants of the least popular god of the three supporting Tenochtitlan's throne, and the ones generally responsible for running around after their High Priest and making sure he didn't get himself killed dealing with beasts of the underworld (or worse, politics). Therefore, when Ezamahual leaned on his broom and gestured futilely towards the heavens, Palli knew exactly who and what he was talking about.

Accordingly, he reached over and patted the man's shoulder. "There's no accounting for taste."

Another gesture, this time accompanied by a sad shake of his head. "Acatl-tzin is kind. Patient. Even-tempered. Intelligent. I can see why the boy's interested. Anyone with sense would be. But to walk around looking at him like that in public…"

"I thought you liked Teomitl-tzin."

"Not when he and Acatl-tzin—" Ezamahual clamped his mouth shut, but by the way he was turning red Palli already knew what he was going to say.

He couldn't help but remark—after stepping out of range—"Guess we know our teachers were definitely lying about what happens if you break your vow of chastity, at least!"

(acatl/teomitl – a cache of jewels)

Teomitl loves him. He's not shy about showing it.

He also loves giving him gifts. He's not shy about that, either. Acatl sits by the carved stone chest that holds his valuables, sighing at the gold and silver and jade within. There are pieces of carved coral as big as duck eggs, a gleaming emerald heart the size of his two fists, ropes of turquoise and jade to weave through his hair. This latest present—a silver spider-and-owl pectoral, the symbol of his order in a form emperors would envy—might not even fit in the box.

"What's that look for?"

He can't help but smile fondly at his lover's voice, shaking his head. "Love…"

"What?"

"Do you remember when I recommended subtlety?"

"That was before I was Emperor," Teomitl says dryly, and...well, he can't argue with that.

(acatl/teomitl – mine, all mine)

Logic said that he couldn't lay claim to Teomitl; that he might be the man's lover, but that meant nothing when he couldn't be acknowledged as such in public, when Teomitl would take wives and concubines that could all wear pieces of his heart on their sleeves. Logic said that to be jealous was utter folly, and he should hate himself for it.

Logic had absolutely nothing on the slow, simmering rage of watching another man (some ambassador from another province, all gold and quetzal feathers and arrogance) flirt with the one he loved. Finally, he couldn't take it any more (there was a hand on Teomitl's arm and he was blushing) and before he knew it, he was at Teomitl's side.

He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. Teomitl's newly radiant smile was only for him, and as they were introduced he locked eyes with the interloper and thought, dark and vicious, Mine.

(teomitl – my dreams are red)

All his dreams of the courtyard are different, but in some ways they're very much the same. He stands in the middle of the dusty, bloodstained space with his warriors, a desiccated corpse at his feet, far too late to help Acatl and Mihmatini with their own battle—but then, helping isn't why he's here. He is selfish and greedy and ambitious, and he wants the crown.

And he asks them to support him, and they say no.

And he tells them to stand aside, and they say no.

And he doesn't ask at all.

And they ask him to stop, to think about what he's doing to the world, to the Empire he wants to rule, and he refuses.

And they tell him to stop, that they'll fight him if he takes one step closer, and he doesn't listen.

And then there is so much blood.

(Sometimes it's Mihmatini who falls first, who meets him when he takes that one step and is cut down by his warriors before she can scream. Sometimes it's Acatl, who steps forward with sad eyes and says I'm sorry, Teomitl, I can't let you do this—and falls with a shocked grunt when Teomitl guts him. Sometimes he can't tell which of them dies first; between one blink and the next he is standing in a field of gore, their pieces unidentifiable, and his sister is smiling and congratulating him on his ascension. Sometimes Acatl doesn't die immediately; when Teomitl kneels to hear his final words, they are a snarl of I thought better of you. Those ones are the worst.)

When Mihmatini asks why he's woken with tears in his eyes, he can't tell her.

(teomitl/acatl – ivory and alabaster)

The High Priest for the Dead wears white sandals. The cotton is the color of milk and the leather is smooth and pale as alabaster; the decorations keeping the ends of the straps from unraveling are carved human bone.

He is talking, but Teomitl isn't really listening. He's cursing himself for seven different kinds of a fool, for Acatl is as far beyond his reach as the stars in the sky and he is distracted even by the crossing straps of his sandals. Against all that white, his dark skin gleams like polished wood, and they sit close enough that—if he was bold, if he was not such a coward—he could reach out and trace the arch of his foot under the straps, the delicate curve of the ankle above it.

He clenches his fist and stays his hand. White is for death, for the separation between earthly filth and higher things, and his touch will stain.

(acatl & teomitl – unorthodox ways of cutting through the red tape)

Acatl will never complain out loud. Such things are a waste of breath, and besides it's both stupid and pointless to rail against the vagaries of fate when doing so won't change anything. But he's leaving a meeting with the Emperor and the other High Priests with a face like stone, and when he only nods a greeting to Teomitl falling into step besides him, Teomitl knows why.

There are times I really hate my brother. He breaks the silence with a nearly-careless shrug. "You know, I could still kill him."

"No, Teomitl."

"I'm only reminding you that the offer's still open!"

"And the answer is still no."

"...Quenami, then?" The High Priest of Huitzilopochtli tried to have Acatl killed, and if there's an option to remove him that won't require waiting for his brother's death, Teomitl's willing to take it. He's always wanted to know if he can get the bastard to roll all the way down the steps of his own temple.

"No!"

(teomitl/acatl – headache)

"You look terrible. Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm fine," Teomitl huffs, but he doesn't lift his head from where he's had it pressed against the cool stone tiles of the shaded courtyard for the past hour. Maybe if he refrains from sudden movements, his skull will stop feeling like it's coming apart at the seams. (Not that it has so far, but hope springs eternal.)

Acatl is not fooled. Acatl is never fooled. Wordlessly, his lover sits on the ground next to him and arranges things so that Teomitl now lays with his head in his lap; the movement actually makes his head hurt worse, but before he can start cursing there are cold, gentle fingers rubbing his temples and oh, that is much better.

"What happened?" he asks, when Teomitl's started to relax.

"Tizoc." He could say more—part of him wants to say more, wants to rant and rail against the day-long meeting with his brother and the war council and how four men could have not one single brain between them he doesn't know—but Acatl will then try to be reasonable with him, and he doesn't want to hear it.

Acatl's hands go still. "Oh," he says, but in his tone Teomitl hears that bastard and his day is immediately improved.

(teomitl/acatl, neutemoc – shovel talk)

When Neutemoc sits down next to him in the courtyard, macuahitl across his knees, Teomitl doesn't think anything of it. He and his brother-in-law have often sparred, and it's a fine day for another round. But then the man stretches and rolls his shoulders and looks at him, eyes serious as the executioner's blade, and he realizes this is not, in fact, going to be a fine day.

"Mihmatini tells me she's happy in her marriage," Neutemoc says. No—growls. That's definitely a growl.

Ice oozes slowly down Teomitl's back, but he's stood in front of gods without blinking. He can handle this. "Good. I do my best to keep her that way."

"And she'd let us all know if she wasn't." Neutemoc turns his attention to his sword, angling it so he can dig a dried bit of something unidentifiable from between the close-packed obsidian blades. "My brother, on the other hand...well. He'll put up with a lot, especially from you. All you have to do is smile, and he comes running—no matter what you've done.”

Teomitl takes a deep breath. It's that or pass out. How did you know is on the tip of his tongue—but that's a stupid question. He and Acatl have been quiet and discreet, but not quiet and discreet enough. How dare you would be even worse—he may be Master of the House of Darts, and Neutemoc only a Jaguar Knight, but that doesn't matter when Acatl's well-being is on the line. "And what do you think I've done?"

Neutemoc does not look rattled by his sharp tone. "He's my little brother. A priest sworn to a life of celibacy. I've seen how persuasive you can be when you have a goal in mind."

Teomitl turns and looks at him incredulously. "I'm sorry, have you met your brother? He's the most stubborn man in Tenochtitlan, and the most devoted to his vocation. If he didn't want to break his vows, nothing I could say or do would make him. The only goal I have is to make him smile."

"...You had better." The obsidian blades flash in the sunlight. "Or your reign will be over before it begins."

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #ezamahual #neutemoc's brood #neutemoc #paladin writes stuff

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notapaladin · 3 years

Text

i want the storm inside you awoken now

Teomitl comes home in victory from a long campaign in foreign lands, and Acatl is more than happy to welcome him in the best way he knows how. (Yeah this is plotless smut, y’all know my bag.)

Also on AO3

The army was home, and they were celebrating a rare victory. Acatl almost didn’t care. Yes, they would maintain their hold on whichever province they’d been sent to, and yes, this was no doubt a fine deed by Tizoc’s standards, but he stared across the plaza in the bright sunshine and he only saw Teomitl.

Teomitl, whose feather suit was ruffled and torn in places, who’d walked miles that day and the day before on aching feet in a mass of his equally tired and worn-down comrades. Teomitl, who stood straight as an arrow despite all that. Teomitl, who had locked eyes with him and was smiling brighter than the sun above, as though none of it mattered except the sight of Acatl’s face.

He inhaled, feeling his chest expand with it. I missed you. I love you. Even if he’d been able to take him in his arms right then and there—even if by some miracle they could be allowed to embrace, in public, as other warriors did their wives and mistresses—they were too far away. He cursed every fingers’ breadth of distance.

“So I won’t be expecting Teomitl home tonight…?”

“Mihmatini,” he hissed. A furtive glance around revealed that nobody seemed to have noticed her comment, but he elbowed her in the ribs anyway.

She grinned up at him, unrepentant. “I only want to know if I’ll get an extended reprieve from his snoring.”

Teomitl’s snoring wasn’t honestly that bad, at least if you asked Acatl. The way that he talked in his sleep was worse; it was distracting at the best of times, but when he had nightmares it was heartwrenching. And then there was the way he was seemingly incapable of lying still, tossing and turning until he woke tangled in their cloaks or Acatl’s hair. Still, given the choice between putting up with all of that and going to bed alone...well, there really was only one option. He’d missed the security of his lover’s arms.

“Hm,” he said, and settled in to wait for the interminable speeches to be over.

Because of course there were speeches. There were dances. And at the end of all that, there was a royal banquet that he didn’t dare to skip out on or sneak out early from. Tizoc would be sure to notice his absence, and if his men came looking for Acatl and found him in Teomitl’s arms...the consequences really didn’t bear thinking about. So he sat on his mat in between Acamapichtli and Quenami and tried very, very hard to pretend he was sitting alone.

It didn’t work. Quenami shot him a sidelong glance and commented in a tone of viciously calculated innocence, “Those are new.”

He turned, feeling the unaccustomed weight of his silver earflares. They’d been a gift from Teomitl before he’d left on campaign—“so you have something to remember me by,” he’d said, and Acatl’s heart had melted before he could even mount the slimmest defense against materialism. And in his defense, they were nice earflares; a spider had been worked onto each as though it was sitting in its web, and the spaces between the web’s silver strands were inlaid with dark jade. He’d put them on with pride earlier.

Acamapichtli spared him from having to answer, leaning around him with a smirk to indicate Quenami’s own finery. “So is that necklace you’ve got on. Are we not all wearing our best to welcome our victorious warriors home?”

Quenami looked like he’d eaten something sour, but he nodded and, mercifully, shut up before Acatl gave in to the urge to strangle him. Acatl reapplied himself to his dish of turkey in rich, dark mole and let the delicious food restore his equilibrium, if not his good mood. That was something he knew would be out of his reach as long as Teomitl was halfway across the banquet hall.

He could feel his lover’s eyes on him. He looked up.

Teomitl was radiant. There was jade and gold at his ears and on his fingers, and his cloak had been trimmed with jade beads that gleamed where they caught the light. Tizoc might have been the one behind the gilded screen, but he was the one who looked imperial. He needed only turquoise to complete the look. One day, Acatl thought. I’ll see you crowned in glory.

Of course, the man didn’t need a crown to take his breath away. Though the faint shadows under his eyes pinched at Acatl’s heart, he quirked up a tiny, devastating smile when their gazes met. Then he noticed the earflares, and his gaze went from merely warm to simmering as it swept slowly down Acatl’s form; he must have liked what he saw, because his smile widened. Acatl felt his blood stir in response, and for once he was glad of the flickering torchlight and his fellow priests’ self-absorption.

Sometimes, they didn’t need words. Least among the High Priests he might be, the son of a peasant family of no great renown, but Teomitl was devouring him with a single glance.

Soon, he told him with his eyes. Soon.

After the bright gold and incense of the banquet, the cool quiet of his little house was almost a relief. Almost. It had been cool and quiet for much too long.

Four months, three days, and ten hours. Teomitl had left at the start of the dry season, kissing Mihmatini goodbye and clasping Acatl’s arm with a smile. They’d said their proper farewells earlier that morning, and he’d been briefly jealous of how easily Teomitl’s regalia hid the marks. Then his lover had marched off to war, and he hadn’t been jealous at all. He was used to being alone, and it was hardly as though he’d had much free time in which to indulge in the ache of missing him—but then at unexpected moments it had risen up like a fist around his heart, choking the life from him, and he’d remembered that feelings didn’t care whether you had time or not. He’d found himself avoiding their favorite tamale stall, suffering unexpected pangs when he visited Neutemoc’s children; Teomitl was always so good with them that the memories had points like thorns. His lover had made a space for himself in Acatl’s life, and the empty hollow had echoed.

He took a breath, remembering the way Teomitl had looked at the banquet. Going unfulfilled certainly won’t be a problem for me now.

He’d barely finished washing himself in the basin when he heard the brisk, familiar footsteps that resounded with his soul, and something in his chest went loose and open. “Come in.”

The entrance-curtain jingled softly, and Teomitl stepped inside. He’d shed his gold and jewels in favor of a plain cloak, but that was secondary to the soft, relieved smile on his face. “Acatl.”

They fell into each other’s arms. Acatl’s hands settled at Teomitl’s waist, marveling at how well they just seemed to fit together as Teomitl’s fingers slid up into his hair. The first long, slow kiss felt like coming home, and his blood sang with it. I love you, he thought as the hot line of Teomitl’s body pressed against his. I love you, I love you.

Even when they drew apart to breathe, they were so close that their noses brushed. Teomitl’s voice was soft and serious, trembling a little with emotion. “I was so lonely without you.”

He’d heard poets call war the flowery death, the place where blood was spilled with honor. He’d heard warriors describe it, less poetically but more accurately, as weeks of marching and bad food punctuated by a day or so of screaming chaos. No matter how much of a consummate warrior Teomitl was, the thought of his lover going through all that and missing him made his chest ache all over again. “I know. I know. I’m here now.”

And to prove it, he pulled him in for another kiss. This one had Teomitl melting against him, humming in pleasure as his lips parted for Acatl’s tongue. “Mmm…” His body was a glory against Acatl’s, all lean hard muscle and a warrior’s scars, and Acatl wanted him closer. He pulled him in, feeling Teomitl tremble, and just as he was wishing fervently that they’d shed their cloaks his lover arched, pressing them stomach to stomach with a moan. “Mm—nngh.”

That had been a pained sound. He broke the kiss, feeling suddenly chilled. “What is it?”

“...It’s nothing.” Teomitl looked flushed in the torchlight, both from pleasure and—if Acatl was any judge—embarrassment. “I’m fine.”

He held Teomitl’s gaze. “You didn’t sound fine. Have you been injured?” There hadn’t seemed to be any new scars on his lover’s limbs, but he hadn’t been looking as closely as he should have, and a long cloak could hide much.

Teomitl huffed, but under Acatl’s searching gaze he moved his cloak aside. “It’s really not that bad. It just pulls a little when I move.”

Not that bad wasn’t how Acatl would’ve described the long, glancing cut that had left an angry red scar over Teomitl’s shoulder and down his chest. It looked like someone had made a weak attempt at removing the arm entirely, though the shallowness of the scar tissue suggested they’d found Teomitl’s armor very tough going indeed. If it had gone a bit deeper, it would have been disabling. If it had gone much deeper…

If it had gone much deeper, Teomitl would have died.

Slowly, Acatl raised his hand to trace the scar. He kept his touch light as butterfly wings, and Teomitl trembled with it. “Oh, my love.” I could have lost you. And he’d known it, hadn’t he, when he first set out to love the Master of the House of Darts—but knowing something was very different from seeing it in front of his eyes. The scar under his fingertips was rough and raised; with time, it would go pale before fading into the background tapestry of his lover’s skin, but he would always know it was there.

Teomitl smiled, covering his hand with his own. Whatever he saw in Acatl’s face softened his voice, though the underlying conviction was as firm as the foundations of the Great Temple. “Always yours.”

That’s right. He drew in a long breath. “Is this the only souvenir you’ve brought back from this campaign?” Mihmatini no doubt would have made a quip about preferring the time he’d shown up carrying a rock with a water-scoured hole in it, but he found he didn’t quite have the heart to bring it up. The simmering desire that had coiled through his gut was building back up into something tinged with desperation. I need to touch him. I need to know he’s truly alive.

“...No,” Teomitl breathed. “Let’s lay down, and I’ll show you.”

They tumbled to the mat together, Acatl winding up on top for once while Teomitl sprawled out on the woven reeds and quickly-shed cloaks like a feast. As he sat back between Teomitl’s spread legs, he was fiercely glad for the torch. Before they’d shared the truth of their hearts, when all he’d had were his own terribly guilty desires, he’d thought they would only have this under cover of darkness; now, he looked back and shook his head at his own stupidity.

Teomitl deserved to be seen. He was even lovelier naked, all that bare skin exposed for Acatl’s eyes—but oh, he’d been telling the truth about the scars. There was another one high on his right thigh; from the angle, Acatl suspected a spear had got under his guard. He trailed his fingers over it, feeling skin twitch under his touch. Teomitl’s breath hitched. “Ah...”

“This looks like it must have hurt,” he murmured. It clearly didn’t hurt anymore; Teomitl was quivering, but his lover’s quick breaths and the way he hardened under his gaze showed only pleasure. And even if it had...well. The man liked that sometimes. He dug his nails in experimentally, watched the way Teomitl’s eyes went dark, and wondered how their night would go.

No matter which way it went, Teomitl’s fierce grin suggested they’d both be pleased by the end of it. “I killed the man that gave it to me.”

“Of course you did.” His lover was fierce as a jaguar when he fought, all hard edges and fury. He couldn’t imagine him showing mercy to an opponent foolish enough to actually think to harm him. He barely showed mercy on the mat, at least when Acatl asked him not to—and there was a thought, wasn’t it? His warrior, claiming him.

His breath caught on an inhale. Oh, that was definitely an option. “Hmm…” He drew his nails over the scar and down the sensitive skin of his lover’s inner thigh. Teomitl’s cock twitched. “Does it bother you?” Not waiting for an answer, he kept going. Slow. Slow and steady and...

“I’ll show you how much it bothers me—” Teomitl surged up and grabbed him, pulling him in for a ferocious kiss. Acatl went eagerly; this was what he’d missed, what he’d wanted—strong arms around him, the toe-curling heat of a hungry mouth on his mouth, his jaw, his throat. When teeth scraped over his jugular, he groaned out loud.

Then they rolled, Teomitl pinning him flat on his back, and he was left panting at the hunger in his lover’s face. Oh, he thought dizzily. Yes. Claim me. Caged in Teomitl’s arms like this, more than half-hard already just from the way their bodies had slid against each other, all he could think was that he needed more; he’d barely realized the desire before Teomitl was giving it to him, hands sliding down over his ribs as he licked into his mouth in the exact manner that always made him shudder. “Mmph!”

Teomitl drew back only to nip at his collarbone, the sweet sting making him jolt. Then he rolled his hips, pressing their cocks together, and the friction had him bucking in response. “Missed this,” his lover breathed. “Gods, you feel so good—I missed you so much—”

“Me too,” he gasped, but his mind wasn’t on the words. He was a being of pure sensation—the solid heat of Teomitl on top of him, the way his thigh muscles flexed as he wrapped them around his lover’s waist, the feeling of Teomitl’s skin under his palms as he dragged them down his back. There was so much power there. You could destroy me. You could wreck me, and I’d love it. The thought sent fire through his veins, and he rolled his hips in a deliberate grind against his lover’s thick cock.

Teomitl bit at his neck in response, mouthing a bruise into the thin skin. Then he did it again a little lower down, and again, until Acatl was clawing at his back and letting out desperate little gasps. When he finally lifted his head, his voice was a growl. “Gods, I want you.”

His heart was hammering against his ribs, arousal sharpening the edges of his world. It had been months since they’d seen each other, and every time he’d taken himself in hand he’d known too well what he was missing. What he might have—he grabbed at the fresh scar on Teomitl’s shoulder, digging his nails in hard. What I might have lost out there. “Then take me,” he breathed. “My victorious warrior. You’ve still got something else to conquer, don’t you?” You’ve come back to me alive, against all the odds. Prove to me you’re going to stay that way.

Teomitl’s eyes blazed. “Oh, I do.”

There was no question of this being a leisurely, gentle bout of lovemaking. That certainly had its place, but not here. Not now, after so long apart. Teomitl wrenched the lid off the jar of oil, spilling it across the mat and Acatl’s thighs as he slicked himself up; when he slid two fingers in at once, Acatl keened at the stretch and the burn of it. His body needed time to adjust to being filled again, but it didn’t look as though he was going to get it—not that he minded, really. Teomitl worked him open roughly, making him buck his hips in a vain attempt to establish some sort of rhythm; when a particular curl of his fingers made Acatl cry out, his lover’s grin turned feral. “Good. I want to hear you.”

“Teomitl—!” Acatl cried. Don’t make me wait. Please.

He didn’t. Another vicious thrust against that spot and he pulled his fingers out to replace them with his cock, shoving himself in to the hilt in one rough thrust. Acatl nearly screamed. “Teomitl!” It was almost—almost—on the edge of too much; he’d nearly forgotten what it felt like to be fucked so damn full.

“Fuck.” Teomitl sucked in a hard breath and held himself still for one heartbeat, two; the part of Acatl’s mind still capable of any thought at all wondered if he was feeling as overwhelmed as Acatl was.

And then his lover started to move, and even that tiny part ceased to exist. Teomitl was merciless, and all Acatl could do was hang on. His own fingers couldn’t compare to the way Teomitl sank into him, hips snapping fast and hard as though he couldn’t get deep enough. It sent fire down his spine and along his every extremity; he clawed at Teomitl’s shoulders, not even bothering to muffle his cries, and managed somehow to gasp, “Gods—more.”

Teomitl bared his teeth in a sharp grin. “Like this?” He shifted his weight, bracing himself on his knees with one hand buried in the loose mass of Acatl’s hair, and pulled almost entirely out only to slam back in, harder and somehow impossibly deeper. Acatl keened and arched into it; the angle was a little different this time, enough to fan the flames into a conflagration, and he knew he wouldn’t last long at all if Teomitl kept it up. And he would keep it up, of that he had no doubt. His lover was relentless in the pursuit of their pleasure.

Relentless and brutal. Teomitl dug his fingers into Acatl’s hip, bit bruises into his throat, and each fast, steady thrust fucked a gasp or a sob or a moan out of him. He tried to match his rhythm as best he could, but Teomitl was claiming him as thoroughly as he’d dreamed and all he could do was take it. So close. Gods, I’m so—Teomitl, please— His blood felt like liquid lightning. When Teomitl’s mouth found a yet-unmarked spot where his throat met his shoulder, he made a desperate noise. “Ah—!”

And then he was coming, his world lighting up in sparks as sheer ecstasy scorched through him and left him a shaking wreck. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even think. He could only rake his nails roughly down Teomitl’s back, mouth falling open in a hoarse cry. Teomitl’s cock pulsed within him as he followed him over the edge with a snarl.

For a long time after, neither of them could speak. Teomitl slowly lowered himself until he could rest his head on Acatl’s shoulder; Acatl caught his breath against his lover’s hair and slowly regained something that felt like brainpower. Even when he managed words, they felt like they were coming from a long way away. “Gods,” he panted, “that was…” Intense. Incredible. The best way possible to welcome you home.

Teomitl pulled out with a hitch of his hips that made them both shudder, but he didn’t go far; knowing how much Acatl hated lingering messes, he was soon back with a towel and much gentler hands. “I missed you,” he said simply.

Acatl shivered in pleasure. He’d feel the evidence of Teomitl missing him for a week, and he didn’t doubt his lover would be happy to refresh his memory whenever he asked. “Certain parts of me especially.”

“...Yes.” It was soft. Then Teomitl leaned over, cupped his face in his hands, and kissed him. This time it was sweet and gentle, and when he drew back he was smiling. “Like this one,” he breathed. One hand left Acatl’s face, slipping lightly down over the fresh marks on his neck and stopping just over his heart, where the fingers splayed as though he wanted to capture his heartbeat in his palm. “And right here. That’s what I missed, Acatl-tzin.”

They were so close that their noses brushed, and when Teomitl nuzzled at him teasingly he found himself grinning like a fool. His chest seemed to be filled with warm honey dripping through his ribcage. “Ridiculous man.”

“Your ridiculous man,” Teomitl murmured fondly. He rolled lazily so that he curled against Acatl’s side, that one hand still resting over his heart. “I’m staying tonight. I have to make up for all the nights I wasn’t sleeping beside you.”

“Mmm. Yes.” He stroked Teomitl’s back, feeling his heart beating steadily in his chest. That’s right. Mine. And he’ll be mine forever, no matter how far he goes.

Thus reassured, he drifted off to sleep.

...And was promptly woken three hours later by a thoroughly-unconscious Teomitl kicking him in the shins as he rolled over, but that was a small price to pay.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #teocatl #mihmatini #not work safe #paladin writes stuff

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notapaladin · 3 years

Text

with my heart in my lap

Acatl’s snarky narration: “Or I could grow fangs and turn into a coyote.”

Me: WELL NOW

...yeah, so I wrote were-coyote Acatl smut. I’ve been battling pretty bad physical anxiety symptoms lately (brain: “clearly if someone passes a value judgement on anything related to your new fave thing they are also passing judgement on YOU” me: “that makes...no sense...” brain: “too late, open the gates and release the Fear Juice”) so this maybe isn’t the BEST writing I’ve put out but hey, I managed it!

Also on AO3

There were nights Acatl loved. Nights where he could relax with a full belly and a reasonably peaceful heart, where his only major concerns were the day-to-day problems of his temple and any outstanding cases at least didn’t require his personal attention. Nights where he could rest and dream of anything other than blood and death. (And if some of those dreams were of Teomitl’s bright eyes and the curve of his mouth, that was a strictly private matter.)

And then there were nights like this.

He’d been able to sense the change in the air at dawn; as the day wore on, the tension prickling across his scalp and over his skin only worsened. He’d found himself snappish and ill-tempered even with Ichtaca, and had only barely remembered to send a messenger to the palace to let Teomitl know there would be no lessons today. There couldn’t be, with the full moon coming on. At least his order had learned to work around his...condition. Though their High Priest would be indisposed, they could care for the dead just as well without him. Ichtaca had been very firm in making sure he knew that when he’d first been appointed.

(It hadn’t been the most embarrassing conversation of his life, but it was absolutely up there. There just wasn’t a dignified way to discuss an unbreakable curse that put him out of commission every full moon.)

He knew he shouldn’t worry. His priests had matters well in hand, and he’d always maintained enough control over his own mind to ensure he wouldn’t be a physical danger to those around him. Politically...well, that was another matter. He didn’t even want to think about the repercussions for his order if word got out; Acamapichtli would surely love nothing more than to destroy him after what he’d done to Tlaloc. But it would be well. All would be well. All he had to do was stay inside and out of sight until dawn.

As the sun set, he made his preparations. Ichtaca had been by earlier to stockpile plenty of food—duck and rabbit and turkey, venison and the tough flesh of peccaries—so he wouldn’t be half-starved by the time he was done. There was fresh, cold water waiting by his mat, along with thick blankets that he really didn’t need (indeed, the curse always made him run almost painfully hot), but he appreciated the gesture anyway. He’d just lifted his worship-thorns to his ear for his nightly offering to Mictlantecuhtli when he heard something that did not belong in the routine of his cursed full-moon nights.

Someone was coming. For a moment it was almost reassuring—just one of my priests checking on me, I’ll send them away—and then he recognized the footsteps. There was only one person in Tenochtitlan who walked like that, like he was angry at the distance he crossed for separating him from his goal.

He almost couldn’t breathe.

Teomitl.

It was all the warning he had before the entrance curtain jingled with the weight of a hand on it, not yet pushing it aside, and his student’s voice called softly, “Acatl-tzin?”

I have to get him away from here. I can’t let him— “What are you doing here?!” It came out as far more of a snarl than he intended, and if the circumstances hadn’t been so dire he would have felt bad. But his teeth were starting to itch, and that was the first sign.

“One of your priests said you would be indisposed for the next three days. I came to see if there was anything I could do.”

He wasn’t sure which priest he’d sent to the palace; the closer it was to sunset, the harder it was to focus on anything outside of his own body. Suddenly that seemed like a dreadful oversight on his part. Duality, hadn’t they all been warned not to go into details? Or had Teomitl asked, in his usual terribly persuasive way, and had the priest folded like wet paper? He took a deep breath, feeling it rumble through his lungs. His skin felt hot and tight across his back. “No. I am fine—“ A sudden lance of pain scorched through his chest, and he broke off with a cry. “Ah!”

“Acatl-tzin?!”

And then Teomitl was there, in his house, and Acatl couldn’t do anything about it. He was grateful that he was already sitting down; it was easier to breathe as the pain ebbed. When he could think again, he registered that Teomitl was kneeling by his side with warm hands resting on his arms, and his deep brown eyes were very close. “I’m…” He couldn’t even finish the sentence. Like this, it was impossible to lie.

Teomitl’s gaze flickered around the room for a moment before returning to Acatl’s face, eyes dark and serious. “What happened? Should I fetch you a healing priest?”

He closed his eyes. Duality, you won’t leave me alone until I tell you, won’t you? Even though...even though I… Even though he couldn’t bear the thought of Teomitl looking at him with horror and disgust, even though he couldn’t bear the idea of burdening another person—a warrior of imperial blood, no less—with his secret. (Even though a part of him whispered warm and bright in his chest, Maybe it will help. Maybe he will help.)

“Five years ago,” he began, “I fought a shapeshifting sorcerer.” Saying the words brought the events of that night flooding back in a tide of sensation—the brisk night air, the stitch in his side, the blood on his hands and cloak, the savage snapping of teeth in his face. “He was—“ Duality, there had been so much blood. His breath came harsh in his throat, and he knew it wasn’t only due to his own memories. All of a sudden, he hungered. “He took coyote form. To—to hunt. To slay innocents for his own lusts. I slew him, but in his final breath he—cursed—“

Pain stole the words from his throat, and he nearly gagged. Gods, not now. Not now! But there was no stopping it; he barely managed to shove Teomitl away as he collapsed onto his side in the patch of moonlight on his floor, breathing hard. Dimly he heard Teomitl’s shocked cry, but he could find no reassurance to give him. I’m so sorry.

In his more lucid moments, he’d briefly wondered if the sorcerer had suffered through as much pain in his transformations; it wasn’t something Acatl could imagine any sane man choosing. His chest felt as though it’d been hollowed out and filled with fire, the long bones in his legs and feet screaming as they stretched. He could barely feel his face, the pain of a shifting skull and growing jaw simply too much to register. If he’d had any breath, he would have screamed. Next to that, the burning itch of erupting fur was almost pleasant. He clawed off his loincloth frantically, unable to think of modesty past the oversensitivity of his skin. If Teomitl was horrified, he could damn well deal with it.

The agony faded slowly. After long moments during which he counted each heartbeat, he became aware of his own body again. Or rather—his own body, for the duration of each night of the full moon. A man’s torso and arms covered in reddish-gray fur, the head and hindquarters of a giant coyote, hands ending in razor-sharp claws. He licked his lips, tasted blood, and heard his stomach growl.

“...Acatl.” Teomitl’s shaking voice was coming from a spot just within arms’ reach. “Gods. Gods. Is that—are you…?” Words seemed to have failed him.

A sensible man would have run. Acatl, not for the first time, came to the conclusion that Teomitl was anything but. With effort, he nodded. This close, he could smell Teomitl’s skin; if he listened, he could hear his pulse racing hard through his veins.

“Oh, Acatl-tzin.” He didn’t sound terrified. Dismayed, certainly, and perhaps a bit concerned, but not terrified. “Does it hurt?”

He shook his head, taking a deep breath. It was possible to talk in this form, though only with some difficulty. Long words made his tongue hurt. “Not anymore.” After a small eternity, he managed to open his eyes and focus his gaze on Teomitl’s face. He looked smaller like this, more vulnerable. Like prey, whispered his instincts, but he shook the thought away. I am not so much of a beast. And he is strong. It was several more long moments before he could arrange himself into a more or less upright seated position, grabbing at the remains of his loincloth to drape over his lap as his sense of shame reasserted itself.

Someone had to be embarrassed, because Teomitl clearly wasn’t. He was studying him with open curiosity as he moved, head cocked to the side like a bird. Still, he swallowed hard when they made eye contact, and Acatl saw his eyes widen. One hand hovered half-curled in the air, frozen in the middle of reaching for him as he clearly thought better of it. “...Can I...touch you?”

What. But Teomitl was still watching him, and Acatl felt his heart skip a beat. Gods, yes, please. He closed his eyes, barely daring to move, and nodded.

A gentle hand landed on his jaw first, tracing through the thick fur. If it hadn’t been so warm, it might have tickled; as it was, he found himself shivering for an entirely different reason. Teomitl murmured, “Remarkable. Sorcerers don’t usually...leave themselves in this in-between form, do they?” At the minute shake of his head, Teomitl’s fingers tensed. “Thus the curse. Still...Acatl-tzin, I cannot imagine anyone being scared of you like this.”

“...I am a monster.” It slipped out before he could take it back.

“You are not.” Both hands came up on either side of his jaw, cradling his face; he opened his eyes instinctively and found himself meeting Teomitl’s narrowed, serious gaze. “You are Acatl, no matter what form you take.”

He was absurdly grateful to be covered in thick fur. It meant Teomitl couldn’t see how hard he would surely have been blushing if he was in his human skin. “Teomitl…”

Teomitl took a slow breath and dropped his hands. “...I’m sorry. I overstepped.”

Overstepped? It took him a moment to figure out what Teomitl meant, but then he realized. He’s never addressed me like that before. The thought made his heart flop like a landed fish in his chest. Hastily, he shook his head. “No. I—you can say my name. Like that. I don’t...I don’t mind.”

Teomitl’s smile was as slow and radiant as the dawn. “Acatl.” He only hesitated a heartbeat this time before reaching for him again. “Can I…”

His claws dug into his knees, drawing pinpricks of blood, but he nodded. Whatever was between them felt too fragile to disturb with words, but he burned for more—had been burning for more ever since that first proper lesson with Teomitl, where his student had looked up at him and smiled and he’d felt it like lightning in his bones. Duality, let me have this. Even if it kills me, let me have this.

This time, Teomitl’s hands fell to his shoulders. The fur was thinner here and over his torso, no impediment at all to the careful touch tracing wiry muscles and old scars. (He was being so careful—so careful, like Acatl was something rare and precious instead of a beast—but each touch made Acatl’s blood burn anyway.) His voice was warm and assessing, with a smile curving his lips that Acatl was afraid to look too closely at. “Mm...you’re built the same. Larger overall, I think, but the same.”

He huffed out a breath. “Not very...impressive, I know.” Not like Teomitl, whose bare skin was distracting whether it was gilded by sunlight or edged in the glow of the silvery moon. The boy moved like a jaguar, all coiled power and sinuous grace. Even when he was fully human, when a good half of his mind wasn’t taken over by the instincts of the coyote, it was a sight that made him hunger. Xochiquetzal said I’d forgotten what made me alive. Maybe I had. But then, I hadn’t met him yet. Now, it was all he could do to keep his gaze trained on a point just over Teomitl’s left shoulder and his mind on anything but the profound urge to feel hot flesh against his. His pulse thundered under his skin. Though it be jade, it is crushed, as soon as the flowers open they fall...

Then Teomitl slid his hands down over his chest, thumb finding the edge of one nipple hidden under the fur, and all thoughts of hymns and Mictlan flew out of his head. He gasped out loud, snapping his eyes back to Teomitl’s face to find him grinning. “Very impressive to me.”

“Teomitl!” For a small mercy, Teomitl’s hand stilled. Acatl’s heart did not. It was racing, hammering against his ribs so hard it was a wonder they held. He swallowed convulsively past the sudden lump in his throat. He’s so close. So trusting, so...so tender with me. I could—

“It’s true.” Teomitl’s smile turned wicked. “You’re beautiful as a man, you know, but in this form...it’s new. I like new things.”

He thinks I’m beautiful. And he...even in this form he’s...interested. In me, in this most monstrous part of me. His mouth suddenly felt very dry. “Do you, now.”

“Mmm.” Teomitl’s hands slid down lower; it felt natural this time to lean back, shivering, as fingers slid over his flat stomach. The loincloth bunched in his lap was suddenly not nearly enough fabric, not when Teomitl was right there and eyeing him like a feast. “I think I like it a lot.”

He was half hard already; it would take no effort to get the rest of the way there. He’d never looked at himself in this form, but he knew it hadn’t escaped his transformation unscathed—bulbous in some parts, tapered in others, wholly inhuman. And, judging by the hot gleam in his curious eyes, much to Teomitl’s taste. “Ngh. You, uh. You do?”

This time it was Teomitl’s turn to swallow, finally averting his gaze. “Yes.” It was hushed, heated. “Can I—“

“Yes.” He didn’t need to think about it. Anything you want to do. Everything. It’s yours. I’m yours.

Another visible gulp, but then Teomitl’s focus was back on him and he felt heat suffuse his face again. That smile—soft, hopeful, hungry—was entirely too much. “Lay down for me?”

He laid down. It felt strange, honestly; he typically spent his full-moon nights hunched over awkwardly and trying to shrink back into his skin, every moment a prayer for the sun to rise quickly. Being sprawled on his back should have felt vulnerable, and it did, but with Teomitl shifting to kneel between his thighs—gods, there was not enough fabric—it was also making his blood pound. He was powerless to repress the rumble in his throat or the shaky, indrawn breath when Teomitl’s fingers brushed the inside of his hip. “What are you—oh.”

He was bared to the open air, and Teomitl breathed out slowly as he took in the sight. “Oh, very interesting.”

Acatl steeled himself to say something—it’s the mark of a beast, you see the curse couldn’t even leave that alone—but then one calloused hand wrapped stroked around his length from base to tip, and what came out was a shocked, wordless moan.

Teomitl looked distinctly smug. “Hmmm. You are larger in this shape than you are normally. Everywhere. Do you like this?”

“Teomitl—“ He cut off with an embarrassingly needy whine as Teomitl’s grip tightened. “Oh gods…” That wicked hand just wouldn’t stop. His clawed feet dug into the floor under him as he wriggled, seeking more of that friction.

Teomitl stilled his hand. His breath caught in his throat as he shifted, spreading his knees apart, and Acatl only needed to take a breath to smell his arousal. “You do. Duality, you really do.”

I do. I want more. All thoughts of consequences had flown out the window; there was only Teomitl’s hand on his cock, Teomitl’s eyes bright in the darkness. He needed to be closer. Before he could think better of it, he reached out and snagged Teomitl’s cloak to pull him down on top of him; the roughness of his own voice surprised him as he snarled, “I want to touch you.”

Teomitl went willingly, propping himself up on one elbow. In this position they were close enough to kiss if Teomitl felt like braving the fangs; instead of fear or trepidation, his eyes held only the vivid light of desire. He swallowed roughly, rocking his hips forward. If Acatl had had any doubts as to the state of his arousal, they were promptly erased. “You can.”

He shuddered down to his bones. The change in position had left Teomitl’s hand still for the moment, but it was more than pleasure that was coiling through his veins. He wants me. Gods, I still cannot believe… “Even when I’m...like this?” But Teomitl had said he could, and it was impossible to resist; he let his hand drift down over Teomitl’s side to his hip, marveling at how soft the skin felt over such hard muscles.

Teomitl drew back, and for a moment Acatl was afraid he’d misjudged—but then he tilted his head and nuzzled up against his cheek in what was almost a kiss, and Acatl’s heart skipped a beat. “Please.”

Well. Since he’d asked so nicely. He’d never even tried to touch himself in this form—monster hissed the voice in his head whenever he so much as felt a flicker of desire—but now Teomitl was in his arms, warm and solid and alive, and any lingering hints of revulsion were washed away in a tide of desire. It was the work of a moment to tear the loincloth away, fine cotton giving way like paper to his claws and making Teomitl jolt with an eager gasp. Teomitl’s cock was hot and thick in his hand; when he gave it a slow upwards stroke, Teomitl bucked against him with a growl that sent his blood racing again.

“Harder.” Teomitl was working him again, steady though his own hips were rocking roughly into Acatl’s hand; when he shuddered and met his gaze, hazy-eyed, he found himself grabbing for his hip to hold him in place. He’d said harder, after all. And harder was what he got, Acatl stroking him in a rhythm that made him whine. “Nnn...Acatl…”

“Oh,” he breathed out. “You are so good for me.” Teomitl dropped his head against the crook of his neck, burying his face in the thick ruff of fur there; it wasn’t enough to muffle the noise that escaped him, nor the way he arched into Acatl’s grip. He likes that. He—

Then Teomitl was doing something with the angle of his wrist, and his thoughts scattered. There was only the flame heating his blood to an inferno, the pulse of his cock swelling as he approached his release. He wasn’t going to last much longer. “Teomitl—“

The base of his shaft had swelled into a knot; he hadn’t quite realized it at first, but then Teomitl got his hand around it and squeezed and he was coming with a howl. His mind went blank. It was only when the sharp shock of the first peak faded a little and he could think again that he realized Teomitl was still unfulfilled; he pumped his cock faster, and in a few more rough strokes Teomitl was following him over the edge with a hitched gasp.

More. It hit him like a thunderbolt, and his cock pulsed in Teomitl’s hand. Strong fingers rippled around it, and he groaned. It wasn’t enough. It didn’t feel like anything would be enough. He wanted to roll Teomitl over, pin him down, sink in deep. He tried to speak, but only a growl escaped him.

Teomitl’s shaky panting against his neck evened out, and he sucked in a huge breath before letting it out in a sigh. “Gods, you’re still hard. Incredible.”

Words were beyond him. He thrust up into Teomitl’s grip instead, and Teomitl sat up and straddled his thighs so he could put both hands to work. Watching his lover as he pumped one hand over his shaft while the other wrapped nearly all the way around his knot—narrow-eyed, focused, hungry—was almost more than Acatl could bear. Each breath came out in a growl as Teomitl set a pace that left him helpless to do anything but buck into it, half-formed thoughts of more than Teomitl’s hands skittering around the edges of white-hot desire—and then he was coming again, so hard that his vision went white.

For a long moment afterwards, he couldn’t speak. His knot seemed slow to deflate, but it was...enough. For the moment, his desire was sated; he was still twitching, thought he could maybe handle more, but with the edge worn off he could think again. Duality, they’d made a mess. (There might have been less of one if he’d been inside, buried to the hilt, feeling Teomitl hot and tight around him—no. There were limits, surely. Teomitl probably wouldn’t want that.)

Teomitl clearly didn’t care how much of a mess they’d made. He stretched out on top of him, nuzzling at Acatl’s collarbone affectionately. “You feel wonderful.” It came out half-muffled by Acatl’s fur, but he didn’t seem to notice.

He took a deep breath. Hesitantly—even after what they’d just done, it was strange to think he was allowed this intimacy—he slid one arm around Teomitl’s waist and let the other rest at his back, just between his shoulderblades. He could feel each thump of his heart. “...I still cannot believe this appeals to you…”

Teomitl smiled. “Because it’s you.”

He started to respond, unsure of what he was going to say even as he opened his mouth—why or I love you both seemed strong candidates—but the rumbling of his own stomach cut him off, and his ears flattened with shame.

It didn’t help much when Teomitl chuckled. “Hungry, after all that?”

He nodded, feeling his face burn. “It...takes a lot out of me. Changing.” And everything else.

“Hmm.” Slowly, Teomitl pulled away and sat up. There was a clawmark at his hip. “Let’s eat and clean up. And then…” His gaze, drifting around the room, slid back to Acatl with a hopeful gleam. “The night is long, you know. And I’m not especially tired.”

He closed his eyes, letting out a shaky breath. Teomitl was energetic in this, too. “Duality, you are going to kill me.”

“I don’t think so.” He could actually hear Teomitl’s smirk. “You seem to have very impressive stamina in this form.” His voice dropped to a purr. “I’m looking forward to experiencing it later.”

His spent cock gave a hopeful twitch, but then Teomitl was uncovering a tray of roasted venison and he realized he was, in fact, too hungry to give into it just yet. There would be time for such exploration after he’d whetted his appetite.

At least turning back was relatively painless. Of course, he still felt like he’d been flattened under the Great Temple when he woke up, but he always slept through the actual shift. He met the dawn naked, drained, and somewhat sticky, but being in his own skin again was a boon in its own right.

And this time, he wasn’t alone. He felt Teomitl’s presence before he even attained full consciousness; there was a warm arm flung over him, a head tucked into his neck, long legs tangled with his. He blinked awake slowly, unsure of what to do, but Teomitl took choice out of his hands by murmuring, “Good morning,” against his skin.

He shivered in pleasure as the words wafted over him. “Mm. Good morning, Teomitl.”

“I love you.” It was barely audible. “I told you that last night, didn’t I?”

He had. Effusively. Their late dinner had led to careful kisses and thorough, wanton exploration as Teomitl coaxed him into some semblance of comfort with his transformed state; by the time they’d both finally been exhausted, Acatl had been forced to admit that being three-quarters coyote did have some advantages. With his inexperience, he doubted it would have been quite so easy to reduce Teomitl to incoherence in his human skin.

The memory of those sweet moments made Acatl shiver. “I could hear it again.”

Teomitl kissed him. It was better—far better—when they both had human mouths; he could mold to the shape of his lips, tilt his head just so, feel Teomitl sigh and arch slowly against him. One hand slid into his hair, a gentle caress, as Teomitl pulled away to breathe, “I love you. No matter what shape you take.”

“Oh?” Their noses were still brushing, waking a contented glow in his chest and bringing a smile to his face. He suddenly found himself with the urge to tease. “Even when I’m only a very boring priest, and not—hm, how did you put it. Interesting at all?”

“Boring?!”

By the time they finally got around to breaking their fast, he was more than glad his priests didn’t expect much of him while the moon was full. Teomitl was very, very thorough when it came to showing him how much he was loved.

#obsidian and blood #teomitl #acatl #not work safe #teocatl #paladin writes stuff

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notapaladin · 3 years

Text

and this faith is gettin’ heavy (but you know it carries me) - redux

Because I was thinking about this fic and realized it could be BETTER with even MORE angst, pining, love connected to physical hunger, and uh...connective tissue I thought really hard about but didn’t actually write at the time.

Also on AO3, as usual

He’d barely made it out of his courtyard when Acamapichtli strode up to him, face grave underneath his blue and black paint. “Ah, Acatl. I’m glad I could catch you.”

It should have pleased him. Instead, a cold chill slid down his spine. “What are you not telling me? I’ve no time for games.”

“Thank you,” he forced out through numb lips.

Acamapichtli turned away. “...I’m sorry, Acatl.”

After a long, long moment, he made himself start walking again. There was the rest of the army to greet, after all. Even if Teomitl wouldn’t be among them.

Even if he’d never return from war again.

Greeting the army was a ceremony, one he usually took some joy in—it had meant that Teomitl would be home, would be safe, and his sister would be happy. Now it passed in a blue, and he registered absolutely none of it. Someone must have already given the news to Mihmatini when he arrived; she was an utterly silent presence at his side, face pale and lips thin. She wouldn’t cry in public, but he saw the way her eyes glimmered when she blinked. He knew he should offer her comfort, but he couldn’t bring himself to lay a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. If he touched her, if he felt the fabric of her cloak beneath his hand, that meant it was real.

And once they had him, they would sacrifice him.

Somehow, he held it together until after the final course had been cleared away. He rose jerkily to his feet, legs trembling, and fixed his mind firmly on getting home in one piece.

Quenami’s voice stopped him in the next hallway. “Ah, Acatl. A lovely banquet, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t turn around. “Mn.” Go away.

“Mm.”

“Silence.”

Quenami recoiled, jaw going slack in terror. Silently—blessedly, mercifully, infuriatingly silently—he turned on his heel and left.

“...Acatl?”

Mihmatini’s voice, admirably controlled. He made himself lift his head and answer. “In here.”

She tensed immediately, eyes going cold in a way that suggested Quenami had better be a very fast runner indeed. “He would never. You know that.”

Air seemed to be coming a bit easier now. “I do. But…”

Of course, she pounced on his hesitation. “But?”

I want him so badly to not be dead. “Nothing.”

Mihmatini was silent for a while, wringing her hands together. Finally, she spoke. “He would never have deserted. But...Acatl…”

“What?”

Alive. The word was a conch shell in his head, sounding to wake the dawn. For an instant, he let himself imagine it. Teomitl alive, maybe in hiding, maybe trying to find his way home to them.

“It’s—” She scrubbed ineffectually at her eyes with the back of a hand. “It’s possible. Isn’t it?”

“...I suppose.” He took a breath. “I think it’s time for me to get some sleep. I’ll...see you tomorrow.”

He knew he wouldn’t sleep—knew, in fact, that he’d be lucky if he even managed to close his eyes—but he needed to get home. He refused to disgrace himself by weeping in public.

The first dream came a week later.

The next night was worse.

“Teomitl,” he said, and this time his voice obeyed him.

He took one step back. Another.

Teomitl’s smile grew sad, and he reached for him with a bloody hand. “Acatl, I’m sorry.”

But then it returned the next night, and the next. While the details differed—sometimes Teomitl was swimming a river that suddenly turned to blood and dissolved his flesh, sometimes one of his own ahuizotls turned into a jaguar and sprang for his face—the end was always the same. Teomitl dead and still walking, reaching for him with an apology on his lips. Sometimes it even lingered after he woke, clinging stubbornly such that, just for a moment, he thought Teomitl was truly by his side and had a moment’s joy before reality reasserted itself and he remembered with gutwrenching pain that he was alone. Those ones were the worst.

“More fish?”

Neutemoc’s voice was too careful for his liking, but he nodded. Fish was duly set onto his plate, and he ate without really tasting it. He only managed a few bites before he set it aside.

Mihmatini picked at her own dish, and Neutemoc frowned at her. “You’re not hungry?”

She shook her head.

“Aww, Dad...”

Neutemoc gave his eldest the same look his father had once given him. “When you go off to war, Necalli, I will let you listen to all the awful details.”

It was almost enough to make Acatl smile. “Well,” he began, “we’ve been trying to figure out what’s been strangling merchants in the featherworkers’ district…”

When the meal was done, he declined Neutemoc’s offer of a pipe and got to his feet. “I think I’ll get some air.”

The courtyard outside was empty. He lifted his eyes to the heavens, charting the path of the four hundred stars above. Ceyaxochitl’s death hadn’t hit him anywhere near as hard as this, but gods, he thought he could recover if only the people around him stopped coddling him. Everywhere he went there were sympathetic glances and soft words, and even the priests of his own temple were stepping gingerly around him. As though he needed to be treated like...like...

Like a new widow. Like Mihmatini. He sat down hard, feeling like his legs had been cut out from under him. Air seemed to be in short supply, and the gulf in his chest yawned wide.

But I’m not. I care for Teomitl, of course, but it’s not like that. It’s not—

He could. It was easy. He closed his eyes and remembered.

He remembered how it had felt, in that space between dreams and waking, where he’d thought Teomitl was by his side even in Mictlan. Where, for the span of a heartbeat, he’d been happy.

It was like that, after all.

He forced his burning eyes to stay open. If he blinked, if he let his eyes close even for an instant, the tears would fall.

Approaching footsteps made him raise his head. Mihmatini was walking quietly and carefully towards him, as though she didn’t want to disturb him. As though I’m fragile. You too, Mihmatini?

“Ah. There you are.” Even her voice was soft.

He uncurled himself and arranged his limbs into a more dignified position, keeping his fists clenched to stop his hands from trembling. At least when he finally blinked, his eyes were dry. “Hm.”

His dry throat made a clicking noise when he swallowed. “It is.”

“At least we’re both in the same boat,” she murmured.

Her voice lowered even further, so that he had to strain to hear her. There was a faint, sad smile on her face. “You love him just the same as I do, don’t you?”

She lifted her head, and her faint smile grew to something bright and brittle. “Good.”

Good?! He blinked uselessly at her, gaping like a fish before he could find his voice again. “You—you approve?”

“You’re my favorite brother,” she said simply. “And...well.”

She blinked rapidly, fingers going still. She’d traced something that looked, from a certain angle, like a flower glyph. “...He...he loved you, too.”

No.

But Mihmatini was still talking. “He didn’t want me to tell you; he was sure you’d scorn him. But he loved you the same way he loved me...gods, probably more than he loved me.”

It was the last straw. His nails bit into his palms hard enough to draw blood, and he barely recognized his own voice as rage filled it. “Why are you telling me this?!”

He rose on shaking legs. “I think I need to be alone.”

Eventually, when he was spent, he wiped his face and left. It was time to go home.

The rest of the month ground on slowly, and his dreams began to change.

At first they were minor changes—the blood was less vibrant, the forests and plains brighter. Teomitl bled less. Acatl woke without feeling as though the inside of his chest had been hollowed out and replaced with ash. And if that was all, he might have simply thought he was beginning to deal with his sorrow. Such things happened, after all. Eventually the knives scraping away at his chest would lose their edges, and he would face a life without Teomitl’s sunny smile.

“Acatl-tzin,” he whispered into his folded knees. “Acatl, I should have told you.”

“Should have told me what?” he tried to ask, but before he could form the words he woke up. There were tears in his own eyes.

It’s only because I miss him, he told himself. This is grief, that’s all. But there was the smell of smoke clinging to his skin, and a single damp leaf was stuck to the bottom of his bare foot. It hadn’t rained in Tenochtitlan last night. He stared at it for a long time.

“Teomitl!” He hadn’t been mute in his dreams for a while now.

Teomitl didn’t turn. He never turned. But he stopped, and by the way his head tilted Acatl just knew he was smiling. Wordlessly, he pointed at the courtyard ahead.

“Teomitl,” he said helplessly.

“Acatl.” Teomitl’s smile was like the sun. “I’m sorry I made you worry, but I’ll be home soon.”

They came in the form of Ezamahual, rushing out of the temple complex to meet him. “Acatl-tzin! Acatl-tzin, there is wonderful news!”

Briefly, he thought he should have worn the hated regalia. “What news?”

Ezamahual’s words tumbled out in a headlong rush, almost too fast to follow. “The Master of the House of Darts—Teomitl-tzin—he’s returned! Our warriors met him at the city gates!”

Ezamahual looked briefly baffled, but then he nodded. “Of course, Acatl-tzin. It’s like this…”

The latest crop of mysterious deaths turned out to be quite straightforward in the end, once they tracked down their newest lead and had him sing like a bird. He nodded at the appropriate times, sent out a double team of priests after the perpetrators, and had it very nearly wrapped up by lunch. He was settling down with the account ledgers to mark payment of two gold-filled quills to the priests of Mixcoatl for their aid when he heard footsteps outside.

Familiar footsteps.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the tightness in his chest eased. But he didn’t have a chance to revel in it, because he knew the voice calling his name.

“Acatl? Acatl!”

He dropped the ledgers and his pen, getting ink all over his fingers. As the entrance curtain was flung aside in a cacophony of copper bells, he scrambled to his feet. Had he been tired and listless before? It seemed like it was a thousand years ago now. He thought he might weep for the sheer relief of hearing that beloved voice again. “Gods—Teomitl—”

“They told me everyone thought I was dead.” Teomitl bit his lip. “Except for Mihmatini. And you.”

There was the first glimmer of a smile tugging at Teomitl’s lips. “You have such faith in me, Acatl.”

“You’re well deserving of it,” he replied. And I love you, and even in dreams I could not think of any other path than your survival. That, he refused to say.

Especially because Teomitl still wasn’t looking at him.

They stood in agonizing silence, and he couldn’t bring himself to break it. Teomitl was so close, still within arms’ range; if he was brave enough, he could reach out and pull him back into his arms. Could bury his face in his hair and crush the fabric of his cloak in his hands and tell him—what? It didn’t matter what Mihmatini had said to him. There was simply no space for him in the life Teomitl deserved, nothing beyond that Acatl already occupied. He wouldn’t burden him with useless feelings.

But then Teomitl shook himself like an ahuizotl and turned back to him, holding his gaze. “Do you want to know what got me home, Acatl? What sustained me?”

Mutely, he nodded. He still didn’t trust his voice.

“You.”

He felt like he’d been gutted. “I...Teomitl…”

Oh, Teomitl. I could never scorn you. They were very, very close now, and Teomitl’s gaze had fallen to his parted lips. His mouth went dry.

And then Teomitl kissed him.

It started out soft and gentle, lips barely tracing Acatl’s own. Asking permission, he thought with an absurd spike of giddiness—and so, leaning in a little shyly, he gave it.

Teomitl only drew away to breathe, “Gods—I love you—” before claiming his mouth again, as though he couldn’t bear to be apart.

Teomitl jerked back, brow furrowed. “Wait. Mihmatini told you?!”

He was rewarded with a shiver, and the near-panic in Teomitl’s eyes ebbed into something soft. “What did you tell her, Acatl?”

He’d asked. He’d asked, and Acatl had always been honest with him. He’d be honest now, even if it made his heart race and his hands tremble. “That I love you.”

“I don’t want to let you go,” Teomitl whispered. “I never want to let you out of my sight again.”

“Hrmph.” The arms around him tightened in wordless refusal.

He smiled against Teomitl’s hair, and realized as he did so that the unraveling tension in his core had left a void behind. A void that rumbled—loudly—to be filled. His face burned as he murmured, “But first, why don’t we see about lunch?”

Teomitl made an undignified snorting noise. “I have been gone a long time. You’re remembering to eat for once.”

It was the first time since the army’s return that he could remember feeling hungry. He decided not to mention that. To his regret, however, lunch meant that they had to be seen in public, which meant they both had to actually let go of each other. Reluctantly, he began the process of disentangling them; after a significant period of hesitation, Teomitl deigned to help. Even when they were no longer wrapped in each other’s arms, though, he stared at Acatl as though he couldn’t get enough of the sight.

It took longer than Acatl liked for he and Teomitl to be properly alone again. It wasn’t until they were finally ensconced in a small receiving room with a plate of fried newts to share and strict orders not to be disturbed that he could do more than look, but just when he was getting up the nerve to maybe hold Teomitl’s hand his beloved leaned in and kissed him. It was chaste, but it still made him blush.

Teomitl was smiling when he drew back. “I missed doing that.”

An eyebrow went up in stunning imitation of Mihmatini. “And I’ve waited years for even one kiss, Acatl. There’s a backlog to get through, you know.”

The blush had just started to fade, but now it returned with a vengeance. “Years?”

“Mm-hmm.” Teomitl’s eyes gleamed. “I’d like to make up for lost time, if you wouldn’t mind.”

He swallowed hard. He’d wanted to know how Teomitl had survived, how he’d managed to make it all the way back home—the unreal fragments he’d witnessed each night had not been informative—but his questions suddenly didn’t seem that important anymore. “...I would not.”

And so their mouths met. Teomitl’s idea of making up for lost time was long and hungry; Acatl’s lips parted for his tongue almost before he knew what he was doing, and that was still a little strange but far from unwelcome. Especially when Teomitl drew back, mouth wet and red, to catch his lower lip between his teeth in another one of those stinging little nips that made his blood sing. A breathy noise escaped him, but this time Teomitl didn’t soothe it.

Teomitl hummed, low and wordless, and slid a hand down his stomach. Acatl’s fevered blood roared in his ears, and all of a sudden it was almost too much. “Teomitl.”

Teomitl lifted his head, eyes bright. “Mm?”

“You.” He sucked in a breath, willing his heartrate to slow down. “You can’t keep doing that here.”

“You don’t like it?” Teomitl grinned at him. “Or do you like it too much, Acatl?”

“Hrmph,” Teomitl said, and kissed him again. This time it was slow and sweet and came with warm arms sliding around him, and he lingered in it for long, long minutes.

By the time they finally remembered their food, it was stone cold. They ate it anyway; Acatl couldn’t bring himself to care about such a mundane thing as cold food when Teomitl was leaning against him as they ate, with one arm still slung loosely around his waist. Not to mention that he was ravenous after all; he’d heard of love making you too nervous to eat, but loving Teomitl seemed to be different. Having him in his arms, knowing he wasn’t going to leave, knowing he would always be in his heart—it made him feel safe, and so he could enjoy his meal in peace.

When the afternoon light started to turn gold, they reluctantly got to their feet. They stood without touching for a moment that was just long enough to be awkward, and then Teomitl pulled him into a fierce hug. Acatl knew it was coming this time; he marveled at how they just seemed to fit together, with one hand buried in Teomitl’s hair and the other pressed flat between his shoulderblades to feel the steady beat of his heart.

Teomitl took a long, slow breath. “Lunch wasn’t long enough.”

“It wasn’t,” he agreed softly. “But there will be others. Many others.” With Teomitl by his side, he didn’t think he’d ever skip a meal again.

Teomitl’s eyes were fierce as an eagle’s. “And afterwards? Will I see you afterwards, Acatl?”

Acatl flushed, shaking his head. That was a risk he refused to take. “My house. I’ll—I’ll be waiting.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” There was a wild, radiant smile.

He smiled back.

Though he honestly hated the idea of separation too, he knew it would be alright. Teomitl had promised, after all.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #teocatl #mihmatini #quenami #paladin writes stuff

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notapaladin · 3 years

Text

so say you’ll stay with me tonight

Because Acatl deserves to be in love, and I felt like cheering myself up by writing fluffy smut.

Also on AO3!

Tizoc is—regrettably—still Emperor today. Acatl’s trying very hard not to let it bother him, but it’s hard not to when the man is coming up with plans for a grand new renovation of the Great Temple and he doesn’t dare bring up all the excellent magical reasons why it may not be a wonderful idea. (Aside from the risk of exposing Coyolxauhqui’s prison to moonlight if the support scaffolding is driven too deep, all the wards will have to be remade and thousands of sacrifices procured, and there’s always the chance of the boundaries weakening with their largest anchor disrupted. Instead of bringing any of this up, Quenami—whose actual job this is—is smugly thinking only of his own prestige, which doesn’t help either the Fifth World or Acatl’s mood. Acamapichtli, of course, remains just this side of useless.)

Well. He wants Teomitl.

In general he doesn’t want to be alone, but in specific he wants Teomitl—wants to wrap his arms around him, hold him close, kiss that soft and smiling mouth. They haven’t put words on what they are to each other, they’ve made no promises, but Acatl knows his own heart well enough to tell when so, so much of it has been given over to someone else. His (lover? friend?) is somewhere in the palace, but he hasn’t seen him all day and he’s seriously debating the idea of going to look for him. Of finding him wherever he’s been spending his time, pulling him aside, telling him…

I want you.

I missed you.

Come home with me.

The idea of that makes his face heat. They’ve stolen plenty of time together, but never has Teomitl spent the night at his house. (He doesn’t count that time after Axayacatl’s death. He’d been asleep for that, and also still so deep in denial that he wouldn’t have been able to find his way out with a tall ladder.) To do that now would be...well. His eyes have been opened, and he’s fairly sure they wouldn’t be spending too much time sleeping.

“Acatl!”

He jolts; he’s been so lost in thought that he didn’t even hear those impatient, beloved footfalls approaching from behind. Something in his heart clicks and settles into warm contentment as he turns around. “Teomitl,” he says, and adds—because it’s the truth—“I was just thinking about you.”

Teomitl doesn’t quite blush, but his smile goes measurably warmer around the edges. He looks good all in red and white, with gold earflares and a simple gold lip plug that draws Acatl’s eye to the curve of his lower lip. “And I was just looking for you. Are you all done for the day?”

“...Unless some emergency beckons, yes.” He really hopes it doesn’t. Duality, just give him one night.

“I’m glad.” And Teomitl draws closer to walk in step with him, their hands almost brushing. “Heading home?”

He nods, and then takes a breath. “Walk with me?”

Teomitl beams, and somehow he falls even deeper in love. “Of course.”

They’re quiet for a while. Part of him is still on a low boil after spending so much time with Acamapichtli and Quenami, and he doesn’t want to ruin this pleasant stillness by unleashing his fury. Besides, walls in the palace always have ears, and he’s sure it would get back to Tizoc somehow. So instead he walks in silence, feeling the warmth of Teomitl’s body in step with his, and he thinks oh, this is nice. (It could be nicer. They could be holding hands. But they have to be discreet, still, and so he can’t risk it.)

(Gods, he wants to see Teomitl crowned.)

It’s not until they leave the palace that Teomitl says, “So. Tizoc’s still going ahead with his...refurbishment.”

Acatl grimaces. “Indeed.”

“Didn’t listen to any of the reasons why he shouldn’t.”

He bites his lip. “...I…”

Teomitl turns to look at him; at first he’s frowning, but then understanding dawns. “...I see.” He looks like he wants to say something else—probably something angry—but all he does is sigh, shaking his head. “I tried too, you know, but he’s only thinking of his legacy and not what it might do to us. It’s probably for the best that you didn’t say anything; he’d think we were conspiring against him.”

Acatl considers this. Looks at him.

Teomitl looks mildly offended. “I did say I’d give him time.”

“You did.” And he slides his fingers against the back of Teomitl’s hand to show he’s not upset, nor holding a grudge. He’d meant it, after all, when he’d said there was no need for apologies between them. It has the desired effect, because Teomitl’s eyes grow warm and bright.

And then he leans in and murmurs, “Unless you’d rather I not.”

“Teomitl,” he huffs, but he can’t be mad. Teomitl’s smiling, after all, and it’s the one that means he’s not entirely serious—that says yes, he might still kill his own brother on Acatl’s orders, but it’s far more important to him that Acatl has asked him not to. “Please don’t.” After a moment’s thought he adds, “At least warn me and Mihmatini first when you do.”

Now Teomitl’s really smiling, though it’s somewhat rueful. “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything else. You know that.”

“I do.” He angles himself as he walks, so that they’re nearly touching, and lets the tenderness he feels color his voice. I trust your words. I trust you. I know you, my heart. And he’s suddenly more than mildly annoyed that they’re still in the Sacred Precinct, because the way Teomitl looks now—softly pleased, eyes shining—desperately makes him wish he could kiss him right here. If he were braver, he thinks he might even risk it; he knows where the shadows of the temple gates will hide them from prying eyes, and he knows how sweetly Teomitl presses against him when he’s pleased.

Though he says nothing, it must show on his face, because Teomitl takes advantage of the camouflage provided by their billowing cloaks to firmly lace their fingers together. His voice lowers, rich with promise. “We should eat dinner before we reach your place, shouldn’t we? Unless you want to cook. I hope you are; we’ll need our energy.”

He knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s blushing. “I. Um.”

“Well?”

Teomitl smiles at him. “Acatl. You know my feelings on your cooking.”

He finds himself smiling back. “I still think you flatter me far too much.”

Teomitl pokes his side teasingly. “And I think you underestimate the effects of a meal made with care and devotion by a man I trust above all others in the Empire. I’d eat what you made if it came out as charcoal.”

“Well, hopefully this won’t be that bad.” Honesty compels him to add, “It may be a bit spicy. I wasn’t expecting company when I put it all together.”

Teomitl huffs, “I can handle spice!”

He makes a mental note to serve plenty of flatbread on the side.

So when he sets down their bowls, he does. Teomitl promptly blushes, which is so terribly endearing that Acatl has to kiss him again. On the mouth this time, which turns long and lingering before Teomitl slowly pulls away. “Mmhm. Not that I’m complaining, but what prompted this?”

Teomitl presses a kiss to his cheek, which makes him blush in turn, but then he’s applying himself to his dinner. Acatl waits as he takes the first spoonful.

“Mm.” He thinks briefly of seeing whether there’s anything else he could serve, but he knows Teomitl will turn it down. Even now, his lover thinks his own limits are mere suggestions.

The sun is setting, bathing them in twilight. Their bowls are scraped clean, even Teomitl’s. (With the aid, Acatl can’t help but notice, of several cups of water and all of the flatbread.) Teomitl himself is resting his head on his shoulder, looking utterly content with his lot in life. Warm, calloused fingers are tracing slow circles on his thigh. Even the air feels peaceful, with just enough of a breeze to keep them cool but not enough to raise the dust. As Acatl takes a deep breath, he realizes he’s not afraid. Maybe he should be—maybe this is too much, he’s moving too quickly—but he isn’t. Not with his man by his side.

“I love you,” he whispers, and it comes out so quietly that at first he doesn’t think Teomitl’s heard him.

Then Teomitl smiles, soft as the dawn, and breathes, “I love you, too.”

Then they’re kissing again, and this time it’s much less sweet. There is some restraint—while Teomitl’s not precisely shy, he’s well aware of Acatl’s vows—but it’s the easiest and most natural thing in the world to be tumbled backwards on the mat, to have strong hands buried in his hair, to feel the heat and the faintest suggestion of teeth in each press of Teomitl’s mouth down his throat. And yet, for all that, there’s still a gentleness to it, because he’s loved. And better than that, he’s respected. If he asked Teomitl to stop, he knows he would.

He doesn’t think he’s going to ask Teomitl to stop. He arches into another kiss, letting his head fall back, and breathes, “We should...nnh…” Words fail him, because there’s a featherlight press of lips to his collarbone and it’s a lovely little spark of pleasure.

“Mm?”

He shivers in anticipation, seeing the warmth in his lover’s eyes. “Let’s go inside.” He swallows. “If you want to continue this.”

Teomitl pulls back a little to look at him. The smile on his face turns teasing. “Oh, I do. But it’s getting late, and you should sleep.”

Teomitl grins, all wicked hope. “Want me to help you with that?”

He sucks in a breath. I took vows, comes his first thought. But it’s followed fast by a second, stronger one—I don’t care. So instead of answering in words, he pulls Teomitl into a hungry, searing kiss.

Then there are warm, calloused fingers trailing down his chest, and he can’t quite muster up the ability to feel smug anymore when they find one nipple and start toying with it. “Oh, gods,” he gasps—he hadn’t thought he’d be sensitive there, but Teomitl is very effectively proving him wrong. He’s been half-hard since the moment his loincloth hit the floor, and Teomitl’s hands are getting him the rest of the way there. It’s even better when Teomitl moves to straddle him, half so they can grind against each other and half so his free hand can skate down the plane of his stomach.

“Flatterer...mmm…” That one hand is sliding lower, shameless, and he wriggles a little to press their cocks together. He wishes again for light, but smoothing his hands over the solid muscles of his lover’s back and down over his frankly glorious ass will have to do. Teomitl must enjoy it, because his whole body trembles—and then Acatl’s being kissed, long and slow, and he arches with an utterly wanton groan.

“Love you,” Teomitl breathes when they pull apart. “Tell me how you want me to please you.” Acatl has to blush a little at that—it’s hardly as though Teomitl ought to need instruction, when he’s so hard against him—but well, he is asking. He’s owed an answer.

Still, saying it out loud makes him squirm. “...Touch me.” He rolls his hips, and his lover’s eyes spark fire. He doesn’t need to say anything else; Teomitl takes him in hand, and the friction that had been merely good builds into something he can fall into, something that sends pleasure coiling through his veins.

“Have to feel you,” he pants. All that stroking had been pleasurable, yes, but he needs to feel it properly when Teomitl falls apart against him, under his hand, sliding past his own cock with each thrust. He wonders, briefly, how it would feel with Teomitl inside him—but then Teomitl’s hand leaves his shaft to slide lower, and the first purposeful caress to his balls makes him whine.

“Hah.” It’s more of a gasp than anything else; even the attempt at a self-satisfied smirk is erased in the next instant, because Acatl leans in to nip at his throat and grinds his hips up, a firm stroke making their cocks pulse in his grip. “Gods, keep doing that—”

“Mmm,” he hums against his lover’s skin. “Is this how you like it?” There aren’t words for the feelings coursing through him, lust and the mounting lightning of his own pleasure mingling with a fierce joy that he’s the one doing this for Teomitl, that it’s his mouth and hands that are pulling such sweet sounds from his lover. A little more, he thinks. A little more. I need to see your face.

“That’s it,” Teomitl breathes, and if it wasn’t so awestruck it would be a royal order. It feels like a royal order, feels like the words of the gods themselves when he growls, “Come for me, Acatl-tzin.”

“...Duality,” he manages breathlessly. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this, but thank You. Thank You for this gift.

“We made a mess,” Teomitl murmurs—and then, with a downright wicked smirk, drags his fingers through it and slowly licks them clean.

“You taste good.” It’s almost—almost—innocent.

He draws in a shuddering breath. “I need to recover, damn you. Give me a moment before you do things like that!”

“I just wanted to clean us up, but you’re right.” Teomitl kisses him again, slowly, and he can taste himself on his lips. “I won’t tease, love.”

Teomitl’s arms loosen. “I…” he begins.

He knows what Teomitl’s going to say—I should go, I shouldn’t be here in the morning. He knows he’s not going to let that happen. Not after the night they’ve shared; not after the love they’ve shared. “Stay.”

Teomitl stays.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #teocatl #not work safe #paladin writes stuff

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notapaladin · 3 years

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burn your kingdom down

me: i wrote something with teomitl losing his shit when acatl was killed, let’s have it the other way around this time!

me, 10k words later: oops

tl;dr: Dealing with Tezcatlipoca a second time (see Obsidian Shards) is bad enough, but then...oh, then the Smoking Mirror decides to pay back His personal grudge, and Acatl gets to show him why you don’t ever mess with a High Priest for the Dead. And why you especially don’t do that by threatening Teomitl’s life in front of him. There’s some gore in this!

Also on AO3!

Acatl probably should have remained on his guard, but the Empire had finally seemed to be stabilizing itself. Of course he could still feel the boundaries straining around Tizoc’s existence, and of course there was still the terrible fallout of the plague to deal with—nobody in his order had been getting enough sleep, and Ichtaca had outright threatened to hand him over to Mihmatini if he didn’t take better care of himself—but aside from that, there had been no outstanding supernatural cases for him to concern himself with in months. He’d even had time for semi-regular meals at Neutemoc’s house.

And then, naturally, the first bodies started turning up outside the palace, and it all started going downhill from there.

One dead man was bad enough. Two was a pattern. By the time Acatl was summoned to examine the corpse of the third one, still without anything he was comfortable calling a lead, he was starting to get annoyed. In all three the circumstances had been the same—there would be a disused alley or an empty courtyard, clear one moment and hosting a fresh corpse the next. Each one had been left closer and closer to the palace walls, an obvious warning. No—an obvious threat.

At least nobody had disturbed this one yet. The setting sun bathed the courtyard in long shadows, forcing him to work by torchlight, but the magical traces were clear.

“Same as the rest?”

Teomitl stood in the entrance, arms folded across his chest. He’d found the first body and hadn’t stopped scowling since. It only softened slightly when their eyes met, which was something Acatl was not going to think about. Not with murders to solve, at any rate.

He’d long since dropped to both knees for a better look at the latest victim; now he stretched, rolling his shoulders back and wincing at the crack of cartilage. Maybe Teomitl’s on to something with the training regime. Or maybe I’m getting old. “Mm. Strangled, and the heart carved out. And the magic surrounding the corpse isn’t from the underworld.” Still, it felt horribly familiar, and he frowned down at the exposed chest cavity. The knife that had been used to open it had left a shard behind smaller than his littlest fingernail; as he plucked it out, a greasy shimmer caught the light. Not Mictlan’s green, but close.

Teomitl nodded, grimacing. “Tizoc is getting impatient.”

The mental image of Tizoc’s impatience pulled an instinctive growl from his throat as he rolled to his feet, gingerly holding the obsidian shard. While he and Acamapichtli still weren’t what he’d call friends—lately the man had taken to asking after Teomitl’s health in a distinctly insinuating way that made him want to hit something—he remembered Tlaloc’s slain clergy whenever they met, and every time it sent a hot spike of treasonous anger through him. “Hrmph.”

Judging by the look on his face, Teomitl was thinking along the same lines. “And we still don’t know enough to satisfy him. I’ll try to delay him as much as I can, but he’ll want answers.” Then he sighed, eyeing the dead man. “I think I would have preferred a beast of shadows. At least you could track those.”

“I’m not eager to fight another one of those things.” The memories of the last time were entirely too clear for comfort. “Bring that torch closer?”

Teomitl obligingly held the torch closer, frowning over Acatl’s shoulder as he prodded at the knife shard with his priest-senses. Definitely not underworld magic, but I’ve felt this before. I know I have. But where—

He fumbled it, and Teomitl slid a hand under his to catch it before it hit the ground. The reaction as it struck the web of Huitzilopochtli’s protection layered over his skin was immediate; Teomitl hissed through gritted teeth at the flareup of light, and Acatl snatched it back hastily. It had left a red mark behind.

All at once, Acatl remembered where he’d felt this particular magic before. No. Duality preserve us, not again. But Teomitl’s fingers were shaking, and that demanded his attention first. “Are you alright?”

Teomitl glared viciously at his own hand as though it had betrayed him. “I’m fine. What is that thing?”

“A knife shard.” Memories painted themselves across his mind—a bloodstained courtyard in Colhuacan, Ceyaxochitl nearly dying in front of him, striking down a god with the Wind of Knives at his back. “Covered in Tezcatlipoca’s magic.”

For a moment, Teomitl was silent. Acatl wondered what he was thinking; he’d told him and Mihmatini about that particular case once over dinner, but where Mihmatini had been upset at how close he’d come to death, Teomitl had just gone quiet. It was the same sort of quiet he saw in his face now. Then he took a slow breath and squared his shoulders, and Acatl watched as the youth he’d once mentored—the youth he’d once feared would be reckless and uncontrollable and a perfect mirror of Tizoc—became the Master of the House of Darts. “Right. You have our permission,”—he used the royal we, that marker of his status as the keeper of Tenochtitlan’s armory—”to do whatever you have to in order to catch the dog’s son who’s been doing this. I’ll see that you have every resource at our disposal. But you’re not to go off after him alone, understand?”

Acatl blinked, taken aback by the vehemence in his tone. “I wasn’t planning to.”

Teomitl studied the mark on his hand as though it was the most fascinating thing in the world. “Good. I just...I don’t want you to forget you’re not just a simple priest anymore, Acatl. You shouldn’t be charging into things on your own.”

He’d heard Teomitl speak with that tone of angry concern before, but never with so much softness mixed in. And never while saying his name like that. His face burned, and he had to look away. “I won’t. I’ll—I’ll call for you before I make a move, alright?”

“See that you do.”

Acatl was spared from answering by the arrival of his clergy ready to take in the body for further examination, and by the time he looked up again Teomitl was gone.

Things moved very quickly after that.

Yes, the knife shard was definitely impregnated with Tezcatlipoca’s power. No, His priests had no idea where it could have come from and were downright insulted by the notion that it could have been one of them, suggesting it was a rogue sorcerer—which didn’t narrow it down in the slightest. No, nobody knew the dead man; like the others, he’d been a recent arrival to Tenochtitlan, a porter with no connections in the city or anyone who could have wished him harm. The merchant who’d most recently hired him barely even remembered his name.

Acatl did, though. He made sure of it. Quiahuitl, age around thirty-five, born in Tlacopan. No living relatives aside from an elderly aunt, also in Tlacopan, who would probably never know of her nephew’s murder. When he heard that, he thought of his own nieces and nephews and had to take a moment to breathe. I’ll give you justice. I swear. Calling up his soul for answers only gave them a vague direction within the city—south—and no further leads.

But Teomitl was as good as his word, and that helped immensely. In the days following his discovery of the shard, Acatl grew used to at least one seasoned warrior hovering around the gates of his temple; evidently Teomitl had ordered them to put themselves at his disposal, and though he was leery of pushing their loyalty too far he had to admit it was wonderful having extra sets of legs with which to cover ground. Teomitl himself showed up two days into their investigation to see how they were progressing.

...And also, apparently, to ensure Acatl remembered to eat food and catch more than three hours of sleep, which he snapped out in a huff and followed up with “Mihmatini worries about you.” It didn’t in any way detract from the way he was blushing. Acatl ate the meal he’d brought over and tried very, very hard not to think about that.

Mostly he succeeded. There was work to do, after all. Still, he had to sleep, and while his body was exhausted his mind began to race as soon as he laid down. Teomitl was fitting into his role as though it was made for him, arrogance polishing itself into steady authority and his usual impatience visibly kept in check. The more Acatl watched him with his warriors, the more he could hardly believe he’d had a hand in shaping him into the man he’d become. There’d been a moment, backlit by the sun, where he’d looked at him and nearly been bowled over by the depth of his pride.

But it wasn’t pride that kept him awake. He stared up at the dark ceiling without seeing it, because his mind’s eye was full of the long line of Teomitl’s spine, the rippling muscles of his arms and shoulders, the radiance of his smile. His fingers twitched with the remembrance of how badly he’d wanted to take Teomitl’s hand in his. Ah. I still love him.

Looking back, he couldn’t tell when it had begun; it seemed he’d simply woken up one day with the knowledge sitting in his heart like a hot cinder. The sky was blue. Water was wet. He, High Priest for the Dead, was in love with Teomitl. As much as he intended to go on ignoring it—Teomitl was not his to want for so many different reasons, not to mention that there was surely no way under the heavens the man would want him in return—it had a terrible tendency to resurface at the worst moments.

He closed his eyes. It didn’t help. We have a sorcerer to catch. I have murders to stop. This...I cannot be distracted by my feelings. It’s not as though I can ever tell him—gods, he’d probably never speak to me again. I have to forget about this.

Eventually, mind still full, he drifted off to sleep.

Of all people, it was Ezamahual who followed the traces of magic to a merchant’s warehouse in Zoquipan. The trail was old—whatever spells had been wrought there had begun to fade—but there was enough for a connection, and after a long night of questioning the people living around it, preparations begun. Its neighbors were all ordinary people with no magical training, but they were entirely forthcoming with what little they’d noticed. There had been tendrils of dark smoke in the air, a chill breeze coming from odd angles, men in plain cloaks slipping into the building in the dead of night when they all knew that the merchant who owned it had been away on business for nearly a year.

Acatl had made a promise to Teomitl, and he didn’t intend to break it. He sent word to the palace.

“We’re ready.”

Since you’re so determined to worry over me, he didn’t say. More and more, he was starting to wonder if the stories he’d shared of his cases before becoming High Priest had actually upset the man. It didn’t seem possible. Teomitl was a seasoned warrior who took enough risks with his own life; surely the idea of Acatl wading into danger wouldn’t affect him so.

He didn’t have much time to ponder it, though, because Teomitl arrived at the head of a small group of warriors barely an hour later. He looked just as resplendent in an ordinary warrior’s padded cotton tunic as he did in the full regalia of the Frightful Specter, and Acatl had a hard time tearing his eyes away. It was worse when he looked over Acatl’s assembled priests and flashed a thin blade of a smile. “Let’s go.”

They went.

Boats might have been faster, but the risk of alerting their quarry wasn’t one Acatl was willing to take. They strode through the city at a measured pace, and he found his gaze lingering on Teomitl’s back. The last time he’d been in Zoquipan…

“He’s mine. Aren’t you, Acatl-tzin?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, shuddering at that memory. He’d forgiven Teomitl, but it was impossible for him to ever forget the sick anger and the fear that had nearly choked him that day. He sent a brief prayer of thanks to the Duality that Chalchiuhnenetl had been effectively banished; Teomitl had informed him in a carefully neutral tone that she was living in Coyoacan now, about as far as you could get from anything and still be technically within city limits. She wouldn’t be breathing any more poison into Teomitl’s ear, and Teomitl had grown past any urges to listen to it. That, at least, would no longer be a problem.

But it was still a distraction, one he didn’t need. He grit his teeth and banished it from his mind. No. I have to focus. The warehouse should be around here.

The buildings grew smaller and more densely packed as they walked, their frescoes less and less elaborate until they finally started to fade out entirely. There was something unsettling about all that blank white adobe, bare of even the shadow of paint. He tried not to let his gaze linger on it for too long. The people, too, seemed faded—not precisely shabby, for this wasn’t a poor part of town, but worn-out and too careful. Old, beaten dogs, he thought. He wondered what else their quarry might have done.

“Hm.” Teomitl had fallen back to walk next to him, and was eyeing the area critically. He’d accepted a sword crafted of proper magical obsidian for this mission; now he rested a hand on its hilt as though contemplating when to lift it. “Does this place feel odd to you?”

Since he’d been trying to get his shoulders to unhunch themselves from up around his ears for the past quarter-hour—despite knowing that he’d dealt with Tezcatlipoca’s creatures before, his body was having other ideas and seemed determined to ring the alarum bells—he grimaced at the question. “It does. What are you thinking?”

“...That this area shouldn’t be this…” He waved a frustrated hand. “Dark. It feels dark. I don’t like it.”

He nodded. “How does your magic feel?”

Teomitl closed his eyes on a slow exhale. When he opened them again, jade reflections swam in his pupils for an instant before vanishing. “It doesn’t feel as though there’s been a curse or anything cast recently, but…”

Just to be sure, Acatl cut his own earlobes and whispered the words of a spell. Nothing. They were still walking down the same quiet street with warriors and priests surrounding them in a tight formation, Teomitl all jade-green brilliance by his side. “I don’t see anything. Stay on your guard.”

Teomitl snorted. “As though I’ve been off it since we got here?”

“You’re not the only one who worries,” he snapped without thinking. He regretted it almost immediately; an argument at this stage would be the farthest thing from helpful, and there was little Teomitl hated more than being an object of concern.

But Teomitl—for once—wasn’t arguing. He turned his face away, but not before Acatl caught the faint tinge of red in his cheeks. “Hrmph.”

He pinched his ears to stop the flow of blood. It was that or give into the sudden, absurd desire to swipe a thumb across one of those high cheekbones and see just how hard that made Teomitl blush. Sternly, he banished the thoughts from his mind. He’d probably take my hand off for the insolence, and I’d deserve it. I don’t have the right.

After a long moment, Teomitl spoke again. “...It wasn’t like this before. I’m sure of it.”

“Oh?”

Teomitl’s gaze slid over the entrances of houses and his warriors’ faces with the same coldness. He didn’t look in Acatl’s direction. “Chalchiuhnenetl wouldn’t have tolerated a thing like this in her domain. Her departure must have created a space for these bastards to flourish.”

He took a breath. “...Do you regret—“

“No.” It came out in a near-snarl. “I only wish I could have removed her from the Fifth World altogether.”

Then he did turn his face back towards Acatl, and Acatl’s breath caught at the look in his eye. He’d seen Teomitl furious, of course, but not like this. Not accompanied by so much self-recriminating guilt, as though by failing his own high standards he’d failed Acatl too. It made something twinge hard in his chest. “...Teomitl…”

Teomitl stiffened, shaking his head. “Never mind. We need to keep moving. You said it’s not far?” At Acatl’s nod, he switched to his usual impatient stride.

Acatl kept pace, unable to stop himself from glancing at Teomitl out of the corner of his eye. Teomitl’s spine was rigid and his muscles tense; he wanted, desperately, to take his hand. He settled for brushing against his arm as they walked, resolutely closing his mind to all acknowledgment of the way Teomitl shivered at the touch. It meant nothing. For his own sanity, he had to believe it meant nothing.

Then another two warriors slipped out of a side street with a nod at Teomitl, falling into step with them as they turned a corner. He knew they were close. As they continued, a ripple of alertness ran through his priests; he felt his own blood turn to ice as a yawning cavern opened in his gut.

“Acatl-tzin?” One of his newer priests drew close, biting his lip.

He set his hands on his knives, feeling the staccato beat of wrong wrong wrong pulse through him. Even his previous encounter with Tezcatlipoca hadn’t made him feel quite this ill, and he willed himself not to retch. The raw emptiness of Mictlan didn’t help much. “We move in. Quietly.” Gods, I hope we’re not too late. The previous murders had all been roughly two weeks apart, but it wasn’t impossible that the perpetrator had decided to speed things up, especially if they felt threatened. And it had taken only four deaths last time for Tezcatlipoca to be summoned into the world.

It’s not the same. He breathed out slowly, seeking calm. All the victims last time had obsidian mirror shards in their hearts, and it looked from the outside as though their hearts had simply given out. These men were strangled, their hearts torn out—it’s not an overreaching god trying to meddle in the Fifth World. No, these deaths were by mortal hands, and mortal hands will avenge them.

They made it within sight of the building—small and nondescript, no windows, exactly the same as every other building on the street—when he felt the tension in the air snap.

He reeled. Around him he was vaguely aware of his priests crying out, heard the confused mutters of Teomitl’s warriors, but he couldn’t respond. All within him was a howling abyss, a screaming tempest that filled his nose with the stench of a thousand funeral pyres and scorched his lungs when he tried to breathe. He dropped to his knees and felt pain radiate up his legs from the impact with the packed earth, but the choked-off scream that gurgled out of his throat had nothing to do with any bodily injury.

Chaos. This is— He blinked frantically, but his eyes refused to focus. Black spots danced at the edges of his blurry vision, and for a terrible moment he thought he was going to faint.

“Acatl?!”

Teomitl, frantic. He dimly registered strong, calloused hands on his shoulders, but he couldn’t make his own hands work long enough to do anything about them.

“Something’s happened,” he gasped.

Teomitl’s hands left him. He didn’t shout, but the clear authority in his voice must have gotten everyone’s attention anyway, because the noise around them abated. “Stop.”

“Acatl-tzin, are you—“

He forced himself upright on shaky legs, breathing hard. Slowly his vision cleared, and he became aware that his priests, though shaken, hadn’t been affected nearly as badly as he had. There was the occasional magical downside to being a High Priest. “I’m fine. Let’s keep moving.”

Teomitl hadn’t gone far, and now he studied him thoughtfully for a long moment. Finally, he nodded and turned to address his warriors. “You heard Acatl-tzin. Be ready for anything.”

They advanced as a loose unit. Acatl saw hands resting on sword hilts, noticed the way a few of the other priests were nervously hefting their knives.

As they drew closer to the building, he could taste the magic; it hung thick and acrid on his tongue. Pyres. The smoke of an erupting volcano. The blood of jaguars. Obsidian, heated until it melts and then reshaped into—into—gods, no—

He broke into a run.

Of course, the warriors all outpaced him immediately, but he and his priests formed a tight knot hard on their heels. They burst into the warehouse nearly at the same time; he almost ran right into Teomitl’s back when the man stopped suddenly, staring into the dark room beyond. “Southern Hummingbird blind me.”

Then he stepped aside so the rest of them could enter, and Acatl was hard-pressed not to echo him. We’re too late. Duality strike me down for a fool, we’re too late.

The warehouse itself was empty; whatever had been stored there had long since been moved out. In its place, someone had traced a quincunx and glyphs that covered nearly the entire floor, fresh blood covering the old ones until Acatl couldn’t tell what they’d been originally. Sloppy, mused the analytical part of his brain. Or else each ritual was only intended for a single use. He couldn’t tell immediately if all the blood used had been human; if so, it represented far more than the three dead men they’d found.

No, he corrected himself. The four dead men they’d found.

The last one was on the opposite end of the room outside of the array; he had been laid on a curved stone, the better to pull out his heart. Acatl skirted the edges of the room carefully to take a closer look, aware all the time of Teomitl behind him.

The dead man’s blood was still steaming. He knew what he would feel when he touched the skin, but he did it anyway. He needed only a brief moment to confirm his suspicions. “He’s still warm. This happened a few minutes ago, at most.”

One of the priests tilted his head back to glare up at the opening in the roof as though it would provide answers. “Nobody’s here. Surely we should have seen it if they’d climbed out?”

A burly warrior swore and snarled, “We’ve been watching the area all day; nobody’s left!”

Teomitl raised his voice. “Search everywhere—“

Something covered the skylight, and they were plunged into darkness so absolute that Acatl couldn’t even see his own hand in front of his face.

No. Oh, no.

He didn’t dare move. From the noises around him, the rest of their forces weren’t following suit; he heard thuds and curses and a distinct grumble of “That was my foot, Chimalli!” He wondered how they were even finding the words to complain. His own tongue seemed to have been frozen to the roof of his mouth, and he could no more have spoken than he could have sprouted wings.

The air stung his eyes. He blinked, breathed in, and tasted smoke again. Slowly, he regained control of his tongue. “Move towards the entrance. Whatever’s coming, we don’t want to be trapped in here with i—“

A frigid tide of magic knocked him off his feet and sent him crashing hard, back-first, into a rough adobe wall. He curled instinctively to protect his head, but it still rattled him; when he could think again, he registered the burn of scraped skin and a distinct throbbing ache that would no doubt be a spectacular bruise tomorrow. Teomitl. He was next to me. Where…?

He opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn’t.

The dead man was sitting up. The smoke and darkness that had filled the room had been wrapped around his limbs; Acatl saw the shadows of a jaguar headdress, the crumbling remains of a shinbone and foot wrapped in something like the ghost of obsidian, and felt his insides turn to ice. Around him, the warriors and priests they’d gathered had been flattened to the ground in groaning agony; those who had been furthest from the epicenter were staggering painfully to their feet. None of them had been able to reach their weapons yet. Teomitl had been flung into the opposite wall, and from the way he was favoring one hand Acatl prayed he hadn’t injured something.

It seemed to take an eternity for him to stand and draw his knives. By the time he managed it, Tezcatlipoca had swung His legs down off the sacrifice stone and was looking over the assembled warriors with the air of a nobleman inspecting a merchant’s stall and finding only shoddy goods. “So this is how I am greeted?”

“No.” It was too soft, and he lifted his voice. He couldn’t draw enough breath to scream. “No.”

The god turned slowly, head tilted. The empty space where His heart had been shone green and horrible. “Oh,” Tezcatlipoca said with a rictus grin. “Little Acatl. I remember you.”

It hurt to breathe. He sucked in air anyway. “Then you remember what happened last time, my lord. Let the man go, and return to your place in the heavens.”

“...Hmmm.” Tezcatlipoca’s grin didn’t budge. “I don’t think so. This world deserves a new order.”

Then he opened his arms, and the array flared to life.

The surge of magic brought Acatl to his knees, but that probably saved his life; when the first ashen jaguar leapt from the quincunx, its spots black voids, he was able to dodge its first swipe and slice sideways at its paw, pinning it to the ground and buying himself just enough time to scramble out of range.

Some of his priests weren’t so lucky. He heard screaming, felt the bursts of magical protections activating and living blood hitting the edges of obsidian knives, but he didn’t have time to look. The jaguar still had a second front paw and a set of enormous fangs, and it was doing its best to rip itself free for another try at him.

An arm landed nearly at his feet. One of the screaming voices cut off with a horribly final gurgle. He dropped to one knee again, discovered to his considerable relief that Tezcatlipoca’s jaguars did die when they were stabbed in the throat with magical obsidian, and risked the briefest of glances to see how the battle was going.

It was chaos.

All around him men were fighting for their lives; the jaguars outnumbered them two to one, and though they died like any animal they seemed to get stronger as more blood was spilled. With a spike of horror, he saw one flow around a sword-strike, rippling like water, and savage the warrior holding it. The last time any of his priests had been in battle like this had been when Tlaloc had made his bid for the Fifth World, but the same tactics that had served them well against Tlaloc’s creatures weren’t working nearly as well here. The air was full of a choking miasma that weighed on the limbs, making it hard even for Acatl to breathe; he wasn’t sure how the rest of them were managing.

Teomitl, at least, had had the presence of mind to summon his ahuizotls. He fought surrounded by them, jade-carved and glorious, adding algae and deep water to the stench in the air, and for a moment Acatl had hope. It lasted until a jaguar bit one of his ahuizotl’s heads off, and the magical backlash dropped Teomitl to a knee just in time to grapple with it.

I have to fight. I have to… But there wasn’t enough clear space anywhere for a quincunx, and some effect of Tezcatlipoca’s incarnation seemed to be slowing his thoughts. The god himself was lounging on His sacrificial stone as though it were a throne, watching the battle with undisguised glee, and Acatl hated Him. With effort, he rose and took a step forward.

The wind blowing through his soul rose to a mourning wail, and he gasped at the chill that seized his bones—but when a lament sounded in his mind, he could have wept in relief.

Acatl. I am coming.

He didn’t think he’d ever been so glad to hear the Wind of Knives. We took Him down once. We can do it again.

He flung himself into the fray. All else faded but the need to keep moving, to keep his allies safe. Lord Death’s protection flowed over him like a veil—meager in the face of so many jaguars, but the cold pit of despair under his ribs kept him alert and went some way towards clearing his mind of Tezcatlipoca’s smoke. It, and his knives, would have to be enough to hold them until the Wind of Knives arrived from His cenote. He slit the throat of one jaguar, narrowly dodged the grasping claws of another, and nearly collided with a priest clutching the stump of his arm as the life faded from his eyes.

We’re losing ground. A coil of intestines wrapped around his ankle, and he nearly stumbled before catching himself and turning it into a swipe along the ribcage of a jaguar trying to maul one of Teomitl’s warriors. The man barely had a moment to catch his breath before he was screaming, choked and awful, as another one latched its jaws around his neck.

Another scream cut off behind him. He whirled to meet a jaguar, its jaws bloody, only to recoil as an ahuizotl literally dragged it backwards and went for its eyes. Thank you, Teomitl. But there was another to replace it, and as he fought for his life he heard—felt—a warrior die. A priest was next. Another warrior, this one collapsing in front of him with his face gone.

He sucked in a breath and clamped it behind his teeth before it could escape in a scream of pure rage. No.

He forced himself towards Tezcatlipoca, shutting his ears to the sounds of men dying around him. If I kill him, this ends. He could feel the Wind of Knives drawing ever closer, and when He arrived the tables would turn. They could hold out until then. He was sure of it. He lost a knife in a jaguar’s ribs, picked up a sword from a fallen warrior’s hands and swung blindly, savagely, at anything in his way until it splintered—and he didn’t look behind him or around him, because if he let himself be distracted then all was lost. He just had to get into position for when the Wind of Knives arrived...

It was growing horribly silent. The god was watching the carnage avidly, giggling to Himself as blood splattered the floor—but then His gaze fell on Acatl, and He frowned thoughtfully.

“Hmm...I think not.”

A jaguar bore him to the ground, and he screamed as its claws raked his back. Pinned on his stomach, he couldn’t even twist out of its hold. This is it. He couldn’t breathe. He knew, with distant clarity, that a rib had been broken. Cold, stinging smoke blew over the back of his neck. This is where I die.

“Acatl!”

Jade Skirt’s magic like a flood washing over him. A crunch—the jaguar went limp, heavy dead weight for a moment before dissipating into smoke—and then, before he could even rise, a scream. Teomitl’s scream, raw with pain. A wet thud.

He was on his feet before he even realized he was moving, utterly blind to the searing agony radiating from his ribs through every limb. All the men they’d brought with them were dead or dying, and Teomitl was crumpled on the ground with a jaguar’s bloody claws in his chest. His tunic had been ripped apart, loose fabric dyed crimson with his blood; Acatl couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not.

“Teomitl.” It came out in a flayed whisper.

Teomitl made a sound. It was more of a gurgle than anything else, but it meant he was alive. Barely. Acatl could see the dull gleam of exposed bone and knew that they were out of time. That they wouldn’t be able to stall until the Wind of Knives arrived, because unless Teomitl saw a healer—and gods, he was trying to move, he’d only bleed out faster—he was going to die. That he’d cared for him in a thousand small ways, had made a home for himself in his heart, had just saved his life, and he was bleeding out in front of Acatl’s eyes.

Red rage descended over him, and he lunged for Tezcatlipoca.

The likelihood of his own death, any possible strategy—it all vanished from his mind. All he could think about, all that mattered, was sending Tezcatlipoca back to His place in the heavens as swiftly and as violently as possible. You hurt him. You dared—you dared lay your hands upon—

The raw scream that burst from his throat was cut short when Tezcatlipoca grabbed his arm, His touch like being flayed with dull knives, and tossed him aside like a ragdoll. Acatl hit the ground and rolled, landing hard on his side; all he could do was lay there, stunned, and watch as Tezcatlipoca strolled over to where Teomitl had fallen. “...No...”

Negligently, the god waved his jaguar away. “Oh, stupid mortal. This isn’t like the last time.” His voice was a thing of unholy glee.

Acatl couldn’t move. Everything hurt, and he was sure his arm was broken. Each breath scorched his lungs and sent a nauseous spike of agony through his chest. He could barely even feel his fingers wrapped around the handle of his knife. If he’d had enough breath, he was sure he’d be weeping.

And the god was still talking. “You see, this time, little Acatl...I don’t have a heart for you to stab.” He knelt over Teomitl’s prone form and grabbed his jaw, cruelly forcing his head up so Acatl could see his face. “So I’m going to take the man who holds yours. I think that’s a fair trade.”

No.

It beat in his head like a heartbeat, and he couldn’t think past the enormity of it. “You can’t.” Somehow he got his feet under him and pushed himself up with his good arm. He nearly slipped in a puddle of blood; though he caught himself on one knee, it winded him, and he had to take a moment to breathe. “I—will not—allow it.”

Tezcatlipoca laughed, high and cruel. “You can’t stop me.”

Acatl closed his eyes. He didn’t have time for a long ritual; he could barely focus on the words of even the simplest spells. The Wind of Knives would never arrive in time. All he had was a single knife and raw determination.

And he was High Priest for the Dead facing an inhabited corpse, a transgressor of the boundaries he kept, in a room full of men whose living blood was still dripping from the walls to soak into the floor.

Yes. I can.

His fingers tightened on his knife hilt, feeling the ridges of the leather cord wrapping for an instant before he opened himself up to the power stored within the underworld obsidian, that direct connection to Mictlan he’d only ever called on once before. It didn’t get easier the second time. The bottom dropped out of his stomach, rage draining out in favor of a deep, hollow emptiness. He felt dry dust under his fingers, felt the way his bones ached and shifted under his skin. In his mind rose the lament of lost souls carried on a chilling, biting wind. We go down into the dust, into the darkness. We go down, Lord of the Place of Death, to stand before Your throne.

There was a ritual he’d been taught when he ascended to his place as High Priest, one that had almost never been used in the history of the Empire. There was fresh, wet blood on his hands.

His eyes snapped open. The skin of his hands was smoke and translucent obsidian, gray dust like clouds where the fibers of muscle should be. He could make out his own bones underneath it all, glowing like distant torches or the last shimmers of moonlight at the bottom of the lake. The faintest breeze in the air brought the dying whispers of a ghostly lament to his ears, stirring the loose ends of his hair.

Tezcatlipoca was still smirking, gently amused. “Good, you’ve decided to watch while I kill him. I knew you were no coward.”

The blood splattering the floor pulsed like a heartbeat. In, out. In, out. The blood of a dozen men slain in battle, their souls not yet delivered to the Sun’s Heaven. One living High Priest with a blade of underworld obsidian to direct the flow of magic.

“O Lord,” he breathed, “I deliver this transgressor to You.”

He saw the exact moment Tezcatlipoca realized what he was going to do; the god’s eyes widened, and then He was flowing towards him like a jaguar Himself, all smoke and teeth and fury. In a moment He’d be on him, and then they would stand no chance.

Acatl slashed open the back of his hand, tracing a quincunx in his own blood, and slammed it down onto the nearest dead man’s face.

The man’s spirit erupted from his cooling skin. His comrades’ souls joined his, flowing out of open mouths and open wounds like smoke. Those who had lost limbs were limbless now; those whose heads had been torn off were headless. Gaping wounds bled gray, powdery dust into the air. They formed a wall around Acatl, but he could still see through them—could see Tezcatlipoca stop midstride, could see Him slowly and instinctively take a step backwards as though freezing in place would protect Him.

The ghosts descended, and the god screamed.

There were words in that scream—something about how he was going to reign, how they had no right to stop him—but Acatl was past caring about it. All he could do was hold onto the magic running through him, the underworld flowing in a torrent through his veins. While he focused, the ghosts would maintain their forms and their connection to the Fifth World, and he couldn’t let them go until it ended. Until the sliver of Smoking Mirror’s power was fully severed from the body He’d borrowed, banished back to the Heavens.

His lungs burned. His heart beat slow and sluggish in his chest. He rose and took a step forward, and it felt like he was moving through tar.

He spoke, and the syllables lay on his tongue like the finality of the grave. “Your time is not yet come.”

He felt it when Tezcatlipoca’s presence in the Fifth World vanished; the smoke and ash in the air dissipated, and the heavy mist that had hung over his mind began to clear. When he breathed, he smelled only blood and fresh death. As the body dropped—now only so much meat—he took another breath, filling his lungs, and ran the flat of his knife over his bloody hand until his connection to the underworld was severed.

The ghosts left gratefully, voices like the rustling of dry leaves. Thank you. Thank you, priest.

He wobbled on his feet, drained down to the marrow of his bones. He felt halfway to being a ghost himself; for an instant it was hard to remember who he was or what still had to be done.

Then it came back to him in a flash and he ran, stumbling through gore and fatigue, to Teomitl’s side.

Teomitl was still laying where he’d fallen, one hand pressed to the ruin of his torso. Up close, the extent of his injuries took Acatl’s breath away. He’d been mauled; a drawing swipe of razor-sharp claws had opened his chest to the bone and continued all the way to his stomach, deep enough to slice through the muscles of his abdomen. As Acatl approached, he turned and blinked blindly in his direction. “Ah...Acatl…”

Acatl dropped to his knees next to him, tearing off his cloak with shaking hands. His abused arm screamed, but he ignored the pain. He had to stop the bleeding before he could do anything else—but Duality, there was so much blood. “Don’t try to talk.”

He pressed the cloth directly on his wounds, and Teomitl didn’t even flinch. He’d lost a lot of blood already; the heartbeat under Acatl’s fingers was distressingly weak. “Mm.” He tried to raise his head, but flopped bonelessly down a moment later. His voice was so soft that Acatl almost missed it. “I love you.”

He loves me. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible that he was hearing this now, of all times, with the man dying in his arms. He was, for a moment, absolutely sure that no air was making it to his lungs. “Teomitl.” It came out in a rasp. “By all the gods, shut up.”

Teomitl’s smile was red and horrible, blood staining his teeth. Acatl could have wept. “Wanted...to make sure you knew.”

“I love you too—“ Teomitl coughed wetly, and Acatl felt his pulse stutter. Before he knew it, he was grabbing his hand and squeezing it like a lifeline, eyes burning with unshed tears. “Teomitl, Teomitl, I love you so much but you have to stay with me, please!”

There was a strangled, awful attempt at a laugh. “I know what a mortal wound looks like, Acatl.”

No. No, gods, no. “It’s not mortal—it’s not, you’ll be fine, you just have to lay still! Help is coming, I promise, just—“ He cut himself off with a sob. I can’t lose you. Not you.

A shaking, bloodstained hand came up to cup his cheek, thumb gently stroking away his tears. “...Should have told you sooner.”

The hand fell.

Grief and terror surged through his veins with a ferocity that nearly sickened him, and for a moment all he could do was curl around Teomitl and fight back tears. He wanted to weep. He wanted to break something. He wanted to carry Teomitl in his arms and run to safety, but his arm was broken and Teomitl’s injuries were so severe that moving him unwisely would only deal further damage. Duality—gods, please. Please don’t take him from me.

He felt the Wind of Knives’ arrival, but didn’t bother turning around. Keeping pressure on Teomitl’s wounds was more important. His pulse was fluttering like a trapped bird, and Acatl really didn’t like the way he was breathing. Gods, let him not have punctured a lung too.

The minor god’s voice echoing through his mind at this distance was enough to send a chill down his spine. I see you didn’t need my help. He sounded almost amused. If the circumstances had been different, Acatl would have punched Him.

“Teomitl does.” His voice cracked on the words. “Find someone—”

A hand came to rest on his shoulder, the knife-points of the obsidian shards barely even tickling. Rest. Do not weep. You have been a valiant comrade, Acatl, and for that I will grant you this favor.

The Wind of Knives swept out the door, and he took a slow, shuddering breath. Another. Another.

By the time a half-dozen civilians burst into the room with the announcement that the High Priest of Patecatl had been sent for, he’d stopped crying. Teomitl’s heartbeat had remained steady under his hand, and he drew strength from that.

He’ll be alright, he thought. He has to be.

It still took entirely too long for Acatl’s liking. The black-robed High Priest of Patecatl was an older man, hard-eyed and serious and not at all appreciative of being dragged halfway across the city with his entourage, but he took one look at Teomitl’s injuries and sucked in his breath before swearing softly and ordering Acatl to leave.

“But—“ he began.

“This is a very delicate process, Acatl. Move.” Judging by his narrowed eyes and the set of his shoulders, he was prepared to shove Acatl out of the room himself if he was too slow.

Acatl moved. That this meant he could have his injuries looked at by one of the other priests was immaterial; even the grinding, nauseating pain of having a definitely-broken bone wedged into place and splinted before they began casting spells to speed its healing wasn’t enough to distract him from the increasingly frantic chanting going on inside. Heavens, do not take him. Not yet. Please.

When Ichtaca arrived to relieve him of the task of dealing with their slain comrades, he had to take a moment to remember that he was, indeed, still the High Priest for the Dead. His tongue didn’t seem to want to work properly. His mind didn’t seem to want to work properly. Teomitl said he loves me. “It was...Tezcatlipoca was summoned into the Fifth World. I banished Him, but...“

“Acatl-tzin.” His second was looking at him in something like pity. “You can tell us what happened later. Get some rest.”

“Our priests...the warriors...“

“We will handle their bodies.” He’d brought Palli and Ezamahual with him, and both men were eyeing Acatl as though they expected him to collapse any minute.

The priests of Patecatl were carrying Teomitl out on a stretcher, and his eyes followed the motion helplessly. From this distance, he could just make out the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

Ichtaca didn’t smile, but his demeanor softened. “Rest, Acatl-tzin.”

He started walking. He could rest at the Duality House, once he was sure Teomitl was safe.

The sun was low in the sky, tinting the light gold, and the realization took him aback. Gods, was it really only this morning that we set out? It felt like it had been an eternity ago that he and his priests and Teomitl’s warriors had left his temple; his bones ached as though he’d been awake for years. He still couldn’t believe that he was alone, that Tezcatlipoca’s creatures had cut through the trained fighters he’d brought with him like a knife through wet paper. He drew a long, slow breath. I only lived because He was toying with me. Because—Tlaloc’s lightning strike me, because He holds grudges. I’ll have to be very careful around Him from now on.

Fatigue made his head swim, but he forced himself onwards. Patecatl’s priests moved in a seamless knot, eating up the ground in a similar purposeful stride to the one he’d come to associate with Teomitl—but where Teomitl’s pace seemed to suggest he held some sort of grudge against the ground, the healing priests’ antipathy extended to everyone in their way. He had absolutely no chance of catching up to them, but he could settle for keeping them in sight.

After Teomitl’s words, he refused to do anything else. He loves me. He loves me, and he might yet die. He lost so much blood, and the Duality only knows what effects the Smoking Mirror’s touch might have had on him…

By the time he staggered into the Duality House, it resembled nothing so much as a freshly-disturbed anthill. Priests of the Duality were clustered with Patecatl’s healers, and the courtyards seemed to host far more confused and dismayed warriors than they normally did—the normal number, after how Mihmatini had reacted to Teomitl’s attempt at a coup, being zero. He couldn’t see his sister in the crowds.

Just as he determined he should ask around, she strode out of a small receiving room with a face like thunder. The thread of magic that connected her to Teomitl was a line of fire around one ankle, and by the shaking of her hands she’d already been well informed of her husband’s state. Her husband. Acatl felt briefly sick. Things between them may not be as they were, but he told me—gods. It will break her heart if she finds out.

Mihmatini took one look at him and her expression of barely-contained fury twisted; for a moment he was sure she was going to scream at him, but then she took a long breath and closed her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was steady. “I heard it was the Smoking Mirror. Come in; the healers are still with Teomitl.”

He followed her in. The room held only a fresco of flowering trees for decoration, but there was a table and two mats, and he collapsed onto one with relief. His legs felt like jelly. The next room had to hold Teomitl and the healers; though the entrance curtain was drawn, he could make out quiet chanting and the grassy smell of Patecatl’s magic. A slave must have been waiting for his arrival, because he was served water and a dish of frogs with tomatoes nearly as soon as he’d sat down.

She waited until he’d drank before addressing him. “So.”

“So,” he repeated. The food smelled wonderful, but he wasn’t tempted. He wasn’t sure he could keep anything down.

When she met his gaze, her eyes were hard as flint. “Tezcatlipoca.”

He took a deep breath and told her everything starting from the moment they’d reached the warehouse. By the end his hands were shaking, and he had to clench them into fists in a futile effort to keep his composure. We thought we were going off to face a simple sorcerer. A dozen men are dead because we were wrong.

She covered his hand with her own. For a long while, they didn’t speak.

The first healing priest exiting the sickroom broke their strained silence. His voice was rough and low, as though he’d worn himself out chanting. “Teomitl-tzin will live. You can see him now.”

Mihmatini nearly rushed past him, all dignity as the Guardian forgotten. Acatl waited until all the healers had left, ignoring their sidelong glances, before testing whether his legs would even still support his weight. They did, but barely; he had to catch his breath, leaning on the table, before he could rise fully. The noble thing, the right thing, would be to give Mihmatini space with her husband. As damaged as their relationship had been after the attempted coup, he was sure her love for him hadn’t disappeared. He’d just be an interloper. Unwanted. Intruding.

But Teomitl had told him he loved him, so he followed Mihmatini in.

Teomitl had been laid on a thick mat, his chest and stomach heavily bandaged and his right wrist splinted. His normally-dark skin was distressingly ashen; when Mihmatini clasped his good hand, he didn’t so much as twitch. She made an awful hitching gasp, and Acatl braced himself for her tears—but then she shuddered, inhaled deeply, and looked up at him with glimmering eyes. “Sit down, Acatl.”

Acatl sat, staring at Teomitl’s face. He’d never seen him so still, not even when the plague had struck him down. The bandages were very white against his skin. If he hadn’t been so drained—so empty, after all the events of the day and the magical backlash of using his own body as the rallying standard for a dozen angry ghosts—he thought he might have joined Mihmatini in almost weeping. I was the one who should have told you sooner, Teomitl.

“He’ll be alright,” Mihmatini murmured. She was stroking his hand now, so gently that it broke his heart.

She loves him. She loves him, and I’m a selfish monster for wishing she didn’t. His voice felt like it was coming from very far away. “I know.”

“He’ll wake, and smile like he always does, and he’ll be back to driving me mad with his,“—she made a noise, and it took Acatl a moment to realize it was a twisted snort of amusement—“his awful clinging in his sleep, and all the rolling around he does, and it will be fine. I won’t even want to strangle him over it. Much.”

“...Mm.” He hoped it sounded agreeable, and not as though the mental image was making something clench painfully in his gut. He had no right to be jealous over what he’d never have. When Teomitl woke, he would simply...never mention what the man had told him. Yes. That was a fine idea. His fingers twitched restlessly, and he wished he could wrap them around Teomitl’s hand instead.

She was silent for a long while. When she lifted her head to lock eyes with him, her tone was as matter-of-fact as though she was discussing the weather. “He’s really not that annoying, most of the time. I can see why you’re in love with him.”

Acatl froze, the breath knocked out of him. The yawning pit opening in his stomach had nothing to do with Mictlan. He couldn’t think past the blood roaring in his ears, never mind meet Mihmatini’s gaze—but he couldn’t look away, either, and so he stared blankly through her without seeing her.

Her voice was soft and understanding, and that made it so much worse. “Does he know?”

He thought, briefly and shamefully, of lying. In the next minute he dismissed the idea; he wouldn’t do that to anyone over a matter like this, never mind his own blood. “...I told him. During—I thought he was going to die in my arms.” His throat was so dry and tight he could barely force the words out. “But—Mihmatini—“ I was never going to let it grieve you. I would never step between you two, I know it’s not my place, you’re his lawful wife and my favorite sister and I know how much you still care for him...

She heaved a sigh of pure relief. “Thank the Duality, I was getting sick of him sighing over you.”

“He—I’m sorry, what?!”

His brain seemed to have stopped working. Or perhaps there was something wrong with his ears. There was no way she’d just said what he thought she said. He opened and shut his mouth, but no words came out.

And now the sigh was exasperated, and she was looking at him as though he was the stupidest man alive. While this was hardly unprecedented for her, he couldn’t help feeling it was—for once—undeserved. “You heard me.”

“I...I did, but…” But it didn’t make sense. Gods strike him for a fool, it didn’t make sense. “You knew?”

“I suspected while we were courting, but eventually...he told me himself. After the incident with his sister.” She huffed out a breath, brow furrowing at the memory, and he fought the urge to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. “It’s the only reason I didn’t divorce him then and there. I would have, you know, if he’d said anything foolish like that he was trying to kill Tizoc-tzin for insulting me, or that he was only trying to remove a corrupt, useless Revered Speaker. And that was part of it, but do you know what he told me first made him want Tizoc-tzin’s head on a spike?”

He shook his head mutely. He couldn’t imagine it.

She dropped her gaze to Teomitl’s bandaged chest, watching for each steady breath. “It was when he and Quenami tried to have you executed for treason.” There was a wry quirk of a smile. “I couldn’t blame Teomitl for that. Murder is an appropriate response in that case, you know!”

“...Oh.” It was all he could say. The memories of that time hadn’t faded in the least, and Teomitl’s seething anger back then suddenly made a terrible amount of sense. It was for me. It was—because he loves me. He’d even want to...gods.

Mihmatini shrugged as though she wasn’t upending his entire view of how the world worked. “I always knew I’d have to share his heart; I’m just glad it’s with you and not some concubine. I know you’ll treat each other well.”

“I…” He swallowed past the lump in his throat and made himself meet her eyes. “I’ll try.” I don’t know how, but for him—I’ll try.

She reached across Teomitl to squeeze his good arm, and her smile warmed his heart. “Take joy where you find it, and with my blessing.”

He had to close his eyes as her words settled. She knows. She knows, and she approves, and I...Duality, I don’t deserve such a sister. Her husband loves me, and I—I am allowed, encouraged, to love him back. When he wakes...we can figure out where to go from there.

“...So long as I never have to hear details.”

He choked, feeling his face catch fire. “Mihmatini!”

It took three days for Teomitl to open his eyes.

Acatl had foolishly thought that he would have the luxury of fretting over him. He quickly discovered he wasn’t so lucky; he barely had time to breathe. Funeral vigils for the slain warriors and his own dead priests had to be arranged, their families notified. The entire plot turned out to have been masterminded by the Smoking Mirror’s host himself, a sorcerer who’d declared himself a member of a group called the Sixth Sun Burning; further questioning of his friends and relations revealed that he was the only member, supposedly making Tizoc froth with impotent rage at not having anyone to execute for it. Acatl was apparently still beneath the Revered Speaker’s notice no matter how many gods he banished, which he couldn’t help but be thankful for. By the time the merchant whose warehouse had been coopted for the scheme arrived, furious in his demand for answers, he was hard-pressed to keep his own temper.

Of course, as soon as he dismissed the merchant, an offering-priest burst into his receiving room. “Acatl-tzin—“ He had to stop and suck in a deep breath before continuing. “Teomitl-tzin has awoken—Mihmatini-tzin said you’d want to be informed—“

He was abruptly no longer tired. He couldn’t remember ever having been tired. “Ichtaca. If anyone needs me, I’ll be at the Duality House.”

Ichtaca exchanged a long-suffering glance with the offering-priest. “Of course, sir.”

He ran.

Mihmatini met him at the gates to the Duality House. There were dark circles under her eyes, but her smile was soft and radiant. “He’s still weak, but he’s recovering well. He’ll be glad to see you.”

He had to stop and take a deep breath, willing himself to be calm. He knew he was blushing, but that couldn’t be helped. “...Thank you.”

Teomitl had been moved to the chambers he was sharing with Mihmatini at some point, the brilliant murals at odds with the stark furnishings. He looked exhausted, still ashen-faced and fragile around the edges, but he was sitting up with only a faint grimace of pain and picking carefully at a dish of flatbread with roasted peppers. When Acatl pushed the entrance curtain aside, he set his plate down and stared up at him. “Oh. Acatl.”

“Teomitl,” he said helplessly. For a moment he couldn’t make his legs work, and then he took the three steps necessary to bring him to Teomitl’s side and sat down hard.

Teomitl was still staring at him as though he couldn’t get enough of the sight. Acatl saw the way his fists clenched in his lap, the little wrinkle of concern between his brows, and ached to soothe him. “You’re alright.”

Truthfully, he didn’t feel alright. The priests of Patecatl had only been able to do so much with what they’d had on hand, and he’d still had very little sleep. But none of that mattered now, because Teomitl was fidgeting and averting his gaze and he couldn’t forget what he’d came here for. “Look, about earlier—I don’t know how much you remember, but…” I love you. I need to tell you properly.

Teomitl went rigid, gaze fixed on a point somewhere on the opposite wall. His voice lashed out like a whip. “I won’t apologize.”

What. He found himself temporarily speechless before managing to get his tongue back in working order. “Apolo—did you not hear me?”

“I.” Teomitl blinked at him. Acatl watched as he slowly turned red, jaw going slack until he shut it with an audible gulp. “Oh. Fuck. That’s what Mihmatini meant.”

“...You didn’t.”

Teomitl let out an annoyed huff, making an impatient stabbing motion with his hand. “I was bleeding out! You picked a terrible time to confess.”

Well, now, that couldn’t be borne. He sucked in a breath. “Says the man who told me he loved me with a hole in his guts—“ But the sensation of hot blood flowing over his hands was still too fresh, and he had to cut himself off with a shudder.

“I thought I was going to die. I didn’t think I’d be around for you to reject me.”

“Well.” He swallowed hard, suddenly and unaccountably nervous. “I’m not.”

“...You’re not.” Teomitl’s blush was back with a vengeance, and he still wasn’t looking directly at him. But he patted the mat next to him, a clear invitation. “...Come here?”

Oh.

Acatl shifted over to sit next to him. For the span of a few heartbeats they still didn’t touch, and he wondered if he was brave enough to make the first move—but then Teomitl’s hand shot out and latched onto his, and he made an entirely involuntary noise that definitely was not a squeak. His heart was beating so hard it was a wonder it stayed in his chest; from the heat in his face, he knew he had to be at least as red as Teomitl was. When their fingers laced together, he found he had no words to describe it.

After a long moment, Teomitl broke the silence between them. “...I truly do love you. I’m sorry it took so long for me to say it.”

There was a shy, soft smile on his face, and Acatl had to smile back. “There’s no need for apologies between us.” Not for this. Not ever for this. You have my heart, no matter what.

Teomitl turned towards him, and he went breathless at the look in his eyes. He knew an instant before it happened that he was going to be kissed, and it was the easiest thing in the world to tilt his head and lean in. He’d imagined it before—gods, had he imagined it, in the kind of detail that had left him frankly humiliated by his own lust afterwards—but nothing could compare to the reality of Teomitl’s mouth on his. He hadn’t expected it to be gentle, hadn’t expected the soft noise Teomitl made when he separated their joined hands to turn into an eager moan when Acatl dared to put an arm around him and pull him closer.

Even when they broke apart, Teomitl was smiling. Their noses brushed as he murmured, “I saw you avenging me, you know. You were magnificent.”

He averted his eyes, feeling something twist unpleasantly in his chest. It wasn’t enough. You still nearly died. “Hmph. Shameless flattery.”

“Acatl.” Warm fingers brushed his cheek. “Duality curse you, take the compliment for once.”

When he parted his lips to protest, Teomitl kissed him again. He decided not to argue.

There were better things he could do with his mouth.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #mihmatini #ichtaca #tezcatlipoca: obsblood #paladin writes stuff #gore //

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notapaladin · 3 years

Text

the war is over and we are beginning (redux)

Because what this fic needed was roughly 1k more words of MORE PINING. Takes place directly after the last page of the series, and contains spoilers for the whole thing.

After it’s all over, Teomitl and Acatl hold hands and watch the sunset. Acatl realizes the truth of his own heart and has a minor freakout. Also on AO3!

“No,” Acatl said, “it hasn’t changed.”

Teomitl gazed at the sunset for a long time, silent and thoughtful. Heart full of too many emotions to name, Acatl watched him.

But you have. The knowledge of it beat under Acatl’s skin like a second heart. Gone was the impetuous, reckless youth who’d barged up to him and all but demanded to be taken on as a student. He could still see traces of that boy in the set of Teomitl’s jaw, but now there was more than that. Much more. The boy he’d known back then could easily have turned into a man who would have taken what he wanted and damn the rest, who would have trampled over his objections and crowned himself even as Tizoc’s corpse cooled at his feet and the star demons fell. He would have seen only the standards Tizoc failed, and not the consequences of his removal. He never would have smiled, with only the shadow of his old carelessness, and reminded Acatl that they spoke together as men. That he, whose destiny was to wear the Turquoise-and-Gold Crown, spoke to the son of peasants as an equal.

For a moment, he could imagine the shining future ahead of them. Could see Teomitl leading his army farther afield than the Empire had ever ventured, spreading their glory to the very edges of the world. Could see him ruling over Tenochtitlan itself, a clever and generous and above all capable Emperor, respected and loved by his people. Could see himself by Teomitl’s side. He exhaled slowly, softly. The moment felt fragile as butterfly wings, and he didn’t dare disturb it with words. Gods, I’m proud of you.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from him. If there’d ever been a time when he could, he didn’t remember it. Of course he’d seen Teomitl in full regalia, the white-and-red-and-jade costume of the Master of the House of Darts on the warpath, but never like this—never with the setting sun turning everything to molten gold, bringing out the warmth of his dark eyes and lingering like a lover on the curve of his smile. In this light, he already looked imperial. Look at you, he thought. Look at you, my future Emperor.

Teomitl was turning back towards him. Acatl hastened to avert his eyes, but he was too slow; Teomitl was favoring him with a teasing smile that made him blush at the knowledge that he’d been caught staring. “Is there something on my face?”

He shook his head, wondering why his stomach seemed unsettled. Maybe he’d eaten too quickly. “Drink your chocolate.”

Teomitl tipped his head back to drink, and Acatl found himself captivated by the sight. He knew he should be looking away. He should be thinking about the temple accounts, about the vigils for the dead, but his mind was full of the curve of Teomitl’s throat. Briefly overwhelmed, he closed his eyes. It was stress, nothing more. Stress and lack of sleep and the lingering warmth of knowing deep in his bones that one day Teomitl would be a Revered Speaker for the ages and still, still, calling him Acatl. He’d never imagined that his name could sound so soft in Teomitl’s mouth.

He felt as well as heard Teomitl sit down next to him, and was suddenly acutely aware of how close they were. They weren’t touching, but they could be. “It’s good. Did you have some already?” And then, with a familiar thread of suspicion, “You did eat, didn’t you?”

It was an exchange they’d had dozens of times. Like he did every time, Acatl sighed heavily. Really, Teomitl spent far too much time concerning himself with his health—he was hardly going to waste away overnight, even if work did sometimes cause him to skip the occasional meal. Dignity precluded him actually snorting or rolling his eyes, but it was a near thing. “Of course I ate. You should too.”

“Hm.” Teomitl stared down at the halves of his maize cake for a moment before taking a bite. He chewed thoughtfully, brow furrowed, and then eyed it with the kind of dubious expression he usually reserved for unidentified sauces. “Acamapichtli brought these?”

They were good maize cakes. Granted, Acatl had had better—these were a little dry, and he personally would have added a bit more salt—but there was nothing wrong with them. He’d never known Teomitl to be particularly picky over his food. “He did. Why?”

Teomitl took another bite, chewed just as thoughtfully as the first, and swallowed. “Yours are better.”

Now that was rank flattery, and he fixed Teomitl with a glare even as heat crawled up his face. True, he could cook—he would have starved if he couldn’t—but that didn’t make him particularly good at it. The best thing any truthful man could say about his culinary efforts was that they were edible, if you were hungry enough and smothered them in hot peppers. But still...still...Teomitl doesn’t lie. Ever. And he certainly wouldn’t do so for something as trivial as this. “Teomitl.”

Teomitl smiled at him. There was a crumb caught in the corner of his mouth, and Acatl itched to brush it away. “It’s true!”

“Hmph.” If he finished off his own bowl of chocolate, he didn’t have to look Teomitl in the face. The fact that it seemed to agitate the flock of butterflies in his stomach was immaterial. “You don’t need to say such things to me.” There was no need for flattering apologies between them, not when both of them had so comprehensively erred. What was an attempted coup—especially when you would eventually be Revered Speaker anyway—next to his own weakening of the boundaries in service of an unworthy man? Because Tizoc was unworthy. He could admit that now. And he could admit, in the privacy of his own heart, that he would love to see Teomitl crowned.

“Hmm.” It was a quiet, satisfied noise. “No. But I’d like to.”

“Teomitl!” It came out sharper than he intended, and the fading flush of his ears returned tenfold. Don’t say such soft things. You’ll make me—

He didn’t want to think what it would make him do. He didn’t want to think what it would make him want.

Because that was the problem with spending time around Teomitl, really. The man made him want things. It had started small; he’d been met with arrogance, and he’d wanted to be treated respectfully. He’d been teased and cajoled, and even as some corner of the wall around his heart crumbled he’d wanted to be addressed with...well, with some sort of deference, at any rate. But somewhere along the way, it had gotten worse. He’d found himself seized with the desire to protect his student, to soothe his hurts, to gently erase his frowns and disappointments. (To hold him in his arms—no. That was going too far.) Things he shouldn’t waste time thinking about, because he’d never have them.

Teomitl heaved a sigh. “Alright, alright. No more complimenting your cooking. I’ll find some other way to show my appreciation, then.”

Acatl nearly choked. The butterflies in his gut rioted. “What?”

He had to wait a while for an answer; Teomitl seemed to suddenly find his maize cake delicious, and polished off the whole thing in utter silence. Finally, he brushed crumbs off his hands and gave Acatl a sidelong glance that, if Acatl hadn’t known better, he might have called shy. There was the faintest tinge of red in his cheeks. “...I never truly thanked you, I don’t think. For—for when I was sick.”

Oh. He had to close his eyes again, remembering the pain and the terror that had gripped him. Remembering how heavy Teomitl had been in his arms, heartbeat like a trapped bird, and the way he’d staggered through the streets with Duality, I can’t lose him too as an endless litany in his head. It had been far, far too close. Even now his mind’s eye, ruthless as ever, provided him with Teomitl flushed and feverish and in pain before he shook his head to clear it. No. He’s fine now; he’s healthier than he’s ever been. He’ll live a long, long life. “You never need to thank me for that. Anyone would have done the same.”

Belatedly Acatl recalled Teomitl saying the same thing to him in Nezahual’s summer palace; he wouldn’t have been surprised if it angered him, but Teomitl only gave him a long, steady look. “You carried me in your arms. I would have died without you.”

A boat pulled by ahuizotls. Huitzilpochtli’s magic, hot and brilliant as the sun. A drawn macuahuitl, obsidian edges glittering. I would have died without you, too. He swallowed past a lump in his throat. “You remember that?” He wouldn��t have thought Teomitl would have been in a state to remember anything; his own memories of that flight through the city were badly fractured, and he’d at least been conscious.

Teomitl dropped his gaze. “...I do. Not very well, but—I do remember that. I remember you holding me.”

Acatl thought holding was probably an unnecessarily kind way of putting it; that implied someone with the muscles and stamina to make such a thing easy, and he was far too slight for that. Still, his mind had no issues dredging up the sensation of how Teomitl’s skin had felt against his own, and for a moment he had to suppress a shiver. “You were very ill.” He almost died. He almost died, and there would have been nothing I could have done to save him.

Lord Death didn’t give up His souls easily, not even if his High Priest asked—but he imagined himself owing a lifetime of favors to Quenami, and thought it would have been a fair trade. (The boundaries would have split open like rotten fruit around the return of Teomitl’s life, and he would have known it was his fault—but he would have done it anyway.)

“I was.” Teomitl looked down, slowly flexing his hands. “But I still remember...there was screaming in my head, and everything hurt...but someone...” He swallowed convulsively and took another long sip of his chocolate. “I think someone held my hand. Was it you?”

Acatl’s own fingers twitched at the memory. Teomitl’s hand in his had been warm and dry, the fingers and palm calloused from swordhilts and knife handles, striped here and there with thin, raised scars. He’d squeezed it, seeking to give what comfort he could, and gotten no response—but Teomitl had felt it, nonetheless. “...Ah.” He couldn’t find words. “Y—yes. That was me. Forgive me.” At the time, it had felt like the least he could do, even if it still wasn’t nearly enough; now, he found himself regretting it. Teomitl was a proud man, after all—he couldn’t have wanted to be comforted like a child, though Acatl somehow doubted he’d ever been comforted like that when he was a child. It was a thought that made him wish he could have spoken sharp words to whoever had raised him.

And indeed, Teomitl was frowning—but then he spoke, and his words took Acatl’s breath away. “There’s nothing to forgive, Acatl. You...you gave me something to cling to.” He dropped his voice. “I only wish I’d been alert enough to enjoy it.”

A slightly strangled noise made its way out of his throat. Enjoy it, he says. As though even when he’s well, he’d want me to… He felt almost dizzy for a moment, and had to swallow several times before he could form words. “Ngk. You. Um.”

Teomitl drew himself up, seeming to come to a decision. Carefully, he laid his hand on the stone between them, loose and open. An invitation, one that made Acatl’s head spin. His eyes were soft and heated, filled with something that Acatl couldn’t—no, didn’t want to name. There were some things that he couldn’t contemplate, even in the privacy of his own head. “I’d like it if you did it again.”

His mind went almost entirely blank. (Almost; some tiny corner where he kept his sense of hope had woken up and was screaming. He could focus on that later.) But Teomitl had given him permission, was looking at him like the dawn, and he could no more resist it than a drowning man could a piece of driftwood.

Wondering how those words could absolutely destroy him, he reached out and took Teomitl’s hand for the second time.

It was nothing like the desperation of the first one, where his own grinding agony had been the backdrop to Teomitl’s harsh panting and fevered murmurs—where he’d watched the flickering of his closed lids and felt his pulse and prayed, prayed desperately to every god he’d ever even heard of, that it wouldn’t stop. This time Teomitl was watching him with clear, warm eyes; when Acatl squeezed his fingers lightly, he squeezed back and quirked up a tiny, devastating smile.

Acatl couldn’t speak. Speech was beyond him.

“Mmm.” Teomitl’s eyes shone, and he thought he might catch fire from their warmth. “Your hand is nice and cool. I thought it was just the fever.”

He took a breath, surprised at how easily it came to him. If my hand is cool, it’s because there is absolutely no blood going to my extremities right now. “...It will warm up.” There was no chance of him letting go before Teomitl did, and Teomitl didn’t seem to want to. Teomitl, in fact, was twining their fingers together, which anchored him in place as effectively as a spear to the chest. He was amazed the man couldn’t hear the pounding of his pulse through his skin. “You—you run rather warm yourself, you know.”

Teomitl studied their joined hands. “The magic?”

“It might be. I don’t know.” Most of the people he touched on a daily basis tended to be dead, and thus made terrible points of comparison.

Teomitl shrugged lightly, lifting his head to smile at him. “You’ve been saying that a lot lately.”

“I—“ He floundered for a moment, searching for a way to explain the feeling of a secure future ripped away, the path before him left blank. “There isn’t much I do know, anymore. Except—“ Except that you are brave and bright and beautiful and you’ll be the finest Revered Speaker this land has ever known. Except that I pray with all my heart to gods who are not my patron to keep you safe. Except that the times when you are at war and away from me, I can barely sleep for worrying even though I know that with the Southern Hummingbird’s blessing no foe can touch you.

Except that I—gods, I—

Oh.

The sound that escaped him barely sounded human, never mind like the start of any recognizable word.

(Strong hands. A proud smile. His own heart racing at the sight of him. The way he’d been almost afraid to see him, even while he longed for it, because the thought that Teomitl’s feelings towards him might change—might lessen, that he might see Acatl as an encumbrance rather than a help, that even the little respect he held would fade once he was no longer in need of teaching—terrified him down to the bones. The thoughts he’d had, sour and fleeting, that he’d have to at least be satisfied with respect because surely...surely Teomitl, who was so happy with Mihmatini, wouldn’t…)

He couldn’t quite feel his hands. He forced himself to take a deep breath. Another. Another. No. Storm Lord strike me, why must my heart betray me now?

It had to be a betrayal. He’d certainly never intended for the walls of his heart to crumble, for all these emotions to rise in him like a flood. Yes, he’d woken from dreams in the middle of the night, but those were supposed to stay dreams—the product of an overactive subconscious, nothing more. It didn’t seem possible that he could sit on the steps of his temple with the Fifth World’s destruction allayed and Teomitl’s hand in his and still feel his heart crack open with the desire for more. Not now, not with Teomitl’s smoke and mist rising, not with his marriage in tatters (and gods, Mihmatini, how could he do this to her—no, he’d keep it locked away in his heart and it would be fine, he’d not ruin his sister’s life with his feelings—)

“Hm?”

Right. He’d been talking. He swallowed saliva, trying to remember what he’d been going to say before that world-shattering revelation. He didn’t think he’d even had an ending planned for that sentence. Slowly, he became aware that he was running his thumb over Teomitl’s knuckles, and that Teomitl had gone still next to him.

When Teomitl’s fingers curled slowly against his palm, he knew his heart was entirely lost. Except that I love you.

He bit his lip, gazing out over the city below, and spoke a truth. “You were my greatest student.”

Teomitl made a noise that might have been an abortive laugh, but Acatl turned to look at him and found his eyes warm and dark and serious. “...You know I don’t need a teacher anymore, Acatl.”

He drew in a slow, shaky breath. While he certainly couldn’t say he minded Teomitl finally dropping the honorific—it had taken him long enough, honestly, there was a point after which being called “tzin” by the Master of the House of Darts in public was just embarrassing—nobody had ever said his name like that before. Teomitl’s voice made the simple syllables into something rich and tender, and Acatl couldn’t have torn his gaze from his if the sky had fallen in. How could I have taken so long to see it? “...I know.”

For a moment Teomitl’s lips parted, and Acatl forgot how to breathe as he realized how close they were. Barely a few inches separated them, and it would be trivial to close the distance. Then Teomitl averted his eyes and murmured, “I’m glad I had you in my life,” with a tone so final it made something lurch in his gut.

The words came out without any input from his brain. “You’ll always have me.” As a friend, if you desire. As a brother, if I must. He licked his too-dry lips and watched Teomitl’s eyes follow the motion. It made his heart race. As a lover—yes, gods, I think I would break my vows for you.

“Always?” Teomitl’s voice was hushed. “Even when I am Revered Speaker? What will you be to me then, Acatl?”

It would be so easy to say your High Priest. It would be so easy to say your ally, your servant, your devoted subject. It would be so easy to say nothing at all—to lean in, bathed by the setting sun, and kiss that sweet mouth.

No. I can’t. He swallowed past the lump in his throat. Distance. He needed distance. “Whatever you desire, Teomitl-tzin.”

“Eurgh.” Teomitl’s whole body flinched, setting his quetzal-feather headdress bobbing and almost jerking his hand out of Acatl’s before he seemingly realized what he’d been about to do and latched on again. This time his grip was almost painfully tight, and the look he turned on Acatl was something akin to wounded horror. “Alright, you are not allowed to call me that. Not ever, do you understand me?!”

Acatl blinked at him. Teomitl had always accepted the honorific as his due; it had seemed only proper that he, Acatl, should get used to using it regularly as well—even if the idea of doing so now, after having his heart ripped open and exposed to daylight, made him feel more than a little sick. “What...should I call you, then?” He supposed Ahuizotl would do, though being reminded of the creepy things every time he addressed him would not be pleasant. (Never mind how Teomitl could stand it, he’d always wondered what the boy’s parents had been thinking. Not even the association with Teomitl—Teomitl, whom he loved!—could make his skin crawl any less when he thought about those grasping claws or the horrible, high-pitched songs scratching at his ears.)

Teomitl sucked in a breath, holding his gaze. “My name.” Though his face and ears tinted themselves red, his voice held all the certainty of a royal proclamation. “I want to be Teomitl to you until the day I die.”

He had to look away. It was that or do something stupid. Exactly what that thing would be, he had no idea (that was a lie, his heart had plenty of ideas and they would all end in disaster if he followed through), but he knew a single misstep would shatter the fragile new relationship they seemed to be building between them. Teomitl’s presence in his life was too important to risk. His gaze drifted out over the city below them, with the last rays of the sun glinting off its canals. “...Even when you’re Revered Speaker?”

“Especially then.” He could hear the smile in Teomitl’s voice. “Promise?”

He let himself imagine the future at Teomitl’s side again. Teomitl crowned in turquoise, dripping with jade and gold, the army at his back and the Southern Hummingbird’s might enfolding him—and Acatl, alone among his court, calling him by name and getting that smile in response.

It was the easiest vow he’d ever made. “Promise.”

A thumb slid over the back of his hand, sending lightning through his veins. Helpless, he looked up into Teomitl’s face again; the man was openly beaming at him, flushed and radiant and happy, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Duality curse him, how had it taken him so long to realize it?

I could kiss you now. He felt his heart skip a beat, and in an instant he knew that Teomitl wouldn’t stop him. That neither their positions nor the state of the Fifth World mattered anymore, because if he leaned in and tilted his head just so, he would feel that smile against his own lips. That Teomitl, utterly heedless of the consequences, would kiss him back. He could have that, if he was brave enough to take it.

But he was a coward, and so he turned his face away.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #teocatl #paladin writes stuff

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notapaladin · 4 years

Text

don’t confess none of your sins, pt 1

this is 1000% @bleed-peroxide’s fault for tagging me in a meme to post a line from a fake WIP, because i immediately uh...failed step one. and steps 3-10000.

Teomitl shows up late one night at Acatl’s house with illegal pulque and an offer. After some hesitation, Acatl takes it...eagerly. There’s porn in this!

Also on AO3. Part 2 is here

Teomitl was in his courtyard. For a long moment, all Acatl could manage to do was stare at him, the image stubbornly refusing to compute in his head. This late at night, this early in the morning, Teomitl should absolutely be at home sleeping off the banquet they’d been forced to attend, instead of sprawled lazily under Acatl’s cedar tree with his eyes gleaming. He was still wearing much of his finery, though he’d had the sense to wash the paint from his face and switch out his gold-hemmed cape for a plainer one. Acatl, still in his own regalia with his skull mask tied to his belt, felt overdressed and off-balance in comparison.

He dragged his eyes up from where they’d settled somewhere around Teomitl’s broad shoulders. “Hello, my student who does not live here.”

Teomitl shrugged carelessly, which didn’t help. There was a faint, hazy smile hovering around the corner of his mouth. “...I wanted to see you.”

“You saw me at the banquet.” It seemed inadequate. They’d both been at the banquet, but there hadn’t been a chance to exchange more than long-suffering nods. Teomitl had been sitting with his brothers, smiling tightly at whatever they’d been saying; once or twice Acatl was sure he’d seen a pleading look thrown his way, but his own irritation at their seating arrangements hadn’t left him with much ability to effect an intervention. Quenami had been particularly annoying with his regrettable tendency to open his mouth and have words come out.

Teomitl waved a dismissive hand. “I saw you sitting between Acamapichtli and Quenami, trying not to knock their heads into the soup bowls. That doesn’t count.” He bit his lip, looking suddenly shy. “I thought you could use some cheering up after that.”

Something fluttered traitorously in his chest. He hadn’t thought Teomitl would notice, never mind care. The boy had his own worries, surely, even if he disliked the other High Priests nearly as much as Acatl did. And here he is, thinking about me. “And you think you can do that?”

Long lashes flickered as Teomitl looked up at him, smug as a well-fed jaguar, and Acatl had to swallow roughly as he nodded at him. “Mm.”

He took a breath, willing himself to stay calm even as the breeze brought the faint scents of the banquet back to him—incense, perfume, spiced food. That hazy smile was back, and it was wreaking serious havoc on his nerves. Sternly, he reminded himself that Teomitl was his student, a youth of imperial blood, a proud young warrior—and that he, Acatl, should absolutely not be noticing the light in his eyes. Besides which, Teomitl really had some gall to invite himself in like that. “...How?”

Teomitl grinned at him, fast and bright and wicked; he was so dazzled by it that he almost missed the rustle of fabric as Teomitl reached under his cloak to pull out a stoppered jar. Expertly, he popped the lid off, and the smell of strong pulque hit Acatl like a fist. “I brought this.”

Acatl stared. For a fleeting moment he wished desperately that he was sitting down, the better to absorb the shock. “...Are you drunk?” It came out in a squawk. ‘Scandalized’ was too mild a word—for a nobleman or a priest to be drunk in public meant death, and even in private the punishments would be severe. How Teomitl had managed to make it all the way to his courtyard undetected was a mystery he didn’t want to solve. And as for why...to cheer me up? Really, Teomitl? Reckless—irresponsible—have I taught you nothing? He firmly tamped down the part of his mind that also seemed to be finding it touching.

It was made more difficult by the fact that Teomitl—who, now that he looked with a discerning eye, was a tad flushed—was frowning at him as though he’d had the nerve to take offense. “I am not! I think…” He studied the jar for a moment. “I might be a little tipsy. But I am not drunk. I think I’d be much more wobbly on my feet if I were drunk.”

He turned his face away, folding his arms across his chest and hating himself for being unable to repress the smile that was making its treacherous way across his lips. It was hard to stay angry in the face of such sincerity. “Hmph. I should confiscate that.”

Teomitl cocked his head like a bird. “Are you going to?” He didn’t sound particularly worried by the prospect.

“...No.” He should. He knew he should. But Teomitl was looking up at him, and he was weak.

And now he was smiling knowingly and raising the jar to his lips. “Oh. Good.”

Knowing it was a bad idea even as he did it, Acatl made a terrible decision. “But if you’re going to drink that, you’ll do it inside.” Where nobody except me will see you, and I’ll never tell.

“Mmm,” Teomitl murmured.

But he didn’t move, and so Acatl crossed the distance between them and held out a hand. “Come on—oh.” Teomitl was hauling himself to his feet with a worrying sway; instinctively Acatl reached to steady him, and for a dizzying moment all his world narrowed to the feel of the man in his arms. He was deliciously warm, muscles like stone under the soft cotton of his cloak, and when he half-leaned against his shoulder the scent of alcohol burned through Acatl’s lungs.

He exhaled, trying to force his head to clear. At least one of them should be sober. Sober and focused and not—not enjoying this, gods. He’s my student. He’s not for me. I have to remember that.

Teomitl seemed determined to make it hard. His voice was a teasing huff in Acatl’s ear. “I can walk, you know. But if you want to carry me, I wouldn’t mind. Just don’t spill the pulque!”

He took a breath, pushing down his sudden awareness of his own heartbeat. “Let’s just go in.”

Teomitl’s assessment of his own state turned out to be surprisingly accurate; though he wouldn’t be making any sudden movements, he was still steady enough on his feet to follow Acatl into the darkness of the house. The moonlight streaming through the window caught the edge of a high cheekbone and the curve of his mouth, and Acatl couldn’t look away from him as he murmured, “You’re right. This is much better.”

And then he sat down on the mat, tugging Acatl down with him before he could pull away. Acatl made a noise he refused—even in the privacy of his own head—to term a squeak as he hit the ground, managing at least to arrange himself into a vaguely dignified sitting position. An objection hovered on the tip of his tongue, only to flee in the next heartbeat along with his thoughts.

Teomitl pressed against him from shoulder to hip, bare skin like a brand where it met Acatl’s. It was just possible to make out the motion of one hand lifting the jar of pulque to his mouth; the sound of his swallowing sounded very loud in the stillness. It was almost a shock when he hummed contentedly and breathed, “I don’t know about you, but I’m happy.”

“You.” He wet his lips and tried again. Teomitl’s fingers were just barely brushing against his thigh, and his veins felt like they were on fire. “I’m sure that’s just the pulque talking.”

Reeds crackled lightly under the weight as Teomitl shifted; it was all the warning he got before a head came to rest on his shoulder and Teomitl’s voice sounded from just under his ear. There was no trace of a slur to it, but the purring drawl was somehow worse. “Maybe it is. Maybe. But I don’t think so. I think it’s because I’m here with you.”

Acatl inhaled, closing his eyes. It didn’t help; the air was full of the mingled scents of alcohol and Teomitl’s skin, and with his eyes shut there was no distraction from how close they were. His blood thrummed relentlessly through his veins. Stop. Stop saying things like that, Teomitl. You make me want what I shouldn’t. “It’s the pulque. Trust me. You’ll regret this in the morning.” He set a hand on Teomitl’s arm, intending to put space between them, but something in his brain seemed to be confused at this very simple objective because he wound up squeezing lightly at his bicep instead. Teomitl really had very nice arms.

“Hmm.” It was a thoughtful sort of sound; when he looked into Teomitl’s face, he found him smirking wickedly. “I might regret drinking. But I won’t regret this.”

He swallowed, dropping his hand. “Regret—what?”

“Getting to see you like this.” Teomitl’s voice was hushed, as though he shared a great secret, but his eyes were alight with what could not be desire. “You are very...very handsome, Acatl-tzin.”

“I am what.” His voice cracked midsentence, making his face flame, but it was a drop in the ocean compared to the pulse-pounding heat of Teomitl’s words in his ears.

There was a hand on his knee, scattering his thoughts. Teomitl lowered his voice to the barest whisper. “You really have no idea what seeing you in your regalia does to me, do you? It’s devastating.”

Empty flattery, came his first reaction, but he knew he was lying to himself even as the words crossed his mind. Teomitl was never anything but honest, and it knocked the air from his lungs. He’s drunk—but that was a lie, too. He knew he should move—should pull away, take the rest of the pulque from Teomitl’s hands, put the boy to bed and make sure he’d be alright in the morning—but he was frozen to the mat. “Ngk,” he said intelligently.

The hand slid slowly, inexorably upwards, scorching a path over his skin. Where fingers curled around to the soft skin of his inner thigh, he could feel callouses where no one had ever touched him before. All awareness of anything else in the room faded away; there was only this hand on him, Teomitl’s solid presence the weight at the center of his world. Then the sloshing of an open jar caught his attention, and he registered that Teomitl was holding it out to him with a hot little smile. “Want some, Acatl-tzin? It’s quite good.”

I shouldn’t. I absolutely should not. But… But there was Teomitl all but draped over him, shamelessly roaming fingers starting to trace a meaningless pattern on his thigh, and his heart was hammering frantically against his ribcage. Only his own reflexively clenched fists were stopping him from—well. He wasn’t sure what he would do if he started touching Teomitl in return, but he knew it was something he wouldn’t come back from. He wasn’t sure it was something he’d want to come back from. I am High Priest of Lord and Lady Death. I am a servant of the gods, a keeper of the boundaries. And I…

Warm hands. A sunny smile. A body that moved like a jaguar through his mind when he closed his eyes to sleep. The knowledge that this was something he could never have, as untouchable as the heavens.

He snatched the jar from Teomitl’s hand and took a swig.

It burned. It burned, and he almost choked, but he made himself swallow anyway. The sensation faded from his mouth and tongue after a moment, but he could still feel it burning on its way down his throat. He took a breath and felt dizzy, but he wasn’t sure if that was the pulque—surely one sip couldn’t affect him so much?—or something within his own head. Tizoc-tzin would have me killed for this, came the thought in his head. Drinking with his young, impressionable brother, even in the privacy of my own home? My head would roll before I even had time to put the jar down. He thought he should probably be more afraid of that, but somehow the fear seemed far away. When he blinked, the world sharpened.

“Do you like it?” Teomitl’s smile was sweet, but his hand was still resting midway up Acatl’s thigh.

He had to clear his throat twice before he could manage words. “I—I do.” Maybe the pulque was hitting him already; his limbs were starting to feel distinctly unreal compared to the anchoring pressure of Teomitl’s hand.

“Good. Oh…” Teomitl tilted his head, eyes sharp. “Hold still.”

He froze.

He stayed frozen as that hand came up, calloused thumb impossibly soft as it brushed against the corner of his mouth. His breath ghosted against it, the only indication that he was in fact still breathing. He could almost taste his skin. Teomitl was smiling at him from entirely too close, voice taking on a teasing lilt as he murmured, “You’ve got something...here.” When he drew back, there was a tiny droplet of pulque clinging to his thumb, and he held Acatl’s gaze as he licked it away.

Duality save me, he thought, but he knew the Duality wasn’t listening. There wasn’t a god that could help him now. He could feel his own heartbeat in his throat, in his gut, in the first stirrings of shamefully sharp arousal. “Teomitl,” he whispered, wide-eyed. It seemed to be the only thing he could say.

“Doesn’t it taste good, Acatl-tzin?” Teomitl’s tone was almost—almost—innocent, and Acatl might have been fooled if it wasn’t for the wicked smile on his face.

“I…” He’s enjoying this. Taunting me—no, worse. Toying with me. His face burned, and he wrenched his gaze away. Arousal be damned, he wouldn’t throw himself after someone who viewed it as a game. “Hrmph.”

Teomitl didn’t seem to notice his irritation. Strong fingers plucked the jar of pulque out of Acatl’s unresisting hands, and he sloshed it about meditatively to check how much was left. “Hmm. I think I’ll have some more.”

He didn’t look. He didn’t want to see. But he could feel the heat of Teomitl’s body still pressed against his side, all lean and solid and strong. They were so close together that he wasn’t sure which of their heartbeats he was feeling, though his own seemed fit to escape his chest. And then he heard Teomitl swallow, and the satisfied near-moan that escaped him pulsed through Acatl’s veins and straight to his cock.

Against all his better judgement, he looked back. Teomitl still had the jar to his lips, head tilted back as he took another long gulp. Moonlight outlined the curve of his cheekbones and the line of his nose, turning his short hair to black ink where it sank into the strands. A thin trickle of pulque was escaping the seal of his mouth, outlining the curve of his throat as it descended. Acatl felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He must have made a sound, because Teomitl cast him a sly, sideways glance as he lowered the jar and wiped his mouth off on his arm.

“I could feel you staring at my drink. You must be thirsty, Acatl-tzin. Want to finish it off?”

It’s not the jar I’m staring at. Not trusting himself to speak, he grabbed the jar and tossed back a mouthful. It burned less this time, settling in his stomach with an unfamiliar warmth. He decided he liked the taste; it was a realization that made him suddenly glad that Teomitl had already drunk most of it, because if Teomitl kept playing with him like he’d been since arriving he would be deeply, deeply tempted to—drink himself insensate was his first thought, but hard on its heels came a mental image that made him almost dizzy. He could do it. Teomitl had called him handsome, had been touching him like that all evening.

My student. A member of the imperial family. But there were fingers tracing the pattern of his cloak, close enough to press over the line of his hip, and all his very good and moral objections blew away like dust in the wind. If he was going to die anyway—and if Tizoc ever found out about this he would absolutely be very dead—he might as well go all the way.

Acatl took another long swallow of pulque, feeling it burn all the way down his throat, and kissed Teomitl on the mouth.

Teomitl’s reaction was immediate and electrifying. Acatl had very little idea what he was doing, but that didn’t seem to matter; Teomitl made the kiss hot and open-mouthed and filthy, his moan reverberating into Acatl’s own mouth. Hands slid under Acatl’s cloak, making their way up his chest and leaving fire behind. Gods, yes. Teomitl scraped a thumbnail lightly over one nipple, and he had to break away with a gasp at the new discovery that he liked that.

Teomitl breathed, “Well, that took you long enough,” and Acatl felt something in his head snap.

His muscles knew what he was doing before his brain did; faster than he could think it over, he’d grabbed Teomitl and shoved him down onto the mat, seizing his mouth in a ferocious kiss. Teomitl groaned desperately into it, burying his hands in his hair like a lifeline and scrabbling at the cord holding it back until it spilled over both of them. Now it was his turn to touch, pulling Teomitl’s cloak aside to run his hands over the firm muscles that had been tempting him for months. When he pressed his thumbs in hard enough to bruise just above Teomitl’s hips, he was rewarded with an eager little whine. He likes it like that. Rough, like that. His cock throbbed.

Teomitl made a noise that might have been words; when Acatl left his mouth to devote attention to his jaw instead, moving down over his throat, he panted, “You have no idea—how long—ah!”

Encouraged, he scraped his teeth over the same spot again and felt Teomitl arch under him. It sent a shudder down his own spine, and he had to brace himself for a moment with his fist wrapped around a corner of the mat. He was more aroused than he’d ever been in his life. “You,” he growled against Teomitl’s skin, barely recognizing his own voice, “are trying to drive me mad.”

Teomitl sucked in a shaky breath, but the grin that flashed across his face was the same bright, confident one that had stolen Acatl’s heart. When he shifted under him, grinding just long enough to tease, it was Acatl’s turn to moan, and the grin took on an edge. “Is it working?” His eyes gleamed hungrily, and Acatl’s pulse pounded.

“What do you think?” He was done dreaming and wanting. Teomitl was offering himself on a silver platter, and he was going to take. He grabbed for Teomitl’s rear and hauled their hips together, giving the flesh a thorough squeeze as he reveled in the hard press of Teomitl’s erection against his own. Nails dug into his shoulderblades, the sting making him growl. Gods, yes. Mark me, mark me, make sure I remember this in the morning.

When he rolled his hips, Teomitl shuddered and writhed in his grasp. “Oh—Acatl-tzin.” The sound of his voice—half-wrecked already as he sobbed his name, and Acatl had barely done anything—sent such a wave of desire through him it was almost painful.

“I.” Words were the hardest thing he’d ever managed in his life, but he managed to get out “I want to touch you,” and Teomitl at least must have understood him because he was surging up, kissing him inexpertly but with great enthusiasm as he worked blindly at the knot holding his own loincloth shut.

There was no graceful way to do this in the dark; Teomitl’s knee knocked painfully into his thigh and a crash from behind them let him know one of them had managed to kick over the pulque jar, but none of that mattered when he was exposed to the night air with Teomitl spread out on his cloak like a feast under him, flushed and hard and looking at him with his heart in his eyes. “Like what you see, Acatl-tzin?”

Acatl kissed him again. It was the only possible response. Teomitl moaned into it; spurred on by the response, he cradled the back of Teomitl’s head with one hand to keep him there while he kissed a trail down his neck. The mark he’d left on the other side might bruise in the morning, but Acatl couldn’t bring himself to care about that. Far more important were the noises Teomitl was making, wordless little cries turning to gasps when he nipped sharply at the skin.

And then, though clearly no less effected, Teomitl found his equilibrium and slid his hands over Acatl’s chest and down to his stomach. He shivered at the sensation, letting out a sound that turned into a moan against Teomitl’s collarbone when fingers found his cock and wrapped firmly around it. Teomitl’s voice was breathlessly smug in his ear. “Mm, do you like that?”

It was entirely different from the scant times he touched himself, but that didn’t make it any less of a shock to his system. Pleasure built slow with each upstroke, making him shudder and rock into it. It took him a moment to realize Teomitl had even asked a question. “Y—yes…”

Teomitl arched in a motion that dragged their cocks against each other, sending sparks up and down his spine. And that clever hand would—not—stop—working him. “Mmm, good.” His fingers rippled, and Acatl muffled a groan against his neck that made his voice hitch as he breathed, “I’ve wanted to get my hands on you for so long.”

He still sounded maddeningly composed, and Acatl snarled at it. “Is that why you came here? Tormenting me all night?” Teasing me. Showing up at my doorstep like that, sharing your pulque, touching me— It made his pulse race, and he rolled up and into Teomitl’s hands to claim his mouth again.

When he broke away—he still hadn’t really gotten the hang of remembering to breathe while they kissed—Teomitl huffed out a noise that might have been a laugh. “Maybe. Maybe I wanted to see if you’d—oh.” Acatl had managed to get a hand between them; now he was putting it to good use. Teomitl’s cock was hot and hard and absolutely perfect in his grip, and when he rolled his thumb over the head his whole body shuddered down to his bones.

“If I’d do this?” He stroked harder, and Teomitl thrust into his fist with an inarticulate noise. “Is this how you like it?” Now it was his turn to be relentless. Teomitl’s own ministrations had slowed a bit with this new pleasure, so he could focus on devoting further attention to his lover’s skin—there was a spot just where neck met collarbone that pulled out the sweetest sounds—while he pumped his cock. I want to feel you fall apart.

When he nipped experimentally on his skin, Teomitl keened and bucked into his grasp, pulling his head down onto his chest. “Yes.” Nails scraped down his back, and he shuddered and redoubled his efforts to hear Teomitl rock into him with desperate little punched-out gasps. He was achingly close, pressure building at the base of his spine, but his lover was more important. He bit down on his collarbone and felt Teomitl jolt, voice cracking with his cry of “Duality, Acatl, don’t stop—“

He sucked in a breath that burned his lungs. “I won’t.” Teomitl was so sweet, so hot, it made his head swim. I want— He had to close his eyes, shuddering. Gods, I want to wreck you.

He’d worked out a rhythm of twisting his wrist just so, and it must have worked; Teomitl surged under him, fingers raking all the way down his spine and catching in the tangles in his loose hair, and came so hard that he had to muffle a scream with a bite to Acatl’s shoulder. It made his nerves sing; for a dizzying moment he saw white, thought he was about to orgasm, and then Teomitl whispered “Acatl” like an obscene prayer and did something with his wrist and the pad of his thumb that sent him over the rest of the way with a groan.

He nearly collapsed onto Teomitl’s chest, catching himself on his elbows and breathing hard. For a long moment, he couldn’t think. The first thought that made its way through the fog and out of his mouth was a breathless, “Fuck,” which seemed entirely unsuited to the enormity of the situation. Teomitl had removed his hand from his cock, but it lingered gently on his hip as a visceral reminder.

“Nghm.” Teomitl still seemed to be searching for words himself, but the lilting hum and the smirk tugging at his lips suggested that that could easily be a possibility, if Acatl wanted.

He wanted. Gods, he wanted. Sex and alcohol still burned through his veins, desire itching to be sated. But even the thought brought an unpleasant twinge with it that let him know in no uncertain terms that he would, at the very least, need to rest first. He breathed out slowly, shaking his head; with space to think, he realized he was oversensitive and a little sore. He hadn’t thought it was possible to come so hard your stomach hurt, but apparently he’d been wrong.

Then again...he’d been wrong about a lot of things tonight. Like the likelihood of Teomitl seducing me. With effort, he found his voice. “We should...clean up.” The sticky mess between them would be unbearably itchy if they didn’t.

“Nghh.” Teomitl did not seem to want to clean up. Or move, for that matter. He let his head fall limply back on the mat, though a hand came up to card through Acatl’s hair. It was a strangely tender gesture. “Later. You wore me out, Acatl-tzin.”

He felt his face flush at the reminder of how he’d acted. Duality, Teomitl would have marks the next morning. So would he, and he could only hope his cloak would hide them. He should apologize, he knew, but he couldn’t make his mouth form the words. Teomitl came to me. I have nothing to apologize for. “You’ll know better next time, won’t you?” He only realized what he’d said after the words were already out of his mouth, too late to call them back. Next time. Presuming there was a next time, that it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment fluke brought on by pulque and Teomitl’s teasing touches.

Teomitl’s eyes shone soft in the moonlight, and Acatl’s heart skipped a beat. Then he spoke, light and teasing. “I wasn’t expecting you to be such a jaguar on the mat.”

“Teomitl!” Acatl glared down at him. The love bites on his throat were already darkening, and it sent a possessive thrill through him. I did that. And he liked it. He’d thought he was spent, but if Teomitl kept teasing him… “You enjoy riling me up.”

Teomitl’s grin was sleepily radiant, eyes already fluttering shut. “You like it.”

Irritation drained out of him. He could feel the steady thump of Teomitl’s heartbeat, soothing him to sleep and making something go soft in his chest. I do. Gods help me, I do. He heaved a sigh. Cleanup could wait until later; his own bones felt like solid rock. It was far easier to simply roll off Teomitl, curl around him with his head on his shoulder—yes, that was as comfortable as it looked—and let his eyes drift closed.

In the morning, he knew they’d have to talk about this. In the morning, he knew he’d wake up with a head full of regrets and pain. But for tonight, he slept.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #teocatl #paladin writes stuff #not work safe

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notapaladin · 4 years

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the war is over and we are beginning

The end of Master of the House of Darts:

me, going entirely feral:

AND THEN THEY DIDN’T. MS DE BODARD I DEMAND A 20K EPILOGUE OF SOFT FEELINGS. since i didn’t get one, I wrote this, ft pining and handholding. Also on AO3

“No, it hasn’t changed.”

Teomitl stood watching the sunset for a long time. Acatl, for his part, watched him. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. If there’d ever been a time when he could, he didn’t remember it. Of course he’d seen Teomitl in full regalia, the white-and-red-and-jade costume of the Master of the House of Darts on the warpath, but never like this—never with the setting sun turning everything to molten gold, bringing out the warmth of his dark eyes and lingering like a lover on the curve of his smile. Look at you, he thought helplessly. Look at you, my future Emperor. I’m so proud.

He was turning back towards him. Acatl hastened to avert his eyes, but he was too slow; Teomitl had caught him staring, and now he was being favored with a teasing smile that made his face flame. “Is there something on my face?”

He shook his head. “Drink your chocolate.”

Teomitl tipped his head back to drink, and once again Acatl found himself captivated by the sight. He should be looking away. He should be thinking about the temple accounts, about the vigils for the dead, but his mind was full of the curve of Teomitl’s throat. Briefly overwhelmed, he closed his eyes. It was stress, nothing more. Stress and lack of sleep and the lingering warmth of knowing deep in his bones that one day Teomitl would be a Revered Speaker for the ages and still, still, calling him Acatl. He knew he hadn’t been imagining the softness with which Teomitl said his name.

He felt as well as heard Teomitl sit down next to him, and was suddenly acutely aware of how close they were. “It’s good. Did you have some already?” And then, with a familiar thread of suspicion, “You did eat, didn’t you?”

It was an exchange they’d had dozens of times. Like he did every time, Acatl sighed heavily. Dignity precluded him actually snorting or rolling his eyes, but it was a near thing. “Of course I ate. You should too.”

“Hm.” Teomitl stared down at the halves of his maize cake for a moment before taking a bite. He chewed thoughtfully, brow furrowed, and then eyed it suspiciously. “Acamapichtli brought these?”

Teomitl took another bite, chewed just as thoughtfully as the first, and swallowed. “Yours are better.”

Teomitl smiled at him. There was a crumb caught in the corner of his mouth that Acatl itched to brush away with his thumb. “It’s true!”

“Hmm.” It was a quiet, satisfied noise. “No. But I’d like to.”

“Teomitl!” It came out sharper than he intended, and the fading flush of his ears returned tenfold. Don’t say such soft things. You’ll make me—

He didn’t want to think what it would make him do. He didn’t want to think what it would make him want.

Teomitl heaved a sigh. “Alright, alright. No more complimenting your cooking. I’ll find some other way to show my appreciation, then.”

Acatl nearly choked. The butterflies rioted. “Hm?”

Oh. He had to close his eyes again, remembering the pain and the terror that had gripped him. Remembering how heavy Teomitl had been in his arms, heartbeat like a trapped bird, and the way he’d staggered through the streets with Duality, I can’t lose him too as an endless litany in his head. It had been far, far too close. Even now his mind’s eye, ruthless as ever, provided him with Teomitl flushed and feverish and in pain before he shook his head to clear it. “You never need to thank me for that. Anyone would have done the same.”

Belatedly Acatl recalled Teomitl saying the same thing to him in Nezahual’s summer palace; he wouldn’t have been surprised if it angered him, but Teomitl only looked steadily at him for a moment. “You carried me in your arms. I would have died without you, Acatl.”

A boat pulled by ahuizotls. Huitzilpochtli’s magic, hot and brilliant as the sun. A drawn macuahuitl, obsidian edges glittering. I would have died without you, too. “You remember that?” He wouldn’t have thought Teomitl would have been in a state to remember anything; his own memories of that flight through the city were badly fractured, and he’d at least been conscious.

Teomitl dropped his gaze. “...I do. Not very well, but—I do remember that. I remember you holding me.”

Lord Death didn’t give up His souls easily, not even if his High Priest asked—but he imagined himself owing a lifetime of favors to Quenami, and thought it would have been a fair trade.

“I was.” Teomitl looked down, slowly flexing his hands. “But I remember...there was screaming in my head, and everything hurt...but someone...” He swallowed convulsively and took another long sip of his chocolate. “I think someone held my hand. Was it you?”

Acatl’s own fingers twitched at the memory. Teomitl’s hand in his had been warm and dry, the fingers and palm calloused from swordhilts and knife handles, striped here and there with thin, raised scars. He’d squeezed it, seeking to give what comfort he could, and gotten no response—but Teomitl had felt it, nonetheless. “...Ah.” He couldn’t find words. “Y—yes. That was me. Forgive me.” Teomitl was a proud man, after all—he couldn’t have enjoyed being comforted like a child, though Acatl somehow doubted he’d ever been comforted like that when he was a child. It was a thought that made him wish he could have spoken sharp words to whoever had raised him.

And indeed, Teomitl was frowning at him—but then he spoke, and his words took Acatl’s breath away. “There’s nothing to forgive, Acatl. You...you gave me something to cling to. I only wish I’d been alert enough to enjoy it.”

A slightly strangled noise made its way out of his throat. “Ngk. You. Um.”

Teomitl laid his hand on the stone between them, loose and open. An invitation, one that made Acatl’s head spin. His eyes were soft and heated, filled with an emotion that Acatl couldn’t—no, didn’t want to name. “I’d like it if you did it again.”

Wondering how those words could absolutely destroy him, he reached out and took Teomitl’s hand for the second time. It was nothing like the desperation of the first one, where his own grinding agony had been the backdrop to Teomitl’s harsh panting and fevered murmurs—where he’d felt Teomitl’s pulse and prayed, prayed desperately to every god he’d ever even heard of, that it wouldn’t stop. This time Teomitl was looking over at him with clear, warm eyes, and when Acatl squeezed his fingers lightly he squeezed back. Acatl couldn’t speak. Speech was beyond him. Perfect, he thought dizzily. You are perfect.

“Mmm.” Teomitl was looking at him, and he thought he might catch fire. “Your hand is nice and cool. I thought it was just the fever.”

If my hand is cool, it’s because there is absolutely no blood going to my extremities right now. “...It will warm up.” There was no chance of him letting go before Teomitl did, and Teomitl didn’t seem to want to. Teomitl, in fact, was twining their fingers together, which anchored him in place as effectively as a spear to the chest. He was amazed the man couldn’t hear the pounding of his pulse through his skin. “You—you run rather warm yourself, you know.”

Teomitl studied their joined hands. “The magic?”

“It might be. I don’t know.” Most of the people he touched on a daily basis tended to be dead, and thus made terrible points of comparison.

Teomitl shrugged lightly, lifting his head to smile at him. “You’ve been saying that a lot lately.”

Except that I—gods, I—

For the space of a heartbeat, he wasn’t sure where his hand ended and Teomitl’s began—and then he ran his thumb lightly over his knuckles, felt Teomitl tremble, and knew his heart was entirely lost. Except that I love you.

He bit his lip, gazing out over the city below, and spoke a truth. “You were my greatest student.”

Teomitl made a noise that might have been an abortive laugh, but Acatl turned to look at him and found his eyes warm and dark and serious. “...You know I don’t need a teacher anymore, Acatl.”

He drew in a slow, shaky breath. While he certainly couldn’t say he minded Teomitl finally dropping the honorific—it had taken him long enough, honestly—nobody had ever said his name like that before. Teomitl’s voice made the simple syllables into something rich and tender. Acatl couldn’t have torn his gaze from his if the sky had fallen in. “...I know.”

The words came out without any input from his brain. “You’ll always have me.” As a friend, if you desire. As a brother, if I must. As a lover—yes, gods, I think I would break my vows for you. He licked his too-dry lips and watched Teomitl’s eyes follow the motion.

“Always?” His voice was hushed. “Even when I am Revered Speaker? What will you be to me then, Acatl?”

He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Whatever you desire, Teomitl-tzin.”

“Eurgh.” Teomitl’s whole body flinched, setting his quetzal-feather headdress bobbing and almost jerking his hand out of Acatl’s before he seemingly realized what he’d been about to do and latched on again. This time, his grip was almost painfully tight, and the look he turned on Acatl was something akin to a sort of wounded horror. “Alright, the first rule is that you are not allowed to call me that. Not ever, do you understand me?!”

Acatl blinked at him. Teomitl had always accepted the honorific as his due; it had seemed only proper that he, Acatl, should get used to using it as well. No matter that it puts a knife to my heart, to feel such distance between us. “What...should I call you, then?”

He had to look away. It was that or do something stupid. What that something would be, he had no idea, but he knew it would likely shatter what lay between them. Teomitl’s presence in his life was too important to risk. “...Even when you’re Revered Speaker?”

“Especially then.” His brief smile held none of his old carelessness, but it still shone like the sun. “Promise?”

It was the easiest vow he’d ever made. “Promise.”

Teomitl’s thumb slid over the back of his hand, sending lightning through his veins. Helpless, he looked up into Teomitl’s face again; the man was openly beaming at him, flushed and radiant and happy, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

I could kiss you now. He felt his heart skip a beat, and in an instant he knew that Teomitl wouldn’t stop him. That if he leaned in and tilted his head just so, he would feel that smile against his own lips.

But he was a coward, and so he turned his face away.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #teocatl #paladin writes stuff

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notapaladin · 4 years

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all there in our baby’s arms

Plotless OTP fluff? Plotless OTP fluff. As always, can also be read on AO3!

Acatl and Teomitl spend time together, and Acatl gently corrects a misconception.

Noon had passed hours ago by the time Acatl finally stepped out of the temple interior. Staggered, more like; he’d discovered that prolonged periods of stillness and the rainy season did not mix well with his legs ever since the fight against Itzpapalotl, and he’d felt like an old man by the time he’d uncurled himself from the account ledgers. It had rained earlier, cooling the air, but the afternoon sun was deliciously warm as it drenched the world in gold. He was alone for the moment, and so he sat down and closed his eyes, tilting his face up to bask in it.

A breeze caressed his face, stirring a loose strand of hair that had escaped his attempts at confining it. Somewhere below him were the sounds of the city he loved going about its day; further away, a bird warbled. He breathed in, smelling distant fires and the lingering dampness in the air. Later, he would probably be reminded of a hundred things he had to do, but for now? He’d let himself enjoy this.

Footsteps behind him, too hurried. He would know them if he were stone deaf and therefore didn’t bother to open his eyes; there was only one person who walked as though the notion of wasting time was an insult. “Teomitl.”

“There you are.” The voice he loved was warm and sweet as honey; unresistant, he let himself be wrapped in familiar arms and nestled against a well-muscled chest. The cloak over his shoulders wasn’t as warm as the skin pressed against his back. “I missed you.”

“Mm,” he murmured. “I thought the Master of the House of Darts would be too busy to miss me.” The rainy season would end soon, and Teomitl would be going off to his next campaign. Acatl had tried not to dwell on it, with mixed success. Of course Teomitl had gone to war before, but that had been...before. Before soft words and those first careful kisses, when he’d been Acatl-tzin and never just Acatl. Things were different now. Glorious, yes, but different.

Teomitl snorted. “The Master of the House of Darts just spent his morning dealing with fools who couldn’t find their own heads with a map.”

Acatl shifted, turning to nuzzle into the crook of his lover’s neck and reveling in the way he shivered. It hid his smile—this, at least, was one thing that would never change. No matter what, the war council would always fall short of Teomitl’s impatient expectations. He was surprised there’d never been bloodshed. “Hmm. Did you lose your temper?”

There was a sigh, stirring his hair. “No. Barely.”

“Good boy.” It slipped out without thinking. He regretted it immediately, knowing the depth of Teomitl’s pride, but all it got in return was a sharp little hitch of breath and a tightening of his hold. Oh. Teomitl liked hearing that. He filed the knowledge away safely in his mind; it was something to turn over at a later date.

When Teomitl spoke, his voice was soft. “...I thought of you.” A hand uncurled itself and slid over Acatl’s chest, and he shivered at the contact.

Acatl imagined his own reaction to being shoved into a room with the war council. He didn’t really know any of the men on it aside from Teomitl; the temptation to superimpose the faces of Acamapichtli and Quenami over them was probably mean-spirited, but it was hard to resist. All the times he’d come perilously close to punching them in the teeth flashed through his mind; how much worse it would be if he was a warrior, raised and trained for battle? “And that...helped?”

Teomitl’s wandering hand was at his shoulder now, twining a lock of hair around calloused fingers. “You are calm and even-tempered—“

He would not laugh. He would not. Even if...gods, is that how Teomitl sees me? Is that the impression I give? For a moment he really thought he would manage it—his lips twitched, but that was all—and then he remembered how his very first meeting with Quenami, before they’d even exchanged three words, had left him seeing red. It was enough. He broke. “Pfft.” Mirth bubbled up through him, shoulders shaking; his breath came in a drawn-out wheeze and for a moment he had to clench his fists to stop his reflexive slap of the stone under him. Calm! Even-tempered! Another wheeze. Another. He knew his face had to be red, knew he was making noises like a dog choking on a bone, but there was no stopping it. Gods, his face hurt. Me!

By the time he’d gotten his breath back, the set of Teomitl’s knitted brow had shifted from concern to annoyance, though he still kept Acatl loosely in his embrace. “...And you are laughing at me.”

Duality preserve me. “Teomitl.” He sucked in a breath. His lungs complained; he hadn’t laughed that hard in ages. Leaning back against Teomitl’s chest was a better idea. “Teomitl. I have wanted to strangle Quenami with my bare hands every time I’ve seen him, and Acamapichtli only slightly less.” It was better for him to know the truth, after all. The last thing Acatl wanted to be was a paragon.

Teomitl wasn’t pouting, but only because it was unbecoming of a noble warrior. Acatl could hear how hard he wasn’t pouting. “That’s a natural reaction!”

An intense wave of fondness rolled through him, and he couldn’t help but smile. His hand came to rest on Teomitl’s knee, tracing an idle little circle into the thin skin there. “I think you think too well of me.”

“...Impossible,” Teomitl sounded huffy, but then his voice softened. An arm slid around Acatl’s waist, gentle and warm. “Nobody can think too well of you, Acatl.”

Oh. In moments like these, he was firmly reminded that Teomitl loved him. It slid through his veins like a knife, leaving him dizzy with the enormity of it—of this stubborn, quick-tempered man, Master of the House of Darts and heir apparent to the Emperor, opening his heart to him. “Teomitl,” he breathed helplessly.

Teomitl kept talking, words running right over him as though he was afraid of losing momentum if he stopped. “I know you don’t expect recognition, but you have saved the Fifth World three times. Four, if you count my own foolishness.” Acatl felt his lungs expand in a deep breath, felt the way his shoulders stiffened as though preparing for a fight. “And even if you hadn’t, you deserve armfuls of gold and quetzal feathers just for being who you are.”

He swallowed around a suddenly dry throat. “I don’t—“

His lover’s voice took on a sharp edge. “Yes, you do deserve it. I would give you all the wealth of the Empire if you wanted it.”

It was too easy to picture it—precious feathers and gold for his ears and arms, silver and jade for his hair and ankles, eating naught but the finest delicacies and having his every whim catered to. It made him itch for obsidian knives and the dry dust of Mictlan to cleanse his palate. Even if part of him did want to flaunt Teomitl’s regard just a little whenever Quenami was being particularly arrogant, it was a mean and unworthy and reckless thought, and he’d long since resolved not to listen to it. “I don’t want any of that.”

“I know.” Teomitl sighed into his hair. “Giving you only my heart doesn’t feel like enough.”

Acatl twisted out of his hold; Teomitl made a brief, surprised noise, but in the next moment he was melting into the kiss that was the only answer Acatl could give him. I love you, he thought fiercely. I love you, I love you. Don’t ever say it’s not enough. He slid his hands down Teomitl’s back, feeling the heat of his skin through the cotton; as hot and sweet and right as it was, his mouth was better. I could die like this. If I went to Mictlan tomorrow, I’d be happy.

When Acatl broke away, Teomitl hummed quietly and captured his lips again, sweetly. “Mmm…” His hands settled at Acatl’s hips; the touch was light and innocent, but Acatl still had to tamp down a pulse of desire. Now wasn’t the time.

He pulled back, meeting his lover’s heated gaze. “Your heart is more than I ever thought I could have. I don’t need anything else, Teomitl.”

Teomitl licked his lips, eyes gleaming. Acatl felt his heart skip a beat. “...You’re sure?”

And then the hands at his hips were dragging slowly over his thighs, and he couldn’t suppress a full-body shudder. Oh, you are wicked. He had to close his eyes; knowing Teomitl was fixing him with a hungry stare was hard enough to resist without trying to meet it head-on. Xochiquetzal told me once that I spent too much time with the dead, forgetting what made me alive. If I’d known Teomitl then the way I do now… What laid between them was new enough, and their working lives difficult enough, that there were things they simply hadn’t done—yet. Teomitl’s desire was obvious in each lingering glance they shared across rooms or in crowds; it still flustered him, but whenever they touched Acatl was reminded that, vows or no, he wanted.

He took a shaky breath and risked opening his eyes again. “I am...open to persuasion.”

Teomitl leaned in, opened his mouth to speak, and Acatl trembled—but then someone’s stomach growled, and the moment was gone. Acatl managed to stop his chuckle, but not the accompanying grin.

Teomitl went adorably red around his ears, ducking his head as though he thought that would hide it. “Ah. Lunch first?”

Reluctantly, Acatl pulled away from the warmth of Teomitl’s touch. “...Lunch first.”

And then they would decide how to make the most of their free time.

#obsidian and blood #teomitl #teocatl #acatl #paladin writes stuff

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notapaladin · 4 years

Text

have you heard? (what they’re saying on the street)

A group of women gather on a rooftop to watch the army return from war. They wind up seeing (and talking about) much more interesting things than the number of captive prisoners. Such as the High Priest of the Dead, and whether he should really be looking at the Master of the House of Darts like that...

Because outside perspectives on relationships are fun! As always, can also be read on AO3.

The army was returning from war, and Citlalmina watched from her sister’s roof. Xochitl had managed somehow to marry a nobleman (Citlalmina suspected it had something to do with her weaving, which turned out cloaks lighter than clouds) and so they, unlike her, rated a two-story house with an excellent view of the warriors below. She could even see the Revered Speaker, and from this distance there was no possibility of anyone punishing her for looking at his face. Not that she especially wanted to; the Revered Speaker had been unwell since his ascension, and was not pleasant to look upon.

Not like his younger brother Teomitl-tzin, anyway. The Master of the House of Darts was roughly her age, tall and strong, with a handsome, open face. He was married already—to the new Guardian, the younger sister of the High Priest of Mictlantecuhli, and hadn’t that been a scandal—but she was sure he had room for a second wife. Or a third, she wasn’t picky. Of course, she was still supposed to be mourning the husband taken by the plague, but...well, she’d never liked him that much. His teeth had been as bad as his temper.

“You’re ogling.” That was Xochitl, smirking knowingly at her. It was an effect that was spoiled somewhat by the fact that she’d clearly done her hair herself that morning, and one of her braids was starting to slip down over her ear.

She flushed, batting her sister’s hand away. On her other side Etalpalli was giggling, which didn’t help. “I am not!...and if I was, can you blame me? Really?”

Xochitl tilted her head, studying Teomitl-tzin herself. “...He is very handsome. Not so much as my Chimalli, though.”

Now, that was rank favoritism; Citlalmina’s brother-in-law wasn’t bad-looking, but he was certainly no warrior. She decided not to mention that, and only gestured towards Teomitl-tzin. “You see?”

Tonalnan shrugged, motioning for one of the slaves to pour her more maguey sap. Of them all, she was the only one seated on a low chair instead of a mat, a symbol of her status as Chimalli’s mother and the effective leader of the household. Citlalmina wanted to grow up to be just like her someday; Tonalnan was never fazed by anything. “Married, though. And his wife is fierce.”

“I’ve met her.” Icnoyotl’s voice was so quiet that it took a moment for any of them to register she was speaking, and then they spun towards her almost as one to deluge her with questions.

“You what?”

“The new Guardian? Really? What’s she like?” She must be beautiful, Citlalmina thought.

Icnoyotl looked slightly panicked, shaking her head as though that would ward off their curiosity. “...Normal.”

Citlalmina shook her head. “...Impossible.” She’s the Guardian! She must be radiant—glorious! Not like us, even if her parents were peasants.

Icnoyotl seemed to find some spine somewhere, because she huffed, “I’m serious! She was a very good student in calmecac, but none of us ever thought she’d go on to be, well…a Guardian. She loves her family and I’m pretty sure she had names picked for all her children by the time she was twelve.”

She’d been expecting that, but it still made her wince. “So…don’t go after her husband, is what you’re saying.”

Etalpalli set her skewer of grilled frog down, patting her shoulder. “Definitely do not do that. Oh, look—there she is, with the High Priests!”

That got everyone’s attention, and they all crowded closer to the edge of the roof for a better look. The High Priests were crossing the plaza in full regalia, looking imposingly dignified. Citlalmina had no trouble spotting Quenami-tzin in the crowd—he was a tall and reedy man, with a face that was mostly long nose and a headdress that only made him taller—and from there it was impossible to miss Acamapichtli-tzin’s square, stocky build and Acatl-tzin’s skull mask, worn askew on his forehead in concession to the baking heat of the plaza. Mihmatini had to be behind them somewhere.

Xochitl jostled her excitedly. “Can you see her from here?”

It was Icnoyotl who responded, after piercing her ears and whispering a quick spell for keener sight. “...She’s rather short…” And then her eyes lit up. “Oh, no, I see her! And her brother! And…the other ones.”

Tonalnan frowned at her. “Is there something wrong with the other High Priests?”

“Well...no...but…” Suddenly, it seemed to be vitally important that she pinch her earlobes to stop the blood.

Citlalmina couldn’t help but smile, even as Xochitl sank back onto her mat and elbowed her. “They’re not Acatl-tzin. You can say it!”

Icnoyotl turned crimson, hunching down in her seat. “I wasn’t going to! But...yes.”

A sigh rippled around the younger women, and Etalpalli shook her head wistfully. “He is so handsome. I know the gods choose their priests, but couldn’t they have picked someone else? Someone with a face like a dog’s backside, maybe? It’s a crime.”

Citlalmina chewed her lower lip thoughtfully, studying Acatl-tzin below. She supposed she could see what Etalpalli was going on about; Acatl-tzin was neither tall nor muscular and the lines of a frown were seemingly etched permanently between his eyes, but he had a pleasingly regular face and the smile he turned on his sister made him look years younger. “Ollin says she knows a man who grew up with him, and apparently most of the girls and a few of the boys all agreed with you. Nobody was happy when he became a priest.” She shrugged. “He’s not at all my type.”

“Oh? Who is?”

She’d finally spotted Mihmatini-tzin in the crowd. Despite the splendor of her regalia, Icnoyotl had been right; she was short, and didn’t stand out that much under all the feathers and gold. Citlalmina’s heart did a flip to think it was possible that they might even have passed each other in the street unawares. Now that she saw her, she couldn’t look away. Hastily, she gestured at the warriors below. “...Oh, look, they’re approaching. And there’s the chant…”

They were silent for a long moment, and Citlalmina closed her eyes as the voices below washed over her. This was her favorite part of any occasion—the music, the sound of voices joining together to make something bigger than any of them could ever manage on their own. Even the Revered Speaker addressing the crowd with a voice like a sick dog couldn’t cut through the surge of peace she felt.

Unfortunately, Xochitl could. “Hmmmm.”

It was the same tone of voice she used when inspecting her weaving for flaws, and it had Citlalmina instantly on the alert. “What?”

She pointed, eyes gleaming. “Look down there, at Acatl-tzin and his sister. See where they’re greeting the Revered Speaker and the generals? Look at their faces.”

Tonalnan chuckled indulgently. “...Ah, Xochitl, you noticed. She does not look impressed.”

“But Teomitl-tzin is a great warrior!”

Etalpalli was more matter-of-fact. “She looks like she’s watching an annoying little brother present her a dead bird.” With seven younger brothers of her own, she would know.

And while Citlalmina sat there in shock at what was written plain across Mihmatini-tzin’s face, Xochitl fairly cackled with mirth. “She does! She does! There must be some trouble in that relationship, and them not even married a full year. What a shame, and Teomitl-tzin looking at her with his heart in his eyes.”

Icnoyotl drew closer, frowning as she studied the scene below. “...I don’t think…”

“Hm?”

She gestured towards the priests. “I don’t think he’s looking at her.”

He was looking in his wife’s direction, at least, but Citlalli knew a longing gaze when she saw one, and it was not aimed at Mihmatini-tzin. It was, in fact, focused on a point a few inches to her left. “Oh. Oh, Duality.”

Etalpalli leaned over her shoulder, nearly vibrating in excitement. “What? Who’s he looking at? You think there’s a girl in the crowd?”

She shook her head slowly, still reeling internally. “No. No, I...look at Acatl-tzin!”

They were going through the ritual greetings now; while the Revered Speaker launched into yet another speech, his Master of the House of Darts had locked eyes with his High Priest of the Dead, who was unashamedly staring back. And the look on his face! Even half-hidden by his mask it was enough to make Citlalmina blush, and she’d been married. Her husband had certainly never looked at her like that—soft and wondering, as though the sun had risen unexpectedly after a long, cold rain, but with the heated focus of a starving man at a banquet. She half expected him to start licking his lips.

Her friends were quick to pick up on it.

“Oh.”

“Ohhhhh…”

“That’s…”

Icnoyotl winced. “The Revered Speaker can’t have noticed, can he?”

Xochitl snorted, swatting at her without taking her eyes off the men below. Citlalmina couldn’t blame her; this was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen at a victory ceremony. “He’d fly off the handle, so no. But wow. Just...wow. They are not being subtle.”

Etalpalli just looked baffled. “What are you talking about? Didn’t Teomitl-tzin used to be Acatl-tzin’s student? Of course he’s happy he’s back, right?”

The look Xochitl gave her could have withered corn. “...I was apprenticed to old Mazatl-tzin, and if she looked at me like that I would have called my brothers and the guards.”

Citlalmina sat back on her haunches, blinking. It didn’t help. She was never going to forget that look on Acatl-tzin’s face, not to mention the way Teomitl-tzin had been blatantly eyeing him back. “Southern Hummingbird blind me. No wonder all the girls back in his calpulli pined in vain!”

“But...but priests are supposed to be celibate.”

Tonalnan cackled. “Oh, that doesn’t count! I could tell you stories from when I was in calmecac—“

Etalpalli made a face. “Please do not. But...purely in the interest of speculation, do you think they’re...together...yet, or…?”

Against her better judgement, Citlalmina looked down again. There was the Master of the House of Darts, standing tall and proud and perfect, gazing at the High Priest of Mictlantecuhli like he put the sun in the sky. There was the High Priest, gazing back. There was the Guardian by his side, all but rolling her eyes at both of them. Well, if they are, I don’t think she’s upset about it. She bit her lip, studying Acatl-tzin a little more closely. “I…can’t say.”

Icnoyotl muttered, “Well, I certainly wouldn’t turn down Acatl-tzin.”

“Oh, he would never make the first move. It had to have been Teomitl-tzin!”

While her friends teased each other behind her, Citlalmina watched the men below. She saw them break eye contact for a moment, only to turn their faces towards each other again. She hadn’t seen them greet each other personally yet. “...I don’t think they are. They can’t seem to look at each other for long, but they can’t seem to look away either.”

Icnoyotl sucked in a breath. “They’re pining. How tragic!”

Xochitl commented, “I think it’s romantic.”

“Pft, young love. It will fade.”

“Tonalnan-tzin, you’ve been married for ages, how could you say that?!”

“And I very quickly learned my husband was an idiot, so—“

Citlalmina tuned them out, distracted; Teomitl-tzin had finally looked at his wife, and they seemed to belatedly realize they should be happier to see each other alive and in one piece. There were some truly terrible attempts at smiling going on. She wondered if Mihmatini-tzin was lonely in her chambers; from the way Teomitl-tzin’s gaze flicked back to the High Priest, he wasn’t planning on visiting her tonight.

She hoped he and Acatl-tzin would be happy, at least.

#obsidian and blood #teomitl #acatl #teocatl #paladin writes stuff

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