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Annatar is sprawled across his bed when Tyelperinquar enters, nestled on his stomach amidst a comfortable mess of sheets and duvet and pillows that he has pulled from their places to make as large a nest as he can. Whatever it is that he is reading, he seems completely absorbed by it: he does not even look up at the sound of the door opening, and he offers only the softest, most perfunctory murmur in greeting when Tyelperinquar leans over to kiss the top of his head.
“Something interesting?” Tyelperinquar asks him, indulgent despite being ignored.
“More interesting than you are right now, what with your silly hang-ups,” Annatar huffs. “Do leave me be, precious.”
Tyelperinquar sighs. So. They are still having an argument, then.
If this can really be called an argument.
Annatar has been musing lately about the possibility of drawing power from the potential of the will as opposed to a more traditionally kinetic source, and the unsettling look in his eyes as he does so has been making Tyelperinquar anxious. Why is Annatar so determined to pursue this particular line of inquiry with only Tyelperinquar and not the rest of the Mírdain, and why is he so fiercely protective of it?
Unfortunately, Annatar had seemed to take today’s revelation of this anxiety as proof – of all things! – that Tyelperinquar doesn’t trust him. There had been heated words, and Annatar had stormed away, and this is the first that Tyelperinquar has seen of his lover since.
Stretched fully-clothed and obviously comfortable atop Tyelperinquar’s bed pretending to ignore him, yes, but – the effect is ruined by the fact that he is sprawled, and he is on Tyelperinquar’s bed.
There is no telling what goes on in the Maia’s mind, sometimes, but this Tyelperinquar imagines he can fathom. Annatar does not apologize when he does not believe that he was wrong. But that doesn’t mean that he won’t try and make up after an argument either.
So Tyelperinquar plays along, as if perhaps Annatar truly is wounded enough that he must be left in peace to enjoy – well, after Tyelperinquar dares a quick glance over the Maia’s shoulder, what seems to be a collection of erotic poetry.
“I see,” he murmurs though, not taking a seat on his own bed alongside his lover. “But love, please – where am I to go and contemplate how I might earn your pardon, if not to the privacy of my own rooms?”
“What does it matter?” Annatar asks, his tone thawing a little at Tyelperinquar’s acknowledgement of the game but still slightly frosty with some earlier hurt. “Oh yes, now I seem to recall – perhaps it is because there are some things that we should not even think to explore until we are fully certain of their ramifications to those who cannot match our supremacy once we achieve them?”
Annatar’s imitation of Tyelperinquar – or indeed, of any of the Mírdain – can be uncannily accurate when the Maia is actually making the attempt. So Tyelperinquar imagines that this intentionally poor mockery of his own voice, this surely teasing overstatement of his own concerns, means that he is close to being forgiven.
(for what, he has all but forgotten, but it is crucial that he is forgiven)
“I suppose,” he says lightly, finally sitting down on his own bed. “Am I forgiven, then?”
Gestures of friendship, of camaraderie, of encouragement, are common among the Mírdain, and although it took them some time to truly imagine Annatar as one of their own, the shift had happened eventually.
So at first Tyelperinquar thinks nothing of punctuating this question with a playful slap to Annatar’s rear. It’s only what he would do with another of the Mírdain, when making up after a debate or acknowledging a particularly salient point.
But it’s only when Annatar actually arches beneath his hand with a tiny sound of shock that Tyelperinquar registers how else the gesture could be taken.
By a lover, lying facedown down atop his bed and waiting for an apology that Tyelperinquar still hasn’t quite made, and not another of the Mírdain, standing alongside him and laughing too.
Oh, stars.
“Oh, stars, Annatar, I am so sorry.” He is already scrambling to stand, to give Annatar space and distance, frantic with fear that the Maia will think Tyelperinquar struck him in anger rather than in jest. “I wasn’t thinking, not that that is any excuse, I-”
Annatar’s grip closes on his wrist as strong and sudden as a trap, and when he looks over in shock, the Maia has turned to face him, going up on one elbow so that his belly is still to the bed and – void and stars, his ass is still well within reach. “Tyelpe.”
Gone are the mocking imitation, the tinge of frost, the pretense of indifference. His voice drips with desire.
“Tyelpe,” he repeats, enunciating each syllable so that it pierces through the fog of concern and confusion. Stars, but he knows Tyelperinquar so well. . . “I am not angry. Do it again.”
What?
“What? Annatar, I-“
“Tyelpe.” Annatar is already reeling him in for a heated kiss, moaning beneath Tyelperinquar’s lips. “Again, my precious.”
He should probably ask whether he is forgiven, some small corner of Tyelperinquar’s mind insists.
He should probably try to remember what he was so concerned with being forgiven about, an even smaller part insists.
But the great majority is utterly taken with watching how quickly Annatar is pulling off his robes, and with admiring the sight and sound of his own calloused hand coming down on that fair skin until it burns beneath his touch even more than Annatar’s lips did beneath his kiss.