Chapter Text
The year of our Lord 1437 was a tempest of political maneuvering, and nowhere was the air thicker with tension than within the gilded marble halls of the Angel Empire. To solidify a crumbling alliance between the southern reaches and the heart of the empire, a union was forged in the fires of necessity. Cooper , the Angel Emperor, found himself bound by sacred oath to a man he considered a shadow upon his brilliant court: Xolotl-Oshun Nakotah D’Armenteros de la Selva.
Cooper stood by the high arched window of the solar, his ivory skin appearing almost translucent against the morning sun. His heterochromatic eyes—one a sharp amber, the other a piercing blue—tracked the movement of the guards in the courtyard below. He smoothed the fine silk of his tunic, his lean, muscular frame coiled with a resentment that he did not seek to hide.
"It is a fucking travesty,"
Cooper spat, his Italian accent thickening with his ire. "To think that I, the sovereign of thirty-three million souls, am shackled to a savage from the colonies.. A man who possesses the complexion of scorched earth and the temperament of a pack animal. It is a blight upon the purity of the throne."
Behind him, the heavy oak doors groaned on their iron hinges.
Henry, the Commander of the Guards and now the Emperor's husband, entered the chamber. He was a titan of a man, standing a full six feet and ten inches, his heavyweight physique filling the doorway. His rich amber skin glowed under the torchlight, and his emerald eyes were fixed upon Cooper with an intensity that bordered on the fanatical.
Henry offered a low, disciplined bow, his long, split-dyed mullet falling over his broad shoulders. "The morning reports are prepared, my Emperor," Henry stated, his voice a deep rumble that vibrated in the small room. He did not use an exclamation point; his discipline was as ironclad as his armor.
Cooper turned, his lip curling in a sneer as he cataloged the man before him. He despised the way Henry looked at him—with a devotion that felt like a physical weight. He loathed the red guyliner that sharpened Henry's gaze and the way the Commander’s veiny hands rested habitually on the hilt of his sword.
"Do not address me with such familiarity, Sir Strázo," Cooper snapped, pacing toward the larger man until he was forced to look up, despite his own impressive height. "You may occupy my bed by decree of the Church, but you shall never occupy a place of honor in my mind. You are a tool, a dark stain upon my lineage. It is a perversion of the natural order that two men should be joined, let alone an Emperor and a... whatever you are."
Henry remained as still as a statue, his expression unreadable save for the slight flare of his nostrils. He was utterly obsessed with the golden creature before him. Every insult Cooper hurled was a treasure to Henry, a sign that the Emperor was at least looking at him. He found Cooper’s tyranny intoxicating and his delicate, angelic beauty a masterpiece he was sworn to protect.
"I understand my station, my Lord," Henry replied calmly, his gaze dropping for a moment to the floor in a rare show of bashfulness before returning to Cooper's face. "I am your shield. I am your blade. My blood is yours to spill as you see fit."
"Your blood is tainted," Cooper hissed, stepping into Henry's personal space, his pale hand trembling with rage. "You think because you are a Knight of the Garter that you are my equal? You are a beast in a tabard. I find the very thought of our 'marriage' to be a foul joke played by the heavens. Dio mio, the stench of the barracks clings to you like a shroud."
Henry felt a familiar ache in his chest—a mixture of profound loyalty and a dark, obsessive hunger. He watched the way Cooper’s blonde curls bounced as he moved, and the way his amber and blue eyes flashed with genuine hatred. To Henry, even Cooper’s bigotry was a facet of his perfection; it was the sharp edge of a diamond.
"I shall double the night watch," Henry said, ignoring the vitriol with the practiced ease of a man who lived for the person hurting him. "There have been whispers of dissent in the lower districts. I will not have your peace disturbed by the rabble."
Cooper let out a sharp, mocking laugh. "The only dissent I care for is the one sitting in my solar. Get out of my sight, Commander. Go and preen with your guards. Your presence makes the air feel heavy and common."
Henry bowed again, his emerald eyes lingering on the curve of Cooper’s jaw. He knew that Cooper was fragile beneath the mask of a tyrant, and that knowledge made Henry want to crush him and cradle him all at once.
"As you command, my Emperor," Henry murmured.
As the giant turned to leave, Cooper called out, his voice dripping with venom. "And Henry? Do not think for a second that I do not see the way you look at me. It is disgusting. You are a man, and I am a man. There is no glory in this, only shame."
Henry paused at the door, his dimples appearing for a fleeting second in a ghost of a smile that Cooper could not see.
"I seek no glory, Cooper. Only for your safety."
He stepped out into the corridor, the heavy doors thudding shut behind him. Henry took a deep breath, his veiny hands clenching into fists. He did not care for the insults or the prejudice. He was the shadow to Cooper’s light, and he would devour anyone—including himself—to ensure the Angel Emperor remained on his throne.
The sun had begun its slow descent, casting long, bloody streaks of crimson across the marble floors of the imperial bedchamber. Cooper sat upon a chaise longue of ivory silk, his breathing ragged and uneven. He sought to focus upon the ledgers of the grain tax, yet the ink seemed to bleed into the shape of a broad shoulder, a thick neck, and the towering silhouette of the man he purported to despise.
His mind was a traitor. It played back the way Henry had stood in the solar—the sheer, oppressive mass of him, the way his heavyweight physique had seemed to swallow the very light in the room. Cooper recalled the sight of Henry’s veiny hands, those large, calloused appendages that looked as though they could crush stone or, conversely, hold something fragile with terrifying gentleness.
A heat, unbidden and shameful, pooled in the lower reaches of Cooper’s belly. He felt a sudden, sharp constriction in his hosen. The Angel Emperor, the paragon of purity and divine right, was hardening at the mere memory of the man he called a beast.
"No," Cooper gasped, his voice a strangled rasp in the quiet room. "Non è possibile. It is a sickness. A foul, wretched contagion of the soul."
Disgust, hot and acidic, surged through him. He looked down at the evidence of his own body's betrayal and felt a violent urge to purge the sensation. With a snarl of self-loathing, he drew back his fist and struck his own thigh with a punishing blow, then punched at the base of his stomach, hoping the pain would stifle the desire. He doubled over, his blonde curls falling over his face, his heterochromatic eyes wide with a mixture of agony and lingering, unwanted arousal.
"I will not be a sodomite," he hissed to the empty air, his Italian accent sharp as a stiletto. "I will not be like those two fools."
A sharp knock at the door interrupted his spiral of self-flagellation. Cooper smoothed his tunic with trembling hands, forcing his face into a mask of cold, imperial indifference.
"Enter."
The door swung open to reveal André and Elias. André, a black French knight with a cocky tilt to his head, strode in with the confidence of a man who knew he was the finest warrior in the room save for the Commander himself. Beside him walked Elias, the Russian financial manager, his white-silver hair caught in the fading light, his expression as nonchalant and dry as ever.
"The treasury reports for the spring quarter, my Emperor," Elias stated, his voice a calm, Russian-tinted drone.
Cooper sneered, his gaze flicking between the two men. He knew they were lovers; the thought usually turned his stomach, yet he tolerated André out of a long-standing, begrudging loyalty that spanned their entire lives.
"You bring your paramour into my private quarters, André?" Cooper spat, leaning back and crossing his legs to hide any lingering trace of his earlier state. "It is bad enough that I must endure a marriage to a dark-skinned giant, but I must also witness the two of you flaunting your... unnatural proclivities in my presence? You both look like a pair of strutting peacocks in a barnyard."
André let out a short, boisterous laugh, unaffected by the venom. "And you look like you have been fighting with a ghost, Cooper. Your face is flushed. Did the ledger give you a fright?"
"Mind your tongue, André," Cooper snapped. "Lest I have it removed for your insolence. Go back to your barracks and play at being a soldier before you return to your Russian's bed."
Elias, who had been quietly observing the Emperor with his usual detached scrutiny, adjusted his spectacles. He did not look offended; he looked bored, which Cooper found infinitely more irritating. The Russian's eyes drifted to the window, where Henry could be seen in the courtyard below, stripped to his waist-cloth as he oversaw the late-hour training of the recruits, his massive, muscular back glistening with sweat under the torchlight.
"You speak much of 'unnatural' things, Cooper," Elias remarked, his tone devoid of emotion. "Yet your eyes seem to have a magnetic attraction to the Commander’s physique. I have noticed you staring at the girth of his arms for the better part of ten minutes during the morning briefing."
Cooper stiffened, his ivory skin turning a brilliant shade of scarlet. "I was cataloging his flaws! He is a clumsy, oversized oaf. I look at him only to ensure he does not break the furniture with his sheer lack of grace."
"Indeed," Elias replied, his dry humor cutting through the tension. "You cataloged the muscle of his chest with such intensity that I feared you might burn a hole through his tabard with your gaze. Perhaps you are merely concerned with the structural integrity of his armor."
"Fuck you, Elias," Cooper cursed, his voice rising. "I am the Emperor! I do not 'stare' at men. I find the very sight of him—and the two of you—to be a stain upon the aesthetic of my court. You are all beneath me. Now, leave the reports and get out before I lose my patience."
André clapped Elias on the shoulder, giving Cooper a wink that suggested he knew exactly what was happening behind the Emperor’s facade. "We are going, we are going. Try not to punch yourself again, Cooper. It would be a shame to bruise such a pretty face over a bit of 'cataloging'."
As the two men exited, their quiet laughter echoing in the hall, Cooper felt the heat return to his face. He walked to the window and looked down. There was Henry, a titan among men, his amber skin dark against the night, his heavyweight body a testament to power and violence.
Cooper watched him, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He hated Henry. He hated what Henry represented. But as he watched the play of muscle across the Commander’s shoulders, the Emperor felt the familiar, terrifying ache return, and he hated himself most of all.
The chamber was silent save for the frantic, ragged hitch of Cooper’s breath. The pain from the punch had faded, replaced by a thrumming, insistent heat that pulsed through his veins like liquid fire. He looked down at himself, his heterochromatic eyes wide with a mixture of horror and a dark, undeniable hunger. The image of Henry in the courtyard—sweating, massive, and powerful—was burned into the back of his eyelids.
"It is the blood of the colonist," Cooper whispered, his voice trembling with a desperate attempt at self-delusion. "He has cast a spell. Some savage sorcery to bewitch me."
But the logic failed him. His hand, pale and slender, moved of its own accord, seeking the source of the ache. He slumped against the silk pillows of his bed, his blonde curls spilling across the embroidery like spun gold. He closed his eyes, and in the darkness, he did not see the Emperor’s ledgers or the purity of his lineage. He saw Henry. He saw those veiny, massive hands. He felt the phantom weight of a six-foot-ten titan looming over him.
A soft, broken sound escaped his throat. "Henry..."
He began to move his hand with a frantic, desperate rhythm. The shame was a heavy cloak, but the pleasure was a sharpened blade, cutting through his prejudice. Every slide of his palm was an admission of his obsession. He pictured the Commander’s heavyweight physique pressing him into the mattress, the sheer, masculine gravity of the man pinning him down.
"Henry... fuck..." Cooper moaned, his head tossing back, exposing the elegant line of his throat. "Sir Adán... Adán..."
He was on the precipice, his body arching, his mind a whirlwind of forbidden imagery and the scent of iron and sandalwood. He was so lost in the blasphemy of his own desire that he did not hear the heavy tread in the corridor. He did not hear the subtle groan of the door hinges.
The door swung open. Henry, ever the vigilant guardian, walked in without a sound of warning. He had heard a muffled cry and, fearing an assassin or an ailment had befallen his sovereign, he moved with the silent efficiency of a predator.
Henry froze.
The sight before him was one he had played out in a thousand dark dreams, yet the reality was more staggering than any fantasy. There was his Emperor, his Cooper, disheveled and vulnerable, his ivory skin flushed a deep rose, his hand occupied with a task that made Henry’s own heart hammer against his ribs like a siege engine. And more than the sight, it was the sound—the name of the Knight of the Garter falling from those royal lips in a plea of pure, unadulterated lust.
Cooper’s eyes snapped open. The amber and blue orbs collided with Henry’s emerald gaze. The silence in the room was deafening, thick with the scent of sex and the sudden, freezing arrival of reality.
"GET OUT!" Cooper shrieked, his voice cracking with a mix of terror and humiliated rage. He scrambled to pull a silk sheet over himself, his face turning a shade of purple that mimicked the imperial banners. "GET OUT, YOU FILTHY, OAFISH BRUTE! HOW DARE YOU ENTER UNANNOUNCED! OUT! OUT!"
Henry did not move for a heartbeat. His gaze dropped, tracking the movement under the silk, his expression unreadable save for the way his jaw set firmly. He was a man of discipline, but he was also a man who had just heard his name used as a prayer by the person he worshiped.
"My apologies, my Lord," Henry rumbled, his voice lower than usual, thick with a new, dangerous undertone.
Without another word, Henry stepped back. He did not flee. He retreated with the measured grace of a commander. He reached for the iron handle and pulled the heavy oak door shut, the click of the latch sounding like a gavel in the quiet room.
On the other side of the wood, Henry stood in the dimly lit hall. His veiny hands gripped the hilt of his sword so tightly the leather creaked. He took a long, shuddering breath, his emerald eyes fixed on the grain of the door. He knew now. The Emperor might hate his skin, he might hate his origins, and he might despise their union—but the Emperor’s body belonged to the Commander.
Inside, Cooper collapsed against the headboard, his heart racing so fast he feared it might burst. He felt sick. He felt violated by his own weakness.
"I will kill him," Cooper whispered, though there was no conviction in his voice. "I will have him flayed."
But even as the threats left his lips, the heat in his loins had not dissipated. If anything, the knowledge that Henry had seen him—that those emerald eyes had cataloged his shame—made the fire burn even hotter.
The following afternoon, Cooper retreated to the sanctuary of his private solar, the heavy iron bolt sliding home with a definitive thud. He was a man possessed by a frantic, desperate need to reclaim his own soul. The encounter from the night prior—the sight of Henry’s towering form in the doorway and the humiliating echo of his own voice—had left him feeling soiled.
"I am a son of the Rossi lineage," Cooper hissed, pacing the length of the Anatolian rug. "I am the light of the Angel Empire. I do not crave the touch of a swarthy, oversized soldier. I do not."
He had devised a plan to purge the infection of Henry from his mind. He sat upon his divan and drew forth a series of exquisitely painted miniatures—portraits of the most "perfect" women of the Western courts. He selected one: a daughter of a Northern Duke, a woman with hair like pale flax and eyes as blue as a summer sky. She was the pinnacle of what he believed he should desire—ethereal, fair-skinned, and feminine.
He focused all his mental fortitude upon the image. He began to touch himself again, his movements clinical and forceful, as if he were trying to hammer a nail into wood. He stared at the blue eyes of the painting, demanding his body respond to the "correct" stimulus.
"This is beauty," he muttered, his Italian accent sharp and strained. "This is the natural order. She is soft. She is delicate. She is not a mountain of muscle and dark skin."
His hand moved faster. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to build a fantasy of a garden, of a woman’s laughter, of a bed of roses far removed from the barracks and the scent of Henry’s leather armor. He willed the heat to rise, and for a moment, it did. His breath hitched, and he felt the familiar tension coil in his thighs.
But as the climax began to crest, the image of the blonde Duchess shattered like glass.
In its place, unbidden and violent, came the memory of Henry’s veiny hands. He saw the way the sunlight had caught the sweat on Henry’s amber shoulders. He felt the phantom pressure of a man who was six-foot-ten, a heavyweight force that made the blonde woman in the painting feel like a ghost, a nothingness.
"Hen—" Cooper gasped, his body arching as the pleasure finally broke through his defenses.
He was not aware of the words leaving his lips. He was lost in the mental image of being crushed beneath the Commander's weight, of those emerald eyes looking down at him with that terrifying, obsessive devotion.
"Henry... m-mio Henry..." he moaned, his voice a low, guttural vibration that filled the small room.
He finished with a sharp, ragged cry, his head falling back against the silk cushions. For a few seconds, the afterglow was sweet—until the silence of the room rushed back in, and the reality of what he had just uttered crashed upon him.
Cooper’s eyes flew open, landing directly on the miniature of the blonde woman. She looked back at him, cold and unmoving. He had been looking at "perfection," yet he had called out for the man he had termed a "savage" only hours before. He had moaned for the very person he claimed was a blight upon his empire.
"No," Cooper whispered, his face going pale, then flushing a deep, angry red.
He grabbed the miniature and flung it across the room. It struck the stone wall with a sharp crack, the wood splintering.
"I did not say it," he lied to the empty room, his chest heaving. "I did not name him. It was a trick of the wind."
But the truth was a leaden weight in his stomach. He was the Emperor of thirty-three million people, a man who viewed the world through a lens of rigid hierarchy and perceived purity, and yet his own flesh had declared its loyalty to the giant he was supposed to loathe.
He stood up, his legs shaking, and began to dress himself in his heavy imperial robes, his fingers fumbling with the golden clasps. He had to face the court. He had to face André and Elias, who surely saw the cracks in his armor. And worst of all, he had to face Henry, who was likely standing right outside that door, waiting to protect the man who had just used his name as a sinful mantra.