Work Text:
It has reached the point where the afternoon teeters at the brink of evening. Outside of Celebrimbor’s chambers, the light has gone feeble and watery behind a faint sheen of clouds, scarcely lightening the blue shadows gathering in every corner. No candle or lamp has been lit in this halfway-hour. The light from the window is thrown down in a sharply defined square, and outside of it edges much of the room is stranded in darkness.
Tyelpe himself sits at his desk in the island of light, frowning over a leaf of parchment as his pen makes short, businesslike strokes across it. The light falls over him and his workspace like a pale grey shroud. Likely he has not noticed the growing shadows around him, just as he has not noticed Annatar’s presence in the room. Annatar enjoys these moments, when he can watch Tyelpe without being watched himself. At times like these, he can relax the careful structures of his disguise, let something else slip onto his face. Standing in the shadows, for the span of several heartbeats he is Annatar no more. It’s a kind of voyeurism, a feeling that sets something beating quickly inside of himself: Look up, Tyelpe. Look at what’s right in front of you.
But it is Annatar’s hands that slide onto Tyelpe’s shoulders from behind, and in Annatar’s voice he speaks. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Tyelpe scarcely glances up, the tension that bunches under Annatar’s hands smoothing away at the realization of who holds him. “I’ve been here.” Tyelpe’s voice is tense and hard-edged, and cannot seem to decide whether it contains a defense or an apology.
“All day?” Annatar murmurs, letting his fingers gently knead into Tyelpe’s shoulders. Yes, by the knots in his shoulders he has scarcely left this room. Tyelpe’s dark hair falls over the collar of his robe, and when Annatar sweeps it to one side he reveals a swath of neck, damped by shadow. Tyelpe’s pen scratches its rhythm over the parchment, the only sound and motion in the room. Annatar simply stares, and thinks how the skin of that neck spills over collarbones like the swell of a river flowing over a rock. He thinks about the notches of Tyelpe’s ribs, the spreading wings of his hip-bones. His hand has returned to Tyelpe’s neck, fingers sliding over his throat to rest there as his palm cups Tyelpe’s heartbeat, running the pad of his thumb over the line of Tyelpe’s jaw, back and forth.
Annatar had not planned this, had not, as he sometimes did, sought Tyelpe out in order to slake a need in himself. Yet here he is all the same, gripping Tyelpe’s neck with a gentleness that belied his strength in order to pull his head up from his work. Tyelpe sighs, and the sound dies along with the scratching of the pen as he lets Annatar lift his chin. “Annatar. Now is not a good time.”
Annatar marks the truth of that, even as he leans in to bury his face in the dark curtain of Tyelpe’s hair. He cannot remember touching Tyelpe like this when the sun was still risen, when the night didn’t close in around them and give them permission that daylight didn’t. There is something different, more vulnerable perhaps, about laying together on an afternoon like this. At any other time Annatar would have scorned such vulnerability as weakness. But the press of need inside him grows sharper by the second, and he can smell the soap in Tyelpe’s hair, can feel the pulse beneath his hand pick up.
“There’s to be a council meeting soon,” Tyelpe is saying, but his voice has gone from a soft reprimand to a tentative excuse. “I’m meant to attend.” Annatar can feel him slipping, letting go, sliding further into his control. The thought makes him turn his head and nuzzle up the shell of Tyelpe’s ear, finishing the gesture with a slow, contemplative bite.
“Skip it,” he says.
It doesn’t take him long to guide Tyelpe back towards the bed, stepping out of the square of cool sunlight and into the shadows beyond. The world seems quiet, both inside the room and out, as if waiting in anticipation for some event to shatter the stillness back to life. Tyelpe is still murmuring faint excuses, pushing away Annatar’s hands when they start to undo his clothing, but not so much to actually slow him down. He is not going to the meeting. This is simply a fact that Annatar has realized first, and one which he will now lead Tyelpe to understand.
“Annatar,” Tyelpe chides, and a moment later the breath comes out of him in a short laugh as Annatar pushes him onto the bed. “This is irresponsible—just wait, I will likely be back by nightfall—”
“Unless, of course, there is some unforeseen issue that some concerned citizen sees fit to bring to the table,” Annatar says drily, bending down to yank Tyelpe’s boots from his feet where they hang over the edge of the bed. “Which as you remember, has happened nearly every time.”
“That may be, but it is my duty,” Tyelpe says, half-heartedly sitting up as if to reach for his fallen boots. Annatar shoves him back down again, roughly enough so that Tyelpe knows he means it. Tyelpe sighs again, the sound torn between exasperated and flattered: Annatar rarely allows himself such a lack of control, wearing his wants so plainly. But something is different now: he wants, very badly, to see Tyelpe undone, to capture something in this room right now that he doesn’t want to slip away.
And so he unclasps Tyelpe’s robes, and slides down to kneel by the bed between Tyelpe’s legs. Tyelpe begins to sit up again, rising to his elbows with the color rising in his cheeks as Annatar fumbles his belt open, separates the fabric. When Annatar puts his mouth on him Tyelpe crumbles, falling backwards against the bed with a moan that sounds more akin to a cry of pain. Almost immediately he lifts his head again to watch what Annatar does, the slow movements of his tongue, the taking in and drawing back. Annatar keeps a firm grip on Tyelpe’s hips, holding him to the bed. He imagines another day like this, when Tyelpe will fall to his knees at his order and swallow him whole. The thought shoots through him, hot and hungry, and one of his hands slips free in order to press at the ache building between his legs. He does not even mind when Tyelpe’s hips buck up in response.
He pulls away a moment later, savoring the whine that slips out of Tyelpe’s throat. As he clambers up onto the bed and meets Tyelpe’s eyes, he can see the glaze of pleasure and the sharpness of need lingering there. Tyelpe’s hand rises to Annatar’s lips, already swollen, as if they are precious relics and touching them is an act of worship. Annatar likes that. He wants Tyelpe to fall down at his altar and beg for salvation.
Slowly, he leans in until their faces are a breath apart. “Do you still wish to go to your meeting?” Annatar asks.
Wordless, Tyelpe shakes his head.
The rest of their clothes are shed quickly if not efficiently, hands turned clumsy in an unfamiliar haste. There’s something new and exciting to this act of giving in, to loosening his grasp on the control Annatar holds both over Celebrimbor and himself. They have done this in many ways already, in many combinations of flesh—for neither of them are quick to submit and part of the pleasure is in the conquest, in the act of being conquered. There is no play-struggle now. “I want to take you,” Annatar pants against his mouth, and Tyelpe says only “Yes”.
At first his impatience gets the better of him, and when the time comes Annatar presses in hot and fast and frantic as if this is the first time. In truth the first time they lay together was nothing like this, for Annatar had planned every detail for weeks; it had been carefully choreographed, though Tyelpe would never have guessed it, and the satisfaction Annatar felt was from the completion of a successful maneuver more than the movements of their flesh. Yet this time it’s the flesh that holds him, and he lets himself think of nothing else.
Across the room the patch of sunlight slowly migrates across the desk and floor, but their entwined forms remain hidden safely in the shadows on the bed. He can see Tyelpe’s pupils blown wide with darkness and pleasure, can see the corresponding movements of his lips with every cry and moan. On a whim Annatar leans in and presses a kiss to those lips, sliding in deeper and tasting the flutter of sound that escapes Tyelpe’s mouth in response. It is not often that Annatar allows himself such tenderness without a cause. But today, anything seems possible.
His rhythm turns languid, stretching the sensations out like the shadows on the wall. Tyelpe’s hard breaths grow long and broken and tinged with need. “Annatar—please—I need more,” he whispers, body writing and bucking beneath Annatar’s hands. Annatar does not give in. He presses in slow, hard, until their bodies are locked together and the breath is driven from Tyelpe’s lungs. Annatar rocks their hips a scarce amount of times, enjoying the flashes of brightness behind his eyes with every motion. And then he pulls back again, with a pleasure so slow he can almost mistake it for pain.
Tyelpe struggles, arching up in search of more friction and pressure, but Annatar denies him with a greedy smile. “Fuck,” Tyelpe groans, his eyes fluttering in his head as Annatar slowly pushes into him again. “Annatar, will you—” His hand moves down between his legs. Annatar stops it short, his grip on Tyelpe’s wrist iron-clad.
“You have the patience to sit through hours and hours of tiresome political meetings,” Annatar murmurs, slowly pinning Tyelpe’s hand down to the bed, “but not for this?” He does not change the speed of his ministrations. If he is to be honest with himself, he enjoys driving Tyelpe closer and closer to the edge, and denying him all relief.
“Alright,” Tyelpe pants, “alright, Annatar, I can be patient, just—” His voice chokes out as Annatar’s hand slowly runs down his length, stroking him once, twice, then pulling away. Tyelpe cuts short the cry that tears from him, teeth digging into his lower lip as his eyes squeeze shut.
“This is torture,” Tyelpe whispers to the darkness behind his eyes. The words land deep in Annatar’s stomach and nearly stir forth a laugh—though why, or at what, he cannot be sure. He can only keep moving, and if his harsh breaths contain a flutter of confused amusement, Tyelpe does not notice. When he leans in and presses their mouths together again Tyelpe opens up to him, lets their tongues mingle and then crush together, teeth clacking, neither caring.
"Are you mine?" Annatar asks, ignoring the way his voice keens from his throat. The question is not one he has knowingly contemplated before, yet it tears out of him with the feeling of a splinter drawn out of an old wound.
"Yes," Tyelpe gasps, "Yes, Annatar, yes, yes."
He can tell himself it's all part of the game, that Tyelpe’s answer so freely given is simply another piece of him that Annatar has successfully torn off—yet hearing it eases a need in himself that Annatar hadn't known existed. He watches Tyelpe’s face and Tyelpe watches his; and when Annatar takes him in hand he can see the breaking in Tyelpe’s eyes, the way it rises up and falls away, then rises all the faster. Annatar’s voice is as urgent as he tells Tyelpe to hold on to him. He wants to be the rock Tyelpe clings to in the storm, wants to feel the beating of those merciless waves. He’s at risk of being dragged under right with him, but he resists, he holds back; there’s something terrifying waiting for him in that final loss of control, the sudden and awful oblivion. Tyelpe is already gone. He comes and Annatar works him through it, wrings every moan and spasm out of his body until Tyelpe is still.
So close himself, Annatar’s pace does not flag. At once the room seems to grow sharper in his perceptions, the slap of skin, the breaths his motions push out of Tyelpe’s lungs even now. He’s ready now, ready to follow Tyelpe into the softness and contentment gleaming in his eyes.
But then it is not enough. He needs more, and so he takes more, going faster and harder, and he sees the little flashes of discomfort usurping the glow in Tyelpe’s eyes, but he does not stop, he cannot. He pushes and jerks and rearranges and tries again, but the glow is gone from Tyelpe’s eyes, and he should have let Tyelpe pull him over the edge as he went, shouldn't have flinched away—because now the anger is returning and making him cruel, and as his hand twists in Tyelpe’s hair something in him greedily approves of the yelp of pain that flies past his lips.
Even now, seeing the echo of malice in Annatar’s eyes, Tyelpe does not flinch away. Instead, he urges Annatar on, even as his voice goes rough around the edges and his eyes wince with every movement—but it's almost as if the pain is happening to another person, a person whose suffering Tyelpe cares nothing about. Just once, Annatar had wanted to lose himself in the illusion. But the person he is beneath his disguise has never been skilled at anything but causing pain, and it seems Annatar is no different.
But even now Tyelpe’s hands sink deeper into his shoulders, and he's slowly, inevitably drawing Annatar back towards the brink, whispering and bucking and taking what Annatar hurls at him even though it must hurt. And suddenly Annatar doesn't want to come, because Tyelpe’s eyes are clear and Annatar is afraid of what he might see in his face. In this moment, he cannot hide.
So he yanks Tyelpe’s head back and buries his face in his neck, kissing and biting and tasting his sweat even as his release sways in front of him like vertigo, and then he's tumbling down and his hips are jerking and something moves through him and crashes down on him and Tyelpe’s name spills from his lips and onto the bite marks on his throat. And then, it is over.
He lays there a while, or tries to. But Tyelpe is easing his hair out of Annatar’s slackening grip, tilting his face down and lifting Annatar’s up in search of his gaze. Annatar meets it despite his better judgement. He can’t know what he looks like right now, what Tyelpe might see—surely none of the soft edges and gentle currents he glimpsed in Tyelpe’s eyes. But Tyelpe reaches up to brush the hair from his face, to stroke the sweat from his brow and murmur "It's alright, you were so good, it was so good" and Annatar despises the way such sentiments bring him relief. Tyelpe’s neck glows with angry red welts. They'll be bruises before long, bruises to match the ones Annatar’s careless hands have left on his hips, his thighs. What was so different about him that he could not love gently, quietly? The word love slips into his mind so subtly he hardly notices it, and he stamps it out as if it were a cockroach.
He turns his head away again, lets his cheek rest on Tyelpe’s chest. The sunlight in the room is gone. The window is nothing more than a square of dull grey. Tyelpe’s heart beats against his ear, each pulse slow and deep, deeper than Annatar can imagine. Neither of them speak. The silence creeps in like still water, until it piles over them and crowds into them and the idea of any sound is a violation. Tyelpe reaches up to twine their fingers together—they lie like a brace of grey worms on the sheet in front of them. The rest of the light dies quickly: Annatar watches as their entwined hands fade into the darkness, until there’s nothing left.