Work Text:
“What are you doing, locked away in here?”
Mairon just hummed a noncommittal response, hardly even turning from his desk and the large dusty tome of a book opened before him. A stiff quill was poised above the page, ready to strike through a line of text - as it appeared he had already done with many others above, with corrections in his own hand written underneath or to the side - and his lips were pursed in barely quelled aggravation.
“Why is it,” he asked, still not turning even as Melkor came into the room bathed with crackling firelight and the additional flickers of so many candles in their sconces, “that we have received bushels and bushels of radishes, and yet we cannot seem to keep enough butter in larder?”
“Are you looking at the food rations ledger?” Melkor mused, his eyebrows raising almost to his hairline. He closed the door, the latch falling into place with a delicate snap. “Of all things, Mairon, the rations ledger? I thought you had yourself sequestered away all this time poring over - I don’t know - the stock of your forge or the preparations for our new army. But the food rations! You don’t even eat with the orcs! Why do you care?”
“Radishes!” Mairon burst with a curious anger before Melkor could continue. “Where are they coming from!”
Melkor laughed, a booming chuckle that came rolling from his chest as he let himself fall backwards onto Mairon’s perfectly made bed. His body bounced slightly from the weight of his drop on the plush feather mattress, sending pillows and furs and blankets scattering into disarray, and he looked over at Mairon with a bright expression only to be met with a sour glower from across the way before the Maia sneered over his shoulder and swept himself back to the book.
“Gothmog adores radishes,” he said by way of explanation, gazing instead up at the lush canopy above his head. “It was how I swayed him to my side, you know - a never-ending supply of the bitter vegetable he so loves.”
Mairon’s own laugh was really more of a sarcastic bark. Melkor looked at him again, taking in the way the candlelight caught on the many strands of gold and copper in his hair, igniting them with light and making his head seem to glow with fire. Jewels glittered there among the strands, deep yellows and reds nestled into several loose braids twining together. A marvelous sight, and Melkor was not afraid to be caught staring. Even if, of course, Mairon refused to turn around again to do the catching.
“Gothmog joined you for free access to radishes? I hardly believe it: the great Balrog, a magnificent connoisseur of fine foods as well as a fel beast of fire and brimstone.” Mairon shook his head, causing those glittering strands to sparkle and glitter in a most distracting way. “You are incorrigible.”
Melkor levered himself up to an elbow, still sunk down amid the pillows and soft furs of the bed. “It is at least partly true,” he said in an almost sulking tone. “The radishes are Gothmog’s, I swear it. He has some kind of treaty with a farmer who delivers them all by the cartload. I’ve not asked - I do not want to know - but he writes the deliveries out into that ledger himself. Or scrawls, more like, with those claws of his. How can you even read what he wrote?” He flopped backward again, and the scent of Mairon’s body somehow wafted up from the blankets and assaulted his nose. He made a face, starting to sit up fully.
“I’ll ask once more,” he muttered, running a hand over his face and looking around again at Mairon’s rigid back. He saw the wrappings of a woven belt around Mairon’s lithe waist, embroidered with golden thread into a deep yellow satin to set off against the dark burgundy of his robes. That embroidery glittered in the firelight as jewelry might, hinting with every movement. It was suddenly very striking, especially with his copper hair studded with those sparkling chains and gems falling down his back, even if his chair hid most of it. Melkor blinked, bringing his train of thought back to where he had intended.
“Why do you even care about the food rations? Everything comes and goes in perfect order, just as it should.”
Mairon, mostly oblivious to the effect of the glittering ornaments on Melkor’s current state, still did not turn as he answered. “I care,” he said smoothly, “because these are far too many radishes and I am concerned for the state of your fortress, now that I know Gothmog is the cause. What if he is hoarding them, lying in wait to use these foul vegetables against you in some way?”
And then he did turn, just a peek over his shoulder, and Melkor saw that he was grinning. He was not oblivious at all, if that smirk was any indication.
Melkor was across the room in three wide steps.
Mairon’s quill fell to the ledger’s open pages soft as a whisper as he reached upward to cup Melkor’s face into his hands, letting Melkor grasp about his waist in turn to pull him from the chair without protest. Their lips met once, and then again in a hungry open-mouthed kiss, and then Melkor drew away only slightly to plant a line over Mairon’s cheek to his neck, holding him close. The smell of Mairon’s flesh there was more searing than any lingering remnants floating in his blankets, and far more potent.
Mairon’s skin was hot under his lips, like a coal pulled from the fire, and he closed his eyes, savoring it, as he nudged eagerly with his nose and Mairon canted his head to the side. Mairon slid his hands back along Melkor’s face, along his jaw, and into his hair, one gripping at the back of his head as the other fell down along his neck - and promptly tugged hard against his scalp.
“Melkor -”
But Melkor disregarded him for the moment, instead nipping ardently along his neck with lips and teeth, returning to the soft spot just under his ear that always - yes, did that - and Mairon gasped and clutched at him. Only that tugging came again, harder this time, and he turned his head enough to get a glimpse of Mairon’s face. His eyes were half closed, and his expression was a mixture of fervent lust and intense frustration.
“I - I believe I am rather stuck,” he said breathlessly, moving the hand near Melkor’s nape for emphasis. There was the tug along several strands of hair, from Mairon’s hand all the way to Melkor’s scalp. A ring - or several, most likely - on Mairon’s finger was tangled in the already tousled bunches of hair there.
“Ensnared by your ravishing beauty,” Mairon quipped with a twisting grin that made Melkor’s chest feel too tight and his heart beat far faster than it ever should with emotions no one believed him capable of.
“Ignore it,” he murmured, moving in again to cover Mairon’s mouth with his own. Mairon sighed against him, opening to tongue and teeth and heated breaths. Melkor raised a hand to the back of Mairon’s head, his palm covering the top of the elegant comb holding the strands of gold in place through his hair. Mairon pressed closer to him, tugging once more with his snared hand before chuckling with the remembrance it was not going anywhere. The sound vibrated against them both.
Melkor ran both hands down Mairon’s back, searching for buttons or laces and encountering nothing but more finely wrought chains of gold or copper. From his hair, around his waist, draping from his shoulders, pinned in his ears. He opened his eyes to see them glitter, pausing to take Mairon’s flushed face into his hands. That glittering finery was overwhelming, sparkling and blinking with every movement in the light cast by the fire. No, not overwhelming. Melkor did not have a word for it.
He tilted Mairon’s head to the side and kissed at his neck with bruising force, feeling a silent moan keen through Mairon’s throat, and this time dropped his hands down along Mairon’s chest. Clasps, here, lined the front of his robes, and he grasped at them desperately, wishing to get these clothes, no matter how beautiful - that was the word, beautiful - off of him.
But the clasp would not give way, and he was forced to raise his head again to actually look at what he was doing. Melkor frowned, letting out an annoyed huff, and Mairon just laughed breathily, making no effort to help. Quite the contrary, really, for as soon as Melkor had moved away, Mairon leaned forward and ran his lips along Melkor’s jaw in a terribly distracting manner.
“Do you require assistance?” he asked, voice low.
“No,” Melkor snipped. “I can take your clothing off just fine, thank you.”
“Mm, very well,” Mairon hummed, wrapping his arm - the one with a hand not still stuck, no, that one was now pulling at Melkor’s hair with some urgency his words were hiding quite well, and it was not helping at all - up around Melkor’s shoulders and tugging him even closer. He nipped at his ear impatiently and slipped a leg between Melkor’s. “Hurry, won’t you?”
“You are not helping,” the Vala ground out between clenched teeth as Mairon licked playfully at his jaw, just at his earlobe. “What did you make these clasps with, to be absolutely impossible to open?”
“I thought you did not need aid in this simple matter of disrobing me,” Mairon replied easily, pushing against him until Melkor almost stumbled with his scattered concentration and the sensation of Mairon pressed so relentlessly against his front.
Suddenly Melkor gave up, only for the moment, and turned his face toward Mairon’s to find his lips. “You are horrible,” he grumbled. “I regret - I regret asking you to join my forces.”
“Do you?” Mairon asked into the kiss, smiling and tugging again with his stuck fingers.
“Yes,” Melkor replied. “Yes. Quite a bit of regret. A lot of it.”
“Oh, well, in that case - oh, ouch, let go, let go!”
Melkor recoiled as though he’d been stung, dropping his hands immediately from where they had curled in Mairon’s hair. Mairon quickly attempted to reach toward the side of his face, only for Melkor’s expression to match Mairon’s grimace of pain when the caught rings tugged forcefully again. Mairon’s arm went slack to release the pressure there on Melkor’s scalp, but his other hand raised to his own ear, touching the cartilage around the tip tenderly and pulling away to check his fingertips for blood. There’s wasn’t any.
“That strand you pulled was this one,” he said lightly, looking much more calm than he had a moment ago as the pain receded. He indicated a small golden chain from the tip of his ear to the lobe, and Melkor realized his finger had snagged it as he reached back for Mairon’s hair. He’d pulled it quite hard, really, and felt a twinge of guilt for the small amount of suffering he’d accidentally caused when he’d been going for the opposite.
“We are a mess just now, aren’t we?” Mairon murmured with a little smile, leaning close again. “Here, allow me.”
He gently reached up and used two fingertips on Melkor’s jaw to turn his face just slightly to the side so he could carefully slide his snared fingers out of their rings with help from his free hand, and then gently disentangled the rings themselves from Melkor’s hair. Three glittering pieces of perfect craftsmanship were pulled back around.
“Perhaps you should remove those next time,” Melkor groused, though his tone held no bitterness to it. “They do not seem conducive to such amorous activity.”
“Or,” Mairon retorted, sliding the rings back onto their respective fingers, “you could actually brush your hair every so often. My jewelry would not get stuck if you did not have so many knots and tangles. Shall I do it for you?”
Melkor scrunched his nose, making a displeased face at the very suggestion. But he still rocked forward, wrapping his arms around Mairon’s waist and pulling him close enough to press their foreheads together. “Why do you wear so much of this finery? Surely it has become impractical. And it certainly impedes...this.”
“My dear Lord Melkor,” Mairon began with an airy laugh that went straight to Melkor’s stomach, igniting the fire that had been halfway extinguished for only a few minutes. Melkor tugged him tighter, almost without consciously realizing he was doing so. “This impractical finery, as you call it, was your own idea in the first place. Wasn’t it your dream, to see me covered in gold and silver and jewels?” He tilted his head enough so their lips were nearly touching, and Melkor felt the breath of his words as he continued to speak. “Are you regretting all of your dreams now, my lord, or only a few of them?”
“None of them,” Melkor replied, taking back all of the atrocious talk he had made before. “I regret none of them. None that involve you, at any rate, however much you vex me.”
“Oh, do you mean my discovery of the mystery radishes?” Mairon asked innocently enough even as he brought his lips closer and pulled away again before Melkor could act. “I must have a discussion with Gothmog about that, you’re right. I’d like to know where these ridiculous shipments are coming from, and, of course, if he plans any sort of coup d'état against you. However unlikely, I am still mightily curious. Perhaps I should start planning a new allegiance, what do you think?”
“I hate you.”
“Oh, yes, I hate you too, my love. Viciously and with all my soul.”
Melkor could not help but grin crookedly at these words lined so heavily with that golden laughter, finally giving in and pulling him back for the kiss he had been playing around. Mairon responded eagerly, careful of his rings this time as he slid his hands up to Melkor’s face and around the back of his neck. “Should I show you this time how these clasps work?”
“Only if you take off some of these chains before I strangle myself on them. But…” He paused, kissing a line down Mairon’s neck and back up his throat, pulling his face around to meet his mouth again. “But leave those in you hair.”
Mairon smiled at him, a wide beaming smile filled with warmth and so much fire, and Melkor could not remember in that moment why he wished for those jewels at all.