Chapter Text
The first night is perfect.
Kinich is incredibly sore and Ajaw is unsteady on his feet, new as they are, and by unspoken agreement they spend most of it wrapped up together in bed, their new beads clinking as they cuddle close. The softness of the sheets and the warmth of their bodies pressed together soothes over the discomfort in his achy muscles, and Kinich falls asleep with his head pressed close to Ajaw’s chest, his steady heartbeat a lullaby. At times he wakes as if in a dream to drink water, snack, or use the bathroom, but other than these momentary lapses he spends his time wrapped up with his lover, feeling content.
Then the sun rises on the next day, and reality begins to trickle in. Comfortable warmth turns to a sticky, cloying heat and soft sheets become hard from drying unwashed. Kinich wakes first, feeling sweaty, disgusting, and in desperate need of water.
His attempts to rise are foiled when he realizes his right arm is trapped under Ajaw’s body, numb, and he flops back down with a huff. His gaze fixes on the ceiling. In the morning light, the stone looks like brushed copper. It's a familiar sight somehow made new just by looking at it with Ajaw beside him, and he has to breathe deeply past the happiness expanding infinitely in his chest. He is unused to such love, so pure and entirely for him, and his heart beats out a steady rhythm of joy and demands he curl back into his spot at Ajaw’s side. It’s an impractical thought, the type he’s not in the practice of letting himself indulge in.
Kinich is a little unmoored by how deeply he feels, honestly. It was one thing when he was silently pining, sure that Ajaw would never love him back, but to have that love returned so suddenly and wholly is overwhelming.
“Ajaw, wake up,” Kinich says, suddenly urgent with the physical need of Ajaw’s grounding companionship. Ajaw is unresponsive save for turning over and throwing an arm over Kinich, and it's not endearing, it isn’t. His face is slack with sleep, handsome and soft under the kiss of sunlight that halos him. He is beautiful and real, at Kinich’s side where he belongs.
Kinich presses his free hand to his face and ignores the burn in his ears. Archons, but he’s a sap.
He breathes deep, wrestling his heart rate down. Kinich is a morning person. He has been since he was a child and that didn’t change when he brought Ajaw home in a wristband. It isn’t going to change now just because he’s brought Ajaw home to his side.
Kinich braces his feet on the mattress and heaves, using his trapped arm as a lever to dump Ajaw over the edge of the bed. The Almighty Dragonlord crashes to the floor and awakens with a yelp, limbs flailing. Kinich grimaces at the twinge in his lower back as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed, but ignores it in favor of surveying the messy state the room is in.
Pillows are strewn on the floor at random. The candles are out — Kinich doesn’t know whether Ajaw had the foresight to blow them out or if they burnt out on their own. A tap on the wristband pulls up the screen he uses for a grocery list, and Kinich jots down candles behind bread and butter and then, when his back twinges at him again, muscle salve.
“Are you listening to me?” demands Ajaw.
“No,” Kinich replies honestly, shutting down the screen. He steps primly over Ajaw to pull two towels out of the cabinet. “Up. We’re washing, and you’re brushing your teeth.”
Ajaw’s cheeks puff up, but he takes the hand Kinich offers him and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. He is a newborn foal on shaky legs, and it takes a few seconds of an iron-knuckled grip on Kinich’s arm before he steadies enough to make it to the bathroom, muttering darkly about the betrayal of his promised morning sex all the while.
Kinich frowns, setting the towels down on the counter. “Do you actually have the energy for that?”
”Last night was barely enough to sate my royal tastes!” Ajaw complains. He trails his hand down Kinich’s side suggestively with a devilish smirk before letting go, sighing, “But I suppose that someone as magnanimous as K’uhul Ajaw can allow his servant time to recover.”
”I appreciate your generosity," Kinich replies with a flatness that belies his humor.
Both of them in the cramped bathroom is more of a squeeze now that Ajaw fills three dimensions rather than just two, but they make it work. Kinich bravely sacrifices his toothbrush to the cause of ridding Ajaw of his morning breath. While Ajaw is learning the joys of dental hygiene, Kinich backtracks to the kitchen to drink some water. He then returns to brush his teeth second, which gives Ajaw time to explore the paltry body care products that Kinich owns.
“Add soaps and shampoos to the shopping list,” Ajaw says over his shoulder, rifling through Kinich’s collection. “Your atrocious two-in-one is not fit to touch my lordly head. Oh! And add that one scrub I saw in the market, the sweet smelling one from the boy who kept trying to hide under his booth.”
Kinich spits toothpaste into the sinks, then reaches for the wristband he left on the counter absently. He writes down toothbrush first, then follows it with shampoo, conditioner, and — after a moment of wracking his brain — honeysuckle scrub. He is admittedly a little distracted taking in the decorated line of Ajaw’s back, and it does not escape the other’s notice. He snickers. “Like what you see?”
Kinich looks down to add clothes to his list, pretending his cheeks aren’t aflame.
He hisses, “Just get in the shower.”
The spray of water is a cold shock that makes Ajaw jump back with an alarmed hiss. Kinich coaxes him in when it’s warmed up, and although Ajaw shoots the shower head a venomous look, it doesn’t take him long until his eyes close in contentment from the heat. Truthfully, Kinich would have preferred to bathe, but the tub is not big enough for the two of them and he cannot bear the thought of separation. The shower, while still cramped, at least has enough space for them both if they stand pressed together, which Kinich does not mind in the slightest. He ends up with his back to the spray and Ajaw’s chest pressed to his front.
He washes his hair distractedly, never looking away from the sight of his lord and husband even as his nose wrinkles at the soap. Much like his previous form, Ajaw bears an orange clover on his left cheek. Blond hair swoops up around his face in spikes and his brown skin is covered in tattoos. Unlike Kinich’s, which appear only in green, he is colored with yellow, orange, and green, as showy and bright as Ajaw himself. They glow softly, too, pulsing with the same illumination of phlogiston — whether it is their natural state, or a sign of the Dragonlord still settling into a human body, Kinich isn’t sure.
“You stare quite a lot,” Ajaw notes, eyes still closed. “Is my handsome face that irresistible, Kinich?”
“I like it,” he confirms matter-of-factly, dipping his head backwards into the water to wash the shampoo out.
Ajaw’s mouth drops open. “Where did that come from?”
“It is the truth. I see no need to lie about it. We’ve done enough of that already.”
Kinich tilts his head sideways to avoid the shower’s spray, allowing it to fall on Ajaw instead. It jolts him out of his stupor and he splutters water out of his mouth. Kinich holds out the bottle of — yes — two-in-one. Ajaw takes it on stunned reflex, and then stares in what looks like complete befuddlement.
“Don’t make a peep,” Ajaw warns. His shoulders are to his ears.
Kinich stares; he wants to learn every expression that Ajaw can make, savoring each one with all of the studiousness of a tradesman learning their craft and all the devotion of the bessotted servant he is. This one, he realizes from the defensive tilt to Ajaw’s chin and the flush to his cheeks, is embarrassment.
He is reminded, then, that all of the little things he doesn’t spare a thought to are skills learned from years of repetition. He was not born knowing how to wash himself, how to rub the liquid together between his palms until it foams and scrub his hair while keeping the stinging suds out of eyes, or how to best rinse it out without spitting up a face full of water. These are all things Kinich was taught in the little time he had parents until they became such familiar knowledge that he could forget he ever had to learn them.
Ajaw has not. For all that he is an adult, Ajaw has no experience in a human body to go with the years his new form suggests.
Kinich takes the bottle back. He presses a kiss to Ajaw’s cheek, squarely on that burst of orange so familiar from his phlogiston form to this new, wonderfully human one, and asks, “May I wash you?”
Making such a request is unfamiliar. While Kinich is a servant, it was usually Ajaw who demanded service rather than Kinich offering it, busy with smothering his feelings behind cutting remarks under the pretense of an antagonistic relationship. Now, he finds no reason for the show of refusal.
Ajaw nods, and Kinich feels warmth down to his bones at the trust.
This softness is dangerous. Kinich is supposed to be the stopgap between Ajaw and world domination, but he’s fallen so deeply that if Ajaw were to ask it, he would be at his side watching it all burn. After all, Ajaw is Kinich’s world.
And yet as he rubs the liquid between his palms, he feels that there truly is no danger at all. K’uhul Ajaw, the most foul-tempered of Dragonlords, is appeased.
Under the sudsy spray, Kinich carefully loosens the braids from Ajaw’s hair save for the one adorned with the marriage bead. The hair is silky under his fingers as he works the sweat from it. When it is time to rinse, Kinich turns them so that it is Ajaw’s back closest to the water. He threads the fingers of his left hand through the back of Ajaw’s head and pulls gently. Ajaw follows the motion without question even as it bares his throat.
Through half-lidded eyes, Ajaw does not break eye contact as Kinich rinses the shampoo out with his free hand, nails lightly scraping Ajaw’s scalp. He looks blissed out even as something shocked and fearful dances across his face, there and gone as if it was also washed away.
Kinich barely pauses as he exchanges the shampoo for soap. He turns the bar between his hands then washes Ajaw’s neck and chest, following the tattoos that mark them over his collarbones and down the swell of his pecs. His arms are next, one after the other as Kinich maps the contours of muscle, from deltoid to bicep to triceps to the expanse of forearm and down to his hands, where he washes each of Ajaw’s fingers with singular attention. They are encircled by rings of color at the first knuckle, and both of his thumbs are green, too. Kinich would suck on one if it wouldn’t just get soap in his mouth. He wants to know every part of Ajaw’s new body with as much familiarity as he knows his old one.
Kinich goes to his knees. Soap suds run down Ajaw’s body, bubbles of white standing out against his warm skin. Kinich’s calloused palms glide over the smooth tightness of Ajaw’s muscular legs; he smells like sunshine and heat with an aftertaste of clean, and Kinich cannot resist kissing his thighs and the softness of his cock between them, soap be damned.
It is sexual, yes, and Kinich will not deny the arousal that Ajaw’s body fuels in him. But it is sensual too, intimate in a way he’s never been with another person until now, and weightier, too. This is not merely a shower — it couldn’t possibly, between them — but a site of ceremony.
He is not religious in the commonly practiced way. Kinich is devoted to a relic of a lord from a bygone era. There are no ceremonies for him to follow, no prayers passed down to him nor traditions to heed when it comes to showing his devotion. All Kinich has is his love and two hands with which he can adore.
This is his worship; this is his love. It is beautiful to him, painless and pure.
“My servant,” Ajaw croons, and there is nothing but awe in his face.
Hands card through Kinich’s hair, and he lets his eyes slip close. There is no prickle that threatens tears today — until yesterday, Kinich hadn’t cried in years, and it feels like he cried enough to fill his quota for another few — but he is moved nonetheless. His heart is so full in his chest it feels heavy, dragging him not downwards but forward, towards the one he loves. He rests his forehead against Ajaw’s hip and lets himself be held.
Minutes pass punctuated only by the pitter-patter of water hitting the tile floor. Kinich is reminded of the prevalence of water in rituals, and he thinks he gets why: there is something pure and centering in baring himself under the flow. Eventually, Kinich feels settled enough to rise and finish showering. He rinses Ajaw, then washes himself, making sure to clean out any of Ajaw’s spend still inside him before soaping again for good measure.
They leave the bathroom with towels wrapped around their shoulders, the door left open behind them to help the steam dissipate, and return to Kinich’s room — their room, now. Ajaw sits down hard at the edge of the bed, slumping gracelessly to lean back on his arms; Kinich isn’t sure if Ajaw wanted to sit or if his newly-formed body chose it for him, and makes a mental note to keep an eye on his stamina.
Kinich’s hair is drying quickly. He should braid it and tie it back soon before it dries into unruly elbows, but first he folds to touch his toes as a stress-test. He hisses at how it pulls on overused muscle, but holds the stretch for another ten seconds anyway. Once he’s standing again, he decides to focus on rubbing in lotion first, using it as a chance to massage the muscles he can reach in his sore back and legs.
Ajaw watches with a hangdog look on his face. “I might’ve overdone it a little bit last night.”
Kinich raises an eyebrow. “Just a little bit? We were fucking for hours, you fiend.”
“Do not dare slander the good K’uhul Ajaw’s name,” Ajaw bites back, the opportunity to bicker overruling any hint of apology in his tone. “It is your duty to sate my lordly hunger, and it was by mutual agreement that I devoured you. Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts now!”
Behind Ajaw’s bravado, Kinich can see a flicker of uncertainty. He kneels in between Ajaw’s legs, the lotion at his side, and says, “I’m not. I am yours, Ajaw.”
Ajaw blinks back, then —
”Ugh!” he exclaims, flopping back on the bed. “You’re so — sincere! Where has this side of you been hiding, huh? It’s enough to give a Dragonlord trust issues!”
Kinich dips his pointer and middle fingers into the jar and scoops out a glob he smears onto Ajaw’s leg. Ajaw flinches back at the cream’s sudden cold, but Kinich presses on. Once he finishes with his legs, he rises to sit on top of Ajaw’s hips, straddling one of Ajaw’s thighs between his own. It’s an effort not to flush at the casual intimacy.
Closeness between them is something Kinich has always craved. When Ajaw was a small phlogiston construct, their touch was categorized by little acts of violence — flicks and swats and backhands, traded just as easily as they traded barbed words and incredibly casual; meaningless — Kinich all the while starving for soft touch. Yet initiating it feels grand and so much, so fast, even though it is his partner, his husband, his Ajaw.
Ajaw is quiet as Kinich works the lotion onto his upper body, a hypnotic repeat of the same motions he used to wash him. The sensation of Ajaw’s skin is addictive, warm and soft and thudding with his heartbeat against Kinich’s palms. The susurrus of his worship becomes the backdrop of a quiet peace as dust motes lazily drift through the air.
Kinich is hesitant to break this softness between them, but there are words clawing up his throat that he needs to say. It’s difficult, though; he has had years of practice swallowing them down.
“You said before that there was nothing but me,” he begins. Ajaw goes — not quite tense, but still underneath his fingers. Kinich risks a glance up at him, and there’s equal parts embarrassment and fondness playing out on his face. “I’m the same. You’re it for me, Ajaw. You always have been. I can be honest in my love for you now, so I will be.”
Ajaw looks away as Kinich rubs lotion into his chest, cheeks dusted with a marvelous flush. He clears his throat. ”Well, as long as you stop trying to deny Our greatness, I suppose. Just don’t lose your sharp tongue. It doesn’t do to be boring.”
”Unless your brain grew three times its regular size, I don’t think I’ll struggle with that,” Kinich replies, his flat tone belying the softness he feels. Finished, he caps the jar and stretches to place it on the bedside table. He means to get up afterwards, but hands settle at his waist and hold him still.
Green-tipped thumbs draw circles on the dip of Kinich’s hips. He trembles at it, his tongue flicking out to wet his bottom lip in response to the unexpected desire that bowls him over. New to this affection, he asks, “Ajaw?”
Bright eyes look up at him. Ajaw smiles, and he is so handsome that Kinich could weep. ”My perfect Kinich. I think I’ve waited lifetimes for you.”
His voice is a little less shrill and a lot more warm than Kinich has become accustomed to after years of the tinny quality of whatever mechanism allows phlogiston to produce sound. There’s a rumble at its edges, and his brain gets so caught up on cataloging the new sound that it takes him a moment to process the words.
His heart is electric, pumping joy, joy, joy into every fiber of his being. They are words he has been waiting to hear for a very long time, proof that Kinich's adoration is returned in equal measure. He is struck by the words themselves, by their sincerity, and most of all by Ajaw’s willingness to say them, blessings that they are passing through his lips.
He bends down and captures those sweet lips with his own. Before their kisses were about domination and claiming, ritual in how he was worked open and taken apart; Kinich a sacrifice being devoured by his lord. Now it is… not soft, exactly — never soft with the danger of Ajaw’s teeth and even more so his personality — but more settled, more complete. It’s a kiss that feels like coming home.
Overwhelmed with it, Kinich lays down and buries his head in the junction of Ajaw’s neck. He will need to seriously reevaluate being a morning person, if this is the competition.