Chapter Text
“Surely there are nobler means to our intended ends than war, Priest,” Mahaad, the coward that he was, continued to stalk around the subject of the inevitable, lacking the impetus to sink his teeth in.
“War is a game like any other,” Seth looked to the pharaoh for confirmation, playing to his audience. “He who strikes second gets it in the neck.”
His eyes locked on the faintest, imperceptible marbling of violet above the gilding on his throat. Atem shot a narrowed glare from across the table.
Now is hardly the time.
Seth buried his smirk behind a hand, swallowing it down and schooling his expression back to something with bite before facing Mahaad again.
“I sense much loss of life ahead of us should we choose to walk this path,” Isis piped up with another of her useless ‘water is wet’ prophesies.
“Oh, do tell us more,” He drawled. “You wouldn’t know what ‘war’ meant if it bit you in the--”
“Seth,” Atem cut him off with his ‘pharaoh’ voice, crimson eyes ablaze, daring him for another show of defiance. “I am interested in Mahaad’s alternative.”
Whatever passive preaching he was planning to spew, he wasn’t of a mind to listen. Seth leaned back, picking out the dirt from under his fingernails between stealing glances at the pharaoh. His serious expression was offset by his feet dangling from the throne even now that he was long finished growing and the crinkle on his forehead was hidden beneath his oversized crown. He drew a thumb over the soft spot on his lower lip, wet from licking in the dry heat, lost in thought.
Something Mahaad said spurred Atem’s face to soften and he nodded along, beaming in his direction. Seth felt that sickening hunger, too dangerous to be named, creep into his gut.
“Seth, do you--”
“No,” He jolted up from the table. “I’ll be dismissing myself, if you’ll allow it.”
He strode out before waiting for Atem’s nod.
The sun was much too bright, all blinding brilliance and oppressive heat. But the pharaoh was in his element, basking on the garden wall with one leg slung over the side. A lazy cat, waiting for a sparrow to flit past and woo him out of his apathy.
Seth was not that sparrow.
He liked to think himself far more predatory and far too clever to fall for the dazzling charm. Not just anyone was sharp enough to avoid being caught in the snare.
Atem’s sleepy figure was eclipsed by a familiar shadow, reeled in from across the courtyard, tall enough yet to shield him despite his perch. He was too far away to hear whatever they might have been discussing, but he caught the pharaoh heave a great yawn before sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge to face Mahaad with a smile that outshone the noon-day sun. He tossed out some complaint, he didn’t need to hear the words to follow the way his nose scrunched up in distaste or read his lips.
Mahaad cleared his throat, gesturing behind him to the pond across the way but the pharaoh was insistent, claws caught in his robes as he tried to walk away. After much begging and pleading, the priest capitulated—something Seth would never have been weak enough for—and pushed up his sleeves. Mahaad closed his eyes in stoic focus, with his hands cupped together and supported by Atem’s, until sparkling crystal water spilled over their hands and between their fingers.
Atem laughed with joy, drawing Mahaad’s hands to his lips and drinking the cool water brought forth from the well of untapped magic, letting the cool tendrils run down his chin and his robes and making a grand mess of the both of them. The priest heaved a tired sigh from the effort, and Seth turned away in disgust from his prideful smile.
“Get out of my seat,” Seth ground his teeth together, walking in late to dinner after a frustrating day of administrative affairs capped off with the last possible sight he was in the mood to confront.
“I was not aware there was assigned seating outside formal gatherings,” Mahaad leveled back from Atem’s right, not looking up from his lentil stew.
“That’s not the point,” Seth waited impatiently for him to get up, towering behind him with crossed arms and fighting the urge to do something that could only be labeled petty.
“I didn’t expect you’d grace us with your presence this evening,” Mahaad quipped back between slow bites, making no moves to get up.
“Have a seat, you might actually have a taste before it’s too cold tonight,” Unsurprising. Atem always ensured he was spared a helping, even if he rarely made an appearance, but he gestured to Mahaad’s seat on his left.
“I don’t sit there,” Seth chewed on his cheek.
“I won’t bite!” Mana giggled from beside the open spot.
“It’s all the same to me,” Atem let out a chuckle and smiled, but Seth felt his stomach twist. It wasn’t the same. Ridiculous.
“Hnnn,” He huffed, eyeing the red dribble wafting steam into the air. Lentils were his favorite… “Whatever. I hate lentils.”
“Liar,” Mahaad said under his breath.
“Excuse me?” Seth snapped. “It doesn’t matter, I’ve wasted too much time here as it is. Some of us have work to do...”
“I’ll let it slide this time,” Atem pulled out the chair beside him. Seth did not move to accept the gesture.
“Fine...” Mahaad rolled his eyes, moving to get up. “If it really means that much to you...”
“Forget it, I wasn’t hungry anyway...” Seth stormed off and resolved to go to bed hungry.
Seth parked himself on the opposite end of the library hall when he found Mahaad had beat him there in the early hours of the morning. Despite his calculated efforts to avoid the priest with a well-timed and carefully prepared conflicting schedule, there was no other choice today. Soft rain pattered outside the palace, trapping them all inside for the day and despite the innumerable halls there was no place to run when there was work to be attended to.
Even through the mazed stacks of scrolls between them, Seth was helpless to drown out the adjacent sounds of his tired sighs and papyrus scratching, his shuffling through scrolls and murmuring under his breath. Seth’s focus was already drifting, unestablished to begin with from the unwelcome distraction, pushing his work around the table in a way that fooled his mind into feeling almost constructive and sighed.
The sound of cat-light footsteps stalked in from the distant doorway, ones that didn’t make a sound when their heels hit the floor. Atem.
The pharaoh could be heard wandering around and skated past Mahaad without a word, probably tracking sand through the hall for someone else to contend with later, before stopping short around the corner from Seth, unaware that he was being watched. Seth let a devious smirk creep onto his lips, abandoning any pretenses of productivity and slipped soundlessly from his seat to sneak up behind him.
“These aren’t your usual stomping grounds...” Seth pinned the pharaoh to the shelves with arms on either side of his stout shoulders, leaning forward to invade his space. Atem didn’t falter, still parsing the stacks in search of nothing in particular and Seth wondered if he’d come by in pursuit of anything at all.
“I have my reasons...” Atem tipped on his heels until his back pressed against his chest, head settling into its natural belonging beneath the crook of his neck.
“No good ones I hope,” Seth nibbled a sharp bite into the tender flesh of one shoulder and Atem squirmed and swallowed a sound of surprise before it could escape.
“Mahaad is right there,” He whispered.
“That’s not our problem,” Seth smiled into the nape of his neck, trailing another wet kiss down to the the start of his tunic before dipping his tongue under the edge of the fabric.
“You’re not as mean as you think you are...” Atem reached a hand up to bury it in Seth’s hair, guiding his lips further down his body.
“I’ll have to try harder then,” He took a step forward, pressing him against the stacks, still barring his escape even after removing one hand from the shelf only to replace it on his leg, drawing up under his shendyt. Atem was indecisive, one encouraging hand still pleading for more in his hair and the other stalling his advance up his thigh.
“Those who are greedy are always left wanting,” He turned around to meet him, running a slow but not dissuasive hand down Seth’s chest.
“You keep running your mouth and time will get away from you,” Seth’s hand crept higher, even with Atem’s fingers snaked around his wrist until his own wrapped around his stiff length. He offered a few agonizing strokes and Atem sighed, absently leaning his head back and knocking a few scrolls onto the floor with a clatter. His grip an his wrist turned to stone.
“Are you going to order me to stop, pharaoh?” Seth teased, holding for a moment just to be difficult. Atem groaned louder than was polite for their unwilling audience.
“You’ve already started, you’re halfway done,” He tried to steal a kiss but Seth was too tall and his lips landed on his robes instead.
“Hmm... try again,” But Seth darted out of easy reach once more when he knelt to the floor, drawing up his tunic and exposing him to the open library air but not starting right away. Atem rested hands on his shoulders, digging fingers under his collarbones in a futile effort to draw him in.
“The gods fashioned you as a joke,” Atem surrendered, above begging to get his way. “A beautiful head on a horse’s ass.”
“That’s not any way to get what you want,” Seth chewed on his hip bone before running his tongue down the inner curve of his leg.
“I never said I didn’t like it,” He back-tracked, spinning one long brown lock through his fingers. “Snakes and birds never come together and the tame doesn’t mate with the wild.”
Seth left one more venomous bite deep enough to leave a welt on the meat of his thigh before unhinging his jaw to swallow him whole and Atem fell intoxicated against the shelves. He made no effort to hide any wet sounds, letting the soggy smack of lips echo around the room with each dip until the skin of Atem’s thighs was soaked through to dripping. His prey was far too enamored to argue, filling the air with his own shallow breaths and notes of encouragement.
Atem was easy to rise and far more graceless in toppling, thrusting against his throat without neither shame nor mercy, a reflection of how they fought and Seth ate it up without complaint. His head was pinned between strong, buckling legs when he finished, forced to hastily swallow the aftertaste to avoid choking with Atem reluctant to part with his mouth.
“Let’s get out of here,” Atem suggested from under still lidded eyes.
“And you called me greedy...” Seth wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
“You are,” He made an effort to straighten Seth’s appearance but ignored his own. “If the streams of fate drenched you in gold it’s doubtful even that would change your nature.”
To spare himself the suffering or to spare his pharaoh the risk of someone worse stumbling in on their sodomous encounter?
Service to the crown was to protect him from all ills, within and without the palace walls… Mahaad set his jaw and dutifully sat guard before the library door and actively did not listen to Seth defiling their king.
“Mahaad?” The priest stiffened at the innocent voice in the doorway. “I heard something… Are you practicing spells in here? I won’t tattle if you let me join!”
“M-Mana!” He cleared his throat, shuffling scrolls in a frenzy to make a distracting amount of noise. “I was just about to come find you. It’s time for your lesson.”
“You promised not until after lunch!” She pouted, blissfully unaware that they weren’t alone.
“Must get started early, we’ve much to work on,” He shepherded her out the door. “Working with fire today, best not to stay here.”
Mana’s bubbly laughter masked any unsavory sounds as they made their narrow escape.