Decadencember 2023 - Tumblr Posts

The prompt theme for December 2023 is Decadencember!

If you use this list, please tag me here @thepromptfoundry, I’d love to see your writing and art!

Feel free to combine different days' prompts with each other, or combine them with other seasonal events! Use your OCs, your favorite characters from media, whatever tickles your fancy.

Respond to as many prompts as you want or as interest you, don’t worry about missing or skipping any. Remember, this is supposed to be fun!

Plain text list below the cut:

1) Fine clothes 2) Jewels 3) Abundant food 4) Majestic power 5) Extravagant spending 6) Royal treatment 7) Self-adornment 8) Lush fur 9) Silver and gold 10) A luxurious bath 11) Natural wonder 12) Precious secrets 13) Sumptuous solitude 14) A carefree night out 15) Plenty of time to sleep in 16) Blissful devotion 17) Beauty and grace 18) Velvet darkness 19) Warm drinks 20) Cool drinks 21) Cozy blankets 22) Whole-hearted love 23) Sweet treats 24) Maximalist décor 25) Lavish gifts 26) Domestic comfort 27) A magnificent party 28) Elegant movement 29) Joyous reunion 30) Fond memories 31) A bright future

Title: Artist and Muse Prompt: Decadencember Fine Clothes @thepromptfoundry Artist: Caiti Relationship: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Rating: T Note: Should any of my mood boards prompt a fic, please link me so I can enjoy and brag! But please - take this as permission to write it!!

Title: Surrender Prompt: Decadencember Jewels @thepromptfoundry Artist: Caiti Relationship: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Rating: T Note: Should any of my mood boards prompt a fic, please link me so I can enjoy and brag! But please - take this as permission to write it!!

With My Heart and Soul

cw: unhealthy relationships, period-typical slurs

Prompt 22 - whole hearted love @thepromptfoundry

Drusus saw the drink coming and, in his defense, he did take a step to the right to avoid it. Except, he wasn’t sure he did take a step to the right. Maybe it was to the left? Or forwards? Backwards would’ve given him more of a chance of dodging but he wasn’t that lucky.

In other words, Drusus got drenched in one of the best wine in Roma and he didn’t even manage to keep his mouth open for it. Shame. A casket of it would’ve fed his vices for a month or so.

Someone laughed and slapped him on the back, making him stumble forwards. Drusus almost thought he’d be renamed the foolish drunkard of Roma if he slipped on wine he was already drenched in if it wasn’t for a strong tug at the back of his tunic. He didn’t crash like an idiot to the floor. He did crash back into the broad, strong chest of someone he was sure he’d been making out with moments before their jealous wife came into the picture.

“Well, salve again, mi deliciae,” Drusus purred. Or, well, he tried to but his hiccups and slurring did not go unnoticed. He was a man of Roma. He soldiered on. “Come to continue what your uxor interrupted… quiqui es?”

Drusus saw the man’s jaw twitch and he didn’t have to be sober to know they were annoyed. Who wouldn’t? He’d been about a palmipes close to bending this proud man over in one of the alcoves and he didn’t know their name.

Shameful? Yes. Embarrassing? A little. Does he really want to know their name? Well…

It’s complicated.

The man still had their hold on his tunic and they used it to pull Drusus closer. Very close. Enough for him to feel the hardness against his own and for their breaths stinking of wine to mix together into something heady—something more intoxicating and filthy.

“And here I was ready to scream your name, Drusus,” The man said, groaning when Drusus began moving against them. They shifted their hold downwards until their hands cupped Drusus’ arse, squeezing hard. “Why don’t you make it up to me and be an obedient cinaedus for me tonight, hm?”

Drusus moaned and smiled. And, with heady half-lidded eyes, he reached down and twisted the man’s cock as ruthlessly as he could. Predictably, the man’s knees buckled and he was on the ground, writhing in agony. It probably didn’t help that Drusus hadn’t let go of their cock.

He twisted it further and stepped on the man’s chest. Smiling still, he leaned down till their noses brushed.

“You’re a hundred times too ugly to ask me to bottom for your pathetic dick, quiqui es,” Drusus snarled. “Now scram.”

He gave the man’s cock one last cruel twist before letting go. His former prospective tryst lay on the ground, groaning and clutching at their groin as the other men cackled and threw drinks at them.

Drusus downed his drink and left the party. He was still hard. He had one destination in mind and one only.

The house was far enough that he was kind of sober by the time he caught sight of it. The lights were out, just as the others are in this neighbourhood. Drusus passed by some patrols who saluted him before going on their way. They didn’t question where he was headed or why he was going around this rich neighbourhood, stinking of wine.

They knew why. They knew where or, more specifically, who he was heading toward.

The house was at the top of a hill, joining the others belonging to the affluent class in Roma. They were dark, too, not a single light on with how late it was. It’d really be rude to come barging in at this time but Drusus’ strides were sure and confident.

He always was when it came to getting welcomed in Manius’ home.

Drusus knocked and waited. He heard scuffling at the very back of the house, some mumbling, before a small light bobbed its way to the front door.

A servant answered the door. She blinked at him a bit blearily.

“Dominus… Drusus?” They said, sounding confused and would’ve gone on a line of questioning he wasn’t in the mood to answer if he hadn’t interrupted.

He leaned against the doorway and smiled. “Manius is in, right?”

The servant nodded, if a bit hesitantly. “Yes, dominus. But it’s late. Dominus Manius has gone to bed. Why—”

Drusus plucked the oil lamp from the servant, smiling still.

“I think,” He said, voice going low. “You can take a walk for the night, no? I hear there’s a lot of celebrations going on tonight.”

That’s all it takes, really. The servant stiffens in understanding, their gaze taking in Drusus’ state of intoxication. They mumble their apologies and shuffle off and away and finally leaving him alone.

With Manius, of course. That was the important part.

From all the times Drusus had come to this house in the dead of night, he didn’t really need the oil lamp. He could walk through and right to where Manius is no matter the obstacle placed in his way. But he wanted to see the man and so the lamp went with him, bobbing and casting shadows all round.

Manius’ bedroom door wasn’t fully closed. The usual scent of patchouli seeps from the crack and Drusus takes it in, mind heady with the promise the smell brings. Manius told him the scent calms him to sleep.

Drusus goes crazy from the slightest whiff of it.

His steps hasten and he slams the door open with no care of their neighbours. He could give no fuck about anyone and anything else right now.

Manius is in bed. The man was in his underclothes, the bottom hem runched up and sleeves slipping from its master. It slipped even further as the man sat up, rubbing at his eyes.

“Wha… Drusus?” Manius blearily said, his brows furrowing in confusion. “I thought you were at a… party?”

Drusus hummed, placing the lamp on a nearby dresser. He leaned against the doorway and watched as the flickering light bathed the room and its master, drawing shadows in just the right places.

“I was,” He said and smiled as he approached the bed. “And now I’m here. Don’t I deserve a greeting, hm?”

Manius blinked. Then the thing Drusus had been waiting for all day and night came and it was worth it.

Manius laughed softly, eyes still soft with sleep. He held out his arms out and Drusus, as though drawn by a force he couldn’t understand, followed the silent command. He let the man cup his face and bring it closer to that laugh, that smile, and those eyes.

Their noses brushed. Manius laughed again.

“Good evening, carissime.”

It’s always been like this. Drusus would fuck any man willing to bottom for him. He would come out of closets or alcoves or even rooms, having just fucked and left his conquest and still aching for more.

He was the most notorious bachelor in Roma. Drusus Aurelius Lepidus Felix could have anyone and they would be glad to be called all kind of slurs for it.

Manius laughed again and touched his face. Drusus hated and loved how he leaned into it, his eyes fluttering open as the only man he’d allowed inside him slowed his thrusts.

“You’re many leuga away, carissime,” He murmured, smiling despite that and despite everything that Drusus is.

Drusus swallowed a whine and shut his eyes. He tried to move his hips, digging in his ankles as he tried to resume the backbreaking pace of before.

“Oh, no, no,” Manius said, now cupping Drusus’ face and wiping away something. A thing he doesn’t want to admit he’s capable of shedding. “Oh, mi carissime, open your eyes. Open them and look at me, hm?”

Drusus doesn’t want to. He really, really doesn’t want to because they’ve done this dance before and he knows it’ll hurt both of them if he acquiesces.

But this is Manius Caelius Agrippa Caracalla. This is his dulcissime who’s asking and so he does open his eyes. He meets Manius’ soft, loving gaze and breaks.

Drusus wraps his arms around the man’s neck and sobs as he confesses what he did tonight—the betrayal he almost committed again because he had forgotten, just as always, that Manius is there. The fervour of the celebration got to his head. There was wine. There were glances and touches and next thing he knew he was rubbing his cock against the arse of a man he didn’t know, the tip already catching at their rim.

“I’m sorry,” Drusus says, almost babbling and choking on his breath because Manius is still inside him and moving so slowly. Like rocking a babe who needs comfort. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, mi dulcissime. Forgive me—forgive me.”

He feels when Manius sighs. He feels the stilted movements of those hands at his back that had steadied him when he moved. For a moment, Drusus dreads. He wonders if this is it. If this is one betrayal too many and he would never have the time to say those two words—

Manius digs his fingers in Drusus’ hips, nearly draws out, and slams back in quick. Out and in, again and again, his thrusts gain their manic nature and Drusus is left a drooling mess bouncing on his lover’s cock. He clings harder as ever to Manius, his breath being punched out of him with no rest and this was his punishment, wasn’t it? This was carnal and wild and nothing like his dulcissime.

Drusus doesn’t realise he’s sobbing till the thrusting slows and there are fingers wiping the tears away. Lips press softly against the corner of his eyes and he opens them again to see Manius smiling softly with love. His Manius. A man he doesn’t deserve. The greatest man in Roma.

“Te amo, mi carissime,” He says, pressing a kiss to his cheek, his forehead, the tip of his nose. “Know that my love will always be here for you when you remember to come home.”

Te amo, Drusus wants to say. Te amo, the words form over and over till it fills his chest and his mind, threatening to tear them apart with an explosion. Te amo, the words climb up his throat with daggers for hands and feet and making him bleed inside with a hurt that’s worth it.

“Yeah,” Drusus says instead, letting the words fall into the void. He rests his forehead against Manius’ and looks at the man he can call his own. “I’ll come home, mi dulcissime. I’ll come home to your love.”

I’ll always remember.

He is home when Manius smiles. He is home when their fingers interlace and he feels Marius’ warmth spread inside him, filling in every crevice of his body and soul.

Drusus is home.

He Who Tends, He Who Mends

tw: PTSD, period-typical homophobia

Prompt 10 - a luxurious bath @thepromptfoundry

They’re all battered and bloodied when they meet their queen. She is purity incarnate and here were her knights and soldiers, coming in through the palace halls with the stench of a war hardly fought but surely won. That is the first thing Wymond talks about when she inclines her head for him to speak.

“Your Majesty,” He starts. “Our sincerest apologies for not cleaning up before—“

“No need,” She interrupts. The unease still obviously stirring within him and the others must’ve shown because she raises a brow.

Wymond tenses. So do the others and there are twitches of fingers too close to their weapons because these are people who’ve just come back from war. Coming back doesn’t mean they’ve learned to come home.

If the queen notices the tension, she doesn’t show it. She maintains that raised brow and those fingers tapping on the throne’s armrest. A few seconds. Some minutes. An hour, maybe, of how the silence lasted and the tension thickened like blood gathering on the cursed ground of a battlefield.

Then she smiles, ever so softly and says, “Good work.”

Wymond’s not the only one who has to steady themselves. He’s not the only one whose legs threaten to buckle and give under him, with the tension that’d been running whisked away by those two words. Like the others with him in this room, he chokes on the air that his body has finally allowed him to take in, pure, clean, and free of that heavy scent of death.

Wymond gets to breathe and with it comes the burn of tears he hasn’t allowed himself to nurture nor shed. Hitches of breath, sobs, and sniffles fill the room and while Wymond wants to join in, he still has a duty to fulfil.

He straightens up. He feels his tears silently pour out and streaking down his face. His vision of Queen Aldith blurs but it only takes some blinking for him for her visage to become clear again and again.

She’s smiling still at him—at all of them as if they are but her children who tried acting tough after skinning their knee. Wymond feels small but that’s alright because she’s the queen who’s letting her soldiers and knights cry before her.

“Now,” She says finally. “Report, if you please.”

Wymond sniffles and blinks away the new onslaught of tears. He salutes, goes on one knee, and follows the order.

Queen Aldith calls after him once the last of the weeping knights and soldiers are out and he’s a step away from the doorway. No one hears the command but him, the others too tired from the sudden expulsion of emotion to notice anything else than the promise of a peaceful rest.

Wymond stops and turns back. The queen’s halfway to the passageway behind the throne and there’s a look on her face he’s all too familiar with.

He stiffens under her gaze. He does not reach for his sword.

After a moment, she speaks again as if these are words she’d rather not say but is bound to set free.

“Amis wants to see you,” She says. “Best be on your way to not disappoint him. He’s been in a… state, lately.”

She does not turn away to go when silence descends on the both of them again. She keeps her gaze—that look—on him and Wymond feels like he is being sent to war again.

But this is a war he’s been fighting for as long as he could remember and one he would spend his last breath on.

Wymond straightens, returns the queen’s gaze, and says, “Gladly, your Majesty.”

When the doors close behind him, he still feels that gaze trying to penetrate his will like a dagger chipping at a mountain.

None of the others ask or look twice when he splits off from them and goes for the wing where the royal quarters are. They have all shed blood and shared loves and fears with each other. Gossip is not something any of them can afford. Well, not right now, anyway.

The way to the royal quarters is long and heavy with silence. Guards litter the hallway but they give nothing more than a salute and a nod before assuming their stoic position again. Their shiny armours glint in the sunset.

Wymond knows his armour is too caked in blood and dirt and the darkness of death to even have a chance with the light.

The clink clank of his armour accompanies him on this walk. It’s a comforting sound, reminding him he is protected in this place whose sovereign does not want him anywhere near. Not in this place where autumn’s fall has not yet shaken the will of the royal gardens to live and flourish. Not in this place of purity where his every step spreads miasma of a war they’ve prevented from ever reaching the palace doors.

Wymond walks. And walks. And walks.

He stops.

The door to Amis’ room is ajar. Light spills from the crack and Wymond hesitates for the first time since his declaration at Queen Aldith. The light’s unlike the waning colours of sunset too close to the colour of washed out blood. It’s… soft. Bright. A gentle light beckoning him to come inside, come inside, my knight and Wymond wants and he is scared.

The war is over and his fear makes him push open the door.

The room is as he remembers. There’s still the desk by the window, its width taking up the entire expanse of the wall. Papers and books opened to various pages fill up the space with nary a place for any personal effects. Those, he knows, are carefully stored in the chest at the foot of the four poster bed which he’s all too familiar with.

Except it isn’t familiar. Not when Amis isn’t there, curled up in a light sleep which the prince always is when waiting for him. Amis isn’t there at his desk either, furiously scribbling on paper of his treatises and governing proposals.

Amis—his Amis—isn’t here and Wymond…shuts down. He panics. He can’t breathe, his knees giving way under him and he’s tearing at his hair—at his face—a guttural sound coming from deep in his chest.

He can’t, he can’t, he can’t—

“Myn lykyng?” Softly callused fingers slid across his face till a pair of hands fully envelops and cups it. “Wymond?”

He opens his eyes and sees salvation incarnate. There Amis was, bending over him, his shadow a place of solace for broken men like Wymond. Strands of cropped hair—when, why had he cut it?—fell delicately on that face that graced his dreams when all he knew is blood and death and dirt. And he’s…

“Why are you unclothed?” Wymond croaks out, his throat sore from swallowing down his cries and shouts.

Amis looks amused. His hand moves to finger Wymond’s ear and only then he realises it’s hot and burning. Oh gods. He’s blushing.

“Cute,” Amis says as if unbothered by his current state. Their current state. “I forgot how cute you are, myn lykyng.”

A finger runs down and traces incoherent symbols on Wymond’s jaw and neck, nails lightly scratching the dirtied skin. Amis seems unbothered from the state of his filth and something in his chest unfurls and breathes a sigh of relief. It’s okay. He’s okay for Amis. He’s still okay for his prince.

Amis steps closer and closer till his bare body is flush against Wymond, armor to skin, purity to filth, love to love.

Amis smiles and kisses the corner of Wymond’s lips. “Welcome home, myn lykyng.”

Wymond shudders and there’s only a monent of hesitation before he wraps his arms around his prince, bloodied hands gripping tight at supple skin. He leans close, brushes his lips against Amis, and closes his eyes.

“I’m back, myne owne hertis rote.”

Amis had always been gentle. Before he left and now, he is gentle in unbuckling and taking off every piece of Wymond’s armour that seemed to have melded together with blood and dirt as adhesives. His touch seems to carry purity and cleansing with it as the gathered filth in the kinks fall apart.

Wymond feels like falling apart, too. Without his armour, his knees tremble and his hands shake. He wants nothing more than to collapse into the floor, letting the ground reclaim its child.

Amis doesn’t let him and he follows the silent order.

“Okay,” Amis says as the final piece falls. He catches Wymond’s eye and smiles. It’s childish and reminiscent of their time as children, running across fields, hand in hand. “Now you’re gonna take a bath, myn lykyng.”

It is not the first time he’s in his prince’s room but it is his first time he’s in his prince’s tub. The water’s warm as it sloshes around his calves, making him tremble all the more as he climbs in. Or, more accurately, as Amis orders him to get in.

He’s a knight who’s commanded an entire battlefield but he’s manhandled by Amis to sit his arse down in the tub. He does quite dutifully. Then he looks towards his prince as if waiting for the other to join him.

Amis smiles, childish and gentle and salvation all in one. He takes Wymond’s hands and brushes his lips against each dirtied knuckle.

“Oh, myn lykyng,” He says. “It’s time you get taken care of, don’t you think?”

Wymond opens his mouth to protest but Amis is already starting. He kneels on the cold floor, takes a sponge and sets it to his skin.

The words die in his throat. He swallows its corpse, glad to have something to do because he is not used to…this. To the gentle almost rocking motions of the sponge against his skin—his arms, his chest, his face and his legs. He’s not used to the scents Amis drops into the bath nor being able to breathe so so easily without his armour.

Wymond thinks he talks during this. About the war. About each battle they fought and lost. He talks of the dead they had to burn and how the smell that permeated their food for weeks to months.

Amis listens. He listens and bathes his knight till the water turns murky and Wymond is cleansed.

Later, he listens as his love gets to sleep properly for the first time in months and that is enough. It always is for Amis.

This Godly Taste

Prompt 20 - cool drinks @thepromptfoundry

They’ve finished the yakhchal and it’ll take a single night for the gathered water to freeze and turn into this ‘ice.’ That’s what his ministers and advisors say and Menes had simply nodded, letting their words pass through his ears like the whistle of stagnant air.

He knows he should be more excited. His people definitely were, with some even setting up stalls and tents in preparation near the yakhchal. He doesn’t fault them for it. This was one of the hottest summers Kemet had experienced in recorded history that the promise of this ‘ice’ was something everyone grabbed onto and weren’t too willing to let go.

Menes thought otherwise.

“Why the frowny face, my king? Heh, not too happy I’ve one-upped you again?”

Menes sighed and opened his eyes halfway. Half-lidded, he stared into the kohl-lined eyes of the bane of his existence and rule. As always, Amon’s form had changed from last time. For today’s visit, the god had retained the ram’s horns and kept the rest of themself as human. Well, as human as Amon could manage to be.

Menes sighed and flicked the god’s forehead. “You’re too close, O venerable netjer. Ever heard of personal space?”

Amon hummed as if they were really thinking about it. Menes wasn’t fooled. The god was still leaning into his space, their noses almost brushing. When Amon stopped, for a moment, all he could see was blue. A deep midnight colour as if the god had borrowed his skin from the night sky and Menes wouldn’t be surprised if they really did so. They were flighty like that—like the air one couldn’t see but always felt.

When he blinked, Amon was gone save for those eyes twinkling with mischief and the ram’s horns threatening to pierce right through the throne at his back. Menes blinked again and saw Amon in all their…blueness.

Menes frowned harder. “Don’t do that. You know I hate it when you do that, O most annoying netjer.”

“Ah,” Amon chuckled, poking at the furrow in his brow. “There’s my honest little king. And here I thought an imposter dare sit on your throne! The scandal there would be if they discovered their uptight king playing hooky—”

Menes had been king since he was ten. He’d met a god at eleven. He wasn’t afraid of retribution when he kicked said god (more of a leech at this point) in the stomach. Not when he knew Amon was going to catch his foot like they did now and cackling like a madman as they did so.

“Mean!” Amon said, still cackling. They brought themself even closer to Menes using the captured leg. “Mean! The king is so mean! Mean, mean, mean!”

Their voice echoed in the chamber and would’ve definitely reached the guards outside the doors. Menes chanced a glance at the doors.

Nothing. Like always, no one heard or saw this annoying god but him and his advisors and ministers all told him this was a blessing. They all told him it only asserted how his reign was blessed and he himself was to be god once he passed.

Menes looked at this cackling god, their blue skin and ram horns such a contrast to himself. He sighed and closed his eyes.

A god, huh?

Menes woke up sweating the most he’s ever had and knows Amon had a part in this. The servants with their fans were struggling between keeping him cool and not appearing like they wanted to blow their king away.

Menes pinched the bridge of his nose and waved them off. “It’s fine. I’ll be going off to the baths.”

He doesn’t need to say he’ll be going alone. The servants have been here long enough to know to leave him alone. One of the benefits of king—of power, of authority, and of…legitimacy.

The moment Menes entered the bath chamber, he knew to expect the gentle caress of wind against his eyes to make him blink. Then Amon was there behind him, fingers skating along his bare back.

It must be the heat that makes Menes forget to keep himself in check. What else would make him rest back against this silly god? What would make him, the king of all of Kemet, sigh, groan and even moan from the light graze of this ever present menace’s nails on his skin?

It’s the heat. It must be.

When Amon chuckles it’s breathy against Menes’ ear and a rumble he feels echoing through him. It’s enough to make him frown and look up at the god who’s undressing him.

“What?”

Amon chuckles again and noses his cheek. He’s completely human-like today. “Have I ever said you’re like a kitten, my adorable king?”

It is the heat that had made him lean into the god’s presence and touch but no weather can control a king for long. Not Menes. He keeps the frown as he steps away from Amon, untying his shendyt that the god’s made a mess off. The necklace had been the first to go but there hadn’t been a clanging sound on the limestone floor.

Menes rolled his eyes and stepped into the cool waters of the bath. “You better return that, O thieving netjer. I’ve had too many necklaces replaced from your slippery fingers.”

Amon laughed and soon there was a splash by his side, the waters lapping at his chest in evident joy. Even something simple as his bath water seemed to have its own thoughts about the company its king keeps, it seems. Menes glares at his wavering reflection.

“Ah, my frowny little king,” Amon sing-songs. “Is it because of the sudden heat wave you’re like this or your impatience to try out this ‘ice’ I’ve helped engineer, hm?”

Menes raises a brow. Despite the coolness of the bath, he still feels the heat in the air making beads of sweat run down his face. He follows the languid floating form of this god who could change the air and the wind however they like.

Menes closes his eyes from the sight. “I’ve no interest in whatever you’ve had your hands in, O most interfering netjer.”

A splash. The lap of water against his chest. A bead of sweat running down his face. A shadow blocking the light of the early day.

Menes doesn’t open his eyes or move when he feels impossibly cool fingers on his face. He doesn’t let himself react from the slide of those fingers to his lips, stroking them over and over. But he doesn’t turn away either and what does that say when he does open his eyes and see the gaze of a god on him and him alone?

“My little king,” Amon says, eyes soft and sparkling with mischief. “I’ll be sure to change your mind soon enough.”

Menes hears it from the streets than from his ministers the moment the yakhchal’s opened and Amon’s suggestion of an experiment shows its results. A success or fail is easy enough to surmise from what he hears from his people.

Silence, first. Then the pitter patter of the chosen servant’s sandals as they come out of the structure. There is silence again and this time Menes knows the outcome before the first cry rings out—

“A MIRACLE!!!”

He closes his eyes. He has lost and Amon, once again with his gifts of creativity and innovation, wins. His knuckles whiten and his sceptre trembles in his tight grip. In the midst of the roaring praise outside, there’s a gnashing of teeth, canines grinding against its brethren.

Menes is angry and he shouldn’t be.

A sudden gust of hot wind comes and there’s a weight against his legs, cool fingers wrapping around his ankle. Something of fur brushes against his uncovered skin.

“That’s another game lost, my grumpy king,” Amon says with a bleat to their voice. “Aren’t you gonna be a good sport and congratulate me?”

Menes keeps his eyes shut and turns his head away. He doesn’t move to get free from the god’s hold though and that says something he doesn’t want to hear. Not now. Not ever.

Amon laughs as much as someone with a ram’s head could. He feels the weight of those great horns by his legs, a pressure reminding him of a presence he can never be rid of. There’s still that hand on his ankle, fingers loosely wrapped around it like a too loose shackle Menes has the choice of simply stepping out of.

He doesn’t move. Instead he sighs because he has just lost and he is tired, really, of this game of push and pull for the last years.

“What do you want me to say, Amon?” Menes asks, desperation colouring his voice without consent. He is tired and it is showing. “Tell me, O netjer, and I shall—”

Amon kisses him. His mouth is open mid-sentence and this god—his god has moved like the wind, fast and relentless. It’s a struggle, at first. Menes moves to hit them with his sceptre and Amon shatters it with nary a glance. The god shoves him against the throne and those lips have never left his, moving and taking, taking, owning—

Something cold passes between their lips, Amon’s tongue twining with his and slipping in this proof of their victory.

It’s ice. A small piece and nothing like how Menes imagined it and it’s the sweetest, warmest thing he’s ever had in his mortal life. It slides across his tongue and he shivers, trembles, and holds on to Amon’s horns—to this god’s divinity.

His god pulls away once he’s swallowed it but stays close as they’ve always been prone to do. Amon noses his cheek and plants a softer kiss at the corner of his lips.

“There,” Amon says, breaking the moment because that’s what they do, isn’t it? “That’s a better look on you, kianga.”

Menes has been king since he was ten. He’d met a god when he was eleven. He is not afraid to hold his god’s face and drag him into another kiss.

Jewels of Mine

tw: period-typical homophobia

Prompt 7 - Self-Adornment @thepromptfoundry

It’s after his morning prayers that Tobia finally shakes himself out of his reverie and deems himself ready for the day. He is not ready for almost falling flat on his face on the merciless stone floor, making him foolishly flail around to get a hold on something. Tobia’s fingers brush against something cold and he reaches for it, the metal brazier digging into his palm as he hangs onto it.

The culprit of all this?

“What in the blazes were you thinking?” Tobia hissed. “Oh, my mistake. I gather you weren’t thinking at all!”

Wide, innocent-looking eyes return his glare but Tobia isn’t fooled. Even Giobbe, with all his masks, cannot stop the smile dipped in mischief as pure as the evil of Hell. It’s at moments like this—when it’s just them and no one else to see, think, or persecute—that Tobia wonders how God hadn’t struck this man down yet.

Then again, the same could be said of him.

“Father Tobia,” Giobbe says in an almost purr. He takes a step closer. “That’s not a nice thing to say to a fellow member of the Grand Church of God.”

Tobia snorts and crosses his arms, leaning away from the man. His back hits the shelves and a few pots shake from the slight impact. Daylight barely passed through into this storage room that only had a small hole for a window near the ceiling. Shadows and chatter passed right outside the closed door. Once or twice, he even heard his and Giobbe’s names.

Never in tandem. Of course, never together. And if ever, then not in the way they’d ever imagine if imagination was limited to what God permits.

“What’s not nice—” Tobia says, still glaring at those innocent-seeming eyes. “—is leaving things for a good member of the Church of God to almost trip over, Father Giobbe.”

Instead of being chastised, the other man brightened up at this. Giobbe stepped closer till there was nary an inch between them, their breaths mingling and those cursed eyes sucking him in. Tobia’s breath hitched at the first touch, the first brush of fingers against his cheek. He can smell holy incense and the musk of perfume so subtle no one would’ve noticed if they weren’t this close.

Giobbe tucked away a strand of Tobia’s hair, his smile still steeped in mischief. “So?”

“So what?”

Giobbe licked his lips and he couldn’t help it really, having his eyes drawn down to it. He was no longer flush against the cabinets but was drawing closer to the other man—his fellow priest, gaze fixed on where that slip of tongue had disappeared back behind those lips.

Tobia’s mouth was dry. He needs to drink something.

Giobbe chuckled, his fingers now playing with the curl of hair at Tobia’s ear, each brush against skin making it flush and burn.

“So,” Giobbe said. “Did you get it? My gift?”

Tobia must’ve answered somehow and it must’ve been satisfactory because Giobbe had closed the distance, hands roughly taking hold of his face, and those eyes and lips swallowing him whole. Giobbe was always rough but today he was rougher. He moved insistently against Tobia, lips pressing hard and teeth nipping and pulling with ferocity. He sucked at Tobia’s lips, murmuring cuore mio, cuore mio amidst Tobia’s moans and whimpers and gasps.

“I…I—” Tobia gasped out in between kisses. “I… I can’t believe you—ah!—G-Giobbe. G-Gifting me—mhm—that. Of all—ngh!—things. What were…. What were you thinking?”

That question had been rocketing round his mind since he took the box in his room. It was flat, unmarked, and eerily similar to a clothes box. Wrapped in a single black ribbon, he hadn’t thought much of what was inside till he…opened it.

Giobbe laughed into the kiss and drew away slightly, their noses brushing and breaths mixing into a heady heat of air that was obviously getting into their heads. Enough that Tobia did nothing to stop Giobbe from reaching for his buttons and undoing them at an achingly slow pace.

As the button by his chest popped off, Tobia bit his lip and turned away.

Silence. Glorious, embarrassing silence that didn’t help with how regret was now washing over Tobia because what was he thinking—

“Dio mio,” Giobbe said, his voice breathless. “Dio mio, Tobia. You actually… You’re wearing it. Really. Truly. In front of me and under your cassock.”

There were no mirrors here but Tobia didn’t need them to know he was blushing. He half-heartedly slapped Giobbe’s chest, not to push away but just to… well, do something. The man grabbed at his hand and began delving kisses upon it, nipping at skin and lathering his tongue around his fingers like a beast.

“Ah, cuore mio,” Giobbe said and the tone of his voice finally got Tobia to turn and look. He looked drunk, eyes half-lid and blown black. “You’re really something else, aren’t you, my dear priest?”

Tobia rolled his eyes. “If I’m something else, then what are you, amore mio? A heathen? A spawn?”

And like always when Tobia is making attempts to shed this relationship—this thing that they are and they have as something unholy and wrong, Giobbe smiles at him. It’s different from earlier. Everything about him goes soft and pliant as if Tobia is God and here is a man willing to be putty in his divine grasp.

“I am whatever you want me to be, cuore mio, and that’s a promise I’ll never break.”

The gifts keep coming and Tobia is running out of ways to wear them covertly. The first one had been easy. A woman’s bralette and underwear so perfectly fitted to him that he wonders if Giobbe had measured him during their nights together. Knowing the man, he most likely did and went off to his unruly ‘connections’ to get the commission done.

It wasn’t an ordinary bralette and underwear. It was… well, it was simply all string but not the kind that dug painfully into skin. No, this was a fabric close to the smoothness of silk and the artistry of lace. In all honesty, Tobia thought it more comfortable than any proper undergarment he’d had. So he had no problem with that.

The following gifts were becoming a challenge, though.

Priests belonging to the Grand and Holy Church of God aren’t to be seen wearing any sort of jewellery or accessory that would be taken to flaunt wealth. Jewellery are for the upper class; for the damned people who went to mass only to flaunt their status and barely give donations to the House of God. It is an unspoken rule that every priest follows.

Tobia stares at the pair of earrings in the box and runs a hand down his face, exasperated. What was next, a tiara? Or, even worse and a possibility he doesn’t want to entertain, rouge and powder. And yet the thought of the gifts that’d piled up in his closet, hidden beneath his cassocks, makes something twist in his chest. It makes his breath hitch, his face warm and burn with this feeling of sin.

Tobia looks up at the cross by the small altar every priest’s room had and finds himself caught by that wooden gaze. Christ the Son and Saviour is looking straight into his soul and sees it twisted, tainted, and tied up by temptation he’d been too weak to refuse, time and time again. It makes Tobia’s legs tremble under him and a different kind of twist in his chest comes from an invisible, nay, divine grasp round his heart, squeezing in attempt to purify and save—

In the corner of his eye, the earrings twinkle. They’re in the form of a cross, jewels of the colour of Giobbe’s eyes exuding a glow of its own. It is a mockery to the divine and yet Tobia finds himself taking them.

He sheds blood for a different kind of cross and knows, in this moment, where his faith truly lies.

“Do you think we’ll go to Hell, amore mio?”

This is not the first time Tobia asks this and they both know it won’t be the last. Not when almost every moment of the rest of their days have been sworn to God the Almighty and Omniscient. Not when Tobia doesn’t draw away from Giobbe’s soothing touch right now, their bare skin and sin brought to the light by the moon.

Giobbe, as always, laughs. Tobia knows the man well enough to hear the hollowness and the utter grief of a faith lost to sin continuously committed.

“I think at this point, cuore mio, il Satana himself knows our names, no?”

The thought of the fallen angel committing their names to heart makes Tobia laugh and turn to the side—to Giobbe. He shakes his head as he cups this face sculpted by God Himself, watching as Giobbe leans into the touch.

It’s another moment, not the last not the final, where Tobia knows his faith lies not in God but in His creation who’s chosen to stay by his side. Through love and sin and hellfire, Giobbe promises and Tobia prays.