gnawing on the idea of paradigms this afternoon. if you are at all inclined to mercy 😍😈
welcome to the inside of annatar's head! we're having a bad time in here! <3
One night, Celebrimbor catches Mairon coming in to watch him sleep. He almost leaves again when he realizes Celebrimbor’s awake, but he asks to fall asleep in Mairon's arms, which is, as per usual, an irresistible prospect.
Once they’re situated in bed, lying down with Celebrimbor’s head on Annatar’s shoulder so he can’t escape, Celebrimbor springs his trap. He asks, “Why have you been so cagey lately?”
...Mairon had hoped he hadn't noticed. It isn't - reasonable. Celebrimbor allows him a thousand liberties; the lack of a single one should not grate on him so.
"You know we’re married, right?” teases Celebrimbor. “I can tell when you’re around. And I can also tell when you mysteriously have somewhere else to be every time I notice that you’re around.”
This is – true. Unfortunately. The unfortunate part is not that they're married, of course, their marriage is Mairon's highest priority, but that Celebrimbor can know so much about him. Mairon quite enjoys the reverse, though, so he will live with it. "I'm aware of that, yes," he admits.
“So what is it? What do you want?”
Mairon says, wishing he'd just leave it alone, "Nothing. It's fine."
“Sure, it’s fine," Celebrimbor says, with no sign of leaving it alone, "but you’re not being this weird because you don’t want anything. I’m not going to be angry with you, you know.”
How would he possibly know that? He doesn't - Mairon knows that Celebrimbor doesn't want this, that it violates the terms of their agreement, that he cannot ask for it. "Are you sure about that?"
Celebrimbor pushes himself up on his elbows to look Mairon in the eyes like Mairon is being deliberately obtuse. “That I won’t be angry about you asking me for something? Pretty damn sure, yes," he says, but he can't know that–
"If I don’t want to do whatever it is, then I’ll say so and I won’t do it.” He says it so cleanly, so simply. Like it really is true that there is nothing Mairon could ask for that would disgust or frighten him.
