#tiny fic

Carlos stilled the arm raised above his head and Oscar sighed in relief, lowering the angry finger pointed at him. Until he readjusted his aim and the man screamed as a water balloon hit him square in the chest. Tainting his pristine white shirt pink.

"Carlos!"

Carlos answered the indignant cry with another balloon thrown his way. Hitting him on his hip. It had been Alex's idea. A makeshift substitute. They were supposed to go out to play paintball but the plans had fallen through and they were forced to improvise.

"I think it will really help you two," Alex had told him in private, "get some of that aggression out. In a harmless way of course."

It was after Carlos had confided in him how much Oscar's behaviour bothered him. Sure they had had their differences in the past but enough time had passed, and they had cleared things up.

Still, an awkwardness lingered between them. A deliberate distance. A distance Carlos had tried to close, but Oscar seemed adamant on maintaining. A distance Carlos could no longer bear. 

Approached Oscar with the last balloon in his hand. This time Oscar had the sense to turn his back on him as Carlos threw the balloon. It hit the base of his neck, eliciting another enraged scream, as Oscar hopped away. Carlos could not hold back his laugh, his whole body shaking with it. He almost doubled up, slamming his knees. Who knew the man the media was hell bent on calling the ice man would be so dramatic. So fun to tease. 

“You think you’re very funny huh?” 

Maybe it was a bit concerning how attractive Carlos found the tone of his voice. A little pissed off, a bit smug. Smooth enough to make his mouth water. Carlos could feel the annoyance in the tilt of his brow, and retaliation in the smirk curling his lips. Too late he realised Oscar too had a balloon with ice cold water and faint red dye in his hand. Now he stood over Carlos, smashing it on top of his head. Carlos closed his eyes in anticipation, felt the chill of water running down his face. The warmth of Oscar’s hand entangled in his hair.

“Oi!” 

The chill stung, but Carlos was still thankful. Not just because now he had Oscar’s undivided attention, but also because it might cool down the blush that such attention invoked. Carlos’ was aware of the effect he had on people, so he tried the same tactic on Oscar. Slowly brushed his wet hair away from his face, batting his lashes up at a man who up till now was devoted to avoiding him. Now though, now Oscar’s eyes were not so flighty, now they caressed his face with the kind of dedication Carlos deserved. 

Carlos took his silence as permission to rake his own eyes down Oscar’s form. His messy, dripping hair, the damp shirt providing a tantalizing view of that sculpted body. A victorious smile, too bright eyes. The freckles standing out like constellations. 

Carlos was weak for beauty. He saw something lovely and he had to get it in his hands. Not to alter or ruin it. Admire it up close, and then let it go. Never before had he encountered a thing of beauty he couldn't claim. Maybe that was it. It was the chase that kept him hooked, kept him enamoured. Oscar Piastri refused to surrender, to give in. And Carlos refused to give up. 

“Not so funny anymore, is it?” Oscar breathed out. 

Soft, without any bite in it. Not as unaffected as he’d like Carlos to believe. 

“No,” Carlos agreed. “Not funny at all.”

Because it wasn’t. Not anymore. It might have been a game in the beginning. A fun chase. But the longer it dragged on the more it ached, the more it riled him up. Carlos would no longer be satisfied by simply having Oscar for one night. Admiring him won’t be enough. Carlos needed to ruin him. To alter Oscar in such a shape that he could trap him within the cage of his hands. Let Oscar loose but only within the maze of his heart. So that no matter how much he runs, Oscar would never escape him. Would never be able to ignore him, to build any distance between them. 

“Well,” Oscar said, wrenching his gaze away, “now we’re even.”

“No.”

Before Oscar could retreat to the safe distance he loved so much Carlos grabbed him. If he had claws he would dig them into Oscar’s tender skin. But as it was, Oscar came to him easily. Stunned perhaps, or giving in at last. Carlos had his face entrapped within his hands, pulled so close that Oscar had no choice but to look at him. So that his whole world was narrowed down to Carlos. So that he would finally, unmistakenly see the need in his eyes, hunger on his lips. 

Oscar’s lips were already parted in surprise, letting Carlos lick into his mouth as he pleased. Take what he wanted, what he needed. Sink his teeth into lips that faltered on his name. Bleed them dry. Oscar was sweet, so willing, so malleable in his hands. Fingers scrambling at Carlos’ shoulders, body swaying with every slide of his tongue. Why hadn’t he given in sooner if he was not going to fight Carlos at all in the end? 

“Carlos? We need to get going mate!”

Alex’s call made Oscar push him away. Wipe his mouth, straighten his shirt as the man came into view. Deliciously flustered. Carlos couldn’t help but shield him from view. Let Oscar compose himself, let the world continue to think of him as the iceman. This hot and bothered boy, melting in his hands. This sight was for his eyes alone. 

“There you two are,” Alex, oblivious and cheerful, “Oscar, mate Lando has been looking for you for the past twenty minutes. This place is a maze.”

“Yeah we were trying to figure out our way back to you guys too.” Carlos told him. Even if he would’ve kept Oscar here, in his arms, until the end of time.

Alex was quick to lead them back when George called him. Oscar was eager to follow him, but Carlos pulled him back. Oscar stumbled a bit, but Carlos was only too happy to steady him. 

“Come to my room tonight?”

“Why- no.”

“Fine, I'll come to you then. You’re in 302, right?”

“No.”

Carlos smiled at his attempts to escape. Oscar was putting in commendable effort at keeping his face blank. But his eyes were flitting about in panic.

“I’ll see you tonight then.”

“Why? What would you even do in my room?”

“What I couldn’t do here.”

Carlos graced the offended pout with a quick kiss. Jogging away to join Alex before Oscar could come up with a retort. A quick glance behind told him Oscar was still too stunned to move. Face aglow with a furious blush. Then when he did join them, it was on Alex’s other side. Carlos had to laugh, dismissing Alex’s curious eyes. 

He crooned, soft and gentle, his right hand a soft pressure against the nape of Tyelperinquar's neck.

"Look at me, Tyelpe," he said sweetly, in that barely concealed demand.

Another chance to obey, but Tyelperinquar turned his gaze away again.

It shone with the brightness that the Annatar he knew once had shone. The hollow figure in front of him, a face and voice so familiar it was a balm to his heavy heart, and yet it burned all the more for it.

"What did you do to yourself?" Tyelperinquar murmured to himself.

Nails dug into the soft skin on the back of his neck, pressure that sent fear skittering up his spine and his breath to still.

Not yet.

Ann- Sauron did not benefit from his death just yet.

But the threat was ever present, in the way Annatar's beauty and all-encompassing vision had been.

Still was.

"You are beautiful still," Tyelperinquar murmured, glancing back for just a moment into the burning gaze of his once partner.

To think, this had been the one he had thought his. His other half, the one whom he entrusted all his fears and hopes and desires, who he had thought had trusted him back-

All those days and nights together. Circling around each other, as Anar and Isil circled around Arda, tantalisingly close yet almost always out of reach.

It had been but a decade ago, when for a celebration they had been gifted gifts of cloth and jewellery in great abundance, in silver and gold and their holly trees had their colours weaved through them. A facsimile of what Telperion and Laurelin had been, and yet for those who had never seen it, never sought for a recreation of that symbol that promised of safety and hope-

"What changed?" Tyelperinquar asked, tilting his head up to stare back at Sauron's ever-flickering eyes. He recalled distinctly all those nights that he gazed into them, in their home, under the stars, how the night's darkness only amplified his ethereal light. Like molten gold and copper that was heated and cooled, the process of creation and destruction all captured in his eyes. "Or had we never known each other?"

"You know me," Sauron said ever so gently, the hand which clung tightly to Tyelperinquar's neck gliding gracefully to cup his cheek as if he were made from the finest of minds melding together.

"You've always known me," he said. "You know me still-"

And there it was again. The Valarian word or phrase that Tyelperinquar did not how to say or translate but which had, uniquely, come to mean him. Him, as Annatar, as Sauron, saw him.

Did it mean my other half? Or possible my darling. Or maybe, it was just mine.

That was fair. Tyelperinquar thought of Sauron as his too.

"You're still beautiful," Tyelperinquar breathed slowly, knowing that Sauron's vanity and his desperation for acknowledgment and for someone to udnerstand ran just as deep as his own. "But in such a mortal way now."

The light which Sauron emitted like a holy light banked.

"What?" He asked, confusion clear in his voice and his furrowed eyebrows and the way his hand withdrew contact, just for that moment before it rested gently on Tyelperinquar's shoulder.

For all Sauron allowed himself to touch freely, he had restrained Tyelperinquar. The finest mithril chains to control, to restrain, to threaten. Where once it had been by those very hands which had created and draped heart-halting jewellery around Tyelperinquar's wrists and neck and ears- they were the same now which would torture, and eventually, kill him.

Tyelperinquar had aceepted his death long ago. After all, with his family and their history, it was only a matter of time.

But the manner of which-

He supposed it was fitting, that it came from the one who he had seen as his own, the closest someone he had allowed-

No.

No, there had been no choice in the end, no matter how much he might have wished it.

He loved things that were so easily broken, Tyelperinquar thought. Broken by themselves, and by the circumstances around them. What did that reveal of himself and his values? What did it reveal about Sauron, and what he desired so greatly?

"Tyelpe," Sauron said in the gentlest reprimand-the same being who tortured his eldest uncle and killed his favourite, too-kind too-brave cousin- "Now how could you say such a thing?"

"Surprisingly, quite easily," Tyelperinquar remarked.

A flicker of annoyance which was stamped out as quick as it had appeared.

"You are being unreasonable Tyelperinquar," Sauron said sharply.

"You do realise," Tyelperinquar answered, "That throughout this entire conversation you have been hiding you left hand? What are you so afraid of now. I am unlikely to make a successful move against you for long."

"Having a hand behind my back is not hiding," Sauron snapped, visibly frowning. He withdrew his right hand and in a quick motion, crossed his arms and tapped his foot as a parent would do to a misbehaving child.

"Semantics," Tyelperinquar countered. "You know as well as I that that which you did to yourself has, and will only, cause you more grief."

"I am a God," Sauron spat, "I am worshiped by Men-"

Tyelperinquar laughed.

"And Gods die," he said. "Men replace their Gods as easily as they breathe. The Valar themselves hold no direct power here now. Not anymore."

"You-" Sauron said, scowling fiercely, a mask to what Tyelperinquar knew was a deep-set- and disturbing to only himself- confusion.

"This was not how this was meant to go," he sighed at last. "I was thinking that you would start prattling about morals and ethics-"

Tyelperinquar raised an eyebrow. "I could," he said easily, "But I figured you'd already save me the effort and had counterarguments ready to affirm your beliefs."

"You make me sound biased," Sauron huffed and rolled his eyes when Tyelperinquar gave him a look.

"Show me it." Tyelperinquar dared to ask and, after a brief moment of hesitation, Sauron did.

A gold -predictable- remarkably simple -concerningly so- band.

...

Tyelperinquar reached for it.

_____________________________________

So. uh. A small fic to make up for my disatisfaction at my art?

Unfortunately it’s not as well-polished as I wanted it to be but alas. I also, originally, wanted it in colour but Sketchbook just does not work well when transitions from b/w to colour.

There was, also again, meant to be a second piece. Like a diptych. You see this pose? You know ballrooms dancing? Just imagine they’re doing that pose, hand held together, staring at each other like the outer world does not exist. All dressed fancy.