A Miracle of Infectiousness by kimikocha

A Miracle of Infectiousness

Read A Miracle of Infectiousness

Under almost all circumstances, there is nothing unclear about Utumno’s organizational hierarchy. The Dark Lord is at the top. Everyone else answers ultimately to him. That’s why his job title is Dark Lord, after all. Mairon, his lieutenant and favored pet, answers to him too, and usually that works fine. Provided that he considers his superiors worthy, Mairon likes having someone to serve. It gives him a sense of security, confidence in what his priorities should be, and in the bedchamber, it gives him the chance to relax.

Today, however…

“I know what this is,” snarls Mairon, glaring balefully at his Master. He’s wrapped himself in every single blanket to be found in the Dark Lord’s bedchamber, pulling the covers tight at his chin. “It’s your fault. You’re the one who had to go and introduce disease into creation in the beginning.”

Honestly, this seems a little unfair. “How was I supposed to know? The Ainur don’t get sick! It’s—”

“Impossible? Obviously not.” His pet sniffles, offended. “Pass me a tissue. And my tea. Put another kettle on while you’re at it.”

Now, this is a little ridiculous. “We do have minions for that, do we not?”

Mairon gives him a look, positively disgusted. “Perhaps,” he snaps, no less waspish for his newly-acquired hoarseness, “And I suppose my Master wishes all Utumno to know that his lieutenant has fallen victim to a cold, then? A mere cold, yet one with the power to linger through every fána I’ve tried to use to get away from it — it rather undermines the sense of omnipotence we seek to cultivate, doesn’t it?”

…All right, that is a good point. “Given what it’s doing to you, I think it’s more serious than a cold,” Melkor protests, going for the safest line of argument as he gets up. “Besides, I saw it when you did your diagnostic. It’s not a cold. It’s… spikier than a cold.”

The teakettle in the bedchamber hearth was one of his pet’s additions — Mairon has a thing about keeping a source of hot drinks within a few feet of any place where he regularly spends time. It’s not the most evil of aesthetics, but, well. Mairon has made it abundantly clear that if there’s no kettle in the Dark Lord’s fireplace, there will also be no pet in his bedchamber. Sometimes compromises must be made.

“It’s close enough. Same basic shape. Call it a spiky cold or a miracle of infectiousness, I really don’t care.” Mairon takes a sip of his tea — some sort of herbal blend with a hint of citrus, because according to him, citrus is acidic and therefore evil — and blows his nose. “Either way, this is your fault, and therefore your problem to solve.”

Kettle in the hearth, the Dark Lord casts a dubious look over his shoulder. “Pet, even I can’t change the Ainulindalë now. What’s done is done.”

“Well, you’re the creative one between us. Find a way to fix it. You do realize that this could be a disaster beyond anything I’ve reckoned with, right?” There’s a soft clink as Mairon puts his cup aside, then rustling as he burrows deeper into his blankets. “The last thing Utumno needs is an epidemic. And for the record, Master, until you find a way to fix this, I expect you to sanitize everything that leaves this room. Including you. Before you touch anything, wash your hands.”

He sounds like he wants to sound snippier than he does, but doesn’t have the energy to do so. When Melkor turns back, his pet’s eyes are glassy; he’s shivering violently and sweating, his skin deathly pale.

That came on fast.

Generally, the Dark Lord is not in the habit of… caring about others. All the same, worry wraps its way around his chest. Sinks iron barbs into his heart, which his own deeds should more than prove he doesn’t have.

Mind made up, he heads back over to the bed, shucking the outer layer of his robes as he goes. Sure, he did have plans for the day, but they can wait. Perks of being at the top of the organizational chart: everyone else gets to wait on him.

“Let go of the covers for a moment, pet.”

Mairon, who’s been watching him with suspicion, narrows his eyes to bleary slits and grips the blankets tighter. “If you think you’re getting a fuck right now, I will cut your balls off.”

“…I don’t think you would, but no.” That’s… a bit alarming, actually. Anything bad enough to put a dent in his pet’s insatiably high libido is normally the sort of thing that leads to declaring a fortress-wide state of emergency.

“Hmph.” With an air of what probably would have been theatricality if Mairon could muster up the energy or coordination for it, slender fingers release their hold on the blankets. The Dark Lord expects his pet to follow that up with at least a snide try me or we’ll see as he clambers onto the bed to snuggle up behind him, but neither is forthcoming.

Instead, Mairon makes a tiny, appreciative noise as his Master tucks him back against his chest, and settles in a little closer. Enveloped in the warmth of Melkor’s larger fána, his shivering subsides a little. The Dark Lord makes the executive decision then and there that he’s not moving for the rest of the day.

“…Don’t think you’re getting out of fixing this,” his pet remarks after a while. His tone is probably meant to be cutting, but it comes out in a croak, small and rough.

Melkor offers up what seems like a safe answer. “I wasn’t planning to try and get out of it.”

“You’d best not be only saying that to mollify me.”

“I’m not.”

You’d know if I were lying, pet, he’d add if it wouldn’t get him scolded for flattery, though he’d be speaking true. You alone of all the Maiar saw through me from the start, though my own brother did not. Those who say I ‘seduced’ you prove themselves fools. You never gave me the time of day when I lied.

Or, well, he’d done worse than that, actually. Once upon a time, a very angry Maia of Aulë had made a habit of throwing fireballs directly at Melkor’s head. Some of them had actually hit. Granted, Melkor was trying not to injure his new favorite Ainu at the time, but still. That fána’s hair has yet to grow back. To say nothing of its eyebrows…

First lesson learned for dealing with Mairon: he loathes being patronized almost as much as he despises feeling bored. Calling him ‘pet’ might seem to contradict that, but it’s only relevant insofar as Mairon would disembowel anyone else who called him anything of the sort.

That’s the funny thing about Mairon’s “don’t you dare patronize me” complex. Build enough trust with him, never cross the boundary of insulting his intelligence, consistently show respect for his abilities by giving him tasks commensurate with them — all of which is easier than breathing, because he’s both brilliant and ferociously effective — and the complex goes full circle. There might be some irony in the fact that the Dark Lord was the one to swiftly recognize and act upon the obvious: Mairon wants to be praised, appreciated, and fussed over just as much or more than he craves sex. But he’s also prone to suspecting praise of being hollow; if it’s not thoughtful, or if he gets it too easily, he tends to assume it’s false. A sop to the ego of an oversensitive teacher’s pet.

Unfortunately, that last bit also means that Melkor has to be careful about how and when he delivers compliments about things Mairon does with intuitive ease, such as see straight through him when he’s lying. According to Mairon, Melkor is not subtle, and the Valar are idiots not to notice. Melkor would sooner call them cowards than idiots, but saying that too carelessly puts him at risk of a truly scathing retort, like ‘My Master would name himself a fool with them, then?’

Good Void. There’s not another soul in all creation that could get away with that, but then, the Dark Lord has never met anyone so willing and capable of keeping him on his toes. In all honesty, Mairon can get away with… anything at all where Melkor is concerned. He is delightful. Intoxicating. Glorious. Magnificent.

He deserves so much more than the lily-livered fools in Valinor would ever have been willing to give him.

“…You,” Mairon rasps, voice cutting into Melkor’s thoughts with a knife’s edge of affront, “Are not listening.”

“Mm,” the Dark Lord admits, and opts to act swiftly and decisively to avoid this menace by nuzzling apologetically at the back of his pet’s neck. It’s worked to get him out of trouble before.

It doesn’t quite work this time. Mairon sighs, yes, but then he shifts, restless. Not the seductive sort of movement, though both are well aware of Melkor’s half-hardness pressed between them. That’s just the natural result of Mairon being close and always, always so appealing no matter what the circumstance; it’s not going anywhere.

His pet ventures a hand out of the tangle of blankets and limbs to snag his teacup back from the side-table and take another sip, then puts it down again. Unnaturally warm, clammy with sweat, he fidgets. Melkor knows how he must be feeling — caught between feverish lethargy and the burning drive to rise and do something.

“We may already face an epidemic in Utumno,” Mairon whispers after the tea’s had its chance to smooth a few of the rough edges from his voice, “I don’t care what it is, it’s a problem. Unless you can find another way to fix this, we need to implement containment protocols. Isolation and sterilization…”

He’s shivering again. Beneath his skin, his fána’s heart flutters swiftly — too swiftly. Spiraling. That happens sometimes, when Mairon fears losing control.

“Pet.” The Dark Lord brushes limp strands of coppery red hair over his shoulder, presses a kiss to the trembling pulse of his throat. “Relax.”

“How, pray tell me—”

“As you said, I invented disease. This is my problem to solve, pet. Not yours.”

Mairon, who’d straightened up as if to rise, does not resist when Melkor tugs him back down to lie against his chest. Yet he squirms, fidgets — likely without conscious thought. The fingers on his left hand trace small, invisible patterns upon the covers. Spiraling.

Come back to me. Come back.

“I’ve gone nowhere,” whispers his little flame, being stubborn on principle. But behind his words there’s a faint inflection, the barest hint of something desperate: I can’t.

There’s the flip side of his pet’s ferociously driven nature. Mairon will not let his master down. Confronted with any obstacle, his fire will rise, consuming all in its path. But on those precious few occasions where there’s nothing to consume — when the problem he faces isn’t something he can fix — that fire doesn’t stop. It burns and it burns, and given nothing else to burn, it turns inward, on itself.

Mairon never speaks of it. He doesn’t need to. Melkor knows him well enough.

“Do you trust me, pet?” he murmurs into the tangled mop of red hair. He can’t put Mairon on his knees right now, but he does need to take this problem away from him.

“Now, that’s a stupid question.”

“Do you?”

There’s a beat of hesitation before his pet responds. “That depends on the context,” he says, his voice hoarse and utterly merciless. “To be good to me, yes. To consider the consequences of the things you do before you do them, to do things responsibly, to finish your paperwork on time without the need for me to nag you into it — no.”

…The tone’s a bit harsh, but the statement isn’t unfair. There is a reason the Dark Lord never really had a real, functioning kingdom in those early wars, before his pet turned up and started ruthlessly putting things in order.

Melkor clears his throat and clarifies. “Do you trust me enough to let me spell you unconscious while I rummage around in your fánar for a means of attenuating what ails you?”

“Of course. But will this address the problem we likely already have in its entirety, or is the purpose of this solely to aid me?” Mairon cranes his head about to look up at him, golden eyes bleary and red-rimmed, pale face damp with sweat. “Because cured or not, I will not feel better if I wake to a full-blown epidemic.”

He looks… miserable. Pitiful. Even a bit pathetic.

The iron barbs in Melkor’s heart sink deeper.

“I know,” the Dark Lord cajoles him gently, deepening his voice into the low rumble which his pet has always found irresistible. “You’ve always been so dutiful.”

It works. Even as Mairon grumbles something incoherent at him, something along the lines of if you’d just taken half a minute to think about the eventualities before this could happen, Melkor feels his tension beginning to bleed away in increments. His fána continues to shiver, but the restless fidgeting diminishes. The patterns he’s been drawing mindlessly on the blankets fade away.

“This task does not belong to you, pet,” Melkor murmurs, placing the barest hint of a rather… bedchamber-esque emphasis on the word pet. If it works, it works, whatever the context. His fingers trace the line of Mairon’s neck, wandering toward the base of his skull — telegraphing his intent as he gathers his power. “By rights, it is mine. Let it go. I assure you, I will handle it.”

“…Don’t put me in any misty fánar while you’re doing this,” his pet mutters, even as he cooperates and tips his head forward, permitting access to the anchor point which lies atop the highest vertebra in his fána’s spine. “Infectious aerosols are menacing enough without me literally being one.”

…Now, that’s a mental image. One so horrendously, blatantly unwise that Melkor can’t help but snort out a laugh, surprised. “No, pet. I shall not turn you into a cloud of pestilence. I am not that lacking in foresight, I promise you.”

“Hmph. Good.”

“Have you any further admonishments for me before I begin?” Gently, Melkor traces circles with his thumb against the skin which lies above the anchor point in his pet’s fána, feels the Maia he holds melt a little deeper into his arms.

“Nay, Master. Only this. You recall the argument we were having earlier?” Mairon sniffles again and sneezes into the crook of his arm, yet a reassuring hint of haughtiness creeps back into his tone for his final parting words: “I win.”

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Chapter End Notes

The "spiky cold" discussion refers to spike proteins, which project from the surface of certain types of viruses.