In the nights that followed his judgment, Mahaado's counterparts each find themselves in the heady darkness of their Captain's chambers. These trysts are rough and hasty, sloppy even. Mahaado is desperate to satiate the hunger he tried for so many years not to acknowledge. Each night, one of Mahaado's rank-and-file associates – bodyguards, night watchmen, palace security, temple guardians – capture his lips, dig their fingers into his back, and press between his thighs, filling him until his insides are squirming, until his bronze skin is drenched in sweat, until his mind is a blank slate of white hot pleasure.

He scarcely speaks during these encounters, his voice reduced to needy moans, desperate whines, and sharp hisses. When he does speak, his voice is a soft, summer breeze, a barely audible whisper that he tries to bury in the crook of his associate's shoulder. As he's split open on the flushed, hot skin that is piercing and impaling him, Mahaado breathlessly croons, "my love, my king, my only god."

He begs to be bitten, to be sucked, to be pinched, to be squeezed. He wants a tongue down his throat, legs in a vise-grip around his waist, fingers knuckle-deep in his ass.

He tries to fill his ears with the sounds of skin slapping, of growls and grunts, of bone-deep moans, of pleasured screams, but all he can hear is Atem's warm voice saying, "Mahaado, I forgive you."

His tries to forget the silky feel of Atem's purple cape against his skin, of Atem's fingers gently pressed to his waist. He tries to replace it with the feel of slick wetness between his thighs.

He drowns his sight with a parade of sweat-soaked bodies. They kiss until his lips are bruised. They fuck until he climaxes. They bite and claw until he bleeds.

He begs for another inch inside him. He pleads for more sticky, salty fluid spilling down his throat.

Why won't this craving leave him? Why, in this endless tangle of bodies, can he only see his pharaoh's face? His warm gaze and wine-red eyes. Why, in the constant moaning and gasping, can he only hear His Majesty's voice as he says, "I can't imagine how I'd run this kingdom without you by my side."

No matter what sensations he squeezes between his lips or pushes deep between his thighs, the only thing he can feel is how his heart swelled and burst as the boy he loved publicly spared his life.

And so he stuffs these illicit feelings for his king into the far reaches of his consciousness. He tries to fuck himself senseless. He tries to fuck some sense into himself! He thinks he can chip away at his hunger one seedy evening at a time. He thinks he can dilutes his desire for his childhood friend in a messy puddle of sweat and semen.

At the end of each night, Mahaado lies alone in his bed - heart pounding, chest heaving, mind reeling, insides burning. At the end of each night, he grips a twine of the ring as if to keep himself anchored to this plane of existence. He grips and grips until rivets of blood drip between his fingers.

In the end, the harsh nights of rough fucking do nothing to blunt his longings. He dreams of tearing out his liver and watching his king feast on it. He dreams of Atem saying he loves him. His dreams are lawless, corrupt, illegal. How inappropriate his wishes are and how indecent. If only he knew how to be good. If only he could act in a manner befitting his station.

Each night, he tries.

Each night, he fails.

Each night, he tries and fails to shatter his stubborn, heedless wish to love and be loved by the living Horus.

Notes:

Men in love are hot, amirite?

Props to Mahaado for being the limerence icon we didn't know we needed.