[-and then there, there, fingers against his cheekbones, asking him to look up, stilling his thoughts. Not forcing, not demanding. A simple ask. He does.
Kalim's gaze is as warm as always, and it reminds Jamil of two things: the first, that from the moment he had been born, it had been decided that his life would revolve around Kalim's own. It was something that had made Jamil bitter, and something that would always make him bitter. It would always be something that he would resent, something that, even if he loved his parents in all other respects (and he does) he'd always hold against them. Just a little. Always, just a little.
But, the second and more important thing: that when he had the opportunity to choose, when all of his schemes were laid bare and Kalim knew just how much he resented...everything, that he had been holding things back, that he had been lying for years, when Azul had flung the doors of Octavinelle wide open and Kalim's money could make that transfer happen very easily, very quickly...he still had chosen Scarabia. Jamil still had chosen Kalim.
And this is why. Kalim could see him, terrified over a ridiculous reason. Of all the stupid reasons. Scared of something he had started. Him, someone who had said he'd never hold himself back again, scared of something he had started. And Kalim could see that, and ask him to look at him, and still look at him with warmth, all just to say that it's all right. And that he could keep going.
What does he say to that? What is he supposed to say to that?
He doesn't have the words. Instead: Jamil closes his eyes for a moment. He forces himself to breathe. He reminds himself that the world is nowhere near this place. It's just the two of them and a silent tomb, a replica of something that might not have ever existed.
Jamil opens his eyes again. He nearly nods, but, ah, they are so close. One wrong move of his head might result in him headbutting Kalim by accident, and he'd never forgive himself if he ruined the moment first by his idiot fear, and then second by headbutting Kalim Al-Asim.]
Mm.
[A soft noise.]
I know.
[And that's what terrifies him, that all of Kalim's reassurance just tells him something that, deep down, Jamil knows to be true. But he still kisses Kalim anyway, and in this kiss he pours all of his yearning. (What he yearns for he doesn't know, but Jamil knows that he wants, he wants.)]
[ It's funny, how much wanting can feel like needing when he's against Jamil's lips. Kalim never thought he was this kind of person; the kind who could go dizzy and foolish from a kiss, the kind who would trade the air he breathed for the touch on his skin. And then Jamil kissed him, touched him, and Kalim learned some hard truths about himself. Taught too well by Jamil's hand, as usual.
Kalim would give Jamil the world. Large or small; anything Jamil asks of him, Kalim would give without question. His wealth, his power, his blood, his flesh. His first and his last of everything. So long as he remains at Kalim's side, he can have the universe in his hands. He need only ask. He need only stay.
That's the plea behind Kalim's lips, consuming and desperate and plain as day to Jamil, who's always known how best to read him. Stay. Stay here against his mouth. Stay here as his aide and confidante. Stay here within his heart. And know that he possesses every part of it.
It's tempting to push for more, for deeper. It would be easy, and there's so much that he wants to touch and kiss now that the options seem available to him. A slip of his hand, a pull to bare more skin, an excuse to sink to his buckling knees. But Jamil has to lead in this. Jamil has to be the one to open each gate before Kalim will dare to flood him out. In this, he has all the power.
So Kalim only whimpers, the sound of it thick and wet between their mouths, and his hands curl back to sink into Jamil's hair, holding him fast into the devouring ruin of their kiss. ]
[There's a plea upon Kalim's lips, one that Jamil can't help but hear, but understand, but taste and touch and feel: stay. It's consuming. He doesn't know how to respond to it just yet, as he's starting to understand two things.
The first, that he needs his freedom as otherwise he'll die, metaphorically or literally. That things the way they had been would smother him, devour him, that something important would die inside of him, that he would wake up at fifty and realize that he had achieved nothing in his life if things continued the way they had been.
The second, however, is that freedom-as-he-had-envisioned-it would also kill something important inside of him. (Jamil had fantasized about it, about finally bending the knee and making a trade with Azul: something for the promise of going somewhere far away, where no one - the Al-Asims, Azul himself, even Malleus - could find him.) His fantasized idea of freedom? It would also kill him.
And so here he is, confronted by a plea, to stay, and he doesn't know how to answer it. He doesn't know what to say. Words had never been his forte, at least not when they actually mattered. He could charm and manipulate and deflect, he could bring order from chaos, but Jamil didn't know what to say when it actually mattered. Like now.
Fortunately- and it's funny, not that long ago he wouldn't have called a situation like this fortunate, but it's fortunate in this case. They're kissing. Jamil can't talk, and he doesn't want to talk. He can't answer Kalim's unvoiced plea, and he doesn't have to.
Instead, his fingers dig into Kalim's body (Later, he'd be embarrassed to remember where his left hand had ended up, but that would be later. For now, all he knows is that he wants to hold onto Kalim, fingers sinking in like he's some wild thing holding tight to his prey, and it doesn't matter if he's touching a thigh, a waist, a hip, or...something else.) Instead, he pulls Kalim close, holds him close, greedily keeping him from Scarabia, Night Raven College, the world. Greedy, selfish, and for one wild moment (Jamil groans, soft, muffled) he fantasizes about a future in which he bargains his everything with Azul in exchange for him and Kalim going somewhere far away, beyond the reach of the Al-Asims, Azul himself, Malleus, all the powers that would try to find Kalim, where he could keep Kalim for his own.
He couldn't, and he wouldn't, but he imagines that and his fingers curl into Kalim's body and squeeze as they kiss.]
[ Once, a long time ago, Kalim found an errant strike of whimsy and spent the day researching everything he could find about vipers. Every snake, he quickly learned, is carnivorous. They can eat anything from insects to baby hippos, depending on their size. But their hunting methods vary widely by species. Constrictors snare their prey and coil around them, squeezing and strangling until there's no life left in their victim. But vipers don't need to expend that kind of effort; they simply sink their teeth in and let their venom do the killing.
How is it that Jamil can manage to do both? How is he such a brutally efficient hunter? He curls and winds, grips so tightly -- so intimately -- Kalim suddenly loses his breath. And that would be enough to fell him, except that he swears he can feel Jamil inside of him, pulsing through his veins like his own lifeblood, singing in his heart, subtle venom that pushes through every part and leaves him weak in its wake. No one ever told him that poison could taste like honey on his tongue, that this venomous touch could feel like holy hands on his skin, that succumbing to its grip could feel like flying. No one ever warned him that love could feel like death.
Kalim's shaking, legs threatening to give way when Jamil kisses him deeper. This is new. They've kissed, but it's never felt like this before; like every touch is feeding into this cyclically agonizing desperation, and Kalim needs in a new and terrifying way. Moreover, he feels needed in turn, and that's only fuel to his fire. But this need... What does he need? What would be enough? He doesn't know how to ask for it, doesn't know what he's even asking for.
It surfaces as a deep moan, half desire and half frustration, hot between the air they're sharing. ]
Jamil...
[ Kalim clings to Jamil's hood, holds him captive and close even when he draws back enough to look him in the eye. And his own? Only a pair of questions beneath blazing fire rubies. ]
[That moan startles him, arouses him, and alarms him. It's a sound he thought Kalim never capable of making. It's a sound he couldn't ever imagine Kalim making. It's a sound that...confuses him, to put it politely. Jamil doesn't resist Kalim breaking the kiss, and he doesn't resist Kalim keeping him close, and, for once, he doesn't want to move away. In part because Jamil can't really move past the sound Kalim had just made and trying to figure out how he feels about it, but- hey.
It's at this point Jamil realizes where his left hand is, and he slowly releases his grip to something more...neutral, less...well, possessive and more...neutral, and moves it to Kalim's waist. While still the sort of thing that would give his father as well as the Al-Asims a heart attack, it wasn't anything new between the two of them.
He had enough to deal with. He had questions in Kalim's eyes, and a hope/wish/demand/need asked of him. If he had to deal with the consequences of his hand on Kalim's ass he'd probably bury his head in the sand and scream.]
You already own all of me.
[In fact, wasn't that somewhat the problem in the first place? Then again, Jamil's not so stupid to know what Kalim was actually getting at - the moan had implied so many things- he's not going to think about the moan. (He is going to think about that moan.)
Moving on. His fingers skirt across the cloth of Kalim's clothes. Back and forth.]
You want more of me...here?
[He's not actually against the idea and that's the worst part. Jamil hums, torn between, as always, giving Kalim everything and denying him everything.]
You know, Kalim. I didn't actually think we'd outdo the couple in the movie.
That's it. That's all it takes. As completely as Kalim had fallen under this spell, the entire thing shatters just as easily. Barely a fracture before it bursts, fine as sand and slipping through his fingers. Maybe Jamil can see it; one agonizing moment that feels to Kalim like dragging his bare feet through broken glass. His grip on Jamil falters, falls slack along with the barest sink of his shoulders, and that twitch beneath his eyes is the closest he's ever seen to Kalim flinching away.
It hurts. It's not fair for Kalim to think so, and he knows that. But fair or not, it aches down to the deepest part of him. Not the rejection, nor the joke. Just that one word. Own. Even after everything, that's still how Jamil sees them.
Maybe he's reading too much into it. He can shelve it for now; take it out to examine in private. Leave it, until he can pick it apart without his face betraying that achy pain. Instead, his face lights up again through a huff, and then a full-bodied laugh, tucking his head down against Jamil's chest until he can compose himself again. ]
We did, didn't we?! I knew we could!
[ A kiss to Jamil's cheek -- incredibly chaste, relative to how they'd been moments before -- and Kalim turns away, two steps toward retrieving his abandoned stick. ]
Come on! We need to focus, or we'll never get this fire show choreographed.
[There's a second, a second's worth of hesitation, a fluttering heartbeat's worth of hesitation, and then the moment's broken, and-
And then he feels a strange sense of relief, like cool rain falling after a hot day. And then he feels guilt. And then Jamil doesn't know what he feels, and so he does what he usually does with feelings and promptly does his best to ignore them. He doesn't have feelings. He has too much to do and not enough time, he doesn't have time to feel, shut up, shut up, even if he felt what could he do with it?]
You're right.
[After all, they're in some (fake) ruins atop a possible (fake) tomb, which is the last place they should linger, probably. Even if it had been...sort of...his idea.]
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no subject
Kalim's gaze is as warm as always, and it reminds Jamil of two things: the first, that from the moment he had been born, it had been decided that his life would revolve around Kalim's own. It was something that had made Jamil bitter, and something that would always make him bitter. It would always be something that he would resent, something that, even if he loved his parents in all other respects (and he does) he'd always hold against them. Just a little. Always, just a little.
But, the second and more important thing: that when he had the opportunity to choose, when all of his schemes were laid bare and Kalim knew just how much he resented...everything, that he had been holding things back, that he had been lying for years, when Azul had flung the doors of Octavinelle wide open and Kalim's money could make that transfer happen very easily, very quickly...he still had chosen Scarabia. Jamil still had chosen Kalim.
And this is why. Kalim could see him, terrified over a ridiculous reason. Of all the stupid reasons. Scared of something he had started. Him, someone who had said he'd never hold himself back again, scared of something he had started. And Kalim could see that, and ask him to look at him, and still look at him with warmth, all just to say that it's all right. And that he could keep going.
What does he say to that? What is he supposed to say to that?
He doesn't have the words. Instead: Jamil closes his eyes for a moment. He forces himself to breathe. He reminds himself that the world is nowhere near this place. It's just the two of them and a silent tomb, a replica of something that might not have ever existed.
Jamil opens his eyes again. He nearly nods, but, ah, they are so close. One wrong move of his head might result in him headbutting Kalim by accident, and he'd never forgive himself if he ruined the moment first by his idiot fear, and then second by headbutting Kalim Al-Asim.]
Mm.
[A soft noise.]
I know.
[And that's what terrifies him, that all of Kalim's reassurance just tells him something that, deep down, Jamil knows to be true. But he still kisses Kalim anyway, and in this kiss he pours all of his yearning. (What he yearns for he doesn't know, but Jamil knows that he wants, he wants.)]
no subject
Kalim would give Jamil the world. Large or small; anything Jamil asks of him, Kalim would give without question. His wealth, his power, his blood, his flesh. His first and his last of everything. So long as he remains at Kalim's side, he can have the universe in his hands. He need only ask. He need only stay.
That's the plea behind Kalim's lips, consuming and desperate and plain as day to Jamil, who's always known how best to read him. Stay. Stay here against his mouth. Stay here as his aide and confidante. Stay here within his heart. And know that he possesses every part of it.
It's tempting to push for more, for deeper. It would be easy, and there's so much that he wants to touch and kiss now that the options seem available to him. A slip of his hand, a pull to bare more skin, an excuse to sink to his buckling knees. But Jamil has to lead in this. Jamil has to be the one to open each gate before Kalim will dare to flood him out. In this, he has all the power.
So Kalim only whimpers, the sound of it thick and wet between their mouths, and his hands curl back to sink into Jamil's hair, holding him fast into the devouring ruin of their kiss. ]
no subject
The first, that he needs his freedom as otherwise he'll die, metaphorically or literally. That things the way they had been would smother him, devour him, that something important would die inside of him, that he would wake up at fifty and realize that he had achieved nothing in his life if things continued the way they had been.
The second, however, is that freedom-as-he-had-envisioned-it would also kill something important inside of him. (Jamil had fantasized about it, about finally bending the knee and making a trade with Azul: something for the promise of going somewhere far away, where no one - the Al-Asims, Azul himself, even Malleus - could find him.) His fantasized idea of freedom? It would also kill him.
And so here he is, confronted by a plea, to stay, and he doesn't know how to answer it. He doesn't know what to say. Words had never been his forte, at least not when they actually mattered. He could charm and manipulate and deflect, he could bring order from chaos, but Jamil didn't know what to say when it actually mattered. Like now.
Fortunately- and it's funny, not that long ago he wouldn't have called a situation like this fortunate, but it's fortunate in this case. They're kissing. Jamil can't talk, and he doesn't want to talk. He can't answer Kalim's unvoiced plea, and he doesn't have to.
Instead, his fingers dig into Kalim's body (Later, he'd be embarrassed to remember where his left hand had ended up, but that would be later. For now, all he knows is that he wants to hold onto Kalim, fingers sinking in like he's some wild thing holding tight to his prey, and it doesn't matter if he's touching a thigh, a waist, a hip, or...something else.) Instead, he pulls Kalim close, holds him close, greedily keeping him from Scarabia, Night Raven College, the world. Greedy, selfish, and for one wild moment (Jamil groans, soft, muffled) he fantasizes about a future in which he bargains his everything with Azul in exchange for him and Kalim going somewhere far away, beyond the reach of the Al-Asims, Azul himself, Malleus, all the powers that would try to find Kalim, where he could keep Kalim for his own.
He couldn't, and he wouldn't, but he imagines that and his fingers curl into Kalim's body and squeeze as they kiss.]
no subject
How is it that Jamil can manage to do both? How is he such a brutally efficient hunter? He curls and winds, grips so tightly -- so intimately -- Kalim suddenly loses his breath. And that would be enough to fell him, except that he swears he can feel Jamil inside of him, pulsing through his veins like his own lifeblood, singing in his heart, subtle venom that pushes through every part and leaves him weak in its wake. No one ever told him that poison could taste like honey on his tongue, that this venomous touch could feel like holy hands on his skin, that succumbing to its grip could feel like flying. No one ever warned him that love could feel like death.
Kalim's shaking, legs threatening to give way when Jamil kisses him deeper. This is new. They've kissed, but it's never felt like this before; like every touch is feeding into this cyclically agonizing desperation, and Kalim needs in a new and terrifying way. Moreover, he feels needed in turn, and that's only fuel to his fire. But this need... What does he need? What would be enough? He doesn't know how to ask for it, doesn't know what he's even asking for.
It surfaces as a deep moan, half desire and half frustration, hot between the air they're sharing. ]
Jamil...
[ Kalim clings to Jamil's hood, holds him captive and close even when he draws back enough to look him in the eye. And his own? Only a pair of questions beneath blazing fire rubies. ]
I want more of you.
no subject
It's at this point Jamil realizes where his left hand is, and he slowly releases his grip to something more...neutral, less...well, possessive and more...neutral, and moves it to Kalim's waist. While still the sort of thing that would give his father as well as the Al-Asims a heart attack, it wasn't anything new between the two of them.
He had enough to deal with. He had questions in Kalim's eyes, and a hope/wish/demand/need asked of him. If he had to deal with the consequences of his hand on Kalim's ass he'd probably bury his head in the sand and scream.]
You already own all of me.
[In fact, wasn't that somewhat the problem in the first place? Then again, Jamil's not so stupid to know what Kalim was actually getting at - the moan had implied so many things- he's not going to think about the moan. (He is going to think about that moan.)
Moving on. His fingers skirt across the cloth of Kalim's clothes. Back and forth.]
You want more of me...here?
[He's not actually against the idea and that's the worst part. Jamil hums, torn between, as always, giving Kalim everything and denying him everything.]
You know, Kalim. I didn't actually think we'd outdo the couple in the movie.
no subject
That's it. That's all it takes. As completely as Kalim had fallen under this spell, the entire thing shatters just as easily. Barely a fracture before it bursts, fine as sand and slipping through his fingers. Maybe Jamil can see it; one agonizing moment that feels to Kalim like dragging his bare feet through broken glass. His grip on Jamil falters, falls slack along with the barest sink of his shoulders, and that twitch beneath his eyes is the closest he's ever seen to Kalim flinching away.
It hurts. It's not fair for Kalim to think so, and he knows that. But fair or not, it aches down to the deepest part of him. Not the rejection, nor the joke. Just that one word. Own. Even after everything, that's still how Jamil sees them.
Maybe he's reading too much into it. He can shelve it for now; take it out to examine in private. Leave it, until he can pick it apart without his face betraying that achy pain. Instead, his face lights up again through a huff, and then a full-bodied laugh, tucking his head down against Jamil's chest until he can compose himself again. ]
We did, didn't we?! I knew we could!
[ A kiss to Jamil's cheek -- incredibly chaste, relative to how they'd been moments before -- and Kalim turns away, two steps toward retrieving his abandoned stick. ]
Come on! We need to focus, or we'll never get this fire show choreographed.
no subject
And then he feels a strange sense of relief, like cool rain falling after a hot day. And then he feels guilt. And then Jamil doesn't know what he feels, and so he does what he usually does with feelings and promptly does his best to ignore them. He doesn't have feelings. He has too much to do and not enough time, he doesn't have time to feel, shut up, shut up, even if he felt what could he do with it?]
You're right.
[After all, they're in some (fake) ruins atop a possible (fake) tomb, which is the last place they should linger, probably. Even if it had been...sort of...his idea.]
So...what do you have in mind, Kalim?