Chapter Text
The very first time they are introduced, Kalim notices Jamil’s beauty and is awed by it. In front of both their parents and the rest of the people milling around, his heart starts to race and has him thoughtlessly blurting out a marriage proposal that he wouldn’t take back even today. But as they grew he noticed the way the those baubles in Jamil’s hair, the glinting choker, the bangles and the armband all add to that natural beauty. And the piercings, of course.
They’re old enough to have been learning about their bodies when they kiss. It’s wetter than he’d thought it would be, but Jamil is warm and soft under his lips. Licking messily into Jamil’s mouth, he discovers Jamil’s tongue piercing. He can’t get enough of the cool contrast from Jamil’s warm tongue, the muffled noises Jamil makes that make his lips buzz, and both of them end up with swollen lips and flushed faces.
The stud amplifies the experience, but is plain, and Jamil is anything but, so the next day Kalim gives him a better one. It’s one that shines like Jamil does and Kalim can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips every time he sees it peek out when Jamil speaks.
He thinks, even if it began with their meeting, discovering the tongue piercing is when this really started. By this, of course, Kalim is referring to the want—need—to see Jamil decorated as he should be. Then it gets better. Because, well, if the next piercing he discovers is by walking in on Jamil because he wants to spend as much time with him as possible before Jamil goes of to Night Raven College it’s not his fault for getting eager after seeing bars through his nipples, it’s just a happy little accident.
It is, as it seems, decidedly not an accident when Kalim quietly locks the door behind him and innocently asks to see the piercings closer. Why, how could Jamil refuse the sweet, curious eyes of his master that couldn’t be moved from his chest? After all, Kalim doesn’t know not to touch and rub and lick —oh.
Well, if it ends with a mess in both their pants with Jamil squirming and batting away Kalim’s greedy hands that roam across his sensitive chest, it’s just a happy little accident. It’s just the way these things are. However, the bars are plain and Jamil is anything but, so Kalim gives him better ones. Ones that sparkle brightly with jewels on the ends that are as lovely as Jamil. And if Kalim smiles when Jamil bows low and can’t help but make him stay close, well, that’s nothing out of the ordinary.
Neither is the way, barely a day later, Kalim eagerly comes into Jamil’s room at night. He smiles as he sets Jamil in his lap, mouthing at the thin material covering his chest. But the way Jamil sinks to his knees and looks up through long lashes, tugging on Kalim’s pants is new. So is the way he sets Kalim’s hand on his head, mouth in a perfect ‘O’ as he bobs up and down.
The stub on his tongue scrapes against the underside, and Kalim can’t help thrusting into the back of Jamil’s throat. But Jamil says it’s okay with watery eyes and reddened, swollen lips, and Kalim thinks he looks so beautiful. He smiles at the image Jamil paints, beautiful even in such a state of disarray. How could anyone blame him for going on?
How could anyway blame him for wanting more? Especially when he loves the feel of Jamil’s weight pressed against him, coming down from their excitement to sit in each other’s company. Loves the way Jamil’s face looks so soft under the sun’s light as he reads to Kalim. Loves the sound of Jamil’s humming as he makes a snack for them despite the way Kalim’s father’s exasperated cooks tells them not to ruin their appetite so close to dinner.
Loves Jamil.
And they keep fooling around, sure. They sneak around in shadows and steal pleasures when no one is around. Kalim presses Jamil against walls, onto his knees, lets hands and mouth roam. Still, Kalim can’t help wanting all of Jamil. So he calls Jamil into his room only a few days before they’re to be separated, and presents him with the most lovely decorations he could find and Jamil smiles so widely it looks like it hurts.
When he comes back out of Kalim’s private bathroom the setting sun casts its colors over Jamil. His dark hair is made into spun gold, skin glowing amber, eyes a shining silver. It reveals every piece of jewelery neatly pinned in his hair, wrapped around his neck and twining down his arms, glinting on his chest, hanging on his thighs, shining on his ankles and feet. It caresses him like a lover, jealously wrapping him in its colors.
He is so gorgeous Kalim can’t help but pull him into his lap. He looks up at this beautiful boy, who must be some sort of deity, and feels his heart thump in a thundering hymn. Worship lies on the tip of his tongue and he cannot help as he murmurs into the crook of this young god’s neck to stay. He means it in a way he cannot describe, even though he would never want to hold Jamil back from such an incredible opportunity. Still, can Kalim be blamed from selfishly wanting to keep Jamil close? Of course not. But even if it was a request they know the answer to, Jamil shakes his head fondly and presses a distracting kiss to the underside of Kalim’s jaw.
It is all soon forgotten anyway, with heated kisses and whispers of praise. The slight jangle of jewelery is drowned out by the creak of an expensive bed and smothered yelps that turn quickly to pleasure filled moans. The hooded eyes and flushed cheeks and kiss swollen mouth that lets out such cute noises puts Kalim under a trace, he can’t help but place a quick confession into their joined lips. Even if Jamil doesn’t hear him, he knows that Jamil must know everything he’s done has been a loud declaration of his affection. And all of his advances have been accepted and returned.
As they are joined together, Kalim thinks that this must be love. And if this is not love then Kalim would choose it anyway as Jamil has always, will always, be his only choice. Even for all his excitement over fairy tales, the only true love’s kiss he needs is from Jamil’s sweet, pliant lips.
And in his enchantment, he really can’t be blamed for any wonderfully impulsive ideas that come to him. After all, what better idea than one that would have him not separated with this vision of beauty laying, wonderfully dazed, beside him. What better way to stay beside Jamil than to follow him to Night Raven College? It is too much of an opportunity for Jamil to miss and surely there is no place that could not be swayed by a declaration of the sweetest, truest love—and money.
The idea doesn’t leave his head, even as, despite his protests, Jamil slips from his bed with the excuse that he couldn’t bear to sleep with so many baubles tangled in his hair. But Kalim understands in his disappointment. He lets Jamil go with a gentle goodnight kiss that leaves Jamil flushed so prettily, even with all they’ve done, and Kalim steadfast in his plan to follow Jamil to Night Raven.
Tomorrow he will go appeal to his father, how he needs Jamil by his side and how good an idea it would be for him to attend a prestigious school like Night Raven. But that is for tomorrow. So Kalim finally drifts to sleep, a satisfied smile on his face and the phantom weight of Jamil on the other side of his bed. After so much time spent together and a night of lovemaking, how could Jamil not be delighted by the surprise Kalim has planned?
And he is! Kalim grins from ear to ear as he arrives, albeit a few months late, to be at Jamil’s side. He has made Jamil speechless in joy as he appears before the dorm. It is even better than he could have imagined! Jamil gives a smile, downplayed in front of the others, before going to prepare a magnificent feast for his triumphant arrival.
Sitting to his right at the table and pouring his drink, Jamil’s hands shake in excitement at their being reunited. That night he celebrates and laughs with his new friends, delighted at how they accept him. Beneath the table, he subtly takes Jamil’s hand in his and think they fit together as a puzzle of two pieces do. His chest swells with love, and he cannot help how his eyes follow Jamil as if he were a mirage about to disappear.
But the feeling is quickly solved as Kalim boxes Jamil beneath him, hidden in their bedroom and laying on their bed. He peppers kisses against Jamil’s body and smiles at the sight of the studs he’d gifted Jamil still being worn. There is no sweeter joy to be found as he softly presses himself into Jamil again—making them one again.
He says this aloud, after they are cleaned and done, pressing his lips to Jamil’s in a short kiss. And Jamil, so loyal and mature, hides his face away even though Kalim can see the way the tips of his ears turn red.
Fondly, he slings his arm across Jamil’s waist, letting Jamil shift his hair out of the way, before pressing close and brushing a light kiss on his bare shoulder. So maybe their story isn’t a fairy tale full of adventure or sleeping spells or awesome battles, but Kalim thinks there would no happier ending to a story as long as he has Jamil beside him.
After all, what else would they need but each other?
A lot, as it turns out.
For their whole lives, Kalim has had Jamil. He has loved and thought he was loved in returned. But then their second year at Night Raven comes. Everything is revealed. The truth is that Jamil resents him. And he knows this because their second year, Jamil hurts and rages and overblots. Jamil hates him. Jamil, smart and beautiful and so incredible, has never wanted him back.
So Kalim lets Jamil go. And he separates their beds. And he stops the kisses, the touches, the immediate instinct to go to Jamil for everything. It makes the summer awkward because Jamil insists on being by his side as if nothing had happened.
Or, at least, that’s what Kalim thinks until it turns out something has happened. Until he finds Jamil pressed up against a wall in the servants’ stairs, legs wrapped around another man’s waist, and panting into another man’s mouth. And the other is very much a man—tall, muscular, broad with a shadow of facial hair. Someone who is a total opposite of him.
A pitiful sound echos in the hidden hall, and when they both turn to look at him, he realizes it was him. If movies have taught him anything, it is in a situation like this...you run. So he does. His heart is in his throat as he throws himself in his room and cowers under the covers. There are tears blurring his vision as he gasps for air around his breaking heart and he berates himself for his stupidity.
He’s not sure what he had expected, even if it wasn’t Jamil moving on. After all, he’d let Jamil go. Jamil had never felt anything for him. And he guesses that’s the problem because there’s an ache in his chest and the phantom weight of Jamil beside him from so long ago, running long fingers through his hair and humming a pretty tune.
He thinks, yes, he really loves Jamil Viper.