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Ja'far has never hated Sinbad so much in his life as he does in this moment.
Ja'far has been Sin's enemy; he has tried very hard to kill him on many, many occasions. For a while, Sin's death was an obsession, a need. Yet Ja'far has never hated Sinbad so much. Ever. Until this moment. He can feel his heart clenching shut against any sympathy, any admiration, any love that had since grown and come to tame him. He can feel his fists closing tight against the memory of Sin's hands within them. His blades press cold against his wrists.
Slouching through the streets, slipping over walls and rooftops, Ja’far had trailed his quarry as he had done all his life. For someone raised in the dark, a city lies sprawled and lazy beneath an unsetting sun. Among the flickering shadows: Sin, his shoulders illuminated. The gleam of sweat on skin. The push and pull of muscle and bone. Hands clutch at his hair, his back. Obscene animal sounds punch into the air.
A force rising untamable like a tide in Ja’far’s core, boiling blood and churning bile, clawing up his throat. Ja'far hates Sinbad.
Sinbad was a beast. Here, here and now yet again, was proof. Here in the gut of the night was an animal, base and selfish, without shame. Here was a liar, a traitor, a farce. In darkness Sinbad grasped and cajoled and gathered all that he wanted; in the day he wrapped it round his finger and watched it glint like gold in the sun. Ja’far, too, had been taken in the night. He had gleamed once in Sinbad’s palm as a raw sharp thing. Held up to the light at daybreak, he had melted. Sinbad’s fingerprints were branded on his bones, a chafing beneath warped skin. With every movement and every breath: Sinbad, Sinbad. Sinbad had held Ja’far there in his hand for that brief radiant moment and Ja’far held the shape of it still.
Ja'far swallows. Something in the back of his mind is telling him to stop, to turn away. To shut his ears against the sounds of Sin's life away from him, as he has for years upon years. The voice is reminding him that once whatever he had smoked - stupid, he was so stupid to accept it - is gone from his bloodstream, he will be horrified at what he has done. At what he had has known all along, slipping through the night, that he would do.
Ja'far's blades burn into his palms. Sinbad had found him a broken thing and pushed him back together and squeezed him stake-thin and needle-sharp and made him a weapon wrapped around an unbreakable core. Ja’far had moved and breathed for Sinbad until Sinbad had cast him like a bloodied blade into the dirt. A blade, Ja’far is hard and cold and clear. His heart is a gemstone.
Ja'far steps forward. Their breaths - Sinbad, Sinbad and that woman - are mingled and hot. Ja'far would be torn apart and hateful were he not a diamond. His steps are silent on the pavement; he is soundless in the dark. Each inch of space that disappears between them brings new insults: now he can see the glisten of saliva, now he can hear the smacking of lips, now he can smell the heady musk of sex. He takes all of this in, lets it pierce him and sink into him, pushes it deeper still, lets it crystallize. His blades burn in his hands.
Sinbad is always careless and often distracted. He doesn’t realize Ja’far is there until he is less than an arm's length away. He can see the pores of their skin, minuscule pools of sweat. Everything is sharpened to a point. Sinbad lifts his mouth from the woman and speaks Ja’far’s name. The woman freezes wide-eyed in his arms. A long, low buzz fills Ja’fars mind.
You are a beast, Sinbad. You are an animal, base and without shame. You are a betrayer, a liar, a farce.
Ja'far's blade slips easily into flesh. He is hard and sharp as a gemstone and no matter how deep he cuts Sinbad is yielding and warm. At his core, Sinbad’s heart is soft. It lives.
The edges of Ja’far’s vision are dark. His work is done; sound filters back into his mind. He stares at his hand. The woman is screaming. He is a diamond bathed in blood.
He is a diamond bathed in blood.
***
The walls of the cell are stone, the ground is stone, the ceiling is stone. Deep in the belly of the earth, where living things are buried and rot away, where molecules rearrange themselves into harder, stronger things.
A guard making his rounds stops to peak into the cell, to stare at the lean figure sitting against the wall, cloud of white hair like a halo, alabaster skin gleaming in torchlight. He looks so pale and so cold -- intoxicating, dangerous. He wears blood like war paint. It stains his hands, his clothes; it is splattered on his cheeks. Strands of hair are dyed maroon. And to think that this -- this animal was the closest person to their King.
The guard shivers and moves on.
Ja'far lifts his head. On the far wall is a small rectangle covered in thick bars, through which he can see the stones of the road, and beyond that, a strip of sky.
As the night passes, the stars blur in his vision. They rearrange themselves into new shapes, better shapes, stronger shapes, the shapes formed by the molecules of diamonds -- but then they keep on moving. They don't know when to stop.
Dawn comes with pink slits across the sky. Through a haze Ja’far sees flesh, sees blood and bone.
Half the morning has gone before a guard comes. Behind him comes another pack of four. Their faces are grim. Ja'far stands to offer his wrists to the chains. He bows his head and they place chains around his neck.
Ja'far is led up flights of stairs, metal dragging on stone, the sound a deafening tone between close walls. Ahead is a light; the guards before him disappear into it and he is shoved up the last steps from behind. Outside, the sun comes much too quickly, too bright, too hot. His vision flashes and he squints his eyes tight. The sun seeks to burn where the raw-edged rags of a prisoner leave him bare. Stripped of his official’s uniform and veil, he is as good as naked. Thick white scars scream against flesh.
There is a hush where there should be none.
Ja'far cannot lift his head, can barely open his eyes. His skull pounds and burns. He doesn't need to see to know, though. He is fully aware of what is there, for indeed, he had been there before.
To his left and right are people. There are hundreds of them, thousands. He pictures the council before him, the seven generals, eight minus one. There is Sinbad in the center, on a square, golden throne. He holds his scepter and fine white robes, wears his feathered turban with the guilting along the edges. Gold circles each finger and each limb, jewels drip from his ears, kohl lines his eyes, vines weave through his hair. Ja’far wonders if the trial had started on time or if someone had thought to run early to Sinbad’s quarters; if they had the guts to rush him through his preening and to lecture him on punctuality and vanity and the duties and bearing of a king. If they had rolled their eyes in discouragement when, having ignored it all to focus on his mirror, Sinbad turned to present himself with a flourish and say, “Look to your king!”
Always, Sin. Always.
To Sin's right, an empty seat. Ja'far knows that it is there.
The chains jerk to a hault. Ja'far haults with them. He no longer knows if he cannot look up because of the light or because of the weight that bears down on him. A thousand eyes, Sinbad gleaming in the sun. Scars gleaming in bright light. Blood still in his hair. He is naked.
"Ja'far."
A wave of dizziness, like he has spent the day sat down in the desert and has suddenly leapt to his feet. The sun is too bright.
That is all. Ja'far. His name.
Sinbad is reading the preceedings, the same words he had rehearsed in front of Ja'far a dozen times before, asking him where he could do better, how he could sound more regal. Words written by Ja'far's own hand. Words born of Ja'far's mind, of his heart. Words about justice, loyalty, equality, peace. Words that Ja'far himself has now betrayed.
"Sin."
But no one hears him.
"You are hereby accused of four counts of treason, two counts of attempted murder, one count of..."
Ja'far closes his ears. "Sin."
Sinbad stops.
Ja'far lifts his face to the light.
"I love you."
He can't feel his lips move, can't hear his own voice. But he knows the words are there.