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“So, I'm thinking about going into hospitality.” Kalim spins his pen idly between his fingers. Most of the rest of the junior class has packed up and moved on after the internship orientation, but small clumps of twos and threes still scatter the lecture hall, discussing their applications in hushed voices. “I think I’d be really good at it.”
Your first instinct, still, a whole year later, is to open your mouth and poke his plan full of holes, tell him not to be ridiculous, that he can't just insert himself wherever he pleases and expect people to accommodate his whims, that he’s not cut out for that sort of responsibility and he needs to be more realistic, but… dammit. He’s right. It’s hard to imagine a better career path for Kalim than hospitality.
“That’s…a surprisingly good idea, actually.”
“Right?” He lights up like a lightbulb. “I was thinking, dad just built that hotel in Sunrise City, y'know? And he’s been talking about bigger resorts too, and I think that might be a good place to start. It sounds really fun.”
“It’s work too, you know. It's not just just throwing parties and spoiling guests, it's a lot of finance and management–”
“I know, I know.” He flaps a dismissive hand at you. “That’s the point of the program, right, to learn what it's really like?” He shuffles through the syllabus and browses the list of business offering internships. “Mmm our hotel back home is on here, but that’s no fun. They’ll just push me through with top grades whether I learn anything or not. There’s a catering business….oooo an amusement park! …Oh, I think this one is the ski resort Ruggie works at in the Shaftlands? That could be more challenging!”
That’s surprisingly self-aware of him. You sort of assumed he’d just expect to ride on daddy’s coattails as much and for as long as possible. There’s no guarantee his reputation and influence won't let him coast through to graduation wherever he goes, but it’s admirable that he’s taking it into consideration. He keeps surprising you in small ways like this.
“--What about you?”
“Hm? What about me?”
Kalim nods at the blank form on the desk in front of you. You’ve barely glanced at it. It doesn’t seem worth concerning yourself with. But he scoots forward with a conspiratorial smile, like you’re two kids whispering about your first crushes and not planning the trajectory of the rest of your adult lives.
“Any idea what you want to do? For your internships? Or after graduation? I don’t think you've ever said.”
You turn and stare at him like he’s grown a second head. After all these years, his lack of self awareness still takes you by surprise. He’s gotten better, yes, he’s grown a lot in the last year and you won’t deny him that. But come on.
Heat begins to gather under your collar. “Same thing I’m doing now, probably. What do you think, Kalim?”
Kalim frowns, his little downy eyebrows pinched together and his mouth a perfect upside down U, and it's such a comical look on his usually sweet, sunny face, like a cartoon caricature of the saddest boy in the world. Anyone else would feel sufficiently shamed for kicking the world's cutest puppy, but you’re not just anyone. You’re a professional. Still, you retract your claws, just a little. “It’s just that I don’t really see the point. It won’t matter what I pick. I already have a job.”
“Okaaay, but,” he begins cautiously, “Maybe you want a different job? Don't look at me like that, Jamil. You’re not a slave, you know? Service is just a job, if you don't like the job, you can quit.”
You close your eyes and count silently backwards from ten before replying. “You know it’s not that easy.”
He sighs. “I’ve never understood why.”
“Yes, I’m painfully aware.”
“You could try explaining it to me?”
You huff irritably through your nose, and try. “My parents are…uh…”
“Mmm. Old fashioned?” Kalim supplies politely but with a kind of awkward wince. He knows them well. You were almost nine years old before you fully understood that Kalim is not actually any kind of royalty, only very, very wealthy. You wouldn’t know it the way they carry on about him.
“...Sure. Let's go with that.” There’s a great deal of unpleasant things you could say about your parents, not the least of which is that they’re spineless bootlickers without an independent thought in their heads. But yes, ‘old-fashioned’ will do. “If they thought for a minute that I didn’t think serving you was a higher calling I planned to devote my entire life to, they'd freak out.”
“Okay, but—”
“We’ve served your family for generations, it’s their whole personality. They're convinced–” they have you convinced, “–that if they lose their position we’d be destitute, thrown out on the streets, or worse–”
Kalim’s eye widen. “You really think we’d do that? Just because maybe you wanted to go to university? Or like. Do a different job? Jamil, that's crazy.” He has the audacity to laugh. “We’ve had staff leave before, it’s really not that big a deal.”
“I can’t risk it. Does your family offer severance? Or write references? If we’re let go, how do we support ourselves while we look for work? How can we be sure we’ll even find work again in a city you practically own?” You’re parroting your parents perfectly, like a good boy. They’d be proud. Distantly, you're aware these are not things you should have had to be concerned with at such a young age. “Will we be blacklisted?”
He tilts his head like a confused puppy. “What’s severance?”
“It’s–it's the benefits an employee gets when they’re let go, to help hold them over until they get work again, most of us don't have billions of thaumarks in treasure taking up space in our linen closets, you know. And most employers don't offer severance. Losing your livelihood is terrifying for the average person.”
He nods thoughtfully, having learned something new. “Well, I dunno if we do that, but I do know I could support your entire family for the rest of their lives on the kind of money my dad wouldn’t even notice was gone. I could send Najma to the school of her dreams for what he spends on business lunches in a week, and I don't even think that's an exaggeration.” He shakes his head, gold earrings tinkling, as if to prove his point. “...You really think I won't make sure you're taken care of?”
“That’s not–”
“I think it's easier than you're making it out to be. I’ll pay your severance. I’ll write your references.” You can imagine it now: To Whom it may concern, please hire Jamil Viper, he is my best friend in the whole world and he is so smart and super cool and he makes the best awamat you've ever had in your life and if you have a nightmare he’ll let you stay in his bed and hold your hand until you fall asleep— the thought gives you hives. “C’mon, if you could pick anything at all and there was nothing holding you back, what would you do? Wildest dreams. Tell me.”
“I don’t know.” You don’t know who you are without Kalim, which is a frightening thing to consider and frivolous daydreaming at that, so you try not to make a habit of it. You've never dared to dream too big because your parents always made it perfectly clear your position as Kalim’s retainer was practically Seven-sent. How could you possibly aim any higher than attendant to the eldest heir of one of the most powerful families in the world? Don't you know there’s a hundred thousand other boys who would kill for the privilege? How could you be so ungrateful? Your parents' dreams end at the upper reaches of what servitude affords, and they've trained you to be uncurious about what lies outside it.
You sigh, defeated. Kalim watches you, expectantly, eyes shining. He doesn’t have to be so damn earnest all the time. It does funny things to your head. “I haven’t really thought about it. Travel, I guess? To start with? To see what my options are.”
Kalim smiles, big and bright. “Yeah? That sounds great! I could see that for you.”
“That’s not a job, though. That’s not anything–”
“Why not? Your big brain seriously can't cook up a way to turn that into a career?”
“And not get disowned?” You scoff. “Not really.”
“Hmmmm.” He leans back in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest, pursing his lips and furrowing his brow thoughtfully. You know this is what Kalim does when he is pretending to think very deeply about something, but you also know how often he will forget that he’s trying to think very deeply about something and get distracted thinking instead about how pistachios grow so pretty like cream-pink flower buds on their trees or how honey can last for millenia unspoiled and if he can source three-thousand-year-old tomb honey to make cake with. So you’re surprised that when he next opens his mouth, it's not to share a silly non-sequitur picked up down an ADHD-fueled mental rabbit-hole, but instead to say, “What if…. we turn whatever you decide you want to do… into a job you’re doing for me?”
Inelegantly: “Huh?”
He leans forward again. “Okay, tell me if this is crazy. I go into hospitality, and I take over the hotel branch from my dad, and I build and manage these hotels and resorts all around the world, right? And you’re my most valued and trusted friend–retainer–advisor–so I promote you because your beautiful brains are wasted on cooking and laundry and poison tasting. So you travel abroad scouting locations and properties, restaurants or entertainment venues–OH! JAMIL!” He grabs you roughly by the shoulder and shakes you. “Entertainment! Bands, dance troupes! Street performers! You go anywhere you want to go and do whatever you want to do on the family’s sorcent and all you have to do is report back occasionally, like consider buying this property or maybe hire these artists– Jamil it’s perfect. Your parents can't possibly take issue with that. They’ll be so stinkin’ proud of you!”
Kalim severely underestimates how conditional your parents’ pride is. He is his parents' pride and joy by merely existing. “It’s crazy.”
“Nono, it’s not crazy! It’s so good, you know it’s good! And you’ll get paid for it, and I’ll pay you well, it won’t even be charity, I swear.”
Yeah, it sounds too good to be true, actually. If he carries on like this he’s going to get your hopes up. You can’t have that.
“I don’t think anyone’s gonna believe I’m suited for that sort of thing. It’s going to sound fishy. My academic performance has been mediocre–”
“Not any more, though! Your grades are up this year, your assessments have been glowing! You’re involved in extracurriculars and you’ve been vice house warden for two years. There isn’t a single professor here who hasn’t been impressed–”
“I can’t just fuck off to Seven-knows-where with no goal and a company credit card–”
“Why not? You’ve been in the estate’s service since we were toddlers, you spent your entire childhood cleaning up after me, you’re owed it and more. You deserve it–”
He doesn’t get it, how could he? Not only do you not deserve it, it just simply isn’t possible. Your parents won't allow it, his parents won't allow it, it’s not reasonable and it’s not responsible. Of course he’s not thinking responsibly, he’s never once been responsible himself—
“Dammit, Kalim, if I leave, who’s going to take care of you!?”
The last group of students in the lecture hall startle at your outburst and turn to see what the commotion is. You recognize them as fellow Scarabia students and so of course they recognize you as someone they don't want to be caught alone in a room with when agitated, even now. Your reputation has never fully recovered. They hastily gather their things and vacate, leaving you and Kalim to yourselves.
“Oh.” Kalim’s ever-radiant smile wavers only just slightly before it regains its footing. But it comes back a little wrong, tight and anxious. “Um. Okay so I don’t actually mean this the way it’s going to sound, I promise, but. Probably? My wife?”
Surely, you misheard. Surely.
But he keeps talking, saying like I don’t expect her to ‘take care of me’ take care of me, but marriage is a partnership, right? So we’ll be looking out for each other, the way you have been– and you aren’t retaining a word of it. It’s complete nonsense. What the fuck is he talking about, Kalim can’t get married, he’s in high school—
He’s eighteen, he’ll be nineteen in June, it’s not unheard of—
But he’s, he’s—
He’s what? Yours? You think he’s yours? Just because you were conceived in the wake of his own conception, a custom ordered companion for life? Waited on him hand and foot for as long as you’ve been physically capable of doing so? Because you made yourself small for him so that he could flourish at the cost of ever putting out roots yourself? Because you’ve swallowed death for him, held it in your belly and slept unwaking for weeks just so that he could live? Because when you turned on him, betrayed his trust and tried to get him expelled and then ultimately murdered, his devotion to you was so great that still wept for you and refused to leave your side? You think that counts for anything at the end of things?
Well….Doesn’t it?
“What are you talking about?”
Kalim shifts nervously in his seat. “So, uh. I have a lot of freedom to decide what I want to do, as long as it benefits the interests of the family, right, and that’s great! I won't actually inherit anything for a long, long time—hopefully anyway! Dad's still young, and pretty healthy—but I have to start somewhere, it doesn’t really matter where. But. Uh. My parents are also a little old fashioned in that they absolutely insist I… start a family.” The horror must show on your face because he rushes to assuage your disgust. “It’s really not as bad as it sounds! It’s not forced-arranged or anything, I’m not being like. Sold off to the highest shareholder or anything! Haha! But, y’know. Mom keeps sending me Magicam profiles of eligible daughters of trusted business partners and politicians and, well. The intent is obvious. It’s really important that we like each other and get along or it could be–” (“Fucking fatal?” you would supply, if you had your wits about you to interject) “–bad, so I—we!—we do get to make our own decisions. It’s really not that bad Jamil please stop looking at me like that.”
“That’s insane,” you hear yourself saying from far away. “You realize that’s insane, right?”
“I don't know,” he says with a careless half-shrug, voice meek, “I’ve known it was going to happen eventually, and I– I’m okay with it. I think it sounds kinda nice, actually, having someone like that? A partner? Like, romantically?” Your stomach gives a wretched little lurch. He’s always been soft, sentimental, of course he wants this. He would. What if they don’t let him stop at just one? Is he looking forward to that, too? “I wasn’t always ... Before I came to terms with it I used to dread the future, I used to have nightmares about it, cus at the time, I…”
He pauses, seems to consider something. Chews on his bottom lip. Exhales. “Ahaha. Okay, actually? Can I tell you a secret?”
Sure, why the fuck not?? What else is he going to drop on you? What else is there? How could this get weirder??
“So…aaah, this is so embarrassing. I used to have a little crush on you?”
Seven help you, you’re going to be sick.
“No, that's not–that’s not true, it was a big crush, okay. And for a little while I fully believed I was going to grow up and marry you.” He laughs, a nervous thing that tries to pass itself off as a joke, but it’s weak and frail and not fooling anyone. The tips of his ears are reddening. “I think my mom thought it was cute for a while, when we were little, and I used to make you play at pretend weddings, remember? I’d make you stand in the garden and dress you up in scarves and flowers and we’d pretend to get married?”
Why is he talking about it like he thinks you don’t remember? You’ve never forgotten. You were six years old and he’d just been to a distant cousin’s royal wedding and wouldn’t shut up about it for a month. The scarves were his mother's, unfathomably expensive but two seasons out of fashion and therefore cast off to be Kalim’s playthings; the flowers were jasmine and plumeria and you wove them into clumsy garlands yourself with baby’s very first green sparks of flora magic, still practiced in secret. In lieu of cake and a sword, he squished a single maamoul in half with a stick, and when you refused to eat a dirty cookie off the ground, he cried. He did not stop crying until you ushured him into the private shade of the garden’s enormous silk tree and held his little hands in yours and offered to kiss him like you’d seen done at weddings in foreign movies, though no amount of torture would ever make you admit to it now.
“But I carried on for a little too long and she had to make it clear that it wasn't going to be an option. Not because you’re a servant, of course! Though I do think it would have taken some convincing. But because we wouldn’t be able to, uh…” Mercifully, he doesn't continue. “Anyway, I started to panic, it was starting to feel like spending my life with someone who wasn’t you was going to be The End, like, life was just going to be over when I finished school.”
Kalim sighs, and turns big mournful eyes on you. You pretend to be very interested in your paperwork. “I know I gave you a lot of grief, being careless and stupid. I’m really sorry. I was scared, and I thought if I could just…live in the moment, have a nice time at school with all my friends, I wouldn't have to think about marriage, or…” making babies, he doesn’t say, a thought too alien for either of you to voice aloud yet. Maybe by the time it actually happens the idea won't taste like bile rising in your throat anymore. “I just wanted to enjoy the time I had left. Keep pretending things weren't gonna change and I wouldn't be trapped in a life I didn't want…and then, last year…”
Kalim trails off. He doesn't like to talk about what happened last year. When he does it’s always only ever last year or winter break and never your overblot or the time you had a mental breakdown and tried to murder-suicide us in front of eighty people. You suppose that’s understandable, and more to the point, unsurprising. Kalim’s always been good at ignoring the unpleasantness of reality in favor of a delusion where everything works out and everyone can be trusted and even the ones who have proven they can’t be trusted still deserve a second chance—hold on wait a minute.
“What about last year?” you press.
“Hm?”
“What changed last year?”
“Oh. Well. You broke my heart. I finally gave up.” He laughs good-naturedly at whatever is happening on your face; you feel too disconnected from it to hazard any guesses. “I did say it was a big crush.”
You refuse to do the math (twelve years) you refuse (that’s two-thirds of his entire life) because it doesn't matter. It’s not your problem and it’s not your fault if he spent twelve years (!!!!) carrying a torch for you while all you wanted was for him to fuck right off and never come back. He’s always had shit taste in people anyway, and you’re living proof.
“You got so mean,” he says, with a quiet sort of awe. “But it’s fine now. And I wasn’t ever going to tell you, especially after you made it clear how you felt about me, but, whoops!” He shrugs, unbothered. Water off a duck’s back. Kalim is shameless with his honesty and it’s completely alien to behold. What is it like to just say things, to bare your heart to vultures and jackals every day and trust they won't eat you alive? You can’t even fathom. “If I was already going to be turning over a new leaf for you, it seemed as good a time as any to focus on making the best of what was expected of me.”
There’s a lot you could say in light of these revelations, but frankly you’d sooner die. Instead, because it feels innocuous enough, you start to say, “You always said we were broth–”
He cuts you off. “I know what I said. I wasn’t being honest. I’m sorry!” He laughs, a little shrill. You wish he would stop that; it’s creepy, somehow. None of this feels particularly funny. “But, in the end, it was closer to the truth all along, wasn’t it? You don’t have to love your brother. You don’t even have to like each other. But you’ll always be family anyway. It doesn't matter if you like me, Jamil. I don’t care. I’ll always be there for you, whether you want me to or not.”
Oh. Is it possible Kalim still thinks you hate him, just because you’ve never told him otherwise? He’s not like you, constantly thinking, doubting, second guessing, reading and re-reading between the lines of people's words and intentions. You say you’re his friend, he believes you. You tell him you hate his guts and want him dead, he believes that too. He doesn’t care, of course, because he’s Kalim, but he has no reason to think you would lie to him. At least, not again. He trusts you, and takes you at your word, always, even after you’ve proven yourself untrustworthy.
And the thing is, you didn’t even mean it, not really. It wasn't his fault, and you know that now, but you didn't really understand until enough of the rage and resentment had burned off and the smoke cleared and you saw he was just playing the role he was cast in, same as you. He only ever wanted to help you and be your friend, fully unaware of the power he had over you, and you never let him because you weren’t allowed, and then, you learned that as long as you kept him stupid and useless, dependent on you for everything, you could feel superior and maintain some semblance of control over something. You've been making each other worse your entire lives, but neither of you set the process in motion. How could you? You were only children.
It’s been over a year now. The arrangement you've landed on, where you help him accumulate life skills and learn to be more independent and he gives you the space to actually apply yourself and speak your mind, is working. You should probably get around to properly apologizing at some point. He’d forgive you, he already has, but. You should say it anyway.
“So,” he continues, “If you think you can tolerate me for another year, we can try to intern together at some of these places. That’ll look more believable when you go off on your own, doing...whatever, y'know, as long as you stay in touch and keep up appearances. But if you’d rather do something else, that's okay too! I have your back no matter what. We’ll figure it out.”
He makes it sound so easy. He makes it sound possible. A lifetime of cleaning up his messes and wrangling his impulsivity has conditioned you to doubt his easy-going attitude, but… If you shut out the disapproving voices of your parents (they're his servants too, aren't they? Don’t they have to do what he says?) he starts to make sense. He has the power and influence to get whatever he wants, after all. He’s just too soft-hearted to use that power to do anything but spoil people.
He wants to spoil you. Would it really be the end of the world if you just… let him? Especially if it meant you got something out of it?
“Orrrrr, you can just stay my retainer,” he offers cautiously, when you don't say anything. “Of course I’d be happy to have you. But I don’t think…I know you don’t want that. Jamil, I want you to be happy more than I want to keep you to myself. So I think you have to go. And that’s okay! It’s going to be okay. That just means it’s my turn to take care of you.”
“...When did you get so smart?”
Kalim visibly sits up straighter. “You think I’m smart?”
“Smarter than you were,” you concede. You regard him from the corner of your eye. He’s practically beaming. Idiot. “You know, you can be pretty competent when you put in the effort.”
“Well! Thank you for letting me! I like to help, you know, I don’t actually like being dumb and useless.”
You roll the word around on your tongue like an unpleasant mouthful of food you can’t quite work up the courage to swallow. “...Sorry.”
He shrugs, leans to bump your shoulder affectionately with his own. He smells vaguely of his favorite cologne: sandalwood and amber, expensive. You mentioned liking it once, in passing, on someone else. He’s been wearing it ever since.
“Sorry about… the other stuff too.” Being any more specific would be like skinning yourself alive with a dull vegetable peeler, so you don't. He either accepts it or he doesn't. “I didn't know.”
“Aww, Jamil. Don’t be sorry. I didn't want you to know.”
“Are there any other secrets you're keeping from me?” You mean it to be a little tease to distract from the uncomfortable apology, but you’re emotionally exhausted and can’t muster the energy to put your face through the motions, no smug half-smile or lifted eyebrows to put him at ease.
“Nope!” he chirps brightly. “I’m all out! Promise.” He gathers up his paperwork, stands, and beams down at you. The sun is beginning its slow descent through the afternoon sky and slants through the classroom's gothic windows, ringing his fuzzy platinum head in a corona of gold. You realize, not for the first time, that it seems like he keeps getting increasingly handsome these days, and at certain angles it’s demonstrably apparent that he is finally growing out of his sweet, boyish charms into something else entirely. When word gets out he’s looking seriously for a wife, he’ll have to beat the women off with a stick. He’ll be on the covers of tabloids, and if you make it through senior year without strangling a paparazzo in a dark alley, you’ll consider it a victory. “Don’t be late for dinner, okay? I’m making maqluba.”
“Be sure to use up all the eggplant,” you say, on autopilot. It strikes you how quickly things can change and become the new normal. He cooks now, and enjoys it more than you ever did. Small wonders. Maybe he’s right about the marriage thing too, maybe one day it’ll just be…the new normal. “You ordered too much again and it won't keep for much longer.”
“Haha sorry!” He grins apologetically. “I’ll get the hang of it eventually.”
“It’s alright,” you say, because, against all odds, it is.
Sleep doesn’t come.
Kalim’s maqluba sits heavy in your stomach; he made three in order to use up the eggplant, and in a testament to his rapidly improving skills in the kitchen, only one of them collapsed on the plate. They were good. Prettier than yours, too, garnished with parsley and pomegranate seeds for color. He’s doing so well. You feel a small amount of…something. Pride, maybe, and a very distant, estranged cousin of fondness.
But also, you think you might puke.
There’s a scenario that won't stop playing in your head: you're going to be asked to vet Kalim’s prospects. Probably by Kalim himself, because he trusts your judgment more than anyone else’s. Not even: How much martial arts training does she have? Can she be relied on in a crisis? Is she certified in first aid? But Jamil, do you like her? Do you think it’s a good match? Will we make each other happy?
Are you supposed to lie to him? Let him settle for someone who might not have his best interest at heart? Who doesn’t return his affection, and is only looking to marry into immeasurable wealth? Who might not be vigilant or capable enough to protect him, or not impossibly, who might mean him harm from the start?
Or tell the truth? None of them will ever be good enough for you, because none of them are m–
Stop. None of that.
Ugh. You’d better start making your way to the toilets now.
Blessedly, the shared bathroom is empty of any other students. You squat before the toilet and wait to void your dinner, but now that you’re here it seems the threat has passed and you’re left staring into the porcelain bowl wondering what the fuck you're supposed to do about all of this.
The objectively correct answer is to be a good boy and do what’s expected of you; serve Kalim faithfully, attend his needs, help find him a suitable bride (and eventually, probably, brides plural), support him through his major life milestones. Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll graduate from babysitting an adult man into household management, and when Kalim gets old enough, perhaps some sort of advisory position. You’re already a well-seasoned professional at telling him what to do, it's only natural.
But you’re not a good boy. You’re a liar and a schemer and a snake. You’re going to let Kalim hype you up into fleecing both your families so you can run far away and be as free and selfish as you want, and that's… fine.
But it's not enough. It’s more than you ever dreamed possible and it's still more than you think you can get away with and it’s somehow still not enough.
Because you want Kalim, too.
There. You’ve finally fucking admitted it. Happy, now, you hypocritical piece of shit?
It doesn't make any sense. It makes all the sense in the world.
You just can’t trust anyone else with him. Not to take care of him, not to protect him, and especially, horrifyingly, not to love him. You did not waste your entire life cleaning up after him and keeping him alive for someone else to swoop in and reap all the benefits. You made him what he is today, for better or worse.
He’s yours. He’s fucking yours and you're going to be expected to just hand him off to a stranger.
The toilet auto-flushes when you stand even though you didn't use it. Your head swims under the weight of strange new thoughts, throwing off your center of gravity. The water circles the drain and you lean against the stall wall to watch it empty out, sort of wishing you could flush yourself with it.
You catch sight of your face in the mirror on your way out, and are unsurprised to see the telltale dark smudges of lost sleep under your eyes. Not for the first time, you think: they should have just let the overblot kill you. It would have been a mercy.
Your feet carry you back to your room on autopilot, but bring you to a stop in the center of the hallway between your door and his. Go back to bed, you tell yourself. Do it. It’s late, he’s asleep. Don’t bother him.
You end up in front of his door, anyway. It takes a good five minutes to build up the courage to knock, and just as you do, the door swings inward and Kalim startles when your knuckles almost make contact with his forehead.
“Oh! Jamil!” He says brightly. “You scared me! I was just, uh–” He stops abruptly. “Going to the toilet?” He doesn’t seem sure. The dorm’s oil lantern lighting is warm and low late at night, and it casts long shadows so it's difficult to tell, but it seems like he might be blushing a little.
“You have a private toilet,” you point out.
He blinks at you. “Yes. I do.” He doesn't elaborate further. Was he coming to see you, too? Did he change his mind, is that why he won't say? No, it’s more likely he clogged his own toilet and doesn't want you to know. “Wow, sorry! Did you…need something?”
Did you? What was your intention, exactly? To come over here and serve your heart to the vultures and jackals on a silver platter? Just so that he could look at it, sad, cold, black stone that it is, smile pittingly and say oh, no thank you, I’m good and close the door in your face? Or, worse: he’ll take it out of kindness, swallow it down, and let it weigh him down and rot him from the inside out, same as it's done to you? Kalim doesn’t want your poisonous fucking heart, stupid, and even if he did, if you cared for him at all (Do you? Do you care for him? Do you love him? Or is it something else? Something darker, and measurably worse? How do you know?) you wouldn't let him have it.
It’s fine. It’s fine. He doesn't need you fucking up his future. He’ll find a wife and have too many babies and he’ll take to it like a duck to water because he’s always been amazing with kids and he’ll be a good son and a loving and generous husband and father because despite his faults and all the ways he’s made you crazy over the years, you have never known a warmer, brighter soul than Kalim’s. No matter how long you're away he’ll always welcome you home (home) with open arms and a seat at his table. You’ll be Uncle Jamil to his children, and you’ll bring them gifts from faraway lands even though the sight of them, soft little creatures made half of Kalim and half of a total fucking stranger, will make you sick. He’ll climb the social ladder, succeed in all his endeavors, because he has the charm and charisma and unfathomable wealth and influence to get anything he wants, and as long as the cruel world doesn't beat the sweetness out of him, he’ll make good on his word; your family will have job security for the rest of their lives, Najma will never want for anything, and you’ll have the means and financial support to go anywhere and do whatever your black little heart desires.
You’ll see the world, independent for the first time ever, unchained and responsible only for yourself, and who knows, maybe you’ll meet someone too–
No.
This branch of the Viper line ends with you. Sorry, Najma. There’s only one person you’ve ever let so much as stick their fingers in the cage around your heart, and he doesn’t want you. He said it himself. He’s moved on. Your paths are going to diverge now. It’s all you ever wanted, isn't it? To be free of him? To be your own person?
It’s finally happening. Do not fuck it up.
You find your voice at last.
“...No,” you say. “No, I was just….” You shake your head. “Just reminding you to submit your recommendation for the next house warden. The due date is next week.”
“Oh.” He rests his head against the edge of the door, eyes downcast. He’s washed his face for the night, and his lush, unpainted eyelashes are stark snowy-white against his cheeks. All his jewelry and finery is put away in its proper place (you successfully bullied the habit into him yourself only just this past winter; it drove you mad to see him leave such expensive things lying around haphazardly) and he looks so plain and small without it all. “I already did it. But thanks for the reminder.”
See? He doesn’t even need you anymore. He’s grown up so much this past year. He does his fair share of the cooking, he gets his homework done on time, he asks before he ropes you into his plans. He knows how to wash his own clothes and do his own makeup and clean up after himself. You should be proud, or relieved, but really all you feel is an immense, yawning loneliness. Kalim has made his home in your soul, but his presence there grows smaller every day, and soon he will be gone altogether and you’ll be left hollow and fragile without him, like a brittle and sun-bleached shell on the beach when the creature inside of it has long since gone.
And that’s supposed to be a good thing.
Never mind how he’ll survive without you. How will you survive without him?
Maybe, if you're lucky, you won’t. Maybe you’ll just…sink back into the ink when no one’s looking. Three kids in and maybe Kalim will be too busy to even notice you’re gone. Maybe you’ll make a return trip to the Isle of Woe, and maybe this time you’ll never come back.
You nod stiffly, and take a step backward.
“Um!” Kalim doesn’t reach out and touch you, but it’s a near thing. There’s an urgent, hopeful pitch to his words. “Was there anything else you needed? Maybe?”
“No.” You take another step back. If he touches you, you think you’ll shatter. “Good night.”
“O-okay. Sure. Good night, Jamil.” He says at last, with a sigh and a sense of quiet finality. His voice is soft and fond, and his ever-present smile is….
It’s…?
Maybe it’s the long shadows again, but…? No, this afternoon in the lecture hall, too–
Your hand shoots out to stop the door before he can close it fully; your palm hits the mahogany with a hard thunk. Kalim startles, eyes wide, but he doesn’t retreat when you force the door back open, doesn't cower when you advance on him. You scrutinize his face though narrowed eyes and he meets your gaze, unafraid.
He’s never been afraid or unwilling to look you in the eye. Not once.
You’ve misjudged Kalim in a lot of ways, you realize, and you feel a little stupid for taking so long to see it. He’s just as calculating and manipulative as you are, even if his motives and methods are the contrary to yours. Kalim is an expert at glazing over discomfort with a smile, with diffusing dangerous moods with sweetness and generosity. He talked down the entire dorm from turning on you with nothing more than earnesty, a soft voice and a please. He knows people are easier to influence if they're in a good mood. He knows the medicine goes down better with sugar, and that you catch more flies with honey.
But he uses this tactic on himself more than he ever has with anyone else. If he’s smiling, then he can't possibly be unhappy. If he laughs when he lies, he can trick himself into believing it. If he doesn't acknowledge a threat, he has nothing to fear. He’s cheerful, he deflects, he tells himself it's okay, don’t worry, that he wants this, that he's looking forward to it, it’s fine, really, don’t worry about me—
His smiles used to be real. When did that change? How did you not notice?
It takes every iota of self control to not grab him by the shoulders and shake him until his teeth rattle. Still, you refrain from touching him.
“You’re hiding something from me again.” It comes like a hiss, how appropriate.
“I didn't even say anything,” he says defensively through a pout, but he knows you’re not that stupid or gullible so you’re embarrassed for him that he would even try.
It would be so easy to make him tell you the truth. To make him do anything. He looks you in the eye, even now.
But all you have to do is ask. “Kalim. Tell me.”
The moment stretches, tense and silent, and just when you think you will have to shake some sense into him, Kalim breaks.
“I,” he begins breathlessly, and that’s exactly as far as he gets before he chokes on a broken sob in a valiant effort to swallow it back down. He claps his hands over his mouth, ashamed, and when he next blinks, fat tears spill down his cheeks to collect in the seam between his trembling fingers and his face. Then he’s crying in earnest, eighteen years old and blubbering like he’s six again and you've told him you won't eat the fake wedding cake cookie off the ground. “I don’t- I don’t want… Jamil, I'm still so scared–!” He pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes as if to hold the tears in. “Dammit! I was doing so good! Why did you- I was doing it! I was being responsible!”
You close the door behind you. He’s going to wake up the whole floor, and no one else needs to hear this. “You were lying to yourself.”
“H-how else am I supposed to do it?” he sobs. “Obviously I don’t want to get married! But I don't have a choice! If I don’t have k-kids soon–” he goes a little green here, and his throat works uncomfortably; it’s a relief to know the thought makes him sick, too, “–Then everyone will start questioning whether I can inherit, and if I don’t inherit, then someone else will try to, and then everything will fall apart, and, and…. Oh.” He wraps his own arms around himself, seeking comfort, and it only serves to make him seem even smaller, more pitiable. “Oh no, I definitely won't be any good to you then, I w-won't be able to help you or protect you—that was real, by the way, you know that right? That wasn't a lie, Jamil, I really want to–”
“I’m not worried about that right now.”
“But I am!!” he wails. “I can’t do anything for you—for anyone—I’m useless without my position! I’m nobody.” He just stands there hugging himself and weeping hopelessly. You don’t know what to do for him except let him tire himself out. It does actually hurt to watch him suffer like this, your honed instinct is to protect him, but you know there’s nothing you can do. If he can’t finagle a way out, what hope do you have, servant boy who has been allowed to be little more than a glorified babysitter-slash-bodygaurd since you were old enough to dress yourself? Short of running away—an outright impossibility, he’d never survive on his own, and Seven-forbid if you disappeared together, consequences for your parents and Najma would be disastrous, actually tangibly disastrous, you've tied yourself in knots your whole life imaging worst case scenarios for simply wanting to quit, but effectively kidnapping Kalim would bring all of that and far, far worse—what options does he have left?
Eventually, after a while, his breathing stops hitching wildly and the broken dam of his heart has subsided from a deluge to a weak, exhausted trickle.
“I don’t know how to fix this for you,” you say quietly. You would make it better, if you could. If you were in his position….well. You’d be doing something a whole lot worse than crying about it. You’d be burning the city down, bare minimum. “I’m sorry.”
“You can’t. It’s not–” he laughs, joylessly, and sucks back snot. “It’s not your problem to fix. It’s, uh. It’s, it’s–”
Kalim loses the thread when you draw closer, eyes wide and blinking his maddeningly long eyelashes at you. He swallows, once, nervously, when your hand comes up, and he actually flinches as though he thinks you might hit him, though you know that’s not what he’s thinking. He flinches for the same reason you hesitate before pressing your hand to the side of his face, cupping his cheek and catching the next tear that falls with a swipe of your thumb.
You both know this is a mistake.
He’s a good boy, and wouldn’t dare ask for it. It’s going to be so much harder for him if he backslides now. Maybe it’ll be worse for you, too, if Kalim’s plan doesn't work and you end up trapped here at his side while he goes through all the motions, both of you joyless and suffering.
You don’t actually care anymore.
He exhales, leans his face into the warm cradle of your hand, and closes his eyes.
He doesn’t care either.
So you tip his blotchy and tear-stained face up—it's really such a sweet face, round and soft and charming, you've long been jealous of his freedom to use it to express himself however he deems fit, his joy or sadness dialed to eleven when you had to maintain a respectful and indecipherable three at most—and he looks for all the world like he’s basking in your sunlight, and not the other way around. If you have ever been bright or warm in your entire life, it is only because you reflect his energy, like the moon reflects the sun.
It’s funny, isn't it? He’d been crying the last time you kissed him, too.
Kalim inhales sharply through his nose when he realizes what’s happening, and then he quickly sinks into you with a surprised, eager little whimper directly into your mouth. It’s brief, but sweet, and it changes him; the fear and anxiety melts away and now he is only soft, pliable, and warm. His slender arms come up to wrap around your neck and his chest presses to yours, his heart hammering a wild drumbeat that you swear reverberates through your own bones.
“Oh,” he says, when you part.
“I don’t know what's going to happen,” you say, brushing your hand through his soft hair. He leans into it, like a cat eager to be pet. He’s putty in your hands and it’s going to make you insane. “But for now, you’re mine. For one more year, you’re still mine.”
“Oh,” he breathes again, his voice fragile but full of awe. “I’m always yours. I‘m always, always–” And before you know it he’s launching himself into your arms, hanging from your shoulders and wrapping his legs around your waist like an arboreal monkey intent on devouring your face, because oh, he’s kissing you, and it's not the chaste, honey-sticky kiss of a child playing pretend in the garden but the desperate thirst of a man dying in the desert, and you’re his life-saving oasis. When he pulls back to look at you, fingers laced together behind your neck, it’s as though he’s lit up from the inside and he’s more fully himself than he’s been in a long, long time. He’s golden, beaming, radiant like the sun, center of everything, and you’ll orbit him like a comet with a long reach; no matter how far you stray you’ll always come back to him, until the day he goes supernova and all that light collapses into a black hole, taking you gladly into darkness with him.
“I’m yours forever.”
