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You rush over to the Scarabia lounge only to see Kalim and several other of his dormmates crowded around one of the sofas. Your worried thoughts grind to a halt when you spot a flash of red and black dart out from underneath the furniture. Instincts to help taking hold, you rush in and grab—risks of getting bitten be damned—the thrashing scaly creature.
Nothing could prepare you for coming face to face with Sand Boamil. He’s like a real life worm on a string. Just, the contrast of Jamil Viper who takes himself seriously, retaining all of his sentience and exasperation, but stuck in a body that looked like a rubber toy. His deadly side eye now completely neutralized with the sand boa’s eye placement being Like That™️
Apparently, it’s to help them see over the sand because they spend most of the daytime buried.
You’re sent into a laughing fit so hard that you almost pass out. You’re still worried, maybe a little sad that he ended up in the crossfire of someone else’s negligence in the lab. But when Jamil looks at you with those eyes…those dopey derpy eyes… the cuteness and absurdity makes you wheeze with laughter anew. Jamil is both deeply offended and mortified that Kalim can gently maneuver him onto his hand and wrist—just so that Jamil isn’t at risk of getting smushed into a pancake in case your laughing starts up again.
The initial plan was for Jamil to rest in his dorm room until the effects have worn off. But with you here, Kalim gets the idea that you can just kiss him better!
“I’m sorry, what?” Now it’s your turn to be stunned into confusion.
Apparently in Twisted Wonderland, they took their ‘Princess and the Frog’ mythology pretty seriously, that it became a viable solution to bloopers like these. In the lucky scenario that you had two people who…mutually held feelings for each other in the same room.
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to try!”
“Now, hold on a second—”
“As long as the two of you are okay with it, that is—I’ll go and give you some privacy!” And Kalim’s left you alone, somehow with Jamil cradled in your hands once again, tail looped loosely around your wrist.
There’s only one other person you’ve made your feelings known to and you can’t believe he told his not-friend about that.
“…Now who was it that said they wanted to keep ‘us’ lowkey?” you muse aloud. Jamil can only give one useless, embarrassed flail in your hold.
The afternoon goes by slowly. You rest against the side of Jamil’s bed, switching between your homework and a trashy YA novel. Meanwhile Jamil remains curled up in a blanket nest. At some point, he pokes his head out from under the mess, watches the way your expression scrunches up as you work through a difficult question, the way your eyes widen in surprise at an unexpected plot beat, the way your focus drifts towards him and a smile blooms across your cheeks, rinse and repeat.
(Try as he might, Jamil can’t stop the dismay from eating at him when he remembered the discomfort that crossed your features before Kalim left you both alone. As if you couldn’t stomach the thought of putting your lips on a creature like him.)
If you still held some resentment over the things he did over the winter break, he’d understand. But with the gentle looks you were giving him…
He couldn’t make sense of it. Yet selfishly, he chases after your touch. For the meager affirmation that your feelings for him were true.
As if reading the storm of thoughts brewing in his mind, you run an apologetic finger along the top of his head.
“…Sorry, I want to be able to help more but…I don’t know what I’d do if it wouldn’t work.” You’ve paused reading, using your homework as a makeshift bookmark for your novel. Your gaze is trained onto an unremarkable patch of his bedsheets. Self-doubt colors each of your words, makes your voice smaller and smaller until he has to strain his ears, until he has to raise his gaze to see the bitter resignment smeared across your face.
“I suppose I’d hate myself forever, for keeping you from finding your…special person.” Though your lips raise into a half-hearted smile, it does little to undo the self-derision of your quiet admission.
How could you, the one who confessed first, also be so quick to take it back? How could you say—no, even let yourself think of such a possibility? Indignation blazes through Jamil. There was being mindful of things not going one’s way and then there was entertaining the idea what was impossible.
Though…he’s probably one to talk, as someone who was led by doubt, by bracing himself for the worst-case scenario. It didn’t dull the pain by much when things went wrong. But he found solace in remembering that at least he had the sense to not leap forwards wholeheartedly.
(You were supposed to be different. You were supposed to be his better half, braver and a little more idealistic.)
“I’ll be right here, though. I won’t leave you alone…I can do that much, I think.” You lean forwards and rest your cheek against your arm. Your other palm hovers a few inches above Jamil, as if reflexively wanting to soothe…
Before deciding against that entirely and dropping back to your side.
What a rotten situation to be in, he thinks as he watches you doze off. Thankfully with it being a minor potion accident, by the time evening rolls around, he’s back to normal.
You were in for a surprise, jolting awake at the sound of the magic wearing off.
“Oh, shit—sorry!” You’re quick to turn around and throw him a fresh set of clothes to change into.
(Well, you have to reach back into his closet to pull out a pair of his dorm uniform’s pants after grabbing two undershirts by accident.)
“I’m done.” Hearing Jamil’s voice sends relief through you. “You can uncover your eyes now.”
On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t have rambled about your unsureness towards the transience of your relationship. There’s a restrained edge to Jamil’s voice, unlike the usual soft fondness he addressed you with.
Hesitantly, your palm lowers. “Are you sure? Usually you take five minutes just for the hair—”
You don’t expect to be pulled into a sudden kiss, his hand fisted in the front of your shirt tugging you close. A touch of lips more heated than the previous kisses you’ve shared.
Insistent, fervent, almost…desperate.
Starved of air, you’re the first to pull back. Jamil’s hand cups your nape, doesn’t let you escape—would the word ‘trapped’ be apt to describe your position? Even if you’re not that unpleased to be where you are right now?—Ah…he must have really been pissed off, hearing you blab like that.
If this is his demand for you to shut the hell up with those stupid words, even your mind could go completely still. Just following his lead, just letting him swallow up all those stupid thoughts that your stupid brain decided to conjure.
“—mm!” Pain blooms from your lower lip. Your fingers touch the area and come away clean, fortunately no drops of red. “Ow?!”
“How do you think I felt listening to all of that?” When your head turns to the side, his fingers grasp your chin. “No really, enlighten me.”
“I didn’t mean…I wasn’t trying to—” All you have are excuses, fragments of thoughts that made sense in the moment, in the ice of panic at Kalim’s suggestion.
How could you not freeze up? Wouldn’t it be disappointing to have some capricious whim of magic decide that the feelings you held weren’t true enough? And wouldn’t your attempt be an insult to Jamil? To have the universe remind him once more of what was supposed to be his destiny?
At your silence, Jamil’s frustration ebbs. “I don’t need to find anyone else.” His voice softens, and briefly, instead of the glint of steel that his gaze holds, you find raw vulnerability. “Not when I have you.”
The pad of his thumb traces the curve of your jaw—tender and apologetic—stopping just short of where he nipped. The gesture speaks louder than the scream of your unwanted thoughts.
But it terrifies you too, to be chosen. To believe that he will choose you, so long as he knew that you felt the same.
Still, you find the courage to utter a quiet “okay” in response. And when your lips meet once more—
This time, it is of your own volition.
(Of course, your penance doesn’t stop at just one shy and piddly kiss. Jamil demands more, keeps you tugged close, refuses to let go of you—not even for adjusting your position. And when you call him ‘needy,’ he only gives you an unimpressed frown. Magic of true love be damned, there was nothing more powerful than the plain assurance contained in these gestures of affection.)