Chapter Text
Jamil hates him. That is just the truth he's known since they were twelve and never said anything about. He hid it from everyone, even from himself.
As a member of the face palm brigade, he knows he's oblivious. But there is only so many times you can see the eyeroll, have him eat curry in front of you when you're alone, feel an insult land somewhere beyond where he cared.
The servant would stay with him forever. Even in whatever afterlife his grandmothers may believe in... Either both of them are good, or both of them are bad if heaven or hell are involved. A great-grandmother of his told him that Jamil would go into his grave with him. Join him so he'd be attended to wherever he went.
He made sure that'd only happen when his friend was dead too, though!
It is uncomfortable in dark, tight spaces. Especially when something is rotting beside you. He wants his body to be gone, unusable and untouchable when he dies. In all stages of his life, he is to be used some way.
Death should be an eternity where he is not, even if that means he doesn't get to be a star in Jamil's sky or a body perfectly preserved in a case to be visited.
Throw him into the desert somewhere where his memory won't be for grabs either. What can he care, anymore?
But it was always certain to Kalim that he would die first. After all, he is a rich, unreasonably wealthy boy with a business worth an empire to go into his pockets.
And with how stupid he is, any halfway competent assasin would find a way to kill him that got past Jamil. Walking through a hallway to a meeting, an associate pulling out a gun at the table... He won't often be at the Asim mansion when great deals are to be struck. Even his perfect friend wouldn't see, hear or notice all. He does so for two, not a thousand.
He takes the twitching hand on the infirmary bed, intertwining their fingers and searching for a shift that would tell him the Viper is about to wake. Grey traces still crawl up his arms, form a lace-like pattern under his eyes. The clothes from the Overblot are gone, but the markings stayed visible until now, though they fade by the hour.
And the snakes, who are very much alive and might need to get removed surgically. Or magically, whatever's deemed more permanent. So probably surgery as magic leaves traces. Identifiable, accessible and perhaps resurgent traces.
He watches one stir, raising it's head. It's brothers and sisters soon following. Maybe they're all boys because their host is, maybe they're all girls for some reason or maybe they're nothing at all.
The magic that made their bite deadly has abated, but they're moving on their own which could spark a debate on their status. Alive, dead, nothing in the first place.
"Hello, little one..." He whispers, raising one's head with the backs of his pointer- and middle finger under it's jaw. It hisses tiredly, only the top of it's hood visible as it rests it's weight on the support without any attempt at movement on it's own.
Jamil's fingers are hot to the touch, his hold tightens when the other boy tries to pull away his own. "It's okay." He shushes his friend like he did so often when he or the other were stuck in an infirmary bed again, trying to soothe him into loosening up. "It's just me, you can let go." Instead, his grip only tightens, head turning to the side, squirming lightly.
"I know it's too hot... I'll stay and keep watch for you." Jamil's brows relax a little and he stops squirming despite it being the last thing he'd want when he's awake.
...
Kalim lays down next to him when it gets late, he can't leave him when nothing but the other's preference keeps him. He's selfish like that. The clock tells him it's around ten when he does.
He hasn't let go once, free hand stroking the groggy vipers. There's six of them, total, all of them taste the air every few seconds. None's tried to bite him, yet, so they're not Jamil.
"None of you have tried to bite me at all." He whispers to them, the boldest one raises up it's body to look down at the boy next to it's host before draping itself across his shoulder and cheek, hood nudging his earlobe.
While the other's are more sceptical, none's been mean to him. All but one let himpet them without fuss. "Such sweethearts, aren't you?" He's been sweet-talking them since seven, not wanting anybody else in the infirmary and bored without anything to do.
Even the one that always turns away from him lets itself be scratched under the hood when he does.
When he summons a bit of focusless magic, swirling it around his wrist like cake batter around a mixer's rod, all of them turn to him. "You're thirsty?" He asks them as six scaled bodies lift to bring their heads closer to his hand. The bluish, bright light from the steam-like manifestation reflects from their glossy scales.
"You may have this." He confirms and they lean in to dip their faces into it, opening their mouths as if to drink. As they seem to enjoy it, he pushes out a little more into the air and leads it down between their fangs.
When he finishes, barely resisting the urge to curl up next to Jamil, they are more attentive, watching the ghosts through the walls. He doesn't know what they'd be looking at otherwise...
Disentangling his fingers from the other, he soothes him before the anxiety can even set in. "You're okay, I'm staying. Just not touching you right now."
He settles on his back, crossing his arms and closing his eyes. The settling feeling of melancholy gets obliterated though when three cool split tongues touch the side of his face and he wheezes. "I'm ticklish!" He scolds them, giggling happily when they all settle over his chest. Half of them having to lean over Jamil's face to do it, their beginnings on the opposite side of Kalim. "Goodnight to all of you."
...
When he stirs, seeing a dim kind of crimson through his eyelids, there is a thicker band across his stomach and one across his thighs. And a long, firm weight against his side. He is glad to find he hasn't moved, his own arms are still across his chest. Then what's the pressure across his...
His eyes fly open as the languid haze of waking without an alarm deserts him immeadiately and he turns his head to the side, dislodging a now disgruntled snake from his forehead and another from his cheek.
Jamil has cooled down noticably, if he's still a little too warm to be healthy.
And he's settled against Kalim's side, touching from ankle to shoulder. A blanket a ghost nurse must've draped across them in the night is kicked mostly onto the floor, the last corner wound around one of the other's feet.
Soft hissing commemorates when Kalim raises his arm, turning onto his side to face Jamil when the reptiles follow the light returning to around it. "You liar said I always reach for you in the night." He comments as he feeds them, resting his foreheads against the other's. "Good morning." He tells the seven across him, so nobody really.
He tries to get up fifteen minutes later.
Jamil's leg puts more weight over the wannabe-escapee and wiggles until he has squarely settled himself on the one with a face currently hotter than his own feaver.
"You hate me, remember?" Kalim whispers, eyes starting to sting with another kind of warmth now. "Don't do this to me when I'm trying to allow the thought of letting you go."
"Just... before you go..." He resigns himself to his fate for another hour, finally holding the biggest Viper back. "...I love you."