Work Text:
The courtyard behind Scarabia was, by early afternoon, hot enough that you could probably have cooked eggs on the pavement. Cater Diamond had picked exactly the wrong day to visit his Pop Music Club friendo in his own dorm. They’d planned to have a meeting today, but Jamil was in bed with a bug, so Kalim had insisted on staying close to the dorm. Cater thought it was absolutely criminal to have classes so late into the summer months. It was also criminal that Lilia was still off with Malleus.
"Kaliiiim," he said, fanning himself with his phone, which accomplished absolutely nothing. "Remind me again why we're outside at literally the hottest part of the day?"
"Because Jamil says I shouldn’t use water magic inside, and I need to be here in case someone needs me," Kalim said, entirely too cheerful for someone wearing pants in 100-degree weather.
He had a determined look on his face, which probably should have scared Cater, but he’d learned in the past that a determined Kalim led to some wild shenanigans. "Besides, you said you wanted to cool down!"
" I mean…I do. Crowley has totes ignored all of my requests for a school swimming pool." Cater dropped onto the low stone wall ringing the courtyard, phone out and ready to record. “He said to just go to Octavinelle. Is he nuts? I’m 90% sure Floyd would try to eat me and not in a sexy way." He shuddered. “ So, like…what exactly are you doing?’
Kalim rolled his shoulders and shook out his hands, causing Cater to laugh silently. “You know you look like someone getting ready for a fight, not magic?”
"It helps me focus!” Kalim pouted at him. " Don’t laugh. I want to work on Oasis Maker, but not the usual version. I want to see if I can make a tiny personal shower." He seemed excited. “I saw it in a cartoon with a rain cloud just raining on one person, but I want it to be a happy cloud, not a depresso cloud!”
Cater raised an eyebrow; that sounded less useful and more like a funny prank, but... "I didn't know you could do a small version. I thought your whole thing was 'a lot’ or nothing."
"That's the problem!" Kalim threw his hands up frustrated. "It’s so easy to make a lot. I say the spell, and boom, it’s raining a lot, or I flood the dorm…” Cater mouthed the words “flood the dorm” and wondered when exactly that had happened.
“I don’t know why it’s so hard to just make a little. It would be so much more useful if I could fill a cup or a bathtub.”
"Huh." Cater tilted his head, genuinely curious now, phone momentarily forgotten in his lap. "I always figured that was just, like, a big water spell"
"It is, but I CAN make a little; it’s just hard," Kalim’s voice sounded like the particular frustration of someone who had clearly had this exact conversation multiple times before. "It’s like… having a faucet that’s really loose, so just pushing it barely turns it on all the way, so I have to tap it a teeny bit. Azul said it’s super impressive to be able to make so much rain with barely any magic but It makes it harder to control.
“...That’s actually kinda scary, Kalim. Imagine if you put a lot of magic into it. You could cause a monsoon or something.”
"Yeah! So I’m gonna try to make it smaller!" Kalim beamed at him, “I figure since you’re hot anyway, I could use it on you and boom! You’re cooled off, and I can show Jamil I CAN SO do it”
"Okay, hit me. It’s hot as a demon's asscrack right now. Getting wet would be an improvement."
Kalim nodded, planted his feet, and drew in a breath. "Respite in the scalding sands, a never-ending party," Kalim chanted, voice dropping into something more serious than his usual bright chatter. "Sing! Dance! Oasis Maker!"
Suddenly a heavy downpour came from above them, soaking them both to the bone in seconds.
Cater laughed in surprise, raising his phone to record the rain, glad it was a waterproof model. The water felt so good, nice and cold against his overheated skin. He tilted his head back to let some fall into his mouth, letting it wash over him until it slowed to a stop.
"KALIM," he laughed, soaked to the bone, grinning ear to ear. "Okay, yeah, no notes, incredible, ten out of ten, would get drenched again."
Kalim, equally soaked, was laughing too hard to apologize properly. "See?! This is the problem! I wanted to just get you, but I think I drenched the whole dorm."
"Kalim, babe, I'm not mad. This is the best thing that's happened to me all week." Cater wrung out the hem of his shirt, still grinning as water dropped off the end of his nose. "It was your first shot today. Let's actually work on this. Small steps, right?” he tapped his chin, thinking of his own magic. Split card took more power the more clones he made.
“Maybe think of your magic like…Idk. Holding in your pee and just letting out a trickle at a time.”
Kalim nodded, wiping wet hair out of his eyes. “I’ll try!” He frowned, murmuring the incantation softly as he focused.
A single, wobbling bead of water dropped into his hand.
"That," Cater said slowly, tilting his phone to show the tiny drop on Kalim’s hand, “ Was…better? Maybe.”
"It was one drop, but that’s better than a storm!”
"This is going up on my Magicam, by the way. Kalim Al-Asim makes a single drop of water.”
"Wait, noooo"
"Too late, it's already uploading."
"CATER."
“Cater grinned at him and turned his phone around, showing that he wasn’t even ON magicam. “Kidding.”
They spent the next hour like that—joking, trying different themes. For a while it did look like Kalim had two settings: Monsoon and teardrop. By the time the worst of the afternoon heat had started to ease, Kalim had managed to create a small raincloud 5 feet in diameter centered over the fountain in the center of the courtyard.
“You’re so close!” Cater wiped his face with a towel one of the other Scarabia students had thoughtfully provided. Several had come out to take advantage of the spurts of rain to cool off themselves.
Kalim tried again, and Cater held his breath as a small cloud formed between them, rain falling down in a gentle shower.
Kalim sighed, “I was trying to make it over you.”
“But you got it!” Cater grinned, phone up as he snapped pictures. “ Perfect size! You can work on the rest some other time. This called for a celebration.”
"Jamil's not gonna believe this," Kalim said happily, flopping back against the damp stone wall, utterly unbothered by his ruined vest or his dripping hair.
"Jamil's gonna be shocked you got good at something without him supervising," Cater corrected, snapping one last photo of Kalim standing under his tiny cloud, hair plastered to his face."Which, personally, I think I need to record his reaction. For…posterity."
Kalim grinned mischievously at him. “Should we tell him now? I can’t wait to show him!”
Cater nodded and watched as Kalim headed towards the dorm, the small cloud fading out as he released it.
He followed Kalim inside, humming to himself as he readied the record button, then his brain caught up to what Kalim had just said.”
“Kalim! You’re not going to use it in his bedroom, right? RIGHT?”
There was no answer, just a “GUESS WHAT, Jamiiiil~!” and Cater snorted softly, picking up speed.
There was no way he wasn’t going to catch this on video.