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The customer wore a familiar face.
Jamil hadn't seen Leona Kingscholar in years, but he was certain there would never be a time when he wouldn't recognise him. Perhaps it was the distinctive scar that split his left eye, cutting into his cheek, or perhaps it was the knife's edge Leona's focus took on when honed in on Jamil, or perhaps it was the particular brand of insouciance he carried himself with, or perhaps it was that Jamil's blood still sang bright and hot like a lovelorn teenager at the sight of him.
Jamil knew better than to harbour any illusions of it being the same for Leona.
When Jamil carried Leona's order over to his table, he hardly looked at Leona, letting his focus settle onto the table, the table number. Just another customer, just another order, just another table, just another—
"Jamil?"
Jamil froze.
Leona tilted his head, hair falling into his eyes. His hair was longer now, even longer than it used to be, but his eyes were the same. Far too sharp. "It is you," he said, with an added layer of something that sounded almost like satisfaction. "I heard you're somethin' of a free spirit nowadays."
Jamil wiped his palms on his trousers as though that would hide the surprise that had made itself home within him. "Ah," he said, "well. Yes."
Leona leaned forwards, arms folded on the table. He looked Jamil up and down, a slow drag of his gaze that Jamil could just about feel like the flat of a blade along his skin, just waiting for the right moment to slant and cut in. Leona raised an eyebrow.
Jamil huffed a small laugh. "Only a temporary position. I do still need money."
Leona dipped his head, making a noise of assent. "How long are ya stayin' here for, then?"
Jamil paused. Something about this line of questioning had Jamil's heart tripping over itself. He told it to shut the fuck up, to get it together. "I'm not sure yet," he said truthfully. "Look, I need to—"
Leona was already waving him off, eyes sliding away like mercury, and Jamil returned to his shift.
"Was that the second prince—?" asked one of Jamil's temporary colleagues in a hushed voice, eyes wide, visibly physically resisting the urge to point and stare.
"Mm," Jamil confirmed, and when he received some sort of squeaking noise in response, he added, "We… we're old friends."
When Jamil got off his shift, folding the apron away into his bag, Leona was there.
Jamil paused, one foot outside and the other only still hovering in limbo.
"Surprised?" Leona asked wryly, mouth canting up into a half-smile.
"You could say that," Jamil agreed carefully. Leona was carrying a strange sort of tension around his shoulders. Jamil thought he might have been carrying it the entire time; it was just much more visible now that he was out here, the sun hanging low in the sky, the two of them standing clear of the heavy distraction within. "What are you doing here?"
Leona barked out a rough laugh. "Disappointed?"
"No," Jamil said, finally stepping his way out of the diner. "No, of course not, I'm just…"
Leona cast him a sideways glance. "Never did get over that lying habit of yours, huh?"
Jamil sighed, looking around before choosing a direction at random. Leona followed. Jamil had technically been expecting it, but it still lit a spark of surprise within him. There was something so strange about the idea of the second prince of Sunset Savannah following after Jamil, something that made Jamil's blood sing. Jamil counted their footsteps in an attempt to ground himself, and found himself distracted by the easy way their steps synchronised. Jamil bit his tongue until he tasted iron. "For what it's worth, I'm not disappointed," Jamil said after a short while of nothing but their quiet footsteps and quieter breaths. "Just… surprised. Confused. Were you waiting for me?"
"What do you think?" Leona said, a little too flat to be a true question, but lilting high enough that it could still be mistaken for one.
Jamil pressed his lips together against a burgeoning smile that erred on the side of a smirk. "Never did get over that avoiding habit of yours, hm?"
Leona huffed out a laugh, sent Jamil a look that felt almost fond. "You've grown more of a backbone. I like it."
"Mm. And you're still avoiding," Jamil noted without any true heat. Jamil had started, without realising, walking the paths that wound down to his little motel.
Leona hummed and abandoned Jamil's line of questioning with a swift and unsubtle change of subject. "How long're you plannin' on stayin'?"
Jamil allowed it. "My contract's only a week longer, so not much more than that. Why," he added teasingly, "trying to kick me out of your kingdom already?"
"'S not mine," Leona murmured, almost too quiet to be heard, quiet enough that Jamil wondered whether he was meant to have caught it. Before Jamil could decide whether to address it, Leona had started to plough on, his voice only just louder. "Take me with you."
Jamil blinked. Blinked again. Wondered if he'd heard Leona wrong, if his wishful thinking had started to escalate into full auditory hallucinations. Jamil stopped. Leona stopped too, but did not face him. "What?"
Leona breathed in. The tension in his shoulders did not abate. If anything, it gathered closer, burrowing into the muscles there. "When you leave, take me with you."
Jamil stopped. Leona stopped, too, but he kept himself angled away from Jamil, not looking at him. A couple of false starts later, Jamil finally managed to say, "You want, what, for me to whisk you away? Some commoner to sweep the second prince off his feet?"
"You're not just some commoner," Leona dismissed with a flick of his fingers, and that was the part of that statement Leona objected to? "I thought we'd worked on that self-esteem of yours."
"Why now?" Jamil asked instead of addressing that. After all these years, he didn't add. They hadn't tried very hard to keep in touch, afterwards. NRC had been a fever dream, and Leona had been a pipe dream, and Jamil knew when to let go. He'd cut his losses. Leona had done the same.
"I miss you," said Leona.
"Don't bullshit me," Jamil told him, which made Leona laugh softly again.
"I do," Leona said, glancing briefly at Jamil. Jamil couldn't bring himself to return the glance. "And."
"There we are," Jamil said, nodding, trying to will away the heat that had crept up to his face. "And?"
"Piss off," Leona said without any heat. "And I need to get out of here. I need… I need out."
"Again," Jamil mused, softly, not intending it to be the barb it became. He pretended not to notice.
Leona breathed in sharply. "You understand," he said, and Jamil thought it was probably meant to be a statement, but it sounded more like a plea.
"I do," Jamil agreed. He swallowed. He breathed in. He looked at Leona, only to find him already looking back. "Okay. I'll take you with me when I leave."