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His birthday had always been a strange time for Jamil.
Quiet little celebrations marked by tired lines around his parents' eyes. Najma insisting it was the dawn of a new age each and every year, until she started ribbing him for being ancient, practically a fossil. Kalim suggesting a feast each and every year. The uneasy chuckles of quiet laughter that followed.
It always felt as though it should mean something to Jamil, as though the day itself should have some special sort of meaning to it, as though each dawning year were something Jamil should look forward to. It always felt as though it shouldn't mean too much to Jamil, as though he should remember always that special was not a word he could apply to himself in any regard, as though Jamil should take it simply as another year under the Asims.
Night Raven College was, as it was in all things, a break from this limbo of a tradition.
It was with mute fascination that Jamil watched the streamers and the banners and the stray confetti. The chatter was loud. The suit wasn't uncomfortable, but it was unfamiliar, as was the weight of the badge that declared it his birthday, and the glide of the sash that named him the Birthday Boy of the day. And all the attention. It wasn't bad; it was simply— unexpected wasn't quite the right word. Jamil might have been truly offended had he not managed to garner any attention on his birthday as vice housewarden of Scarabia. Nevertheless, some part of Jamil had come to expect a soft lull, a tired sigh stretched into a smile at the last second, a suggestion everyone would know better than to follow. This attention was heady, and the feast was not dismissed, and Jamil wasn't the one to cook this time, and— and—
Jamil had to step out for air.
Jamil breathed in, deep. He nodded and smiled as a few other faces he did not recognise chimed their birthday wishes at him. He wandered farther than he had expected to, and ended up settling down on a large, empty stretch of grass, mowed down to picturesque neatness. He breathed in again, deeper. This renown, this recognition; it was everything that he had wanted, everything that he had clung to desperately in dreams he did not dare voice. And yet. And yet. His throat felt dry. If he thought about it too hard, his stomach gnawed at him, a soundless hunger clawing relentlessly at his insides, because all of this when Jamil was merely the vice housewarden.
What could he have had if he had been housewarden instead? If Kalim hadn't followed after like some misguided dog, as though Kalim were the one with the collar rather than Jamil? If Jamil had been able to truly—
"Thinkin' murderous thoughts again?"
Jamil startled, reigning in the urge to jump and lash out. He recovered with a quick clearing of his throat. "Leona," he greeted.
"Viper," Leona returned, sitting down next to Jamil without preamble, without a question of may I, without a pause. As though he belonged everywhere he set his eyes on. It was the sort of arrogance that could only come from wealth, from power.
Jamil's jaw tightened. "Jamil is fine."
"Sure is," Leona agreed, so easily that Jamil blinked in surprise. Leona's mouth had slanted into a line of clear amusement, though Jamil couldn't figure out why, beyond Leona's general apparent deep-seated need to be a prick at all times. Nevertheless, Jamil had the distinct feeling that he was missing something. "Heard it's your birthday."
Jamil looked down at his outfit, pointedly at the badge, then the sash, and then back up at Leona, face perfectly blank and placid except for one raised eyebrow. "How did you find out?"
Leona snorted, head dropping back, the slope of his throat bare in a way that had Jamil looking away. Which was absurd, because it was just a fucking throat. And yet. "I wonder. Say, birthday boy—" Jamil rolled his eyes at the title— "what's with the gloomy face?"
Jamil frowned, and looked at Leona to find him already looking back, his eyes, as always, too sharp. Leona had a habit of making Jamil feel flayed alive with his gaze alone. "What?"
Leona shrugged, but his eyes did not move from Jamil. "You looked on the verge of murder."
Jamil stared. He could, if he wanted, open his mouth and simply make Leona go away. Tell him to get up and walk away, to forget he'd ever seen him here, to forget he'd ever known Jamil's name and face at all, even. Leona was certainly making enough eye contact for it. Leona wouldn't have a choice. He would simply have to listen to whatever Jamil said, simply obey, and wasn't that a thrill? A prince bowing to Jamil's command. Jamil breathed in sharply and looked away. "I don't know what you mean," he told him.
Leona scoffed. "Sure, you don't. D'you actually believe your own lies?"
Jamil sighed, turning away. The sky was a peaceful blue, soft, but he could see the clouds gathering, darkening, slow but sure. It would rain later in the day, probably. Jamil had always had a mixed relationship with rain. He liked the way it pattered against windowpanes, the rhythmic fall of it, and he liked the coolness that misted in its wake, and he liked the earthiness of petrichor. He hated the way he had to rein Kalim in like a child each time the rain began, since Kalim had a convenient way of apparently forgetting his own susceptibility to colds. He loathed the way bugs seemed to find rain a particularly good excuse to try and sneak into enclosed spaces. It wasn't raining yet. That was a problem for another time. "What lies?" Jamil wondered out loud in a murmur, quieter than he'd intended.
Leona's response was a huff and silence. There was a soft ruffling, and Jamil thought he might have gotten up to leave, but he didn't hear the footsteps to confirm the assumption.
Jamil glanced over at him. Leona had shifted, but only to settle in more comfortably, lying on his back, one leg bent up lazily at the knee, one arm under his head like a pillow, the other resting on his stomach. There was something disarmingly vulnerable about the position, his eyes half-closed, his throat soft and bare, the skin of his stomach gleaming where his shirt rode up. Jamil could take a knife to his gut, or he could tap him on the shoulder and meet Leona's eyes and command of him whatever he wanted, or he could wrap his hands around Leona's throat, each finger digging in slowly, and choke that insufferable princely smugness out of Leona.
Leona's mouth curled into a smile. "You're doin' it again. Murderous stare."
"Don't be ridiculous," Jamil chided too boldly, tearing his eyes away from Leona. He looked so at ease.
"Mm," Leona returned, voice already slipping away into something rough and sleep-laden. Then, without warning, he patted one hand down on the space beside him, behind Jamil. "Join me."
Jamil blinked at him. Blinked again. He let loose a laugh, high and tense and incredulous. "What?"
Leona opened his eyes only a fraction wider, just enough to let Jamil know that he was looking at him. "When's the last time you took a nap?"
"I—" Jamil buffered. Failed to reload. "My suit jacket is white."
Leona lifted his shoulders best as he could whilst horizontal. "Take it off, then."
"What?"
Leona gestured loosely. "Your shirt's black."
"I—"
Leona heaved a sigh, then heaved himself up to a sitting position. "Gotta do all the work 'round here," he muttered to himself, bizarrely, and then, even more bizarrely, he curled a hand onto Jamil's shoulder, and thumbed his birthday sash off so that it fell to a coil on the ground around Jamil's hips. His hand slid along Jamil's back, and the other one joined it so he had one hand on each shoulder to gently tug Jamil's suit jacket off. Jamil was not proud to admit that he was stunned dumb enough to simply let it happen.
It was with mute fascination that Jamil watched Leona fold the suit jacket into a neat square— Jamil hadn't been aware Leona was capable of such neatness— and put it carefully in his own lap.
"Okay," Leona said, with the misplaced satisfaction of a job well-done. "Excuses over." He lay back down, sinking into the grass with a content sigh. He patted the ground again.
Jamil did not move.
Leona's next sigh was less content. He reached out with his arm— the one not pillowed beneath him— and found Jamil's shoulder to push him backwards lightly. Jamil was too surprised to resist.
"Think of it as a birthday treat," Leona suggested hazily. "Your first nap o'the year. Of your life, even."
"I've napped before," Jamil protested weakly, horizontally. The sky was so much brighter like this. He closed his eyes. Leona emanated warmth beside him. It was strangely comfortable in a way that he had never thought sleeping outdoors, in the open, like this, could ever be.
"Sure you have, Viper," Leona mumbled. "Liar. Shut up and rest."