Welcome to Gaia! ::

Malikai blinked, watching as Naarhiji darted off to lock his door — a good idea, probably — and then fit a hand into his upon his return, tugging and dropping to a seat at his feet. It did not take ample amounts of in-depth observation to guess that the younger man was stressed—and given that discovery of his presence might well result in a decidedly messier scene than the one earlier that afternoon, Malik supposed he couldn’t blame him. He took the hint, and propped a hand to the inner lip of the windowsill to brace his weight and ease his drop as he joined Naarhiji in a sit.

There was a distinctly more private — and quiet — feeling associated with being lower to the ground. That, added his overall state — still faintly woozy from the injury and blood loss, tired, and lethargic with the numbing effects of alcohol — made having a lower center of gravity more than welcome. He eyed Naarhiji as he spoke, and reached, idly drawing a finger through a loose lock of forest green hair and encouraging it back behind the point of the younger man’s ear.

“Aye, I do…” he said at length, keeping his voice at a significantly lower pitch this time. It seemed to be the trend Naarhiji was setting, and was somehow all the easier to do besides, when seated and tucked to his company. “Did think there was danger, tha’ is. I wouldn’ let anythin’ hurt you, not for the life o’ me, not if I had my way, but…” His gaze trailed from the waves of Naar’s hair, to his throat, and then back up, to his face. “Well, I don’ always have my way. Though I’d sooner die than watch somethin’ happen t’ you…some things go on beyond a man’s control no matter how hard ’e tries to make it otherwise.” An unspoken, buried knot of tension relaxed, and swept away at Naarhiji’s thanks—a better result, in all honesty, than Malik would have possibly hoped for—and his lips edged up. “Interestin’ is better ‘n borin’, I suppose…”

After, as Naarhiji’s words devolved into squeaked—and then more muted, if still forceful—denials, any remaining guilt on Malikai’s immediate conscience edged back and away, and his expression warmed anew, lit not only with amusement, but also the same, budding swell of something that he dared not examine too closely. It would be what it was, and become what it pleased. He had this moment, and that was what counted.

“I think we c’n figure somethin’ out, aye…I c’n come by an’ toss pebbles a’ your window like a real classy suitor. Y’ might have t’ tell me when’d be a good time so as I don’…” He shifted his weight, “…interrupt none o’ your business an’ such, but…othern’ tha’, shouldn’t be real difficult. Perhaps this next time, you c’n pick where we head, mm? Somethin’ with less chance o’ insects…anywhere tha’ pleases you.”

Perhaps he ought to have left it like that. Open-ended, without any further pushing. He had gotten away with enough, after all, for the evening. Had had more positive luck — even paired with the negatives — than he could possibly have asked for, and yet—yet, there, in the moment, on the floor of Naarhiji’s bedroom with Naarhiji’s body weight and warmth pressed to his side and the words, ‘I want to see you again. Of course I do…’ still hanging in the air with such recency he felt he could touch them, he felt bold. Even if they’d been far more explicitly intimate on dozens of occasions, there was a newness to this, beyond what had gone on in the garden, or even the ride out earlier that afternoon.

With Remalus’ word and order, the pretext was extinguished. Gone, indefinitely.

He wasn’t, couldn’t be a ‘client’ of Naarhiji’s any longer. But with the shutting of that door came the potential — however foolhardy, however misplaced, however improper — to step into something else altogether, and over the threshold of that distinction, Malikai reached, grazing a thumb along the curve of Naarhiji’s jaw with all the gradual curiosity of a man traversing it for the first time. And then he leaned, and he kissed him. Unhurried. Gentle, and in pursuit of nothing more than a testament to the fact that this, if nothing else yet or ever, was still acceptable, and that he was not imagining what he hoped to be present. That he was welcome, and—in some small way, above, beyond, and apart from the course of ‘business’ that no longer was—wanted.

When Naarhiji eased back, Malikai followed suit, comforted not only in the reciprocation of the kiss, which felt like a gap bridged, but also Naarhiji’s presence, his body language, his tone. He had him here, against him, in his lap for the goddess’ sake without any pretext of compensation, and if he shut his eyes—

He blinked, glancing down as Naarhiji began gradually shifting the subject. “I don’ say ‘em just t’ say ‘em,” he started. “I—”

But it got far worse than that in a span of seconds, and Malikai felt his gut drop, a cold, synching knot of guilt, dread, anguish—or all of that and something greater—bunching and congealing at the pit of his stomach and throat. Several times he opened his mouth, but never did the words form fast enough, or properly, and it seemed wrong to interrupt, regardless. As little as he wanted to deal with the subject, Naarhiji deserved to hold him accountable, to ask and demand answers, because — also with the elimination of pretext — came destruction of the metaphorical tinted glass through which to weigh their interactions.

While it wasn’t before, it became Naarhiji’s business now, not as a brothel employee, but as a young man whose time Malikai wanted to spend on his own merit. He breathed out.

“I’m not a liar…” he said at length, quietly and around the tightness in his throat. “But I am fair sure myself ‘m a horrible person, an’ I could’a told you tha’ a’ any point…” It wasn’t what he’d intended to say. Or, it likely wouldn’t have been if he’d had any idea what he did intend to say. Instead of planning them, however, his words seemed to come of their own accord, and because Malikai felt Naarhiji deserved at least that honesty, no matter what fate it brought upon him personally, he let them come. “I do kill people. Not like you, but—it’s more, I s’pose, tha’ I wouldn’ even know if they were like you or not…”

It wasn’t a new thought, particularly as of late. To think that any soldier he fought, especially the younger ones, had every potential to be likened to Naar—or to anyone, for that matter.

“I don’ know any of ‘em,” he said. “I can’t know any of ‘em, ‘cause even not knowin’ and thinkin’ on it can leave a man sick, an’ it does—or it used to, me…I was sick on th’ battlefield after th’ first time I killed, an’ sometimes I think on the fact that it doesn’ make me like tha’ anymore most times, an’ I think you’re right. It must mean somethin’s horribly wrong with me. Or I’m too much a coward to let myself think at all ‘cause if I did I’d sooner let a blade run through me than keep on it ‘cause I can’t take it, an’ I am a coward…”

He frowned, letting his grip loosen, and fall away. Because really, what right did he or had he ever had to have even this much contact? It was easy enough to ignore or forget or pretend. He was practiced at that, to an art form. But with the words in the air between them, Malikai felt filthy in his own skin, and out of place, and he oughtn’t have come to Naarhiji’s window at all. Remalus had been right to turn him away, and he had no place imposing his selfishness on the man—boy—in his arms.

“‘M a coward, an’ a horrible person, an’ I hate everythin’ I do, but I don’ change it ‘cause I haven’t got the will or courage to, an’ it’s easier t’ keep goin’ an’ doin’ the same things again an’ again, an’ drinkin’ enough t’ make it not seem so sickenin’ anymore an’—”

But none of that answered Naarhiji’s question.

“What do you want from me?”

Malikai gave a wearied exhale, and then drew a new breath. “I just…like bein’ happy some o’ the time. I want t’ be happy some o’ the time…an’ bein’ with you, around you, talkin’ with you…” He hesitated, “…holdin’ you…” He dipped his gaze. “I’m happy, durin’ those times. I know it’s not fair…t’ you or t’ anyone, since ‘m not who you need around. ‘M not a good person, ‘m not goin’ anywhere worth goin’, an’ you’re young an’ I can’t do nothin’ good or fair by you in return…so it’s just selfishness. I want you an’ your time ‘cause it gives me somethin’ to care about even when I don’ have any right to it. I love gettin’ to feel, even just for a bit, like I’ve got someone who…” He trailed off there, though, and put the thought away, for none of that was as important as the end result: “I oughtn’t ‘ave come back…”

He shut his eyes, because he was grown, not an infant child, and it wasn’t he who had been wronged regardless—he had taken what he oughtn’t have and gotten more than he deserved already. So his heart had no right or cause to lurch queasily into his throat or his eyes to sting.

“I should’ve stayed away. It’s been wrong o’ me t’ want anythin’ from you, an’ ‘m thankful for every bit of it, but I haven’ ever had a right or deserved a moment an’ I shouldn’ ‘ave asked or presumed or done anythin’ by you—‘m sorry…”

Malikai expected—

Well, he couldn’t have said for sure exactly what he expected, but certainly movement had been involved. Movement off of him, away from him, that he might stand and retreat and leave Naarhiji in peace, with those who would take care of him for the right reasons. Movement reflecting Naarhiji’s distrust and opinion of him as a horrible person. Fingers burrowing and pinching in his clothes and bodily presses closer were not among any of his anticipated sequences of events, and he found himself blinking bewilderedly for a moment despite all.

“You must be the least horrible person I’ve ever slept with.”

He gave a flushed frown. It wasn’t an insult at least, he supposed. Undeniably preferable to what had come before it. When Naarhiji spoke of his lack of place to say anything at all, however, Malikai shook his head. “No. It was your right, is your right t’ ask, always, an’ there’s nothin’ noble ‘bout me…”

“I don’t believe this is all you’re meant to do with yourself.”

Malikai gave a petered exhale. By the goddess, he wanted it to be true, but the older he got, the less likely it seemed that anything would change. Which was, perhaps, one of the reasons he had latched so readily on to what he’d found here — to Naarhiji — that difference. A break in his patterns in many unexpected but welcome ways at once. When Naarhiji pressed himself beneath his chin, Malikai lifted his head cooperatively, shutting his eyes and — in spite of himself — winding his arms back around Naarhiji. They felt better there.

When Naarhiji’s lips brushed his chin, his eyes blinked back open, briefly surprised, and then—he flushed, heat creeping up into his cheeks and towards his ears. “‘Course I came back…” he murmured. “Maybe I oughtn’t have, but I wanted to, wanted t’ see you a’ least once more, an’ I couldn’ just…” ‘…if it’s just to feel like someone cares about you…’ “Just…s’not ‘just’. Feelin’ tha’ way is—”

Naarhiji’s kiss, combined with the assertion, ‘I do…’ was more than enough to stall Malikai’s speech in its tracks, and in the place of words a sound escaped that might have, under any other circumstance, been rather pitiful in its own right. A barely-there whine of a grunt, and his eyes shut again. He didn’t reopen them. Instead, he let his arms coil just a fraction tighter around his lapful, and there was nothing in that moment that he wanted to believe more—and because he so desperately wanted, he let himself. Perhaps not fully, by no choice of his own. He would have thrown himself entirely into the belief, if it weren’t so hard to imagine that anyone in Naarhiji’s position could care, knowing him. Perhaps he could believe a little. And a little was more than enough, and still more than deserved.

Exhaling, he tucked his face to the niche of Naarhiji’s neck and shoulder, and held. “Feelin’ cared for…” he managed at length, when he finally trusted his voice enough to speak, “…is everythin’. Everyone should ‘ave some’on tha’ makes them feel—” ‘Loved.’ “—wanted an’ worthwhile. So…so long as you aren’ showin’ me th’ door, I’ll keep comin’ ‘round long as you’ll let me. An’ I meant wha’ I said. If you’re plannin’ on lettin’ me see you…we c’n do anythin’ you like, you name it an’ I’ll be there.”

“Mmm…’m sorry,” Malikai mumbled at the initial critique while his face as still tucked to Naar’s shoulder, thus effectively muffling the apology. “Y’do make me feel…a thousand times better, mm?” From there he listened, savoring the contact, flushing anew at the kisses, and by the time Naarhiji slipped to ease his way out of his lap, Malikai blinked, watching and leaning as he was tugged.

“You might as well come on and stay, then.”

Stay.

Malikai stared in dumbstruck bewilderment for all of a handful of seconds, and immediately after lumbered to a stand. It took another moment of staring, however, listening to Naarhiji go on and watching as he perched his weight on the mattress, to convince himself that the invitation was actually intended the way he had heard it the first time. Even then, he started slowly forward, as though anticipating a last moment change of heart. When none came, heat crawled to his eartips, and he rested enough weight on the mattress to stoop and remove his boots and belt. He left the rest—his shirt and trousers—on, so as not to overstep or even suggest an overstep in his own assumptions.

Not that he was feeling any pressing personal need to pursue more than sleep, regardless. Sleep sounded phenominal, and to be able to do it in the sactity of Naarhiji’s room—nevermind the others in the building who would sooner gut him than let him do so—under Naarhiji’s covers and notably without having to trek all the way back to his own hard cot and quarters, was heavenly. He slipped himself beneath the sheets, not managing or even bothering to stifle the low, satisfied grunt of sound that escaped him on settling.

“Beds’re fantastic,” he deduced aloud. “Do like places w’thout bugs or soldiers…an’…” He yawned, “…like shoes an’ crowns.” There, because he could and wanted to, and figured Naarhiji would happily shove him away if he objected regardless, Malikai shuffled his weight a half inch forward, reached, and looped an arm loosely around his company, tugging and adjusting lightly until they were fitted together. He kissed the hair at the back of Naarhiji’s head, and shut his eyes. This, he concluded, was worth it. If he were assassinated in the night by one of the less friendly residents of the brothel, then so be it, he would die at peace. All the day’s events, culminated into this finale, seemed less tragic in retrospect and all a fair price for the eventual payout. “Adventure,” he agreed groggily, because that seemed to be what Naarhiji was speaking of. “Not easy, I got it. ‘M…” A final yawn, “…ready for anythin’. Sleep well, fair princess…”

A moment later, he was very thoroughly asleep.

Loot roll #1.

Look at all these weird, unnecessary souvenirs.