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He had been here since before he remembered, and nearly everything he did remember was polluted with that same face. Clouded memories, the taste of hatred in his mouth, the suffocating feeling of disgust in his chest. All of them, every single one of them, he hated them all.
“Jamil, are you up?” Even before he heard the voice, he knew who it was by the way his door had been opened. Familiar footsteps, an unfamiliar cautiousness to them. He wondered if he was afraid of him now, wondered if he would prefer that to the blind faith placed in him.
‘Here’ wasn’t a place, it was a feeling. It both drowned him and seeped into him, heavy and insidious and he wanted to leave and he wanted to be free and he wanted oh so much more, for himself, for his own sake, for everything he had never been. Wasn’t he doing himself a disservice all this while, when he was capable of so much more than he had ever been able to do? Who was responsible for that? Who would answer to all his suffering?
There was a weight on his chest, and he felt soaked. He could no longer swim, he could no longer keep himself afloat.
If he had known this is how it would end, perhaps he would have tried to run away long ago. Somewhere far out of reach, where no one knew him and no one would look for him. Perhaps leave a note asking his family to disown him.
Why had he ever tried, anyway? What was the point to putting in effort at this point? Being away from home had instilled misplaced confidence in him, for him to be so arrogant as to think he could change things for himself for once. If he wasn’t so tired, he would have laughed at his own line of thinking. Pathetic. Pathetic.
Jamil Viper, you miserable little snake, what had you hoped to accomplish?
“I think he’s still asleep. Shh, let him rest…”
“Aren’t you the loudest?”
He cracked his eyes open to the sound of whispers fading into the distance. Footsteps carried over the still, warm air of Scarabia, and then all was quiet. He didn’t stir, staring at his own hands in front of him, curled up on his bed, all too familiar and all too hated.
If he had known Kalim for his entire life, had Kalim not known him all his life too? There was a strange numbness at that thought, and he could not even bring himself to be angry anymore. This is just the way things are, he had always thought, and now that they were no longer like this, he didn’t know how to move forward. He’d lived his entire life going from one point to another and carefully planning things and he had no idea how to proceed once his guidelines were taken away and his goal had evolved.
What was it now? Was it still freedom? How would that be possible when the whole world now knew of what he had attempted to do, now that he had sullied the names of everyone he had tried to protect. Was it independence, then? If he could cut himself off from his family, he thought again, perhaps his actions would not bring them dishonour, perhaps they’d be safe. People would still talk, but damage control was the only thing he could do.
What now? What now? How was he supposed to move forward now, when everything he had so carefully cultivated had been pulled from under him and he didn’t even know which pieces to pick up?
And what about Kalim? As much as he wished not to, there was little he could do to stop himself from worrying even for him . He knew in the habits of his own thoughts and in the practiced movements of his own life that he would never stop caring. If ‘care’ was something beaten into people after years of repression.
It was as good as being chained, trapped like a hamster running circles. For whose sake?
“Why are you still here?” He asked, closing his eyes again.
“Sorry. I thought I was being quiet.” Kalim answered from somewhere behind him, voice uncharacteristically soft, as though still reluctant to wake him. He need not bother, Jamil thought, he’d been shaken out of his dreams years and years ago. “How do you feel?”
He hated the question. “How do you expect?”
“Sorry.”
“Stop apologising.”
There was no response for a bit, and Jamil thought that was just as well, for if they didn’t talk Kalim might leave him alone. Then he felt the bed dip behind him and nearly cried out in annoyance.
“Why won’t you leave me be?” He hissed, voice barely above a whisper and tumultuous from sheer frustration. Insensitive. Oblivious. “If you must know, I feel like being alone .”
Kalim’s voice was still soft, and only now did Jamil realise that he sounded so hesitant he was almost scared . “I’m sorry, but I can’t leave Jamil alone after everything.” He heard the rustling of clothes and the bed shifted again before Kalim had gingerly wrapped his arms around him - and he felt next to no weight from them as though he held them aloft to retract at a word from Jamil.
Jamil sighed and let him, even as his whole body instinctively stiffened and leant away. If he were doing all this despite seeming to be scared of him, it would only be decent manners of him to not terrify him further. Maybe he’d listen to what he wanted to say.
“When we were children,” Kalim began, only after they’d both kept their silence for a minute or so. It was strange for Kalim to be able to keep quiet, and Jamil wondered if it took much effort. If he was making himself quiet and shrunken to not bother him. “You often cuddled me when I fell asleep crying.”
“That was different.” He countered immediately, embarrassed that Kalim recalled this. “It wasn’t - this isn’t the same.”
“No, but I want to comfort you now.” He felt Kalim’s face nudge against the nape of his neck and tried to let himself relax a bit. It was hard. It was so hard. “For all the times you have comforted me and taken care of me, I want to tell you that I am here for you too.”
“Isn’t it a little too late for that?” Jamil retorted coldly, and attempted to ignore the quiver in his own voice. His eyes stung, and he glared at nothing in particular in order to betray no other emotion. To cry now, when he had not even when he overblotted - wouldn’t that simply be much of a joke?
“No! No, no, even if I can’t change all the pain I’ve caused you in the past I can make it so that I do not cause you any in the future.” Ah, good, returning to his usual loud self, too close to his ears. He wished Kalim wouldn’t be so intense about things sometimes. “If you hate me, I will try to talk to my family and maybe we can arrange a way for me to leave, and then you will be free of me and by the time we graduate you’ll be able to-”
“And then what?” He couldn’t keep the sneer out of his tone. “Your family will just let it happen? They’ll be fine when you refuse to properly eat? They won’t blame my parents or my sister? This is not a fairytale.”
“They don’t know about you overblotting.” Kalim cut in, still speaking rapidly, caught up in that daze of feeling like he had all the solutions and sounding so self-assured it pissed Jamil off. At least his family would be safe, though. “If I can at least ask , and it’s fine if I learn to cook, and then you can do as you want away from all of this…” Kalim’s voice cracked. “You can be away from me.”
He shifted closer to Kalim, and let his arms wrap tighter around him, let himself be hugged and ‘comforted’ even as Kalim was the one sobbing quietly into his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Jamil, I’m so sorry. I - I won’t know things unless you tell me - and even then I always mess up - I’m sorry for not understanding you. Why did you never tell me? ”
“You…” Jamil had trouble responding to this. He knew why, but the reason was so childish and insipid he would rather die than admit that he had wished Kalim would understand him, that Kalim would know without words, that the trust Kalim placed in him would someday equal an understanding. “You wouldn’t have understood, and if you mentioned something carelessly that would have been the end.”
He shot upright, crying out, “Then make me understand! I want to know Jamil too, I want what’s best for Jamil, it’s not fair like this!”
“It’s never fair. Neither your place in life nor mine.” Jamil said, calmer than he felt, sitting up himself and finally looking at Kalim for the first time since he’d come in. “Did you really come here just to cry?”
“I’m so-sorry,” He hugged him again, and Jamil only sighed. He wondered if Kalim knew he had always been weak to his crying face, or if he just couldn’t see past his own misery. He rubbed soothing circles on his back absent mindedly.
“This is more me comforting you than the other way around." He said lightly, and earned a choked sob in response. His shoulder felt wet and his body still hurt somewhat - and yet he felt strangely calm. This was the closest he had felt to Kalim in years.
They stayed like that for a while until Kalim was silent, and just as Jamil had begun to think that he'd maybe fallen asleep he moved back away. “It is your choice." He said seriously, as obstinate as ever despite tear-stained cheeks and reddened eyes and a runny nose. Jamil almost wanted to laugh at him. Not quite. “It is your choice if you want to stay or leave. I - I care for you."
Jamil thought of how he'd asked to 'make him understand.' “Will you really not know unless I tell you?"
Kalim shook his head earnestly. “Not usually."
“Well, I suppose someone needs to teach you how to cook."