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"I stand with you, my dove."
"Tell me that next year. And the year after. And the one after that."
"I hope to surprise you."
"We'll see," he says and then looks at the wine again.
"Should I finish this?"
It's just as sexy to watch Josh pull off it, to see that pre cum. He shifts easily to give Josh the best angle, the best angle for himself as well.
"Fuck, Josh," he groans, a slight squirm at the teasing, his tongue that followed the finger sending a shiver through Aiden's body. Aiden's hand slid into Josh's hair, curling against his scalp. His hips rocked into it a little, quiet huffs of breaths and moans escaping him.
"You are not the first boy to have my heart," he murmurs.
For Rhy it's the salient detail.
But he worries that Rhy too will end up dead, a pawn in someone else's game. He is a prince after all.
Jibril almost opens his mouth to say Samer did still have a part of his heart. That he would probably always have despite everything. In the end, Samer’s love for him had made him do the right thing it just hadn’t mattered.
Instead of saying anything he pushed away at the grief he tries to ignore most of the time and kisses Rhy. The prince wouldn’t want to hear him mourn a lost boy.
"Tell me about this man you loved. If you loved him, I love him."
Jibril looked down, his brow furrowing and there’s hesitance.
“His name was Samer and we were from the same place in Syria. We were best friends and when my mother died... he was all I had left,” Jibril smiles a little. Samer who made sure he was okay, who helped him learn how to survive with no home.
“We would lay together, even in the desert. He would read the little prince to me, using a feather as a book mark. He read it so much,” he murmurs. “The last time, when our hands touched, I tried to kiss him and he reminded me his father expected him to have a wife and children... he was a dutiful son.”
Jibril frowns. “He was so serious... but he followed me when I wanted to follow Al-Masih. He stayed with me for so long as he were starving in the desert but...”
he hesitated and then shakes his head. “Then a man came and recruited him to a man he said would train him to be a good Muslim. He didn’t say goodbye. He took the book and left the feather while I slept. I thought I’d never see him again. Rhy. I wish sometimes that I hadn’t.”
The next part is the most difficult. “After I was taken into Isreal, some Imams saw me as a promise and some saw me as ... something bad,” he whispers. “An Imam made me memorize a speech because I wasn’t able to read and I was about to give it... the mosque was full and in walked a man in a vest. I saw him, his face. It was Samer. I stared at him. He was so scared... I think he hasn’t wanted to be there. All I could say to him was God is the greatest. it only took a second once he saw me but he dropped the button. He wasn’t going to...”
Jibril trails off, sure Rhy could understand.
“But there was someone with a remote...” Jibril’s face contorted with the memory of what he’d seen. “Almost everyone died. I should have died.”
That would explain some of Jibril’s scars. “Those groups... they prey on young boys in poverty...ones without choices and they don’t know what it is they are being given to.”
"Oh my love, my darling. So great is the weight of your suffering. I am so sorry. Never have a known a pain like yours."
Says the man with horrid scars over his heart and the silvery-white mark of the magic burned into his body.
"I am so sorry. Have you had the chance to grieve for him?"
"No. As soon as I could walk I ran away. I was surviving until you found me."
But today, the sun is shining as they celebrate Rita's first birthday at a park that had a splash pad for small children. There's also a picnic set up and Gar might or might not have (he totally did) invited Billy and Teddy to show up later to make it a full family affair but first it is time just for the three of them to enjoy this.
"Pretty sure she's not going to want to get into the water once she gets in," Gar says, Rita on his hip in her little bathing suit and water shoes, sunscreen dutifully applied and a timer set for when it should be reapplied.
As for Tommy, he's definitely standing behind his mate, kissing his neck lightly.
"Or maybe our little Bitty Ritty is going to love it. She's her papa's little tiger cub, and don't they love the water?"
"They do," Gar laughs and he did as well. When they'd finally moved out of the doom manor and and got a place of their own a huge tub had been one of Gar's stipulations. Bruce was helping them pay for it, a loan, Gar had insisted. But they had needed their own place. It's a very nice house but it's still modest in most ways. It has a fenced back yard which Rita had any number of toys already, and a treehouse in the making though it would be a while before she could use it.
"Can you believe she's one."
"I think the bigger shock is that we've gotten far enough away from being woken seventeen times in two hours at night that I'm starting to think she needs another cub around," Tommy counters, finally pushing his lover forward just a bit.
She's a kid, he wants to say. She's one and her parents will take care of her, but she has to EXPERIENCE things, even if she's only one. Don't be scared, let her play.
"If you don't get moving, I'm carrying you both into the water."
"I... not yet," he stumbles. Because he wants more but he's still feels so overwhelmed sometimes and what if it would be another difficult 9 months? It would put so much burden on Tommy. And he's still so scared he's going to break Rita somehow. He knows Tommy knows it, is lucky that Tommy seems to be braver than him. So he ignores the what ifs and offers Tommy a smile.
And since Rita was reaching out and saying Daddy he handed her over.
"Let me take pictures of you two."
But with the little one reaching his face softens. Two things in the world can get him that soft. Gar, and their little girl. He takes Rita in his arms and coos at her, kissing her forehead lightning fast. That always seemed to make her laugh.
"You have a hundred pictures, babe."
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