"He's too much the ideal image of what a king should be, and it frightens me."
Yunan would know.
Sinbad looks best above him, silhouetted against the light, face cast in shadow. Yunan has lived with the shadows for too long to feel comfortable in their absence, and drinks in the sight like his first sip of water in the desert. Sinbad doesn't blaze white like his first king had, but Yunan has always craved the shade.
Sinbad's hands are long-fingered and broad, gentle when they card through his braid to release each strand to pool on the bed. A warrior's hands, Yunan had thought at first, but that wasn't quite right. They're still a sailor's hands, equally suited to fight or trade or run as far as the horizon reaches, versatile in their strength, skillful in their movement. They're a sailor's hands, but it's with a King's voice that Sinbad leans close and murmurs, "I wonder if you would visit me more often if you weren't so tempted to stay."
Yunan has always liked a king with some understanding to him.
(There had been a boy three hundred years ago, soft-spoken but with a core of molten steel, who had seen what was in his heart. All of Yunan's attempts to protect him had failed.)
"I'm here now," he complains instead of saying that, brushing the hair back from his shoulder. "You're going to help me put it up again, aren't you?"
In response, Sinbad plucks three leaves out of the loose strands with a single raised eyebrow.
"What? A great king like you never sleeps in the trees with-"
Whatever else Yunan had planned to say is lost when Sinbad lifts him without effort, dumping him gracelessly on a richly appointed bed, gauze and silks draped from the ceiling to create a rather fanciful effect.
Yunan has always liked a king with some sense of theatricality.
(There had been a young lady once, he doesn't remember how long ago, who had cut her hair with a dagger and never used five words when one would do. She'd led him into battle despite his cautions, and laughed when the sands dripped red. He'd lost her, like he'd lost them all, when time and fate and ill counsel had turned against her.)
"You have other kings on your mind, don't you?" Sinbad's voice is rich, warm, and dark, and calls to mind hot flat stones in the desert that bake the chill from his bones even after the sun sets. It makes Yunan want to splay out and absorb, so he does, opening to Sinbad as his eyelids lower, his robe falling open without a touch. It usually falls open without a touch, but this time he doesn't bother to tug it back into haphazard place.
Sinbad may have a sailor's hands, but they're smooth when they trace over his chest and belly, touching him in a way that's more about the fire under the skin than the friction on it. Yunan feels it, crackling sharp and electric wherever Sinbad touches him, and the look he shoots up is more daring than desiring. "So banish everyone from my mind but you. It won't be easy. There are a lot of them."
Yunan has always, Solomon help him, liked a king with a strong tendency towards jealousy.
(He'd chosen an old man, once. His eyes had been fading, but his spark was powerful, and his arm was strong around Yunan's chest, holding him in place. "You'll leave soon," he'd whispered. "When I'm dead and dust.")
Sinbad's mouth covers his in a swift hot kiss that tastes of dates and the rukh, and Yunan's mind spins into blissful nothingness. He closes his eyes, all the better to feel Sinbad stretch out above him, a powerful lithe body pressing him into soft quilts, moving with him as inexorably as tides against rock, wearing Yunan down to his base elements.
"Look at me, Magi."
Yunan's eyes flutter open at the command, and his King is above him.
No, not his King, he hasn't chosen a king in a lifetime, but a King so like any he would have chosen, and it's a damn shame Sinbad wasn't around when he was young, confused, and would have taken any man that shone so brightly. "King," he murmurs, and Sinbad rewards him with another searing kiss, and deft hands stripping off the rest of his clothes to urge his legs apart.
Yunan has always, always, always liked a King that knows how to play his body like a sintir, though none of those long-dead shining lights have touched him quite like Sinbad does.
None of them had quite the presence of Sinbad, or the reassuring rumbling voice, or the gorgeous broad chest, or a sailor's calloused hands sliding up between his thighs. None of them, no matter how he'd loved them with all of his heart that he had left to give, had been quite so skilled at sliding in a slick finger, spreading him open with careless ease, touching him so intimately he wanted to sob, stroking inside his body with every confident caress.
Sinbad cups his head, holds him gently for all that he has the strength to level a mountain with one hand, and Yunan swears he can feel the thrumming pulse of seven elder gods warming him from above.
(Eight?)
Sinbad curls his fingers (when had he slid another one in? Yunan can't remember), and Yunan's toes curl against silk sheets, his hips rolling up to meet Sinbad's hand with every slow rock. Somehow it's more intimate with Sinbad staring at him, every fiber concentrated on making him comeundone, than it would be if he'd been just another man, just looking to slide his cock into something warm.
Yunan's hand shoots out, clutching at Sinbad's forearm, his fingers unable to touch around the hard muscle. "This doesn't mean I'm choosing you," he whispers, even as Sinbad drives him to new heights of pleasure, stroking and caressing him from the inside, sliding relentlessly into his hole over and over again.
Sinbad smiles, mouth quirking up at one side, self-assured and unconcerned. "I chose myself a long time ago," he says, as if that makes sense, damn him.
Yunan has always liked a king that doesn't need him.
Sinbad's fingers grind in hard, rubbing against that spot that sets off explosions behind his eyes, and Yunan claps a hand over his own mouth as he keens desperately, legs thrashing as Sinbad works him over.
But Sinbad's hand is there too, grabbing a slender wrist and forcing it down to the bed. "Let your screams out." He leans down close, thrusting his fingers in harder and harder as his lips brush over Yunan's. "I want to swallow them."
So help him, Yunan has always needed a king like this.
Tears spill hot down his cheeks when he comes, crying out against Sinbad's mouth, clenching down at the fingers that drive him to distraction with every slick press, every hard slide into his body, and Sinbad doesn't relent throughout spasm after spasm, milking him dry. Yunan's chest heaves, and he's sobbing by the time Sinbad lets him come down, dragging a thumb through the sweat and tears on Yunan's face before sliding it into his mouth. He draws in a shaky breath through his nose, sucking salt and water off Sinbad's thumb before letting his eyelashes flutter open.
For some reason, he isn't ready for Sinbad's smile, boyish and hopeful, or the sweet kindness in his eyes. "I hope you enjoyed that. It, ah, looked like what you needed."
"I have to go."
Sinbad doesn't even look surprised, only helps him tug on his clothes about as well as he ever does, pressing the occasional kiss to the back of his neck. Yunan notices that he's still hard and ignores it, as Sinbad seems content to do, and grabs the staff leaning against the window before hopping up on it.
Sinbad tugs on his sleeve, asking, "You think a Magi like you would ever choose a King like me?"
Yunan hesitates, then gives in to his urges for just a moment, turning to brush his lips against Sinbad's wrist. "Don't be stupid. There are no kings like you."
Then he's off, out the window and back towards the darkness, before the hands of a sailor can drag him back into the world for good.