"You look hungry, little brother." Tus said when Dastan came back from his training, sweaty and with bright, shining eyes.
"Hungry doesn't begin to cover it." Dastan agreed readily.
"Let's eat then." Tus told him with a gentle smile. They lay down side by side, the bowls and plates in reach. Tus ate slowly while he listened to Dastan, who between gulping down his food like a starved lion, told Tus thousand and one details from his training, stories he had hear from the other soldiers and rumours he had picked up on the street.
Dastan talked like he did everything: passionate, acute but with carefully thought out words. Still his bright eyes lit up with sparks and his hands danced through the air while he spoke. And Tus listened, intensively, his eyes fixed on his younger brother as if nothing else in the world mattered, as if the crown prince of Persia had no greater concerns than hearing every word Dastan spoke.
The servants had long since left with most of the now empty plates and bowls except for a plate of grapes that lay on the daybed between them. Dastan still spoke, still recounted everything that had happened since he had last talked with Tus.
Their fingers brushed over the grapes constantly because neither of them was looking for what their hands were doing, they were too engrossed with each other. As the plate was emptied steadily Dastan ceased to talk and Tus took over with news from their father, their uncle and Garsiv, who was at the moment fighting a group of outlaws and rebels that caused trouble in one of the farer provinces of the kingdom.
Tus' words were reliable and steady like Euphrates and Tigris that gave life to their country. He provided a calm that Dastan needed after all the excitement. Dastan never listened to Tus any less intensively than Tus did to him, it was a reciprocal arrangement by any means.
When the plate was empty their fingers brushed for a last time and then rested, tangled in each other, between grape stalks and pips.
The conversation ceased slowly and gave away to a comfortable silence. Dastan lay on his side, his head resting on his arm while Tus sat up leaning on his elbow and half over Dastan.
Something flared up and shifted between them, something that caused them not to disentangle their fingers and to lie so close that they could feel each other's body heat, so close sometimes that they could feel each other breathe.
But they were brothers in every way but in blood and whatever it was that brought them together it could never pass the border of brotherly love.
"I take it you're not hungry anymore?" Tus said with a gentle smile and broke the connection of their fingers.
"No." Dastan agreed and let go, too.
"It's late. I will go to bed." Tus leaned forward and only hesitated for the fraction of a second before kissing Dastan's cheek. Dastan never looked at Tus before he did the same because in this moment they were so close that they could smell each other's grape sweetened breathe.
"So will I." Dastan agreed and shifted onto his back when Tus left the bed.
And if Tus stayed in the doorway for a few moments, listening to Dastan breathe, and Dastan's heart beat faster in anticipation until Tus finally left, then there was no meaning behind that.
None at all.