major character death warning tread with caution
"Ja'far?"
"I'm not speaking to you."
Sinbad let out a whine that definitely didn't befit a king; craning his neck down to gaze at the younger man. "Why are you so angry at me?"
Ja'far's tongue cut worse than his blades. "Because of all the stupid decisions you've made, letting that Magi into our kingdom at a time like this is the worst yet."
"I'm making the right decision," Sinbad snapped, holding himself upright. Ja'far seemed unfazed by the sleight of authority and simply glared at him like he was a simpleton.
"With all due respect, I'd rather die than be hospitable to that fiend just because you got it in your head you can change him."
"You can't say all due respect and then give me none," Sinbad mumbled, running a hand through his hair. "It's not up for discussion; what's done is done."
"Am I not your advisor? You're supposed to tell me before you do something stupid so I can stop it," Ja'far sniffed, stuffing scrolls into small cubbies across his wall. Sinbad felt his temper growing short with each insult passively hurled in his direction.
"Enough! You are my subordinate and I am your King," he said, standing up. "You deemed it fit to follow me so have some god damn faith in me, Ja'far!"
"It's not a question of faith," Ja'far said, eyes narrowing. It reminded Sinbad of days where he'd wake up to a child holding a dagger to his throat. "I don't believe Judal is worth fixing."
"I brought you back."
"You were an idiot for doing that as well."
"I'm finished here," Sinbad said, shoving his chair back. "I won't sit around here as you hurl abuse at me like a mother nagging her child. I will not make an enemy of Judal—"
"Who will destroy our entire island if you so much as braid his hair incorrectly!"
"I will let him into my bed if it means keeping my people safe," he finished, ignoring Ja'far final comment. "And I will always act in the best interest of Sindria."
Sinbad wished their last conversation had been whispered under his bed sheets instead of harsh words across an office space, impersonal and cold.
Maybe then he wouldn't feel like he was suffocating under the weight of his own guilt,
Instead he holds Ja'far in his arms, covered in blood that doesn't belong to him, wires still stuck in the skin of Kou soldiers he had managed to bring down before Kouha's sword had sliced through the thin skin of his abdomen.
It was his fault.
"I'm so sorry," Sinbad whispered, his voice hoarse and his cheeks stained with Ren sibling blood. "I"m so, so sorry."
He felt like a child again, watching from the sidelines as everything he loved was taken away from him without him even being present: his father, his mother, his lover.
He could rally armies and conquer dungeons and yet here he was, clutching a broken general to his chest.
Ja'far would call him pathetic if he could see him now; undignified and dramatic at best. But Ja'far hadn't valued himself the way he had and all of a sudden, Sinbad couldn't remember not knowing Ja'far. Instead he remembered nights spent crossing deserts and tearing down dungeons, smiling as the young freckled boy watched everyone's movements as if one would jump up and attack them at any moment (which, in Ja'far's defense, happened fairly frequently).
He remembered long tirades about irresponsibility as Sinbad watched him upside-down from his bed, focusing on the way his hair fell across his forehead instead of the words coming from his lips. He could remember the first way he'd taken Ja'far to bed, ran his fingers over his scars and memorized every skin of skin with his lips and then back again.
And now, as he sits in his desk pretending to sign paperwork as Drakon tried his best to sort through the budget, all he can remember was the feeling of dead weight against his chest and the stench of blood that wasn't his.