Sorry for the incredibly long delay between updates. I've been really busy working on a very long (by my standards) JuHaku multi-chapter fic, in-between frantically looking for fun and inexpensive ways to spend my gap year. Yep.

If I had to write a summary for this chapter, it would be: Judal and Ja'far you poor babies oh no oh no Sinbad you moron what are you doing NO.

Pairings: one-sided JuHaku, implied; requited SinJa, but neither of the men in question knows it.

Word count: 1797

Warning(s): angst…oh, and I suppose some of this counts as smut, though it's really rather unsexy in my opinion since that wasn't the main focus of the drabble…? Well, either way, some sexual content, so cover your virgin eyes or something, minors.


Ja'far can hear them again.

Moans, whimpers, screams, damn near screeches when the younger of the two is reaching his peak. The slap-slap-slap of hips against ass, the slick slide of skin on skin, the rustling of sheets and the sound of deep, heaving, frantic breaths.

Ja'far, who has trained himself since he was a small child to be woken at the sound of a leaf falling at five hundred paces, hasn't a hope in hell of sleeping through the racket, given that his stupid, senseless, damnable protectiveness and loyalty – and something else he refuses to put a name to – prompted him to choose the set of rooms nearest to his King's when they first settled into the newly built palace of Sindria.

Ja'far wants to jump out of bed, break down their door and tell them to shut up already, give it a rest, or at least go continue their sordid activities in the bathhouses downstairs so he can finally get some Solomon-damned shut-eye. Ever since this whole mess started, he's dreamed of doing that, every single night; and every single night, he's restrained himself, because he's simply not that brave after all. He's just an assassin, one who kills under the cover of darkness and slips away before he can be drawn into a real battle, unlike his King who's a true-blue smug bastard of a hero or his King's newest bedmate, who's an attention whore on top of moonlighting as Sinbad's catamite.

Uncharitable thoughts, perhaps, but not exactly atypical when coming from one who suffers of a broken heart.

It hurts like said heart being ripped out of his chest, it always does, but what can he do about it, really? Sinbad has always preferred adventure to routine, danger to safety, thrill to tranquility. What risk, what challenge, what fun would there be in fucking a subordinate who would do absolutely anything for him if Sinbad only asked, when instead he could play around with a beautiful, powerful young thing who'd be just as happy killing Sinbad as he is being bedded by him?

Ja'far has been by Sinbad's side for fourteen years now, and yet he'd never known that Sinbad occasionally has flings with men until Judal came into the picture. Clearly, if Sinbad were at all interested in his comparatively plain-looking, freckled subordinate, he'd have made a move long before this.

But he hasn't. And Ja'far never will, because remaining by Sinbad's side is paramount, and he'd take countless sleepless nights of listening to Sinbad fuck another over being driven away from the warmth that is Sinbad and Sindria, any day.


"Ah-ahhn…harder…"

Sinbad obliges, feeling the muscles in his thighs burn from the strain as he pistons over and over into the young man who's practically bent in half beneath him.

"Haaaaahhh…! Ahh…put your back into it, damn you!"

Loud, Sinbad thinks. He's never minded his bed partners getting a little vocal, but all the same, he can't help but think that if it were that person, their voice would be much more subdued indeed, strangled and quiet in an effort to be considerate of Purple Leo Tower's other residents, but still rough and wrecked and achingly sweet—

"Oi, Sinbad," Judal growls suddenly, no doubt having noticed the pinkening of Sinbad's rukh as the king's thoughts wandered to more pleasant directions. "No…distractions…ah…got that?"

Sinbad graces the dark magi with a tight smile, and forces his mind back on track. Sounding completely, infuriatingly unfazed even in the throes of passion is a skill he's long since perfected, and he puts it to use when he replies with a simple, "Of course, Judal."

"Bastard—" Judal chokes out, his voice dwindling into a high whine when Sinbad grinds mercilessly into his sweet spot. The magi's nails dig almost cruelly into Sinbad's sides, and Sinbad has to admit that Judal does look beautiful like this, his impossibly long black hair seeming to absorb the ambient candlelight without reflecting it, garnet eyes darkened with passion and the lines of his face gentler than they ever get when he's gleefully taunting Sinbad for his soft-heartedness and weakness, or for that hopeless, one-sided infatuation of the King's that Judal is, mortifyingly, all too aware of.

Which is why the next words out of the magi's mouth are a breathless litany of, "Sin, Sin, Sin," causing Sinbad to shudder almost convulsively – oh you little wretch, who's really the bastard here? – and ram into Judal even harder than before, wringing an outright scream from the Kou oracle's lips.

For just a few moments, the image of Judal beneath him shimmers like a mirage and becomes something out of Sinbad's wildest dreams.

Pure white hair splayed out on the royal purple pillow, gleaming like fine strands of silver under the moonlight. A perfect, snow-pale body that cradles Sinbad's own, welcoming it with the ease of long practice, taking each of Sinbad's long thrusts with a spasm of pleasure and a throaty cry of bliss. Slender hands reach up to tangle in the long locks of violet that drip over them both, tugging gently, affectionately. The face of the man below Sinbad is flushed, cinnamon-colored freckles visible even under the rosy hue, overwhelmed tears coursing down smooth cheeks, mouth open mid-moan, eyebrows furrowed as if in pain but eyes smiling, huge and star-bright and overflowing with love that's all for him

Sinbad comes with a grunt, snapping back into reality in the same breath and feeling, for just a second, confused as to what he's doing here, who this strange, dark boy who's so unlike the moon-pale one he loves could possibly be, before he remembers himself and pulls out. Distantly, he notices that Judal has released as well, though he looks about as happy and satisfied as Sinbad imagines he does right now: not very.

"Calling out someone else's name when you cum – not exactly good form, Sinbad. I have no idea how you became known as the 'Womanizer of the Seven Seas' with an attitude like that," Judal snarks wearily as he cleans up the mess on his toned stomach with the corner of a stray bedsheet: the magi is clearly trying to sound flippant, but Sinbad hears the note of very real offense in his voice, and winces imperceptibly with remorse.

He's certainly not in love with Judal, and they both know it – and, though the magi is hardly talkative regarding that particular subject, Sinbad has managed to gather that Judal is thoroughly infatuated with someone who won't give him the time of day. Judal is never more human, more vulnerable, than when he's here with Sinbad; because however viciously they might tear at each other, both verbally and physically, out in the light of day, here in the dark when they're not-so-successfully struggling to take solace in each other, they're only two men who understand each other's pain only too well.

Judal takes Sinbad's silence the way it's meant: a tacit apology, with no assurances that this won't happen again. The magi is certainly no genius, but he is scarily good at reading people – or rather, reading their rukh. So when he sees the way Sinbad has just physically and mentally drawn away from him, sitting with his bare, powerful back to the magi and staring up at the moon high outside his window with an expression of wistful longing straight out of one of the old hag's trashy bodice-rippers, Judal knows instantly that there won't be a round two tonight.

They're both as different from each other's respective flames as one can get, but that hasn't stopped them from losing themselves in the heat of the moment, depressingly often, and it doesn't mean that they don't usually end up even more despondent than before these supposedly healing encounters whenever they come crashing back to reality.

Sinbad's skin is too dark for Judal's taste, and void of any significant scarring; the king's hair is too long and too thick, his body is too tall and brawny, his eyes aren't wide enough and his nose is too large and his eyebrows are too thick and his jawline is too harsh – and really, Judal hanging around when they're both clearly done here isn't doing either of them any favors.

Sinbad barely spares Judal a glance when he quickly shrugs his usual skimpy attire back on, throwing a vague wave in the magi's direction as he floats out of Sinbad's rooms through the nearest window without a single word of good-bye between the two of them.

For a month now, Sinbad has been doing this, ever since he happened upon a drunken Ja'far enjoying a tryst with one of the older palace guards, fucking brazen as you please (if admittedly quietly) in the middle of a public hallway while most of the palace's inhabitants were down in the city celebrating the latest Mahrajan. He seduced Judal into his bed the very next day when the magi stopped by seemingly solely for the sake of taunting him (and he's not proud of it, because Judal is eleven years younger than him and understands so little about the world and his own emotions that he might as well be a young child when it comes to matters of the mind and heart) – not out of some petty sense of revenge, but simply because, well, now that he knew that Ja'far was attracted to men, was attracted to anyone at all, surely if Sinbad made it clear that he was as well, Ja'far would eventually turn to him?

It's not exactly the way he's dreamed of beginning a relationship with his most trusted, most valued, most beloved person, and Sinbad isn't proud of himself whenever he catches sight of the black circles that have appeared under Ja'far's eyes and seem to seem to be spreading and darkening with every passing day; but at this point, he's desperate enough to keep at it until somehow, someway, it yields results and gets him what he's always wanted.

Even if it starts out as a simple, convenient affair between two people with similar preferences and no time to look for other partners, Sinbad is fine with it, is confident that with time, he'll make Ja'far fall for him just as deeply as Sinbad already has for his Head Advisor.

Even if this harebrained plan never yields any results, if Ja'far gets annoyed enough to move further away or tells Sinbad to stop sleeping with the enemy already or simply informs Sinbad up-front that he isn't interested and never will be, Sinbad has to at least try.

Even if he has to resort to the most twisted of methods to get his way, Sinbad loves Ja'far far too much to give up on him without a fight.


- THE END -

I'm really not sure about this one. I wanted to write Sinbad being his real manipulative self because I like him that way even though he can be a complete and utter bastard, and I wanted to write SinJa and JuHaku triumphing over SinJu because I'm petty that way. Still, the ending was unsatisfying for me.

(IMO, just as Sinbad belongs to Ja'far, Judal belongs solely to Hakuryuu.)

Incidentally (SPOILERS FOR ANYONE WHO'S NOT FULLY UP TO DATE WITH THE MANGA YET), Ohtaka went and did it, didn't she? She made Sinbad into David's avatar/reincarnation/descendant/servant/something. I swear I let out an honest-to-Solomon scream of rage when I read that part, even though admittedly it's a really cool development plot-wise.

Sorry again for the wait!

Saggezza out.