Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

‘Ooh, what’s that?’ Kalim asked curiously, peering over Jamil’s shoulder.

‘Just a gag gift my sister sent me,’ Jamil replied absently. ‘It’s supposed to be a replica of the lamp from that old story- you remember the one, right?’

Kalim nodded enthusiastically, eyes lighting up.

‘Yes, I used to beg you to read it to me all the time!’

Jamil was used to receiving stupid little trinkets like these from Najma whenever she spotted something that she claimed reminded her of him. She would send him the oddest things, varying in size and shape. One particularly memorable time, she’d even sent a whole box filled with nothing but thumbtacks and refused to give an answer when he called her to ask what in Twisted Wonderland she was doing, saying instead:

‘It’s an inside joke. You wouldn’t get it.’

(Jamil would never understand his sister’s sense of humour.)

This lamp was obviously a fake, made of plastic and shining with newness despite the fact that it was supposed to look old and battered. There was even a label on the bottom, explaining the fake lamp’s supposed “power”.

‘It says here that will only grant an earnest wish and only to those it deems to be worthy.’ Jamil said, rolling his eyes. ‘What a bunch of nonsense.’

(What did “earnest wish” even mean?)

(Someone who wished wholeheartedly for something?)

(Well, in that case, if Jamil wished wholeheartedly to rain down suffering on all those who pissed him off, would it grant that wish too?)

It was so clearly complete bullshit, not even worth his time-

‘Aw, come on, don’t be like that!’

-but Kalim didn’t think that way.

‘Making a wish on it couldn’t hurt right?’

Jamil sighed.

Why did I know exactly what you were going to say…

(Ah, right.)

(Because he spent far too much of his time with the annoyance known as Kalim Al-Asim.)

‘Kalim, it’s just a fake lamp my ridiculous sister gave me there’s no need to-’

‘Please, Jamil?’ Kalim said, eyes big and pleading.

‘Why are you so insistent on this?’ Jamil asked with a raised eyebrow.

The heir abruptly flushed a bright red and darted his gaze away from his retainer. He fixed his gaze on the far wall.

‘I guess I just want Jamil to have all the things that he wants! And deserves…’ Kalim mumbled the last part, so quietly that Jamil almost missed it.

Those shyly spoken words and the bright blush brought a confusing feeling to Jamil’s heart- something almost like guilt, but not quite. He stared at the uncharacteristically embarrassed Asim in silence for almost a full minute. Just when Kalim got too uncomfortable with the silence and was about to speak up, he said:

‘Fine. I’ll make a wish, just… just don’t make a big deal out of it.’

The wish was made.

For the first few seconds after that, nothing happened. Jamil began to lower the lamp, not expecting anything much.

But then…

…then there was a tug and a pull and Jamil found himself somewhere else.

The first thing Jamil realised when he opened his eyes was that he had fucked up.

He stood, thunderstruck, in the middle of a torrential downpour. The rain instantly soaked him all the way to the bone, the landscape around him made unrecognisable by the mass of water pouring from the sky. If not for the visible dorm building in the distance, Jamil doubted he would’ve even figured out where he was now.

As it was, there was no denying it; somehow, impossibly, the joking gift from Najma turned out to be a very real wish granting lamp. And Jamil had used a wish to-

‘Oh. It’s just you again…’ a chillingly familiar voice said dispassionately.

It spoke from directly behind him.

Jamil spun around, instinctively backing away.

Dull garnet eyes stared at him, clothing a torn and ragged mess on his shockingly thin body. He was bare of any kind of adornment, no flashy jewellery or expensive clothing in sight. Not even any kind of make up or an effort to tidy his white hair- just a dozen scars. One was big, a jagged slash on his neck, the others were smaller and went all the way to his left elbow. Scars that spoke of a brutal and violent struggle.

All were equally horrifying.

‘Ka…lim…?’

Jamil almost didn’t recognise the sound of his own voice, so shocked and small and hesitant.

‘I thought I saw someone standing outside, so I went to check it out, but it’s just Jamil again. I’m not disappointed though- it’s a good thing that I didn’t have to talk to anyone. Any guests would be very disappointed. Though I guess nobody in their right mind would want to visit me now…’

The person he saw before him was clearly Kalim Al-Asim, but everything about him was lifeless, each movement speaking of a deep, aching exhaustion. His voice was monotone and emotionless, in a way jarringly unlike the Kalim Jamil was familiar with.

Kalim didn’t seem to mind his continued speechlessness. He stood and stood, doing nothing, until he finally seemed to take in his surroundings.

He blinked uncomprehendingly at the world around him.

‘It’s raining again,’ he stated, tilting his head. ‘I didn’t realise I made it rain… it must be because of all the blood.’

‘What blood?’ Jamil demanded in ever so slight hysteria.

‘From the bodies.’

Jamil’s blood ran cold.

‘What bodies?’

There was no reply.

Jamil tried again, forcing himself to sound calm:

‘Kalim… what bodies?’

Kalim wordlessly pointed.

Jamil’s gaze slid to the side, following the direction of the arm, until-

A gruesome sight met his eyes. Those were indeed bodies, corpses lying stacked on top of each other. Some were a mess of torn limbs, whole sections of skin missing. Others were all but untouched, might even be mistaken for alive if it weren’t for the damning bruises around their necks, hand-shaped ones.

The retainer swallowed apprehensively, ignoring the way his wet clothes and hair clung in an unpleasant way to his skin.

Oh dear Seven, what kind of messed up world did I land myself in?

Chapter Text

In his life, Jamil had dealt with a great many things that most wouldn’t even dream of, all of them terrible. Kidnappings, assassination attempts, poisonings, any number of near-death experiences and even an overblot. He had been through enough stress that it probably should have killed him. It did almost kill him. Jamil had seen things.

The point was, over the years, Jamil had learned how to react fast, concentrate on the problem at hand and ignore his feelings until he could scream into his pillow about them in private.

So that was exactly what he did now.

‘Kalim,’ he began. ‘I-I realise how crazy this is going to sound, but-’

‘That’s funny,’ Kalim interrupted in that eerily calm voice of his. ‘Jamil has never talked this much to me when I saw him before.’

(What was going on in this world?)

Instead of wasting his time trying to persuade Kalim that he was in fact, here, and not a figment of his imagination, Jamil simply reached out with his hand to touch him. Kalim stared in confusion at the solid, real, feel of skin and flesh and fingers against his body.

He turned his startled gaze to Jamil, suddenly looking a thousand times more aware and present than before.

‘You’re… real. You’re actually here…’ Kalim breathed, awed.

Then, he frowned, reality catching up with him once more.

‘But- but that’s not possible! You’re…. dead. You died, Jamil! I know you did!’

‘That’s what I’m trying to say; I’m not from this world, Kalim.’

Kalim led him inside, after stopping the rain at his insistence. The inside of the building was a complete mess, with parts of it bearing the signs of the destruction caused by what Jamil was assuming to be his own overblot gone out of control, while others were left mostly untouched. And unused. And empty, empty, empty-

(Those bodies left outside.)

(Oh god, those bodies.)

(Jamil was no stranger to corpses and he was certainly no saint, but he’d seen those people alive and well just half an hour ago. Suddenly seeing them very definitely dead was…)

(…disorienting.)

At last they came to a room that this Kalim clearly used often. It was one of the very few rooms Jamil had seen in the entire dorm building that looked lived in.

Kalim didn’t rip his eyes away from him for even a single second the entire time, as though afraid that if he stopped, Jamil would disappear into thin air. He also kept reaching out to touch him with a fragile expression on his face, looking visibly relieved when his hands met soaked cloth and wet skin. When the two of them finally stopped walking, he dropped all pretences and rushed over to hug Jamil.

The Asim’s trembling body felt awfully thin and weak in the servant’s arms.

‘I can’t believe you’re real.’ Kalim mumbled into his neck, warm breath tickling his skin.

Jamil let the other cling to him for a bit, before gently pushing him back. Even that seemed to be too much force, because this version of his master felt like he would crumple like a leaf in the wind at any second.

Reluctant to peel himself away, Kalim tugged Jamil over to sit down on the nearest available couch and perched next to him.

‘If you’re really from another world, then how- how are you here?’ he asked.

‘I don’t really know,’ Jamil said in reply, shrugging somewhat helplessly. ‘One second I was in my own world and the next, I was… in this place. I don’t know how.’

He stopped for a moment.

When he spoke again, his words were careful, measured.

‘Kalim, what happened to me in this world?’

It was risky, to ask about what was obviously a touchy subject openly with this strange and broken version of Kalim, but Jamil had no other options but to talk to him. There was nobody else around after all- well, except for the corpses, and he couldn’t exactly ask them, now could he?

(A pile of dead murdered  dorm students, Kalim with those scars and the emotionless stare…)

(What exactly had Jamil done to deserve being thrown into this nightmare of a situation?)

This, this, is exactly why I never make wishes.

Kalim’s expression darkened at his question.

‘You died.’ He admitted reluctantly. ‘You… you used Snake Whisper on me, a lot, everyone found out about it, you got really, really angry, and then….and then you died.’

He became increasingly upset the longer he talked, staring down at his lap, hands clenched into shaking fists. On the last word, Kalim cut himself off with a choked noise and tears spilled down his cheeks.

With a sob, he turned and threw himself into the servant’s arms once more. Wordlessly, Jamil held Kalim close, not trusting himself to say anything.

What could he say, when the evidence of just how ridiculously lucky he had gotten with his overblot was shoved in his face like this?

If it hadn’t been for the quick way he was knocked back into sanity, Jamil would’ve died. If it hadn’t been for the timing of it all, so many others would have died with him. If it hadn’t been for Kalim’s absurdly easy forgiveness and how it had all been covered up afterwards, who knows what consequences he would have faced?

(Everything could have easily gone so badly wrong.)

(And in this world, it did.)

(Oh, how it did…)

Kalim’s crying slowly abated, but he didn’t move away from Jamil. He leaned his head against his chest, right above the heart and listened intently to the way it beat, strong and steady.

Jamil, busy grappling with the unpleasant revelations his little unplanned trip to an alternate universe had brought about, did not pay attention to the look on Kalim’s face.

He almost missed the quietly whispered:

‘Jamil, you don’t know how badly I wanted to see you again. I missed you so much I thought I could just die.’

Chapter Text

‘I missed you so much I thought I could just die.’

He almost couldn’t process those words at first. At a glance, they seemed like another admission of just how much the death of his alternate self had hurt- and in a way, they were exactly that. This Kalim had clearly been broken by the experience and there was no doubt in Jamil’s mind that his own Kalim would have about the same response if this happened to him. He could’ve left it at that and moved on.

However, something about that statement stuck out in Jamil’s mind. He frowned and drew back a little to look directly at Kalim.

Kalim who only stared at him in bewilderment, still blinking tears out of his red rimmed eyes.

‘Jamil?’

Jamil ignored the confused call of his name, gaze drawn to the jagged slash scar going right across Kalim’s neck. There was a sick twisting in his stomach.

‘Kalim,’ he said with deliberate patience. ‘I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but… what did you do after my- after what happened?’

Still confused, Kalim followed the direction of Jamil’s gaze. Then his face lit up in sudden understanding.

‘Oh! You’re asking about the scar, right?’

There was a suspicion, a logical conclusion which fit in neatly with everything he already knew about this world. A conclusion that Jamil did not want to reach, because what would he do with this information? It made sense, but it also didn’t; Kalim was unrelentingly, irritatingly positive and spectacularly oblivious. Even after the debacle over winter break, he’d remained that way in the face of the revelation about his retainer’s true feelings that were thrust in his face. He couldn’t have tried to-

‘I missed you so much I thought I could just die.’

He just couldn’t have…

‘You want to know if I did this to myself, don’t you?’

Jamil nodded mutely.

(The words were stuck, clogged in his throat. He couldn’t bring himself to even think them- which he knew was absurd considering how many other unpleasant topics he never had a problem with.)

(Except this was about Kalim, alternative version or no. His feelings about his master had always been… difficult to adequately explain.)

Unlike the version of him Jamil was familiar with, this Kalim didn’t attempt to laugh or fake a smile. He didn’t bother smoothing anything over.

He only said, blunt and devastating:

‘After Jamil died, I didn’t want to live anymore. So many awful things had happened and I just… couldn’t stand the idea of, well, anything. Trying to pretend seemed pointless, so…

‘I tried to kill myself.’

At a certain point in time, in the months following Kalim’s sudden unexpected arrival at Night Raven College, Jamil had spent countless minutes and hours fantasizing about his death. Sometimes not even about killing him directly, although that was definitely a frequent enough part of those fantasies, but just the death itself. Of what would happen if the white haired annoyance spontaneously dropped dead tomorrow through causes nobody could attribute to being the fault of Jamil’s negligence as a servant.

Back then, he’d stewed and stewed over the thought that if Kalim just stopped existing one beautiful morning, then all his problems would be magically solved. There would be no more master to serve, his parents would have to get off his back about “duty” to the Asims and above all, Jamil would be free.

Free to do whatever he wanted.

Free to pursue his own interests and express himself.

Free…

….to be completely and utterly miserable.

Oh, Jamil no longer held any illusions about what Kalim’s death would actually mean for him. All of them had been soundly shattered along with his sanity during his overblot.

No, Jamil Viper had never truly desired for Kalim Al-Asim to cease existing, no matter how infuriating the heir could be.

He wanted to say this wasn’t about love, but practicality. After all, since Jamil had to spend years of his life protecting the idiot, the last thing he would want was for all that effort to end up being wasted. And realistically speaking, the consequences of not keeping the Asim heir alive would fall upon his head anyway, no matter which way Kalim died. Far better for him stay alive, but just… away from Jamil. Had those simple, logical reasons for not wanting Kalim to die been the whole and unvarnished truth, Jamil would’ve been able to deal with his feelings easily enough.

He wasn’t.

Because the true reason for Jamil’s aversion to the idea of Kalim’s death was far more personal, more embarrassing than that.

Back in his first year at Night Raven, whenever he tried to imagine the circumstances of his master dying – whether by his own hand, or some other reason – Jamil had always frozen up. He’d picture those bright garnet eyes dulling, the trusting smile fading, muscles becoming still, flesh stiff and cold to the touch, feeling a hollowness in spreading in his chest. He’d see his own hands squeezing the air from Kalim’s lungs, a knife through his throat and veins spurting blood, fist clenched so tightly that nails dug sharply into his skin. Jamil would tell himself that the wild rage that seized him after those vivid imaginings was directed at Kalim and no one else.

(He lied and he lied and he lied, then acted surprised when those lies eventually fell flat even to his own ears.)

(All the anger, the rage Jamil had displayed during his overblot, everything he’d expressed, was much more aimless and directionless than he’d like it to be.)

(What had unsettled him so much about all those hours spent fantasizing about Kalim dying wasn’t the fantasies themselves, but rather how much each and every one had hurt.)

Now, looking at this Kalim with his scars and his fragility and the frightening look in those dull garnet eyes, an admission of suicide ringing in his ears, Jamil felt that same sense of unease.

(The truth, plain and simple, was that Jamil cared about Kalim too much to want him dead.)

(And that, more than anything, scared him.)

I wish Kalim would tell me how he actually feels about what I did.

Chapter Text

I tried to kill myself.

The words were clear and unmistakable, but Jamil still couldn’t make sense of them; his mind turned them over and over, instinctively shying away. He knew Kalim cared about him, the Asim heir was frustratingly genuine in his affection for the person he should have thought of only as a lowly servant, but this? With all its unspoken but very obvious implications? Was a bit too much for him.

I tried to kill myself.

(I wouldn’t want to live without you.)

I tried to kill myself.

(I didn’t know what to do but follow you.)

I tried to kill myself.

(The guilt for not helping you was too much for me.)

Jamil had always had a hard time accepting the oblivious Asim’s constant outpouring of love . It made things difficult, parts of his brain conflicted on what to feel about Kalim. On one hand, Kalim had once been someone he had considered his friend, despite their difference in social status. He so wholeheartedly believed in Jamil that the thought of betrayal never even crossed his mind, even with all the blaring evidence. On the other, Kalim was an Asim, was his master, and that could never change no matter how much Jamil resented it. Their difference in status would forever mean even his parents considered Jamil to be inferior.

How did he really feel about Kalim?

Kalim, who frustrated him at every turn with his oblivious naivety.

Kalim, who earnestly wished for him to have all the things he wanted.

Kalim, who had just told him that he’d nearly killed himself because of his death.

Seeing the look on Jamil’s face, Kalim tilted his head to the side.

‘Are you angry at me, Jamil?’ he asked with a frustratingly calm voice.

No. Yes. I don’t know.

None of those answers seemed adequate, so Jamil just ground his teeth helplessly, before gritting out:

‘I just… don’t understand why.’

‘I told you why. So many awful things happened and I couldn’t do a thing to fix any of them. You died because of me. I didn’t know how to live with myself anymore, didn’t think I wanted do.’

Kalim said it so easily, like it stating a fact, unknowing of the way each and every word felt like an arrow to the turbulent sea of Jamil’s emotions.

‘I didn’t think you’d care, you know.’ Jamil blurted out before he could stop himself. ‘At least, I wanted to believe you wouldn’t care about me after I betrayed you.’

‘Of course I care!’ Kalim insisted, frowning. ‘Jamil is very important to me.’

Clenching his hands until he could feel his nails start to dig painfully into his skin, Jamil stared at the pitiful, broken version of the boy he knew sitting before him. It made little sense to the ever-practical servant, how attached Kalim was to him. All he did was fulfil his duty to be perfectly submissive, perfectly helpful, perfectly willing to throw his life away. Jamil may have resented it, but he also could not imagine being anything else – his parents had forced him to push all his own aspirations into the background.

And Kalim hadn’t realised that at all.

(Now, here he was, having almost thrown his life away because of Jamil.)

‘Even after everything I did to you?’ Jamil pressed. ‘Why do you care so much, Kalim?’

I manipulated you, hypnotised you to act completely unlike yourself and laughed about it.

I used your trust, betrayed it, then mocked you for believing in me. I pushed off all my resentment on you, because you were such an easy target.

I did all of that, and I won’t, can’t regret it.

So Kalim, why?

‘Because Jamil is Jamil.’

Jamil blinked, startled, as Kalim took his hand in his own and gently traced the pulse point on his wrist. The action was cautious, almost reverent. Uncomfortably reminded of the fact that the Kalim of this world had witnessed the absolute worst possible outcome of his overblot, Jamil stayed still. Truth be told, this wasn’t so different to what he used to do in lieu of comfort. Letting the other reassure himself of Jamil’s safety had been a regular enough thing for them, over the years. Especially when Jamil skirted the edge of danger a bit too much, sending Kalim into a worried, panicked, frenzy that wouldn’t abate unless he was completely sure that his retainer was fine. He’d also acted clingy for a while after these incidents, Jamil sighing and resigning himself to Kalim’s coddling.

He couldn’t imagine how much worse it was for this Kalim who already had to watch him actually die.

‘Jamil is so solid… so real.’ Kalim mumbled to himself.

Kalim took a deep breath that shuddered in his lungs, his painfully thin and fragile-looking body trembling. He looked like he could break apart at any moment. Or maybe, he already had.

‘He’s warm too.’ Kalim continued. ‘Breathing.’

The words were spoken so quietly that Jamil was completely sure he wasn’t supposed to have heard them. For almost a full minute, the white-haired boy sat like that, practically in tears again. Jamil didn’t disrupt the silence, his mind too busy thinking over the reason Kalim had given for trying to die after the overblot ended so badly. Dark eyes slid back the jagged scar on Kalim’s neck.

(A knife, most likely.)

(Kalim had taken a knife to himself because of Jamil dying.)

(Try as he might, Jamil couldn’t pretend that how disturbed he felt at finding that out lay solely in not wanting to see his effort to keep his master alive wasted.)

(He just… didn’t like the idea of those bright garnet eyes turning lifeless.)

When Kalim at last spoke again, he addressed Jamil.  

‘I never thought I’d get to touch you like this again..’ he said, his voice shaky and quiet. ‘I’m glad I didn’t die. Surviving felt awful at the time, but it meant I got to see you alive.’

Jamil couldn’t hold back his full-body flinch at hearing that.

‘Don’t say that,’ he hissed. ‘Kalim, you, you can’t-’

Don’t make me feel so guilty…