catching sparks

Kaz Raval Scavenger 39 Closed rp blog for Panopticon. May contain mature themes.

[kazxraval]

Bio 

Plots/Wanted connections here

Name: Kaz Raval Birthdate: March 28, 1984 (39 years old)  Star Sign: Aries Birthplace/Hometown: Seattle, WA, USA Gender: Cis male (he/him) Languages: English (fluent), Gujarati (conversational and can read) Family: Father, mother, two younger twin siblings (brother and sister– his sister went missing when Kaz was a teenager and is presumed dead) Arrived on Panopticon: 2010 Former occupation: Investigative journalist, blogger Panopticon occupation: - Scavenger (who doesn't mind getting involved in shadier deals) Additional: - Tracks/collects info on people/places from scavenging (maps, people who might be searching for loved ones, etc.)

Hair/eyes: Dark brown  Height: 6′ Drink/Smoke: Yes/yes (weed, occasionally cigarettes) Piercings/Tattoos: Yes, several linked here Scars: Yes Injuries: Old shoulder injury from an attack during scavenging Sexuality: Bisexual Relationship status: Single (+): inquisitive, creative, resourceful

(-): apathetic, sarcastic, blunt

(continued bio follows, tw child abuse)

Before Panopticon:

His father ruled the house cruelly, with minor offenses weighted heavily for punishment. Kaz continually rebelled, often drawing his father into heated debates which turned violent. His mother was withdrawn from homelife and treated the children with a certain detachment.

He dropped out of high school at seventeen and found refuge with friends until he was able to build a life for himself.

His sister Ani was abducted when she was sixteen (she is not on Panopticon).

Initially he had little drive other than to bounce around and self-medicate. A woman named Nadia Chaudry encouraged Kaz to develop his skills (tenacious curiosity and a decent voice as a writer) into a job at a local newspaper. He began in the mailroom and worked (talked, lied) his way into reporting.

Kaz also began a blog to highlight missing persons cases, particularly highlighting POC cases.

He was looser pre-island, charming, and looked for a good time to forget his problems. Acquaintances and party friends kept him busy but real connections were few and far between (if only to prevent old wounds of hurt and doubt from being reopened).

Played music by ear from a young age, focusing on piano, guitar, and drums.

His father was arrested in a real estate tax scam. Kaz started the ball rolling on this and surreptitiously gathered much of the evidence needed for the arrest. His father’s trial was scheduled to begin only a few days after Kaz landed on Panopticon. 

Current:

Outwardly Kaz can come off as ambivalent, sarcastic, and/or prickly. He has warmed up to a few on Panoptican that he trusts but continues to rely mostly on himself.

Remains curious about the apocalypse, Panopticon, and any information he can acquire from the outside world.

Old habits die hard. He collects information on the outside world (and will consider trades) for his own theories and speculation.

Drifting around as a spectre is his preference but he can press people – out of boredom or an innate interest. He isn’t shy and can be blunt.

Suffers from night terrors (since childhood).

[emreakbar]

'We're so gay...' the absurdity of Kaz's delivery, falling so trite and casual out of Kaz's mouth. Not unnatural, coming from him, but not entirely ironclad, either. Teasing, or droll, or just impossible to penetrate. Like Kaz in a way - glassy, sleek, solid, impermeable. Prone to slice deep, if broken. And Emre's instinctive reaction to hear 'gay' as an insult, his urge to protest and say 'I'm not! Piss off!'. It still lingered in him, he was ashamed to realize.

He was proud for not stiffening under Kaz's long, heavy arm. Emre didn't huff or hiss. He swallowed his protests down physically and verbally, willing his mind to just fucking finally accept the truth.

And the subsequent pleasure they sought in each other, both physical and deeply emotional release (for Emre definitely. For Kaz, absolutely. Emre knew this now. He could feel it in every moan of approval, in the limitless passion swimming in Kaz's dark, heated eyes as they stroked each other and plied wet needy kisses on dark skin) brought zero shame for Emre. Ironic, how licking and kissing and proclaiming enduring adoration for this man felt so right and normal for Emre. But the literal word 'gay' still battled with the immature paranoia infecting his mind.

Kaz fell so still afterwards in the hammock, the pair of them twisted so comfortably against each other. Deep, satisfied breathing, even and steady as his heartbeat. And perhaps Emre was just instinctively being contrary when he dragged a drowsy Kaz out of the hammock, away from any potential sleep. It wasn't deliberate, but Emre did have a knack for sabotage, even subconsciously.

Hitting the beach was refreshing, invigorating for Emre. He felt energized, like he could build a whole house in one day. He was starving too, but that would be solved easily enough. And still he nattered on, as Kaz sank into the blue like a saltwater crocodile, peering about, observing everything. The reflection making his eyes look even more bruised and shadowy than usual, Emre noted. Kaz was exhausted, or perhaps this was just his normal state of existence.

Kaz protested, almost as if offended by Emre's perception of long-lived isolation. Emre smiled, listened as Kaz sorted his thoughts aloud. No that wasn't right; it was more like Kaz was turning on the lights in an unused room in his mind, dusting off the cobwebs in a somewhat exasperated way. For Emre's benefit. They circled back to the 'magical bollocks'.

"Alright, right. So..." Emre bobbed closer, gesticulating as he tried to sort out Kaz's timeline. A nebulous string - tangled, frayed, chopped in so many places. Emre skipped over Kaz's childhood part, which he assumed was well overdrawn account by now, to pay for Emre's curiousity about mother and father and siblings.

"You dumped Georgina's arse. Then you got plenty mates in Seattle, once you bounced from your parents' place. You...joined a cult and might've even had a sprog? Fucking hell, I didn't quite know about that. A little Kazzy..." Emre's smile turned dozy and lopsided, thinking about that.

"Right, then you did some work with my mum. And the investigating journalist and that. You settled in with that girl of yours...what was her name again? Carmen, innit. But you disappeared, and ended up here. Managed to make some more mates on the island...but for some reason or another, they all eventually disappeared, from you. So you disappeared again, unable to reach out to them what made your life here bearable."

Not that Kaz hadn't tried. Emre made grunting sounds of assent, listening to Kaz's attempts to reach mentors and mates on the island. Only to receive radio silence in return. "You was left completely alone, then." Death wasn't much of an excuse, not coloured by Kaz's brutal history with loss. If these mates had died alone in the forest, it was just as bad as purposely ignoring Kaz's attempts to reconnect.

Kaz scanned the area, and Emre resisted the urge to turn and see what he was looking for. His old mates? The shadow people who haunted his nights, flickering in between the trees? Random enemies or trespassers in general? Being Emre, he couldn't help also admiring Kaz stood up in the water, water beads sparkling like jewels on is dark golden skin. He looked delicious, worthy of worship. It felt right, to be wading down in the water, gazing up at Kaz, his wet thick hair framed in blue sky.

Kaz's sudden grin sent a thrill up Emre's spine, and he stood up in the water too with arms open wide, only to wrap around Kaz in a tight squeeze. "See how much I worry about you? You're getting all weird and all, by your lonesome. I've got to keep you in check, babes." He bounced them in the water, ostensibly the best time to lift Kaz off his feet by just arm strength alone. "I might as well get weird with you, ey?"

'Better than being alone', Emre almost added. He believed that, quite selfishly. He was about....80% sure Kaz felt the same way. Maybe 75%; so he kept the thought to himself.

As Emre held Kaz tight in the water, he nodded and supplied kisses on Kaz's shoulder for every new small rule. An informal but official checklist. Emre didn't protest or argue. Currently this was all novelty, so he appreciated the learning curve.

"Soz. I really wanted to hear you strum your guitar, but strumming my instrument was more urgent, wasn't it." Feeling refreshed and energized, Emre headed back onto the shore, into the cool shade of the mangrove. He collected the sack and guitar after getting his clothes back on. The sun was setting now, and the cool wetness made Emre shiver a little.

"That fire'll be nice," he commented, motioning for Kaz to go one first, so Emre would follow. The sweet acknowledgement from Kaz, fingers on his neck. Emre didn't even tense up anymore. He loved it, in fact. "Mummy couldn't cook! I mean she could, but not as good as abu. She was more about them English dishes, innit. Stuffed Iyaz full of egg and chips. I learned from Dadi before she died. Dunno, reckon some part of me knew I'd be minding Yaz on my own one day, so I needed to learn something, innit."

He buffed his hip against Kaz's ass as they walked. "Urmilla never fed you? I'm sure she did, she mightn've have known how to make a proper beef korma, but she did make sure her boys ate well." A pause, and then, "What you think and feel about her is important, you know. It's important to me."

[kazxraval]

Out in the water, Kaz was more head in the clouds. Quiet, comfortable. Making a return to reality from the cocoon of someone's talented hands and addictive kisses. Aware of the surroundings as he watched Emre, the brightest glint on the slow waves around them.

Alright, right. So... As though they've been interrupted mid-interview by a commercial break. "I didn't join a cult." Correction. "I fucked a girl who joined a cult." Without protection. Not the brightest idea. "It was one time." Which was probably said when it happened, as a preventative measure.

"Carmen, yeah." Reverent as always, not only because Carmen had been the one there when Kaz went missing. Had to deal with the aftermath of a lousy ex she'd argued with 12 hours earlier suddenly falling off the face of the earth. "What's up with the timeline, writing an article on me or something?"

A lazy shrug. "I couldn't stay on the beach. I'd keep people awake at night." A truth. Not entirely explained, but. A part of the truth nonetheless. "This way became easier. And, listen. Lots of people end up alone." Like Emre himself. For all the thoughts on Kaz he collected and tried to knit together, didn't the parallels stand out? "You've been there too." Locked up and abused by feds. Ordered into a sparse desert by the military. Running scared through an empty house screaming for his mummy?

Emre locked arms around Kaz, who wasn't entirely prepared to be... lifted? Moved? Shaken, jostled, bounced for fuck's sake. With a playfulness which refused to be contained. An aggressive lightness and... joy. Yes. That was it. No boundaries, no asking for permission. An unrestrained joy.

He hung his arms over Emre's shoulders, as there wasn't much else to do. I might as well get weird with you, ey. "You've been weird for a minute, Em." Kaz peeled a wet hand away to bring to his mouth. He kissed the palm a few times, with eyes on Emre.

'Strumming my instrument' got a hiss and snicker from Kaz. "Best thing I've ever played," he murmured while sloshing out of the surf. Time to brush off the sand, get back into his shorts. Emre's voice sounded as pretty as he looked. Kaz wondered what the last words would be before trailing off to sleep. He also wondered how the hell is this gonna work? Terrifying and strange, and yet curious. Especially for this first night.

Kaz led on the path to the grotto. And listened. Until nudged to talk about Urmilla. "Mm," he delayed. "She made haleem a couple of times. But, according to her it didn't come out quite right." Actually, yeah, it kind of tasted like shit. Kaz remembered saying as much, and the bright ring of Urmilla's laugh in agreement.

With hesitation, he continued. The last thing Kaz wanted was to spin tales on all the times Urmilla did anything for him to the son she left behind. "And she went through a phase of making different types of sweets. Mostly, though. We'd meet at a biryani place." Not so much cooking for me as buying a meal.

Not entirely skirting the point of the conversation, but. "If someone hurt you, they're not allowed back in your life just because you're related. But, if she can, well. In a perfect world, I'd want you two to be closer. As adults."

An apologetic grin, as Kaz's definition of motherhood proved stringent, unrealistic. However. "I think she wants that for you both. Do you?"

In the grotto, Kaz took back everything Emre carried to return to their rightful spots. He also pointed out Emre's bags by the bed. "There's your stuff. Need a hoodie or something warmer to wear? I made a fireplace in here, with an exhaust to the outside. I can fire it up if you're cold. You know where to rinse off." A memory lingered of Emre, naked and held by Kaz. Back arched, eyes closed under the run off stream of a makeshift shower. Arms spread wide to accept something from the universe that in the moment had been undefinable (for Kaz at least).

Kaz quickly rinsed and changed too into a pair of jersey shorts to pad around the room in. Once he had Emre's attention again, Kaz gave a brief tour of where dinner would be prepared. As well as supplies: citrus and spices, herbs and fruit gathered or picked up from the farm the day before, all stored in an airtight container.

Another container with various implements (knife, cutting board, bucket for freshwater), which Kaz gathered and took to an kitchen area just outside the 'door'. He spoke as he moved about. "Said you can scale and gut fast. I'll get you set up. Let me know what else you need. Should we grill? Or pan fry?"

With dinner underway, Kaz hovered nearby. Mostly to watch Emre and listen to the chatter. Or to pick at and pop ingredients being prepared in his mouth.

Isela made a wine. Er, she called it a wine. Red, fermented, potent. Worked about the same. "It's not for the faint of heart." Slowly, Kaz poured a small glass. As he did, he asked. "I was thinking about something. Did you ever want anyone to know everything about you." A pause to sip the strong concoction, blood red liquid filled almost to the brim of a small glass jar.

The drink was offered to Emre. Perhaps his turn had arrived to do a little interviewing. "Your brother didn't know everything about you. Did you want him to? Or anyone at all?" Melody didn't know the whole story of Emre either, did she? What about the bestie back home? "Ever had that person to confide it all in?"

[avnj0gia]

[emreakbar]

"Piss off," Emre warbled between guffaws, clearly amused by Kaz's crass wit. It appealed to the lingering cobwebs of Emre's 12-year-old self. And it was incredible that Kaz still had some boyishness in him. That it hadn't been beaten out or shamed by cruel family.

Pressing his lips together, Emre counted on his fingers. "You did drop out of school, ever did jailtime, luv? Knock someone up...well you do try. Really hard." Emre snickered at his own crass jokes. But he ended with a slightly wistful sigh as he added, "So glad I never made any kids."

What was it like for Kaz, being pulled out of school, forced to work for his father. Shame and hatred, fueling determination to escape. Freedom, a life controlled by no one but himself.

"C'mon man, I've never seen you scared of fuck. A few pigs wouldn't've frighten you." Emre shook his head, clucked his tongue. "I was scared all the time, mate. That's what the drugs is for innit."

He looked up at Kaz, not wanting to pity the other man. Instead, Emre just let himself feel sad, about Iyaz, about Ani. Kaz's tentative yearning was soft and unformed as jelly, for a sister he couldn't save. Forever haunted by regret, death of a thousand cuts. Desperation was a terrifying motivator, Emre knew. "I used him. I used Yaz to justify everything I did. Told myself I didn't regret about nothing, because it were all done for him. I sometimes hated him for it. We're all selfish at the end of it, innit." Except the dead ones. "Asshole and bellend."

Mum, Urmilla. A strangely lighter topic. "I'm bloody grateful she's still alive. I miss my mummy though, not...Urmilla. She's someone you know better yeah? Dunno if that makes sense. Reckon I never saw her as a woman, when I was little. I saw her as 'mum'." And then Emre grew up without her, and suddenly she was a person who happened to be his mother. He nudged Kaz. "How do you feel about her?"

Emre did hand out I love yous easily - to mates on the island, to his beloved brother. With Kaz it was different, but Emre had no idea how to differentiate. To hear Kaz's neutral agreement was normal. To hear Kaz say it back was...extraordinary, even with the spotlight shone on 'man' tacked on at the end. A wobbly weakness fluttered through Emre's muscles; a weakness he rather liked feeling. Because it was about Kaz.

"Yeah," he replied lightly. Emre should've left it there, but he kept rambling: "Sounds a bit stupid when we say it aloud, don't it. I mean it's - it's true though. Love you more than anything, I do. I really, really do. But yeah - yeah, it's bloody stupid aloud." A puff of his chest, a definitive nod. "We know. Is obvs innit. We just know it." Like real men.

Hearing about relief from Kaz, was as surprising as the returned proclamation of love. Emre didn't hide the surprise from his face. "You really feel relief? You? I fucking love it here; the moment Tomas explained it all to me. This island is a dream come true. Even Kotka, even my exile, even all them magical bollocks." Emre shrugged. "No surprise I felt relief, escaping all that...that London shite. And meeting you, fucking hell. Cherry on top."

He reached up, to hold the back of Kaz's neck, under his thick hair. Emre's fingers bunched into the tendons of Kaz's neck, only realizing belatedly how content he was to feel Kaz holding him by the scruff. "But you, luv. From the time I met you, it were clear how much you hated all of this, yeah. So relief, for you? What's changed."

What did Emre want now. The answer was so simple, Emre stood still, and looked Kaz in the eyes. Tilted his head without breaking eye contact. Emre just smiled, and admired Kaz straight-on. A bare-arsed, unafraid gaze of pure adoration for this tousled, stone-faced man; who, when he did choose to smile, it hit every tender corner and lilted angle of his perfect face. And it lit up Emre's world. "What do we want now."

Kaz whispering an echo for forgiveness, but for seemingly nothing. Until the spiky defense-system kicked back into place, Kaz's hand-raked irritation over his living, nurturing mother, or perhaps being questioned again about his mother. Kaz's reply once again shutting down any avenue (and yet Emre kept opening them up). "Clean and sharp, my Kazzy. No mess, ever. Don't miss a final beat on anyone." Astaghfirullah indeed.

Much more fun to parse out themselves, each other in some greater context. He barked a laugh at Kaz's snark, but there was a slight quibble of seriousness to it. Could Emre swagger around, talking about how much he fancied Kaz? In truth, he rarely did that about women in his past. Bragged about the shagging sure; but not the feelings part of it.

"Erm...dunno if there's a direct translation, actually," Emre tried to focus, but his mind was popping like a firecracker at Kaz even asking the question. Boyfriend. A casual, insane question. Emre stopped turned to a tree, addressing it. "Right, Kaz is mine. We're together, yeah? I'll kill anyone who gets between us, got it? Glad we can sort that out, you're alright mate." He handshook a tree branch, then turned to beam up at Kaz. "That felt fucking good."

Things felt even better in the hammock - Kaz had chosen the perfect place to release whatever strange, pent-up tension they'd collected separately, for unknown reasons. Emre still didn't understand their mutual circling after everything they'd been through together, but. Going forward that circle was going to get tighter, smaller. They'd agreed on it. And Emre could taste that promise on Kaz's skin, hear it in his growls and feel it in his strong hands that tugged and teased and stroked Emre into happy oblivion. It wouldn't be another case of a night smashing together, aggressive and passionate, only to orbit away again for days, sometimes weeks.

There was nothing Emre liked better, he realized, that looking right at Kaz as they pulled each other to heightened precipice. It was intense, possibly intrusive; but Kaz looked back and he wasn't afraid. He whispered beautiful words and Emre swallowed them down in ravenous kisses and eager bites. It was all too much, and it wasn't enough. And it was also perfect. Perfect, sticky, wet, and out of breath from release. Tendrils of desire still clung to Emre, and he knew Kaz felt the same way in his soft touch, the returned tender, sweat-soaked kisses.

A miracle in itself, Kaz still had ways to speak - followed by a laugh so airy that Emre wasn't sure it was even real, but he wanted to hear it again. He half fell off the hammock in an eager stumble, grabbing Kaz's arm and tugging him off the hammock too. "C'mon," he didn't release Kaz's hand, giving them no choice but to slip through the trees until their feet pressed into wet muddy sand, and then their spent bodies hit ocean water again. Emre bolted right in, reaching for Kaz's arms with both his hands, to spin them into the gentle lapping waves.

"Ahhhh. This is paradise," he exhaled, closing his eyes and kicking off, to float for a moment. He still held Kaz's hand though, not wanting to let go. "I need to get some more sun cream on though. Reckon staying with you means more sunburn, innit."

Getting back on his feet, Emre shamelessly scrubbed himself clean in the saltwater, lazily gazing around. It was such a private spot, he marveled. "I can imagine you spending months here alone, talking to no one." Emre turned, to look at Kaz. "Was that how it was, for 13-odd years? You, choosing to be completely alone and separated from everyone else here?"

[kazxraval]

The cheeky bastard listed off those preemptively charged with crimes. A nice touch with the counting off on a hand. Funny to Kaz now, after so many years. No need to explain to Emre how low expectations dented a youthful psyche at the time.

"Are you. Because you already raised one?" Iyaz, quite the big kid. "Sometimes I wonder if I've got one out there. Think I've told you. The hippie chick who lived in a big house with 12 others-- it was probably a cult, honestly." He stopped talking. Not to be coy, but because Kaz sometimes lost interest in his own words.

Emre's bravado usually entered the room first. But he'd also shared a a particularly vulnerable time with Kaz. Fucking horrifying. Locked away, scared, unsure if he'd ever see Iyaz again.

Another confession. A collective selfishness cemented by a simple acknowledgment. Not sealed away or brushed asied, but chiseled onto a tombstone and on display. Maybe put to rest, as they continue to live on.

"It was also selfish to leave you with a kid." Oh Nadia, oh Urmilla. True, they knew two different women in the same form. And Emre lost two mothers. "Don't think how I feel is important." His lips pressed together and held a few beats. "It's time for her to get to know you again." The onus on Urmilla. Kaz wouldn't let her forget either.

It's bloody stupid aloud. He laughed quiet and scratched at an ear. "Yeah." Emre so right here. They know it. End of story. Too much said aloud and this, this. This whole thing was prone to shatter. And it was more than enough.

Emre gently landed on a few dots from the past. Kotka. A name that once sparked absolutely rage in Kaz. But now, his half-smile curved with satisfaction. The expression softened as he remembered: the train. Wanted Emre bad enough to later sneak into the exiled tiger's cage. Tea grew cold as they rolled around on the floor. What a time.

Magical bollocks. To be addressed later. Emre's hand on his neck was the magic. A trickle of excitement, anticipation. Goosebumps on his arms. Kaz cleared his throat to answer. "After being in Seattle. Seeing how it was. What was left there." Always the key, what was left behind? Georgie. His mother. Kaz's smile thinned. "I was gonna end it all once. Guess I hate it less now."

Still cautious too. Gujju grandparents, nazar. When everything fell into place, expect to face disaster. Break out the kajal again. For the meantime, a bright smile distracted. The we became powerful. What do we want now.

No mess, ever. "Yeah, so don't fuck with me." How much of himself did Kaz need to cut out with every tumor? A lot. Probably, a lot. Never bothered him before. Emre noticing? Not sure if it bothered more or not.

Emre dragged something else into conversation. Kaz watched and slung an arm around Emre's neck. "We're so gay," he drawled to address Emre's conversational partner. Head tipped lazily down with a mess of black waves falling over his eyes. With an almost emotionless expression on his face. Blank, if not for a dash of contempt around the mouth.

Breaking character, he gently pushed at Emre. "Are you alright? You talking to a tree over here..." Dragged back for a ruffle of hair, a quick and sloppy kiss.

Then, once on the beach, they became a singular gorgeous mess of longer kisses, possessive gropes and grasps. Sultry strokes in time to the swing of the hammock change shape to match enthusiastic gasps and moans. Emre never more sleek and muscular as when his back arched so perfectly, neck fully exposed to the sky, Adam's apple bobbing for a breath.

When sufficiently done with each other, Kaz draped heavily against Emre's side. Body and brain empty. Eyes closed, and he slipped the gold chain around his neck between his panting lips that finally exhaled a single contented sigh. Nestled sweaty and comfortably loose to Emre, whose cum still felt wet and warm on his stomach and palm.

God. Fuck. Kaz could actually fall asleep right then. The kind of sleep born from pure blissful exhaustion. The type that leaves one refreshed (was this possible??).

The moment Kaz gave in to the pull of sleep, he felt a different, alerting heaving on an arm, then hand in hand. Led towards the water, Emre's hands shifted to turn them. For a few seconds Kaz thought he was in a serene dream...

Until the splash of a small rolling wave woke him. His hand still in Emre's who kicked back to float along. Kaz sank into the water too, to wet his hair and wipe the grogginess out of his eyes. Something said about sun cream. Kaz had an answer. Later. In fact, the sun cream would probably turn up before Emre had a chance to get it himself.

Kaz crouched down to stay low in the water. He took advantage of the opportunity to watch Emre clean up, chattering away as usual. "I talked to people." Kaz frowned, as though the picture Emre painted was completely unrealistic. "I haven't been out here for 13 years either." A technicality invoked after the fact. Emre never saw the myriad of other shelters, over a decade worth by the mountains, in the jungle, secluded amongst the various trees, sand, rocks, locations no one bothered to investigate.

"It's called being self-sufficient." Or, Kaz didn't want to admit Emre was partly right.

His expression lightened. "I talked to people about all that 'magical bollocks' shit. Learned from them. It helped me a lot. We all had to learn, yeah? I don't know, guess I got on better with them than the rest." A pensive moment flickered across his face. Like the thought realized how out of place it looked on Kaz's otherwise blank stare and promptly departed. "They didn't make it long. The people I knew. Just disappeared one day, without a trace." What others did, really, in Kaz's world. Blipped out, without a word and no clues left behind. "Used to think they all found another side of the island and wanted to keep it to themselves." Kaz stood up in stomach deep water and splashed some over his chest and arms. "I thought about trying to find them. I sent messages out, like they taught me. No one answered."

He looked beyond Emre. The habit ingrained of scanning the distance for intruders. Then disguised the ritual paranoia with a small grin as he trudged closer to Emre. "Can't believe you really are interested in staying out here. Did I mention I'm impressed. Me, I'm okay now being a hermit. But you. Mr. Social Butterfly fluttering around the place."

"But, ah." Kaz scooped up Emre's hand, with water beaded over the blueish tattoos. "Can't get too complacent. We gotta prepare for night. Lock everything down. Keep a fire burning outside. Bring in what we need for the morning. I'll get it all ready before dinner. Doesn't take too long now. You'll get used to it."

"I am gonna make you carry everything I brought out here back." Most left in the sand as soon as Emre pushed them both in to the hammock. No complaints at all from Kaz. "You said you could scale and clean up the fish." He brushed a finger across where skin met hairline at the nape of Emre's neck. "Did your mum teach you how to cook?"

[emreakbar]

"I was a proper asshole," Emre agreed, slightly misunderstanding Kaz's proclamation. He did like the way Kaz said 'asshole' though - so American - and tried to say it the same. Aaaaass-oal.

Trying to imagine a youthful Kaz was surprisingly easy. There weren't many family photos in the Raval house for Emre to draw from. Yet Emre could envision young Kaz - close-cropped hair, craving for an unruly tousled length. Even more babyfat on his cheeks than now. A perpetual scowl, remnants of visible emotion that were now sand-blasted clean from Kaz's adult expression. "My ends it was all black, brown and Polish, mate. Any of them English kids was in trouble," Emre bared his teeth, a fond smile for a feral childhood. The idea that Kaz got spit on, drew an indignant grunt from Emre.

"You what? Fucking animals, man. You never finished school? Was it easy to do, like? To just...stop." Emre had barely staggered through his last grades, but. He knew his parents would've expected it of him. "Social services didn't come after you?"

A smirk, and a half-shrug. "Fancied myself a good mouth. That only lasted so long though." A pause, as Emre sifted through his memories; some seemed more fiction than reality. "You know other wastemans that would laugh, to see me as bossman's guard. Most guards is all heavyweights, I'm feather, innit" Emre bared his teeth again, this time a dog's snarl. "They never see it coming. Bossman liked that about me. Keeping me around."

And the jewels from the wedding necklace of that last boss's wife, were now a treasured gift bestowed onto Kaz. Emre reached for his other wrist, running his hands along the tasbih beads of Kaz's gift to Emre. Precious items, traded between the two of them with genuine care, not for status or performance.

Kaz falling into the ruse of Emre's sly attempts - and likely the wily Kaz could see right through it, but Emre didn't mind. He got what he wanted, and that's what mattered. "I love you, man. So much," Emre said, nothing smooth about the words. His voice was rough and soft, as he gazed up at Kaz. Idly wondering if there'd ever be a way to clear that insomnia-bruising from Kaz's deep clear eyes. Consecutive nights spent together; maybe Emre might get to witness the pattern of Kaz's sleepless haunts.

At first a small joking brush-off, which made Emre smile too. "Bruv, I imagine you wasn't exactly the monogamous sort, innit. Sweetheart at every port, you was." But Georgie was different; she was the first, before Kaz truly found a way to escape, and bloom. "Sometimes being controlled feels right," Emre spoke slowly, loud thinking. "Sometimes if that's what you know, then it's a matter of understanding two same things, but one's a lesser evil." Kaz grew up with master manipulators; and the moment he got a tiny glimpse of freedom, he fell in with Georgina. "Nah, not a dumb kid. You was just new. We all were."

Kaz's pace didn't stop. A rambling roll, a polished vision of casual saunter, packaged around a tightly coiled spring. And inside that spring...something deeper. But not something that hurt? Maybe not anymore. Emre wondered, for the umpteenth time, how Kaz did it. How he'd sandpapered his raw, painful nerves away, so successfully.

So Georgina had sensed something between Kaz and him. "You reckon she was jealous?" Emre considered it, then grinned. "I like being the one to be jealous of, if I'm honest. Usually I'm the jealous fucker."

'It was better to know'. Kaz made the statement, and it suited him so well. How he processed and handled things in his own life, at least. "Your Nani and my Dadi was like polar opposites, innit. Dadi would've hated you." Emre said that with vicious satisfaction. "Stupid old hag." Even now, he felt too disrespectful saying that out loud, and added a soft "Astaghfirullah" afterwards.

"A shame your Nana and Nani produced such a cunt for a daughter. Soz, is just. Honestly makes me pissed, thinking about it. Nothing to do about her now, except now we know she's still out there, innit. She survived all this mess. Don't that piss you off?"

Kaz's breath against Emre's ear, the nip of his teeth - it melted any other thoughts away. And that was fine, these moments were valuable and rare. Affection, even now, was so personal for them. Not private, but not public either. Emre was so used to being invasive in Iyaz and Peter's love life, or bragging loudly to his own mates about Melody or his other conquests. But Kaz wasn't there to be pulled apart and put on display for others. Kaz was his to explore, his alone.

That being said - "Right, so. Bruv. How do we, erm. How do we chat about each other? Y'know, to...to other people and that." Emre scratched the back of his head, looking up at Kaz and fully expecting a well-rounded response.

In the hammock was a different sort of language, responses singular to Kaz and no one else mattered. It was a heady thing, when Kaz became Emre's entire world. The feeling wasn't unfamiliar to Emre; for most of his life, Emre had situated Iyaz as the centre of his universe. But Kaz didn't depend on Emre. Technically, Kaz didn't need Emre, not in the way Iyaz did. (Not in the way Iyaz did not, not anymore.)

Every kiss, every hitch of his breath, every sultry sigh and throaty groan from Kaz. The feel of his warm skin, raw silk over marble. Every fascinating, delightful tattoo that inked his skin, covered him in history and stories that Kaz himself rarely voiced aloud. Emre nuzzled and licked and kissed Kaz's skin, a cat who couldn't get enough grooming. "How the fuck did I resist you for so long..." he wondered aloud, again. And again and again, probably. The amazement seemed unending.

He pulled back up to meet Kaz's eyes, as Emre stroked his hardness, made Kaz beautifully stiffer, leaking and pulsing. Emre was so hard too, and Kaz took full advantage of Emre's plea, took desperate anticipation to a new level. "Fuck - fucking - oh...yeah. That's right, darling." When Kaz's hand took control of Emre's cock, his strokes were gifted. And even better - knowing. Kaz knew what Emre liked. A few long gulps of air, some long arcs of his hips to set the pace, before Emre could return to earth with enough wherewithal to respond.

"Our game! You know, who gives in first. Got to admit, we're proper competitive, mate. We both like to be boss in bed, innit." Emre kissed Kaz hard before Kaz could deliver any witty repartee, determined to overwhelm Kaz. "I want to ruin you tonight, pyaari. See you do the same."

Kaz ducked his head to peer between them, so Emre did too. He was entranced by the sight, almost boyish wonder as his brain worked to match reality to fantasy, himself to their glistening bodies, together. Dark hair wet, stuck against bronzed skin. Kaz's fingers long enough to hold them both. And then - lick it.

Emre stopped and stared at Kaz, that slight curl to Kaz's mouth, a hot amusement tangled with unabated desire. The wetness collected in Kaz's flat palm. His words - not just the praise, but seeing Emre for who he was. Still holding Kaz's gaze, Emre set the flat of his tongue under Kaz's wrist and dragged up, into his palm. The burst of salt and pleasing sour - Emre's eyes couldn't help fluttering closed. He could feel Kaz's breath come closer, and captured his mouth without looking. Instinctive, half-feral as they kissed, wet and briny. Tasting each other and themselves - and Kaz somehow still narrating dirty pleasures.

"Never done that before," Emre panted, excited by the novelty. His hand still holding Kaz's dick, focussing on pumping them both to a peak. Emre was practically there, but he held back. "Never tasted my own cum before. Fuck." Another bared teeth, grinning and hungry. "Flipping hell. You're winning."

Emre settled on his side, making sure he never broke his gaze with Kaz. "You cum first, and you can fuck me later, yeah? I know you'd like that. I know you can go all night if you wanted. Fucking hell, to have that 27-year old energy again...unstoppable, you are. So give me what I need."

Pumping faster, Emre reached lower to cup his balls, squeeze the velvety girth before stroking up again. The jump and pulse of Kaz's dick making Emre's eyes hood, brow furrow in painful pleasure. Hair fell in Kaz's face, the tip of his nose flushing pink and shiny and Emre had to resist leaning in to suckle it. He refused to break eye-contact. "I want you to sort me out proper, Kazzy. So c'mon, my luv. Let it out, right in my hand; I'll lick it all off and swallow it all down."

[kazxraval]

"The two of us, proper asshole and a proper... bellend hey? " A brow lifted, Emre's vocabularly much more fun to use than his own. "Mhm, why we fit together." No, not what he initially meant, but it made Kaz think. A younger Emre, all of his feline ferociousness in look and manner. Forged in a vibrant corner of the referenced 'ends', rather than the tall evergreens that surrounded Kaz, one as identical as the next. A place that Kaz (and Emre too, for that matter) likely romanticized a bit too much for mutual enjoyment.

He laughed under his breath. "Yeah, it was easy. My mother didn't care." Did she even respond to the announcement? He couldn't remember. "My father predicted it. He always said I'd knock someone up, drop out of school, end up in jail. The guy had such high hopes for me."

But Kaz smiled because in other ways he'd proved Mr. Ravel wrong. "My father drove me up to the high school to withdraw me from classes himself. Gave parental consent and all. Then he said if I wasn't in school, I had to work for him. So it backfired a bit, but. I was able to save up some cash and leave."

They never see it coming. Like on the boat. They had no time to scream, not even a whimper. So much happened, again in those ends, to channel into a protective viciousness. To make himself valuable. "I would've been scared to get caught, but the money." Clearly the risk worth the cash. Not just supporting himself and his brother, not merely independence. Freedom. Fuck you money, his uncle used to call that kind of wealth. Still, the vivid retelling of how the feds cornered and abused Emre in his mind.

"I think about how you sent him to school." Insulated from a lethal and sharpened as a prison toothbrush brother. "I respect it. Just, like. You took care of him best you could." A wobble of the head, a shrug of the shoulder. He did nothing for Ani, other than provide false hope. A poorly timed selfishness. Kaz wasn't interested in a shameless confession today, and returned to Emre. "How you feeling about Urmilla these days?"

I love you, man. Kaz perceived nothing at all romantic about it. I love you, man. Saved for friends. Deep, and sweet, certainly. I love you, a band of loyalty around hearts, rather than the soft, giddy crush of beats in time with I'm in love with you.

A smile, a laugh. Flustered too, for some reason. "Yeah." Thankful to not be drunk or deviate sloppily into Emre's space. Not to allow emotion to point out neon clues already left a hundred times by Kaz. Or the tendency to flippantly deep freeze whatever anyone said, neutralize real words when Kaz felt emotionally out of his depth (a more difficult challenge).

Instead, his mouth wanted to try it out. Test them while not being too hung up on the sounds. Send them as burning effigies upwards in the air so they could never be caught. Maybe the little embers and ash might rain down on the two of them anyway. "I love you." Said low and quiet. The longer he looked at Emre, the grin on Kaz's face warmed through his nose, browline, jaw, ears. "Man."

A casual lift of the shoulders over the monogamy thing. "After Georgie? Yeah, I guess." He sucked in his lower lip. "Mm-mm. Nope. Don't seem right to me," tolerating this no-win dichotomy of the unbearable. From Kaz's perspective, Emre spoke about himself. If anyone had grown, it was the man he couldn't keep his hands off of. He scratched through the shorter hair at the back of Emre's neck. Quiet for a long moment.

"We're so far from it now. All that shit." Choices. They had actual choices now. Curtailed by where they were, sure. But real ones. "You feel it? Took me a minute to trust it. That feeling." Years. "That... relief?" Like the deep breath he exhaled. "Relief. Whatever it is."

This felt connected to the chat earlier, about Iyaz. "We talked about it before." Emre hadn't given it thought at the time, but maybe now. There was nothing to sacrifice anymore. "What do you want now. You can have anything."

"Georgie tried to make me jealous all the time. I hated it. So, payback." Further disparaging, this time about Dadi. Stupid old hag, and then mildly remorseful. "Astaghfirullah," another whisper, imitated in an attempt to not flatten the phrase by his accent.

Emre hadn't taken the hint about leaving conversation of Kaz's mother behind. Kaz glanced off into the trees. Head shaking, wetting his lips. Hand in a quick rake through his hair. Family, honor, all those things, particularly cultural pillars he should've had. Those things did not exist.

"Fuck yeah, it pisses me off." By what he saw, his mother took care of a child. A woman who couldn't be bothered to look after her own, suddenly fucking maternal in the dystopian present? "What am I supposed to do? Go hunt her down? Trust me, she's hardly worth the effort. Can't give yourself away to people who give you nothing." Or him, Kaz meant himself.

How do we chat about each other? "Tell people you fancy me," Kaz said, self-satisfied and without skipping a beat. Emre had rapid-fired a few questions at Kaz that demanded answers.

Favorite. Jaan. Their names for each other, he thought while looking at Emre. Nothing else truly fit. Emre wanted an accessible label. A claim, for others. Kaz brushed fingers over his beard, and then cast his eyes forward. A breeze didn't alleviate how hot he felt all over. "I've never had a boyfriend." That made two of them. "How do you say it in Urdu?"

The hammock held temporary but no less pressing matters. Gorgeously aggressive kissing, as though they'd been freed from painful and sexless quarantine. Emre's long nose commanded Kaz's chin to lift and make room for a warm breath and tongue to path across Kaz's skin. Shorts further shimmied down to curl lightly calloused fingers around a thick cock. The one Kaz gleefully admitted to dreaming about in the very spot they'd fallen into.

No resisting anyone now, and no dreaming either. Emre's mouth shut Kaz up and fed him all the same: I want to ruin you tonight, pyaari. Kaz's excitement registered in grunts and taking a handful of whatever could be reached for himself. Emre's fuck and darling prompted by the glide of Kaz's hand already a turn on. But now there was a promise for them both to uphold.

Kaz offered the heat of his palm and a tiny jewel to taste. Mingled sweat, a bare pearl of precum, desire in the literal palm of Kaz's hand. Without hesitation, and without shying away, Kaz watched the long, lovely drag of Emre's tongue. A little shiver followed as a parallel companion up his own spine. Ripples for every deep, wild kiss between them. "I can't get enough of you," he passed on between their lips.

Never done that before. Kaz's breaths came quick and shallow. "It's new to me too." Seeing Emre like that certainly was. A little bit of wickedness always lived in Emre's grin. Somehow it shared ground with a myriad of expressions (amusement, sarcasm, lust, even a spike of cruelty). Emre looked like a young vampire in the shine of the night, ready for a meal.

A look that drove Kaz to impatiently shift them face to face and cocooned. Their arms crossed over, with Kaz running a wet thumb pad across the head of Emre's cock. At the same time, it was Emre's hand working him, the lock of his gaze, and changing up the 'game' that sent Kaz into a frenzy.

Yes, he would like to fuck Emre later. He would carve painstaking works of art into Emre's skin with tongue, teeth, fingertips. Then fuck him so hard he wouldn't be able to walk straight for a week. And all he had to do was cum? To be rewarded, and in turn receive the biggest prize of them all? The thought drove a louder groan of him. Emre's possessive gropes and grabs of the most sensitive areas dragged a growl out of Kaz, and the whole hammock shuddered.

"I want you so bad," Kaz managed, an airy gasp. Even with vision obscured by hair and the absolute lush building pleasure about to snap Kaz in half, he still made out Emre's eyes. Never mirrored, but they absorbed every detail in front of the man. Kaz never felt so studied, or worshipped, or adored. Over a hand job.

Which made it near impossible to keep steady and heavy strokes on Emre's cock, as much as Kaz didn't want to neglect. His feet pushed deeper against the hammock's canvas. In the ecstasy of Emre's grip, he didn't have to give any warning. Hell, Emre could likely read it in the lift of his hips, strain on his face, the autopilot of eyes shut tight and jaw dropped to say Emre's name.

The last moan arrived more satisfied than hungry. Breathless in the best way as he spilled in Emre's hand, a line on himself like a wet paintbrush shook over a canvas. Already in a reach to pull Emre in for a kiss, the need to be even closer, skin on skin, only slowed in order to watch the aftermath. His fingers loose around Emre's cock suddenly fully back to life, snug and ready to not leave anyone hanging.

Fuck, that was good." A laugh so light it almost lost its way between the wind and them. From a whirling, dizzy sensation despite the fact Kaz was on his back. Giddy, maybe.

[emreakbar]

It wasn't entirely surprise from Kaz when Emre tried to leg-flank him from above, but it was something distinct. Perhaps bemusement, or at least unexpected (different from 'surprise'? Emre figured Kaz appreciated a good bit of semantics, when needed). Regardless, Kaz recouped gracefully - by Emre's standards, at least. What was more graceful than immediately sloping into heady dick-chat, after all.

"Acting like I could give you a fright," Emre teased right back, grinning now, all swagger. Putting on a show for Kaz was as easy as leaning into him, kissing him, stroking him...now, at least. It took Emre a while to accept all his desires for this man; no small thanks to Kaz giving him chance after chance to grow into this new manliness.

"Bruv, the schoolyard was relentless about these flappers!" But Emre only chuckled as he tapped the flower at his ear; the sound of remembering a childhood where Emre gave as good as he got. "Can't imagine you'd get teased by anyone in school, eh? Maybe the little girls who saw you was fit."

On the island, Emre had only ever retrofit old buildings that were already there, for him an Iyaz. Starting from scratch - him and Kaz together - had a certain house-proud charm to it. Emre's cunning sunk teeth into his plans. If he and Kaz built the place together, with Emre keeping them both in mind for the structure and design, they'd end up building a home for two. Not Emre safely tucked here in the mangrove (it didn't slip Emre's notice that Kaz likely chose this location to keep Emre tucked away, hidden, safe. Just like Kaz's grotto, for himself.) and Kaz over in his grotto. It would take time to build, too. Lots of ways for Emre to seep his way into Kaz's day-to-day, fuse their arteries and veins together, until there was no other way to keep the blood pumping. No other way to keep alive, but together.

It sounded like a good plan, in Emre's head.

"I'll need somewhere to crash whilst we get on building this new home, innit. We still got to collect tools, supplies, then building might take..." Emre gave a low whistle, as if he was some expert builder totting up numbers in his head. "Ooooh, about a few weeks, innit. Months, even." Emre gazed up innocently at Kaz. "Where'd I stay during all that?"

A slight, teasing half-smile. "Your little waterfall office, maybe?"

They headed to the hammock, Emre bumping amiably against Kaz as they walked, as if he couldn't bear to be more than a few centimeters apart. "Why did Georgie want you?" Emre had to ask, curiously. "Aside from the obvious, I mean. Why did she choose you to...get possessive over? Not like she couldn't have her pick, I'd wager. Doubt she had other sidemen at the same time as you, right. You was it, innit. Granted," Emre curled his arm around Kaz's waist, a quick squeeze. "I understand why she was so possessive."

He drummed his fingers on the guitar. "Bet she wanted you to have a special song for her and everything, innit." A slight pause, then more curiously. "She what. What's she look at me like."

Kaz's lips pressed against his scrub of hair, a hitch of warm breath that trickled down Emre's scalp, made him exhale in shaky pleasure. He wanted to sink under the comforting weight of Kaz's arm slung around his shoulders, surround himself with Kaz's breath, his scent, his weight. All of it. It was like an addiction, and at Kaz's question, Emre almost said he wanted to cry now. "Was I crying over you?"

Kaz had a point, his learning of reality harsh and early in his life. "What you reckon is better? Living a rose-tinted life only to have it all smash apart, or always knowing your fam was fucked in the head?" As for the mention of Emre's dad, that small loyal resistance still cropped up. "Abu was likely the most normal of us all. That poor bastard. He would've..." Emre paused, considered. Would Omar have adored Kaz Raval? Urmilla clearly loved Kaz, and Emre was glad for it. A childish worry cropped in Emre, those old, traditional vestiges of wanting to make his abu proud of him. Of not shaming his father. Living up to everything his dad sacrificed for his sons.

"Abu's not alive, man. Mum is sure he died, that - that night they left us. She'd...she'd know best. He's gone. What you saw in London was a memory, not reality." But it was terrifying and touching that Kaz wanted to impress the man. Emre held onto him a bit tighter for it.

And felt himself relax, surprisingly, when Kaz said he didn't mind Emre seeing his childhood home. "You really don't mind? I'll say it, man - I felt sorry for you. You and little sister. Even her little twin too, honestly. You was raised by monsters. And I know you know this, alright? Just know I know it too." Emre swallowed, shook his head and continued. "I tried to find some good in your mum. Seeing her - the real her in Seattle - I wanted something to redeem her, yeah. It didn't happen. It's still hard for me to understand it, mate. But I get what you got nothing left to explore with her, yeah."

But Kaz was right. It was madness to see all that - his childhood life, and Kaz's - but it also felt right. Whatever the crystals had designed for them, they'd lived though. And they were here no, with plans of homes and lives together, and an easy proximity that Emre needed to close immediately.

On the hammock, swinging dangerously only adding to the excitement. It was clumsy and uncoordinated, but Emre trusted in the fit. The way they slotted and slipped and fit against each other, like the right key sliding into a lock. Kaz returned the kissing in kind, all illicit moans and wicked teeth and clever tongue put to good use. Emre groaned, loud and needy, as he gently rutted against Kaz's body. Eating up each other's air wasn't enough, Emre wanted that tingly friction everywhere, full contact.

Kaz provided; Kaz always readily provided. The lack of resistance, the utter devotion that Kaz pushed onto Emre - it was something he'd never take for granted again. Something he'd never be frightened of again, to reject it. Losing Kaz's focus, being outside of Kaz's attention - it was like being set adrift in a dark and silent ocean, all alone.

The hammock suddenly jolted into steadiness - Kaz grounding them, as Emre gave an approving grind against Kaz's own heated hips. Long hair half-masked Kaz's face, giving him the roguish look of a man determined to behave badly. And do it well, when his hands hitched Emre up, to a perfect alignment. "Oh fuck me--!" Emre splayed a hand over Kaz's chest to keep himself upright. Fingers tracing tattoos, dark soft hairs, plummy nipples that Emre curved in to nip at - one, then the other. Tongue stroking up Kaz's sternum, over golden skin and a bobbing throat, back up to Kaz's receptive mouth.

Emre kept perfect control, until he didn't. And that was the beauty of Kaz, he knew. This man could flip Emre on his back, and then some. His man could do whatever he damn well wanted. And Emre would want it too, badly.

"You could, and I'd thank you for it. You beautiful bastard, and you know it too, don't you. Least we've got all day to play at this game, innit..." Emre purred contentedly, his hand slipping from Kaz's neck, walking down his gorgeous frame and into his shorts. Using Kaz's twined leg as a brace, Emre could lean back, open space up to wrap his hand around Kaz's hardness. A contented, watery sigh, as Emre started to stroke him.

Kaz's eyes skating over him, taking satisfying inventory that Emre was proud to show off. Kaz's voice, soft and melodic in his beckon, only for Emre. "Only you," Emre whispered on Kaz's lips, before imparting a kiss. "Only me."

The prospect of Kaz fucking someone else on the island, still didn't bother Emre, when he thought about it. So smug, so sure that this - this timbre in Kaz's voice, this bratty desire, this warm, intense eye contact - was only for Emre. The thought was as heady as the velvety firm heat cradled in Emre's palm.

"Touch me too," Emre cajoled right back, his eyes creasing in the pain of anticipated, overwhelming pleasure. "Please, darling."

[kazxraval]

Flappers. "Kids are assholes." Emre often asked questions in an unanticipated way. Emre's queries slipped unnoticed into a card deck of conversation, then revealed at just the right moment.

What did Emre do with all the answers?

"School was the lesser of two evils." One place safer than the other. "You know what it's like. Usually some insecure white kid, older. Trying to 'big dog' you or a friend. If you stand up to them or make them flinch, most of the time they'll back off." "And, hm. I remember riding the bus home and being spit on. Back in middle school, because I looked different. You deal with it. Count the days until you can leave. Or drop out, that's what I did. And went my own merry way." His chin lifted. "You smooth-talked your way out of everything, yeah?" A trail of broken necks and slit throats were left on a ship in Puget Sound, but he convinced with words too. This made Emre dangerously attractive.

A handful of minutes ago, the overnight bag in the grotto signaled a trial run. As they talked, Emre not-so-casually hinted at a more solid, structural foundation. The little shit. He was smooth, wasn't he?

"Mm. I've got most of the tools we need. Supplies aren't gonna be too difficult." Stony faced and serious. "Alright, you can stay at the waterfall." Kaz allowed the suggestion several long and awkward seconds of breathing room before the tease. "But won't you get cold up there?"

Why did Georgie want him? Again, not a question Kaz ever asked himself. At first, he gave an amused reply. "Aside from the sex? I dunno. I'm not worthy of having a psycho ex-girlfriend, is that the deal?"

A pause to rewind the tape. Review moments long forgotten. "You ever know anyone who's a compulsive liar? For attention? She wore people down with that shit. Any time Georgie thought she was going to lose something, she'd go into overdrive concocting lies for sympathy." Or to fool, to distract, her personal sleight of hand. "I remember one of the first times we broke up. She called me up crying, hysterical. Said her brother beat her up. I told her I'd come get her, offered to go fuck up her brother. This is what she did to people. To me. And then she'd disappear for a few days. Show up again after. Act all normal, like none of it happened. No bruises on her or anything, so it was obvious Georgie made it all up."

"I don't think she forgot the lie. She got me back, at that point. She got me talking to her again. So the lie served no purpose anymore." Georgie's delusions sounded hard to swallow for an adult Kaz. "I was a dumb kid. It was my first real relationship, you know." No need to further defend poor decisions.

In Seattle, the lightbulb gone off in Georgie's head had been so visible. His gaze glanced to the hollow tap of Emre's fingers on the guitar. "She could tell I liked you." Did he dare go further?

Was I crying over you? Kaz shook his head no. Then, he answered the next question without hesitation. "It's better to always know." While Kaz never questioned before, he could not help but to in the moment. Had Urmilla really told her son everything about that night, and Abu? This thought ran through Kaz's mind, even as Emre moved on to speak about Kaz's own mother.

"It hasn't bothered me since I was a kid." A reply of assurance. An example that Kaz inherently understood the particular Ravel mother-son dynamic from the beginning. A real-life example of better to always know. "Nani was more a mother to me anyway. I used to imagine she was my real mother. I'd tell people that." Drawn to Nani, pulled to Nadia as well, for meals and a particular doting on that seemed unfamiliar yet right.

But not fair to explain it to the man who hovered, haloed by light. The thin cartilage of Emre's ears (flappers) glowed deep red-orange lit by the sun. Perfectly outlined for Kaz to lean up and gently bite a lobe, lick a curve.

Want became their own personal sun, hotly built between an anxious roll of their hips. Puffed out of their mouths between sighs, held them in the hammock like an extra set of arms around them. Kaz's shoulder lifted when teeth lightly grazed a nipple. His body arched under Emre's tongue. Exhales turned to eager sounds, an ask for more. Emre played expertly by touch. From the beginning, really. When they were like this, he could get music to flow out of Kaz easily. "What game...?" A cheeky remark went unfinished, the rest obliterated by a deep-throated sound as Emre's fingers curled around him. Part growl, part whine. Only you, only me. Kaz moaned an agreement in Emre's mouth and gently bucked to rock into a generously stroking hand.

Kiss me. Touch me too. Not demands, but small pleas. The backs of Kaz's fingers ghosted down down Emre's stomach and sides of his thighs to carve a path of shivers. The last bit of teasing before Kaz peeled as much fabric between them down. A knuckle traced the trail of hair from a lovely navel to waistband. There, Kaz's hand dipped into the heat of Emre's shorts. Kaz looked down between them. Nothing new in the details, but oh how the view never failed to enthrall. Golden bellies jumped with jittery breaths. A flash of thicker hair below the belt that Kaz wanted to bury his face into. The literal pulse of excitement as Kaz gently dragged his fingertips along the head of a pretty cock. One that could make his jaw ache so damn good.

He took his hand away to press to his mouth. Kaz inhaled, he licked to wet the palm. Then he offered it to Emre. "Go on. Lick it. Tastes like us." His other hand rested on Emre's shoulder. "You're so fucking hot, Em." Perched and poised, fully in control of Kaz's dick. "I can tell when you're excited. I can taste it on your skin, when you're really horny." Pheromones, he guessed.

Kaz clung to Emre's arm and leaned up to kiss him. His term to murmur through a kiss. "The head of your dick is slick. I can taste that too." Back his hand went, massaging Emre's cock pointedly.

"I'm always out in this hammock thinking about you doing this to me." At first, they worked at competing but off time speeds. Sloppy slaps that had Kaz slack-jawed and smiling, panting happily. Uttering curses for Emre to hear. "Faster."

Eyes locked with Emre, at least when his eyelids weren't fluttering. When Kaz felt high and tight and a shudder broke loose through his body, or exhaling on Emre's name. His hand didn't waver either, with wet strokes intended to satisfy Emre now rather than tease. Kaz shifted a little towards a hip. "Come lie down here. Next to me. We're gonna see who cums first."

[emreakbar]

Emre's skin flushed hot, at Kaz's carefully spoken praise. Like a Hindi song lyric taken out of context, only Kaz meant it. And it didn't even stop there; Kaz had probably said it before many times, but it never stopped that giddy thrill shooting through Emre's belly. The trust. With everything. Not a responsibility that Emre was born into, but that he chose. That Kaz willingly gave.

This fucking romantic, his eyes round and serious, taking in the renovation notes for large shower space with good water pressure. Emre believed Kaz would make it happen, too. Some ingenious jerry-rig of water collection and pneumatic pumps to give Emre exactly what he wanted. Exactly what constituted, to Emre, as 'home'.

You're my home, Emre wanted to say, unable to take his gaze off his man. Wherever Kaz was, that was where Emre wanted to be. He couldn't say it though, at least not yet.

They drew each other in once on shore, all sleek grins and hot promise. Emre grunted softly at the firm dig of Kaz's fingers in his flesh. He responded in kind, hands skimming down under Kaz's shorts for a quick squeeze of his arse. Firm, perfect handfuls, and Emre hoped it would make the deliciously wet outline on the front of Kaz's shorts twitch, just a bit. Just to spin Emre's own mind into a frenzy of anticipation.

"In your bed! You'll think I'll be that exhausted then. Can't even get meself out." Emre snarled in pleasure. A delightful sort of embarrassment from flirting so coyly, so girlish. But he couldn't help himself, and even if Kaz razzed him about it, Emre would only bask in the attention. "You're so fucking gorgeous. Makes me wild, man."

The split apart was deliberate, because it would only make reuniting that much more real. Increments of settling down, settling in. Doing it on their own time, in their own strange, slightly awkward way. Maybe Emre was nervous too. He certainly had no clue what he was doing; all he knew was that he wanted this badly. Wanted to be near Kaz so badly, Emre could feel it in the heat of his cheeks, the tremble of his fingers. The way he catcalled irresistible Kaz, and finally disappeared, breathless, into the mangroves. The air was cooler but thicker under the tree cover. The sand dense and soft. Emre slowed, wandered.

Took his time exploring a bit, marvelling at the change in atmosphere once the sun was dappled between shadows of trees. Emre found the one with red flowers, did a casual perimeter sweep to make sure it was the right one. When he heard Kaz's comical horror-threat, he grinned, and looked upwards.

Given all the twisted branches and dry bark, it was easy enough to swing himself up into the tree, watching Kaz arrive from below. Guitar - guitar! Fucking man had fucking talent - and other bundles. Striding in like some avatar of a Hindu god in some ancient mythology. Tattoos and scars like marks of love and war across perfectly dark gold skin. Reaching up, to pluck a red flower for himself, graceful as a line of poetry. All he needed was a long string of mala beads around his neck to complete the hero's tableau.

Emre lowered himself behind Kaz, hanging from a low branch. "Behind you," Emre said, with a slight swing. A childish attempt to capture Kaz's hips between his legs. It didn't work, but Emre laughed anyway, and dropped himself fully to the ground. The flower, he accepted it sliding behind his ear. "You know that'll fall out. My ears is so big they flap."

Kaz described his vision of a mangrove nestled-home (a home), the rough sketch of how it could be done. Emre, for once, couldn't care less about the pragmatics. All he heard was Kaz saying 'we' we'd'. Maybe he was jumping the gun, maybe Kaz just meant he'd help build it, for Emre. But Emre just beamed, reveling in the togetherness of it, even if it might just be temporary.

"Better than I was imagining. Well quiet, proper set up, innit." He felt Kaz's fingers slide between his, and Emre leaned a bit against Kaz's arm. "Close to the grotto, yeah? Not too far or that."

Emre had passed the hammock on his jog in, and he stepped back, turning them towards it. They strolled, with no urgency now. Just stopped for a second, Kaz requested.

"You what. Don't enjoy running about, getting into scraps and almost dying at the hands of your mental ex-girlfriend? Or some bloody psychopathic killer after my criminal mastermind mum? Mate, the people in our lives was so much more fucked than I thought. And my life was fucked enough. Right."

They got to the hammock, and Emre removed the guitar and the tote from Kaz, to forcefully push them both into the hammock. He laughed as he landed on Kaz. But that was it; there was no more waiting. Emre surged up, using a hand around Kaz's neck to pull them together, so Emre could kiss him. A hard, messy, moany kiss, as the hammock swung enough that imbalance might be inevitable. But Emre held on tight, tilting to deepen the kiss, wait for the hammock's pendulum to slow.

"This is brilliant," Emre grazed the words against Kaz's mouth, savouring that familiar, tangy heat. "You're brilliant. I'm brilliant with you. You beautiful bastard."

[kazxraval]

The pawing on a private beach somehow felt risqué, taboo. Each bold grab and cheeky touch like sneaking bites of a meal that hadn't been served yet.

A daydream of Emre tagged along with Kaz as they went separate ways. The sensation of wonderfully rugged hands, the spike of desire that followed drew a little light gasp from Kaz (same as it had in the moment). In your bed! "I was thinking of tying you up. But I like your idea much better."

Nothing to ridicule, when this 'wild' Emre caused a mixture of feelings. Lost in the throes, he reckoned. Of desire, of course ready to fall into a pile of it with Emre. But that encompassed a small part of it all.

Kaz crossed the pale cream-colored beach to reach the designated meeting spot. Emre dangled from a tree branch, and Kaz turned just in time to (unfortunately) miss being caught. So disarmed that he laughed too, low but melodic. Eyes wide, almost in disbelief with the impish show that was being put on for him. "Know what's big? Your lund." The hitch in his grin filled with a type of delight that almost didn't know where to go. "Big balls. Acting like a coconut climber." Kaz looked up, how the hell did Emre get up there anyway? "Not sure where the ear thing came from. Nothing wrong with any part of you. Bet the flower don't want to leave any time soon."

After the jump out of the tree, he expected a more lively Emre. Pinging through rustling gigantic leaves, building a structure with words as Kaz did. Those particular pavement stones of Emre's upbringing-- mung or lund, dat and innit --they sank below the surface, held back for a moment. Everything changed. Well before this day, everything changed. Emre seemed to see something in Kaz. Slogged through Kaz's numbness, shook off the second-hand anesthetic. Found a hidden gem inside that Kaz, a person who thought he'd analyzed himself to death, never discovered. The spring-trap of harshness, of violence. With the soft-tongued sound of 'mummy', spoken in a heartbroken language Kaz wouldn't ever comprehend in a million years. The multidimensional-ness of Emre. (Now, they could wash blood off each other's red hands.)

He looked in the direction of the grotto. With no clear opening through the trees, Kaz visualized it. "We'll look all around. And we'll know the right place when we see it, yeah. Know what I mean?" This grin of Kaz's much wider. The possibilities of a grotto reinvented dared to roll out. "I've got a little office up by the waterfall. The grotto will be my new one."

They walked. Emre led., Kaz forgot exactly where they went. "I said Georgie was crazy." Weary, as if it were an often repeated and ignored warning. "Not surprised about the bad blood. She was never good about keeping her mask on for long."

"But fucking hell." Bruises, swelling, sprains, nicks and cuts, a cracked rib-- those had mostly healed. Yet the whole trip still played out in the private cinema of his head.

"She was always very jealous. A real bunny boiler. Kind of expected her to kill me one day," a little laugh from Kaz, a lick of his lips as he looked to Emre. "The way she looked at you, though. That was a whole new thing."

The weave of their hands unfurled. Kaz hung an arm around Emre's neck and brought them even closer. Dared to press a kiss in lovely, neat waves of dark hair. "Do you remember crying?"

"Yeah, you know." He'd fallen into a march through sinking, fluffy sand with Emre. "They were fucked up." Not a new thought, in fact it was followed by a sound of agreement. "I didn't need the reminder, so. Kind of wasted on me. But, ah." A lopsided, open mouth. Room enough for a short laugh to leave him, almost like an exhale. "I tried best I could to impress your dad too. What the fuck was wrong with me."

Then, a real exhale. "I don't mind what you saw of mine." The icy emptiness of a stage designed Seattle home wasn't too far off from things." Well. At least whoever..." Or whatever, should paranoia speak up? Nah. "...is behind all of this. They let us both see it all together. Glad they did. "

Back at the hammock, his hands were emptied for him. What happened next was not smooth or seductive. But he couldn't have been more willingly toppled. If Emre's violence came spring loaded, so did the affection. Lust. Everything, the way Kaz knew all was right in their world.

He encouraged the hand on his neck with a squeeze. And then enveloped Emre's mouth with his own, Emre's head with his hands. Not dominance necessarily, but Emre seemed to demand more often now. The hammock sunk lower with potential catastrophe and pitched like a paper boat in a storm. Ropes creaked, used to holding one person and adjusting for two. Which synced his moans in perfect harmony with the man on top of him.

Drove his hands up to grasp Emre's hair. Promised to make him as hard as the kiss, one that grew hot.

No simmering on Kaz's end. The wildly rocking, threatening to flip hammock was his heart. A clank, a pat of things falling out of the netting and landing in the sand provided an almost comical soundtrack. Never had two people been on land and seemed desperate for air (each other's air). Kisses open wide and so deep they might drown. When the tilt of the hammock became far too serious, Kaz dropped a foot to the ground, to anchor them.

Brilliance was declared. "You're beautiful." Fingers seized Emre's hair, out of control and impatient. Eventually, they raked lower to scratch along Emre's back and trill along lean muscle and ribs. They trickled lower to roll down the waist of a pair of shorts. Kaz's hands slipped beneath the fabric to heft Emre forward by the ass. They were aligned.

Kaz grunted, became a dog in heat pulling and twisting to get loose from a lead. Except the lead was Emre's hand on his neck, and he only played at brattiness. His tongue swiped across Emre's perfectly pointed lips, and then into Emre's mouth.

Kaz grunted, became a dog in heat pulling and twisting to get loose from a lead. Except the lead was Emre's hand on his neck, and he only played at brattiness, for Emre's sake. Kaz wasn't going anywhere soon. His tongue swiped across those perfectly pointed lips, and then into the sweetness of Emre's mouth.

When he came up for air, he smiled. "I'd flip you on your back right now..." a leg threaded between Emre's tugged. "Just like that. with my leg. We don't have room for it. Have to wait until we're on a steady surface. I can still get you on your back here, it just takes a little choreography." His eyes made a sweep of the most alluring person he'd ever met. A quiet pause. "Kiss me again."

[emreakbar]

"I'm not eating no bloody insects," Emre huffed passionately. "Don't care if I'm starving, wot. Never." Emre nubbed his toe against Kaz's shin. "You ever ate a beetle, then?" He grinned the, shrugging lightly at Kaz's vow. "Let the sharks get me! I'll bite their dick right back." He accentuated this with a clowning mime of chomping, chewing with gusto. Anything to entertain his Kaz.

Emre's easy grin faded slightly, as Kaz seemed to focus on the fish's stomped remains, its blood sloshing into the wood bottom of the craft. Emre watched him thoughtfully, his own jaw relaxing under the insistent comfort of Kaz's touch. Emre's own fingers danced along the dips of Kaz's muscles, his arm slick with sea brine. "Kaz..." Emre started, but nothing more came.

Instead, much cheerier chat about the beach, Kaz's beach. Emre listened with interest as he helped Kaz with the traps. "Yeah? Honestly, I never realized you was so possessive over land, sweetheart. What else is you possessive of." Emre grinned, half-answering for Kaz. "Your things, I already learned that."

The idea of Kaz menacing any who dared tried to settle too close, over the course of over ten years...it was something to imagine. Emre kissed his teeth, shook his head. "Sounds lonely as fuck, to me. But you really was happy, innit. Being alone."

Maybe 'happy' wasn't the right word to describe Kaz's carved out, self-imposed exile on the island. But Kaz had full control, king of his silent land. When he teasingly blocked Emre's eyes with his hand, Emre licked Kaz's palm, tasting salt and oil and bitter. His mouth watered; he wanted more. "I trust you with my life."

Relaxing as Kaz did the sailing, Emre was also treated to a tableau from Kaz's past life. A familiar watering hole, Kaz was a known entity by staff and patrons alike. Emre tried to imagine this Kaz, and the vision came easily. Kaz never looked younger in Emre's imagination - always this same youthful, handsome charm, shadows and smoke in his gaze. Smooth, golden, intense. But also fond, friendly, relaxed. People liked him, greeted him, shared their lives with him. Kaz the sponge, soaking it in, snorting it up, and observing the rest. It gave Emre that ache in his chest again, that yearning and craving he often felt about his own past. Possibilities lost.

But Kaz clarified his question, and Emre blinked away the dim American din of cigarette smoke and clanging bass and drums. Emre frowned, bemused by Kaz's specificity. "Oh. Erm. Not really, no. Never really considered..." Emre shook his head. "Fancy a good shower, I suppose. Water pressure and all. Enough space to stand. Space to fuck, innit. Is that what you mean?"

When they disembarked, Emre once again followed Kaz's lead, learning quickly how Kaz wanted things just right. A deep, innate pleasure at the process of it all. Bouncing through the water, as Kaz toted things over his head. Emre did the same, with only slightly more struggle, but he didn't complain. Kaz indicated more traps, promised more lessons. Emre was entranced by these plans.

He'd apparently be asleep, even, when Kaz went to set them up. Asleep, here. The promises of regular, simple routines sent a thrill down Emre's spine. "Sure luv. It's your land."

Emre looked up, once more catching the tail end of Kaz looking like he was about to say something. Emre blinked, and Kaz's words flipped to a small, disarming smile. The kind that made Emre's already keyed-up heart do its own flip. "It's not weird for me. I've been wanting this for ages. Finally got the balls to ask you for it, innit." Emre sauntered closer, giving Kaz a heated gaze, up and down. From Kaz's long, sandy feet, travelling up his lean form, up to his thick eyelashes.

Emre's hands once again skirting along the waistband of Kaz's shorts. "What happens if I don't do as you say, hm? I get put out to sea, in one of them crab traps?"

Kaz's lovely grotto came into view, and Emre admired it. It always looked different, depending on the angle he approached. It wasn't often he'd been allowed here, even after their....everything together. Or maybe, that was just what Emre told himself. Politely keeping distance, thoughtfully giving Kaz his hard-won space. This time it felt less like an intrusion though, and more like a full tour, open-house.

Kaz's showed him all the building speculations from the cliffside, to the 'downtown' - a delightful term for plot of living land. Dotted with rocks and ancient, twisted trees, and an old hammock.

They moved together onto the beach, Emre ready for Kaz's kiss. He added a second kiss afterwards, on Kaz's neck. The tendons in Kaz's neck bounced, as Kaz was already making more itineraries for Emre. When he'd be asleep, now where he should go. How he should run. What Kaz intended to do, and when they'd meet again.

With his schedule set out like that, how could Emre refuse? He was currently a guest, he had to behave himself, for now. As Kaz gave a gentle bodily shove, Emre did back away. "You got all this to put away, but you'll make it to the big tree before me? And I'm getting a running start? Bloody hell darling, you like challenges, don't you."

Emre grinned, turning to run just as Kaz prescribed. "I'll beat you to it." Emre wouldn't. He couldn't possibly; and what's more, he didn't want to. As he turned to jog down the promontory, Emre realized: Kaz was nervous. Of course he had to control things, including what Emre did. Kaz had to do everything himself. He'd never had to share his space, before. He'd never had someone who wanted to be there, help Kaz.

Emre slowed to a backwards walk, giving a lascivious, loud whistle. "Keep walking away, luv. Don't mind me checking out that peng arse."

[kazxraval]

He made a grab for Emre's ankle, but only to hold for a few seconds. "What, are you mental? I'd never eat a beetle, nope." Twisting and turning purposefully away from what he just said, with a perfectly acted contrarian disposition versus any true conviction. Then, a slow smile for Emre's comedic over-acting. And a gentle pinch on Emre's thigh. "Fucking weirdo," a soft and affectionate reply. "Of course I'm possessive." His head shook slow from side to side. "I want to keep what I have." The grotto wasn't lonely, nor was he happy per se. Kaz left the thought to float off on the breeze, not interested in answering. The swipe of a tongue across his palm caught him off guard. Kaz barked a short laugh. The lick kickstarted a hot flutter below the belly.

I trust you with my life. "Mari sundara," carefully remembered, cautiously spoken. He placed his hand over his heart. Kaz lowered his gaze for a few seconds, a little reflection on what they'd gone through in Seattle. "I hope so. I trust you too, like that." A pause, a push to say it right. "With everything."

"Alright then," he nodded seriously. "I'll make certain the shower meets these high standards. Good water pressure. Extra large, for two. For fucking." Things Kaz hadn't thought of. Not yet. But he wanted to. What would this, them-- what would they look like? What little annoyances might arise. Or big blow outs. What could raze a house that hadn't even been built yet right to the ground?

Turmoil surrounded them, but hadn't invaded the space they shared. They were each other's shelter.

"Took long enough. Wonder what changed." It wasn't to get an answer, but to put a pin in it. Instead, the focus fell on Emre. For a roadman, he moved so graceful. The tiger-ish slink-stalk, eyes brimmed with smoke and flames. Sizing Kaz up.

Did the dying sun highlight a particularly pretty line of Kaz's jaw? Was it the locked gaze waiting for Emre's cataloging eyes to lift. A ridiculously youthful tattoo over Kaz's heart, prominent veins in his forearms. Maybe the sticky wet shorts Kaz wore, that weren't great of hiding anything when he was excited.

Whatever it was, a favored part attracted Emre's hands to him. In turn, Kaz set a bucket down and freed himself. He pulled loose the tie on Emre's shorts and used the strings to drag Emre closer.

"Nah, I'll never send you out in those traps." His hand worked under the soaked seal of shirt and skin. After a squeeze to Emre's waist, fingers dug in lower to feel up a muscled hip. Lean, firm. Carved so smooth, to die for. "You don't listen? I'll keep you in our bed until you do."

They continued on. The line of Emre's eyes went up to the grotto. The only home Emre knew of Kaz's on the island. A pretty spot, of course. Kaz made it barely livable, and during storms it was downright miserable.

Emre wanted to be there. Whether Kaz was asleep or awake. Floating around, or eating rubies and diamonds. If they settled around the grotto, this would now be Emre's home too.

He watched Emre weigh what was said. Challenge accepted, Emre turned to jog off. So light, so fast, he barely kicked up any sand. Practically skated across the surface. Kaz turned away. He would never make it out to the tree before Emre, but he'd said it anyway. Sound more interesting, instead of trudging through the trees blind. Maybe it was a chance to give Emre a last exit, if needed. Skip right by the tree, jog on to the dorms. He told Emre to run, after all.

Instead, after several seconds, Kaz heard a whistle that only wanted attention. Cat calling too. Kaz stopped to turn around for a cheeky shout out. "Hey, know what's good about no neighbors? Means there's no dress code down here."

Suddenly, dinner didn't seem as urgent as the man who confidently strolled away into oblivion. Kaz dropped off Emre's bag and their catch in the grotto. Lit some candles and the larger lantern, since their return might be later. Changed the sheets on the bed. Kaz was fairly tidy, but performed some general straightening up anyway. He packed a net tote with smokes, a small lantern, a green bottle with no label and a cork, a couple of knives, a towel, other sundries. Carried his guitar by the neck. Once 'downtown', he left the tote in the hammock and dove into the trees.

It was darker under the tree tops. Cooler. Sunlight splattered liek paint on the ground, in his hair, on his arm. Kaz slowed as he winded through the area, calling out in a ghoulish baritone. "I'm coming to get you, Emre."

At the tree with the red blossoms, Kaz plucked one. Emre probably got tired of waiting. Kaz called out again in his own voice. "You gotta come out, I have something for you. A few things." The stem of the flower twirled between his fingers.

When Emre did turn up, Kaz slipped the flower behind one of Emre's ears. "What d'ya think? We'd have to clear out some of the trees, to see the ocean.Thought we'd leave these..." A gesture to the side facing the island, "Like a privacy fence. Maybe raise it up, yeah? The whole thing. In case there's a storm surge."

He wove his fingers between Emre's. "See my vision," he insisted, only half serious. " 'Course, I've got more land. More places, if this doesn't suit you. Don't have to settle."

"Got something else for you too. It's in the hammock. Like, a birthday present." A good part of the day had been on the water. "Not gonna lie. If I have to be on another boat in the next few weeks, I'm gonna lose it. Gives me a headache. I thought it'd be nice if we stopped for a second, you know. Sit together. Dinner will wait for us."

[emreakbar]

Kaz always had an astute observation, but it wasn't just that. It was the way he worded those observations outloud. No wonder he was a writer, Emre thought. He said little (at least on the island, maybe he was a chatty cathy in Seattle. Nattering with...what was her name? 'Nadia'.) and expressed even less than that. But what he did speak, it sounded strong, firm. Loaded with such conviction it almost sounded like the truth.

"I don't know what else you could've done." Not been a fuck-up, Emre thought. But the way Kaz said it, allowed Emre to feel angry at himself, instead of bending over double to justify his past choices.

"I carry them, but they follow you." Both were essential components. Kaz almost had Emre convinced he was 'special'; but if he was, then so equally was Kaz. That part might be harder for Emre to convince back. He didn't have a way with words, like Kazzy. He did love the feeling of kismet, though. Him and Kaz. Rare and lovely.

"Why not Urmilla?" This, Emre felt conviction in his own belief: because mum was too 'real'. Priya was a phantom in Seattle. Abu was a ghost of a memory. And Kaz's dad was better left non-existent. But they'd each connected with mum, both now and in the past. Kaz was piecing the shards of this 'dimension' mystery together, but the glass wasn't yet complete. That niggling feeling, pieces were missing. Emre was sure Kaz felt it too.

No cracking wise about the speargun, then. Right - right! - Emre really needed to touch base with Kaz, about that. About the Captain, his crew. About Kaz holding a speargun so steady, aiming so well, he got a man killed in one shot. About what Kaz felt, the moment he took a man's life in cold blood. Righteous? Nauseated? A bit of both?

He had to talk to Kaz about that, before days and weeks stretched on. Before Kaz, with his arsenal of survival skills, got the event patched, filed, then buried, then forgotten. Another relic from Kaz's trauma that he'd deemed irrelevant.

So what did Emre do? Jump headfirst into childish innuendo and relentless teasing. Sexual suggestiveness piqued easily between them, and Emre laughed along happily, inwardly cursing himself for his own awkwardness. He was never awkward bringing things up with Iyaz. Then again, he kept many, many secrets from Iyaz too. He only addressed Iyaz's secrets and often humiliated the poor little bugger. Fucking hell, maturity was difficult.

"Do you forgive me? For being a late bloomer and all that," Emre begged off, grimacing at the way he made himself sound like a demure, shy little thing. He corrected himself: "I was a right tosspot." There. Better.

Lounging in the boat was great fun, in Emre's opinion. A seaside excursion with his man, as if they'd just taken a daytrip. A great pretense, as Emre wrestled with how to bring up what happened in Seattle in a way that would open Kaz up, not shut him down.

In a way, bringing up Priya (again, after Kaz specifically told him no more) was almost easier. It was just in passing, only to gently furrow Kaz's fertile mind.

Swarming Kaz was perhaps selfish in its comfort. Kissing Kaz's sweat-oiled cheek, nuzzling and squeezing his sun-warmed body, it was its own language. What Emre couldn't put into words, he expressed physically - unabated affection, constant touching. Reminders for Kaz that Emre wasn't deliberately being unkind.

Granted, it helped that Kaz himself was so touchable. Irresistible, irascible man.

A break in the heavy, a switch to lighter topics. "I tried a prawn or two, yeah. It were awful. Gave me the runs innit," Emre shrugged, then shuddered at the thought of eating a crab. "Crabs is just insects, mate! Sea insects! I never did find out if them shellfish is haram or nah. And when it's about survival then alhamdullilah all's forgiven innit." He beamed though. "I'm going to eat a shark. Kazzy, you've got to catch me a shark one day. One of them small little baby ones. Bet they're proper tender."

Panting from the excitement of bashing the poor fish to death, Emre was immediately calmed at the feel of Kaz's hand, sliding over his neck, long fingers brushing his shoulder. A thrill down Emre's spine, and a relic beat of terror. Being held by the neck - something from his past. Memories of being held back, of discipline.

"Soz," Emre said, a little shakily as Kaz said the beaten fish was still salvageable. He leaned into Kaz's hand, chasing the thrill, trying to kill the fear. When Kaz let him go to haul a snapper, Emre exhaled into calm again, watching Kaz move. All sleek muscles and sheen. A salty, distinctly Kaz scent that lit up all the sensors in Emre's brain, shooting signals back into Emre's body. Pleasure. He is mine.

"Don't be coy, of course I want to. I want to know everything." Emre would keep saying it, until Kaz started to believe it, without the caution, the tentative little checks. "How's it come to be your beach then, hm? How d'you keep everyone else away from marching all about it like it's public property and that? I know you laid claim to the grotto and that, didn't realize there was more." Emre grinned.

"Oi, you got it booby trapped and like? Maybe I should be blindfolded - how d'you know you can trust me?" A tease, a little cheeky set-up for Kaz to tease him right back, because Emre craved it. And Kaz was so fucking good at it, always throwing Emre delightfully off his game.

The stomped fish. The speargun. Seattle. Bloody hell -

They worked at Kaz's fishing concern a bit longer, Emre falling into the toil of it all and following Kaz's lead easily. Once it was all done, Emre nodded in satisfaction. "Good work, this. I know how to gut and scale; I learned that much." When they got back to land, Emre would show off for Kaz.

Kaz started steering the boat around the cove, and Emre sunk back into a sprawled, relaxed position again. Kaz mentioned homes - the one from South Beach, his childhood London brownstone. Kaz's curiousity, which Emre gladly entertained. "Erm...I reckon every home I've had's been a goodie, innit. It's about who I live with, pyaar. Family, and that. You know when Yazzie and I was in London, as adults, I had the two apartments, yeah?" Emre tilted his head, peering at Kaz as if trying to remember if Kaz already knew. Didn't he somehow already know? Through some shared memory, or the ghost of Melody told him, or some other fucking mad thing that had happened on the island?

"My flat with Yaz, and my other place. The one Melody knew. The flat with Yaz was my home, the one for the girls or...or for clean-up and that. It was dead lonely. Melz only ever stayed over a night and that, we'd always agreed. She got her life, I had mine." Emre shrugged. "And I had other girls come over too, but. Nah. It wasn't never home."

Erme tilted his head the other way, looking up at Kaz. "You ever felt that way, luv? Felt that, erm, feeling, of 'home'. Whatever that means when you're - well." A smirk at his idiom. "When you're at home."

[kazxraval]

He blinked. "Sounds like the prawns were off." Kaz carefully leaned to dip a hand over the side of the boat "Lots of people eat insects." In one easy motion, Kaz's fingers swept a thin arc of water over Emre. The remaining little droplets were flicked his way too, with a half-smile. "Watch out, the sharks are listening. One may swim up and bite your dick off." Followed by a more serious tone. "I'll never let you eat one."

Some remnants of the squashed fish stuck to the floor of the boat. Other pieces floated on shallow puddles, sloshed back and forth with swimming loose scales. White flesh, light pink spiky separated gills. A juicy green sludge, smushed silver coils of... intestines? A mess, yet almost pretty in a weird way.

And blood. Bright crimson, fresh. The color also stained those last hours of Seattle. His mouth locked so tight that he had to force his teeth apart to speak. "I'll wash it out later." The pad of Kaz's thumb skimmed up the hinge of Emre's jaw. A sweat and sea-soaked tension under his hand relaxed.

"Not being coy, it's like. Everything is right there." He laughed under a panted breath while hauling up and unloading traps. "It's my beach because I made it my beach." As if Kaz willed every grain of sand to gather and claim loyalty to him alone. "I ran off most who tried to settle down there." Closer to the truth. "Made it miserable enough for them."

Kaz once led Emre into a few private alleys through the cliffside. Weaved along hidden paths and gates to the grotto with an edge to the voice in his head: Why do this? Why trust him? Sharing everything, this idea. Still new. Not even tested! What did it say, that Kaz allowed it?

"Mm." He focused on Emre's set up instead. Stroked an open hand over his beard, as though weighing what was said. "It's the only way. The blindfold. But could you stand the anticipation." Kaz lifted a hand, his palm inches away from Emre's eyes and blocking a view of large, lovely eyes. "You'd have to trust me." His head tilted, and after several seconds he dropped the hand. "You'd be at my mercy." A particular feline grin appeared on his face.

A small grin as they worked side by side. Gut, Emre said, and an image of Ali's brother slumped bloody and barely breathing popped into Kaz's head.

They sailed on again. Kaz unfurled a shorter sail to get them really hopping over the waves. Faster, faster. Emre seemed to bask in a beautifully stretched golden and toned spread. Positioned for an unseen camera. No, Kaz knew better. Positioned for Kaz gaze, right there in the boat.

He coiled a loose rope around a silver cleat and nodded to confirm Emre did explain about the two apartments. A splintered life, the type Kaz wrote about. And perhaps identified with, could pull off himself, just in other ways.

But they've missed each other, again. Kaz wasn't asking which place felt most like home to Emre. Fascinating that Emre took it that way, and caused Kaz to think on how to answer a question he wasn't prepared.

"Ah..." Thinking, thinking, and then a wide smile. "There was a bar in Seattle called The Elbow Room. It was a club, really. Bands played there almost every night. Was there so much that as soon as I walked in the door, the bartender had a drink waiting for me." A quick pause. "No one ever bothered me. I knew pretty much everyone. Had a lot of fun. I mean, a lot of it's fuzzy now. It was a long time ago. Just, ah. It felt good. I felt happy in that place. S'pose that's what home is, hm?"

"For you, though. I'm wondering if there was a part you really liked. Like a room, a balcony. Or a garden. Or," said with a grin, "if you need a second closet for your shoes."

More work awaited when they arrived at the grotto. Near the rock jetty, the little boat had to be tethered. Not to drift away, and not to smash into the rocks either. And then the furling of the sails. The waves rolled wilder so close to shore, and Kaz was ready to make it to the jetty.

First, they had to cross water. Chest deep (on Kaz), and he made two trips between boat and jetty. One to carry their fish back, and one to bring Emre's bag (clearly he did not trust Emre with either).

"I've got traps out here too," Kaz said, chin jutting out towards the edge of the jetty. "I'll show you how I set them up later. You'll probably be asleep when I set them up."

And. Yeah. A bridge they hadn't crossed yet. The night terrors went through phases, some more active than others. With the way his sleep schedule was, he'd avoided traumatizing Emre from jolting awake, screaming, running. He looked over at Emre with lips parted, as if ready to explain what he'd no doubt be forced to at some point.

But when he looked at Emre, all he heared was a ridiculously chirpy, sexy-scratchy voice that created all kinds of wonders inside him. And Emre wasn't even talking then. So his parted lips smiled. "Weird you want to be here. Figured we'd be in the dorms tonight. But. I like it." A beat. "Plus, being on my turf, you gotta do what I say."

His chest expanded in a big inhale, and he looked to the cliffside that loomed over the grotto. "That's where I've thought about building before," he said as they walked in to shore. "Way up there. But if anything happened..." no specification, only the knowledge something terrible always clung to the land, "...it's remote. Even for me out here." Logistically foolish, poetically beautiful.

"Then, we've got that area downtown." Or to the right, many yards away. "I'm thinking we set up a fire out there for dinner. I can show you why it might be a good spot too. For us." Typical tropical postcard setting. Mangroves, large rocks, washed up coral. A worn, disintegrating hammock, which indicated Kaz spent some time out there. More trees and shrubs inland. "There's a clearing inside the trees. Might be a nice place to build something."

They set foot on the beach. Kaz's beach, as he'd made abundantly clear for longer than Emre likely remembered. They'd come to a stop in the hot sand. Hands full, he bumped into Emre and leaned down in a demand for quick kiss.

"Tell you what. I'm gonna put your bag in the grotto. Then I'll take the fish out there. You, take off. Check it out, go into the trees. Have a look. There's a tall tree in the center with big red flowers blooming. Hell, I'll get there before you do, I bet. But meet me there, yeah?" Still locked tight, he used his body to push Emre away. "Run. Run as fast as you can."

[emreakbar]

"Most of the time," Emre barked a little laugh, heavily amused. "You mean if I didn't mung it up, yeah." The comfort of English self-deprecation and admitting wrong, knowing there'd be no consequences. Emre so sure he was out of the red in Kaz's books, back in the black for good. A little nestle up against Kaz's arm, for good measure - to remind Kaz of just how lovable Emre was, despite his faults. Kaz himself seemed pliable, softened. Lost in some memories that actually seemed fond. Emre enjoyed, from the polite distance of not knowing what Kaz was thinking about.

Still holding onto Kaz was useful as an anchor, a grounding rod as Kaz elaborated on Urmilla. Emre felt layered as he listened; and he took the time (they had the time!) to unfold himself. It wasn't jealousy; he wasn't jealous of Kaz and mum, and what they had. If anything, Emre felt relief, and a deep-seated yearning. A pain still in his heart, beautifully bruised and tenderly bled by this beautiful man, who knew his mum. God, it hurt - grief did that, even now that mum was returned.

Stray strings. Emre smiled. "Alright, Reporter-man, alright. You're seeing loose threads, let's follow them, yeah? We'll reach out to mum." Emre was specific about the 'we', and not 'I'. Mum had to take him and Kaz as a unit, now. A pause, and then Emre added, "She chose that life, yeah. The running and thieving and people after her? She knew what she was getting into. And she did it anyway, innit." Another pause, and then a quieter added, "I didn't choose running and thieving, people after me. Had no choice in it, did I."

No, Emre was still not above self-pity, especially when it came to his mum.

Emre's adoration was physically rebutted as Kaz pushed distance between them, like a resisting cat. No more touching. Emre wondered if Kaz was suspicious that Emre was just teasing cruelly, or if Kaz was just unused to such blatant, unadorned praise. Distrustful, or confused? Or something else entirely. Don't even... The rebuke faded, so Emre interpreted it how he liked. "I promise, won't tell a soul! I know what's true innit."

Kaz was good, so very good at turning off the tap. His own life, his own history, and he affected such effective disinterest, such bored dismissal. Unworthy of their time and thoughts. Antana, once again swept to the side. Priya already well-sidelined.

The crystals, shiny and new, caught his bright-eyed attention. "Why would one attach itself to me like that? You keep insisting that, I keep insisting it's a shared thing, innit. it takes two. Neither of us would've gotten so far on this whole crystal shambolics alone, would we. Bloody hell, I didn't even know about them little buggers, until you showed me what they was capable of innit." Emre was feeling argumentative, wishing he could push Kaz more about Antana. But he couldn't; so pleasantly heated debate about crystals would do.

"Maybe it's us, yeah. Something about them crystals is affected by us, together. Admit I'm right; you've got to, now. We've traveled through bloody dimensions, mate! Them crystals pushed us into our pasts, back to bloody childhood! I saw my dad, you saw your mum. It's fucked...but it's giving us links back to our family, innit. Somehow."

Kaz suggested going again, using themselves - their lives, ostensibly - as another experiment. "I'm ready," Emre agreed without hesitation, then tilted his head pointedly at Kaz: are you? "Might not encounter things you'll want, darling. Got to follow every stray string, don't we."

Maybe it was cruel, to leave Kaz alone to mull over that sort of challenge. But at least it wasn't Emre's doing - he could blame the crystals. For as incurious Kaz was about his own past (and buried) demons, he was intensely curious about the crystals and their mysterious potential. It wasn't Emre's fault that the crystals had shackled themselves to his and Kaz's respective pasts. If Urmilla was one of those stray strings, chances were that Priya or even Georgie were too.

Time apart couldn't have been more than 20 minutes, but Emre delighted in the delight he felt being united again on the dock. Silly, dizzy, fizzy feeling, as his hands rested on Kaz's lean hips, Kaz's halo of hair positioned perfectly in front of the sun. Making him glow.

"It's fine! Okay. But got to admit, manz got a proper speargun on him, innit." The innuendo meant to be stupid, fun. Kaz had his own business; Emre told himself he didn't mind not being a part of it.

He shrugged off Kaz's warnings. "So we'll be wet together," he said simply, resisting to paranoid urge to ask 'what, you don't want me there?' If Kaz didn't, then he'd just say no, go back to the dorms Em.

But instead, Kaz hefted the duffel and lobbed it into the boat with them. A careless, small grin. A tease. "Oh piss off. You know how bloody gorgeous you were at that bloody party. About to explode in me shorts, and I didn't even know why! Unfair of you. Wanker."

Kaz took over, and Emre was happy to let him. Kaz had far more experience navigating the island by water. Emre lounged to the starboard, letting his fingers drift in the clear water. He only looked up, when Kaz answered his own question.

Emre watched Kaz then, this new angle of Kaz's steady jaw, the sweep of his long lashes as Kaz looked out to sea. Nose delicately beaded with sweat that Emre wanted to lick off. No, Emre didn't know Kaz's 'side of the island', whatever that even meant. Emre wouldn't dispute it, but he felt almost breathless, in the way it felt like Kaz had made some sort of choice. A choice to unlock another door and say 'okay. come through.'

But this was Kaz. Where he decided to unlock one door, he was using mortar and rock to brick up another at the same time. I don't want to talk about her anymore.

Emre felt like he'd used a sledgehammer as a scalpel, trying to push the subject before. But he couldn't make himself regret trying. "If you want answers, luv - really want answers about crystals, this bloody island, all of it - then she might be part of it. Can't be coincidence we found out she's alive." Emre reached out to touch Kaz's leg, run his fingers down the back of his calf. Muscles so defined, hair so soft.

As conciliation, Emre shifted closer. He was still staring at Kaz intently, like a giant spotlight that wanted to peer beyond flesh, into soul. Emre got close enough to lean his forehead against the side of Kaz's head, his words breathing into the soft shell of Kaz's ear, as if there were people all around them. "I won't bring her up. But she going to be brung up, innit. She's a part of this now."

A kiss on Kaz's cheek, and then Emre got to work on filling the bucket, to hide his pity. The luxury Emre had, to speak so plainly about his own parents. Painfully, yes; but a good sort of pain, one that required outbursts and counterpoints. One that had the underlying trust of love, despite all the family tragedies.

Kaz had nothing like that. Where was he even supposed to start. And now that the crystals themselves were thrusting this fresh hell (or this annoying mosquito; it was hard to tell with Kaz) onto Kaz, it wasn't something Emre would co-sign.

"Can they all be eaten then? All fish, any fish? What if it's poisonous?" Emre helped Kaz change the subject instead. "Oi - reckon we get a shark!? I've never eaten a shark."

Kaz masterfully hauled up the rig and Emre briefly catcalled him until it was time to open the cage, grab whatever was in there. A heavy sleek fish, which Emre plopped into the bucket - but it leapt out. With a yelp, Emre used his heel to smash its head in at the bottom of the boat, then glanced up apologetically at Kaz. He slipped the dead carcass into the bucket anyway, as if that would help revive it.

The next thing in the rig was a giant crab which - since Emre had no idea how to eat shellfish - he just let slide back into the water. Then a pause. "Right. Erm. Was that fucker edible, like? Never mind, there'll be more."

Emre clapped as Kaz hauled another cage up, and reached for it eagerly. "Your side of the island, then? This a show rather than tell thing? Am I going to know it, or you being a cocktease about it?" Emre smirked. "Not that I mind, mind."

[kazxraval]

Emre, ever aware of the moment life derailed. Of course, it'd be strange not to feel some way about it. Kaz would be wrath fomented in the same position.

Urmilla's actions were like folk hero status. If Hollywood still existed, her story might spawn an action-thriller, with subsequent sequels that never measured up to the original. Kaz gazed at this exquisite man. Urmilla's collateral damage, her own son. Emre still kept a shrine to her. Made offerings, burned incense, cleaned and polished her image.

"I don't know what else you could've done." Kaz began to realize those two, mother and son, needed to speak. Whether under the guise of what they'd been through recently or not. Perhaps not to resolve anything either, hell Kaz didn't know. Other than it felt necessary, in some capacity. Beyond the occasional checking in and checking up on each other. Emre was also more than a loose thread, to Kaz.

The question about the crystals came easily. "It's attracted to something in you. Never seen these things react as they have with you around. Don't you remember? The water crystal gravitated to you. No one else. You're special, Emre. That's what it is. It's found it's match in you."

Kaz scoffed at Emre's demand with an open smile. "I don't got to admit to anything." Not without solid proof, and more so to (sweetly) aggravate Emre. "Yeah, those things did a little a dance before I brought you into it. They're always showing off more for you. I'm just being dragged along for the ride. I carry them, but they follow you."

An exhale. "When we crossed into that... dimension..." Sounded so fucking dumb. "We saw your dad and Iyaz. Why not Urmilla?" Another reason to reach out to her, not that they needed more. "I've been thinking about that too. You saw my mother, in the cab. And my father was never there. I saw the twins in the distance, but something was off about them. Otherwise, I was alone." Like he often was. While Emre had found his mother and now needed the final piece to the puzzle: his father.

Later on the dock. The innuendo did not register, and instead Kaz replied without humor, "I don't want to see a speargun for a long time." But he warmed for the next topic, and commented, "I like you wet." Kaz offered a hand to Emre, to climb into the tiny boat. Now fully repaired from the speargun run-in, he played up an innocence not at all possessed and drawled: "Unfair, of me? Well, gosh. I would've gladly sucked you off, helped out with your problem there. You wouldn't give me a chance for months." A shrug.

The fishing excursion began mostly in silence. Emre stretched out, the very definition of sun-kissed. Long fingers left ripples in the water. Same as they would later, or tomorrow, as they swept down Kaz's back, leaving trails beneath the skin. A quiet and pensive Emre always so gorgeous, but terrifying to Kaz.

Can't be coincidence we found out she's alive. The idea made him want to wince, but he didn't. The sweet graze along his calf blurred the most heinous thoughts. The face staring at him also drew Kaz's attention. A blend of masculine and almost softly feminine. Handsome and beautiful, all at once.

Emre sealed them together so tight. The breath on Kaz's ear and neck excited to no end, and it was his turn to feel a certain way. A dizziness of both head and body, a spin of the earth that made his lids flutter closed for a long few seconds. Temporarily tongue-tied in a way he never usually was. His hand rested on Emre's thigh, like another rudder on the path they were taking.

She's a part of this now invaded the idyllic moment. His mother ruined it. As Emre peeled away, Kaz watched. He wanted to warn, she would never matter. She'd never change. Kaz wouldn't deflate the moment, when Emre only wanted to be realistic.

"Now, Emre. I have a hard time believing you been on this island so many years and don't know which fish to avoid eating. Even if you don't eat it regularly." He smiled at the transparent question. "Puffer, grouper. Barracuda. Stonefish." A pause. "I'm not gonna eat a shark, not ever."

At one of the island buoys, the anchor was dropped. Kaz hoisted the rig up, with a laugh at Emre's wonderful harassment. A comedic break in the action might've occurred, with the two chasing a loose flip flopping fish in the bottom of the boat. Instead, instinct kicked in. Impulse. No sooner had the fish landed did Emre stomp the life out of it.

Kaz placed a hand on Emre's shoulder. "Fuck me, those are some reflexes. Didn't even get to read that thing the last rites." Kaz's hand slipped up to the curve of Emre's neck, right above the shoulder. "I'll help you next time. Just ask." Kaz peered into the bucket. Blood filled, fish-gore, flattened head, a dislodged eye. "We can salvage some of the meat."

Next, Emre allowed the crab to slink back into the blue freedom of open water. The rig followed with a sad plop and splash back into the ocean. "Ah. Mhm. Deliciously edible. Is shellfish halal? I should know this."

The next cage Kaz pulled up to the surface contained a healthy-sized snapper. He paused at Emre's question, surprised to circle back to it. "You can know it if you want to." He nodded towards the coastline. "We get round that cliff up ahead? That's the start of my beach. I mean, I have too much fun teasing you. I'll be nice, I won't blindfold you or anything." His eyes darted from the shore to Emre. "There's something you'll see when we get there. I'll show you straight away."

He motioned to the fish. "Nice and easy with this one. It's ours."

After checking a few more cages, the anchor was pulled up. Kaz set the boat off again, this time towards 'his beach'. "The place you built for you and Iyaz. I remember some of it." Mainly the room he wanted to flip a table in. "I've seen where you grew up now too. Was it the home you liked the most?" Since Kaz began to get more comfortable with the idea. A place. A house, for them. What would this entail, what would Emre draw from and incorporate, or leave out.

[emreakbar]

"Right, well," Emre spoke a bit softer, studying Kaz. His sharp, attentive eyes seeming to lose focus, as if Kaz caught something fascinating in the far distance. His old life, of writing. Reporting and investigating, partying and fucking, Emre imagined. Spending time with Emre's mum, even. "A good life to be proud of, that."

Kaz shared the name of the actual newspaper he wrote for - that was impressive, but Emre protested, "You what! Seattle Postytellygent-what? That's a bloody mouthful innit! Should've had a catchy name! The - oyyy, that's it. Seattle PI. Like a private investigationer, yeah. That's proper." He grinned, pleased as if Emre had invented the newspaper himself. "See it's kismet. We're a good team."

Funny, how Kaz's suggestion to share with Emre's mum was an immediate reactionary 'no' in the back of Emre's head. Not for any terrible reason; simply because the private life of an elder desi son was always hidden from parents. Out of kindness, of course. Parents couldn't handle the wildness of daytimers and schoolyard fights and blazing after school. This adventure with Kaz still held that allure of children disobeying their parents to do something wild, dangerous, haram.

Emre swallowed it down to tilt his head and huskily ask, "Erm. Why? Why tell her about what happened? She wouldn't know nothing about it." A pause, then: "You think she'd know something about it?" Another pause, and Emre snapped his fingers. "Right, let's put a pin in it. We can talk about it later, yeah?"

The teasing accusations flew back effortlessly, feeding Emre a greedy, selfish sort of thrill. Kaz thought about it. He thought about all the times Emre had his little wobblys, all the times Emre buggered off, rejected Kaz. Kaz actually held those moments close to his heart, a heart Emre had wounded - not just that one fateful time in the Akbar house, but multiple little cuts. Kaz, with a bleeding, yearning heart for Emre. Cautious and self-protective of course; but still affected by what Emre did. It was too delightful for words, and Emre beamed. Not proudly exactly, but clearly brimming with joy.

"Kaz Raval. You constant amazement. Sweet, patient, tender - that's what you are. I see it." Emre coyly held a finger over his lips. "Don't fret, I won't tell no one. Our little secret."

Teasing gave way easily to desire, intimacy. It came so naturally to them, which was still surprising for Emre. He thought he'd be awkward and fumbling for a long time with Kaz. But Kaz, he just knew. He knew all the right ways to press his plush lips against Emre's skin, made exquisite noises that drove Emre's instincts, mapped his body in ways that Emre eagerly copied. Kaz made a surprisingly good teacher. Emre was finally a good student. It is real. A heady confirmation.

Kaz had a tone of finality about Antana, one Emre was slowly learning to question. Not out of doubt, but he realized Kaz had a way of denial: decide something didn't exist, and then it didn't. A simple yet stunningly effective formula. "So you inn't seen no trace of Antana in a while, then? Nothing at all, yeah?"

Talk of Priya was another bit of evidence to this. Where Kaz first flatly refused, with Emre's persistence he then flipped the switch, and confirmed: it was Priya they saw.

Kaz's mother, in some strange pocket of time, and in Seattle. "The yellow crystals made us travel to those odd locations from our childhood, but not our actual homes. And the teleporters, they...teleport us around the world. And there were crystal shards from the teleporter when we returned and broke it. We returned, but Priya couldn't." Emre frowned. "Them crystals is more powerful than our little experiments, darling. If they're used as - as power sources in the teleporters for location-hopping, maybe they can do a lot more than just that. Travel in...time? Or to other..." What was that stupid Doctor Who superhero comicbook word that Yaz knew? "Dime..."

Okay, so Emre didn't directly address Priya with these theories, but. Now that Kaz was acknowledging it, maybe he'd stew on it. Come up with thoughts - or perhaps even feelings - about his estranged mother's involvement in it all.

Instead Emre basked in Kaz's praise, this intelligent man telling Emre that his brain was worth as much as his capacity for violence. As for Kaz's capacity for violence...Emre still kept that tucked in his back pocket, for now. He hadn't murdered Antana, but...Kaz was willing to leave the brothers for dead. He'd killed Captain and crew in cold blood. Would Kaz have killed Georgina, if she'd goaded him just enough?

Would Kaz kill his own mother, if he felt no other choice?

"Right. Eat first, then we check the cameras. We've got time, pyaari. Yeah? We don't have to rush this." Emre said it like he was also reminding himself. "I'm packing an overnighter, luv. We're not sleeping separately tonight." The kiss at the bottom of the watchtower solidified their stretched-out time. So Emre took his time savouring Kaz, and Kaz responded in kind. Kaz, always so bloody responsive to Emre's attention, it drove Emre wild. He lapped at Kaz's mouth, wishing they could stay like this forever. But parting only made the anticipation sweeter.

"Steady on, Emz, steady on," Emre chatted to himself, as he hustled back to the dorms, grabbing a backpack and cramming it full of clothes and sundries. "Today's just like every other day. Except it's not. You've got a man now. Getting a home built, innit. Yaz is gonna be so pissed," Emre grinned at the thought of his exasperated brother, who caught such hell from Emre when the poor little bugger came out of the closet. "Look at you. Acting like you're fourteen with a stiffy in maths class for Greta Khalil, innit." Emre called out to Walid on his way out. "Oy! I'm gone mate. Won't be back for a few - for a while, yeah."

Emre trotted down towards the shoreline, cresting a small hill to see Kaz on the docks below. Already in a boat in fact, so industrious when he wanted to be. Kaz, the silky blend of hard work and lazy hedonism. There was nothing about Kaz that Emre didn't find absolutely charming.

(The killing. Probably the killing! They had to chat about that. Soon, eventually.)

As Emre bustled forward, he realized Kaz was chatting with the other bloke on the docks, someone Emre only recognized because it was a small island. Kaz getting off the boat and practically frogmarching the man away without touching him, and the man drifted off in another direction, cradling a speargun.

Emre stopped short when he saw it, watched the man go, then bee-lined over to Kaz. Emre's hand reached for Kaz's hips. "Alright luv? What's all that then?" he motioned to the retreating back of the man, then snorted as Kaz gently chastised him. "Right, well I did pack a bit more than a fishing trip's worth. Reckon I'd stay with you for a bit, yeah? At the grotto, whilst we plan and that." He hefted the duffel off his shoulder, sat it on the dock for now. Emre would nab it once they returned from their fishing trip.

He grinned up at Kaz. "What's the menu plan then? Maybe a swordfish?"

[kazxraval]

Seattle Postytellygent. Emre's stumble through the name became a life resuscitating jolt to the heart of some core memories. Kaz almost felt the loose springy-ness in an office chair as he rocked back and forth with fingers woven behind his head, as he tried to move past writer's block, on the wrong side of a deadline.

Or the excitement of a lead poured through the phone, a promise whispered into his ear. Smelled the syrupy and too sweet Crown and Cokes he had with a co-worker over sloppy lunches, which made walking a straight line back to one's desk so difficult. Kaz remembered struggling with his underused Gujarati to speak over a crackly long distance call to the father of a missing college student from Ahmedabad.

Those things and others would've remained buried if Emre hadn't said that mouthful of a name. In that gorgeously velvet gravel of a voice he wished to swim through and crystallize within. Seattle Postytellygent.

Kismet. After so many years wondering why he was there... "We've always made a good team, for the most part." A few rough times came to mind, but nothing long lasting.

While Emre held onto the notion of sparing desi parents their child's reality, that page had never been in Kaz's book. And, Urmilla wasn't Kaz's mother. "When we found your mum, she was living underground, Emre. Still hiding. Fucking hell, still chased." Kaz preferred to recall the aftermath. How warm Emre felt as Kaz held onto him, while on the back of some stupid bike as Emre pedaled them to the dorms. Emre brought him water, fed him, cleaned his wounds until he recovered.

"The group your mother pissed off traded in priceless things. Think we've just seen first hand what's worth the most out there, in that... that wasteland." Emre very clearly swept the topic aside. Kaz didn't think it should be. "It's a long shot, alright. Sometimes, it's the stray strings that end up bringing everything together."

You constant amazement. Kaz's brow furrowed deeper as Emre carried on. A gentle shove pushed at Emre's arm. "Fuck off. Don't even..." The words trailed off, without any explanation of what Emre didn't even.

Where Antana was concerned, Kaz shrugged, blank-faced and disinterested. "After a time, no trace." More worries sprouted up in the long run. The missed opportunity with Antana a kick in the teeth Kaz didn't want to dwell on either.

(And if Kaz had been aware, they kept reflecting the light of experiences at each other. One needed to strike just right. In the eyes, blinding one in order to listen to the other.)

Oh, Priya, honestly-- another relationship like water through fingers, unable to hold. Still, Emre had a fantastic way of summarizing. Knotting up loose ends, an instinctual way of weighing what they'd been through that impressed Kaz every damn time. "The yellow ones, yeah." So, hell, what did the other colors do? "Yours is special too. Not another one like it." A detail Kaz toiled over too many months. Dime... After a few seconds. "Dimension? Yeah, I mean. Something's happening here. We've crossed some kind of demarcation between this place and the real world." He hated using 'real world', but didn't stop to correct.

"Or, we're able to keep crossing it. Back and forth. Whereas." Thank fuck Priya wasn't there. Or Ali, or Georgie. Enough to make him shudder, if he'd stayed on the thought.

"Uh. No one else can, that we know of. But you know. Makes me wonder. If we took some of the other crystals with us. Not the yellow ones, but the others. With the little figures inside. What might happen." Ideas for another time, but Kaz threw it out there anyway.

They moved on. Emre was going to pack an overnighter. Sounded glamorous, adventurous, as though they were leaving in the morning for a transcontinental journey. An off-the-road, spontaneous wander.

We're not sleeping separately tonight. This was happening. As much as Kaz needed to plot the demise of a new beginning, he did not want to. It couldn't be an ending, a voice in his head shouted louder than mistrust or doubt.

At the dock, Emre walked up with the usual bounce, head swiveling around. And finally, his eyes locked on Kaz. Hands on Kaz's hips, the persistent tethering touch between them always grounding. Air hissed between Kaz's teeth as he glanced at Birdie's back, and then to Emre again as Kaz grumbled through a wobbly shake of his head. "I...It's fine, it's fine. Ignore 'em."

Attention turned from Birdie to a stuffed duffel bag. "Okay." Kaz didn't stretch the word out with sarcasm or clip it in irritation. Rather, it was confirmation. Okay. Now, here they go.

"It's not weird to you? Leaving the dorm. The grotto can get wet." Emre with a grin so difficult to ignore. He'd thought of dropping a comment too, Emre beat him to it. His own grin appeared, small but visible. Until it collapsed into mock seriousness. "I won't have the whole thing to myself, like last time?" He grabbed the duffel bag and tossed it into the two seater island built sailboat. He mumbled something about Birdie, as though Kaz didn't trust Emre's bag to be left unattended. "But. Mhm, we're gonna hit the bait rigs. Let someone else do some of the work for us, for a change, hm? Hop in, I'm gonna drive."

Or sail, as was the case. They climbed into the little boat. After everything was untied and unfurled, they set off. Kaz in charge of the rudder and telling Emre when to lean close or duck as the wind changed directions and swung the lightweight, handmade mast to adjust. They clipped parallel to the shore but further out, nearer to the swordfish rigs as Kaz said.

"I had a raft. This is better." A few boats had been crafted and maintained for fishing. "We should have something like this. You'll want something to get around easier." An afterthought. "Do you know my side of the island?" Give Kaz an inch, he'd take the beach. With this expansion of property, perhaps he would claim even more.

"You don't know it," Kaz answered for Emre. When had Kaz ever shown anyone anything at all? Kaz fell silent for a long moment. A focus on slowing the quick speed of the boat, in preparation for reaching those rigs he spoke about. Maybe he'd had a soundless conversation with the horizon too, and suddenly decided to share.

"Emre. If we ever do go back to Seattle, it won't have nothing to do with Priya. I don't want to talk about her anymore."

He nodded towards the floor of the boat, without so much as a pause to change the subject. "That bucket over there, we'll fill with water and put our dinner in." He looked towards the shore. Unlikely anyone would catch them, or even care about one stolen fish. "Get ready, I'll anchor us and start hauling up the rig. You snag us the biggest fish on it, yeah?"

[avnj0gia]

Avan Jogia on Tiktok

[emreakbar]

That darling innuendo, distinctly Kaz-flavoured. It was unbearably charming, and Emre was so fucking greedy for it. He wasn't particularly a jealous person, but he was definitely greedy. He wanted to be charmed and delighted by Kaz, always. All of it, every speck of Kaz's banter and flirting, all for him.

Kaz did that fade-off thing, then spun a story about arenas, tigers, despot leaders to defeat. Emre was caught up in the fantasy, not noticing how careful Kaz was with his words. Instead, he bought it fully, with a crooked grin. "Imagination on you, what! You should be writing these things down, man. Proper story-teller. I'd read it - and I don't read."

He wanted to remember what book he'd last read, so he could tell Kaz about it. Emre wanted to tell Kaz everything, really. From the most mundane everyday things, to the secrets and horrors deeper within. Kaz already knew so much, and still looked at Emre like that. In fact, those burning looks only grew hotter, fiercer over the past years, even with everything Kaz knew. Once, Emre thought they'd stood on opposite sides of the spectrum, when it came to good and bad. Kaz, on the side of good, a brave voice for those whose voices were snatched from them. Emre, on the side of bad, who quietly snatched those voices away.

Now, Emre didn't know what to make of them; but damned if he didn't want to tell Kaz about that, too.

Watson and Holmes, that sounded right. "Right, well...we'll go back again, yeah? Not now, but we'll make a plan. I can't help but wonder if the palm map is connected to the crystals exploding in the teleporter room. And their different elemental reactions. All of it, connected somehow to this island, hm? We might as well start again, make a second go of this map, armed with what we know." Plan proposed, Emre then smirked, smug and pleased.

"And how'd you stop yourself from jumping me, ey? At least I had an excuse; I didn't know I was all queer for you, like. But you, big man! Must've been so hard for you to resist me, you poor randy sod." Emre tilted his head up, preened a bit.

He chuckled, in their moment of levity. "Dunno, I just like thinking about us. I think about you all the time, man. You got the imagination, but I'm just fucking horny, innit. It don't make me angry and confused no more, yeah. Just..." Happy. That sounded so trite and corny. "...real."

That was better. No fantasy competed with the real thing. The flesh and blood of Kaz Raval, right in front of Emre. Accessible, touchable, grabbable at anytime. Confident that Kaz would respond in kind, with enthusiasm, no less. The simplicity of this was mind-blowing for Emre.

The subsequent messy, heated swirl and rush of mutual manhandling, cigarette smoke, and needy noises from both of them. Kaz's breath lingering on Emre's skin like a balm, both prickly and cool at the same time. The sting of Kaz's slap on his arse, that just made Emre ache for more. These stupid, new feelings and desires waking up in him. It was as infuriating as it was exhilarating. He wanted to catapult out of the little watch-tower and run a thousand miles, but couldn't bear the idea of being separated from Kaz for long. Not anymore. Dangerous, Kaz called him - not a threat, but an intoxication.

But real life had to burn through their sails; first: Antana. "Hold up. Antana is still alive?? And you're okay with that? Bloody hell! Have you seen him since? And you never - you didn't tell me about this?" And why would Kaz? Emre had never even asked, until now. A good year or so, after it all went down. The subject had seemed so extremely private, so painfully buttoned-up and a topic for no one's business but Kaz's. That Kaz had his privacy wasn't the issue right now, but it did resonate with Emre's internal war between caring too much, and not caring enough for this enigmatic man. Emre asked again: "Have you seen any of him, alive? D'you reckon he's proper dead? Fucking hell. Imagine if Antana and bloody Theo teamed up."

Emre's latent paranoia sunk in, enemies cropping up in ways he had never imagined. Ani's killer, his mum's attempted assassin. Georgina and possibly Priya. An entire shadow group, out for Urmilla's blood, still. "Your problems are my problems, alright? Understand that."

Which brought them to Priya, Kaz's would-be mother. In biology only, Emre thought. Kaz refuted it, and Emre watched the tense frizzle of frustration - or annoyance - crossing Kaz's face. Like white noise, before the channel switched. "You clocked her from across a building roof, pyari. And - and there was a frame photo of her in your, erm. In that house you lived in, innit. I saw her too." She looked like you. Same eyes - soulful, soft, and large. With something dead behind the warm brown. Emre bit the inside of his lip. "Same eyes, innit."

The cameras in the Flower Tower. The room of tv's, screens diligently recording what cameras saw around the world. Surely the phenomenon that started on the ship with Georgina would catch some drone-camera's interest. Emre had no doubt it would ping something in the Flower Tower, given its global Big Brother obsession.

Another solid plan; Kaz's brilliant, troubled mind never failed. "Yeah. Yeah, we should check the feeds yeah? The recordings - ask the shiftworkers if they spotted anything. We can do that. And we can confirm were it really - if it was really Priya, yeah? We'll do that. I'll do it myself, if you don't want to, erm, go there."

It seemed cursed to demand any sort of long-term intimacy from Kaz at this point. Emre could only imagine Kaz considering this a pinning down, walls closing around him. The pressure to conform to someone else - everything Kaz seemed to resist on this island. Maybe he was different back home with his actual dear mates - vulnerable, needy, malleable to their mutual friendships. But the island had changed Kaz - he'd said as much. Made him willfully isolated, nothing and no one could recreate his old sense of belonging, of camaraderie that he'd fought for. Forged by his own hands and clever mind in Seattle. Cruelly and senselessly ripped away from him by the island -

'I don't sleep well.'

Emre blinked. "Oh..." he said stupidly, trying to understand. "Oh, right. You need quiet and peace. Course." Kaz needed to be alone to catch any tiny inkling of rest he could. It made sense, and Emre nodded, understandingly. Already making retracting excuses in his head (no harm, no foul); but before he could speak again -

'I can do my best not to wake you.'

"....oh," Emre said again, once again mystified. He stared at Kaz, and Kaz stared right back at him. Kaz sitting with his thoughts, like he was testing the temperature. Emre in return, trying to connect the dots in his fevered mind. "Erm..."

Fortunately Emre's mind was too slow to form any response, because then he heard the prettiest conviction coming out of Kaz's prettiest mouth. Filled with 'okay' and 'let's' and 'home'.

Emre slowly, slowly smiled, lips parting to reveal a bit of teeth. He couldn't keep his eyes off Kaz. Kaz's eyes shining and bright, the tips of his ears and nose pink, skin glowing with a thrumming energy that seemed to pour off him. Emre purred in his throat, soft and husky. "Okay. Alright then. Yeah, man. Let's build a home."

Quicksilver Kaz, already jumping ahead to plans for today, catching a fish and sharing a meal. Together, together.

Emre wanted to scream: 'Wait, hold on! Wait this is important! We have to remember this! We just did something really really important, you fucking twat! Don't pass this by just yet! I love you! I love you, you gorgeous, wonderful bastard!' but instead he just pursed his lips in a satisfied smile and nodded rapidly.

"Mm-hm, yup. Yeah, dinner sounds good, I'm proper starving." Celebrate, Kaz said, with a barely contained smile. A smile that could melt Emre, and get him to do whatever Kaz ever asked, ever. Suddenly the idea of being on a boat in the middle of the ocean was a perfect idea and Emre hustled to the step-ladder, sliding down to the ground.

"I'll grab some things and meet you at the dock, yeah? Won't take ten minutes." They were down amongst the people, now. Back in reality, outside of their little private bubble. And Emre took the opportunity to hook the back of Kaz's neck, pull him down for a long, open-mouthed kiss. Emre tasted Kaz, as thoroughly as he wanted, taking his time to explore that tongue, those lovely teeth and soft, so soft lips. He pulled away to catch his breath, forehead pressed against Kaz's. "Ten minutes, yeah?" he panted, before releasing Kaz's neck.

[kazxraval]

Memories from before the island filtered down to the submerged depths Kaz lived in. "I used to write," he said, as if it was fresh news. "I was proud of that job." The fifteen odd years in between of what could have became of Kaz.

During their recent trip, as well as before, Emre made it clear. With kindness, and perhaps a touch of vexation. He pushed at Kaz. Peeled without prying. Carried out a pointed investigation in search of a missing person last seen running up and down the streets of Seattle, identified by a permanent scowl.

And Kaz, who camouflaged himself out of habit, forgot that years ago he had actually wanted to be found. "I told you what the paper was called, the one I worked for?" A planned trek (before Ali upended it all) meant to cover the newsroom, and then a visit to Urmilla's old office nearby. "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The PI. Founded by a Watson too." A funny little fact Kaz never expected to or needed to remember. Emre rubber stamped the plan to eventually return to the post-apocalypic PNW.

"I keep thinking about the houses we were in." Similar, different? Sanitized, warped by their own recollections or structured for adult versions of themselves? "We should tell Urmilla we went there." Not entirely certain why. A fuzzy notion of the other person connected to the city being someone named Nadia. "Never told her about the crystals or anything." A voice in the back of his mind said perhaps now was the time.

"Oh, it was hard," he played back, his head nodded as slow to match the crawl of a smile across his face. "I mean, I dropped hints as subtle as anvils, and you got all puffed chest. Pissed off." Emre turned just so, and the sunlight exposed the polished liquid mahogany in his eyes. Lips in a resting bow that waited to be untied with a kiss.

"You just ran away all the time. Even when I tried to kiss you." Until a gift of a badge in the warm orange light of candles-- a suggestion of romance, not quite when Kaz stepped on toes and Emre got his back up. Which somehow made it all the more thrilling. "Glad you had second thoughts."

"I think about us too." He laughed softly once, when Emre said he was just horny. Desire was an engine running on some kind of limitless fuel supply for Emre. And Emre's confession confusion fell away for an us that was real.

"It is real." Kaz's voice fell below the surface, as if to hide this precious treasure, to keep it from spreading on the wind. I want you is what he wished to say. Emre made it impossible to keep Kaz's hands off him. Impossible to keep a heart beat steady with a physical yearning. Impossible to keep a smile off his face, because Kaz also wanted more. He wanted to revel in what was real, with Emre. And for a long moment, they wordlessly did.

Then, they were back to their excavations. Why was there so much to talk about? "Dunno if he's alive, I. Well, no, I wouldn't be okay with it." As he said it, his frown grew heavier. "He hid out in the jungle, and I know he kept coming around my place. So I went after him. I wanted to kill him, but." This was so long ago, yet all the details felt as present as yesterday. A failure he'd give anything to correct.

The harsh lines of a glower faded. "Doubt he could escape what I saw. He's a goner." A wild thought, Theo and Antana together. Kaz shook his head more seriously than normal. "No, that's not gonna happen. We don't have to worry about it." Paranoid dots did not connect like Emre's. Or, Kaz refused to think of it then.

The tension completely diffused with your problems are my problems. What Emre extended to Iyaz. Talia, a few others. Kaz did not need to keep anything to himself now. Gave a nod of understanding, and wondered what this might look like.

Emre caught him on the fact Kaz identified Priya first. "Yeah, but." But, Emre's sharp observations laid out an inventory to confirm her identity, beyond Kaz's wish to pretend she was nothing more than a ghost. A hand ruffled through his hair. A stubborn denial that they didn't have the same eyes was smartly scuttled.

"Mm. You don't have to confirm nothing. It's her." But why? What was the weird bond with Georgie, someone she despised. The stranger still protection (if it was that?) of Ali. He took a moment. "We'll go through it all together. We'll look at them this week, I'll talk to the Tower staff and let them know we're not out to break anything again."

A slip of a smile. "You're good at this type of shit. With both of us searching, we can figure out where they went. Maybe where they are now, and how we ended up... wherever the hell we did, in those houses. We'll look for those flashes in the sky too." Curiosity took hold. Would they see the 'fireworks' caught on Tower cameras? Emre said Georgie seemed aware of the lights, could they track them down by seeking out Georgie again, through a lens and not in reality?

Let's build a home. Just like that. A mutual processing of what they've committed to. Things shouldn't stay the same. There wasn't anything wrong with this. No one to stop them from having whatever they wanted. Emre's voice all gravel tumbling over velvet. A gorgeous physical representation of static electricity, with a charge building up between them. The anticipated pop on each other's skin imagined next time they touched.

And Kaz knew this was special. Monumental. He did not know how to react, other than rush them off under the pretense of the next chore, so neither had to stand there and think too much. Emre had the same idea, as he tore out before Kaz got to the end of his sentence: "What, grab what things?"

On the ground of the trading market, Emre grabbed him. What Emre all but promised and still caught Kaz off guard, but in the best of ways. Kaz slid one hand up to hook under Emre's jaw and perfect the tilt of what brewed up in the lookout. Not a public display, simply taking what they wanted, when they wanted. In the moment, with no need to hide in dorms or steal around a corner.

Kaz's other hand slipped into one of Emre's, wove together with and squeezed those lovely, expressively long fingers which Kaz suddenly and desperately wanted in his mouth too. Deep, slowed with finesse. Speaking their shared language of desire and unspoken plans, spooled and spilled on each other's tongues.

Ten minutes. The heat of Emre's hand still on his neck and lips. His shorts felt unexpectedly tighter (no mystery, Emre made him half hard). How he was expected to walk away after was beyond him. But he did, after Emre walked out of view.

At the dock, flurries of Emre stayed scattered through his system. Maybe taking a boat out so soon, even the little two-seater island one designated for fishing, wasn't the brightest idea. But as he busied himself at the dock, danger seemed far away again. They were back on the island. It was time to relax, talk, put a pause on everything outside of them.

Kaz ran on autopilot, loading up the boat. Until Birdie interrupted. 'Goin' out to fish, eh?' Uh, yeah, Captain Obvious... Kaz wanted to snarl. Instead, he gestured to the fishing poles in the boat. "That's usually what those things are for, yeah."

Kaz turned from where he stood in a gently rocking boat to see Birdie on the dock, with a speargun cradled in the man's arms. "I don't fucking need that," he snapped.

Birdie's brows lifted. 'You sure? Out by the cove is alright, never seen--'

Kaz climbed up on the pier. "Positive." Emre's figure already bobbed along down the rocky path towards them. Kaz made a wave to be seen. Then with a heavy frown, he turned Birdie around to head towards the shore. "I'm trying to do something out here, okay?" Quick and tetchy, he walked behind Birdie to ensure the shooing worked. Once Birdie seemed to take the hint, Kaz kept going to meet up with Emre. "Your ten minutes was more like twenty, just saying."

[emreakbar]

Emre mocked an offended look and cracked his knuckles. "Oi, who was judging this job test? Why innt I was there? I want names." He almost wanted Kaz to playfully push at him, but also knew: that wasn't Kaz's play. That would be a girl's cute reaction, a little affectionate 'oh shut up' as Emre puffed his chest and postured as jealous.

Instead, to his immense delight, Kaz postured right back. Muscle-man on a sunny American beach. Emre was full-grinning now and (maybe like a girl, himself) couldn't resist a satisfying squeeze of Kaz's bicep. Giddy, silly thoughts raced in Emre's head. Kaz holding onto him tight at night wrapped in those firm arms. Kaz hauling him up from some dangerous precipice. Kaz performing random feats of gorgeousness. He kissed his teeth. "Leave himbo to Mik and Nick, right. We're proper gladiators innit."

A boastful claim that sounded 'cool' to Emre. Kaz's gaze flicked up, held Emre's eyes like dark amber. "Not since the waterfall? Why not?" he asked, assuming the mysterious painful carvings that appeared on Kaz's hand were deliberate. Something Kaz had to initiate with the crystals. He was surprised Kaz didn't try to make the palm-map happen since then. He grunted, shook his head at Kaz's soft gaze, sympathetic in the right light.

He upturned Kaz's palm, to kiss it. "No, it's not like that, is it. I want to be part of this, when you figure it out. Yeah? You're the Sherlock, I'm the other bloke, the sidekick." Emre clearly had no idea how those stories worked, but he had seen a cartoon with mice, once. "Besides, we make a good fucking team, man."

Emre didn't quite believe that he triggered the crystals in any way. The 'water crystal', the one Kaz said had taken a liken to him...it was confusing to Emre, confusing how Kaz just knew. Some sort of sixth sense, some deeper communication between Kaz and the crystals. "I remember some of it. I remember being terribly distracted by you, trying to pay attention. Not my fault you're so dead fit, man." The tease faded slightly. "I remember your palm most of all. How painful it looked. I - I didn't like what it done to you, I remember that. I wanted to help, but with me too stupid to know how, innit. What do you remember?"

A grin, as chat turned to lighter things, like opportunities to shag. "Reckon we could snog anywhere we wanted, if I'm honest!" Saying it felt like a shock, Emre realizing it was true. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear. "We could have a go in the middle of the market and no one would blink an eye. Yeah?"

Me and you. Such a charming idea, it sounded so complete and full, coming from Kaz. But so alien as well, like Kaz Raval wasn't the sort to say that with such conviction. Emre took Kaz's measured touch as a reason to move in closer, bask in the heat emanating from Kaz's skin. He caught Kaz's hand, took a drag off Kaz's cigarette. Offered his own to Kaz's plush lips, his fingers brushing against the soft pink. "After all these years of just you? Hard to adjust, man?"

Kaz butting against Emre, hands trailing like Emre's body was a well-worn map - the thrill that shot down Emre's spine, coiled and simmered deep in his belly. The urge to kiss Kaz hard, rip their clothes off. Wash all thoughts away with sucking and fucking, minds blown, soaked in desire. It didn't help when Kaz breathed a sweet 'stop' that meant the exact opposite, Emre knew it did. It elicited a light groan from Emre, and he forced his eyes open, out of the phantasmagoria of Kaz.

The bustle from below filled his ears, the sights of people down in the distance, the smell of food and others. All Emre wanted to do was breathe and taste Kaz, fill his entire world with Kaz. It was insane. It was also insane that they were still here, just stood here, trying to pull the strings of a casual chat together. Trying to...what? Make this normal? Nothing about Kaz was normal for Emre, but he had no idea how to put that into words.

So he backed away - casually - to give them both a bit of breathing room, right the world again, so it wasn't tilted firmly to Kaz, Kaz, Kaz. "Fuck me..." Emre breathed, taking a last, long drag before carefully field-stripping the butt. No fires on his watch.

Emre looked anywhere but Kaz, as Kaz deftly kept them talking. Talking about Seattle (or Seattle-adjacent), which was a good sign. Especially when Kaz's words pinged. "Find more? Find what more?" Even as Emre asked, he guessed. Tentatively, he said, "You found her killer, didn't you? Here, on the island. You - you offed him, yeah?" Because Emre could only think in terms of revenge. Killing was closure, wasn't that how it worked?

And speaking of killing, there was what happened in Seattle...but Kaz was teasing him, a light pinch on his ear that made Emre smirk despite himself. Right - they'd talk about what happened on that boat, later.

Thankfully, clever Kaz kept pulling the chat together, without even realizing in this case. "Hm," Emre said shortly, about Ali's time-travelling. They'd postpone the cold-blooded murder chat, but Emre couldn't keep this information to himself, not after Kaz voiced his innocent curiousity. "Ali was - taken. Between your Seattle and my London, he was, well. Not taken, he wanted to go. We wasn't the only ones who could, erm, who the crystals was taking on a time travel, darling. Remember Georgina, in the boat? When we all first saw the crystals in the sky - like sparks of light, innit? She knew what it was, she said 'we found it' or she was 'looking for it' or something, like. Georgina knew something about the crystals, knew we had something to do with them. And she weren't the only one, Kaz."

Here it was. Emre wrinkled his nose, stared at Kaz until Kaz was looking right back at him. "Georgina couldn't travel, but...but your mum seemed to travel, like us, and Ali. She got Ali into a car and...dunno. Buggered off. This was right before we landed in Wembley. But I know it was her, yeah. It was Priya."

Maybe after saying all that, Kaz's offer to live in close proximity would be rescinded. Kaz was remarkably careful about things, Emre realized. Emre didn't have to look at crystal palm-maps with him. Emre didn't have to build anything on Kaz's beachfront land. There was always an out. Not a rejection, but a way for Emre to escape; no harm, no foul.

So even after dropping the mother-bomb, Emre decided to fuck second-guessing and caution, politeness, and even exit strategies. "I don't want to live close by you, man. I want to live with you. In one place, not separate. No visits, no sleepovers, no privacy. Together, innit. I want- I want a home. I can't have a home of one."

But Kaz could. Kaz could - and did! - carve out a home for himself, just himself. Kaz had even generously offered to parcel out land for Emre, close proximity, like a moon orbiting a planet. But Emre insisted: "Two make a home."

[kazxraval]

Emre rarely, if ever, acted out a joking jealousy. The corners of Kaz's lips softened. Bicep engaged, suddenly tense with extra pride under Emre's hand. A cheeky nod, "I can bring my hammer over anytime you want." Kaz perked more, himbos tossed out for gladiators felt perfect.

"Yeah, we can have one of those..." He was going to say naval battles. A coliseum filled with water, Kaz and Emre slashing across facades of ships in mock war.

They'd done it already, in reality. In Seattle.

Kaz switched to a different idea of a spectacle, with a knuckle tucked gentle under Emre's chin. "Ah, scratch that. I want to take down a tiger. Wrestle it barehanded. You, with a thick chest rug on display, will take on the emperor's guards for us. Then we'll attack him in his box seats as the adoring crowd cheers us on." Once again, words chosen carefully.

He shrugged. "Dunno. I've gone back to the waterfall, I've carried the crystals. Waited for it to happen again, but nothing." Emre's lips on his palm gave his fingers the opportunity to skim over Emre's cheek. "Watson is just as important as Sherlock Holmes. More than a sidekick." He agreed: "We do make a good team." How many times had they cheated a despicable ending, together? "You were there last time. When the map appeared. So, yeah. Maybe you're what I'm missing."

Kaz sank into the airy, hoarse sound of Emre's voice. The 'accented terribly distracted'. Mirth danced in big eyes and around Emre's mouth. Talk about distracting.

"I didn't know what to do either, mm. I was working on your tattoo, and my hand began to hurt." A furrow blipped across the brow, soon replaced by better memories.

A sweltering afternoon, and not from the weather. "And you looked hot as fuck. Very tempting." Silently, Kaz scanned through the day for the millionth time, in search of clues. Omens, signs, a warning. Even now, the one thing he kept drifting back to stood in front of him. Emre. "Can't figure out what activated the... map. And it hasn't happened since. It's why I was asking. To see if you remember anything else that day, something maybe I overlooked."

"No one would bat an eye, yeah. Who'd want to miss a second of us making out? I wouldn't." Not a new thought, he presumed, however Emre sounded quite suddenly free to talk. And it felt oddly contagious. A fairly mundane thing, an otherwise simple show of desire somehow catapulted to a rapturous height. All because Emre said it out loud. He quietly laughed. "What made you think of that?"

Emre elegantly commandeered Kaz's hand that held the cigarette. A flirtatious and sultry gesture. A subtle, attractive show of dominance. If Emre could steal a smoke, he could steal anything else he wanted. They were no longer in a glorified perch above the trading area. But some place miles away. Smoke filled, eyes on each other. No need for words when eye contact said it all.

Kaz leaned in to Emre's offered cigarette, especially keen to feel the slightly tacky stick of his lips on Emre's fingers. Kaz fell into a a waking dream. Unable to even think of what was being asked (hard to adjust?) or why. Hopefully a few grunts answered.

He was also completely disinterested in pulling away, unless it was to push Emre towards the small little desk in the lookout. Back him up with blind kisses as Kaz's hands claimed much more than fluttering touches. Or drag him right down to the floor, into a frenzied stripping away of clothes and heavy moans ... lose their minds. Scenarios he'd thought about countless times before.

When they did untangle, it was with an amazed exhale. Happy. A quick swat at Emre's ass leaving him. Kaz talked as he looked for a spot to eventually extinguish his own cigarette, a good excuse to move and burn the sweet tension away. "You're dangerous, Akbar. Always dangerous."

Find what more? Kaz wasn't sure how to explain it. He also hadn't thought about it all in a while. "I didn't kill him. I watched." The biggest opportunity gone, obliterated before his eyes. Yet Kaz's brain still ran on search mode. If not for her killer, then for her final resting place. A fruitless journey to say the least, but one his mind hadn't quite let go of. He scratched through the back of his hair. "I mean. Something in the jungle got him before I could. Something big, dragged him right into one of the lagoons. I waited a long time, but he never came up."

All fidgeting ceased. As he listened to Emre, an awful realization presented itself. Georgie knew about the light. Looked for it. Fucking hell. Of all people to be a key to anything. Georgina?? "How do you know it was Priya? Why're you so sure. Shit, I'm not even sure I remember her properly anymore. You know? What she looked like. I haven't seen her in years." Or was that an excuse? "Maybe, hm. Maybe it wasn't her at all."

And yet, they were whisked to a house, or semblance of one, he'd lived in with his mother. "Why would she..." An unanswerable question trailed off. "Ali is nothing to her." Ever emotionless, it was difficult to tell how convinced he was. "She doesn't care about anyone but herself, so. Not sure what interest she'd have in the kid."

"I didn't ask anyone about the cameras." Was it possible that the Tower eye caught their entire trip? The whirlwind to Wembley? The in between with Ali and Priya? "We could check them. See if they captured those lights and sparks, see if that's happened any other time. Or since we've been back."

Was it possible to find Priya and Ali too? "What do you think." Because chances of asking Georgie's help, after the massacre of most of her operation, seemed slim to none.

I can't have a home with one.

The words hit hard enough to see stars. Emre asked something of Kaz, to move forward. To consider the future, and why shouldn't Kaz do so? "I don't sleep well. That's why I stay by myself." At the furthest point from others. Now, his sleep staggered around Emre's. So far, nothing more than a jolt awake occurred and often missed by Emre either already gone or too deep in sleep to notice.

All those years on the island made Kaz forget. Would this have been a life lived outside the island, solitary and distanced? Adapted to remain outside of anyone's reach, or had the island convinced him to do so?

"I can do my best not to wake you." He waited for a flood of regret. The second guessing. But there was only a fire building. Steady waving flames built on curiosity. What new quirks and eccentricities of Emre's might he uncover? Would a home bring a tiny bit of order to his untidy mind? So many questions waited for answers, he could barely count them.

"Okay." His heart beat faster, with more dedication. Nerves (because how did they have the fucking nerve to want anything in rotten hellhole of a place?). Excitement. He was already looking at a face he wanted to see every day. "Okay. Let's do it. We'll build a home." Together.

Emre dared, and Kaz accept that dare. This was mental. Kaz wanted it. There were lists to make-- locations to survey, especially if Emre didn't want the beach. Supplies to gather. Measurements to take. The mundane activities Kaz loved to get lost in. Those could wait. "I was going to take a boat out and catch dinner. Dinner for two then? To celebrate?"

[emreakbar]

Emre snorted in amusement, taking a moment to peer over the railing at the little stalls below. Bustling and busy, as was normal at this time of day. "Yeah..." he drawled lightly, magnetized by Kaz's thinking, but reluctant to just copycat the other. "So you're opting for a new career in building instead. 'Kaz the trader' is now 'Kaz the builder' - got a nice ring to it, innit." Emre teased deadpan, tilting his head. "Can you hammer whilst shirtless, is - is that a thing?"

All for himself. Emre's mind slipped back into more sun-mottled, ocean-spray, sultry moments. Him and Kaz, slippery in wet and naked heat, whispering love in multiple languages at each other. Claiming each other in tender but firm ways. It felt so right then, it fixed so much into place, made things real. But neither of them really knew what to do next, Emre realized. After bleeding, intimate promises of worship and fealty, they both just....continued on in their lives. Emre back to work, Kaz back to work, bouncing back together for occasional jaunts and adventures.

The separation suited them both, between their reality and the other reality, but...why?

Kaz reported about the teleportation room, as Emre enjoyed his fingers prying for the lighter. "Oh. Oh - so one teleport still actually works? I reckon no one would dare use it though." In case it blew apart too, exacerbating the Flower tower malfunction. He watched as Kaz extracted a little pouch - so dear. So darling, the way Kaz stored things. Altoids tins and little compartments and cheap velvet pouches - and shook out the contents.

And explained the magnitude of what happened. Emre stared at the crushed crystal pieces, then up at Kaz. "Careful with that, luv. Looks like it could slice your hand. Or - or...burrow inside. Your other palm, Kaz. Remember the map on your palm? Might be time we look into that again. Crystals that can be shattered and puv...pulp...puvverized, yeah. Fuck me..." Emre kissed his teeth. "All these bits and pieces of a puzzle I never asked to solve."

But Kaz was a detective, of sorts. Investigative, curious, determined. Coupled with some internal apathy, and a natural wariness. "Do you reckon anyone else knows about the crystals like you - like we do? Should we tell anyone else? Or maybe others have had erm, encounters with crystals, innit." Or better to figure it out themselves. Emre was leaning keeping it on the down low, if only because he wasn't sure how to begin explaining. Only Kaz understood - possibly more than Emre.

"The Tower's got dorms! For people to do shifts overnight and that." Not permanent homes, but Emre shrugged. "Calm, luv, calm. I'm just spoiled for the electricity and toilets in there innit."

Emre wasn't serious about living in the Tower, but Kaz's protest sounded almost...blustery. Kaz, indignant? That felt new; or maybe Emre read him wrong. Why would Kaz have strong opinions on Emre's new living area, after all...? Right. Emre grinned. "We can still fuck in the Tower, you know."

The mention of Iyaz felt incongruous, and Emre shook his head. "No. nah. Bruv's truly found his own life out there. I wouldn't want to..." Emre paused, pondering his feelings. He'd thought about his brother, but not as obsessively has he used to. No little (tall) younger to mind, control, fix, help. "He...he was right, you know. We needed to be separated. He needed independence, so...so I could be free. I've got my own life now, don't I." To lessen the gravity, Emre winked up at Kaz. "With you, obvs."

Emre leaned in to take the flame, leaning back to exhale smoke. "What's a jimmydean," he replied, not expecting an answer. Kaz had a trick to show him - playful and fun. Was this what Kaz was like, with his mates? Full of little skills and novelties, amusements for others so he could be amused in turn. Whiling away hours just...hanging out. Being normal. Emre grinned, with a two finger applause on his palm. "Wager you can blow them funny smoke circles and the like too, innit. Man's got all sorts of talent with that pretty mouth."

Kaz clearly didn't want to dissect Seattle. And when he collected Emre close, teasing with the alien cool of the lighter juxtaposed with Kaz's calloused fingers on his skin, post mortems flew out of Emre's mind as well. All that mattered was the now, the present. It was so easy to do that with Kaz. He never wanted to scrape through the past, or plan for the future. It was just now, here, with him. Emre raised his arm, draping it over Kaz's shoulder, hand curling into the nape of his neck. That thick tangle of silky black hair slid between his fingers, pure luxury.

"Mmm. Maybe you're right. Just slow down for a moment, yeah? Manual labour. Plenty ways we can lose our minds, focus on the physical." A drag of his cigarette, and then Emre nuzzled his forehead against Kaz's scruffy chin.

Ani's treasures in the dorm. Emre exclaimed, leaning back. "You what! You hoarded enough in your bloody rock-cave, got to spill over into mine? What if I rolled over onto it and crushed it all?" It was a joy, though, knowing Kaz trusted Emre with Ani's treasures. Or...maybe not Emre, but his sleeping quarters? "You fucking weirdo. The way your fucked-up mind works..." Emre sounded fond, admiring. He shook his head. "Still can't believe we was able to bring stuff back from the past. Oi, fuck, Kaz. What - you don't think that was...real, do you? Little me comes home to find his prized creps is jacked? Or poor little Ani can't find her ticket stub and keychain?"

Kaz flipped the lighter joke into a trainers quip, clever little sod. In response, Emre pressed two, three, four kisses in quick succession along Kaz's jaw. Kaz was still talking, about his property, his beach. But then -

A pause. Emre leaned back again, to meet Kaz's plum-dark eyes. "You what. You...what? I'm - you know that's not what. I weren't saying we should, dunno. It wasn't a hint at anything, you know that." Emre's turn to bluster. "Dorm really is just getting too small, and I'm a grown fucking man! My grieving period is over! Yazzie's moved on, I've got to do the same, I've got to make a home, a real home like a real man. And - really? Your beach. You want me, on your beach. That close to you. Bruv. Mate, darling. Jaanu." Emre laid a heavy hand on Kaz's shoulder.

"I'm serious here, my love. Is that really what you want? I'm not asking for that. Not that you'd be pressured into anything even if I did ask, you're no pushover innit. Nah, this is just - are you sure?"

[kazxraval]

Kaz gave a shrug to the pondering of a 'career' direction he'd not given much thought to. "A pivot, perhaps," he played along. "I passed the hammering shirtless test, yeah. Won me the job, that skill." He curled an arm in front of him to admire. "Gonna have our himbo summer now, Em."

"No one is leaving this place for a minute." His departure from the market well-timed. Kaz's eyes jumped from his hand to Emre over the burrowing of crystals, as though they were little parasites in a wait to infect their chosen host once more. "It hasn't happened again. Not since that day with you at the waterfall." A glorious day interrupted by the excruciating pain and confusion of a map to nowhere.

A faint and sympathetic smile graced his lips. "I know you didn't ask to solve anything. Don't have to, either." Despite it, Emre became deeply ingrained into the fabric of the mystery. "I've not told anyone else. Or heard any stories at all." Kaz briefly grinned. "It's been our secret for so long. I kind of don't want to share it." But the Tower maintenance and tech teams certainly focused on the last trip Kaz and Emre took.

In his cupped hand he examined the pieces and noted the qualities. Pale, translucent, lifeless. With a furrowed brow, he funneled the dull shards and crushed powder back into the pouch. "We can try to induce the crystals to show us the map again. This time, I'm going to follow it. There's some reason why they activated at the falls, but no where else, hm? And with you."

A pause to brush over his beard. "These crystals in connection with the teleporter showed us the past." Arguably, a version of the past. "I need to know what they want to show us here. Do you remember it all, that day at the falls?"

Electricity and proper plumbing, Kaz hadn't thought about rooms in the tower. "Oh." He nodded his head. 'We can still fuck' drew a small laugh from Kaz. "Glad you've nailed down the most important aspect of a home. Being able to go at each other in relative peace."

A polar shift in Emre existed for a while, just not in so many words: the independence of one brother provided freedom to another. The push for Emre's own place, in his own life, began to make sense. With you, obvs. A feathery type of flutter rose inside Kaz. One felt often with Emre. Not just his dick getting hard.

Their hands already roamed throughout the conversation. All to punctuate or assure, or simply to remind of the blissful sharing of space. This time, his fingers grazed over Emre's chest and to an arm to squeeze. "Me and you." A chant to invoke into existence what had undoubtedly already been floating around them to begin with.

Kaz made a quiet but amused sound. "Ah, you're tearing me apart," said low, no real emotion tied to it. He tried not to smile at Emre's most dainty and hands full applause. "Mhm, and the like. I'll show you more later."

Kaz did want an autopsy of Seattle. Not necessarily a neatly generated report, but a start. The more devastating parts of the trip still hidden in the corners of his grotto for now. Did Emre think about the man (men) Kaz killed as often as Kaz? Or the image of a blank but blood-splattered expression?

For the time being, he'd rather stay nested in their ring of tobacco scent and smoke, perfectly mirrored in the way they each held a cigarette between fingers and exhaled away from each other. Fingers gently claimed Kaz's hair. His chin brushed Emre's forehead in a cat-like affection. A hand stayed on Emre's back, alternating between trailing around and pressing the palm into the well-defined muscles.

Plenty ways we can lose our minds... "Stop," an empty warning in a whisper. Now his dick could definitely get hard. "All the way, yeah, all with you." They wouldn't stay locked together long. But he closed his eyes and felt Emre's touch pour over him, a warm splash of want, the right balance of excitement without growing too out of hand. Enough to relax. (Wouldn't he kill to always feel this damn good, this adored and horny and protected?)

"Rolled over onto it?" He slipped out of his trance with a longer lasted smile. Basked in the beams of 'weirdo' and 'fucked-up mind' laced with nothing more than appreciation. "Your sheets don't make the best hiding place, so don't have to worry about that."

And right on time, Emre provided an intriguing idea. "Dunno. Part of me... part of me wants it to be real. If I can find this hidden box of Ani's maybe... I can find more." A cradle of bones on a beach, her final resting place? Utterly delusional, and he frowned. "I mean. I know it's not realistic."

More smoking before he changed directions. "Or. I'd like to see your little self go ballistic over missing shoes." Kaz softly pinched the top curve of Emre's ear. And Emre's kisses left stars in his beard, precious gems to keep. "Reyansh having a meltdown over missing cheese would be gold."

"If we took things, we could've left things, don't you think." Was it possible? And what the hell was the point? "It's weird that Ali didn't stay in London. He traveled to my... past. If you can call it that. But didn't stay in yours." Another thought. "I asked the tower techs to locate anything picked up on the cameras in Seattle from our trip too."

They could've left things. The value came at him in strange ways. A warning to Urmilla. To Omar, all trajectories altered... but was any of it true? Did those strange semi-memorable places they visited abide by the laws of their own weird-ass universe?

Emre acted as though Kaz unintentionally caught him stealing a sweet or something. A lot of being grown, pointed out a real home, a real man. (Which Kaz had never known anyone real-er than Emre) Kaz asked himself: should I say no? Backtrack. Claim to be misunderstood. Except he didn't feel any of those things were accurate. His hand clasped over the one on his shoulder. "You don't have to move down there. It can be rough riding out storms if you're too close to the beach." Flooding, exposure to more wind damage than the interior... then again, a storm anywhere was rocky to endure.

"I see the allure of the tower too. Kind of like living in a high rise or something." Which might suit Emre. "I'll visit, wherever you go." He stopped to smoke again. "But I don't see why we can't be neighbors."

As he said it, the usual urge to run from any perceived attachment was barely a vibration in his head. The idea of something begun triggered the inevitable ending now so far out it fell off his horizon. Jaanu. "That way, it's easier to borrow a cup of sugar."

[emreakbar]

The light tremour of amusement crossing Kaz's face, barely a register on the Richter scale, was like a full-blown laugh from anyone else. That same (slightly smug, now) thrill that automatically echoed in Emre, whenever he amused Kaz. It was practically mechanic, by this point. Flick a switch, the light turns on.

Emre was turned on, incidentally. But that was merely due to the presence of one certain golden-skinned, long-haired man in Emre's 10-metre radius.

"Sure you haven't," Emre replied dryly, but not chiding. Kaz and Isela were like beans on toast; but sometimes the toast was overdone, or the beans were off. Neutrally, like holding a branch out to a wild stag, Emre asked, "What sort of change?"

It is mine, hummed with such casual confidence. "If no one else has claimed it," Emre amended, knowing no one else would. Emre hadn't even noticed it, himself. But the innuendo was irresistible; Emre flicked the lighter between his fingers and cheekily added, "Were I this lighter, ey?"

The tease of 'soldier boy' from Kaz was new and stupidly intriguing. It could've been mocking; Emre despised his time 'fighting' for the British Army, even if it shaped him so indelibly. But this was Kaz, and when Kaz said anything about Emre, it felt like...attention. Attention from someone Emre never could've conceived he'd yearn after. "Yes, wot. They're a prize! I've got to keep them somewhere I can see them without knocking my head against the bloody little shelf when I'm crawling about in there. And what if you're in there too?" Emre kissed his teeth, shook his head. "Nah, man. It's too small now, too cramped. I want something bigger."

Emre clucked his tongue. "Not as if we'd be able to go back out there to find more Jordans, not for a while. You've been back to the teleport room? What's it like? Is people pissed it's broke? Did you, erm, find...anything that...explains...?" Explained why it broke, why the crystals were there, why they flicked and shunted Kaz and Emre between countries and timelines, like pinballs.

He'd started fidgeting compulsively with the lighter now, until Kaz's hand curled over his, thumb deftly stroking along Emre's palm, then tucking in to pry. To make it a game, Emre held on to the lighter as tightly as possible, letting Kaz fight him. Enjoying the contact, the power of Kaz on him. Even in small ways, like this.

Back to Emre's idea to move homes. He shrugged. "Dunno, really. Was thinking the Flower tower, but it's all public innit. I want privacy." A little side-smile. "For us and all. And our shisha bar, yeah! Maybe one of the houses...I dunno." Emre shook his head.

"I hate living alone. Was easier when I had to make a home for Yaz. Now...what. Make a home for just myself? That's not a home. That's just me, innit."

Kaz succeeded through pressure and gentle force, and Emre relinquished the lighter. As a reward for Kaz's light-fingered ways, Emre shook two cigarettes out of a pack, gave one to Kaz, stuck the other in his own mouth and waited.

"Building projects? I can help too," Emre said, before hastily amending, "If that's alright. It'd be a riot to work on something together, don't you think? Something what don't involve fighting and running and escaping," Emre chuckled. "Why is we always fighting and running and escaping, man?"

Emre hardly sounded bothered, more nostalgic. Romanticising - Emre's favourite pastime - their jaunts to the outside world together.

Another shrug, when Kaz asked about a timeline. "Dunno. Honestly, luv, it was the Jordans innit. Seeing them on the shelf, was such a shame, wasn't it. You saved those, for me. They should be prominent, like. I want everyone to see it and get green, yeah." He jutted his chin towards Kaz. "And what of Ani's little box of treasures? Tucked it away into one of your rocky niches, then?"

[kazxraval]

"Change of scenery," was his response. "Ready to do something different. You know." A quick glance cast down from Emre's perch over the market. "Tired of dealing with those pricks down there." Pushy and whiny 'customers'. The thrill of the deal no longer enticed but grated. Kaz was done with it for a minute

Any of his own complaints went up in smoke with the lighter remark. Were I this lighter. This little bastard. Seemed so long since they had the time to be so irreverent. So long that for a second it felt strange to even reply. An old dance he'd forgotten the steps too, and needed Emre to gently remind. The comment about the lighter relaxed him, and allowed a smile to surface. "I see something I like, I want to keep it all for myself." A sweep of his eyes down and up Emre, not hidden but exaggerated to play along. "Can't be helped."

He'd never thought of Emre's dorm room as being small, however maybe he paid more attention to what the room held. What it smelled like, what it represented. But he nodded along in agreement. Yes, it was cramped. Yes, they'd be bumping their heads on the shelf, mhm.

"Ah," he paused. And frowned, but not because Emre made taking back the lighter difficult. That part, he enjoyed. Pushing against Emre's soft skin, pulling at a strong hand. Studying the blue ink or the bend of the joints of the fingers. What a funny way they had, to 'hold' hands.

"I did go back to the teleport room. The one we used is broken, yeah. The other one is alright. The tower team is pretty pissed." How to fix something that you don't really understand how it worked to begin with? "Pissed at us, they know it was our trip that fucked it all up."

The lighter game took a time out. From another pocket, Kaz pulled a small bag, velveteen and deep blue. The drawstrings were loosened and he shook out the contents. Some of it looked like finely ground powder and tiny rocks, until Kaz moved it into a shaft of sun that poured into Emre's workspace.

"This was all over the floor in the teleporter room." Crushed crystal pieces were held out for inspection. "Remember when we were playing around with one, the first one I showed you? And it broke the vice? Look at these. All broken, much of them pulverized. Turned to dust, Em." As they could've been. "How's that fucking possible?"

As Emre continued with the homestead plans, Kaz felt his lips part. Incredulous, he balked. "The Flower Tower? What in hell would ever make you consider moving-- that's not even a real place to live." Said the guy who lived in a cave. "Why'd you think about the tower, how's that make sense?"

He supposed Emre hadn't lived on his own until recently. There was the idyllic house they visited, with empty crisp packets on the floor. Then with a grandmother, with Iyaz. In army barracks. Two closets in two homes (one with Melody, one with Iyaz). The only other place he lived alone was a prison cell.

And now, in the dorms. A lonely sentiment, and Kaz wasn't sure what to say. "We can try to look for him again, your Iyaz."

He grinned and accepted the cigarette, although he placed it behind an ear. "Smoking now? You look like a brown Jimmy Dean with it." There wasn't much wind. Regardless, a hand cupped around the end of Emre's cigarette to carefully light it.

"Want to see a trick?" Kaz wet his lips and gave the lighter a few flicks. Then the flame was held up lit, and Kaz brought it to his pursed mouth. He sucked in quick, and most of the flame fully bent, drawn between his lips. The magic lasted a short time, five seconds or so before he laughed the fire was extinguished. Kaz smiled. "Ever do that? Not even sure why I ever did it to begin with..." Friends, fucking around, doing dumb shit.

Fighting, running, escaping. Their life. Kaz lit his own cigarette for that first long, beautiful drag, which for some reason had to be done looking upwards. An inhale deep enough to hollow his cheeks, and luxuriously audible exhale of smoke after. Fuck, he missed smoking. "I don't know why." Even so, the apocalyptic office tower they began in flickered through his mind. Georgie's goons kicking him in the ribs. Emre with blood up to his elbows. Kaz was less inclined to think of it fondly.

Kaz squinted as he placed the cigarette between his lips again. He reached for Emre's sides to pull closer, and lifted Emre's shirt enough to slide the lighter between skin and the waistband of the shorts. He took a puff and then held the cigarette up to blow smoke over the cherry tip. "I'm kind of tired of fighting, running, escaping. Felt like we were in some big video game last time, hm? Leaping around, shit. Happy to stay here for a minute. A building project, yeah. What could go wrong with it?" Absolutely everything, but at least on the island they didn't have far to run.

He hummed a laugh. "Ani's box is tucked away at your place." A quick flash of teeth. "Didn't expect that, did you, ha. Guess I gotta move it now. Since you're leaving. How many damn people you have over to your place anyway, that's gonna see the trainers? Figured you wanted 'em. Didn't know they'd end up an, uh. Objet d'art, or whatever." It was fun to harass (affectionately) Emre over fancy shoes. Better to see Emre light over over the Jordans. "Oh, to be those shoes..." he teased.

"I don't like people on my beach." A pause. "But. Well, you could build there." His head bobbed, then brows tightened. "Funny thing, I had this weird idea to build a beach hut. Or even something sturdier up on the cliff, as a sort of look out." A 'look out' sounded ridiculous, but for some reason he had it in his head. "Navy team gonna land any day now, I know," he drawled jokingly.

"I'd let you. Only you. No one else. Not that you need any more ideas on where to live. Maybe I should help you narrow them down instead of adding to the pile." Another pull from the cigarette, this time he exhaled through his nose and ruffled a hand through the top of his hair. "What do you do up here all day anyway? Spy on me?"

[emreakbar]

Emre stared off into nothing. He didn't feel bad about it; the trading post was, by this point, self-managing. Emre really only showed up to be a lynchpin of governance, his visibility keeping people in line, even if altercations were minor. He didn't like seeing himself as a guard, or a fucking pig. More like a watchdog monitoring the flock.

He still couldn't rid himself of those 'dog' analogies; but at least this one, Emre picked for himself.

But since their trip to Seattle (and...somewhere else. London? Space-time portal realities, as Iyaz called it?), Emre could only think about Kaz. One might argue that Emre was always thinking about Kaz, or at least the other occupied about 65 - 70% of Emre's mind, at any given point.

But it was always thoughts in conjunction with something else. A wedding necklace, a corrupt cop, a lost mother. This time, it was about crystals. Emre still had the water crystal; Kaz wouldn't take it back. But there were other crystals in the (now-broken) teleport room. Exploded bits of glass in the air, on the floor...but where did it all come from? What did they see in Seattle? What took them to their past?

And why did Emre feel Kaz was at the centre of it all.

Like a djinn summoned by thought alone, Kaz's rattly greeting pulled Emre out of his thoughts, with a sharp inhale. Too slow to register Kaz nicking the forgotten lighter, but Emre made a belated disapproving frown anyway. He stood up from his perch and it only took three steps to reach Kaz.

Kaz, carefully keeping his distance, as always. That caution, even now. But for entirely new reasons, again. And again, and again. Emre didn't have time to greet Kaz back, as he announced his and Isela's designs; or lack thereof.

"You what?" Emre paused a foot away from Kaz. Tilted his head - surprised first, confused next. "Why you shutting it down for so long? You and Iz had a row?"

Emre stepped closer, hand slipping in a proprietary way into Kaz's shorts pocket, to extract the lighter. "I'm afraid is not yours either, darling." A little game to play; Kaz had set it up. A slight snort, as Emre studied the lighter. Content in his close vicinity to Kaz. "You joking? I put the shoes up on a shelf, after giving them a good cleaning. Bruv, I need a bigger place to live. I reckon it's time."

[kazxraval]

An amused reaction to 'Iz' rippled across his brow and mouth. "Iz said I've been snapping at her since I got back." A short pause, a long blink. "I haven't." Isela was overly sensitive, Kaz decided. "Been wanting to make a change for a while, so. It's fine."

He angled slightly into the hand dipped into a pocket. Emre's reach left a delightful but brief ghostly touch behind, a little eddy of shared closeness that floated around Kaz's hipbone before it disappeared. "Mm, it is mine." Words to say as he watched Emre examine the lighter. "I'll let you look at it for a second."

Kaz huffed, an instant reason popped up in his mind of why Emre needed to put those damn shoes on and march through the sand. Wear those fuckers until they wore out. Actually, there were a few things to say but Emre's announcement threw him off, as timely as it was about to be.

"Okay." Seeing his old room? His dad? What brought on the move, Kaz wondered. "Looking for more closet space then. Soldier boy gonna grow more Jordans." Not posed as a question but a nagging sensation in his stomach hoped Emre would explain.

Kaz took the hand that held the lighter. Turning it over, he gently scratched the palm with his thumb nail. Then, his thumb gently began to pry open Emre's grasp.

"Where you moving to?" He couldn't imagine Emre would return to his old shared house with Iyaz. Kaz heard about it long before he saw the inside. The proud shower, a bare bones room (not unlike Kaz's younger bedroom, ha). Could hear the scrape of a chair leg on the wood floor Emre built himself, the rattle of a teapot lid when a fist hit the table. Remembered how far an angry step took off the porch.

But maybe? Maybe it was Emre's plan to move back into his old home. Hell, he was already a little surprised to hear this idea to move in the first place. And--

Fuck, why the hell was his brain picking this apart?

Kaz had the lighter once more but gave Emre's fingernails a quick once over. A slow press of the pad of his thumb over every single nail. "Funny you say this. Because I've been thinking about signing up for some those building projects going on." At least the ones that provided the right distractions for Kaz. Mindless lifting, moving, sweating. No frustrating challenges for a minute. No unwanted flashbacks, no bloody lips. Nothing he had to think too much about.

He dropped Emre's hand. "Hope you won't get rid of the smoke room." His thumb flicked the lighter once. "And this is happening when..."