sixthiterationlogs | A Long Time Coming...

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A Long Time Coming...

WHO: Malik Al-Sayf
WHERE: House 31
WHEN: post-Take Two I
OPEN TO: Altair
WARNINGS: Feelings, tba

Malik has been somewhat contemplative since recent events, getting wisked away on a hunting field trip and having to fight some sort of feline beast had been... interesting. It's also given him some time to think, and while that has not always been the best of things to deal with this time it has given him a chance to take time and gain some perspective on things that have been said to him.

Mostly his conversation with Nida, and a few other's assumptions over the years.

True, nobody had ever said anything in Masyaf but setting aside situations that couldn't be changed had long been a tradition of the citadel. This was not Masyaf though. Malik was no longer who he had been there, nor was Altair the man he'd last known. It made things both easier and far more delicate to address.

Malik is carefully working on an illustration for the cover of the writing he'd been doing recently, a delicate border of some sort taking shape along the edge farthest from the spine. There's a meal already made and keeping ready in the kitchen, and he peeks out to the door when he hears Altair return.

"Altair. Safety and peace, welcome back. I was just wondering your opinon on some things."

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He had heard of those lizards in Egypt, flat things that resembled logs in the river, ferocious and unfeeling. He'd not expected to ever fight one. His knee had held up - mostly. But going to the healing springs to soak, to ease his muscles with both their magic and their warmth, had held nothing but benefits.

His hair was still slightly damp under his cowl as he stepped inside, dressed as warmly as he could be - but he was surprised to be addressed as soon as he came in. "Of course, Malik," he answered as he hung up the heavy mentor's robe just inside the door. There was no need of it once he was out of the cold, after all, and he found it little but a barrier. "How can I help?"

As he spoke, he approached, curious - and then faintly smiling as he saw the illustration his friend had begun. It was lovely, with his usual meticulous attention to detail, and made Altaïr think of warm summer breezes through the Citadel and the growing library downstairs.

Years and years ago.

"In truth I am not sure whether you can or not, but I would like a more satisfactory ending to the tale than the way it likely happened originally." He sighed, "I have begun writing stories to put in the library, changing names and details but the core of it remains."

It's as convincent a cover as any for the moment, and Malik sets aside his quill to turn his full attention to Altair.

"There was once a General who fell in love with the Queen of his land as she proved herself a fair and wise ruler, and he intended to tell her of the truth of his heart on her return from a diplomatic trip to a neighboring kingdom they had long been at war with. However, his Queen returned with a husband and while her new husband would be no King and be an advisor in matters of politics the General was torn between his duty as it was to their land and the truth in his heart. He had no desire to upset her happiness with her husband, and even littler desire to be King so he kept his silence. Serving as her General would be enough, and he found some measure contentment in his life.

"My question to you is how long the General should wait before giving up on his love for the Queen and accept a wife of her choosing for him? Or should he continue waiting for her until a time when he can tell her without bringing chaos to the kingdom?"

He listened, quiet and attentive, though his mind was ticking through the details as he tried to figure out the tale beneath the tale. All in all, it seemed a sad story, and he wondered which world had held it for Malik to learn it - what the meaning had been, beneath it all.

It already mirrored the ache in his heart, leaving a raw place where he would usually find a way to be calm and incisive.

"I must admit," he said quietly, meeting Malik's eyes for only a moment before his gaze went back down to the page and Malik's beautiful inkwork. "I have never seen that love is something that can be let go. Once it is felt, it never fully fades. Warmth will always be there, even when it should no longer be, for all rational reasons. I know I have carried it for decades, even when it seemed there would be no hope for it to flourish."

And suddenly, with those words, came a feeling. A clarity. A confusion that had his shoulders still.

That story...

Malik keeps his own gaze on Altair, keeping his arm resting casually on the surface of the table. He raises an eyebrow at the response, sighing.

"Love is rarely rational." He agrees, even as he tilts his head slightly to assess the other man. "I was not aware you had affection for anyone besides Maria and your sons."

He's not sure whether it's a shock or not, it adds perspective regardless.

He was quiet, almost wary, when he said, "My experience with love is very limited, Malik. The only person I have ever loved from the start was Adha."

And Malik knew how that had ended.

"Maria and I did not love each other when we wed. She had no wish to return to England, but wanted the freedoms of a married woman in the Ash-shaam. So I married her. The love between she and I was one that was built brick by brick."

He could not look up. He dreaded it too much. What he would see-- No. No, what he would show. He'd been well-scolded by more people than one, but there was still fear at letting himself be vulnerable - even with Malik. Malik, whom he slept beside and held to like a barnacle on a ship's hull.

He was a fool indeed. He clenched his eyes tight shut and spoke despite it.

"But the love that I held..." Altaïr had to clear his throat against his voice's roughness. "It was one realised too late. Too late for anything to be done."

Malik only gentles his voice, though there's no pity in it only understanding.

"How long should the General wait, Altair? If he has a suspicion that his Queen feels something towards him... how long?"

Altaïr took a slow breath, hearing what it was that Malik wasn't saying - or at least not outright. The hope hurt. But he pushed past it because he saw what his heart was still trying to deny:

This was no longer hope.

If he was right, and he was almost sure he was, this was confirmation.

And so he swallowed. He looked up. And he said quietly, "Perhaps until he confesses why he chose to change a Mentor into a Queen."

"Because. You have all the dramatic flair of one at times." Malik replied, one eyebrow raised. "The question now is how you wish to proceed, knowing that and knowing that I have held it since I told you that you would deliver both safety and peace to our home those years ago."

He gave a flicker of a smile, but it faded before he answered, "I have no easy answer."

Standing to his full height, Altaïr reached up and pulled his cowl over his head - a rare thing, but of everyone, Malik had seen it the most. After all, when he could, he didn't sleep in the thing. He folded it, placed it aside, and then looked at Malik with sincerity.

"I love you," he said, words simple and true. "I have for years. Before I married Maria. Long before I left for Mongolia. Since you arrived here, I have been fit company for no one, you among that number, because of how deeply I care for you, and because of knowing how you care for another."

"And? Should I have lived the rest of my life without finding love with anyone when I was under the impression that you had no interest in me until now?" He asked.

He'd been considering navigating the delicacy of finding out if their new Mentor was receptive to another man's romantic interest up until the moment Altair had returned from Cyprus a married man with Maria.

"Regardless, the past is the past and by staying here they are as lost to me as any who have moved on to the next life."

Bowing his head, Altaïr closed his eyes for a long moment. There was much he knew he needed to say. To explain. But the place to start was to answer what Malik had said. And so he began with, "I would not have asked you to remain alone. Loneliness is perhaps our greatest enemy with how it leaves us to think and wonder and doubt. But you spoke of having begged gods for immortality - and a love such as that is not one I would wish to come between. I am, unfortunately, a jealous man, Malik. I do not want to resent someone who makes you happy. I do not want to feel like someone who is here for a breath of time while you wait for someone else. And it is true that you are here now - but we both have seen that people are taken or arrive almost every day. You may go back to that world. You may go back to them. And perhaps it makes me a coward, but a love with you is not one I want to lose so simply if I've tasted it."

"By that same stroke, Maria could show up out of the fountain at any time as well." Malik pointed out, arm folding over his chest. "You could be taken away as well. I have lived more lives than any man ever should, and in so many of them. In almost every version of me that exists in reflection across the universe, you are there. It is the ones where you were not that I was miserable and afraid, or so twisted in to a monster that it was a horror to know myself as them.

"I will tell you this also. You are the only one to ever want me all to themself, and if that is what you want then it will be so as long as you are also all mine."

He had thought of that: that Maria could appear in the fountain, that he could go back to his death below the citadel. He hadn't known of any of the rest. Just the thought of Malik having such horrors because he wasn't there - and the idea that no one else--

How could they not want to keep Malik as the singular wonder that he was?

Altaïr crossed the distance between them with silent steps, a hand lifting until it cupped Malik's cheek. "Then I am greedy as well as jealous," he whispered. "All I have ever done has been in hope that the outcome would be something you would wish. You were my conscience. When I saw myself as nothing but a weapon, you caught my blade and made me see the hand that held it."

He leaned in, his forehead finding Malik's, his eyes closing. "I have loved you for decades, Malik. That has not changed, and never will."

"And you remind me that I am still one when needed." Malik replied, amused even as his own hand curls along Altair's neck to comb his fingers in to the other man's hair.

"It may not have been so long for me, but I am sure the me who grew old with you loves you as well as I do now." He added, shifting just enough to ghost a kiss against Altair's lips. "We should eat food before making a feast of one another, and tell someone that we will be unavailable for the next few days."

There were so many words, and he understood and agreed with them all - but there were also... priorities.

Because after nearly seventy years of love just beyond arm's length, there was Malik - near enough to give him a caress that wanted to be a kiss after telling him he was loved. He swallowed, eyes searching Malik's, and then he did not think and he did not second guess. All he did was lean in to kiss him. Yes, there was food, yes, there were people to give notice to.

Soon.

In that moment, what mattered were Malik's lips and his own upon them, the feel of Malik's hair against his fingers, and the fact that, now, he could kiss him this way, like he'd wanted for too long, and there was no line he'd crossed. He loved Malik. Malik loved him. Everything else was secondary.

Malik's fingers tighten in Altaïr's hair, the only warning he gives before he's deepening the kiss.

They've been responsible their entire lives a bit of a lack of it now is well deserved. Just as deserved as whatever anyone who disturbs them gets an eyeful of over the next few days.

It feels right, and something in his chest settles in to place with a comfortable sort of ease.

"Bedroom." He manages, pulling away just enough to breathe.

Altaïr gave him a soft laugh - but then his hands were already at his own belt, unfastening buckle after buckle to let it drop just behind him as he half-pushed and half-pulled Malik toward the room they shared. "So eager, habibi," he teased, as if he wasn't pulling at Malik's clothing as well. "Could we not wait--"

He pulled his own tabard up and over his head, dropping it in the hallway.

"--A bit longer? Surely thirty years can wait another--"

And then his mouth was on Malik's again, a wall catching both their weights.

Malik twists, pushing Altair against the wall with a low sound in his throat. "Do you really-" he began, shifting to kiss along the other man's jaw. "Want to wait?"

That was easy to answer. No matter that his breath was already erratic, his heart beating fast; the answer to that question was a simple, "No."

His mind wasn't one given to sensual fantasy. It didn't surprise him that he'd never really imagined something like this between himself and Malik. Yet, somehow, Malik being the one to pin him to the wall was a surprise, and one he found himself eagerly reacting to, his hands taking hold of Malik's hips, head tilting back to give access to his jaw, his neck, all of the skin his shirt exposed now that his tabard and cowl had been discarded. "I want everything you would give me, Malik."

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A Long Time Coming...

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