InsaneJournal

March 2020, Koh Samui, Thailand

Shane turns 36 on this day. Ram, you guessed it, 30.

The sand stretches out on both sides for miles, waves crashing against that golden warmth with a furious hiss each time, before fading into nothing. Over and over, the rhythmic sound only disrupted by the delighted shrieks of children running and playing along that very same shoreline. The garish, bright colors of a handful umbrellas dotted the beach, shades of red and blue and orange contrasting against the bleached white of the sand.

Under one such umbrella, Shane lounged on a deck chair. Clad in an aggressively green shirt with palm trees printed on every inch that gaped open halfway to his sternum and Armani shades, he looked the perfect picture of a lazy tourist enjoying everything the island had to offer.

He had his coconut, his greasy fries. He had everything he needed.

Well, everything except one rather significant presence by his side.

Ram had barely taken his eyes off of the ocean since they’d arrived.

It was more blue than Ram had ever seen in his life. But it wasn’t just many shades of blue. There were intense green and gold accents too, depending on the depth and the wind. The rippling, crystalline quality to the water also fascinated the djinni with every wave that rolled. It was a living jewel. While Shane was content to sit under an umbrella and do his best lazy lizard impression, Ram could not be kept away from the water.

As soon as Shane’s eyes were elsewhere, Ram was gone. He splashed and paddled around in the water, delighted by the feel of sand beneath his toes, looked for pretty stones and shells, and admired the efforts of children on the beach building sand castles. Eventually his wandering had taken him to a large tidepool. Ram sat at the side of it, pleased with the warmth of the rock beneath him and the beaming of the sun above him. He was shirtless, dark skin growing richer with every passing hour.

He plucked up another stone from the pile he gathered and tried to skip the rock across the pool’s glossy surface. It hit the water and sank with a loud dunk.

To the sound of a quiet chuckle from the back.

Shane came up to him then, navigating the wet rocks with skill until he came to the largest one closest to Ram. “Here you are,” Shane said, in a rare spirit. The weather was good, the job had been concluded without a hitch. The payment was sitting in his bank account. There had been a precious few days immediately following that where Shane found himself with a stretch of free time and nothing he had to hunt down and nowhere urgent he had to be.

“And I was wondering to myself: Why is my Ram gone?” The words were injected with a healthy glee and playfulness. The sign of Shane’s satisfaction with a job well done, even if it had led to a brief period of convalescence.

Ram’s eyebrows rose at the phrase and the brightness it was said with. He said nothing in response, only smiling back just as widely.

Shane stooped and gathered a few pebbles in his hands, choosing them for their perfect flatness and adequate weight in his palm. Holding one out to Ram for the djinni to see, he explained, “Make sure it’s flat. Not too heavy. And when you throw it, do this.” It was easier to demonstrate than to put it in words. Shane angled slightly, making his body curve slightly to the right and tossed out sideways with a slight snap of his wrist.

The stone skipped twice on the surface, then sank heavily.

Shane held out another two to Ram, ‘your turn’ stamped across his face.

Ramayan took the stones and turned back to the tidepool. He picked up one and tried to adjust his fingers how he’d seen Shane do it. Once he was satisfied he cocked his arm back and whipped the rock, but he’d thrown it at too great an angle. It knifed straight into the water. The djinni ducked his head.

“This is harder than it has any right to be,” he mumbled, sheepish.

He raised his arm again, upper half wiggling a little as he tried to practice the movement Shane had taken. Once he was satisfied, he whipped the second rock. It bounced only once before sinking, but it was enough for Ramayan to let out a noise of triumph. Grinning, he reached up for Shane’s hand and tugged him down to the rock next to him.

“You must think I’m a fool.” He bumped a shoulder against Shane’s, the seamless golden cuff encasing his upper arm gleaming in the sun. “But I’ve never seen so much water before. It’s beautiful. This is the most beautiful place we’ve been so far, even.”

“Mmm.” The sound was a hum with the note of indulgence. Shane had a ghost of a smile on his lips as he settled on the rock, watching the delight dance across Ram’s features. Privately, he agreed with what Ram was saying, but the beauty he witnessed was in the excited gleam in Ram’s eyes and the way the djinni’s glee seemed to almost light up Ram’s entire face. “If the beach is to your liking, we can come back again. There are others too, in other parts of the world.” Places far more pristine and beautiful than even this small, relatively unspoiled stretch Shane had picked for their reward after a job well done.

Ram cast his gaze out at the ocean again, admiring. It was hard not to be in high spirits. For a little over three months, he and Shane had been travelling and working together. They were well-suited for each other. Each new location and task had been more exciting than the last. Every fresh experience had made Ram wonder why he’d waited so long to give into their arrangement. It was close to perfect.

“So, is that what you’ve been doing all this time? Hiding under that umbrella? Wondering where your Ram has gone?” The djinni understood the double meaning—his shortened name wasn’t that far off from that of a dismal human liquor—but it was a curious statement anyways. He propped his chin on Shane’s shoulder, dark eyes squinting playfully. “Maybe I knew my witch wouldn’t dare being in the sun long or he’d turn into a lobster, so he’d be easy to find.”

Ram had a point. Shane was cursed with a complexion that was destined only to burn under the sun, no matter how many preventative measures and how thick a layer of tanning lotion he slapped on his skin. By this age, he’d simply given up the entire thing as a lost cause, preferring to stay under the well-sheltered shade under the large umbrella sipping his drink.

That had lasted only as long as it took his curiosity to get the better of him. Even old and disdainful of trouble as Shane was, he couldn’t deny that Ram’s presence in his life was getting to be something of a comfortable constant.

Perhaps too comfortable.

The absence of which caused in him a restlessness that had propelled him onto his feet and off in search of his wayward djinni.

He paused. His choice of pronouns were problematic too, especially given that Ram was now calling him out on it, even as he leaned in close, perfect expanses of dark skin radiant under the sunlight.

Shane found himself staring. At Ram’s body, at the smattering of dark hair trailing down his navel and disappearing into the waistband of his shorts, at the teasing but happy djinni pressed close to him in one tempting package. It was impossible not to want to lay claim to all of that, Shane realised. He had long since come to think of Ram as his. Irrevocably. Perhaps since the very moment twin gold bands appeared on both their arms on contralateral sides.

“Yes,” he answered, hiding nothing. “That and how long it would take you to find your way back again.” A moot point, given that Shane had been the one to cave first and venture out from under his protective shade. “If I burn in inconvenient places today, I’m blaming you.”

Since the contract had been formalised between them, Shane hadn’t touched Ram again in the ways that mattered; nothing beyond the casual brushes of caution. To shield Ram from a stray spell or to drag him back before he walked into yet another crossfire certainly, but none of it vaguely amorous. And Shane had been determined to keep it that way.

That Shane hadn’t approached him for intimacy was something Ram was mildly surprised by. They were in close quarters almost always now, and he’d seen the way Shane looked at him—even now his eyes traced Ram’s body, no doubt remembering what it felt like to touch and taste. Ram made note of it, but was careful not to mention it. Not directly, anyway.

“Then we should go back to your umbrella, hm?” His brows lifted briefly. “You shouldn’t be burnt up on your birthday.” Ramayan smiled at the look of surprise on Shane’s face. “I saw the reminder on your phone. It’s a special thing for your people, isn’t it?” The smile pulled to a brief grin. “I hear you make wishes.” This last elicited an elegant arch of a single eyebrow.

Before Shane could protest about tradition, Ramayan leaned back to sit with his arms planted behind him, body on full display and head tipping back to catch the sun on his face. “You get gifts too, yes? I don’t have anything to give, but…” He rolled his head to look at Shane, tongue snaking along his bottom lip to wet it before he spoke again. “Maybe I could leave you alone for the night. There’s plenty to do here. You can have an evening free of me. I’m sure I could find someone to talk to.” A shoulder shrugged. “Or dance with. This place seems very entertaining.”

Shane knew what Ram was doing. And he could have ignored it, like he had been doing the past couple of months, trapped living and breathing in the same space that the both of them existed in now. Before, they had their respective places to disappear to when they got tired of one another’s bullshit. But they existed in the same sphere now, unable to leave each other’s orbit. And even though there were rare moments like these: when they tolerated each other’s presence with a comfortable peace and it bordered on friendly, there were also times when they didn’t.

And adding sex on top of all that seemed to be begging for trouble.

But it didn’t stop the want that curled low and tight in the pits of his stomach either. Or the way he watched Ram’s tongue dart across his lips with a hunger he didn’t bother hiding. “You could,” Shane agreed, in much the same agreeable tone.

“The question is will you?” The hand that cupped Ram’s cheek in a punctuation to the question was gentle. Shane could have insisted. He doubted Ram would say no. But that was the entire grating thing about the whole of this mess.

Ram’s returning smile was feline and satisfied, not unlike a cat who’d just cornered a mouse. “No,” he said simply, and turned his face into Shane’s hand. His tongue lapped slowly at the witch’s palm, tasting salt and grease and coconut. He continued, watching Shane as he licked a wet stripe up his fingers and took two into his mouth, head bobbing once before pulling off of them completely.

“I thought of a gift after all,” he said huskily, leaning forward. “Tonight is your turn to scream.”

Shane’s answering laugh was cast into the air, a throaty, wicked thing, a heady pollen on the salty, warm currents of wind blowing inwards and ashore, stopped only by the inevitable press of his lips against Ram’s. “Doesn’t sound like much of a present for me,” he pointed out, arching a brow, lips quirked in a teasing cant. The djinni was a delight and a puzzle. Shane had felt this since the very first day at the fountain and when the man hurtled into his life like a speeding bullet every instance after.

He lifted that same hand released to Ram’s throat, thumb finding the steady pulsing of his jugular under that instinctively. His nose drew a line down Ram’s jaw till he came to that single point, his lips falling apart as he breathed in the smell of Ram, reflected sunshine catching across Shane’s face even with the threat of his teeth over a throbbing artery, the spike of excitement under Shane’s thumb.

Ramayan tilted his head back to offer Shane more access, rumbling a low laugh as he did. “I promise to make it as fun for you as it is for me.”

They had always come together like two magnets seeking each other, colliding with explosive force.

Resisting was an exercise in futility. All the years fighting this pull hadn’t stopped the inevitable conclusion: the contract that bound the two of them together now.

And if Shane couldn’t fight it then he was damn well going to make sure he met this with every ounce of strength that he had, slamming into the walls of Ram’s mind and tearing it down completely until not a single barrier existed between them both, breaking the man before him apart into his constituent pieces and devouring the inner yolk of that mind. Ignoring the part of him that knew: he was losing himself completely too in the process.

“Do your worst, you evil incubus.”

Dec 2020, Tokyo, Japan

Shane 36. Ram 30.

It had all gone horribly wrong from the moment that Shane walked into that abandoned church. That the job involved a dark witch was something that Shane knew. But he hadn’t expected the witch to have a familiar too. Or for it to come out of nowhere and attack them. Shane had barely had the time to react, throwing his palm up in a gesture that flung the fox right into the altar the witch was working with.

The blood spilt all over that altar was fresh, human. It had to be, to power the spell that the witch was casting. A summoning, of a creature that none of them needed to have on this plane. All of that power was connected to her now too, Shane knew. Blood magic was as powerful as it was dangerous. And her eyes seemed almost to glow as her attention was drawn to them now.

At the sight of her familiar being knocked out cold, the witch let out an unearthly cry and raised both her hands in a move not unlike what Shane had attempted moments ago. Only this time, black wispy tendrils of malevolent energy shot out from her palms and raced in an arc towards Ram, the closer of the two of them.

None of the instant magic Shane had was any use against the intangible. Left with no other choice, and with everything happening at lightning speed, Shane grabbed Ram and yanked him back. The black force collided with a brilliant white light that appeared in a blinding flash in that moment, and when it faded, one of the pendants that always hung on Shane’s neck was still glowing fiercely. But unmistakable too, was the lines of black running up Shane’s forearms.

His protection charm had saved him from physical harm. But the spell the dark witch had thrown at him attacked more than just the physical. It played at his psyche. It seeped into every nook and cranny and slightest chip in the defenses that Shane kept up to keep the darkness out.

That had been more than three hours ago. The witch had been dealt with since, her grimoire locked up in the box the job had come with. And Shane and Ram were back at their hotel room once more.

It wasn’t anywhere close to the full moon that night. By all counts, Shane should have been fine. But there was a restlessness deep inside him and an accompanying burning in his veins. He sat huddled on the couch at one side of the room, all of the room’s alcohol had long been emptied, the ash tray in front of him completely filled. And still, Shane could achieve not even the slightest measure of calm.

Without looking at Ram, Shane spoke up, somehow managing not to wince at how tired and rough his voice sounded. “You should get out of here. Take my cash. Go somewhere else for the night. Anywhere.” His nails bit into the palms of his hands as he fought to keep in control still. Pain was good. Pain kept him grounded here instead of hearing the voices of ominous chanting and screaming in his ears.

“I can’t.”

The reply was simple, soft. From the side of the room opposite Shane, Ram sat cross legged on the bed with a book in his lap. Something he’d picked up at the last airport. “You know that I can’t.”

Ramayan did not look up. He’d weathered all of Shane’s full moons like this: quiet, unassuming, as if trying to trick the beast that ruled Shane on those nights that he wasn’t worth the trouble. He shifted restlessly against the headboard, chancing a glance in Shane’s direction. He looked withering, miserable, and simmering with dark magic. The worst he’d seen him.

Shane bit back a comment, it’s not that you can’t, but you won’t. Pointing that out would achieve precisely nothing. Ram wasn’t stuck to the room, he had the ability to roam the city if he wished. But not anywhere out of it. But for some reason, he was here, watching Shane’s suffering.

The djinni chewed the inside of his cheek, looking down at the pages in front of him. Nothing was grabbing his attention as much as the dark lines coursing up Shane’s forearms. “Do those hurt a lot?” he finally asked, careful not to catch Shane’s eye. “It should go away soon, yes?”

Leaning back against the couch and letting his eyes fall shut did nothing to quell the restless hunger inside him. Having Ram there, physically present, was like a beacon. A glowing lighthouse in the stormy sea of Shane’s consciousness. The darkness made him irrational. It made him long to sink his fingers into the vulnerable skin of Ram’s neck and wring the life from it.

Shane inhaled sharply, the lines of black spreading further up his arms like poisoned blood. In many ways, that was exactly what it was. “Does it look like it’s going away?” Shane snapped. Why was Ram still there?

Ram knew the appropriate response to such snapping was, Can I do anything? He’d been with Shane long enough to know that bickering when the darkness showed only sought to aggravate the thing inside his witch. He tucked a finger into his book and closed it, finally giving up on doing anything besides the one thing he shouldn’t: paying attention to Shane.

“Don’t yell at me for asking. I don’t know.” His eyes traced those terrible lines. He’d always wanted to ask, but he never had. A part of him didn’t want to know the answer. Shane wasn’t a noble man. Ramayan knew the punishment likely fit the crime very, very well. Still, he wondered about them. What would happen if those terrible threads of darkness made it to Shane’s heart? What would happen if he ever simply gave in? Had he ever?

It was why he never left. What would happen if Shane gave in and came looking for him? No one around Ram would be safe. The djinni had the benefit of their bond and Shane’s inability to hurt him too badly—at least, he thought he did.

“Tell me something about yourself. Or your family. You have one. There was a time before all this, wasn’t there? Maybe it’ll help.”

Part of Shane recognised what Ram was doing. Divert his attention. Focus on something else. But the darkness inside slid around the fringes of Ram’s mind even as he listened to that forcibly calm baritone trying to coax stories out of him. It lapped at the djinni’s consciousness, slinking like the black poison of its owner into the slightest cracks, hungry for knowledge, for details that could be used to hurt, to rend.

Shane gave up the pretense of control, standing, taking deliberate steps as he advanced to Ram’s side of the room. “You want the truth?” Shane spat, eyes dark and filled with a self-loathing so intense it was almost palpable. “If there was, I don’t remember it.” There might have been, once. But it felt like such a long time ago. He couldn’t remember a time where he didn’t exist without this darkness. Without this need. It was always there, at the back of his mind. Just muted in the days in between, and flaring into its full, terrible force on the nights of the moon’s zenith.

Ram’s brows drew together with a frown. He found himself leaning back from Shane, He’d meant to soothe, not rile or cause more pain. Shane was a walking open wound now, listing in his direction. “I’m sorry, I—”

“I only have this,” Shane’s voice was a rasp, eyes turning almost black as the poison in his veins. He climbed onto the bed, onto Ram, forcing the djinni back, his fingers closing around Ram’s neck.

He didn’t fight it. He let Shane press him into the bed, weight bearing down on his chest and strong fingers encasing his neck. Even as his pulse skyrocketed, he remained still. He knew—hoped, really—that Shane couldn’t hurt him. Not really. Their bond wouldn’t allow it. It’s what he told himself over and over now, wide dark eyes staring into the witch’s as he swallowed beneath the press of a hot, black-covered palm.

Shane’s hands seemed ordinary at a distance, maybe a little bigger than the rest of him. But when he wanted, he could fit the whole of Ram's long neck into just one: throat, muscle, dark skin and the hammering beat of his heart all tucked in his palm and fingers.

Ram grabbed at Shane’s wrist out of instinct, hummingbird heartbeat evident in the pads of his fingertips laying into Shane’s skin.

Shane leaned close. “I wish I didn’t.” The words were barely above a whisper. A guilty confession.

The Wish slammed into the djinni with such force and conviction that he might have been flattened if not for already being horizontal. Ramayan gasped, every muscle tensing beneath Shane. He continued to cling to Shane’s wrist, teeth clenched as he felt Shane’s intent buzz against his skull and zing down his bones. Somewhere within his poor excuse for a human realm form an exchange was taking place. Wish in, magic out. It was a process of sheer willpower to be the conduit a Wish needed, made more difficult by a lesser body and a half-crazed witch on top of him.

And then he saw it: the thing Shane didn’t want anymore. Everything else faded away. There was no hotel room or bed or troublesome witch. Only black ichor branching in thousands of directions, pulsing with malevolence.

Ramayan reached out—into Shane, he’d learn later—and tugged a thread. It pulled away with the barest resistance and went limp in his grip. The rest of it began to fold in on itself, the gordian knot of dark magic collapsing with that one small yank. Ram reached out to touch it, watching as it floated in the space in front of him before shrivelling into fine, glittering ash.

As Shane appeared on top of him again, his visage fuzzy around the edges but no longer glowing with darkness, Ram was struck by an odd thought before exhaustion began to overwhelm him: that had been too easy. He made to say as much, getting as far as opening his mouth before his eyes rolled up and he sank back onto the bed, limp.

Shane felt more than saw the lines of black simply vanish from his arms—from his body entirely. For a wild, blessed moment, there was none of the hunger. None of the soul-deep and punishing ache that always existed in the background of Shane’s every waking moment. For a moment, Shane was free.

Stunned, Shane’s hands around Ram’s neck loosened. Without the darkness to drive him, Shane released the man, as if touch burned, staring at his own palms. A very human sort of pink now. There were no lines. No pitch black poison lurking, threatening to overwhelm. His eyes tracked Ram’s completely lax form. If it wasn’t for the rise and fall of his chest still present, Shane might have had doubts that the djinni was even still breathing.

For the first time that night, he finally felt himself.

And then the moment passed.

“God, Ram. What did you do?”

---

The days in the immediate aftermath of the Wish saw them lingering in Tokyo for a lot longer than Shane planned for. He had expected there to be some kind of energy expended, but he hadn’t expected this: Ram stuck in bed, meek, weak, for all intents and purposes looking like someone had sucked out all of the vibrant energy that made Ram Ram.

All of that. And for what?

Perhaps for that one night, Shane had slept better than he had in years. He’d slept without dreaming of faceless, robed figures in the dark, of crimson against white and chanting in the background, of screaming that lasted forever.

But it had been only one night.

The next one, the return of that lingering restlessness hit Shane like a punch to the gut. All the Wish had done was serve to give Shane a mere glimpse of what things could be like. And then took all of that blessed peace back. Leaving Shane brittle and on edge, annoyed and frustrated beyond even what he had been before he knew what it could be.

A loud thud coming from the bedroom had Shane leaving the kitchen and speeding to the room where that sound came from. Only to find his face twisting into a disappointed look when he saw what Ram was doing.

“Are you incapable of following instructions?”

Because instructions had been for absolute bed rest. And what Ram was doing right then was emphatically not.

“No,” the floorbound djinni answered immediately, then paused. “Yes.”

Ram was seated on the floor next to the bed, knees bowed on either side of him where he’d landed. “I’m tired of being in bed,” he protested, voice hoarse.

It had been days, and he still felt terrible. Keeping his eyes open had been a momentous task the first day, as had talking been the next. A few days on from that, and walking still seemed to be just out of reach. He was weak beyond measure, head drooping and shoulders sagging even as he sat.

He reached for Shane without hesitation as the witch hefted Ram onto the bed, arms slipping around the djinni’s waist from under his shoulder, lifting Ram without so much as a grimace. Ram’s fingers lingered on Shane’s shoulders, eager for sensation that felt somewhat normal and not the blank deadness that filled his mind in the days following the Wish. He felt as if he’d been scraped clean in every capacity that mattered: physically, emotionally, and magically.

“Don’t go yet,” he mumbled, dark eyes flat as his hands slipped back to the bed. “Talk to me.”

He licked his lips, debating his next words. He hadn’t asked because he was afraid to know, but now he had to know. “It didn’t work, did it?”

Shane’s eyes had the same deadened quality to it that was frequently seen in the days leading up to the full moons. The next one wasn’t due for a while yet. But Shane felt the acute sense of disappointment grow tenfold when he had been given the slightest taste of what life could be like without.

Now that he knew, everything was somehow worse: he knew what he was missing.

“It worked,” Shane answered, still not meeting Ram’s eyes. He didn’t need to see the look reflected in those black orbs to know that Ram was just as disappointed in the result as he was. “For a time.” Too short. It had been gone the instant Shane recognised how much better everything could have been, how it felt like he could live free from the sick poison in his veins.

He slipped away, settling against the bedside drawer with his fingers tight against the edge where he was leaning. Ram wanted him to talk. But that was the last thing Shane wanted to do at the moment.

“It was too easy.” Ram turned himself onto his side and curled into himself, chasing warmth in the absence of Shane’s body against his. “I knew it was. But it was what you asked for.”

I wish I didn’t have this. It wasn’t specific enough. Ram had only done what he’d been allowed to by magic itself, and magic had chosen to only temporarily remove Shane’s problem. The djinni blinked slowly with a quiet sigh. The inside of his eyelids felt gritty with exhaustion.

“Are you angry with me? I couldn’t do anything else.”

That Ram had no control over how the Wishes manifested was painfully obvious. And as much as Shane would have liked to have a convenient outlet for all of this to blame, Ram was no more culpable—no, far less culpable—than Shane himself. For getting himself into this mess in the first place.

He did sigh then, and dragged his eyes up to fix upon Ram’s gaunt face, exhausted from the demands of the Wish that he had tried to fulfil. He had, in a certain way. Just not in the ones that would matter in the long run.

“I’m not,” Shane replied, painfully honest. Ram dragged all of these admissions out of him by virtue only of being himself. It was both remarkable and wholly inconvenient. He lifted a hand to Ram’s cheek, fingers brushing against the side of it. The djinni’s eyelids fluttered, skin tingling at the touch. “If I had reason to believe that you were in control of how the Wishes get fulfilled, maybe then.” But perhaps not even so, a voice inside Shane’s head pointed out with uncomfortable clarity.

“I saw it when I did it. The dark thing inside you.” Ram took hold of one of the fingers against his cheek, unwilling to let Shane withdraw again. “I suppose I understand why you get the way you do.” His eyes held the silent question they always did when the darkness came up: what happened? But even now, it went unasked.

Shane saw and heard it in Ram’s head too anyway. But as always, it went unanswered. Perhaps some day, he would. But that day was not today.

Ram wasn’t even sure he could stay awake through the explanation if Shane decided to give it now, anyway. He drew Shane’s hand beneath his chin and held it there. “I never expected it to be like this after. I must seem so weak to you, like this.” The severe limitations of his abilities would be the same severe limitations Nayab would feel, Ram reminded himself. And when that happened, he would be ready to press his advantage. “When I’m stronger we can try again. You’re clever enough to get around it.” His eyelids drooped, suddenly feeling heavy. “When it went away it turned into dust. Did you see? It’s possible.”

Possible, yes. But it had taken so much out of Ram. And even with> all of that, the wish hadn’t even achieved a fraction of the effect that Shane had hoped it would. One day out of the rest of his life for the effort it took the djinni, for the days they were set back by in the aftermath of it.

Shane said nothing, but he tugged the blanket up and under Ram’s chin, bristling at the optimism Ram held up to him that Shane himself couldn’t feel. What would it take, if he even found the right words to use, the right phrasing for the Wish he wanted? And what was to say that it wouldn’t all end in tears in the end? One way or another?

“You’re a noble djinn,” he told Ram, smoothing the lines of concern away from Ram’s face and brushing the stray strands of hair from his cheeks. “You could never be weak.” Despite the emptiness of everything in him, Ram smiled as best he could at the praise. Even laid up and obviously suffering the effects of magical exhaustion, Ram had done what Shane himself couldn’t. No matter how momentary, how transient, it was still a feat no one else could achieve.

“I did.” The fact that it had turned into ash was not something that excited Shane as much as it seemed to Ram. Not when the very same darkness had returned the next night, persistent and terrible. “But for now, sleep. And this time, don’t get out of bed until I tell you to.”

“Maybe this month it won’t want me,” Ram wondered out loud, eyes already shut. “And you’ll feel a little better.”

He fought against the insistent pull of sleep, nosing against the pillow with a sigh. Tucked up under his chin was Shane’s hand still, Ram’s cool fingers wrapped around it in a bid to steal it’s warmth. “I want you to be happy eventually,” he said softly. “Stay for a while though. I’m cold. Tell me the story you owe me.”

Ram so rarely let himself be soft like this that Shane found himself being unable to do anything except be coaxed into taking up a spot beside the djinni. It wasn’t a story that he liked recounting. It wasn’t a story that he had willingly told anyone of his own accord either.

But Ram had asked, and Shane felt rather than heard the words spill out from him. “It happened when I went back to Ireland. As all terrible stories go, I was young and stupid…”