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Usually, when Jonathan packed his bags to go anywhere, he was very particular about how his shirts were folded, since he despised ironing, and wanted them to remain as pristine as possible. But, in the gentle light of an early Cairo morning, he threw his shirts, trousers, socks, shoes, and whatever-else into his trunk without a second thought.
There were much more pressing matters—no ironing pun intended—to deal with than wrinkled shirts.
A knock sounded on his hotel room door, and he jumped, emitting a small squeak that he hoped whoever was on the other side didn’t hear.
“Who is it?” He called, breathless as he hurried around the room, collecting books and papers and that nice bottle of whiskey he didn’t want to leave behind.
“It’s Evy,” said his sister’s voice through the door. “Now let me in.”
He dropped his things in the trunk, on top of his clothes, and obeyed, too harried to inquire why she was being so demanding.
She entered, gray eyes scanning the disarray of his room. “Jonathan, what are you doing?” She asked.
“Packing,” he replied, and hurried into the adjoining bathroom.
“Packing? To go where?”
He snatched up his comb and other things he didn’t bother to identify. “To Mozambique or somewhere,” he said, brushing past her and dropping the toiletries into the trunk, “to let the cobras devour me.”
“I don’t think cobras devour people, Jonathan.” Evy perched on the edge of the bed.
“Well then, the lions or something. Anything!” He slammed the trunk closed, half his clothes sticking out around the edges. He half-sighed and half-groaned, covering his face with one hand and leaning against the trunk with the other. “Oh, Evy, I’ve ruined everything.”
She patted the hand that rested on the trunk. “I’m sure you haven’t.”
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about,” He bemoaned into his palm, twisting to sink onto the bed.
“You’d be surprised,” she said, “but tell me anyway.”
THE EVENING BEFORE…
The end of the world had been thwarted for the second time, and Jonathan rather thought he should’ve been happier about it. But as the seventh day after the Second Near-End of the World passed him by, all he could be was miserable. He was alone—unless one counted the bottle in his hand, which one did not—and even with being filthy rich again thanks to that monstrous diamond he’d acquired on their latest misadventure, he couldn’t stop being miserable.
It’s easy for one to be miserable when one doesn’t sleep, and sleep was something that avoided Jonathan like the plague.
So he sat in his room alone, with a bottle, and avoided sleep back, and tried not to think about things like Imhotep, the end of the world, giant bugs, and of course, worst of all: Evy dying. But in not thinking of all those things, he thought of one thing, and it served to keep him miserable too, or perhaps lonely was a better word.
He thought of Ardeth.
He thought of Ardeth while he sat there staring out the window, and he thought of Ardeth when Evy came and fetched him for supper, and he thought of Ardeth at supper—and he also thought about how, so easily, Evy could have not been sitting across from him—and then after supper, he and Rick went to the hotel bar, and he thought of Ardeth some more.
He thought of Ardeth’s eyes, and he thought of Ardeth’s voice, and he thought of Ardeth’s bravery and majesty, and his hair and his beard, and how tall he was, and how smart he was, and how much he missed him, and how pathetic that was, and how much he wished to see Ardeth just once when the world wasn’t ending, and then he thought he saw Ardeth out of the corner of his eye.
Bloody hell. He thought he was losing his mind, until, over the many voices blending together in a hundred different conversations, Rick said, “Hey Ardeth.”
Ardeth seemed to manifest out of thin air next to Jonathan. Jonathan gripped his glass more tightly and tried not to fall off his stool, all while his breath left him completely. His heart thumped violently, like a dying fish, and that’s about what Jonathan felt like as Ardeth’s nearness pressed against him. If he hadn’t been holding his glass like his life depended on it, his hands would have trembled enough to cause an earthquake. Actually, if someone had told Jonathan that there was an earthquake going on, he would have believed them.
“O’Connell,” Ardeth greeted with a nod. His eyes moved to Jonathan, and stayed there. “Hello, Jonathan.”
“Ardeth,” Jonathan stammered out before taking a generous swig of his drink. He’d already had a few—not to mention all of the ones before dinner—and that was why, while his heart was trying to choke him to death, and his stomach went on a nice holiday into his feet, he was able to form one single thought.
It wasn’t his mind he was losing, it was his heart .
That thought alone made his throat grow so tight it was a bloody miracle he could gulp down the rest of his drink and order another.
He was losing it, it being his heart, and now that he thought about it, his sanity, too, though one could argue that being in love and being insane went hand in hand. He rather thought he’d been losing it for longer than he’d originally given himself credit for.
When Ardeth had first appeared in London, so many years after Hamunaptra, Jonathan had almost felt something profound, dizzying, and life-changing. But then his nephew got kidnapped, an ancient creature got resurrected, his sister died and came back to life, the world almost ended again , and then it didn’t.
So he hadn’t really had time to process things. Until now.
When Ardeth appeared in London, when they spent quiet moments together on the dirigible—and oh lord, that moment in the oasis when Ardeth had put a sword to Jonathan’s throat for whatever reason (and really the sword thing had just given Jonathan an excuse for feeling breathless, instead of facing the fact that it wasn’t the sword that made him breathless, it was the man holding it). Jonathan’s stomach had sunk and sunk as he watched the Medjai valiantly march to his possible-death and thought of never seeing him again. Perhaps, if he allowed himself to be really dramatic, his heart had broken, but only in the sense that Ardeth had taken a piece of it with him down into the battle.
When Jonathan shot the man who’d nearly killed Ardeth, and their eyes met across the darkened jungle, something had sparked so deeply inside of him that when he returned to Cairo and the apocalypse wasn’t looming over him, and his family was safe and not-dead, he had felt it—that spark, burning and burning, and if it kept burning without something being done about it, he was certain he would turn to ash and blow away in the desert wind.
It was horribly, pathetically pathetic.
So, instead of letting himself burn up while Ardeth and Rick spoke casually with each other, he tried to drown himself. Not literally, although he might have succeeded if Rick hadn’t invited Ardeth to come see Evy and Alex, and Jonathan just couldn’t bring himself to be parted from Ardeth’s side so soon after being reunited with him and tagged along, leaving all options for drowning behind.
He managed to walk mostly upright to the dining room, where Evy and Alex still sat at their table finishing off dessert, but upon reaching the table, he nearly missed the chair when he tried to sit, and sent silverware crashing all over the place as he caught himself.
Evy gave him one of those stern looks he never thought he’d be relieved to see, and he righted himself, determinedly not looking any of his companions in the eye. Rick took his seat between Evy and Alex, and Ardeth sat next to Jonathan, who had to fight very hard not to fall out of his chair.
“How are you, Evelyn?” Ardeth asked, smiling at her.
Jonathan’s head spun, his ears buzzing strangely. He saw Evy’s mouth move but didn’t hear her voice. He felt nauseous. Alex offered him some pie, but all Jonathan could do was stab it with a fork. A conversation was happening around him, but the room spun by like the table was a carousel, and his chair moved up and down like a carousel horse.
And for some reason, despite the fact that Jonathan didn’t want the man out of his sight, Ardeth being there was more torturous than Ardeth not being there—perhaps because all Jonathan wanted to do was touch him, or say something ridiculous to him, but instead he had to sit around and act normal.
Which, he suddenly discovered, he couldn’t do.
“Oh dear,” he slurred suddenly. All eyes turned to him as he swayed to his feet, grabbing the tablecloth for support, “I seem to have had more to drink than I thought.”
He announced he intended to retire for the evening—and didn’t mention to anyone that he didn’t intend to go sleep this off, but instead add to it, as one does when one doesn’t wish to dream and wake up, alone, biting back a scream for one’s baby sister who had very recently died and come back to life.
He stumbled back a step, swayed dangerously, and the next thing he knew, Ardeth was at his elbow, propping him up.
“I will help you to your room, my friend,” he said, his voice quite close to Jonathan’s ear, rumbling like distant thunder or a lion’s purr, or some other, flowery description that Jonathan was too addled to conjure up. Ardeth’s hands were large and strong as they gripped him—one at his waist, the other at his arm—and Jonathan’s knees wobbled. He was certainly glad that he had just told everyone how utterly smashed he was, or they might have suspected what was really going on—that he was helpless, and pathetic, and completely smitten, although smitten was too weak, too pleasant a word for what he was. Lovesick might have sufficed better. Because he did feel sick, and love was mixed up in it.
Just the thought of being in love was enough to almost have him doubling over and emptying the contents of his stomach all over the floor, but he didn’t do that—small mercies—and instead had little choice but to let Ardeth practically carry him up the stairs and breathe next to his ear.
After an eternity—an eternity in which Jonathan was certain he would simply pass away—they reached his door. He fumbled to unlock it, nearly dropping the key before Ardeth’s hands closed around his and took it from him. Jonathan drew in a harsh breath—pleased, shocked, desperate, he didn’t know—as the callouses on Ardeth’s fingers and palms brushed against his skin, and then the Medjai was leading him into the room.
Jonathan could have collapsed to the floor right then. Because Ardeth was standing very near him in his hotel room, with the lights low, and the gentle swish of the curtains in the night wind, and they were alone, truly alone for the first time ever, and Jonathan was just drunk enough, just lovesick enough, just Jonathan enough, to do something very foolish.
Or at least, he thought it was very foolish, afterward.
He stepped even nearer to Ardeth, who drew in a quick breath. His eyes drilled into Jonathan’s, black in the low light—the romantic light, Jonathan thought as he laid his hands on Ardeth’s chest. He could feel Ardeth’s heart thrumming beneath his palms, and before there was a chance for anything else—rational thought, sobriety, interruption—Jonathan kissed him.
The kiss was not a small, polite, ‘hey, perhaps you might be interested’ sort of kiss, but rather a desperate thing, a kiss on perfect lips like there was no tomorrow. Which, honestly, considering recent events, wasn’t such a far-fetched idea. Jonathan lost himself in it, and for a wonderful moment his mind was blank, the only thing he could even register was the softness of Ardeth’s lips, the brush of his beard, the warmth of him so near, the pounding of his own heart, the way his lungs burned for lack of breath—
And then it was over. Because Ardeth had taken him by the arms—gently—and set Jonathan a step back. His face was unreadable, not that Ardeth was ever really readable. Ardeth’s chest heaved as he caught his own breath, and Jonathan felt like he was drowning.
“Jonathan,” Ardeth said, his voice breathless, rough, intoxicating, “I must go. Good night.”
And just like that, he turned around and left.
Jonathan watched the door shut. He felt the aloneness settle around him. He felt his miserable failure close in around his heart like an invisible fist that wasn’t miraculously calloused and gentle like Ardeth’s.
With a groan, he fell back onto the bed, alone, which was not what he’d had in mind at all. Ardeth had turned him down, run away from him as fast as he could. And nicely enough, too, because Ardeth was just too good a person to humiliate Jonathan any more than he’d already humiliated himself.
And that just made Jonathan miss his presence even more, made him mourn the friendship he had lost with his foolishness even more.
Not bothering to change into his nightclothes, he curled up under the covers and slept alone. Although, the term ‘slept’ was not quite accurate, as Jonathan mostly just tossed and turned and regretted his whole life, and when dawn crept in through the curtains, he knew exactly what he had to do.
NOW…
“I’m convinced he’ll never want to see me again!” Jonathan massaged his forehead with shaking fingers. Maybe Ardeth would want to see him again, to slap his face for harassing him or look at him pityingly, and Jonathan honestly didn’t know which was worse. He resumed trying to shove everything into his trunk, unable to look at Evy, embarrassed of everything he’d told her—although he had skimmed over some of the more her-death-related details, because he didn’t want to upset her. “He hates me now, I’m sure of it.”
“Oh Jonathan, I don’t think Ardeth hates you.” Her voice was soft, but not pitying. It was downright soothing, really, enough to nearly make tears spring up in his eyes. “In fact, I’m certain he doesn’t.”
He shook his head. He couldn’t dare to believe her. “No, you’re wrong. He definitely does. Who wouldn’t, after their good deed of aiding an idiotically drunk friend is repaid by being accosted in the dark?”
“Jonathan,” she said, her tone more stern, enough so that he ventured to look at her, “he doesn’t hate you, and I’ll tell you how I know.”
THE EVENING BEFORE…
A few moments after Ardeth and Jonathan departed, Evy rose from her seat.
“Where’re you off to?” Rick asked, standing alongside her.
She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll be right back, I just want to make sure Jonathan got to his room all right.”
“Well, I’m sure he did, with Ardeth helping him.”
“I know, I just want to make sure. And I want to get my wrap from our room—it’s a tad chilly.” She kissed him again before telling him to help Alex finish off the desserts. They had ordered far too many, because one only lives once, after all—or once-and-a-half in her case, but all the same they’d treated themselves and needed to eat as much of it as possible.
She’d made it halfway up the main staircase when, while rounding the last landing, she nearly collided with Ardeth, who was coming down. He hardly seemed to register her, and looked a bit stunned with a hand to his mouth.
“Did Jonathan get settled all right?” She asked.
He didn’t seem to hear her. She asked again.
“What?” He said abruptly before his eyes fixed on her and he seemed to truly realize she was there for the first time. “Oh. Yes.”
She squinted at him. Something was definitely off. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he answered, but it seemed more automatic than truthful.
“Are you sure?” She pressed.
“Well….” His eyes trailed away from her, and his hand hovered in front of his mouth. “Mostly. It is just that…well…” He seemed unsure, a very strange thing for Ardeth, from what Evy knew of him. “...Has your brother ever said anything to you…about me?”
What a strange question, Evy thought. “What do you mean?” She asked, puzzled.
Ardeth frowned and shook his head again. “Nevermind. Please excuse me.” He brushed past her, leaving her confused, and disappeared too quickly for her to call after him.
NOW…
“And just how is that supposed to comfort me, Evy?!” Jonathan nearly shrieked, flopping dramatically and desperately into the chair by the window. “He was running away—probably to go wash his mouth out with soap and water!”
“Jonathan, hush!” Evy scolded, though gently. “The point I’m trying to make has to do with what Rick told me just before I came in here.”
“Well, hopefully whatever that is will keep me from finding the fabled edge of the world, and jumping off it.”
Evy’s face told him ‘don’t be ridiculous’, but before she could voice it, a knock sounded on the door, and Alex entered unprompted.
“Alex, you should ask before just walking into a room,” Evy chided him, but smiled affectionately and put her arm around him when he reached her.
“Sorry, Mum,” he said, allowing her to ruffle his hair as he studied Jonathan’s dramatic sprawl, “what’s going on?”
“Your mother is trying to convince me I didn’t ruin my life,” Jonathan replied unhappily.
“Oh,” said Alex brightly, “you mean with Ardeth.”
Jonathan shot upright and sputtered, “So everybody bloody knows, do they?”
Alex shrugged. “Well, I saw him staring at you at supper last night, every time you weren’t paying attention. Which was a lot. And I also heard him talking to Dad this morning.”
“Talking to Rick?” Jonathan exclaimed, jumping to his feet and beginning to pace, “Is there anyone who doesn’t know everything?”
“Yes, you ,” said Evy, “so sit down, and just listen, will you?”
EARLIER THAT MORNING…
Evy was nudged awake by Rick, whose rather serious face swam into focus mere inches from her own.
“Evy,” he said before she could ask what was going on, “there’s something I think you need to stick your nose in.”
That woke her up, and immediately she asked, “What is it?”
“Well,” Rick said as she sat up, “apparently Jonathan kissed Ardeth last night.”
Her eyes went wide. “What?!”
Rick nodded. “He kissed Ardeth, and then Ardeth ran off and now he feels bad about it.”
“And just how do you know all of this?” She demanded, throwing off the covers.
“Because Ardeth materialized on our balcony just now and told me about it.”
NOW…
Jonathan was terribly red and terribly embarrassed as Evy explained that Ardeth had gone to Rick because he was concerned if he went to Jonathan he’d scare him off, and Rick had come to her because he thought if he busted in, he’d scare Jonathan off.
“And now that I’ve stuck my nose in, Ardeth would very much like to explain himself,” Evy concluded. “He’s still on the balcony, if you’d like to go talk to him. Or better yet, I’ll send him here to you. How does that sound?”
Jonathan gulped, and couldn’t look at anyone. He could feel Evy and Alex staring at him, waiting for him to say something. His heart raced, and cold sweat had his clothes clinging uncomfortably to his entire body, even while he felt unusually warm under the collar.
“Well…” he forced out, “...it sounds better than getting devoured by cobras.”
“Excellent.” Evy stood and herded Alex toward the door. “He’ll be right in.”
They left, and Jonathan sank onto the bed. He stood up. He hadn’t a clue what to do with himself, or what he was going to say, or how he was going to get through the conversation that loomed before him. He paced. What was Ardeth going to say? He sat down on the other side of the bed. Would Ardeth reject him? He stood up again. Would Ardeth request to never lay eyes on him ever again? Jonathan paced, again.
The door opened, and in walked Ardeth Bay, his gaze unusually indirect, his expression unusually sheepish, but altogether usually handsome, devastatingly so, even while looking like he hadn’t slept at all the night before.
Jonathan froze. Ardeth hovered in the doorway, and they stared at each other.
“Come in,” Jonathan croaked out, and he sounded so bloody awful that he had half a mind to flee out the window.
Ardeth stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
“Jonathan,” Ardeth said, right as Jonathan said, “Ardeth.”
Silence fell again, even harder than before. It was horribly awkward. Jonathan picked at the buttons on his sleeve, unsure of where to look or how to stand or if he was breathing correctly.
“Jonathan,” Ardeth spoke again, and stepped closer.
Jonathan’s lungs spasmed, and he rushed out, “I’m sorry I kissed you.”
“No,” Ardeth said, sounding almost desperate and taking another step closer. “Please, do not be sorry. I am sorry, for leaving you so quickly without explaining myself.”
“You-you don’t have to explain, old chap,” Jonathan said shakily, trying desperately to relieve the tension, tension as thick as he had been last night, “If you’re not interested in me like that, there’s no explanation necessary. Really, I was just terribly drunk before and—”
“Exactly!” Ardeth interrupted, breathless. “You were very drunk. I was too…overcome to explain last night, but I only left because I did not want to kiss you—or anything else—when you were intoxicated and I was not.”
Jonathan stared, hardly noticing that his mouth had fallen open. Was Ardeth saying what he thought he was saying? This suspicion gained more credibility when Ardeth stepped even closer.
“Well,” Jonathan squeaked. Ardeth was close enough now that they were sharing the same breaths—or at least they would have been if Jonathan had been breathing. “I’m sober now.”
“Yes.” Ardeth’s eyes stared deeply into Jonathan’s, and they seemed to search him, strip him bare, and Jonathan might have been bothered by it if he hadn’t been so un bothered by the fact that Ardeth cared enough about him to stare into his soul. “And that is why I shall do now what I wanted to do last night.”
Ardeth’s arms encased Jonathan, pulling him flush against him. Jonathan really, really couldn’t breathe now, and his heart pounded right out of his chest and thudded off to some far-off place—like Mozambique, perhaps—and the warmth of Ardeth’s body burned through his clothes, somehow soft and firm in all the right ways. His hold on Jonathan was strong but gentle, and somewhere Jonathan found the strength to lift his own arms to Ardeth’s waist, to bury his fingers in the fabric of his robes, to feel his torso shrink and expand with every quickened breath.
Ardeth kissed him like the world was ending for the second time, and Jonathan rather thought he couldn’t be happier it wasn’t.