allow it

EMRE AKBAR • character profile

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."

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."

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.

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."

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."

"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."

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?"

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."

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 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.

"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."

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."

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.

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?"

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..."

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?"

A pathway split the trading area, covered in dirt and sand. At this time of the day, crowds criss-crossed and crowded between stalls. Wind kicked up grit and he shield his eyes. He paused for a moment to make certain Emre was at his post before continuing on. Kaz wore his usual: shorts (longish today but not to the knee either, athletic and teal) and sandals. Even at a distance, Emre looked so put together, more than he should after the journey they'd had. Burnished and beautiful, with an Immaculately trimmed beard along the razor's edge of a jawline that often begged Kaz's teeth to snap at. Emre's gaze surveyed the area sharp, a vāgha, in tall grass, stilled but alert. (And too involved in studying something else to notice any far away admiring).

At the top of the stairs, Kaz knocked on a wood railing, as there was no door to the 'lookout'. "Hey," lazy and monotone as ever, attention on a lighter someone left behind. "This isn't yours," Kaz noted as he pocketed the lighter.

"Isela and I are closing shop." No beating around the bush. The words twisted dull in his chest before they made their way out. This didn't sit right, but it was all Kaz's decision. "Packing up our stall and won't be using it for a few months." A second or two, then. "You can always use it for storage for a while. Isela may be back again." Or Kaz himself.

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."

"I'd never make it in the army, hm?" A faint and tired smile filled in for something more provocative he'd like to say to Emre. And then in a lower volume as he looked around again. "You've gone through a lot, Emre. From the very beginning."

They were healing? Now that Emre said it, Kaz lifted a shoulder. Took a deeper breath, touched his jaw, and found the pain diminished. Muscles cried out less. Cuts and bruises that had mostly peppered Emre's hands also not as severe. So he posed a question. Either it was some fucked up side effect, or. "Maybe we really have been gone longer than we think." The day did feel like weeks.

"Alright, alright, calm down. I mean. You were kind of spoiled though, gotta admit. Those are Jordans you got, yeah?" Emre's insistence over an allowance, the defensive pride in his voice something Kaz wanted to consume. "I want to know about these errands and chores. Little entrepreneur. Smart." And fussing over the shoes brought another smile to Kaz's face. Especially the defiance towards the lights.

Emre's change into the salwar turned him from boy to man again. Kaz took the jumper and held it at arms length for a moment before he changed into it. Snug, but not terrible. "I remember she told me to be careful going out to clubs in Seattle." With the torn and bloody shirt he took off, Kaz folded it loose and tossed it to the desk. "But she Americanized it to getting shot, not stabbed. Like, damn let me have a little fun."

As Kaz continued to tidy himself, he looked in a small mirror that hung on the back of the closet door. Emre's reflection just over Kaz's shoulder, and a sound rang out only heard a few times before. A dreaded, almost despairing and humorless laugh. Kaz nodded. Yes, he'd probably stay with Emre those first few days back rather than at the grotto. It also seemed like a good time to show what he'd found.

"I caught her hiding it once." Eyes dipped down and then he straightened up, and a hand scratched at his neck. "I know what some of it means. The concert ticket-- it was her first concert. Our father made me go with her, to watch out for her, so she wouldn't be alone." Kaz wished he had the foresight to edit the wording, but did not.

He sat on the bed and craned to see the little magic 8 ball toy, but Emre held it too closely. Instead, his brows knitted together with a soft amusement at the corners of his mouth, when Emre explained he didn't want to be different. Kaz paused, about to say but you are different.

Then Emre uttered what he never had: Why did she have to ruin it. The remark wasn't made for anyone to answer, but Kaz blinked once as he stared at Emre's profile beside him. "I don't know Emre." This comfortable upbringing, these walls of a warm home that cradled Emre so protectively. It was easier for Kaz to turn his back on a childhood that wasn't so pleasant.

Emre had never so openly voiced what could not be attained again. Kaz recalled so very long ago when Emre spoke with such blind love. She's a good person, or something along those lines. And a cynical Kaz shook his head, no.

As Kaz said earlier. Emre had gone through a lot. The strip to Seattle originally meant to connect Emre to Urmilla. Perhaps it had gone too far in the wrong direction.

The lights dropped low. Emre looked beautiful amongst flying colors that flew through the room. We want to go home!! Kaz grabbed Emre's shoes as quick as he could, to stuff under an arm, and held on to Emre too.

A rumble vibrated under their feet. He looked at the floor, but it was the walls that began to splinter and crack around them. A sound like a freight train crashing into the building. Great puffs of brick and wood. And a shattering. Not quite glass, something heavier. Dull shards exploded and showered over them. Kaz held Emre tighter to his chest as his gaze snapped around the room in search of an escape. The room didn't just shake, it began to seize violently. Trapped, with no where to run-- the worst nightmare imaginable. Kaz tucked his head down against Emre's.

There was no long heart-stopping fall, and nothing came crashing down. The roar of a blow out ceased instantly and Kaz opened his eyes.

He was on the floor of the teleporter room. Not in one, but outside an open door. He lifted a hand to wipe small bits of something out of his eyes (dust, gravel, rock?) and the clunk of shoe box was heard falling from under an arm. The other slipped away from Emre as Kaz partially sat up.

"Hey, hey we're back." He hoped, it wasn't another faux familiar room. Both teleporters sat dark. Not even powered down, but perhaps not working as there were no lights on anywhere. The doors were open, and the only way he could see Emre was by the moon coming through a skylight.

"You okay?" He brushed a hand over the Adidas jumper and felt the same small pieces. Dirt? Kaz found the same substance on Emre's cheek. He spat the grit on the floor. "What the fuck, something's on us."

His arm was still tangled in one strap of the backpack. Kaz found a small flashlight to shine across Emre's chest, and his own hand. Did he bring a few crystals in the backpack, were they somehow crushed in coming back to the island? If so, how were they completely covered with those tiny hard specks of color?

A grin then, and Emre lobbed the magazine aside and crashed playfully against Kaz. "You, in the military? Bruv you can barely even take an order from yourself!" Emre snorted in amusement, gently twirled a finger in Kaz's long locks. Sadly in need of a wash, after the past couple of days (blood flecked in it? Or just rust?) "And in a uniform of all things...mate. Mate. Mightn't be so bad with a shaved head, though I would miss this." A light tug of Kaz's hair, eliciting a soft satisfied grunt from Emre.

You've gone through a lot, Emre.

Why couldn't Kaz see it? Or maybe he already did, and had no need to hear it from anyone else. Still, Emre insisted like a little reminder, "We both have, jaan. We've both been through it, proper."

Emre shook his head, refusing to see 'spoiled' but enjoying the game nonetheless. "You should see Yazzie's room, that was spoiled. Little raj!" No malice in Emre's voice as he said it; the whole family had doted on the baby. Not that Emre realized he was a little khan, himself. "These are well-earned Jordans, fuck I was so proud to wear them. Mates so green..." Emre sucked in a breath, racking up his memories. Kaz asked about Emre's childhood tasks. "Erm, normal things, like. Helping abu with the fixing and gardening. Doing errands for mum. Helping at mosque with the elders, like. Minding Yaz so the parentals got their date nights." A snort, but it was fond and admiring.

He looked over at Kaz, wonderously. "How...what did you spend your time doing? The picture you want to paint about my youth, I want that about yours too, man. You get that, right?"

Kaz looked amazing in the jumper, and Emre made a deeply satisfied noise, touching Kaz's chest. "You gorgeous bastard," he proclaimed, feeling a bit better in new clothes. The fact that Urmilla warned Kaz too, in Seattle. "Shot..." Kaz in clubs, partying with mates. Freedom. Emre sighed hungrily. How did Kaz feel about Urmilla's warnings, about being mothered? Did he consider it over-stepping, did he like it?

"You went to a Britney Spears? Did you dance? I know you danced. Did the little tweens and poofters try moves with you?" Emre teased, and then quickly added, "Erm, I can say that; I'm a bit poof now too innit."

Emre made light to lessen the blow. What Kaz said was self-damning, in a tragic, foreboding way. Their dad of all people, wanting big brother to look out for the little sister. The worst fear: failing that expectation. Realized for Kaz, who didn't deserve to fail. For Ani, who didn't deserve death, never mind a vicious end. Emre clenched his fist into a ball at the thought. The impotent frustration and bitterness Kaz must've felt, about it all. His personal haunting of Ani, that that ghost-Ani couldn't even crack.

It seemed the popping lights controlling all this, had enough jaunts down memory lanes. Kaz grasped Emre back tightly, as they both braced now for whatever was to come next. Kaz tucked against Emre, and he in turn pressed his face on Kaz's shoulder. Emre didn't see the world collapse around them, but he felt the fall. He screamed until the air sucked his breath away, desperately trying to keep hold of Kaz. We can't lose each other, we can't.

They'd both lost enough, hadn't they? When was it 'enough'?

Then suddenly, a vacuum of sound, and solid ground. Ambient noise eventually crawled back over Emre, before he opened his eyes. He could hear Kaz first: we're back. Said with as much emotional fanfare as Kaz said anything (that didn't involve them intimate, slippery, unraveled, grinding into each other), but Emre's eyes shot open in surprise nonetheless. He sat up, looked around the teleporter room. Dust rained down on them like soft snow, dimly illuminated by the moonlight. Emre sneezed, sending up another cloud of dust on himself, just as Kaz spat.

Emre looked at himself, as the flashlight dashed over his chest. "It's glistening..." Emre stood as Kaz helped him, muttering 'I'm fine, I'm fine, you fine?' preambles. Patting more dust out of Kaz, as Kaz virtually twinkled in the moonlight. "You look like a fairy...little folk! Not - nnngh." Emre grunted, simultaneously annoyed and amused. "You look shiny, like. What..."

Kaz untangled something from Emre's hair, and they studied it together. "The water crystal, yeah. How the fuck did it get here? Is all this--?" The ground crunched, as if they were stepping on crushed glass.

The sparkling, the broken bits of...crystal?

Emre sighed, shook his head. "Reckon we broke the teleports. People is gonna be fucking pissed, man." A wipe of his palm on his jeans, before Emre firmly took Kaz's hand. They were home. "Let's go sleep for a million years before we face the music, yeah?"

As Emre carefully made his way out, he suggested, "Or, you know. Could pretend we don't know fuck all what happened..."

And now. And now. What could be said to convince Emre all that mattered was ahead, and not backwards?

But they leapt away, were swept away, yet another important conversation delayed. They landed amongst those perfectly lined houses, like volumes in an encyclopedia, and Kaz wanted to find the book that contained a young Emre Akbar.

But first, they pushed and grabbed and lightly shoved. Ali randomly climbing into a cab seemed... weird, then again the entire trip had been weird.

Kaz held out his arms to inspect, looked over his clothes again. "I dunno, is your abu blind?" At Kaz's house, there was a vague attempt to clean themselves up. The red still lingered here and there (just a color, could be anything, Kaz thought). Regardless, Omar hadn't bothered with too many questions and Emre was suddenly shot out of a canon to get home.

Home! With an excitement missed during the course of this hellacious journey. A casual note of 'Urmilla at the market', and Emre led Kaz down the street as if they were new school friends on their first hang.

Kaz was more than content to follow the path laid out by Emre's hand over a hedge. His own fingers brushed over the greenery too, and mortared matching walls of houses, all to confirm he was really there. And when Emre stopped in front of one address, Kaz studied it as though it were a preciously preserved gold scalloped and gilded-framed work by a master painter.

Emre's excitement became a pain reliever to Kaz's aches, breaks, and bruises. It certainly padded the hop over the fence and fueled curiosity as he peered over a shoulder and watched Emre convince the door to open.

Mummy! Kaz became a statue for a few seconds, with a pounding heart caught in the surreal disco beat of 'oh fuck is Urmilla here?!' Nope, the market, the market. Kaz lined up blood splattered boots next to Emre's, this routine of entering a desi home so welcome after all they'd gone through.

"Hey, hang on, I want to see this pic--" On the staircase, Kaz felt he was on a bullet train, driven by Emre, unable to enjoy the scenery of Akbar family photos whizzing by.

The final stop: a dedicated exhibit, a quiet gallery packed with importance. So much to take in. How it looked, smelled, felt.

Kaz stood silent for a moment to absorb it all, stamp a wide shot of it into his memory. And then he followed the strings attached to every single piece which led back to the person it belonged to. He moved towards the tiger first. A hand brushed over an orange and black shoulder of the printed animal, the colors darker in one direction and the fibers slick once more as his hand traveled in the opposite direction.

Toys on a shelf drew his hands as well, with no one to quell the desire to maneuver arms on an action figure or spin the wheels of a car. Kaz slowly strolled to check out the posters on the walls. "Hey, Em, look." He made sure Emre indeed looked as he leaned in, cheek almost flush to a footballer's poster. A few seconds of a flickering tongue very near the bum of the player, before Kaz pulled away with a low laugh. Kaz free to act as he pleased in a teenage boy's room.

Books were thumbed through. Markers uncapped and smelled, before Kaz scratched a note in green on an inside notebook cover. A long squint at the school uniform before he crouched down to pick up the old wrappers, investigate their empty contents. "Come on, man. What happened to the neat freak?" The wrappers were tossed into the bin.

He stood beside Emre at the closet and touched the fading scar on his neck. "Mm. Loaned me clothes once isn't an always, Emre." He pulled the tie free from the hanging school uniform and focused on tying it around his own neck as Emre judged the fit of old pants. "You were a skinny ass back then. Or, I guess. If you'd bothered to let me stop and look at those pics hanging in the hallway, maybe I'd know." His gaze lifted from the final tuck of the knot on the tie. He adjusted it, slipped it upwards but kept it a little loose. "Nah, see now your body is all built from island work."

Emre already dove into the open closet. Kaz played with the tie, giving the pointed end a flip as he scoffed. "Can't believe you had to wear this dumb shit to school. Bet you made it look good though." As Emre dug around, Kaz pulled out boxes of expensive sneakers to peek inside. "Damn, you were spoiled. All this, is fancy clothes, fancy shoes." A pause to rewrap the shoes and align carefully back in their box. Kaz slid hangers over, scanning clothing. "No band shirts?"

Emre held Kaz's hand so gently. Kaz squeezed back to ensure he wasn't made of dry sand, and a frown covered up for being caught off guard. "Me? Yeah, nothing an emergency room can't fix." Ha. "At least I know I'll be sleeping good when we get back. You, you okay now?" No more tears, Emre temporarily distracted.

He pulled over the chair from the desk and sat. Dropped the backpack finally. Dug through, found the ripped open package of American cheese stacked with individually wrapped slices instead, and tossed it at Emre with a small smile. "Go easy on those, or else you won't be able to shit for a week."

Ani's hidden treasure was pulled out of a pocket. An Altoid's tin similar to one in Kaz's grottos, but teal trimmed instead of red. "She hid a lot of things," said with a bittersweet bounce of his brows up and down. The nature of the Ravals. Kaz held out the tin to Emre. "Go on."

Somehow, Ani stuffed several items of importance into the little tin. A folded concert ticket stub, with a faded name: Britney Spears. Most everything matched in their similar tiny size: a small but working harmonica that would fit on a necklace, an miniature purple koosh, a pink plastic spider, a softly scarred purple guitar pick, a pair of gold hoop earrings, extremely small dice. A rock in the shape of a heart, painted with a design in burnt orange, mustard, cornflower blue, white.

"This too." He grinned and held out a magic 8 ball toy, one that was meant to be a keychain. "I want to ask it if we'll ever get back, but I'm also kind of afraid what the answer will be."

But Emre was convinced there was something there. Everyone had something there in their childhood, even if it was absolute shite.

And now, running through the halls and up the stairs of his own childhood, Emre felt full to bursting. Warm and sunny and those home-smells of cleaning and food and daily family bodies moving in one small, happy space. One might even say a little overly-idyllic, but it was what Emre remembered, and it was cram-jam, overflowing.

The photos on the stairwell were all posed - either by one parent taking the photo, or actual studio photos of the assembled four, smiling (or twitching, in baby Iyaz's case) for the camera. Some of Emre in studied schoolboy poses, or Iyaz in adorable shocked-eyed stares. Urmilla and Omar on a wedding or anniversary day.

And Emre's bedroom, which he reveled in as if he was 15 again. Bringing his bestie, his secret boyfriend, his intense crush up into it to revel with him. Kaz played into it, with the same breezy way he played into Abu's concern on the pavement. A flick of Kaz's naughty tongue against the poster had Emre howling with laughter, hoarse and thready.

Kaz doing his own poke-about, and Emre was happy, proud to let him. Let Kaz look at everything. Who knew how much time they'd have here. Emre desperately tried to find something, some memento to take along, just as Kaz had grabbed something from Ani.

He paused to look at Kaz binning the rubbish. A grim smile. "Wasn't an army boy yet, was I? Still had mum and dad to pick up after me." And Dadi, after that. "You should've seen our flat after Dadi kicked it. Yaz and I lived like absolute swine 'til my arrest. Only time I tidied then was - was when social services came to home visits, innit."

Emre kissed his teeth in great amusement. "Them photos is embarrassing, wot. I'm dead gorgeous now, that's all you need. Kaz - hangabout." Were they really healing? Emre caught Kaz's shoulder, looked at him. Less bruising, less cuts. Kaz's arm hung a bit better. Incredible. Confusing. Suspicious?

He looked down at himself, then over at Kaz, squinting a bit more seriously. "You're...we're healing. Your eye's gone down. And...Kazzy, even for the teleports, this - this isn't normal innit."

Emre tugged the tie on Kaz's neckslung . "Keep that - looks fit on you." When Kaz erupted Emre's show boxes though, he protested. "Oi! Careful with those! I was not spoiled, I worked hard for each and every one of them! Chores! Errands for Uncles and Aunties! Allowance was proper earned, mate! Oh bloody hell -" Emre snatched one particularly precious pair up, stroking the white and red leather. "I'm keeping these. Hear that sparkly yellow lights! Where ever we go next, I'm keeping them!"

Emre managed to get changed out of his filthy shirt and into a salwar; it fit well - still a little loose, but comfy. He found an oversized Adidas green jumper with white stripes on the arms and offered it to Kaz with a smirk. "Will you change into this? Band shirts, nah man. I had a Tupac t-shirt, but mummy wouldn't let me wear it. She thought it'd get me stabbed."

Emre suddenly burst out in another laugh, but this one less funny, more shocked, horrified. He still cradled the shoes, but slowly sat on the edge of his bed, staring a thousand yards away. Despite their weird healing, he suddenly felt exhausted. He agreed with Kaz noiselessly, about sleeping like the dead when they got back. "Don't go sleeping nowhere else, when we get back." If we get back. "Stay with me."

He ate another sliced cheese, unthinking; then was gratefully, gladly distracted by the treasure Kaz revealed. Emre put the shoes to one side, turned his attention to the tin box. Precious relics of a teenaged girl; so painfully, sweetly innocent, it (naturally) made Emre think about Iyaz.

But Iyaz was alive, healthy, well. Kaz's little sibling, the one he tried so hard to protect. She was dead. This was all a representation of everything Ani was. Emre's heart shattering, once again.

How could Kaz explain it. How could he explain any of it, ever, to another living soul.

"We've got to keep this for you, man. Hold onto it. How'd you even know about this box, man? Seems something a little girl would keep secret from her brothers, innit. But you know all what's inside of it too, like - like she showed you the contents? Story behind each one, is it?" Emre took the keychain and shook the 8-ball. Talia had one just like it. "Can we get back home?" he asked it, and the toy responded:

you are here

"What?" Emre said, but before he could show Kaz, the words floated away. Emre looked up at Kaz. "What? Star Wars? Yazzie's the anorak. Dunno, I suppose I just..." Emre looked around. "Did my room up the same way all my mates did theirs. Didn't want to be different, did I."

Emre looked at Kaz, that contained hunger in his gaze. A hunger to know, to understand. Maybe, just maybe even experience vicariously. "We were just normal, man. It's a normal I'll never get back again. Why'd she have to ruin it for us..."

The room dimmed; yellow lights flickered along the walls, but not just yellow this time. Other colours, mixing and flickering and moving like a prisms shaking on a cord.

"Fucking hell," Emre put Ani's tin back into Kaz's backpack, shouldered onto Kaz. He clung onto Kaz tightly as well, arms protectively encircling Kaz's slim waist. Forgetting all about his precious trainers. "Home. We want to go home!!!" Emre yelled, and thought of the magic 8-ball's response.