That might be one of the most stupid things he’s ever heard, but he doesn’t bother saying so. It seems Bashasa agrees, at least, and that eases some weird worry in his stomach.
“They did,” he confirms, and he’s very grateful Bashasa isn’t looking at him still, “And of course we did. We were… part of them. The same family. No one… treated us differently.” His voice is quieter at the end, lost for a moment in the thought of them, all gone and with them the only family he’s really known.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, that's definitely not where he wanted this line of questioning to go, and the remorse for it when he's been playing games in a way and now this is serious is real and intense.
(He did get his answer, though, and he knows it, but this is not the price he would have wanted to pay for it all the same.)
He's in motion before he can really think about it, unafraid of being impulsive when it's his friends involved and not the leaders and factions he has to balance. He catches Kai's arm lightly with one hand, no force behind it to hold or pull and his cheek with the other. The motion isn't sudden, is telegraphed so Kai can pull away if he wishes and to not startle, but there's no hesitation to it either.
"Kai... I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." oh, they're close, this was a tactical error on his part, but now all he can do is forge ahead, "I can't... fix that," he admits, "but if it takes the rest of my days, I'll do everything in my power to build someplace where that can be true again." He can't promise to do it, and they both know it, but he can promise to try, and not just to try, but to do everything.
Everyone deserves to have a home, a place to live in relative safety. Kai deserves... more than that. But he's not thinking about that while they're this close, remember?
Kai should probably stop him, giving the kind of conversation they've been having and how he's been feeling about, but he also really misses the comfort of touch and so few people here are willing to give it. So he doesn't make any sort of motion to intercept or move away, closing his eyes for a moment as he feels the warmth of human contact against his skin. He takes a deep breath and then rests his hand over Bashasa's.
"Thank you," he says softly. He's not sure it'll ever happen, that some place like that will ever exist again. The Arik are too different a peoples, and he has no idea where all the other demons went or what they'll do, and it wouldn't be the same anyway. But he appreciates it all the same, if only because he believes Bashasa when he says it.
Bashasa slides his thumb against Kai's cheek, the touch too intimate for anything they've previously been talking about, but it feels right all the same. For a moment, he wants to kiss Kai more than he's ever wanted anything in his life, even vengeance and while he doesn't do it, it crystalizes into a kind of action all the same.
"Do you need some time with that, or can go back to flirting with you?" it's kind of flippant, maybe, particularly with the small smile he says it with, but it's also said so gently that it's obvious if Kai said he needed another moment, he would give him as long as he needed.
He is very aware he's just admitted what he's doing. He's just hoping it's done light and sweet to pass it off if Kai reacts badly to it.
Kai lets out a little laugh, shaking his head. "I'm fine, you don't need to try and make me feel better," he says, a bit wryly. Because surely it's teasing and curiosity driving this forward more than anything? He doesn't want to get his hopes up over something so impossible. Bashasa sees things very different from most of his kin, but it can't be that different, no matter how much he'd hope it might be. Right?
It does pull him up short for the barest of moments because that's definitely not a "no don't flirt with me" but it's also not the reaction he was hoping for, either. Does Kai not understand what Bashasa is getting at? Does he want to turn him down gently, without making either of them say it? Does he want it as well and doesn't know how to tell him? He has no idea. But Kai's not shying away and he's all but given explicit permission at this point, so he has to believe that this, at least, is alright.
"Well, if you're sure," it's still a bit teasing, but he's also not going anywhere-- though if Kai pulls away he'll use no strength to keep him there, "I was going to ask you if you ever had. Had sex for pleasure, I mean."
Before the war, Kai would have understood immediately, but he is a bit more-- damaged, than he was. It's not just the Hierarchs either; pretty much everyone who's not Bashasa, Ziede, Tahren, or Dahin treats him like some sort of wild monster who might eat their soul and take over their body. It's a fear he understands, even as unhappy it makes him.
The question at hand is enough to make him flush again, and wonder why Bashasa is continuing on this conversation train. "I, um-- no. I wasn't supposed to do anything that could result in a baby for a few years while I adjusted, and then the war happened, and, well." He waves a hand. That should more or less explain itself.
He does think about leaving it at that. He's used to looking for the signs people are interested, reading between his lines, understanding the things he's not saying and the implications of the things he is. It's not just when flirting either, it's part of his negotiation strategy. But he's getting no signs he would normally expect here, nothing to tell him if he should continue or not.
But he's also not getting "no", either, no signs that Kai is trying to escape or doesn't want to continue the conversation. So he thinks, maybe he dares a little further. He trusts himself to smooth it over if he goes too far, doesn't really think he's in danger of losing Kai, or he would never take the risk.
So he lets his eyes drop to Kai's mouth for a moment, a slow drag back up to his eyes, while he asks,
"And now? Would you want to?" there's still the barest hint of deniability, if he needs it, if Kai freaks out, but it's miniscule, and if he somehow still doesn't understand what he's really asking, he's already prepared in the next moment to be much more bold with it.
Kai stares at him, and there's probably a moment where Bashasa wonders if he has in fact pushed too far before his body seems to catch up and there is a riot of a blush on his face.
There is a lot going on inside his head. There is a part of him that thinks Bashasa couldn't possibly be serious, because why of all the people who would very willingly sleep with him would he pick Kai, but he thinks back on this conversation and realizes that it's been building to this and also Bashasa would not make that kind of joke, wouldn't lead him on even if he hadn't been aware of Kai's feelings about him. It's-- astounding, and feels impossible, but now that he's looking for it he can see the way the other man is looking at him and he can feel the hand still on his cheek and the gentle warmth of his skin.
If there was any doubt that demons are just people, regardless of what else they can do, this would be a solid disproof of that concept for most people as well. Kai tries to talk, but it comes out as a little (extremely embarassing) squeak, before he swallows and licks his lips and tries again.
"Yes," he says softly, with a little nod, "I would."
Bashasa can't help but laugh just a little at the squeak, but it's more of a release of tension than a proper sound, from him as well, a soft noise of relief,
"Good, because it was going to be exceedingly hard to keep not kissing you," he's not completely sure that makes sense, but then he is kissing Kai, so he doesn't really care if it did or not.
He has not let himself think about this, not properly, not outside of a few dreams that have faded as he woke, so he has no idea what he was picturing or if this matches it or not. What he does know is that that the moment it starts, soft, a bit chaste but warm, he's ravenous for it, has to actively try to hold himself back in a way he's not used to needing to do, not from just a bit of flirting and a kiss.
He tries to go slow, tries to keep his wits about him, tries to remember that this is likely Kai's first everything and while that is... not helping the hunger any, frankly, it's also a duty and a privilege-- to make sure this is good for him. The effort makes him groan softly into the kiss, a longing noise, barely loud enough to carry to Kai's ears.
(There is perhaps also a drive to completely ruin him for anyone else, at least for a long time. Bashasa is not a man without a bit of selfishness, in the end. He would let Kai go and wish him well with a future relationship if this turns out to be something less meaningful, but he doesn't want to. He wants him to be his, for as long as he's allowed to have him.)
It makes enough sense for what's happening, especially since Kai's brain is still trying to process that this is a real thing that is happening. Their lips meeting works to do much more convincing than the words possibly could have.
It's such a simple thing and yet such a foreign sensation; he'd had a kiss or too when he was in Enna's body but that was years ago now and with this new body it all feels very different. There's a soft little noise of surprise, as if part of him still didn't really expect it, but before long he's leaning into the kiss as well, tentatively raising one of his own hands to touch Bashasa's face.
Whether or not he consciously hears the groan and understands what it means, he unconsciously does and there's a slightly shiver in response. It's like a floodgate opening of all these things he thought he could never have, not after Kentdessa fell, not Bashasa of all people, and while he's still obviously unpracticed he's experimenting with the kiss and making it deeper already.
He manages, somehow, to dig his heels in and slow the descent to something that at least doesn't make him feel like an animal, but that's about as far as the effort gets him and it's an effort. Everything he hasn't been thinking or feeling breaks over him now all at once, and he gets his other arm around Kai's waist, dragging him in, careless of whatever blood he's now likely getting on himself.
He tries to match Kai in the kiss, tries to lead gently, knows he has more experience and doesn't want to be overwhelming or pushy, wants Kai to get to figure things out. But Kai deepens the kiss and Bashasa makes another noise, helpless, and deepens it further, until he has to pull back for air. Even then, he takes it in a gasp, dives back in. He manages to reduce the desire to touch to more of a cling than the desperate pawing he feels impulsively rise up in him. But underneath, he feels younger, less experienced, from a time when everything was so overwhelming and lust didn't make time for anything else. He hasn't felt that way in years and it genuinely surprises him now, with how badly he wants this.
Kai allows himself to be pulled and is, if anything, clinging back. There's a spark of wonder in all this for him, that apparently Bashasa wants him that badly, and it makes him feel a little weak in the face of it all. He all but curls himself into the man's embrace with his hands on his chest and neck, all but lost to anything outside of the two of them.
Bashasa, it seems, also doesn't have to worry about overwhelming Kai with the kiss because he groans as it deepens and when they break apart and go back he dives right back in. He's still a little clumsy, still experimenting some, but there is no doubt that he is enthusiastic.
There's nothing to put the brakes on this with Kai clinging to him and making desperate noises of his own. Bashasa can slow down but he can't stop, not while Kai is like this and the thought tumbles through his head that maybe people are wary of having relations with demons because they know people would never stop once they started.
That might just be Kai though, and he's well aware of that.
He slides his hands up under Kai's shirt, mostly as a small distraction so neither of them open up the other's lips on their teeth with how fiercely they're kissing, but when his fingers slide over the skin of Kai's abdomen, skin fully healed but still a little warmer to the touch with the final stages of that healing, something snaps inside of him.
There's a low growl, deeply possessive, far more so than he would normally let himself be with a partner without some serious discussion first, and he's got his hands on Kai's hips instead, pulling him in close. He can keep from saying it, knows it's not something to spring on someone like Kai without some more sober thought to it, but he can't keep his body from telegraphing mine, mine, mine.
The Saredi work much differently than the Arik in pretty much all things regarding sex and romance, from what little Kai's been able to pick up (it's not exactly been his priority in things to learn). If someone heard how they handled things like marriage and relationships, how Kai would have probably wound up married to at least three people back in Kentdessa's tent, they might think that this kind of behavior would be alarming to him. Maybe it even would be, if circumstances were different. It's not, though. Kai is already Bashasa's demon; he is already his. The way he's being held onto is almost soothing in that context. It's some kind of confirmation that it's not entirely just him.
He's not quite sure what to do with his own hands, because he absolutely does not want to do anything that would move them further way or get Bashasa to stop holding him like this. There's a little start to his breath when the other man touches his skin, but it's just followed by another almost desperate little keen.
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“They did,” he confirms, and he’s very grateful Bashasa isn’t looking at him still, “And of course we did. We were… part of them. The same family. No one… treated us differently.” His voice is quieter at the end, lost for a moment in the thought of them, all gone and with them the only family he’s really known.
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(He did get his answer, though, and he knows it, but this is not the price he would have wanted to pay for it all the same.)
He's in motion before he can really think about it, unafraid of being impulsive when it's his friends involved and not the leaders and factions he has to balance. He catches Kai's arm lightly with one hand, no force behind it to hold or pull and his cheek with the other. The motion isn't sudden, is telegraphed so Kai can pull away if he wishes and to not startle, but there's no hesitation to it either.
"Kai... I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." oh, they're close, this was a tactical error on his part, but now all he can do is forge ahead, "I can't... fix that," he admits, "but if it takes the rest of my days, I'll do everything in my power to build someplace where that can be true again." He can't promise to do it, and they both know it, but he can promise to try, and not just to try, but to do everything.
Everyone deserves to have a home, a place to live in relative safety. Kai deserves... more than that. But he's not thinking about that while they're this close, remember?
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"Thank you," he says softly. He's not sure it'll ever happen, that some place like that will ever exist again. The Arik are too different a peoples, and he has no idea where all the other demons went or what they'll do, and it wouldn't be the same anyway. But he appreciates it all the same, if only because he believes Bashasa when he says it.
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"Do you need some time with that, or can go back to flirting with you?" it's kind of flippant, maybe, particularly with the small smile he says it with, but it's also said so gently that it's obvious if Kai said he needed another moment, he would give him as long as he needed.
He is very aware he's just admitted what he's doing. He's just hoping it's done light and sweet to pass it off if Kai reacts badly to it.
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"Well, if you're sure," it's still a bit teasing, but he's also not going anywhere-- though if Kai pulls away he'll use no strength to keep him there, "I was going to ask you if you ever had. Had sex for pleasure, I mean."
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The question at hand is enough to make him flush again, and wonder why Bashasa is continuing on this conversation train. "I, um-- no. I wasn't supposed to do anything that could result in a baby for a few years while I adjusted, and then the war happened, and, well." He waves a hand. That should more or less explain itself.
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But he's also not getting "no", either, no signs that Kai is trying to escape or doesn't want to continue the conversation. So he thinks, maybe he dares a little further. He trusts himself to smooth it over if he goes too far, doesn't really think he's in danger of losing Kai, or he would never take the risk.
So he lets his eyes drop to Kai's mouth for a moment, a slow drag back up to his eyes, while he asks,
"And now? Would you want to?" there's still the barest hint of deniability, if he needs it, if Kai freaks out, but it's miniscule, and if he somehow still doesn't understand what he's really asking, he's already prepared in the next moment to be much more bold with it.
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Kai stares at him, and there's probably a moment where Bashasa wonders if he has in fact pushed too far before his body seems to catch up and there is a riot of a blush on his face.
There is a lot going on inside his head. There is a part of him that thinks Bashasa couldn't possibly be serious, because why of all the people who would very willingly sleep with him would he pick Kai, but he thinks back on this conversation and realizes that it's been building to this and also Bashasa would not make that kind of joke, wouldn't lead him on even if he hadn't been aware of Kai's feelings about him. It's-- astounding, and feels impossible, but now that he's looking for it he can see the way the other man is looking at him and he can feel the hand still on his cheek and the gentle warmth of his skin.
If there was any doubt that demons are just people, regardless of what else they can do, this would be a solid disproof of that concept for most people as well. Kai tries to talk, but it comes out as a little (extremely embarassing) squeak, before he swallows and licks his lips and tries again.
"Yes," he says softly, with a little nod, "I would."
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"Good, because it was going to be exceedingly hard to keep not kissing you," he's not completely sure that makes sense, but then he is kissing Kai, so he doesn't really care if it did or not.
He has not let himself think about this, not properly, not outside of a few dreams that have faded as he woke, so he has no idea what he was picturing or if this matches it or not. What he does know is that that the moment it starts, soft, a bit chaste but warm, he's ravenous for it, has to actively try to hold himself back in a way he's not used to needing to do, not from just a bit of flirting and a kiss.
He tries to go slow, tries to keep his wits about him, tries to remember that this is likely Kai's first everything and while that is... not helping the hunger any, frankly, it's also a duty and a privilege-- to make sure this is good for him. The effort makes him groan softly into the kiss, a longing noise, barely loud enough to carry to Kai's ears.
(There is perhaps also a drive to completely ruin him for anyone else, at least for a long time. Bashasa is not a man without a bit of selfishness, in the end. He would let Kai go and wish him well with a future relationship if this turns out to be something less meaningful, but he doesn't want to. He wants him to be his, for as long as he's allowed to have him.)
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It's such a simple thing and yet such a foreign sensation; he'd had a kiss or too when he was in Enna's body but that was years ago now and with this new body it all feels very different. There's a soft little noise of surprise, as if part of him still didn't really expect it, but before long he's leaning into the kiss as well, tentatively raising one of his own hands to touch Bashasa's face.
Whether or not he consciously hears the groan and understands what it means, he unconsciously does and there's a slightly shiver in response. It's like a floodgate opening of all these things he thought he could never have, not after Kentdessa fell, not Bashasa of all people, and while he's still obviously unpracticed he's experimenting with the kiss and making it deeper already.
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He tries to match Kai in the kiss, tries to lead gently, knows he has more experience and doesn't want to be overwhelming or pushy, wants Kai to get to figure things out. But Kai deepens the kiss and Bashasa makes another noise, helpless, and deepens it further, until he has to pull back for air. Even then, he takes it in a gasp, dives back in. He manages to reduce the desire to touch to more of a cling than the desperate pawing he feels impulsively rise up in him. But underneath, he feels younger, less experienced, from a time when everything was so overwhelming and lust didn't make time for anything else. He hasn't felt that way in years and it genuinely surprises him now, with how badly he wants this.
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Bashasa, it seems, also doesn't have to worry about overwhelming Kai with the kiss because he groans as it deepens and when they break apart and go back he dives right back in. He's still a little clumsy, still experimenting some, but there is no doubt that he is enthusiastic.
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That might just be Kai though, and he's well aware of that.
He slides his hands up under Kai's shirt, mostly as a small distraction so neither of them open up the other's lips on their teeth with how fiercely they're kissing, but when his fingers slide over the skin of Kai's abdomen, skin fully healed but still a little warmer to the touch with the final stages of that healing, something snaps inside of him.
There's a low growl, deeply possessive, far more so than he would normally let himself be with a partner without some serious discussion first, and he's got his hands on Kai's hips instead, pulling him in close. He can keep from saying it, knows it's not something to spring on someone like Kai without some more sober thought to it, but he can't keep his body from telegraphing mine, mine, mine.
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He's not quite sure what to do with his own hands, because he absolutely does not want to do anything that would move them further way or get Bashasa to stop holding him like this. There's a little start to his breath when the other man touches his skin, but it's just followed by another almost desperate little keen.