[zapdragon555]

"Yeah, lemme treat you. Makes me feel good," Izra said honestly, his expression bright as he squeezed their tangled fingers gently. He wondered if he should let go. He wondered, but he figured Astrophel would let go if he wanted to. His grip wasn't so tight that the other immortal couldn't escape, and so, he gently pulled Astrophel in the direction of the ice cream shop.

One exchanging of money later (and Izra finally having to let go of the other's hand to get out his cash and hold the ice cream), Izra was waving Astrophel over to one of the benches near the stand. It was in the sun, but it wasn't horrendously hot out. He held up the shark shaped ice cream (this one, he insisted, was just too great to pass up) with the little spoons sticking out of its back. "It's like they harpooned it," he commented with an amused wrinkle to his nose, before looking over at Astrophel with a small pink tint of embarrassment to his face. "Is here okay?" he asked, sitting on the bench and patting the space next to him.

[Jaykobell]

It wasn't the first time Izra had treated Astrophel on these little dates, he figured, but the very concept of it still left Astrophel with a sense of wonderment. In a good way, but also in a sort of confusing way.

For the most part, he let Izra do the talking and everything else. It wasn't the time for conversation while someone was ordering, anyway.

So he followed along, looking at the shark with, admittedly, a little bit of curiosity. "It does," he said quietly at Izra's comment that the poor thing looked like it had been harpooned. He knew of the generic and all-time favorite ice cream cones, and he knew there were a lot of variations to ice cream dishes and presentation. But this, truly, he couldn't remember ever seeing it or hearing of it. It was always fascinating to find out even an immortal as old as he was could still learn now and again.

When Izra settled down on the bench and invited Astrophel to sit next to him, dilemma was clear in his face. "Ah," he mumbled quietly as he considered the offer. It would be easier to share if they sat next to each other, on second thought. Wouldn't it? And there was nothing wrong with sitting next to a friend, was there? "Sure," he finally replied.

He settled down next to Izra, albeit a little bit awkwardly, making sure that the two of them had enough space, and where he wasn't touching Izra, either. It left Astrophel sitting a little bit tense; but he didn't pay much mind to that, instead turning his attention towards the shark and his own spoon. It was definitely... different... to be sharing food like this with someone.

He took a timid little bite of it, not wanting to eat more than Izra, or risking eating too much and leaving the genie too little. "Oh," he said quietly after trying it, "it does taste pretty good."

[zapdragon555]

Izra looked at Astrophel bemusedly as the other immortal seemed to waffle and angst over the idea of sitting down. He relaxed a bit when the other agreed, and he scooted just a tiny bit to give more room. The distance Astrophel sat away from set a strange feeling in his stomach, and he tried to swallow it down as he lifted a spoonful of blue shark ice cream up to stick in his mouth. "Right?" he mumbled around the spoon, grinning against pink plastic. "You want the head or the tail?" he asked, taking the spoon back out and lining it up carefully with the intent to bisect the shark in half.

He tried to distract himself with this. Had the hand holding been too much? Had Izra misread something? His heart tied itself in little knots chasing these trains of thought, as he carefully cut the shark shortways and nudged the two parts away from each other. "Um," he said after a moment, words catching in his throat. He looked up, an uncertain flicker in his eyes. "I... I'm really glad I could see you again," he murmured, uncharacteristically solemn even as he smiled. "Really. You've..."

Izra paused, wondering if this was too heavy of a thing to discuss over ice cream. "It's alright," he said under his breath, almost more to himself than to Astrophel, and stuffed the spoon back in his mouth with a piece of the dorsal fin.

[Jaykobell]

Astrophel had been careful to take small bites, eating passively. He was slow on the uptake, but he was glad when Izra asked which half he wanted to eat for himself. "Oh," he said quietly as he observed the two halves. "The tail is fine," he confirmed, and he allowed himself a slightly bigger bite.

He was still pacing himself when Izra changed the subject. Astrophel instinctively looked up to face Izra, and he could see that serious expression on his face. He held his breath for a split second, as he heard Izra about to share something — something that was serious... something that important?

Astrophel couldn't help but to find it sort of silly, how it was now Izra who backtracked on his words, much like how Astrophel had done earlier. It made him smile; just a tiny little thing on his face. "I'm... glad, too," he agreed, and he gingerly dug his spoon into the tail half of the shark. "Really," he clarified, his words carrying more confidence this time. He found that his shyness probably translated into hesitation — the latter sounding much worse than the former.

He took the bite from the spoon, and he took a moment to savor it. His heart thumped in his chest at breaking the silence, and daring to pry, as it were. "What... What were you about to say?" Izra had asked Astrophel earlier, so surely, it was fine to push a little bit in reverse, right?

[zapdragon555]

Izra nearly choked on the spoon in his mouth as Astrophel gently pressed the matter. He took it out and side-glanced towards the immortal, his face coloring as his eyes darted to his knees. He took a slow breath and let it out. "I was just gonna say..."

He seemed to think for a second more, then continued with a softer voice, "You've been such a... such a..." He rubbed a hand over his mouth, trying to find the right words, words that would make his feelings known, but he really wasn't very good with words in situations like these. They never came out the way he wanted them to, but by god, he'd try. "Let me try to put it this way. When I'm human, I don't really know how much time I have in this form. It... varies. And when it's over, I never know how long it will be before I get the chance to be human again. And..." He stared at his half of the shark, watching the pointed nose start to melt in the sun. "And people forget about you when enough time passes. People move on, and that's okay, but you've..."

His brows furrowed. Izra turned and looked up at Astrophel fully, his expression serious, earnest. "You make me feel like there's a constant in all of this. That no matter what, or when... I could find you. And... and we could hang out, like this. And you wouldn't... forget about me." He fell silent for a moment, and quietly scooped up a bit of ice cream in his spoon, watching the blue and white colors run together. He expelled a short breath through his lips, almost like a laugh, looking off towards the horizon line over the ocean with an embarrassed, almost shameful look in his eyes. "In retrospect saying something cool like, 'you're the magnetic north to my broken compass' would've sounded a lot more romantic. Er--in... in the metaphorical sense of the word, I mean, you know." Finally, after that long mumbling sentence, Izra fell fully quiet. He jumped slightly in surprise as cold melted ice cream hit his fingers--the ice cream in his spoon had run down the length of it while he'd been rambling.

[Jaykobell]

When it all came crashing down; when Izra shared all those serious, important feelings; when the genie looked up at him with those eyes; something came crashing down in Astrophel's heart and mind both. It felt like a missing puzzle piece had finally been found and placed where it belonged. All he had done during Izra's speech had been to look back at the genie in silence, not daring to interrupt; but internally, something clicked. And it had probably already shown in his eyes.

His heart swelled in a way he couldn't quite explain. His chest tightened, mostly out of happiness; even if there was still fear lurking in the back. In that moment, he couldn't remember the last time he felt so connected to someone; never mind the fact he couldn't remember the last time anyone had had any sort of attachment to him.

He remembered the first time they had met, and what sort of surreal meeting that had been. In all his lifetime, not one immortal had left that sort of impression on him; never had he kept one particular immortal in mind, holding on to such a memory like something precious he refused to give up. It had been a few months between their initial meeting and these little dates: a blink of an eye for an immortal, but a significant amount of time for human mortals.

He delicately put down his spoon, digging a little hole into the shark to hold it in place. "Izra..." The emotions were rising in his throat now, emotions that he barely ever experienced or admitted. He couldn't quite put words to those feelings, and that made the experience terrifying in its own way. But regardless of that, it pushed Astrophel to go for it. If anyone had ever managed to completely shatter his image of control, it was Izra.

"I'm really..." He had hoped to get further than that before needing to pause. "I'm really touched. And I feel... I feel the same. I really... I..." For a moment, nothing else came out. He was struggling to just say what he was thinking. His filter struggled to translate it all, and everything came out weirdly because of it. He didn't know how else to say it. Was there any other way to say it?

He sighed, frustrated. "When we first met..." His mind wandered to that one fateful night. Finding Izra in the park, frozen with hypothermia; inviting him home; and... "That was the first time..." He looked away, staring off in the distance towards the beach. Maybe he was saying too much, but... Izra admitting and saying something Astrophel being a constant for him couldn't have been that easy. If he didn't go for it now... When would his next opportunity come? Maybe the next day, or maybe only in months from now. A year. Years.

"The first time I could feel a connection with another immortal." His expression darkened, even though the smile remained. "I was so... happy. For the first time in a long time. Even if..." His face turned into a frown; the smile still there. "Even if I knew it wouldn't last." A one nightstand, was it, that humans called it? A connection that lasted but for a fleeting moment, most likely to never happen again.

"But I still... I still thought about you." A little question that would pop up in his mind, every now and again. "I wondered if I would ever see you again. And then... And then one day, you did get in touch again. And I... I was..." He finally mustered the courage to look up at Izra again. "I was really happy. And..."

He smiled sheepishly. "I'm old, Izra. I know, and I've seen, a lot of things. And I've forgotten a lot of things. But..." He looked back at this genie that always found a way to make him undone, every time they met. His expression relaxed, the smile widening a little into a small, embarrassed grin, his heart having no intention of slowing down. "But I don't think I could forget you." He paused, his eyes darting away again. "Even if I tried."

"So I was really happy when I found out... That you hadn't forgotten about me, either."

[zapdragon555]

It was as though a sharp tangle of dull barbed wire had loosened and fallen away from Izra's heart. He looked up at the other, his expression unguarded with a mounting belief that what Astrophel was saying was true. He blinked rapidly for a brief second, dampness rimming his eyes as he exhaled a soft, shaky laugh, hardly more than a breath. He looked out at the sea, forgetting the ice cream on his hand, forgetting a lot of things.

Forgetting to be scared of the impulse that drove him to reach over with his clean hand and touch Astrophel's jawline in warning before leaning in to kiss him. He couldn't contain it--couldn't stop the powerful emotion bubbling up in his chest. He hiccuped a quiet ghost of a cry against the other's mouth, and leaned away with a bashful, teary smile, hurriedly wiping a few tears that had slipped out. "You thought about me?" he asked, hunching his shoulders a little and grinning, like he couldn't quite believe it. "Sorry, I... probably should've asked about that kiss first," he mused, sniffing and glancing around. No prying eyes... maybe it wasn't such a problem.

He realized he was still holding a very sticky, ice cream-dripping spoon, and he quickly lodged it in the head of the shark. "Gosh... didn't notice. Wonder if they have napkins..." he mumbled all of this under his breath, like his heart was still very much on those incredible words of Astrophel's while his mind attempted coherent thought on its own, muted schedule.

[Jaykobell]

Astrophel wondered if he had said too much, or if he had misinterpreted Izra's words. Izra's reaction seemed positive, but Astrophel's lack of experience in these things made him uncertain. The thought crossed his mind that, maybe, he shouldn't have said so much.

It was but a fleeting thought, as Izra brought his hand close, and as the genie pulled them into a kiss. He felt his heart rising in his throat as they shared this blissful moment of connection; Astrophel did truly enjoy kissing. It was such a soft, yet passionate show of love. In that split second after the kiss was broken, it was sadness that enveloped him.

He smiled something genuine and embarrassed, but embarrassed in the best of ways. He let out just a small humorous breath. "I did," he answered to Izra's question. At the genie's concern over the kiss, Astrophel looked away timidly. "No, no... You... You don't have to ask."

He turned back to look at Izra when he heard the genie mumbling to himself. Seeing his ice cream-covered hand and Izra looking around, Astrophel picked up that he was looking for something to clean his hand. Astrophel looked around as well. Something to clean his hand...

A thought crossed his mind. He had seen this thing that humans did, sometimes, when they were... They truly didn't have anything to wipe Izra's hand. And, well, ice cream is consumable...

Still riding on the high of their mutual confessions and the kiss, Astrophel went for it. He slowly reached out for Izra's dirty hand. He held it delicately. Without a word, he bent down, and brought Izra's hand close. He planted a kiss on his hand, right where the ice cream had started to stick. Delicately, he used his tongue to rid Izra's hand of some of that ice cream.

He pulled away after a few seconds, still holding Izra's hand in his own. There was still ice cream there, and admittedly... "S-sorry," he said quietly, apologetically. "I-I guess that was really weird," he admitted, and he wondered how he could have thought this would be a good idea. He used his free hand to rub the back of his neck sheepishly, eyes looking away. "I think... humans are better at it than me."

[zapdragon555]

To say that the action was unexpected would be a massive understatement. Izra barely got a noise of surprise out before he was stunned into silence by the gentle, yet somehow almost ravishing gesture. He hurriedly looked around, quick darts of his eyes as his fingers twitched slightly at the ticklish feeling of Astrophel's tongue. No one was watching... it must have been some kind of miracle that the beach was practically empty. His eyes glued back to Astrophel just as the immortal was finishing.

Izra was effectively speechless, even more so than he'd been from Astrophel's confession. He swallowed around words, words he didn't dare say or suggest. Instead he gave a soft, tiny shake of his head, his face coloring a darker rose as he reached for the ice cream. He dipped his index finger in, deep enough to collect a small amount on his fingertip, and without a word he held it to Astrophel's lips with an almost playful sheepishness in his eyes. "I disagree," he murmured in response, his voice a little shaky with the warmth thrumming through him.

It was incredible. Incredible--Astrophel really did feel such things for him. Izra's heart was slow to catch up with the feeling of the moment, perhaps sleepy and hibernating and quite used to being left behind by now.

[Jaykobell]

The surprise only flip-flopped between the two of them. It was Astrophel's turn to be dumbfounded when Izra turned the tables on him by tipping his finger in the ice cream and bringing a finger to Astrophel's lips. He stared for a second, and then blinked. "Ah...?" he breathed, having certainly not expected things to turn this way. But this, too, he had seen humans do before.

"I-it's a little... unconventional," he admitted with a bit of a sheepish laugh. Should he have expected anything else from Izra, though, but the unexpected?

He slowly took Izra's finger in his mouth, just enough to grab the little touch of ice cream, gingerly with his tongue. It did taste much better when it wasn't sticky.

[zapdragon555]

Izra let out a small, sheepish laugh, flushing redder and shrugging his shoulders. It was true... he was a little out of practice with stuff like this. It felt like falling into old motions, yet somehow, everything felt new and exciting and nerve wracking. "We aren't too conventional anyway, given the... circumstances," he joked, leaning in closer to speak softer. "A genie in human form and an immortal wishmaker? Conventional?"

All of his jokes dissolved into a barely audible, shuddering inhale of breath as Astrophel's lips closed on his finger. Damn these desires in his heart--couldn't it be enough to just share an ice cream with a friend? But... Astrophel was something additional to friend in his heart. He knew this to be true, and denying it would be foolish. Even so, he wished his body didn't feel so hot, and wished that heat would stay out of his lower half.

He cleared his throat when he was released, exhaling just as shaky. He hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath. He managed to form it into a chuckle at the end, saving the awkwardness just a little bit. "Who needs spoons, right?" he joked, but took his spoon back regardless, scooping up some of the last dregs of the melting front half. After a moment, he glanced at Astrophel, a sudden sea breeze blustering his hair about. "Hey," he asked softly. "How long do you think you'll be on earth? I mean... you have places to be, I know, but... I was just curious."

[Jaykobell]

Astrophel felt heat burn his face at Izra's statement. Well, fine, maybe there were a few unconventional things about this... situation. But human form aside, Izra remained a genie: an immortal being who carried special powers, just like Astrophel. Still, could these two things be compared?

Regardless, he had little time to think about it as he took Izra's finger in his mouth. He thought he could hear Izra's shaky breath as it happened, especially after Astrophel had released his finger. Had Izra also realized it was a little weird? He did return to using a spoon afterwards.

So did Astrophel, as he figured he couldn't let that ice cream go to waste. Izra had paid for it, and wasting food in general was no good. Even though his stomach was in knots over all this, even if his mind couldn't even think about eating ice cream, it was the right thing to do, to finish his half.

He had been avoiding eye contact, but he looked back at Izra when the genie spoke. "How long?" he echoed, tilting his head. "I actually... I actually stay here much more than anywhere else," he admitted. After a second, something crossed his mind. "Why?" he asked, curious.

[zapdragon555]

It just wasn't private enough, Izra thought, suddenly very aware of their visibility. Even if no one was around, he knew he could only be so clear with his words in public. 'That really turned me on and you looked beautiful doing it' was not exactly something you could say to someone in public, and really, how arousing was eating ice cream off of someone's finger supposed to logically be?

Maybe it had just been awhile. Maybe it was the feelings still thrumming through him that maybe, at least it seemed, Astrophel... felt things for him. Felt a lot more than Izra thought he did. "I just have a little apartment near the beach. Has a nice view of the ocean from up high--if you... wanted to move there after awhile. I could order some food? Only if you have nowhere else to be, though."

The prospect of sharing a meal on the tiny patio and watching the sunset was, admittedly, heavenly to Izra's mind. But he was flexible, really--he could lay his silly desires to rest for the time being. Moreso than any physical desire, he wanted to simply be. To be near and to be with, Astrophel.

Such difficult things to verbalize with a spoon in your mouth.

[Jaykobell]

Astrophel had been keeping busy finishing his half of the shark as he listened to Izra. How interesting that it was now Izra who was inviting Astrophel to his home. How sweet of Izra to consider Astrophel's schedule, too. "I'd like that," he said with genuine curiosity to seeing Izra's little apartment.

Part of Astrophel wondered if it would be appropriate to offer his own house for Izra's shelter, rather than leaving the genie to his own devices. Perhaps that was too much, beyond the fact it would probably bind Izra to that specific location. But he knew the struggles of living alone, and the money it required. He did hope Izra wasn't stuck spending his limited time as a human working a job rather than enjoying his freedom.

He didn't stay on that thought for long, instead opting to talk. "Don't worry about me. I don't have much planned, really," he assured Izra. "I have... my own schedule, so to speak." He took in one of the last few bites of ice cream. Almost there. "There's a lot of wishmakers out there, too; some much younger than me who can use the work," he said passively, with no disdain, but with a certain air of disinterest. "And we don't realize every single wish humans make, so... It gets slow sometimes," he explained, ending with a little smile and a chuckle.

[zapdragon555]

Izra's eyes lit up like the sun at Astrophel's acceptance, leaning in on impulse to peck a light kiss to the other's cheek. "Aw--gosh," he chuckled, picking up his spoon again to take his last bite. "So nice of you. Those youngsters better be grateful," he said in a gentle, joking tone. "I guess I'm kind of a youngster, too. I doubt they'd think so, though."

After a moment he stood up and stretched, his back popping a few times--as if confirming his statement. 'Youngster' indeed--Izra had been around for awhile, to say the least, but he had a hunch Astrophel had been around longer. A lot of Izra's memory was gaps. He silently reflected that if he brought up ancient history, they'd have a lot to discuss.

Smiling at this thought, Izra turned around and gazed at Astrophel for a brief moment, his expression melting with a quiet affection before holding out his hand. They could toss the empty ice cream carton on the way out. "It's a little bit of a walk, but not too bad. Feeling up for it?"

No regrets, really. It had been the best idea in the world, to invite Astrophel out here today. His thudding, happy heartbeat said as much.