fic: Turkish Delight; Greece, Turkey
The sun was already setting, a hovering blaze of orange, when Sadik finally made it back into the palace. The celebrations in Istanbul had just begun, but Annan found his body aching and hitching with weariness from an extended foreign stay. The damn Crusaders didn’t make his job any easier, and he was pretty sure he had a couple of scars on his head, now, that wouldn’t grow back hair. But he had felt slightly more upbeat from such a vigorous welcome, and the spirits of his people had his own mood significantly more elated than when he’d just ridden in. The food had been good where they’d eaten, the drink had been plentiful (not enough to get him drunk though, not even a little tipsy, which the Sultan had told him wasn’t necessary), and the smiling faces of his countrymen were certainly a sight. But, honestly, he was glad to be back at the palace.
“Oi!” He called, trailing servants from where they’d greeted him at the palace entrance and brushing them off as he continued his brisk walk. “Where da fuck did alla my emirates go? Fukkin lose em, or what?” This last had been rather rhetorical, as there really wasn’t anyone left to answer; he had successfully ushered away anyone that might have been able to help him, had he needed it. Nevertheless, he entered the harem where his conquered nations would be, kept safe away from the rest of the world; theoretically, at least. Greece and Bulgaria had been out with him on the battlefield a couple of time, as his Janissaries, but that hadn’t lasted.
He threw open the doors to another room, in search of any of them, really, and paused upon finding a cinnamon-haired youth, lanky, creamy limbs en repose as he looked from his divan out into the sea; his sea-grass eyes glinted and caught splinters of gold, bronze, and cinnabar as they flashed and closed, and whatever tunica he was supposed to be wearing was mostly off his body in an attempt to defeat the oppressive humidity.
For an instant, the Empire could only stare, stunned; this was, indeed, the little Greece he had left behind, sent back after receiving some dangerous wounds (he’d never been very good at fighting, or perhaps he just didn’t have the desire to; fighting for the Empire was hardly his life’s cause). When had he gotten so damn big? Not that the thought displeased him, and his face immediately relaxed into a lecherous grin as he considered the smooth, almost girlish contours of the boy’s body, his pristine, hairless limbs, and the angle of his hips. And then his face regained its former tenseness as he realized the boy hadn’t reacted to his entrance, and wondered, vaguely, if he’d gone deaf from the heat.
“Oi.” He resumed, striding forward, placing a knee on the couch to lean forward and tap at the boy’s face (noting, simultaneously, he’d been fucking shaved, if the faint pores around his genitals were any indication; he paused again, reaching back down and running his fingers over the smooth flesh), and when no reaction was received from any of his ministrations (he’d done this as a kid, too, played dead until Sadik left him alone, which didn’t take long), lifted him bodily from the couch by his shoulders, continuing his earlier litany of “Ooi!”
He suspected it might have been just a bit different than usual, however, when Greece’s head lolled back, with a quiet exhalation, and the man froze (images of small, cold, dead children in his arms unavoidable), and he scrambled to grab the boy’s face to look at it properly. His pupils were blown, almost entirely swallowing out that rare emerald, his mouth was half-open, wet, and reddened, his face carried the flushed of the aroused or drugged. “Oi, brat, you okay?” He asked, gritting it out as he realized his slightly inappropriate bodily reaction (not that it could be helped, that was, as he tried to keep his hips away from the boy’s exposed body).
The youth gave a small keen, placed a hand on the man’s collar-bones and seemed about to push himself away before he suddenly lost impetus and went limp, again, in Sadik’s grasp.
“What da fuck is goin on?” Sadik cried, once more thowing open the double doors, and shouting out into the expansive hall. It was only few seconds until a court member appeared, hurrying down the hall to ask Sadik what the matter was.
“You tell me! Da fuck is da kid’s prollem in dere?” He gestured back into the harem, where the boy still lay, now half-draped from the couch.
The minister fretted his hands, the only sign of his nerves. “Problem, Lord? He’s just…” And upon seeing Annan’s imperious glare, relented. “We… he’s just been… given a bit of something to calm him down. So you might… enjoy him better.” Sadik felt an immediate sinking in his stomach. He hadn’t thought (though he didn’t know why) they would prepare someone for him that night; after coming back from a long campaign, it was only expected, after all. What did he know; by now, it was probably common practice to feed lovers drugs so they wouldn’t fight.
He paused again, torn between refusing the offer and being suspected impotent, or accepting and guiltily making love to the kid who could neither resist nor grudgingly accept; it wasn’t the lack of consent that bothered him. It was the lack of response.
“Eeh.” He finally sighed, turning wearily back to the room and closing the doors behind him. He felt his skin crawl upon resurveying the scene; the kid was now laying on his back, head partially off the couch, tunica ridden up past his navel in his desperate squirming for comfort, eyes still distantly reflecting the plum sunset. The only movement about the youth was the felines that twined about his body, rubbing against his unresponsive fingers and crawling shamelessly onto him for a soft spot to lie on. Beside him, on the lounge table, were a box of candies, and the Empire felt automatically sickened and suspicious; picking one up, he took a small bite from a corner and immediately let it drop back into the container. Hashish candy. Figured. The kid was out of his fucking mind with cannabis.
He turned back to consider the kid himself; he really did look out of it, and not in a pleasant way. Knowing the dangers of hashish, the Empire was vaguely worried for the kid’s continued health (was it possible for a nation to die in such a way? Certainly the people of Greece didn’t have a problem with the drug). The kid abruptly writhed, body twisting under Sadik’s gaze, and, for just an instant, it was too much. He was suddenly hard, and it was suddenly a muddle as to whether or not he’d feel bad having the kid under these conditions.
But even as he deliberated (and self-deliberated, and cross-deliberated), the kid moaned, clutching his head with his hands, uttering three rather small words (Make it stop) that suddenly took all the lust and headiness right out of the man. He knew, suddenly, that he couldn’t do it; it felt like his body had been doused with ice-water, and he simply wanted out. And it wasn’t like the kid would weep bitterly the entire night just because Sadik hadn’t fucked him.
In the end, Sadik simply removed his shoes and crawled up behind the youth, wrapping his arms tightly around the dissolving, golden creature, and held him close while the drugs shook their way from Herkles’ veins. And all the while (Sadik didn’t know why he hadn’t heard them before; he must have been saying them the entire time), the same mantra dropped from Herakles’ lips, Sadik would try to devour every time they fell.
Notes: I have been assured by my much more worldly sister (in terms of the Middle East, at least) that hashish is basically nothing more than tobacco and herbs, and something you smoke in a hooka. It’s a popular American image that hashish is cannabis. Generally, however, whenever it’s referenced with Turkey on the internet, it means cannabis.
Also, there’s some speculation on how much Turkish Delights contained hashish. Some early college kids in the 1820s brought back “hashish candy” and got sick off of it. May be sort of like Coke- used to have cocaine in it, but now it’s just a harmless table drink.
Researching the harems, I came across an interesting quote that made me laugh; someone, writing about a sultan, has him being reluctant about being in bed with a woman, because he’d much rather do something else. But, she would weep bitterly if he rejected her, and then the entire Empire would think him impotent.