It's in the little things, Masrur thinks.

He remembers, vaguely, because he might have been half-asleep when being spoken to, Sinbad telling him that one day, he'll meet a lovely woman—or perhaps a dozen of them. She'll be his partner and his pride, someone to cherish and love, and that was about when the conversation stopped being sort of sweet and turned far more lewd (and Ja'far appeared, yanking on Sinbad's long ponytail and scolding him for sullying Masrur's mind).

It's funny, because from how Sinbad says it, feeling pride in one's lover, loving and cherishing them, should be an automatic, thoughtless thing—just a little bump in the road that requires no effort. It doesn't look like that with most people. Most people seem to struggle their way through relationships, stumbling and falling and looking like hapless fools.

Even Sinbad does it, with all of the women he beds (then again, he doesn't seem to try, most of the time).

It isn't like that, though, when it comes to Sinbad and Ja'far. They hide it, certainly, but Masrur has followed at their heels for years, and he's quiet, not unobservant. Their relationship is certainly in the little things—the mornings in the palace that Ja'far will creep from Sinbad's room when he shouldn't be there so early, or the way he actually has a scent to him, spicy and floral and like musk all at once, a scent Masrur can far more accurately place upon Sinbad than his advisor any day.

There's few struggles between them, and no, Ja'far's nagging doesn't count. There is far more pride there, in their country and each other, and only fools (ah, most of the nation and their friends and allies are fools, honestly) would not notice the way that Sinbad looks upon Ja'far, adoring and constantly wanting to touch.

Eventually, Masrur would like something like they have—whatever it is, love and friendship and something else altogether, culminated into something easy and calm and good.