A/N: For the stage musical, not the movie. This show's been on at my work for nearly a year, and we've all lost our minds. I must have seen it well over two hundred times. This is fic born of pure desperation, and I am duly ashamed of its existence. A few things are changed: Kassim's characterisation is based more on the beginning of the season than now, he's become a bit more of a dick over time. Also I gave the women names, because apparently that was fairly low on Chad Beguelin's list of priorities, along with 'good structure', 'coherent themes', and 'consistent characterisation'. Based on the Australian cast. God love 'em.

Omar has never been particularly good in a crisis. The point at which things start going downhill, rapidly and without apparent cause, is the point at which he usually starts apologizing, wringing his hands, and trying to find his friends. It doesn't help that, most of the time, they're already right there with him, exacerbating the situation.

It should be no surprise, then, that when the whole debacle with Jafar goes down at the royal palace, Omar is disoriented, to say the least. It would be more accurate to say that he is panicking, petrified, and pretty vague about the details. He knows that the royal advisor is up on a podium, shouting a lot and laughing evilly; that there is a lot of noise and lightning, and the poor Genie being forced to grant unsavory wishes; that Aladdin is, of course, rapidly trying to swindle and sneak and talk his way to a solution. The princess is there, but Omar really doesn't have the attention span to care about her belly button in the heat of the terrifying moment.

When people ask, later on, in the palace or the marketplace, about what happened that fateful day when an evil vizier got his hands on a magic lamp, Omar will go eyes-wide and voice-high, and let the other three take over the explanations, not remembering much beyond the facts of sound, light, fear, and bigger, braver people taking over. Which is fine; as fun as the adventure was for a while, he'd really rather they'd just sent a strongly worded letter.

What Omar does remember, with alarming clarity, is this:

Three pairs of manacled wrists;

The beautiful patterned floor of the palace;

Babkak and Kassim's shoulders by each of his, solid and warm, and trembling less than him;

And Kassim's hand twitching aside and covering his for just a moment, rough fingers slipping out of line through his own and gripping hard in reassurance.

Omar seems to feel that grip for days.

"Didn't I tell you?" Babkak cries, and throws himself back onto one of the huge pouffes dotting the hallway outside their new quarters with a satisfied sigh. "Stinkin' – rich!"

"Y-yep," Kassim groans, stretching his arms along the back of a nearby couch, legs crossed at the ankle out in front of him. "This is living the life."

Across from them, Omar is spread out face-first on another enormous pouffe, his shiny white turban abandoned next to him, eyes closed in bliss. He mumbles his assent.

"We really should remember to thank Al for setting us up."

"What, after we saved his sorry ass?" says Kassim. "I think he should be the one thanking us."

"How exactly does cowering in the corner count as saving his ass?" Babkak asks, sounding genuinely curious from where he's laid atop his pouffe.

"We stormed the palace!" As if it's obvious. "We came and rescued him, he wouldn't have been able to reach the lamp without us."

"So Jafar wouldn't have gotten his hands on it either," Babkak points out.

"So, Al wouldn't have been out of the dungeon and able to stop him," Kassim counters. "We helped, okay?"

"I say we helped," Omar chimes in, mostly talking into a cushion. "And Al said all the bad stuff was his fault, not ours."

"There you go, Omar agrees with me," says Kassim, waving a hand in his direction. Babkak snorts at that.

"Omar always agrees with you," he says, "that doesn't mean a thing."

"Hey!" Omar cries, pushing up onto his hands. "I do not!"

"Yeah you do," Kassim says, with a distinctly cocky grin. "Because I'm always right."

"I didn't agree with your stupid solo in the parade," Omar snipes back.

"Well, what do you know about music?" Kassim shrugs. "You liked Al's song with the Genie in the dungeon."

"It was fun!"

"It was tonally dissonant!"

"Okay – but," Omar counters, pointing at him defensively – "I didn't agree about storming the palace!"

"Yes you did," Kassim laughs, then shrugs. "In the end."

At last, Babkak props himself up on his elbows to glare at them both, and snaps, "Would you two shut up?"

"Fight me, Babkak," Kassim drawls.

Which of course prompts Babkak's trump card.

"Who's the oldest out of the four of us?"

"You are," comes the chorused response.

"So who gets to have the last word?"

"Since when have you ever had the last word?" says Kassim.

"Definitely since I was in charge of your meals," Babkak replies, already smiling in distraction at the thought. "Roasted beef with fried vegetables, bread dipped in oil and spices, mutton with the fat still on…"

Kassim is rolling his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, Royal Head Chef, we get it, you like your job."

"Don't you like yours?" says Omar, as he settles down on his elbows, arms folded in front of him. "Royal Advisor in training, that's pretty neat."

"Neat?" echoes Kassim. "Do you know how big the sultan's library is? I can barely even read, and he expects me to study all that?"

"Responsibility never did suit you, Kassim," Babkak sneers. "That was always Al's gig."

Omar rushes to the defense. "Kassim's gotten us out of plenty of scrapes before," he returns, but is met only with another snort of laughter.

"Kassim's gotten us out of scrapes," Babkak says. "Aladdin's the one who makes sure we'll have a roof over our heads next week."

"Hey, I'm right here, you two!" says Kassim, both hands in the air. "And I've kept roofs over our heads!"

"I'm just saying…" Babkak trails off with a shrug, and drops back down onto the pouffe, staring at the ceiling and inevitably thinking about food. "Falafel that hasn't been filled out with sawdust, can you imagine…"

"Anyway," Omar grumbles, "it's better than being in my position."

"What's wrong with Royal Choreographer?" Kassim arches across at him.

"According to the sultan, it's 'not a real job'," he says, and cups his chin in his hands despondently. "I'm technically here as a guest."

"Well, a permanent guest, I hope," says Kassim, with rather more outrage than Omar thinks necessary. "We're not breaking up the gang, not for anything! If Al thinks he can kick you out, then we're going with you!"

"Hey!" shouts Babkak, launching upright. "Speak for yourself, okay?"

"If Omar leaves, we go with him!"

"I'm not leaving!" Omar cries, rolling his eyes. "No one's kicking me out, Al's allowed to keep me here as long as he wants. I just don't like not having a job like you guys. It feels… degrading."

"What, you'd rather be dancing in the street for coins? Come on," Kassim shrugs. "This is great!"

"Well what am I supposed to do all day?" says Omar. "While you're studying to be the Royal Advisor, and Babkak's busy in the kitchen and the market, what do I do?"

Kassim shrugs. "Keep Al company?"

"He's not a pet monkey, Kassim," Babkak drawls. "Look, you'll find something, okay Omar? For now, just relax." He leans back again, crossing his arms behind his head. "It's the first time we've been able to in years. Quit worrying and enjoy it."

Omar does not stop worrying about life in the palace; but for a time, he does learn to enjoy it. For one thing, it's positively luxurious to have multiple-course meals served straight to them, piping hot or elegantly chilled, and perfectly prepared. They have servants and valets, who not only do whatever they ask, but are great fun to talk to, and know their way around the palace much better than the three rookies. (Four, if Aladdin's being honest, which he usually is.) They all have huge and comfortable beds.

Babkak flourishes in the kitchen, and though some of the courtiers grumble about his unrefined taste, no one can deny that he knows his way around a feast, despite having been attendant at so few in his life. Kassim, though he might try to deny it, does actually find his studies interesting, and he certainly likes the sense of superiority he gets from the knowledge of politics and the world, even if the records of wars and disasters make him grumpy with offended justice. Even Aladdin grows into his new role as Official-Prince-For-Real-This-Time. He studies with Kassim, and they get into raging arguments over the books; he listens intently to all the knowledge Jasmine revels in, and the places she still longs to see, and is so disgustingly in love with her it's just beautiful to watch; and he gradually begins to learn all the ins and outs of the palace, and the city, and the kingdom at large. Now that they're not at legal loggerheads every week, he even gets along pretty well with Razoul, though they disagree on precisely how to deal with urban poverty.

Omar may have no apparent calling like the others, but it warms him almost as well as the intricate palace heating system to see his friends so happy, and in a business that extends beyond the next meal or place to rest their heads for an anxious night evading the Royal Guard.

And so Omar is, for a time, happy. He explores the palace gardens, and goes out with Babkak to the marketplace, actually able to buy things for once with the money Al gives him. He spends one afternoon making crowns out of blossoms and leaves for Jasmine's attendants, who coo with gratitude when he presents them, making his face go hot. He finds out that their names are Tasnim, Esther, and Jamila, and sternly determines to remember which one is which. Two days he spends with some of the royal tailors, helping to pick out wardrobes for the others while they're busy with their duties. He even spends a day following one of the cleaning groups, learning how they keep the floors and furniture so pristine and make sure even the highest corners are free from cobwebs and dust.

One week, a high-ranking courtier throws a celebration for his mother's birthday, and Omar finally does get to act as the Royal Choreographer. Rashida loves the performance.

There is no longer dirt in every cranny of his body. He has fresh water whenever he wants it. He sleeps in a proper bed, with soft, clean sheets, and is woken up by a gracious attendant rather than the sunrise, or an irritated landlord, or Babkak shaking his shoulder and hissing that the guards are onto them and they need to move on. He no longer goes hungry, and he gets to exercise at the palace pool, or going for runs around the gardens, rather than by fleeing angry shop owners. He can actually afford the blue dye they use in his new outfits, with money the others are happy to give him, rather than stealing the cloth.

It takes Omar by surprise, then, when he finds himself missing the old days. After all, it makes no sense. He has nothing to complain about in his life at the palace. And what is there to miss about being constantly hungry, cold, and afraid?

"So what's it like?" asks Tasnim one day, as she ties back her dark hair and joins Omar in the gardens. She's been placed in charge of picking out flowers for the third (and final, they've been promised) wedding celebration, and roped Omar into helping without much difficulty.

"What's what like?" he frowns, taking one of the huge baskets from her arm.

"You know," says Tasnim, looking over her shoulders and lowering her voice, like she's afraid of being caught. Omar leans in so he can hear her. "Stealing."

"Oh, that." Omar shrugs. "Fine?" he says in answer. "Kind of scary sometimes."

"Getting caught?" says Tasnim, eyes wide and enraptured.

"Well, yeah, that," says Omar. "Or thinking you're gonna get caught. Which I always am, because no one else seems to most of the time. They're usually right, but it doesn't hurt to be careful. Ooh, what about those?"

Tasnim tilts her head this way and that as she follows Omar's outstretched arm and examines the bursts of rich, orange flowers by a fountain.

"She's wearing the pink again," she says, "so maybe not. Did you get caught a lot?"

"In the scheme of things, no," says Omar, and starts to giggle. "Though there was that one time Al – Al had a cold last year, and Razoul came by the marketplace –" He's grinning properly now, remembering letting Babkak tease Al about the incident just the week before. "We all ran to hide, there was this stall of tents for sale – well, the only sneezing tent is a bit of a giveaway."

Tasnim snorts at that. "So he arrested you?"

"Yeah, but we got away that time," Omar shrugs. "He couldn't keep holding us without any evidence we'd actually stolen something. Oh, what about those?"

"Well spotted!" she says, and leads the way winding between flowerbeds towards a bush overflowing with huge green leaves. "But have you –" she starts, as she clips off a few stalks. "I mean, have you been in the dungeons?"

"Oh, loads of times," says Omar, matter-of-fact. "Haven't you?"

Tasnim stops and stares at him over her shoulder.

"No."

"Oh." Omar holds out the basket for the stalks as he tries to think about what that must be like: not knowing about the cold, and the damp, and the way your hands tingle and then go numb when they're cuffed to the wall above your head. "Right."

There's a moment's awkward silence as they head away from the flowerbed; but of all people, Tasnim can be relied upon to carry on regardless.

"But stealing, though," she insists as they round a corner. "Isn't it exciting? I can't imagine it being anything else."

"I guess, sometimes," says Omar, delighted if a little confused by her enthusiasm. "Sometimes we'd plan a big job, that was always exciting, or another suitor would come to town, and there'd be someone new to swindle, that was fun. Seeing what we could get off the royal parties. But mostly, day-to-day, I mean…" Omar shrugs. "I was always on edge when I first started, but it's just a job, really. We got what we could to survive. Sometimes it was exciting, and sometimes it was terrifying, but mostly… yeah. It was just a job."

"Oh." There's a note of disappointment in Tasnim's voice that needles Omar in an awful way, but she covers it up well enough. "That's really interesting, actually."

"I guess so," Omar says. "I guess I might've found it interesting a few years ago, before I started doing it. But now it just seems so normal. I almost miss it."

"Miss it?" Tasnim laughs, eyes sparkling in the sun as she beams with surprise and not a little disbelief. "You miss breaking the law?"

"Not breaking the law," says Omar, and though his tone matches hers, when he starts to think about it, he sobers considerably. "Not that."

"Oh, these are nice," Tasnim remarks, and kneels next to a row of bushes heavy with pale pink and creamy blossoms. "Hand me your basket?" she says, and Omar joins her down on the pebbled path, placing his basket next to hers and frowning faintly. "So what do you miss?" Tasnim asks, and Omar heaves a sigh.

"I don't know," he says, quite honestly. "I mean, there was this one time – it happened all the time, really, but this one time – over summer last year, Kassim swiped a loaf of bread off someone, and Babkak got this heap of cured meats off a traveling merchant for next to nothing, and I'd gotten this heavy purse off a woman with one of the entourages, who was it – some swanky prince from down south –"

"That would've been Prince Rakesh, last summer," says Tasnim with a roll of her eyes. "He just would not stop talking, everything took three times as long when he was around."

"Yeah, I remember!" Omar smiles. "The whole parade was so bored, they all just wanted to go home. They were a goldmine."

Tasnim's laughter is high and bright, at their lives so oddly intersecting.

"I bet!" she chuckles. "So go on: Kassim had bread, Babkak had meat, you had a purse…"

"Right," Omar grins. "Me and Al pulled a classic diversion on this lady, easiest trick, and we bought a bottle of wine and some hummus with the money, and when we all met up again – I'm telling you, I know the food here is better, but – that was one of the best meals of my life." He feels something wistful pulling at his chest, tugging a faint laugh out of him. "Just sitting on a rooftop with all this food we'd got together… Course, we hadn't had a proper meal all week, so maybe it tasted better because of how hungry we were, but – I don't know. We were all together that night, just… keeping each other safe."

With the full moon above them, and a cool breeze giving some slight relief from the heat of the day. Kassim had stretched out on his back, arms behind his head, while Babkak explained to Omar how to make good hummus, and Aladdin looked out over the city with nothing but joy in his face, all the terrible things about Agrabah wiped clean in the tranquility of the moment. It was their third night on that rooftop, of what would end up being almost four months in one place, a pretty good run for them. In the rush of fondness that had overtaken them all, Babkak had taught Omar how to darn clothes, while Kassim slung his arm around Omar's shoulders and Aladdin talked about his most recent trip to the edges of the city. It wasn't all that unusual a night, all things considered; but it stands out in Omar's memory all the same.

When Omar looks up at Tasnim from his reverie, her eyes are wide and dark in her rounded face, staring at him rather than the flowers, a few blossoms still held in her unmoving hands. Omar smiles a little tightly at her.

"You appreciate it more, I guess," he shrugs.

"No!" Tasnim cries, startling back into movement. "Oh no, sorry, I'm staring aren't I?" Hurriedly, she goes back to cutting the flowers. "I'm sorry, it's just so interesting – my parents hardly let me out when I was a girl, and then I never went to the marketplace myself, then I got my job at the palace, and – I had no idea. It sounds lovely, though."

"Lovely?" Omar repeats, with a swelling feeling of hope.

"Yeah," she sighs. "All that camaraderie. You don't get that very much in a place like this."

There's a heaviness to her shoulders at that – a melancholy slump to her cheerfulness – which she usually only gets when talking about Esther, or how miserable Princess Jasmine used to be. It passes quickly, though, when Omar says "It is great not being hungry all the time, though," and they both cry out at once as they spot the same tall, blue flowers across the lawn.

It is the camaraderie, Omar decides that night, as he stands to one side of the banqueting hall and stares at the artful arrangements of flowers against the opposite wall. What he misses is being close to the others: not dependence, but alliance; not orders, but teamwork; not safety, but a kind of security in their shared dangers. When things were going well, they rented terrible little rooms, and shared beds and sofas and patches of floor; when things were going poorly, they whispered to each other through the bars of the dungeon cells.

But when things were going as normally as they ever did, sometimes, they would curl up all four of them under a makeshift shelter on an Agrabah rooftop, with Kassim on one side of Omar and Babkak on the other, Kassim's arm slung over Al's waist in their sleep. Babkak would be trying not to snore, and the stars would be just visible through the gaps in the city's driftwood they used for a roof. Omar remembers exactly how those stars looked, and despite that those rooftops were hardly far away from the palace, the stars still look somehow different from his royal room.

It's at that point in his musings that Jasmine and Al run over to drag Omar across the room, nearly screaming with laughter, so that he ends up dancing in a line with Al and Kassim, with Babkak keeping time on his empty plate. At the very back of his mind, however, in a thought left undredged for the fun of the evening, Omar knows that he'll feel a sense of wrongness when he wakes up in the morning, safe and sound. He'll be expecting for it all to have been a dream again: for someone to wake him and say the game's up and they can go back to their old lives again. Living on the streets was horrible, but at least he was used to it. The palace is unfamiliar and strange, the unattainable fantasy suddenly their reality, and their good fortune, compared to those they left behind, still manages to make Omar feel a bit queasy.

But that's absurd, he'll think in the morning. He used to be starving and homeless, with one and a half sets of clothes all falling apart, and a weird sort of enjoyment of getting caught and held in prison for a while, because at least it meant steady shelter and meals for a few days. He should be grateful for what they've got. And it is very nice not to be so afraid all the time.

So why is he unhappy?

Omar is in a crisis. And in a crisis, he always goes to his friends.

"Hey Babkak," Omar sighs, as he scuffs his way into the kitchens. The combination of spices is overwhelming on the senses, and the noise is halfway between pleasing background chatter and an indistinguishable din of metal-on-metal, but Omar likes it. Not as much as Babkak, but still.

The man himself is seasoning a chicken which looks, even in death, a little forlorn about the whole business. Maybe Omar's projecting.

"Omar!" Babkak shouts, grinning over the chicken and reaching for a rag. Cooking always made him excited, but cooking with endless resources has made him more ebullient than ever. "Did you hear?" he cries, as he grasps Omar's hand and tugs him in for a hug, making his listless, skinny limbs flop about. "I've been demoted!"

"Demoted?!" Omar parrots, and a fraction of his moping drops away to be replaced by a familiar kind of fear. "Why?"

"Oh, don't look so down," cries Babkak, "this is great news! Less pressure, less stress, more time to myself, and I still get to taste whatever I want."

"So – what are you now, if you're not Royal Head Chef?" Omar frowns, straining to be heard over all the clatter and hiss of the business around them.

"Just Royal Chef," Babkak shrugs. "There are about twenty of us, I think. And I'm still in charge of your food. Habib says he'd rather cook for peasants than for you and Kassim, and when I told him that was basically the same thing, he got mad and walked away. Couldn't say anything about it, though. Isn't this great?"

He's still grinning like anything, and it's almost infectious. Omar's so used to Babkak being the snarky, practical one, he'd almost forgotten what it was like to see him so excited about something.

"It's awesome, Babkak," he says, as a smile pushes its way onto his face, and is surprised to realize that he means it.

"Heck yeah, it is," Babkak smirks, and turns back to his work. "Anyway, what were you after?"

"Oh. Right." Omar deflates at the reminder. "I don't know. I've seen every inch of the gardens, I've been in every room in the palace, I've tried just about every game and job there is around here. I guess I'm just not really sure what I'm supposed to be doing."

Babkak shrugs. "Choreographing something?" he offers.

"We both know it's not a real job," Omar mutters bitterly. "You don't need a hand with anything, do you?"

"Well, now that you mention it…" Babkak trails off, looking hopefully at Omar in a way that makes him worry about what's coming. Nevertheless, he sighs, and feels his heart lift a little bit at being unexpectedly needed for something probably stupid, needless, dangerous, or all three at once.

"What is it?" he says, suppressing a new smile.

"You remember that dessert place, with the amazing basbousa?" says Babkak, clearly ready to launch into a paean to the little shop just off the main marketplace. Omar does remember it, and says as much before Babkak can get too carried away, and the man moves on, lowering his voice with an air of conspiracy. "Well, the stuff these guys make has nothing on what Fahima sells there, but they're really strict about bringing in food from outside the palace. If you're not busy…"

"I'm not busy," Omar blurts out, only too happy to do something absurd if it'll help his friends and give him something to do. Babkak grins, and claps him on the back.

"You're a pal, Omar," he says, and lowers his voice to a hiss. "Now quick, before Habib sees you and suspects something!"

Matching Babkak's grin, Omar hops into movement and darts out of the kitchens, unspeakably grateful for the distraction. Fahima will appreciate finally being paid for her basbousa, used as she is to enduring one or another of them sneaking a slice behind her back, and Omar has something to do at least for the rest of the day. Maybe he could set up a business with this: smuggling outside food into the palace for his friends and the other courtiers. It's probably a terrible idea, but Omar indulges it for a while as he grabs some money from his room and winds his way out of the palace, trying to keep the excitement in his pace to a minimum. He could put on the face of a regular courtier, and earn some cash and fill his days with trips into the marketplace and shops, stocking up on all the snacks and delicacies made better by the ordinary people than the snooty palace chefs.

It's a stupid plan; there's not much the palace chefs can't do well, snootiness aside, and it wouldn't earn him anything near a living, or be as official as the others' jobs. But it's a nice thought.

With the thrill of doing something just a bit against the rules, Omar slips out of the palace gates with a nod to the guards, and – as soon as he's out of sight – runs off into the city with glee. He's halfway to Fahima's shop, light on his feet and beaming at everything, when his hackles suddenly rise and his spirits plummet, all instincts screaming at him to flee. It must be an indication of how used to palace life he already is that it takes a moment or two for him to realize what's going on; but somewhere up ahead, pushing through the main street and into the alleys, is the familiar hustle and bustle of someone getting in trouble with the law. People – mostly guards – are shouting, and the crowd is trying to make room for a chase when there's barely enough room for the crowd itself. Omar forces himself to stay calm: to not look scared or guilty, or run on instinct. He's barely managed it by the time the chase reaches his part of the crowd, and a guard looks over everyone's heads, catches sight of him, and yells:

"There's one of them!"

Life-saving, well-practiced fear drips down Omar's spine. In the space of seconds, his eyes go wide, his shoulders tense, and he's stumbling back and groping his way through the crowd.

"Oh, gosh."

All the jeweled clothes and heavy moneybags are nothing against years of practice. If a guard singles him out, the choice is between fight and flight. And Omar by himself will always flee.

It's the one area of expertise he has over the other three. Aladdin has the agility to go bounding over rooftops, Kassim prefers to stand and fight, and Babkak is rarely stupid enough to get caught at all; but it's Omar's who's just amazing at running away. He's got long legs for sprinting, a skinny body for slipping through crowds, and a face just young enough to inspire pity rather than suspicion in passers-by, and more often than not, when one of the others landed themselves in chains, it was Omar who got away and could rustle up enough money or favors for bail or a jailbreak.

So yeah: even after weeks and weeks in the palace, when a member of the Royal Guard points at him and yells, Omar runs. Scrabbling around corners and apologizing to the people he bumps into, he goes through the nearest shortcuts and hideouts he knows, and adjusts his course towards a fake outhouse behind an apartment block nearby, with a hidden door that goes right through to the alleyway behind. There's no other way through except to go all the way around to the end of the street, and by the time the guards do that, the gang has usually had time to get well and truly out of sight.

Omar ducks under a string of washing, turns a corner, and nearly runs straight into one of Razoul's cronies, swinging around and scrambling to keep his balance. He all but falls back into a tavern, skirts the tables, apologizes to someone whose tea he spills, and bursts through the kitchen, apologizing again for the upset. Then he's out the back door, course-correcting again, and sliding through the dust between a donkey and an irate and official-looking horse to get off the main street. Two minutes later and wildly out of breath, Omar launches himself through the front hall of the apartment block, the shouts of guards at his heels. He knocks a bag of grain out of someone's arms, and spins around to apologize, only to catch sight of one of the guards following him into the hall, nearly making him shriek as he springs back into action.

Get to the outhouse. He just needs to get to the outhouse.

The guards are waylaid by the spilled grain, at least, and the angry tenants, and Omar's well ahead of them by the time he leaps out the back door and straight over the short porch steps. He flies past a mangy attempt at a vegetable garden and across to the narrow building by the wall, then throws himself at the door, bursting inside – and is immediately caught by a burly chest, and a pair of muscled arms. The door slams behind him, and the two men wrestle for a moment as Omar panics, until hands grab his shoulders and hold him still so a familiar voice can say:

"Omar? What are you doing here?"

Which is when Omar's vision clears from the adrenaline and adjusts to the darkness, and he finds himself standing chest-to-chest with none other than Kassim in the tiny space. His heartbeat – already racing – jumps up a notch.

"Kassim?" he squeaks. "What are – what –"

"Omar, what is going on?!" Kassim cries, face wild with confusion, and it's only then that Omar realizes he's almost as out of breath as himself. Understanding crashes in on him all at once.

"They're after you?" he pants. "What did you do?"

"I – it – nothing," Kassim stutters in offended pride, and Omar rolls his eyes. Rummaging around Kassim's belt is enough to get him to relent, shoving away Omar's hands.

"It's nothing," he says, still breathing as hard as Omar. "I was just bored, I miss the adventure, I wanted to see if I could still do it – that's all. But someone's bricked up the hidden door!"

Omar's face falls.

"Oh, shoot –"

At that moment, deep voices reach them from outside, the familiar grunts of Razoul's, well, grunts.

"Search the garden! I saw him come back here!"

Omar and Kassim – still all but nose-to-nose – freeze.

"They're chasing you because they know we're friends," Kassim whispers, and Omar's eyes go somehow wider. Then, in a stroke of inspiration he's sure he inherited from Aladdin somehow, Omar has an idea.

"Behind the door," he hisses, pushing at Kassim's chest. "Get behind the door, and don't make a sound!"

He's barely maneuvered Kassim – whispering futile protests – into place before he wrenches open the door and bursts back into the garden, exaggerating his heaving breaths just a little.

"Guards!" he shouts at the three leather-clad men scattered around the yard and staring at him. "Oh, thank Allah! Did you see what he took?"

"What?" says a man who's clearly in charge, judging by the size of his beard. "You're not working with him?"

"What? No!" Omar cries, affecting offense (not a difficult job, when he's learned from Babkak and Kassim). "Why should I go stealing things, I live at the palace now, my life is great! I saw Kassim though – I'm sure he never would've taken anything, but if he had, I figured he'd come here –"

"Why here?" says another guard, and Omar goes a little shaky and cold.

"There, uh – there used to be a secret passage," he stammers. "In here, see?"

And he steps into the apparently-empty outhouse with his back to the open door, gesturing to where the wall is bricked up in a very door-shaped pattern of new stone. There's barely enough room, with the open door and Omar in the way, for one of the guards to stick his head into the tiny building and inspect it. As he does, Omar presses himself out of the way, into the door, feeling the resistance of Kassim's body behind it.

The guard peers this way and that. The hairs at the nape of Omar's neck are standing on end, and he can just feel the warmth and gust of Kassim's heavy breaths, tense and trying to be silent, as they skirt over the back of his shoulder and neck. Omar keeps his own breathing heavy, trying to disguise the sound. Without looking, he knows that Kassim's eyes will be wide and bright, as they always are when he's surprised or – rarely – scared.

The guard turns to Omar and narrows his eyes at him, and Omar flinches back.

"See?" he says again, smaller this time. "There's no way through. So I guess I was wrong."

"Hmph," the guard grunts, and pulls away again to face his colleagues in the garden. "Nothing here."

"Maybe we were both wrong about him?" Omar offers, voice faltering as he follows the guard out of the outhouse and goes with the obvious lie. But these guards are from a different patch to their old haunts, and only spare him a cursory glance of suspicion.

"He still ran from us," says the third of them, crossing his arms. Omar can only shrug at that.

"Old habits…?" he says. The second guard snorts.

"C'mon," he says, gesturing to his fellows, "let's get out of here. We've wasted enough time on these idiots for one afternoon."

The others laugh, short and dismissive; and in another moment, they're gone, tramping back up onto the porch and into the building, out of sight towards the street. The back door falls shut behind them.

At once, all the tension bleeds out of Omar's shoulders and spine. He stumbles back into the fake outhouse enough for Kassim to be able to shut the door behind them; then suddenly Kassim's grabbing Omar around the waist and lifting him off the ground in a rib-cracking hug.

"Omar, that was amazing!" he laughs, heady with excitement, trying and failing to keep quiet. He drops a startled Omar back on his feet and grips his shoulders again. "How did you think of that?"

"I don't know!" Omar giggles, helpless not to join in with his laughter. "Maybe I've been hanging out with Al too much!"

"Ha ha!" Kassim cries, grabbing him again in the tiny space. "No, that was all you, and it was brilliant!"

Omar should have calmed down from the chase by now, he knows. For some reason, though, his heart is fluttering in his chest like a bird in flight. He wraps his arms around Kassim's back, riding the high of evading arrest by the tiniest margin, and curls his fingers into the back of his shirt.

"We should probably tell Al and Babkak about the door," Kassim laughs, as he pulls away and cracks open the outhouse door to check the coast is clear. He seems to consider it safe, and leads the way out into light and air even as Omar feels like he's choking on giddy happiness.

"Why?" he asks through the fatal sensation. "They're not stealing things on the sly too, are they?"

"No, 'course not," Kassim shrugs, walking them back across the yard. "But, y'know. It can't hurt, right?"

"No, I guess not," says Omar, and Kassim grins, and slings his arm around Omar's shoulders to pull him tight for another moment as they cross to the porch. They file through the building, and as they reach the street again, Omar stop and turns with a frown, saying, "By the way, what did you steal?"

Kassim snorts, and reaches into his pocket, rummaging about for a moment, before he pulls out –

"An orange?" Omar doesn't know whether to be offended or impressed, but Kassim just waves the matter away, and tucks his spoils back in his pocket.

"Like I said," he shrugs, offhand, "I just wanted to see if I could still do it. I didn't need anything."

And he smiles again, and shoves Omar lightly to get him moving again.

"Come on. I told you it was nothing."