The gang throws a party on Omar's first day back in the palace. It's a much more modest affair than Al's returning party, which is to be expected, and frankly what Omar would prefer: just the four of them, and the four women, not quite matching pairs. Omar's hardly put his bags down in his room before Esther comes running through the doors practically shrieking with joy, and sweeps him up in a huge hug before dragging him down the hall. The others have picked out a little unused room full of squashy furniture and few flat surfaces, so the drinks and food Babkak's swiped have been set out on the floor and everyone crowds around, reaching over each other to get at the nibbles. Everyone is happy to see Omar: they hug him, hold his arms, pull him over to them and ask questions, offer him tea and wine. Esther, Tasnim, and Babkak all kiss his cheeks, sloppy and joyous, and halfway through the night, amidst all the chatter, Omar finds himself sitting against a couch with Kassim's breath warm and steady on his neck, arms wrapped around Omar's waist as if perfectly happy to never let go.
They call it quits when the tea and hummus run out. Aladdin and Jasmine give Omar one last, big hug before they all go back to their rooms, Esther and Tasnim holding hands, Jamila with a wink at Babkak, Al and Jasmine as close as can be. Omar, Babkak, and Kassim go back to their quarters chatting and laughing, and constantly in contact: a linked arm there, a fist bump there, a slap on the back in between. It's not so late when Omar gets to his room that he can't set out his belongings at last: some things go back to their old places, while others are new, and make the room feel curiously more like home. The jug and bowls, the wall hangings, a few bits of new clothes, lend a familiar, homely color to the splendor, and the blanket from Al still has pride of place on the bed, though it takes up a lot less space on this one than the one in the apartment. When Omar finally changes into loose sleeping clothes and wriggles in under the luxurious covers, it is with a heart light and a head just faintly buzzing from a cup or two of wine drunk over the night.
Which is why the nightmare that comes hits him so alarmingly hard.
In his dream, Omar is running from the guards in the marketplace, the alleyways a maze he no longer recognizes. When he bursts out into a courtyard, it's frighteningly empty, abandoned stalls and baskets pushed up against the walls as if trying to hide from the terror that's chasing him. He recognizes the feeling of being cornered, trapped, with the only escape route blocked by a guard and a flashing sword. Omar trips over his own feet, the world tilting on an unpredictable axis, and as the tramp of boots, and the creak of leather, and the clink of threatening metal, get closer, he stumbles and falls back too far, the sounds of the guards soaking into the throng of the marketplace, bustling all at once, and Omar finds himself –
He finds himself weak with hunger, swaddled in his only clothes, threadbare all of a sudden, as he holds trembling arms up to an indifferent crowd for money, food, water; anything, just to help him live. He sees Babkak in the crowd, and tries to call out, but his voice is hoarse and useless, and he walks past, oblivious. Then Kassim walks past, too close not to hear him cry, but still ignoring him. Al is next, passing directly by without once looking down, indifferent. Omar can feel his arms growing heavy and tired, rotting away into skin and bone, as his friends hurry past, unfeeling, uncaring. Omar wants to cry, but he keeps shouting instead, trying to be heard – "Babkak! Kassim! Al, please!" – but there is no relief, no happy end to his suffering, the what would have been if not for the most fortuitous of circumstances. He feels his body breaking, crumbling to the ground, alone, useless, and dying –
"Omar, wake up!"
He does, with a start, and a wet gasp. He is in his own bed, huge and comfortable, in the palace. He is warm, and safe; and on either side of him, Babkak and Kassim are sitting on the bed, holding his hand and pressing his shoulder. Reflexively, Omar grasps at them, fingers flexing, as he blinks back tears and gulps in searing breaths, heart hammering almost painfully at his ribs.
"You were talking in your sleep," Babkak explains from his right hand, as they both lean closer, touching him, grounding him, and even that kind sound makes Omar flinch when he looks at him.
"You were shouting our names," Kassim goes on, to his left, making Omar's head whip back around. Omar looks at them both, nearly crying, mouth wide, eyes dark and frightened. One of them must have brought in a lamp, for there's a soft, warm glow over everything, throwing out feeble shadows.
Omar swallows.
"I was afraid," he says, trying to sit up. "I was trapped, and then I was begging, and you couldn't hear me – you wouldn't help –"
The memory of his friends' indifferent faces makes him sob and fall back onto the pillows, as he squeezes shut his eyes and bites his lip trying to blot out the terror and pain. His heart is still racing, and Babkak and Kassim are moving ever closer, holding his hands, wrists, arms, touching his cheeks and shoulders.
"It was just a dream," says Babkak, with a calm, quiet air. "Just a nightmare, nothing more."
"We would never abandon you," adds Kassim. His rough fingers push between Omar's own, interlocking and squeezing. "Never."
Omar is unable to respond through his heaving chest, lungs and heart working too hard for nothing: he only gulps, and nods, and sobs again, the sound fractured and too large for how small he feels. There are tears prickling at his eyes, and running hot and stinging down his temples and into his hair, and he cannot stop them.
"Water," Babkak says to Kassim, who nods, and untwines his hands from Omar's, hurrying off the bed. Babkak immediately turns back to Omar, taking up the empty hand in his own and holding him tight. "Hush, Omar," he soothes, "it's going to be all right. You're safe right here. Come on, sit up – sit up…"
He digs one hand under Omar's shoulder, and – with little help from the crying man – heaves him up and shifts closer to support him, one arm around his shoulders, the other hand still holding Omar's. The movement surges through Omar, like he's waking up again, and he blinks into the different view as his crying finally starts to slow.
"There's none left!" Kassim snaps from across the room, rifling through Omar's dresser.
"My room," Babkak orders, perfunctory and clear. "The jug on the table, I know it's fresh."
Kassim sprints out through the open door, and Babkak pulls Omar's head down onto his shoulder and hushes him, rocks him slightly, smooths his hair back from his face and strokes his cheek with his thumb.
"You're all right, Omar," he murmurs, as Omar can do nothing but be calmed, hiccupping his way through his pounding heartbeat. "You're okay. We're right here, we'd never leave you, never let you get hurt…"
In another moment, Kassim is back, with a glass pitcher and an ornate cup in his hands. He goes straight back to the bed, clambering onto it despite his full hands, and pours out a cup of water, leaving the jug steadied by the curl of his leg.
"Here," he says, holding the cup to Omar's lips and supporting his back with his free hand, "drink this."
With quivering fingers, Omar brings both hands up to join Kassim's on the cup, and carefully, he tilts it back, sipping and swallowing between his intermittent gasps. Neither Babkak nor Kassim shy away from him, with Babkak's arms holding him up, and Kassim's hand keeping the cup steady. They've looked after each other through dysentery and broken bones and all kinds of horrors before, after all, and a nightmare – even one as big as this – holds little power against them. As Omar drinks more water, he feels his body finally starting to calm, letting him drink more, letting him calm more. He finishes the first cup, and Kassim's hand leaves his back just long enough to pour out another before he's close again, touching, soothing, and warm. Omar drinks the next cupful in one, long draught.
"There," Babkak sighs. "Feel any better?"
Omar nods, swallowing, and finally looks properly at his friends. Neither of them are properly dressed: Babkak's only wearing loose pants, belly hanging out, and Kassim's clad in a long, soft shirt, and pants that reach just past his knees, all of which Omar recognizes as their sleeping clothes. It occurs to Omar that if there's no fresh water outside his room, it must still be well before dawn.
"What time is it?" he asks, voice hoarse and barely above a whisper.
"About four?" Kassim answers, lowering his voice to match and glancing at Babkak for confirmation.
"Something like that," says Babkak, and before Omar's even opened his mouth to respond, he goes on with, "Don't you dare apologize for waking us, it wasn't your fault. We're always here to look after you."
"You do that a lot, don't you?" Omar says, hanging his head, and hiccups out a wet laugh, topped off with a miserable sniffle. Both Babkak and Kassim surge closer at that, pulling him into a sort of three-way embrace, made awkward by their positions on the bed.
"Not always," says Kassim, somehow both stubborn and soft at once. "You've done plenty of looking out for us, you know."
"And it's not like we mind," Babkak adds, as he cranes his neck to try and catch Omar's eye. "You're our friend. And if we've got anything to do with it, you'll never have to beg for anything again. We would never, ever abandon you when you needed us."
Omar's first reaction is to laugh, with gratitude and a swelling heart, but it somehow sets him off crying again, and Kassim has to hurry to set the jug and cup on the side table before he and Babkak can shuffle closer, hugging him tight, their heads and arms and legs all in a jumble. They stay like that, shifting every now and then to relieve a strained muscle or awkwardly-bent joint, until Omar has stopped sniffling and sobbing, and they all feel like they can talk again.
"Feeling better?" Babkak asks, stroking his thumb across Omar's tear-stained cheek, and he nods, gaining a smile from Babkak and a kiss from Kassim, softly-given, just below his ear. Babkak notices it, but says nothing.
"Would you –" Omar starts, looking from one to the other. "Could you sleep here for the rest of the night?"
"Morning," Babkak corrects, with his usual, sardonic air, but immediately follows it with, "Of course," and Kassim grins in response.
"Like old times," he says. "We just need Al to finish off the group."
"Best not to wake him," Omar says, with another weak laugh, and finally untangles his hands to wipe the tear tracks from his cheeks and temples. Babkak helps him out, with a gentle thumb and a smile.
"I think Jasmine would kill us if we took him away from her, anyway," he says, intentionally making Omar laugh again, then swallow hard.
"More water?" Kassim offers. Omar shakes his head. "Okay. Lie down."
Omar does, and Babkak twists around to get under the covers and lie properly as Kassim hops up and crosses the room. He blows out the lamp, and pads back across the room in the dark; then Omar feels the dip of the mattress as he climbs in and shuffles closer. The bed is more than big enough for the three of them, and both men turn on their sides to face Omar, Babkak squeezing his hand once and Kassim hooking his arm around Omar's waist. Omar turns his head, looking at the faint outlines of one, then another, of his dearest friends, and feeling more love, and more loved, than he knew possible.
Babkak falls asleep first, as always; and soon enough, the moonlight stops shining in Kassim's watchful eyes as he, too, drops off. It doesn't take long for Omar to follow. He doesn't dream again, but sleeps quiet and sound, until, in the grey light of dawn, he is slowly woken by a soft knock on his door. He drags himself into consciousness, in time to see Aladdin sticking his head in to murmur, "Hey Omar, do you know where Kassim –"
Then Al's eyes fall on the pile of limbs and blankets in the middle of the bed, the faintly snoring, sleeping lumps, and his expression softens. He sees Omar blinking awake, and steps into the room, shutting the door gently behind him.
"What happened?" he whispers.
"I had a nightmare," Omar whispers back, over Kassim's clad shoulder and back, slowly rising and falling. "I didn't mean to wake them, but…"
Al's still only in his sleeping clothes, with an ornate, silk robe thrown on top, and Omar tilts his head, unwilling to move too much from the comfort of the cuddle pile.
"What's up?" he asks, still keeping his voice low and quiet.
Al sighs, coming closer.
"Just got up early," he says. "Jasmine's been thinking about women's health, and I wanted to see if Kassim had – it doesn't matter." He's standing right by the bed now, looking down at them with something almost wistful in his eye. "Man, I think I miss this."
Omar smiles. He knows the feeling, surprising yet familiar, of finding comfort in something small and old even amongst the luxury of palace life.
"Get in," he whispers, beckoning with his chin. "I'm sure Jasmine won't mind."
"You don't –" Al starts, but breaks himself off, as if not wanting to voice something horrible. Omar smiles at him, even when his brows are pulling down with worry and care.
"Al," he sighs – "you're one of the gang. You're always welcome with us, even after you've run off somewhere. Whenever you come back, you've got a place. You know the routine by now."
Aladdin smiles back, wide and warm, and slips off his dressing gown, tossing it over the nearest chair as he carefully pulls back the covers and climbs in behind Kassim. He reaches over the man with one hand, half under the blanket, and Omar meets it, first with a fist bump, then with a brief, firm hold, the angle awkward, but the sentiment true. Then Al pulls back, and snuggles into Kassim's broad back, like he must have done a hundred times before. Omar looks over to one side, at Babkak's relaxed face, then to the other, where Kassim's head is pillowed next to his own, nearly on Omar's shoulder; and, beyond that, the curl of hair and corner of a forehead that is visible of Al, shifting to get comfortable, and ready to fall back asleep.
Omar drops off again in seconds.
Everyone but Omar is late to a meeting that morning, but none of them care overmuch. Omar is only exempt because he hasn't got a meeting to go to.
Something about the time away has changed things. Omar can't quite pin down what, precisely, is different, but he knows that something is. It's not just the thing with Kassim, although that hasn't gone unnoticed. It's not that he suddenly belongs at the palace – quite the opposite in fact. After two days, Al looks at Omar over breakfast with regret and apologies in his eyes, and says he's made no progress with the heads of staff; that the new royal vizier is telling him he needs to curb his influence; and who is he to disagree? They're all outsiders in this place, to some extent. Even the prince.
Still, something is different. A few weeks away and a bit of sex haven't magically fixed the problem of his incongruity at the palace – a bit of a change is not the same as a magic lamp – but the simple return to his old, depressing life has not been quite so inevitable as he would have expected. It should have been predictable, and obvious; but it's not.
By the end of the week, Omar's leaving the palace again, going out to the marketplace after breakfast and spending the day running errands for people who recognize and trust him. He never had to pay for board, and now he doesn't pay for food or clothes, so the money just goes into a box under his bed, or to a snack or nice trinket or other. It begins to feel like if one or another of them ever screws up again, Omar will at least be able to pay a fine from his savings. But living in the palace and going back to the marketplace every day to work is not only a chore, it's distracting, and distancing. He doesn't see his friends during the day, not unless Babkak has a few hours to spare and comes to join him, or Kassim and Al come out for a midday meal. Sometimes Esther gets a bit of time off and hangs out with him, but she, Tasnim, and Jamila are basically on call every hour of the day, and can't spare much time outside the palace without a lot of planning.
And Kassim…
Sometimes, when the two of them are alone in a room, it's as if Kassim can hardly bear to look at him. He clams up, and doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands, and can't make easy conversation. He certainly hasn't kissed Omar since his return, nor embraced him with that same effusive passion, but even the friendly contact has started to drop away. He misses the fingers dipping under his collar and belt, of course, and carding through his hair, and the warm breath against his neck, and the long press of hips and thighs. Even more, though, does he miss the little casual things: the arms around shoulders, and punches and fist bumps, and comfortable hands on waists and backs. There are fewer of them now than there used to be, and not just because Omar spends so much time away. He wonders if the whole affair was the worst mistake he could have made: he would have rather kept his friend and never gained a lover than to end up losing both.
And Allah forbid Omar remember the kisses, the caresses, the sex. He thinks back to their conversation after the first time, nearly awkward – held in the doorway of rooms that were his home for a month, longer than almost any other place since his parents died – and he knows it was the moment they agreed to keep doing it, to humor themselves and their basic attraction. What he can't remember is a time they agreed to stop. But by some kind of mutual, silent decision, they haven't done anything since Omar moved back into the palace, since that last morning in the apartment, fervent and close. He certainly doesn't want to have stopped, but it's as if the distance and impermanence of the apartment gave them license to do as they pleased, to indulge their curiosity and their physicality without thinking about emotions or consequences. Now that Omar's back at the palace, and they share quarters and meals and acquaintances again, the lid has been put back on the jar, the genie forced into the lamp, the cat somehow crawling back into the bag.
If they just ignore it hard enough, they can forget anything ever happened, and life can go on as it always did.
Right?
But it's not enough. Maybe that's what's changed, Omar thinks. Now, he has the guts to admit – at least to himself – that he doesn't just want sex, he wants romance. He wants soppy gestures and declarations, he wants intimacy and quiet, he wants dates and flowers and small remembrances, a life shared in a different way to how he shares it with Babkak, Esther, Aladdin. He wants love and sex both, wants Kassim to know the whole extent of his adoration and to return it just as shamelessly and strong, instead of eking a sex life out of a lie of omission.
What Omar gets is escaping the palace every day to run errands in the marketplace. He gets shared meals where, when Kassim sits next to him, he keeps his elbows to himself and his hands always in a different place from Omar's. He gets to sigh to himself looking at Kassim's back and arms and butt across the room, but pretend to be busy when Kassim looks around. He gets to hold something inside, something guilty and secret, instead of telling Babkak and Al in just enough detail to make them yell at him to stop the way they all do when Al gets too soppy about Jasmine.
But at least he still gets Kassim: grinning and friendly, stubborn and scowling, and everything in between. It's not enough, but it's also not starving or completely alone, and he just about finds it in himself to be grateful for that.
Then without warning, one day Omar stops being grateful. He wakes up with bitterness like bile reaching from his stomach to his throat, and not going away. He refuses to go to the marketplace, eats his breakfast in stubborn silence, and pretends not to hear when Jamila calls to him across the garden. He skips lunch, and avoids the kitchens and library, and drags himself halfway around the palace and back trying not to speak to anyone until he finds himself in their quarters again. Omar takes one look at the door to his room – huge, opulent, empty – and his feet turn instead to the room at the end, where Kassim's left the door open onto a room strewn with dirty laundry, and piles of books and scrolls, with not even a semblance of order or logic to the mess. He doesn't bother taking off his sandals: just crosses the room in a straight line and crawls into the untidy bed, and lays down on his side, curling up and waiting as he stews silently. He doesn't ask himself why he came here; he doesn't have an answer to that. He just knows that, here, the bile in his throat doesn't sting quite as much, the chaos in his mind is more calm than it would be in his room, where the wall hangings picked out by Babkak look too small against the big, empty walls.
It's an hour before he's disturbed. Omar dozes while he waits, cheek smashed against a stray pillow and arms crossed and tucked under him. Inevitably, however, Kassim comes shouldering into the room with a piece of bread in one hand and a pile of scrolls under his arm, humming faintly under his breath. He freezes just inside the doorway when he catches sight of Omar, who blinks back to wakefulness amongst the twisted sheets.
"Hey Omar," Kassim says, with an air of bewilderment pasted over with normality. "What are you doing in my room? And, in my – bed…?" He punctuates the sentence with a quiet swallow.
"Oh, nothing," Omar sighs into the pillow, drawling a little. "Just annoyed that everything's gone horribly wrong."
Kassim looks rather more exasperated than confused, relaxing enough to kick the door shut behind him. "What are you talking about?" he says, as he crosses the room to toss the bread and scrolls on a table and pull off his boots.
"It doesn't matter." Omar mutters. "It's just – you've got your studies and your Royal Advisor work, and Babkak's happy in the kitchens, and Al's got all his prince stuff to deal with, and even after everything that's happened – what have I got? Still nothing. All that bother and I'm just back where I started. Al's had no luck, and I've had no luck, and there's nothing wrong with errands, except why should I keep living in the palace if that's how I'm going to make a living? I'm sick of it."
Kassim drops his boots into a corner with an "Eugh," and a long-suffering roll of his eyes as he crosses his arms over his chest. He scowls over at Omar, whose face is half-mashed into the pillow and almost matching Kassim's ire. Then, out of nowhere, Kassim softens for once, shoulders falling with a little sigh.
"Well, at least brooding is a step up from moping around like a depressed ghost all the time," he mutters. "You've seemed better since your banishment. Notthat I'm saying it was a good thing, but – y'know."
Omar was sort of expecting something pithy or off-hand, a joke or an optimistic platitude. The honesty throws him off, and he frowns a little, mostly to himself. The only way he can respond, though, is in kind.
"I'm sick of brooding," he says into the sheets. "I'm sick of not having a place here."
"Well you won't get one by sitting in my room all day and avoiding everyone," Kassim shrugs, moving towards the desk. "Have you talked to the tailors?" he goes on, sorting through the scrolls, reading the labels and putting some away on a shelf, dropping others onto an existing pile. "Because you should. You'd be good at that kind of work."
Omar rolls his eyes at the same time he rolls over to keep facing Kassim. "What, just rock up and ask for a job?" he snorts. "Please."
"Well, why not?" says Kassim. "It worked for me."
"You didn't ask, Al offered it," Omar snipes. "And I can't! Al's already tried! He said the new Royal Advisor told him to ease off on the palace staff, not everyone thinks he's welcome here. He can't afford to make enemies."
"He's not trying hard enough," Kassim grumbles at the table. Even Omar takes offense at that.
"He's trying plenty hard!"
"Well, he's not trying in the right way, then," Kassim counters over his shoulder. "Nah, that's unfair. I can't blame him, really, I'm getting the same resistance. Half the court only tolerates him because Jasmine would throw them out if they objected. We've got to tread lightly."
"Exactly," Omar mumbles. "It's not his fault, but it's not helping."
"Which means you should try on your own," says Kassim, finishing up with the scrolls and picking up the bread. When Omar opens his mouth to protest, he turns and overrides him. "It can't hurt, right? The direct route. You're good at clothes, you've got good taste, you enjoy dressing people. You can sew. I know they don't think they have an opening, but you could help with manufacturing, or sampling, or buying, or designing, I don't know – there's always people who want new clothes around here."
"They're not hiring," Omar insists. "We've checked."
"Well, check again," snaps Kassim, and tears a chunk out of the bread with his teeth. "Like I said," he adds, muffled through his chewing: "can't hurt."
Omar purses his lips; but even he has to admit that Kassim's optimism is working its magic. It's almost uncharacteristic, except that when Kassim's not being a stubborn idiot, he's usually throwing himself fists-first into some wild endeavor or another, assuming it will go just fine.
"You're impossible," he says, muttering it into the pillows.
Kassim smirks at him through the bread, and swallows.
"It's part of my charm," he drawls; and then his breath catches, and his eyes go wide, like he's just realized what he said. As Omar watches, he tenses up, and turns around, going back to the scrolls which are already well and truly sorted. His hands hover above the desk for a second, as Omar balks at the very idea of trying to change the subject. He feels like they're both suddenly on a knife's edge, poised to plunge. Kassim is frozen, as if deliberating, deciding on something vital.
A moment later, he swivels back around, opens his mouth, and says, plain and sincere:
"I've missed you, Omar."
Omar's face goes slack. He has nothing to say to that. Inside his chest, his heart is beating like a bird in a cage in the middle of a storm, though all around him is still, and warm, and quiet. Kassim is looking at him, terrifyingly and deliberately straightforward, from across the room, and Omar shifts his head to see him properly.
"It was only a month," he says, trying and failing to make it a joke. "And you came to visit."
"I know," says Kassim, still looking straight at Omar,who feels unable to look away, scared and wildly hopeful. Kassim's jaw is very tight. "But it's not the same as having you here."
Omar doesn't know what to say to that. To brush it off would be heartless, and Omar could never be that. To acknowledge it, however, is way too scary. So instead, Omar asks, "Why are you saying this?" trying to match the power of Kassim's bare honesty. It doesn't seem to have the same effect: Kassim just shrugs.
"I just think it's worth saying," he says. "So you know that you're still wanted here, that you're appreciated. That you shouldn't leave. I – I know Babkak and Al feel the same way."
"Oh."
Omar knows precisely why that feels disappointing, and he is trying very, very hard to ignore it.
"But y'know," Kassim continues – "I mean it. I've missed you."
Omar stares.
"This is weird," he says. Kassim laughs, finally looking away, ducking his chin.
"Only a bit."
Omar doesn't know what to say to that, either. He looks down at his hands, twisted into each other, an anxious mess of knobbly knuckles. There's a long moment of silence; then Omar hears the soft pad of Kassim's bare feet crossing the room, and feels the mattress dip. Kassim is settling down across the bed from him, with his legs tucked next to him, leaning on his hand. Now, he is only faintly meeting Omar's eye.
"You do know…" Kassim tries, then grimaces and starts again. "You have to know – that we wouldn't want to live here without you. All of us, I mean it. Even Babkak. You said 'why live here if you're running errands in the city,' but you belong with the gang, and the gang lives in the palace now. A month without you around was awful, for everyone. Al likes you because you're sensitive and kind, and he can't get that from anyone else around him, and Babkak likes you because you're always so damn genuine about everything even when he's being a cynical bastard, and I like you…"
He trails off, looking over at the wall, like he's regretting ever starting that sentence. Omar shifts his head, tilting it in question. He bites his lip
"Because I had sex with you?" he offers. Kassim laughs; it sounds choked.
"Well, that helps," he admits, and looks down at Omar with a smile on his mouth, stretched and thin, and not quite in his eyes. "I like you because of those other things as well, though. I like you because you're…" He stops, and takes a breath – holds it for a moment – then finishes. "Sweet. In all the best ways."
Omar can't look away from him. It feels like the closes they've been in weeks, a different kind of intimacy to sex. There is something about Kassim's shoulders and gaze that is casual and calm and, if not relaxed, at least not on edge, not hedging himself in and trying to avoid direct contact. It feels almost like that first time in the apartment, with some kind of bowstring wound up tight and painful in Omar's chest, though this one is knotty and more complicated than that, much more than just an orgasm waiting to happen. But there's a question niggling at the back of his mind, something ill-favored and foreboding, that he horribly needs to ask.
"But it was just sex…" he says, offering it as much as he can like a question, an opportunity in disguise. "Right?"
Kassim's eyes go a little wide, and Omar's not sure exactly which answer he'd prefer to hear.
"Right!" Kassim agrees, then pushes himself up off his hand, sitting up and turning away from Omar. "Just sex, yeah, of course."
His back is rigid and awkward where it faces Omar, who honestly isn't any less confused than before, the string in his chest a little looser, but hopelessly tangled. It's clear Kassim feels out of place, that he isn't saying everything he's thinking; but Omar's at a loss to figure out how. Is Kassim lying? Or has he seen what Omar's trying to hide – seen the over-eager, naïve, sentimental part of him that wants more, wants flowers and baklava and kisses that aren't furtive or denied – and balked at the prospect?
Omar can't tell, and it would be risking too much to push the matter. The sex appears to have stopped, and that will have to be fine, if they go back to being friends and only friends. As long as Omar doesn't lose him completely, he won't mind. All he knows for sure is that whatever Kassim is ready to give, Omar will be happy to take. He's not giving very much anymore, though.
"I should go," Omar mutters at last, heaving himself up off the bed and across the room.
"Talk to the tailors!" Kassim shouts after him, arresting him before the doors. Omar turns, and frowns over his shoulder, response at the ready, but Kassim beats him to it. "Just talk to them, okay? You might as well try."
"Okay," says Omar, staring at him and not really caring if it shows. It's hardly a concrete position, but it's still the most hopeful option anyone's given him, even if it will take effort and risk. It strikes Omar as much as a shock as it does a ray of hope. "Okay," he says again, and there's something different about this time. Something lighter. "I will. Thank you."
"All right, now get out," Kassim laughs, waving him away as he drops back onto the bed. "By Allah, I came in here to have a nap, not a serious conversation."
Omar rolls his eyes at the transparency of the diversion.
"Thanks, Kassim," he says again, and pulls at the door, leaving the man and his big, comfortable, less-than-lonely bed behind. There's still a knot in his chest, but he also feels a bit like he's floating, with hope and delight just from Kassim trying to help, Kassim telling him he missed him, Kassim looking at him with plain sincerity; and at the prospect of sticking out his neck for himself, for once.
