omar | TLV: IC Inbox

Omar-

[After this he has to think about a hundred things to say.]

I'm in zero and I don't know how long I'll be here. Can't talk out loud, the kid I got put in here for is in the next cell.

[There's a short pause on Omar's end out of sheer frustration: he doesn't want to use the network for anything important anymore, and he's always hated texting most of all, but there doesn't seem to be much else in the way of options.]

What happened?

[He thinks about going down to Zero himself. There are a few wardens who like him now, one or two who might let him in... He's already on his feet and moving for the stairs when it occurs to him that if they can't even talk, his swooping in won't solve much of anything, but he heads down towards Level Eight anyway.]

someone stepped up into my space and i potentially overreacted. with a butterknife in the face.

[Another very brief pause, for a very different reason.]

A butter knife.

What exactly did you do with that to land yourself down there?

Edited 2015-08-26 01:07 (UTC)

wedged it between his teeth, sawed it a little against his palate & tongue and talked soft and pretty in his ear about what i had in store for him next

[Well, that's... something. A lot of something. He's not entirely sure what, but it's definitely something.]

And what he do to earn himself that little talk?

did you keep up to current with me & pietro and cutlery? he was having a bad day, apparently, and decided to mess with my tea & teaspoon because he knew it'd- so i made his day considerably worse. right out in open on a table in the mess hall, too, i wonder if the kitchen staff have to clean the blood up? he really had it coming, but i may have lost some of my 'good boy let's underestimate him' cachée

[Maybe, but Omar also thinks Pietro did a whole lot worse than step up into his space, if he did what he thinks Ricki is implying he did. He'd heard that exchange, of course; he'd be embarrassed to admit how current he keeps with Ricki's network activity, except that Ricki is his now, and by Omar's reckoning that means he needs to know just as much as he wants to.

For times like this, for example.]

Good boy in my book.

What he doing now?

catatonic, or close to. we're both feeling it.

Bet he is.

[But that part is good; the other, not so much.]

Just the two of y'all in there? Who put you in?

Some girl I didn't recognize.

[His apostrophes and capital letters are coming back, just talking to him.]

We're supposed to be calming down.

[That first part seems strange -- Ricki is the one with the far more extensive manifest, not to mention all those coded notes. Is she new? Is he protecting her? Something else? Omar wonders, and he might know how to ask more back in his world, but he doesn't know all that Circus language well enough.

It doesn't matter, he supposes; what is he going to do? Petition for Ricki's release? He knows better than that up here.]

How that working out for y'all?

I'm close by when you get out, unless someone open the door between then and now.

I feel like a fool. I feel like knowing this was coming, I should have been able to do something to prevent it. Being this predictable is sort of pathetic. He knew exactly what to do, I basically spelled it out for him.

One of the many reasons I been taking myself off the damn network. Maybe you ought to give it up for Lent.

I got another idea or two, though. For the future.

Lent begins in February. Oh good grief- do you know, I'm not actually going to be able to know when it is? We can't have Easter up here. Easter is the first Sunday on or following the paschal full moon. Lent runs Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday, but both of those are determined by the date of Easter, and you can't have paschal full moons at some indeterinate earth year in deep space. I can't even have Lent, Omar. Fuck this place.

[Fuck this place, indeed, because it's easy enough to see Ricki banging his head against the bars in his words; and Omar Little, who is still not used to feeling helpless, has no idea what he can really do about it while he's still stuck standing right outside the door to Zero. He bites his lip privately, frustrated; then shakes his head, decides he doesn't care what Pietro Maximoff hears, and switches to voice.]

Ricki.

Evangelicals don't even celebrate Lent. I mean, we can- but it's not common, or even typical. My father preached that it led us back to bondage and perpetual penitence, to ritual associated with Catholicism, rightly rejected by the Reformers.

[It is so completely not about Lent right now, but that is the only thing that comes to mind to say.]

Sort of makes me want to do it, honestly.

A'ight.

[He lets out a quiet sound, not really a laugh, not so cruel as that. Something playful, but meant to soothe.]

So what you gonna give up? I feel like I might want some say in the matter.

It'll depend where I am, then. Lent provides a balance that church sometimes lacks, so what I do will depend on what I need.

But if it started tomorrow- I would begin fasting.

Why start there?

[His voice softens, lowers a little, inviting Ricki's to do the same. Pietro doesn't have super hearing; they can still keep this conversation close.]

'Chu think you need, darlin'?

To hear His voice. Lent is the time in the church to listen close for it. Fast, not feast. Solitude, not community. Silence, not song.

Hate to draw attention to your current predicament and everything, but it seem like you got an opportunity on you now.

Might be closer to forty hours, than forty days, but it's not a bad idea. There are worse ways to spend a little time in solitary than in prayer.

Think it'll be that long?

[He can't help but sound disappointed.]

Dunno. Depends how serious she thinks I was about it, I suppose. And maybe what Anya has to say.

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