omar | TLV: IC Inbox

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.

Anya be straight, though, right? She'll take care of you.

[And he has to admit, forty hours in the hole really isn't all that much in any objective sense; his displeasure over it is entirely personal.]

Ain't so bad in there, anyway.

Been in much worse.

[Acknowledging, letting out a sigh, letting his eyes shut.]

Hey- I forgot to mention. McNulty ratted out your choice of literature of the week.

My--?

[It doesn't click right away -- he's got a handful of other books now, too, a little hoarded library starting to grow on his nightstand -- and he doesn't like any sentence that starts with McNulty ratted out.]

"So you're why he's reading a book about the cold war."

[A rare sound: Omar Little, mildly embarrassed, clearing his throat.]

Just thought I'd, you know-- get me a little more context and all. Still don't know what on Earth y'all talkin' 'bout half the time.

Made me look up a book on Baltimore.

[He admits.]

Finally figured out what a stick-up boy really is.

[He outright laughs at that, completely forgetting about trying to stay quiet.]

You didn't know?

Sweetheart, your world is so far from mine, I might as well have been imagining the wild west and holding up stagecoaches.

[He's still too near to Pietro to laugh, but you can hear the smile.]

That what you thought I'd been up to back home? Robbin' stagecoaches? Maybe pannin' the harbor for gold?

No.

[Defensive- but only in play.]

But I maybe, maybe, imagined you galloping off on horseback, afterwards.

[He's seriously losing it a little -- he snorts ungraciously on another laugh.]

Naw, man, seriously, I need to know -- what all did your readin' clear up for you?

I didn't know that stick-up boys only robbed drug dealers. I knew you did- but I thought you were an exception. But the job title actually refers to people who knock over dealers, and stashes- I'd never really understood the logistics of a drug stash before. You know I smuggled- but guns, right? And not for personal sale, but into combat zones, and the hands of willing militants. Really a very different animal. I think I was unconsciously imagining it working the same way, because the drugs moved along the same sorts of channels. Reading, I learned that I knew less than I thought I knew.

Uh-uh. You missed one thing, boo.

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