omar | TLV: IC Inbox

Mm.

[He switches off, and though he doesn't cross the hall with quite his usual enthusiasm, he pushes Ricki's door open a few minutes later. He makes for the desk chair, regarding Ricki somewhat warily.]

Say your piece.

Along the way, somewhere, I think I misstepped. I've given you the impression that we talk to one another this way, that I'll take orders from you. You said 'your people' and at first I missed an overtone in it that made me an underling.

I ain't say that.

[Which is disingenuous enough that they both know it, but he already doesn't love the direction this conversation is taking. He shifts a little, anxious. He could -- he should, he thinks, try to soothe him.]

Not like that, man. It ain't like that.

I'd take 'you don't dictate terms, boy' from a warden, through gritted teeth. I'm not going to take it from someone who shares my bed.

[There it is again: his eyes narrow slightly at the implied ultimatum, although this time, he curbs his tongue until the moment of instant defensiveness has passed. He takes a deep breath, pulling absently at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt.]

Look, I ain't gonna lie to you, man. I'm used to getting my way, and I ain't like being told what to do none. That shouldn't be no surprise. Most of the-- the young men I been with, they can live with that, 'cause they know the other thing you oughta know by now, too.

[He glances up to meet his eyes.]

Omar take care of his own.

One of the things I like most about you is that when I'm with you, I can- let a breath out.

[And that works for them. Is why he's back and patching this up.]

Do you see the shape of it? What scalded me about that?

[He doesn't want to just talk at him, but honestly isn't sure if this is coming through.]

Same reason I said it, I'd wager.

[Ricki had been shutting him down with his not on these terms, and he hadn't liked that at all. He can't say it was his most elegant turn of phrase, but he can't say he regrets it; if Ricki somehow hadn't known he'd react that way, he definitely should now.]

And what happened before that-- I was just trying to look out for you, darlin'. Like I said: take care of you.

You as good as called me weak.

[Reminding him, reaching for his pocket for cigarettes- he ends up playing with the pack, walking it between his fingertips, but not opening it.]

That's fine, I suspect you believe it, but I had the right to walk away for a spell.

If I really thought you was weak, I wouldn't be here at all.

[Dante had been weak; these little moments of skew aside, Omar believes Ricki could handle a lot more than he had. But...]

Don't think it's the strongest move you could be making, though, laying on my warden's couch. And darlin', you already bared your throat to this place one too many times.

[He sits forward, elbows on his knees, regarding him intently.]

Make no mistake: the next person that come after you is likely to wind up with a bullet in they head. I'll light up half the Barge if I have to to make that clear. But is that really what you want?

Bared my throat how?

[Ricki leans in too, heels braced on the bed, elbows on his knees, watching him back. There is nothing soft in him now.]

Be specific, let's clear this up, you and I.

[He squints at him, slightly puzzled -- surely he knows, when he said it himself?]

This business with the boy and his powers. I ain't saying he ain't did what he did or that he ain't got what he deserved. Shoot, he got off easy. You told him what he needed to know, though.

Sometimes you win on a gamble like that, sometimes you lose. It didn't kill me. It wasn't wonderful, but it wasn't my throat Omar, just an over-extended punch. Shit, I sulked a week, I knocked him around, I watched you turn him head over tails, and I spun it such as I was in zero for less than half an hour for nearly mutilating someone.

[He lets out a long, thin sigh.]

My way of doing things, I get hurt sometimes, but I can take it.

Way you talking about it now ain't how I remember it.

[Ricki's voice from Zero, tightly wound and rambling about Lent; a slew of distressed text messages. I can't even have Lent, Omar. Fuck this place. A butter knife, sawed between Pietro's clenched teeth.

If Ricki was feigning all that to him, they have a much bigger problem than the one they're brushing up against.]

[He softens, a little caught in the revisionism. It's not deliberate, it's more of a personal habit of shoving the things it hurts to think about aside. That first reaction is certainly one of them.]

It happened. It happens. You keep walking.

[But he needs a minute to think, and to remember that yes, that had been- well. He drums his fingers on his knee, and shakes out a couple of cigarettes, leans forward to offer him one.]

I'm sorry you had to pick me up after it happened.

[Omar softens a little at that, too. He starts to lean over, then just gets up and moves onto the bed instead, settling down near him. He plucks the proffered cigarette from his hand, brushing his fingers intentionally against Ricki's.]

I ain't -- but that's me.

[It's one thing for Ricki to lean on him in those moments -- it's not like Omar is unfeeling. It's another thing to expose those psychic wounds to other people, though.]

No. No, Omar, I can't sit here and do this.

[Lighting his cigarette first, then taking it out of his mouth and offering it over, a soft, tender trade gesture, with curled fingertips.]

I mean, what am I supposed to say? 'Here's all the reasons I don't want to talk to you about this part. Here's why I'm fucked up enough that an amateur won't cut it. Here are the skeletons I can't let you near yet.' If we do this this way, I'm just going to rip myself open looking for approval from you, and probably resent you when I don't get it, when the truth is, I've already made up my mind.

[I can't is better than we're not, Omar notes in the back of his mind; he can't help but wonder if the improvement is intentional, though it's a step up either way. The rest...

He draws on the cigarette and looks away with a little shake of his head, going quiet. What is he supposed to say when he doesn't approve?]

You don't have to like it, and we don't have to talk about. I felt I owed you the veto. I'll be honest, I'm a hell of a lot touchier about wardens than you are.

[That had been the cause of all that fear and fury, waiting for him in his inbox in the last days of the event, the night he was first paired. He draws on his own cigarette, and lets out a long breath.]

But ultimately- I hear that you disagree with what I'm doing, and I'm going to do it anyways.

[The same blunt (if ever so slightly more quiet) flat out insubordination as last time.]

[He stays silent for a long time after that, though he doesn't try to hide the fact that it bothers him. He should go, he thinks. His options at this point are to slap Ricki down harder or roll over himself, and he doesn't especially want to do either. He wasn't expecting this little rebellious streak of Ricki's to be turned on him, and the edge of resentment it stirs up in him isn't what he got into this for. It's like Ricki said: he's here to make it easier to breathe, not harder.

They've been too close for that to really work for a while now anyway, he thinks. Close enough that he lost sleep over it tonight -- that's not what he wanted, either. But close enough that the thought of leaving sits too, too wrong with him despite all the rest.

He sniffs, drags deep on his cigarette, stares off at one of the bookshelves stuffed with secrets he probably knows too much about.]

Suppose we've hit some kind of impasse, then.

[Very flat, very even, if a little hoarse.]

[He falls back against the headboard, laces his fingers together and folds them over his stomach, letting out a long, thoughtful sigh. Backlash, any sort of bad kind, would have been on the list of things that might have been irrevocable.]

So I'm going to have to make it worth your while to learn to agree to disagree with a boy?

[He glances back over his shoulder at him, not smiling just yet.]

Whatever happened to the good boy I heard so much tell about?

[Ricki's smile falters, and then smooths away behind his hand, as he reaches up to hold the cigarette for a moment, taking a second to rub his bottom lip with his thumb rather than mumble around it.]

Put it like that, you make it sound humiliating.

[He lets out a quiet sound of frustration, shaking his head; that hadn't been how he'd meant it at all.]

I told you, that's how it's been working in my crew. My people do what they told, and I make it worth they while. Boys and girls and all of 'em.

The ones who don't like it--

[He looks away again, jaw tightening.]

They always been free to buck out.

Well then. Am I worth having, if you can't have control of me?

[He wonders, folding his hands again.]

The answer might be 'no.' I hope it isn't, obviously, because you stop my heart in my chest, but if this is the kind of relationship where I'm not on equal footing with you when it counts, it's going to cut me up and bleed me out slow.

[If he's found it hard to breathe around Ricki before, that's never been more true than it is now; the hitch in his throat is embarrassingly audible. He's hardened, but he's not unfeeling, not immune, and God-- he hasn't felt this way in a very long time, had no plans to really ever again, but even with all his self-control, he can only manage so much. He can only stay shut down for so long.

It feels like a betrayal, the way he feels right now.

And if this is a mistake, he's starting to realize it's another one he can't undo. He inhales shakily, first air and then smoke, rubbing a hand over his face in sudden and maybe surprisingly acute distress. He exhales sharply and grips one wrist in the other hand, thumbnail digging into the thin skin over his pulse point.]

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