den of dread

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While Vikash receives an unexpected visitor at work (see last week's chapter), Khaled struggles by himself at home.

This is the last chapter of Part One (hurray!) Thank you lovely beta readers ❤️🙏🏽☺️ may your crops be watered and your pillows always on the cool side @whumped-by-glitter @generic-whumperz

TW/CW: recovery whump, aftermath of whump, referenced past slave whump, emotional whump? (whole lot of negative self-thoughts/mentally beating oneself up, totally not based on what the author is like on a bad mental health day 🙃) (it's ok, the OC and myself are both in therapy❤️‍🩹)

Day after day, week after week, rejection email after rejection email, and one more disappointing phone call after another. As it turned out, it’s damn near impossible for a man to rent a studio apartment when he has no legitimate paper trail, hardly any money, no credit history, and no job. Not even Section 8 housing would take him without proof of citizenship or eligible noncitizen status. Besides, even if he got an apartment, he’d still need to pay rent on it somehow, and that would be impossible without a job. As Khaled hung up on the latest disappointing phone call, he sunk to the floor with a groan. He didn’t sit on the couch–failures didn’t sit on couches. Instead, he curled up knees to chest on the floor next to the couch and hugged his shins tight.

I just wanted to get out of their home, out of their way, he thought. Two months of living with Vikash, Eric, and Cade had not lessened the worry that he would overstay his welcome at the Roommates’ one day. Alvarez Auto and Motor wasn’t too far, and Julio told him to contact Alphonse if he needed anything, but Khaled had hoped he could secure a little studio apartment on his own, without needing to ask for help. Securing a quiet, private place for him to heal on his own and not inconvenience anybody was proving much harder than he thought. Whether it was because he didn’t have a job, or didn’t have enough money, or had no legal proof of his existence, Khaled was coming up on dead end after dead end.

Being free shouldn’t be this hard! he thought. Why is it so hard? Am I just bad at it? Frustrated tears stung at his eyes.

Maybe I’m not meant to be free, the intrusive thoughts told him. A voice that sounded a lot like his master’s echoed in the empty space between his ears. Of course you’re not meant to be free, gorgeous! Free? Nah, the world is cold and cruel, they’d eat you alive out there! No, you should’ve stayed a slave, Khaled. You were so good at it, it was as if you were born for it, the intrusive thoughts teased, born for slavery, born for me.

No, that’s not it, Khaled argued with the voice. I was born free, and I lived free for most of my life! Almost eight years of you will not undo that! I’ve done this before; I can do this again! In the blackness of the turned-off TV screen, Khaled saw himself reflected dimly. “I can do this, right?” he asked his reflection.

No reply. The silence of the empty living room weighed heavily on him, making it harder to fight against the negative thoughts, reminding him of how it was like to be isolated in Thomas Costa’s apartment in the last two weeks of–

The buzz of his phone distracted him from spiraling much further. Khaled picked it up and saw it was a text from Eric, saying he was on his way home and asking which groceries to pick up on the way. Khaled got up from his wallowing-spot next to the couch and made a purposeful trip to the kitchen. He might fail himself with this apartment search, but he wasn’t going to fail Eric with something so simple as a grocery list.

He cracked open the refrigerator door, then the freezer, then took a quick inventory of the dry goods pantry before texting back a list of groceries to Eric. Within a second, the anesthesiologist sent back a thumbs-up emoji. Khaled smiled, feeling like he at least accomplished something worthwhile today.

Cade, Eric, and Vikash. They’d been so kind and accommodating to him these past couple months. While he still couldn’t comprehend that they wanted nothing from him in return, part of him also understood that the biggest reason they were so kind to him was because they believed in him. They believed he could be free one day, live free like them one day. They reconnected him to his old hobbies, encouraged him to express his emotions in a healthy and constructive way, and overall made Khaled feel more like himself every day. Even when he didn’t even believe in himself, knowing that three other people believed in him was more than enough motivation to keep going.

I can’t prove them wrong, he told himself. He opened another tab on his phone’s browser. I won’t let them down!

Angsty nightmare art from this chapter

Though it’s a bit awkward I’m pretty proud of this art ❤️ enjoy!

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He's getting closer, Khaled 👀

For those of you keeping track of the timeline, this chapter occurs in the background of here to here. For those of you not keeping track, just imagine this is happening in the background of all the slice of life happy stuff 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thank you @whumped-by-glitter and @generic-whumperz for being such a great beta reading team! ❤️ love you guys

TW/CW: aftermath of escape of victim, threats of bodily harm (breaking bones), slave whump, briefly mentioned nsfw whump, dehumanization, stalking

Another week passed until Charlie submitted a report to Luca near the end of the day. On the desk was a folder, containing a list of hospitals that used SSWPS’ services as well as their pickup schedules, just like he’d asked. There was also a map of the hospitals relative to the morgue, with pins and vectors marking their locations and distances all radiating out from the morgue, making a strange starry shape like a lopsided pinwheel. The shortest three distances were highlighted in bright yellow and circled in red ink.

Luca carefully studied the list and the map, his mind quickly coming up with new questions to replace the answered ones. One of the hospitals on the list was Briar Tree General Hospital, which was the one Thomas took Khaled to on one memorable occasion. Was it possible the boy went somewhere he already knew? It was one of the top three closest hospitals. Luca tried to imagine Khaled sauntering into Urgent Care and asking for something as bizarre as a microchip removal. Who did he ask, and why did they believe him enough to help him?

When I find him, let’s see him try to walk again, a dark thought whispered. Luca nearly smiled as he imagined permanently incapacitating his wayward slave. A couple decisive blows to the shins would do it.

Before he could get too lost in the fantasy, Luca remembered the man standing in front of his desk. He looked up at his subordinate, who was trying hard to hide his desperate need for commendation on a job well done. “This is a good start,” he said. The man across his desk smiled. It was the closest Luca would ever get to saying thank you, and Charlie knew it. “Now, get the names of all staff that were working Urgent Care on February 22nd at these top three locations. I mean all staff, nobody’s inconsequential.” He waved a hand in dismissal to shoo the overeager man away. “Go.”

Wordlessly, Charlie left, yet still with that satisfied smile on his face.

-

Nearly two weeks passed until Charlie returned with a thicker report in hand. Two weeks offered plenty of time for the new boss to refine his revenge fantasies, but none of his dreams would come true without the dedicated work of people like Charlie. Luca wordlessly took the folder from him and opened it to find a list. The list was extensive, yet organized, with not only names of staff, but also their positions, and hours worked on February 22nd. What’s more, Charlie narrowed it down to those who were working Urgent Care in the early afternoon, approximately the time Khaled broke his nose and made a run for it.

This guy is wasting his potential in the sales department, Luca thought to himself. He dismissed his subordinate with a grunt of approval before swiveling around in the desk chair to read the names. He primarily focused on the list from Briar Tree General Hospital. The new boss only made it through half of the names before the calendar on his PC chimed with an important reminder of a meeting. He sighed, and begrudgingly put the list away. If Luca wasn’t the boss of the Costas right now, he would’ve devoted much more time to finding his fugitive, and probably would’ve found him on his own by now. However, he was the boss of the Costas right now, and he had way more pressing issues to attend to. The most he could do was trust the investigative process to dedicated underlings like Charlie.

-

Just as he thought Charlie couldn’t surprise him any further, the young man forwarded an email to Luca containing a large video file two days later. It was CCTV footage from Briar Tree General Hospital on the day of Khaled’s escape, and it was high-definition enough to make out a familiar face. How Charlie acquired this footage, Luca didn’t know. He’d ask later, maybe, if it was relevant to his search.

He watched his boy trail nervously behind a man in a white lab coat as they entered the radiology lab, where they stayed for a little over half an hour until the same man burst out the door in a brisk pace, and a woman wearing scrubs accompanied Khaled not long after. Luca paused, played back the last thirty seconds of the clip, and paused again to study the man who exited first. He expanded the video to get a better look at his face. Skin tone is like Khaled’s, albeit a much healthier, richer shade. Short, dark hair that he combs back. No nonsense eyebrows, and rectangular-framed glasses. Nice little patch of facial hair. Luca’s eyes moved to the doctor’s ID tag. It was blurry. He pulled up a facial recognition search engine on the second monitor, a well-needed upgrade that he added to the current PC system. One screenshot and a few minutes later, Luca got a name. “Vikash Gill,” he murmured smugly. He pulled up another tab and input the name. Vikash Gill worked at Briar Tree General, and his profile picture on the professional networking sites looked identical to the screenshot he got from the security footage. He didn’t have much of a presence on social media–only an Instagram account devoted to body building and gym life, information that Luca mentally filed away for later. He grinned; he’d found the missing link at last.

Now, what was Dr. Gill doing with Luca’s catamite? Was he the one who extracted the chip? Would he know where to find Khaled? The son of a bitch better not be keeping him for himself, otherwise, Luca would charge. Khaled’s services weren’t cheap. Besides, it was the principle of the thing; don’t hoard someone else’s toy for two months and expect its owner to not be pissed when they find out! But, on the bright side, at least Luca had a more certain lead on Khaled’s whereabouts than he did two months ago. He emailed Charlie a reply, a simple thumbs-up emoji on one line, and, on the other, a directive to go to the hospital tomorrow and have a conversation with this Dr. Vikash Gill.

The two-year celebration continues!

Thanks @whumped-by-glitter and @generic-whumperz for beta reading, as always, your suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Khaled’s POV here

TW/CW: minor whump, slave whump, potentially nsfw whump (inappropriate thoughts toward a minor that are not acted upon), dead sibling/past trauma briefly mentioned, alcohol abuse (like at the very end)

It was 11:45, closer to 12:00 than Thomas would’ve liked, if he were to get up at 6:30 the next day. He’d gone through the motions of winding down his evening: he took a short shower, blow-dried his hair, brushed his teeth, and applied that expensive-looking moisturizer his ex-fiancé left behind (hey, she might’ve had a shitty taste in men, but she knew her way around skincare!). He blearily looked in the mirror, hoping to see the reflection of the next boss of the Costa family staring back at him, but only seeing some tired blonde bastard with streaky lotion on his cheeks.

“It should’ve been you, Tony,” he muttered mournfully.

He shook his head. Okay, time to silence that train of thought before it could ruin the rest of his night! He reached up to unlatch the mirror, letting it swing out to reveal the medicine cabinet behind his reflection. He took out a bottle, shook out two pills, downed them with a glass of water that always failed to mask their bitter taste, then closed the meds up and put them back in the cabinet. His disappointing reflection stared back at him as he latched the mirror back in place.

He was just about to lay down in bed when a timid knocking sounded on his door. Thomas looked up, staring at the door in the drowsy confusion of nearly 12:00 AM. Who is that? he thought. Another knock, this time a bit louder, and Thomas quickly put it together. He got out of bed, smoothed the blankets back into place, and walked briskly to the door.

There, outside his bedroom, stood Khaled, his brand-new slave, bought no more than 24 hours ago, staring up at him through unruly black waves as his fingers twisted in the edges of a blanket over his shoulders. “Khaled? What’s wrong?” He wore the blanket Thomas had given him, hugging it so closely that his new pajamas were scarcely visible under the plush throw. He looked so cute, so small–and the boy was small, Thomas realized, with his line of sight only coming up to his nipples. He wasn’t just short, but bone-thin, too, thanks to the work of the traffickers. It would be so easy for him to just pick him up and–

“I can’t sleep, sir,” the boy replied. The heavily accented words rolled off his plump, golden lips, those lips that now downturned into a pout as Khaled awaited his response.

Can’t sleep? Thomas glanced over his shoulder at the nightstand behind him. The digital alarm clock read exactly midnight. Thomas thought back to their first day together, from meeting Khaled at the auction to setting him up on the air mattress a couple of hours ago. Nowhere in between those times did he even witness the kid nod off and nap. He’s been up more than 24 hours; how is he not asleep?! he wondered. Part of him was jealous of that youthful energy, and perhaps that was the primary emotion that bled into his sharp reply.

“Well, did you try?”

The boy stiffened, shrinking away from the harsh tone. Thomas didn’t even have it in himself to feel bad for snapping at him. Khaled mutely nodded, though, answering his question. The mafia heir–no, the mafia boss–sighed. He raised a hand to pinch between his brows, where he could feel the tension building. “So, what seems to be the problem?” he asked, trying to sound calmer and less annoyed. “Why can’t you sleep?”

Khaled’s nimble fingers fumbled with the blanket as he struggled through the words. “It is…it’s too…”

Out with it, kid, I’m fucking tired! he wanted to scream.

“…alone…I am alone. It is hard to sleep when alone,” the boy finally said. He looked up at him with those beautiful dark eyes, sparkling with undisguised hope, and an undeserved trust, in the man who’d bought him.

You’re not alone, you have me... I have you, I’m not alone... For the first time in several years, he was not the only one in this apartment anymore. That belated revelation made his heart start to twist as feelings he would rather not name began to simmer in the deepest depths of himself. Then come in, Thomas wanted to say. My bed’s big enough, he wanted to say. There’s no reason for either of us to be alone anymore, he wanted to say. But before he could make any decisions he would regret the next morning, he remembered he had no idea of Khaled’s age.

He subtly looked the boy over. Was Khaled small because of malnutrition, because he was a child, or a little of both? Hell, his voice had barely dropped; how old was he, anyway? When was his birthday? How good was the record-keeping where he came from? Surely, they’d at least get the year right, wouldn’t they?

He was too tired to ask all those questions right now, so he didn’t. They didn’t have to do anything on Khaled’s first night (or any night until Thomas was sure Khaled wasn’t a minor); surely there would be other nights. He looked down at Khaled, who was still looking up at him hopefully. “You’ll get used to it,” he finally said, and, defying every muscle in his body, he closed the door in the boy’s face and flipped the lock.

You finally have company, and yet you’re still sleeping alone, he thought to himself as he finally settled into bed. Whatever, it’s worth it to sleep with a clear conscience. He reached over to turn out the lights. If he heard a faintly muffled whisper of “Shab bakhair… master” come in through the crack at the bottom of his door, Thomas paid no mind to it.

-

Three hours and one vivid nightmare later, he nearly tripped on Khaled’s prone figure on his way out to the living room. The boy was asleep in front of the doorway, curled up on his side with his blanket wrapped around him. His heart leapt into his throat, then he remembered to breathe again as he crouched down to pick up the sleeping boy. “You’re going to take some getting used to,” he murmured, carrying his slave to his own room. He gently arranged him onto the blow-up air mattress, and paused for a second, looking down at his newest possession. Khaled was deep in sleep, his chest rising and falling, his lips gently parted, his eyes shut behind dark, long lashes.

“Goodnight, Khaled.” With that, Thomas pivoted out of the guest bedroom, made his way back to the living room, and dove straight for the liquor cabinet to drink away the unwelcome thoughts.

Happy 2 year anniversary to this iteration of my on-and-off 15 year old story (Holy shit, I've been doing this for a long time lol)! To mark Khaled and Thomas' second year of existence, I've got an in-between chapter from both their POVs.

Canonically, this occurs right after The Auction Floor

Thank you @whumped-by-glitter and @generic-whumperz for beta-reading and offering such good suggestions!

Tom’s POV here

TW/CW: minor whump, slave whump, language barrier, past corporal punishment mention, but otherwise whumpee just radiating kicked puppy energy

That first night he spent alone was one of the hardest nights Khaled endured, even more so than the nights locked below the deck of a ship with six kids crammed into a single cell. He’d never slept alone before, having always shared a room with a sibling or two back home. Now, here he was, in his new master’s home, laying on an inflatable mattress in the middle of a spare room with a scratchy pillow and the world’s softest throw blanket wrapped around him. By all accounts, he should be grateful that the first full day with his master ended on such a high note, but all he could do was toss and turn under the diffuse silver moonlight.

Minutes of consciousness stretched into hours, yet sleep eluded the tired boy. It was just too quiet hearing no other breaths but his own, and it was just too cold on that spacious air mattress all by himself. He briefly thought about escaping in these still and sleepless hours, but the idea came and went just as fleetingly as the slumber he chased. He weighed the decision in his mind for what felt like an hour more of reluctant consciousness, and ultimately decided to push his luck. Gathering the blanket and his courage around him, Khaled rose from the mattress, opened the door of his room, and walked through the silent, dark apartment to his master’s bedroom. The door that led to the hall and the elevator was tantalizingly close, and yet too far to reliably reach it and slip out undetected. He ignored it, and stopped just outside the other door, noticing with relief and renewed nervousness that a warm, glowing light seeped through the crack at the bottom. The man was still awake. He hesitantly knocked.

No answer. He knocked again, just a bit harder. The faint sounds of rustling sheets and footsteps approaching were all the warnings he had before the door swung open. The man who bought him still looked terrifying, even in the dead of night, clad only in a wife-beater and boxer shorts. “Khaled? What’s wrong?”

Khaled’s grip in the blanket around his shoulders tightened, but he had to push his terror aside and talk to this stranger. “I can’t sleep, sir,” he answered, fumbling with the foreign words on his tongue. (Why didn’t I try harder in English class? he chastised himself.)

The stranger–his owner–glanced behind him at an alarm clock on the nightstand, then redirected his attention to Khaled. “Well, did you try?” he asked, voice sharpened with annoyance. Khaled shrank away from the sharp voice, but nodded. A frustrated sigh escaped the man’s lips as he pinched at the space between his brows. “So, what seems to be the problem?” the man asked, sounding a bit calmer and less annoyed at him. “Why can’t you sleep?”

Khaled fidgeted with the blanket again. It was a bad habit he’d carried over from his school days, fidgeting with whatever was in reach whenever he was called on and had to concentrate on answering correctly. His teachers had tried to cure him of it with a judicious smack of a ruler, but he still caught himself doing it well after school: when he’d have to recall long orders at the café, or remember words in a language he was terrible at speaking.

“It is…it’s too…” What was that word in English again? “…alone…” Yeah, that one. “I am alone. It is hard to sleep when alone.”

The man glowered down at him silently for a few tense seconds before answering, “You’ll get used to it.” With that callous remark, he shut the door in Khaled’s face. The muted click of the lock made the boy’s heart sink. He slumped his shoulders as the tension in his body dissipated.  It was clear that his owner would not help him, but now he had his answer. He was well and truly alone.

There weren’t many options after this. Either he could go back to his room to toss and turn some more, chasing sleep but not catching it, or he could pound on the door and beg to be let in, potentially attracting his master’s ire. As the weight of the last few days pulled at his consciousness, he decided he was too tired for either option. The boy quietly sank to the floor and curled into a fetal position. If he positioned his ear next to the bottom of the door, he could imagine he could hear his master’s breaths. If he huddled closer to the door, he could hope to feel a fraction of the warmth coming from inside. His eyelids drooped until they were so heavy they weren’t worth opening anymore, and he slowly let his blanket-wrapped body melt into the floor. “Shab bakhair… master,” he whispered. In that moment, Khaled felt a little less alone.

Hannigram shitpost inspired by this tweet I saw vv

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Cade's turn with Khaled again, since Vik and Eric have had plenty of one-on-one moments with him so far

Thank you beta reading team @whumped-by-glitter and @generic-whumperz

TW/CW: none? Okay, cool. I mean, there are some tense moments and some emotional strain due to whump aftermath/recovery stuff, but nothing too terribly triggering, I think.

Cade slipped through the door on an early spring morning, closing it to the cold while toeing off his sneakers. He hung up his coat in the closet, then upturned his shirt collar. Finally, he let his loose hair fall over his shoulders to cover the hickeys his date gave him last night. He smelled pancakes–burnt pancakes, maybe, but nonetheless a sign that at least one of the guys was already up, and he did not need any juvenile teasing about his hickeys this morning.

Cade’s mouth began salivating at the idea of a plate of pancakes with a couple vegan sausage patties. He hoped whoever was up so early was willing to share.

He rounded the corner to find Khaled, standing at the stove, silently cursing as he chucked something resembling a carbonized hockey puck into the trash. Pancake batter encrusted the stove. The fumigation hood hummed, its fan cranked to max. Cade shook his head fondly.

“I hope you didn’t go through all that trouble on my account!” he commented.

Khaled whipped around, then, once he saw it was Cade, let his defensive posture deflate. “Thought I’d try making pancakes,” he sighed.

Cade reached for the hair tie at his wrist, hickeys be damned. “Need any help?” he asked, already tying back his hair.

“No, it’s fine,” Khaled said.

This reminded Cade of that story Vikash told him of the last time Khaled tried to make breakfast in secret. “Seriously, I could even just clean up as you go?” he offered helpfully.

“It’s okay, really!” Khaled insisted.

Cade reminded himself of what Vikash and Eric had told him. “Wait…” He crossed his arms, leaning against the counter as he looked at Khaled questioningly. “You’re not doing this to ‘earn your keep’ or anything like that, right?”

Khaled’s eyes drifted down to his spatula. “…no…”

“Because, you don’t have to, you know.” Cade thought maybe offering a concrete example would help make his point. He rubbed awkwardly at his neck, readying himself to confess a detail from his personal life. “Not like our situations are similar in any way,” he acknowledged, “but when I first moved in here, I felt like I had to repay Eric and Vik’s hospitality, too–”

“Yeah, well, it’s like you said, our situations aren’t similar in any way! Maybe you got over your obligation to repay their favor, but I’m never going to, because this is all I know how to do, and I don’t know how to stop!” Khaled snapped. An acrid smell wafted between the two. The butter in the pan had burnt. “Why am I like this?!” Khaled groaned. He took the pan off the heat and tossed it in the sink to cool.

“Hey, calm down, calm down,” Cade said soothingly, reaching over to turn off the burner. “You’re okay. Really. Now, what do you mean you don’t know how to stop?” he asked.

Khaled leaned on the counter on the other side of the stove, turning his head to look at Cade. “I mean, part of it is the feeling that I can never ever hope to make it up to you guys for what you’ve done for me. The other part is that, honestly, I don’t have anything else to do,” Khaled confessed. “No job, no school, no friends to visit. I wake up, I eat breakfast and dinner with you guys, Vik maybe takes me to the gym if I’m up on time, and you or Eric take me to therapy. Aside from that?” Khaled shrugged. “It’s either doing random shit around the house like I was trained to do, or slowly going crazy as I wait for you to come home.”

Cade furrowed his brow. “Don’t you have any hobbies or something? Any fun ways to pass the time?” He remembered what Eric had told him when he intercepted Khaled cleaning the stove. “And bleaching the grout in our shower does not count,” he clarified.

Khaled took an uncomfortably long time to respond. Cade was worried he wouldn’t respond at all, until he mutely shook his head.

Cade gawked at him. No hobbies? As a man who was involved in several hobbies and the communities that surrounded them (music, aquariums, crystal collecting, marijuana), he could not imagine such a bleak existence without the little things that bring a person joy.

Although, maybe Khaled did have hobbies like that, before everything that happened to him. Cade scrunched his brows and narrowed his eyes, deep in thought. Yeah, Khaled probably had hobbies before, hobbies that were lost, and that could be regained, if we just found the right stimuli...

“Okay!” he said decisively. Khaled cocked his head to the side, confused by this random outburst. Cade stooped over to open the refrigerator and got out a carton of oat milk. “Once we finish breakfast, I’m taking you to Paragon!”

“Para-where?”

“Paragon! It’s the coolest strip mall around, cause it’s all niche shops that cater to different hobbies! I’ll take you!”

Khaled raised his hands. “Oh, no, you don’t have to–” he said.

“I want to! Besides, I have to go and buy new guitar strings anyway, the only difference is you’re coming with me,” Cade rationalized. He got on his tiptoes to reach the box of cereal on top of the fridge, then walked to the cupboard to get two bowls. “Come get us some spoons and join me,” he invited. Khaled glanced briefly at the abandoned pancake project, then fetched the spoons.

-

They took two buses to Paragon Plaza, the unique strip mall full of niche shops Cade had mentioned. The musician made his first stop for guitar strings, but took his time browsing the guitar straps and shiny new picks. Whenever he’d occasionally glance at Khaled, the man didn’t seem interested in anything at the music store.

The next store didn’t seem to grab his attention either, as Khaled aimlessly wandered the rows upon rows of boxed mini figures and tiny bottles of expensive paint. Nor did he seem interested in the next store, with its colorful beads and glittering gems hanging from strings on a wall. At least the paper goods store seemed to interest him a little, Cade noticed. He spotted Khaled going through roll upon roll of patterned washi tape, presumably for his dream journal.

They’d spend an hour and a half at almost all the stores at Paragon, and Cade was about to call it quits on discovering Khaled’s hobby. He noticed his friend break away from his side as they were about to head to the bus stop. He followed him to a large window display modeling tennis rackets, volleyballs, soccer cleats, and other sports paraphernalia underneath a banner that read ‘SPRING IS HERE!’ He followed Khaled’s eyes to the soccer cleats, noticing something akin to mournful longing in the man’s deep dark eyes. “See something you like?” he asked.

“I… um, I used to play soccer,” Khaled said quietly, staring longingly into the window display.

“Would you like to come in?” Cade suggested. “We’ve got plenty of time!” And no other store seems to have grabbed your attention like this one, he noticed.

While Cade himself was not a sporty person (anymore, that is), he did find some of the things in the store familiar, and felt similar waves of nostalgia and mourning as they walked through the store. He wholeheartedly encouraged Khaled to buy some cleats and a soccer ball. At the register was a flyer advertising adult leagues, saying that they looking for new players for the season and that auditions were next weekend. It didn’t take much needling to convince Khaled to go and give it a try, although the concept that he could leave the house without one of them had yet to sink in.

“And if I make the team, I can leave for practice whenever?” Khaled asked again on the bus ride home.

“Oh my god, dude, yes!” Cade laughed, answering yet again. “Look, you’re not a prisoner in our house or anything, I promise!  When you make the team, you can come and go as you like.”

Khaled hugged the soccer ball in his lap. “Okay.” He looked down at the cleats in the bag in his hand. “Thank you,” he murmured shyly.

“Any time.” He fished around for his pockets and popped out his Bluetooth headphones. He offered one to Khaled, who took it gratefully with a small smile. “Here’s this song I’m trying to learn,” Cade introduced as he opened his music app. “It doesn’t sound too hard, but it still sounds really good…” The two friends listened to the acoustic guitar cover of Pearl Jam’s “Even Flow” the rest of the ride home.