Wonderwall

He was the muscle, and it was only as Xavier had grown into the man he was that the word had begun to suit him. He was a weapon, carved from stone and suffering. The Roman night was one of chilled air, and it called to him, begging him to go out and exert his vengeance upon it, but Raphael had given him his instructions. He was to help with The Heist. It was the only reason he was there. To be their muscle. And now he stood, waiting for his charge, a cigarette on his lips as he stood outside the catacombs entrance with knives tucked into everywhere he could hide them.

The grey swirls of his cigarette drifted off into the dark, and his keen senses stayed on high alert at the rustling of the grass. He’d already incapacitated one security guard. A little drug in his coffee. Not the way Xavier liked to do things, but this was something that needed to be done with as little mess as possible. Whoever approached him, if they wore a badge and gun, might leave him with no choice but to make a mess though. 

He readied himself for the violence to follow, but the vision of Omar Sawiris stopped him dead in his tracks. He narrowed his eyes, half-suspicion, half-interest. Like so many times before, there was something about the soft-hearted boy that called out to him. And he disliked it. “I don’t know why they insist on nobody going down here alone,” he said, finishing his cigarette and stomping it out beneath his boot. “But I trust you’re ready.”

The Egyptian checked his watch and let out a deep sigh. He was on time, but when he realized someone was already there, he cursed at himself. Punctuality was essential to him, if he had a meeting of any sort, you’d probably see him in front of the meeting point at least 15 minutes early. His father taught him that being on time was a sense of respect and also duty toward whoever you were going to meet and also toward yourself. But apparently, this time he wasn’t as early as he thought, especially considering the unconscious body lying down at his feet. 

Omar looked over at the other man, probably the reason behind the guard’s attack, and when he recognized Xavier, he took a deep breath. The two had met before and with only a few words exchanged, Omar didn’t know what to think of the other guy. His manners were––interesting, at least, he’d heard a few stories and that was enough for Omar to decide not to get on the boy’s bad side. But hey, at least Xavier wasn’t somebody completely unknown. “I believe it’s because that if something happens to one, the other can call for help or something.” He answered, shrugging slightly. Omar scratched his head over his beanie and nodded, “I am,” he reassured the other guy, knowing that he probably didn’t think he was. Hell, he himself wasn’t sure he was.

OMAR SAWIRIS “I’M SENTIMENTAL ABOUT MYSELF. THERE ARE A LOT OF THINGS THAT I WOULD CHANGE.”

age: twenty-four

loyalty: villiers

occupation: heir to the orascom conglomerate

criminal occupation: the aquisitioner & occasional driver

faceclaim: rami malek

Sons of powerful men are meant to be powerful. Only sons of powerful men are meant to be made of iron and steel. But if anything, it was dreams and stardust which raced through Omar Sawiris’ veins, and someday, he would suffer for their beauty.

The heir to Orascom Industries was born in Cairo to the hands of Egypt’s most gifted doctors, proclaimed a miracle and rejoiced over before he had even drawn his first breath. That expectation that was laid before him from the beginning would come to shape much of his childhood. As the son of one of Egypt’s most notable entrepreneurs, Omar was under the spotlight in almost all circumstances, dressed in stiff suits and small blue ties, hair slicked back and leather shoes fixed upon his feet. His father, Ahmes Sawiris, was a renowned global businessman and the one who had inherited the Orascom legacy that his own father had built up; and his mother, Ain, was a women who had been brought up with tradition as her scaffold and expectation as her driving force. They were a powerful couple, married as a business deal between an oil tycoon and a technology mogul…but very set in their ways; the ways of their society and the country about them. They saw pearls and rubies, called them straw for a woman’s gold. Soccer and toy cars were strictly for sons and nephews; and with their own child so obedient and soft, he was certainly in need of masculinity, that semblance of strength which would someday serve him well. Or so they thought.

But Omar wasn’t meant to be strong in the way that they envisioned strength. He was a soft child, fond of flowers and soft plush toys; and when they were ripped out of his grasp and replaced with hard, mechanical parts meant to define him as something other than who he was, he didn’t cry (because he had been told that boys do not cry), but merely fell silent as mouse, contemplating the swaps with a quiet alarm that showcased itself in the reflective wideness of his eyes. He was often shocked by what happened to him, no matter how many times his parents reiterated their wishes. He wasn’t to play with his friend Anya’s dolls, and when he tried, both the girl and her fancies were banned from his presence. His wardrobe was a mix of strictly dark shades, with the occasion red and white for particularly spectacular occasions – and as a boy who loved the light, who loved the shades of nature and blooms, he didn’t like looking in the mirror and seeing such a severe face staring back. Ahmes and Ain were concerned for their son, who took naps often, had delicate health, and looked about him at the world as if it were new every time he woke from his slumber. There was that constant element of surprise which flashed across his features, that quizzical innocence, a naivety that didn’t ever fade with age.

A musician, lover of arpeggios and sonatas; and an anomaly among his culture, a boy who had always liked boys, it was very difficult to reach the expectations set before him, and in his family’s disappointment was something even more bitter: a crippling self-doubt. He would play the piano for hours, and when Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata had finished flowing out of his fingertips, Omar would sit in stunned silence, looking down at his hands as if lost. Yet it was before that piano that he grew the most, where he sat the straightest, concentrated the most intensely. His transition from toddler to boy happened in a blur of black keys against white, a small thrill of minor notes plastering themselves against the lines of his existence as he was tugged and pulled every which way. Pushed to be like other boys, he puffed out his chest at school and bit down the blood of his cheek when he was bullied for his knobby knees, his smooth, small hands which were scraped raw upon the ground when he refused the dares that the other boys piled upon him. They were all so eager to see him fall, to see him try to rise to their expectations and come short. He wasn’t a fighter. He looked at his attackers and saw their beauty; the physical manifestation of what was forbidden to him, sharp angles and hard mouths, golden eyes and dark lashes…their edges cut him, but he never drew away even as he bled. So it wasn’t until he had his chin split open upon the stairs that Ain began to suspect that there was something more than accidental clumsiness and continual tripping. When he was fourteen years old, Omar Sawiris left his home country and was sent away to Spain, to obtain a private education at the villa of an old family friend. He could have remained in Egypt – perhaps his father grew tired of pitying his son, or his mother was too taxed with the disappointment he brought. In any case, the suitcases were packed, the goodbyes were in order, and plans were made for summer returns. He thinks that he was the saddest to see himself go.

Being sent abroad was meant to be a punishment, a wakeup call jabbing against his ribs, urging him to shape up and lose his abnormality to the winds. But Spain was wonderful. Senor Alberto Viteri had met Ahmes Sawiris at university, and they had forged a lifelong partnership in the years following: the two men were of similar mindset, similar values, but while Ahmes was strict to the point of constriction, Alberto believed in versatility. His son was a year older than Omar, and could sing beautifully; a songbird with a face of gold, swooned over by women and the media alike. When Omar, pale and quiet, entered his princely sphere, Rodrigo Viteri was intrigued to say the least, and a year later, smitten to say the most.  They were a strange pair. Handsome, tanned Rodrigo, who sung love ballads to Omar’s ukulele, one a lover of soccer matches and suits and ties, arrogant and brave; the other allergic to pollen, squinting against the sun, his attention lapsing as a full moon does…in degrees. At first, the two were wary of one another. Rodrigo studied his history and language while Omar furiously stuck his nose in books, afraid that the other boy would see the blush of his cheeks. He was so cool, with his English an exotic, accented thing; his Spanish smooth and seductive. Omar, who had never been immune to attraction, fell quickly. Rodrigo, on the other hand, fell like an angel. With such grace, smoldering eyes shining in the dark, a smirk, hard mouth pressed against uncalloused fingers, two musical beings following the song of their hearts. They sighed, and the heavens listened.

He was eighteen when he fell in love, and it was his greatest weakness, the fatal flaw which was exploited ruthlessly by those closest to him. When his mother almost was victim to an assassination plot and was hospitalized for shock, he was bid home, and for six months while Rodrigo was signing his contract with a record label, he lingered in Cairo, lovesick and longing. He began to write letters, but they weren’t like any others. He took the feelings manifesting in his chest and put them into allemandes and andantes, notes and clefs. Rodrigo sent his own form of expression back: songs, metaphors and poems sung low and sweet, his easy laugh conveyed through every inflection. Omar was shining, his hands stopped shaking, his attention drifted less and he was more willing to speak his mind, those quiet thoughts that he had hidden so well before he had found a boy to listen. He was becoming the young man that Ain and Ahmes had always hoped so fervently for: not necessarily charismatic, but polite and sympathetic, not necessarily confident, but able to convey his opinions without faltering…a diplomat with gentle means, sitting in at board meetings and tilting his head with a quizzical interest. Blinking, breathing, wishing. He was much more alive than he had been when he’d left Egypt three years before, and it was a miracle. 

That was, until the pictures (the evidence of some secret sin of his) came in. He had known to some degree that Lola de Leon had been Rodrigo’s girlfriend prior to his arrival in Spain; but he had never imagined that so much human spite could exist , that she could want so much to destroy both of them for the sake of her own endeavors. The pictures came in, and they devastated him. Ahmes stormed into his room and hit him across the mouth for the first time, Ain wept. He was freezing, staring at his life unravel about him, losing his hold. The world was watching and judging, an entire corporation was on the line. For a boy who had absorbed so much hatred in his childhood, one would think that he could take this like he took all the other things; but he couldn’t absorb it anymore into his bones: there was too much criticism, the threats made by conservative business partners and the internal pressure from his family, the mortification and humility. Yet he held on to that mustard seed of hope, always dreaming, always believing in the innate goodness of men, no matter how viciously they battered him.

But then there was the accident, the final nail to a coffin, and he felt like he was going to die. The news came through a phone call, then the web, the television, the private networks themselves, and Ahmes was secretly smiling behind his false grief. Rodrigo Viteri, heir to Viteri Industries, had gotten into a car with his “girlfriend” Lola de Leon following the accusations of a dalliance with Egyptian Orascom heir Omar Sawiris. Somehow, between Barcelona and Valencia, there was a wrong turn, a cliff, an ocean full of scrap metal and cruel fate. Lola was found a day later, washed up on the shores of Tarragona, nearly dead but still gasping her supposed lover’s name. And Omar watched with bated breath, and when days turned to weeks and there was nothing, he was crying out for mercy, mercy. But it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough. Rodrigo was…gone.

-❈- 

That was meant to be the end to his tragedy, an amputated limb of his being that would someday scar, the final swan song of a dream past. He avoided listening to Rodrigo’s first album, recorded prior to his death, for months. But it was one night when he missed his closest friend more than the moon missed the sun that he closed his eyes and tentatively touched the last vestiges of Rodrigo’s legacy…and realized that these songs were meant for him. There were lyrics recounting their first kiss at seventeen in the olive grove behind the hill, the tenacity of their weeks, their months. The last song was titled simply. “Find me.”

He left home, claiming that he needed air, that he needed one last period of freedom before he returned home for good to inherit Orascom. But he wasn’t entirely drowned; there was a light beckoning him at the end of the tunnel, and he was grasping for it with every fiber of his will. He began in Spain. Then Portugal, France, England — months disappeared at a time, feverishly searching. He had taken with him only a small crew of servants, his suitcase, his credit card; and one by one, they left him and his obsessive search, until by the time he had reached Ireland, he was trailed only by his most loyal manservant. The cities, the corporations allied with Viteri, the pubs and wayside roads where he had a “feeling” — it seemed hopeless, many nights he lay on hotel beds and motel cots, gasping, but never quite. Rodrigo was out there, he could feel it. But in the end, it wasn’t a bronze-haired boy who he found, but a girl with blue eyes and bloody hands, a dead sparrow clutched in her fingers and a ragged shirt upon her thin shoulders. He had searched for two years without avail, only to find a life at the end of the string, in need of his help. He held her in his arms and felt as if he were holding a beating heart. For over a year, a nameless girl was his new dream, the one which he poured half of his search into. When he found her beneath her shell, he smiled, sleepy and kind, his voice dying in his throat.

And then he was back at it again.

Five years have passed since the day Rodrigo was pronounced dead, but Omar  keeps hoping, fervently imagining, that someday he can press his hands against his lover’s once again, in a different life, not as the heir to an African enterprise, but as a lucky nobody. He found Esme and she found him, and together they tied themselves into knots escaping or chasing their past. Because no matter how many times his mother bids him home or his father sends his men out to retrieve his wayward son, he refuses to believe in the worst, refuses to believe that his first and greatest love had scattered in the wind. Find me. It stirred a deep restlessness within his chest, the lion heart of a lamb. And that’s how the heist factors in. It’s a source of income, the chance to build his own fortune separate from the obligations and margins of a world with values long past. He’s working to save his own life - but in the process he saved hers - and together, he and Esme plan to relentlessly beat on until their efforts bear fruit and paradise goes hand in hand with victory. Just remember, little lion boy. Don’t let your soft heart and gentle hands get too scarred in the quest for happiness…things are never quite as they seem.

✕. Omar visited Lola once, when he was in Spain. Though she wept and begged for forgiveness, he found himself remaining hard to her pleas, despite his belief that Rodrigo is still alive. Some wrongs can never be righted, and he’ll never forget what hell she rained down upon the both of them prior to the accident.  ✕. His butler’s name is Gerard, a man in his fifties who has seen Omar grow from boy to man. Gerard is one of his closest confidants, and worries for him as if he were his own son. Though he left Egypt with a crew at his back, only Gerard remained after five years of chasing, always patient, a consistent source of advice and comfort. ✕. He’s listened to Rodrigo’s final song so many times that the lyrics have been committed to memory. He often composes music, and has written a dozen compositions to respond, but none of them ever seem enough to capture how he feels about what has happened, what might happen, and what may never occur. ✕.  Though he had grown while in Spain, Omar is still the boy he used to be, gentle and eager to help others, able to be moved to tears by a beautiful piece of music, a romance film, the beauty of humans and their creations. He does not understand art or things that glitter, not as much as he understands his fingers against keys or strings, but he still can see their pricelessness.

THIS CHARACTER HAS A NONFLEXIBLE FACECLAIM & IS TAKEN BY FRANCESCA