Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

They’re crammed in the backseat of the pickup, Ariana Grande blasting out the open windows on repeat and the bass resonating so heavily that Sohrab feels the truck vibrating all around them. The Kellner siblings sit on either side of him, their dark curls flying as they belt out every word. In the front, Sohrab’s friend Mahmood unsubtly bobs his head to the staticky beat and Darius’ boyfriend Patrick taps his hands on the steering wheel, his performance subdued as he surveys the traffic crawling down the exit to New York City. As the song fades away, Patrick turns the volume down and announces, “I’m gonna lose my shit if we don’t get off this road.”

It’s been like this for the last four hours. While they had the lofty goal to finish packing up Sohrab’s apartment and leave Cambridge by nine o’clock, they didn’t end up hitting the road until half past noon. They have been sitting and waiting to exit the highway for at least three songs from Laleh’s playlist, which was well into its second round. 

Sohrab shifts in his seat, wondering if he should apologize. The stubble sprouting out of Laleh’s calf scratches against his jeans and Darius hooks a hand on the edge of Patrick’s seat to lean over the center console. “Look, it’s finally clearing up,” he points out, voice a little hoarse from his and Laleh’s karaoke marathon. He reaches forward to squeeze Patrick’s shoulder. “Guess you gotta keep your shit, Pat.” Darius and Patrick exchange small smiles in the rearview mirror and Sohrab drops his gaze to the rattling box of potted plants sitting in his lap. 

Beside him, Laleh flips through a takeout app on her phone, yawning enormously. “We should probably start talking about getting food, right? What’re we thinking?”

“Oh, thank god you brought it up before I did,” Mahmood groans, twisting and ducking so he can see her in the slim gap under his headrest. “I’m starving.”

“How are you guys hungry already?” Patrick asks, half-laughing. “We literally got McDonalds an hour ago.”

“It was an hour ago,” Laleh says, as if that’s reason enough. “Pizza?” Her thumb hovers over the list of pizza joints local to the Village. “Darius, what’s the name of the place I like? That place we went to when Sohrab last visited?”

Sohrab glances at her phone. “The third one,” he says, the same time that Darius replies, “Bleecker.”

Laleh flicks Sohrab a crooked grin and taps the third listing. “Of course you remember,” she mumbles.

*

Laleh must have some magical sense of the food industry and bike traffic, because no sooner have they hauled the final round of boxes to the fifth floor walk up when a rapt knock at the door signals the arrival of their early dinner. The delivery person accepts their money after witnessing a short round of taarof between Sohrab and Darius over the bill. (A rare win for Darius, who pointed out that Sohrab bought them all breakfast).

In the main area of the apartment, Patrick shuffles boxes around to try and clear space near the table, and Laleh hops over a garbage bag filled with bedding to go fetch the water filter and cups from the kitchen. Before the boxes can even hit the table, lids have already been flipped and Mahmood has a molten slice oozing in his hand.

The first bite burns the roof of Sohrab’s mouth instantly. Across the room where he’s seated on a box labeled ‘CLOTHES,’ Darius mirrors his grimace and shoots him a knowing grin before taking a long sip of water.

“Would it be wrong to admit that I agreed to help you move just so I could get New York pizza?” Mahmood asks, picking up a stray mushroom that leapt off his melting slice. He eats the mushroom, eyes closed in contentment. “This alone makes the trip worth it.”

Sohrab nearly chokes on a laugh. “Don’t let your mom hear you say that.”

“My mom can think I came to visit them if she wants,” Mahmood drawls. “But I think that, deep down, she knows as well as I do that it’s not the truth.” He folds his slice in half and takes a huge bite, nearly peeling all the mozzarella away from the crust in a long stretchy rope.

“What’s the pizza like in Boston?” Laleh asks.

Sohrab and Mahmood exchange a look. “Not good,” Sohrab says, which is the short version of a very long tirade. “It’s something you would be better off never eating.”

Darius wrinkles his nose. He stretches for a second slice of pizza, his fingers brushing the edge of the box but not quite achieving purchase. “How come you’re protecting her?” he demands, feigning betrayal. “When I visited you the first time, you practically insisted that I try it.”

“I remember no such thing,” Sohrab lies. He hides a smile in the corner of his mouth and nudges the box closer to Darius, whose eyes glitter at him. “You must be mistaken.”

*

More time gets eaten during the process of trying to say goodbye to Mahmood and Laleh than from unpacking Patrick’s truck. No number of promises to come see Mahmood and his family in Queens and Laleh in Brooklyn seem to be enough to actually get the pair to put their shoes on and leave. Patrick, who had kindly offered to drop Laleh at her college on the way to his own apartment, ends up kicking his sneakers back off and returning to sag on the couch between piles of Sohrab’s things, his eyes hooded and threatening sleep. This is a game that Sohrab has played his whole life. There’s a very serious concern that if he and Darius can’t get either Laleh or Mahmood to exit the apartment, they’ll both simply stay through the night and only revisit the concept of leaving once the sun threatens to rise the next day.

“Laleh, you should really go,” Darius says, because as her older brother, he possesses some theoretical sway over her. He gestures over at where Patrick sleepily waits for the Persian goodbyes to finish. “I’m sure Pat wants to get home ASAP.”

Laleh makes a face, one that plainly says she has no fewer than three rebuttals ready to launch, but then she frowns over at Patrick and deflates. “Fine,” she says, and Patrick perks up and rises to slip his shoes on. “But I wanna hang out with you guys soon, okay?” This last bit ends up more directed at Sohrab, who grins.

“As soon as I’m done settling in,” he agrees.

Mahmood jabs him in the shoulder. “Hit me up too,” he demands. “I’ll be moving up to your frozen little city in July, so I’ll be pissed as hell if I haven’t seen you at least once before then. And,” he pulls a pained expression, “my mom wants you to come visit. She said she’ll make you pakora again.” Mahmood nods at Darius, “You should come too. She loves having new people to interrogate.”

“He won’t want to come if you say that,” Sohrab says. Then he turns to Darius, wheedling, “But Darioush, she cooks very well…”

“How can I say no to that?”

Patrick squeezes past Sohrab and Darius out the door. “Laleh, I’m ready when you are.”

“Okay, gimme one sec.” Laleh darts off to the bathroom one final time.

“Thank you again for all your help,” Sohrab says. “It would have been very expensive otherwise.”

“Don’t mention it,” Patrick replies. He rubs his eyes and rolls his shoulders a few times. “Part and parcel to having a truck, you know?”

Sohrab does not know, but he can imagine. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

“Sure thing,” he says, his gaze tilted up to fix on a crack working its way through the ceiling. Patrick laughs. “I’m not sure how likely I am to need something from an engineer, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

There’s a rueful edge to his words that makes Sohrab feel itchy inside his head. The easy grin that Darius has maintained throughout this long goodbye ritual slips, just a tad. On Sohrab’s other side, Mahmood lifts his chin, his heavy brows drawing together over his eyes.

*

Sohrab drifts awake sometime around half past three in the morning, briefly disoriented when he opens his eyes and doesn’t immediately recognize the bedroom around him. The gap-toothed blinds hanging across the window sway in the fan’s breeze, revealing glimpses of a dark sky. Back in Cambridge, Sohrab would be woken by the tinny azan of Mahmood’s prayer app, a cheap replacement for the Masjid-e-Jameh. In the streets below, Greenwich Village shifts restlessly, drunk NYU students singing pop songs and cackling as they meander back to their dorms. Sohrab’s eyes slide shut, lids weighed down by lingering exhaustion. He floats away to the edge of sleep, lulled by the ambient noise of the city around him.

He can hear Darius, too, his low snores rumbling through the wall between their rooms, a small earthquake with every breath.

He falls asleep like this.

*

“Did you sleep well, Sohrab?” Maman asks over FaceTime, voice echoing over the tile of her bathroom. “You look tired, maman. It’s not too noisy there, is it?” The camera only catches her face and body from the nose down, her phone propped up on the bathroom vanity as she gets ready for work. She fixes the edge of her lipstick with careful swipes of her little finger. “You’ll need plenty of rest once your fellowship starts.”

“It was fine,” Sohrab says, words dragged out as he yawns. “Yesterday was a lot of work.” He keeps his phone carefully trained on his face, so his mother won’t see the wreckage of his bedroom, boxes torn open and still half full. “I don’t think it’ll take much longer, though.”

“Who drove? Darioush-jan?”

“No, his boyfriend.”

She hums distractedly. “Was he a good driver?”

Sohrab barely restrains himself from rolling his eyes. “Maman, it’s a little late for these questions.”

She sucks her tongue against her teeth. “Eh! Is it so wrong for me to be concerned?” She fusses with her curls, now more salt than pepper, fastening them to the back of her head with her favorite hair clip, a big violet clamshell. An old Googoosh ballad plays distantly in the background, the sort of thing she’s been listening to more and more often in recent years. “You should get him a thank you present.”

“I will.”

There’s a creak from the doorway, and Sohrab turns to see Darius peeking in, hand curled to knock on the open door. He smiles sheepishly. “Morning! I made tea.”

Maman’s camera feed jumps as she picks up her phone. It refocuses close to her face, her eyes framed by smudgy eyeliner. “Is that Darioush-jan?”

Sohrab waves him over and Darius winds his way through the canyons of boxes to join him on the bed. The mattress dips beneath his weight and Sohrab slings an arm around his shoulders, tugging him in close so they can both be seen. Darius wiggles his fingers at the phone. “Alláh-u-Abhá, Khaleh Rezaei.”

“Alláh-u-Abhá, Darioush-jan,” Maman says. The background swims around her as she moves through the Toronto apartment, the sound of Googoosh’s yearning growing as she enters the living room. “Thank you for taking care of my Sohrab. Are you well? How is your family?”

“We’re all good, thank you.” Darius pauses, thinking. “Laleh sends her love. And, um. I am very happy to have Sohrab here with me.” Sohrab ducks his head. He squeezes Darius’ shoulder. “It’s nice, not having his place be empty.”

Maman’s eyebrows twitch slightly and she smiles. “Bah bah! Your Farsi has improved,” she compliments, switching to English.

Darius balks. When Sohrab sneaks a glance over at him, he’s tickled by the blush making its way across Darius’ cheeks. “Not really, but thank you.”

“So modest,” Maman chuckles. “I won’t keep you two. Go have a nice day.” But before they can hang up, she adds, “Oh, Sohrab, don’t forget to speak to your khaleh.” The buoyancy in Sohrab’s mood immediately vanishes, his stomach cringing like he ate something unpleasant. “Okay, we’ll talk later. Jigareto bokhoram!”

“Bye.” He hangs up and sets his phone face down on the bed.

“Um.” Darius scratches his head, hair still sleep-mussed and curls fraying, his expression drawn. Sohrab watches him warily out of the corner of his eye. “At the risk of being annoying, if you call your aunt while I’m around, can you not tell her I’m here?” Sohrab blinks at him, and Darius flounders. “Once she starts talking to me she doesn’t stop—I know you usually try to cut her off, but it’s always hard to tell her no—and obviously I can’t tell her that I want to go, so just. Um. Please?”

And like that, Sohrab feels better, snickers sneaking out from between his teeth and his fingers curling into the worn cotton of Darius’ t-shirt. “I cannot lie to her, Darioush. She always asks, and I think she likes you more than me.”

Darius shoves at him. “Do it or else.”

“Or else what?”

“Or else no tea for you!”

*

At this point in his life, Sohrab has seen more than his fair share of Friends episodes, so he had some generic assumptions about living in New York. These had been systematically smashed to bits over the course of his several trips to see Darius back when he was still a student at NYU.

The reality of a shoebox apartment was perhaps the most staggering revelation.

Darius had snatched the lease on their narrow Greenwich Village apartment sometime in his junior year through a friend whose grandmother lived on the second floor. It perches on the sunniest corner of a building nestled between a New Age shop that smells of sandalwood and a Chinese restaurant that was a bubble tea shop when Sohrab came by in the winter, and a panzerotti place the summer prior. The natural light is good, and the location is even better. The business on the ground floor of their building is as good as they come: an ice cream parlor. Everything after those few items ranks as middling quality, if not as a source of active distress.

It’s somehow charming all the same. Darius once told Sohrab that a previous roommate had said its attractiveness was because of the exposed brick. Sohrab suspects the real reason is that every upholstered piece of furniture has the soft, barely-there fragrance of spilled tea mixed with Laleh’s magnolia scented perfume.

If asked, Sohrab would probably say his favorite thing about the apartment is the surrounding neighborhood, which bursts with an excess of good eateries, but he would be lying. Telling people his favorite thing about a home is the smell of its furniture seems too personal. Maybe even a little embarrassing.

Maman’s favorite thing about the apartment is its proximity to the local Bahá’í center. A ten minute walk at a reasonable clip through Washington Square Park leads to the only Bahá’í place of worship in the city that isn’t squeezed into someone’s home.

It’s a welcome change from the trek from his old apartment off the MIT campus down to the center in Boston, which would either take the lion’s share of an hour by foot, or a thirty minute ride on a bus that he hardly ever seemed to catch.

As Sohrab strolls through the puddle-strewn park, listening to music played by a street performer armed with a steel drum, he doesn’t miss those chilly walks across the bridge over the Charles River.

Late May in New York might as well be summer. NYU students and Villagers loiter around Washington Square Park, eating ice cream and flagrantly day drinking, enjoying the brief reprieve from the sticky humidity brought by the explosive thunderstorm from earlier that morning. A teen on a longboard swerves around a pair of scowling old women, two unleashed dogs bark and scuffle in the wet grass as their owners watch with defeated expressions, and a street vendor peels the plastic tarp away from their collection of cheap sunglasses and caps with local team logos.

The Bahá’í Center doesn’t look like much, its ground floor wrapped in a dust colored limestone. From a distance it looks practically indistinguishable from an office or an apartment building—albeit an awkwardly short one. Standing at a stout three storeys high, it's completely dwarfed by the mid-rises marching up and down the block. It’s a funny sight after catching glimpses of Judson Memorial Church a few minutes earlier. That church stretches out over a comfortable chunk of its block and its campanile towers high over the trees studding the sidewalk. It bears the appearance of a structure with dreams of belonging in Italy, with its own plaza and a throng of photo-snapping tourists.

But there’s something about the New York City Bahá’í Center that strikes a familiar chord with Sohrab. Tucked away on its little street next to a florist and half-concealed by a lanky ginkgo tree, the center feels like a secret. A well kept one. It feels safe.

Sohrab pushes his way through two sets of doors before coming to a stop by the small front desk occupied by a sharp-eyed administrator, who the name plaque identifies as Candace Njeri, she/her/hers. Her computer screen reflects in the round frames of her glasses, revealing that the task she’s so wrapped up in is a game of minesweeper, which makes Sohrab smile. She doesn’t notice him until he coughs quietly.

“Hi,” she says, straightening in her seat and swiftly clicking out of minesweeper. She offers him a sheepish grin. “How can I help you?”

“I wanted to know if there is anything happening for the Ascension?”

“I can definitely help you with that.” She scooches back in her chair, standing so she can reach for the small stacks of fliers piled at the edge of her desk. “Is this your first time here? I don’t think we’ve met before.”

Sohrab nods. “I am new to the area.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I tried to check your website, but it appears to be down…?”

“God, don’t remind me.” She absently picks through her selection of center literature, pursing her bright orange lips as she uses her fingernails to peel apart the pages clinging to each other. “I’ve been getting phone calls about that regularly, but the Local Spiritual Assembly is taking its time finding someone to fix it.” She blanches, then peeks up at Sohrab. “Not that this place isn’t lovely, but you know. Until the site’s back up, I recommend checking in on the Facebook page or at least signing up for the newsletter.” She hands him the fliers and a glossy brochure.

“Thank you,” Sohrab says, accepting the papers. “I will.”

“So I’ve given you some information about our overnight observation of the Ascension of Bahá’u’lláh, as well as our general programming. Potlucks for the feasts, jazz nights, that sort of thing. Friends and family are always welcome.” Her cadence has gone slightly robotic, clearly reciting something that she’s repeated more times than she can count. “For the Ascension, doors open at ten o’clock in the evening, and the recitation of the Tablet of Visitation begins at about three thirty in the morning. My name is Candace, and if you have any questions, you can always reach us here by phone or email.” She casts him a wry smirk that he can’t help but return. “Those still work.”

*

Sohrab walks to two different Starbucks locations within a four block radius before finally finding Darius at the third.

Darius has been waking up at five for the past three days, twice to fill in as a substitute teacher at a middle school somewhere uptown, and today, for his usual opening shift at Starbucks. Already eight hours into a nine hour shift, he looks ready to fall asleep on his feet. He manages to give Sohrab the barest nod of acknowledgement when he joins the line, before stooping back down to fish some prepackaged cookies out of a drawer.

A small huddle of people linger towards the end of the bar, eyes fixed on their phones, only flicking up whenever a barista appears to slide a new drink out for pickup. One customer is accompanied by a wailing child who looks like the devil incarnate; people shoot them reproving looks whenever the noise manages to crack through the selection of Top 40 Hits playing overhead. Even though the temperature outside is flirting with 27 degrees, the Starbucks is frigid, and Sohrab’s arms pinprick with goosebumps. The line takes its sweet time moving.

The well-dressed person waiting in front of Sohrab gets impatient with the queue and uses the app to jump the line and order a large coffee with three added shots of espresso. This seems like a questionable life choice, but Sohrab supposes that there have been days when he would have benefited from that sort of pick me up. Maybe. It sounds about as potable as a cup of gasoline.

The person with the screaming child herds them outside as soon as their violently pink drink appears at the bar. Their departure seems to soothe all occupants of the coffeeshop, one less source of frustration in everyone’s day.

“Do I have an eye twitch?” Darius asks when he meets Sohrab at the counter, shooing away the dead-eyed barista who mechanically greets him. “Because I think I’ve had one for the past thirty minutes, but I’m not sure if I’m imagining it because I’m tired.”

“Can that happen?” Sohrab asks, scanning the menu for anything that might sound potentially appealing.

Darius shrugs. “Pretty sure I’m going to find out one of these days if I keep working here. That’s normal, right? Are work induced seizures a thing?”

Sohrab glances back down at Darius and studies his face for any sign of spasms. He looks normal, albeit very exhausted. There’s a small spot along the edge of his jaw that he missed while shaving; judging from the growth, he’s missed that same spot for the past couple days. “I don’t think so, and you seem okay to me, Darioush.”

“If you say so,” he says dubiously. “Anyway, can I get you anything?”

“Oh no, you guys are too busy.”

“Sohrab,” Darius groans, “as much as I’d love to, I’m not going to throw down with you right now. I’ll make you something and you’ll drink it. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Awesome—oh my god, put your wallet away.”

Ignoring him, Sohrab pointedly puts five dollars in the tip jar and retreats to sit at one of the stools along the thin bar dividing the Starbucks in half.

Darius squeezes past one of his coworkers to get at the espresso machine, head bowed as he works. His coworker, a lanky person with lime green twists and a septum piercing says something to him, and his eyes drift up to meet Sohrab’s. They only make eye contact for a brief moment before Darius’ face does something funny and he averts his gaze, focusing back on the grounds he’s tamping. The coworker cackles and smacks him in the shoulder. Darius’ ears go flushed.

Feeling like he’s watching a private interaction that he’s not meant to witness, Sohrab looks down at his phone, which has been buzzing in his hand like an enraged hornet for the past few minutes, screen bright with a wall of fast-moving messages from his Canadian cousins over WhatsApp.

An iced drink appears at Sohrab’s wrist, the bite of cold against his skin shocking his brain blank. Darius snatches the drink back with a hasty apology, leaving behind a wet ring stamped onto the black table.

“That’s what I get for trying to bring it to you,” he mumbles, and sets the cup down again—a safe distance away. “I’ve got good news,” Darius says. “You don’t have to stick around for an hour for me to be released from my cage.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” Sohrab starts. He brought a book for a reason.

Darius waves him off. “No, seriously. Ant said that Soledad can come in early to relieve me, so I’m free.”

Sohrab casts a doubtful look over at Darius’ coworkers. The one with the green hair makes a shooing motion at him with their hand and grins, teeth spreading a gleaming moon across their face. “Are you sure?” he asks.

“That can’t be a serious question.” Darius pulls off his baseball cap and wipes at his forehead. His hair lies flat around the crown of his head, squished from being confined for so many hours. “Give me a sec to grab my stuff, and I’ll be right back.” He pats the table twice like he’s punctuating a sentence before vanishing.

Sohrab’s phone, still in his hand, buzzes and he instinctively glances down at the new message, sent privately by his cousin Mehrnaz.

The air feels thin.

Sohrab deletes the messages, but their absence doesn’t do anything to soothe the sudden tightness in his chest.

“Okay,” Darius says, back and raking fingers through his curls in an attempt to revive them. “All set to g—Sohrab?” He stops mid-step, brow furrowed. “Are you alright?”

Sohrab can feel his expression shifting, from whatever had made all the color drain from Darius’ face into something more normal looking. Something less alarming. Something fake.

“Yes,” he says, and it’s strange how lying like this hurts, but he doesn’t want to talk about this with Darius. Not right now. Maybe not ever. “I think I have a headache coming on.”

Darius looks uncertain. “Maybe you’re hungry? Do you still feel up to getting lunch, or should we get you home and figure it out from there?”

Stomach roiling, Sohrab slips out of his seat and slides his phone into his pocket. “I want to go home.”

“Okay, then we’ll do that. I think we still have some of the leftover Indian food at home. I’ll, uh, make more rice once we’re back.”

“Okay.”

Discomfort hovers over them like a poisonous fog as they walk home, Darius darting unsubtle peeks at Sohrab, his mouth pinched with worry. “Are you sure nothing happened?” he asks warily. “Or is it that—um, do you want me to drop it?”

The cold sweat that bloomed all across Sohrab’s skin in the Starbucks has long since warmed. The ebbing wave of anxiety has moved on to nourish the anger in his chest, which had grown dormant and forgotten of late. “Please leave it,” he mutters, and Darius nods even though he doesn’t look happy about it.

Light shines down on them between the swaying leaves overhead, perfect circles trembling across the pavement. Darius sidesteps a dead cockroach crushed into the sidewalk, unbothered and chewing absently on the straw of the drink he intended for Sohrab. Emboldened by the summer heat, all sorts of vermin have become daily nuisances, even in broad daylight. Just yesterday afternoon they went through a catastrophic episode attempting to shoot a haphazard stream of Raid at a cockroach that Sohrab had initially written off as a wayward Medjool date.

Sohrab sucks in a long, slow breath. Exhales. He reaches over and snatches the drink away from Darius, who’s been drinking it at a rate that promises a very serious caffeine high is on the horizon. He has to bite the flattened straw into a workable shape before getting a truly satisfying sip of the black Americano. Its warped lettuce edge digs into the side of his tongue. Condensation clinging to the cup drips along the side of his hand and down his arm.

He bumps shoulders with Darius. It’s an apology, maybe. Or a thank you. Or he’s checking that Darius is actually there.

Whatever it is, it helps Sohrab feel grounded.

He doesn’t end up taking any painkillers when they get back to the apartment. He does, however, sink into one of the cheap IKEA chairs at their cheap IKEA table and watch Darius’ back as he rinses rice for the leftover baingan bharta and dal.

*

“What day are you observing that holiday?” Darius asks from where he lies on the grass of Central Park, blithely unaware of the green stains already bleeding into the white of his t-shirt. A cup of half-eaten ice cream sits on his chest, slowly melting in cascades of mint chocolate chip. “I forgot again.”

Sohrab, engaged in a one-man game of keep up with his battered soccer ball, headbutts it, sending it back aloft. “It’s an overnight thing starting late on Saturday,” he says. “I haven’t decided when I’ll go, yet. The actual service part starts sometime after three o’clock.”

Darius grimaces. “I’m not sure I have the kind of mental fortitude to stay awake that long anymore.”

“Really? I remember getting quite a few texts from you at about five in the morning while you were in college.”

“Well, sure,” Darius snorts. “But that was under very different circumstances.” He sits up, nearly sending his ice cream toppling into his lap. He forgoes the little wooden spoon and slurps it like it’s broth. “And that one-way party bus ride to getting my stomach pumped was fully powered by what’s-his-face.”

Sohrab is pretty sure that while what’s-his-face (Gabriel, the guy Darius dated two boyfriends ago) was a driving factor in the amount of partying Darius did in his second and third years at NYU, he definitely remembers there being plenty of those early morning texts long after Gabriel had been amputated from the picture. “If you say so,” he says agreeably. The ball drops from the sky and he kicks it into a nearby tree. It ricochets off the trunk, flying at Darius who flails out of the way, grass stains smearing all across the seat of his shorts as he goes.

Darius flips his sunglasses up onto his head and twists to inspect the verdant smears on his clothes. Sohrab trots after the ball before it bowls through a nearby family of picnickers.

One of the little kids beats him to it, flaxen braids bouncing as they confidently reverse its trajectory with a push kick. The ball sails back to Sohrab in a crisp line, and the child’s family applauds their teamwork, welcoming the kid back with big smiles and praise and red grapes from a cooler.

When Sohrab returns to the little patch of sunlight that Darius has gone back to basking in, he doesn’t really feel like being outside anymore. “You doing okay?” Darius asks offhandedly. He’s been asking that a lot in the short time since they moved in together.

“Mostly,” Sohrab replies, and it’s not even untrue. “But I think I’m getting a little melancholy.”

Darius peers over the edge of his sunglasses. “That’s a very heavy feeling for a day as nice as this.” He pats the grass beside him in invitation.

Sohrab settles down next to him, then, after a moment of contemplation, stretches out on his back, the soccer ball held over his stomach. The clouds above form faint wisps of pashmak amidst an incredibly blue sky. The surrounding area of the park is filled with the sounds of children playing and ecstatic water fountains, and beyond that, if he strains his ears, he can make out the noise of traffic in the distance. When he closes his eyes and takes a long, grounding breath, he smells the earth beneath him, the hotdog stand a little ways off, the clean scent of Darius’ deodorant. Sohrab exhales, letting the soccer ball roll off his belly and dropping his hands by his sides. His fingers twitch in the grass.

“So,” Darius says softly. “Do you know what’s got you feeling melancholy?”

“Kind of.” He has increasingly vague memories of watching his parents singing ballads together in the park, their voices low and the sunlight catching on the stray wisps peeking out from beneath Maman’s scarf. Years worth of memories of picnics with his family, of dropping watermelons in nearby streams and fountains to chill for dessert, of watching his Baba slice them open with his favorite knife.

He opens his eyes and turns his head so he can see Darius. “Do you ever miss Portland?” he asks, which isn’t precisely what he wants to say, but it’s close enough that he trusts Darius will follow the path to its destination.

“Portland?” Darius lets out a surprised noise. “Maybe a little? But I think that what I miss isn’t the city itself, but the things that I associate with it? Like the memories and the people and stuff.” He lolls his head to the side, pushing his sunglasses back and looking over at Sohrab to meet his gaze. “Do you miss Yazd?”

Sohrab furrows his eyebrows as he thinks.

“It is similar to the way you miss Portland,” he begins. “There are many things about Yazd that I miss, but the memories have become somewhat bittersweet over the years.” He pauses, wets his lips. Darius waits silently. “I wish that things had been better. Back home.”

A robin lands nearby, regarding them cautiously with its beady gaze before determining that they pose no threat, and busying itself with pecking at the ground.

“Better, how?”

Sohrab draws a vague circle in the air above them. “Better like…less inhospitable? Darioush, I have many treasured memories from when I was growing up, but there was always this layer of exhaustion that never seemed to go away. Sometimes I start wondering what things would have been like if it wasn’t so hard to be Bahá’í there, or if my father hadn’t gone to prison.” He stops again, drops his arm back by his side. His eyes feel prickly hot, and he blinks rapidly. Darius moves closer, taps the toes of their sneakers together. Sohrab sighs. “I’m glad to be here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t also wish that things were better there.”

“Things were hard for you and your family,” Darius agrees, “and maybe, someday, Iran will be different and you’ll be able to return. If you want to.” He taps their toes together a second time. “And that would be awesome. But I can see how that would be kind of sad, too. Tolerance and acceptance are important, but they still don’t undo all the pain that’s already been endured.”

Propping himself up on his elbows so he can catch a glimpse of the picnicking family, Sohrab mumbles a tired, “Unfortunately.”

“And wishing for things that may never happen can be painful, too,” Darius says, his voice low, words gliding out on an exhale. He pulls his sunglasses back down over his eyes. “Especially if you hold onto them for a long time.”

Something about the weariness of his tone draws Sohrab’s attention. He casts Darius a sideways look, uncertain of whether to push the subject.

But before he can decide one way or the other, Darius gets up into a sitting position and rolls his shoulders, shaking off his passing gloom. “Tell me a good memory from Yazd.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “One that I’m not in.”

Sohrab lets out a short laugh, surprised. “I’ll need more than that to go off of.”

“Hm…” Darius scours their surroundings for inspiration. His gaze lands on the picnicking family. “Tell me a picnic story,” he decides, and the corners of Sohrab’s mouth twitch up. “A picnic story with your dad.”

Sohrab ducks his head, rubbing at his eyes. “Okay,” he says. “Let me tell you about the Sizdah Bedar when my father tried to show off fancy knife work and ended up going to hospital.”

It was a spectacularly disastrous day, in which all of the fruit they brought was rendered inedible and Baba left the emergency room with nine stitches and irreparable damage to his ego. It’s one of Sohrab’s favorites.

*

Being the uncommon sober person out and wandering around at three o’clock in the morning in a part of town speckled with clubs and bars and college dorms is an odd experience. One that Sohrab can’t help but still be fascinated by, even after several years of living among students. With most of everyone on their way to or from a party, he feels like a strange tourist or imposter as he passes people on his walk to the Bahá’í Center for service.

Neighbors and fellow students patrol the sidewalks, hunting for a taco truck that’s disappeared from its usual haunt over at Christopher-Sheridan, bumming cigarettes and cruising for the next best place to kill a couple of hours. Someone who can’t be more than nineteen sags at a table of Caffe Reggio, nursing a cappuccino as the exhausted staff clean and prepare to close up for the night. Willowy twinks in studded platform boots buy weed from a guy standing down the block from CVS. A person in a sparkly dress that clings to their curves shares conspiratorial grins with their group of friends, their faces lit by the blue of a cellphone’s screen. A couple rushes by, fingers laced; one of them smells like candy.

Then there’s Sohrab. Deeply sober Sohrab, who feels like a strange oddity among all these beautifully ornamented people as he travels alone, dressed in a jacket that’s wearing thin at the elbows and carrying a box of cookies he picked up at an Italian bakery staffed entirely by Russians.

Sometimes he wonders if it’d be worth it to try drinking, if only so he could know what it was that God was so concerned about. Even Mahmood, after swearing Sohrab to secrecy, admitted to spending a significant number of nights drunk while still in undergrad. He had described it as fun for a time, but ultimately not worth the hours spent vomiting or the intense paranoia that his mother would somehow find out through the desi auntie gossip grapevine and come driving up from Queens to smack sense into him.

Sohrab doesn’t think his mother would visit for the express purpose of berating him, but that’s because they both know that her implicit disappointment would make him feel far worse.

At this time of night, the last place open on the same quiet street as the Bahá’í Center is the taqueria across from it. Pastel paper lanterns dangle from the scaffolding outside the restaurant, and the smell of well-seasoned meats wafting out the open door is so tempting that it distracts Sohrab long enough that he almost overshoots his destination. The little vestibule of the Bahá’í Center still has its lights on, the single sign that there may be any activity inside. He squares his shoulders and enters.

The main space past the welcome area hosts a modest crowd of people sitting at rapt attention as an older person draped in gauzy scarves reads an English translation of a Rumi poem. The adaptation is very nice, but pales in comparison to the original Persian. But Sohrab keeps that to himself.

A soft cough at his side pulls his attention to the person who sidled up to him as soon as he walked in. “You made it,” Candace whispers. She beckons him over to where the refreshments are laid out. The table sags beneath a thoughtful spread of trays laden with sliced fruits, cheeses, and sandwiches alongside several dishes brought from homes in mismatched tupperware and reused plastic takeout containers. Sohrab and Candace stack up some of the extra plates and cups to make space for his cookies.

“Nice of you to bring something,” Candace says, already helping herself to a sandwich cookie crammed with a ruby red jelly. “I hope you’re prepared to take home a lot of leftovers in the morning.”

Sohrab frowns at the table which, while swollen with food, doesn’t seem that excessive given the crowd. “Do people not usually eat here?”

Candace snorts. “No, it’s not that. The people here are just overly generous. There’re maybe six more containers of stuff still sitting in the kitchen, and I can guarantee that there’ll be stragglers showing up late.”

“Naturally.”

She smiles. “And they’ll all bring things too.”

“It would be rude not to,” Sohrab confirms, returning the grin. “Did you bring something as well?”

Candace gives him an amused look. “Absolutely not.” Then she points subtly at a pair seated in a squashy loveseat on the far side of the room, bright-faced and wedged together like they can’t get close enough to each other. “But those are my parents, and they brought enough ugali and goat stew to feed a small army.” Her eyes are soft.

They lurk together in spindly chairs by the refreshments, drinking cup after cup of battery acid coffee and talking quietly in between items of the night’s loose program. Members of the group take turns reading poetry, sharing reflections, and presenting musical performances of varying skill.

More stragglers do arrive during the scant minutes before the service begins. As Candace predicted, every single one of them totes along a new food offering that gets surreptitiously shoved in the center’s tiny kitchenette.

With his eyes closed and surrounded by people who murmur through prayers along with him—the English words having become nearly as familiar as the Farsi—Sohrab feels quiet in his heart and in his head. Settled. It’s almost like when he was lying in the sunny park beside Darius, grass beneath his fingertips and Darius’ toes tapping his.

He inhales. Exhales.

Candace smells like the center’s strong coffee and some kind of citrusy perfume. It suits her.

*

When Sohrab finally leaves the Bahá’í Center at half past four in the morning, everyone knows him by name, he has a series of new contacts in his cellphone, and two takeaway containers crammed with leftover food.

Candace gives him a weary pat on the shoulder before sliding off with her parents into a Lyft rideshare along with a couple others heading up to the Bronx. “Don’t be a stranger,” she says, and fires off a text that pops up in his phone as the first in what he suspects will become a long correspondence.

The apartment is mostly dark when Sohrab tiptoes in, door creaking shut behind him and floorboards groaning as he toes off his shoes. He sets them down beside the pile of sneakers left behind by Darius and Patrick.

The weak rays of dawn haven't quite managed to seep in through the kitchen window, and Sohrab squints in the searing refrigerator light as he places the leftovers away to deal with later. Exhaustion tugs at his eyes as he trudges off to his bedroom, unable to muster the strength to brush his teeth or wash his face. He struggles to peel off clothes as he goes, shirt halfway off when he freezes outside Darius’ room.

He can hear it. The fervent noises from within. Sharp breaths and the squeak of bedsprings.

Sohrab pulls his shirt back down and hurries away, sealing his bedroom door behind himself as quietly as he can, his heart pounding so hard in his chest he fears it’s trying to escape.

*

He can hear them talking in the main room of the apartment the next morning, voices hushed out of consideration for him and his very late night. He feels disgusting, mouth tasting of swamp water morning breath, but he doesn’t want to see anyone right now. Least of all them.

The rattle of the electric water boiler in the kitchen promises a full pot of tea, and Sohrab thinks about yesterday morning, and how he spilled a half-full cup flavored with fennel, saffron, and cardamom on the arm of the sofa. It was an accident, but one that made him feel warm inside as he watched the upholstery go dark with moisture. It was almost like when he’d matriculated at MIT, and McGill before that; signing his name alongside everyone else’s to a legacy and tradition.

When Darius caught him half-heartedly dabbing away the mess, he blanched and started squawking about the price of saffron, which somehow made the experience radiate even more warmly in Sohrab’s chest.

Now he thinks about the hiccuping whimpers he wishes he didn’t hear, and squashes down wayward thoughts about Darius and Patrick and how even now, their attempts at quiet are anything but.

None of it’s malicious. Probably. But if it is, this is definitely backlash from any evil eye energy he’s been putting into this world—and he knows he has. That nicely wrapped thank you gift has been sitting on Sohrab’s desk for close to a week, and this is far from the first time Patrick has come over since he taped the final side of the wrapping paper over the buckwheat husk lumbar pillow. It’s gotten to the point where Sohrab wonders if offering the gift now would be more awkward than not offering one at all.

He bites the thin skin between his thumb and pointer finger, then flips his hand palm up and bites the spot again. He doesn’t need any more cheshm in his life than he already has. Things are way out of control and he’s barely moved in.

Sohrab sits up, drains the unpleasantly warm glass of water sitting on his nightstand and snatches the gift off his desk.

When he opens the door to his room, both Darius and Patrick look over from where they sit on the sofa, Patrick’s fingers plucking at a loose thread in the arm that has Sohrab’s tea stain. A positively ancient episode of Star Trek plays on the television, muted, captions dragging along as Seven of Nine tiptoes around the set in a leotard so tight that Sohrab's ribs ache in sympathy. Darius somehow has both of his long legs folded up under him like a praying mantis. His eyebrows lift, surprised, and he pauses the episode even though he’s seen it at least a half dozen times.

“You woke up way earlier than I thought you would!” he says, eyes flitting to consult the clock adhered to the wall with cheap Velcro strips. “You look really tired, so, uh, maybe you should go back to bed? Unless you want tea? I just boiled some water—”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Sohrab replies, half on autopilot. He foists the gift into Patrick’s hands, the weird tension straining his heart easing when Patrick stops yanking at the couch’s stitching to accept the present. “Thank you again for helping me move the other week,” he says stiffly. “I’m so sorry it took me this long to give you this.”

“Oh! Uh, it’s really no problem, man.” Patrick doesn’t seem like the sort of person who opens gifts immediately, so Sohrab nods shortly, deeming the conversation closed.

He’s about to make a beeline for the bathroom, when Darius snatches the edge of his sleeve, a strange look on his face. “What kind of tea do you want?” he asks, but Sohrab suspects this is a placeholder for a different question. Why are you being so weird, maybe.

“Whatever you want is fine, Darioush.”

Darius still won’t let go. Patrick watches them warily. “No, seriously.”

“I don’t know,” Sohrab says, and he can feel the flames of frustration licking at the backs of his eyes. “Anything you want is fine. Just.” He rakes his tired and agitated mind for literally any tea request, something to get Darius to stop pushing long enough for him to leave this room. He shrugs a shoulder. “Lab riz, lab suz. It doesn’t matter.”

Darius pulls a face at the non answer and Sohrab tugs his sleeve away and ducks into the bathroom, feeling even worse than he did when he first got up. He leans against the bathroom door, every heartbeat thudding in his skull as his vision blurs around the edges.

“Is he not feeling well?” he overhears Patrick murmur in the living room. “What did he say?”

“Nothing helpful,” Darius replies. “‘Full to the brim and hot enough to burn your lips.’”

*

Mahmood does a full double-take when he sees Sohrab emerge from the subway. “What the hell happened to you?” he demands, jumping up from the park bench he was slouched on. “You look like absolute shit. Have you been sick or something?”

“I haven’t been sleeping well lately,” Sohrab admits, rubbing his eyes. The past couple nights, while mercifully quiet, were spent in a continuous downward spiral that encompassed everything from concern about the ailing potted plants brought over from Boston, to anxieties about how much lab work and research he would need to juggle come the start of his upcoming engineering program. “My head has been noisy.”

“And you’ve been accepting that as par for the course, haven’t you?” Mahmood observes, eyeing him critically. “You know that there are a lot of supplements and stuff for this, right? My dad drinks one of those sleepytime teas every night. It’s kind of vile. Tastes like stale daisies.”

Sohrab snorts. “And you know what stale daisies taste like?” He briefly checks his phone before heading off in the direction of the movie theater.

Mahmood speeds after him. “I don’t need to explain myself to you,” he says, not even blinking. “But seriously, you need some rest or an industrial size multivitamin. You look like you did that one year when your uncle was in the hospital during midterms.” He pauses, hesitating. “Are you sure you’re up for hanging out?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Sohrab asks, his tone testy. When Mahmood shoots him a pointed look, he sighs, rubbing both hands over his face. “I’m sorry. I’ll be fine, I’m not going to faint.”

“That statement was not as reassuring as you think it was.” Mahmood shoves his hands deep into his pockets. He watches Sohrab out of the corners of his eyes, expression thoughtful. “Something’s got you really messed up, huh?” His heavy eyebrows knit together. “Is there something going on that I should be worried about?”

A short laugh slips out from under Sohrab’s tongue. “No,” he says, firmly. “Definitely not.”

“You’re really not doing a good job of being reassuring today,” Mahmood mutters. They come to a stop at an intersection, waiting as cars curve through a traffic circle. “On the very unlikely chance that there is something eating at you and you don’t feel like you can tell me,” Mahmood says, “maybe you should try talking to Darius?”

When Sohrab’s face darkens, he balks. “Or not?” He waves a hand vaguely. “I just meant that you two are really close, and he seems like the kind of guy that gives good advice.”

“I already said that there’s nothing wrong.”

Mahmood groans. “Whatever you say, Sohrab.”

The light changes and they make their way across the street, barely dodging a rogue person on a rental bike. They head over to Nitehawk Cinema, a small Brooklyn movie theater that looks like it was preserved in amber shortly after the venue opened in the 1920s. People loiter at the tables outside, enjoying ice cream purchased from the parlor next door, eating food from the theater’s kitchen, or idly flipping through their phones as they kill time waiting for their friends.

The location would have been an immensely inconvenient choice under any other circumstances, but Mahmood spent the night prior at a nearby cousin’s apartment. And although Sohrab tried to convince him to come out to Manhattan, Mahmood got his way using a two-pronged attack of bullying Sohrab into gaining familiarity with the Brooklyn leg of the orange subway line and luring him in with promises of the soul cleansing experience of eating a duck confit taco with tater tots smothered in queso sauce.

Sohrab was apathetic about the concept of a duck taco, but the cheesy tater tots were an embarrassingly compelling case. He agreed, but only after talking Mahmood out of his intended film—an older Disney movie that he knew Mahmood owned on Blu-Ray. It doesn’t make sense to pay so much for something he can watch at home.

The theater smells like popcorn and spilled drinks. They both pull out their phones to show their digital movie tickets to a bored-looking employee who takes their sweet time tearing their gaze away from their book to scan their tickets and mumble out a theater number.

“By the way,” Mahmood says as they head up the narrow staircase to their theater. “How are things in the new place? Is it weird living with someone who isn’t me?”

“It is delightful to walk around a bathroom that isn’t constantly covered in hair,” Sohrab replies, a small smile creeping across his face.

Mahmood blows a raspberry. “You can lie to me about your feelings,” he scoffs, “but don’t lie to me about the state of your bathroom. Darius has more hair on his head than both of us combined. Good luck convincing anyone that he doesn’t shed like a husky.”

Sohrab’s smile dims slightly, but he does his best to shove the weight hanging over his mind aside. He doesn’t do a very good job. “He does have a lot of hair,” he admits, “but he’s usually very good about cleaning it up.”

“God.” Mahmood holds the door open for him and they stroll inside the dimly lit theater. On screen, a clip from an old Godzilla movie plays as part of the pre-film screening. “I tried, doesn’t that count for something, Sohrab?” he whines. “You could just say ‘it’s good’ and leave it at that.”

“It’s good,” Sohrab parrots, picking through the rows until he finds his seat and slumps into it. When he looks up at the screen, Mothra covers the National Diet building in the silk threads of a cocoon. “He’s a good roommate.”

He’s not even lying. Darius is good at picking up his hair in the way that Mahmood never managed, and every time he makes tea, he prepares two cups.

Mahmood hums as he reaches for the menu propped up on their shared table. “Is his boyfriend there often?” he asks, tone overly casual.

“Sometimes,” Sohrab replies, feeling heat creep up the back of his neck. “Why do you ask?”

Shrugging, Mahmood says, “It’s nothing, man. I didn’t like him very much. I dunno if he was in a bad mood when we were moving you out or something, but—” He cuts himself off with an enigmatic sniff. “Anyway, it’s not important.” He scrawls his food order down on a scrap of paper for the server to pick up and slides the menu over to Sohrab. “Check it out, they’ve got steak.”

“People eat steak at movie theaters?” Sohrab asks distantly. He stares down at the menu, trying to will his eyes to focus on the letters and decipher the words they form. “Why?”

“Hell if I know. Welcome to New York,” Mahmood says with a huff, reclining back in his seat. “Is it bad that it sounds kinda good?” He slants a sideways look. “But seriously, is everything okay over there?”

“Of course.” Sohrab drops the menu and gazes unblinkingly at the movie screen. “Why did you ask about Patrick?”

Mahmood makes an uncertain sound, shifting in his seat. “I dunno? I didn’t like the way he talked to you.”

Sohrab licks over his teeth. “He was a little cold, wasn’t he?”

“He was!” Mahmood jerks upright and leans in close, voice conspiratorial as he gossips, “I thought it was my imagination at first, but when the three of us were leaving—” He gestures vaguely. “He had those salty eyes, you know?” he says. “If you don’t have a cheshm nazar or some other amulet to protect your ass from the evil eye, you better get one.”

“I will.”

Mahmood smacks Sohrab on the bicep. “You think I’m joking but I’m not. That guy has an issue with you.” He settles back in his seat. “Maybe he’s jealous or something.”

Sohrab’s entire body goes stiff. “Jealous?” he says softly, staring down at his hands. They feel both cold and sweaty, which doesn’t seem normal. “Of what?”

“I dunno. You and Darius are really close friends who have known each other for a long time. And those two have been together for like…what, two years?”

“Two years in the late fall,” Sohrab mumbles.

Mahmood nods. “Yeah. I’ll bet Patrick thought Darius was gonna drop that lease and they’d move in together. He probably got caught off guard when Darius asked you to move in.”

“Oh.” Some of the stress gnawing at Sohrab eases and he wilts bonelessly into the soft upholstery of his seat. “I see what you mean.”

“I mean,” Mahmood continues, “it’s not like that makes it okay for him to be rude to you. I’m serious, Sohrab, if he keeps treating you funny, you’ve gotta say something to Darius. It’s your name on that lease, not Patrick’s.” He snorts. “And for the love of God, get yourself a nazar.”

Sohrab rolls his eyes. “I’ll get one soon, inshallah.”

“I will buy one for you if you don’t get it yourself,” Mahmood threatens. “Don’t make me buy you a gift.”

The theater’s lighting dims around them as commercials finally begin, the volume climbing as the Nitehawk ad rolls. A pair of servers appear at the front of the theater, collecting viewers’ written orders as they patrol the aisles. One of them swipes their slip of paper with a perfunctory ‘enjoy the film.’

As they move on to the next cluster of people, Mahmood asks, not bothering to lower his voice, “You didn’t order anything for yourself, did you?”

“I didn’t,” Sohrab confesses. “I couldn’t choose.”

“Just as well,” Mahmood says, “because I ordered those tater tots for you.”

“Oh!” When Sohrab looks over, Mahmood isn’t paying attention, too busy lowering his phone’s backlight and enabling Do Not Disturb. “Thank you. Would you like to share them?”

He snickers. “Bad move. I’m not polite like you are. But, since you’ve so graciously offered, yes, and I plan to eat at least half.”

*

The ride home from Greenwood gives Sohrab some time to consider the past few days and the deeply unsettled feeling that’s been putrefying in his belly like sour milk. But even after the lethargic drag of the subway creaking its way across the bridge, with the late afternoon sun searing his retinas raw, Sohrab still finds himself at a loss when he disembarks the F train at West 4th Station.

He takes the short walk home as slowly as he can. He waits at intersections instead of jaywalking when there’s a gap in traffic. He pauses to look at shop windows and drop spare dollars into the cup of a homeless man sitting in Father Demo Square.

When he arrives at the foot of his apartment building, too few minutes later, he still hasn’t had enough time to parse through his thoughts. But perhaps this was the sort of thing that took more than two days and a few minutes to figure out.

“Sohrab?”

He turns to see Darius standing a little ways off, barely out of arm’s reach, a canvas bag from that big bookstore filled with groceries weighing down his shoulder. There’s concern on his face, but also unease. He says, “How was the movie?”

And Sohrab says, “Can we talk?”

They ascend the building’s narrow staircase one at a time, Darius leading and Sohrab following in his shadow. The blister on the back of Darius’ ankle peeks shyly over the heel of his shoe, glowing pink with every step. Sohrab thinks about when they met in Yazd, some ten years prior, back when Darius could barely maintain eye contact with his father. He thinks about how he loaned Darius his cleats, how both pairs must have been slightly too small and chafed.

He half expects them to make tea upon returning to the apartment; it’s always a good time for tea and it would offer some kind of task to distract them from the strained atmosphere hovering in the air like a gas leak.

But instead, Darius sets the bag down on the kitchen floor and leans back against the sink, expression tense. “So,” he says, carefully, “what’s going on with you? Am I crazy, or have you been avoiding me the past couple days?”

And if he’s being honest with himself, Sohrab should have known better than to think that someone like Darius would let something that bothers him continue to lie in its shallow grave the second it starts to smell.

Sohrab lingers in the doorway, swinging the bar lock into place as he toes his shoes off. He chews at the inside of his cheek.

He’s always packed his frustrations away to ferment like a jar of pickled vegetables, hoping that if they’re hidden for long enough, they’ll eventually be forgotten. But unlike with torshi, he neglects to release the growing stress from all those souring thoughts and slights. Whenever Sohrab explodes in a thousand shards of glass, he has no one to blame but himself.

Darius doesn’t ferment his emotions like that. Once something becomes intolerable to him, it gets dealt with.

Sohrab doesn’t want to have another jar of torshi shatter in front of Darius.

He rubs at the back of his neck and looks up at the crack in the ceiling. He says, softly, “The other night, when I came home from service…” He falters, struggling to excavate the words. “I don’t think you heard me come home, and I, um, overheard you and Patrick…” Sohrab trails off. He knows what he’s trying to say, but the words remain firmly welded to the roof of his mouth. He makes a helpless gesture, face growing hot as the silence becomes uncomfortable.

At last, he mumbles, “I overheard you two together.”

Darius’ fingers, which were furiously twisting the neckline of his shirt, go still. For a second, Sohrab thinks that he hasn’t caught his meaning, that he’ll be forced to actually say the words, but then, all at once, Darius’ face burns red.

“Oh,” he squeaks, mortified. “Um.” He drops his gaze.

It’s almost excruciating to see him this way, looking like he wants nothing more than to fall into another dimension, and Sohrab goes back to looking up at the crack in the ceiling. It wavers in and out of focus. His heart pounds hard in his chest, so hard that he can feel each pulse echo in his body. He stares at that crack, watching it vanish and reappear, and wonders if it’s grown since he moved in. He can’t remember. 

Distantly, Sohrab worries that his body isn’t working properly, isn’t distributing air to his brain like it should be, because this all feels suspiciously like a panic attack, and this seems like a very stupid conversation to have an out of body experience during.

“It’s okay,” he hears himself say, even though he’s not totally sure it is. “I know it was, ah, not intentional.”

“R-right,” Darius stammers. The kitchen floor squeaks beneath his feet. Sohrab can hear each of Darius’ breaths, and wonders if his own breathing is as loud in this too-small space. “I’m, um. I’m sorry?”

When Sohrab chances a peek back at Darius, his fingers are still bunched in the fabric of his shirt, and the flush that settled deep in his skin seems there to stay. It’s oddly comforting that he’s not the only one suffering through the bone-deep embarrassment of this moment.

Wincing, Darius says, “It had to be weird to hear that.”

“Please don’t worry about it,” Sohrab says. “It was a little uncomfortable for me, but it’s not a big deal.” He wets his lips. “We don’t have to talk about this any more.”

He doubts that he’s capable of talking about it further, so he hopes, desperately, that Darius will let the matter drop. The sooner he can forget about all of this, the better. For both of them.

“God.” Darius drags a hand over his face. “I guess something like this was always kind of inevitable, but I didn’t think it’d happen in the first couple weeks of us living together…” He peers between his fingers, dark lashes bending against them. Sohrab can still see the bright pink of his cheeks through the gaps lit by the single light fixture overhead, the blush lingering on his neck and dipping beneath his collarbones. “I’ll try not to have this happen again.”

And Sohrab yanks his eyes away. His mouth is dry. He says, “Thanks.”

And if he has intrusive thoughts about pressing his nose into that heated skin, or hearing those hiccuping whimpers in his ear…

Well.

That’s something for Sohrab to cram away in a torshi jar and forget.