Chapter Text
The space next to him is empty when he wakes up. Kalim yawns and rolls over, only to see the crib is gone. Worry flutters in his chest as he throws off the covers and stumbles over to where it should be. Even the carpet underneath has disappeared.
He paces, trying to calm himself down. There must be a reasonable explanation, he thinks. If something bad happened, there would be a mess, and there’s no way he would have slept through a break-in. He definitely would have heard something and woken up… right?
Halfway through a breathing exercise, he notices the bathroom light is on. He walks over and calls to the lone silhouette by the mirror. “Mimi, is Yasmin with you?” His voice sounds strange, almost like he has a cold.
Jamil pauses mid-comb. “Mimi?” he mouths. Kalim hadn’t called him that since they were kids. More importantly: “Who’s Yasmin?” he asks over his shoulder.
Kalim freezes. “What do you mean ‘who’s Yasmin?’ Jamillah, where is our baby?” His voice warbles as he lets himself panic.
Jamil sets his comb down and turns to face him fully. “Kalim,” he tugs the boy’s shaking hands towards him until he’s on his knees, “we do not have a baby.”
At the sound of his name, the tension drains from Kalim’s face. “We don’t have a baby…” he repeats, before collapsing into Jamil.
“Mind telling me what that was about?”
Kalim shimmies into his arms, like a hamster making a bed for himself in a pile of wood shavings. “Don’t laugh at me.”
“No promises.” He feels Kalim’s cheek puff against his neck as he pouts. “Fine,” he raises a hand to stroke his hair, “I won’t laugh.”
“So I had this dream—that was very realistic, mind you—where we were both girls. We were together for a while and got married and eventually we had a baby. And we had just spent the past week planning a little party because today’s her first birthday, but when I woke up and went to get her, she was gone.” He buries his face even further in his neck. “I was so scared something happened to her. You have no idea how close I was to calling the guards.” A moment of silence passes. “I can feel you judging me.”
Only a little, but he wasn’t going to tell him that. The image sticks in his head: the two of them, married, raising a child…
As if he could hear his thoughts, Kalim asks, “do you want a baby?”
“We’re eighteen!”
Kalim removes himself from the burrow he’d made in the crook of Jamil’s neck and sits up. He’s usually quite shameless after saying things like that , but this time, a blush paints his face. “Well not right now! In the future. Maybe?”
The question makes both of them shy; they can’t even meet each other’s gaze.
“...maybe.”