(no subject)

[kayip]

"Orhan, what's Newton's First Law of Motion?"

Orhan doesn't look up from fishing change out of the register, and the man on the other side of the counter doesn't look up from the cover of the newspaper he's reading.

"Uh –" counting the change in his hand – "the one about staying at rest or in motion unless something acts on it." He can hear Sareh flipping through the pages as he hands over the change, and the door makes a ringing sound that gets awfully annoying as he leaves. "Shouldn't you be doing your homework?"

The girl rolls her eyes and scribbles something on a worksheet. "You're not really a lot of help."

"It's been … a long time since I took physics," Orhan answers, eyes fixing on a woman looking through cereals. "Ask your brother."

"Yeah, and get a lecture for not knowing in the first place." The girl – huddled up on the floor behind the counter with her backpack and an open book, moves to pick up the backpack and try to find her calculator. "At least you probably wouldn't know the answer anyway."

The woman chooses a box of Rice Krispies. "Then do your Spanish homework, I can do that."

Sareh makes an indistinct noise as an answer, and is shortly interrupted from her search by her cell phone.

"It's Mom. She wants you to have dinner at the restaurant tonight."

It does sound like a step up from microwavable food, but the automatic response is, "Who will watch the store?"

As she hits the 'answer' button, "I think that's the point." Sareh stands as she answers her mother on the phone, and heads in the direction of the back storage room as the woman comes to the counter and puts her basket on top.

He feels a little guilty about being able to hear Sareh's conversation, even when she'd stepped into the other room, and tried to focus on piling the groceries into bags instead of the Persian words he could only weakly understand, anyway. But he doesn't need to know Persian to recognize her tone, which iss becoming increasingly nervous and agitated.

Sareh stops speaking as Orhan hands the woman her bags, and he can tell that she waits until the woman has left before coming out of the storeroom.

"Can you – help me with something?" her eyes flicker to a few other people browsing the aisles, and he casts a glance to them before following her, but stopping in the doorway. She looks at the floor instead of meeting his eyes.

"My – father was arrested." Her voice is quiet – he's never heard her speak like this – formal words and her voice quiet and she still won't look at him. He doesn't need to glance back into the store.

"I don't – why? Who –"

"They didn't say –" she leans back against the shelves. It's dark – she hadn't even turned on the light. "They didn't – just something about – his donations, they just came in, my mother didn't know –"

And before she's finished she covers her face with her hands.





~





It's dark, and that makes him more nervous than it usually seems to – he knows he'd know better than most if someone was watching him, but it doesn't help. Not now. He close the gate silently, and abruptly notices them – two, the man and the woman again, standing a little ways off in the now abandoned playground.

He walks forward, with his hands in his pockets, and before either of them can speak – "Where is he?"

"Where is who?" the man asks back, far too quickly to be convincing.

"You're not going to get me to do anything if that's it." Behrooz puts his hands in his pockets, but his eyes are forward. Somehow, despite the darkness, that matters.

It's the woman's voice now. "He's fine, and he's going to be fine –"

"- but things will get a lot worse for all of you if these guys start bombing their brains out –" the man interjects harshly, and Behrooz gaze grows colder.

"Yeah. I get that."

"So you've changed your mind?"

Behrooz finally shifts, willing himself to push any thoughts of recent dreams from his mind. "It's not just like that. If this is – real, than – you're going to deal with me."

He can tell they want to talk, without him being able to hear, but somehow they realize that no matter how softly they whisper that just isn't going to be an option. He can see their profiles against the dim light, glancing at each other.

Finally, it's the man's voice – "What do you want?"

And there's hesitation again, but he says it – "What happened after Pakistan?"

"That's off the table," the man answers quickly.

The woman cuts in before Behrooz can argue – "I lied. We can't do that." He doesn't speak, but he allows for a long, sort of 'I knew it' pause. But he doesn't leave. It's apparent, after that moment, that was what mattered.

"I want money." It made the most sense, and he knew it. If he didn't need to rely on them, it was ... well, it would be better.

"So you have a price?" the man asks, in a slightly amused voice.

"Please," Behrooz snaps, before he can stop himself, "Make me not want to do this."

From then on, it was mainly the woman who spoke.