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Chapter Text

Hasan is not an awkward person. He’s never suffered from the unfortunate mix of subpar social skills and self-consciousness that it seems to thrive on. In his view, there’s no person on earth worth feeling awkward for. He’s always thought it a shame it gets the better of so many people.

He never thought he’d be one of them. But as he pushes the beer Kenny drops in front of him away, he feels an unfamiliar kind of discomfort as four pairs of questioning eyes turn towards him. He shifts in his chair and, like a coward, keeps his eyes locked on the table beneath him. It’s embarrassing. He’s unsure how he’ll be able to move on with the knowledge he’s allowed himself to feel uncomfortable in front of some of the biggest idiots he knows.

It's still salvageable. He straightens up. Makes eye contact with Jacob, who’s sitting opposite him. “What are you looking at?” he says. It maybe comes out a little more aggressive than he meant it to.

Jacob, unfazed, says, “Are you pregnant or what?”

Hasan doesn’t know why he still bothers making jokes when the entire team have collectively agreed to stop laughing at them. Kenny, Beecher and Lambo don’t even crack a smirk and it’s a testament to how fed up everyone is that no one’s slipped yet.

Jacob’s jokes in and of themselves aren’t the issue, it’s his joke telling etiquette. No one should be able to get away with laughing the loudest and longest at their own joke. That’s not behaviour any of them should be cosigning. And really, this is for Jacob’s own good. What is it Hasan’s parents used to say: “it hurts us more than it hurts you.” Jacob makes some hilarious jokes sometimes and holding in laughter is no easy task. Trying to hide the fact that you’re holding in your laughter? Damn near impossible. Hasan once felt like he’d been about to blow out an eardrum from his effort.

This isn’t one of those jokes, but Jacob still bursts into hysterics the moment he tells it, just as shameless even as no one joins him, and Hasan wonders at the effectiveness of their plan.

It completely kills the joke, is the thing. It pains Hasan, to see that potential thrown out the window. Jacob barely lets a joke hit the ground before he detonates it with that grating, booming laughter. All he needs is a little restraint, but by the look of things, Jacob’s not picking that up any time soon.

“Well?” Kenny asks, when Jacob’s finally stopped laughing.

“What?” Hasan says. He’s well aware he’s making things worse for himself. The more he avoids offering an explanation, the more desperate they’ll be for an answer. He should have offered one the moment he sat down. Made himself the centre of attention. Announced it was finally time he become a real Muslim. Told them it was nice living in sin with them, but he would be setting on the road to salvation now. He couldn’t allow them to drag him down any longer. Overly dramatic and self-obsessed so that they didn’t suspect he meant every word.

It’s too late for that now, and something in Hasan is weirdly against the idea of being honest. It’s that cowardice again. The same thing that had him wrestling his facial muscles a moment ago, trying to remember how they usually rested.

Hasan doesn’t think Islam has anything to do with it. It would be easy, in this country, playing for this country, to begin to harbour complicated feelings towards his religion. To feel as though it was something to keep under wraps. To leave off the ice and out the locker room. To practise in the comfort of his home and to keep it there. But Hasan’s not a coward (not generally) and he would sooner shatter the Cup in a thousand pieces, and then eat it, before he let a bunch of random white men set the bar for how loudly he practised his religion. 

So, no, he doesn’t think Islam has anything to do with it. Or, it does. Of course it does. It’s the sole reason he’s not drowning in tequila shots right now. But it’s not the source of his discomfort, not the reason he doesn’t just say, “Drinking is haram, so I’m not doing it anymore.”

Other than hockey, Hasan can’t think of anything he’s ever had to try at. Not that he’s just naturally good at everything he does, there can only be so many Jacobs in this world, but because he’s never considered anything else worthy of his effort. It meant Bs at school. The occasional A. The more than occasional C. It means his social life begins and ends at whatever team he’s in at any given moment. Some guys, it seems like they have a whole network of old teammates, friendly opponents. It’s cute. But hockey players are hockey players the world over. He’s not about to keep in contact with an interconnected web of them when he can substitute them out with each other, like butter and margarine, and hardly tell the difference. Case in point: Kenny is Trojan from Juniors reincarnate. It still kind of freaks Hasan out.

It’s not like he set out for hockey to be any different. But it’s easy to try at something you’ve been told you excel in your whole life. Easier still when those same people tease a multi-million-dollar career if you stick at it. It was less trying, and more the path of least resistance. You can’t give up on something you’re that good at. No one would let you.

High on the list of things Hasan isn’t good at: being a Muslim. Hasan can’t shrug it off with everything else on the list. Everything else on the list doesn’t threaten him with an eternity in hell. Hasan was able to face up to that reality over the offseason. That makes it seem like an active choice. Hasan could have easily gone another few years ignoring it. But the combination of his grandfather dying and the subsequent nightly readings of passages from ‘Punishments in the afterlife’ was killer (no pun intended) and Hasan could think of nothing else the whole month of August.

So, Hasan’s trying. And unlike with hockey, he doesn’t have much faith that’s all it will take. And he’d rather not broadcast his failure to the entire team.

“I’m just not feeling it,” he says.

“Bullshit,” Beecher says, but he takes Hasan’s beer anyway and chugs it before he can demand it back. As if Hasan would ever drink from something those grubby hands had touched. Hasan’s sister once told him fifty percent of men don’t wash their hands with soap after using the bathroom. Hasan is not a betting man. (It's a morale booster, knowing there are some haram activities he hasn’t indulged in. Even knowing its less to do with his own restraint and more to do with there being more things forbidden in Islam than permitted – that’s an exaggeration, one Hasan immediately feels bad for but can’t bring himself to correct.) Hasan is not a betting man, but if he was, he can’t think of anything he wouldn’t be willing to bet that Beecher was part of that fifty percent.

Kenny and Jacob are still looking at Hasan expectantly.

“Seriously. I don’t want to wake up feeling like shit tomorrow.”

Jacob makes a Wrong Answer buzzer noise. “You don’t get hangovers,” he says. “Try again.”

Hasan does get hangovers. It mostly just means he sweats a little more than usual, but he does get them. In all the areas to win the genetic lottery, it’s a damn good one, and Hasan kind of hates Jacob for reminding him of how he’s doing the equivalent of ripping up his ticket and scattering it to the wind. Like his grandfather’s ashes. His metaphorical ashes: cremation is haram.

“And a beer won’t get you hungover,” Kenny adds.

“If I don’t plan on getting drunk, why would I sip on a glass of beer the whole night?”

“What do you mean?” Kenny says. He looks two seconds away from scratching his head. “You do it all the time.”

“Yeah,” Hasan says, because he does. “And I’m just now realising how idiotic that is.”

It’s like cranberry juice. Not a wholly unpleasant experience, but definitely one he’d rather not be having. Hasan primarily sees beer, and most alcoholic drinks, as a means to an end. Except, when the team go out the night before a game, and getting plastered is off the table, Hasan can be seen nursing a beer like everyone else. Herd mentality gets everyone, he supposes. A beer is placed in front of him, and he sees no good reason to waste it.

“Hasan never passes up an opportunity to get smashed,” Jacob says to Kenny. “Something’s up.”

“Who gives a fuck?” Lambo says. “This isn’t Murder on the Orient Express. The guy doesn’t want a drink.”

“We get it: you read,” Beecher says, before belching. He has the decency to turn away as he does, but that just means a poor woman walking by gets a mouthful. “Shit,” he says, as she rears back. “I’m so sorry.”

She gives him a thin-lipped smile. “No worries,” she says, but she turns back the direction she came, and they all watch as she walks down the corridor leading to the bathroom.

Jacob’s the first to start laughing, but it doesn’t take long for the rest of them to join him, save for Beecher, who’s gone mute with embarrassment. Hasan knows better than to hope this is a learning experience for him.

“Shit,” Kenny says. He gestures at a table not far from them, occupied by a handful of women all staring in their direction, varying levels of disgust emanating from them. “Beecher, why do you have to be such an animal?”

“No one forced you to laugh,” Beecher mumbles.

“And let’s be real,” Lambo says. “They would never have looked your way twice.”

Kenny ignores him, and Hasan wishes Lambo would tone down on the non-stop chirping. Just a little bit. Hasan doesn’t know if it’s as simple as Lambo not recognising that Kenny is more sensitive than the rest of them, or if he knows and couldn’t give less of a fuck. Or enough of a fuck to stop the one thing he enjoys more than anything, perhaps only second to hockey.

It's uncomfortable for everyone. Or well, for everyone with some semblance of social awareness, so, depressingly, only Hasan, Jacob and Kenny himself. There’s usually a moment where Kenny’s unsure how to respond, and an uncomfortable silence settles, one where Jacob tries to make desperate eye contact with Hasan, as though expecting him to do something. All the while Kenny pretends not to notice. Hasan’s not doing shit. Not when he knows Kenny wouldn’t thank him for it.

He's playing with the hem of his shirt, tugging on it with two fingers, and Hasan has the uncharitable thought that if he doesn’t want anyone coming to his rescue, maybe he should try being less obvious about his feelings. “Who’s doing damage control?” he finally says.

“At least you know it can’t be you.”

Lambo’s in fine form today.

“Hey.”

It’s the woman who swallowed Beecher’s burp, and Hasan’s stomach drops because she’s smiling, and he hasn’t prepared what to do in this situation. He should have.

“Hey,” he says.

How does one reject a woman? Hasan would have thought that was a question he’d have posed to himself at least once by now. He wracks his brain for any information he may have passively consumed on the topic, but all that comes up are contradicting pieces of advice on how to stay safe from men who hit on you outside gas stations. As interesting as Jamila’s podcasts are, it’s becoming increasingly clear Hasan not exactly the target audience.

He hopes he’s jumping the gun. But, and Hasan’s not being overconfident, or arrogant, or whatever other adjective people love to ascribe to good looking people who are aware of the fact they are good looking, he knows he’s not.

“We were wondering if we could get compensation,” she says.

“I see,” he says. He leans forward. He smiles. He wonders if Allah grants people who’ve temporarily lost control of their faculties a chance to cite extenuating circumstances. “We?”

“Me and my friends.” She plays with the ends of her hair and Hasan wonders if it’s a nervous tick. She’s pretty. Exactly Hasan’s type, really. Sharp features and the kind of square shaped face Hasan has always found structurally satisfying. Soothing in a way.

“And your friends deserve compensation for…?”

“Well, they had to witness it, didn’t they?” she says.

Hasan knows what comes next. Compensation will come in the form of a round for her table. She’ll ask him to join them. It’s only fair, since he bought them drinks. They’ll spend all night talking, until she gets tired of waiting for Hasan to ask her to come back to his place and does it herself.

This is day one of Mission: Become a Real Muslim. He can’t fail on day one. He doesn’t even know how much sin buying alcohol for five different people accounts for, but the sex too? If this is day one, how is he supposed to survive the rest of the season? The rest of his life?

“Hold that thought.” That’s never been a thing he says, like ever. But desperate times call for desperate measures. “I’ve got to take care of something real quick, but I’ll be back.”

Hasan doesn’t wait to see how she reacts. He’s out of the bar in a matter of seconds. Walks until it’s not visible to him anymore, then orders an Uber.

He will not, in fact, “be back”.

“Hasan?” he hears a couple minutes later. Jacob.

Hasan’s Uber is a minute away. He stays quiet and moves from under the streetlights. There’s nothing to conceal him but Hasan pushes himself up against the store behind him anyway. It’s closed at least, so he feels somewhat camouflaged by the darkness.

“Hasan?” Jacob turns the corner and immediately spots him. He laughs. “Were you hiding?”

“No.” He adjusts his posture to emulate one of a man waiting for an Uber. Which is what he was doing anyway. Technically.

“You don’t need to hide from me. Listen. I know what it is.”

“Know what what is?” Hasan asks. It says his Uber’s arrived, so he’s only half listening. It’s a relatively empty street, he would’ve noticed a car pulling in.

“You’re an alcoholic, aren’t you?”

“What?” That gets Hasan’s attention. “What are you talking about?”

Jacob takes his hat off and holds it in his hand. His hair is a mess underneath, a shock of yellow, already stirring from where it’s been flattened.

“That’s why you’re not drinking anymore, right? That’s why you left. Because it was too much being around all that alcohol. Don’t worry, I understand, and I can help you. I was watching this show about alcoholics, right, and they go to these meetings, and they have a sponsor that’s meant to guide them. You know, help keep them accountable.” Hasan decides to let him keep talking. The Uber arrives, and Jacob follows him in. “I can be your sponsor. I’ve never been an alcoholic, but I have a really good imagination. And I would rule with an iron fist. How’s that sound?”

Hasan doesn’t know what’s more ridiculous, Jacob thinking he has insider information for knowing what alcoholics anonymous is, as if it’s not common knowledge, or Jacob thinking he could be a help to anyone struggling with alcoholism.

“I don’t have a drinking problem,” he says, struggling to get comfortable with Jacob’s huge form taking up space beside him. He didn’t bother getting an XL, figured he’d be able to stretch himself out.

“That’s what they all say!” Jacob says, gripping Hasan’s shoulder. “They’re all completely in denial. Like, ‘I don’t have a drinking problem’ and then by the end of the episode they’re waking up on a random sidewalk five miles from their house.”

The driver catches Hasan’s eye in the rear-view mirror. “Music, or no?” he asks.

“No,” Hasan says, even though, he does still listen to music. That’s small potatoes. Big boy sins (big potato sins?) have got to be the first to go. “Thank you.”

“If we’re going to do this,” Jacob says. “You have to accept the reality of your situation.”

Hasan doesn’t say anything, and Jacob misinterprets his silence. “Oh. Sorry. This is a sensitive topic, isn’t it?” This time, he misinterprets Hasan’s silence as confirmation. He nods, makes a show of zipping his lips together, before immediately undermining the gesture by opening his mouth, “I’ll wait.”

So, they sit quiet. Not talking seems to make Jacob aware of how uncomfortably tight the space is, and he spends the rest of the ride repositioning his legs every five seconds. Hasan closes his eyes but between Jacob’s constant manoeuvring and the pressure against his knee, he can’t relax.

Jacob asks the driver to put on some music. Hasan sighs.

Hasan has barely settled himself on their couch before Jacob’s standing in front of him.

“So will you let me help you?”

Hasan’s tired. And it’s not like what he’s doing is a secret. He’s going to have to start explaining. If not today, then tomorrow. A week from now.

“Drinking is haram,” he says. “I’m not an alcoholic. I’m just trying to be a good Muslim.”

“Hey,” Jacob says, pointing at him. “There’s no rule that says you can’t be both.”

And for some reason, that makes Hasan laugh. “There is actually,” he says. “Have you read the Quran?”

“I haven’t,” Jacob says, all serious like.

“Okay, well. I have to earn my way to heaven. I can’t drink and have premarital sex and party and still expect my place to be secured because I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and saviour.”

“Was that a dig?” Jacob says. “Because you should know it’s probably wasted on me. I’ve been to church like five times in my entire life.”

Hasan’s probably lucky he didn’t say that to a more devout Christian. It’s just – he’s bitter. Has been since he was nine and asked Janine, a girl he only spoke to during English class, how often she had to pray and she replied, “Oh, whenever I feel like it, which is usually every night. I don’t get nightmares if I talk to God before bed.”

Hasan’s mother had started waking him up at the crack of dawn for Fajr around that time. He was never able to get back to sleep in the couple hours between prayer and when it was time for school, and so, it quickly became something of a struggle to stay upright during class. He’d began pinching himself to stay awake. As Janine spoke about how good the Lord was, Hasan had rubbed the raw skin that seemed close to blistering, and in that moment, thought there was no one he hated more. Which was ridiculous. Janine was nice. A little patronising, but that was forgivable when she always helped him with his sentence starters. She never seemed to run out, which in those days, Hasan had thought a direct result of sorcery. And she’d seemed to notice Hasan was having trouble focusing, in those initial weeks, and started to let him see her work (something she’d been historically cagey about) for him to model off of. He could never hate Janine.

“I can still help you,” Jacob says. He kneels down in front of him and Hasan’s too tired to ask him what the fuck he’s doing, so he just looks at him. “Nothing’s changed, really. You don’t have a drinking problem. Okay. But you do have a problem.”

“What would you even do?” Hasan says, and immediately regrets entertaining whatever this is when Jacob’s eyes light up. “Seriously. I give in and have a drink, bring a girl home, whatever. What are you going to do?”

“You don’t need to worry about my methods,” Jacob says. He grabs Hasan’s arm and attempts to pull him off the couch. Hasan stays put. “Come on. You should get an early night. The work starts tomorrow, and I will not go easy on you.”

“I haven’t even agreed.”

“Sure.” Jacob finally manages to heave him up and begins pushing him towards the stairs.

Hasan’s eyes are drooping at this point – and he wonders vaguely if the reminder of Miss Micheal’s classes triggered some kind of deep-rooted Pavlovic response – so he offers no resistance. But when Jacob follows him into his room, he raises an eyebrow. “What? You going to tuck me in too?”

Jacob sighs. “Hasan,” he says. “Hasan. Hasan. Hasan.”

“Stop saying my name, please.” It’s unsettling.

When Hasan crawls into bed, Jacob gets in beside him so fast and with such stealth, Hasan doesn’t push him out straight away. His face is so close, Hasan can smell the beer on his breath. “You still don’t get it, do you?” he says. “The sponsor/sponsee relationship is special. I’m going to see you at your worst, at your most vulnerable. And when you hit rock bottom, and fear you’ll never make it, I’ll be the light in the darkness.” He pauses, for dramatic effect, Hasan guesses. “I’ll basically be the most important person in your life.”

For a good ten seconds, they just stare at each other.

“This is probably good for like intimacy,” Jacob says. “Building trust-”

Hasan doesn’t let him finish this time. “Fucking ow!” Jacob says from the floor. “It’s not even carpeted.” But he takes the hint and leaves the room. He peeks his head in one more time, because of course he does. “Tomorrow?”

Hasan will do anything to get Jacob out of his room at this point, so he nods. “Tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

Hasan should learn to never underestimate Jacob’s commitment to anything.

He thinks it’s a nightmare. And it is, at first. A nightmare featuring Jacob standing over him, banging pots and pans together as a last resort because if Hasan doesn’t get up right that second, he’ll miss the game. And not just any game, but game seven of the Cup Finals. Hasan’s had this exact nightmare (minus Jacob’s clattering) so many times that it’s starting to lose its heat. Two years ago, it might’ve caused Hasan to shoot upright in his bed, wipe at a shiny forehead. Now, he just turns over so that he’s facing the wall.

But the clanging doesn’t stop. If anything, it’s closer. Hasan presses his eyelids firmly together. Refuses to believe he’s no longer in that half-dreamy place, and firmly back in reality. Jacob is not actually smacking pots and pans against each other. That would make no sense.

Silence, for a moment, and Hasan has a moment to be pleasantly surprised that ignoring his problems so often accompanies gratifying results, before his duvet, his skin, is unceremoniously flayed off him.

Hasan thinks he could cry. It’s been so long since someone’s woken him up like this. His mother stopped waking him up for Fajr once he turned fifteen. “You are a grown man, now,” she had said. “You need to learn.” She said it like she’d expected Hasan to be disappointed, but fifteen-year-old Hasan was a boy who let the tap run while he danced in the bathroom, haphazardly splattered a little water on his face, a little over his afro, in the interest of believability, all to avoid making wudhu. He was the furthest from pious a person could be. Probably less Muslim than a Buddhist in the Changthang. He’d had to fight so hard to hide the smile creeping on to his face while his mother waited for him to, what? Beg her to keep torturing him. There was no chance. “I understand,” he’d replied. And Aisha had stared at him a little too long, Hasan could no longer hold it in, so he’d let the smile take over, shaped it into one that looked reassuring. “Really, I’ll learn.”

He hadn’t, of course, and he was under no illusions his mother hadn’t caught on. Back then, he’d just been thankful she’d left it alone.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Hasan musters the energy to croak. He resolves to make it all he says. The more he talks, the more he wakes up. It was a tactic Aisha would use. She would ask him questions. Why was his room such a mess? Did he have any homework due that day? What would he like for breakfast? By the time Hasan was done answering all of them, it would’ve been easier to have taken the ten steps to the bathroom, performed wudhu, and prayed.

“Oh,” Jacob says. “Is it not time yet?”

Hasan doesn’t say anything. He just lies there, the cold seeping into him as Jacob fumbles to explain himself. “I mean, I looked it up,” he says. “Did I check the wrong source? Maybe a time zone mix-up?”

It’s so cold. Hasan pushes his face into the warmth of his bed. Cusses Jacob out in his head.

“It says here Fajr is at six,” Jacob says.

And that wakes Hasan all the way up. Not because of the truly impressive butchering of ‘Fajr’, although that could’ve been the thing to do it, but because it’s finally sunk in, why Jacob’s standing over him looking like he’s about to knock Hasan out with the cookware they used for yesterday’s breakfast.

In the past few years, Hasan’s treated Fajr how he treats prayers that fall during game time. He wouldn’t blame himself. Chalked it up to circumstances outside his control. Accepted that he wouldn’t be able to wake up without his mother standing over him, Jamila telling him to “Please, get up. Mom says I can’t go back to sleep until you’re up.”

Hasan wonders if this is revenge. The first week of training camp, he’d been hit with an all too familiar wave of determination and set alarms for Fajr every day. Each morning that week ended with Jacob standing in Hasan’s doorway, screaming at him to turn off the alarms that had been ringing nonstop for hours. Hasan’s ashamed to say that every time it happened, he would turn off his alarms, as asked, and then go straight back to sleep.

There’s no going back to sleep this time. Jacob’s still standing there, fumbling with his phone. His brows are furrowed, forehead creased. Pot and pan left abandoned on Hasan’s bed side table, and Hasan grimaces, because they aren’t clean. A yellow, gloopy substance Hasan thinks might be the yolk of an egg drips from the pan and onto a book Hasan’s been pretending he’s going to read for the past year.

It takes way too much willpower for Hasan to drag himself into a sitting position. He squints against the light. “You’re right,” he says, and it comes out weird and growly and barely intelligible, so he clears his throat and says again, “You’re right.”

“Oh, good.” Jacob claps his hands together. “Up we get then. Time to earn our way to heaven.”

“You’re praying too?” Hasan asks.

“Would you like me to?” he says, tilting his head. “Because I’m committed to my role. Anything you need, just say the word.”

“I need you to stop being so fucking obnoxious. That’s the first thing.”

“Um,” Jacob says, fiddling with the egg-yolky pan. “Can I ask that you stop swearing?”

“What?”

“It’s just- Okay, we’ll probably have to clarify a lot of this stuff later, But I’m like ninety nine percent sure swearing is not okay with God. The Islamic God.”

What the hell. Has this guy just been researching all night? Granted, figuring out it’s not okay to swear as a Muslim is probably not the hardest thing to guess. Hasan’s still a little thrown, and, though you couldn’t waterboard it out of him, a little impressed.

“You’re right,” Hasan says. “Again.”

“I’m glad,” Jacob says, and reaches down to pull Hasan out of bed. Hasan gets the feeling this is going to be a semi-common occurrence from now on.

Jacob doesn’t pray with him, but he does make wudhu. “This is so fun,” he says, as he lifts his foot into the bathroom sink. Hasan had told him not to do it there, where their toothbrushes are so near, to wait until Hasan was finished and do it in the bath after him, but Jacob wanted to do it together. He moved the toothbrushes into the cabinet above them as a compromise and Hasan was too tired to fight against it. “If I was Muslim, I would look forward to this every day.”

“There’s no time to look forward to it,” Hasan says. Not with five prayers a day to fulfil. Although, five prayers doesn’t necessarily mean performing wudhu five separate times. Most people don’t go to the toilet five times a day, or fart five times a day. When Hasan was younger, he’d try to hold in his pee, halt all bowel movement, for as long as he could, just so he wouldn’t have to make wudhu more than once. He sometimes worries if it’s caused irreparable damage to his bladder. Most sensible people probably make wudhu closer to three or four times a day. Still nowhere near rare enough for it to be something anyone looks forward to. “And nobody’s stopping you from doing it now,” he adds.

“Nah,” Jacob says. There’s a good-sized puddle at his feet, and he cheerily mops it up. “That’d just be weird.”

When Hasan enters his room, his prayer mat is already laid out and in the correct direction, too. Hasan tries to recall when Jacob would’ve had the time to do this, it felt like he’d been nipping at Hasan’s heels the moment he’d gotten him out of bed. He turns to look back at Jacob, who looks pleased with himself.

“You should really put this energy into finding a girlfriend, or something.”

“Maybe that’ll be my next project,” Jacob says.

Hasan’s hyperaware of Jacob waiting behind him as he prays. It’s not like he feels self-conscious or anything, Jacob’s seen him pray dozens of times, but it’s the first time he considers that Jacob is tired too. He hears him stifle a yawn as he goes down into Sujood, and– Hasan’s not about to thank him for something he never asked for. That’d be stupid. But he is praying Fajr in what feels like the first time in a century, and it is all due to Jacob.

He doesn’t expect it to last. He knows it won’t last. Something else will come along and capture Jacob’s attention, maybe that future girlfriend Hasan referred to, and Jacob will grow tired of keeping up with Hasan’s bullshit. But maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to welcome it for as long as he has it.

There’s a round of applause waiting for Hasan when he finishes. “That’s five points,” Jacob says.

“Points?”

“Fifty by the end of the week and you get a surprise.”

That kind of makes Hasan feel like a child, and he wants to protest, but he’s already decided he’s going to embrace this. And free rewards at the end of each week don’t sound half bad. Hasan just needs to shift his perspective. Look at Jacob as a personal trainer of sorts, and less like an elementary school teacher to a lone student.

“Five points!” Hassan bellows. He’s never had trouble hyping himself up.

“Um,” Jacob says. “You’re on three, actually. You swore twice and swearing is a minus one.”

“Aw, come on.”

“Sorry, man. I don’t make the rules.”

“You literally do.”

“Oh, yes,” Jacob says. To his credit, he does look apologetic. “You’re on three. I’m sorry.”

All throughout the car ride into practice, Hasan is uber-conscious of what he’s saying. He can’t afford to lose any more points. Not when he’s down to two already.

It happened at breakfast, when Hasan’s toast came out burnt. Again. He’s had burnt toast every day for the past three weeks because he can’t figure out how to set the shitty toaster up so that it pops out automatically and without him having to glissando the five buttons on the side. What is this, the nineteenth century? Hasan doesn’t have time to patiently wait beside the toaster until he figures its ready to come out. He’s got things to do. Things like brushing his teeth and finding appropriate socks. He shouldn’t have to worry about his toast turning to black ash in his hands like he’s a little Victorian child or something.

Hasan didn’t even know Jacob was there. Thought he was taking one of his century long showers. So, he startled when Jacob said, “minus one,” and all it did was make him nostalgic for automatic toasters that could make you feel like they’d exorcised Shaytaan out of you when they popped and presented you with perfectly toasted, almost evenly brown, bread.

Just before they leave the car, Jacob says, “You can make up for points lost by being a nice person today.” He cuts the engine and opens the door. “Just a thought,” he adds.

And though Hasan doesn’t appreciate the implication, he can pick up on what Jacob’s putting down.

“Why, Cap,” Hasan says. “You’re looking positively radiant today. Has anyone said?”

Cap Henney doesn’t take his eyes off Yoyo, who’s doing a passable-to-good job deflecting the pucks being pelted his way. “Not yet, no.”

“Well, let me be the first.”

Cap does look his way this time, and Hasan schools his face into one of deep sincerity. He’s unsure how it turns out. The one time he featured in a school play it was as the house that squashed the Wicked Witch of the East, and houses don’t exactly need facial expressions. Although, Hasan’s not sure even the acting skills of Denzel Washington would be convincing enough for Cap. “I want nothing to do with you and Jakey’s foolishness,” he says.

“I’m just trying to be nice,” Hasan says, but Cap’s done talking to him.

“What? Like you were to that girl yesterday?” Beecher says as he skates over. “Did you think you were being stealthy? Everyone could see you heading for the exit. You completely humiliated her.”

“Woah,” Hasan says. “She hire you as her spokesperson?”

It’s not like Hasan doesn’t feel bad, but Beecher’s making it out like Hasan called her ugly to her face and then told her to fuck off back to her table.

“I’m just saying,” Beecher says. “It was rude.”

“You know what else was rude?” Hasan says. “You burping in her face, but you don’t see me going on about it.”

“Minus one,” Jacob yells as he skates away from an unsuccessful shot on goal.

“Seriously?” Hasan shouts back. “That was literally what happened.”

“Just because something’s true, doesn’t make it a nice thing to say,” Jacob shouts in an out of pitch, sing-song tune.

“Oh, we got Ghandi over here,” Stevie says.

“Hey, Jakey. How do you feel about living, laughing and loving?” Linus.

Hasan rolls his eyes. They’re not nearly as funny as they think they are.

He wants to ask Jacob why he’s only pointing out the negatives (Hasan just offered Cap a beautiful compliment and he has yet to hear “plus one”) but Coach Bailey has started giving them looks so he restrains himself.

“It was so obviously insincere,” Jacob says when he asks after practice. They’re in the dressing room, and Kenny’s hovering, hoping if he eavesdrops for long enough, he’ll understand what they’re talking about. Hasan feels a little bad for leaving him out, but the alternative would be explaining. And– Hasan’s not doing that. Jacob neither, but for very different reasons. He thinks Kenny might try to steal his role, as though anyone covets the position of glorified babysitter. “It doesn’t deserve a point.”

“What?” Hasan says. “That’s not fucking fair.”

No one is a hundred percent sincere when they offer someone a compliment. It doesn’t make it any less of a nice thing to do. That’s the dumbest shit Hasan has ever heard.

“Wow, you’re really just flushing them down the drain. Huh?”

“It’s not my fault your rules are complete BS.”

“See, that’s not so hard, is it?” Jacob says, with this feigned obliviousness to Hasan’s mounting irritation that makes Hasan want to gouge his eyes out.

Hasan wants to tell Jacob he’s not doing this anymore. That it was a mistake to agree. ‘Agree’ isn’t even accurate. He practically got strong armed into it. But it feels too soon. Like when Hasan used to beg his family to play Monopoly with him as a kid but opted out, close to tears, the second it started to look like he was losing, which was never much more than ten minutes in. “I’m not playing anymore,” to the chorus of long-suffering sighs and pleas to come back.

Hasan doesn’t say anything, but some of it must come through anyway because Jacob sighs in the same way. “Okay, I’ll dial it down a little. I see now you can’t handle it.”

If Hasan was irritated before, it’s nothing to the rage that flashes hot through him at those words.

“I’m joking,” Jacob says quickly and Hasan honest to God think he sees panic in his eyes. He pauses with his shirt above his head. “Please. Don't take this away from me.”

God, he's so fucking dramatic.

“I wasn’t going to,” Hassan says. He was, but he can't let Jacob know that. “But we're doing shit differently from now on.”

Kenny’s still there. Fully dressed in his gear because he’s apparently incapable of doing two things at once. The two things being: listening and changing. Probably the most passive activities you can do in tandem. “It’s not cool to leave me out like this,” he says.

They didn’t need to sit on the floor. Hasan doesn’t know whose idea it was. Just knows he feels like an idiot standing in front of them, pointing at the life-sized whiteboard he didn’t even know they owned.

“I like the points system you thought up, Jake,” Hasan says. “We’re keeping that.”

Kenny pats Jacob on the back. Jacob convinced Hasan to let him in on it. Hasan agreed on the condition that Kenny keep his mouth shut He’s not in the mood for Twenty Questions. They watched ‘Taken’ last week, and Hasan had to answer so many of his questions he practically missed half the movie. ‘Taken’. Not exactly a hard movie to follow.

“We’re going to leave the swearing stuff out for now.” Jacob looks like he wants to protest, but Hasan’s not allowing him to talk either. “Just because I think it’s too much to track.” The scepticism radiating from Jacob is so strong, Hasan has to yield. “Okay, yeah. And also, because there are more important things to focus on. And this is already hard without me stressing about the words coming out of my mouth.”

“We can always add more things later,” he adds. “When all of this becomes second nature. But, not now. Baby steps.”

“Things like what?” Kenny asks, and Hasan gives him a warning look, but it’s the first time he’s spoken since they sat down so he answers him.

“Well, I’m going to have to stop shaving at some point. Stop listening to music. A few other things.”

“What?” Jacob says. “You can’t listen to music?”

“I’m sorry, man,” Kenny says. “But if that’s true that’s kind of fucked.”

“Okay,” Hasan says. What is he supposed to say to that?

Jacob’s nodding. He holds his hands up. “I mean, I didn’t want to say it.”

Hasan can feel himself becoming defensive. They’re not saying anything he hasn’t thought before. In fact, they’re being kinder about it than Hasan has been, historically. Albeit his criticism stays decidedly within the confines of his own head. He wishes Jacob and Kenny had the tact to do the same with theirs.

“I mean, there might be a difference in opinion,” he says.

“Oh, sick,” Jacob says. “Just take the opinion that says it’s allowed.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” Hasan doesn’t want to talk about this, but he can’t stop himself. “And it’s not like all music is banned.”

“Just the ones with vulgar lyrics?” Kenny says. “Like in Christianity?”

“No.” Hasan pauses for a beat too long. “Just the ones with instruments.”

There’s a moment where no one says anything. He takes that moment to add, “Except, there’s a specific kind of drum that’s allowed.”

“Oh, phew.” Jacob wipes imaginary sweat off his forehead. “For a moment there, by ‘music without instruments’, I thought that included a specific kind of drum. But now that you’ve clarified a specific kind of drum is totally halal, I’m one hundred percent on board with it. You know, I don’t listen to music for the piano, or the guitar. Not for the trumpets, or the saxophone or the violins. I mean, who gives a shit about violins? The only instrument that’s truly worth listening to is a specific kind of drum, so really, Allah’s doing you a solid.”

“Do you want to help me or not?” Hasan snaps. “I think I’ll add an additional rule.” He writes out ‘Keep all opinions to yourself’ and circles it. Twice.

“What about movies?” Kenny asks. “They have music in the background.”

Hasan sighs. “It’s probably a little haram but I don’t ever intend on reaching that level of religious.” He sighs again. He’s pretty sure that, in itself, was a haram statement to make. Not great to actively declare there’s such a thing as being ‘too religious’. To admit there’s an invisible finish line in his head, and that he doesn’t plan on striving to be any better once he reaches that point.

“Oh, thank God for that,” Kenny says.

“Last person you should be thanking,” Jacob quips.

“It would be so rough, just hanging out,” Kenny continues, and Hasan takes in a sharp breath at the unspoken ‘with you’. “You’re not coming out with us anymore but imagine if we couldn’t even have movie nights.”

For as sensitive as Kenny is, he’s not one to think before he speaks. It’s fine. Hasan’s not offended. It’s true: there’s no way Hasan comes out the other end of this looking anything other than a stick in the mud to his friends, to the guys. He knows this. He doesn’t know how to respond, though, so he forces a chuckle, faces the whiteboard, and pushes through the rest of his revisions to Jacob’s setup.

He’s still thinking about it when he’s lying in bed that night. Hasan doesn’t think he ever said he was going to stop coming out with the team after games. But Kenny’s right in that it would’ve been the natural next step to take. Yeah, drinking is haram but so is being around alcohol in any capacity. Frequenting bars and clubs, sitting at a table where alcohol is being served, hanging around friends who are drinking. None of that is okay.

He doesn’t know where the line is this time. The movie thing felt easy. Maybe because his parents never stopped him watching movies growing up. It feels so arbitrary when he thinks about it like that. He thinks about what Jacob said. About taking the opinion that music is halal. It feels like a copout. Especially when it’s not a very contested issue. There’s a clear consensus, and the odd scholar here and there with a differing view doesn’t change that.

But then, something isn’t true, or right, just because a majority believe it to be so. That’s something imam’s back at home were always stressing in their lectures.

“If you look at the past couple of centuries alone,” they would start. “And take a moment to note all the laws that have been amended, the paper with which you used to write down those notes, would, my dear brothers and sisters, reach down to,” here, a dramatic pause, “my toes. And I’m a tall man, my brothers and sisters. I’m a very tall man.”

“Our morality is unchanging.” The imam would continue. “What was right at the time of the Prophet ﷺ, and what was wrong at the time of the Prophet ﷺ, remains so to this day. We will not one day wake up and decide that it is okay, that it is morally sound, for a man to marry another man. Or a woman to marry another woman…” Right about here, it usually devolved into an overly dramatic tirade about the state of the world, which circled nicely back to general warnings about the Day of Judgement. That it was near, nearer than any of them thought. That they must not become distracted by worldly pursuits. That it was their responsibility, and their responsibility alone, to prepare.  

And maybe that’s what Hasan’s confusion is. A distraction. Or an excuse. Kenny and Jacob remind Hasan of how hard it will be to take that step into becoming a practicing Muslim and Hasan starts considering the flexibility inherent to interpretation. Starts deliberating ways to take advantage of that flexibility. It’s not a coincidence.

Hasan had always found it a little extreme when imams warned against having disbelievers as friends, but it’s right there, staring up at his ceiling, that the understanding arrests him.

Hasan has no Muslim friends. Not here. He barely has any back home either, truth be told. Never made an effort to make some. And Hasan won’t take all the blame. It was hard, with hockey taking up as much time as it did, and school, to establish much of a bond besides the general camaraderie present between him and the Habesha Muslim boys who lived in his neighbourhood, of which, Hasan must admit, there were many. But it might’ve helped if Hasan had had any interest to in the first place. And he hadn’t. Not back then.

He's got plenty now.

Chapter Text

Hasan was the first to find his grandfather’s dead body.

He’d been woken up by the heat. Too early, but he couldn’t stand to go back to sleep in his drenched sheets. He’d stripped the bed and tiptoed down the stairs. He’d get in a workout before he met with his trainer.

“You better not dump that in the washing pile,” Aisha said, and Hasan almost lost his footing in his surprise. How had she managed to startle him even as he was on the lookout for her? “Put in a load. Don’t wait for me to do it.”

“Yes, Emama.”

She had just woken up. It was easy enough to tell with the slight puffiness of her face, the dried sleep in her eyes. Her head wrap askew, and her bath robe pulled tight against her. She was glued to that thing. Hasan couldn’t understand how she could tolerate it in this heat.

“And bring Aba a glass of water. Leave it by his bed.”

Hasan had hoped he was asleep. Having a conversation with his grandfather was like pulling teeth. Addisu was fifteen when he’d left Ethiopia for DC. He knew English just fine, but he refused to speak it in Hasan’s presence. Refused to respond to it, too. Whenever Hasan grumbled about it, Addisu never failed to tell him he only had his mother to blame. She hadn’t taught Hasan Amharic, so the responsibility fell to him. It wasn’t working. The night before, Hasan asked Addisu if he’d seen the lid of their blender, and what should’ve been a ten second interaction ended with Hasan using every ounce of mental fortitude to restrain himself from swearing at his grandfather. Though maybe that would’ve been the thing to coax him out of his boycott of the English language.

And so, he was glad at first. When it appeared Addisu was asleep. But as Hasan set the water down, something felt wrong. He stood there for a while, trying to place the feeling. And then he’d realised. It was too quiet. Addisu was a heavy breather, even while awake. Hasan had begun to associate the living room with the sound. The lack of it was incomprehensible. Like a bee without its buzz.

He’d screamed for his mother. It took her too long to come. So, he’d called again and again. When she finally appeared, it wasn’t in a panicked rush. Aisha walked into the room slowly. Stood at the head of her father’s bed and looked down at him.

“Stop screaming,” she’d said. “You’re going to give me a headache.”

They stood there for a long time. Just staring. Addisu’s head lay at an odd angle. Hasan wanted to straighten it, but he was sure Aisha would tell him to keep his hands to himself. After a moment of deliberation, he did it anyway. Aisha didn’t say anything. He was not sure she even noticed.

“Do we need to say a du’a?” he asked.

“Huh?” Aisha said.

Hasan didn’t want to ask again. He knew the du’a to use upon hearing of someone’s death: ‘Verily to Allah we belong, and to him we shall return’. But he felt it would be inappropriate to say now. Was sure there must be some other du’a for when a person’s dead body lay directly in front of you. Still warm within Hasan’s old sheets, arm resting against the body of a steam train, curled fingers clutching at printed smoke.

“Oh, yes,” his mother said, belatedly. And then she reached over, mumbling half familiar Arabic words under her breath as she pulled at Addisu’s mostly closed eyelids.

After that it was the Janazah, and then the countless guests in and out of their homes, day and night. It was his mother walking around like a zombie and Jamila having to take charge of the guests. Her Amharic was better than Hasan’s, and so was her hospitality.

A week after Addisu’s death, Aisha spoke to them.

“You never know when your time will be,” she’d said.

Hasan had heard that exact phrase dozens of times that past week. At the masjid, in his living room, in the milk and cheese aisle at the grocery store. It should’ve made him roll his eyes. If not for the repetitiveness, then for the fact that Addisu had been an eighty-seven-year-old man with several health complications: many people could’ve predicted his time. Instead, just like the dozens of times before, it sent a jolt of fear through him. So sharp and so real, it lurked beneath his skin for a time afterwards, like an electric current. Hasan hadn’t known it could feel like that.

Aisha sat them down on the sofa. Pulled out a book titled “Punishments of the Hereafter: A Detailed Description” and began reading, entirely unprompted. Hasan and Jamila exchanged a worried glance, but they didn’t dare move from their seats.

They learned about the food in hell. Zaqqum: a fruit from a prickly tree that, when settled in your stomach, boiled your insides. And the water, so hot it melted the flesh from your face before even reaching your lips. When Aisha began describing a drink made from pus and blood (and other equally foul bodily fluids) the inhabitants of hell would be forced to drink, Jamila stopped her.

“Please, Emama. I haven’t eaten yet.”

Aisha relented, but the next day, she sat them down again. The day after, and the day after that. For as long as it took to finish the book. It had surprised Hasan just how cruel Jahannam was. Maybe it shouldn’t have. It was in the name, after all. Why expect Hell to be anything other than hellish? But there was a level of creativity there that disturbed him just as much as it terrified him.

He wasn’t surprised when he started getting nightmares about it. Embarrassed, yes, but not surprised. It wasn’t every night. Or even every week. But it was often enough to light a fire under Hasan, and for the last two weeks before he had to fly back to Hamilton, he’d started going to the masjid for every Maghrib prayer.

It was nice. Peaceful. Hasan had been surprised by that. The overwhelming feeling that he was doing the right thing. The surety that he would be rewarded for his efforts. It’d been almost euphoric. That’s the moment Hasan always thinks back to, now, when he’s considering skipping a prayer. When one of the guys send the address of a bar they want to try out, or a club they’re planning to go to at the end of the week.

There’s a masjid ten minutes away from their apartment. In the two years they’ve leased it, Hasan has been twice. Attendance at Jumu’ah, Friday prayer, is obligatory for every Muslim man, unless they have a valid reason for missing it. Hasan didn’t know what counted as a valid reason, but he was pretty sure running around on skates wasn’t one of them.

It isn’t Friday today. It’s Thursday and an off day before they fly out tomorrow after the game. Maghrib’s already started when Hasan enters the masjid, and he scrambles to get his shoes off, puts it on the highest rung, isolated from the rest. He joins the line of men at the back, placing his foot close to the man beside him, so that it’s touching. His shoulders too.

He wrinkles his nose at the strong whiff of feet that have festered inside shoes all day. He has to stop himself swaying back on forth. Urges himself to focus. It’s easier to do at home. But the reward is greater at the mosque, and God knows he needs to catch up.

There isn’t a khutbah after, so Hasan has no reason to stay, but he lingers anyway. He recites his adhkars slower than his usual rapid-fire pace. Watches the men form groups even as they file out. The older men will probably find a café to hang around for hours, the younger guys will probably go straight home, maybe invite a couple of friends over to play videogames. It’s not even 5pm yet, so some will be going back to work.

Someone taps Hasan on the shoulder. He turns and stares up at a child who can’t be any older than seven.

“Are you busy?” he asks. He’s got a notebook in his hand, and in the other, he’s gripping a pencil tight in that way only kids do.

“I’m not,” Hasan says.

The kid lets out a huge sigh of relief. “Okay, good,” he says. “I’m supposed to get twenty answers, but I only got five before my mom told me to leave the women alone. So, I came over here. She can’t tell me off here. But then, and you can’t think I’m a scaredy cat, but I was too scared to ask any of the men.” He attempts to whisper this last bit, but it’s not really any quieter than his usual volume, only airier and spittier.

“Why weren’t you scared to ask me?”

“You don’t have a beard,” he says. “The beards make them look growly, like a Gruffalo.”

Great. Even this little kid can pick up on Hasan’s lack of Muslimness.

“Does your mother know that you’re here,” he asks.

“What is your favourite colour?” the boy says. “You can only pick between blue, green, red, pink and orange.”

“What about purple or yellow?”

“Your favourite colour is purple?” the boy says, with a distinctly judgemental tone. Rich, from a boy scared of men with beards.

“No, I’m just curious.”

“It doesn’t matter. Just answer the question.”

“Okay,” Hasan says. “Red, I guess.”

“Good answer.” The boy jots something down in his notebook.

“What is this for?” Hasan asks.

“Mind the business that pays you,” he says, in the intonation of someone repeating something they’ve heard countless times before. “What is your favourite domestic animal? A cat, dog, guinea pig, rabbit, or goldfish.”

“Mind the business that pays you,” Hasan says, then laughs at the expression on the kid’s face.

“It’s for my tally chart,” the boy says, after a moment.

“So, this is homework?”

“Of course, it’s homework. You think I would do this for fun? I’m not a nerd.”

If he truly wasn’t a nerd, he’d make up the figures for the tally chart and be done with it in thirty seconds. Hasan doesn’t say that. Corrupting the youth in the house of Allah is not something he wants to add to his tally of sins.

“Does your mom know you’re here,” Hasan repeats.

“It’s fine. My uncle’s here.” Just then, a man comes out of the bathroom, and the boy points to him. “See.”

“Yusuf, let’s go,” the man says, drying his hands against his jeans. He looks to be a couple years older than Hasan. Solidly mid-twenties.

“But I haven’t finished my survey,” Yusuf says.

The man seems to take note of Hasan for the first time. “As-salumu alaikum. Sorry if Yusuf’s been bothering you.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Hasan says, after greeting him back.

“Yusuf, ask your questions.”

Yusuf asks Hasan three more questions while his uncle thumbs through his phone. Hasan chooses PE as his favourite school subject. Tulips as his favourite flower. He doesn’t even really know what tulips looks like, but he sure as shit wasn’t picking roses, or daffodils. The last question is ‘what is your favourite sport?’ but hockey isn’t one of the options, which is bullshit.

“I thought you looked familiar,” Yusuf’s uncle says, after Hasan answers with soccer. He pockets his phone. “You’re on the Welders.”

Hasan always feels caught out when someone recognises him. “Yeah,” he says. Most times, there’s not much more to say other than that. He likes the fans who get to the point, ask for a picture, an autograph or a video. From time to time, there’ll be a person who doesn’t want any of that. Who isn’t necessarily a fan but can’t resist letting someone know they recognise them. The conversation fizzles out immediately with Hasan’s confirmation, and he’s left wondering what exactly they gained from the interaction.

“Wow. Congrats, man.”

“Thanks.”

“You come here a lot? I’m here every Friday but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you.”

“No. I mean, I can’t make it a lot of the time.”

“Yeah, man. I get it,” he says, but Hasan can’t tell if he means it. If he can sense that it’s an excuse. If he now has a perception of Hasan as weak willed, or a sellout.

Yusuf’s been listening intently, at least that’s what Hasan assumes the crease between his brows suggests. He could be thinking really hard about how he’s going to find the fourteen other people for his survey. Or about what he wants for dinner tonight. Both seem equally likely.

“But, anyway. We need to get going. Maybe I’ll see you next Friday.”

“Yeah.” Hasan reaches his hand out. “I’m Hasan.”

The guy smirks. “You know I already knew that,” he says, but he takes Hasan’s hand “Ibrahim.”

When Hasan gets home, there’s a pair of shoes by the door. Women’s boots. He knows who it is before he enters the front room to the sight of Jacob braiding Gemma’s hair.

“Where have you been?” Jacob says, not looking up from Gemma’s head. He’s on his second Dutch braid, and Gemma keeps stroking the first. Checking the folds and bumps as if not entirely convinced he’s doing it right.

“Did you know he could braid hair?” Gemma says, still stroking. At this point, it’s like she’s looking for a mistake.

“Yeah,” Hasan says. Jacob tried to braid Hasan’s hair once. Last season, when it was longer. It was a complete and utter failure. Jacob braided too loose, so the pattern wasn’t distinct enough. It looked more like a frayed rope than a braid.

“My sisters taught me.” Jacob finishes up the ends, grabs Gemma’s wrist to pull off the hair bands gathered there. “They said if I wanted to hang out with them, I had to provide some value in return.”

Gemma laughs. “They know their worth.” She fishes a mirror out of her bag. It’s tiny, but Hasan guesses it does the job because Gemma says, “Wow, it actually looks good.”

“Of course it looks good,” Jacob says. Gemma gets up from the floor, dusting off her pants. When was the last time they vacuumed the carpet? Jacob might be right: a professional cleaner would do them some good.

Jacob puts an arm around her when she sits by him, and Hasan points in the direction of his room. “I’m gonna…”

“No, wait,” Jacob says. “Stay. What are you going to do in your room?”

“I need to call my mom.”

It’s true. Hasan does need to call his mom. Does he need to do it right that minute? No. But there’s no reason for him to be chilling with Jacob and his girl. Or whatever it is they are to each other.

He leaves his room when he hears the front door shut an hour later. He still hasn’t called his mom, which is something he only realises when he re-enters the front room, standing in the place he made the excuse.

“How’s your mom?” Jacob asks, looking up from his phone. He’s on the same spot of the sofa, like he didn’t get up, although Hasan knows he must’ve, to see Gemma out.

“She’s good,” Hasan says.

“You didn’t call her, did you?” Jacob says, eyes back on his phone, and how the hell does he know. Hasan could’ve called her. He had every intention to. There’s no reason he would’ve avoided it. And Hasan’s not a bad liar. He’s not necessarily a good one either but there’s no way he gave himself away with two words.

“I did.”

“Dude. Lying is haram. Don’t make me take out the scoresheet.”

Hasan sighs. “I was supposed to.”

“Guess it wasn’t that urgent if you forgot,” Jacob says, still scrolling through his phone. He does that when he’s annoyed but trying not to show it. Hasan doesn’t get it. What did he do?

“Do you guys not like privacy?”

Jacob finally looks up from his phone. “If we want privacy, we’ll go to my bedroom.” He sighs. “She thinks you hate her, Hasan.”

Hasan doesn’t know what to say to that. “Why would I hate her?”

“I don’t know, but I would think it, too, if I didn’t know you. You act like she doesn’t exist.”

“I’m trying to be respectful.”

“To who?”

“Both of you.”

Jacob puts his phone down. Readjusts in his seat. “It feels like you would give a cardboard cut-out more attention. I promise you; she doesn’t feel respected.”

“Why should I give her any attention?” Hasan doesn’t mean for it to come out sounding like that. He means to highlight his right to interact with whoever the hell he pleases. He feels like a kid at recess, being punished for not letting another kid play with him.

“Shit, man. I don’t know. That’s a real hard one. Maybe because she’s a human being?”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

“Oh, fuck off, Jacob. You’re the one who can’t decide whether you’re into this girl. Are you with her or not? I can’t keep up.”

“You’re the only one that can’t. I’ve told you so many times. We’re friends.”

“Who fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not friends.”

“I know you can grasp the concept of friends with benefits, Hasan. Come on.”

“Why are you fucking her if you don’t like her?”

“That might be the most hypocritical thing you’ve ever said.”

Jacob’s got Hasan there. “That’s different. I’m with a girl for one night and that’s it. Your little thing with her has been going on for almost a year at this point. You clearly enjoy each other’s company. Why don’t you just get together?” Hasan’s asked this question multiple times, and he can tell Jacob’s getting tired of answering. But it’s a valid question, and Jacob’s answers don’t satisfy Hasan. “You do all the couple things, just be a couple.”

“We don’t want to. It’s honestly that simple.”

They fall into silence. Jacob staring at the wall. Hasan staring at Jacob.

“Just promise me you’ll make more of an effort next time she comes round,” Jacob says, after a minute.

“I mean, I don’t know why you didn’t just tell me she was feeling like that.”

Hasan had noted Jacob’s attempts to push him and Gemma into conversation, but he hadn’t examined it. He would’ve never guessed Gemma was bothered by Hasan’s inattentiveness. If anything, he thought she would be grateful for it.

“It felt like you were doing it on purpose.”

Another silence. Hasan doesn’t know what that says about him. What is says about what Jacob thinks of him.

“You know, technically, I should only be speaking to the opposite gender out of necessity.”

Jacob doesn’t say anything. Just stares blankly at Hasan.

“But, fine. I’ll make more of an effort. I’ll become her new best friend if it makes you happy. Replace you, even.”

Jacob smiles, and Hasan can’t resist smiling back.

“I hope you know I’m risking burning in hell for all eternity for you.”

“And I am endlessly grateful,” Jacob says.

Hasan sits in the space beside Jacob and activates the recliner. He rarely does it, because it usually makes this screechy noise that Hasan can’t stand. He steels himself for it, pressing his teeth together and locking his jaw. It’s still awful. Even worse than bare feet rubbing against carpet. Way worse than nails on a chalkboard.

“You still haven’t told me where you disappeared to.”

“Are you my keeper?” Hasan says. “I went to the mosque.”

“Oh,” Jacob clutches at his heart. “Baby’s taking his first steps.”

“See, now. How am I supposed to know that’s sincere after you’ve just told me you’re fine with the idea of me in hell.”

Jacob elbows Hasan in the side. “Seriously. I’m proud of you for taking that step without any prompting from me.”

Hasan laughs. He’s lost faith Jacob will ever drop the self-absorbed mentor act. “You overestimate your role. I don’t need any prompting from you, for anything.”

Jacob elbows him again. Hasan rubs at his side. If Jacob does it again, he’ll be forced to retaliate.

“Who woke you up for Fajr again this morning?” It was less of a spectacle this morning. No pots and pans. Jacob just sat on the edge of Hasan’s bed and shook him gently until he woke up. When Hasan finally did, it seemed like Jacob was on the verge of falling asleep on top of him, he was dead on his feet. So, Jacob didn’t make wudhu with him like last time. He went right back to bed as soon as Hasan was sitting upright. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Hasan elbows him this side, and of course, Jacob can’t leave it alone. They’re locked in a scuffle for the next twenty seconds, Jacob trying to get Hasan in a headlock, and Hasan resisting, until, finally, Jacob gets bored and gives up.

“What did you do there?” Jacob asks, moving so that he’s facing Hasan, back to the armrest. His hairs a mess. Hasan doesn’t want to know what his own looks like. “At the mosque.”

“Just prayed. Met a little boy and his uncle.”

“Aww, you made friends.”

“I mean, that was kind of my goal.”

“It’s a good idea,” Jacob says. He goes quiet again. Hasan’s decided he doesn’t like it when he does that. “Hasan?”

“Yeah.”

“You know that, even if you became a monk and took a vow of silence in, like, I don’t know, the Himalayas. I’d still, you know.”

Hasan does not know. “What.”

“You know,” Jacob says again.

“No, I don’t. I’m not a mind reader.”

Jacob averts his gaze, looks down at the dusty carpet. They really should clean it. It’s never a good sign when you can see dust on a carpet. “I’d still be- I’ll always be your friend.”

Hasan waits for the punchline. “Ew,” Hasan says, when it doesn’t come. “What the fuck was that?”

“Okay, fuck you too, then,” Jacob says, resigned, like he knew exactly what kind of reception he’d get.

“Don’t ever do that shit again.” Hasan honestly prefers the self-absorbed mentor act. “It’s scary.”

“That really doesn’t discourage me,” Jacob says. He gets up, stretches. “Anyway, I need to call my parents and unlike you, I actually mean that.” He pats Hasan on the head as he leaves.

With Jacob gone, there’s no reason to stay, so after a moment, he goes up to his own room. His mom is waiting on a call from him.

Chapter Text

Jacob stops waking Hasan up for Fajr. It’s not all at once. He starts missing days here and there. Hasan has to wave away the apologies the mornings after. And maybe that reassures Jacob that Hasan’s fine on his own, because the missed days begin to rack up. And now it’s the beginning of December and Hasan’s gotten used to waking up alone.

It’s fine. He’s waking up consistently on his own now. He doesn’t have to depend on borderline traumatic awakenings (farting in Hasan’s face became Jacob’s preferred form of getting him out of bed toward the end) to fulfil his obligation to Allah.

“I’ve weened you off,” Jacob keeps saying. “Like a babe off the breast.”

It’s a good thing. Though Hasan would probably welcome it more if Jacob hadn’t also started drinking again. Hasan’s not stupid. There was never a universe where Jacob gave up drinking for Hasan. He’s not selfish, either. That’s not something he’d ever expect from him. Hasan’s frankly amazed he gave it up for as long as he did – at least, when he was around Hasan. There’s a definite chance drinking was happening outside of Hasan’s direct presence.

The timing is what’s getting to him more than anything. Jacob says he’s weened Hasan off, but it feels too fast. The wake ups stopped, and the drinking started up with not a space to adjust in between. Hasan knew Jacob wouldn’t play along forever. That doesn’t bother him. But all at once, it feels like the weight of all the prayers he’s yet to pray has been unceremoniously dumped on his lap. Five a day for the rest of his life. It’s the knowledge he’ll never get to have one of those perfect nights out again. Hasan knows you can have fun sober, but it just isn’t the same, and everyone, from Hasan’s Quran teacher to recovering alcoholic knows it. The abstinence thing is easier to stomach. He figures he’s had more sex than most Muslim boys have wet dreams. It’s greedy, really, to resent the fact he can’t have more until he finds a woman to marry.

Considering the severity of the sin, he really should feel less robbed, and more guilt ridden. Hasan thinks he would be, if he went out and did it right this second. But he can’t feel guilt for doing something he held no reservations about at the time. It’d be like a vegan beating themselves up for being a meat-eater in their childhood. Silly and pointless.

Jacob didn’t say anything about the drinking and the late nights. Now things he did without Hasan. He just started up again. No warning or acknowledgement.

Hasan had been sitting with his head resting on his palm, letting Kenny and Beecher’s bickering wash over him, staring into space. Or, not really. Because space was Jacob downing the shots the server had placed on our table a minute before. And if Hasan had been spaced out before, he definitely wasn’t when Jacob slammed his second shot glass on the table and reached for the third.

When Hasan had left an hour later, Jacob hadn’t joined him. Just said, “I’ll see you at home, yeah?” And Hasan had left. Jacob wasn’t there to insist on an Uber so he’d walked the mile home, feet, fingers and nose burning as he warmed up on the couch, the light off because after an age fumbling with the keys, he couldn’t bring himself to bother with the switch.

Kenny’s Jacob’s new drinking partner, Hasan’s gathered. They seem closer outside of that setting too. It’s not a complaint. Just an observation. It’s good for Kenny. Hasan can tell he feels out of place most of the time. Everyone can. The guy displays his thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes and dreams in neon. Hasan feels like he could enact a psychological exam on him just as well as any shrink. Kenny wants a friend. A real good ‘survived a war, two recessions, a move halfway across the country, and several health scares’ type of friendship. And, unfortunately, none of them have ever put quite enough effort in to make the cut. Who knows, though. Seems like that might be changing.

“Gemma’s helping me pick out paint for my living room,” Kenny says, when Hasan asks him about his plans for the weekend as they stretch. (Hasan doesn’t care, but Kenny asked him, so he feels obligated to return the favour.)

“What?” Hasan says.

“Gemma. You know,” Kenny stumbles, and Hasan doesn’t cut him off because he wants to see how he describes her relationship with Jacob. He settles with, “Jacob’s friend.”

“Of course, I know Gemma,” Hasan says, with a fierceness he’s sure Gemma herself would find misplaced. “How do you know Gemma?”

“Oh,” Kenny says. “She came out with us on Tuesday.”

“And you’re already furnishing each other’s houses?”

“Paint isn’t furniture.”

“I don’t care. Why the fuck are you best friends?”

“Why do you care?” Kenny says, leaning forward into his spaced legs. “Apparently you can’t even look at her.”

That was uncharacteristically confrontational from Kenny.

“You’re taking the side of a girl you’ve just met over a year long friendship?” Hasan asks in disbelief.

“No,” Kenny says, chastened. “I’m just saying.”

“I don’t know why she’s going on about it to complete strangers.”

“Jacob told me that, actually.”

Jacob’s confiding in Kenny? This is worse than Hasan thought.

“Well, then. I don’t know why he’s going on about it. We nipped it in the bud.”

“Did you?” Kenny says, tone all-knowing like he knows shit. “Because from what I hear, nothing’s changed.”

Hasan decides to ignore that. His hamstrings need his attention anyway.

“What’s that all about anyway? Do you, like, struggle to see women as people, or?”

“Oh, shut up, you smug little shit.” Hasan doesn’t mean to say that. Or he does, but not so harshly. The comment was clearly said in jest, but he’s done it now, and Kenny’s eyes are already wide with shock, or hurt, or whatever the fuck, so Hasan might as well finish it. “Jacob pays you attention for two weeks and now you think it’s fair game to go sticking your nose in my business?”

Kenny doesn’t say anything, just stares, eyes still wide.

“Yeah, exactly,” Hasan says, like an idiot.

He should apologise. Instead, he gets up and grabs his water bottle.

That was unnecessary. Really unnecessary. And unprecedented. Hasan doesn’t usually snap at people like that. He’s always hated it when people caught him off guard like that. There’s a humiliation in the surprise, in the uncertainty of how to react. He should apologise.

So he goes back. Plops himself down beside Kenny, who watches his every move like some kind of fearful gazelle.

“Chill out. I’m not going to literally eat you.”

Kenny continues to stare.

“Look, I’m sorry. Okay?”

Kenny doesn’t say anything.

“Okay?”

“You can’t force me to accept your apology.”

“Oh, come on. Did I fuck your girlfriend, or did I tell you to stay out of my shit?”

“Yeah, gloss over the part where you called me Jacob’s bitch.”

“I didn’t say that!”

“Might as well have,” Kenny says, then turns away, as if to signal the end of the conversation.

“Kenny, come on. You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then how did you mean it?”

Hasan lets that stay unanswered while he figures out another angle to come from. Kenny’s still facing away. Beecher’s stretching two yards over and he looks like he might start shuffling down towards him.

“Lambo’s said so much worse, you can’t not forgive me.”

“Hasan, come on. You know I don’t like Lambo.”

That’s when Hasan starts to feel bad. Kenny’s been a target for disrespect as long as Hasan’s known him. Probably longer. Hasan’s seen a lot of people take shots at him, watched Kenny absorb them, no snap back, but he’s never taken one himself. And Kenny won’t allow it to become a repeated behaviour. Not from a friend.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, but if that wasn’t enough before, it won’t be now, so he adds. “Can you imagine anyone being Jacob’s bitch?”

Kenny doesn’t say anything.

“Yeah, exactly. Shit doesn’t compute.”

“So does that mean Jacob’s your bitch?”

“Kenny, there are such things as equal partnerships.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

It’s coming up to puck drop, and Hasan is the most stretched he’s ever been in his life. “So, we’re good?” he asks.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Angsty-teenage-esque response aside, Hasan knows he’s been forgiven. It’s Gemma he’s left to stew over. He’s been making an effort the past few weeks. Jacob has reassured him he’s noticed, but apparently, he’s just been lying to him, like he’s a four-year-old who needs to be told their attempt at a family portrait is remarkable when it’s barely even recognisable as one, lest they never pick up a pencil to draw ever again.

Hasan cannot begin to describe how awkward it is trying to make conversation with someone who knows you’ve been forced into making conversation with them. Who knows that you know that they know you’ve been forced to make conversation with them. Hasan is not an awkward person, and he will never allow himself to become one. But Gemma has forced him to admit that some situations are inherently awkward, and that in those situations, no amount of confidence or raucousness can act as a salve.

He's still thinking about it after the game. A win, but just barely. He took two pucks on the exact same spot on his thigh, and it hurts like crazy.

“Awe, poor baby,” Jacob says, when Hasan complains to him. “Let’s get some ice on it and then we’ll get you home, okay?” It’s rare that the team don’t go out after a win, but after the streak they’ve been on, a little fatigue is to be expected. “There’s this new show on Apple TV I’ve been wanting to start. Bought the subscription like a month ago.”

“Maybe another time. I’m hanging with Ibrahim and the guys tonight.”

“Oh,” Jacob says, like he’s surprised. Like Hasan’s hung out with them multiple times now. “No worries. I’ll get Kenny to watch it with me.”

“Seriously?”

“What?”

“I said I’ll watch it with you some other time.”

“Dude. It’s not a big deal. You can catch up with us if you don’t wanna miss out.”

“Okay,” Hasan says. He can’t explain his anger. It’s too much too fast. When he gets like this, he’s almost always in the wrong. Almost always overreacting. So, he forces himself to relax. Jacob’s right, it’s not a big deal. Hasan won’t be upset about this if he doesn’t allow himself to be. Jacob is flesh and blood, like himself. Losing time with him shouldn’t warrant such a strong reaction. Framed like this, the rest of his anger is easy to let go of. “Yeah, sure. Let me know if it’s good.”

Ibrahim and his friends are fun to hang out with. Every one of them are talkers, and Hasan, who never usually has to wait to share whatever thought enters his mind at any given moment, has found it hard to adapt to. It’s not a problem today. He’s in his head. Thinking too much about Jacob and Kenny and Gemma. He lets their chatter wash over him, and it surprises him how relaxing it is. He figures he’ll be able to spend the night like that, go home without uttering a single sentence with over five words. After all, he barely knows these guys. It’s his first time meeting some of them. It’s like Ibrahim’s friend group is constantly subbing in and out. It’s hard to believe one guy knows so many people.

But towards the end of the night, Ibrahim draws attention to it. “What’s up with you, man?” he says. “Why are you being so quiet?”

Hasan plans on giving a noncommittal answer. He’s tired. His head hurts. Both are true and both would probably be readily accepted. But there’s an overwhelming urge, Hasan doesn’t know where it’s coming from, maybe it’s from listening to these guys aggressively overshare (Hasan did not need to hear about that one guy’s haemorrhoids), to get some shit off his chest.

Hasan would rather place curling irons between his toes than share his muddled feelings about Kenny and Jacob, so he talks about Gemma instead. He talks for a long time. Probably includes too many details. But he’s never interrupted, and when he’s done, a few of the guys exchange looks.

“See, this is what happens when you befriend kuffar,” one guy, Hasan thinks his name is Isaaq, says. “There’s not only opportunity to sin, there’s also pressure.”

Hasan learned very quickly these guys are on another level, hell, another plane, when it comes to how practicing they are. They have debates over the right way to incorporate a rakat forgotten during salah, about whether gelatin counts as the animal it derived from, over when it’s appropriate to combine salah when travelling. All things Hasan had never even thought about.

Hasan knew the reception he’d get when he told the story. Now that he’s getting it, even though the vindication is what he wanted, he regrets telling it.

“Why does he even want you to be friends with his girl?” Another guy says. This one, Hasan’s never seen before.

“She’s not his girl. And he just wants us all to get along, I guess.”

“It’s degeneracy. And he wants you to partake in it.” This from another guy Hasan doesn’t know.

“I don’t think so.”

“Next, he’ll be mad you don’t want to be their third,” Isaaq says. Everyone but Hasan laughs at that. He’s really wishing he had just stayed quiet.

“You wanted our advice but now you seem mad,” Ibrahim says.

“This isn’t advice, it’s just shit-talk.”

“Okay,” Ibrahim says. “Tell Jacob free mixing is haram. If he still has a problem after that, you tell him you answer to Allah and not to him.”

Hasan doesn’t take the advice. Of course he doesn’t. Hasan admires their dedication, their strong faith. But he’s not there yet. He’s only just become consistent with his prayers, and that has taken all of his focus. Abstaining from sex and drink is hard enough, he thinks if he restricted himself anymore, he’d go right back to where he was at six months ago.

Jacob understands this more than any of them. If Hasan did take Ibrahim’s advice, he’d call bullshit immediately. Point to all the instances Hasan shot the shit with the social media manager or hung around in the team doctor’s office.

Ibrahim’s advice isn’t actionable. Not in the least. But that vindication Hasan was seeking still lurks, and even though he wishes he had never said anything, in the grand scheme of things, the grand scheme being hellfire and Allah’s wrath, the Gemma thing feels like a non-issue in a way it hadn’t before.

When Hasan gets home, Jacob’s lying on his back on the sofa, the TV still glowing but Kenny nowhere to be seen.

Jacob jumps up when he sees him. “Oh, how I’ve missed you,” he says, speeding over and placing a wet kiss on Hasan’s forehead. “Kenny does not know how to watch TV.”

Hasan wipes his forehead and swipes it on Jacob’s sleeve. “I could’ve told you that.”

“God, he never shuts up.” Jacob stares up at the ceiling. “Will you finish it with me? I’m willing to start over.”

“I don’t know, man. It’s not nice being second choice.”

“What are you talking about? You were my first choice. You always are.”

“This wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so eager to replace me,” Hasan says, dropping into the armchair.

“Are you seriously jealous of Kenny?” Jacob asks, “Of all people.”

“First of all, I don’t like what you’re implying about our friend, he’s a perfectly adequate person to feel jealous of. And secondly, if anything, what’s ridiculous is the fact that you think your worth feeling jealous over.”

“I don’t mind what you tell yourself, as long as you watch the show with me.”

“No.”

Jacob whips around. “After all I’ve done for you? All the early mornings getting your ass out of bed and in front of God. All the nights I didn’t consume a drop of alcohol. No reciprocity? None?”

“Well, you’ve stopped now, haven’t you?”

Jacob goes silent, and Hasan regrets saying anything. He was joking. They were joking.

“I feel bad about that.”

“You didn’t warn me.” Shut up. What was he saying?

“I know.”

“I don’t know. It was hard. It’s hard.”

“Yeah.”

“On my own. Without you.”

Hasan can’t look at Jacob. He’s staring at his hands, which are clasped tightly to curb any urges to wring them. He can feel Jacob’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t look up.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been shit at this.”

He hasn’t been, but Hasan doesn’t contradict him.

“I still haven’t gotten you a single surprise.”

“Eh, I knew you weren’t being serious when you said that,” Hasan says, meeting Jacob’s eyes.

Jacob smiles. It’s devoid of any of his usual sarcasm, and over exaggerated peppiness or the press of his lips that tells you he’s making fun of you. It’s so sweet, and for a moment, Hasan can’t handle it. It’s like seeing someone else in someone he knows so well. A possession of sorts. Or a reverse possession, because, even just meeting him, Hasan knows this Jacob is the purest version of him.

“Is Kenny a better drinking partner than watching partner?” Hasan says.

“Equally awful as both, I wasn’t joking when I said I’ve missed you terribly.”

Hasan smiles too. He can’t help himself. Even as he cringes at the earnestness.

Jacob smiles wider. “Well?”

“What?”

“And me? Have you missed me terribly?”

“No.”

“Figured it was a long shot. Oh, well. Baby steps, I guess.”

Hasan stands up.

“Wait, where are you going. What about the show.”

“Jacob, it’s midnight.”

“So?”

“And I didn’t even agree to watch it with you.”

“Hasan, what the fuck? I basically just declared my undying love for you and you’re blowing me off?”

Hasan sighs. “Fine, I’ll watch it with you. Just not today.”

Jacob grins. “That’s all I wanted.”

Chapter Text

Hasan doesn’t mean to eavesdrop. If he was ever a person who delighted in that kind of behaviour, the victims of the act definitely wouldn’t be Jacob and Gemma. If he wanted to hear about the War of the Roses, well, he doesn’t. With how Jacob talks about the two boys in the tower, you would think that summer in 1483 was the first and only time a couple of children had been misplaced. The sole case involving missing persons recorded in history. 

The point is, Hasan isn’t interested in their near incoherent ramblings in the best of times. And he sure as hell wouldn’t be depriving himself of oxygen, contorting his feet at unnatural angles, and forcing down the burps from a diet coke he’d downed just seconds before. But Hasan heard his name, and he doesn’t know anyone who would be able to walk away from that.

It doesn’t stop him feeling guilty. He can’t help it, knowing they had no chance. Hasan’s began to enter his own home like he’s staging a robbery. (Frankly embarrassing lengths to go to simply to avoid Gemma). They have no idea Hasan’s home. They think they’re safe. Free to expel mini revelations and moderately nasty thoughts from where it’s been brewing all day.

Hasan’s weirdly excited to hear it. He’s bracing for it, but he’s excited too. Today is the day he learns whether Jacob talks shit about him to other people.  Except, maybe it isn’t because Hasan’s been listening for five full minutes now and he doesn’t understand a lick of what’s being said. It’s like they’re talking in code. Like in a twist of fate, they’ve anticipated Hasan’s eavesdropping ways and prepared themselves. 

“It’s too risky,” Jacob’s saying now. “It wouldn’t be worth the stress.”

“And you know what to do about that,” Gemma says. 

“I’m not getting my own place.” 

And, shit. Hasan still doesn’t understand what they’re talking about, but he does understand scheming rats who are out to steal his friends right from under his nose. He knew there was a legitimate reason he didn’t like her. Too bad he can’t rub it in Jacob’s face. 

“Jacob. You’re too old to let the people around you control you.”

“I’m not.” There’s a pause, and then he speaks again. “He can’t know.”

Know fucking what? 

“And he will never need to. If you move out.”

Oh my God. She’s like the devil in his ear.

“No.”

But Jacob was putting up a fight. Good man.

“What hold does this man have on you?”

Jacob doesn’t reply. 

“I’m not saying to cut all ties with him, change your name and flee to Amsterdam so that he can never find you again,” she continues. “You won’t die if you can’t see him every single second of every day.”

It’s silent for a beat.

“Jacob.”

“He’ll think he did something.”

“So?”

“So I don’t want him to think that, Gemma. Come on.”

An explosive sigh. “God forbid Hasan thinks he’s done something to upset you. Even when that’s exactly what he’s done.”

“I knew you were gonna make it a thing.”

“Someone’s got to.”

Hasan’s not sure he can hold his position for much longer. Beginning to question how much it’s worth it. The longer his foot stays cramped and his arms strain against his weight, the harder it is to focus. One more minute, he tells himself. 

When he tunes back in, Gemma’s speaking, but her tone is hesitant this time. “Are you…?” 

“What?”

“You know.”

“Are you fucking crazy? No.”

Hasan’s lost whatever loose, bitten and chewed, thread he thought he may have had on this conversation. 

“Okay. Just making sure.”

“You didn’t need to. Hasan?” Hasan almost jumps. Thinking he’s been revealed. He hadn’t realised they were still speaking about him. He knows he’s leaving this conversation with his ego boosted. It’s surprisingly mood-lifting, knowing you’re the topic of animated conversation for so many. “I don’t think I’d go for it if he were the last person on earth.” 

Hasan doesn’t need to have a grasp on the conversation to know that was rude. 

“Harsh,” Gemma says, and if she thinks so, even with the disdain she clearly holds for him, it must be brutal. 

“No, it’s not. It’d be like you and me.”

“That’s different.”

Hasan jostles the coat stand and it bangs against the wall. Fuck, he knew he couldn’t afford to readjust to a more comfortable position. The chatter stops and Hasan straightens. Barely has enough time to enjoy the blood pumping back into his arms before Jacob pokes his head into the hallway. 

Hasan’s kicking off his shoes as he does. His coat already swaying with the stand. He theatrically widens his eyes and plucks his head toward Jacob, who continues to stand there in complete silence like a weirdo. 

“You just come in?” he asks, finally.

“No. I was here the whole time. I just felt like coming down here to put on my coat and shoes and then take them off again for no reason whatsoever.” 

“I see why you don’t use sarcasm much, when this is your attempt at it.” 

“You don’t want to start criticising my humour, JayJay.”

“What are you gonna do about it?” Jacob says, barely reacting to the nickname. Hasan knows there was a time he hated it with every fibre in his being. But now he’s not so sure. There’s no sign of distaste anywhere. His smirk doesn’t waver and his grip on the door handle doesn’t shift. 

“I’ll…” Hasan says. “Uh.” 

“Yeah? You’ll-uh-do-uh-absolutely nothing?”

Hasan lunges at Jacob and manages to grab the hem of his shirt and then his arm. Jacob barks out a laugh and tries to wrench his arm away, but Hasan’s grip is tight. He pulls Jacob in, expecting resistance, but he barrels forward, and Hasan loses his footing and slams against the wall.

“Jacob!” He yells. “When I get my fucking hands on you.”

“And when will that be, do you think?” Jacob says, from a healthy distance away.

When Hasan’s back on his feet again, Jacob’s back in the living room, using Gemma as a shield. 

“Hey, Gemma. How’s it going?”

“Good. You?”

“Not bad,” Hasan sits on the empty couch. “So what have you two been up to?” 

Gemma leans forward. “Just,” she clicks her fingers in succession, like she’s looking for the right word. “Pondering,” she lands on. 

“Pondering what?”

“Hypotheticals. Like, do you think you’d enjoy living alone?”

“Me?” Hasan asks.

Gemma nods.

“I’d fucking hate it.”

“Cool it with the swearing, man.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry to me.”

“Astaghfirullah.”

Jacob chuckles. “Good boy.”

“I will rip you apart, limb from limb.”

“Why would you hate it?” Gemma asks.

“I don’t know,” Hasan says, shifting uncomfortably under Gemma’s scrutiny. “It’d just be boring.”

“I get that,” Gemma says. “Jacob says he can see himself living alone.”

“Does he? Is that why he begged me to get a place with him last year?”

Gemma turns to Jacob, who makes a show of looking at the ceiling, scratching his head in feigned obliviousness. 

“Alright, well. It’s late. I should get going.” 

“Nooo,” Jacob says. 

“I’ve got work tomorrow.”

“So do I.”

Gemma laughs. She gives Jacob a peck on the cheek. “I’ll see you soon. You too, Hasan.” And then she’s out the door. 

“You not gonna see her out?”

Jacob waves a hand dismissively. “She knows the way.”

“What was that about, anyway?”

“What?” Jacob says, distractedly. Someone’s texting him. His phone won’t stop pinging. Jacob refuses to put his phone on silent. The one time he did, he coincidentally misplaced his phone, and because he wasn’t able to rely on Hasan calling his phone to reveal its hiding place, he went over twenty-four hours without it.

“Why’s she asking me that?”

“Huh?”

Hasan waits for Jacob to put his phone down.

“Sorry,” Jacob says, a minute later. “You were saying?”

“Do you want to move out? And live alone. Like Gemma said?”

Jacob’s still a little distracted. “No. No, I don’t. Don’t pay her any mind.”

“If you want to live alone, I won’t be mad.” That’s not what Hasan intends to say, but he finds he means it nonetheless. He doesn’t know what’s going on with Jacob and it’s clear Jacob doesn’t plan on sharing. But the last thing Hasan wants to be is a hindrance. He doesn’t know what he’s done or what he can do to fix it, but he can stand out of Jacob’s way.

Jacob lets out something halfway between a sigh and a laugh. “Ignore Gemma. She was just talking. I don’t wanna move out.”

“Are you sure?”

“You’re the best roommate I’ve ever had. Is that what you want to hear?” Jacob’s phone buzzes again. 

“Who is that?” 

“My sister.”

“Can she chill?”

“Her boyfriend cheated on her.” 

“Oh, shit.” 

“Yeah.” 

Hasan sits by Jacob, leans in to peer at his phone. “Is she alright?”

Jacob moves his phone away. “What do you think?” 

“I mean. You’d be surprised. One of my friends from high school didn’t give a fuck when his girlfriend cheated on him.”

“My sister isn’t a psychopath.”

“Neither was he. He was just really chill.” 

“She’s really upset,” Jacob says, standing up. “I’m gonna give her a call.” 

And Hasan doesn’t know what it is. If it’s a result of the eavesdropping making him less trusting, less willing to take things at face value. He doesn’t know if before then, he wouldn’t have thought anything amiss about Jacob’s relatively subdued reaction to his sister being cheated on. But all of a sudden, Hasan has the overwhelming feeling that Jacob’s lying.  

“Can I play games on your phone?” Yusuf asks, already pulling it from Hasan’s grasp.

“Uh…”

“Yusuf,” Ibrahim barks. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

Yusuf rolls his eyes so far back, it looks painful, but he walks back over to his seat at the table. Ibrahim’s got him writing a piece of text on the importance of obeying your parents. Yusuf’s barely written two lines, and he’d been tasked over an hour ago. Ibrahim doesn’t seem to care what he does, so long as he’s not disruptive.

“Get halfway down the page and I’ll let you have ten minutes on my phone.” Yusuf’s head down and scribbling before Hasan’s even finished his sentence.

Ibrahim continues debriefing Hasan on his meeting with a girl his sister introduced him to. It’s conversations like this that make Hasan feel like an outsider to his own faith. He can’t fathom having what’s essentially a first date with said date’s brother breathing down his neck.

“They’re not listening,” Ibrahim’s told him, on multiple occasions. “And the first couple of meetings are pretty impersonal anyways. Seeing if you’re compatible but like in a practical way.”

Hasan doesn’t see how that’s supposed to be reassuring. All it implies is that, somewhere down the lines, the conversations are expected to go deeper. Stray from impersonal to playful, perhaps even flirty, and all still with a man in the room. Hasan doesn’t know how he’ll go about finding a wife, but it definitely won’t be like that. Ibrahim never fails to remind him of the sin inherent to finding a partner the ‘westernised’ way. Seems to become increasingly frustrated every time Hasan dismisses his warnings.

“The moment I saw her, it was like,” Ibrahim grimaces. He doesn’t finish his sentence, but Hasan gets the message. “For the rest of the meeting, I gave her nothing. Let her lead the conversation. Her brother hasn’t contacted me yet, so it must’ve worked.”

“I couldn’t do that.” It wasn’t that Hasan was too principled or honest for that kind of deceit. It was more the idea of someone viewing him as dull that he couldn’t bear.

“It was that or turn her down.”

“Because there was never a possibility she would turn you down.”

“Exactly,” Ibrahim says, just as Yusuf shoves his notebook into Hasan’s hand. He’s written past half the page. Even separated his sentences into indented paragraphs. Hasan unlocks his phone, and hands it to Yusuf, who races out of the room like Hasan will demand it back if he stays around a second longer.

Hasan’s learning about Yusuf’s mother’s long, flowing hair and his father’s patchy beard when the notebook is ripped from his grasp.

Ibrahim clutches it, a stricken look on his face. Hasan can’t begin to guess at what a seven-year-old could have written to garner such a reaction.

“What?” Hasan asks.

“He’s still drawing hearts over his i’s.”

Hasan had noticed. Thought it was cute but hadn’t given it much thought beyond that.  “What’s the big deal?”

“What boy do you know dots their I’s with hearts? It’s a girl thing.”

Hasan laughs. “He’s seven years old.” He doesn’t know what else to say.

“And?”

“So, I don’t think you need to worry.”

“That’s not the only thing. Have you seen the way he sits? Stands? We let it go when he was younger but he’s growing now and it’s not going away.”

Hasan’s silent as Ibrahim pulls out his phone to take a picture of Yusuf’s work, presumably to send to his parents. It’s haram to be gay. Or, rather, to act on the impulses that come with being gay. Hasan accepts that. He’d be a disbeliever if he didn’t. But scrutinising the every move of a child to check for warning signs seems like insanity to him. Part of him wants to say that. The other part knows this is not an argument he can win. So he stays silent. Waits for Ibrahim to move on.

When it’s time to leave, he tracks Yusuf down for his phone. He’s sprawled out on the stairs, head resting against carpeted edge. Hasan catches himself looking for signs of effeminacy and, in that moment, hates Ibrahim fiercely. Hasan decides he’s going to wait for Yusuf to play out the level. He feels like having a go himself, now. It’s a motorcycle game. Hasan had loved those as a kid. His sister too, though she was always better at it. Hasan didn’t mind. She was older, it was okay if she wiped the floor with him.

“Can I have my phone back?” Hasan says, after it becomes clear Yusuf will need more than a few attempts to clear the level. Yusuf nods, planting the phone in Hasan’s outstretched hand.

Hasan stares at him for a moment, wishing he could say something. Yusuf must be aware of what his family are saying about him to some degree. Hasan has no doubt there’s shame there, buried beneath the excitement of a child.

“You’re a good kid,” Hasan settles on. “Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not.”

Hasan’s walking away when he hears. “Will you come back?”

Hasan goes back. Ruffles Yusuf’s hair. “Of course.”

“Good,” Yusuf says. “Ibrahim doesn’t let me download games on his phone.”

Chapter Text

Hasan’s family don’t celebrate Christmas. Obviously. But there is no other time of the year where everything shuts down quite like it does at Christmas, and it would be silly not to take advantage of that.

From the moment Hasan lands on Christmas Eve, to the moment he’s sending his cousins on a search party for his misplaced belongings three hours before his flight back to Hamilton, his childhood home is packed to the brim.

It’s a little humbling. Ringing the doorbell in anticipation of an enthusiastic welcome, only to be met with a child he’s never seen before, who almost closes the door right back in his face. And would have, if Hasan hadn’t stopped her.

“Who is it?” she half shouts, still pushing against the door.

“I live here,” Hasan says, and that must be good enough for her, or, alternatively, Hasan’s frightened her, because she abandons her post and is off like a rocket towards the kitchen.

Hasan settles his room with half a dozen kids peering at him. Their conversation halted when Hasan entered the room, and if Hasan hadn’t been in this situation many times before, he would’ve thought their continued silence in combination with their unwavering stares a mind game they’d devised for their entertainment. But at this point he is, sadly, keenly aware of the unique brand of social awkwardness in which preteens manoeuvre the world with. So he lets them observe. Throws in a couple attempts at conversation to the wall, and isn’t surprised when none stick.

When Hasan’s put all his shit away, plugged in his phone and picked out a change of clothes, he moves into the bathroom next door. In the shower, he deliberates on whether he should wait until everyone’s gone to change his sheets. He counted three kids lying on his bed, smelly socks and all. Not ideal but he knows he won’t have the energy for it tonight.

“How do you guys know I love silence?” Hasan says, when his presence sucks the energy out of the room yet again.

He kicks them off his bed, recruits the friendliest of them (the only one who doesn’t immediately look away upon eye contact) to help him with his sheets. The rest of them stand around awkwardly, before straying naturally towards the walls, which they lean against with all the grace of a flock of flamingos.

Jamila comes in then. “You just don’t bother to say hi anymore?”

“I didn’t really have a chance,” Hasan says, handing one of his pillows to his helper.

“What are you doing?” Jamila takes the pillow back from his helper. “These are our guests.”

She turns to them, and it’s impressive how she’s able to modulate her voice from full throated and resonant to gentle and warm and have the first sound as authentic to her as the second. “Food’s ready. Emama’s dishing out plates but everything’s going fast so I’d go quickly if I were you.” They file out with enthusiasm Hasan didn’t think they possessed.

“Are you incapable of changing sheets by yourself?” Jamila says, tossing his pillow back at him.

“Yes,” Hasan says. “You want to help?”

Jamila doesn’t bother to answer. She takes a seat on his chair, places his clean sheets on her lap. She’s silent as Hasan wrestles with his duvet. Waits until he’s done to say, “I hear you’re a changed man.”

Hasan laughs. “From who?”

“Emama. Apparently you don’t skip prayers anymore. She says she doesn’t understand why you expect her to throw a party for the bare minimum.”

Hasan tuts. “You’re all enemies of progress.”

“Hey,” Jamila says. “I didn’t say it.”

“You agree with her. I can tell.”

“Eh.” She shrugs. After a beat, she looks at the door furtively. Pauses. “Have you also stopped…” she mimes taking a swig of a drink.

Last summer, on one of those nights Hasan felt so full of guilt he thought he might burst, he’d woken Jamila up from her sleep. She’d listened, her eye mask still on.

“You’re not meant to expose your sins,” Jamila had said, a thread of annoyance from being woken present in her voice. “But I already assumed you were doing all that.”

It was less of a confession and more of a plea for reassurance. Hasan wanted her to tell him he wasn’t too far gone. That he could turn it around. And she did, in a way.

“All you can do is stop,” she’d said, and then rolled over.

She was back to sleep in less than twenty seconds, and Hasan still remembers how lost he’d felt watching her shoulder rise and fall. He was so close to waking her up again. Doesn’t remember what stopped him.

“Yeah,” he says, to Jamila who looks a hell of a lot more interested now than she did that night.

“Wow,” she says. “What was that like? Did you go through withdrawals?”

“I wasn’t addicted!”

“Sorry,” Jamila says, smirking. “I don’t know the ins and outs of all that, living the righteous lifestyle I do. You have to understand.”

“It’s common knowledge.”

Jamila shrugs. “Maybe for a heathen like you,” is left unsaid but nevertheless communicated.

Hasan flops onto his bed. He always forgets how much of a tight fit it is until he’s back. His legs don’t dangle off the edges or anything, and when he lays flat on his back, there’s still space on either side of him. The trouble will be figuring out where to put his arms. Hasan’s a splayer. Not like Jacob, who sleeps ramrod straight. Like he’d undergone intensive training on the most dignified way to rest. A double bed is wasted on him.

“Well, be careful not to relapse.”

“Very funny.”

“Seriously, though.” She fiddles with her headscarf. “It must be hard. In that kind of environment, I mean.”

“It’s been easier than I thought,” Hasan says. “I’ve been at the Masjid more. Made some friends. Practising.”

More than anything else, that’s what Hasan credits his success to. Being around Ibrahim and his friends shifts Hasan’s perspective in ways he never expected. Drinking ceases to be something he has to actively abstain from. The act itself feels beyond reach. A thing that isn’t for them.

“That’s good,” Jamila says.

“And Jacob’s been really cool about it.”

“I never expected anything less from that gorgeous, gorgeous man.”

Jamila had only met Jacob once, but he’d clearly left an impression. Jamila wasn’t easily impressed but it didn’t surprise Hasan that he’d won her over. If Jacob wanted someone to like him, they would.

“Still living with him?”

“Yeah,” Hasan says. After a moment, adds, “But. I don’t know. Apparently he doesn’t want to anymore?”

“He said that?”

“Not to my face,” Hasan says.

“Oh,” Jamila says. She raises her eyebrows. “You guys going through a rough patch?”

“No. That’s why I’m confused.”

Jamila shrugs. “It’s normal to want your own space. God knows I’m itching to get out of here.”

Hasan has no idea how Jamila thought that would in any way be reassuring. There are very little points of comparison between Hasan and overbearing mothers.

“He’s just being weird in general.”

“How?”

“It just feels like he’s hiding something from me. It’s like he’s suddenly developed a sense of privacy. He’s got a lock on his phone now. Doesn’t even let me read texts over his shoulder anymore.”

“Uh,” Jamila says. “Do you even realise how you sound right now?”

Hasan rolls his eyes. “Jamila. Come on.”

“I’m not even playing,” she says. “Maybe try being normal. None of that should be bothering you.”

“It’s not,” Hasan says, frustrated now. “I just noticed a change.”

“It is,” Jamila says, rising from her seat. “But that was more normal. You’re getting the hang of it.”

She leaves the room and closes the door behind her. Hasan doesn’t move for a few minutes, but then reaches up to get the lights. In the dark, the guests downstairs sound twice as loud. It’s surprisingly easy to fall asleep to the racket.

When Hasan wakes up, he feels displaced. His hands stretch out far on either side of him and the distant hubbub, the backdrop in his dreams, is gone.

Three days in that house had felt like three months. Three months of eating, and mingling, and forcing conversation with antisocial teens. Three months of avoiding his mother, having the same conversation over and over with his father. Hasan knows the house isn’t so packed every day but, still, he can’t imagine how Jamila stays sane.

“Wake up.”

It’s Jacob. He looks like he’s just come in. He hasn’t even bothered to pull his hat off. His jacket, neither. His hands are behind his back, holding something.

“Are you awake?” He says. “I got you a present.”

“I’m sleeping,” Hasan whines.

“I know, and I’m sorry, but I couldn’t wait.”

Hasan pushes his face in his pillow. The bed dips beside him. “Come on, Hasan. Sit up.”

“Fuck off.”

“Fine,” Jacob says. “You can stay there. Just look at me at least.”

Hasan groans, then turns on his side, opens his eyes a crack.

Jacob’s grinning down at him, and Hasan tamps down the bizarre urge to laugh, but a smile peeks through. “Hurry up and show me, then.”

“Okay, so, my cousin was showing me the advent calendar she made. And you know how I told you that one time I’d get you a surprise every week you were a good Muslim boy. Well, I realised it was kind of shitty of me to promise that and then not deliver. So…” He pulls out what is clearly his cousin’s used advent calendar. “Don’t worry, I covered up all of the Christmassy stuff. Drew a bit, too.” He points to a poorly drawn image of a mosque, and then to a better drawn star and crescent. “Thought it would turn out better.”

It’s a mess. The cardboard itself is blue, and the “Christmassy stuff” has been covered up in white paper, then scribbled over in crayon a much darker shade of blue. He’d clearly forgotten, or not bothered, to replicate the snowflakes underneath those areas, so it looks like the creator hasn’t decided whether they want it to snow or not. The mosque is too small, too easy to ignore. The star and crescent are larger, and have the advantage of better fitting into the theme of the calendar.

“Ignore how it looks,” Jacob continues. “You know how advent calendars work. Inside these compartments are little presents. They’re not all great. I’ll admit that now. It’s fucking hard to find twenty four different gifts. But there are a few in here I know you’ll like. I spaced them out, so please go in chronological order.”

Hasan sits up. He’s kidding himself if he thinks he’s going to be able to go back to sleep.

“At first I thought you could open them week by week, but then I thought it might be better if you open them whenever you need, like, encouragement or whatever.”

“This is the corniest shit ever,” Hasan says.

“And thoughtful, and sweet, and probably the nicest thing anyone’s done for you.” Jacob unzips his jacket. “But sure, let’s go with corny.”

“You didn’t have family to spend time with?”

“You’re seriously making fun of me right now?”

“How can I not.” Hasan takes the calendar from Jacob. Points to the mosque. “Is that the Taj Mahal?”

“Just a standard mosque, thank you.”

“Damn. Really? It’s just so wonderfully drawn.” He traces the minaret with his finger. “And this part. There’s something so authentic about it. Is that spire bending with the wind?”

“That spire is a strong gust away from breaking. I’m glad you caught that.”

Hasan puts the calendar down. Looks up to find Jacob watching him expectantly.

“You are way too proud of yourself right now.”

“Weird way of saying thank you.”

“So smug,” Hasan says. “Look at yourself.”

“Two words, Hasan. You could even make it one.”

Hasan can’t avoid it any longer. He pulls at Jacob, whose first instinct is to resist, and that almost makes Hasan chicken out, but then he goes easy. Hasan doesn’t give many hugs off the ice. Can’t remember the last time one lasted longer than a second. So it feels weird. He has one arm over Jacob’s shoulder, the other around his waist, and his chin kind of hovers in the air for a second before he lets it rest.

“Thanks,” Hasan says. “It really is the nicest thing anyone’s done for me.”

Jacob doesn’t respond right away. “Shit.” He laughs. “I can tell.”

“Can you?”

“I mean, if I’d predicted such enthusiastic appreciation, I wouldn’t have rushed you.”

Hasan pulls away. “Tell me why you want to move out.”

Jacob straightens in surprise. “Didn’t we already talk about this.”

“Tell me what I did so I can fix it.”

“You didn’t do anything.”

“I heard you guys,” Hasan says.

“What?”

“That day, when you caught me outside the door.”

Jacob doesn’t say anything but Hasan gets the distinct sense he’s quietly panicking. There’s an edge to his voice when he says, “What did you hear?”

For a second, Hasan contemplates acting like he knows more than he does. But Hasan can see the dips where Jacob is biting the insides of his cheek. Can feel where he’s gone still.

“You can relax,” he says. “I didn’t understand half of it. Just the part where you have to get away from me to, I don’t know, unlock your full potential.”

“Oh, Hasan.” Jacob’s loose-limbed again. He slaps Hasan’s thigh. “it’s so easy to forget how sensitive you are.”

“Just tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

Hasan wants to press him more but then remembers what Jamila said. He can be normal. He is normal.

“Okay.”

“Really?” Jacob says, then seems to decide it would be foolish to question it. “Cool. I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

“I’m not tired anymore.”

Hasan ends up outside the bathroom, the door open a crack, while Jacob debriefs him on his Christmas from the shower. Some of it gets lost in the spray but Hasan gets most of it. Jacob’s mother still doesn’t like his oldest sister’s fiancé, and Jacob really thought he’d crack the reason why this trip, but Sophie was as tight-lipped as ever. Lily, their nine year old Spaniel, pissed herself twice, and the second time Jacob’s grandfather, who suffers from anosmia, stepped right in it. A growth spurt made it so that, from behind, Jacob believed his only brother to be a neighbour dropping off the cranberry sauce. And all the food was delicious but not as good as the year before.

At twenty minutes, it might be the shortest shower Jacob’s ever had. Jacob’s hair looks darker when it’s wet. Also, straggly as hell. “I’m going to bed now,” he says.

Hasan gets up from the floor. “Okay.”

“Don’t look so upset.” Hasan doesn’t know what Jacob means to do when he reaches a hand over but he slaps it away. “I’ll just be a door down.”

“You never rest,” Hasan says, before walking off toward his room.

“Goodnight,” Jacob shouts down the hall.

It’s not even noon, so Hasan doesn’t feel bad for not saying it back.

Chapter Text

Hasan hasn’t been ignoring it. He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able even if he wanted to. Not with how the shape of his name’s practically become set into the sportscasters’, the colour commentators’, the pundits’ mouths.

He’s careful not to call it a slump. Even in his mind. It hasn’t even been a month yet. He’s not sure when he decided but awful play has got to last at least a month before anyone’s calling it a slump. Hasan knows how it seems, but he’s not ignoring it. He’s being careful not to psych himself out. The last time he psyched himself out, it ended in him being drafted a round lower than he was projected to be.

He tenses when Lambo’s shoes appear in his eyeline. So far, he’s been good about it. All vague encouragement and pats on the back. Lambo’s a piece of shit off the ice, but on it, he’s alright. Hasan knows it’s been affecting him. Lambo likes to be offensive, but he hasn’t gotten many points the last handful of games. Hasn’t had the chance, what with Hasan being unable to stay at home without a babysitter. Still, Hasan doesn’t want to hear another, “We’ll get the next one.” or “No point dwelling on it.” That’s exactly the kind of thing that psychs him out.

“Listen,” he starts. “Why don’t you come out with us tonight?”

They won tonight. Barely. Usually that wouldn’t be something to celebrate but it’s been a while since they’ve gone out, and Coach co-signed it, after eviscerating every last one of them, that is. Even Kenny, Coach’s favourite (Coach doesn’t mind being predictable, like so many of Hasan’s previous coaches: top ten pick and future franchise player - the favourite) hadn’t made it out the room unscathed.

Hasan looks up. He’d been feeling sorry for himself. Sitting solemnly at his stall instead of getting undressed like everybody else. “I am,” he says, standing. He can’t brood with Lambo’s jockstrap in his face.

“And stay for longer than half an hour.”

Hasan hesitates. Looks around. The room’s not quiet but it’s not loud either. “You know I can’t,” he says.

“Bullshit. Look, man.” Lambo’s always calling for people to engage their senses. It reminds Hasan of his mother. “I’ve kept quiet because I know religion is important.” He points to himself. “I’m a Christian. I understand that.”

“Yeah? What’s your denomination?” Stevie asks.

“A Christian’s a Christian,” Lambo says, without missing a beat. He turns back to Hasan. “You can’t focus on hockey if…” He pauses. “ Something else is taking up all of your attention.”

“It’s not-“

“You have to think before you enter the bathroom. Yes, it is.”

A couple weeks ago, Lambo caught Hasan muttering the dua to enter the bathroom under his breath. If it was that alone, Lambo probably wouldn’t have brought it up. But Hasan had been about to step in with his right foot and corrected himself with what he’d thought was a fairly conspicuous hop so that he entered with his left foot instead. Lambo hadn’t said anything at the time. Barely spared him a second glance as he dried his hands with too much tissue.

“I don’t have to,” Hasan says. Because it’s true. Entering the toilet with his left foot. Reciting a dua before he does. They’re acts that aren’t compulsory. He’s not sinning if he neglects them. It’s more like extra credit, but Hasan figures if anyone needs extra credit, it’s him.

“Exactly,” Lambo says. “You don’t have to. So loosen up. Stay out with us. Have a drink. See the difference it makes.”

“A couple of beers isn’t going to make me play better.”

“Then have more than a couple.”

Hasan stares at him.

“Listen,” Lambo says. “I’m not about to force you, but you need to unclench somehow. You’re all… jittery.”

“I’m not jittery.”

“You’re proving my point. The old Hasan would have been like, ‘You’re mom’s jittery’.”

Hasan would have never said that.

“And how is that better?”

“It’s less defensive.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.” He slaps Stevie’s shoulder. “Tell him.”

“Definitely less defensive.”

Lambo slaps him again. “And?”

“Oh yeah,” Stevie says. “You’re jittery.”

“Did he tell you to say that?”

“On edge.”

If Hasan denies it, he’ll be proving the point. Apparently. He throws his hands up. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll stay out. But I’m not drinking.”

“I would never ask you to do that,” Lambo says, reaching out to bump his fist against Stevie’s. Twin triumphant smirks cling to their faces and Hasan wants to slap them off.

“Maybe Jacob and Kenny will stick around too,” Stevie says.

Hasan pauses on his buttons. “What do you mean?”

“They usually leave a while after you do.”

“What?” Hasan says. “To go where?”

“Fuck if I know,” Lambo says. “They don’t tell us. They just vanish.”

Hasan looks over at Jacob. Kenny’s hovering over him. Saying something Hasan can’t make out.

It seems like all Jacob does is hide stuff from Hasan these days.

“Hey, guys.”

“Yeah?” Stevie says.

“I feel a headache coming.”

“Dude,” Lambo says. Hasan has never seen him look more unimpressed. “It hasn’t even been a minute since you agreed.”

“I swear,” Hasan says. He pushes his hands out in a placating gesture. “I’ll come out with you guys next time.“

“Right,” Stevie says.

“I mean it,” Hasan assures them. “I won’t be any fun tonight.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and sifts through his messages to get to the team group chat. Cap’s already confirmed where they’re going. “I’ll catch you guys later.”

Hasan tries not to think about how weird he’s being. Fails, mostly. This is the closest he’s ever come to stalking someone. Which, in a way, is comforting. He’s unsure how often his parents worry about the kind of man he is. Namely, how safe the women around him are. If he had to garner a guess, he would say rarely. And not because they have implicit faith in their son, although Hasan would like to believe they do, but because he doubts they think about the safety of hypothetical women in the first place. If they were the kind of parents that did, Hasan knows they would be relieved to know that the only stalking their son will ever partake in is of someone he already knows well.

When he thinks about it, he’s really no worse than the people who stalk their spouses to catch them cheating. No one views that as disturbing behaviour. And what’s the difference between Hasan and an insecure spouse in this situation (aside from the insecure part: Hasan’s not insecure)? They’re both trying to catch someone out in a lie. They’re both the justified party in their respective situations.

Hasan’s never had so much time to think. He’s been waiting behind these bushes for over half an hour. No phone to keep him occupied. Or, well, he has it, but he can’t use it. He can’t keep his eyes on the doors and play Solitaire.

They should be out now. Fuck. If they decided to stay after all, no Hasan needed, then he’ll be stuck out here all night. No. That’s stupid. Hasan’s not that desperate to know what Jacob and Kenny do when no one’s watching. If they’re not out in the next thirty minutes, he can leave. There’s no rule that says he can’t. He doesn’t have to stay standing here, in the freezing cold, slowly becoming as stiff as the leaves underneath his nose.

It’s another forty minutes until they’re out. Hasan almost misses it because he cracked and pulled out his phone. He should have more faith in himself though. Turns out he can keep his eyes on the doors and play Solitaire at the same time.

From then, it’s a mad dash to get to his car round the corner and bring it over in time to follow Kenny’s. It’s difficult, so much more than Hasan anticipated, to keep sight of Kenny’s car. Hasan loses it at several points, and every time he finds it again, he promises himself he’ll stop making fun of the greeness of Kenny’s car. He gets it now.

It’s not a long drive, barely twenty minutes, but Hasan doesn’t recognise where they are. He parks on a backroad to the main strip. A different one from Kenny and Jacob. He worries about losing them at first, but figures that’s preferable to being recognised. There are probably three other black Honda Civics on this road alone, but Hasan isn’t taking any chances.

He waits by a corner store. Tries not to look shady as people walk by. He thinks there must be a gay bar nearby. Too many men in tight clothing for there not to be.

When he spots Kenny and Jacob, he doesn’t follow them right away. He watches until he loses sight of them, then begins moving. They stop where the throngs of scantily clad men are thickest, and Hasan thinks his jaw actually drops as he watches them enter what is obviously the gay bar, club, whatever you call it, Hasan had prophesied the existence of.

Fuck. What does he do? He can’t go in there. Can he? Hasan goes to regular clubs. Albeit reluctantly and in the name of team building. Either way, they’re both breeding grounds for debauchery. Both places that, had Hasan ever mentioned that he’d stepped foot to any of his various Quran teachers over the years, they’d immediately begin to pray for his soul.

It’s different though. Hasan knows even as he tries to rationalise it. He would never tell any of his Quran teachers that he’d been to a gay bar. His mouth wouldn’t even be able to form the words. Yeah, clubs of any sort are strict no go zones. But attending one kind is vastly more forgivable than attending another.

“Are you okay?” Someone asks him. Hasan wonders if they’re gay. Must be, if they’re here. But then again, Hasan’s here, and he’s not gay. What if he’s not gay, and doesn’t want Hasan wrongly assuming he is.

His movements are solid. His haircut is useless, so generic, Hasan can’t categorise it as straight or gay. There’s something about the way his mouth moves, though. Definitely gay. No. Mouth movements don’t make a person gay. If Hasan’s mouth moved like that he wouldn’t be gay. He would just have a more expressive, sinewy mouth than most.

“Fine,” Hasan replies. He turns around. “Fuck it.”

Hasan is a man on a mission. It’a surprisingly easy to keep his eyes from accidentally falling on areas of risqué and homosexual goings on. Mostly he keeps his gaze above the heads of everyone. Not hard to do when you’ve got five inches on the average guy.

Of course, it makes the main objective of his mission near impossible to achieve. He’s been walking through people with his head angled up for the past ten minutes. How’s he supposed to find anyone like that. He should switch to looking down at the floor. Same effect and he looks like less of an idiot.

It’s like something out of a horror movie. The way Jacob appears in front of him as he pulls his eyes from the ceiling. Standing stock still and staring straight ahead as figures weave around him. Hasan chokes on his spit.

“What are you doing?” Jacob says. He doesn’t wait for Hasan to stop coughing until he asks again. “What are you doing, Hasan?”

“Are you the police?”

“I’m not joking.”

Hasan swallows. There are bubbles in his throat. Bubbles that won’t release. “I wanted to know where you and Kenny went wandering off to without me.”

“So you followed us?”

“Who said that?”

“Hasan.”

“My turn,” Hasan says. “What do you two want with a gay club? Is Kenny gay? That would explain a lot.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing.” Hasan laughs. “Relax. It just matches his personality.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is liking men a personality trait, Hasan.”

“Why do you keep saying my name like that?”

“Does it complement other personality traits? Is it like how being shy goes with being self conscious? Or like how being funny goes with being friendly?”

Hasan laughs again, but this time it’s defensive. Jacob’s hostility is throwing him off. Not only because that’s not how Jacob usually operates - even in arguments he’s always been the peacemaker - but because Hasan can guarantee he’s said much worse.  “You ever heard of a gaydar?”

At that, some of the wind goes out of Jacob’s sails. He switches gears. “You need to leave.”

“What? But I just got here.”

Jacob raises an eyebrow. “And the view of the ceiling is just too good?”

“Why can’t I stay? Is it a secret?”

“Is what a secret?”

“Kenny.”

“What?” And then before Hasan has a chance to elaborate. “Kenny’s not gay.”

“Really?” Hasan says. “Then why are you here?”

“We’re immersing ourselves in queer culture.”

“Queer,” Hasan says, a note of disbelief in his tone.

“Yes.”

Hasan shakes his head. “But Stevie says you’ve been ducking out every time.”

“Yeah,” Jacob says. “Last week, we went to a workshop on sadomasochism.”

Hasan barks out a laugh. “You’re lying.”

“We’ll stop at nothing to become cultured human beings.”

“I don’t believe you,” Hasan says. “Where is Kenny, anyway?”

“In the bathroom.”

Hasan widens his eyes. He doesn’t let the repulsion show. He can be cool about this. “Oh.”

“Not like that,” Jacob says, like a man fed up. “He’s taking a dump.”

“Right.”

“Are you going to leave?”

Hasan shrugs. “Maybe I shouldn’t. Lambo and Stevie say I’m jittery. That I’ll play better if I let loose. And, I mean, I did play better before. So maybe they have a point.”

“They said that?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the single dumbest thing I’ve heard today. And I’ve been with Kenny the whole night.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. You’ll just end up feeling bad about two things. Double the distraction. Probably make shit worse.”

“Worse than it already is?”

Jacob clasps Hasan’s shoulder. “Stop. Go home. Get an early night.” He grins. “Open a box.”

Jacob didn’t adequately prepare him for how shit some of the presents would be. He’s only opened two. In the first box, there’d been a liquorice gumdrop wrapped in clingfilm. Hasan knew he wouldn’t like it, but the last time he’d tried liquorice, he couldn’t even read fluently, and one of the things they always say comes with age is a refined palate, so he ate it. He managed not to spit it out. Just barely.

The second box had been empty.

“Aw,” Jacob said, when Hasan told him. “I think there was a note in that one. Must have fell out.”

“And if there’s nothing in the next box, too?” Hasan asks now.

“It’s rude to constantly complain about a gift I painstakingly put together for you.”

“Were you not taught to start off with a bang? You gave me liquorice and air and expect excitement.”

“Really rude.”

“What’s rude?” Kenny follows Jacob’s gaze. “Oh my God, Hasan. What are you doing here?”

Definitely gay.

“You have fun in the bathroom?”

“Not really?”

“Hasan,” Jacob says. “We’re going home.”

“What?” Hasan says. “No. Stay. Become cultured or whatever. I’ll go.”

“Thank you,” Jacob says, and as though afraid of Hasan changing his mind, dives into the crowd, Kenny positively prancing after him.

Hasan’s not sure, but he thinks that’s a mission accomplished.

Chapter Text

It doesn’t occur to Hasan that he could’ve been photographed until he dreams about it.

Hasan has no delusions about his level of fame. He’s not a Danny Morris, or an Edvin Olsson. But he’s still a hockey player in Canada. Yeah, he’s not fighting off mobs, but he does get recognised once in a while. Kenny, probably about five times more often.

What the fuck was he thinking? They’re not even on the road. He had the gall to enter a gay club in Hamilton. Talk about shitting where you eat. And of course, Hasan wasn’t even taking a proverbial shit. But the person hypothetically snapping a picture of him doesn’t know that. Or care, probably.

Do Kenny and Jacob not know this? Do they just not give a shit? Or do they think there’s room for plausible deniability when you’re caught in a literal gay club?

Hasan pulls out his phone. Searches: Gay clubs and professional athletes. All that comes up is a list of out gay professional athletes, former and active. He can’t decide if that’s a good or bad sign.

They’re flying out today. First long road trip of the year. Hasan gets up and turns his alarm for Fajr off.

Hasan’s usually really good at emptying all thoughts but those of the devotion to Allah variety when he’s praying. But today, he can’t. He restarts it a couple times. It doesn’t help, but Hasan continues. He doesn’t want to end up like his sister, making wudhu over and over until she’s sure she did it right. Taking up to an hour to pray two rakats. That’s how it starts, she says. The inextinguishable fear that your prayer won’t be accepted. It’s one of those areas where Hasan’s past (his Jahiliyah days, Ibrahim calls it) is advantageous. Those kinds of thought don’t paralyse him. It’s enough to try, he thinks.

With all the thinking, Hasan forgets, while in prostration, to beg Allah to do whatever He has to do, bend the laws of time, or manipulate perception, so that he was not recognised in that club. Not with words, but like, through osmosis of the mind. Or, like, Allah probably doesn’t even need osmosis. He knows shit. He’s all knowing and all powerful. He definitely has the power to protect Hasan from suspicion of homosexuality and, Hasan’s not saying He owes him, he would never say that, but after all the sacrifices Hasan has made recently… Well, there are expectations.

At the airport, Hasan gets Kenny alone by the trash. “Do you like playing in the NHL?” he asks, in lieu of a greeting.

“Is that a trick question?”

Kenny pats his pockets. Seems to take a moment to prepare before he takes both hands and plunges in deep. They come out, one hand crumb free (Hasan’s begrudgingly proud) but filled with clumps of disintegrating tissue, the other with what Hasan assumes are old receipts, but can’t say for sure, because of, well, all the crumbs. Crumbs enough to make a small cookie, he’s confident.

“‘Cause if you do,” Hasan says. “Frolicking about in gay clubs is a bad idea.”

“Nobody’s gonna think I’m gay just because I went to a gay club.”

“Dude,” Hasan says. “It’s in the name.”

“Straight people go to gay clubs all the time. All I would need to say is a woman I was picking up dragged me there. And they’d take my word for it.”

“That’s your cover story?”

“Yeah,” Kenny says. After dumping his trash, he shakes out his palm to rid it of the stubborn crumbs that remain, and half of them miss the can.

“And that would work?” Hasan says, as he attempts to sweep the mess closer to the can with his foot.

“Pretty sure.”

Solid contingency plan right there. Hasan would never go for it, but he guesses it’s not his life.

“So you’re gay, huh?” He asks, instead of launching into a lecture on how Kenny’s trust, in people, in institutions, in plans constructed from flimsy reliance on barely interrogated views of how the world works, will be his downfall.

“No.”

“Is it a new thing?”

“I’m not gay.”

“Bro,” Hasan says. “I caught you. I saw you in that club with my eyes. You can try as hard as you can to make me forget it, but the cat’s out of the bag, man. You might as well give it up.”

“Like I said,” Kenny says. “Plenty straight people go to gay clubs.”

“You also said that was a cover.”

“It’s also just true.“

He begins walking back to the guys so Hasan puts his arm out in front of him. “Are you scared of me?” he asks.

Kenny stops walking. “No.”

“Because you don’t need to be. Obviously, there’s a bit of a, uh, conflict of interest. But you don’t need to worry. I’m not going to start throwing rocks at you.”

Kenny opens his mouth.

“Or throw you off a building.”

“I-”

“I’m just saying. We can coexist.”

“I’m not gay.”

“Denial is a prison, Kenny.”

“Do you need me to say Wallahi?”

Hasan pauses. Kenny takes his ‘Wallahi’s very seriously. Has ever since Hasan told him what it meant. He loves the weight of the word. The fact that he can pull it out whenever his word is doubted and silence all suspicion. Takes it more seriously than Hasan, and he doesn’t even believe in the God whose name he’s swearing on.

“Say it then,” Hasan says, wary.

“Wallahi.”

“What the fuck?” Hasan’s genuinely at a loss.

“I told you.”

“Wait,” Hasan says, when he starts to move again. “You don’t take it up the ass?”

“I put it in. Vaginas.”

“What?” Hasan doesn’t want to let this distract him but he can’t let it pass without comment. “That’s weird.”

“Putting it in vaginas?”

Hasan grimaces. “Don’t be vulgar.”

“You-“

“I can’t get my mind around this.”

“In your mind, I’ve been gay for less than twenty four hours.”

“And in those twenty four hours, everything made perfect sense.”

“I’m sorry,” Kenny says. “That I’ve shaken your world like this.”

“It’s not like that.”

“No.” Kenny lays a hand on Hasan’s shoulder. “I’m flattered.”

Hasan shrugs it off. “Don’t be.”

“You’re making my day.”

“I’m not making anyone’s day.”

“But you are.” He skips over to where the guys are waiting and shouts, “I’m going to tell everyone that you’ve made my day.”

“Aw,” Jacob shouts back. “But I wanted to make your day.”

“What about me?” Stevie says. “What am I? Chopped liver?”

Hasan plays well. Hasan plays the best he’s played this season and the relief is so immense, he’s not even upset about the loss.

Beecher spares a clap on the back, a “good job”, even though Hasan knows he’s beating himself up for the goal he let in in the third. It was a greasy one, too many of them hanging by the crease, the puck deflected by a conveniently positioned stick. Still, a goal is a goal.

In the dressing room, Hasan tries not to look too pleased with himself. Fails when he catches sight of Jacob’s cheshire grin.

“Jittery, my ass.” Hasan says it loud enough for Lambo to hear. Quiet enough for his gloating not to disrupt the diluted but distinctly mournful atmosphere that’s settled over the room.

“If that’s jittery,” Jacob says. “I don’t want to see composed.”

Hasan puts his hand out to display just how composed he can be. Jacob puts his out beside it. You could eat off their hands. Spaghetti. Soup. Anything. That’s how still they are. Damn near statuesque.

And of course, because Jacob will never miss the opportunity to execute one of the six handshakes he’s forced Hasan to learn, he drives their hands into their least clappy variation.

“And, hey,” he says, hand still in Hasan’s. He glances sidelong at the back of Lambo’s head. “Was that performance dependent on you getting shitfaced two nights ago?”

“It wasn’t.” Hasan tugs at Jacob. “Funnily enough.”

Jacob tugs back. “Hmm. Interesting that.”

“It was one game,” Lambo pipes up, his back still to them.

“One really good game.”

They’re each leaning back, now. Balancing on the balls of their feet. Their joined hands, the anchor.

Jacob’s smiling. ‘Good job,’ he’s saying, with his slanted grin. ‘I was getting worried,’ with his raised brow. They hadn’t spoken about it. Not really. Jacob took Hasan’s lead on that one. Knew him well enough to understand talking wouldn’t help. Not like it did for Jacob last season during his scoring drought. Talking and practising. Again and again. So much, Hasan had felt like it was his drought too. Bizarre, to think back on it now. Now, when it feels like Hasan has to compete with whatever the hell is on the other end of his phone for just a fraction of the attention. Hasan’s gotten sick of the sight of Jacob sliding his phone somewhere within arms reach. His lap, or a table, the arm of their couch. Like he’s indulging Hasan for whatever stupid shit he has to tell Jacob. Just five minutes to keep the idiot happy.

That’s more salty than Hasan’s allowed himself to get about Jacob’s recent preoccupations. He flushes it. Hasan’s not eight. It’s dumb to get upset about his friend keeping secrets. Even if they’re secrets other friends are privy to. A sign of how bored he is. How unburdened by adult worries. It makes him feel better, that thought, and it’s what he comes back to every time Jacob’s phone does the glide.

Lambo turns. “One game Hasan hasn’t been an active liability and you guys are celebrating like he’s been nominated for a Norris.”

Hasan lets go, abrupt and Jacob just barely catches himself on the wall. “Keeping me humble,” Hasan says, quick and light. No chance to let the words linger, the tone register. He doesn’t do it for Lambo’s sake. The guys an asshole and everyone in the room knows it. It’s the humiliation that Hasan’s guarding against. Of knowing there’s nothing he can say to defend himself. Of everyone else knowing too.

Jacob’s voice is steel. “You wanna talk liabilities, Lamb? ‘Cause we absolutely can.”

Lambo laughs. “Why are you mad? Hasan isn’t. No point being upset about the truth. He knows that.”

“You’re still going?”

“Guys,” Cap says. “Media.” They’re filing in. He juts his chin at Hasan. “You’re near top of their list.”

“We’ve been prepping,” Hasan says. Voice still light. Still unaffected. Hasan’s favourite rookie’s watching them, a little wide eyed, but the room is noisier, now that everyone’s moved on. Actually doing shit instead of pretending to be interested in the frayed fabric of their boxers, or the smell of their socks.

“Lambo’s the asshole reporter,” Jacob says, and more than a couple guys laugh at that.

Media’s fine. Hasan’s good with media. Even when the questions they ask make him feel like he bombed that game, just as bad as the last twenty odd.

When Hasan swings by Jacob’s hotel room, he’s not there. Hasan calls, isn’t surprised when he’s sent to voicemail. Hangs up before the irritating as fuck, “You’ve reached Jacob. I can’t come to the phone right now, obviously, but you can leave me a message after the beep.”

Hasan sits around in his room for a bit. Calls his mum and sister. Schedules his dentist appointment. Comments on an old teammates post on Instagram. Twiddles his thumbs, mainly.

He’s getting married. His old teammate. Good for him. Less so for her, Hasan can’t help but think. She’s gorgeous. And Timmy? Decidedly not. The kind of ugly that’s difficult to look at, frankly. Hasan straightens. This is what happens when he’s bored. He starts shitting on guys as harmless as Timmy.

There’s a ruckus a few doors down. The kind that means some of the guys have decided they’re going out. Hasan doesn’t move. Sits on his hands until the ruckus turns into irregular stomps and then into silence.

He falls asleep without meaning to. Wakes to the sound of laughter outside his room. He splashes water over his face, wipes the drool off, and then opens his door to peak into the hallway. Watches as Jacob shoves Kenny into his room, and then pulls the door shut. Straining against it as Kenny, Hasan assumes, pulls from the other side.

“Jacob!” Hasan whisper-shouts. Maybe he should’ve foreseen it, but at the sound of his name, Jacob stops pulling for a split second, the result of which is a thud that is surprisingly contained.

“Oh, shit.”

Jacob looks like he’s about to help Kenny up, and it’s from personal experience that Hasan knows it’ll make the process ten times longer. “Leave him. He’s fine.”

Jacob’s head snaps up. Like he’s only just remembered Hasan’s here. “But he fell?”

“What did you think would happen?”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t help.” Then, at a groan from Kenny, “Shh.” Only the lower half of Jacob is visible as he bends to help Kenny up. “Fuck, you’re heavy.”

Another thud.

“Where’d you go this time? Furry convention?”

“Crossed that one off our list a long time ago.”

“Right.”

It’s a while until Jacob leaves Kenny to his own devices. When Hasan follows him into his room, he looks over his shoulder with a questioning glance. “You need something?”

“Just for you to stop hiding shit from me.”

Jacob sighs. “This again.”

“Why can’t you just tell me? You’ve told Kenny.”

“I’m wiped the fuck out, Hasan. I need to sleep.”

“Tell me, and I’ll get out of your face.”

“You don’t want to know,” Jacob says. “If you did. You’d have figured it out by now.”

“I thought I did. But I was wrong. Kenny said Wallahi.”

Jacob closes his eyes. Steels himself against something. “Yeah, because Kenny was the only guy at the club.”

“Who else was there?”

“You have to be fucking with me at this point.”

“Jacob. I’m telling you. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Kenny was all alone,” Jacob says, loud. “He was the only one you followed that day.”

“No. You were with him.”

“Exactly.”

It’s quiet. And Hasan doesn’t want to say it, because Jacob is giving him his ‘You’re dumb as fuck and from this point forward, I will never see you as anything but’ look, but he doesn’t get it.

The look changes. Becomes more like ‘It’s not fair we eat cows and chickens and fish and justify it through their lack of intelligence but allow people like you, with half the mental capacity, to roam.’

Irritation flashes hot in Hasan. “I didn’t come here for riddle of the day. Just tell me it straight.”

“It’s me,” Jacob almost shouts. “It’s fucking me. Okay.”

“What?” Hasan says, then as it hits him, “Oh.”

Jacob looks stunned. Hasan can’t imagine how he looks.

“But…” Hasan says. Straightens against the door. “But, Gemma.”

“She’s a friend. No benefits.”

“Why would you lie about that?”

“I can’t deal with you if you’re going to act this dumb about everything.”

Hasan understands why he lied. Of course he does. But he doesn’t know how to react to this. And he’s angry for some reason. He wasn’t angry when he thought it was Kenny.

“You were right,” he says. He’s not looking at Jacob. “I didn’t want to know.”

“Yeah, well.” Jacob’s voice is like Hasan’s never heard it. Hard and miserable and resigned all at once. “I warned you.”

The handle of the hotel door is warm with Hasan’s touch. He fakes a yawn. Pushes against the handle.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m tired.”

“I know how you look when you’ve just woken up.”

That sounds.

Hasan can’t think about it.

But he is. And it must be a loud thought because Jacob laughs, harsh and ugly. “You can’t be serious.”

Hasan pulls the door open. “I’m gonna...”

“You’re being so fucking dramatic,” Jacob says. “Do you need to take a lie down? Is this news too much for your heart to take?“

“What do you want from me?” Hasan says. “You know I can’t…”

“Can’t what?” Jacob says. A challenge.

“Accept you. It.”

“‘It’.” Hasan was trying not to be harsh and he’s mocked for it.

“You know it’s haram.”

“So is bacon,” Jacob says. Too quick for it not to have been a prepared answer. “I’ve never seen you react like this to Beecher fucking up a McMuffin.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Why?” Jacob says. And the switch from caustic to pleading is so abrupt, Hasan looks up from the patchwork rug. “Why can’t it be?”

“I-”

“This doesn’t need to be a thing.”

Jacob doesn’t cry. Hasn’t in the three years Hasan has known him. And so Jacob’s eyes can’t be watery. Or if they are, it must be because he’s gotten something stuck there.

Hasan doesn’t say anything. Can’t. Focuses on Jacob’s unshed tears instead. Wills them not to fall.

“Stop looking at me like that.” Eyes trained to the ceiling, Hasan has no idea how Jacob could have possibly evaluated the expression on his face. “I’m not fucking crying. You know I don’t cry.”

Jacob has a tendency to do that. To be the one to bring things that might be used against him out into the open. Hasan doesn’t see it. The supposed power in it. Would never admit if he was close to crying.

“Why did you make me tell you? I shouldn’t have told you.”

Why didn’t you hide it better? The words are stuck in Hasan’s throat. He swallows it. “I’m sorry,” he says, instead. Then he pulls the door closed behind him. On Jacob’s face, still fixed to the ceiling. His pursed lips and straining forehead and still dry cheeks.

Chapter Text

Hasan doesn’t sleep all night. Gives up four hours in and pulls up the movie his sister’s been begging him to watch for over a year just so he can stop thinking about Jacob. It doesn’t work. 

Hasan’s a big believer in reciprocity. His mother says it’s important to do nice things for people without expecting anything in return but Hasan’s always expected something for his acts of kindness. Everyone does, he thinks. Even his mother. It’s why she always brings up the fact that she carried Hasan in her womb for nine months. Raised him, fed him, kept him warm. Why every time he visits, she mentions that she expects to be taken care of in old age. Not stuck in a care home. 

When someone does a favour for Hasan, he notes it. Not physically, like in an excel spreadsheet or something; he’s not a psychopath. But he needs to keep score, because Hasan’s not naturally disposed to helpfulness, so if he’s exerting himself, he wants to make sure it’s for the right people. 

Jacob’s been helpful. Jacob’s almost been too helpful. Hasan wholly intended to reciprocate whenever the time came. 

Hasan can’t be helpful. Not for this. Jacob should’ve known that. Should’ve prepared for that. Definitely shouldn’t have been as helpful as he has been, these last four months. 

It’s not fair. There’s nothing Hasan can do to equalise it. Was that Jacob’s aim? Were all the wake ups and the gifts, the pep talks and the attempts at solidarity, supposed to be a kind of insurance? So that when Hasan did find out, he would feel obligated to be as supportive. Or, if not as supportive, for there to be a level of indifference. Just supportive enough for things between them to remain the same. 

It’s manipulative, is what it is. Hasan never asked for any of Jacob’s help. And now he can’t sleep. Guilt the pea beneath his mattress because Jacob couldn’t or wouldn’t think ahead. 

A dull ache is beginning to develop behind Hasan’s left eye, so he switches off his phone. He only got twenty minutes in but at least he can tell his sister he tried. He’ll have to look up the summary.

It’s stupid, too, Hasan thinks. Jacob knows homosexuality is expressly forbidden in Islam. A major sin. Why would he encourage Hasan to become a person who has no choice but to condemn him. His identity. Lifestyle. Whatever.

Why wouldn’t he tell Hasan when he wasn’t practising? When he was bumbling around, calling himself a Muslim, because that’s what his parents were, but applied virtually none of the teachings into his life. Why didn’t he tell Hasan when he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on? 

People don’t think of themselves as bigoted. Don’t proudly proclaim themselves homophobic, or racist. They proclaim themselves truth-tellers instead. “I’m not racist. I’m just stating facts.” Hasan’s knows it’s empty. A useless disclaimer to everyone listening. He won’t bother with it. He knows he’s homophobic. 

In high school, grade ten or eleven, there was a gay guy in his PE class. He’d deny it, but, well, everyone knew. Hasan wouldn’t have said his high school had a bullying culture, but you wouldn’t know it from a look in those changing rooms. 

Hasan never joined in. Even put a stop to it a couple times when he could feel it skirting from run of the mill name calling and goading to fucked up humiliation ritual. It was easy enough. He was well liked in school and big enough for most everyone to avoid starting shit with him.

Maybe that would make him less homophobic, except for the way the boy tried to thank him once and Hasan could barely look at him. An alien, almost crawling, sensation settling with the interaction. 

So, yeah. He knows he’s pretty homophobic. Same as everyone else in that dressing room. Some of those guys had atheist parents. Hasan knew, because they never shut the fuck up about it. Whenever one of those guys was losing an argument, it was “What do you know about stupid? You believe in a man in the sky.” 

Those guys were just as homophobic as Hasan. No, more. And they didn’t even have a reason. They’re probably champions of gay rights, now. Still going around telling people they’re stupid, but this time, feeling righteous about it. Never mind that classmate they once forced out of a high school dressing room. Bullied so badly he was granted special permission to change in the bathroom on the other end of the building. 

Maybe those guys have changed, but Hasan knows he hasn’t. Because that same crawling sensation, familiar now, has been lingering since he caught sight of the tears in Jacob’s eyes, and he can’t shake it no matter what he does. 

The hour before his alarm’s scheduled to go off, Hasan gets back into a sleeping position, closes his eyes. There’s no way he’s falling asleep but he needs to rest. 

He goes down to breakfast with a blinding headache. If the Advil he took doesn’t kick in soon, he’ll throw up on the plane. 

He picks at the buffet like a rabbit. Gives the croissants and cinnamon rolls a wide berth. Leaves the sandwiches alone too. Goes for the salad. The charcuterie platter. 

Jacob’s not down yet, and Hasan’s grateful. He hunkers down with the vets. They’re the only ones he can count on to be quiet during breakfast. “Headache?” Cap asks and Hasan gives him the barest of nods. It’s very captainly, the way Henney nods back. An ‘I want you to know I’m monitoring this’ nod that Hasan can’t help but smirk at. He places a bottle of water in front of him. “Measured sips.” 

“Aye, aye.”

The water’s lukewarm. He doesn’t drink it. He doesn’t eat anything off his plate either. Bart nudges him. “Okay?” 

“Yeah,” Hasan says. 

This headache is a different beast. He places his head in his hands and closes his eyes. Can’t think about getting on the bus. The plane. 

He stays like that for a while. Tries to focus on the conversation around him as a distraction. It’s mainly Bart expressing his distrust of handymen and maintenance guys. The other guys imploring him to leave his cupboards alone. To return the saw he got off Amazon. 

“What’s wrong with him?” comes from above, and it takes everything in Hasan to keep his head down.

“Head is hurting,” Bart says. 

Cap says, “Get him to eat something.”

“No point. It’ll all come back up again, later.”

“Some water, then.”

“He’ll be fine.” 

And then he’s gone. Hasan didn’t realise he’d tensed up. He relaxes. Waits a while to poke his head up. Regrets it immediately when his head punishes him for the motion.

Jacob looks fine. Jacob looks like Jacob. He’s piling his plate high. And another one Hasan assumes is for Kenny. That’s as much as he observes before he’s driving his head back into his arms.

“Go and lie down,” Cap says. “I’ll get you when it’s time to go.”

Hasan doesn’t need to be told twice. The first five minutes in his bed are almost heavenly. But then the satisfaction from the luxury of it wears off and Hasan is left still dealing with one of the worst headaches he’s ever had in his life. He wants to cry. Call his mother. He does neither. 

He must fall asleep at some point, because there’s knocking at his door what feels like ten seconds later. 

“Fuck off.”

The knocking persists. 

It’s Cap Henney on the other end, worried expression on his face. “You good to go? We can extend the booking for the room if that’s what you need. Scratch you for tonight’s game.”

“Nah. It’s fine. I’m good.”

Cap looks at him for a long time, then nods. “Come on, then.” He puts his arm around Hasan’s waist, lifts him slightly so it’s easier to walk. Hasan hasn’t got a sprained ankle, he can walk fine. It helps. 

Hasan sits at the front. The seat beside him is left empty and he tries to make use of it, but it’s not enough to stretch out comfortably. His motion sickness only really manifests in the air but Cap still hands him a paper bag just in case. Also goes around to tell the guys, row by row, to keep the volume down.

“Captain of the year,” Hasan says, when Cap comes by again to hand him another bottle of water, this one chilled.

Cap smiles. Says, “Let me know if you need anything.”

The plane is louder. Hasan vomits twice before he starts feeling better. They’re playing Blackjack over at the back and Hasan never misses a game. He’s contemplating joining when Jacob sits down beside him. 

“Gum?” he asks, holding out a pack.

Hasan can’t decline. His mouth is disgusting, even after rinsing it out six times. 

“So,” Jacob says. “I physically make you sick.”

Hasan doesn’t say anything. Drinks from his water bottle. 

“You feeling better?”

Hasan nods.

“Some of us have a game of poker going.“

“I wanted to…” Hasan points over at the guys playing Blackjack.

“Of course.”

It’s the natural end to the conversation, but Jacob’s still sitting there. Hasan’s tearing at the label of his bottle now. Picking at the residue almost compulsively. It’s something to focus on other than Jacob. Staring at him. Waiting for something. 

For Hasan to look at him, he knows. Hasan gives him what he wants. 

Hasan was prepared for anger but he doesn’t find it. Jacob is relaxed. Pensive. 

“How long are you going to be a pussy about this?”

“What?”

The bottle’s ripped from Hasan’s hand. “And what are you doing to this thing? Leave it alone.”

Hasan snatches it back. “Why do you care?”

“‘Cause you’re being weird.”

“I’m not being weird. I’m sick.”

Jacob stares at him. As if he hasn’t also been weird. As if he didn’t unsubtly reject Cap’s attempts to offload Hasan onto him. As if he hasn’t ignored Hasan all day. 

“So you’ll come play poker with us?”

“You know I prefer Blackjack.”

“Come on,” Jacob says. He reaches a hand over and Hasan jerks backward before it touches him. 

Jacob looks shocked. Pulls his hand back and then thrusts it out again. Laughs when Hasan jumps. “Wow,” he says. “It’s like a superpower.”

“Is this all one big joke to you?” Hasan says, because he doesn’t get it. It’s unsettling: the way Jacob’s swallowing the disrespect, pretending to be in on it. He doesn’t like it. Jacob’s supposed to be offended. Disbelieving and resentful. Not whatever this is. 

“What?” Jacob asks. “You want me to cry over you again?”

“Wh-”

“Yeah. I know. It was dramatic.” Jacob barrels on. “But, hey. I was wondering about something, because you honestly weren’t very clear last night, and I need to know what I’m dealing with here. You say you can’t ‘support’ me. Whatever. But, what does that mean? Does that mean you can’t stand to be around me anymore? Or does it mean I just won’t have your blessing for whoever I’m fucking at any given time. Because I can live with that.”

Hasan doesn’t know what it means either. Jacob was right, yesterday. There’s no aspect of a haram lifestyle he’s permitted to support, yet he has no problem being around these guys all day. And yeah, part of it is out of his control. Unavoidable, living in secular society. But a lot of it isn’t. 

Why should Hasan begin to have standards for his friends now? He said it was different. He still feels like it’s different. But no matter how uncomfortable Hasan is by it, Jacob’s still his best friend. Even last night, he knew he didn’t want that to change.

“Rachel says you’re a product of your environment,” Jacob says in the silence. “Millie hates your guts.”

“When did you even speak to them?” 

“This morning.”

Hasan’s met the Carrs more than a few times. He was supposed to stay with them for a week during the offseason, but his mother thought it was a bad idea, what with it being a house full of girls. Millie is by far the warmest of the four. Not anymore, Hasan guesses. 

“We live together,” Hasan says. “It would be dumb to try to avoid you.”

“You’d manage.”

“Yeah, well. I’m not going to.”

“Okay,” Jacob says. He stands up. “Let’s play some fucking poker.”

“Still prefer Blackjack.”

“We’re playing poker.”

Chapter Text

It’s during one of Kenny’s mandatory movie nights that Hasan realises Jacob’s seeing someone. On these nights, they only ever watch buddy cop movies. Hasan doesn’t mind it, because it reminds him of when he was eleven years old and he and his sister exclusively torrented buddy cop movies. Or, he should say, his sister exclusively torrented buddy cop movies. The year Jamila hit Junior High was the year they learned a great many things. 

They never failed to hold Hasan’s attention, back then. They would watch it on Jamila’s bed, their dad’s old laptop resting between them, slightly closer to Jamila because they wouldn’t even be able to watch the movie if it wasn’t for her, and only at night when their parents were asleep, because they were only allowed to use their dad’s laptop for school work. They were only caught once and they weren’t even beat for it. Jamila told their dad Hasan had come to her for help, because he was itching all over and it was keeping him up. They were only using the laptop because they didn’t know what to do, and Jamila didn’t want to disturb them. Not when they had work so early in the morning.

Jamila was really good at making suspicious circumstances seem like the obvious outcome of the most natural sequence of events. Their dad had been ready to discipline them. Mind made up the moment he opened the door to the sight of their heads bent together. The sleep already shaken from his limbs. But his readiness was inappropriate beside Jamila’s placidity.

Hasan didn’t have that gift, but that’s only because he hadn’t earned it. Buddy cop movies always held his full attention, but Jamila always had one eye on the door, one ear perked in the direction of their parent’s bedroom. More often than not, Hasan was pushed to the mattress, duvet pulled over, the heat of the laptop by his back, before the sound of footsteps, the push of the door, reached his ears. Hasan wondered how Jamila was even able to enjoy the movie, being on alert like that. It wasn’t worth it. Hasan would rather take a beating. 

This movie’s not holding his attention and it’s Jacob’s fault. He’s on the other couch. His legs are resting on Kenny’s lap and Kenny seems unbothered by it. Hasan wonders if he’s just better at hiding it. 

Jacob’s phone is silenced, for once. But it’s still distracting, catching movement at the corner of his eyes every two minutes. It’s breaking his immersion. They’re here to watch a movie, not to fuck around on their phones whilst a movie plays in the background. Hasan’s sure it’s psychological, but, now, he doesn’t want to have to bother with paying attention either. 

And he doesn’t. He watches Jacob instead. He doesn’t even need to be sneaky about it. Not when the focus Jacob’s giving that phone would rival that of an iPad kid’s. He’s smiling, which isn’t notable, because Jacob’s always got some form of a smile on his face. He types for a bit. Pauses. Types some more. Puts his phone down for all of two seconds before picking it back up again. Pointlessly casts his gaze to the TV in two second intervals. Now and then, he’ll push his hair out of his face. Jacob wasn’t sure about growing his hair out, but Hasan always saw the vision. If it was up to him, this is the length he’d settle on. Hasan knows Jacob hates how his hair grazes his forehead now, but Hasan thinks a little discomfort is worth it, if the trade off is looking that good. 

Hasan knows the second Jacob’s hair becomes long enough to tie up, he’ll never let it out again. And even if he doesn’t, Hasan knows it won’t fall the same way. It’s good now. Hasan hopes someone tells him to leave it like this. 

“Why the fuck,” Kenny says. “Is no one watching the movie.”

Jacob puts his phone down again, and Hasan has to laugh at what a nothing-gesture it is. 

“Give me your phones.”

“I’m not even using mine,” Hasan says. 

“That’s worse,” Kenny says. 

“Sorry,” Jacob says. “We’ll watch it.”

And for about the next five minutes, they do. But then, Jacob sneaks a peak at his phone, and it’s alarming how quickly he’s back to typing.

“Do you guys want me to beg?” 

“I’m watching the movie,” Hasan mutters.

“Is the movie playing on Jacob’s face?”

Hasan looks away before Jacob’s gaze can meet his. “I’m just wondering what he’s doing.”

“He’s texting his boyfriend,” Kenny says. 

“Not my boyfriend,” Jacob says.

“Oh,” Hasan says. “That’s,” he stops. He can’t say it’s cool. “I didn’t know that.”

“Now, you do.” Kenny holds his hand out, and when Jacob refuses to relinquish his phone, plucks it from his grasp with a grace and speed Hasan has only ever seen in, like, Golden Eagles on the nature channel.

“How…?” 

“Now, everyone shut the fuck up.”

Hasan spends a lot of time with Ibrahim.

“Why are you always…?” Hasan gestures towards Yusuf, who’s doing push ups against the wall outside the bathroom. He refused to sit with them while he waited. Scared someone would swoop in and get there before him. 

“Taking care of Yusuf?” Ibrahim finishes. Says, “he’s my nephew,” when Hasan nods.

“I know,” Hasan says. “But you act like you’re his dad.”

Ibrahim sighs. “It’s what my sister wants.” 

“Why?” 

“She thinks he’s the way he is because he spends too much time with his sisters.”

Hasan thinks about Jacob. His four sisters. “And you’re cool with the arrangement?” he says, because he’s not touching that with a ten foot pole. 

Ibrahim says, “Fuck, no.” Then, “Astaghfirullah. But no. I’m twenty six. What twenty-six-year old do you know wants to spend all his time with a kid that’s not even his?” 

“You can’t tell her to look after her own kid?”

“Nah,” Ibrahim says. “She needs the help. Her husband works crazy hours. So it’s up to me.”

“To?”

“Get him right.”

Hasan doesn’t say anything. Watches Yusuf’s little arms tremble against his weight. Wonders if Ibrahim’s told him to do push ups wherever he goes. If that’s a part of his regimen. “I don’t think you need to be doing all that.”

Ibrahim looks at Hasan for a long time, then says, “If I tell you something, you need to promise not to repeat it to anyone.”

“Of course, man.”

Ibrahim continues staring. Expectant.

“I won’t,” Hasan says. “Wallahi.”

“Okay.” Ibrahim says. “A couple months ago, we found a love letter that he wrote. It was to a boy in his class. Hearts and stars and Cupid’s freaking bow and arrow drawn all over. He didn’t actually give it to him, alhamdulillah. And he hid it under his mattress so he knows it’s wrong. But the fact that he wrote it in the first place.” He sighs. “I know you think we’re overreacting, but if we don’t deal with this now, it’s only going to become a bigger problem.”

“But if it is the case that he’s, you know, maybe there’s nothing you can do to change him.”

Ibrahim shakes his head harshly. “No,” he says, a note of disapproval in his voice. “It’s not ‘him’. It’s not who he is. Or a part of him. Or anything these Westerners say it is.”

“No,” Hasan says. “No, of course not. All I’m saying is, if he’s already shown signs of being attracted to-”

“He’s seven years old. He’s not attracted to anyone.”

“That letter has you worried for a reason,” Hasan says. The nitpicking was beginning to irritate him. “All I’m trying to say is that getting Yusuf to stop dotting his eyes with hearts isn’t going to make it any easier for him to resist temptation. If that’s what his test is gonna be, then maybe you’re doing all this for nothing.”

“It doesn’t have to be his test,” Ibrahim says, visibly aggravated now. “All you’re telling me is that you’ve fallen for all the propaganda about gays being born that way. That’s not how it works. It’s all environment. And… and prominent male role models, and that’s what we’re giving him.”

“But if he’s already like that-“

“He’s not,” Ibrahim says, voice raised. “What the hell is your problem?”

“Nothing.” It’s said half awkwardly, half accusatory. Playing devil’s advocate is Ibrahim’s second favourite hobby. His first is calling people emotional when he’s finally told to shut the fuck up after his fifth “To be fair”. It’s not Hasan’s problem he can’t handle being on the other end of it. 

Ibrahim’s still angry. Hasan can tell. But he sits back and he lowers his voice. This Tim Hortons isn’t packed, but it isn’t empty either. “Even if he is already that way. He isn’t, but even if he is, it doesn’t mean he always will be. There are people out there, who used to be that way and aren’t anymore. Yusuf-”

The boy comes rushing towards them. “Come with me,” he says, pulling at Ibrahim’s hand. “It’s dark in there.”

“No, Yusuf.” He gently pries Yusuf’s fingers off. “You can go by yourself.”

“It’s dark” Yusuf says. He looks over his shoulder. “Quickly! Before someone takes it.”

“You can use the toilet by yourself.”

“I will.” Yusuf says, urgently. “Just stand outside the door. Please.”

“We can see the door from here.” Ibrahim says. “We’re right here.”

“Please,” Yusuf cries, stretching the word out. “I’m going to pee my pants.”

“Then go.”

Yusuf’s wriggling. Bouncing from foot to foot. Leaning forwards, and swaying left and right.

“I’ll take you.” Hasan gets up and Yusuf shoots off to the bathroom, nearly bowling over another child as he does.

“Did you clean everything properly?” Hasan asks, when Yusuf comes out in under a minute. 

“Yes.”

“And you washed your hands?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s do it again.”

The whole ride home, Ibrahim’s silent. Hasan has no patience for it. He turns around in his seat to play I-spy with Yusuf.

When they stop outside Hasan’s place, he considers saying something. Maybe, “So you wanted me to watch while he pissed himself in the middle of a Tim Hortons?” but he decides against it. He says goodbye. Gets two back. One joyful and sunny and full of cheer. The other delayed and limp.

Jacob’s on his way out when Hasan comes in.

“Where are you going?”

Jacob runs a hand through his hair. Fixes the collar of his jacket. Doesn’t look at Hasan when he says, “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”

Their shoes are strewn all over the floor. Hasan kicks at them. Organises in his head where they would fit nicely on the rack. He already knows he’s not going to do it. “You’re not going to bring him back, are you?” he blurts out. Kicks at the shoe again.

“Not the plan,” Jacob says. “But who knows where the night will take us?”

Hasan grimaces. “I don’t really want to hear about that.”

“Good thing I’m not telling you.” He says it like Hasan’s missing out. “Those are my shoes you’re kicking all over the place.“

Hasan looks down. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.” Jacob pulls his shoes on. Doesn’t look back at Hasan when he says, voice clipped, “See you later.”

“Yeah.” 

Hasan’s been trying, is the thing. He’s never pushed past more discomfort in his life than he has in the last two weeks. It’s not enough. Hasan can tell it’s not enough. Knows it’s only a matter of time before Jacob decides he’s not worth it.

Some days are better than others. He can look at Jacob for longer than three seconds at a time. Can be the one to initiate conversation. Can experience the bubble of laughter in his gut without it turning sour. 

Some days are almost like before. Others are… different.

Cap holds a get together a few days before the All-Star break. They’ve got a foosball table in their games room, and it’s Jacob and Hasan versus Lambo and Beecher. It’s really Hasan versus Lambo. Jacob and Beecher are both sieves. Completely useless when they’re not being an active hindrance. 

“Are you feeling deja vu?” Lambo says, when the little ball sails past the goalkeeper.  It wasn’t Beecher’s best game last night. 

“Are you seriously shit talking me?” 

“Well, I don’t know how else to motivate you.”

They switch sides again, Lambo taking control of the defensive players.

“You two shouldn’t be allowed to switch so much,” Jacob says.

“Why?” Lambo shakes out his hands. “Because you say so?”

“They can switch as much as they like,” Hasan says. “We’ll still beat them.” The switches are dumb. And probably the main reason why Hasan and Jacob are in the lead. 

Beecher ties it up. The only time he’s scored the whole game. 

“Jay,” Hasan says. “Come on.”

“Bro, that was literally all you.”

“You didn’t touch it once. What are you talking about?”

Lambo drops the ball in. “Okay,” Hasan says. “Forget it. We’ll get this one.”

They don’t get that one.

“What’s going on, Hasan?” Lambo throws the ball from hand to hand. “I thought you were going to win.”

“We will.”

“Stop juggling and drop the fucking ball in.”

Natasha pokes her head in then. “I knew you would be in here,” she says. They’ve never left Cap’s house without having a match. “Who’s winning this time?”

“Who do you think, Natasha?” Lambo says, finally throwing the ball in.

Jacob says, “We were winning before.”

“Shut up and focus.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up.”

“Score this next goal and I won’t.”

He does, by some miracle. “Good job.”

“I don’t need your positive reinforcement.”

“Game point,” Natasha says. She’s stood at the head of the table, a cluster of grapes in her hand. “Neck and neck. You’ve got to keep a united front.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll beat them fighting.” Jacob nudges Hasan. “Won’t we?”

Hasan puts his hand out low for Jacob to slap. If they lose, he’s calling for a rematch.

Natasha counts them down, and before Beecher’s let go of the ball, Hasan knows they’re winning. It’s an intense point. Long too. No one says a word for the length of it, and Natasha usually loves her commentary. Hasan’s relaxed, and when he sends the ball straight down the board from his goalkeeper, he almost forgets to celebrate.

“The power of friendship,” Natasha says. She wedges the stem of her grape between her teeth to clap for them. Round in a circle, like his elementary school teachers used to do.

He’s caught off guard when Jacob jumps into him. When he clutches the back of Hasan’s neck, and the side of his waist. His thumb grazes the back of Hasan’s ear, and Hasan doesn’t mean to. He really doesn’t mean to. But he jerks away so hard, he stumbles, and almost falls to the ground.

Jacob looks. There’s no other word to describe it but stunned. His lips are just barely parted. And his hands are repelled slightly from his sides, like he doesn’t know what to do with them. 

Everyone is looking at Hasan, and he knows he should probably say something, but he’s got nothing. 

“So are you going to explain what the fuck that was about?” Lambo says, before he bursts out laughing. “Do you need us to call CPS on Jacob?”

Jacob laughs too, and the sound is bright and loud and so obviously artificial to probably everyone listening. 

“Are you alright?” Natasha asks.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m good. I just…”

“You just what?” Lambo says. Cackles again.

“You guys haven’t eaten yet, have you?” Natasha asks. Doesn’t wait for an answer. “Let’s go before the food’s all snatched up. Ryan’s fixing plates.”

Jacob’s out the door faster than anyone. And for the rest of the afternoon, he steers clear of Hasan. Hasan hasn’t worked up the courage to face him yet, so he leaves him be. Stays seated in the living room to make shit easier.

Lambo goes around reenacting the incident to anyone who’ll listen. Sometimes whoever he’s telling will give a fuck enough to ask Hasan about it, in which case, he’ll shrug, and then pointedly take a bite of his lasagna, but most of the time, they’ll glance over at Hasan, and then back at the football game on screen. 

Beecher’s right beside Jacob. And Hasan sits there coiled in anticipation for when he’ll inevitably ask about it. Now would be the best time, when he’s got him alone. But he doesn’t. And Hasan feels kind of embarrassed for expecting it. 

Hasan and Jacob carpooled it here. But when people start making their way out, Hasan can’t find Jacob anywhere. 

“Hey,” Natasha says, when he pokes his head in the kitchen. She’s wiping the table down, and Cap’s behind her, loading up the dishwasher. “Jacob left with Kenny.”

“Oh, right.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I was supposed to let you know.”

“No,” Hasan says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.” She smiles. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course,” he says. “You know I love your house.”

“You love the foosball table,” Cap says, from where he’s bent over the dishwasher.

“Same diff,” Hasan retorts. “Okay, I’ll see you guys. Have a nice break.”

Jacob’s not at the house when Hasan gets home. At first, there’s relief, but Hasan doesn’t expect the acute panic that chases it. The one that follows the thought: what if he doesn’t come back?

Chapter Text

Hasan knows Jacob has to come back. His passport’s here. His half packed suitcase. But when he’s still not here the morning before he’s supposed to be leaving for Minnesota, Hasan starts worrying.

He texts him, Isn’t your flight today?

Sits on the couch with the chat open waiting for a response. After five minutes, he forces himself to swipe away. Distracts himself with his sister’s texts.

Mom wants to know when u get here tomo

Then:

Hello?

Why do u never answer ur texts?

Four hours after that:

K

Don’t come crying to me when no one’s here to open the door for u

Or awake to

Not getting out of bed to open the door for ur ass

Hasan doesn’t know why his mom so often speaks to him through Jamila. If it’s because she thinks she’ll get a quicker response like that, she’s way off base. If she’d shot him a text herself, it probably would’ve been answered within the minute.

Sorry, he replies.

I’m landing at 6pm

So like 7ish

He swipes back to his chat with Jacob. Sits up when he sees Jacob’s read his message. It’s an embarrassingly long time before Hasan realises he’s being left on read.

Are you stuck somewhere?

Hasan knows he’s not.

Do you want me to bring you your stuff?

This time, Hasan sees exactly when it goes from delivered to read.

He gives himself ten minutes. Ten minutes of staring at the space where bubbles would be if Jacob decided to text him back. Ten minutes of willing it. Damn near making dua over it.

When they’re up, he throws his phone across the room to the other couch. Lets it bounce off to land just shy of the carpet. He stares up at the ceiling. Closes his eyes when the light starts bothering him.

He has to fix this. For the next half hour, that plays on a loop in his head. Not what he can do, or what he can say to actually fix things. Only the intention to do so. Like how when he’s ready for prayer, and the line, ‘I’m going to pray’ is repeated, inwardly, ten times over. ‘I’m praying’, a steady thrum in the background as he does.

He doesn’t know how much longer he’d have stayed like that if it wasn’t for the scratch of keys.

His phone gets trampled in his dash to the front door. It doesn’t stop him. He’s got a phone case for a reason. A screen protector too. His phone has survived two-storey drops. He’s not worried.

“Jacob,” he bellows. “You…” A man comes in after Jacob. A man Hasan has never met before and so can only assume is the boyfriend Kenny was talking about.

He’s a lanky guy. Even bundled up as he is, it’s easy to tell. He’s one of those guys with arms that hang. Sliver of skin at the wrist perpetually on show.

Not bad looking in the face, though it surprises Hasan he’s not more handsome. Jacob likes to be the one punching. “I love beautiful people,” he’s said, more than once. Not that beautiful, clearly.

“This is Hasan,” Jacob says to the man beside him. Then he looks to Hasan. “Hasan, this is Rory. Show him in. I have to grab my stuff.”

“Sure,” Hasan says.

“Cool,” he says. To Rory. “I’ll just be a second.”

“This way,” Hasan says to Rory, when Jacob’s jetted upstairs. Leads him into the living room. “Nice to meet you, man.”

“You too.” Rory doesn’t sit down. Circles the room instead. Like there’s anything to see. It’s one of the barest rooms Hasan’s ever been in. If Jacob once had aspirations of decorating, they are well and truly dead by this point. They don’t even have a clock screwed to the wall. “Nice place you two got.”

“Thanks.” Hasan sits down. Waits for Rory to follow suit before he stands again. “Can I get you anything?”

“I’m good.”

“No. It’s no trouble. A drink? We’ve got coke-”

“No, really-”

“Juice? Water?”

The smile Rory offers Hasan is wry. “Water’s good.”

“Great,” Hasan says. “I’ll be two minutes.”

He grabs his phone before he leaves. There’s not a scratch on it. He pockets it. Hops up the stairs as quietly as he can.

Jacob’s eyes flicker to Hasan before they fall back to the mess above his suitcase. “You left Rory alone?”

“Why?” Hasan says. “Should I not have?”

Jacob ignores him. Pulls a scrunched up top out the suitcase. Looks at it, then scrunches it further. Hasan doesn’t know why he does this to himself. Jacob’s got clothes at home. Maybe most a size too small, but Jacob loves his tight fitted T-shirts anyway. “Only with loose pants,” Jacob would say in his defence. Whatever. Someone with that much ire for packing should be eager to make sacrifices that facilitate forgoing it.

Hasan sighs. “I’m getting him water.”

“So get him water.”

When he looks up to find Hasan still waiting, he lets the shirt fall from his hands. “What are you still doing here?”

“Let me fold that.”

“No,” Jacob says, impatient. But he stops the scrunching.

“Are you mad at me?”

Jacob flattens out the shirt out against the floor. “Yes.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Jacob laughs without humour. “That makes it worse.”

“No,” Hasan says. He needs to explain this. “I swear, it didn’t mean anything. I didn’t mean anything by it. It wasn’t even really me. I just.” He swallows. “It was like something came over me.”

“All I’m hearing is that I’m so disgusting, I awakened some kind of animal instinct within you.”

“I don’t find you disgusting.”

“Bullshit,” Jacob says. “You look at me like I’m that one weird kid in class who flicks his boogers everywhere, and you’ve just been left alone with me.”

“No, I don’t.” Hasan closes the door behind him. “You’re… I…” What is there to say to that? Jacob’s always been in a select category in Hasan’s head. Was put there the moment Hasan met him and, without company, has stayed there since. It’s nebulous. Hasan doesn’t even have a solid grasp of what it is and it’s his own head, the category he conjured. The easiest way he’d describe it would be to say that it lies somewhere between the impression, the truth (belief is close, but that’s not it either) that Jacob is just… better. Hasan couldn’t tell you what he’s better at, and in comparison to who, or what, but the conviction persists. Jacob is better. In a league of his own, as far as Hasan’s concerned. The idea of Jacob being the ‘weird kid in class’ is absurd to Hasan. Almost incomprehensible. “You’re my friend,” is what he lands on.

“Are you even allowed to be friends with gay people?” Jacob says. T-shirt now folded, he places it atop the jumble of clothes like a princess would a tiara to her head. It looks ridiculous.

“Allowed?”

Jacob rolls his eyes. “Yes, big man. You do what you want when you want. Now answer the question.”

“I mean,” Hasan begins. “It’s not encouraged to spend a lot of time with non-Muslims in general.”

“Right.” Jacob doesn’t say anything more for the next couple minutes. Occupies himself with his suitcase. Takes out a pair of sweatpants and a coat, then begins the Herculean task of getting it shut. He lets Hasan help him this time.

They’re both leaning against Jacob’s bed by the end of it. Three inches between them. Less space than Hasan would usually allow, these last few weeks, but no matter how subtly he went about it, Jacob would notice if he moved. He’s as aware of the space between them as Hasan is. Monitoring it. Waiting for Hasan to pull away. He won’t.

Jacob turns his head against the mattress edge. “I need to know how much longer you’ll be like this.”

“I told you I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“Hasan,” Jacob says. He’s quiet. Doesn’t need to be loud when the head of a small child could fit the space between them. “You could be possessed by Pazuzu, and I still wouldn’t give a fuck.“ He sighs. Hasan feels it on his ear. Suppresses a shudder.

“You’re not disgusting,” Hasan says.

“Well, I know that.”

“So do I.”

“You can’t even look me in the eyes.”

Hasan turns his head. “I can.”

It’s always a little disconcerting dealing with a serious Jacob. Rare seeing his mouth straight and his jaw set. “You humiliated me.”

“To who?” Hasan says. “No one even understood what happened.”

“I did.” Jacob stretches his legs out and looks away as he does. “I was wrong. I can’t handle it.”

“What?”

“You can’t even look at me when I talk to you, these days. You don’t sit near me. You- you can’t bear to sit on the same couch as me. You think you’re slick getting up for a snack the second my knee bumps yours. You think I don’t notice when you come back that you’re sitting somewhere else? How can I be friends with-”

“Stop,” Hasan says. “We’re not not gonna be friends, Jacob.”

Jacob doesn’t say anything, and that’s when the panic that’s been simmering low in Hasan’s gut begins to bubble.

“I’m sorry.” Hasan feels… desperate. Feels like he would do anything to stop Jacob talking this way. “I’m looking at you now, okay.“

“Because I-”

“I can look at you easy,” Hasan interrupts.

Jacob huffs.

“I swear,” Hasan presses. “You’re easy to look at.”

“So easy you can’t do it.”

“I can, though.” Hasan eyes flit around Jacob’s face. From his greenish eyes, to his cleft chin to his perfect nose. “I could look at you forever. You think I couldn’t?”

Jacob narrows his gaze. “We’re not turning this into a joke.”

“I’m not,” Hasan says. “You asked how much longer I’m gonna be like this, the answer’s yesterday, okay. I’m over it.”

“Just like that, huh?”

“Exactly.” Hasan snaps his fingers. “I’m very adaptable. You should know that.”

“We’ll see.”

“Yes.” Hasan reaches out, and awkwardly pats Jacob’s arm. “You will see.”

It’s hard to tell if Jacob believes him. There’s wariness there, definitely, but there’s also real amusement for the first time all day. That has to count for something.

“Shit.” Jacob jumps to his feet. “Rory.”

“Oh,” Hasan whispers. And then he’s being kicked in his thighs, and pulled by the arms.

“Go,” Jacob says.

“You’re not helping me up. You’re dislocating my shoulder.”

“He’s been down there twenty minutes. Go get him his water.”

“He’s your boyfriend.”

Jacob lets go of him. “Hasan,” he says. “I swear to God.”

“Okay,” Hasan says. “Okay. I’m going.”

They’ve got a snack bowl somewhere. Three sections. Chips in one. Pretzels in another. Some kind of fruit in the last. Boom. How can you find fault with someone who made you a snack bowl?

“I’m allergic to grapes,” Rory says, when Hasan hands it out to him.

Hasan pulls it away. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“I’m kidding.”

Hasan laughs. It’s not funny, but he laughs anyway. He’s a good sport like that.

“Did you handpick these from your garden or something?”

“Huh?” Are the grapes dirty? Did Hasan not wash them properly?

“You were gone a while.”

“Oh,” Hasan says. “I had to ask Jacob something real quick.”

“You couldn’t just leave him alone?”

“Sorry?”

“You don’t think the last two nights he didn’t come home were a hint?”

Hasan’s too stunned to be defensive. “I wanted to fix it.”

Rory snorts. “I think you could do that by not being a homophobe.”

“Uh,” Hasan says. “Okay.”

What else can he say? Hasan doesn’t even know this guy. He’s not about to defend himself to some rando.

They sit in silence until Jacob comes down which, thankfully, is about one minute later. “We really need to go,” he says. Doesn’t step into the room, just pokes his head out. “Rory, come on.”

“He’s going with you?” Hasan blurts. Kenny said Jacob’s only known this guy a month.

“No,” Jacob says. “He’s driving me to the airport.”

Thank God, Hasan doesn’t say. Because that wouldn’t be fair, Hasan definitely doesn’t say. “Oh,” he says. “Right.“

“Bye,” Jacob says.

I can drive you to the airport, Hasan doesn’t say.

“Yeah, bye.”

Chapter Text

Home is boring. Home is always boring.

“That’s because you have no friends,” Jamila says, when he complains about it again. She’s at her desk, a contortionist in her chair as she tries to view how her hijab sits on her head from every possible angle.

“Khadija was my friend.”

She was Hasan’s friend first, actually. They were in the same class all throughout elementary school. First grade, they were attached at the hip. If only because Hasan followed her everywhere. Khadija let him, but Hasan knew, even then, that the only reason she did was because he never argued when it came time to decide how they should spend recess. Second grade, Khadija became a hot commodity. All the girls in class 2B wanted to play with her. And all of a sudden, Hasan was outnumbered. And he didn’t like that. The boys were happy to have another participant to spice things up in their endless game of tag. And that was that. Hasan likes to think he was missed.

Jamila became friends with Khadija in high school. Hasan already had a decade of knowing Khadija under his belt by then.

“You’re not coming.”

“Why?” Hasan says.

“‘Cause it would be weird.”

“I’m literally her oldest friend.”

“You’re not her friend at all.” Jamila smacks her lips together and drops her lip-balm into her bag.

Hasan scoffs. “Has she ever used you as a chair? Has she ever made you steal all the glue sticks from a classroom? Has she ever rocked you to sleep?”

“Hasan, please.” Jamila chuckles. “You’re not coming. Find your own friends.”

Hasan tosses Jamila’s pillow to the side before he lies down. “I have friends.”

“Those are coworkers.”

“Do you live with your coworkers?”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

“You can find someone else to take to that comedy show tomorrow.” She gets up and grabs her bag.

“No,” Hasan says. “I’m sorry. I was joking.” 

“Yeah,” she says, from where she stands at the doorway. “That’s what I thought.”

“Fuck off,” he says. “I can go alone.” But it’s under his breath, and she’s already gone.

Hasan drags his feet up from where Jamila demanded he leave it resting. Places it comfortably atop her covers and pulls out his phone.

He texts Jacob, Wyd?

Same thing I was doing half an hour ago

Fuck you too

He sleeps the day away. Mistake, because it means he’s up all night with nobody to distract him. He starts two shows. Can’t get past the second episode for both. He wanders the house. Eats an apple and two oranges. Drinks a glass of water. Does a handstand in the living room. Tries to see how long he can hold it. Pulls out his phone.

You awake?

You’re starting to worry me

Oh wow you are awake

Your text woke me up

Put your phone on silent next time then
Don’t blame me

Or you could be normal and stop texting me all hours of the day

I’m bored
What do you want me to do?

Idk
What did you do before you met me?

Fuck off

I’m serious

He tries to remember what he used to do back when he was in school, in college, and the summer stretched endless before him. Training, obviously. Hasan was especially obsessed with getting big his last couple of years in high school. But other than that, what did he do all day?

Basketball, sometimes. With school friends. School friends he barely remembers now. He wonders if that’s normal. High school was only, what? Five, six years ago.

Video games at said friends’ houses. Hasan’s parents never allowed him any gaming consoles. It’s why he’s never liked playing them. He’s no good at them. Began at a disadvantage. He doesn’t decline when he’s asked to join, though. It’s all Ibrahim and his friends do, when they’re not at the mosque.

He hasn’t got friends here. That’s what it boils down to. And sure he could make them. He could go down to the mosque tomorrow. It’s so easy to make friends as a Muslim guy, Hasan’s learned, if you just go to the mosque once in a while.

He doesn’t want to go to the mosque.

Or even last offseason
You weren’t bothering me nearly as much then

How are you still complaining?
Am I getting in the way of you sexting Rory is that it?

No actually

So you’re being a bitch for no reason?

Is encouraging independence being a bitch?

Just go to bed
You’re no help

Okay
I’m sorry
I had no idea being away from me would make you this emotional

Hasan powers off his phone.

Jamila brings Khadija along to the comedy show.

“We’re friends, right?” Hasan asks Khadija.

“Of course,” she replies, drawing out the ‘course’. “We were partners in crime.”

“Jamila just doesn’t understand that that kind of bond lasts a lifetime.”

Khadija grins, circles an arm around Jamila’s neck and pulls her in. “Oh, no?”

“Yep.” Hasan nods solemnly. “She thinks she can speak for you.”

“Shut up, Hasan.”

“And see? Unprovoked.”

“See what? Was I speaking for her when I told you to shut up?”

When she looks away, Hasan purses his lips and raises his eyebrows in the universal “what is her problem” gesture and Khadija smirks.

They don’t get to talk much when they’re seated. Jamila sits between them, and she leaves no room for a three way chat. Hasan wonders why she even agreed to come in the first place. Wonders why he asked, if he would just end up sitting alone anyway.

Hasan can’t tell if the acts are funny. He doesn’t laugh, but Jamila and Khadija are in hysterics. Slapping at each other every ten seconds. Pulling and pushing and swaying. They jostle Hasan more than a few times and each time they do he spares them a glance, smiles passively and then turns his attention back to the act.

He pulls out his phone, then realises what he’s doing, and stuffs it back in his pocket.

Jamila takes pity on him during the intermission.

“You good?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“So laugh, then, huh?”

“Not my fault they’re not funny.”

“Not their fault you’re miserable, you mean?”

Hasan doesn’t say anything to that. Then, Khadija interrupts to let them know she’s going to the bathroom, and Jamila joins her.

This time, when he pulls out his phone, he scrolls to his chat with Kenny.

Hey, man
How’s the break been
What you up to?

There are bubbles immediately.

Hasan?

Yeah
Who else?

Oh
Ntg
Been good man
Loving it
Wbu?

Yeah me too

Rly?

Hasan furrow his brows. Leans forward in his seat.

Yes
Why you asking

Ntg
Just Jake said
Tht u weren’t

Hasan powers off his phone.

Two days later, Hasan’s scrambling eggs in the kitchen when Jamila says, “Khadija wants your number.”

Hasan stops scrambling. “Oh.”

The kettle pings. Hasan watches the steam rise up the wall. Bounce off the ceiling.

“Are you surprised?” She dumps a teaspoon of sugar into her cup.

“Kinda.”

He resumes his scrambling. He shouldn’t have stopped. Six eggs in there and way too many clumps for comfort. Oh well. It won’t matter once he’s drowned it in ketchup.

He watches Jamila out of the corner of his eye as he does. “You don’t want me to give it to her,” he says.

“No,” she says, lifting the teabag from her cup and dropping it by the sink. “No, I don’t really care either way.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I mean. It’s kind of awkward, but, you know, it’s not that serious.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And like, it either happens or it doesn’t. There’s not really the same potential for it to get messy with us, so.”

That’s true. Assuming they keep things relatively halal, there is a threshold to how serious things can get before committing to marriage. And it’s a pretty low threshold.

“So, can I give it to her?”

Hasan must take too long to answer because Jamila says, “What? You don’t like her? Are you joking?”

“Huh? I didn’t say that.”

“She’s way too good for you. Why are you thinking about it?” She scoffs, and then somehow judgementally takes a sip of her tea.

“You can give it to her.”

“Might as well not, if you’re gonna act like she’s begging.”

“Jamila, I genuinely cannot deal with you right now.” He sticks a fork in his eggs and ketchup and grabs his shake. “You have my permission to give her my number. Okay. You happy with that?”

She chuckles and takes another sip. “I’ll send it to her. And I’ll send you hers. Don’t wait for her to text you first.”

“Sure.”

“Good.”

When Hasan gets upstairs. There’s a text waiting for him.

How’s the separation anxiety

One of my sister’s friends just asked for my number

What else is new
At 9am?

She asked through my sister
Who just told me now

When’s the wedding

Idk
But you’re not invited

Your threats used to be believable
Hey
If I had a big fat gay wedding
Would you turn up?

Is this a test?
Yes

Hasan couldn’t say no to that. He’d told Jacob he accepted it, accepted him. Maybe not in so many words but he’d implied it well enough. He couldn’t go back on that now. He wouldn’t.

Really?
Don’t lie because you think it’s what I wanna hear

I’m not
I meant what I said last week
What kind of friend would I be if I couldn’t go to your wedding

Okay
Okay
That’s cool

Are you gonna be normal now?

Normal?

And actually text me back
Properly

Oh the separation anxiety is bad

Admit it
You’ve been keeping your distance
It’s Rory isn’t it?

The pause before the no is just a moment too long.

I knew it
Weirdo with a weirdo ass name

No
Don’t do that

What?
He’s the one whispering in your ear
Tryna stir shit

Can you blame him?

For trying to stir shit?
Yes

For being cautious of you

I’m cautious of him
He sounds controlling
You should dump him
He was so aggressive when I met him
Called me homophobic

Well

Told me to leave you alone
Sorry?
Who tf are you?

What did you expect?

Someone normal?
I’m just saying
I don’t like him

That’s fine

And he’s a weirdo

I don’t agree

I think if you actually liked him you would defend him with more passion

You’re just not someone I feel the need to defend my relationship to

Fucking rude.

Keep telling yourself that

And then, after a moment of deliberation, he adds, rude.

Jacob sends back laughing emojis. And then:

I gotta go
Will you be okay?

You’re not funny
You’ve milked it okay?
There’s nothing left

Only two days
Hang in there

Hasan’s eggs have grown cold, the ketchup congealed around it. It looks disgusting. He thinks about it. There’s an eighty percent chance he gets it down and keeps it down. There’s a one hundred percent chance the taste stays with him all day.

He’s throwing it away. He has to wait a while for his mom to leave the kitchen. If she catches him throwing away half a dozen eggs, there’s no telling what she’ll do.

She’s in there about an hour, and in that time, Hasan can feel himself becoming more and more nauseous as that distinct ketchupy smell envelopes his room. He opens up his windows. His door. And when she’s finally out, he runs downstairs. Empties his plate into the trash at lightning speed and covers it up with a couple paper towels. Eats an apple just to throw the core in. Make it look less suspicious.

Then he goes back upstairs and finishes chugging his protein shake.

Chapter Text

There are people in Hasan’s house. He detects the activity within as he walks up to the door. Muted laughter as he pulls out his keys and shit, that’s at least five people. Who invites people right after a flight?

It’s not his business, Hasan decides. They’re Jacob’s friends, not his. He’s going straight to bed. He’s going to pull off his coat, and his socks, maybe, and he’s going straight to bed.

“Hasan!” Kenny says, the moment he pushes the door shut behind him. He’s holding a drink, ostensibly on his way to the kitchen.

“Shhh!” Hasan violently waves his hands up and down. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Is that Hasan?”

Say no, Hasan mouths. No.

“…Uh… no.”

“Did I tell you to say ‘Uh… no’ or did I tell you to say ‘no’?” Hasan says, giving up the pretence. “Can’t trust you to do shit.”

Kenny just laughs. “I’m sorry, man.”

Jacob appears beside him. “It is you.”

“Yes,” Hasan says. “Why are there people in our house?”

To Kenny, Jacob says, “This is like when a cat’s been crying outside your door for hours and then when you finally open it, it doesn’t even come inside.”

Fully milked. The teat is sore.

“I’m going to bed.”

“Come on.” Jacob takes Hasan’s bag from his grasp. “At least say hi to everyone first.”

“Who’s everyone?”

“Gemma. Rory. A couple of Rory’s friends.”

Somehow worse than what Hasan had expected. A room filled with people who either don’t like him or don’t know him.

No fucking way, Hasan mouths.

The corner of Jacob’s lip quirks upwards for a fraction of a second. “Just five minutes and I’ll tuck you in myself.”

“I’m tired.”

“Five minutes.”

Hasan sighs. Five minutes. He can do five minutes. “Fine.”

It’s not five minutes. Though Hasan supposes he has nobody but himself to blame for that. No one would protest if he excused himself right now. No one would bat an eye.

But he can’t stop watching Jacob and Rory from where he’s settled himself at the dinner table. The man has no concept of personal space. He’s touching Jacob, always. Right now, he’s got a hand on Jacob’s thigh. Two minutes before, it had been around his waist. It’s ridiculous. Jacob almost certainly doesn’t like it. Hasan doesn’t know who would. Being pissed on just the once would probably be preferable to the nonstop contact.

He takes another cookie from the box in front of him. They’re not very good, but they’re there and Hasan wants to look like he’s doing something other than staring Rory down.

Rory’s friends are cool. He made small talk with them for a while about what constitutes a long flight. If they’d ever consider becoming a flight attendant. If planes are one of the hardest places to sleep. Hasan doesn’t know exactly what they’re talking about anymore, but he’s pretty sure it’s work stuff. Kenny and Gemma are whispering about something on the other sofa, and Rory’s pawing at Jacob. He’s saying something too, and Jacob smiles at whatever it is. Smiling through the pain, Hasan’s sure. Yes. Smiling even as he wishes he could scream at Rory to keep his hands off him.

Hasan needs to go to bed. He doesn’t announce his departure, but Jacob jumps up after him anyway. “I made you a promise,” he says, as he trails Hasan up the stairs. Then, he tickles the crease at Hasan’s knee. Hasan kicks back at him, not too hard — the last time, he sent Jacob tumbling down the stairs. They’d been less halfway up, and their stairs are carpeted, but Jacob didn’t laugh, and so Hasan couldn’t, and they just stared at each other, until Jacob said, “What the fuck, Hasan?” and Hasan replied, “You tickled me!” and Jacob said, “So you kick me down the stairs?” And then Hasan, shamefaced, helped Jacob up, his heart dropping as he refused to put weight on his right leg.

“I-shit-I… Is it a sprain?”

“I don’t know,” Jacob said, voice shaky, clutching Hasan’s shoulder. “It feels worse.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“Yes!” Jacob gripped Hasan tighter. “Please, I need to sit down. Put me down.”

“I’m…”

“It hurts.”

“I’m sorry. Jay, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean-”

Jacob burst out laughing. “That’s what it takes for you to apologise?” He relieved Hasan of his weight, put distance between them, and began box stepping. “Still got it, baby.”

Hasan chased him up the stairs and to his room. Jacob locked it in the nick of time but Hasan lay in wait and was ready when the door peeked open again, bullying his way in and tackling Jacob to the floor.

“Say sorry,” he said, straining Jacob’s arms against his back. Jacob was never a worthy opponent when he was laughing. Weak all over. Arms like noodles.

Jacob was laughing too much to say anything at first. Hasan sat on him until he could. “Sorry,” he finally said. Laughed. “I’m not the one who has a problem saying it.” Another fit. Hasan let go, watched as Jacob rolled onto his back. His face was so red.

“You kick me down the stairs and I apologise. That’s fucked up.”

Hasan stretched his legs out.

“It actually hurt, you know.” He pulled up a sleeve. “I bashed my arm on the railing.”

“Shit,” Hasan said, at the pinkness just below Jacob’s elbow. It was going to turn into a massive bruise, he could already tell. “Sorry.” He took Jacob’s arm in his hands. “Here, I’ll make it better.”

“Like in Karate Kid?”

“Yeah,” Hasan said. “But ancient Ethiopian practice instead of Japanese.”

“You’re so full of shit.”

“Shh. I need quiet.”

Jacob’s skin was warm. There were faint red dots littered against the pink and Hasan blew them one by one.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jacob said on a laugh.

“Shut up.” He swiped his hand up and down Jacob’s forearm. At Jacob’s questioning glance, said, “Promoting blood circulation.”

“I thought we were meant to be quiet.”

Hasan squeezed.

“I think that’s cutting off my circulation.”

Then twisted. Like he would if he was wringing out a wet towel.

“Was waiting for that.” Jacob shifted. “You’re so bad at it.”

Yeah, because he was being gentle. What kind of psychopath would Hasan be if he purposefully aggravated an injury? He pulled Jacob’s arm up to his mouth. Whispered, “Bismillah.” Dropped it back into his lap.

“Is that it?”

“Yeah,” Hasan said. “Now we wait.”

Jacob smiled. “Thank you.”

Hasan had run his hand down his arm one more time. “Least I could do.”

Now, Jacob’s lying on Hasan’s bed and although he’s above the covers, he looks like he’s about to nod off himself.

“You sure you’re not the one who needs tucking in?”

“Hmm,” Jacob murmurs. “No, I’m good.”

“I can tell them to go away if you want.”

“No.” He hauls himself into an upright position. “I’m fine.”

“You’re tired.” Hasan strips down to his t-shirt and boxers. Leaves his clothes in a pile on the floor. “And if you stay up any longer, you’ll end up sleeping through the night and waking up at four in the morning.”

“They’re gonna leave soon.”

“Are they?”

Jacob puts his head in his hand. He’s drooping in on himself, his body the shape of a question mark. His eyelids are straining against the weight of his eyelashes.

Hasan sighs. He really doesn’t want to go back downstairs. Two minutes. It’ll take two minutes, tops. He pulls his pants back on.

He doesn’t think Jacob even notices him leaving. The living room quiets when Hasan enters. He doesn’t waste time. “Jacob’s fallen asleep. You guys can stay but…” He trails off. Can’t think of a suitable way to end the sentence.

But it’s fine, because Gemma has already began apologising. “We weren’t thinking,” she continues. “Of course, we’ll leave.”

“You can stay, I really don’t mind,” he lies.

“No, no.” She’s already getting up. “We’ll let you both rest.”

The rest of them aren’t quite as prompt. Rory’s friends are still discussing work stuff, but they’re riled up now. About what, Hasan doesn’t understand. Hasan doesn’t care to understand. He wants them gone. But one has had one arm of his coat pulled on for what’s going on minutes, with no way to predict when he’ll pull on the second. The other hasn’t even reached for hers. She just stands there.

“Guys,” Gemma says, and Hasan doesn’t understand how he ever disliked her. “Let’s go.”

“One second,” Rory says. Then he makes for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Hasan says, from where he stands at the bottom of it.

“To say bye to Jacob.” He attempts to continue forward, but Hasan doesn’t budge.

“He’s sleeping.”

“I know.”

“You’re gonna wake him up?”

Rory’s friends aren’t ranting to each other anymore. Gemma is pretending to be preoccupied by her zipper. Kenny takes inspiration. Spends entirely too long bent over his laces.

“No…” Rory says. “I just-”

“Rory, let him sleep,” his friend says. Alex, Hasan thinks his name was. Alex or Andy. Definitely one of those. “You’ll see him tomorrow.”

Rory doesn’t turn around to look at him. He’s looking at Hasan. Staring him down, more accurately. He can stare all he wants. Hasan’s not moving.

“Yeah,” Rory says, finally. He steps back. “You’re right.”

They leave quickly after that.

Hasan comes back to Jacob laying on his side at the end of his bed, his legs dangling. He debates leaving him like that. Hasan wakes him up, he’ll be the biggest hypocrite in Hamilton.

But Hasan doesn’t expect responsiveness. He’s waking him up to make him more comfortable, not to force him to receive his useless farewell.

“Hasan?” Jacob says when Hasan lightly slaps his cheek. Then follows it with unintelligible mumbles.

“Yeah,” Hasan says. “Get up.”

“I’m… sleep.”

“Yes, but you’re in the wrong room.”

More unintelligible mumbles.

“I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I can-“ Mumble. Mumble. “-please.”

“Okay, okay. You can stay. Just get in properly.”

Jacob doesn’t move.

“Jacob, come on.” Hasan grabs his arms. “You look uncomfortable.” He pulls, and thankfully, Jacob cooperates. Quick, Hasan pulls up his duvet, then lets Jacob fall back in. Without prompting, Jacob shuffles up to the head of the bed. Hasan switches out the pillow for the one he never uses. Must pull it from under Jacob too harshly, because he groans. “Ow,” he adds, in case Hasan missed all the groaning.

“You wanna sleep in my drool?” Hasan says, as he adjusts the pillow.  “I’m sorry. You can sleep now.” His hand lingers beneath Jacob’s head. He whispers, “Bismillah.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Go to sleep.”

Hasan grabs his pillow and heads to Jacob’s room. Almost forgets to set an alarm. He sets two. One for two hours from now, and one for a half hour after that. Jams his phone in Jacob’s charger and is out like a light.

Hasan starts missing prayers. That would be fine if he found the time to make it up. Or, it wouldn’t, not really, but it would be forgivable. Huge difference between praying late and not praying at all.

He does make it up, at first. Tacks his Fajr prayer onto his Dhuhr prayer. Until he starts missing Dhuhr too. Then Asr and Maghrib. Until he’s speed running them all at the end of the day. It’s so much easier like that, he thinks. Until it isn’t. Until that too, becomes tedious. Until he’s climbing into bed, promising himself he’ll make it up tomorrow, the day after that. He has so much time, if he really thinks about it.

But then, he stops bargaining. It’s exhausting to tell yourself you’re going to do something and to not follow through. He begins sleeping easy, with nothing to keep him up anymore. With no voice telling him he’s being lazy. That he knows what dedication is like. That he’s capable of keeping promises to himself. That the only explanation for his failure is his spiritual weakness. That he must be profoundly selfish, if he can’t spare twenty minutes of his day for his creator. The one who’s given him this life. The one who’s given him the ability to earn more in a year than most people do in decades. And still, he turns his back on him.

Those thoughts retreat. Only show their face whenever he gets a text from Jamila, or Ibrahim, or Khadija. So he texts them less. Rejects Ibrahim’s requests to hang out more than he accepts them. Answers Jamila’s texts days late. He doesn’t have to worry about Khadija. She only returns what she receives.

He starts staying out longer with the guys, although, he doesn’t drink. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and it’s there.

Jacob notices. He has to notice.

He says nothing.

It takes a while for Hasan to accept that Jacob likes Rory.

It was easier to stomach the touching when he’d thought Jacob secretly hated it. Or — ‘thought’ isn’t the right word. What he thought was irrelevant. He’d decided Jacob was a victim to Rory’s excessive touching. The alternative was to think what? That he liked it? That he wanted it?

Two grown men all over each other. Hasan doesn’t know how not to feel weird about that. He’ll get used to it one of these days, he’s sure. Impossible not to, all the exposure therapy he’s getting.

Other than Kenny, no one else on the team knows about Rory. No one else on the team even knows Jacob’s in a relationship, never mind the man he’s in it with. Jacob never discusses Rory with Hasan (he’s half grateful, half offended) but he has got eyes and ears, and that’s enough to know Rory is markedly displeased with this state of affairs.

He can kick rocks. Millie thinks so too, if Jacob’s last phone call was anything to go by. It’s a shame she still dislikes Hasan.

“Tell her I’m not homophobic anymore,” Hasan says, in the dairy aisle.

“Chocolate fudge?” Jacob asks. Then when Hasan nods, “I have, and she doesn’t care.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think she believes it.”

“Tell her I’m not one to lie.”

Jacob scoffs.

“What do I need to do?” Hasan asks. “To get her to believe me.”

“I don’t know. Make out with a man?”

“Something else.”

“Don’t think she’d accept anything less. Anyway, it’s not just that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know,” Jacob starts. “It’s like, in her head, you wronged me.”

“But I righted you, Jacob. I righted you.”

“Did you?”

“Was the concept of forgiveness not taught in your household? Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody. I mean, I said sorry. What more do you people want.”

“I don’t think those words ever left your mouth.”

“Huh?” Hasan stops walking, and a tiny bundled up lady bumps into him. “Sorry,” he mutters, when she gives him a scathing look.

“You can say sorry to that random woman, but not to me.”

“I said sorry. I’m sure I did.”

“You didn’t.”

“Okay,” Hasan says. “In the small chance that I didn’t, I can say it again.”

“Go on, then. I’m waiting.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hmm.” They come to a stop at the end of the line for self service. “Not convinced.”

“Huh?”

“What are you sorry for?”

“You know what.”

“I want you to say it.”

“Okay.” Hasan looks around. There are people everywhere. “When we’re outside.”

Jacob grins his way down the queue, through self service, and all the way out of the shop. “Well. You’ve had time to think about it.”

“I’m sorry for… um, I’m sorry for treating you like… like…” Like what? “like a leper?”

“Is that a question?”

“No.” Hasan starts again. “I’m sorry for making you feel like you’re repulsive. That was fucked up, and… can you help me?”

“How can I help you apologise to me?”

“I didn’t mean it!” Yes, that was it. “Also, I’m a product of my environment.” Rachel coming in clutch.

“Apologies shouldn’t contain excuses. Six out of ten.”

“Shit. Rachel set me up.”

“She’s really good at that.”

“Your whole family is against me.”

Jacob slaps Hasan on the back. “Stop feeling so sorry for yourself.”

“Is that another rule?”

“I don’t know. But it should be.”

When they’re home, Hasan asks. “Who does Millie hate more? Me or Rory?”

“Probably you.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

Chapter Text

Hasan loves seeing Jacob pissed off.

“What the fuck are you smiling about?” Lambo says, knee bumping up and down against the bench. Hasan hates when he does that shit. And to think he had the gall to call Hasan jittery.

“Relax.”

The Wild are playing dirty. More so now the Welders’ have had two straight power plays, converted one into a goal. Williamson’s been gunning for Jacob all game. Was sent to the box for tripping already. Didn’t stop him.

Jacob’s in the box now. Roughing. Bullshit call. An extended arm Williamson dove right into. No penalty for embellishment.

They’re up one. Might lose the lead on the power play, but they might not. No use worrying about it, anyway. Much more entertaining to watch Jacob seethe in the box. He’s as still as Hasan’s ever seen him, leaning forward and staring straight ahead. Jaw clenched. One hand balled in a fist, the other clutching it.

He’s not usually so easy to rile up. Doubly so when he knows his family are watching. They’re somewhere up in the stands. Mom, dad and all four sisters. Hasan wonders if they’re finding it as amusing as he is.

It’s not so amusing when the Wild tie up the game.

“Still want me to relax?” Lambo says, and that shuts Hasan up. Wipes the grin off his face too.

Hasan thinks it’ll go to OT, but then Chanov scores in the last thirty seconds, a one timer off Williamson’s pass.

Jacob is fuming. He shrugs off Kenny’s pat on the way to his stall. Pulls off his clothes in a manner Hasan can only describe as violent. That’s when he’s not sullenly staring at the ground. It goes: stare, rip off a shoulder pad, stare some more, rip off the other. Hasan gives him a wide berth.

Jacob’s anger offsets some of Hasan’s. Figures Jacob’s furious enough for the both of them. And they can’t both be pissed off at the same time. Upsets the balance.

“Come on, then,” Jacob says, some time later, appearing out of nowhere.

“I thought you left already?”

“Huh?” Jacob looks down at his phone. “No. Let’s go.”

“Uh.”

“Mom’s telling me to hurry up.”

“You go. I’m gonna go back to the hotel.”

Jacob stops typing, looks at him. “Hasan, I’m not in the mood.”

“What?”

“I already told them you’re coming.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“You always come.”

Yeah, back when members of his family didn’t actively hate Hasan.

“Three times isn’t always.”

“What? So we’re counting now?”

“I’m just saying. I don’t need to crash your family dinner.”

Jacob looks down at his phone again. “I don’t have time for this. Come or don’t. I’m leaving.”

Then he’s storming off. Not far into it when he stumbles over Bart’s shoe. “Fucking- why is your shit just lying around?” He doesn’t wait for Bart to answer. Resumes his storming, though it loses some of its menace.

Hasan allows himself a moment to pretend he’s not going after him. Just until Jacob’s turning out of the dressing room. He closes his eyes, opens them, and starts walking.

Patricia’s the first to see him walking up.

“Hasan!”

Hasan waves. Too far away to be comfortable saying anything. They’re all silent as he walks up, just watching him. That wouldn’t usually bother Hasan, but by God, does it bother him now, as conscious to how they regard him as he’s become.

“Jake said you couldn’t join us,” Patricia continues.

Hasan flicks his gaze over to Jacob. There’s still an air of irritability about him, but underneath that, though he doesn’t give any external indication, doesn’t smile or nod his head, Hasan can tell he’s pleased.

“Just a little bit of confusion.” Hasan grins. “Hard to communicate with him when he’s so angry.”

Patricia cackles, throws an arm around Jacob and squeezes. “Oh, you’re so right. He just shuts right up.” To Jacob, she says, “Don’t you?”

In true Jacob fashion, he proves her correct. Stares blankly down at her, then up at Hasan, who grins back.

Ned claps Hasan on the shoulder. “Good to see you. Shame about the game.”

“Eh,” Hasan says. “We’ll get the next one. Won’t we, Jacob?”

He doesn’t even spare him a glance.

Hasan can’t avoid it any longer. He faces the girls. “Hey,” he says, then, for lack of anything better to say, “Enjoy the game?”

The youngest, Nina, blinks up at him. Hasan knows she’s relying on her elder sisters to answer, but just this once, he wishes she would. So it wouldn’t look so bizarre, his eyes trained on hers, avoiding everyone else’s.

“It was a great game,” Rachel remarks, just as Millie says, “I don’t tend to enjoy my brother’s suffering, no.”

Jacob does look over at that.

Rachel scoffs. “Liar.”

Chloe’s as quiet as Nina, but that’s because her eyes haven’t strayed from her phone since Hasan walked up. She’s standing about three feet apart from everyone else, has angled her head so that her blonde, pin straight hair covers her face.

“I loved it,” Ned says. “I always love Jake playing us.” Jacob’s still wrapped in Patricia’s arms, so when Ned leans in to kiss Jacob on the cheek, they look like they’re posing for a Christmas postcard, if Jacob was fifteen years younger.

Hasan always forgets how crazy affectionate Jacob’s family are. Hasan stopped hugging his dad when he was a child, and he hugs his mom about twice a year, if that. Hell, Hasan has never even seen his mom and dad hug each other. It’s more than unsettling, to imagine himself in Jacob’s place, his mom and dad, in Patricia and Ned’s.

“We’re having dinner at home, Hasan,” Patricia says. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.”

“Who’s coming with me,” Millie says, when they reach the parking lot.

“Me,” Chloe says, lightning fast.

“Only if you put your phone away for the entire drive.”

“Forget it.” She stalks off, ostensibly in the direction of Patricia’s car.

“Nina?” Millie asks.

“Uh.” She sidles up to Jacob. “Where are you going?”

“Aww,” Millie says. “That’s so sweet. Jake, she wants to be wherever you are.”

Nina balks. “I just want to know.”

Millie ignores her. Turns to Jacob. “Well?“

“With mom, I guess.”

Hasan doesn’t know if it’s the anger. If it’s so intense Jacob can’t do basic math. Or maybe Jacob does it on purpose. Maybe he finds the idea of Hasan alone in a car with his two older sisters funny. Hasan nudges Jacob, who seems to realise the moment he turns to Hasan, his look of irritation dissolving into one of understanding. “Oh,” he says. To Millie, “I mean, I’ll come with you.”

She watches them with a smirk on her face. “By Jove, you’re popular today.”

“What are you even talking about?” Jacob says, back to testy. “Can we just go?”

Millie and Rachel exchange a glance. He’s pissed, Rachel mouths, and then they laugh identical laughs. This hahahaheee that’s almost disconcerting to hear in unison.

“I’ll go with mom and dad,” Rachel says.

Hasan and Jacob sit in the back seat.

“You should’ve sat up front,” Millie says to Hasan as she buckles herself in. “Nina, why didn’t you let him?”

“He was already sitting in the back.”

“I don’t mind,” Hasan says.

“‘Course you don’t,” she replies, and Hasan doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean.

“How have you been?” Hasan says, when the silence stretches. It’s clear Jacob’s not going to be any help. He’s taken to staring out of the window, knee bouncing up and down just like Lambo earlier.

“Good,” she says, then nothing else.

Up until then, Hasan had still had a little hope for the evening. It’s unequivocally gone, now. Hasan doesn’t know Millie too well, but he does know if you ask her how she’s been, she’ll go on for at least five minutes. Methodically cover every aspect of her life.

Hasan wracks his brain for the last summary he received from her.

“How’s it going with that guy you were seeing?”

“Well, he cheated on me, so…”

Shit. Hasan thought that was Rachel.

“Oh,” Hasan says.

“Yeah.”

Hasan doesn’t try again.

Jacob’s still bouncing his leg. It’s driving Hasan insane. He brings a hand down on Jacob’s thigh. Jacob looks at Hasan’s hand like it’s a cockroach, shakes it off, and continues bouncing his leg. Hasan brings it down harder.

“Leave me alone, Hasan.”

“I could have,” I whisper. “If you didn’t force me to come.”

“No one forced you,” Jacob whispers back, wrenching Hasan’s middle finger backwards. Hasan brings his other hand down.

“You would’ve cried if I hadn’t.”

“Cried?” Jacob says. “‘Cause I’d miss out on you groping me in the back of my sister’s car?”

“What’s going on back there?” Millie asks.

“I think they’re wrestling,” Nina says.

“Please don’t break my car.”

Hasan lets go of Jacob, who, mercifully, stops bouncing his leg.

“Sorry.”

“You’re still sulking?”

Patricia leans against the doorframe. Her husband’s still in the kitchen, blending something, by the sounds of it.

“I’m not sulking,” Jacob says, sulkily.

“Whoever can make him laugh gets an extra cookie.”

Nina immediately falls back into a bridge, then, at a speed Hasan can only describe as unprecedented, hurtles towards Jacob.

“What the actual…” It’s terrifying.

“No one finds that funny anymore,” Chloe says. Hasan’s still stuck on there ever being a time in which they found that funny. “Which cookies, mom?”

“Chocolate chip.”

“Can we tickle?”

“No,” Patricia says. ‘And you know that,’ written all over her face.

“Urgh, it’s so cringe though.”

“Well, you can let ‘cringe’ get in the way of an extra cookie, or you can have a go.”

“They’re not that good, mom.”

Hasan gasps, and that’s what does it. Jacob tries to cover it up, but there’s no covering up a snort.

“That’s not fair,” Nina says, immediately. “You were going to give him an extra cookie anyway.”

“What are you talking about?” Chloe stands up. “That was me. He literally laughed after what I said.”

“Nice try,” Patricia says. Then she checks her watch, and promptly disappears from the room.

“Don’t worry,” Hasan says. “You guys can have mine.”

“You don’t have to,” Nina mutters.

“He wants to,” Chloe says. “Don’t you?”

Hasan laughs. “Yep.”

“That’s nice of you,” Millie says.

Hasan smiles blandly at her. What else can he do?

He catches her in the kitchen during dinner. He doesn’t expect them to be interrupted, but Millie’s there to rewash her cup, so it’s not unlikely someone will suddenly decide they need some more dressing in their salad, or some ice in their drink.

The kitchen’s not visible from the dining room, which is good enough for Hasan. Millie glances at him when he enters. Again, when it becomes clear he hasn’t come here to grab a paper towel: his excuse for leaving the table.

“Do you need something?” she asks.

Now he’s here, Hasan has no idea what to say. “I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he starts. And already, he’s off to a horrible starts, because that was a lie. He kind of does expect that.

“It’s not about forgiveness,” Millie interrupts. She drops her soapy cup in the sink. Picks up another one. “I don’t trust you.”

“Trust me?”

“Yes,” she says. “What? Am I supposed to believe your reformed all of a sudden. One day you’re launching him across games rooms because you can’t stand him touching you and the next, you’re completely fine with everything? I don’t believe it for a second.”

“I’m trying,” Hasan says.

“I know.” Millie rinses her cup, turns to face him. “I still don’t trust you. Can you honestly tell me that the next time he makes you uncomfortable you won’t end up making it his problem? Do you think that, just because he forgave you, none of that shit affected him? Still affects him?”

“I mean, yeah. But it wasn’t that serious.”

“‘Wasn’t that serious’?” An incredulous laugh. “You really think that?”

“Yeah. I mean he was upset-“

“‘Upset’!” she laughs again. “You have no idea.”

Hasan doesn’t know what to say to that.

“I don’t think you’re good for him.”

For some reason, that, separate from everything else she’s said tonight, makes his heart drop.

“Excuse me.” She’s got her clean cup, and Hasan’s in her way.

He’s quiet for the rest of dinner. Ignores Jacob’s questioning glances, parries Patricia’s attempts to draw him into conversation. He eats his lasagna, and pretends to be interested in the teen drama Nina begged her parents to allow her to switch on. Hasan doesn’t understand why they’ve got a TV in the dining room if they don’t want anyone to use it.

Nina notices him watching, and unprompted, begins explaining the background of each storyline as they appear.

“They made a big deal about this guy getting a motorcycle so he’ll probably die in the last episode.”

“Oh.”

“No, I can’t wait. I’m just annoyed he’ll take up so much screen time.”

After dinner, Jacob drags Hasan to his room.

“What’s wrong?” he says, before he’s even closed the door.

“Nothing.”

“Cut the shit.”

“Nothing.” Hasan rubs his face. “I’m just tired.”

“Is it Millie?” Jacob demands. “She said something, didn’t she?”

“No,” Hasan says, too fast.

“She did.” Jacob opens the door again. “Why does she think she can do that?”

“Where are you going?”

“To tell her to mind her business.”

“Don’t.” He closes the door and puts his back to it. “She only said something ‘cause I asked.”

“I don’t care,” Jacob says. “She’s been acting off all night.”

“You can’t really tell her off for that.”

“I can. You’re my guest and she made you uncomfortable.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I do,” Jacob says. And he looks so passionate about it, Hasan can’t help but smirk, though he’s not in the mood.

“Please, leave your sister alone.”

Jacob searches Hasan’s face for… what? A sign he secretly wants Jacob to defend him. Hasan doesn’t know, but he must find something because he sighs, and steps away from the door.

“She’s probably leaving soon anyway,” he says. “Good riddance.” He flops onto his bed. The sheets have been stripped. Hasan can’t stand the feeling of bare mattress. “What did she say to you, anyway?”

“You can probably guess.”

“I don’t want to. That’s why I’m asking.”

Hasan hesitates. “She doesn’t trust me,” he says. “Thinks I’m bad for you.”

Jacob scoffs. “Bad for me,” He puts his hands behind his head. “We’re not getting married.”

Hasan shrugs. Millie’s right. That’s the worst part about it. He can’t promise he won’t freak out again. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t think he will. But he can’t promise it. And so he keeps his mouth shut. Too much of a coward to tell Jacob that Millie’s right. That is, if Jacob doesn’t already know. God, Hasan hopes he doesn’t know.

“It did make me feel like a very important person.”

“‘Course it did.” Jacob jumps off his bed. “Come on. Mom hates when I hide out in my room.” He laughs at the expression on Hasan’s face. “Don’t be scared.”

“I’m not.”

“Really?” Jacob says, in a tone that suggests he doesn’t believe that in the slightest. “I’ll protect you. Come on.”

“How?”

“I’ll say, ‘Millie, back the fuck up, right now!’”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“I’ll say, ‘how dare you talk about my man like that?’”

Hasan slams Jacob’s door right in his face.

Chapter Text

Hasan doesn’t know why he does it.

He knows why he does it quickly. Why he forces himself to stop thinking. To just do. Chalk it up to an inexplicable wave of impulsivity. But he doesn’t know why he does it.

It doesn’t matter now. It’s too late to regret it. Nothing to do but make the most of it.

“I knew you’d come around,” Lambo says, grinning his smug grin. The one that makes Hasan want to wipe his nose clean off at the best of times, and the one he can only smile blandly at, now. Because if he thinks about it too much, allows the words to penetrate his manufactured daze, he won’t down the next one. He’ll go home and he won’t be able to sleep and it will have all been for nothing.

“I’ll get the next round,” Lambo says. When he’s gone, Hasan makes quick work of the remaining three shots. Beecher stares.

“What?”

“Are you okay?”

“‘Course.”

Beecher looks doubtful.

“I’m fine.”

“Fine about what?” Jacob says, apparently giving up on officiating arm wrestles between the rookies.

Beecher gestures at the empty cups lined up in front of Hasan, and then to Hasan himself.

“Oh,” Jacob says. And then nothing.

“Is that it?” Hasan says.

“What?”

Hasan can’t be mad at this. It’s such a stupid thing to get mad over. So what if Jacob doesn’t care? How can Hasan blame him? He can’t even say he cares, himself. How can he? Sat in the middle of this bar, his stomach warming from drink. How can he say he gives a single solitary fuck about his commitment to Islam, to Allah, when he goes, days at a time now, without thinking of him.

“Nothing,” Hasan mutters, and Jacob averts his eyes when he looks up at him. Mumbles something about a final round and Thompson being a cheat before he leaves their table for the rookies again.

“What’s his problem?” Beecher says.

Hasan doesn’t know, but Jacob can’t be weird tonight. Not when Hasan’s already fucked everything. Tonight has to be worth it. Hasan needs Jacob to make tonight worth it.   

So Hasan follows him.

“Winner faces me,” he says, when he reaches the table.

Thompson grins. “You sure you wanna do that?”

“You’re right,” Hasan says. “I should find some actual competition.”

Thompson laughs, and then places his elbow on the table. Poppy mirrors them, and they argue for a while about each other’s positioning, the angle of their wrists, and the distance between their elbows.

“We haven’t even started and my wrist already hurts,” Thompson says.

“Not my fault you are weak,” Poppy says.

“This is an arm wrestle.” Thompson pulls his arm away. “Jacob, tell him.”

“Yes.” Jacob says. “Don’t break his wrist, Poppy, please.”

“Just small pressure,” Poppy says. “You are baby.” But when Thompson grabs his hand again, Hasan can see where he’s loosened his grip.

Jacob places a hand over their joined ones. Counts down from five, but they begin at three, struggling beneath Jacob’s grip.

It lasts a while, as far as arm wrestles go. Twenty seconds at least, maybe more. Poppy puts up a good fight. Takes it entirely too seriously, which there’s nothing wrong with, but it’s just a little embarrassing, after all that sputtering, like an engine before it explodes, face ballooned and red, so red, that it’s all for nothing.

“Who’s the baby, now?” Thompson says.

“Cheat,” Poppy says, scowling. “I do not play with cheats.”

“Ref!”

“No sign of cheating this time,” Jacob says.

Thompson gets all up in Poppy’s face. “You hear that?”

Hasan pulls him back down. “My turn.”

“Come on, then.”

The stall Hasan perches onto feels rickety, so he switches it out. Thompson watches all the while, arm outstretched and smirk plastered on his face. As soon as Hasan takes his hand, the hold feels all wrong. He pulls his hand back. “What is that? No wonder Poppy tried to fuck up your wrist.”

“What do you people want from me?”

Hasan takes his hand again, and then arranges Thompson’s elbow to his liking.

“No,” Thompson says. “I don’t like that.”

“Tough shit.”

Thompson laughs. Slides his elbow back to its original position.

“Jacob.”

“Thompson,” Jacob says, tilting his head towards Hasan in a ‘Do what he says’ gesture.

“Are you serious?” Thompson laughs again. “You’re not reffing this match,” he says. He bellows halfway across the bar, “Cap!”

“What? Why?”

“You can’t ref from so far up Hasan’s ass.”

“You’re a cheat, Matt,” Jacob says. “I’m stopping you from cheating.”

“It’s straight bias.”

“What’s going on?” Cap says.

“We need you to ref this game.”

“No,” Jacob says. “I’m ref.”

“We can co-ref,” Cap says. “How’s that?”

“Forget it.” Jacob takes the stool by Hasan. Hasan turns his head to smile at him, and Jacob looks stumped by it, visibly pauses in all his shifting, as though Hasan doesn’t much smile at Jacob. Not the case, obviously. Hasan smiles at Jacob all the time. Jacob leans in. Says, “Shut him up.”

Still smiling, Hasan says, “I will.”

And he does.

“I can see why you called me in,” Cap says.

“What’s wrong with supporting your fellow man?” Jacob says, from where he hangs off Hasan.

Thompson throws his hands up, asks, “Am I not a man?”

“Stay mad,” Jacob says.

“Loser,” Hasan adds.

Hasan has never had this much to drink before. He hadn’t known there was a limit. Had considered himself pretty unrestrained, before. Never understood the value in drinking if you weren’t getting absolutely shitfaced. Meant, out of everyone on the team, he was likely down there in terms of actual alcohol consumption. Days before a game, or practice, he rarely had more than half a beer, if even a drop. He still been considered one of the bigger drinkers.

Hasan’s not passed out. So there’s that. But time is moving almost preternaturally fast, and soon, it will be morning, and Hasan’s not so drunk that he’s not dreading it.

“I don’t want to go back.”

“It’s almost four am.”

Hasan can’t tell how drunk Jacob is. They were matching drink for drink at some point, but that might’ve been a while ago. Hasan can’t trust his sense of time right now.

“Let’s wait here for a bit.”

“Hasan, it’s fucking freezing.”

“I’m warm. Here. Take my coat.”

“No.”

Hasan pulls down the zipper. Jacob pulls it back up. Hasan stops him and from then on It turns into a scuffle.

“You’re cold,” Hasan says. “Let… me… give you… my coat.” It’s hard, fighting and speaking at the same time.

“I don’t want your coat.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s ugly.”

Hasan stops at that. “No, it’s not.” It’s a plain brown parka. There’s no room for it to be ugly.

“I’m booking an uber.”

“No.” Hasan grabs Jacob’s arm. “Please.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to go home.”

Jacob laughs. “We’re in Chicago.”

“You know what I mean.”

Jacob sighs. “Why don’t you wanna go home?”

“You know why.” And the anger comes back again, even as low his capacity to care about anything is right now. “But you’re pretending not to, for some reason.”

Jacob sighs again.

“Stop huffing and say something.”

“It’s hard watching you beat yourself up over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”

“I know,” Jacob says. He pauses. Pulls his hat further down his forehead. “I know it’s not nothing to you. But I don’t believe in it. I don’t understand why you have to wake up at the crack of dawn every day. I don’t understand how if you don’t that somehow means you deserve to go to hell. I always knew when you slept in, those first couple of months, when you were really on it, because you’d let it ruin your whole day. And now, all your days are ruined all the time and I just want to scream that it’s okay. That none of it is real anyway. But I know you would hate me for that, so I say nothing.”

You can’t prove that it’s not real, Hasan doesn’t say. He already knows how that would go. Jacob would agree. Say that it doesn’t matter what he thinks. That all that matters is that it’s true to Hasan. But they would just be words.

“But you helped,” Hasan says. “In the beginning.”

“Yeah,” Jacob says. “You were really self conscious about it so.”

Hasan resents that idea and prepares to say as much when Jacob adds, “And it was pretty fun in the beginning.”

“So what happened?” And if Hasan wasn’t drunk, he’d find it hilarious how anguished that came out.

“It’s making you unhappy.”

“It’s not,” Hasan says. “I’m making me unhappy.”

“Same thing to me.”

“So it’s got nothing to do with the gay stuff.”

Jacob doesn’t say anything.

“I knew it.”

“It isn’t,” Jacob says. “Not really.”

“But it’s part of it.” Hasan shuffles a few feet over to a bench, and drops down in it.

Jacob follows. “It’s just the idea that if you were a…” he pauses, and Hasan can sense he’s being careful with his words. “That you might have refused to have anything to do with me because of it.”

“It?”

“Islam. Sorry.”

“No.” Hasan threads his hands through his hair. Pulls them back out. “Don’t apologise.”

“Okay.”

“I-“ Hasan stops. “I would never have done that.”

“I wasn’t sure there for a while.”

“Seriously?” And then when Jacob doesn’t say anything, “Jacob, you have to know-“

“Know what?”

Hasan smirks. Sings, “Know what you mean to me.”

Jacob cuts his eyes to Hasan, then back to the road in front of them.

“I’m serious,” Hasan says. “Nothing could make me cut you off. Nothing.”

“I love the passion.”

“I’m serious.”

“So you said.”

“Now. Here, take my coat.”

“I’m calling an uber.”

“Can I stay here?”

“You’re being so needy tonight.”

“Say that again. I fucking dare you.”

“You can stay but I’m going to bed.”

Hasan sits on the floor. He knows if he so much as sits on the bed, he’ll fall asleep.

“What are you doing?” Jacob says. Pulls Hasan up and pushes him onto the bed. Hasan doesn’t resist.

“Wait,” Hasan says, when he gets in after him. “You didn’t brush your teeth.”

“Neither did you.”

“Yeah, ‘cause my toothbrush’s on the other side of the floor,” Hasan says. “You’re just being lazy man.”

“If you’re not brushing your teeth, I’m not brushing mine.”

Hasan sits up. “Let’s go then.”

Jacob pulls him down. “Hasan, please,” he whines. “I just want to go to bed.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re so-“ Jacob groans, pulls the covers up to his ears. “You’d think it was the night of your execution.” In baby talk, “Do you just need someone to tell you it will be okay?”

He puts his hand on Hasan’s neck, by his collarbone. “It’s okay,” Jacob says, no longer affecting a baby voice. “Tomorrow’s a new day.”

And Hasan looks at him and looks at him. “What if I die tonight?”

“I would die too,” Jacob says. “From a broken heart. Then we can go to hell together. How’s that?”

“That’s fucking worse? Now what? Both of us in agony for eternity?”

“You won’t die,” Jacob says. “And you won’t go to hell, I won’t allow it. Okay? Now go to sleep.”

Hasan doesn’t know why he does it, but he knows why he does it quickly.

Jacob pushes him away almost immediately. “What the fuck?”

It’s like a douse of cold water. Hasan’s almost certainly still drunk, if his stumble off the bed is any proof, but it doesn’t feel that way. It’s awful, that he can’t hide behind it. Even to his own self.

“Shit,” Hasan says. “Shit. I don’t know.“

Jacob’s still in bed. Still practically in the same position. He’s got his hands up, like he’s fending off a wild animal and Hasan can’t stay there.

“Why-” Jacob says. Stops.

Hasan leaves. When he gets to his room, he goes straight for the toilet bowl. Sits there till the light streams in through the lips of the door. He didn’t know it was possible to throw up this much. Can’t believe his organs are still inside him. Can’t think of his soul.

Chapter Text

Hasan’s calmer when it’s time to go down to the bus. He washes his face. Brushes his teeth. Spends some time on his hair. More than he usually would. It’s getting longer. Hasan forgets why he ever wanted to grow it out.

He prays. It won’t be accepted. Not for the next forty days, but he does it anyway. He stays prostrated for a long time. And when he comes back up, he feels ready.

He should feel tired. He should feel sick and shivery. Feel like he could float away and simultaneously, like he’s forty pounds heavier. But he feels fine. He hasn’t slept a wink, and he’s skipped breakfast, but he feels fine.

The lobby is where he finds Jacob. He’s standing with Kenny and Stevie, fiddling with plants Hasan’s coming to believe possessing a prerequisite to establishing a hotel in the Midwest. He doesn’t hesitate. Just as he wouldn’t any other day.

“Why are we waiting?” he asks, for lack of anything better to say.

“Fuck if I know,” Stevie says.

“Must not be ready for us yet,” Kenny adds.

Hasan nods, then looks at Jacob, because he can’t avoid it much longer. Not if he wants to keep shit normal. Jacob’s already watching him, but he looks away promptly when Hasan meets his eyes. Something inside Hasan tightens. He hadn’t prepared for this possibility.

“So, last night,” Kenny says, and Hasan snaps his head over to him, almost in unison with Jacob. “How you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“You don’t look it,” Stevie says.

“Thanks.”

“No offence,” he continues. “You look dead.”

“Rather look dead than ugly.”

“Nothing uglier than dead.”

“How does that explain you then?”

Stevie laughs. Kenny says, “You do look kinda rough.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“I’ve got painkillers.”

“I feel fine.”

“Are you sure? ‘Cause I’ve got some right here.” Kenny pulls off his backpack, and fiddles with the front pockets.

“I don’t want it.”

“Some water, then?” He slips a water bottle from the holder and hands it out to Hasan.

“I’m good.”

“Jacob,” Kenny says, expectantly.

“Dude, he doesn’t want it.”

Kenny levels him with an unimpressed stare. “He clearly needs it.”

“Leave it,” Jacob says. “He’s not gonna take it.”

Hasan has no idea what’s got him so pissy. He takes the water bottle from Kenny, solely to prove him wrong. That earns him another glance, this one longer and entirely unreadable.

“See,” Kenny says. “Knew you’d help.”

Jacob doesn’t sit next to Hasan on the bus. Any other day, he’d think nothing of it. He wonders if he still shouldn’t. They sit by each other on the bus, Hasan would say, about a third of the time. It’s not a break in routine by any means.

It feels pointed.

It’s like that until they get home.

They win their game against St Louis. Hasan scores the game-winner, his seventh goal of the season, and Jacob’s no more congratulatory about it than the rest of the guys. In the dressing room, Jacob doesn’t wander over to his stall once. Doesn’t sit by him on the bus to the airport, and again on the plane. Doesn’t really speak to him at all. Even when Hasan goes to pains to insert himself in conversations you’d have to pay him to care about, usually. It’s like the moment he does, Jacob’s contribution decreases considerably.

They’re home, and Jacob’s just so tired. And Hasan doesn’t doubt that he is. They’re all tired. But he can detect the exaggeration, however small it may be. Hasan gets the message. He’s quiet the entire ride.

But, then, it’s morning, and it’s like none of it ever happened. Jacob’s back to normal, and Hasan’s so relieved, he wipes the last couple of days from his memory, and any resentment attached to it.

They don’t talk about it. Hasan’s grateful for that, too. Everything is as it was before. Hasan finally starts accepting Ibrahim’s invitations to hang out. He starts praying regularly again. It’s Ibrahim that pushes him too, after Hasan confides in him, tells him, shamefaced, about what he’d gotten up to that day in Chicago. The drinking. Nothing else.

“I hope you‘re not using it as an excuse,” he’d said, when Hasan groans about the forty days his prayer will be invalid. “It’s not an exemption. You still have to pray.”

“I know,” Hasan said.

“And, listen,” Ibrahim had continued. “I know you’re having a rough time but you shouldn’t expose your sins.”

Jacob has lots of thoughts about that.

“What, so you’re just supposed to suffer in silence?” And then, before Hasan can answer. “And if your prayers won’t be counted regardless, why bother? That makes no sense.”

“It’s like I’ll be double sinning if I don’t,” Hasan says. “I still have an obligation. It would be like if I broke my diet by having a few slices of pizza, and then I decided to eat the whole thing because what’s the point if I already broke my diet.”

“Hmm.” Jacob doesn’t sound convinced. “Not really encouraging though, is it?”

“Well, they’re the consequences for my actions.”

Rory continues to treat their place like a second home.

“He’s always fucking there.”

“Maybe not for much longer,” Kenny says.

Hasan drags him over to the water dispenser. It’s not exactly private, but it’s in an alcove, and that’s enough for Hasan.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Then why hint at it?” Hasan says. “And why is Jacob telling you shit that he’s not telling me?”

“Because I am his friend too, believe it or not.” Kenny pours himself a cup from the dispenser. “And just because you don’t tell me anything doesn’t mean nobody else does.”

“Oh, come on,” Hasan says. “I tell you stuff.”

“You don’t tell anyone anything. It’s like you have acquaintances and then Jacob.”

“Would an acquaintance know you have a thing for Gemma?”

Kenny freezes, and Hasan adds, “Maybe they would, actually. It’s pretty obvious.”

“Jacob hasn’t said anything.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t know.” Hasan takes the cup from Kenny’s hands. He’s thirsty, and Kenny doesn’t seem like he wants it anymore. “But that’s just because he’s an idiot.”

“Shit,” Kenny says. Grabs another cup and starts filling that one up. Hasan takes that one too. “Do you think Gemma knows?”

“Definitely.”

“Fuck.”

“No, that’s good. I think you’re in.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Hasan says. When Kenny moves to take another cup, Hasan blocks him. “Dude, I don’t want any more.”

“Yeah, it’s for me.” Then shoots him a look like: ‘I don’t know why you couldn’t get your own’.

“Look, if she didn’t want you, don’t you think she would’ve kept her distance when she caught on?”

Kenny thinks about it. “I don’t know.”

“She’s just waiting.”

“Waiting?”

Hasan rolls his eyes. “For you to do something about it.”

“The blind leading the blind.”

Kenny jumps, spills half his cup on the carpet beneath them. Hasan knew it was wasted on him.

“Chill,” Hasan says. “He doesn’t know what we’re talking about.”

“You’re talking about Kenny’s massive crush on Gemma.”

“Oh.”

“You said he didn’t know.”

“I thought he didn’t.”

“Of course I knew,” Jacob says. “I was pretending not to.”

“That’s weird,” Hasan says. And scary. He was so sure Jacob didn’t know. “Why?”

“‘Cause I was hoping it would pass.”

“Why?” Hasan and Kenny say at the same time, though Kenny’s sounds considerably more agonised.

No answer, for a while, but Kenny and Hasan continue to stare expectantly. Jacob sighs. “Can’t you find someone else to crush on?”

“Seriously?” Hasan says, when it’s clear Kenny’s not intending on answering for himself.

“I just want my friends to stay friends.”

“Are you five years old?” Hasan asks. “So no one gets to be happy apart from you, is that it?”

“No. I’m just saying… there are millions of other girls out there.”

“Why are you making this an issue?”

“I’m trying to speak to Kenny.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Hasan says. “I’m gonna tell you you’re being ridiculous.”

“Well, this has nothing to do with you-”

“And what’s it got to do with you? No, seriously, tell me? What has Kenny and Gemma’s relationship got to do with you?”

“More than it’s got to do with you.”

“If they like each other, what’s the problem?” Hasan asks.

“Who says she likes him?”

Kenny squawks at that, and Hasan and Jacob both regard him for a moment, almost absently, before turning back to each other.

“She might,” Hasan says. “No harm seeing what happens.”

“Yeah? How’d that work out for you?”

Hasan thinks he doesn’t hear it right, at first. There’s no way Jacob just said that. There’s no way Jacob just said that and still stands there, steely eyed, like Hasan won’t fuck him up. Right here, right now. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You know,” Jacob says. Still fucking going. Why is he still going? Why does his face look like that? Hard and distant and mean. Some small part of Hasan recoils from it, the rest of him is rushing Jacob.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he spits.

Jacob pushes him away. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Hasan says. Clenches Jacob’s jersey in his fist and shoves him against the wall. “Nothing?”

Kenny’s pulling at his arm. Saying something Hasan can’t hear. And then he’s being dragged bodily away by a very appalled Cap Henney.

“What’s gotten into you?”

They have an audience, about half a dozen guys, Lambo and Stevie among them. Hasan can’t bring himself to care.

Jacob’s still standing there, staring at Hasan, and there’s finally something behind his eyes. Too little, too late. “Fuck you,” Hasan says, and then he storms off, pushing past Stevie, ignoring Thompson’s, “What happened?”

He pulls off his gear at lightning speed. Bart’s got his shoes lying in the way again, but unlike some, Hasan can watch where he’s going, and it’s not an issue. He doesn’t shower, he can shower at home.

Kenny catches him on the way to God knows where. They took Jacob’s car today. And fuck knows Hasan’s not going home with him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Hasan says, without breaking his stride.

“I don’t know what happened back there,” Kenny says. “But I think Jacob feels bad about it.”

“He can go fuck himself.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to-”

“Kenny.” Hasan comes to an abrupt stop. “I don’t want to hear it, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Kenny says, scratches the back of his head. “Sorry.”

Hasan sighs. “You going home?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I come with you?”

Hasan can count the amount of times he’s been at Kenny’s place on a single hand. Must be inconvenient for Kenny, to be the one to make the drive every time. He’s never complained.

Kenny’s got one of those apartments. All sleek countertops and large windows. It’s clean, which isn’t surprising, because Kenny never stops going on about cleaning as an avenue to clear your mind. It’s bare, which has struck Hasan as strange before, and does so again now.

“Why don’t you have any decorations? Or, just… things.”

“My parents were really messy growing up,” Kenny says. “Borderline hoarders.”

“Oh,” Hasan says.

“Can we play Scrabble?” Kenny asks. “I bought it when I joined the team but no one ever wants to play.”

God, Kenny’s so good at making you feel sorry for him.

“Sure,” Hasan says. He’s shit as Scrabble, but it’s also one of those games he doesn’t mind losing in.

The Scrabble set is in the most neat storage cupboard Hasan has ever seen in his life.

“You should feel very proud of yourself.” Hasan can’t resist giving Kenny a pat on the back.

“Thanks,” Kenny says, looking pleased.

Turns out, Kenny’s also shit as Scrabble.

“I give up,” he says. “Can we stop playing?”

Hasan kicks the letters on the board in answer.

“Let’s watch a movie.”

They talk over the entire movie. Or, well, Kenny talks. Hasan listens.

Kenny’s brothers only text him when they want money, but Kenny doesn’t mind, because they’re fifteen and seventeen years old, and because he’s got loads of it. He bitches about Lambo and about Stevie, but his heart’s not in it. Not like it used to be.

“I’ve gotten used to them, I think,” he says, and Hasan has to give him a round of applause for that one.

He talks about Gemma the most. She’s so funny, but also serious. And smart. And kind, but also scary. And she kissed Kenny on the cheek once, and does Hasan really think he has a chance?

“Yeah,” Hasan says. “I really do.”

“But Jacob-”

“Don’t worry about him,” Hasan says. “He knows he’s being ridiculous.”

Kenny’s silent for the longest stretch of time since they left the rink. Then finally, “I’m sure he didn’t mean it. Whatever he did.”

The characters on screen are in an audience, screaming for their racehorse. Hasan doesn’t look away when he says, “But he did. He did mean it.”

Chapter Text

“Would you disown your son for being gay?”

Ibrahim pauses over the teacups, glances at him sidelong. “Why are you asking?” he says, dumping a heaping tablespoon of sugar into his cup.

After Jum’ah, a few of the Ibrahim’s friends (Hasan still doesn’t think of them as his own) had hung around, reluctant to get back to work, and Isaaq had been bored, or maybe he wasn’t, spend any amount of time with Ibrahim’s friends and you’d find those kinds of hypotheticals were a fixture of their group discussions, so he’d posed this one to everyone sat around him, just as a light conversation starter.

A few men, none any Hasan had interacted with before, were quick to shush Isaaq, remind him there was a time and place, for all the good it did, many more had rushed to answer. Others to ask for clarification.

“What, so he just comes up to me and tells me he’s gay?“

“Or is he like… active?”

“Bro, what’s the difference? If he’s telling you he’s gay, he definitely does gay stuff.”

Ibrahim had stayed noticeably silent the entire time, even when Isaaq singled him out. “I told you I’m not answering any more of your stupid questions,” he’d said. If it was anyone else, Isaaq might’ve given him shit for it, goaded him until he answered the question. Instead, Isaaq laughed, said, “Okay,” then moved on.

“Just curious,” Hasan says, now.

He expects Ibrahim’s answer to be evasive. Or, if not, straight forward, with little explanation. He doesn’t expect Ibrahim to scan the room, as though searching for unwelcome eavesdroppers, unwelcome eavesdroppers that have somehow found their way into his house, and then to shift closer to Hasan, bang a knee against the coffee table, and jostle his teacup. To say, in a low voice:

“Yusuf-” he stops abruptly. Sighs. “There’s no way he’s not…” He stops again. “When I think about how he might… turn out. When he’s older. I just can’t see-” Another pause. “And Yusuf is like my son. I spend more time with him than his actual dad.”

This pause is much longer. And Hasan thinks Ibrahim might be done with the question, decided to leave it half answered, when he continues. “He’s just a little boy,” he says. “How could I disown a little boy? Not to say that he is, but if he is… when he grows up, if he is like that, and I disown him because of it, just for growing up… that’s not fair.”

“I can see him trying, he actually tries now, and he’s still so gay,” he says, apparently done with the self censorship. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Hasan doesn’t know what to say. Maybe Ibrahim doesn’t need him to say anything, because he keeps going.

“And maybe I can trust that he won’t do anything about it. But when it’s that obvious, and everyone already thinks it… what if he thinks there’s no point?”

“But if it’s for the sake of Allah-” Hasan starts.

“I know. I know. But it’s not that simple.” He sits back in his sofa, leans his head back so that he’s looking at the ceiling. “And I have cousins who don’t pray, and their parents don’t say shit about it. But if they were gay, they’d go fucking crazy.”

Ibrahim rarely swears. And he’s one of those people who seem genuinely bothered by it, which is why Hasan tries to limit his own swear word usage when he’s around him.

“And if they’re allowed to be that hypocritical, why can’t I be?” Ibrahim says. “I do haram stuff all the time. I’ve deleted Spotify but there are some songs I can’t stop listening to because they’re so good. I speak to the women at work for longer than I probably should, and chill with my drunk coworkers at events where alcohol is served. I turn off my alarm at Fajr, sometimes, instead of snoozing it.”

Hasan knows this isn’t a good time to retort, ‘I thought you weren’t supposed to confess your sins,’ but that doesn’t stop him thinking it.

“And music, having fun with my coworkers, and sleeping, they’re all things I sin for. And Yusuf is my nephew, and it wouldn’t even be my sin, but, what? I’d cut him out of my life, to what? Show him the error of his ways? No. That’s stupid.

“But we all know that’s not why they do it. They do it because they’re embarrassed and they know what people will say. I’m not embarrassed of Yusuf. He’s a little boy.”

“So,” Hasan says. “His dad…”

“His dad’s a fucking-” he stops himself again. “I don’t wanna…”

Backbite, is what he doesn’t say.

“So, what you said about him working a lot…?”

“Yeah,” Ibrahim says. “He does. But that’s only part of it.”

“Oh.”

“And the most messed up thing about it: while his dad ignores him and spoils his sister, Yusuf’s thinking he needs to be more like her, which is the exact opposite of what we want. He’s just completely useless in every single way.” Restraining himself from backbiting must’ve proved too difficult. “And my sister just lets it happen.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” Ibrahim says. He finally hands Hasan his teacup. “Sorry. It’s cold.”

“You’re good,” Hasan says. It’s just shy of lukewarm, still drinkable. Tea’s not Hasan’s favourite thing anyway.

“Would you?” Ibrahim asks, some time later.

Hasan doesn’t ask for clarification. He knows what he’s asking. “No,” he says. “I mean, I have a gay friend.”

“Oh,” Ibrahim says. “Well, maybe that’s a bit too far.” But there’s no conviction in it, and Hasan thinks there might be a note of relief in it. If only the relief of knowing there’s someone more far gone, more ‘westernised’, than you.

Hasan stops giving Jacob the silent treatment at the behest of Cap Henney. But also because he can’t stand the awkwardness anymore. Hasan’s tired of feeling awkward. Hasan never used to feel awkward.

Hasan’s also never spent so much time with Lambo, and Beecher, and they’re driving him semi-insane.

And it’s not satisfying anymore, to turn away when Jacob approaches him, or to leave Jacob’s questions unanswered, his jokes unlaughed at. It mostly just makes him feel bad.

He’s tired of all the speculation, too.

“Did he call your mom fat?” Thompson asks, during warm up.

“No.”

“Sister?” Poppy says.

“No.”

The rookies have gotten way too comfortable with him.

“He’s fucking someone you had an eye on?”

“What?” Hasan says. “No.”

“You’re fucking someone he had eye on?”

“No. You’ll never guess. So stop trying.”

Hasan never should have said that. They take it as a challenge.

“He pissed on your prayer mats.”

It’s after the game, and they’ve apparently recruited Stevie.

“Why the hell would he do that?”

Thompson says, “You said we’d never guess. We’re thinking outside the box.”

“Too outside the box,” Hasan says.

“Also, I’d never do that,” Jacob chimes in.

“Nobody asked you,” Stevie says, then winks at Hasan.

“All of you, leave me alone.”

“Hey,” Hasan says, the next day, turning into the living room instead of heading straight to his room.

Jacob jumps up from where he was sprawling on the couch. “Hey,” he says, wary, like Hasan’s a wild horse he’s worried about spooking.

“What are you up to?” Hasan says.

“You mean,” Jacob says. Then his whole face lights up, and he laughs a little. “You’re talking to me?”

“No. I’m talking to Kenny. He’s behind you.”

“I was just lying here, wondering when you’d speak to me again.”

“Well,” Hasan says. “Your dreams have come true.”

“Yeah,” Jacob says. His expression sobers. “I’m so sorry, Hasan. I don’t know why I-”

“I don’t-” Hasan doesn’t know how to say this, but he needs to. Has to. “That night. I don’t know what that was, but it had nothing to do with you. I don’t- You’re not- I don’t…”

“I get it,” Jacob says, when it’s clear Hasan has no intention of finishing.

“Can we just forget about it?” Hasan asks. He doesn’t want to talk about it now he’s clarified what he needed to.

“Sure,” Jacob says, easy. So easy. Like he wants nothing more and is glad Hasan suggested it so he didn’t have to.

“So…” Hasan says, and Jacob lights up again.

“Sooooo,” he says.

“What are you doing?”

“You already asked me that,” Jacob says, with a smirk.

“Don’t be difficult.”

“I just answered your question.” Jacob puts his hand. “God, am I not allowed to answer the question that you asked me?”

“Okay, I’m going upstairs.”

“Oh my God, why do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“You’re losing so you just disengage.”

“Losing what?” Hasan says.

“Now, you’re just playing dumb.” Jacob walks over to Hasan. “But I’ll allow it.” He grabs Hasan’s arm. Shakes it. “What do you wanna do?”

“I don’t know.”

“So you beg me to hang out but you don’t even know what you want us to do, is that right?” He barely gets to finish before he’s immediately following it up with, “I’m joking. Come back, I’m just playing.”

They enter the dressing room the next day to a round of applause.

Jacob bows about fifty times and Hasan kicks him in the ass the fifty first to topple him over. It doesn’t work, obviously, but Jacob stops bowing, and begins to blow kisses instead.

“Can you tell us now?” Thompson says.

“What?” Hasan says, then, catching on. “You guys are still on that? No.”

“Why not,” Stevie says. “It’s all water under the bridge, no?”

“Yes.”

“So tell us.”

“No.”

“Jacob?” Thompson says.

“Sorry, boys.”

Stevie, Thompson and Poppy groan in unison.

“You need hobbies,” Hasan says.

Jacob nods. “Stat.”

Ibrahim stops correcting Yusuf. Or, he stops correcting Yusuf in front of Hasan? Hasan’s reasonably certain it’s the former.

Hasan’s glad for it. It felt wrong, staying silent while Ibrahim commanded Yusuf uncross his legs, or stand up straight, or to stop touching his hair. But that doesn’t mean it’s not surprising. Ibrahim’s the kind of guy that backs up what he says, Hasan learnt that pretty soon after meeting him, but there’s a difference between meaning it when you say you wouldn’t disown a gay family member, and accepting that there’s nothing you can do to prevent said family member from becoming gay.

Yusuf’s in the corner, playing with a Lego set Hasan bought him. Hasan had struggled in the Costco yesterday. The only games Hasan knew Yusuf loved were already downloaded on his phone. He’d landed on Lego, because who doesn’t like Lego? And it seemes it’s the right choice, because it’s been an hour, and Yusuf still hasn’t wandered over to ask Hasan for his phone.

Ibrahim had laughed when Hasan pulled it out of a plastic bag, then told Yusuf to thank Hasan, who did.

“You didn’t need to do all of that,” Ibrahim said.

“I know,” Hasan had said. “I just want my phone back.”

They rarely hang out at Hasan’s house and he prefers it that way. The possibility of Jacob coming home is too high. And that’s exactly what happens. Hasan’s telling Ibrahim about Khadija and then there’s scuffling at the door, a key in the lock, and a Jacob in the doorway.

“Oh,” Jacob says. “You must be Ibrahim.”

Ibrahim stands up. Offers his hand, which Jacob takes. “And you’re Jacob.”

“Yeah,” Jacob says. “Good to meet you.” He turns his attention to Yusuf, who’s already looking up at him. “And what’s your name?”

“Yusuf.” He also offers his hand, and Jacob chuckles a little as he takes it.

“Nice to meet you, too, Yusuf.” He kneels down and nods his head to the Lego at their feet. “And what do you have here?”

“Lego,” Yusuf says. “Hasan bought it for me.”

Jacob glances at Hasan. “That was really nice of him. Do you want to show me what you’ve made?”

Hasan’s used to Jacob going elementary teacher mode, he does it with every child fan he meets, but it still amazes him every time. Hasan has tried many a time to mimic it, but he always ends up sounding try hard and ridiculous.

“So are you gonna text her?” Ibrahim asks, when it becomes clear Jacob will be occupied with Yusuf for a while.

“I don’t know,” Hasan says. “I think it’s too late.”

“Never too late. Here, let me see.” Ibrahim outstretches his arm, palm up.

“See what?”

“If it’s salvageable.”

“That’s private.”

“How private can it be?” Ibrahim says. “You said convo’s been drier than the Sahara desert.”

“Point,” Hasan says. He pulls up his chat with Khadija and tosses his phone to Ibrahim.

It doesn’t take him long to read, and when he’s done, he whistles, low. “You weren’t lying.”

“About what,” Jacob says, still kneeling by Yusuf.

“Come look at this,” Ibrahim says, and Jacob comes bounding over, takes the phone from Ibrahim.

“Wow,” Jacob says, when he’s done. “Poor girl.”

“I answer my boss’ texts with more enthusiasm.”

“What should I do?”

“Nothing,” Jacob says. “You clearly don’t like her.”

“Eh, these things happen,” Ibrahim argues. “Doesn’t mean he doesn’t like her.”

“I think that’s exactly what it means.”

“We can come back from this.”

“Hasan,” Jacob says. “Please leave the girl alone.”

“‘Life’s been hectic’—throw in a few examples—‘now everything’s slowed down, I am ready to give you all my attention’. Don’t say it like that, obviously, but thats all it takes.”

“Hmm.”

“I promise you,” Ibrahim says. “It’s worked for me every time.”

“She won’t believe that bullshit excuse.” Jacob says.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ibrahim says. “Still works.”

Hasan nods. “Draft me a message.”

“With pleasure,” Ibrahim says.

Jacob decides he no longer wants a part in this and wanders back over to Yusuf.

In less than two minutes, Ibrahim’s got a draft ready to go. Before he gives Hasan his phone back, he says, “You do like her, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Hasan says, but he hesitates before pressing send.

Before they leave, Yusuf thanks Hasan for the Lego set again, unprompted by Ibrahim. Jacob tells Yusuf he hopes he comes back again soon, and when the door closes behind them, Hasan says, “It’s like you’re a whole other person when you do that.”

They’ve had this conversation many times. Jacob knows what he’s talking about. “What can I say? I have a gift.”

“Teach me.”

“You don’t need it.“

“‘Cause I’m just inherently loveable?”

“Exactly.”

“Fuck off.”

“We’ve gotta work on your self esteem.”

“I have amazing self esteem, what are you talking about?” Hasan looks into the mirror by the door. Clenches his jaw before he strokes it. “I look good and I know it. I have an amazing personality and I know it. I make good money-”

“And you know it?”

“I mean, I was just gonna leave it there. But, yeah, I do know it.”

“I’m glad I could make you realise this about yourself.”

“You didn’t do shit,” Hasan says. “I’ve known this since birth.”

Jacob smiles at Hasan in the mirror. Tilts his head, says, “You’re so cute.”

Hasan’s own grin drops. “Why do you do this to me?”

“Maybe, next session, we can examine why you have such a strong reaction to being called cute?”

“Maybe, next session, you can go fuck yourself.”

“Hasan!” Jacob says, but he can’t stop the laugh that forces its way through. “We’re sassy, today, huh.”

“Stop,” Hasan says. “Stop. I don’t know why I started speaking to you again.”

“Because, without me, the light and love fled your heart and you were left dark and lonely.”

“I don’t think that was it.”

“What was it then?”

“You kept trying,” Hasan says. Hasan couldn’t have done it, himself. The first time someone purposefully ignores him is the last time they do. Whenever he got into arguments with his sister, they’d go weeks without speaking to each other, and the only reason they didn’t go on forever was because one of them would forget they were meant to be fighting. “I just couldn’t let you keep embarrassing yourself like that.”

“Thanks,” Jacob says.

“No, I mean. I couldn’t believe you thought talking to me was worth repeatedly embarrassing yourself.”

Jacob looks a little embarrassed when he says, “That just makes me sound pathetic.”

“Why?” Hasan asks. “I am worth repeatedly embarrassing yourself over. And you kind of deserved it.”

“Yeah.”

“No,” Hasan says. “Sorry, no. I shouldn’t have said that.”

”It’s true, though.”

“But I said I don’t wanna talk about it, and now I’m talking about it.”

”I don’t mind.”

Hasan gently nudges Jacob’s shoulder. “Well, you should.”

Jacob gently nudges him back. “Well, I don’t.”

If this was two weeks ago, Hasan might’ve hugged him. It’s not a natural impulse for him, but that would’ve done it, he thinks. But it’s not two weeks ago. It’s now. So Hasan steps back, and asks Jacob if he wants to cook dinner tonight.