TOG fic: Baba’s Habibi
Mar. 15th, 2023 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sealieMini The Old Guard ficlet.
No warnings apply, other than un-betaed
Indulgent
Summary: Nicolò makes a new friend (or two)
Baba’s Habibi
sealie
Nicky let out a sigh of relief as the lift pinged and the doors opened. He normally used the stairs to the third floor. So tired, and guilty that he had ‘given in’ and used the lift.
“H-hello,” Nicky said automatically, seeing a baby in a bright yellow onesie alone in the corridor.
Or sturdy toddler, Nicky figured, but what did he know? Pot-bellied, rosy-bronzed cheeks with a head of ringlet curls, the baby was standing next to the straggly Philodendron under the skylight. Nicky knew Yáo Su’s twins. Ms. Gibbons didn’t have kids or grandkids that visited. Niall and Lucas emphatically told everyone that they didn’t want kids.
The little boy was alone.
“Grrrr.” A plastic stegosaurus forged through the Philodendron mulch.
Nicky crouched, balancing the weight of his heavy backpack. Cute kid. He had enormous bright, brown eyes. The shiny drool on his chin was a little off putting.
“I think that that might be one of Mei’s dinosaurs.” Nicky recognised it; he had given her a box of educationally appropriate, plastic dinosaurs for her birthday.
The stegosaurus started climbing up the main stem.
“Have you just moved into 301?” Nicky asked. He didn’t expect an answer—little baby—but it was the obvious inference.
He got a gummy smile and a delightfully sticky stegosaurus in reply.
“Shall we check?” Nicky pocketed the toy for Mei and offered his hand to the toddler.
“Bah.” The toddler gripped his finger.
Half-bent over, Nicky toddled them the short distance to 301. Finger firmly captured, he couldn’t reach the bell, and had to rap on the door.
“Habibi, where are you hiding?” came from inside the flat.
“Is that your name? Habibi?” Nicky asked, and knocked a little harder.
Habibi babbled something vaguely intelligible, “Baba’s Habibi.”
The door was wrenched open.
“Tariq!” Dad dropped to his knees. His hands flexed ready to snatch, but he didn’t; trying not to scare his baby. His similarly brown eyes were immense, and startlingly half-filled with tears.
“Baba!” Habibi released Nicky’s finger and fell into his dad’s arms.
“How did you get outside?” Baba ended up on his ass. Baby cuddled close, curly heads knocking together. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“Cat flap,” Nicky explained in the face of that encompassing fear.
“What?”
“Mr. Skłodowska’s cat. A Maine Coon. Ozzie. Ozymandias, the King--” still half-crouched, Nicolò tapped the cat flap in the door, “--likes to explore.”
“What the F—” Baba pressed the bottom half of the door and hissed as the entire plate rocked open. “I‘ll be nailing that shut.”
The flat behind Baba and Habibi was filled with half-empty boxes and the chaos of a new move.
“I have tools,” Nicky offered, because who knew where Baba’s toolkit might be in the mess. The cat flap that Ozymandias had habitually used to visit everyone on the third floor was big enough for Habibi to walk through.
“Please,” Baba beseeched, wide eyed.
“Let me get my tools.” Off balanced with the weight of his schoolbooks, Nicky stood.
Nicky’s flat was directly opposite. He dumped his backpack just inside his door, and considered the task. It would probably be sensible to root through Maisie’s, the landlady, storeroom for offcuts of wood. He contemplated the sofa, and knew if he sat he wouldn’t get up. But Baba had looked infinitely more tired and frazzled, and that cat flap was an accident waiting to happen.
Ten minutes later, he was back with a rectangle of plywood that he judged was slightly larger than the giant cat’s not-so-secret door. He knocked.
“Come in,” Baba hollered.
Nicky tried the door handle and the door opened. There was no appreciable change in the mess. But Habibi was in the corner in a playpen, with plush toys and some sort of bright, colourful plastic thing that pinged and played unfamiliar rhymes.
Kneeling, Nicky set to work. He wasn’t a professional woodworker by any means, but he could use a hammer and nails to make the door safe.
“Thank you,” Baba said, as Nicky finished.
“Not the prettiest, but it will stop Habibi escaping.” Nicky smiled up at Baba.
“Habibi? You mean Tariq? Habibi is ‘beloved.’ My little love. My son.” Baba, Nicky thought, had a lovely smile.
“Ah,” Nicky realised. “So you are not Baba?”
Baba snorted. “Uhm… no. Well, I am to Tariq – his dad. But my name is Yusuf. Or Joe.”
“Which do you prefer?”
“I go by either. Yusuf to family. Joe otherwise.”
“Nicolò,” Nicky said. “To family. But mostly Nicky.”
“Uhm.” Yusuf-Joe scratched at the back of his neck. “Uhm… I was going to order a take-away from the Thai place on the corner. Would you like to join us? Well, I have a yummy sweet potato and cauliflower cheese thing for Tariq. But I prefer something more tasty. A thank you for helping.”
“Ah,” Nicky began and saw Joe’s face fall. He hurried to explain, “If you want tasty, I do not recommend that place.”
“That bad?” Joe pulled a face.
Nicky nodded soberly. And surprised himself, “Why not come to mine?”
“We couldn’t--”
“I have vegetarian lasagne—I batch cooked last night. I have no wish to eat lasagne every night this week. It would be good to share. And--” Nicky smiled, “--you can meet Ozymandias.”
“The giant cat?” Joe pointed at the large piece of plywood. “I thought he was Mr. SWw—s?”
“Mr. Skłodowska went into—How do you say it in English?—Residential Care. And they do not allow pets. I take Ozymandias at weekends.” Nicky couldn’t resist saying, “On a lead.”
“Are you sure? I mean, is he going to try an eat Tariq?” Joe eyed the flap again.
“He prefers fish,” Nicky said, deadpan.
Joe snorted again.
He has a nice snort, Nicky thought and inwardly kicked himself.
Joe looked around the chaos of his new home, and clearly juggled the thought of meeting a giant cat, home cooked food, and, more than likely, taking a break.
“We’d like that.”
“Good.” Nicky gathered up his tools. “Twenty minutes?”
“Perfect.” Joe looked left and right through the bedlam. “I’ll find Tariq’s dinner. It’s in one of these boxes.”
Nicky left him to it.
Ozymandias yowled at Nicky when he returned home, annoyed that he had only stopped a moment before.
“Got new friends coming. Please do not eat the baby.” Nicky tossed his toolkit in the cupboard under the stairs. “I told his Baba you prefer fish.”
As Nicky opened the fridge, Ozymandias curled around his calves, coating him with white and ginger tinted hairs, trying to trip him. He gave Ozzie his wet food, as otherwise he would continue trying to trip him, before transferring two extra-large servings of lasagne into a dish to warm through in the oven with a baguette stuffed with garlic butter.
Nicky did a quick turn around the first floor of his flat and found no surprises. Ozzie had only been alone for a couple of hours. He hadn’t really been alone long enough to get bored and destroy anything but he was still missing Mr. Skłodowska. Nicky didn’t need to do much tidying, other than grabbing some folded laundry on the back of the sofa, followed by clearing the kitchen table of mail-and-miscellanea and giving it a quick wipe.
He turned around taking in the open plan of kitchen, dining nook, living room, trying to figure if it was toddler-proof and came up a blank. The exercise bike in front of the television, maybe? Wine in the wine rack? He couldn’t move it, though. Ozymandias on the windowsill didn’t offer any guidance.
Tap. Tap.
“It’s open,” Nicky yelled.
Joe entered, Tariq on his hip. He had a plastic bag in his other hand, which probably held the baby’s food.
Ozymandias yowled a question.
“Lion, Baba. Lion,” Tariq said clearly.
“That is one big, fluffy cat.” Joe stared. He shot Nicky a concerned glance, because Ozzie was indeed a large cat. “Majestic, though.”
Ozymandias, sitting in the late evening sunlight, turning the ginger tips of creamy fur to molten gold accepted the fealty as it was his due.
“Are you sure—” Joe checked.
“No babies,” Nicky reassured.
“Can you? I need to,” Baba, no Joe, didn’t explain and leaned towards Nicky.
Momentarily confused, it took Nicky a moment to realise that Joe was handing him Tariq. It wasn’t until the baby reached that Nicky figured out what was happening.
“Hey, Habibi,” Nicky said, covering terror. Tariq was a chunky ball of unpredictability. What if he wriggled too much? What if Nicky dropped him? Tariq stared at him dead on.
Joe snorted. The snort.
“I’ll be right back.” He dumped the plastic bag and loped out the front door.
“Where’s he going?” Nicky chanced a nervous smile. Tariq laughed in his face. “I understand. Or maybe I don’t. I’m doomed. You’re adorable. Why?”
Joe had put the bag on the table. Chancing a one-handed grip for a second, Nicky up-ended it, and then got a two-handed secure hold back on Tariq. The sweet potato and cauliflower cheese microwavable pot rolled across the table.
“That does not look appetising,” Nicky told the baby. “And I do not have a microwave.”
“Din-dins,” Tariq offered, and smacked his lips.
“No microwave,” Joe sounded kind of horrified, as he toted a high chair into the flat. “I’m pretty sure it can be heated in a pan, it’s just cauliflower cheese and mashed potatoes.”
It sounded and looked disgusting.
“Tariq,” Nicky leaned back to properly look at the toddler, who met his gaze dead on, “are you six months old? One?”
“Nineteen months.” Joe smiled, and Nicky knew he was laughing in the nicest way at the fact that Nicky knew nothing about babies. “He likes the gloop, and I thought that it was easier, with moving, and all.”
Nicky was pretty sure he couldn’t serve such a concoction, and suspected it would stink the flat out.
“The lasagne is homemade,” Nicky said. “Aubergine, grated carrot and spinach. Is that okay for babies?”
“Spices? Salt?”
“A pinch of salt. It’s not a spicy sauce.” Nicky clarified, “There’s no chilli or paprika. Garlic? It has garlic and basil. It’s a fresh lasagne from the flats’ garden, out back. We have a kind of allotment. Cost-of-living-crisis and all. Started it during COVID lockdowns.”
“Do you fancy trying Nicky’s lasagne?” Joe asked.
“Lasssna,” Tariq agreed.
Joe shrugged. “We can give it ago. Fall back on the gloop, if he hates it.”
As Joe got Tariq situated in his highchair, Nicky pulled together a quick salad, and then plated out the two portions into three, using Tariq’s ingenious bamboo bowl.
“What would you like to drink?” Nicky asked over his shoulder. “I have milk, water, and wine… Orange juice.”
Joe, setting the garlic bread in the centre of the table, grinned at Nicky. Tariq was ready for food, spoon gripped in his pudgy fist. They looked like they belonged.
“Water for Tariq. I like juice,” Joe said. “Can I?”
“In the fridge. I’ll have water, thanks.”
They moved around each other like they had prepared meals a million times. Joe ferried the drinks and bowl of salad to the table. As Nicky put Joe and Tariq’s plates down, Joe darted to the counter to grab Nicky’s plate, and return.
“It smells amazing.” Eagerly, Joe sat and grabbed his fork, looking very much like his son.
They were waiting for him to sit, Nicky realised. He dropped into his seat with a thump.
Oh, this was the first day of the rest of his life.
Fin
Or the beginning
No warnings apply, other than un-betaed
Indulgent
Summary: Nicolò makes a new friend (or two)
Baba’s Habibi
sealie
Nicky let out a sigh of relief as the lift pinged and the doors opened. He normally used the stairs to the third floor. So tired, and guilty that he had ‘given in’ and used the lift.
“H-hello,” Nicky said automatically, seeing a baby in a bright yellow onesie alone in the corridor.
Or sturdy toddler, Nicky figured, but what did he know? Pot-bellied, rosy-bronzed cheeks with a head of ringlet curls, the baby was standing next to the straggly Philodendron under the skylight. Nicky knew Yáo Su’s twins. Ms. Gibbons didn’t have kids or grandkids that visited. Niall and Lucas emphatically told everyone that they didn’t want kids.
The little boy was alone.
“Grrrr.” A plastic stegosaurus forged through the Philodendron mulch.
Nicky crouched, balancing the weight of his heavy backpack. Cute kid. He had enormous bright, brown eyes. The shiny drool on his chin was a little off putting.
“I think that that might be one of Mei’s dinosaurs.” Nicky recognised it; he had given her a box of educationally appropriate, plastic dinosaurs for her birthday.
The stegosaurus started climbing up the main stem.
“Have you just moved into 301?” Nicky asked. He didn’t expect an answer—little baby—but it was the obvious inference.
He got a gummy smile and a delightfully sticky stegosaurus in reply.
“Shall we check?” Nicky pocketed the toy for Mei and offered his hand to the toddler.
“Bah.” The toddler gripped his finger.
Half-bent over, Nicky toddled them the short distance to 301. Finger firmly captured, he couldn’t reach the bell, and had to rap on the door.
“Habibi, where are you hiding?” came from inside the flat.
“Is that your name? Habibi?” Nicky asked, and knocked a little harder.
Habibi babbled something vaguely intelligible, “Baba’s Habibi.”
The door was wrenched open.
“Tariq!” Dad dropped to his knees. His hands flexed ready to snatch, but he didn’t; trying not to scare his baby. His similarly brown eyes were immense, and startlingly half-filled with tears.
“Baba!” Habibi released Nicky’s finger and fell into his dad’s arms.
“How did you get outside?” Baba ended up on his ass. Baby cuddled close, curly heads knocking together. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“Cat flap,” Nicky explained in the face of that encompassing fear.
“What?”
“Mr. Skłodowska’s cat. A Maine Coon. Ozzie. Ozymandias, the King--” still half-crouched, Nicolò tapped the cat flap in the door, “--likes to explore.”
“What the F—” Baba pressed the bottom half of the door and hissed as the entire plate rocked open. “I‘ll be nailing that shut.”
The flat behind Baba and Habibi was filled with half-empty boxes and the chaos of a new move.
“I have tools,” Nicky offered, because who knew where Baba’s toolkit might be in the mess. The cat flap that Ozymandias had habitually used to visit everyone on the third floor was big enough for Habibi to walk through.
“Please,” Baba beseeched, wide eyed.
“Let me get my tools.” Off balanced with the weight of his schoolbooks, Nicky stood.
Nicky’s flat was directly opposite. He dumped his backpack just inside his door, and considered the task. It would probably be sensible to root through Maisie’s, the landlady, storeroom for offcuts of wood. He contemplated the sofa, and knew if he sat he wouldn’t get up. But Baba had looked infinitely more tired and frazzled, and that cat flap was an accident waiting to happen.
Ten minutes later, he was back with a rectangle of plywood that he judged was slightly larger than the giant cat’s not-so-secret door. He knocked.
“Come in,” Baba hollered.
Nicky tried the door handle and the door opened. There was no appreciable change in the mess. But Habibi was in the corner in a playpen, with plush toys and some sort of bright, colourful plastic thing that pinged and played unfamiliar rhymes.
Kneeling, Nicky set to work. He wasn’t a professional woodworker by any means, but he could use a hammer and nails to make the door safe.
“Thank you,” Baba said, as Nicky finished.
“Not the prettiest, but it will stop Habibi escaping.” Nicky smiled up at Baba.
“Habibi? You mean Tariq? Habibi is ‘beloved.’ My little love. My son.” Baba, Nicky thought, had a lovely smile.
“Ah,” Nicky realised. “So you are not Baba?”
Baba snorted. “Uhm… no. Well, I am to Tariq – his dad. But my name is Yusuf. Or Joe.”
“Which do you prefer?”
“I go by either. Yusuf to family. Joe otherwise.”
“Nicolò,” Nicky said. “To family. But mostly Nicky.”
“Uhm.” Yusuf-Joe scratched at the back of his neck. “Uhm… I was going to order a take-away from the Thai place on the corner. Would you like to join us? Well, I have a yummy sweet potato and cauliflower cheese thing for Tariq. But I prefer something more tasty. A thank you for helping.”
“Ah,” Nicky began and saw Joe’s face fall. He hurried to explain, “If you want tasty, I do not recommend that place.”
“That bad?” Joe pulled a face.
Nicky nodded soberly. And surprised himself, “Why not come to mine?”
“We couldn’t--”
“I have vegetarian lasagne—I batch cooked last night. I have no wish to eat lasagne every night this week. It would be good to share. And--” Nicky smiled, “--you can meet Ozymandias.”
“The giant cat?” Joe pointed at the large piece of plywood. “I thought he was Mr. SWw—s?”
“Mr. Skłodowska went into—How do you say it in English?—Residential Care. And they do not allow pets. I take Ozymandias at weekends.” Nicky couldn’t resist saying, “On a lead.”
“Are you sure? I mean, is he going to try an eat Tariq?” Joe eyed the flap again.
“He prefers fish,” Nicky said, deadpan.
Joe snorted again.
He has a nice snort, Nicky thought and inwardly kicked himself.
Joe looked around the chaos of his new home, and clearly juggled the thought of meeting a giant cat, home cooked food, and, more than likely, taking a break.
“We’d like that.”
“Good.” Nicky gathered up his tools. “Twenty minutes?”
“Perfect.” Joe looked left and right through the bedlam. “I’ll find Tariq’s dinner. It’s in one of these boxes.”
Nicky left him to it.
Ozymandias yowled at Nicky when he returned home, annoyed that he had only stopped a moment before.
“Got new friends coming. Please do not eat the baby.” Nicky tossed his toolkit in the cupboard under the stairs. “I told his Baba you prefer fish.”
As Nicky opened the fridge, Ozymandias curled around his calves, coating him with white and ginger tinted hairs, trying to trip him. He gave Ozzie his wet food, as otherwise he would continue trying to trip him, before transferring two extra-large servings of lasagne into a dish to warm through in the oven with a baguette stuffed with garlic butter.
Nicky did a quick turn around the first floor of his flat and found no surprises. Ozzie had only been alone for a couple of hours. He hadn’t really been alone long enough to get bored and destroy anything but he was still missing Mr. Skłodowska. Nicky didn’t need to do much tidying, other than grabbing some folded laundry on the back of the sofa, followed by clearing the kitchen table of mail-and-miscellanea and giving it a quick wipe.
He turned around taking in the open plan of kitchen, dining nook, living room, trying to figure if it was toddler-proof and came up a blank. The exercise bike in front of the television, maybe? Wine in the wine rack? He couldn’t move it, though. Ozymandias on the windowsill didn’t offer any guidance.
Tap. Tap.
“It’s open,” Nicky yelled.
Joe entered, Tariq on his hip. He had a plastic bag in his other hand, which probably held the baby’s food.
Ozymandias yowled a question.
“Lion, Baba. Lion,” Tariq said clearly.
“That is one big, fluffy cat.” Joe stared. He shot Nicky a concerned glance, because Ozzie was indeed a large cat. “Majestic, though.”
Ozymandias, sitting in the late evening sunlight, turning the ginger tips of creamy fur to molten gold accepted the fealty as it was his due.
“Are you sure—” Joe checked.
“No babies,” Nicky reassured.
“Can you? I need to,” Baba, no Joe, didn’t explain and leaned towards Nicky.
Momentarily confused, it took Nicky a moment to realise that Joe was handing him Tariq. It wasn’t until the baby reached that Nicky figured out what was happening.
“Hey, Habibi,” Nicky said, covering terror. Tariq was a chunky ball of unpredictability. What if he wriggled too much? What if Nicky dropped him? Tariq stared at him dead on.
Joe snorted. The snort.
“I’ll be right back.” He dumped the plastic bag and loped out the front door.
“Where’s he going?” Nicky chanced a nervous smile. Tariq laughed in his face. “I understand. Or maybe I don’t. I’m doomed. You’re adorable. Why?”
Joe had put the bag on the table. Chancing a one-handed grip for a second, Nicky up-ended it, and then got a two-handed secure hold back on Tariq. The sweet potato and cauliflower cheese microwavable pot rolled across the table.
“That does not look appetising,” Nicky told the baby. “And I do not have a microwave.”
“Din-dins,” Tariq offered, and smacked his lips.
“No microwave,” Joe sounded kind of horrified, as he toted a high chair into the flat. “I’m pretty sure it can be heated in a pan, it’s just cauliflower cheese and mashed potatoes.”
It sounded and looked disgusting.
“Tariq,” Nicky leaned back to properly look at the toddler, who met his gaze dead on, “are you six months old? One?”
“Nineteen months.” Joe smiled, and Nicky knew he was laughing in the nicest way at the fact that Nicky knew nothing about babies. “He likes the gloop, and I thought that it was easier, with moving, and all.”
Nicky was pretty sure he couldn’t serve such a concoction, and suspected it would stink the flat out.
“The lasagne is homemade,” Nicky said. “Aubergine, grated carrot and spinach. Is that okay for babies?”
“Spices? Salt?”
“A pinch of salt. It’s not a spicy sauce.” Nicky clarified, “There’s no chilli or paprika. Garlic? It has garlic and basil. It’s a fresh lasagne from the flats’ garden, out back. We have a kind of allotment. Cost-of-living-crisis and all. Started it during COVID lockdowns.”
“Do you fancy trying Nicky’s lasagne?” Joe asked.
“Lasssna,” Tariq agreed.
Joe shrugged. “We can give it ago. Fall back on the gloop, if he hates it.”
As Joe got Tariq situated in his highchair, Nicky pulled together a quick salad, and then plated out the two portions into three, using Tariq’s ingenious bamboo bowl.
“What would you like to drink?” Nicky asked over his shoulder. “I have milk, water, and wine… Orange juice.”
Joe, setting the garlic bread in the centre of the table, grinned at Nicky. Tariq was ready for food, spoon gripped in his pudgy fist. They looked like they belonged.
“Water for Tariq. I like juice,” Joe said. “Can I?”
“In the fridge. I’ll have water, thanks.”
They moved around each other like they had prepared meals a million times. Joe ferried the drinks and bowl of salad to the table. As Nicky put Joe and Tariq’s plates down, Joe darted to the counter to grab Nicky’s plate, and return.
“It smells amazing.” Eagerly, Joe sat and grabbed his fork, looking very much like his son.
They were waiting for him to sit, Nicky realised. He dropped into his seat with a thump.
Oh, this was the first day of the rest of his life.
Fin
Or the beginning
