Chapter Text
Kamal Bora wasn’t a smart man, he just pretended to be one. He was pretty good at that he supposed, enough to get through college and enough to not look like a total disappointment to his parents. Of course, there were many more things about him for them to be upset with, stuff worse than hiding every ‘D’ he made on a paper or every discipline slip he got.
Stuff like his ever growing crush on his ever adorable boss.
Not only was Habit about ten years older than Kamal but he was a guy! His parents weren’t the best at things like ‘being accepting’ or ‘loving their son no matter what’ or ‘being good parents’. Hell, he hasn’t even told them he was genderfluid and was pretty sure he never would? He didn’t know exactly what his straight laced parents would say or do, but he had a few guesses...
“Yo, Kamal, you tryna’ tell me we need to turn the ac on or something?” Parsley asked him, somehow being right next to him even though Kamal could swear he hadn’t heard him come into their apartment at all.
Snapping out of his brain stupor, Kamal closed the fridge he had been vacantly staring into this whole time, “Yea? What about it?”
Parsley rolled his eyes and started shedding his clothes. You know, in the kitchen, like one does.
Kamal wasn’t too fazed, since he started living with Parsley he kind of figured out that the guy had some patience problems which...same. But to do it in the kitchen? For shame sir.
“Can’t you do that in the bathroom?” Kamal looked at him incredulously.
“If I had to go to the bathroom to take my clothes off it would take longer because I’d have to walk through the living room, and THEN I’d have to come back here to get to the laundry doom- I mean room,” His voice was muffled as he stumbled through his thought process, his shirt stuck on his head.
Kamal sighed good naturedly and reached up to tug the shirt off for him, “Whatever, weirdo.”
“Thanks man, but uh,” Parsley looked down at his watch, “Shouldn’t you be at work by now?”
Kamal froze. He looked at the microwave clock, 9:40, then he looked at the oven clock, 9:41, then, just for good measure because maybe daylight savings time came early or something, he checked his phone. 9:40.
“Fuck.”
-
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Kamal said to himself, just absolutely freaking the fuck out. He was never late to anything. Especially not work! He needed this job, he needed to not be having an anxiety attack either but he had priorities.
Parking Parsley’s bicycle that he let him borrow because “It’s way faster than the bus, trust me.” Kamal was able to make it into work at 9:50, twenty minutes after he was supposed to clock in. He felt sick.
“God damn,” Kamal opened the door, out of breath and panting like he had just ran a 4k instead of riding a bike for ten mintues, his hands were sweating as he ran to the back to log in, not even noticing the weird looks he was getting from the patients in the waiting room.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck- OOUG,” His panic attack was interuppted by a wall that was actually a person, a personable wall.
“Oh, oh noe!!” Boris Habit stumbled backwards from the weight of his assistant running straight into him. He was a wonderful boss however because he caught Kamal instead of letting him fall, like some kind of horrible boss might have.
When Kamal opened his eyes and got out of his ‘brace himself’ mode he found himself in the warm yet oddly rust smelling coat of the doctor. Otherwise known as his boss. Otherwise known as his big gay crush.
“Ahh, hhah, hah,” he started chuckling into the white lab coat. He could cry, he really could.
“Uhm, Kamal? :-0” Boris asked, still holding gently onto the smaller man, afraid that maybe he had suffered some kind of injury to his head. Maybe he had a fever what with how sweaty he was?
“HAH, HAHAHHA, AHHH ahhh hahahaaa...” He was full on break down laughing now, too much had happened in such a short amount of time, making his brain unable to catch up. And now he was just laying here in his bosses arms, laughing into his chest like he owned the damn thing.
God, Kamal was stupid as shit.
-
After that ‘incident’ Kamal had been allowed to clock in normally like every other day, much to the concern of Dr.Habit. He could barely walk around the office now without the doctor asking him if he needed a check up.
What kind of check up? Kamal didn’t know and was too afraid to ask, knowing he was weak and would give in immediately just to spend some time under Habit’s care.
Or some time under Habit…
“Oh my gooooood…” Kamal groaned into his hands, he really had it bad.
“Kamal?” Boris poked his head around the corner, much to his assistants’ chagrin, “u okae?”
He looked up from his desk, newly embarrassed by his own thoughts, and gave Habit a forced smile, “Y-yeah, I’m doin’ good doc.”
“OKay! :-3” Dr. Habit did that thing with his mouth that was somehow a living emoticon but also a word? Then he bounded off to go do something in his office. Weirdo…
A cute, dumb, stupid, weirdo that Kamal had totally unfortunately fallen for.
“God what am I gonna do?”
He then got an IM from Parsley, he knew it was Parsley because he had done the time consuming task of changing everyone on his friends’ list notification sounds to something unique. Parsleys’ was the sound of a cow mooing because Kamal thought it was cute.
P: Hey dude.
K: What do you want?
P: Okay rude.
K: you know i’m not supposed to be slacking off at work right?
K: talking to you counts as slacking off.
P: well it won’t be slacking off once I tell you what I found in your room
K: uh
K: what?????>?
Kamal was scandalized. Parsley wasn’t supposed to go into his room, AT ALL. PERIOD. What the hell was he doing in there??
P: _Sent an attachment_
P: See that?
K: A hole? Behind my book case???
P: yeah.. A mouse hole.
K: fuck , i mean i guess ill buy some traps on the way home?
That was a bummer for sure, but not really something to be bothering him at work about.
P: that’s not all
P: _Sent an attachment_
K: what
K: the hell
P: I know, i know i don’t what it is either but apparently it’s ABsolutely not good
The image was of a light shining into the hole, it was mostly pitch black except for some kind of shiny green ooze?? In his walls???
K: oh my go
K: d
P: Yeah it’s a whole thing, i done called poison control and they said
P: in their words exactly
P: “evacuate immediately”
K: Fcuk
Kamal leaned back from his computer. Of course he had to evacuate his shitty apartment, of course it had to be today. What else could go wrong?
He knocked three times on his wood desk.
P: My pa said i could come home for a few days
P: I dont’ know where yo’ure gonna go but i can ask if you could come with?
K: Parsley, no offense but, I’d really rather not.
P: I totally understand, it’s kind of crazy over there.
Kamal agreed completely. Staying a few days in Parsley’s parents’ home sounded like an absolute fucking nightmare. They were very loud and very angry at the best of times. At the worst of times well...Let’s just say that Kamal wouldn’t be able to forget the scar he got from Thanksgiving dinner there.
How the hell did they get into a fight with a wishbone anyways? It was all a blur of thrown mashed potatoes and broken plates.
K: thanks tho, ill figure smth out
P: no problem man, see you in a few days
K: yeah man see ya
Kamal logged out.
Maybe that last line from him totally obscured how much he was freaking out on the inside, or maybe it didn’t at all. Considering Parsley had known him for about three years now he should know that the slightest inconvenience could make Kamal freak it.
And today was FULL of slight inconveniences.
Kamal wanted nothing more than to leave work immediately and go home to pack up. Maybe find a hotel somewhere? God he wasn’t sure how much he actually had as far as ‘hotel money’ went. He still had to feed himself for these few days as well. And oh god he was Terrified of the implications of that ooze.
Would he be sick? Should he set up a doctor’s appointment or wait for some kind of conclusion to the mess. Was green ooze poisoning covered under his insurance?
He started overplanning and overthinking, going on websites to look up hotel prices and the like. Ugh, his shitty landlord would probably convince HIM to pay for most of the apartments’ quarantine. Since it was in his room, even though he had no idea where it came from or what it even was. Who’s to say that the old tenant didn’t secrete some wildly gross and unidentifiable slime??
Kamal got up and started pacing around, imagining getting into fake arguments with an invisible version of his landlord.
“You are an absolute bag of ass, craig!” He scream whispered, getting into the ‘angry tenant role’, “You...You…-FUCK.”
Kamal stumbled back and onto the carpet. In all his frenzied pacing he hadn’t noticed that he was slowly getting closer and closer to his desk, right up until he hit his toe on the edge. Banged it straight up.
God, could he be any more of a mess…
Trying not to cry, he curled up into a ball and ended up crying anyways.
His tears had been so stress induced and so full of built up anger that he cried harder than he had in years. Well, maybe that was an overstatement- He cried like every other month over movies and stuff.
Abruptly he had been scooped up into an all encompassing hug that smelled of rust and bubblegum.
“Thare thare, friend…”
Habit was cradling him and rocking him like he was some kind of baby. Which he pretty much was at this point. After getting over the initial shock of the situation Kamal began to sob harder and buried his face into the fluffy collar of Boris’s coat.
If Kamal was going to have a very public breakdown, he was going to Indulge.
“You are bigge-r than you’re problems!! Youare import-ant! The most imported ant.”
The sweet reassurance Boris was dealing out was almost enough to make Kamal start crying all over again. The big softy didn’t know anything about his problems and yet here he was trying to solve them. Why the hell was he so nice? Kamal didn’t deserve this.
When he had turned into a sniffling mess and not a sobbing mess he tapped Boris’s shoulder asking him to let him down. Kamal wanted absolutely nothing more than to just stay there and breathe his good/bad smell but he was afraid of being ‘too’ unprofessional in this already unprofessional climate.
“Heh, thanks doc…” Kamal wiped the rest of his tears away with his sleeve.
“Are you…Fine now? :-(“ Habit asked, tilting his head in that way that made Kamal go crazy with stupid gay energy.
“Yeah I’m fine, it was stupid. I’m sorry about that,” Kamal had started slowly coming back into himself. His incredibly embarrassed self. He can’t believe he did that in front of his boss. And he wasn’t even going to think about the 2k hurt/comfort fanfiction that his life had suddenly become.
“You’re frownies needed to be let out, no’thing wronge with that!” Habit was smiling, covering his mouth again like always, “Do u wamt to talk about it?”
Kamal smiled back because he knew Habit was all about that stuff and maybe it would make him drop the subject sooner.
“Well...My apartment is being quarantined.”
-
Kamal stumbled into his apartment, confused by the surrealness of it all. It felt weird being in here after knowing that it was apparently full of something that could kill him. He quickly rushed to get all of his things packed.
Toothbrush, back-up toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss. Oh and he should probably take some clothes too.
When all was said and done he hurried outside, breathing in the clean air. It didn’t really smell any different outside than inside but knowing the gross stuff about his apartment made his mind weird and paranoid.
He rolled his suitcase out and stood next to Parsley’s bicycle that he had used to get back. What now? Dr. Habit had said to email him when he had gotten done so he could pick him up and take him wherever he needed to go. It was touching but honestly Kamal was just shocked that the guy could drive.
He sort of forgot that people in smaller towns kind of need to drive if they didn’t want to take the bus all the time like he had settled into doing three years ago. When Kamal lived in the city it seemed so much easier, it was just walk everywhere or take the subway. Simple. Fast. Scary.
But there really wasn’t anyway that he was going to wait for a bus with a whole ass suitcase at, like, noon. So he ended up emailing Dr. Habit.
It took a bit to compose the email on his cellphone but he ended up doing a pretty good job at not sounding completely desperate and forever in debt to him. Sighing, Kamal put his phone back into his scrubs pocket, assuming it would take a few minutes for the doctor to get back to him because it was an email. It seemed like a far clunkier way to communicate than a simple IM. Should he teach the doctor how to sign up for one?
However he had responded faster than Kamal thought he would, in less than a minute the doctor had emailed him back and then a few minutes after that he was rolling up in his, sort of charming, beat up car. With a little bobble head baseball guy on the dashboard...Cute…
“Thanks again for this Doc, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Kamal stuffed his luggage into the backseat and got in with it. He felt weird about riding up front for some reason, like he didn’t deserve to.
For a moment he thought he saw a blush on Boris’s face but he was probably just seeing things. Yeah. That’s it.
“Not a problem friend!” He was surprisingly lucid at the moment, maybe it was just how he acted at work but the goofy speech pattern had left for a more subdued and less whimsical sound, “Where do you want to go?”
“I...Haven’t thought that far ahead actually…” Kamal rubbed his neck nervously, looking out the window at his apartment building, “I was thinking about staying at some cheap hotel but after doing some thinking I’ll probably have to settle for a cheap motel instead,” He chuckled pathetically.
Habit’s eyes widened as he looked at him in the rear view mirror.
It took a second of Habit playing around with the ac before he started up the car, apparently with a destination in mind.
“Oh? Do you know somewhere?” Kamal stopped nervously playing with the loose thread on his shirt and shivering a bit from the blast of cold air. He slightly regretted not changing out of his breezy scrubs earlier but oh well.
“No, but I think you’d be much happier in a housze than you’d be at a flea infezted motel.”
Kamal almost choked, “O-oh?”
The generosity of this man.
“I can’t accept that sir, you know that...I wouldn’t be able to repay you!”
Boris’s eyes darted back to the road for a second, “There’s no need to repay me!! It’s what friends do.”
Friends huh. Kamal always thought that the doctor just called him that out of habit (heh) than anything actually resembling familiarity. But he supposed he has known him for a few years and they do have their fair share of pleasant talks. Why couldn’t they be friends?
‘ Because I’d fall in love with him that’s why. ’
Kamal started heating up from the thought. The audacity of his brain…
Boris was getting antsy from his silence however, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel nervously, “Well? If you don’t want to it’s fine…”
“I...Well…” Kamal sputtered, “Y-you know what. I’d love that,” Because he would love it, more than anything, but if he kept deliberating on the nature of his friendship with the doctor, Boris might just start crying from being put on verbal hold for too long.
Dr. Habit lit up, smiling without covering his mouth for once, showing off his missing tooth and crooked smile.
Kamal thought it was just so charming...