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"Am I that bad in bed?"
Tighnari cleared his throat at a volume that nearly drowned out Kaveh’s question.
Nearly, being the keyword.
They’d come out together for a game of cards, minus one Scribe, and though they’re both more than used to Kaveh’s rants (on a certain man in particular)…they hadn’t expected that it would go in such an intimate direction so quickly.
Tighnari gave Cyno a look. Cyno raised a brow back, before giving in to a shrug. Better him than Tighnari, he supposed. "Dare I ask what brought this on?" Cyno asked, flipping his cards over to rest face down on the circular table between them. "Or were you just speaking aloud to yourself? In which case—"
"Alhaitham never initiates anything in bed," Kaveh said in a rush. For all that his face was flushed, he didn’t hesitate in explaining, "I do enough, or so I thought, but...as time goes on, I'm starting to notice that he doesn't seem as interested in it as me. What do you think I could be doing wrong?"
Tighnari looked at Kaveh's empty glass of wine, recalled the many glasses he'd had previously, shared another look with Cyno, then sighed. Turning back to Kaveh, he asked, "Why do you immediately presume that something is wrong?"
"Because," here, Kaveh paused with gravitas, "if I make him feel good, it doesn't make sense to not want more? Right?"
"Maybe he just isn't as interested in it in general, and it has nothing to do with you."
Kaveh seemed to sober up at those words. "Then...is he forcing himself to have sex with me?"
Tighnari exhaled slowly. Good grief. "That's not—"
"Thinking about it now, I'm always the one initiating," Kaveh mumbled, drooping more and more as he clutched onto the wine glass in his hand. "Maybe...he really doesn't want to, but he goes along with it just because I want it? I know he wouldn't sacrifice himself or his own desires like that so easily, but if he thinks he has to..."
“Alhaitham wouldn’t force himself to do anything he doesn’t want to,” Cyno pointed out.
“That’s what I thought too! But then I heard about him offering himself as a hostage to save someone he doesn’t know, and I…I’m rethinking how I view him. If he could do something like that, who says he can’t sleep with me just to keep the peace?”
“He’s never seemed to want peace with you,” Tighnari said dryly. “In fact, I would say he enjoys riling you up.”
“That’s…true,” Kaveh grumbled. He traced his finger over the rim of his wine glass, pouting. “But still. He can be weirdly nice in the most unexpected moments, so what if..?”
“You’re catastrophizing,” Tighnari sighed, before taking Kaveh’s cards from atop the table and returning them to Cyno’s deck. They certainly weren’t going to be playing anymore at this rate, and he’d rather not risk those cards getting wet from spilled wine. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think it is. In fact, why don’t you ask him why he won’t initiate anything? Though I’m getting the feeling that he doesn’t initiate because you initiate enough…”
“But is it not normal to want sex when your partner is,” Kaveh violently shook his hands in front of himself, “that attractive?! Am I not attractive enough, is that the problem?”
“I’m saying that you’re not giving him the chance to initiate, Kaveh.”
“...huh?”
“Perhaps if you held back on initiating anything…intimate, for a while, then he might initiate during that time,” Tighnari suggested.
“You don’t think I’ve tried? ” Kaveh cried, almost making to throw his hands up—that is, until Tighnari stopped him with a hand to the wine glass he was still clutching onto. As he pried the glass from Kaveh’s hand, Kaveh whined, “I’m not that much of a fool, of course I did my own analysis to figure things out! I refrained from anything intimate for a month and he never tried anything with me! It’s like he doesn’t want me at all!”
“Are you sure you should be announcing these things to the tavern,” Cyno said, one eyebrow raised in question. “Because it sounds to me like this is something you’ll regret the morning after.”
“...I’ll tone it down,” Kaveh mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked around warily. There was no one looking over at them, but Tighnari knew better; these people were definitely listening without making it obvious. Kaveh made it far, far too easy, honestly. “But my point stands.”
“Maybe it’s not so much that he doesn’t want you, as it is…well, him not being as keen on sexual activities in the first place. Not in the sense that he’s being forced into anything,” Tighnari said with emphasis, stopping Kaveh with a look before he could start again, “but more in the sense that he’ll be okay with it if you bring it up, and he’ll be okay with it if you don’t.”
“It just doesn’t make sense…”
“Isn’t that how it usually is between the two of you? Your entire relationship is a dialectic in and of itself,” Cyno hummed while packing up his deck and dice, having acknowledged that a game wouldn’t be in the cards (hah) now that Kaveh had begun his rant on Alhaitham. “What you perceive as normal for you, might not be what’s normal for him. Maybe he just loves you and doesn’t see the need for sex in your relationship, while you personally desire sex because you think he’s attractive.”
“But I don’t just want sex because he’s attractive,” Kaveh muttered—so softly that Tighnari and Cyno had to lean in to hear him. “I also want it because I like making him feel good—”
“This honestly isn’t something you should be telling us,” Tighnari cut in.
“Tighnari,” Kaveh groaned, covering his face with both hands as he bowed his head. “I don’t think I’m being unreasonable…am I?” He peeked through his fingers at them, eyes puppy-dog wide. “While I do enjoy being intimate with him, if there’s even the slightest possibility that he’s just going along with my whims…”
Cyno shook his head. “I doubt it. I may not know him as well as you do, but I already know that he’s not the type to inconvenience himself for anyone else’s sake, especially for such a small thing.”
“What do you mean small—”
“Sex is not a necessity, Kaveh,” Tighnari said. He rolled his eyes at the wide-eyed, gawping look he got in return. “And I’m rather certain, based on how you’re complaining about it, that Alhaitham thinks the same. Please talk to him about this instead of us so you can actually find a solution to your…problem.”
“But-”
“Kaveh. There’s literally nothing we can offer as advice when Alhaitham knows the answer to your questions better than we do,” Tighnari reiterated, leaning forward on the desk with his chin supported by his hand. “Had it just been the usual complaints, we’d have understood, but this is something that’s far more intimate than we should know, even as your friends.”
“...I guess,” Kaveh grumbled, toying with a lock of his hair. “You really think he’ll answer me properly if I ask?”
“So long as you ask properly, I’m sure he will,” Tighnari sighed. “He’s only ever difficult with you when you’re being difficult yourself, I’ve come to realize.”
“Huh? Since when am I being difficult??”
“...Cyno, could you?”
“Boss,” Cyno called out, hand raised to the tavern owner. “Could we get a refill on the wine?”
“Tighnari, hey—”
“Actually, could we ask for a jug?”
“Make that a jug, boss!”
“Guys!”
“I’ve been made aware that the whole tavern now knows about our sexual activities.”
Kaveh groaned from where he lay in bed, all bundled up like a cocooning caterpillar. Alhaitham supposed he was lucky that he was as beautiful as an emerging butterfly even when he was horribly hungover, as not many could boast the same.
He was doubly lucky to have a roommate who was also his lover, who didn’t mind dragging him home when he blacked out from drinking far too much.
“I…what?”
“Last night, when you went out with Tighnari and Cyno,” Alhaitham clarified, sitting at Kaveh’s bedside as he offered him a glass of water. Kaveh took another moment to yawn and rub at his weary eyes before taking the glass, his speedy drinking serving as clear evidence of his dehydration. What a foolish man.
Yet he’s the man Alhaitham chose, and so, he must be the one to remind that foolish man to take care of himself.
“You went on a rant about how I don’t seem to like initiating sex,” Alhaitham said—slowly, carefully, imbuing his words with utmost irreverence. He took the glass from Kaveh’s hand before it could crash to the floor. “Now the tavern thinks you’re some kind of satyr, and myself, a man with erectile dysf—”
“Oh god, stop . Stop, I—I remember now, please, enough,” Kaveh begged. His face, somehow, managed to blanch and flush at the same time, though Alhaitham couldn’t observe this phenomenon for longer when he quickly bundled himself back up into his blankets with a groan. “I can never show my face there again! Why, just why did I drink so much..!”
“It seems you did so because you were distressed at my lack of initiative,” Alhaitham said. He smirked when Kaveh peeked out of his blankets to glare at him. “Which, you wouldn’t have been distressed if you’d just asked me. I’m hardly the type of person to hide answers from you when you inquire about anything.”
“Oh yeah? You seem to forget your habit of answering sarcastically whenever I ask a simple question!”
“That’s only for simple questions that don’t even need to be asked, senior,” Alhaitham answered, reaching out to tuck away a stray hair from Kaveh’s face. Kaveh seemed to flush at the motion, easily flustered man that he is, and though Alhaitham needed no reminder on how much of a hold he had on Kaveh, it was nice to see regardless. He added, “Ask me.”
“What?”
“Ask me, Kaveh. I won’t say this again.”
“...you…”
Kaveh took his time to groan and moan as he hid his face in his blanket cocoon. He was ungraceful like this, a mess of a man even with his supposed seniority and genius status, but Alhaitham figured he had love to blame for finding this all charming. Cute, even.
“...fine,” Kaveh mumbled.
Alhaitham hummed. “Go on.”
“ Give me a second , alright!” Kaveh snapped, ripping his blanket off his person in a rush. “You’re so— ugh.” One breath, and he was already deflating like a wilted Whopperflower, shoulders slumped as he clutched at the blanket in his grasp. “I…”
Alhaitham waited.
“...why don’t you want me as much as I want you?”
“That’s a fallacy,” Alhaitham pointed out. “You hypothesized that and came to an incorrect conclusion without further testing. Ask me again.”
“You..!”
“Tell me why you don’t think I want you,” Alhaitham cut in, halting Kaveh from the rant starting to build up in his chest. “Then, ask me what you really want to know.”
“...you overly rational Haravatat. Of course I,” Kaveh stammered, looking away as he glared at his own clenched fists, “I’d assume you don’t want me, when you won’t even initiate anything. When it’s always me initiating anything, when I stop asking for sex and you never complain when we go a month without it…”
“And, what’s the real question?”
Kaveh glared weakly at him. “Why don’t you want to have sex with me as much as I seem to want it with you?”
“Because you initiate enough for the both of us,” he answered bluntly, watching with mild amusement as redness slowly began creeping onto Kaveh’s face, from his cheeks up to his ears. “And because my libido just isn’t as strong as yours.”
“...”
“I may be built like this,” Alhaitham said, not minding the obvious way Kaveh’s gaze took him in from head to toe (while lingering on his chest in particular). “But that does not equate to virility. Unfortunately.”
“...right.”
Alhaitham allowed the silence to stay for a moment. He waited, amusement ever-present, as Kaveh went through the five stages of grief—from frowning to himself in denial, to pinching the bridge of his nose with a frustrated growl, down to his return to slumped shoulders and mournful sighing—in approximately ten seconds.
Well, he may as well end his suffering sooner rather than later.
“Kaveh.”
“Hm?”
The hum was an attempt at being casual, he was sure, but there was no denying the pout and furrowed brows on Kaveh’s face.
“...I prefer it too, when you initiate,” he admitted softly, watching as Kaveh’s expression morphed from confusion to disbelief. “You have more experience than me, as you already know. I’d rather not make a fool of myself in wanting you, when you want me enough to initiate on your own. And…”
He let his voice trail off as he tucked himself into Kaveh’s side, resting his forehead against his shoulder with the slightest of affectionate nuzzles. Eyes closed yet ears open to Kaveh’s loudly-thumping heart, he muttered, “You have enough on your plate, while I have more time to spare. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just wait for when you want it, instead of pushing myself on you?”
“...I want you to, though,” Kaveh said, voice so heart-wrenchingly soft and fond as he opened his arms to tuck Alhaitham into him, a little closer, a little tighter. “I want you to ask. I know you won’t be unreasonable with the timing, anyway, and…well.” Kaveh cleared his throat, the heat from his cheeks reaching down to his neck, just enough that even Alhaitham could feel it against his skin. “I…wouldn’t mind, even if you asked for it while I was busy.”
Alhaitham huffed out a laugh. “So you want me to be needy.”
“That’s not—”
“Kaveh.”
“...maybe. Just a little bit,” Kaveh admitted, utterly defeated. “I want to spoil you. Is that so wrong? I’m your senior, you should let me take care of you sometimes too.”
“You already do.”
“Yes, but,” Kaveh made a face as he spoke, “it’s not enough.”
“Because you want to spoil me in bed, specifically.”
“...”
“Okay,” Alhaitham agreed. He put all of his weight onto Kaveh without warning, forcing them both to lie flat back onto the bed. It was a testament to Kaveh’s hidden strength that he bore his weight with only the smallest of grunts, his arms even tightening to tuck him closer into his embrace. “In the future, I’ll take the initiative more often.”
“...why not now?”
Alhaitham bit back a snort of laughter as he pushed himself off of Kaveh, ignoring the puppy-eyed gaze thrown his way as he pried those strong arms off his waist. “Am I meant to reward you when you clearly overdid it while drinking last night? No.”
“But…”
“No.”
“Damn it.”