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Sebastian poured a generous amount of shampoo into his hand, began working it into his hair and sighed. Showers used to be his alone-time. Not in a weird way; just a quiet window in the day to relax, get clean, and be alone with his thoughts.
Then Ominis decided he wanted to join him.
Not in the shower, thank Merlin. Ominis had a strict hair-washing schedule (“I can’t wash my hair today, then it will be all dirty for Garreth’s dinner on Friday!”
“Why can’t you just… shower again before that?”
“Because, my poor uneducated darling, that would be too often. I can’t wash my hair so frequently without damaging it.”)
No, Ominis’s idea of "joining" meant perching on the closed toilet lid like a judgmental cat, narrating his inner monologue while Sebastian tried to scrub himself in peace.
There was no escaping it. If Sebastian so much as closed the bathroom door behind him, there would be the faint sound of a cane tapping or a voice calling, “Where are you going?” And within a minute, Ominis would have claimed his usual perch on the closed toilet lid, sitting primly like a cat watching its owner wash dishes.
Ominis called it a bonding activity. Sebastian called it abandonment issues and unhealthy levels of clinginess.
“Do you know what I can’t stand?” Ominis began, his voice echoing slightly off the tiled walls. Through the blurry outline of the shower curtain, Sebastian could just make out the elegant silhouette of his self-appointed bathroom companion — back straight, arms crossed, probably looking like he was seated on a throne rather than a toilet lid.
Sebastian braced himself. “What?”
“Patronising strangers,” Ominis said with the venom most reserve for serial killers. “Yesterday, the woman at the bakery literally asked if I wanted my croissant toasted. As if a creature such as myself could not make the most basic of carbohydrate-related decisions.”
Sebastian groaned softly and tilted his head back under the spray, rinsing soap from his hair and trying to ignore the creeping sting of shampoo edging dangerously close to his eye.
“She said it so sweetly, too,” Ominis continued, wounded pride dripping from every syllable. “Do you know what that implies, Sebastian? That men like me: refined, cultured, are somehow incapable of taste. The audacity.”
A single, deeply offended huff punctuated his statement, like a Victorian widow who had just spotted someone using the wrong fork at dinner.
From behind the curtain, Sebastian squinted and called out, “Do you have to tell me this now? While I’m mid-blindness?”
Ominis sniffed, clearly unbothered. “Imagine me then, who lives in permanent blindness.”
Sebastian muttered something profoundly unflattering under his breath, but let it go. No one won arguments in the bathroom. Especially not with Ominis.
That was when his phone pinged.
Ominis perked up. “New message,” the screen reader chimed cheerfully. “From: Unknown number.”
“Probably spam,” Sebastian said through the curtain, still fighting the sting of shampoo in his eyes. “Just ignore it.”
But Ominis, of course, did not ignore it. He lifted the phone with the casual entitlement of someone who believed all his boyfriend’s property was joint property, and activated the screen reader.
“Message reads: ‘Hey Sebastian. It’s Jake from your lit class. Just wondering when you would like to meet up and start sketching on our project. Cheers, Jake.’”
Ominis paused.
From the shower came the sound of enthusiastic humming and the rush of water now blasting at full pressure. Sebastian didn’t seem to have heard the message.
Quickly, Ominis tapped out a message.
“…Babe?" Sebastian called out warily, when Ominis had been quiet for a suspicious amount of time. "Did I get a text?”
“Mm,” Ominis hummed, still typing.
Sebastian froze, hand halfway to the shower dial. “What are you doing?”
“Solving it.” Tap-tap-tap. “Don’t worry.”
Sebastian had been with Ominis for long enough to know that meant he should worry. He shoved his head out from behind the curtain, shampoo foam dripping dangerously close to his eyes. “Solved what?”
Ominis’s expression was the picture of cool serenity. as he pressed send. “It’s handled.”
Which was never, in the history of their relationship, a good sign.
Sebastian lunged forward, dripping everywhere, and snatched his phone from Ominis’s hands. It almost slipped through his soapy fingers, but adrenaline — and sheer boyfriend-based panic — won out.
“Hello Jake. This is Sebastian’s boyfriend. If you value your eyesight, refrain from texting my boyfriend again. Blindness builds character, but I doubt you’d handle the experience. Make smart choices. ‘Cheers’, Ominis Gaunt.”
Sebastian almost slipped on the shower floor.
"No, no, no ... can you unsend it? Ominis, please, can you take it back?"
"No," Ominis said, matter-of-factly. "And you shouldn't want to take it back either. It's an important message."
“You — you can’t just threaten my study partner!”
Ominis looked unbothered.
“He threatened me first.”
Sebastian gaped. “How? How did he threaten you first?”
Ominis tilted his head. “He tried to claim what’s mine.”
Sebastian was getting shampoo in his eyes again, but he didn’t bother to wipe it away. He could still clearly see his literature grade sailing off into the distance, on a boat steered by a very possessive, very blind boyfriend.
“How did you even unlock my phone?” he demanded.
Ominis frowned, as if the question were painfully obvious. “I added my fingerprint while you were asleep.”
“What?!”
Ominis shrugged. “It needed fingerprint verification to approve the Amazon purchase.”
Sebastian nearly slipped again. “The—what? Purchase? On Amazon? Why were you buying things from my account?!”
Ominis sighed, long-suffering. “Sebastian, please. I’m blind. I have to have something fun in my life.”
Sebastian flailed a soapy arm in protest, accidentally launching a bubble of shampoo foam into the ceiling.
“You have more money than I do!”
“Yes,” Ominis agreed with a serene nod. “But I like when you pay for it.”
“You mean when you steal from me?!”
Ominis made a face. “Stealing is such a strong word. I prefer to call it… strategic borrowing.”
Sebastian just stared at him, stunned. At least that explained the mysterious $30 withdrawal yesterday.
“We are going to circle back to that,” he said slowly. “For now ... can we just focus on the fact that you threatened my classmate?”
“I didn’t threaten him,” Ominis said, entirely too composed. “I simply sent him a warning.”
"From my phone! Do you realise how unhinged you make me seem? Jake’s going to think I’m dating a mafia boss.”
Ominis sniffed delicately. “Good. That means he’ll keep his distance."
Sebastian whimpered, defeated, and turned the shower dial up to maximum, which was his usual approach to life’s more ridiculous problems: drown them in scalding water and hope for the best.
Outside the curtain, Ominis sat back on the toilet lid, perfectly composed, like a man who hadn’t just committed academic sabotage via iMessage. He folded his hands in his lap and, with the grace of someone reading from a leather-bound diary, began recounting a completely unrelated grievance; something about a stupid cheerleader who had dared to speak over him in class once, and the injustice of it all.
Sebastian let the hot water pour down over his face and sighed.
There went his grade. There went Jake. There went any hope of group work ever being simple again.
But at least Ominis was satisfied — even if poor Jake from Lit was probably permanently traumatised.
He’d apologise to Jake later.
If Ominis let him.