Work Text:
"We should start showering together." Was one of the first things Alhaitham said to Kaveh when he walked in the door. Kaveh had just finished a business meeting with one of the rudest clients hes had all week, work deadlines were slowly creeping up on him, Mehrak was low on battery and about to lose power even though he still needed her for at least 4 more hours of work just tonight, and here comes Alhaitham telling him he wants to shower with him.
"What?" was all Kaveh could reply with. "You heard me." Alhaitham said, putting down the book he was holding. "You've been not only using up the hot water, but the water bill has gone up by 3000 mora in the past month." Alhaitham pulled out the bill and placed it on the table. Kaveh nearly dropped his work blueprints. "What? That can't be right." Kaveh grabbed the bill and stared at it. Sure enough, it was 3000 mora on the water bill more then usual. He had been taking more hot showers lately, just as another way of de-stressing other then drinking, but he didn't think it impacted the bill this much.
"So, I came up with a solution. We can shower together for the month to save mora and stop when the bill returns to normal." Alhaitham says, standing up. Kaveh wasn't exactly in a position to argue, he hadn't payed his half of the rent in 2 months, and he couldn't find the energy to after the day he's had. He mustered up a sigh, plugged Mehrak in and followed Alhaitham to the bathroom.
As the lock clicked they both started to take off their clothes. Kaveh had thought this would be more awkward but it really wasn't. Back in the Akademiya, they had both taken an art elective that had a nude model, and Kaveh had volunteered to do it once. So nudity wasn't really a new thing for them. They both stepped into the shower and just washed themselves in comfortable silence, backs turned away from each other. Now that Kaveh thought about it, when did they get this comfortable with each other? They were close in the Akademiya before their falling out, but not to this degree. In the art class, everyone just saw a nude model, that wasn't a big deal. But this felt more personal then that. Kaveh knew he'd never do this with anyone else, and he knew Alhaitham wouldn't even suggest this with anyone else. He would just tell them to stop hogging the shower.
"Could you hand me the--" Alhaitham was in the middle of asking, Kaveh handed him the shampoo without thinking. Alhaitham just nodded and went back to his shower. There it was again, that steady rhythm of just being able to practically read each other's mind. Kaveh wouldn't call his relationship with his roommate platonic exactly, but not romantic? It was somewhere in the middle, where their lives were intertwined, but nothing explicitly romantic has ever happened. Alhaitham reached his hand out, holding the shampoo. Of course Alhaitham had noticed Kaveh hadn't used it yet. Even Kaveh had hardly realized he hadn't used it yet, he was honestly just thinking while his body was moving on auto-pilot.
He wondered if anyone else noticed. He had overheard Sethos mention one time that they were "always together". Had they really always been together? He thought back to most of the places he's been the past month. Aside from work, he went to one of Nilou's shows with Alhaitham, went to the desert with him, even went grocery shopping with him sometimes. He hadn't even noticed Alhaitham tagging to come along despite him hardly choosing to do much other then read. He only hadn't noticed because of how indifferent Alhaitham seemed to the idea and the little comments. It was always "I'll go with you to the grocery store because you always get the un-ripe fruit." Or it was "I was planning to go the desert anyway." It was bizarre that Kaveh was just realizing all of this now.
And since Kaveh was on auto-pilot, he didn't really notice he was now putting shampoo in his hair for the 3rd time. He also didn't notice when he accidently squeezed it into his eye until his eye burned. "Ack!" Kaveh let out a noise somewhere between a curse and a hiss of pain. He stepped backward without meaning to, and also realized a bar of soap fell onto floor, as a result, he slipped on it.
Kaveh snapped his eyes shut, waiting for impact, but all he felt were 2 hands on his back. Alhaithams hands. Hands he knew all too well. Kaveh hesitantly opened one eye, even if it hurt to do so. He got back up and turned around, and there was Alhaitham, the only who basically saved his life (literally this time).
"You really should start being more careful, senior." Alhaitham sighed, but Kaveh didn't miss how his eyes softened on the word senior. Kaveh watched him step out of the shower, quickly wrapping a towel around himself and handing him a warm hand towel. Kaveh rubbed his eyes with it while Alhaitham turned off the shower and started to get dressed into his pajamas. "Thanks." Kaveh muttered. Despite one of his eyes being covered with the hand towel, his other eye closely followed Alhaithams movements. Just the way he does things. How he caught him like it was nothing. It felt good to have someone like that. Not even about grabbing him a hand towel and catching him before he fell. It was about how he carried him home when he got too drunk. How he lets him miss rent payments when he knows hes in a bad financial spot. How much he really cared.
Kaveh quickly realized how fast his thoughts were spiraling when Alhaitham shut the door, the noise jolting him out of his thoughts. and what he probably looked like right now. He put the hand towel down and wrapped himself in an actual towel. He walked out of the bathroom, one of his eyes still slightly red from the shampoo. "Well, I suppose we're not doing that. Just make sure to not spend 3 hours in the shower at a time, okay?" Alhaitham teased. Kaveh let out a sigh and smirked at him. "Huh, what will happen if I need saving from shampoo or soap? Who'll be there to save me?" Kaveh laughed.
"We can cross that bridge when we come to it." Alhaitham shrugged. Kaveh smiled. He realized he didn't actually care what his real relationship with Alhaitham was. Platonic or romantic, he was just glad he was in his life again. Their unspoken understanding was truly a treasure to be cherished.