Work Text:
What happens is-
Stefan is talking to a young woman that saw himself and Rash talking to a guy that knew their suspect when they’d worked together a few years back. She had smiled at him just as he’d flung his hands in the air at Rash’s silly behavior and turned from him, letting him continue with the interview. She approached him when he smiled ruefully right back and they chatted a bit; Stefan saying they’re cops on an investigation and complaining about how his partner always had these weird demands that he ‘not threaten people we want information from’ and ‘nobody says that in real life, what are you even doing’. She’d laughed with him, a thing he always considered a success, right up until her attention caught on something behind his back.
“Oh, are they done?” he asked her, thinking that she maybe saw Rash heading their way.
“No. But I think your witness is hitting on your partner”, she smiled.
Stefan’s first, instinctual, immediate reaction is, “No.”
He looks back with that exaggerated motion he has, the one that makes him look like a cartoon character sometimes, and sees that yes, the guy Rash’s been questioning is looking at him all soft-like and is standing really close. The only thing he can do at this point is gape, because, “He can’t do that!”
Jealousy gets a fist around his insides because this is bullshit, who does this guy think he is - did he not see Stefan right there- and they’re investigating and anyway, Rash is his to smile at. Not that he’d ever thought about it before, but now that his position is being blatantly threatened with Arrash relaxed and looking like he doesn’t mind the attention, Stefan suddenly realizes that he has a position - one which he would very much like to not give up.
So he looks at the woman he was talking to, raises a finger saying “I’m sorry I just have to go now” and marches over to Rash to sand by his side.
The guy looks at Stefan searchingly but decides for some reason that he isn’t a factor in this, ignores him and continue saying, “-so you have my number, in any case.” and Rash is sort of smiling back, and nodding, at which point Stefan puts his hand around Arrash’s shoulder dragging him backwards and saying to the guy, “Let me tell you right now that this is not going to happen.” then turns them both away and starts going in the other direction even though he’s pretty sure it’s the longer route to take back. He can just about see the man putting his hands up in surrender, while Rash shoves at him and extracts himself from Stefan’s grip, annoyed. He stumbles a bit but keeps on walking.
“You can’t-” Rash starts to say, but stops himself, his hands falling to his sides, seeming helpless and dejected like he sort of gave up, which isn’t what Stefan wanted at all.
“What.”
“You can’t have both Leila and me.”
Stefan hunches his back, shoves his hands deeper in his pockets and grumbles, “Why not.”
Arrash stops in his tracks, aghast, “Did you just?-”
The blonde backtracks with a hurried, “He was ugly anyway.”
“Well I thought he was cute!”
“That’s unfortunate news. Besides which- he’s a witness in an investigation, isn’t it like, immoral or something?”
Arrash huffs and ignores him for the rest of the day. Stefan is careful to smile at his friend all the same. In the end of the day he finally gets a smile back following a Goodnight. He counts it as a win.
What follows is-
Stefan stops flirting with people. He’s used to it, sure, and some of his masks demand that sort of behavior - but that is precisely how he manages to turn it off. Smiling?- Sure, that’s a thing he does, but following up with a quick round of flirting isn’t a hard behavior to unlearn.
He doesn’t think Arrash would be jealous, not exactly, especially since he didn’t really say anything about any feelings from his side, only that Stefan is being irrational, but maybe if he himself does not like to see people make moves on Rash, maybe he’d do him the courtesy of not making the other suffer through his flirting as well.
He still flirts with Leila, mind, just not in her brother’s presence. He likes her. He likes Arrash. It’s a pretty unreasonable demand on the world's part to make him choose. He sometimes wonders if they have other siblings he might fall for, and also what gift can he give their mother for the nearest holiday that would incorporate how deeply he is grateful to her for the both of them.
-
He and Arrash are having coffee, it’s a quiet day in a quiet week of cycling, doing laundry, watching movies sprawled on the couch with his head on Rash’s thigh and just hanging out together. He loves it, especially since no one tried to kill them even a little bit, even by accident.
Rash nudges his foot under the table, “Hey mate, you’re spacing out on me. What’s on your mind?”
Stefan smiles, “Just enjoying the coffee.” - he can’t very well say that he’d spent the last five minutes getting used to the sound of ‘Stefan Sayyad’ in his head, because that’s not weird at all. Buy a house with me, Arrash. Give me your name, Arrash. What next?
Really, though, what next? Is there a guide to this? A 10-step listicle on Buzzfeed? He’d have to check when he gets home.
He’d thought about it, by the way, for about two days now, and came to the conclusion that he’d prefer to change his name if that was something they’d do. As an immigrant he’s used to his identity being a fluid thing, something to direct and build and adjust, and does not have any particular attachment to his surname. Besides, it would be an asshole move to make Rash and Leila take his name - much easier to just make the one change for himself, and even for that the amount of paperwork is something he’d rather not think about.
So yeah, he’d spaced out, “Sorry Rash, my head’s all over today.”
Arrash does that thing where he smiles and averts his eyes; a soft choir in Stefan’s head resumes its chants of Stefan Sayyad - Stefan Sayyad - Stefan Sayyad - Stefan Sayyad, and he grins a bit helplessly right back.
-
He smiles at Arrash a lot, and looks at him even more, and shares his bottles, coffee cups, body wash, sweat soaked towels. He doesn’t always ask first, forgets that it’s not very accepted to try to overtly merge with someone you’re not even kissing. Fuck kissing, though, it isn't the point! - He wants to soak in the smell of Rash’s aftershave until his own pillow smells like it.
He smiles at Leila, and stares into her amused eyes and stumbles over his words with his foot in his mouth and his heart in his throat. She’s less available to him for assimilation because she doesn’t share living space with him, so instead he: converts to her favourite beer, dresses in what he has of her preferred colors, eats whatever dish she tells him to try and stocks the bathroom with feminine products because she visits often and who knows, right?
There is probably something he must do with this situation, he’s probably being unfair to them both, but he’d never before wanted so much to give that it’s like a live wire running through him, making him want to jump on his toes. Stefan would open his rib-cage and have the Sayyads move in where he could hold them close for as long as they’d let him.
-
In all his years before Rash, he had never needed that much medical attention. It’s probably lucky that he has a nurse willing to patch him up. Maybe it’s the way life balances things. Anyway - Stefan’s grateful for both.
-
Leila has a life outside of hurricane Kowolski and generally seems to have her life put together, so that when he forgets to feel guilty about his damn heart he recognizes that she seems to be the one that’s dealing the best with the whole situation, like she knows something that neither he nor her brother do. Rash on the other hand sometimes looks at him like Stefan is breaking his heart, which is not fair and obviously factually false, but Stefan doesn’t know what to do with it, he doesn’t know .
-
On a Saturday morning Rash had stepped out of the shower, foggy, soft, hands playing with his wet hair, Stefan just passed him on the way to the kitchen to put his empty coffee cup in the sink; he’d grinned at the sight of his friend and just had to- eyes bright Stefan had kissed him, briefly, on the corner of his lips, he then proceeded to go on his way leaving a confused and flustered man in his wake. They didn’t talk about it since, not in a way of people who avoid the subject with their whole mind and internal organs, but like it was just a thing that happens in domestic life and doesn’t merit comment. Stefan wasn’t entirely sure it didn’t.
Deep into an all-night shift of a rainy Wednesday he comes to visit Leila as he promised to when they last spoke on the phone. He brought food and water and a change of clothes, warm hands to settle on the sides of her face, a fond kiss to her forehead, nose, lips. She looked at him and smiled and accepted them as her due. It’s about time, her hands said while opening the hot container and digging in; Thank you, her eyes said as they settled on his face when he started telling her some anecdotes from work.
He remembers a souvenir, a small booklet the size of his palm filled with positive quotes and among them,
Jacob, age 8
“Today I learned it’s possible to love five girls at the same time.”
He gets up in the morning and pretends to be a manual laborer with limited English. He goes to sleep at night and dreams of his grandmother speaking to him in Polish about the days when she was young and how she loves him and that it’s not wrong, the things he’s feeling.
He gets up in the morning and pretends to be an investigator; wishes he could believe her careful loving words, wishes someone other than his own subconsciousness would just talk to him about it or that he had someone to ask. Smiles.