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“It’s a problem,” Kaveh informs Cyno and Tighnari, who both have that married couple look about them that insinuates that they’re judging him together despite not even being turned towards each other. “I cannot, and I mean I cannot get anything done.”
“So you’re saying you’re not overworking yourself anymore.”
“I don’t even have time to overwork myself—hey. I don’t overwork myself.”
“Sure you don’t,” Tighnari says, ear flicking disbelievingly, “You just work, late into the night, past the hours when you should be asleep, and past the hours where you should be awake again. Of course that’s not overworking, what am I thinking?”
“You’re thinking very uncharitable things towards me,” Kaveh tells him. “But back to the topic at hand—I can’t sleep, so please give me something to keep me awake.”
“I think we should go back to the topic that Kaveh apparently feels safe and trusted enough with Alhaitham to constantly fall asleep around him,” Cyno says. Kaveh stares at him and hopes Cyno knows that he is feeling very, very betrayed right now. “Not to mention Alhaitham. Who knew that bookhead would do something like that?”
They stare at him.
“Bookhead,” Cyno repeats, like they hadn’t heard him the first time, “Y’know, like blockhead.”
Kaveh very valiantly does not twitch at the explanation. “Anyways,” he says loudly, “Tighnari. If you would please help.”
“I don’t know,” Tighnari says, looking far too amused for Kaveh’s liking, “You finally look like you sleep properly every day. You’re not even wearing concealer.”
Kaveh sighs.
“Alhaitham?” Kaveh prods. Looks to the side where Alhaitham had been sitting beside him with a book, raising his nose from it every now and then to judge Kaveh’s drawings despite knowing absolutely nothing about what he’s doing, “Are you—”
Kaveh trails off when he sees Alhaitham slumped over, head lolling back into the divan. His book is sprawled across his lap, and he looks funnily soft like this. Like a cat who’s trying to lure someone into scratching its belly so it can bite them.
Kaveh laughs at himself for his own comparison, and then he grabs a throw to rest over Alhaitham’s lap in case he gets cold. It’s not quite the cold season yet, but Alhaitham’s always been more sensitive to the temperature than him.
He hums a little tune as he keeps working, amused by the fact that Alhaitham, chronic allergic to overworking Alhaitham, was so tired he fell asleep right beside Kaveh.
Hours later, when Alhaitham blinks bleary eyes open up at Kaveh when he pokes him awake for dinner, Kaveh teases, “Wake up, sleepyhead. I’ve made dinner. And you aren’t allowed to make fun of me for working too much either, considering you’ve been sleeping for four hours at least.”
Alhaitham stretches on the couch, joints popping loudly enough that Kaveh winces. “I wasn’t tired, though,” Alhaitham says, “I don’t know why I fell asleep. I don’t even have a headache.”
“It’s because I was here to guard you,” Kaveh laughs. “Now get up before your food gets cold.”
“So it turns out you magically blessed him with good sleep if he slept near you,” Tighnari summarizes, and, well, it sounds stupid if he puts it that way. But Alhaitham seems a little less grouchy, less complaining about migraines when he sleeps beside Kaveh, and on more than one occasion he’s considered—jokingly!—offering to stay in Alhaitham’s room to watch over him so he could finally get a good night’s rest.
“It would be fine if it was only that,” Kaveh stresses. “He can sleep wherever and whenever he likes; it’s fine!”
“But the problem is that you’re also magically falling asleep around him,” Cyno snickers.
“Yes,” Kaveh despairs, knowing he’ll get no sympathy from his so-called friends. “And it’s a problem. I’m not getting anything done.”
A poke to his cheek.
Kaveh grumbles, snuggling into his pillow, and panics when his pillow moves. For a bleary moment Kaveh thinks he’s fallen asleep on and crushed a kitten, but then his pillow is speaking—
“If you wanted to sleep with me that bad, you should’ve just asked,” a groggy voice says, and Kaveh remembers—how he’d found Alhaitham napping on the divan while he was cleaning the house, how he’d draped a blanket over him as he usually did, and then sat down beside him to read a new book he picked up.
He doesn’t know how he’d fallen asleep—one second he was reading and the next, he’s being woken up, feeling surprisingly clearheaded.
“You don’t look like a cat messed up your brain,” Alhaitham notes, peering down at Kaveh where he’s apparently rolled over onto Alhaitham’s chest. He has a double chin from this angle, Kaveh thinks hysterically. “Sleep well?”
“Yes,” Kaveh snaps, rolling off Alhaitham—and apparently onto the ground—“FUCK.”
Then Alhaitham laughs, clear and bright, and Kaveh momentarily stops being able to think.
“So, it’s happened multiple times over the past two weeks, and you don’t have any reason to even think to be concerned?”
“Well, no,” Tighnari shrugs, and nods cordially at Alhaitham when he slides himself into their booth half an hour late and takes his place beside Kaveh only to immediately steal his drink. “It’s probably your bodies trying to catch up on sleep—Alhaitham with his insomnia and you with your… tendencies—and barring that, it can also simply mean that you just feel comfortable enough with each other to do so.”
“Are we talking about the great sleeping mystery again,” Alhaitham says, but the curl of his lips says he’s amused. “It’s not a problem, is it? I myself have been feeling much more refreshed these days. Haven’t you?”
Kaveh doesn’t answer, because answering means giving in. Instead, he skillfully and masterfully steers the topic away from talking any more about it, because it’s just plain embarrassing to be so affected by it when Alhaitham is so clearly… not.
They’ve finished dinner and are lounging around talking and catching up, talking about Collei, and Cyno’s through his first round of TCG with Tighnari when Kaveh feels a weight on his arm. Oh, he’d almost forgotten Alhaitham was there—he’s been strangely silent for the past few minutes.
But when he turns to prod at Alhaitham, he finds—
Alhaitham napping.
In the middle of a busy tavern. Amidst talking to their friends. Head comfortably pillowed on Kaveh’s shoulder. Kaveh didn’t notice him shifting closer earlier, but Alhaitham’s thigh is pressed against his so he can lean more fully on Kaveh.
He freezes, but he must have been still for too long, because just as he’s debating the merits of waking Alhaitham up, both Cyno and Tighnari turn to look at him.
“Do. Not. Say. A word,” Kaveh hisses, because this is just embarrassing. It’s only because he’s so angry that Alhaitham unceremoniously fell asleep on them that he’s blushing, he swears. Not because his heart is beating double time at Alhaitham’s trust in him. At Alhaitham’s weight on him, his warmth that he can feel even through his clothes.
Tighnari says nothing and lets his twitching ears speak of his amusement.
Cyno whips out a kamera and snaps pictures of them.
“CYNO!”
(And through it all, Alhaitham stays still, and hides a smile into Kaveh’s shoulder.)