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oh dear God, make him feel the same way I do right now
make him want to see me again (oh, what can I do?)
— “It’s Raining On Prom Night” from Grease the musical
***
It’s raining on prom night.
Alhaitham, soaked and dripping, feels ridiculous next to Tighnari, who actually checked the weather forecast, brought an umbrella, and arrived at the country club perfectly dry.
Tighnari looks good in his dark green vest and golden head chains. Green really is his color. It was his idea to color coordinate outfits (“Because I’m not about to take some half-assed senior prom photos.”), but he definitely looks the best out of the two of them. He’s got heads turning left and right, and Alhaitham catches the eye of a dagger-eyed Cyno.
He knows it was a shit move to go to prom with his friend’s ex-boyfriend. It seems these days he’s done nothing but hurt people.
But he doesn’t comment on it. He rarely comments on anything.
Lighting flickers in the distance, reflecting off the dance floor. Alhaitham’s form is precise as he slow dances with Tighnari – unconcerned and detached like he always is.
He is aware, acutely, of how wrong it feels.
Across the campus, in their dorm room, Kaveh is probably pacing. Or pretending not to care. Or dressed up anyway because that suit he bought had to be expensive as shit.
Kaveh was supposed to wear an ivory suit (he doesn’t know Alhaitham knows this). He would’ve looked amazing. He always does. Hell, whenever Alhaitham so much as lays eyes on him it takes every ounce of self-control in his weak human body to not ravish him right then and there…
“...haitham? What’s with you?” Tighnari asks with a raised eyebrow, bringing Alhaitham back to Earth. “You’re a million miles away. If you didn’t want to come you should’ve said so.”
So apparently Tighnari can read him like a book.
“Sorry, man. Guess I didn’t sleep enough.” What bullshit he was spouting.
The thing is, Alhaitham did want to go to prom. He had looked forward to it more than anything, even shipping his suit weeks in advance. And now he’s holding himself together with hard-headed discipline because if he thinks about the person he was supposed to go to prom with, he might just ditch this whole fucking party and go do something about it.
***
“Prom’s coming up.”
“Yeah. You going with Cyno?” Alhaitham asked.
“Nah, we’re taking a break again. I don’t think I wanna see his face for a while, he really fucked up this time.”
“Ah,” Alhaitham muses. He wasn’t sure if he could count on two hands how many Tighnari and Cyno have “taken a break.”
He cleared his throat. “You wanna go with me instead? As friends.”
Tighnari looked so taken aback you'd think he was offended. “What, you’re not going with Kaveh?”
“Why would I be going with Kaveh?”
Tighnari gave him a look that told Alhaitham there’s no way he believes that.
“Look, Al,” he sighed. “I know we both seem to be in complicated situations–”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“–but surely you can’t be serious. You’re going to hurt yourself or something–”
“How serious do I look? You want me to pay you or something?” Alhaitham snapped, harsher than Tighnari deserved.
Tighnari let out a long, defeated breath.
“If everything goes to shit, don’t you dare blame me…”
But Alhaitham was only half-listening to whatever Tighnari said next. He knew, deep in his stone-cold heart, that he didn’t really want to go with Tighnari. He didn’t want to see Kaveh’s hurt expression when he saw the two of them dancing at prom. He didn’t want to use another person to forget the only one he truly wanted.
But he was going to hurt Kaveh eventually. That’s all he ever does.
***
Alhaitham is in love with Kaveh.
No matter how it looks, he is absolutely, indisputably in love.
He’s known it for months – possibly longer. Ever since Kaveh yelled at him for not understanding structural symmetry with so much fire behind those beautiful mahogany eyes. Since the first time he saw him cry in frustration before immediately wiping his own tears like they were an inconvenience. Those were the first times Alhaitham has ever been mesmerized by anything. Kaveh was a beacon unlike any other.
He loves the noise of Kaveh, the excess, the brilliance. The way he takes up the entire space with his fervor, leaving no room for apologies. Alhaitham loves him, and he is certain of this love in the same way he is certain of his own name.
He also believes, with equal certainty, that Kaveh will leave.
Alhaitham has never thought highly of himself in matters such as this. Intellect, yes. Discipline, absolutely. But love? Affection? Emotional fluency?
Kaveh burns. Alhaitham calculates. And fire – well, it eventually outgrows the room it’s trapped in.
So Alhaitham took only what he could get: late nights, shared beds, petty arguments that condensed into something hungrier.
Sex was the only time he could say what he meant without really saying it. He could press Kaveh into the mattress and fuck him half out of his mind and whisper things that sounded like desire but were much closer to confessions.
He could bury himself deep inside Kaveh and hold him like he was the last person on Earth and pretend that the intensity was purely physical.
***
“Hah… fuck… mm!” Kaveh gasped as he clenched around half of Alhaitham’s cock. God, Kaveh’s little sounds, his swollen pink lips, his beautiful fucking fucked-out mahogany eyes – they were all driving him to the brink of madness. He just as well might’ve slammed himself balls-deep into Kaveh’s tight heat and taken what he wanted already, but he wanted to savor this for as long as possible.
“God, Kaveh,” Alhaitham groaned, pushing in deeper and swallowing the cute little whimper it elicited from the man beneath him. “You feel– fuck– so good. So perfect.”
Alhaitham’s restraint was a fraying thread. It always was with Kaveh. He watched, mesmerized, as a single tear traced a path from the corner of Kaveh’s eye. Holy mother of God, Kaveh was so fucking beautiful Alhaitham feels he might die.
“‘haitham…” Kaveh’s voice was wrecked and soft, his hands fisting in the sheets above him. His back was a perfect, taut arch, every muscle clenching around the goddamned monster inside him. “You bastard… move… or do something, I can’t–”
Alhaitham finally snapped and pushed himself to the brim. The thrust stole Kaveh’s breath and his mouth fell open in a silent moan, clenching so hard it hurt.
“Ngh– Kaveh, darling, you should see yourself,” Alhaitham growled, low in his chest. “So fucking beautiful spread out for me like this, so fucking gorgeous, I…”
***
Prom is underwhelming. The slow song is over and Alhaitham has excused himself to the elaborate snack bar. Tighnari’s gone to dance with Cyno after all. Good for him.
Kaveh would be criticizing the architecture right now. He’d be muttering about tacky decoration choices, wearing his ivory suit, beautiful and radiant as always, pretending not to care about how many people were staring.
Their last and final fight replays in his head with unbearable clarity.
You don’t give me anything to trust!
Kaveh’s accusation had landed because it was precise. Undeniably precise. So precise it hurt.
You will not demand me to bare my soul to you, Alhaitham had said.
I love you so much I don’t know how to handle myself, he had meant.
He’s never said it, but God how he wants to.
How he wants Kaveh to know how desperately in love he is with him, how hard it is to breathe when he’s not near, how close he is to giving into his greediness and losing himself in the brilliance of him. He feels this so immensely that he doesn’t even know what to do with it anymore.
But he can’t have Kaveh. Not when he’s so emotionally immature, and not when he’s already hurt him more than enough. Becoming anything more would just end in disaster.
So he does nothing. Nothing – except make a mess of everything.
He doesn’t even know why he’s come to prom. The lights, the dancing, the music – he doesn’t care about any of it if Kaveh isn’t here. He should just leave.
But if he goes back to the dorm, he’ll have to face him. Fuck, this whole situation just fucking sucks.
He needs some fresh air.
***
“Didn’t I tell you this would be a bad idea?”
The humid air shifts as another presence enters the night. Tighnari.
“Leave me alone,” Alhaitham says.
“Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Tighnari bristles, almost irritated. “You were the one who suggested we come here together and have spent the entire evening acting like you’d rather die than do just that.”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Alhaitham shoots back. Good god, he’s so tired. “Besides, you’ve been have a grand time with Cyno all night, it’s not like you would understand–”
“Understand what?” Tighnari interjects. “That you’re in love with Kaveh and you don’t know what to do about it?”
Alhaitham exhales through his nose. He does not want to have this conversation.
“I’m not fucking blind, Al,” the fennec says dryly, though his tone softens a bit. “You two orbit each other like two unstable planets. It’s honestly an exhausting sight to watch.”
“If all you’re going to do is throw insults, I’d rather you leave me be,” Alhaitham grits out.
Tighnari ignores him. “Do you know what Kaveh thinks?”
“I could make an educated guess.”
“He thinks you don’t care about him.”
The words hit harder that they should. “That is incorrect.”
“No shit, it is. But Kaveh doesn’t know that.”
Alhaitham exhales, slow and controlled. He really hates how perceptive Tighnari is.
“He requires a level of… verbal reassurance that I cannot give him,” he says. “He will be better off with someone more capable.”
Tighnari looks like he’s one second away from throttling him. “Alhaitham, my friend, do you love Kaveh a lot?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“Just answer it.”
“Of course, you fool. More than he’d ever know.”
“And what would you do for him?”
“Anything–” Alhaitham pauses. “Anything I am capable of.”
“Good, good, we’re getting somewhere,” Tighnari nods like a professor would to a particularly incompetent student. “And you’ve established that giving him reassurance is something you’re not capable of?”
“That is not what I said.”
“It is exactly what you said.”
Alhaitham looks away. The rain hammers harder against the pavement.
“I’m not good at it. It doesn’t come naturally,” he says after a moment. “And anything forced would be insincere.”
Tighnari lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “You think Kaveh needs poetry? You think he wants you to recite some grand novel under the moonlight?”
Alhaitham says nothing.
“He just wants to know he matters to you,” Tighnari continues. “You’re capable of saying that, yes? Just confirmation that he means something to you.”
“I have shown that.”
“When? In bed while you’re railing him? Be serious.”
Alhaitham closes his mouth. Tighnari’s right. Nothing Alhaitham has done has been enough.
“If you really love him, you’ll be willing to change for him,” Tighnari mutters seriously, turning towards the building. “He’s not asking for anything impossible, he’s just asking for something. Because you’ve been doing nothing.”
Alhaitham watches Tighnari walk into the building again, probably back to Cyno. He can hear the music swell inside again, distant and irrelevant. His mind wanders to the boy in his room, dressed up and with no one to dance with.
He stands stationary for only a second this time. Then he turns towards the rain.