CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
OVERWHELMING SEX DRIVE
—
It was not a date.
While Dmitri had played around with the idea for a bit, pondered on whether or not it could actually be a date (after all, Tariq had said that it was a date), yelled at his brain for settling on the worst possible result instead of having hope, one look at Tariq was enough for him to realise that it definitely wasn't a date.
With sunken in eyes that rested on heavy bags, dark and prominent, Tariq just offered Dmitri a weak raise of his lips, and an even weaker, "Hey."
An immediate frown took over Dmitri's lips as he entered the house, removing his shoes next to the door. "You okay?" he decided to ask, even though he knew the answer to that.
Tariq's face was enough of an answer.
"Do I look okay?" Tariq asked with a sniff, his I have a cold sniff, not the crying one. Though he looked like he may as well have been crying, with how bloodshot his eyes were.
Shrugging, Dmitri took a look around the house, eyes shifting from the strip of tablets on the dining table to the water that was boiling on the stove.
It wasn't a good day for Tariq. That much was clear.
"Are you sick?" he asked, placing the back of his hand on Tariq's forehead, which was surprisingly colder than he had expected it to be. Almost too cold for Tariq, who was warmth personified, literally and figuratively.
Tariq groaned, pulling a chair out of the dining table and sitting down, placing his head on the edge of it. "Last night was terrible. Pain all over my fucking body, had a sore throat so I spent the whole night hacking my lungs out. That led to stomach cramps, and it was just— it was a shitty night. I didn't want to call you because you've been sleeping well for the past three days, and I didn't want to be the one to—"
"You should've called me," Dmitri chastised, but Tariq just groaned again, raising his head to glance up at him, eyes smaller than they normally were. Probably because he had been awake for over twenty four hours.
For most people, pulling occasional all-nighters was okay. It didn't fuck with their systems as much as it did to Tariq's.
Dmitri knew that Tariq needed to sleep for at least eight hours each night, that if he didn't, he would be tired for the rest of the week, until he crashed for a minimum of twelve hours on a weekend.
"I didn't want to wake you up, I've done that once, I didn't want to do it again," Tariq explained, getting up from the chair and making his way over to the boiling water. Then, he poured it into a mug and downed it, all at one go. Jesus.
A brief second of silence washed over them, after which Tariq sniffed, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and sneezing into it, shooting Dmitri a smile immediately after, one that didn't quite reach his eyes nor the corners of his face.
"I'm sorry," he muttered under his breath. Nothing to apologise for. "I don't feel too shitty today, definitely not as bad as last night, but I just— I don't really feel up to going out today. I'm sorry," he repeated, taking a seat on the couch and closing his eyes.
Okay. I know what to do.
Opening one of the cupboards in the kitchen and finding it to be completely empty, save for a few spare plates, Dmitri opened another, eyes landing on what he wanted.
"Are you okay with eating something right now?" he asked Tariq as he took the microwaveable popcorn out of the shelf, holding it up for Tariq to see.
And in an instant, a smile broke out on Tariq's face, a real one, one that reached both, his eyes and the corners of his face. The prettiest kind of Tariq smile, according to Dmitri.
"I'm fucking starving," he said, the smile not leaving his face. I did that. "Are we eating popcorn? At seven in the evening?"
Dmitri hummed, waiting for the popcorn to get done in the microwave, the orange light in the microwave hurting his eyes, but only for a moment before they adjusted themselves to it.
"I hate that we can never hang out before the evening," Dmitri lamented, starting up the conversation for once. Tariq never really led the conversations when he was sick, so Dmitri knew that he was going to have to do it today.
If it were anyone else, Dmitri wouldn't have started a conversation. He would have let it slide, sat in silence throughout.
However, this was Tariq. Tariq was one of the easiest people to have a conversation with, one of the only three people he didn't have to overthink his words around.
"Yeah," Tariq mumbled, glancing at Dmitri from his position on the sofa, fiddling with a loose string on his even looser t-shirt. "Especially when I'm sick. For example, today, because then I just don't show up to work and we don't even see each other through the day."
Emptying the popcorn into a bowl, a red one because that was Tariq's favourite colour, Dmitri nodded. "That's not your fault. I can just come over here every time you're sick, we can hang out after. Well, if you're feeling up to it."
Tariq smiled, getting up from the couch and dragging himself to Dmitri, his walk slow but still confident. "Yeah. If I'm feeling up to it."
That seemed to be all that Tariq planned on saying, so, they entered Tariq's room, Tariq instantly crashing into bed, letting out a relieved sigh, a deep one.
"I missed my bed," he stated. Weirdo. "I missed my blankets. Every day, I go to work, and as soon as I'm at work, I miss my bed."
Tariq always got a little delirious when he was sick.
There weren't many situations where Tariq wasn't slightly delirious, Dmitri realised. When he was sick, when he was sleepy, when he was happy, when he was emotional. It was amusing, if Dmitri was being honest.
"Yeah?" Dmitri questioned with an amused smile, getting into bed with Tariq, his t-shirt that he had tucked into his jeans coming untucked, only on the left side. But he just let it stay like that, because he didn't have any reason to look nice, it was just Tariq, and they were just in bed.
Nodding, Tariq looked up at Dmitri, a lazy smile spreading across his face. "I miss a lot of things, and I miss out on a lot of things," he mumbled, moving his head, as if to rest it on Dmitri's shoulder, but pulling it away at the last minute.
It's okay. You can rest your head on my shoulder, Dmitri wanted to say, but all that came out was, "Yeah."
"Like— because of my constant tiredness, I can't do things that other people do," he continued, but this time, he didn't sound sad. He didn't sound happy, but he didn't sound sad either. "I've accepted that I just can't do things that everyone else can. Like, no matter how much I want to live in the same way that other people do, that healthy people do, I can't. And that's okay."
Humming, he just echoed a faint, "That's okay."
Then, Tariq said something that Dmitri wouldn't have expected him to say. Not in a million years.
"I'm going to therapy, by the way. I'm seeing a therapist."
Dmitri turned his head around to face Tariq, only to find Tariq looking directly at him. And he looked content. Not stressed, not even anxious about the conversation they were having
"I think that..." Tariq trailed off, yawning. "Sorry. Exhausted. Anyway, I think that people— you, included, need to get rid of the mindset that therapy is only for like— if you're mentally unstable or something. I mean, there's an obvious privilege factor that comes into it, like, the only reason I can get therapy is because I have enough money. So, I'm not saying that everyone should go to therapy, because not everyone can. There are a lot of things that come into play there, so just forcing people to go to therapy doesn't work. Because there's so much privilege that plays into it, and I'm so fucking lucky I'm like— able to go to therapy and shit."
Tariq's mind was the best thing about him. The best thing.
"Anyway, I'm going to therapy," he continued, hands reaching out to play with Dmitri's fingers, and fuck, Dmitri had to do everything in his power to stop himself from holding his hand. "Maybe just for a short while, maybe as a long term thing. It's just something that I thought I should do. After the whole getting cheated on thing, and after I realised that I don't know how to function when anything related to— to liking someone comes up, I thought that it was something that I should do."
It was scary, how well Tariq articulated his words around him, when Dmitri could do everything but articulate his words around him.
He could do it around everyone else, he had to be able to do it, it was the only way he could be a teacher. That job was so fucking stressful, especially because he was a twenty three year old teaching eighteen year olds how to survive in the real world, when he still had no idea.
Wait, I should get back to—
"You gonna say anything or should I keep staring at you?"
Shaking his head so as to clear his thoughts out, he shot Tariq a smile. "I mean, you could keep staring. I bless your eyes."
Tariq laughed. "You literally only have two moods; I hate myself and I'm so sexy, fuck me," he muttered, reaching his hand into the popcorn bowl and taking a single kernel out of it and popping it into his mouth.
It was nice seeing Tariq laugh. Especially since he was close to tears just thirty minutes ago.
Still, "Shut up," was all he said, turning on the television in Tariq's room, since for some reason, he had a television in his bedroom, rather than the living room.
If Dmitri really thought about it, the entire layout of Tariq's house was a bit different from what would be considered a normal house.
Because while Dmitri's— well, Eden's— house was more conventional, with beige walls and a television in the living room, like most people had set up their house, Tariq's house was a trip.
It was a trip, but at the same time, it represented Tariq so well, right from the black walls with art that Dmitri was sure he had painted himself, all the way down to his line of mugs, all ceramic, all absolutely fucking hideous.
It was a trip, and it was fucking hideous, but Dmitri wanted nothing more than to stay in there forever, because it was so unapologetically Tariq, and Tariq was safety.
"I can't believe I fucked up our—" Tariq began, pausing for just a moment and shooting a glance in Dmitri's direction. "Our thing. Or something. I can't believe I fucked up our outing with my sick self."
Dmitri frowned, reaching forward to shove Tariq in the forehead, grinning at the yelp that left his mouth. "Don't be ridiculous. You said it yourself— it's okay that you can't do everything that other people can. You don't have to go out to do things, we can do a fuck ton of things at home."
And only after the words left his mouth, did Dmitri realise what he had just said.
One, he had implied something incredibly sexual, and two, home. Home, home, home.
It slipped out of his mouth as naturally as Tariq talking to him each morning, as him giving Tariq coffee each morning.
The fact that he didn't regret saying it scared him more than anything else.
Somehow, somehow, Tariq didn't realise his slip-up. Or maybe he did and he didn't want to say anything about it. All he said was, "I bet we can."
Laughing, Dmitri reached out to shove Tariq in his shoulder, nearly pushing him all the way off the bed if Tariq didn't hold onto Dmitri's thigh to steady himself.
Oh god. Tariq's hand was on his thigh. Gripping onto it.
But even after Tariq had steadied himself completely, his hand remained on Dmitri's thigh, touch soft, so fucking soft as he left it there, using his other hand to operate the television remote.
"What do you wanna watch?" Tariq asked, setting the remote down and reaching over his left hand with his right hand to grab a handful of popcorn.
He could have done it with his left hand. He wants to keep it there. Fuck. Oh my—
"Did you hear me?"
Looking up from Tariq's hand— he had the nicest hands—, Dmitri nodded, shifting his gaze to the television. "Uh— anything you want," he mumbled, because fuck, Tariq's hand was resting so comfortably on his thigh, and this position felt so natural for them.
Tariq rolled his eyes, the T.V. switching off with a click, the black screen reflecting the two of them, Tariq's hand on his thigh, Tariq's head so unbelievably close to resting on Dmitri's shoulder, Tariq's body pressed so close to his, Tariq, Tariq, Tariq.
I like you. I more-than-like you.
"You're so indecisive," Tariq complained, and that was when he placed his head on Dmitri's shoulder, moving even closer until there wasn't an inch of space between them. "But it's okay. I don't mind."
If Tariq kept saying shit like the shit that he was saying, Dmitri was sure that he would end up kissing him by the end of the day.
And that was the last thing that he wanted to do, especially because of the outcome of Sunday's kiss.
There was no way he was going to cause a repeat of that, absolutely no way.
"Are you—"
Before Dmitri could go any further, Tariq interrupted him with a gasp and a wide-eyed glance, eyes shining as he said, "Holy fuck, it's your birthday in three days!"
If there was one day in the year that could be erased from Dmitri's mind, it was the sixteenth of May. His birthday.
"Yeah," he mumbled, shooting Tariq a polite smile, despite the fact that they had never been polite with each other before. They had been everything except polite.
Tariq frowned, nudging him, or elbowing him, more like. "You used to like your birthday. I mean, as much as anyone likes their birthday."
"And I don't anymore."
Frown still dragging Tariq's lips down, he shook his head, as if that would ease his confusion. "Why?" he asked, but Dmitri couldn't tell him why. He couldn't tell anyone why.
Birthdays were always hard, but that was mostly because his parents always used to use that opportunity to be dicks to him, tell him about how much he hadn't achieved in the past year.
After twenty and after his attempt, however, birthdays were hard for a whole different reason.
Being reminded that he was alive when all he wanted to do was stop living was harder than having to listen to anything his parents said.
And he didn't want to go through that whole process this year as well.
Things got easier. They always did.
Still, just because things got easier, that didn't mean that they weren't hard.
"I just don't," he affirmed, hopefully drawing the conversation to a close.
Unfortunately, Tariq knew him well enough to know that there was more to it. Fortunately, he also knew him well enough to know that he was uncomfortable.
So, all he said was, "Okay. I'll accept that," adding a small, "Can I come over to wish you though? It's a Sunday, right? Meaning that we don't have to go to work. Can I see you on your birthday?"
For a moment, Dmitri was about to say no. No, he couldn't see him on his birthday, because it was always an emotional day, and he had seen enough of him being emotional.
Instead, what came out of his mouth was, "It's Juno's birthday as well. I mean, I don't know when her actual birthday is, but I celebrate it on mine." Taking in a small breath, he looked over at Tariq, his head that was on his shoulder and his heart that was on his sleeve. "You can come over to celebrate her birthday with Eden and me. Trinh might be there too, so—"
"Dmitri," Tariq laughed out, head moving so slightly on his shoulder as he did. "You don't have to ramble, you said Juno and my mind automatically went yes."
"Damn, I said Juno and your mind went yes?" Dmitri asked, the knot in his throat that was only getting more intricate, loosening. Just a little, but it was enough for him to say, "Now I know the way to your heart."
Tariq hummed. "You've always known the way to my heart."
Shut up. Oh my god. "I get whiplash just from talking to you," Dmitri muttered under his breath, a vague tightness forming in his shoulder but he still didn't move it, because Tariq looked like he was comfortable, and that comforted Dmitri.
"Why?" Tariq questioned, and Dmitri just knew what was coming next. "My personality is constant. Flawless throughout."
Snorting, Dmitri shook his head, turning his head around to face Tariq but only seeing his hair. "Maybe your ego and your overwhelming sex drive is something that you should talk about during therapy."
A soft laugh tumbled out of Tariq's mouth, one that caused his entire body to shake once. "I just talk about myself," he lamented, lifting his head off Dmitri's shoulder. No, put it back. "About like— my commitment issues, because clearly, I've developed those. About a lot of things. Very fun."
Dmitri grinned. "Glad that therapy is fun for one of us." Reaching his hand into the bowl of popcorn, Dmitri felt around, only to come up with nothing. "Tariq. You finished the popcorn when we didn't even watch a movie?"
Tariq just gave him an apologetic smile, like the dick that he was. "If you make me another bowl, we can watch a movie now!"
Dmitri couldn't say no to that, not when Tariq was still smiling. He didn't want to say no to that.
Still, just to be annoying, he said, "Do it yourself, brat."
Breathing out a huff, Tariq pouted. "Please? We can hang out together if you make me some more popcorn," he suggested, yawning softly immediately after.
And even though Dmitri knew that they wouldn't hang out, that Tariq would definitely fall asleep on him, that he wouldn't even finish the entire bowl of popcorn, he still did it.
Because this was Tariq, and he was absolutely whipped.
"I'm going," he muttered, making a move to get out of bed, but Tariq just shook his head, placing an arm on his body. Wrapping his arm around his body.
"Mm," Tariq mumbled, lazily blinked his eyes open. "In a little bit. Not yet."
Dmitri paused. "Uh— okay, but... Why?"
He expected Tariq to say something along the lines of Because you're warm, and I'm sick. That was the usual.
He didn't expect him to say, "Because I'm warm as fuck, and I know that you need some comfort, especially after talking about your birthday. I'm sorry for bringing it up, by the way. So, I'll keep you warm, and you'll make me popcorn after. That sound good?"
Oh god. Blinking back his tears that he didn't even know were about to spill out of his eyes until Tariq's face got slightly more blurry, Dmitri nodded. Oh my god.
"Yeah," he mumbled, closing his eyes and inhaling the scent of sweat, menthol, aftershave and lavender. "That sounds good'."
—
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AN: it's christmas here so! to those of you who celebrate, merry christmas! <3 to those of you who don't, i hope you have a good day🥰💞
thank u all for reading!!💓 lmk how your day's been if u want hehe <3 byeee 🤸🏽♀️