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laviethepooh · 1 year

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summary. working with your rival alhaitham is one thing, but getting sick while working on a project is another.

ft. alhaitham x gn!reader (ft. your best friend kaveh)

cw. modern!au, rivals to lovers

wc. 2.4k

notes. grey >>>>> gray but of course the ugly version is the american way of doing things. anyway kaveh and i are besties, you can ask hoyoverse about it <33 also alhaitham might be very ooc i wouldn’t know, i have to do a bunch of quests to do the archon quest-

“and for our last pair, we’ll have y/n and alhaitham,” the teacher announced, fixing his glasses.

you shot your head in his direction in disbelief. he didn’t seem too fazed about it which made you confused. of course, having two of the smartest students in the class working together would produce incredible results, but you couldn’t imagine working with him by choice. you were best friends with his roommate kaveh and all the two of you would talk about is how insufferable he was. alhaitham always did things perfectly and it did nothing more than anger you, especially if he ended up doing better than you.

at the end of class, you approached your new partner.

“well, i guess we should plan a day to work. would it work to do it at your place or something? they turned off the heating at my place.” you said, scratching the back of your head.

you were partially asking because it was true, the heating was out and since it was winter, it was way too cold to focus, and partially asking because you knew kaveh would be there as well. you hoped that kaveh would make things less awkward because the tension would be inevitable.

without even looking at you, he responded, “sure. just make sure you don’t get distracted by kaveh. we’ll meet at 3 tomorrow then.”

and without letting you respond, he walked out of the class, leaving you dumbfounded. you supposed you’d just have to go with his plans since you doubted he would even listen to you if you suggested something else.

you prepared some of your project that day in preparation for working with alhaitham. you had felt a little dizzy when you woke up and throughout the day, but assumed nothing of it. when it was almost 3, you sent a text to kaveh letting him know that you would be coming and when you walked up to the door, you were glad that kaveh was the one that opened it for you.

“where’s alhaitham,” you asked as you went inside, not seeing your gray-haired partner.

kaveh shrugged and gave you a sly grin. “i made him get groceries so we could hang out for a bit.”

you broke out into a smile. “thank god. just thinking about having to work with him makes me so stressed.”

he rolled his eyes. “that’s literally what i’m saying. anyway, we should put on a show or something-”

the two of you turned to the door when you heard the jingle of keys and the lock clicking.

“oh my god,” kaveh whispered to you, “why is he here so early?”

you looked back at him with wide eyes, “how am i supposed to know?”

the door opened to an alhaitham with bags of groceries.

“oh,” he said, monotonously, “you’re here.”

he gave the several bags of groceries to kaveh who almost fell due the weight of all of them. your partner then ushered you into the kitchen where you could see several papers stacked on top of each other. despite the number of papers and items there were, it seemed to be an extremely neat table. like the true gentleman he was, he offered you a seat and you placed all of your own research onto the table.

“kaveh!” he barked out to the poor kaveh who was putting the groceries away. “go buy dinner or something!”

you sent kaveh an sos signal through your eyes and he matched it. but unfortunately, he didn’t have much of a choice but to leave the two of you alone since he knew alhaitham would get mad if he didn’t have the perfect working environment.

now that it was just the two of you in the apartment, you got to work on the project. the preparations went smoothly and alhaitham seemed impressed that you had already come somewhat prepared. similarly, you were glad to see that he had held up his part of the project.

however, as the day continued, you noticed your head started to feel a bit heavy. you kept drinking water, hoping that it was simply dehydration, but then you started to feel much colder than you did in the morning and were starting to feel chills.

“hey.” you poked your partner. “did the air conditioner come on or something? why is it so cold?”

he looked at you with an eyebrow raised. “no? it’s winter, why would we turn on the air conditioner? did you not bring a jacket?”

you shook your head in response and alhaitham got up from his chair and into his room. when he came out, he was carrying the school sweatshirt and held it out to you. you stared at it, wondering why he was showing it to you. was this supposed to be some sort of motivation for the project?

“put it on. you said you were cold.”

oh.

you took the hoodie, muttering a small thanks and put it on. you didn’t feel much better, but you definitely felt a bit warmer with it on and could smell his cologne. you continued to work while wearing his hoodie, but you could slowly feel that your condition was worsening. were you seriously sick? but the presentation needed to be finished…

“y/n?”

though your head was cloudy, you could hear your partner call your voice out. his voice was indicating he was annoyed. you rested your head in your arms, mumbling something about a 5 minute break. you heard him scoff.

5 minutes must have passed, because you could feel someone trying to shake you awake.

“y/n?”

you mumbled something again, but it was probably incoherent. your head was throbbing and pins and needles were attacking your whole body. you felt a cold hand press against your forehead.

“you’re burning up. are you feeling alright? you need some rest.” you could hear alhaitham speak, but none of it was comprehensible.

you felt your chair get pushed back and alhaitham lift you up. your whole body felt heavy and you could barely get your arms to wrap around his neck for stability. he tried to put you down, but you resisted, clinging onto him. eventually, your drowsiness won you over and you let go and your head fell onto soft pillows.

“oh my god, why would you put them on your bed???”

someone’s screeching voice woke you up. you felt terrible. your headache was worse than before and chills were running up and down your whole body.

“can you be quiet? although with that loud voice of yours, i’m sure y/n’s already awake by now.”

“i’ll pretend you didn’t say that if you give me some of the soup you made.”

“it’s for y/n.”

“yeah, i think you made more than enough for just one person. let me have some!”

“i said be quiet!”

you sat up, but your whole body felt like it was made out of lead. walking over to the kitchen felt much harder than it should have, but you needed to tell kaveh and alhaitham to shut up. you also needed a glass of water or something.

“y/n!” kaveh raced over to you. “did that stupid alhaitham overwork you?”

his voice was ringing in your head and you held up a hand to signify that you wanted to be quieter and he mumbled a “my bad.”

“no, i must have just been sick, i dunno,” you murmured as you staggered to the kitchen.

alhaitham handed you a glass of water and you downed the whole thing. you felt a bit more hydrated, but that wasn’t anything compared to how the rest of your body was feeling. you wanted to cry. you still needed to work on the project, even if you weren’t behind schedule and you weren’t in the comfort of your own home either.

“hey kaveh,” alhaitham ordered, “go get some medicine for y/n.”

kaveh grumbled something incoherent and slammed the door before peeking his head out to apologize to you (but not alhaitham) and then it was just you and alhaitham left in the apartment.

the two of you stood in silence for a moment before alhaitham handed you a hot bowl of soup and spoke up.

“i’m sorry, i didn’t realize that you were ill. i would have postponed the meeting if i had known.”

you shook your head and immediately regretted it as your head throbbed again. “i didn’t realize i was sick either. it’s not your fault. and thanks for taking care of me.”

“no, i think it is my fault. i had overworked you.”

“no, it’s not your fault, i have a bad immune system.”

alhaitham let out an amused sigh. “you’re really never gonna let me win, are you?”

you chuckled hoarsely, “i guess i can’t help it.”

you sat down on the couch, knees pressed against your chest, your hands clutching the bowl tightly. you were still wearing his sweatshirt, you realized.

“i’m more sorry though. i must be disappointing you since you already have so much on your hands and yet you have to take care of me as well. hell, you put me on your bed instead of the couch and made me soup. i’m making all of this turn into shit. i was supposed to help you with this but instead i let you down.”

your partner was silent for a moment. so it was true then.

“you know, i was elated when i heard that you were my partner.”

what?

“in fact, i had asked the teacher to put us together for this project and i was honestly surprised when he agreed. i’m sure you know already, but putting the two smartest students in the class wouldn’t be balanced. y/n, you can probably tell, but i wouldn’t put anyone in my bed and make them soup if they were sick. even if they were a close friend, i would have asked them to go home.”

what was he talking about? your drowsiness was starting to return.

“you can’t be falling asleep on me right now. i’m about to confess to you.”

what??? your attention was fully on alhaitham again and this time you were fighting against your need to sleep.

“seems like that got your attention” alhaitham laughed, “y/n, you could never let me down no matter what you did. isn’t that what it means to like someone?”

he walked over to you and pressed his hands against the side of your face. “did you hear me properly? i said i like you.”

“more than kaveh?”

“tch. obviously. i like anyone more than kaveh.”

“why? kaveh’s so funny!”

“don’t talk about other people like that in front of me. say nice things about me instead.”

maybe it was because you felt groggy, but your filter was practically nonexistent. “hmm. i guess you’re really hardworking. i didn’t realize it but you’re nice, too. your things smell good. and you’re good looking, i suppose.”

your eyes were starting to close on their own but you were sure alhaitham was smirking right now. he took the untouched bowl of soup from your hands and you could hear him set it down on a table.

“if you wanna be able to work on the project, you’ll have to make sure you recover properly first.”

you wanted to say something else to him, even a thank you since it didn’t seem like you had properly shown your gratitude. however, your exhaustion won you over once again and you went back into dreamland.

when you woke up again, you were staring up at alhaitham’s bedroom ceiling again. you looked over onto the side, instinctively looking for your phone but instead saw alhaitham’s head resting beside you. you nearly jumped out of the bed but realized that he had pulled up a chair next to the bed and must have fallen asleep while looking after you.

you were so slow to realize how nice he was. you were always under the impression that he was some insensitive guy who spent his whole day studying nonstop but it seemed that you were wrong.

as you sat in the bed, staring off into space, you remembered his confession. as your face started heating up, you cursed yourself internally. so many unexpected things had happened today but the most strange one was the fact that your biggest rival liked you? the words that you (stupidly) said about him before were certainly true, and you weren’t upset that he liked you. did you like him back?

even though you knew how busy he was, he had taken so much of his own time by taking care of you instead of just taking you back to your home. you had the feeling that if you were to be with him, he’d take immensely good care of you.

but then you remembered kaveh. should you ask him about what you should do? no, you knew for a fact that he wouldn’t approve of it at all.

you and your overthinking mind. you needed to make a decision following your first thoughts. it was unexpected, but you felt like you wanted to just go on a date with him just once. it felt so weird to be thinking of someone you rivaled for so long in a romantic interest but it didn’t feel wrong. you were always so certain about everything that you did whether it was which school you wanted to go to or who you wanted to work with. all of a sudden, your rationality had gone out the window.

“alhaitham,” you whispered, shaking his shoulder, “wake up!”

perhaps it was because you were in almost the complete dark or if it had anything to do with the new lens that you were seeing him from, but he suddenly looked much more handsome. he looked like some sort of fairy or angel now. this made absolutely no sense whatsoever. but wow, the way he was just looking up at you right now made you blush.

“do you need something?”

you blinked. you had almost forgotten why you woke him up.

“do you really like me?”

although it was dark, you could see him furrow his eyebrows. “did you think i was lying? i do. and i have for a while.”

“then,” you hesitated for a moment unsure if you were making the right decision, “can you go on a date with me?”