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Silent.
The library is blissfully, wonderfully silent. It envelopes Alhaitham within the monotony of study, welcome alongside neatly polished bookshelves where one can get lost amid towers of tomes without any break in the pursuit of knowledge. A fact steadfast in its reliability.
Until a veritable hurricane of movement crosses in front of his table in startling juxtaposition. Suddenly the House of Daena is alive—too alive—lamplight scattered in furious shapes with every dramatic motion of loose-sleeved limbs and golden flyaways. And Alhaitham, in all his intelligence, makes the vital mistake of allowing himself a glance over.
The first thing Alhaitham notices is energy. The man in front of him is quite literally shaking with it, like any moment he’d explode into a supernova and take all of Sumeru with him.
The second thing Alhaitham notices is the man’s attire. Not the standard Akademiya uniform—he must’ve changed after classes—but instead flowing fabrics of color, just as ostentatious as the feather in his hair and the lively conversation he’s immersed in.
The third thing Alhaitham notices is his eyes.
Violent carmine. Large, long-lashed, with every conceivable emotion trapped behind their glittering surfaces. It’s a strange thing to linger on and yet here Alhaitham sits, his book on pause as he tries to make sense of it.
Thus what is supposed to be a productive read-up quickly devolves into distraction.
Logically, this caricature of a man should irk Alhaitham to no end—too in motion for such a place of stillness—but he finds himself locked in a perpetual cycle of observation: calloused palms with deceptively dexterous fingers; a deep set furrow in his brow marking an exhaustion too old for such youth; gentle scuffs on the man’s shoes that subtly marr his pristine exterior.
His silent mouth moves at an inconceivable pace, yet Alhaitham easily reads an excerpt from his lips.
—and the soundness of a structure determines the entirety of its success! If you rush through the foundation without considering terrain—
Ah. The floating pieces click into place. This is definitely a student of Kshahrewar.
Alhaitham returns to his book once more only to find that he’s lost his place entirely. It’s a minor annoyance, though re-reading the chapter may elucidate some of the more abstract introductory claims.
He isn’t aware of how much time passes before a vibration against the table grabs his attention. It’s the man, thudding a glossy textbook upon its surface as he slumps into the empty chair at the far end. Lack of rest pulls a dusting of purple under his eyes—subtle, only noticeable because Alhaitham has stared for three beats too long.
On the fourth, he returns to his book. The room falls back to whispered silence as his table companion cracks open his own text to study.
Alhaitham no sooner appreciates the peace when it’s again broken, which comes as a surprise—the headphones Alhaitham wears are normally a deterrent, something this man either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care about. (From the way this man’s meticulousness clings to his every fabric, Alhaitham would say it’s the latter).
“The Compendium of Desert Architecture, huh? Never thought I’d see that book again.”
Alhaitham resigns himself to a wasted study session and thumps the book closed, pushing his earpieces to lay around his neck. “Indeed.” He meets the other’s eyes from across the wood, bright with interest. “You’re familiar with it.”
A derisive chuckle. “Unfortunately. It was the worst book they assigned us! Never read something more dry—it almost turned me off the profession completely.”
Alhaitham raises an eyebrow. “I found the contrary. If anything, it revealed that the world of architecture yet has merit for continued study.”
“Well, you’re certainly not a student of Kshahrewar if that’s your opinion.”
“All the better for it.”
The man pauses, squinting at where Alhaitham is staring back. Then—to Alhaitham’s mild surprise—he laughs. Loud, amused, a bit disparaging; it slips between thin-beat yellow pages and makes their bland writings slightly more appealing. The silence Alhaitham normally covets has long since vanished, yet he finds he doesn’t miss it.
“I bet I can change your mind,” the man grins, leaning across the table and rapping pigment-stained knuckles against the Karmaphala. “Just you wait. By the time you’re graduating you’ll wish you were a student of Kshahrewar.”
“It’s your time to waste,” Alhaitham shrugs, lifting his book above his mouth to hide the upward curl of his lips.
He can’t control them—not when the man’s mouth drops oh so comically, hair frizzed out like an angry cat, eyes shining in a challenge he’s imposed upon himself.
“It is my time! And I will not give you the satisfaction of winning.”
Having said his piece, he settles back in his chair and cracks open his book a little too enthusiastically—the sound of shredding paper is unmistakable. Cheeks burn the color of the sultry fabric that pours from his shoulders, but his eyes remain resolute on the book before him as though that could save his pride.
“I—that didn’t happen! Don’t you say a single word.”
Alhaitham hums, which cannot be considered a word—though the man purses his lips in annoyance as if it were.
The room slips into its usual silence, punctuated by the occasional rustle of pages; soft mumbles that glide across the table and stick to Alhaitham’s texts, obscuring their meaning; mute glimpses of a quill teasing the seam of pretty, pouting lips.
As he stares, Alhaitham wonders what it would mean for his sanity if such a distraction were to linger.
✥
Alhaitham needn’t wonder, because the man returns the next day.
“Kaveh,” the man announces in lieu of a hello, and Alhaitham doesn’t grace him with the satisfaction of answering with his own.
(Perhaps it’s because getting a rise out of Kaveh has already proven entertaining—his sputtering, ungraceful indignation much preferred to the self-inflated pompous egos of his classmates.)
Kaveh returns the day after that.
“Alhaitham,” Kaveh announces in lieu of a hello, and Alhaitham asks him if he’s planning on proclaiming a name a day until he runs out of students in the Akademiya.
(This earns him the thump of a quite dense architectural book against his shoulder, and a lack of peace for the two hours that follow)
Alhaitham comes to the quick conclusion that Kaveh’s initial chaotic energy is his norm, and the more they converse, the more Alhaitham wonders how it had taken them so long to find themselves in each other’s orbit. Both revered quite differently, both relentless in their pursuits of their passions.
Proven yet again when the middle of Alhaitham’s paragraph on decoding tombs is interjected with the discordant melody of a chair scraping across the pristine tile. Kaveh, who has dragged his entire workstation around the table and is now rudely dropping his open book atop Alhaitham’s.
“Here—my first argument concerning the legitimacy of Kshahrewar.”
“I never said the Darshan was illegitimate,” Alhaitham dismisses, pushing the book back towards him. “I simply stated it’s the wrong school of thought for me.”
“A negligible difference, I believe, when it comes to you,” Kaveh counters, and, well, maybe he’s not so far from the mark.
That doesn’t stop Alhaitham from picking the text apart, nor does it stop Kaveh from dropping numerous books on the table, day after day, as though they will yield a different outcome. Alhaitham would say they never do, if the intended conclusion is only the acceptance of Kaveh’s Darshan.
However.
Nights become longer, once-a-week meetings turn into free-time frequency. Their spot becomes known as just that—theirs—with others eyeing them warily as books and papers lounge across the entire surface (joined occasionally by Kaveh, when the hours have grown too short and his eyes can no longer keep up with his frantic ideas.)
“You’re too stubborn,” Kaveh often says, slipping candied ajilenakh nuts into Alhaitham’s palms under the table.
“You’re too easily swayed,” Alhaitham constantly counters, handing back Kaveh’s most recent proposal draft, painstakingly annotated in crunched letters.
Thus he ponders if there’s another hypothesis at play, an unknown motive whittling away at Alhaitham’s defenses like he’s another material in Kaveh’s next project. But then Kaveh slides his paper over for Alhaitham’s consideration, eyes greedy for input where they latch onto his every note to immediately rebut, and he decides it isn’t necessary to search for reason in this particular instance.
✥
When Alhaitham approaches their table for yet another evening of relentless banter, it’s to find Kaveh chewing at his lips, subconsciously tracing script letters through his parchment and onto the wood.
Well. That can’t be good for the table.
He takes the opportunity presented to him—stepping up quietly, hovering at Kaveh’s back; this close, he can see where the glossy sheen of hairclips is interrupted by the subtle streaks of fingerprints, the start of split ends sweeping into delicate curls from the braid he’d taken out after class.
This close, Alhaitham gets an unexpected waft of padisarah flowers and the earthy sugar of charcoal, and he momentarily forgets his urge to make the other startle. This close, his “Kaveh,” comes out too soft, a whisper in a tone he’s not sure he’s heard from himself before.
It does, fortunately, still have its desired effect.
“What in the—”
Kaveh jumps so violently his knees smack into the table and send his inkwell pouring over the already ruined parchment, threatening the lives of valuable texts.
“Archons, Haitham—”
He lunges forward, making an instant mess of his silken sleeves, books tumbling to the ground with rivulets of ink that spatter the tips of Alhaitham’s shoes. It’s chaos, a disgrace, the opposite of the dignified air and pretension that comes with the House of Daena.
Alhaitham should help—this was his fault, hence the responsibility should fall to him. The Structure of Desert Designs has already lost a corner to the unforgiving pigment and Kaveh’s fingers are leaving more prints—this time over his essays, his unread chapters, pressing into Alhaitham’s skin as he beseeches frantically for aid.
“We’re so done for! Why are you just standing there? Come on, we need to—”
“Kaveh, stop.”
Alhaitham grips both his wrists and lifts them before any more ink can be scored across his skin, and Kaveh stops and stares up with wide eyes. Black is smeared across his jaw, dangerously close to his mouth where blood leaks from bitten lips. The only sound between them is the steady drip, drip, drip of ink still escaping to the floor.
Alhaitham should help. He should do something.
So, he laughs.
Sudden; loud. Kaveh’s eyes widen even further and the comedy of it increases his amusement tenfold.
“Haitham, what—”
He can’t stop. He can’t stop and he can’t remember the last time he’d shown any amusement past a barely-there smile. He releases Kaveh’s hands to try and stem the noises coming from his mouth, and when he looks back at Kaveh, his shock has faded to a smirk.
“And now you’re covered too,” Kaveh sighs, lips splitting into a full grin—and indeed when Alhaitham looks down at his hands, they are marked with the color of his crime.
He can only imagine the sorry state of his face because Kaveh breaks a moment later, curling forward in a bout of helpless laughter.
“What is the meaning of this?!”
They both freeze, slowly turning towards the opposite end of the library where a furious professor is striding towards them. They have mere seconds; Kaveh turns back to him, and Alhaitham sees that patented daring glint in his eyes. A dangerous preface.
“They only need to catch one of us, you know.”
And then he’s sweeping his bag from the chair and gathering as many books as he can carry before sprinting away. Alhaitham follows seconds later, angry shouts and wild laughter and spilled ink the only things left to linger.
(It doesn’t matter if they were caught, if they were banned from the library for a week; Alhaitham thinks it’s worth it for the joy that sparked over Kaveh’s face and the lingering brands of his fingerprint signature on his wrist).
✥
Their table is cleaned up—not well enough to prevent a stain—but isn’t removed, a surprise considering the Akademiya never seems short on funds. Alhaitham doesn’t find reason to complain. It is still perfectly usable, if not a little worse for wear with charcoal embedded in the grain and paint flecks dotting the surface. With Kaveh mindlessly tracing around the inkstain with his quill, ruining the finish even more and earning a disapproving frown from Alhaitham, though he’s loath to stop the action.
Something about Kaveh makes Alhaitham want to bend the rules—just a little. Just for when it suits them.
There’s more. He lets Kaveh goad him into the plausibility of fanciful ideas before debating them to the farthest extreme. Though they constantly disagree on every topic in the book, Alhaitham finds pleasure in having a consistent challenge. Kaveh never ceases to draw Alhaitham’s attention, an intriguing and disconcerting fact only tempered by Kaveh himself.
(Perhaps the most damning admittance of all is that Alhaitham finds himself smiling on multiple occasions when Kaveh is present, a sight foreign to even his own reflection).
It’s because of these facts that their table becomes the place of their first joint project draft.
And, subsequently, the place of their last.
“I’m done,” the last member of their group huffs, throwing her paper to the table and storming out, but Alhaitham and Kaveh are too busy with their own argument to notice.
“It’s careless to ignore the basic semiotics of the text before compounding upon them further implied meanings. It results in mistranslation.”
“Not if the translation at its core is based on the implications! If the characters were created as symbols before being broken down into their core sounds, then we see a language devoted to artistry and not merely single words—”
“This isn’t cuneiform Sumeran. We know the words were formed based from the ancient—”
“Hang on—where did Mayana go? Ugh, not again, Haitham—” Kaveh’s head thumps against the runes they’d been writing out. “We’ve lost everyone.” He looks up from the page. His forehead is now stamped with black symbols, eyes desperate. “Come on, I bet we can still catch her if we run—”
“Don’t bother,” Alhaitham shrugs, taking his usual seat next to Kaveh and dragging the page towards him to fix. “If she had no opinion on the topic, maybe it’s best she’s left.”
For once Kaveh stays silent.When Alhaitham finally raises his eyes to him, it’s to find fury on his senior’s normally excited face.
“Will you ever be upset over losing members of our team? Valuable members that have been working just as hard as us over a project we’ve assigned them?”
“If they were working just as hard, they’d still be here.”
“That is absolutely not—”
“You walking them through every aspect of the project is not them working just as hard. How many times need we circle the same arbitrary point? We’re much better suited to work on this ourselves, and our previous team members needn’t stress on a project that’s above them. It’s not a complicated—”
“It is! It is complicated, Alhaitham!”
Alhaitham blinks and Kaveh is standing, shaking, fingers fisting into a book and threatening to tear out a vital chapter on tomb locations. He cannot remember the last time Kaveh used his full name, seriously, in private conversation.
“Maybe instead of letting me be the only one who cared about our group, you could’ve, oh I don’t know, helped? Simplified? Broken things down?!”
Alhaitham blinks again. “Why would I do that?”
Kaveh makes a noise of sheer frustration, and the page of the book is lost with a violent tear. “To be helpful! To be nice.”
“You’re nice enough for the both of us—a virtue that, as I believe I’ve mentioned previously, will only amount to this.” He gestures to Kaveh’s vibrating form. “Disappointment.”
“I’m not disappointed, damn it, I’m—I’m—”
“Whatever you are, it was easily avoidable. It always is.”
Alhaitham puts down his quill, stands to match Kaveh eye-to-eye. They never address this, not directly, not so blunt as for feelings to be named and pasts to be unearthed. There are already rainbow diamonds glittering at the corners of blonde lashes, brimming with hurt that Kaveh so easily absorbs and internalizes before it spills over in a cascade of priceless gems.
Alhaitham would catch them all in a glass and persuade Kaveh to drink if he thought for a second returning them to his body would somehow remind him of their causes, and cure him of the ailment of toxic selflessness.
Thus he finally says aloud:
“Altruism is no solution to guilt, Kaveh. And you’ve been paying for what happened with your parents for years.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Kaveh looks as though Alhaitham has slapped him. For a moment, neither speaks, and Alhaitham wonders if perhaps they’ll be stuck like this all evening, all year, the rest of their lives—at an impasse, with neither choosing the other’s side and neither knowing how to back out.
His theory is shredded by a loud riiiiiip that sounds between them. Another and another, and Alhaitham is staring down at their most recent draft now billowing in jagged pieces over the table and onto the floor. The jewels from Kaveh’s eyes follow to seep into parchment and wood alike—more stains, and all Alhaitham can do is stare.
“Well then,” Kaveh says, so quiet and unlike him that Alhaitham finds himself wholly off-kilter, “An egoist like you surely won’t mind if this project becomes a sole endeavor, because I’m done. With you. With everything.”
Alhaitham continues to stare as Kaveh gathers things at random and stuffs them to suffer in his bag, as he continues to cry and draw attention from nearby students who quickly scuttle from the scene. Alhaitham stares as Kaveh pauses, even after all his declarations, waiting for something Alhaitham can give him.
But what does he have left to give?
The silence Kaveh leaves behind is unnerving, and Alhaitham fills it with the sound of parchment. Small pieces gathered into lopsided piles, two sets of handwriting layered atop the other with no sense of meaning. When Alhaitham eventually leaves, the papers remain—and when he returns for them, dull-eyed and too early the next morning, they’re already gone.
Alhaitham finds no more reason to return to the table.
✥
The harsh caress of tavern tungsten tempers the purpled exhaustion lining Kaveh’s eyes. In this light he is congruous, warm against warm; the smoky haze of cigar and charred meat like clouds hovering around a blinding sun, not daring enough to touch. Yet even at this distance, the darkness behind carmine eyes is palpable. The display of a smile that’s lost a half inch on either side—like it can't be bothered to lift in its entirety, to emulate the joy it’d once known.
Alhaitham isn’t prone to guilt. Trust Kaveh to be the sole exception for its existence.
The Mahamatra is here alongside him, and when his mouth moves in the punchline of a joke, Kaveh throws his head back. While Alhaitham heard nothing of the cause, Kaveh’s laugh carries easily—threads its way through the crowd, searching for a hand it had lost hold of. The sound makes it to Alhaitham too easily in all its brashness and excitement; an echo of memory that haunts his halls on sleepless nights.
(Ergo he returns to his reading and his drink, an easy excuse to linger. An even easier excuse to continue sneaking glances—as though something would’ve changed with each subsequent look, or in the years that have passed.)
Halfway through chapter seven and Alhaitham has managed to become absorbed enough to miss the chatter dying away, to sip absentmindedly at the foam settled at the bottom of his glass. Then the whirlwind arrives. So unexpected that Alhaitham fumbles his book, and Kaveh’s eyes crease in momentary amusement before settling to wary seriousness.
“What are you doing here?”
Alhaitham lays his text aside in resignation. “Seeing as you approached me, I could ask you the same.”
“Please, you know what I mean. You never come to Lambad’s at this hour.”
Alhaitham contemplates pointing out that Kaveh’s statement is factually untrue considering Alhaitham is literally here, now, but then Kaveh flops down across the table in such self-defeat that the words don’t formulate.
“It’s been some time,” he says instead, and the lump of fabric in front of him huffs.
“And whose fault is that?”
“I wouldn't go as far as fault, but realistically we share the responsibility. After all, my work keeps me busy, and if things are as they were in the past, then I’m surprised you find any time for frivolity at all.”
“Frivolity.” He says it with disdain, like mockery. When Kaveh lifts his head from the table, his sadness seems to increase tenfold. “My first evening out in months and of course I run into you. Is karmic justice truly so cruel?”
“I didn’t realize my presence in a public tavern was considered a personal cruelty, Kaveh. I’ll be sure to keep my distance in any future encounters.”
There’s little else to say, the sharp bite of Kaveh’s words coloring Alhaitham’s usual indifference with bitter disappointment. So he stands, intent on at least making it home before the clock chimes in the beginning of tomorrow.
“Wait.” A whisper of a request. When Alhaitham turns back, he sees Kaveh’s hand partially outstretched—like he’d considered grabbing for him but thought better of it at the last second. It thuds back to the table, lifeless. Alhaitham has a sudden urge to reach for it himself. “Can y—stay? Just a little longer.”
Carefully, wordlessly, Alhaitham sinks back into the chair.
Another table to sit at side by side, yet miles apart. This wood is roughened with age, a few jagged pieces threatening to lodge splinters into an unsuspecting patron. Does Kaveh think about its tangibility? Its grain? Its color? Does he set his drinks upon it as he conjures up grandiose daydreams of palaces and cities, drumming restless fingers on the foundation of his very craft? He must, from the amount he frequents the bar and from the familiarity his fingers find in the fissures nearest his flushed face.
The foreign notion of jealousy snakes down Alhaitham’s throat with the lingering froth of his drink, followed by the even more foreign notion of embarrassment. No. He cannot be envious of a table. (Especially one that isn’t, and has never been, theirs.)
Alhaitham resolves himself to leave before such irrationality sticks behind his ribs, yet “a little longer” devolves into hours. True to form, Kaveh is relentless, with account after account, failed commissions and underpayments alike, all culminating to the same point—the one which resulted in pieces of smeared parchment and cracks that have never been filled. Years worth of suffering unloaded at Alhaitham’s feet in a tempest storm until they’re being shooed from the tavern by a broom-wielding barkeep.
They stand in sudden, contrasting coldness, all the glow from inside dispelled into pinpricks of lantern light and the satin highlights of Kaveh’s messy hair.
And now—now Kaveh falls eerily silent as he stares off into the distance, into the darkness, into the unknown space that is both of their existences after their brief reunion. He’s picking at his lip—that same habit Alhaitham knows from countless days together, constantly staining his fingertips crimson (and, inevitably, their paperwork).
Alhaitham remembers nudging those fingers away with a frown.
It’s pure muscle memory to repeat the motion, a flash of indulgence, a moment recovered from their past that Alhaitham hadn’t realized he was missing. The fingers trapped against his palm are chilled from the night’s breeze, still soft around the callouses. Kaveh looks up at him, frozen with wide, wide eyes, and Alhaitham sees straight through them to the memory of spilled ink and his battered core.
“How has realizing your ideals gone for you?” he’d questioned, minutes earlier.
Open-ended, with no response given. Alhaitham considers asking again—partially to be difficult, partially to hear he had been correct in their disagreement—but those eyes.
They stop him, glittering with flecks of starlight and a resilience that should’ve been snuffed out ages ago yet continues to persist. Years. It has been years, yet it could’ve been yesterday they were sitting side by side, thigh to thigh, eye to eye, filled with a contentment that their future selves have lost.
Maybe it would be enough to have that again. Maybe correctness has no place here—has never been the ultimate goal between them—and Alhaitham finds himself asking a very different question than intended.
“How would you like to come home?”
✥
When Alhaitham wakes, not even halfway to morning, it’s to discomforting silence. If it were day, the lively bustle of the city and twittering birds would be his alarm; if it were night, tenor harmonies from the shower or frantic mutterings and bangings from the room adjacent. Alhaitham may yearn for quiet—less so with Kaveh in his periphery—and finding it here, now, has him quick to his feet. It’s not nearly late enough for Kaveh to have retired.
At the crack of his door, he sees the yellowed glow slicing over the opposing wall, the familiar signal that his roommate is, indeed, still awake—though he hears nothing that convinces him. Alhaitham dislikes breaks in patterns, especially those he cannot put reason to. This must be why he pads the short distance between their rooms, hovering in darkness as he stares into the bright beyond Kaveh’s door.
A held breath streams out in a huff.
He feels less guilty invading the room now that he can see Kaveh isn’t conscious to admonish him for it. When he makes it to the desk at the window, he can’t contain a small snort.
Papers in disarray, half crumpled in Kaveh’s lax fist. His feather quill tossed on the far end of the wood. Hair clips loose and lost amid a rat’s nest of hair, resigned to the amount of times Kaveh must’ve run his fingers through it in frustration. The bags under his eyes are not helped by the charcoal smudged beneath them from stained fingertips.
But his expression is devoid of the anguish it would show if he knew the state he was in. Perfectly placid, slow breaths fluttering the drawing beneath him on every exhale. It’s rare to see Kaveh at peace, and all the more unfortunate that those moments are lost upon him in slumber.
Alhaitham continues his perusal; damp lips catch rogue hairs that have fallen into his face, sticking translucent threats to Kaveh’s rest. They’re brushed away without question, and fingers linger at his hairline, at his cheekbone, long past anything that could be deemed necessary.
And then, Kaveh stirs. A weak groan, a joint popping, and a single glazed eye, half open.
“Hai…tham?”
There’s a vulnerability in the word that only exists in the haze of semi-consciousness. Alhaitham wraps it around his fingers with a few more of Kaveh’s flyaways and is reluctant to let go.
“What’s the point of owning a bed if you refuse to use it?”
Kaveh yawns in reply, the red of his iris disappearing once more behind a heavy lid. He’ll stay here, Alhaitham knows, out of misplaced spite and his belief he’ll wake before dawn and finish whatever he’s been working on.
He never does.
Some nights, Kaveh stumbles, stiff-limbed and ragged, from his room, hours after dawn.
“What is this?” Kaveh slurs, an unbodied hand holding a mug of coffee sticking out from the threshold of the kitchen.
“That’s what coffee looks like in its pure form,” Alhaitham says, fastening his cloak. “Has it been so long since you’ve seen it that you no longer recognize it?”
A head pokes out above the cup. “Don’t be purposely obtuse. I mean why is it here?”
“I had extra.”
“That you put into a mug—” he takes a tentative sniff. “With cinnamon?”
“Perhaps it will be enough to put a stop to those atrocities you call coffee. One can only hope.”
Kaveh’s incensed reply is cut off by the closing of the front door (and Alhaitham’s offer does not put a stop to the overload of milk and sugar that finds its way into Kaveh’s coffees).
Other nights, he’s found to have succumbed to exhaustion before the midnight hour.
“Kaveh.”
“Mmm.”
“Kaveh.”
Silence.
It’s not his business but something about Kaveh hunched over at his desk reminds him of their days in the Akademiya, memories he doesn’t let himself revisit. When Kaveh still doesn’t stir, Alhaitham resigns himself to underhand tactics.
Slam!
“Wh—aaaa!”
Alhaitham leans over where Kaveh is in a tumble of flailing limbs on the floor.
“Go to bed. You’re wasting energy keeping the light on to sleep.”
(He did not go to bed, instead hammering away at what must be the literal foundation of the house until morning.)
Still Kaveh remains. The cinnamon runs out twice as fast. The slam of doors turns into blankets draped over slumped shoulders. Kaveh moves his work from the bedroom to the office, sitting adjacent to Alhaitham at a table that doesn’t splinter and doesn’t stain. He sweeps graphite lines over his blueprints and Alhaitham reads the same paragraph over and over—an ease graced with the caveat of unresolved tension, with breaths holding unspoken admittances.
Neither has yet to yield. Alhaitham stands at the cliff’s edge of foreboding familiarity.
A loud snore interrupts what has become an unwelcome tangent, and Alhaitham gazes down at the sleeping architect far below him.
There’s a dribble of drool escaping the corner of his mouth, ruining his otherwise pristine blueprint. Alhaitham scrunches his nose and leaves it for Kaveh’s waking self—perhaps it will teach him a sobering lesson in moderation.
✥
“This one?”
Kaveh groans and covers his eyes in despair, which benefits Alhaitham (whose lips have betrayed him, twitching upwards of their own volition.)
“Please don’t tell me you’re being serious.”
Alhaitham feigns indifference, tapping at the wood in front of them.
“It’s sturdy. Professionally crafted. I don’t see the problem.”
“Are you—Haitham, that doesn't matter when it’s—” he drops his voice upon seeing the shopkeeper in distant earshot. “When it’s ugly. You must have some semblance of aesthetic sensitivity by now, or has my presence truly taught you nothing?”
“It has.” Kaveh’s face momentarily brightens, and Alhaitham smirks. “It’s taught me that pretty things are expensive, which must be why your rent is two months late.”
“Oh come on! You’re going to bring that up now? You know that my last project is—hang on, don’t try to change the subject! This is called an investment. Buy something pleasing that will last, not this mediocre lump of Adhigama. You’ll thank me later.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Alhaitham replies, but he moves down the line of dressers regardless. “So what would the honorable Light of Kasharewar suggest, then, in its place?”
Kaveh confidently strides down the row and Alhaitham takes in the sway of his hips, the way the sunshine sticks to his clothes and melds with the light in his eyes. In a sea of greens and browns he is a startling contrast, unafraid of the notoriety that comes with being beautiful.
He’s smiling, too, and Alhaitham wonders when the joy seeped back in, if it was a gradual change as the years passed, or something more abrupt—a puzzle piece snapping into its rightful place. Has Alhaitham been slacking in his observations, or has it only occurred just now, here, picking out pointless furniture on the busy street in a moment that should logically be categorized as mundane?
“This one,” Kaveh declares, pressing his palm to the top of an ornate set.
Alhaitham raises his eyebrows as he takes it in. “Why this one?”
“Huh, I’m surprised you have the decency to even ask.”
“Alright, then. I don’t need to know.”
He makes to walk towards the front but is stopped by a hasty hand closing around his wrist.
“Wait! No, I’ll—I’ll explain.”
Alhaitham turns and waits; Kaveh seems even more surprised that he’s actually listened to the request. He shouldn’t be. Alhaitham has been known to show appreciation for Kaveh’s craft, even if the latter refuses to recognize it for what it is.
“Right! Well, first, the carved features match the bookcases in the living room, which ties the house together. Secondly, the size is generous but not overly so, it’ll fit nicely within the dimensions of your space. Third, and most important, it’s the best type of wood for the job.” He rubs a thumb over the swirl of a design bordering the edges of a drawer. “And there’s something about Karmaphala that’s always resonated with me,” he says, almost to himself.
That’s when it dawns on Alhaitham that he’s seen this before—this rich, polished shade of brown, the claw-like carvings of the feet, the uniquely textured grain.
(The scratching of quills, whispered laughter, the scents of old parchment and Parisarah. That unwavering determination in Kaveh’s eyes.)
Kaveh’s gaze has turned distant. Alhaitham is curious if Kaveh’s choice is subconscious or if he, too, has been unexpectedly reminded of the inevitability of their past.
“I like it,” Alhaitham hears himself say.
Kaveh looks at him in unbridled shock. That surprise is warranted. It’s rare for Alhaitham to say he actively likes anything, even though he does like quite many things: His home where he can read at his leisure. Imported teas from Liyue.
The background noise of Kaveh humming from the next room; the gentle clatter of utensils as Kaveh makes dinner; the dips and valleys of Kaveh’s profile against the backdrop of the spring afternoon.
Yes. Alhaitham likes many things.
“You like it?” Kaveh parrots in disbelief.
Alhaitham’s wrist is still captive in Kaveh’s hand, like that could somehow persuade him to say it again.
“You obviously heard me, so there’s no need to repeat myself.”
“I—I just… need a moment.” Kaveh closes his eyes, taking in a deep, dramatic breath. When they open, there’s a glint in them Alhaitham hasn’t seen in years. “Would anyone believe such a day would come? That the revered ex-grand sage Alhaitham can admit to trusting another person’s judgment without argument? This needs to be recorded in the history books! O Great Scribe, dost thou have a quill?”
He’s smiling again, wide and giddy. Teasing. Alhaitham had forgotten what that looked like without the undercurrent of bitterness and hurt. He’d missed it. (How foolish). He wants more of it. (How childish). He likes it. (He likes…) And Kaveh—Kaveh looks surprised at his own daring. His grin is already fading into nervousness.
Now, Alhaitham takes righteous enjoyment from subverting expectations when the need arises, mainly to reiterate that others shouldn’t expect anything from him. This, however, is an exception to his rule. Kaveh, it seems, expects nothing but dismissal; a grave error that needs immediate fixing.
Leaning forward, Alhaitham lifts a hand to brush against the rainbow prisms of sunlight trapped in Kaveh’s hair. They’re close, close enough for Alhaitham to hear his small hitch of breath, to notice the lightest of summer freckles dusted underneath Kaveh’s eyes meshing with the flush that’s begun to creep across his cheeks.
“What—”
Alhaitham takes advantage of Kaveh’s bewilderment to swipe the quill tucked behind his ear.
“Found one. Now,” Alhaitham says, twirling the feather gently between his fingers, “when I notate this anomaly, shall I also add the furniture purchases to your tab?”
Kaveh flushes further—with indignation this time—but the seams of tension along his body deflate. The corner of his lips lift once more; it’s enough for Alhaitham to buy the dresser, and its matching end table, all the while being pulled every which way by a Kaveh who still has a hold on him. The quill ends up tucked in Alhaitham’s hair—collateral, he explains to an objecting Kaveh—and when they return home, his room becomes yet another reminder of Kaveh’s permanence.
And now, Alhaitham stands alone.
Outside his door, the sounds of scraping and grunting as Kaveh re-arranges the living room, inspired by their day of shopping. A cerulean feather tickles the joints of Alhaitham’s fingers. Freshly sanded wood swirls specks of dust motes and permeates squares of glass light with their haze. They snake through his senses and leave his mind reeling, captive to an overload of sensory input.
How long?
Since their habits changed? Since he asked Kaveh home? Since ocean locked with sunfire and Alhaitham forgot what it meant to be indifferent to the whims and desires of others?
He’s unsure if the when matters at all. The feather slips from his fumbling hold and flutters gently to the floor. Originally a gift from Kaveh’s mother, replaced by Alhaitham when the first became too fragile to wear. Alhaitham likes having it here too much—like it belongs with him, in his room, where he can touch.
Yes. Alhaitham likes many, many things.
✥
“Um, where are you going? I literally just started dinner!”
Alhaitham turns from the front entrance to see Kaveh in the threshold, brandishing a cooking knife with his hair lumped atop his head in the most precariously messy bun Sumeru has ever seen.
There’s a piece of onion dangling from a loose strand. Wisely, Alhaitham does not comment.
“Akademiya. I need to substitute some readings and drop these off,” he says, gesturing with the stack of documents in his hand. “I’ll be back before you’ve finished.”
“Ohhh no you don’t! The last time you said that you were gone for hours and the shawarma had gone cold!”
Alhaitham shrugs as he adjusts his cloak. “The decision to wait all night instead of eating without me was your own.”
“Why are you so—have you ever considered that maybe I wanted to—ugh, nevermind!”
He retreats to the kitchen and the loud clattering of pans follows. Alhaitham takes that as his cue to exit stage left, his unspoken defense dying on his tongue. Kaveh should know by now that Alhaitham would never opt to linger at work after hours—that it was only to approve extra funding for Kaveh’s unrealistic proposal that had Alhaitham returning once the sun had laid itself to rest, only to find an empty kitchen and an angry note atop a wrapped plate.
He’s not even halfway down the road from their home when the slap of loud footsteps reaches his ears.
“W–wait, hang—on—Haith—ah—’m here!”
Alhaitham purses his lips and does not look back, but his pace slows until Kaveh has fallen into step. A book collides with his arm.
“Can I help you,” he deadpans, and Kaveh lets out a breathless scoff.
“I can’t believe you didn’t wait for me—didn’t even ask! No, on second thought, I shouldn’t be surprised. Clueless, as always.”
“Oh? And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” he mutters, rushing ahead before Alhaitham can get a look at his expression.
(At least the cube of onion has successfully detached itself from his hair, though Kaveh is still wearing the cooking apron loose around his neck.)
The House of Daena is as silent and imposing as ever, and Alhaitham makes his selections brief when he peruses the shelves. Kaveh has parted from his side and is lost down another isle, citing a book recommendation from Tighnari.
It’s easy to get lost in a thin section specializing in pre-Deshret translations, to shuffle through chapters on the origins of creation as his feet carry him where they wish. And when his eyes eventually lift from the page, he finds himself back at the beginning of it all.
This should be, for all intents and purposes, an easy corner to avoid. Archons know he did a great job of that over the years, thus it seems his subconsciousness has finally hit its limit of abstinence (along with familiar disappointment in the Akademiya for their lack of upkeep.) He drops the few books and papers he’s carrying right over the faded inkstain with a decisive thud.
And it’s here, in perfect parallel, that Kaveh finds him yet again.
“What are you doing?”
Alhaitham ignores him from where he’s taken a seat in his usual chair, pulling the first text from the stack and flipping it open.
“I thought we were just stopping in and leaving! Alhaitham, you can’t just—oh.”
He lifts his head to see Kaveh staring down at the table—their table—fingers hesitantly tracing over the gouge from the time Kaveh wrestled a book from Alhaitham’s hands. He’d pulled so hard the bottom of the spine slammed into the edge, ruining the tome and splitting the wood. Kaveh had been shell-shocked, and Alhaitham remembers saying that the book lacked plausible theory, anyway.
The Kaveh of today fixates on the imperfection, bites his lip and leaves a score in the flesh as it retracts from his mouth. Blood stains his teeth pretty, a vermillion temptation.
He sits.
Alhaitham returns to his book, and slowly, the thick tension between them dissipates. Another dragging minute and Kaveh pulls the quill from his hair (Alhaitham had finally relinquished his hold upon it the day before). He slides over a leftover inkwell and a sheaf of parchment from the pile, and eventually the prosaic sound of sketching replaces their silence.
Scrutinizing eyes drift to watch him work; they take in the sureness of Kaveh’s hands, the way they’ve weathered and calloused over time. There’s a confidence in the set of his shoulders and an ease to how his quill flicks in complex shapes of wistful ideas. The Kaveh of now is fully immersed—aged like the fine wines he covets—yet Alhaitham catches slivers of a child in the way he scans the page with excitement.
He’s a mystery, a conundrum of clashing emotions that seem to tumble out of him in no particular order. What an amiable contrast to Alhaitham’s rigidity. What a concept to be completely stumped by yet intrinsically understood, this counterbalance of existence willingly shared between slab stone walls and decades old wood.
It’s no wonder Alhaitham had fallen, over time, instantly, gradually, and all at once.
“Stop staring.”
Alhaitham blinks and finds the hand on Kaveh’s quill has stilled, the lines of his shoulders tense. He’s watching with narrowed eyes—ah, to be unaware of one’s own hypocrisy. Alhaitham hums.
“Let me bring to your attention the idiom of the pot and kettle, Kaveh.”
“Don’t—I’m only staring because you are! I’ve called your name twice. You cannot tell me your mind is so lost in ruminating over—” he leans forward, checking the title of Alhaitham’s book and sputtering— “The Compendium of Desert Architecture?! Seriously, this nonsense again? There is no way something profound has revealed itself to you after all this time.”
“No,” Alhaitham says simply, shutting the book. Kaveh’s brows knit further.
“Then what—”
“It’s been a long time. I’d forgotten what this looked like.”
Kaveh’s face morphs into gentle surprise, his mouth sloping open with a soft “oh,” as he looks away with cheeks tinted pink.
“Well. I never thought there’d be a day where you were lost to sentimentality,” he mutters, and Alhaitham wants to reply, wants to impose on him the incorrectness of his assumption.
“Even I am not so unfeeling.” he says instead.
Kaveh looks back at him with wide eyes before letting out a soft sigh. “I know… I know.” He casts another glance across the table. Fidgeting fingers have instinctively found the inkstain and the leftover grooves beneath, once-roughed edges worn into something malleable. “Do you remember the day this happened?”
“I trust that’s not a serious question.”
A huff. “Can’t you just answer normally for once?”
Alhaitham responds with a small shrug and Kaveh rolls his eyes. “Why do I bother? Anyway, I’d been practicing my calligraphy, I remember, for professor what’s-it who insisted legibility was the foundation for professionalism—what a waste of energy, honestly—”
“You should’ve skipped those classes. His teaching style was woefully inconsistent between subjects.”
“Oh, what, just because you could get away with missing half the year doesn’t mean the rest of us could—”
“If they did the required readings in their downtime—”
“This isn’t about the required readings, this is about you thinking you were above it all! And you still graduated with top marks. What kind of example does that set for the students?”
“A good one, apparently, seeing as I was the Acting Grand Sage up until a few months ago.”
“Archons you are impossible—that’s not even—Haitham!” His voice has crept into that high register of exasperation and stubbornness Alhaitham so enjoys. “As usual, we have strayed from the point I was trying to reach.”
“I see.” (He doesn’t). “Well, I’m not stopping you.”
“You just—I just—I was practicing your name, okay?”
Huh. Had he been? The mess on the table was completely illegible.
“Seems a waste of time to bother with mine,” Alhaitham says, still unsure why this information was pertinent, “as you would be writing yours far more often.”
“Thank you, O Wise Scribe, I’m aware of that.”
“Well then, what other reason is there?”
Kaveh shuts his mouth and stares for a long second. Alhaitham thinks maybe he’s missing something. Moreso when Kaveh slumps back into his chair, shaking his head.
“Forget it. You’re right. There is no reason.”
Minutes pass. Kaveh is staring at his sketch too hard to be convincing, and Alhaitham’s gaze moves to the letters. There is a reason. A reason Kaveh looks so disappointed—no. More than disappointed. Resolutely avoiding eye contact, cheeks ruddy, fingers picking obsessively at the corner of his page. Kaveh is flustered.
Come to think of it, Kaveh is often flustered this way—when Alhaitham goads him, when he pushes Kaveh back to his side of the divan. When they lock eyes for a few seconds too long and Alhaitham has a sudden, strange need to look away, to do something, anything—
Ah.
Kaveh is reaching for his quill again when Alhaitham abruptly says,
“I’m in love with you.”
Thunk!
Onyx splashes them both as they leap from their seats, Alhaitham’s name is once again lost to black, and books are hastily pushed from the flood as they try to mitigate the damage.
“Seriously, you—not again!” Kaveh moans, helpless, exasperated, and Alhaitham does feel slightly guilty for the repeat offense.
(Especially when such an offense has once more ruined Kaveh’s sleeves.)
“Do be more careful with the placement of your inkwell.”
He rights the glass, barely rescuing Kaveh’s sketch.
“Stop, Haitham—”
“You’d think the first time would’ve been enough to teach you this lesson.”
“Wait, can you just—”
“At least I have the luxury of in-house employment. I cannot say the same for you.”
He moves to stem the flow with his hands, but they’re suddenly yanked from the wood.
“Stop! Archons, Alhaitham, stop.”
He stops.
It’s ten years prior, with a few key differences: this time, firm hands are wrapped around his wrists. This time, the steady drip, drip, drip of ink escaping to the floor is interjected by the thunderous, traitorous beating of his racing heart. This time, it’s Alhaitham’s eyes that are wide as they stare into glittering carmine.
This time, he doesn’t laugh.
This time, Kaveh kisses him.
His mouth fills with the warm slide of a desperate tongue, diving into the weighted ache of waiting and the piecemeal regrets from ripped parchment. Blood is licked from bitten lips, the tang of iron coalescing with the metals of spattered ink. Kaveh’s fingers tangle black at his nape; fingerprints smear across rosy cheeks, messy, pretty, and perfect.
Hands find the junctures of Kaveh’s waist and cling on, ruining his shirt with evidence that this is real and not a figment of suppressed, years-old yearning. He should’ve known then. He should’ve known.
A soft sound vibrates from Kaveh’s throat—Alhaitham rests a curious thumb against the source—and it’s enough for him to remember the circumstance they’re in.
“Kaveh—” he begins, pulling back, and abruptly cuts off at the sight before him.
Flaxen strands of Kaveh’s hair stuck to shining skin. Breaths coming in rapid staccato, humid where they ghost against Alhaitham’s mouth. Stained cheeks and stung lips and glittering eyes, bright as the first moment they’d met. It’s a welcome discovery to find out he does indeed have a favorite color. He never thought he cared so much. (He never thought he cared about a great many things, before Kaveh).
“Mmm?” Kaveh prompts, and oh, Alhaitham cannot for the life of him remember what he was about to say.
He continues to stare in silence, and Kaveh’s impatience wins out.
“You know, for someone so intelligent, you can really be quite dense. It’s quite exhausting, really.”
Kaveh is flustered—Alhaitham can tell by the hard clench of his fingers at his back, his cracked grin that bleeds vulnerability where it tries to feign confidence. How he launches into their pattern to establish some normalcy, waiting for a rebuttal. Ironic that he’s completely oblivious to the fact that Alhaitham has none.
Because Alhaitham’s only interest is what the shape of that smile feels like against his mouth—he quickly learns that he’d prefer to feel it as often as possible, for as long as Kaveh is willing. (From the way Kaveh hums and sighs and tightens his hold, it seems he is quite, quite willing).
“What are you two doing?”
They wrench apart, and Alhaitham catches the furious glare of an older professor from across the library.
“Oh, Gods—what do we—” Kaveh's fingers are bruising where they dig into Alhaitham’s arms, trembling, his smile falling to conflicting frustration. “—and how could you do this here,” he hisses, as though he hadn’t been an eager participant not seconds earlier. “Saying something like—like that, so nonchalant, like it’s just another line in an application, like it’s not everything—”
Alhaitham kisses him again to stop the tirade. Kaveh stutters and startles (and does not shove him away).
“You cannot win every argument with a kiss,” he spits afterwards, his cheeks a healthy red. Alhaitham internally disagrees. “Especially now, when—oh no, he’s coming this way. Quick, we—we have to hide the mess, why aren’t you moving you annoying lump of muscle—”
Kaveh is forgetting that Alhaitham has enough pull to shrug this off, to dismiss the man with an easy wave and glance alone. But Kaveh’s oversight presents an easy opportunity, another satisfying repetition.
So here they are once again—two students about to be banished from the House of Daena. (Perhaps it would be good for Alhaitham to take a break from the place. It has become a little too quiet here for his liking.) He smirks down at Kaveh and catches the moment when realization dawns upon his face.
“Alhaitham, don’t you dare—”
“They only have to catch one of us,” Alhaitham says simply, before swiping his books from the desk and dashing towards the exit.
The perpetual, stuffy silence of the library is no longer. Footsteps pound between book rows and decades-old laughter threads its way between pages and new ink seeps into an old name—it is, Alhaitham concludes with a satisfied smile, a much-needed interruption.