Chapter Text
Mirror Stage
(Updated Ver.)
Alhaitham stared at his bedroom ceiling.
He'd passed through the flash of fury he'd felt, looking at the timepiece on his bookshelf that said it was well past 3:00 a.m., the resounding whacks of Kaveh's tools coming from the next room temporarily matching the rhythm of the ticking hands. An eruption he felt in his blood, at having his rest interrupted, at having the sanctity of his routine and his private space ruined… raging internally about how this was untenable, Kaveh might really have to move out this time.
But he'd let it pass, calming himself, considering not only his options but the situation as a whole.
His headphones had slipped awkwardly while he'd slept, and consequently his ears were hurting too much to put them back on without them serving as their own irritation. He doubted he'd be able to sleep with them on, and he'd have to get up to retrieve his ordinary earplugs from the bathroom cabinet.
He didn't want to get up, his bed felt good. There was still a slim chance that if Kaveh shut the fuck up within the next minute, he'd be able to get back to sleep.
He could always ask his roommate to stop. He deserved to get lectured, but maybe a few solid whacks on the wall would also get the point across. Did he have so little consideration that he thought he was causing no problems, hammering away cacophonously in the depths of the night? Where was that excessive thoughtfulness of his now? Many other people would have threatened eviction after the first incident of this late night racket.
However, even though it frustrated Alhaitham to no end, he'd never interrupted Kaveh during one of these stints. He would always wait and bring it up the next morning, when Kaveh would always explain that he couldn't control when inspiration struck, and it would always devolve into a lengthy argument over how myopic Kaveh could be, how unsupportive and unfair Alhaitham was. Completely unproductive arguments; it was just too difficult to get through to the architect, despite the reasonableness and clarity of Alhaitham's words.
But something always stopped him from directly interfering with Kaveh working. It didn't matter how much of a burden it was to him in the moment. If he was going to put a fine point on it, it was because it felt… vulgar… too profane to derail Kaveh when he was in the throes of inspiration, to obstruct the work of a genius. These late night sessions always yielded Kaveh's best work, and from what Alhaitham had noticed, Kaveh had been able to work less and less frequently. In fact, these days he seemed to be spending most of his time staring at blank blueprints, back hunched over his drafting desk, frittering away hours like this with nothing to show for it. And so, the end result was that when Kaveh was able to work, Alhaitham was reluctantly willing to lose sleep for it.
Resigned, he rose, nudging his feet into his house slippers, big fluffy ones that made his footsteps scuff loudly through the hallway. After locating his regular ear plugs and using the bathroom, Alhaitham was in the kitchen pouring a glass of water when the bashing and banging stopped abruptly, and before he had time to retreat, he was intercepted by an energetic Kaveh, bursting forth from his bedroom.
The moment he caught sight of his roommate, lurking and sipping in the dark kitchen, the blonde froze like a mountain deer who had suddenly spotted a prowling snow leopard, with the fatal knowledge that it was too late to run.
“What are you doing here,” Kaveh blurted, his mannerisms and tone of voice those of one with a very guilty conscience.
“Why am I in my own house?” Alhaitham leaned against a counter, settling in for the argument he knew was coming. Curiously, he felt no irritation at the prospect; his anger had already faded, he was awake now, and most importantly, he was curious about what Kaveh had been working on.
“Why are you creeping around in the middle of the night startling me like that?”
“‘Creeping around.’ I was thirsty, you found me in the kitchen drinking water.” Alhaitham drained the glass to punctuate his statement. “Perhaps you are the one caught doing something clandestine, and you’re projecting your embarrassment onto me.”
Kaveh groaned, a sound of genuine frustration. “Not tonight, Alhaitham. I don’t want to do this tonight, I’m in too good of a mood.”
Oh? Alhaitham wasn’t entirely sure what that could mean, since Kaveh was the one who seemed to derive so much enjoyment from their bickering, and the scribe was the one mostly doing the indulging. Why else would he incessantly start fights, if he wasn’t getting pleasure out of it?
“I heard your ‘good mood,’ quite loudly. It woke me up.”
Kaveh didn’t seem to hear the playfulness Alhaitham had imbued in the remark, either that or Alhaitham’s supposition was correct and the architect’s passion for bickering was real, because he quickly became even more argumentative.
“So what, you waited here, hoping to surprise me and force me to apologize to you? How long were you waiting there, skulking about? Why not just knock on my door like a normal person, and tell me I was being too loud? Don’t you have those headphones of yours, the ones you can’t hear me through half the time?”
Advancing into the kitchen, Kaveh stepped into a pool of moonlight shining through a large window. His hair was up high in a ponytail, and even in the pale light, Alhaitham could see rosiness in his cheeks, on the bridge of his nose. Was it from arousal at the burgeoning fight, or the lingering excitement of hard work? Or was it the blush from the alcohol they’d imbibed earlier in the night?
Kaveh was such a lightweight, which Alhaitham supposed he should be thankful for, given that he bankrolled the bar tab for the both of them. The architect had tried to keep up while losing matches of Genius Invokation, drinking far more in penalties than any other player in the tavern. They’d been meant to meet Tighnari and Cyno but the two couldn’t make it, not that Kaveh had let that slow him down. He’d seemed to really enjoy himself, the most relaxed Alhaitham could remember seeing him in quite a while. It had been a pleasurable evening.
Clearly, however, Kaveh was back to being wound-up tightly; a human knot of emotions so tangled and tense that the threads always seemed on the verge of snapping.
“Use your brain,” Alhaitham admonished. Kaveh certainly let his fancies run away with him. “What gives you the impression I don't have better things to do than sit in my kitchen in the middle of the night, waiting for you to spring my trap? You’re getting upset over nothing. You were too loud, but I merely came for a glass of water.”
“For the love of the Archons, will you just shut up?” Kaveh’s face transformed into a mocking impression of Alhaitham’s. “‘Use your brain.’ Ugh! Do you even hear yourself?”
Alhaitham was unphased. “Do you hear me? Or maybe I should ask, are you ever really listening?”
“Listening to you? ” Kaveh guffawed mightily, propping his arms akimbo, practically puffing out his chest. “I go out of my way to try not to listen, you and your incessant lecturing, your incessant smugness. If I were to hear only ten percent of what you yammer on about at me, I’d be missing nothing of value!”
Outwardly unperturbed by the insults, Alhaitham was truthfully a little annoyed with Kaveh’s short-sightedness, and how it too easily turned into this vicious defensiveness, of which Alhaitham was the primary, and perhaps singular target. Although, somehow, he seemed to be the one with the most patience for it. Even now, after years of receiving it.
“Are you so sure about that?” In their verbal duel, Alhaitham parried, laying Kaveh’s heart bare and, without a second thought, went for blood. Simply because he could; because he knew he was right. “Are you really in such a position to decline my advice or observations? When, partly out of this exact willfulness, your life has reached such a point of failure?”
Kaveh recoiled, as if shot. Alhaitham watched neutrally, such dramatics par for the course with someone as emotional as his roommate.
But there was a long, oppressive silence, much longer than what the scribe had been expecting before Kaveh flung back his barbs and deflections and indictments like he always did instead of listening.
“How can you say that?”
Alhaitham was mildly surprised by the quality of the other’s voice, there was a brittle tremulousness to it, and, far more shocking, it was quiet. Not shouting, not full of sass or fiery passion. A strangled whisper.
He was about to answer when, in the moonlight, he finally noticed that Kaveh’s eyes were filling with tears, and momentarily he was at a loss for words… unsure how he’d hit such a raw nerve when he was just speaking factually to another adult. But the blow that had struck Kaveh carried the heft and weight of an old argument, too similar to this, and seared indelibly in the architect’s mind, and he was staggered with its remembrance.
“How can you say that?” Kaveh repeated, beginning to tremble. “You just flung that out, so casually. So that’s what you truly think of me? How long have you been waiting to tell me that? That you think I’m a failure?”
Finally, Alhaitham clued into the fact that this felt different. Kaveh wasn’t just mad. It didn’t make logical sense, that his senior should be so devastated by what was merely a factual observation, and far from Alhaitham’s complete opinion of him… if anything, it was more surprising that after everything they’d gone through, and how many times on a daily basis Kaveh liked to remind him that he thought Alhaitham terminally incorrect, that it was ultimately Alhaitham’s opinion of him that could rip Kaveh apart at his seams like this.
He tried to explain, to get the other to see properly.
“You shouldn’t find something so obvious to be so threatening. This stubborn refusal of yours to accommodate the material considerations of the world you live in is exactly why you owe more mora to Dori than–”
“Oh, so you think what she does is right?” Kaveh hissed, his tears brimmed and then poured forth with the added heat of his fury at feeling betrayed. “Of course you’d be on her side.”
“‘Her side?’” Alhaitham disarmed him coolly, still seemingly ignoring his roommate’s crying. “Is this a playground fight between children? Allegiance is irrelevant, I am merely stating facts. If you discarded your impractical loathing for material considerations, you wouldn’t have bankrupted yourself finishing The Palace of Alcazarzaray, leaving you homeless and–”
“I don’t loathe ‘material considerations,'” Kaveh interrupted again. “I loathe people like you. I hate how you can sit there and so smugly call me a failure, just because your bank account is plush from your cushy desk job. You think anyone will treasure your little meeting minutes, scribbling down what theses the sages rejected that day? Everything you’ve ever done will soon be forgotten, except what you did to help our Archon, and you didn’t get any mora for that, now did you?”
Kaveh’s breath was hitching, instead of calming down while reasoning it through, he seemed only to become more upset. Despite the nasty words Alhaitham merely waited, able to tell that the architect wasn’t quite done with his line of thinking, and he wanted to know at what conclusion Kaveh would arrive.
“But The Palace will remain, The Palace is my legacy, my life’s work. When we’re dead, no one will remember my debt to Dori, but they will remember the man who built The Palace. How can you call someone who’s accomplished that a failure? Has it ever occurred to you that life isn’t measured by the bills we could or couldn’t pay?”
“That is spoken like someone who does not worry about paying his bills at all,” the scribe pointed out ungenerously, only realizing Kaveh had been on a metaphorical tightrope after he’d cut the line.
With a cry of sheer anguish, Kaveh began the emotional freefall, watched by a genuinely startled Alhaitham.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” Kaveh screamed, throwing his arms open wide, as if to bare his heart further for this cruel dissection being performed by his roommate; once a man who meant so much more. “What will satisfy you, Alhaitham?”
The surprise didn't show on his face, but the younger man hadn't seen his senior cry like this in years, and had seen what can only be called sincere heartbreak openly readable on his face once before, when he'd broken up with him. Alhaitham was still at a total loss for how exactly some intellectual banter at nearly 4:00 a.m. had devolved so suddenly or severely.
“Do you want me to get out of your life?” Kaveh sobbed. “I will! I will leave, happily. I fucking hate it here anyway, and I know I only burden and frustrate you. And now you tell me outright what you truly think of me. An abject failure! I feel like a fool for not realizing it sooner–I thought… I thought with what we once were to each other, how I’ve tried to leave in the past and you stopped me… I should have known better. No roof over my head is worth being the pathetic puppy you keep kicking, but you’re too sadistic to actually get rid of!”
Astounded, Alhaitham straightened and cautiously approached Kaveh, as one would with a wounded, cornered animal. Slowly, he reached for the other, almost worried that once he made contact, Kaveh would truly splinter into broken shards. He seemed so fragile, shivering and weeping like that.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” Kaveh hurled out, hoarse, and crying even harder than before. His fists were balled at his sides, as if ready to beat back Alhaitham if he had to. But his face was scrunched up, a helpless look like a child in distress. The expression made Alhaitham want to protect him, not fight him.
How can someone so smart be this stupid, Alhaitham wondered, completely at a loss. They’d been having a normal conversation, but now Kaveh was having some kind of breakdown, when Alhaitham was just being factual–helpful, even–merely trying to assist his naive, idealistic senior confront and adapt to the nature of their reality. And Kaveh really was one of the most intelligent people he’d ever met, a true peer and equal in terms of genius. Alhaitham had never had any compunctions about acknowledging that.
So where did this bizarre fantasy world of Kaveh's come from, the one where Alhaitham thought of him as scum, or treated him like a kicked puppy? And how could someone with Kaveh’s mind insist on maintaining such ignorance in the face of such solid advice? Cognitive dissonance on this level wasn’t necessarily something new for Kaveh, and Alhaitham frequently pointed out that what the architect thought of as reality was in fact heavily deformed by his perceptions. To a degree, Alhaitham was able to acknowledge that this meant Kaveh’s perceptions were his reality, but it was incomprehensible that even he would be this destroyed over someone reminding him that mora existed and one needed it to exchange for goods and services.
They stood there for a moment longer in their terrible stalemate, Kaveh unscrewing his face and unclenching his fists to angrily wipe at his tears. But the look he levelled at Alhaitham felt like an arrow made of ice, piercing clean through. Kaveh’s eyes were full of heartbreak, raw and jagged, but they were also full of real, cold hatred. The look lasted only a second before Kaveh was overtaken by emotion again, but a second was enough.
Suddenly, the myriad, discordant pieces fell into place, and Alhaitham experienced one of the singular moments of his lifetime where he felt like an idiot. Sometimes, the simplest explanation was indeed the correct one.
Kaveh looked heartbroken because Alhaitham had broken his heart. Kaveh had been hurt by his words, because he had said something hurtful.
Kaveh hadn’t been hearing any of this as immutable, factual advice. Kaveh wasn't stupid, and this look of hatred could only be a natural response to a mistake Alhaitham had made. It was one he'd made before, and had spent years wishing he could undo.
Filling with regret, Alhaitham opened his mouth to apologize, but was cut off by Kaveh swaying worryingly, though he hardly seemed aware of it himself for he was well and truly crying hysterically now. Ignoring what Kaveh had just yelled at him, Alhaitham rushed to catch the other just as his knees buckled, preventing him from going down hard enough to hurt himself.
“Don’t touch me,” Kaveh wailed, turning into Alhaitham’s chest and burying his face there, his hands clinging to fistfuls of the grey pyjama shirt he soon had soaked with his tears and snot. He felt deep conflict at not respecting Kaveh’s words, but even if he’d wanted to, Alhaitham would not have been able to extricate himself from his roommate’s grip, he was being held so tightly.
He didn’t know what to do in this situation. Kaveh seemed so painfully alone and lonely that Alhaitham’s could feel the ache of it in his own chest. But on the other hand, for all appearances, he seemed to hate Alhaitham the most out of it all, something the younger man was only just beginning to truly comprehend. The reality, perhaps sad to some, was that there was no one else to comfort Kaveh, except for his roommate. No family, and no friends with whom Kaveh could drop his front of perfection. The truth remained that, somehow, Alhaitham had always been the only one able to peel off Kaveh’s mask without effort, and witness the mess underneath. A vivisection that always left the architect squirming, while simultaneously offering him the only prayer of freedom.
Not well versed in matters of the heart, Alhaitham decided to do what seemed most logically sound given the scenario; if Kaveh gave him further indications his help, or even his very presence, were unwanted, Alhaitham would honour that wish. But until such signals were delivered, he would do what only felt right under the circumstances, and comfort this person so precious to him, suffering such turmoil.
“I’m going to lower us to the floor,” Alhaitham explained, somewhat awkwardly. But the strength had gone out of Kaveh’s legs and the older man was remaining standing through Alhaitham’s assistance alone.
Meeting no resistance, and Kaveh only giving sobs, gasping breaths, and hiccups as a response, Alhaitham carefully sat the both of them on the cold tiles of the kitchen, holding Kaveh’s body tightly to his and ensuring his legs weren’t forced into a painful bend. The moonbeams from the window poured over them, illuminating this moment of grief.
Safer on the floor, Alhaitham looked to Kaveh for more cues, but the architect was out of words. He merely pressed his face even more insistently into Alhaitham’s chest, creating what looked to be an uncomfortable angle in his neck. Hesitantly, and ready to respect Kaveh’s space should he ask for it, Alhaitham lifted his roommate, bringing him more snugly into the cradle of his lap, a pose that immediately brought back vivid memories from the time they had once been lovers. Contrary to offering resistance, Kaveh burrowed even closer to Alhaitham, slotting their bodies flush against each other and sobbing louder.
Discarding the last of his astonished caution, Alhaitham fully embraced Kaveh, the strength of his arms easily holding the smaller man to him while he continued to weep.
One would be forgiven for thinking Alhaitham to be an impatient man, with no time to wait for tears to end; irritated by the illogical indulgence of an emotional breakdown. On the contrary, he did not find such things tedious or weak, and above all, he had always had time for Kaveh. Vicious Akademiya conflict coupled with a break-up, unpayable debt, seemingly incessant arguing… none of it would ever change that fact.
Alhaitham no longer had any thought for the late hour as Kaveh emptied himself in his lap, though it was to their benefit that it was the weekend tomorrow, and so Kaveh could cry for the next two days uninterrupted if he needed to.
But as the torrents of tears quieted, Alhaitham was equally emboldened. What began as merely ensuring Kaveh didn’t hurt himself by accident had evolved into a potent remembrance of once shared intimacy, and the recollection of the landscapes of a body Alhaitham knew better than any map. And it was with Alhaitham’s hand habitually stroking the bare skin of his back through the open folds of his silk shirt that Kaveh finally found peace, and the well of his tears dried.
The moonlight was now spilling over them, they had been sitting so long that the celestial cycle had progressed markedly. Still, even in the silence, neither man made a move to separate from the other. Although perhaps that was because they were so weighed down by their own private musings; Kaveh was certainly grappling with the reality that the one person in the world who was strong enough to hold him together was also the person seemingly most hellbent on ripping him apart.
“I’m sorry Kaveh,” Alhaitham finally disrupted the quiet, a long, long time after he’d been sure his roommate’s crying had ended.
An exceedingly rare apology, words Kaveh had heard from Alhaitham maybe once or twice before. Consequently, he reacted with one of his rarest responses: silence. No verbal repartees, no clever, cutting comebacks, no vitriolic indictments.
Kaveh merely lifted his face from Alhaitham’s chest, red-cheeked and swollen-eyed, looking at his roommate and warily waiting for more.
“I was truly trying to help you. That’s my primary intention when we talk like this. But I’m sorry, because I hurt you instead.”
Sniffling and congested, a tiny bit of the fire returned in Kaveh’s voice. “You always say that it’s meaningless to discuss other people, or that it’s pointless to care what they think of you. But surely not even you are so obtuse that you truly thought it would be helpful to tell me you think I’m a failure.”
“I never said you were a failure,” Alhaitham corrected him with gentle firmness. He still hadn’t let go of his roommate, and his large hands were currently resting on Kaveh’s slim waist. “I was very deliberate with my word choice, I said your life had reached a point of failure.”
Kaveh winced at the words, but remarkably, let Alhaitham continue to explain himself.
“It’s obvious you are not a failure. I thought you were more secure in that knowledge, I didn’t realize what I was saying would feel so threatening.”
Seeing Kaveh squirm and open his mouth to speak, Alhaitham gently squeezed, drawing Kaveh tighter to him and earning a few more moments to elaborate.
“I am sorry. Hear that, Kaveh. I’m sorry. Whether your reaction was right or wrong, on a logical level, is now irrelevant… I never want to see you cry like that, much less be the reason. I don’t know where I went astray, but I was speaking without weight or insidious meanings, posing questions to you and wanting to hear your answers. And, sometimes, I see you doubt yourself, when you should not. What you said about yourself is true, as true as what you said about me. Sometimes I ask you what your value is because I know the answer, but I think you don't.”
The crease forming between Kaveh’s eyebrows deepened, along with his pensive frown.
“You’re seriously just testing me? These questions you ask are what… intellectual exercises for you?”
“Yes,” Alhaitham confirmed simply. Kaveh’s face became a visage of plain disgust.
“I can’t believe you,” he said, though without venom. “I’m not some kind of debate school exercise, Haitham. I’m a human being. And ridicule me all you like for it, but your opinion of me matters to me. Too much… The most. These terrible questions you ask me, trying to find the chinks in my armour that you of all people already know are there, they hurt me.”
Breathing deeply, Kaveh broke eye contact and chewed his lip for a moment, considering.
“But it does help,” he continued at length. “Just a tiny bit. To know that these questions you ask me are rhetorical, and not coming from how you actually see me.”
To anyone else, Alhaitham’s expression would have looked like an unchanging, impassive mask. But this close and calmed down, Kaveh could clearly see the tension that softened around his eyes.
“That doesn’t mean you’re off the hook though,” Kaveh qualified rather pompously, though this somehow only served to make Alhaitham’s lips quirk upward, forcing Kaveh to get serious.
Although he would be hard-pressed to confess it out loud, being held like that by Alhaitham, really for the first time since they’d broken up several years ago, it felt so good, and he knew he’d miss it dearly. Kaveh dismantled the embrace nonetheless, reconfiguring himself so the two men sat face-to-face, albeit still on the kitchen floor.
“You can’t talk to people like that,” Kaveh told him, graven. “I don’t want you to talk to me like that. Whatever your notions are on the subject, the fact is I know I am ruled by my emotions, I know I’m sensitive, and I’m not ashamed of it. And that means I have no interest in being talked to like I’m some kind of computing terminal who can respond to these incendiary things you ask, with some pure, removed logic. This isn’t a debate team meet-up, this is our relationship.”
And before he could think better of it and stop himself, Kaveh added, “what’s left of it, anyway.”
Alhaitham’s eyes darkened a little at that remark, and Kaveh wondered if he’d hurt him, before internally laughing at himself. Alhaitham was the one who’d made the final cut, severing the heartstrings that had bound them so intimately together. Still, Kaveh found himself unable to meet the other’s gaze.
“...You don’t know me very well at all anymore, do you?” Alhaitham asked, catching Kaveh profoundly off-guard. Under any other circumstances this question would have had an explosive effect, spiralling into another fight, maybe a catastrophic one. But the sincerity of Alhaitham’s apology was still nestled warmly in Kaveh’s heart, making him more willing to digest the words and their facets–the meaning, the tone, Alhaitham’s expression and likely intention–instead of just viscerally reacting. As such, he was able to understand that the younger man was asking rather literally, without any hints of accusation.
Surprising himself, Kaveh conceded, voice gentle. “No, you may be right. I’m not sure I do.”
“You used to,” Alhaitham responded, equally gentle. “We have both changed, our relationship has changed. But you used to know my language. That I…”
Alhaitham, at a loss for words? Pondering over what to say next? Truly a remarkable night.
Finally, he’d taste-tested what he wanted to say and found something palatable. “You used to know when I was joking, or when I was trying to help you. You didn’t used to read such hidden malice into everything I said, we didn't argue like we do now, although I must specify that our discourses do not bother me like they seem to bother you.”
“You make it seem like it’s my responsibility to bend and compensate and shove my own reactions aside, just so you don’t get misunderstood,” Kaveh pointed out.
“It isn’t,” Alhaitham clarified, matter of factly. “But this is the way I am. I don't beautify my words, and I don’t always understand why others find the way I speak so inflammatory or unpleasant, but I also don’t really care.”
Kaveh was about to interrupt, but was stilled by a rather unexpected, warm hand placed on his leg, with what could only be called tenderness.
“I care, with you.” Again, matter of fact, so much so that it helped Kaveh process what would have otherwise been a dizzying confession from his roommate. “I care if it's harming you. For your own sake, I want you to remember what you knew about me, so that you also remember it is not my purpose to hurt you. Rarely has that ever been my intention.
"What’s more, is… I’m not sure I know how to talk to you anymore, either. You frequently seem to hear cruelty or derision in my words that I haven’t put there. So much so that even when I am deliberately trying to be kind to you or express my affection, you react to it as if I’ve insulted you.”
Kaveh’s heart was pounding, he felt like the rug had been pulled out from under him, though not in an entirely unpleasant way. His affection…?
It was so hard to know what to do now, how to react, when he had never expected to talk like this with Alhaitham again.
Kaveh began speaking without a plan, blundering through his words so they could drown out a tiny voice within him that was growing in insistence. His heart fluttered like a bird in a too-small cage as that tiny voice began screaming out the cherished hope he was so sure he'd buried long ago… that one day he and Alhaitham could repair what had been broken, despite all appearances that the damage was irrevocable. But that little word–affection–felt like the right key finally finding the right lock after inordinate incongruous attempts; Kaveh felt that cage around his anguished heart opening and for once, he was not panicking to keep the door clamped tightly shut.
“There are two problems with that... The first is... I don’t want you to do this to me. As much as I’ve forgotten what I knew about you, I think your view of me has grown equally distorted, by my circumstances, by you being my landlord, all of that nonsense. Even if I were to remind myself every time you speak that that’s Just How You Are, and you’re not attacking me, I still don’t want your incessant ‘advice.’
"You’re not helping me, you’re humiliating me. Talking to me like I don’t know mora is a practicality of life. You’re not my parent. If anything, it makes it worse that I’m your senior and you have so little respect for that. Anyone would chafe under unceasing admonishing instruction, Haitham.”
Alhaitham listened, rapt, his hand still on Kaveh’s leg. Kaveh hurtled on, trusting Alhaitham, because if he thought about it all too hard for a moment too long, he wouldn’t be able to keep confessing like this, he’d shut down to protect himself and that would likely be their last chance, done.
“And the second problem is… you asking me that…” Kaveh’s voice thickened with emotion and sincerity. “To remember what I once knew about you, it’s painful. You broke my heart, Haitham. I loved you, and it’s so hard for me to go back to that… to that headspace. Of seeing you through that lens of love, especially when you’ve been so abundantly clear it was basically unrequited.”
What a huge thing to finally say aloud. So huge it was terrifying.
Unexpectedly, tears welled afresh in Kaveh’s eyes, his heart finally understanding all its wounds before his brain did. It ached sharply when Kaveh noted the look of panicked concern on the scribe’s face.
“I’m fine,” he said in a small voice, asking for Alhaitham to give him a moment, and using his sleeve to wipe his tears.
It made him want to cry harder when he realized how long Alhaitham had let him speak without interruption, but with singular, unbroken, devout attention. Bravely, he staved off the worst of the crying, settling his breath, with no way of knowing how deeply his shining carnelian gaze moved his companion.
“Part of me has grown to hate you,” Kaveh said, sniffing hard, his chin puckered with the effort of suppressing tears. “I’m sorry to say that out loud. I'm not trying to hurt you back. But you’ve nearly broken me, this constant hammering on me that you’ve been doing. I can see how you thought you were helping, with this ‘advice’ and these ‘lessons’ and trying to guide me into seeing the world the way you do, presumably because you think it will benefit me.”
Chuckling, Kaveh interrupted himself. “You know how arrogant that is, right? To try and reform me to see things how you see them? To decide that it would be for my own good?”
Alhaitham said nothing, but his grip on Kaveh was even tighter, and his brows were knitted together. For the immovable Alhaitham, this was the most upset Kaveh had seen him in a long, long time.
“In blacksmithing, you have to warm the metal before you shape it. Maybe you folk from the Haravatat wouldn’t know that, but heating the metal makes it stronger, and more malleable. You’ve been hammering away at me, with no warmth. Do that for too long, and the thing you’re trying to shape is far more likely to simply shatter."
And then, nearly as an afterthought he added, "but I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to change each other, no matter what we do.”
The implications were seismic, shifting the tectonic plates underpinning what Alhaitham had been so sure he understood intrinsically just moments before.
He really had genuinely been trying to help Kaveh, to harden him at least a little, only to spare him from pain, only so this world that wanted to chew him up and spit him out wouldn’t be able to do so quite so easily. Things like getting scammed buying keychains with what little mora he had, for the benefit of non-existent Sumeruan orphans. Building The Palace over a withering zone, because he was such an idealist he hadn’t even been able to fathom that such fatal danger could be lurking. Thinking that his financial freedom and independence were worth sacrificing in order to rebuild The Palace, when he didn't own even a single brick of it.
What if something happened to Alhaitham? Who would take in a homeless architect, would could hardly afford his own food, let alone make regular rent payments? Not to mention that it was genuinely grating, for Kaveh to feel so breezily entitled to what Alhaitham had earned for the purpose of securing his own comfort, not thanklessly bankrolling Kaveh’s whims and fancies.
But more importantly, and much harder to parse, Alhaitham could only conclude that Kaveh did indeed want ‘warmth’ from him. Much of how Alhaitham treated Kaveh was due to the fact that the architect was nigh incapable of accepting kindness when directly confronted with it; Alhaitham had adapted and let his deeds speak of his care for Kaveh for themselves. It was only now that the scribe was realizing that Kaveh’s ‘reality’ had distorted these too, Kaveh had blinded himself to the ubiquitous evidence of Alhaitham’s ‘warmth’ and yet, he somehow still yearned for it.
It was all even more confusing, given that the older man had just admitted that he hated Alhaitham, at least part of him. Even now as he thought of it, a sharp pang pierced him. Hearing Kaveh say that had hurt, deeply.
“We’re each other’s mirrors,” Alhaitham said inadequately, hardly able to express himself, to cut to the true, raw quick of it. But the remark was still evocative of something he thought of often, and was the most concrete reason he liked having Kaveh close to him, inextricably involved in his life.
Kaveh seemed unruffled by the non-sequitur, but remained unaware of everything it had truly meant. Inadvertently though, he voiced what Alhaitham could not.
“We can be,” Kaveh agreed. “But I didn’t care about you so deeply because of that. I wanted my best friend. My lover. My family. Not just a mirror. You’re a brutal mirror, Haitham. You reflected every grotesque flaw back at me, showed me every weakness and shortcoming without relent. Sometimes we need that, like I am being your own brutal mirror right now. But that shouldn’t be the only thing we give each other. I didn’t think of you as a useful mirror. I thought of you as my soulmate.”
A keen, ruthless emotion flayed Alhaitham’s heart. He groped for a label for it. The closest he could think of was how he’d felt when his grandmother had died. Pure, raw grief.
“...Are you alright?”
The question snapped Alhaitham out of it a little, but he still felt like someone had removed the axis of his world.
He looked back up at Kaveh, whose face was so beautiful; the most beautiful when it was filled with such empathetic kindness, like it was now.
He didn’t know how to answer.
“Oh, Haitham,” Kaveh sighed almost maternally, before crawling forward and drawing Alhaitham into a hug. “If only we’d had this conversation years ago… what could have been avoided? I’m sorry I had to tell you such ugly truths, but at least now, I think we can have a chance to start fresh.”
Returning to rest on his heels, Kaveh looked at his shell-shocked landlord. “I’ll try to be a more considerate roommate from now on, but I don’t know what to do about the mora.” Then, adding with a bit of a snide look, “although you might feel better about it if you looked around once in a while and saw everything I do to take care of this place."
Seeing that the attempt at a bit of levity hadn’t landed, Kaveh returned to sincerity.
"But I really do appreciate everything you do for me, and I’ll try to do a better job of showing it, too. It was hard, with the constant lectures. It made me bitter, which is really childish. It doesn’t change the fact that you… wow, this is really hard to finally say… but… you’ve saved my life in many ways. And maybe it was even hard for you too, given everything that happened. You took me in and you’ve kept me fed and clothed, despite everything, and I know how rare it is for you to act so altruistically. So, thank you.”
Kaveh, feeling unburdened after such a marathon weeping, and from actual open, honest communication with Alhaitham, rose and stretched, holding his hand out to help his companion up, too.
“Less arguing from now on, yeah? From both of us?”
Alhaitham said nothing, though he was staring up at Kaveh, past his outstretched hand, as if he didn’t even see it. The intensity in his eyes was discomfiting.
“Aren’t you tired?” Kaveh wiggled his proffered hand, trying to entice his roommate into taking it. “C’mon, let’s get to bed. I’m done with my mock-up, so I promise I won’t make any more noise.”
At last, Alhaitham reached for Kaveh’s hand, but in the next instant, Kaveh found himself forcefully pulled down, with nowhere to go but Alhaitham’s lap once more. They were so close, Kaveh could feel the younger man’s breath, fanning down across his face.
“I still think of you as all of those things,” Alhaitham said, a peculiar authority resonating in his low voice.
Even though he wasn’t sure what he meant, or, perhaps more accurately he resisted the meaning subconsciously, the words turned Kaveh’s cheeks hot and pink, helped none whatsoever by his proximity to the man for whom he could too easily recall what it felt to harbour consuming desire.
“What things,” Kaveh asked in wary confusion, voice hardly above a whisper. There was no way… there was no way Alhaitham still thought of him as a friend, as family, as a… especially since Alhaitham borderline hated him? Kaveh was nearly sure of it. Certainly… it was impossible he’d ever thought of Kaveh as his soulmate. That was an unkind fact that the architect had long learned to cope with.
“There’s no one like you,” Alhaitham answered, although the evasion wasn’t intentional. The statement made Kaveh’s heart leap painfully nonetheless. “No one compares. That’s what I mean when I call you my mirror. If I have hurt you so gravely that you will only be my roommate, then I accept responsibility. But tell me now, so I can know.”
Kaveh wasn’t ready for this, and it scared him. His brewing panic was beginning to make him defensive, evident in the acid that seeped into his voice. “Tell you what? What else could you possibly want from me tonight?”
“Tell me if you still love me, or if you could, once more.”
Kaveh’s poise shattered, and the generosity with which he’d approached Alhaitham over the past hour evaporated quicker than a drop of rain in the sandstorms of Hadramaveth. He struggled against Alhaitham’s arms.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He spat, feeling very much like a caged animal once again. “How can you ask me that, when you’re the one who ended it like you did, going and taking your name off our thesis right after. You are the one who never really loved me back!”
The struggle continued, Alhaitham not necessarily restraining Kaveh, but neither would he allow the smaller man to break free fully to run to his bedroom and escape like he wanted.
“How foolish,” Alhaitham declared, and Kaveh thought he would blow apart with the sheer force of the fury that exploded within him. That fucking smugness, after everything–
“Use your brain, Kaveh. Why would I let you stay here, essentially for free, when it’s so disruptive to me? Why would I let you bash and bang away in the middle of the night? Why would I spend endless hours with you, trying to help you, even though I understand now that my methodology was incorrect and upset you? And, I want to know when I ever said that. That I didn’t love you back.”
Tears were pricking Kaveh’s eyes again, and his wrists were beginning to ache from where Alhaitham was holding him. He looked like a little wild cat, gnashing his teeth and seething like that.
“You didn’t need to!” Kaveh shrieked back, at his wit’s end. If he’d felt like the rug had been pulled out from under him before, now he felt like someone had just taken his entire world and shaken it, like it was a snowglobe they were about to smash. “How could you love me, when all you see is a pathetic, naive freeloader, some charity case to tutor, some fool you need to wizen because he can’t use his brain ! I swear to the Archons if you–”
“Kaveh.”
Alhaitham released him suddenly, but Kaveh found he was equally powerless to run. The sheer dominating force of Alhaitham’s will kept him pinned there, like a trophy butterfly on a board.
“Kaveh.” Softer this time, though with no less authority. Hearing his name like this was like a spell, an incantation keeping him there until he well and truly, completely, wholly understood.
Alhaitham bent forward, waiting for Kaveh to recoil or retreat across the kitchen floor to keep his distance. Without knowing why, Kaveh made no move.
“Kaveh, I…”
So quiet, a murmur in Kaveh’s ears that raised goosebumps in his skin. Tears had begun to fall from his eyes again, and his vision swam as he watched Alhaitham come nearer, until he closed the small distance, and kissed him.
It was over in a moment, but Kaveh thought his heart would split with the strain. What did any of it mean… it wasn’t possible…
Alhaitham kissed him again, firmer this time, and like a thunderclap of insanity had struck him, Kaveh found himself reciprocating ferociously, pressing back and forcing his way in Alhaitham’s mouth, where he found his warm, willing tongue. Something about that willingness brought sudden clarity, and Kaveh pulled back abruptly, breathless.
“Don’t you dare try to fuck me out of pity,” he snarled, terrified.
What if this was all a set-up, some kind of sick joke… or, failing that, some weird, one of a kind moment of recklessness that Alhaitham would regret later.
Or, Kaveh thought, and now he was crying again properly, much more likely, something that didn’t mean anything to the scribe the way it meant to him. And after he’d tried so hard and for so long to cut these feelings out of his heart…
“...Kaveh,” Alhaitham repeated, as if that’s all his vocabulary consisted of. But even Kaveh could hear it, more vibrantly and more plainly than if he’d said the words; Alhaitham’s voice was full of adoration.
It was as if a dam had crumbled, and the deluge of Kaveh’s true heart poured forth recklessly and desperately as he threw himself against Alhaitham, kissing him with an insatiable need borne deeply from a profoundly lonely, wounded soul. In an instant Kaveh decided to surrender, to Alhaitham, to the feelings that had never stopped, they’d only been suppressed and denied, as a matter of emotional survival.
But in the next instant as Alhaitham suddenly pulled away, Kaveh’s fear resurfaced, and he scowled fiercely as he prepared for his roommate to reveal the elaborate trap. He felt crazed, flying between these extremes so quickly.
“I don’t pity you, Kaveh,” he explained straightforwardly. “I have never pitied you. Don’t degrade yourself with such delusions, projected onto me. You’re not a burden to me, and I don't want you to leave.”
It was all too much, too much to realize how deeply he still loved Haitham, how he’d never stopped, and now that he'd admitted it to himself, Kaveh didn't think it would ever end, he'd love Haitham until the day he died.
A bleak future, suddenly bright if he was understanding, now. How all this time, the scribe had thought he’d been showing him that he loved him back.
Maybe Kaveh was a fool, after all.
“Such a pout,” Alhaitham smiled, really smiled, before kissing Kaveh’s pursed lips tenderly. “You taste like salt.”
Kaveh wasn’t even sure if Alhaitham was poking fun at him, but he didn’t have time for a rebuttal. Clutching his ‘roommate’ close to him again, Alhaitham’s mouth descended, nuzzling just under his ear, his nose displacing Kaveh’s earring. The architect gasped as he felt Alhaitham’s lips press against his flesh, directly above his pounding pulse.
It might have been a simple, amorous gesture from anyone else, but from Alhaitham it threw Kaveh’s emotions into fresh tumult. That place was Kaveh’s most sensitive; he loved being kissed or bitten or licked there. It was clear Alhaitham still remembered from the days they’d been lovers, and the sheer force of nostalgic familiarity made Kaveh feel like he was being turned inside out.
It was like a dream come true, and Kaveh raked his hands through Haitham's hair as he let the fire from his lips illuminate his blood like ichor. The way he was kissing his neck, the way his strong hands were holding him, Kaveh had missed this terribly every minute of every day for the years since they had last shared this.
“Haitham,” he begged, slowly tipping backwards while refusing to let the other go, until he lay gently against the kitchen floor, with Alhaitham on top of him. He prayed that his roommate was willing to do more than kissing, and that he was ready to do it right then and there, otherwise Kaveh might truly die of need. In a less than subtle signal, Kaveh lifted his hips and rubbed his rock-hard erection against Alhaitham, gratified to feel that the other was as aroused as he was.
Alhaitham’s breath was quickening, and his mouth ate up the small moans issuing from Kaveh, but he was curiously unrushed despite his ardour. Another half a minute of heavy kissing had greedy Kaveh at his limit however, and he found the waist of Alhaitham’s pyjama pants, trying to peel them down.
Only to be stopped.
“My knees hurt,” Alhaitham admitted, smiling ever so slightly as Kaveh groaned loudly. “And you’ll get cold, here on the tiles.”
Just about to reply with a witty flirtation about how Haitham could easily keep him warm, Kaveh was interrupted as, in one smooth, controlled motion, he was picked up into Alhaitham’s arms, astonished to see that the younger man was leading them to his own bedroom–a sacrosanct place Kaveh hadn’t intruded in months. Carried so easily, Kaveh’s heart fluttered giddily, and he couldn’t help but smile upon the recollection that Alhaitham was fond of calling himself, somewhat ironically, a feeble scholar. It felt silly and impossible, yet somehow he’d forgotten how incredibly sexy Alhaitham was. He felt overwhelmed with it now, as if virginal. He didn’t even care about the piles of books and other miscellaneous crap cluttering the floor.
“What are you smiling about?” Alhaitham asked in that tone of voice that could be so easily construed as insufferable smugness if one didn’t know better. But given that Alhaitham didn’t waste his words and didn’t ask obvious questions, Kaveh knew that this was his attempt at sweet-talking.
“I’m happy.” Such a simple, yet eloquent answer. It earned a reciprocal smile, and tender kiss.
Kaveh was happy, so happy he was scared he was dreaming.
But as Alhaitham set him down gently in his bed, the overwhelming fragrance of him was too powerful and real for it to be a product of Kaveh’s imagination. The fresh, sunlit foliage smell of dendro energy, with a masculine, spicy smell underneath, like fresh mint mixed with neroli. Kaveh hadn’t realized how intensely he’d missed this domestic smell until he felt his throat tighten with sentimentality.
Again, fear reared its head. How long had Kaveh secretly hoped to get back together with Alhaitham? Since the moment they had broken up, truly. The people he’d dated right after had all been used, he felt bad about it now, but they’d meant nothing. They’d just been a way to try and make Alhaitham jealous and regretful, the way jealousy and regret had felt like they were eating Kaveh alive.
It was too good to be true, and Kaveh had to fight the urge to interrupt Alhaitham undressing him in order to ask what this would mean, if anything. A night of fun, then, back to being roommates? Kaveh wasn’t sure he could handle his heart being broken like that again… but he was equally unsure he could handle being back in the full grips of love when he’d lost it so easily once before, and he still bore the unhealing scar of it on his soul.
“What is it,” Alhaitham paused anyway, clearly reading something off within the mannerisms of the other. “You stopped making those little noises of yours. That always meant there was something distracting you.”
Kaveh blushed. It was embarrassing to be read so easily, but it also filled his heart to hear and see all these little proofs that Alhaitham paid close, dedicated attention to him… he’d always paid attention, from the beginning.
Oh, how to even start? Where to begin? What could Kaveh even ask…?
“...What will this change?” he finally voiced. Such a dumb, desperate question, but it seemed like the best way to put the ball back in Alhaitham’s court.
“What will what change,” Alhaitham sat back on his haunches, staring down at his roommate.
Initially intensely irritated Alhaitham was going to make him say it out loud, Kaveh stopped himself from being sassy or defensive, and considered sincerity instead, directly approaching what he cared about the most.
“Can I ask you a question, and you give me a straight answer? No matter how obvious you think it is?” He couldn’t help it, a little sass seeped through the cracks before he could stop it: “because if you tell me to use my brain one more time, I might slap you.”
Alhaitham chuckled, actually chuckled. Kaveh couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard his laughter, even if it consisted of little more than an exhalation through Alhaitham’s nose.
“I’ll answer straightforwardly, I promise.”
Screwing up his courage, Kaveh forced himself to meet Alhaitham’s potent gaze.
“This means you love me, right? You’re in love with me? I’m sorry, but I need to know, no riddles, no lectures, no bullshit. And no lies, just… tell me honestly. Do you love me?”
Kaveh watched, ready for Alhaitham to go cold, to retreat and call off the sex which had just been a fun diversion, or a twisted way of apologizing. Ready to have his heart cut out, at least cleanly, this time… to have the chance of happiness put firmly out of his reach once and for all, because he didn’t deserve it anyway.
But Alhaitham nodded.
“Yes. I never stopped.”
It didn’t matter that this confession was delivered with the same tone as announcing they were out of milk; quite beyond his control, Kaveh’s pretty face crumpled, and for the fourth time (or was it the fifth? sixth? who knew) that night, he began to cry.
But this time, it was from sheer relief, relief so pure Kaveh was surprised it could drown out even his excitement or anxiety.
Whatever them having sex tonight did or didn’t change, that was enough for Kaveh. It had and would always be enough, the only thing he’d ever wanted this badly from someone else. A hundred thousand people could declare their love and admiration for the architect; an entire nation could (and did) call him the Light of the Kshahrewar, but it had always been the opinion of one man that had mattered above all else to Kaveh. At some point it had begun to matter even more than the opinion of his own mother.
The scribe appeared unshaken by this newest outburst, and with tenderness, continued his reverent task of undressing the older man, knowing that it was the quickest way to soothe the other. It was a wordless language that could not be misunderstood, Kaveh couldn’t blind himself to it or figure out some pedantic rebuttal to disarm Alhaitham’s true intentions.
Those cumbersome earrings were taken out before they caught on anything, the feather in his hair removed before it could get damaged. Kaveh obediently raised his arms to let Alhaitham pull his shirt over his head, before replacing his hands on his face, covering his embarrassing tears and muffling his sniffles. They muffled his sudden, breathless cry too, as Alhaitham surprised him with his tongue and his teeth on one of his nipples.
The time for crying, from sadness or relief, was over; Alhaitham would see to it that the sobs were replaced with moans. As he kissed his way up Kaveh’s chest, up the column of his throat, he was already rewarded with a few guttural noises of pleasure, the little ones he’d referenced earlier, one of his favourite things about Kaveh as a lover.
There was pleasing symmetry in that; in being willing to put up with how noisy Kaveh was almost all the time, and being so deeply gratified and turned on by how noisy Kaveh was in private, for his ears only.
Too quickly, those sounds eroded his control, and Alhaitham unceremoniously stripped, Kaveh impatiently removing his own pants too, before the former exerted his strength and flipped the latter over on his stomach. In the same moment Alhaitham descended to enclose Kaveh underneath his body, the older man raised his hips back, and the result was an audible grunt from Alhaitham as his aching cock made contact with soft flesh. He slotted himself between the cleft of Kaveh’s ass, rubbing and frotting, pulling Kaveh up into him by the chin, tipping his head so that his teeth could find his earlobe.
This was another thing it felt odd to have forgotten; how perfectly they fit together. Kaveh slotted underneath Alhaitham perfectly flush, like companion pieces of a matching set.
Despite their painfully hard motivation to rush things, this moment had been too hard-won, they’d waited far too long to sprint through it. And so Alhaitham forced himself to abandon the friction that felt so good, rising and sitting back on the bed, taking Kaveh with him and keeping him between his legs. He could feel Kaveh’s aroused, irregular breath in the press of his ribcage against his own torso, they were so, so close.
With his chin on Kaveh’s shoulder, Alhaitham surveyed the treasure he held, watched his own hands languidly exploring, fingertips tracking across various parts of Kaveh, looking for those special places, the way one scanned a favourite book with their finger running down the pages.
Many things still came second nature, things that he would never forget about having been Kaveh’s lover as long as he lived… things such as how he knew Kaveh liked his thighs and lower abdomen stroked before contact was made with his cock. Alhaitham had to smile at that too; long ago they’d spent many a night together with Kaveh teaching his new boyfriend how to ‘make love’ to him properly and not just ‘rush brutishly towards orgasm.’ But judging by the way Kaveh was writhing against him and the thick beads of precum leaking from his tip, perhaps Kaveh was very much in the mood to brutishly and brashly pursue his immediate release.
Normally Alhaitham would have exploited this need, he’d always been much more patient and able to contain his impulses, especially if it resulted in Kaveh becoming exponentially more hot and bothered. There was the obvious allure… putting it simply, Alhaitham was turned on by Kaveh needing him, begging him for it, supplicating. But behind that, there was something peculiarly healing about it… even though Alhaitham was the one creating the need, it made him feel happy and at peace to be able to give Kaveh something that he wanted so badly, to care for and love Kaveh in a way that couldn’t be argued out of or distorted by perceptions. Physical affection and complete sexual satisfaction had always been the most accessible way for Haitham to bypass Kaveh’s myriad walls, his guilt, his fears.
“Ah!” Kaveh’s wanton voice rang sweetly in Alhaitham’s ears as the scribe’s dexterous fingers finally closed around his lover’s weeping erection. It was slippery enough with Kaveh’s arousal that Alhaitham could stroke and pump easily, savouring the way Kaveh shuddered and jostled against him, reaching up and behind to grip fistfuls of Alhaitham’s grey hair. Kaveh’s skin was growing slick with perspiration, giving it a pungent taste as the younger man kissed, licked, and bit anywhere he could stoop low enough to get his mouth.
If Alhaitham fancied that he held the upper hand, a sudden upwards grinding motion Kaveh did with his ass had the scribe making his own noises and feeling the urgency of need. He savoured the moment for as long as he could stand to wait, nosing through fragrant, silky blonde hair, filling his senses with Kaveh, before finally delivering an adoring kiss on the architect’s temple, damp with sweat.
“Ready?” he asked
Kaveh nodded, relaxing a little and letting Alhaitham guide him back down to lay on the sheets, while he shuffled around in a bedside table drawer, locating a bottle of lubricant. They may have been entering a new era of honesty and candour, but one night of frank talks and renewing trust wouldn’t break old habits, and Kaveh’s eyes narrowed with suspicious jealousy once he saw what was in Alhaitham’s hands.
“It’s from you,” Alhaitham clarified, smart enough to know exactly where Kaveh’s mind had gone from the look on his face alone. “Not that it would have been your concern anyway.”
Immediately, the tension of a potential fight thickened, scaring both of them. If they were capable of ruining such a special moment with their bickering, maybe there was no hope for them after all.
Surprisingly, it was Alhaitham who ceded first, making a genuine, but ultimately very Alhaitham attempt to reassure Kaveh.
“Remember what I told you,” he advised. Even naked in his bedroom about to have sex, he'd lecture someone, with that neutral, factual flatness permeating his voice. “I told you, there’s no one like you. I haven’t been with anyone else.”
Kaveh was stunned. As with a man as smart and unusual as Alhaitham, there was frequently a substantial portion of reasoning or explanation that he left unsaid, assuming or expecting his conversation partner to be intelligent enough to fill in the gaps for themselves. And Kaveh could understand what remained unsaid clearly. Their problems had stemmed, in part, from Kaveh caring far too much what Alhaitham thought of him, and effusive approval and admiration was a scary thing to need from a man who was, to be frank about it, a pretty cold fish, and a moot point when Kaveh was barely equipped to accept it anyway. Alhaitham wasn’t effusive about anything, not even himself, and the mix had proven toxic for a too-sensitive man like Kaveh who had needed excessive, explicit, and incessant validation and reassurance, and would fight you all the way on top of it.
But this was Alhaitham’s way of fixing that. It still wasn’t flowery, gushing declarations of undying love; Alhaitham would never be that type of person. Kaveh could and should come to terms with that. But he was going out of his way to reassure Kaveh now, and to, in his own roundabout way, express to Kaveh how deeply he loved him, had always loved him.
“I’m sorry,” Kaveh relaxed totally, unknitting his brow. He’d left just as much unsaid; that he knew he had been a jealous, psycho shit when they’d dated, (somewhat funny in retrospect considering Alhaitham had no friends, much less hordes of casual sexual partners… but Kaveh’s fear of abandonment could not be bridled by mere logic). And, that he had a habit of discarding what Alhaitham had given him, in favour of asking for more, more, more.
In an instant, the simple apology cleared all of that away… in a few sentences they had recommitted to their unspoken promise to try to truly see each other. To not get tripped up in their own projections, the false reflections of dull, deceitful mirrors that were merely distracting distortions.
Kaveh watched as Alhaitham opened the bottle, sniffing and assessing its contents. He found these character breaks of his, like when he’d complained about his knees hurting, ironically sexy. Because it wasn’t a character, Alhaitham was just unapologetically himself, regardless of the context.
“It smells fine, I don’t think it’s expired. Are you okay using it?”
Beginning to giggle at how charming this profoundly un-flirtatious dialogue was, Kaveh nodded and reached for his roommate, pulling him in for deep, messy kisses. He could hear the bottle open and close, and a full body shiver that started in his guts ran through him. Alhaitham would be inside of him soon. Kaveh had a serious moment of wondering if he’d die from lovesickness; he’d nursed it so long that the prospect of it being rewarded was a little too mind-blowing. In fact, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever get used to it–being loved by Alhaitham, being his lover. Being acknowledged as his perfect mirror, his only soulmate.
Fear slithered in the corner of Kaveh’s mind, maybe it was too good to be true–but Haitham’s plans left no room for fear’s venom to spread.
Kaveh gasped and dug his nails into Alhaitham’s back as a long, slippery finger pressed against his hole. Alhaitham spoke his instruction against Kaveh’s open lips, his words tumbling into Kaveh’s mouth and throat.
“Breathe deep, and let me in.”
Kaveh obeyed, and as he inhaled, Alhaitham pressed and slipped his middle finger inside, all the way up to the third knuckle. It moved a little in and out before being quickly joined by Alhaitham’s index, the fingers scissoring apart and forcing the tight ring of muscle to relax and release.
The feeling of Alhaitham moving inside him, even just his fingers, felt so fucking good that Kaveh worried he’d cum from it alone. A long, shameful moan tore from his lips.
“One more,” Alhaitham said, unquestionable, triumphant smugness colouring his voice this time. A third finger was added, increasing the spread, and Kaveh felt too good to be able to make his customary jabs about how annoying Haitham could be.
Alhaitham’s technique had not suffered, but he was not gentle… the rough, thrusting, insistent probing was just how Kaveh liked it. The larger man adjusted slightly to lay beside Kaveh, pushing his left arm underneath and letting the architect rest his head in the crook of his elbow as he continued working with his right hand, the muscles and tendons in his forearm rippling. But Kaveh was greedy, and he turned into Alhaitham’s body, slinging his leg over his hips, hiking it up to create an even wider spread and give Alhaitham’s fingers deeper access.
“How do you want to cum,” the scribe asked, something else Kaveh was used to from their past. Even with sex, Alhaitham had his idiosyncrasies and methodologies, and he liked planning ahead to ensure all his goals were achieved.
“You pick,” Kaveh whined and panted. “I can’t think straight right now.”
The responding silence made Kaveh open his eyes slightly, only to see that Alhaitham had a wicked expression in his.
“Why you little–ah!”
Alhaitham’s sense of humour was deranged, teasing Kaveh like this with his fingertips pressed against his very roots. Kaveh had little option but to surrender; defeat was not all together bitter when it was clear how much the scribe was enjoying himself. If Kaveh was capitulating, his consolation prize was being the reason for this private smile of Alhaitham’s, perhaps something only he had ever seen.
With an announcement that Kaveh was plenty stretched, Alhaitham abandoned his tantalizing, locating the oil again in order to liberally coat his arousal; no less hard for the lack of tactile stimulation, when he’d been feasting on the visual and auditory ecstasy of his roommate.
As a matter of course, Alhaitham climbed on top of Kaveh, who automatically hitched his legs around his lover’s hips. He waited for the delicious pain of penetration, but Alhaitham made no move to sink down. He seemed to be hesitating, trying to find something to say.
Instead of poking fun at this rare speechlessness of his usually overly composed friend, Kaveh just smiled fondly, stroking Alhaitham’s face, tracing his lips, marvelling at how beautiful he looked, how clear the love he bore was in his gaze.
“Kiss me,” Kaveh said at last, for they both knew there were no words that would do this cataclysmic moment justice.
Now it was Alhaitham’s turn to be obedient, and reverently he kissed Kaveh’s swollen lips, as he pressed inside in one firm stroke, and gave Kaveh all he wanted.
Kaveh had forgotten how it burned, even though he’d been amply opened and relaxed, there was always strain when it came to accepting all of Haitham inside him. He arched against his lover, their sweat-slicked skin slipping, Kaveh’s grip leaving red imprints on Haitham’s back. Their shared heat felt strangling, dizzying; but neither did it occur to them to cease their breathless kisses to cure their wooziness. In no time at all, Alhaitham’s strokes became cleaving, striking at all the parts of Kaveh’s insides that left his heartbeat stuttering.
It was almost impressive… how he’d fooled himself, bought his own lies for all these years… when it was so clear how completely and diligently Haitham loved him.
“Did you miss this?” Alhaitham’s hot, panting breath spilled across Kaveh’s face, but he hadn’t dropped his consistent, driving rhythm to ask.
Well… when Alhaitham so easily sounded like such an insufferable, self-satisfied dick, perhaps Kaveh could be forgiven for believing the other didn’t need or care for anyone else.
But, annoyingly, Alhaitham had been right about that, too. There had been a time, at the height of their closeness, when Kaveh had intimately and organically understood that the way the scribe talked–his tone of voice, the choice of words, the bluntness–that these were just part of who he was, how his mind worked. It wasn’t sinister. If anything, Alhaitham was often more caring and humorous than how he came across. Alhaitham was just different, he had his own language.
Perhaps Kaveh had understood back then because he used to be so much more receptive; his wounds had not yet thickened into inflexible, entrapping scar tissue.
While it was hard to parse it with wisdom while Alhaitham was so deep inside him it felt like Kaveh’s guts were getting scrambled, the architect managed to remind himself to interpret Haitham’s remarks more neutrally. Instead of gloating about how much Kaveh must have missed getting fucked by him, Haitham was probably, once again, just asking literally. Because he was curious and cared.
“Yes,” Kaveh confessed, with his entire heart. “I missed you so much. More than I could bear.”
Before he could get scared or worry he should regret being so vulnerable, Haitham shocked him with one of the sweetest things Kaveh had ever heard in his life.
“Me too.”
At that moment, Kaveh was positive of one thing: he was the happiest man alive… and he was getting fucked too well to be able to remind himself he didn’t deserve it.
Suddenly, Alhaitham hit a spot inside Kaveh that had the effect of striking a tuning fork, the older man’s entire body resonated with the pleasure, contracting so tightly around Haitham that even he was getting vocal now.
“Harder,” Kaveh beseeched. “Harder, please!”
“Turn around then,” came the gravelly instruction, but Kaveh took a fraction of a second too long, and found himself getting rearranged, picked up again easily and configured at the edge of the bed, with Alhaitham standing behind him, though his legs were so weak already they were likely to give out again. His voice broke when he cried out as Haitham re-entered ferociously, slamming into him exactly as he’d asked for.
Haitham fucked him hard, gripping his hips so tightly Kaveh’s bones hurt, then pulling a fistful of his ponytail, or slapping his ass with the flat of his hand, leaving stinging palm marks. Kaveh’s moans had risen to inarticulate wails, anyone walking on the street outside would likely hear it but Kaveh couldn’t bring himself to give a shit, he could barely form a thought or remember how to speak, it felt that good.
This was the kind of ‘hammering’ Alhaitham was good at; physically shattering Kaveh, unmaking him and giving him so much pleasure that Kaveh was freed from his very humanity. It relied on trust and intimate understanding, because here, so unlike their verbal interactions, Haitham knew exactly how far he could go. He could bring both of them to their brink, without ever going too far and hurting Kaveh in a way that didn’t just inflame the pleasure.
But as good as this was, he also seemed to understand that Kaveh’s heart would burst and his brain would irrevocably melt into sludge if they didn’t both finish soon.
Gripping the sheets so hard it was surprising they didn’t shred, Kaveh sobbed into Haitham’s mattress as he felt the scribe’s hand find his erection. It took no more than three or four pumps before Kaveh’s vision whited out and he screamed a threadbare scream, spilling explosively into Haitham’s hand before collapsing, Alhaitham having to support his weight to keep Kaveh from ragdolling completely.
Having earned the complete satisfaction of the beautiful man he adored, Alhaitham savoured his victory by spending a few seconds watching how the force of his thrusts jolted Kaveh’s entire frame, before he gritted his teeth and felt his own surrender take him, filling Kaveh with heat, over and over.
Even once he was empty he did not withdraw, instead folding over Kaveh, and finding his hand to hold as he caught his breath and steadied himself. It wasn’t long before he could feel the wet smear of his own spend, dripping out of Kaveh and down his trembling thighs.
It took gargantuan effort, but finally, Alhaitham summoned the last of his strength and with a peck in sweat-damp blonde hair, departed for the hallway linen closet. With one towel he wiped the worst of the mess off himself, using another to gently clean a shaky Kaveh who looked like he was only just remembering how to breathe. A third towel went lackadaisically over the worst of the mess in the chaos of sheets and blankets, they could clean up in earnest in the morning. Before he got into bed he made one last trip to the kitchen, retrieving glasses of water and giving one to Kaveh, telling him to drink up and rest his throat.
Kaveh was physically exhausted, and he could already feel bruises forming in several places and his shoulder was tender with bite marks. But his blood simmered with giddy excitement as Haitham pulled him into a cuddle and tucked them both into his bed without a second thought.
This was probably the best day of Kaveh’s life. Even the brightness of the day he’d finished The Palace had been dimmed by the anxiety of how financially fucked he was. Kaveh silently thanked all the Archons past and present, all of the spirits and ghosts, even the elements themselves for this second chance. He was so happy because it was imbued with the sweetness of recovering something he’d been sure was ruined forever.
Snuggling tighter into Haitham, Kaveh reached up to stroke his hair, especially twirling that unruly piece that he teased looked like the leaves of a sprout. Alhaitham always joked back that perhaps that was all the knowledge he had, finally too big for his brain, growing out of his head.
“You can do that for five more minutes,” Haitham informed him. “After that I want to go to sleep.”
“Yes, of course, the little baby eagle needs his rest,” Kaveh grinned fondly.
“Baby eagle?” Haitham echoed, an ancient pet name the architect had once had for him, one he’d probably never admit to liking, but seemed to. “I’m the little baby eagle when you’re the one who spends all your time screeching?”
“That makes you the fool who always listens,” Kaveh jibed, his heart doing backflips to see Haitham’s mouth widen by barely a millimetre; another one of his smiles. “And you can’t pretend as if you aren’t in love with the sound of your own voice, Mr. ‘I Answer Simple Questions with Thinkpiece Diatribes and Then I Congratulate Myself on How Smart I Am.”
“Oh, so now I talk too much. I thought I was driving you crazy with my stoicism. Though perhaps I can't take your opinions on noise too seriously, when you’re the one the entirety of Sumeru City probably overheard screaming my name just now.”
Kaveh went beet red. “I did not, you’re bluffing…”
“Am I?” Haitham kissed Kaveh’s mortified pout and got even more comfortable under the covers. “You cried out ‘Haitham!’ right as you ca–”
Cut off by Kaveh’s hands clapped over his mouth, Alhaitham remained unbothered, reacting only by beginning to stroke his lover’s back. His teal eyes spoke eloquently above Kaveh’s fingers, mischievous mirth dancing in his gaze.
“And I suppose here is where you lecture me about how I shouldn’t care what others think, even though people overhearing that is objectively humiliating?” There was no bite in Kaveh’s bark, his mood was too good, he was too satisfied, he was too grateful for the tender way Haitham was holding him right now. It just felt so nice, bantering like this without incurring real offence.
Haitham gently pulled Kaveh’s hands away, placing them on his own chest, just under the green crystal. “If it really bothers you, you can just tell anyone who asks that it was merely a cry of frustration at me interrupting you, and that the loud, rhythmic banging was you working on another one of your models in the dead of night… a plausible cover story.”
They both laughed at that, and might have continued their playful bantering indefinitely, but Alhaitham changed the subject, asking with genuinely curiosity about what Kaveh had been working on, and the genius architect promising to show him in the morning, but pointing out that it was now six entire minutes after Alhaitham had said he’d be asleep in five, and he didn’t want to be the one to further ruin the baby eagle’s beauty sleep.
Alhaitham fell asleep comically quickly, like he didn't have a care in the world, which was probably true in the moment. He was still resting a hand on Kaveh’s waist. For his part, Kaveh was so worn out that even he couldn't ruminate over the new life suddenly breathed into their atrophied intimacy; he too found his eyelids growing very heavy, even though he wished he could watch Alhaitham's peacefully sleeping face a bit longer.
As he cuddled snugly against his roommate (or whatever they were, now) Kaveh fell asleep promising himself that he’d never forget this night. Not only the good parts, but the painful parts, and the part where Haitham had apologized and sincerely admitted he’d been wrong.
Now that he thought about it, Haitham’s term for them–each other’s mirrors–was perfect. As long as they remembered what they knew truly about the other and didn’t let their own insecurities or agendas deceive them, they would see each other, and themselves, authentically. And that was worth fighting for; a mirror like that was once in a lifetime, and Kaveh wanted to be a man brave enough to accept that gift of true reflection, and always do his best to be deserving of it.
After all, what was love, real love, if not the most honest mirror of them all?
Epilogue
“Something is different about Kaveh,” Tighnari remarked offhandedly, enjoying some idle chit chat with Cyno as they walked through the sunlit streets of the city. It was rare that they were there in the same place at the same time by chance, both at leisure, and they always made it a point to celebrate by making a date of it.
“I think he’s finally been unwound, if you know what I mean.” Cyno’s singular amber eye that was visible beneath his heavy bangs bore only the slightest twinkle at the suggestiveness, apparently missed by his companion.
“What, like, he lost it? A psychotic break?” There was genuine worry in the forest ranger’s voice, he was getting to know Kaveh well through their sporadic nights of card games and drinking, though he was almost always joined by that weirdo Alhaitham.
“No,” Cyno almost made a vulgar gesture of explanation in public, but such conduct wasn’t befitting of the General Mahamatra while in uniform, so he resorted to more peculiar euphemisms. “Kaveh was very tightly wound up, high-strung. He found someone to unwind him…”
“Huh?– Oh.” Tighnari was thoughtful for a moment. “Are you sure…? That guy is obsessed with Alhaitham, I can’t really see him getting ‘unwound’ by anyone else–”
A pointed look from Cyno.
“Ohhh. Oh. Well, good for them. Kaveh really does seem a lot happier. A little more surprising about Alhaitham, but maybe it’ll mellow him out too. Card game night should be even more entertaining, in any case.”
Cyno nodded, his blank face not really showing how much he was looking forward to the next time the four of them could get together. He had the feeling it was going to be an enjoyable shitshow.
“Are you really sure though,” Tighnari asked, sceptical afresh. “I don’t want to say something when I see them and have to put my foot in my mouth."
“I’m sure. Kaveh himself is freely talking about how Alhaitham is his boyfriend. I was worried too that he’d finally snapped, but I was there one day when Kaveh said it in front of him and Alhaitham didn’t deny it. The Akademiya couldn’t talk about anything else for a week, but you would have been out in the forests at that time, you missed the fun.”
Tighnari shrugged, and then reached for Cyno’s hand. “It’s kind of cute, I’m glad it worked out for them. Do you think this means they’ll argue more or less with each other now?”
“Not sure,” Cyno smirked, preparing for what he conceived to be a doozy of a joke. “But maybe now I won’t have to go after Alhaitham for his overdue library books.”
The Mahamatra looked over at his boyfriend, gleefully waiting for peals of laughter.
“He has overdue books?” Tighnari was just confused. “Keeping some books a bit longer isn’t exactly the height of academic corruption, especially for an ex-Acting Grand Sage.”
“It’s a joke.” The smirk widened imperceptibly. “It’s funny precisely because Alhaitham was Acting Grand Sage, and I wouldn’t go after anyone for overdue library books anyway. But now that he and Kaveh are together, remember how Kaveh complains a lot about how Alhaitham doesn’t keep his books properly organized…”
Cyno’s elaborate explanation continued for a long while yet, to the dubious bemusement of his boyfriend, who privately decided that it might actually be very funny indeed if he brought up the topic of unorganized books the next time the quartet got together. He’d judge for himself then, whether Kaveh was properly unwound.
🌿