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It’s a rainy Monday evening, and Kaveh’s had enough.
“Just—who does he think he is?” Kaveh exclaims.
He even throws up his arms to highlight his point; in the raucous bar they’re in, he’s just another face in the crowd looking to get absolutely wasted, so nobody throws him a second look. Only Tighnari is regarding him apprehensively, of course. This isn’t his usual setting, having only agreed to meet up with Kaveh because he was worried Kaveh would end up passing out on the countertop.
This isn’t Kaveh’s usual setting either, but he wanted a place where he could vent out his frustrations and suddenly a martini was looking like the most appetizing choice on the menu.
Three drinks in, however, Kaveh is starting to regret that particular spur-of-the moment decision.
“So you got into a fight with Alhaitham again,” Tighnari concludes.
Kaveh snorts, lifts his glass in agreement. Tighnari knows him so well. He also happens to appreciate and respect Kaveh—so unlike a certain someone Kaveh knows.
Honestly, he can’t even remember what they were fighting about before he stormed out. He thinks Alhaitham made another pointed dig about something Kaveh did, which just added to Kaveh’s stress levels about the commission he was currently working on, and then one thing led to another and Kaveh found himself here, ordering cocktails and calling up Tighnari…
“He was being a jerk, like always,” Kaveh says.
Tighnari sighs. “Tell me you didn’t rearrange his bookshelf in retaliation.”
“Oh, I most certainly did. Sorted out all of his shit by order of colour. Now he’ll never be able to find anything. And that’s not even the worst part.”
“…I’m listening.”
“I cleaned his desk and purposely forgot to toss his stupid blazers into the laundry. That’ll teach him!” Kavah smiles with savage vindication.
“Ah,” Tighnari says.
“What? You don’t think that was punishment enough?” Kaveh finishes off the last of his drink and sets the cup down with hearty relish. Bless Tighnari and his beautiful soul. “Well then, I agree. I shouldn’t have washed those stupid plates!”
The cup disappears in a swipe of fingers, and then Tighnari is discreetly sliding dollar bills over to the bartender. “And you’ve had enough. Kaveh, why don’t we go somewhere else? A place that’s preferably safe and warm and without all this noise.”
And that’s exactly what they do. They leave the bar, head over to Tighnari’s place that he shares with Nilou. Tighnari makes him a herbal tea he hates the taste of but appreciates regardless, and they stay up until midnight streaming movies.
Kaveh is still very much out of it, if not drunk—he’s unable to recall no less than four pivotal scenes from the Dreamer’s Time Loop—but at least he has all his senses. He’s awake. He’s alert.
It’s only when the people in the movie start dreaming again—they were unable to, before, having had the ability stolen from them by glowing earpieces—that Kaveh falls into dreamland, too, dreaming of teal-green eyes, silver hair, and a less-than-pleasant smile.
Speaking of teal-green eyes…
“Good morning.” Alhaitham’s voice is the first voice to greet him when he wakes—but why?
Kaveh’s eyes snap open. Finally, he’s awake. Sober and in possession of all his mental faculties, but also in despair over the suddenness with which he recovered. He scowls at Alhaitham.
“Why are you here?” he asks.
Alhaitham gives him a look. “Tighnari let me in.”
Tighnari no doubt informed Alhaitham what Kaveh ended up doing last night. Honestly, Kaveh meant to come home—he would’ve called a cab—but Tighnari had to go ahead with that big heart of his and let Kaveh stay over. Kaveh normally never gets drunk enough to crash, but sometimes life just happens. One moment both your hands are firmly on the wheel, and the next the darn thing’s slipped right under you, the wheel being the metaphor for Kaveh’s state of mind.
“Appreciate the appearance, but I can find my own way home, thanks,” Kaveh snaps, bending down from his position on the couch to look for his phone, wallet, and keys—but it seems that Alhaitham has already covered his bases.
“I’ll drive you there,” Alhaitham says.
“Aren’t you working today?”
It may be Saturday, but Alhaitham’s known to clock in hours at the office he works at regardless. Busy season hits, and suddenly you’re hunched over your desk 80 hours a week crunching numbers.
“Doesn’t mean I won’t drive you home,” says Alhaitham.
Kaveh snorts but keeps any and all sharp comments to himself. Let it be known that he can be appreciative of Alhaitham’s efforts, too. He’s not some total nag. “Keep this up, and I might start thinking you’re actually worried about me.”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
Yes, Kaveh thinks. But also, no.
Kaveh bids Tighnari goodbye, says that he’ll see him next week—Tighnari waves at him from where he’s preparing breakfast—and then he’s off with Alhaitham, back to the apartment they share.
It’s funny: as much as Alhaitham likes to parade his simple and minimalist lifestyle, he still owns a Mercedes-Benz. And a Dyson. And a Roomba, talk about overkill, because he’s a clean freak like that.
A press of a button, ten floors up, and then they’re home sweet home. Floor-to-ceiling windows, glossy wood floors, a view of the city skyline—moving in with Alhaitham gave him this so he can’t complain. Technically, Kaveh is only paying for a room because his Masters degree left him in huge debt and he doesn’t have the money Alhaitham rakes in bi-weekly—investment banking is no joke—but Alhaitham’s never held it against him, and so it’s theirs. Ish.
Kaveh likes to say he injected personality into Alhaitham’s living space. Because the furniture, the paintings, the fresh flowers on the coffee table, they’re all Kaveh’s doing. If Alhaitham were alone, he’d probably only have a table and a single chair for both meals and work.
Kaveh puts aside his shoes. He needs a shower, pronto. The grime from last night clings to his skin.
“I made you breakfast, by the way,” Alhaitham informs, already heading out the door.
“Did you add any of that weird sauce?”
“No.”
Kaveh gives in. Alhaitham must be truly sorry, then. “Well. Have a good day at work.”
The door snicks shut.
Working on new projects always takes its toll on Kaveh, but he’s determined to make this particular commission work. It’s tough stuff; Kaveh is no engineer but even he isn’t blind to the lack of structural integrity the removal of these pillars will cause. But he can’t find a workaround; the worst combination has to be when a client is both dumb and insistent, and Adil of Abdju Ltd. is exactly that but times two.
Ugh, he just has to make this work, because once he does, Kaveh will be off to reel in the big fish and he won’t have to settle for insipid projects that make his brain hurt, and he knows he’s close. To greatness, to glory. He’s on the very cusp of it; the feeling is there in his bones.
Bam!
And the feeling is gone.
“You’re up late,” Alhaitham remarks over Kaveh’s shoulder.
Kaveh looks up. Dark shadows, bright city lights—time sure went by quick. A switch flips on, and the flood of LED white is a temporary assault on his senses. He squints.
“I’ve been busy,” he says.
Several drafts stare up at Kaveh. He’s seized by a sudden urge to just toss them all away. Yes, he knows it’s unreasonable and silly, but he’s done it before.
“You’ll get there,” Alhaitham says, and oh?
What’s this? Is Alhaitham giving Kaveh some words of encouragement?
“Did you want something?”
“I bought you dinner. Figured you’d be starving by now.”
“A man after my heart. You know me so well,” Kaveh says dryly, but in jest.
“I’ll leave you to it then, Your Royal Highness.”
What Alhaitham doesn’t apologize for in words he expresses in actions, and while Kaveh appreciates verbal honesty he’s come to like this, too.
Is it weird to say Kaveh doesn’t know what they are?
They’re friends but also not. They should be enemies but since when did enemies live together under one roof and occasionally look out after each other? Enemies—no, that isn’t right either. Sure, they’ll bicker, they’ll argue, they’ll fight, but it never actually amount to anything serious.
Kaveh finds Alhaitham infuriating, true, but he can be a good guy when he wants, and the added bonus is that he’s a walking piece of eye candy. Kaveh has a functional pair of eyes: Alhaitham is one gorgeous dude, and the expression he gets when he’s pissed off has no right to be as attractive as it is when he clenches his jaw.
He’s got the full package, alright: a movie-star face, muscles, and legs for days. It’s just too bad he has such an awful way with words. When he should be charming the pants off people, he’s lighting them on fire instead. Kaveh won’t sugarcoat; that’s how serious it is.
“So that’s what you said? No. A cold, hard no,” Kaveh says, dumbfounded.
Alhaitham shrugs nonchalantly, like he didn’t just break some poor woman’s heart. “Yes? I told her no because I wasn’t interested. Why are you looking at me like that? It would’ve been crueler to mislead her than to be open and upfront about my feelings.”
It’s a good thing Kaveh set the bar in hell already, so the news wasn’t nearly as big of a shock it could’ve been. Alhaitham is partially right, but there’s a proper way with which delicate matters should be handled. He was clearly never taught this. “Have I ever told you that you’re a jerk with the emotional intelligence of a frozen bag of peas?”
“About once or twice or maybe even a hundred times, I believe.”
“You could’ve been nicer about it.”
“I was being sincere.”
And that’s the thing, Kaveh supposes. When Alhaitham is sincere, he’s a knife that cuts. His sincerity comes as an ice-cold punch to the solar plexus of any fool, and god forbid that he doesn’t hold anything back.
Living with Alhaitham means abiding by a routine. Breakfast at seven, dinner at eight, lights out by eleven, with chores and downtime before that. They’ll alternate between who cooks and cleans; Mondays, Kaveh, Tuesdays, Alhaitham. So on and so forth.
And Kaveh has come to appreciate this, their set routine. But he won’t lie; when he first moved in with Alhaitham, his borderline anal rules drove Kaveh up the wall. No loud music after eight. No TV watching after nine. Absolutely no dishes in the sink, and the bathroom must always be spotless.
Kaveh swears he almost went crazy back in those old days. I’m living with a geriatric! he’d complained to Tighnari over shawarmas. I’m living with a perpetual pain in the ass! But he’s since grown used to it; or perhaps it’s Alhaitham who’s grown lax.
Nowadays, Kaveh could be watching The Voice at ten, and Alhaitham won’t show up to give him a massive lecture.
It just goes to show how much their arrangement has changed.
They first met in university. Kaveh didn’t think much of Alhaitham at the time, only that he was cold, emotionless, but unfairly hot. A man of sharp precision and cold logic; of hard facts and plain truths.
They never crossed paths much. But they kept bumping into each other through a common factor, Kaveh’s friend—and Alhaitham’s acquaintance—Dehya, and they’ve been trudging along ever since. It didn’t help that Alhaitham had to tutor Kaveh in that stupid corporate finance course Kaveh was stupid enough to take as an elective. That pretty much cemented their bond. Made them grudging allies, or maybe even friends, whatever you want to call it.
Fast forward six years later, and now they’re living together because Kaveh needed a place to stay. He once laughed himself silly, imagining anyone who would be stupid enough to put up with Alhaitham and how they’d never leave his judgemental stare in one piece.
Kaveh never did think he’d be that fool he was talking about.
It’s not all bad, contrary to the nightmare Kaveh is making it out to be—that was a mere exaggeration. Truth is, Alhaitham’s probably the best roommate he’s ever had, going by how well-maintained he always keeps his place. Not to say the others were bad; it’s just that living with Alhaitham has spoiled him in ways he’d like to never admit.
It’s easy. Also complicated, yes, but easy, and it just works.
Alhaitham is the type of guy who absolutely excels in his field and has highly ambitious coworkers who act like they’re trading stocks at Wall Street, only to have the audacity to claim he doesn’t care for vertical career growth despite having been promoted twice in the past couple of years.
Kaveh doesn’t get it—the way he treats his achievements like they’re a means to an end rather than anything to gloat about. Alhaitham has no desire to be a managing director, yet he’s so blazingly competent there’s no doubt he’s on the right track. Alhaitham is brilliant—disgustingly sharp and clever—but if he has to live life like some faceless IT employee, then so be it, he once said.
Kaveh doesn’t get it. He’s the guy who somehow also majored in linguistics on top of finance just because he had the space for it during his undergrad years. He’s the guy who speaks seven languages “for fun”, he’s the guy with the numerical processing skills of a goddamn calculator. And he’s also the guy who doesn’t care about being recognized for what he does. Who makes it sound as if he’s fine with being just another statistic, because life’s comfortable and he wants for nothing.
It sometimes makes Kaveh wish he could treat life that way, too. It would make things a whole lot easier if he didn’t feel or care so much.
He looks down at his draft of the office his client wants done by Monday. She specified that she wanted a bright open area to encourage strong workflows, so Kaveh designed a soaring atrium. He just hopes it’s to her taste.
Kaveh is home by late afternoon and because he has the time, he spends it doodling on his sketchbook. He decides on a person—someone handsome, with artfully sideswept hair, and great cheekbones. So what if he’s thinking of his (imaginary) dream man? It’s been too long since he last dated, excuse him if he’s feeling a little repressed…
“Kaveh, I have a request,” Alhaitham says later on, when Kaveh is dusting off the furniture. “It’s okay if you say no, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
“As long as it’s not me helping you look for something that you misplaced.”
“Could you come with me to my company’s party?”
Kaveh looks up and raises an eyebrow. Now that’s a request he didn’t see coming.
Alhaitham continues: “It’s tomorrow night, and they said I could bring a plus one. I don’t particularly feel like going but thought it wouldn’t hurt to make an appearance. Plus, the VP will be there, and she hinted that she wishes to speak to me about something, so I actually don’t have much of a choice in that regard.”
“What, you want me to be your date?” Kaveh laughs.
Alhaitham gives him a look.
“Kidding, I’m kidding, I’m just pulling your leg. Fine, I’ll go, no big deal.”
Alhaitham looks down at his feet. What, suddenly he can’t bear to meet Kaveh’s gaze? “I’m not asking you this as a favour or anything, so if you think you’re getting something in return—”
“Do you have to view everything as transactional?” Kaveh rolls his eyes. Maybe he’ll get to bang some hotshot senior analyst who can talk debt-to-equity ratios to him by the end of the night. “You asked, and I agreed, so whatever.”
“Okay,” says Alhaitham.
Kaveh sighs. Geez, sometimes, it’s like Alhaitham can’t even act normal.
The company function is held at a swanky hotel smack dab in the heart of the city. The place screams of wealth and glamour, and is ritzy in the way most fancy hotels are, with plush carpeting, diamond chandeliers, and marble sculptures framing the entryways. Merely serviceable, nothing to gasp over, but it does make Kaveh’s brain itch with the desire for a better project he could be working on.
“I’m only here for the free food, by the way,” Kaveh says to Alhaitham.
Alhaitham actually cracks a smile at this. “Thought it was the prospect of being in my company that drew you in.”
Kaveh holds his hand to his heart. “No way. You’re actually capable of making jokes?”
Alhaitham shrugs. “What can I say? I contain multitudes.”
They soon find themselves at the party, and it’s actually not bad. Waiters float around with flutes of champagne, hors oeuvres are served on fancy little plates, and the company is interesting if not a little stiff.
Then Kaveh finds a new group to converse with and oh—the conversation just flows like wine.
It’s Alhaitham’s co-workers. He knows they’re his co-workers not because Alhaitham told him—Alhaitham isn’t one for idle talk about his day, he finds the concept incomprehensible—but because Alhaitham doesn’t look like he wants to rudely ditch the scene, and he did say they got along fine.
Knowing Alhaitham, “got along fine” just means they’re on a speaking basis.
“You know, I didn’t even think you’d make it,” a young man with orange hair—Ajax, he introduced himself as—says with a grin.
“Everyone was here, so I had to,” says Alhaitham offhandedly.
“Lovely company that you brought this evening, hm?” the blue-haired one wearing an eyepatch says with a smirk. “I can see why you’ve been rejecting invites left and right. I would, too.”
Someone tuts. “Oh, a taken man? Never thought I’d see one of those.”
Laughter breaks out.
“A taken man?” Kaveh exclaims to Alhaitham much later on when they’re alone, scowling. He hopes he looks threatening, brandishing a fork. “What are we, a happily wedded couple?”
“They just ran with the assumption—”
“That you didn’t bother to refute,” Kaveh interjects flatly.
Alhaitham holds his gaze without an ounce of shame. How dare he? “Guess not.”
“You know, if you wanted me to pretend that I was your very loving housewife who sets the table for dinner every night and enthusiastically handwashes your underwear, you could’ve at least given me a head’s up.”
Kaveh can tell Alhaitham is trying his best not to crack but the twitch of his mouth betrays him. “Slip of the mind. It happens.”
Kaveh rolls his eyes.
“I swear, I didn’t have an agenda or anything,” Alhaitham says, running a hand through his hair. “I invited you because you’re my friend, and the only one I’d have wanted to come with me. And yeah, maybe I didn’t bother saying we weren’t together, but it was one of those things where I thought no one would believe me anyway, so.”
Are those spots of red on Alhaitham’s cheeks? Goddamn it, Kaveh’s heart actually can’t take this. He’s melting. Gleefully, he files this information away for another time with metaphorical chipmunk hands.
“If it came from you, yes they would,” Kaveh reminds.
“Okay, so let’s go back and make the announcement,” Alhaitham responds dryly.
“Alhaitham, I always knew you were an asshole, but this is a new low even for you. I mean, come on, a divorce this early into the relationship? We haven’t even done so much as lovingly hold hands.”
Alhaitham grits his teeth then leaves.
Kaveh grins, speeding up after him. “Wait, can we at least discuss who gets to take the Roomba?”
Alhaitham does not humour this with a response.
“So he took you to his company’s party,” Tighnari says.
Kaveh nods.
“And everyone there, they assumed you were his date. And he went along with it.”
“Yes?”
Tighnari’s tail swishes with visible frustration. “He buys you your favourite food after you guys have had a fight. He drives you to places, takes care of you when you’re ill, and covers you in blankets when you fall asleep in the living room.”
Kaveh hums to show Tighnari that he’s still listening.
“Sometimes, you do his laundry. You were the one who decorated his entire place, you have customized house keys, you have the spare for his car, and both your brushes can be found in the same cup.”
Kaveh sighs. He knows how it sounds, but this is completely normal. It’s what they’ve always done. “Tighnari, babe, what’s the point you’re trying to make?”
“Kaveh, if this is your idea of platonic, then Cyno and I are practically strangers!” Tighnari exclaims.
Kaveh looks away. “But that’s different. You don’t live with him, so what? You guys are actually together. You guys kiss, you hold hands, he buys you flowers, he tells you you’re beautiful, he…”
Is the perfect man for Tighnari, really.
Tighnari blushes. “Some people like to express their love in different ways. You know that.”
“Alhaitham does not love me,” Kaveh scoffs.
Tighnari gives him a pitying look.
“Alhaitham doesn’t love me!” What a ridiculous idea!
This time, it’s Tighnari who lets out a big sigh.
“He doesn’t,” Kaveh insists, needing some semblance of reality to hold onto. “He. Does. Not. Love. Me. He doesn’t.”
“Kaveh, don’t you think it’s time for some serious self-reflection? And maybe couples therapy.”
Kaveh lobs a pillow at Tighnari’s head.
What are they, what are they—forget Hamlet, this is the real question for the ages.
They’re very much friends, Kaveh knows. Roommates, yes. House partners, yes. But lovers? Someone toss Kaveh into a ditch, because he guarantees Alhaitham will be the first person to deny such an allegation. Lovers, how laughable.
But he didn’t, the night you went out with him as his plus one, a voice in his head reminds.
Okay, the evidence is very much stacked against Kaveh, but still.
Knowing Alhaitham, he likely paraded Kaveh out of necessity despite him insisting otherwise. Alhaitham was seen with a date? Great, now no one’s asking him out for dinner any time soon. He never did like surprise confessions.
That’s not quite it, the voice says.
Ugh, yes it was!
Maybe he really just wanted you to be there with him.
Kaveh screams into his pillow.
Kaveh Face-Times his family for the first time in three months.
He’s had many opportunities in the past to do so—he just never took the chance—but now that there’s talk of his cousin getting married, he figured it would do him some good to show his face.
“Kaveh! Are you well?” his mother practically screams into the speakerphone the minute the connection sets in.
“Mom,” Kaveh says, wincing, because that sure as heck was loud, “you didn’t have to shout…”
His niece squeals, “Are you rich and famous now?”
“Nice house!” her brother shouts as he does a cartwheel in the corner.
His parents ask Kaveh how he’s doing. They ask him how his job is, how life’s treating him, if his employer is good, and the pay decent. In turn, Kaveh asks about what he missed during all those months he was away, if his aunt Amani finally left her deadbeat husband, if his uncle finally opened up the restaurant he always dreamed of, and when his cousin Kyra is finally going to have her wedding.
During the summer, is the answer to the wedding question. Will you be able to make it? his father asks.
Yes, a thousand times yes. Kaveh wouldn’t miss it for the world.
All of a sudden, his niece is straightening up and looking straight into the camera. “Hey. Who’s that?”
Earlier, Kaveh heard the door open—Alhaitham. He didn’t expect him to come home so early. Kaveh rolls his eyes when he catches sight of Alhaitham in the background. “Oh, him. You mean my—”
“Kaveh has a boyfriend, Kaveh has a boooyfriend,” his nephew starts to sing-song, and that’s when all hell breaks loose.
Crap. Kaveh never did mention who exactly he moved in with. All his parents know is that he moved in with a “close friend”, and Kaveh pretty much left it at that. So for them to assume Alhaitham is his boyfriend because his nephew planted the seeds wouldn’t be unrealistic.
And that’s exactly what happens.
“Kaveh!” his mother scolds him, scandalized. “You never told us you had a boyfriend and that you were living with him!”
His father gives him a wounded look. “How could you keep the news from us?”
Fuck, Kaveh is sweating bullets here. He should’ve worn earphones and been in his room for this conversation! He hopes Alhaitham heard none of that. “No! You guys, you have it all wrong, he isn’t—”
“Kaveh,” Alhaitham says over his shoulder.
Alhaitham’s appearance is what makes things ten times worse. Now that they’ve seen him, Kaveh’s family insists on meeting him. It gets to the point it nearly becomes a full-blown interrogation, and it’s only thanks to Kaveh’s superb damage control skills that he manages to end the call early and stop his family’s good cop, bad cop act from spiralling out of control.
“What was that?” Alhaitham says, narrowing his eyes.
Kaveh laughs nervously.
This time, it’s Kaveh’s turn to ask a question.
“Hey, so, do you want to go my cousin’s wedding with me as my very platonic roommate?”
That’s how Kaveh finds himself stuck in his childhood bedroom with Alhaitham two months later, suitcases in hand and not a whole lot of space in between them. Kaveh had two months to fix this, two months to reject whatever Alhaitham allegedly means to him, but no.
He just had to go ahead and convince Alhaitham he needed to be in on the act, too.
But the thing is, it’s not like Alhaitham was totally unwilling, either.
Sure, he shot down the idea at first. But so what? He agreed afterwards. The kicker is that he didn’t even need to be bribed into it, and honestly? It just messed Kaveh up when he already had this set image of Alhaitham in his head that would be cold, unsympathetic, and unwilling, despite Alhaitham being anything but in recent times.
Well, it’s not strictly true, because Alhaitham is Alhaitham, and he wouldn’t be himself without his self-centred, unpleasant ways, but the point is he’s changed, if only by a margin. He’s changed, he’s had character growth of his own, he went from butting heads with Kaveh twice an evening to only once every other day.
What a world of difference that made for their collective sanity and mental health.
“Kaveh, can we talk about this?” Alhaitham says, as he absentmindedly picks up the stuffed Dendro Fungus toy from Kaveh’s nightstand.
“Oh no, you don’t get to touch him,” Kaveh says with petty possessiveness, snatching the toy from Alhaitham’s hands. “That privilege is unlocked at Friendship Level 10. You have to grind for those points, buddy.”
“But I’m your boyfriend.”
Kaveh chokes.
“Your fake boyfriend,” Alhaitham amends.
“Yes, which is precisely why only I get to have him.” Kaveh holds the toy to his chest.
“Kaveh, I’m going to be blunt with you.” Alhaitham gestures between them. “This, us—whatever we are—this is hardly fake anymore.”
The mood shifts, and Kaveh suddenly tastes ozone in the air.
“You saw what happened at the airport. Like—are you really going to keep this up?”
Kaveh covers the Dendro Fungus’s ears. Or rather, where its ears would be if it had some.
Alhaitham sighs. “You can’t tell me you really don’t know.”
Kaveh thinks of Tighnari and curses him in all his infinite wisdom. “Know…what?”
“How I feel about you,” Alhaitham says.
No way, no. Kaveh stares in disbelief. This is not how it was supposed to go. His brain shorts out. “Ah.”
“Oh, ahhh, seriously?” Alhaitham snorts. “That’s it. That’s all you have to say?”
Kaveh drops the Dendro Fungus and covers his face with his hands. “Yes! Ugh! You—I can’t believe this. You’re impossible!”
“Wait, are you upset? For real?” Alhaitham makes a frustrated noise. “I thought we were finally on the same page. I thought you knew, thought you wanted me to tell you. And now you’re here freaking out.”
Alhaitham doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get where Kaveh is coming from, so Kaveh is going to make him understand. “Yes, I’m freaking out, because this isn’t like you!”
His hands fall away, and he’s greeted with the sight of Alhaitham’s confused face.
“You’re supposed to be emotionally constipated! EQ of a teaspoon, remember, this ring any bells?” Kaveh throws up his hands. “Even if you liked me, you were supposed to keep your feelings bottled away until the end of time! You’ve made up your mind that love is a mere distraction, an unnecessary chemical by-product of the brain, and so you resolve to never acknowledge them! And then it gets to the point you can’t handle their weight anymore, so we have a huge fight that ends with me packing my things, and then moving out, and we have this reunion scene where you go down on your knees and beg me to stay.”
Alhaitham blinks.
Kaveh bites his lip. “Okay, maybe not the get down on your knees part, but still.”
“You talk too much,” says Alhaitham, shaking his head.
Kaveh could cry. Finally, this is the Alhaitham he knows and is familiar with. “Yes, and I also happen to be overly sensitive and too dramatic for you to handle.”
“Regardless of my personal view on your theatrics, none of it changes that fact that I have feelings for you. And that I’ve had them for a while,” Alhaitham says. “I don’t expect you to reciprocate out of obligation, I just—I just thought you should know.”
They stare at each other from across the room, and Kaveh sees Alhaitham—all of him. His weaknesses, his deficiencies, his flaws. But Kaveh sees the good things, too. The parts with ultimately more weight than the things that drive Kaveh stupid with anger. Alhaitham is selfish, egotistical, and unsentimental, true. But he’s also shown kindness and proved that he does know how to treat the people he cares about.
“So, do you want me to pretend like I never said anything?” Alhaitham says.
Kaveh laughs humourlessly. “You’re an idiot if you think for one second I’d move on from this.”
After Alhaitham explicitly expressed his feelings. The nerve of Alhaitham to suggest that. So what happens then? They’ll spend the next two days tiptoeing around the bush in the most awkward, painful way possible? Kaveh thinks not.
“Then tell me: where do you stand on all of this?”
“Hmm, let’s see.” Kaveh holds up his fingers. “We live together. You take care of me when I’m ill, you buy my favourite food when I’m upset, you’re the one who holds my hair when I throw up into the toilet from being wasted, for crying out loud! I do your laundry when you forget, I’ve even ironed your clothes on multiple occasions, I redecorated your home—”
“And the point you’re trying to make is—”
“Alhaitham, we’re practically fucking married, that’s what,” Kaveh snaps. “All that’s missing are the rings and the marriage certificate!" Great, Tighnari had to go ahead and be right about everything again.
“That’s an odd way to say you like me, too,” Alhaitham says.
“And that’s the best you’re going to get!” Kaveh huffs and spins around, folding his arms across his chest.
Ten seconds later, he caves and goes back to facing Alhaitham, though.
“Also…you’re insufferable and horrible, but I can’t imagine my life without you in it,” Kaveh admits.
A dark look settles over Alhaitham’s features that makes Kaveh feel a little rattled and electric, like a trunk hollowed out by lightning. “Likewise.”
Their heads lean in, two magnets drawn in by gravity.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” Kaveh warns.
“Fine.”
“I’m really going to.”
“Get on with it already, stop sounding like a broken recor—” Alhaitham doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence, because Kaveh steals the sound off his lips.
The wedding goes by without a hitch. Kaveh introduces Alhaitham to the rest of his family, shields him from the thinly veiled threats they bombard him with from all four corners, and maybe does more than kiss him in the flower garden during the incredibly raucous afterparty.
Then they go home. Kaveh puts his mouth to good use again, gets railed on Alhaitham’s bed, and they spend the weekend fooling around as a real couple. (Not like they didn’t act like it before.)
Tighnari calls him up Sunday afternoon to check on his progress. Kaveh very grudgingly admits he’s right.
“Oh, it’s good that you finally came to your senses,” Tighnari says, an edge of smugness found underneath the nonchalance. “I just don’t understand why it took you this long.”
“Hey, Tighnari—mhm! Can I call you back later?”
“Hm? Is it a busy time for you right now? Alright, I’ll—”
Kaveh accidentally lets slip a moan. Alhaitham, that bastard.
And then, the line goes very silent.
Tighnari hangs up.
fin.
Kaveh’s initial sketch for the building he’s named the Palace of Alcazarzaray is horribly rough, but given enough inspiration and time, he’ll soon have it looking the way he wants it to.
“Do you want curry shrimp for dinner?” Alhaitham murmurs as he nuzzles Kaveh’s neck, smelling of soap and the cologne Kaveh likes so much.
“Sure,” Kaveh says, smiling up at Alhaitham.
God, he’ll never tire of Alhaitham in a suit, oozing of sin and dark promises.
Arms slip around Kaveh’s waist. “How about rose custard for dessert?”
“Mhm. Sounds perfect.”
And it is.