one lifetime too short

by luminvies, moonsteps

Chapter 4

✩

When Al-Haitham is twenty-eight years old, he finds Kaveh sitting in the corner of Lambad’s tavern drinking himself stupid.

It’s a sight that he’s not unfamiliar with, though it’s different, this time—Kaveh’s facial hair has grown out a bit and his clothes are all wrinkled, indications that he hasn’t been properly taking care of himself. He isn’t wearing an outfit that makes sense at all, actually. It looks like he threw together clothes from random hangers out of his closet and left in a hurry.

The biggest tell is the fact that Kaveh is even here in the first place, back here in Sumeru City, back here in the tavern that they used to waste their undergraduate years with their friends when their only worries were when to turn in the next essay.

Things are a lot different now.

What’s more, Kimiya isn’t anywhere in sight, and Al-Haitham knows Kaveh well enough to know that he would have never brought her into this environment in the first place. And if Kimiya isn’t with Kaveh, who is all the way out here in the city, then where is she?

Al-Haitham has a sinking feeling she’s not with Parisa either.

The entire reason that Al-Haitham had the hunch to check Lambad’s is because Nilou had texted him frantically, telling him that Kaveh was on his way to the city in a state of distress, and that should he find him, he should make sure that he stays safe.

He spent the next couple of hours checking every spot in the city that they used to frequent as students until he ended up here, following his instincts correctly. 

And, well. Here he is.

Al-Haitham fires off a quick text to Nilou that he found Kaveh and that he doesn’t seem to be missing any parts, and then he quietly approaches Kaveh’s table, taking a seat opposite him and waiting for him to notice.

It takes Kaveh going through his entire bottle and emptying it of its contents before he finally focuses his eyes on something other than the drink. His eyes bug out.

“Al-Haitham?” he gasps, and then he erupts into a coughing fit, hunched over the table as he struggles to catch his breath.

Al-Haitham, for his part, merely wrinkles his nose and moves the bottle to the side so that Kaveh doesn’t knock it over and spill shattered glass all over the floor as well. “Kaveh,” he says when the other stops choking, his eyes narrowed as if trying to assess if it is really Al-Haitham or an alcohol-induced hallucination. “What are you doing here?”

“Drinking, obviously,” Kaveh says stubbornly, and then he reaches for the bottle. He frowns. “It’s empty.”

“That’s because you drank it all.” Al-Haitham surveys the row of empty jars lined up on the side of the table. “And all of the other bottles as well, apparently.”

“Yeah, well,” Kaveh grunts, “isn’t it great that we, as humans, have freedom of choice? So I can choose to drive out to the city and drink my bodyweight in alcohol if I want to, and nobody can stop me. Hah.” He smiles stupidly at nothing for a second, staring into the ceiling, and then he faceplants. “I’m a terrible father.”

Al-Haitham has no idea where that came from, but all right. “No, you’re not,” he says, rapping Kaveh on the shoulder. “Wake up. Do you really want to fall asleep on a sticky bar table?”

“No,” Kaveh says, his voice muffled. “But does it look like I have anywhere else to go?”

Al-Haitham hesitates. He can’t tell if that means he’s unable to go back to his home in Port Ormos with Parisa and Kimiya or that he’s too drunk to make the drive back—both of which may be true, but at this point in time, Al-Haitham accepts that he’s not going to be getting any suitable answers out of Kaveh. It’s also probably not a conversation that he’s going to want to have while he’s this severely inebriated.

“Home, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says, realizing too late that Kaveh may not even consider this city to be his home anymore after eight years of absence. “Let’s go home.”

Al-Haitham pays the bill and then drags Kaveh to his feet, allowing him to rest his weight on him as they make the walk back to the house. It’s not far, but Kaveh is purposefully making himself heavier, dragging his feet.

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says through gritted teeth. “I’m starting to think that you don’t want a bed to sleep in.”

“No, that sounds nice,” Kaveh says in his ear. “I just don’t have a bed anymore, is all. That’s Parisa’s bed. I’m not sharing a bed with Parisa.”

“All right,” Al-Haitham says, fighting the urge to pry further. “It’s the old bed you used to sleep in before you moved out of my house, Kaveh.”

“Oh,” Kaveh replies, hesitating. “I guess that’s fine. I guess. But only for tonight.”

“For tonight,” Al-Haitham agrees, wondering what the hell could have happened that caused Kaveh to come to the city in this state and awaiting the morning impatiently so he can finally get some answers. “Just for tonight, Kaveh.”

Familiar with this pattern after years of experience, Al-Haitham gets up before Kaveh does and waits in the main room with a book until Kaveh ends up stumbling out the door of the second bedroom, one hand on the doorframe for balance.

He’s scrubbing at his eyes, confusion painted all over his face, and then he locks eyes with Al-Haitham, and the bewilderment becomes even more pronounced. “What the fuck?” he says.

“You see, I don’t know why you’re here either,” Al-Haitham says, shutting his book. Kaveh only winces in response, which tells him enough about what he remembers in regards to why he ended up in Sumeru City. “I was waiting until you were sober to ask you.”

Kaveh stares at him, and then he yawns. “Well, it seems as if there’s still a decent amount of alcohol running through my system,” he says, turning on his feet, “so I’ll just be going back to sleep now.”

“No you are not, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says calmly, and the sound of his voice stops Kaveh in his tracks, gratifyingly enough. “You’re drinking this glass of water and taking these painkillers, but that’s not the end of it.”

“Ugh. Fine,” Kaveh grumbles, marching over to take the drink and the pills from Al-Haitham, where he’d been keeping them hostage by his side on purpose. “I’m sure you’ve come to your own conclusions as to why I ended up here. Parisa and I are separated, for your information. I don’t know what’s happening next and I frankly could not care about what her next steps are as long as she’s not trying to take Miya from me.”

Al-Haitham, who had been expecting something along these lines, feels shock hit his body anyway. 

He swallows it down, prays Kaveh doesn’t see it lest he takes it as an excuse to turn right back around and run away again.

“Take her away?” Al-Haitham repeats suspiciously. “Is that something she’s attempting to do? Is that something she’s going to do?”

Whatever memory that brings up elicits a full body wince in Kaveh, his face contracting. “I don’t think she’ll try to take her,” he says eventually, running one hand over his face. “Archons. This is all so fucking messy. No, I don’t think that she’ll try to take her from me, but it’s just difficult trying to figure out what we’re going to do about living circumstances. Miya and I’s living circumstances, to be clear.”

“The Port Ormos house…?” Al-Haitham asks cautiously, not voicing the full question.

Kaveh shakes his head. “That’s out of the question. I don’t want to live there any longer. There’s too many memories attached to it—and honestly, Al-Haitham, I never wanted to live all the way out in the bottom of Sumeru for this long, no matter what Parisa extolled about the values of living in a port city. I wanted to come back, but I didn’t. Because. Well. I don’t know. In any case, Miya is going to have so many more opportunities out here, too, and I just don’t see why Parisa insisted on keeping us there for so many years.”

Al-Haitham doesn’t share his thoughts on the matter when Kaveh is clearly having some epiphany regarding Parisa. Instead, he watches as Kaveh drags himself over.

“But where does that leave me?” Kaveh is murmuring now, sitting heavily on the couch next to Al-Haitham. He looks tired in ways that Al-Haitham has not seen him before. The circles under his eyes look as if they’ve been painted on with kohl. He’s still wearing last night’s clothes, and they smell of booze. “I’d sell the place in the port,” Kaveh continues, “but her name is on the lease because we’re legally married. Archons fucking above. I need the money to rent a new place out here in the city so Miya and I have a place to stay but I don’t want to have to talk to her anytime soon. Actually, if I had my way, I’d never see her face again. But, well. Unfortunately we are married. For the time being. Fucking hell.”

“You have a home right here,” says Al-Haitham. “You’re always welcome to stay with me, Kaveh. For as long as you need.”

Kaveh stares at Al-Haitham. “Are you serious?” he says, laughing incredulously a little, his shoulders shaking. “That’s not happening. I’m not going to be the friend who has a crisis the moment he turns thirty and starts living off of his friends’ couches. I have a daughter, Al-Haitham. I can’t do this. I’m not going to be the deadbeat artist father that everybody always sees online. It’s going to be different. It was supposed to be different. None of this was supposed to turn out this way.”

“You’ve lived here before, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham points out. “It’s not any different than it was when we were students. We already know how to coexist.”

“That was back when I was paying you rent,” Kaveh says helplessly. “If I can’t sell the place and all my money is going into divorce papers, then I don’t know what to do about that. Fuck. If I didn’t even let Nilou house me, then I’m not sure why you think you would be any different.”

“Because Nilou is married to Layla,” Al-Haitham says, “and I’m not married to anybody. You mentioned that one of the times I visited you in Port Ormos, remember? Awfully convenient now, isn’t it?”

“Fuck you, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh hisses, rubbing his temples. He looks so stressed that he could burst into tears at any second, but he also looks as if he’s contemplating the offer, which is good enough for Al-Haitham. It’ll only take a little bit more to convince him completely.

“You said you missed the city,” Al-Haitham says, his voice quieter now, “and what’s better than living in the heart of it?”

“I really can’t stand you,” Kaveh says, but he looks relieved. “You—you really mean it? I can stay with you? It’ll be temporary, I promise.”

“I mean it,” Al-Haitham says, which may as well be a solemn vow. “And it doesn’t have to be temporary. It can be for as long as you need it, Kaveh. I swear to you that my door will always be open to you no matter what.”

“Archons,” Kaveh says, and then he tips his head back into the couch, staring upward to the sky as if pleading with the gods. “You’re too much, Al-Haitham. You’re too much for me.”

“I’m your best friend,” Al-Haitham says, like a reminder, and Kaveh laughs. His eyes are teary.

“That you are,” he agrees, the hint of what is finally a smile on his tired lips, and Al-Haitham feels lighter than he’s felt in years.

“Have you grown much, Kaveh?” Al-Haitham asks, wandering into Kaveh’s room. He’s holding a shirt out in front of him.

“Define much,” Kaveh says warily. Al-Haitham tosses the piece of clothing at him.

“I assume you didn’t pack any clothes with you when you left. There are a few of your clothing pieces still laying around, and if worse comes to worse, my clothing should definitely fit you. Or you could go shopping.”

“New clothes,” Kaveh says gratefully. “Thank you.”

Al-Haitham shrugs, and then he hovers, because he recognizes that there’s still that haunted look in Kaveh’s eyes even though he’s talking almost normally again. “Are you all right?”

“When am I ever?” Kaveh asks wryly with a self-deprecatory laugh. “I’m usually not, for a whole plethora of reasons. But right now I’m just really stressed.”

“Is it Kimiya?” Al-Haitham asks quietly.

Kaveh laughs quietly and looks down. “Yes. She’s with Parisa’s parents right now because I wasn’t sure where to bring her, but I hate that she’s not with me. I would have preferred—well, it doesn’t matter at this point. My in-laws aren’t going to do anything to her, and she likes them well enough, but I would just feel better if I knew that she was safe with me. I’m pretty sure she saw something unpleasant before I took her and left Port Ormos, and I can’t imagine that she’s happy.” He swallows, staring straight ahead of him. “She’s only six, Al-Haitham. Hell, I’m only thirty. Life is not supposed to be this difficult. Things were never supposed to be this difficult.”

“You’ll get through it,” Al-Haitham tells him. “You always do. And Kimiya will be okay if you trust her grandparents.”

“I do,” Kaveh says, and then he sighs. “I just wish I could—nevermind.”

It could be easier, Al-Haitham wants to say. Bring her here. Bring Kimiya here. It would be no trouble whatsoever. “What if you—” he begins, but he’s cut off by the shrill ringtone of Kaveh’s phone, which causes him to immediately jump to his feet and bring the phone to his ear, compulsively pacing back and forth.

“It’s Miya’s grandparents,” Kaveh whisper-shouts, and then the call connects. “Hello? Madar-zan? How is she?”

Al-Haitham doesn’t need to hear anymore. He leaves Kaveh to his privacy, closing the door behind him, and then he sets about settling his nerves by needlessly straightening his things in the front room. He imagines a child running around here. It’ll have to be a lot more put together and less cluttered before Kaveh even considers that possibility.

That damn Parisa. Al-Haitham grits his teeth, but even he’s aware enough to realize that there’s nothing to be done about it now, much in the same way that he can’t turn back time and tell Kaveh that he shouldn’t get involved with the girl in his design studio, no matter how much he may want to.

Al-Haitham had known that it would blow up in their faces eventually and that he would be partially responsible for cleaning up the mess. It’s tiring, yes, but it’s all right. It’s Kaveh. It’s his best friend and his best friend’s child. He can make a few adjustments to his daily schedule without complaint.

At least Al-Haitham, though Parisa couldn’t hope to understand, truly loves Kaveh despite all of his issues. And that is all that matters.

 

☀︎ 

Living with Al-Haitham—again—is nothing like how it was back when they were still in university. Though Kaveh supposes that might just be because they’re no longer nineteen and twenty-one years old. Or, well. Maybe that’s not it either. 

He wakes up in a room that is so achingly familiar he almost cries. He doesn’t, though it’s a close thing. Instead, he stares up at the ceiling and feels every inch of the mattress beneath him. He glances around the room, sees the same desk, the curtains that are worn and tired from years of unuse. There’s a new rug by the foot of the bed, a pretty sky blue color that Kaveh knows is Nilou’s favorite. She must have purchased it for the room all those years ago when she lived here, and the thought makes Kaveh feel warm all over. It’s nothing like his room back in his Port Ormos house. Parisa was never the type to enjoy particularly colorful decorations, and Kaveh never had the heart to disagree with her.

Archons. Right. Parisa.

He reaches for his phone and almost dreads what he knows he’s going to see. She’s been texting him for days, adamant in every word she sends him. Kaveh cannot read her messages without feeling sick in his gut.

pari

[6:21] pari: kaveh I swear to god you need to at least answer my messages
[6:21] pari: kaveh please answer my messages you can’t do this to me. you can’t just say you don’t want to talk to me and then disappear. you even stopped sharing your location with me and you know how anxious I get about that why would you do this to me???

[6:30] pari: this isn’t good stress isn’t good for me right now please kaveh please

[6:59] pari: I went to stay with parivash for the time being. I’ll be here until you decide that you want to have a conversation with me like adults

[7:28] pari: I’m sorry please don’t leave me I’m sorry

[7:42] pari: I’ll do anything just please come home so we can talk things over. I promise that everything will be fine once you talk to me everything will be fine

[7:52] pari: I love you

[8:03] pari: you’d really do this? you’d leave me? you would ignore me? I’m pregnant kaveh you wouldn’t leave me when I’m like this. you’re not like that. I know you
[8:03] pari: there’s nobody who knows you better than me
[8:03] pari: what are you going to do when I tell my parents that you left me when I’m pregnant
[8:03] pari: they’re going to hate you
[8:03] pari: they’re going to think it’s yours and I will not correct them

[8:42] you: i don’t care

[8:42] pari: finally you responded
[8:42] pari: you will care, they’re my parents

[8:45] you: if you text me first again i will block your number

[8:45] pari: kaveh you can’t do this to me I’ve done so much for you you can’t just leave me like this you can’t leave me
[8:45] pari: kaveh please just come and get me and we can talk about it please
[8:45] pari: text me when you’re ready to talk

- read 8:45 -

Kaveh sighs and throws his phone away, burying his head in his hands and letting out a long, drawn-out groan. After about five minutes of this, he drags himself out of bed in the search for a will to live (see: coffee).

He finds Al-Haitham in the kitchen, already brewing it.

“Morning,” Al-Haitham says, glancing sidelong at Kaveh, who waddles up to the kitchen counter and takes a seat at the island. It’s a routine that, despite everything, Kaveh does without thinking, and sure enough, Al-Haitham passes over a cup of caffeine just the way he knows Kaveh likes it.

“Morning,” Kaveh says, and then he yawns and takes a sip. “Archons, that’s good. Thank you, Al-Haitham.”

“Mm,” Al-Haitham nods, and then he comes around the counter and slips into the seat next to Kaveh, and the two of them sit there in a comfortable type of silence for several minutes.

Then Kaveh’s phone rings.

He looks down at it, expecting Parisa. If it’s Parisa, he’ll ignore it and hope Al-Haitham doesn’t notice, doesn’t ask any questions. But it’s not Parisa. It’s Parisa’s mother. Which is fine. But his conversation from just earlier with Parisa falls back to him, and for a fleeting moment, he wonders if she told them what happened.

But she wouldn’t. Not yet. Not just like this.

So this is probably about Kimiya. Immediately, Kaveh feels a sinking feeling in his gut. Frowning, he slides to accept the call and presses his phone to his ear. 

“Hello?”

“Kaveh, dear,” comes the sound of his mother-in-law’s voice, a little frazzled.

“Madar-zan,” he says, and then, “is Miya okay?”

“Ah…” She trails off, and in the background, he hears crying. Familiar crying. Kimiya is crying. Fuck. “She’s a little confused, is the thing. She misses you and Pari. When did you say you were going to come by to pick her up? I have no problems with keeping her for as long as you need, but I think she’s scared. Did something happen between you and Pari?”

Kaveh swallows. “She’s crying?”

“Oh, you can hear that?” Some shuffling. The sound of a door opening and closing. “Don’t worry, damad, we have things under control.”

“I—” Kaveh stops, reaches up to his hand that is holding his phone and finds that it’s shaking. “Madar-zan, she’s crying.”

Next to him, Al-Haitham shifts.

“I know, I know, your pedar-zan is with her right now, and he’s good with children. You know he is. And Miya’s always liked him. She’ll be fine, don’t worry, Kaveh.”

Kaveh knows she’s just trying to be reassuring, but how is he supposed to not worry? His daughter is crying. His daughter is crying, and Kaveh is sitting down in his best friend’s apartment, drinking coffee while his daughter is fucking crying. Archons, he feels like shit. His wife cheated on him, he’s forcing himself into Al-Haitham’s life, and now his daughter is crying. Fuck. Fuck.

“Is it Kimiya?” comes Al-Haitham’s voice, quiet at his side.

Kaveh nods. He thinks he might be tearing up.

“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham. He’s making eye contact with him. Kaveh holds it and tries to breathe. “Bring her here.”

Kaveh’s lips part. “Give me a moment, madar-zan,” he says, and then mutes the call. He looks back up to Al-Haitham and says, “Al-Haitham.”

“I’m serious,” says Al-Haitham. “Bring her here. I have space. It’s fine. Don’t think so much.”

“Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh again, and this time he really might just start crying. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” says Al-Haitham.

Kaveh takes a deep breath, and he nods.

“I’ll be there in a few hours,” he says after unmuting the call again. “Can I ask you to get Miya ready? Tell her I’ll be there soon. Actually, can you pass the phone to her?”

“Of course,” his mother-in-law says, and then there’s a few seconds where Kaveh only hears faint rustling, and then the sound of his daughter’s cries again that slowly become louder and louder until—

“Baba,” Kimiya sniffs, hiccuping a little. “Where are you, baba?”

Kaveh’s eyes flutter closed. He takes a shaky breath before saying, “I’m sorry, baby girl. Baba had to deal with some things. Are you okay? Are you hungry? Tell maman-joon what you want to eat, she’ll make it for you, okay?”

“I’m not hungry,” Kimiya murmurs. “I just want to see you. When are you coming?”

Archons. Kaveh moves to stand up. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m sorry, Miya. Can you hang in there for just a few more hours? You’re my big girl, aren’t you? Just a little longer. I’m about to leave right now.”

“Okay,” Kimiya says.

“Okay,” says Kaveh. “I love you, princess. I’m going to hang up now, all right? Tell maman-joon to give you something to eat even if you aren’t hungry. You’ll feel better with some food in your belly.”

“Okay, baba,” says Kimiya. “I love you too. See you soon.”

“See you soon, darling,” says Kaveh, and then he waits for Kimiya to hang up the call on her own. When she does, he clicks his phone shut, and turns to Al-Haitham. “Thank you,” he says. “Seriously. It means a lot.”

“Don’t thank me,” says Al-Haitham. “Just go and get her.”

Kaveh nods, padding over to the door and slipping his shoes on. “Sorry. I’m being such a nuisance.”

“You’re not a nuisance, Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham from where he’s now up and leaning against the counter, watching him as he throws his jacket on. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“It’s fine,” says Kaveh. “My mother-in-law said that Kimiya’s confused. I can use the drive time to try to explain to her that things are probably going to be a little different for a while. It’s fine. She’s a smart girl.”

“If you say so,” says Al-Haitham. “Be careful, then. Drive safe.”

“I’m the safest driver in Teyvat.”

“Right, of course you are.”

“Fuck yourself,” says Kaveh, and then he smiles, “Okay, shut up. Goodbye. I’ll see you in a bit.”

“I’m back!” Kaveh calls a few hours later, helping Kimiya out of her jacket and putting her shoes on the rack by the door. “Miya, be careful not to trip. And don’t touch anything in this house that looks important.”

“Okay, baba,” Kimiya nods, like the sweetheart she is. “Whose house is this?”

“It’s your amu Al-Haitham’s house,” Kaveh chirps, ushering her inside. “You remember him, right? My uptight friend who has silver hair and big arms and wears too much green.”

“I wasn’t aware you talk about me in such detail to your daughter,” says Al-Haitham out of literally nowhere, and Kaveh looks over to the living room area to see Al-Haitham sitting on the couch, a book in his lap. 

He rolls his eyes. “She’s six. She does better with descriptions than names.”

“Hm,” says Al-Haitham. He stands up, looks down at Kimiya. “Hello.”

Kimiya grips Kaveh’s pants with her small hand. “Hello,” she says back.

Kaveh ruffles her hair. “You remember him now?”

“A little,” says Kimiya. She looks up at him, frowning. “You’re right, baba. He does wear a lot of green.”

“This is teal,” says Al-Haitham, tugging at the collar of his shirt just a little. Kaveh scoffs.

“It’s green, Miya,” he says. “Don’t listen to him.”

“Aren’t you the artist?” Al-Haitham asks, raising an eyebrow. “I would think that you of all people would know the difference between teal and green.”

“Again, she’s six,” says Kaveh. “Of course I know the difference between teal and green.”

“It’s not good to teach children wrong things then,” says Al-Haitham.

“Okay, I’m sick of you,” says Kaveh. He looks down at Kimiya and says, “Don’t take anything he says too seriously, okay, Miya? And don’t let him taint your perfect little mind with his nonsensical philosophies.”

“Nonsensical philosophies,” says Al-Haitham.

“You heard me,” says Kaveh. “Okay, Miya? You got it?”

“I got it,” Kimiya nods seriously. “Don’t let amu taint my perfect mind with his philosopees.”

“Philosophies,” Al-Haitham corrects.

“Philosopees,” says Kimiya.

“Philosophies,” says Al-Haitham again.

“Philo…” Kimiya trails off, her face scrunching up.

“Sophies,” Al-Haitham finishes for her. 

“Sophies,” says Kimiya. “Philosophies.”

“Yes,” Al-Haitham nods. “Good.”

“This is what I mean,” says Kaveh to Al-Haitham. “Your nonsensical philosophies.”

“I just corrected her pronunciation of a word,” says Al-Haitham. “You should be glad.”

Kaveh huffs. Then he bends down until he is eye level with Kimiya, gently rubbing her back with his palm as he looks back up to Al-Haitham. “Miya, say thank you to amu for letting us stay with him.”

“Thank you, amu,” says Kimiya sincerely.

“You’re welcome,” says Al-Haitham.

“Thank you,” says Kaveh, straightening up. “From me as well.”

“What was that?” says Al-Haitham, because he is an absolute asshole.

Kaveh sighs. “Thank you.”

Al-Haitham crosses his arms and looks at him in a way that Kaveh knows means he’s about to say something incredibly annoying.

Sure enough: “They say that earnest thanks should be given thrice, so…one more time, please.”

“Oh shut up,” says Kaveh. “You can be happy with your two thanks from me and one from Miya. Technically that’s three, so that's all you’re getting.” He wraps his fingers around Kimiya’s little hand and begins to pull her toward the familiar hallway where his bedroom is. “Miya, come with me. Let’s leave that annoying amu alone for a bit. You know I used to live here when I was still in school? This is the same room I used to stay in back then. Come come, baba will show you.”

“Baba,” says Kimiya a little while later, as Kaveh is lining the bed with a fresh new sheet and exchanging the plain gray pillow covers for the cute pink ones he found in the bathroom cupboard. Kaveh silently thanks Nilou for her unknowing contributions to society.

“Yes, sweetie?” he says, looking over his shoulder to her. She’s sitting on the floor, criss-cross applesauce, her hands in her lap and her eyes wide and trained back on him.

“Where’s maman?”

Kaveh freezes.

“She’s…” He swallows. “She’s not feeling well right now.”

“Huh?” Kimiya tilts her head.

“It’s very contagious,” he says. “She’s staying with your little khaleh right now until she recovers. She didn’t want to get you sick too, so for now, you’ll just be staying with me. Does that sound good?”

Kimiya seems to think this over. Then, after what feels like literally forever and a half, she relaxes her shoulders and nods. “That sounds good. I wouldn’t want you to get sick either, baba.”

“Well that’s very sweet of you to say,” Kaveh smiles, and then he steps forward and picks her up, twirling her around in his arms for a few seconds and relishing in her squeals of excitement. “Now, we need to set some ground rules for how we’re going to behave now that we’re living with amu.”

“I’m very respectful,” says Kimiya matter-of-factly.

Kaveh laughs, gently pinching her nose. She squirms a little in his arms. “Yes, I know you are. You’re the most respectful little girl in the history of little girls. Miya, you know that he’s my very best friend, right?”

Kimiya shakes her head.

“Have I never told you?” Kaveh asks. “Really?”

“You talk about him sometimes,” she says. “I asked maman about him once, but she said that he’s no one important, so I shouldn’t ask anymore.”

Kaveh’s lips part on instinct, but no words come out. He blinks at her, her innocent little face, and feels his chest begin to get a little heavy. 

“Is that so,” he says.

Kimiya nods. “Maman also made me promise I wouldn’t ask you about him either.” She gasps, her eyes going wide for a second as her tiny palms come up to hover over her mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”

“It’s okay,” Kaveh shakes his head. “Miya, you can tell me anything. You should tell me anything.” He swallows. “I’ve never told you to not ask maman about anything, right? Especially about her friends. It should be the same for baba as well. You can ask me anything, no matter what. I will always tell you anything you want to know.”

Kimiya’s nose scrunches a little at this. “Anything?”

“Well,” Kaveh says, “as long as I have the answer, then yes, Anything.”

“Okay,” she says with a small nod. “Can you put me down now, please?”

“Yes yes, of course,” he says, and then he walks over to the edge of the bed and places her down onto the mattress. They’re almost eye level like this, and Kaveh reaches forward to cup her pretty little face between his hands, kissing both of her cheeks, and then her nods, and then each of her eyelids. “I will always be here for you, sweetheart. No matter what. You can talk to me about anything.”

“I know,” Kimiya says, and then she smiles, her cheeks pressing against his palms. She holds her own hands out, cupping his face and pressing her thumbs into the corners of his mouth. She stretches his lips out, grinning as she goes. “Cheer up, baba.”

Instantly, Kaveh feels tears resurface around his eyes. “I’m fine, baby.”

She shakes her head. “No you’re not. You’re sad.”

“I’m not sad,” Kaveh says softly. “Don’t worry about me, Miya. I’m not sad, I promise. How could I be sad when I have such a cute little daughter like you?”

“Hmm,” she says, peering at him. “Are you sure you’re not sad?”

He nods. “I’m sure.”

“Okay, I believe you,” she says. 

Then she lets go of him and looks right up into his eyes. Kaveh is almost startled by the intensity of her gaze, but he reigns it in, offers her a smile he hopes looks more natural than it feels. 

“Baba,” she starts again.

“Yes?” he asks,

“Did maman do something bad?”

Kaveh’s breath hitches, catches right in his throat before he can stop it. Kimiya is still looking at him, an inquisitive look on her little face, and—Archons, his daughter really is much too perceptive for her own good, isn’t she? He thinks back fleetingly to just a few nights before, when he screamed at his wife and snatched Kimiya up into his arms. He supposes after that display it would be quite hard for her to not wonder.

So he swallows and pulls her in against his chest, wrapping his arms around her and running his fingers through her hair. “It’s okay,” he whispers into her ear. “It’s okay now, I promise.”

She’s shaking now. Belatedly, Kaveh realizes that this entire time, she was also trying her very hardest to hold it together.

“Baba,” she whispers, her voice cracking as she calls for him.

He plants a kiss to her forehead and prays his tears away. “It’s okay,” he says again as she begins to silently shake in his arms. He hears her sniffle, feels his shoulder dampen. “Oh, baby, don’t cry. I promise you everything is going to be fine. I’m here, aren’t I? I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m never going to let anything happen to you.”

“I don’t like it when you’re sad,” she says into his neck. “I can tell. When you’re sad. Did maman make you sad?”

“She…” Kaveh starts, then stops, presses his mouth shut and shakes his head. “You’ll understand when you’re older, sweetheart.”

“I’m already older,” she says. She pulls away until they’re looking at each other again, and Kaveh’s heart quietly cracks at the sight of her tear-soaked face. “I’m a big girl.”

He laughs despite himself. “Yes, I know. But I mean when you’re just a little bit more older. Okay?”

She pouts, and it’s so adorable that he grins and darts in to kiss each of her cheeks.

“No more crying,” he says, “okay?”

“Okay,” she nods. “No more crying.”

“Good,” he says. He holds his arms out. “One more hug for baba?”

She giggles and leaps forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, and Kaveh, for the first time in days, feels like he can breathe again.

“Is she okay?” Al-Haitham asks a few hours later as Kaveh emerges from his bedroom. He just put Kimiya to sleep for the night, and when he walks outside and sees Al-Haitham sitting with his laptop in the living room, he swallows.

It’s a sight so familiar, yet so far away. It’s been almost a decade since they lived together in university—they’ve spent more time apart than they have close by, and for a split second, Kaveh is seized with inexplicable anger at Parisa for keeping them apart from each other. Al-Haitham. His best friend. His Al-Haitham.

Because now that he really thinks about it, she’s always been weird about him. He doesn’t know when it started, because it’s just…always been there, a constant in his life. Parisa has never been keen on accompanying him when he goes out with Al-Haitham for a meal, or when he tells her something he said over text, or even when he goes out in a group with his other friends and he also happens to be invited.

He can’t count how many times he’s told her that he's planning on driving to the city to see his friends, that he’ll be back in a few hours, or maybe he’ll spend the night with Nilou or Al-Haitham or Tighnari and Cyno. She would look at him, say “I actually wanted to spend time with you tonight, if that’s okay. It’s been so long since we’ve had a night to ourselves,” or something like that. Something like that. There was always something. Fuck. Fucking hell.

How could Kaveh have been so blind?

“Kaveh.”

The sound of Al-Haitham’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts. Kaveh starts, sees the way Al-Haitham is looking at him, deadpan as always, but his eyebrows are curved. So. That’s something, for sure.

“Oh, sorry,” he says, then makes his way over.

Al-Haitham shifts to make more room for him on the couch, and Kaveh plops down on the other end, leaning his entire body against the back cushion.

Moments later, Al-Haitham’s question catches up to him. 

“She’s fine now,” he says, voice low as he stares aimlessly to a spot somewhere in the center of the living room. “She was a little…ah, I don’t know. Sometimes I look at her and forget how big she is now.”

“She’s six,” says Al-Haitham. “She’s definitely old enough to be aware of herself and her surroundings.”

“Yeah,” says Kaveh, and then again, “yeah. I know. I just…she’s my little girl.”

“She is,” Al-Haitham nods. “She always will be.”

“Ah, that’s going to make me cry.”

“Well don’t do that.”

Kaveh turns his head until his face is smushed up against the couch. He closes his eyes and breathes in and out, in and out. He brings his legs up until his thighs are pressed against his chest, wrapping his arms around his knees and exhaling shakily. 

He feels Al-Haitham shift slightly. “Kaveh,” he says.

“I still don’t want to talk about it,” says Kaveh, voice muddled through the cushion.

“That’s not what I was going to ask,” says Al-Haitham, which makes Kaveh look up at him curiously. 

“Then what?”

“I was just going to say,” Al-Haitham starts, “that you can stay here for as long as you want. It doesn’t matter to me. And don’t say something stupid, like sorry or thank you. Those types of words don’t sound flattering coming from you.”

Kaveh’s mouth opens.

Al-Haitham raises an eyebrow.

Kaveh’s mouth closes.

A few seconds pass, where Kaveh finds himself averting his gaze, his teeth sinking into his lower lip as he mulls over the offer. Well, it’s not really an offer. Al-Haitham isn’t the type to make offers like that. Kaveh knows he’s already made up his mind on letting Kaveh and Kimiya stay with him for the foreseeable future. He’s like that, this guy. This Al-Haitham.

So Kaveh goes back to smashing his face into the cushion.

“Can you even breathe like that?” Al-Haitham asks him a few seconds later.

“Mmmmph,” says Kaveh, with emphasis.

“I told you to not say thank you, not to suffocate yourself.”

“Fuhck youhrself,” says Kaveh.

“Suit yourself, then,” says Al-Haitham, and the next thing Kaveh hears is the sound of his hands clacking against his keyboard keys, and it’s so soothing that he falls asleep right there.

 

✩

Al-Haitham doesn’t do… kids.

It’s partly because he never has the opportunity to interact with them much, working the job that he does, and the only friend he has that has already had a kid is Kaveh, whose wife is insane. 

So. He can’t say that he’s very well-versed in this aspect of adulthood, even though he’s the one who suggested that Kaveh bring Kimiya to live with them. It was never a question as to whether she would be allowed to stay at his house, though, because it’s Kaveh, and it’s Kaveh’s daughter. It’s just that he primarily interacted with Kimiya in passing, brief moments, and the rest that he knows about her is through photos and updates through Kaveh. Plus, the last time he met her, she was two years old and toddling around on chubby legs.

And now she is very much no longer two years old. She’s six years old, and she’s staring at Al-Haitham with these big, curious eyes, the hem of her shirt fisted in her hands.

“Hello,” Al-Haitham says, sitting down at the table for breakfast.

“Good morning,” Kaveh says, fussing over her plate. “Miya, say hello to amu Al-Haitham.”

“Hi,” she says, and then she turns immediately into Kaveh in the way that little kids do when they’re nervous.

“I need to go grocery shopping,” Al-Haitham says in reference to the breakfast spread he’s set up on the table. “What things does Kimiya like to eat? Or what should I grab while I’m out?”

“Oh,” Kaveh says, turning to his daughter. “Miya, what things do you like to eat?”

Kimiya taps her finger to her chin, thinking. “I like looooots of things,” she says eventually, spreading her arms out to demonstrate. “Like apples, and pears, and oranges, and pomegranate juice. And cheese and rice and pistachios and…” She trails off, looking at Kaveh as she giggles. “And cookies and kulfi and—”

“All right, that’s enough out of you,” Kaveh says playfully, grabbing her and pretending to shake her until she shrieks in joy. “You little schemer.”

“I’m not a skeeeeeemer,” Kimiya protests, wriggling in his grasp. “I don’t even know what that is.”

“It’s a person who schemes,” Al-Haitham adds unhelpfully. In his head, he thinks of Parisa.

“Very useful, thank you, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says, rolling his eyes. “But yes. She does like all of those things, but you should make sure to get vegetables—”

“Eww!” Kimiya cries.

“—and peanut butter,” Kaveh continues, ignoring his daughter. “Yogurt is a good choice, too. She likes it with honey and walnuts. Porridge is also good, too… oh, and eggs. Also, get everything organic if you can.”

“Maybe you should come with me to shop,” Al-Haitham suggests. “You would know better than I could remember.”

Kaveh pauses. “That is a good idea. The first one you’ve had all week I’d say.”

“My only poor idea was picking you up from Lambad’s, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says, rolling his eyes. “But my first good idea was to bring Kimiya over here.”

Kaveh looks at him, then, and there’s something brutally honest and sincere swimming in his eyes. “I suppose you’re correct,” he says, and then that’s that.

Throughout dinner that night, Kaveh’s phone keeps ringing. At first, he just leaves it on the table, turning it off it every time the ringtone erupts into the conversation, but not fast enough that Al-Haitham can’t see that the contact says pari and the photo is a selfie of her and Kaveh that Al-Haitham recognizes as being one of their post-proposal photos.

After the fourth or so call, Kaveh gets up without preamble and takes the phone to his room, and when he returns ten seconds later, he’s without the device, and then dinner continues on. Kaveh doesn’t mention it, so Al-Haitham doesn’t either. Kimiya, innocently unaware of the silent tension in Kaveh’s shoulders, continues eating happily.

It had been a good day, but now Kaveh is in more of a sour mood than he was for the entire afternoon, though Al-Haitham can tell that he does his best not to show it in front of Kimiya. He keeps smoothing her hair back, tending to her needs, and fussing over her meals.

Kimiya is such a loved child. Al-Haitham stares at Kaveh, sometimes in disbelief that so much time had passed and he had turned out to be such a good parent. There was a time when he’d been struggling to turn in his assignments, and now there’s not a single need of his daughter’s that goes forgotten.

But of course Kaveh would be an excellent father. He’s loving; it’s in his blood. Al-Haitham can see it. He’s overflowing with such an abundance of love for others that he can’t help but be caring to everybody around him, and that’s how Al-Haitham knows that whatever has happened is Parisa’s fault.

He’s convinced that there is no universe in which Kaveh didn’t try his hardest to keep his marriage together, especially for the sake of his daughter, before he was forced to give up. He’s never thought of his own selfish needs like that, and that’s why Al-Haitham offered to house him and Kimiya, so he could take one less weight off of his back. It must be difficult when he’s carrying the entire world for his daughter right now.

Al-Haitham wouldn’t mind sharing some of that burden, if only Kaveh would let him.

But right now, he thinks he can hear the shrill ringing of a phone from the other room. “Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says mildly. “I think somebody is calling you.”

“For Kusanali’s sake,” Kaveh mutters, throwing down his napkin. “Excuse me for a minute.”

Kimiya watches him go, and then she turns to Al-Haitham with a look of concern on her face. “Where is baba going?” she asks.

“He’s only taking care of a work call,” Al-Haitham says, and then he stands to retrieve a box from the cupboards. “I grabbed these while we were at the grocery store.”

It’s a box of cookies, and it’s a simple thing, but it makes Kimiya’s eyes widen in delight, impatient fingers reaching for the box.

“Be careful,” Al-Haitham says softly, opening the top for her. “You don’t want a paper cut.”

Kimiya shakes her head vigorously. “I do not. Those hurt, but then baba kisses it, and it doesn’t hurt anymore.” Her eyes, childlike, are still trained on the cookies.

“I’m sure that he’ll kiss you whenever you want, even if you aren’t hurt.” He tears open the packaging and offers her a cookie, which she takes with both hands and a wide smile on her face. 

How simple it is to make her happy. Al-Haitham wants nothing more but to protect the innocent grin on her face.

“Kimiy—” Al-Haitham starts, and then Kimiya claps a hand over his mouth, stopping him in his tracks. He raises one eyebrow at her when she removes it. “Kimi—”

“Shhh,” she instructs him, putting one finger over his lips, and then she retreats back to her cookie, nodding satisfactorily. “Kimi.”

“Kimi,” Al-Haitham repeats, and he’s met with an enthusiastic grin and a small sound of job. “That’s what you want me to call you? Kimi?”

“Baba tells me that you’re supposed to have special nicknames with special people,” Kimiya says to him, her tone all serious, and Al-Haitham physically feels a part of him melt, barely able to keep his head up.

“Really?” he asks, fighting back a smile. “And what did I do to deserve that?”

“You gave me a cookie,” she tells him simply. “And you were nice to my baba.”

“Oh,” Al-Haitham says softly, his eyes dropping. “If that were all it took, then I would have countless special nicknames.”

“It should oooonly matter that you have mine,” she tells him proudly, and then she looks back at her cookie, considering something. After another few seconds of thought, she splits it into two and hands part of it to Al-Haitham.

“Thank you, Kimi,” Al-Haitham says, graciously accepting the gift, and it doesn’t go unnoticed to him that she smiles broadly at the use of the nickname. “You can have as many cookies as you like, as long as you don’t tell your baba.”

“As long as you don’t tell me what?” Kaveh says, coming back into the room. “Al-Haitham, are you scheming with my daughter?”

Al-Haitham swiftly removes the box of cookies from the table. “No.”

Kimiya quickly stuffs the cookie in her hand into her mouth and sits up as straight as possible, though she can’t seem to hold back her grin. “No,” she echoes, the word muffled by the cookie in her mouth.

“Kimi, be careful,” Al-Haitham says. “You’ll choke.”

“Nuh uh,” Kimiya says, shaking her head.

Kaveh comes back to the table, sighing, though he’s smiling as well. “What is that? A cookie?”

“No, it isn’t,” Kimiya says, and then she shrieks in laughter. “Amu, baba is trying to steal your cookie!”

At her urging, Al-Haitham puts his half of the cookie into his mouth as well, dutifully chewing. When he looks up at Kaveh, there’s a strange look on his face.

“He can’t steal it anymore,” he tells Kimiya, who puts her hands together, delighted.

“I should’ve known,” Kaveh sighs, settling back into his seat. He pinches Kimiya’s cheek between two fingers. “It’s hard to resist this one. What did you call her, by the way?”

“Kimi,” says Al-Haitham.

“Kimi!” Kimiya repeats, glowing. “Only amu can call me that, though.”

“All right,” Kaveh says slowly, but he doesn’t look upset by it. “Any particular reason why?”

Kimiya glances at Al-Haitham. “Only amu can know.”

“It’s because I’m special,” Al-Haitham says, his version of a smirk on his face. “You wouldn’t understand, Kaveh.”

“Miya is literally my daughter,” Kaveh says. He’s grinning, though. “You two are weird. Did you hear that, Miya? That you’re so weird? You’re my strange little girl, aren’t you?”

Kimiya giggles. “No! No!” she says, probably not even realizing what she’s disagreeing with, but only saying it just to disagree.

She laughs so freely. Al-Haitham’s house has not felt so full in many, many years.

When he comes back to himself, Kaveh is talking to Kimiya. “You should go brush your teeth before you forget, okay?” he’s saying to her. “Do you need my help?”

Kimiya shakes her head, and then she dutifully gets to her feet and sets off for the bathroom, where the sound of the sink running is soon heard.

It’s quiet between Al-Haitham and Kaveh for a little bit. And then: “You’re good to her, Al-Haitham.”

Al-Haitham only shrugs. “Am I? I’m just treating her as I would any other child.”

“No, you’re not,” Kaveh says, undisguised affection creeping into his words. “You call her Kimi. She’s not just any other child.”

“I guess not,” Al-Haitham agrees eventually. “She’s yours.”

Sharing a house with Kaveh now is nothing like how it was when they were at the Akademiya. They’re older now, of course, but there’s something… different. For one, Al-Haitham hadn’t been aware of his love for Kaveh up until the very end, so there’s that.

For another, there was no Kimiya.

There’s hardly a spare moment in the house that Al-Haitham and Kaveh have to themselves before Kimiya trots into the room, and if there is, then Kaveh is preoccupied making sure that Kimiya is all right. There’s a lot more to consider when there’s a child in the house. He’s aware that Kimiya shouldn’t be alone, and therefore he’s not bothered by this slight shift in their routine.

It’s sort of what it’s like to be a parent, he supposes. 

But Al-Haitham really, truly, does not mind it. He’s not annoyed by Kimiya’s presence in the way he might have supposed he would be by a child. But maybe that’s just a Kimiya thing.

There’s also the fact that Kaveh seems so much more content with Kimiya around, especially now that they’re living in Al-Haitham’s house instead of with Parisa in Port Ormos. Al-Haitham imagines that Parisa was a nightmare to live with. He can tell, and he wasn’t even the one who had to deal with it every day, merely hearing about it peripherally through Kaveh’s texts or their sparse meetups.

Lina from work tells him, “You seem different now, Al-Haitham,” and when he asks her what that means, she just shrugs, unable to come up with an answer.

So he’s just “different,” apparently. Maybe it’s the fact that being around a child every day after living on his own for years has made him more patient. Perhaps it’s the way he’s been forced to become more empathetic and sympathize with Kimiya’s miniscule troubles, like the bruise on her knee from when she knocked into the wall, so then he learns to sit through her entire speech and then he goes out and buys padding for all the sharp corners in his house. It’s certainly not a thing he would have done for anyone else.

He thinks that Kaveh can tell, and he’s pleased without saying anything or bringing attention to it. He thinks that Kaveh likes that Al-Haitham has become so close with his daughter, who has become increasingly attached to Al-Haitham.

Al-Haitham thinks that he really, really likes Kimiya.

The Palace of Alcazarzaray has been getting a lot of attention, Kaveh tells Al-Haitham. A lot of people are interested in the mastermind behind the project, Kaveh tells Al-Haitham. I’m meeting a client for dinner in three days, Al-Haitham, so could you make sure that Kimiya gets to sleep, Kaveh asks Al-Haitham.

Al-Haitham says yes, of course.

It’s a quiet affair. Kimiya is an easy child. She wants to go to sleep early, so Al-Haitham bathes her and gets all of her things sorted out, and then she gets into bed, staring at Al-Haitham expectantly while he tries to figure out what he’s meant to do next.

“What does your baba do when you two go to sleep?” he asks eventually, drawing a blank.

Kimiya scavenges through the bedside table next to her, producing a small picture book with a beam. “Baba reads to me every night,” she says, “and then when we finish the story, he’s so tired that he tells me he can’t do anything but go to sleep, so I do too.”

“All right,” Al-Haitham says, clambering into the bed. Kimiya scoots closer to him immediately, burying her side into his arm, and he freezes at the warm weight of her body against his. She doesn’t notice, easing her head onto his arm.

This kid. Al-Haitham forces himself to relax, releasing the tension in his body, and then he cracks open the book. “It’s good that your baba reads to you so often,” he tells Kimiya. “Reading will be massively instrumental in your education when you grow up, Kimi.”

“I see you reading all of the time,” Kimiya says. “Your books are big.”

“Yes, they are,” says Al-Haitham. “A little boring for you, I would imagine. There’s no talking animals or fairies or Aranara in those ones.”

Kimiya screws up her face, shaking her head. “Then why would you even read them?”

“That’s a good question,” Al-Haitham replies, redirecting her attention to the first page. “This is far more interesting, isn’t it?”

“Yes!” Kimiya cheers, putting her hands together in excitement, and that’s his cue to begin.

And that’s how Kaveh finds them later, swinging around to the bedroom before he vanishes into the bathroom. He’s smiling tiredly, which Al-Haitham takes to mean that the meeting went well. “Hello, sweet pea,” he says softly, and then he looks at Al-Haitham. “And you, I guess. Reading?”

“Baba, you’re interrupting the story,” Kimiya says frustratedly, and Kaveh laughs.

“Sorry, Miya. I’ll be there in twenty minutes, and then we can sleep, okay?”

Kimiya nods, and Al-Haitham continues with the picture book, though he can feel Kaveh’s eyes trail on him for a minute longer before he eventually walks away with heavy footsteps.

“Thank you,” Kaveh whispers to him later when he takes over the job. Kimiya is asleep by now, her dainty eyelids closed and her breath coming in even, slow exhales.

Al-Haitham shrugs. “It’s nothing.”

“No, it’s not nothing,” Kaveh says, a little louder, and then pauses when he looks back at his sleeping daughter. “It’s not nothing,” he continues, but quieter this time. “You don’t realize what you’ve done for us, Al-Haitham.”

Before he can respond, he just pushes him on the shoulder a little, urging him back to his own room. “Thank you,” Kaveh says again, sincere. “Now go to sleep. Or read your heavy, boring books. Whatever it is you do.”

Al-Haitham returns Kaveh’s smile with a nod. “Goodnight, Kaveh,” he says, and then he leaves.

Layla and Nilou, who were the first to know about Kaveh and Parisa’s separation, eventually make plans to visit the three of them in Al-Haitham’s home.

They come bearing fruit, which quickly becomes set to the side when Kimiya catches sight of the two entering the household and scampers up to them, excitement in her eyes.

“Do you remember me, Miya?” Nilou says warmly, dropping to her knees and opening her arms up for a hug.

“Amme Nilou!” Kimiya says excitedly, running into her arms. Behind her, Layla grins and embraces Kimiya next.

“I’m so glad to see that things turned out all right, Kaveh,” Nilou says. “I was so worried after that first night, you know. And you told me that things were okay, but—oh, you never know. You always gloss over things, Kaveh. I had to come and make sure that you weren’t lying to me to soothe my nerves.”

“I would never do that,” Kaveh says with faux affront.

“Yes, you would,” Al-Haitham says, completely serious.

“You would,” Nilou affirms, shrugging. “I’m just glad to see that’s not the case here, Kaveh. And you, Al-Haitham—” She elbows him in the side. “Such a sap. You and your stupid refusal to admit when you’ve done a good thing.”

“I haven’t done anything,” Al-Haitham cuts in.

“Shut up, Al-Haitham, shut up,” Kaveh says, his fingertips at his temples. “You’ve done so much—”

“I thought that we’re not allowed to say that, baba,” Kimiya says, tugging on Kaveh’s shirt. “You know. The words.”

“You aren’t,” Kaveh says, one eyebrow raised. “And neither is Al-Haitham. But I’m allowed. It’s a baba privilege.”

“Shut up, Kaveh,” Nilou says, and bursts into delighted laughter at the look of shock on Kaveh’s face.

“Whatever,” Kaveh grumbles, and then he steps to the side. “Don’t just stand around the parlor. Al-Haitham made dinner, which you can probably smell, so if you’re not too scared of getting food poisoning then you can go ahead and take a seat at the table.”

The rest of the night passes in this fashion, swept away by laughter and good conversation. Kimiya, for her part, isn’t as entirely withdrawn by the addition of two new people as Al-Haitham might have supposed she would be. Her familiarity with them is probably a factor, though from what Al-Haitham can gather, Parisa didn’t allow Nilou or Layla to visit very often either.

It’s a comfort to know that things can only get better from here.

“You know,” Nilou says conversationally to Al-Haitham, where they’re both seated at the couch. The other three are still at the table, distracted by playing cards. “Kaveh seems to be a lot different than how he was when we last saw him. Not counting the night after things between him and Parisa blew up, of course. I mean even when they were together and pretending that their marriage was fine, because even then he wasn’t his usual self. More uptight and anxious, I suppose?”

“The distance must be doing him well,” Al-Haitham says. “I never had to interact with Parisa for longer than half a day at a time, and already that was too much for me.”

“Hey,” Nilou says, punching him in the shoulder slightly, “don’t discount yourself. You know that none of this would have happened if you never offered your home to him, right? That was an extremely generous move on your part. You’ve quite literally changed their lives.”

“Well,” Al-Haitham says, “it’s Kaveh.”

Nilou looks sidelong at him. “It’s Kaveh,” she agrees eventually, a bit of a melancholy hint to her voice. “Al-Haitham, do you still…”

Al-Haitham looks at Nilou. “Yes,” he says simply. “I never stopped.”

“Oh, Al-Haitham,” Nilou says, and that’s all she has to say for Al-Haitham to understand.

“It’s been a while,” he says self-deprecatingly. “I’m used to it. It doesn’t bother me.”

Nilou looks at him for a long time, and then she sighs. “Well, I’ll extend my ear once again, but you don’t have to take it.”

“Thank you, Nilou.”

They sit in companionable silence for a few more moments, and then Nilou changes the subject. “I’m so happy to see Kimiya so joyful,” she remarks. “You know, after seeing the state that Kaveh was in when he first drove up to the city, I was worried for her. She’s so young, you know. But if anything, she seems to be more energetic now that she’s out of that house.”

“I can’t imagine that Parisa was a much better mother than she was a wife,” Al-Haitham says dryly. “She’s always seemed to be baba’s girl, anyway. And I’m sure that in all the excitement of everything going on, she’s too distracted to think too deeply about it.”

“Right,” Nilou says, smiling. “The only good thing that Parisa served in Kaveh’s life was that girl. She’s such a sweetheart, Al-Haitham. We’re all so blessed to have her in our lives as well.”

“I know.” Al-Haitham glances back at the three at the table, right as Kimiya exclaims joyfully and claims some of Layla’s cards in whatever game they’re playing. “She didn’t deserve to have to live with that woman for so long. If she’s happier here, then my job is done.”

Nilou is smiling at him. “You like her a whole lot, don’t you,” she says.

Al-Haitham shrugs. “She’s Kaveh’s daughter.”

“That’s not just it, is it though,” says Nilou. “You have a soft spot for her that you wouldn’t be able to fake, even for Kaveh’s sake. You’re awfully kind to her when you don’t have the patience to deal with most others.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Nilou laughs delightedly, pointing at his face. “Look at you! You’re embarrassed.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Al-Haitham, and then he’s distracted by Kimiya running over and tapping on his leg.

“Will you play cards with us, amu?” she asks. “I just beat baba.”

“She was cheating!” Kaveh calls from the other room. “Layla can attest to it, right?”

“I’m certain she won fair and square,” comes Layla’s voice and then Kaveh’s answering groan.

Kimiya smiles at Al-Haitham, pink-cheeked, and he sighs as he stands up and lets her lead him away. “I won’t go easy on you, Kimi,” he warns, and she nods very seriously.

“I’ll beat you anyway,” she says, prancing into her seat, and when Al-Haitham looks back, Nilou is giving him a stare that says she knows more than Al-Haitham would like to admit.

There’s a night where Kaveh enters Al-Haitham’s bedroom unceremoniously long after Kimiya has already gone to sleep, plopping himself into Al-Haitham’s chair and swiveling to face him, where he’s sitting in his bed.

“Hi,” Kaveh says.

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says in return, wondering if something had gone wrong that would compel Kaveh to come into his room.

“Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh, and then he sighs and deflates, his posture relaxing so that he’s hunched over in the chair. “Sorry. It’s just—it’s been quite the few weeks, hasn’t it?”

“It’s been over a month,” Al-Haitham points out, to which Kaveh blanches at and sighs even louder. “Is everything all right?”

“I feel like you’re always asking me that,” Kaveh mutters, and then he shakes his head quickly as if clearing the thoughts from his brain. “I’m okay. I could be better, but Miya is safe and happy and that’s what matters the most to me right now. Things with Parisa are… being a bitch, it’s safe to say, but it’s a legal matter now. I’m done for good.”

A part of Al-Haitham takes a deep sigh of relief when he hears that. “Is that soon?” he asks.

“Hopefully,” Kaveh says tiredly. “I just don’t want things to get any uglier than they already are. That’s probably the best I can ask for at this point. And I don’t want Kimiya to get wrapped into this, but I think that Parisa will find it easy to move on from Miya and I. Too easily, but it’s for the best.’

He laughs. “You know, I told her that Kimiya and I are staying at your house, and she had a lot to say about that. When doesn’t she? Nothing that I paid any mind to, however. If she has such an issue with it, then she shouldn’t have—”

He cuts himself off, clearing his throat and looking down. “It’s fine. Things will be over soon, and then I can go minimal contact and only talk to her about things that concern Miya. The only things that matter.”

“And Kimi?” Al-Haitham asks. “How is she doing with all of this?”

“I think she’s adjusting,” Kaveh says slowly. “It’s obviously a big change, but she’s happy. Happier. There are more opportunities here than there were in the port and so much more for her to do here in the city, and she’s liking that we’re able to visit my friends. I don’t know. I think she misses Parisa a little bit.”

“It’s only natural,” Al-Haitham concedes. “I hope you don’t see that as a failing on your part, Kaveh. You are enough for her.”

Kaveh laughs softly. “I can’t believe you’re the one saying this to me. I can’t tell you how grateful I am, Al-Haitham, that you’ve done so much for us. That you’ve given us these opportunities. I don’t even know if I could put it into words. I just—” He drops his head into his hands, overwhelmed.

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says, “this is nothing to me. I know there’s no use trying to stop you from thanking me, but I am… glad that you two are part of my life. My house has been too big for one person lately.

“Oh, so you were lonely,” Kaveh grins. “You were lonely and you missed me. I see how it is, Al-Haitham.”

“I did not say it in those words.”

“But you said it. You meant it, Al-Haitham.”

Al-Haitham looks at him with a steady gaze. “You two would not be here right now if I did not mean it.”

Kaveh scoffs. “There you go again with that unfailing sincerity. Sickening.”

“You started it,” Al-Haitham reminds him, and that makes Kaveh tip his head back in a laugh, the warm orange light of his bedside lamp spilling out and highlighting the bare expanse of his throat. Al-Haitham swallows and saves this warm feeling in his chest in his mind so he can come back and visit it later.

“I suppose I did,” Kaveh says. “You’re just a ridiculous man. I don’t know if it’s the late night and little sleep talking, but you do things to me, Al-Haitham.”

Al-Haitham despises the way those words make his ribs light like torches to hear with something a little like hope, especially when Kaveh is being so vulnerable. It feels like he’s taking advantage of him, somehow. Here Kaveh is, trusting Al-Haitham with his daughter and his life, and all along Al-Haitham has been desperately, stupid in love with him.

“It’s the time, Kaveh,” he says eventually. “You should go to sleep soon, or else Kimi will wake up and wonder where you’ve gone. You also have several meetings in the next two weeks that you should be properly rested and prepared for.”

“You’re like my secretary,” Kaveh observes, but he finally vacates Al-Haitham’s chair, stepping out of the reach of the lamplight before he pauses at the door. “Goodnight, Al-Haitham.”

“Goodnight, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham echoes.

Kaveh is at a meeting when Parisa finally shows up at Al-Haitham’s door.

She couldn’t have possibly planned this, not knowing Kaveh’s schedule, but she coincidentally came by in the midst of Kaveh’s absence and while Kimya is thankfully taking a nap.

“What are you doing here,” is all Al-Haitham manages to get out before Parisa is storming into the house, using his surprise against him to push him out of the way.

“Where is he?” she says, a little frantic. There’s a wild look to her eyes, her normally put-together hair mussed.

“What is wrong with you?” Al-Haitham asks harshly, following her into the house. “Are you insane? Get out of my house.”

“Where is he?” she shrieks, whirling on him and stepping close enough to put one accusatory finger on his chest. “I know this is your fault. That’s his jacket in the parlor. I know he wouldn’t have even thought about leaving me if it wasn’t for you—you—”

“He left you because there’s something wrong with you,” Al-Haitham hisses. He’s reluctant to put his hands on her, but he wants her out of the house before Kimiya realizes she was even here. “He’s not here right now. He has a life, you know. You can either leave right now and arrange a meeting like a sane person or I will call the Matra on you for trespassing.”

“This is my husband’s house,” Parisa taunts. “It’s not trespassing. I’m his legal wife.”

“This house is mine in name,” Al-Haitham says sharply. “And he may be your husband in the eyes of the law, but he is anything but in reality. I can’t say I blame him for leaving you. Get out of my house.”

Parisa steps back, her eyes flashing. “Well, that’s where you’re wrong. He didn’t leave me. I broke up with him. He was probably too embarrassed to admit it, you know, being a man, so he took my daughter and fled to the only other person who would sympathize with him. But it’s all right; he’s my husband. I’ll take him back and forgive him.”

“There is genuinely something wrong with you,” Al-Haitham says with disgust in his voice. “It’s very clear that he’s the one who chose to separate because otherwise you would not be here right now. Kimi would not be staying in these rooms. You would be back in Port Ormos, where you purposefully isolated and secluded Kaveh from his support system in a pathetic attempt to keep him to yourself.” He advances on her. “Don’t forget that I know Kaveh, and that means that I know you.”

“You don’t know a single thing about me!” she shouts, and Al-Haitham grimaces. There’s no way Kimiya hasn’t woken up by now, but hopefully she has the sense to not leave her room. “If you did, you would understand. You would understand. They would all understand.”

“You need psychiatric help,” Al-Haitham tells her coldly. She steps back, her eyes flashing, and when she does her hand instinctively goes to her stomach as if protecting it by instinct—

Her stomach. Al-Haitham stares at it for a long, long moment, and when Parisa recognizes what he’s looking at she takes a few unsteady steps backward, her face going pale.

“Are you fucking serious,” Al-Haitham says, his voice deadly quiet. “Is that a pregnancy bump?”

Parisa is looking all over the room now, anywhere but at Al-Haitham. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says softly.

Al-Haitham is beside himself with rage; he can feel himself shaking. “Yes, you clearly do. Answer the question. Did you get pregnant?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she screams at him, her face going from white to red, flooding with blood. “I don’t know why you feel you have the right to speak on my body, my actions—”

“You cheated on him,” Al-Haitham says softly, his mind making the connection. That’s the only way the math works out, what with the timing of pregnancy. “You cheated on him, and that’s why he left you.”

“I did not cheat,” Parisa says indignantly, her face now calm. “It’s obviously Kaveh’s, and that’s the only reason why I’m giving him a second chance. I didn’t want to tear the baby away from its father, even if I knew that it would be good for it, and I’m here right now to give him the chance to return to our home so he can be the father it deserves.”

“No,” Al-Haitham says, shaking his head. He feels faint. “No. No. Don’t lie to me. Kaveh would never leave you if you were pregnant with his child. He’s not like that. And I know you two have been having issues. I saw the way you acted at the dinner when the palace was completed. Don’t fucking lie to me.”

Parisa lifts her nose, her chin quivering. “I don’t know what you’re—”

“Yes, you do,” Al-Haitham spits out vehemently, his mind swirling. “Are you fucking serious? You cheat on the best man you’ll ever meet and you have the audacity to make it out as his fault? You come into my childhood home and demand to see him as if you have the right?”

“What was I supposed to do?” she cries, tearing at her hair. “He wouldn’t look at me—he wouldn’t look at me—”

“Can you even hear yourself right now?” Al-Haitham says. “Are you insane? Do you need to be checked into a psych ward? Are you even cognizant of a single word that is coming out of your mouth? Tell me, Parisa, why in the world you think Kaveh is a pathetic enough man to come crawling back to you. Tell me why you believe he would suffer the utter indignity of being your husband longer than he has to.”

“He would be lucky to have me,” Parisa hisses, jabbing her thumb into her chest as she points to herself. “He was lucky. He was so lucky. He was fortunate that I had the foresight to keep him away from people like you who only have their own selfish needs in mind.”

“Selfish? Kaveh?” Al-Haitham snorts. “You should do some self-reflection before you even try to associate that word with him. If anybody was lucky, it was you because Kaveh took a chance on you. I feel bad for him, actually. I feel bad that he was stuck with such a despicable, manipulative person like you.”

Parisa curls her hands into fists. “I’m the manipulative one? You’re the one who coerced Kaveh into staying in your home, and then you had him bring my daughter here as well as if that wasn’t enough. We were fine. Our family was fine. Our family was perfect, and then there was you.”

“I’m flattered that you would overstate my importance in Kaveh’s life like that,” Al-Haitham retorts, crossing his arms. “But he would continuously choose you over me. You made sure of that. It’s the only reason why it took him this long to finally come to his senses and leave you. It took you having an affair—do you think about that? Do you think about what it takes to push someone like Kaveh over the edge, who would have done anything for his daughter?”

“Apparently, all it takes is a bastard like you,” Parisa spits, looking him up and down with disgust in her eyes. “This is your fault. This is your fault! You got into my husband’s head and you convinced him that I had anything but the best intentions in mind for him—”

Al-Haitham slams one hand on the couch. “You know that’s not the truth. You know that I wasn’t able to convince Kaveh of anything, and those were your machinations. You know that the closer we got, the farther he would stray from you, and you always had to chase him back. That could only work for so long.”

“You’re obsessed with him,” Parisa says softly. “You’re actually obsessed with him. You know, Al-Haitham, I’ve always known that you’ve been in love with him. I’ve known. I’m not stupid. I see it. But I took pity on you and I didn’t tell Kaveh because I never thought of you as a threat. I know how wrong I was now, but you were always the best friend, never the bride. That was me. Me. You can’t claim to be anything to the contrary. He chose me, Al-Haitham, and you’re going to have to live with that knowledge for the rest of your life.”

Al-Haitham takes a step back, stunned. Parisa knew? She knew? She knew all of these years that she’s been with Kaveh? Is that why she disliked him so vehemently from the very beginning?

“People in love are selfish,” she continues, “and that’s why you had to ruin a good thing, didn’t you? You couldn’t stand to see your beloved Kaveh happy with somebody that wasn’t you, so you had to ruin it? You ruined my marriage. You ruined my marriage! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you—”

“Even if I did love Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says quietly, dangerously, “I still wouldn’t have treated him the way that you treated him. I would have been happy that he had friends he could count on instead of so disgustingly jealous and insecure that he couldn’t see them anymore. I wouldn’t have cheated because I know how to be a decent human being and a decent partner.” 

He takes a step forward right as Parisa takes a step back.

“Even if I did love Kaveh,” he continues, “I would have let him go if he didn’t want to stay. I wouldn’t attempt to guilt trip him back into a relationship that he wasn’t happy in, and I wouldn’t use his daughter as emotional leverage to manipulate him to come back. Because I’m not desperate. And I’m not pathetic. And he did the right thing by leaving. You’re an awful piece of work. I’d be concerned if Kimi had to stay with you any longer—”

“Kimi?” Parisa repeats. Her voice is furious, quiet. “What did you just call my daughter?”

“You aren’t allowed to call her that,” Al-Haitham snaps immediately, just hearing the nickname from her mouth somehow making him even more incensed until he feels as if he’s going to choke on all of his rage. “You aren’t allowed to call her that. She said that only I could call her that.”

“That’s my daughter you’re talking about!” Parisa screams. “What, was my husband not enough? You had to take my daughter, too? The daughter that I bore with my own body? Do you have no respect for marriage, for domesticity, for my family?”

“Don’t you?” Al-Haitham retorts. “You gave all of that up the moment you decided to cheat on Kaveh. That wasn’t just your husband that you were betraying. It was your daughter, and it’s the unborn child in your stomach who is going to have to grow up knowing they were conceived out of spite instead of love. Because if you loved that man, that man you cheated on Kaveh with, you would not be here right now. So don’t talk to me about respect, Parisa. You are the last person to know what respect even means.”

“Stop pretending you’re better than me!” Parisa screeches. “You’re not! You’re not! We both love the same man, and we’ve both done despicable, unreproveable things because of it! We’re the same person, Al-Haitham, whether you want to face it or not.”

Al-Haitham looks down his nose at her, cold disinterest on his face. “No, we’re not,” he says. “I gave Kaveh a chance to flourish without even telling him about my feelings. I let him go, and you should have the decency to do the same, if you truly love him. But I know you don’t. I can’t imagine you love anyone more than you love yourself.”

Parisa simply looks at him, her face and eyes going flat. The sound of a door clicking open faintly echoes in the background. “Fine,” she says simply. She steps backward. “Fine. You can have him, Al-Haitham, and you can pick up the pieces of his shattered self-esteem and his childhood trauma and his daddy issues. You can deal with his problems and the way he’s never home and how he can never seem to make time for you the way he’ll make time for Miya or for his stupid, stupid friends. You can suffer the mental torture of becoming second priority to everything else in his life, and then you can realize that I’m right.”

She looks at her fingernails, affecting disinterest. 

“I don’t want him, anyway,” she continues haughtily. “I spent eight years with that man and I didn’t get anything out of it. I got nothing. All he does is make mistakes. That accursed contract with that Dori character, maintaining his friendship with you despite my constant warnings about your nature—”

“Kaveh has only made one mistake in his life,” Al-Haitham says icily, “and that was his decision to marry you.”

“What the fuck is happening here?”

Al-Haitham and Parisa both turn suddenly to see Kaveh standing at the doorway, his coat slack in his hands and an expression of fury on his face. 

“What are you doing here?” Kaveh asks Parisa, clear disgust lacing his words. “And you.” He looks at Al-Haitham. “Why isn’t she gone? Why are you entertaining her? Why the fuck is she here?”

“I’m not entertaining anything,” Al-Haitham says coldly. “I’m only informing her of all the ways in which she is mistaken about this entire ordeal.”

“That’s not your job,” Kaveh says, his head shaking slowly. “I didn’t want—”

“You two make me sick,” Parisa chokes out, and then she stomps for the door loudly, talking as she goes. “Leave me for Al-Haitham, Kaveh. I don’t care. I don’t care anymore.”

“What the fuck?” Kaveh says, whirling around, and then the door slams shut behind Parisa. The shocks seem to reverberate through the entire house.

Al-Haitham slowly closes his eyes, attempting to ground himself again. The anger simmering in his veins can’t be good for him. He can’t even look in the direction that she left without feeling the rage spike again, and it doesn’t help that her pervasive perfume is still in the air.

“You,” Kaveh says, and he sounds furious enough that Al-Haitham opens his eyes to look at him again. “What were you thinking—”

“Baba?” comes a small voice, and then they both turn to see Kimiya, who is timidly peeking out from the corner of the hallway. She looks scared, which makes Al-Haitham want to chase after Parisa and force her to see the consequences of her actions. “Was that maman?”

“Oh, darling,” Kaveh says, rushing over to his daughter. “Oh, sweetheart. Did you hear all of that?”

Kimiya nods, confused, and then she looks at Al-Haitham. “She was being mean to amu, baba.”

Kaveh looks back at Al-Haitham, his expression a mixture of grief and anger still. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, Miya,” he says softly to her, patting her hair.

“It’s okay,” she says, in what is either honesty or a brave attempt to console her father, which is heartbreaking in its own right. “I’m used to it.”

That makes Kaveh’s eyes flutter closed slowly, his mouth twisting.

“I’m sorry, Kimi,” Al-Haitham says once he finds the words. “I didn’t think she would say those things.”

“You didn’t think,” Kaveh says harshly, reopening his eyes to look at Al-Haitham. Al-Haitham only stares at him back, not regretful of any of the things he had said, even if Kimiya had to overhear part of it.

“Baba,” Kimiya says, tugging on his sleeve and bringing his attention back to her. “Why didn’t… why didn’t maman say hi to me?”

“Oh,” Kaveh says, and his voice breaks over that one word. “Oh, Miya, baby. She was—she was thinking of other things. She probably didn’t realize that you were here, or else she would have asked about you.”

“But I heard my name,” Kimiya says, which has Kaveh throwing a sharp look to Al-Haitham again. “And all my stuff is all over the living room.”

“She was talking to amu Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says eventually, but Al-Haitham can tell that he’s fighting back tears. He turns away from the two. “He’s very distracting, as you know. Did they interrupt your sleep?”

Kimiya nods.

“Well,” Kaveh says, “I’ll make sure to talk to amu about that. And your maman, okay? I’m sorry she did that. It wasn’t very kind of her. But you can always talk to me, Miya, you know that, right?”

Kimiya nods again, and Kaveh presses a kiss to the top of her head. 

He stands. “I’m going to talk to Al-Haitham about something, all right?”

“Okay, baba,” she says, and then she looks to Al-Haitham. “I’m—I’m sorry about my maman.”

“It’s okay, Kimi, it’s not your fault,” Al-Haitham says gently, who feels the most sorry that anything had turned out the way it had. 

Fuck.

When Kimiya’s door closes again, Kaveh’s gaze hardens as he looks at Al-Haitham, and then he’s dragging him by the wrist to the study on the other side of the house, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Al-Haitham watches him pace back and forth. “I wanted to talk to you where Miya wouldn’t be able to overhear even more of an unsavory conversation,” Kaveh says, “and I want to not get worked up to the point where I’m yelling so loudly that she can hear anyway, so tell me, Al-Haitham, what the fuck I just walked into.”

“I open the door and Parisa shoves her way into the house looking for you,” Al-Haitham recites dutifully. “She says some bullshit about her leaving you first after refusing to leave, and then she starts screaming at me that I’m the reason why your marriage fell apart. Kaveh, when were you going to tell me that she cheated on you?”

Kaveh flinches, hard. “When I was ready, Al-Haitham,” he says, his hands on his head. “When I was ready to tell you, not when you decided you wanted to find out. Fuck.”

“I only found out because her bump was showing,” Al-Haitham says sharply. “Do you know how many months it’s been, Kaveh? You were never going to tell me, were you?”

“Why should I?” Kaveh bursts out, stopping in his tracks. “Newsflash, Al-Haitham, you’re not entitled to knowing every little detail in my life. Maybe I didn’t want to recount all of the ways that my shitty marriage fell apart over the past few months. It was difficult for me to live it, and now you want me to—”

He stops, taking a shuddering breath. Al-Haitham watches him through narrow eyes.

“You say that I’m your best friend,” he says. “Wouldn’t you think that would mean telling me important things like this? Wouldn’t you assume that something as important as your wife cheating on you is something that we should talk about? Who else knows, Kaveh?”

“What does it matter?” Kaveh lashes out. “She cheated on me. So what? What does it change? Bitching about it doesn’t change the fact that it happened, and it doesn’t change the fact that it’s left Miya and I without the family we’ve gotten used to. Parisa destroyed our marriage and the domestic routine that I’ve been living for the past six years, and that wasn’t an easy thing to come to terms with. Why would I want to tell you that, Al-Haitham?” Kaveh scoffs bitterly. “You with your well-paying job and the paid-off house that you’ve been living in all your life and the friends that still live in the city—”

“You can’t pin this on me, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says harshly. “I deserved to know. I like to think that you would have trusted me with the reasons why you’re leaving Parisa if you would trust me enough to provide a roof over your head, but apparently not.”

“I trusted you not to probe for information, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says as he slams a hand on the desk and then winces at the loud sound. “That was the least I would have expected from somebody like you, but I guess even that wasn’t enough. It was private, Al-Haitham. An affair between Parisa and I.”

“An affair between Parisa and you and the man she cheated with and her new unborn child and Kimiya,” Al-Haitham says, his arms crossed. “And me, and every person that you’ve brought into this situation. It’s not a private matter anymore, Kaveh. I’m involved whether you like it or not.”

“I think you’re just hurt that I didn’t tell you,” Kaveh sneers.

“Yes,” Al-Haitham says honestly, taking the other by surprise. “I am hurt.”

Kaveh’s hands fall to his sides, his expression shifting to one of hopelessness. “Al-Haitham.”

“I’m apparently an important enough consideration that Parisa started blaming me for all of the problems that you two had,” Al-Haitham says. “I’m your best friend. I’m the person who took you in, but I’m not even the one you came to first for help, was I?” He turns away, swallowing. His chest feels tight. It’s never been enough to be Kaveh’s best friend.

“Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says. “That’s not why I didn’t tell you, and you know that.”

“Sorry,” Al-Haitham mutters. “I’m just—” In love with you. “Nevermind.”

“It was difficult,” Kaveh says, beginning to pace again. “I didn’t even realize everything she’d done to make my life as small as possible until I got shocked out of it by the affair. By her pregnancy. She’d gotten sick, which I now recognize as pregnancy sickness, and I was so worried. And she knew what it was, and she didn’t tell me, and all I did was tend to her every need while all along she was carrying another man’s baby.”

“Fuck,” Al-Haitham says.

“Fuck, indeed,’ Kaveh agrees, sighing. “Everything was so gradual that I didn’t realize what she was doing until I was too deep into it, and at that point I was convinced that we could fix it. That it would just take time. But a lot of time passed, and still nothing changed. Things were bad between us—we just kept fighting and fighting and fighting, and I think we knew that we would have to separate if it continued any longer.”

He sighs, finally coming to a stop and looking to the corner. 

“I guess that’s when she began cheating. A coward’s choice—she always ran before we could properly talk about things. It really started when the withering started to destroy part of the palace, and so I told Dori that I was going to cover all of the cost. Parisa hated it. She told me not to sign the contract, but I couldn’t not do it. It’d been years at that point. There was no way that I would have given up everything just to throw it all away when the end was in sight. That’s when the fighting began.”

Kaveh looks at Al-Haitham wryly. 

“And then they never really got better, I guess,” he says. “It drove a boundary between us that we could never really recover from, and then we both sort of… gave up. I saw the texts from the other man, though, and that was when it was really over. I grabbed Miya and I drove off as soon as I found out. Went to Nilou and Layla’s place after dropping her off at Parisa’s parent’s house, and then I guess we found our way here. And you know the rest.” Kaveh drops into a chair heavily, covering his face with his hands. “In hindsight, I could have predicted all of this. It started so early on, all of these small, tiny fractures, and then by the time the entire marriage was crumbling, I didn’t realize that I wouldn’t be able to save it anymore. And it caved in on itself.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Al-Haitham says sharply. “You know that, right? Kaveh? Parisa pulled out first. You tried your best, and she didn’t return the effort, so of course the relationship would fail. It was never your fault. Do you hear me? It was never your fault. Kaveh?”

When Kaveh looks up again, he has his hand pressed to his mouth, his body trembling. “Fuck,” he says, his voice broken, and then he closes his eyes, tears sliding down his cheeks. “Fuck,” he says again. “Al-Haitham.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says again, gently this time. “You did the best that you could, and you did what was best for Kimi. You did good.”

“I don’t—I don’t know what to say—” Kaveh chokes out, and then he stands abruptly. “I know that we never do this, Al-Haitham, but can you give me a hug? Please?”

Al-Haitham willingly opens his arms, and then Kaveh crashes into him, wetness soaking the top of his shirt and his body warm and flush against his own. 

Al-Haitham closes his eyes and tries to breathe. “You did your best,” he says, pretending as if someone were saying it to him as well. “You did your best, and that was enough.”

Kaveh’s body shakes within Al-Haitham’s arms, and the two of them don’t talk for the rest of the night.

 

☀︎

You can have him, Al-Haitham, and you can pick up the pieces of his shattered self-esteem and his childhood trauma and his daddy issues. I don’t want him, anyway. I spent eight years with that man and I didn’t get anything out of it. I got nothing. 

Kaveh gasps awake. His head spins as the memory of Parisa in Al-Haitham’s living room begins to fade, and he feels around the bed, his hand finding Kimiya through the darkness.

Immediately, his heart rate calms. He leans down to press a kiss to his sleeping daughter’s cheek just as he hears the sound of someone rummaging around in the kitchen outside. 

He frowns and moves to go take a look.

Al-Haitham is brewing chai when he emerges from the bedroom, his back to Kaveh and his head tilted downward. A quick glance at the clock on the wall makes Kaveh realize it’s well past three in the morning.

“Al-Haitham?”

Al-Haitham starts. The sight is almost comical, but Kaveh’s chest feels too heavy right now to make fun of him for it. He watches as Al-Haitham turns, almost in slow motion, and when his eyes come into view, Kaveh’s breath hitches. 

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says softly. His gaze is so dark that Kaveh has half a mind to turn right back around and pretend he was never even here. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah,” Kaveh finds himself saying. “I just woke up.”

“Did I wake you?” Al-Haitham asks. He goes back to facing away, reaching up for the cupboards to pick out another mug. “I’ll make you chai.”

“There’s no need—”

“I want to talk to you about something,” says Al-Haitham, which shuts Kaveh right up. “It’s important. Since you’re awake, it only makes logical sense to talk about it now.”

“Okay,” says Kaveh, his shoulders dropping. “Um. Then let me help you.”

They set to work, Kaveh taking out the chai patti and Al-Haitham the milk and ginger. It’s silent, but despite the initial awkwardness, Kaveh finds it comfortable, peaceful, almost. The only sounds in the room are the gas and the simmering of the pot, and as Al-Haitham is pouring the tea into two mugs, Kaveh picks out a pack of biscuits and sets a handful of them on a plate. 

They sit in the living room on either end of one of the couches, and they dip their biscuits in their chai and tear off the softened corners with their teeth for the better part of the next ten minutes. Kaveh glances at Al-Haitham a few times, twisting his lips as he watches him stare silently out at the empty space in front of him. He said he wanted to talk to Kaveh about something, but he clearly wants to take his time. It is so completely unlike him that Kaveh almost wonders if he could still possibly be in a dream.

Then, after what feels like a year and a half, Al-Haitham finally says, “Kaveh, I want to tell you something.”

“Okay,” Kaveh nods, urging him to continue. “Then tell me. What is it?”

“It’s about Parisa.”

Kaveh feels himself jerk back before he can mentally stop himself. Al-Haitham notices this, obviously. His eyes narrow on his figure.

“Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah,” says Kaveh. “Yeah, of course it is. What about her?”

“Are you still in love with her?”

Yikes. What a question. Kaveh manages to still himself. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I—what she did is unforgivable, Al-Haitham. And I don’t want her anywhere near me for the rest of my life, once I manage to go through with the divorce. She…I’ve been thinking a lot about my marriage recently. Everything about it. I didn’t—it’s a lot, Al-Haitham. I don’t know if a lifetime is even enough to process it.”

“Tell me what you’ve been thinking about,” says Al-Haitham. 

The request surprises Kaveh. “What?”

“In regards to your marriage,” Al-Haitham says. 

“Oh,” says Kaveh. He breathes deep, settles back into the backrest of the couch. When he looks at Al-Haitham again, he finds him already staring back. “Okay. I.” 

Archons. Where is he even supposed to begin? 

“It was fine,” he starts, every word leaving his mouth branding the edge of his lips. “In the beginning, it was fine. We were happy. I was happy. It was good. The only thing that would have made it better was if the land Dori bought was near the city instead of near Port Ormos. God, Al-Haitham, do you know what Parisa said to me once? In the middle of one of our fights?”

Al-Haitham looks at Kaveh meaningfully. “What did she say?” he asks.

“That she was happy about it,” Kaveh says, and feels a hand clamp hard around his heart. “She was happy that Dori’s commission relocated me away from the city. Away from you. She’s…she’s always had a problem with you.”

Al-Haitham nods, like he was expecting this. Now that Kaveh really thinks about it, he supposes it makes sense. All of it makes sense.

“That’s not surprising,” says Al-Haitham. He looks away, finally, as Kaveh struggles to breathe. “I’ve never liked her much either.”

Kaveh shudders, feels it course through his skin and his veins. “Al-Haitham.”

“It’s okay, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says quietly. “She was kind to everyone else. It was just me. And you were happy. It didn’t matter.”

“Of course it mattered,” says Kaveh, shaking his head. “It’s you.”

Al-Haitham does not respond to that, but the way he looks at Kaveh….archons, it’s almost too much.

“Tell me,” Kaveh whispers. “Tell me.”

Al-Haitham’s forehead wrinkles. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“I’m sure,” says Kaveh. “Al-Haitham, tell me. Tell me everything.”

“All right,” says Al-Haitham. “This might take a while.”

pari

you changed pari’s contact name

[9:02] you: where are you

[9:02] parisa: kaveh
[9:02] parisa: you’ve finally come to your senses
[9:02] parisa: I’m in our home in port ormos

[9:02] you: i’ll be there by 2

Parisa’s expression is blank when she opens the door, and when she finds Kaveh’s eyes, her face immediately crumples.

“Kaveh!” she says as he pushes past her to enter the house. “You’re here. Sit down, you’ve had a long journey. Should I make you some coffee?”

“No need,” he says, turning to look at her. “This will be a short visit.”

“What?” she says, frantically looking around. “Where are your things? Didn’t you bring your things?” Her voice is beginning to raise, tempo quickening as she rushes over to him, her hands finding his elbows. “Why didn’t you bring your things? You said—you said you’re coming back. Did you forget them? That’s okay, we can go back tomorrow and pick them up. I have some choice words for that Al-Haitham anyways. Honestly, how dare he try to get between us? I’m glad you’ve finally come to your senses about him, Kaveh. It took longer than I thought, but I’m glad you finally did. It’s okay, I forgive you. We can be happy now. We can be happy again.”

Kaveh does not move. He watches as she clings to him, her eyes wide and frenzied. She’s leaning so close that he can feel her pregnancy bump press against him, which, fuck. 

“Parisa,” he says quietly, taking a step back. He brings his backpack out, pulls out a folder, and hands it over to her.

She takes it, staring down at the frontside. “What is this?”

“Open it.”

She does. She reads the top of the very first page and gasps, throwing it down onto the floor by his feet. 

“No!” she screams. “No! You can’t—you can’t do this to me, Kaveh!”

Kaveh bends down, gathers the papers back into the folder and walks over to the dining table. He takes out a pen, flips to the first place with an empty line, and points to it. “Sign it.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? You can’t just—you can’t just come here and hand me divorce papers and expect me to fucking sign them just like that!”

Kaveh bites his cheek. He points at the line again. “Sign it.”

She shakes her head feverishly. “I won’t. I won’t sign it. You can’t leave me like this. You can’t leave me like this! I’m the one who has had to put up with all of your bullshit for the past six years of my life! I moved here to be with you. I uprooted my entire life to support your career! You can’t just—you can’t just up and decide one day that you want to get a divorce! That’s not how this fucking works!”

“You moved here to be with me?” says Kaveh. The pen drops from his grip and rolls onto the table, and he takes a step forward in her direction. “You told me you were happy to move here because it would take me away from my friends. You fucking isolated me, Parisa, you ruined my fucking life.”

“I ruined your life?” Parisa screeches at the top of her lungs. “I didn’t ruin your fucking life Kaveh! You ruined it yourself! You’re the one who made shitty decisions and chose to be friends with shitty people! I’m the one who fucking saved your life and your career! You wouldn’t be a fraction of who you are today without everything I have done for you.”

Kaveh laughs, bitter. “You know,” he starts. “I thought about it. I thought about it a lot. I wondered what the fuck I did to deserve being treated the way you treated me during our marriage. I’m not some fucking object for you to do as you please with, Parisa. I’m a human being. I deserved to go see my friends every once in a while if I wanted to. I let you see whoever you wanted, whenever you wanted to! I didn’t even think about saying no even once! You never even had to ask!”

“Stop acting as if I fucking forced you to stay away from them!”

“You did,” says Kaveh. “You did. I told you so many times that I wanted to go to the city to see my friends. I asked you when you had plans so that I could go and see Al-Haitham. Al-Haitham literally asked me multiple times to hang out but you always had something you wanted me to do. I spent years without seeing my best fucking friend, Parisa.”

“It’s always him,” Parisa spits out venomously. “It’s always fucking him. Everything always comes back to fucking Al-Haitham. Al-Haitham this, Al-Haitham that. When is it not about Al-Haitham? Why didn’t you just fucking marry him if you are so goddamn obsessed with him? Why did you ruin my fucking life why did you waste so much of my fucking time?”

“This has never been about Al-Haitham,” Kaveh snarls. “You are the one who has constantly brought him up. You are the one who has always had a problem with him. I know that you’ve never once been kind to him. You’re not the saint you pretend so hard to be. Al-Haitham has been nothing more to me than my friend. My close friend. And he could have been your friend too if you gave him the fucking chance to be.”

“Me?” Parisa laughs. “Why the hell would I want to be friends with him? He’s a selfish, rude, entitled asshole who does not deserve even the slightest glance from me. He ruined our marriage. He’s always had it out for me! He’s been trying to take you away from me for years, and you’ve never once been able to fucking see it!”

“How would he have been able to do that? How? How? How would he have been able to do that if my wife was fucking barring me from seeing him in the first place? From talking to him? I went years without seeing him, Parisa. I went years without seeing any of my friends because of you! He’s not the selfish, rude, and entitled asshole. You are.”

“How dare you fucking talk to me like that, Kaveh? How fucking dare you?”

“You cheated on me!” Kaveh screams, and this, finally, makes her go frozen still, her hand coming up to her belly. “You fucking cheated on me! Even now you’re—you’re holding your fucking stomach because you are pregnant with somebody else’s child!”

“Kaveh—”

“You cheated on me, Parisa. Maybe we could have worked it out. Maybe we could have talked about it, but all you did during the final months of our marriage was avoid me and then you went off and slept with somebody else. And now you’re saying I ruined our marriage? That Al-Haitham ruined our marriage? You need to stop finding other people to blame for your wrongdoings and sit back and think about why this shit is happening to us in the first place.”

“This is all that Al-Haitham’s fault,” Parisa hisses. “You’ve been staying with him for too long. He’s fed you lies and now he's encouraged you to treat me like this. I’m your wife Kaveh! And he is nothing. He is nothing—”

“Parisa,” says Kaveh. He turns around, walks calmly back to the table and picks up the pen and the paper. “Sign the papers.”

“No! I will not fucking sign them!”

“Sign it,” says Kaveh. “I am not leaving until you do.”

“Then you can stay here forever,” she says. “You can stay here forever for all I fucking care. That’s what you should do anyways. You should never have left. You should never have gone to the city. Fuck. I should have kept you here longer. I should never have agreed to even let you meet up with your friends the few times you did go. This is all their fault. You’re leaving me because they’ve brainwashed you. They’ve brainwashed you, Kaveh. You’ve never fucking been like this with me before. You’re only acting like this because you’ve been seeing them so often lately. You wouldn’t want to divorce me if they didn’t put all these ideas into your head! Step back from them and be your own fucking person, Kaveh! Be your own goddamn person!”

“I,” Kaveh starts. He wills his voice to not shake with the anger boiling within him, “have never been able to be my own person.”

Parisa nods at this. “Because of your friends—”

“Because of you,” Kaveh interrupts her, pointing his index finger to her chest and watching her face fall. “I have never been able to be my own person because of you. You kept me here. You manipulated me into staying with you when I could have very well gone off and had my own life outside of this marriage. Like you did. But you never let me. My friends aren’t the ones who brainwashed me, you are. And now that I’ve finally—now that I’ve finally gotten out of it, you’re just—archons, you’ve lost it. You’ve actually lost it. You’re standing here and blaming everyone but yourself for our marriage failing. Our marriage isn’t destroyed because of anyone else. We destroyed it. We did. The two of us. We did it. Stop looking for excuses. We are the problem.”

He takes a shaky breath, glances down at her stomach.

“And you,” he says as he feels his eyes burn, “you never once tried to save it. Not even a single time. Instead, you left. You left first. Not me. You left and found someone else, and now you’re having his child. I want nothing to do with you anymore. I don’t want Miya anywhere near you, either. You are going to sign these papers, and you are going to leave us alone. I never want to see your face again.”

“You can’t do that,” Parisa mutters, her face growing pale. “Kaveh, you—you can’t do that. You can’t just—you can’t do that. You can’t just leave me all alone. I have no one, Kaveh. I have no one. I—I’m not seeing him anymore. The other guy. I’m not. I promise. You can’t just leave me. If you leave, then I’ll—I’ll have no one. You wouldn’t do that to me. You’re not like that. You’re not like that!”

“You have your family,” Kaveh says. “And quite frankly, I don’t care a single bit about whether or not you’re alone. You are nothing to me anymore.”

“Miya,” says Parisa, her eyes widening, “Miya, no, you—you can’t just separate Miya from me. I won’t—you can’t do that. Kaveh, she’s my daughter. You’re not going to just—is this because of fucking Al-Haitham again? I heard what he calls her. He calls her Kimi, doesn’t he? He’s not Miya’s parent. What right does he have over me, her biological mother?”

“Stop mentioning Al-Haitham!” Kaveh screams. “Stop mentioning him! Stop it! This has nothing to do with him! It’s never had anything to do with him!”

“Why can’t you just open your eyes and see what he’s doing—”

“No,” says Kaveh. “No, no, you listen to me. You have not—not even once in the past two months—asked me if you could see Miya. You haven’t come by even once to meet her. You’ve known where we are. You could have even asked me before I told you myself. Do you know what she said to me when you came by yesterday? Right after you just turned around and fucking left after saying what you wanted to say? She came outside and she asked me if that was you, and if it was, why you didn’t say hi to her.”

Parisa flinches. “I…I don’t…”

“You don’t give a damn about anyone but yourself,” Kaveh finishes for her. “You never have. You’ve never cared about me, and you’ve never cared about Miya. And you know what? I feel sorry for the child in your stomach. I’m not going to let you come near my family ever again, and I will fight you for the rest of our lives in court if that’s what it takes for you to leave me alone.”

Just then, the front door clicks, and Kaveh whips around to see a man entering, a bag of groceries balanced in his arms. He stills immediately at the sight before him, his eyes going impossibly wide, and Kaveh stares at him for approximately five seconds before seeing red.

He turns back to look at Parisa. “Are you fucking kidding me.”

Parisa winces. “I—”

“Shut up,” says Kaveh. He shoves the folder back into her hands and slams the pen down on top. “Sign.”

“What the fuck is happening here?” says the man from somewhere behind him. “Parisa, why the hell is he here?”

“Sign,” says Kaveh again.

Parisa snatches the pen. “Fine,” she says, and then again, louder, “fine!”

Kaveh watches, his fingers trembling by his side, as she flips through the packet, signing her name at the bottom of every single page. When she’s done, she slams the folder back into Kaveh’s hand.

“You’re going to regret this,” she whispers, hard.

“No,” Kaveh says. “No, I won’t. In fact, apart from Miya, these papers are the only parts of our marriage I don’t regret.”

With that, he turns on his heel and marches right for the exit.

He stops next to the man still standing by the door, giving him a once over and saying, “Have fun with her,” before walking right out.

If he responds, Kaveh doesn’t hear him. Nor does he care. Good fucking riddance.

 

✩

Kaveh isn’t home.

It’s past dinner time at this point, and Al-Haitham and Kimiya had their meal together while he kept his phone at his side, watching anxiously for any notification to pop up to no avail. He’s both texted and called him at this point, and none of their friends that he reached out to have heard from him. There are no meetings noted on their shared calendar, either.

Kaveh’s phone is alive since his texts are going through but there’s still no answer, which means that Kaveh is either ignoring Al-Haitham or is too busy doing something to realize that he’s texted. Neither of those scenarios, considering all that had happened in the past couple of months, is a pleasant idea to ruminate on.

Al-Haitham ends up dropping Kimiya off at Nilou and Layla’s house, telling her that they’d wanted to spend some time with her, and then he drives through the city, trying to figure out where Kaveh could have disappeared to.

There’s a chance that he left the city, but Al-Haitham has a feeling that he’s still within its borders. And, truly, there’s no other establishment that Kaveh would be at if he’s stopped responding than Lambad’s.

That’s where Al-Haitham finds him, slumped over a table on the second floor.

Al-Haitham can smell the alcohol emanating from Kaveh as he approaches, leaning down to see whether he’s still conscious or not. When he does, through Kaveh’s tangled hair, he finds one eye already trained on him.

So he is awake.

“You’ve been ignoring my calls,” Al-Haitham says, drawing back up and crossing his arms. “And my texts. Imagine my surprise when I venture here and happen to find you, Kaveh.”

Kaveh just groans in response, burying his head deeper into his arms.

“How much have you drunk?” Al-Haitham asks, picking up an empty pitcher and wrinkling his nose at the sticky handle. “Hurry up and pay so that we can leave.”

“You know, Al-Haitham, you didn’t have to come find me,” Kaveh drawls, finally pulling himself up so that he’s sitting properly again. “I would have been perfectly fine right here by myself.”

“Drinking yourself into a stupor is not the general definition of fine,” Al-Haitham says. “Something must have happened. Come on home so you can tell me about it and get it off your chest.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Kaveh says stubbornly, gripping onto the table as if Al-Haitham is about to pry him out of his chair. “It’s—it’s hard to think in here. I don’t want to think anymore.”

“Kimi and I ate dinner alone, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says. He pulls out his mora pouch and begins counting out coins so they can leave as soon as possible. “Come home.”

Kaveh freezes. “Miya… fuck, I’m a terrible father.” He rubs his eyes with his fingers, distraught. “How could I… I don’t want her to see me like this, Al-Haitham.”

“She’s with Nilou and Layla,” Al-Haitham says calmly, detaching him from his seat. “I’ll go and text Nilou that it’ll have to be a sleepover instead of just a girl’s night. Kimi will be fine, Kaveh. I’m not so sure about you, on the other hand.”

Kaveh unexpectedly laughs bitterly at that, taking Al-Haitham by surprise. “I’m never fine, Al-Haitham, don’t you know? I’m never okay, even though I’m trying so goddamn hard to be okay all of the goddamn time. It never works, even when I pretend. It never works—”

“Trying is enough,” Al-Haitham says. “I think I’ve told you this before, though. Shall we go home?”

“Home,” Kaveh repeats, and then he laughs. “What is home, Al-Haitham? It wasn’t Port Ormos. It wasn’t the Akademiya.”

“It’s Kimi, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says firmly. “Let’s leave.”

Kaveh is looking around Al-Haitham, raising his hand for the bartender. “I want another drink—”

With a sigh, Al-Haitham deposits the mora on the table and then reaches for Kaveh, taking him into his arms and carrying him bridal style, with his legs kicked over his arms.

Kaveh yelps in embarrassment and surprise, turning to beat his fist against Al-Haitham’s chest. “Let me down, Al-Haitham!”

Al-Haitham ignores him, making his way out of the tavern despite the passing stares and down the street toward their shared home. Kaveh twists and turns, but eventually, proclaiming that the alcohol and all of the movement has made him nauseous, he comes to accept his fate and stops squirming.

“This is embarrassing,” Kaveh grumbles.

“Imagine how I feel.”

“This is so embarrassing,” Kaveh says again, and then he hangs his head back, and for a second Al-Haitham thinks that he’s going to shout at the moon. “Fuck you and your loftiness, Al-Haitham. We get it. You know better than I do. You’re strong as fuck despite not doing anything to maintain it. You have a home to return to—”

He stops there, choking off and blinking back something in his eye.

“You do have a home, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says. “That’s where we’re going right now.”

“It’s your home,” Kaveh says quietly. “I’m just the intruder.”

Al-Haitham raises an eyebrow. “Are you calling your daughter an intruder in my house?”

“No!” Kaveh protests immediately. “It’s—it’s just different. That’s Miya. I’m just me. A good for nothing, traumatized, problem-laden, thirty year old that still has daddy issues.” He laughs sardonically. “She sure doesn’t pull her punches.”

“She doesn’t know a single thing she’s talking about,” Al-Haitham says. “She was just saying things just to say them. I think she likes the sound of her own voice.”

“But she was right,” Kaveh says quietly. “Sure, she was a shitty mother who couldn’t even bother to check in on her daughter since the separation—but I’m a terrible father. I took away the stable household that Miya needs while she’s still growing up, and she’s been so confused lately with everything going on. I don’t even have a good answer for her, that’s how bad it is. I just have to tell her that everything will be all right when I have trouble believing it myself.”

“It will be okay, Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham. “I don’t believe that my house was the worst place you could have ended up at.”

“But it’s still my fault.” Kaveh hangs his head, his shadow shrouding his features so that Al-Haitham can’t see what he’s thinking from his face. “I’m a failure, Al-Haitham. I could have tried harder, or, I don’t know—I could’ve done something else. Something. If there wasn’t that commission and I wasn’t so foolhardy, or if I’d spent more time with Parisa outside of work so that she wouldn’t find other people to seek attention from—anything.”

“But none of those things would serve you,” Al-Haitham replies. “You know that she was a terrible wife. You know all of the things she did to purposefully isolate you from your support system. Your mother. Your friends. Your home city. That commission is the reason why you have so many clients at your feet right now. Spending more time with Parisa wouldn’t have done anything if she wasn’t already convinced that I was the reason why your marriage was failing. It wouldn’t have done anything about the fact that there must genuinely be something a little bit wrong with her.”

“But if it was for Miya’s sake, I would have bore it.”

“Does she deserve a life with Parisa? Does she deserve to be trapped in Port Ormos the way you were?”

“No,” Kaveh whispers. “No. She doesn’t. I had to get her out—I had to get out. I couldn’t keep fucking pretending anymore, and all along I tried my hardest, and still Miya could tell.” He throws his head back and laughs maniacally. Al-Haitham shifts him a little in his hold, feeling him slip. “Fuck. Fuck. It was never good enough. Miya’s going to grow up and she’s going to realize what a fucking mess her father was. She’s going to see all the ways that I screwed up and every single way that I am a failure—”

“She’s going to see how difficult it was for you to escape that situation,” Al-Haitham interrupts. “She’s going to realize how much of your own struggles you put aside for her sake, and she is going to be grateful that you left Parisa. She is going to be grateful that you weren’t okay sometimes, but you still tried your absolute hardest to be. That’s what will happen, Kaveh.”

Kaveh closes his eyes. “It doesn’t feel like that sometimes, Al-Haitham.”

“I know,” Al-Haitham says, a part of his chest feeling as if it’s fracturing. “I know, Kaveh. But it will. And if you stayed, what if she grew up to resent it? What if she resented Parisa? What if she saw everything that you sacrificed for her sake and she began to blame herself for it? It’s easy to say that you’ll give everything up, being a father, but it's a different case entirely to be a child. I think you know that.”

“My father,” Kaveh murmurs. “I still haven’t forgiven myself.”

“It’s okay to fall,” Al-Haitham says. “You just need to pick yourself back up. And you are.”

Kaveh is silent for a long moment, and then he speaks. “I drove to Port Ormos today and had her sign the papers for divorce.”

Al-Haitham feels something kick in his stomach. “Come again?”

“I had her sign the paperwork for our divorce,” Kaveh says slowly, and then he sighs, his breath coming slowly. “It’s happening. Al-Haitham, it’s happening. I won’t have to be legally associated with her soon enough, and then Miya and I will be happy.”

“I’m glad,” Al-Haitham says softly. “I’m so glad.”

“She said a lot of other things,” Kaveh continues, his eyes still closed. “A lot of shit about me, and a lot of shit about you, but I’m not exactly surprised. I don’t know why she’s so hung up on you in particular. I told her she’s been a shitty wife and a shitty mother for not even thinking of Miya during this entire process, and then her new man walked in.”

He laughs bitterly. “She told me that he wasn’t in the picture when she asked me to come back. What a fucking liar. I shouldn’t have expected anything else—I was expecting it, honestly. Just didn’t think he would walk in while I was on my own property as if he owned it. God, I need to go back and take all of our family photos off the walls.”

“That can wait,” Al-Haitham says firmly. “Divorce her first. Be rid of it, Kaveh.”

“I’m trying,” Kaveh says, and then he yawns. “Are we almost home yet?”

Home. Al-Haitham cherishes the use of that word in particular, holding it tight in his chest, and then he releases it with his next breath out. He doesn’t want to take advantage of Kaveh. He’s not going to ask for anything more than what he’s been giving.

“We’re here,” he says, depositing Kaveh onto his feet so he can unlock the door. Kaveh wobbles slightly, leaning against the wall for balance, so Al-Haitham helps him enter the door and take off his shoes, where he collapses onto the nearest sofa.

“Thank the archons,” Kaveh mumbles. “At least this is familiar. Hey, what are you doing?”

“I’m making you a proper meal,” Al-Haitham says, pulling leftovers out of the refrigerator. “You don’t want to be too hungover when Kimi comes back home tomorrow morning.”

“Always thinking, always considerate,” Kaveh sighs, flopping backwards. “That’s you, Al-Haitham.”

Is he? Al-Haitham shifts uncomfortably on his feet, piling the food onto a plate and then sticking it into the microwave. He wouldn’t call himself considerate. He wouldn’t say that any of his actions have been entirely selfless. There’s a big part of him that wants Kaveh around simply because he missed his presence, and there’s an even bigger part of him that is satisfied that Kaveh and Parisa are finally done. The selfish part of him.

“Eat, Kaveh,” he says eventually, leaving a steaming plate and a fresh glass of water in front of Kaveh.

“Thank you,” Kaveh says before digging in, and after a moment, he looks up. “You’re not going to eat?”

“No,” Al-Haitham says slowly. He still hasn’t processed it fully, now that things are becoming reality. Kaveh is divorcing Parisa. Kaveh is divorcing Parisa. “I have to think.”

“For the whole night?” Kaveh asks jokingly.

“Yes,” Al-Haitham says, watching him eat, and then he stays by his side even as the night slips away, knowing that he wouldn’t want to be alone, and when Kaveh finally falls asleep on the couch, Al-Haitham stays in the living room too, even knowing that he’ll wake up with a sore neck.

Kaveh is divorcing Parisa.

One unintended consequence of that night is that while Kimiya was staying with Nilou and Layla, they apparently took her out and about for her first real taste of the city outside of grocery shopping and taking walks around their house.

And Kimiya fell in love with it.

Apparently, the change from the port to the city is so exciting for her that it’s almost overwhelming, and she’s begging both Al-Haitham and Kaveh to take her out whenever they leave so she can see more of the scenery. Kaveh tells her that she’ll enroll in school soon enough, and then she’ll be able to see even more, but the thing about children is that they want what they want at the moment that they ask for it.

Fortunately for Kimiya, Al-Haitham’s work announces that they’re going to be holding a “bring your child to work” day.

Normally, that would just be a typical day for Al-Haitham since he works with children anyway (Scaramouche). But when he mentions it offhandedly during dinner, Kimiya turns to him with big, shining eyes, and Al-Haitham just can’t say no to that, can he?

So that’s how he ends up carting Kimiya along with him when he goes into work.

Scaramouche is the one who sees him first.

“Is that a…” he says, jerking back when he sees them walking down the halls. “Is that a child?”

“Congratulations on your observational skills,” Al-Haitham says sarcastically. He leads Kimiya into his office, telling her that she can sit in his big chair if he wants. She complies happily, even though it’s much too big for her. She looks like a doll in a playhouse with her blonde hair and big, wondrous eyes.

“I wasn’t aware you were a father,” Scaramouche mutters, following the two of them into his office for whatever reason. “I can’t imagine that anybody would willingly procreate with you.”

Al-Haitham squints. “Your mother didn’t have to think that deeply about it when we conceived.”

Scaramouche stumbles back, his eyes wide. “My mother? But she’s in Inazuma, you certainly couldn’t have—”

“Al-Haitham, meet my child!” Lina says brightly, thankfully interrupting the conversation. They both turn around to see her carrying her cat, which is so fat that it almost dwarfs her small frame. “This is Mora!”

“Ah, this one,” Scaramouche says, unimpressed. “She’s awfully big for you to have named her after a coin.”

Lina glares at him, clutching Mora tighter to her chest. “My daughter eats well,” she says stiffly. “I can’t imagine that you would know, given all the fuss you make every day over your lunch.”

“Because somebody is tampering with it—” Scaramouche begins hotly, but he’s mercifully cut off again by Lina’s loud gasp when she finally looks into Al-Haitham’s office.

“Al-Haitham, is this your daughter?” she cries loudly, which soon attracts both Isha and Emily, who stick their heads into his office.

Al-Haitham sighs. He should have known this would happen. Kimiya is too adorable for the office.

“Hello,” Kimiya says politely, blinking her big doe eyes. Lina makes a whimpering noise. “Are you amu’s friends?”

“So you’re not the father,” Isha says, crossing her arms.

Emily looks him up and down. “That makes more sense than… the other option.”

Al-Haitham strides over to Kimiya, realizing too late that he’s let the rest of his coworkers flood into his office. “Kimi, introduce yourself,” he tells her quietly.

“Hi, amu’s friends!” Kimiya says brightly. “I’m Kimiya, but you can call me Miya.” She pauses and grins. “And I’m six!”

“Oh, what a big age,” Lina says, completely head over heels. Even Isha and Emily, who seem to hate Al-Haitham on principle, have their hands to their mouths. 

“Thank you,” says Kimiya generously. “Is that a kitty?”

“Her name is Mora.” Lina lets her cat down on the desk, even as Al-Haitham frowns when she pads over his documents and sits on them. Kimiya coos and reaches for the animal, falling short, so Al-Haitham goes to push the chair closer to the desk so that her short arms can pet the cat.

“A child and a cat,” Scaramouche says unemotionally. “What is this, a zoo exhibit?”

“Why are you in here,” Al-Haitham says to him. To Lina, he says, “This is my friend’s daughter. The one that I showed you pictures of a couple of years ago.”

She gasps, looking at Kimiya twice. “You know,” she tells Kimiya secretly, peeking at Al-Haitham through the corner of her eye, “Al-Haitham here gushed all over you when you were only a little toddler. I didn’t even realize it’s been that long, but I guess it just shows to you that he’s a huge sap, huh?”

“Sap?” Kimiya repeats, her head tilting to the side even though she looks pleased to hear that Al-Haitham has been talking about her for so long. “What’s that?”

“It means that he’s head over heels for you, I’d reckon,” Lina says, grinning.

Kimiya squeals and claps her hands. “I’m going to tell baba about this,” she says triumphantly, and then she immediately goes back to petting the cat.

Oh well. There goes her short-lived attention span.

Apparently, in the next few hours, the news spreads.

Al-Haitham has never had to entertain so many new people in his life. There are people he’s never even seen around who stop by to see Kimiya, apparently hearing about Al-Haitham having a daughter, and he is just tired. He didn’t even know that bringing a kid in on the designated “bring your child to work” day would be such a big deal or cause such a hassle for him.

But he can excuse it because she’s cute.

In fact, Al-Haitham gets a picture of Kimiya seriously studying the papers that Al-Haitham had left on his desk, her eyebrows furrowed and eyes squinted and everything. He sends it to Kaveh immediately.

If he were a nicer person, then his cheeks would be hurting from smiling and greeting new people, but he doesn’t smile. He doesn’t even greet them. He just stares at them stonily as they gush over the difficulties of young parenthood and what a good job he must be doing if she’s so happy to be here, and then they get the hint and leave.

Rinse and repeat.

Scaramouche, claiming that he’s tired of the noise, retreats to his office and shuts the door. Isha and Emily do the same. This doesn’t bother Al-Haitham. Lina, on the other hand, leaves her cat to shed all over his desk because she says that Mora and Kimiya are very good friends and it would be morally reprehensible to separate them.

Whatever.

And then Cyno drops by.

“You,” Al-Haitham says, startled.

“Me,” Cyno says, and then he peeks into the office. “Huh. Hello, Miya.”

“Hi, amu Cyno!” she says cheerfully with a wave.

“Is that Collei?” Al-Haitham asks, squinting at the person behind Cyno.

“Oh? Ah, yes,” Cyno says, turning and gently urging her out to greet him. “I brought her along for the bring your child to work day. I thought it would be fitting.” 

“That’s what this is?” Collei asks, turning to Cyno. “I was wondering why you brought me to work, and then I just figured that I should go along with it.”

“We’re bonding,” Cyno says, deadpan, to Al-Haitham. Al-Haitham looks to Collei, who is sweating.

“I see,” Al-Haitham says.

“That’s good, because you have those eyes for a reason—” Cyno begins. He stops, and then he stares into Al-Haitham’s office again. “That’s Miya.”

“Yes, it is,” Al-Haitham says, wondering what had happened to everybody’s reasoning skills today.

“She should be in Port Ormos,” Cyno says, and something cold runs down Al-Haitham’s back.

He’d forgotten that Tighnari and Cyno don’t know. It’s been months and they haven’t made a single call, nor has Al-Haitham even thought about them, so he’s going to blame it on Kaveh that he didn’t tell his dear friends about this genuinely important advancement in his life. This is on Kaveh. Al-Haitham is going to tell him that when Tighnari stops by and demands to know why Cyno told him that Kimiya was seen frequenting the Akademiya.

“Uhh,” Al-Haitham says. “Yup.”

“It’s bring your child to work day.”

“Yup.”

“That’s Kaveh’s child.”

“Yup.”

“She’s Parisa’s child.”

“Well…”

“She’s not your child,” Cyno summarizes.

“This has been a fun take on five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can—”

“Al-Haitham,” Cyno says, cutting him off. He’s frowning. “What is Miya doing in the city? Is Kaveh here too?”

This is on Kaveh. “You can ask him yourself,” Al-Haitham says.

“So he is here,” Cyno says sharply. 

“This is not my fault,” Al-Haitham says, deciding not to care anymore. He shrugs. “I’ll let him know that you two are coming over, and then you can ask him all the questions that you like.”

“Make it three,” Cyno says, already pulling out his phone. “Tighnari is going to want to be here for this.”

“Hi,” Kaveh says when he opens the door, nervously laughing. “Hello. Hey, Tighnari. Cyno. Collei…?”

“What in the world, Kaveh,” Tighnari says, brushing past him and coming to a stop in the living room, no doubt taking in all of their things strewn over the house. “You’re living here. You’ve been living here, clearly. How long has it been?”

“It’s a newish development,” says Kaveh.

“Ish,” Tighnari repeats.

Kaveh shrugs and nods. “Listen, Tighnari,” he says, “it wasn’t just something that I could just tell you over text, and then I got too scared to ask you to come over in person, and then it just slipped my mind, I suppose. There’s been a lot happening.”

“All right,” Tighnari says, his arms crossed. “So tell me about it.”

Kaveh looks at Al-Haitham, and then at Kimiya. “Al-Haitham, could you…” he whispers.

Al-Haitham gets the hint and takes Kimiya to her bedroom, where she looks up at him confusedly when he shuts the door. “What’s happening?” she asks.

“Your baba was just being silly, and he forgot to tell your amus about you two moving here,” Al-Haitham says, taking a pouch of crackers out of a drawer. “Here’s your afternoon snack, Kimi. Did you like going to work today?”

“Yes!” Kimiya says, brightening immediately. Her toes start wriggling, which is so endearing that Al-Haitham has to take a deep breath. “It was so much fun! You have so many friends, amu. I thought that it was just baba.”

Al-Haitham doesn’t know if he should be offended by that or not. “‘Friends’ would be a generous word for it,” he tells her, “but such is the nature of working. You were doing hard things, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” she says, preening. “I read your papers. They didn’t make any sense, so you should probably do them again so that they do.”

“Thank you for your concern, Kimi,” Al-Haitham tells her seriously, and then he gets back up. “I’m going to go talk to your amus a little bit more, okay?”

“Okay,” Kimiya says, already distracted by her snack. “Bye bye.”

When Al-Haitham slips back out, Kaveh, Tighnari, Cyno, and Collei are already seated on the couch, talking. Al-Haitham silently rejoins them, choosing to sit next to Kaveh.

Kaveh barely looks up at him. “It’s been going downhill for a while,” he says, shrugging, though Al-Haitham can tell it pains him to say. “I’ve finally gotten her to sign the papers for divorce, so that’s where we’re at right now. There’s nothing else that you don’t know.”

“Do they know that she cheated?” Al-Haitham asks. Kaveh gives him a look.

“Yes, he already told us,” Tighnari says, his jaw twitching. Al-Haitham has known him for long enough to tell that he’s seething. “And I already threatened to drive all the way to Port Ormos and give her my piece of mind, but Kaveh says I shouldn’t and I’m respecting his wishes. I guess.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, Al-Haitham did that for you,” Kaveh says darkly. “And I did too, I suppose, when I went down there with the papers. Like I said, it’s messy. It’s been messy. I didn’t know how to unpack any of it, so I guess I didn’t even attempt to.”

“You could have just sent a text that you were in the city and was looking to meet up,” Tighnari says. “But I understand now. Please keep us updated in the future, though. How is Kimiya faring?”

“I think she’s doing okay,” Kaveh says, glancing at Al-Haitham. “She’s taken a big liking to this one, unfortunately. That’s why she was at his work today. Al-Haitham, I can’t believe that you’re using me for my daughter.”

Al-Haitham shrugs. “It’s the singular appeal to knowing you.”

“No, it is not,” says Kaveh.

“If you ever need anything, I’m only ten minutes away,” Cyno says. 

Kaveh smiles tiredly at him. “Thank you, Cyno. Thank you, all of you. I know that this probably wasn’t what you were expecting out of today, but that’s just the way life is for me right now. I hope that you guys understand.”

“Of course we do,” Tighnari says, scoffing. “I’m not even offended that you waited two months to tell us about all this.” Kaveh winces. “I will, however, be offended if you have a fun dinner night with Nilou and Layla again and don’t invite us. Now that you’re back, we can see each other so much more often.” Beside him, Collei nods in vivid agreement.

“I definitely will,” Kaveh says, laughing, and then he deflates. “Once the entire divorce business is over, I imagine.”

“Oh, definitely,” Tighnari agrees. “I can wait a little longer, but I need to secure my spot as Miya’s favorite among all the other candidates, so you better hurry up.”

“All right, all right,” Kaveh laughs, smiling.

“I’m already her favorite,” Al-Haitham says, frowning.

Kaveh shrugs. “It’s unfortunate, but I think you would have a difficult time trying to knock down Al-Haitham in her eyes.”

“You’ll see,” Tighnari challenges Al-Haitham, his eyes flashing. “Next time.”

Next time. It’s a promise.

 

☀︎ 

maman

[7:12] maman: Kaveh dear, are you home?
[7:12] maman: I’m outside your house right now
[7:12] maman: I wanted it to be a surprise but oh well, no matter
[7:12] maman: Ah I don’t even know why I’m texting you haha, let me call

maman is calling…

“Hello?” Kaveh says, sleepy-eyed as Kimiya curls further against his side. “Maman?”

“Kaveh!” Faranak’s voice comes through the line. She sounds a bit tired. Immediately, Kaveh sits up in his bed. “Are you home? I texted you, but—well, in hindsight, I suppose it was kind of silly to text since it’s so early in the morning. You probably are still asleep. Ah, did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

“Maman,” says Kaveh. His throat is a bit dry. He reaches for the bottle of water on his nightstand and takes a few gulps. “No, I’m not home right now.”

“What?” she asks. “Did you sleep elsewhere? Oh, did you guys go away for the weekend or something?”

“Um,” says Kaveh. “No, I—”

“Ah, I suppose I should have asked before I came all the way here—”

“What?” Kaveh’s heart drops to his throat. “You’re there? I mean—you’re in the port?”

“I am,” says Faranak. “I thought it would be nice to surprise you guys…don’t worry about it, though. I’ll just come back another time—”

“No!” says Kaveh quickly. Next to him, Kimiya stirs, and he takes a long breath, runs his hand down his daughter’s curled spine. It inadvertently calms him down too, which, well. In any case, if Parisa hadn't answered the door for Faranak, that means she isn't there right now. “If you go around the house you should find a barrel. Check underneath it, there should be a key for the front door.”

“Ah, okay,” says Faranak, and then there’s a few seconds of shuffling before Kaveh hears the familiar sound of his door creaking open. “Okay, I’m in.”

“Okay,” says Kaveh. “Um. So. I’m actually in the city right now. Miya’s with me. You can make yourself comfortable there. If I leave right now I should be able to get there around noon, if you’re okay with waiting for a bit.”

“Wait, no, wait,” says Faranak, her voice softer now. “Kaveh, did something happen?”

“Um,” says Kaveh. “Just…wait there. I’ll tell you in person.”

“No,” she says. “I’ll come to you. It’s a long journey, and you just woke up. I was planning on going to the city after anyways, so it works out. I’ll take the next train up, so I should be there tonight.”

Kaveh softens. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am,” his mother says, and then, “Where’s Parisa? Is she with you too?”

“She’s…” Fuck. “I’ll tell you in person.”

“Oh,” says Faranak. A slight lull. “Okay, dear. I’ll be there soon. Don’t worry about me, I’m very comfortable with traveling.”

“Okay, I’ll text you the address,” says Kaveh. “See you soon, maman.”

“See you soon, Kaveh.”

Faranak almost looks out of place in Al-Haitham’s house—though Kaveh thinks that might just be because this is, quite literally, two of his worlds colliding. His mother and the house he used to live in back in university. His mother and Al-Haitham.

He helps her inside, rolling her tiny suitcase away to the corner of the open living area and taking a deep breath before turning back around to look at her. She’s busy glancing around, clearly taking in the interior of the house, and quietly, Kaveh wonders for how long he can put off this conversation.

But he’ll have to tell her. It’s like a sign from Devi Kusanali herself—he didn’t tell his mother about the divorce while it was happening, so the universe just sent her right to his front door to force him to tell her in person. Kaveh actually does not know which scenario is better. Though it’s not as if he has the liberty to make the decision for himself.

He walks over to her. “Miya’s taking a nap right now. I told her you’d be visiting, and the sooner she fell asleep, the sooner she’d get to see you.”

Faranak smiles at this. “Oh, don’t worry about it. Let her sleep.”

Kaveh nods, then gestures in the direction of his bedroom. They tip-toe inside, careful not to wake up a sleeping Kimiya, and Kaveh watches from the doorway as his mother pads over to the bed and leans down, pressing her lips to her granddaughter’s forehead.

“Are you okay with sleeping here for the night?” Kaveh asks once she’s settled her things into the cupboard. “I’ll take the couch outside. Oh, don’t look at me like that, maman. It’s plenty comfortable.”

She frowns. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am,” says Kaveh.

She nods, then follows him back out to the living room area, where they find none other than Al-Haitham, in all his glory, sitting at the edge of one of the couches. He looks up when Kaveh and Faranak enter, and immediately, he moves to stand.

“Auntie,” he says.

“Al-Haitham,” says Faranak. Kaveh watches, breath caught in his throat, as she walks up to him and takes his hands into hers. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. You look just as handsome as you did the last time.”

“Thank you, auntie,” says Al-Haitham. “Was the journey comfortable?”

“Very much so,” Faranak nods. “I told Kaveh this on the phone this morning, but I really do enjoy solo traveling.”

“You came alone?”

She nods. “Henri has some business he needs to attend to this weekend. That’s actually why I got the idea to make a surprise visit. Though I guess it’s not much of a surprise anymore.”

“You’re always welcome here,” says Al-Haitham.

Faranak falters just then. It’s only for a split second, but Kaveh notices it. He’s sure Al-Haitham does too, judging by the way his gaze slides over to him for a fraction of a moment before shifting back to Faranak. It makes Kaveh’s hands clench by his sides in a futile attempt to stop them from shaking, and then, before Kaveh can stop him, Al-Haitham is taking a step back.

“I’ll give the two of you some privacy,” he says, and then to Kaveh, “I’ll go to the bazaar to grab some ingredients for dinner.”

Kaveh nods on autopilot. “Okay, sounds good.”

And then, just like that, he’s gone. And Kaveh is left standing alone in his living room with his mother, who is looking at him with an expression half resigned and half expectant, and all of a sudden, Kaveh feels really, really sick.

“Kaveh,” Faranak starts, taking a single, experimental step forward. “Do you want to tell me something?”

His mouth opens but no words come out. He just nods.

“Okay,” says Faranak, releasing a breath. She reaches for his arms, gently tugs him over to the couch until they’re sitting next to each other, their knees just barely brushing against each other.

It’s quiet, then, so quiet that Kaveh can practically hear the sound of his own heart beating in his chest. Thump thump, thump thump. He looks down at his lap and prays to every deity in Teyvat that he will not cry in front of his mother. He tries his hardest to say something—anything. But the words fail him. Where does he even begin? How should he begin? What will his mother think if he tells her the truth?

“Kaveh,” comes Faranak’s voice, softer than he’s ever heard it before. She sounds so delicate like this, and Kaveh swallows down a lump in his throat to look up and meet her shining eyes. “Do you want to know something your father once told me?”

He inhales sharply.

His mother simply smiles. “It was a few days before…before it happened. You were so young. I’m not even sure if you remember how he had been during his final days.”

“I remember,” Kaveh croaks.

“Mm,” she says, then looks away, her shoulders relaxing. “It was early morning. You were still asleep. He woke me up and took me out to the gardens, pressed his forehead against mine, and told me that I am the strongest person he knows. That I can survive anything. That he’s going to try harder to be the person he once was for my sake and for the sake of you, our son.

“And, Kaveh, those words were my lifeline. They kept me steady through the years that followed. I—I blame myself a lot, for everything that I put you through. You were—you were just a child. You didn’t deserve that.”

“Maman,” Kaveh murmurs.

She shakes her head, squeezes his fingers tight between her palms. “I shouldn’t have left you. I shouldn’t have left you alone. I was—I was so put out by my own grief that I didn’t think twice about yours.”

He shakes his head, and as he does, he feels the first tears drip down his face. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I understand why you did what you did. It—it was my fault, after all.”

She darts back to look at him. “What?”

“It was my fault,” says Kaveh again. There is something pressing into his chest, his gut, squeezing him shut, suffocating him silent. “Baba—he wouldn’t have—if I didn’t ask him to win the—”

“Kaveh,” says Faranak. She looks horrified, which, oh. “Kaveh, what are you saying?”

“I—”

“Have you…” She closes her mouth, swallows. Kaveh thinks she might be crying too. “Have you felt that way this entire time?”

Kaveh says nothing. He just looks at her. And she looks back.

Her expression shifts again. This time, she looks devastated. “Oh,” she says, and then again, as she reaches up to cup his face, “oh.”

“Maman,” Kaveh says, his voice a little warbled as he brings his hand up to press over the back of hers. “Maman, everyone leaves me.”

“Kaveh.” She’s shaking. She’s shaking against him, and Kaveh’s tears are falling freely now. They pool around his lips, salty against his tongue.

“Baba left,” Kaveh whispers. His voice chokes up, his body spasming as he tries and tries and tries to get the words out, “baba left, he just left. He just…left. And then—and then you too.” Her eyes flutter shut. “But it was okay. It was okay, I—I was okay in school. I had my friends. I was fine. But now, I—Parisa just—”

Faranak thumbs under his eyelids and whispers, “What happened between you two?”

“I don’t know what I did,” he mumbles. “I—I don’t know what I did. I tried so hard, but it still wasn’t enough.”

“Kaveh,” says Faranak again. She tilts his head up until their eyes meet. “Kaveh, please tell me what happened.”

He swallows. His heart falls into his throat, and he says, finally, “She cheated on me.”

Faranak gasps, jerking away. When Kaveh finds her again, her eyes have gone wide as saucers.

“What?”

“She’s pregnant,” says Kaveh. He averts his gaze and suddenly feels very, very small. “That’s how I found out. The divorce was finalized last month. I’m…I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she says. “I’m just…Kaveh…”

“It’s okay,” he says softly. “It’s okay now.”

“But it wasn’t,” his mother says. Her eyebrows, pinched together, flatten, and when her shoulders drop, it is like she is falling, “it wasn’t okay, was it? Oh, Kaveh, I just—I just feel so sorry that you felt like you couldn’t talk to me about it.”

“It’s all right,” he says. He smiles then, through the haze, her figure turning blurry through his eyes. “It’s all okay now. I promise. She’ll…well, I don’t know what’s going to happen to her. I no longer want to be a part of her life except for when it involves Miya.”

“Is Miya okay?” Faranak asks. “Is she…has she put two and two together? Or did you just tell her?”

“I told her,” Kaveh nods. “She’s very mature. She’s a big girl. She understood. She…I don’t think Parisa and I hid it well from her back when we were still together.”

Faranak shakes her head. “It’s not your fault,” she says, and then again, “it’s not your fault. Kaveh, none of this is your fault. I know that you won’t believe me, at least not right now, but it’s not your fault.” Her hands find his face again, her face crinkling as tears overtake her once again. “Even your baba. It wasn’t your fault. I’m sorry, Kaveh. I’m so sorry. I know it’s too late. You don’t have to accept my apology if you don’t want to, I’ll understand. I promise you I’ll understand. But I am sorry, and I don’t want you to blame yourself for things that were out of your control.”

“Maman,” Kaveh mutters.

“I love you,” she says, “and I’m sorry.”

“Maman,” says Kaveh, and that’s it for him. He leans forward until his arms are wrapped tightly around her and presses his face into her shoulder. “Maman, I love you too. I missed you so much.”

“I’ve always been here,” she laughs, and it sounds watery. “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me about Parisa.”

“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you.”

Al-Haitham returns from his little shopping trip to the bazaar just a little over an hour later. Kaveh and Faranak are in the kitchen when Kaveh hears the familiar sound of the front door clicking open, talking quietly over the brewing pot of chai sitting idly on the stove. Kaveh looks up when Al-Haitham enters, a plain brown bag stuffed to the brim with what looks like fruits and vegetables and meat, and he smiles, quickly leaving his spot against the counter and going over to help him.

“You took way longer than usual,” he murmurs under his breath as Al-Haitham passes him a bag of oranges. “Oh, did you get these for Miya? She loves them.”

“You like them too,” says Al-Haitham. “And the lines were long.”

“Hmm,” Kaveh says, tilting his head. “At this time? On a Monday? I think you were just being considerate.”

“You can think whatever you want to think,” says Al-Haitham.

“So I’m right, basically.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Al-Haitham. He sets the rest of the things onto the island and turns to look at Faranak, who’s quietly watching the two of them. “Auntie, are you craving anything specific? I bought a bit of everything.”

“What a sweet boy you are,” Faranak coos.

Immediately, Kaveh pulls a face. “Maman, he’s a twenty-eight-year-old man. And he is not sweet.”

“I think he’s very sweet,” says Faranak, crossing her arms over her chest. “See? He’s even offering to cook.”

“That’s his job,” says Kaveh pointedly. “I’m on dish duty today, and he’s on chef duty. It has absolutely nothing to do with how sweet he is. I would kick him out if he didn’t follow the rules of this household.”

“You would kick me out,” Al-Haitham repeats. “Might I remind you whose house this actually is, Kaveh?”

“Yeah yeah,” Kaveh waves a hand. “Whatever. Just get to cooking. Oh, I made you chai. Maman, did you know Al-Haitham is the type to dump spoonfuls of sugar into his chai? What a weirdo.”

Faranak giggles behind her hand. “Your baba loved loading his chai with sugar too.”

Instantly, Kaveh softens in surprise. His mother has never said something like this before, especially just out of nowhere. Over many, many years, she’s remained tight-lipped about Kaveh’s father. He supposes their conversation from earlier encouraged her to loosen up a little, allow her to reminisce in the memory of her first love.

“Did he?” he asks.

She nods. “He did. And you know me, I just put a little bit of milk in and call it a day. He used to make fun of me for it all the time.”

“Oh,” says Al-Haitham, “then you’re like Kaveh.”

“Oh!” says Faranak. “Kaveh, you too? I can’t believe this is the first time we’re sitting down for a cup of tea together.”

“Me neither,” says Kaveh. He looks to Al-Haitham—“Parisa never liked chai. She was always a coffee person, so I always made coffee in the house. Whenever maman visited us Parisa would brew her coffee.”

“I’m partial to both,” says Faranak, shrugging. “So I didn’t mind either way.”

Kaveh busies himself with pouring the tea into three mugs, topping them off with a splash of milk and the third with two spoons of sugar. He passes that one to Al-Haitham, who looks down at it with a raised eyebrow and says, “Are you doing all of this just to show to your mother that you do actually do work around the house?”

“Slander!” Kaveh cries immediately, spinning around to face Faranak again. “Maman, don’t listen to a single word he says, ever. Al-Haitham, have you ever noticed that whenever I’m talking about you to someone, I somehow always say those exact words to them? Perhaps you should reevaluate yourself and make an attempt to improve your personality.”

“I have a great personality,” is all Al-Haitham says in response to that.”

“No you do not,” says Kaveh.

“Yes I do,” says Al-Haitham.

“No you do not!”

“Yes I do.”

Next to them, Faranak is openly laughing now, and when Kaveh glances sidelong at her and sees this, he feels some cold, tangled up thing in his stomach slowly begin to unravel.

“Baba?” comes a small voice by the corridor, and Kaveh’s eyes immediately go wide. He looks over and finds Kimiya standing a little ways away, peeking from the corner.

“Miya!” Faranak exclaims, rushing over to her.

“Mamani!” Kimiya laughs, holding her arms up so that Faranak can scoop her up into her arms and twirl her around. “Baba, look, it’s mamani!”

“It is!” Kaveh grins. “I told you, see? She’d be here right after you woke up from your nap.”

“You did say that,” she nods her cute little face as Faranak busies herself with peppering her with tiny kisses.

Al-Haitham sticks to his word and begins to work on dinner, so Kaveh, Faranak, and Kimiya venture to the living room, where Kimiya reaches for the television remote and puts on some cartoon she’s been enjoying lately. Kaveh sits with Faranak on the other couch, and the next several minutes pass in blissful peace. Kaveh chats with his daughter about whatever it is that’s happening in her show, and Faranak stares at Al-Haitham as he cooks.

Pause.

Kaveh twists so that he can look at his mother better, and when she notices him, she whispers, “What is it?”

“You keep looking at Al-Haitham,” Kaveh whispers back.

“I’m just observing him,” says Faranak.

Kaveh squints at her. “Is there something you would like to say?”

“Is there something you would like to say?” she asks, lifting her eyebrow.

“No,” he says. “What would there be for me to say?”

“Just,” she shrugs. “You told me you and Parisa got divorced a month ago, so I assume you’ve been staying here since the break up, right?”

“Yes,” says Kaveh, brows furrowing.

She nods, then gestures to Kimiya. “Does Miya like him? Al-Haitham?”

“Unfortunately,” says Kaveh. He sighs, leans back against the back of the couch. “She and Al-Haitham get along almost too well.”

“I see,” says Faranak. She looks thoughtful for a moment. “Kaveh, are you sure you don’t want to tell me anything else? You know you can tell me anything, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” he says. “And no, there’s nothing else. Why? You’re acting strange.”

“I just think,” Faranak starts, and it’s then when Kaveh realizes what she’s implying. It hits him straight in his gut, and he watches, almost as if in slow motion, as his mother’s mouth opens again to say, “He’s good to you. And he’s good to Kimiya. He’s letting you two stay in his house, isn’t he?”

“Oh,” says Kaveh. It comes out a little airy, like his voice is refusing to catch up to his brain. In the background, he hears Al-Haitham rummaging around a cabinet. “Maman, it’s not like that.”

Her eyes narrow, like she’s surveying him, and Kaveh does not move. 

Eventually she comes back and says, “All right then,” which Kaveh takes to mean she’s probably going to drop it for now. “If you say so. Just remember that I’m here for you if you ever want to discuss anything. Okay?”

“Okay,” Kaveh nods slowly. 

Al-Haitham calls them for dinner a little while later as he’s plating the food, and Kaveh quickly jumps in to help transport them from the kitchen to the dining table as Faranak and Kimiya take their seats. Kaveh sits next to Faranak, and Al-Haitham sits next to Kimiya, and what follows is what is possibly the happiest dinner Kaveh has experienced in months. His mother, and his daughter, and Al-Haitham. Who would have ever thought?

Kaveh’s eyes find Al-Haitham, sitting across from him at the table, and his mother’s words ring back in his head, he’s good to you, and he’s good to Kimiya. 

It’s not untrue. Al-Haitham is the person Kaveh trusts most out of anyone in this world, whether that be a good thing or a bad thing. There is no one in this world who knows him better than Al-Haitham does. Before, he would maybe say that spot was occupied by Parisa. But, well. They were married. It was different. 

This is Al-Haitham. This is Kaveh’s best friend.

His best friend, who is currently cutting the meat on Kimiya’s plate into tiny, bite-sized pieces. Just the way Kaveh knows she likes it. Kaveh was usually the one who did it for her since Parisa tended to keep the meat in big slices whenever she cooked, but now he is watching as Al-Haitham does it, takes the knife into his hands, careful to keep it away from Kimiya’s wandering hands, and gently cuts up the food. One of the pieces is in the shape of a star, and another a crescent moon, and another a circle.

Kimiya points to it. “What’s that supposed to be?”

“It’s the sun,” says Al-Haitham.

Kimiya tilts her head. “Shouldn’t you make the sun’s rays too, then?”

“The actual sun does not have physical rays,” says Al-Haitham. “It just looks like it does because of the way the light travels through the atmosphere.”

“Hmm,” says Kimiya. “I think the point would come across better if you made the rays, though.”

Al-Haitham stares at her.

Kimiya stares back.

“All right,” says Al-Haitham. “I’ll make some rays, as long as you’ve learned that scientifically they don’t exist.”

“Okay, I’ve learned,” says Kimiya very seriously.

“Hm,” says Al-Haitham, and then he takes the last bit of the meat and cuts up about five small slices, placing them around the circular piece and pushing the plate in front of Kimiya. “Here, Kimi, your sunrays.”

She grins up at him. “Thank you, amu!”

“You’re welcome,” says Al-Haitham.

Kaveh looks away, which ends up being a terrible idea, because all it does is have him facing his mother. She’s staring at Kimiya, and then over to Al-Haitham, and then back to Kimiya. Which is really just lovely. It’s exactly what Kaveh needs to see right now, actually. How perfect.

“Kimi?” Faranak asks, which has all three of them turning to her.

“Amu calls me that,” says Kimiya, and if Kaveh isn’t mistaken, there’s something a little akin to pride there.

“Does he,” says Faranak. “It’s so cute. Can I call you that too, Miya?”

Kimiya shakes her head. “No, amu’s the only one allowed to.”

Kaveh glances at Al-Haitham, who’s looking down at Kimiya, the corners of his lips angled softly upward. He’s smiling. He’s smiling a smile that Kaveh, for one, has never seen before. It’s almost delicate, and his eyes are crinkling just a little. It makes Kaveh’s chest feel a bit funny, as if his ribs have suddenly shrunk, constricting around his lungs and making it impossible to breathe. When he swallows, he feels as if he’s choking on something, and he coughs slightly before leaning forward and taking a sip of water.

“I see,” Faranak is saying, “I see, so amu Al-Haitham has a special nickname for our Kimiya, does he?”

That feels pointed. It probably is, knowing his mother.

“She likes it when I call her that,” says Al-Haitham.

“I can see that,” Faranak smiles.

Kaveh takes another sip of water, and then another.

“Is the food to your liking?” Al-Haitham asks Faranak, who just starts rapidly nodding.

“It’s delicious,” she says, throwing a thumbs up in front of her face. “Really, really good. Kaveh, you’re so lucky.”

Okay, now she’s just doing this on purpose.

He plasters on a smile and pretends as if everything that is happening right now is perfectly ordinary and fine, and then dinner is over. Faranak insists that she helps Kaveh with washing the dishes, so Al-Haitham leads Kimiya to the bedroom to read her her usual bedtime story. Kaveh is almost waiting for his mother to make some sort of comment about that, but she doesn’t, thankfully, and a little while later, Al-Haitham is coming back outside and Faranak is waving good night and heading in.

When Kaveh hears the sound of the door clicking shut, he turns to find Al-Haitham, who is leaning against the island, tilting his head as he watches him.

“Did you tell her?” he asks.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what he’s referring to, so Kaveh just nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Um…it was kind of a lot. The conversation.” A pause. Kaveh thinks back to his mother’s words, feels a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “But it was a needed one, so I’m glad it happened. I was kind of worried about what she would say.”

“She’s your mother,” says Al-Haitham.

“Well yes, I know,” says Kaveh, “but still. You know it’s been a rocky road for us. Even when—even when Parisa and I were together, it’s not as if maman has all the time in the world to just come by whenever she wants. And Parisa never really wanted to make the trip to Fontaine, so me and maman almost never saw each other. When we did, it was usually in a family setting. We’ve never really been able to talk to each other, just the two of us. Even after all this time.”

Al-Haitham doesn’t reply to that immediately, and Kaveh knows it’s because he’s processing Kaveh’s words. 

“Kaveh,” he says, finally, after what feels like forever, and really, it feels as if he has said so much with just one calling of his name.

Kaveh just holds up his hand. “It’s okay,” he says. “I know.”

Al-Haitham’s expression turns complicated, but he tilts his head forward, just a little, as if saying okay.

“Anyways,” Kaveh starts again. “Um. Thank you, Al-Haitham, for just…being okay with my mother just showing up. And for cooking dinner for all of us. It was kind of sweet.”

“I’ve already told you before,” says Al-Haitham. “You shouldn’t thank me for things. It doesn’t sound good coming from you.”

Kaveh rolls his eyes. “Stop being an ass and just accept the gratitude.” Then he shifts so that his weight is leaning on his other foot, glancing toward Al-Haitham’s bedroom door. “Anyways, I’m fine. It’s getting late. You should probably go to sleep.”

“I will,” says Al-Haitham, not moving in the slightest. “You should go to bed then too.”

“I will,” says Kaveh, which reminds him—“Oh, I was going to ask you. Do you have any extra blankets? Or pillows?”

Al-Haitham’s forehead crinkles. “I probably do. Why?”

“Well if I’m going to sleep on the couch, I at least want something to cover me.”

This, for some reason, seems to catch Al-Haitham completely off guard. His eyes go just a little wide, and to anyone else, maybe it wouldn’t even be noticeable. Unfortunately, Kaveh isn’t anyone else. He’s known this guy for far too long to not be able to discern something as simple as his microexpressions. 

“Why would you sleep on the couch? You have a perfectly—” Al-Haitham stops, and Kaveh watches in real time as the situation catches up to him. “Ah. Your mother.”

“Ah,” Kaveh says back, with emphasis. “My mother.”

“Apologies,” says Al-Haitham. “I forgot.”

“Very unlike you, apology not accepted,” says Kaveh, and for some reason, it feels as if something in the air has shifted. Just barely. It’s hardly even there, hanging low over his head, intertwining with the empty space up above. It slithers down, snakes through his lips and past his throat. It settles in his stomach and sits there, clings to him. For a second, Kaveh forgets how to breathe.

Al-Haitham is still looking at him, and if Kaveh isn’t mistaken, he almost seems cautious. Which shouldn’t be the case. It’s just them. It’s just them. It is literally just them.

“The couch is too small,” Al-Haitham says, breaking into the silence.

Kaveh inhales. “It’s…”

Well.

“It’s small,” Al-Haitham finishes for him, and Kaveh can do nothing but helplessly drop his shoulders. “I would think someone who graduated with an honors Kshahrewar degree would know the essence of how space management works.”

“That’s probably the wrong term,” says Kaveh. “I would think someone who graduated from Haravatat would know how to form a proper sentence.”

“My sentences are plenty proper,” Al-Haitham refutes. 

“Okay,” says Kaveh, and then, “well, if you’re so adamant on being right about the couch being too small for me to sleep on for one singular night, what’s your solution?”

“I have space,” says Al-Haitham. “On my bed.”

Kaveh knew it was coming, but still, it catches him by surprise anyways. He blinks at Al-Haitham, who has somewhat of a determined glint in his eyes, the kind that Kaveh used to see from him when they studied together in college, when they’d spend hours sitting at a table in the corner of the House of Daena working on whatever it is they had to work on.

“Fine,” says Kaveh. “Lead the way then.”

“You live here. You know where my bedroom is.”

“Yeah yeah, just shut up and start moving.”

Al-Haitham’s room is, for whatever it’s worth, the exact same as Kaveh remembers it. The quilt he uses is the same pattern as the one he used back when they were roommates in university, though knowing Al-Haitham, he probably bought a new one sometime over the years and didn’t bother investing in another color or style. Why would I get something new when I already know I like this one? Kaveh can practically hear him say it.

Everything is also in the same layout as before, which, okay, Kaveh can respect that. Kind of. Still, changing it up a little never hurt anyone! Then again, it’s Al-Haitham.

Speaking of Al-Haitham.

Kaveh glances over to him and watches as he rummages through his cupboard, pulling out a pair of pajamas. Kaveh, of course, already changed while Al-Haitham was out at the bazaar, so he just makes his way to the far side of the bed and takes a seat.

Then Al-Haitham reaches down to the hem of his shirt and peels it off over his head, and Kaveh instantly averts his gaze.

This goes on for about forty seconds. Forty seconds of actual, agonizing pain. Kaveh is beginning to feel a little lightheaded, and still, he has no fucking idea why. Again, it’s just Al-Haitham. They’ve changed in front of each other plenty of times before. They literally lived together for a year. None of this is new. Even sharing a bed—it’s not anything new. Back in college, there were plenty of nights when Kaveh got so drunk after a night out with the group that he waddled over to the wrong room and woke up the next morning with his foot pressed into a calmly seething Al-Haitham’s jawline.

“Kaveh,” comes Al-Haitham’s voice now, snapping him out of whatever half-conscious stream of thought he was swimming down. “Is it okay if I turn the light off?”

“Oh,” says Kaveh. His head jerks to the side until he is looking at him once again. Al-Haitham is standing right by the door, his hand up and poised over the light switch by his dresser, and he’s giving Kaveh an expectant look. “Yeah,” Kaveh says. “Yeah, of course. I was just—I was just about to go to sleep anyways.”

Al-Haitham nods, a small thing, and seconds later, the room is bathed in darkness.

Quietly, Kaveh is grateful for it. Something about this entire situation is making him feel a little sick. Just a little bit. His palms feel clammy and his fingers itch to do something, anything, to ease the tension coiling in his gut. He stares out into the dark abyss of Al-Haitham’s room and registers with far too much clarity the feeling of the mattress dipping—a tell-tale indication that Al-Haitham has made his way to the bed and is climbing underneath the covers. Kaveh waits, and then the bed dips even further, and then everything goes still, and Kaveh knows that means Al-Haitham is laying down.

“Are you going to lay down?” comes Al-Haitham’s voice through the dark, and normally, it would sound snarky to Kaveh’s ears. But it doesn’t for some reason. It just sounds…small. Which isn’t right. That’s not right at all.

Kaveh doesn’t respond, but he does let himself fall back onto the bed, the back of his head hitting the pillow unceremoniously, and all of a sudden, he is far too aware of his surroundings. It is as if he is four shots under, or something, but it’s not even like they drank at dinner. Kaveh is sober right now. He is completely, one hundred-percent sober, and yet. And yet.

He closes his eyes, and the first thing he sees is Al-Haitham.

He opens his eyes again.

“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham, so suddenly that it causes Kaveh’s breath to hitch in surprise. “I can practically hear you thinking.”

Okay, this is easy. This is familiar. This is something that Kaveh can respond to without feeling like he is going to lose his mind. 

“You’re the one who’s thinking too much,” he says, trying to add just the right amount of sharpness as he usually does. Though it just ends up coming out a bit…flat. Kaveh sighs internally and prays that Al-Haitham is too sleepy to notice it. “I’m fine. It’s fine. I’m just tired.”

“Then sleep,” says Al-Haitham.

“You sleep,” says Kaveh.

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“Well clearly not. You’re the one who started talking to me first. I was perfectly capable of just letting us marinate in comfortable silence until both of us eventually drifted off into the land of dreams.”

“Hm,” is Al-Haitham’s only response to that.

Kaveh figures that’s the end of it, so he tries to relax, tries to forget the feeling of sleeping so close to someone else like this. Which, of course, ends up with him circling back to his marriage, the last few weeks of it when Kaveh did nothing but pray that he would be able to fall asleep early so he no longer had to deal with the very real reality of Parisa being next to him. Even when she was sick those last couple days, Kaveh had tried. He had. He had tried. He tried to come to terms with the thought of this being his life until it was time for him to go: a life with a woman who had said more hurtful things to him than he thought was possible for a singular person to do, a life right by her side because that’s what he vowed to happen, a life away from all of his closest friends just because it’s what his wife wanted. A life in which he wasn’t sure if he could ever move forward again.

The bed beneath him shifts slightly, and Kaveh turns his head around, squints at the outline of the figure laying next to him.

And, just like that, he sees teal.

Al-Haitham is awake. Al-Haitham is looking at him. Kaveh just barely makes it out through the small slices of moonlight that filter in through the curtains that cover the window. His gaze is steady, like it’s been held there for several minutes longer than Kaveh has been aware of it for, and for a single, fleeting moment, Kaveh wonders if he is in a dream.

Perhaps that’s what it is. Perhaps that’s what the last ten years of his life have been—some sick, twisted dream. Maybe he never met Parisa. Maybe she actually doesn’t even exist. Maybe, tomorrow morning, he will wake up, and he will be back in his own room in Al-Haitham’s house, just days away from his final year of university starting. Maybe he will never meet Nilou for coffee that day, that day that Parisa approached him in the coffee shop and he bought her a medium saffron brew. Maybe she will just remain a classmate in his design studio, and they will go the entire semester not knowing of each other’s existence beyond casual, fleeting eye contact.

He remembers his father’s words. They hit him like a ton of breaks, crashing in out of nowhere.

Everything happens for a reason, Kaveh.

God. What reason? What fucking reason?

He’s good to you. And he’s good to Kimiya. He’s letting you two stay in his house, isn’t he?

Al-Haitham is still looking at him, and Kaveh feels suddenly at a loss. Al-Haitham is still looking at him, and Kaveh has not looked away. Al-Haitham is still looking at him, and Kaveh doesn’t want to look away. Al-Haitham is still looking at him, and he is not saying anything, but that’s just the thing, isn’t it? He doesn’t have to say anything. They’ve gone far past that point. He’s good to you. Everything happens for a reason. He’s good to Kimiya. Everything happens for a reason. 

This is not a dream. No matter how much Kaveh can delude himself, it is not a dream. He will not wake up and find himself miraculously transported back in time. That’s not how it works. The past nine years of his life—for better or for worse, they have happened. And Kaveh has to deal with it just like he’s dealt with everything else in his life. There’s nothing he can do except take a step forward. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. This is real life. This is real life, and these are the cards he’s been dealt.

But at least…at least he is not alone anymore. He no longer lives on the other end of Sumeru. No, he lives right here, in the city he loves, in the city he grew up in, and he still has his daughter. He still has his friends. He has his mother for the first time in a very, very long time. 

And of course, he has Al-Haitham.

And, well, isn’t that just something?

He opens his mouth. Al-Haitham has not looked away. “Stop looking at me.”

“You’re looking back,” Al-Haitham says immediately, and it is awful, just awful, the way his voice cracks over the words. The way his voice is almost warbled from unuse. Kaveh knows that he had been waiting for him to say something first. That he definitely would say something first. Because Al-Haitham knows Kaveh. Al-Haitham knows that Kaveh won’t let a moment like this go.

“I’m not looking at anything specifically,” says Kaveh after a few moments. He releases a breath through his lips and feels his chest loosen, finally. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Of course,” says Al-Haitham, like it’s nothing. It’s nothing. “My mistake for making an objective observation that you were making eye contact with me for several minutes.”

“Archons,” Kaveh curses, “how are you this much of a smart ass seconds away from falling asleep, too?”

“I’m not seconds away from falling asleep,” Al-Haitham says, and really, how the hell is Kaveh even supposed to respond to that?

The only thing he can do is laugh. And he does. He laughs, and it feels like the rainbow after a storm. The kind from the childrens books he likes to read to Kimiya—the kind with something silly and childish like a pot of shimmering golden coins waiting for them at the end.

“Good night, Al-Haitham,” he says, and this time he really does look away, turning around so that he is laying on his back and staring up at the empty ceiling. “I have to wake up early tomorrow to take my mother to the airport.”

“I’ll be awake too,” says Al-Haitham.

“You don’t have to,” says Kaveh. “Her flight’s early. I’ll just be out for an hour and come back before you know it. Besides, don’t you have work?”

“You grossly overestimate the amount I care about being there on time,” Al-Haitham says pointedly, which elicits another spark of laughter from Kaveh. “But I’ll be awake anyways, just to say goodbye to her. I should, in any case.”

“That’s true, I guess,” says Kaveh. “Fine then. I’ll wake you up to come out to say bye to her.”

“That’s assuming you’re the one who wakes up first,” says Al-Haitham, like an ass.

“I guess we’ll see then,” Kaveh taunts back, and then he laughs, and he thinks that if Al-Haitham were the type of person to laugh, he would be too.

He falls asleep shortly after that, and for all his anxiety from earlier, it really is…quite a peaceful sleep. He wonders if he will wake tomorrow morning and find himself smiling.

 

✩ 

Of course, because it’s Al-Haitham and Kaveh, Al-Haitham is the one who wakes up first.

He slowly eases out of the bed with as small movements as he can possibly manage, not wanting to wake the other. When he sneaks out of the room, however, he’s surprised to see Faranak already in the living room, soaking in the morning sun with a book. Clearly, Kaveh didn’t inherit her habits from his mother.

“Al-Haitham!” She greets him with a smile, folding the cover and setting it to the side to talk to him properly. Al-Haitham recognizes it as one of his favorite titles that he’d left sitting on the coffee table. He hums appreciatively. It’s a good choice.

“Good morning,” he says. “Would you like some chai?”

“Sweet of you to offer,” she says, “but I’m all right. I actually wanted to talk to you, if that is fine with you.”

“Yes,” he says, trying not to let his surprise show. He takes a seat opposite of her, leaning back into the upholstery as she assesses him with a critical eye for a few moments.

Then she sighs, relaxing back as well, and instinctually Al-Haitham feels his shoulders loosen. “You know, all of this Parisa business was making me so uneasy,” she says conversationally as if the topic had not come out of nowhere. Al-Haitham steels himself a little. “It was just a little difficult to believe that this was the woman that I gave my blessings to so she could marry my Kaveh. I suppose I should have been able to tell by the way I never got to see my own son.” She gives a bitter laugh. “I had hoped that with his graduation I would be able to see him a little more, but he had that project of his and a whirlwind affair with Parisa and he seemed so happy and accomplished that I didn’t want to get in the way of that. I offered to come to the port once, you know. It was supposed to be a surprise for him, but she told me that he was much too busy and that she would let me know when a good time would be to visit. And of course that time never came.”

“I tried to be a good mother,” Faranak says, her voice trembling a little. “And maybe I should have tried harder. It matters not now—she’s out of the picture, and if Kaveh did not expressly tell me not to seek her out, I would have given her a piece of my mind. But I cannot help but wish that I pressed the issue sooner. Maybe it wouldn’t have gone on for so long. You may be wondering why I’m telling all of this to you, Al-Haitham, and not to my son.”

Al-Haitham nods once, hesitating. Faranak grins at him. 

“I have a good feeling about you,” she says simply. “You’ve been around longer than that woman has, and Miya adores you. That’s as good a sign as any. And you haven’t given up on him. For somebody like Kaveh, that means more to him than you could possibly know. He’s living in your house, for Kusanali’s sake, and this time you two aren’t even united with the purpose of academia. You’ve let his mother stay over, and that’s more than his ex has granted me in the last six years.”

“It’s not a difficult thing to do,” Al-Haitham says, shrugging. “Perhaps it is for people who are chiefly concerned with themselves, but the average person would do the same.”

“The average person would do the same for a friend,” Faranak concedes, “but not for the foreseeable future. Not with a terminating end date. You’ve practically taken him on forever, Al-Haitham. Him and Miya.”

“I would not be opposed to that,” Al-Haitham says quietly.

Faranak beams at him. “See? You’re special, Al-Haitham. I’m glad that Kaveh has you. I’m glad that he has the privilege to have such a dear and beloved friend.”

Al-Haitham grimaces at the use of the word friend, and he swears that for a second Faranak’s eyes snap to him, though when he looks back at her, she’s still staring at his curtains with a contemplative look on her face.

“Say,” she starts, “just where did Kaveh sleep? I’ve just realized that he wasn’t on the couch when I came out here, and he wasn’t in the room I slept in. Do you have a guest room as well?”

“He slept in my room,” Al-Haitham says stiffly, declining to specify that they slept in the same bed for the night. Saying that they slept together has a much different connotation than the one he wants to impress upon Kaveh’s mother. 

“I see,” Faranak says, nodding, and Al-Haitham can tell that she thinks she knows something, but not even Al-Haitham knows what it is she’s alluding to. “At least that woman is out of the picture, eh?”

“Come again?” says Al-Haitham.

“I’ve known since my wedding,” Faranak says vaguely, staring off into the distance and seeming to forget about Al-Haitham’s presence. “It was fairly obvious at the time as well.” She looks over at Al-Haitham, who is staring at her. “Ah, even you don’t understand what I mean. The bird with the squirming worm in its mouth will die of starvation if it doesn’t realize it has food at its disposal. Ah, well, I wish you two the best of luck.”

“Thank you,” Al-Haitham says, not sure what he’s thanking her for nor what the fortune is for. 

She smiles at him kindly and taps his hand, now in a much more cheerful mood than she had been at the start of the morning. “You’re very welcome. Now, if my mother’s instincts tell me anything, Kaveh is about to wake up and realize that we’re both out here in this room.”

“Al-Haitham?” Kaveh asks a second later, striding out of the bedroom door and into the kitchen. “I woke up and you weren’t—oh.” He stops in his tracks. “Hello, maman. What were you two talking about?”

There’s a flat, suspicious sort of tone to his voice which Faranak easily ignores. “Good morning,” she says. “And why are you up so early?”

“Your flight is in a couple of hours,” Kaveh says dryly. “I’m awake for you so we can make it to the airport with ample time, and I suppose I was a bit surprised to find that Al-Haitham wasn’t even in the bed anymore. What the hell. I don’t like that look on your face, maman.”

“Bed?” Faranak says innocently.

“Um,” says Kaveh.

“Speaking of beds,” she says, smoothly changing the subject, “is Miya up yet? I wanted to say goodbye to her before we left.”

“Oh! Right.” Kaveh walks back over to his bedroom, opening the door by a crack and speaking softly into the room. In the meantime, Faranak turns to Al-Haitham again.

“You’ll keep my son happy, won’t you? Promise me,” she says finally, her eyes scrutinizing him.

“I promise,” Al-Haitham says, and it’s a vow.

 

☀︎

“Baba,” Kimiya whispers one night into Kaveh’s ear as Kaveh draws shapes into her skin with his finger. She likes it when he does this, soothes her to sleep as she clutches his arm and buries her face into his shoulder.

“Mm?” Kaveh murmurs. “Miya, go to sleep. It’s late.”

“I will,” says Kimiya, “but I just wanted to tell you something.”

“Oh?” Kaveh shifts so that he’s laying on his side, until he’s looking into her deep brown eyes and nodding for her to continue. “What is it?”

“I think that…” She blinks a little, her face scrunching up as she thinks over whatever it is she’s trying to say. Then, she smiles, and she gives Kaveh an excited smile and whisper-shouts, “Baba, I like amu a lot. He’s really nice.”

Whatever Kaveh had been expecting, it definitely wasn’t that. 

“You do?”

She nods frantically. “He reads me books and gives me cookies and buys me oranges and kulfi.”

Kaveh laughs, a little dazed. “Is that really all it takes to win over my Miya’s heart?”

“No,” Kimiya shakes her head. “He’s also nice to you.”

Kaveh’s breath catches in his throat, and he feels warm as he watches his daughter giggle, covering her mouth with her small hands as the corners of her eyes crease with amusement.

“I like him a lot,” she says again. “Actually, I love him. I love amu. Can we stay here forever, baba?”

“We—” Kaveh cuts himself off. Can we stay here forever, baba? Archons. “I…sweetie, I like amu too, but we can’t just impose on him like this forever, okay? Amu has his own life, and once baba gets some more clients, we can find a nice new house in the city. Does that sound good?”

Immediately, Kimiya’s face crumples. “But I want to stay here with amu.”

“I know you do,” Kaveh says. He reaches out, brings her back closer against his chest as he finds himself saying, “I want to stay here with him too. But we can’t do that. We should make the most of our time here however we can, and then when it’s time to go, we’ll find a new house for just us, and you can come and visit amu whenever you’d like, okay?”

The look Kimiya is giving him tells him that she’s not satisfied with this at all, and it makes Kaveh’s fingers curl into his palms.

“Baba, can’t you just marry amu? Then we can live here forever and ever.”

Kaveh chokes on his laugh. His face feels a little warm. “That’s not how it works, sweetheart.”

“Why not?” She blinks at him. “You just said you want to stay here with him too.”

Kaveh averts his gaze, unable to hold eye contact with her tiny, intense little self. She doesn’t understand; of course she doesn’t understand, she’s six years old. A six year old doesn’t understand the institution of marriage. She just loves Al-Haitham. She just wants Al-Haitham to be a part of her life for the rest of time. She just…she just—

“Go to sleep now,” Kaveh mutters, pressing a soft kiss to each of her eyelids. “You’re tired, aren’t you? You’ll feel nice and well-rested when you wake up tomorrow morning.”

Kimiya pouts, but she closes her eyes, so he supposes that is that.

It takes ten minutes for her breathing to even. Kaveh spends the entire time staring aimlessly up at the ceiling and ignoring the rapid pounding of his heart.

Al-Haitham looks up when Kaveh emerges from the hallway a little while later. He’s sitting on the couch, reading a book and resolutely ignoring the way his phone is continuously lighting up with notifications on the coffee table. 

For a moment, Kaveh lingers there, stares at him for a few seconds. Al-Haitham stares back, because of course he does, and this goes on for a good fifteen seconds before Al-Haitham is raising an eyebrow at him and saying, “Did something happen?”

“No,” says Kaveh, a little too quickly than what probably sounds natural. He sends a quick prayer that Al-Haitham didn’t notice. “What are you doing?”

Al-Haitham surveys him, then evidently decides he won’t press, instead closing his book and thumbing over the cover. “Ancient Glyphs and Modern Meanings: Exploring the Intersection of—”

“Okay,” says Kaveh, holding up his palm. “Never mind.”

He walks over to him, looking down at him one last time before flopping onto the spot next to him. Al-Haitham seamlessly makes room, and Kaveh spends the next several minutes staring up at the ceiling and very resolutely trying to not think about the conversation he just had with his daughter. Honestly, it’s not even something to fixate on. What’s the big deal with Kimiya saying she loves Al-Haitham? Of course she should love Al-Haitham. In fact, this is good. At the very least, it relieves Kaveh’s stress about his daughter not getting along with his best friend who is currently housing both of them.

Right. Yes. Great. Nodding to himself, Kaveh emerges from the spot where the back of his head is resting on the backrest of the couch just in time to see Al-Haitham’s phone once again light up with a flurry of notifications.

His brows furrow. “Who is texting you so much?”

“They’re texting you too,” says Al-Haitham as he turns a page in his book.

Kaveh blinks at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Just check your phone,” says Al-Haitham, and Kaveh frowns before doing exactly that.

He clicks the screen to life and is immediately bombarded with a flurry of unread messages.

“Oh,” he says out loud. “What?”

“I’m not too sure,” says Al-Haitham, not looking up from his book. “I’ll check myself later.”

“You’re an asshole, did you know that?” Kaveh informs him.

“If it was important, they’d just call,” says Al-Haitham pointedly.

Kaveh rolls his eyes before swiping into his messaging app, beginning to scroll.

cool people and cyno

[21:15] tighnari: so now she’s just between amurta and spantamad

[21:15] dehya: candace owes me 300 mora for this btw

[21:15] candace: sigh

[21:15] dehya: i was literally like, yeah there’s no way collei is going to end up picking anything other than amurta or spantamad since her dads are literally amurta and spantamad respectively

[21:15] tighnari: collei is not really our daughter you know
[21:15] tighnari: also why are you and your gf making bets about this

[21:16] dehya: don’t worry about it
[21:16] dehya: also please she basically is at this point

[21:16] tighnari: i’m too young to be a parent (´-ω-`)

[21:16] you: ???? you are literally younger than me

[21:16] dehya: here comes kaveh

[21:16] you: wdym HERE COMES KAVEH
[21:16] you: i am quite literally an honored member of this friend group and group chat!!!!

[21:16] tighnari: whose idea was that anyways

[21:16] you: be quiet i am literally the string that ties us all together and we ALL know that
[21:16] you: anyways back to the point i was making
[21:16] you: you are literally younger than me so idk what you mean by Too Young To Be A Parent

[21:17] tighnari: well so like the thing is your daughter is 6 and collei is 17

[21:17] you: hmm

[21:17] cyno: I’m back
[21:17] cyno: Oh hi, Kaveh

[21:17] dehya: where did you even go

[21:17] you: hi cyno i guess

[21:17] cyno: I was talking to Collei

[21:17] tighnari: are you serious cyno

[21:17] cyno: I just want to make sure she’s making an informed decision. Picking your darshan is a very big deal
[21:17] cyno: I just wanted her to know that I think she’d really be in her element if she selected Spantamad
[21:17] cyno: Get it?
[21:17] cyno: It’s because Spantamad is the darshan that revolves around elementalism

[21:18] candace: so what did she say?

[21:18] cyno: She said she’d think about it

[21:18] tighnari: stop trying to influence her decision
[21:18] tighnari: all we should be telling her is that we support whatever choice she makes! that we’re going to be here for her regardless of what darshan she chooses!

[21:18] you: you totally already talked to her about picking amurta didn’t you

[21:18] tighnari: i will neither confirm nor deny that accusation

[21:19] nilou: aww so rtawahist is off the table?

[21:19] you: omg hi nilou!!!!!!!!!

[21:19] nilou: omg hi kaveh!!!! how are you? (ᵔ◡ᵔ)

[21:19] you: i’m good!!! i just put miya down for the night
[21:19] you: now i’m sitting in the living room
[21:19] you: al-haitham is here too btw he just doesn’t care about any of you so he’s reading his book instead of responding in the chat

[21:19] al-haitham: Why Amurta and Spantamad? Why did she veto Haravatat?

[21:19] you: what the actual fuck

“What the actual fuck,” Kaveh verbalizes as he looks accusingly at Al-Haitham, who at some point set his book aside and picked up his phone. “Now it just looks like I was lying.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” says Al-Haitham simply.

[21:19] tighnari: she’s interested in something more related to the hard sciences

[21:19] you: ok then it makes NO sense that she vetoed kshahrewar
[21:19] you: the literal school of engineering

[21:20] tighnari: ermmm well she’s kind of more into life sciences… yikes

[21:20] you: don’t yikes me

[21:20] nilou: she doesn’t like physics?

[21:20] tighnari: who in their right mind would choose physics

[21:20] nilou: my entire darshan!!!

[21:20] cyno: You could say she /gravitated/ away from Rtawahist 

[21:20] tighnari: she’s training to be a forest ranger. the obvious choice is amurta! that’s all we do!!!

[21:20] cyno: Did you guys get the joke?

[21:20] tighnari: i mean i guess the second most common darshan i see out here is spantamad, but i just don’t think the curriculum trains you the same way for this kind of work
[21:20] tighnari: though i mean i guess she basically has a job waiting for her regardless of what she picks

[21:20] dehya: nepotism…

[21:21] cyno: It’s because Rtawahist is the darshan of astronomy and astrophysics, and a very common concept in physics is the concept of gravity. So when I said Collei /gravitated/ away from Rtawahist, I was referring to the fact that she vetoed Rtawahist while also incorporating gravity into the joke

[21:21] tighnari: we got it cyno

[21:21] cyno: Hm

[21:21] you: this conversation is stressing me out
[21:21] you: all i’m thinking about is how one day my kimiya is going to have to probably pick a darshan if the akademiya is what she decides she wants to pursue

[21:21] tighnari: didn’t you say she likes to read? 

[21:21] candace: it’s giving haravatat

[21:22] you: DON’T SAY THAT TO ME

[21:22] al-haitham: A very respectable choice

[21:22] you: SHUT THE FUCK UP AL-HAITHAM

The sound of the door to Kaveh and Kimiya’s bedroom opening interrupts the quiet of the two of them sitting together texting the group.

Instantly, Kaveh clicks his phone shut.

“Baba,” comes Kimiya’s voice, small as her tiny head peeks around the corner of the hallway. Outside, the storm grows louder, flashes of thunder and lightning decorating the night.

Kaveh inhales sharply, moving to stand up. He rushes over to her, dropping to his knees and gently running his hands down her arms. “Miya, darling, are you okay? What happened?”

Her face scrunches. “Don’t be mad.”

“Sweetie,” says Kaveh, “why would I be mad? What’s wrong? Tell baba, I won’t be mad, I promise.”

“I had a bad dream,” she says, and then she sniffs a little, and then seconds later, she bursts into tears. Her small arms come around Kaveh as she buries her face into his chest, and Kaveh’s lips part in surprise as he quickly returns the hug, burying his hands into her soft blonde hair and pressing a kiss to her ear. 

“Shh,” he whispers, “shh, shh, it’s okay, Miya. Why would baba be mad that you had a bad dream? I have bad dreams all the time. Would you be mad at me if I told you I had a bad dream?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “But—but maman—”

Kaveh’s brows furrow. “What about maman?”

“She got mad at me when I woke her up and told her I had a bad dream,” Kimiya says, separating herself from Kaveh and reaching up to wipe at her tear-streaked face. “So I was scared you’d be mad at me too.”

“Miya,” says Kaveh. His chest feels a little tight. Fucking hell. “I will never be mad at you for telling me about anything that’s bothering you. Okay? You can always talk to me about anything. I want you to talk to me about anything. Even if it means you have to wake me up while I’m sleeping to do it. Okay?”

She nods, but she’s still crying, and the sight is so devastating that Kaveh has half a mind to call Parisa’s number right now and scream at her until his throat goes hoarse. 

Al-Haitham appears then, bending down by Kaveh’s side and holding out a plastic cup filled with water. 

“Kimi, here,” he murmurs, “drink this.”

Kimiya nods, taking the cup into both of her hands and gulping down every last drop. When she’s done, she places it down onto the ground by her feet and holds out her arms.

Kaveh watches as Al-Haitham’s eyes soften, his forehead relaxing as he leans a little closer and envelopes her into his arms. He shifts so that he’s kneeling, one knee pointing outward so Kimiya can climb onto it and wrap herself fully around him. She nuzzles into his neck, tears still flowing freely, and Kaveh sees the way Al-Haitham practically melts against her.

“What was your dream about?” Al-Haitham asks her quietly. “Can you tell me?”

She nods, but doesn’t say anything. 

“Were you scared?” he asks.

She nods again. 

“Was your baba in it?”

Another nod. Kaveh thinks he might feel a crack forming in his heart.

“And your maman?”

“Yes,” she says, warbled. “Baba and maman were fighting.”

Al-Haitham’s eyes find Kaveh’s, and Kaveh’s hand comes up, curls over his mouth. He thinks he might be shaking.

Al-Haitham tucks his hands beneath Kimiya’s arms and shifts so that they’re looking at each other. Kimiya is hiccuping slightly, and Al-Haitham moves his hands up to cup around her face, his thumbs gently swiping beneath her eyes, her pools of tears. “Do you want to go back to sleep? Or do you want to stay awake for a little while?”

“I don’t want to sleep,” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t want to have another bad dream.”

Al-Haitham nods. “Then we’ll stay up. I’m sure your baba is fine with it?”

They both turn to look at Kaveh, and the sight is so startling it makes Kaveh’s breath hitch. 

“Of course it’s fine with me,” he says. “Miya, do you want to watch something? Baba can make you something to eat if you’re hungry.”

“Okay,” she says, and then she nods, and Kaveh smiles down at her before returning the nod and standing up to go to the kitchen.

When he’s finished slathering a slice of bread with Kimiya’s favorite mango spread and pouring a bowl of warm soup into a small bowl, he walks back to the living room and stops dead in his tracks at the sight that welcomes him.

Kimiya and Al-Haitham have migrated to the couch, and Kimiya is still curled against Al-Haitham’s chest, laying completely on top of him as the television runs quietly with a cartoon and Al-Haitham strokes his fingers gently down her back and through her hair.

Kaveh blinks, and then Al-Haitham turns his head a little to look at him, and immediately, for some inexplicable reason, Kaveh feels the urge to avert his gaze, to look away, to look anywhere but at the sight of his daughter curled up against his best friend as if he is the safest place in the world. No—that is not a thought that Kaveh is going to entertain right now. He doesn’t know why, but something about it is making him feel a little queasy.

“She’s asleep,” Al-Haitham says, quietly to make sure Kimiya doesn’t wake up. And then, “Wow, you made a feast.”

“It’s just a few things,” Kaveh says. His shoulders drop as he puts the plate down onto the coffee table, right by the book Al-Haitham had been reading earlier, before allowing himself to drop down back onto the couch next to him.

“Al-Haitham,” he says, “I’m a horrible father.”

“You are quite literally not,” says Al-Haitham.

“She’s having nightmares,” Kaveh hisses, turning to look at him. Immediately, he regrets it, because this, of course, ends up with him staring directly at Kimiya once again, her sleeping face, her cheek squished against Al-Haitham’s chest. He swallows. “She’s having nightmares about me.”

“And Parisa,” says Al-Haitham pointedly.

“Yeah,” says Kaveh. “She’s having nightmares about me and Parisa.”

“Kaveh, she’s a child,” says Al-Haitham. “Naturally all of this is going to take a toll on her.”

Kaveh shakes his head, burying his face into the palms of his hands. “I just wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

“It isn’t your fault.”

“No good father is the cause of his daughter’s nightmares, Al-Haitham.”

“You’re looking at it in the wrong way,” says Al-Haitham, because of course he does. “You’re the one who immediately reassured her when she came crying to you. That’s something a good father would do.”

Kaveh blinks at him, letting that sink in for a few seconds. “Oh,” he says. “Um.”

Al-Haitham looks away. His gaze falls back onto Kimiya, who murmurs quietly in her sleep and presses herself impossibly closer to him. “You know I’m right.”

“Do I,” says Kaveh with no malice, and Al-Haitham only hums in response.

They grow quiet like that, the only sounds coming from Kimiya’s breathing and the gentle whirr of the television going in the background. At some point, Kaveh reaches for the remote to switch it off, and when he does, he glances back to Al-Haitham to tell him they should probably go to bed, when—

Oh.

Archons.

Al-Haitham has fallen asleep. Al-Haitham has fallen asleep, and his head is delicately laying right against Kimiya’s, his arm wrapped loosely around her as the two of them lie together, snuggle close. Kaveh, for one, has never seen anything like it before. Al-Haitham looks so…he looks so content. Like nothing bad could come upon him as long as he stayed here with Kimiya in his arms.

Kaveh exhales shakily, and as if on autopilot, he reaches for his phone and snaps a picture of the two of them.

It shutters before saving to his camera roll. Kaveh clicks on the little preview in the corner of the screen and watches as his phone is filled with Al-Haitham and Kimiya. They’re both smiling, Kaveh realizes belatedly. They’re both smiling in their sleep, their eyes closed, noses brushing slightly as they breathe. 

Kaveh, despite himself, despite the rush that courses through his veins, finds himself smiling too.

And then his smile drops.

What? No. Wait. What?

No.

Kaveh’s stomach lurches all of a sudden as his eyes find the picture again, and then move back up to the two of them by his side. A lump forms in his throat as he hurriedly turns away, his knuckles gripping his phone turning white. No. That’s not what’s happening. This is just—this is just his mind playing tricks on him again. It can’t, it can’t mean—

Kaveh screws his eyes shut and exhales, ignoring the way he shudders with it. 

It’s just Al-Haitham. It’s literally just Al-Haitham. There’s no reason why Al-Haitham should be making him feel this way. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense. But that—that’s just it, isn’t it? Al-Haitham and Kaveh have never made sense. They’ve never been meant to be, they just are. Kaveh never thought for one second that the random boy he argued with in his junior year Vahumana lecture would end up becoming his closest friend. He never thought for a single moment that he would get to a point in his life where he would be living with Al-Haitham again, this time with his daughter, after what was the most painful break up of his life. He never imagined that his daughter would love him this much. He never imagined that Al-Haitham would love her so much.

Because that’s what this is. Kaveh knows Al-Haitham. He looks down at him, sees the protective grasp he has around her, sees the way he holds her close, like he’ll kill anyone and anything who tries to take her away from him. Kaveh isn’t—he isn’t stupid. He is a lot of things, but he isn’t an idiot. 

It makes perfect sense. Archons. It makes perfect sense. Al-Haitham, and Kimiya, and—

“Oh,” says Kaveh softly. There is a roaring behind his eyes. The storm outside has almost quelled, now replaced with only the rapping of rain against the roof. “Oh, fuck.”

dinner time (minus al-haitham cuz he’s busy in corporate hell)

[23:42] you: {attachment: 1 image}
[23:42] you: i’m fucked

[23:43] nilou: ???

[23:43] tighnari: is that kimiya? sleeping on al-haitham?? who is also sleeping???

[23:43] you: don’t you have eyes

[23:43] tighnari: ok so it is

[23:43] nilou: aww it’s such a cute picture!

[23:50] you: i think i’m in love with him

[23:51] nilou: oh

[23:51] tighnari: what the fuck

[23:55] you: kusanali above
[23:55] you: tighnari
[23:55] you: nilou
[23:55] you: i am in love with him
[23:55] you: i’m in love with al-haitham

[23:55] tighnari: kaveh what the fuck

[23:55] nilou: oh my god

[00:01] you: miya just came out of her room because she hsd s nigutmarw and oh my god im shakign she had a nightmare and she xame outside and al-haitham just hugged her and wpiped her tears and then he awas like its ok you dont have to go back to sleeep so he just sat with her on the couch andmiya laid on top of him and thrye just sat there watching tv and al-haitham was like stroking her hair and it was ths sweetest thing ive ever seen and she loves him so much just earlier she just told me she loves her amu al-haitham so kuch and i didnt even know what i was supposed to say to that but she loves him so much and he loves her so much too its so obvious i can see it so clearly and god guys hes always been there hes always just been there and i cant beloebe this is happening to me i cant believe im in lvle with al-haitham oh my yod i cant believe i jsut realized it i cant believe rhis is jappening to me im in love with him im so in love with him i dont want to leave him i dont want to separate kimiya feom hum im i im

[00:02] nilou: please take deep breaths kaveh

[00:02] tighnari: what the actual fuck

[00:02] nilou: do you have water? drink some water

[00:03] you: he just let me stay here no questions asked
[00:03] you: he didn’t even ask me why i left parisa before he found out himself from her
[00:03] you: he’s always there
[00:03] you: guys i
[00:03] you: guys i would do anything for him he’s my best frisnd i am in llove with my best friend 

[00:04] tighnari: what the fuck

[00:04] nilou: have you told him?

[00:04] you: how can i just tell him
[00:04] you: how can i just
[00:04] you: i just found out myself literally like 20 minutes ago and the first thing i did was pick up my phone and tell you guys because i just felt so suffocated i needed to get it out i was just staring at them sleeping and then i took a picthre and then i was staring at the picture and then i just couldnt do it anymore i couldnt take it anymore

[00:05] tighnari: what the fuck

[00:05] you: are you going to say ANYTHING else

[00:05] tighnari: what the fuck

[00:05] nilou: kaveh you should tell him
[00:05] nilou: please tell him

[00:05] you: nilou i feel like i’m going to die

[00:06] nilou: you’re not going to die kaveh, you just realized you’re in love with al-haitham. that’s a big deal and it is completely normal for you to feel panicked

[00:06] you: i’m going to ruin everything if i tell him

[00:06] nilou: can i call you?

[00:06] you: what
[00:06] you: oh
[00:06] you: yeah let me just um go to my room real quick

[00:06] tighnari: make it a group call

[00:08] you: ok i’m ready

nilou is calling…

“Kaveh,” comes Nilou’s voice, a little staticky through the line. Or maybe that’s just Kaveh’s brain playing tricks on him. His sick, sick brain. How the fuck is this happening to him right now? “Kaveh, are you okay?”

“Hey,” comes Tighnari’s voice. “Hey, Kaveh, Nilou. Kaveh, are you okay?”

“Stop asking me if I’m okay,” Kaveh mutters. “I’m going to die, you guys.” 

“You are not going to die, Kaveh,” says Nilou, and her voice is so firm, so steady and so sure that Kaveh almost wants to believe her. Unfortunately, he doesn’t. Right now the only thing he can think about is the fact that Al-Haitham is sleeping soundly outside with his daughter and Kaveh just really really really achingly wants that to be a constant in the rest of his life—Al-Haitham and Kimiya. Archons. How could he have it any other way?

“Nilou,” he whispers, and then he stops, because how the fuck is he supposed to say something like that out loud? 

“Kaveh,” says Nilou. “Kaveh, oh, Kaveh, I’m—I just feel so much right now. I…this is so—”

“Awful,” Kaveh finishes for her.

“No,” she says. “No. Kaveh, there is no one in the world who deserves something like this more than you do. You do know that, right?”

“Kaveh,” says Tighnari, “what happened?”

And isn’t that just the question of the hour. “I don’t know,” he says. “I was just…it was literally fine. We were just sitting together in the living room and I was texting you guys, and then Miya—Miya woke up because she was having a nightmare, and, archons, that’s something else entirely, but—but, guys, Al-Haitham just…he just took care of it. I’ve never seen him like that before. He just got her to calm down and then I went to make Miya something to eat but when I came back Al-Haitham was sitting on the couch and she was in his lap and she was asleep so me and Al-Haitham talked for a bit and he told me that no, I am a good father, which felt nice I guess but then after a while I looked back up at them and he was asleep too and he and Kimiya were just laying there together fast asleep and I just—I just—oh my god, I just—”

“Deep breaths,” Nilou reminds him gently.

“Right,” says Kaveh, and then he nods despite knowing that they can’t see him. “Right, yeah, deep breaths. Um. Fuck.”

“Kimiya seems to like Al-Haitham a lot,” Tighnari comments.

“She does,” says Kaveh. “It’s freaky. She loves him so much. Right before she went to sleep today she told me that she loves him. It was so out of nowhere, I haven’t even had time to, like, process it. But she really likes him, you guys. I…archons, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. One of you needs to tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

“Tell him,” says Nilou immediately.

Kaveh huffs. “Nilou, it’s not that easy. I just—I still have to actually figure out if I do actually have feelings for him.”

“Kaveh,” she says, “let me ask you then.”

“What?”

“Do you love him?”

Kaveh inhales sharply. Archons. Love. He typed it earlier but hearing her say it is making his heart race faster than ever before. It’s dangerous. His hands shake with it.

He swallows, and after what feels like five years, he says, “Yeah,” and it is as if a dam has opened. It is as if a whale has emerged from the sea and opened its mouth to swallow him whole. It is as if he is drowning and he cannot stop. He cannot stop. “Yeah, I…yes. Yeah. Fuck. I do—I, I do. I love him.”

Tighnari snorts, and the sound is so out of place that it makes Kaveh’s lips twitch upward, too. “Well there’s your answer,” he says, like it’s obvious. Which, well, isn’t it? “Talk to him, Kaveh. I know you. You can’t do this to yourself and you most certainly can’t do this to him.”

“But it’s him,” says Kaveh weakly.

“Yes,” says Tighnari. “Exactly.”

“Okay,” says Kaveh. “Fuck. I’ll…I don’t know. I’ll see. If it’s natural. I don’t even know what’s happening right now.”

“Get some sleep, Kaveh,” says Nilou. “You’ve had a long day.”

“Yeah, um, that’s probably a good idea,” says Kaveh. “Okay. Fuck. Thank you guys.”

“Of course,” says Nilou.

“Always,” says Tighnari. “Though I really think we should get together soon so we can properly discuss this. I didn’t even know you had feelings for Al-Haitham.”

“I didn’t either,” Kaveh mutters, rolling his eyes. “But, yeah, it would be nice to see you guys again soon. Maybe we can get dinner. I’ll bring Al-Haitham. Wait, actually, no. He can’t come if we’re going to be talking about this.”

Nilou and Tighnari both laugh. Kaveh, despite himself, laughs too.

 

✩ 

Kaveh has been gone more frequently to meet with clients, which is good for his prospective career and also, as Al-Haitham figures, getting out of his head with the Parisa business going on. On the plus side, it leaves Al-Haitham to have a lot of one-on-one time with Kimiya, who is at a point where she cannot endear herself to Al-Haitham anymore but somehow manages to exceed the threshold with every passing day.

He has it bad for her. 

He has it bad for Kaveh and Kaveh’s daughter, who are both set to embark on a new stage of life together and figure out where they’re finally meant to go. Which is out of Al-Haitham’s house, if Kaveh’s ever growing list of clientele is an indication of anything. It’ll be soon enough before Kaveh will have enough funds to find a new place and comfortably build a new life with Kimiya in the city.

Al-Haitham does want it for Kaveh. He wants it more than almost anything, except for one thing—the selfish urge to keep Kaveh and Kimiya under his roof so he can make sure that in the event of anything else happening, he can protect their safety. But isn’t that just what Parisa was trying to do, albeit in a more malicious way?

He banishes the thoughts from his mind. He has Kimiya to watch tonight, and he shouldn’t be preoccupied with things that won’t come into fruition until the future.

They’re baking cookies together since Kimiya learned her persistence from her father and Al-Haitham hasn’t quite figured out how to say no to her yet. Kimiya seems to have realized this fact because every time that Kaveh leaves the two of them alone, she uses it to her advantage to get something she wants out of Al-Haitham, whether that be baking cookies or a movie on the television or listening raptly to Al-Haitham narrating his books (Kaveh, being biased, dissuades his daughter from learning Haravatat principles).

So. They’re baking cookies. Kimiya isn’t much help, being too tiny to reach the counter so she’s perched on a step stool, and all she’s really done is stir things around and knock bowls over unrepentantly. There’s flour all over Al-Haitham’s kitchen, and he knows he’s going to have to scramble to clean up the mess before Kaveh gets back.

Kimiya is delighted though, so he can’t fault her for it.

“Amu,” Kimiya says seriously, “I think we need more chocolate chips.”

Al-Haitham peers into the bowl and sees the dough absolutely studded in rich brown chocolate chunks, and he frowns. “I think that would make it more chocolate than cookie, Kimi.”

“That’s how it’s supposed to be,” Kimiya wheedles, and Al-Haitham just shakes his head and leads her to the sink to wash her hands.

“We’re going to shape the cookies now, and then maybe you can put more chocolate on top,” Al-Haitham concedes. “Maybe.”

Kimiya gasps and claps her hands. “Can we have it with pistachio kulfi, papa?” she asks, fluttering her eyelashes and twisting her hands together like the perfect picture of a princess, and Al-Haitham.

Just.

Stops.

“What did you just call me?” he asks, slightly dazed, and Kimiya just beams at him as if she hadn’t just shifted his entire world a few degrees to the right.

“Papa!” she declares delightedly, and oh, now Al-Haitham is dizzy, grabbing the counters for stability. “I’m tired of amu.” She wrinkles her nose. “Baba is baba, and maman was maman, but you’re more than amu.”

“Kimi,” Al-Haitham wheezes, and then he crouches down onto the floor. Surprised, Kimi does the same, flopping onto the tile and looking at him with inquisitive eyes.

She tilts her head to the side. “...Was I not supposed to say that?” she asks eventually. “Oops.”

“You’re not in trouble, Kimi,” Al-Haitham says gently. “It took me by surprise. You know, papa is a title for very special people in your life, not just your amus. I’m not your papa.”

Kimiya squints at him. “Why not?” she says. “Isn’t it up to me? I want you to be.”

Al-Haitham’s heart genuinely hurts. He can feel it being torn in two different directions, and he can barely breathe around the stretch. He wants to be Kimiya’s papa, too. He wants it.

“I’m not your papa,” he says. “There’s other factors that go into it, like your baba. He has more say than you do, Kimi. It would be an intrusion of your family to call myself so.”

Now Kimiya just seems to be getting upset. “But why?” she whispers, sniffing a little. “You’re just like baba. You take care of me and give me cuddles and make me cookies. I like you like I like baba. You call me Kimi, and you’re the only one who’s allowed to in the whole wide world.”

“It would mean that there’s something else between your baba and I. I’m not your father, even if I want to be. I’m just your baba’s best friend.” The words are bitter to speak aloud, but they’re true. That’s all Al-Haitham will ever be to Kaveh and Kimiya. 

“But he loves you, doesn’t he?” Kimiya asks. Al-Haitham’s heart stops. “Baba told me that you’re supposed to love your best friends because they’re some of the most important things forever and ever. I thought baba said you guys have been friends for hundreds of years.”

“Not hundreds,” Al-Haitham says softly. “We wouldn’t be here if that were true. Time doesn’t mean that much, Kimi. What’s meant to happen will happen, and if nothing has changed after all this time, then it was never meant to be.”

If Kaveh ever loved Al-Haitham back, then he wouldn’t be in this position right now.

“No,” Kimiya says stubbornly. “I want you to be papa. You need to make it work!”

Al-Haitham lets out a huff at the words, a little self-deprecating. “I’ve tried, Kimi,” he tells her. “Some things don’t work out. But it’s okay. I’m honored to be your amu.” 

There’s a knot in his throat that he can’t seem to get out. It feels like an ingrowth in his flesh, pulsing and aching and hammering with his heartbeat.

“I don’t care!” Kimiya is genuinely upset now, though she tries her best not to show it. “You’re papa, and that’s it.”

She stands and goes back to her step stool silently.

“Kimi,” Al-Haitham tries, getting back to his feet and following her.

“Papa,” she says, almost as if she’s testing him.

“Kimi.”

“Papa.”

Al-Haitham sighs. “You win for today, all right? Just call me amu when your baba comes back tonight, and then you can’t call me that again, okay?” 

“I’m going to call you whateeeever I want,” Kimiya says, not even looking at him. There’s a pout on her face that shouldn’t be as adorable as it is. “Just not in front of baba.”

Al-Haitham gives up. “Just not in front of baba,” he agrees, conceding. There’s no use arguing with a six year old who already has her mind made up.

Kimiya relaxes then, finally giving him another smile. “Kulfi?” she says, wheedling, and Al-Haitham, emotionally tired from the discussion and far too gone to argue with her, agrees.

 

☀︎

Life has been relatively normal, Kaveh supposes, in the time between when he called Tighnari and Nilou about maybe being in love with Al-Haitham and now. Exactly two weeks and four days and seventeen hours, but really, who’s counting? Not Kaveh, that’s for sure.

But, yes, basically nothing has changed. Which is great, actually. Maybe Kaveh isn’t actually in love with Al-Haitham. Maybe all of that was just some sick joke his mind decided to play on him.

Yes. Yup. That’s exactly what it is.

Surely.

He enters the house after a long day of meetings about—he checks his watch—two weeks and four days and nineteen hours after that dreaded day and is immediately greeted with the sight of his daughter and Al-Haitham sitting on the couch, snuggled up against each other, a book resting between them. Half the book is on Al-Haitham’s thigh, while the other half is on Kimiya’s, and the binding is balanced in the small crack separating their legs. It is a sight so devastating that Kaveh almost wants to spin right back around and exit the house, maybe wander around the city for a bit to clear his fucking head, or something. Archons, he needs to get a hold of himself. 

He sheds his jacket off, putting his briefcase on the counter before turning to the two of them. “Hello, you two. Wow. Not even a single greeting for this tired, working man! After everything I do for you guys. Did you even notice I came in?”

They both look up simultaneously at him.

“Hey,” says Al-Haitham shortly before directing his attention back down to the book.

“Hi, baba,” says Kimiya before she does the same thing.

Kaveh huffs. He marches over to them, sticking his hand out in their line of sight. “What are you guys even doing? What the—is that a Haravatat textbook?”

“Kimi has almost reached the age for when she will be enrolling in the Akademiya’s elementary school system,” says Al-Haitham simply, as if this explains literally anything at all. “Reading these materials beforehand is sure to help set her apart from her peers.”

Kaveh blinks at him. Then he blinks again. “Al-Haitham, she’s six.”

Al-Haitham nods at this. “It’s never too early to start learning.”

“Baba, don’t be mad!” says Kimiya.

“I’m not mad, sweetie,” Kaveh tells her kindly. He meets Al-Haitham’s eyes and sends him a death glare, which hopefully gets the message across about the fact that he is lying. “I just think it would be better for you to look at books across a wide spectrum of Darshans since the elementary school is not specialized. You’d do well to read materials for subjects other than Haravatat too, Miya.”

Kimiya seems to think this over, and then she frowns. “Papa told me that Haravatat is the subject where I’ll get to read a lot of books and learn languages.”

“Yes, well, that’s true, but—”

Kaveh’s mouth snaps shut.

Wait. What?

“What did you just call him?”

Kimiya’s eyes pop wider, and then she gasps and throws her hands up until her palms are covering her mouth. Al-Haitham, next to her, visibly stiffens, his arm dropping from where it sits around Kimiya’s shoulders so fast that Kaveh barely has time to blink before it’s gone.

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says, standing up.

Kaveh stares at him with absolutely zero idea of what his face must look like right now. He feels a bit hot around his ears, and his eyes almost ache with how wide they’ve grown. Papa told me that Haravatat is the subject where I’ll get to read a lot of books and learn languages. Papa told me. Papa.

“Papa?” he says out loud before he can stop himself. “Papa? Did she just call you papa?”

“Baba!” Kimiya shrieks. “I’m sorry! Pa—amu told me not to say it in front of you! I’m sorry!”

He inhales sharply when he feels her clutch his leg, and when he looks down, he finds her eyes filled with tears as she looks up at him. Fuck—no, that’s not what he—

“Miya,” he says, a little quieter now, “wait no, sweetie, no, I’m not mad at you.” He drops down until he’s squatting next to her, quickly reaching out to wipe away her tears. “Don’t cry. I just…can I talk to…to amu alone? Just for a few minutes?”

She nods through her tears. “It’s not amu’s fault.”

“Okay,” Kaveh says. “Go to your room, okay? Baba will come in a bit.”

“Okay, baba,” she says, before she turns around and scurries off. 

Kaveh watches her go, stays still in his spot on the floor until he hears the click of the bedroom door closing. Then he stands up and prays that it doesn’t show on his face how his heart is beating so fast it might right fall out of his chest and onto the floor. He can’t even look at Al-Haitham right now. Kusanali above. Papa. Archons. Oh, Kimiya, why must you make my life harder than it already is?

“Kaveh,” comes Al-Haitham’s voice, snapping him out of his stupor. 

Kaveh snaps up to his feet. “What did she just call you?”

“I—” Al-Haitham falters. “I told her not to say it. I’m sorry.”

Kaveh whips his head up, meets his eyes. “What?”

“It’s okay,” says Al-Haitham. He’s not looking at him. He’s looking down at the empty air somewhere next to Kaveh’s waist. “She’ll grow out of it soon enough. Children have a tendency to say whatever they want. I…” He trails off. Al-Haitham is not someone who trails off. “I don’t wish to intrude upon your family. Perhaps if you tell her yourself, she’ll listen.”

“Intrude,” Kaveh repeats. “You don’t wish to intrude. Upon my family.”

“Correct,” says Al-Haitham, nodding.

Of course he doesn’t wish to intrude. Al-Haitham never wishes to intrude. Actually, he never wishes for anything, period. At least, not to Kaveh. And his family?

His shoulders drop. Suddenly, he is overcome.

“Are you an idiot?”

Al-Haitham’s brows furrow. “What?”

“I said, are you an idiot?”

“No,” says Al-Haitham. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Well, sometimes you sure do act like one,” says Kaveh, and then he takes a step forward until they are a breath apart. He looks up, takes in the sight of Al-Haitham’s shocked face, the way his throat wobbles, the way he does not move. It is quite possibly the closest they have ever been. If Kaveh squints, he can probably make out every speckle of teal in his eyes. 

“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham, his voice faint, weak, and then nothing more.

“Intruding?” says Kaveh again. “You think you’re intruding? Archons. Al-Haitham, how are you intruding on my family when you are my family?”

Al-Haitham goes still.

“Fuck,” says Kaveh, and then he takes a step back. His hands come up to clutch his head. “Fuck. Al-Haitham, I’m—she called you papa. She calls you papa? How long has she been calling you that?”

“Just a few days,” says Al-Haitham.

“And you’re okay with that?”

“She can call me whatever she wants,” says Al-Haitham. His tone is dead, as if he doesn’t know where Kaveh is going with any of this. Lucky for him, Kaveh doesn’t know where he’s going with it either. “I don’t mind. She’s—she’s your daughter.”

“She’s my daughter,” Kaveh nods. “That’s exactly it. You should—you should be more put off by her calling you her dad.”

“I…” He trails off again. Fuck. “I do not mind it.”

“Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh helplessly, “you can’t just say that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Al-Haitham.”

“Kaveh, I can ask her again to not call me that if it makes you uncomfortable. Or you can ask her.”

“That’s not it!” Kaveh exclaims, and it’s then when he realizes he’s started to pace around the room. “That’s not it. That’s—that’s not it. Al-Haitham, I—I just don’t—Al-Haitham, I’m not joking around. You are my family. My only family is you and Kimiya. You—you’re not fucking intruding. Have you lost your mind? I just—I don’t want her to—” He closes his eyes. “Her parents already broke up. She can’t lose you. She can’t—she loves you. You know that, right? You know she loves you. What am I going to say to her if the two of us stop being friends and we no longer see each other again? How can I do that to her?”

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says. He steps forward. There is a strange type of fire in his eyes now, one that sifts through the air and scorches Kaveh’s skin. “I will never leave you.”

“You will,” Kaveh says. He shakes his head and feels the back of his eyes begin to burn. “You will. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

It’s silent, then, the words hanging heavy between them, and for a moment, Kaveh is scared that he’s said too much. He’s scared that what he just said was an open invitation to do exactly what he’s afraid of Al-Haitham doing. He’s terrified that Al-Haitham will see it as it is and turn around and walk right out of his life, just like that. Because that’s what everyone does, right? They come into Kaveh’s life, they stay in Kaveh’s life, and then they leave. Just like that. Al-Haitham is the only one who has stayed, other than their friends from university. But they are his friends. And this is Al-Haitham. This is Al-Haitham.

Al-Haitham, who is staring at him in shock. Al-Haitham, whose mind is probably replaying the words you will, you will, don’t make promises you can’t keep. Because Kaveh knows him. Now he just needs to wait and see what path he will choose.

“It’s been ten years,” Al-Haitham says. His voice is shaking, almost. Kaveh hears it clear as day. “Eight of which you spent away from me. Now that I’ve finally got you back, you think that I’m going to leave?”

And that’s—

That’s not—

That’s not what he’s supposed to say. This is not what he’s supposed to do. But it’s Al-Haitham. How could Kaveh ever think otherwise? Ten years. Eight of which you spent away from me. Eight years in the port with his ex-wife and a commission that saddled him down until he no longer could breathe. Eight years without his friends. In eight years, Kaveh can count the amount of times he saw Al-Haitham in the flesh on one hand.

And yet.

And yet. 

And yet.

Fuck. He’s crying now. He can feel the tears streaming down his face. Shit. This is not how—this is not what’s supposed to happen. Ten years. Fuck. Ten years. Ten entire years. Kaveh was twenty when he met Al-Haitham. He’s thirty now. He’s thirty now and he’s seen life in a way his twenty-year-old self would never even begin to think was possible. He’s been married. He’s been divorced. He has a daughter now. He has a daughter now who calls his best friend of ten fucking years papa.

And, just like that, all of it is too much. It is too much, and Kaveh does not know what he is supposed to do with himself. He does not know how he is supposed to open his mouth and say something deserving of Al-Haitham’s ears. Al-Haitham, who after eight years, still has opened his life and his home to Kaveh. Al-Haitham, who after eight years, is still here. Despite everything. Despite everything that their lives have led up to.

Everything happens for a reason, Kaveh.

Fuck.

“Al-Haitham,” he says as the world around them falls away, “I’m in love with you.”

He watches, horrified and incredulous and hopeful, as Al-Haitham’s entire body stiffens, his face freezing still. He stares at Kaveh as if he’s just spoken in some foreign tongue, but that’s impossible. Al-Haitham is the one who graduated from Haravatat and is versed in over twenty languages. There is nothing that Kaveh could say to him that he wouldn’t understand.

Yet, despite this, he still says, “What?” and it’s so quiet that Kaveh isn’t even sure if he heard him correctly. 

Fuck. Fuck.

“You—” Al-Haitham swallows hard. “What did you just say?”

“I’m—” Kaveh starts, then stops, and then his lungs fill with water, and he breathes. He breathes and then he says it again, “I’m in love with you. I love you.”

“Kaveh.” He’s closer now. When did he get so much closer?

“I’m sorry, I,” Kaveh shakes his head, leans forward until his forehead is pressed against Al-Haitham’s chest, and it sends chills up his spine. His hands come up to his face. “I love you. I’m in love with you, Al-Haitham. Fuck. I’m going crazy. I’m actually going crazy.”

“I—” Al-Haitham’s palms are pressing into Kaveh’s shoulders, steadying him, and there is the barest hint of desperation in his voice as he says, “I need you to say it again. Kaveh. What did you just say?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Kaveh whips up to meet his eyes, and when he finds them, he inhales so sharply he almost stumbles back. But Al-Haitham is holding him, gripping him so tightly as if he’s scared he will turn right around and run away. His lips are parted, his eyes glossy as he breathes, shaky, and waits. And waits. Fuck. He’s always waiting. He’s always waiting for Kaveh.

“Say it again,” Al-Haitham says. “Say it again.”

Kaveh stares at him in disbelief. “You just want me to make a fool of myself.”

Al-Haitham’s grip tightens. “Say it again.”

“I love you,” Kaveh says.

Al-Haitham’s eyes flutter shut. “Again.”

“I love you,” Kaveh says again.

“Again.”

“I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you.”

“Aga—”

“Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh, “there’s something wrong with you.”

Al-Haitham bends forward until his forehead is laying on Kaveh’s shoulder, and he exhales, trembling against him. “There is nothing wrong with me.” And then, “Say it again.”

“I love you, asshole,” says Kaveh, and then he curls his hands around Al-Haitham’s collarbones and pulls him up till they’re eye-level with each other. “Is that enough? Or should I say it another time just for good measure?”

Al-Haitham just nods. “Please.”

“Archons,” says Kaveh. “I love you.”

Al-Haitham’s hands come up to cup his face, and when they make contact with his warm skin, Kaveh feels his fingers quivering against his cheeks. 

“You love me,” Al-Haitham says, almost wondrously. “You’re in love with me?”

“Were the first forty times not enough?” Kaveh asks, but, fuck, he’s smiling now. He’s also fairly certain by this point what Al-Haitham’s answer is. “Yes, I’m in love with you. I know, archons, it’s awful. I didn’t think this would happen to me either. It’s a little fucked up, if you ask me.”

“It is the last thing from fucked up,” says Al-Haitham immediately, and then, “Say it again.”

“Kusanali above,” Kaveh curses, “are you this deprived?”

“Yes,” says Al-Haitham. “I am. I did not know if I would ever hear those words from you in my life.”

“In your life?” What? “How long have you…”

“Long,” says Al-Haitham. “Very long.”

He’s still holding Kaveh’s face. He’s still looking at him as if he will die before he looks away. He’s still—

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says, “I have loved you for years. I have loved you since you asked if you could meet my grandmother. When you introduced me to your friends and dragged me to study with you. I fell in love with you at your mother’s wedding and I never once stopped. Not even for a second.”

Kaveh jerks back, stung. His entire body feels hot. “Al-Haitham,” he stammers, “what—”

“You were with Parisa,” Al-Haitham says, like it’s simple. Like he hasn’t just tilted Kaveh’s world on its axis. Like he hasn’t just told him that he’s been in love with him for eight fucking years.

“I was with Parisa,” he whispers. Something odd and wet rolls down his face, and, oh, god, he’s crying. “I was with Parisa.”

He looks at Al-Haitham, and he sees him. He sees him. He sees him. He sees the boy with Akademiya robes just slightly too long for his arms. He sees the boy who argued with him in his Vahumana lecture. He sees the boy who somehow, somewhere, became the owner of the title of Kaveh’s best friend. He sees the boy who fought with him over his choice of girlfriend. He sees the boy who slept one bed away at from him at his mother’s wedding and listened to him recount stories about his father. He sees the boy who waved goodbye and watched as he moved to Port Ormos and started the next leg of his life. He sees the boy who asked him are you sure right before his wedding. He sees the boy who dropped everything and drove four hours to see the birth of his daughter. He sees the boy who welcomed him back into his life and gave him and his daughter a home.

“Well,” he says as his face crumples, “I’m not with Parisa anymore, am I?”

“No,” Al-Haitham whispers, thumbing under his eyes. “No, you’re not.”

“Al-Haitham,” Kaveh laughs, watery, “please kiss me.”

“Okay,” Al-Haitham responds, and then he does.

Their mouths come together clumsily, salty from Kaveh’s tears. Al-Haitham makes a sound against Kaveh’s lips and curls his hands down and around his waist, pulling him impossibly closer and kissing his mouth open, then closed again, then open again, then closed again. He kisses Kaveh as if he needs to check if he is real or if he is nothing but some sick hallucination his brain has conjured up. Kaveh presses back, tilts his head to slot their mouths closer together, says I’m real, I’m real, I’m real with nothing but his lips and his tongue and the heat of his body. He moves his hands to Al-Haitham’s shoulders and then to the back of his head, until his fingers are tangled in his hair and he’s cradling his neck, kissing him until his lungs run out of air.

The sound of shrieking has them breaking apart, and Kaveh stares at Al-Haitham’s panting figure in front of him for just a split second, his swollen lips and the wild look in his eyes, before whipping around and finding Kimiya standing right at the end of the hallway, peeking out at the two of them with her arms waving high up above her head.

Kaveh’s jaw drops. “Miya—”

Kimiya screams again, and then uses both of her hands to point at them. “Baba and papa are kissing! Baba and papa are kissing!”

“Oh my archons,” says Kaveh. He feels his face flush as he glances at Al-Haitham, who’s now looking down at Kimiya with a look in his eyes that Kaveh has so used to that it almost startles him. He’s looking at Kimiya the same way he always looks at Kimiya. 

Eight years. Eight years. Al-Haitham has been in love with Kaveh for eight entire years. God. He can’t even imagine what must have been running through his head when Kimiya first called him papa. Even Kaveh can’t imagine it. He makes a mental note to ask Al-Haitham about it later.

Now, here, he bends down until he’s squatting, holding his arms out and smiling when his daughter giggles and bounds over to him. He embraces her close and plants a soft kiss to her temple, then lets her balance on his knee and looks up at Al-Haitham. 

Al-Haitham, who is already looking back at them. Al-Haitham, who has never stopped looking back at them.

“Miya,” Kaveh says, gently pinching her side. “Can you ask papa a question for me?”

Kimiya nods furiously. 

Kaveh grins and ruffles her hair. “Good girl. Can you ask papa if he would like to be with us forever?”

Kimiya gasps. “Forever?”

“And ever,” Kaveh nods.

“Okay!” Kimiya exclaims. She’s smiling from ear to ear, and then Al-Haitham is crouching down until he is eye level with her, holding his hands out. She flops over to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, and he hoists her up until he is standing again. 

Kaveh follows suit, and he watches as Al-Haitham gently kisses Kimiya’s scrunched up nose.

“Papa,” she says, “baba wants me to ask you something.”

“Does he,” says Al-Haitham, and he’s smiling. He’s smiling and it’s wonderful and Kaveh feels like he is going to start crying again any second now. “What does baba want you to ask me?”

“Baba wants me to ask you if you would like to stay with us forever and ever,” Kimiya recites dutifully, looking awfully proud of herself. Kaveh laughs and reaches up to squeeze her tiny shoulder.

“Well,” says Al-Haitham, “can you tell baba my answer for me, Kimi?”

“I am a very good teller,” says Kimiya very seriously.

Al-Haitham nods, then leans close to her ear. 

He whispers something that has Kimiya’s eyes widening, gasping with glee, and she wastes no time as Al-Haitham sets her down to rush up to Kaveh and wrap herself around his leg, jumping up and down and going, “Baba, papa said yes! He said yes!”

Kaveh laughs again, scooping her up and tugging Al-Haitham closer, too, until the three of them are laughing together and Kaveh is locking eyes with Al-Haitham by Kimiya’s smiling face and suddenly, everything is okay. Suddenly, he feels okay. Everything is going to be okay.

 

✩ 

This is a thing that happened. This is… a thing that happened.

Kaveh loves Al-Haitham back.

Al-Haitham feels faint, so he sits down, and then he remembers that Kaveh is in love with Al-Haitham, so he stands right back up. Archons. Archons.

Al-Haitham, a man who lost hope eight years ago, has had prayers realized that he didn’t have the bravery to put into words before. Al-Haitham, who has never once entertained the idea that Kaveh would choose him, feels like he’s struggling to breathe.

Eight entire years and this is what he made of it. Eight entire years and his faithful hopelessness has given him mercy. Al-Haitham has a family again.

Al-Haitham has a family.

The idea is so incredulous that he robotically reclines backward until he’s lying on the bed, starfished with his arms and legs out beside him. Eight years of feeling lost and he’s finally been found again. Eight years of isolation and he’s found Kaveh.

There’s an urge to scream that’s building up in his chest, an emotion that he faintly recognizes as joy and disbelief all mixed up into one. There’s also the pounding tempo of his heartbeat, running off for entirely different reasons than all of the Kaveh-induced heart attacks from the years before. Because now Kaveh loves him back.

That’s not real. That can’t be real. Al-Haitham must have hallucinated the past few hours of activity because there’s just no way that—

“Al-Haitham?” Kaveh’s voice comes softly through the door, and Al-Haitham bolts to his feet, feeling light headed at the sudden elevation change.

“Kaveh,” he says, opening the door. He’s met with Kaveh carrying a pile of pillows and Kimiya by his feet, smiling at him.

“I get my own room!” Kimiya cheers, and then she’s jumping and giggling, gripping one of her plush toys. “Bye, baba!”

“Little gremlin,” Kaveh says, looking down at her. “So quick to kick me out of what used to be my room.” But he’s smiling when he looks back up at Al-Haitham, something like an apology and something like unrepentance on the edges of his lips. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No,” Al-Haitham says quickly, too quickly. Kaveh’s smile grows a little wider. “My bed is too large for one person, anyway.”

“Maybe you should have ordered a smaller bed frame,” Kaveh says lightly, entering and dumping his pillows onto his side of the bed. His side of the bed. He’d claimed a side that night Faranak stayed over and Kaveh slept in his bed, and Al-Haitham has unconsciously designated it as Kaveh’s since then. And now it’s officially his.

“I just had excellent foresight,” Al-Haitham says.

“Ugh,” Kaveh says, rolling his eyes, and then he begins spreading out his things on the bed. Kimiya jumps up next to him and situates herself right in the middle of the bed, smiling up at Al-Haitham.

“Baba! Papa!” she says, spreading her arms out wide. “There’s space for all three of us on here!”

“Weren’t you just cheering that you get your bed all to yourself, Miya?” Kaveh asks her, tweaking her nose. She frowns and bats his hand away.

“But cuddles…” she says contemplatively.

“Oh, I’ve raised her to be spoiled, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says, looking at him.

“I think you’ve raised her just right.”

“Wow,” Kaveh says, his hands falling to his sides. “Archons. You’re not allowed to just say things like that, Al-Haitham.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do!” Kaveh says, and then he clambers into the bed and grabs Kimiya until she shrieks, wriggling in his hold. “You’re not tired yet at all, you little running machine?”

“Nope!” Kimiya declares. “So much happened today with baba! And papa! And baba! And papa!”

To be fair, Al-Haitham is finding it difficult to find the urge to sleep as well. He joins them on the bed anyway, huffing in surprise when Kaveh reaches over and drags him into the cuddle pile.

“You’re part of the family now,” Kaveh says, his lips pressed against Al-Haitham’s neck. He can feel them stretch into a smile at the words. “You’re trapped in this too.”

And Al-Haitham, with little else to do, succumbs to his fate.

Nilou, though politely confused, accepts Al-Haitham’s request to meet with her at a cafe almost immediately. With his track record, she probably thinks that something else has happened.

Well, something has, just not in the lines that she’s probably thinking of.

“Hello,” Nilou says, already gripping her purse as she approaches his table. “What happened now? Did Parisa stop by again? Do you need me to take Miya for a night?”

“It’s nothing like that,” Al-Haitham says. Despite himself, he finds that he’s feeling a little nervous.

“Oh!” Nilou says, visibly releasing the tension from her body as she sags. “Well. You stressed me out, telling me to come by as soon as I possibly could for some big news. You do know what that sounds like after the months you’ve been through, you know?”

“Oops,” Al-Haitham says unrepentantly.

Nilou is looking at him suspiciously. “You’re making me nervous.”

Nilou’s nervousness is making Al-Haitham feel jumpy. 

He wastes no time. “Nilou, Kaveh and I are together. Romantically.”

Nilou blinks, and then she blinks again, and then immediately she starts jumping up and down, her face spasming strangely. She claps a hand over her mouth, springing on her dancer legs excitedly.

“What are you doing,” Al-Haitham says. 

“We’re in a public space,” she hisses eventually. “I’m trying not to scream. Oh my archons. You bastard, are you serious? You’re not fucking with me, right?”

“Why are you cursing at me,” says Al-Haitham. “I thought you would be happier.”

“I have had to deal with this for so long, Al-Haitham, you don’t even know,” she says. Al-Haitham thinks that she’s shaking a little bit. She looks frenzied, her eyes wild. “You’ve been in love with him for so long that I’ve lost track of the years.”

“It really wasn’t that long,” Al-Haitham says fruitlessly. “You don’t need to make it sound like it was.

“So you’re a family now?” she whispers, and to Al-Haitham’s surprise, her eyes abruptly fill with tears. “Oh, Al-Haitham…”

That statement is making Al-Haitham feel faint. Kimiya calls him papa and he gets to let her. Fuck. Fuck.

“Al-Haitham,” Nilou says, tears running down her face. “Al-Haitham. I feel like the most patient spectator on the world’s longest game of chess. Somebody finally won, and it’s me for having to deal with this for so long. Al-Haitham, you need to see this text that Kaveh sent Tighnari and I a couple of weeks ago.”

After a few moments of scrolling, she holds up her phone so he can read it, and Al-Haitham’s eyes widen at the giant wall of text that he sees. It’s so large that he has to take the device and scroll through the conversation himself, finally stopping when the messages that day come to an end.

“Wow,” Al-Haitham says. “This is just embarrassing for Kaveh. I’m going to tell him about this later.”

“Al-Haitham,” Nilou says again, and the tears have finally stopped but her nose is red and she’s still sniffing pathetically. “I’m so happy. I’m so invested and I’m not even part of the relationship. Archons. It’s been so long. And now Miya has such a long, stable household, and you’re never going to have to worry about Parisa again now that the affair is behind us, and she loves you too and you guys are together and I’m just so happy—”

“Wow,” Al-Haitham says. “I think you’re happier than I was.”

“You liar!” Nilou cries, throwing a napkin at his face. “You’ve been in love with the same idiot for eight years! Don’t even pretend that you don’t care right now.”

And. Well. She’s right.

Al-Haitham’s pretty happy himself.

 

☀︎

cool people and cyno

[11:23] you: guys!!!!!!!! i have news

[11:23] dehya: oh god

[11:23] tighnari: um

[11:23] candace: oh no

[11:23] you: literally what the fuck??????
[11:23] you: ok so i am going to ignore all of that is the thing about me. fuck you all btw
[11:23] you: anyways so to tell you all my news!! i propose we all meet up for dinner sometime soon!! whenever you all are free!!!
[11:23] you: al-haitham will be treating us!!!

[11:24] al-haitham: ?

[11:24] you: bring your families!!! nari and cyno bring collei!!!
[11:24] you: wow is that literally it
[11:24] you: can the rest of you get to it maybe
[11:24] you: miya deserves friends to hang out with whenever all of us meet up

[11:25] dehya: we’re good tbh but thanks for the offer!

[11:25] you: ugh… nilou? (¬‿¬ )

[11:26] nilou: maybe one day! (.❛ ᴗ ❛.)

[11:26] you: omg!!!!!!!!
[11:26] you: anyways when are all of you free???!!!!

[11:26] tighnari: we should be free this weekend or early next week

[11:26] dehya: that works for us too
[11:26] dehya: tuesday? candace and i have to come to the city for work anyways

[11:26] nilou: yeah tuesday should be fine with us too!

[11:26] you: tuesday it is!
[11:27] you: 7 pm? lambad’s?

[11:27] nilou: perfect! layla and i will be there!

[11:27] dehya: sounds good

[11:27] candace: ^ !!

[11:27] tighnari: all righty

[11:27] cyno: We will be there

[11:28] you: omg yayyyy see you all then!!!!

Nilou and Layla are already there when Kaveh arrives at Lambad’s with Al-Haitham and Kimiya. When Nilou spots them, she immediately breaks out smiling, making grabby-hands in Kimiya’s direction.

“Kimiya!” she exclaims, beckoning her over. 

“Amme Nilou!” Kimiya screeches, which causes a few nearby heads to turn in their direction. Kaveh shoots them all an apologetic smile, but clearly, when they see it is a child, they just adopt an adoring sigh.

“Kaveh, Al-Haitham,” Layla greets them tiredly as they take their seats, Kaveh next to Nilou and Al-Haitham next to Kaveh. “It’s lovely to see you two again. Excuse my exhaustion…I was up all night with my students in the observatory.”

“Oh no worries at all,” Kaveh waves her off. “I’m just glad you could make it!”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” she says, glancing at her wife. Nilou catches this, then finds Kaveh’s eyes. She leans forward, her pupils practically sparkling.

“Your news…” she starts, raising her eyebrows and looking pointedly in Al-Haitham’s direction. “Is it what I think it is?”

Kaveh presses his lips together to stop himself from grinning, remembering back to earlier when Al-Haitham had pulled him aside before leaving and told him that he had already told Nilou that they were together. Kaveh didn’t mind, of course. It’s Al-Haitham and Nilou. And Nilou already witnessed his entire breakdown about being in love with Al-Haitham. So.

“Guess you’ll have to wait and see,” he says, winking at her.

Kimiya looks between them. “What news? What news, baba? What are we waiting for and seeing?”

Nilou laughs, then hugs her close to her chest. “Miya, sweetie, your baba is going to tell all of us officially that he and amu Al-Haitham are together!”

Kimiya gasps, her hands flying to her mouth. “Really?”

“Mhm,” Kaveh nods, ruffling her hair. “But it’s going to be a surprise for everyone, okay? So don’t spill the beans until everyone gets here!”

“Okay, baba!” Kimiya says, nodding ferociously. “I won’t! I won’t!”

It doesn’t take long for the others to arrive. Dehya and Candace come first, giving each of them big hugs—even Al-Haitham, who raises both of his eyebrows when Dehya corners him and launches herself up to wrap her arms around him. Kaveh snorts as he watches the embrace, and then laughs fully when Candace does the same thing.

“You totally planned to do that on purpose,” he says as they sit across from them at the table.

Dehya grins. “What ever gave you that idea?”

Candace hums. She leans forward with her elbows on the wood, placing her chin on her hands. “So Kaveh, what’s this about you having news?”

“Oh, right,” says Dehya, immediately groaning. “Kaveh, why is it that whenever all of us get together, somehow you always have news?”

“My life is just incredibly eventful,” Kaveh shrugs. “What can I say? Also, I can’t tell you yet. Tighnari will probably kill me if I tell you guys without him here.”

“You got that right,” comes another familiar voice, and Kaveh whips around to see Tighnari, Cyno, and Collei approaching their table. Collei’s eyes brighten when she sees Kimiya, who is still lounging peacefully in Nilou’s lap, and she rushes up before stopping just a little short, flushing in embarrassment. 

“Um,” she says, fiddling with a box in her hands. “Kimiya, this is for you.”

Kimiya blinks owlishly up at her, then points to the box. “For me?”

“Yes,” Collei says, placing it into her outstretched hands. “I’ve been into crocheting recently, so I made you a little something. I hope you like it!”

“What is crow shay?” Kimiya asks.

“Umm, it’s like…it’s kind of like knitting?”

“What is knitting?” Kimiya asks, tilting her head.

Collei turns helplessly to Kaveh, who laughs and says, “She just made something for you, Miya darling. Say thank you.”

“Thank you,” Kimiya says dutifully as she pries open the box. 

Inside is a small stuffed animal, and upon closer inspection, it’s a—

“A sumpter beast!” Kimiya squeals, holding it up.

“It’s a shaggy sumpter beast,” Collei nods. “I’ve seen a few of them around Gandharva Ville recently, so I was inspired. Do you like it?”

“I love it!” says Kimiya, hugging the toy to her chest. She turns to Kaveh. “Baba, baba, look! It’s a shaggy sumpter beast!” Then, she turns to Al-Haitham. “Papa, look! A shaggy sumpter beast!”

Silence descends upon the table.

Kimiya, noticing this, freezes, and Kaveh watches as she is overcome with sudden realization. She gasps again, louder this time, and quickly begins to shake her head.

“No!” she exclaims, leaping off of Nilou’s lap and bounding over to Al-Haitham. She stops in front of him, holding the stuffed toy out in front of her. “No! I meant amu! I didn’t say papa! I said amu! Amu, look! A shaggy sumpter beast!”

“It’s all right, Kimi,” says Al-Haitham softly, taking the toy from her hands as she furiously fists away the tears threatening to bubble to the surface of her eyes. “You did nothing wrong. Don’t cry.”

“But, but,” Kimiya stammers, “I told baba I wouldn’t spill the beans.”

“Technically,” says Al-Haitham, “he only asked you not to say it before everyone else got here. Everyone is already here, Kimi. You did nothing wrong.”

She sniffles a little, leans her arms on his knees. “Are you sure, papa?”

“I’m sure,” Al-Haitham nods, and then he reaches forward and slips his hands beneath her arms, hoisting her up until she is sitting comfortably on his lap and fiddling with the flap of his coat.

Kaveh has to physically stop himself from facepalming at that display. Not because it isn’t quite literally the cutest thing he has ever seen—no, that’s not it. It’s because every single one of his friends, minus Nilou and Layla, who are looking between themselves with knowing smiles, are staring at Kimiya, and then at Al-Haitham, and then back to Kimiya, and then back to Al-Haitham. 

“What,” says Dehya, breaking the silence, “the fuck?”

“Did she just call him papa?” Candace says incredulously. 

“She did,” Cyno says evenly. “I should have known, ever since he brought her to take your child to work day.”

“He did what?” Dehya and Candace say together, their heads turning in unison to stare at Cyno, who simply shrugs in response, not bothering to clarify this any further.

Tighnari, on the other hand, turns to Kaveh. 

“Holy shit,” he says, like he’s just processed what just happened.

“Holy shit,” Kaveh agrees.

“Baba, that’s a bad word,” Kimiya scolds, which has all of them laughing. She looks around a bit, then up to Al-Haitham. “Papa, why is everyone laughing? Did I say something weird?”

“You have never said a single weird thing in your life,” Al-Haitham tells her seriously. “You are a perfect girl who only says perfect things.”

“Oh,” says Kimiya. “Okay!”

“Don’t enable her,” Kaveh rolls his eyes. “You spoil her way too much, Al-Haitham.”

“She deserves it,” Al-Haitham says defensively, hugging her close to his chest.

“Baba,” Kimiya giggles, “papa said I’m perfect.”

“You are perfect,” Kaveh sighs. “Too perfect, actually. Miya, how did I get so lucky to get such a perfect little daughter?”

“I don’t know!” she exclaims. 

“So, what? Like.” Dehya asks, looking between the three of them. “If she’s calling you papa, Al-Haitham, then does that mean that you and Kaveh…” She trails off a little helplessly, glancing to Candace, and then to Nilou, who is just sitting in her spot with a wide smile on her face. “No way. Seriously?”

“Ugh, I know,” Kaveh groans. “Who would have ever thought? Not me, that’s for sure. Me? With Al-Haitham? Please wake me up from this nightmare. I actually cannot believe this is happening to me.”

“He confessed first, by the way,” Al-Haitham says, still focusing on Kimiya.

“You’re an asshole,” Kaveh informs him.

Al-Haitham covers Kimiya’s ears. “Don’t be so vulgar in front of Kimi.”

“Archons,” says Tighnari. He turns to look at Candace sitting next to him, pointing his thumb in Al-Haitham’s direction. “Are you also seeing this? It’s not just me, right?” He squints at Al-Haitham. “Who are you and what have you done with Al-Haitham?”

“Who are you,” is all Al-Haitham says to that.

“Anyways,” says Kaveh, “yeah. She calls him papa. She calls me baba. Al-Haitham and I are together. Yadda yadda yadda. Let’s order dinner! It’s on Al-Haitham’s tab, remember, so get whatever you want! He’s so rich, anyways. It’s good that all that money is going somewhere productive.”

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” says Dehya, which sends them all into laughter.

Later, when they’re all winding down and slowly filtering out of the restaurant, Tighnari catches onto Kaveh, pulls him aside and whisper-shouts in his ear, “I fucking knew you and Al-Haitham were going to end up together, by the way. Just so you know.”

Kaveh blinks at him. “What the hell?”

“I called it the moment you introduced him to me in university,” Tighnari says matter-of-factly. “In fact, do you remember that day you dropped that bomb on us about how you were going on a date? I literally rushed over with Cyno so quickly because I thought you were talking about Al-Haitham.”

“What the fuck?”

“You weren’t,” Tighnari sighs. “You were talking about Parisa, but whatever. Eight years later and guess who gets the last laugh. Spoiler alert, it’s me. Check and fucking mate.”

“He’s drunk,” says Cyno, appearing out of literally nowhere. He grimaces as Tighnari grins at him, falling sideways until his head is safely nestled on his shoulder. “But also he’s not lying. I unfortunately owe him one thousand mora for this.”

“There is something deeply wrong with this friend group and our incessant need to make bets about literally everything,” Tighnari says. “Not that I’m complaining right now. Because I won the bet. I won the bet, Kaveh, did you know that? Because I knew—I knew! That you and Al-Haitham were going to end up together. Be each other’s endgame. However you want to say it.”

“That’s a gross way of saying it,” says Kaveh.

“I. Don’t. Care!” Tighnari exclaims. “Oh, Kaveh, I’m so happy for you. You annoy me to death sometimes, said lovingly of course, but I’m happy for you. You deserve this. Also, I didn’t like your ex-wife. Yikes, was I supposed to say that? Probably not. Cyno, why are you letting me get so drunk and talk to people?”

“You quite literally stole all of my alcohol when I was in the bathroom,” Cyno tells him.

“Oh,” says Tighnari. “Did I? That’s a little funny. Anyways, Kaveh, ignore me. Just ignore me. But also I knew it. I told you so. I told everyone so. I’ve seen the way Al-Haitham looks at you, even though he never told me explicitly. It’s so obvious. He’s so head over heels. How gross. And you. It was only a matter of time. Did I mention I don’t like your ex-wife?”

“You did,” Kaveh says, unable to stop his cheeks from puffing in an attempt to restrain his laughter. “It’s okay. I don’t like her much either.”

“Oh, good,” says Tighnari. “Then I feel less bad.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Cyno mutters.

“True,” Kaveh agrees.

“Where is Collei?” Tighnari asks then, looking around a little. “Oh, she was stressing so much over her sumpter beast toy. I’m glad Miya liked it. Even if it ended up with outing the two of you. Which I knew was going to happen, by the way. Not the outing. The fact that you and Al-Haitham were going to get together one day. I’m getting a thousand mora for it.”

“He’s acting as if my money isn’t also his money anyways,” says Cyno. 

“I think it’s hilarious,” says Kaveh. 

“You guys were just always a set,” Tighnari says pointedly. “You and Al-Haitham. Sold in pairs, do not sell separately, whatever the saying is. Best friends, I guess. Haha. You know who else were best friends? Me and Cyno. And now we’ve been together for almost nine years. Funny how these things work out.”

“You could say things work out in a way that’s like exercising,” says Cyno.

“That one barely even makes sense,” says Kaveh, to which Cyno shrugs.

Collei rushes up to them then, slipping against Tighnari’s other side and exchanging a look with Cyno. She then looks to Kaveh, and smiles sheepishly.

Kaveh grins at her. “Collei,” he says, “are these two working you very hard?”

She flushes, shaking her head. “No no, I’m fine.”

“She just chose her Darshan,” Tighnari says, nudging her with his elbow. “Well? Tell Kaveh what you picked.”

“Oh,” she says. She bites her lip, then nods. “I was accepted to Spantamad.”

“Ugh,” says Tighnari, while Cyno smiles and nods approvingly.

“A fantastic choice,” he says, reaching over to pat her twice on the head. Collei jerks both times his hand makes contact with her head, but she’s smiling wider than Kaveh has ever seen her smile before, so, well, there’s that. 

“That’s insanely cool,” Kaveh says, also holding his arm out and squeezing her shoulder. “Congratulations, Collei. You’re going to kill it at the Akademiya.” A pause. He feels his forehead crease. “Well, I mean, try not to die. It’s a bit rough there. But nothing I’m sure you can’t handle! You have some pretty awesome role models with these two over here.”

“Thank you, senior,” says Collei sincerely. “I hope it’ll be fine too.”

“It will,” Kaveh sighs. “It will, don’t worry.”

As Tighnari, Cyno, and Collei say their goodbyes, Kaveh looks over his shoulder, his eyes finding Al-Haitham’s figure just a little ways away. He’s talking with Nilou and Layla, nodding at something Nilou is saying, and Kimiya is standing next to him, her hand clutched in his palm, giggling as Layla seems to be saying something to her.

He walks over, creeps up from behind to lift Kimiya into his arms. “Hi there, honey pot.”

“Baba!” she squeals, wrapping her arms and legs around him. “Amme Layla was telling me about school.”

“School,” Kaveh repeats. 

“School!” she nods. “She said she’s a professor.”

“That she is,” Kaveh nods.

Layla smiles, reaching up to gently pinch Kimiya’s cheek. “She was asking me questions about what it’s like to be a teacher.”

“Baba,” Kimiya says, “since amme Layla is a teacher, does that mean she can be my teacher when I go to school?”

“Maybe if you pick her Darshan when you’re older.”

“Oh,” says Kimiya, her nose scrunching. “But I want to pick papa’s Darshan.”

Kaveh sighs very deeply.

“She has good taste,” says Al-Haitham, who has been silently observing the interaction with Nilou. “Haravatat is an excellent Darshan to study in, Kimi. I approve.”

“Of course you approve,” Kaveh rolls his eyes. “You’re biased.”

“And what about it?” Al-Haitham raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, okay,” Nilou interrupts, “there’s plenty of time before you guys have to worry about all of that. Miya, you won’t have to pick until you reach Collei’s age, okay?”

“Oh,” says Kimiya, and then, “okay!”

“Well then,” Nilou says. “We should probably get going. I have an early practice tomorrow, and Layla’s teaching assistant is feeling a bit under the weather right now, so she has some grading to do tonight.”

Kaveh nods. “Thank you for coming, Nilou.”

“Oh, please,” she waves a hand. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Then she grins, smirks at Al-Haitham and says, “I’m glad you two have finally gotten everything sorted out between yourselves. Kaveh, I’m sure you know this by now, but…it really has been a long time coming.”

“I do,” says Kaveh, “it’s still kind of crazy. And a bit messed up. Al-Haitham, you’re obsessed with me.”

Nilou looks a little teary now. “Archons, I just…I still can’t believe it. You guys are a family now.”

“It’s been ten years and I think I’m stuck with him,” Kaveh says, his nose wrinkling.

“Speak for yourself,” Al-Haitham says. “As you know, you’re the one who came into my life again all of a sudden and switched up my routine.”

“And you’re happy for it,” Kaveh says boastfully.

“You know,” says Al-Haitham, turning to him. “Nilou showed me an interesting text you sent to her and Tighnari.”

Immediately, Kaveh gasps, whipping around to look at Nilou. “Betrayal. Nilou! There was no need to dredge up the past.”

“Oh please,” says Nilou, waving a hand out in front of her. “This entire affair is about the past! Also, I deserve it. I have had to deal with this for so long, you don’t even know.”

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says smoothly, “you have it bad.”

Kaveh scoffs. “You have been in love with me for eight years—”

“This is just embarrassing for you.”

“You want to talk about embarrassing?”

Nilou giggles, rolling her eyes a bit at the scene. Soon enough, she and Layla disappear off into the night as well, which just leaves…

“Well then, shall we?” Kaveh says, linking his free arm with Al-Haitham’s. “You know, there’s this new recipe I’ve been wanting to try out. Maybe I’ll make it for Miya tomorrow. Also, Al-Haitham, there has been way too much talk about Darshans and the Akademiya today. We need to get Miya’s paperwork done soon so she can enroll in the elementary school.”

“Let’s go home first,” says Al-Haitham. “Everything else can come later.”

“Home,” Kaveh echoes.

“Home!” Kimiya giggles down between them.

Home. Archons. Yeah. Yeah, that’s what this is, isn’t it?

“Home,” says Kaveh, and then he nods, his chest a little tight. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go home.”

 

✩

Al-Haitham, Kaveh, and Kimiya are back at the grocery store together. After that first time, it was usually either Al-Haitham or Kaveh going on their own with not enough time to make it an entire outing, but ever since Al-Haitham and Kaveh officially got together, Kimiya hasn’t been able to tear herself away from Al-Haitham.

Al-Haitham can’t say that he minds it, however.

But this time, he doesn’t have to consult Kaveh on every grocery choice he makes. Now he knows what Kimiya likes and dislikes, and he’s informed himself on all the nutrients that a growing child should get, and he’s able to sweep through the store quickly enough without consulting Kaveh once.

They still shop together, anyway. Al-Haitham pushes the cart while Kimiya hangs by his side, talking about this and that, and Kaveh scrutinizes all of the weekly deals and prices by weight until he secures the best bargain for them. Kimiya points out snacks and cookies and boxes of mixed nuts, and Al-Haitham discreetly dumps them into the cart when Kaveh isn’t looking.

It’s nice. It’s homely. It’s awfully, devastatingly domestic. Kimiya knows just how to game the system, so she wheedles Al-Haitham to pick up kulfi when they pass the freezer section because she knows he likes it too, but she doesn’t even try with the gummy candy because she’s lost that fight enough times already.

They’re checking out with the cashier when Kaveh gasps. “I forgot to grab unsalted cashews,” he mutters to Al-Haitham. “Go ahead with the transaction, but drag it out if you have to. There’s no need to be afraid of small talk at your old age.”

“I’m not afraid,” Al-Haitham says, frowning, but then Kaveh is already gone.

Kimiya is peeking through the checkout aisle candy, giving hopeful and pointed looks to Al-Haitham, which he resolutely ignores. He’s given in too many times only to be berated by Kaveh when they return home with chocolate smeared all over her face.

“Papa, baba won’t even know,” she says, tugging on his pants leg. Al-Haitham looks down and regrets it, her pleading face almost enough to make him give in.

“You underestimate him,” Al-Haitham tells her. “He always finds out.”

“You know, amu Tighnari said I should protest against unfair circo.. circa… circastances!”

“Your amu Tighnari is raising you to be a rebel.”

“Your daughter is adorable,” the cashier pipes in, smiling kindly at him. “I remember when mine was that age. It was always so hard to say no to them.”

There’s a protest on the tip of Al-Haitham’s tongue that Kimiya isn’t his daughter, but he reconsiders that statement. It’s not true anymore. Kimiya is his daughter.

“Too cute for her own good,” Al-Haitham remarks. “Spoiled.”

“I’m not spoiled,” Kimiya protests. “I’m not, papa, I’m not! You said I’m your perfect little girl.”

“I did, didn’t I.”

“She’s got you wrapped around her finger,” the cashier says, laughing. “You two, have a nice day, all right!”

“Wait!” Kaveh comes rushing up, placing the package of cashews before him, and then he puts on a smile. “I’m so sorry, but I forgot something.”

The cashier scans the package and completes the transaction. “It’s quite all right. I was just telling your husband that your daughter is adorable, is all.”

Kaveh startles at the use of the word husband, and he must be too shocked to deny it. “She is, isn’t she,” he says, smiling down at her. “What a happy family I have.”

Family. Al-Haitham really, really likes the sound of that.

 

☀︎

Kimiya’s first day of school arrives, and with it, a very stressed Kaveh.

“Miya, do you have all of your things?” he says, fussing over her uniform. It needs to be perfect, after all. His daughter is going to make the best first impression in the history of first impressions. “Did you pack the lunch I made for you? Did you put your water bottle in your bag? Don’t forget the new notebooks that papa bought for you, either. You’ll need them for class. Oh, and I packed a few hairbands for your hair if you get annoyed by it falling into your face. They’re in the front pocket of your bag, okay?”

“Kaveh,” comes Al-Haitham’s voice from behind him, followed by a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You’re going to stress her out.”

“Oh be quiet,” Kaveh says as he fixes Kimiya’s buttons on her cardigan. “Miya, did you get all of that? Oh, and I put a few snacks in the second pocket in case you get hungry throughout the day.”

“Okay, baba,” Kimiya says, smiling ear to ear.

Kaveh sighs, runs his hands down her cute face. “My little girl. When did you get so big?”

“Baba, that’s contradictory,” says Kimiya pointedly. “You can’t call me a little girl and then ask when I got big. It doesn’t make sense.”

Kaveh turns to glare up at Al-Haitham. “You have ruined my daughter.”

Al-Haitham, ignoring him, moves to pat Kimiya’s head. “Very good, Kimi,” he nods. “You remember what contradictory means.”

Kimiya giggles, clearly pleased with the praise. “I’m a smart girl.”

“Yes you are,” says Al-Haitham. 

“Okay,” says Kaveh, standing up. “We should get going. We don’t want to be late for your first day of school, Miya. Archons. Your first day of school. Al-Haitham, it’s her first day of school. This is literally one of the most pivotal moments of her entire life. Al-Haitham, it’s her first day of school. Are you even listening to me?”

“I’m listening,” says Al-Haitham as he busies himself with fixing Kimiya’s bangs. After a moment, he hums in approval, straightening before turning back to Kaveh. “All right. Let’s go, then.”

“Okay,” says Kaveh. “Okay, let’s go. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“You’re not going to throw up, Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham.

“Ew, don’t throw up, baba,” says Kimiya. 

So they go. The great thing about their home is that it is quite literally a two minute walk away from the Akademiya’s front doors, and Kaveh spends the entirety of the two minutes trying extremely hard to control his breathing. His hand, clutched tight in Al-Haitham’s as Kimiya skips happily ahead of them, feels clammy with sweat, and if Al-Haitham notices it—which he most definitely does—he doesn’t comment on it.

“She’s going to be fine,” Al-Haitham says eventually as they approach the Akademiya. “Every child of Sumeru has to do this in their lives. You did it, and I did it, too. Now it’s Kimi’s turn.”

“But what if she hates it? What if she has a terrible time? She’s just a little girl. My little girl. Fuck. I feel like throwing up again.”

Al-Haitham squeezes his hand. “Kaveh,” he murmurs, “she’s going to be fine. She’s your little girl, exactly. You remember how school was for you. Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t absolutely love every moment of it.”

“Ugh,” says Kaveh. His head feels like it’s spinning. “I guess you’re right. I’m just so nervous. It’s fine if she doesn’t like it, but I just…I don’t want her to get hurt. I don’t want her to have a bad time and suffer.”

“You’re a good father,” says Al-Haitham as they reach the front gates. “She’ll tell you if she’s struggling.”

“Archons, I hope so. Oh! Professor!”

Kimiya’s teacher seems sweet, which does calm Kaveh’s nerves a little. She compliments the Palace of Alcazarzaray too, and tells him that she will take good care of his daughter, so he shouldn’t worry too much and let her take care of her. Soon enough, Kimiya is waving goodbye to him and Al-Haitham, and Kaveh stays fifteen extra minutes, pacing around the courtyard of the Akademiya before he finally turns to Al-Haitham, who is patiently waiting for him to get it together.

“Al-Haitham,” he says, then points his index finger in the direction of the doorway Kimiya had gone through with her classmates, “our daughter is in there.”

“Yes, she is,” says Al-Haitham, crossing his arms over his chest and leveling Kaveh with a raised eyebrow. “Are you ready to go, then? Have you finished processing it?”

“Maybe I should just stay here until her school day is over.”

“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham. He walks up to him, slips his hand back into his and begins to tug him backward.

“Where are we going? Al-Haitham, let go of me. Al-Haitham—Al-Haitham—”

“She’s going to be fine,” says Al-Haitham, stopping to turn back to look at him. His expression is firm, like he’s so sure of this fact, and Kaveh stares back into it, blinking a little.

“But what if—”

“Kaveh.”

“But she’s just—”

“Kaveh.”

“Al-Haitham—”

“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham, this time pulling him closer until Kaveh’s chest is flush against his arm. “She was smiling. She was talking to her classmates. Her teacher is kind. I know of her. I work here, remember? In fact, because I work here, Kimi can come to me for anything whenever she wants. Our daughter will be fine.”

“You…” Kaveh trails off, hanging his head. “You’re scarily good at this, actually.”

“Only because it’s you,” says Al-Haitham simply, before interlacing their fingers and beginning to walk back down the familiar path to their house.

It’s pleasant enough. Kaveh’s free hand fidgets a little, and then his brain catches up. 

Our daughter. Kaveh had said it, and then Al-Haitham had said it too. And it was the most natural thing in the world, because that is what Kimiya is: she is their daughter. Archons. She is their daughter. She is Al-Haitham’s daughter—she’s been Al-Haitham’s daughter for months now, ever since he and Al-Haitham began their relationship, and honestly, even before that too. Kimiya loves him. Kaveh loves him. Kaveh would not have this any other way. This is going to be his reality for the rest of his life.

This is going to be his reality for the rest of his life.

It goes like this:

As Al-Haitham digs through his pocket for the keys to their house, Kaveh’s hand drops from his grip. He stands behind him, stares at the slopes of his back, and feels something thick clog up his throat.

“Al-Haitham,” he says, quiet, “marry me.”

Al-Haitham freezes. 

“Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says again as Al-Haitham slowly turns around, “marry me. Al-Haitham, marry me. Let’s get married. Let’s do it, Al-Haitham. Marry me.”

“Okay,” says Al-Haitham. 

Kaveh laughs, breathy. “Just okay?”

“Okay,” says Al-Haitham again. “Okay, let’s get married.”

“Fuck,” says Kaveh.

“Okay,” says Al-Haitham, smiling now, “we can do that too.”

Kaveh swats him. “Smart ass,” he says, but he’s smiling widely. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” says Al-Haitham, and then he steps off the porch and wraps his hands around Kaveh’s face and neck and leans in and kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him. “Yes, I’m sure. Let’s get married. It’s the logical next step. I would have asked you eventually if you didn’t ask me.”

“Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh into his mouth. “You shouldn’t just say things like that.”

“I’ll say whatever I want,” says Al-Haitham. 

“I have a daughter,” Kaveh points out, and then, “Fuck. What is Miya going to say? If we tell her we’re getting married?”

“She’ll be happy that her baba and her papa are getting married,” says Al-Haitham like it’s obvious, which, well. Yeah.

They make their way into the house, and as they’re taking off their shoes, Kaveh groans. “This was such an unromantic proposal. It’s all your fault, by the way. If you weren’t so…if you weren’t so…” He makes some nebulous gesticulations. “So…the way that you are. I could have gotten something really elaborate and cute set up for us, and then I could have got down on one knee or however the hell people propose these days—”

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham interrupts him, leaning in lightning quick to press their lips together again. “Do I really seem like someone who needs an elaborate proposal?”

“Well it could have been nice,” Kaveh frowns. “I’m an artist, you know.”

“You can propose again if your heart really desires it,” says Al-Haitham, and then he raises his eyebrows slightly, “you already know my answer.”

“Wow,” says Kaveh. “Fuck. Did you ever think we were going to get this far? Kusanali above. I just proposed to you. We’re going to get married.”

“We are,” Al-Haitham nods. “And no, I didn’t. I lost hope a long time ago.”

“Then this must be a lot for you,” says Kaveh, tilting his head, the corners of his lips twitching upward. 

Al-Haitham says nothing in response. Instead, he kisses him again, lingers in it for a few seconds longer, and when they part for a moment, he wastes no time before kissing him again.

“You can’t stop kissing me,” says Kaveh between kisses.

“You just proposed to me,” says Al-Haitham, catching Kaveh’s bottom lip between his teeth. “We’re going to be married.”

“We are,” says Kaveh, giggling into the next one. “Al-Haitham, stop kissing me and take me to our bedroom like a real man.”

“This is another perk of Kimi starting school, by the way,” says Al-Haitham, and as Kaveh rolls his eyes, he laces their fingers together and does exactly that.

 

✩

Considering both of the parties considerable lack of family members, the engagement party is made up of Faranak, Henri, and then their mutual friends. Upon survey of the room, Al-Haitham decides that he’s happy with just this, anyway. It’s all he’s ever needed.

Engagement party.

Because Al-Haitham and Kaveh are getting engaged.

Al-Haitham prays to Kusanali that he’ll make it through this night without losing his mind, becoming sick out of nerves, or passing out, all three of these things being unfortunately associated with all wedding events in his mind. It’s not his fault that of the last three weddings he attended, two of the weddings he’s experienced, actually, were incredibly unfortunate and played against Al-Haitham’s favor.

But all of that would change right now.

The whole process, though it had been extremely complicated for both Faranak and Kaveh’s marriage to Parisa, is significantly less stressful this time around. For one, it’s a lot smaller, the guests being contained to only those who were invited to the engagement party.

For another, Kaveh says that he’s already had his big wedding and there’s no need for another one, and since Al-Haitham has never been one for fanfare in the first place, he agrees with this quietly and allows the wedding planning process to continue on as lowkey as possible.

Besides, there’s nothing that matters more to Al-Haitham than the process of the marriage itself. He just wants to be legally binded to Kaveh. Finally. Not just for the tax benefits, though those are definitely a plus, but because since Al-Haitham has been irrevocably tied to Kaveh in almost every other way, it makes sense to go ahead and complete it to the fullest sense of the word.

There’s also this smug satisfaction that Al-Haitham gets out of telling people that he’s in a relationship with Kaveh—if there were only one more person to know, and that person were to be the wedding officiant, then he would be happy. As long as somebody has to recognize what Al-Haitham and Kaveh are to each other. It’s like a cosmic fuck you to Al-Haitham’s odds, to Parisa, to the eight years that slipped between them like the wind, to all of the thousands of sunrises and sunsets that passed quietly without Al-Haitham kissing Kaveh once on his fair mouth.

Now there will never be another day where Kaveh’s mouth has to go unkissed. Soon enough, there will never be another day where Al-Haitham is anything other than Kaveh’s husband. If that were his only job in his entire lifetime, he would be content. He would stick it on a lanyard and wear it around his neck happily. He would quit his job and not see anybody but Kaveh every again.

And maybe that’s a little dramatic, but isn’t that what marriage is for? All the dramatics and theatrics of love to put on a show for others? Logically, there’s no difference in a relationship wherein the two parties are promised to each other and one wherein the two are legally bound.

But for once, Al-Haitham throws logic to the wind. He cannot wait to be married to Kaveh. He cannot wait to be Kaveh’s husband.

But first comes the engagement ceremony.

“Are you nervous?” Kaveh asks Al-Haitham as they watch the room they’re hosting the ceremony fill up with familiar faces. It’s a quiet event held in a small room. There’s not a single person that Al-Haitham doesn’t recognize, and that makes him happy.

“I’m not nervous,” Al-Haitham says, strangely sure. He’s not. He knows he wants to marry Kaveh; he knows it like he knows he’s been in love with the same man for the past eight years, he knows it like he knows his grandmother would have been delighted to see him here right now, about to exchange rings with the love of his life.

“Lucky,” Kaveh murmurs distantly, staring out across the crowd. “Can’t relate.”

Al-Haitham shoots him a look. “Second thoughts?”

“What?” Kaveh looks at him incredulously as if the thought had never even crossed his mind. “Oh god, no. I’m just thinking how silly it is that I’ve had a marriage ceremony twice now and I’m barely thirty. I’m hoping that none of these people are thinking the same thing that I am. That would be embarrassing.”

“These people are all your friends, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham reminds him. “They’re not going to be thinking that. If anything, I should be embarrassed that I’ve decided to marry you.”

“This is the last moment to back out after all,” Kaveh says, sing song. “I may just have to take my chances and run for the hills as soon as I can. Wouldn’t want to be saddled with you for my entire life. God.”

“You’re the one who proposed to me, not vice versa,” Al-Haitham points out with a not insignificant rush of satisfaction at the fact. Kaveh proposed to him. Kaveh wanted to marry him first. Kaveh chose Al-Haitham back after eight years of Al-Haitham choosing Kaveh.

“Archons, you’re right,” Kaveh bemoans, putting a hand to his forehead. “I’ve dug my own grave. Something must be wrong with me.”

“Indeed,” Al-Haitham says seriously. Kaveh hits him on the back of his head.

“Glad to see that you two are the same as ever, even though you two are about to be engaged,” Tighnari says, sidling up to them. “You know, Kaveh, you better be careful with that. Soon enough, Al-Haitham can begin filing for domestic abuse if you keep that up. Actually, there’s nothing stopping you now. Might as well go ahead with it.”

“You’re not allowed to be mean to me for an entire month,” Kaveh says, affronted. “This is my second wedding.”

“Yikes,” says Tighnari. “At least this one is a step up from your ex. A very small step up, though. I wouldn’t say anything more than that.”

“Won’t you pick a side, Tighnari?” Al-Haitham asks pointedly. “Go keep Cyno company. He and Collei look uncomfortable now that you’ve left them alone.”

“They’re just like that,” Tighnari says, waving a dismissive hand. “They’ll go for five minutes of silence and then Cyno will crack the most horrendous joke you’ve ever heard and Collei will fake laugh to get on his good side as if she didn’t secure that spot years ago. It doesn’t help that she chose Spantamad of all Darshans.”

“Can you stop ruining the vibes?” Kaveh asks him, frowning.

Tighnari clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Always so pessimistic. I guess I’ll leave you two be, though. Just wanted to check in. It’s been a roller coaster of a ride.”

“It has,” Kaveh concedes, looking at Al-Haitham, his eyes melting a little bit.

“Can we get off now?” asks Al-Haitham.

“Fuck you, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says, scowling terribly.

“He already does that, doesn’t he?” Tighnari says, and then he laughs as Kaveh lunges for him, darting away and giving them a cheeky wave as he rejoins Cyno and Collei.

“Hi,” Nilou says, appearing in front of the two. She looks frenzied, eyes darting all over the place. “I don’t know why you two get to be so calm when I’m all over the place. You’re the ones getting engaged, not me.”

“You’re the one who took it upon herself to organize the ceremony for us,” Al-Haitham points out. “This one is on you.”

“I thought that since you two have been through so much it would be a nice thing to do,” Nilou moans, pulling at her hair. “But now I’m thinking that I’m too nice. Everyone’s here, I think, even though Cyno got lost in the halls somehow. Miya is with your mother, Kaveh.” She sighs, tucking her hair back and smoothing down her clothes. “Well, how are you two feeling?”

“I don’t think it’s really set in yet,” Kaveh admits, glancing at Al-Haitham. “Well, I don’t know. I’m just thinking of the last wedding I went to and what a trainwreck that was. It feels a lot different, somehow.”

“That’s because you’re actually happy now,” Nilou says pointedly. “Of course it’s different. You also have me at the reins, so you’re lucky.”

“That I am,” Kaveh says, grinning. “We’re both extremely fortunate.”

Nilou’s eyes shift to Al-Haitham. “I think that given I’ve been a spectator to this for so long, I deserve some sort of formal recognition,” she teases. “All your fault, Al-Haitham. Kaveh, do you ever think about the fact that I realized he was in love with you many years before you did?”

“I get the feeling that you’re calling me stupid,” Kaveh says.

“She’s calling you stupid,” says Al-Haitham.

“You two fight like an old married couple,” Nilou says, amused. “Took you two long enough.” She sighs, reminiscing. “Well? Are you two excited? We can go ahead and start when you’re ready.”

Al-Haitham has been ready for the last eight years, but that’s an embarrassing thing to admit. But he just nods, and Kaveh has this stupid smile on his face that says more than he can put into words, and they’re ready. This has been coming for ten years now.

It slips by quickly as Nilou rushes away, getting the rest of the ceremony ready, and before he knows it, Al-Haitham blinks and they’re standing in front of each other, rings in hand. All he can hear is the rushing of blood in his ears, and he can’t feel his limbs, everything going numb except for the gentle feeling of Kaveh’s hands brushing against his as he fits the ring onto Al-Haitham’s finger.

He thinks he puts the ring on Kaveh’s finger, and he’s barely cognizant of the fact that he’s signing his engagement contract until it’s over and done with, and then they’re formally engaged.

Kaveh is Al-Haitham’s fiance.

Kaveh is Al-Haitham’s fiance, and it still hasn’t processed even several hours later, after the party has been underway all of this time and Kimiya has pressed multiple kisses to his face, pink-cheeked and smiling.

Kaveh is Al-Haitham’s fiance, and he feels as if he’s floating, only brought back down to land when Kaveh takes his hand, warm and gentle and grounding. “Hey, fiance,” he says softly, that same look reflected in his eyes as if he can’t believe it either, and Al-Haitham touches ground, the sound of the party and feeling in his limbs slamming back all at once.

Kaveh is Al-Haitham’s fiance.

 

☀︎

“Here you go,” says Nilou, dropping a binder as thick as the span of her hand into Kaveh’s arms as the two of them sit across from each other on his living room floor. “Layla told me that when she was younger her mom would host henna parties with her friends, so I asked her if she could ask her mom if she still had the design book. Luckily, she did! So, here you go!”

“Um,” says Kaveh, staring down at it. “This is a lot.”

“Yours and Al-Haitham’s should be the most intricate,” says Nilou, flipping open the binder. It lands with a thump on the floor. “I think the last section has all of the ones that would be appropriate for the two of you. There’s also a section for smaller hands, so Miya can take her pick and see what she likes too. As for the rest of us, we’ll pick after you three.”

“This is too overwhelming,” says Kaveh, thumbing over the first page. “Archons. Can you even believe it? My wedding is literally tomorrow.”

Nilou sighs happily. “I’m so excited, Kaveh. I’m so excited and happy for you. Speaking of, where are Al-Haitham and Kimiya?”

“Al-Haitham has taken her to the tailor to pick up her dress,” says Kaveh. “I wanted to go, but someone has to be here to prepare everything for the henna night. So.”

“I’m sure Al-Haitham is more than happy to spend alone time with her,” Nilou giggles. 

“Oh, he’s absolutely delighted to,” Kaveh rolls his eyes. “The two of them—god. They’re like a set. They go so well together. Kimiya loves him. I never expected for her to get along so well with Al-Haitham.”

“Well,” Nilou smiles, “that was Al-Haitham and his future daughter. There has always been a connection between those two, no matter how long it took for you guys to put a name to it.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“I’m always right.”

“Okay, let’s not go too far now.”

They spend the next hour or so flipping slowly through the pages of the binder, Kaveh scanning over several of the different designs and vetoing more of them than he can count. He picks out a few options for himself, and some he thinks Al-Haitham might like. He also picks out a few for Kimiya, though he’s sure she’ll want to go through every single one herself to decide which one she wants.

Eventually, Al-Haitham and Kimiya return, accompanied by—

“Look who I picked up on the street,” Al-Haitham deadpans as he enters, two heads popping up on either side behind him. Kimiya giggles from next to him where she’s happily clutching his hand.

“Al-Haitham, don’t be an ass,” Dehya says, lightly kicking his shin with the heel of her foot.

“Don’t use such language in front of my daughter,” Al-Haitham retaliates.

“Sorry, sorry,” Dehya laughs. She turns to Kimiya, giving her a quick pat on her head. “You don’t listen to a single thing I say ever, okay?”

“Okay, amme Dehya,” Kimiya smiles.

“Oh, she’s just so cute,” says Candace, gently pinching her cheek. “Dee, I want one.”

“You want one,” Dehya echoes.

“Ooh,” Kaveh pipes up, “yes! Yes! I approve! Please get a cute little daughter so she can be best friends with Miya!”

“Aaaanyways,” says Dehya, smoothly sidestepping until she’s pressed against Nilou’s side, squinting down at the open binder in front of her. “Oh, that’s beautiful. Is that one of the ones you’re picking?”

“Kaveh’s still deciding,” says Nilou. “Oh, but I did pick out some options for all of us. They’re over here, in this separate pile. I was thinking it might be cute for us to do the same design, or like a portion of the same design, with other parts to make everyone’s a little unique. What do you think?”

“I am down for literally anything,” Dehya grins. “Who’s applying the henna?”

“Layla and Tighnari,” Nilou says. “And then they’ll do each other’s at the very end.”

“Ooh,” says Candace. “I’m excited.”

Kaveh, for one, is feeling more sick right now than excited, but one glance in Al-Haitham and Kimiya’s direction greatly calms his nerves. Al-Haitham is already looking at him, leaning against their island area and observing the scene, while Kimiya is inching her way towards where Nilou is sitting, her eyes trained on the elaborate designs laid out in front of her.

“Oh, Miya!” says Nilou, beckoning her closer. “Look, which ones do you like? Baba picked out a few for you. Do you want to see them?”

Kimiya nods, seating herself in her lap.

Cyno arrives with Collei a little while later, after they’ve finished setting up the music and the snacks and picked out each of their designs, and Layla arrives a little after that, a small bag of henna cones in her hands. Nilou quickly rushes over to her, pecking her wife on the cheek before snatching the bag from her and making her way back to the center of the living room. 

Kaveh and Al-Haitham sit side by side on matching pillows Kaveh had the foresight to purchase from the bazaar a few days ago—matching green and red and golden thread—their hands and feet laid out in front of them as Candace digs around for a pair of scissors and hands them to Tighnari, who makes quick work of the tip of two of the cones and gently tests the henna against a napkin. 

Kaveh watches as the henna spills onto the napkin and Tighnari hands the first cone to Layla, who’s seated herself by Al-Haitham’s feet, before reaching for a second one for himself. 

“Have you decided what designs you want to do?” Layla asks softly, running her fingers over the tip of the cone and balling a bit of the henna onto her thumb. “Ah…I hope it comes out okay. It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”

“It’s fine,” says Al-Haitham.

“I’m just grateful you agreed to do it in the first place,” says Kaveh, wilting a little. “Al-Haitham’s done it before, but obviously he can’t do it on himself. Well, I guess he maybe could. But, you know.”

“I’m right here, you know,” says Tighnari.

Kaveh waves him off. “Anyways, yes, we did decide! Well, I decided. Al-Haitham was kind of just like, I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Because he’s an asshole like that.”

“You have a better eye for these things than I do,” says Al-Haitham simply.

“Hmm,” says Kaveh. “I suppose you’re right, I guess.”

“Baba,” says Kimiya, taking a seat right next to him and staring inquisitively at his outstretched hand lying gently in Layla’s palm. “What are you doing?”

“This is for the wedding, Miya,” says Kaveh, smiling at her. “You picked a design out, didn’t you? Once amme Layla is done with my henna, she’ll do yours.”

“Kimi,” says Al-Haitham, “there’s baklava over there on the table if you’d like to eat some.”

Immediately, Kaveh scowls. “Always leading her to the sweets, aren’t you?”

“It’s our henna night,” Al-Haitham says defensively. “And they’re there for a reason.”

“I think you just like spoiling her.”

Al-Haitham declines to answer that, and their friends sitting around them laugh at the display. In the corner, Collei is standing with a kamera in her hands, walking around the place and snapping picture after picture of the decorations Nilou and Kaveh had spent a majority of the morning putting up. She finds all of them as well, one by one, Candace and Dehya flipping through the design binder together, Nilou and Cyno sitting next to their respective partners and watching them draw patterns with the henna onto Kaveh and Al-Haitham’s upturned hands.

At some point, Faranak arrives with Henri, and when she sees Kaveh and Al-Haitham sitting together, she tears up, rushing over to them and embracing them both from behind.

“Beautiful,” she murmurs, peering down at their hands. “Absolutely beautiful.”

Kaveh looks up and finds Henri’s eyes. Henri nods, offering him a small smile, and Kaveh returns it, feeling warmer than ever.

“Candace and Dehya are over there with the design book,” Kaveh says, using his chin to point to his friends sitting a little ways away. “If you want to look for yourself with them.”

“Kaveh,” says Faranak, and then she leans forward to kiss his cheek. “I’m so happy for you.” Then she turns to Al-Haitham, who is already looking at her. “You kept your promise.”

“I did,” says Al-Haitham.

Kaveh’s head tilts. “What promise?”

“I made him promise that he’ll keep you happy,” says Faranak. 

“What?” Kaveh blinks. “When was this?”

“When I last visited,” says Faranak, her eyes twinkling. “I may be getting older, but my gaze is sharp as stone. Don’t ever forget it.”

“Stop moving,” says Tighnari where he’s carefully perched over Al-Haitham’s ankle.

Al-Haitham wiggles his toes, which makes Kaveh snort and Tighnari look up, affronted. 

Al-Haitham raises an eyebrow at him. “It’s like you don’t even know me.”

“You’re right,” Tighnari concedes. “I don’t know what I expected from you.”

“I can’t believe I’m marrying you,” says Kaveh. His arms are beginning to ache from the way he’s holding them up to stop the drying henna from smudging, and as if reading his mind, Al-Haitham extends the knee of the leg Tighnari isn’t working on so Kaveh can rest his elbow on it.

“Better?” he asks quietly.

“Wow,” says Kaveh. “That was kind of sweet.”

“I’m the one who isn’t going to hear the end of it if your henna smears.”

“Okay, so,” says Kaveh, “I take it back.”

“You can’t really do that.”

“Yes I can—”

“If you move one more time,” Tighnari interrupts, “then Kusanali help you, I will draw a phallic shape into your foot.”

“Baba,” says Kimiya, “what is a phallic shape?”

“Tighnari,” says Kaveh evenly, “I’m going to kill you.”

“No you’re not,” says Tighnari.

“Papa,” says Kimiya, her eyebrows furrowing, “is baba really going to…”

Al-Haitham pretends to think about it. “I’m not sure,” he says eventually.

Kaveh would kick him, but Layla looks extremely distressed where she’s perched with her cone, so he decides against it. “I’m not,” he says to Kimiya kindly, and then when he makes sure she’s not looking at him, he sends a death glare to Tighnari, who very resolutely ignores it in favor of reaching for a new cone. 

Eventually, Kaveh and Al-Haitham are freed from their thrones, and they shimmy over to the edge of the room where Dehya and Candace are fiddling with the music box. As Kaveh watches Kimiya giggle and take her place where he had just been, Collei next to her on Al-Haitham’s pillow, he gently nudges Al-Haitham’s side and says, “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Al-Haitham nods.

“Are you nervous?” Kaveh asks him.

“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham, adopting a somewhat serious expression. Kaveh’s breath hitches when he sees it. “Eight years.”

“Eight years,” Kaveh breathes.

“Tomorrow,” says Al-Haitham, and Kaveh thinks that if they weren’t surrounded by their friends and family right now, he would have leaned over and kissed him.

“Tomorrow,” Kaveh echoes, and then he smiles. “Yeah, okay.”

 

✩

Ever since the engagement, Al-Haitham hasn’t felt as if he’s touched ground once.

Logically, he knows he has. Getting engaged doesn’t mean that he’s sprouted wings. But if he was able to arrive at his wedding day with Kaveh after eight long, tortuous years, then it’s making him think that maybe he could do anything. Even enter the hemisphere, if that’s what he wants.

Maybe he’s being dramatic. It’s only Kaveh. It’s only his wedding day. It’s only everything.

Okay. Maybe Al-Haitham isn’t being dramatic enough.

“You look like you’re on one hell of a drug trip,” Candace says, appearing beside Al-Haitham. She doesn’t look at him, merely surveying the room filling with guests beside him. “You know, even with all of those items on the sofreh aghd, I didn’t think that shrooms were on the list.”

“He’s high on a drug called looooove,” Dehya sings, appearing on Al-Haitham’s other side with a hearty clap on his back. She frowns. “You do look a little sick, Al-Haitham. All pale and wan. Where’s your energy? You’re about to get married to the love of your life.”

“I’m about to get married to the love of my life,” Al-Haitham repeats faintly. 

“You’re freaking him out, Dee,” Candace says.

“I think I need to sit down,” Al-Haitham mumbles.

“You can sit down once you’re kneeling on that cloth and exchanging your vows,” Dehya says cheerfully. “Come on, be a man, Al-Haitham. There’s only a little bit left until it’s a done deal.”

“That’s the problem,” Al-Haitham says strenuously. “I’m actually marrying Kaveh.”

“You’re going to break him,” Candace says, frowning. “And then we’ll have to explain ourselves to Kaveh. We’re going to have to explain to Nilou why her meticulously planned wedding didn’t work out, and then we’ll really be in trouble.”

“Oh shit, you’re right,” Dehya says.

“You two are not helping me right now,” says Al-Haitham.

“We’re your dear friends here to see a dear friend get married to another dear friend. We’re here as support. Of course we’re helping.”

Al-Haitham checks his phone, wondering when the ceremony is going to start. All of a sudden, he’s taken over with an impatience—the same sort of fire that’s kindling his hot air balloon and keeping his feet above the ground. There’s seventeen minutes before the ceremony is actually supposed to begin, and those seventeen minutes drag on like they’re seventeen years.

Eventually, Dehya and Candace bid him good luck and take their assigned seats, and the room begins to quiet in preparation for the ceremony to actually begin. The officiant is waiting by the sofreh. Al-Haitham swallows around a lump in his throat, suddenly overcome by the ceremoniousness of it all.

He’s actually getting married to Kaveh. This is real, and it’s not a fever dream or a drug trip or a hallucination. The most trusted people in his life are all gathered in one room to witness him getting married to the person he’s waited eight years for.

This is real.

When Kaveh enters the room, Al-Haitham feels it more than he hears it. It’s almost as if when Kaveh takes that first step, it reverberates through the floor and travels up Al-Haitham’s body until it reaches his heart, setting it to double time all of a sudden.

He struggles to breathe when he senses Kaveh take a seat next to him, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see him outfitted in his wedding attire, settling down into perfect stillness. In the mirror in front of them, when Al-Haitham catches Kaveh’s eye, his grave face breaks into an irrepressible smile. Al-Haitham feels his heart swell, almost choking on it.

Above them, the officiant begins the ceremony, drawling the typical blessings and speeches. Al-Haitham attempts to steady his breathing and focus on what he can hear: the officiant, somebody in the audience clearing their throat, the shift of fabric next to him as Kaveh moves a little bit. He’s hesitant to look into the mirror again because he knows that if he will, his heart will run with it, and then he’ll never be able to calm down.

It’s with his next breath out that it dawns on Al-Haitham that this is real. This is really happening. He is in the process of getting married to Kaveh, who proposed to him, who got engaged to him, who sleeps in the same bed as him every night and wakes up every morning next to him in the same house that Al-Haitham first fell in love with him in. He falls in love with Kaveh every day in a small, different way every time.

Three nights ago it was the way Kaveh kissed him first on the left cheek, then the right, and then finally on the lips before he went to sleep. Two nights ago it was waking up to coffee already brewing in the kitchen because Kaveh knew that Al-Haitham was stressed about the wedding. Yesterday it was the unconscious tap tap hover tap hover tap of Kaveh’s fingers drumming against the side of his thigh while he checked their wedding guest list for the final time. Today, it’s the way his eyes crinkled into crescents when Kaveh saw him in the mirror for the first time today.

Al-Haitham can’t wait for an entire lifetime of falling in love every single day. 

The officiant’s droning comes to a stop, the room falls silent, and even if Al-Haitham were to manually kickstart his weak heart, he wouldn’t be able to because he’s waiting for one word, just one, simple word—

“Yes,” Kaveh says, and this time, when the world comes to a stop, it’s not crashing down around them in pieces; it’s falling like the gentlest of rains, soft pitter-pattering sounding all around them. Or maybe that’s just the sound of Al-Haitham’s heart.

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham murmurs, so quietly that only the other can hear it, and he hears a small, sharp intake of breath. With shaking hands, he slips the ring off of his finger, Kaveh following suit. Kaveh’s hands are so warm when they exchange the rings.

“Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says. It’s so soft it could be a sigh. And then he kisses Al-Haitham, whose eyes fly shut on instinct, and he’s never known anything warmer, anything more like love. Kaveh tastes like eight years of bitterness turned sweet. The ring sits heavy, commanding, grounding on Al-Haitham’s finger. It burns, a pleasant sort of ache.

When Kaveh pulls back, his eyes are brimming with tears. With the sense that if he kept his gaze for any longer, Al-Haitham’s eyes would water as well, he looks down to the cup of honey on the sofreh and dips his pinky finger into it. Kaveh does the same, and without a moment’s hesitation, brings his finger to Al-Haitham’s lips. The honey is sweet. The honey is grounding. It tastes like the promise of a lifetime.

“Hey, husband,” Kaveh whispers finally, his eyes creasing into those familiar wrinkles as he smiles, unrepentant, and Al-Haitham decides then and there that he must be falling in love with Kaveh with every passing minute, not every day, because there is nothing more lovely than the shine of honey on his tongue and Al-Haitham’s ring on his finger and the memory of Al-Haitham’s kiss on his mouth.

This is real.

“This is not real,” Al-Haitham says aloud, watching his worst nightmare walking toward him with an unpleasant smile on his face.

Well, Al-Haitham’s worst nightmare would come in the form of Kaveh’s ex-wife, but this is pretty close. This is Scaramouche.

“Who invited him?” Al-Haitham says, turning to Kaveh. “Didn’t you check the guest list fifty times?”

“I did,” Kaveh says, a poorly concealed smirk on his face. “Nilou compiled the original list, you know, and I wasn’t about to disagree with her choices. I trust Nilou. Nilou makes good decisions. Nilou invites… entertaining people to important functions.”

“I took time off work for a reason,” Al-Haitham says, and then he stops talking because Scaramouche is standing in front of him, his arms crossed. He’s frowning. He’s also wearing the appropriate wedding guest attire, which he honestly wouldn’t have expected out of him. Well, if he’d known to expect Scaramouche at all.

“So there actually is somebody who can tolerate you for the rest of your life,” Scaramouche grunts, his eyes flicking disinterestedly to Kaveh. “Shocking. I thought you called off work because you were going on vacation and needed an excuse, but I guess somebody took pity on your sorry existence after all.”

“Where is Nilou,” says Al-Haitham, scanning the crowd. “Where are the bodyguards? I need him out of here right now.”

“Oh, but it’s my wedding as well,” Kaveh says, latching onto Al-Haitham’s elbow. If Al-Haitham didn’t know his husband any better, then he would have fallen for his crestfallen expression, but he knows Kaveh, and he can tell that he just likes screwing with him.

Hm. His husband. He likes the sound of that.

“I wouldn’t want to kick anybody out,” Kaveh continues, oblivious to the sentimental turn Al-Haitham’s thoughts had taken. “I just want to get to know your coworkers, after all.”

“This is only one coworker,” Al-Haitham reminds him.

“Hm?” Scaramouche laughs mockingly. “I’m not the only one. Those three girls are here too.”

“What,” Al-Haitham says. “Okay, that’s it. I need Nilou here right now so I can tell her just how exactly she ruined my wedding.”

“You can’t have a poor time if I’m here,” Kaveh says grandly, and he’s not wrong, but it would be an even better time if Al-Haitham couldn’t see the rest of his coworkers walking up to meet him.

“Congratulations, you two!” Lina says, the first to speak of the trio. She has a big smile on her face. At least she looks genuinely happy to be here, unlike the other two who Al-Haitham suspects only came to keep Lina company and to judge him for every decision he made about his wedding. “I’ve never seen you look so happy before, Al-Haitham. Kaveh, it’s nice to meet you. I hope you know that the only times I’ve seen your husband like this is when he brought your daughter into work and today.”

“I’ve never seen him look happy before, period,” Isha says, and then she fakes a laugh when they look at her. “Oh, I’m just joking.”

“I could have sworn you were serious,” Emily says, her face completely blank. “Well, the best jokes are told with a straight face, after all.”

“Let’s go visit our other guests, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says, and then he grabs him by the elbow and drags him away even as Kaveh waves over his shoulder at the four.

“I thought for sure that you saw them during the ceremony,” Kaveh says, laughing as they draw away. “I thought the surprise was ruined, but that was better than I expected. I don’t think I’ve seen you break character that badly before you saw Scaramouche.”

“You’re not very funny,” Al-Haitham says darkly. “I can’t believe I married you.”

“I can,” Kaveh says, and then he leans into Al-Haitham’s shoulder, sighing. “We’re married. Al-Haitham, we’re married. Archons, have I ever told you how much I love you?”

“Yes, and it’s embarrassing for you.” Kaveh pinches Al-Haitham in the side. “Can you quit that?”

“Can you quit that?” Kaveh repeats childishly in a mocking voice. “Archons. Can you take things seriously on our wedding day?”

“Who do you think you married?” Al-Haitham asks him gravely, but whatever answer Kaveh has is taken when Tighnari, Cyno, Dehya, and Candace approach them.

“Ah, the people of the hour,” Tighnari says, striding up to them. “I’ll just remind you guys again that I called this from the very beginning. Good foresight, Tighnari. That’s amazing. Wow, I impress myself.”

“Haha,” Kaveh says, his face blank. “Have you noticed yet that the only person complimenting you is yourself?”

“It’s called self love,” Tighnari tells him. “I’d tell you to try it sometime, but it looks like you’ve got Al-Haitham here for that.”

“He’s wrong,” Al-Haitham says to Kaveh. Kaveh scowls at him.

“I am having a marry time,” Cyno says. “Get it? Because marry and merry sound as if they’re the same word, but it’s fitting because we’re at your wedding—”

“Can I just say that I’m grateful this ordeal is finally over?” Dehya butts in, cutting Cyno off. “Listen, I may not have known as long as Tighnari, but watching you two finally come together was exhausting. Don’t take eight whole years next time, please.”

“Is anybody going to let the eight year thing go,” Al-Haitham says, staring up to the ceiling.

“There is no next time,” Kaveh frowns. “There’s just—archons. The next fifty or so years together. That’s a long time, guys. That’s a really long time to be stuck with Al-Haitham.”

“Speak for yourself,” Al-Haitham says.

“Children, you two,” Candace says, but she’s smiling a hidden grin, a quiet one that hasn’t disappeared from her face all night. It’s the same one that’s mirrored on all of their friends’ faces, no matter how much they tease them. They’re happy.

Al-Haitham is happy. He gets an entire lifetime of this? Is there anything else he could possibly ask for?

“Off you guys go,” Kaveh says, shooing them away with his hands. “I see my maman and Henri coming over.”

The two take the place of their friends, and almost immediately, Faranak begins to tear up. “Oh, you two,” she says, and then she has to stop, her voice overcome with emotion.

“Maman, please stop,” Kaveh says, his voice a little wobbly. “Or else I’ll cry too.”

“I’m just so happy,” Faranak says, her voice barely audible. “I haven’t seen you look this content ever before in your life. Al-Haitham, I don’t think I can thank you enough for what you’ve done by simply loving my son. You know, at my wedding with this one, I thought that the relationship Kaveh was going to tell me would be you. You’ve been patient, haven’t you?”

Al-Haitham nods, for once feeling that if he opened his mouth he would tear up, even though he’s not one to be moved by simple words. He’s been patient. He’s been so, so patient.

“Congratulations,” Henri says, his voice warm. “I may not have had Kaveh in my life for as long as my fortunate wife has, but I feel so grateful that he has such a loving husband and future ahead of him.”

Kaveh blinks rapidly, leaning into Al-Haitham’s side. “You weren’t supposed to make me cry, you two.”

“Oh, stop that,” Faranak scolds. “It’s my job. I’m your mother, not vice versa. You just be happy, alright?”

“That’s not a hard thing to ask of me,” Kaveh says, smiling up at Al-Haitham.

Suddenly, the lights start to dim, and the crowd hushes. Kaveh gasps, disentangling himself from his husband. 

“Nilou is going to perform!” he says excitedly. “Go, go sit down. She said it would be extra special for my wedding.”

Hastily, the four of them make their way to sit and watch as Nilou takes the stage. She looks ethereal, elegant. As she passes them, she winks at Al-Haitham and Kaveh, biting back a smile, and then she stops in the center of the floor.

Quietly, Kimiya pops out from Al-Haitham’s side and runs in front of them, a huge smile on her face. “Baba! Papa!” she says quietly. “Baba and Papa look so happy together! I feel all warm inside, like when baba cuddles me at night and papa kisses my eyelids closed.”

“Miya, my darling girl,” Kaveh says, hoisting her up so that she can sit on his lap. “Amme Nilou is going to perform now, so make sure to be quiet and watch carefully, all right? She prepared a lot to make this special for us.”

“It’s already special,” Kimiya says absentmindedly. She takes both Al-Haitham and Kaveh’s hands, the connection between them two besides their knees brushing together under the table. “Papa married baba, and now we’re going to be together forever and ever and ever and ever and ever!”

“That’s a lot of evers, Kimi,” Al-Haitham says.

Kimiya turns to beam at him. “Well, are you ever going to stop loving baba, papa?”

“No,” Al-Haitham confesses, meeting Kaveh’s eyes above her blonde head. “I don’t think I could ever stop.”

“Shut up,” Kaveh says, a blush on his face. “Nilou is starting.”

“You’re not supposed to say that, baba,” Kimiya says, and it’s the last thing she says because the music begins to start and Nilou starts to move, taking small, dainty steps on the dance floor as she begins the routine.

Despite Kaveh’s own words about staying silent during Nilou’s performance, he’s the one who leans into Al-Haitham’s shoulder to bring his mouth to his ear, Al-Haitham obediently shifting so he can hear him better.

“You know, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh begins, his voice soft. “My father said something to me before he died.”

Al-Haitham feels his breath hitch in his throat. “What did he say?”

Kaveh smiles a little smile. “He said, everything happens for a reason, Kaveh.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t understand it, not at first. Of course everything happens for a reason. One small decision leads to another, and then to another, and then before you know it, the whole course of your life has changed. I’ve grappled a lot with it over the years.” He pauses to recollect himself. “I resented it for a while. I couldn’t imagine that everything I had gone through with the palace and with Parisa was meant to happen. I couldn’t help but think that if everything was supposed to turn out the way that it did, then it gave me a shitty life. Was I supposed to end up homeless and confused, hurt by my failing marriage and stressed out about my daughter?”

Kaveh laughs then, resting his head on Al-Haitham’s shoulder. Al-Haitham shifts just enough to make them more comfortable.

“But I think I understand it now,” Kaveh whispers, fingers tracing unknown shapes on Al-Haitham’s thigh. 

The music swells as Nilou leaps into the air, and with it so does the feeling growing in Al-Haitham’s chest, close to bursting. Kimiya squirms in her seat, leaning forward in rapturous excitement as she watches Nilou on the dance floor.

“Everything does happen for a reason,” says Kaveh as Al-Haitham slips their hands together, interlacing their fingers and squeezing. “All of this happened so I could be led back to you.”

Notes:

THE END!!! \(^ヮ^)/

re parisa: idk we just kind of wanted her out...let's just say she abandoned kaveh and kimiya

re weddings: kaveh and parisa's was a persian inspired wedding, and for kaveh and al-haitham's we tried to incorporate both persian and arabic traditions!

this fic started with us each ranking our favorite tropes and seeing that we had ones like college au and single parent/kid fic in common. we met and became friends exactly 1 year ago today! so a few months ago we were like, omg what if we collab on a fic together!!! so we combined our fav tropes and we did exactly that. and well, it kept growing and growing and growing and growing because neither of us know how to shut the fuck up!!!!!! so true.

fun fact in the beginning of march the doc for this fic was at 38k words. aka we wrote 120k words between us in the span of 19 days. yeah the mental illness was HIGH for this one

second fun fact i (ink) genuinely thought this fic was going to be 30k words, while luma quietly disagreed with me and laughed in my face as that just did not end up happening.

if you have come this far, THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts for reading!!! we really really hope you enjoyed reading this as much as we enjoyed writing it 🩷💜

edit: ART????????????
- moshaeu drew beautiful chapter 4 moments !!!!!!!!!
- al-haitham and kimi baking cookies!