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“Tell me a secret.”
Alhaitham sits on the sofa across from Kaveh, his legs propped up on the coffee table between them. He looks over the top of his book and quirks an eyebrow up. “What?”
“C’mon, Alhaitham. It could be fun.”
“You must be bored if you think the childish games we played in the Akademiya are fun .”
Kaveh huffs and drops his charcoal chunk onto his open sketchbook, covered in sketches he’s scribbled out, redrawn, and scribbled out again. He’s been sitting across from Alhaitham for nearly an hour, huffing and sketching, groaning and ripping pages out of the book, swearing and pressing so hard he creates ugly blobs of color on what is, in Alhaitham’s opinion, a good drawing. They’re always good, yet Kaveh insists on claiming the opposite.
“It’s not childish ,” Kaveh defends. “Besides, we’ve grown a lot since then, and I’m sure our secrets have grown, too.”
“I have no secrets.”
Alhaitham might have one. Just once.
“Liar.” Kaveh points an accusatory finger at Alhaitham. “You arguably have the most secrets.”
It's not that Alhaitham doesn’t have secrets, but the word, he feels, cannot properly define the things he’s never told anyone. He does not by any means purposely withhold things about himself the way one might believe, but what it comes down to is merely a matter of irrelevance. The kinds of things he keeps close to his chest are the kinds of things no one would think to question or that cannot be easily slotted into conversation, and he’s not the type to interject such things without reason.
“You’re jumping to conclusions.”
“I’m making an assumption based on what I know.”
Alhaitham says nothing and turns his attention back to his book, but that lasts no longer than a few seconds because Kaveh is saying, “It could be interesting. I tell you one, you tell me one until we run out.”
“I know how it works,” Alhaitham says, flipping the page.
“Great. So you’re an expert.” The roll of his eyes is small, hardly noticeable in fact, but Kaveh notices. “I’m tired of drawing and I need a distraction before I throw my sketchbook out the window.”
“Fine. But it's your idea, you go first,” Alhaitham tells him as he carefully wedges a pretty bookmark between the pages.
He used to shove anything he thought of between his books一leaves, pieces of notebook paper, and the cord to his earpieces when he wasn’t wearing them一and it wasn’t until Alhaitham had nothing to slot between the pages to keep his place that Kaveh witnessed, much to his horror, that Alhaitham had no qualms with folding the corners of the pages as a replacement place-holder. Several hours later, Kaveh burst out of the study with a thin, wooden bookmark he carved and painted with a beauty braid of various green shades of thread looped through a tiny hole at the end.
Your books deserve better, Alhaitham.
Kaveh’s face is bright with delight during his first few moments of contemplation, then, the expression is replaced with a creeping red on his cheeks dusted so lightly one could easily miss it. “I got drunk at Lambad’s once and accidentally stole a cup.” He points to a beautiful glass in front of him on the coffee table. “I never returned it out of embarrassment.”
“So you decided to keep being a thief?”
Kaveh’s face morphs into a scowl. “Hardly. I doubt they even know it's gone. Besides, after all the money I give them一”
“You mean all the money I give them on your behalf.”
“一I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me keeping it.”
“Oh? If that's the case, why don’t you go tell them you have it, then?’
His face deepens in shade, turning something akin to scarlet. “Moving on. It's your turn.”
“Right.” A pause. A beat. “During my first year at the Akademiya, I was reading a book while walking to a class and walked into a wall.” No one saw, thankfully, but trying to explain why he had such a large lump on his forehead to his professors and teachers was rather difficult. In the end, the truth never came out.
Kaveh covers his mouth as he begins laughing and it's the purest form of delight. It's the kind of laugh people often wish they could coax from others, the kind that's genuine and true, not forced or strained. Alhaitham can’t remember the last time he heard Kaveh laugh like this.
“Did you not learn your lesson? You still walk with your head in your books.”
“I am far more aware of my surroundings than I used to be.” He hasn’t run into a wall since, so clearly he’s doing something right. “Go, Kaveh.”
“Sometimes I dream about smashing in some of my more unpleasant client’s heads.” This, Kaveh says with ease. The redness in his skin has ebbed and his voice is even.
Alhaitham nods in complete understanding. “I feel like that’s not uncommon given your line of work.”
“Uncommon, no. Unpleasant, most certainly.”
These are only dreams, though, because they both know Kaveh isn’t the violent type. He may be mouthy when pushed past his breaking point一which is a feat in and of itself一but he’d never lay his hands on anyone.
“Right.”
“Moving on,” Kaveh says. He leans over and retrieves the stolen cup, taking an exaggerated sip.
For a moment, Alhaitham’s mind draws a blank. There truly is nothing much that Kaveh does not know about Alhaitham, save for the small things that don’t really matter. Nonetheless, he manages to think of something.
“I have a rather extensive collection of romance books.” It's not like Kaveh is aware of the particulars of Alhaitham’s home library, especially the parts that extend into the privacy of his own bedroom where Kaveh does not often venture. “And I’ve enjoyed most of them.”
Again, Kaveh’s face is alight with something akin to childlike joy, and bursts into laughter. An arm wraps around his abdomen as his shoulders shake, as he hangs his head slightly lower. “I didn’t take you as the sappy type.”
“I’m not, but if something is well written then there is no reason it should not be read.”
“There’s this thing called preference, Alhaitham.”
“And my preference is well-written literature. The genre means very little to me.”
Alhaitham will read almost anything, and does not shy away from exploring topics and genres most would otherwise avoid. Romance and, on occasion, the erotica that goes with it, are no different. This is not to say that he actively seeks these kinds of books, but if a synopsis catches his attention when browsing for something fresh to read and it just so happens to be romance, he would not be quick to stuff it back onto the shelf.
Still smiling, Kaveh leans back against the couch. “I suppose that's very in character for you.” And without being prompted, he adds, “Living with you isn’t the worst thing in the world. I thought it would be terrible and at first, you got on my nerves, but you’ve pleasantly surprised me.”
“Is that your next secret?”
“Yes.” A pause. “Your turn.”
This obiderates Alhaitham’s heart in the best possible way.
And the worst.
For years, Alhaitham was convinced this was nothing more than a childhood crush. It's normal for juniors to crush on their seniors, a feeling often driven by adoration, and it's just as normal for that crush to fade with time, into nothing more than an echo of what once was.
It only lingered. Taunting and haunting him during the years that followed, the years when there was a Kaveh-shaped hole in his life. Seeing him again, drunk and wallowing in Lambad’s only to lay all his woes on Alhaitham, had been nothing short of torture. It lit the dwindling kindling of his affection anew and set his entire body ablaze in the process, and now, the fire is fed every day with the sight of Kaveh.
Ignorantly, Alhaitham thought if he ignored the ache in his chest, as he always did, it would eventually fade like all things do.
It did not.
It deepened and deepened.
And now.
It does what unhealed wounds do.
It splits and ruins him in the process.
“I’m in love with you.”
This is the only secret Alhaitham has ever kept in his life.
It feels as though a door has been carved into his chest and the lock that had been keeping everything inside has been picked by Kaveh’s hands, and suddenly, the door is pulled open on squeaky hinges. All at once, the flames pour out of him into a single sentence that holds more weight than he ever thought possible.
They’re just words. It's just a sentence. But when there’s feeling attached to them, when there are years built up behind it, pushing it ever closer to his heart, they grow unexpectedly heavy. Some people can keep their words trapped inside their bodies until the day they die.
Alhaitham is not one of those people.
He is in love with Kaveh, deeply, and what’s worse is that they are not soulmates. They can't be. They would've found out by now. They would've. And they haven't.
Kaveh is saying nothing, but his eyes are wide with shock and there’s a slight tremble in his hand. His knuckles are white as he grips his stolen cup. He sits up, flicks his eyes away from Alhaitham, yet his gaze cannot sit still.
After a beat of silence, he speaks.
“That’s not funny.” His words, shaky, are laced with a strained laugh, and from where Alhaitham sits, his view of those eyes mostly obscured by golden strands, he might’ve thought tears were welling in the corners of Kaveh’s eyes. He can’t quite tell.
“I am not joking.” Alhaitham swallows and turns to stone. “Do you honestly believe this is something I would joke about?” The very thought is enough to break Alhaitham’s heart.
Again, Kaveh says nothing. For so long he says nothing and it is beyond terrifying, sitting in this pool of not knowing, and一
“I need to go. I need to meet a client.”
一Kaveh is standing, abandoning his cup on the coffee table and his sketchbook on the couch, and he’s out of the room so fast Alhaitham cannot properly comprehend what’s happened. It's like the work of a dream, like these events are nothing more than a dream and that is why it doesn’t make sense, because true dreams never do.
But the people of Sumeru cannot dream and Alhaitham is no exception.
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Alhaitham does not catch a wink of sleeping during the night that follows. Every time he closes his eyes, that face is there一Kaveh’s wide eyes, the uncertain possibility of unshed tears. And to think that Kaveh might’ve been under the impression that Alhaitham did not mean it, that it was a prank.
His heart squeezes. A knot forms at the back of his throat.
In truth, it went just as he expected. Alhaitham told himself he would wait for the right moment to tell Kaveh, until he was ready, even if that meant he was never ready, to avoid something like this: Kaveh walking out on him for a second time. Deep down, the logical part of him knows it's temporary. They live together, after all. But there is the creeping thought that Alhaitham’s confession was too much for Kaveh to bear, that he would not be able to properly reject Alhaitham in the event their feelings did not align with one another, and that he wouldn’t be back.
Kaveh does come back, though. Alhaitham hears the front door open and close with a heavy thud he knows was meant to be something softer, however, when Kaveh is drunk he’s always louder than he means to be. At first, it is his shoes clanking against the wooden floors, and then the heavy pads of his feet as he moves about the home. Their home.
It is of some relief to know that he had gone out drinking instead of looking for a new place to live.
Through the window, a dusky orange seeps into the sky as the sun creeps beyond the horizon, and Alhaitham sits up, body feeling made of stone. With the world slowly waking, there's no point for him to continue trying to sleep.
There’s no sign of life as he weaves his way through the living room and into the kitchen to start on his coffee. It's likely he won’t see Kaveh before he heads out for work because he’s avoiding Alhaitham or because of the hangover he will no doubt suffer from or a lovely combination of the two.
When he leaves, Kaveh is not there to see him off.
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If there’s one thing that Alhaitham learns during the following week, it's that he is horrible at quieting his heart. It lurches at the mere thought of Kaveh and wants, desperately, to force him to stop ignoring Alhaitham in any way it can. It knows that in order to not further scare Kaveh off, they must wait for him to come around. He must be the one to cross the distance between them.
But.
They don’t talk.
They seldom see each other, but if Alhaitham is lucky, he might catch sight of Kaveh as he finishes washing the dishes or walks from room to room, his pace quick lest he be seen. When compared to the first few days where their paths did not cross once, not even for a blinking moment, it is significant progress.
If there’s a second thing Alhaitham learns about himself, it's that his patience is difficult to waver. After years of not knowing of his love and loving from afar upon discovering it, he’s mastered doing so silently and expecting nothing in return. Alhaitham will choose Kaveh every time, in every lifetime, but he would never force Kaveh to choose him. He would never force upon him the burden of his own emotions, and he would never expect Kaveh to return them.
But he wanted him to know. He's glad he knows because Kaveh deserves to know that someone loves him no matter what, even if he does not return those feelings.
And Kaveh will come around, whether his heart wants Alhaitham or not, it does not matter, it's the fact that they will return to some semblance of normal. Alhaitham simply needs to wait for it.
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It happens in the kitchen late at night.
It being two things.
The first:
Kaveh is peeling and cutting up Harra fruit, back turned to the doorway, as Alhaitham steps inside in search of something to drink. He’d just spent many long hours in the study, reading through some older books as a form of distraction, without stopping for a break. A foolish decision on his part, he admits, though he cannot be mad at himself when such a decision has led him here, to Kaveh.
Turning his head to look over his shoulder, for the first time in nearly a week, Kaveh regards Alhaitham with a simple nod and a look that could very well be mistaken for relief, but Alhaitham does not have a chance to further study it before Kaveh is turning back to the Harra fruit.
The second:
Alhaitham has to get past Kaveh to reach the cupboard that is home to their somewhat grand collection of drinking glasses ranging in size, wine glasses, and coffee cups. Most, if not all of the coffee cups are handmade, bought from the shops on Treasures Street, whereas Kaveh had insisted their wine glasses be bought as a set so everything matched. The drinking glasses were a combination of what they both possessed at the time of Kaveh’s move-in, save, of course, for the cup Kaveh drunkenly stole from Lambad’s.
Without anything to note, Alhaitham slips by Kaveh and retrieves the first glass his hands find. It's when he moves to the other side of Kaveh that their arms brush in a touch so light it would normally go unnoticed.
But what he sees out of the corner of his eye nearly chokes him.
A tiny mourning flower in full bloom, stemming from the smallest scar Alhaitham has ever seen. It hangs there, pink and beautiful and entirely unnoticed by Kaveh. Alhaitham’s eyes are glued to the thing as it sways with each of Kaveh’s movements.
Then, it falls off and floats unceremoniously to the floor.
Still, Kaveh does not notice.
Quickly, Alhaitham plucks the flower from the floor, to save it from being crushed by Kaveh’s foot, and stuffs it into the pocket of his house pants, careful not to ruin the petals.
Later, after he's downed the water in several large gulps and left Kaveh to eat his Harra fruit in the kitchen, Alhaitham locks himself in their shared study and refiles through Kaveh’s things in search of a mold of any shape and clear liquid geo used to preserve, well, anything one's heart may desire. It only begins to harden once in contact with air. His hands come away with a round mould and a bottle labeled in Kaveh’s flowery penmanship.
At his own desk, Alhaitham fills the mould a fourth of the way with the clear liquid and then adds in the mourning flower. Holding the stem, he slowly fills the mould until he reaches the very edge.
After, he carries the mould to his room, sets it on his nightstand, and crawls into bed.
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.
.
Days later and with a little anxiety, Alhaitham works the mould open and collects a clear sphere lacking a single flaw. He smooths it over, feeling for any cracks or other impurities, and is pleased to find nothing.
Alhaitham cups the sphere in his hands and gazes at the skin-grown mourning flower trapped inside, perfectly upright and preserved.
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Alhaitham leaves for a two-day research trip to study ancient epitaphs that had been found when clearing up the ruins of what the withering zones left behind. From what he’s heard, the stone is written in a text that none of the workers can identify, and due to its fragility, it cannot be safely carted back to the Akademiya for proper deciphering.
Though the trip is supposed to be two days, Alhaitham doesn’t even make it to the withering zone.
A quick research trip , they had said.
It’ll be over before you know it , they had told him.
Oh yes , Alhaitham thinks to himself later that day as he sits on the ground covered in dirt and bleeding as a dagger protrudes from his leg, just above the knee, This is exactly what I had in mind.
Shortly after leaving Sumeru, one of the two other researchers accompanying Alhaitham complained about needing to use the bathroom until the man controlling the horses pulling the cart they sat in commanded them to stop. All it took was several long seconds of stillness for the eremites following them behind the cover of trees and bushes to ambush them.
None of Alhaitham’s men died, though one had sustained a shallow wound to the chest and the other had smacked his head on the ground after being tackled, and the eremites were dealt with swiftly.
Alhaitham had made a grave mistake, though.
As it would turn out, some eremites are far more resilient than others, and the slice of Alhaitham’s sword across his lower abdomen was not enough to put him down. During a moment of vulnerability, as Alhaitham was checking in on the researchers, the eremite quickly pulled himself up with one arm wrapping around his stomach and covered in blood, and threw a dagger at Alhaitham. Though he was quick to throw his one sword at the eremite, hitting him square in the chest, he was not quick to dodge the incoming blade.
It pierced through his skin with horrific ease, and in one fell swoop, Alhaitham crumpled to the ground.
White hot pain explodes where the dagger sticks out from and blood is spilling from him in warm waves and his pants are stained with it, dark green turning even darker. He’s removing his cloak, using a knife he had concealed in his boot to rip the thing into strips of fabric four inches wide. One is wrapped around his thigh, above the wound to prevent the flow of blood as best he can, and the others are used to try to soak up what blood has already seeped from him.
He’s lifted into the cart, which proves itself to be extraordinarily difficult, by two of the men while the third retrieves the sword Alhaitham threw from where it's wedged in the now dead eremite’s chest, and the second he’s back, they’re speeding back towards Sumeru City.
They hit every bump, rock, or pothole on the way, which does very little for the pain that only seems to be steadily climbing in intensity.
At least he can avoid work for the foreseeable future.
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.
.
The dragger severed the tendon that attaches the quadriceps to the knee cap, and the muscles in the surrounding area.
No, a potion cannot be created to repair the tendon or muscles.
Yes, it will require surgery.
Yes, the recovery can be long and difficult. Some were mostly back to themselves before the incident in as little as four months while others had to work for nearly a year to achieve their rehabilitation goals.
Yes, this is going to suck.
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Kaveh is there when Alhaitham opens his eyes.
One leg is heavier than the other and for the briefest moment he doesn’t understand why and he wants to say something to Kaveh, but he can’t form words because his mouth has been filled with sand and his head is swimming and he’s going along with the waves, letting them carry him away.
He closes his eyes for only a few seconds, but this time, after he’s opened them, Kaveh’s arms are folded on the right side of Alhaitham’s cot, head resting on it. He is sleeping. Alhaitham is so glad he’s sleeping. Kaveh doesn’t rest the way he should; many nights are spent with him hammering away or groaning loudly in frustration.
Alhaitham’s head feels normal now and upon looking down at his legs, he finds that his right one is strung up, bandaged, and elevated above his heart. He’s pain-free, thankfully, but he knows this won’t last long. It never does with these kinds of things.
Kaveh stirs and lifts his head. He yawns in a way that’s reminiscent of a cat and then that cat-ness is gone, replaced with something like worry and anger, and his cheeks are puffed out.
“Don’t you think this is a bit of an extreme way to try to get out of the trip?” Kaveh mumbles, arms crossing over his chest as he leans back in his chair. “You could’ve just faked an ailment.”
Alhaitham huffs, amused. “If I didn’t want to go I would’ve merely said no instead of getting a dagger thrown at me. Only you would go to such dramatic lengths to avoid something.” Archons, his mouth is so dry. He lulls his head to one side and then to the other. “I need water.”
Kaveh offers him a cup with a straw, and with more gratitude than he can properly convey, Alhaitham takes several generous sips. The relief is instant. As Kaveh pulls the straw away, his hand gives away what his face does not一fear. The straw sways from side to side with a slight tremble in Kaveh’s hand. It's so miniscule that it would otherwise go unnoticed, but Alhaitham notices. He notices and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.
“Kaveh一”
“You could’ve died.”
“It's just a tendon, Kaveh. And they fixed it.”
Kaveh is shaking his head so hard it messes up his hair. His hands are balled into fists, knuckles turning white with the effort. “If that eremite’s aim had been better he could’ve hit your stomach or chest一I don’t know, Alhaitham. You could’ve died.”
“I didn’t, though.”
“But you could’ve.”
“You’re correct. If it had gone differently it is very possible I could have died, but I didn’t. And with time, I will be fine.”
Kaveh grips his pants, pulling the fabric into his fists. “Do you know how pissed I would’ve been if you did, Alhaitham? If you died after一after saying what you did I would have never forgiven you.”
Alhaitham blinks slowly, unsure if what he’s hearing is reality and not the work of his cruel brain driven by the massive amount of drugs he’s received since the attack. The last few days have been spent in a daze, in and out of consciousness, and he would not be surprised if this was not real, if his mind was playing tricks on him for the sake of it.
It's real, though. The fear and the shake in Kaveh’s hand and the rapid beating in Alhaitham’s chest. All of it is so very real and he wonders if it would be easier if it were not.
“I did not mean to scare you.”
“Well, you did.”
A doctor comes in before Alhaitham can respond before he can make the mistake of telling Kaveh that he loves him again because he cannot help it and doesn’t know what else to say in a situation like this, and he is thankful for the interruption.
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Alhaitham is on the middle divan in the living room, his injured leg stabilized in a brace constructed from Geo, the inside padded with cotton, and propped up on a mountain of pillows Kaveh stole from Alhaitham’s bedroom. It is throbbing, sending sparks of white heat that make it hard to breathe.
As it turns out, recovery from a stab wound is much more uncomfortable than Alhaitham had imagined. His skin is cold and clammy in the Sumerian heat; he is forcing himself to breathe. He has to squeeze his eyes shut, clench his jaw, and command himself to focus as he reopens his eyes. With all this time on his hands, he is hoping to get through his pile of unread books, but torture is roaring up and through his leg and it cannot be so easily ignored.
Kaveh sleeps on one of the other divans. When he isn’t working or meeting with clients, he is here instead of at Lambad’s. He administers Alhaitham’s medications, brings him meals, helps him change out of his clothes, and tries, but often fails, at trying to convince Alhaitham to let him assist him with his bed bath. It's the one thing Alhaitham wishes to do alone for he does not want to saddle Kaveh with worry that would be brought on by his wound; it looks as bad as one might expect, and feels worse. It's unsightly and he knows Kaveh would fuss over it.
Thirst is setting in but Alhaitham does not bother Kaveh. He’s done more than what he’s required, and then some. He deserves proper rest.
He is listening to the quiet of the house.
It is very rarely this quiet.
And it is very rare for Kaveh to sleep this much, for this long. Alhaitham slides his bookmark between the pages of his book, knowing full well he is not going to be able to get through even the first few chapters until his next dosage of pain medicine is given to him一which, unfortunately, will not be for two more hours一and watches Kaveh instead. He is ethereal when he sleeps, his features soft and peaceful, and Alhaitham wishes Kaveh looks this at peace when he is awake, wishes that he could be the reason for it.
He thinks of the flower, the one he preserved, the one that fell from Kaveh’s arm. In the weeks since he found it, Alhaitham has taken great comfort in holding the sphere he’s put it in. That flower is the one thing that truly binds them and will continue to for the rest of their lives, regardless of where Kaveh’s heart lies.
If Kaveh does not love him, at least Alhaitham will always have a piece of him, his soul, his heart, whatever it may be.
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It's a miracle that Alhaitham manages to bathe himself without losing consciousness.
It's more of a makeshift bath than a proper one as he cannot yet soak his leg in water, but he’s able to remove the Geo brace and unwrap it so the wound may breathe. He sits in their bathroom on a wooden chair with his leg propped up on a small milk crate, fills a pale with warm water, and dumps it over his head, his torso, letting the rivets trickle over his leg and the wounds.
Using padisarah-scented soap, Alhaitham washes everywhere he can reach, save for his wound because the doctor ordered him not to. You may wash around it , he had been told, and so Alhaitham does.
Through it all, his leg is on fire, sending signals of pain fracturing up into his thigh and down through his knee.
Now, he stands naked and hungry in front of his closet, leaning all his weight on one crutch.
He throws a pair of house pants and a simple shirt onto his bed. Usually, he would not leave the house without his full outfit, but he doesn’t have the faintest clue how he’s supposed to dress himself in a way that won’t take ages and leave him wanting to lob his leg off.
He’s figuring out how to pull his undergarments on when Kaveh walks into the room carrying a cup of coffee and stops dead in his tracks. He averts his gaze and blurts out, “I’m sorry,” as he sets the cup down on the nightstand. Then, “You’re not wearing your nice clothes?”
“I don’t have the energy to put it all on myself,” Alhaitham admits with a small shrug.
Kaveh is having none of it. “I’ll help.”
“That’s not necessary. I can just wear my house clothes一”
“I said I’ll help.”
Alhaitham does not argue further.
Kaveh all but forces Alhaitham to sit on the edge of his bed and, with clear strain, starts by helping Alhaitham into his undergarments. He sucks in a breath at the sight of the wound and the stitches cinching the skin together but makes no mention of it. Next, he carefully bandages Alhaitham’s leg from his mid-thigh to just under his knee, keeping it thin enough so that his pants slide over it with ease, and, thankfully, they do. The brace is situated over the top of his pants and Kaveh carefully puts socks on his feet, careful not to jar the leg with the effort, and follows them with his boots.
There is something alarming with the way Kaveh is so eager to assist Alhaitham and the way he seems to almost be a natural at it. It makes sense, Alhaitham supposes, given how Kaveh spent many of his younger years caring for his mother as she lost herself in her grief and it makes his heart strain to think that Kaveh might have never received such kindness. He deserves it, more than most.
“I can do the rest,” Alhaitham says as Kaveh retrieves his shirt, cloak, and compression sleeves.
“Are you sure?”
“I assure you I can manage this much.”
Though he lingers, Kaveh allows Alhaitham to finish dressing himself the rest of the way. All of this for a stupid visit to the hospital. Truthfully, Alhaitham would have been more than content with wearing his house clothes as opposed to his typical garments, but Kaveh insisted and these days, Alhaitham very clearly lacks the heart to tell him otherwise.
“Let's go,” he says when he’s finally made it to his feet.
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Unsurprisingly, Alhaitham has lost a disgusting amount of muscle tone in his thigh and calf, but with enough physical therapy and time, all should be back to how it once was.
Or so the doctor says.
Alhaitham’s brace is off and the doctor’s hand is behind his knee, and he’s saying, “I need you to bend it. Just a little bit.”
Alhaitham closes his eyes and the doctor presses his fingers to the inside of his knee and slowly eases it into a bend so acute one might not even know it happened at all. But Alhaitham knows. He knows because his knee is on fire and the pain is enough to knock the air from his lungs and if he didn’t know better, if he were a worse person, he might’ve punched the doctor in the face.
One two three four eight very long seconds pass and his knee is eased back down, straight and weak and useless before them.
“Pain level,” the doctor says, “on a scale of one to ten.”
“Seven.” A reasonable number.
The doctor looks over the wounds, carefully eyeing the stitches, and from the corner of the room, Kaveh watches without saying a thing. He’s not said a thing since the brace was removed and the bandage was unwrapped, revealing the swollen and bruised mess that has become of his knee since the accident.
“The wound and surgical sights are healing nicely.”
“When will things be back to normal?” Kaveh speaks for the first time, catching both Alhaitham and the doctor off guard.
The doctor eases Alhaitham back into the brace. “Four months to a year.”
Alhaitham’s leg is everything that happened that day. But he is alive. He is alive and grateful for it because he could not be the cause of such pain to Kaveh.
“It’ll be over before you know it,” the doctor reassures, and Alhaitham doesn’t believe him at all.
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.
.
The day the stitches come out, Alhaitham sits in the bathroom for so long Kaveh squawks at him through the door, concerned that he’s fallen. He massages his knee as he sits where he always does, on a wooden chair with his leg propped up on a milk crate. Runs a finger over the scars. There's two of them: one starts just above the knee and ends just under the kneecap, and the other is above his knee going horizontally, creating a big letter T. The scabs have fallen off, leaving pink, ugly raised lines of scar tissue.
Kaveh does not knock. He says nothing as he opens the door but does not cross the threshold into the bathroom.
“I’m fine, Kaveh.”
“You weren’t answering me. How am I supposed to know you’re fine if you don’t answer me?”
“I would call out to you.”
“And if you hit your head? If you knocked yourself out?”
“I would trust you’d hear my body hit the floor.”
Kaveh’s face screws up into an unpleasant look, something akin to defeat, and sighs, resolute. “Okay.” He sees the scars then, sucks in a breath at the disgusting sight of them, and says, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
“It’s not like I’m in the position to go anywhere,” Alhaitham drawls.
He continues tracing the scars until Kaveh’s back with a jar in hand. It's short and fat, filled with a light blue cream.
“It's supposed to help with scar tissue,” he explains and Alhaitham’s heart is in his throat, threatening to suffocate him, because Kaveh is twisting off the lid of the jar and he’s going to apply the cream to Alhaitham’s scars. He’s going to touch the scars and he’s going to know what Alhaitham has known for eons and he wants Kaveh to know. He wants Kaveh to know of the connection they share. He wants Kaveh to know that when he says he loves him, it's true and real and engraved in them.
The lid is off and一
Kaveh hands the jar to Alhaitham. “Let me know when you’re done, okay? I’ll help you get dressed.”
And he leaves.
.
.
.
Kaveh is helping Alhaitham bend his knee, one warm hand in front of the knee, overtop the wrapping, and the other underneath it. Alhaitham takes in a deep breath and allows Kaveh to gently push his knee, slowly bending it to an infinitesimally small. Each time, they get a little further, and each time Alhaitham wants to throw his fist through the floor.
His face is red and heated from the pain, and the relief that floods him once his leg is straightened out is not enough to make up for the seconds of misery he must sit in as he holds each bend.
And each time Alhaitham makes the faintest sound, a groan or sudden intake of breath, he apologies, and every time it's like a knife to his heart because this is not Kaveh’s fault. Not the pain or the injury. None of it.
“I can do this on my own,” Alhaitham says during one of the resting moments.
Kaveh rolls his eyes. “You would do the same for me.”
“It's different一”
“It's not, Alhaitham. I know you don’t need me but I want to help you, okay? So just let me.”
This is familiar. He’s heard this before in the past and he knows it stems from the weeds of Kaveh’s guilt, their thorns still buried deep within the walls of his heart.
“It's not your fault, so don’t apologize anymore.”
Alhaitham’s eyes find Kaveh’s, brilliant amber and beautiful lashes, and hopes he can see the truth in Alhaitham’s gaze, to know that there is no way he caused this. It was the assumption that the eremite was dead without double checking that led him here.
It is his own oversight that has landed him in this dreadful situation, consumed by this pain and forever marked by the events of that day, and that is something he can live with.
Kaveh breaks away first.
“Okay. I won’t, so let me help you.”
Alhaitham nods. “Okay.”
The ghost grin that gradually tugs at the corner of Kaveh’s lips and the rosy blush spreading across the bridge of his nose fills Alhaitham with the hope that they might be okay again, that maybe one day Kaveh might find it possible to make room for Alhaitham in his heart alongside his guilt.
And maybe one day, he can let go of the guilt entirely.
.
.
.
Four weeks post the operation and Alhaitham is making steady progress.
Today is an especially good day.
Somehow, he manages to talk Kaveh into letting him work on his range of mobility alone, though he agrees with obvious reluctance.
“You can get caught up on your work,” Alhaitham proposes and Kaveh chucks a pillow from the divan at him. He catches it before it can make contact with his face.
“I don’t want to think about work,” Kaveh snaps. He leans his head against the back of the couch and lets out the sigh of someone who hasn’t been avoiding work for nearly a week.
“You can’t use me as an excuse anymore, Kaveh.”
With each passing day, Alhaitham is progressing steadily. He can bend his knee to get on his undergarments, though he can’t quite maneuver through longer pants yet. Right now, the doctors want him to try waking the muscles in his thighs up by flexing them and it's only every one in five attempts that Alhaitham manages to get the muscles to twitch. Regardless, it's a step in the right direction.
Kaveh chews the inside of his cheek. “I get to stay in the room though, got it? I won’t have you banish me to my room or the study.”
“The rent you pay says you can be anywhere in the house whenever you feel like it.”
Again, he attempts to throw a pillow at Alhaitham’s face, and again, he misses, before forcing himself to his feet. Several minutes follow Kaveh out of the room and several more walk back in before he does, carrying an armful of sketchbooks, rulers, and charcoal. He curls up on divan opposite Alhaitham and begins wordlessly sketching.
Alhaitham lays with his back flat on the cushions, gaze pointed toward the uninteresting ceiling, and begins slowly bending his bad leg. His good leg is bent at the ideal angle he wishes to achieve today and while forty degrees might be easy for anyone else to achieve, the idea is very daunting. Alhaitham cannot seem to make it past thirty-three without the pain clouding his vision.
His first attempt, Alhaitham makes it to exactly thirty, holding it for roughly five seconds, before gradually straightening it. He rests.
Kaveh’s eyes are on him, peaking at him from over top the edge of his sketchbook.
“I’m okay.”
Huffing, Kaveh says, “I didn’t even say anything.”
“I could hear your brain churning. Your thoughts are very loud.”
Kaveh rolls his eyes and bites his lip as he averts his eyes back to his sketchbook.
The second attempt is more successful than the first. Alhaitham reaches an angle close to thirty-six degrees and holds it for more than double his usual time. With a clenched jaw, he stretches his leg out and exhales deeply.
When Alhaitham turns his head to the side, Kaveh’s eyes are on him.
“I’m invested!” he exclaims without any sort of prompting. “You’re doing so good and I don’t want to miss it.”
“It’s not certain that I’ll reach my goal today.”
“You will,” Kaveh instantly quips back, his determination as clear as day. “I know it.”
Alhaitham looks back to the ceiling. Takes in a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for the wave of pain that is soon to waft over him, and drags his knee up into a bend. Slowly. Once he reaches thirty degrees, he pauses. His skin has gone hot and clammy and his knee burns, but he doesn’t want to stop.
Kaveh is watching.
He begins pulling his knee towards his body again and nearly loses all progress when he’s just mere degrees away from reaching forty, but one quick look in Kaveh’s direction and finding that he’s furiously sketching, flicking his gaze to and from Alhaitham, is more than enough to propel him the rest of the way. With a jerk, his bad knee is even with his good knee and he holds it, chest heaving with the effort.
One.
Two.
Three.
The seconds drop inside him and it's not until he’s held his knee in place for nearly twenty seconds that he finally releases it from its agony.
Excitingly, Kaveh jumps up from his seat and sends his notebook flying to the floor, the piece of charcoal he once held skittering across the floor. “You did it!” he shouts and the smile on his face is one of genuinity. It's bright enough to rival the sun and sweet enough to give even the sweetest of cakes a run for their money. He’s beautiful, radiant.
Alhaitham wants to be the reason Kaveh smiles like this all and every time. He wants to convince him to design a smile just for him, to only look at him with such joy.
Catching his breath, Alhaitham looks around the room to pass the time and, though the angle is strange, spots Kaveh’s sketchbook on the floor, the pages of which lay open. There, sketched in the most beautiful messy lines Alhaitham has ever seen is himself through the eyes of Kaveh. From what he can make out, his brow is creased in concentration and his hands are gripping the cushions so hard veins are visible, and his knee is bent, perfectly aligned with his good one. It's a flawless drawing.
“You could have just taken a photo with a kamera,” Alhaitham points out.
Kaveh’s ears go red and he collects the book from the floor. “It's not the same. I wouldn’t have been able to capture what I wanted to with it.”
“And what’s that?”
“Your… determination? I don’t know, but I know a photo would not have done it justice.”
No, it wouldn’t have, because it would have been captured through a lens and not the eyes and hands of an artist. The way he’s drawn from Kaveh’s point of view, with a feeling Alhaitham refuses to name but desperately wants, would not have been translated into the photo. Every line, every curve, every shadow, was put onto the page with deliberate precision and a kamera would have muddled the final result.
It was almost like looking at himself in the mirror, Alhaitham finds, and that is startling. He knows what his reflection looks like these days; run down and exhausted, but none of that translated into the piece. The drawing of Alhaitham was almost inhumanely radiant. Although it's his side profile, there was a distant sparkle in his eye and his usual features, harsh and sharp, appeared almost softer.
Kaveh has drawn Alhaitham in the past but this is unlike anything he’s ever created before.
It is almost as if Kaveh sees him differently now. Before, he kept all the harsh edges, every sharp like. And now. Well, now it's different.
“It looked good, Kaveh. I do not know why you try to hide it from me.” Alhaitham pulls himself into a sitting position and scoots back until he hits the armrest.
“It's weird for the person who you were drawing to see what you drew of them,” Kaveh defends, though weakly.
“I’ve seen your portraits of me before.”
“It's different.”
Yes, it is different.
They’re different now, too, and it's the kind of difference that means everything to Alhaitham, that stokes the glowing embers in his heart.
.
.
.
Through the window of his bedroom, the moon sits so large in the sky that Alhaitham thinks he might graze the tips of his fingers over its scars and wish for the moon to be Kaveh. Alhaitham cannot shake the last few days from his mind, and cannot seem to convince himself to think about something other than Kaveh’s soft fingers tracing the grotesque scars on his knee as the flowers bloom.
The flowers.
He wonders what kind might bloom from his own skin. Sumeru roses? Padisarahs? Or perhaps he and Kaveh will share mourning flowers. There’s no way to know unless Kaveh touches him, unless something more shifts between them, and with the way Kaveh all but avoids touching Alhaitham’s scars, that doesn’t seem like it will happen.
A knock on the door rips his attention from the moon and his daydreams. Alhaitham pulls himself up against the headboard of his bed, the wood of which is now digging into his back, and says, “Yes, Kaveh?”
“I was dusting the study and figured your bedroom could use a quick wipe down,” he says through the closed door.
“Come in.”
He steps inside carrying a cloth and spray bottle. “You shouldn’t read in such dim light,” Kaveh scolds, motioning towards the single lap turned on in the corner of the room.
Alhaitham looks at the open book on his lap. “I wasn’t reading.”
“I don’t believe you.” Kaveh points an accusatory finger to the book.
“I got distracted by the moon,” he defends, cocking his head in the direction of the window.
Kaveh crosses the short distance from the doorway to the window looking out to the sky and angles his head to peer through the glass. “It's beautiful tonight.”
Yes, it is.
And so is Kaveh.
Alhaitham averts his gaze from the back of Kaveh’s head and flips to the first chapter of his book, having been stuck on the inner title page when his mind began traveling elsewhere. He hears the squirt of liquid onto what little shelving is exposed of his bookcases and the gentle dragging of cloth over the wood. Kaveh wipes down the edges of the bookcases and moves to the end table situated next to an armchair Alhaitham would much rather be reading in as opposed to his bed.
It's almost as if the following sequences happen in slow motion, like he’s trapped behind glass witnessing it and he can’t do anything but watch.
Kaveh is shuffling things out of his way as he sprays and wipes the top of the dresser in sections. As he works his way toward the center of the dresser, he moves things here and there, nudging them to either side, but upon moving a stack of folded clothes to the left, he finds the preserved mourning flower. His hands come away with the sphere, keeping it cupped in his palms as he turns on his heels and lifts an inquiring brow at Alhaitham.
“Where’d you get this?” He outstretched it in Alhaitham’s direction.
A good question indeed. Alhaitham hasn’t been to the desert recently and often tries to avoid it if he can help it. And they both know he’s not the kind to pick flowers to take them home nor would he try to preserve the damn thing. In the event he had brought something home, Kaveh would have noticed.
Alhaitham wracks his brain for any excuse Kaveh might be willing to buy but he comes up short. There’s no use. Kaveh knows him too well and will be about to sniff out the lie.
“From you.”
Kaveh’s face falters and he flicks his eyes to the mourning flower, then back to Alhaitham. “What?”
“It came from you.” Once again, his book is long forgotten. “From your skin.”
That’s all it takes for the pieces to slide together in Kaveh’s mind一Alhaitham watches the knowledge knit itself together behind Kaveh’s eyes and he watches the way his face morphs from littered with questions to red with what can only be a quiet anger.
He knows what Alhaitham has known all along.
“Why?” Kaveh grips the sphere so hard his knuckles turn white and the veins in his hands stick out. “Why do you feel the need to keep secrets like this from me?”
Alhaitham sits up straightener, clears his throat. “After how that night”一the night he confessed一” I wasn’t sure you could handle it.”
The mourning flower must be significantly more interesting than Alhaitham because Kaveh’s eyes have not left it. “You can’t just decide what I can and cannot handle.”
“You hardly spoke to me before my accident. You could hardly be in the same room as me. It was safe for me to assume this would be too much.”
“It's not that I’ve been avoiding you —it's just that.” Kaveh's voice wavers and his eyes are wet with an unshed feeling. “I don't know how you love someone like me. I-I don't know how the universe can fuck up this badly.”
“Why wouldn't it be you?”
“Because I'm a mess? My life is a mess and I'm in debt and—”
“If you say I cannot decide what you can and cannot handle, then you cannot decide whether or not I love you. And you can't talk me out of it. You shouldn't question the universe either.”
“What if the universe is wrong?”
The universe has been wrong before. He's witnessed relationships fall apart before they could get started. He's witnessed long marriages built on nothing crumble because while yes, they were soulmates, but that was not enough for them to love each other, to make it last.
All around him, all his life, Alhaitham has witnessed the universe be wrong. It's set up the most disastrous pairs imaginable. It's wrecked marriage after marriage when it's supposed to be their foundation, and it's left many people stuck in a loveless life because of societal pressure.
But he's also witnessed the universe be right . His parents. who loved each other until their final moments. His grandmother, who has loved and lost but did so with a full heart. Many of the Akademyia professors and dozens of people in passing. He's seen how capable the universe is of setting up love matches and he knows, as he always has, that he and Kaveh are not wrong.
When creating and binding them to one another, the universe looked upon their unlived lives and smiled. It knew from the very moment it touched their souls the kind of love they're capable of feeling and hoped it would extend to each other.
It was right.
“We could never be wrong, Kaveh.”
Because love is not up to the universe. Soulmates or not, Alhaitham would love Kaveh until his dying breath, and that has nothing to do with the universe. Because a love like this cannot be orchestrated, not by anyone or anything, no matter how great the force might be.
Gingerly, Kaveh sets the sphere back on the top of the dresser and abandons his cleaning supplies in favor of crossing the distance between them. He stands by Alhaitham’s side of the bed now, fingers toying with the edges of the blanket loosely thrown over his legs because, in truth, he lacked the necessary energy to take his brace off and put on a proper pair of pants.
No words are passed between them as Kaveh throws the blanket open enough to reveal the scars, still bright pink and raised, and here, he hesitates. Fingers hovering over the scar that ends just above his knee and he freezes. The tremble in his hand does not make it past Alhaitham, but he doesn’t mention it either, because if Kaveh is about to touch him, to see the truth with his own eyes, he does not want to ruin it.
A breath.
The first touch is a whisper, like a ghost brushing over the scar, but it's enough for a single Kalpalata lotus to bloom on the very center of Alhaitham’s knee cap. Kaveh stares down at the flower with a painful kind of surprise, as if a part of him hadn’t fully believed Alhaitham when he told him where the mourning flower came from, and then his face changes into something unrecognizable as he trails the tips of his fingers across the entire length of the scar. In his wake, more and more lotuses bloom and he isn’t saying anything.
Kaveh is silent, transfixed on the gradient blue petals and the bright yellow center blooming and dying on Alhaitham’s scars.
Kaveh is silent and Alhaitham is waiting.
Waiting for Kaveh to deny him.
Waiting to be told that he must tuck away his feelings for the rest of his life because yes, he knows they will not slowly vanish.
Waiting for the worst.
The worst never comes. Nothing ever comes. For long there is nothing but silence and flowers between them.
Then.
Kaveh extends a hand to grab Alhaitham by the wrist and guides him to the abundance of tiny, faded scars littered across the top of Kaveh’s hand. He wonders how after all these years he’s never noticed them, how they’ve never touched each other in just the right way for flowers to bloom. Alhaitham understands what Kaveh is trying to do and, after shaking his grip from his wrist, touches the pads of his fingers to one of the scars. A mourning flower blooms in the absence of his touch.
They lock eyes as the flowers on Alhaitham’s knee die and fall off onto the mattress beneath him.
Finally,
“You mean it?” Kaveh asks, his voice so small, so hidden. But his eyes speak of something else. “When you say you love me… do you actually mean it?’
Alhaitham blinks at him. “Yes, Kaveh. You know I do not say things unless I do not mean them.”
“I-I know that. I do but I just can’t convince myself it's true.” Kaveh looks down at his hand, to where the mourning flower sprouting from his hand hangs.
Alhaitham slips his hand into Kaveh’s and intertwines their fingers. “I promise it is.”
Blush the color of crimson has begun to spread across the bridge of Kaveh’s nose, spilling onto his cheeks. His eyes are glued to where their hands sit on the edge of the bed, so easily slotted together as if this is where they were meant to be all along. “Can I kiss—”
“Yes.”
But Alhaitham can barely get the word out before Kaveh has sat next to him on the edge of the bed, before his hand reaches across the distance separating them and cupping Alhaitham’s cheek, guiding them together.
All there is, is the kiss.
A kiss that's years of yearning from afar and years of dreams and it tastes of possibility, of hope and future. Alhaitham lets go of his hand and urges him onto his lap to straddle him so that they may be as close as possible. His hands are in Kaveh’s hair, plugged to the wrists; Kaveh’s palms are flat to Alhaitham’s chest; everything they both wanted to do is now forgotten in the discovery.
Kaveh smiles into the kiss and then Alhaitham feels something warm on his lips, wet. He realizes with excellent awareness that Kaveh is crying.
“Kaveh, you’re—”
“I’m fine,” he says without breaking away. “Don’t stop. Please.”
He won’t. Doesn’t.
Tenderness and yearning give away to something else. Passion. Pleasure. The unshakable desire to have Kaveh that has plagued Alhaitham for years. All of it comes together to create something new and unnameable and he tries not to dwell on such trivial things because it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is doesn’t matter.
Only this, them, the kiss.
And what comes after.
Kaveh shifts on his knees, the front of his pants brushing against Alhaitham through his undergarments. He makes a sound deep in his throat, his eyes squeezing shut as Kaveh’s weight fully settles against him, and every little movement sends sparkles of pleasure flying through Alhaitham. Hands slide down his torso, exploring the muscled planes of his chest and abs, and the pleasure is so acute it might be agony.
The kiss breaks, both of them chasing breath. Kaveh bends down to draw the tip of his finger down the hook of Alhaitham’s nose and presses their foreheads together. Alhaitham sweeps his thumb across the crest of Kaveh’s cheek, his eyes following the motion. If Kaveh feels a slight tremor in his hands, he does not show it.
Alhaitham looks up at him, saying, “So gorgeous.”
The blush on Kaveh’s cheeks deepens. “Says you.”
Exercising slow caution, Alhaitham takes the hem of Kaveh’s shirt between his fingers and rolls the material between them before, so quietly, asking, “Can I?”
He hadn’t thought it possible for Kaveh’s blush to darken further, but it does, and now it's dripping down his neck. “Please.”
Kaveh’s shirt is off and thrown to the floor instantly. Alhaitham’s hands are on Kaveh’s body within a heartbeat, caressing his sides and running over his stomach and brushing over his chest, and along the way, Alhaitham finds a scar to the right of Kaveh’s belly button. He swipes a thumb over it and feels his heart swell at the mourning flower that blooms there.
Now Alhaitham is on a mission. There, just to the left of where his heart is, is a scar. Here, underneath his ribs. Kaveh’s torso is dotted with dozens of tiny scars Alhaitham is certain Kaveh himself never knew he had, and everyone is turning into a mourning flower, each looking more vibrant than the last.
And he realizes, then, something he hadn’t before when there was just a single flower. Now that there are more than a dozen he smells them and, while he knows the scent of a mourning flower, this is so much more, so much better. It's a pretty smell, not headache-inducing, and, despite the vast amount blossoming on Kaveh, it is subtle. Such a beautiful smell for such a beautiful person is rather befitting, Alhaitham thinks.
Hands have taken to exploring Alhaitham’s chest and, much to Kaveh’s dismay, he comes across no scars, no flowers. “You’re basically perfect. How unfair.” He pouts.
“Hardly.” Alhaitham muses at this and lifts an arm to reveal his side, showing off the faint and long scar from an accident he suffered as a child. As he’s grown the scar has, too, and what was once a deep, ugly thing has faded into something of a ghost. “I rarely put myself in situations that would result in wounds bad enough to scar.”
Clicking his tongue and rolling his eyes, Kaveh touches the traces of scaring and sighs, content, at the line of lotuses that appear. Five bloom before he reaches the scar’s end, and five is more than enough for the scent of the flowers to become noticeable. It reminds Alhaitham of the rain, of the sea. It's comforting and with the comfort nostalgia follows.
Kaveh adjusts himself against Alhaitham and he stiffens, gritting his teeth as he sucks in a breath. He had momentarily forgotten about the discomfort straining against the front of his undergarments, but with the newfound touch, with the sudden spark reminding him of years worth of desires, he is all too aware of his arousal. Like the menace he is, Kaveh laughs and, again, shifts on Alhaitham’s lap. Now, he can feel Kaveh’s own needs rubbing against him and yet he dares to laugh because Kaveh is not yet aware of the power he holds over Alhaitham. It is terrifying the more he thinks about it, that another person could control him to such a degree without ever knowing it.
Alhaitham is impossibly taut, afraid to move even an inch against him, and he thinks Kaveh can read his mind because he is the one who moves. He gives an experimental grind against Alhaitham, harder than all the previous shifting and adjusting, and smiles to himself when he receives a gasp in response. The smile tugs at his lips, splitting his face into something brilliant, and it's as if he is suddenly aware of his power, of the way Alhaitham will bend to his will if told to do so,
He turns his attention away from the scar on Alhaitham’s body and instead focuses on his face, focuses on taking it into his hands and holding it with a kind of care Alhaitham had not experienced since before his grandmother’s passing.
“I love you,” Kaveh whispers.
These words cause Alhaitham nothing but anguish. He’s spent countless hours imagining how those three words might sound if they were directly at Alhaitham with Kaveh's voice as the vessel. He spent years wishing and hoping and wanting to hear Kaveh say it to him and had convinced himself he could continue on if the day never came. But he knows now that he wouldn’t have been able to.
Archons, if Alhaitham had known he would have told Kaveh sooner. He would have saved himself the seemingly endless years of pining.
Of course, there’s no telling if the outcome would have been the same. Kaveh could have outwardly rejected him without a single thought and instead of living in a future where Kaveh is on top of him, it would have been far more bleak, more lonely.
The waiting was worth it because it led him here to this, and he wouldn’t change a single thing if given the chance.
Alhaitham grinds up against Kaveh, chasing after the fleeting pleasure, and eagerly pulls him down into a kiss. He needs to do something with his mouth lest he says something damning that Kaveh would surely use to taunt him with later and he figures kissing is the best way to keep himself occupied. It's so incredibly easy to lose himself here, to let go and let himself devour and be devoured, whichever comes first.
They’re grinding against each other and pleasure is winding itself around Alhaitham’s core and he knows he does not want to come anywhere that is not inside Kaveh.
“Kaveh,” he says, breathless against Kaveh’s lips. “I want you.”
“Alhaitham, your leg—”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be fine.”
Pouting, Kaveh asks, “Are you sure?”
“I have never been so certain of something in my entire life, Kaveh.”
If Kaveh says something Alhaitham does not hear it for he is far too focused on watching his soulmate rise to his knees and shimmy his way out of his pants, his undergarments following suit, leaving him entirely bare before Alhaitham’s eyes. His cock is hard and grazes his thigh, pearls of precum dribbling down the length of it. The faint outline of abs flex as he fully settles back onto Alhaitham’s lap
For a moment Alhaitham contemplates the possibility of this being a dream. Maybe the people of Sumeru have been granted the ability to dream, suddenly, without notice, and maybe his incident with the eremites actually went as far south as it could’ve gone. Maybe the blade sliced his stomach and maybe he lived and maybe he hasn’t woken up. He could be trapped in his head, living the life he’s always wanted, and if this were to be the case, he would never want to wake up because this is everything he’s craved for so long and the waking up would ruin him worse than Kaveh has.
But the featherlight caress of Kaveh’s hands on Alhaitham’s skin is so incredibly real and the way he spoke earlier when he told Alhaitham he loved him felt true. The deep physical trueness and realness are enough to pull him from his thoughts, to cement him in this moment, and truly cherish it because while he hopes to have the rest of his life with Kaveh, something like this only happens once.
They, a love like this and theirs, only happens once.
Just once.
“Alhaitham,” Kaveh says, hands flat and spread out on the broad expanse of Alhaitham’s chest. Then, one moves lower, between their bodies and ghosts over the straining front of Alhaitham’s undergarments. The touch alone is enough to cause a kneejerk reaction of an upward buck of his hips, pulling a breath from his lungs in the process.
He wants Kaveh to touch him more.
Kaveh frees Alhaitham’s cock from the confines of his undergarments and strokes it once, twice, swiping his thumb over the head and gathering the precum that’s beaded there. He looks from the cock in his hand to Alhaitham’s face and, with a deepening blush says, “We need lube.”
Ah. Of course. Alhaitham gives Kaveh a fleeting kiss before reaching to grab at the handle of his nightstand’s small drawer and pulls it open to reveal a corked, nearly empty bottle of lube. Kaveh raises a brow and Alhaitham knows he’s questioning the emptiness.
“I’ve never had someone else in my bed,” Alhaitham says before Kaveh can verbalize his question, “but I am a man with needs.”
At this, Kaveh seems to visibly relax and nods. “... Did you ever think about me?”
“Every time.”
“What about?” Kaveh asks and takes the lube from Alhaitham’s weak grasp, removing the cork with an audible pop. He pours a generous amount onto his fingers and lifts himself up onto his knees once more. “Tell me.”
Alhaitham’s hands are running up and down Kaveh’s thighs, stopping only to knead the flesh. “What you would look like underneath me. How well you would take me,” he begins, and his hands have moved beyond Kaveh’s thighs to his abdomen, then up to his chest where fingers ghost over the hardening buds of his nipples. “How pretty you would look fucked out with tears in your eyes and my name on your lips, begging me for more.”
Kaveh reaches behind him and Alhaitham immediately knows what he’s doing. He gasps, teeth dipping into his bottom lip as he begins to work himself open and Alhaitham wishes he could see Kaveh’s fingers disappearing inside himself, but the angle is a bit too awkward for him to be able to wash properly. Each desperate gasp, every half-stifled moan, and the way he stares Alhaitham down with those bedroom eyes is more than enough to make up for the travesty, though.
His legs shake with the effort of holding himself up. Alhaitham wonders how Kaveh is going to fare once he’s actually inside him because it's not as if Alhaitham will be able to flip their positions and fuck into Kaveh with the reckless abandon he desires.
“Okay,” Kaveh says, panting, and retracts his hand from behind himself. “Can’t wait anymore. Need you.”
“I’m yours for the taking, Kaveh.” He always has been, and always will be. Nothing will ever change that.
The rest of the lube is poured onto Alhaitham’s cock, the empty bottle discarded onto the floor with a quiet crash, and the sudden coolness sends a shiver down his spine and causes goosebumps to erupt along his thighs. Kaveh’s hand works up and down his cock, ensuring every inch is coated before he rises on his knees and inches forward enough so that the tip nudges at his hole.
Alhaitham notices the warmth first followed by the tightness. Kaveh manages to get the head in before he has to pause. His hands are on Alhaitham’s abdomen for support, pressing into the skin so hard marks will surely be left behind when he eventually lifts them, and his chest heaves with the effort of both taking Alhaitham and keeping himself upright. It takes nearly everything Alhaitham has to not buck upwards, to not force Kaveh to take his cock at a quicker pace because this is torture. If he was able to remain patient during his years of quiet yearning, then he can withstand the extra moments it might take to fully be inside Kaveh, even if it feels like hours.
Inch by inch, Kaveh gradually sinks onto Alhaitham’s cock until he’s fully seated and Alhaitham is buried to the hilt. His hands roam upward, finding purchase against the hardness of Alhaitham’s chest. From this angle, with the light at his back and hair spilling over his shoulders in golden waves, Kaveh could be mistaken for an Archon or some other ethereal being. He’s the spitting image of perfect, both inside and out, and he cannot fathom why Kaveh believes he is unlovable.
When he’s still for what feels like an abnormal amount of time, Alhaitham asks, “Still with me?’
Weakly, Kaveh nods. “Mhm. I just… need a second. You’re… big.”
Waiting is fine. Alhaitham is in no hurry despite what his body craves. Moments like this should not be rushed.
One day, once he’s healed enough, he wants to take his time taking Kaveh apart. He wants to kiss him everywhere and he wants to tell Kaveh why he loves every part of him. He wants to know where Kaveh likes to be touched the most if he prefers hands and fingers, or lips and teeth. He wants to know how to convince Kaveh to design a look just for him and how to work sounds out of him that are for his ears only.
He wants so much and he wants to give Kaveh just as much in return.
Kaveh could ask Alhaitham to plunge his fists into the sun, to capture a piece of the star and put it in a jar for him to keep, and Alhaitham wouldn’t mind as the flesh melted from his bones.
Alhaitham's hands slide up and down Kaveh’s thighs, soon coming to rest on his hips.
Moments of stillness trickle in after until, at last, Kaveh gives an experimental grind of his hips. Alhaitham’s fingers dig into Kaveh’s hips so hard he’s sure deep red handprints will be left behind later, and he may or may not feel proud at the sight. Kaveh begins rocking his hips in earnest, the movements sloppy and desperate as he chases after the pleasure, and all Alhaitham can do is grind upwards for he is at Kaveh’s mercy.
Confidence blooms in Kaveh, the results of which show in how he leans back to use Alhaitham’s thighs for support and bounces his hips. Alhaitham watches himself disappear inside of Kaveh, watches Kaveh’s legs shake with the effort, spellbound by the sight. In turn, he bucks his hips up each time Kaveh slams his down. Kaveh chokes on a gasp, eyes rolling to the back of his head.
“You take me so well,” Alhaitham praises, and Kaveh shivers, whimpers, looks down at Alhaitham with heavy-lidded eyes and parted lips.
Alhaitham sits up. His hands find Kaveh’s face and his lips follow. The kiss is clumsy. Kaveh’s mouth is hungry and sweet, and Alhaitham is slow and hot, reveling in the way Kaveh is so clearly desperate to have him in any way he can. It's deep and long and every other measure of scope there is save for infinite, though Alhaitham would like to change that. Kaveh whines when Alhaitham pulls away, but what he does not understand is that in order for another kiss to begin, one must end.
Kiss gives way to kiss.
Kiss within kiss within kiss. Deeper and sweater and harder and hungrier—
Now, Alhaitham registers Kaveh’s heat, the sudden realness of him around his cock, as, between their kisses, Kaveh moans into his mouth, breathy and needy. Breathless, he rests their foreheads together and guides Kaveh’s hips with his hands, rocking and lifting them, and it does something to Alhaitham. To feel Kaveh, to hear him—to know that he is the cause of every sound, of every claw of nails down his back shoulders.
It drives him insane.
He buries his face in Kaveh’s neck, hands moving up from his hips to feel the warmth of his chest, hot and soft and sensitive to his touch. He never thought it possible to miss something you’ve never had, but he proves himself wrong. For long, Alhaitham has yearned for the idea of Kaveh, of what it would be like to have his body under his hands, to know the scent of his skin and the soft feather-like brush of gasps, and in his yearning he began to miss so much he thought his heart would give out from the ache of it.
Alhaitham kisses Kaveh’s neck, trying to ignore the tension in his body or the loud voice in the back of his head telling him to ignore the growing pain in his leg and flip Kaveh onto his back so that he may lose himself in him.
“Haitham,” Kaveh whispers, clinging to Alhaitham. Through half-lidded eyes, he sees the bright light of desire, the depths of which threaten to drown Alhaitham at any given moment. He drinks in the sight of Kaveh, imprisoned in his pleasure as what were once steady bounces on his cock morph into messy, weak grinds. “‘M so close, Haitham.”
His pulse is wild.
“So beautiful,” Alhaitham says softly. “You’re so beautiful, Kaveh.”
Everything between them feels wild and raw and explosive.
Kaveh cries out at the sudden upward snap of Alhaitham’s hips and he collapses his forehead, body resting entirely against Alhaitham’s as he makes a mess of both their torsos, shaking just enough for Alhaitham to notice.
Alhaitham loses himself in Kaveh, hips stilling as the waves of his orgasm crash over him. He holds Kaveh upright, now trying to catch his breath and blink past the overwhelming pleasure clouding his vision. He kisses the curve of his shoulder and the tip of his chin, nearly forgetting where they are and what led them and what the future now holds for them, and he just holds onto Kaveh, too scared to let him go.
This joy might kill him.
This love definitely will.
He would gladly let it.