Chapter Text
By the time Alhaitham is able to peel himself away from the longest, most useless faculty meeting known to man, the sun is beginning to set.
He would consider it beautiful- golden light casting the wispy clouds in hues of pink and purple, filtering through the darkened leaves of the trees and complimenting the orange streetlights that have just blinked on- were it not for its indication of him being kept well over an hour past his usual end of day.
Alhaitham makes his way out of the House of Daena into the evening air. At least it’s pleasant weather, the spring air fresh and clear but still cool before the summer heat begins to set in.
He takes a deep breath, trying to shrug off the tension of so much concentrated unpleasantness in one day, veering towards home already, trying to find it in himself to consider what he should scrape together to eat, knowing for certain that there will be nothing ready when he gets back to the house.
Before he can let the thought douse his spirit too much, he is startled by a light tap at his shoulder.
Alhaitham turns around abruptly, coming face to face with Faruzan herself, standing with her hands on her hips and her head cocked to the side, one eyebrow raised.
Reluctantly, Alhaitham reaches up to change the settings on his earpieces, wincing a little as distant sounds filter in.
“Madame Faruzan, I am no longer taking questions for today,” Alhaitham doesn’t even give her the chance to waste his time. “I will unfortunately be in the office tomorrow at nine, if you really need to make an appointment.”
Faruzan laughs, her put upon demeanor immediately shifting.
“So you really couldn’t hear a thing I was saying,” she leans forward, invading his space and tapping her chin with her finger as she eyes his earpieces. “What a marvel those contraptions are. You should let me look inside them one of these days.”
Alhaitham crosses his arms. “You chased me down after a two hour faculty meeting to ask about my headphones? I had no idea a professor of Haravatat had so little else to occupy their mind.”
Faruzan mirrors him, leaning back out of his personal space but seeming otherwise undeterred.
“You’d better watch your tongue, boy,” Faruzan gives a sharp look. “I’m still your senior even if you are the Grand Sage. But no,” she crosses her arms again, “I don’t want to talk about your little devices. I want to take you out for a beer.”
At that, Alhaitham raises an eyebrow.
“I’m going home,” Alhaitham responds reflexively before his curiosity gets the best of him and he adds; “Why?”
“I heard that your Light of Kshahrewar has up and abandoned you, so what better opportunity to offer to pay for your meal,” Faruzan gives him a smile that isn’t quite friendly but is almost passable as such.
Alhaitham doesn’t reply, waiting for a more substantial reason to be given. After a second, Faruzan crosses her arms.
“To be frank, I like you, Alhaitham,” Faruzan states, matter of fact. “You’re interesting and you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You don’t find many like that in our Darshan these days, so if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to pick that brain of yours.” It’s beginning to get darker and colder by the minute, but the breeze doesn’t seem to faze Faruzan at all. “In exchange for some alcohol and a warm meal, of course.”
On any other night, Alhaitham would turn her down. He wouldn’t call her a friend exactly, but there is some precedent for them taking meals together out of convenience, especially after her show of good character recently in the Inter-Darshan Championship. Still, he does not make a habit out of spending time with other academics outside of working hours.
That being said, his empty stomach aches and he feels the night chill on his skin as the wind begins to pick up, and the thought of going home to a house where Kaveh hasn’t yet turned on the heater and started cooking dinner sounds even less appealing than the prospect of spending an hour at a pub talking to Faruzan.
“Pick somewhere quiet,” Alhaitham sighs, beginning to walk again towards the Bazaar.
To his mild annoyance, Faruzan doesn’t seem surprised in the slightest at his agreement, falling easily into step next to him as they walk down the street that gets increasingly more bright and lively as they depart from the Akademiya.
“I already have.”
___
Despite it being the end of the week and being located just off the main artery of the Grand Bazaar, Zahra Café delivers on Faruzan’s promise of quiet.
As he waits for Faruzan to order at the bar, Alhaitham’s eyes wander around the fascinating inner structure of the place, examining the large tree that grows out of the middle of the room, strung with lamps of varying colors that cast a soft light almost like the fruit of the tree itself.
The edges of the room appear to open up into the night, the lights and activity of the Bazaar visible through the dark green leaves of the tree, making it difficult to tell exactly where the room begins and ends.
For a moment, Alhaitham wishes he had a kamera with him for a photo to show the design to Kaveh who would certainly launch into a lecture about integrative architecture, but he decides to bring him here at a later date instead.
“Let’s sit over here,” Faruzan says after she orders, handing him one of the beers and gesturing towards the outside area that Alhaitham had been looking at.
As they take a seat at a small corner table under the natural canopy of the tree, Alhaitham reaches up to one of the lamps, eyes widening at the soft warmth emanating off it.
“Those are interesting, aren’t they?” Faruzan leans back in her chair and sips the foam off the top of her beer. “The generators sit at the top of the tree and collect energy from the sun during the day, then provide light and heat at night.”
Alhaitham hums, taking a sip of his beer as well as he looks at the lamps, stained glass and perfectly designed, swaying gently in the night air. “A Kshahrewar creation, I’m sure?”
“Indeed,” Faruzan nods. “The perfect marriage of form and function. Something your Kaveh would be interested in, is it not?”
Alhaitham pauses, beer halfway to his lips before he sets it down.
“My Kaveh?” he asks pointedly, raising an eyebrow.
Faruzan tilts her head to the side in question.
“That’s the second time in the last thirty minutes that you’ve referred to Kaveh as mine,” Alhaitham presses.
Faruzan’s eyebrows draw together in what may be actual or simply feigned innocence, Alhaitham is unable to tell.
“Is he not?” Faruzan tilts her head to the side like she’s considering a particularly dumbfounding machine.
“Are you asking if Kaveh belongs to me?” Alhaitham retorts. “How can I answer such a question?”
This time, the confusion on Faruzan’s face appears to be sincere as she sets her own beer down.
“My apologies, I didn’t mean to assume, but after the Interdarshan Championship-'' she cuts herself off and narrows her eyes, assessing him for a second before she leans forward and her expression turns even more bewildered. “You and Kaveh aren’t together?”
Alhaitham is saved from having to form an immediate response by the server bringing out their dishes; tandoori chicken for him and fish with cream sauce for Faruzan. The server exchanges polite words with Faruzan which go right over Alhaitham’s head as he looks down into his chicken as if it will provide him with the words he will undoubtedly be forced to articulate momentarily.
After too short a time, the server disappears back into the restaurant proper, leaving them in tense silence.
In a futile hope that Faruzan will simply let it go and move on to other things, Alhaitham begins to pick at his chicken with a focus that he knows it does not warrant.
“Perhaps I am too out of touch these days, and romance is different for you young people now,” Faruzan continues after a moment. Alhaitham can tell even without looking at her that she isn’t even pretending to pay attention to her food. “I thought certainly after your involvement in the Championship that you had some sort of relationship. I mean-”
“We don’t,” Alhaitham finally interrupts her.
Alhaitham meets her eyes, an uncomfortable sensation especially with such an open assessment of him on her part, but he forces himself to hold his ground.
After a moment, she frowns, picking up some naan and half heartedly dipping it into the curry. Alhaitham breathes out slowly, starting to eat again, hoping that it can be done in relative silence.
He gets through only a few bites of tender spiced chicken before he hears the clink of porcelain and a sharp sigh.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Faruzan has gone as far as setting her naan all the way down as she narrows her eyes at Alhaitham. “You obviously participated in that ridiculous affair just for him. Even a fool could see that.” She crosses her arms again, leaning forward on the table and scrutinizing him like he’s one of her famed inventions that just won’t work. “I mean, honestly. We’ve been in Haravatat together for years and I’ve never seen you volunteer for a single thing. I was so shocked when I heard you’d be a judge, I could hardly believe my ears.”
“Perhaps I was feeling altruistic,” Alhaitham sneers, pushing his chicken around on his plate, appetite lost. “Or perhaps it was simply the responsibility of the Acting Grand Sage to participate.”
“Oh, please,” Faruzan scoffs, loud enough that patrons seated on the other side of the restaurant look over at them. “I can’t imagine you’ve ever done anything altruistic in your life. And the Sages couldn’t bully you into something like that no matter what they had on you. They can barely get you to keep the job as it is.”
“Maybe I was simply bored,” Alhaitham finally gives up on eating as he reaches for his beer instead and downing half of it in one go.
“Why don’t you spare me the bullshit, Alhaitham,” Faruzan cuts right to the quick of it. “It’s not like I have anyone to tell. Satisfy your senior’s curiosity, won’t you?”
Alhaitham says nothing, leaning back in his chair, beer in hand, not giving her an inch.
Faruzan holds his gaze for a moment. Too long a moment. Long enough that any other person would have caved under the discomfort of silence. Alhaitham simply takes another drink.
“Alright, fine,” Faruzan says, shifting in her seat and picking up her beer. “If you won’t indulge me, then let me tell you what I think. One scholar to another, engaging in pure speculation for the sake of speculation.”
Alhaitham raises an eyebrow, downing the rest of his beer and hailing the server for another which he promptly brings along with a second for Faruzan.
To his surprise, Faruzan chugs the rest of her nearly full mug, setting it down hard enough on the table that it spills some of the new glass, before she leans forward and taps her chin with her index finger.
“My question is: why would you involve yourself with the Interdarshan Championship when it served no benefit to you as an individual at all?” Her cheeks are a little flushed from the beer, and although Alhaitham has an adequate tolerance, he feels unmoored as well. “I hypothesize that the reason is your feelings for Kaveh. Namely, love.”
Alhaitham takes another long drink.
“And what evidence do you have to support this hypothesis?” He says before he can stop himself, almost reflexive.
Faruzan’s eyes grow a little sharper, the mark of a true academic, ready to structure and defend her ideas to the very end.
“At first I thought it was as I said; despite never volunteering for something a day in your life, you go out of your way to participate in this event that Kaveh just happens to be participating in,” she begins evenly. “But as you said, no strong conclusions can be drawn simply from unusual behavior.”
The wind picks up for a moment, just long enough to push away the warmth from the lamps, leaving shivers across the back of Alhaitham’s neck.
“No, we must look closer. Why this event?”
Alhaitham holds himself entirely still, discomfort sitting heavy within the pit of his stomach as he watches the wheels turning in her mind, wishing distantly that he would have just returned to his cold house.
“Kaveh entered both to honor his late father and to receive enough money to build his own house and move out of yours,” Faruzan strokes her chin as her eyes wander off to the side, considering. “But your involvement was clearly only centered around his father and finding out information about him. Here’s what I think-” Faruzan sits up straighter in her chair, taking a large drink of her beer and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand before she leans forward on the table.
For a moment, Alhaitham almost finds himself intimidated by the obvious intelligence and wisdom in her expression, and even more so, the fire behind it. Despite having quite literally no stakes in the discussion, it is clear that the thrill of dissection is more than enough for her.
“I don’t know much about Kaveh, but it is obvious that his father’s death is a point of salience for him,” she says, voice clear and measured despite the glow of alcohol on her cheeks. “And it is obvious that he is a point of salience for you.”
Alhaitham opens his mouth to retort, despite having no plan of attack ready, but she holds up a hand to stop him.
“I saw the way you looked at him during the competition. I may not be the most emotionally adept, but I can recognize care when I see it,” she dismisses him easily, and he finds himself without a good counter argument, perhaps because of the beer beginning to affect him more substantially than he expected, perhaps because he doesn’t know how to argue against the truth. “Regardless, you participated because you knew getting closure about his father would mean something to him and you wanted him to have that. Additionally, you did it despite the possibility that it would result in the two of you no longer living together. In other words,” Alhaitham downs the rest of his beer, not even tasting it anymore. “You participated in something that not only would provide no benefit to you, but in fact may have negative consequences, just so that you could do something for Kaveh.”
The silence sweeps away everything else, leaving nothing but space for Alhaitham to feel cold, hungry, and a little drunk. Enough space for him to feel things he doesn’t allow himself to entertain, things he dismisses from himself, things that, right now, he feels naive for thinking he could ever dismiss from himself.
“My conclusion is simple,” Faruzan’s even voice pulls him from the sinking trajectory he finds himself in, just long enough to cut the ropes and throw him into a freefall once again. “This is not an act you do for someone you do not love.”
Alhaitham’s head aches softly, not enough to make him get up and leave, but enough that he notices. The cool night brushes his skin, the exhaustion of the day scratching against him like rough wool. All things that could be brushed off ordinarily, but in this moment, in the space that seems to stretch out like an empty room before him, echoing every breath and footstep, magnifying its emptiness, he finds that he just can’t.
“A well structured argument, indeed,” Alhaitham tries, still, to brush it off as he taps absently against the glass of his cup. An embarrassing action more than anything else. Almost laughable.
Faruzan doesn’t get angry, she doesn’t snap at him for ignoring her words, but her face settles into something close to pity and that is even worse.
“I know,” she replies haughtily after a moment, crossing her arms. “The evidence speaks for itself.”
Alhaitham watches beads of condensation slide down the sides of his empty glass, making a small puddle on the table. He exhales, wiping his fingers off on the napkin, the sensation no longer providing the distraction he wants it to.
“As you well know, there is more to a research question than whether it can be supported by evidence,” Alhaitham stares at the water on the table, watching the blue and green lamps swaying in the trees upon the reflection. “Of course, it must be novel and it must be reasonable,” Alhaitham breathes in slowly. Exhales. “But it must also be relevant.”
When Alhaitham meets Faruzan’s eyes again, she is frowning, head tilted to the side.
“You do not believe this to be relevant?”
“I do not.”
Faruzan crosses her arms. “I disagree,” she states, like it isn’t Alhaitham’s own life they are discussing. “If it is reciprocation that you are worried about, I believe that any passerby could see it on Kaveh’s face that he cares for you.”
“Your evidence is circumstantial at best,” Alhaitham replies, flagging down the server for the check.
“And you are too close to the situation to see it clearly,” Faruzan shoots back.
Alhaitham crosses his arms. “For argument’s sake, let me put it to you this way,” he tries to look at her evenly. “Even if the probability of your assessment being accurate was high, to act on such a thing introduces so many unknown variables that the relevance of the initial probability becomes virtually null,” Alhaitham idly uses his napkin to wipe up the water on the table before tossing it next to his plate. “Whether I care hypothetically for Kaveh, or he cares hypothetically for me, is an irrelevant question entirely. Even if you could say with certainty that this condition were true, there is no way of predicting the outcome. Simply put- it is not a risk worth taking.”
At this, Faruzan scoffs. “You’d rather things stay the same than take a chance for something better.”
“Is that not the most rational course of action?” Alhaitham shrugs, even against the heaviness he feels. “Is it not the action of a scholar?”
“It may be the action of a scholar, but is that all you are?” Faruzan counters, eyes assessing him like she’s looking for something in particular.
Alhaitham does not flinch at her words, nor does he turn away from her analysis of him.
For a second, he considers defending himself. No, it’s not all I am, calls a childish voice from somewhere inside of him. I am a human being and I am scared.
But the fact is that those statements are true, and for that very reason, he will not bare himself to someone he only considers an acquaintance. Not when he can hardly do it with someone he considers to be his very best friend.
“Perhaps it is,” he says instead, dismissive, as the server comes to hand Faruzan their check.
“Alhaitham-” she tries, almost having the decency to look a little regretful as he stands up. It is certainly rude to leave on his own, but the alcohol and the heaviness of everything all at once is enough to override the low threshold of social awareness that would stop him from doing it anyway.
“Thank you for dinner,” he gives her a brief nod as he pushes in his chair. “I expect that next time, it will occur at a more reasonable hour.”
___
The porch is dark when Alhaitham finally gets home, forcing him to fumble around with the key in the sticky lock for nearly a full minute before it finally clicks and lets him in.
Reflexively, he flicks the porchlight on as he stumbles a little trying to undo the ties of his boots before he sits heavily on the wooden bench that Kaveh made to go next to the door for the very purpose of trying to take off your shoes when you’re under the influence. It creaks a little under his weight but holds strong through the ordeal of freeing himself.
For a moment he sits there in the silence, boots thrown asunder. He leans his head back against the wall behind him, breathing slowly as his fingers rest against the perfectly smooth grain of the wood beneath him. The strange yellow-green light filters in from outside through the stained glass of the door but still leaves him largely in the quiet, familiar dark.
There’s a chill in the house- he hadn’t bothered to leave the heater on during the day, and now there’s no point since he’ll be asleep soon anyway, but he notices it. The coldness.
Alhaitham stands up unsteadily in an attempt to physically shake off the melancholy that seems to have wrapped itself around him like ivy enveloping an old stone pillar, pulling himself together enough to place his boots on the shoe rack even though he knows Kaveh won’t be home to grouse at him about it until tomorrow night at the very earliest.
He wanders into the kitchen to get himself a cup of water, cognitively intact enough to anticipate the inevitable hangover he’ll experience in the morning if he doesn’t stay hydrated, before wandering to his bedroom and gracelessly taking off his clothes, putting on the first set of passable sleepwear he can find, and removing his headphones to set them on the charging port beside his bed.
The house is so quiet that he doesn’t need them; only the sound of his bare feet against the wood floor as he walks to the bathroom to wash his face and the whisper of wind in the trees fill the space.
Alhaitham looks at himself in the mirror as he turns on the tap with a hiss before he closes his eyes.
“Aren’t you curious what my voice sounds like?”
Alhaitham shifted in his seat, adjusting his grip on his book and refusing to look at Kaveh who he knew was leaning into his personal space because Kaveh was always leaning into his personal space.
“I know what your voice sounds like,” Alhaitham muttered, feigning disinterest. Pretending he had something more pressing to attend to despite having been reading the same page for the last five minutes.
“I mean my real voice,” Kaveh replied, leaning forward on his forearms, close enough that Alhaitham could smell the rosewater he always wears. “Your headphones have to augment it in the frequency filtering process, do they not?”
Alhaitham glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes. The truth was that he didn’t know, but he wasn’t about to tell Kaveh that.
“I’m not curious,” he stated as matter of factly as he could, turning resolutely back to his book. “You talk too much anyway.”
In Alhaitham’s periphery, Kaveh reeled back, letting out an affronted gasp. “I’ll have you know that most people like it when I talk,” he snapped, retreating back to his own space, turning away from Alhaitham. “You just have terrible taste in everything. Why do I even bother?”
Alhaitham didn’t look at him. Didn’t find a response. Just let the uncomfortable, bruised silence grow between them until it felt like he couldn’t say anything at all.
But when another student wandered over to ask Kaveh a question, Alhaitham was still on the same page of his book, staring down at it, not absorbing a single word.
After a long moment, as if of their own volition, Alhaitham’s fingers rested at the edge of his earpiece- the one Kaveh couldn’t see- and slowly pushed it back.
He stared down at the page before him and the words meant nothing, the subject of the book at all completely voided from his mind as he listened to Kaveh speak.
It was different. Sharper, clearer, more shrill. More alive, like every word from his mouth could hardly wait to leave the confines of his lips. Like his mind was so full of brilliance that it enriched the very waves of his voice.
After just a moment, Alhaitham removed his fingers, plunging himself back into muffled silence, thankful that his headphones covered his reddened ears, turning his face away from Kaveh for fear that his cheeks were red as well.
Alhaitham meets his own eyes in the mirror, the fringes of his hair sticking to the edges of his face, silent but for the sound of water trickling back into the basin. For a moment, he sits there, hands stilled over his mouth as he sees his younger self looking back at him, full of longing that had felt too big and too foreign for his body, like it was tearing at the seams of him, like he had too shallow a capacity to feel to make a space for it.
He breathes out slowly, straightening back up and drying his face with a soft towel before looking at himself again.
He’s a grown man now. The longing has space, like the apricots in the fruit bowl in the kitchen, or the various woven blankets thrown haphazardly over the divans in the living room.
Alhaitham hangs the towel up and makes his way back to his room before he pauses, looking at Kaveh’s door, slightly ajar.
Against his better judgment, probably fueled by the alcohol in his blood, he pushes it open with a soft creak.
The room is dark just like the rest of the house, but moonlight shines bright through the blue and green stained glass on the far end, casting Kaveh’s perfectly made bed in an aquatic glow.
Alhaitham doesn’t wander in, not one to completely disregard Kaveh’s boundaries like that, but he looks. The room smells faintly of rose and paper. It is tidy; books neatly placed on bookshelves, trinkets on his bedside table next to his lamp, everything in its right place.
The only exception is his drafting desk, littered with sketches and pencils and references. Alhaitham almost smiles at the hypocrisy of it, seeing as Kaveh takes each and every opportunity to scold Alhaitham for his disastrous desk in the Grand Sage’s office.
There’s even a drawing set open on the desk. One that looks to be the very beginnings of a residential home, probably Kaveh’s most recent commission that’s certainly behind schedule considering his impromptu visit to Fontaine.
Besides the drawing is a dish, empty but for a peach pit.
Alhaitham smiles and shuts the door behind him as he returns to the dark silence of his own room, sinking down into the soft sheets and closing his eyes, hoping that unconsciousness claims him quickly.
___
It’s still dark when Alhaitham is awoken by the sound of the front door shutting heavily.
He blinks up at the ceiling, disoriented by the unexpected noise, reaching to rub at his eye, thinking for a moment that he’d dreamed it before it is followed up by the soft sounds of someone shuffling around and shortly after by muffled swearing.
Instantly Alhaitham breathes out, tension of a possible home intruder fading away at the familiar tone of Kaveh’s voice, identifiable even through the walls.
Alhaitham stares up at the ceiling, dark enough from his curtains that he can hardly tell the difference between having his eyes open or closed. He tilts his head to the side towards the soft green glow of his clock; ten thirty. He’d only been asleep for an hour or so.
He checks the date as well; March 12th. Still a day earlier than Kaveh was supposed to return.
Alhaitham closes his eyes again, drifting. He listens to Kaveh’s footsteps creaking against the floorboards as he walks presumably to the kitchen, the distant sound of the running tap. Then a long silence.
It’s quiet long enough that Alhaitham begins to fall back to sleep, his curiosity about Kaveh’s early return not quite enough to keep him conscious, until he’s pulled back to the surface by the squeak of the floor outside his bedroom. When he opens his eyes he sees the soft light from the hallway under the door interrupted by the shadow of Kaveh’s feet.
Kaveh shifts side to side for a moment, like he wants to pace but can’t. He wonders if he should speak- perhaps Kaveh needs something, or something is wrong and he doesn’t want to ask for help. Instead he exhales slowly and turns away to the other side of the bed.
After a long moment, he hears an audible sigh and he expects that to be it, but to his surprise, instead, he's jerked awake by a knock.
“Alhaitham?” Kaveh’s voice is sharp and rough, strange enough that Alhaitham frowns and turns over, propping himself on his elbow just in time to watch the doorknob turn, letting in a blinding shaft of light as Kaveh throws the door open.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Alhaitham frowns at him, squinting at Kaveh as he shuts the door behind him, plunging them back into darkness before stalking over to the bed in two short strides
“I need to talk to you,” Kaveh speaks at full volume despite the lateness of the hour and the strangeness of the request.
“Can it wait until morning?” Alhaitham rubs at his eyes before looking up at Kaveh, barely able to make out his features in the dark other than a general aura of agitation.
“No, it can’t,” Kaveh snaps. “I spent the whole day traveling back from Fontaine, I’m not waiting a second more.”
“What could you possibly need to-” before Alhaitham can even finish sitting up properly, Kaveh cuts him off.
“Why did you do this?” Kaveh demands, brandishing a stack of notes in his hand as if Alhaitham has the slightest idea what they are.
“I know that you believe me to be very intelligent,” Alhaitham nods to the notes in Kaveh’s hand. “But even I cannot read minds.”
He watches Kaveh’s jaw flex as he gives an exasperated huff and tosses the stack of papers onto Alhaitham’s lap.
Alhaitham resists the urge to roll his eyes as he looks down. It’d be too dark to recognize the papers if he hadn’t been the ones to write them himself, but even like this, he can make out the name Sachin at the very top.
“I don’t understand your question,” Alhaitham states flatly, handing the notes back to Kaveh.
“How can you be so obtuse?” Kaveh speaks loud enough that Alhaitham considers putting on his headphones but decides against it. “Why did you compile these notes about my father and Sachin? Why did you involve yourself with the Interdarshan Championship just to meddle with this? Even contacting my mother-”
Alhaitham stills, hoping his fear of being seen through doesn’t show on his face. “That’s what this is about?” He feigns disinterest as his eyes adjust to the darkness again. Kaveh holds himself like he’s been worn down, the tiredness that hangs around his eyes obvious even in the dark like this. “And you want to accuse me of being obtuse?”
“Just answer me!” Kaveh raises his voice, papers crumpling slightly in the tight grip of his hands. “I read over these notes. It must have taken you weeks to compile everything, not to mention contacting my mother for information and voluntarily participating in the Interdarshan Championship. Why would you bother?”
“You never would have done it on your own,” Alhaitham retorts, a reiteration of an earlier conversation.
“Maybe not,” Kaveh throws his hands into the air in clear exasperation. “What is it to you? Why would that matter to you-”
“Because,” Alhaitham finally snaps loud enough that Kaveh’s eyebrows raise. “It was something you needed to hear. It was something you needed to know.” Alhaitham feels the familiar heat of antagonism between them, but for some reason this time it’s different. There is a rawness, a fragility, that is foreign. “You needed to see that it was your father’s choice to go into the desert. It was his choice to do what he did in pursuit of Sachin’s work. His death wasn’t your fault, in fact, it had nothing to do with you at all.”
“I know that,” Kaveh raises his voice, but this time it isn’t anger or frustration, but something more vulnerable. “I read your notes. They were very well organized,” he adds, in almost an annoyed tone before he fixes Alhaitham with his gaze. “I’m asking why you did it.”
For a moment, Alhaitham is silent, just looking at him. His eyes shine in the dark even though he can’t discern their color. His chest rises and falls like speaking is taxing enough to render him short of breath, obvious with his mantle removed, leaving him in only his white tunic and trousers.
“Why did I do it?” Alhaitham repeats to him slowly, nothing but a way to buy himself another moment.
“Yes,” Kaveh breathes, eyebrows knitting together. “What possible benefit could there have been to you that would have made it worth it?”
Alhaitham thinks of Faruzan, of her accusations, of her perfectly formulated arguments, and he can’t help but feel that he’s unlucky, or perhaps he’s just stupid. Perhaps his feelings are so completely transparent that anyone could see them a mile away, even Kaveh.
He could try to lie, but what would be the use? He’s always depended on Kaveh’s unwillingness to see his feelings as a shroud over them, but if he’s decided to cast it away, searching around for the truth of it all, then the jig is up.
“You really are a fool,” Alhaitham shakes his head in disbelief as he looks at the earnest confusion in Kaveh’s expression. “You can’t think of one reason why I would do that for you?”
“No, I can’t,” Kaveh’s voice breaks on the words, the soft sound of paper crinkling as he holds Alhaitham’s gaze. “Not you. Not for me.”
Alhaitham’s frown deepens, caught between relief and frustration.
“We’ve lived together for four years,” he speaks softer this time, the presence of mind to notice the upset in Kaveh’s eyes. “Are you so blind to the idea of someone valuing you that you still think that I don’t consider you to be my closest friend?”
Kaveh’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open as Alhaitham’s words ring out between them.
Alhaitham can’t help but be incredulous at the shock. Kaveh is a smart man, one of the smartest that Alhaitham has ever met. He excels at analysis and critical thought, so to see such an obvious statement shake him so seriously is almost hard to believe.
“I share my life with you,” Alhaitham presses. “Do you really believe I would do that with someone I despise?”
Kaveh doesn’t move an inch. Alhaitham can’t even see his chest rising and falling, like he’s holding his breath.
“I thought perhaps you enjoyed seeing me humiliated,” Kaveh retorts weakly. “Or maybe it was pity.”
“Do you take me for that kind of person?”
It’s quiet for a moment, like Kaveh really is considering it.
He’s never thought of himself as cruel, although he knows that is a conclusion some have come to. He knows that he can be sharp and blunt, sometimes especially to Kaveh, and in the end, it isn’t up to him to decide whether that makes him cruel.
“No,” Kaveh lets out a slow breath. “I suppose I don’t.”
It’s quiet and dark, nothing but the sound of the rustling leaves in the breeze outside and the soft blink of the hour changing on Alhaitham’s clock to indicate that the moment is passing at all.
Kaveh’s hand finally loosens around the notes and he looks down at them before breathing a deep sigh and placing them on Alhaitham’s bedside table, taking a seat on the edge of the bed, hip pressing into Alhaitham’s knee.
“Is it always going to be like this?” Kaveh finally murmurs into the dark as he stares down at the floor. The fabric of his tunic shifts, exposing more of his freckled back and the fine line of his spine and Alhaitham has to force himself to look away from it.
“Like what?”
“Like this,” Kaveh glances at Alhaitham, gesturing between the two of them. “Acting like we can’t stand to be in the same room together. Always one second away from biting each other’s heads off.”
“I’m not the one who always picks fights,” Alhaitham replies before he can stop himself, a reflexive blow back.
“Well, I’m not the one who can’t find a kind way to say anything,” Kaveh gripes at him, just as reflexively. Like two wild animals snarling at one another without any reason at all. “I mean, honestly. Why couldn’t you have just told me that’s why you did all that?”
“Would you have listened to me if I had?”
He looks at Kaveh’s face in profile, the way the minimal light from under the door catches on the bow of his lips and the tip of his nose, like he attracts it to himself. His eyes are downcast and Alhaitham can just see the shine of them before Kaveh turns further away, curling in on himself.
“You know, I went to Fontaine to ask my mother about my father,” Kaveh murmurs after a moment, shaking his head and giving a derisive laugh. “I thought we’d have so much to talk about.”
Alhaitham doesn’t understand the logical leap they have made, but he listens nonetheless, watching Kaveh’s hands, free of their gloves, fidget against each other in his lap.
“And we did talk about him, of course. It made me feel-” Kaveh seems to struggle with his words for a moment. “Less alone, I guess. Less like it was just this dark mark on my life and on hers that couldn’t be spoken of.”
Alhaitham has known Kaveh long enough to know that if he waits, Kaveh will always reach his point. He has had years and years to cultivate patience and even fondness for the winding road it often takes to get there.
“I meant to go there to talk about my father and everything that had happened, you know? To discuss the past.” Kaveh presses his thumb to his palm, over and over again. “But in truth, half the time was spent just talking about you.”
Alhaitham’s eyes widen, shocked that Kaveh would ever admit to such a thing, despite his knowledge that he does indeed take up space in Kaveh’s life.
“It was so stupid,” Kaveh gives a watery laugh, shaking his head. “I really didn’t mean to, but you just- you kept coming up, over and over again. At first it was just the Championship, but even after that when we were just talking about life, it felt like I couldn’t get through a single story without mentioning your name.”
“All good things, I’m sure,” Alhaitham means it as a jab, but his voice comes out so soft he feels his cheeks warm.
Kaveh snorts, and Alhaitham watches the first real smile since he walked in soften his expression. “Obviously not. I had plenty to complain about.”
Kaveh turns towards him, forcing Alhaitham to straighten up so they aren’t nose to nose. He meets his eyes, and there is a stunning vulnerability in them that he can’t remember the last time he saw.
“I told her all about you,” Kaveh murmurs. “The good and the bad. You know what she said?”
Kaveh’s face is so close and his expression so earnest. Alhaitham missed him, even gone for only a couple of days, he missed everything about him. His voice, the way he smells, the way he warms every space he walks into. He missed the sounds of him working and the evidence of life that he leaves everywhere he goes; a cup in the sink, Alhaitham’s boots tucked neatly into the shoe rack even though he always leaves them out, sketches and books. He missed the man himself, and the way it feels to sit beside him in the home they’ve made together.
“What did she say?”
“Don’t waste it.”
Don’t waste it.
Alhaitham turns the words over in his head, like somehow he can find an angle that absolves him, but no matter which way he looks at it, it rings true.
All at once, he feels the terrifying weight of years and years of wanting. Of wanting and evading and wanting and evading over and over and over in a cycle that never ends.
Alhaitham is no stranger to wanting. He’s spent so much of his life wanting something, feeling like he’ll never get it.
“Are we wasting it?” Kaveh’s voice breaks on the last word as his eyes flick between Alhaitham’s.
Alhaitham feels very suddenly like a fool for ever considering himself the brave one between the two of them as he looks at Kaveh sitting before him in the dark, asking a question that bares his soul and asks Alhaitham to bare his as well.
Kaveh shakes his head as the beginnings of tears shine in his eyes. “I don’t want to waste it, Alhaitham.”
“I cannot change my nature,” Alhaitham says, before it can be brought up by Kaveh. Before he can be painted into a corner of expectations. It is easier to be the one to draw the line.
“Neither can I,” Kaveh doesn’t miss a beat. “But if we both want-” he cuts himself off again, visibly reordering his words. “Can’t we try to understand each other without demanding that we change?”
Kaveh says it like it’s simple, and perhaps it makes him a fool, but in that moment, Alhaitham wants it to be true. This conversation alone is further than they’ve ever got before and it opens up a door inside Alhaitham’s mind; a door to a future that is brighter. Not a different future, not really, but a future like a home whose blinds are finally opened after being shuttered for so many years, rich sunlight filtering through the dusty air, making it warm again.
Kaveh is more of a home than Alhaitham has had since his grandmother. More of a home than he’s ever dreamed of asking for. And yet, selfishly, he wants to let the light in, just to see what it would be like to sit in the sun for a moment.
“We can try,” he speaks so softly that it’s nothing more than a breath between them. “I would try.”
“I want to try,” Kaveh looks at him for a long moment in the dark.
They sit in silence, and Alhaitham can feel the warmth of Kaveh’s leg through the blankets, still resting against his knee like he has no awareness of it, and it almost seems laughable to Alhaitham, the symbolism of it.
Kaveh breathes out slowly, and Alhaitham watches his chest rise and fall before Kaveh pulls one leg entirely onto the bed, placing them closer together and fully facing each other. Alhaitham meets his eyes just in time to see Kaveh reach for him.
He flinches at first, unsure for a moment what he intends on doing, but Kaveh moves slowly, a hand on his shoulder before he leans in, arms wrapping around Alhaitham’s shoulders and enveloping him in a hug.
It’s so tentative, so gentle at first that Alhaitham can hardly register it, but the warmth of Kaveh, the weight of his arms, it only takes a moment for Alhaitham to allow himself to sink into it.
His eyes flutter closed as Kaveh holds him, Alhaitham’s arms finally coming up to hold him in return.
He smells like rosewater, as he always does. Alhaitham can feel the warmth of his skin through the thin fabric of his tunic as he presses his closed mouth to his shoulder, just resting there.
It feels like everything else with Kaveh. Like belonging, like a place to return to, like a place where he is safe.
For a moment he remembers the first day alone in his house after the death of his grandmother. He remembers thinking over and over again of the last time he’d said I love you, and the sound of her voice as she said it back to him. He remembers curling in his bed on the second floor of that enormous house, not a single sound in the whole place, and playing it over and over in his head. He remembers wishing he hadn’t said it, so it wouldn’t be able to haunt him as it did.
It is a feeling that he’s found so few other times in his life that sometimes it seems like a mirage. Like if he touched it, if he tried to feel that tenuous scene of security more tangibly, it would dissolve and leave him alone again. Back in that bed on the second floor, with nothing but memories.
But as he holds Kaveh in his arms, it feels like maybe it would hold weight.
Kaveh sighs, melting further as one hand smooths down the hair at the back of Alhaitham’s neck briefly before it stills there.
“You smell like beer,” Kaveh murmurs into his shoulder.
Alhaitham huffs softly, his breath shifting strands of Kaveh’s hair.
“Hypocritical for you of all people to complain about that,” he murmurs back, his arm tightening around Kaveh’s back, the feeling of his fingers brushing against his smooth skin is itself intoxicating.
“I’m not complaining,” Kaveh chuckles. “I’m just surprised. We didn’t even have beer when I left.”
“I went out with Faruzan,” Alhaitham’s voice is muffled by Kaveh’s tunic against his mouth.
“What?” Kaveh’s voice is a little shrill next to his ear as he leans back just enough to come face to face with Alhaitham. “You went out with Faruzan? What, is she blackmailing you?”
Alhaitham rolls his eyes. “As if there’s anything she could blackmail me with.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Kaveh is still so close, only inches away, his hand still resting at the nape of Alhaitham’s neck. “Maybe you have dark secrets that I’m not privy to. Last time I was gone, I returned only to find out that you’d overthrown the government in my absence.”
Alhaitham can’t help the small smile that grows on his face, only intensifying as he watches it mirrored by Kaveh.
“I wasn’t blackmailed,” Alhaitham pauses. He could leave it at that, but after everything that night, he decides that perhaps it is his turn to be brave. “The house would have been cold when I got home.”
Kaveh snorts quietly, the edge of his mouth ticking up. “You know you can just leave the heater on during the day, don’t you?”
Alhaitham looks at him for a second, the beautiful shine of his eyes and the shape of his nose and the bow of his lips, and he breathes out slowly.
“I know,” Alhaitham murmurs. “That’s not what I meant.”
Kaveh’s eyes widen for a moment before his expression melts into one of such unadulterated fondness that Alhaitham can hardly force himself to keep eye contact under its intensity.
Kaveh doesn’t speak as his hand slides from Alhaitham’s neck to his jaw, his thumb brushing softly across his cheek.
Alhaitham suppresses a shiver at the feeling of it, the overwhelming sensation of warmth and closeness, the fast beat of his heart. The way Kaveh is looking at him.
Kaveh’s eyes flick down to his mouth, then back up again.
“Alhaitham-” Kaveh murmurs as he leans even closer.
It would be so easy to let go, just meet him halfway. Alhaitham has considered it many times, all the ways in which he wants Kaveh. He has wanted him in nearly every way you could want another person.
And yet still, he tilts away, allowing only their foreheads to press gently together.
As he feels Kaveh’s breath against his mouth, caught in the space between moments, he recalls the softness of Kaveh’s bed when he sat down on it, awkward and stiff, the first time he’d seen Kaveh’s room at the Akademiya.
He remembers the photos, the soft strings of lights, the way it smelled like rose and spring air. He remembers Kaveh’s back to him as he spoke about something Alhaitham can’t recall.
He remembers the very last time he set foot in the room, standing outside the door after it had been slammed in his face.
He remembers the bar, years later. The smell of alcohol on Kaveh as he stepped into the house they were supposed to share. He remembers the first time they made coffee side by side, and the first time Kaveh referred to the home as theirs.
Alhaitham has always needed just enough. Just enough to be comfortable. Just enough to feel safe.
And perhaps, yes, he’s wanted more. But Alhaitham has never been one to take uncalculated risks. He has never been one to gamble on something unless he’s been counting the cards.
After a moment, Kaveh breathes out and pulls away.
It is not violent or angry. His palm lingers against Alhaitham’s cheek before it falls, and Alhaitham almost wants to catch it, put it back where it was. He wants to pull Kaveh close again and kiss him, but he doesn’t.
He doesn’t because he has what he needs. He has enough; coffee made for two, the smell of cooking, the warmth of Kaveh sitting on the couch beside him, the sound of his voice and the evidence of his presence everywhere Alhaitham turns.
He is safe and content. He has a place that he belongs. To roll the dice on something so unknown, to risk the stability that he craves, it would be absurd.
No matter how much he wants it, it would be absurd.