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Alhaitham would not necessarily describe himself as a particularly...caring individual. He wasn't known for worrying, for being the person to call when you needed to take care of someone.
Of their friend group, that was Tighnari, who was always able to make time for a soft word, a hug (if one was inclined to physical touch like that, as Alhaitham was not), and maybe a mug of tea no matter how busy he was. He listened with a serene look and a soft smile and his long ears pricked attentively forward. Alhaitham had seen him make time for Cyno, touching the General Mahamatra's clenched hands with the back of his knuckles; he'd seen Tighnari wrap his arms around Kaveh, folding the architect into a hug that few others would be able to give him. He'd even offered the same to Alhaitham, though Tighnari seemed to understand without being told that physical touch sometimes made his skin crawl. He always offered, was always there, and always seemed to know how to make a bad mood at least a little better.
Kaveh was the type to care too, even though he professed loudly and often that he hated Alhaitham. He cleaned the house, even when Alhaitham didn't remind him, and the last time that Alhaitham had run out of the snacks that he refused to admit that he hid in the cupboards (the section of the kitchen that was wordlessly accepted as "his", marked by a small green sticker of some sort that was the mirror of the cabinet marked with Kaveh's red sticker) had been before Kaveh had moved in.
Despite what Alhaitham thought of his naivety, he knew that Kaveh made such poor decisions out of his kind heart. That did not mean that they were not bad decisions; it's just that, like the way that Alhaitham loved Kaveh, it was something that he simply could not help, a compulsion that was ingrained into his very bone and blood.
Even Cyno cared more than Alhaitham did. He was not the soft type like Tighnari to soothe with words or hugs or kind words, nor was he the type to care like Kaveh through grand gestures. But he was steady and caring and, though his humor left much to be desired (even to Alhaitham, who many said entirely lacked any sort of humor or emotion), it was as much of a tool to show he cared as a way to lighten the mood.
Of the four of them, Alhaitham was no caretaker and it was of no surprise to anyone. How many times had Tighnari pulled him aside to coach him in taking care of someone he cared about? How many times had he offered help in that gentle, understanding way of his?
Yet something made him look up from his book. It was late and though he refused to admit it, Alhaitham had stayed up to wait for Kaveh to come back from Lambad's Tavern. The shades over his windows were drawn to keep Kaveh from seeing the light of his lamp through the window, and Alhaitham made sure to sit by the controls so that he could make sure to turn off the light when he heard Kaveh return. Perhaps he was being paranoid; perhaps it was just as unhealthy as Tighnari told him it was. "Emotional constipation", he'd been told. He can't exactly say that Tighnari was wrong, either, even if he didn't particularly agree with the phrasing.
Alhaitham slid his finger between the pages of his book and allowed it to fall shut, listening to the sounds of a late night in Sumeru City. As high in the great tree of the city as they lived, it wasn't as loud and boisterous as the markets or Lambad's Tavern, both of which were still open. By Alhaitham's estimate, they would still be open for several hours as, to some, the night was still young.
Though Kaveh very loudly proclaimed that he didn't follow Alhaitham's "old man bedtime", he was typically back before it was too late in the night. Ostensibly it was to make sure that he got enough sleep, so that he could work on his next project, get paid, and move out.
(He always talked about that: how he wanted to move out. Alhaitham hoped that it never showed on his face how much those words hurt. How was it that Kaveh could be so oblivious and yet know exactly how to hurt Alhaitham in a way that no one else could?)
Just as Alhaitham wasn't known as a particularly caring individual, he also wasn't prone to worrying needlessly about things. Kaveh was an adult and could take care of himself. He could make his own decisions, good or bad, and was confident enough in himself, his beliefs, and his actions that he would meet any challenge or consequence head-on. There was no need to worry for him, as he had spent a large amount of his life in Sumeru City and would not get lost. Not to mention, he was out with Cyno and Tighnari, who would look after him if anything were to happen.
And yet...
Alhaitham sighed, carefully slipping a bookmark between the pages of his book. Kaveh was always making fun of him for always reading instead of interacting with others, yet one year for Alhaitham's birthday, Kaveh had given him a finely-crafted bookmark. It was a simple thing of a thin strip of wood, carved so that the negative spaces formed the shape of a padisarah. Kaveh had refused to talk about it, so Alhaitham behaved in kind and said nothing of the gift, which had been wrapped delicately in a piece of stationary that Alhaitham recognized from one of Kaveh's sketchbooks. Hawk motifs, similar to the style seen in the ruins of the Hypostyle Desert, had been carefully drawn in ink that Alhaitham knew that Kaveh seldom used.
More than once, Alhaitham had wondered if Kaveh knew just how much that bookmark meant to him; if he knew that Alhaitham saved it to only be used in the books he read in the privacy of his own room. It had never left the house for fear it would be damaged or lost, and if Alhaitham was being honest with himself (which was, for the most part), he didn't feel that anyone else had the right to even look at it, as if their mere gaze would ruin it.
Carefully, Alhaitham closed the book around the bookmark and slid it beneath his pillow. He eased his headphones off, shaking his head at the disorientation of disconnecting, and briskly got dressed.
It was silly to worry. Kaveh was an adult, and if there was an issue then Cyno and Tighnari would walk him back.
Still, Alhaitham felt oddly...restless. A walk would do him good.
Alhaithem dressed meticulously, though perhaps not as lavishly as he typically did. Anyone that saw him out so late could certainly understand: like this, he wouldn’t be the Acting Grand Sage, just another man going about his evening casually. He adjusted his headphones, grabbed his keys, and left.
At least Kaveh remembered his keys this time , Alhaitham thought absently to himself. That, of course, didn’t mean that he didn’t lose it elsewhere. Alhaitham had already needed to replace the locks several times, after Kaveh had lost his copy of the keys while traveling. He rarely seemed to lose it while out drinking, but Alhaitham wouldn’t put it past him, as cruel as it sounded.
His feet turned automatically toward his office and then stopped. He wasn’t going to work , but perhaps this was a sign that Kaveh was right and that he worked too much. Or rather, he didn’t do anything but work. How long had it been since he’d gone out with Kaveh to meet with Cyno and Tighnari? He realized that he couldn’t remember.
The days had begun to blend together; the work of the Acting Grand Sage never seemed to be done and all he had energy to do was trudge home, eat dinner without tasting it—which had led to several arguments with Kaveh—shower, and then go to sleep. The next day, he did it all again.
Very deliberately, Alhaitham turned and took one of the paths toward one of the quieter markets. They didn’t tend to be open quite so late after sundown, but a few shops were and a few people meandered around, jumping from silvery shadow to golden light and back. It reminded Alhaitham of the ghosts said to inhabit the ruins of the Desert of Hadramaveth, visible in the torchlight as shadows moving over the carved and painted walls.
(It was silly, of course: there were no such things as ghosts, at least ones of that nature. The “ghouls” and “cursed souls” seen were just writhing shadows cast by the light of a flickering torch.)
Few paid any mind to him as he walked, relaxing his brisk pace with some difficulty. How long had it been since he’d gone on an evening stroll? Several years, likely—he didn’t think he’d done anything of the sort since Kaveh had moved in with him.
He stepped aside as one of the evening patrols went by and continued on, sidestepping a couple bartering with one of the merchants for what looked like some kind of pottery.
The evening air was cooler, and Alhaitham breathed in the smell of spices, fruit, and cooked food that was likely coming from several of the vendors nearby. He stopped, debating if he wanted to buy a snack, but decided that he’d visit Lambad’s Tavern; he preferred their panipuri, and their roti was just spiced enough for his tastes. They were, perhaps, not the most efficient foods to eat while studying, but they weren’t bad to snack on while he resumed his evening walk.
As he was approaching Lambad’s Tavern, he heard raised voices and frowned. It was more boisterous near the tavern so late at night, as the liquor got to those that imbibed.
There was Kaveh, whose arm was slung around Cyno’s shoulders. He seemed to be mostly holding his own weight, but swayed hard enough that Cyno and the dark shape next to them that had to be Tighnari felt the need to support him.
Tighnari turned around, the pink of his ears seemingly that much brighter for the way that the dark edges of his ears blended into the shadows. They were pricked toward Alhaitham and he smiled, his teeth a flash of white in the golden light of the lanterns outside of the tavern. His lips formed the word “Alhaitham”, but it was too loud for Alhaitham to make out his voice. If he said anything else, he turned away so that Alhaitham could no longer see what he said.
Kaveh may have heard it, though, because his head—which had hung from his neck so that his bangs swayed—lifted. His eyes were hazy with alcohol and his mouth was too loose in a grin that he would never have afforded Alhaitham otherwise.
Craning his head, Cyno searched the lingering groups around Lambad’s Tavern and nodded his head in greeting when his eyes met Alhaitham’s. He was dressed down, not in his formal dress as the General Mahamatra, and it was strangely jarring since for the past few months that Alhaitham could remember, he’d only seen Cyno in a formal setting. Not seeing him wearing his jackal headdress and only seeing his long white hair was…strangely upsetting.
If Alhaitham was one to feel guilt for things in the past that could not be changed, he’d feel some kind of regret that he hadn’t spoken to Cyno in a while. It had been a while since he’d played that card game with him, even if he didn’t particularly enjoy it.
Alhaitham debated turning up his ears but decided against it; the sound would be too much, and it was unlikely that he’d be able to understand Cyno or Tighnari anyway.
“I’m surprised to see you awake,” Tighnari said, turning to face him. Of the very few people that Alhaitham would consider friends, Tighnari was the best of all of them at doing that. Most were too distracted by their own dramatics to remember.
“I’m surprised to be awake,” Alhaitham replied carefully. “Is he okay?”
Cyno said something, but turned away so it was hard to make out. Tighnari’s ear flicked and he said, “just a little drunk.”
“I’m sorry,” Cyno said, turning back to face Alhaitham. “I keep forgetting.”
“I like it when people forget,” Alhaitham replied. Cyno gave him a crooked smile.
Alhaitham held out his hands and Kaveh straightened, stumbling into them. It was the only time he ever embraced Alhaitham. Normally such familiar touch was enough to make Alhaitham’s skin crawl, but with such a tactile group—and a desire to try to indulge their natures more—Alhaitham was beginning to feel less discomfort when they leaned against him. But Tighnari and Cyno’s touches were often soft punches to the shoulder, a nudge of an elbow or hip. Kaveh was tactile in a way that Alhaitham could not personally understand, but could not deny was so absolutely Kaveh .
He hugged, he hooked arms around people, he threw arms around shoulders.
He never did any of these things to Alhaitham, though. Alhiatham could never tell if he was pleased or disappointed.
Yet, clearly drunk out of his mind judging by Tighnari’s words and the reek of alcohol wafting off of Kaveh, he had thrown himself at Alhaitham, had slung his arms casually around his waist, and tucked his head against Alhaitham’s shoulder.
Cyno turned his head away and Alhaitham could see his lips moving but thankfully couldn’t hear whatever awful joke he said. It must have been particularly awful though, because Tighnari’s long ears twisted and a rueful expression crossed his face.
“He’s drunk, I’m sorry,” Tighnari told Alhaitham. “Do you think you can take him home?”
Alhaitham wondered if Kaveh had interrupted one of their “not-dates”. Cyno and Tighnari would have politely told him that they were on a “not-date”, but they also would not have shooed him away; if Kaveh was in low enough spirits, he might not have noticed even if Cyno and Tighnari hadn’t told him.
If he was in low enough spirits, Alhaitham could almost understand why he was so drunk that he buried his face in Alhaitham’s chest and neck like an affectionate cat.
“You smell good,” Kaveh said, and Alhaitham could (almost) hear him clearly due to his proximity. He almost wished he couldn’t. “Hey, you wanna take me home?”
From the look on Tighnari’s face, he could hear it too. Thankfully, Cyno seemed oblivious though his smile suggested that Alhaitham and Kaveh (especially Kaveh) would be teased for how excitedly Kaveh had hugged him.
Alhaitham sighed and swallowed the bitter lump of jealousy. Was that what happened when Kaveh didn’t return at night? It’s not like he belonged to Alhaitham, like a stray cat picked up on the streets (no matter how closely both scenarios resembled each other).
And, as he had scolded himself before, Kaveh was an adult.
He could do as he pleased.
Instead, he nodded at Tighnari and Cyno. “I will take him back. Thank you for taking care of him. I hope you enjoy the rest of your date.” His tongue felt heavy and awkward and he wasn’t sure how loudly he was speaking, but Tighnari and Cyno seemed to understand.
“It wasn’t a date,” Cyno protested, his dark cheeks flushing.
Tighnari smiled but his ears gave him away, twisting backwards in an expression that Alhaitham found difficult to translate succinctly. He chose to interpret it as relief that they, at least, didn’t have to go home yet, and worry for Kaveh who must have been feeling incredibly low to get so drunk so quickly.
“Thank you, Alhaitham,” Tighnari said, adding the hand-sign to his words.
Alhaitham nodded to them once more and began tugging Kaveh away from the rowdiness of Lambad’s Tavern.
“Oh, you really are,” Kaveh slurred against his collarbone. “I wasn’t serious.”
“Tighnari asked me to escort you home,” Alhaitham said, even though he wasn’t sure that Kaveh would describe their shared house as his “home”. “He and Cyno are on one of their not-dates,” he added. “And I happened to be walking by.”
It didn’t seem that Kaveh heard him because he hummed noncommittally before abruptly standing upright. He swayed, his eyes hazy and unfocused as he looked at Alhaitham. “Wow,” he said. “You’re pretty. No, you’re hot. Like, really hot .” He sighed, and Alhaitham was unable to help the way his nose wrinkled at the smell of liquor on his breath. Kaveh laughed. “You know who else is really hot?”
Alhaitham did not sign up to be regaled with conquests and silly crushes. But Kaveh, when sober, was never one to hold his tongue; he was considerably worse when he was drunk.
Without waiting for Alhaitham’s response, Kaveh said, “you know, it doesn’t matter. He would never look at me except to hate me.” He stumbled and Alhaitham automatically caught him. “Ahaha, who is my brave rescuer? Should I even be trusting you?”
“I’m hurt that you wouldn’t trust me,” Alhaitham replied, “but I do not blame you. You should not trust the people you randomly meet on the streets.”
Kaveh laughed too-loudly, drawing looks from the people perusing the quieter market walks. A few wrinkled their noses, but most looked on in amused indulgence. No one out as late as they were should have expected to not see any drunk people—especially so close to Lambad’s Tavern. “When you’ve been through what I’ve been through, there’s not much more that can happen to me that I haven’t had worse.”
It didn’t quite make much sense, especially with the way that Kaveh was slurring—making it incredibly difficult for Alhaitham to understand him—but it seemed to make enough sense to Kaveh because he didn’t say anything else.
He kept an eye on Kaveh, who continued to speak. Though the streets were quieter away from Lambad’s Tavern, he was facing away and speaking quickly and slurring his words; it wasn’t until Kaveh turned around to look at him, as if afraid that Alhaitham had left him alone, had abandoned him, that Alhaitham even knew that he was talking to him.
(That was another thing that Alhaitham and Kaveh never talked about. He wasn’t sure if Kaveh knew that Alhaitham knew this about him, but neither would ever ask. But Alhaitham knew that Kaveh, above all else, feared being left behind and forgotten. He wasn’t obsessed with image or legacy, did not strive to make his mark on the world for good or ill, but had much more humble goals.
Alhaitham was not entirely certain what events had led to it, but Kaveh feared being alone and could guess that his parents had something to do with it. They were not… friends . Until Tighnari and Cyno, Alhaitham had not quite known how to behave with friends; his closest “friend” until them had been Kaveh, and they had spent their entire time arguing, jabbing needle-thin barbs beneath each other’s skin until they bled. But their history together was such that they knew a lot more about each other than either of them would like to admit. So Alhaitham knew vaguely about Kaveh’s parents, about the death of his father and his mother leaving for Fontaine. It would make sense that such trauma would result in a…well, Kaveh wasn’t needy , but he had a very obvious fear of being left behind again.
How many times had Kaveh walked into the living area, where Alhaitham was quietly reading—and which, very obviously, did not have his drawing materials nor his drafting table—to sit and argue? How many times had he started arguments just so he had an excuse to stay in the same room?)
“I’m here,” Alhaitham told him and several painfully raw expressions crossed Kaveh’s face. “Did you say something?”
Kaveh blinked at him, squinting as if struggling to make his last remaining braincell return to enough functioning capacity to solve a puzzle. “Oh,” he said. Sorry , his hands said. Out loud, he said—with an obvious effort to not over-enunciate and to speak clearly without slurring—”I was talking too fast, wasn’t I?”
“I didn’t realize you were talking to me,” Alhaitham replied.
Alhaitham could almost see the gears turning and grinding. He resisted the urge to fidget. It wasn’t quite in his nature to do so, and in the rare moments he felt the urge, he had long experience in tamping down the feeling.
But even drunk, Kaveh was brilliant and the darkness of the street—one of the lampposts had gone out, turning the path into a comfortable blue-silver smear—meant that the lights on Alhaitham’s headphones were much more visible than they typically were.
You-deaf? Kaveh’s hands asked. His face did not show any struggle and Alhaitham realized that such a thing would mean that speaking with his hands was not a new thing for him.
Alhaitham hesitated. He had always known that there was nothing wrong with having such a disability, and that his headphones meant that most of the time—excepting large, loud crowds like the one around Lambad’s Tavern—people would never assume that he was deaf or had any difficulty. At the same time, it wasn’t something that he wanted to share. Even in Sumeru, which was much more accessible and open-minded than many other countries, it would bring around attention that Alhaitham did not want. They may treat him differently in a way that felt too much like coddling.
My roommate is too , Kaveh said with his hands and Alhaitham’s palms went cold. I don’t think he knows I know though . He laughed. “Sorry,” he said out loud as he said with his hands. Then he put his hands down and only said out loud, “I shouldn’t have assumed. And I shouldn’t have said that.”
Alhaitham hesitated. It’s kind of you to…ask , he said with his hands. I didn’t know you were talking to me.
“Do I need to do anything special?” Kaveh asked. “Do you even want me to talk out loud?”
“Out loud is fine,” Alhaitham said tensely. “It’s easier.”
Kaveh grinned in the brilliant way that only he could manage when he wasn’t around Alhaitham. It was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds; it was like watching the gloomy countryside glow green and verdant after a day of rain.
It wasn’t surprising for the Light of Kshawhrewar, except that he was turning that smile on Alhaitham.
“Oh that’s good,” he said, “because it would be harder to tell you that I really, really don’t want to climb all of those stairs otherwise!”
And then he took off running.
Cursing under his breath, Alhaitham sprinted after him. Though Kaveh had been drunk and swaying and stumbling, he was drunk enough that none of that mattered as he sprinted up the many ramps of Sumeru City.
Neither of their shoes were suited for running and even Alhaitham—who was the only sober one between them—struggled to keep his footing. It was only due to some kind of inexplicable magic only available to drunk people that Kaveh didn’t fall or slip too badly.
There was as a moment that he nearly did though, his soft slippers slipping on the mossy cobblestones of the path and sending him careening toward the arched stone railings lining the walkway. Beyond it was open air, and maybe a branch of the great tree several body-lengths below, and falling off such a height without a glider and while heavily inebriated would spell certain death.
Desperately, Alhaitham activated his Vision and dashed forward, managing to wrap his arms around Kaveh and stop them both before they tumbled over the edge.
“My, Mister!” Kaveh laughed. His hands were pinned to Alhaitham’s chest, but he could feel Kaveh wiggling them, moving as if he was trying to speak with his hands again. “How bold! I’m a taken man, you know.”
Alhaitham swallowed the sour taste of jealousy in his mouth and shook off the oily fear in his gut. “I apologize,” he said stiffly, “that I did not want to watch you fall to your death.”
Kaveh laughed too-loudly and Alhaitham flinched. “Can you imagine such a headline though? Haiyi would probably think I did it to myself.”
Haiyi?
Alhaitham remembered the old nickname, of course. People in the Akademiya used to call him that because he was so new. They had called him “Haithoomi” too. Alhaitham had hated it.
But Kaveh…Kaveh had not known that and with that sunshine-bright smile, had called him “Haiyi”, because Haiyi (as Kaveh thought his name was) was his own person and Kaveh could never presume to call him “mine”.
He’d hated it, still, but the fact that some random person, a complete stranger, had put such thought into a stupid, silly nickname had made him pause.
“He’d hate to hear me call him that,” Kaveh said in an eerie echo of Alhaitham’s thoughts. He giggled. “I called him that when we were young. I didn’t know it wasn’t his name. People were making fun of him and then used me calling him that as an excuse to keep calling him that.” He went limp suddenly and Alhaitham struggled to grip him firmly enough to not let him fall. “I yelled at them until they stopped. It didn’t work so I told the teachers and they made them stop.”
Alhaitham didn’t know that.
He also wasn’t sure how that wouldn’t have made anything worse. After all, children loved to do things that they were explicitly told not to do.
Kaveh swayed and grinned dizzily up at Alhaitham. “You wanna hear a secret?” he asked. At the same time, his hands said, secret, secret, don’t tell . Before Alhaitham could answer, he said, “I fought them. So they’d stop.”
“That was a stupid thing to do,” Alhaitham scolded him and hated that it made something warm bloom inside of him. It was a long time ago, back when children had not yet learned to regulate their tempers or reactions, and so long ago that Alhaitham would have forgotten it if he was not the way that he was.
So why had Kaveh remembered?
“Do you want to hear a secret?” Kaveh mumbled. For a moment, however brief, he deliberately leaned his weight against Alhaitham. Then, in the way of the heavily inebriated, he straightened suddenly and spun around so that Alhaitham had to let him go, or risk injury. His eyes glittered, dark in his drunkenness, dark in the evening light, in the shadows between broken lampposts.
“Have we not been sharing secrets?” Alhaitham asked. “Surely ‘Haiyi’—” he barely resisted making a face at the name, “—would object to anything more.”
Kaveh laughed. “I want to do a challenge,” he announced. “No stairs!”
Spinning—and nearly falling over with the motion—Kaveh ran toward the next set of winding stairs. Alhaitham sprinted after him, his palms tingling with clammy fear that Kaveh would fall and hurt himself. He bounded with his stupid, slippery shoes along the arched stone railings and nearly made it to the top before he slipped on a patch of moss.
Alhaitham caught him, or nearly did when Kaveh twisted out of the way, rolling over his shoulder and springing to his feet with his arms outstretched like a gymnast.
Archons above, Alhaitham wasn’t sure how much more his nerves—which had never been an issue before—could handle Kaveh's blatant disregard for himself.
“See?” Kaveh asked as he swayed. He stretched a little more, his fingers reaching for the sky and fanning out. His hair was messy and one of the clips in his hair was crooked and only barely hanging on. Stretched as he was, like the triumphant pose of a professional gymnast, his back was arched and his limbs were hyperextended, making them seem to bend in directions that were unnatural for the human body. “I did it!”
“Let’s not do it again,” Alhaitham said, for once struggling to keep his voice even. Sober, Kaveh was reactive but drunk he was worse; if he let his nerves or frustration show, Kaveh would react in turn and he frankly did not feel like losing any more control than he already had. “Let’s keep our feet on the ground. Is that not the intention of a path?”
Kaveh laughed and spun as if trying to pirouette like a dancer. When he wobbled, his hands pinwheeled and Alhaitham dodged a smack to the face. “Where’s the fun in that? Maybe we shouldn’t just blindly follow the path we’re always on. Maybe we’re all meant to do something unexpected. Haiyi doesn’t do it. I wonder if he ever will.”
Not sure what to say to that, Alhaitham took a deep breath. Fortunately, Kaveh actually seemed to be waiting for his answer. He at least lowered his arms and swung them from side to side as if stretching his muscles.
“Okay,” Alhaitham said, because he wasn’t in the mood to argue with a drunk. Not that he was in the mood to go along with a drunk—much less a drunk Kaveh—but sometimes one had to take the path of least resistance.
To an extent, Kaveh was right: Alhaitham did not do anything unexpected, but more accurately he did not do anything he didn’t want to. And while he didn’t particularly want to escort a drunk Kaveh around the dark streets of Sumeru City, he also didn’t want to wake up the next morning and learn that Kaveh had done a forward handspring off the edge because he was playing a game with himself.
“Let’s amend the rules for the sake of safety,” Alhaitham told Kaveh firmly and received such a blinding look of shocked pleasure that he momentarily lost his train of thought. It was only briefly, only a tiny little fumble, but Kaveh had never smiled at him like that and Alhaitham had never encountered such a problem before.
It was like walking out into the sunlight after spending hours in the basement archives of a library: one had thought that they had known light until met with the beauty of the sunlight.
Alhaitham swallowed and steeled himself. “Focus,” he warned Kaveh, speaking with both his mouth and hands. “This game is dangerous.” Danger, danger, danger , his hands said. Be careful .
This time it was Kaveh’s turn to blink. He looked as shocked speechless as if he had been struck and Alhaitham hated how endearing he found it. Then he smiled, his eyes crinkling. Promise, be careful, try , his hands said back. Promise, promise, promise .
“Focus,” Alhaitham reminded Kaveh who nodded with a loose, drunk smile. He swayed in place but watched Alhaitham, eyes darting from his face to his hands. “No walking on the railings,” Alhaitham said, using his hands and lips. “Try not to run. Let’s talk out your plan of action before implementing, so that I can make sure that you won’t hurt yourself.”
Kaveh pouted, expression too exaggerated in his inebriation that he looked more grotesque than endearing and Alhaitham resisted the urge to tease him for it. Or at least, to remind him that he was not a child and that such expressions were unbecoming of an esteemed member of Sumeru City.
Then Kaveh sighed with his whole body, shoulders slumping and head tipping forward. “ Fine ,” he groaned, a great heaving breath that was more noise than a definitive word, but Alhaitham did not need to pick up his voice nor did he need to read Kaveh’s lips to know what he was saying.
Some days it disturbed him how well they knew each other, even though neither of them wanted to admit it. Both of them were incredibly observant (sometimes) and their cohabitation meant that it was unavoidable that they would notice things about each other.
Alhaitham almost considered it yet another language that he was just about fluent in.
“But if I don’t run, then how will I not climb the stairs?” Kaveh asked like a child being denied a sweet. “The stairs are lava!”
They most certainly were not, but Alhaitham knew better than to argue logic with a drunk Kaveh. “I will help you,” he said simply. It felt strange to say those words out loud to Kaveh. His pride would not allow himself to accept too much help, much less help from Alhaitham. More often than not, Alhaitham had to manipulate things to make it seem that it was Kaveh’s idea all along or make it seem that it would be sweet revenge for Kaveh to impose on him further, if only to be petty and annoying.
“Why would anyone help me?” Kaveh asked with a little laugh.
“The ‘why’ is irrelevant,” Alhaitham replied. “Is it not enough that I will help you?”
A strangely vulnerable look crossed Kaveh’s face and he looked away. He looked back to say, “Don’t.”
Just a single word, but the meaning in it was worth an entire dissertation.
Alhaitham watched Kaveh who swayed, seemingly content with remaining still for the moment. He wasn’t one to offer comfort, wasn’t entirely sure he knew how to, and for the first time it frustrated him.
“I do not do things that I do not want to do,” Alhaitham said carefully, hoping that Kaveh could read the meaning behind it as well as Alhaitham could read the meaning behind Kaveh’s single-word answer. “Nor do I say things that I do not mean. I do not do things for personal gain, or for professional gain, or monetary gain. If I say that I will help you, then I will help you.”
Kaveh watched him with watery eyes. Then he shook his head so hard that he stumbled and Alhaitham caught him by the elbow.
Some kind of spell seemed to have been broken and Kaveh, in his alcohol-muddled state, switched to another topic. “I want to go on an adventure.”
“Where would you like to go?” Alhaitham asked. “You are scheduled to return to the desert in a few days.”
Kaveh blew out a puff of air derisively and Alhaitham made a face when spittle smelling strongly of spirits sprayed against his cheek. With the back of the hand not holding Kaveh’s elbow, he scrubbed his cheek dry.
“Sorry,” Kaveh said and swayed closer into Alhaitham’s orbit. He squinted. “You look familiar. Very pretty. I know someone else so pretty; I’m sorry, but you’re not that pretty. Not as pretty as the person I’m thinking of.”
Alhaitham, perhaps for the first time, wondered how irresponsible of him it would be if he turned off his headphones and returned to blessed silence. He didn’t trust Kaveh to accidentally throw himself off the many terraces of the city, so he supposed that a great deal of mortification was what he should expect until he could get Kaveh back to their house.
“I thought that…the stairs were lava?” Alhaitham suggested. He tugged Kaveh’s elbow and pointed ahead, to the next set of stairs which once more arched out over open air. “I don’t think you should try to climb the railing again.”
Kaveh pouted again and drool slipped out of the corner of his mouth. Abruptly, Alhaitham was reminded of stories of drugged animals from Tighnari, where they’d been tranquilized to allow veterinarians or scientists to approach and sometimes their relaxed faces ended up soaked in their own drool. In some ways, Alhaitham supposed that Kaveh was just like those animals given his current state and wasn’t sure if it was funny or not.
Perhaps later, when he wasn’t worried about Kaveh accidentally killing himself by insisting that stairs were lava, he might find the thought amusing, but certainly not when he was attempting (poorly) to manage the moods and actions of a drunk adult man.
“But the stairs are lava ,” Kaveh whined as if that made a difference. He used his hands to say, sad, sad, sad .
“And if you fall, you are too inebriated to catch yourself,” Alhaitham pointed out. He pointed to a nearby wall. “But I can give you a boost to the next level from here.”
Kaveh’s smile was blinding and after some shimmying, Alhaitham was able to more or less throw Kaveh up to the next half-level. Shaking his head to himself at his own foolishness, he activated his Vision again and jumped up, making Kaveh yelp.
For a moment, Kaveh stared at him as Alhaitham brushed imaginary dust off himself and straightened his clothes and headphones. Then he laughed, high and wheezing, and wrapped his arms around his stomach. “Stop, you’ll make me puke.”
“Please don’t,” Alhaitham said. “And please keep your voice down, we’re in the residential area.”
Kaveh nodded with exaggerated motions of his torso, looking like the silly bobbing birds that Alhaitham had seen on the desk of younger Scribes and students. Alhaitham watched as Kaveh tried to put a finger to his lips and nearly punched himself in the face.
“I think the place I stay is nearby,” Kaveh said in another drunken shift of mood. He lifted his head like a hound, peering at the houses around them.
Alhaitham paused. “The place you stay?” he asked, hating that he somehow felt hurt by that. Fortunately, Kaveh was either too drunk or too distracted to notice.
“I’m not wanted there,” Kaveh said with heartbreaking candor. “It’s just…more charity. Pity.”
“I don’t think you understand the situation, then,” Alhaitham said stiffly.
Kaveh smiled foolishly at him. “That’s cute,” he said and patted Alhaitham’s cheek. Or rather, that seemed to be his intention; instead, he slapped Alhaitham twice and tripped into his chest again.
Biting back a sigh, Alhaitham caught Kaveh and steadied him until he could get his feet beneath him once more. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to grope you.”
There was no groping, not even to Alhaitham’s distaste for physical contact with others. Unless Kaveh considered contact between his face and Alhaitham’s collarbone “groping”. He didn’t say anything, offering an awkward pat on the shoulder as Kaveh straightened himself.
It was awkward between them, but Alhaitham had already figured out that he only had to wait out the refresh rate of Kaveh’s single braincell (as Tighnari would describe it) before he jumped excitedly to another topic.
He grabbed one of Alhaitham’s hands in both of his and grinned up at Alhaitham. “Come on,” he said, tugging his arm the way that Alhaitham had seen young children tug on the arms of their parents. “Let me show you something.”
“Show me what?” Alhaitham asked warily.
“Shh,” Kaveh said and stumbled as he pulled harder on Alhaitham’s arm. If he had been sober, Alhaitham thought that he might be able to succeed in pulling him, but while drunk all he did was wobble at the end of his arm like a small dog at the end of a leash.
It was strangely endearing.
Was it possible to get contact-drunk? Or was it a function of the evening, the way that the moon sat in the sky, that made the world seem more like a dream than waking reality?
“Where are we going?” Alhaitham asked.
Kaveh grinned. “I’ll show you. Don’t worry, it’s safe.”
To be fair, Kaveh had also thought that playing “the stairs are lava” while so abysmally inebriated was “safe” as well. Alhaitham considered Kaveh and said it out loud.
“But you caught me,” Kaveh said with a trusting smile that suddenly made Alhaitham uncomfortable. Something awful and cold and oily settled in his gut. “And you didn’t let me fall. So as long as I’m with you, then I’m safe.”
Alhaitham wasn’t sure how to respond. “That is…illogical.”
Giggling, Kaveh leaned back, still holding Alhaitham’s hand, and Alhaitham braced himself so that Kaveh wouldn’t fall over. After a moment of hesitation—during which Kaveh continued to giggle quietly to himself—Alhaitham curled his arm, bringing Kaveh back into an upright position.
The look of surprise on Kaveh’s face was incredibly satisfying. He let go with one hand and used it to touch Alhaitham’s bicep. “Wow, my friend is so strong.”
“Or perhaps you are too thin,” Alhaitham replied. “Do you remember to eat?”
He knew that Kaveh doesn’t. It’s a chronic problem. He doesn’t eat, he forgets to drink water, and seems to exist off a diet of coffee, debt, and antagonism toward Alhaitham.
Nevertheless, he relaxed his arm and allowed Kaveh to tug him down the gold-lit roads with a cheer. “Be quiet,” Alhaitham chided a little too harshly.
Kaveh’s eyes were wide and surprised, and Alhaitham for once felt guilty for apparently startling him. His smile was wobbly. “Okay,” he said in an exaggerated whisper. “Come on, come on.”
To Alhaitham’s surprise, Kaveh wheeled around, squinting at their surroundings as if to orient himself. As if he actually wasn’t sure where to go; as if he had known his destination but not the journey.
Admittedly, it was a very Kaveh thing to do. Sometimes, the details escaped him; sometimes, they prevented him from moving forward.
“This way,” Alhaitham thought he said. Even though the evening air was quiet, it was still sometimes difficult for him to pick up Kaveh’s voice. It didn’t matter how much he enjoyed hearing it, how often he listened for it specifically—in the end, at least in this, he was at the mercy of technology.
But Kaveh tugged on his hand and Alhaitham followed.
“This is nice,” Kaveh said, turning to face Alhaitham. He grinned and, because he wasn’t looking where he was going, ran into a bench, hissing in pain when his knee hit the edge.
“Are you okay?” Alhaitham asked. When Kaveh didn’t respond, he pushed him into the bench and knelt down to carefully press the skin around his knee.
Kaveh laughed, his leg kicking reflexively in Alhaitham’s hand. “Oh my, what will people think? That I have such a handsome man on his knees in front of me?” Alhaitham looked up at Kaveh to gauge his reaction, unsure if he should apologize for caring, just in time to see a strangely vulnerable and unsure expression cross his face. It looked so out of place that Alhaitham’s fingers froze where they cradled Kaveh’s knee. “What would Haiyi think?”
Suddenly, Alhaitham was exhausted. These were secrets that were not meant for him, were things that Kaveh clearly didn’t want him to know and things that he’d never say to him while sober. If he knew that the “handsome man” in front of him was really Alhaitham, he would react poorly.
If he knew that Alhaitham had heard such things—had heard him referring to him as “Haiyi”, had learned about whatever foolish fights that Kaveh had gotten into when they were young—he would…well, Alhaitham didn’t want to talk about it. He was petty and he was cruel (so everyone, especially Kaveh, said) but he did not deliberately play with anyone’s emotions.
He did not manipulate people if he could help it.
Alhaitham pulled his hands back, clenching them into fists. “I apologize,” he said stiffly. “Shall we keep going?”
Turning away, he got to his feet and stepped back to a respectful distance, tucking his hands behind his back.
Kaveh looked stricken, in the too-honest way that was only present when he was incredibly inebriated and Alhaitham reprioritized everything. He mustn’t forget that Kaveh was drunk. That Kaveh hated him. This interaction—any pleasant interaction between them—was just a dream.
(It hurt, though. Alhaitham was not a caring man, was not the kind of person to disregard logic for the sake of emotion, but he would do anything to make Kaveh smile. Almost anything, at least. He was selfish enough to keep himself a part of Kaveh’s life if only to make sure that he didn’t spiral deeper into debt, if only to be able to provide him with meals and a place to stay even if Kaveh thought that it was a requirement for him to pay rent.
He would surround himself with thorns that hurt those around him, even Kaveh, so that Kaveh would not have to swallow his pride in order to accept help. Reminders of rent and empty threats of debt to Alhaitham, not just Kaveh’s debtors, would make it seem more of a transaction than the truth, which was that everything of Alhaitham’s was Kaveh’s.)
Kaveh reached for him, fingers outstretched, before pausing and letting his fingers curl inward. Sorry, sorry, sorry , he said with his hands. Did I do something wrong?
There was a burst of noise from one of the lower terraces of the city, and the distant sound of music from the courtyard near Lambad’s Tavern. For the first time in a very, very long time, Alhaitham did not trust his own voice.
You have done nothing wrong, he said with his hands instead. It was easier at that moment to keep his hands steady than his voice.
Kaveh wrapped his arms around his stomach and looked down between his shoes. His lips trembled. “I think I just want to go home. I’m sorry for bothering you.”
“You are not bothering me,” Alhaitham replied, struggling to keep the frustration, the exhaustion, the agony out of his voice. “I would not be here if you were. I am known to not do things that I don’t want to do, so if I’m here, then I want to be here.”
Slowly, Kaveh lifted his head and looked at Alhaitham, though it was clear that he wasn’t exactly seeing Alhaitham. “You and Haiyi would get along well.”
“How so?”
Kaveh shook his head. “I don’t want to go home yet.”
A part of Alhaitham very selfishly wanted him to stay out, to walk off his melancholy and restlessness before they went to sleep. It wasn’t like Alhaitham wasn’t prepared to leave his headphones on all night so he could make sure that Kaveh was alright, but it would ease a lot of his worries if he knew that Kaveh was actually tired before they returned.
Another part of him had been hoping they’d return. He wanted the night to be over, wanted to curl up and attempt to sleep the memory of the night away.
“Where do you want to go?”
The mood was ruined, even Alhaitham could see that. Kaveh seemed drunk enough that he wasn’t as adept at faking his pleasant mood (for anyone not Alhaitham) as usual. His mouth still trembled and his eyes were too wet.
“Have you been to the top of the city?”
Alhaitham was almost surprised. “Yes,” he said. “I live near there, and I went to the Akademiya.”
It was dangerous. If Kaveh found out that his mysterious “handsome man” was Alhaitham, he would probably become belligerent. Then again, if that happened, it wouldn’t surprise Alhaitham. His luck in many things related to Kaveh had always been rather poor.
But Kaveh didn’t ask. He just nodded and pushed himself to his feet. “Have you been to the top of the city, then?”
“Yes,” Alhaitham said, even though he had already answered.
Kaveh hummed. “Have you climbed over the railing?” he asked. “Into the tree itself?”
“No,” Alhaitham admitted. “Nor do I intend to, even if I was wearing my glider.”
It was clear that Kaveh was still drunk, though much more muted. He swayed while he walked and oscillated from one end of the walkway to the other and back. A few times, he bumped into Alhaitham’s side and he jerked back as if burned, overcorrecting his trajectory and nearly tripping each time.
After even that brief moment where Kaveh had grabbed his hand to lead him along, Alhaitham found himself missing the touch.
“I want to show you the tree,” Kaveh muttered.
“Maybe not tonight.”
Kaveh hummed in the distracted way that the heavily intoxicated sometimes did. His energy seemed to be leaving him and he was becoming more agreeable and less—or so Alhaitham thought—likely to run off again.
But the longer they walked, the more that Kaveh seemed to sink in on himself. “Are you mad at me?” he asked abruptly, a sudden burst of sound in the otherwise quiet night that made Alhaitham jump.
Alhaitham took a deep breath and turned to Kaveh, concerned to find that he was no longer next to him. He had stopped a few steps behind and wrapped his arms around his stomach as if he was going to be sick. The look on his face was the exaggerated expression of the heavily intoxicated, his face twisted in a look of despair that broke Alhaitham’s heart.
Taking his silence as a sign that Alhaitham couldn’t hear him, Kaveh said with his hands, mad at me? It looked like it pained him to move them from his stomach, as if they were all that had been holding everything of him inside.
I’m not mad at you , Alhaitham signed back.
But Kaveh wasn’t looking at him, which negated talking with his hands. After a moment of hesitation, Alhaitham reached out and touched Kaveh’s elbow. He did not enjoy touch—it made his skin itch—but Kaveh was a tactile person. He draped arms around shoulders, bumped elbows against sides. He smiled, he touched, and when he needed comfort, he also needed to be held and seen and understood and validated.
Alhaitham had never been able to give him that, even if a sober Kaveh would allow him.
“I’m not mad at you,” Alhaitham said out loud and, when Kaveh didn’t flinch away—the way he would if he knew that Alhaitham was the one touching him—he followed the tense line of his crossed arm to his wrist, then his hand, and gently took it in his.
Their hands were both callused by their own jobs. There was some overlap—callused knuckles from writing and drawing—but Alhaitham had sword calluses and Kaveh had calluses from wielding building tools as well as drafting tools. He had never said such, but Alhaitham knew that he could hardly let the builders work alone and was more often than not a participant in the building as well as the supervisor. Nothing too much, not a full day of work, but he was present to raise walls and hold things and help builders at a particularly difficult area. His blood, sweat, and tears were ground into the very bones of everything he built.
Kaveh’s skin was tough on his hands, the one deviation from the vanity that had him using expensive moisturizer to keep the rest of him delicate and beautiful. His hands were his tools and though Kaveh loved beautiful things and works of art, his tools were always well-worn and well-loved and chosen for function and efficiency rather than beauty.
He tangled their fingers together, biting back his disgust at his gross misconduct—how he was taking advantage of Kaveh’s inebriation, his need for touch, for his own enjoyment of something that he’d never be allowed had Kaveh been sober—and told himself that this was efficient. It was harder for Kaveh to run off when his drunken mood eventually swung, pendulum-like, back to excited and adventurous.
“I’m not mad at you,” Alhaitham repeated firmly and Kaveh stared at him, his mouth parted in a look of drunken shock. “Come on,” he said, squeezing the hand in his. “Didn’t you want to show me something?”
Kaveh’s smile was shaky and tentative, but grew when Alhaitham didn’t let go. He tugged their joined arms and awkwardly squeezed back, as if he had forgotten how to work his own hand. His palms were sweaty in the cool evening air, but Alhaitham was surprised that it didn’t repulse him.
Then again, Kaveh was the exception to many of the rules that Alhaitham had thought were natural laws in his universe.
“I want to show you the sky,” Kaveh said like a lover’s confession, breathless and earnest. “I want to show you…everything.” His drunken mind seemed to have already forgotten his earlier distress but Alhaitham could still see it in the tension of his shoulders, the pleading in his eyes. He didn’t know how to comfort him, or what kind of comfort that Kaveh needed most, but he knew how to distract him.
Alhaitham gently traded hands, moving Kaveh’s right hand into his right hand. It was awkward, as if hands were not meant to hold each other in such a way, and he solidified their grip by tangling his fingers together with Kaveh’s. With his left, he touched Kaveh’s waist, slipping beneath his scarf to press against the soft material of his shirt.
It was a dancer’s embrace, like the waltzes seen on Mondsdat and Fontaine, and Kaveh craned his neck uncomfortably to look back at Alhaitham with wide eyes. Alhaitham gently nudged him with a hip, feeling oddly playful—perhaps he was becoming contact-drunk, drunk by the mere proximity of Kaveh’s inebriation.
Perhaps he was simply drunk off the proximity to Kaveh, regardless of his sobriety or lack of it.
Alhaitham tugged him forward until his toes touched the next steps and then nudged Kaveh with his hip toward the railing. “Did you not say that the stairs were lava?” he asked.
“You said that I shouldn’t climb on the railings,” Kaveh whispered. Alhaitham almost couldn’t hear him, his words stolen by the wind and by the noise coming from Lambad’s Tavern and the many little alcoves where street musicians and entertainers had set themselves up. But in the golden light of the lamppost nearby, Alhaitham could read the words directly from Kaveh’s lips.
“If you walk slowly and lean on me, I will be beside you,” Alhaitham said. “I will not let you fall again.”
He had meant it in a literal sense: if Kaveh walked carefully, if he leaned toward Alhaitham rather than away, then Alhaitham could easily catch him. But despite his intentions, it felt deeper than that in a way that made him feel too seen, too visible, too open. Too many truths were revealed in a few words and if it was not Kaveh, if he was not drunk, if they were not alone at the base of the stairs, Alhaitham would have been distressed.
But the silver light of the moon, the golden light of the lamppost, the indigo mantle of the night, and the sparkle of the stars like gems made the world feel like a dream. Alhaitham would perhaps be…distressed by the honesty in his words at a later date, in the light of day, but for the moment he only felt calm and steady, like a rock standing before the force of the river. He would be worn down but not moved.
He would do all of that and more for Kaveh.
“Okay,” Kaveh’s lips said and he stepped on the first arch of the railing.
They took it one step at a time, Kaveh rising and falling with the arches of the railing. A few times he wobbled and Alhaitham tugged him closer and Kaveh clutched his hand hard enough that Alhaitham felt his knuckles pop, but he didn’t run, he didn’t jump. He seemed strangely intent on it all, his left hand coming to rest on Alhaitham’s, where it gripped his waist.
Too soon, they reached the top of the steps and Kaveh hopped off the railing to the terrace. It only felt natural to pull Kaveh closer, like the nearly-forgotten steps of a waltz that Alhaitham had once learned what felt like a thousand years ago. But this wasn’t a waltz, it wasn’t a dance, and in no sense of the word was Kaveh his partner.
When Alhaitham moved to let Kaveh go, his grip tightened and kept his hands where they were. “We need to go higher,” Kaveh mumbled, looking down and away. If he said anything else, Alhaitham couldn’t hear him.
He had turned down the intakes on his headphones, too overwhelmed by the noise of even the quietest market crowd and he hadn’t realized how difficult it was to hear Kaveh like this, where their voices softened the higher they climbed the terraces of the city. As if they stepped deeper and deeper into a dream, and a single loud noise would destroy the illusion.
(If he was having such a hard time hearing Kaveh, then he must have been shouting earlier, or had been talking at an awful volume. How many people had overheard them? How many had overheard them talking about “Haiyi” and his deafness? Alhaitham told himself that he wasn’t self conscious of his disability, but neither did he appreciate people treating him strangely because of it—and even if no one had known, even people had interacted with him many times before, he knew that once they knew that he was deaf, he would be treated differently. It was the natural order of things. Alhaitham hated it.)
Without his hands, he couldn’t adjust his intakes. “I cannot hear you,” Alhaitham said, forcing his voice to remain even and neutral. “Can you look at me?”
Kaveh did, his eyes wide and dark with his inebriation. “I’m sorry,” he said. His voice remained hushed but Alhaitham could easily read the words from his lips.
(Unbidden, foolishly, Alhaitham wondered what the words would taste like when tasted against his lips. On Alhaitham’s own lips, apologies tasted bitter; would it taste sweet on Kaveh’s? Warm? He threw so much of himself into words and actions, he was so earnest in everything he did, that surely it must taste just as powerful?
But those were thoughts that were unfair both to Alhaitham and Kaveh. Once upon a time, if things had turned out differently, perhaps Alhaitham would have been able to know the answer to that. But the ship had long since sailed and Alhaitham could only stand on the docks and watch it disappear into the horizon. There was no sense in standing there any longer, wanting for another chance.)
“We need to go higher.” Kaveh’s eyes flicked over Alhaitham’s shoulder and saw their own house, nestled deceptively against the trunk of the great tree that housed the City.
When he had first moved in—a long, long time ago, a lifetime ago—Kaveh had marveled at how the house seemed even larger than it should have been, simple but beautiful with its green stained-glass windows and large open living areas. The rooms weren’t large, but it had a study area that could fit Kaveh’s drafting table and enough bookshelves to fit most of their combined book collection. Now, books of architecture and standardized measurements of buildings and design, engineering books, and books describing the tension and flexion and standards of materials coexisted next to obscure books of linguistics and symbology and the published works of studies of the runes found in King Deshret’s tomb.
It was a fit of selfishness that kept Alhaitham from rearranging them all. They were arranged precariously, but Kaveh had been the one to put them that way, and the integration of their studies never failed to make something warm and painful bloom in his chest.
(Was it wishful thinking that kept Alhaitham from rearranging them? There was a more efficient way to do it, but the aesthetics of their combined books made it seem like they were more intertwined than they were. He wished that was the case.)
“Okay,” Alhaitham said simply and the two of them walked, like dancers across a ballroom, to the next set of stairs. The guards that usually flanked the stairs weren’t present, and Alhaitham was ridiculously glad for it—he didn’t want anyone else to see Kaveh like that, tucked into the crook of Alhaitham’s arm like he belonged there. He didn’t belong there, was the thing; he was only there because he was drunk.
But selfishly, Alhaitham let him stay there, let the warmth of his body heat what Kaveh always insisted was the cold void of Alhaitham’s heart. To Kaveh, he was ice that never melted, was the kind of cold that only stole heat and never warmed.
To be fair, he was right and Alhaitham had no right to be so hurt by those words.
Kaveh stepped carefully on the next railing and Alhaitham braced him and walking beside him, steadied him as they climbed higher to the terrace that sat just below the Akademiya.
It was a popular destination for people: at the start of the school year, new students would stand with their parents to take pictures of their first day in front of the great doors and imposing structure and on most other days, art students could be seen, sprawled out over the wide platform as they painted the trees and the view of the city below them. Tourists visited too, but were often scared away by the presence of the guards, unsure if they were allowed to be in such a place but not knowing that the terrace was still considered a public space.
So late at night, it was empty save for the Light of Kshahrewar and the Acting Grand Sage, one of which was drunk, the other of which was…Alhaitham shook his head as he helped Kaveh step down from the low railing.
“I hope you don’t want to climb any higher,” Alhaitham commented. The wind had picked up, making it harder to hear Kaveh and the music rising into the trees from below them. He wondered distractedly if Lambad was signing—he sometimes did, if he was in a good enough mood, and the energy around the tavern when Alhaitham had passed by had seemed like it would be enough to get Lambad in high spirits.
Quite literally as just like his patrons, Lambad enjoyed drinking though he was understandably much more cautious about it. One couldn’t be drunk while working, and a drunk tavern owner might make rash decisions that would affect his business.
“It’s windy,” Kaveh said, craning his head to look up at Alhaitham. “Can you hear me alright?”
It was an odd detail to notice. “Do I need to?” Alhaitham wondered. “I can read lips and we can speak with our hands if need be.”
Kaveh pouted and squeezed Alhaitham’s fingers. “But we’d have to let go,” he complained. His voice was still hushed, but despite the liquor that had to be slurring his words, they were clear on his lips in ways that they weren’t even when he was sober. “And I like this.”
“Did you want to walk any higher?” Alhaitham asked instead of commenting on it.
Grinning, Kaveh wiggled free of Alhaitham’s grip despite his earlier comments and walked out into the middle of the terrace. One might think that with the Akademiya so close, that there would be more people out. Formal education of adolescents in other countries came with drinking and parties, and taverns and pubs flourished just off of their campuses. But with the strict rules of the Akademiya and requirements for study, it was not common for any student to have that much free time.
So only Alhaitham had the honor of watching Kaveh spin in the middle of the terrace, arms outstretched as if basking in the moonlight. He was saying something, Alhaitham could see his lips moving, but he was spinning and the wind blew away his wods. Cautiously, Alhaitham adjusted the sensitivity of his headphones and heard Kaveh humming something, his voice cutting in and out as he turned.
“Be careful,” Alhaitham said. “Or you might get dizzy.”
Kaveh swung to a stop and swayed. His smile made it seem like the morning had come early, that the sunlight had come out from behind the clouds after a day of rain. “I want to show you something,” he said.
“Okay,” Alhaitham said. “What is it?”
Stumbling forward—clearly dizzy from spinning around while drunk—Kaveh grabbed Alhaitham’s hand in both of his and tugged him toward the railing.
“Be careful of the edge,” Alhaitham cautioned.
Kaveh smiled and dropped to his knees. “Okay,” he said, and Alhaitham’s head was filled with static to see him on the ground like that, kneeling in front of him like the most devout before their Archon. He wondered if, had he been born with the ability to hear naturally, his ears would be ringing.
He knew that Kaveh didn’t mean things like that. He didn’t mean to imply what Alhaitham’s filthy mind had imagined. For all he was unrestrained in many things, he was still a startlingly private person. Even drunk, that wouldn’t change and though the terrace was quiet, it still wasn’t private .
“I’ll be careful,” Kaveh said and Alhaitham watched him crawl toward the edge, heedless of the dust and grime he was getting on his clothes.
Alhaitham watched quietly as he swung his legs around, threading them through the arches of the railings. Humming, clearly pleased with himself, Kaveh let his legs swing over the edge while he folded his arms over the railing as if it was a desk.
He was facing a branch, so that his view of the surrounding land was blocked by dark bark covered in moss and by dark leaves. Alhaitham didn’t need to see Kaveh’s face to know that he was pouting.
That didn’t mean that he was prepared for Kaveh to twist around and pout at Alhaitham, though. His face was twisted just as grotesquely as before, trying for a cute pout (or so Alhaitham would assume) but instead passing his mark. It was still strangely endearing, and if he was being honest with himself (and he tried to be), Alhaitham found it endlessly, frustratingly adorable. So perhaps Kaveh had reached his goal, even if it was in a strange and roundabout way.
“Help me?” he asked, and Alhaitham took a moment to marvel at the words.
Being honest, he wasn’t sure that Kaveh knew those words in that specific combination. He wasn’t one to ask for help, being obsessed with his image. Why would he ever need to ask for help? Wasn’t he the Light of Kshahrewar, wasn’t he a famous architect, wasn’t he, wasn’t he, wasn’t he?
Asking for help was something that his pride would not allow, a glowing sign that highlighted a weakness in the armor he had drawn around himself with sun-brilliant smiles and kind words.
He hadn’t even asked for help when he was so far in debt he was drowning in the numbers, when they had repossessed everything he had and he only had a few mora to his name that he spent on liquor to wash away his troubles. Alhaitham had known that something was wrong the moment he’d laid eyes on Kaveh in Lambad’s Tavern, having swung by on a whim to get something to eat for dinner.
Even then, having hit rock bottom so hard and so fast that he was still reeling, he refused to ask for help. In fact, Alhaitham had needed to argue for him to accept it, to add boundaries when Alhaitham hadn’t wanted to, all in order to make it seem transactional to let Kaveh’s pride accept the offer. They’d fought over it as they ate dinner, which Kaveh had tried to pay for without knowing that Alhaitham had discreetly opened a tab with Lambad.
He didn’t ask for help moving his few belongings, or cleaning out the dusty guest room in Alhaitham’s house for his own use. He didn’t ask for help setting up or moving in, and though he complained about Alhaitham not cleaning up after himself, he never actually implied that Alhaitham do anything like housework. Likewise, he never actually asked for help getting back after a night of drinking—that was always Alhaitham, or Tighnari, or Cyno doing it themselves, helping him into bed, gently pulling the clips from his hair, braiding it for sleep so that he didn’t roll over and accidentally pull on it in his sleep. They did it out of their own love for him, making sure he had a hangover cure and medicine for headaches, and a glass of water on the bedside table so that when he woke, he could address the issue as soon as his eyes opened.
Even drunk, Kaveh never asked for help undressing (though they had all seen him in various states of undress over the years of knowing him, given his distressing habit of drinking his woes away) or undoing any of the tricky clasps and twists of his clothes. He never asked for help with his shoes, which were tied and buckled and were a little too fitted to be easily toed off by a drunk man. He never asked for help when he was sick and his hair was falling into his sweaty face, or sick from working too hard and eating too little and pouring his heart on a thin sheet of vellum that his client would then disregard as easily as a used napkin.
So a part of Alhaitham reeled to hear him ask for help for something as silly as finding a place to sit on the terrace overlooking the countryside. Nevertheless, Alhaitham wrapped his arms around Kaveh’s torso and bodily lifted him, pulling them both backwards away from the edge in case a stray gust of wind overbalanced them.
Kaveh rested his hands on Alhaitham’s forearms and thumbed the bulging muscles there. He was dead weight in the way that drunk people and cats were, so Alhaitham held him until he thought to put his feet beneath him and take back his own weight. “You’re so strong, Handsome Man,” he said loud enough for Alhaitham’s headphones to pick up his voice. Then he used his hands to say handsome , but it looked strange to see the sign from behind as if he had signed it himself.
Far too soon in Alhaitham’s opinion, Kaveh wiggled until his feet were beneath him and he shifted his weight until he was standing. Alhaitham released him and hated how cold he felt.
Grabbing Alhaitham’s hand, Kaveh tangled their fingers together and wheeled to look around the terrace. “There!” he said, and pointed to a different area of the terrace, where the great branches of the tree parted and they could see the verdant hills and trees of the surrounding countryside. The earth was stained silver, the green of the trees and grass blue-green, beneath the silver moonlight. As high up as they were, Alhaitham wondered if, getting the right angle between hills and trees, they could see the lights of the ranger outposts.
Kaveh cautiously approached the edge, still clutching Alhaitham’s hand, and shuffled on his knees to the railing again. He pressed Alhaitham’s knuckles painfully against the stone, clearly forgetting they were holding hands, as he wiggled his legs through the railing once more. Unable to resist (both because it was Kaveh’s whim and because Kaveh was still holding tightly to his hand), Alhaitham joined him.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Kaveh asked, trying to use his hands to say beautiful , but they were still caught up in Alhaitham’s so that it didn’t look right at all.
Helplessly, Alhaitham thought that if he was the type to laugh or giggle easily, he would. What he felt instead was just a warm bloom of fondness in his chest.
“Hey,” Kaveh said suddenly, twisting in his seat, bumping his ribs against the railing to look at Alhaitham. “Do you have a name-sign?”
Alhaitham paused. So few people knew that he was deaf that, despite Kaveh clearly knowing, it still felt strange to be asked such things. Even other deaf people didn’t ask and seemed happy to wait as he finger-spelled his name. But just as Kaveh hid his problems behind a sunny smile, Alhaitham hid that part of him away.
“I don’t use it,” Alhaitham replied. “I usually just spell my name.”
Kaveh hummed. “Okay,” he said and Alhaitham wondered just how drunk he was. Some moments he seemed close to clarity and other moments he was childlike in his inability to keep on the same topic. “Isn’t it beautiful here?”
“It is,” Alhaitham agreed, even though he was fairly certain that they weren’t talking about the same thing.
“I always wanted to do this,” Kaveh said suddenly. “Bring someone here. Under the light of the moon and show them…” he gestured with both hands and one of Alhaitham’s, at everything and nothing at once. “But who would I bring? Why would they ever…” His almost-cheerful mood soured and he sighed, back into his melancholy daze. He leaned against the low stone railings and sighed again.
Alhaitham wondered if he should remind Kaveh that his hand was trapped, but decided that despite the uncomfortable angle, it was fine. His skin might be scraped later, but that was a problem for him to address in the light of day.
“Why am I doing this?” Kaveh asked. “What is the point of it all?”
“I’m afraid that I was never good at philosophy,” Alhaitham told him.
Kaveh gestured to everything and nothing again, tugging Alhaitham’s hand along. “Everything moves on. Every day still comes no matter how much you don’t want the night to end. Even the great King Deshret’s kingdom crumbled to dust. What is the point to doing anything?”
Ah.
“Did you have a difficult time with a client?” Alhaitham asked.
“Am I that obvious?” Kaveh asked and slumped over the railing. His thumb rubbed absently against the side of Alhaitham’s trapped hand. He didn’t seem to be aware that the thing he was holding was alive, much less was connected to another human being. He heaved another heavy sigh. “I just…want to make a difference in the world.”
“Someone once told me that not everything needs to be a grand gesture,” Alhaitham said. His head ached, and it was difficult to hear Kaveh the way he was turned away, and the sound of the music however-far below them made it difficult to focus. But he couldn’t say that to Kaveh—he had the feeling that this kind of conversation could not have eye contact. That the fears that were being bared would hide and their courage to speak of them would fail if they looked at each other.
He used his other hand to adjust the sensitivity of his headphones again. It hurt, but for Kaveh he would endure; he had the feeling that even though Kaveh was so incredibly intoxicated that there was a fairly good chance that he wouldn’t remember it, this was a conversation that they desperately needed to have.
“Can you hear me alright?” Kaveh asked, thoughtful even in his drunken melancholy.
“I turned my headphones up,” Alhaitham admitted after a pause, unsure that he should admit that much. He wasn’t used to the truth of his deafness being a thing to talk about. Neither Cyno nor Tighnari ever brought it up either, in the frighteningly observant way of theirs; after being told that he sometimes has difficulty hearing them and why, they only asked what they could do to make it easier for him and then never spoke of it again.
There was never a discussion of Kaveh knowing, of Kaveh learning at some point how to speak with his hands, of Kaveh knowing and not saying anything .
It was frightening, if Alhaitham was one to allow himself to feel that kind of fear, and it was new and Alhaitham wasn’t sure how to move forward with the knowledge.
“Does it hurt?” Kaveh asked. “Can I see?”
“What is there to see?” Alhaitham wondered. “I’m deaf.”
Kaveh hummed. “Can I see your headphones?”
“Not now.”
“Okay.”
In the distance, Alhaitham saw movement on the hills. A shroomboar? Someone from an Eremite camp hidden by the trees? A caravan? It was late for all of them, but not out of the realm of possibility.
“Is it more or less pathetic that I’m sad?” Kaveh asked suddenly.
Alhaitham hummed thoughtfully. “It’s not pathetic to be sad,” he said. “Everyone gets sad.”
“Do you?” Kaveh asked challengingly. “I can’t imagine that you do.”
“I do,” Alhaitham admitted. “Often. Not many people notice, though.”
Kaveh hummed and swayed where he sat. “Do you think that the railings are all so short because they’re meant for the Aranara?”
“You’re the architect, not me,” Alhaitham replied. “Do you know many instances of architecture reflecting folklore?”
At the reminder of his field, Kaveh straightened slightly. “All the time! Sometimes it’s just artistic representation, sometimes it’s…it’s…uh…” for the first time, he really acted drunk, forgetting his sentence halfway through. “Sometimes it’s because someone was just that scared of the things in the night.”
“I can’t imagine that the scary things only happened at night,” Alhaitham murmured, thinking of all of the folklore he studied while in the Akademiya. He didn’t particularly enjoy it, but there were always so many books dedicated to it that he could practice his language skills as he read. It helped with an understanding of language and communication, even though he was not an anthropologist .
As Kaveh had said, as many tropes implied, many scary things happened at night. It was thought that because it was a time when humans rested, when humans were at a disadvantage and couldn’t see as well in the dark as wild predators, that such stories came to prevalence. When the human eye couldn’t see anything, such as in the forest at night, the brain simply made things up. A flash of movement of a small animal was inflated in the person’s mind as an animal many times its size.
Humans were, so the leading theory went, a prey animal first. Fear led to adrenaline, which may have led to survival if applied correctly. Stories of things that went on in the darkness of the night were cautionary tales, meant to teach children to fear the darkness.
But in the many stories Alhaitham had read, he knew that there were also many stories of horror and death and sickness and fear that happened during the day.
“You’re thinking too much,” Kaveh said a little too-loudly. “Stop thinking too much. You’ll burn something. You’re too pretty to burn.”
Alhaitham hummed. “I believe that I think just enough.”
Kaveh made a disbelieving sound. “There’s not much you need to be thinking of right now,” he scolded. “You should just be enjoying yourself. Isn’t this why you went out?”
“I went out because I was restless,” Alhaitham admitted. “I hadn’t intended on serving as a chaperone.”
“I’m sorry,” Kaveh mumbled, lifting his other hand to toy with Alhaitham’s. He bent Alhaitham’s fingers forward, toyed with his knuckles, pinched at the skin of his palm. “I didn’t mean to be a bother.”
Alhaitham hummed. “I wouldn’t call you a bother,” he said neutrally. “Even if Tighnari and Cyno had dragged me out of bed for this, which they hadn’t.”
No, something else had roused Alhaitham out of bed. Something else had drawn him into the night. Maybe it was worry, as Kaveh hadn’t returned from whatever drunken adventures he’d gotten involved in.
Maybe it was just restlessness.
“I am well known for not doing anything that I don’t want to do,” Alhaitham added carefully, unsure if that hint would click in Kaveh’s alcohol-addled brain. “So if I did not want to be here, then I would not be.”
Kaveh heaved a heavy sigh. His drunken melancholy seemed to return once more. “Do you ever wonder…”
“Wonder what?” Alhaitham asked when the silence between them stretched too long.
“Do you ever wonder what your legacy will be?”
Alhaitham bit back a snort. History was written by the victors, was perpetuated by those that came after. Many of the Acting Sages of the Akademiya hated him and thought that he had disrupted the natural order of things—that he was some young upstart that dared challenge the decisions of his elders like a spoiled child. Likely, if the rot in the Akademiya was not properly cleansed—which, realistically, would be impossible without the structure of the Akademiya being dismantled and all of its major players, perhaps all the way down to the professors, replaced—then Alhaitham would be painted as a villain. History taught about him and his changes were likely not going to be shown in a positive light.
Lesser Lord Kusanali would not likely appreciate untruths being taught, but he wondered how much she could—or would—intervene just to save the legacy of one person. He was only the Acting Grand Sage—his power was only temporary, before he would step down and allow another to take over.
Over time, nothing much would change. There would be no reform for the Akademiya, and aside from a brief upheaval and the release of Lesser Lord Kusanali, nothing major had changed. His name would be forgotten at best or at worst branded as a traitor.
“Not really,” he told Kaveh instead of any of those bleak musings. “I’m not sure that anyone would describe me as particularly…ambitious.”
Kaveh twisted, bumping his ribs against the railing again, and looked at Alhaitham with unfocused eyes. “I doubt that,” he argued.
“I’m not,” Alhaitham told him, surprised at how indulgent he felt. Maybe it was the moonlight, which made the world feel like a dream. He would have to be careful, then, that he didn’t delude himself into believing something that wasn’t real. “Ambitious.”
“I bet you're rich and successful,” Kaveh told him with the conviction of the inebriated. “So I bet your legacy will be amazing . Maybe the Akademiya will make a statue of you.”
Grand Sages often had some kind of monument commissioned for them, to record their impact on the history of the Akademiya; Alhaitham doubted that anyone would do such a thing for him. He was only the Acting Grand Sage, and only held that position until someone better was chosen.
Kaveh slumped over, bending in the loose-spined way of the very drunk, to lean his cheek on the railing while looking at Alhaitham. “You’re grand, I’m sure,” Kaveh said. “So handsome and I bet you’re successful. You seem like the kind that you are.” Whatever that meant. “I’m just…a failure.”
“You are the Light of Kshahrewar,” Alhaitham said quietly.
Stubbornly, Kaveh made a rude noise. “That means nothing,” he insisted.
“I think it does,” Alhaitham argued, doing his best to keep his voice even and level. Normally it wasn’t difficult, but Kaveh had always brought out parts of him that had never seen the light of day. He wasn’t a reactive person, but Kaveh…but Kaveh; there was nothing more.
But Kaveh was a reactive person, and an even more reactive drunk and they were high up on the walkways of Sumeru City. Sound carried easily over the stone terraces and reflected off the old wood of the great tree. No one needed to see Kaveh like this, drunk and melancholy—or just drunk in general. No one needed to be woken up by arguments outside their windows. None of the matra, especially, needed to see the Acting Grand Sage trying and failing to deal with a drunk Kaveh.
“What does a silly little sobriquet have to do with anything?” Kaveh asked. “It’s just a name from my Akademia days, a way for people to gain honor and reputation and funding from me, whether I like it or not.”
Alhaitham hummed. “That is true,” he agreed. Before Kaveh could crow his victory, he continued, “but that ‘silly little sobriquet’ is more than just a title showing the glory of a darshan. You have a pleasant disposition, and a personality that shines…” Alhaitham may have studied words in over twenty languages, their origins, and their scores of meanings, but he had never been the best at poetry. It was not a skill that he had perfected, nor had it been one that he had pursued more than was required of him; he knew his limits, and flowery poetry describing the beauty of something—even Kaveh—was beyond him.
He looked at Kaveh and found that he had turned to look at him, his eyes wide and watery and unable to see clearly through the haze of alcohol.
“You are the light by which a scribe works,” Alhaitham said. “You are the light that shines in the darkest corners of a person’s psyche and makes them feel seen and loved no matter what that darkness was hiding.”
Kaveh’s lips trembled. He looked back out over the dark forest, where the tops of the trees and boughs of the great tree housing Sumeru City were tinted silver by moonlight and the undersides tinted golden by the lights lining the many pathways swirling and curling around the tree.
“How can I be someone else’s light when I can’t even be my own?”
Alhaitham was certain that if Kaveh was sober, he would never have asked such a question—nor would he have said anything at all if he knew just who he was speaking to while drunk and melancholy. “You don’t need to be your own light,” he said softly. “It’s okay to ask for help.”
Slowly, Kaveh curled inward on himself. It reminded Alhaitham of the ferns that Tighnari had showed him once, which were in pots decorating his house: “sleeping fronds”, he’d called them, or “sleeping grass”. A gentle touch, a brush of Tighnari’s fingers against the bipinnate leaves (deep green, tinted violet at the tips), and they closed on themselves. It wasn’t a rapid or instantaneous thing but it was quick for a plant, every movement rehearsed and choreographed so that it moved smoothly.
Kaveh curled inward like that, his movements like a sigh, almost a slump. Despite his posture, he did not lean against Alhaitham and he realized that he had never seen Kaveh do that, either, except in the throes of some kind of drama. He swooned comically, he swayed when drunk, but he never seemed to willingly lean on anyone.
With a gentility that Alhaitham didn’t know he had, he squeezed Kaveh’s hand and thumbed his knuckles. “Come here,” Alhaitham said and Kaveh swayed in place before incrementally shifting so that his shoulder brushed Alhaitham’s. It was just a touch of fabric and had no weight, and while Alhaitham did not enjoy touch he found himself wanting to tug Kaveh closer.
It had to be Kaveh’s choice, though; Alhaitham knew that very well. He did not want pity, he did not want charity. To him, everything was transactional and Alhaitham wasn’t sure that anything would ever break him of that mindset.
He didn’t even know where to begin; he didn’t know if he should . Help could only be offered, not forced, and if Kaveh did not want help, then Alhaitham could not give it. Though it was a truth that he had long since acknowledged and accepted, that did not mean that it didn’t sting.
That did not mean that it did not make him ache.
“Why are you so nice to me?” Kaveh asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You don’t even know me,” Kaveh mumbled.
I can’t hear you , Alhaitham said with his free hand and Kaveh blinked up at him. Speak clearly, please .
“You don’t even know me,” Kaveh said. How he could see and understand sign language when he couldn’t even recognize Alhaitham was almost remarkable enough for Alhaitham to suggest a study by the Akademiya. “Why would you be nice to me?”
Kaveh continued to play with Alhaitham’s hand. Below them, a performer finished their act and the crowd cheered; Alhaitham flinched. “You are kind to anyone who looks at you, be it friend or stranger.” Probably even his enemies. Alhaitham wouldn’t put it past him.
“Yes, but that’s me,” Kaveh said. “And you’re…” he gestured wordlessly, twisting Alhaitham’s wrist uncomfortably in the process. “You remind me of Haiyi.”
Alhaitham tried not to react, but it wasn’t like Kaveh would be able to see it anyway. If he couldn’t see Alhaitham’s face, how could he see his facial expression? “How so?”
“Well he can’t be a complete ass, can he?” Kaveh asked, sounding lost. He looked out over the dark and light of Sumeru City and Alhaitham adjusted his headphones again, gritting his teeth at the increase of static and sound that it picked up. He’d have a headache for sure the next day, a prospect that he wasn’t looking forward to. “He let a fuckup like me stay with him, even if he’s awful about it. He’s nice to Aether and Paimon even if Paimon’s probably the most annoying thing I’ve ever met.”
Alhaitham was as surprised as Kaveh was when he barked a rough laugh. He slapped his other hand over his mouth and tried in vain to smooth the hints of a smile from his lips. It was muted, it always was and always had been, and it shouldn’t matter because Kaveh wouldn’t be able to notice it anyway but it mattered to Alhaitham.
How was it that Kaveh could shake something that was so ingrained in him? Something that had become second nature?
“And you’re beautiful,” Kaveh breathed. “Like a work of art. Like the moonlight on the river. Why would you associate with someone like me?”
“Of course I would,” Alhaitham told him. With his hand on his face, he could feel the rumble of his voice better than he could hear it. His head hurt, overstimulation beginning to sink in. “Because you’re Kaveh.”
Kaveh’s eyes were watery, the tears collecting in his golden lashes catching the silver moonlight. “What if that’s not enough?”
“You don’t know your own worth,” Alhaitham told him, as he had always wished he could say when Kaveh came home upset from a meeting with a client that went poorly. Or when he complained into his drink that his debts continued to pile up. Or when he wondered in the dark of the night when he thought that Alhaitham couldn’t hear him if he would ever be what people thought he was or should be. He squeezed the hand that Kaveh had trapped in his and realized that it ached, the joints from Kaveh bending and moving it around and the skin from being scraped against the stone railing, and it would only get worse the next day. It was worth it though, because Kaveh tentatively squeezed his hand back with a heartbreaking expression on his face.
“And what is the Light of Kshahrewar worth?” Kaveh asked, somehow both hopeful and self-deprecating.
Alhaitham snorted. “Didn’t you hear me? I said ‘Kaveh’, not a silly little sobriquet. Because Kaveh is the Light of Kshahrewar, and he is a light to those who need it, but he’s more than that.” He stopped himself before he spilled secrets that should never see the light of day or the dark of night. They were fine, locked behind the strongest lock and key his own self-discipline could muster.
He was startled out of his thoughts when he felt Kaveh slowly straighten from his slumped-over position. Slowly, so slowly as if afraid that Alhaitham would pull himself away in disgust or some other emotion like it, he pressed his shoulder against Alhaitham’s, and then leaned more of his weight on him. That close, Alhaitham could smell the reek of hot oil and food, of the wine that he had been drinking.
Holding himself carefully still—but not stiff in a way that would startle Kaveh into pulling away—Alhaitham felt like he was trying to coax a stray cat closer. In some ways, it was a very apt comparison.
“I think…” Kaveh said slowly. “That I’m going to throw up.”
Alhaitham moved faster than he thought he could, pushing himself back from the railing and scrambling to his feet. He nearly dragged Kaveh with him, since he refused to let Alhaitham’s hand go, and probably bruised and scraped both of their hands. “Hold on,” he said and, like he had before, wrapped his arms awkwardly around Kaveh’s chest, trying not to press on his stomach.
“Hurk,” Kaveh said and Alhaitham could feel his body roll as he heaved. “Gonna—”
Alhaitham plopped him down in front of a planter and Kaveh let go of his hands to grab the edges and hang on for dear life as he heaved. He held Kaveh’s hair back as well as he could, but had to let go in order to keep Kaveh on his feet.
“Those poor flowers,” Kaveh mumbled when he was done. He sniffed and then groaned. “Eew.”
Eew indeed.
Alhaitham reached into his pockets to see if he had anything that Kaveh could use to wipe his face off but Kaveh just lifted an arm and wiped his face on his sleeve.
“You’ll regret that tomorrow,” Alhaitham murmured.
Kaveh hummed. “I’ll regret a lot of things tomorrow.”
That was true enough.
“I think I wanna go home,” Kaveh said, slumping a little more against Alhaitham. He squinted up at Alhaitham so that he could see his lips while he spoke, but it wasn’t as helpful as he thought. As the artificial energy from the alcohol faded from his system and he grew more and more tired, his words began to slur, his mouth moving too much for Alhaitham to easily read what he was saying from it. “But we gotta be quiet or Haiyi will wake up and yell at me.” He frowned. “But if he’s deaf, then can I even wake him up? I don’t think he wears his aids to bed. Or maybe he does. I think he does.”
“Maybe he stays up to wait for you,” Alhaitham told him. “Maybe he’s worried and that’s why he yells at you when you come home drunk.”
Kaveh laughed. “No,” he insisted. “Haiyi hates me.” He bumped his cheek against Alhaitham’s chest. “Soft,” he said and bumped his cheek against Alhaitham’s chest again. “What do you think? Take me home?”
Alhaitham led them carefully down the stairs, bracing Kaveh as he began to slump more and more in his exhaustion.
“I hope I didn’t forget my keys again,” Kaveh mumbled. Away from the edges of the terraces, it was easier to hear him and Alhaitham took a quick moment to turn down the sensitivity with a little sigh of relief. “Then I’ll be locked out. Then will you take me to your place?”
Swallowing back his jealousy—unwarranted, because Kaveh wasn’t his and never would be—Alhaitham wondered if that was where Kaveh disappeared to on those nights that he never returned to their shared house. Was he with Cyno and Tighnari? Or was he taken—in more ways than one—by another drunk patron of Lambad’s?
He reached into his pockets for his keys and then pretended to fish them out of Kaveh’s. “Your keys are here,” Alhaitham said and unlocked the door.
“You’re unhappy,” Kaveh said, in the strangely astute way of the incredibly drunk. He blinked, his eyes unfocused and hazy and only half open as he seemed closer to succumbing to sleep. “Are you jealous?”
Alhaitham didn’t say anything, helping Kaveh inside and closing the door behind them. He toed off his boots but let Kaveh keep his on, since he was practically dragging him along anyway. Their first stop was the bathroom, where Alhaitham propped Kaveh up on a stool and used a wet washcloth to wipe Kaveh’s face and neck of sweat and bile. There he pulled out Kaveh’s earrings and set them aside, then his hair clips and braid.
Swaying, Kaveh stayed put with a pleased smile on his face. “‘S nice,” he mumbled.
It was too loud now, and Alhaitham took a moment to turn his headset down again. His head hurt.
Alhaitham hummed and felt the echo of it rattle unpleasantly in his skull.
“Shh, we gotta be quiet,” Kaveh said, and his too-loud voice echoed on the tile.
“Practice your own advice,” Alhaitham replied.
Kaveh heaved a huge canine sigh. “I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Haiyi’s deaf, and I doubt he goes to sleep with his headphones on.”
“That would be uncomfortable,” Alhaitham agreed, even though he’s done that before while waiting for Kaveh to return from drinking, and was miserable the following day for it. He turned his headphones down again and caught Kaveh’s eyes in the mirror.
“Lots of reflective surfaces,” Kaveh said. “Bathrooms. They’re meant to be clean and easy to clean and hard for mold to grow. Tile and polished stone and glass. It reflects sound very well.”
Alhaitham nodded. He braided Kaveh’s hair and Kaveh hummed like a pleased cat, leaning his head back toward Alhaitham. “What about it?”
Drowsily, Kaveh blinked his eyes open. “Nothing,” he said. “I don’t remember. Does it hurt you?”
“Tile on its own does not hurt me.”
Kaveh huffed a little laugh that sounded more like a hiccup. “Stop arguing.”
“I’m not, I’m just telling you why I’m right.”
Alhaitham gently nudged his head forward and tied off the finished braid. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”
“Gotta pee.” He grinned crookedly at Alhaitham. “I can manage on my own.”
Despite not wanting to help Kaveh with such an…intimate action, Alhaitham wasn’t so sure. “Don’t close the door all the way,” he said. “And let me know when you’re done so I can help you get ready for bed.”
Kaveh may have said something else—something silly or something suggestive—but Alhaitham turned away and put the door between them. He tried not to listen to Kaveh fumble and then the sound of him doing his business and the bone-deep groan he let out.
Instead, Alhaitham looked down at his hands as if they had been stained by the secrets that Kaveh had not meant to share with him. For him at least, there was no going back; for Kaveh, given the state of his inebriation, he would likely forget most if not his entire night after leaving the tavern.
Alhaitham was surprised at how much that… hurt . He wouldn’t remember declaring that the stairs were lava, or their talk about the low railings being for the Aranara. There were heavy secrets in those moments, but there was also…
…there was also a lightness to their interaction that hadn’t been there for years. Before hot tempers flared and burned down the bridge between them.
In truth, Alhaitham wasn’t sure that there was ever going back from it—that once-glorious bridge was long gone—but the tentative truce they had…well, it had to be enough.
The door slammed shut and he heard a muffled “ow” from the other end. A moment later, the door handle rattled and the door swung open again. Kaveh looked very proud of himself even though his pants weren’t full fastened, barely hanging on to his hips.
“Ta-da!”
“Good job,” Alhaitham said dryly. “You went to the bathroom yourself. Something even children can do.”
Kaveh laughed from his diaphragm, making it sound strange and distorted; Alhaitham winced as the sound echoed and made his already-pounding head ache even more. “You say ‘even children’ like that’s an insult.”
“Isn’t it?”
Kaveh laughed again and nearly stumbled. Alhaitham caught him and settled him back down on the stool. “Let’s get ready for bed,” Alhaitham said. “Brush your teeth; I’ll get you some water.”
He fled to the kitchen where it would be quieter, and rubbed the back of his head, pressing at the base of his skull. With a moment, away from Kaveh in an enclosed area where his voice would echo back like reflected shards of glass, Alhaitham disconnected his headphones with a sigh and let them hang from his fingers by the strap.
The world shut off and the overstimulated ache in his skull eased. It didn’t go away—wouldn’t go away without an herbal remedy that Tighnari makes for him, some water, and some rest—but it eased back into something more manageable. He closed his eyes and sighed, forcing the tense muscles in his shoulder to relax as he rolled his head on his neck.
Work as the Acting Grand Sage had introduced tension in his neck and shoulders where there had not been anything previously. His work as a Scribe was difficult but not particularly challenging ; unlike Kaveh, he never stressed about his job, never worried about overtime, never was afraid to push off deadlines. His ability to say “no” was legendary, apparently.
Worrying about Kaveh had once been the extent of his troubles. Now he had the entire Akademiya lingering over him.
A part of him wondered if his distraction had been why Kaveh had seen fit to get as drunk as he had, but it was illogical. Further, it was vain to think that anything Alhaitham did had any effect on Kaveh. That his distraction with work, that coming home later and later each night, would do anything to dim Kaveh’s shining light.
Something touched him and he jumped, opening his eyes and dropping his headphones. As he met Kaveh’s startled eyes, he felt them hit the counter.
“Archons!” Kaveh’s lips said. “I’m so sorry!”
Alhaitham looked down and found, to his dismay, that the green-blue lights of his headset were dim; a few of the decorative finials were cracked and one was missing entirely, lying on the ground beside Kaveh’s feet.
Kaveh fell to the ground and Alhaitham followed, grunting in pain when his knee hit one of the pieces of his headset. It’s okay , he said with his hands. Come on, let’s get you to be .
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry , Kaveh’s hands said. His lips said something else, but they were too messy and mumbled for Alhaitham to read.
Alhaitham disconnected the battery from his belt and set it down on the ground to clean up later. Bed , he said firmly, and grabbed both of Kaveh’s wrists.
For a moment, Kaveh was silent. Well, everything was silent in Alhaitham’s world when his headphones were broken, but his mouth was open and slack, his lips wet from brushing his teeth. (Or Alhaitham hoped he had brushed his teeth.)
“Holy shit your hands,” Kaveh’s lips said, startlingly clear. “I bet you could hold me down with one hand.”
Alhaitham chose to ignore that. Thinking about it too much would only lead to insanity. His mind went, unbidden, to old folklore of beautiful creatures drawing innocent travelers to their deaths. If such creatures were real, Kaveh would certainly be one, at least to Alhaitham. He was always weak when it came to Kaveh.
“Oh fuck, can you imagine?” Kaveh’s lips asked.
“Bed,” Alhaitham said and hoped that it came out clearly. He could speak without his headphones, but he didn’t like it; it never felt right. “To sleep .”
Kaveh’s lips snapped shut, his eyes wide. Did it scare him? Alhaitham’s unaided voice?
Swallowing, Alhaitham helped Kaveh to his feet and tugged him toward Kaveh’s room without letting go of Kaveh’s hands. As soon as they crossed the threshold, Kaveh wiggled free—and Alhaitham let him—and flopped over on the bed.
Alhaitham couldn’t hear him, but he looked like he was giggling. He tapped the bedside table with a knuckle until Kaveh wiggled enough that he could turn his head to look at Alhaitham. I’m going to get you water and a bucket, Alhaitham said with his hands. Stay. Here.
Flopping around like a fish on land, Kaveh rolled over and used his hands to say, okay promise return?
He supposed that it was only a matter of time before communication between them dissolved. Kaveh had been surprisingly eloquent despite his inebriation, but all good things must come to an end, Alhaitham supposed. Still, he was certain that he got the gist of it. I’ll be back soon, I promise .
Kaveh flopped back down and Alhaitham ducked back out. He picked up his headphones, setting them on the side to deal with later, and found the most durable cup he could. Something light enough that a drunk man with little to no muscular control or dexterity in his hands could lift it without issue, and sturdy enough that it wouldn’t break if he dropped it.
Alhaitham kept a collection of them in a back cupboard. He wasn’t sure that Kaveh had ever found them in his sober hours, but he’d also never commented on seeing one beside his bed when he woke up hungover the next morning.
He also kept a bucket in the kitchen cupboard beneath the sink, and wondered if Kaveh thought about that either—neither of them used it for cleaning or chores, and someone (Alhaitham thought that it was probably Tighnari, as he was the most vocal of their friends regarding his opinions of Kaveh’s drinking) had written “FOR KAVEH” on the side.
When he returned, Kaveh was still in bed, lying with his arms outstretched as he stared up at the ceiling. His lips were moving, but Alhaitham couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Seeing him (or maybe hearing him), Kaveh sat up like a puppet being raised for a show. What is your name-sign? His fingers asked.
Alhaitham handed him the glass of water. Drink . He set the bucket down and waited for Kaveh to drink the water and put the cup down before answering, I don’t use one .
You said that .
Yes .
Is it personal?
Yes .
Kaveh smacked his lips. I’m sorry about your ears .
Though he used the sign for “ear”, as in a literal human ear, Alhaitham suspected that Kaveh was talking about his headphones. He waved off the apology.
If you trust me, if you stay, I’ll look at them tomorrow .
“If you trust me”, Kaveh said casually. As if Alhaitham didn’t trust him. But it was sweet of him to wonder, since Kaveh thought that he was some stranger.
Kaveh, Alhaitham knew, was sweet like that to a lot of people.
To everyone, really, as long as they weren’t Alhaitham.
You do not want me to stay , he said. Then he knelt and lifted Kaveh’s foot to his knee.
He thought that Kaveh said something out loud, but it was hard to tell. Alhaitham wasn’t looking at him though, so he couldn’t read the words from his lips. With as much care as he could, Alhaitham took off Kaveh’s shoes and set them aside to be taken back to the foyer.
They’d have to mop tomorrow. Kaveh was, surprisingly, a clean freak despite leaving a mess in his wake. Alhaitham appreciated it, because though he was mostly indifferent he was also surprised at how pleasant it was when the furniture gleamed and the spicy scent of their cleaning product lingered in the air.
Alhaitham stood and found Kaveh looking at him. His lips were moving, and his hands were gesticulating the way they did when he was worked up about something—but it wasn’t a language that Alhaitham could translate to words, only abstract emotion. He was agitated, and looked like he’d been agitated for a while.
Then Kaveh huffed and said with his hands, stay please?
No , Alhaitham told him. You’re drunk. Get ready for bed.
Only if you promise I’ll see you again , Kaveh said with his hands.
Alhaitham sighed. You will see me again, whether you want to or not , he said back.
For a long moment, Kaveh blinked at him. His face was scrunched up and there was an adorable crease between his brows like he was trying to figure out something that was just beyond his reach. Handsome man , he says with his hands. It looked like he was speaking out loud at the same time, but he was slurring and mumbling so much that Alhaitham couldn’t tell. Have you ever been in love?
I’ll be back , Alhaitham said and took Kaveh’s water and shoes and escaped to the front room.
Love.
It was irrational; it led people to insanity. The great King Deshret had loved and at the loss of the one he cared about, he had been driven to madness. Kingdoms fell from love turned to hate, and so much of the policing bodies of Sumeru City were taken up by cases of those that thought they had loved and found out that they had not.
Love was a broken shard of glass, beautiful to look at but its edges cut.
Love made shells of people when that love disappeared.
Love was the antithesis of logic and order, and existed as its mirror, as Kaveh existed as the mirror of Alhaitham.
Though he denied it, Alhaitham loved and every day he felt the shards of glass cut deeper into him until one day he would be just as hollow as those that had loved and lost.
He set Kaveh’s shoes in their proper place and refilled the cup of water, and returned to Kaveh’s room.
This time Kaveh was on his side, his eyes trained on the door. Stay with me? He asked with his hands.
Until you fall asleep , Alhaitham told him after he set the cup down. Scoot over .
Kaveh wiggled like some kind of drunken worm, until Alhaitham had enough space to sit at the edge of the bed. Do you hate me?
Never , Alhaitham replied. Kaveh’s blinks became longer and longer. I never have and probably never will .
Probably, because he couldn’t predict the future, but he could not see any feasible future where he possibly could hate Kaveh. He’d lost him once already, from harsh words born from fear. It’d been the catalyst that had set the bridge between them ablaze and it was only by chance that Alhaitham had found Kaveh again.
He’d felt the sting of loss, the empty void it left behind, once already. He thought he’d known what hate was until he felt that yawning pain in him when Kaveh left the first time. Nothing, he thought, would ever make him willing to feel that again. If that’s what hate felt like, then he never wanted to feel it again.
Kaveh mumbled something but his cheek was smashed into his pillow so Alhaitham could not make out what he’d said. Alhaitham gave in to a moment of temptation, an intrusive thought that put his hand into action before he could stop it.
He gently stroked Kaveh’s cheek with the back of his hand and like a cat slowly waking from a nap, Kaveh twisted and hummed, almost like a purr. Alhaitham could feel the gentle rumble of it through his cheek and couldn’t help the slight smile that ticked his lip upward.
“Sleep well,” Alhaitham said, pressing his other hand to his throat to feel the vibration of it. He thought that it was soft enough, but it wouldn’t matter if he shouted it: Kaveh seemed to have succumbed to sleep and was sinking deeper and deeper into the mattress as if made of liquid.
He looked down at his knuckles, which were flushed pink and scraped from being dragged over the stone railings, which ached from being toyed with and bent in awkward ways. He looked at the bedside table, which had Kaveh’s water and at the bucket beneath it in case he was sick in the middle of the night.
He looked at Kaveh, who slept as if drugged (which, if Alhaitham was being honest, he technically was ) and had spilled secrets that shouldn’t have been said out loud, much less to Alhaitham.
It was late, well past Alhaitham’s usual bedtime. With a sigh he couldn’t hear, he stood. It would be improper to kiss Kaveh’s forehead the way he wanted to, so instead he gently pressed his thumb there, smoothing away the little wrinkles that hadn’t yet faded, as if Kavah was still worried in his sleep.
Then he left, leaving the door to Kaveh’s room cracked open, and walked into the bathroom to deal with his hand.
Kaveh groaned.
The sun was too bright, its golden light feeling more like needles digging into his brain through his eyes. His tongue felt fat and heavy in his mouth, as dry as the desert and tasting sour and bitter; when he breathed out, he could taste the lingering fumes of alcohol that still stubbornly clung to him. Though exhaustion still clung to his eyes, making them feel sticky, Kaveh was made aware of a natural urge that pressed on his pelvis and he groaned.
His entire body ached, a tragic side effect of growing old, and those pains made themselves known in what felt like every joint and muscle in his body as he tried to sit up. For the moment, he settled for rolling over, groping with his feet for the edge of the bed.
When he opened his eyes, unsure when he had closed them, he found a cup of water and a vial of a foul concoction of Tighnari’s that was amazing for hangovers but tasted so bad that Kaveh sometimes debated whether it was worth it at all to take it.
But if his tongue was drier than the desert, then maybe that meant that he couldn’t taste it?
Some kind soul had loosened the cork enough that it would be easy for Kaveh to wiggle free, though not without a few drops splashing, thick and oily, on his cheek. He groaned, held his breath, and drank it as quickly as he could. It was thick like syrup, and it took several gulps for him to swallow the dose in the vial.
Now that he thought of it, Kaveh was certain that Tighnari did it on purpose. The syrupy thickness, the oily texture, the awful, awful taste of it was probably meant to be a lesson that he constantly ignored. He didn’t need to leave a note—Kaveh heard Tighnari’s message of, if you didn’t drink so much that you got this way, then you wouldn’t have to suffer the taste, loud and clear.
But the medicine did its job and cleared his head, even if it made him feel even worse in the gut.
He traded the vial for the cup of water and gulped it down, uncaring (for the moment) that he spilled some on his sheets in his haste to wash the taste and texture of the medicine from his mouth. Unfortunately, it only made his pelvis hurt more and he groaned, wincing when it—and the sour, disgusting smell of his own morning breath—was echoed back at him.
Pushing himself into a sitting position, Kaveh took stock of himself. He was still in his clothes from the night before, but his hair clips and earrings had been taken out and his hair was braided for sleep, something he rarely remembered to do. The more uncomfortable pieces of his clothes were loosed or removed as well, his belt and ornaments folded neatly on a nearby chair.
His pants were undone, though, and hung halfway down his thighs. Honestly, it was kind of a miracle that they were still on to begin with, given how much he knew he wiggled in his sleep. Previous partners had complained about it, about elbows in guts and knees in crotches.
His bladder ached again and he forced himself to his feet and nearly fell flat on his face. Kicking his pants off (and nearly falling on his face again), Kaveh stumbled into the hall and then to the bathroom.
By the light of the sun, Alhaitham was probably long gone, so he felt relatively confident in walking around as disheveled as he was. He still kicked the door to the bathroom closed and stumbled to deal with his bladder, humming at the relief of it.
Kaveh thought back to the night before as he stared at the tile wall. There was something familiar about it, unsurprising given that he saw it every day, but a newer memory nagged at him. He’d commented on it in his drunken stupor, he thought, but had no idea why he would have said anything about it or who he might have been talking to.
Then again he was known for his eccentricity as a drunk, and he knew that even sober he tended to talk to himself. Maybe that’s what it had been.
Finished with his business, he decided that he was well enough for a shower and spent an ungodly amount of time standing under the cool spray, contemplating his life choices. As a rule in general, he tried not to dwell on past mistakes and choices—there were very few, if any at all, that he could change in the present, so all he could do was make the best of it. Still, taking on his most recent commission had been a particularly spectacular failure.
Worse, he thought that Alhaitham had warned him in his own strange, indirect way. There wasn’t much that Alhaitham could discuss with him in general, but even more so as the Acting Grand Sage. He couldn’t complain even obliquely about boring meetings or arguments between Sages like he used to, couldn’t offer hypothetical arguments and counterarguments for meetings that Kaveh hadn’t been privy to.
Ever since that strange phenomenon that had resulted in him being “promoted” to Acting Grand Sage—some said by the Lesser Lord Kusanali herself!—it felt as if there was yet another wall drawn between them. Brick and mortar and stone and spackle, just when they were beginning to break down what had once risen between them another rose between them, formed yet another barrier.
Kaveh sighed and decided that his pruny hands were a sign that he’d been wallowing in his own misery for long enough. He scrubbed himself quickly, washing away the remains of his hungover lethargy (Tighnari’s disgusting concoction was truly amazing) and memories of bad decisions made while inebriated. Some days, he missed his old soaps but he knew that strong scents sometimes gave Alhaitham headaches so he had switched them out in favor of more muted ones or something unscented altogether. When he was hungover, he especially missed it—as if the scents would cover up how much of a failure he felt for so many aspects of his life.
The braid in his hair, though…it was messy, probably from rolling around on it all night long, but it was sturdy enough to have survived it all and retain most of its shape. It said that someone had helped him to bed the night before.
Tighnari could braid hair, but could never get Kaveh to sit still enough; Cyno didn’t have the patience, and the braid would end up crooked and uneven. Alhaitham would be unlikely to help him, probably deep asleep and unable to be woken up without the hearing aids that he didn’t think Kaveh knew about.
If someone knew architecture (like…you know…a fucking architect), then one would notice the little oddities around the house that made it easier for Alhaitham to function. He’d noticed the same thing in the very few times he’d been to Alhaitham’s dorm in their Akademiya days, though Alhaitham had very firmly refused to comment on it.
From what Kaveh knew of Alhaitham’s family, he suspected that it was due to his grandmother’s influence. She was always indulgent of him, and worried as any parent did (or so Kaveh assumed) about his well being. Clearly Alhaitham’s hearing aids were advanced enough that the average person wouldn’t realize that he had any kind of disability (except, perhaps, in his abysmal attitude toward just about any social situation) but that didn’t mean that he wore it all the time. Things like lights that turned on to indicate that someone was tugging on the bell beside their door (which also rang, as if to keep up pretenses) were subtle nods to something that Alhaitham clearly did not want to address with anyone.
So Kaveh never did.
He never commented on it, never teased him, and did his best to be as accommodating as possible. Alhaitham might hate him, but Kaveh at least wasn’t heartless, even if he knew that in some ways he was acting worse by making a big deal (albeit very quietly) about his deafness.
But Alhaitham wouldn’t be home, he’d be at work, so if Kaveh wanted to he could indulge and use some of the strong-smelling lotion that one of his previous clients had given him as a thank-you for his work. It was expensive stuff, judging by the rich smell of padisarah that escaped the tight seal of the jar, which was smaller than his palm.
The thought of Alhaitham getting a headache after his day was enough to keep him from indulging, though.
Kaveh sighed and scrubbed himself dry, until his freckled skin was pink. He gathered his clothes (which reeked of booze and something else he didn’t want to think about) and walked with damp feet into his room.
There was a bucket next to his bed, with a damp washcloth folded over the edge. There was a cup of water which Kaveh wasn’t sure was from their cupboards, and his outer things had been removed and set aside so that he could sleep.
The thought of someone else being in their house while he was too drunk was terrifying. Because if it had been Cyno or Tighnari, they would have woken him up to check on him, or would have said something when they heard the shower running.
He tugged on a set of clean clothes—something loose and comfortable, since he wasn’t sure he was up to leaving the house just yet—and padded into the living room.
And found Alhaitham sitting on the divan, nose buried in a book.
“What the fuck?” Kaveh asked, clutching his chest. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at work, O Grand Sage?”
It irked Alhaitham to be called that. He always argued that he was the Acting Grand Sage, as if he wasn’t well aware that he was probably locked into that position for life—especially if rumor was true and that he had been appointed by the Lesser Lord Kusanali herself.
But Alhaitham didn’t move.
“Are you ignoring me?” Kaveh complained and walked into the kitchen. He stopped when he caught sight of the table.
Alhaitham’s hearing aids sat, sad and broken next to a steaming cup of coffee. Cream and sugar had been set out, and room in the cup had been reserved for the distasteful amounts of each that Kaveh took his coffee with. The lights were off, the plug sheared off in the power source that Alhaitham usually kept in the pouch around his waist.
A note next to it said, in Alhaitham’s snootiest script, “ Kaveh, please coordinate a delivery to have this repaired. I am unable to do so at the moment. ” Below it was the name and address of a mechanic that Kaveh recognized by name, but only because he was a legend in the Akademiya and because there was a pretty sizable betting pool on when the old man was going to finally die.
It seemed ridiculous to Kaveh that Alhaitham didn’t have a spare set lying around, but it made sense that he’d need Kaveh’s assistance if he needed to coordinate a delivery and repair job.
It also seemed ridiculous that Alhaitham would even bother asking anyone else, when he knew that Kaveh loved handling these types of things. Then again…these were his way of appearing normal by whatever definition he deemed appropriate, of hearing the world as an able-bodied person did. He probably knew that Kaveh could maybe handle it, but did he trust Kaveh to know what to do?
Kaveh bit back his disappointment and walked back into the living room. Alhaitham could maybe see him out of his periphery, but if he was really focused on his book then he got tunnel vision. He knew that on a normal day, Alhaitham probably turned down his hearing aids as well, choosing to focus all of his attention on whatever he was reading as a way of escaping the doldrums of social interaction.
Glancing at the ground, he realized that Alhaitham’s feet were both on the floor so he knocked his heel.
Alhaitham clearly felt it, lifting his chin slightly. His eyes were still on the page, but Kaveh knew that he was slowly pulling himself out of his book, finishing the paragraph or maybe the page, until he could give Kaveh his full attention.
“What happened to your headphones?” Kaveh asked, signing as he spoke.
Alhaitham’s eyes flicked to his hands, then back to Kaveh’s face. They broke , he signed with one hand, the other occupied with keeping his place in his book.
Rolling his eyes, Kaveh said, “I know, I can see that. But what happened?”
That seemed to amuse Alhaitham, though the average person might not have noticed. But Kaveh was near-fluent in the microexpressions of Alhaitham’s stupidly pretty face. He carefully slid a wooden bookmark into the book and set it aside so that he could sign with two hands. They fell.
Kaveh scrubbed a hand down his face. “Is that mechanic even still alive? He has to be over a hundred by now.”
He is the one that made them, Alhaitham said. As far as I’m aware, he’s the only one that knows how to make and fix it. I haven’t gone anywhere else.
“I need coffee,” Kaveh muttered to himself and rubbed his forehead.
Alhaitham waved to get his attention. Coffee in the kitchen. Cream and sugar. Heathen.
“Yeah, I saw,” Kaveh said with a huff. He signed, thank you, and didn’t say it out loud. Alhaitham huffed a little sound that was almost like a laugh for him. It was hard to directly translate it. He chewed on his lip and looked at the kitchen thoughtfully.
It wouldn’t hurt his pride, just his heart if Alhaitham refused but…well, it wouldn’t hurt to ask. He waved to get Alhaitham’s attention again but to his surprise, it seemed that he already had it: when he turned back, he found that Alhaitham was still watching him and didn’t appear to have picked up his book again.
“You’re very calm about this,” Kaveh mused out loud, his hands hanging limply at his wrists. Alhaitham shrugged and didn’t answer. Kaveh chewed his lip again and signed, do you trust me to look at them?
Something strange crossed Alhaitham’s face. It seemed part amused and part…well, almost sad. On any given day, it was hard to read his expressions, especially when they were fractured like stained glass as they were at the moment. Though many said that Alhaitham was cold and unfeeling, Kaveh would almost argue that he simply felt too much and didn’t know what to do about it. His analytical mind split them into pieces to be put into different classifications and in that way dissected even the simplest emotion far too much.
Every emotion for Alhaitham was then a work of art, with as many pieces as the great glass windows of their shared residence, of the ornate mosaics in Lambad’s Tavern.
I trust you, Alhaitham said . Don’t break them.
“They’re already broken,” Kaveh argued with a little laugh.
Alhaitham huffed his own little laugh. Make sure you’re sober.
Kaveh nodded and went to get his coffee. When he tucked the cream back into the coldbox, he found a bowl of cut fruit and a covered plate of something that might vaguely resemble fatteh. He leaned around the corner and waved to get Alhaitham’s attention again.
The food is for you, Alhaitham signed after glancing up as if to gauge his location. Fruit and fatteh.
Alhaitham was a decent cook, if prone to overthinking recipes, so the thought of him making fatteh so poorly was hilarious. But, Kaveh realized as he took the bowl out, it wasn’t as if Alhaitham could go out and get more ingredients without revealing his deafness, something he clearly didn’t want to do. He could function, could read lips and (probably) could speak to some degree without his hearing aids, but he obviously didn’t want to.
Still, that he would mess up even a dish as simple as fatteh, was hilarious to Kaveh. He wouldn’t complain though, oddly touched that his usually-taciturn “landlord” would even deign to make him anything. Perhaps it was simply leftovers, though it didn’t make sense since he knew that fatteh wasn’t Alhaitham’s favorite.
Kaveh juggled the bowls and his coffee in both hands and sat on the divan across from Alhaitham. He’d returned to his book but glanced up at Kaveh when he sat down. “How do you mess up fatteh?” Kaveh teased.
Alhaitham looked back down at his book and brought his free hand to his throat. “By not having a recipe,” he said out loud.
The hand, Kaveh realized, was to test his volume.
Be grateful, Alhaitham signed with a little hook to his lips that was devastating to Kaveh’s lovelorn heart.
Kaveh waved to get Alhaitham’s attention once his dishes were safely on the table. “I’ll go grocery shopping,” he said and signed it at the same time. “Once I eat and take a look at your hearing aids.” Alhaitham’s nose wrinkled cutely, and Kaveh suspected that he didn’t particularly like the phrase. “Headphones, then. I might have the stuff I need but I might also need to go to the market.”
I’ll give you mora for the repairs, Alhaitham signed. He hesitated and then signed, and groceries. He paused again. Send me an invoice for the repairs if you can manage them.
“I’m sure I can manage them,” Kaveh said around a mouthful of fruit. “It’s a simple thing. Microphone in, communication device to an implant, blah blah blah.” He signed, Easy. L-I-G-H-T O-F K-S-G-A-R-B-W-A-R.
Alhaitham gave him a funny look and went back to his book with a little shake of his head. He looked up again when Kaveh thumped the ground with his heel again. W as Tighnari here earlier? Alhaitham shook his head “no”. Who left the hangover cure, then? Alhaitham’s lips twitched and he looked back down at his book.
The hangover cure worked really well though, so Tighnari must have felt at least a little bad for him. He stretched and collected his plates and for a brief moment, had a memory of doing something similar in the nighttime. The kitchen was dark and someone was standing there; when he reached out his hands to touch, something cracked.
Kaveh washed his dishes and laid them out to dry. Wiping his hands and summoning Mehrak from his study, he grabbed Alhaitham’s hearing aids and sat on the divan across from Alhaitham again.
His roommate looked up. “What time did I get back last night?”
I wasn’t paying attention.
Kaveh paused. “Were you? Paying attention?”
The look that Alhaitham gave him was…complicated. But it said very clearly without him having to sign, figure it out yourself.
“I was drunk,” Kaveh complained. “Very drunk.” He dramatically over exaggerated the word “very” with his sign, and Alhaitham huffed his little almost-laugh that was almost a scoff. “I’m sorry that I don’t remember.”
Alhaitham pressed his lips together and seemed to be deciding whether he wanted to answer or not. He sighed and put his book down again, carefully slipping his wooden bookmark in place once more.
You were very drunk, Alhaitham agreed, and Kaveh nearly missed it, staring at the bookmark. And came back late after taking a long walk on the terraces.
Kaveh frowned. He remembered a hand in his, another on his hip, as he walked on the railings. He remembered a conversation about Aranara, but not the context. “Was I with anyone?”
Yes. Do you not remember? Slowly, Kaveh shook his head. An expression that Kaveh couldn’t place crossed Alhaitham’s face. Perhaps it’s for the best. You were very drunk. Who knows what you may have said?
Handsome man , he remembered saying at some undetermined time of the night. Have you ever been in love?
Oh, Archons.
He remembered a warm hand in his, another on his waist, holding him as they walked. He remembered pressing his cheek to someone’s shoulder, someone walking him back home. The memories were in snippets, as if they had once been a great tapestry, or a mural like the ones in the tombs forgotten beneath the Great Red Sand, shattered so that its pieces were scattered around.
A memory of drinking with Tighnari and Cyno was paired with those warm hands guiding him up the stairs, two events which should very much have happened on opposite ends of his night. He remembered warmth and something about the Aranara, and feeling so happy that it felt as if his chest would explode with it.
“I must have said something really stupid,” Kaveh mused to himself, tugging thoughtfully on his lip. Alhaitham was looking at him, his brows raised, when Kaveh looked up. He pulled his hand away from his mouth. “Just thinking to myself. I must have made a fool of myself.”
Alhaitham’s brows scrunched as if thinking. “Mn,” he said out loud, a kind of noncommittal noise that made Kaveh think that Alhaitham might not have known exactly what he’d said.
Sorry , he signed, and Alhaitham waved it away impatiently. Seemingly done with the conversation, Alhaitham picked up his book, tugged the little wooden bookmark free, and resumed reading.
Kaveh frowned. It was a stupid gift, a silly throwaway thing that he hoped would remain unnoticed and forgotten somewhere. But he recognized the little adhigama bookmark, which had been carved in the shape of a padisarah. He’d spent too much mora on it but the green of its tassels had reminded Kaveh of the green of Alhaitham’s coat and the way his Vision shone against his shoulder and he couldn’t not buy it, even if Alhaitham probably hated it.
But there he was, using it in the book he was reading.
There he was, sitting across the table from Kaveh, surprisingly quiet about Kaveh’s drunken misadventures the night before. Clearly Alhaitham had not been as asleep as Kaveh had thought, and clearly he trusted Kaveh enough to look over the mangled mess of his hearing aids.
Alhaitham slid the bookmark back into his book and gently closed it. He waved to get Kaveh’s attention and signed, you’re thinking too hard; I smell burning. Then he stood and rolled his shoulders, and Kaveh realized that the back of one of Alhaitham’s hands was scraped, the skin red and tender. A tiny drop of blood welled up on his knuckle, clearly agitated from the motions of sign language. I’m going to make us lunch. Please don’t get my headphones dirty .
“Wait,” Kaveh blurted, and made an aborted gesture to reach for Alhaitham. While he couldn’t hear it, Alhaitham could see the motion and stopped, turning back to face Kaveh.
Something itched in his brain, a thought that lacked form but was enough to confer urgency. Alhaitham watched him patiently. What? He signed.
“How did you know I know sign language?” Kaveh asked.
Alhaitham’s lips twitched. You told me last night , he said. That you know that I was deaf.
Slowly, Kaveh shook his head. “No I didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t see you all night.”
That seemed to amuse Alhaitham, but there was also a bitter twist to his lips that made Kaveh ache. He turned and walked into the kitchen.
Frowning, Kaveh looked down at Alhaitham’s hearing aids, at Mehrak circling it as it scanned it. He thought about the red mark on the back of Alhaitham’s hand, the drop of startlingly scarlet blood against his skin.
He thought about the bookmark, of half-remembered hands on his hips guiding him along as they walked—of a voice saying, “if you walk slowly and lean on me, I will be beside you; I will not let you fall again”. Of half-remembered hands braiding his hair, of an almost-forgotten conversation about Aranara.
Of a dark figure in the kitchen, visible only as a silhouette against the window, with green highlights from some other kind of light source.
Kaveh swallowed. There was a point in life where one could choose to live in ignorance, or to move forward with wisdom. He realized that he was at such a crossroads.
If he asked, Alhaitham would answer, he was sure—he may be an asshole that hated Kaveh, but he was not the type to lie except under extreme cases, and Kaveh was pretty sure that this was not an extreme case at all.
If he didn’t ask…well, it was clear that Alhaitham was giving him a way out. That if he didn’t ask, then Alhaitham wouldn’t tell. He wondered how long it would last before Alhaitham said something, before he weaponized those drunken, nearly-forgotten memories into blades that cut deeper than any other word would.
Kaveh chewed his lip and watched the unfairly defined muscles of Alhaitham’s back move as he did…whatever he was doing in the kitchen. He turned to Mehrak, who was looking at him with a concerned look on its digital face. “Oh, it’s nothing,” he murmured to it, trying not to think of the grainy memory of holding someone’s hand and the nagging feeling that he had somehow forgotten something very important, something immense and profound that had happened in alcohol-erased memory. “Let’s get this fixed, huh?”