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The tavern was too quiet to hush his thoughts, too dim to distract his eyes from the empty shot glass resting in his hand. He hated himself for it, hated that he resorted to handling his problems with a bottle when he couldn’t solve them at first encounter. Bringing glass after glass to his lips used to work—used to drown his thoughts until they were an incoherent mess lost along the stream of his mind. But after too many repeated incidents of drowning his sorrows in alcohol, his thoughts adapted. Grew more resilient, more persistent. Got louder with every swig, stronger with every swallow.
I miss him, Kaveh thought. He had lost everything—his house, his mora, his pride—and all he could think about was that he missed him.
He thought of him often. How could he not when he was everywhere? The annotations left in dated research journals. The empty space sitting next to him at a bench built for two. The mirror when he stared at it for too long. He was inescapable, no matter how many years of distance accumulated between them.
But rarely was Kaveh honest with himself. I don’t miss him, he’d think while walking through the markets. It’s better this way, he’d tell himself when he’d hear his name in passing. I’ve moved on, he’d reassure his mirrored reflection when flashes of their fight invaded his mind.
Once his sober mind fell to intoxication, the lies crumbled. Truth was a greedy, attention-seeking little thing—he could only ignore it for so long before it came knocking on his door, demanding acknowledgment.
Kaveh reached into his side pocket and fumbled for his phone. He turned it on and nearly fell backward from the sudden brightness. Colored circles dotted his vision as he struggled to adjust. He blinked a few times, letting his eyes adapt. Then he input the password he knew by heart.
1-1-0-2.
He never changed it. Maybe he should have. Back when he set the password, when one of his juniors dropped his previous phone into a river on an expedition and had to get it replaced, he wanted to make sure that he’d never forget the code. Archons knew how much he hated juggling hundreds of passwords for hundreds of different accounts, websites, and all that jazz. And props to him, he never forgot it.
He never would. Never could.
Each year, when the eleventh of February rolled around, Kaveh would stay by the phone, waiting and contemplating. Would he pick up if Alhaitham called? Would Alhaitham call? Should he take the plunge and call him first? Had Alhaitham changed his number? What would he do if the call went to voice mail? What would he say if Alhaitham picked up?
The answers were pointless. Alhaitham never called, and Kaveh never gathered the courage to press that sequence of numbers again.
He deleted his contact, along with every photo they shared together. Seeing them happy—smiling side by side with Kaveh’s arm over Alhaitham’s shoulder and Alhaitham’s dimples on full display—made his heart pound, his throat dry, his lungs frantic. He couldn’t bear it. But deleting them was a mistake, now that he only had his mind to conjure images of him, and the only images his mind ever wanted to remember were ones from the last day he spoke to him.
What use was deleting his number if Kaveh’s fingers had memorized the pattern? All those late night calls—studying, rambling, falling asleep without pressing that red button—were a distant dream. He used to check his call history and smile at the repeating “Haitham”s on the list. Now, he could scroll back for hours and never see his name.
It was unacceptable, drunk Kaveh decided, that he’d never see “Haitham” on that list again. That he’d never see Haitham again. Why had he pushed him away if he was going to pull him back anyway? He berated himself for his sober foolishness. With his newly acquired guts, courtesy of today’s liquor, he dialed that unforgotten, familiar number. He took his time, making sure each fingerpad pressed the right digit.
With the tap of a green button, the phone rang.
Beeeeeeep. Beeeeeeep. Beeee-
Click.
A rustle. “Kaveh?”
Every cell in Kaveh froze. Time slowed. Kaveh, he said. When was the last time he was Kaveh? Not the Light of Kshahrewar. Not Faranak’s son. Just Kaveh.
“Haitham,” said Kaveh, laying his head on the table. Sitting upright was too hard. “I miss you.”
He had never said anything truer.
“What happened?” crackled from the other end of the phone line. He sounded stern, maybe even concerned if Kaveh let himself believe it.
“Nothing,” Kaveh answered honestly. “Keep talking. Want to hear your voice.”
“Where are you?” asked Alhaitham—more like demanded considering his tone—and Kaveh let each spoken syllable wash over him. His voice lulled him into a sense of security, and sleepiness spread from his tired limbs to his fluttering eyelids.
He was so, so tired, and the timbre to Alhaitham’s voice, which had grown mature over the years, was so comforting. One by one, his worries dissipated. Alhaitham picked up, and that was all he needed—to know Alhaitham was there. To know Alhaitham would answer if he called.
To think that maybe Alhaitham missed him too.
Voices called his name, or perhaps it was one voice? Kaveh couldn’t tell anymore—just that Alhaitham was there, somewhere in the mix. The haze of the quiet, dim tavern atmosphere pacified him and his aching heart. With a warm cheek pressed against the cold table, Kaveh let his limbs hang off his torso and his consciousness wander to places unknown.
At last, slumber won and sent him into an alcohol-induced, dreamless fog.
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“Kaveh. Kaveh. Kaveh,” Alhaitham urged over and over into the phone, only to receive a soft snore in response.
Just his luck. Kaveh fell asleep.
Realistically, Alhaitham had no reason to worry. Kaveh was a six-feet-tall, adult man, and he could handle himself. He’d been handling himself for years, after all, even before he walked into Alhaitham’s life.
Still, the nagging voice in his mind whispered, Go get him.
It would be a bold-faced lie to say that Alhaitham didn’t think of Kaveh, didn’t wonder what he was up to. The magazine clippings lying on his desk were proof. It was easy to pretend that he read them to keep up with the news, but that excuse couldn’t explain why all the articles he bought came from Kshahrewar Quarterly.
Kaveh was a permanent resident in his head. He lived in the cracks and crevices, in the rooms Alhaitham dared not step into. Every day, Alhaitham would go on with his monotonous life as Kaveh lingered in his mind’s margins, afraid to take up more space on the page.
Alhaitham was in bed when he got the call. Beeeeeeep, it sounded. He was content to let it ring on. Who would be calling him at this hour anyway? It was probably a scam or spam message. He pulled the covers tighter around himself, basking in what little warmth he had in his too-big bed.
Beeeeeeep, the phone cried again. The repeating chime grated Alhaitham’s ears. Without looking, he fumbled for it on his bedside table.
Bringing it closer to his face, Alhaitham squinted at the caller ID. He sat up in a flash. Kaveh, it read. He rubbed his eyes and squinted at the screen again. Kaveh was still there.
Beeee-
He pressed accept call.
“Kaveh?” he said, unsure if it really was him on the other end. What reason did Kaveh have to call him in the late hours of the night?
Faint music played in the background, and Alhaitham heard soft chatter through the phone. His fists clenched the bedsheets, and he held his breath as he waited for a reply.
“Haitham,” Kaveh slurred, obviously drunk but unmistakably Kaveh nonetheless. “I miss you,” he murmured, his tone tinged with something similar to sadness.
Alhaitham jumped out of bed, not bothering with his rumpled bedsheets. The barely-concealed concerned What happened? and Where are you? he called through the phone had earned him little context. Just how many drinks had Kaveh downed to resort to calling someone he hadn’t spoken to in years?
Want to hear your voice, Kaveh had said, words blurring into each other. Alhaitham’s heart pounded so hard that he thought it might fall out of his chest. Kaveh was likely delirious, and he probably wasn’t sure of what he was saying, but that didn’t stop the train of thoughts traveling at record speeds through Alhaitham’s mind.
I need to see him. I need to be there. I need to go. I need to.
He stood at his front door in pajamas and slippers. When did he get there? His feet must’ve carried him to the entrance without his knowledge. Unthinkingly, his hand reached for his keys. His body made the decision before his mind did—he’d bring Kaveh home safe.
He got into his car, which he barely drove given that most places he went were within walking distance, and started it up. He had a promising idea of where Kaveh was sleeping right now.
Without hanging up, he left his phone in the cupholder. The quiet breaths Kaveh released periodically almost fooled Alhaitham into believing that Kaveh was here, sleeping next to him in the passenger’s seat. Alhaitham didn’t have time to linger on the disappointment when he was heading closer and closer to Kaveh with every second he was on the road.
I miss you, Kaveh had said. Alhaitham should’ve said it back. I miss you, wasn’t enough to capture the prevailing sense of hollowness, of incompleteness, he felt more vividly with each passing year, but it was a start. If Kaveh was anything like he used to be, then Alhaitham could weave I miss you into every action and Kaveh would still misunderstand, believing himself to be unworthy of affection. They’d had enough misunderstandings for a lifetime, and it was about time Alhaitham brought them back on the same page now that an opportunity landed in front of him.
In a few short minutes, Alhaitham pulled over and parked in front of Lambad’s Tavern. He knew he looked improper dressed in bedwear, but he couldn’t care when Kaveh was just beyond those hardwood doors.
He pushed into the tavern, ignoring the other patrons, and his eyes fell on familiar blond locks, haphazardly pinned up with red clips. Approaching the table, he saw an empty shot glass, an unlocked phone, and Kaveh’s peaceful, resting expression—one that he hadn’t seen in ages, whether that was in person or in photographs.
Kaveh had always been breathtakingly beautiful, and today was no exception.
He bent down to Kaveh’s level. “Kaveh,” he murmured, brushing his fingers across the supple skin of his cheek. “Kaveh, wake up.”
Groggily, Kaveh blinked his eyes. Once. Twice. They stayed open, peering at Alhaitham in the dusky lighting. A slow, honey-like smile spread across his face as he recognized him. “You came,” he said, awe glowing from his irises.
“I did,” Alhaitham said, cupping his cheek with his palm. His skin was cool against his burning hand, unused to being able to touch Kaveh, to hold him after so long.
Kaveh leaned into his touch, nosing against his thumb. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “It’s late. You didn’t have to come.”
“I’ll always come for you,” said Alhaitham. “And don’t apologize to me.” Hearing sorry from Kaveh’s lips would never feel right after every wrong they’d done unto each other.
“Sorry.”
Alhaitham sighed. Kaveh was more out-of-it than he had thought.
“I’ll take you home. Do you still live in the city?”
Kaveh shook his head.
“What’s your address?”
“Don’t have one,” Kaveh answered, then yawned. “I sold it. Sold everything.” He caught Alhaitham’s gaze and smiled with all pearly-whites as if he hadn’t told Alhaitham he was homeless a breath ago.
He went on. “I put everything into it. And now”—a mirthless laugh tore out of his throat—“here I am.”
Alhaitham didn’t have to ask what it was. It was all over the billboards of the city, all over the magazines he loved to buy.
The pieces came together. He remembered when the palace’s collapse rippled across the news. Alhaitham had assumed Kaveh had it figured out when he heard the team was continuing forth with the project, but perhaps he was naive, wanting to believe that Kaveh was living a better life without him.
There was a time when Alhaitham wanted to prove Kaveh wrong, to show him that his way of living would only hurt himself and others in the long run. But a few weeks after their irreparable fight, all he wanted was to stand by Kaveh’s side again. To be there for him, no matter the difficulties.
Being correct meant nothing. Nothing at all.
But staring into Kaveh’s deep carmine eyes, Alhaitham had to know: “How has realizing your ideals gone for you?”
Alhaitham expected defensiveness, for Kaveh to pull away with a glare all too reminiscent of the day he tore their thesis. Or maybe melancholy—that Kaveh would look away with tears threatening to spill from eyes that can barely stay open.
What he didn’t expect was a smile, gentle and genuine, with warm eyes sporting crinkles in the corners.
“Well, you’re here now, aren’t you?”
A skillful evasion of the question. And yet, it answered so much more than Alhaitham asked.
Their paths intersected once again. Was it fate that wove them together, or was it Kaveh’s clumsy fingers dialing his number? He didn’t know, but Alhaitham would be damned if he let history repeat itself.
“Come live with me,” said Alhaitham, teal-orange eyes burning into red ones. Unconsciously, his thumb stroked Kaveh’s cheek. “I have an extra room.”
Kaveh opened his mouth then closed it. Then did it again. Alhaitham sensed refusal on the tip of his tongue. Accepting help was difficult for someone like him who was accustomed to being the helper, and accepting help from Alhaitham of all people was a blow to his pride. Alhaitham had dozens of reasons, things he could say to convince Kaveh to let himself be cared for, but he said none of them. He waited for Kaveh to come to his decision.
Looking away, Kaveh let out a wet chuckle. “O-kay,” he said, the simple word turning into a challenge to utter. “Okay,” he repeated, quieter. More certain.
Alhaitham guided Kaveh’s head into the crook of his shoulder, letting his shirt dampen with the dew of Kaveh’s eyelashes. He fit nicely in Alhaitham’s arms, although they fit differently now. Back then, when they had younger, smaller bodies, Alhaitham couldn’t have held him, cradled him like he was doing now. They were two puzzle pieces who remolded, changed shape as they grew into new people, only to find that their ridges still lined up perfectly after all this time.
I miss you too, Alhaitham wanted to whisper by the shell of Kaveh’s ear. I love you. Do you know? Do you feel the same too?
Neither of them were ready for such confrontations. It was late. They needed rest. Everything else could wait until morning, now that they’d wake up under the same roof.
“Let’s go home, Kaveh.”