Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kaveh doesn’t like giving head.

Correction: he doesn’t like giving head to Alhaitham. Sure, Alhaitham’s fine on paper—more than fine, if you catch his drift. He’s handsome, muscular, built like a sculpture with pretty eyes to boot and exactly Kaveh’s type, and the only time he’s tolerable is the few seconds of peaceful silence when he’s about to come. 

But other than that? He’s the most selfish person Kaveh’s ever sucked off. 

For one, he’s always chasing his own pleasure, thrusting hard enough to make Kaveh choke on it, tears filling his eyes as he struggles to breathe. He grabs onto Kaveh’s hair with a vice grip despite Kaveh’s insistence that it hurts, simply reminding him you like it rough—and sure, that might be true, but usually the other person has the decency to ask first. He always comes down Kaveh’s throat, no matter how many times Kaveh tells him he doesn’t like when Alhaitham does it without warning because it tastes gross. Alhaitham will just tell him that beer objectively tastes gross, too, but Kaveh drinks it like water. And then Kaveh will make a show of spitting Alhaitham’s come loudly into his handkerchief. And most importantly, he’ll never offer to get Kaveh off in return. Because Alhaitham simply does what he wants, both in and out of the bedroom, without a care in the world.

Today, though, things are different.

It doesn’t start differently. A drink or two too many, and Kaveh’s on his knees again at the foot of Alhaitham’s bed with his mouth wrapped around Alhaitham’s cock. They’ve done this enough times that Kaveh knows the telltale signs that Alhaitham’s getting close—the tenseness of his muscles, the way his free hand fists in the sheets. He looks up at Alhaitham from where his lips are wrapped around his cock, only to find that Alhaitham is already looking at him with an inscrutable expression. He looks like he’s barely holding himself together from thrusting into Kaveh’s mouth, a courtesy he’s never once afforded Kaveh. His grip on Kaveh’s hair grows not tighter, but looser, and as he lowers a shaky hand to tuck a stray hair behind Kaveh’s ear, he lets out a noise that Kaveh’s never heard before, a subdued, almost wounded sound that bubbles up in his throat. “Kaveh,” he breathes out. “Kaveh, I—”

Kaveh doesn’t find out what he was going to say, because Alhaitham comes down Kaveh’s throat again, and fuck, he’s gorgeous, colour high on his cheeks, those dazed gemstone eyes fluttering half-shut. This time, stunned into silence, Kaveh simply swallows, completely forgetting to mind the taste. 

He pulls off and wipes his mouth, wondering if he did something differently to make Alhaitham so… sensitive, or vulnerable, or whatever you wanted to call it. Maybe it was the way Kaveh had played with his nipples earlier, though it was far from the first time Kaveh had done it. Maybe he was just feeling stressed out from all the responsibilities of finding the next Grand Sage. Surely Alhaitham wasn’t above feeling something like stress, even if he generally seemed more robot than human.

Well. Strictly speaking, whatever was going on in that strange mind of his wasn’t Kaveh’s problem. Kaveh hands him a towel and he cleans himself off quietly while Kaveh gets back on the bed, flopping down with all four limbs splayed out like a Starshroom. 

“You swallowed it,” says Alhaitham. His voice sounds rougher than usual, a little hoarse, which irritates Kaveh since Kaveh was the one sucking his dick. “Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” Kaveh grunts, and rolls over onto his side. “Don’t you know that this isn’t something people just ask out of the blue? Go to sleep already.”

“This is my bed. You’re in it.”

“I’m not leaving,” says Kaveh. “Take the couch if you hate it so much.” 

Alhaitham stays quiet. He shifts up on the bed so that they’re lying side by side, but he doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the night until Kaveh falls asleep.

“You don’t have plans for dinner,” says Alhaitham the next day. It’s phrased like a sentence where anybody else would ask a question. Like he already knows Kaveh doesn’t have plans, and is simply confirming this as a segue into his next question.

Kaveh looks up from his work, turning his head over his shoulder to glance at Alhaitham. The man’s nose is buried in a book, as usual, like he doesn’t even have the decency to look Kaveh in the eye when he’s talking to him. 

“I don’t think I have time to eat dinner,” Kaveh grumbles, turning away from his infuriatingly calm roommate, back to the infuriatingly blank page in front of him. Thirteen abandoned drafts sit in the trash bin at the corner of his desk. This is the one, he thinks to himself. This has to be the one. “The client wants this by tomorrow and I haven’t even been able to start.” Sometimes, Kaveh almost wishes he hadn’t designed the Palace of Alcazarzaray. He fists his hands into his hair and groans. He needs a drink. “Archons, do you ever think you’ve hit your peak and your life is just a slow descent into nothingness?” 

“No,” says Alhaitham simply, without elaborating.

“Fuck off,” Kaveh groans. “I didn’t ask.”

“You literally just did.” 

Kaveh slams his head onto his desk. “I can’t deal with you right now!”

“Then don’t,” says Alhaitham. He pauses in a moment of uncharacteristic silence, almost like he has something to say and doesn’t know how. As if that were possible for a guy who knew thirty-seven languages. When he speaks up again, it’s oddly quiet. “It seemed like you could use a distraction. I thought we could go to Lambad’s tavern for a meal and drinks, on me. If you’d rather be alone, then you can ignore my request.”

Kaveh’s head whips up. Alhaitham is looking at him, expression unreadable once again. Doesn’t matter. The offer, the light at the end of the tunnel, is too good to pass up. “Really? Your treat?” 

“Yes.”

“As many drinks as I want?”

“...Within reason.”

“Alright. I’m in.” Kaveh looks down at his mostly-blank page to see that his feather quill has dragged a long, accidental scribble across it, rendering the page unusable, but he’s too thrilled at the prospect of free alcohol to care. He crumples up the page and tosses it in the trash, narrowly missing. It bounces off the edge of the bin and lands on the floor as he hops out of his chair, adjusting his clothes and making strides for the door. “Let’s go!”

Alhaitham shuts his book and tucks it into his pocket, falling into step beside him. “You shouldn’t waste paper,” he says, and Kaveh happily ignores him.

The evening is surprisingly pleasant. Kaveh complains a bit about work, and Alhaitham, instead of interjecting with so-called practical solutions that do nothing but show off his intelligence, actually stays quiet and listens. Then they reminisce about the Akademiya of the past, the Akademiya in their memories, pondering what’s next to come in the midst of all the change. And all the while Kaveh eats and drinks his fill.

Kaveh can’t recall the last time he’d enjoyed his time spent with Alhaitham so thoroughly. A long time ago, perhaps. Back when they barely knew each other, back when Alhaitham was just someone Kaveh had seen a few times around the Akademiya, he used to sit in the House of Daena and subtly ogle Alhaitham from behind a book he wasn’t actually reading, drawn in by that good-looking, mysterious allure. And then he’d gotten to know him, really know him, and discovered that no amount of sexy back dimples or rippling forearm muscles could make up for his prickly, uncaring behaviour and general Alhaitham-ness. 

Well. The sex was good, at least, on the rare occasions that he knew how to shut up. Or when Kaveh was able to shut him up.

Speaking of which. 

Back home, pleasantly tipsy and bubbling with contentment, Kaveh lets Alhaitham press him up against the door, letting out a soft groan when Alhaitham dips his head into the crook of his neck and leaves softly biting kisses all the way up to his jaw. He shudders when he feels Alhaitham’s hand at his waist, and when Alhaitham’s growing erection presses against his own he arches his hips to grind against it. Alhaitham hisses out a low noise of arousal, grinding back. It used to astound Kaveh, the fact that Alhaitham felt arousal too just like anybody else. Now he’s used to it, grateful, even, that the hellish months he spent alone jerking off to Alhaitham were over.

Kaveh unties the sashes at Alhaitham’s waist, which he’s always felt was unfairly slender for how the rest of him was built, with the aim of getting his dick out, but Alhaitham stops him.

“Wait,” Alhaitham breathes out. “I don’t want our clothes to end up on the floor here. Let’s go to the bedroom.”

He has a point. Kaveh lets Alhaitham tug him along by the wrist, lets Alhaitham lift him up by the hips, letting out a sound that’s only slightly undignified when Alhaitham drops him onto the bed and tips them both forward, pinning him down with his larger frame. He lets up only long enough to strip himself of his jacket and top and undo the belt of his pants, before he’s on Kaveh again. He’s seemingly developed some fixation with Kaveh’s neck, which Kaveh doesn’t exactly mind, since it is one of his erogenous zones. Kaveh can only let out harsh moans against the shell of Alhaitham’s earpiece, running his hands along the plane of Alhaitham’s abs that he sometimes still can’t believe are real. No one should be allowed to look like that. Especially not with a face like that, Kaveh thinks, half-awed and half-smug as he finally undoes the front of Alhaitham’s pants and gets his hand around Alhaitham’s cock and Alhaitham groans, eyes dazed and mouth dropping open in pleasure.

“Hah,” Kaveh laughs airily. “You know, if you just wanted sex you didn’t have to go to the trouble of taking me out to dinner.” As Alhaitham undoes Kaveh’s cape and strips him of his shirt, Kaveh raises his arms to help with the effort. “Or did you just want to get me drunk ‘cause I’m easier that way?”

Alhaitham frowns. “No,” he says simply. Something in his gaze makes Kaveh flustered. Alhaitham’s always been an intense person, but tonight he keeps looking at Kaveh like he’s seeing through him and it bothers him a little. 

“Either way, you’re right, I do enjoy the distraction and my stress has been relieved,” Kaveh says with a chuckle that turns into a whimper when Alhaitham thumbs over his nipples. 

“Already?” says Alhaitham, eyes growing dark in a way that tells Kaveh exactly what to anticipate. “We’re just getting started.”

Several minutes later, Kaveh’s on all fours, getting fucked out of his mind by Alhaitham and his unfairly large cock. Just another thing about him that pisses him off. Or would piss him off, if it didn’t feel so damn good, so much that his brain has seemingly shortcircuited and he’s incapable of speech other than moans and whimpers, lost to the throes of pleasure as Alhaitham fucks him with reckless abandon. 

Alhaitham has clued in to what makes Kaveh tick. Or maybe he’s simply doing what he wants, and it happens to be what Kaveh wants too. It’s almost definitely the latter—Kaveh’s just lucky that the stars aligned to make them compatible in the bedroom. Either way, Alhaitham’s got one hand gripped tight around Kaveh’s waist, and the other fisted in his hair, hard enough to skirt the line between pain and pleasure and make Kaveh’s vision blur with unshed tears. Kaveh is painfully hard, but when he reaches down to fist a hand around his own cock, Alhaitham lets go of his hips to knock his hand aside and stroke his cock.

“Fuck,” Kaveh groans, thrusting into Alhaitham’s grasp and then back against the cock inside him, twin sensations pushing him nearly to the point of overstimulation. “Alhaitham, fuck—”

Without warning, Alhaitham stops and pulls out.

“Hey,” Kaveh whines, tears of irritation and bewilderment filling his eyes as Alhaitham manhandles his body, flipping him onto his back. “What the—”

“I want to see your face,” says Alhaitham. Simple, with no explanation, just like everything else he says. It ticks Kaveh off. He’s always been fine doing it on all fours—in fact, at the start, he had even told Kaveh about some Knowledge Capsule that said this was the most efficient position. So why now?  

“I was really close, you know,” Kaveh complains. He glances down woefully at his hole, which has tightened around nothing.

“That’s why I wanted to see your face.”

What a weirdo. At least he’s rubbing his hand along the jut of Kaveh’s hip again as he pushes himself back in. “It isn’t always about what you want,” Kaveh grumbles, biting down on a moan as Alhaitham fully seats himself inside of him. “Human relationships are about give and take. Has nobody ever taught you that? What the hell are they teaching in Haravatat these days?”

“You’re not that close if you can still talk so much,” Alhaitham quips back, and then thrusts hard and fast against Kaveh’s prostate, making Kaveh’s toes curl as he lets out a near-scream of pleasure. He keeps going at that same pace until Kaveh’s tears finally spill out the corners of his eyes as his orgasm crashes into him like a wave, unintelligible sounds falling from his mouth as he comes all over his own stomach. 

In his post-orgasmic haze, Kaveh barely registers that Alhaitham has pulled out, and is stroking himself off while looking down at him, with that same inscrutable expression from yesterday. “Kaveh,” he says, almost a whisper, and if Kaveh didn’t know better he’d say it sounded reverent. “Fuck. You’re beautiful.” 

Kaveh blinks. He’s still struggling to catch his breath, the room is still spinning around him, and he can hardly be sure that he really heard what he heard. Before he can figure out what to make of it Alhaitham comes with a choked-off cry, splattering hot come all over Kaveh’s chest.

Alhaitham flops onto his side, chest heaving as he catches his breath. He grabs the towels that he keeps next to the bed for this purpose, and wipes himself off, then hands one to Kaveh wordlessly. Still stunned, Kaveh cleans himself as well, handing the towel back to Alhaitham when he’s done so that he can chuck it in the laundry bin that he also keeps by the bed because of how much he hates littering on the floor.

Kaveh opens his mouth to speak, only to see that Alhaitham, bless his heart, has fallen soundly asleep in the span of seconds. Kaveh is left to stare up at the ceiling, eyes wide as saucers, wondering what the hell just happened. He never thought of Alhaitham as one to appreciate aesthetics and beauty, especially not at a moment like this. To Alhaitham, sex was just another human need, like eating or drinking. And Kaveh was convenient for the fact that he was always around. He supposed it made sense that Alhaitham found him attractive, just as Kaveh found Alhaitham attractive, not that he’d ever said that out loud. But it was still a strange choice of words.

Then again, half of the things that escaped Alhaitham’s mouth were a strange choice of words. And Kaveh wasn’t the only one who’d had drinks tonight. Alhaitham was probably just swept up in the moment, or really bad at dirty talk, or whatever. It was a fluke. That was all there was to it.

The following night he makes another trip to the tavern, this time with Dehya. She’s a great drinking partner, with a seemingly bottomless tolerance and enough knowledge of Alhaitham’s modus operandi to understand the struggles Kaveh goes through on a daily basis. Or so he’d thought when he first started talking. Lately, though, she’s been fixing him with a strange look as soon as the name Alhaitham escapes his mouth.

“He’s been acting so weird lately,” Kaveh laments. “Like, he never treats me to a meal, at least not without complaining about me being a freeloader. And he—” Kaveh cuts off before he can say called me beautiful during sex, because that’s definitely not something his extremely lesbian friend wants to know. “He’s just been strangely nice to me, that’s all. I can’t think of any explanation… unless this is one of those situations where a dying person suddenly tries to make amends for the way they’d been all their life.” 

A sudden panic seizes in his chest and makes his throat constrict. He brushes it aside, not wanting for even a split second to contemplate life without Alhaitham’s constant presence. “Oh Archons, he better not be dying. I mean,” he appends quickly, “where would I even live then?”

“Y’know,” says Dehya, lazily sloshing the liquid in her mug. “Every time we go out drinking, it’s always Alhaitham this, Alhaitham that. D’you have feelings for him or something?”

Kaveh freezes. “What? Me? Have feelings for that asshole? Ha!” He barks out a too-loud laugh, downs the rest of his drink, and slams his glass down on the table. “I’d sooner watch hell freeze over.”

Dehya raises her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, jeez, you don’t have to get defensive.” 

Kaveh swipes at the condensation on his glass with a finger, wondering why the hell she had arrived at a conclusion so clearly out of left field. It’s then that, almost as if reading his mind, a hand lands on his shoulder.

Kaveh jerks upright, surprised by the sudden contact. It’s Alhaitham, of all people. The twilight sky casts an almost ethereal glow on him, or maybe it’s the alcohol. Suddenly, Kaveh is intensely annoyed by his presence.

“Whaddya want?” Kaveh slurs, shoving Alhaitham’s hand off his shoulder. 

“I knew you’d be here.” Of course, Kaveh thinks to himself. Because you know everrrrything about me. “I came to bring you home, since you mentioned that your client wanted to see your site plans by tonight. The state of the blank page on your workdesk tells me you need to get to work.”

“I—Alhaitham, listen to me—” Kaveh tries to protest, but Alhaitham ignores him, only slams a handful of Mora on the table and drags him away by the collar. “Jeez, you don’t have to—what are you, my babysitter?”

Dehya shoots him an amused, almost pitiful look as she waves him off. “How generous,” she says as she counts the Mora. “There’s enough for me too. Thanks, Alhaitham.” 

Only when they’re already halfway back home does Alhaitham let Kaveh get a word in. “I got an extension from the client,” says Kaveh. “He’s fine with me handing it over next week because he understands that good work takes time. Since when did you know my schedule better than me?” 

Alhaitham pauses. He lets go of Kaveh. Standing at his left side, Kaveh can’t see his eyes, covered by neatly disshevelled silver bangs. Kaveh wishes, not for the first time and definitely not for the last, that he could tell what Alhaitham was thinking at all. 

“It’s still not good for you to drink so many nights in a row,” says Alhaitham. Having made his decision, he continues to drag Kaveh unceremoniously by the collar. Kaveh fights against his steel grip and finally manages to get Alhaitham to let go when they’re already on the doorstep, shoving him aside to aggressively stick his key in the lock. 

“I’m a fucking adult,” Kaveh retorts, pushing the door open and storming inside as Alhaitham follows. “And your upperclassman to boot. Have some respect.” 

“This has nothing to do with respect,” says Alhaitham smoothly, unfazed when Kaveh turns to look at him. “You don’t know how to take care of yourself, so I have to do it for you.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” says Kaveh, placing a hand on Alhaitham’s chest. “Where do you get off being all high and mighty, like you’re so much better than me?”

“I never said I was better than you—”

Kaveh’s lips crash against Alhaitham’s, making him shut up in the only way he knows how. Alhaitham freezes for a moment, before giving in and kissing back with fervour. The two of them stumble a haphazard path towards the nearest couch. It’s Alhaitham who finds it first, fumbles them around and pushes Kaveh down on it. Kaveh groans when Alhaitham brackets him against the couch with an elbow, the heavy weight above him trapping him in place, still kissing him all the while. All he can do from here is push feebly at Alhaitham’s jacket, the one he always wears off one shoulder for no discernible reason even though someone as practical as Alhaitham is should know how to wear his clothes properly. The jacket falls off his shoulder easily, and lands on the floor. Kaveh pushes at Alhaitham’s sleeveless turtleneck next, but before he can get it off, Alhaitham’s hands catch around his wrists. 

“Could you pick that up,” he says. At Kaveh’s questioning look, he simply juts his chin out towards the jacket lying on the floor. 

“I’ll do it later,” says Kaveh distractedly, continuing to slide his hands underneath the fabric of Alhaitham’s shirt, splaying his hands against those infuriatingly perfect abs.

“Now,” says Alhaitham, tightening his hold on Kaveh’s wrists. “I’ve told you before, I don’t like leaving my clothes on the floor.” 

In a fit of irritation, Kaveh shoves Alhaitham off of him and sits upright. “Can’t you ever read the room?” says Kaveh, dragging a hand through his hair. The feather tucked behind his ear is knocked off, too, onto the ground.

“You should pick that up too.”

“Archons,” Kaveh exclaims. “You’re so fucking annoying.”

“I don’t understand what’s annoying about a set of rules I’ve made clear many times before.” Alhaitham narrows his eyes. He picks up the feather and jacket, folding the jacket and placing it on the armrest of the couch, with the feather on top. “I’ve told you that I don’t like leaving a mess around the house, and you never listen.”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from someone who never tidies up his books,” Kaveh snaps back. “You know what? I could say the same for you. I don’t like you dragging me away from the tavern by the collar like I’m a pet that ran astray. I don’t like you always making me suck you off without even bothering to get me off too. I don’t like ninety-five percent of the things you do, and what do you do when I complain about it? Nothing! I can’t stand it. I can’t stand living with you.” 

Something dark descends on Alhaitham’s face. His jaw twitches for a split second. And then he says the exact words that Kaveh has always dreaded hearing, the words he knew would one day come, but never dared to think about. 

“Fine. Then move out.”

Kaveh opens his mouth and then closes it. He’s at a loss for words. Sure, they bickered all the time. Alhaitham had teased him about it, dangling the empty threat of eviction in front of him more than once. But this time, he was serious. Kaveh could see in his stone-cold gaze that he was serious.

“Fine!” Kaveh stammers through the unidentifiable emotions raging in his chest. “If you want me to leave so bad, then I will! See if you can find somebody else to—to—” He struggles to find his next words. Alhaitham did most of the cooking. He reminded Kaveh to eat and sleep, found the keys when Kaveh lost them, and remembered Kaveh’s work schedule when he didn’t have to. “To put up with your smug attitude.” There. That was the one thing Kaveh had always done without fail. No matter how annoying Alhaitham was, Kaveh was still there for him. That had always been enough.

He doesn’t know how things have gone so wrong.

“Fine,” Alhaitham repeats that same word, like a broken Spincrystal. “I always preferred to live alone, anyway.”

Suitcases in tow, Kaveh leaves home the next morning and wanders Sumeru to look for a place to stay. He had thrown his house key in Alhaitham’s face and haughtily told him that a guy as popular as he was had no problem finding a place. Friends, clients, classmates, people he’d been on dates with—all of them would be more than happy to offer him a couch or bed to sleep on, something Alhaitham, who had no friends of his own, wouldn’t understand. 

That had been a lie, of course. Because even when he had nothing, he had his pride. He supposed that was the one thing he and Alhaitham had in common. 

With the Akasha, recently amended to serve solely as a communication tool rather than a knowledge hub, he calls up an old friend from the Akademiya. The guy is more than happy to speak to him, and they animatedly catch up for a few moments before Kaveh delves into his request and the other guy immediately backtracks, citing a number of excuses for why he couldn’t let Kaveh stay over. He calls several other classmates from the Akademiya, who react in much the same way. Kaveh can understand. It would be an inconvenience, and he couldn’t even pay them for their efforts. Not for the first time, he wonders why Alhaitham had extended the offer to take him in all that time ago.

Having given up on his so-called wide network of friends, he walks all the way to Port Ormos and knocks on the door of the Shapur Hotel, only to hear that they were fully booked for the next two weeks. Supposedly, the news of what had happened in Sumeru had reached other countries, and people from abroad were eager to come witness the birth of a new country, a widespread resurgence of art and performance. Kaveh is reminded once again that Alhaitham actively participated in the saving of an Archon and the dismantling of a corrupt institution solely so that he could keep his stable income and cushy home. He tries not to laugh under his breath, as he thanks the owner and takes his leave. 

As the sky dims with the edges of twilight, he reminds himself that there’s still the project he took part in in the desert, a collection of buildings that hadn’t yet been sold to an owner. He heads there on tired feet, figuring that he might be able to get away with sleeping there without being caught. It’s by sheer luck that he runs into Cyno on the outskirts of Caravan Ribat. One look at him is all that the General Mahamatra needs to clock his shitty mood and tired state.

“Hello, Kaveh,” says Cyno, deadpan. “What do you call a criminal who is fighting the urge to sleep?”

Kaveh waits. 

Cyno clears his throat. “Resisting a rest.” 

Kaveh stays silent. Cyno stays silent too, looking at him with his one exposed eye to gauge his reaction. 

“Ha,” says Kaveh. 

Cyno sighs. Looking wistfully out at the Wall of Samiel in the distance, he says, “I almost expected Tighnari to manifest out of thin air and attempt to choke me out.” He turns back to Kaveh. “Jokes aside, you look exhausted. Care for a drink?”

Kaveh takes out his wallet. He shakes the bag with one hand and holds out the palm of the other. One Mora falls pathetically into the palm of his hand. 

“On me,” says Cyno. 

“Gods, yes,” says Kaveh, eyes lighting up as he clasps his hands together. “Please.”

That’s how Kaveh ends up drinking again for the fourth night in a row at the local tavern, airing out his problems loudly to a solemnly nodding Cyno. At least he doesn’t deliver any more unfunny jokes. When he does open his mouth again it’s to say, “There’s an extra room in the Matra lodgings, seeing as we just fired someone. You could stay there while you look for a more permanent place.” 

“Wait, seriously?” Kaveh stops, his arm holding his mug of beer in mid-air. “That’d be a life saver. You sure it wouldn’t cause problems for you? I’m not a Matra, after all.”

“There won’t be any problem,” says Cyno. “It’s a spare room, anyway. As for the others, I doubt there will be any questions asked. People tend to fall silent and scurry away as soon as I lay eyes upon them.”

“...Right.” Kaveh shudders just thinking about it. He’s eternally grateful that he somehow landed on Cyno’s good side. “Anyways, thanks, Cyno. I really appreciate it.”

The sentiment is appreciated, at least. 

But the reality is that the room is tiny. Kaveh doesn’t think he’s seen a room this tiny. It’s probably half the size of Alhaitham’s bathroom. There’s a bunk bed with the top bunk broken squished against the wall, a fraying carpet on the floor, and no desk. After Kaveh carries his suitcases inside, there’s barely any room to sit down. 

“It’s not much, I know,” says Cyno when he catches the look on Kaveh’s face. Kaveh winces, not wanting to be an ungrateful guest. “Back when Azar was the Grand Sage, all the funding went into his corrupt research. And now with all the changes going on, we’ve primarily been trying to fund outreach towards the people of the desert, rather than improve our own conditions.”

“It’s… very homey,” says Kaveh, toeing at the frayed edge of the carpet that curls up beneath his feet. The entire place is an insult to his architectural senses, but he’s not Alhaitham—he knows how to speak with common decency when the situation calls for it. “I appreciate it. Really.”

Cyno leaves him be. As soon as Kaveh changes into his sleeping robes and crawls into the bottom bunk, the bed gives a loud squeak that sounds more like a dying wail. Outside, footsteps hurry up and down the corridor, loud voices shouting every once in a while. He really wishes he possessed a pair of those noise-cancelling headphones Alhaitham always wears. Still, having stayed up all night to pack his belongings, he’s tired enough that he eventually drifts off to sleep anyway.

Working, as it turns out, is a whole different story. It’s borderline impossible to focus with all the noise of the Matra training outside. Every once in a while, someone kicks the door open looking for the guy Cyno fired, only to squint at Kaveh in confusion and back away without closing the door.

It’d been hard enough on his pride to plead with his client for a deadline extension, so he knows he can’t get away with doing it again. If he’s being perfectly honest, it’s not doing his creative brain any good to take on so much work, one project after the other with no breaks in between. But, no matter how annoying Alhaitham can be, some part of Kaveh still felt like he should pay his fair share. The sooner he could pay back the debt of Alcazarzaray Palace, the sooner he could start paying his share of rent, or so he thought.

Now, his objective is different. To find a new place to stay with a functional bed and enough room for a desk. Just a small one would do. 

Bent over like a shrimp on the floor, he taps his pen rhythmically on the page in front of him. He’d left his usual feather quill, the one he kept tucked behind his ear for fear of misplacing it, at Alhaitham’s place. And there was no way he was going back for it. He’d found a cheap fountain pen hiding underneath his bunk that would have to do for now, even if it was annoying to write with. Sure, he could simply visit the Akademiya. As an alumnus, he was permitted to access their resources and workspaces. But it was the chance of running into Alhaitham that kept him cooped up in this room.

This project wasn’t supposed to be a difficult one. His newest client was a fellow scholar at the Akademiya who’d heard about him through the grapevine. A rich relative of the Homayanis, newly married and looking to build a mansion for him and his wife that overlooked the water on the outskirts of Sumeru City. Kaveh had designed countless residences in the past, and all of them had been successful, if not as famous as the Palace of Alcazarzaray. But here he was, stuck at the hard edge of a creative block. When are you going to build yourself a mansion? Alhaitham had asked him, tauntingly, once. Well, maybe it was time for him to start drafting one up. If he wasn’t going to work on his actual project anyways, then he may as well whip something up using the most powerful weapon of all—spite.

Just thinking about Alhaitham’s words, the coldness with which he had kicked Kaveh to the curb, gets his pen furiously scribbling. He’d show Alhaitham what he was made of, all right. He begins with the exterior. Three stories, at least, with a spacious front yard and garden for all the beautiful flowers that Alhaitham probably wouldn’t know how to appreciate. Once, when asked what his favourite flower was, Alhaitham had answered Sumeru roses, not because of their beauty but because of their medicinal properties. Well, Kaveh would teach him to appreciate their beauty, all right. After sketching out an expanse of violet roses, he begins to draw the same green stained-glass windows that covered their house, but adds his own flair, panels of dark red to contrast against the green and highlight its beauty. The roof becomes a gorgeous, turquoise-tiled combination of a dome and slanted edges, a harmonious contrast of two schools of thought. 

Inside the house, he finds himself sketching out the same library slash workspace that he and Alhaitham so often spent their time. Floor-to-ceiling shelves full of books, which he divides into two sections on opposite walls, and the third, between them, a collection of books they could both agree on. The fourth wall is another full-length, stained-glass window, for all the times that Alhaitham had urged Kaveh to look up from your work, for Archon’s sake, and look outside. There’s a whole world out there that you’ll miss if you single-mindedly bury your nose in projects. Hmph. As if Alhaitham wasn’t much the same way, unable to put down a good book until he’d finished reading it. Next to Alhaitham’s desk, he adds a tall, shaded light for late-night reading, a small shelf for all of his books, and a small stand where he could rest his headphones. Between the two desks, he places a velvet-cushioned loveseat, smiling to himself as he reminisces their early-morning conversations, Alhaitham biting into a green apple as Kaveh fills him in about the lives of their former classmates. And finally, on the floor he places the carpet that he had used for the Palace of Alcazarzaray, a geometric, green pattern designed by Alhaitham himself.

Only when the sun sets and his room descends into darkness does Kaveh realize how much time he had spent hunched over this little passion project. He blinks hard to clear his mind, and then scans over the page, taking it in with a fresh pair of eyes.

There’s no denying it. 

It’s a house designed specifically for him and Alhaitham.

He looks down in disbelief at the page, as though it had grown a will of its own and betrayed him. “Stop it! What’s wrong with you?” Kaveh chastises the page, crumpling it up into his fists before chucking it across the room. “He’s not your roommate anymore.” The idea that, given the chance to build a mansion solely for himself, he had defaulted to living with Alhaitham—it’s too much. The worst part is that he has no alcohol to blame this time. The only one responsible for this is Kaveh himself.

Letting out a long, shaky breath, he groans and rolls over onto his back, only to hit his head on the edge of the bedframe. Wincing in pain, he rubs at the top of his head and curls up on his side, feeling absolutely miserable. He doesn’t want to admit it. He can’t admit it. But he really, really misses—

“Kaveh. Kaveh.”

Kaveh jolts out of his internal turmoil to realize that Cyno has been knocking at his door for the past fifteen seconds. “Sorry!” he says. “What is it?”

“I brought you dinner.”

Through the door, Kaveh can smell the aroma of the same rations every single Matra eats day in and day out. He’s only been having the food for three days and he’s sick of it. He really did take Alhaitham’s cooking for granted. 

“Thanks, but I’m good,” says Kaveh dully. He highly doubts he’s in the mood to stomach any food right now.

As if to mock him, Alhaitham shows up at his door the next day. 

Kaveh opens it upon hearing the knock, thinking that it’s Cyno bringing him food again while he’s busy with work, only to find the very face he’s been desperately trying not to think about staring right back at him, his gaze as unwavering as always. 

“I’m coming in,” says Alhaitham, a sentence instead of a question yet again. Kaveh is too stunned to do anything but step aside as Alhaitham enters his room and shuts the door. Luckily, he’d tidied up his things enough that there was space for the two of them to stand in the room.

“Why,” Kaveh croaks out. He clears his throat, trying to compose himself. “Why are you here?”

“I came because you left this at my place.” Alhaitham hands him the feather quill that he’d forgotten. “And because I heard about Cyno’s secret mistress.”

Kaveh snatches the quill from Alhaitham’s hand. And then, belatedly registering Alhaitham’s words, promptly chokes on his own spit. “His what?”

“Everyone knows that the General Mahamatra is happily wedded to the Forest Watcher of Gandharva Ville. However, rumours have begun to spread that he is harboring a blond-haired, red-eyed secret mistress in his quarters. Perhaps he could not put up with the geographical distance between them, and was feeling lonesome. Or perhaps—the more liberal townsfolk insist, anyway—that his partner is okay with this arrangement, and that the addition of a third adds some spice to the bedroom. Either way, you have unarguably become the subject of the town’s small talk.”

Kaveh feels his face heating up. He must be as red as a Zaytun Peach. “So you came here just to make fun of me then?” He scoffs. “Figures. You really need a better hobby.” 

“No.” Alhaitham crosses his arms, unfazed. “I came here to confirm my suspicions, since the physical description of this mistress matched yours.”

“And now you’ve confirmed them,” says Kaveh. He tosses the quill in his hand up into the air, and catches it. “So, will you be on your way now, great Scribe?”

Alhaitham narrows his eyes. “Not yet. I didn’t intend to overstay my welcome, but now that I’m here, I have one more request.” He looks around the room, at the crumpled-up pages on the floor and the lack of a desk, at the state of the bed that’s well on its way to giving out. “Move back in with me.” 

It’s Kaveh’s turn to squint at him. “Excuse me?” 

“Come back to my place,” says Alhaitham. “You won’t have to pay rent, as usual. Everything will be the same as it used to be. I haven’t touched your room, so you can keep sleeping in your old bed. And keep working at your old workdesk, not cramped up in the Matra’s quarters, with… unsavoury rumours being spread about you.”

The remark strikes Kaveh as uncharacteristic, as does the dark look that crosses Alhaitham’s face as he utters the words. “Since when did you care what other people think?” 

“I don’t, but it’s in your best interest to. Would anyone hire you if they thought that you went around having affairs with married men?” 

Kaveh can’t exactly argue with that. Still, so much of Alhaitham’s recent behaviour has eluded him like a puzzle he just can’t solve. “I don’t get it,” he says, serious. “Why take me back, after you were so intent on kicking me out in the first place?”

“I wasn’t planning to,” says Alhaitham. “You made it clear that you dislike our terms of cohabitation, and I have no intention of forcing anyone who doesn’t want to be around me to do so. At first I was under the impression that you were staying with a friend somewhere comfortable. However, Cyno told me that you had planned on hiding away in the desert before he offered you a place to stay, and seeing your current state of affairs—”

Kaveh grits his teeth. “I don’t need your pity—”

“Will you let me finish?”

Alhaitham’s hands are balled into fists. Kaveh hasn’t seen him get this emotional since maybe ever. Alhaitham seems to notice, too, and unclenches his hands, letting out a short huff of breath. “Look. Whatever happened between us, happened. But I think I made it clear that I don’t hate you. I don’t want you to inconvenience yourself to such a great extent just to avoid me.”

Kaveh searches Alhaitham’s eyes, and finds nothing other than sincerity. This, perhaps, is what truly irritates Kaveh the most—that he always means what he says. 

“Wouldn’t you be inconveniencing yourself if I moved back in?” 

“Yes,” says Alhaitham. Kaveh blinks, not having expected him to agree so quickly. “In a practical sense, I reap no benefits. I cook for two people, and get no monetary compensation. But just because I don’t go out of my way to seek companionship, doesn’t mean that it’s not something I value with the right person.” For a moment, Kaveh swears he can see a slight pink colouration dusting across Alhaitham’s cheeks. “And besides, wasn’t it you who said that the nature of human relationships is ‘give and take’? Well, this is me. Giving.”

Kaveh wants to formulate some snappy retort, some type of banter that would restore them to the status quo. But somehow, it feels like the stickiness of Whopperflower nectar has lodged itself in his throat, and he’s unable to speak. So he says nothing. Just watches as Alhaitham turns to leave. With his hand on the knob, he says, “If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I understand that I’m difficult to get along with.” 

Hearing Alhaitham say that makes Kaveh’s chest clench tight. He wants to argue that it’s not true. That for all of Alhaitham’s faults, for all their mundane arguments, Kaveh never really minded being around him, because Alhaitham was kind in his own way. He didn’t have to take Kaveh in when he found out Kaveh was in debt. He didn’t have to cook for Kaveh or treat him to meals. To pour him a glass of water during a bad hangover, or put a cold towel on his head when he caught a fever from overworking himself. He didn’t have to sit beside Kaveh in the House of Daena at three in the morning, watching over him, draping a jacket over his shoulders when he fell asleep at the desk. He didn’t have to sit beside Kaveh on their shared couch as he snivelled and sobbed through his latest breakup, hand hovering awkwardly over his back before deciding to go for the touch. And he didn’t have to come all the way here today just to see him.

“Think about it,” says Alhaitham, “and let me know. If not, I’ll help you find someplace that doesn’t break your bank. You are,” he pauses, still with his back facing Kaveh, “my friend, after all.” 

Cooped up in his room with no workdesk and the tiniest excuse for a window, Kaveh contemplates Alhaitham’s offer between bouts of inspiration and insomnia. Several moons and several more failed drafts later, the day of his deadline approaches. He’s looked over his work countless times, and still nothing seems up to his usual standard. The only creation he can be remotely proud of is the make-believe home that he stupidly designed for himself and Alhaitham.

He picks it up from where it lies, crumpled up in the corner of the room, and flattens it out. An insane thought crosses his mind. The mansion is about the same size and acreage as the client’s request. It houses two people. And Kaveh had put a lot—a lot—of thought into it. 

He flattens it out some more, hoping desperately that the client wouldn’t mind the wrinkled state of the paper. Then he rolls it up, ties it off neatly with a ribbon, and heads out the door. 

When he presents his work to the client over dinner and drinks at Lambad’s tavern, the client falls eerily silent. He takes such an agonizingly long time to look over the design, eyes serious, that Kaveh is compelled to speak to fill the silence. 

“Sorry it’s crumpled, I was moving and it caught between the corners of my, ah, shelves. But I assure you, the quality of the design is top-notch…” He trails off, aware that the man is not listening to him. 

After what feels like an eternity, the man looks up from the page. His eyes are wide as he regards Kaveh, and his hands firm as he grabs both of Kaveh’s hands in his own.

“This… this… is gorgeous!” 

Kaveh heaves out an emphatic sigh of relief. And then the surprise sets in. “Wait. It is?”

“It’s everything I ever wanted,” the man gushes. “Oh, you’ve designed it with such attention to detail, such compassion— a beautiful space for us scholars to work independently but in each other’s company, a loveseat for the two of us to rest after a long day, a window adorned with our favourite colours to enjoy the garden view of Sumeru roses, the flower that my wife loves—this,” he draws in a breath, “is not only the pinnacle of architecture, but the pinnacle of romance! You’ve truly understood the nuances of life as a married couple.”

The pinnacle of romance? 

A married couple? 

“Mister Kaveh, I truly understand now,” the man beams, stars in his eyes, “why you are known as the Light of Kshahrewar. It is a name well-earned. I guarantee you,” he says, rolling up the scroll and stashing it away, “I will spread the word of your artistic genius to everyone that I know.” And then, he takes out the bag of Mora—the Mora!—and places it, heavy with its glorious weight, into the palm of Kaveh’s hand. “Sir, sir!” He waves over the waiter with a hand, and exclaims, “A round of drinks for everyone in the tavern. On me!”

Right. Yes. Kaveh’s artistic genius, designed specifically with the client’s preferences in mind. 

A married couple.

Kaveh shakes his head vigorously, refusing to follow that train of thought. Instead, he clinks his glass together with his wonderfully rich client, and bellows out a loud “Cheers!”

As he hobbles his way back from the tavern, Kaveh is drunk enough that there’s only one thing on his mind. One hand to his ear, he finds Alhaitham’s contact information through the Akasha, and dials him. Nobody picks up. He dials again, and still nothing. 

Instead of heading back to his own temporary lodgings, he heads for the Akademiya’s main building. He sobers up a little on the way there, and remembers why he had avoided the Akademiya altogether. It’s too late to turn back, though. He traverses the halls and ends up in the House of Daena, where Alhaitham spends most of his time, and mentally steels himself for the conversation. But he’s nowhere to be found.

He asks the first person he sees—who happens to be Jafar, bent over a book at a nearby table—if he’s heard of Alhaitham’s whereabouts.

“I haven’t seen him, no,” says Jafar, rubbing sleepily at his eyes. “In fact, I’ve heard that he hasn’t shown up to work for the past three days. I assumed he was off finding a replacement for the Grand Sage.”

Kaveh frowns. That really isn’t like him. But he thanks Jafar for the information anyways. 

Atop the House of Daena, he finds Panah, the Mahamata. There’s a face he knows well. If he was busy with finding Azar’s replacement, then Alhaitham would surely have contacted Panah about it.

“No,” Panah shakes his head, looking a little worried. “I haven’t heard from the Scribe at all. In fact, I’ve received a number of applications that I’m not sure what to do with. Many of the Akademiya’s operations are suspended without a Grand Sage, so everyone is waiting for him to make his decision. I suppose it’s natural that he would want some time off. In fact, I don’t believe he’s ever taken a single day off since starting work as a Scribe. But to take a sudden vacation at a time like this is very uncharacteristic of him.”

Kaveh thanks Panah, too, and heads out the door. Knowing what he knows now, it’s becoming harder to fight the dread settling at the pit of his stomach, to not entertain the startlingly real possibility that something might have happened to him. 

His feet take him on the familiar path home. Brightwood trees sway lightly in the night breeze, and the sound of his footsteps is heavy on the pavement as he speeds up from a brisk walk into a run. In the sky above, the moon is obscured by thick grey clouds. Stupidly, he recalls the time when he’d joked to Dehya that Alhaitham might be dying. How he could have said that was beyond him. You are my friend, after all. Alhaitham’s words echo in his mind. Just because I don’t go out of my way to seek companionship, doesn’t mean that it’s not something I value with the right person.

Kaveh is panting and out of breath by the time he reaches the doorstep. He digs around in his pockets for the lion-shaped keychain, only to recall he had handed over his keys to Alhaitham when he moved out. He curses under his breath and pounds his fist on the door. “Alhaitham,” he calls out. “Alhaitham! Open the door.” 

For a terrifying moment, there is silence. And then the sound of footsteps, slow and sluggish, leading up to the front door. The door creaks open, and there stands Alhaitham, looking as carefree and aloof as usual. Except there is a square bandage plastered onto his left cheek.  Another bandage is wrapped all the way around his forehead, though it’s mostly hidden under his hair. And his right arm is bandaged all the way from his palm up to his elbow, resting in a sling tied up around his neck.

Tears threaten to blur Kaveh’s field of vision. He blinks them away furiously.

“What the hell happened to you?” he blurts out as he barges inside without asking for permission. Alhaitham doesn’t seem to mind, seems to expect it, even. He pushes the door shut behind them with his left hand.

“I had a run-in with some Treasure Hoarders,” says Alhaitham, detached as ever. “I managed to fend them off, but not without a few scrapes here and there. I’m only a feeble scholar, after all.”

It makes Kaveh indescribably angry that Alhaitham can’t bring himself to sound like he cares, even when it’s about his own well-being. 

“And you say I don’t know how to take care of myself,” Kaveh fumes, hauling Alhaitham over onto the couch. He sits down next to him, and inspects the state of the wounds. He starts with the arm, pulling it out of the sling and turning it over in his hands. Alhaitham winces, arm jerking in Kaveh’s grasp as he lets out a pained noise. There’s blood on the surface of the bandages. Kaveh’s no medical expert, but he’s sure that no wound should still be bleeding after three days.

“When was the last time you changed these?”

“Three days ago,” says Alhaitham. 

Kaveh clicks his tongue, feeling like a schoolteacher chastising a child. “Are you an idiot? You’re supposed to change them every day. What if it’s become infected?”

Alhaitham’s jaw twitches. “In case you’re not aware, applying a bandage with only one arm is not an easy feat.”

Between the mess of half-eaten food on the coffee table and the bloodstained jacket dangling off the arm of the couch onto the floor, it’s obvious the wounds must have been bad. Or maybe he was just hopeless without Kaveh around to take care of the chores. Kaveh raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “And what stopped you from asking for help? Was it that worthless pride of yours?” 

“They broke my Akasha terminal,” says Alhaitham. 

Kaveh digs his nails into his own palms, willing away the sudden, sharp pain that constricts at his own chest. He says nothing. He simply looks down and begins to undo the contaminated bandages Alhaitham applied himself. Grabbing the first-aid kit lying at the other end of the couch, he finds a tin of ointment made of the crushed petals of Sumeru roses, and, as gently as possible, begins to dab it onto the knife wounds that sprawl across Alhaitham’s forearm. Alhaitham lets out a choked grunt of pain, and Kaveh rubs small, soothing circles into the back of his hand. 

“I can apply the ointment myself,” says Alhaitham. “I can do that much at least with one hand.” When Kaveh looks up, he finds that Alhaitham’s head is ducked in uncharacteristic shyness, light pink colouring the apples of his cheeks. 

Kaveh huffs out a sigh as he begins to bandage up the wound. “Just let me take care of you for once. I owe you that much for all the time I spent living under your roof.” 

“I didn’t offer you my place because I wanted you to owe me,” says Alhaitham. “You had just as much right to the house as I did.”

It’s Kaveh’s turn to gape at him. “What? No, I gave up the house.” He’d declined the Akademiya’s offer of the house during the time when he was better off, with the thought that extra housing should go to those who needed it. Alhaitham, on the other hand, was more than happy to take it, believing not in free handouts but earned rewards. Now, Kaveh’s mind runs rapid-fire like an Electro current, trying to make sense of all the times Alhaitham had teased him for not being able to pay rent and insisted he pay for his own drinks. “Why did you do it, then?”

“Because I admired you.” Alhaitham doesn’t meet his eyes, choosing instead to stare down at the fabric of the couch. “You were brilliant. Everyone at the Akademiya knew it, even before you built Alcazarzaray. Our schools of thought may differ, and our collaborative efforts may have fallen through, but it never changed the way that I saw you. Compared to all those years of living alone, I thought that my own research could be made better if I had someone to engage in intellectual debate and exchange ideas with.” He lets out a dry laugh, a sound that’s almost fond. “I didn’t anticipate how frequently our debates would be derailed into childish bickering.”

“Oh,” says Kaveh. It’s his turn to blush, even as he lets out a small laugh. “Childish bickering, huh? I guess that’s why you kicked me out, because you’d finally had enough of it.”

“No,” Alhaitham shakes his head, finally meeting his gaze. “That was a rash decision on my part.” 

Kaveh frowns. He’s pretty sure that he’s never heard the words Alhaitham and rash decision associated with one another. “What do you mean?” 

Alhaitham falls quiet. “I never thought about asking you to leave,” he says after a long moment. With his free hand, he digs his fingers into the divot of the couch cushions. “Not until I overheard you at the tavern, saying that you’d sooner watch hell freeze over than have romantic feelings for me.”

Kaveh jolts. He didn’t think Alhaitham had heard that, and now he’s met with a pang of guilt.

“I—I didn’t mean…” Kaveh trails off, uncertain. What had he meant, when he said that?

“It’s fine,” says Alhaitham. “You don’t have to sugarcoat it. In any case, I supposed that it wouldn’t make sense to continue living with someone I harboured feelings for, if there was no chance that they would ever return those feelings.” 

Kaveh freezes in place. 

Slowly, he lets go of Alhaitham’s newly bandaged arm, letting it fall back down onto his lap. Peripherally, it feels as though the whole room is spinning, as though the space the two of them occupy is rearranging itself around this newfound, nonsensical information.

“You,” Kaveh says, voice hoarse. “You… what?”

“I have feelings for you,” Alhaitham repeats like he’s stating the weather. 

Kaveh doesn’t know which is more surprising—the fact that Alhaitham has feelings, or the fact that Alhaitham has feelings for him. In either case, he’s stunned into complete speechlessness, his heart pounding deafeningly in his ears as Alhaitham continues to speak.

“If we continued to live together, then it would only be a matter of time before you found out. And then it would have been awkward to remain as roommates, let alone people who slept together. It would be better to end things here, have a clean break, and not see each other anymore. At least, that’s what I thought.” Alhaitham pauses, letting out a brief exhale. “I failed to account for how much I would miss having you around.”

Kaveh is suddenly hyper-aware of every point of contact, the way his fingertip brushes against the back of Alhaitham’s hand, the way their knees knock together as they sit facing one another on the couch. Alhaitham must feel him tense up, for he shifts away so that they are no longer touching. Kaveh misses the contact almost immediately.

“It ended up being awkward anyway, I suppose,” says Alhaitham wanly. He adjusts the collar of his shirt, then stands up. From this angle, all Kaveh can see is his side profile, face obscured by his long bangs, the green wire of his headphones snaking around a pale neck and down the side of his body. “My arm feels better with the ointment. You don’t have to stick around. I’m sure you have better things to do. Oh, but I’d appreciate if you could let the Akademiya know that my work as the Scribe will have to wait until I’m able to write again.” He wriggles his fingers weakly before inserting his arm back into its sling. “As for my offer, it hasn’t changed. Though I imagine you’ll be even more put off by it, now that you know the nature of my feelings.” 

Kaveh sits unmovingly on the couch as Alhaitham walks off in the direction of his bedroom without looking back. Something large and tumultuous kicks up in his chest. Presented with this missing piece to explain all of Alhaitham’s actions—the strange niceness, the jealousy upon hearing about him and Cyno, those words, whispered with hushed reverence—you’re beautiful—Kaveh feels like he is just on the verge of reaching clarity. But something still escapes his understanding.

He presses a hand to his own chest to try to tame his racing heartbeat. It takes a moment for him to realize that what he feels isn’t confusion, but anger. Anger at the fact that Alhaitham had confessed so casually, without wanting anything in return. This was the man who refused to put down a book in the middle of conversation, who simply turned up his noise-cancelling headphones when someone spoke to him about work outside of his hours. The man who saved the world just to keep his middle-class job, the man who selfishly lived life exactly the way he pleased. The same man who was now being infuriatingly selfless, as if he never once expected Kaveh to think about him, too.

And Gods, did Kaveh think about him. He thinks about all that time he spent lying awake at night, before they started sleeping together, conjuring up a picture of Alhaitham’s perfect face and kicking and screaming under his covers. He thinks about the way his heart had clogged up his throat when Alhaitham had called him beautiful. The house he’d designed for the two of them, an idyllic piece of paradise complete with all of the little mannerisms that he’d picked up about Alhaitham along the way. A married couple. The trepidation he felt upon finding out that Alhaitham was missing, the dreadful, paralyzing fear of losing Alhaitham. Dehya’s words, echoing in his brain, d’you have feelings for him or something—

Oh.

Oh.

Kaveh may have, in fact, been more dense than Alhaitham himself.

In the next instant he’s up on his feet, crossing the room in quick strides. He reaches out and grabs Alhaitham firmly by the arm. Alhaitham stops in his tracks, turning around to face him, and looks at him, brow slightly furrowed with a puzzled expression that Kaveh can finally allow himself to call endearing.

“You’re an idiot,” says Kaveh with conviction. 

“You keep calling me that,” says Alhaitham, “but I don’t see what I did wrong.” 

“How can you just say things like that,” Kaveh exclaims, feeling out of breath like he’s just run a mile through the desert, “and walk away without waiting for an answer? How can you just assume that I don’t feel anything for you?” He reaches up and plants his index finger right smack in the middle of Alhaitham’s forehead, over top of the bandage. “Did those Treasure Hoarders break your brain, too?”

“If all you’re going to do is berate me,” Alhaitham remarks bitterly, “then I’d suggest you save it—”

“Shut up!” Kaveh cries out. “Your senior is speaking.” It’s only when he lets out a pathetic, instinctual sniffle, only when he notices the way Alhaitham’s expression softens around the edges, that he realizes he’s crying. Face hot with shame, he leans his head onto Alhaitham’s shoulder, and clutches at the front of his shirt with tight fists. “I was so worried about you. I come in to see that you’re barely able to eat, that you can’t even clean up after yourself, and—I live with you for years, giving nothing in return, only for you to turn down my help the one time you need it and expect me to walk away. Is that really the kind of person you think I am?” 

Alhaitham is wise enough this time to stay silent. Or perhaps he’s been stunned into it. 

“Because I know what kind of person you are,” says Kaveh into the fabric of Alhaitham’s shirt. “You’re a good roommate. You always have been. I don’t know what life would be like without you, and I don’t want to. Did you know that—” Kaveh lets out a laugh that turns into a hiccup. “I couldn’t get any work done for my client, so I drew up my dream mansion, the one you’d always told me to go out and build. But I couldn’t think about anything but you when you were gone. Before I knew it I’d drawn up a place for the two of us to live, together. And it was good. I think it was one of the best things I’ve ever made. I handed that over to my client, and he loved it. Said it was the ‘pinnacle of romance.’” 

Kaveh feels Alhaitham go still against him, and pulls back to look up at Alhaitham. He’s stopped crying now, but his voice still tremors. He tries to duck his head, certain that his eyes are an ugly, swollen red, but Alhaitham softly brushes his bangs aside and looks into them anyway with breathtaking earnestness and raw hope. 

“So don’t say things like that,” says Kaveh. “Things like, oh, now that I know how you feel about me there’s no way I’d come back. Because I want to come home to you too, Haitham. I always have.”

Kaveh can’t tell who moves first. But in the next moment their lips are pressed together. Alhaitham’s lips are warm, if a little bit chapped, his hand soft but firm where it reaches up to cup protectively at the nape of Kaveh’s neck. Kaveh’s mouth instinctively falls open, and as their tongues slide against each other, Alhaitham makes a gorgeous little noise that makes Kaveh feel like he’s either melting or being vaporized. 

“So,” Alhaitham breathes out between kisses. “Does this mean—” he furrows his brow as he dodges Kaveh’s efforts to kiss him again, needing an immediate answer instead. “You’re moving back in?”

“Yes,” says Kaveh, exasperated and dizzy with affection. He brushes his thumb across Alhaitham’s cheekbone, gentle. “Does that answer your question? Are you happy?”

“Yes,” Alhaitham echoes, his features mellowed out by a soft, enamored smile. “I am.”

They end up in Kaveh’s bedroom this time. Archons, Kaveh has missed this—not only the large, comfortable bed with enough space to move around, but also the other person occupying it. 

The mattress dips under Alhaitham’s weight as he sits down on the edge of it, pulling Kaveh easily up onto his lap. They’re too busy kissing and touching to speak, like they’re both been starved for it for far too long. Alhaitham shrugs his sling off in order to wrap both hands around Kaveh’s waist. Kaveh tries to argue against it, but he forgets how to speak when Alhaitham’s fingertips slide past the cutout of his thin linen shirt and over the sensitive skin at his back. He should probably take his shirt off so Alhaitham can touch him more. 

He gets his own shirt off and instinctually makes a move to toss it onto the floor, but shakes his head and places it neatly at the corner of the bed instead. Then he moves in on Alhaitham. That skin-tight turtleneck, the stuff of his nightmares, and the subject of many a wet dream. He runs his hands over Alhaitham’s pecs, relishing the small grunt Alhaitham lets out, before trailing his hands down the planes of his abs. But when he reaches the area near Alhaitham’s navel, Alhaitham winces, eyes scrunching shut. 

Concerned, Kaveh pushes up the hem of the shirt to see another layer of bandages around Alhaitham’s waist. 

“What’s this?”

Alhaitham has the gall to look completely guiltless. “Injury,” he states plainly.

“I know that, asshole. Why didn’t you tell me earlier when I was fixing up your arm?”

“... It didn’t seem pertinent.”

Kaveh raises an eyebrow.

“Fine,” says Alhaitham. “I was afraid that if you touched me there, I would get hard.” 

Kaveh flushes at the admission. “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he counters.

“It would have been even more awkward than it already was. I am capable of reading a room sometimes.”

“Sometimes.” Kaveh tuts. He brushes his fingers tenderly over the wound, where several drops of blood have seeped through the bandages, and winces in sympathy. He’s about to suggest they call it off for tonight when he hears Alhaitham make a strained noise he hasn’t heard before.

Kaveh lifts his gaze to meet Alhaitham’s. “… Is that a good moan or a bad moan?”

He watches smugly as Alhaitham, the man with a seemingly bottomless ego, curls in on himself and pointedly avoids Kaveh’s eyes.

Kaveh smirks. “You like the pain, don’t you? You’re just as bad as I am.” 

“I resent that accusation.”

A small laugh escapes Kaveh’s throat. “You resent pretty much everything I say.” He trails a finger along the edge of Alhaitham’s bandage. Just thinking about Alhaitham in pain makes his own heart feel like an open wound. “Would you resent me if I said we shouldn’t do this today?”

“Yes,” says Alhaitham immediately. To punctuate his point, he reaches around Kaveh’s back to give his ass a firm squeeze. Kaveh can’t deny the way his dick twitches at the touch. He lets out a long sigh. What an annoyingly obstinate guy.

“Fine,” says Kaveh. “Then lie back and let me take care of you.”

He strips off the rest of his clothes, and collects the vial of oil from his nightstand, coating his fingers with it generously. He teases his own rim with a finger before inserting it, groaning softly as he takes it in up to the knuckle. He pushes it in and out, getting accustomed to the sensation before adding another. His knees shake slightly as he fucks himself on his fingers, and all the while Alhaitham looks at him, enraptured, like he couldn’t tear his eyes away if he tried. Only now does he understand that this is the way that Alhaitham has been looking at him all along. His body grows hot with equal parts embarrassment and satisfaction.

Still, as a scholar, his curiosity is piqued. “Say, Haitham,” Kaveh says as he pushes his fingers in and out rhythmically, adding a third as soon as he feels he’s ready. “When did you realize you have feelings for me?”

Alhaitham hums. “Strictly speaking, it was the night you sucked my dick.” 

Kaveh chokes. He coughs loudly into his fist and smacks Alhaitham on his good arm. “Can’t you say it with a bit more tact?” 

Alhaitham gives a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s true. Although I had my suspicions before that. About two weeks ago I began to notice that something was off—my stomach felt queasy, and my face would often grow hot, so I went to Tighnari to get it checked. He told me there was nothing wrong with my body, but that there might be something wrong with my brain. After I got home, I began to read up on the phenomenon known as lovesickness. All the symptoms matched.”

Kaveh snorts. “You figured it out from a book?”

“Twenty-eight books,” corrects Alhaitham. Seemingly having had enough of sitting still, he wraps his hand around Kaveh’s cock, causing him to let out a sharp, startled whine when Alhaitham begins to stroke it. “The reference material was quite helpful. I also deduced how to ask you out on a dinner date. Although I doubt it went well, given that the next day, you loudly proclaimed you would never have feelings for me.”

So that’s what that was. Kaveh hides his face in his hands. “Oh, give me a break! Not everyone can be honest about their feelings all the time like you are.”

“At least your body has no problem being honest,” says Alhaitham, twisting his hand with an upstroke and smirking when Kaveh jerks into his grasp and moans. 

“Fuck you.” 

“Yes, that’s the idea.” Alhaitham trails his thumb, deliberate and slow, along the divot between Kaveh’s crotch and thigh, and Kaveh just about melts. Now more than ever, sex with Alhaitham has him feeling like all his senses are heightened, burgeoned by the very knowledge of their newly bloomed affection. He doesn’t even have time to chastise Alhaitham for using his injured arm, because the next moment Alhaitham’s fingers are teasing around the perimeter of his rim and he’s bringing the back of his hand up to cover his mouth to keep from letting out an embarrassingly loud whine. Alhaitham catches Kaveh’s wrist in his hand and shakes his head. 

“Don’t hold back,” he says. “I want to hear you.” To punctuate his point, he does something Kaveh’s never seen him do. He reaches up around his ears and removes his noise-cancelling headphones, neatly untangling the wires, and places them on the nightstand. The motion has shifted them so that their cocks are pressed together, and this time Kaveh does whine, dropping his head onto Alhaitham’s shoulder, feeling like his face is overheating to a dangerous extent. 

“You’re so unfair,” he complains. “You can’t just say things like that.” 

Alhaitham sounds mildly puzzled. “Why not?” 

“Because—!” Kaveh starts and stops, unable to verbalize the tangle of emotions in his chest that Alhaitham makes him feel. He’s not a scholar of language, but even if he were, he doubts he’d have the words to describe Alhaitham. “Stop asking questions and just fuck me already.”

For once, Alhaitham is more than happy to listen to Kaveh. He wraps a hand around his own cock to line it up against Kaveh’s entrance, and then Kaveh lets his knees go lax as he sinks down on it. Fuck. It feels so good, like an Electro current thrumming through his body from head to toe. He tightens around Alhaitham involuntarily and sighs, taking a moment with his eyes closed to situate himself, before starting to move.

With one hand braced against Alhaitham’s chest, Kaveh rolls his hips up and down in a steady, unhurried rhythm. In keeping with Alhaitham’s wishes, he’s no longer hiding the sounds he’s making, though honestly he’s just unable to—every drag of Alhaitham’s cock against his insides has him going dizzy with pleasure. Alhaitham is surprisingly cooperative, letting Kaveh set the pace without trying to overtake him or provide any sort of commentary on his lack of efficiency. Instead, he rests his hands at Kaveh’s hips, and lets these soft, gorgeous little noises be punched from his throat. 

“Ah,” Alhaitham breathes out. He splays his fingers out against the curve of Kaveh’s thigh, and sighs, pressing his lips to Kaveh’s neck. “You’re gorgeous.” He says it like it’s a revelation. And it is, as much for Kaveh as it is for him. 

“Since when were you one to appreciate aesthetics,” says Kaveh. For lack of anything better to say, he falls back on that familiar argument of theirs: Alhaitham is too practical, too logical, whereas Kaveh knows that Alhaitham thinks he is too idealistic, with his head in the clouds. It feels flipped now, like he can’t find his footing, can’t figure out where they stand when Alhaitham has pulled the rug out from beneath his feet.

The corner of Alhaitham’s mouth quirks up, recognizing the quip for what it is. “I don’t romanticize things,” he clarifies, in that tone of voice that has, over time, mellowed out from annoying to endearing. “But I’m not blind. For all your flaws, you were always pleasing to look at. Especially sitting pretty on my cock like this.”

Scratch that about Alhaitham being endearing instead of annoying. Kaveh would like to take that back, thank you very much. 

“What do you mean, for all my flaws? ” Kaveh snaps. “You’re—Archons, you’re so infuriating—”

Kaveh’s argument dies on his tongue when Alhaitham shifts and his cock brushes against Kaveh’s prostate, and he lets out a loud whimper. “Shit,” he stammers, falling forward against Alhaitham’s chest. “I—” He tries to right himself again, vaguely remembering that he’s supposed to be mad, but finds that his tired legs won’t cooperate—the pleasure has made him go boneless.

Alhaitham tightens his hold on Kaveh’s hips and begins to thrust up with more purpose this time. Kaveh lets Alhaitham take the reins and fuck him harder, a closer approximation to the kind of sex they always had, the rough kind that skirted the delicious edge of pleasure that has Kaveh getting close in no time at all. 

“I only mean to say,” says Alhaitham, between thrusts and panting breaths, “even if there were things I couldn’t stand about you, they couldn’t take away from how I feel.” He runs a hand fondly over Kaveh’s chest, making Kaveh keen and arch into the touch. “You’re idealistic to a fault, always taking care of others even if you don’t have the means to… but I don’t dislike having you take care of me.” A biting kiss at the spot below Kaveh’s ear has him crying out, digging his nails into Alhaitham’s back. “Your head is perpetually in the clouds, but to think that, for all your complaints about living with me, you’ve drawn up a place for me in your dream house.” Alhaitham smiles, soft, against Kaveh’s skin. “It makes me happy.”

Kaveh whimpers, hiding his face in the crook of Alhaitham’s neck. It’s too much. All the times he wished Alhaitham would shut up couldn’t compare to this—his heart pounds so violently it threatens to escape from his ribcage altogether. Alhaitham keeps fucking up into him, with deliberate, deep thrusts that push against his prostate, and soon Kaveh’s babbling incoherently, clawing at Alhaitham’s back. “Close,” he chokes out. “I’m close—” 

Alhaitham’s thumb comes to rest against Kaveh’s stretched rim, circling it as his cock continues to push inside, like he’s marveling at the spot where the two of them are connected. At the same time, Alhaitham tilts Kaveh’s chin up, and kisses him, slow and deep, the kind of kiss that should be filthy but is instead tinged with something softer, more private—and that’s what pushes Kaveh over the edge. He comes hard with a cry, spilling onto Alhaitham’s unfairly sculpted abs, and a few moments later Alhaitham follows, gasping Kaveh’s name into his mouth as he spills inside of him, coating his insides with warmth. 

They both take a moment to catch their breaths. Alhaitham’s hand cups the nape of Kaveh’s neck, bringing their foreheads together. Alhaitham is beautiful like this, too. Half-lidded, dazed emerald eyes burning right into Kaveh’s own like he’s seeing him for the first and the millionth time. 

Kaveh finally remembers to lift himself off of Alhaitham’s cock when he feels it starting to go soft inside him. As the come drips out of his hole, Alhaitham catches it with two fingers and absentmindedly tries to push it back in. Kaveh smacks him on the shoulder— “Gross—” and rolls over onto his side.

It’s comfortable. Alhaitham’s hair tickles the side of his face a little. The warmth radiating from his skin is familiar, easy. He can’t decide between continuing to lie here with Alhaitham’s arm as a pillow or getting up to clean them both off.

Alhaitham decides for him by getting up himself. He returns with a soft washcloth in hand, ignoring Kaveh when he reaches for it, and wipes Kaveh down with a still-bandaged hand. Kaveh finally catches him off guard and snatches the cloth away, prodding at Alhaitham’s chest to get him to lie back down, maneuvering him into an awkward half-sitting position against the headboard.

“I told you to let me take care of you,” Kaveh complains. “When will you ever learn to listen to your senior?”

“I’m fine,” Alhaitham retorts. “Since when were you one of the nurses at Bimarstan?” 

“Since you decided to be irresponsible and get in a fight with Treasure Hoarders.”

Alhaitham huffs out a breath, blowing at his bangs so that they flop upwards, revealing a pair of eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Yes, that reminds me.” He rummages in the nightstand and emerges with a shiny metal object in hand. “If you’re moving back in with me, then I should return this to you.” 

Kaveh blinks. In Alhaitham’s outstretched hand is his house key, the one Kaveh had angrily tossed at him only days ago. He breathes a sigh of relief as its weight drops into his palm, only to see that the lion keychain attached to the key looks… far more bent out of shape than it was the last time he saw it. He picks it up between his index finger and thumb and peers at it. There are scuff marks all over its body, its mane is clearly missing a chunk, and one of the eyes has been scratched clean off. 

Kaveh purses his lips, admittedly a little miffed. “Jeez, what happened here? He looks like he’s been mauled by a Sumpter Beast. Were you so mad at me that you took it out on him?” Honestly, it’s probably stupid to attach so much sentimental value to a keychain. But he’d bought it back when he was still a student at the Akademiya, on a research trip to Liyue that he took with Alhaitham. They had passed by a toy seller, a kind old lady with a warm smile whose back was so bent she could barely stand up straight, and of course he had wanted to do something nice for her. Alhaitham had mocked him for it, insisting it was impractical for Kaveh to spend money just because he felt bad. Kaveh insisted in return that it was the most beautiful keychain he’d ever seen, and he freaking loved lions, and he would proudly display this keychain forever if only to prove Alhaitham wrong. After moving in with Alhaitham, he’d put it on his house keys. As much as Alhaitham had proclaimed the ornament useless, Kaveh had caught him playing with it more than once with mild interest like a cat with a new toy. 

“Do you really think I’m that childish?” says Alhaitham, huffing out an offended breath. “It was the Treasure Hoarders who had Ajilenakh nuts for brains. They recognized me as the Grand Scribe, and assumed I had something important on me, the key to some secret room full of Knowledge Capsules. I told them the truth, but they didn’t listen. They saw me get angry when they took it, and saw that I’d fight to get it back, and that was all they needed to understand that it was something valuable. … My acting skills have gotten rusty, I suppose. It would have been a much easier fight had I not shown them my cards.” 

Something valuable. Kaveh blinks. He stares down at the lion, and before he knows it droplets are falling from his eyes, landing on the scratched surface of the metal.

“Stop crying so much,” says Alhaitham. He sounds exasperated, but the hand that brushes at the corner of his eye is gentle. “It’s just a keychain. If it matters that much, we’ll get you a new one in Liyue.”

“It was my fault,” says Kaveh miserably. “You got hurt because of me.” 

Alhaitham stills, finally understanding. “There’s no point being upset over something that already happened,” he says. “If not the keys, they would have tried to steal something else.”

Kaveh wishes it were that easy to quell the awful feeling of guilt coiling in his gut. All this time he had spent believing that romance was some grand, magnificent thing, waiting for someone to sweep him off his feet with roses and kiss the back of his hand. Alhaitham, with his stubborn mannerisms and fierce independence, had resided in a whole other dictionary. Kaveh had never thought something like love could reside in a set of matching house keys and the battered, triumphant grin of a toy lion. 

Clutching the key tightly in his hand, he wraps his arms around Alhaitham, and holds him there, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat jumping beneath warm skin. After a long moment, he pulls away and swipes at his eyes. 

“Come on,” he tugs at Alhaitham’s arm, and flashes a small smile. “Let’s get cleaned up, and then I’ll change your bandages for you.” 

There was a lot more to do and a lot more to talk about, but it was best to rest up for the night. Tomorrow morning, Kaveh would wake up early and shop for eggs and sausages and try his hand at making breakfast in bed for Alhaitham. Alhaitham would complain about the taste but eat it dutifully anyways. They’d spend the day reading together, curled up on the couch with Alhaitham’s hand in Kaveh’s hair, gossiping about their old classmates, and all the applications for Acting Grand Sage that they could both agree, for once, were horribly written. And it would be just like any other day in this house together, and yet completely new, all the same.