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The end, as Alhaitham had not expected, came quietly.
Of course, there was all the tears and the screaming that came before, but Alhaitham will always remember the quiet afterwards more.
Kaveh, standing in the doorway of what was once their home, staring at the wall with glistening eyes as he tells Alhaitham farewell for the last time. It was the first word Kaveh had said to Alhaitham in days, and it would be the last for many to come.
Alhaitham stands and looks at the door for what could have been hours, long after it has shut. There is a lump in his chest that has expanded to fill his lungs, choking him, and all he can do is look at the door, and think of the person who had closed it between them.
He does not cry. He will not cry.
After his legs feel numb, Alhaitham turns away to go back to his bedroom, and the quiet stays like a lead blanket over his house.
—-
Cyno and Tighnari have this awful look in their eyes when they meet up with Alhaitham. It is filled with sadness, pity, but Alhaitham does not let it cut him. He does not let the fourth and empty seat at their table cut him either, as he plays cards silently with Cyno. It has been two weeks since Kaveh had left, and Alhaitham tells himself each night that it was for the best.
Kaveh is moving on, he is fixing his life; he is getting out of debt, he finally has the freedom he wanted. It has only come at the cost of Alhaitham’s heart, but he has always been more than willing to pay that price for Kaveh.
He just wishes that one of his last memories of Kaveh was not one stained with screamed words and tears falling from crimson eyes.
“You really care so little for me you would rather me continue to suffer like this? You really dislike me so much that you wish for me to be unhappy?” Kaveh had screamed, and he couldn’t have been more wrong.
Alhaitham had only ever wanted Kaveh to be happy. He had only ever wanted for him to live the life that made him happiest. He had just only wished that meant Kaveh would stay.
It was a selfish and childish desire, and in the end, Alhaitham still watched him go.
Cyno and Tighnari don’t bring Kaveh up around Alhaitham, and he does not know if that makes the ache in his chest worse or better. It just aches, deep in his bones, hollowing him out, leaving him empty.
He aches, and he aches, and months go by with the ache persisting.
Months until he sees Kaveh again, and even then, it’s purely accidental.
Once upon a time, Alhaitham got to see Kaveh every morning, every evening, on purpose. He had grown complacent in the honor of seeing Kaveh half-asleep and hunched over his desk, thanking Alhaitham quietly as he brought him coffee. The honor of seeing Kaveh asleep on their couch (it was just Alhaitham’s couch now, really, wasn’t it?) when he had had a long day, and the honor of placing a blanket over his body.
Now, Alhaitham does not see him for a long time, and when he does, it’s only because Alhaitham has to go into the House of Daena, and Kaveh is there.
He’s talking with someone, books pressed to his chest, and he’s smiling widely. He even laughs, gleefully, and it is like someone has pressed on the bruise of Alhaitham’s heart. Kaveh is happy, Kaveh is okay, Kaveh is laughing and smiling and he’s free from the suffering he had endured in Alhaitham’s house. And it comes, like a knife in his ribs, the realization that Kaveh had not been happy with him, even when it was all Alhaitham had wished for.
Part of him wants to speak to Kaveh again, to hear his voice after the months of quiet between them. He wants to hear him say anything other than goodbye, Alhaitham, so that the loop in Alhaitham’s head will stop.
He wonders that if Alhaitham were to walk up to Kaveh right now, he would stop smiling, and that horrible sadness would return to his face, the one that had been painted over it like a grave marker the last time Alhaitham had seen him.
Alhaitham does not think he can bear to see that, so he turns away, swallows the lump in his throat, and leaves his heart behind him.
–
“Oh, I forgot to say, I saw Kaveh in town today! He seems to be well, but I didn’t get the chance to-”
“Collei,” Tighnari cuts her cheery chatter off, and his eyes flick over to Alhaitham. Alhaitham does not miss that, and he does not miss the way Collei gasps, covering her mouth as she looks at Alhaitham across the table too.
It stings, that they feel they cannot mention Kaveh around him. Like the word Kaveh is forbidden now, like it will set Alhaitham off at the slightest mention. For a long silent minute, none of them speak, until Alhaitham sighs, leaning forward to grab his wine from the table.
He takes a long drink, swallowing it down the sweet liquor, before turning to force a smile at Collei.
“It’s okay. Go on. It was months ago, it doesn’t matter anymore,” he says, and the lie is so thick on his tongue that it overrides the taste of fermented grapes. It is bitter.
It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter that Kaveh is off, living his happy life, without Alhaitham, and Alhaitham is stuck in the memory of their last moments together.
Kaveh’s tears, streaming down his cheeks, as he stares at Alhaitham with wide and hurt eyes.
“I can’t stand you. Maybe once I could, but I can’t bear to be here with you anymore.”
Alhaitham closes his eyes, slowly, as Collei tentatively keeps talking to Tighnari, and he finishes his glass of bitter wine.
–
It’s been six months since Kaveh had moved out, and three since Alhaitham saw him in the House of Daena.
Now, Alhaitham stands, frozen in the markets of Port Ormos, and Kaveh is holding hands with some guy. It’s the same researcher from the House of Daena. Bile rises in Alhaitham’s throat, and he thinks he might be sick from the pain in his chest, tight and unforgiving as it constricts him. He’s half-convinced he can hear his ribs cracking with it.
And for a brief and prolonged minute, Alhaitham can almost see what he could have had, had things gone differently six months ago.
And then, Kaveh looks up, and he locks eyes with Alhaitham, and oh, the way his face changes into horrified surprise burns. He drops the hand of the researcher, and they’re metres away from each other but Alhaitham can almost hear the beginning of his name out of Kaveh’s lips. There is an unspeakable pain in his eyes, as he stares at Alhaitham from across the way, and Alhaitham can’t- he can’t bear this. He can’t bear to see that look on Kaveh’s face, after so many months, when he had just seen the joy in his eyes when he’d held hands with someone else. He can’t bear this pain and he should’ve moved on by now, Kaveh has, so why does it feel like there’s a hand on his throat?
“Oh, is that the Scribe? Funny seeing you out here in Port Ormos!” Kaveh’s… partner breaks the tension between them, and Alhaitham thinks he might know his name but he cannot sort through the chaos in his mind to know it right then.
Tragically, he drags Kaveh over by the hand to Alhaitham, smiling kindly and Alhaitham cannot even find it in his heart to be angry anymore. Treat him well, please, he thinks, as he wipes the surprise from his face, turning carefully neutral and professional. If either of them see the tremor in his hands as he folds them underneath his crossed arms, they do not say.
Kaveh says nothing, and looks away towards the water. He doesn’t look at Alhaitham.
“What brings you out here, Sir Scribe?” The man asks, and Alhaitham forces a polite smile on his face. He looks away from Kaveh, unable to bear staring at the man who will not look at him any longer. Goodbye, Alhaitham repeats in his mind like a mantra.
“I’m just out on personal research nearby, and stopped in here for the night. What brings you here?”
“Oh, Kaveh lives here, didn’t you know? I just came by to visit him for the week,” the man answers cheerfully, and no, Alhaitham had not known. Kaveh had not told him where he would move to in his tearful shouts. Alhaitham can feel his smile tighten around the edges, the hand on his throat tightening, the pain in his chest burning more.
“How wonderful, I hope you enjoy your time spent here,” Alhaitham answers, and he thanks every Archon that his voice remains steady and calm. He looks back at Kaveh, and he cannot hold back his desires. “I hope you have been keeping well, Kaveh,” he says, and his voice softens in that way he has never stopped when speaking to Kaveh.
Kaveh turns back to him, surprised, before he schools his expression back into careful neutrality once more.
“I hope you are too, Sir Alhaitham,” Kaveh replies, steadily, and the formality is wounding, devastating. Callous and cold. Alhaitham keeps his face tight, stuck in the same expression, because he can’t let the pain show.
Do you remember the night you crawled into my bed drunk, Kaveh? Do you remember how we had woken together, wrapped around each other? Did you know I had wanted to kiss you then?
“I am, thank you. I would love to stay and chat more, but I have some business to attend to. Farewell,” Alhaitham says, keeping that false smile on his face. Really, he plans to limp to his house, wounded, because this exchange has driven the stake in Alhaitham’s heart infinitely deeper.
The man next to Kaveh bids him farewell, and just as Alhaitham turns to leave, Kaveh strikes the final blow on the composure Alhaitham has been clinging to pathetically for the last six months.
“Goodbye, Alhaitham,” he says, voice wrought, and oh, Alhaitham is-
He’s-
He has to go back to his house now, he can’t-
He can’t bear to hear Kaveh say that again. Not- not again. He cannot bear saying goodbye to Kaveh.
Something hot and painful spreads up from his stomach, to his lungs, to his throat, as he forces himself to walk away at a steady pace, even when he feels blindsided by emotions.
Alhaitham stumbles blindly all the way back to Sumeru City from Port Ormos, with that hot pain in his chest, burning his eyes, and it takes too long and no time at all. He just kept putting one foot in front of the other until he was putting his keys in his front door. It was only then, then as he was entering his house, did his breath quicken, and the pressure moved up to behind his eyes, blurring his vision.
Goodbye, Alhaitham. Goodbye, Alhaitham. Goodbye, Alhaitham.
Alhaitham wrenches the door open, and slams it back shut. His legs crumple almost immediately out from under him, and he slides down to the floor, back pressed to the door. His breathing comes in ragged and wet, and his mind moves a thousand miles a minute yet also just sticks.
Sticks on the image of Kaveh, standing in the doorway, eyes glistening as he says goodbye. Sticks on the image of Kaveh, tears streaming down his face when he says he can’t stand Alhaitham. Sticks on the image of Kaveh, smiling gleefully at some strange new man, before his face falls when he sees Alhaitham.
Sticks on the words goodbye, Alhaitham, the sword that cleaves Alhaitham apart.
He chokes out a wet and thick noise, hot tears leaking out the corner of his eyes for the first time in six months. Alhaitham buries his face into his hands, and he does not move from his spot on the floor against the door for hours.
It wasn’t like there was anyone to come home and tell him to move, anyway.
–
After what Alhaitham is now tentatively calling his breakdown, he throws himself into work.
He files applications the second they come in. He organizes every file in the archive, and when he’s finished doing that after weeks of work, he does it again. He stays late until the moon is high in the sky and one of the Sages tells him to go home.
He has not felt like that house was his home for months, but he does not say that to them.
“Alhaitham, you know-” Tighnari says one day, over cards at the Tavern. There is no longer a fourth chair even at their table. Only three. “If you want to… talk about it, I’m always happy to listen.” His voice is kind, tentative, and Alhaitham turns to look at him. Tighnari is a good friend, a great friend even, and Alhaitham knows he still sees Kaveh regularly, but him and Cyno have ‘wisely’ chosen not to bring him up in Alhaitham’s presence. Even nine months later.
“Thank you, Tighnari, but it’s quite alright. It has been so long, there is no point dwelling on it anymore. What’s done is done,” Alhaitham replies, steadily, and Tighnari sighs. For a second, he hopes he has dropped it.
And then, Cyno slams his hand down on the table.
“That’s bullshit, Alhaitham. You two haven’t spoken in nine months. It’s clearly hurting you both but you’re so damn stubborn that you refuse to acknowledge it! Even Kaveh has-” Cyno snarls, bristling, and does he think Alhaitham doesn’t know these things?
“Cyno!” Tighnari snaps, cutting Cyno’s rant off quickly, and his palm hits the table with a slap loudly. “That’s enough. Leave it.” His voice is icy cold and sharp, and Alhaitham wants to ask Cyno what was going to say, but it already feels like his chest is caving inwards like the black holes the Rtawahist students study. Cyno snaps his mouth shut with a click, gritting his teeth, and he very slowly leans back in his chair.
Tighnari sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose, before turning to look back at Alhaitham, gaze softening.
“We just want you two to be happy, Alhaitham,” he says, and Alhaitham swallows the lump that forms in his throat down as he leans forward to grab his glass of wine.
Me too, Tighnari, me too.
–
Days, weeks, months pass. Tighnari and Cyno don’t bring up Kaveh again. Alhaitham does not see Kaveh again.
It’s a week out from being exactly a year since Kaveh moved out that Alhaitham realizes he has grown used to the silence of his house.
It no longer strangles him each night and has somewhere along the days become his companion at night. His familiar. Like the shadow that haunts each of his steps.
He no longer looks for someone else in the rooms of his house. He no longer seeks company in the halls, no longer listens out for the sounds of life that are not his own. Alhaitham has, at some point, grown accustomed to living alone once more.
The realization is painful, but it does not end him. He blinks, in surprise, stopping in his tracks for a moment as it hits, before he exhales. Places his keys in the empty bowl that once held two sets. Takes off his shoes, and places them in the bare shoe rack by the door.
At some point, living without Kaveh has become normal, even if it hangs over him like a storm cloud.
Alhaitham goes to bed early that night, and for the first time in weeks again, he longs to hear the sounds of someone tinkering away in the middle of the night.
–
The beginning, as Alhaitham had not expected, comes with Cyno and Tighnari.
Which, really, isn’t all that shocking. It’s two weeks past the ‘anniversary’ of Kaveh moving out, and when Alhaitham walks into the Tavern on a Thursday night after being invited out, there are four chairs at the table, and they are all occupied.
Wide crimson eyes stare at him, and he stares back. Even after six months of not seeing Kaveh, he has never forgotten a single detail of his face. Down to the beauty mark on the left side of his chin, up to the faint scar above his right eyebrow.
“Oh good. You both made it. Alhaitham, sit down,” Tighnari’s voice cuts in, forced cheer, and Alhaitham feels his shoulders tense instinctively. In a similar vein, he sees Kaveh’s nose twitch, in that way he always does when he’s tensing up. Alhaitham doesn’t move for a minute, and Tighnari’s eyes turn sharper, almost threatening, and Alhaitham sits down.
Tighnari sits down, and the table is set so that Kaveh and Alhaitham are forced to face each other with Cyno and Tighnari on either side of them.
No one says anything for a long and drawn out minute, and Alhaitham watches as Kaveh nervously takes a sip out of the glass of wine he’s already bought. Finally, Tighnari sighs, loudly, and drags his hand over his face. His ears twitch.
“Right. Well. Personally, I feel like this has gone on long enough. Cyno and I thought you two could be adults and sort this… shit out on your own, but apparently not. It’s been a year. Sort it out. Now.”
At the same time, Kaveh and Alhaitham balk. Kaveh lets an indignant squeak, whipping his head to look at Tighnari, and Alhaitham looks down at the table, fingers gripping the edge of it tightly.
“Tighnari, I thought I told you it was-”
“Don’t you dare say fine, Alhaitham. No matter how many times you say that to yourself it will not become true. You’re both fucking depressed, and it is agonising to watch.” It’s Cyno’s turn to interrupt, voice firm, and Alhaitham turns to look at him, eyes wide.
Kaveh is depressed?
No, that- that wasn’t right. Kaveh was fine. Kaveh was happy. Kaveh is happy.
Alhaitham turns, slowly, to look at Kaveh, and he’s looking back at Alhaitham. His eyes are wide, and his cheeks are stained red. Alhaitham flounders internally, and he realizes after a year, there were so many things he wanted to say yet he could not name a single one.
“I thought you were seeing someone,” he starts with. It comes out quiet. Kaveh flinches, a tiny amount, and he looks down.
“It ended six months ago.”
Oh.
It ended after they had seen each other in Port Ormos.
Alhaitham, really, isn’t quite ready for this. Maybe in another year or two he can come to terms with this, can come to terms with the ache in his bones and heart. Can come to terms with the heartbreak he had been holding so tenderly to himself this past year.
“I see. I’m sorry to hear that. I hope it ended well.” Please never find someone else.
It’s the wrong thing to say, apparently, because Kaveh’s eyes flash with hurt for a second, and he rolls them. Alhaitham doesn’t really know what he says wrong, but there’s a growing feeling in his limbs that he needs to leave, an itch that won’t subside, and it gets worse each second sitting across from Kaveh.
“Right. Thanks. I hope you’re enjoying the quiet at your home.” Kaveh’s voice is icy cold, and there’s a groan from Tighnari on Alhaitham’s right side.
It’s not home. It hasn’t been for a year. Alhaitham hates the quiet, hates every second.
He can’t do this. He can’t have Kaveh tell him goodbye again. He can’t be told what he was told last year, that Kaveh can’t stand him.
His chair screeches as he stands up abruptly, and three surprised heads turn to look at him.
“I’m sorry, Tighnari, and I understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t really think I’m quite ready to be told that Kaveh can’t stand being around me one time again. Honestly, I don’t really think I ever will be, so-” His voice cracks, just slightly, and Alhaitham doesn’t miss the way Kaveh flinches, hard. He swallows and clears his throat, pressing his hands further into the wood to disguise the fact that his hands are beginning to shake. I have to get out of here. “So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to my house,” he finishes, and then turns to leave.
Tighnari and Cyno both call his name as Alhaitham weaves through the crowd, and his chest hurts so fucking much it’s like a Sumpter beast has run full speed into him. He breaks outside of the tavern, and his breath is beginning to quicken as he turns to walk home. He hurries. He just wants to be in his bedroom, hidden away from the world, even if it is in that quiet that he despises.
Another voice calls his name from behind, and Alhaitham walks faster. Nope. Nope. He’s not- he’s not having a fight with Kaveh. He’s not having a fight with Kaveh. He can’t. Not again.
“Alhaitham- Haitham! Wait, just- fucking hell,” The voice gets closer, until there is a hand wrapping around his wrist and dragging him to a stop. “Fucking stop.”
Fear and hurt flood every part of Alhaitham at the feeling of Kaveh’s hand wrapped around his wrist, his warm skin that Alhaitham has not had the pleasure to touch in a year, and he wrenches his hand back quickly.
“Look, Kaveh, I’m sorry, I am, but like I said, I really can’t bear to listen to you tell me you can’t stand to be around me one more time, so let’s just- let’s just both do ourselves a favor, and leave it for now, okay?” Alhaitham snaps, and Kaveh flinches again, pulling his hand back towards his chest. “I was- I was fine letting you live your life without me in it, because you were happier, and I’m getting used to it now so please,” his voice breaks embarrassingly, hurt, “please just let me do so.” His breathing is coming in quicker, and there’s a burning pressure behind his eyes again. It had been six months since he last cried, and the last time had been because of Kaveh again.
Kaveh says nothing, frozen as he stares at Alhaitham. Alhaitham grinds his teeth together, hearing them squeak with it, and he turns back around to continue his mission back to his house. He’s so close. It’s right around the corner.
It’s only when he’s opening the door that he hears footsteps on the wood behind him, and he feels like screaming or bashing his head against the door, or just crumbling and crying. Please. Please, just let me let you go.
“Kaveh-” he chokes out, and he can’t stop the shake or the wetness to his voice now. His composure crumbles so quickly around Kaveh.
“I wasn’t. I wasn’t happier, Haitham,” Kaveh says. His voice is so soft and so gentle, and Alhaitham’s hands shake violently as he drops his keys in the empty bowl. Kaveh follows him inside, and Alhaitham wants to turn around to tell him to leave but he doesn’t think he can see the image of Kaveh standing by the front door again, even a year later.
Please don’t say that, please-
“I was miserable, actually. The entire year. I hate living alone. I thought dating someone would help, but it didn’t, and I miss-”
“Don’t.” Alhaitham’s voice shocks even himself, how loud and thunderous it comes out. The shakes have traveled from his hands up to his shoulders. Painfully, agonizingly, he turns, and his heart fucking shatters like glass when he finally gets to look at Kaveh up close again. He’s barely a meter away from Alhaitham now. Alhaitham can smell his shampoo. He uses the same one that he did a year ago, lavender melon scented. “Please, just- don’t.”
“So what, Haitham, we’re just not going to talk about it? Have you moved on, is that it?”
“Moved on?” He scoffs, because the sheer idea of being able to do that is so foreign to him it’s humorous. “I’ve tried to because you so clearly did but I fucking can’t, Kaveh. I can’t fucking move on, and this,” he waves his hand around in a gesture to encapsulate the entire conversation they were having, “is not making it any easier. I have finally gotten used to you not living here anymore, after a year. I am trying to get used to you not wishing for me to be a part of your life anymore and-”
“That isn’t true! That’s not fucking true, damn it Alhaitham!” Kaveh yells now, throwing his hands up in the air, and Alhaitham shuts his mouth with a click. “Stop fucking deciding what I feel for yourself! I have been the most miserable I have ever been this past year because I fucking missed you, Alhaitham! I missed you so damn much it felt like I couldn’t breathe! But you didn’t write, you said nothing to me in the House of Daena, and you were so stupidly fucking cold in Port Ormos. You just cut me out and I miss you,” He chokes out the words, and a tear tracks down from his vermillion eyes. It shakes Alhaitham violently as he watches it slide down Kaveh’s pale skin.
I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.
“Why did you go, then?” Alhaitham’s voice is so quiet even he can barely hear it, and he can’t stop his body from stepping closer to Kaveh. It’s the closest he’s been in a year, except for when Kaveh had grabbed his wrist earlier. “Why didn’t you stay?”
Kaveh’s lip trembles as he looks up at Alhaitham, and Alhaitham feels his own scalding hot tear slide down his cheek.
“I thought that- that you wanted me to go. I thought maybe I could find a way to get over you if I moved out, but it just hurt more. I wanted to stay. I wanted you to ask me to stay,” Kaveh whispers, fraught with the hundreds of painful words shared between them.
Ah, of course. Alhaitham could not say he wanted Kaveh to stay back then. No matter how badly he wanted to. He exhales, a trembling thing, and Kaveh sniffs wetly, dragging his arm underneath his nose.
“Of course I wanted you to stay, Kaveh. I still want you to. I just never wanted to hold you back from doing what you wanted.”
“What about what you wanted?” Kaveh asks, pointed, and he steps closer. They’re chest to chest now. Kaveh’s breath puffs against Alhaitham’s neck, and he looks beautiful even here, crying in the dark hallway of what was once their home.
“That has never mattered to me in the way you have,” Alhaitham murmurs, and Kaveh’s eyes shine so brightly as they look back up at him. Something shifts in them, sadness giving away into a fierce and bright emotion that threatens to consume Alhaitham. A hand slides up to rest on Alhaitham’s cheek, and selfishly, he turns his face into it, and lets himself place his hand on Kaveh’s waist.
“Ask me to stay. Please,” Kaveh mumbles, and tilts his chin up, and Alhaitham would tear down the sky if Kaveh asked it of him.
“Stay. Stay, Kaveh.”
When their lips meet, Alhaitham finally feels like he’s found his home again.