Work Text:
“He broke up with me through a text.”
Kaveh sniffles miserably, snatching the shot glass off the counter and downing it in one go. For a moment, as it burns a trail of fire down his throat, he’s righteously pissed at the fact he wasn’t even given the decency of a face-to-face breakup—but immediately the anger is snuffed out like a candle flame as he slumps dejectedly against the table.
“You know I always thought he was a dickhead,” Kaeya quips from somewhere beside him, with Childe and Thoma on his other side making sounds of mutual agreement.
Kaveh ignores their commentary, continuing to rant, “Not to mention my mother’s new partner sent me a slab of marble, but now it’s just going to collect dust and become useless because I don’t want to create anything.”
He practically wails, bemoaning the thought of such a lovely gift sitting in his workshop going to waste. But how was he to blame for the lack of creative energy? Heartbreak is a fresh wound, all red, raw and bleeding. All he wants to do is curl up under his blankets and become an unmoving lump of flesh, instead he’d gotten dragged out of his apartment by his three friends to get plastered and vent. Which is… honestly helping, somewhat.
“Then might as well carve a new boyfriend out,” Childe snickers teasingly in his own attempt to cheer Kaveh up. The redhead tips his empty shot glass at him, flushed but sufficiently coherent enough to add, “Think about it. You can make him as handsome as you want, fantasize about the perfect guy and even get to sculpt a big dick for him.”
“That is so depressing,” Kaeya’s expression wrinkles in distaste. “But you know, with your talent you’d actually be making something great. Maybe we’ll even get to see the fake boyfriend mounted in a Church or something, you know? Like those Renaissance sculptors.”
“Yeah Kaveh would be the type to make a Lucifer statue too hot for the Church,” Childe says, as he and Kaeya burst into a peal of laughter at the thought.
“Ignore them,” Thoma huffs, the only one not overly drunk in their unruly group, and maybe the only one with good advice. “You’re hurt, so go do things that make you happy.” The blond smiles, but pointedly avoids making eye contact when he adds, “Just don’t throw yourself into another relationship… again.”
Kaveh winces at the reminder. His last relationship had started on the back of a heartbreak, and the previous one before that the same way. After a certain point he has to admit it’s beginning to look like a bad habit, so maybe what he really needs is to get over his need for a partner. Maybe being single and just focusing (venting his frustrations) on his craft will do him some good.
“You know what—” Kaveh sniffs, rubbing his nose with his sleeve then standing in an effort to look resolute, “—I’m going to make my own boyfriend!”
His friends cheer for him as he takes one step away from the bar stool, then trips and falls flat on his face.
He doesn’t remember how he makes it back to his apartment, only vaguely aware of Thoma’s voice drifting in from the doorway, telling him to puke in a bucket as his miserable self groans in assent. His house is quiet, the couch soft, and it would be so easy to drift off to sleep, but Kaveh jolts up instead, frowning as he forces himself to crawl around for his sketchpad, not trusting his balance. When he finds that, he paws around for a pencil as well, then starts sketching on a blank page.
A drunk Kaveh with his inhibitions loose has no shame about shutting his eyes and putting together the image of a perfect man in his head. It’s not completely original in hindsight, the man he fantasizes is an amalgamation of all the traits he’s adored in exes or particular celebrities he finds attractive; the sweep of hair here, striking eyes, a well-defined jawline there.
He goes through at least ten different iterations before he settles on something he likes, imagining the smooth tenor of a low voice telling him about a research paper they found interesting, asking him about his day, then what they should have for dinner…
Kaveh objectively knows he’s setting the bar high. He’s been told to lower his expectations, and by former partners that he’s asking for too much. Because beyond just good looks, he wants someone smart and sensitive—or at least cares for him even if they don’t show it. He wants a boyfriend he can go to museums with and argue with about the significance of an artwork, he wants a partner to be there when he’s crying from stress, or giggling like a maniac after completing a piece. He wants weekend dates with brunch and coffee, he wants someone to wake up to and cuddle in the mornings he doesn’t feel like leaving the bed.
He’s jealous of his friends who each have their own partners that they adore, he’s tired of being cheated on or broken up with. Falling in love and repeating everything again is exhausting, but he’s lonely and he wishes that wasn't the case.
Without realizing it, a stray tear rolls down his cheek, the single drop soaking into the paper. He blots off the tear with his sleeve, careful not to ruin the sketch. That’s why it should be fine if he indulges his fantasies here, in his art, where he could make someone perfect who wouldn’t leave him.
He leans his head back against the couch, blearily thinking he should probably move to his bedroom—but he doesn’t really have the motivation or energy for such an arduous task. His eyes shut without meaning to, sleep gently welcoming him.
When morning comes, he’s greeted by the nausea of a hangover, but lucid enough to cringe at the array of ripped and crumpled paper surrounding him like the aftermath of a child’s art class. All rejected sketches, and in his hands are the final five pages that survived the purge: a handsome man in the pose of what he imagines will be the final sculpture of his perfect boyfriend.
Kaveh sighs, lying back down on the ground to wallow in the mixture of embarrassment and a healthy amount of self-loathing. Too late to back out now.
“Heeeeeeyyy sourpuss, feeling any better?”
—Is the cheerful greeting he gets from Kaeya as he sets his laptop down, readying for the lecture. He knows he looks terrible, he feels terrible, so Kaeya’s question is definitely about his emotional state. He makes a vague rocking motion with his hand, he’s… there but also not quite there.
“Wanna get coffee with us later?”
His thoughts immediately drift to the sketches, brain making plans on how he’ll start on the base of the marble. Were his personal tools still okay? He might have to drop by the hardware store later to pick up replacements just in case. He’ll probably need to get more tarp too for the workshop, and he’s due for a new sketchbook after the chaos of the last one…
He grins, the lethargy giving way to a flutter of excitement. “Maybe not.”
The apartment studio had been a gift from his mother.
It was his home that he took meticulous care of, attached to its own rooftop space that she’d transformed into a workshop just for him. It was a greenhouse before, with its tall glass windows welcoming the sun and adjustable temperature. Apparently a kindly grandmother used it to grow… less than legal plants, but she’d gotten tired of the business. So it was perfect, and still is, for an artist like him who needs all the space and airy, comfortable lighting.
The marble slab had been a gift from his mother’s wife.
Right after their wedding too, which Kaveh had been hesitant on accepting because shouldn’t he be the one giving them a gift…? But she’d wanted him to have it, as a friendly gesture on her part, telling Kaveh brightly that she looked forward to what he’d carve out of it.
He is resolutely not going to tell them about what he plans to make the statue into.
The marble sits in the centre of the studio, a colossus he hadn’t been intimidated by before when he received it—but that was back when he was still imagining the possibilities of what it might become. Now he knows for certain, he has a plan, but the execution terrifies him. With pencil and paper he could erase and start again, with paints there was just painting over. But that was the thing about marble, everything had to be perfect, there wasn’t just adding back if he shaved a piece off the nose too much, or carved too deep for the eyes. No second chances.
Kaveh’s worked with clay, wood, wax, he’s even tried ice before. And while this won’t be his first ever full-body sculpture, it will be his first ever on marble. A material he’s only ever worked with on a much smaller scale like busts or abstract pieces. The same Kaveh from a few years ago might have been delighted at the chance to be able to create something with an untouched slab like this, but now he’s worried he’s just going to overthink himself into not doing anything.
He paces around his studio for a few more minutes, shaking off the nerves as he picks up the hammer and chisel, then takes the first swing.
“Kaaaaaaaaveeeeeeeeeh come on, it’s been weeks since you last went out!” Childe whines, sprawled dramatically on the floor of the studio, continuing to make pathetic sounds the longer the artist refuses to answer him. Over the speakers is a singer’s low serenade, a helpful distraction.
Kaveh remains silent, he’s still really just working on the silhouette of the body for now. Imaging where the tilt of the head will be, the arm, placement of the feet. It’s a vague shape as far as his friends are concerned, and aside from classes and the occasional grocery trip, he hasn’t bothered to go out.
“Just let me finish this part…”
“I’ll end up as a pile of bones before you’re done!” Childe replies, although there isn’t much force behind it. All his friends are supportive of his new endeavour, they just want to make sure he’s not becoming a hermit.
Kaveh finally glances at his friend with a flat expression. “Then I hope you bury yourself.”
“Darling!”
He jolts awake from where he’d been napping on his couch as the doors to his apartment slam open. Kaveh quickly wipes the drool away to look over the seat in confusion. He still has dust covering his clothes, and he’s pretty sure he hasn’t showered in two days. “Mama?”
His mother huffs, looking at him fondly as she sets some grocery bags down. She has a glow to her now, radiant and happy and so much different from the woman two years ago that would burst into inconsolable tears at sporadic moments. It’s a welcome change.
“Oh my sweet boy, I told you we were visiting. Didn’t you get my text?”
He fumbles with his phone in his pocket, tapping on the screen a few times and holding the power before realizing it's dead. Had he really forgotten to charge it?
“This little guy missed you so much, yowled the first few days then got so sad and quiet when he didn’t see you.”
Kaveh glances up again to see his step-mother set a pet carrier down, and Kaveh brightens when Mehrak comes leaping out, immediately bounding towards him like a little orange rocket. He meows with every step, bumping his small head against his legs. Kaveh picks the boy up to give him plenty of kisses and cuddles, happy to have his friend close again. He’d brought the cat as a ring bearer for their wedding, but Mehrak had gotten sick just before the flight back. They’d offered to look after him, then bring him around the apartment once he felt better.
He ushers them to the couch, quickly brushing off the dust to head into the kitchen to prepare some drinks for them with Mehrak clinging to him. His relationship with his mother has been somewhat distant since the death of his father, and he appreciates any moment he can spend with her before she flies back. He also admits he hasn’t been doing a great job getting to know his step-mother, when she’s been nothing but kind to him.
Conversationally, his step-mother says with a genial smile, “I heard you’ve been working on the marble. Can we see?”
Kaveh thinks about the chest he’s carving out at the moment, already beginning to work on everything below the waist as he flushes bright red. “No!”
“Do we intervene?” Kaeya asks seriously, the portion of the bar they take up is filled with sounds of music and chattering patrons. A fourth seat where Kaveh would usually be at, remains empty, and has remained empty for more than half a year now.
“I mean… it is a little unhealthy how long he’s been holed up in his studio,” Childe reasons. The last time he visited, Kaveh had kicked him out after five minutes, and he’d only managed to get a glimpse at the marble sculpture coming to life back there.
“I think it’s good,” Thoma eventually says, looking pensive as he takes a sip of his drink. “Maybe not healthy, but better than what he was doing before.” Better than heartbreaks, tears, and throwing himself into another relationship to try and soothe an ache.
“... that’s true.” Kaeya agrees, albeit reluctantly. A small quiet blankets the three of them, as they all privately hope Kaveh doesn’t turn into a full-blown hermit from this.
Childe quips up with a snicker, “D’you think he’s named it?”
It takes a year, but he finishes it.
Kaveh steps back from the sculpture, letting the chisel and hammer slip from his slack fingers. He still needs to polish it, but this is almost all of the toughest work finally completed. He can feel the thump in his chest, in his eardrums, his blood singing from the rush of sheer and utter delight when he knows that this is it. He’ll make plenty of other sculptures in the future, but he knows down to his bones they will never match up to this.
Alhaitham is the name he picks; the eagle, a scholar and mathematician. Once he came across the name, it stuck with him. It sounded strong, regal, and it fit.
But once the adrenaline that had fueled the last few hours starts to ebb, exhaustion creeps under his skin. All of it is finally catching up to him from the countless hours staying awake and the infrequent meals. This project has wrecked him—mentally, physically, emotionally. Every artist puts a piece of themselves into the work they create, and Kaveh is no different, but he knows this sculpture has taken more than just a piece.
Alhaitham is his magnum opus, the culmination of both his skill as an artist and his vulnerabilities as a human. He sees it in the tiniest of details, from the eyes he spent a fortnight perfecting to make sure they’d convey the personality he wanted to impart, to the well-toned arms he spent even longer on, learning the names of the muscles and studying how they’d twist under skin. Alhaitham is the image of the perfect lover in Kaveh’s head and heart; someone smart, handsome, and there to be considerate of his needs.
He takes longer to study the body, eyes travelling downwards to well-toned thighs and legs, suddenly mortified at the thought of what others would say. It’s a fantasy sculpted from marble, and perhaps exactly why it’s so embarrassing. Alhaitham might be stunning, but it’s just as equally pathetic and an altogether sad representation of a lonely artist living in their head.
He steps closer and pushes the shame aside. It’s different approaching the statue now as Kaveh rather than as a sculptor. He’s no longer studying for imperfections or trying to impart a piece of himself onto the artwork. In this little bubble of his own world, he’s safe to create an intimacy there wasn’t before as he closes his eyes.
Kaveh presses his lips to cold stone, the briefest of touches—forlorn and filled with longing—then sighs as he turns away.
He doesn’t think he can bear the thought of someone else seeing Alhaitham, of the statue displayed somewhere for roving eyes to gawk at—the mortification of it all. He… Kaveh steps away, stricken with a sudden grief. He has to get rid of it. He hates how the panic crawls up his throat, bitter tasting and sour as he grips the edge of a nearby table. Breaths in once, twice, counts his breath, catalogues the colours staining the table. No. He’s just tired. He’ll probably regret whatever he does now.
So tomorrow. Tomorrow he’ll deal with it.
The sun hangs high in the sky by the time Kaveh wakes up, the afternoon sun warming his skin. Around this time of the day Mehrak would start pawing at his face, little meows letting him know it was time for food for the both of them. He finds it odd his friend isn’t nearby but chalks it up to the cat finding his own entertainment elsewhere.
He has to drag himself to the kitchen, past an unfamiliar shade of ash-grey hair sitting on his couch to get to his afternoon coffee.
Kaveh switches on the machine as he yawns, scratching his belly. He stares numbly out the window where cars pass by, blinking as a silver car catches his attention…
Silver car…
Silver… hair?
Why is there someone with ash-grey hair in his apartment? He doesn’t know anyone that walks around with that colour. Kaveh whips around to do a double take, then lets out an appropriately loud shriek.
There is a man in his apartment. A naked man in his apartment. A naked man reading a book, sitting on his couch, in his apartment. Mehrak lies next to the man in a very tidy loaf position, ears perked up and chirruping curiously at Kaveh as if asking him what all the fuss was about.
“Wh-what the fuck— Who are you!?”
The stranger glances up from their book, eyes the shade of summer leaves and burnished golds as he serenely greets, “Good morning.” His voice is a low, smooth baritone, alluring enough that it has Kaveh tensing. The man seems to think for a bit as he replies, “I think the name you gave me was ‘Alhaitham’.”
For the second time that day Kaveh’s brain has a mini meltdown, cataloguing those same features he spent months agonising over. But instead of white marble is the hue of very human-looking skin, hair, eyes. No longer just stiff, imaginary joints—but fingers to grip a book, and a voice with which to speak.
Alhaitham gestures at the book in his hand, it’s the Michelangelo one he bought when he decided to do a study on the Renaissance artist. It’s flipped open to a luxurious page spread of a familiar ceiling, with impossibly detailed and dizzying artwork. Then the man asks rather candidly but with a tone of interest, “Is the ‘Sistine Chapel’ near? Can we visit?”
Kaveh turns to his coffee machine when it shrieks at him, pointedly ignoring the question, and just hoping to get through his morning routine without losing his mind.
It’s difficult to accept, but Alhaitham is real. He lives and breathes, clothed in a too-tight t-shirt (the largest Kaveh owns) and a pair of sweatpants. Kaveh rushes to the studio to do a check and sure enough, the spot where the marble statue had stayed for twelve months is now jarringly empty. It’s like the man had simply stepped off the podium and walked into the apartment, amusing himself with whatever he came across until he settled with a book and started reading.
Alhaitham doesn’t seem to mind his staring, occasionally matching his gawking with an even gaze of his own.
“This… isn’t some prank right?”
“I doubt so,” Alhaitham shrugs, then his brows furrow. “Though I don’t understand that word.”
His eyes squint in suspicion as he tries to find a flaw in that face. Was it really good make-up? Or one of those nightmare-inducing face masks from Mission Impossible? “You aren’t a hired actor or something?”
“I am… me.”
“Okay,” Kaveh numbly says, staring at the woodwork of the coffee table as his brain tries to rationalize the situation. Abruptly he stands, mildly shocking Alhaitham and scaring Mehrak with his loud exclamation. “Okay! Okay.” He turns to Alhaitham, and he really doesn’t know how to process any of this, but he might as well try and treat Alhaitham like a house guest. And the first thing he has to do is…
“Let’s… yeah, let’s get you some clothes.”
Then his stomach growls. Loudly.
“... And some food too.”
Going out might have been a mistake on his part.
Alhaitham is hard to ignore in a tight shirt, and even harder to pass over when he’s given actual clothes that fit him properly. He’s certain he could give this man a garbage bag and he would still make it look fashionable, and Kaveh wonders if it’s too late to regret making Alhaitham this handsome.
For today’s outing he’s changed into the new set of grey sweatpants and white t-shirt from his shopping bag, yet despite the simple outfit more than once they are stopped on their mission to find food by overzealous girls who run up asking for Alhaitham’s number.
The man in question would open his mouth to reply, but Kaveh pushes him forward with his own excuses. Sorry, we’re late for something, or, sorry, he’s a little shy. He doesn’t think he can handle what Alhaitham’s reply might be right now, and a part of him doesn’t quite want to share him with the world yet.
But when it happens for the fifth time that day, and before Kaveh has a chance to push past them, Alhaitham firmly says, “I already have someone.”
Kaveh’s brain pointedly does not short-circuit as they walk away, overthinking what Alhaitham could possibly mean by that.
He likes the stew from the hole-in-the-wall restaurant Kaveh enjoys going to.
It’s a place he discovered one evening with his friends, a rare spot that stayed open past one to feed hungry drunk party-goers. He hasn’t shared this place with anyone else, and Alhaitham certainly doesn’t know its significance with how easily he takes a bite out of just about everything—asking questions about the names of the dishes as he does.
Alhaitham is strange that way, he has perfect mannerisms and the vocabulary to speak, and yet certain things are lost to him like turns of phrases or the names of certain foods. He can name the meat and vegetables, but he doesn’t have any idea what a goulash is or the spices involved. It’s as if he’d been dropped onto the earth with the bare minimum factory settings; eat, breathe, speak.
(He bites down on a chilli for the first time, and Kaveh finds his wrinkled expression of distaste utterly adorable.)
While he doesn’t have a second bedroom in his apartment, it’s easy enough to turn his couch into a bed. He fits it with a pillow and the comfiest blanket he has, with Mehrak helpfully jumping up and kneading the cushions with happy little purrs when Kaveh thanks him.
It’s not exactly ideal, he’d really prefer setting Alhaitham up in his own bedroom since he knows the value of personal space—but the man doesn’t mind and tells him as much.
“I’d like to stay if you’ll let me,” Alhaitham serenely says, all while feeding Mehrak a bit of chicken off his plate.
And even if he hadn’t asked, Kaveh would’ve offered. He had expected some slip up through the day, either through telling Kaveh something he supposedly shouldn’t know or a confession that it was just an act—but Alhaitham truly is (somehow) the statue he’d carved come to life. He’d reacted to the city around them with a silent kind of wonder, as if he’d never been there at all, and Kaveh doesn’t know how he’d feel about just throwing him out into the world like that.
In a way he almost feels… responsible for Alhaitham’s wellbeing.
So Kaveh gives him free reign of his bookshelves, the TV too because he doesn’t want Alhaitham to be too bored when he’s out for his classes. He also teaches him about the fridge, the water filter, as well as a number of other appliances in the kitchen and where to find other things. Alhaitham learns quickly enough, and Kaveh is decidedly proud when he manages to fry and season an egg all on his own.
Though he’s quiet too, preferring to read and only speaking when Kaveh asks him something, or if there was something that piqued his curiosity that he wanted further explanation on. Alhaitham takes an interest in his phone when there are questions even Kaveh doesn’t know the right answer to, watching intently as the bright screen lights up with words and an answer.
They gradually come to spend more time together, from meals to even grocery shopping. And Kaveh really enjoys having someone around, the conversations and easy banter, light touches (that he’s sure must be unintentional) soothing the loneliness. Their relationship is a somewhat awkward one, he made Alhaitham with the perfect boyfriend in mind and he’s exactly that—which is the problem. They’re not even dating, and the topic has never been brought up so he doesn’t know what to really define them as.
Alhaitham is also dependent on him whether the man realizes it or not, but as he continues to experience the world…
The implications of what that means aren’t something Kaveh is exactly prepared to unpack just yet, for now he really wants to enjoy whatever time they have together. Getting to introduce Alhaitham to new things like foods, equipment or experiences like receiving a gift have become the new highlights of Kaveh’s life.
“This is for you!” Kaveh excitedly says, holding out the rectangular box.
Alhaitham takes it tentatively, slowly unwrapping the gift to reveal the shiny packaging of a smartphone. It’s the latest on the market, expensive enough that this means he won’t be able to get the new tools he wants for a few more weeks but frankly a necessity if Alhaitham was going to walk around. (He’s learned his lesson from accidentally losing the man in the middle of a market crowd.)
He runs through the startup screen with Alhaitham, helping him create an email and pick out a password. He teaches Alhaitham how to connect to the Wi-Fi and his face visibly lights up when Kaveh shows him Google and how to look things up, all just a few types away.
“—and this is the camera, there’s a front and back, the back one has better quality but the front one is useful for taking pictures like these.” He holds the phone up between them as an example, smiling as he snaps the photo. Kaveh laughs at Alhaitham’s slightly shocked expression in the picture. “There! You’re all set.”
Alhaitham takes the phone, and Kaveh must be imagining it, but his face seems to soften at the selfie of them together. “Thank you.”
“I brought you lunch.”
Kaveh pauses in the middle of his work, stepping away to admire the piece. It’s his nicest wood carving yet, a dragon winding dramatically around the body of a leaping narwhal. The dragon stands out with every individual scale, but he’s also incredibly proud of the smaller details on the narwhal’s smooth body.
“What’s this?”
He turns to Alhaitham with a grin, “Commission from a friend! It's a gift for his upcoming anniversary.”
Alhaitham makes a sound of understanding, glancing around the studio for a safe place to set the plate of sandwiches down. Kaveh feels at least slightly embarrassed, his workspace is currently a mess of wood shavings, discarded tools and sawdust, the marble stand that was Alhaitham’s pushed to a corner and kept safe under tarp.
Lunch is breaded chicken cutlets with salad, served between fluffy slices of white bread. Kaveh would never imagine himself enjoying something this nice in the middle of work, typically too engrossed to ever feed himself, but Alhaitham’s somehow taken on the task of making sure he’s well fed and rested.
Alhaitham continues to inspect the studio, particularly the much smaller figures of the dragon and narwhal he’d tried to carve before the actual thing—and for a moment Kaveh is almost worried about what he might say about the chaos happening around them. But Alhaitham simply nods. “I see.”
… then proceeds to walk away, knocking off one of the smallest test sculptures from his desk as he passes it. It clatters harmlessly to the floor as Kaveh stares at it, puzzled. But when he looks back up, Alhaitham has slipped out of the room, pretending like he wasn’t the one who did it.
(It happens often enough that Kaveh realizes Alhaitham is, in his own way, jealous of the other sculptures.)
“I’m not sure… how to reciprocate the gift,” Alhaitham says contemplatively, holding the three cards in his hand. Mehrak wanders over to give them a few curious sniffs, before hopping off the table in disinterest.
They’re extremely pretty cards, Kaveh will admit. With gold foil around the edge, and neat artwork portraying a character in the midst of a victory yell. The second one is of an eagle, and the third one is a scholar with a stack of books. They don’t look printed, so they must be specially commissioned ones.
Kaveh had pushed Alhaitham to join the local community with its own hub of activities, and he didn’t really expect the man to pick up a hobby with a trading card group. They’re friendly from what he hears, and the owner of the club—Cyno—is always keen on welcoming new members.
“Well,” Kaveh shrugs with a smile. “I still have some supplies if you want to try crafting a card for him?”
(With Alhaitham doing the sketch and Kaveh working on the card base, they end up with a slightly wonky rendition of Anubis dramatically drawing cards from his deck. The background is a deep, royal purple, with the border finished in gold leaf from a leftover project Kaveh had in the past. The gift apparently becomes Cyno’s favourite.)
“Hello, were you waiting for me?” Kaveh smiles, opening the door to Mehrak sitting attentively by the side.
His orange tail sways gently like a pendulum as he meows in assent, head butting Kaveh’s face as soon as he’s picked up. Mehrak is another occupant in the apartment entirely happy with Alhaitham’s presence, he trails after the man when Kaveh isn’t around, and regularly switches sleeping spots between purring on Kaveh’s sheets or curled up on Alhaitham’s chest in the living room.
He closes the apartment door behind him just as the door to the bathroom opens, Alhaitham stepping out. Kaveh is just about to say he’s picked up some takeout for the both of them but his thoughts flatline at the sight of Alhaitham holding the bath towel loosely over his hips, beads of water rolling down a toned chest, over his abs, down where the v-lines lead—
Kaveh quickly turns around and shuts his eyes. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” He feels Mehrak squirm in his arms from the sudden pressure of his hug, all the heat rushing to his face as he tries to awkwardly backward shuffle into the kitchen.
“No need to apologize,” Alhaitham replies, and Kaveh is fairly certain he hears a chuckle in his tone.
Incredible how he of all people managed to forget that was what Alhaitham looked like under his clothes.
“Kaveh?” Thoma’s voice bewilderedly calls, making him flinch.
He tries to draw up the hood of his jacket around his hair, pulling Alhaitham along even when the man curiously looks back at who might be calling Kaveh’s name.
He should’ve known his friends would be visiting the funfair, it’s the weekend and an array of families and couples had come to see the stalls and rides from the flyers posted all over campus. He’d been hoping to show Alhaitham something different in the city, preferably uninterrupted. Yet despite the crowds around them Thoma still manages to zero in on him, jogging up and patting him familiarly on his shoulder. Kaveh musters up a smile, which comes out looking forced. He hasn’t… he hasn’t introduced any of them to Alhaitham.
Ayato follows along at a demure pace, smiling politely in greeting, lilac eyes somehow knowing.
“You kept running off after classes, Kaeya and ‘Jax were getting worried,” Thoma says, brows furrowing. It’s then he notices Alhaitham, eyes blinking then widening as his gaze flits between the two of them. “Are you—”
“—he’s new in town! I’m just… showing him around,” Kaveh quickly says, but cringing at the obvious excuse. He doesn't even know why he’s trying to make one up, not when Thoma can clearly see how close Alhaitham hovers to Kaveh—enough to mistake them for a couple.
“O… kay…” Thoma doesn’t push, which he’s grateful for. His friend gently squeezes his hand, conveying his silent support. “If anything happens, you’ll call us right?”
With that question he’s suddenly reminded of all those months back he spent miserably knocking back shots of alcohol. Heartbreak after heartbreak. They’re not even going out but Kaveh feels selfishly possessive over him. Was he really just repeating that cycle? He can’t bring himself to look at Alhaitham, who’s been beginning to go out, make his own friends and will eventually one day leave—
Kaveh swallows the urge to cry as he nods. “Yeah.”
He finds it impossible to talk on the journey home.
Alhaitham picks up on his mood, but doesn’t press him for conversation until they’re well behind the door of his apartment. It’s not really what Kaveh wants to do though, he wants to weep into his pillow and overthink his personal problems. He tries to make a dash for his bedroom but he’s stopped with a firm grip around his wrist.
“Kaveh, what’s wrong?”
“I—” The ‘I don’t know’ is almost out of his lips before he stops himself. No, that wouldn’t be honest to Alhaitham when he knows exactly what’s wrong. He sags in defeat at the hand around his wrist. “What are we?” he asks, somewhat dejectedly, and at Alhaitham’s confused expression he clarifies again, “What are you to me?”
He blinks. “I’m your boyfriend.”
“No!” Kaveh reels away from him, his voice, a touch louder than he intends, shocks Alhaitham. “You don’t understand, I—” I made you. Kaveh does not know how to convey the jumble of thoughts in his brain. How was he supposed to justify being with him? Kaveh was all he knew for the first few months, and he could just be confusing love with care. How was he supposed to exist once Alhaitham finally experienced the whole world outside? Found someone he really wanted to be with more than Kaveh?
“What we have is—it’s something! But I don’t know if I even have the right to be with you!” Kaveh hiccups, valiantly trying to speak through his blurry eyes and hot tears rolling down his face. “It’s selfish of me to keep you with me even if I love you and—”
In that instant, Alhaitham pulls him in for a kiss. It’s as shocking as it is confusing, his warm lips and the press of his firm body to Kaveh.
Alhaitham murmurs to the air between them, “I love you too.”
Kaveh begins to struggle anew out of the grip but failing, was Alhaitham always this strong? “You’re not listening to me! I
can’t
be your first kiss, you need to go out and—”
“No, you’re the one not listening,” Alhaitham firmly says, gripping Kaveh’s chin so he stares straight into forest green eyes burning gold. “I love you,” he says again, without so much as a shred of hesitation. “I think I loved you even before you finished carving me.”
He trembles from the jumbled emotions, of delight at being returned the one single thing he sought, and confusion at Alhaitham’s words. The man presses their foreheads together, with the twitch of a slight smile playing on his lips. “...And that wasn’t our first kiss.”
It takes a moment for him to connect the dots, but when he does Kaveh flushes a bright tomato red at the implications. All the things he’s done and said in front of the statue, thinking there was no one around for him to be embarrassed. So this means he… for that one year, maybe a little less than that Alhaitham has always—
“Do you believe me?” Alhaitham asks, his tone soft and vulnerable, and Kaveh doesn’t think he even has the energy to reject him. He nods his head.
He gives a surprised yelp as he’s taken into strong arms, carried over Alhaitham’s shoulder in the concerning direction of his bedroom.
“What are you doing! Put me down!”
“I’m consummating our relationship.”
“W-what! Alhaitham, that’s not how that word works—!”
Kaveh whimpers as Alhaitham licks a path up from his belly, tongue catching around his stiff nipple. A whirlwind of thoughts run through his head— 'are we really?' and 'how does he know how to' —as his fingers thread through ashen locks of hair, gasping and twitching as he watches Alhaitham begin to suckle, pinching and teasing Kaveh’s other nipple. He closes his eyes, trying to reason that he hadn’t known this would happen, but a more honest side of himself had wanted this the moment they landed on his bed. He’s trying to preserve even a modicum of integrity about their relationship, but that doesn’t hold up at the moment.
His back arches off the sheets feeling the graze of teeth, a warm palm travelling down from his belly to his abdomen and beginning to slip under the band of his underwear. His face feels hot, every part of him is burning up, heartbeat thudding in his eardrums as he bites back a moan when Alhaitham palms his erection and starts to shimmy his briefs down.
How was Alhaitham so good at this? Why did he already feel like an expert?
“H-hold on—” Kaveh stammers, heart thudding against his ribcage and burning hot looking down at their bodies pressed together—him far too slender, and Alhaitham chiseled like a Greek god. His erection strains beside Kaveh's own and his throat bobs at the sheer size of it.
“I can’t wait,” Alhaitham grunts.
He’d always imagined his boyfriend being big, a personal fantasy that... definitely was put into practice when sculpting Alhaitham. But would it be wrong of him to admit that he’s intimidated right now? It’s long, thicker towards the centre, with a leaking eager tip that seems to twitch in anticipation.
There’s a throb of want that overpowers that fear, curiosity and the need to know exactly how it would feel spreading him, making a mess of his insides.
“L-lube,” Kaveh manages to say, pointing to his bedside table. Alhaitham leans over to fetch a small bottle from the first shelf, kept there for… emergencies like this. He’s too horny to even be embarrassed that he’s spreading his legs eagerly, not when Alhaitham squeezes a generous amount over his cock and slicks it up quickly, messily squeezing the rest out over Kaveh’s taint.
He makes a sound of surprise at the pressure of the first finger that enters him, slick and moving experimentally against his twitching walls, longer than his own and already managing to reach the intimate areas that make his toes curl. Alhaitham adds a second when Kaveh tells him he's ready for it, and then a third for good measure.
“Ngh —t-that’s enough, hurry—”
The fingers come away leaving him feeling empty and unsatisfied, but just as quickly does Alhaitham angle the cockhead against his wet, twitching hole. He makes a sound of impatience before Alhaitham ruts forward all at once, a brusque movement that pushes the tip in. Tears prickle along the corners of Kaveh's eyes as he bites his lip against the pressure, because dammit even three fingers couldn’t compare to this impossible girth—
Alhaitham presses their foreheads together, a gesture both tender and intimate as they lock eyes, and Kaveh feels grounded to the moment, reassured without a word spoken between them. He swallows Kaveh’s meek whine with a kiss, languid and slow as he starts slipping the rest of the thick length in.
Kaveh gasps in the middle of their messy kiss, shuddering at the sensations wracking his body. He clenches reflectively around the length, but that doesn’t seem to deter the cock bullying and pushing its way in, stretching him delightfully. Every twitch makes him aware of each vein on the thick shaft, and the ache only quickly gives way to the melting relief of being filled so thoroughly as his body learns to accommodate Alhaitham’s size.
He’s panting, or crying, fingers raking down Alhaitham’s broad back as the man groans against his ear, voice guttural and muttering praise or thanks as he begins to move.
A single thought rises through the fog in Kaveh’s head: I’m not going to survive this.
In the morning, he wakes up sore.
The good kind, the exhaustion bone-deep; but so is the pleasure as he cuddles further into a warm chest. Alhaitham makes a soft, sleepy sound which Kaveh soaks up happily. He reaches out to grab the first phone he can to check the time, surprisingly it’s Alhaitham’s, and flicks it on.
Before he has the chance to look at the numbers, he’s struck by the lockscreen.
One smiling face, another partially stunned one. The very first selfie they ever took together.
(Kaveh melts into an inconsolable puddle of tears.)
(Omake)
While Alhaitham did prefer to do his own thing most of the time, he has a curiosity for watching Kaveh work. After a while, Kaveh begins to infrequently invite Alhaitham to join in on his crafts with him, at least on the ones that aren’t hazardous to a beginner.
Currently Kaveh has a canvas in front of him, with a mosaic of small gems he’s placing on it to form a peacock with its tail feathers luxuriously spread. It’s his first time working on something like this, each gem needing to be placed down individually, but he’s been steadily getting annoyed with the piece, glueing one gem, only to not like its position and redoing it again while getting glue on him.
Alhaitham wanders in to look, much like Mehrak does when he’s curious about where and what Kaveh is doing. He picks one of the stray gems up, then impulsively peels off the back and sticks it to Kaveh’s cheek.
Kaveh blinks, momentarily stunned. He stares at Alhaitham, who’s trying very hard to hide his smile.
It instantly starts a silly fight between them, trying to get the most gems stuck on each other.
“Did I distract you?” Alhaitham quietly asks, as they pick up the remnants of the gems and paper backings strewn about on the ground.
“Maybe a bit, but I was getting frustrated,” he giggles. It was a welcome change of pace to however he had been feeling earlier. He spots a sparkle of green out of the corner of his eye, a diamond-shaped emerald stuck to Alhaitham’s chest. “Oh wait, hold on, there’s one on you.”
He reaches forward, nails catching on the edge of the fake gem but frowns when he gives it a tug and… it doesn’t budge. A second pull, harder this time, and Alhaitham makes a sound of confused hurt.
“Oh, sorry! I—” He feels around the other edges, but no, it remains rooted in that same spot. “I think… that one had glue on it…”
(They spend a few minutes in the toilet, gently rubbing nail polish acetone between Alhaitham’s skin and the stone, trying to get the thing off between fits of giggles.)