Work Text:
This is how it began:
“Al-Haitham,” Kaveh said, laughing and tipping his head back. “You’re crazy. My cute little junior. Maybe we should just start dating.”
Al-Haitham turned to look at him, his eyes wide on his face.
“Okay,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching upward, “if that’s what you want.”
This is how it ended:
“Al-Haitham,” said Kaveh quietly, “I think we should break up.”
Al-Haitham closed his book. It slid off of his thigh and onto the couch cushion next to him, and Kaveh watched from the kitchen as he blinked a few times and looked up to meet his eyes.
“Okay,” he said, “if that’s what you want.”
Except, well, that’s not it either. Because life goes on, even after the break up. Cruel and fucked up, Kaveh thinks. Four years of dating and this is where his life ends up.
Four years of dating. Four entire years. All over in one single night. Who would have even thought?
Al-Haitham doesn’t say anything after that. Kaveh doesn’t know whether that’s a blessing or a curse. A part of him wants to say, that’s it? You’re just going to go along with it? You’re not going to say no? You’re not going to fight for me?
But he knows better. It’s been a long time coming—this. At least, it has been for Kaveh. Maybe. He doesn’t really know. All he knows is that the room has been silent for the past several minutes, and Al-Haitham is looking down at his lap, and Kaveh is staring off into empty space somewhere above his head. He feels a little sick. He feels like the world is collapsing around him, a black hole, all encompassing.
And then, he swallows, and he forces his limbs to carry him to his bedroom— their bedroom—and then he closes the door behind him and collapses onto the floor.
When he’s moving all of his things from Al-Haitham’s bedroom to the second bedroom the day after the break up, he wonders why the fuck they even bought a two-bedroom apartment in the first place. They had been dating for over a year and a half when they had decided to move in together, and obviously they weren’t going to sleep in separate rooms. Of course, now he knows why they bought a place with two rooms. It’s because they were never going to last. It’s because they were going to break up, and the spare room was going to end up being Kaveh’s.
Kaveh remembers wondering if the reason Al-Haitham was so hellbent on it was so that they would have potential office space, or something. He remembers asking him outright.
He also remembers what Al-Haitham had replied with.
“We can save so much money if we just get a one-bedroom place,” Kaveh had said, rolling his eyes. “Why do we need two?”
“For the kids,” said Al-Haitham, and then Kaveh choked on his own saliva.
When he recovered, Al-Haitham was looking at him meaningfully. “For the what?”
“For the kids,” Al-Haitham repeated. “What are you looking at me like that for? They’re not going to sleep in the living room, are they? They’ll need their own room.”
Several seconds passed. When Kaveh made no move to reply, Al-Haitham sighed and bent down, clasping their hands together and tugging him along down the street.
“You’re acting as if anyone else will come along and have the patience to deal with you,” he said as Kaveh gaped at him. “Or is it that you don’t want children? Hm.”
“You want children?” Kaveh sputtered. “You?”
Al-Haitham frowned at this. “Why is that so surprising?”
“It’s…it’s not, I guess. Kind of.” Kaveh shook his head. “Archons. You’re so annoying. Why are you thinking so far in the future? What’s relevant right now is the fact that I just graduated and I have no way to pay for a two-bedroom apartment.”
“I will pay for it,” said Al-Haitham.
Kaveh snorted. “You’re a student.”
“My grandmother left me money when she died,” said Al-Haitham, and Kaveh softened at this. “I see no other use for it. You are my future. I will pay for our apartment.”
And he did. He bought a two-bedroom apartment in the heart of Sumeru City despite all of Kaveh’s attempts to dissuade him, and the two of them moved in the summer before Al-Haitham’s junior year of undergrad and Kaveh’s first year of graduate school. What followed was two years of peaceful, academic bliss, and then the two of them graduated their respective programs, and Al-Haitham was offered the position of the Akademiya’s scribe while Kaveh was thrust into the world of freelance architecture. What followed that was six months of corporate hell, and then, well.
Well.
“Kaveh?” says Tighnari now, and Kaveh promptly snaps out of whatever daze he had been in. “You okay?”
“Me?” Kaveh blinks, and it’s then when he notices Tighnari and Nilou both staring at him. “Oh,” he says, then frowns. “Yes, of course I am. Why would I not be okay?”
“You keep…” Tighnari trails off for a moment. “Drifting off? It seems like you’re thinking about something.”
“Nope,” says Kaveh. “There are absolutely zero thoughts in my head right now.”
“Right, well,” says Tighnari, and then he glances at Nilou, and then he continues, “it’s not…just today? Is what I’m trying to say. In fact, the reason we asked you out to have dinner with us tonight is because we wanted to talk to you. You’ve been…acting differently these past few weeks.”
Nilou nods quickly in agreement.
“Oh,” says Kaveh.
“You know you can talk to us, Kaveh,” Nilou says, and then she reaches across the table and gently squeezes his palm. Her hand is so much smaller than Al-Haitham’s, Kaveh notes. Then he mentally slaps himself for thinking something so absurd. “We’re here for you. We’re your friends, and you know you can tell us anything.”
“I know,” says Kaveh slowly. “I’m fine, guys. Seriously! You don’t—you don’t have to stage an intervention for me, or whatever. I promise I’m absolutely fine and nothing at all is happening in my life right now that is worth discussing.”
A fruitless attempt at trying to make them give up. Kaveh isn’t exactly surprised, though. After all, these are his friends. Specifically, this is Tighnari.
Sure enough: “Did Al-Haitham do something?”
Immediately, Kaveh barks a laugh. “Him? No. What would he do?”
“So he did,” says Tighnari, and then he sighs, his shoulders relaxing as if he has somehow managed to discover the hidden secrets of the universe, or something. “Well? What did he do this time?”
Kaveh bristles at this. “Nothing,” he says, averting his gaze. “You know, just the usual. He made dinner last night, just like always. He bought too many groceries from the bazaar, just like always. He made me coffee this morning before I left for a meeting with my new client, just like always.”
“That sounds…” Tighnari looks conflicted for a second, “...normal?”
“Exactly,” says Kaveh, nodding. “It’s normal.”
“I’m afraid I’m not following,” says Tighnari.
“Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” says Kaveh. He straightens up, feels something in his jaw click. “He’s always been normal, hasn’t he? I’m the abnormal one. I’m the one who’s always at fault. I’m the reason we broke up.”
The silence that follows confuses him for a moment, and then the shocked expressions mirrored from Tighnari’s face to Nilou’s bring Kaveh crashing unceremoniously down to reality, where he feels himself tense from the realization of what he’s just said.
“Oh,” he says. His friends are still staring at him. “Right, yeah. Al-Haitham and I broke up.”
“No you didn’t,” says Tighnari.
“Yes we did,” says Kaveh.
“What…?” says Nilou. She sounds devastated, which—well, isn’t that just great.
“No you didn’t,” says Tighnari again.
“Yes we did,” says Kaveh, and then he slumps down against the backrest of his seat and sticks his hand up to call the waiter for more wine. “Stop saying no you didn’t. I’m telling you that we did.”
“No you didn’t,” says Tighnari, though Kaveh thinks this one was more just for the sake of being an asshole. “What do you mean, Kaveh, you and Al-Haitham broke up? I just don’t believe it. How long has it been since you guys got together? Three years?”
“Four,” Kaveh mutters. His grip tightens around his glass of wine and belatedly he wonders if hard liquor would be more appropriate for this conversation.
“Four,” Tighnari nods. “Right. I’ve never had to think about how long it’s been since I met you after you two had already gotten together. Kaveh, I don’t know a you that’s not dating Al-Haitham. That is how long it’s been.”
“Thanks,” says Kaveh. He burns holes into his glass with his eyes.
“When did you break up?” Nilou asks. Her voice is quiet. Her eyes are sad. “Was it recent?”
“Two weeks ago,” says Kaveh. He takes a swig and feels it burn as it rolls down his throat. “I moved into the empty bedroom before Al-Haitham could tell me I should keep our old one. Personally I think I would rather bash my head into the Wall of Samiel than live in that room no matter how much bigger and nicer it is, but whatever. Al-Haitham isn’t the sentimental type when it comes to things like that. He’s always preached about practicality, and someone has to sleep there. It’s not going to be me, so. It has to be him.”
Tighnari still seems shocked, while Nilou just looks really, really upset. Which, well. Yeah. Fuck. This is literally the last thing Kaveh wanted from all of this. He doesn’t need his friends worrying over him, because really, he’s fine. In fact, if you looked at him from afar, you wouldn’t even be able to tell that he had just broken up with the guy he’s been with since he was twenty years old.
He shakes his head, moves to stand up. “Okay,” he says, “um, well, this was fun. I’ll see you guys later?”
“Kaveh—” Tighnari starts.
Kaveh holds up his palm, effectively shutting him up. “I’ll text you guys,” he says, shooting Nilou a smile before staggering to the bar to pay out.
nari
[21:20] nari
i’m sorry for how i acted earlier at dinner kaveh :( i was really surprised
if you want to talk about it i’m always here
you know that
[21:23] you
dw about it!!!!
thank you tighnari but really i’m fine
[21:23] nari
still
i just wanted you to know
Kaveh wakes up the next morning and decides that, yup, he’s over it.
“Good morning, roommate!” he sing-songs as he skips out of his new bedroom. Al-Haitham is in the kitchen, bent over what looks like a pot of chai brewing on the stove, and when Kaveh twirls past the dining table and leans against the counter next to him, he glances up and meets his eyes.
“Good morning,” he says, and then turns back to face the pot.
Kaveh’s nose twitches. He glances down as Al-Haitham swirls a bit of milk into the chai, mixing it with a spoon. “Can I have some?”
“Since when have you asked?” says Al-Haitham, and Kaveh very resolutely ignores the way his chest pinches. Al-Haitham seems to pause too, just for a moment, before he collects himself and turns on his heel to reach for two mugs in the counter overhead.
He pours the two cups and presses one into Kaveh’s hands.
“Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh.
Al-Haitham stares at him. “Kaveh.”
“Are we okay?”
It’s kind of a stupid question, in hindsight. Kaveh should know better than to ask it. He can practically hear Al-Haitham’s usual chide in his ear: for someone who graduated with honors, senior, you truly can be so dense. Yadda yadda yadda. He knows for a fact Al-Haitham is not going to say anything of the sort right now.
And he’s right. Al-Haitham doesn’t say it. Instead he looks at Kaveh for a long few moments until Kaveh thinks his skin may be burning, and then he looks away, as if he hadn’t looked at all.
“We’re whatever you want to be, Kaveh,” he says, and there it is again. If that’s what you want. We’re whatever you want to be. We’re fine if you say we’re fine, Kaveh, Kaveh, Kaveh.
He’s not over it, is he?
Fuck.
But honestly, can anyone blame him? He and Al-Haitham were together for a really long fucking time! And it doesn’t really help that they still live together—but it also isn’t as if Kaveh can just up and leave when his career has basically just begun. He doesn’t have the money for that. And Al-Haitham hasn’t kicked him out. Yet. Is there a yet? He actually does not have a single ounce of an idea.
He also decides that he doesn’t really want to know. Maybe Al-Haitham hasn’t even thought about the fact that he could very well just kick Kaveh out if he wants to. After all, this is technically his house that he paid for with his own money, so. Kaveh won’t mention it. Maybe if he does, Al-Haitham will suddenly realize that he wants nothing to do with Kaveh anymore, actually, so he should pack his bags and get the hell out as soon as possible.
But anyways, everything is fine.
Exhibit A:
“I just think,” Kaveh slurs, his forehead dropping onto Dehya’s shoulder as she sighs and lifts her hand to gently stroke his back.
“What do you think, Kaveh?” she asks patiently. Maybe too patiently. Kaveh is a terrible friend.
“I just think,” says Kaveh again, and then he stops, blinks a few times through the haze. “I don’t remember what I think. Dee. I don’t remember.”
“Maybe you’ll remember if you stop drinking.”
“Well no,” says Kaveh, and then he reaches for another bottle.
Exhibit B, which also happens to be post-drinking-with-Dehya-bash:
“Kaveh, you look like you’re going to throw up.”
“I am,” Kaveh said, and then he flops down onto the couch and flails out like some stupid starfish. “How did you know?”
“You reek of alcohol,” says Al-Haitham, because of course he does. “Get up and go to sleep.”
“That’s familiar,” Kaveh giggles.
Al-Haitham doesn’t respond. Instead he yanks Kaveh up and practically shoves him into his room. His room. Kaveh’s room. Because they have separate ones now.
Suffice to say, he throws up. And cries a bit. It’s all very gross and when he wakes up the next morning he throws up again.
Exhibit C, and this is the last one, he promises:
“I’m fine, guys,” Kaveh says unprompted to his friends who do not look like they believe him in the slightest.
“Okay,” says Tighnari.
“Okay,” says Cyno.
So on and so forth.
“You know,” says Kaveh, rolling over on the couch so that he’s facing Tighnari and Cyno, who are sitting pressed against each other on the loveseat opposite him, “I feel kind of bad for Al-Haitham. Obviously I have you guys to get through this, but who is he talking to? It can’t be good to be all cooped up with your emotions like that. Though I guess Al-Haitham of all people is used to doing that.”
“Isn’t he talking to Nilou?” says Tighnari.
“What?” says Kaveh. “Nilou?”
“Well, maybe,” Tighnari shrugs. “I just thought she mentioned something, but maybe I heard wrong.”
“Why did you guys even break up?” says Cyno. He’s holding a deck of TCG cards that seemingly spawned out of literally nowhere. “I can’t remember if you told us or not.”
“He didn’t,” says Tighnari. He turns to look at Kaveh. “Why did you guys break up?”
“Oh, you know,” says Kaveh, waving a hand. “This and that.”
“This and that,” say Tighnari and Cyno simultaneously.
“That’s scary,” says Kaveh. “Is that something that happens when you’re dating someone? You guys just saying shit at the same time like that.”
“Wouldn’t you know?” says Cyno, tilting his head, and, well, Kaveh doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to say to that.
“Too soon,” he settles on. “Anyways, pass me a few cards. Let’s play a round. I don’t want to think about Al-Haitham anymore.”
“Say less,” says Cyno, and then they do exactly that.
“Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh when he gets home later that night to find Al-Haitham reading a book on the couch. “Are you talking to Nilou?”
“Why would I be talking to Nilou,” Al-Haitham deadpans. “She has a girlfriend.”
“Not like that,” says Kaveh, rolling his eyes. “Obviously I mean, like, to get over it.”
“To get over what?”
This guy. “Our break up, obviously.”
“Oh,” says Al-Haitham. He pauses, like he’s thinking about this. “Am I not allowed to talk to Nilou?”
“You—” Kaveh shakes his head. “You know that’s not what I meant. You were friends with her first, anyways. I was just curious since Tighnari mentioned it. That you were talking to Nilou. Just doesn’t feel like something you would do.”
“As you said, she’s my friend,” says Al-Haitham, and, well, yes. Kaveh supposes that’s true. “The nature of our conversations is not something worth dwelling over. Stop overthinking things that aren’t worth thinking about, Kaveh. It’s not good for your health.”
Kaveh pulls a face. “For my health? What a stupid thing to say. My health is fine.”
“You stumbled into our house drunk out of your mind only two nights ago.”
“Clearly an anomaly in my general sense of being.”
“Clearly seems like a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?”
“Ugh, I’m tired of talking to you,” says Kaveh, spinning around. “Forget I said anything. Keep conversing with Nilou all you want, see if I care. I don’t, by the way.”
“You’re overthinking again,” Al-Haitham calls after him, but Kaveh has already half-slammed the door shut, so he supposes that’s it for tonight.
Once, right after they had gotten together, Kaveh had gone to his Kshahrewar advisor and had been told that his project was too convoluted to graduate with.
He didn’t really know what that meant, honestly. A small, almost-tangible thing sitting at the very edge of his mind. He didn’t tell anyone. He just shut himself into his room and drew and drew and drew, remade plans and altered his blueprints until what sat before him was something he could no longer recognize. His breath was caught in his throat, his eyes glazed over, his back arched, frozen still, as he curled in on himself and he screamed.
When he emerged, it was to fifty missed calls, two hundred texts, and a guilt so deep he could no longer fathom it.
Al-Haitham found him first. Of course Al-Haitham found him first. He walked into his apartment and went straight to Kaveh’s bedroom door. He stood outside and knocked three times—one, two, three—until Kaveh was blinking away the dust pooling around his eyelids and walking on autopilot to open it.
“What’s the point,” he whispered as Al-Haitham found his eyes.
And, really, what is the point? Kaveh thinks about it now, in an unfamiliar bedroom on the other side of their apartment, three weeks fresh from breaking up with the only person who could ever understand. The only person. The only person. How did he let it get to this?
nilou
[21:42] you
does al-haitham talk to you about me
[21:45] nilou
hmm... sometimes? :0 why?
[21:45] you
oh
that’s sweet tbh
i’m glad he has you
[21:45] nilou
you have me too!
[21:45] you
if you say so :)
A month after the break up, Kaveh thinks that he and Al-Haitham have sort of settled into a new normal.
Al-Haitham still leaves for work every morning at eight-thirty, and Kaveh still spends hours upon hours on his drawings and on meetings with his clients that should really be taking no more than, like, an hour. Max. But, well, some things don’t change. He supposes this is one of them.
Things that do change: Kaveh not immediately defaulting to their previously shared bedroom upon coming home from a long day, Kaveh not immediately defaulting to landing Al-Haitham a kiss on his cheek before leaving for a long day, Kaveh not immediately defaulting to melting into Al-Haitham’s arms to talk to him about his long day. Don’t get him wrong, his days are still plenty long. Such is the norm for people in his profession, but, well, the key difference is the fact that he no longer can really talk to Al-Haitham about whatever it is that happens to him in his life, no matter how much he thinks Al-Haitham probably won’t mind.
Not that much really happens in his life to begin with.
Two months after the break up, Kaveh thinks that he’s slowly getting used to life as just Kaveh, rather than what was very much his life as Kaveh, boyfriend of Al-Haitham.
No, wait, that’s giving it too much credit. Kaveh isn’t blaming anyone, nor does he really think anyone ever really knew him simply for his relationship status. Both he and Al-Haitham were very well-reputed in their respective Darshans when they studied at the Akademiya, and honestly, from what he’s heard, not many people even knew they were together. Not until Kaveh’s graduation, at least, when Al-Haitham got him a bouquet of padisarahs and left a very public kiss on his nose center-stage.
Needless to say, the Akademiya was gossip-filled to the brim for the following few weeks. Kaveh still blushes with embarrassment every time he thinks back to that day.
How does one even get over someone like Al-Haitham?
Kaveh doesn’t know. He hopes he will learn soon.
Fuck. Kaveh doesn’t know.
He still doesn’t know.
Okay, Al-Haitham had said. If that’s what you want, Al-Haitham had said.
Okay, okay, okay. If that’s what you want. If that’s what you fucking want. It’s always been about Kaveh, and Kaveh, and Kaveh. If that’s what you want. But what if that wasn’t what Kaveh wanted? And how did Al-Haitham not know that that wasn’t what he wanted? They were supposed to work. They were supposed to fucking work. It was supposed to be them.
“You’ve been staring at that same page for twenty minutes now,” Al-Haitham says one evening, when he’s sitting at their dining table with his dinner and Kaveh is in the living room, hunched over his tablet.
Kaveh freezes, his stylus almost dropping out of his grasp. He looks up. “Stop looking at me.”
Al-Haitham does not look impressed. “You look awful.”
“I didn’t ask,” says Kaveh. “I’m working right now.”
“Nothing new for you,” says Al-Haitham.
Kaveh bristles. Unfortunately, he knows him. “If this is your way of caring, then it’s a shitty way of doing so. Also, we broke up.”
“I am well aware.”
“So stop caring,” says Kaveh, glaring at him. “You have no right to anymore.”
Al-Haitham doesn’t respond to that.
If that’s what you want.
Al-Haitham, what did you want?
Three months after the break up, Kaveh thinks he has pretty much become an expert at this whole living with your ex thing. Not that he really has a choice. He barely even thinks about the fact that he used to be in a serious, committed relationship with the man who is now nothing more than his roommate, actually. Nope. No reminiscing here. Not for Kaveh. Because Kaveh is, after all, completely over him.
Anyways.
“Nilou is performing at the Grand Bazaar on Friday,” says Al-Haitham as Kaveh enters the apartment after a row of late-night meetings. He’s sitting on the couch, a cup of what looks to be hot tea nursed against his chest as he turns a page in whatever book he’s reading. “If you want to, come with me.”
“On Friday?” says Kaveh as he shrugs off his jacket. “I…should be free. What time is it?”
“Six PM.”
“Oh,” says Kaveh. “Yeah, that should be fine. I have a meeting at four, but it shouldn’t take more than, like, an hour. Oh, I think she mentioned something to me about this performance last week, actually, which is why I planned my schedule like that anyways.”
“So you forgot already,” Al-Haitham summarizes.
“Ugh,” says Kaveh, turning to him. “You know how busy I am.”
“I do know,” says Al-Haitham, a little clipped, and Kaveh doesn’t really want to dwell on that right now, so instead he grabs his briefcase from where he had set it on the floor and makes a beeline for his room.
There’s a plate of harra fruit on the table by his door.
He ignores it and disappears inside.
“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham as they’re pulling on their shoes before they leave for the bazaar. In his pocket, Kaveh can feel the group chat going off with what is probably all of them letting Nilou know where they are in the audience. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”
Kaveh glances sidelong at him. “Shut up,” he says.
Al-Haitham levels him with an unimpressed look. “When was the last time you slept?”
“Why do you care,” Kaveh mutters. “I told you to stop caring.”
“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham again. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“You have no right,” says Kaveh, spinning to face him. “We broke up. You have no right anymore.”
Al-Haitham’s jaw shifts. “I never had any right, did I?”
“What does that even mean?”
“This is why you broke up with me, isn’t it?” Al-Haitham says. “You can’t handle it when someone cares about you and wants to help you. When somebody who knows you and loves you won’t just abandon you because your issues are too much for them.”
Kaveh feels something sharp twist in his chest. “Shut the fuck up, Al-Haitham.”
“You couldn’t handle how much I cared,” says Al-Haitham. “Everyone you love ends up leaving you. You didn’t trust me enough to know that I would stay.”
“Well you’re still fucking here, aren’t you?” says Kaveh, hard.
Al-Haitham’s eyes narrow. “So should I leave?”
“Do you want to?” says Kaveh. His head is spinning. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t something that is supposed to happen. It’s been months. They should be over it. Archons. He should be over it. “Tell me, Al-Haitham, what you want. You’re always telling me that we can do whatever I want. When we got together, when we broke up. It’s always been about me, me, me. Don’t act as if you’re a saint. Don’t act as if you didn’t see this break up coming. Don’t act as if everything is my fault. You didn’t even fight for me. You just said okay. You just fucking said okay.”
“You are the only person in the world,” Al-Haitham whispers, hard, his voice shaking ever so slightly, “that I would fight for.”
Kaveh stares at him. Al-Haitham stares back. The few centimeters between them are yawning and large. You could fit an avalanche here, Kaveh thinks. Though maybe there already is one—tumbling icicles, fallen snow. Falling and falling and falling until there is nothing left in the sky.
When Kaveh finds Nilou backstage after her performance, she is with Al-Haitham. They’re talking under their breaths, faces a little serious.
“You were amazing,” Kaveh says when he walks up to them, completely ignoring Al-Haitham next to her. He hands her a bouquet of sumeru roses and watches as her expression lights up.
“I always am,” she says as she accepts them. Then, her smile dims. “Kaveh, how have you been?”
“Oh, you know,” he says. He can feel Al-Haitham’s eyes trained heavily on his side. “I’m just glad I was able to make it.”
“I am too,” Nilou says. “Tighnari and the rest of them are waiting for us by the entrance. Let’s go, shall we?”
“Let’s,” Kaveh agrees with a nod.
The group dinner goes on as normally as possible. The entire time, Kaveh replays the words you are the only person in the world that I would fight for in his head.
“You can’t keep doing this,” said Al-Haitham the day it started. Kaveh’s thought about it for a while now. This is when it all began, almost six months ago. “You have to take care of yourself.”
Kaveh looked up from his tablet, the screen’s brightness illuminating his face. He was sure he looked ridiculous right now, the lighting probably emphasizing every weary line on his face, the dark blotches beneath his eyes. Al-Haitham was standing in the doorway to their bedroom, loose t-shirt, frigid posture. It was the first time Kaveh had seen him in days.
He looked back down at his tablet, rubbed his index finger across the length of his pencil. “Hello to you too,” he said, and then, “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
Al-Haitham was quiet for several seconds, and Kaveh thought that maybe that was the end of it. But then, all of a sudden, his tablet was being yanked away from his lap, and Al-Haitham was suddenly a lot closer than before.
Kaveh blinked up at him. “Al-Haitham, what are you—”
“Kaveh,” said Al-Haitham. He was just a step away from Kaveh’s spot on the couch, and he was looking down at Kaveh with an expression completely unreadable.
“What? What is it? Give back my—”
“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham said again, “come to bed.”
“Bed?” Kaveh repeated. “Al-Haitham, I can’t right now. I’ll come in a little bit, okay? Now give my tablet back to me. I need to finish my work.”
“Kaveh,” said Al-Haitham again, his voice tight, “come to bed.”
It made Kaveh bristle, which he supposes was the first sign. Kaveh frequently gets annoyed at Al-Haitham—this much can be confirmed by literally anyone in their mutual circle—but rarely does he bristle. Because bristling implies off guardedness, and very rarely does Al-Haitham ever catch Kaveh off guard. At least, not like that.
“You know I need to finish this,” said Kaveh, looking up and meeting his eyes.
“You can finish it tomorrow,” said Al-Haitham.
“The client asked for it by the end of the week.”
“You’re the architect,” said Al-Haitham. “They work on your schedule. You shouldn’t be working on theirs.”
“Al-Haitham,” said Kaveh. His head was beginning to hurt. “You know it doesn’t work like that.”
“Do I,” said Al-Haitham.
Silence stretched between them, and eventually, Kaveh reached out and yanked his tablet back from Al-Haitham’s hands, and Al-Haitham averted his gaze and turned on his heel, walking back to their bedroom door and closing it behind him.
He needs to stop thinking about it. He needs to turn Al-Haitham into a stranger. He needs to pick apart each and every moment they shared together and burn it to ash.
How the fuck is he suppose to do that? How is he supposed to do that without being reborn as someone else entirely? Someone with Al-Haitham not innately programmed into his being? Fly, phoenix, fly. Spread your wings and fucking fly. Fly away until you can no longer remember where you came from. Flourish anew. I can’t do that, so you do it for me instead.
He’s not over it. He’s not over it. How can he be over it? How is he expected to go from everything to nothing? Just like that? How can he go from having the love of his life be the love of his life to the love of his life being nothing to him? How can he ever think that Al-Haitham could be nothing to him? There is a void inside of him, gaping its mouth open, baring its teeth for all to see. He thinks that, with enough effort, he can drop himself inside. Maybe then he will forget. Maybe then he will move on. Maybe then he will be over it.
Oh, and then there’s this one, too. This one, how Kaveh remembers it, is worse.
Al-Haitham appeared out of nowhere—his arm came to block Kaveh’s view of the designs on his laptop screen, and then he closed the lid and Kaveh blinked back to life and looked up and found him and said, “What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s two o’clock in the morning,” said Al-Haitham. His voice was hard, as if his patience had finally worn thin. Kaveh wondered how far this was going to go. “You have a meeting in six hours. You need to go to sleep.”
“I’m surviving,” said Kaveh, and then he swatted him away, swallowed as his burning gaze met his screen once again.
“You’re not supposed to just be surviving,” said Al-Haitham. Kaveh’s throat was burning. In his periphery, he saw his water bottle teetering at the edge of his desk, as if it was two millimeters away from crashing down and spilling a mess onto the floor. “You always do this. You did the same thing when we were working on our group project. You work yourself to the bone and care about every person but yourself.”
Kaveh turned to look up at him sharply. “Why the hell are you bringing that up right now?”
“Because it’s the same thing all over again,” said Al-Haitham. “What? Are you going to deny it? This time it’s just your clients instead of our groupmates.”
“You think you have the entire world figured out, don’t you,” Kaveh snarled, moving to stand up. He ignored how his limbs wobbled from unuse. Al-Haitham’s expression on him was hard, and to anyone else, it would be terrifying. “You think you can just say anything you want and you’re right. You think you know everything about me.”
“Do I not?” Al-Haitham said.
“Leave me alone,” said Kaveh. “Just—just leave me alone.”
“Your solution to other peoples’ misfortunes is your own self destruction,” said Al-Haitham, and Kaveh bristled. “Your ideals are as profound as they are foolish.”
Kaveh opened his mouth to bite back, but Al-Haitham was already turning away from him.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” Kaveh managed to say just as Al-Haitham stepped through the doorway, and then he was gone.
But it’s not the same as before. At least with their project falling apart, they hadn’t fallen apart. Not enough to fucking break up. Not enough for Kaveh to look Al-Haitham in the eyes and tell him that he no longer wanted to be in a relationship with him. It had been bad, but this is worse. This is infinitely fucking worse.
He looks at his reflection in the mirror and he wills himself to think of his life before Al-Haitham. What had there been? His mother. His mother’s back as she walked away from him, past the boarding gate and onto the flight labeled Fontaine. His father. His father’s back as he too walked away from him, but this one is hazier, this one he has to strain to remember. There’s an ending to this one. Sometimes he thinks there’s an ending to his mother’s, too.
But then there was Al-Haitham. Al-Haitham who came into his life out of literally nowhere and somehow, against all odds, stayed. But even that can’t mean much. Not in the grand scheme of things. No. Four years are nothing when he really thinks about it. Four years have come and four years have now gone. And in the end, hadn’t he been right? Al-Haitham is no longer his. He has left too.
And now it is Kaveh’s turn.
“Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh the dozenth time he finds fruit by his bedroom door. He looks back over his shoulder, sees the way Al-Haitham is carefully looking anywhere but directly at him. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Five months after the break up, Kaveh finds himself at Nilou’s doorstep.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers as Nilou gasps and beckons him inside. “I know you’re. You’re Al-Haitham’s friend. I just. I—Tighnari and Cyno live together, so I—I’m sorry, Nilou—”
“Kaveh,” Nilou says, reaching up until she is cupping his face in her palms. “You are my friend just as much as he is. Why would you ever think otherwise?”
Kaveh shakes his head. He thinks he may be crying.
“You and Al-Haitham broke up,” she says. “That doesn’t mean I stopped being your friend. I was there when you told me and Tighnari, wasn’t I? Why would you think that you can’t talk to me?”
Kaveh starts, “I—” but then he can’t speak. There’s nothing he can say to refute that. He doesn’t…he doesn’t know why he thought he couldn’t speak to Nilou. Maybe because Al-Haitham was talking to Nilou. So she was off limits. She was his friend, not his. He couldn't force her to pick sides.
“Friends don’t pick sides,” she whispers, and oh, had he said that out loud?
“I need to get over it,” Kaveh says, a little watery.
“You don’t,” Nilou says, thumbing at his face. “Not if you don’t want to. You can go at your own pace, Kaveh. You have all the time in the world.”
She’s right, Kaveh thinks bitterly. He does have all the time in the world. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? He has a whole lifetime ahead of him, and for the longest time, he thought that he would share it with someone. And now—and now that isn’t going to happen anymore. What a cruel fucking world. What a stingy fucking world. How dare it give him a taste of happiness and snatch it right from under his fingertips. How dare it give him something as stupid, as silly, as selfish as hope?
Nilou sighs, and then she brings him into a hug, and Kaveh, for the first time in a very long time, feels like he can breathe.
Okay, if that’s what you want.
Kaveh doesn’t want. He doesn’t want. He doesn’t want for this to be where they end up. They were supposed to work. It was supposed to be them. Nothing about them has ever been perfect. They were Kaveh and Al-Haitham. Nothing about them was ever supposed to work, and yet somehow, it did. It did work. It worked, and everything was fine. Everything was how it was supposed to be. Kaveh is not supposed to be anywhere but his own home right now—his home with Al-Haitham, in their shared bedroom, lying side by side. This is now how it was supposed to be. This is not how he wants it to be.
The next day, Nilou peeks into the spare room Kaveh had been sleeping in with a strange look in her eyes. Immediately when he sees her, Kaveh knows what is happening.
“He’s here, isn’t he,” he says.
She just nods, then moves aside so that he can slip past her.
Al-Haitham is waiting for him in the entryway, rigid and still, and when Kaveh comes into view, he looks up and meets his eyes.
“Kaveh,” he says.
“You,” Kaveh manages to say. His fingers twitch by his sides. “What are you doing here? I told you not to follow me.”
“You’ve said a lot of things lately,” says Al-Haitham in response, and Kaveh doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to say to that.
He inhales. “So?”
“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham again, and in that moment, four years flash by Kaveh’s sight: a brash first meeting, a kiss shared at midnight in the depths of the House of Daena, sticky eighteen and twenty years old, and then years and years and years of knowing nobody but each other.
Four years ago, if you told Kaveh that he and Al-Haitham would break up, he would have probably believed you. Three years ago, he would have said, oh, really? Okay, when? Two years ago, he would have adopted a darkness in his eyes, and he would have turned his head away, as if you were not worth a second glance. A year ago, he would have laughed, said no, that’s impossible, have you seen him? He’s obsessed with me. Now, fuck, now?
“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham, just one more time, “come home.”
Home.
“I love you, by the way,” Kaveh says as they walk through the door to their home together. He feels Al-Haitham stiffen beside him, and, oh, he didn’t mean to say that. But now that he has, he might as well keep going, right? Archons. “I love you and it hurts. I know that you care, but I hate it. This is who I am, Al-Haitham. You’re right. I do self destruct. You’re right about it all. What are you going to do about it?”
Al-Haitham turns to him, reaches out and catches Kaveh’s shoulder with his blazing fingertips. Somewhere in the distance, a bird cries in song. “I agreed to the break up because I know it’s what you wanted.”
“What if I was lying?” Kaveh presses. “What if I said it out of anger?”
“Didn’t you?” says Al-Haitham quietly. Kaveh opens his mouth, but Al-Haitham continues before he can say anything, “People are most honest when they’re angry, Kaveh.”
“I was fine when we were both students,” says Kaveh. His voice is breaking. He barely even notices it. “But—it’s worse now. All of it. It’s a new chapter in our lives and yet it feels like nothing has changed.”
“Nothing has to change,” says Al-Haitham.
Kaveh shakes his head. “I can’t be the same person I was when I was in the Akademiya.”
“Does that mean you have to get rid of me too?”
Kaveh’s eyes fall shut. “No.”
He’s never gotten over it. Five months and he’s still here, in the crevice between a life with Al-Haitham and a life without him. He doesn’t know which side he should run towards.
“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham, “it’s always been you.”
The world stands still. The sky goes dark. Everything stops.
When time resumes again, Kaveh finds that Al-Haitham is still looking at him. Archons, he is always looking at him.
“Why,” Kaveh says eventually. “Why did you agree to it?”
“It’s what you wanted,” says Al-Haitham.
Kaveh shakes his head. “No it wasn’t.”
“Then what was it?” Al-Haitham asks. “What did you want? What do you want?”
“You,” says Kaveh.
Al-Haitham’s shoulders drop. “You’ve always had me, Kaveh,” he says.
Four years. Kaveh thinks there should be infinite more.