Archive of Our Own ^beta

At first, Kaveh thinks that the biggest trial of his adult life would be adjusting to a nine-to-five.

Unfortunately for him, he discovers that the biggest trial is actually dealing with the scourge of his life, the pointiest thorn in his side, and his boyfriend: Al-Haitham.

Seriously. Like, does Al-Haitham have to be so… him? It’s like he’s doing it on purpose. It’s like he’s trying to get on Kaveh’s nerves just because he feels like it.

Most of their issues stem mainly from banal household things that don’t seem to be a big deal until they are, suddenly, roaring loudly in Kaveh’s face with grubby fingers. For example, when Kaveh does the dishes, he develops a nice and efficient system of generic scrubbing and rinsing and filing away into the dishwasher, but every single evening, Al-Haitham comes to loom menacingly over his shoulder and project his disapproving gaze onto him because he thinks that the utensils must be filled in from big fork, big spoon, butter knife, and on the other aisle, small fork to small spoon, two spots between the forks and three between the spoons. Kaveh complains that it’s inefficient and that it would take less time to load the dishwasher if he were to be less meticulous with his utensil placement; Al-Haitham argues that it would take less time to unload the dishwasher if he spent a little more time putting away the cutlery.

So they’re both right, in kind of opposite ways. It’s still annoying to have Al-Haitham breathing down his neck just in case Kaveh commits the grave crime of moving a fork up two slots too many.

And in other cases, Al-Haitham tells Kaveh to his face that the food he cooks is bland and tasteless because he doesn’t add enough spices. So what if Kaveh doesn’t prefer his food to be so flavorful that it’s overwhelming? One of them will end up with burnt off taste buds by the time they turn seventy, and it won’t be Kaveh. Kaveh will be the one enjoying his cream-based soups with missing teeth while Al-Haitham gnaws on plain rice.

And Al-Haitham should really get it through his head that he doesn’t need to add two entire knobs of garlic to a single serving dish. The smell never leaves his fingertips, and then the fruit they slice on the cutting board always tastes a little like the herb. Plus, it makes kissing in the evening so much more unpleasant, even when Kaveh sticks a mint-flavored toothbrush in Al-Haitham’s mouth. If he wants to make lamentable decisions, then he doesn’t get the right to look so sullen when Kaveh makes faces at Al-Haitham sticking his pungent tongue into his mouth.

Oh, and there’s also the case of—

Long story short, after a full year of living with Al-Haitham in relative domestic bliss, Kaveh concludes that he will never become a house husband for Al-Haitham’s sake. That’s Al-Haitham’s job, anyway. He’s the one that does the grocery shopping and a good portion of the cooking and also most of the cleaning. He actually likes farmer’s markets. It’s really only because he’s so particular about the way he keeps his house, not for Kaveh’s lack of trying. In fact, he kind of thinks that Al-Haitham likes doing all of that for him, and, well, he’s not exactly complaining. (Unless it’s the dishwasher because that’s just a plainly stupid issue to move a mountain over.)

Additionally, after a full year of living with Al-Haitham in relative domestic bliss, they realize that each of their respective commutes, both of them going in opposite directions, are not the most conducive to being able to maximize the amount of time they get to see each other out of work. Kaveh’s company is even farther, which means he has to get up a little earlier and arrive home a little later than Al-Haitham does. Al-Haitham doesn’t like it. He gets grumpy when  Kaveh’s not around to lavish him in attention, even when that attention mostly comes in the form of yelling at each other across the house over minuscule issues.

God. This really is Kaveh’s idea of domestic bliss, isn’t it?

Anyway, after a year of suffering through that, a position for the role of graphic designer at Al-Haitham’s company opens up for applicants. Al-Haitham recommends Kaveh for the role and says that they are merely very close roommates. Roommates who commute together to save gas and cook meals together for the convenience and even share a bed to conserve body heat and save on the electricity bill, how smart is that, big boss?

Big boss likes Kaveh’s resume and his work experience and also the firm way he gives handshakes, so he gets hired. Kaveh happily submits his two-week notice at his old job, sleeps in a little later in the mornings curled into Al-Haitham, and leaves right by Al-Haitham’s side so they can gossip about their coworkers on the drive back home.

So now we come back full circle to the second biggest trial of Kaveh’s adult life: the nine-to-five. Specifically, the nine-to-five by Al-Haitham’s side.

“I don’t think that developing a caffeine dependence is an effective way to combat overworking yourself,” Al-Haitham observes at Kaveh across the table at breakfast, wrinkling his nose at the way Kaveh’s head falls down in a quick lapse of consciousness. “Perhaps you should sleep earlier instead.”

“It’s like you have no tolerance for the spice of life,” Kaveh grumbles, taking a large dreg of his coffee. It’s fresh. It’s steaming. It’s very, very hot, and it’s the only thing keeping him awake until the extra shot of bitter espresso kicks in and he’s bouncing on his feet, itching and eager to spend his entire day in front of a computer screen.

“Your heart won’t make it past fifty, and then I will have to bury you alone,” Al-Haitham says solemnly, staring out the window. He would make the perfect picture of romantic, widowed melancholy if he were not performing the very unromantic act of predicting Kaveh’s untimely death.

Kaveh goggles at him. “Why would you even say that to my face?” he hisses, rapping his knuckles against the wooden table quickly as if that’ll cancel out Al-Haithams poor joke, and then he collapses back into his chair with one hand over his eyes in a show of theatrics. “You want me dead. You’re my own boyfriend and you actually want me dead right now.”

Kaveh peeks one eye open to see Al-Haitham take a large bite of his breakfast and shrug. Kaveh takes the spoon out of his coffee and chucks it straight at his big forehead.

One hour and one sizable red lump later, Al-Haitham and Kaveh pull into the parking lot of their workplace: Sumeru Original UI Productions. But nobody calls it that. Everyone calls it SOUP.

“We’re eating lunch together, right?” Kaveh asks as Al-Haitham locks the door behind them, heading into the lobby of the office.

They pause together in front of the elevators. “Who else would I eat lunch with?” Al-Haitham asks as if it’s obvious, flicking his stupid teal eyes over to Kaveh judgmentally.

Kaveh huffs. “I don’t know, your work husband?” he says. “I heard those exist. I heard that’s a thing I should definitely be on the lookout for.”

“You need to get off social media,” Al-Haitham says, flicking his fingers at a piece of Kaveh’s hair; Kaveh wrinkles his nose and pretends to bite his hand. “It’s all an echo chamber of miserable people with miserable partners who don’t actually love them. Or they’re paranoid, in which case they should not have a platform to scare easily impressionable people like you.”

“I am not easily impressionable,” Kaveh scoffs, folding his arms.

“No, but you are gullible,” Al-Haitham says thoughtfully. “Remember that time you gave your change to the guy sitting on the corner two blocks away pretending to be homeless because you didn’t notice he was wearing a designer watch?”

Kaveh splutters. “That watch could have been his last possession that reminded him of the life he used to have,” he says, knowing full well that he sounds ridiculous, but he’s long accepted that he would take ridicule over being wrong. Especially when it comes to Al-Haitham. Really only when it comes to Al-Haitham, actually. He’s normally very easy going when it comes to making mistakes, nodding thankfully and compromising, but there’s just something about Al-Haitham. That bastard.

“That and the pristine 150,000 mora white shirt from Prada,” says Al-Haitham. “That, too, must have held a lot of nostalgia for him. 150,000 mora’s worth of nostalgia.”

“Whatever,” Kaveh says, jabbing the sharp end of his elbow into Al-Haitham’s stomach just as the elevator doors open before them and the man already standing inside looks at him somewhat strangely. “The point is, are we eating lunch together or not?”

“I already said yes, Kaveh, and we have done so for every day since you transferred to this company,” Al-Haitham says patiently as they enter the elevator and he reaches over to jab the button for the twelfth floor only to find it already lit up. “Though I think you should take the extra time to sleep.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Kaveh says, and Al-Haitham makes a displeased sound. “I’m new here! I have to make a good impression so they’ll want to keep me around.”

“The real strategy is to do the bare minimum so that they can’t fire you but they also don’t expect outstanding work from you,” Al-Haitham says. “I never have to do overtime. Sometimes I even do things a little bit wrong to lower their expectations.” Kaveh gapes.

“I agree with that,” the other guy says, nodding thoughtfully.

“Thank you,” says Al-Haitham.

“Neither of you sound very pleasant to work with,” Kaveh says. “Don’t take it too personally. It’s just a neutral observation.”

“I am so hurt,” Al-Haitham says with absolutely no inflection in his voice.

“Funny you say that, because going off of the fact that we’re all on the same floor, I think we all do work together,” the other man says pleasantly. “I’m Tighnari, by the way.”

“Kaveh,” he says resignedly. “This is Al-Haitham. You don’t need to remember his name, though. Might not be worth all the extra trouble.”

“Nice to meet you,” Tighnari says, giving them a sort of half salute. “I’ve seen this guy around, but I’ve never had the chance to formally introduce myself.”

“That’s because he’s a wretch to be around.” Kaveh smiles at Al-Haitham. Al-Haitham narrows his eyes at Kaveh. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

The doors pop open with a bright ding. “Well, off to work,” Tighnari says, turning to smile at them. “Just now turned nine.”

Al-Haitham gives a heavy sigh of the recently bereaved as they step out of the elevator. “How boring.”

“I miss Mehrak,” Kaveh says, squinting at the heavy fluorescent lights flooding through the space. “See you at break. I guess.”

“I guess,” Al-Haitham echoes back at him, parting to take a seat at his desk just two rows over and three seats down from Kaveh. Kaveh grips his carafe of coffee and faces the workday with the determination he knows he must fake lest the existential dread ruin his day. Ah, how he loves office life.

During lunch break, Kaveh makes it through three mouthfuls of food before he falls asleep right at the table, seated next to Al-Haitham.

When he wakes up, he’s covered in Al-Haitham’s jacket that he hadn’t realized he’d brought from home, and though it makes him turn red and spluttering when Al-Haitham wakes him, he keeps it tucked around his shoulders because the air conditioning is blasting needlessly in the office and it’s much too cold to return, not because it smells just like Al-Haitham and it makes Kaveh feel, inexplicably, as if he’s won by announcing that he belongs to him.

“Do you really not know your coworkers that well?” Kaveh asks Al-Haitham later in the evening while they’re retiring for the night, puttering around between washing dishes in the kitchen and getting ready for bed. “You’ve been there for what, three years already, and you just now introduced yourself to Tighnari and only because I was there? There’s literally a work group chat.”

“I have it muted,” Al-Haitham says, feet kicked over the arm of the sofa as he lays across the cushion. “I’ve never had a reason to talk to them very much.”

“Probably because you’re too lazy to open your big fat mouth to say a word to them,” Kaveh grumbles. “Well, that just won’t work. I want to get to know them so we can get invited to the work brunches and I can ask them for help. It’s the same concept as befriending your classmates in college so you can mooch notes off of each other and study together.”

“You do you,” Al-Haitham says disinterestedly, picking at a thread on the couch. “I’m not the one policing your actions with any threat of a work husband.”

“A work husband is a real threat!” Kaveh says, even though he knows now that there is zero chance Al-Haitham would talk to anybody long enough to form a friendship, let alone anything further. Not to mention the fact that he knows, deep down, that Al-Haitham would never betray Kaveh like that, not in a thousand years. They’re just in love like that. Ugh. It’s absolutely disgusting.

“Anyway,” Kaveh continues, “there is no I, but there will be we. You’re in this game too, Al-Haitham, whether you want to or not.”

Al-Haitham heaves a deep sigh as if Kaveh were proposing that they quit their jobs and escape to the forest to build a cottage and escape the evil throes of capitalism. “Well, if you’re doing all the work,” he says, and then he leaves it at that.

Hmph. That’s the best Kaveh’s going to get, so he’ll take it.

“I really don’t see why we’re here so early,” Al-Haitham grumbles to Kaveh as the elevator wooshes up around them, taking them higher to the twelfth floor. “I don’t think I have ever clocked in before nine am.”

“Well, when else are we supposed to interact with people?” Kaveh says around the yawn stretching his words out, elongated. “You make us leave right when the clock hits five, and everyone’s already in their own little groups by break.”

“Not before nine am,” Al-Haitham says pointedly. “You of all people should have taken the time to sleep instead of dragging me out of bed half an hour early for no reason.”

“There is indeed a reason!” Kaveh says indignantly. “Look at all these people ready for—” The elevator halts, dings, and then the doors slide open to reveal an empty office. Completely vacated. The chairs long for inhabitants.

Al-Haitham begins to sigh—emphasis on begin because it goes on for so long that it actually starts to both tick Kaveh off and impress him with his breath capacity in equal measures—for at least a full ten seconds.

“Are you done,” Kaveh says, twitching.

“I yearn for my bed,” Al-Haitham says, an Al-Haitham-appropriate amount of sadness in his voice. “I must return to my original precursor—unconsciousness.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” says Kaveh.

“I do not see him in the office either,” Al-Haitham remarks. “I don’t see anybody, actually.”

“You make me livid,” Kaveh spits out, and then he grabs Al-Haitham by the arm and drags him into the office, determined now that there is nowhere to go but forward.

Al-Haitham clicks his tongue. “I really don’t see why you get to be the upset one,” he says, but he obligingly follows Kaveh and takes the seat beside him when Kaveh angrily drops into his chair and turns on his computer with far more passion than it calls for. “Are you working?”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Kaveh says, turning to face Al-Haitham, who is watching him with a perfectly neutral face. “I might as well. It looks good on my end, anyway.” A revelation hits him like a tidal wave. “If you’re going to stop me from working more after hours, then I can just do it beforehand.”

Al-Haitham frowns. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Shush,” Kaveh says, now turned back to his screen. He puts one finger against Al-Haitham’s lips without looking, yelping when he feels the gentle bite of his teeth and quickly withdrawing. “Why are you mauling me.”

“Because you won’t stop overworking yourself,” Al-Haitham says, as if physical violence is the correct answer to Kaveh literally just doing his job. “You’re going to get paid either way.”

Kaveh ignores him and squints at his monitor; the screen is starting to blur, but that’s probably just the sleep deprivation. He can ignore that. He is doing the very important job of designing the webpage for the new product they’ve been assigned to—a cylindrical, blanket-type sleeping enclosure shaped like a tube of macaroni.

“Sleep, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says, delicately pulling Kaveh’s head down to rest on his desk.

“Oh, okay, alright,” Kaveh says as he goes down. “I can type while I am lying down. Yes. That is what arms are for.” His eyelids slip.

“Right,” Al-Haitham says, and then there’s the sound of a door creaking open and a surprised noise. “Hello?”

“Hi,” the newcomer says, though Kaveh can’t open his eyes enough to see who it is. His fingers listlessly open a new tab in an attempt to open his files for a reference. Magcorin adn cshesees, he searches up eloquently. “I’m Nilou! I didn’t think anybody would be here at this time. I arrive a little early to get to the coffeepot before any of the other vultures can. What’s your name? I don’t think we’ve been introduced before.”

“I’m Al-Haitham,” Al-Haitham says. The sound of his voice slips further and further away. “This is Kaveh.”

There’s the sound of a chair being pulled out. “Nice to meet you, Al-Haitham! So what do you do…”

“Can you sleep more,” Al-Haitham says.

“Can you fuck off,” Kaveh grumbles irritably, lightheaded from being woken up after such an awkward amount of sleep. “Who was that girl from earlier?”

“You were awake for that?” Al-Haitham says. “Her name is Nilou. She’s been on the same floor, I suppose.”

“Aha,” Kaveh says, gaining enough energy to brighten up and sit straight in his chair, turning to Al-Haitham with a grin on his face. “So Mission Get Us More Friends is working, I gather.”

“That’s a stupid mission,” Al-Haitham says bluntly. Kaveh’s mouth drops open. His pride bruises. He’ll never recover. “Don’t you have a better one to work toward? Something to do with a macaroni tube?”

“You’re so right,” Kaveh says, turning back to his computer and powering it on. “Not that you’ll hear me say that ever again, but I do have work to do, so you can leave me alone now.”

“Until break, right?” Al-Haitham calls, already getting up and backing toward his own desk, which isn’t very far from Kaveh at all. It’s nice.

Kaveh smiles quietly, pinkening despite himself. It really is good to work at the same place as Al-Haitham. “Until break.”

He takes it back. It’s not nice at all.

Well, at least he has a newly acquired friend by his side: Nilou, who is very friendly and very cheerful and all in all the exact opposite of Al-Haitham. They complement each other well, Kaveh supposes. She’s at a stage of friendship where she can’t politely tell Al-Haitham to stop being himself out of propriety’s sake, but she does listen quietly and then matches his snark with her own brand of dry humor. She makes for a good lunch partner in their newly formed trio.

“Did you actually bring soup?” Al-Haitham says in that judgmental way of his where his voice doesn’t actually change very much but Kaveh can just feel the horrid vibes leaking out of him. “In a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles thermos?”

“It was all we had left in the house,” Kaveh says, hiding away his thermos somewhat defensively. “We bought it secondhand from that one garage sale—anyway, yes, soup. That way I can chug it quickly in case I want to sleep through half of the lunch break like last time.”

“Oh, it was more than half,” Al-Haitham says, rummaging about in his bag for his own lunch. Kaveh considers braining his boyfriend with his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle thermos: pros, he would shut up; cons, if he got a concussion, he would thus never shut up about it. He refrains from it in the end.

“How long have you two been together?” Nilou asks as she unwraps her sandwich.

“Far too long,” Kaveh says dismissively at the same exact time Al-Haitham immediately says, “Six years and one hundred fifty seven days.” They both sharply swivel to meet each other’s gaze.

“Oh,” Nilou says, her hands faltering.

“Er,” Kaveh says, flustered. “That.”

Al-Haitham nods seriously, and then he whips out a neat container that Kaveh swears he has never seen before in his life. It even comes outfitted in a cute red-and-white gingham cover. The moment he snaps off the lid, Kaveh knows with all of his seven years and one hundred fifty seven days of experience that Al-Haitham did not prepare the lunch sitting in front of him.

Kaveh stares at the neatly packed bento box laying before Al-Haitham, housing neatly sliced vegetables and glistening, fresh rice. He stares hard enough that his eyes, burning with wrath, could laser a hole straight through the stupid plastic and scorch marks right into the admittedly delicious looking chicken.

“Who made you that?” Kaveh asks, not bothering to hide the vengeance in his voice. “Your work husband?”

Al-Haitham lets the fork go slack in his hands and just stares at him. “Kaveh,” he says, in the sort of tone someone might say dude.

“Don’t dude me,” Kaveh says, aghast.

“I didn’t even—nevermind.”

“So who did?” Kaveh says, eyeing Al-Haitham up and down and up again while taking a vicious slurp of his soup. The burn on his tongue and going down his throat only matches the indignation flaming up inside of him.

“You did, if you’ll believe it,” Al-Haitham says, stabbing a fork through his chicken. Kaveh desperately hopes that it will give him food poisoning.

“I won’t believe it,” Kaveh says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. Across from him, Nilou slowly chews her sandwich, looking as if she thinks that making a sound would bring the rest of the hellfire raining down upon them. “When would I have done that?”

“That’s what I said,” Al-Haitham mutters. The incongruent sound of his fork scratching against the plastic bento box is making Kaveh’s eye twitch, though that could also be a symptom of Al-Haitham not fucking telling him who made him his lunch. Work husband, his ass. When did he receive it? Was it while Kaveh was asleep? Who in this office is Al-Haitham even acquainted with on this level to receive a homemade lunch?

Al-Haitham sighs eventually and gestures toward Kaveh’s thermos, now sitting untouched before him. “You should finish that before you forget about it and it goes so cold you won’t eat it anymore.”

“You drink soup, not eat it,” Kaveh huffs, but he begrudgingly picks up the thermos again. His hands stall. “Are you really not going to tell me who made it?”

“You did,” Al-Haitham says again pointedly, and then he takes his fork, tenderly guides Kaveh’s chin with the other hand, and feeds it into his mouth. Kaveh’s jaw opens on instinct, only realizing that Al-Haitham had put food made by another’s hand into his mouth after the crime had been committed.

“You—” Kaveh blusters, and then he stops and chews, expression clearing. “Wait.”

“It’s the chicken recipe your mother sent you from Fontaine that you make all the time,” Al-Haitham says, apparently satisfied now that he’s made his point. “With the capers.”

“Holy shit, it is,” Kaveh says, looking at Al-Haitham’s lunch box with newfound appreciation. “You’re telling me I made that?”

Al-Haitham shrugs. “You packed my bag this morning. Don’t you remember?”

“Clearly not,” Kaveh says, and then he goes back to drinking his soup. It’s a much more enjoyable temperature this time around. “Well. You’re welcome, I guess.”

“It only came with the steep price of being accused of having inappropriate relations with one of my coworkers.”

“Whatever.” Kaveh scoffs, and then he turns to Nilou and jerks a thumb in Al-Haitham’s direction. “Can you believe this guy?”

Nilou smiles at him pleasantly. “You two are very entertaining company,” she offers, which isn’t quite answering his question but it’s good enough. She takes another bite of her sandwich, apparently content again.

The rest of the break slips by smoothly. Kaveh knocks his knee against Al-Haitham’s underneath the table and thinks of the movie they’ll watch when they get home, curled up on the couch against each other.

Kaveh has a dream of preparing curry that night, hands moving on autopilot as he slices potatoes and stirs the thick sauce in a pan over the stove, and he doesn’t even have it in himself to be upset when Al-Haitham pulls out a container of homemade curry the next day during lunch. At least one of them is profiting from Kaveh’s apparent possession.

The next week as Al-Haitham drags a half-asleep Kaveh through the lobby of SOUP, they end up in the same elevator as somebody with a shock of white hair and the guy from the week before, the one who had unfortunately agreed with Al-Haitham’s questionable work standards. Kaveh blinks blearily at him, trying to place his name and hoping he doesn’t look like a staring creep. What was it again…? Timaeus? Tyrone? Tarzan?

“Tighnari, right?” Al-Haitham says, shuffled off into the corner of the elevator like the weirdo he is, and Kaveh goes ohhhhh in his head.

“Al-Haitham and Kaveh,” Tighnari says, a hint of uncertainty in his voice, and then he claps triumphantly when Kaveh sleepily nods, half-slumped against Al-Haitham. “How are you liking working at SOUP, Kaveh?”

Kaveh perks up. “Everybody’s been really nice so far!” he says. “The commute’s also a lot more forgiving than my last job, so I’m more inclined to like it here at the kitchen.”

“Hahahahaha,” the guy with the white hair says. “That was a really good joke.”

“Um, this is my boyfriend, Cyno,” Tighnari says. “Cyno, this is Al-Haitham, who you know, and Kaveh, who recently transferred.”

“Three weeks ago,” Kaveh offers. “It hasn’t been very long at all.”

“I like your sense of humor,” Cyno says seriously.

“Soup?” Al-Haitham says right as the elevator doors open at their floor. “Wouldn’t it be S-O-U-I-P because of the UI in Sumeru Original UI Productions?”

Tighnari reaches over and slams the close door button, and the elevator creaks shut. “It’s pronounced soup, actually,” he says politely. “That’s the widely accepted form of pronunciation around here, though I could see how that could slip through the cracks.”

“Souip,” Al-Haitham says slowly, pronouncing it like the word sweep. “S-O-U-I-P.”

“No,” Tighnari says, that same chilling beam still on his face. His eyes are smiling crescents. It’s disconcerting. “Soup.”

“You can’t just ignore the UI in the company name,” says Al-Haitham.

“Um?” Tighnari says. “Yes, I can?”

“Kitchen,” Cyno says to himself. He looks up at Kaveh, who’s sweating. “Does that make us all cooks?”

“Er,” Kaveh says.

The elevator begins to woosh down, somebody in a lower level having evidently called it.

“It would be linguistically incorrect if you were to omit an important distinction in the name for the convenience of a ‘cute’ acronym,” Al-Haitham says with air quotes when he says the word cute.

“Hahaha,” Tighnari says, face completely stony even as his laughter projects realistically. “I can tell you it’s not that serious. Also, what’s with the air quotes? Is soup not a cute acronym?”

“Do you really want to know what I think?” Al-Haitham says.

The doors open, and on steps a fifth occupant, a nice enough looking, short statured Liyuen girl with a name tag that reads Lily whose smile quickly fades when Tighnari harshly says, “No, I really don’t care to know what you’re thinking.”

“Um, level fifteen please,” the girl squeaks, and Tighnari turns sharply to jab the corresponding button.

“If you don’t care to know, then you can’t possibly be offended if I decide to acronymize Sumeru Original UI Productions as souip.” Al-Haitham folds his arms and Kaveh gulps. There’s no way Al-Haitham doesn’t know what that does while he’s wearing a button up shirt; Kaveh has thirsted over his biceps for him to not know that he looks like he could snap somebody’s neck without trying. Except it’s usually in a sexy way, and this is definitely in an unappealing trying-to-be-threatening aura kinda way.

“Al-Haitham, you have to know that souip is a stupid sounding acronym,” Kaveh says, jabbing him with his elbow to get him to stop antagonizing their coworkers who work on the same fucking floor as them. This is the worst possible way to get them invited to work dinners as a couple.

The elevator doors open at level nine, and another young Liyuen woman comes on, this one significantly taller than the first and sporting a tag that says Emma. “Could you get level fifteen?” she says, not looking up from her phone until Tighnari speaks next.

“Kaveh, so you agree that your boyfriend is wrong?” he asks.

“Oh,” Emma says, which spurs Tighnari to reach over and push her corresponding level button, and then she returns to her phone.

“Cook,” Cyno whispers under his breath. “Souper? Super. They should call the employee of the month the souperhero.”

“I think he’s being obstinate,” Kaveh says, glaring at Al-Haitham who only levels him with a stony gaze back that says I’m not giving up because I don’t think I’m wrong and I never concede or step to the side if I think I have any chance at winning any argument ever. Kaveh looks at him back with eyes that say I will never, ever lose to you, and also can you please quit it before this guy files a complaint to HR.

“Sorry I’m right,” Al-Haitham says disinterestedly.

“Hmmm,” Tighnari says pensively.

The doors open again, and a third woman steps on. Her name tag reads Idhika. “Fifteen,” she says, and then when nobody moves, Kaveh reaches over and pushes a haphazard button.

“Right is not a word I would use to describe you,” Kaveh says once the elevator begins moving again, one hand on his chin. “I think I would use the word asshole. Yes. That sounds correct.”

“And I would call you a brat, but you would get offended by it,” says Al-Haitham.

“You can’t call me that!” Kaveh slaps Al-Haitham’s forearm. “What, would you call your work husband that too? You can’t treat him better than you treat me.”

“There is no work husband, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says, closing his eyes as if that will make all of them go away.

“Work husband,” Tighnari repeats. He turns to Cyno. “Hey, Cyno, what would you do if I had a work husband?”

“It would not be the ideal turn of events, but I would be the one returning home with you, so I win,” Cyno says. Then, in an obvious declaration of what he thinks is the more important discussion here, he says, “Tighnari, should I suggest to Nahida that we name the employee of the month the souperhero?” Tighnari faceplants.

“I just don’t think I could be that chill about anything,” Kaveh says, observing the two of them.

“Will you give up on the work husband if I concede on the acronym thing?” Al-Haitham asks Kaveh. The elevator doors open at twelve, but Tighnari pushes the close door button.

“I want to hear what he has to say,” Tighnari says, motioning at Kaveh. The doors slowly creak shut. Lily, the first to board the elevator with them, is looking incredibly uncomfortable. On the other hand, the second young woman hasn’t looked up from her phone once, and the third has blatant amusement inked all over her face.

Kaveh hisses through his teeth. “You drive a hard bargain.”

“Souper hard,” Cyno says, nodding.

“I take it back,” says Al-Haitham. “Souip.”

“Are you even hearing yourself?” Tighnari asks sharply. “Sweep? What are you sweeping? Are you the janitor for floor twelve?”

“I’m a font designer, actually.”

“Sweeping all our opponents in the graphic design department,” Cyno offers.

“I want to kill myself,” Kaveh announces.

“I think you canceled the elevator call to floor fifteen when you pressed it the second time,” Idhika interjects. All four of them turn to look at her. “Sorry.”

“My bad,” Tighnari mutters, and when he presses the button again, the elevator finally starts moving again.

It’s silent as they ride three floors up, and it’s silent while the three young women file out of the elevator, and it’s still silent as they ride back down to floor twelve. Kaveh squeezes his eyes shut, attempts to count to ten in practice of the breathing exercises his therapist taught him, and lets go of his fervent desire to ever get dinner with this particular group of coworkers. Fucking Al-Haitham.

“So,” Tighnari says when the elevator dings to announce the twelfth floor and the doors roll open. “You two into Genius Invokation TCG? Cyno here is a big fan and we’ve been looking for a couple of people to play with. I think it’d be an entertaining time.”

Kaveh’s eyes fly open. “Yes! Yes. We have five sets at home and we’re free, like, all of the time.”

Al-Haitham, glancing at Kaveh and probably thinking of his mission to win them more friends, relents and relaxes his stance. “I suppose we can put aside our differences after hours.” Kaveh rolls his eyes.

“Great, it just turned nine,” Tighnari says, looking down at his watch. “I’ll get back to you on the details.”

“Wonderful!” Kaveh says.

“Excellent,” Tighnari says.

“Hmm,” Al-Haitham says.

“Souper,” says Cyno.

Once they’ve all exited the elevator and the other two are out of earshot, Kaveh turns on Al-Haitham and points an accusatory finger in his face. “You need to learn how to play nice with people who don’t know you’re not serious,” he says sternly. “What about my mission to get us couple friends?”

“Arguing all the time worked for winning you over,” Al-Haitham says petulantly.

Kaveh flushes. “That’s because—I was just—you know, I really don’t like you,” he tells him.

“You only love me,” Al-Haitham says.

Kaveh hates to say it, but he stomps his foot in anger. Hands curled into fists and everything. His head would be exploding in fire like they do in cartoons if it could, but at least a little spiral of steam escapes. “Al-Haitham, you make it reaaaal hard sometimes.”

“It can only be easy for one of us,” Al-Haitham says seriously, and then he’s gone and out of Kaveh’s sight before his cheeks erupt into flames and he registers the meaning behind his words.

“God, my neck hurts,” Kaveh mutters to himself, rolling his head around to and fro before sighing, the ache abating no less. It’s no matter; he has things to do and a graphic to design for a contraption that connects wireless earbuds together with another useless wire to prevent misplacement, thereby canceling out the function of wireless earbuds. It’s whatever. It’s Kaveh’s job to help advertise, not to question why he’s promoting the products he’s been assigned to.

“I know something that helps with that, actually,” the woman beside him says, and he turns in his chair. The nameplate on her desk says Dehya. “It all has to do with your posture, actually, and these cheap ass chairs they give us certainly don’t help. I bought this one chair cushion off Amazon that’s supposed to stabilize your spine…”

As she’s rattling off a list of cushions and massage tools that help assuage muscle knots, Kaveh looks up and makes eye contact with Al-Haitham, who’s already looking at him. He makes a jerking motion with his head, signaling for him to come over, and though he looks as if it’s taking him the willpower needed to run a marathon to get out of his chair, he slowly stands and makes his way over.

Dehya looks up from her phone, mid scroll. “This is my boyfriend, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says, gripping him by the forearm. “He also gets neck pain, so I figured he’d want to hear all about it too.”

Dehya brightens. “Boyfriend! Really!” she says, setting her phone off to the side and beaming. “It’s always nice to see a couple in the office, even though it’s really against company policy.” Kaveh winces. “Don’t worry, my girlfriend works here too. Candace!”

She quietly calls over another woman sitting a few rows over, one with sharp eyes and deep blue hair. “You’re relatively new,” Dehya says to Kaveh, who nods. “Yup. I’ve seen this Al-Haitham of yours around the office from time to time, but we’ve never been formally introduced.”

“That seems to be a recurring theme around here,” Kaveh says dryly.

“I’m a busy person,” says Al-Haitham.

“You’re hardly ever at your cubicle,” Kaveh says, frowning up at him.

“Busy person,” Al-Haitham reiterates, eyes shifting to the corner of the ceiling. There’s a pregnant pause.

“Well!” Dehya says cheerfully, brushing past it. “We get dinners sometimes with the other coworkers, and I don't see why you two wouldn’t be invited from now on if you want to come. If you’re free, of course. No need to pressure you two into something you don’t want to do.”

The mission. This is exactly one of the benefits they could reap that Kaveh listed out for Al-Haitham if they were to go out of their way to befriend their coworkers. “Oh, we’d love to!” Kaveh says, smiling so broadly it’s not even falsified. Dehya grins back just as merrily at him.

“We’re going to an Inazuman-Fontainian fusion restaurant for dinner a couple of Thursdays from now,” Candace says. “I can send you the details in a bit. We’ve also invited Nilou. Who else is going, Dee? I think Tighnari, Cyno, Layla, Nahida, Faruzan… oh, and Scaramouche.”

“Scaramouche,” Al-Haitham all but growls immediately, a knee jerk reaction. Kaveh looks at him sharply. Nobody else would be able to tell but him, but he has a tell for when he’s angry—his right eyebrow, instead of sitting in a 157 degree angle, rests at 139 degrees instead. A clear signal of his irritation. To Kaveh, that is.

“You know him?” Kaveh looks at him curiously. “I thought you didn’t know anybody in the office.

“He wears infuriating hats,” Al-Haitham says as if that explains anything. “I think they are against the dress code.”

“Al-Haitham, your shirts are so close to exploding that they have to be violating something,” Kaveh says patiently. “It’s not about hats, is it.”

Al-Haitham gives a small, minuscule shake of his head. Kaveh will get this out of him later.

“So! Dinner on Thursday!” he says, spinning back to Candace and Dehya. “Already marked in our calendars. We’ll be there for sure.”

“I’ll expand the party for the reservation,” Candace says, glancing at the door. “I better get back to my desk. Good luck on your…” She squints at Kaveh’s screen. “...Wireless earbud wire connectors.”

“Thank you,” Kaveh says despondently.

Silently, Al-Haitham retreats as well, and Dehya turns on her phone again. “I’ll send you my Amazon list if you’re comfortable sharing your number,” she offers, and internally, Kaveh does a fist bump. Hell yeah. He’s going places.

“Of course,” he says outwardly, taking her outstretched device and inputting his own number. “You know, I’m so glad you said something because I’ve been finding it pretty difficult to get to know people here. Must be a newbie’s curse or something.”

“Right?” Dehya says, nodding. “It was the same way when I first transferred here, but it obviously got a lot better. Well, Kaveh, if anything, know you have a friend in the cubicle right over.”

Kaveh is so fucking good at this game. This is his guide to winning friends and influencing people. “I could not appreciate you enough,” he says, and they beam matching grins at each other, incandescent under the ugly fluorescent lighting.

“Where’s Mehrak?” Kaveh says once they’re halfway through their movie night, disentangling himself from Al-Haitham the moment he realizes he’s missing his furry little monster. He begins calling her name lowly, digging in the cabinets for her treats.

“That’s why the vet says she’s overweight,” Al-Haitham says, voice half-muffled from where he’s turned into the sofa cushions. “So you’re the one plying her with treats every time she goes missing for five entire minutes.”

“As if there’s anybody else in this house,” Kaveh retorts. “Or what, are you bringing your work husband in here? Because I swear that I have not been feeding her enough for her to gain so much weight. Must be that third person you’re bringing into the house.”

“Again with the work husband,” Al-Haitham says disinterestedly. “Are you having hallucinations? Delusions? Early onset dementia? Should we take a visit to the neurologist sometime in the next month?”

Mehrak pads into the room, meowing loudly once she spots the treat in Kaveh’s hand and plodding over happily to crunch it between her teeth. Kaveh leans down and coos, scooping her up and returning to the couch.

“When did she get so thick?” he says wonderingly. Mehrak stretches in his arms, calico coat extending into different amorphous shapes.

“I don’t know,” Al-Haitham mutters, flicking his eyes over to the pair. “I don’t think you’re feeding her enough, though. Whenever I see her food bowl, it’s always empty.”

“Because she scarfs it down as if she’s starving every time I fill it,” Kaveh scoffs. “It makes me feel bad, so I give her a treat afterward if she tells me she wants more food.”

Al-Haitham stills. “First of all, she can’t speak, so how would you know? Second of all, I’ve been giving her more food when she asks for it.”

Kaveh turns to look at Al-Haitham incredulously, fingers stalled as he’s brushing through the fur on Mehrak’s back. “Don’t tell me she’s been eating twice for every meal.”

Al-Haitham shifts. “Treats, too, because I thought you were holding out on her,” he says. Kaveh can’t believe the words he’s hearing. “What? She looked so sad.”

“This is your fault,” Kaveh says accusingly. “I’m not going to hear anything about how this is on me—if you weren’t such a pushover when it came to Mehrak despite all of your claims that we don’t even need a cat, visits to the vet are just another expense, if you want to care for another being so much then you can just get a fish—”

“She’s a master manipulator, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says solemnly.

“Al-Haitham, she’s a cat.”

Mehrak meows.

“See?” Al-Haitham says. Mehrak mewls again plaintively, and then turns to push her paws into Kaveh’s stomach to knead biscuits. Kaveh stares down at her in disbelief.

“You’re so pathetically stupid for her,” he says, twisting and groaning into her hands. “She literally has you eating out of her paws.”

“You’re not any better,” Al-Haitham says with his arms crossed over his chest. Kaveh would dare to say there’s a tinge of defensiveness in his voice.

“And I’m not the one who said she wasn’t allowed to sleep in our room and then let her take your pillow the very first night we got her,” Kaveh reminds Al-Haitham, poking him in the arm. Al-Haitham steadfastly ignores him. “Hey. Hey.”

“What?” Al-Haitham says, turning, and Kaveh offloads Mehrak into his arms so he can lay back and sprawl out on the couch, arms tucked beneath his head. Al-Haitham absentmindedly picks up Mehrak’s paws and plays with them so it looks as if she’s dancing.

“Who’s Scaramouche?” Kaveh asks, and he watches as what is definitely a twist of amusement makes its way onto Al-Haitham’s face, an unfamiliar quirk to his lips.

“He works at Sumeru Original UI Productions too, I guess,” Al-Haitham says indifferently. “He exists.”

“Can you just call it soup like everybody else?”

“No. Anyway, don’t worry about him. You probably won’t come across him, and if you do, then you’ll wish you didn’t.”

Now that makes Kaveh sit up straight, alarms blaring in his head. “Don’t worry about him?” he repeats, eyes narrowing. “Do I have to ask about—”

“Can you stop saying work husband,” Al-Haitham says.

“Can you stop giving me reasons to worry?” Kaveh retorts. “I’m meeting Scaramouche. You’re introducing us tomorrow.”

“I really don’t want to do that,” Al-Haitham says, his face now ugly.

“And why don’t you want to do that,” Kaveh says, his eyes squinted so much that they’re nearly slits. “Have any secrets, Al-Haitham? Maybe you should have thought about that before you put in a reference for me at work.”

“It’s because he’s difficult to be around.”

“Sounds like somebody else I know.”

Al-Haitham fixes him with a look. “Kaveh. You have nothing to worry about, and it certainly would not be Scaramouche of all people. You’ll see. He does not have a personality that makes people want to get along with him. And his hats are just plain obnoxious.”

“We’ll see,” Kaveh sniffs, turning up his nose and settling back into the couch, now distinctly separated from Al-Haitham. “Turn on the movie.”

“Kaveh.”

“Nope. You have Mehrak to keep you company.”

“But you’re much prettier than Mehrak is,” Al-Haitham says in that steadfastly earnest way of his that makes Kaveh want to die or punch Al-Haitham in his stupid, honest mouth.

He pretends his face isn’t bursting into flames. “FINE,” Kaveh says, and then he moves Mehrak aside for his rightful place within Al-Haitham’s arms, almost immediately forgetting about this Scaramouche character the moment he feels Al-Haitham’s mouth press a gentle kiss right on top of his hair.

Kaveh actually forgets about the entire Scaramouche debacle. They’re in the break room, Al-Haitham having just pulled out another neatly packed bento that Kaveh has only brief recollections of putting together, Nilou sitting quietly beside him messaging somebody with a smile on her face, Candace methodically making her way through a Tupperware while Dehya has her legs slung across Candace’s lap as she complains about a retail incident that occurred the evening before. Tighnari and Cyno are flirting somewhere around the microwave.

Kaveh is nodding sympathetically as he picks through the sad smorgasbord of random foods he’d rushed to put together that morning—Al-Haitham pushes bites of his own food at him from time to time, which Kaveh figures is only fitting since it falls under cook’s tax or whatever—when the door slams open with an incredibly dramatic bang.

Dehya’s voice falls away. Nilou drops her phone out of shock, jumping slightly in her seat as he turns. Al-Haitham, on the other hand, drops his fork in a tired action and rolls his eyes so deeply that Kaveh wonders if he’s carved the imprint of his pupil into his eyelids. In the door stands a shadowed figure, head tilted down to hide his face, feet spread apart in a threatening stance, one hand resting on the broad rim of his extremely large hat.

Kaveh feels his heartbeat unwittingly pick up. Scaramouche. The final boss. He can tell because of the extra wide rim of his hat, which must symbolize his extended HP bar.

“Al-Haitham,” Scaramouche says lowly, still not looking up, and Kaveh braces himself for something—a declaration of love, a longing plea for him to leave Kaveh, anything. “Did you steal the stapler from my desk?”

Kaveh’s eyebrows furrow in confusion.

Al-Haitham picks his fork back up and shovels food into his mouth. “Why would I do that?” he asks flatly.

“Who else would it be?” Scaramouche says accusingly. “Nobody else in the office has it out for me the way you do.”

“I think you’re paranoid,” Al-Haitham says.

“And I think you’re psychologically manipulating me to make me seem paranoid,” Scaramouche seethes. His eye may be twitching. “Everyone here thinks I’m crazy, but I know the truth. You’re setting me up!”

“I don’t know a single universe in which I am so preoccupied with you that I would go to the lengths to make you appear paranoid when you do it by yourself,” says Al-Haitham. He picks up his sparkling water disinterestedly and examines it shortly before taking a sip. Scaramouche looks like he’s about to pounce halfway across the room to pat him down for the aforementioned missing stapler. Al-Haitham looks as if he could care less. It’s brutal.

Scaramouche wiggles his fingers menacingly by his side. “You maintain your lie that you didn’t take my stapler?” he says questioningly.

“I did not take your stapler from your desk,” Al-Haitham says, straightening up and raising his right hand in oath. “I think you should be looking for somebody who actually deals with paperwork instead of me, whose work is contained exclusively to my computer.”

“I’m still not putting it past you,” Scaramouche says warningly, though he does retreat back a step.

“Maybe somebody else needed to use it and forgot to return it.”

“Somebody like you, perhaps.”

“No.”

“Ugh.”

“I did not take your stapler, Scaramouche.”

“Don’t talk down to me as if you think yourself to be my mother.”

“What would you know about that?” Al-Haitham says witheringly, and Kaveh watches as Scaramouche gapes, and then closes his mouth only to open it again, out of words and looking rather like a goldfish staring out of the glass walls of a tank.

“If my stapler is not returned to my desk by Wednesday, you will feel the wrath of the most vengeful lightning storm upon your shoulders, blowing everything you know and love to pieces,” Scaramouche hisses, taking several steps backward. “We will meet again.”

Al-Haitham sighs. “That is ordinarily how it goes when you work in the same office as somebody else, yes.”

“We will meet again and you will regret it,” Scaramouche nearly yells, now halfway across the office.

“I am sure I will regret it,” Al-Haitham says.

“I’m getting the last word!” Scaramouche shouts, and then he turns and races away, out of sight.

“Idiot,” Al-Haitham says dismissively.

The break room is quiet for all of five seconds until the microwave beeps, the sound immediately dismissing the tension as Tighnari opens the door and the other occupants return to their normal conversation, acting as if the display not half a minute ago had just occurred.

Kaveh stares at Al-Haitham. To the outside eye, he would seem entirely unaffected, but Kaveh knows better—he’d known ever since he clocked that Al-Haitham was carrying on the conversation not just because he found it amusing but also because he couldn’t help himself from arguing with Scaramouche, which says more about how much he gets on his nerves than Al-Haitham would want to project.

“Forget work husband,” Kaveh says wonderingly, face breaking into a wide grin that Al-Haitham is sure to hate. “You have a work nemesis.”

Al-Haitham scowls greatly at Kaveh, teal-orange eyes narrowing. “He is nothing to me.”

“If he was nothing you wouldn’t have expended so much of your precious energy arguing with him,” Kaveh says wisely. “I’ve known you for far too long—”

“Eight years and seventy-six days,” Al-Haitham interrupts.

“—And I know how you get when you don’t like people,” Kaveh finishes. “If they weren’t worth your time, you wouldn’t bother responding. If they got on your nerves, you would figure out a way to shut them down completely so that they wouldn’t dare to try talking to you again. If you really hated them, then you would try to get them fired from their job so you could work in peace. But this—” Kaveh points in Al-Haitham’s downturned face, “—tells me that he gets so deeply under your nerves that you can’t help but fight back.”

He leans back, satisfied with his cohesive evisceration of Al-Haitham’s character, who looks to the side sullenly. “Also, why do you know the date we met, you freak?”

“I have an app on my phone,” Al-Haitham says, still not meeting Kaveh in the eye.

Kaveh feels a rush of affection for his stupid fucking boyfriend who’s such a loser that he can’t help but participate in workplace rivalries and gets hung up over stupid things like the distinction between SOUP and SOUIP so violent that it makes him want to crush Al-Haitham’s face until it pops like a grape.

“You’re a loser,” he tells him fondly.

“Whatever,” Al-Haitham sniffs. And then, as if professing a secret: “I didn’t take his stapler, but I put it under his desk behind the extension cord.”

“You are proving my point right now,” Kaveh says, leaning back in shock. “Wow. Do you hear yourself?”

“He deserves it,” Al-Haitham says, nearly grinding his teeth.

Kaveh observes him for a second longer when he’s suddenly stricken by a bolt of dread. No. “Say, Al-Haitham,” he says carefully, sitting up once again and folding his hands together. “Should I be concerned about any… extra passionate feelings you have for Scaramouche?”

The look that Al-Haitham gives him is downright vile. “That is the last thing you should worry about, Kaveh. I would be more worried about the lightning storm he’s promising before you worry about whether or not I have extramarital relations with Scaramouche of all people.”

“You never know,” Kaveh cries. “We argued all the time when we met. Still do, actually.”

“That’s because I like it, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says impatiently. “There’s a difference. I argue with you because I like to go head to head with somebody who matches my wits, and I disagree with Scaramouche because I’d like to prove to everybody watching that I’m better than him.”

Kaveh holds his gaze for a moment longer before he exclaims triumphantly, pointing one finger right in Al-Haitham’s face until he goes cross-eyed. “So you admit he’s your nemesis.”

“I didn’t admit to anything,” Al-Haitham denies immediately, just to be contrary. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” See, this is why Al-Haitham gets on Kaveh’s nerves. A different set of nerves than the ones Scaramouche tends to dig out, he supposes.

He doesn’t actually believe in any of this work husband nonsense. He’s mostly just using it as an excuse to nag at Al-Haitham, actually. And he likes it when Al-Haitham tries to prove him wrong—he usually hates that, but it’s different, in this case. When it comes to something like how much Al-Haitham loves him, which he demonstrates every day, in both little and sweeping gestures, like when he pours Kaveh a cup of coffee when he doesn’t have to or wordlessly takes over dishes when Kaveh’s back hurts too much or when he wrote an entire report to get Kaveh transferred to his office. It’s just nice to hear it, albeit in a very Al-Haitham-and-Kaveh way. By rooting through arguments and attempting to turn them on their heads.

“Whatever,” Kaveh says, finally turning back to his lunch to hide the fact that he’s smiling. “How long has this been going on?”

“Since he got hired,” Al-Haitham says. “Walked into the office and picked me to bother, I suppose. I’ve been hiding his possessions since the second week.”

“You’re such a bastard,” Kaveh says affectionately. He snuggles up close to Al-Haitham, breathes in the familiar scent lingering on his clothes. “So, what of his are you hiding next?”

“What the fuck,” Kaveh says, staring down at the hefty box that’s just been deposited at his door. It had taken every screaming muscle in his body and then some just to drag it inside, where it sits, looming and threatening by the shoe rack. Mehrak meows and paws at the cardboard, intent on ripping her tiny claws through it.

“Did you order something?” Al-Haitham asks, walking into the doorway. “Oh. It is rather large.”

“Thank you for stating the obvious,” Kaveh says, one hand at his forehead. “I don’t remember ordering anything. I assume you didn’t, if you’re asking if I did. My mother didn’t mention shipping anything over… Al-Haitham, would your work husband have mailed you an obnoxiously overstuffed care package by any chance?”

“No,” Al-Haitham says, walking over brandishing a pair of scissors. Kaveh watches as he slices through the packing tape, opens up the cardboard wings to reveal—

“Is that a massage chair,” Kaveh says, blinking.

“I don’t see what else it would be,” Al-Haitham remarks. “Kaveh, why did a massage chair get ordered to our house?”

“I don’t know why you keep asking me questions that I clearly don’t have the answer to,” Kaveh snaps. He feels a headache coming on, thundering quietly behind his temples. “It must have been mailed to the wrong address. Look, I’ll just call the postal service later.”

“No, it’s right,” Al-Haitham says. He’s looking at something on his phone, an inscrutable look on his face. Kaveh drifts to his side and peeks over his shoulder to find, in their order history, a 60,000 mora massage chair complete with a vibrating seat and built-in fans. The last four digits of the charged card, Kaveh recognizes with a sinking feeling, is his card. Which means that he’d ordered an entire chair at some point in time and abruptly forgotten about it so deeply that even this doesn’t spur the memory.

“What…” Kaveh says faintly.

Al-Haitham has transitioned from studying their shared Amazon account to inspecting the massage chair, lifting out swaths of bubble wrap and toying with the remote. “Fancy. Where were you thinking of putting this?”

“I don’t think I was thinking of putting it anywhere,” Kaveh says, still very far away. In a mad rush of recollection, he pulls out his phone and navigates over to his messages with Dehya—and lo and behold, there sitting on the extensive Amazon list of products she’d sent to him to deal with neck pain, there is the exact model of massage chair now sitting before him. The text underneath the link reads, we’ve also invested in this chair - LOL jk u wld be fine just getting the seat cushion n massage gun for al-haitham. good luck with ur aches!!

“Oh my fucking god,” he says. “I think I got this for you.”

“My birthday isn’t for a while, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham reminds him. He’s somehow already sitting in the chair, the cord plugged into a nearby outlet. Before Kaveh’s eyes, the chair starts gratingly vibrating, a noise that makes Mehrak jump and forces Kaveh to make the prediction that the chair will get on his nerves far more than Al-Haitham ever could.

“You’re right,” Kaveh says despairingly. “I need to get more sleep. I can’t keep doing all of this shit for you at my own expense.”

“I’ve been enjoying the homemade lunches, actually,” Al-Haitham says unhelpfully.

“Apparently, I don’t even have the instinct to make any for myself.”

“That’s why we share,” Al-Haitham says wisely. He flips a switch and fans begin blowing before his face, bangs moving slightly in the breeze. “This is a very comprehensive massage chair.”

“Enjoy it for five minutes because I’m returning this piece of crap as soon as possible,” Kaveh says.

Al-Haitham tilts his head to the side. “But you bought it for me?”

Kaveh stares at him. “Are you joking?”

“You tell me all the time that I’m not funny,” Al-Haitham says, “so according to you, that means I’m always serious.”

“You’re not funny!” Kaveh yells over his shoulder, already walking away to the kitchen to get a Tylenol for his oncoming headache.

“That’s what I just said,” Al-Haitham says, and Kaveh resolves to call customer service right then and there.

Al-Haitham reports back that all of his pains have disappeared, so Kaveh doesn’t end up returning it. He’s been surviving long enough without it. He hates his stupid, needy boyfriend.

(The chair is nice, if a little loud, Kaveh can admit. His shoulders never creak anymore.)

After a few more weeks where Kaveh can really feel himself settling into SOUP between feeling things out with his coworkers and expanding his bonds there and managing to figure out a little more of a work-life balance (though apparently it’s not enough to stop him from being sleep deprived to the point where he continually packs Al-Haitham lunches, wakes up from naps to find himself at the grocery store to take care of shopping for the week, and discovers dust all over his clothes from cleaning the bookshelves even during Al-Haitham’s turn at chore week), they have their first department meeting.

Kaveh has had to attend a lot of meetings so far—in fact, he would probably say there have been too many meetings—but this is the first where the whole team has been called in, Nahida at the head with a Powerpoint and a stool to stand on.

“We’re just here to discuss which projects we’d like to take on in the near future,” Nahida explains, clicking through a list on the screen. “There are a lot of clients interested in our work, so it’s up to your input to decide which ones we want to take on. Of course, we’d prefer the clients that are offering the most mora…”

The room is quiet as they take in the assortment of vastly random contraptions, from a kitchen tool that removes yolks from boiled eggs to a miniature curling iron for dogs to a ridiculous 1/32 teaspoon.

Kaveh looks to his side. Al-Haitham looks to be asleep. To be honest, it’s a miracle that he’d even made it to this meeting.

“I think that the robotic finger that scrolls your phone screen for you would be, you know, interesting,” Tighnari offers. Several pairs of eyes turn to him. “What? Don’t your arms ever get tired? I know mine do, especially when I’m on Twitter. So many hours of finger training. I think I’m developing a muscle tic for it.”

“Thanks for letting us know what you really do on company time, Tighnari,” Nahida says, smiling, and Tighnari flashes her an ok sign back. “Any other requests?”

“The artificial stick for dogs?” Dehya says. “Trees these days. You never know.” Nahida gives her a tired look.

“The pet rock,” Tighnari says thoughtfully. Cyno gives a commiserating hum. “Think of the life it could lead if it was only given a second chance. Or a life. But really, how could we hope to see the sky if we are not gently taken out of the soil? If we only stay with our maker, how could we ever discover the true meaning of a life unburdened by our birth?”

“I am beginning to realize why your previous boss chose clients based on mora and mora alone,” Nahida says lightheartedly. “Well.”

“Won’t you give us proletariat a chance, Nahida?” Tighnari says pleadingly. “Did you not hear my case on the pet rock? Do you expect us to know what it means to be untethered if we are not given eyes of our own?”

“This is a stoney situation to navigate,” Cyno says.

“I have a suggestion,” Scaramouche says all of a sudden, and Kaveh swears that Al-Haitham twitches by his side. “I liked that one security system that safeguards all the possessions on your desk. I think it would be a very useful product to advertise, especially with how relevant to our lives such a crime has become.” He shoots a very pointed look at Al-Haitham, who now has cracked open both of his eyes ever so slightly for the sole dignity of sending a heated glare his way.

Over the past few weeks while Kaveh has worked hard at nurturing his relationship with the people around them, Al-Haitham has done the exact opposite by continuing to toy with Scaramouche’s belongings. First was the stapler, and then a set of cat-themed post-its, and then his My Little Pony lunchbox, and then the keycaps on his computer, and then the photo of Scaramouche and his two mothers, and then his computer monitor, and then eventually his entire fucking desk, set of drawers and all. Kaveh still doesn’t know how Al-Haitham did it.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Al-Haitham says with all the consideration of somebody who has spent a very long time weighing the pros and cons of a burglary alarm system for a desk.

“What about the staining powder that identifies the fingers of those who steal other people’s pens?”

“Hmm, I don’t know.”

“What about the glitter bomb one can place in hiding for those who like to snoop through desks?”

“That one’s redundant.”

“What about—”

“What about the penis extender that’s supposed to enhance one’s performance?” Al-Haitham suggests.

Scaramouche blinks, caught off guard. “I don’t recall seeing that in the presentation.”

Al-Haitham shrugs. “Perhaps now, but it would be an excellent form of compensation for those who are lacking not just in height.”

Scaramouche stands up, both of his hands slammed onto the table, his chair screeching back behind him in one terrible sound. “Are you insinuating that I have a small penis?” he seethes. Kaveh winces. Tighnari looks entirely amused, as does Dehya and Cyno, while the others have a look as if they are attempting to remain politely incognizant of what is appearing before them. Nahida looks as if she thinks she should have never come into work at all.

Al-Haitham affects a gasp, looking deliberately down to Scaramouche’s middle. “Well, I wasn’t thinking that at all,” he says. “But if you’re projecting or something, I’m sure that this is a very welcoming environment to be yourself in—”

“EVERYBODY OUT,” Nahida booms.

Al-Haitham’s sitting by himself in a chair pushed all the way in the corner of the office when Kaveh approaches him, in what is effectively timeout. On the other side of the room, Scaramouche has a similar look on his face, also put into a corner in solidarity.

“Al-Haitham,” Kaveh begins after observing him.

Al-Haitham remains quiet.

“If you’re thinking about Scaramouche’s nether regions in any capacity, I think we should have a talk—”

“Please don’t nauseate me when you’re bringing me my lunch,” Al-Haitham says.

Kaveh sighs, extra loud and extra dramatic, and then he hands over the bento he’d packed that morning (two am, basically unconscious) and sits down next to him.

Al-Haitham looks at him. “What are you doing here? Go eat with Nilou.”

“We said we’d spend our breaks together when I first transferred here,” Kaveh says, pulling out his own lunch. “That was the deal.”

Al-Haitham considers him for a long moment, long enough that Kaveh begins to think he’d forgotten Kaveh’d put food right into his hands—and then he makes a soft noise, one bordering on affection, and pulls the cover off of his bento.

What an idiot. Really. Who else would Kaveh rather eat his lunch with?

Kaveh really needs to figure out this whole sleep deprivation thing. Really. It’s rapidly approaching number one on his list of priorities and grows more and more pertinent day by day.

He’s even been easing off the gas when it comes to overworking himself—at least he thinks he is—and when he’s not at work, he’s actively taking time to himself (self care!!) or he’s relaxing by Al-Haitham’s side. In the mornings, they argue over crosswords and wash fruits to eat over the sink and take their time. Slow down. Kaveh’s been learning the importance of slowing down recently.

So there should be no reason why he’s still waking up in the middle of the night to pack lunches for Al-Haitham, or why his bank account is suffering because he keeps making purchases that would make Al-Haitham’s life easier in small, insignificant ways, or why he keeps taking out the trash when he’s supposed to be napping if he’s now getting enough sleep that he is no longer overtaken by sleep delirium.

And there should be absolutely no grounds for Kaveh to come around after closing his eyes for what he swore was five minutes to find himself standing before Al-Haitham, a bouquet of store-bought flowers in one hand and a crumpled up grocery receipt in the other.

“Um, hi?” Kaveh says. His eyes drift down to the objects in his hand.

“You were sleepwalking,” Al-Haitham says, arms crossed. “I finally caught you in the act.”

“What time is it?” Kaveh asks faintly. He’s still in the stage of half-consciousness where nothing feels quite real.

“It’s four pm on a Saturday,” Al-Haitham says. “I left you in the living room for five minutes, and when I came back, you were gone. And now you’re back. With…” He fixes his gaze pointedly on the flowers. “Is that for me?”

“Well,” Kaveh says, scratching his head awkwardly. “I really don’t see who else they would be for, so I guess? You can have them if you want.”

“How sentimental,” Al-Haitham says sarcastically, but he plucks the bouquet and the receipt from Kaveh’s hand anyway, placing the flowers to the side and pausing when he catches sight of the slip of paper.

“What is it?” Kaveh says, leaning forward, but Al-Haitham ducks out of his way. “Did I buy something else? Something stupid? Condoms? Did I spend thousands of mora that I can’t afford to be spending again?”

“No,” Al-Haitham says, his eyebrows furrowed, and then he dodges again when Kaveh attempts to reach forward to see what he’s reading. “Just—hold on.”

“You know I hate when you talk all condescending like that, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh snaps, and this time when he lunges forward Al-Haitham neatly side steps him and leaves him stumbling over air. “What is it?”

“It’s a poem in your handwriting,” Al-Haitham says, finally shoving the receipt into his face, and Kaveh stops in his tracks to read it, eyes squinted.

It reads, horrifically:

Haitham,

You make me feel like

The cow that jumped over the moon

Because waking up next to you

In the morning

Gives me energy like shitty gas station coffee

During an eight hour road trip

Like, really shitty but it works

It feels criminal to be wanted by you

A jail cell erected by the combination of our desire

I want you

I really want you

I really, really want you

The way honey longs for jam

Or

The way a raccoon really likes trash

You’re trash

But I still like you

Isn’t that romantic?

“Oh god,” Kaveh says.

“A stroke of genius, perhaps,” Al-Haitham says.

Kaveh buries his face in his hands. “Al-Haitham…”

“If I give you so much energy, why are you doing so much in your sleep?” Al-Haitham asks seriously. “Maybe you should brew your gas station coffee stronger.”

“If my coffee was any stronger, then I’d have to dump it out,” Kaveh hisses, grasping for the receipt even as Al-Haitham dances out of his way. “Give me that—I need to throw it away before you drill it into your brain any more.”

“It’s already pretty far in there,” Al-Haitham says. “I remember a lot of what I read.”

“I hate you more and more every day,” Kaveh moans, dragging his hands down the sides of his face. Al-Haitham just looks, irritatingly, amused.

“I think that you could work on your romance, but this is a good start,” Al-Haitham says, pocketing the paper. Kaveh watches in despair as it disappears into the folds of his clothing, where he will likely never see it again until Al-Haitham decides to pull it out to taunt him. “Your poetry, on the other hand.”

“Die,” Kaveh tells him furiously, and then he turns and stalks out the door.

It does not escape Kaveh’s sight that the flowers appear tucked in a vase on Al-Haitham’s bedside table that very night, the scent of their blossoms making the evening by his side that much sweeter.

When Kaveh reads the message on his phone, he falls to his knees right there in the middle of the kitchen tile. “I never thought this day would come,” he whispers. His vision clouds with tears. Mehrak pads over, concerned, meowing right into his ear. Even Al-Haitham stops what he’s doing, turning slowly with a spatula in one hand and an eyebrow cocked.

Kaveh stands and shoves his phone into Al-Haitham’s face. “We got an invite to Thursday work dinner,” he says hoarsely.

Al-Haitham’s face doesn’t change one shade. “Is that all?”

“What do you mean, is that all?” Kaveh says. “Is that all? This is only everything I’ve been working toward since I got hired at SOUP. This is more than you’ve gotten in all your years working at SOUP. This is the beginning of a new change of pace for Al-Haitham and Kaveh.”

“And if I said I was busy on Thursday?” Al-Haitham asks.

“You’re not,” Kaveh says distractedly. “We’re going.”

“I don’t think I have a choice,” Al-Haitham says.

Kaveh claps him on the shoulder and grins up at him. “Now you’re getting it!”

Thursday night dinner is everything he expected and more.

Spread around a large wooden table tucked far in the corner of the eatery, away from the general hubbub of a restaurant, are all of the coworkers that Kaveh has gotten to know since he started working here. On his left is Nilou, and on his right, naturally, is Al-Haitham, who has been seated next to Scaramouche—a decision that he would not personally recommend but one that he thinks Tighnari engineered specifically for the sole reason that he thought it would be funny, seeing as he’s seated right across from them with no small amount of cheer on his face.

Nahida, seated at the end of the table, takes care of ordering for the whole company, leaving the rest of them with the freedom to talk about as they wish.

Kaveh nudges Al-Haitham until he obligingly tilts one ear down to mouth level. “You won’t do anything to get us kicked out or ostracized,” Kaveh says warningly.

He can practically feel how much Al-Haitham wants to roll his eyes at the treat. “I would not do that purposefully,” he says.

“You would if you thought it would get you out of the door faster and you really wanted to go home,” Kaveh points out.

Al-Haitham gives a minuscule shrug. “That is true.”

“Either way, you’re not making a fuss, intentional or not,” Kaveh says, and then he turns and smiles brightly at Nilou, who returns his beam with one of her own.

“Have you ever eaten here before?” Nilou asks him, looking down to examine the menu. “I haven’t, but I always trust the places that Nahida brings us. We go out fairly often—and it’s always a casual sort of thing, even though she’s technically our boss, so it’s nice. There are some real bonding moments.”

“I can see that,” Kaveh says, looking out over the table and mentally patting himself on the back one more time for scoring two invites for Al-Haitham and himself. “I’ve really been enjoying my time at SOUP. It’s nice working with Al-Haitham, too, though you can’t tell him I said that. And, well, to answer your question, we honestly spend a lot of our meals cooking together. It’s one of the things that we got in the habit of doing early on in our relationship and never really shook off as the years went on.”

“That’s so sweet,” Nilou says, her eyes shining as she closes the menu. “That’s a perfectly good reason not to eat out, if I say so myself. You two have been together for so long that it’s honestly a little heartwarming to witness. I’m glad you transferred here as well, Kaveh. You know, we’ve invited Al-Haitham to these events in the past, but most of the time he would decline on account of going home to his partner. I’m so glad to see the both of you here tonight.”

“Did he really,” Kaveh says, suddenly flustered. He feels his cheeks grow warm. “He’s stupid. I’m sorry for him.”

“Well, it sounds as if you two have a sweet routine going,” Nilou says knowingly. “I don’t know if I would want to give that up either if I was in his place.”

“And now we’re here together,” Kaveh says, glancing quickly over his shoulder at Al-Haitham. “I don’t think he particularly minds either way, to be honest. So I don’t feel any grief for dragging him along places or taking the time to stay in.”

“You two have so much trust in each other,” Nilou comments.

“I don’t know how much longer of this conversation I can take,” Kaveh says, one hand over his mouth. “Nilou, you’re killing me.”

Nilou laughs at him, her eyes turning into crescents, and then a clatter at the head of the table steals both of their attentions. “You’re in luck,” she says. “Food is here.”

As the dishes make their way down the table, Al-Haitham piles food first on Kaveh’s plate and then his own, effectively making it so that Kaveh doesn’t have to lift a finger without even asking.

“You’re so kind and doting,” Kaveh says to him triumphantly. “You must really like me. How embarrassing for you.”

“As if I’m not doing it just so I wouldn’t have to hear you complaining that you’re hungry later because you’re too polite to serve yourself when you think other people want a certain dish more,” Al-Haitham huffs. He gestures at Kaveh’s plate. “Eat.”

“You don’t have to take everything I say as a challenge to turn it against me, you know.” Kaveh looks down at his dish, vaguely alarmed. “This also doesn’t mean that you should pile my plate higher than yours.”

“Is it a crime to want my partner to eat well?” Al-Haitham says, and Kaveh slaps his hands to his cheeks before they can betray him any further.

“Treating me so well that even your work husband would be jealous of me,” Kaveh mutters.

Al-Haitham rolls his eyes at him. “At this point, my work husband is you, Kaveh.”

Kaveh pretends to gasp. “Does that mean you have a real husband waiting for you at home? Eight years and ninety three days of waiting only to find out that I’m your side piece?”

“Well,” Al-Haitham says, “about that—”

“Al-Haitham,” Scaramouche interrupts, effectively shattering their quiet moment. “Can you hand over the dish with the mushroom pasta?”

“This?” Al-Haitham says, picking up a plate that has just a small portion of food left on it, and when Scaramouche nods in confirmation, he turns it over and dumps the rest of it onto his plate. Scaramouche’s mouth drops open, as does Kaveh’s, though he covers it up quickly before anybody can read the amusement on his face. In front of them, Tighnari sits back with an infuriating smile on his face, looking as if he’s getting ready for a show.

“You,” Scaramouche growls. His hands are clenched into fists. “I just asked you for that.”

“Did you?” Al-Haitham says with faux innocence in his voice. “I thought you were telling me to try it because it looks good.”

“You didn’t think that,” Scaramouche says.

“You don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes—”

Scaramouche makes an annoyed sound and lunges forward with his chopsticks, intent on stealing it right from in front of him, though Al-Haitham picks up on it just in time and slides his plate out of the way for Scaramouche’s chopsticks to glance off the table with a loud bang that nets more than a few glances their way.

“I love SOUP,” Tighnari says with a content sigh.

Cyno frowns and scans the table. “Really? You could have asked Nahida to add it to the order when she was talking to the waiter.”

Scaramouche chucks his chopsticks at Al-Haitham and they bounce right off his head. Al-Haitham doesn’t so much as flinch, continuing to peacefully eat.

“Amazing,” Tighnari wheezes.

“Souptacular,” says Cyno.

“Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says warningly.

Al-Haitham swivels to meet Kaveh’s gaze. “I wasn’t the one who threw the chopsticks,” he says. And then, while he’s there, he leans in close and whispers, “Can you take the pasta? I don’t like mushrooms.”

Kaveh stares at him incredulously while Al-Haitham shovels it onto his plate, and then just shakes his head when Tighnari levels him with an amused gaze.

“I love how my team presents itself as a united force on all fronts,” Nahida says from the front of the table, a glazed look in her eye. “Especially the interpersonal relationships between my employees. It is so peaceful here in my soup kitchen.”

Al-Haitham raises his head. “Wouldn’t it be SOUIP?” he says maddeningly. “Because of the UI in Sumeru Original UI—”

“SOUP,” half of the table almost yells.

Tighnari’s pointing an accusatory finger right in Al-Haitham’s face, so incensed that he’s rising half out of his chair in indignation, Cyno nodding seriously at his side. “There’s no reason to add the UI to SOUP when it’s already been acronymized,” he says, shaking. “Let us have this one thing. Can we not know peace on a singular matter?”

“I just don’t see why we should be acronymizing UI twice,” Al-Haitham says stubbornly with a wave of a hand. Kaveh watches as the rest of the table falls into argument, closing his eyes to it all, fork abandoned on his plate.

He opens them again and turns to Nilou, who’s already grinning at him. “I’m tired of him,” he tells her helplessly.

Nilou only laughs. “You’ve got your hands full,” she says.

“Yes,” Kaveh says miserably. “Why my hands? It’s been so long. You’d think I’d get used to it, but no.”

“That reminds me,” Nilou says carefully. She leans in, softens her voice. “Forgive me if this is overstepping, but I was curious—you mentioned that you’ve been together for eight years, you live together, you even work at the same office—are you hoping to get married, or is that not something you two are interested in?”

All of the noise falls away; the only thing Kaveh can sense now is Nilou’s earnest face and the smile creeping over his own face, slow but as sure as the ocean seeping over land during high tide. “Well,” he says, his laugh sounding bashful even to his own ears, “of course I would marry him. I’m hopelessly in love with him, you know? I think he’s going to ask soon.”

“Really?” Nilou says, and she’s smiling so widely that Kaveh almost thinks it’ll tear at the edges. “You’ve waited a long time.”

Kaveh feels a hand—Al-Haitham’s—reach for his knee underneath the table even though he’s completely absorbed in his argument with Tighnari, a steady weight that he’s come to count as belonging to his own body, and Kaveh tilts forward, the smile on his face belonging to him and Al-Haitham only. “It’s simple, you see. I’d wait forever for him.”

“I think I’ve figured it out,” Kaveh says to Al-Haitham once they’ve made their way back home, in one piece and smiling. Kaveh feels warm, the way their window in the kitchen does when they’ve opened the glass and let in the light, sunshine spilling into their home and out their cheeks, through the rough edges of a smile.

“Figured what out?” Al-Haitham asks, tossing his keys into the bowl they keep in the parlor. The motion is familiar, learned over the course of a year that belongs to their memory. Sweet moments spent alone, the sweet drip of honey, slow and viscous, collecting in a pool at the basin of their hearth. Kaveh swipes a finger through the syrup and wonders how he never came to the realization sooner.

“It was never about sleep deprivation,” Kaveh says, and then he pauses, smiling stupidly at himself. “Well, maybe in the beginning it was. But after a time, it wasn’t. I was doing everything right. Going to sleep absurdly early whenever you did, modeling my morning routine after you so that I could learn how to slow down. But all of the same things kept happening, with the bentos and the shopping and everything else.”

Al-Haitham flicks on the low-hanging lamp over the kitchen, the light dancing outward to meet them in a warm amber glaze. It flickers, just once, the way it always does when you first turn it on—Kaveh feels himself endeared to it and the house even more, just another quaint quirk they’ve gotten used to since they moved in. Al-Haitham turns, and Kaveh is overwhelmed.

“So what was it, Kaveh?” Al-Haitham asks quietly. Almost as if he knows that he has to be gentle.

“It was only ever that I am so in love with you,” Kaveh says, and he feels all of it burst—the tide receding back quietly to where it came from, the easy golden light of their half-broken kitchen lamp, the bubble of honey on his tongue giving itself back into sugar. He shrugs. “That was it all along.”

“I know,” Al-Haitham says, and then he digs into his pocket, pulling out the receipt littered with Kaveh’s handwriting and his terrible poetry. “I carry it with me. I can feel it.”

“I’d give you the world if you asked for it,” Kaveh whispers, feeling himself go weak at the knees. He takes one unsteady step closer to Al-Haitham. Feels the world open itself underneath him, honeyed and aching.

“Well, I don’t need the world,” Al-Haitham says, the curve of his mouth sweeter than anything Kaveh has ever licked onto his tongue. “I only want your hand in marriage.”

“Only?” Kaveh echoes, and then he erupts into trembling laughter, the aftershock of it rumbling in his chest. An earthquake that stops and settles. Al-Haitham reaches forward and takes his body into his hands, holding him close. “That’s only a lifetime you’re asking for.”

“I’ve already given you mine,” Al-Haitham says simply. “If you’ll have it.”

“If I’ll have it?” Kaveh laughs, the corners of his eyes spilling over the creases when he swipes them shut. “My god, Al-Haitham, I’d take anything you give me. Anything.”

“Then marry me, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says, and this time, when Kaveh smiles, he feels it settle into all of the cracks of their home, a sugared stitch in every laceration.

“What else could I possibly say but yes?” Kaveh says, voice watery. “Wouldn’t want your work husband to get any ideas or anything.”

“No work husband,” Al-Haitham says, holding him together with a rope sewn of eight years and ninety three days of devotion. “Just you, and me.”

Yeah. That sounds about right.