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Kaveh is a romantic. It’s a story that’s been sung a hundred times before and it will be sung again and again. May it be a simple butterfly fluttering against a shifty breeze to lie in the sweet nectar of a calla lily or a glistening building of carved marble and patched glass. There’s a story behind everything; a story of love formed or lost. Grown or sown. From a distance or admired up close.
He has many stories of his life, though none of them quite hold the romance of a love story. Passing by a budding padisarah or a newly wed couple doesn’t hold a semblance of romance that the love of another could bring.
Kaveh had resigned himself to a life of glimpses and hopes long ago. To become a student at the Akademiya — to share his romantic thoughts with the world — he would have to withhold the hope of experiencing it for himself.
All of his life seems to be holding things close to his chest; with his heart on his sleeve, there’s an empty nook to store secrets there. It only makes sense that one day they would start leaking out to drown him.
The first few hours of sleep slip by unnoticed; uncomfortable to think about that lack of being but necessary for the brain to reset for the day.
Kaveh is used to the blank darkness behind his eyelids — he sees them when he wakes up and falls asleep. What he’s not used to is what happens between that time.
In Sumeru, it used to be true that only children dream. Unless, somehow, someone’s consciousness was able to slip past the Akasha’s dream harvesting, which was a possibility near zero percent. Kaveh found himself with the majority.
It’s been a while since his childhood; the dreams he used to have are flashes of colour and feelings of light and heavy. Kaveh is unfamiliar with how dreams work now that he’s older. It’s easy to ignore your subconscious to focus on the task at hand when you can’t linger on it in the long hours of slumber. The overwhelming sensation of dreams causes them to be numbed down and simplified to a moment of understanding, in which Kaveh had difficulty to grasp.
The first thing that happens is white then yellow then blue, like a piece of developing film from an old Kamera.
Kaveh feels himself look around; not to recognize his surroundings, but to look for something. Something’s gone and he feels its absence.
The greenery around him is familiar but distant, like it is all covered in a haze of fog. Where is it?
Budding flowers bloom into their glory right in front of him, as though he used his vision to speed up the process. He shifts his gaze, met with multitudes of blooming white flowers. The field filled with white blossoms, then the sky was overcast with fluffy white clouds. Make a wish! The white was not blinding or overwhelming — it was more calming and light.
He feels a light sensation, like he lifted off his feet and is being spun in the air, then suddenly feels grounded.
The walls of his home are familiar in the years he’s lived in it. The smell of wood and paper and ink are unmistakable and sharp. Sun rays of an indeterminate time of day drift through the ornate curtains Kaveh insisted were necessary to complete the artistic comfort of a living room.
The comfort of the sofa is multiplied as he sinks further into it. Where is it? Something is still missing. He feels… lonely. There hasn’t been anyone here. Where are the people?
The couch swallows him in his immobile state, and he lets it consume him, as though he had a choice in the first place. He doesn’t feel a thing as he falls down, like a stray petal dancing in a breeze somewhere.
A swallow of an unrecognizable depth. Then a sharp inhale.
Kaveh shoots awake on a warm stone, looking around in the blinding whiteness of midday. He sits on the side of a street in the city, hands curled around fine parchment. He needs to bring these home. Where is it? He pushes up to stand, but feels like a rock at the bottom of a sea.
His head pounds dully, and his eyes ache in the overwhelming light. His head spins. He feels like he was drenched in iced water and pulled out nakedly.
He needs to leave. He looks to the street, where there are people. They don’t spare him a look, as though they don’t see him at all. Kaveh never blends in a crowd; always adorned in bright hues of red and turquoise and gold. People look at him no matter. He knows himself and he knows he is himself, so why can’t anyone see him?
People pass by him so swiftly it feels inhumane. They walk and paddle their legs down the bends of stone as his head pounds in tune. There is no noise to their chatter, just the steps of their shoes and swishes of their clothes.
He needs to go but no one will help him. He cannot move and his papers grow damp and salty. He needs to go home. Where is it?
He blinks and is back in the field. The flowers are all rotten and have fallen. He is gone. From long ago. Come and find me.
He feels a sensation of falling, as if he missed a step on a staircase. He finds himself wrapped in his linen sheets in his dark room. His breathing echoes in his ringing ears, sweat causing his clothes to cling to his rising chest.
He’s finally conscious. He’s in his bed in his home and that was all a dream. He is home but something is still missing. Where is it? This is his home and he knows where he is, so what is he looking for? He has everything he needs in his home.
His door creaks open with familiar feet on the wooden floor. Silence.
“Where is it?” Kaveh whispers in his awakened state.
“There you are.” In the darkness of his room, he can still make out the silhouette of his roommate. The moonlight carves out his form through the crack of his curtains, silver illuminating silver. He feels his bed cave down with a familiar weight, a scent of cardamom and ink bringing him home.
Kaveh smiles. “You found me.”
Moments of softness in their relationship like this are few and far between. Neither dare question it and Kaveh thinks of it as endearingly as their spats. Being seen in every way and finding solace in all facets of his reality.
Al-Haitham shakes his head, suddenly serious. “No. You were never missing.”
Kaveh quirks his eye brow in question, leaning forwards towards Al-Haitham. “I know.”
So many things are unsaid and strange. Kaveh was never missing. He knows where he is. What strange sentences, as if a conversation was scattered. But nothing was missing from their words.
Al-Haitham grabs Kaveh’s face, locking their eyes together. In his sleepy haze, Kaveh feels dizzy and Al-Haitham’s eyes swirl between amber and cyan. His hands are warm against Kaveh’s face, not seeming put off by the sheen of sweat. The thin line of his lips lift at the corners, a sliver of enchantment Kaveh has the luck of knowing.
Kaveh sits and looks at Al-Haitham’s face. A face of someone he has always known. Of humble strength and overzealous confidence, of undeniable intelligence and hidden softness. The arch of his nose and the brown of his skin and the hue of his cheeks. The crinkle of his eyes, the furrow of his eyebrows, the curve of his lips.
For all their differences and conflicts, they still have each other. After years of friendship in the Akademiya, years of communicating solely through posterboards and margins of books, and years of living in the same house.
“I love you.”
Nothing could possibly encapsulate their relationship better than those words. Kaveh rests his hands on his roommate’s thighs, leaning closer to embrace himself in his warmth.
“Thanks, I guess.” Kaveh huffs out the words with a giggle and rosy cheeks, eyes falling to the smirk Al-Haitham wears like he is physically unable to frown in Kaveh’s presence.
He could stay like this forever, he thinks. Al-Haitham looks at him like he’s holding the world in his hands. Kaveh will never get used to this look. Not because he is undeserving, but because of how it grows through their years.
Al-Haitham shifts, rolling under Kaveh’s sheets, and lies to still face him. His face adorns a dreamy expression, and he tosses Kaveh’s cascading hair between his fingers. Kaveh closes his eyes, and lets himself lean into the touch. It’s as if all that exists in the world in the two of them in the warmth of plain linen sheets. Al-Haitham lets out a sigh, as though he could read Kaveh’s mind.
Kaveh nuzzles closer to Al-Haitham, opening one of eyes to get a glimpse at the man. He’s staring at Kaveh’s face, like he’s committing it to memory. He meets Kaveh’s half-open eyes and his eyes crinkle, like this is all he wanted in his life. Like nothing else matters or exists beyond them.
Kaveh moves closer, and feels Al-Haitham’s breath fan through his blond lashes. His breath hitches as his heart flutters, as it always does in close proximity. Another thing he never wants to get used to. He loves the rush and the way his breath leaves his mouth in a sigh of exhilaration.
Al-Haitham closes the gap, his lips softer than anything Kaveh can think to compare them to. He closes his eyes and welcomes the sensation, as if it had been ages since they had last done this. Kaveh turns Al-Haitham’s head slightly to adjust the angle, humming contently at the change.
Kaveh brings his hands through Al-Haitham’s hair, bringing him as close as he possibly can without suffocating the both of them. He feels Al-Haitham smile against him, wrapping his hands around Kaveh’s waist. Goosebumps form where his hands meet skin from where his shirt rode up against the mattress. There was nothing suggestive of the touch, nothing demanding; Al-Haitham’s hands just rested where they belonged.
Kaveh pulls back enough to look into amber eyes again, Al-Haitham chasing him as he pulls away. “You’re too good to be true.”
Curiosity and confusion muddle together in amber eyes. “That’s because I’m not.”
Kaveh laughs, quivering slightly with worry. He searched for a sign of genuinity in his eyes, only to be unable to see anything in front of him. Something strikes through him. “Ha ha, very funny.”
Al-Haitham jumps out of the bedroom and turns out in a flash, as if he were never there to begin with. Kaveh feels unable to get up and chase after him, to ask him why he left and get worked up over the following argument that was sure to proceed the question. Kaveh reaches out instead, turning his fingers over the warm bedsheets, and is overtaken by a falling sensation.
「’✬,」
“Augh!”
Kaveh jolts awake to a crash of porcelain and blinding sunlight infiltrating his eyes. He bites off his shout, realizing that the fall was a figment of his mind. He breathes heavily, his chest heaving as he regains composure. He relaxes his hands at where they twisted in his sheets, letting the tension seep out with his ragged breaths.
He rubs his eyes clear, wiping any suggestions of stress induced sweat on linen sheets before storming off to inspect the racket.
“What are you doing at this hour?! Shouldn’t you be at work?!” Kaveh squeals at the sight of a pile of their beautiful plates in colourful fragments on the floor. He knows the man hardly remembers the day he picked them out years ago, but the sight is still the furthest from delightful. He is met with the back of his roommate, turned away from the mess. He watches the stove — and by that Kaveh means in his periphery, since his eyes are trained on the book in front of him — as though Kaveh’s presence wasn’t loud enough to ensure a result.
Kaveh grabs Al-Haitham’s shoulder to wrench his eyes away from whatever pretentious material he has himself wrapped in today. To fully capture his attention, he swoops Al-Haitham’s book out of his hands, almost smirking at the sigh of dismay. “What is this?! If you didn’t like the plates then don’t buy them!!” Al-Haitham watches Kaveh form the words, his expression indifferent.
I have no idea what you’re talking about, Al-Haitham signs. Kaveh sighs in exasperation.
You idiot! Look behind you. Kaveh gestures towards the mess, signing as he speaks. Al-Haitham barely glances at it, and his eyes narrowing as if to telepathically snatch his book back from Kaveh’s outstretched hand.
They were ugly anyways. Al-Haitham leaps forward to grab his book, and Kaveh reaches further back in the most uncomfortable way possible.
“Nuh-uh.” I don’t think so. Kaveh pushes Al-Haitham’s face away with the flat of his palm, fighting a snort at the muffled noises of protest.
Sweet dreams? Kaveh rolls his eyes, cheeks betraying him by flushing slightly. Al-Haitham smirks, the self-righteous bastard. I didn't think so. Looks like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
Kaveh groans, dragging his hand across his face as though he were smudging a painting. We’re buying new plates. I’ll pick the most intricate and expensive ones.
Al-Haitham shrugs indifferently. It’s my mora anyway.
Kaveh scoffs and turns on his heel, throwing his hands up in exasperation. Classic Al-Haitham, acting all high and mighty because he lacks the artistic and colourful lens Kaveh sees life through. It’s almost impossible for Kaveh to take his dream seriously, knowing the familiar tug at his brain Al-Haitham relentlessly tests every day. What a frustrating man; his counter in life who will never resist a chance to discover a new way Kaveh can explode.
Kaveh cleans up in the washroom, the world already off-kilter with how abrupt his day started. Thankfully, he had just finished his latest commission yesterday, with a fresh day to let his eyes see the world instead of endless lines of physics and math calculations. It truly was a beautiful place, even if Al-Haitham resides in it beside Kaveh.
Of course, for how much he enjoys joking about his dislike for Al-Haitham, it is merely a joke. Afterall, he would have just allowed himself to find another place to live, and kept digging his fingers in the dirt until he climbed above rock-bottom, if he truly harboured such grand feelings of hatred. While he would never admit it to anyone out loud, where his words couldn’t be explained as thoroughly as in his mind, he does like the man. Regardless of that fact, it still doesn’t make any sense — the dream, that is. How could his imagination betray him by fabricating such a strange idea? Love and Al-Haitham in the same plane of consciousness almost makes him nauseous, his hands slipping slightly where the sweat against the counter. Could he—?
Al-Haitham pushes the door open, hands crossed over his chest. “Good, you’re alive. It puts my consciousness at rest knowing you’re still able to at least preen at yourself in the mirror for the better half of an hour like you do every single morning.”
Kaveh sputters, water splashing at where his hand disrupts the continuous flow of water. “Don’t just open the door like that! What if I was naked?!”
Al-Haitham shrugs. “It was already open.” His eyes move to the faucet. “If you don’t turn that off, I’ll be adding the water bill entirely to your rent.”
Scoffing, he turns to switch off the water. “Why do you care anyways? Don’t you have more books to read while pretending to be interested in the Grand Sage’s affairs?”
“First of all, it’s Saturday.” Kaveh groans, shaming himself for losing his awareness at the time of week due to his latest project. “Second of all, those plates won’t buy themselves. Quit memorizing your face and eat something.”
Before Kaveh could answer, the door swung on its hinges as Kaveh stood there with his mouth gaping. “I do not preen,” he whispers to himself in the mirror, tying his unruly hair into some sort of updo that he knows will hold up until nightfall. Al-Haitham once commented how Kaveh’s brain does more calculations in his updos than his projects, in which Kaveh responded by whacking him with the rolls of blue prints he was grasping at the time. Seriously, this was the man his brain thought deserved his love? What a joke. In no world would that be something Kaveh accepted, much less chased after.
Over the sudsy water swirling down the drain, Kaveh hears the front door click distantly. “WAIT FOR ME, YOU BASTARD!” Kaveh runs to the front door, swinging it carelessly behind him, groaning at the irony of him literally chasing the man. How embarrassing.
「’✬,」
Al-Haitham is not a romantic. He bobbles on about how he’s a realist and has no time for the wistfulness of Kaveh’s dreams for the world.
Which is why Kaveh desperately needs to get rid of his travesty as soon as possible.
He’s not all that bad, sometimes. When Kaveh remembers he hasn’t paid his rent belatedly, Al-Haitham will insist he already did, even though Kaveh’s balance of mora has slipped further to zero through the month and he knows he never had enough in the first place. A few times, Al-Haitham even changed the subject so effectively Kaveh didn’t realize until after their bickering ceased hours later.
He knows that sometimes he’d fall asleep on the couch, ink dribbling from his pen down his wrist, clothes twisted in his turning sleep, and wake up warm in a blanket with clean hands. Or when he got too much to drink in the past, when it was almost a daily occurrence, he would end up tucked into bed with amenities on his nighttable and clean folded clothes. When his soap ran out, it was replaced when he came home.
Of course, Kaveh brings these things up, but Al-Haitham would always shrug and say something along the lines of, “I refuse to be in the proximity of someone who smells of shit rolled in sand.”
That then will always be refuted by a subtly stuttering Kaveh, immediately on the defense, “When have I ever smelled like that? Even in the desert I smelt fine on the most mediocre of days!”
So yes, Kaveh is well aware the man does not hate him — which makes this issue even more pressing. Every minute that passes is another minute his unconscious brain can use against him.
Erasing his memory somehow could just make this happen again, if it were even possible make memories cease to exist anymore. Right now, all he can do is pretend nothing happened at all. After all, nothing did happen. Kaveh just had a dream, which so happened to star his obnoxious and bleary roommate. It doesn’t even have to mean anything.
Kaveh rubs his drooping eyes, suddenly feeling the days of work last week jump on him and tackle him into a perpetual state of exhaustion. Kaveh shakes his head, trying to keep his mind awake. The task was much easier said than done, especially under his sheets with no light seeping through the drawn curtains.
He thinks back in his day out in the sun, his arms a deeper bronze than the evening before. They picked out their plates, Kaveh smiling victoriously when Al-Haitham’s face scrunched into the smallest expression of distaste and confusion. “These ones? Seriously?”
The plates were quite simple for Kaveh’s taste, but definitely contained a multitude of colors. Each plate was painted differently, curved at the edge, which were all intricately lined with different shapes and patterns distinctly inspired by Liyuen culture, as the artist was born and raised there. They cost a pretty penny, being handspun impossibly symmetrically with the most durable yet soft clay from Asipattravana swamp. He’s been eying this vendor for a while, but never had the mora to spend on the incomparable talents of the woman. The ceramicist looked ecstatic at the purchase of six plates, having almost sold out for the day so fast she could enjoy the rest of it relaxing and enjoying the work of others.
Al-Haitham didn’t look away from Kaveh as he sighed and paid the price, his expression akin to something like softness. Or maybe Kaveh is remembering wrong. It’s been years since he’s seen such a prominent and lovely expression on the man’s face; something that didn’t unnaturally twist his features or make him seem like the embodiment of boredom. How many times had he looked like that without Kaveh noticing? Did he notice Kaveh’s ears turn red as he looked away and busied himself with indulging in conversation with the Liyuen woman? Did his headphones somehow impossibly pick up on the rushing of his heartbeat, which threatened to burst out of his chest and into the man’s hands?
They strode through the city, unsurprisingly boisterous for an afternoon, though Kaveh did suppose that it wasn’t strange for it to be less than bustling than on a weekend compared to any other day. Afterall, the two men rarely had weekends off to enjoy with the luxury of most Sumerian city folk.
As they walked, Kaveh was talking about his latest project, and how insufferable the client was. “I cannot believe how demanding this man was. He truly had no realistic timeline in view, asking for his entire house to be done in, and I quote, ‘before the sunsets two weeks from now.’ Impossible! The cost of construction alone would be enough to drain your pockets, Grand Sage.”
“Acting.”
Kaveh scoffed. “Acting my ass. Whatever. I’m absolutely starving and Lord Kusanali herself knows you skipped your turn to buy groceries.”
Al-Haitham smirked, as though he had some grand scheme that Kaveh was playing into like some puppet on a string. “Well then I suppose we will arrive home much later than you were hoping. I apologize for cutting your plans to rot in bed short.”
Kaveh couldn’t even think of some snarky comeback at the time, and even thinking back on it, his memory focussed on one word. Home. Not just a house they shared but also a home. A roommate, sure. A shared house — something that not only belongs to Al-Haitham but something that he shared with Kaveh. But a home? That insinuated that their house was something that brought him comfort and stability. That Kaveh was something that brought him comfort and stability.
Groaning, Kaveh shoves his head into a pillow. How could Al-Haitham act this way and pretend everything is normal? He paid for their meal, watching Kaveh with that same soppy expression while leaning against his elbow-propped hand. He carried everything on their way home so Kaveh could still talk to him when his headphones died prematurely. At this point, Kaveh even doubts they died in the first place. It’s difficult to believe this is the same man with whom he has such difficulty maintaining one simple conversation of opinions.
Is it really? This is the man who has known him since he became himself, who offered him a place, who secretly buys new quills for him when the ends fray, who puts a blanket on his sleeping form? Kaveh groans louder, nearly punching his face into his pillow. He felt embarrassingly akin to a teenage girl at that moment, kicking his feet and suffocating his blushed face in a pillow. What kind of person does those things? How is Kaveh supposed to hate this man if there’s no reason to?
Kaveh sighs deeply in despair, trying to get over himself in this state. It was just one dream. Who’s to say it means anything?
Reluctantly, Kaveh let his body relax and felt sleep wash over him.
「’✬,」
One of the worst things about dreams is that most of the time, you have no awareness that it is a figment of your imagination. There is no knowledge of the world outside what your brain will let you perceive.
Kaveh is in a field. It feels familiar in a way he couldn’t remember. White flowers bloom around his bare feet, refracting into rich red poppies when he looks at them a certain way. As he takes steps forward, the flowers tickle his ankles, soft but not squished under his feet. He watches the flowers spring up after his heels rose, slowly picking up pace as he watches the changing field beneath his feet.
He runs through the field, filled with the feeling of narrowly missing a stumble. He feels like he is going to fall the longer he runs, but all he knows is that he needs to run as fast as possible.
His breath heaves in his chest, blood roaring in his ears. Was he almost there? His legs feel numb and he wants to lay down forever. The flowers were so soft, and would spring a bed for him to lay on if he let them. Their vines and stems wouldn’t overtake him, but would support him from the ground.
His head is reeling. He has no real coherency in his mind, except for the knowledge that he had to keep running. He feels like something was tugging him in opposite directions; one towards the ground and the other forwards, to keep running.
Shards of torn papers litter the floor, raining down into puddles. Anger and hurt filled his body. Even in his youth, when he merely started as an aspiring architect, he knew what home truly was. What is home if not just a building? It was so naïve for him to think otherwise. To think the boy in front of him could provide something to him beyond just a simple academic companionship was foolish. He could hardly see in front of him through his blurry eyes and heaving chest. He didn’t dare to blink away the tears to see him, fearful of the spite and cutting truth. All he could afford to see was their hard work shattered in front of him, crumbled beyond repair.
For the first time in his life, he cursed his mother for the one thing he inherited from her. He wished he could be as indifferent to reality as the other in front of him; taking every hit with a straight face. He cursed himself for being friends with the only person who matched his academic stride, challenging him everyday along the way. All he can hear past the ringing of his ears is a sharp intake of breath, and steps speeding up away from him.
Alone in his dorm, he longed for his tears to mend the broken scene in front of him. He grasped at the papers, clutching them to his chest, knowing he was alone once more.
Breath cuts through him each inhale, each exhale chafing his lungs against his ribs. His bones ache and he just wants to stop running. He persists and perspires harder than before. Left right left right. Inhale exhale. Sharp itch. He almost feels itchy, wanting to stop and satisfy the itch. Would it be so bad?
Every time he thinks to stop, he runs faster than before. Every gasp of air feels like a lifeline tied to the middle of his being, threatening to rip him apart. He wonders if maybe he’s not running towards something, but away from something. Would it do anything to look anywhere but his running feet?
He trips over something. His foot, a rock, a thought. He is falling backwards, eyes catching a glimpse of the sky. There’s nothing above him. No strings pulling him up or air pushing him down. Just an expanse of glimmering stars. The flowers reach out to grab him as he falls, and he almost closes his eyes, unsure if the feeling settling into his bones was reluctance or acceptance.
Kaveh opened his eyes, waking up in a startle. He felt like he missed something, like maybe there was something that just happened. Papers threaten to fly off his table in his flurry, his hands grabbing at his hair like it would fly away.
Everything looked green around him; his clothes, his quill, the friend in front of him with crossed arms and an unamused expression. Green eyes scanned thoroughly through a textbook filled with heady descriptions of herbal medicine, ears twitching at the sudden motion in front of him.
“Look who decided to join us.”
Kaveh scoffed, rubbing at his eyes, trying to get rid of any remaining bleariness. “I stayed up all night finishing three papers. What’s your excuse?”
“There is no excuse to give. I finished those papers weeks ago, and chose to lose sleep back then rather than now, taking a nap in the middle of the House of Daena. Just because the course is an elective doesn’t mean the papers should sit unfinished until the week before early submission.”
“Oh please, this is the only time it’s me instead of you asleep during our miserable study sessions. The papers are done now, thank you for your concern. The only reason your eyes weren’t glued shut the second you sat down is because of the racket happening around us.”
“A racket you are currently causing.” Tighnari massaged his temples, both to soothe the amount of noise his ears are filtering through and to ease the headache his reading was starting to give him.
Cyno yawned from his spot next to Tighnari, stretching his arms unnecessarily far, trying to “sneak” his hand over the other’s shoulder. “It’s nearly four in the morning, Tighnari. If you refuse to release us, I will be forced to test your knowledge on resuscitation medication.”
He slapped Cyno’s hand away, rolling his eyes. “Do what you want. I have an exam in a week and there is far too much material to memorize from now to then.”
Cyno stood up, feigning a moodiness he uses to tease the fox when he refuses to give in. “Good night, then!” The man stood and disappeared in a blink, a talent that never made sense to Kaveh and always seemed impossible.
Kaveh stood up with a genuine case of moodiness. “I need to rest as well. As an Amurta scholar, you should know a good sleep—”
“— is necessary for a good memory. The only reason you know that is because I tell you that when you stay up for days on end. Purple is Cyno’s colour, not yours. It washes you out, especially when it splatters your undereyes such as now.”
“Whatever. When I see you tomorrow after Advanced Fontainian Historical Politics, you’ll be purple everywhere, from your eyes to your clothes.” Kaveh pinched his nose, to add an element to his teasing. “Seriously, you reek. Too bad you have super hearing instead of smelling; maybe then you would actually wash up properly. If I were Cyno, I’d lend you my clothes all the time as well, but for a different reason.”
Tighnari’s eyes sharpened, laughing sarcastically. “Ha ha. Go to sleep, Kaveh.” Tighnari waved Kaveh away, his eyes still glued to his textbook, but his cheeks dusted lightly with pink. It’s truly no secret to Kaveh the affection his friends store for each other, even if they themselves don’t know.
He cursed himself internally for the bubbling envy in his gut as he walked away, though he knew it would eat at him every time he saw them together. He almost hates himself for it; for the envy, and the fact he’ll never feel something like that. He’ll never have enough of it. Something about him that stirs a particular fondness within a person beyond initial interest in his looks and glowing smile. Something that someone sees in him worth staying for.
The walk back to his dorm felt eternal, like every step forwards through the polished halls was three steps back instead. He had a feeling that if he tried to run, it would shoot him across Sumeru City.
White and red flashed through his mind as he stubbornly tried to walk forwards. What was that?
He kept trying to walk forwards, always halting at a certain point, like there was an invisible barrier.
His vision kept flashing between the dark hallway and a soft field of flowers, swirling in his head and around his body.
In his dizziness, he fell to the ground, trying to remain calm as he crawled to stand.
The hallway turned completely black.
「’✬,」
Kaveh nearly jumps off his bed with the sensation of falling still fresh to his body. He runs his hands through tousled blond locks, taking deep breaths to ease his breathing. He pinches himself on the cheek, his arm, his ear. That was a dream. The thought hardly rests in his mind, which is still reeling. Beyond his curtains, the moon was still high in the sky, not yet time to rest for the sun.
He feels cold droplets of sweat run down his arm, reflecting on what happened in his dreams. The running, the gasping, the emptiness.
He throws off his sheets and stumbles to the kitchen, throat dry and crackling with each breath. He feels like a dying man in the desert, crawling against the walls to feel for a glass to fill. He pours water to the rim, gulping it down in seconds. The water feels magical as it runs down his throat, finally able to find relief.
He still feels the furthest from satisfied, feeling even more exhausted than before his fitful sleep. He refused to step foot in his room again tonight, aiming towards the green couch a few strides in front of him. He flops down, not even bothering to cover himself with a blanket before he lets himself unravel into sleep once more.
Sunlight beams through the crack of his arm, its unfiltered warmth unwelcome to all his senses. His back aches against the uncomfortable frame of the divan. He stretches his limbs ungracefully in all directions, hearing his joints pop and groan in the early morning.
The house is silent around him, suggesting that Al-Haitham was still sleeping, or at least still holed up in his room. Kaveh bit back the urge to run to his room and break down the door, to see if the man was even there in the first place. Truly, why would he be? He has seen Kaveh through only his worst, and has only just started to see him start building stairs to walk up. He may even believe Kaveh is taking advantage of his kindness, by constantly spending the man’s mora and time. By taking up space in his house, that is truly no more than a building they share.
How childish of Kaveh to believe otherwise. Al-Haitham is the one who owns the house, after all. Kaveh is just a temporary inhabitant. What would Al-Haitham do, once Kaveh finally gets back on his feet for the first time in his life? Would he pity him and allow him to stay? Would he throw him out? Kaveh feels almost ashamed of himself for thinking such heartless things of the man. He gave him a place to stay! That in itself is a grand kindness Kaveh is surprised to be a recipient of. Whatever Al-Haitham decides after wouldn’t be forged in anger and hatred.
If it were up to Kaveh, he knows he would prefer to be nowhere else. No one could ever make a house feel like a home like this one does, regardless of how naïve his perception of such a notion is. The carpets and lamps and drapes and decorations Kaveh scattered everywhere, mixed with Al-Haitham’s books and pens and papers thrown haphazardly yet carefully, velvety, ink-stained parchment along dyed fabrics and blueprints.
Kaveh rubs the crust off his eyes, shuffling his feet to the washroom to wash off his fitful sleep. As he moves onwards, his eyes catch no trace of Al-Haitham in the living room or kitchen. He always showers after coming home for the day, since the waters are cooler at night to wash Sumeru’s humid afternoons off, so he wouldn’t be in the washroom either.
When Kaveh opens the bathroom door, though, he is unfortunate to meet his roommate's face. And his roommate’s showered body, covered with an ill-fitting towel. We really need to get new towels.
Resisting the urge to pinch himself for the fourth time that day, he covers his eyes, hoping his skin isn’t burning as much as it feels like. “The Lord, the Goddess, and the King!” He jumps back, trying to feel for the door as his eyes are still squeezed shut. “Lock the door next time!” The hand that didn’t cover his eyes aimlessly felt for the door, which seemed to have disappeared from existence for some reason. Kaveh hopes for nothing better than for this to all be a strangely realistic dream, and that the floor would swallow him up and spit him in some other plane of reality.
He feels two taps on his shoulder and freezes. Ah. He is stone as his hand is slowly peeled away, delicately and slowly. He peeks an eye out, being met with a very confused looking Al-Haitham. He drops his hand, which remains extended in front of him like he was a statue. Can’t hear you. Al-Haitham points to his ears, flushed red by the steam of the shower. Truly, this must be a dream; Al-Haitham taking warm showers in the morning? What world did he wake up in?
Kaveh forces his eyes away from his face and up to the ceiling, so as to give the man privacy, as if there truly was any in this tiny bathroom. Maybe Kaveh could remodel the bathroom into something bigger, preferably with a weighted door that closes automatically as someone walks in through the frame. His hands were still frozen to the wall and the air, unable to repeat his words or thoughts.
Drops of water were the only noise in the bathroom, as Kaveh still hadn’t responded and Al-Haitham seemed to be amused. He watches as he takes in Kaveh’s frozen form, smirking at his unfortunate state. Then, as if he finally understood that Kaveh was giving him some semblance of privacy, he decided to lean towards Kaveh’s ear, placing a hand to his throat to moderate his volume. “All yours.” And he left, closing the door behind his wet footprints. If he ruined the wood on the floors outside the bathroom Kaveh would chase him down to the death.
He lets out a deep breath, unsure of when he decided it needed to be held in at all, rushing towards the sink to stick his burning face directly under the stream of cool water. Truly, it’s embarrassing for him to be reacting this way. Al-Haitham has the tendency to “forget” Kaveh also lives with him, often sleeping only in underwear or lounging around the house shirtless. The man had no sense of indecency. Even if just his shirt was riding up slightly and Kaveh pointed it out, he would take the whole thing off all together. It was almost laughable how childishly stubborn he could be; getting an inch and taking a mile.
Either way, it’s nothing Kaveh hadn’t seen before. His reaction was truly out of the ordinary, and he feared his roommate would notice. For how much he went on and on about how he was merely a “feeble scholar,” the man certainly would forget the humility just to poke a reaction out of Kaveh. “Eyes up here,” he would say, even if Kaveh was looking in the opposite direction.
After drowning his skin in the water, he decides he has cooled down enough to wash up for the morning. It was a Sunday, which meant he would finally have peace as Al-Haitham was working his long hours during the week. He just had to make it through today.
What Kaveh hated the most about Al-Haitham, other than the fact that he didn’t hate him at all, was that he always knew how to get under the man’s skin.
Kaveh, after finally feeling ready to face the day, enters the kitchen to settle his stomach’s grumbling.
He glanced around cautiously for Al-Haitham, to make sure he at least had some clothes on, and lets himself breathe when he sees that he does.
Kaveh shuffles towards the coffee pot, refusing to feel the shame crawling over his back and shoulders.
“Good morning to you too.”
Kaveh rolls his eyes, pouring the scalding coffee into a cup and drowning his throat immediately.
Al-Haitham’s eyes remain scanning through the words of his book, his legs crossed and empty dishes in front of him on the table. “If you drink that too fast you won’t grow tall and your teeth will turn as yellow as your hair.”
Kaveh ignored the way his eyebrow twitched. “The mere inch of height between us only closes every day.” Kaveh chugs down the rest of his coffee, the temperature swallowing easily due to his habit of drinking it fresh off the burner. “At least the sugar spoon doesn’t hate to see me coming. Milk and sugar and cocoa in coffee is completely unnecessary, and you drink it like a teenager whose parents only recently let them taste such a bitter thing.”
“I wasn’t aware you were allergic to fun.”
“I wasn’t aware you were allergic to wearing clothes.”
He can practically hear Al-Haitham shrug. “One typically gets undressed to bathe.” He says it with a calm Kaveh yearns to feel himself. Like the whole encounter was normal and nothing was wrong.
“Why were you even showering now? It’s the morning.” Kaveh wishes the anxious snip in his voice would disappear and cease to exist. Kaveh wishes HE would disappear and cease to exist. He wills his thumbs to stop twiddling with each other and shoves them into the surprisingly large pockets of his pants.
“Did you not hear me last night? They shut the water off due to some filtering issue.”
Kaveh blinks, unable to remember anything of the previous day other than his lovesick/mushy focused recollection of the afternoon. “Right.”
They sit in tense silence.
“I’m leaving.” Kaveh leaves in a whirlwind, slamming the front door as loud as possible without breaking it clean off the hinges before Al-Haitham could ask where he was going. Not like he needed to ask — there was only one place he went on work-free Sundays.
「’✬,」
“Wow, bummer. Your turn.” Tighnari gestures towards Kaveh’s pathetic rolls and character cards, who are about as dead as Kaveh feels.
Kaveh slams his hand on the table, looking away from the scene in frustration. “What are you not understanding?! This is the most cursed thing to fall upon my tribulous life in so many years! All you have to say to this, as an Amurta scholar with a doctorate degree who deals with ailments on the regular is that? Certainly my condition is to provoke some degree of compassion out of you, my friend. You are ridiculous.”
Tighnari sighs, tugging his ears down as if to muffle incoming noise. “If I have to hear any of this shit any longer I will shove you down my ears to shut you up. Seriously, I cannot withstand any of your bullshit for another second.”
Cyno gestures towards Kaveh’s slammed hand. “Are you ending your round?”
“Oh my Archons! You both must take this affair seriously. I must find a way to solve this before it evolves to a point of no return.”
Tighnari nearly slams his head against the table with the force he brings to his despair. “Oh dear…” Cyno slides his hand underneath where Tighnari’s head threatens to slam against the table again, and Kaveh horribly envies the way they are so simple with each other. Jealousy is not a good look on him.
“Enough with this. Whatever you are about to say, forget it. Lock it in a chest and throw away the key.”
“Kaveh, there is no point of return for you, and surely you have realized this by now. I may not be any Vahumana scholar, but what I’m gathering is something I could’ve told you without your continuous blabbering. Honestly, you talk so much I’m surprised Al-Haitham even bothers to wear his earpieces with you half the time.”
Kaveh stands up with such force he knocks his seat flat against the floor. Tighnari shoots up, surprised his teasing elicited such a response. “You know what? Nothing is even worth peeling past an idea right now. I’m leaving.”
Tighnari screws his brows tight, ears pointing straight on high alert. “Oh, come on. Kaveh I was only teasing you.” The unspoken what is really the problem? hangs in the air like a loose chandelier, ready to crash and shatter itself in millions of pieces.
Cyno taps his hand impatiently against the table — not in disregard to the pressurized atmosphere but in his own way of lightening the mood. “Having nonsensical dreams is nothing to fret about. It means nothing but flashes your brain can comprehend in the most simple way possible.” Cyno’s eyes pierced through Kaveh’s. “Unless, of course, something about the dream is irking you and tugging down your competitiveness. I was looking forward to this game.”
Kaveh sighs despite himself, falling back on his chair once he repositions it at his spot. “Nothing happened in the dream. It’s just strange, is all. I’m not entirely sure how to move forward knowing something so complex will approach me every time I close my eyes.”
Tighnari’s eyes follow as Cyno grabs all the game pieces from the center of the table. “Maybe you should think about what could cause the dream in the first place. There will always be a causation for an occurrence of similar dreams. I fear there is nothing we can tell you that you don’t already know yourself.”
Cyno places the cards in front of their respective owners in three neat decks, his amber eyes flicking between Kaveh and his dealing hands. His mouth wiggles in preparation to say something, but the man looks as though he is in deep thought about what he should say.
Kaveh thinks about the field of flowers, of his running and lying and falling. Of how he knew he had to keep running, but not why or to where. Everything in his past always caught him immediately, squeezing him in their clutches until he finally struggled enough to burst free. He was finally facing everything, and was no longer running away from any of his troubles. Not with alcohol or work or men.
He thinks of how he wanted to lie down, knowing he would not be restrained but at peace. He thinks of how the flowers just wanted to hold him up, not to tie him down.
Something Kaveh fears is only being known through other people. As the General Mahamatra’s friend, as the Grand Sage’s academic rival, as the Traveller’s companion. The last thing he wants is to be tied down to something or someone, and to only be known as an other. He knows he thinks irrationally, since his architecture has already sculpted his renown in front of his very eyes.
He thinks about his true dreams — not fame, not money. None of those things truly matter.
He thinks of the soft embrace of the crystalized red and white flowers, the relief he felt when he knew he didn’t need to run from them anymore.
He knows what he was running away from. There is only one thing left, after all. He had faced the truth of his father, and has finally begun to forgive himself for something he never did. He had gotten to know himself, over his years, and understood that to share his dreams and romantic ideologies with the world was just as important as the knowledge and wisdom the Akademiya preached about.
He was cursed, just like his father. Nothing else mattered, other than his love. Kaveh already knew he was in love with the world around him. But, now, Kaveh finally accepts what his dreams were sourced from.
Cyno and Tighnari’s eyes watch him, trying to desperately display their softness as care and not pity. But they knew he was cursed too.
Just like his father, Kaveh fell in love. He made a single person the orbit of his solar system. It ran in his blood, after all.
「’✬,」
To say the day carries on would be a blessing. It takes Kaveh by the braid and drags him. He eats with Tighnari and Cyno, indulging in whatever sweet travesty Collei attempted for dessert. His mouth could hardly taste it, and everything he thought felt devoid of any colour or flavour.
He feels like someone vacuumed the life out of him, leaving him as a husk. He feels open and exposed, ready to blow away in the wind. He feels exhausted. He yearns for home.
But, to return home means he has to go to sleep in the same bed he did last night, to possibly face what he was no longer running from. To face something and to stop running from it were two separate things; two things in which Kaveh was not ready to experience so quickly in succession.
He could let himself wallow in pity with his friends, who know way too much and are giving him such a wide berth it was as though he formed a shield around him several meters in diameter. Even if he stayed, though, he would be driven to sleep, inevitably forcing himself to dream. He could not afford to dream; it was a price beyond mora — his dignity.
So Kaveh decided on doing the one thing he knew how to do the best.
「’✬,」
He falls on his bed with a soft thump, exhausted but forcing his eyes to remain open. It’s unfortunate, really, that he has no commissions to occupy his mind with. Calculus is much easier than life — at least if it doesn’t have a solution, that is the solution, in some twisted way a Sumerian mathematician crafted centuries ago. While the situation is far from enjoyable, at least being an independent freelance architect meant he wasn’t tied down with commitment nor creativity, both of which he feels limits most scholars.
His return home was quiet, filled with the musings of his own mind. He wishes Al-Haitham went after him; not just to keep him company on his boring journey home but even to just play cards with their friends. Just to be in his presence. He would tolerate Cyno’s ruthless jokes and Tighnari’s blatant honesty,
He yawns, rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes. Falling asleep was Kaveh's release from everything. To know all the terrors his unconscious brain would craft would drift through the Akasha. Never to be seen again. He’ll never get to know what he dreamed about in his sleep. He can’t imagine how it could be worse than what he dreams about when he’s awake.
Now, he knew he would have to return to such a state. He refuses to sleep, and refuses to let his mind replay what he dreams about when his eyes are open.
It was already difficult to face, in a simple encounter in a washroom. He made up his mind, even though it was reckless and unhealthy. There was just no other way around it.
His heart would break the next time he woke up; whether from a dream or nightmare. If it were a dream, then because it was not real. If it were a nightmare, then because it was too real. And so, he decided to avoid sleep altogether.
What to do instead, though? Kaveh looks around his room, eyes landing on blank papers on his desk. Drawing was certainly a way to pass the time.
He moves to his desk, wincing at the screeches as he draws the chair closer. As much as he loves his occupation, drawing structures and buildings was certainly not the only thing he enjoyed bringing to life with a pencil.
A five-pointed flower, shaded as it draws closer to the pistil. The edges droop downwards, as though it were unconsciously drawn to its roots. Scraping for an eraser, he fills the blank spaces with the four cloves of a poppy, dotting the seeds vigorously as though he were on a time crunch. Why was it these two flowers that seemed intertwined with each other in his subconscious? The two are found in much different environments, though both thrived in the light within areas with moderate rainfall. He supposes even through the two contrasting colours, they were much more similar than he thought.
He sketches more, sharpening his charcoal pencil when it dulled and the wood dragged against the paper in a grating, quiet scratch. The entire field as he remembered — at least, the fragments — was in front of him, created by his own hands. It looked soft and complex, the shading of the two flowers looked like a woven blanket.
As he lets his pencil rest, he lets himself sit with the thoughts running through his head. Truly, it wasn’t that difficult to realize what it all meant. It was quite simple; he wanted to embrace the flowers and feel them all over. Not to drown in their intoxicating scent, but to swim in the steady pool of accumulated desire they provided.
He rubs his face, running his fingers in his hair as he does when he feels like a tortured artist. He supposes he is one, given that he is torturing himself, though unwillingly.
If this was what he would have to conquer while awake, it would be much better than the fantasies or the nightmares he would conjure in his rest. The human mind cannot last very long on little sleep, but Kaveh is a scholar. It’s practically second nature! He’s sure he can make it for a long while, letting himself only rest long enough where his brain won’t dive deep into REM sleep, letting his brain act as it does when he is awake. Just a few short naps a week and he will be fine for months, at least.
「’✬,」
On the third day, he snaps.
“Would you stop looking at me like that?”
Al-Haitham scoffs, eyes still shifting around the words of his book. “Unless you’re the book I am currently reading, my eyes are preoccupied with something else at the moment.”
Kaveh throws his hands in a frustrated frenzy. “You know exactly what you did!” He put his palm over the pages, pushing it into Al-Haitham’s lap as he squinted in his face. “Look at me. I am fine. I do not need your superficial concern you use to mask your silent judgements.”
Al-Haitham rolls his eyes, trying to read his book through the gaps in Kaveh's fingers. He knows he can see him in his periphery, but is just trying to get a rise out of him. Unfortunately, it’s working.
“What do you even care, anyways?! I am fine, and I look as much. Quit sparing glances and return to your pitifully boring book about —” Kaveh lifts up the book slightly to peek at the title “— Applications of the Laws of Botanicals in Medicine. Seriously, what a bore! It must surely interest you then, so keep reading!”
Al-Haitham snaps his book shut around Kaveh’s hand with a startling force for one hand. He flips his eyes sharply into Kaveh’s. “That is just what I’m trying to do. One glance of worry should not arouse such a reaction out of you, especially with the way you keep insisting that you are fine. Clearly, you are not. For a man who shines in the heat of attention, you sure are burning up.”
It’s Kaveh’s turn to scoff. “So snappy for a man who constantly insists he is impartial to such a man such as myself. With how you’re acting, it almost seems like you care about me.”
Al-Haitham’s face drops from its slightly bothered scowl to a look Kaveh hardly sees. “Is that truly what you think of me?”
Kaveh swallows, uncomfortable with the dawning hurt on Al-Haitham’s face. “No, it’s just— nevermind.”
Al-Haitham leans back, still maintaining their eye contact. He sighs, as if coming to terms with an internal argument. “You need to rest. If the trouble lies within your mattress, I have no mind sleeping on the couch.”
Kaveh feels his discomfort shimmy down his body at being read as thoroughly as the words squashed underneath his sweaty palm. “Sleep has no use to me. There is nothing in my unconscious state that is of use to me or of concern to you.” As the words leave his mouth, he realizes he proves Al-Haitham’s prior statement; the more he attests, the more he proves.
“Your rummaging in the middle of the night concerns me and distracts me. Resting would certainly help that, at the very least.”
Kaveh blinks, thinking about how that implies Al-Haitham still has his headphones on to listen at night. To hear if he was sleeping or not. Now that he looks closer at him, Kaveh can see the dark circles rubbing under hazel-ringed eyes, mirrors of his own. His lack of sleep does concern him. He watches as his roommate’s jaw slightly shifts, as if to stifle a yawn inside his mouth. Guilt creeps up where his discomfort washes down, sharp and prodding.
“I just don’t understand—“
“Well that’s a first! Has it ever occurred to you that there could be something in this world that doesn’t need to concern you? Why do you care, anyways? It’s not like my lack of sleep should be causing any distress or inconvenience on your end!”
“This entire conversation sparked when you laid your box of matches before my feet. You poured the gasoline and watched it devour it. If you do not wish to continue this conversation, then you should have thought twice before snapping at a mere glance."
“Whatever!” Kaveh huffs, maturely and composed, moving away from the couch.
Al-Haitham reaches an arm out, blocking Kaveh's body from moving. “It concerns me because of the way it consumes you. Let me bear that with you.” His words come out like a whisper, but clear and hard with their solidarity.
Kaveh turns his head away, imagining the softness in the other’s gaze away. “This is my burden to bear. Leave me to die with it.”
Al-Haitham stiffens. “What do you mean by ‘die with it’? Are you insinuating your life is in danger?”
Kaveh throws his arms around him, pushing away Al-Haitham’s feather grip. “No, you idiot! Leave me to be!” He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth.
Al-Haitham’s eyes shoot to the ground, expression pained with a guilt Kaveh hadn’t seen in over a decade. His mouth moves, forming words that fail to speak into existence. The man of many words, rendered speechless by Kaveh. Al-Haitham may know more than 20 scripts and languages, but lacks in the language Kaveh is brokenly fluent in. He fears that even if Al-Haitham understood that the words he lied were to conceal the truth, they still cut into a place where truth and lie pierce with equal strength.
Kaveh turns away, unmoving and undecided on where to go. He truly has nowhere else, does he? There is nowhere else he would even consider building into a home.
“… What will you do when I’m well enough to be on my own?”
Silence follows, and Kaveh wonders if Al-Haitham snuck off to his room. He peers over his shoulder, seeing his hesitant roommate before him.
The quiet buzz of the room elongates to the point where Kaveh wonders if the man even heard him. Before he can force himself propelling towards his inevitable embarrassment, Al-Haitham saves him with three words.
“I don’t know.”
Speechless and thoughtless. For once, he looks sunken in his form, like the feeble scholar he calls himself. He looks shrunken like he was left in the rain and developed a cold, with no nourishment or warmth to aid him towards recovery.
Kaveh turns around fully, to look at the gutted man. “Why?”
A question of genuine confusion, evoked not to provoke rage or argument.
Why wouldn’t Al-Haitham know? It’s a pretty simple answer to give, to say, “I would let you go, since you no longer need my support.” That would have been the truth. In all honesty, Kaveh knows he could’ve moved away months ago. Why not?
Perhaps the answer to Kaveh’s question is indeed uncertainty instead of blunt refusal and animosity. To not know what to do with himself, alone in the solidarity he claims to long for constantly, is what Kaveh needs. “I don’t know,” is Al-Haitham’s way of saying all of his unspoken words in the most simple way possible. The answers to all of Kaveh’s lingering questions.
“Why did you take me in, in the first place?”
“I understand why I’m putting in the effort to mend our broken friendship, but why are you?”
“Can you tell me…?”
…
“I don’t know.”
But Al-Haitham knows. Of course he knows. The man is cursed with knowledge of the world and history and even himself.
Kaveh knows now, too. The answer to all his questions. He looks into his friend’s eyes, his face asking one more question.
“Really?”
He lets their eyes settle into each other, indulging in the final answer he will ever need to hear.
“Yes.”
It’s almost humorous how broken their conversation would be to an outsider. It is certainly laughable, to be a fly on the wall, without any emotional turmoil or inner storms. What a mess, it would buzz. About the structure of the conversation between an architect and a linguist. The structure built by an architect and a conversation drawn by a linguist, all falling apart in the hands of the other.
Kaveh cautiously took a step forwards, feeling the warmth of the setting sun through the half opened curtains, loosely and messily hung through their loops.
Al-Haitham’s lips quirked upwards nervously, and Kaveh finally let himself recognize the expression on his face. It was uncommon, afterall, for him to be looked at with softness instead of the hard look of respect he is more commonly regalled in.
He steps forwards until the few centimeters of height between them nearly disappears in their close proximity. Their breaths share the same circulation; Kaveh’s inhale is Al-Haitham’s exhale. He watches as Al-Haitham’s lips travel downwards; all of Kaveh’s senses heighten just to focus on the riveting sensation running through his veins.
“Oh, fuck it.” He closes his eyes, framing the other’s face with his hands, and planted a kiss completely off center on the man’s lips. He lightly scoffs as he feels Al-Haitham’s laugh against him, peeking his eyes open to reposition them properly. Al-Haitham is still laughing when Kaveh kisses him again. What a wonder it is, for him to devour such a sound.
The kiss was still a mess, but truthfully that was just what they made each other. The both of them may have their faults, but they also had each other.
He feels himself stumble a bit, the force of the kisses increasing. They do some sort of dance, Kaveh’s hands growing desperate as they clutch through Al-Haitham’s hair like a lifeline as their tongues run against each other. They push back against each other, Al-Haitham’s hands mapping out Kaveh’s back through the thin layer of his shirt, eventually growing annoyed at it and surpassing it altogether. His back burns where the man’s hands trace the divots of his spine, and it feels as though he can’t get closer to him.
Al-Haitham’s knee slots itself between Kaveh’s legs, a low hum escaping his mouth at the new sensation. They stand like that, Al-Haitham’s hands beneath his shirt and Kaveh’s hands circulating around his head. Al-Haitham’s mouth is greedy and sloppy, and Kaveh feels a string of saliva move between them as they take short breaths before moving back in. He’s not very good at this, Kaveh realizes. Good.
Kaveh is the first to pull away, holding Al-Haitham’s face delicately between his hands. The man’s eyes seemed glued to Kaveh’s freshly kissed mouth, looking so longingly at him Kaveh felt dumbfounded. He truly didn’t look any different from when they were younger, even right after they met as students in the Akademiya. He was as lovely as he has always been, and it twisted Kaveh’s heart.
Now that he knows, he wonders how he ever missed it. The fondness in his eyes, the slight upturn of his lips when they spoke to each other. He never looks at anyone else the same way. Just him. All yours.
Kaveh drags a hand over his blushed face at the memory. “I’m such an—-“
Al-Haitham cuts him off with a quick peck of his lips. Kaveh smiles through his half-lidded eyes, knowing this is something he would never get used to. He wants to be surprised with it forever.
Kaveh takes the liberty to drag them towards their couch, pushing Al-Haitham down onto it, recupping his face and pressing a kiss back onto his lips. They kiss with fervor, as if to make up for the years they hid from each other in plain sight.
Al-Haitham sighs, sliding his hands around Kaveh’s waist. “I’ve been waiting for this.” He mutters between kisses, his tongue loose and relentless.
Kaveh answers with his eyes, pupils blown wide surrounded by the red tips of his cheekbones. “Mind the teeth, will you?” He smiles, eyeing the hungry way Al-Haitham bares his.
He is sure to show him that the wait was worth it, rolling his eyes when Al-Haitham nearly knocked over their lamp ripping off his shirt. He truly is the same as always.
「’✬,」
After an unnecessarily long shower, the two men crawl under Al-Haitham’s sheets, smiling stupidly into each other’s faces until their smiles become softened with sleep.
Kaveh watches as Al-Haitham falls asleep, with such ease and comfort leaving himself in such a vulnerable state with him.
He brushes silver locks with his callused and ink-stained fingers, not as softly as he wants. But he doesn’t regret a thing. Al-Haitham isn’t fragile, and he isn’t a dream that will float away if Kaveh presses too hard. He will push back with equal force, no matter the effort, in order to hold the man up.
With his fingers slowing, Kaveh lets himself sleep intertwined with his lover, knowing what he would wake up to would be better than any dream could offer or any nightmare would threaten to take away.