Work Text:
Lost in the relentless barrage of revisions demanded by the overwhelming amount of commissions he’d taken on recently, Kaveh barely registered the sound of the key turning in the lock. The clutter of blueprints and design sketches around him only served as reminders of the pressure stacking higher by the day.
“Hey. Are you okay?” Alhaitham’s deep voice cut through Kaveh’s racing thoughts, laced with a hint of unusual tenderness.
Glaring at the page sprawled before him on the divan, Kaveh fought to prevent the growing tide of emotions roiling within him from flooding over. He bit his lip to keep it from trembling as he allowed the blueprint he was working on to flutter to the rug beneath their coffee table.
“Just overwhelmed,” Kaveh eventually managed.
Kaveh averted his eyes in an attempt to disguise his uncharacteristic vulnerability - a side he rarely allowed to be witnessed, even by Alhaitham. Especially by Alhaitham.
Yet as Alhaitham stepped forward, Kaveh’s composure began to fracture.
“Come here,” Alhaitham said softly as he extended a hand toward Kaveh.
The gesture was clear, yet Kaveh remained frozen on the divan. His eyes, red-rimmed and swimming with suppressed emotions, drifted from the floor to Alhaitham’s outstretched hand, then up to his face. Gazing into his piercing azure eyes, Kaveh waited for the insult he was certain was about to fall from Alhaitham’s lips - but none did.
Struggling between pride and the desperate desire to be comforted, Kaveh slowly rose to his feet and came to a stop in front of Alhaitham.
Half-expecting a cruel joke and a swift retreat, Kaveh’s breath hitched when Alhaitham tentatively closed the gap between them, drawing Kaveh into his arms as though he was equally as uncertain as Kaveh was about whether this sort of intimacy could even be allowed between them.
For a heartbeat, Kaveh stiffened, his body trembling slightly. Then, like a dam breaking, he finally allowed himself to collapse into the comforting warmth of Alhaitham’s body that he craved so profoundly, burying his head against his shoulder as the walls of his resolve crumbled.
Kaveh melted into Alhaitham’s embrace as it grew sturdier, the uncertainty in his touch dissolving little by little. Strong arms encircled Kaveh and came to rest on either side of his waist as the tears that Kaveh was trying so desperately to keep in check began to spill down his cheeks.
Alhaitham’s palm slowly slid up to the nape of Kaveh’s neck, tracing featherlight circles with his thumb as he held Kaveh tightly against his chest.
“Just let it out,” Alhaitham whispered, voice surprisingly gentle. “Don’t bottle it up for once.”
It was as though Alhaitham’s words were a passkey to unlocking a long-suppressed floodgate within Kaveh as a torrent of pent-up emotion surged out of him. His body trembled with the force of his sobs, each ragged breath that escaped him echoing loudly in the quiet of their home.
Through it all, though, Alhaitham held him firmly - grip steady as a ship’s mooring in a raging storm, providing Kaveh with a safe harbour to weather his own tempest.
Still in a state of disbelief that Alhaitham hadn’t yet pushed him away, Kaveh’s heart fluttered as the pressure of his broad palms only grew tighter. Alhaitham’s fingers, eternally steady as the Akademiya’s scribe, now trembled slightly as they threaded through Kaveh’s hair, tenderly cradling the back of his head.
“I’m sorry,” Kaveh eventually managed to whisper, voice thick with irrepressible emotion.
He wasn’t sure what exactly he was apologizing for. Their most recent fight? The endless bickering? The falling out that had fractured their relationship years ago? Or perhaps the fact that Kaveh let his guard down and allowed himself such vulnerability in the first place?
But instead of the soft, ambivalent grunt Kaveh was anticipating in response, the tremor in Alhaitham’s fingers betrayed a vulnerability that mirrored Kaveh’s.
“I’m sorry too,” Alhaitham whispered, his deep baritone uneven and far less steady than Kaveh had ever heard it.
The simplistic but profound admissions hung in the air, the weight of the words pressing heavily on Kaveh’s already fragile heart. The confession of such uncharacteristic emotion emboldened Kaveh to lean back and peer up at Alhaitham... and the sight that met him was nothing short of jarring.
Alhaitham’s face was pinched with an expression Kaveh had never seen on his chiseled features - as foreign and striking as it was unmistakable - a mixture of empathy and guilt laced with what looked dangerously close to affection.
Before Kaveh could spend too long analyzing his expression, Alhaitham tugged him back into his arms with renewed certainty.
Alhaitham’s grip was no longer tentative. Now firm, warm, and unyielding, there was a desperation in his embrace: in the way Alhaitham clutched him like he was something precious, in his chin resting atop Kaveh’s head, tucking him firmly into the safe refuge of his neck, and in the tremors of his breath that carried thinly veiled sentiment.
This was no longer a simple comforting embrace; it was a silent, long-overdue plea for forgiveness, for closeness. And despite all the years of strife, anger, and resentment... Kaveh yielded without question.
Wrapping his arms more urgently around Alhaitham’s torso, Kaveh tangled his fingers in the soft fabric of Alhaitham’s shirt and sought solace in his warmth, face buried into his collar. He inhaled the familiar aroma - a comforting blend of the laundry detergent they used and a trace of the simple yet grounding natural scent of Alhaitham that evoked the warmth Kaveh had tried desperately - and unsuccessfully - not to associate with home.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you,” Alhaitham whispered.
For the first time in many, many years, Kaveh finally let himself believe it.