Chapter Text
The day Alhaitham had taken Kaveh home from the tavern, offered him refuge and shelter, he had noticed a change in the man he once knew.
Kaveh was cold. Not just metaphorically - while their relationship had cooled, the two each becoming more calloused with age, that was to be expected after several years spent apart. Touch did not come easy, and conversation did not flow smooth as a river. Kaveh had changed, most certainly, which was not shocking.
No, what was shocking was that Kaveh was cold to the touch.
When Alhaitham had spotted that mane of golden hair sprawled over the counter of Lambad’s bar, he had been struck with want. A want to reach out, to grasp Kaveh’s light and bring it to his chest, keep it safe there. He had moved as if on autopilot, sliding into the seat next time him.
“How has realizing your ideals gone for you?”
Kaveh had looked at him then, and the ruby red of his eyes was the same as when they were students, glistening with emotion untold, burden carried. He had spilled his guts to Alhaitham there, stories of castles built and debt gained, and Alhaitham listened with rapt attention. He sat silent, until Kaveh had finished, and proceeded to offer him a key to his house.
“Stay with me,” he said. “Just until you get back on your feet.”
When Kaveh had met him with a skeptical look, Alhaitham had sighed.
“We can discuss rent when you’re sober.”
That is when Kaveh had taken the key from his hands with thanks spoken quiet.
His hands were freezing.
Alhaitham had written it off - after all, there were more pressing matters at hand, such as getting Kaveh home, into fresh clothes and a warm bed. Kaveh had always run cold, therefore this was not all that unusual. This was not enough to cause concern, not when he had just gotten him back after spending countless, agonizing years apart. This is not the same Kaveh he knew all those years ago that he now helps up from his bar stool. No, this is a matured, grown man, who has seen things Alhaitham would never have the misfortune of knowing. While this new Kaveh he will get to know is cold against his skin as they stumble towards Alhaitham’s house, their renovated research centre, he is still, at his core, Kaveh. Kaveh who gives too much and loves too fiercely.
So Alhaitham helped him walk with no further question, shouldered the weight of the body Kaveh no longer wished to carry.
Once home, he sat Kaveh on the couch and plied him with water. When Kaveh had asked quietly, too quietly for a man of passion such as him, for a blanket, Alhaitham had draped one across his shoulders without complaint.
Kaveh sobered as he drank, quiet between gulps of water. Alhaitham sat beside him on the couch, close enough to touch, but far enough away that Kaveh wouldn’t be cornered, trapped. He didn’t speak, either. Instead, he waited patiently, until Kaveh finished his drink, set the empty glass on the coffee table, and scooted closer to Alhaitham on the couch. He laid against his side, resting his head on Alhaitham’s shoulder. He sighed.
And it came easy, sleep, as it washed over the two reunited. Easy as it had been when they were simply children in the Akademiya. They needed not speak - there would be plenty of time for that in the morning.
When the sun rose the next morning, Alhaitham woke with a crick in his neck and his shoulder cold where Kaveh’s head had rested. Now, his head rested on the arm on the other end of the couch. Kaveh’s legs were tucked to his chest under the thin blanket that covered him, his body small. Alhaitham watched him, the rise and fall of his chest, until the thought struck him that he would have no explanation for his behaviour if he were caught. He tore his eyes away and rose from the couch with a stretch, and set to making breakfast.
Though they may have been apart for years, Alhaitham still knew Kaveh. After all, they had been best friends. So with reluctant movements, he began to assemble a dish he hoped and prayed Kaveh still enjoyed - Fonatanian crepes. While Kaveh himself had grown up in Sumeru, Alhaitham was distantly aware of his mother’s lineage in Fontaine, and can still recall Kaveh teaching him how to make crepes back in the Akademiya days. Frequently, they would sneak into the dormitory kitchen past dark, where Kaveh would hover over his shoulder as he made some mistake or another.
Kaveh would click his tongue and scold Alhaitham, taking the spatula out of his hand and pushing him from the stovetop. “No, this is all wrong,” he would say, “The batter is much too thick. How many times have I showed you this?”
And Alhaitham would let him. This fiery version of Kaveh was what he much preferred to the almost zombie-like person he could become when work started to pile up. His incessant noise had become comforting, and if it took ruining a few precious crepes to draw that side of him out, well, he’d just have to be okay with that.
Now, he makes the crepes too thick on purpose, but Kaveh doesn’t even bat an eye when he calls him to the table for breakfast. His eyes glisten at the mountain of berries and cream piled on top of the crepes. He eats them like a man starved, and drinks the coffee Alhaitham set before him like its precious liquid gold, savouring every sip. He doesn’t say anything about the frankly poor quality of the food before him, just eats and eats until his plate is practically licked clean. Alhaitham eyes him over the rim of his own mug of coffee.
“I haven’t had a meal that good in months,” Kaveh says. He’s practically buzzing, eyes bright like they hadn’t been the night before. “Who knew you were such a good chef?”
“They weren’t too thick?” Alhaitham asks.
“No,” Kaveh smiles at him, and it’s genuine. In his eyes it is obvious, clear to Alhaitham that he hadn’t even noticed, or if he did, for once, did not care. “They were just right.”
With breakfast out of the way, Alhaitham allows Kaveh to drag him to the bazaar to get a mattress and bed frame so he isn’t confined to the couch forever. Typically, Alhaitham’s trips are short and sweet - he grabs what he needs, and leaves. With Kaveh however, the trip is anything but short. Everyone knows him, and everyone has a special discount for him. First, it’s the auntie selling fruit, and then it’s the man selling dairy goods, and then it’s the little girl in charge of the candy stand. They all stop him, try to persuade him to buy their goods, and ply him with questions he answers with too much awkwardness to be genuine. By the end of their trip, new bedding secured and to delivered later that day, Kaveh’s shoulders are sagging, and his eyes are half-lidded.
“Sorry,” He says, “I get tired more easily these days.”
The Kaveh he knew in school would’ve never apologized, especially not for something so normal, human, as being tired.
This new Kaveh, he was coming to realize, had been through something Alhaitham was not privy to the details of just yet. Perhaps he would share at some point, when he had settled in further, but for now, Alhaitham just buys him a coffee to-go from Puspa Cafe, hoping to stave off the sleep as long as possible. He needed someone to help him build the bed frame, after all.
After arriving home and building Kaveh’s new bed, he immediately throws himself over the surface of it, to Alhaitham’s amusement. The sigh that escape’s Kaveh’s lips is long, relieved, as his body sags and forms to the shape of the mattress. “So soft…” he mumbles. His eyes are shut, when Alhaitham looks a little closer, and whether or not he’s trying to, he’s obviously drifting off to sleep. Alhaitham lets him.
While Kaveh sleeps, Alhaitham makes them lunch. He prattles around the kitchen, and he notes, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he could get used to this, feeling like a housewife. He had missed Kaveh enough over the years that these simple, domestic tasks he normally wouldn’t bother doing for himself don’t feel so punishing. Instead, he feels good, feels useful.
With food in hand, he goes to wake Kaveh, knocking lightly on the open door. Kaveh doesn’t stir - in fact, soft snores fall from his lips rhythmically. With a sigh, Alhaitham pushed his way through the cracked door to shake Kaveh awake himself. However, upon closer inspection, his new housemate is shivering, and almost violently at that. The bed is still bare, no blanket in sight for Kaveh to have curled up with, so here he lay shrivelled up in a ball, keeping himself warm with only his body heat. Alhaitham could have sworn he had turned the heat on before they had left that morning, but perhaps he was mistaken - Kaveh was obviously freezing.
Alhaitham shakes him, and Kaveh jumps awake. He melts back into the mattress almost instantly. “Oh, it’s just you.”
“Just me,” Alhaitham repeats, a hint of a smile on his lips. “I brought food. Do you want tea?”
Kaveh shakes his head, rising to his feet with a stretch. “I can make it myself. Do you want a cup?”
“Sure,” Alhaitham nods.
Quietly, the image of Kaveh shivering in his sleep imbeds itself in Alhaitham’s brain.
Alhaitham’s house, once quiet in its solitude, begins to brighten over the days as Kaveh gets comfortable. Slowly the tables fill with blueprints and drafts of his newest projects, and the cupboards become stocked with the fancy Mondstadtian wine Kaveh likes to drink. The emptiness that once plagued Alhaitham’s halls is now gone, filled instead with a bright light, the kind he hadn’t realized he had missed.
He had been too caught up in the pain of their friendship-ending fight that he hadn’t even had time to truly realize how quiet their once shared house had become. The day Kaveh left their shared home all those years ago, Alhaitham had filled his time with other things. Reading, mostly. He had gone about his mundane life as if nothing had changed, thought the moment Kaveh had walked away from him, he knew his life had changed for good.
Well.
Obviously, not for good, because here Kaveh was, back in his house where he belonged. In fact, Kaveh was in his doorway now, though why, Alhaitham did not know. It was the dead of night, the rain outside pattering against the window rhythmically, Kaveh backlit only by the dim light on in the hallway. His knock had come delayed, after Alhaitham had woken due to the prickling feeling of eyes upon him.
Rubbing his eyes, he sits up in bed, sheets pooling around his waist. “Kaveh,” called quietly.
Kaveh stands in the open doorframe, sleepshirt swallowing him. His throat clicks, and he opens his mouth just to close it again. He rubs his arm awkwardly. Alhaitham does not speak, just waits patiently, until the seconds pass and Kaveh seems to muster up to courage to reply. “I’m cold,” he says.
“You’re cold?” Alhaitham repeats. His eyes narrow.
“I’m cold,” Kaveh says again, looking directly into Alhaitham’s eyes. “I’ve been so cold, Alhaitham. I can’t sleep.”
Alhaitham considers, for a moment, how to reply to this. He’s never had to do this before, choose his words carefully, think through his next response. The air has never felt so fragile. Eventually, he settles upon saying “So that’s why we’ve been running out of coffee so quickly?”
Now Kaveh straightens, perking up. His eyes blaze, and he scoffs. “Now you know damn well that was not just my doing.”
Alhaitham smirks. “I seem to recall some awfully late nights you’ve spent hunched over your desk, Senior. One can only assume you’d power through those with caffeine.”
“Alhaitham,” comes Kaveh’s exasperated reply, but a smile is threatening his face.
Alhaitham, in lieu of responding verbally, lifts the corner of his duvet. Kaveh takes the signal for what it is and quickly makes himself comfortable in Alhaitham’s bed. They face each other, close enough to touch. But Alhaitham doesn’t. He wants to, but he doesn’t.
“Hi,” Kaveh whispers.
“Hi,” Alhaitham replies, equally as quiet. The last time they had shared a bed like this, they had been students, young and dumb. “Warmer?”
“So warm,” Kaveh smiles.
“Good.”
“Alhaitham,” Kaveh says. Alhaitham searches his eyes, and finds nothing he can decipher. But Kaveh reaches for his hand under the sheets, covers it with both of his own, and Alhaitham lets him. “Alhaitham,”
“Yes, Kaveh?”
“Thank you.”
“What for? I don’t recall doing anything worth thanks.” His voice remains low, almost rumbling in the dark of his room.
“Quit being a smartass,” Kaveh says, and squeezes his hands. Alhaitham lets him keep speaking, does not dare interrupt when he feels Kaveh about to divulge something big. “Just - thank you. Okay? Thank you.”
He takes a deep breath then, fidgeting with Alhaitham’s fingers. Alhaitham continues to wait.
“I was homeless, Alhaitham.” Alhaitham stifles the wounded noise that threatens to break free from his chest as Kaveh continues to speak. “I was living on the streets for months. I slept on the concrete. Lambad offered to let me sleep at a booth in the tavern in exchange for work. That’s where I was sleeping until you found me.”
“Kaveh,” Soft, too soft. He wants to reach out and touch his face, smooth the worried wrinkle that has formed between his brows. But he doesn’t. He just lets Kaveh say what he needs to say.
“The rain tonight… it just brought me back. I just needed to not be alone. So, thank you.”
Alhaitham doesn’t have a response to that. He doesn’t say I’d do anything for you or whatever makes you happy like he wants to. No, he just removes his hand from Kaveh’s, and draws his head to his chest. If Kaveh is cold, chronically so, Alhaitham will warm him. Kaveh has always kindled the fire within him, after all, so it is only fair he reaps the benefits. Kaveh slots against him like a puzzle piece clicking into place, and Alhaitham relishes the warm air that puffs over his skin. He twines a leg with Kaveh’s, half expecting a kick in response (for if they were still students, that would have been the case), but Kaveh just allows himself to be held.
It should be weird, and uncomfortable, but Alhaitham’s bed has never felt warmer, with Kaveh pressed against him. It feels right, in a way that it shouldn’t considering the years they spent apart, but it just does. And Alhaitham, who had always been okay being a loner, was suddenly aware that now that he has Kaveh here, he wants him here forever. He does not want to let go.
He had always thought of himself as cold and calloused, the lake of his heart freezing to the touch, but it’s boiling over, now. It should have been obvious the moment he offered the spare key to his house to Kaveh - he loves Kaveh. And isn’t that disgusting? To love someone for so long, unconditionally, to the point that you would do anything for them. To the point that Alhaitham would open his home and his arms to Kaveh.
He is sure Kaveh knows it, and is almost certain the feeling is reciprocated, but they have never spoken upon it. It must he obvious in the way he always brews a second cup of coffee in the mornings, in the way he will rescue Kaveh from the bottom of the bottle, in the way he will let Kaveh into his bed and hold him until the memory of sleeping on concrete while the rain pours down dissipates. Surely, this is the beginning of a mutual understanding of something bigger.
Kusanali herself must have programmed something awful into his code, because Alhaitham cannot help but love this man like his life depends on it. It certainly feels like it does, especially when Kaveh whispers another “thank you” into his chest.
“Anything to keep you warm,” is Alhaitham’s near immediate reply. Kaveh huffs a laugh that tickles his skin, and when his breaths even out, Alhaitham lets himself fall back into slumber too.
He doesn’t realize he’s asleep until he’s waking to the feeling of a body wiggling under his own. With a groan, he stretches and opens his eyes, blinking away the sleep that lingers there. Sun rays shine in through the gaps in his curtains, and they illuminate the golden blond of Kaveh’s hair, light up his carmine eyes.
“Did I wake you?” Kaveh asks. Alhaitham blinks at him, before burrowing himself back into the sheets. Kaveh pinches him in the side, laughing softly in the morning light when Alhaitham screws up his eyes. “Hey. Wake up.”
“It’s too early,” he complains, relishing the huff that draws from Kaveh. He cracks an eye open to be met with a blinding smile.
“Don’t be a brat,” comes the response. Alhaitham replies only by stretching over and pressing his lips gently to the soft skin of Kaveh’s forehead. The skin underneath grows warm when he pulls away and rests his own forehead in the place his lips has just touched. “Who knew you could be so sweet in the mornings?”
“I’m always sweet.”
“That’s a stretch,” Kaveh says, but he finds Alhaitham’s hand again under the covers and holds it tenderly between their two bodies, warm in the shared heat. “We’ll have to get up at some point, you know.”
“Just five more minutes.”
“Ugh,” comes Kaveh’s response. “But I want a coffee.”
“I’ll make you a coffee in five minutes,” Alhaitham mumbles into the crown of Kaveh’s head.
But Kaveh disregards him and rises from the bed, his feet padding softly out of the room, so Alhaitham has no choice but to get up himself and follow him to the kitchen, where he’s already started brewing a press of coffee. The aroma of ground coffee beans is a pleasant hit in the haziness of the sleep that sticks to him. He leans against the entryway and watches as Kaveh tinkers around, his hair mussed and sticking every which way. Alhaitham thinks he looks beautiful like this, carefree and comfortable in a way Alhaitham wasn’t sure he would see again.
And it feels right when Kaveh presses a warm mug into his hands, coffee spiced just right with cinnamon that way he likes it, and leans up on his tippy toes to press a soft kiss to Alhaitham’s lips. It’s not shocking, and it doesn’t feel like fireworks like how they describe it in the romance novels he so seldom reads.
No, it feels familiar, like a warm bed in the middle of a rainstorm.