indigently: (003)
𝒦𝒶𝓋𝑒𝒽 🏛️ ([personal profile] indigently) wrote2023-01-23 02:27 pm

𝒪𝓅𝑒𝓃 𝓅𝑜𝓈𝓉 🏛️

OPEN POST
action • text • canon • cross-canon • assumed cr
sapio: (pic#16270845)

[personal profile] sapio 2023-06-30 05:07 pm (UTC)(link)
[At this point, it's just a challenge to make Kaveh come out of the room, manbun and all.]

So it will have to be cleaned later.
haravatits: (pic#16409105)

[personal profile] haravatits 2023-07-02 07:08 am (UTC)(link)
[ in all the possible permutations, of break-ups and falling-ins, of coming togethers and partings, of them being kaveh and alhaitham and then kaveh and alhaitham, two creatures made of the same sinew and bone, chest-to-chest, shoulder-to-shoulder, heart-to-heart, of a thousand unnamed and unvoiced marriages and divorces, as it were, only alhaitham is the position to understand just what that admission takes from kaveh. if you don't want to, kaveh says, carving out immediately the openings of an exit wound in its aftermath. alhaitham, who has never done anything he didn't want to do, merely looks. ]

Why would it be strange to ask it of me? [ alhaitham asks. ] It is merely you, and me.

[ it is merely midnights in alhaitham's much roomier akademiya dormitory after a grueling set of exams, two undergraduate men crammed face-to-face, chest-to-chest squeezed into a bed meant for one. it is merely long days side-by-side in the house of daena, heads bowed over ancient deshretian script and the foundations of sumeran desert housing structures, creating a blueprint that would change sumeru's understanding of that era forever. it is merely humid nights of passing a cheap bottle of wine between them back and forth, drinking each time from the lip as they debated idly the efficacy of self-determination all the way to the pigment mixing techniques of ancient liyuen craftsmen. it is merely, after all, kaveh and alhaitham. who could ever judge what passes between them save for them? who would dare?

in turn, alhaitham shifts. he wipes the seeds into a waiting dish, and passes over a towel so that they can wipe their hands. alhaitham's hand on kaveh's shoulder is warm and sure as he reaches behind him. the large bathrobe had been prepared ahead of time to replace kaveh's sweat-soaked shirt. he eases kaveh into it one arm at a time, before he motions for kaveh to get up. the divan is meant for two. it had always been so. alhaitham draws kaveh up with him onto it with a guiding arm around his waist. the cushions sink beneath their weight in tandem, alhaitham carving out just enough space in the curve of his body for kaveh to rest there against him, one silver spoon against one outlined in gold.

this is a household where there is always a book within reach. alhaitham flicks through one, and shifts just enough so that the shadow of it falls over kaveh's face, obscuring the silver slant of the moonlight.
]

Mind your elbows. I do not intend on rising later bruised like your back.
sapio: (32gqswE)

[personal profile] sapio 2023-07-02 10:47 am (UTC)(link)
Of course, I won't.

[A beat.]

I'm pouring it, and only on top of those two.
sapio: (ATovGdF)

[personal profile] sapio 2023-07-02 02:08 pm (UTC)(link)
[At this point, he's counting seconds. Nine, ten, eleven…

And there he is, in all his self-care glory.

Alhaitham's lip twitches.
] How am I an asshole? I'm merely doing what you told me to do.
sapio: (8SUagw3)

[personal profile] sapio 2023-07-02 05:15 pm (UTC)(link)
[The moment he switches off his headphones, the sounds that the couple is making finally make themselves known and Alhaitham can't help the slight slant of his eyebrows. He was not expecting Cyno to be the one to make more noise, though, objectively speaking, he supposes that Tighnari may enjoy it with those ears of his—

He's withdrawn out of his own observational spree by Kaveh's hand around his wrist and tugging. The world seems to sway a bit as he gets up, his free hand grasping the book he was reading.
]

I thought you had stopped drinking.
sapio: (pic#16270853)

[personal profile] sapio 2023-07-02 09:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Don't forget the bottle, then. [Is all Alhaitham says before he rightens himself up, padding as though lazily into Kaveh's bedroom, sitting on the chair at the corner as he flips the pages to where he last read. ]
haravatits: (pic#16347983)

[personal profile] haravatits 2023-07-04 05:00 am (UTC)(link)
[ kaveh grumbles. in the slant of the moonlight, half-hidden by the shadow cast by his book, alhaitham smiles. it starts, as always, with the curve of his eyes, the gentle lines of which softens the contours of his cheeks, the line of his jaw.

this time, the smile makes it to the corner of his mouth, where it rests much in the way of water along a river's bend, liquid silver in its dance. alhaitham smiles, and if his lips were to skim the crown of kaveh's head - well, surely it is merely the trick of an obscure angle.
]

Was I unclear?

[ the question posed is rhetorical in nature. it refuses any alternative as alhaitham continues, in that self-same tone, punctuated only by the flip of a page from his book. ] You made a decision that those with lesser conviction could not have followed through on, a rarity in a day and age where idealism is merely spoken of rather than the foundation of a school of morality. I commended you for doing as you needed to do.

[ another page. the slide of paper against paper in the hush of the night. ] Tonight, you sat there and had pomegranate, and allowed your nails to be filed. You spoke a desire and allowed it to come to fruition. I commend you for doing as you wanted to do.

[ and then, because he is alhaitham: ] Though I see you still cannot bring yourself to open your mouth to tell me to put down my book. Perhaps this is the limit you've drawn for your desires.
sapio: (pic#16270853)

[personal profile] sapio 2023-07-04 12:17 pm (UTC)(link)
My assumption is that he's doing it for Tighnari. [He replies, finding the page he last read, using, ironically, a pressed leaf as a bookmark for the page itself, lest he loses it again.

He arches an eyebrow, though it's covered by the mass of gray hair falling over his eye.
] That's new, considering you tend to complain about my headphones.
sapio: (R5GSjeh)

[personal profile] sapio 2023-07-05 09:15 am (UTC)(link)
[He reaches for the bottle without thought, though he stares at it for a moment or two as his mind wars against the fuzzy, tipsy part of him that tells him that one more sip isn't going to hurt.

He tips the bottle up, taking a swig. Wiping the corner of his mouth with a thumb and sucking on the pad. Hands the bottle over to Kaveh.
] It was a matter of time. They are, apparently, in the so-called 'Honeymoon phase'.

[A shrug. There's no use crying over traumatized eardrums.]
haravatits: (pic#16347985)

[personal profile] haravatits 2023-07-05 06:29 pm (UTC)(link)
[ if alhaitham is sure that's what kaveh wants, kaveh says. alhaitham thinks of the sea. one could obscure quite a bit beneath the waves. if you stood atop a cliff and threw away everything which plagues you into it, the murk of the churning waves makes short work of the weight you shed. but here is the thing - if a man throws away his sorrows into the sea, he is still left with the sea. kaveh drowns in it. kaveh does not so much hide his sorrows as he hides himself within them. and the sea is deep, and it is dark, and it becomes you.

is it possible to glean what someone wants before they themselves realise it? alhaitham thinks - through careful pacing of a well-worn corridor of logic are you able to arrive at conclusions that others have not. that is the basis of scientific discovery. the problem at hand, then, is ethical in nature. can you attribute a want to someone before they realise it? and is it their want if they cannot claim it, or is it merely a well-meaning omen? tonight, moonlight slants through kaveh's hair. he rests his cheek against alhaitham's weight, and is warm for it. alhaitham thinks - the premise was made without taking into consideration that this is kaveh, and this is alhaitham. in what universe would alhaitham not understand? in what universe can he afford to be blind?

and so the book slips onto the divan. alhaitham's hand lingers, then rests, upon the gold of kaveh's hair.
]

Pleased?
haravatits: (pic#16409105)

[personal profile] haravatits 2023-07-08 10:44 am (UTC)(link)
[ kaveh nods. the motion is that of spider's silk and mulberry petals. the flyaway hairs along kaveh's temple settle along the exposed length of alhaitham's neck. in the slant of the moonlight, the colour seems to dissolve into the spun embroidered floss of a weaver's canvas, a single portmanteau meant to last. alhaitham allows it, the settling of kaveh's weight as his breathing evens. the hum of kaveh's lips begin somewhere in the caverns of kaveh's chest and ends somewhere resonating between the ribcage of alhaitham's - and has that not always been the case? in a dialectic, the two of them persistently fail to achieve synthesis; perhaps once, one of them may have considered that to be flaw more than strength. but alhaitham has always seen it as thus: the stolid orbit of two binary stars, the perpetual moving of a racing benchmark, and above all else, a final end at the denouement of a long, winding road.

has it not always been thus? alhaitham and kaveh.

tonight, alhaitham's hold on kaveh shifts just so, one arm around the thin cross of his waist and the other winding its way to the back of kaveh's neck. alhaitham's fingers are sure as he finds the gnarls of muscle there just where shoulder meets nape. he presses his fingers into where it seems most tense, and begins to tease out the knots one by one.
]

Do I? [ alhaitham breathes out in the way of a sigh. the eddy seems nearly amused for it. ] It is merely the same soap I have used for years.
haravatits: (pic#16516032)

[personal profile] haravatits 2023-07-08 01:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[ i'll remember this, for when the next time you complain about the lack of variety in my soaps and shampoos, alhaitham nearly says. the thought comes fully-formed. it dies in his throat. alhaitham's fingers find purchase in a particularly difficult knot, and kaveh groans. the sound is torn from him in raw strips. it fills the room with a headiness that leaves its reverberations in minute marks. observe: the curve of alhaitham's brow as he digs his thumb in just so, so that he can leverage apart another knot of muscle there. the brimming heat of kaveh's skin is like that of a burning brand's. it is the heat of a little sun; it is the warmth of a curled cat.

the sound becomes him, though alhaitham does not say so.

instead, his grip on kaveh has nary a shift. the press of his hands continue, stolid and patient -
]

So you concede. [ and, perhaps, just a little bit smug. ] That your posture over your drafts is horrendous, and would have even a shrimp feel visible pain should they behold it.

[ because that is, in fact, the argument he's going to drag up over this. ]

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