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𝒪𝓅𝑒𝓃 𝓅𝑜𝓈𝓉 🏛️

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[ kaveh thinks so audibly that his thoughts manifest as a third entity in this room. because those that are named hold no power over you, alhaitham names it: the entity is named grief. the uncovering of sachin's ploy is a single step towards closure. the disclosure to kaveh had been for the sole sake of binding a book shut with string dyed in blood - the final chapter laid to rest. the thing about the ending of a story is that it does not address the reader who must live with it. kaveh leans forward at alhaithiam's behest, and alhaitham reads the lines of tension in his body that have nothing to do with pain and discomfort. he reads grief.

a diadem on the rainforest floor. a smirk on the fading lips of a long-dead ghost.

another ghost, haunting the annals of kaveh's memory, a force unto itself. alhaitham does not remember his own father. even if he did, he is not under any illusion that the nonexistence well of his sympathy would allow him to relate. but alhaitham, too, knows loss. the draw of towel over kaveh's wounds elicits the faint squeeze of kaveh's eyes. alhaitham, too, reads this without needing to see it. it is plain in the shifting of the contours of kaveh's cheeks; it is plain in the tension of his body. this is a language that alhaitham has gained fluency in over time. wounds washed, he puts aside the towel, letting blood diffuse into the water basin. alhaitham take tweezers from the kit. he leans in.

apropos of nothing, this is what he says: ]

Our inkwells run low.

[ Alhaitham knows. Of course he does. He's been able to see through Kaveh since they were students, calculating and classifying flaws in the same way he now does the blonde's injuries. The grief is his burden to carry, a ghost that has walked with him for nigh on two decades now, a cold hand that catches his wrist and holds him back whenever he allows himself too great a happiness. It guides him in everything he does, his own invisible horror— and to his eternal consternation, Alhaitham can see it.

It's a small mercy that he says nothing about it as he cleans, leaving Kaveh to sit in tense silence as he tries to hold back tears desperate to fall. Twenty-four hours before this very moment, Kaveh was stood in the same room as he is now, talking— Alhaitham is incapable of being nice, he said, but this moment proves such a statement to be categorically untrue. Alhaitham could, after all, be reminding him of the selfsame flaws that have landed him in such a position to begin with.

Instead— Lord Kusanali bless him— he comments on their inkwells.

For a moment, Kaveh is just tired enough to wonder if his roommate's speech is euphemistic. It has, after all, been a long few days. One is physically and emotionally wounded, the other no doubt tired from the time and energy put into something he wouldn't usually do— and for another's benefit at that. But reason sees him through in the next moment; Alhaitham is nothing but logical, and while a scholar of words he may be, he always speaks plainly, always says what he means.

So Kaveh nods, weary crimson eyes creaking open a sliver. ]

Mm. I'll go to the bazaar tomorrow.

[ But the thought is in his mind now, one that won't leave quite well enough alone, and after a moment the sliver closes once more, fingers pressing white-knuckled into his knee. ]

...I'm tired, Alhaitham.

[ stone by stone, alhaitham builds a mountain from kaveh's wounds. the little pebble pile takes up less than a few centimeters of space on the low dining table. the human body, however, was not designed to accommodate even that many little stones. kaveh nods, and alhaitham reads into the motion the future: the bazaar tomorrow, kaveh spending money on trivial little trinkets of art, updates on the latest gossip on treasures street, a small waiting line of people explaining the myriad of ways kaveh should have kept his hard-earned fortune, a handful of keychains in exchange for mora meant to feed orphans. what it really means: a distraction. their inkwells will fill. the hollowness in kaveh will fill. that does not mean, however, that if given the same circumstances, kaveh would not choose the same things over again. it does not mean that alhaitham's hands stop.

next, the antiseptic. the cork on the little, colourless vial is popped. the scent of the bimarstan wafts in proximity. kaveh presses his fingers into his knee. his knuckles are the colour of a small, bright-hot star. alhaitham replaces the tweezers for another pair. ]

Were you expecting not to be? [ is alhaitham's rhetorical question. it addresses both: body, and spirit. the trials and tribulations of being dragged across a beaten rainforest path versus the mental fortitude it had taken to debate the ghost of a madman. but what alhaitham says is thus: ] Do you regret the decisions you have made?

[ and then, because this is alhaitham, he adds, in that selfsame tone: ] Cotton pads. Two of them.

[ He's quick to shake his head. Of course that's not what he thought. From the moment he chose to enter, he knew the championship would be difficult— not only physically, but for the emotions it represented, the guilt and grief wrapped up in the package of his history. Win or lose, Kaveh was destined to come out of the competition hurting:

defeat, the crushing blow to his ego and the pain of failing to set things right after so many years;
victory, stained and tarnished by long lost love, by the knowledge that the past can't be fixed by a dream, no matter how many tears he might shed;
a hollow where his heart should be, either way.

It's just that Kaveh hoped, thought, believed with all his heart that he would at least have the tournament winnings to soothe the worst of it, the first ingredient of the panacea he's sought since he was merely a child. He was not expecting the headache from a voice pressing unbidden into his mind. The anger and helplessness borne of the knowledge of what truly befell his father. The depraved morality of a man so broken even he couldn't bring himself to agree. And so with his winnings signed over and the celebratory dinner done, the aching hollow is back once more—

Does he regret? No; not even for an instant. But the tears prickle at the corners of his eyes nevertheless, throat catching on so many words yet to be spoken. ]

No. I don't. I did what had to be done. [ Fingers unfurl from the tight press into his knee, reaching to take and give the cotton pads for which Alhaitham asks; the tremble that passes through him is evident in the movement, a hitched breath in place of a halted sob. ] I just... didn't expect it to be quite this hard.

[ The words aren't right, but for now they'll have to suffice. He falls silent, bracing himself for the inevitable stinging kiss of antiseptic against his wounds. ]

Edited (eventually I will stop editing minor things and destroying your inbox (I'm sorry)) 2023-05-22 15:55 (UTC)

[ kaveh's head shakes. the world from kaveh's viewpoint must blur. perspective, alhaitham thinks. it is what it all boils down to. it takes a certain kind of perspective to look at the culmination of a lifetime's terrible luck and choose to draw lots. it takes a certain kind of perspective to look at the vast fortune of a madman and choose principle over self-liberation. it takes a certain kind of perspective to choose, again and again, that which sacrifices only the self, and then wonder at the trail of blood. there had been a joint project, once. a group of like-minded scholars with pinpoint alacrity, moving as one towards the knowledge buried and still-dreaming beneath golden sands. there had been a falling out, once. a splintering of esteem and need as the gulf between hard work and talent outstripped endurance. but it had been kaveh who had given himself away, piece by piece, until there had been so little left. by the end of things, there had been so little left.

perhaps, that day, only one person had learned.

today, alhaitham takes the cotton swabs from kaveh. his fingers carve out space between theirs like low-skimming asymptotes. kaveh's body heat lingers within the swabs, like a memory. alhaitham's tweezers dip each one into the little makeshift container of antiseptic. the colourless liquid permeates. the memory of warmth exchanges itself with the memory of something that aches, long and slow. alhaitham draws each cotton swab over kaveh's wounds with precision. it will not help, not with the sting, not with the rawness of an open wound made bare and barer still. it is, however, what must be done. all things that are hard are like this.

into the hush, with quiet tones measured not for gentleness, but for words that balance truth, and authenticity, and manner: ]

If you were looking for words of comfort, you would not be speaking of this to me.

[ if kaveh had ever sought words of conform for the third man in the room, he would not speak of them to a man never known to comfort. kaveh would not choose alhaitham. that is, if kaveh were to speak of them at all. one does not seek comfort for what a man thinks he deserves. kaveh -

well.

the next words come slow - and as with all things kaveh, half-exasperated, half-frustrated, half-fond. ]

You never change. They call me the lunatic, but I am not the one searching the range of paths before me, and choosing to walk the most difficult one time and time again.

[ The sting of medicine serves as a physical translation of the incisive words that speak to feelings Kaveh would rather hide. Despite this, he welcomes it, distraction that it is from the blurring sheen of wet glossing over his eyes, the aching vacancy where his heart drums to the tempo of years-old pain. Perhaps an excuse, even, if he's questioned about the glittering droplets that slip free when his eyes closed. It hurts, that's all, he can say. Alhaitham won't believe him, of course, but such a fact is apparently inevitable in the eyes of the gods, who have seen to it that the other man possesses somehow an almost-encyclopedic knowledge of Kaveh's heart.

Almost, because by some small mercy, he has been seemingly unable to ascertain the truth of Kaveh's greatest secret of all: his own place in it.

And usually, Alhaitham's appraisal of the situation would be correct; usually, Kaveh would refuse to seek comfort in the words of someone who offers only caustic honesty; usually, Kaveh would believe he deserves no comfort at all. But the weariness has settled into his bones, mental and physical exhaustion holding brain and body hostage, and the dark night of his grief seems even longer still in the face of knowledge found anew. Yet overlapping that is the knowledge that his roommate took time out of a schedule usually so selfishly guarded, sought answers for his benefit and his alone—

Alhaitham may have no words of comfort for him, but he's somehow become Kaveh's soft landing nonetheless. Contrary to every expectation the architect could ever have held, the other has become the closest thing to "home" he's had in years; the only thing left waiting for him as pieces of himself have, over the years, been chiseled off and given away.

He wants to tell Alhaitham all of this, but the words feel caught in his throat. ]

That's not fair, [ is what he says instead. ] I'm not choosing the most difficult path. I know it seems that way to you, but— [ But such a topic is one on which they have never, can never, see eye to eye. Kaveh sighs, shakes his head. ]

Just this once, will you not argue with me about this?

[ the wounds sting. kaveh cries. the two things are not mutually correlated, nor mutually exclusive. nowhere in this world is there a separation so clear and clear cut. the act of knowing someone is messy; the act of taking them apart, too, must be so, even if it's oneself. that kaveh can use his wounds to hide the stinging of his wounds is one perspective. it is most likely true. but another perspective is thus: that kaveh can only allow himself to cry because of the stinging of his wounds. these, too, are not mutually exclusive. what alhaitham sees is thus: that grief and guilt have bitten each other in the throat, and have become impossible to untangle from one another. it is not the first time alhaitham has made this observation. the first time had been kaveh, still clad in his akademiya-issued kshahrewar whites, hands clutched around a rejected blueprint as a herbad denounced the integrity of his artistic creation. your mother had been better. be better. alhaitham had watched as kaveh swallowed it down, the anger, the fury, the pride, the grief, the guilt.

that day, kaveh had bled. the wounds were not visceral; the wounds were no less shallow. another truth: that kaveh can cry because his wounds sting does not mean, however, that alhaitham is blind. he sees the tears not in the wet trails of it brimming against the red of kaveh's bleeding eyes. he sees it in the hunch of his shoulders, in the set of his neck, in the bow of his head and the trembling of his arms. in no universe would alhaitham not see. tears are not the only evidence of their shedding. alhaitham sees this too: words caught in the net of kaveh's throat, and die. kaveh swallows them whole.

kaveh, who is so possessive of his vulnerability, his supposed sin of being made of something human and soft. alhaitham, who watches. ]

Fine. [ alhaitham says. the word comes as his tweezers lift. the last of the wound is clean. he sets his implements down. the gauze comes to his fingertips. his words follow: ] Speak, then. You assert that you do not regret the deed, and you see it as something that must be done.

[ he applies the first of the gauze. alhaitham's fingers are swift and sure. ] Was it the right thing to do? Begin there.

[ Kaveh's tears are, it could be said, a fact of life, a reflection of Alhaitham's stoicism in much the same way that his hair is gold to the other's silver, that the decorations back then on their Akademiya robes were Kshahrewar white and Haravatat black. As they always have, the pieces that make up the whole of their personalities are parallel in abstract; they move eternally in the same direction, never pulling closer together, never pushing further apart.

(Kaveh has sought to close it many times before, but their dichotomy is too rigid, their personalities too stubborn—

One thing, at least, that they have in common.)

At any other time, Kaveh's answer might be one borne of anger. Even in this moment, he almost allows himself to fall prey to old habits, a flickering heat sparking to life in response to a question Alhaitham surely knows has to irritate. It is however a fervor pressed into submission by sheer will, cooled by the sure press of gauze at his back. His roommate may lack— to a startling degree— a proper sense of decorum, but he is wise beyond his years, and his questions framed around a singular reason— in this case, likely the determination to see Kaveh sort through his feelings on the topic at hand.

An honest question deserves an honest answer.

The blonde sighs once more. ]

It was the right thing to do, [ he says, and he means it in spite of the waver in his voice. ]

From the moment I picked that diadem up, Sachin was in my head. He wouldn't stop, he wanted— [ His eyes are burning. He squeezes them shut, threads his fingers tighter into the material of his leggings. ] ...He was probably in my father's too, huh. [ A whisper of air sighs across his lips. ] That only makes me all the more confident about my choice. Sachin's research, his methods— how many more people would he have destroyed in trying to find his answers? I know the choice I made is an arrogant one, but... it was also the right one. I would do it again, Alhaitham, if I had to.

[ Anything, he thinks, to prevent others from experiencing the pain visited on his family. ]

[ kaveh speaks. the sigh that carves through him hollows him. the interdarshan competition has hollowed him. this, alhaitham can see, without ever laying eyes on kaveh's expression. the gauze goes around and around. he pulls it firmly against kaveh's skin, winding it around his chest in even, careful loops. the gauze begins to recreate the surface of kaveh's skin. slowly, the angry red lines of half-tended wounds begin to disappear beneath the snow-white of its surface.

alhaitham recalls a thought. kaveh, amongst the carved statues of masters lining the walls of the kshahrewar hall, each marbled body forever suspended in the dance of ordinary existence. alhaitham remembers thinking thus: that kaveh seems as if one with the petrified storytellers in eternal narration, that their bodies, carefully sanded of blemish and fault is that of the light that surrounds the heart of the kshahrewar. that looking at the display, one forgets that stone, too, can be shattered.

kintsugi. an artform from inazuma that involves shattering a piece of pottery, and then slowly, painstakingly piecing it back together. the fragmented pathways are filled in with gold. one forgets that the singular act of creation is a traumatic one. ]

Putting aside all reason and logic, if these choices you've made were the right ones to make, why do you sit and allow them to haunt you? [ alhaitham carefully brushes the flaxen aureate strands from kaveh's back. he pulls the bandaging just a little tighter. arrogant, and willful, and illogical - but kaveh. it has always been kaveh. the quiet of his voice seeps into the hush. ] Why is your head bent like some criminal, burdened and guilted by the presence of your own shadow?

[ It's easier to listen, when to speak is to fight against the tears, to hold them back as if somehow his doing so means that Alhaitham won't know. Never mind that the other knows him better almost than he knows himself, knows without seeing the damage the past few days have done to his soul. For where can one see oneself laid barer than in the mirror's reflection? Kaveh is broken; in the looking-glass, Alhaitham sees.

Of course, if he knew the other's thoughts had wandered to the topic of kintsugi, of all things, he'd be beyond surprised. Not least because he wouldn't have expected such a beautiful form of art to be present at all in his roommate's cognition, let alone at its forefront. Not most because more than twenty years later, Kaveh is so busy picking up the pieces of himself that he has not once stopped to consider how the gold has shaped and changed him, poured between his fragments as it has been over the years, both by himself and by others.

At the very least, in Alhaitham's eyes, the delicate gold threads that hold him together seem to be not something of beauty— but something to criticize. Kaveh sighs as fingers brush his hair aside, winces at the tighter pull on the bandaging, willfully lifts his head in response to the questioning.

But of course he doesn't understand it. Why would he, when he never has before now?

A diadem on the rainforest floor— ]

What I'm feeling right now has nothing to do with my actions. This isn't guilt— [ an addendum: ] not about breaking the diadem, at least. I made my choice for a reason. I'll stick by it. But...

[ But it all comes back to that one same thing: his father's smile as he walked out the door, the last one Kaveh ever remembers him wearing, a laugh and a promise on his lips. He would return victorious, and Kaveh would be king for a day. A promise swallowed in the end by a pit of sand.

—a smirk on the fading lips of a long-dead ghost. ]

I want to blame him. [ His voice is hoarse, his hand lifting to cover a mouth whose lips can't seem to stop trembling. ] But I can't. No matter what happened in the middle, it still started with me.

[ kaveh speaks. alhaitham listens as if at the end of a long tunnel. beneath his fingers, kaveh is here. in his mind, kaveh is somewhere else. he is back in the desert, where quicksand and sinkholes lurk beneath the slumber of golden sands. he is back in the rainforest, where a diadem sits on the rainforest floor. he is back in his mother's house, a child at the door, waiting for a father who will never come home. kaveh is here. he is also not here. in no universe can kaveh go where alhaitham cannot follow. that does not promise alhaitham the ability to reach.

the gauze continues. alhaitham's fingers continue. the final slip of gauze is tucked in. the medical tape seals the loop. alhaitham's hands clinical run over the white of the bandaging. he feels for gaps and looseness of gauze, and then, deeming his handiwork adequate, reaches around kaveh for bandaids. it takes him a moment to speak. when he does, it's with the deliberation of a man feeling the shape of words upon his tongue, phoneme by phoneme, as thought is etched into sound, sound takes on form and form becomes meaning. ]

I did not tell you what I did so that you can pass on your blame. [ alhaitham states this with the quiet conviction of a man who knows the sun and the stars and the measure of a man who has been compared, at some point in time or another, to both. ] No evidence in the world will shift the path chosen by your heart. We have argued for years. Every permutation of that argument has passed between us, through you. Little enough will convince you to do so. This, I have learned. It has little to do with who is right, or wrong. It has everything to do with who you are.

[ his words are punctuated by the crinkle of paper. the bandaid is carefully smoothed over a middling scratch along kaveh's side. the next finds its way to a minute cut on his arm. ]

If even I did not expect so, what gave you the expectation that you could? You blame yourself for being unable to blame him. [ a weary, ironic beat. ] I blame you for having me voice the absurd.

[ Just one short day ago, Kaveh stood in this room, talking— and then yelling— about how crazy Alhaitham made him feel, about how he was ready to leave, how he had a house picked out. All for naught, but the truth in his words still stands: the scribe makes him feel crazy.

Not because he's unfair, but because he sees. Impassive coppered emerald gems watch every step Kaveh takes in this world and see through the masks he wears, perceive without effort through walls he's so careful to place between himself and the others in his life. And then lips curve in a hint of an ironic smile, reading all those things and more like a laundry list of Kaveh's faults, those things that are true but shoved between the spaces of his world in the hope no one will see.

Alhaitham always sees, and Kaveh hates it— because it reminds him of how he hates himself.

He swallows the guilt— he tries— and closes his eyes against the feeling of the other man papering over his wounds, doing physically what neither of them can hope to do emotionally. It has everything to do with who Kaveh is, Alhaitham says, and to that end the blonde finds himself wondering: if not for his peace of mind, then— ]

Then why tell me? [ he asks, and his teeth chew absently at a fingernail, ruining further the well-defined shapes in which he usually takes pride, though dented and broken from the physical work of the last few days. ] You can't lie to me, Alhaitham— you took on extra work for this, this opportunity to research Sachin's involvement in everything—

[ Thank you, he wants to say, but he doesn't. ]

—but if you knew before telling me that it would not change things, why tell me at all? Did you hope against your better judgement that I'd finally see the light somehow? [ There's a bitter, nearly sarcastic tone to his voice as he laughs. ] Or is it merely that you believe that, as a citizen of Sumeru, such knowledge is owed to me?

[ the room reverberates with it: the sorrow, the confusion, the deflection of which sends shards of sound and intent spinning out into the hush of an unknown galaxy. kaveh, who sits at the centre of it, wrapped in gauze and the curtain of fervor. alhaitham who observes the spiral of its nebula from just outside of its gravitational pull. no, that is an imprecise statement. for alhaitham has never been outside of kaveh's reach.

the gauze rests. another bandaid finds its way against the curve of kaveh's neck where a shard of the diadem's ricochet has caught it. alhaitham's fingers are slow and sure. ]

For you to preface your statements like so implies that I have lied to you in the past. But Kaveh, when have ever I lied to you in ways that matter?

[ a mirror is a reflection of what one allows themselves to show. alhaitham, who has always looked to the mirror of kaveh's existence, knows - that perhaps, fundamentally, alhaitham does not know how. not when it comes to kaveh.

the nail file is an addition to alhaitham's pouch that he has never really used for himself. he slips it out from its case. his hand reaches around kaveh, gently, to take his wrist between his fingers. alhaitham's weight leans forward and settles against the slope of kaveh's back. his chin hooks over kaveh's good shoulder. in the night, they are a creature of matching veins and arteries, shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm, bone to bone.

alhaitham speaks, low. ]

My intentions were clear, and continue to be so. [ his fingers slide up to kaveh's, where he disentangles nail from teeth. alhaitham begins to file. ] Sachin's research interested me. Objectively speaking, the quality and genius behind his theorems and construction of studies are worth learning from regardless of the conclusions that he has drawn for them. My interest was drawn also based on the coincidence between Sachin's circumstances and the circumstances of your father's disappearance. It seemed to me that there was much to learn from knowing the truth.

[ a second finger. the leveling of the file. alhaitham continues: ] Out of ignorance and a misplaced sense of guilt, you had no choice but to blame yourself. You cannot make choices if you do not know. I gave you the information so that you can now choose, knowingly, what you wish to believe, and what you wish to do with it.

[ the third, alhaitham carefully lifts to the wan glow from the stained glass of his window. the sliver of moonlight highlights a particularly nasty-looking jagged edge of a chewed nail. he presses the nail file to it. alhaitham's voice does not waver. ]

Just as you ask me of my thoughts, so do I ask you: Kaveh, do you regret having learned what you have?

[ Patch by patch, Kaveh's wounds are covered over in the anticipation of their healing. Word by word, Alhaitham takes him apart. When has he ever lied, asks the scribe, and the architect cannot answer, because he the answer is that he has not, at least to Kaveh's knowledge. And yet the blonde feels somewhere deep down that there's more to the full truth than words allow— that the younger man has chosen exactly the right verbiage to reveal what he wants and no more. After all, there are still questions to be asked, questions that concern why exactly the scribe feels that the so-called coincidence warranted his attention.

Or perhaps it's just wishful thinking, the hopeful reach of a man who desperately wants such actions to be taken out of care.

(Care like the last of the plasters laid onto his skin, slow and sure. Care like the chin hooking over his uninjured shoulder, bringing them together that coppered eyes might see him in the dim. Care like the fingers that pull his from his own teeth, smooth over their lengths to file away the jagged edges of Kaveh's fears.)

Care, perhaps, is wrong. What Kaveh wants is— ]

I don't regret it, no. [ His words are soft; they tremble in time with his heart and with his fears. He's barely managed to stop his tears, yet the gentle motion of Alhaitham's fingers working the file makes him want to start all over again. ] To the contrary, it— I know for sure now that I did the right thing today. With the diadem. [ And Kaveh sighs, because now they're talking in circles, and they still haven't met one another in the middle.

Perhaps they never will. ]

What do you want from me, Alhaitham? [ Kaveh's voice breaks over the words. The hand not being cared for reaches up to rub at his eyes, to pinch at the bridge of his nose as if it will stop the Archons-damned urge to sniffle, to flutter helpless in the air for a moment or two before a finger slips between his pouting lips to wreak havoc on its nail even as the scribe repairs the damage done to another.

He doesn't understand. Where Kaveh has never been outside of Alhaitham's reach, the architect feels as if the scribe is leagues away from his own. Alhaitham is always three to five moves ahead of everyone else, a master of the game calmly watching as others try to make sense of what he has done. Kaveh understands him better than anyone else— and yet he doesn't understand him, is left so often questioning or wondering or hoping—

Skin gives under the nip of his teeth, a bloom of red metal on his tongue. Kaveh winces, but says nothing. ]

What do I want from you?

[ kaveh's voice breaks like a fault. alhaitham sits there as kaveh goes through all five stages of grief in a single heartbeat. he has, he thinks, made suffering into an artform, agony in motion performed for a single, intimate audience of one. the observation is made with the full knowledge that kaveh's grief is not imagined. it is simply that parts of what kaveh is and what kaveh wants to be had begun to fuse sometime during their akademiya years, and alhaitham has been watching that slow collision of worlds the way seismologists watch the incremental collide of two tectonic plates. kaveh cannot express himself without motion. it is impossible. kaveh trembles like something left out in the rain. it is an imprecise analogy to make. kaveh has never been so delicate. he is both the light of the kshahrewar and the lion of it, and in this moment, he is more lion than light, a curled up, cornered creature brimming with claw and teeth. especially in guilt and grief, kaveh knows to go for the throat, even if it is his own.

what does alhaitham want from kaveh.

alhaitham unspools from where he had anchored himself along kaveh's shoulder. he leaves him there to pad across the room. alhaitham wends through the animal path carved out between divans and piles of books to the kitchen. kaveh keeps whatever fruits that are in season stocked neatly in nets hanging in the kitchen. alhaitham needs only memory to guide him to the one hanging by the sink. he pulls out a pomegranate.

in truth, alhaitham is not partial to the fruit itself. it's too much work for too little gain. the fruit itself tends to be sharp; the seeds even more so. but the aunties in the market always slip one or two into their baskets during shopping trips, and alhaitham makes certain to keep one in the house for times like these whenever they are in season. alhaitham returns to slip himself behind kaveh once more. he cracks the pomegranate in half with his bare hands. one half he sets down next to him on the divan; the other, waxy and gleaming, he gestures for kaveh to hold out his bitten hand. ]

Right now, I want you to pick apart the pomegranate if you have to bother your hands with something to do.

[ alhaitham slots his chin back over kaveh's shoulder. he breathes out in the way of a sigh. ]

Tomorrow, I want from you your assurance that you will buy new inkwells. [ alhaitham picks up the nail file again. he takes the hand kaveh isn't using to hold the pomegranate back into his own. he continues to file, as if his absence had only been a punctuation mark in a long, meandering sentence. alhaitham continues, his voice low: ] The saffron needs refilling, and the rice runs dry. I want from you the knowledge that you will buy rice in a larger portion than the smaller bags that they have on sale, as we run out of rice too quickly, even if it is more troublesome for you to carry. [ index, middle, fourth, pinky, thumb. alhaitham holds kaveh's hand away from the pomegranate to blow the nail dust away. then, he motions for kaveh to switch hands, and then holds out his own so kaveh can spit out pomegranate seeds if he chose to consume some. ] I want from you the promise that you will do the dishes that pile in the sink. It is your turn. I will not have them wait until tomorrow, when it will be my turn. I want from you the clarity of your thoughts when I read aloud the newest book of poetry from Mondstadt's publishing houses, to voice your opinion on couplets that will either be pleasing to the ear, as poetry from Mondstadt usually tends to be, or to be utterly laughable, which poetry from Mondstadt only sometimes is.

[ finally - finally, in the way of a long-foregone conclusion, alhaitham allows the silence to steep. his next words are measured, choosing rumination over censure. there is never that. never with kaveh. ]

Everything else is what you want for yourself. I turn the question back to you, Kaveh. What do you want for yourself?

[ It is without a word that the scribe stands, walks, and for the barest of moments the old fear lines the bottom of Kaveh's gut. A question on his lips he dare not speak, trembling there in spite of the knowledge sitting yet deeper: he will not leave. Alhaitham is a constant, a fixed point in the jumbled messes of his life. He is the pull to Kaveh's push, the black to his white, the logic to his emotion. He drives Kaveh crazy. The feeling is mutual. But he will not leave.

Kaveh's heart almost believes the truth that his gut already knows, but he finds himself holding his breath, hands sitting and twisting in his lap, smudging the blood from a jagged nail into the skin. This he does until Alhaitham returns, cracking a pomegranate open between his hands and holding one half out for him before he sits down to resume his work. The juice stains Kaveh's fingers anew as an aril pops under one too-forceful press, the sting causing a grimace as scarlet liquid joins that which beads at the site of a distracted bite.

The next aril goes between his lips, the sharp sweetness spilling onto his tongue as his eyes close. Another is quick to follow; despite the earlier dinner sitting filling in his stomach, he feels empty and raw.

Alhaitham's reply comes as a monologue, a soft-spoken series of words that flow like water into his ears. Kaveh listens, and he breathes; for as much as he likes to complain to others over the scribe's endless source of phrases, in this moment they serve as a comfort, a reminder that he is home and not lost in some nightmare that began with his father and continued with a shattered diadem. He begins a mental checklist— one that he will no doubt forget in part later on, but that serves as an answer and a distraction both, something to cling to in the sea of feelings and fears.

The whole while, the scribe files away the damage Kaveh's anxiety has done.

New inkwells, Alhaitham says. Kaveh thinks distantly that he already agreed to that. Saffron and rice, he says, and the blonde's nose wrinkles at the thought of dragging home the heavier bags. Dishes — tonight, is his insistence, and Kaveh's hurting muscles groan in silent protest; he does not complain, though, only blows the small brown-red seeds into the other's palm. After all that Alhaitham is doing for him in this very moment, cleaning up the dishes is the very least he can do, regardless of the ache in his bones.

Perhaps he can convince Alhaitham to read to him as he does it; the art of poetry seems to his ears to be a much nicer distraction for his mind, the soothing gentle of the scribe's voice a balm for his hurts.

But what does Kaveh want for himself? The blonde's eyes open once more, brows creasing over the crimson of his gaze, matching now as it does with the stain of his lips. There are many things he wants, none of which he dares to ask, or believes even that anyone can give him. But what wouldn't he give for a single, dreamless night of sleep— a smile long gone— the warmth of an embrace?

Kaveh won a championship; why is someone considered "victor" left feeling so afraid? ]

I'll do the dishes tonight. [ His voice is still raw. He hates it. ] I'll listen to the poetry. I'll buy the rice and the saffron and the inkwells tomorrow. [ But right now— ] Will you hold me for a while first?

[ the truth of the matter is - kaveh has always needed more than alhaitham. it had been kaveh who had looked at their struggling compatriots dragging behind in their shared project, and had needed to reach out his hand to drag them from the mire. it had been kaveh who needed to spend his days and nights completing work from those not capable of completing it themselves, only to watch them walk away one after another. it had been kaveh who needed more than what others were capable of giving. it had always been kaveh - kaveh, kaveh, kaveh - who reached out with red-stained hands and watched as what he needed slip from his grasp.

it had always seemed to alhaitham that kaveh's problem is that he is not as kind as he wishes to be, but kinder than he thinks he is. he is also incapable of applying either traits to himself. it had been that way years ago, when kaveh, having stripped himself raw, had said to alhaitham this is what i need, when in reality he should have said this is what i want. therein lies the tragedy of it all, for in an universe where what was needed was said, alhaitham would have yielded. in no universe would have stood in the way of kaveh's singular pursuit for something his heart desired. but that universe never came to be, and so today cycles back along its tracks, to kaveh with his back to alhaitham, his fingers stained red with pomegranate, and alhaitham sitting there, watching, waiting.

kaveh, who cannot permit himself to want without guilt. alhaitham, who has never allowed him to need beyond reason.

tonight, alhaitham thinks- and says, into the brimming, waiting hush: ]

Is this what you want, Kaveh?

[ For a long moment, he is silent— and so the hush, broken briefly by Alhaitham's words, continues. For Kaveh, there's an enormity to his request that is only exacerbated by Alhaitham's confirmation that it's what he wants. The natural response is one of hesitation as his mind works to prove the other man right, to guilt him in silence, to shame him for daring to ask for something more than simply what he needs.

His lips part. If the multiverse theory is true, the action is succeeded in nearly all of them by a shake of his head. A rejection of the suggestion. A "never mind, I'm fine". A downplaying. An (untrue) admission that it is a need and not a want, causing Alhaitham to reject him once more.

Kaveh does none of those things.

Perhaps it is the stinging pain of the juice in a shallow wound. Perhaps it is the aching tiredness of his bones and muscles and the sunburn marring his skin in red. Or perhaps it is the unceasing need to cry.

Perhaps the "why" doesn't matter.

What does is the way Kaveh's eyes close, long lashes soft against the burnt flush of his cheeks. The way another aril gives under his fingers, a barely audible pop of flesh between the digits. The way his head moves, nodding an affirmative rather than rejecting the question asked of him. ]

It is, [ he confirms— and for potentially being a multiversal anomaly, his voice is surprisingly steady, even as it remains broken from his tears. ] I'm sure it seems to you like a strange thing for me to ask of you, but— Yeah, it is.

[ And then, after barely a beat of silence, in true Kaveh fashion: ] If you don't want to, it's okay.

[ 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.

[ "It is merely you, and me," Alhaitham says, and Kaveh knows without asking what that means, knows that the scribe holds all those moments together in his mind as if they were one, builds an understanding from them the same way the architect builds physical structures. Alhaitham, who for better or for worse, catalogs and accepts every event between them as a part of the jigsaw that makes up the two of them as a single unit. He's so different to Kaveh, who takes awkwardness from their debates and ascribes it to their future interactions, who allows himself personal offence over statements never meant to offend, whose jigsaw is full of holes because he takes the bad and tries to hide it, tells himself that those moments have ruined what they used to have.

The act of asking is the same as taking one of those hidden pieces and considering it in its place.

He's relieved, then, when Alhaitham makes no issue of it, just hands him a towel to wipe his hands before helping him into a the comfort of a bathrobe, white and scented like the scribe himself, then instructs him to move so that he may draw Kaveh against him, reaching for a book as the blonde makes himself comfortable.

(There's always a book.)

If Kaveh hadn't already asked for so much, he might demand Alhaitham put the book down and actually just hold him. Both arms around his waist where one anchors him now. Lips in his hair, the soothing rumble of his voice against Kaveh's scalp. Instead, he grumbles, lying against the other man, his head eventually settling against Alhaitham's shoulder. ]

I always mind my elbows, you jerk.

[ "Always," Kaveh says, as if this is something they've done recently when they both know that's not true, when the blonde's pride has kept any such intimacy from them since that one horrific falling-out, when that same pride has kept Kaveh from seeking any such intimacy from anyone. For as much as he might hate how Alhaitham sees so readily through him, there's a comfort in it he can find with no other, an understanding he can't get anywhere else.

Fresh tears well in his eyes— In reality, maybe they never really stopped. ]

You should be proud of me, Alhaitham, [ he mumbles. ] I said what I wanted.

[ 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.

[ From where he is, Kaveh fails to see the slight smile curving Alhaitham's lips and eyes alike. When Alhaitham smiles, Kaveh rarely catches it. Such expressions are already rare; in such a way the blonde has convinced himself over the years that the other man simply doesn't smile. So too does he force himself to believe that the unmistakable feeling of lips against his crown is merely a trick borne of his combined tiredness and his unshakeable hope.

A hope that, occasionally, Alhaitham kindles by saying or doing just the right thing. Like now, as he praises once more Kaveh's willingness to follow through on his intent, and then for doing what he wanted. Like now, as he allows Kaveh to rest against him having just patched him up, letting the blonde breathe in the mingled scents of skin and cologne and antiseptic. The sound of the pages turning, one after another, punctuates his words.

An embarrassed heat rises to his cheeks as the younger man's words continue, accusing him of something he already knows to be true. As ever, he sees through the stone bricks of Kaveh's walls without even trying, and the blonde is forced to wonder if he can see further still, to thoughts Kaveh tries to hide even from himself.

(His heart aches.)

Of course, his response comes in the form of additional grumbling, a defense mechanism against his embarrassment. ]

If you're so sure that's what I want, put your book down, then.

[ Later, he'll allow himself to be surprised at how easily Alhaitham has gotten under his skin, steered him into saying the things he knows he wants to say. It will be unjustified, his surprise, but he will feel it anyway, hand in hand with the embarrassment and the guilt. ]

[ 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?

[ For a phrase that set off such thoughts in Alhaitham, in honesty Kaveh was speaking only in self-defense, pulling the truth closer toward him as if he can hide it in the face of eyes that see all. If it is true that he hides within the shield of his sorrows, then he in turn hides within him his desires— although at this point in his life, it's impossible to know for sure if he imprisons them, or if they imprison him.

The distinction may seem great, but in practice it hardly matters— whatever the reason, the result is the same. In the deep dark of Kaveh's sea, he clings to what he allows himself to have, and dreams of wants that guilt and shame keep him from seeking. The realization that Alhaitham is there, waiting with outstretched hands, is far from a conscious one; yet it offers a reason for a comfort as natural as his frustration.

He doesn't realize it, but tonight he's allowed himself to take those hands, at least for a moment.

Kaveh smiles, a soft hum of content on his lips as the other's hand rests against his hair. Is he pleased? Alhaitham asks, and he nods into the younger's shoulder. At some point, he'll have to get up again, do the dishes that he's promised he'll do before sleeping, but at least for now... ]

Very— [ he mumbles. And then, because thank you is still too hard: ] You smell nice.

[ 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.

𝒪𝓅𝑒𝓃 𝓅𝑜𝓈𝓉 🏛️

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