Chapter Text
On the eve of Al-Haitham’s nineteenth birthday, he meets the Light of the Kshahrewar.
Al-Haitham has heard of this fabled “Light” long before ever actually meeting him. The Kshahrewar can talk of seemingly nothing else than the apparent reincarnation of their beloved Pir Kavikavus and their ever-dwindling budget. Still, Al-Haitham is two years younger than him and part of a different Darshan, so the two had never crossed paths until that day. (Al-Haitham refuses to call it a “fateful” meeting because that implies a certain level of divine intervention he is not willing to account for.)
The day is unordinary. Al-Haitham has finished his studies a bit earlier than usual and, after acquiring a shawarma wrap from Lambad’s, heads to the Razan Gardens for a bit of peace and quiet. Most people would study in the House of Daena, but with midterms coming up, it’s more crowded than usual, and Al-Haitham doesn’t want the frantic energy of his peers to disrupt his reading. And anyways, it’s a beautiful day outside – the temperature is warm but not sweltering, and the few clouds in the sky don’t block out the sun. Even the padisarahs are starting to bloom. Al-Haitham pauses at the entrance to one of the many gazebos populating the gardens to inspect one such flower, and he hears a sharp gasp coming from his left.
He looks up to see another man already sitting on the bench inside the gazebo, half-curled around what appears to be a book or a pad of paper. In his right hand is a stick of charcoal that has already turned most of his hand black. Judging by his robes and messy blonde hair, he’s a Kshahrewar student in the middle of brainstorming his next project, though the contents of his sketchbook seems to be rather uninteresting to him right now. Instead, his ruby red eyes are fixed, unblinking and wide with surprise, on Al-Haitham. His skin is on the paler side for a Sumeran which allows Al-Haitham to see the blood pooling in his cheeks.
Al-Haitham shifts, a bit uncomfortable with the full weight of this student’s attention. “Can I help you?” he asks sharply.
The Kshahrewar jolts like he’s been electrocuted, almost dropping his sketchbook. More color fills his cheeks. “N-no!” he stammers. “Sorry, I just— …I wasn’t expecting to see anyone else out here, what with midterms coming up.”
Al-Haitham turns away without another word. He only has two hours before his shift in the archives starts, and he’s hoping to cover at least fifteen chapters in his book before then. Unfortunately, the Kshahrewar still wants to talk to him.
“Wait!” he hears the blonde call after him, along with the sounds of him scrambling to shove his things into his bag and follow after. “Y-you’re one of the younger students, right? Are you a first-year?”
“No,” Al-Haitham says, not pausing or looking behind him. His non-answer should deter the senior in no time. Key word: should. Apparently this is the most stubborn and/or oblivious senior in the Akademiya because he is still following Al-Haitham.
“A second-year, then? You can’t be in my class – I’ve never seen you.”
“We’re not in the same Darshan.”
“No, but I know a lot of people from all six Darshans!” Al-Haitham doesn’t look back, but something about the senior’s tone of voice makes him think that he’s puffing out his chest or similarly preening with self-importance. “You’re a Haravatat. I can’t say I know as many people from there, given that they’re more interested in books than people, but I know most of the ones from my year!”
Al-Haitham does look back at the Kshahrewar then, wondering if perhaps he’d meant to insult Al-Haitham’s Darshan – Kshahrewar and Haravatat do have some sort of rivalry going on since Harvatat gets more funding despite Kshahrewar seeing them as “less important” – but the senior is smiling obliviously. Al-Haitham is sort of impressed by his ignorance for a moment. Not enough to keep talking to the other, of course, but just enough to note that there is a quill sticking out of the Kshahrewar’s hair.
He says as much. “You have a quill stuck in your hair.”
“Oh, that’s supposed to be there,” the Kshahrewar says, chuckling good-naturedly. “I never seem to have a pencil or pen on hand when I need it, so I started tucking one into my hair to make sure I did have one! It looks stylish, right? It’s not the best pen, all things considered, but it’s one of those fancy ones from Fontaine that has an internal reservoir so you don’t have to dip it into an ink pot. Plus the feather is really pretty!”
Al-Haitham couldn’t care less about internal ink reservoirs or pretty feathers, but the senior is still taking his silence as an invitation to keep rambling. Al-Haitham keeps walking, glancing at nearby gazebos to see which ones are empty and sufficiently scenic. The Kshahrewar follows him all the way up to the top of the gardens, right in the shadow of the Sanctuary of Surasthana. Hardly anyone comes up here except for the two Eremites who guard the doors of the Sanctuary itself, but the Kshahrewar doesn’t seem to notice at all until Al-Haitham walks off the path and onto one of the Divine Tree’s huge branches.
“Wh— Hey! Careful!” the senior shouts, hovering awkwardly just off the path. “It’s dangerous to go over there, what if you fall?!”
“I won’t fall,” Al-Haitham says, keeping his eyes carefully trained on the ground in front of him.
“You’re entirely too confident about that!”
“I’ve done this many times.”
“You realize that all it takes is one bad fall, right?”
Al-Haitham reaches a particular fork in the branch and settles down without responding to the senior. It’s close enough to the trunk that the branch can easily support his weight and doesn’t budge with the wind but far enough away that unless someone knew where he was, they wouldn’t be able to see him through the leaves. Unfortunately, the Ksharewar does know that he’s there and the distance between them doesn’t deter him from continuing to call after Al-Haitham.
“Hey! At least tell me your name so I know how to identify your body for the Bimarstan!”
Al-Haitham sighs. Something tells him that there’s no use arguing with this particular senior. “I am Al-Haitham,” he calls back, barely bothering to raise his voice.
“I’m Kaveh.”
“I never asked for your name,” Al-Haitham says, taking out his book and flipping to where he left off.
The senior splutters incoherently for a moment, then snaps, “Well, now you know it, and you’d better not forget it!”
Al-Haitham says nothing, and the Kshahrewar storms off, noisily muttering something about the lack of social skills of Haravatats. Al-Haitham, for his part, enjoys his break from his studies and his book. He tries to forget the Kshahrewar’s name too, but for some reason, it sticks in his mind.
And just like that, the Light of the Kshahrewar and the Prodigy of the Haravatat know each other’s names.
“What would you do if you didn’t have me?” Kaveh often asks Al-Haitham, usually in a chiding tone after finding out that Al-Haitham has only been leaving his dorm for class, work, and combat lessons.
“I would have less need for my soundproof earpieces,” Al-Haitham responds, never looking up from what he’s working on.
Kaveh huffs and starts on a rant that Al-Haitham doesn’t listen to. He adjusts his earpieces slightly so that Kaveh’s impassioned voice doesn’t get too loud, but he doesn’t turn on the soundproofing entirely. When he remembers to keep his voice at a reasonable volume, Kaveh’s voice is actually somewhat soothing.
One thing Al-Haitham will say about Kaveh is that he’s never asked why Al-Haitham wears earpieces. He’s only asked about them once when they first met, and it was only to ask if they were made by someone in Kshahrewar.
“Yes,” Al-Haitham says, “though you wouldn’t be able to ask them any questions about it. They passed away several years ago.”
“Oh. That’s a shame. They’re quite beautifully-made. Is there a copy of the schematics somewhere, at least? It’d be a shame if they broke or needed repairs.”
“I have a copy of the schematics, but they’re quite resilient. I only need to have them adjusted a few times a year.”
Kaveh hums noncommittally and changes the topic, leaving Al-Haitham to wonder at the dual nature of the Kshahrewar. For all of his nagging, he never presses Al-Haitham for information. He offers Al-Haitham the chance to share more, if he choses, but if Al-Haitham doesn’t, he lets things stop there. In a place like the Akademiya, that sort of self-control is rare. On more than one occasion Al-Haitham has had to leave a conversation because someone won’t stop trying to pry more information out of him. Kaveh, however, has never made him feel like that.
It’s strange, though, that Kaveh worries so much about Al-Haitham despite how often he can’t take care of himself. Al-Haitham would need more than just his two hands and feet in order to count how many times Kaveh has been late, has forgotten to eat or drink anything for several hours because he has become hyperfocused on his drawings, has forgone sleep in order to catch up to a deadline he forgot about – any number of irresponsible things that Al-Haitham himself does not do.
“Worry about yourself first,” Al-Haitham says whenever Kaveh fusses over him.
“Just eat the damn pita pocket, Haitham,” Kaveh snaps, deep shadows under his eyes and hair a frizzy mess. He can’t have slept more than twelve hours in the past week, but here he is, more concerned about the fact that Al-Haitham hasn’t had the time (or energy, but Kaveh doesn’t need to know that) to cook his own meals in almost four months. He’s been living on the Akademiya’s cafeteria food and takeout from various eateries around the city, and though he varies his choices for maximum nutritional intake, Kaveh still thinks it’s unhealthy.
Kaveh is ridiculous, but Al-Haitham eats the damn pita pocket because Kaveh’s cooking rivals Al-Haitham’s late grandmother. Not that Al-Haitham would ever tell him that. Kaveh’s ego is big enough as it is.
Kaveh is a lightweight, and he is clingy when drunk. He’s clingy when sober too, but not usually with Al-Haitham. Right now, though, he is literally draped over Al-Haitham’s back, warm and pliant and giggling every two seconds because he is also the kind of drunk to find everything funny while intoxicated. Right now he seems especially amused by Al-Haitham’s hair. His left arm is loosely hooked over Al-Haitham’s shoulder, his fingers drumming a gentle, nonsensical rhythm against Alhaitham’s collarbone, but his other hand is batting at the one section of Al-Haitham’s hair that always refuses to lie flat. Kaveh had compared it to a sprout once. Right now, he appears to see it as a cat toy.
“Your hair is so stupid,” Kaveh slurs. The looseness of his body carries over to his mouth and tongue – both are clumsy and trip over phonemes that Kaveh would normally tame with ease. “It’s so soft… Why’s it so soft? That’s unfair. I bet you use – hic! – use that stuff that’s, like, the combination shampoo-conditioner.”
“I have separate shampoo and conditioner,” Al-Haitham says. He’s not sure why he’s indulging Kaveh like this. Maybe it’s because the other is more vulnerable than usual and needs someone to look after him until he’s sober again. Or maybe it’s because having Kaveh so close isn’t making his skin crawl. If anything, the weight of Kaveh’s body is sort of… nice. It settles something in Al-Haitham that he didn’t know needed settled.
Kaveh laughs breathily, and Al-Haitham fights not to shiver as Kaveh’s breath tickles the fine hairs on the nape of his neck. Kaveh’s hand shifts, and suddenly, instead of playing with Al-Haitham’s “sprout”, he’s mindlessly massaging Al-Haitham’s scalp. The motion makes Al-Haitham’s eyes flutter and his chest tighten. His grandmother used to do something very similar to this whenever Al-Haitham would get frustrated or overwhelmed. It brings a lot of memories, good and bad, to the back of Al-Haitham’s throat.
As gently as he can, Al-Haitham pushes Kaveh off of him. Kaveh whines and then collapses dramatically into the chair next to Al-Haitham, but even while drunk, he somehow manages to keep from touching Al-Haitham. It makes Al-Haitham feel cold, but he can’t bring Kaveh back into his personal space without explaining why he felt the need to push him away first. Maybe one day Al-Haitham will awkwardly force his way through an explanation, but today is not that day, especially not when Kaveh is probably too drunk to form coherent memories anymore.
Kaveh rests his head on his pillowed arms, looking up through long, blonde lashes at Al-Haitham. The look on his face is soft but intense. Al-Haitham couldn’t look away even if he wanted to.
“...You say I worry too much about you, but if I don’t, who will?” Kaveh whispers.
Al-Haitham doesn’t have an answer to that. Kaveh stares for a few more moments, sighs, and then closes his eyes. He starts snoring almost immediately.
Al-Haitham sighs as well and closes his book. There’s no helping it, then: he’ll have to be the one to take Kaveh home. His dorm isn’t far from here, but Kaveh weighs a surprising amount. Al-Haitham supposes that’s from wielding a claymore and constantly getting involved in the construction of his projects. Still, Al-Haitham wishes he was scrawnier, if only because getting him to bed is going to be a pain.
Al-Haitham glances over at his own bed and considers his options. It’s certainly much closer than Kaveh’s, and with how intoxicated Kaveh is, it would be wise for someone (Al-Haitham) to keep an eye on him, just in case. So Al-Haitham sighs, again, and carefully gathers Kaveh into his arms. Almost immediately, Kaveh lets out a content hum and curls his hand over Al-Haitham’s thundering heart.
“How troublesome,” Al-Haitham says, but he dutifully shuffles over to his bed and deposits Kaveh on top of the blankets. Then, because he knows that despite being a human space heater, Kaveh will complain about being cold otherwise, he tucks his senior in.
He starts to pull away when Kaveh grabs his wrist. Despite ruby eyes watering with exhausted tears, his grip is tight. “Stay,” he murmurs. “You’re comfy.”
“I am not your pillow,” Al-Haitham says.
Kaveh doesn’t respond, just pouts when Al-Haitham tries to retrieve his wrist. After a moment, Kaveh lets him slip away, but his hand remains outstretched, fingers flexing gently at nothing. He looks at Al-Haitham with huge, soft eyes, and that is unfortunately all it takes.
Al-Haitham sighs and takes off his earpieces. His cloak is next, and then his belt. Kaveh watches silently and with surprising focus, cheeks still flushed from the wine. It’s almost enough to make Al-Haitham feel self-conscious as he swaps his tight shirt and pants for a much looser set meant for sleeping, but he doesn’t let himself hesitate. Not even when picking up the corner of the blanket, crawling underneath, and letting Kaveh place his head on Al-Haitham’s sternum, sighing contentedly.
Kaveh falls asleep again quickly, sprawled across Al-Haitham’s body like it’s his personal pillow, but sleep doesn’t come as easily to Al-Haitham. He lays there for some time, pondering the weight of his snoring senior and, more importantly, why it feels so pleasant. It probably shouldn’t. Kaveh is a bit boney, one of his knees digging into Al-Haitham’s thigh, and he’s snoring almost directly in Al-Haitham’s ear. But he’s also warmer than any blanket, and he smells like padisarahs, wine, and fresh ink. Eventually, that’s more than enough to lull Al-Haitham to sleep.
He wakes when Kaveh shrieks and shoves himself off the bed, bringing most of Al-Haitham’s blankets with him. Al-Haitham groans and covers his ears. “Why are you so loud.”
“Why were you cuddling me?!” Kaveh retorts, remembering halfway through his sentence to lower his voice to something less ear-piercing.
Still, Al-Haitham reaches over and puts in his earpieces before responding, “I didn’t choose to cuddle you. You were the one who didn’t want to let go of me.”
“Liar.”
“Says the man who can’t even remember what happened last night.”
Kaveh’s cheeks turn as red as his eyes. “W-what are you talking about?!”
An idea slips into Al-Haitham’s head: retaliation for being woken up so rudely and early. He smirks slowly. “Obviously we made love until the break of dawn.”
Kaveh punches him in the shoulder with no small amount of force, and Al-Haitham’s arm goes numb for a few seconds. Still, it’s worth it to see how red Kaveh’s face can truly get.
It surprises no one – and least of all, Al-Haitham – when Kaveh gets a fever on the last day of finals week. Surprising even fewer, Al-Haitham is tasked with taking care of him.
Normally, an Amurta from Al-Haitham’s year that Kaveh has made friends with – Tighnari, if Al-Haitham’s memory serves correctly – would look after him, but he left the day before for an internship at Pardis Dhyai. The Bimarstan is flooded with similarly sick students and can only prescribe some fever reducers and anti-nausea pills before sending Al-Haitham away so they can look after the students who are bordering on hallucinatory after too many nights without sleep. Kaveh has no family to look after him, so Al-Haitham sighs, packs up some things from his own dorm room, and resigns himself to being Kaveh’s nursemaid for the next few days.
(“You have horrible bedside manner,” Kaveh will later tell him.
Al-Haitham will shrug. “Better than letting you try to get through it on your own.”)
During this ordeal, Al-Haitham learns a few things about Kaveh. The first is that if Kaveh is dramatic and a touch whiny when he’s healthy and in a good mood, he is downright obnoxious while sick. He drifts in and out of consciousness at random, but whenever he has the lucidity to speak, he complains about how much he’s sweating, about how his head hurts, about how bland the food Al-Haitham makes for him is – never seeming to realize that he can’t stomach anything else right now.
But of course, he is still Kaveh, so after exhausting all of his complaints, he tells Al-Haitham in a thin, cracking voice, “You can go home. I’ve got it from here.”
“You definitely don’t,” Al-Haitham says. He holds another spoonful of broth to Kaveh’s lips. “Now eat.”
Kaveh glares weakly but seals his lips around the spoon, throat bobbing as he swallows. Then he refuses to let go of the spoon for another second, just to be stubborn. Al-Haitham fights back a smile. “If you’re feeling so rebellious, maybe that means you’re finally turning the corner.”
“Does that mean I can finally eat something other than soup?”
“No.”
Kaveh slumps back against his pillows, pouting. “You’re horrible, and I hate you.”
“So you’ve told me many times, and yet here we are.”
“Here we are,” Kaveh parrots, voice much quieter and thoughtful than before.
Al-Haitham almost hesitates before meeting his eyes. Even sweaty and disheveled after two days of sickness, his gaze is devastating. Al-Haitham feels like he’s being dissected, his organs taken out of his body and set aside to be neatly labeled and put on display in an Amurta classroom. Kaveh tilts his head just the slightest bit, cracked lips parting to take a soft, slow inhale. The beginnings of a word form on his tongue, but Al-Haitham stands abruptly and silences them before they can take shape.
“Take a nap,” he says, tucking his book under his arm and gathering up Kaveh’s dishes. There’s still a bit of broth left, but spoon-feeding Kaveh when he’s looking at Al-Haitham like that is out of the question. He much preferred it when Kaveh was hallucinating about a white-haired little girl sitting on a swing of pure Dendro energy in the corner of the room, telling him a story about a songbird trapped in a cage.
When he finally has the courage to walk back into Kaveh’s bedroom, the blonde is fast asleep. He doesn’t stir when Al-Haitham sits down at his desk, and not even when Al-Haitham reaches out to brush a few strands of sweaty, slightly greasy blonde hair away from Kaveh’s cheek. His breaths are slow and steady, and presumably his heart is the same way. Al-Haitham, though, feels a bit like he’s drowning.
Oh. Is this what “love” is?
Very few languages have separate words to describe “love” in all of its facets. Ancient Snezhnayan comes the closest: agape, eros, philia, storge, philautia, and xenia – the main six forms of love. Al-Haitham has studied the words and their meanings in passing, but now, he dives deeper.
“Things are only scary so long as we don’t understand them,” his grandmother had once said. “That is why humans strive for knowledge: to conquer their fears.”
Kaveh has yet to notice Al-Haitham’s absence. There are talks between him and Lord Sangemah Bay about a grand palace on the outskirts of Lokapala Jungle, and the graduation ceremony is coming up soon. Even without this recent revelation of his, Al-Haitham would hardly be able to see Kaveh anyways. It’s the perfect time to dive into his research.
He spends several hours in the House of Daena, pouring over several textbooks and taking diligent notes on relevant materials. He further condenses his notes into a few short lines each:
1. Agape (ἀγάπη) – Denotes a generalized love for one’s fellow humans or the love a god has for their followers. Sometimes loosely translated as “empathy” or “charity”.
2. Eros (ἔρως) – Denotes sexual love. Can also refer to romantic love, but usually only after a period of intense, physical attraction that eventually gives way to deeper, more substantial feelings. Usually considered to lead to beauty, fulfillment, sensuality, spirituality, madness, and/or loss of control.
3. Philia (φιλία) – Denotes affection between friends, communities, and/or equals. Described as “dispassionate”, meaning no sexual feelings are involved. Forms the root of the word φιλαυτία.
4. Storge (στοργή) – Denotes love between family members, especially parents and children. Can be used to describe acceptance of the rules or the love of one’s country.
5. Philautia (Φιλαυτία) – Denotes love of oneself, AKA self-love. Described by other philosophical and psychological models as necessary for success and happiness. Generally divided into positive (self-compassion) and negative (vanity and egotism).
6. Xenia (ξενία) – Denotes hospitality or “love” of one’s guests. Rarely described in modern times, as ancient hospitality rules have fallen out of practice or been changed.Other types of love include:
1. Mania (μανία) – Denotes any kind of unhealthy or obsessive love but especially eros.
2. Lūdus – Denotes playful or noncommittal love. Includes actions such as flirting, seduction, and casual sex. (Note: This word was coined by an unknown civilization several hundred years later; hence the differing script.)
3. Pragma (πράγμα) – Denotes practical love, or love born out of obligation and logic rather than complex emotions. Examples of pragma are arranged marriages, political relationships, or tolerating infidelity.
It should surprise no one that Al-Haitham enjoys precise wording. Seeing the different forms of love laid out so clearly makes him feel a bit calmer about this whole… situation with Kaveh. Using these words as a guide, he can clearly define what he feels for Kaveh.
Agape is described as charity. Al-Haitham would hardly consider himself particularly generous, but there have been several times where he has helped Kaveh for no reason other than because Kaveh needed it. Considering agape is meant to be non-intimate and able to be felt by everyone, he feels comfortable admitting that he feels agape for Kaveh.
Eros feels a bit too intimidating to think about right now, so Al-Haitham skips it to revisit at a later time. That means philia is next: love of one’s friends. It feels a bit foolish to question if Kaveh is Al-Haitham’s friend after everything Kaveh has learned about him. He knows about Al-Haitham’s grandmother – not everything, but, judging by the sad look in his eyes whenever Al-Haitham mentions her, enough – and has gone out of his way to spend time with Al-Haitham. And Al-Haitham can admit that when Kaveh isn’t being overbearing or loud or annoying, his company is pleasant. Al-Haitham enjoys their study sessions, when they will work independently of each other, but Kaveh’s presence still lights up the room and will occasionally break the silence to mutter a passage from his textbook under his breath.
So yes, Al-Haitham feels agape and philia for Kaveh. Storge, however… Al-Haitham frowns. Thinking of Kaveh as his brother or even a distant cousin makes something in his stomach twist. It’s strange. Most people consider their close friends as family, and while Al-Haitham thinks he wouldn’t mind having Kaveh in his family, he feels uncomfortable insinuating they are related by blood.
The last two types of love are irrelevant to Al-Haitham’s research, so he disregards them entirely and thinks back to eros. Eros is categorized by sexual attraction and a sense of intimacy and passion that eludes the other types of love. Unfortunately, Al-Haitham does not have much of a sex drive to speak of. Yes, there are times where he feels oddly pent-up and has to masturbate to relieve the pressure, but he has never wished to involve someone else in the process. He can appreciate Kaveh’s physical appearance, just as he can appreciate the physical appearance of anyone he comes across, but the idea of allowing Kaveh to glimpse Al-Haitham at his most vulnerable makes his heart race with anxiety.
So eros is out, then. Al-Haitham loves Kaveh, but it is in a dispassionate sort of way. He was just… momentarily stunned by Kaveh’s beauty, overwhelmed by the agape and philia that was making him take care of Kaveh during his sickness. There was no need to panic at all.
He stands and stretches, hearing several bones click and pop back into place. It earns him an annoyed look from a nearby student, but he pays them no mind as he gathers up his reference materials and reshelves them. When he comes back to his table to pack up his notebook and quill, Kaveh is standing there, reading his notes. Bright ruby eyes look up at Al-Haitham, quizzical. Suddenly, Al-Haitham reached his conclusions entirely in his head, instead of committing them to paper.
“Why are you taking notes about love?” Kaveh asks.
Al-Haitham’s chest clenches when he steps closer, nose filling with the scent of Kaveh’s shampoos and lotions and perfumes. He assures himself that it’s a left-over effect from thinking he had a “crush” on the other and nothing more.
“I’m researching the history of words associated with the concept of love, not the concept itself,” Al-Haitham says as he plucks his notebook from Kaveh’s hands. Their hands do not touch, but his heart still leaps. Left-over panic from thinking about Kaveh in a sexual manner, he assumes.
And then he pauses. He looks Kaveh up and down – slowly, methodically. His form is pleasing, there is no doubt. He is tall and slightly gangly, all long limbs and lean muscle, but his shoulders are surprisingly broad and his hands are larger than one would suspect. His skin is golden, darker than his hair but lighter than Al-Haitham’s, and mostly flawless. There’s a few scars scattered over his body, like the one between the knuckles of his left hand that was there before he ever introduced himself to Al-Haitham, but Al-Haitham has no doubts that if he touched any other part of Kaveh’s body, his skin would be smooth and soft – perhaps even softer than the fine, silk sheets Al-Haitham’s grandmother imported from Liyue for him as a moving-out present.
Then there’s the matter of Kaveh’s face. It’s a nice face, to be sure: symmetrical, kind, and home to a pair of unique, red eyes. Al-Haitham has occasionally seen a white-haired Spantamad in Kaveh’s graduating class with a similar eye color, but Al-Haitham thinks Kaveh’s eyes are more striking. His lashes are long and slightly curled at the ends, brushing against his cheeks with every blink. When he looks through them, up at Al-Haitham, it makes everything feel more intense, even when they’ve been temporarily clumped together by tears. Al-Haitham has always thought it’s a good thing for Kaveh’s vanity that he is such a pretty crier. The way his thin, elegant nose scrunches at the tip makes Al-Haitham want to—
Kaveh snaps his fingers a few times in Al-Haitham’s face, dislodging whatever train of thought he’d been distracted by. Still, Al-Haitham notes that his nails have been painted with a new teal color he’s never worn before and that his face is rather flushed.
“Stop zoning out, I’m trying to talk to you!” Kaveh snaps, putting his hands on his (very narrow) hips. He huffs. “I was trying to invite you to my graduation party! It’s being held at Lambad’s tonight.”
“You want me to babysit you when you inevitably get too drunk to stand up straight,” Al-Haitham translates.
Kaveh turns even redder. “I won’t get that drunk!”
“You’re a lightweight and easily swayed by a crowd. It’s inevitable that one glass of wine will turn into two, and that alone is enough to get you decently tipsy. After that, tearing you away from the festivities will become impossible until you’re rendered unconscious or dangerously sick. At which point, I will need to step in to make sure you make it home safely.” Al-Haitham slings his bag over one of his shoulders and levels Kaveh with a flat look. “Does that sound familiar, Senior Kaveh?”
“How come you only call me ‘senior’ when you’re insulting me?”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“So are you!”
Al-Haitham shrugs to better settle his bag and starts to walk away. He knows without looking – or even listening – that Kaveh is following him. “You’re constantly complaining that I don’t afford you enough respect. It is hardly my fault that you consider my words to be insincere or degrading whenever I choose to respect your wishes.”
“Yeah, well—! It’s not my fault that you constantly sound sarcastic!”
“This is simply how I speak. If you don’t like that, you can simply stop talking to me.”
“Why would I do that? You’re a good sounding board – when you’re not being a brat, that is.”
Al-Haitham’s lips twitch just slightly and then settle again. “Of course, Senior Kaveh.”
“See?! So sarcastic all the time… What would it take to make you smile genuinely?”
“You could start by asking me to smile.”
“No, no, that won’t work. The smile you use when someone takes your picture or asks you to act nice isn’t your real smile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen your real smile, to be honest… I think the closest I’ve ever seen is when you’re not actively frowning, and that only happens when you’re reading.”
Kaveh is no longer talking directly to Al-Haitham, so Al-Haitham tunes him out. Though his studying was cut slightly short, he has at least figured out the question of what he feels for Kaveh: philia, platonic love. There is no need to worry about eros, mania, or anything of the sort, which is immensely relieving for Al-Haitham. The world around him will challenge him enough as it is – there is no need for him to add to his worries by way of unnecessarily complicated feelings.
It should not surprise Al-Haitham that Kaveh’s presence in his life was not permanent. That is the way it has always been with Al-Haitham. His parents were gone before he could ever form coherent memories of them. His grandmother stuck around until he was an adult, but she was gone soon after. He has never had many friends, just the occasional playmate who would usually only stick around for a season and no longer. Everyone in Al-Haitham’s life is, ultimately, transient. It would follow, then, that Kaveh is included in that number.
Still, the matter of their parting leaves a slightly bitter taste in Al-Haitham’s mouth. Kaveh is still alive and well, as far as he knows. Recently, he’s heard rumors that he’s finally working on that masterpiece of his: the Palace of Alcazazaray. Maybe Al-Haitham will pay it a visit once it’s finished, long after the rest of Sumeru has stopped gawking at it. Or maybe Kaveh wouldn’t want him to do that at all. He had, after all, accused Al-Haitham as heartless, completely incapable of understanding art, let alone the rest of humanity.
He scowls to himself. Right. There it was: that insinuation that Al-Haitham is less than human because he doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve like Kaveh. That is the source of the bitterness, the unsettled feeling he gets whenever he thinks about Kaveh or hears about how he’s doing. Perhaps it’s also there because all it took was one project falling through. Somehow, he’d been convinced only death would be able to convince Kaveh to leave him alone.
Yet here they are: Al-Haitham, one paper away from graduation, currently stationed in the Hypostyle Desert to study the ruins of Ay-Khanoum, and Kaveh, constructing the palace of his dreams, still angry at Al-Haitham for calling it (and, by extension, him) a delusion. There is nothing keeping them apart but their own pride and innumerable differences.
Mirrors indeed, Al-Haitham muses as he uses his newly-acquired Vision to summon and manipulate Dendro energy into three crystalline structures. He’s taken to calling them “Chisel-Light Mirrors”, and though they could still use some refinement, they’re quite good at reflecting light and Dendro energy. It’s hardly useful to his research, but with a bit more practice, he doesn’t doubt that they can enhance his combat abilities.
A mirror is only good if one can look into it, and Kaveh is too far away for that. Al-Haitham lets go of the Dendro energy, and the Chisel-Light Mirrors disappear as if they were never there in the first place. It feels a bit like irony, but perhaps Al-Haitham is reading too much into it. There are, after all, other things to worry about right now. This paper won’t write itself. Thoughts of Kaveh can be reviewed at a later date, if at all.
All Al-Haitham can think when he first opens the door to what will soon be his new house is: “To the victors go the spoils.” Except it doesn’t feel like a victory. He was not the sole contributor to that failed project, yet he knows Kaveh will never accept his own reward. And anyways, he is still busy with his palace. He would not want a house in the heart of the city like this, in the shadow of the very Akademiya he would curse every time he was drunk enough.
So Al-Haitham shoves Kaveh from his mind and focuses on furnishing his new house. There is some left-over furniture from when it was still a showroom, but he needs quite a few more bookshelves to fit his whole collection. An entire day is dedicated to moving all of his books out of storage, and another is spent organizing and putting it away properly. The silence is only broken by the soft music playing from his grandmother’s gramophone.
When night falls, he lies on his back and stares at the ceiling for a long, long time.
It is too quiet, he thinks. Even with the window left slightly open so that the ambience of the night can seep in, it is too quiet. Even with his modified Akasha terminal playing music, it is too quiet.
Eventually, he grows used to it. He falls asleep without needing to listen to music or the sounds of the world outside his home. He lives in silence, and most of the time, he can fool himself into thinking it’s fine. He has a nice house, he has a short commute to work, and he is being paid quite a lot to do quite a little. Most would say that he has the ideal life.
And yet.
Al-Haitham’s eyes gloss over Kaveh twice before he realizes what he’s done. For a moment, he’s struck dumb. Surely that can’t be Kaveh. His hair is matted and greasy, his clothes are wrinkled, and his normally bright eyes are glazed over. He doesn’t react when Al-Haitham takes the stool next to him, even though he must have seen Al-Haitham in his periphery. For a moment, Al-Haitham can only stare at Kaveh and try to reconcile the version of him from before to this current one.
He looks tired, Al-Haitham thinks. I didn’t think he could look so dull, either. Like the light has gone out from him.
That thought is an unpleasant one, so Al-Haitham clears his throat. “Kaveh,” he calls. Then again, slightly louder: “Kaveh.”
Kaveh blinks a few times and finally seems to focus on Al-Haitham. It’s hard to tell if he’s drunk or truly just that out-of-sorts or a morbid combination of both. His voice is a bit raspy when he finally says, “Oh. It’s you.”
There’s no open hostility in his voice, just a bit of surprise, so Al-Haitham presses. If asked, he’ll blame it on his old instincts acting up – Kaveh needs someone to take care of him, so Al-Haitham will fill that gap until someone better-qualified comes along.
“You look awful,” he says bluntly.
Kaveh lets out a noise that can’t quite be considered a laugh. It’s too disingenuous, sounding closer to the derisive snorts Al-Haitham lets out when dealing with someone particularly stupid than the sunny giggle Kaveh uses. His smile, too, looks wry and sorrowful. It makes Al-Haitham frown deeper.
“Brilliant observation!” he says, and there is a slight slur to his words now. Drunk, then, Al-Haitham decides. “I am doing horribly, thank you for asking. And I’m assuming you’re doing wonderfully because of course you are. Celestia loves fucking with me.”
“I doubt that. They have much bigger things to worry about.”
Kaveh laughs that awful laugh again. He holds up his hand and opens his fingers, revealing what had been hiding there just moments before: a Dendro Vision, dull but undeniably active. Al-Haitham doesn’t even have to activate his elemental sight to know that it’s Kaveh’s. Because of course Kaveh would eventually gain a Vision, and of course it would be Dendro. For all that Al-Haitham criticizes his over-emotional nature, there is no denying his intelligence. No other element would suit him.
“Apparently not!” Kaveh says bitterly. “Look at this, Haitham. They granted me this for completing my magnum opus, and then they pulled the rug out from under my feet! I completed it and got this stupid gemstone, but now, I’m penniless. Soon, I’ll be homeless too. Tell me, Haitham, what good this thing is now?!”
He throws it onto the floor in disgust. It’s a good thing Visions are most likely unbreakable because most normal gems would crack at the force with which it hits the ground. Al-Haitham hesitates for just a moment before picking it up and putting it back on the bar counter, next to Kaveh’s hand. He refuses to look at it, instead ordering a glass of wine and downing most of it in one gulp. Al-Haitham just watches, wisely deciding not to remind Kaveh that spending his dwindling funds on alcohol is a terrible idea if he’s really toeing the line of homelessness.
“Are you here to laugh at me?” Kaveh eventually asks in a much smaller, quieter voice.
“No,” Al-Haitham says. “There’s nothing funny about this at all.”
“But surely you saw it coming. Everyone else says they did. Even Tighnari gave me an ‘I-told-you-so’ speech when he found out I was broke.”
Normally, Al-Haitham would say something like: “Good, you deserve more than just one such speech.” But Kaveh already looks miserable and tense – so unlike himself that all Al-Haitham can think to do is fix this. So what if they haven’t spoken in almost three years? So what if Al-Haitham has all but given up on Kaveh being his perfect mirror, and Kaveh has probably given up on being Al-Haitham’s friend? The Light of the Kshahrewar has gone out, and that alone is reason for him to interfere: because it is wrong for him to be… like this.
“You said you’re going to be homeless soon,” Al-Haitham says instead of rising to Kaveh’s bait. “I assume that’s because you can’t pay your rent.”
Kaveh bristles, but even that seems half-hearted. “Don’t rub it in,” he mutters, pouting down at his wine.
“You’ll need a place to stay, then. Do you have one?”
“No. That’s what ‘homeless’ means, Haitham. I’d assume a Harvatat would understand that.”
Al-Haitham takes a slow, deep breath to avoid getting irritated. It doesn’t really work. It never does when it’s Kaveh. Still, he manages to say, “Stay with me.”
Kaveh stiffens. After a moment, he slowly turns his head to look at Al-Haitham with an expression that seems to be caught halfway between anger and incredulity. “What?”
“There’s an extra room in my house you could take. Half of it was always meant to be yours anyways.”
Kaveh’s expression turns slightly suspicious. “...And what do you want in return?”
“I would appreciate having someone help me look after the house. Eventually, once your finances are more stable, I would also expect you to pay rent and other household expenses, such as groceries.”
“That’s it?”
Al-Haitham raises an eyebrow. “I can easily add more caveats if you find this offer too generous.”
“That’s not what I meant!” Kaveh snaps, flapping his hand impatiently and almost knocking over his wine in the process. His Vision, Al-Haitham notes with a small smirk, is finally starting to brighten. “You’re impossible. There’s no way you’re offering me something so important for so little.”
“Believe what you will. The offer still stands.” He stands up. “Now come on. That’s enough drinking.”
“Says who?”
“Says the one sober enough to realize you’re too far gone. Don’t make me carry you out.”
Kaveh blushes. “Y-you wouldn’t!”
Al-Haitham takes a pointed step forward, and Kaveh scrambles upright. “Alright, alright, I get your point! Horrible man… Let me pay the—”
“Mister Lambad,” Al-Haitham says, looking over his shoulder. “Put Mister Kaveh’s drinks on my tab. I’ll pay it back when I come to pick up my wine order tomorrow afternoon.”
The barkeep nods and scoops up Kaveh’s glass to clean. Kaveh glares at Al-Haitham. “I could’ve paid for that.”
“With what Mora? Don’t forget your Vision, now.”
Kaveh casts a slightly resentful look at the gem, but he scoops it up. His thumb rubs the smooth surface in a distracted manner as he follows Al-Haitham outside. For once, he is quiet, shoulders hunched forward and eyes looking at everything but Al-Haitham. Al-Haitham tries to relish in the silence, but it feels wrong to not have Kaveh filling the silence with his endless chatter. It certainly makes the walk back to Al-Haitham’s house feel much longer than it normally would.
Al-Haitham unlocks the door and lets Kaveh step inside first. “Put your shoes there,” he instructs, watching as the architect clumsily toes off his footwear and places it on the designated mat.
“You should get a shoe cubby,” Kaveh says. “There’s too many shoes on this mat. You’ll trip and crack your head open on the doorframe one day.”
“Wouldn’t you like that,” Al-Haitham says, walking barefoot into the living room. Kaveh follows, glancing at everything with a critical eye. Judging by the wrinkle of his nose, he doesn’t like it.
“Those curtains are horrendous,” he says. “And that couch doesn’t match that one over there. Gods. What were you thinking when you bought this place?”
Al-Haitham lets him criticize everything thoroughly with only the slightest bit of push-back. Kaveh is talking, and that’s all that matters. He still needs a bath and a good night’s sleep, but he is acting more like Kaveh now than before, when Al-Haitham first saw him.
“Which room is mine?” Kaveh eventually asks, temporarily satisfied with his critique of the living room.
Al-Haitham leads Kaveh through the house, pointing at doors and explaining which one leads to which room. The only door he bothers to open is the one to his study. “This will be yours,” he says, “but obviously you’ll need to refurnish it.”
“I’ll say. There’s no bed! Where am I meant to sleep tonight?”
Al-Haitham looks past his shoulder to the couches in the living room. Kaveh follows his gaze. When he turns back, he’s scowling. “You’re joking.”
“You’re free to sleep outside. I would advise against it, though: the forecast says it’s going to rain torrentially tonight.”
Kaveh’s rant is cut short by Al-Haitham closing his bedroom door and locking it. Kaveh pounds on it for a bit before getting bored and storming off. Al-Haitham trusts him to figure things out and gets ready for bed with a slight smile tugging at his lips. Falling asleep has never felt so easy.
The next morning, Al-Haitham walks out into the living room to start brewing his coffee but pauses when he catches sight of Kaveh. The blonde is still fast asleep on one of the couches, but at some point in the night he stole Al-Haitham’s cape from off the coat rack by the door to use as a blanket. A spare throw pillow is being slowly squeezed to death in his arms. The sight is as ridiculous as it is endearing. Al-Haitham chuckles softly to himself and isn’t even mad about the drool on his cape. He’ll just make Kaveh wash it later.
Kaveh is still asleep when he leaves for work, so Al-Haitham leaves behind a note, briefly summarizing what happened last night in case Kaveh was too drunk to remember and laying out a list of ground rules and chores he expects Kaveh to abide by when he wakes up.
Of course, Kaveh comes storming into his office just after lunch, red-faced and still wearing last night’s clothes, to complain about being Al-Haitham’s “maid”. Al-Haitham ignores him until he’s done, then says, “If you’re not amicable to the arrangement, you should’ve told me sooner. I wouldn’t have bought a maid uniform for you.”
Kaveh goes scarlet and throws the chore list at Al-Haitham’s face. “Shut up!” he screeches, then whirls around and leaves as quickly as he’d come. There is a rose bud in his hair, Al-Haitham notes; probably the work of the Dendro Vision now proudly clipped to his belt.
Hopefully, this will be worth it, Al-Haitham thinks as he turns back to his paperwork.
In some ways, asking Kaveh to live with him was a great idea. In other ways, it was a huge mistake.
Kaveh’s financials are a mess after what happened with the Palace of Alcazazaray, so there’s no denying that he needs the help. And though Al-Haitham will probably never say this directly to Kaveh’s face, it’s nice to have him back. He’s more defensive around Al-Haitham, and gone are the days of casual physical contact, but that defeated, extinguished man sitting at Lambad’s counter seems to be gone. There are days where Kaveh’s light still flickers, of course, but he always bounces back. But Kaveh grows comfortable quite quickly, and that opens up a new host of problems for Al-Haitham to deal with.
For starters, there’s the nagging. Yes, their shared areas are much cleaner than before now that Kaveh is picking up after the two of them, and he does the laundry while Al-Haitham does the dishes, but Al-Haitham could certainly do without the constant complaints about Al-Haitham’s organizational systems.
“It’s impossible to understand!” Kaveh says, then tries to sort his collection by the color of the cover.
“Stop that,” Al-Haitham says, snatching one of his books back. “I’ll never be able to find anything if you keep messing up the organization.”
“You probably haven’t even read most of these books in ages!”
“So? I might find the time to revisit them later.”
Kaveh rolls his eyes, but another attempt at reorganizing the bookshelves is thwarted. Of course, barely two minutes later, he’s complaining about Al-Haitham’s choice of laundry detergent.
“It smells awful, and it makes our clothes feel so rough! We’re switching to a new brand,” he proclaims, holding a laundry basket on his hip. Dressed in plain, loose clothing and his hair in a simple bun rather than its usual, intricate style, he looks painfully domestic. It’s almost enough to make Al-Haitham smile.
“Just don’t get anything stupidly expensive,” he says, looking back at his book.
“I’ll get whatever we need to make our laundry not feel like sandpaper!”
The nagging, Al-Haitham can get used to, especially with the help of his soundproof earpieces. If it ever starts getting on his nerves, he can just adjust the settings and he can be returned to blissful silence. But something else starts to happen as Kaveh gets more and more comfortable, and Al-Haitham is absolutely sure that he will never grow used to it.
Al-Haitham has always known that Kaveh is a very shameless person. He frequently embarrasses himself without realizing it, and he seems oblivious to the effects his appearance can have on others. This means that he frequently wanders about the house in various states of undress, and it becomes very, very hard for Al-Haitham to keep his eyes off of Kaveh’s exposed skin.
One day, Al-Haitham had walked out of his bedroom to find Kaveh cooking breakfast for them. The only problem was that he was only wearing a pair of tight, red boxers and the frilly apron Tighnari had gifted him as a joke that Kaveh, unfortunately, fell in love with and wears almost every time he steps foot in the kitchen.
“Morning,” Kaveh says, barely glancing up at Al-Haitham before going back to whatever he’s cooking. (Pancakes, Al-Haitham will only realize after taking several bites.)
Al-Haitham doesn’t respond. His eyes are glued on the bare expanse of Kaveh’s back, the bow sitting in his lumbar curve, the movement and curvature of his ass—
He inhales sharply and looks away. “Why aren’t you wearing clothes?”
Kaveh looks over to give him an annoyed look. “Firstly, because I haven’t gotten ready for the day yet? Secondly, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s been hotter than a Pyro slime’s core the past couple of days. I’m not going to dirty any more clothes than I have to with my sweat.”
“You’re practically naked.”
“I am not! Everything that needs covered is covered, what’s your problem?!”
“Nothing.”
Kaveh squints at him for a long moment. “...You’re lying.”
“And your food is burning.”
That, thankfully, is enough to distract Kaveh for the next few minutes. When he tries to bring it up again, Al-Haitham asks when he’s going to be leaving for his next commission. The subject is completely forgotten about – at least, in Kaveh’s mind.
In Al-Haitham’s, the images of Kaveh’s exposed skin arranges itself into a collage that haunts his mind whenever he’s feeling particularly pent-up. More than once, he catches himself thinking about it while touching himself. Each time, he feels like someone has dumped a bucket of cold water over his head. Years ago, he’d concluded that he only felt philia and agape for Kaveh, both of which were characterized by a lack of sexual attraction. But that appears to no longer be the case. Which means…
Al-Haitham stares down at the notes he’s dug out from a pile of old notebooks. “Eros,” he whispers aloud. “Fuck.”
It appears that he has made himself trouble where he swore he wouldn’t.