Chapter Text
It was almost midnight by the time the front door swung open.
Alhaitham could not provide empirical evidence as to why, exactly, that woke him. It wasn't a noisy affair like it usually was when a drunken Kaveh finally crawled back home and made a ruckus just getting the lock to work, or otherwise knocking up a storm to have Alhaitham let him in if he forgot his key. In fact, it was too quiet -- like whoever was on the other side had purposefully eased it open with utmost care.
...And that Alhaitham's body had somehow tuned itself to the sound of the front door opening, it would seem, no matter at what hour and at what volume. Alhaitham of the now was sleepy enough to allow himself a morsel of irritation over it.
Then he pushed aside his own comfortable blanket and got out of bed, because this was registering to him as strange.
The living room was mostly dark, with only a dimmed lamp Alhaitham had left burning so his wayward roommate who kept hours worse than a stuttering clock wouldn't have to bump into things and hurt himself in his usual drunken stupor. Half-addled with residue drowsiness, Alhaitham squinted to make out the shape of Kaveh's silhouette walking into the kitchen, the long shadow of him cast on the wall for a moment before vanishing entirely.
The slightest sound of a cup being taken out of their cupboard and of the tap water being ran followed.
Kaveh's voice was absent. Absolutely, totally absent.
Yes. Something felt off.
For a moment, Alhaitham leaned on the doorway of his bedroom and considered his options. Kaveh was quiet, meaning he was definitely not drunk. But even if he was sober and was simply coming home late, he would usually be complaining or whistling or muttering to himself about ideas or dimensions of a new structure.
This silence denoted a stifled catastrophe.
Alhaitham closed his eyes, briefly resigned himself to some lost sleep, and made for the kitchen.
Kaveh had his back turned to him when he came close enough to see, in the also-dimly-lit space here -- another lamp had been left on as well, set far up and away from anywhere alcohol- or hangover-clumsy fingers could accidentally burn himself on. His hair was messy and loose, and he was half-bent over the sink like he was going to hurl.
Yet, indeed, there was the distinct lack of the wine-stink. Instead, Alhaitham smelled a strong blend of herbs and the acrid, sour touch of the other kind of alcohol. The rubbing kind.
A new conjecture formed itself before him, accompanied by a dread that quickened his heartbeat.
"Kaveh," he said.
The silhouette of his roommate startled sharply by the sink. Something slipped, followed by a sharp CRACK of ceramic shattering on the tiled floor.
Kaveh swore, immediately bending over the dropped, now-broken cup - only to gasp and fold into himself, clutching the edge of the sink for dear life.
Alhaitham was beside him before his mind could fully catch up, though the alarm rising through every fiber of his body soon pushed it to follow. His eyes swept over Kaveh's hunched body, noted the torn state of his tunic, how his cloak was missing and he was ungloved, the dark splotches visible on his back through the generous cleave of his shirt.
"Kaveh," he said sharply, reaching for him but not quite touching. Some instinct stopped him just short. "What happened?"
"I'm-" Kaveh began, strained.
But then he let out a shaky breath instead of lying about being fine. A mercy for Alhaitham's temper and nerves, if nothing else. Slowly, he unfolded himself and straightened.
"Would it kill you to make some noise?" Kaveh snapped at him, though the heat was lacking and his words far less cutting than usual. He kept his face turned away from Alhaitham, the curtain of his hair looking...matted with something dark brown, almost black.
Something went cold under Alhaitham's skin.
"You were doing such a fine job making a racket by yourself, I saw no point in giving you competition," he forced himself to say, crossing his arms. It was a little more effort than usual to keep his voice leveled as he mentally located where the first-aid kit was in the house and whether he could get Kaveh to their bathroom without doing further damage to both of them. "What happened to you? Don't tell me the bouncer Lambad hired was a match for you sober."
Kaveh laughed, a wheezing and worryingly hysterical sound. He stumbled away from Alhaitham -- who immediately put out an arm to stop him.
"There's broken ceramics at your feet," he reminded him.
"And who got me to drop the fucking mug?" Kaveh bit out, whipping to Alhaitham with a glare.
That was when he saw it -- the long, slanting cut across his forehead, the puckered and ugly gash visible even in the dimmed light. His face was clean of blood, but it made the injury all that much more pronounced.
Whatever expression was on Alhaitham's face made Kaveh shrink away. He turned again, hiding himself with shoulders hunched, but it was too late.
"Can you make it to the bathroom?" Alhaitham asked him, and this time when his voice was level it was out of rage and not effort.
Kaveh shrank further into himself, hugging the counter's edge for dear life. "Bimarstan already patched it up," he rasped. "I'm going to bed."
"You're not-"
"I'm going to bed," Kaveh snarled, cutting Alhaitham off like a tiger would rip a jugular. He stepped over the mess on the floor, hissing under his breath at the movement as though it caused him pain, then limped away.
His heroic attempt to make himself scarce got him all the way to the kitchen door before he leaned on it...and then crumbled to his knees.
Alhaitham caught him easily. Kaveh was both shorter and slighter of build, and the feat of maneuvering him into a supporting half-embrace was all too practiced from all the nights spent dragging him home from the tavern. The quiet whimper of pain, however, cut Alhaitham to his core, leaving a gash somewhere in his chest.
He ignored it for now. Bit down on the primal, knife-sharp fear that writhed in his stomach in response to it, and half dragged, half carried Kaveh to the divan in their living room.
"I already told you. They patched me up."
Alhaitham lit the lamp closest to the divan.
"I just need to sleep it off, and-"
He turned, seized Kaveh's chin, and gently but firmly tilted his head up to examine his face.
The better lighting just worsened the ugly cut on Kaveh's forehead. It would scar, Alhaitham could tell. There was also a fresh and darkening bruise along the side of Kaveh's jaw on the left, and the skin under his eyes were red, irritated. He looked wrecked, like he'd been on the losing end of a tussle with Eremites. A bruised cut sat squarely on his lip, close to where Alhaitham's thumb rested.
Kaveh's throat bobbed as he swallowed. He was looking anywhere but at him.
Moving slowly as to not spook him, Alhaitham hooked his free hand's fingers into the hem of Kaveh's shirt front. He pulled the torn, red-speckled fabric aside just enough to confirm his fear - the welts and bruises on his pale gold skin, one of them almost easily recognizable as the imprint of a fist.
The wounds had been taken care of. Alhaitham could see that much. There was a waxy shine to the injuries on Kaveh's body that suggested dried ointment, and his face was clean and not bleeding. There was, in fact, only the evidence of bloodshed. The aftermath of some violence Alhaitham did not, could not, imagine in details lest his thoughts tipped irrevocably into a maelstrom of rage.
Warm, calloused fingers curled around Alhaitham's wrist. They grounded him. Kaveh murmured, voice small and hoarse, "Can you let go?"
You're hurting me, he did not say, but it was loud enough.
Alhaitham let him go as if burned.
Yet he dared not stray too far. Could not bring himself to, even if he had the choice at all. He sat down next to Kaveh on the divan, the numbness settling in after the startling well of rage.
Kaveh stared down at his own hands. Absent of the gloves, Alhaitham could see the bandages on them, bruises peeking out from under some. Around the joints. Like someone had bent them at those-
"I implore you not to deceive me at this juncture," Alhaitham said calmly, coolly. "Who did this to you?"
Kaveh took a deep breath. Then another. Then he started to shake.
He swayed where he sat, and on instinct Alhaitham reached out to grip his elbow to steady him. Kaveh flinched, violently, but before Alhaitham could withdraw, he shook his head.
"I'm fine," Kaveh said, eyes squeezed shut. "I'm fine. I've had worse."
The words, spoken in fragile self-reassurance, twisted the hilt of the knife already impaled in Alhaitham's heart.
"Was this reported to the Matra?"
Kaveh said nothing.
Alhaitham opened his mouth, then closed it. He could feel the tidal wave of his own emotions, threatening to drown out reason, and he wrangled control back with ruthless, iron force of habit. Think. Think rationally. Kaveh was already upset and shaken. He would not react well to Alhaitham making demands. He already reacted poorly when well, let alone...
"Kaveh," he said, forcing his voice to remain even and calm but light, the way he had heard Tighnari use on this same man when Kaveh was in the throes of an anxiety attack. "What do you want me to do for you?"
His roommate took a sharp, whistling breath. He winced, squeezing his eyes shut at the pain, and it took all of Alhaitham's fraying self-control to not react.
"I'm disgusting," Kaveh said eventually, sounding stubborn as much as he sounded equally exhausted. "Help me-- Help me to the bathroom. I want to wash up."
"I don't think you standing on any kind of slippery surface right now's a good idea."
Kaveh's eyes snapped open. He regarded Alhaitham angrily, then wobbled to his feet.
Fine. Slippery surfaces it was.
They made their compromise without words: Alhaitham helped Kaveh to his desired destination. Kaveh did not protest when he pushed him to sit on the stool in their shower. He also did not protest when Alhaitham turned on every lamp available so he could take a better look at him.
There was truly no necessary first aid to be rendered. Alhaitham could at least be grateful for that, though his gratitude was greatly eclipsed by wordless fury at whoever in Bimarstan who'd let this bruised pulp of an architect drag himself home alone in the middle of the night. He swallowed it for now, consternation shelved in lights of the way Kaveh shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny, and instead crouched down to help him undo what remained of his sash before Kaveh could hurt his fingers any more in attempting it.
With the aid of two uninjured hands, it was swiftly done. Alhaitham pulled off the dirty, torn fabric and tossed it carelessly aside with its accompanying ornaments and buckle. He reached behind Kaveh's neck to undo the clasp of his necklace next, then loosened his collar with a tug. Methodical, practiced.
Kaveh had his eyes closed. His hands were held loosely in his lap, palms up. His silence and his posture made concern whirl to a fever pitch in Alhaitham's stomach, but he bit down on it.
There was dried blood in his hair. The signature blue quill was gone. And he was missing quite a few clips. Alhaitham took stock of what was there and what wasn't as he worked, gentle and efficient as he could. His mind, now fully awake and having moved on from the initial white-hot shock of seeing Kaveh in such a condition, began formulating possibilities.
This looked rather depressingly like the kind of beatdown thugs like loan sharks and intimidators would dish out on their hits in the less safe parts of the city. Yet the only outstanding debtor Kaveh had was Dori, and she was many things but she wasn't foolish nor callous, at least not in this manner.
Who, then, could it be? Alhaitham did not surmise it was simply some mugging or theft, because Kaveh had come home with all his jewelry intact. No, whoever hurt him had very much intended only that, and the thought made Alhaitham's fingers tighten around the sink's edge until he heard the wood squeak under his grip.
He forced himself to breathe.
Alhaitham turned on the shower's faucet and filled the nearby bucket halfway, then plunged the rag in. He wrung it dry, set it aside, then slid a thumb under the edge of Kaveh's dirtied blouse.
Kaveh jolted awake, eyes wide. He blinked owlishly at Alhaitham, looking for a moment like he didn't recognize who he was. "What're you doin?" he asked, and there was an undeniable slur to his words now.
"Humoring you," Alhaitham answered.
Kaveh sneered at him, then made a valiant attempt at getting his top off. Alhaitham left him to it, instead leaving for Kaveh's room to grab the first set of bed-appropriate clothes he could find in his closet.
When he returned, Kaveh had managed the feat and was clumsily detaching his Vision from its chain on his thigh. This, he carefully set on the sink counter.
Then he turned and dunked his whole head into the bucket of water.
"Elegance incarnate," Ahaitham remarked as he tossed the clean clothes down next to Kaveh's Vision and went around him to turn on the shower's faucet again. The water ran rust-colored as Kaveh washed the flaky dried blood from his hair, but the glug-glug-glug noise he made sounded a lot like 'shut up'.
The rest of this riveting experience passed in tense but weary silence. Kaveh let Alhaitham help him out of his trousers, ignored the way he eyed the kaleidoscope of bruises on his torso as he did so, and got into the clean bedclothes with only a wince. He also did not say anything when Alhaitham wrapped an arm around his waist, the other hand on his arm, and escorted him to bed.
"Just so you know," he said as Alhaitham eased him down and was about to pull the blankets over him, "I did a number on the brutes, too."
"Oh? Do tell."
Kaveh did no such thing. All Alhaitham heard was soft snoring, instead.
He sat there on the edge of the bed for a very, very long time. Just watching his roommate, whose face was still tense in sleep. Pain? Discomfort? Kaveh had to be aching with the bruises and the cuts, for all that he did not say they hurt.
How very Kaveh. Minor inconveniences were announced at the top of his lungs and lamented about while languishing in a crowded tavern. The things that truly hurt him, that bruised and ached, he went out of his way to hide, crawling into their house like a wounded animal past midnight.
Alhaitham pushed himself to his feet. Weariness crashed into him, his body making its own very reasonable demand for rest. Seeing Kaveh like that, split lip and gashed and bruised, had poured as much adrenaline into Alhaitham's veins as did any close encounter with ruin drakes.
He found Kaveh's cloak on its rack next to his own by the door, the bag he had brought along for the day in a sad heap on the floor beneath it. Mehrak was absent from this scene, charging in its base inside Kaveh's room. It was supposed to be some last-minute meeting with some client not far from their house, hence Kaveh had not bothered to bring his mechanical suitcase along.
His mechanical suitcase and the claymore contained within.
Alhaitham sighed through his nose as he bent down to rummage through the rucksack. There were a few dozen ways to vocalize the bubbling pot of anger and exasperation inside his stomach, but with its audience currently asleep and he himself still too torn between lightheaded relief and seething fury to see his return, Alhaitham saw no reason to follow through with the urge.
There was a nondescript pouch that smelled faintly of medicine. Alhaitham pulled the string and glanced inside at the collection of herbs and the note attached. He read it while he took himself to the kitchen, then pulled out their ingredient scale to begin measure the dose of painkiller Kaveh needed to take in the morning per the prescription, and swept up the remains of the broken cup Kaveh had dropped while at it.
By the time everything was done, it was the deep, deep darkness of night. Alhaitham paused by the kitchen counter, glowered down at the neatly-arranged dishes upon which rested the medicines, before refilling a pitcher of water and bringing it to Kaveh's bedside along with a mug.
In the dark of the room, Kaveh was a lump on the bed, breathing evenly. This and the routine of preparing water for him could almost lull Alhaitham into believing this was a night like any other, when Kaveh had returned or been dragged back drunk from Lambad's. He'd wake with a hangover in the morning, grumble something fierce, make Alhaitham coffee, and their lives would resume their normal rhythm.
But Alhaitham was not a creature of fantasy and escapism. The cold reality of what had actually transpired were loose claws around his throat, not quite squeezing but ever present.
He slept until morning. But he did not sleep well.
-
Breakfast was a subdued affair.
Kaveh was already up at first light, seated at the dining table in their cramped kitchen. He grunted in acknowledgement when Alhaitham stumbled in, but said nothing else. There was no coffee.
Alhaitham stared at him for a moment. Noted the way the gash on his forehead had purpled rather horrifically overnight, how the bruise already on his jaw had yellowed nastily around the edge, the slight swelling of his split lip, the smudges of black under his eyes - and then went to make coffee for them both.
It wasn't as good as how Kaveh made it, but he inhaled as a steaming mug was set in front of him and his shoulders relaxed, so it was something.
"You need to eat before you take the painkiller," Alhaitham told him, getting breakfast ready. "And don't bother with the rent this month. There's no point charging someone who lost a fight with a drying rack."
Kaveh snorted derisively. "Yeah, well. The racks were about twice your width 'round the shoulders and there were four of them," he said, the bite in his voice vivid and very much himself. Alhaitham, turned away from him, closed his eyes briefly in relief.
"What were they after? Did you owe them money?"
"No. Not- Not exactly. I don't owe them anything. He just wanted..."
Kaveh trailed off.
Alhaitham came to sit in front of him and crossed his arms. His anger flickered like the flames of their stove, difficult to control. More than usual, when he could not draw his eyes from the gash on Kaveh's forehead, the bruise on his jaw. "Who was it?" he asked.
"I don't know," Kaveh admitted. He reached for his coffee mug, then hissed in pain as his bandaged fingers twitched and scrabbled around the handle.
Real, genuine terror flashed across his face for a moment in a way Alhaitham understood. Kaveh was an artist, and otherwise someone who needed his hands no less extensively than Alhaitham needed his as a scribe. Injuries to them-
Did his attackers know? Was this an intentional act of cruelty and intimidation?
Alhaitham bit his teeth down on the writhing, screaming beast of his rage until he tasted blood in his mouth, as he went to get a teacup, the porcelain lighter, and came back to pour the coffee from the mug into it instead.
He took his seat again, keeping his eyes on Kaveh's face because looking directly at the way the teacup trembled in Kaveh's bruised-joints, abused fingers was too much. His skin felt hot; fury continued to writhe, to the point where Alhaitham almost wanted to claw at his skin. "Did you report it to the Matra?" he repeated the question from last night.
"Yeah," Kaveh replied after a few careful sips. He put the teacup back down and looked at it. Avoiding Alhaitham's smoldering-coals gaze. "Told you. I gave them the beatdown too. Got the whole brigade arrested, but the matra officers dropped me off at Bimarstan after taking my statement and didn't say anything else."
Good. At least the lowlives were in custody already. It would make Alhaitham's job easier once he showed up at the General Mahamatra's office in, oh, an hour.
"Why didn't you stay at Bimarstan?" Alhaitham had to ask. "Instead of dragging yourself back in the middle of the night. Trying to bait the rest of their friends? Are you really so great a glutton for punishment?"
"I wanted to go home," Kaveh muttered.
Alhaitham's mouth felt dry.
"And if I waited till morning, they'd be more insistent that I get some kind of escort," Kaveh continued, snideness quick to overtake his momentary frailty. He glared at Alhaitham. "I don't want any more problems added to my plate, alright? And it's not like you're such a morning person on the weekend either. And I didn't want to have to deal with you and your condescension after an uphill brawl. So there."
His voice rose with each word until it reached a crescendo. Kaveh shoved his chair back and lurched to his feet, tripped on the table's leg, and on instinct grabbed the edge to steady himself.
His face went pallid with pain. The sound he made cut Alhaitham like a serrated knife across his throat.
In an instant, he was at Kaveh's side, arm wrapped around his waist to steady him. Kaveh cradled his injured hands to his chest, panting. There was a terrible, slippery edge to his punched-out gasps that warned Alhaitham of the teetering possibility of hyperventilating.
"Easy," he murmured, not knowing what to do but knowing he must do it. He gripped Kaveh's elbows, gently pushing him back into the chair, and knelt in front of him. "Easy, Kaveh."
Tremors wracked Kaveh's slight body, making the hands held to his chest shake. His eyes were shut tight as he heaved open-mouthed, lips bloodless.
Alhaitham held him by the arms, right below the elbows. And waited. Because he did not know what he should say, only that he was not capable of it.
Alhaitham was not someone built for comfort, either giving or receiving. All these years with Kaveh, though - of having him, having lost him, and now having been taken back - at least taught him when he should do nothing rather than push and then break something he couldn't repair.
Helplessness was a sick, nauseating thing. It coiled and churned in Alhaitham's stomach but he bit it down. Instead he leaned forward, much as he dared, until his forehead rested against Kaveh's.
Kaveh's skin was cold and clammy, for all that it was damp and for all that he was panting. But the contact seemed to rouse him.
With one last shuddering breath, Kaveh exhaled -- and held himself still, stiffly, before letting it out in a far more controlled sigh.
"J-Just a few dislocations," he murmured, and it wasn't clear who he was talking to, himself or Alhaitham. His eyes were still shut tight. "They'll heal. They'll heal. The doctors said so."
"I'm inclined to trust their expertise," Alhaitham agreed. "Though I'm also inclined to believe that they let you go with very specific instructions on how to care for yourself so that you will heal."
He lingered a moment longer before letting go, but Kaveh seemed hardly aware of him. Or of anything else. He just sat there, hunched over his upturned, bandaged hands in his lap, his hair a rat's nest and his posture warning of imminent collapse.
Instinct moved Alhaitham’s hand before he could stop himself. He brushed Kaveh’s hair from his face, gently disentangling some of the golden strands with his fingers, and tucked them behind his ear.
Said ear started to pink.
The bubbling of the pot of porridge on the stove spared them both the mortification of examining themselves further. Alhaitham went to take it off the heat and replaced it with a kettle, and by the time he returned to the dining table with breakfast in hand, Kaveh had already rallied himself.
"They said-" he began, then paused to scowl as Alhaitham set the bowl in front of him and handed him a spoon, but didn't comment on this coddling. "They were hired by someone who caught wind of me winning the Interdarshan Championship, I think. And, you know, that whole thing with Sachin. Their employer wanted a share - three million Mora. I guess it was for the best that I won the estate. It scares me to imagine if this happened to Madame Faruzan or Tighnari."
"Cyno would have been an interesting experience for these louts," Alhaitham said.
Kaveh chuckled darkly. He held the spoon with excess care and with his non-dominant hand, but he managed it with enough grace that Alhaitham felt the knot of worry in his chest loosen a little. That gash on his forehead, though...
"Yeah, it would," he agreed, then sank into his breakfast with gusto.
Kaveh's appetite had, at least, not been dampened by whatever tussle he got into. He ate two full bowls of porridge while Alhaitham was still nursing his, and complained about Alhaitham being a brute when he undid the bandages on his hands to reapply it with the topical medicine Kaveh had been sent home with.
The joints of his fingers were indeed bruised, but they weren't as swollen as Alhaitham had feared. Still, in daylight and without the veil of bandages, the intentional cruelty that went into causing the damage was undeniable.
Kaveh kept talking while Alhaitham took care of them, and he clung to his voice and his chatter with all his might so as to keep the fury at bay. It worked. Barely.
"Since you've been so kind as to waive rent for me this month, why don't you do me the full complete favor of going to inform my clients I'll be late to deliver on deadlines," Kaveh was saying. "And convenience of conveniences! They're at your workplace. The Rtawahist juniors will be crying and screaming about not having their new telescope up and running by the end of the month, but I'm sure they can find juniors to muddle out something passable from the notes I already made on the new telescope's design."
"And you will, of course, collect your due payment for having done some of this work for them?" Alhaitham replied. "Or is the great Light of Ksharewar once again willing to hand his hard work out for free?"
Kaveh nudged him lightly with his foot. "It was literally just a sketch and some measurements, Alhaitham. Don't be cruel to them. They barely had the money scoured up to even afford the draft."
Alhaitham sighed through his nose. "Meaning you have, once again, taken on a 'client' you were fairly sure would have to pay you at a highly discounted rate by the project's end. I might as well adjust your rent based on how much money you bleed out per month with your so-called kindness. And why are you not delegating some of the funds from Sachin's estate to these projects? They're Akademiya-related."
"Because all of the funds were already allocated," Kaveh replied, miffed. "You think those thirty new hires to recategorize the House of Daena's catalogues was government money? You think it would have happened so fast if it was? Huh?"
Alhaitham paused.
"Never let it be said I don't listen to my juniors' grievances," Kaveh continued. He lightly dug an elbow into Alhaitham's shoulder. "Especially the one junior with the messy books and the dubious privilege of nagging me constantly, at any time of day or night."
"I think you're mistakenly calling a mutual arrangement a 'privilege'," Alhaitham replied, straightening. He had only mentioned his frustration with the House of Daena's mismanaged, messier record sections to Kaveh once, months ago. "Unless you would also like to invest in a pair of soundproof earpieces, but knowing how much you love the sound of your own voice..."
Kaveh kicked him for real, now. Alhaitham let the hit connect with a chuckle, clicked his tongue at how absolutely light it was even if he knew Kaveh meant it to be gentle, and turned away.
"Who else in your client list do I need to contact?" Alhaitham asked as he put the medical supplies away and gathered the soiled bandages. "I'll send runners from my office today."
"Must be nice to have such privileges to abuse," Kaveh muttered. But he rattled off the names, and Alhaitham made a mental note of them, and an hour and a half later than he would have liked, he departed from the house. After exacting from Kaveh a promise to not do anything foolish like continue working or lifting heavy objects in such a condition, of course.
The few people in Alhaitham’s path parted before him like fish before a shark. He paid them no mind, and moved past his own office directly to the darker, more ominous part of the Akademiya where the General Mahamatra’s office was housed.
Cyno saved him some time, already making his way down the hall towards Alhaitham when he turned the final corner. In his hand was something bent, torn, but familiar. Something blue.
Kaveh’s quill-slash-hairpin.
Cyno met Alhaitham’s eyes. His expression did not change, but whatever he saw on Alhaitham’s face had him nodding in affirmation. “He made it home safely?” he asked.
“Yes,” Alhaitham replied, crossing his arms. “Though maybe you should tell Tighnari that he should write that critique to Bimarstan and Amurta standards of patient care after all. Releasing a victim of violent crime to make his own way home hours after it was reported was irresponsible of them. Downright baffling, actually.”
Cyno’s eyes softened ever so slightly. It was a strange look on the General Mahamatra’s otherwise stern countenance, and what did it say of Alhaitham, that they had come to know each other well enough that he recognized such a thing?
He moved the conversation along rather than dwelling on that irrelevant, but nonetheless interesting, realization. “He wasn’t too sure about who his attackers were acting on behalf of, only that their employer wanted a cut of Sachin's wealth.”
“They were hired to intimidate him,” Cyno agreed. He held the broken, battered quill out for Alhaitham, who took it without thinking. Turning away, Cyno led them back towards his office, and held the door open for him so they could have the privacy of the most secure place in the entire country, second only to the Akademiya’s most treasured vault.
Here, Cyno crossed his arms and scowled, the tension of his shoulders and crossed arms a reflection of the rage Alhaitham had nursed, banked, tamed since last night. “It didn’t take long for them to break, at least. They were hired by Jiwani.”
“Sachin’s erstwhile son?”
The General Mahamatra nodded. “Seems like he didn’t take too kindly to missing out on his father’s estate and wealth a second time.”
Alhaitham rubbed his chin. He did hold Jiwani among the most likely suspects, and had already taken steps to ensure that he left the city before the Interdarshan Championship ever concluded, had received confirmation as such… “He must have some persisting contacts inside Sumeru City we didn’t know about, then. I was informed he was persuaded to leave months ago, even before the winner was declared.”
“That’s right. The Matra’s out looking right now, but the mercenaries confessed that they got the contract through a broker,” Cyno confirmed.
So Jiwani’s reach had been further than Alhaitham had anticipated. It twisted the knife in his gut, embittering his anger with guilt. An oversight. One that had cost Kaveh–
“Do you know what they did to him?”
Cyno said nothing for a moment.
When he did speak, it was with a terribly low voice, bordering on a snarl. “I’ve read the report.”
Alhaitham was not a man who felt rushes of warmth about others, the way people like Kaveh would describe it. But the keenness of approval he felt now, towards Cyno, in this moment of shared anger and protectiveness, came very close. “Kaveh was told by the doctors that they will heal. I took stock of his injuries myself. They will heal easily, if he looks after himself.”
“If you need some backup, let me know. I’ll ask Tighnari,” Cyno inclined his head. A smile pulled ever so lightly at his stern mouth. “Kaveh strikes me as the stubborn sort. He did, after all, discharge himself.”
Then he sobered right up. “Maybe it’s better for Kaveh to leave the city altogether for awhile, actually.”
Alhaitham almost agreed. He could see where Cyno was going with this; Gandharva Ville could be used for temporary relocation. It was highly defensible and difficult to navigate, and though travelers were far from forbidden to pass through, the Forest Watchers there kept a close eye on such persons. Tighnari, one of the few people whose advice Kaveh would heed without much fuss, was there. Cyno also trusted him, which was an irreproachable vouch of confidence in Alhaitham’s eyes.
And yet. And yet, Kaveh had said, I wanted to go home.
“I’ll talk to him,” he said eventually, uncrossing his arms. He already knew how that conversation was going to go, even as he spoke. “He’ll likely turn it down. What are the chances of other mercenaries having picked up the same contract with the broker?”
“Not that low. The ‘broker’ in question is one of those places where you do the deed first and then collect the reward later, based on the confessions,” Cyno replied. “Also, one of the thugs got away. His colleagues were all too happy to grumble about him. When word gets out that they failed, another group might just pick up the deed.”
Alhaitham closed his eyes briefly. “Then cutting the broker off will likely cause them to cease.”
Cyno shook his head. “There’s no guarantee Jiwani didn’t hire multiple groups. He was able to afford six, seven mercenaries when you ran into him during the Interdarshan Championship, did he not? That was before he had a concrete idea of what happened to his father’s fortune. Now that he has a target, he might have incentive to act more recklessly and cast his net wider.”
“His flailing is pointless. Kaveh already allocated all the funds associated with the estate,” Alhaitham said slowly. “There is nothing more to be disbursed to Jiwani, and all parts of that estate were legally relinquished to Kaveh to begin with.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that message on to him once he’s detained,” Cyno answered, wry. “You have an admirably rational way of thinking, Alhaitham. It’d serve you better to realize that most dangerous, desperate people don’t share it.”
Fair enough. Exhibit A: Azar.
“In the meantime, do you want me to enlist additional security?” Cyno asked, forcing Alhaitham out of his brief musings. He crossed his arms and studied him under the fringe of his white bangs, and there was something indecipherable in his gaze. “Or are you sufficient?”
Alhaitham…did not know how to process that.
Obviously, Cyno had assumed he would be watching over Kaveh. Alhaitham would say this was the General Mahamatra imposing his own habit and way of thinking on someone else who was nothing like him. In most cases, he would be correct. Alhaitham employed efficiency, not relentlessness. The chances of Kaveh getting attacked in his own home was, statistically speaking, vanishingly small. Crime had always been on the low side where they were, this deep into Sumeru City. Too many eyes and ears. And Kaveh was reckless but not stupid. Head now cleared, his hands injured and clearly frightened about it, Alhaitham figured he’d be more amenable to staying put and out of harm’s way. Surely.
But Alhaitham had also been fairly sure about Jiwani, as had all minds involved in the investigation at the time. Jiwani had seemed to him disgruntled and greedy, driven in equal parts by the feeling of being cheated and his hatred for his father’s abandonment. The sort of brute who would be sufficiently cowed with a firm enough show of force.
Desperation, however, was a difficult estimator for Alhaitham. Jiwani eluded his tactical thinking and slipped through the crack because he was dumber and therefore more unpredictable than, say, Siraj.
It had also not been Alhaitham’s honest prediction that Kaveh would win the Interdarshan Championship, nor reacted the way he had even though he knew the course was charted the moment Kaveh actually laid his hands on the Diadem. Thinking back, if it was someone else who won and got attacked for it, Alhaitham would have been worried but not so invested…
Could it be left to chance and statistical probabilities again, this time? Kaveh’s safety, at that.
“Desperate people are bound to act reckless, thus more easily exposing themselves,” Alhaitham said, rubbing his chin. “I imagine you wouldn’t have too much trouble herding Jiwani into a cell.”
“And in the meantime, I hear that the vacant seat of Grand Sage is causing undue anxieties for quite a few Akademiya personnel. Maybe you should consider taking some of your unused vacation and stay home for a while, in case the sight of you compels people to unanimously vote you back into office,” Cyno answered.
Being known did not come with mortification, as Alhaitham had once read somewhere. No, the feeling more closely resembled irritation . He almost preferred the comically-serious version of Cyno who was full of horrible, tepid jokes and whose reigning personality trait was his obsession with Genius Invokation to this on-duty one.
To think, he had not known Cyno at all some few months ago, and had never imagined he would care to know him. It had been Kaveh who kept their lukewarm acquaintance going after the debacle with the Grand Sage and his cronies, and now…
Now. Well.
“This is rather troublesome,” Alhaitham said flatly, moving to open the door and let himself out. He decided he disliked Cyno’s office, with its windowless, darkened interior and grim atmosphere. “But I’m sure the General Mahamatra will make sure that every perpetrator involved is brought to justice, so I won’t keep you dithering about any longer. Congratulations on going through this whole conversation without a single bad joke, by the way.”
For the first time since he came by, Cyno’s mouth cracked open in a grin. “Why don’t you ever ask after the home life of a sorted cabinet–”
Alhaitham closed the door in his face.
-
The rest of his surprise overtime went smoothly, at least. There were tasks Alhaitham had left for after the weekend that he needed to finish now, since he was going to cash in some of those vacation hours after all, and the Rtawahist juniors were fortunately too frightened of him to express their tearful disappointment of Senior Kaveh not being able to build them the telescope like they hoped.
If the runners and secretaries thought it odd that Alhaitham was sending them out to deliver messages to persons of no relation to the Akademiya whatsoever – Kaveh’s clients – they also kept it to themselves. It did strike Alhaitham as odd, though he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Actually, everyone seemed to avoid him. What did that say about whatever face he was making?
Alhaitham filed this away as something of mild and passable amusement he could go back over later. For now, he rushed to finish his work, penned his vacation request, stamped it with his own stamp, and dropped it off at the Grand Sage’s office where he knew Lord Kusanali or the Hat Guy would check in a few days. He hoped they didn’t mind his presumptuousness, and did not care even if they did.
The weekend market was a horrific cacophony of sensory overload, the kind that would kill Alhaitham to wade into most days. He did it anyway, as fast as humanly possible with the noise-canceling function of his headphones turned up as far as it could go.
He thought of a poem penned by a vizier’s son in the years before King Deshret’s demise as he made his way home from the market, grocery and a copious amount of fresh fruits in hands. The young man from a thousand years ago had gone to the riverbanks and braved the crocodile-infested waters to pluck mourning flowers for a girl who did not love him in return. The prose had been beautiful, the vizier’s son’s mastery of language clearly on display, but Alhaitham had always found his insistence on an unpleasant, even dangerous, task to be confounding and sorely lacking in reward.
This, too, lacked reward. Easing open the door to his own home, stepping softly like he was the one intruding. Depositing the not-strictly-necessary grocery in the kitchen, glancing into his roommate’s bedroom to make sure that Kaveh really was at home, merely sleeping, before going to wash and peel and cut the fruits he had bought. One variety would be sufficient; Alhaitham cut peaches, apples, and apricots. He brewed another pot of coffee and poured it into a teacup of red butterflies and golden vines, Kaveh’s favorite.
He put them all on a tray and brought it into Kaveh’s room. Observed, for a moment, his sleeping form. The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest as he lay on his side, how wan and battered he seemed, how bruises still peeked through the wide collar of his nightshirt.
Then he set the tray on the nightstand. It fit perfectly. Alhaitham already knew that. He’d bought the tray originally to match the dimensions, since usually he put water and headache medications on it for Kaveh whenever he came home too drunk.
Yes, it lacked reward. Alhaitham was not some lovesick vizier’s son who’d muck around in a muddy riverbank to pick flowers for a girl who would never love him back. Unrequited love was not some dreamy topic for poetry for Alhaitham. It was the reality of his existence. And like any morsel of realism, like truth, it needed not explain itself nor have poetics be waxed about it. That it was here in his grasp - that it existed at all - was worthwhile.
Alhaitham sat himself at the edge of the bed. This felt familiar. He’d done it just last night, wasn’t it? Kaveh was asleep then, too. Kaveh, who had told him, I wanted to go home .
He’d made it home, even. Here, to this house. To Alhaitham.
He took out the broken quill-hairpin, examined it for a moment, then absconded to his office. Quills could be very fragile things, and plentiful enough a resource that most did not bother fixing them over replacing them. But Alhaitham remembered having picked up a volume on repairing writing tools some time ago.
Perhaps it was still there.