Chapter Text
Alhaitham always liked to mock Kaveh for having a penchant of landing himself into trouble.
Kaveh would always retort that no, Alhaitham was the one who tended to embroil himself in the wildest of situations- the incident with Azar, the incident with Siraj-
But he was never going to live this down.
“Senior Kaveh, could you-”
“No,” Kaveh hissed, brushing past the random junior whose name he did not even know as he continued walking briskly home.
Already, he had made the mistake of meeting the eyes of twenty people on the way home, and had received no less than twenty proclamations of dramatic love.
He resolutely stared down at the ground as he continued to walk, but he could already hear and feel the mutters, the swooning-
“Master Kaveh looks a little different today.”
“Why won’t he look here? Master Kaveh!”
“They don’t call him the Light of Kshahrewar for nothing, look at his beautiful crimson eyes, so bright and so lovely-”
Kaveh clapped his hands over his ears, but it did not stop the voices.
“Oh, look at that charming arc of his elbow, he is truly a man of culture-”
“Will you please shut up?” Kaveh asked, still remembering his manners as he whirled around to glare at the offending person.
The person in question, a roadside seller, just batted her eyelids at him instead in absolute adoration. “Oh, Master Kaveh, you noticed me! Has anyone told you that you look simply divine when you’re angry? I love y-”
“No, you do not, this is just a curse,” Kaveh explained, trying his best to keep his composure as he reminded himself that this was not any of their faults, it was all his own stupidity, “This will all pass... eventually, I hope. The curse did not exactly come with instructions.”
“No, I will always love you,” the roadside seller gushed with pleading eyes, “No curse will ever come between us, my true love!”
Kaveh felt sick to his stomach. “This is not true love. I’m sorry. I hope you get better soon,” he said honestly, and continued the walk home.
Part of him could not wait to get off the streets and back to the sanctuary of his home, but part of him was worried.
If Alhaitham was home, if it were Alhaitham who said all those words to him...
Kaveh would die on the spot.
The coroner would probably rule his death as ‘death by mortification’, and that would be the best case scenario.
Because the truth was, Kaveh did not think he could survive Alhaitham saying that he loved him and for those words to not be true.
Kaveh looked up. His house was right in front of him.
He leaned his head against the door heavily as he hesitated.
Perhaps he should just find a temporary rental to wait out this curse.
That would be better than walking in to a nightmare.
(Even if this nightmare was a strange mimicry of his sweetest dreams.)
With a bitter laugh, Kaveh lowered his head further as he stared at the familiar doormat.
If he could turn back the clock and just not prod at that mysterious device found at the worksite, he would immediately do so. Why had he been so careless? So reckless? He just wasn’t thinking, and now he had to pay so dearly for that momentarily lapse in sanity.
The only information he could find about the cursed object was that it would make everyone around him fall helplessly in love with him. He did not need to make eye contact with them, but he soon realised that the eye contact made everything a lot worse.
To his surprise, the hard surface he was leaning on suddenly gave way and he found himself stumbling forward straight into a firm, green chest.
“Kaveh,” Alhaitham said in confusion, and Kaveh panicked.
Keeping his eyes closed and his head oriented towards the ground, Kaveh shoved Alhaitham back, hard.
“What the- Kaveh?” Alhaitham said incredulously. “What is wrong with you?”
So far so good, Alhaitham still seemed normal.
“You should, go wherever you are going,” Kaveh said quickly.
There was a brief silence.
Kaveh had the distinct feeling that he was being judged.
“You are blocking the door,” Alhaitham pointed out.
“Oh, right,” Kaveh said, taking a step to the side, only to crash his head against the side of the door.
“What are you doing?” Alhaitham asked, a touch of exasperation in his voice.
Biting his lip painfully, Kaveh replied with a wince, “Getting out of the way.”
“Does this have anything to do with the small crowd forming outside our house right now?”
Kaveh was so startled that he lifted his head to look, and made the mistake of briefly meeting Alhaitham’s wondering gaze.
Hurriedly, Kaveh turned around to face the outside of the house, where indeed, a small crowd was starting to gather and proclaim their love for him.
“Archons,” Kaveh cursed, slamming the door shut.
Okay. That was one problem down. Now he had to deal with the other problem behind him. Still keeping his back facing Alhaitham, Kaveh said, “You should go. Don’t let me stop you.”
“Kaveh, you literally just shut the door.”
Kaveh groaned. He held his hand up to his face, covering his eyes as he turned back towards Alhaitham and made a few movements to skirt to the side. “Satisfied?”
Alhaitham tapped his foot. “Not that this little display of yours is not amusing me, but seriously, what is wrong with you today? More than usual, that is-”
“I’ve been cursed.”
There was a pause. Then the tapping resumed.
“In what way?”
Not daring to peek out from behind his hands, Kaveh mumbled, “It’s a love spell.”
“I couldn’t catch that.”
“It’s a love spell,” Kaveh repeated louder, his ears burning.
“Oh,” Alhaitham said simply. “That explains the crowd outside. Found yourself a cursed artefact, did you? By your worksite?”
Kaveh was so surprised that he forgot that he was supposed to be looking away from Alhaitham. Meeting those familiar scarlet-green eyes, he asked, “How did you know?”
“Your current affliction matches the description of a certain lost ancient artefact. And it wasn’t a stretch to conclude you stumbled upon it at your worksite since that was literally where you said you were going earlier on,” Alhaitham replied calmly.
“... Right,” Kaveh said, hesitantly. “And you don’t feel anything? No sudden urge to proclaim your lo-liking for me or anything?”
Alhaitham flashed him a smirk, and Kaveh's heart stopped beating for a moment. “Why, would you like me to?”
Kaveh huffed. “I’m being serious here! I’m just checking, alright?”
“Rest assured, Kaveh, did you really think that a simple curse like that could possibly change how I feel towards you?” Alhaitham asked, inclining his head forward slightly.
Of course not, Kaveh thought wryly, the whole world could fall in love with me and the only constant would be your indifference towards me. I would not expect anything less.
“Well then pardon me for trying to show some concern,” Kaveh said, crossing his arms with a little pout.
He waited for Alhaitham’s snarky response, but Alhaitham merely stared back at him, a strange look flitting across his face.
“No, no, don’t tell me you’re getting hit by it now,” Kaveh begged.
“I’m not,” Alhaitham said. He looked away. “I was merely thinking about how to solve your little problem.”
“Oh.”
“Though I do have to ask- would it truly be so reprehensible if I started mooning over you?”
Kaveh winced. “Of course,” he said immediately, the mere thought of it making his face start to burn. “It would be the worst thing ever.”
Because it would be all my wishes come to life.
But it wouldn’t be real.
All it’ll do is taunt me with a dream that will never come true.
Alhaitham laughed. “Right,” he said tersely, now turning back to look at Kaveh with his regular unbothered expression. Even though Kaveh knew that the eye-contact was not potent enough to affect Alhaitham, Kaveh’s eyes darted to the side, unwilling to meet his gaze.
Alhaitham continued, “I don’t think you are able to leave the house, so just stay here while I go find some way solve your mess, as usual.”
“Weren’t you about to go out just now? Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Kaveh asked.
With a small shake of his head, Alhaitham answered quietly, “After all these years of knowing you, I am very familiar with the fact that your problems always find some way to become my problems. And you know how much I hate an unsolved problem.”
“So is that all I am to you? A thorn at your side, and a problem that never goes away?” Kaveh blurted.
He had not intended to say that.
But the combination of Alhaitham’s words, the cutting way he said it, and the hurt rising within him through their entire conversation...
Alhaitham blinked back at him. Very slowly, he said, “And here I thought that the feeling was mutual.”
“Of course it is,” Kaveh snapped back defensively.
“Then good,” Alhaitham said, with narrowed eyes. He brushed past Kaveh and flung the door open, the crowd outside already starting to thin. “By the way, you’re welcome. I’m not obligated to solve all your problems all the time, you know. I do it because I want to.”
The door closed behind him.