Chapter Text
Alhaitham passed out on the couch in a drunken state sometime in the late night, long after he had used up all of his tears thinking of Kaveh. An empty bottle laid on its side on the coffee table.
His dreams that night were filled with him, the gorgeous blonde boy who stole his heart the moment they met, and whose heart he had crushed with no chance to reconcile things now. He remembered the day he told Kaveh he loved him for the first time.
It was the middle of winter. They were standing outside of Kaveh’s apartment building and it was snowing. Kaveh had a red scarf wrapped around his neck and the cold had made his cheeks pink. Before they said goodbye at the doors like they usually did, Alhaitham grabbed Kaveh’s hand that was reaching for the door and pulled him closer.
Kaveh looked up at him with his crimson eyes, watering slightly from the cool wind. Alhaitham leaned in and kissed him before whispering softly so only the two of them could hear it, the words: “I love you.”
He remembered how Kaveh’s face got even redder at those words, he took a step back and his boots crunched the fresh snow. “You do?”
Alhaitham nodded, lightly squeezing Kaveh’s hand. “Of course I do, Kaveh. There’s nothing I love in this world as much as you.”
“I love you too, Alhaitham.” Kaveh had cried before throwing his arms around Alhaitham’s neck, pulling him into a tight embrace. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”
His dreams swirled into another memory. One where Kaveh was pinned beneath him on the bed in his apartment, the bed he wasn’t sleeping in tonight. Their lips connected in a sloppy kiss, naked bodies glistening with sweat, Alhaitham buried deep inside of him.
It wasn’t their first time he was dreaming of. No, it was the last time. Only a few days before Alhaitham had been the one to tear Kaveh’s heart out and stomp on it. A broken heart he was never able to mend after their breakup, even if they had stayed friends for the sake of Cyno and Tighnari.
He remembered the way Kaveh sobbed when Alhaitham broke up with him. How Kaveh shoved Alhaitham away from him and told him to get out of his face. He had left Kaveh in the apartment to cry alone while he went to a bar. When he returned home that night, all of Kaveh’s things were gone and a text on his phone from Tighnari said he was staying with them.
He regretted that night more than anything. How could he have been so careless to toss away his first serious relationship with the man he vowed to love forever?
— — —
Alhaitham was woken up to pounding on his front door. He groaned, almost rolling off of the couch as he got up. He opened his eyes, head throbbing with the mistakes he had made and regretted from the previous night. He pressed into his eyes with the heels of his palms, urging the pain to go away and praying this was some nightmare and what had happened yesterday wasn’t real.
The pounding on the door continued. “Alhaitham!” Cyno.
Alhaitham sighed as he removed his hands from his face and walked toward the door. “I’m coming, stop banging before my head explodes.” He sighed and walked to the front door.
Out of the corner of his eye he could have sworn he saw Kaveh standing there. He froze, whipping his head in the direction where he had seen him a moment ago. No… No, Kaveh couldn’t have been there. Kaveh was
dead
. He was dead and it was his fault. A lump formed in his throat.
He opened the door to see Cyno standing there with his arms crossed. “Good morning, Cyno.”
“I’ve been calling and texting you for the last hour.” Cyno held his phone up.
“Sorry, I didn’t plug it in last night. It must have died at some point.” Alhaitham rubbed his tired eyes.
“You reek of alcohol.”
Alhaitham sighed and stepped to the side for Cyno to walk into the apartment. “I know that.” He shut the door behind them and turned to face his friend. “Any news?”
Cyno shook his head. “I was up all night looking for any clues to connect the death to someone, but nothing yet.” He frowned. “I wanted to check and see how you were doing after I brought you home. Clearly not very well.”
Alhaitham shrugged and walked to the kitchen, getting himself a glass of water from the faucet and chugging it. He exhaled, “Do you guys have his body?”
“The mortuary has his body.”
“Can I see him?”
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Alhaitham shook his head. “His only family left is his mother and she’s hundreds of miles away still waiting to get called to be told her only son’s body is in a freezer because he was murdered, Cyno!” He raised his voice unintentionally. “I think he at least deserves the chance to have someone who loved him say goodbye to him, don’t you?”
Cyno sighed. “I can’t really stop you from going. You’re going to need to send a request in though, but it’ll probably be approved for you to go later.” He frowned, “I still don’t think this is a good choice though. He was murdered, Alhaitham, he was in that lake for at least two days. His body… he looks so different now. You’ll hardly recognize the man you see on that table. Are you willing to let your last memory of Kaveh be diminished to a bloated corpse covered with wounds just so you can get in a goodbye?”
“I need this,” Alhaitham’s voice broke, “I have to say goodbye to him.”
I need to know he’s actually dead.
Cyno placed a hand on Alhaitham’s shoulder reassuringly and nodded. “Okay. Let’s get that request in then.”
— — —
Alhaitham didn’t know what to expect when he followed Cyno inside of the morgue. His heartbeat was in his throat when his eyes landed on the metal door with Kaveh’s name tagged on it. The man who had led them into the room unlocked the small square door before opening it. He slid the tray out, a black body bag sitting on top.
Kaveh stood in the corner, watching Alhaitham as he cautiously approached the bag his body was in. He wished he could be holding his ex-boyfriend’s hand, but he stayed unmoving. If only there was some way for Alhaitham to know Kaveh was there with him. Maybe it would have brought some comfort.
The bag was slowly unzipped and then pulled open, revealing Kaveh’s dead body. Cyno’s hand was planted on Alhaitham’s shoulder as both men looked at the body. Alhaitham’s face drained of all its color and it felt like the room was moving around him.
Kaveh’s body was a mixture of sickly pale and blue-purple splotches, bloated from the water he had been recovered from. Alhaitham’s eyes drifted down to the stab wounds in Kaveh’s chest. The blood had been cleaned from the skin, but the scars still remained prominent. One. Two. Three. Four. What had Kaveh done to deserve such a cruel ending to his life?
Alhaitham felt the bile rising in his throat as his mouth filled with saliva. When he looked away from the body, his head swam. He stumbled towards a trash can, collapsing onto his knees and he vomited up the alcohol he had drank last night. He felt a cold hand on his shoulder as he gripped the sides of the trash can. He had no clue it was Kaveh’s hand there.
Kaveh was really dead. The notion now fully sank into Alhaitham’s mind. His body was sitting cold and rotting. He had been brutally murdered.
He could hear Cyno talking to the coroner in the background. Cyno asked how long he had been dead for before his body had been found. The coroner replied with “it’s estimated that he was deceased for a week.” That would have meant he was murdered the day he left Alhaitham’s apartment.
It was his fault. It was all his fault.
How could it not be? He was at his apartment and he had left and been killed. Oh Gods.
A warm hand replaced the cold sensation on his shoulder as Cyno crouched down beside Alhaitham. “Are you alright?” Alhaitham wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He slowly nodded and closed his eyes. He knew Cyno would love to remind him that he had told him this would be a bad idea.
“Come home with me, Tighnari is there. You need your friends right now, Alhaitham.”
“Okay,” Alhaitham spoke softly. Cyno stood and helped Alhaitham back to his feet.
Cyno kept an arm wrapped around Alhaitham’s waist to steady him as they walked back to the car and helped him into the passenger seat. He drove them back to his and Tighnari’s apartment.
Tighnari was curled up on the couch watching a movie when the two men arrived, a blanket pulled up to his chin. He turned and peeked over the couch to see his boyfriend and friend walk in. “Hey guys.” He grabbed the remote and paused his show.
“Hi, Nari.” Cyno grabbed a glass of water in the kitchen and pushed it into Alhaitham’s hands. “Drink.” Tighnari got up and walked over to them. He wrapped his arms around Cyno’s waist and tucked his face into the shorter man’s neck.
Alhaitham took the water and went to the couch to sit down. He drank slowly, listening to the words he could catch the others saying to each other in the background. Cyno was telling Tighnari what had happened and the news about how long Kaveh had been dead.
They ended up ordering takeout and drinking beer as they talked about anything not related to Kaveh, yet that was all Alhaitham could think about. After a few hours, Alhaitham got an Uber back to his apartment. It was only a few blocks away and he had walked it before, but all three of them were worried about walking alone now until Kaveh’s killer was caught.
When Alhaitham got back to his apartment he took off his jacket and hung it up on the hook beside the door. He needed to shower and go to sleep in his bed and not on the couch tonight. He texted Cyno and Tighnari that he got home safe and then plugged his phone into the charger.
He looked up, and that’s when he froze where he was standing. In front of him was Kaveh. Surely he had to be going crazy to be seeing his dead ex in his apartment. “K-Kaveh?” Alhaitham’s voice shook. There was no way this was happening.
He was seeing Kaveh’s ghost.