Chapter Text
Kaveh wakes up late, the sun glaring at him through the curtains and a single bird repeating a shrill note outside. There’s a throbbing pain behind his temples and archons, he’s thirsty.
He’s on the divan, too. Dimly, he remembers falling asleep there after having drunk a bit too much and arguing quite a bit with Alhaitham. Thankfully, someone – Mehrak, maybe? – has considerately placed a glass of water and a bottle of painkillers on the nearby table, and Kaveh takes them gratefully before pushing himself off the divan.
His head spins momentarily, and he hears Mehrak’s sudden trill as she forms a cage of energy to stabilize him.
“Shit,” Kaveh mutters. “Thanks, Mehrak.”
The cage is released as soon as Mehrak seems confident he’s stabilized himself, the toolbox beeping happily and following him into the kitchen. Alhaitham is already waiting there, standing next to two steaming mugs of coffee and a bowl of his stupid not-soup. He pushes a mug towards Kaveh, who takes it with some hesitation.
Alhaitham tilts his head. “Feeling any better?”
Kaveh blinks, gaze straying towards the clock hanging from the wall. It’s much later than he usually wakes up, so–
“You closed the curtains,” he snaps, cradling his mug of coffee. “I told you, I do better if I can wake up with the sun–”
“You needed the sleep. You don’t have a client until the afternoon, anyways.”
Frustratingly, Alhaitham is right. At the very least, he seems to have made breakfast, even if it is his not-soup. He’s also sliced several zaytun peaches, something he usually insists Kaveh do for himself.
Why? It isn’t like Alhaitham is an especially generous person.
He probably wants something, Kaveh decides, eyeing the food with suspicion as Alhaitham brings it to the table. “You’re usually… lazier in the mornings,” he points out.
Alhaitham raises an eyebrow. “Mhm?”
Air hisses out through Kaveh’s teeth as he sighs. He’d like to say it’s too early for this, but given he woke up so late it really isn’t. It feels like it is, though.
“What do you want, Alhaitham? I’m guessing all this–” he gestures vaguely around him– “is some sort of bribe. A rather poor one, too, since you know how much I despise your unholy not-soup. Spit it out.”
Alhaitham’s head tilts to the side, his eyebrows raising slightly. “Perhaps I simply didn’t want for you to wake up to make breakfast.”
“Doubtful.” Kaveh folds his arms. “Let me guess. This has something to do with my diagnosis.”
All he gets in response is a curious hum.
“Just tell me,” Kaveh huffs. “We are not playing this guessing game again. Archons. I have a headache and don’t need you to make it worse.”
“The headache was because of your drinking, which was not my fault,” Alhaitham says smoothly, setting the table as he gestures for Kaveh to sit down. “But now that you’re no longer drunk, I would like to talk about your diagnosis. Specifically, about what kind of support you need.”
Kaveh stiffens at need. “Don’t treat me like I’m invalid.”
Alhaitham sighs. “Kaveh. I’m also autistic. Do you seriously think that I would treat you like any less capable of an individual because of a diagnosis?”
“I’ve managed on my own just fine!” Kaveh insists. His hands curl into fists at his sides. “And I don’t treat you like you need constant support!”
“Then what would you call it when you help me during a shutdown?”
Paying my debt to you, Kaveh thinks bitterly, though the archons know he would have helped Alhaitham either way. Still, he owes Alhaitham, and this is one of the few ways he can actually support the man instead of being a burden on him.
Hand hovering over his mug, Alhaitham fixes his gaze on Kaveh. “I’m going to be clear with you: were my earpieces not an accommodation I had, it would be very unlikely that my autism would be considered ‘high-functioning’ by the Bimarstan. But with the addition of that accommodation and others I have made for myself, I live a very peaceful, productive life. Since your life seems to be far more disordered, you should consider that some of your problems may be eased by accommodations. I know the Bimarstan is able to prescribe medication for ADHD–”
Kaveh shoves his chair back, his hands reacting before his mind does. He’s standing up now, he realizes, his nails digging painfully into his palms. “I don’t need those!” he insists. “It’s not like I’ve done anything to deserve them in the first place, anyway.”
Alhaitham blinks. “Is there a reason accommodations are something you feel you have to ‘deserve’ to acquire?”
Archons. Kaveh shouldn’t have said that. But of course he can’t keep his fucking mouth shut–
“Why would you care?” he snaps back. “Look, Alhaitham, I’m not trying to burden you with my own issues here. Just–” he swallows, forcing down the bile rising in his throat. “How about you do what you do best and only think about yourself?”
It’s a low blow, and Kaveh knows it. Alhaitham’s previously impassive face flickers for a second, eyes widening slightly as he takes in Kaveh’s words.
“You still believe me to be selfish.”
“Is there a reason I wouldn’t?” Kaveh asks, already aware of the unfairness of that statement. That’s how it always goes with them, isn’t it? Alhaitham hits Kaveh where it hurts, and Kaveh lashes out, desperate to wound him in return. “That's all I’ve ever seen from you.”
Alhaitham’s expression flickers again; Kaveh isn’t sure whether to feel victorious or guilty over it.
“I find that interesting.” Alhaitham’s tone is clipped, oddly so. “I’m providing you with a place to live and taking the time out of my day to pick you up from the bar when you’re too drunk to walk home. I hardly think that could be considered selfish. Meanwhile, you refuse to accept freely offered help. Are you under the impression that it makes your friends happy to see you suffer needlessly?”
“You–”
(None of his friends were supposed to see that Kaveh was suffering. It was supposed to remain hidden, like his debt and his guilt and his anger and the way everything became too much for him sometimes.)
Something bitter prickles at the back of Kaveh’s throat as he turns away, crossing his arms. “If you don’t want to pick me up from the bar, then don’t. I never asked for your help.”
“Is it enjoyable for you to repeatedly misunderstand everything I try to say?” Alhaitham asks. “Your suffering is self-inflicted precisely because you never ask for help. Did it ever occur to you that there’s no reason for you to bear all your burdens alone?”
“And there’s no reason for others to bear them for me!” Kaveh snaps. “Argh! You always have to ruin my day first thing in the morning, don’t you?”
He grits his teeth, snatching his keys from the bowl as he fastens his cape around his neck. “You know what, I’m leaving. I have a meeting later today, and I’d rather not have to deal with you any more before that.”
Alhaitham is wrong. Kaveh bears his burdens alone precisely because they are his, because it would be cruel to ask someone else to shoulder the load.
Besides, if his suffering is self-inflicted, asking for help would be foolish. Why ask for a ladder when he’s still digging himself a deeper hole?
Archons, he needs a drink. Something strong, too. But it’s far too early for that now, especially with a client meeting in the afternoon, and so he has no other choice but to stifle his frustration and the prickling feeling building in his chest, and force a neutral expression onto his face.
He can get a drink in the evening. Kaveh just has to get through today.
<><><>
Alhaitham will admit that he has never been good with figuring out how to talk to Kaveh. These days, there’s no way he’s found that doesn’t end with Kaveh lashing out or running off – not when he’s the one speaking, anyway.
It’s a strange paradox he finds himself dealing with now, and one that is so frustratingly Kaveh. The architect has always been accommodating of Alhaitham’s own difficulties, yet refuses to accept the same for himself.
“Internalized ableism,” Tighnari says when Alhaitham runs into him in the House of Daena, his tail flicking, agitated, behind him. “You have to be gentle with him, Alhaitham. It takes time to unlearn, and he needs you to be patient while he figures it out.”
“Kaveh can’t have someone be gentle with him,” Alhaitham says with a sigh. “He seems determined to run from anything that could be perceived as pity.”
He’s trying to find a book on ADHD, ideally something about both ADHD and autism, that isn’t written with the clinical tone of a neurotypical scholar intent on discovering a ‘cure’ or proving some insane claim about how autism is caused by painkillers or the akasha.
So far, he has a stack of rejected options he’s considering having removed from the House of Daena for their inaccuracy, and Tighnari.
The forest ranger thumbs through the pages of Alhaitham’s latest reject, his ears flattening as he reads. “Yikes. I swear, if another scholar publishes anything like this their next publication is going to be on the new mystery illness they’ll find themselves dealing with.”
Alhaitham snorts. “I have a civic duty to report such plots to the matra. I would recommend you keep your plotting to yourself, as I cannot do anything about it if I don't know.”
“Ever the civic servant, you are.” Tighnari puts the book back with a laugh, dragging over a chair so he can sit next to Alhaitham. “Let’s get back to the topic of Kaveh. You want to help him, but you can’t offer help. Er… there have been several times where Kaveh has stayed overnight in my house, and he always insists on doing something to make up for the ‘inconvenience’, as he puts it.”
“And you have to give him something to do,” Alhaitham guesses. He knows Kaveh. The architect would end up feeling horribly guilty otherwise.
“Exactly.”
“I see.” Alhaitham presses his lips into a thin line as he thinks. “So you’re suggesting I do the same with Kaveh’s current situation.”
Tighnari nods. “Try framing it as a bargain, or an exchange. But… try not to use your usual excuse of ‘it will make you complain less’. Kaveh already feels like enough of a problem, and you’re only going to make it worse that way.”
Interesting. Alhaitham hadn’t told Tighnari about that bit, so it wouldn’t surprise him if it was something Kaveh had been complaining about to his friends.
(It’s hardly a surprise to know Kaveh complains about him. Kaveh’s done it to his face, when he was too drunk to realize it was Alhaitham in front of him, and he’s not exactly shy about his opinions when he’s sober either.)
Alhaitham says his goodbyes to Tighnari after that, picking up the few books that didn’t seem like a total waste of paper to take with him.
There’s no guarantee Kaveh will even read them, but he’ll bring them home just in case.
<><><>
Kaveh’s day only gets worse.
His client is demanding and seems convinced that Kaveh is some sort of miracle worker who can design a physically impossible building, and does not seem to care about Kaveh’s attempts to explain how setting up a stable structure actually works.
“I can’t have–” Kaveh pinches the bridge of his nose, gritting his teeth– “It’s impossible for me to design a mansion of the size you want that hangs upside-down from several trees. Not one that’s safe to live in, anyway. Do you not see the number of issues with this? Not to mention that three of the four locations you’ve chosen are also illegal to build in.”
The client’s lips are pursed. “And here I was thinking I had hired Sumeru’s best architect. Hmph. Well, I suppose you’re rather disappointing.”
“I’m not–” Feeling the blood rushing to his head, Kaveh attempts to calm himself. “Clearly you want divine intervention and not an actual architect. This meeting is over. Usually I wish people luck in finding a new architect, but in your case, I sincerely hope you figure out how to manage your expectations first. Every demand you’ve given me is impossible.”
Incensed, Kaveh gathers his stuff with more force than necessary, tearing the edges of several blueprints on accident. Mehrak beeps nervously, using her levitate function to help return several of his implements to their rightful place inside her compartments.
(Thank the archons for her, at least.)
These client meetings are the worst. Kaveh always feels wrong after them, like a primal construct that’s just taken a serious beating. His blood is boiling, his stomach is uneasy, and there’s a tightness in his throat that makes it difficult to breathe.
And he’s exhausted. Kaveh would like nothing more than to just go back to Alhaitham’s house and collapse into bed, but he still wants to avoid the man and a drink is seeming more and more appealing.
It’s not exactly pleasant outside, either. Despite having lived in Sumeru his whole life, Kaveh has never been good at dealing with the heat, and as his clothes begin to stick to his skin with sweat he feels more and more like he’d love to just crawl into a cool, dark hole in the ground and never leave it.
He takes a deep breath, the air catching in his throat as he braces himself against a tree. There’s no reason for it to be this bad today. Sure, his day started with a hangover and a fight and those usually drain his energy quicker, but–
A loud clamor echoes from a stall near him, and Kaveh flinches, nails digging into the tree’s bark as he squeezes his eyes shut.
His chest is tight, his breathing unsteady. Kaveh keeps telling himself that it shouldn’t be this bad, but his mind and body refuse to listen.
Someone is yelling nearby now, some scuffle starting over who knocked the stall over and why. A baby is crying. Each sound feels like a fist against Kaveh’s head.
It isn’t usually this bad.
“Kaveh.”
“Not right now,” he manages, the words brittle on his tongue. He’s not sure who’s talking to him, only that he needs them to stop. “I– give me a moment–”
It’s Cyno. Why is he here? Kaveh can’t think about that right now. Cyno is motioning for Kaveh to follow him, so he focuses on that instead, not sure where his friend is leading him but knowing it has to at least be better than here.
It’s a quiet cafe, hidden in the corner of Sumeru City. Cyno guides Kaveh to sit down in one of the booths, silent until Kaveh’s breathing begins to even.
“Are you feeling better?”
Kaveh nods. Part of him still doesn’t want to speak. A smaller part wants to shout and throw something.
He does neither. “Thanks,” he manages.
Cyno shakes his head. “No need to thank me for it.”
Sighing, Kaveh brushes his hair out of his face. “At least you aren’t Alhaitham. He would have asked me to repeat it. Earnest thanks should be given thrice, or whatever it is he says. Archons, I’m a mess right now.”
Cyno tilts his head. “You bring up Alhaitham quite often.”
“You try living with the guy,” Kaveh scoffs. “Actually, we had another argument this morning. Kind of why I feel so messed up right now. He keeps trying to get me to accept accommodations I’ve never needed before in my life.”
“Then how would you explain what just happened?” Cyno asks. “Because it appeared to be a shutdown. Accommodations for autism primarily focus on reducing unnecessary stressful stimuli.”
That was just stress. That’s it. “It’s not a shutdown,” Kaveh insists. “I know what those look like. This is different.”
Cyno clicks his tongue. “My guess is you’ve made a generalization based on living with Alhaitham. My own shutdowns look nothing like his. Thankfully, I have Hermanubis to help, but the point I’m trying to make is that everyone is going to have a different reaction to stress.”
He sighs, sitting down opposite Kaveh. “With autism, things that a neurotypical individual would find normal are stressful. Certain textures or sounds, for example. Over the course of the day, it can pile up until it becomes unbearable.”
Kaveh nods, tugging at his blouse to stop the fabric from sticking to his skin. “Like putting too much weight on a support in construction.”
“Exactly.” Cyno exhales slowly, adjusting his headpiece as he scans the distant crowd. “And how would you deal with that? You’re the architect, so I’ll leave the method to you.”
“Well–”
Gesturing animatedly with his hands as he begins to speak, Kaveh starts to outline a blueprint in his mind. “The first thing you could do is spread out the weight. If that’s not an option, the supports could be reinforced. That often requires spending extra mora to acquire sturdier materials, which doesn’t always make the client happy, but they’d have to spend that mora on repairs anyway when the structure inevitably breaks under the weight. So–”
He glances at Cyno. “This isn’t about architecture, is it?”
Cyno huffs. “Mhm. I’d tell you a joke right now to lighten the mood, but I don’t know if I could construct it right. Now, I believe the cards are calling. It’s time for a round of Genius Invocation TCG, if you’re up for a duel.”
Kaveh blanches. An impromptu TCG match is always a risk when it comes to an encounter with Cyno, and all too often he finds himself unprepared. “I didn’t bring a deck.”
“I have a spare,” Cyno offers, placing his case of cards on the table between them. “These are the character cards you may use. I’m going to adjust your deck, and then we’ll play.”
Kaveh looks over his character cards as Cyno works. Two of them seem to be from Natlan; a rather small fitness coach lifting what seems to be an impossibly large weight, and an imposing woman riding a flying gun. The third is an ominous, almost crystalline figure striding through a void. Frustratingly little backstory is given, only the words ‘the stars fade to black’.
It does not do much to inspire confidence in Kaveh.
He thinks they might be new, but then again, he’s only a casual TCG player, only having a deck because Cyno practically forced him to put one together. He frowns as he looks over the cards in his initial draw, trying to figure out which ones he should keep or replace.
A few of the cards are familiar, and so Kaveh keeps those as at the very least he’ll know what to do with them. He sets the fitness coach as his active card, since her tiny figure lifting the large weight feels motivating.
The full deck is placed in front of Kaveh, face down. Cyno grins.
“Are you ready?”
The General Mahamatra is clearly already in the game, his dice rolled, his cards selected. He watches Kaveh with the same look a hawk would give a small rodent it plans to hunt, which is rather unnerving.
Kaveh nods.
“Excellent,” Cyno says. “As you are the guest, you will go first. You may try your hardest to defeat me.”
And while he vows to do just that, very quickly the game is turned in Cyno’s favor.
The deck Kaveh is using obviously has a fair bit of complexity to it, and he can’t for the life of him figure out what his strategy is supposed to be. He tends to consider himself a quick learner, but there’s something here he’s not getting, and it’s very quickly costing him the game.
“I give up!” Kaveh declares as his last card is reduced to a single hit point. It’s the figure walking through the void, and Kaveh reflects somewhat grimly that the stars are about to fade to black. For her, at least. “Cyno, I have no idea how to play this deck. What am I supposed to be doing?”
“Winning,” Cyno says plainly, putting his cards down. “Would you like to try again? I’ll go easy on you this time.”
The second round goes just about as well as the first, with Kaveh suffering yet another embarrassing defeat. It’s impressive just how poorly he’s doing – usually, even against Cyno, Kaveh is at least able to put up a bit of a fight.
Currently, his friend is crushing him without even trying.
“I don’t get it,” Kaveh huffs, glaring at his cards. “There’s got to be some sort of trick here. If it’s one of your decks, I’m sure it’s supposed to be good, but this…”
He shuffles through his deck, searching the cards for one that seems like it might actually be useful in the next round. “I’m not understanding something. Why am I doing so badly?”
Cyno tilts his head to the side, as if considering the question. “Hm. I would say this is because I gave you a complicated deck you did not know how to use. Moreover, I gave you the wrong deck for the character cards you’re using. Winning under those circumstances would be near-impossible.”
Kaveh blinks. Looks at Cyno, blinks again like that’s going to change what he just heard. “You– what the fuck, Cyno? Did you seriously just set me up to fail?”
“Precisely.”
“Why?” Kaveh asks, profoundly baffled. Cyno is the most honest TCG player Kaveh knows – actually, the most honest person he knows in general – and more importantly, he never cheats.
Archons, Cyno has loudly called out others in taverns and competitions for cheating before. But purposefully setting Kaveh up with a rigged deck? This is the kind of thing Alhaitham might do, not Cyno. He doesn’t want to assume malice, but it’s hard to think of another explanation.
Cyno takes the deck of cards back from Kaveh, placing them back into his TCG box. “Would you say that the way you lost is your fault, or mine?”
“Yours!” Kaveh cries. “I– you gave me an incomplete deck and didn’t teach me how to use it! Of course I lost!”
“I agree with you,” Cyno says. “It would be unfair to place the blame of your loss on you. Yes, with practice you could have mastered the cards more, but you have been handed a complex deck with missing pieces.”
He sighs, stacking the elemental dice in neat towers as he speaks. “I have felt separated from my peers since I was young, as if by an invisible wall. My lack of expression unnerved them, and when I attempted to display more emotion on my face to combat this, they only seemed to find that stranger. It seemed that everyone else had some form of instructions on how to socialize that I did not receive, much like you have not received instructions on how to play your deck.”
Kaveh frowns. Cyno’s words are hitting closer to home than he’d like, though he’s always struggled with showing too much emotion rather than too little. “Doesn’t– well, doesn’t everyone feel that way?”
The look Cyno gives him seems to indicate that they most certainly do not.
“No. It is a sentiment more commonly expressed among neurodivergent individuals. I’ve gotten the sense you hold yourself to a higher regard than most, and see such failures as personal.” Cyno is taking another deck out of his box now, beginning to shuffle the cards. “When the truth is, you have simply been playing with a deck no one has taught you to use.”
“So I’ve been dealt a shitty hand of cards, then?” Kaveh asks, folding his arms over the table. Irritation prickles at his skin. “What exactly am I supposed to do with that? Are you trying to say I’m doomed to lose every round?”
Cyno snorts. “Hardly. Your deck is an incredibly powerful one. However, it requires certain cards to unlock its full potential. You were not given those cards.”
“And those cards?” Kaveh asks. “What are they meant to be a metaphor for?”
The cards are handed back to Kaveh, Cyno tilting his head to the side as he studies Kaveh’s face.
“Accomadations, obviously. I have placed those necessary cards back within your deck, and will explain how to use this team. And then we will play again.”
<><><>
By the time Kaveh gets home, the sun is already setting.
Surprisingly, he does not smell like alcohol, which Alhaitham doesn’t know if he should be pleased about or worried that Kaveh has developed some new, worse habit.
(Because Kaveh certainly does look worse for wear, doesn’t he?)
“You were fucking right,” is all he says, before throwing himself onto the divan and beginning a staring contest with the ceiling. “I hate you.”
“I hear both of those statements frequently,” Alhaitham teases, sitting down opposite Kaveh. He folds a leg over his knee, picking apart the disheveled mess that is his roommate. “What’s the occasion? If it was about the bulle fruit–”
“No!” Kaveh hisses, whipping his head around to glare at Alhaitham. “It’s about the archons-damned diagnosis!”
Alhaitham hums. “I thought we already agreed I was right about that. I told you that you weren’t neurotypical.”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” Kaveh mutters, nails digging into the threads of the divan. “I– I talked to Cyno today. What if I do need accommodations? What if they genuinely would have made my life better? What if I could have had them all this time but I was too fucking stubborn to accept them?”
Alhaitham isn’t the kind of person to gloat over his victories, especially not now. There is no sense of victory in being proven right in this, only a soft grief.
He does not say anything.
Kaveh’s head is in his hands now, his unkempt hair forming a messy halo around his obscured face. “It’s too much,” he whispers, voice muffled behind his hands. “I don’t want to think about what could have been, but I can’t stop myself. I…”
He runs his hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face. “I’ve been an ass to you.”
“You have.” Again, there is no sense of victory. Alhaitham watches the way Kaveh’s eyes flick away from him, then back, then away again. He sighs. “But this doesn’t seem like quite the right time for that conversation. Are you willing to try to figure out accommodations?”
Kaveh’s hands twitch. “I don’t know.”
He begins to organize his blueprints, clearly more out of worry than anything else if the way he isn’t actually sorting the papers is any indication. “Before you had your box, how would you deal with this? I don’t have the time to put one together but I clearly – argh! It would probably be good to have something.”
“I would hide under my grandmother’s shawl,” Alhaitham admits. The memories are bittersweet, the warmth of his grandmother’s embrace tinged with the grief of her passing. “And she would usually hug me. It was grounding.”
The month after she died, Alhaitham’s shutdowns had felt worse than ever. He always instinctively searched for her, and of course, she was never there. Of course, his box was still there, but it paled in comparison to the sense of safety he felt wrapped in his grandmother’s shawl and arms.
“I remember you used to lean on me in the Akademiya when you got overwhelmed,” Kaveh says, returning Alhaitham to the present. “Does physical contact really help that much?”
It did, but Alhaitham shakes his head anyway. “It was more that both your and my grandmother’s presence had a noticeable grounding effect. I registered a sense of safety. But the physical contact part of it was significant. I found it reassuring.”
Kaveh blinks. “Right. Well, as lovely as that sounds, I don’t think that’s on the table right now.”
“And why not?”
“You can’t possibly be suggesting–” Kaveh’s eyes are wide, his hand flying up to his chest. “No no no. We aren’t going to– I don’t know, engage in physical contact.”
Alhaitham rolls his eyes with a huff. “It’s just a hug, Kaveh, not whatever you’re trying to insinuate. Studies show physical contact can reduce stress. Besides, you’ve done the same for me when I’m overwhelmed, so I believe it would only be fair.”
Kaveh snorts. “Well, in that case, you probably owe me at least ten hugs by now.”
“Mhm.” Alhaitham folds his arms, his tone turning teasing. “Whatever happened to us not ‘engaging in physical contact’?”
In return, he gets another huff from Kaveh. “Get over here before I change my mind.”
<><><>
Honestly, Kaveh isn’t sure what he had been expecting.
He hasn’t gotten an actual hug – well, he’s hugged his friends and Alhaitham, but Kaveh hasn’t actually been hugged by anyone – in nearly a decade. Alhaitham is surprisingly warm and, despite his frankly ridiculous amount of muscle for a ‘feeble scholar’, soft.
Kaveh awkwardly lowers his head onto Alhaitham’s shoulder, chin brushing the gem embedded in his chest. Alhaitham’s arms around him are solid and firm, and one of his hands rubs gentle circles into Kaveh’s back with far more gentleness than Kaveh ever thought his roommate was capable of.
Warmth spreads through his veins, settling deep within his core as he exhales. This is… nice. If he ignores the fact that he’s doing this with Alhaitham, Kaveh can almost let himself enjoy it.
“I’m sure you have some ulterior motive here,” he murmurs, breath ghosting across Alhaitham’s neck, “but even so, thank you for this. I’m not fucking saying it three times, so don’t even start with that.”
Alhaitham chuckles, his grip on Kaveh loosening. Kaveh momentarily panics, afraid the moment is going to end, before he realizes Alhaitham is only adjusting himself.
He understands now why Alhaitham seeks this out every time he’s overwhelmed. It’s easy enough to quiet the flighty, panicked part of his brain like this, wrapped in Alhaitham’s warmth. Here, there’s only the softness of his skin and gentle pressure and the rhythmic sound of his breathing.
But since this is Alhaitham, the moment cannot last. Kaveh pushes himself away, grits his teeth, and looks anywhere but at his roommate.
His words come out sharper than he means them to. “We aren’t going to talk about this or do it again.”
“If that’s what you want,” Alhaitham whispers, his touch lingering over Kaveh’s arm. Then he abruptly stands up, turning around and walking straight to his own room. “We’ll look at further accommodations in the morning. Good night, Kaveh.”
Just like that, he’s gone, the memory of his warmth an echo on Kaveh’s skin.
For some reason, he only feels worse than before.