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The moon is shining like a fish scale in the middle of a black ocean wiped clean of stars.
It has reached the point of true night, when the luster of sun had long given way to the shine of the wan moon. The light is feeble and watery behind a faint sheen of clouds, scarcely lightening the shadows gathering in every corner.
There are blooms of lamp that penetrate the dark from afar; but on this path, the trees devour, snapping up scraps of light long before they filter to the ground. There is no grass or bush down here, nothing save the pale arches of the stone bricks, nestling deep into the wet, dark earth.
All the windows he passes are shuttered. When the branches scrape over the sanded boards, they make a sound like fingernails scraping, scraping to get inside. Though, he knows only a quarter the residences hold people this time of the night. The neighborhood is inhabited by irregular hours keepers.
Most like the road very little when it passes near his house, for there is little change of lighting or ambience whether the sun is up or down. Before he bought it, the property was empty for a long time. Because, even for such an area, the builders had managed to find the plot of land that was nearly isolated from the rest. Despite referrals, it had taken the realtor three days to produce the deeds.
However, it is a strong house, an old house, built from the wood of the trees which surround it. The house suits Alhaitham well, no matter how many architectural rage fueled rants Kaveh goes on.
The privacy serves him well today when the Divine Knowledge Capsule is burning a brand at the small of his back even through stiff layers of leather. He still hasn’t decided on what to do with it yet. He has some time, still. Bringing it home is a risk with a housemate, yet he doesn’t worry. Kaveh is fanciful, careless and spoiled. He respects drawn lines like a gospel. Without knowing that, perhaps, Alhaitham would have not offered a room in his home to the man. Trust a competent architect to know where the boundaries are.
The night is cold. The lantern on the doorway is lit. Above, the front window is closed and dark. He can’t quite tell whether Kaveh has gone to bed yet or not. The man keeps hours as irregular as Alhaitham himself. When he moved in, he insisted on keeping the porch light on until both of them were in.
Alhaitham saw no reason for the light, for there had been many nights he arrived to a dark house, and he expected many more. He doesn’t see the reason, still. He also sees no reason for not letting Kaveh to have that one thing when Alhaitham already invites him in. It helps that Kaveh doesn’t expect him to return the courtesy.
No lamp or candle has been lit inside. The yellow light is thrown down in a sharply defined square, and outside of its edges much of the house is stranded in darkness. Bolting up the door, he walks up stairs blind.
Then there is Kaveh.
Kaveh sits on the balcony in an island of moonlight, his hair a waterfall of bleached gold tossed over one shoulder. The light falls over him and the hookah like a pale grey shroud. A decanter of wine completes the picture of decadence.
“How’s your business?” Kaveh says in lieu of a greeting. Smoke twirls between his lips. “Finished terrorizing every Eremite brigades in Port Ormos yet?”
Alhaitham clears the room with quick strides. The wind shifts and the smoke wafts toward him. Floral and bitter, entirely different from what Kaveh usually prefers.
“I was offering mutually profitable agreements.”
Half decanter of wine. Two glasses. One used, one untouched. He pours himself a cup full. Without the flickering coal embers, the hookah might as well be one with the shadow.
“Coming from you? There are not many differences,” Kaveh murmurs. His voice is slightly slurred. His eyes are lidded, his limbs loose. The mouthpiece is pinched by two long fingers. No terminal in his ear.
“There is no reason to resort to threats if there are other ways to encourage cooperation. Most humans respond appallingly under threats.”
The wine tastes familiar on tongue, goes down smoothly like good wine should and leaves a trail of warmth down to his stomach. Only, the shisha turns the aftertaste tart.
“You should switch back to the usual blend.”
Kaveh hums. “You weren’t being very convincing with your words there,” he tips his head back to breathe in the smoke once more. Silvery light plays and laps at the hollows in his throat and cheeks. “It’s a gift. Supposed to help with headaches.”
Alhaitham gives a pointed look to the wine decanter that goes ignored. “And you decide to pair shisha with drinking.” The words come as a mild chastisement. “How is it working out for you?”
Kaveh laughs through the vapor. “Inconclusive. Need more trials, I think.” He reaches for his half empty cup. Alhaitham lets his fingers slide warm skin as he takes the cup from Kaveh’s hand. Kaveh allows it to go, watches as it slides over the table.
Kaveh sweeps his hair over his shoulder, revealing a swath of neck, damped by shadow. The skin of that neck spills over collarbones like the swell of a river flowing over a rock.
“Want a try? It gets better when you’re used to the taste.” He twirls the glass mouthpiece like an offering. Something in Alhaitham stills. Something else stands up and reaches out.
“How did you know to expect me?” Alhaitham asks instead. He leans closer. He can smell the soap Kaveh favours.
“Why do you think I was expecting you?” Disappointment flickers across Kaveh’s face, but he doesn’t look surprised.
Alhaitham glances over the table, very obviously set with two in mind. The loose sleeping robe Kaveh will never be caught wearing in front of guests. And the allegedly medicinal shisha. He doesn’t voice the obvious answer.
Kaveh smiles, slow. “It could be that the one I was waiting for didn’t show up so I decided to heal my broken heart with fashionable vices.”
“‘All fashionable vices pass for virtues’.” Kaveh quotes. “By Molière the playwright.”
Alhaitham’s hand comes up to Kaveh’s neck, finger sliding over his throat as his palm cups Kaveh’s heartbeat, running the pad of his thumb over the line of his jaw, back and forth. “Try again,” he says. “You are also eminently capable of finding yourself more suitable company,” he adds.
“Is that a compliment?” Kaveh’s smile widens. “I’ll mark the date on the calendar. We can celebrate the anniversary of this momentous occasion every year.” The pulse beneath his hand picks up.
“Only an observation.” Somewhere in the treetops, nightingales sing songs as sweet as chimes on the breeze. Warmth curls in his stomach. The wine must have started to take effect. “I’m still waiting,” he thinks about the notches of Kaveh’s ribs, the spreading wings of his hip-bones.
Kaveh rolls his eyes, the coals of exasperation stirred to life. “Oh, come on. Let me have my secret. You are so tight-lipped with your secrets it’s a wonder you can breathe. Surely you can indulge me the same once?”
“Why are you so curious about this, anyway?” Asks Kaveh. He gives Alhaitham a quizzical look verging on searing. “Unless, whatever you were doing was that dangerous you feel the need to question every little thing?”
Alhaitham’s fingertip halts. Though it does no good, his gaze glides to the side of Kaveh’s face so that doesn’t have to see that look on his face. “Where is your terminal?”
“Figures,” Kaveh mutters bitterly. “It made my headache worse so I took it off.”
“How long has it been?”
“Have you finally realized Amurta is your true calling after a decade and a half?” Kaveh looks like he wants to slap Alhaitham’s hand away. Then, he loses the motivation and leans, languorous, against the palm on his neck with eyes closed. Lashes transparent like crystals in the dim moon glow. “I don’t recommend changing your career path in that direction. You’d chase all your patients away with terrible bedside manners. Or something.”
“Kaveh.” His fingers knead into Kaveh’s nape.
Kaveh clicks his tongue. “Ever since the Sabzeruz Festival, after the Grand Sage shut it down,” a sign shudders across Alhaitham’s forearm when he presses a spot at the base of the skull, “in the most dickish way possible too. The dancer looked like she wanted to cry or scream and deck him in the face. A pity. She was supposed to be very good.” Kaveh opens his eyes. “Satisfied now?”
Alhaitham reaches down to pluck the mouthpiece from Kaveh’s hand. He brings it up to his nose. Bitter. Minty. A blend of floral notes that are impossible to distinguish.
“I remember hearing there are at least two kinds of relaxants designed to work together in it. You might turn back to normally irritating instead of bloomingly meddlesome like right now.”
“No.” He says. He turns the mouthpiece around and holds it to Kaveh’s mouth.
An amused sound escapes Kaveh’s throat. “No? Let’s see if I can give you an incentive.” The man parts his mouth obediently to accept the tip, eyes half-lidded.
Clouds scud across the moon. Before the world goes murky, he sees Kaveh’s pupils blown wide with darkness. He sees the movements of his lips. He sees the cage of his ribs swell.
He feels the glass pipe being drawn away. He feels an arm snaked around his shoulder blades. He feels their lips close enough to brush. Kaveh gives no indication to close the distance himself, content to wait for Alhaitham’s move.
Between a stuttering heartbeat and the next, he gives into temptation.
For one disconcerting moment, Alhaitham has the strangest sensation of falling through the air, and there is nothing to break his fall.
A sharp bitterness stings his tongue before it flows down his throat. A burning sensation seizes him from the inside. He takes Kaveh by the tongue. Sucks out all the flavor. Molasses. Hot. Smoke. Sweet. Alcohol. He can’t taste Kaveh at all. Heat reaches the back of his neck. The weight of Kaveh’s arm could almost pass through his flesh. His nails skritch across Kaveh’s nape until Kaveh tips his head back with a sound of satisfaction.
The wind picks up. In his mind, he can almost see grey tendrils being carried away from an open, wet mouth. Goodridden. He leans in and presses their mouths together again.
Their tongues mingle, teeth clacking, neither caring. Water pools in Alhaitham’s mouth. He lets himself be tugged closer. His hand slides into Kaveh’s hair. The strands are cold and slightly damped and Kaveh gasps when he twists through the tangles.
A hand settles on his waist. It strokes over the fabric, knots in his sash, sending waves of sensation traveling up Alhaitham’s side. His toes curl. There is something heavy in his lungs, making his head go light and unbalanced. He knows the exact moment the relaxants hit.
Moonlight once again drapes over the balcony. Silver strings form and break as they part for air.
“So, what’s the verdict?” Kaveh licks his spit-shined lips. At once, the world seems to grow sharper in his perceptions. His head loses some of the heaviness he hadn’t realized until they were gone. The fingers on his waist don't stop their ministration. The other hand is tracing down his back, as if Kaveh wants to map out the knobs of his spine.
“The effect is passable. The flavour is not. If the developer wants to spread the use of their creation, they need to improve on the flavour. There are alternative products on the market that are more commercially pleasant.”
“I’ll pass on your comment,” Kaveh laughs, and Alhaitham vividly awares of the sound. He wants to cage Kaveh against the railing and swallow it down. “It’s not everyday one gets a direct comment from the Scribe of Akademiya.” Kaveh’s palm follows the contour of his midsection to the dip of his back. He makes a puzzled noise. The leather pack at his lower back shifts.
Alhaitham’s heart skips a beat. He seizes the wandering hand, feeling the wrist in his grip go rigid and the leap of a pulse beneath skin.
“Well,” Kaveh says, loading the single syllable with more latent meaning than Alhaitham thinks is deserved, “I guess your works aren’t done yet.” He slouches back in his chair, idly playing with the mouthpiece resting on the table.
“I get it,” he continues, proving the question is rhetorical. “You will not explain anything. I don’t want to know anyway. Archon knows how many NDAs and hoops that would need.”
“You have never wanted to know,” Alhaitham reminds. He traces circles on the narrow joint. “You’ve also voiced your opinions of Akademiya regulations many times.”
“My opinions are perfectly reasonable,” Kaveh huffs, offended. “But the fact that you bring your work home means it’s urgent.” The ‘or you want to study it and have a limited amount of time before the higher-ups come calling’ is implied. He slides his hand out of the clutch it was in.
That is unexpected. He has thought they’d restart that old, useless argument again. This isn’t like Kaveh. Unless.
“How long have you been smoking?” This is the only reasonable explanation.
Kaveh twitches. “That look on your face is goddamn offensive.”
Alhaitham waits.
Kaveh relents tellingly. “Half an hour,” he inspects the opaque tube with lethargy. “Don’t get used to it.”
Artist fingers grasp the decanter and pour for two. He thinks of when those hands have drifted upon his bones. He knocks back the wine in one long draft.
“Stop drinking when you have a headache.” Then he turns on his heels, tucking the decanter into the crook of his elbow. He has dawdled enough.
“Alhaitham, you donkey!” Kaveh waves his fist. “Never.” The refusal cut through the chatterings of nightlives.
The moon continues to peer down on them in her dappled greyness.