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Kaveh stirs into consciousness with something cold and wet touching his thumb. Last he remembers, he was laying his head down on his table - tired, frustrated and desperately fighting sleep. Well, so much for fighting it. He had fallen asleep like that anyway.
He picks his head up to see the source of the feeling.His arm had already fallen asleep staying in one position for too long. And now he had the sensation of tiny needles pricking him all over said limb.
The first thing he sees is a glob of something thick and dark being spread over his finger with a stick. And as his eyes travel a bit further up, he sees his roommate’s face - eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed. To any outsider, it would look like the scribe was greatly annoyed.
“What exactly are you doing?” he feels himself mouthing, not quite believing what he’s seeing.
“Have you finally crossed the line of insanity that now you can not even recognize this?” Al-haitham scoffs. “To think the girls in the city swear upon their Lesser Lord Kusanali that you’re the best at this.”
Kaveh feels his facial muscle twitch at that. He starts to get up and straighten his spine when -
“Don’t move.” Alhaitham tugs his finger back and snaps, a tiny blob of said substance already straying past his carefully drawn line.
Kaveh stays still till it looks like Alhaitham is done with one finger, his eyes widening a bit and hands leaving his, visibly relaxing his posture. He stretches as he takes in the time of the day, afternoon sunlight pours in through the window painting everything in a soft yellow hue as he watches Al-haitham put what looks like a matchstick now in the small bowl. He gives it a stir, mixing everything in it again before picking up another bit of the paste.
He must’ve clocked out for long and hard enough that he had not heard Alhaitham enter the house. He now looks soft in his house clothes and slightly damp hair, the sleeves of his top rolled around his elbow.
“Is this master going to give me his hand again or?” Kaveh breaks out of his reverie at the impatient tone of Al-haitham and looks down at his outstretched hand. His hand automatically places itself in the waiting hand and Alhaitham leans forward with his matchstick of paste once again, concentrating on the next finger this time.
“Has the sun risen in the right direction today or am I hallucinating?” Kaveh pours drama in his voice for the sake of it. “Is the grand scribe finally interested in the pursuit of art and beauty? For never in my years of living together with you have I seen you interested in henna of all things.”
“Scared I’ll steal your job?” Al-haitham smirks, not moving his eyes from his fingers.
“As if !” Kaveh rolls his eyes in annoyance before landing his gaze at his hand once again.
His eyes track the movement of Al-haitham’s hand closely. He can see how his thumb and pointer finger are slightly trembling, trying his best to keep the application even and neat. The palm of his hand is stained orange.
Huh. Now that he thinks about it, he did not have henna paste ready at home. In fact he did not even have any leaves plucked at all, what with being terribly busy with his latest project. Kaveh liked to keep the fingertips of his hands stained with henna all the time. But for the past fortnight or so he hadn’t had the time to collect the leaves and reapply. The colour from the last time has faded to nothing by now, leaving his hands “sad and empty” as he likes to call it.
“They looked ugly and dirty” Alhaitham spoke up. “Last thing I want is people to think I make you do all the work around the house for your hands to look like they’ve seen the depths of hell.”
“You!!” Kaveh grits his teeth. “I’m an artist and a painter ! Those are marks of my hard work you brute! Not that you’d understand!!” he huffs. “It’s not like you’re doing even a decent job at it anyway,” he petulantly adds.
“Well do it yourself then,” Alhaitham straightens up and makes a motion of getting up before Kaveh makes a noise of frustration.
“Don’t you dare.” He threateningly waves his hand near Alhaitham, as if to smear it on his clothes. “You’ve already done half of my left hand. How the hell am I going to do the rest?”
Alhaitham smirks as he makes a show of sitting down, picking up the stick again with a flourish, a smear of henna once again staining his fingers without him noticing. Kaveh goes to offer him his hand before taking it back again.
“At least light up the lamps before you start again” He looks around. The room will soon be dark enough now that the sun is on it’s way to set for the day. Alhaitham makes an annoyed face before complying, not having anything to argue against that.
Few minutes later, Kaveh finds himself once again with his hand in Alhaitham’s. Observing him as he lays henna paste on his fingers with the same concentration he reads his books with. By the time He’s done with all ten of his fingers, the sky outside is fully dark, the sound of cicada going strong in the quiet of the night.
Kaveh brings his hands closer to his face to observe as Alhaitham stretches in front of him, the hem of his top riding high - not that Kaveh is looking at him or anything. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before.
“Wow you’re even worse in making the paste itself. There are bits of leaves in there, unminced,” he complains. Because he has to.
“I’m a scribe, not a mixer grinder,” Alhaitham calmly retorts. “Do they not teach you gratitude in Kshahrewar darshan?”
“Gratitude for what? Leaving both my hands useless for the next hour?” Kaveh snipes.
“Knew it was too much to ask.” Alhaitham shakes his head as he gets up from his seat and shuffles towards the bedroom. “I’m turning in for the night. Dinner is in the kitchen.” He says before he shuts the door.
“Thank you oh great scholar!” Kaveh says in a mocking tone before getting up to go to the kitchen. True to his word, there are indeed two bowls covered on the kitchen counter, next to a small bowl of lemon. They did not have lemon that morning, Kaveh recalls.
A small smile finds its way to his lips. He shuffles back to their couch to lay down, carefully putting his hands on the coffee table in front of him so as not to mess it up. He supposes two more hours of nap is not gonna hurt.