Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kaveh’s not quite sure how he never noticed.

For a man of his intellect, it’s rather embarrassing that he didn’t draw the conclusion sooner. Clearly, his time at Kshahrewar taught him nothing –– especially nothing about observational skills.

He’s an architect, he’s supposed to have an eye for picking up the details put right in front of him. His eyes have been trained to weed out the elements hidden in plain sight. He can differentiate between the intricate Ashvattha floral tiling styles. Various fabrics and textiles are no match for his particular tastes, but this has managed to somehow completely escape his attention.

Alhaitham is deaf.

In all the years of knowing the man, and as his roommate, Kaveh cannot believe that he had no idea that Alhaitham is hard of hearing. It’s even more embarrassing now, since they live together. He wants to be angry – angry that Alhaitham didn’t tell him sooner (or at all, really) – but he’s more mad at himself for not coming to the conclusion faster. 

It’s taken Kaveh an entire year of living under the same roof as the brutish idiot to figure it out.

To his credit, Alhaitham was pretty good at hiding his deafness. His speech is unhindered and he spoke just as fluently as any other hearing person. He also reacts to sound and is capable of having conversations with his back turned to people (a fact that Kaveh has experienced firsthand, on multiple occasions). He’s deaf, but he’s not helpless. 

He doesn’t know exactly how deaf Alhaitham is. It could range anywhere from moderate hearing loss to a total lack of hearing, but the fact still remained. Now that Kaveh’s scrutinizing it, there were a few obvious tells:

1.) Alhaitham has a very intense stare. He’s observational to a fault.

Alhaitham was constantly aware of his surroundings. He had a tendency to survey everything he came across with an analytical stare. His eyes would flicker to every doorway that opened, regardless of if it creaked on the hinges or not. He would take note of every person who entered the room and have their mannerisms committed to memory after conversing once.

The level of detail he paid mind to was truly impressive, and Kaveh thinks that he might have made a wonderful architect if he didn’t have an absolute and utter disregard for the arts.

When they first met, Kaveh was intimidated by Alhaitham’s sharp green and red pupils following every minute movement, taking in every shuffle, twitch of muscle, and breath of air with rapt attention. 

To be completely honest, it was a little off-putting. Kaveh felt unnecessarily exposed under Alhaitham’s acute gaze, and he was hyper aware of every movement he made around the man. 

This was especially true whenever Kaveh would speak directly to him. 

The first few months of their friendship consisted of Kaveh talking at Alhaitham, rather than with him, and while most would consider it rude, it was really the only way the two were able to communicate. (Kaveh uses this term…. loosely. ) He quickly picked up that Alhaitham was not much of a conversationalist and was more than content with being a listening ear, but Archons, the way he goes about it is the most pretentious, asshole-y thing ever.

Kaveh would start a spiel and Alhaitham wouldn’t even glance up from whatever book he’s got his nose buried in this time around. 

It pissed Kaveh off to no end. He flourishes under a shower of attention (as reported by his peers, he likes to describe it as preferring to have an engaged audience), and the lack of visual response made Kaveh feel like his words were going in one ear and out the other. 

Eventually, after nearly a month of one-sided rants, Kaveh stops his praise of the construction of Pardis Dhyai and explosively yells, “Damn it, Alhaitham, look at me when I’m talking to you! Are you even listening to me?” 

The words cause Alhaitham’s spine to stiffen, and for a long, horrible moment, Kaveh fears that he may have gone too far. He waits for Alhaitham to say something, anything , and when the linguist remains quiet, Kaveh physically wilts. 

The air had gone cold around them, and Kaveh can practically feel the ire radiating off of Alhaitham. It’s not exactly a secret that Alhaitham’s not the most… social person at the Akademiya, but Kaveh can tell that he’s a good friend. Of course he would be listening.

An apology formed at the edge of his lips, but he holds his tongue, and decides to just start packing up his things. It’s obvious that Alhaitham didn’t want him there, and it would do well to just leave. 

With his heart in his stomach, and the guilt of what he said weighing down on his chest, Kaveh focuses his eyes downward as he shoves his drafting papers and sticks of charcoal into his bag. His eyes start to burn and he feels awful .

Then, Alhaitham asks, “Where are you going?”

Kaveh freezes as he lifts the top of his knapsack. A quizzical noise escapes his throat and he looks over at Alhaitham.

He’s put his book down, a bookmark shoved in between the pages, and green eyes trained on him.

“I, uh.” says Kaveh intelligently, unable to handle the weight of Alhaitham’s stare.

Alhaitham tsks , taking initiative, “You were talking about how the design of the Pardis Dhyai drew inspiration from the surrounding flora,” he rolls his eyes as he makes quotations marks and repeats in a mockery of Kaveh’s voice, “ the open air concept truly is reminiscent of a Nilotpala Lotus blossoming in the dead of night. A work of genius! ”

Kaveh makes an undignified noise, “I do not sound like that!” He ignores the way his chest tightens at the fact that Alhaitham was listening.

Alhaitham crosses his arms as he resettles in his chair, his body facing toward Kaveh now. “Had me fooled, honestly. But do go on.”

Kaveh launches a stub of charcoal at him before returning to his monologue, trying to tamp down the fuzzy feeling in his chest.

The way Alhaitham’s eyes carefully watched his lips as they moved sent shivers down Kaveh’s spine. (A furious blush also began to creep its way up his neck but he’s not touching that with a 10 foot pole. He’ll just have to live with saying that he was caught off guard by how intently Alhaitham was listening to him at that moment).

Kaveh has never doubted if Alhaitham was listening after that.

But he understands now that Alhaitham was reading his lips because he couldn’t hear, not staring him down.

2.) Alhaitham signs to himself sometimes.

The action is much more subdued nowadays, but back at the Akademiya, Kaveh would notice him fidgeting with his hands sometimes when poring over an assignment. At first, he thought it was a nervous tic, but hindsight is 20/20. Alhaitham’s hands would lazily sign something as he skimmed a textbook, though it seemed that he was completely unaware of it. Kaveh has no idea what exactly it was that he signed, but he thinks it may have been a memorization trick, much like how repeating something out loud would help the idea stick. 

The habit shows its face at home, whenever Alhaitham is reviewing documents for his job as the Scribe, or whenever he’s in a hurry to memorize mission notes and needs to retain the information quickly. 

Kaveh hasn’t commented on the action in fear of Alhaitham stopping out of embarrassment, so it’s a private little moment that Kaveh holds dear to his heart when he catches Alhaitham in the act.

These days, Alhaitham has taken to crossing his arms whenever talking to people. He says it serves as an intimidation tactic, and proves incredibly useful whenever he’s interrogating or trying to wheedle information out of someone. Kaveh thinks it’s bullshit, he’s pretty sure that he just wants to put his infuriatingly beefy arms on display because he secretly likes being ogled at. But he can see the way Alhaitham’s fingers twitch where they rest on his bicep, the digits halfway to forming a word mid-conversation. 

3.) He literally wears a hearing aid all the time.

Kaveh has never seen him without it. The green and the gold accents of the device are a stark contrast against his ash gray hair, and practically scream ‘Hey, look at me!’

He’s never thought to ask Alhaitham about it because if he’s being honest, Kaveh thought that it was just some random accessory that he had taken to wearing everyday. It’s hardly the strangest thing that he’s seen people wear around the Akademiya. It’s student culture to modify the uniform to the point of being unrecognizable. He himself has added a few accessories to his daily wear.

He should have picked up on it immediately when he moved in. Alhaitham never took it off, even when he sheds his nonsensical, ridiculously tight outfit that he wears everyday for his looser-fitting lounge clothes. 

The only time Kaveh can recall seeing him without the earpiece is when he accidentally ran into Alhaitham leaving the bathroom after a shower.

His things were bundled up in his arms and a towel was secured around his waist, his upper half entirely exposed. In the warm light of the oil lamps scattered around the house, Kaveh could see the way the water from Alhaitham’s hastily-dried hair tantalizingly trailed down his neck to his sculpted chest. It took Kaveh a little too long to realize what was happening before turning around and muttering something about indecency and regard for other people.

It’s safe to say that Kaveh was too distracted by other things to notice that he hadn’t put his hearing aid back in.

Alhaitham eyed his form quietly, the ghost of a smile hinting at his lips. He hadn’t heard exactly what Kaveh said, but he had an idea. He shuffles past Kaveh, annoyingly unaffected, and it takes all of the architect’s willpower to not crumble on the spot.

3.5.) Alhaitham is constantly adjusting his hearing aid.

Adding on to the last point, Kaveh notices that Alhaitham has a habit of reaching up to his hearing aid and adjusting the settings on it. Kaveh originally thought that he was just scratching an itch or moving a piece of hair out of his face, but after some subtle observation (it was observation , to sate his researcher’s heart, not infatuated staring, because what a ridiculous notion that is, right?), he notices the nearly-imperceptible dials and sliders on the side of the aid.

Whenever in a noisy area like a busy cafe, or when the students in the Akademiya’s library get a little too rowdy, Alhaitham will brush his fingertips over the side of the aid and adjust the volume level. Or so Kaveh suspects, he still hasn’t had the courage to ask him exactly how the device works. It’s a matter of pride at this point.

He recalls that Alhaitham once said that they’re noise canceling, and he wonders if that was some sort of subtle joke towards his deafness or the actual truth. It’s hard to tell with his imperturbable attitude.

Alhaitham loves to take full advantage of the feature, especially in arguments with Kaveh, because he likes to tune out Kaveh entirely by turning the damn thing off.

Kaveh used to think that Alhaitham had mastered the art of ignoring him. The man would remain unflappable as he continued to read his worn copy of The Origins of Enkanomiyan Language , even when Kaveh was a hair’s breadth away from shattering the windows of their house with his severity of pitch.

No amount of screaming, threats to throw things, or violently waving in front of him could get Alhaitham to pause in his thirst for knowledge. As it turns out, Alhaitham literally just turns his hearing aids off so he doesn’t have to listen to Kaveh.

It’s for this exact reason that Kaveh has decided to learn Sumerian Sign Language. 

…

Okay, perhaps it’s not the only reason. Deep down, Kaveh believes that it’s his duty as Alhaitham’s roommate to learn what is technically his native language, but he also refuses to lose arguments because of something so petty.

He’s tired of their debates getting cut short because Alhaitham doesn’t want to listen to him anymore. It’s then that he devises the perfect plan: he’s going to become fluent in SSL, and the next time Alhaitham decides he’s amounted to background noise, he’ll continue the conversation right where he left off.

It’s a bit of an audacious plan, he will admit, but Kaveh is nothing if not stubborn. He will get the final word if it’s the last thing he does.

So, he studies. It’s quite possibly the worst thing to ever happen to him.

Although he graduated top of his class, Kaveh was just blessed to be born with a natural affinity to the material given to him. All it took for him to nail a concept was a single explanation or demonstration and he’s already committed it to memory. He’s never had to study or practice for a single test.

Which is what makes learning SSL so difficult.

For any language, the basis of learning is repetition. It means doing the same thing over and over and over again until it becomes second nature.

Kaveh never had the patience for any of that. He’s too fidgety to be able to sit down and study the same information for an extended period, he constantly wants to do more, even if he hasn’t entirely mastered something yet. “The jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one” and all that.

It’s not very conducive to his learning.

“This is awful,” he complains as he rests his forehead on the desk, his hands still held in the air, fingers caught between fingerspelling his name for the fifteenth time. “Do we really have to do this?”

Tighnari, who has so graciously offered to be his teacher (Kaveh showed up at his doorstep and practically begged him), whacks him on the head with a roll of paper. “No talking, I’m deaf and I can’t hear you. Also, sit up. Half of SSL is rooted in facial expressions. Practicing with your face down on the desk is the equivalent of speaking with a muffled voice.”

“Alright, alright,” Kaveh grumbles as he sits up, “I thought it was customary for the deaf person to give you a name, so why do I have to spell it out?”

Tighnari crosses his arms and leans back in his chair, an eyebrow raised mockingly at him, “Do you always ask stupid questions? How are they supposed to give you a name if they don’t know how to spell it?”

“You know, if I wanted a green asshole to teach me SSL I would have just asked Alhaitham to teach me himself.”

Tighnari rolls his eyes. “You’re the one who wants to learn. Don’t take it out on me.”

Kaveh’s digits cramp on the ‘V’ in his name and figures that a break is in order. He sits up and massages the joints. He’s pretty sure that he’s never endured this much fatigue in his hands, even when he was practically bound to his chair the year he had to come up with his senior thesis.

His heart stings at the thought of a younger Alhaitham going through the exact same thing.

“I’m curious, how did you become fluent in SSL anyway?” 

Tighnari shrugs, “It was an elective I took for a few years while at Amurta. I figured it would be useful if I ever had any hard of hearing patients in the future.”

Kaveh makes a hum of acknowledgement, “Was it worth it? As far as I’m aware, you don’t get too many deaf patients.”

Tighnari smiles slightly, “I mean, I’m teaching you now, so I would consider it pretty useful.”

Kaveh evens him out with a dead stare.

One of Tighnari’s ears twitches, and he swats away one of the bugs that had flown into his personal hut. “But to answer your question, yes, I would consider it pretty worth it. Even though I’ve only had a handful of deaf patients so far, it’s always nice to see the smile they get when they realize that they can communicate comfortably. It’s not something that they experience often.”

Kaveh wonders how Alhaitham would react. Would he be that appreciative? It’s hard to imagine that his face has the necessary muscles to smile, so that idea is out the window. A more appropriate response would probably be to make fun of him for his clunky signing. Kaveh would not at all be surprised if he had the gall to just close his eyes to avoid the conversation.

He looks forward to it.

Tighnari, ever the diligent leader, whacks him again with the roll of paper. “Back to work, you’ll never become fluent at this rate.”

Kaveh practices every moment he could get to himself. Whenever he goes out to eat, he always signs his order under the table as he reads it off the menu. He bought a small mirror to put in his room to practice his facial expressions. Even during the long hours he spends holed up in his studio to draft, he signs out his entire thought process. He became so engrossed in practicing that he nearly forgot about Alhaitham’s presence in his life. Their exchanges are cut short when Kaveh is always rushing out for work or to visit Tighnari. It leaves no time for their typical banter.

Of course, Kaveh could only hide his newfound hobby for so long. The frequent weekends away when he wasn’t scheduled to be the lead architect were bound to rouse suspicion and eventually, Alhaitham picked up on Kaveh’s change in routine and the lack of animosity from the architect. It comes up in conversation one night when he comes home particularly late from Gandharva Ville after a lengthy lesson with Tighnari.

Alhaitham is stretched out on the couch in the living room, and doesn’t look up from whatever book he’s reading this time when he asks, “Fun night out on the town?”

His tone is dry, and the raised eyebrow he dons could only be referring to the overnight bag that Kaveh has ungraciously slung over his shoulder. He was in Gandharva Ville for longer than he expected, and when he finally checked the clock, it was well past his time to leave. He ended up just shoving all of his belongings back into the bag and not bothering to organize until he got back home. 

The trek from Gandharva Ville was not a short one, and it had started raining during the last leg of the trip, so he had no other option but to sprint through the rain all the way back to the house.

Kaveh had to propose a draft to a construction board the following morning, it was already late at night, and he was dripping all over the floor. He shucks off his shoes and leaves them by the door to dry. He sighs, “Could we not do this right now? I’m tired and I have a proposal meeting tomorrow.” He wants nothing more than to rest.

But Alhaitham has a talent for pushing his buttons. “Not until you tell me where you’ve been going on the weekends.”

Kaveh pads over to their linen closet to pull out a towel and frowns. “What are you, my dad?”

Alhaitham flips a page, feigning nonchalance, “Hardly. Technically speaking, I’m your landlord, and I think as one of my tenants, I should be allowed to know where you’ve been.”

Kaveh’s face twitches with annoyance. “We’re both grown adults, am I not allowed the right to privacy?” 

He flips another page, and it irks Kaveh, because there was simply no way he had finished a page in that amount of time. He knew Alhaitham, and he could see the beginnings of irritation lingering in his expression. For whatever reason, his outings bother the linguist. 

“That’s not what I said, I was simply asking where you’ve been.”

The comment causes Kaveh’s eyes to narrow. “Why does it matter to you, anyway? As far as I was aware, you wanted me out of your house as soon as possible.”

Another flipped page, and Kaveh knows for sure that Alhaitham’s just doing it to goad him at this point. Alhaitham’s tone is clipped at his next response. “No need to get defensive, I was just asking where you go on the weekends. You’re out so often that I’m wondering if you even get the full worth of your rent money.”

Kaveh’s jaw drops open, “What is that supposed to mean?”

Alhaitham finally closes the godforsaken book and sits up to place it on the table. His multicolored eyes focus on Kaveh’s form. (He’s still dripping all over the floor, but he’s not sure if it's the dampness or the weight of Alhaitham’s stare that sends shivers down his spine). 

“I just simply meant that if you found yourself a place to stay, there’s no point in paying rent here anymore, hm? From the looks of it, you and Tighnari have been getting on swimmingly in Gandharva Ville.”

Kaveh splutters, because he genuinely has no idea what to say. “Tighnari– what does he have to do with any of this?” Then, “And how did you even know about that? I never even told you where I was going?!”

Alhaitham purses his lips, “I have my sources––”

Kaveh scoffs, “Do your sources include an abuse of diplomatic power?”

He continued unhindered, “––and I found by asking around that you had been regularly asking to hitch caravan rides out of the city to visit a certain Amurta graduate. If I wasn’t looking at you with my own eyes, I might have believed that you were seeking private treatment from him for a hidden ailment. But I think something more personal is afoot.”

Something more personal…? Kaveh shakes his head, flinging droplets of water everywhere. “Okay, wait, wait. Now I’m lost. Care to elaborate? Since you seem to have the whole situation figured out.”

Alhaitham only narrows his eyes.

Kaveh huffs. “Oh, now you’ve got nothing to say? You seemed to be filled with quips when you were accusing me of being a homewrecker!” The absurdity of the situation is hilarious, because never in a million years could Kaveh imagine inserting himself into Tighnari and Cyno’s… relationship? He’s actually not quite sure what their status is, but at this point, he wouldn’t be surprised if they had some legal officiation tucked away somewhere.

“I didn’t say that you were a homewrecker, those words came out of your own mouth,” says Alhaitham pettily. 

Kaveh hits his boiling point, and starts pacing around the living room. “I’m not seeing Tighnari romantically! Archons, Alhaitham what is your deal!? It’s almost like you care about who I’m seeing––” He’s cut off with a scoff from Alhaitham.

A “ What is it now?” was poised on his tongue when the realization struck him. Was Alhaitham…? Surely not, because that would be ridiculous. 

He laughs incredulously, “Are you jealous?”

Alhaitham’s eyes immediately divert from him and focus elsewhere. He seems to catch his mistake though, and forces his attention back to Kaveh.

The action is subtle but the damage has already been done. Kaveh drops his bag and it hits the floor with a wet thud. “You are! You’re jealous and you’re worried that I went and found a new roommate!”

Alhaitham turns and mutters something to himself that sounds suspiciously like “I would hardly attribute the jealousy to something as cursory as a roommate.” 

Kaveh smiles guilefully, “What was that, dear Scribe? I couldn’t quite catch that.” He can see the way that he’s started to back the linguist into a corner. The high from potentially winning the argument just barely overshadows the growing feeling of butterflies fluttering in his ribcage. The implications of something else driving the jealousy has his heart doing flips.

“It’s none of your concern.”

“I actually think that it’s completely within the realm of my concern.”

Alhaitham tsks , and redirects instead. “You’re dripping water all over the floor, go change and mop up your mess.” 

“Are you serious? You’re just going to leave it at that? Tell me why you’re jealous, Alhaitham.”

The Scribe doesn’t even dignify him with a response. Instead, he snatches his book up off the table and resettles into the comfortable position he had before.  He makes a big show out of opening the book to the page he had left off on and trained his eyes to move robotically over the words. Before Kaveh can get a word in edgewise, he’s already reached up and cut off all auditory contact.

“Oh no you don’t.”

Kaveh’s heart races, because this is it. This is the exact moment he had been waiting for.

He unceremoniously lifts Alhaitham’s legs up to make space to flop down onto the couch and grabs the book out of his hand. The Scribe starts to complain, both at the loss of his precious read, and also at the fact that Kaveh was getting water everywhere.

Kaveh ignores him and instead chooses to yank Alhaitham into a sitting position. He makes sure that he’s fully facing him when he signs, “I’m not done talking to you.”

Alhaitham’s eyes widen in shock and he’s pretty sure that’s the most emotion he’s ever seen on the man.

‘Apathetic’ is the word that most people would use to describe Alhaitham. Kaveh knows better, that buried somewhere deep inside the unnecessary muscle and the bullheadedness is a sliver of something resembling a human being with emotions. He’s never seen it himself, not when Alhaitham’s grandmother had died, not when he had his first research project approved, not when he graduated from Haravatat, nor when he was promoted to Scribe. 

He’s never experienced the full range of Alhaitham’s emotions, but if he had to take a guess at what they looked like, it would be the image of Alhaitham now.

He’s frozen on the spot, his kaleidoscopic eyes drowning in pure, unfettered shock, and his mouth slightly open, like his lips were chasing the words to say but couldn’t quite catch them. 

He looks so human .

For a moment, Kaveh worries that he messed up. He scoured his brain for grammatical errors, Tighnari had given him the stamp of approval to start signing with Alhaitham. He’s not as fluent as he is verbally, but he knows enough to get his point across. ‘Conversational,’ Tighnari had dubbed him.

“Alhaitham? Are you alright?” he signs again.

Still no movement. Apprehension quickly mounting, he opts to wave in Alhaitham’s face. “Hello..? Is anyone there?” he calls out. He realizes belatedly that he couldn’t hear, but he’s sure that Alhaitham could read his lips.

The lack of response (or any indication of life, really) was starting to stress Kaveh out and he began rambling, “I know you can read my lips, Alhaitham. Was it insensitive of me to sign with you? I didn’t mean to offend you if it was, I learned it just to keep quarreling with you, I didn’t realize that it would cause such a reaction. I’ll stop if you want me to––” 

“Do it again,” Alhaitham whispers.

Kaveh almost didn’t catch it in his frantic apologies. “Huh?”

“Do it again,” says Alhaitham; an emotion that Kaveh couldn’t identify starting to color the edge of his words. “Sign again, please.”

The complete turnaround has Kaveh reeling. Was he mad? It was hard to tell, but he hadn’t tried to kill Kaveh yet, so perhaps not.

That being said, he’s not quite sure what to say, but the way Alhaitham is staring has him scrambling to find something to sign. He decides on the basics, and introduces himself.

“Hello. My name is K-A-V-E-H.”

Alhaitham drew a sharp breath, watching as Kaveh’s fingers formed words familiar only to him. His face bears an unrestrained fascination, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing with his own eyes. 

Kaveh had only signed five words, but he could tell that they meant millions more to the Scribe. 

“Hello Ka–” a sign that Kaveh didn’t know yet followed the greeting. Alhaitham had reached up to his head and made a pinching motion, like he had pulled a feather from his scalp.  It takes a few seconds for him to register that this must be the name that Alhaitham is giving him, and it probably refers to the quill he has sticking out of his hair. The action is so intimate that it nearly hurts. “ My name is A-L-H-T-M.”

It’s Kaveh’s turn to be shy now, because all he can manage is a short, bashful wave. He’s not quite sure what to say after that.

Lucky for him, Alhaitham takes the initiative. “You know SSL?” he asks.

“Yes, Tighnari taught me.”

“Why?”

“To argue with you, obviously.”

Alhaitham barks out a laugh, reaching up to turn his hearing aids back on. “Of course that would be why you learned it.” 

There’s something guarded in his eyes, and Kaveh can feel the walls start to go back up. The short peek he had gotten at Alhaitham’s soul was enough to have him addicted, and he would do anything to keep being exposed to it. 

“That’s not the only reason,” he blurts a little too quickly. His face flushed with embarrassment because he sounded so desperate. It was humiliating.

But it’s worth it. Alhaitham carefully eyes him, and Kaveh swallows his pride to admit quietly, “I learned it because I wanted you to have someone to sign with. Even if you can speak just fine, I think you at least deserve the courtesy of having someone to converse with in your native tongue.”

The admission feels like a declaration of his feelings. Nobody in their right mind would just learn another language to argue with their roommate. That type of commitment is reserved for a certain emotion. One he had been afraid to name, but it’s hard to deny love when it’s staring you in the face.

The urge to escape is strong, but Kaveh forces himself to stay put, waiting for Alhaitham’s response. He needs to know how he feels about Kaveh’s near-confession.

Alhaitham only nods, processing the information.  Kaveh can feel his spirit deflate. He had said too much.

After a moment, Alhaitham puts up another sign. This one is completely foreign to Kaveh, and he studies it carefully, trying to decipher it. 

Alhaitham’s hand was palm out, all fingers up, save for the middle and the ring, which were curled inward. It resembles the rock ‘n roll symbol that he’s seen the odd musician make here and there. 

“What does that mean?” Kaveh asks.

A familiarly enigmatic smile makes a home on Alhaitham’s lips. “That’s a secret, I’m sure you’ll figure it out one day.”

The cryptic answer forces a huff out of Kaveh. Fine, if Alhaitham didn’t want to tell him, he can keep his secrets. Kaveh respects privacy, unlike a certain silver-haired Scribe.

He thinks that’s the end of it, and starts to get up to change out of his still-wet clothes. They were starting to stick uncomfortably to his skin, and the bodily chills he was starting to feel are getting unbearable. Just as he pries himself from the leather of the couch, Alhaitham grabs his wrist. 

Kaveh raises an eyebrow at him in question.

“I’ll give you a hint at what the sign means, if you’ll let me.” There was a hint of nervousness to be heard.

“Sate my curiosity, please.”

Alhaitham says nothing and stands up, moving into Kaveh’s space. The proximity is disorienting, despite the fact that Kaveh had Alhaitham’s legs draped over himself for the last 20 minutes. 

He can smell the scent of Kalpalata Lotuses and worn pages from this close, and it’s hard not to be intoxicated. 

Kaveh worries that his heart is beating loud enough that the hearing aid would pick it up. “You’re rather close for this explanation, Alhaitham. Is the translation so lucrative that you need to whisper it to me?”

“You talk too much,” is all Alhaitham says before pressing his lips to Kaveh’s. It effectively shuts him up.

He was able to figure out what the sign meant after that. 

Later, after Kaveh takes a warm bath and finally dons some warm clothes, Alhaitham beckons him to join him on the couch. Kaveh takes the opportunity to stretch out on top of the Scribe, slotting himself between the book in hand to lay his head on his chest. Kaveh relishes in the way one of Alhaitham’s hands settles on his back.

“I just have one request for you, Kaveh.” The deep rumble is a novelty from this position. 

“What is it, ‘Haitham?” 

“For the love of all that is sacred, stop building your mock-up models in the middle of the night. Even when I take my hearing aids out, I swear I can still hear you hammering away in your room. I’m going to kick you to the streets if you don’t cut it out.”

Kaveh only laughs, pressing a placating kiss to Alhaitham’s shoulder. “Creativity waits for nobody, dear. I will try but I can’t make any promises.”

Alhaitham rolls his eyes, but makes no move to argue further. If Kaveh can learn to sign for him, he can learn to listen.

Chapter Text

Alhaitham is deaf. 

This is not a fact that he openly advertises to people. He hates the way that it changes their behavior after he tells them. They treat him like he’s fragile, incapable of doing even the barest minimum on his own. He’s deaf, not stupid. 

The type of deafness he was born with is sensorineural hearing loss. It can result from aging, injury, disease, or genetic inheritance. In most cases, his included, it can’t be medically or surgically treated. But to Alhaitham, it’s just a fact of life; the sky is blue, the leaves are green, and he is deaf. 

His mind is sharp, and he’s developed a few habits to circumvent his shortcomings: he learned Sumerian Sign Language, learned to read lips, and his grandmother created hearing aids for him. He even studied the mannerisms of hearing people so that he could act like them too. 

Some may argue that doing all of this is a waste of his time and energy. “There’s no shame in being disabled!” they would say. It’s this exact phrase that causes his blood pressure to spike.

He is not ashamed of being deaf. Quite the contrary, really. As one of the top Haravatat scholars, he’s incredibly proud of himself for mastering over 30 languages, many of them spoken, even with his hearing loss. What he has an issue with, is how quickly his abilities are dismissed. 

There’s this common misconception that all disabled people are helpless. Alhaitham vehemently disagrees, but he digresses.

He used to tell people that he was deaf upon meeting them, but there was always an underlying sense that they were holding back on him somehow. Like they believed that he couldn’t handle whatever it was they were trying to offer him, all because he couldn’t hear. Eventually, he got sick of it and just kept the fact that he was deaf to himself. His quality of life increased drastically after that.

Time and time again, he’s noticed a distinct contrast in the way people will treat him before and after finding out that he’s disabled. It almost makes him hate being deaf. To be clear, it’s not his deafness that Alhaitham hates, but rather the incurable stupidity of the people around him.

The point is, he makes the effort to keep up this well-guarded ‘secret’ of his because it just makes his day-to-day life easier. He can skip past the shallow pleasantries and the shifts in behavior if he acted like he was never deaf in the first place. 

If people manage to figure out that he’s deaf, good for them, but he’s not going to go out of his way to announce it to the world.

That being said, he is still human, and there have been times that he’s screwed up. Mistakes are unavoidable, much to his chagrin.

Mistake 1: Be sure to make eye contact when conversing with people.

Alhaitham likes to catalog his mistakes to reflect and improve on at a future date. His motto is “spending more time on contemplation and less time on execution.” If he can pinpoint exactly what it is that went wrong the first time, it’ll be a quick and easy fix for him later on.

His first year at the Akademiya was rough for him. Being homeschooled for the first half of his life made the switch rather difficult, and he definitely had bumps along the way. 

The most memorable for him was when he had argued with his professor, telling him that his class was a titanic waste of his time, and he would be better off doing some self-study at home. Naturally, the professor didn’t take kindly to that, and he was dropped from the class immediately.

Word of that incident spread like wildfire, because, ‘Who did this first year think he was, speaking to the Professor like that? The nerve!’

‘Honestly, the students get bolder and bolder every year. It’s a wonder that he wasn’t expunged for that behavior!’

‘A guy like that must be a nightmare to be around. If anything, I’m glad that he’s not in the class anymore.’

Following the establishment of his reputation as a quick-tempered firecracker, Alhaitham found it difficult to connect with his peers. Many avoided him in fear of triggering an argument. 

He didn’t pay any mind to the baseless rumors. It’s not his fault that the professor was a high-class idiot. If everyone else failed to see that, then they were probably of a similar caliber. He was more than content to wander the halls of the Akademiya by himself than to surround himself with bumbling fools.

Enter Kaveh, the bumbliest of fools. 

He’s one of the few people who possessed the courage (or the stupidity) to approach him. It was a shift in Alhaitham’s reality. 

Kaveh was an anomaly to Alhaitham. His mind is as keen as his own, but he put it towards something as arbitrary as architecture. He might have made a great Haravatat scholar if he had the patience to sit down and study for longer than three seconds.  

Kaveh had bounded into his life, always equipped with a bright smile and a rant that took up the better part of their lunch break. Alhaitham wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Kaveh to leave him alone. There was something about the blonde that he found intriguing.

He lets Kaveh go on his long tangents about his awful classmates and mind numbing assignments. Alhaitham would simply nod along, because it wasn’t like he could get a word in with the stream of words that fell from Kaveh’s mouth. It saved him the trouble of having to speak anyway, so it worked out in the end.

(It’s a bygone worry now, but back when he had first gotten his hearing aids, Alhaitham was acutely aware of the way his voice sounded when he spoke. He could never get his mouth to properly form the words the way he wanted to, and as a result, his speech ended up stilted and wrong-sounding from a lack of practice. It was easier to not speak than to try. 

He eventually got the hang of it, if the numerous commendations he’s received as a top Harvatat student are anything to go by, but he still prefers to keep his mouth shut in fear of stumbling over his words. This is a habit that he carries to this day.)

When they first met, Alhaitham believed that Kaveh’s presence in his life was going to be temporary. He gave the architect the standard treatment that he gave everyone else: short, curt responses, and perhaps the time of day if he was in the mood. It unfortunately does nothing to deter him.

What he appreciates about Kaveh is that he is incredibly direct. Most of the people that Alhaitham encountered liked to beat around the bush in discussions. Kaveh was refreshingly blunt, it was nice to meet someone who could keep up with his own attitude. 

Better yet, Kaveh never comments on Alhaitham’s self-imposed reticence. He never asks why Alhaitham prefers to listen over speaking. It results in a lot of one sided conversations that Kaveh carries, but Alhaitham wouldn’t have it any other way.

Once he realizes that Kaveh is well and truly stuck to his side, Alhaitham allows himself to relax a little. He starts giving in to the bickering here and there, but more often than not, he just basks in his presence and maybe listens to the monologue of the day if the topic is interesting enough.

That being said, his lack of participation in conversation left him with a lot of freedom to let his mind wander. 

He’s only half focusing on the book in front of him, and he’s even less focused on whatever praise Kaveh is spewing about Pardis Dhyai. It’s probably the same as usual. The majority of his attention is on the way Kaveh looks particularly eye-catching today.

“...I can’t believe that something so beautiful could have been created. Surely it must have been a gift from the heavens,” Kaveh says.

Couldn’t have said it better myself, thinks Alhaitham privately. He’s not referring to Pardis Dhyai.

It takes all of his self restraint to not stare Kaveh down and take in the way his long golden hair flows past his shoulders. In the corner of his eye, he can spot the stubborn strand that wouldn’t keep out of his face despite the intricate webbing of hairpins he had shoved into his head. It irks him. No one person should possess such a high level of aestheticism.

Instead, he makes sure that his eyes are perfectly focused on the pages in front of him, even if he retains none of it.

Kaveh continues with his meaningless rabble, “I have to meet the creator! I mean seriously, I have so many questions to ask. Like, how do you come up with such a beautiful vision? The execution was flawless––”

Alhaitham never really liked the way noise in general sounded. Perhaps it was a byproduct of being deaf, but hearing was never a part of his natural state of being. It was a foreign concept to him, and it was an overwhelming and distracting sensation at best. He would never be truly comfortable with it. 

However, Kaveh’s voice had the perfect pitch and timbre. It was smooth and scratched his brain in a way that he couldn’t quite describe. Every time he spoke, Alhaitham found himself scrambling to adjust the dials on his hearing aids to hear it better. Not that he would ever admit that aloud. If Kaveh caught wind of that, his ego would inflate to the size of the moon. 

“––and the open air concept is truly reminiscent of a Nilotpala Lotus blossoming in the dead of night. A work of genius!”

His eyes do another perfunctory sweep of the paragraph that he is supposedly reading. He’s not quite sure when he had started thinking about Kaveh like this, but it was embarrassing, to put it lightly. 

Contrary to popular belief, Alhaitham is not a robot. Not that he cared for other people’s opinions of him, but it should be known that he is capable of feeling emotion. Truly an inconvenience.

More annoyingly, he feels, and he feels his emotions fiercely. It’s like they’re amplified by a factor of five with the loss of his hearing.

It’s been less than a year since they met, but Alhaitham already can’t imagine his life without Kaveh. It’s a depressingly pathetic realization. Was he truly so lonely that he felt the need to latch onto the first person he met?

He’s so lost in thought that he misses the first four times that Kaveh had called his name. It’s only by a miracle that he manages to catch the fifth.

“...Alhaitham? Damn it, Alhaitham, look at me when I’m talking to you! Are you even listening to me?”

He’s shaken out of his musing by the tone of Kaveh’s voice. It shook dangerously, and his face twisted into an expression of intense displeasure.

Oh. He is pissed.

Alhaitham’s spine stiffens. The words are heartbreakingly familiar and remind him of his childhood –– pre diagnosis –– when his parents would beg him to just listen, but he literally couldn’t. The admonition makes him irrationally angry. Not at Kaveh, but at himself.

For the better part of his life, Alhaitham didn’t have any speaking people in his inner circle. His primary form of communication was through SSL. Naturally, his eyes were drawn to a person’s hands, rather than their eyes. Sure, there was the component of expressions in SSL, but most of the importance was placed on the hand signs.

This minute detail is something that he would later learn to be wildly different in spoken conversations. It was something that his grandmother had stressed to him to fix whenever speaking with someone. 

"Eye contact is important, it lets the other person know that you are listening.”

It’s been so long since he’s slipped up. He’s supposed to have perfected the art of blending in. His grip on the leatherbound tightens and he tries not to slap himself for his carelessness.

A part of him wishes that he could just come clean about his deafness. He’s just afraid of fundamentally changing Kaveh in a way that is irreversible. He likes the bickering that comes along with the blonde; it fills him with the strange feeling of being accepted. Now he’s gone and messed it all up.

Kaveh at least has the decency to look guilty. Immediately following his outburst, he opens his mouth to apologize before deciding against it. His eyes are downturned as he begins to quickly gather his drafts and sticks of charcoal to shove into his bag. 

His brain finally kicks into gear and he stops Kaveh just as he’s about to close the top of his knapsack. “Where are you going?”

Kaveh looks dumbfounded. “I, uh.”

What is it that they were talking about again? 

In an attempt to cover his tracks, he repeats whatever prose he managed to catch in a mockery of Kaveh’s voice. 

The blonde flushes a pretty red, and indignantly cries, “I do not sound like that!”

Alhaitham tries to ignore the way his heart stutters at the sight. He resettles in his chair, making sure to face Kaveh this time. “Had me fooled,” he drawls, “But do go on.”

He dodges the stub of charcoal that comes flying his way and learns all about the ingenuity associated with Pardis Dhyai.

Whether he was focused on Kaveh’s lips to read them or for some other mysterious reason is anyone’s guess.

Mistake 2: He must keep his hands still at all costs.

His interest in Kaveh wavered once he realized how annoyingly perceptive the architect is. Many people have described Alhaitham as observant, but his own habits are dwarfed by Kaveh’s watchful eye. 

Alhaitham has a habit of signing to himself, this is a fact he knows. It’s one of the few things that he can’t conceal about being deaf. Asking himself not to sign is like asking Kaveh to not run his mouth. An absurd idea, and near-impossible to properly execute.

He sees the way Kaveh's eyes catch his fingertips. Alhaitham feeds him some bullshit lies about crossing his arms being an intimidation tactic. It’s a flimsy diversion, but Kaveh takes it at face value, though not without a snide comment about his physique. 

In reality, physical restraint is the only way he can stop himself from signing. If distracting Kaveh with his ‘infuriatingly beefy arms’ would get him to stop asking questions about his unconscious signing, then so be it.

(He tries not to laugh at the description. Why it mattered to Kaveh whether or not he worked out was beyond him. He just wanted to stay in the prime of his health is all. However, he always loved to provoke the architect and would never pass up the opportunity to bicker.)

Alhaitham’s indulging in a riveting book on some ancient runes found in the Hypostyle Desert when he feels Kaveh’s resentful gaze from somewhere beside him. 

“What’s your problem now?” he asks.

Kaveh huffs and narrows his eyes at him. “It just pisses me off.”

“Ah, yes. ‘It.’ How incredibly descriptive and insightful of you.”

Kaveh continues as if he hadn’t heard, “As a Scribe, what do you need all of this brute strength for? Lifting 60 textbooks at once? Perhaps you need the insurmountable brawn to move your pen across the signature line on all your approval forms. ‘Feeble scholar,’ my ass.”

A small smirk finds its way to Alhaitham’s face. “Do you want to know why I need this ‘brute strength ?’”

“Enlighten me, O knowledgeable one.”

“It’s to pick up all of the slack you leave around here. The dishes won’t do themselves, you know,” he answers flippantly.

He doesn’t even bat an eyelash at Kaveh’s affronted gasp.

Mistake(?) 3: He must never forget his hearing aid anywhere. Ever.

This is a no-brainer. Obviously Alhaitham should carry his hearing aids around for the fact that he is deaf. 

Were she still on the face of Teyvat, he’s sure that his grandmother would give him a lengthy lecture about the dangers of being taken advantage of while having his hearing impaired.

He’ll be fine, thank you very much.

Along with them being a necessary tool for him to facilitate his daily life, the hearing aids are his most damning piece of evidence. It’s obvious that Alhaitham has to conceal them, because they’re practically a sign glued to the side of his head that reads: Hey! Look at me, I’m deaf!

It’s not as though he couldn’t function without them. He was perfectly capable of going through his day without his hearing aids, but it’s more of a minor setback.

He can’t be stupid and just leave them lying around anywhere for Kaveh to find. The man is a Kshahrewar graduate. With that infuriatingly bright mind of his, he’d be able to recognize them for what they were at a glance.

It’s somewhat of a moot point now, seeing that Kaveh lives with him and he was bound to find out at some point, but Alhaitham was too deep into this charade. It’s not any more skin off his back to remember to wear his hearing aids anyway, but it still paid to be precautious.

For the most part, he wore his hearing aids for the duration of the entire day. He only took them off whenever he had to take a shower or when he was going to sleep. He used to take them off whenever he got home, but he had to stop doing that once Kaveh moved in since he has a habit of knocking on Alhaitham’s door to ask him inane questions. 

There is exactly one instance where he forgot to take them with him:

Alhaitham was up late the previous night finishing up some thesis approval forms for the Akademiya. As a result, he woke up a little late and had to rush through his morning routine. He jumped up from his bed and straight into the shower. 

He furiously scrubbed at his face and ran the shampoo through his hair. He moved so quickly that he’s worried that there would be a clump of suds still in his gray locks. He snatches the towel off the rack, pats himself dry and blindly reaches along the countertop, searching for his hearing aids to put on while he brushes his teeth.

He swears once he realizes that in his haste, he left them on his nightstand, along with the clothes that he was going to change into.

No matter, his room was right across the hall from the bathroom anyway, so he’ll just slip past Kaveh without him knowing. 

He ties the towel around his waist, bundles up his now discarded sleep clothes, and steps out into the hallway.

When he opens the door, a familiar head of messy blonde hair enters his field of view. His hair is mussed with sleep and the warm morning light caused his skin to glow beautifully. 

 He hadn’t heard him walking up, and Alhaitham hopes to Celestia that he doesn’t notice that he’s not wearing his hearing aids.

Kaveh’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open. Alhaitham takes note of the way his pupils move over his bare skin, and how a hint of red flooded his ears. After a moment, his roommate whips around to give him some semblance of privacy.

In the dim lamplight, he can see Kaveh mumbling something about indecency and how there are other people living in his house and he has to bite back the urge to remind the architect exactly who owns the place.

Instead, he fights down the grin from realizing that Kaveh was flustered at his state of undress before shuffling back into his room, thanking the Archons that he hadn’t noticed that Alhaitham couldn’t hear a damn thing he’s saying.

Mistake 4: Asking Kaveh to move in with him.

While unrelated to his hearing problem, Alhaitham is sure that his greatest mistake was offering Kaveh a place to stay.

Before he moved in, Alhaitham’s home was a peaceful sanctuary. He had the freedom to leave his books wherever he pleased; he had the mora in his pockets to do whatever he wanted with. 

And quiet. His house used to be so blessedly quiet.

(Every time Kaveh comes home, Alhaitham immediately reaches up to turn down the volume of his hearing aids. It’s for the sake of his sanity.)

When he extended the offer, Alhaitham was under the impression that Kaveh would keep mostly to himself until he could get back on his own two feet. He was not expecting such an… eccentric roommate.

He should have known better. Kaveh’s presence was bold and boisterous, even when the man was down on his luck and had a total of three mora to his name. He leads his life without any plan or direction, and lets whimsy guide his way. It is the antithesis to all of Alhaitham’s life principles, and it drives him insane.

The result is the two of them constantly being at odds with one another.

Now, he has to listen to Kaveh’s constant nagging about putting his books back on the proper shelves and his bitching about Alhaitham’s allegedly horrible taste in furniture. 

He has to make space for the endless rolls of drafting paper and the hundreds of cups filled with all manner of pens, quills, and compasses.

The Scribe’s wallet aches every time they hit the tavern and Kaveh manages to swindle him into paying off the bar tab. And as the icing on the cake, after paying, he has to drag the dramatic idiot back to their house because he got so wasted that he couldn’t walk straight.

And then there was the fact that Kaveh was constantly aware of him and everything he did.

Alhaitham isn’t sure if it’s just part of the architect’s considerate nature, or if he possesses some freakish, prophetic power, but he always remembers every last one of Alhaitham’s quirks. It was kind of scary, how much Kaveh noticed. 

He’ll always get a snarky remark about the way his black coffee will send him to an early grave, or how he’s doomed to shriveling into a shrimp if he keeps up his awful posture while reading. Once, Kaveh noted that he always balances one leg on his thigh whenever he’s focused on something, and Alhaitham was acutely conscious of it in the days following.

There are other peculiar things that Kaveh decides to file away in that strange, strange brain of his. For example, he remembers that one time Alhaitham had offhandedly mentioned wanting to buy a specific collector’s edition of one of his dictionaries. 

It’s not a necessity, so Alhaitham totally forgets about it. It’s not until a few months later that Kaveh comes home one day, book in hand, and drops it on the desk in front of Alhaitham.

“What’s this?”

Kaveh shoots him a look. “It’s that one book you wouldn’t stop talking about getting. I saw it at one of the booths in the market today and got it for you.”

First of all, Alhaitham mentioned it once. It was over some wine during a late night at the tavern. Alhaitham barely recalls this conversation himself. 

How he manages to remember all of these minute details is a mystery to Alhaitham. He thinks that Kaveh could use the mental capacity to remember more important things, like paying his rent on time, or not blowing his entire paycheck on silly keychains that are obviously a scam and not some sort of meal package for orphaned children.

The clothbound cover is as beautiful as he remembers, and it must have cost quite the pretty mora.

Still…

“I appreciate the gesture, but I hope you know that it doesn’t exempt you from rent this month.”

That comment earns him a swiftly-placed punch to the arm.

It’s not all bad, though. After a while, Alhaitham learns to side-step the rolls of paper dangling precariously off one of the desks so as not to knock it over. His boots find a place on the rack next to the white and gold flats near the door. 

He learns to put up with the hideous choice of curtains that Kaveh had begged him to buy, and he remembers to start putting out two plates instead of one. He’s gotten used to the habit of pouring two cups of coffee and the sight of the extra bottles of soap in the bathroom. Everywhere he looked, there was a piece of Kaveh.

He starts to look forward to Kaveh patting his pockets down in the morning, double, triple, and quadruple checking that he remembered to bring his keys, lest Alhaitham take them by ‘accident’ again.

The slightly askew painting in the hallway suddenly doesn’t bother him that much anymore, and he even anticipates the heated screaming matches they get into that end with him turning his hearing aids off for some peace and quiet. 

He grew to like the domesticity of it all.

That is, until Kaveh suddenly started disappearing every weekend.

At first, Alhaitham didn’t think much of it. If anything, he was glad that he finally had some time to himself. Kaveh always tells him that he has a place to stay, and to not expect him back for a few days. In response, Alhaitham indulges in leaving his books strewn all over the floor and takes the opportunity to walk around the house without his hearing aids on. 

True to his word, Kaveh is gone Friday evening, and back by Monday morning. Wherever it is that he goes has changed him, because Alhaitham notes that he engages in far less squabble and bickering than before. It’s hard to offer anything past a quick greeting because he’s gone before Alhaitham can say much else.

He decides to investigate after Kaveh stumbles in well after midnight one night, shrouded in a secrecy that Alhaitham couldn’t quite crack.

…He missed his roommate, alright? Shame on him for wanting to spend a little more time together.

Kaveh could only use the excuse of going out to the tavern so many times before Alhaitham suspected that he was a budding alcoholic. 

He begins asking around for Kaveh’s whereabouts, starting with Lambad’s tavern, because that’s the excuse Kaveh gives most often.

“Kaveh? I haven’t seen him around here in a while. He mentioned something about a project that he was working on, but beyond that, he didn’t say anything else.”

From there, he goes to Kaveh’s superior and asks for any information about his ongoing projects. He’s nearly laughed out the door when the superior revealed that Kaveh hadn’t been scheduled for anything in a few weeks.

The rest of his search continues similarly, and the weeks pass of Alhaitham going on this wild goose chase to find out the truth of his roommate’s secret nightlife. 

He’s about to give up when he gets his answer in a passing comment from Cyno.

“Tell your roommate to go home on the weekends. I’m sick of listening to Tighnari griping about him.”

Alhaitham’s head whips around. “What?”

Cyno looks like he wants to whack Alhaitham on the head with his staff. “Kaveh,” he deadpans, “The one who has been catching rides to Gandharva Ville every weekend.”

Alhaitham has a similar idea with the sword strapped to his back. It would be so easy to just butt the General in the head with the hilt of his blade. “Not sure if you’ve noticed, but we haven’t necessarily been around each other as of late. He’s been disappearing under my nose and refuses to tell me where he goes,” he grits out.

Cyno shrugs, “Whatever, just tell him to get his act together. If I have to hear Tighnari say one more thing about his attitude, I’m going to blow a fuse.”

“I’m not his handler. ”

Cyno eyes him, “I’m pretty sure you’ll be doing us both a favor if you manage to rein him in.”

Alhaitham shoots Cyno a particularly rude gesture before stalking off to send a message to Gandharva Ville.

‘ Why is Kaveh at your house all the time?’ he writes.

Tighnari’s response comes quickly, but is irritatingly vague and concise:

‘That is not information I can divulge. Perhaps you should just ask him yourself.’

Alhaitham crumples the note and tries not to throw one of the ugly vases that Kaveh bought with his money.

It all comes to a head on a particularly rainy evening. 

Alhaitham is stretched out on the couch, hearing aids tuned to the max to hear Kaveh’s footsteps through the drumming of the rain. He tries to pick up a book to pass the time, but he can’t focus on anything other than his roommate and his frequent late-night rendezvous with Tighnari.

Had Alhaitham offended Kaveh so egregiously that he felt the need to storm out and seek shelter elsewhere? He’ll admit that he did deliver some biting snipes recently, but it wasn't anything unusual for them.

Maybe he’s finally moving out. The idea makes him snort, because there was no way that Kaveh could bear to part with all of the touches he added to their shared space.

…Or perhaps he and Tighnari have some sort of ongoing fling. That’s a revelation and a half. He thinks back to Cyno’s comment about solving a problem for both of them.

He’s kind of mad that Kaveh is avoiding talking to him directly. He’d appreciate some sort of heads up. He doesn’t mind that Kaveh is pursuing romantic endeavors; he is his own person. He’s just …hurt that he doesn’t trust Alhaitham enough to tell him about it. They were friends, were they not? He could take it.

(He ignores the way his heart twists in his chest at the idea of Tighnari and Kaveh together.)

He’s about to entertain the possibility of Kaveh suddenly developing a vested interest in becoming a forest ranger when the man of the hour stumbles through the front door.

Alhaitham chances a peek over the top of his book to assess Kaveh’s state and wow, he looks awful. 

His blonde hair was slicked back from the rain, and his overnight bag hung limply from his shoulder. His chest heaved with exertion beneath his soaked shirt. He must have run all the way back home. He resembles something like a wet cat.

A very attractive wet cat, his mind supplies helpfully.

Alhaitham pretends to focus on his book. “Fun night out on the town?” he asks.

Kaveh only sighs, “Could we not do this right now? I’m tired and I have a proposal meeting tomorrow.” Again with the vague, deflective answers.

Alhaitham refuses to give up so easily. “Not until you tell me where you’ve been going on the weekends.”

Kaveh shucks his shoes and moves to their linen closet for a towel. “What are you, my dad?”

“Hardly,” Alhaitham says as he fiddles with another page, “Technically speaking, I’m your landlord, and as one of my tenants, I should be allowed to know where you’ve been.”

“We’re both adults, am I not allowed the right to privacy?”

Alhaitham’s jaw tightens considerably. Leave it to Kaveh to put words in his mouth. “That’s not what I said, I was simply asking where you’ve been.”

Kaveh narrows his eyes at him. “Why does it matter to you, anyway? As far as I was aware, you wanted me out of your house as soon as possible.”

Yet another lie, but Alhaitham is not going to give Kaveh the satisfaction of telling him that, so he does the most logical thing instead: antagonize him further. “No need to get defensive,” he clips, “I was just asking where you go on the weekends. You’re out so often that I’m wondering if you even get the full worth of your rent money.”

Kaveh’s jaw drops open. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Alhaitham shuts the book in hand with a bit more force than is necessary and tosses it on the table. “I just simply meant that if you found yourself a place to stay, there’s no point in paying rent here anymore, hm? From the looks of it, you and Tighnari have been getting on swimmingly in Gandharva Ville.”

That breaks the dam, and Kaveh makes a noise of disbelief. “Tighnari– What does he have to do with any of this? How did you even know about that? I never even told you where I was going?!”

A self-satisfactory bolt shoots through Alhaitham. There was his confirmation that he and Tighnari were convening. Then, he realizes that he had just incriminated himself.

He purses his lips. “I have my sources––”

“Do your sources include an abuse of diplomatic power?” Kaveh scoffs.

“––and I found by asking around that you had been regularly asking to hitch caravan rides out of the city to visit a certain Amurta graduate. If I wasn’t looking at you with my own eyes, I might have believed that you were seeking private treatment from him for a hidden ailment. But I think something more personal is afoot.”

Alhaitham can literally see the gears turning in Kaveh’s brain. The architect attempts to shake off the confusion and flings water everywhere. “Okay, wait, wait. Now I’m lost. Care to elaborate? Since you seem to have the whole situation figured out?” he asks. His sharp red eyes scrutinize Alhaitham, as if searching for some sort of explanation in his face.

…He appears to have miscalculated.

Kaveh tongues his cheek, “Oh, now you’ve got nothing to say? You seemed to be filled with quips when you were accusing me of being a homewrecker!” He all but shrieks.

“I didn’t say that you were a homewrecker, those words came out of your own mouth,” Alhaitham replies pettily. 

Steam practically blows out of Kaveh’s ears. “I’m not seeing Tighnari romantically! Archons, Alhaitham, what is your deal? It’s almost like you care about who I’m seeing––”

Alhaitham scoffs. Of course he cares. He doesn’t let just anyone invade his personal space like he does Kaveh.

The noise causes Kaveh to whip around, when another revelation strikes him. He laughs incredulously as he asks, “Are you jealous?”

Alhaitham avoids his gaze. 

He can hear the shocked gasp and the thud of his bag as it hits the floor. 

“You are! You’re jealous and you’re worried that I went and found a new roommate!” Kaveh points out accusatorily.

Alhaitham huffs, muttering under his breath, “I would hardly attribute the jealousy to something as cursory as a roommate.” Kaveh couldn’t see, but under the headset, Alhaitham’s ears burned an embarrassed red. How could he have been so careless? He supposes that Kaveh just had that sort of effect on him. 

It only entertains Kaveh further. “What was that, dear Scribe? I couldn’t quite catch that.” The look on his face tells Alhaitham that he’s reached a conclusion, one that he probably won’t like.

“It’s none of your concern,” he deflects.

Kaveh dons a stupidly smug grin. “I actually think that it’s completely within the realm of my concern.”

Alhaitham tsks, and changes topic. “You’re dripping water all over the floor, go change and mop up your mess,” he says. You’ll catch a cold in those clothes, he doesn’t say.

Naturally, Kaveh ignores him. “Are you serious?” he asks, “You’re just going to leave it at that? Tell me why you’re jealous, Alhaitham.”

Alhaitham doesn’t even deign to respond to him. Instead, he snatches his book up off the table and resumes his comfortable position from before. 

He forces himself to stare at the book in front of him and at the book only. He fears that if he makes eye contact with Kaveh, his carefully constructed facade would crumble in an instant. Logically, he knows that this makeshift wall of his equates to less than a shattered window, but he couldn’t possibly hope to confront his feelings at this exact moment.

The whole thing is becoming too much for Alhaitham, and he takes the only out he has. He reaches up to his hearing aids and turns them off. The ensuing silence is a frail shield. 

In his peripheral vision, he can see the way Kaveh is shouting expletives at him. He thanks the Archons for modern technology, because he can’t hear him. He can definitely read his lips, though. He wants to smirk at the ‘You are such an infantile bastard!’ but he’s deliberately ignoring the architect in hopes that he’ll just give up and leave like he always does.

Kaveh has never been one to adhere to his expectations, and unfortunately, that’s what Alhaitham loves about him.

He does not appreciate the fact that Alhaitham muted him. He glowers at Alhaitham before saying something that the Scribe couldn’t quite catch.

Alhaitham starts to get invested in his paragraph when he feels Kaveh lift his legs and plop down beside him. If he thought that sitting there would bother Alhaitham, then he had another thing coming for him. No matter, he’ll just have to keep up the impassive attitude.

Kaveh’s palms suddenly take over his vision, and his precious book is torn from his hands. He makes a noise of complaint because Kaveh was still dripping from the rain and he could smudge the ink on the pages.

Then, a hand tangles itself in his shirt and yanks him upright. He’s about to reprimand Kaveh, since it was his favorite shirt, but is immediately met with the sight of Kaveh signing.

His roommate. Signing. In SSL. 

“I’m not done talking to you.”

Alhaitham’s eyes blow wide with surprise.

Alhaitham’s brain is well and truly scrambled. He’s never explicitly told anyone that he’s deaf simply because he doesn’t take pity or handouts. All of his accomplishments will come from his own hard work, not just because the people around him decided that he was defective, and called for misplaced charity. He doesn’t need accommodations, nor does he need people to accommodate him.

And yet, here Kaveh is, signing to him. He’s decent at it too, based on what he’s seen so far. 

How did he even know that Alhaitham was deaf? Who did he learn SSL from? Because he certainly didn’t know any last time he checked. And more importantly, why did he learn it? Could it have been for him?

He dares not to entertain that last idea, lest his hunch be wrong, but in his heart of hearts, he really hopes that it’s true.

“Alhaitham? Are you alright?”

He genuinely cannot wrap his brain around the fact that Kaveh is signing to him. His heart swells painfully because of it. 

He hasn’t said a word, and that sends Kaveh into a nervous spiral. “I know you can read my lips, Alhaitham. Was it insensitive of me to sign with you? I didn’t mean to offend you if it was, I learned it just to keep quarreling with you, I didn’t realize that it would cause such a reaction. I’ll stop if you want me to–”

The speed and amount of words that came tumbling out of Kaveh’s mouth became too much for Alhaitham to keep up with. He could catch a lot of apologies in the spiel, but he decided to ignore them to make a request instead.

“Do it again,” he whispers.

Kaveh is thrown off course. “Huh?”

Alhaitham hopes that his voice doesn’t sound too strained when he repeats, “Do it again. Sign again, please.” He needs to make sure that he isn't dreaming.

Kaveh stares at him like had grown three heads, but he acquiesces anyway. He thinks about what to sign for a second before,

“Hello. My name is K-A-V-E-H.” Kaveh’s sharp red eyes are hard with concentration, and his brow furrows slightly. He looks so focused on his task and Alhaitham is struggling to not crack at how endearing it is.

Alhaitham draws a sharp breath. The crazy bastard actually went and did it. He learned Sumerian Sign Language.  He can’t tear his eyes away from Kaveh’s hands. He hasn’t signed with anyone else in a long time, and it’s strange to see the words that only he and his family had been familiar with.

His hands move on their own. “Hello, Ka-veh.” He came up with the sign name for the architect a long time ago, and of the many that he’s given, it’s probably his favorite. It highlights the beautiful, blue quill that he has nested in his blonde mane. It’s probably far too personal for something as ordinary as a name, but hopefully Kaveh wouldn’t catch onto the nuance. Alhaitham thinks that he wouldn’t mind if Kaveh did. “My name is A-L-H-T-M.”

Kaveh manages a meek wave.

Alhaitham’s curiosity will always get the best of him, so he asks, “You know SSL?”

“Yes, Tighnari taught me.”

Well, that explains the frequent weekends out, but he still doesn’t get the other thing.

“Why?” What was the point of learning a language that nobody knew? A bubble of hope rises in his chest. Selfishly, he hopes that his hunch is true.

“To argue with you, obviously.”

Alhaitham barks out a laugh, because what else can he do? He reaches up to turn his hearing aids back on. “Of course that would be why you learned it,” he says, his tone coming off plainly.

He had been a fool for believing that Kaveh would go to such lengths because he cared about him. It was rather obvious that his roommate didn’t like him or his personality, so of course the hatred would fuel him enough to learn SSL just to argue with him.

The response is so perfectly Kaveh that he can’t even be mad. 

Still, it breaks Alhaitham’s heart.

He schools his face into something decidedly less miserable and begins to pull back. They were suddenly far too close for his liking, and his poor soul couldn’t take it.

He slowly swings his legs off of Kaveh’s lap and places them on the floor. He sits up and attempts to hide the stiffness in shoulders. He can’t stand to look Kaveh in the eyes right now, so he turns away.

“That’s not the only reason,” blurts Kaveh. 

That gets his attention, and he returns his gaze to Kaveh, albeit a bit guardedly. He can’t afford to let himself down any more than he already had.

His stare pierces through the man, and Kaveh swallows nervously. His cheeks are tinged with a light pink as he admits quietly, “I learned it because I wanted you to have someone to sign with. Even if you can speak just fine, I think you at least deserve the courtesy of having someone to converse with in your native tongue.”

That… is so sweet. Alhaitham is incredibly touched by the gesture, and he doesn’t have the words to convey that, so he goes with the next best thing.

He uses this sign sparingly, reserved for only the most cherished people in his life. His fingers curl around the word “I-L-Y.”

Apparently, Tighnari hadn’t taught Kaveh this one yet, because Kaveh cocks his head slightly, trying to figure it out. Another squeeze to Alhaitham’s heart.

“What does that mean?”

Alhaitham feels himself smile. “That’s a secret, I’m sure you’ll figure it out one day.”

Kaveh huffs at the answer, but doesn’t press any further, seemingly respecting his choice to keep it to himself. 

Alhaitham was expecting more of a fight, so he grabs Kaveh’s wrist as he gets up to change. He feels bad for making him suffer through the wet clothes for a little longer, but he needs Kaveh to understand what he’s trying to say.

“I’ll give you a hint at what the sign means,” he says, before quickly tacking on, “If you’ll let me.” The possibility of rejection is terrifyingly real.

Kaveh’s gaze softened considerably. “Sate my curiosity, please.”

Alhaitham’s heart thumps dangerously in his chest. He’s worried that Kaveh would be able to hear it as he steps into Kaveh’s space. From here, he can count every last mole and eyelash. He wants to look forever.

The blonde is equally as jittery, and it shows when he asks, “You’re rather close for this explanation, Alhaitham. Is the translation so lucrative that you need to whisper it to me?”

He really wants to kiss Kaveh now, so he says, “You talk too much,” before leaning in.

Alhaitham loves the way Kaveh smiles against his lips when it clicks in his head.

Tighnari eyes them dubiously from across the table. “Is it finally over? I find it hard to believe that you guys are actually together now.”

Cyno holds a similar sentiment. “You’re not acting any differently than you normally do. You two aren’t even sitting next to each other.”

Alhaitham doesn’t look up from the cards in his hand. “That’s because Kaveh cheats. He likes to look at my deck.”

Kaveh gasps offendedly. “That is not true! I will not have you tarnishing my reputation like this!”

“Your reputation as a dirty, lying cheat?”

Kaveh puts up a rather rude gesture, and Alhaitham smirks down at his hand. “That’s not actually a word in SSL, Kaveh.”

Tighnari groans, and Cyno reaches over to pat him on the back. There’s really no putting a stop to their bickering, but he’s happy for them at least.