Work Text:
The knock on his door sounds more like a death knell than it does a knock, and the wince that ripples through him is involuntary as he briefly toys with the idea of not responding.
The knock comes again, more insistent this time. “I know you’re there,” calls the voice that he’d already been expecting, and his expression sours. The door is thick enough, thankfully, that the man on the other side won’t be able to hear the curse that slips free from his lips as he—begrudgingly—gets up from his seat.
Curse that stupid contract and that stupid merchant and those stupidly expensive materials. And curse his oversight in not hiring a lawyer and not reading the contract properly and exceeding the contract sum highlighted in a clause at the top—no, his mind cuts off as he trudges towards the door, it’s not his fault (it is, a little). He’ll put the blame on the poorly-drafted contract and all of its exploitative wordings instead, if only to make himself feel better about himself. Just a little.
His fingers wrap around the doorknob, swinging the door open to reveal the landlord. He shifts from foot to foot, fighting to maintain his expression; he’d been expecting this over the past few days, but it does little to quell the displeasure that bites the edges of his smile down, forcing instead an awkward half-grin, half-grimace on his face as he stares at the older man.
“Hello,” he greets. It doesn’t sound particularly enthusiastic. He can’t blame himself for that.
“Kaveh,” the landlord says in return, eyes skimming the area behind him, and Kaveh resolutely fights the urge to stand up straighter, make himself taller somehow, block the mess of instant food wrappings and other bits of trash littering the living room. So what if he’s been making not-so-healthy efforts at saving on the food bills? He’s a grown adult now, not the student the landlord had once fussed over in place of his parents.
The landlord shoots him a look, one that’s a curious mix of exasperation and concern, and maybe a tiny bit of pity. For a moment, Kaveh wonders if he’s going to start nagging. “I think you already know why I’m here,” he states instead.
Kaveh forces the grin on his face wider. “To check up on your beloved tenant?” he offers. The joke falls as flat as the landlord’s expression and he coughs into his fist, other hand tightening around the grip of the door handle. “Listen, I’m really sorry. Just—I’ve got another job lined up soon—” A lie. “—and it won’t be long before I get enough mora, so just—”
“I’m sorry, Kaveh,” the landlord interrupts. His tone is soft, regretful almost, but his gaze is hard and unyielding and he watches as Kaveh visibly deflates. “You’ve been living here for years, and you’ve been a great tenant, but this is already the fourth month in a row that you haven’t paid rent, and…”
He trails off, yet the implication is clear. Kaveh isn’t stupid; he’d graduated from the Akademiya for a reason. And he’s smart enough, too, to know that there’s no backing away from this this time. He’s taken advantage of the landlord’s mercy for a little too long now. “Alright.” The words are hard to get out, but to his credit, he manages fine. “Just give me a few days, okay? And I’ll give you the rest of what I have. It’s not enough to cover everything, but… I’ll come by and give you the rest after I get enough. If that’s okay with you.”
The corners of the landlord’s eyes crinkle. He does so kindly, though it doesn’t take away the bitter taste in Kaveh’s mouth. “There’s no rush,” he assures. “I don’t want you to miss meals or a chance at shelter because you spent the remainder of your mora on paying back rent. Your parents were close friends of mine—you know that—and I wouldn’t want to make their son’s life unnecessarily harder than it already is.”
But this is where he draws the line, the landlord’s words indicate clearly, and Kaveh understands. It’s just as he’s argued so many times before, after all: that he’s not a teenager anymore, not someone who needs to be looked after, growing in the midst of this town without his parents. And now that he’s an adult, maybe it’s time he started taking responsibility for his own actions.
“Sorry for the trouble,” he breathes out, dipping his head. “And thank you for all the hospitality.” This isn’t the only mercy the landlord’s shown him, after all—he has him to thank for homemade meals in the past, for allowing him more than one instance of missed rent even before all this had happened, for checking up on him when he’d fallen too sick to get himself out of bed. The man had been more a guardian than he was a landlord, and Kaveh’s shoulders sag, suddenly exhausted at the prospect of losing all of this at once. Only that it wasn’t all at once, and that he’d seen it coming months ago. But still.
“You can come back and visit anytime,” the landlord replies, as if sensing the thoughts running through Kaveh’s mind. “Stop by for dinner sometime. We’d love to have you.”
Kaveh swallows. “Thank you,” he responds, because he has nothing else to say. “If you’ll excuse me, then.”
The door clicks shut and Kaveh takes to clearing the mess on his table and floor. It’s the least he could do, after all, after all that the landlord had tolerated from him over these long years. He cleans the house, eats the second-last packet of instant noodles on the kitchen shelf, and sells some of his furniture to whoever offers first. It’ll give enough to live on for a while, at least.
Three days later, as he hands the keys over to the landlord, the landlord presses a bag of samosas and a folded-up umbrella into his palm. “Eat up while it’s still warm,” the man advises, gently chiding and acutely aware of the habits Kaveh slips into every now and then, “and don’t let yourself fall sick out there.”
Kaveh huffs out a laugh between the thanks. It’s such a typical conversation between them that it’s almost too easy to pretend that he isn’t technically homeless right now. Faint gratitude blossoms between his ribcage, which he conveys in the form of a quiet smile.
“I will,” he promises. And then, unable to resist the teasing that slips into his tone, he adds, “don’t favour the new tenant too much. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll make it big and come back to stay.”
The landlord laughs. “The new tenant is only renting the place for two years,” he says in response.
Kaveh’s smile grows wider.
There’s a pair of hands on his shoulders shaking him awake. He comes to consciousness gracelessly, limbs flailing and breath catching in his throat in hiccuping gasps.
He swings around, eyes widened and meeting the equally-surprised gaze of a young lady. One of the newer Kshahrewar researchers—they’d been introduced a few weeks ago, but in his current sleep-dazed state he can’t remember her name—who stares at him confused, awkwardly prying her hands off his shoulders. “Sorry,” she apologises, to which he brushes off with a wave of his hand. “I was just concerned, that’s all. It’s about two in the morning right now, so I thought maybe you’d want to head home or something.”
Home. The word is sobering, and Kaveh snaps back to reality, clearing his throat. “Why are you here?” he asks instead.
She gestures towards the book in her arms, an embarrassed smile curling her lips. “I was researching, and I didn’t notice how late it had gotten,” she explains. “I… assume it was the same for you?”
A convenient excuse. Kaveh grasps it. “I fell asleep?”
It comes out more of a question than a statement, but she nods. “I see. Ah, well, I’m sorry for waking you—I’ll get going now.”
She hurries out of the room, book still clutched closely to her, and Kaveh manages a shout of, “no problem, I didn’t mean to stay so long anyway” before he hears the door shut. And that’s his sign to slump against the chair, a sigh dragging free from his lips as he rubs a hand over his face.
He had intended to stay long. For the entire night, really, until someone inevitably caught him passed out at the desk early in the morning. And then he’d lie and say he had fallen asleep while researching, and definitely not because he no longer had a home and that the Akademiya was the only place that allowed him twenty-four-seven access—no, definitely not that.
He had intended to use that excuse for the morning, but he hadn’t counted on someone discovering him earlier, and when she’d brought it up, he’d simply grasped onto the excuse then because he couldn’t come up with anything else. But no matter, he tells himself, it’s not like she’d come by again, and he’d just say the same thing to whichever unsuspecting researcher next came by to see him splayed out like a corpse at the old wooden desk. And even if she did come back, he reasons, he’d just say he ended up staying back a little later and fell asleep again.
The excuses don’t really matter. What matters is that they’ll leave him alone once they’ve gotten some sort of answer, no matter how unsatisfactory, and he can live with that. The people here at the Akademiya have better things to do with their lives than maintaining relationships and going out of their way to care for others—a concept he’s more than well-acquainted with.
It’s the pattern that he adopts over the next few days. He stays at the Akademiya some nights, letting the ones who catch him in the morning believe he’d been busy working on some big new project with an impeding deadline. On nights where it’s warmer he leaves the building with others, just so it’s a little more believable (because really, who would sleep in a hard chair every night, no matter their dedication to their work), and he’d pick a spot just slightly away from town, where no one would catch him, curled up on a blanket he’d bought from the marketplace and with the umbrella lying opened just a metre away in case of sudden rain.
It works better than he’d expected, but there are several problems with it.
One: he can’t continue doing this forever. People are going to start questioning if he keeps living like this with no project results to speak for themselves. And, of course, the bigger issue with that —the fact that he doesn’t actually even have a project to start with.
Two: for all his late nights at the Akademiya with his research materials splayed in front of him, he hasn’t actually gotten much work done. His back hurts, damn it, and more nights than not he’s more preoccupied with his hunger than he is his research.
Three: he used to invite clients over to his house to chat over design specifications when first starting work on new projects. Something he can’t do if he doesn’t, well, have a house.
So, it takes two weeks before he caves. And he would know, because he had counted the days. It had been near the end of the month when he was kicked out, and fourteen days from then led him to a date he’d inevitably burned into his memory from a long time back.
Memories of a candle and a birthday cake, of off-tune singing and laughter hazy in the kitchen light. Of old friendships and candlelight, smelling of smoke left behind by bridges burned.
Long gone now, he knows, but the date stays like a brand scorched into the back of his mind, and every year leads him back to this.
And this year, it leads him to a door he hasn’t dared stand before—on his own accord at least—since that day, years back, before the waves had surged and the metaphorical bridge had crumbled under the weight of the tides. It’s still early in the morning, dawn settling over the city, and the muscles in his back sear at every movement from three consecutive nights spent huddled in a corner of the Akademiya’s library.
For a moment, he wonders if he should just turn away. Spare himself from the rejection that he’s almost certain would follow, because apparently, wooden splinters can still cut even years after they’d been formed.
But he doesn’t. Doesn’t allow himself to. The ache in his muscles spreads between his bones and nests itself in the corner of his chest just a few inches from his heart.
Maybe it’s because he’s stubborn, or maybe it’s because he’s desperate. Enough nights of going hungry and falling asleep with a groan echoing through his shoulders have blurred the lines between the two, and he finds himself no longer caring which is which.
Whichever it is, he lets it bring his knuckles up to the door, only briefly hesitating against the sturdy wood.
He knocks. Softly at first, then louder, more certain.
The door opens.
It’s unusual for him to have visitors. Even stranger, still, to have them knock on his door uninvited.
And entirely unheard of, certainly, to have them knock on his door uninvited at seven in the morning.
Alhaitham is a man who prides himself on logic and reason. A million different scenarios and possibilities run through his mind at the first knock—that it could be someone harbouring a grudge of sorts (he’s made enemies of all kinds, both within and outside of Sumeru’s walls), that it could be some irritating scammer, or that it could be someone who had gotten the wrong address.
The second knock sounds, more insistent than the first, and he denies the plausibility of the above scenarios. No one intending to cause harm would come right as the sun bathes the town in broad daylight, and he’s never met a scammer dedicated enough to come to his house this early in the morning. And who would be out visiting at seven?
By the third knock, he comes to a simple conclusion: that whoever is knocking on his door at this time is either desperately in need of something or, for the lack of a better word, some kind of odd fool.
He swings the door open, arching his eyebrows at the sight in front of him.
The answer is both, apparently, and while his thoughts go unspoken, it’s almost as if he’d said them aloud with how Kaveh glowers at him.
“You look like shit,” he says by way of greeting, but it isn’t an invitation. It isn’t anything, really, beyond a statement. He doesn’t budge from his spot in the doorway, blocking Kaveh from entry into his home, and, to his credit, Kaveh doesn’t try to push past him. “I’ve heard news from the Akademiya that someone has been staying overnight for the past couple of weeks. Quite pathetically, it seems. Would you happen to know anything about that?”
Kaveh scoffs, folding his arms against his chest, and Alhaitham continues observing him. Two weeks seems to have done a number on him—his eyebags are deeper than Alhaitham remembered, and though it has been a while since they’ve seen each other, Kaveh’s never really been the type for late nights and early mornings. That was always more Alhaitham’s thing. Kaveh, on the other hand, was more of a sleep-at-twelve and wake-at-noon type of person.
Perhaps that’s why the tiredness that clings to his frame looks so out-of-character on him. Or maybe it’s the way he doesn’t even have a hostile remark to give, instead standing a short distance from the doorway, the glare on his face having given way to an equal mix of abashed and indignant, maybe a little embarrassed. Or very, if the way Kaveh’s frown deepens by the second is indicative of anything.
Alhaitham leans against the doorway, an amused smile curling his lips as he watches Kaveh staunchly refuse to make proper eye contact with him. “So what brings you here?”
He’s being what Kaveh would call an asshole. He knows that much, memories of a younger Kaveh shouting that exact phrase crossing his mind. Too bad he doesn’t particularly care.
“Nothing,” Kaveh huffs out. “I just—”
He stops short, and Alhaitham remains where he is. Too bad for Kaveh, too, that he doesn’t have any pressing matters at the Akademiya today, which means he has all the time in the world to wait.
“I just thought I’d stop by for a little while,” Kaveh finishes, stubbornly. “If you recall correctly, it’s technically my house too, you know.”
“Really? I believe you gave up ownership rights the instant you rescinded,” Alhaitham comments.
Kaveh sighs. “Maybe I just wanted to see the house, then. Nostalgia and all that, you know?”
Alhaitham lets out a short, barely audible snort. “That’s uncharacteristic of you.” He says it flatly, watching as Kaveh flinches. He’d meant it more as a joke, but he’s never been one for them, and it’s no wonder that it doesn’t come out as intended. Kaveh, of all people, should know that by now. “So, you’ve stopped by. I’m still alive and breathing. Happy now?”
Kaveh throws his hands up, and Alhaitham thinks that he might have slipped in a remark about how he wishes Alhaitham were anything but, had he not been in a situation like this. Instead, the blond shakes his head, jaw tightening for a moment before he—forcibly—relaxes. “You know what? Forget this ever happened.” The words that escape him sound to Alhaitham half a sigh and half a plea. “I’ll get going.”
Alhaitham’s eyebrows rise further, watching as Kaveh takes one step back, and then another, turning toward the main road that’ll lead, predictably, back to the Akademiya.
“Wait,” he calls out, tone carefully guarded, a flat monotone that betrays nothing. Kaveh’s own movements, on the other hand, betray the architect as he skids to a halt almost instantly, body partly-turned towards Alhaitham.
Alhaitham eyes the items Kaveh is carrying. A bag that weighs down on his shoulders and makes him look three times more tired than he already is (no doubt he’d shoved everything that could fit into it), an umbrella with an empty plastic bag, save for some crumbs, hooked over its handle, and a rolled-up, frayed blanket.
“What?” Kaveh snaps back. There’s hostility in his tone, raw and hardly-concealed, but Alhaitham knows it’s not directed towards him. He’s heard that tone before, back when they’d been preparing for their projects, sharp with days of unease and darkened with nights of restlessness.
Alhaitham takes one step back, and then another. Instantaneously, Kaveh’s gaze snaps to the area behind him—the soft carpet under Alhaitham’s feet, the empty couches, the long table holding neatly-arranged documents waiting to be read.
He shrugs, gesturing faintly to the nearest couch. “You’re not putting your things down first before going to work?”
And if Alhaitham hadn’t turned away, he would’ve seen the way Kaveh smiled like he’d just grown several years lighter.
He could’ve cried.
He could’ve, but he doesn’t. He smiles first, careful to cover it behind the hand that reaches up to brush his hair from his face, and then settles for following Alhaitham into the house. Thank you, he contemplates saying as he shrugs the bag off his shoulders and lays it on the couch. The words catch in his throat in a moment of hesitation and by the time he works them unstuck, Alhaitham has already seen it fit to disappear from sight, slipping away into one of the other rooms.
It’s not his first time being in this house, but just like every time before, it feels odd. Worse now that he’s not just here for a couple of hours, harbouring under some excuse of Akademiya matters.
He doesn’t know what to say, or what to do. Where to put his hands. His bag looks out-of-place against Alhaitham’s furniture, and he feels out-of-place standing here like this. How long has it been since he’s last stepped foot in here? And how long has it been since he’s spoken to Alhaitham like this—like they’re not just speaking for the sake of Akademiya affairs and the latest research news related to both of their Darshans?
The walls are heavy and closing in, reminding him of how he’d felt all those years ago, back when they’d fallen apart like crumbling stone. In the Akademiya, of all places, in the same place he still turns to when he has nowhere else to go.
He’d been the co-architect to their destroyed building, of course—he hasn’t forgotten that fact. Maybe that’s what makes him feel all the more pathetic: that for all this bad blood between them, this is still the doorstep he found himself crawling to.
Not that he’d admit it to Alhaitham, though he’s known the scholar for long enough now to know that Alhaitham probably knows it as well as he does.
An infuriating thought, but he’s not going to verbalise that, either. For all his hot-headedness (he’s self-aware on that), he’s smart enough to recognise where he’s been bested. If the universe has been busy conspiring against him to shove him into a contract masqueraded as a scam—no, he refuses to be self-aware enough to take responsibility for that—and then kick him out of his own house, he’ll just have to take the circumstances as they are.
At least Alhaitham had let him in. At least there’s that. The idea of having to rely on an ex-friend like this is an unpleasant one, but there’s no denying that he’s grateful, too. It’s an odd mix of emotion, thankfulness and bitterness swirling into one complicated mess, tinted with the faintest vestiges of nostalgia.
“There are spare keys on the console table,” Alhaitham speaks, and Kaveh snaps out of his thoughts. He hadn’t noticed the man walk back into the room, footsteps silent against the carpeted floor. “You can take them when you go out.”
Kaveh hesitates, the words weighing his tongue down. “Thanks,” he settles on, voice gruff, and then he stops. They’ve been there too many times now to know what kind of pattern they’ll slip into if they entered into any semblance of conversation—words that’ll turn to knives, memories of debris sharpened to pointed edges, malice moulded in the form of wit and barely-concealed sarcasm. He can’t remember when or where it had all started; somewhere near the start of their combined project when the incongruency of their methods became apparent, certainly. But he can remember when and where it all ended.
He hadn’t expected Alhaitham’s kindness, of all things, and a part of him marvels at how keenly it cuts, too, the opposite edge of the blade they’re used to wielding. It slices a fine line down the border between past and present, reminding him far too acutely of back when things were better. When they’d been kind to each other without trying to gain the upper hand and when every conversation didn’t automatically feel like a contest of who could leave the bigger wound. Back when they’d had their differences of opinion without allowing it to drive some sort of irreparable wedge between them.
He doesn’t know which is better between kindness and malice—they’re the same sharp knife, they just leave different scars—so he doesn’t reply. Refuses to thank Alhaitham any more than the bare minimum for his kindness; refuses to speak in a way that might make it dissolve back into their familiar battle of wits.
“You’re welcome,” Alhaitham replies, looking his way, and Kaveh looks away. Alhaitham doesn’t say anything past that, either, and a million exclamations bubble up against Kaveh’s throat. He lets them all out in the form of a soft sigh, fingernails digging into his palm.
It’s easier to shout. To fall back into his old habits, because they’re predictable. Because he’ll get to say everything he’s wanted to say over these few years and Alhaitham will just stand there, fighting Kaveh’s fire with his own unnerving calm. That’s how they’d always functioned in the past—even when they had been children, quarrelling over the silliest of things—and that’s how they’d functioned until the very end. Until the chips in their friendship had given way to larger cracks and function had turned to dysfunction, at least.
But he doesn’t want to get kicked out of a house a second time, not if it means he’ll have to go back to restless nights in the corner of the Akademiya. And because, perhaps, they hadn’t actually fought like that since the day their friendship fell apart. Maybe he’s afraid of seeing just how Alhaitham would react—if he’d respond the same as always, the way Kaveh is still tempted to, or if he’d respond in a different way altogether. Kaveh isn’t sure he can handle that; handle watching an already-unstable foundation crumble to dust, leaving nothing behind to be rebuilt.
“So?”
Kaveh bristles. “What?”
Alhaitham levels him with an unreadable stare. “Aren’t you going to go out?”
Belatedly, Kaveh realises he had intended to go to the Akademiya. Or at least pretended that he had somewhere to go. “Yes,” he says, turning and walking toward the door. He spots the set of spare keys and wraps his fingers around it, clearing his throat to dissipate the odd tension that’s settled over the area. “I’ll get going now, then.”
Alhaitham doesn’t respond, and Kaveh doesn’t let himself wait for any hint of one as he slams the door shut and takes his leave.
He finds his footsteps turning toward the marketplace instead, suddenly glad that his landlord had been kind enough to give him all the time he needed to hand over his belated payment.
“Come, come! Everything is on sale today!”
Kaveh drifts over to the elderly lady who calls out to him, wincing inwardly as he eyes the dubiously low prices and the goods on display, but his circumstances don’t exactly leave him with the most premium of choices. He forces a smile onto his face, features relaxing as he slips his wallet into his palm. “Hello,” he greets, “which one of these do you recommend?”
“What.”
Alhaitham sounds decidedly unimpressed, and Kaveh doesn’t blame him.
“Listen, you—” Kaveh cuts himself off just in time before he can call Alhaitham ungrateful (he suspects Alhaitham would turn his words against him, anyway, and he can’t even argue because then he’d be right), taking a sharp breath to quell his words. No arguing. Not like this. Across the table, there’s a flash of amusement in Alhaitham’s eyes and Kaveh resists the urge to snap at him again. “I know it’s not the best.”
“It’s not,” Alhaitham agrees, not even bothering to hide his distaste. Kaveh can’t help the frown that settles on his features; Alhaitham has always had the penchant for disregarding the feelings of others, but—
Kaveh grudgingly comes to the realisation that of everyone, Alhaitham probably cares for his feelings the least. They’d both had a hand in the destruction of their friendship, after all, but Kaveh… he might have played a bigger part. Kind of. He’d been the one to shatter the walls and crush the floorboards first; Alhaitham had just stood back and let it happen. Okay, so Alhaitham might still be reasonably mad at him. Kaveh can put up with that.
Not that he has much of a choice, if he wants a place to stay. He can figure out this mess of feelings—of thoughts of what do I do, where do we go from here, will we ever be okay again—sometime later, when he’s more ready to confront it. And that time is certainly not now, standing in the dining room in the waning morning light across the table from Alhaitham.
“You went out all morning,” Alhaitham says slowly, “and you came back with this?”
“Listen,” Kaveh responds, exasperated, “can’t you at least take a bite before looking at it like that? I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think it is.”
Alhaitham’s shoulders lift in a shrug, prodding at the cake with a utensil. A corner crumbles away and Alhaitham pulls the utensil away, eyebrows furrowing. “Why did you even buy this?” he asks instead of trying the food.
Kaveh folds his arms across his chest. “You know why.”
“I don’t recall making any requests for cake to be brought back. Certainly not of this sort.”
Okay, now he’s being deliberately annoying. “Do you need me to spell it out for you?” Kaveh challenges, watching as Alhaitham tilts his head in consideration.
He has that look about him that he does when he’s contemplating new areas of research to allow the students to explore, and the realisation hits Kaveh like an avalanche of bricks and then some.
“Wait.” Alhaitham’s gaze shifts to him, eyebrow raising quizzically. “You really don’t know.”
“Should I?” Alhaitham replies, and Kaveh fights a groan.
“How am I the one remembering when you don’t even remember?” Every year, at that. He remembers this date better than he remembers his own deadlines. And then, a little begrudgingly, “happy birthday, Alhaitham.”
It’s one of the rare few moments where Kaveh sees real, genuine surprise flit across Alhaitham’s face, and a small part of him takes a smug satisfaction at being the reason for it. It’s characteristically gone in the next instant, Alhaitham’s expression steeled back into passive neutrality as he looks back down at the cake.
He extends his utensil and takes a bite. He grimaces immediately after, but it’s a step forward. Kaveh can live with that.
“It tastes like food colouring,” he remarks after a moment’s pause.
“You’re being dramatic,” Kaveh tells him. Alhaitham levels him with a pointed stare which he chooses to ignore. “Food colouring doesn’t have taste.”
“You’ll know what it tastes like if you eat this.”
He rolls his eyes, reaching forward with a utensil of his own and shoving a piece of cake into his mouth. Okay, so maybe he does get where Alhaitham is coming from. But it’s not bad, considering how he’s been exposed to all sorts of more-than-questionable food options after being rendered essentially broke after his construction project. It’s edible, at the very least. “I’m sorry, okay? That was the last of my savings, so you could at least pretend to be grateful.”
His words come out more barbed wire than light-hearted joke, and he immediately fights a wince, watching as Alhaitham’s expression grows thoughtful and then blank. He feels like a petulant teen again, tone argumentative at every turn and tongue hot with rebuttals against his parents’ every move. It’s a habit he always tends to slip into when he’s with Alhaitham.
And, true to his nature, Alhaitham doesn’t retaliate in the way Kaveh sometimes wishes he would. He doesn’t snap in the same way Kaveh is himself so prone to, and it acts as little more than a jarring reminder of their discordant natures, two jigsaw pieces with all the wrong corners fitted next to each other.
“You remembered,” Alhaitham comments, out of nowhere, and Kaveh pauses.
“Huh?”
He’s always had a penchant for changing the flow of the conversation midway. Kaveh thinks that if not for this habit of his, they might have talked back then. Worked their fall-outs out like normal people. But they’ve been this way since they were kids, and somehow, it’s a little comforting to know that some things don’t change.
“My birthday,” Alhaitham elaborates.
“Least I could do,” he finds himself replying, a brief moment of honesty catching both him and Alhaitham off-guard. A part of him wonders if he should reach out further, offer to head out of town later in the evening like they used to before, but Alhaitham makes his choice for him, taking his leave after a few more bites of cake and muttering something about work.
Kaveh watches him leave, hears the clatter of the plate against the kitchen sink, listens out for the decisive click of Alhaitham’s bedroom door. It doesn’t open again for the next twenty minutes, and then the next, and after an hour Kaveh finds he’s finished off the rest of the cake. He disposes of the box and brings his utensils to the kitchen, snorting to find that Alhaitham hadn’t bothered washing his own plate.
He’ll help out just this once, he relents, the warmth of the water rushing over his hands. Birthday privileges.
Alhaitham doesn’t come out for the rest of the afternoon; Kaveh isn’t deterred. So maybe it hadn’t been the best birthday celebration, and he doesn’t actually know if he’d managed to get the idea that he was thankful across to Alhaitham, but at the very least, he hadn’t gotten kicked out.
Afternoon melts away into evening, and then night-dark. Morning comes and goes, and while Alhaitham pauses as if momentarily stunned to see him at the breakfast table, he doesn’t kick him out then, either.
Kaveh can live with that.
“It’s been so long!” The face of his landlord beams up at him, and he feels a warmth of his own light up his grin. “Come in, come in. You’re just in time for dinner.”
Kaveh dips his head in acquiesce and steps through the doorway, uttering a soft greeting to the landlord’s wife and his youngest son. “Sorry, I haven’t had much time to visit,” he admits with a quiet laugh, and he’s not lying. He’d been busy as of late—acting as more of a consultant to the newer researchers than taking on another project of his own, but it’s still taking up a considerable part of his daily schedule—and besides going to and fro the Akademiya and home, he’s more or less neglected the other aspects of life. “But you’ve been keeping well?”
“Of course, of course,” the landlord assures. “You look like you’ve been doing well too.”
The older of the two gestures at the dinner table and Kaveh takes a seat, the aroma of home-cooked food wafting over him. “About that—I’ll be able to get the remainder of the payment to you by next week. I’m really sorry for the delay.” It’s almost embarrassing to have to bring this up, considering it’s been nearly a year since he’d been forced to evict his old home. Things are finally starting to look up for him, though, what with stable pay from his new work. Not to mention that he actually enjoys the work—the researchers are pleasant to work with, and very bright, too.
The landlord’s silence is uncharacteristic of him, and Kaveh looks over to catch him staring, eyebrows furrowed. “Is… did I say something wrong? The rent from last time—”
“Didn’t he tell you?” the landlord blurts, and this time Kaveh is the one to fall silent.
And then, after a pause heavy with questions and reaping no answers, Kaveh asks, “who? ”
To his surprise, the landlord starts laughing. “What have you been up to in the past year?” he mutters, more to himself than to Kaveh, shaking his head. “A client, a friend, someone who cares for you—whoever it is, the rest of what you owed me has been paid. A while ago, at that. I thought you knew.”
Kaveh can only gape. He did not, in fact, know. The notion in itself is incredulous; less than a year ago he’d resorted to sleeping in the library and the streets because he had no one to turn to (Alhaitham doesn’t count, he only went because the house technically used to be partly his too). Sure, he’d made a couple of friends since, but there’s a decently clear line between being good friends and having several months of your rent paid off.
“Are you sure?” he manages to get out.
The landlord has stopped laughing, though the amusement in his tone is clear. “Quite positive.”
Kaveh lets out a sound that’s half a huff and half a sigh, leaning back against the chair. A possibility creeps into his mind like shadows after dark, one he quashes as firmly as he can. It’s impossible.
It’s impossible, and yet somehow the only plausible explanation for all of this.
“Are you okay?” the landlord probes, squinting his way and looking slightly concerned now. Kaveh realises he hasn’t touched the food laid out in front of them, instead staring into space with what he imagines must be a perplexed expression on his face.
“... Yes.” No. What is going on?
The landlord waves a hand toward the food. “Eat up.”
“Okay.”
Kaveh takes a bite. The food is warm, and tastes like home. Home, like the one of several years back before it’d all fallen to dust, of dancing kitchen lights and birthday cakes and this same dining table where the seat next to him wasn’t empty. A friend he’d introduced, all smiles and childish pride, so excited to show him home.
Kaveh takes another bite. The food is warm, and he chokes on nostalgia and the white-hot flame of muted grief.
“Thank you for the meal,” he says later. The landlord is all smiles and come by again’s and he makes a promise he doesn’t know if he can keep. He hadn’t noticed all the ghosts before, hiding in all the corners they’d used to visit and lurking still in his old flat a few stories above the landlord’s, but it’s easy now to see the places they’ve touched. He supposes it’s just a side-effect of moving in with the one who’s haunted him for this long.
God, Kaveh thinks bitterly, moving off with the keys to a house that isn’t really his pressed into his palm, he misses them.
“You want something from me.”
The words come out an accusation, not a statement, and certainly not a question. He’s standing in Alhaitham’s study, feet sinking into the carpet, watching as Alhaitham slips a bookmark between the pages of his book before looking up.
“What makes you say that?” Alhaitham doesn’t seem all too surprised at his sudden flare of anger. Then again, he doesn’t ever seem all too surprised at anything.
Kaveh draws a breath. “You paid off my rent. I don’t remember asking you for any favours.” He takes a step closer, watching as Alhaitham closes his book and rests it on the table. He doesn’t deny it. “Do you enjoy having me owe you something? Do you think I don’t know that you letting me stay in this house is already a favour I can’t repay?” Alhaitham’s expression tightens then relaxes, but the hardness in his eyes don’t cease.
Once, they’d been the first to help each other—to reach their hands over that metaphorical bridge and pull the other to safety, away from the thrashing tides and the shakiness of the ground underfoot. Then, somewhere along the way, the distance had grown wider, until reaching out never seemed to work anymore. And when it’d ended, they’d been at opposite ends of the bridge, watching as the wood turned to ash before them. They had been the ones to set it on fire.
They say the worst of people come out in the face of disaster. They’d both showed different faces of cruelty amidst the embers—he’d turn to enraged shoutings and condemnations, words in the shape of a sledgehammer, slamming into everything in its path. And Alhaitham had cut just as sharply but finer, like the edge of a blade, always one step ahead, one step above. Made it so his genius permeated every corner of the project, every page of their shared documents, a message in invisible underline: you couldn’t have done this without me. Always reaching out, always for the upper hand, never for each other.
Kaveh had learned to loathe it—the idea of owing something to someone. Of the bitter gratitude he’s forced to feel, driving the flames of his anger to sparks, unsettled with no place to go but back toward himself. Although he’s sure that Alhaitham hates it too, hearing the way all the words are spilling from his mouth again, the blunt end of a claymore ramming against already-splintered wood.
Splintered wood from years back, Kaveh has come to learn, cuts deeper than before. It stays in corners unseen, forgotten over the passage of time, and then it takes you by surprise. Every gash feels new, new and familiar and bleeding the same, just in different homes.
“Kaveh.” His mind shudders to a halt and he raises his head sharply. Alhaitham’s expression looks almost contrived, shoulders tense and an uncharacteristically troubled frown pulling at the corners of his lips. “... Sorry.”
It’s the last thing he would have expected Alhaitham to say. “What did you say?” he asks, a little unnecessarily. He heard Alhaitham the first time.
The Haravatat researcher levels him with a faint glare. He doesn’t repeat himself. “That wasn’t my intention,” he replies instead, voice plain but betraying too much all at once, and Kaveh draws another breath. Sharper this time. “If it bothers you that much, I can—”
“No,” Kaveh cuts off quickly. His tone is still harsh, and he freezes, trying the words out on his tongue before he dares speak them aloud. “You don’t have to.” His voice is softer now, bordering on the edge of uncertainty.
The sledgehammer rests against the wood, and the blade moulds itself into a drawknife, smoothing the broken edges down.
Still splintered, Kaveh thinks, but it cuts differently now.
Maybe this time, it’ll leave less of a scar.
“Sorry for that,” he tries after a pause. Hesitant, like he’s approaching a wounded animal prone to lashing out.
He has to force the words out of his throat, and from the glance that Alhaitham gives him, he thinks he’s aware of that, too. But he’s trying. “I got angry, and it made me… well.”
Alhaitham is doing the same as him, looking at him like he’s the wounded animal, and maybe he’s right. For what it’s worth, his claws are sheathed now, nails pressed into his own palm and stemming the fury that had erupted with no explanation.
Nostalgia does that to people, he’d realised somewhere along the way. Grief sharpens into rage when it’s forced to reconcile the present with the past, reconcile the ashes with the home they’d burned down.
“You don’t have to apologise.” Seemingly sensing that the height of the tension is out of the way, Alhaitham’s voice has re-adopted its curt tone. Kaveh can’t fault him for that.
Homes can’t be rebuilt overnight, after all. He knows that better than anyone else.
At the very least, they’ve stopped setting everything on fire. The rebuilding can come later, after they’ve picked the splinters out of the floorboards and layered the foundation with something sturdier.
A new project, Kaveh decides. One long overdue.
He can live with that.
“You won’t stay for any longer?”
It takes all of Alhaitham’s patience to not shrug off the hand that pats him on the shoulder, clearly urging him to stay.
He takes no heed of it. “It’s been a long night,” he says simply. Discussing matters involving the Akademiya with these researchers had been a necessity. And he’d begrudgingly accepted the offer for dinner, too, considering they’ve known each other since their schooling days and he’s turned down their invitations for a little too long now. Staying any longer, however, was where he drew the line. He’s never been one for social events—they know that. The last (and only) time he’d tried his hand at a group project, the consequences had been… disastrous, to say the least. He knows he’s partly to blame for that. He’d never tried to fix it, after all, and look where that had gotten them.
“Come on, Alhaitham,” another researcher chides, tone jovial despite the bone-exhaustingly long discussions they’d had earlier. “It’s been so long. We’ve still got stuff to catch up on, y’know?”
Amusedly enough, none of them really look that surprised when he stands his ground with a firm shake of his head. So they do know him after all. “I really must get going,” he responds, sounding just apologetic enough to pass off as genuine. “And besides, my housemate might get irate if I stayed out for too long.”
He decides to take his leave on that note, gathering his things and making a beeline for the exit of the restaurant. If he heard the confused shouts that followed him, well, no one had to know that he did.
Alhaitham—hey—since when did you have a housemate? And then, incredulously, you? And, a question which nearly tempts Alhaitham into turning on his heel and rebuking that no, he most certainly is not: Alhaitham, are you married?
(He ignores them and continues walking until the lights of the restaurant have faded out behind several shops and streetlamps. They can save the questions for the next time they see him. And if their next meeting is scheduled to be with the Sages, well, that’s their problem, not his.)
He’d only used his housemate as a convenient excuse, but he pushes the door open to see Kaveh seated on the couch, a scowl on his face as he looks Alhaitham up and down.
“What?”
Kaveh’s arms are crossed in front of his chest, stare unrelenting. “What took you so long?”
Alhaitham shrugs his coat off instead of responding, tossing it on the couch. “That’ll crease,” Kaveh supplies, and Alhaitham snorts.
“What are you, my wife?”
Kaveh scoffs, motioning towards the coat. “You wish. Now get that off, it’s making the house look unsightly.”
He’s one to speak, Alhaitham thinks. Kaveh’s room is significantly messier than Alhaitham’s, and it’s spread to other parts of the house too: cutlery out-of-place in the kitchen, a misaligned painting on the wall next to Kaveh’s bedroom, a fruit bowl somehow always just a distance from the centre of the table in the living room. “This is my house,” he points out. Kaveh only rolls his eyes.
“... Okay, fine.” He reaches out to grab his coat, running a hand over it to smooth it out, before Kaveh’s voice interrupts.
“Put it down.”
His forehead creases. “You literally just told me to pick it up.”
Kaveh looks miffed. “Since when did you even listen to me?”
He’s right. Alhaitham bites back a laugh, settling instead for the faint hint of a smile, and gathers the coat in his arms. Kaveh rolls his eyes again. “Whatever. Just stay there. Don’t you dare run off to your room.”
He toys with the idea of leaving, just for the sake of it, but decides on staying, watching as Kaveh gets up from the couch and slips off to the kitchen. Kaveh doesn’t really manage to achieve the element of surprise, considering they both have access to a calendar and Kaveh’s been acting suspiciously jittery the whole morning before they left for work, but he appreciates the effort anyway.
Kaveh re-emerges from the kitchen holding a box in his hands, a proud grin on his face, and Alhaitham smells the cake before he sees it. Kaveh has bought a nicer one this time, a well-recognised brand.
“I made enough for it,” he declares, seeing Alhaitham’s gaze scan the brand name in cursive across the front of the box. “Happy now?”
“Good.” Alhaitham watches him set it down, skirting round the front of the couches to join him at the table. “If you have enough to spend on useless things like these, then you have enough to pay rent. Now get out of my house.”
Both of them know he doesn’t mean it, and Kaveh’s bark of laughter is refreshingly loud in the four walls this home offers.
“Happy birthday, Alhaitham,” he says, and Alhaitham closes his eyes and makes a wish.
The candle burns bright in the evening light, and Kaveh’s off-tune singing fills the living room. He hears himself laughing before he can help it, the taste of the birthday cake sweet against their tongues.
“Thank you,” he replies, and he means it, this time.
Under their feet, the floor is soft, and all around them the air is warm, but not burning. Smoke trails from the candles and drifts between them, kissing their skin like flowers back to life.
A work-in-progress, Alhaitham determines. It’ll take longer than before, but he’s alright with that.
They build steadier this time.