Work Text:
Kaveh loved his job.
Sometimes.
Other times, he felt like it was a pain in the ass -- a bigger pain than Alhaitham could ever be.
Being someone in the art sector was hard, honestly. The arts had been quelled by the sages for the longest time, and the lack of funding from the Akademiya wasn't exactly helping either. Seriously, Kaveh's greatest work, the Palace of Alcazarzaray, wouldn't even have been possible if not for the funding of some suspicious merchant he came across one day. Even that landed him in debt.
Kaveh didn't know how Nilou kept her hopes up. Even he was slowly losing his, day by day.
Which was how he found himself moping in the half-built frame of his latest project. For now, it was just a few fancy slabs of stone stacked together in a rough impression of a wall, but it would do for his pondering. For Kaveh, the skeletons of his works were a great place to reconsider what he was doing, and if he even wanted to keep working as an architect. The irony was amusing, at times.
Sometimes, he considered just abandoning his wild fantasies of being Sumeru's best, maybe even a sage someday, and leaving everything he'd worked for. He'd get a better life in a different sector, that was for sure. He'd have more Mora, maybe be able to pursue some other form of art with his new earnings. Maybe move out of Alhaitham's home. Or he could leave Sumeru entirely, and try to bring his talents to better use elsewhere. He'd heard stories about Liyue, the trade center where all talents were welcome; about Mondstadt, where the people lived freely and without worries. Maybe even Inazuma, if the Sakoku Decree ever lifted. Anywhere but here, where the one thing he loved, he couldn't do.
If his late parents could see him now, they'd call him a disgrace. No one in his family had ever joined the Kshahrewar. They'd scoffed at his designs. "There are people better than you." He ignored them, but now, he thought that perhaps they had a point. Sure, he graduated from the Akademiya with honors, but what else was there? He wasn't rich. He wasn't even making a decent wage.
He sighed, burying his face in his hands. Just that morning, a letter had arrived for him. It was the cancellation of yet another project, yet again because of the lack of funds. He was pretty sure Alhaitham had turned on his noise-cancelling headphones instead of listening to him rant.
Oh, well.
"...doing?"
Kaveh's head shot up, and he nearly fell off his wall. "What--"
Alhaitham stared at him, turquoise eyes unamused. "What are you doing?" he -- presumably -- repeated.
"Thinking." Kaveh turned his face away. "None of your business."
The Scribe wasn't wearing his headphones for once -- they hung loosely around his neck. He still stood in front of Kaveh, his arms folded. "It is two in the morning. I thought you were passed out drunk somewhere."
Kaveh scoffed. "I always make it back, even if I drink."
"With my help," Alhaitham said flatly. "I doubt you even remember being dragged back. Besides," the Scribe took a step forward, "Since when do you ever think?"
"You little--"
"Well?" Alhaitham raised an eyebrow. "What's gotten into you? The General Mahamatra and Forest Watcher requested that I check on you."
"Like I said, it's none of your business. You wouldn't understand, anyway." Kaveh folded his legs, glaring up at his roommate.
Alhaitham settled himself on another portion of unfinished wall. "While I doubt they will be able to do so, the General Mahamatra and Forest Watcher have threatened to kill me if I didn't get anything out of you."
Kaveh let out a dry huff, eyeing Alhaitham. "And I'm supposed to save you?"
There was a pause. Then, "I would rather avoid useless conflict. Would you like the house to become an even bigger mess?"
"That's... That's fair." Kaveh sighed again, long and low. "You already know what bothers me."
"How broke you are?"
Kaveh rolled his eyes. "Not just that. I--" He shook his head. "How do I put this? It's that-- I just feel so useless. I'm a legend in a dying industry, and even my masterpiece left me in debt." He tilted his head -- and his body -- back, so he stared up at the stars. "Sometimes I feel like I'm not good enough, even though I sure as hell am giving my best." His vision blurred slightly, and he tried to blink away the tears that had undoubtedly formed in his eyes. Not in front of Alhaitham.
There was silence from the Scribe. No sounds of breathing, nothing. Only a small rustle of clothes as he shifted slightly.
"See, I knew you wouldn't--"
"Kaveh."
The architect sat himself upright. "What--"
Alhaitham was in front of him again, closer than before, looking him dead in the eyes. "Why would you not be good enough?"
"I already said--"
"You said you are a legend among architects," Alhaitham pressed. "What about that shows that you are not good enough?"
"I'm a legend in a dying industry," Kaveh repeated. "What good is there in that? No one appreciates the work I do. The merchant from before probably only likes it because she scammed me. This place here is the first thing I've been commissioned for in forever."
"Kaveh." Alhaitham's voice was firm. A gloved hand hovered over Kaveh's own, as though the Scribe didn't know what to do with it. Kaveh chose to ignore it, fixing his attention on his roommate's face. Alhaitham's body was tense, yet his voice was calm and his piercing gaze stared right into Kaveh's own. "You're good enough."
"W- what??" Kaveh definitely did not expect something like that to come from Alhaitham's mouth, of all people. I'm probably hallucinating.
"You heard me."
A snort. "You? You're telling me this? What happened to being the pesky roommate?" Even then, he fought to keep his throat from closing up on his words, for his voice to remain steady. "Why are you telling me this, Alhaitham?"
The Scribe's gaze did not waver. "Because it's true."
"Aha. Ahaha." Kaveh failed to clamp down on the choked laughter that escaped his lips. "Damn it, Alhaitham." He his fingers curled into his sleeves, nails digging into his arms as though the pain would ground him. He was pretty sure he was crying at this point. "You can't-- You can't just walk up and say shit like this."
The Scribe did not budge. His hand was still frozen where it was before, his fingers this close to brushing Kaveh's own. Honestly, he probably just didn't know where to move it. Socially inept bastard. And yet his words were no less powerful -- not to Kaveh, at least. "You're good enough." Somehow, those words carried more weight than anything else had. Not even that time when Kaveh was nearly squashed to death by a sumpter beast.
Kaveh expected Alhaitham to walk away, to leave when he realized that his emotions were far too wild to curb within the span of a few minutes. But the man stood there, a hand on Kaveh's shoulder now, the architect's head rested against his chest as he wept. He did not say anything more, but Kaveh did not expect anything more. All that the Scribe would say had been said. For now, Kaveh would seek peace with the one person he'd never thought he would find it in, the same person who probably internally cursed him to hell and back at least three times a day, but also cared enough to give him a home.
Alhaitham's stone-cold care was enough for him, he supposed. Even if he still wasn't convinced he was enough for the world, perhaps one day...