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Alhaitham prides himself on not being someone driven by emotion. In fact, all of his decisions are carefully thought through, with each possible outcome accounted for. Call him a skeptic or whatever, Alhaitham doesn’t care—it's not like his attitude ever bit him in the ass either.
So, as long as it works, Alhaitham plans on continuing on actually using his brain—unlike some people—to make sure his life is not a mess. As long as it's going to grant him peace, quiet, and comfort, that's it.
Which is why he’s taken aback when he rushes through Sumeru City at the mere rumor he heard once. There is no thinking and definitely no reason behind that action—Alhaitham assures himself it’s because he doesn’t have time for that and stubbornly pushes away the thought that no one is actually rushing him.
It’s a stupid decision made on a whim. Alhaitham is someone who adores his peaceful, calm, and quiet house, the space he has for his books and all the documents he brings home from work, and the fact he doesn’t have to explain himself to anyone about leaving, coming back, or bringing people home with him. Which, in all honesty, he doesn’t really do. It’s not like he enjoys any prying, judging eyes on his personal belongings.
And, on top of that, it’s not like his work makes it possible for him to hook up.
Let’s not even mention his amazing , oh-so-easy-going personality.
Which is why, again, that decision is fucking stupid. That is going to bite him in the ass for sure, he knows it even before he manages to find the man in question. Rumors spread like wildfire around him, following him as he runs, looking through Sumeru City frantically.
He finds Kaveh relatively quickly and stops a distance away to calm himself down. He’s not particularly used to running, not with his office job as a Scribe, and mentally he makes a note that maybe it’s high time to get back to exercising some more. Losing his fitness would not help him in life, that’s for sure.
Kaveh like this makes a pity sight. He’s hunched over on a bench, hiding his face in his hands. His blond hair seems to be in a mess, so far away from the careful, artistic type of disorder Kaveh puts into it every day. His shoulders are shaking, and Archons, he’s probably crying.
Kaveh is crying and he’s probably homeless just like the rumors say. Alhaitham forces his face into his usual cool and unbothered one. Carefully, he steps closer to his senior.
“Didn’t I tell you to use your brain for two seconds?” He asks, voice cold.
Kaveh flinches harshly and then freezes. Haitham watches him closely, not missing the way the architect frantically wipes his tears away.
“What do you want, asshole? Go on, point your fingers at me and laugh at my misery. I know you want to.”
Kaveh’s voice is hoarse. He sounds like he’s been crying for hours, or—knowing Kaveh—screaming in frustration all the way to Sumeru City.
With a raised brow, Alhaitham decides to ignore how lowly Kaveh seems to be thinking about him, at least for now. Instead, he sits down next to him, pushing Kaveh to the side with his thighs. Kaveh sniffles but moves, mumbling something about Alhaitham being an asshole under his breath.
Really, Alhaitham should think better about what he’s about to say.
But how can he, when Kaveh’s eyes are puffy and he’s shivering from the chilly, evening air? He’s carrying a suitcase and two bags, presumably all of his current belongings and it’s all so pathetic Alhaitham can’t help but pity him.
Except that’s not entirely true. There is no point in pitying Kaveh, not when he’s this bright—a genius, the Light of Kshahrewar, the designer of Palace of Alcazarzaray, with his kind heart and naiveness of someone who wants to change the world for the better.
If Kaveh is kind and willing to help, Alhaitham will be his reason. That’s the least he can do for his senior.
Reluctantly, he reaches for the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out the spare key he has to his house. It jingles as he unfastens it from his main one and offers it to Kaveh on an outstretched palm. Kaveh looks at it absentmindedly, as if not registering what’s happening.
“What’s it for?” He asks weakly, voice breaking over the vowels.
“My house, what else. I will pay that debt of yours so… cook me dinner sometime, roommate.” He mumbles, forcing the key into Kaveh’s hand before he gets the time to question himself and his rationality.
Maybe he has a fever. Maybe he’s overworked and going insane, or maybe it’s the fault of the Knowledge Capsules he’s been tweaking with actually affected his brain.
Kaveh is silent as Alhaitham starts walking away. Turned away from him, the Scribe cannot see the face the architect is making, but knowing Kaveh he’s gaping at his back, blinking slowly as the cogs in his brain turn rapidly.
There goes his peace of mind and the blissful silence of his home.
Turns out admitting that he somewhat enjoys Kaveh’s presence around his—well, now theirs —house, is relatively easy. It’s not like Kaveh lets Alhaitham forget about him. When he’s not cursing under his breath over his projects, whacking something with a hammer in the middle of the night, or humming in the kitchen when Alhaitham gets home, he makes sure to constantly— constantly —leave his things around.
Sometimes it’s his pens. Other times, it's loose sheets of paper, filled to the brim with Kaveh’s handwriting, messy scribbles melting into one another as Haitham skims through them, trying to follow Kaveh’s brain around.
His smell sinks into Haitham’s furniture and the scent of his shampoo clings to the towels in the bathroom. Above all, Alhaitham’s wine bottles miraculously disappear from time to time.
When both of them are home, they fight.
Alhaitham knew that would happen even before he offered Kaveh the key to his house. They used to bicker around during their Akademiya times whenever they caught a glimpse of each other, earning themselves the infamous reputation of enemies. Which, for the record and in defense of both of them, was not entirely true.
For his part, Haitham enjoys their fights. Kaveh’s brain is brilliant and he offers a perspective so different from the Scribe’s already set morals. His kindness, his adoration for arts, his lack of fear to voice his opinions and argue about them—it’s exhilarating.
For Kaveh’s part, Haitham knows him well enough to know he’s not mad about it, even when he ends up screaming his lungs out at Alhaitham in annoyance. In the end, he always comes back, although none of them ever apologize.
That doesn’t make him any less infuriating.
“Leave poor Lambad alone and for Archon’s sake, stop drinking, Kaveh.” He mumbles, sliding into the seat next to the blond. He doesn’t seem phased by Alhaitham’s scolding at all, pursing his lips and continuing to sip his wine.
For someone who loves wine this much, Kaveh has a surprisingly weak head. That, along with his constantly empty wallet doesn’t seem to stop him from buying his favorite bottles and chatting away with Lambad, who never looks too into whatever Kaveh’s complaining about.
The Tavern owner nods his head at Alhaitham in a greeting, sliding a glass of water towards him. Flamboyantly, Kaveh turns on his stool to face the Scribe.
“What are you, my mother?” He asks, his loose tongue slurring his words together.
“I’m technically your landlord and for your raging alcoholism I can technically throw you out.” He points out, gesturing for Lambad to bring him the bill. It’s not like Kaveh has any money to actually pay for himself.
“You wouldn’t do that.” Kaveh snorts, sure of himself. One more sip of the wine has him questioning himself. “You wouldn’t, right?”
Haitham wouldn’t. “Yes I would,” he says instead.
Kaveh looks just a little bit beautiful like that—Alhaitham admits so with no shame. He may be uninterested in romancing, but he does have eyes and… well, taste. His crimson eyes are glazed over as he stares at the wine he twirls around in his glass. His lips are slightly open, still wet from the liquor, cherry colored. There’s a faint blush on his cheeks, one that brings out the color of his eyes and goes along with his long lashes so nicely there is something that squeezes Alhaitham’s stomach.
He shakes his head gently.
“Let’s get home, Kaveh.” He says and stops himself from scowling at how fond it sounds.
Unusual and irrational, so against his morals. He curses himself inside as his eyes follow the stray lock of Kaveh’s hair that falls into his eyes.
“Do we have to?” He whines, battling his eyelashes at Alhaitham, as if that would earn him anything.
When Alhaitham looks at Lambad, the man looks amused for once. He glances between the two of them, one of his eyebrows raised. He seems to know something Alhaitham doesn’t yet realize, and that thought alone is enough to irritate the Scribe.
“You’ve had enough wine for tonight. Come on, Light of Kshahrewar, you have a meeting with a client in the morning.”
Kaveh goes behind him, soft and pliant and so drunkenly obedient. It does something to Haitham’s brain and his ego, the fact that he knows he’s not like that with everyone. In fact, he’s pretty sure Kaveh would rather kill himself than listen to anyone when he’s drunk like this.
And yet, amid his whining and pouting, he follows Haitham like a lost puppy.
Although Kaveh is never truly docile.
His great mind is sometimes so scattered around the place that Haitham feels his brows twitch, and he’s not much of a reactive person. That happens especially often when Kaveh is drunk, arms circled around Haitham’s neck, mumbling something about his ongoing projects straight into Haitham’s skin. Like this, he seems oblivious to the scowl on Haitham’s face and the curious gazes on the two of them, not caring about the rumors he’s so worried about when he’s sober.
The Light of Kshahrewar, living with the Scribe Alhaitham himself. Scribe Alhaitham and his secret lover that sometimes does lunch for him. Is it truly a secret lover if the amazing Kaveh is living with Alhaitham? They are seen bickering doing groceries, Kaveh is found more than once on Haitham’s doorstep, having forgotten his keys again, Haitham finds sticky notes with Kaveh’s handwriting on them stuck to his papers.
Being promoted to the position of the Acting Grand Sage doesn’t help either, especially when Kaveh refuses the position of Kshahrewar’s Sage.
They’re lovers, Sumeru seems to whisper wherever he goes. Without his knowledge (well, that’s not entirely true), the title of the most wanted bachelor in Sumeru City is gone—in the eyes of Sumeru’s population, Alhaitham is already taken.
He’s partially guilty of the rumors as well. Well, it’s not like Alhaitham himself spreads them, but he doesn’t stop them either. In fact, one may argue that he pours olive straight into the fire, grinning in satisfaction as the rumors spread.
Kaveh is the only one allowed to come into the Grand Sage’s office unannounced—Alhaitham makes sure to tell Panah as such, ignoring the surprised expression on the man’s face.
Kaveh doesn’t visit often—mainly whenever he wants to complain about Alhaitham rejecting one of Kshahrewar’s projects again, insulting the Acting Grand Sage to hell and back. He’s often red on the face from anger, slamming his hands on Alhaitham’s desk, growing visibly distracted whenever Alhaitham leans back in his chair.
Kaveh looks unnaturally pretty in Alhaitham’s temporary office. The lighting around them exaggerates Kaveh’s features, his body seems lithe and beautiful as he leans on the desk, chest slightly exposed for Alhaitham to see.
Except Alhaitam is not looking because he is very much normal and not about to stare at the bane of his existence. He’s okay. They’re okay. Everything is fine.
“Are you even listening to me?” Kaveh asks irritably, voice dripping with offense. Alhaitham is not listening but he won’t admit to that. Instead, he flips the page in his documents (that he’s not even reading now that Kaveh’s there) and refuses to move his eyes away from them.
“I’m not funding Kshahrewar’s project. I already sent back the instructions of what to change, just listen to me for once in your life, Life of Kshahrewar.”
“I told you not to call me that, you mocking swine!”
Unfortunately, that grabs Alhaitham’s attention, even if just for a second. He glances over the papers at Kaveh’s still red face, and he’s sure he looks just as unamused as he feels. Kaveh however, looks rather glorious.
Glorious enough to make the Acting Grand Sage imagine how he would look like in front of Haitham, bent over that desk and—
“I think you should go.” He says, abruptly cutting the architect off in the middle of his rant about whatever.
Kaveh looks at him in stunned silence.
“Are you serious? Are you fucking serious, Haitham?”
Alhatitham refuses to look at him again, afraid of what his brain might offer him this time. With a tight throat, he tells Kaveh to leave again.
The blond does, for the first time in ages looking genuinely angry. Alhaitham hopes one good dinner and a bottle of good wine might be able to fix the tension between them and whatever is happening to his brain as well.
Alhaitham goes to get checked up the second he gets the time to do so—annoyingly, there is nothing wrong with him. Mild migraines due to overworking, but as soon as he gets some pills for that they stop. His newfound interest in Kaveh stays, no matter how hard he tries to rid himself of it.
He offers Kaveh the promised homemade dinner with his finest bottle of wine soon after, when both of them are home and Kaveh locks himself away at his study. Alhaitham knocks on the door softly and in a voice that is a bit too fond for his liking says. “Dinner is on the table if you’re hungry.”
Kaveh emerges from the room some minutes later, joining Alhaitham at the table grumpily.
“You’re an asshole.” He states.
Haitham nods along. “That I am.”
“And I hate you.” He adds, digging into the food. Alhaitham nods one more time.
He’s more than aware.
The dinner is surprisingly peaceful, due to Alhaitham biting his tongue more than once not to agitate Kaveh further.
It seems that after that evening Kaveh’s presence is even more obvious than before. Kaveh’s trinkets, his stupid keys in Alhaitham’s pockets, his shampoo in Alhaitham’s hair. His dishes, left in the sink for days before Haitham gives up and reminds him to for Archon’s sake clean up after himself, to which Kaveh annoyingly says not to drag Nahida herself into it.
Kaveh’s nights out become more frequent, and oftentimes, Alhaitham finds him laughing alongside his juniors, prettily flushed and seemingly unaware of how into it said juniors are. The most infuriating thing about that is how Kaveh doesn’t mind.
If it was him, staring at Kaveh starry-eyed, the blond would’ve touched his forehead to check his temperature and whined about Alhaitham dying . If it was him, sticking this close to Kaveh’s arm, he would’ve slapped his hand away and told him to behave normally.
First and foremost, he would never lean into Alhaitham like this when he’s laughing.
Safe to say Alhaitham leaves Lambad’s alone, under the watchful eye of the Tavern owner. He stubbornly ignores the man’s pointed stare as he leaves Kaveh to pay for himself for once.
Kaveh stumbles home that night smelling of someone else’s cologne and Alhaitham has to stop himself from throwing the book he’s reading onto the wall. Along with himself, possibly.
The dating rumors die out quickly considering how Kaveh behaves in public and the absolute lack of care about it from Alhaitham’s side. Well, they are taken over by the break up rumors, and Alhaitham lets himself ride them out as he informs Panah not to let anyone into his office without previous appointments. When Kaveh tries to visit, once again to complain about the repeated rejections of Kshahrewar’s newest project, he gets turned away. From what Alhaitham hears from the rumors, he stared at the elevator in silence before turning away on his heel and leaving.
Alhaitham feels like a petty child.
When Kaveh is not ignoring him and he’s not ignoring Kaveh, they fight—which is awfully often, more than usual. Angered with himself and the entire situation (which is his fault, Alhaitham admits grudgingly) uses sharper words than usual. Twice, he makes Kaveh cry.
Twice.
“Okay, you fucking asshole. Okay! I give up.” Kaveh yells one evening, raising his hands in defeat. “I’m moving out. Since you hate me that fucking much, I’m gonna be out of here soon.”
“And where the fuck will you go?” He snaps without thinking.
They are both fuming, red from anger. Alhaitham is sure it’s the first time he actually yelled back, driven to the edge by the entire ordeal. It’s his fault they are like this.
“I don’t know and I don’t even care, jackass. Anywhere is better than here, fucks sake. Maybe Jazari will have a spot for me, anywhere is better than near your annoying, all-mighty self.”
While Alhaitham usually enjoys the way Kaveh snaps, this is not it. This fills him with dread and even more anger and he feels like one wrong step and he might lose Kaveh all over again.
He thinks of how silent his house was before Kaveh. He thinks of how empty and bland it looked, of how he used to enjoy that peace. He doesn’t think he would like it the same now, not after he got a taste of Kaveh. Especially not when the only option seems to be Jazari of all of Kaveh’s juniors.
“Jazari? That junior of yours that wants to fuck you?”
Kaveh moves to his bedroom in annoyance, starting to grab his things frantically. Stubbornly, Alhaitham follows him, as if that would make anything better.
“So what if he does? Why does that fucking bother you, Haitham?”
So, no. No matter how much time passes and how much Alhaitham pokes and picks around Kaveh, the Light of Kshahrewar is never truly docile. Not like this, when he screams at Alhaitham, not even in his sleep when he seems to curse the Acting Grand Sage every once in a while.
It’s infuriating and it’s driving Alhaitham insane.
“Why did I have to fucking fall for you,” Alhaitham mumbles, staring at the ceiling as if he was begging it to fall down on the two of them and stop them from fighting. Or, at least, make both of them homeless.
Possibly smash Alhaitham to death so he doesn’t have to deal with his emotions and whatever wreck Kaveh is right now.
He does not notice the silence that settled around them right away but it does help with calming his mind just a little bit. He takes a deep breath, ready to pack his pride into his pocket and mumble some sort of apology when Kaveh speaks again.
“What did you just say?”
Alhaitham looks at him— really looks at him. Wide-eyed, he looks like a deer caught in headlights, staring at his junior frozen. He’s still holding some of his clothes, suspended above the bag he pulled from Archons-know-where as if he’s scared that moving in any way would break whatever happened.
“What did I say?” Alhaitham asks confused.
“No. No, no, absolutely not, Haitham. You do not get to say that and pretend nothing happened, what the absolute fuck? ”
In genuine confusion, Alhaitham traces back on his words in the span of the last five minutes, searching for that one thing that might’ve made Kaveh react like that. He doesn’t think he said anything of particular importance—
Oh.
Oh for fucks sake.
Alhaitham is fully, undoubtedly fucked.
“Look,” he starts carefully. This time, he forces himself to speak slowly and use his brain like he should have been doing. It’s not really his fault that Kaveh seems to have a bad influence on him and his reason-slash-decision-making skills. “I’m just figuring all of this out myself, okay?”
Kaveh grows red on the face and for once in his life, Alhaitham isn’t entirely sure for what reasons. The blush is glorious, adorning his cheeks and reaching up to his ears. Haitham’s fingers itch to brush his hair away from his face, to see those eyes that slowly melt into something akin to closeness clearly, to hopefully have the architect lean into his touch.
Alhaitham wants him to the point where he feels like if Kaveh walks away right now, he might fall apart.
“Were you acting like that because you were… falling for me?” Kaveh asks, barely over a whisper. He doesn’t seem mad, thank Archons.
“I don’t know if you noticed but falling for one’s annoying roommate doesn’t happen often, especially not to me, Kaveh.”
The blond has the audacity to look offended . The blush on his face spreads and he seems panicked but not from anger.
“You treat me like shit for weeks, you.. you ignore me…”
“Kaveh,” he says, taking a step closer, trying to stop the blond’s panicked rant.
“...And you were so mean to me, Haitham, you…”
“Kaveh.”
“Don’t you Kaveh me you—”
One of his hands comes up, gently grasping Kaveh’s chin and holding it in place as he leans down slightly to kiss the Light of Kshahrewar on the lips. It proves to be an effective way to shut Kaveh up and make him melt, enough to make his knees go weak in the process. A second later and he’s kissing Alhaitham back with newfound fever, circling his arms around the Acting Grand Sage’s neck.
The most docile he’s ever been, Kaveh is in Alhaitham’s bed.
What leaves his lips are for once not curses or whatever insults towards Alhaitham he can think of, but moans—wanton, breathy; a litany made in a high-pitched voice, one only Haitham (and possibly their neighbors) seem to hear. His hands, usually so careful not to touch Haitham’s anything out of respect for Haitham’s dislike of being touched in general, rest on his abdomen, curls in half fists as he’s not even sure what to do.
He’s stuck between wanting to push Alhaitham away or pull him closer, so instead, he decides to dig his fingers into Haitham’s muscles in an attempt to leave some marks. It’s not like they’re needed anyway, with how Haitham’s shoulder looks like a fucking chew toy.
It’s too much and not enough at the same time, and he’s begging , which they both know they will avoid mentioning like fire the next morning. For now, Haitham kisses his pleas away, losing his guilt away in the taste of Kaveh’s sweat on his tongue.
He doesn’t mind his lack of rationality once in a while when Kaveh whispers his love confession against Alhaitham’s lips.
It’s safe to say the rumors pick up again the next time Akademiya gets to see the countless marks left on Alhaitham’s body. What doesn’t help is Kaveh’s back window, showing off bites in the shape of the Acting Grand Sage’s teeth.