Chapter Text
On the first day after Kaveh left, Alhaitham opened a book and read. His eyes slid over the page—The twenty regional dialects of the Hypostyle Desert—without seeing any of it.
The words would not settle around the hot, jagged lump in his chest.
He shook his head, forced his eyes to focus on the page. The Hypostyle Desert—
It wasn't anything serious. They'd fought before, and they would fight again. All of Kaveh's things lay strewn around the room. He'd be back, sooner or later.
Twenty regional dialects—
That part sounded familiar. Had he read that paragraph already? He turned the page.
He'd be back.
*
On the second day after Kaveh left, Alhaitham unlocked the research facility and found it undisturbed. Sighing, he gathered up the scattered papers and books, the T-squares and hand-squares, protractors and calculators, straight rulers and L-shaped rulers and levels. He sorted the pens from the pencils, matched up each pen to its cap and lined them up on Kaveh's desk, tips all pointing north. Our views are aligned, and they are complete.
He sharpened the pencils and pointed them south. Our views are contradictory.
At the bottom of the heap came a sharp jab: a geometer's compass. Alhaitham yanked his hand back, observed the tiny puncture with mild interest. A single drop of blood grew at the wound, a brilliant crimson.
I regret ever befriending—
He quickly sheathed the sharp-pointed compass and shut it in a drawer, the silver shaft smeared with blood. The crimson streak vanished into darkness.
*
On the third day after Kaveh left, Alhaitham sat in the darkened facility and waited, perfectly still while his heart clawed its way up his throat. The sun rose and fell. The stars gained strength, then faded away once more.
*
On the fourth day after Kaveh left, Alhaitham removed his name from the thesis.
One week after Kaveh left, Alhaitham submitted his final progress report to the Akademiya.
"Master Kaveh has already submitted the thesis and informed us of the circumstances," a clerk informed him. "We regret to hear of the research project's end. Nonetheless, it has produced valuable—possibly groundbreaking—results. We will be in contact soon concerning disbursement of resources to the participating researchers."
*
One month after Kaveh left, a letter arrived summoning Alhaitham to the Akademiya. There was business to discuss with all the researchers. Kaveh had been invited.
"As we have no more use for the joint facility, it will be sold, and the proceeds split between you," the sage explained.
Alhaitham thought of the pens on Kaveh's desk and the blood-smeared compass, and he suddenly felt wretched. "Give us the facility," he blurted. "Please."
The sage blinked at him.
"If Kaveh objects, I will buy his half from him," Alhaitham added.
Kaveh was not there to object. Alhaitham returned to the facility alone.
*
Three months after Kaveh left, Alhaitham put the finishing touches on the renovation.
It was the most rational course of action. Of course it was. The house was conveniently-located, close to both the Akademiya and the market, but far enough to be peaceful. And it already held his belongings besides! His own research room was now a bedroom and library: plain, utilitarian, functional.
In contrast, the sitting area was fitted with grand, arched windows filled with intricate stained-glass windowpanes. He'd taken the designs from Kaveh's sketchbooks.
Kaveh's room was down the other hall. His desk was still there, untouched, the books covered in a filmy dust. Alhaitham brushed the dust away, replaced the pens whose ink had run dry, polished the rulers until they gleamed. Last of all, he fitted a bed along the wall: fragrant Adhigama wood and a lively green bedspread.
He made a note to himself to freshen the room daily, lest he be caught unprepared. Kaveh could be back any day, after all.
He set a pot of soup to simmer. He settled onto the couch and opened a book, Architectural Drawing Basics, by Faranak. There, in the home made from their research center, surrounded by hints of Kaveh's presence and his book in his hands, Alhaitham breathed deeply, feeling the knot pulse in his chest. When he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that the world was different.
*
Six months after Kaveh left, Alhaitham received word. A letter had arrived at the Akademiya. Alhaitham immediately recognized the hurried, scrawled handwriting, and in the same breath, took in the tensed shoulders and averted gaze of the messenger. He swallowed the ache in his throat, forced it back into his chest and willed it to stay there.
I am not in want of a house and thus have no use of this property.
Kaveh was not coming back.
In the years that followed, Alhaitham grew accustomed to the quiet. He became first a respected academic, and then the Scribe. He worked exactly as much as necessary, and he spent his evenings in quiet contemplation. He published a paper every other month, with perfect regularity, and he perused the Akasha for Kaveh's papers. Kaveh's tended to publish in frenzied bursts, with long periods of silence in between.
He tried to be rational. Philosophical. Friendships, like languages, had a beginning and an end. Love, like the sturdiest structures, would one day fall. And if theirs had fallen a few years or decades early, Alhaitham was proud that he could still stand and serve as the ruins of their partnership. Living evidence of what they once were. Proof of what had once been.
He still kept Kaveh's room dusted, the pencils sharpened and waiting, and the sheets freshened weekly. Architectural Drawing Basics had become as familiar to him as his own research.
Ten years after Kaveh left, Alhaitham had worn down the edges of his grief. It now rested in his chest as a laden weight, one that no longer fought to burst into flame and incinerate him from within.
Though he could not remember being happy, he lived in comfort.
*
Ten years after Kaveh left, Alhaitham heard news of the Palace of Alcazarzaray. Grand. Brilliant. Genius.
He'd made it, that crazy idealist. Wrenched up the stone from the earth and wrought it into his dreams. If he had no need of Alhaitham before, he certainly wouldn't now, and never again.
Briefly, the old knot writhed in his chest before smoldering back down into coal. It was the first time he'd ever been wrong. If he could go back in time, he would not hesitate to say so.
Ten years and one month after Kaveh left, there he was. Alone. Tucked into the back of Lambad's, his smile worn as thin as the fabric of his shirt. Eyes so dull that Alhaitham could hardly bear to look at him.
He hadn't been wrong at all. Now, seeing Kaveh before him, fragile and weary and barely holding together, he'd give anything to have been.
He slid into the seat next to him, heart pounding so fiercely he couldn't breathe, a burning, consuming ache sweeping through his entire body and leaving him trembling.
Kaveh turned blearily towards him.
The moment stretched out between them, tense and golden, fraught and agonizing and right.
For one more night, he waited.