Work Text:
“Scribe Alhaitham?”
The scribe in question glances up from the pile of paperwork on his desk. “Yes, Commissioner?” he asks, polite in a manner that borders on mocking.
“There’s been another complaint about annotations,” the commissioner says, setting down a piece of paper on the stack. “Remove these books to the back shelves at once.”
Alhaitham frowns at the length of the list. He’d been hoping to go home early today, to slow cook some lamb in red wine, but finding all these books will be time-consuming, to say the least. He briefly entertains the thought that perhaps Kaveh will cook something instead, but it is a very short-lived affair. He’ll just have to make a quicker dish. Butter chicken, perhaps? Kaveh always complains that he makes it too spicy, but Kaveh can cook his own food if he dislikes it so much.
“…Scribe Alhaitham? Are you quite alright?”
“Of course,” Alhaitham says quickly, snapping himself out of his distraction. Why Kaveh is always on his mind these days, he may never know. Well, he says ‘these days’, but it’s not as if he’s ever left. Interacting with Kaveh is interesting, without fail.
Paperwork and bureaucracy, though, tend to be a little more monotonous. But they are necessary, so Alhaitham scans the list of books to move. Ancient Sumeru Architecture , for one, and A Textual Analysis of Desert Monuments , and Iconic Buildings of Teyvat , among others.
He almost laughs to himself. It’s quite the collection, and they all appear to be related to architecture. Maybe he’ll have a story to tell Kaveh when he gets home, at least.
Out of curiosity, he glances at the top of the page, where the complaints about the annotations are listed. There are the usual excerpts, of course, saying that the analysis is too complex and that it’s an inconvenience to decipher other students’ work if it’s nonsensical. One even complains that there are irrelevant sketches in the margins.
But then his eyes snag on the name listed with the complaints, and his hand falters.
Kaveh of Kshahrewar .
Alhaitham feels the corner of his mouth quirk up. This paperwork just got a lot more interesting.
He moves all the books painstakingly to one corner, making sure to keep them all in the same area. Just so architecture enthusiasts can find them more easily, he tells himself. And he’s no architecture enthusiast, so obviously he won’t go looking for Kaveh’s handwriting and sketches in these books, the fragments of his soul that he leaves scattered around like they’re worthless. Why would he do that?
Alhaitham scoffs to himself. He’ll make butter chicken tonight, he decides, and he’ll make it extra spicy and not give Kaveh any milk, unless he asks for it, in which case he’ll bend like a Padisarah caught in a tornado. Serves him right, taking up so much space in Alhaitham’s mind like this.
***
Alhaitham tends to give the impression that he has extremely well-honed self-restraint. This is a lie. Alhaitham has good self- motivation . He has terrible self- restraint . The main difference is that he will do almost any job whether he wants to or not, but if he truly desires something, he’s typically powerless to deny himself.
So it only takes two days for the lingering thought of Kaveh’s annotations in the architecture books to win out.
“Scribe Alhaitham,” one of the commissioner’s secretaries says, knocking at his door, “there’s been another annotation complaint. Inappropriate messages.”
“I’ll remove it,” he calls back. He waits until the secretary’s footsteps are gone before opening the door to retrieve the offending book’s paperwork. He scans it - a Spantamad staple text, nothing special. Finding the book presents no challenge. He places it on the back shelves, next to the other Spantamad texts.
His eyes linger on the gold spine of an architecture treatise for just a second. That’s all it takes.
No one notices as he swipes the gold-embossed book and returns to his office with it in tow.
Once back in the safety of his office, high above the prying eyes of the House of Daena’s occupants, Alhaitham investigates the book in more detail. The cover proclaims it to be The Modern Teyvatian Architectural Aesthetic . He debates beginning on the first page, but when he turns to it, there are no annotations in sight. Disappointed, he flips to an indistinct page in the middle.
Alhaitham knows Kaveh’s handwriting well. He’s seen Kaveh making notes on their trips to the desert dozens of times, has watched him tear his hair out over his blueprints, has woken up to insults scrawled across his arms and an apologetic look on Kaveh’s face amidst the hangover. So when he sees the annotations, he doesn’t need to investigate any further to know they’re most certainly Kaveh’s.
The pile of paperwork will be there whenever he wants it.
He checks his office door. Locked. He places the book on his desk and starts reading.
At the top of the page, the word “ostentatious” is underlined. Next to it, there is a long line of Kaveh’s quick scrawl in blood-red ink:
There is a difference between opulence and ostentatiousness. Well-placed extravagance can be a tool to attract attention to certain parts of a building. Yes, if done badly it can look horribly tacky and age badly, but there is classical opulence in nearly every piece of architecture in history. Take the city of Mondstadt. Would it be nearly as iconic without the ornate church spire towering over the city? ‘Ostentatious’ is such a narrow interpretation of style!!!
Alhaitham notices other annotations surrounding his, perhaps arguing with him or agreeing with him, but he doesn’t pay them any mind. Instead, he stares at the exclamation points, captivated.
He can just imagine Kaveh, a first- or second-year student, sitting in his favorite corner of the House of Daena, his beloved red ink smudged across his hands as he attacks this thick architectural text for insulting his style. He can just imagine Kaveh, tongue sticking through his teeth, dotting each exclamation point with vindictive pleasure.
“Scribe Alhaitham?” someone asks, outside his door. He thinks it’s the assistant sage of Vahumana, or maybe Amurta. “Any progress on sorting the Amurta funding reviews?”
Ah. Right. He glances at the stack of papers on his desk. “I’ll have them done by sunset,” he says. “There’s a lot to be done, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
“Of course,” the Amurta assistant sage says quickly, sounding skittish. Alhaitham recalls that she’s extremely easily startled, and perhaps a bit afraid of him. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Alhaitham sets the book down, and gets to work on the funding reviews.
Well, perhaps reading Kshahrewar staple texts is part of a scribe’s duties. After all, the scribe is supposed to represent the Akademiya as a whole, not just one Darshan. Surely it can’t do that much harm to educate himself on other Darshans on the clock.
***
Nothing changes.
Logically, this makes sense. After all, Alhaitham knows exactly how Kaveh argues, given that he’s seen it up close and personal dozens of times. Sometimes, if he’s feeling particularly full of himself, Alhaitham can imagine that Kaveh’s argument technique has been specially honed for use against him, during their many impassioned debates.
It’s different, though, looking at Kaveh’s words on paper. He’s not angry, just passionate, defending and expanding on ideas, dreaming up concepts and jotting them down.
Sometimes, when he’s reading the red notes scrawled in the margins of pages, Alhaitham forgets that it’s Kaveh who had once written them. Sometimes, when he forgets, he starts to get caught up in the words, in the lofty idealism and undeniable passion of the ideas on the page. Sometimes, he even starts to feel convinced.
Every time this happens, he snaps out of it quickly. Someone will knock at his door, or his earpieces will give a low-battery chime, or a loose piece of paper on the desk will stir.
Nothing changes. Or, Alhaitham thinks, nothing should change, perhaps that’s it, because something has definitely changed.
“Are you done?” Kaveh says, staring at him with a flat, impatient expression. “Come on, you were gonna take me out drinking tonight.”
Alhaitham blinks. He’s on the couch; Kaveh is next to him, one hand sliding across the cushion, dangerously close to his knee. “I was not,” he says.
“Fine, be like that.” Kaveh flops backward, blowing his bangs out of his face lazily. “I swear, I almost miss when everyone in Sumeru hated art. Clients were hell today. I was really looking forward to that drink.”
“ Drinks , you mean.”
Kaveh grins. “You know me,” he says lightly. “So? What d’you say?”
Against his better judgment, Alhaitham feels himself starting to smile. If this continues, he’ll be drawn into Kaveh’s trap effortlessly. He forces himself to remember that Kaveh is an annoyance, a thorn in his side, a dreamer with the stars in his eyes shining too brightly to see anything else, a fantastical architect set to grace history with his presence, a beautiful brilliant genius, a- wait, a what ?
“You look like you’re gonna take me up on it.”
Alhaitham makes the fatal mistake of hesitating. His mind is still lingering on the word beautiful , because where did that come from?
Kaveh’s hand brushes just above his knee, tapping lightly like he’s asking for permission to touch. Alhaitham doesn’t move away. Kaveh’s touch is electric, warm, alight. The awareness of the contact is overwhelming, making his head spin.
“Alright,” Alhaitham says, before he can think better of it. “Why not.”
Kaveh looks just as surprised as Alhaitham feels. “Really?” he asks, delighted. “I thought I’d have to put it on my tab again.”
“I pay off your tab every month,” Alhaitham points out. “So I’d be paying for it either way.”
Kaveh shrugs. “It’s the principle of the thing.”
It most certainly is, Alhaitham thinks, because objectively, yes, Kaveh is beautiful, but to think that he is beautiful when he is at his most annoying, well. The principle of such a thought is more than a little damning.
As they walk to the tavern Kaveh reaches for his hand, and Alhaitham lets him take it, just like he’s taken everything else. When Kaveh passes out over his fourth glass of wine, sighing tiredly into the table, Alhaitham pays the bill and carries him all the way home, and he’s still beautiful, even with his eyes half-closed and his dark circles pronounced and his hair messed up and his weight completely in Alhaitham’s arms.
***
He doesn’t even mean to do it, when it first happens. He’s multitasking, signing off on some indistinct Rtawahist documents with one hand while using the other to trace Kaveh’s annotations in another relocated book. He’s on his third text now, in twice as many days. If he were thinking clearly he might realize that it must be becoming a bit of an obsession, to get through three textbooks in less than a week.
Alhaitham signs everything in plain black ink, for practicality’s sake. He’s got four identical black pens on his desk at all times. He’s flipping through the Rtawahist documents, absently signing off on every line that needs it, only half paying attention.
By the time he realizes he’s signed his name right underneath Kaveh’s annotations, it’s too late.
Alhaitham’s first instinct is to smudge it off. But his pens are designed to dry quickly, and he can’t change the words. His signature remains right beneath Kaveh’s bright red rambling.
Logically, he’s allowed to leave annotations too. It’s not as if one has to be a Kshahrewar student to provide architectural insight. Madam Faruzan is a member of Haravatat too, and she has an interest in architecture. She’s probably left annotations in similar texts, Alhaitham justifies, so it’s completely alright.
And, well. Now that it’s over with, he might as well write something else to make his annotations more believable.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any design style , Kaveh has written above. Everyone has different aesthetic preferences, and maintaining an individualistic style is crucial to an architect’s integrity. Prioritizing one style over another is not only biased, but counterproductive.
At this point, Alhaitham’s signature rests. It’s a sentiment he can continue, so he picks up his pen and begins to respond.
Architectural styles come in and out of favor , he starts slowly. His fingers hesitate above the paper, but he continues. It’s just Kaveh, he reminds himself, and he’s known Kaveh for years and years. Logically, focusing on more prominent styles is practical. Besides, architects must serve clients. Teaching things that clients are more likely to desire is likewise sensible.
As he lifts his pen, he can feel that he’s smiling stupidly at the book. He tries to suppress it, but there’s no one else in his office anyway, so what’s the point?
He finishes reading the rest of Kaveh’s annotations by the end of the day. As he replaces the book on the shelf, he wonders if Kaveh will see his responses one day, if he’ll fume with anger that Alhaitham has managed to find his way into every part of Kaveh’s life, if he’ll ever know that the reverse is just as true, that the thought of Kaveh hasn’t ventured far from his mind since the moment they met.
***
His productivity begins to slip. The sages tell him it’s fine, that they sympathize with whatever struggles he may be experiencing. Alhaitham wonders if feeling this way about Kaveh constitutes a struggle.
Nevertheless, a drop in productivity is unacceptable. Alhaitham can’t imagine leaving behind his new habit of perusing Kaveh’s annotations, however, so he does the next best thing, and allows the texts to intrude on his personal life instead.
Kaveh won’t notice anything, he tells himself. Alhaitham is constantly reading at home. It makes no difference.
So he brings home one of the texts, disguises it with the cover of a physics textbook, and sits with his pen at the ready, just in case the opportunity to debate with the Kaveh of the past arises.
Conformity can be a form of usefulness , he’s writing at the moment. Imagine if Sumeru’s everyday citizens constructed entirely unique houses. No one would be able to afford a home if the city didn’t provide similar, simplistic houses for the average family to-
“What are you smiling about?”
Alhaitham’s eyes snap up from the book quickly, too quickly. “Nothing important,” he says.
“Of course,” Kaveh mutters to himself. “What, discrediting another linguistics professor on their translation of Deshret’s civilizations? Your translation isn’t necessarily correct, you know.”
It is correct, Alhaitham almost argues, but dismisses the idea. “You look tired,” he says instead. “You ought to try sleeping. It’ll do you good.”
Kaveh glares. The dark circles under his eyes are pronounced, and he must know it. “Fuck you.”
“Which project is it this time?” Alhaitham asks, ignoring him.
“Another mansion,” Kaveh groans, flopping into his favorite chair. Alhaitham watches him sink into it with something like relief. “I’m sick of mansions. This one keeps telling me she wants it to be romantic , something designed for two scholars in love. She’s driving me mad.”
Alhaitham glances at him. He sets the book down, closing it carefully. “You know more about two scholars in love than you give yourself credit for,” he says.
Kaveh glares at him. “Stop rubbing it in, you bastard.”
“I’m not. I’m being completely honest.”
Kaveh’s eyes widen slightly, like he’s not sure how to respond. “Thanks for the encouragement, I suppose. I’ve just had difficulty focusing on the project, that’s all. Mansions aren’t exactly on my mind right now.”
Alhaitham senses that he’s not being completely truthful. There’s a certain lightness in his tone that seems too forced. “What is on your mind, then?” he asks.
The look Kaveh sends his way is pointed. “What were you annotating just now?”
Touche , Alhaitham thinks, and wonders if this kind of silent agreement is why neither of them have left, even after all this time. “I’ll make harira soup tonight, then,” he says. Because you like it , he doesn’t say.
Kaveh doesn’t quite smile, but his mouth quirks up and his eyes look less tired. “Alright.”
***
Eventually, Alhaitham discovers there are not only architectural texts among the pile of relocated books Kaveh has annotated. He has left his mark in classical works, in compilations of visual art, in works of philosophy. It is the latter that snags his attention the fastest, so he takes one of them home next: a beginner textbook titled On Human Nature .
Kaveh must be less passionate about this book, because his writing is relatively infrequent among the annotations. Actually, Alhaitham has difficulty finding any throughout the first half of the book, aside from some underlined words and generic-looking notes.
He’s beginning to wonder why the book was reported at all when he begins chapter eleven, Idealism .
From the very first page, Kaveh’s red ink takes over the margins like wine spilt on a tablecloth. Alhaitham almost laughs at how predictable he is, even in writing. He settles in to read what he’s sure will be delightfully flawed analysis.
I’ve always been an idealist, Kaveh writes; Alhaitham notes that it’s the first time he’s seen first person used in his annotations. My motivations are a bit more selfish than those described here, though. Idealism isn’t necessarily something one is born with. It’s something that develops, especially in people who have faced hardships. I would know. Turning to idealism was a way to mentally repent for my past wrongdoings.
The notes continue like this, describing Kaveh’s own experiences rather than providing any qualifications. In fact, he doesn’t add much of anything. Alhaitham wonders why he had read this book in the first place. It’s not required for Kshahrewar, and is typically read by Vahumana students, if he recalls correctly. Kaveh never had any close friends in Vahumana. The closest thing he had was Alhaitham himself, who had once read this book to educate himself on different forms of philosophy.
He ponders this absently as he turns the page, only to be met with the strangest words of all:
Maybe he was right.
It clicks.
Kaveh hadn’t read this book for himself at all. He’d read it to keep up with Alhaitham, to engage in philosophical debates with him, to have a reason to talk to him. This must have been when they could still call each other friends, then. Alhaitham hadn’t even realized they were friends, until they weren’t any longer. The thought stings, but he continues.
Every idealist is fated to fall prey to their own generosity sometimes. If everyone in the world thought like me, it’d be fine, because they’d understand and help me out. He once said it was like swimming. Even the strongest swimmer, once they run out of stamina, would get dragged under by the others who are drowning.
It is him, Alhaitham realizes. He remembers using that exact analogy, just days before one of their more explosive arguments.
And when I finally run out of stamina, and I drown, perhaps no one will be there to drag me back to shore.
Alhaitham reads the words over and over again. He can see where Kaveh’s handwriting slips in quality, where he clearly begins to let his emotions take over. He can almost picture him, crying over a philosophy book he didn’t even read for himself, lamenting his own ideals. Before he knows it, he’s got a pen in hand.
It’s only once the pen is uncapped and poised that he realizes he has no idea what to write.
“Haitham?”
He fumbles. The pen leaves an ink blot on the page as it falls.
“You weren’t supposed to get back for another hour.”
“Meeting ended early.” Kaveh hangs up his cape by the door, replacing his keys on the key rack with care. “I managed to convince this Forest Watcher that vine ladders don’t meet safety codes. What’re you reading?”
Alhaitham knows he can’t lie, because Kaveh can already see part of the cover. “Philosophy,” he says, a vague half-truth.
Kaveh tilts his head to read the title. “You’ve already read that one,” he points out.
“So did you,” says Alhaitham. “You wrote about it, too.”
Kaveh’s eyes move from the cover to the pen in his hand, and his eyes widen. “You didn’t read all that, did you?” he asks, frantic. “I didn’t mean it, I promise!”
Ah. He must have devolved into insulting Alhaitham later into the annotations. “Just to the idealism chapter. You were talking about drowning.”
Kaveh sighs, heavy. “You were right about one thing,” he snaps. “But if I never run out of stamina, then I’ll be perfectly fine. I won’t need anyone to save me.”
With that, he walks off towards his room, blueprint sketches in hand. Alhaitham watches him go and wonders if he knows he already drowned long ago, wonders if he knows that Alhaitham brought him back to shore without a second thought, wonders if he knows that Alhaitham would do it a thousand times more, not hesitating once.
***
“I’ve been reading all of them,” says Alhaitham, the next morning, as he sets two plates of eggs and honey toast on the table. “All the books you annotated.”
“Why?” Kaveh asks. “Are you obsessed with me or something?”
Rather than saying yes, or lying, Alhaitham shoots him a pointed look.
Kaveh sighs into his coffee. “Fine,” he says. “I’ve been designing libraries, with shelves and shelves of books. I can’t draw anything else lately.”
It’s an admission, and they both know it. Alhaitham lets the silence linger for another moment before he breaks it.
“Build me a library.”
Kaveh, to his surprise, doesn’t immediately turn him down. Instead, his mouth scrunches in consideration. He sips his coffee. “What’ll you put in it?”
“Physics, and economics, and philosophy,” he says. Then, as he slides one of the plates toward Kaveh, “And classical literature, and architecture, and art history, and romance. Me. You. Us.”
Kaveh’s hand falters from where he’s been reaching for his honey toast. “Sounds like it’ll be our library, then,” he says.
Alhaitham looks at him, lets the corner of his mouth quirk up. “Yes, I suppose it will.”
“Alright, then,” Kaveh says, a little breathless with something like laughter. He grins, bright. “Our library. I’ll make it the grandest library Teyvat has ever seen.”