Work Text:
- THE BOOKMARK
The clock strikes seven on the dot when Kaveh bursts into Al-Haitham's room with a shout and an accusatory finger pointed directly at him. “Haveyouseenmybookmark!” he yells, less of a demand and more of a disturbed exhale of air.
Al-Haitham slides a piece of gilded cardboard (his own bookmark, thank you very much) between the pages he's reading, and looks up at Kaveh. “You'll be pleased to know your belongings have not yet breached the periphery of my room.” At Kaveh's open-mouthed surprise, he clarifies: “So you won't find it in here, is what I'm saying.”
The door to Al-Haitham's room does not close. Kaveh's eyebrows twitch then furrow.
“Well help me find it then!” he says, as though this would be the natural course of action for Al-Haitham to take, and stomps off before Al-Haitham can get another word in.
A few seconds pass. Al-Haitham realises Kaveh is being serious—also, unlikely to get started on dinner before he ransacks the entire house—and gets up to follow.
The cause of the missing bookmark makes itself known the moment Al-Haitham steps foot into Kaveh's bedroom. It's a fucking pigsty. For all Kaveh does to keep their communal spaces clean, it's apparent he doesn't apply the same efforts to his own: the walls are covered in so many aborted sketches it might as well be wallpaper, and every corner of the room is inundated with piles of knick-knacks that steadily inch towards the centre. A whirlpool of crap, thinks Al-Haitham. He's being sucked right into the vortex.
“How are you ever going to move out like this,” he asks Kaveh, toeing an abandoned notepad out of harm's way.
Kaveh jumps as though Al-Haitham has electrocuted him. He pauses his excavation long enough to glare at his housemate. “Quit teasing me!”
“I'm not. it was genuine curiosity.”
“Oh, to hell with your curiosity.” Kaveh gestures at the far end of the room. “Make yourself useful and have a look through those.”
Al-Haitham ignores the directive. It does not take a genius to realise the skyscrapers of old books sit untouched and unread; Kaveh would not have hidden a bookmark in them recently only to agonise about its whereabouts now.
“It could help to clue me in on the appearance of this fabled bookmark,” he suggests instead.
Interestingly, Kaveh seems to be in disagreement. His face reddens. He turns away.
“It's a receipt,” he mumbles.
“Pardon?”
“Don't act coy, you know what a receipt is!” Again with the gesticulating. “Say for a shop, or perhaps... an establishment, where... one might be served drinks on occasion.”
“So it's a Puspa Café receipt.”
“Urk—maybe!” Kaveh dives into a nearby chest of drawers. “Just flag me when you've found something. Don't look at it too closely!”
It's an awful lot of commotion over a receipt, Al-Haitham muses. He trawls through files sagging diagonally against one another on a floating shelf, but these only prove to be full of old statements from when Kaveh last had a stable income, which is to say a good few years ago. Every so often Kaveh will let out a cry of triumph, and Al-Haitham will glance over his shoulder in question, only for Kaveh to hang his head low and mutter something about it 'not being the right receipt'. Frankly it alarms Al-Haitham that he'd have so many receipts floating around in the first place.
There's an ugly creased thing sitting smackdab in the middle of Kaveh's desk. Al-Haitham walks over to examine it. Could've been a receipt once, hypothetically speaking. It's too sun-bleached now to tell.
“Think I've found it,” he announces, picking it up for closer inspection before Kaveh can snatch it out of his hands. The first three lines he can detect, very faintly: 7x Tandem Syrah (glass) / 2x mint tea / 1x knafeh. They'd ordered the dessert on a whim once, due to its similarity to Kaveh's name, but that was...
“Our end-of-term celebration,” Al-Haitham says, frowning. He holds the receipt up in the air; incontrovertible evidence. Kaveh goes stiff as a board. “We went to the bar. You overdrank. The debate that ensued lasted five hours.”
“'Debate' is a generous term for what you put me through, honestly,” retorts Kaveh. “I needed the wine just to put up with you.”
“Charming.” Al-Haitham waves the scrap of paper around. “Why do you still have this?”
Kaveh fidgets. “It's a fond memory. What's wrong with keeping a memento?”
“You threw your drink at me and we got kicked out. That's a fond memory to you?”
“Okay, so it's a traumatic memory,” Kaveh snaps, frustrated. He crosses his arms. Al-Haitham thinks he has no right to, squirreling away secrets and all. “That's why I need the reminder. Of how horrible you are. Clearly.”
“You live with me. You're reminded every day.”
“If you realise this, how come you don't treat me any better?!” Kaveh shrieks. Before Al-Haitham can make a tactical retreat Kaveh is all over him, liberating the receipt from Al-Haitham's grasp. The force of it tears the bottom straight off, leaving Al-Haitham to clutch the dimmest of barcodes and not much else. “Get out of my room!”
"But dinner," protests Al-Haitham.
The door is slammed shut. He goes to bed hungry.
It's not just keepsakes relating to Al-Haitham. Kaveh's penchant for hoarding targets Tighnari as well, exemplified by his purple sash slung over an armchair. Later that week, Al-Haitham narrowly avoids sitting on one of Faruzan's old textbooks, half-wedged between two couch cushions.
He wonders whether Kaveh's friends ever question the loss of belongings, or if they have simply resigned themselves to Kaveh's crow-like tendencies; whether they've caught on to Kaveh pilfering bits of them at a time, object by object by object, to keep himself from feeling alone.
The textbook is relocated from couch to coffee table. It disappears hours later, sucked into the bottomless pit that is Kaveh's room.
- THE FEATHER
The following week, Al-Haitham is assigned a diplomatic mission to Liyue.
“It's to establish a new cross-border trade agreement. Lots of semantics involved,” Nahida explains, with a twitch of her nose that suggests she finds the very idea repulsive. “You're happy to set this up, I trust?”
“Naturally,” says Al-Haitham, who can't possibly imagine anything more riveting.
He's almost finished packing when Kaveh staggers into his room carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. “Good—graagghh!—morning,” he greets Al-Haitham, interrupted by his own yawn. Then notices the duffel bag dumped on Al-Haitham's floor and frowns. “Where are you off to?”
“Liyue.”
“Oh. ... Oh!” The mug-appendages are whipped around in a sudden show of excitement. Coffee droplets slosh over the ceramic rim. “Wait! Please, let me tag along!”
“Why.”
“What do you mean 'why', you big oaf? They'll allow a plus one, won't they?” Kaveh places the mugs on the windowsill to pat himself down, as if his luggage for Liyue has already folded itself into the depths of his pockets. “I've been dying to study the pagodas there.”
Al-Haitham rolls his eyes. Kaveh's interests are involved. This insinuates he's already lost the fight; Kaveh will cling to his legs even as he walks out the door. “Don't you have any commissions to get started on?”
“No, as a matter of fact. I don't. Thanks for rubbing it in.” Kaveh glowers. “There. You've hurt my feelings, so now you have to take me with you.”
“Kaveh, if I owed you a favour every time you felt hurt, we'd both be destitute,” Al-Haitham says. Still, an hour later, they're on the road headed to Liyue. The caffeine accompanies them in to-go cups.
Liyue Harbour is a sight to behold. They stop to admire the glitter of waves crashing up against the shoreline before finalising their journey at Xinyue Kiosk. Here stands a tall man who Al-Haitham recognises to be Zhongli, with a shorter, surlier man hovering nearby. Both of them dip ever so slightly as Al-Haitham and Kaveh approach.
“Shall we?” proposes Zhongli, and ushers them inside.
The tea is ordered, the blinds drawn. Contract drafts engulf the entire table. Zhongli and Al-Haitham do not bother sitting down. Instead they bow over the pieces of paper, a pair of gods surveying their domain, shuffling them around as they see fit. They point and whisper about export fees and taxation law.
Kaveh pipes up after about ten minutes of negotiations. “Err,” he ventures, and risks a glance at Xiao, who is too busy dissociating to notice. "Does this concern either of us?"
“No,” says Zhongli, smiling like this is a kindness.
"Didn't think so," replies Kaveh. He gently prods an elbow into Xiao's side. The yaksha blinkers and fixes Kaveh with a horrified stare—his gaze flickers to Zhongli momentarily as if to exclaim Are you seeing this, master?. “Xiao,” Kaveh says, and bends forward to cup his hand over the shell of Xiao's ear, “how about we go for a walk?”
Xiao's mouth works a second too long. “Walk,” he manages, like he's never heard the term before. "We could," he adds, and looks at Zhongli again.
"You could," Zhongli allows, turning away from Xiao.
The talks between Al-Haitham and Zhongli last four hours. By the end of it neither of them have made much progress, but they have warmed to each other considerably, swapping tales of ancient tongues and devastating wars. The stack of contract papers lies forgotten on the table. Al-Haitham supposes he'll have to make a return trip someday.
A jingle at the door announces Kaveh and Xiao's return: Kaveh in front, Xiao trailing behind. His face is beet-red. Once they get closer, it's obvious as to why.
“Welcome back, you two.” Zhongli's eyes crinkle. There's an upward slant to his mouth as well. “Kaveh, where did you get that feather in your hair from?”
“Oh, this old thing?” Kaveh is preening, rearranging the accessories tucked behind his ear so the new feather takes front and centre. “Xiao took me to Mount Tianheng. I found it outside... what was it called, Parentheses Temple?”
“Pervases,” Xiao corrects, looking like he wants to die.
“That's it,” hums Kaveh.
He removes the feather from his hair and slots in next to Zhongli, invites him to a show-and-tell with a wave of his hand. Zhongli leans over and examines it with great interest. In excited tones Kaveh points out the jade sheen slicked over the oily black vane, the way it glistens under direct sunlight. Zhongli, in turn, uses a finger dipped in tea to demonstrate how the feather repels rain. “What a fascinating find,” Al-Haitham overhears him say. “The creature that shed this must be very beautiful indeed.”
“Morax,” Xiao pleads, quiet enough for only Al-Haitham to make out. His hands form fists at his sides.
“You're never getting that back,” Al-Haitham informs him, and watches Xiao's expression crumple.
- THE FLOWER
Al-Haitham waits for Kaveh to leave the house before he rifles through Kaveh's belongings. It's immoral, most likely, but Kaveh himself implied the doors that separate their rooms are not hard borders—and anyway Al-Haitham has an inquisitive mind, so really it's Kaveh's fault for not keeping him stimulated enough.
Most of it is garbage. To Al-Haitham, that is: all old antique coins and remnants of hobbies Kaveh picks up only to discard a month later. Objects with monetary value, objects without; pencil drawings and paintings and prints; necklaces knotted up in someone else's engagement ring. It takes Al-Haitham an entire afternoon to find something worth looking at, buried deep under a mountain of packing peanuts.
It's a journal. Maybe hand-bound, definitely decorated by Kaveh. Gold paint spirals down the front. Al-Haitham cracks it open and its spine winces in protest. 14th February, 562, reads the title of a random page. Al-Haitham's eyes flit past. He's a voyeur, but he's not shameless. 4th April. 26th May.
30th June, the final page of the book says. There, below the scrawl of Kaveh's handwriting: the imprint of a fossilised flower, its vibrant purple hues made muted and soft over time.
“Do you remember that picnic we went on a few years ago? On the hill overlooking the Akademiya?” Al-Haitham asks later, as the sun is setting outside.
Kaveh places a half-full bottle of wine in the fridge. They've just finished dessert, and the plates have been left to soak. He turns to face Al-Haitham. “Was this when we were students?”
“It was when you were due to graduate. Towards the end of my fifth year, I believe.”
“Hmm... ah, yes. I remember now.” Kaveh speaks with some trepidation, as though Al-Haitham's nostalgia will lead to a joke in which he is the punchline somehow. “We'd started hating each other by then, of course. But summer holidays were just around the corner, and I couldn't bear to leave without saying goodbye.”
Al-Haitham doesn't recall ever hating Kaveh. He remembers the flavour of the stuffed vine leaves Kaveh had made for them, the scent of coffee wafting up from twin flasks. Kaveh talking about his mother.
“There were flowers everywhere,” Al-Haitham says. “Padisarah. The trees were in full bloom.”
“Hah, that's right,” Kaveh chuckles. He walks over and seats himself opposite Al-Haitham. Light filters through Kaveh's stained-glass cup, spraying rubies across the table. “Your hay fever gave you trouble. You sneezed all the way back down that hill!”
Al-Haitham hasn't experienced the symptoms of hay fever in years. It's another one of those things he's impervious to now, like the common cold or strong emotion. “Pollen doesn't affect me any more," he says, because he feels suddenly, irrationally, that Kaveh should know.
“No,” agrees Kaveh. “It's a crying shame.”
Kaveh takes a sip of his drink, gathering his thoughts. To Kaveh, the admission about Al-Haitham's pollen allergy appears lauded with some secret meaning Al-Haitham himself isn't aware of. His chin comes to rest on top of interlaced fingers as he gazes at Al-Haitham.
“Who else would wipe your nose for you, now that you're no longer cute and impressionable?” he says. There's a twinkle in his eye. “Only me.”
“Only you,” echoes Al-Haitham, and downs the wine.
- THE NOTE
They get into a spat two weeks later. Al-Haitham doesn't even realise they're arguing until Kaveh flees their home in tears, and the house goes cold and quiet, icing Al-Haitham out. You're my house, Al-Haitham thinks irritably, marches up to the front door and glares at lacquered wood. You should be on my side.
No one deigns to answer. Al-Haitham doesn't even have an inkling as to what started it, trivial as it was. Al-Haitham gifting Kaveh a broom for his birthday, maybe. Kaveh tripping over Al-Haitham's shoes on the way in.
Insignificant, forgettable things. But not to Kaveh.
Al-Haitham used to be able to swap the hubbub of cohabitation for white noise. The harsh buzzing of his fan does nothing for him now. It's not warm enough, not human enough. He curses himself for falling victim to sentiment and turns it off. The tea he fixes himself is equally lacking; steeped too long or too short or turned bitter by the temperature of the water. It's gone lukewarm by the time Al-Haitham finally puts his mouth to the cup. Disgusting.
Kaveh, too, turns his nose up at lukewarm tea. He only ever drinks the stuff if it'll scald the tongue right off of him.
“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham mutters out loud, rueful, and gets to work on an apology.
He's out of practice. In fact, the notion that he's ever been practised would be a bold-faced lie. Neither of them are in the habit of apologising to one another, never have been, what with both of them occupying opposite ends of every single spectrum on earth. Apologies: they implied some sort of begrudging agreement, a firm handshake somewhere along the middle. Or at the very least a white flag being raised from the other side.
For obvious reasons, this does not compute.
In the end, Al-Haitham writes 'sorry.' in miniscule lettering on a post-it note. It's close to illegible. It certainly doesn't include a pronoun; without the I'm to precede it, it hardly implicates complicity. He sits back and admires his handiwork, trying to gauge whether the physical proof of an apology will make up for the fact that it's barely an apology to begin with. Not much Al-Haitham can do about it anyway. He's too proud of a person to give it another shot.
Kaveh recovers from an injustice much like a wound: loud, angry welt to subdued mottled bruise. Then a scar or, if Al-Haitham's lucky, nothing at all. That same evening, his housemate slinks through the door so mutely Al-Haitham has to heave his head to confirm Kaveh's presence. The scribe sits curled up on the sofa with a book on Liyuan tax regulations, the very definition of unconcern, and the ghost of Kaveh drifts past without a word.
“I left an apology on your desk,” Al-Haitham tells him, the way one might say I left dogshit on your doorstep.
“Oh,” startles Kaveh. Some sheen returns to his eyes. He fiddles with the strap of his tote bag, struggling to come up with an appropriate response. “Well... thank you. Or, err—fine! I mean, it's not fine, but—”
“We're fine, yes,” says Al-Haitham.
“Maybe!” snaps Kaveh, already sounding too pleased with himself for the retort to land properly. Even as he flounces off there is some spring to his step, liveliness where there previously was none. Al-Haitham smiles to himself and wets the pad of his finger before turning the page.
The next day, Al-Haitham's post-it is framed and displayed above Kaveh's workstation. The apology is rendered invisible behind reflective glass, but Kaveh covets it all the same.
- THE EARRINGS
A proper apology is granted at night, once Al-Haitham is done biting marks into Kaveh's skin and Kaveh has stopped whimpering nonsense under the dip of Al-Haitham's collarbone. It's humid, too humid, causing the two of them rush through intimacy thanks to the oppressive summer heat.
Not that Kaveh ever lasts long.
He only notices the small box sitting on his nightstand afterwards. They tend to have sex in Al-Haitham's room, because it's tidier and there's not a million unfinished blueprints watching them perform, but this time Al-Haitham had insisted on steamrolling them into Kaveh's door, and... well, the rest is history. Kaveh contorts his spine to reach for it while Al-Haitham catches his breath.
“Al-Haitham,” he questions, jams a thumb into the lid groove and pops the box open. Inside sits a pair of gold-plated malachite earrings. Kaveh tears his gaze away with some difficulty. “What's this about?”
“I imagined you'd want a nicer birthday present,” Al-Haitham says, propping his head up on a pillow. After a moment he adds, “I returned the broom also.”
“Good,” chuckles Kaveh, delicately lifting the earrings from their box. They dangle off Kaveh's fingers. He delights in inspecting them, swivelling them for a closer look, and they revolve around his face like distant planets. “That's good,” says Kaveh again: one ambiguity twice removed from I love you.
+1. AL-HAITHAM
On Fridays, to celebrate the onset of the weekend, they go for drinks.
It's a tradition they've kept up for years, carved out of their occasionally busy schedules for the sake of 'catching up' and then, when they caught up so often it left them sick at the thought, to drown their misgivings in alcohol instead. Tonight Al-Haitham buys more rounds than usual. Maybe out of misplaced guilt, or because he's taken with the flush that stains Kaveh's cheeks like cheap ink.
It doesn't matter either way. The carouse ends as they all do: Al-Haitham staggering home at dawn with dead weight Kaveh in his arms. He jiggles his roommate awake so they can collaborate on opening the door. Without the need for verbal instruction Kaveh fishes Al-Haitham's keys from his pocket, and is manoeuvred around so he can cram them into the slot. Then Al-Haitham balances Kaveh on a cocked hip (trying not to drop him as Kaveh mouths needily at his throat) to nudge open the door. Kaveh's foot kicks it open all the way. Neither of them bother with glasses of water or painkillers, knowing full well the hangover will find them regardless. It'd be hubris to think otherwise.
Kaveh snakes his arms around Al-Haitham's waist as he's lowered onto the bed. With a sharp tug, the both of them topple. “Excuse me,” mutters Al-Haitham. Kaveh's breath is warm against Al-Haitham's neck. He's laughing somewhere beneath him. Their proximity is no laughing matter. “Excuse me,” he says, louder.
“Shan't,” whispers Kaveh. He's smirking still. A hand hikes up the back of Al-Haitham's shirt. “Stay with me? Just until I fall asleep.”
They stare at one another. Finally, Al-Haitham relents with a grunt.
When Kaveh moved in, Al-Haitham gave him the south-facing room. Kaveh had gawked, disbelieving that Al-Haitham was capable of being so generous. What Kaveh didn't know was that the generosity had been self-serving in nature; Al-Haitham had simply gotten sick of waking to the sun in his eyes. But he's glad to see that same rotten morning sun peeking through the blinds now, trailing over Kaveh's sleep-addled body as Al-Haitham helps him undress. Licking up the length of his thigh and setting his bronze skin aflame.
The light catches on Kaveh's new earrings as well, partially hidden behind a mane of blonde ear. Last night had been the first time he'd worn them out. Step aside, earrings, thinks Al-Haitham somewhat drunkenly, unhooking them with gentle hands. We orbit the same star.
“Haitham,” Kaveh murmurs, pleased, and angles his cheek into Al-Haitham's touch.
After a while of tossing and turning, Kaveh's breathing evens out. Al-Haitham permits himself five more minutes of leering, then makes to leave. He's caught by a hand around his wrist tethering him there.
Al-Haitham glances down. Kaveh looks divine wrapped up in rumpled sheets.
“You were asleep,” he argues.
“Not any more,” Kaveh replies. His eyes dare Al-Haitham to challenge his logic.
There's more work to be done. It's been left to rot on the desk in Al-Haitham's room. Always more work, beckoning him with a curled finger. But Kaveh puts up a fight, splayed spreadeagle across his mattress in a much more tempting manner than documentation in need of his signature.
Al-Haitham leans down and signs Kaveh's hand with his name instead, lips against knuckle. Kaveh's fingers tighten around his wrist.
“Mine,” murmurs Kaveh.
The penny drops seconds later. “Oh no,” Al-Haitham drawls. The foot he'd planted on Kaveh's floor slips quietly back under the covers. “Don't tell me I've become part of your junkyard. How will I ever escape?”
Kaveh just smiles. Substitutes: “Treasure pile.” The kiss that follows threatens to compromise Al-Haitham forever.
The both of them can sense it, this absolute truth: that Al-Haitham does not care to leave, or have Kaveh leave him. Were it not for deadlines or wellness checks, they would be happy to mummify themselves in each other's arms, their noses pressed flush together, and die surrounded by reminders of two lives spent in relative harmony.
