Work Text:
The light filters in through the window, stained like Kaveh’s hands after his latest burst of inspiration, smattered over the warm expanse of Alhaitham’s arms, his face, his chest— and just about any surface the sun can reach (while Kaveh takes care of the rest). They’re lounging on the divans in the living room, stretched and stacked on each other as if there aren’t enough spaces for both of them, because lounging can only be done correctly when someone else’s heartbeat accompanies your breathing.
Alhaitham makes no sound when he reads outside the puff of a breath when he finds something particularly charming or ridiculous, plucking his pencil from where he tucks it behind his ear to scribble notes between lines and in margins and frankly anywhere there’s space to write. That is, of course, when his pencil is still behind his ear and not in the hands of Kaveh, whose chest makes for his favorite pillow, and whose hands can’t stop flitting from hair to book to pencil to paper to shirt to—
“Alhaitham,” Kaveh says softly, a calm ripple in the silence. He places the pencil back in Alhaitham’s expectant hand and shifts his attention to Alhaitham’s hair (again), carding through his fringe and gently tracing his eyebrow. He stops somewhere near the end, pressing his fingertip between it and his hairline. “Where did this scar come from?”
The silence falls back into place as Alhaitham finishes the note he was working on, tucking the pencil behind his undisturbed ear before flicking his eyes up at Kaveh. “Akademiya days. Proposal rejection taken harshly.”
A laugh jostles Alhaitham’s head, Kaveh’s chest bouncing with the sudden, joyful sound. Alhaitham can’t find it in him to be bothered, even when he has to flick his pencil onto the table to keep it from falling between the cushions.
“Someone retaliated against you for rejecting a proposal?” Laughter is still threaded through each word, in a way that makes the smile on his face as obvious as can be, even with it completely out of sight. “What were you doing, even, rejecting proposals as a student? Special genius privileges, hmm?”
Alhaitham fiddles with the corner of the page in his hand, remembering. “You once came back to our dorm in the Akademiya completely devastated because your research group had stripped your proposal of everything that made your design yours. You had already decided that you’d either give up completely or start entirely over, but it wouldn’t be easy, and the joy of creating was lost.” Kaveh stares at his face, shocked silent, blinking back the realization that this is something he hadn’t heard from Alhaitham, something about him, something relating to a scar that he had never noticed before. He knows that Alhaitham can feel his stare, because he’s infuriatingly avoiding his gaze, fixed somewhere distant in the room as he speaks.
“I’d never seen you so unmotivated before,” he says, quietly this time. “You didn’t leave for the entire weekend. I was lucky if I caught glances of you fetching fruit from the cryobox.”
He looks back up at Kaveh again, as if he has to confirm he’s still listening. (As if Kaveh could be doing anything but.) “So the next school day, I found where your research group normally sat. I asked why you weren’t there that day, only to find that… everything they said seemed to be making fun of you.” He frowns, then, a crease forming between his brows. Kaveh is too distracted to smooth it out, fingertip still pressing into the scar like it’s welded there. “I told them that if they had a problem with you then they could be mature about it, and not string you along and waste your time and skills. They obviously weren’t the brightest and took that as instigating, or… something.”
Alhaitham sighs, rolling his eyes. “They didn’t get very far. For supposed architects, they sure didn’t know how to wield a protractor in any efficient way. The Matra made it so they’d never have another chance to.” If he could shrug, Kaveh knew he would. As is, he tilts his head as if to wave away the memory. Then, slowly, a smile makes its way onto his face. “On my way back to the dorm, I noticed some students testing different building materials- quite poorly, might I add. I asked if they knew what they were doing, beating up woods and stones in their Darshan’s robes. At their sheepishness, I told them I knew someone that did, and that they’d probably find him in a tavern two days from then.”
Kaveh’s breath hitches, and Alhaitham’s smile grows until his cheek dimples, his fingers smoothing over the open page of his book. “In two days’ time, we had a bit of a spat. You said you needed a drink to drown out my arrogance. Thank the Archons that it was Wednesday, so you could do it for half price. Next I heard from you, a new opportunity arose, testing and making shelters for stray animals in Sumeru City, with the opportunity to expand to places like Gandharva Ville as well. It sounded like a perfect fit.”
“You-” Kaveh starts, throat clogged. “You did that? Led us to each other like that? That project- I’d-”
“I was going to tell you,” Alhaitham interrupts, tilting his head back to catch Kaveh’s eyes. “But it never came up. The project came and passed, and time did, too. A lot did. So I never had the chance.” He lifts his hand to cover the one Kaveh has stuck to his temple. “I’m sorry if it upsets you. I know your opportunities are your own, and you find pride in making them for yourself. I simply wanted you to be happy.”
Words were not in Kaveh’s favor. They were Alhaitham’s expertise, after all. So Kaveh did what he did best, following his heart’s whims before thought could hold him back, startling Alhaitham with a kiss so obnoxiously dramatic that it knocked his book onto the floor with no chance that his page was kept. He’d listen to all the grumbling about it later, including making the inevitable promise to make dinner to atone for it, so long as he could somehow get across that whatever got him here— be it his own hands or the silent, invisible hands of another— he’s just glad he’s home .