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Kaveh, if you pestered him thoroughly enough, would admit that he is not the best at keeping track of himself. If you brute forced it he would maybe admit that his health skips his mind in the flurry of everything else and if under duress, he would say that he is not very good at taking care of himself.
Right now is a good example, Kaveh has managed to do something to his wrists.
How this started he’s not entirely sure, but now both of his wrists feel as though their burning up through every fibre of muscle and scraping against his bones with a resentment far too large for their size.
He’s used to some discomfort, some shaking even (he’s never had that steady of a hand on off days), but it’s never been this intense before. But it’s nothing he can’t, in theory, work through and still create the quality expected of him.
It unfortunately, continued to worsen. An ache that stretches and couldn’t abate and by that point, it would be incredibly obvious to anyone with eyes that his hands weren’t acting in their right state.
After much powering through with no sign of it stopping, Al-Haitham, with some sixth sense exclusive to him, had dragged him to the bimarstan to have something done about it.
Now, Kaveh can count the number of times he’s been to the bimarstan on one hand; he rarely gets sick enough or injured enough to warrant a visit, and he’s not a fan of hospitals much either, something about the spirit of the place most likely. He would rather not be here at all but he assumes Al-Haitham knows that and just doesn’t care.
The doctors there, all very nice people really, eventually concluded that it was just a common injury for people in creative fields and that the best thing he could do was let his wrists rest and heal in their own time.
The most they could give him were braces for them, he wasn’t keen on taking anything and would much rather not have another thing to juggle in his time, and sent him on his way, Al-Haitham in toe like an imprint in the floor behind him.
He’s to do nothing strenuous or wrist intensive which means no work, regular stretching and his least favourite factor: time.
Now there’s the problem, Kaveh loves his work.
He has not spent his entire life studying and practicing enough to do calculations with his eyes closed to have a lack of passion in his craft, it’s his life’s goal to create, to build. He is a proud stubborn thing and he will readily admit to that, especially in architecture, especially when it comes down the shape of purpose and beauty.
He has not, learned the ins and outs of every stage of the building process, spoken to the makers of the materials and the builders and his clients and his fellows in the Akademiya out of a lazy disinterest in the subject, he is moved by his work to achieve the fullest of its potential. There is no reality where he is not lit alight for architecture and design.
But he isn’t supposed to be working. Outside of minor adjustments to plans Mehrak already has saved he can’t do much if he’s not putting his hands on it, it rings hollow to just be staring at light instead of paper and material.
His life has been in service to his career for years, it’s what he spends most of his time on, with that closed off strangely, in a new layer of restriction he hates, Kaveh doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.
He of course sends letters to all his running clients updating them on the situation, all of them are very gracious about the extended time needed and wish him a speedy recovery (the benefit of having built good connections you can call on when necessary). But after that? Well that’s tossed to wind, if there is no deadline to be working at there is just anything (within reason) to do.
But he can’t stay in the house the whole time. It’s a nice house of course, but he can’t be idle in one location for long, he needs to be out and moving more often then not. The place gets stuffy and a bit too easy to sink into if he doesn’t.
Which leaves him to his typical outdoor haunts and even the more atypical ones, Sumeru is a place where there’s something to be done anywhere with at least one other person.
At every bar or tavern there is a story to hear, a tall tale crafted in the shape of its audience. Near every neighbourhood you find a surplus of children settling scores with the other and roping the adults around to barter for them.
Grandmothers and aunts wax on about their families to any waiting ear (and Kaveh is happy to let them talk really, it’s nice to be listened to) and the sons and nephews they fuss about commute to work or gambling in the darker corners of the taverns.
Gardeners and writers and all manner of jobs gather and move like one unified body in waves around the city. You can never truly know the city, ever changing and ever growing; it’s one of kaveh’s favourite aspects of living here.
No where else displays this better then the many markets on Sumeru’s many layers. A kaleidoscope of wares and stalls and faces to immerse yourself in for the day.
Kaveh sometimes likes to hang around just to listen to the buzz, the proof of community still alive in front of him. From people to dogs to birds and if you strain the ear, even the trees wave to contribute.
“Ah Kaveh, wonderful timing! come here I need your young eyes,” a familiar voice calls over the buzzing of the midday travel.
Lo and behold when he turns there stands madam Faruzan eyeing jewellery with a group of people he doesn’t recognise, they all start chatting among themselves once they notice him, it’s all a bit weird. He’ll never get used to the level of infamy he seems to illicit.
She waves him over with much enthusiasm and he can’t really say no her, she is a good friend. Though he’s not sure he’ll see much more than she does, madam Faruzan is infamous for having a sharp eye after all.
He tells her as much and she picks at her cohort instead for their opinions which range from brutal honesty to non answers (a mixed bag through and through this group), she settles on a plain necklace with only a handful of small beads. Very much happy with her purchase as the many people around them mill about other stalls.
“How have you been as of late?” She questions once her and her group step back to take stock of where to go next. It’s a question she always asks whenever they meet, even when there’s only a days gap between.
“I’ve been better,” he confesses honestly, he doesn’t really feel like he has the energy to lie today.
Faruzan accesses him over once, he feels self conscious under a scrutiny. “Hm, you do look a little worse for wear that is true. No one’s been overworking you have they?”
“Oh no, no. Please don’t do anything on my count, It’s just a work injury I need to rest on.”
“Rest huh,” she tries in her mouth like it’s a foreign concept. “you could stand to get more of that — actually we were going to eat soon, and as your dear senior, I insist you come with us.”
And when Faruzan insists upon something, there’s no getting out of it, even for him. He could protest on expenditure until the sun leaves the sky and she would just repeat that he’s far too skinny for his age or something similar. Faruzan embodies the aunts around town in this way, they all seem very critical of his eating habits; perhaps it’s a trait that comes with age.
They end up eating at a cafe that hangs over the lower parts of the city, Kaveh spends most of their stay slightly distracted by the sun bouncing off of everything. The nearby scenery almost beams at him with some jubilance, every colour and texture warm from the light on it. It reminds him a little of the glow of metal in a forge.
He learns that the group are a collection of his and Faruzan’s juniors looking to learn the ropes (with varying degrees of acceptance to the obvious detour that madam Faruzan is taking them on), it surprises him to see Kshahrewar and Haravatat students getting along so readily; what with their weird Darshan wide rivalry.
But if anyone were to gather an odd group like this it would be madam Faruzan, she does love taking anyone under her wing. Though an eccentric teacher, she has a pure joy for passing her knowledge on.
For her part, she’s out here to ‘stretch her old legs’ and reacquaint herself with current trends; she has a habit of rambling about how different everything is now, which can provide some truly unique insight.
When they finish eating they do everything from scouting old shops, listening to some more story tellers, winning (and losing) at cards with uncles and randomly breaking out into strange versions of well known songs. Kaveh let’s himself get dragged into the absurdity along with them, laughing and tossing out nonsense like wild things.
Even the shyer of their group are won over by madam Faruzan to enjoy letting loose, joining in the off key singing and off colour stories they toss around as they walk.
Their banter is airy and pleasant, speaking plainly and freely with each other; Kaveh thinks this lot of students have a wonderful future ahead with all their potential.
They make a whole day of it, just ambling around the many streets and acquainting themselves with the dozens of shopkeeps and stall owners (while prying the more reclusive of their students from buying exorbitantly priced books, honestly do all Haravatat students chase paper like magnets?) like their fresh eyed tourists drinking it all in for the first time.
The sun sets, drawing a brilliant cluster of ambers and reds across the expanse of the sky and brushing the many buildings with rich shadows. Their frantic pace to see everything slows into a relaxed gander, all of them grouped less like a line and more a cluster of grapes.
Him and madam Faruzan hang a ways back as the students bicker about optimal ink colours for annotations, one of the spritelier girls tosses her hat at another’s head and he tosses it right back; play fighting like children. The rest devolve from their into a playful scrap before they pick up on themselves and resolve to be civil scholars in discourse (not without several bouts of giggles and snickers).
“Feeling a little old?” Faruzan teases, joining him to sit on the steps of a slope high above the base of Sumeru city but below the Akademiya.
“Just a bit, I can’t imagine being so gung ho about papers and such.”
“The youth of today,” she sighs with no bite and all affection, “honestly I didn’t expect them to be so...peppy,” finishing the sentence like she’s unsure of the word choice.
“Is that disappointing to you?”
“Of course not! I have faith in you youngsters, it’s nice to see you all so keen to put yourselves out there; too many people get all wound up about it.”
“They have new ideas to put out into the world, it’s promising.”
Faruzan nods her head sagely before she puts on an over dramatic air to retort, “Passing the torch already? At your age? My dear junior, you’ve got far too many artsy thoughts in there to be done just yet.”
“Yes, yes I’ve a thrilling career ahead of me, thank you madam.” Kaveh says dryly back.
Faruzan laughs heartily, it sounds infectious with her enthusiasm. She schools her face into something more serious, warmly patting him on the shoulder. “As you should, you know you really ought to have more audacity, even if I don’t get it you should make people accept that it makes sense to you . I’m not a dab hand at art but even I know that.”
“I think you’re the only person who’d say that about me.” Certainly his old professors would attest that he was impossible to talk down once he started on a topic.
“All the more reason to say it! I’m just that good.”
Kaveh let’s his own laugh slip out a little, like some cousin to a wheeze.
“Now there’s a better look on you, you’ve been a bit downtrodden all day.”
That startles him, has he lost his edge at covering for himself?
“I think work’s just weighing on me a little, with my wrists too I feel a bit out of my element.”
Faruzan retracts her hand from his shoulders to gesture at the beating, living city around them. “What, in the heart of Sumeru? Don’t go and tell me you’re backing out on your pride as an aesthete, you should be practically swimming in your element.”
“Somehow,” he shrugs, surprised at himself as well. “I’ll probably have to give some more thought, I’m not really sure how else to put it just yet.”
“You’re a smart kid, I’m sure you’ll figure yourself out; and you can always come to me for wisened advice, I’m just a trip to the Akademiya away if you need me.”
Faruzan stands up to dust off her skirts around her knees, looking down at him now; it’s uncritical, just watching him fondly like a proud teacher does. They both turn to another round of erupting noise from their student friends.
“I’ll wrangle them up before they get scolded for disturbing the peace, you keep your chin up for me okay Kaveh?”
“I’ll try.”
“Good man. Now you lot! So loquacious, honestly—“ and she continues her light scolding cheerily as she wrangles the group together, like herding a bunch of small chicks. A gentle wave of greens and Haravatat blacks and Kshahrewar whites against the bright stroke of sky behind them.
It’s all so merry, the bonds between people, the sun on his face, the light wind toying with all of their hair and work of hundreds of architects and builders before him underfoot and overhead.
For all his talk of beauty and loving the world, Kaveh thinks he lost sight of all of it. Spent too much time at the razors edge to fully remember all the things that had inspired him at all. Somewhere, in all the working and fighting against himself, he’d forgotten that life was a gift, that the world was still out there to be loved at all.
Is it not joy that people live for? When did he get the idea in his head that his life was purely defined by its suffering?
He thinks he lost it in all that force applied to his bones to keep standing, for all resilience helps him he’s been running on thinning scraps of the idea of the things he wanted to bring to fruition. On old eyes who haven’t seen what they’ve been dreaming of for too long.
Sitting here, the sunrise an infinite canvas over the sea of the city he lives in, it dawns on him again that his work is a silent conversation across the great distance of time; that his work exists at its core to remind the future that he was one of those thousands upon thousands of people who lived and loved here.
All these beautiful things had been alive and thriving while he’d been raking himself through the coals. And god did he miss all of it.
A tidal wave of inspiration strikes him like a crash to the side, he feels far younger again, like that first time he saw port Ormos in the day and couldn’t fight that itch to copy what his eyes wanted to print. It makes him feel almost giddy, a little shaken with it even though he’s still sitting down.
While restriction can breed innovation, sometimes being reminded that you can really have a try at anything heals a burnt out soul more. Soothes something worn more.
When he waves goodbye to madam Faruzan and her friends he feels unbelievably light, drifting the way home like a feather in breeze, moving to be moved. The air is equally light in his lungs and all around, even as he enters the house again. It feels like a temporary peace, a letting go of some weight he was carrying.
When he sleeps his wrists ache but he finds that now he is far more exited about the future when he can get back to creating with them again, this little convalescence feeling less limiting under the force of dozens of little ideas.
*
You wash up on the shore and maybe someone will be there waiting for you to get back up.
Maybe they will hold you by the shoulder while you dust yourself off, maybe they hold your hands and talk of how they love them.
You will go back to the water, you will watch the ever fixed shoreline recede. You will not forget that it’s there even when you can’t see it.
You do not forget home no matter how many years pass.
*
Many years behind him now, when he first met Al-Haitham (now isn’t that something? That there was ever a first meeting?) his impression was far different from the truth of things.
At first he stuck out like a pure marble statue in an empty room, the type of thing you give a glance at once or twice before you divert your attention to something else. A face unmoving and unchanging, far too severe for his age.
Kaveh concluded that he was in some matter of trouble or turmoil, after all, very few people carry themselves as static art. Passivity, was not healthy human expression. This was all, of course, before he heard Al-Haitham talk.
Hearing him speak, the sheer audacity of it, throws out any preconceived ideas you develop before hand. Al-Haitham has the gift of thought in confounding excess to anyone he bothers sharing it with, it is both aggravating and attention drawing. He has the surety of stone in conviction for ideas Kaveh finds perplexing at every turn.
A statue has some intrigue yes, but something warm and alive? Now that was how you made something impossible to ignore.
Forget whatever rumours follow Al-Haitham like a shadow, his incomprehensible ideas need to be chiselled down to their bases. Let it be said that Kaveh is incredibly stubborn when he is invested.
That was how it started, a little impersonal, a little distant. The way he preferred to keep it. Art and artist, onlooker and observation. Al-Haitham however, thinks expectation is a ludicrous notion and tosses it out; you do not just know of him if you maintain any curiosity, you have to know every detail available. And that means being open to being known back.
If Kaveh in his troubled youth had any complaints of this new friend of his, it would be that he stared too strongly, knew too much and smiled too little.
(It was a shame too, Al-Haitham has a smile that would make alive his whole being. For someone who insisted on living in pure self interest, he certainly didn’t show it much. And maybe if he did he wouldn’t be so isolated all of the time, but Kaveh knows it’s pointless arguing with him on being social by now.)
In hindsight their mutual curiosity was their downfall. More then any other flaw or quirk ever was.
Al-Haitham for all his genius, wanted to understand everything even when he shouldn’t, even when it would be better for him to be ignorant. And Kaveh wasn’t ready to examine the wounds of his life just yet, still too fresh to be acknowledged without the pain pushing past anything else.
Al-Haitham had given a hand and Kaveh had broken his fingers, it was fastest way to crash and burn whatever could have been. All because he was scared of the new and unfamiliar.
They both had a too clenched fist around themselves back then, in a way there was no other way it would go, even if they didn’t want it to.
Because of that there’s not much to gain from ruminating (even if he’s prone to it), no more insight to be had and the information no longer applicable.
At some point the past must become history, the old replaced with the new. The pin drops and the stalemate ends.
Al-Haitham’s fault now, Kaveh thinks, is that he hasn’t just shown his cards and said what the point of any of this was. Why this weird play at acting like Kaveh hasn’t done any of what he did hasn’t just concluded yet.
Kaveh is used to endings, predeterminable outcomes you can brace for even if you well and truly hate the outcome you expect. This is too intangible, too stuck in the present.
There is no world where he would have been prepared for this, and it sends him backwards and at all odd angles.
There has to be a line in the sand, a clear cut emotion here. But there isn’t. He’s just stuck in this torrent on conflicting emotions. He’s long forgiven whatever made him so angry at Al-Haitham at all yes, but that’s a spot on a whole canvas; he has no idea what to do with the rest.
The wrists are just another thing in a long line of things that just had to go wrong to get here, because of course nothing about him and Al-Haitham can be easy to the universe.
After he exhausts every place and gathering he can go to outside of the house there comes a point where there’s nothing much else to do but hover for any amount of stimulation that isn’t reading (and he’s read all he’s wanted to in the house already, maybe he’ll crack and start of some of the truly heinous stuff later but he’s not that desperate yet).
Which leaves him to stand around Al-Haitham and act like there’s not a thousand things he’d want to say while Al-Haitham acts like this is completely normal. He can occasionally get away with scribbling a few ideas down but Al-Haitham doesn’t let him keep at it long whenever he’s at home. So now Kaveh is at war with all the wondrous new ideas rattling around his head, the disconnect in ability and the high pressure unresolved everything at the house.
Kaveh has very nearly blurted out things he’d dread saying to Al-Haitham’s face ever. It’s getting dangerously close to kickstarting something foul he wants to never look at, his need for focus is going to doom him and he can’t blame anyone but himself.
There’s the normal back and forth too, about new events and (now one sided) work days, and he never thought he would be this relieved to still be arguing with someone ever. Maybe that’s just what Al-Haitham does to people, or maybe he’s gone and done it to himself.
There is a comfort in the predictable, and Al-Haitham has his actions cracked to a rule set Kaveh knows well enough to work alongside. Al-Haitham has very little to change for, considering he only really considers himself.
Except every day now Al-Haitham will remind him about his wrist braces and cook dinner instead. He will check on him at seemingly random hours and let Kaveh water the small number of plants they have whenever he pleases. He will say no snarking comments and Kaveh will act as the thing on the metaphorical doorstep waiting to be let in.
The truth of that is that Al-Haitham is an open door to whatever action you take next if you’re in a position to make one at all, he has never entertained something he didn’t want to without mentioning it. He will not start now either, there needs to be a reason for growth. The bird grows feathers to lift and thrive and not because it pleases the eye of the beholder.
So Al-Haitham lets him hover and says nothing while he keeps staring, waiting on something to happen. And there must be a reason for it, some logic Kaveh hasn’t been able to reduce from the information available.
Isn’t it odd that after all his insistence that Al-Haitham should mellow and defer to other people he is so off put by this?
It does make some sense he guesses, Al-Haitham does things because they have incentives, a reward of some sort for engaging with them; this feels all too much like charity. And he never acts on being charitable, that’s their difference.
At one point it comes to a head, he can’t keep festering in the dark, he needs the catch, the reason. The why as to him still being here after all this time. His energy needs something to sink it’s teeth into.
“You know I can’t pay you rent this month.” So you shouldn’t be putting up with me like this, it’s unlike you.
“In what world would rent be more important than your health? Do you really think so poorly of me?”
I think the world of you. I’m a little afraid of it at times.
But he can’t say that. Ever. Not in a million years, it’s far too heavy; he doesn’t want to have that conversation yet. And more importantly he can’t go dumping all of his feelings on people again, it never ends well; if he admits to caring then he can’t keep it. It always ends the same way, disintegrating through his fingers.
Is it selfish of him that he wants to refuse that reality?
“I don’t.” He says instead. Because it reveals the right amount of information without being obvious.
“Then why act like you do? What makes this any different to everything you do?”
Because it’s you. Because it’s me. You don’t change for anything in the world, you can’t just start being generous for...
For what exactly?
“It’s out of character, you don’t just help people for no reason.”
“I have my reasons, you just don’t see them.”
“Like what?”
“Is it impossible to think that I don’t delight in you struggling? That I would feel better if you did too?”
It’s not impossible per say it’s just, well. It’s not like Al-Haitham gets torn up over much of anything, and anyway he’s the instigator more often than not.
“Not impossible just...hard to believe I guess.”
Al-Haitham sounds almost hurt by his words, it harshly takes him back. “It shouldn’t be, you love assuming the best in people, why would this be any different?”
Because in spite of himself Kaveh has reservations and doubts about Al-Haitham, even though he’s only ever been honest. The gap in time between their friendship and what exists now leaves him feeling too long limbed to have proper bearings on the situation. Because the fist around himself hasn’t loosened properly yet and he’s still very afraid of it.
“Because of everything that’s happened. Honestly, I...I don’t get you.”
Kaveh is unfortunately, a bit of a coward when it comes to them. Even now, even with all the progress made since he first moved in.
Kaveh can’t understand how Al-Haitham does all this with no reservations, how he just sits around lazing after doing the bare minimum, how he just rests in his free time without having to go and act on everything. Maybe he could at one point, but he certainly can’t anymore.
It’s enviable, and that makes him feel a little sick. He moves to sit down next to Al-Haitham on the divan. He lets it happen.
Al-Haitham pats a shoulder in invitation, Kaveh takes it, settling his cheek against the curve of it. In fact he all but fully leans into Al-Haithams side, braced hands layered out in his own lap. If he cared to pay it any mind he would feel an earring pushing against his ear.
He feels strangely tired, the bone weary sort you feel after climbing a mountain or travelling several laps around the whole of Sumeru city. Whatever restless energy he’d been grappling with has left his body completely in favour of well worn exhaustion.
He almost has to fight against the flutter of his own eyelashes. Kaveh sighs out loud and feels it carry something else out with it, some weight or barrier; his heart maybe, fluttering to be fulfilled with someone else.
Who knew doing practically nothing could be so draining? The mind when unoccupied as it turns out, is very inefficient at using energy. It carves the shape of his job as an architect right out of his system, unaware that it needed to ease the thing out in the first place.
“I have no idea how you do this all day,” Kaveh mumbles into Al-Haitham’s shoulder, not attempting to make himself clear.
“Do what?”
“You know,” Kaveh makes a vague gesture with his left hand. “nothing. Not working, however you want to put it.”
Al-Haitham rests his head on top of Kaveh’s, conceding something in the great mystery of his mind. It’s all too soft for the image of Al-Haitham he’s been working under. “I am at peace with myself. You aren’t. That’s the difference.”
Kaveh thinks of a statue of marble, someone too severe for his age.
“Well how do you do that then? Since you seem to know so much.” Kaveh says, almost barbed.
“I can’t tell you how to put down whatever you’re carrying, you wouldn’t let me. The only thing standing in your way is you, I can’t help you resolve your own guilt.”
“But you’ve tried.” That’s the only reason they ended up here as they are, after all.
“I have.” Al-Haitham confirms, and though he says it in his usual tone it still feels vulnerable. “But in the end it’s your business and not mine or anyone else’s,” Al-Haitham must’ve shifted at some point because what he says next is into Kaveh’s hair and muffled a slight. “I cannot promise anything in regards to your own actions, but I can promise that I will be here when you wake up.”
“And you don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Al-Haitham hums and it reverberates in his skull like a thought you can’t drop. “I try not to. Sleep, you can talk in the morning.”
Kaveh in that moment, is reminded of their student days. All those nights they spent making sure the other slept at least an hour, pressed close like bookmarks to a page. It’s easy to sleep like that, caught up in a dream again.
Now there’s a dream Kaveh used to hold close to his heart when he was younger and far closer to the grindstone as a student. That him and Al-Haitham would be something close still once he left and Al-Haitham stayed, neighbours maybe, maybe housemates; something close and Kaveh would have a constant in his life to keep going back to.
It’s funny that. After all these years he’s fallen into something like it.
When he does wake up Al-Haitham is still there, like he didn’t move an inch for however long he was out for. All Kaveh can muster is a small nod, Al-Haitham simply mirrors it back.
And if there is nothing to say about something with them, then there is no reason to stop doing it.
A step forward or something similar, a progress. An open invitation to just do this again for nothing in particular.
*
Tighnari’s letter comes unexpectedly, not because he is infrequent with sending them but because Kaveh hasn’t sent anything prior worthy of receiving a response.
The letter, much like Tighnari’s handwriting, is simple and straightforward. Just a request that Kaveh visit soon as Tighnari has something to try for his wrists (when did he hear about that?) and to generally catch up.
Kaveh knows the way to Tighnari’s house like the back of his hands, and with nothing better to do (because good company is something to cherish) it’s all too easy to make the journey to Gandharva ville.
Gandharva ville is alive in a different way than Sumeru city is, but it is just as capable of beauty in his eyes.
It’s built to account for nature and for its people both, a plant can enjoy it as much as a forest ranger or a tourist. You can never leave the smell of a flower no matter where you go and pleased bird call in the ears.
Tighnari’s house, after he’s ushered in, is much the same way it always is. Books, notes and vials strewn about on his shelves and desk along with his ever growing list of trinkets and specimens. If the sun started setting everything would be dyed a deep water green, it is exactly Tighnari’s element; surrounded in nature and the quietest of background noise.
Surprisingly, he spots the padisarah he gave Collei a few weeks back on Tighnari’s small windowsill. It looks a little worse for wear (padisarahs have always been delicate plants even under the best care) but is clearly being monitored closely.
Tighnari guides him to sit on his bed next to his desk, it makes them eye level with each other. Tighnari starts mixing something in a jar while they pass back and forth small talk and light jabs, it’s all around a comfortable experience. Made more impressive by Tighnari’s ease at whatever he’s mixing without keeping his eyes on it.
At one point he gets up to put the mixture in the jar to boil and drops back into his chair with an uncharacteristic gravity.
Tighnari after a moments pause, gives him a once over and sighs with his brand of exasperation reserved for the impulsive and overly risk taking. Even Kaveh is not exempt from a professional’s critical eye.
Kaveh pointedly looks at the tank at the back of his hut.
“The worst patients are always doctors or people who’ve fallen on hard times.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kaveh asks, almost affronted.
“You get this big ol’ idea in your head that you have to tough out everything on your own, like talking about it is some burden on people’s lives. But here’s something you’re forgetting.”
Tighnari then, like a creature ready to pounce, leans forward on the table; taking up more space in kaveh’s vision. His face remains serious, ears noticeably pulled back.
“This next bit’s important, so I need you to hear me.”
And that’s very little to ask for, really.
“You can come to me for anything, even if it’s out of my wheelhouse. Because you’re my friend. And there’s nothing evil about wanting to be helped. I don’t know who made you think that way but you shouldn’t listen to them.”
“It’s...well it’s complicated.” Because he’s starting to realise the signs are all pointing to it being him and his questionable brain. A trouble self inflicted.
“I don’t think so. It’s just about being happy I think, isn’t that what we all want?”
“It’s troublesome then.” Kaveh refutes with no force behind it.
“Well, everything that’s worth it is a little troublesome. As much as you can love something, it’ll be tedious at times.”
Tighnari leans back into his chair and Kaveh can feel some of the tension in his own shoulders leave.
“I won’t be above saying you’re trouble, because you are, but what you’re missing is that I’m also trouble and so is everyone else.”
“I’m a bit of a mess, I’d argue I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”
Tighnari scoffs like he has just said something factually wrong in every way. “What, and you’re the authority on my opinion of you? Just let me take care of you, that’s all I’m asking for here.”
Kaveh feels painfully small, like he used to back in his old house, a small thing in a too big space. “Then you’ll come to me when I can help with anything too, I know you’ll say I’m pushing myself beyond my limits but it’s just...it’s nice to be needed at times you know?”
Tighnari looks softly at him, the worry is evident on his face. He toughs it out to smile. He’s grateful again, that Tighnari puts up with him like this.
“Wanted. It’s nicer to be wanted if you ask me, and I’ll keep that in mind.” Tighnari then gets back up to retrieve the jar, it looks a little cloudy now. “I’m done with your salve too so you can pick that up as well, I’ve got a patrol coming up soon.”
“Ah...yes, I’ll get going then.”
He feels shy at the door, like he still has a thousand things to say even though his brain would only let out some list of garbled sounds.
“It was nice talking with you Tighnari, I promise I’m listening.” He eventually says, because he really wants to try and get out of whatever hole he’s seemed to have gotten stuck in. And Tighnari deserves to be let in a little, even if it’s a struggle for Kaveh to do so.
“I know you are.” Tighnari says with far too much faith. He makes the round of his cramped table to pass the jar in his hands. “It was nice to catch up.”
It still feels warm in Kaveh’s hands, but that might just be because he has notoriously cold hands. He holds it closely to his chest like it’s a second heart.
Before he can get out the door Tighnari spins him back around to get another last word in.
“You take care of yourself, especially your wrists. Oh and tell Al-Haitham to stop dropping by without asking beforehand, he’s a handful.”
Now that’s something. What would Al-Haitham be visiting for?
Maybe he’ll toss that question at him when they next see each other, or maybe some point after that.
Eventually. He’ll ask about it eventually, one step at a time and all that.
He’ll have to thank Tighnari when the four of them next get together to drink and play cards. For a lot of things actually.
*
With the gift of hindsight, or perhaps simply the gift of the passage of time, one can let go of the feelings that spurred decisions and look more objectively. Not in dismissal but in a maturation of the self, reflection is, at the end of the day, a look back with difference at heart.
Kaveh is no longer who he was as a child, a student, who he was a week ago or even two. While he may fall into similar rises and falls he is now far further ahead than those other selves, he is the present moment.
He will be different in future, he is not stagnant entity in a moving world, he is one of many growing things in a universe that breathes and laughs at the joy of its continuation.
Those years ago, in the house of Daena or otherwise, he had so little that it drove him to choices that could only be made in desperation, spite, and a yearning to crawl out of himself and make something of value with it’s gore.
Kaveh knows now that who he used to be was quite cruel, even if he didn’t mean to be. He had forgotten the shape of kindness in all of his guilt. It had hurt him, it had made him hurt other people. But he can’t hate that Kaveh, he was just trying to stay afloat through everything in the worst way; he’s been unkind to himself for so long.
What no one tells you about forgiving yourself is that it’s horrible. It’s an ugly, ugly thing that tears at the soft flesh of your neck and leaves you weak and vulnerable.
It’s terribly slow, like a scab growing, like the fading of a bruise. But in a way, that’s proof that you’ve changed at all, and Kaveh would like to think he can be proud of that progress and slowly let that old self rest. An old dog can learn new tricks, it turns out.
And in this house, this fellow changing thing, with his wrists and his very soul on the mend, he has the ability of choice. Even when he’s fragile with sentiment.
An opportunity to branch out into anything he feels like, he can be kind, he can be honest, he can be any which thing that catches his eye.
He can just be , as himself and whatever that becomes down the line.
History is no longer old ghosts to haunt at his shoulder, it is simply an experience to learn from, a lesson learned.
He has his friends, he has his work, he has his hundreds of ideas to still put to paper. And he can keep those without having to barter parts of himself to justify wanting to live as he wishes to.
And it can be messy and rough around the edges but it gets to be his and he gets to grow that life with his own hand. It will never be perfect but what in life is? Does that somehow diminish its value and potential for joy?
It doesn’t. It can’t.
If his life gets to be a choice then he can’t keep holding himself back from trying for fear of messing up, no one else has that expectation of him anymore, if anyone ever did at all.
Is that not what Al-Haitham has been trying to nudge him towards for all these years? That he can be home after all his endless pacing.
What happens next is not the final chapter but simply a conclusion to one thing that will be reborn into another and another for the rest of his life, nor is it the last thing to cross off on a list of things to address.
It is just one decision of many, and he may be making it impulsively, spurred on by the now open wound of forgiveness, but is it not good to try a hand at making something?
This home started as a choice, and it gets to evolve as a choice.
“Al-Haitham.” He calls, bare wristed, bare hearted, exposing whatever else feels like falling out at that moment.
“Kaveh.” Al-Haitham says back. Frustratingly neutral. Open to any of those many potentials that sit between them.
He’s sitting in their study, elbows deep in papers of personal and work importance, eyes fixed on the page he’s writing on. The setting sun somehow softens the natural furrow in his face.
“Can we...talk? It’s important.”
Al-Haitham looks up from his work then with that almost foreboding stare of his, like he’s looking at something with an infinite curiosity. He lets his pen rest on the table.
“Do as you please, you have my key.”
A key to what? A home, a heart, a companionship, a weakness—
It is just everything? An access to complete transparency?
That’s an awful lot to be trusted with. But then again they never have done anything by halves, a key for a key; across time and states of being.
Kaveh slowly, achingly so, reaches to offer up his hands; a lure to get Al-Haitham to stand so they’ll be on equal footing. Maybe it’s partly so he doesn’t fall over. It works.
“Im going to honest and I need you to be honest back, I want to settle whatever this is. Build a bridge from what we have now.”
Al-Haitham, almost shyly, takes up his offered hands. His thumbs rub slow circles in the bones just below Kaveh’s knuckles. “Be honest then. Tell me what you’re thinking about.”
Kaveh starts, almost rambles, like he’s ripping a confession out of his system because in a way he is. “Back then I think we went at this the wrong way, I didn’t really let you in enough for it to work. It ended because that was the only way it could go, I couldn’t bare the thought of what want could entail.”
“All those years ago I got a dream stuck in my head and then I thoroughly destroyed any idea that this could ever happen, I am still now, sometimes convinced that this is all a bit too good to be true.”
Kaveh feels a little short of breath, but he has to keep talking because he needs to get all of this out now rather then later.
“But I’ve gotten thinking with all this time away from work, that I quite like my life for the most part. I don’t always have to fight to have things, it’s enough to simply want them.”
“The point, Kaveh.” Al-Haitham prompts gently, seemingly always aware when the plot is getting away from him a little.
“The point is that I want you. I’d like for you to be here, in this home we’ve built. And I’m not saying this assure or placate anyone, I’m saying it because I want to say it. You’ve spent so long waiting on me for this, it’s only fair I told you plain.”
“I have been waiting,” Al-Haitham begins quietly, like he’s soothing something spooked. He stops his circles to squeeze Kaveh’s hands. “But I’d argue that it was worth it. I couldn’t have this answer out of you at any other point. It had to be a choice you made.”
“Look at you,” Al-Haitham says, reading from a script from a different time. Another set of actors that neither of them are anymore.
“Enough looking at me, talk to me. I’m sure you have a lot to say on the subject.”
Al-Haitham sighs and it relaxes his whole body, unburdened him of something heavy. It’s almost a charming sound, a pleasant voice. “I am exceedingly fond of you, I’m not quite sure where to put it. But I do know that I want you close, I see you and I see myself through it. I have not imagined my life without you in it.”
“Why? Out of all people why would it be me specifically?”
“You are the only one who challenges me and has the dedication to match my measure at every step. You, upon learning about whatever reputation I held, thought it utterly ridiculous and said so to my face. Kaveh, those years ago when you spoke so well of the many faces of potential you lit me on fire with a dream and only stand to catch me now. In the face of every possible obstacle you have white knuckled your way through it and insist upon human kindness with far more vigour than any prayer could ever replicate. We can go about this until the sun comes up, but the truth is simple. I want you here because it’s you.”
“I suppose I’m the same way. It just had to be you, but now I’ve come at this at a much better time for both of us. So in a way, I want to be here with you because you mean far much more to me then the idea of a dream could ever.”
Kaveh shifts their hands so their fingers are interlinked, line blurred between one body and another, a tangle of connections.
“So I’ve gone and fallen in love with a reality for a change, I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
In this light, Al-Haitham’s eyes look like a sea on fire from the boat that is his pupils. He speaks lightly, “Can I not be proud of progress? or will you be telling me to stop? Are you not proud in the same way?”
“I think I’m still stuck on the acceptance part, I wasn’t sure how this would pan out other than I knew you would have an opinion.”
“Then let yourself be stuck on it a while longer, you have time, there is no deadline to meet. You will be here and I will be here and we can challenge each other with a better foundation.”
“And after that?”
“More of the same I suppose, growing and learning from each other.”
Kaveh lifts on pair of their hands to shake it like it’s some strange contraption and not the ends where they meet in an attempt at a teasing manner.
“Alright then. Al-Haitham, my life-long commitment, what say you to dropping my rent?”
Al-Haitham, for his part, laughs. Like the clear strike of a bell, a splash in his still water visage. Short and sweet.
“That you should’ve asked ages ago. Yes. Yes, you can stay.”