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Kaveh wasn’t sure when Alhaitham was coming home.
Sure, the scribe took unannounced trips into the desert from time to time, sometimes even traveling deep into the rainforest without warning, but Kaveh still felt a prickling in his chest when it happened. There were always new ruins to study, some ancient script only a select few Haravatat members knew how to decipher or something of the sort. No matter what the reason, it still wasn’t pleasant.
During those times, Kaveh was often left pacing the house or sitting in bed, wide-eyed with a distant gaze. If he had a client at the time, his working hours would usually dwindle away, staring blankly at his drafts with a pencil in hand, eyes unfocused and mind wandering. The hours wasted prompted him to stay up into the late hours of the night, which eventually turned into the early hours of the morning. After a while, he would begin to lose track of time altogether.
That particular morning, Kaveh stumbled through the house, tripping into a wall that he gripped with a weak and shaky hand. His eye twitched and he blinked, trying to push his hair out of his eyes with a hand, but his gaze was still blurry. As he made his way through the hallway and stepped past piles of books, scrolls, and clothes, his eyes drifted to the window. The blinds were drawn tight, but the light that still managed to filter in looked too bright to be the early morning. Was that right? Kaveh had sat down to finish a draft just before he got up to… to do what, exactly? Standing in the middle of the room with his vision spinning just the slightest bit, Kaveh couldn’t remember what he was supposed to do.
He squinted against the bright light of the windows— when had he opened the blinds? His hands rested on the windowsill as he stared out of the tiny window at the back of the house. Perhaps Kaveh still had the common sense to try and avoid the public’s gaze. After all, being seen living in the Akademiya’s scribe’s house would be a horrible secret revealed to the world. Kaveh could only imagine the rumors as he twiddled his fingers, sitting on the ground. When had he sat down? His back was to the window as he watched the unfiltered light dance across the couch that was between him and the other side of the room. The light had a mind of its own, dappled from shining through leaves of the massive tree the city was built upon.
Kaveh found that silly. Why a tree, of all things? Was the forest really the best place for the capital of Sumeru? He could think of a million better places, but when he tried to think about something other than the light on the fabric of the couch all he could picture was Alhaitham’s face as he read, focused and blocking out the world around him. Kaveh felt himself slide further onto the ground, the cool wood pressing against the exposed skin on his back.
With the thought of Alhaitham still fresh in his mind, Kaveh’s eyes slipped into the realm of unseeing as his thoughts wandered. They weren’t even friends, why did he care so much? He was so tired. He was too tired for this. All his thoughts led back to Alhaitham. When he stared at his sketches he wondered if Alhaitham would like his choices or if the younger man would scoff at his design and tell him to rework it. That combative energy the scribe had fueled Kaveh, but he would never admit it. He had a feeling that Alhaitham knew anyway.
When Kaveh’s eyes finally returned to the present, he was standing again. He felt it when he stood up, but he didn’t realize it had actually happened until he was standing in the middle of the room, staring blankly at the table in front of him. Alhaitham’s notes were strewn across it in a fashion that would seem like chaos to anyone else— but Kaveh could tell Alhaitham was being neat in his own way. He knew where anything he needed was, even if it was in the most obscure places. Kaveh could never share that talent, especially because he couldn’t even remember how long Alhaitham had been gone. Or if he had slept since.
His hands were shaking. In fact, maybe it was his entire body that was shaking. His legs felt like blades of grass in the wind and his head was spinning— or maybe the room was spinning and he was perfectly still. Kaveh knew that he had to lay down. To get somewhere he could collapse in darkness and let it swallow him, to let himself be consumed by it and simply vanish. There was a special way Alhaitham could comfort him just by being there. The moment Kaveh knew Alhaitham was in his room he would furrow his brow and frown, but he didn’t admit that a warm feeling was spreading in his chest, something so incredibly different from the sinking coldness he always felt that it made him feel like his face was on fire.
Kaveh collapsed into a pile of clothes in the corner of his room. He didn’t know how old they were or if they were even clean. Had he changed his clothes at all? There was no way he could tell, he couldn’t remember anything and everything was blurring together, he was a walking corpse and he had finally entered his coffin. It took Kaveh a second to realize how hard it was to breathe as he lay there, his head sideways staring at the wall. His heart was beating so loud he could hear it, and it drowned out everything else, thoughts included. His hands were still shaking, his legs, his whole body was trembling and it was only getting worse. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t call out to Alhaitham, he wanted to open his mouth to try but it felt like he couldn’t if he wanted to, lips glued shut and throat dry. His head was pounding, but he couldn’t tell if that was new.
Kaveh lay there shaking with no concept of time. His eyes fluttered open and shut and it felt like he had been drifting in and out of consciousness for days on end. He thought he heard voices on multiple occasions, but nothing was ever there except blurry walls, and when he thought someone was touching his face it was only tears sliding down from crying eyes.
Eventually it stopped. His thoughts were never coherent, but at some point they seemed to cease altogether. The times his eyes were open they would be covered in black spots. He knew that it couldn’t be days that he was laying there, logically. He would be dead from dehydration. He should be dead. He should be dead. Really, of all people, he deserved it. What had he ever done that was good in the world? Why did he, of all people, deserve to be alive?
There was no reason. He was always the one to blame, even when no one would tell him out loud. Everyone knew it, there was no way he could keep a secret like that from the gaze of Sumeru citizens. Knowledge was everything. Accepting the truth. The truth— Kaveh knew the truth better than anyone— he knew it was his fault. His father dying in the desert was all his fault. His mother leaving him for Fontaine was all his fault. Why was everything his fault? The funeral. The tears. Everything was his fault. It didn’t have to make sense, in his broken heart, Kaveh knew.
He didn’t hear the front door unlock. He didn’t hear the footsteps in the hallway or his bedroom door open. He only tilted his head when the light streamed in, shadowed by a figure that he wasn’t sure was real or not. Kaveh barely moved. His body couldn’t do it. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate. It was pointless to try and move his arm to block the light, but just a slight twitch was all that was needed for the person in the doorway to turn off the light.
Kaveh knew it was Alhaitham. He should be happy. He should feel good seeing his friend again. Friend . The wrong word. They weren’t friends. Alhaitham looked at him with pity. Kaveh knew everyone did. They knew he hated himself. They all knew. He didn’t realize he was shaking again until Alhaitham crouched down beside him and wrapped his arms around his sides.
Kaveh could feel how much he was shaking when he brushed against Alhaitham’s steady arms, and he reached for the other man’s hand in silence, wrapping each finger around Alhaitham’s one by one. He needed to touch something with his skin, to bring him back, to let him feel something— anything. There was no emotion left to let out. There was nothing to say. Alhaitham recognized it as well, laying down behind Kaveh and sliding his right arm under the blond man, gently pulling him in closer without a word. Kaveh let himself be guided into the familiar curve of Alhaitham’s chest, the exposed skin on his back pressing against the smooth fabric of Alhaitham’s clothes. He closed his eyes, and for the first time in what could have been forever, Kaveh felt something.
He wasn’t happy— but he didn’t feel the emptiness that had been crushing him before this moment. Maybe he was imagining it, but the simple fact that something had changed gave him just the slightest bit of hope. He could push through this. He could escape. The thoughts that had been so loud stopped. Even if just for a moment, he could let himself rest. His body slowly relaxed, tense muscles loosening and limbs going limp as he let himself fall back into Alhaitham. He let this swallow him whole, and it was better than the shame and the pity.
For the first time in a week, Kaveh was able to sleep.