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Al Haitham tapped his index finger on the edge of his book as he read. He was waiting for Kaveh, sat comfortably in the morning sun. They always left the house together for work and he refused to change that particular part of his routine today, no matter how long Kaveh took in the bathroom. He didn’t mind waiting, in fact. Impatience was an emotion he rarely felt regarding Kaveh. He did, however, feel more restless than usual.
He glanced at the clock on the wall and back to his book. The house was unusually silent in a way that he distinctly disliked. It felt...loud and he could not ignore it. Usually, when Kaveh was running late it was noisy. Very noisy. He’d dart around like a bird, flitting from one thing and room to the next. He would also yell at Haitham. Ask him to mind the kettle or to gather his things for him. There was none of that now. The bathroom door remained firmly shut.
A few more minutes ticked by, each tick of the clock finding Haitham stuck on the same page that he had tried to read the minute before. He could make little sense of the printed words between his wandering thoughts and eyes. There was only the clock and the bathroom door. And the silence.
It took him a few more minutes to put a name to that silence. Connect it with a pattern he had grown to notice after Kaveh had started his transition. A quick look at the calendar all but confirmed it. It was that day of the week and Kaveh was struggling to do his testosterone shot. He knew this because he knew Kaveh. Knew the shape and sound of his distress, happiness and the absence of it.
His eyes wandered to the bathroom door again.
He sighed and closed his book with a snap. There was only one course of action to take between all the options that presented themselves really. After putting the book away he strode to the bathroom door and knocked.
“Kaveh, what’s taking you so long?”
He heard Kaveh startle and listened to the shaky breath he took. He was going to lie about it. He knew it. He just knew.
“Nothing. Everything is fine. Do you need to use the bathroom?” Kaveh called back brightly through the door.
His tone, his wording, all of it told Haitham that he was not fine at all. He pushed the door open and invited himself in. A glance around the room told him what he already knew. The vial of testosterone and the uncapped syringe lay waiting on the sink top.
“Haitham! What on-Get out!” Kaveh exclaimed, his arms shooting up to cover his bound chest. His hair was still unstyled, his face bare.
He’s been stuck on this for a while, Haitham surmised to himself. He handed Kaveh’s shirt to him and picked up the vial.
“How many ccs?” he asked, keeping his eyes down until Kaveh had pulled on his shirt.
“I-what?”
Haitham calmly repeated himself, took the syringe and stuck the needle into the vial. Kaveh mumbled an amount in answer and watched as he slowly drew up the thick liquid. He was quite frankly surprised Kaveh hadn’t kicked him out yet.
“Subcutaneously, right?” he prompted.
Kaveh confirmed with a nod of his head, unable to meet his eyes. His arms were crossed in front of him.
“Where do you usually do it?”
“Stomach,” he answered and added, “I can do it myself. You don’t need to do it for me.”
Haitham considered him a moment before reaching out and tugging on Kaveh’s shirt, “I know but today I want to.”
It took a few shaky breaths and a second of hesitation for Kaveh to lift his shirt up and only then enough to show his middle. Haitham pinched a bit of skin, lifted it, and did his utmost to gently insert the needle. Kaveh barely flinched, only silently watched as he slowly pressed down on the plunger and injected every last drop, then removed the needle. He dabbed the dot of blood away with a cotton ball, the both of them breathing out a sigh of relief.
“Since when do you know how to do injections?”
“First aid course I took a while back.”
It wasn’t. Not entirely. I specifically asked to learn it. Just in case. I heard your tone of voice when you told Tighnari that you sometimes just struggled to do it, wished someone else could do it.
Kaveh nodded and started to clear up after them. The syringe went in the bin and the vial went back to its place. His shirt was smoothed down and his hair pushed out of his face. Haitham leaned in the doorway and observed, his eyes following the hard set of Kaveh’s brow and shoulders, noted the line his lips formed. Kaveh barely met his gaze and the silence of his distress remained.
“Why are you lingering? Get out, let me finish up.”
Instead of answering, Haitham picked up his hairbrush.
“I can do it myself,” Kaveh objected tersely.
“I know but today I want to do it,” he said again.
With the wariness of a feral cat, Kaveh finally nodded and allowed Haitham to brush his hair. He made sure to untangle any knots he found with his fingers instead of the brush and gradually the rigid set of Kaveh’s shoulders softened somewhat.
“The spritz comes next, right?” he murmured. He’d seen how Kaveh styled his hair on occasion, knew the pattern of it.
He nodded.
Haitham quickly identified the little bottle by sight, not that he knew exactly what it was or why Kaveh used it. He copied the way he usually used it, spritzing it all over and then worked the product in with his fingers. Kaveh stood perfectly still.
“Cream then?” he prompted.
“The mousse,” Kaveh corrected.
He merely nodded and looked for the container he knew came next. Scooping out the same amount he’d seen Kaveh use in the past, he applied it, dutifully complying with the quiet instructions he drew out of Kaveh here and there.
“Pins?”
Kaveh opened a drawer and gathered a handful of his signature red pins. He held out his hand to Haitham, kept his head still as he proceeded to pin up his hair for him. Haitham could tell by the tremor of Kaveh’s hand that he was crying long before he accidentally let out a quiet sob that made him shake. He fist his hands so tightly that the remainder of his red pins spilled to the floor.
Haitham never really knew what to do when people cried. It took more than some scolding from Tighnari and Kaveh for him to understand that he dealt with it a little too brusquely. He took great care then to observe the actions of others when they comforted their friends and family. How Tighnari brushed away Collei’s tears of frustration. How Paimon spoke quietly to the Traveler when they missed their sibling. Kaveh was, after all, just that to him. His friend. His family. His loved one.
He wrapped an arm around Kaveh and held him even as he pushed away, tried to hide his face from him. Let him cry until he didn’t want to cry anymore.
“Do you think any less of me?” Kaveh breathed, the words spilling from his lips unbidden, like the pins he had spilt upon the floor.
“Why would I think less of you?” Haitham asked quietly.
“Do you think I’m less of a man because I couldn’t do the shot myself?”
Haitham’s voice felt as if it was stuck in his throat. “Why would that make me think less of you?”
Kaveh angrily wiped at his face, “You don’t understand.”
I don’t know what to say. How to communicate my feelings to you. You could wear feminine clothes and never use testosterone and you would still be a man to me.
“Maybe not but you don’t need to prove to anyone that you are a man. Least of all me,” Haitham said softly, his hair falling in his face, covering his eyes.
Kaveh scoffed, shaking his head, “ You don’t get it. You don’t understand what I feel. What's it like.”
Haitham’s arm dropped from around Kaveh’s torso, “You’re right. I don’t.”
Kaveh’s shoulders shot up and he squeezed his eyes shut as if waiting for a blow or an argument or an insult.
“But I see. I see what you do, how you act, how you struggle. I listen. I hear the things you say. I hear you so loudly, Kaveh. I know what’s important to you. I want you to have those things. I want to help you get those things. If you’re unable to do so yourself I want to help you. It’s not about you being less than,” Haitham spoke, brushing the hair in his face aside, eyes teary. Kaveh would still not look at him, “You don’t have to hide from me.”
Kaveh muttered an apology, of course he did, but that was alright. He wrapped him in his arms again and pressed his head against his shoulder. He didn’t know the words to fix this. But that was okay. Kaveh had never been something that needed to be fixed.
“I’m going to be late for work,” Kaveh remarked.
“I’ll tell them you’re sick on my way out.”
Kaveh shook his head and took a deep breath, “No, I don’t want to sit here and do nothing.”
“Let me do your makeup then.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Haitham held him tighter, “I know but today I want to do it.”
Kaveh laughed softly, “Do you even know how to apply everything?”
“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me how. My hands are better than yours right now anyway. Yours are shaking.”
Kaveh swatted at his arms, sounding a little offended, “Alright, alright. Don’t rub it in,” and then he finally looked up, meeting Haitham’s gaze in the mirror.
Haitham smiled and felt his gaze soften the way it only ever did when he looked at Kaveh. They picked up the fallen pins from the floor together.