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“What in Teyvat are you doing? Is that alcohol?”
To Alhaitham’s surprise, the blond senior only grinned at him, the bottle dangling precariously over the edge of the school roof. He wanted to look Kaveh in the eye when he was telling him off for committing such a blatant violation of school rules, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the bottle of clear liquid. It was going to fall any second, Alhaitham just knew it.
“Why? Do you want a swig?” When met with stunned silence, Kaveh grinned even wider (if that was possible at all) and put the bottle to his lips. Before Alhaitham could stop him, he was tilting his head back, downing the rest of the contents in one go.
Horrified, Alhaitham rushed over and forcibly pulled Kaveh off of the ledge, fearing that the blond might lose his balance and accidentally fall. This was met with a startled cry and lots of grumbling about “being manhandled”, but Alhaitham could barely hear anything through the pounding of his heart.
“Are you completely out of your mind? Putting breaking the rules aside for the moment, you could fall off the roof in that state,” Alhaitham hissed into Kaveh’s ear, unknowingly clutching the boy’s shoulders with bruising force.
“Hey, let go of me, that hurts! Jeez, I get it, Class President Alhaitham…” Kaveh slurred his words, resisting pathetically until Alhaitham felt bad enough to let go. “...You’re acting like me taking a little dive off the school rooftop is the worst thing that could happen.”
“What do you mean?” Alhaitham’s voice failed to convey the way his chest tightened.
Kaveh, despite his condition, managed to wiggle around to face him, half-kneeling and half-plastered to the ground. His eyes were disarmingly soft, his lashes catching the sun and casting shadows onto them.
“I just think it’d be easier, is all.”
…
“Alhaitham?”
There was worry in Kaveh’s eyes. In Kaveh’s eyes . Alhaitham tried to swallow the rapidly forming lump in his throat and say something, anything — after all, it was simply uncharacteristic of him to not have anything to say, and if there ever was a time to speak, it was now — but instead wrapped his arms around the limp blond, a sharp twinge of emotion blooming in his chest at how small the other felt like this, how cold .
Kaveh laughed drunkenly, swaying slightly under Alhaitham’s weight. “There, there. Don’t worry, I’m here.”
Those were the words that should’ve been coming out of Alhaitham’s mouth.
A shivering, pale hand traveled up the back of Alhaitham's neck and settled unsteadily in his hair. Kaveh began to stroke his head awkwardly. “Come on. What’s wrong?”
Alhaitham took a deep breath to steady himself. His lungs filled with the scent of sharp alcohol and cold sweat, but he found he didn’t mind.
“...It’s nothing. Let’s get you home, Kaveh. I’ll let your mother know first, and you can spend the night with me and my grandmother.” Kaveh smiled into Alhaitham’s neck, soft lips tickling his skin. Yet another reason for Alhaitham’s heartbeat to quicken.
“Okay. Thanks,” Kaveh stated simply, before muffling a yawn with the back of his free hand. “Can we rest here for a little while first? I’m really… tired.”
Alhaitham pulled away from Kaveh as gently as he could to allow the latter some breathing space, trying to come up with the right words to say. Should he comfort him? Well, of course. He knew the answer to that. How was the real question. And he couldn’t just brush off the remark Kaveh had made earlier, but he had to go about it in a way that didn’t come across as interrogative or insensitive.
“Uh… yeah, of course,” Alhaitham began at last. He felt the need to occupy the silence before he froze up completely.
At that, Kaveh smiled weakly in contentment and fell onto Alhaitham’s shoulder, so he hurried on, not wanting the boy to fall asleep before he could get his word in.
“...And Kaveh? When you wake up, I promise to make things up to you. You’re one of the few people in my life I would gladly die for, and I’m sorry for not telling you, as well as not acting on it earlier.”
“Okay. I forgive you.”
“No. Not yet, at least. I’ve been the opposite of what you need from me for so long.”
It was the truth. They'd been "friends" for months now (Alhaitham felt that the word friends failed to encapsulate the strangely intimate nature of their relationship), and regularly spent their afternoons together. Sometimes, Kaveh would let him look through his sketchbook. While Alhaitham marveled at the perfect linework and complex three-dimensional structures, Kaveh would caution him for the umpteenth time about not picking Art and Design for his final year.
They had their difference -- everyone did -- but what mattered at the end of the day to Alhaitham was always that the two were together. Okay, not in that way, but regardless, it was more than enough for him. To lose Kaveh would be to (dramatic metaphor alert) lose the light in his life.
Kaveh sighed dramatically. “That’s sweet of you and all, but what I really need now is sleep.”
Looking down at the boy curled up by his side, Alhaitham’s stomach did a flip for the millionth time. How many times had he looked into those rich ruby eyes and felt mesmerized? How he had worshiped him thinking of Kaveh as some kind of angel on earth, when really he was just as broken as anyone else, as in need of emotional support as anyone else?
“Then promise me.”
“Promise you what? God, Haitham, I’m literally so tired right now.”
It was irrational. Foolish. Laughable, even, coming from the lips of the ever-so-stoic Alhaitham, but he couldn’t help himself. “Promise me you’ll wake up.”
“I promise.”
Then, gently: “Go to sleep, Kaveh.”