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Alhaitham is not a man of excess.
Well, not in the traditional sense, at least.
He does not want a home full of shiny things, nor does he chase after the glimmer of mora.
Even the things that he does collect, he does not gather to excess. (Regardless of what certain people might have to say about the topic.) He frequently donates finished novels to the House of Daena, or trades them at the recently-established secondhand book shop on Treasures Street for new ones that catch his attention.
But all men have their vices, and Alhaitham, as he is quick to remind everybody, is only human.
Lambad's tavern is loud. It is late in the afternoon, or perhaps early in the evening– that ephemeral space that is both day and night at once, where the sun has set but the day's heat remains and it is too early for restful sleep.
Alhaitham is warm. The pleasant kind of warmth, the one that settles into his fingertips and caresses against his ribs. His right hand curls loosely around a goblet of wine; he isn’t quite sure what it is, but Kaveh had been drinking it and it had been good, and Alhaitham did not deny himself good things when they came his way.
(Kaveh had complained when Alhaitham had poured himself a glass from the bottle, of course, but they both knew whose tab the bottle would end up under, so the argument passed the way a lit match burned– bright, but quick, leaving behind the sweet smell of woodsmoke.)
Cyno and Tighnari sat opposite them, with Tighnari’s Casket of Tomes open on the table. Its contents lay spread across their half of the table and then some. Cyno was shuffling through them. A scrap piece of parchment was covered with hasty scribbles and crossed out names.
“No, no, this is all wrong,” Cyno was saying as he pulled an action card from the pile. “Sacrificial Greatsword is a good choice, sure, but its additional elemental dice consumption means that–”
From beside Alhaitham, Kaveh reached for the bottle on the table between them. He filled both their goblets with steady hands, then tipped the long neck of the bottle to Alhaitham.
“You’re next, you know.”
Alhaitham thinks of the Casket of Tomes taking up space in his belt pouch, and of the purposefully selected Dendro-Cryo-Geo team he’s crafted just for tonight’s TCG celebration. He smirks. Kaveh catches on immediately.
“Whatever you’ve done, I want no part of it. You know how Cyno gets.” Kaveh’s tone is fond. He glances at Cyno, who is busy rifling through the custom-made wooden box Kaveh had designed for him for his non-play decks and spare cards.
Alhaitham only hums. He and Cyno might be on better terms, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy getting a rise out of his coworker sometimes. Besides, Alhaitham intimately knew the spark of joy that came from correcting a misunderstanding, of having an excuse to share one’s knowledge. There was no reason that someone couldn’t be Alhaitham.
Kaveh’s eyes return to the sketch he’s spread out on his portion of the table. It’s an early draft, based on the wine stain in the corner that Kaveh pays no attention to. Even after the nearly half of a bottle Kaveh has consumed, his hands are devastatingly steady as he fills the page with his even script.
Alhaitham knocks their knees together under the table. Kaveh glances at him out of the corner of his eye.
“Mm?”
“Haven’t you worked enough?” Either the drink is stronger than Alhaitham expected or he’s had more of it than he thought, because there is a tinge of whine in his voice that he hadn’t meant to set free. Kaveh only rolls his eyes and returns his attention to the paper.
“Haven’t you had enough to drink?”
“Hmm.” Just because he can, and because he knows it will catch Kaveh’s attention again, Alhaitham reaches across the table to wrap his fingers around Kaveh’s ignored goblet. He swallows its contents quickly, ignoring Kaveh’s outraged protests.
Across the table, Tighnari chokes. Even Cyno sets his cards down for a moment, though the frown on his face shows that he’s not particularly pleased to do so.
“I can’t believe you! What was wrong with yours, huh? I even filled it for you, you ungrateful ass.”
Alhaitham smiles a tiny, self-satisfied smile and leans back in his chair.
“Get another bottle, then.”
“That’s– that’s not the point and you know it, Alhaitham!”
“Do I?”
Kaveh huffs, but he does set down his quill and make for the bar where Lambad stands watching them with an amused smile, so Alhaitham will take it as a victory. He finishes his own glass as well. After all, Kaveh couldn’t refill his glass if it wasn't empty, and Alhaitham did so enjoy any excuse he could take to get his senior to dote on him.
“You’re pathetic,” Cyno says, so matter-of-fact he may as well be commenting on the weather. Alhaitham only shrugs.
By the time Kaveh returns, Tighnari has cleared his cards off the table, Alhaitham's deck has replaced them, and Cyno has his head in his hands.
“Kaveh,” Cyno moans when the man finally returns to his seat. Alhaitham resists the urge to knock his foot into Kaveh’s ankle beneath the table– but only just.
“Please,” Cyno continues. His eyes are slightly wild. “I need you to translate.”
“Translate?”
“You’re the only one who ever seems to understand how this man’s brain works.”
Alhaitham huffs. “My reasoning is perfectly logical.”
“What reasoning could you possibly have for all of your action cards being for Pyro users when you aren’t using a single Pyro character?”
“Hmm. I assumed that you , of all people, would understand the strategy. Perhaps I was wrong.”
Cyno looks over at Kaveh, eyes pleading. Kaveh looks between Alhaitham, the deck spread like fallen leaves across the table’s surface, and Cyno’s frantic expression, and he throws his head back and laughs.
Alhaitham swallows. Kaveh’s throat is long and lean, with the sharp line of muscle and the shadow of scratchy hair. He is moving without thinking, shifting his chair closer so their thighs can press together under the table, trapping heat between them even through layers of fabric.
“I think I understand,” Kaveh says when his laughter finally stops. Alhaitham is too far gone to hide the satisfied little smirk that curves the corners of his lips.
Cyno looks distraught. His eyes flicker from card to card as though the secrets of the universe might be found in their descriptions.
“What am I missing?” he mutters. Tighnari leans over to pat him on the back.
“We’ve all been there, buddy.” The glance he throws across the table says all it needs to about what exactly he is referring to. Alhaitham ignores it, instead tapping his finger against the inside of Kaveh’s wrist in time with the music playing from somewhere above them. Kaveh has returned to his sketch again, his goblet freshly filled with the bottle he had retrieved from the bar.
“What is this project even for?” Alhaitham asks, as though their earlier conversation hadn’t been interrupted half a dozen times over. Kaveh shrugs and adds a delicate flourish to the metal filigree of a gate.
“Dunno,” Kaveh replies. "I'm just trying something new, that's all."
There’s ink staining his wrist, right above the jut of bone. It’s a lovely navy smear against a blank canvas. Alhaitham has seen ink on almost every inch of skin Kaveh bares, from the line of his sternum to the knob of his spine through the back window of his shirt. But it is this spot, on the sharpness of his wrist, that catches his attention the most frequently.
Alhaitham wraps his fingers under the heat of Kaveh’s skin and gently thumbs at the smear. It feels like nothing against his fingertips but Kaveh’s warmth. Alhaitham watches in quiet reverence as it spreads, the way the quiet veil of night might sink to guard the earth.
When he looks up, Kaveh is staring at him. From above, Kaveh’s face is cast in the flickering shadow of lamps, but his eyes still shine with a strange emotion Alhaitham can’t quite name.
His lips are stained with wine. Alhaitham can smell the sweetness on his breath.
“I’ve got it!” Cyno announces, and Alhaitham wants to kill the version of him that packed that stupid joke deck in the morning. He sits up sharply, ignoring the way the room sort of spins around him to focus on Cyno’s words.
“It’s an interesting strategic choice, to pack Elemental Tuning fodder into your deck.” Cyno is smug as he shuffles the cards together with an expert hand. He tucks them neatly back into their Casket of Tomes. Beside Alhaitham, Kaveh snorts.
“Interesting theory, but wrong.”
Cyno stops short. He looks a bit like he’s taken a bite out of a sour sort of fruit and is trying to pretend it wasn’t.
“Wrong?”
“Wrong,” Kaveh repeats. His tone is confident, and Alhaitham will be ashamed tomorrow of the way that his heart picks up speed at the sound. But he’s always been weak to this Kaveh, to the Kaveh who speaks with quiet, unbound assurance.
“Do tell, then.”
“Your flaw is in assuming he had any logic in this deck at all,” Kaveh says. He leans across the table and pulls Alhaitham’s Casket of Tomes from Cyno’s hand.
“When you look for a pattern, you will find it. It doesn’t matter if one is intended or not.” He sets the deck on the table between himself and Alhaitham before picking up his quill again. The feather’s edge waves merrily as Kaveh uses it to gesticulate.
“You expect Alhaitham to have some logic behind his choice of cards, and so you find a reasonable solution and apply it. You are allowing your knowledge of the subject to cloud your judgement.”
Cyno crosses his arms, looking unimpressed.
“So what’s your theory, then?”
Kaveh turns and prods Alhaitham’s neck with the feathery side of the quill, just below where his earpieces protect his ears. The feather is downy soft. Alhaitham shivers.
“That’s simple. He’s messing with you.”
Cyno snorts. Even Tighnari looks disbelieving. But Alhaitham is filled with a rush of affection so strong he has to grip his goblet with both hands. He brings it to his lips just to hide his smile.
“No offense, Kaveh,” Cyno says, even though his voice suggests that he doesn’t particularly care if he offends Kaveh one way or another. “But I think you just don’t understand Genius Invocation TCG. Which is alright, of course, as it’s a very complicated game with an incredibly nuanced meta–”
“You’re right,” Kaveh replies, his voice surprisingly mild. “I don’t really get Genius Invocation. But I do understand Alhaitham. And I know I’m right.”
Cyno turns to Alhaitham, then, as though waiting for Alhaitham to point out how ridiculous Kaveh’s claim is. But instead, Alhaitham only tips his head back and drains his glass.
Cyno sighs and pulls his own Casket of Tomes from his pocket to challenge Tighnari to a game.
"To test your newly reorganized deck," he says. Tighnari shakes his head fondly but retrieves his deck nonetheless.
Kaveh returns to his drawing with a smirk of his own.
Whether Cyno believes Kaveh or not is irrelevant to Alhaitham. He has learned to enjoy Cyno’s company, it’s true. But Cyno is not why Alhaitham spends his free evenings in a crowded tavern.
“Well?” Kaveh asks. He eyes are entirely focused on his design, but they both know what he is asking.
“Well, what? Didn’t you say you knew you were right?”
“I did. But confirmation is always nice.”
Alhaitham shifts until the back of his hand is pressed to the curve of Kaveh’s. Arm to arm and thigh to thigh. This time, Alhaitham is the one reaching for the bottle, and he is more than content to top off Kaveh’s glass before refilling his own.
Alhaitham is not a man of excess. But the things he does enjoy, he collects inside himself the way a cactus bloats itself on the desert’s rare rains.
He drinks greedily, as though he might never be full, never be satisfied. But for tonight, with warmth pressed against his side and swirling in his chest, it is enough.