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Time was no longer patient with Kaveh.
Every passing tick on the clock pressed him down and bullied him into a corner. His cinnabar eyes darted across the room lazily to check the hour. At the sight of it, a sharp grimace contorted on his features, the crease between his brows only deepening further.
During his days in the Akademiya, Kaveh remembers meeting scholars who dedicated their studies to the skies and the stars that twinkled and decorated the cloak of night that embraced Teyvat after every sunset.
They spoke to him of their vigils, of how the moon seemed to lean in closer as they raised their gazes and mapped out every coruscating orb their eyes would lay upon. The stars, as Kaveh learned, would shift as they played in the sky. And to track them, the astronomers drew maps of the night on thin sheets of parchment. And they had hundreds pinned to walls and scattered over desks, some with tattered edges and spilled drops of coffee that created nebulae of their own.
At his behest, manuscripts would be thrust to Kaveh’s breast. More than he could bear in his hold, full of drawings of the star clusters. Some would cling to one another and form constellations, taking forms the astronomers would spin tales around and call names.
The scintillating array of Paradisaea, the one Kaveh was born under, was one the astronomers looked forward to spotting every night, for it meant good fortune. They told Kaveh legends of how the Bird of Paradise his constellation resembled grazed the skies and never settled on the ground. As they guided him to look at it through contraptions made of curved mirrors and lenses, Kaveh listened in to promises the shadow the bird once cast blessed the ones below with luck.
How bitter and apocryphal it was for Kaveh to learn he was born on the night the stars spun the wheel of fate and granted luck. How utterly wrong to hear he got born with a celestial shamrock in his hands and that his life will be riddled with good chances.
Redolent and weary, his eyes now shifted to the nearby window, now an expanse of pitch black tar and obsidian. Not one orb shone on the dark sky. Could it be so tardy even the stelliferous expanse that glittered through the night went to put itself to rest?
Was Kaveh not worthy anymore of standing below the constellation of Paradisaea? Of catching sight of it for a crumb of fortune? Did it still travel the cosmos? Or perhaps it tired much like he did of everything, and hid beneath a mulberry colored eiderdown.
Kaveh’s crimson eyes met instead his own reflection in the window pane. He looked sullen, and felt smaller than he ever had. Locks of aureate hair stuck in places they shouldn’t despite his effort to tame them, grazing the hollow of his cheeks and splaying across his forehead, almost covering his tired eyes. Even his posture looked painful, anxiousness drawing his body taut like a bow, rigid and carved in stone.
A nasty knot formed inside his throat, lodged itself there like a plum pit Kaveh couldn’t cough out. He tore his gaze away and laid it back on his desk, a violent sea of hashed out drawings and paper torn and scrunched to pulp. Kaveh tasted bile on his tongue as a pained sigh escaped his wobbling lips.
For a moment Kaveh was a babe again, swaddled in his mother’s embrace safely, and he could cry and pour his heart out and somehow know everything would align into place as sleep finally overtook him. Unfinished projects and promises didn’t crawl around him like quicksand, didn’t threaten to eat and swallow him alive.
Weariness clung and built around him like silt, heavy at the base of his skull where he clutched to soothe the ache that pounded beneath his fingertips. Kaveh placed his pencil down, amidst scribbles and calculus. His chest burned and strained as it contracted with sharp breaths, feeling like his ribcage was too small for his lungs.
One lone candle warmed Kaveh’s face and cast a lurid sheen across his sketches, pitiful chiaroscuro of the light of the Kshahrewar. His clammy hands darted to his bobbing throat, leaving smears of charcoal across the alabaster expanse of skin.
Is this why the Paradisaea only resided in the skies? Not out of virtue of soaring through the clouds and never ceasing the flap of its wings. Instead, out of fear of what the land had to offer, the grime and mud its labradorescent plumage would be tainted with.
There was always so much work and never enough time, dragging on until every sketch and every letter became an amorphous shape that haunted him every living second. How much longer did Kaveh have to endure this emotional attrition? How many more days was he to drag himself through the mire, his being a little soul carrying about a corpse?
Always a calculus error, always a line drawn askew, a column etched off-kilter, always a life lesser than, never a day where he had been good enough.
Sharp inhales and staggered exhales echoed in the living room that seemed to grow smaller around him with every painful breath. Kaveh’s pulse quickened and thundered, threatening to crack him open into shards. Dread seized his limbs, growing across his forearms like vines that took root and wrapped around his wrists, forcing his palms to squeeze at his temples. A feverish fear overtook him, promising to pick at the seams and tear him apart.
Kaveh never remembers feeling this sick. It lasted an eternity and it ended in less than a second. It was a tide that broke into the bed of sand only to reel back and punch again with more vigor.
Through the static that rung in his years, little sounds of pain cracking and festering, Kaveh heard the soft padding of feet get closer. A sharp gasp to his right, concealed out of sight. A sweet sound, dangerously close to being his name.
“Kaveh?“ This time wet and forced, not nearly as gentle as the first call, an imperfect quality to it, a spring that broke out of place.
Kaveh dug his cuspids into his bottom lip, chewing it crocus pink and swollen as he looked up towards the doorframe of the now significantly better lit room, no longer enshrouded in darkness. His mind was foggy, honey slow, still it registered-
Alhaitham.
His silhouette slowly focused into view, ragged and lacking the swan-like grace usually held in his posture, skittish as he stood there awkwardly. Like a baby deer finding its footing.
Chatoyant eyes still heavy with sleep, so soft, so darling, never left Kaveh’s form, enveloping him in warmth. Had Kaveh not felt like the sky would crumble on him, he would’ve found Alhaitham beautiful in such a vulnerable state. More than, even, Kaveh’s pulchritudinous worried thing: abstruse Alhaitham, paragon or beauty.
Hearing his name roll off Alhaitham’s tongue so mellifluously, like a quiet prayer, punched a dolorous cry past Kaveh’ throat and lips. Something unspooled inside his chest like rope dragged down by a heavy anchor, all steel and frustration, weighing him down.
A dam broke and angry tears glided across his reddening cheeks, sobs tipping his body forward, making his forehead press against his drawn up knees. It mortified him how he wanted to reach out, to be held like an infant, to feel grounded with his feet on the floor, too sense he wasn’t fading into nothing and bile didn’t crawl up in his mouth.
In between half a century and a moment, Alhaitham was next to him. He pressed Kaveh to his chest, arms wrapping around his torso in attempt to mollify him. “Oh dove...” He murmured against the aureate crown of Kaveh’s head, pressing kisses into the blonde hair as one would to a holy icon.
As Kaveh leaned into the touch, breath wet with tears and full of languor, Alhaitham crooned and stroked the sinewy expanse of his back, working out any knots he could find, untying all the hurt. His fingers pressed pusillanimously through the silk chemise, as if afraid to hurt with featherlike caresses, easing a little of the heartache.
Kaveh hid his face in the crook of Alhaitham’s neck, his throat still raw as he cried, breathing in the familiar scent of frankincense and sandalwood, of being home as his lips ghosted Alhaitham’s skin in plea. The latter’s hold tightened around Kaveh, guiding him in carry, away from the desk, settling on the cushioned couch instead, grousing protection spells in his ears.
“Darling, darling thing, you’re safe dearheart, I’m here, I’m here-“ Alhaitham soothed, voice above a whisper, his warm breath like petals gliding against the tips of Kaveh’s ears. One hand cradled Kaveh’s head gently, keeping him close, the other rested on the small of his back, rubbing loving circles into it.
It was a wonder to Kaveh how he melted under Alhaitham’s touch, pliant and soft like paraffin, his voice syrupy and low lulling him to a calmer state. Every press of Alhaitham’s lips to Kaveh’s burning forehead, his damp cheeks, the corner of his brow, the tremoring lid of his eye was soporific, pulling him closer to the edge of sleep.
Kaveh’s sobs muffled themselves and hid somewhere inside his chest, some still escaping past the plush of his lips and soaking into the skin of Alhaitham’s throat. A langour so ancient settled in Kaveh’s bones, suddenly feeling as if they were made of lead, his body slumping in his lover’s hold. And all Alhaitham could do was squeeze and and tighten around him, cosseting Kaveh as if he was made of gold and pearls. Alhaitham, who’d sooner spit in a God’s face than bow to them, looked at Kaveh as if he was holy.
A millennium could pass for them in embrace and still not be enough for Kaveh, who now leaned his forehead against Alhaitham’s shoulder, feeling his fingers trace the ridges of his spine, his head tilted to rest on Kaveh’s, hair like spun silver tickling his cheeks.
“Love?“ Alhaitham called so quietly, so tenderly Kaveh was overwhelmed with the burning want to kiss him. He refrained and instead tilted his head to try and look at Alhaitham who brushed his fingertips against the shell of Kaveh’s ear as he tucked strands of his bangs behind it. “You don’t have to speak but…are you with me?“
Alhaitham’s voice sounded croaked, the broken quality of it almost foreign to Kaveh. Some of the venom that thrummed in his blood started to clot and travel close to his chest, pulsing just beneath his sternum. It threatened to break it, break him, Kaveh feared his chest would erupt and out would come belching all the ugly and rot inside. He feared he would end up spilling on Alhaitham, who always seemed so eager to shoulder Kaveh’s sorrows, and soil someone clean.
What made Alhaitham crumble? He who reached his professional apotheosis long ago and maintained it, with his eclectic set of skills that would eclipse even the Grand Sages.
Kaveh remembers Alhaitham younger, cheeks still plump with youth, more pellucid and wet behind the ears than he is now. Brilliant, still, in everything he did, debonair young thing with hair made of gossamer that caught the keen eye of everyone, and kept their attention drawn like fish that needed water. Genius among the common, scholar blessed by the Dendro Archon, prodigal gift for the Haravatat, and to Kaveh, Alhaitham was a friend.
Even then he seldom got frustrated, and when Alhaitham’s harangue formed in an arrow it appeared to mostly shoot at oblivious, quixotic Kaveh, who took and took until one day he didn’t care for the scolding anymore.
Perhaps he had been right, Alhaitham, that his avidity for idealism would eventually be the end of him. That Kaveh gave not of our virtue, but out of guilt of having, that his efforts would only amount to his own emotional wilting, until the shell of him would remain.
There had been nights Kaveh asked the astronomers of a constellation that did not belong to him, for he was a fool and brimming with a lovesick kind of hope. The scholars always obliged him with tender smiles, and spoke to Kaveh of a bird of prey, a vulture, portent for force and courage. It fit Alhaitham, Kaveh would think, to be admirable, to stand proud, to be brave. It made his heart thump in his chest, it beat erratically, to think their constellations could soar through the skies together.
Years ago, Kaveh cannot remember anymore, an archaic ache settled in his bones, it dragged him down and made him slow, and he would think of the Paradisaea, the way the astronomers would stand in awe as they spoke of the bird’s swiftness. Quick as lighting, quicker than, the sort of agility that threatened to cut the horizon apart.
Kaveh wonders when he stopped running, and started limping himself away, doesn’t remember an existence without the hollow he feels all throughout himself, a rind with all its insides scooped out.
He returns to the present and Teyvat, sees Alhaitham blink down owlishly at him with his usual moue plastered on his visage. His gaze sends a shiver down Kaveh’s spine, two bottomless lagoons of teal and aventurine peering at him curiously. How much of it, Kaveh wondered, was a lover, cosseting his maudlin partner tenderly, and how much was a vulture, the one resting in Alhaitham’s constellation, prodding around Kaveh’s carcasse.
“I’m sorry.“ Kaveh breaks, the words have thorns around them as they escape his throat, the echo of his voice finally feeling like it belongs to him.
If possible, Alhaitham only holds him tighter, cradles him as if he were made of silk and gemstones. “You darling thing, whatever for?“ He questions and it sounds small and wet, like the cry of a hurt animal.
Kaveh isn’t sure where he would begin, what was he sorry for truly? For feeling like a sore and tender wound was always opened up within him? For Alhaitham bearing witness to it as he stitched himself up over and over again? For not letting his friend, his lover, the brighest star in the sky for Kaveh, help him pick up the broken pieces and glue them back together, pride too heavy on his chest?
He hesites to answer, Alhaitham sees it because of course he does, and as he smiles gently down at him, Kaveh believes this is the closest he’ll get too see the moon. “Whatever you sense you must apologize for, I doubt is in actuality your fault.“ Alhaitham crooned, his fingers dancing across Kaveh’s scalp, choosing to eventually halt their waltz at the back of his neck, making him meet his gaze. “I’d feel terrible were you to feel you need to excuse yourself for just- being.“
An amused huff left Kaveh’s lips, crimson eyes looking expectantly at Alhaitham, tracing the curve of his jaw, the delicate slope of his nose, the slight curl of his lips. “Being?” He repeated, sardonic and endeared,his palm resting on Alhaitham’s chest, calming down with the slow pulse akin to the batting wings of a butterfly.
A chaste kiss on Kaveh’s forehead. A firmer one planted on his cheekbone. “Wicked thing.“ Alhaitham murmured, voice dipped in honey, lighter now. “To exist, to be, means also to feel, every way there is to. Bubbling with joy, boiling with rage-“ The hand caressing Kaveh’s nape stopped for a moment, like a clock ticked out of pace. “Crying and upset. What I mean to say is I- I would not judge you for- for anything, really.“
A flame licked at Kaveh’s heart as he pressed his palms to Alhaitham’s shoulders, steadying touch to ground him, and surged forward to kiss him, briefest brush of lips, sweet and like the opening of a rosebud. Alhaitham’s hands cupped Kaveh’s face,breaths intermingling as their foreheads leaned one on another, lovers as two weeping willows that threaded their branches together for support.
Alhaitham looked at Kaveh with so much want and longing, and galaxies bloomed in his irises, the entire universe in his eyes and Kaveh had the privilege of meeting his gaze. “I can almost hear you thinking.“ He wants to laugh but it comes out bitter, Alhaitham doesn’t seem to mind, closing his eyes, lashes fanning across his cheeks.
“I worry for you.“ It comes out pusillanimously, a timid confession carved out of gelatin. It hits Kaveh like a pile of bricks. When Alhaitham opens his eyes again the stars are gone and replaced by an abyss, they are a void, they are the bottom of the sea the light cannot hope to reach.
Kaveh wishes he knew how to fix himself, wishes he would never have to see Alhaitham this fragile in front of him, wished for so much more in life. “As do I.” He responds, braced on Alhaitham’s lap as his thumb brushes past his brow-bone as if he was made of clay and Kaveh a sculptor. And with how yielding Alhaitham is as he chases the touch and the sweet sigh that escapes his lips, he must be made of nothing but gault and tenderness.
His eyes now beg and they’re demanding, Kaveh could only submit in defeat. “I fear I weigh you down at times..” He starts with a voice made of porcelain, feels Alhaitham’s fingers spasm against his lower back as if burnt and hurt. “ I worry you won’t know when to stop aiding me to care for yourself, even when younger you helped others to a fault. “ Kaveh’s fingers now ghosted against Alhaitham’s cheeks, committing his knitted brows and pursed lips to memory.
Something saccharine and darling bloomed inside of Kaveh’s chest, a longing that grew and seeped between his ribs like sweetened syrup, a craving to hold, to cherish, to melt. And he does, as he buries himself in the crook of Alhaitham’s neck and burns for the one that cradles him so gently. It’s a wonder how quiet Alhaitham gets when the cogs turn inside his mind, how leveled his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest and stomach. It quiets Kaveh down unlike anything else, a raft that carries him out at sea once capsized.
“Do you trust me?“ Alhaitham beckons, one of his hand now finding purchase in Kaveh’s hair, golden like spun sugar against his fingertips.
Kaveh pulls back, his widened dark eyes more blood than rubies. “With my life.“ He speaks it without any thought or doubt, as if it were an universal truth, clings to that certainty like an anchor, a pillar of support.
“Then trust me to know when to stop, as I trust you to do the same. Do that for me sweetheart?“ Unerring Alhaitham reassures and Kaveh can only nod weakly, only surrender. His chest feels lighter, his lungs not caving in with guilt as adamantly as before.
The timid smile that breaks across Alhaitham’s lips makes warmth bloom in the pit of Kaveh’s belly. It sears through him and threatens to consume. Stars alight across his eyelids when Alhaitham draws him by his chin and kisses him, mouth all heat and honey. Kaveh’s arms wind around Alhaitham’s neck, body arching against his like the moon. He feels heady with want and need, Alhaitham’s tongue brushing against the plush of Kaveh’s lips like silk.
“Beautiful, darling, pretty thing-“ Alhaitham croons against Kaveh’s mouth ,nipping his bottom lip pink, hands coming up to rest over his shoulder blades. “Wish that I could kiss you always.“ He sighs sweetly, as if a worshipper in prayer and Kaveh his benevolent God.
“You can. I have only ever been yours, I’ll be yours an eternity.“ Kaveh smiles against Alhaitham’s lips, feeling his eyes prickle with yearning, overwhelming him so. “I mean it when I say it. It’s always been you, Alhaitham. Only you.” Kaveh speaks the words as if a sacred spell, throat constricting with emotion. It’s frantic the way he cradles Alhaitham’s head, pushes his forehead against his and sits there with eyes screwed shut, afraid to meet the gaze of the only man he ever loved.
“My dove, my Kaveh. Everything in the world you are.“ Alhaitham whispers to him so gently Kaveh hears the tremble in his voice and wants to cry, to soothe all the inquietudes that plagued Alhaitham’s mind. A sob wretches itself past Kaveh’s lips and Alhaitham pulls him away to gaze at him, thumb darting to wipe the tears that cling to his skin.
Pulled apart from Alhaitham, Kaveh can see the way his eyes glisten and flutter closed, lashes wet when they curve against his skin. “I love you.” Alhaitham grouses so wounded, so stark from his usual aplomb mien, utters it over and over like a prayer. “I love you and for that you- we if you’d like, must find a way dearheart. It kills me slowly to see you in so much pain.“
“Tell me what you need. I will give it to you whatever you might ask for. I’ll run away and I’ll leave everything behind, you need ask once.“ Alhaitham pleads, holding Kaveh by his temples, where all his pain sits on the inside, frantic and delusional for a scholar that held his routine sacred.
What makes Kaveh’s stomach churn was the unmoving sincerity in Alhaitham’s eyes, not some trite, facetious fistful of words, but a promise. Vinaceous eyes look back at Alhaitham, meet his smolder diffidently, and tight lipped and lily-livered, Kaveh finds the strength still to shake his head at the proposal.
For a split second he travels once more across a galaxy and sees the Paradisaea, ripping the cosmos apart with its speed. His feet are firmly planted on the ground, his hands reach for the sky, his mind longs to fly. Kaveh curses all of the grime and dirt of the earth and his feet for not being able to take him higher, let him glide beneath the Bird of Paradise, for a soupçon of luck.
But perhaps there is another way. Perhaps the soil he stands on isn’t barren, perhaps buds can still spring from his touch and allow him to grow again. Perhaps the vulture circles around him not out of hunger but to protect, doesn’t drop down to the ground because inside of Kaveh there is something still beating, something still worth saving.
“I love you dearly.“ Kaveh declares, not missing the proud quirk of Alhaitham’s lips. “But such a thing would never be right, not for me and nor for you. It’s a sacrifice I would never put you through.“ He brushes his lips against the corner of Alhaitham’s mouth briefly, too full, too overwhelmed to kiss him properly.
Alhaitham tips Kaveh’s head forward, kissing the very crown of his head in worship, blossoming with gratitude, so sugary and innocent. “Yet I would do it in a heartbeat, you know this?”
Kaveh hums in assent, a long lost grin splitting across his features and returning to him. “I know. My darling Alhaitham, I know.“ He chuckles and in turn Alhaitham is quick to gather Kaveh closer and pepper his faces with kisses, urging melodious giggles out of him.
They remain that way a long time, cheek to jowl, sharing breaths and cosseting one another. That night, somewhere across the sky two birds flew alongside each other and woke up every star, urging them to light up the sky.
That night time chose gentleness, and offered Kaveh just a bit more of itself.