Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kaveh cannot remember which constellation appeared first. No matter how far back he traces his own memories, he has always had two. 

One sits on his right shoulder, in the place where his father holds him while they both look upward at an endless sea of blue. The exact words his father spoke are a blur, lost to time and childhood memory, but he can remember a timbre that felt like home and a grip on his bony shoulder as his father named each star as though they were precious secrets stored in the space between father and son, between moonrise and daybreak. The constellation forms a star, as deep and boundless of a blue as the night sky itself. 

His father taught him about the stars, how each one was gas burning so hot it emitted light, and how their sun is just a star particularly close to Teyvat. The constellation on Kaveh’s back reflects that truth– not a traditional star, the kind with five points that a child might draw next to a smiling sun, but a ball set alight by its own heat. Consuming itself to give light to an empty galaxy.

The other constellation on the same side’s shoulder blade. It’s a feather quill, its ends curled delicately downwards. The kind his mother uses to finalize a draft, meant only for archival ink.  

His mother does not join them in the evenings, but when Kaveh climbs onto her workbench and stands to reach the very top of her drafting table, toddler toes extended to their limit so pudgy fingers can brush the tops of smooth paper, she steadies him in the same spot every time. Kaveh draws with his left hand, and his mother holds him, and all is right in his world.

They walk the Bazaar on lazy weekend mornings. Kaveh walks between them, one hand in each of theirs. His parents reach for him even when his hands are sticky with honey or gritted with dirt, and sometimes they swing him between them. One of the aunties always slips him a piece of nabat, sweet with sugar and Sumeru rose. 

Kaveh’s father always takes his left hand and his mother his right. It’s no surprise to any of them when Kaveh’s paradisaea spreads its wings in their palms, but Kaveh still traces the design in their hands anyway, eyes wide with reverence and joy. The lines are as crimson as the sky at the most fiery part of sunset, and the dots as gold as mora. 

His parents bear his constellation, and Kaveh carries theirs, and he is loved.

It’s a completely average day when Kaveh sees the poster for the Interdarshan Championship on a message board. He tugs on his father’s hand and points at the picture taking up most of the space.

“Baba, what’s that?”

(Why had he asked? Why didn’t he understand how to be content with what he had?)

Kaveh’s father explains as they continue their walk. About the Interdarshan Championship, and the diadem, and all that it means. And Kaveh, mouth full of sweet sugar and heart overflowing with want, turns to his father and says the words he’ll regret for the rest of his life.

“It’s pretty, baba! I wish I could wear a crown like that.”

A hand comes down to ruffle his hair, and Kaveh laughs and tries to swat it away.

“Well, I suppose I’ll just have to win it for you then, won’t I?”

Kaveh’s eyes light up, wide and wondrous, and the rest of their market visit is spent with Kaveh daydreaming about how wonderful it would be to walk the Bazaar with a crown on his head. 

(Stupid child. How many storybooks had he read with his mother? How many little fairy tale children have had their lives ruined by greed?)

Kaveh never gets to wear that crown. Kaveh is disappointed, as children always are when they do not get their wish, but it’s okay, because he has his mother and his father and that is enough for him. 

Except his father returns from his loss as a different man. Quieter, now. More withdrawn. Some nights, Kaveh comes wandering into his study with his cloak already over his shoulders only to be turned away with a sigh and a wave of a constellation-studded hand. Nights spent under the blanket of Teyvat’s sky are replaced with Kaveh laying on the rug in the study, star charts spread out across the rug as he quizzes himself on all that he has learned. 

His father is just busy. Kaveh understands the weight of the Akademiya and the burdens of a scholar. Once his father has found his answers, he will return to Kaveh, and they will stargaze again. 

“Tomorrow night?” Kaveh asks every evening over dinner, hope and resignation twisted together in his chest. And every night, his father only offers him a bone-weary sigh.

“We’ll see, Kaveh,” he replies every time. 

And then, on one unremarkable day, Kaveh’s father crouches low and grasps Kaveh by the shoulder to say goodbye.

Kaveh’s eyes well with tears and he grasps the edge of his father’s sleeve. 

“When you come back,” he says, his childish voice wavering with the force of his sorrow, “you have to take me to look at the stars, okay? Promise!”

Kaveh’s father smiles sadly and pulls him close to press a kiss to his hairline. 

“I promise,” he replies, “Dear Kaveh, there is no rush. The stars will always be there for us.”

Kaveh sniffles. It takes his mother prying his tiny fingers from his father’s robe before Kaveh is willing to let his father go, and his mother still has to hold him in his arms so his father can leave without child-sized arms wrapped around a leg. 

Kaveh’s last memory of his father is him waving goodbye at the end of the road, a travel pack thrown over a shoulder. 

(If Kaveh had known what would come next, would he have even been able to stop it?)

There’s no body to bury. Only the news, delivered by a man in a Corps of Thirty uniform. 

Kaveh doesn’t believe them. He’s heard stories of people returning from the desert long after Sumeru assumed them dead. It’s one of his favorite stories told in the stars above them. When the soldier leaves, and it is just him and his mother in their cold, dark home, he climbs into her lap and presses his hand to her cheek. Even in his memory, his hand is small against her ashen face.

He tells her the story. He doesn’t remember every detail, of course, but he tries to make his voice sound the way his father’s did when he first told Kaveh the story– full of magic and mystery and awe of the stars. 

When he is finished, he looks into her shadowy eyes and waits to see a spark of light in them. To see the smile he thinks of when he thinks of his mother. She only pats his head and returns to staring at the wall across from them. Their last family photo hangs there. Kaveh, grinning, the corners of his mouth stained with saffron from the candy in his hands. His parents on either side, both smiling down at him with fondness. He presses his ear to her chest, over the spot where she bears his father’s mark, and closes his eyes. Her heart beats in his ears. It’s all he can hope for, now.

The study door remains closed and silent. Sometimes, when Kaveh cannot carry the weight that hangs unseen around his throat, he’ll slip into the empty room and sit on the rug beside his father’s chair. When he closes his eyes, he can almost grasp the sound of a quill on parchment, of a hand on his shoulder. His own is a poor mockery– too small, too weak– but he holds his shoulder anyway, and lets the tears fall only where his mother will not see them. 

Time passes, as it does. The stars shift and change in the sky, and one day Kaveh looks up and realizes that he cannot name the star shining above him. Disgust grips him, and Kaveh only narrowly avoids throwing up in the Sumeru roses along the side of the path.  How could he forget? How could he let the memory of his father slip through his fingers like silk ribbon, like something he could ever let go?

Kaveh digs his claws into each memory. He sketches what he can remember of his father’s face. Notebook after notebook, each page marked with notes about stars and their movements and their stories, all interspersed with hazy sketches of a man Kaveh thinks of almost every day, but somehow never quite remembers.

The fall after Kaveh turns sixteen, he takes the entrance exam for Kshahrewar. It feels like a betrayal, but Kaveh cannot pretend that pinning the white lion badge to his newly pressed scholar’s robes does not alight something almost like pride in him.

Other students are met outside the halls by eager parents. Some carry bouquets of padisarahs and roses, of lotuses and greenery. Others hold smaller gifts in dainty jewelry cases, or heavy tomes bound in leather and gold. 

Nobody greets Kaveh at the door of the Akademiya. There are no flowers, no rings, no smiling family waiting to tell him how proud they are. He steps into the sunshine of Sumeru alone, and he walks home alone, and he eats dinner alone. Nevermind that another body sits across from him at the table. Still, that traitor, hope, burns in his chest. His beret sits proudly atop blonde hair. The white lion gleams even in the low light, metal details catching and throwing color. 

At one point, his mother glances up, and Kaveh straightens his spine. Maybe, just maybe–

“You look more like your father every day,” his mother whispers. Her eyes glitter with tears. She turns back to her meal.

Kaveh finishes his food in silence. He does not wish his mother a good night when he leaves.  

The expectations of Kshahrewar are strict. Kaveh chafes beneath the rigor of expectation. The Akademiya claims that they wish to foster curiosity, that they believe in learning for learning’s sake, but Kaveh’s professors do not seem to share the sentiment. He does well in his classes, but each semester review comes with the same feedback. Kaveh is too much of a dreamer. He needs to be realistic in his designs. He is squandering his skill on flights of fancy.

Too much.

Too bright.

Kaveh is polite in his acceptance of criticism before he tosses it aside with the garbage. How can he hope to be half the man his father was without reaching high enough to touch the stars themselves? His father loved them with all of his heart, and now he is gone because of Kaveh’s selfish wants. It is only fair that Kaveh reaches them in exchange. 

He spends more time at the Akademiya and less time at home. His mother has been spending more and more time in Fontaine, and the mild countryside air seems to be doing her some good. There is color in her cheeks that Kaveh has not seen in years, and sometimes she even smiles at him across the table or asks him a question about his classwork. It’s not the same as it was, but it’s something, and Kaveh clings to it like a man drowning. Perhaps they are healing. Perhaps, if Kaveh works hard enough, then he can have a fractured shard of the family he once called home. 

Or perhaps, Kaveh will receive exactly what he deserves for being the reason his family shattered in the first place.

Kaveh comes home one Friday evening with takeout for the two of them and his mother announces that she is leaving. Her words deep into the marrow of his chest and squeeze. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. Her eyes remain locked on the teacup in front of her, even as Kaveh drops into the chair opposite her, even as he reaches for her hand.

“I’m sorry, Kaveh. I just… cannot stay here any longer. Not… I can’t.”

Her hands stay folded in front of her, Kaveh’s constellation vanished between her palms. Kaveh retracts his reach.

“Very well,” Kaveh finally says past the stone in his throat. His head feels heavy. “I wish you the best.”

She does not ask Kaveh to go with her. Kaveh does not offer. 

Kaveh accompanies his mother to the dock on a bright summer’s morning to see her off. She wears the long sleeves and full-palmed gloves of Fontaine’s countryside even now, at the height of the Sumeru summer. It hides the spot where Kaveh’s constellation should sit. Is it still there? Kaveh had never heard of a constellation fading from someone’s skin before… well.

 She wraps her arms around herself as she says her goodbyes. 

Kaveh keeps his scholar’s robes on. It hides the empty space where her feather should be. 

He hugs her goodbye and does not cry when she lets go first. He waves, placid smile perfectly placed, until her ship crosses the line of the horizon and his eyes can no longer follow its wake. 

Kaveh returns to his now empty house. The master bedroom is silent when he passes it on the way to his room, but this isn’t new. This house has been empty of all the things that make it a home for years now. He hangs his robes neatly in the empty wardrobe of his room. 

He sits on his bed facing the mirror above his vanity and watches his fingers trace empty skin until the darkness swallows him whole. 

On an unseasonably cool winter’s day, Kaveh meets Alhaitham. 

Alhaitham at eighteen is like nothing Kaveh has ever experienced before. Kaveh has never met someone who enrolled so late, and yet Alhaitham breezes through his classes with effortless ease. Honestly, it’s no wonder he’s finding himself the target of ire from his yearmates.

Kaveh normally spends his break periods outside, wandering the grounds and enjoying the fresh air, but today is too cool for Kaveh, and so he spends it wandering the House of Daena instead. 

Most of the tables are filled with students gossiping or working on projects with scraps of paper spread on the wooden surfaces. Kaveh takes a moment here or there to listen to the conversations, but finds nothing of interest until he rounds a corner and spots a lone student sitting at a table with a book in his hands. 

That alone would be enough to catch Kaveh’s interest. While reference books still had their place, the Akasha meant that most students found little use in actually reading the many books on the House of Daena’s shelves. It was far more common to find a student with their Akasha terminal open than a book, and even when a reference book was needed, students usually accessed the few pages they required. They didn’t read them.

At a nearby table, half a dozen students with black emblems matching the reading student’s own are gossiping. They occasionally throw looks in the direction of the single student before returning to their conversation with quiet laughter.

Kaveh huffs and matches himself across the library before he can think it through. The student doesn’t even look up when Kaveh drops himself in the chair next to him and nudges his shoulder.

“What’re you reading?” Kaveh asks. The student looks up, and Kaveh is struck by the depth of his eyes. They’re two-toned, rings of amber surrounded by teal. It’s a beautiful color combination, and Kaveh cannot help but imagine what it might look like to have such beautiful colors replicated in stained glass or enamel. 

The boy eyes him for a moment, then returns to his book without replying.

“H-hey!” Kaveh sputters. “I asked you a question!”

“I’m aware.”

Oh, the nerve on this kid.

“You know, it’s usually considered polite to answer a question when asked. As your senior–”

“You’re not my senior.”

“Excuse me?”

The student closes his book with a snap, and Kaveh is once more pinned beneath the force of his gaze.

“Kshahrewar,” he says. “Not my senior.”

“What does my Darshan have to do with anything?” Kaveh replies, feeling oddly defensive of the white lion on his brow. He knows that other Darshans look down on Kshahrewar, but to say it so plainly…

“I mean,” he says, “that I am in Haravatat. Not Kshahrewar. Therefore, you’re not my senior.”

“Oh,” Kaveh says. What else can he say? “Well, I saw those other Haravatat students looking over at you, and I figured I should step in. I don’t want to see anybody dealing with bullies, whether they’re in my Darshan or not. Are they bothering you? I’m Kaveh, by the way.”

“Alhaitham.”

“Huh?”

The student stands and shoulders his bag before tucking his book inside of it. 

“My name. Alhaitham. I’ll be going now, Senior Kaveh.”

“Oh,” Kaveh says again. How had this conversation ended up like this? “Right. Um, see ya?”

The student– Alhaitham– smirks and nods his head once. “Sure. See ya.”

Kaveh’s eyes follow him the entire way out of the House. It’s not often that something sets him so wrong-footed. 

And yet… something about Alhaitham interests Kaveh. He can’t put it into words, but he wants to talk with him again. For real, this time. 

His routine changes. He takes his breaks in the House of Daena now, hoping to spot Alhaitham’s head of silver hair in a sea of brown and green. 

“So,” Kaveh says brightly as he pulls out the empty chair next to Alhaitham and drops into it. Alhaitham doesn’t look up.

“I asked around a bit, and it turns out you have quite the reputation.”

Alhaitham hums. Slender fingers turn a page, and Kaveh waits for a response.

“Well?” he probes when no response is forthcoming. “Anything to say?”

“You haven’t said anything worth responding to.”

“You–” 

Kaveh hadn’t quite forgotten how annoying this particular junior could be, but he’s prepared this time. 

“I was hoping you’d defend yourself. Perhaps tell me a bit about yourself to prove the rumors were false?”

Alhaitham sets the book aside. Kaveh had definitely forgotten how intense those eyes could be when they turned their full weight on him. 

“I see no need in defending myself. Other people’s opinions have no bearing on myself.”

Kaveh smiles, and it seems to catch Alhaitham off guard. He hesitates for a moment, wide-eyed, and then reopens his book with a deliberate movement.

“That’s what your yearmates told me you’d say,” Kaveh says. He rests an elbow on the table and his head in his hands. Alhaitham’s shoulders stiffen as if he can sense Kaveh’s eyes on him, but he keeps his eyes locked on his book.

“Then why did you ask?” After a moment’s pause, Alhaitham continues. “Senior Kaveh.”

Kaveh grins, then, and catches Alhaitham glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Didn’t you just tell me that other people’s opinions had no weight? I wanted to hear it from you, of course.”

Alhaitham’s shoulders curl to hide his ears, and Kaveh does not laugh, but he gets very close. He leans closer and nudges his shoulder to Alhaitham’s.

“Now, will you tell me what you’re reading?”

Alhaitham, Kaveh learns, is both exactly like the rumors and completely unlike them at all. He is obstinate, and blunt, and a little rude when it suits him. He’s nothing like Kaveh at all. Kaveh adores him. 

It doesn’t take long for Kaveh and Alhaitham to become Kaveh-and-Alhaitham. Two boys with no family, tied together by all the things that should make them opposites. Alhaitham carries a grief in him just as Kaveh does, in the shape of a faded constellation on the curve of his neck and bare skin besides. Kaveh eats his meals and takes his breaks at Alhaitham’s side, and sometimes they take the time to enjoy dinner together in Razan Gardens and watch the flickering sun as it sets over the treetops and blankets the world in fire.

Kaveh teaches Alhaitham a bit about the stars, laying side by side in the grass just outside Sumeru City. He traces lines in the sky with his finger and resists the urge to grab at Alhaitham’s wrist where he lays, warm and comforting, beside him. Their shoulders brush and send warm jolts through Kaveh, and he wonders if this, perhaps, could be that feeling of peace that has eluded him for a decade.

One morning, as Kaveh is getting ready for the day, he pulls off his sleep shirt and is met with a flash of turquoise and black that nearly steals his breath. There, on the curve of his bicep, is a new constellation. A hawk, the third constellation of Kaveh’s entire life, its claws bared in the air before it in warning. Kaveh brushes a thumb along the sharp edge of its beak and knows exactly who it belongs to. 

He’s never gotten dressed so fast in his life.

It’s not a terribly long trip to the Akademiya, but Kaveh is still out of breath and panting as he comes to a stop in front of Alhaitham. The hallway is busy with students bustling to and from classes, but Kaveh does not care, cannot care.

“Did– did you–?”

Alhaitham lifts his sleeve and there, on the opposite arm to Kaveh’s own, is a paradisaea, its wings outstretched in flight. Kaveh’s constellation, there in crimson and gold. Kaveh grins and yanks his own sleeve up to show Alhaitham the hawk on his own arm.

“Yours is so cool ,” Kaveh says in wonder, because he doesn’t quite know what else to say. And then Alhaitham laughs , his head thrown back, and Kaveh is helpless. His heart twists and he thinks that maybe, finally, finally he is finding a place in the world for him.

But Kaveh should know better than to try to outrun his sins.

Alhaitham stands opposite him now. Four years side by side, washed away in a sentence Alhaitham will not take back and a guilt Kaveh cannot excise no matter how hard he tries. 

The sound of tearing paper echoes in the silence that follows. Kaveh turns his back and leaves before the tears that threaten begin to fall in earnest. He owes Alhaitham that small mercy at least, in honor of the friendship Kaveh once believed unbreakable.

(He returns, when his tears have tried, to gather the tiny shreds of paper that Alhaitham left lying on the floor as though they were nothing more than trash beneath his boots. Maybe that’s all he’s ever been to Alhaitham, nevermind the hawk that still covers his arm and stares back at him in the mirror.

Kaveh graduates, and the world opens his arms for the Light of Kshahrewar, the beloved visionary of Sumeru. He works, and he works, and he works until his name becomes recognizable. 

Throughout it all, Kaveh keeps every inch of himself covered. 

“How kind,” the voices that follow him praise, “for him to cover his marks so that others will not feel poorly about their lack.”

Others ascribe more selfish motives, though never selfish enough to strike at the heart. 

“But,” they continue, “if I were as well-known as the Light of Kshahrewar, I would want to keep my private life private just the same.”

The only mark universally known is the lack of one, for Kaveh's blouse dips low enough to expose the bare space above his heart for everyone to see.

All of Sumeru City knows that Kaveh's heart is empty. 

Nobody but Kaveh knows that he carries two marks in total. 

His father’s. And Alhaitham’s.

It becomes a bit of a habit. Every night, alone in his empty house, Kaveh pulls his blouse over his head and checks for the hawk. But it stays there, solid and bright, even as its eyes judge Kaveh in his reflection.

“I know,” Kaveh says to it in the early hours of the morning. His eyes burn with exhaustion, and his fingers tremble as he aligns his straight edge with the paper. “Just a bit longer, I promise.”

It doesn’t respond, but Kaveh can almost hear the voice in his head anyway. 

“You work yourself ill for others. Does it ease the ache in your heart? ”

Kaveh works. He works and he works, chasing something he cannot quite see in the distance. Ever forward, one step in front of the other, until he opens his door to the Corps of Thirty for the second time in his life.

A misstep. And he falls.

The Palace is gone. His only chance, now rubble and ash in a far-flung corner of Sumeru. Ruined before it ever saw the sun.

Dori is furious. She demands the project end and Kaveh leave, but Kaveh cannot let this chance slip away. There’s a fire in his chest, rising and demanding fuel, and Kaveh has plenty of himself to spare. He shakes Dori’s hand, and the deal is struck.

When he returns to his house and removes his gloves to start packing, he finds Dori’s lamp curled around his wrist bone. A reminder of what he’s done, and what he has yet to do. 

The study door opens with a groan of the hinges. They’ve been without oil for years, left to rust and decay. Kaveh apologizes to the room as he enters it. Some of his favorite memories of his childhood were of this room, but there is no joy to be found within its walls any longer. Only ghosts and memories.

His life fits into four boxes. One for his mother and father’s books, one for his tools, and one for the few items of clothes he wishes to keep. Into the last, he puts some picture frames, his mother’s journal, and his Akademiya uniform. His fingers brush across the medallion of the hat and he sighs. 

The lid fits with room to spare.

He lives on site and does nothing but work and sleep. When he is not overseeing construction, directing artisans and supplying directions, he is asleep in his borrowed room off the main entrance hall. Food becomes a luxury balanced against the supplies he will need to recover from the crater he’s dug for himself. He grows thin and haggard. It feels like a fair trade, though, to watch his vision grow before his eyes. 

On a perfectly sunny day, four months after the fall of the first Palace, the second is resplendent in its glory. The morning sun catches perfectly off the slopes of the roof. The trees and shrubs are taking nicely to the grounds, already beginning to flower in places. He should send Tighnari a thank you letter for helping him thrice now. 

Kaveh meets with Dori in the entrance hall and hands her the keys to her palace. 

“All that work and it’s not even yours.”

But it is. It is Kaveh’s in every way that matters, because Kaveh does not want to own things. Kaveh wants to build beautiful things that will outlive him. Whether he dies tomorrow or in sixty years, it does not matter, because Kaveh has completed the Palace of Alcazarzaray. 

Kaveh is the architect of the Palace of Alcazarzaray. Nobody can take that from him. Not Celestia. Not fate. Not even himself.

He shakes Dori’s hand one final time and pictures the paradisaea beneath his fingertips. Then, he turns his back and leaves. 

Lambad is kind enough to allow Kaveh a couch on the second floor and some space in the storage room in exchange for Kaveh’s assistance with remodeling. Kaveh’s first three drafts are shot down almost immediately.

“It’s beautiful,” Lambad says with a sincere smile, “but it’s… not very practical, is it, Master Kaveh? No, just an aesthetic redesign, I think.”

Kaveh sits at the counter of the bar and he draws. Whether out of kindness or out of pity, Lambad occasionally slides him a cup of cool water or a slightly charred fish roll. 

“Overcooked this one,” he might say as he passes Kaveh a perfect-looking shawarma wrap. “Better you eat it than it going to waste.”

“Poured the wrong drink,” was the excuse for a goblet of zaytun peach juice. “Can’t well pour it back in, now can I?”

Kaveh is grateful, even as he mentally tallies each item’s worth. It’s easier to focus on his drafts with a full stomach, even if he can only finish around half of whatever Lambad gives him in a sitting. He tucks the other half away in a napkin and eats it cold for dinner, and it’s more than enough kindness. 

Alhaitham finds him halfway to gone, a bottle of Lambad’s cheapest wine in his grip, about a week after the remodel is completed. Kaveh has taken up a few odd commissions here and there– enough to put some mora in his pocket, but only just. The Adventurer’s Guild has helped fill in the gaps, even if they’ve also resulted in a few more bruises and cuts than Kaveh would prefer. It’s not like he could accept the safer delivery commissions, after all. How would he explain the famous Light of Kshahrewar, architect of the Palace of Alcazarzaray, reduced to an errand boy? No, he’d far rather venture into the forests of Sumeru and risk the wrath of a fungus or ten. 

Alhaitham sits opposite him with easy grace. Kaveh pries his eyes open and zeroes in immediately on the long arm bands that cover the place where Kaveh’s constellation should sit. Is it still there on Alhaitham, the way Alhaitham’s sits on Kaveh? Even Kaveh doesn’t know, and his head spins far too quickly to ask.

“Alhaitham,” he sighs. 

Alhaitham hums, the way he used to when Kaveh would join him at a table and wait for his attention so he could launch into a story, and perhaps old habits die screaming, because that is all it takes before Kaveh is spilling all of his thoughts on the time-scarred wood between them. His mother’s wedding and the Palace’s fall and the sold house and the uncomfortable couch in the tavern.

Alhaitham sits quietly through it all, and only when Kaveh is completely emptied does he stand and offer Kaveh his hand.

“It’s time to go, Kaveh,” he says. 

Kaveh nods and takes the proffered hand. His steps are unsteady, and they barely make it out of the tavern doors before Alhaitham has Kaveh supported against him to stop him from stumbling. Kaveh’s fingers brush the metallic tops of Alhaitham’s arm bands. If he pulled the fabric away now, would a bird of paradise greet him? Or just the uncomfortable truth Kaveh is not ready to face? 

Alhaitham lays him gently on a divan in a house he does not recognize.

“Good night, Kaveh."

“Wait,” Kaveh murmurs.

Alhaitham leans over him, eyes searching his face. For what, Kaveh does not know. What he does know is that Alhaitham is beautiful. A hand, dusted with freckles and marred with scars, drags curled fingers along the line of his jaw.

“Missed you,” Kaveh whispers. Alhaitham steps back sharply and vanishes into a room down a hall without turning back, but Kaveh doesn’t mind. There’s a blanket, thin and scratchy but still better than nothing, that Kaveh pulls over his shoulders. It smells like old paper and fresh linen, and Kaveh sleeps better than he has in months.

It doesn’t take long for him and Alhaitham to settle into a new routine. They discuss rent over breakfast– and really, Kaveh should have known Alhaitham wouldn't show him kindness for free, but rent?

Still, it’s better than nothing, and the proposed rate is actually more than reasonable for anywhere in Sumeru City, so Kaveh accepts without too much fuss. It’s not like he has much choice in the matter.

Alhaitham lives by a rigorous schedule, which leaves much of Kaveh’s day free to work as he sees fit. He meets clients in the taverns and cafés of the city, and he works hunched over the table in the living room. Alhaitham takes him to the Bazaar on their first weekend together and they buy furniture to fill the empty spare room in Alhaitham’s house, now Kaveh’s room. 

Kaveh is not happy, but he is alive, and that is enough. If he is alive, then he can create, and if he can create, then he will make it through.

About a month into living in Alhaitham’s home, Kaveh packs his bags and treks out to Gandharva Ville. He owes the lead Forest Watcher his gratitude, after all. 

Tighnari is kinder than Kaveh deserves.

“I checked our records, and you had done everything right,” Tighnari says over two mugs of hot tea. The room that Tighnari calls his home is airy and light, and the construction does an incredible job of keeping water out while still allowing airflow to keep it from getting too warm in the muggy rainforest afternoons. Kaveh has studied some of these techniques in the past, but it’s still nice to be able to see them up close. 

“Our records show a Withering survey was completed before you ever formally broke ground,” he continues. Gently, he nudges a plate of slightly misshapen cookies toward Kaveh. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Kaveh nods. He knows this already. Kaveh is nothing if not meticulous with his projects. How can he be otherwise, when lives rely on his foresight? But it hadn’t mattered. The Withering still expanded, and the Palace still fell, and people still died. Were it not for his own ambition, none of these things would have happened. 

(He ignores the proof of his ambition sparkling at his thigh. Tighnari had noticed it immediately, of course, but said nothing.)

“Thank you,” Kaveh says anyway. “That’s kind of you to say.”

Tighnari stands, rounds the table, and rests a hand on Kaveh’s shoulder. Then, he thumps him with his tail right at the base of his skull.

“Oof–!” Kaveh grunts. A hand comes up to guard his head from any further attacks. “What was that for?”

“For stewing in your misery,” Tighnari replies. “Now. Listen to me. You cannot predict where the Withering will appear. You are not responsible for faceless tragedy.”

“But–”

“Nope.”

“I just–”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Tighnari, if you’d just–”

Tighnari whacks him again. Kaveh puts up his hands in surrender.

“Alright, alright! Message received.”

Kaveh leaves Gandharva Ville a little confused with a bag of cookies that are charred at the edges, a return date two weeks out, and a constellation of a fennec fox hidden behind the length of his hair that he only spots two days later while checking his back for a sunburn. His fingers trace the sharp green lines as something joyful surges in his chest.

Two weeks later, he’s standing on Tighnari’s porch when something small and green collides with him. He grunts, hands coming out to steady himself, only to grab onto the shoulders of a young girl. She stares up at him wide eyed, trembling beneath his touch. Kaveh releases her immediately.

“Hey,” he says softly, the way he might talk to a kitten on the street. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Kaveh. I’m here to see Forest Watcher Tighnari. Is he around?”

The girl brightens, especially once Kaveh’s hands return to his side. 

“Master Tighnari told me to expect you,” she says cheerfully. “Yes, he’ll be back shortly. He’s at the edge of Gandharva Ville waiting to welcome another visitor.”

“Another visitor?” Kaveh asks as Collei leads him inside. Tighnri is well known around the Akademiya, of course. It’s how Kaveh came to know of him when he was working on the grounds for the Palace. To entertain visitors so late, though… surely this person was not from the Akademiya? Perhaps he was waiting on a family member, or a traveler who had arranged a rest stop at the village on their way to their next location.

Kaveh takes a seat and accepts a slightly-burned cookie with a smile.

“Do you make these?” he asks. Collei blushes faintly and nods.

“Y-yeah. Master says they’re a great way to practice being precise with measurements and times! I’m just… not very good at it yet.” She looks down at her hands, which are both folded in front of her. “I can be a little clumsy.”

Kaveh takes a massive bite of the cookie. It’s a little dry, and the burnt parts a bit ashy, but Kaveh grins through the whole thing.

“They’re very good,” he says honestly. Even underneath the burnt bits, the cinnamon and spices shine through, and Kaveh reaches for another one without even asking. “I asked Tighnari to let me take some home last time I visited. I had no idea you’d made them.”

Technically a falsehood. Tighnari had pressed a bag of the cookies into Kaveh’s hands on his way out the door, but Collei doesn’t need to know that. She smiles widely, all traces of discomfort forgotten.

“Really? Thank you, Mister Kaveh. I’ll be sure to bake a big batch just for you!”

“What’s this about Kaveh?” Tighnari asks as he brushes the leaves at his door to the side. Kaveh turns to greet him, only for dread to turn his stomach molten.

Behind Tighnari is a familiar jackal head. 

The General Mahamatra.

Kaveh swallows the cookie that has turned to sand in his mouth and sits up a little straighter. He hasn’t broken any laws as far as he knows. He submitted his last set of permits days before their deadline for construction! Surely Tighnari hadn’t invited him back just to send him off with the Mahamatra?

Unconsciously, his fingers rise and brush the constellation on the back of his neck. Cyno tracks the movement with his eyes.

“Ah,” he says quietly. “So this is Kaveh.”

“Cyno!” Collei calls, and then she is across the room and wrapping her arms around the General Mahamatra as though he was a stuffed animal. It gives Kaveh a moment to steel his nerves. If Collei feels comfortable enough to give the General Mahamatra a hug , then he must not be too cruel. Right?

When Collei pulls away, she exposes the constellations that Kaveh must have missed in his shock. In the hollow of his right shoulder sits a serval in mid jump, done in sharp greens. A familiar fennec fox stares back at Kaveh from the place over Cyno’s heart. When he turns to hang his jackal head on a hook by the door, Kaveh spots a third constellation on his shoulder blade in the approximate shape of an hourglass. 

For Kaveh, who guards the few constellations he still has as something more precious than mora, seeing Cyno display the marks freely is almost foreign to him. Could Kaveh one day share his marks with pride? 

(He imagines Alhaitham’s face upon seeing the hawk on his upper arm and cuts the thought off immediately.)

“It’s nice to meet you,” Kaveh says. Cyno turns his eyes on Kaveh, and it is only through force of will that Kaveh does not flinch back.

“Tighnari tells me you built a palace over a Withering zone. Twice.”

“Ah, well.” Kaveh rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “To be fair, it was a mistake.”

“I suppose only time will decide Wither your choice was worth it.”

Collei giggles from behind her hands. Tighnari groans and shoves him by the shoulder.

“Go wash your hands,” Tighnari says. “Dinner will be ready when you get back.”

Cyno vanishes out the door like smoke through the treeline. Kaveh blinks, then turns to Tighnari.

“Did he just…”

“Don’t encourage him!” Tighnari all but begs. 

By the time Cyno returns, Collei and Kaveh have helped Tighnari carry everything out and they settle to eat their meal. Kaveh isn’t usually a roasted vegetables kind of person, but the seasonings Tighnari uses smell incredible, and he’s more than happy to take his share of steaming mushrooms and fresh pita. 

It turns out that Cyno, when he isn’t wearing the helmet and mantle of General Mahamatra, is actually a pretty relaxed person. He reminds Kaveh a lot of Alhaitham, not that Kaveh would dream of saying anything to either of them. Some observations are best kept to oneself, after all. 

When Kaveh finally rises to leave, Collei follows him to the door.

“Come back and visit us soon, won’t you Mister Kaveh?” she asks. “I want to hear more about the Palace!”

Kaveh does not wince. Instead, he only smiles and nods.

“Sure, Collei. I’d love to.”

He didn’t expect the hug, which is perhaps why it feels a bit like the wind being knocked out of him, but it only takes a few moments to regain his bearings and wrap his arms around her shoulders. He’s gentle with it. Collei has plenty of room to break from him if she chooses to. When she finally pulls back, she’s grinning.

“Thanks, Mister Kaveh! We’ll see you soon, then!” She steps back and waves, and Kaveh is more than happy to wave back before turning to make his way back to Sumeru City. 

Just past the point where Gandharva Ville’s noise and lights have faded to a soft glow in the distance, the sound of footfalls indicates that Kaveh isn’t alone. He summons his claymore, ignoring how his wrists ache from the angle he holds it at, and turns only for his claymore to meet the shaft of a spear.

“Easy, Kaveh,” Cyno says. “It’s just me."

Kaveh laughs nervously and dismisses his claymore before shaking out his wrists. Cyno spots the motion immediately.

“You’re injured?”

“Nah,” Kaveh replies, then amends, “well, not in any fixable way, anyway. Just one of the hazards of being an architect.”

Cyno nods, and then pulls something out of a pack over his shoulder.

“You are a graduate of Kshahrewar, correct?”

“Yes?”

“Take this, then.” Cyno presses something metallic into Kaveh’s hands. He peers down at it, but it is too dark to see clearly. 

“What is it?” 

“Machine core. I have no use for it. Perhaps you do.” Cyno nods at him once. Kaveh opens his mouth to thank him, but then Cyno steps close and grabs him by his shoulder.

“If Collei and Tighnari trust you, then I trust you,” he says, suddenly solemn. How had they gotten here so quickly? It feels like they were just sitting in Tighnari’s little home, laughing over a bowl of padisarah pudding.

“Thank… you?”

Cyno squeezes his shoulder. Frankly, it hurts, but Kaveh wraps his hand over Cyno’s forearm and squeezes back anyway. That seems to meet whatever quiet thing Cyno was hoping to see, because he nods and releases Kaveh without any more fanfare.

“I am not returning to Sumeru City tonight,” Cyno says. “Have a safe journey, Kaveh.”

Kaveh nods, and then Cyno turns and vanishes back into the darkness. Kaveh exhales, long and slow, and tilts his head back to look up at the stars.

“The stars will always be there for us,” he murmurs quietly. Then, he lowers his gaze and resumes his walk back to Alhaitham’s house.

It’s as he’s getting ready for bed that he spots the two new additions to the tapestry of his skin. A wolf on his shoulder, in the spot where Cyno’s fingertips had dug into his skin. And at his waist, where Collei had wrapped her arms around him, lies a familiar little serval.

Kaveh falls asleep with a smile on his face.

The core Cyno gave to Kaveh is incredible, and Kaveh tinkers with it at every possible moment. Eventually, after much trial and error, he turns it into something beautiful.

“Mehrak,” Kaveh calls quietly. It’s late, or perhaps early, but Kaveh does not care. The suitcase on the workbench remains inert. Kaveh sighs and picks up a screwdriver again.

“Oh, Mehrak,” he sighs. “Can’t you work with me?”

He loosens a bolt on the face plate only to jump and drop his screwdriver as the light plate suddenly illuminates. Two green rectangles flicker, then solidify. The suitcase beeps.

“Mehrak?” Kaveh asks. It beeps again, and then wriggles away from the screwdriver to levitate itself above the workbench.

“It works…” Kaveh whispers. He rubs at his exhausted eyes, then stands up and throws his arms around the metal box. It beeps in protest, but Kaveh does not care. “It worked!”

Mehrak makes Kaveh’s life so much easier, and Kaveh is more than happy to bring it along with him wherever he goes. A commission takes him out to the desert, where he spends most of his days being hot and sandy and craving the quiet shade of the rainforest. But he keeps his head low and works through each ruin he is dragged to, doing his best to find moments worth appreciating even now.

Of course, then he returns to find out that Alhaitham took advantage of Kaveh’s absence to apparently overthrow the government of Sumeru , and all that inner peace goes right out the window along with Kaveh’s patience.

He tries to find Cyno first, but he’s rightfully busy rounding up the ex-Sages that apparently tried to create a new god. (Really, what did they even have Cardinal Sins for if they were just going to march off and break them the moment they could?)

Which leaves Alhaitham. Alhaitham, the new Grand Sage of Sumeru.

“Acting Grand Sage ,” Alhaitham corrects as though it makes any difference in the absurdity of it all.

They argue. How could Alhaitham not even send him a message? Sure, he was out in the desert, but so, apparently, was Alhaitham. Kaveh would have come running. Surely Alhaitham knows that?

Kaveh rubs the spot where Alhaitham’s hawk resides. Alhaitham doesn’t notice, or if he does, he doesn’t comment. 

Kaveh’s skin remains the same for a few months. He visits with Tighnari and Collei. He manages to drag Alhaitham to the tavern weekly to meet the others for drinks and rounds of Genius Invocation. He completes a commission for a library in the desert near Aaru Village that sparks pride whenever he sees the blueprint in his archives. 

And Alhaitham finally manages to convince Nahida to let him step down as Grand Sage.

“This calls for a celebration,” Kaveh says with a grin when Alhaitham gives him the news. Alhaitham only sighs and rolls his eyes, even if the set of his mouth is fond.

“You mean this calls for you spending my mora.”

“Same difference,” Kaveh replies with an airy wave of his hand. “Come on, if we hurry we can beat Cyno and Tighnari there.”

Alhaitham allows himself to be hurried out the door without much more fuss. Tighnari and Cyno wander in a little later only for Kaveh to immediately press goblets of wine into their hands and raise his own with a toast. He’s already a little warm from the cup he’d finished before they’d arrived, and the atmosphere has him positively giddy. He grins over at Alhaitham and tilts his cup in his direction.

“Here’s to Alhaitham,” he says with a laugh, “the only man in all of Teyvat who would be this happy over a demotion.”

He finishes the wine in four swallows. When he slams the goblet back to the table, Tighnari and Alhaitham are eyeing each other as though having a discussion Kaveh isn’t a part of. Kaveh ignores it and refills both his own cup and Alhaitham’s surprisingly empty one. 

Kaveh doesn’t remember much about the rest of the night. They shared a meal, played some Genius Invocation, and through it all, Kaveh made sure to tease Alhaitham about his excitement over the demotion.

He can’t say exactly how he made it home from the tavern. He remembers standing, remembers a warm arm wrapped around his shoulder, and not much else. 

He dreams he reaches out and wraps his fingers around the edge of Alhaitham’s cloak. The fabric is heavy and warm in his hand. It smells like Alhaitham. Kaveh wants to bring it to his face and breathe it in until it settles in his lungs. 

But it had to be a dream, because there is no place under the stars of Teyvat where Alhaitham would bend low over Kaveh, close enough that Kaveh can almost taste his breath, and admit that he misses Kaveh the same way that Kaveh misses him. 

Something is irritating him at his throat. He releases Alhaitham’s cloak to fumble with the clasp of his own, and Alhaitham vanishes before Kaveh can reach for him again. 

It’s Kaveh’s fault, really. He should know better than to try to relax into this life.

The Interdarshan Championship is announced, and Kaveh is elected as the Kshahrewar representative by near-unanimous vote. Kaveh is confident in his skills, but there is something intimidating about standing on that stage opposite Cyno and Tighnari and knowing that his goal is to beat them. If it comes down to combat, then– 

But he wins. He succeeds. He stands in front of Nilou and Alhaitham, diadem in his hands, and he shatters it on the stone in front of everyone. 

“I’ve got plenty of sorrow, thanks,” he says. “I don’t need more.” 

His head pounds. The nausea in his stomach threatens to overwhelm him. And yet, he remains standing. Is it his imagination that Alhaitham is smiling for just a moment?

Kaveh barely manages to make it home after the championship. But when he reaches the door and realizes that he has somehow managed to lose his keys in the ruckus, it takes everything Kaveh has to not start crying. He hurts. His heart is heavy, full of terrible knowledge he doesn’t want. All he wants is to lay his head on his pillow and breathe in the smell of laundry soap and home.A hand reaches around him and unlocks the door with a quiet click. Kaveh jumps. A warm hand settles on the hollow of his spine and guides him inside.

“Go rest,” Alhaitham says. Neither of them acknowledge the packed boxes that surround them. “I’ll bring you food in a moment.”

The thanks is stuck in his throat, so he only nods and returns to his room. He’s asleep before his head even hits the pillow.

A few days later, Alhaitham meets Kaveh outside of the Akademiya with news to share. About his father.

Kaveh listens, his attention divided between Alhaitham’s words and his final memories of his father. The slump of his shoulders as he sat at his study desk. The sad smile on his face as he waved goodbye to Kaveh from the end of the path.

When Alhaitham finishes speaking, there is a long moment of silence, and then–

“Thank you”

Alhaitham pauses, looking confused.

“What?”

“I said, thank you.” Kaveh straightens his spine. His father made his choice, and now Kaveh makes his. He can miss his father and still move forward. He has to, if he wants to be the kind of man his father would have been proud of.

“They say earnest thanks should be given thrice. So, one more time, please.”

Kaveh is snapped from his thoughts by Alhaitham’s voice. He crosses his arms and huffs.

“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

Alhaitham turns, but not before Kaveh catches the barest hint of a smile on his face. Kaveh follows him home, arguing with him the whole way, and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, this new shape of them can be its own kind of home.

Time passes, as it does. Kaveh works, yes, but he also eats and he sleeps and he spends time with the people that mark his skin with love. He joins Collei on afternoon walks through Gandharva Ville and encourages her to keep working on her penmanship. He follows Tighnari with a woven basket and even picks a few fruits for himself. He lines up early for TCG card releases with a frankly ridiculous bag of mora Cyno has provided to him on days when Cyno is busy. He meets with Madame Faruzan to discuss new projects out of Kshahrewar over cups of coffee, and gains an elegant collection of swirls on his wrist for the effort. 

And through it all, Alhaitham’s hawk remains bright on his arm. 

Kaveh stands before the mirror in his room, brushing his fingers along the lines of the constellations that now cover his skin. He’s seen Alhaitham’s arm by now, knows that the spot where his constellation once sat is now occupied by Cyno’s wolf. And yet Alhaitham’s hawk is still on Kaveh’s skin.

He’s meant to be at Lambad’s, or at least on his way there. It’s Alhaitham’s birthday, and everybody will be there waiting for him. And yet, something about the constellation keeps nagging at him. It makes no sense that it has stayed all this time. Kaveh knows they fade. He’s seen it. The spot on his shoulder where his mother’s feather once sat. The empty space on Alhaitham’s bicep. 

So why is Alhaitham’s still here? Why does Kaveh still have this mark on his skin?

Kaveh brushes his fingers along the line of a wing. 

Unless…

He crumples the thought up and dismisses it with ruthless efficiency. He’s being ridiculous. There’s absolutely no way. Not when Alhaitham is, well, Alhaitham.

But Kaveh can’t dismiss the memory of Alhaitham’s eyes. Why would Alhaitham put forth all that effort to research what happened to Kaveh’s father?

Kaveh swallows nervously. Surely just thinking the words wouldn’t mean anything. He didn’t even have to do anything about it. It was just a thought.

He presses his thumb into his skin and quietly says “Alhaitham is in love with me.”

The words ring true in a way that wraps its fingers around Kaveh’s heart and squeezes. But it’s not everything. 

His hands shake. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, wraps his fingers around the constellation and presses his palm into its.

“Alhaitham is in love with me,” he repeats. “And I’m in love with Alhaitham.”

As a child, love meant a quiet place to return to. Love was two people who listened to him and wished the best for him. And now, as an adult, maybe love meant one man who wanted Kaveh to spread his wings and soar. 

Love was a home full of their belongings, a pair of desks in a study full of books picked by them both. 

Love was someone to sit across from at dinner who would listen while Kaveh talked about his day.

Love was companionship, and blunt words, and home.

Kaveh was in love with Alhaitham.

He opens his eyes slowly, eyelashes fluttering, and gently removes his hand only to inhale sharply.

It’s gone.

Alhaitham’s constellation is gone.

Kaveh’s stomach sinks straight through his feet and into the foundation beneath him. No. No, no. Why now? Why–?

And then Kaveh sees it. Over his heart, in the place Cyno carries Tighnari’s mark, is Alhaitham’s hawk. As bright and vivid as the day it first appeared on Kaveh’s arm all those years ago. 

Kaveh approaches the mirror until he is nearly nose to nose with his reflection and traces the familiar arch of a wing with his fingers. His skin feels warm beneath his fingertips.

Mehrak beeps, and Kaveh curses and turns his back on the mirror.

“Right, sorry Mehrak, I’m going!”

He yanks his shirt on, clasps his cloak, and takes off at a jog toward the tavern. He’ll be late, of course, but hopefully Alhaitham won’t mind.

(The constellation over his heart reminds Kaveh that Alhaitham has put up with much worse from Kaveh, after all.)

He takes the stairs three at a time and stops, flushed from his run and sweaty from the heat, to offer a half-hearted excuse for his lateness. Luckily, everybody seems to be enjoying themselves, and his tardiness is quickly forgotten in favor of pressing a wine cup into his hand and sending him on his way.Alhaitham, the assumed guest of honor, is tucked into a corner with a book open on his lap. Kaveh sits opposite him and taps his glass against the corner of Alhaitham’s.

“Happy birthday,” he says with a smile. Alhaitham looks up from his book long enough to raise an eyebrow.

“I thought you’d forgotten.”

“How could I ever forget your birthday?” Kaveh wants to press his hand over the constellation on his chest, but he keeps his hand still. His shirt sits just high enough to cover the edges of it, and thank goodness for that, because Kaveh has better things to do today than force Alhaitham to confront the mark that must surely be on his own chest. 

(Kaveh doesn’t consider what he will do if it is not. The constellation over his heart makes him confident in a way he normally is not. Of course his mark is on Alhaitham. Of course they could only ever belong to each other.)

Alhaitham huffs a laugh, but he reaches for his cup anyway, and holds it up for Kaveh to tap the rim of his own against. They both take long drinks of their cup, and then Kaveh turns his chair and settles to listen to the stories of the people around him.

The evening goes wonderfully, right up until Kaveh leans forward to refill his empty wine cup. There’s a shuffle, a sharp gasp of breath, and then a familiar hand is opening the clasp at the front of Kaveh’s shirt.

Collei squeaks. Kaveh freezes.

“Hey, now,” Tighnari calls out. One of the women Kaveh does not know well– he thinks it’s the Flame-Mane, Dehya– wolf-whistles into the sudden quiet.

Alhaitham is staring at him. Well, Alhaitham is staring at his chest. The only sound between them is their breathing and Kaveh’s rabbit-quick pulse. Then–

“That’s mine.”

Kaveh tries to cover himself. Alhaitham grabs both of his wrists and pins them at his side.

“Great observational skills,” Kaveh replies. He tugs, trying to work his hands free, but Alhaitham’s grip is stronger than Kaveh’s ability to wiggle free. He’s trapped.

“It’s in a new spot.”

“Yeah, well, it was gone for a while. Just like yours.” Kaveh’s eyes fall to Cyno’s mark on Alhaitham’s exposed shoulder, and carefully does not mention how much longer Kaveh’s mark has been gone from Alhaitham. 

Alhaitham stares at him. His brow furrows the same way it did when he was younger, when he was thinking through a particularly complicated theorem or problem. Then Alhaitham is standing and pulling Kaveh with him.

“We’re leaving,” Alhaitham announces to the room. He starts tugging Kaveh toward the stairs without waiting for a response. “See ya.”

“Alhaitham– wait, it’s your birthday, stop– ”

Alhaitham pays him no attention as they exit the tavern and make for home. Kaveh tries to get Alhaitham’s attention a few more times, but Alhaitham seems intent on not listening to a word Kaveh has to say. Twice, Kaveh catches Alhaitham as he curls his fingers over his own sternum, in roughly the same spot as Alhaitham’s constellation appears on Kaveh. 

Kaveh has to step in and help Alhaitham get the key into the lock. Alhaitham’s hands shake as he opens the door and slams it closed behind them, and then his shirt is up and off and Kaveh and Alhaitham are both locked on to the paradisaea that spreads its wings wide over Alhaitham’s heart.

Slowly, as though the markings are made of spun sugar, Alhaitham brushes his fingers along the lines of a wing. There’s a softness in his eyes that Kaveh cannot remember seeing on his face.

(He hopes he’ll get to see it more often.)

Kaveh takes a step forward. Alhaitham looks up from the mark, and then his hand covers the hawk on Kaveh’s chest. Kaveh reaches out, into the gap between them, and splays his fingers out atop the bird of paradise. 

Alhaitham’s heart is pounding beneath his palm. Can Alhaitham feel the way Kaveh’s own heart races? He shivers.

And it’s like he’s twenty again, young and full of hope and flayed bare by teal and amber as Alhaitham looks at Kaveh, except now Kaveh can find the fondness behind the intensity. It’s fierce, and soft, and Kaveh tilts his head back and waits.

Alhaitham’s lips are warm and dry and a little chapped, and they’re perfect. Kaveh makes a noise of relief and steps fully forward, wraps his arms around Alhaitham’s shoulders and twines his fingers into Alhaitham’s hair as Alhaitham’s hands come down to settle at Kaveh’s hips. He tastes like wine and mint leaves and home. 

Home , Kaveh thinks with delirious abandon. He has a home now. 

Maybe he’s had a home all along.

Alhaitham breaks their kiss first and crushes Kaveh to his chest. His chin is sharp at the crown of Kaveh’s head, but he says nothing, only turns his face to bury his nose against the curve of Alhaitham’s shoulder and breathe. Finally, when the warmth of their body heat threatens to become something more than Kaveh is willing to take right now, he pulls back. Alhaitham’s hands twitch at Kaveh’s side, and Kaveh almost hopes Alhaitham will pull him close again.

And there, against the bare skin of Alhaitham’s chest, is a filigree of crimson and gold. As though it has been there all along.

“It looks good on you,” Kaveh says with a smile. He reaches out again, drags his fingers along the lines of the bird’s tail. Alhaitham quivers beneath him.

“Always has,” he replies, and for once, Kaveh can hear the message loud and clear. He tilts his head back and smiles as Alhaitham presses Kaveh’s palm to his chest.

“Happy birthday, Alhaitham,” Kaveh says quietly, and then he finally, finally , leans forward and kisses Alhaitham himself. 

(It won’t do to let Alhaitham have all the fun, after all.)

EPILOGUE

“...veh….”

Kaveh groans softly and rolls away from the sound, nuzzling into the pillow beneath him. It smells like old books and fresh linen, and it’s Kaveh’s favorite. So much softer than his own.

“Ka…eh…”

“Nnng…” Kaveh whines, His pillow shifts, but Kaveh only grips it tighter. He’s comfortable , stupid voice, can’t you see?”

“Wake up, Kaveh.”

Kaveh shakes his head, which is a mistake because now his head hurts and he’s more awake besides. His pillow rumbles with laughter.

Wait.

Kaveh cracks an eye open and almost immediately hisses at the amount of sunlight in the room. 

“Wha…”

His pillow laughs again, and a warm arm wraps itself around Kaveh’s shoulders. Mmm. 

“It’s time to wake up,” that voice says. Fondness coats its tone like powdered sugar, but Kaveh still wants nothing to do with it.

“Don’t wanna.”

“Suit yourself, I suppose.”

Wait. Kaveh’s brow furrows. This isn’t how things are supposed to go. He forces his eyes open only to be met with an expanse of warm skin and a familiar design.

“Good morning, contrarian,” Alhaitham murmurs. A gentle hand drags a line along Kaveh’s spine and he melts back into the bed almost immediately.

“Hmm?”

“How’s your head? You drank a lot last night.”

Kaveh opens his mouth to argue that no, he drank a perfectly reasonable amount, thank you very much, but his mouth feels a bit like the desert at noontime, so he swallows instead. 

A cup of water appears in front of him.

“Sit up and drink some water,” Alhaitham says. Kaveh isn’t exactly the following orders type but, well, water really does sound incredible. He adjusts himself carefully until he is sitting upright and accepts the water from Alhaitham with a grateful sigh. The first sip tastes a bit like what Kaveh imagines heaven must be like. 

“There you are,” Alhaitham says once Kaveh has finished the cup. He plucks it from Kaveh’s hands and sets it carefully on the nightstand, then gathers Kaveh in his arms and lays them both back.

“You let me sleep late,” Kaveh notes. It’s far brighter in their room than it usually is, with the sun already casting heavy shadows on the wooden floor. “Why?”

Alhaitham shakes his head and presses a kiss to Kaveh’s temple. 

“Told you that you drank too much.”

It was far too early for riddles. “Can you just answer me?”

“Think, Kaveh. Why did we go out drinking last night?”

Kaveh squints at the wall. They’d gone out drinking last night… All their friends had met them at Lambad’s tavern… And that was because…

“It’s my birthday,” Kaveh says with the awe of a researcher finally finding the solution to a problem that had long evaded them.

“Correct,” Alhaitham says. Another kiss, this one to the top of Kaveh’s head. “Happy birthday, Kaveh.”

Kaveh sits up fully. “Wait. Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“I took the day off,” Alhaitham replies. He lays back in their bed, his hands behind his head, and smirks up at Kaveh.

Kaveh huffs a laugh. “That sounds like a gift to yourself, Alhaitham, not me.”

“Who else will make sure you don’t do any work on your birthday?”

“ No work at all ?” Kaveh is offended at the very thought. “I can’t just take a day off, Alhaitham. I have drafts due next week, and Mr. Vahid is waiting on the materials finalization for his new store, and– oof!”

Alhaitham sits up, wraps his arms around Kaveh, and tugs until Kaveh is sprawled out across Alhaitham’s chest.

“You can’t just– bully me around!” Kaveh struggles, but Alhaitham only grips him tighter and closes his eyes, a smug smile firmly settled on his face.

“I think you’ll find that I can.”

“You’re insufferable!”

“And you’re loud. Go back to sleep, Kaveh.”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from the man that woke me up just to–”

Alhaitham gently tilts his chin up and kisses him, long and slow and sweet. When he pulls back, Kaveh is mollified enough to lay back down with a longsuffering grunt. 

“I only woke you up so I could be the first to wish you happy birthday,” Alhaitham says. The Kaveh of a few months ago would have written off the pouty tone as a figment of his imagination. The Kaveh of now only shakes his head and shifts until his palm rests directly above the paradisaea on Alhaitham’s heart.

“Yes, well, you succeeded. Now. To bed.”

“To bed,” Alhaitham agrees. It doesn’t take long before Alhaitham is asleep, soft snores ruffling the top of Kaveh's hair, but Kaveh lays awake for just a bit longer and watches his fingers trace the edges of the constellation on Alhaitham’s chest.

Yeah. Happy birthday to him. May the stars always be there for them.

But Kaveh has had enough of trusting the stars to guide his destiny. He would make sure that these stars never changed, not for as long as he lived.