Chapter Text
The hour is dreadful and late, but the Grand Bazaar's chaotic din will go on well into the early hours of the morning. The clamor is nice, at least. It’s home.
Kaveh meanders until he can sit in front of the ramp of Zubayr Theater, next to the posters. The hem of his travel cloak eddies up dust as he sets his suitcase down. A cursory read of said posters tells him they had a play about a nefarious court vizier today, that he regretfully missed while he smoked out of a chillum next to the owner of a particularly offended parrot with a haughty red plume.
Kaveh settles on the floor and watches people from all over Sumeru mingle in the thick of the bazaar, far from where he is. As he does, he braces the ice-cold composite of fennel seeds, watermelon kernels, pepper, and sugary milk hawked by a young lady who took one look at Kaveh and swore in Lord Kusnali’s name that she was also licensed to sell liquor.
Normally, Kaveh would have verified the claim. He is a perfectly law-abiding citizen who is not averse to a drink, but the girl had the kind of shell-shocked expression that reminded Kaveh of newly minted Amurta scholars having to dig through mounds of Shroomboar dung in the name of diagnosing malabsorption syndromes plaguing Sumeru’s local fauna.
And so, he bought two bottles.
-
Hours pass but he only cracks the first of the bottles open by his teeth when he thinks he sees a familiar broad-shouldered oaf dressed in slate gray weaving carelessly through throngs of people. Kaveh’s heart lifts, temporarily buoyed.
But it’s not him . A handsome, but nameless member of the Corps of Thirty dressed in a gray kaftan and their signature emblemed teal green scarf is clueless to Kaveh’s plight as he bends around one of the infinite worming pathways in the massive Grand Bazaar, and he is lost to Kaveh forever.
The drink burns, and tastes— tastes fucking terrible when it’s lukewarm and straight out of a glass bottle while snot and tears run down in rivulets down Kaveh’s nose. The more he thinks about it the bleaker it gets. It’s the end of the world and Kaveh is all alone, sniveling with a stuffy nose into dubiously sourced hooch.
Alhaitham doesn't care Kaveh isn't home by now. Probably wouldn't care if Kaveh washed up discombobulated, buck naked and piss drunk upriver the next day either.
It is under the duress of stage lights that previously tame thoughts snowball into horrible, terrible situational awareness which leads to Kaveh shedding another load of snot down his face.
Alhaitham never did thank Kaveh for always leaving dinner out for him. Never draped a blanket on Kaveh when he was up late, dozed off against stencil paper on their couch. Now if Kaveh thinks about it, really thinks about it, that uptight prissy bastard seldom kissed him back before marching off to his desk job. Kaveh might as well be tonguing a dead fish.
But then Kaveh always thought Alhaitham was different. Kaveh always thought that Alhaitham would be willing to be changed. He was a prickly fruit. Alhaitham offered him a place to crash when Kaveh was at the height of crippling dept. Alhaitham was righteous because, sometimes, he had every reason to be. Alhaitham could be attractive when he was rigorous and principled. When you got to Alhaitham’s hard-seeded center it got good, and then sometimes it was even great—
“Are you off somewhere?”
Alhaitham was in one of his strange moods. Stranger than usual. He stood in his plain linen trousers with nothing else on as he looked up, unblinking, at their kitchen’s roshandan. He had packed two sets of his formal wear in the dead of the night while Kaveh watched on. Now, he had his thumb digging into his bloodless lower lip.
“Yes,” Alhaitham said after a long pause and blinked, slow and easy. “I will be gone tomorrow. I trust you will water the succulents on time.”
“Of course! What do you take me for?” Kaveh shimmied the saj back and forward before he pitched the bread up and over. Steam wafted upwards, warm and toasty. “Where are you going?”
When Alhaitham does not answer right away, Kaveh sets out rhubarb jam and hardened clarified butter on their table so that Alhaitham would take the initiative to sit. Kaveh liked to spoon out dollops onto the bread while it was still warm, but Alhaitham despised that with a passion that was unrivalled. He dolled his own jam out on a far corner of his plate so that it would not touch his bread, and the butter was always cold in their household so that it would not sully the jam. It was tedious in Alhaitham’s peculiar and grating way.
“I am not at liberty to say.”
Folding a quarter of bread with jam, Kaveh sat across from him, stirring his tea vigorously as he digested this rebuttal. Alhaitham was the Acting Grand Sage, but it wasn't as if Kaveh was going to sell out his location to any dandy on the street. Kaveh was asking because he was concerned. Surely, Alhaitham knew that. “You can tell me, you know.”
Alhaitham glanced up with those pale, baleful eyes, without even a ripple in his expression. “I’d rather not.”
Kaveh’s spoon clinked loudly against his teacup. “Fine! Don’t tell me.”
“I won’t.”
“Okay!”
They ate in complete silence. Alhaitham stood to clear out both of their dishes and unexpectedly, stopped in his tracks to look over. Didn’t tell Kaveh to fuck off, didn’t weave his brows together, didn’t even speak. Kaveh wouldn’t rebuke him; didn’t run his mouth either because Alhaitham had been nice-er to him these past few days. He'd slept in Kaveh’s bed last night on Kaveh’s insistence and took up very little space. Sorted Kaveh’s pencils for him and dusted off the shavings. Didn’t mind Kaveh fiddling with his hearing aids. Didn’t even scold him like a school marm when Kaveh displaced a battery.
“I was meaning to talk to you last night but I would rather you'd be awake and sound of mind when we talked.”
“Hm?”
But Alhaitham’s perspicacious attention was lost as quickly as it came. He poured all of his efforts into doing the dishes diligently. Kaveh waited, faithful to a fault. For some time, in that instance, it was soapy and golden and all was right in the world. But Alhaitham would swing down his blade of finality because he always did, always had to. Would cut no corners and would not make it easier for anyone, especially not Kaveh.
“I have thought about it at length and I do not think it is wise for us to be involved romantically or sexually.” Alhaitham paused, unaware, or perhaps completely aware of the meaning of what he had just insinuated—no—decreed. He raised a soapy butter knife and checked it for sink gunk before he rinsed it off. This was a standard for the Acting Grand Sage, routine for the infamous Alhaitham of Haravatat. Of course, it was. Of course, he’d be unaffected, unruffled, while Kaveh could feel the walls of their house crumble around him.
Then, Alhaitham continued in the same dull inflection of his voice,
“I would prefer if we would resume being housemates and colleagues. As we were.”
Kaveh coughed, and jerked out of a long chug. He would have to muscle open the second bottle with his cushy hands while the first one hung from his teeth. He was also groggily aware of the concerned and mildly disgusted looks directed his way, but he always had a great capacity for shutting everything out. It was one of his greater talents.
Bystanders, which was the role most people played in Kaveh’s elaborate pantomime, would forget him and move on as long as the commotion was limited to him. They’d him stew in his mess. Eventually but inevitably.
As we were.
A shadow cut through the white hot stage lights in front of him which made Kaveh flinch, full bodily and into himself. Though Kaveh was a notorious lightweight, he had, by no means, bad situational awareness. Whoever had swooped in so close to Kaveh was quick on their feet, seemingly materializing out of the air.
The unmistakable smell of ozone crackled in front of him. Perfect . The people of Sumeru would always avoid a drunkard loitering a lonely corner at the dead end of the bazaar, much like the notorious Mondstaders who came touring the perennially warm Sumeru when their lakes froze over, but Vision holders were an anomaly everywhere it seemed.
“What do you think you’re doing, Senior?”
Kaveh seized wrangling his bottle at once. He looked up, cautiously.
Since Kaveh had very little self-perseverance, the first thing that came to his mind was that General Mahamatra was off duty, and Kaveh could hightail it if he tried. A beige burnous was draped over Cyno’s slender shoulders, paired with a long black kamees. He'd accessorized his off-duty clothes with a heavy metal bangle, that hung from his left forearm and could very well serve as a conduit to Electro as it would function as a nasty knuckle duster.
Cyno looked like a run-of-the-mill wealthy merchant, if a rather uncharacteristically menacing one. He was definitely not dressed as the spearhead charge of the Matra combing the bazaar for knavish Academia thieves and other related miscreants.
But even through Kaveh’s inebriated haze, he was aware that Cyno’s positioning was very deliberate: he was blocking off Kaveh to the bazaar entirely with his body. Or the bazaar from Kaveh, which was an odd kindness that Kaveh did not think Cyno capable of.
With pale hair combed out of his face, anointed and slick with oil, and his eyes searingly bright and insistent, Cyno was staring holes into Kaveh’s face. He was refusing to elaborate whatsoever. Instead, Kaveh saw how he eventually fixed his eyes on the clouded arak that Kaveh nursed, down to the mostly empty bottle resting at the wooden leg of the poster display, and then the crumpled paper cup. Kaveh wondered what the all-seeing eye of the General would infer from the situation, given the clues were easily available to him. That, and Kaveh’s dusty traveling cloak with his feet propped up on Mehrak, and the sad duffle bag wilting against the concrete plant basin.
And Kaveh himself — teary, drunk.
“Public intoxication and littering are summary offenses in Sumeru City,” Cyno spoke, so faint and so measured that Kaveh would have normally dismissed it altogether.
Posturing was the trick around with these uppity Matra types, though it was hard being dignified with kajal streaming down his eyes. Alcohol made Kaveh feel brave — or stupid, as time would tell — so he feigned a scoff and kitten-licked the sugar-crusted rim of the bottle to spite Cyno. Kaveh pointed a vague, accusatory thumb at him.
“This doesn't fall under your jurisdiction. Unless you double as a sentry for the Corps.”
Cyno regarded him openly but without outward reaction. “Hm,” He said, still final and immovable as a fortress in front of Kaveh. “Fair enough. What distillery?”
“What?”
“There’s no label on these. Did you peel away the labels, Senior?”
Obviously not! This is bootleg alcohol you dunce! But Kaveh said nothing of the sort. The girl who sold him the moonshine would be packed and far away by now and anyway, Kaveh was not in the mood to bicker. He could feel his resolve wavering, his voice breaking.
“What are you—Why are you hounding me? Don’t you have better things to do?”
Cyno stared at Kaveh’s fresh wave of tears unblinking and without reserve. He didn’t seem to be the pitying sort, and Kaveh wasn’t counting on much. Sniffling, he rolled his shoulders back and began to rummage for his bag.
Right now, Cyno was the same brand of asshole that Kaveh was far too used to putting up with on a daily basis. He especially resembled the kind of asshole he’d tolerated in his bed for three years.
“Y’know what? I don’t care. Just leave me alone and I’ll clean this up. I’m going, I am! I’ll be out of your hair in a jiffy, ok?”
To his credit, Cyno said nothing and let Kaveh stand without resistance. He only moved in when Kaveh stumbled. Cyno’s vice-like grip closed over Kaveh’s wrist and prevented Kaveh from keeling over the pavement and bashing his head in, which, Kaveh didn't know if he should thank Cyno for or tell him to fuck off for.
Standing up was a bad idea. A very bad idea. Kaveh felt pins and needles shoot up his half-asleep legs, and the very distinct feeling of a stomach deep nausea from the subpar booze that clogged up his throat with a gag reflex. Mehrak beeped half-heartedly at Kaveh’s foot. Kaveh’s eyes blurred with more tears. He’d cry to death from dehydration at this point.
“Do you have someplace to go?” Cyno said in his low voice insistently, without letting go of Kaveh’s wrist. Kaveh did not understand why Cyno was sticking around at this point.
“Why?” Kaveh sniffled and wiped off an unflatteringly fresh barrage of his runny nose. “Is that what you really want to know? Is that why you won’t fucking leave me alone?”
With the searing spotlights of the Zubayr Theater as a backdrop, Cyno stared at him. He resembled a dark smudge in funerary art, and Kaveh realized that that’s what he was. A psychopomp rising from a trench of pestilence and plague, dragging Kaveh along to the underworld.
“You are creating a scene.”
“If you’d have left me alone—”
Kaveh attempted to shrug Cyno’s hand off him, but Cyno wouldn't budge. He was compact, made for this. Muscle, bone, and hard flesh. Cyno was as good as rooted in the concrete.
“Enough.” Cyno hissed, keeping his voice low, drawing Kaveh further into the shadows by his wrist. The pain from his grip, the jostling, jarred Kaveh into blinking back tears, to look . Passerbys murmured as they passed. Many shopkeepers knew of Kaveh and only averted their eyes, the kind of kindness they could afford Kaveh in a situation like this. Kaveh hadn't even considered that he had been possibly disrupting the theater.
And perhaps he was making a scene, enough to actually attract an actual member of the Corps who had the authority to dump him into a dungeon filled to the brim with spinocrocodiles.
The thought was suddenly unbearable.
Kaveh would hate nothing more than to hear Alhaitham berate him, tell him he was dramatic and over the top, to tell him what a big mess he was. To have Alhaitham use even a modicum of his sway of the Academia as Acting Grade Sage to save Kaveh’s ass — it was unacceptable, unbearable.
Kaveh went putty in Cyno hands, enough to encourage Cyno to stop squeezing the circulation out of his wrist. Kaveh used his newfound freedom to raise the hem of his cloak with his other hand, and mop up his tears before he noisily blew his nose into it. Then, without making any sudden movements that might startle the persistent General Mahamatra, Kaveh leaned down to collect his baggage and the bottle, including the smushed little cup that still smelled of milk — all the while connected to Cyno by the hand. Cyno let him do it, all without comment.
Cyno was smart. He would take the initiative if he really wanted to. Despite Kaveh’s little scene, if Cyno changed his mind, Kaveh would still have to haggle with the Academia guards to let him in and sleep at the desk at his studio tonight.
They both stared at each other for a beat. Cyno smelled like sweat and exertion and was an entire head shorter than Kaveh, the pipsqueak, but was as grounded as he was strong.
Kaveh must've looked a little green because Cyno was spurred into action immediately.
“Water,” Cyno murmured, mostly to himself, before he reached behind him — at which point Kaveh realized Cyno was strapped to the nines and was very much dressed for heavy-duty travel himself — and materialized with a goat-skin water bag.
“Wha—” Kaveh sputtered, but Cyno pushed it into his hands.
“Drink, quickly. Gargle if you need to.” Cyno’s hand inched lower and gripped his palm instead of his wrist. Kaveh found that with Electro wielders, a static charge seemed to linger permanently on them. Cyno’s palm was hard from tossing a lance all day, and so very sweaty. It was a wholly unpleasant experience. “I will be late, because of you and then she will have my head," said Cyno, apropos to nothing.
Kaveh took a mouthful of water that tasted like iron. Cyno starred daggers at him until Kaveh downed some more. Then, Cyno dragged Kaveh from the marketplace and began making his way to the outskirts, Kaveh, bewildered, let him have his way. Even in the gloom of the evening, the Academia cast a monstrous silhouette from a distance.
It was Cyno who eventually began to speak.
“I will be accompanying a caravan laden with supplies and the cotton harvest to Aaru Village. I will lend you the key to my residence here. I will be back in a week's time.”
Kaveh's brain screeched to a halt. He could not believe his luck. He didn’t need to think. Wouldn’t think. “Take me with you.”
“What?”
A sentry patrolling the entrance to the city gave Kaveh a look of baleful distaste as Kaveh drew back, and spat the taste of alcohol into tall wild grass. Cyno did not so much as flinch. “I said let’s go to Aaru Village. Together. Me and you. Fuck it.”
Cyno abruptly let go of his hand. Kaveh had the prissy Mahamatra in a pickle now. Kaveh was going to be a brand new man. He was a brand new man.
Before Kaveh thought of following up with yet another quip, his stomach roiled and he felt a salty tang flood his mouth.
Cyno’s arm jerked comically as Kaveh spun and keeled over to regurgitate his lunch. Eventually, Cyno accepted his fate and held Kaveh’s hair out of his face with the politeness of a mildly exasperated Academy Junior whose Senior had pre-gamed too hard.
Things were looking up already.