Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The traveler came to visit two days ago, and Kaveh hasn’t been the same. 

Maybe Paimon had gotten Kaveh sick. Her incessant chatting had been uncharacteristically absent, for the most part, so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume she had been under the weather. 

Except Kaveh didn’t sound sick. In fact, it was the stifling and complete lack of sound that was most disturbing. 

Every quiet thump as Alhaitham set his coffee cup down. The usually undetectable, now deafening, rustle of papers as he turned a page. The way every measured breath sounded like a hurricane in his ears.

His headpieces couldn’t muffle this noise. For the first time in his life, they amplified it. 

Kaveh had left the house early this morning, even before Alhaitham had woken.

A tiny frown graced the scribe’s lips before his expression smoothed again, and he dismissed the worrying thought. Kaveh always slept in. 

The coffee was making him jittery, and he couldn’t focus on the admittedly rather dull textbook before him. He rose, padding with muffled steps on the carpet Kaveh had picked out. 

He pushed open Kaveh’s door. 

The usual organized chaos greeted him. Blueprints were piled haphazardly in one corner of the room, clearly shoved aside some time yesterday and forgotten. The familiar stubby pencils, charcoal tools, paints and crumpled paper lay strewn across Kaveh’s desk. Standing here, surrounded by the scent of papers and pencils and what was unmistakably Kaveh, Alhaitham could almost picture his roommate’s blonde head bowed in the half-light, scribbling away furiously. 

Kaveh-

Alhaitham, now is not the time! I’ve just had a breakthrough!

You do realize what time it is?

Time is just a social construct, it’s irrelevant! Now be quiet, you’re ruining my focus-

Alhaitham would usually leave quietly and come back a few minutes later with some water and food, and would sit in a companionable silence while he watched Kaveh’s nimble hands fly over the papers. 

Kaveh is an artist. Tortured, tragic, emotional, romantic, yes-all of these and more-but an artist that can create the most incredible, meaningful sketches Alhaitham has ever seen and then be disappointed in his own creations. 

Every piece of paper that Kaveh touches is, to Alhaitham, imbued with the power and intensity of those fingers, the brilliance of the mind that flashes behind those vibrant eyes.

The scribe steps carefully over the books strewn over the floor and approaches Kaveh’s desk, reverently unfurling the half-rolled up blueprint currently pinned under a heavy book.

What catches Alhaitham’s attention, however, isn’t the blueprint, though the design is stunning as always-rather, it is the thick and noticeably odd book at the corner of the desk. A padlock rests beside it, and the cover is a mottled, faded green. 

He gently opens it to the first page, wincing as the spine loudly complains. 

To my love, Kaveh, may you find passion wherever you go.

His spine prickles almost defensively at the first couple of words, and an unconscious furrow forms between his brows before it smooths, and he feels perplexed at his previous unpleasant feeling.

Because the book is from Faranak.

Kaveh’s mother.

————————————

“Shit, shit, shit,” Kaveh mumbles, scrabbling like a madman through his briefcase, Mehrak, to find that blueprint.

That damned blueprint. Did he leave it on his desk again?

Kaveh groans, running a frustrated hand through his already messy hair. He doesn’t have the time nor energy to go back to Alhaitham’s house this late and get caught in another infuriating argument that his junior would inherently win, leaving him seething and late, again.

Sighing, Kaveh quickly puts Mehrak back together again and mumbles an apology to the disgruntled briefcase. Or maybe its annoyed expression is just Kaveh’s imagination-after all, he’d been picturing that very same expression on Alhaitham’s face just moments before…

For fuck’s sake.

Kaveh shakes his head and gets up, his movements harried as usual as he heads towards the tavern, already planning an apology to the client he’ll be late for (again). But he can’t start the meeting without his blueprint, which means he’ll have to face the headache-inducing scribe.

Well, he reasons, if talking to Alhaitham is unavoidable, he might as well do it while drunk out of his mind. He’ll be late for his client either way.

Kaveh slams against the door with all his might, creating a crash worthy enough to wake Celestia. “ALHAITHAM!” His fist thunders against the door, the sound ringing through his ears and rattling his brain, and surely putting the scribe within in a foul mood, but Kaveh couldn’t care less. Fucker took my keys, again. 

Kaveh is gathering the breath to scream again when the door flies open with a sudden intensity that sends Kaveh stumbling over the threshold.

The face of his roommate is drawn tight, his eyes cold and his posture composed as he eyes the fumbling blonde.

Kaveh doesn’t allow Alhaitham time for the snarky comment that is surely coming, blurting out, “I just came for my blueprint, if you hadn’t taken my keys like you always do-”

Alhaitham releases a barely perceptible, frustrated breath. “You didn’t have to pound down my door to retrieve something so trivial,” he remarks dryly, stepping aside to let Kaveh past. 

The architect shoots him a glower, shoving past his junior and wobbling towards his room. 

“Blueprints,” he slurs at top volume, “are not trivial, they are my livelihood, archons damn you, and if you did anything to it I’ll-”

His desk is not as he left it. 

It is not there. And there’s only one person who would have the fucking nerve to go through Kaveh’s things-

Something snaps. 

Kaveh storms out of his room, moving so quickly that the house and walls and Alhaitham are all just blurs of color.

“What the fuck did you do to it?!” he screams so loud Alhaitham visibly winces, his eyes going wide as Kaveh’s fingers scrabble at him with the desperation of a madman.

“Kaveh-”

Kaveh doesn’t stop, instead jerking Alhaitahm’s collar down to scream in his face so loudly the scribe’s skull rattles and he can see the panic, the desperation, the terror in Kaveh’s eyes.

The overwhelming fear.

All Kaveh sees is red.

“You f-fucking thief, you fucking jerk, where is it-”

“Kaveh.”

Warm, solid hands land on Kaveh’s shoulders, anchoring him amidst the tides of fury clouding his gaze.

Kaveh takes a sharp step back, turning away and sucking in deep breaths, his face streaked with tears as his fists clench and unclench.

“Kaveh-” Alhaitham starts for the third time.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Kaveh chokes out.

Alhaitham’s patience frays, and he can’t hold back his irritated scowl. “If you would just listen to me-”

Kaveh’s eyes alight upon what he wants, and he lunges suddenly towards the table, leaving Alhaitham startled as the architect hugs the book to his chest, glaring at Alhaitham distrustfully.

The scribe sighs, running a hand down his face as he eyes Kaveh’s wobbly stance. “Kaveh. You’re clearly unwell-”

“Shut up,” Kaveh snaps, but his words slur and he stumbles an unsteady step forward.

Alhaitham’s eyes widen. “Kaveh-”

The architect hits the floor.

————————————

“By the Sevens,” Alhaitham grumbles under his breath as he crouches beside Kaveh’s unconscious form.

Kaveh’s cheeks are an unhealthy red, his lips slightly parted. His blonde hair splays out in a halo around him, his blue feather having fallen out long ago and a couple of his red clips along with it. Alhaitham curses himself for not noticing the signs sooner-Kaveh is drunk, worse than the scribe had originally thought. 

Alhaitham gently rolls the older man over, checking his pulse and wrinkling his nose at the unmistakable reek of wine. 

Idiot. Why did he feel the need to get so drunk? What happened? 

Alhaitham’s muscles flex as he lifts his roommate, grunting, and carries him to the couch, setting him down and adjusting his position so he won’t be sore in the morning. 

That solved, Alhaitham turns his attention to the journal on the ground, which had gone flying in the aftermath of his drunk senior’s collapse. He crouches beside it, his brow furrowing in curiosity. The impact had caused the journal to open to a page he hadn’t seen when he had previously skimmed through it. 

As more of Faranak’s words make themselves clear, Alhaitham drinks in what Kaveh’s mother had wanted to say to her son. Alhaitham knows how much Kaveh hates to talk about her; he is quick to assure Alhaitham that he bears no ill will towards his mother, but the scribe knows Kaveh isn’t telling him the full truth. Any young child, as Kaveh had been, would have felt shocked, lonely, and betrayed when their only true relative had abandoned them-and going so far away. 

Fontaine. 

A slow realization clicks in Alhaitham’s mind as he surveys the book on the floor. 

All of Alhaitham’s relatives are long gone now, and while his grandmother’s death affected him very much, he had at least had the peace of mind to be able to understand that she loved him and move on. He had never felt the lack of a mother or father in his life, had always been quite stoic and brief when it came to discussions about his relatives. It wasn’t a touchy subject for him, and he was efficient in shutting down any sympathetic looks tossed his way.

But Kaveh…

Kaveh might have been too young to remember his father, but he certainly remembered Faranak. Alhaitham suddenly realizes with a start that when he had seen Kaveh crying over that book once the traveler had left, it hadn’t been some sort of narrative with an unhappy ending, as the scribe had originally assumed. 

It had been his mother’s journal. 

Alhaitham slowly, carefully closes the journal and stows it away in his bag. He knows Kaveh won’t like what he plans to do.

But when has he ever listened to his seniors? 

Chapter Text

It is quiet when Kaveh wakes up. 

Too quiet. 

The blonde architect sits up with a hefty groan, his hand flying to his throbbing temple as he winces. Another painful hangover, nothing new. 

He squints at the fuzzy shapes on the table until they come into focus. 

A glass of…something hot? He picks it up and takes a sniff. 

The herby scent that curls around his aching brain is soothing in a way that makes him unnecessarily wary, and he has to remind himself to calm down. 

He takes a cautious sip and then almost immediately spits it out as a low, gravelly voice speaks from behind him. 

“Good?”

Kaveh sputters, the tea getting stuck in his throat as he hacks the liquid out. “Asshole!” He finally gasps once he’s regained the power of speech. “Do you want me to die?! Why would you-nevermind, this is such a typical thing for you to do, why am I even asking?”

Alhaitham shrugs, coming into view as he takes a seat opposite Kaveh, his gaze unreadable. “I was merely inquiring-”

“Oh, merely my ass,” Kaveh scoffs, setting the tea down with more force than necessary. “‘I’m merely a feeble scholar’,” he mocks, rolling his eyes, though Alhaitham catches the ghost of a smile flickering across the architect’s lips. “Cut it out, Hai-Alhaitham.” Kaveh purses his lips, hoping Alhaitham didn’t catch his slip. 

Thankfully, his roommate doesn’t bat an eye. 

Kaveh clears his throat loudly, trying to quell the flush creeping up his cheeks. “Right. Anyways. Shouldn’t you be at work right now?”

“Shouldn’t you?” Alhaitham points out, infinitely calmer than Kaveh and immediately making the blonde feel like a fool. Heat rushes back into Kaveh’s cheeks, and he clenches his fists, trying to keep his temper under control. 

“That’s not the point!” Kaveh takes in a deep breath, trying to keep his rising tone in control. “Anyways. I asked first.” 

Alhaitham inclines his head infinitesimally. “You are correct. However, I was recently asked to conduct a study in Fontaine, and-”

“Fontaine?!” Kaveh exclaims before Alhaitham can finish, his eyes widening with something akin to panic. The scribe’s eyes narrow slightly as he observes the emotions parading across Kaveh’s face. 

Hm. He seems…betrayed, almost. Could it be that I underestimated the effect this would have on him? Perhaps he fears Fontaine will take two people from him. 

And then another thought, this one unwelcome: I matter that much to him?

“Alhaitham, you can’t go to Fontaine!” Kaveh’s tone is high and loud. Definitely panic, then. “That’s-that’s so far, and it’s dangerous, and you’ll have to travel through the desert, and the desert is really dangerous, and-and isn’t their archon prone to locking people up for the tiniest things, and, you just-you can’t go!” He’s practically begging now, his wits deserting him in light of Alhaitham’s declaration. 

Kaveh is so desperate that the scribe almost changes his mind. 

Almost. 

Instead, Alhaitham shrugs. “It will be inconvenient, I agree-”

The familiar hot glow of furious exasperation flares in Kaveh’s eyes. “Alhaitham, this is hardly about your cushy lifestyle-”

“Oh?” Alhaitham tips his head, the tiniest ghost of a smile playing across his lips before it’s gone. “Do tell, Kaveh. Whose ‘cushy lifestyle’ is this about?”

Kaveh’s cheeks burn, and Alhaitham almost smirks at his senior’s flabbergasted expression, even as his heart tugs at him a little. 

“You-!” Kaveh growls, clenching and unclenching his fists, one hand going to unconsciously cradle his temple again. 

The smallest pang of guilt hits Alhaitham, and he finds himself pushing Kaveh’s tea closer to him. 

The older man grunts, taking a sip of the tea. “Why do you have to go to Fontaine?” His voice is gruff, but it sounds more pained now-whether lingering effects of the hangover, or emotional pain, Alhaitham can’t tell. 

“The Akademiya doesn’t need their scribe wandering around Teyvat,” Kaveh continues, still sounding sullen. “Besides, everybody knows you only took the job because it doesn’t require anything much of you!”

Alhaitham shrugs, unfazed. “You travel rather frequently. I don’t see what the fuss is about.” He turns away, moving towards his room. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare for my trip.”

“Wait-” Kaveh scrambles after the scribe, swaying a little as his head protests the sudden movement. “When…urgh, gimme a second.”

Alhaitham watches with a detached expression as his roommate’s vermillion eyes squeeze shut and the blonde presses two fingers against his own temple.

When those eyes open, Alhaitham can’t help but notice how clouded they are, how much they have dulled in the span of a few short minutes, the customary passion draining out of them. Two beautiful suns which he hadn’t quite realized how much he needed until they faded.

Kaveh looks…tired.

Disheveled.

It’s probably just the hangover. 

“When are you leaving?”  Kaveh forges on with his question, trying to sound unbothered, but it comes out all wrong and instead sounds…lonely? 

“Immediately.” Alhaitham turns away again. 

“Wha-wait, Alhaitham!” Kaveh’s fingers snag onto his junior’s cape as he reaches desperately for him, and the scribe stops. 

“I would suggest you remove your grasp from my clothing before you tear it and land yourself further in debt.” 

Kaveh scowls, but he does as Alhaitham asks. “I wasn’t going to rip it,” he mumbles, following Alhaitham into his room and leaning against the doorframe as he watches the other man pack. 

Alhaitham is efficient, stowing away a few changes of clothing, a couple textbooks, and, more surreptitiously, the bag containing Faranak’s journal, before turning back to his roommate, his expression unreadable. 

Kaveh looks uncertain, his hands fiddling with the heavy jewelry around his neck, but Alhaitham is more distracted by the sunny strand of hair fluttering at the corner of his eye. 

What he would give to be able to stand up and approach Kaveh, to see the shocked expression on the other’s face as he gently reaches back with two soft fingers to tuck the stray hair back behind his ear-

“Are you even listening?” Kaveh explodes, his arms folded tightly across his chest as he glares at Alhaitham. 

“My apologies,” the scribe utters coolly, the imaginary scenario disappearing rapidly. He ignores the sinking feeling in his chest, rising with his pack in hand. “What was it you said?”

Kaveh’s glare lingers for a moment before he sighs and looks away. “How long?”

Alhaitham’s brow furrows slightly. “What?”

Kaveh’s gaze flickers back to Alhaitham as he releases a heavy and, in the scribe’s opinion, exaggerated sigh, his foot scuffing the carpet slightly. Kaveh’s vivid eyes get stuck on the wrinkle between Alhaitham’s brows, and his fingers twitch against his sides, wanting so badly to smooth it out. He quickly looks away again, his throat bobbing in a swallow. “Don’t-ugh, nevermind. How long will you be gone?”

The scribe offers Kaveh a mere shrug and sweeps past him. “Indefinitely.” 

“What-indefinitely? Alhaitham-”

“I don’t see the problem,” Alhaitham interrupts, his voice cool. “You frequently complain about my presence, my lack of emotional understanding, so on, so forth. Would it not please you to be rid of me?”

Kaveh’s jaw works as he watches Alhaitham’s stiff back, and he wills his hands to remain at his side even though he just wants to wrap his arms around his junior and bury his face in his neck so Alhaitham can never leave. 

You’ve got it all wrong, Haitham. His face falls as he listens to the other man’s words. I don’t want to “be rid of you” at all. 

“Alhaitham-”

“Kaveh.” The way Alhaitham says his name, though not soft or sweet or romantic whatsoever, still causes a strange fluttering in the architect’s chest. “We are done here.” 

“You can’t just decide that!” Kaveh bursts out, taking a bold step forward, but holding himself back. Do not grab his shoulder, do not do something that stupid, please-

“I just did.” Alhaitham folds his arms over his unfairly muscular chest, unperturbed. 

Kaveh groans in frustration, and he can’t stop his hand from landing on the other man’s shoulder and spinning him around to face Kaveh, their eyes meeting. A blaze of fiery desperation hitting a hard, stony wall. 

“Don’t do that.” Kaveh’s voice is hard and quiet. 

Alhaitham tips his head slightly. “Do what?”

“Don’t shut me out!” Kaveh takes a step back, his hand falling off Alhaitham’s shoulder as he feels himself getting flustered. “Alhaitham, just-” He runs a frustrated hand down his face. He has no reasons that will appeal to Alhaitham’s logic-driven, rational brain. All he has is emotions, and Alhaitham doesn’t care about that. 

“Just let me go with you.” All of Kaveh’s fight deserts him. “Please.”

Alhaitham scans Kaveh’s gaze, looking supremely unhurried. He knows Kaveh would find out he’s lying about a ‘study in Fontaine’ as soon as they arrived in the other nation-and besides, Kaveh wouldn’t take kindly to Alhaitham interfering in his personal life. The architect had made it clear long ago that he didn’t need Faranak. 

But Alhaitham knows Kaveh-at least, he hopes he does-and Kaveh would love this.

Probably.

Hopefully.

And he would forgive Alhaitham.

Eventually.

Most likely.

“I’m sorry,” Alhaitham finally says, and Kaveh almost takes a step back in surprise. The scribe’s voice is oddly soft in a way it has never been before, and it is extremely rare for his arrogant junior to apologize for anything.

Kaveh’s heart sinks as Alhaitham turns to grab his keys. “Haitham-” The architect reaches for the other man’s hand, but Alhaitham is already out the door.

The door closes.

Leaving Kaveh stranded.

Chapter Text

Kaveh goes to the tavern.

And no, it’s not just to get wasted, the tavern is his very understandable and much-needed escape, where he can actually be free and say what he wants, and it’s an excellent source of information, thank you very much-

Okay, fine, maybe he just wants to drink until he forgets.

Alhaitham left.

Just like that, no goodbyes, nothing. Will he even keep paying for my checks? Kaveh wonders morosely, staring into his glass of wine that he suddenly can’t quite stomach, trying to ignore how the shallow question is disguising the main concerns weighing on his mind.

The concerns he stoutly refuses to acknowledge.

His gloomy, brooding mood must somehow be much more obvious than he had thought, as everybody in the tavern manages to sober up enough to understand to steer clear of the sullen architect in the back corner. Kaveh, while generally a chatty drunk that will talk the ear off of whoever’s nearest, is uncharacteristically grateful of the space he’s afforded.

He doesn’t want to see anyone, interact with anyone-not tonight, at least.

When Kaveh finally goes back, finding that the night is not the same without Alhaitham dragging him back to his house and scolding him, he realizes something as soon as he reaches the door.

His hands instinctively rummage around in his pockets, but he comes up empty, and it takes him a few moments for his addled mind to understand the grave significance of that.

No fucking way.

A bitter laugh slips out of Kaveh’s lips as he rests his head against the door that is not his, that is Alhaitham’s, and now he is oh so kindly reminded of that fact. He closes his eyes and tries fruitlessly to pretend that Alhaitham is coming soon, probably right now, and Kaveh will berate him once more about taking his key.

But the vision doesn’t last, and he coughs out a choked laugh instead. He’s too tired, too broken for this right now.

“Asshole,” he mumbles, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat.

Even gone, the infuriating scribe still manages to haunt him with his one stupid, constant habit.

The man is still taking Kaveh’s keys.

And now Kaveh doesn’t know where he is, or when he’s getting back.

He’s homeless.

Again.

————————————

Alhaitham is tired. No, not tired. Weary.

His boots have sand in them, his cape is dusty, and he is hot. For the first time in his life, he deeply regrets his trusty, forever unfailing wardrobe choice. The sweat has accumulated so greatly that it is dripping in insistent, cloudy droplets off his fingertips that he tries to ignore.

He had intended to take a caravan through the Sumeru rainforest and then most of the desert. The caravan was due to stop at Aaru Village before continuing on a few trade paths towards some…eremite civilizations?

Point being, he was supposed to be in a comfortable caravan, well on his way through the desert.

Not walking through these endless fucking sand dunes because the caravan broke down for some unknown reason before they could even get past Pardis Dhyai.

Alhaitham has absolutely no clue where Aaru Village is at this point. He’d long since scaled the Wall of Samiel-which would have been nigh impossible without his dendro vision-and had headed in a direction he hoped was north.

He squints against the miniscule pieces of the dunes that seem to be intentionally targeting him.

Great. Another sandstorm.

Plodding along, Alhaitham tries to ignore the scratch in his parched throat, the way his legs are burning and weakening with each step, and the way his mind-his incredibly sharp, always reliable mind-is not thinking of how to survive, not focusing on the next step, not working.

Instead, he daydreams with every step of blonde locks tickling his nose, of red eyes flashing like twin suns, of a man who is not only the Light of the Kshahrewar, but the light of Alhaitham’s life as well.

He is so lost in his mind he doesn’t realize it when he almost walks straight into a smirking, dark skinned woman with inane hair and a claymore strapped to her back.

“Alhaitham?!” The voice is loud, boisterous, and Alhaitham winces, immediately regretting that his headphones had been dismantled by this fucking sand hours ago.

Dehya laughs, giving him a friendly shove in the chest. “Who would’ve thought the great scribe of the Akademiya would be visiting these parts? Tell me, O Greatness, what brings someone of your caliber to our humble region?” She gestures sarcastically to the dry, desolate expanse surrounding them.

Alhaitham grunts, his mood souring. He hasn’t the time nor energy to deal with Dehya’s quips and sarcastic comments poking fun at his poor circumstances. “If you have nothing of value to contribute, at least make yourself useful and point me towards Fontaine.” His tone is cold.

The Flame-Mane, however, is unsurprisingly unfazed, and she smirks wider at the scribe’s harsh tone. “Wow, Alhaitham, I did think that after all we went through with saving a god and all that, you’d be a little more friendly towards an old pal.” She grins, clapping Alhaitham on the back. He nearly doubles over. “Then again, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected much from you.” A scorpion that had been creeping a little too close behind them bursts into spontaneous flame, and Dehya doesn’t spare a glance in its direction as she slings an arm around the scribe’s shoulders, spurring his wobbly legs to walk once more.

“You look dead on your feet, O Scribe,” Dehya comments cheerfully, seeming to have absolutely no problem walking on the slippery dunes in heels. And an utter lack of proper attire-how can she be so infuriatingly unbothered by the sheer quantities of sand surely getting everywhere, with that sort of clothing? And her black hair is getting in Alhaitham’s mouth.

He spits out her tangled, gritty locks, scowling at the mercenary as she continues brightly, “So, what are you going to Fontaine for? I didn’t think you’d ever leave that precious Akademiya of yours.”

“It is hardly your business,” Alhaitham replies stiffly, but his words fall on deaf ears as Dehya continues chattering about the desert and eremites and archons only know what as he tunes her out.

In a way, though, her talk reminds him quite a lot of a certain architect, and there’s a rather odd pain in his chest at the thought.

He’ll ask Tighnari to check it out when he gets back.

————————————

“Urghhhh,” Kaveh groans into the cold, hard wood of the unfamiliar table.

“Hangover?” A sympathetic voice comes from Kaveh’s left, and he feels more than hears the glass of water being placed onto the table in front of him. “Here, drink.”

Kaveh picks up his head and downs the water before his cheek unceremoniously meets the wood once more. “Not going to lecture me on drinking too much?” he mumbles bitterly.

The Forest Watcher laughs softly, his tail swishing behind him. “I would, but we both know you never listen.” Tighnari turns away, busying himself in the kitchen. “So, what happened between you and Alhaitham?” he calls out over the sound of rattling pots and pans.

Kaveh closes his eyes and turns his face away from Tighnari. “Nothing,” he mumbles.

Technically, it’s not a lie. Nothing did happen between them. There wasn’t an argument or anything. Alhaitham just…

Annoying, arrogant, pigheaded, prickly asshole.

“Mm, looks like someone’s in a bad mood today.” Cyno’s low, rumbling, amused voice is unmistakable, and Kaveh can hear his soft footsteps as he presumably heads over to Tighnari. “Morning, Tigh.”

“Morning,” Tighnari murmurs back, and Kaveh tries to ignore their soft words, tries not to imagine their gestures of affection.

A weight settles in his heart, and he feels suddenly claustrophobic for no reason at all. Needing to be out in the fresh air, he quickly stands up before immediately regretting it as the room sways sickeningly.

Tighnari rushes to his side, looking concerned. “Kaveh, sit down-”

Kaveh grunts, brushing the Forest Watcher off. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he says hastily, trying to keep his foul mood out of his tone. “Thanks for letting me crash here.” He grabs Mehrak from its place against the wall, where the architect had left it last night. “It was really great, I owe you one!” Kaveh shoots Tighnari a smile through gritted teeth and is just turning towards the door when a soft, quiet voice stops him.

“Mister Kaveh is leaving?”

Kaveh runs an exhausted hand down his face. The young girl’s confused, sad voice is tugging on his heartstrings, and he simply can’t deal with that right now. Besides, he doesn’t want to intrude on his friends’ hospitality, but-

A warm hand settles on his shoulder, and the architect jumps because for a wistful second, he almost thinks-

But no, when he turns around it is ombre brown-green eyes that meet his, not that turquoise with red irises; it is black hair streaked with green, not his cloudy gray; it is two tall, furry ears, not that one awfully adorable strand of hair that-

“Kaveh.” The softly spoken word, paired with the kindness in Tighnari’s eyes, nearly makes Kaveh give in. “You are welcome here.”

The architect’s eyes drop to his feet. “I know,” he says quietly.

But Cyno, Tighnari, and Collei are clearly a lovely, happy family, and Kaveh is just a far too talkative, far too messy intruder in the lives they worked so hard to build.

Cyno’s hand wraps around Tighnari’s waist as he comes up behind the Forest Watcher. “Let him go,” he says softly to Tighnari before turning to Kaveh, “Stop by for another TCG game sometime, alright?” He smiles at the green-haired, wide-eyed girl lingering behind them. “Collei enjoys your company quite a bit. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s getting tired of us.”

The young girl’s eyes widen. “C-Cyno, I-“

Cyno laughs, waving his hand fondly towards Collei and then shooting Tighnari a glare as the Forest Watcher elbows him. “Ow-Just teasing, Collei!”

Kaveh tries to forget the fond look in Tighnari’s eyes as he had watched Cyno, the way Collei had smiled radiantly at both of them.

Happiness. Family. Connection. Why is that so foreign to him now?

He swallows his thoughts and forces a smile. “I’ll stop by for a game, yeah. Thanks.”

Cyno gives him a friendly nod, and Kaveh waves goodbye to Tighnari and his family before stepping out of the house and resisting the urge to bury his face in his hands.

It’s only been a day since Alhaitham left, and he’s already a fucking disaster that can’t get his shit together. Or have a stable place to stay.

His debt is finally really catching up to him. Maybe he hadn’t realized just how much Alhaitham had been his crutch over the past few months, and that causes Kaveh’s mood to sour further.

Groaning to himself, Kaveh hefts Mehrak and sets out to find a client. Or maybe just someone willing to let him stay the night.

He’ll take anything at this point.

Chapter Text

“Oh, the traveler stopped by here a couple weeks ago,” Dehya finds it suddenly necessary to bring up out of the blue, her mouth full of some sort of unnamed stew that Alhaitham has been picking at for the past twenty minutes. The flickering light of the fire casts her face into shadow, but her blue-yellow eyes flash as she grins. “Maybe you’ll run into them, huh?”

Alhaitham gives a noncommittal grunt, tugging at the collar of his tight-fitting black turtleneck. Even nights in the desert, while a welcome respite from the grueling heat of the day, are still uncomfortably warm. 

Dehya narrows her eyes at him. “I betcha I could find some Eremite clothing that would-”

“No.” Alhaitham’s response is cold enough to chill the air a few degrees, but Dehya merely shrugs and turns away. 

“Fine, don’t complain to me when you get heatstroke, ye stubborn ass.” She laughs, her voice as bright as the streaks of sun-yellow in her hair. “No wonder Kaveh complains about you.”

Alhaitham goes rigid. 

Dehya catches his tense posture, and she smirks. “Have a lover’s quarrel, or something?”

Alhaitham stands up with brutal efficiency, his jaw set in a tense line. “Goodnight.” 

“Hey, no need to get so prickly, now!” Dehya yells after him as he strides with stiff movements towards his tent, cursing the way his normally imposing steps sink into the dunes and ruin the impression he’s trying to make. 

“Archons, he’s like a fucking teenager,” she mumbles, poking the fire and eyeing Alhaitham’s abandoned and barely touched stew before shrugging and taking it for herself. 

Alhaitham ducks into the tent, flattening the gritty rug-if it can even be called as such-on the sand and tucking his legs underneath him. His fingers steeple as his mind circles back to Dehya’s flippant words. 

Have a lover’s quarrel, or something? 

His expression twists. He and Kaveh were hardly lovers, or whatever ridiculous notion the mercenary had got into her head. 

Alhaitham lays down on the scratchy, brittle rug and tries to discard the ideas in his head, attempts to ignore the images of his-

Kaveh laughing, his eyes shining, teeth flashing, skin tipped up to the sun, Kaveh dancing, twirling under the stars, his cheeks flushed apple-red from the alcohol, Kaveh smiling at him, that shy little smile of his that was reserved only for Alhaitham-

Alhaitham rolls over, pressing his face into the rug that rubs uncomfortably against his cheeks and takes a breath full of the dry heat of the desert and more than a few grains of sand. 

Vermillion eyes looking down at him as he blinks awake, coughing and rubbing at his dry, oozing eyes. 

“Ah, you’re awake!”

And despite the chill that has set deeply into his bones, a small tendril of warmth curls in his chest at that bright voice. 

“I was not aware you were still here,” Alhaitham mumbles, attempting to sit up and finding his body too heavy for him to lift. 

Gentle hands prop him up against the pillows, and Alhaitham finally recognizes Kaveh’s full form. His hair is messy, brown and unwashed at the ends, and pools of black make their home under his eyes. 

But he shines in a way nobody else does, even in this unkempt and bedraggled state. 

“Stop thinking,” Kaveh chides him softly, the ends of his blonde hair tickling Alhaitham’s nose as he leans down to place his cool hand on the scribe’s forehead. “I can see the gears turning in your head.” He pulls away with a light tap to Alhaitham’s nose, causing the younger man to freeze.

Because fuck, he looks so cute right now, with his hair hanging into his face and his bright glow and sparkling eyes and moist, cherry-red lips that Alhaitham wishes he could-

Kaveh tips his head, a smile quirking at the corners of his lips. “What?”

Alhaitham shakes his head, his gaze dimming again as the shades slip back over his teal eyes. “Nothing.” It is always nothing.

Kaveh’s lips purse slightly, and Alhaitham can only watch as the sun dims within those eyes. “It’s always nothing with you, hm?” He offers the scribe a smile, but it disappears quickly. “Stay here, I’ll get you breakfast.”

“As if I could go elsewhere, with you fretting over me like a mother hen.” Alhaitham’s words are appropriately detached, numb, said on instinct. He cannot afford to be closer to his beautiful roommate. Distance is the only way.

He closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to watch the sun that is Kaveh fade entirely.

“Morning, sunshine!” Dehya’s slightly mocking, far-too-cheerful voice is his greeting as the sweltering sun shoves into his temples and begins brewing a pounding headache.

This sun is nothing like his sun.

Not his, he has to remind himself. Never his.

Alhaitham sits up, efficiently packing up the tent Dehya had generously lent him for the time being and stowing it away into his pack with Faranak’s journal.

The Flame-Mane watches him strike the tent, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He shoots her a scowl. “What?”

She turns away, expression unreadable. “We’ve got a long trek ahead of us if we’re to make it to the edge of the desert by nightfall.”

Alhaitham grimaces as he watches Dehya strap her claymore to her back. Though the mercenary prefers fists to swords, in a tough fight she will, though by no means willingly, unsheathe the massive broadsword she carries with her. He wonders if today will be one of those days, his thumb brushing over the sword hilt at his side.

He can fight in a pinch, though he prefers to use tricks of the light and the illusions of his mirrors to make a painless escape. Why unnecessarily exhaust energy when one can simply avoid the problem altogether?

Yes, but what about protecting others? Kaveh’s voice whispers in his mind, his carnelian eyes shredding through every flimsy defense and mirror Alhaitham puts up, staring right into his heart.

The scribe banishes the image of the architect, focusing on the hot sand shifting over his black boots.

“Ready?” Dehya’s tone is impatient, and Alhaitham frowns at the dunes below, as if it were their fault.

“Yes.” His tone brooks no questions as he strides past Dehya into the vast and blistering unknown.

She’ll overtake him when he starts getting lost.

————————————

“Stop drinking.”

A goblet slams down on the empty table space in front of Kaveh, causing him to jump and curse as wine almost spills onto his precious blueprints. After protectively sheltering the papers with his arm, he looks up with narrowed eyes at the person who had caused such a commotion.

Of course. The one person I didn’t need.

The ridiculous hat is a dead giveaway, but his suspicions are confirmed as he takes in the odd manner of dressing and the ugly haircut.

Lesser Lord Kusanali’s problematic-as-fuck adoptive son.

“Scara.” Kaveh’s lips twist into a grimace. He had actually been trying to get some work done for once! Why couldn’t a troubled man enjoy a nice bottle-or two, or three-of wine while he slaved over blueprints that clients would inherently change everything about?

Suddenly, he needs another bottle.

“Ah-ah.” The wanderer’s hand shoots out and catches Kaveh’s wrist just as he’s about to reach for more wine. The architect glowers at him. “I said stop drinking.”

Kaveh stands up abruptly, his chair toppling over behind him as he gathers his blueprints, anger in every harsh motion. He refuses to allow the smirking man before him to goad him into making a fool of himself.

“Sit down.” Scara twirls the stem of Kaveh’s abandoned goblet between two fingers, looking bored. “Just so you know, I’m not here of my own jurisdiction. Nahida decided somebody needed to step in and, I quote, I’ll do a better job than she will because we’ll be able to do some bro bonding shit.”

Kaveh scoffs, remaining standing. “Lesser Lord Kusanali would not say ‘bro bonding shit.’” 

Scara waves a dismissive hand. “Blah blah blah. Lose the title, would you? Fucking mouthful. Trust me, I don’t want to talk to you any more than you want to talk to me, so sit the fuck down so we can both get this over with.”

Kaveh hesitates before reluctantly sitting down, tucking his favored blue quill back behind his ear and rubbing the bags under his eyes as he waits for the wanderer to begin speaking.

“Nahida thought you seemed down.” Scara gets straight to the point, sounding bored as he continues toying with Kaveh’s half-full goblet. The architect eyes the drink warily, keeping his blueprints and diagrams safely away from the precarious drops of wine. “She wants to know if anything’s going on. Or something.”

“I’m fine.” Kaveh’s voice is sharp and brittle as he begins stowing his papers away into Mehrak. He needs to leave soon if he’s to find anybody willing to give him a place to stay before nightfall. “Nothing’s going on. Are we done?”

The man opposite him shrugs. “Sure. But lay off on the wine.”

Kaveh stiffens, the lines of his back and shoulders rigid. 

Scara looks up at his expression and laughs. “Sumeru doesn’t promote alcoholism, you know-”

Kaveh slams his briefcase shut and storms out. 

“Sumeru doesn’t promote alcoholism, Kaveh.”

Kaveh waves one hand dismissively. He recognize’s the voice’s owner, who knows it’s futile when Kaveh’s in a mood like this. 

His quill flies over the paper, occasionally replaced with chalk or charcoal as he sketches furiously. 

“Trying to take out your brain and transfer it to the paper?” the same voice quips dryly. Kaveh vaguely registers the presence of someone sitting down beside him, but his wrist is moving too quickly for his thoughts to keep up. 

“Shhhhh,” Kaveh hushes, his knee bouncing erratically as his eyes flare at the paper, the feather trembling in his grip as his lines arc and glide across the paper with manic intent. 

“Kaveh.” Alhaitham’s, he finally registers, hand lands on his knee soothingly, stopping the jackhammering motion. “You’re going to give everyone in here a heart attack. How much did you drink?”

Kaveh waves an exaggerated hand, nearly knocking over his half-full goblet of wine in the process. “Bah, what does it matter now? Besides, I’m working-”

“It’s past midnight, Kaveh. Come home.”

The simply, softly spoken words still Kaveh’s racing hand, and he finally looks up from the blueprint, blinking as he takes in his surroundings for the first time in what is likely hours. 

Alhaitham’s green eyes blink down at him, a slight quirk of his eyebrow the only indication of emotion, which Kaveh reads as a mix of amusement and mild concern. His hand is still warm and anchoring on his knee, Kaveh realizes dazedly, his mind still spinning with the recent onslaught of inspiration. 

“I made soup.” Alhaitham rises, offering the architect a hand.

Kaveh’s lips curve in a sloppy grin as he accepts the hand, his warm, sweaty, cramping palm soothed by the cool balm of Alhaitham’s fingers. “You can’t make soup, Haitham,” he huffs, swatting at him good-naturedly. 

The scribe catches his wrists, his eyes glimmering with something Kaveh is too tired to pick apart as he murmurs, “For you? I can do anything.”

The words still Kaveh’s too-fast heart, and he stares at Alhaitham for a moment, his cheeks slightly flushed. Must be the alcohol. 

Alhaitham scoffs and drops Kaveh’s wrists with an unnatural rapidity. “Hurry up. It’ll be cold and ruined by the time we get home at this rate, and then you’ll just have to go to bed hungry.”

Kaveh’s expression morphs into a scowl. “You-ugh!” He scrambles to collect his blueprints and hastily grabs Mehrak before scrambling after Alhaitham, who is already walking out of the tavern. “Hey!”

And yet, when they got to Alhaitham’s house, even though the soup was a cold to rival Dragonspine, Alhaitham didn’t comment whatsoever.  

Maybe it was moments like that which were the reason for Kaveh’s mind’s recent and unsettling obsession with anything Alhaitham, Kaveh thought as he pitched a tent he had borrowed from the adventurer’s guild a little way out in the forest. Days when Alhaitham wasn’t a total asshole. When he was…kind. Considerate. 

But a strange pang of hollowness hits Kaveh’s chest as he thinks about Alhaitham, and he quickly pushes thoughts of the other man to the back of his mind. He has bigger problems to think about-meeting deadlines, food, a place to stay…

Ten days without Alhaitham. Without the security of a roof over his head, without the comfort of a proper routine, without their constant bickering. 

Ten days of peace, he tells himself. The respite from his awful roommate he had been asking Celestia for. 

He didn’t miss Alhaitham-archons, what a stupid notion! No, it was just as if he had a client in the desert that called him away for a couple of weeks, except this time in the familiarity and comfort of Sumeru City, and without the worry of running into Alhaitham hanging over his head. 

It was like-like freedom, Kaveh insists to himself as he rolls over, unable to get comfortable on the thin mat that did little to cushion the bumpy grass underneath him. It was great. In fact, Alhaitham could be gone for another ten days, or even more, and he wouldn’t care. 

He wouldn’t. 

Why would he? 

Chapter Text

The desert is quiet without Dehya. 

Alhaitham had never predicted that he would ever miss the boisterous company of the mercenary, but ever since she had bid him a merry goodbye a few hours ago, the heat of the beating sun and the drudgery of trudging endlessly through the constant sand began to make themselves loudly known. 

He had always been aware of these minor irritations, but now they were really starting to burrow under his skin, and so he does his best to keep his gaze trained on the taunting image of the sparkling blue sea that keeps slipping out of his grasp. 

Dehya told him that Fontaine was just five hours away at a steady walking pace. Dehya told him that if he kept his focus, he’d be able to make it onto a boat and into the Nation of Hydro before nightfall. Dehya told him that he had enough water, enough food, and enough determination to get there. Dehya told him not to worry.

And just like the questionable mirage of the sea ahead, the Flame-Made’s words flicker before him like the sand his feet raise before dissipating into the wind. There and gone again. 

Sometimes his mind will perk up with crystal clarity, sharper than the blade at his hip, and guide his steps with confidence and unwavering certainty. But more often than not, his thoughts slip into a subconscious stupor, and it seems almost too much to even just keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

But he does. 

Because turning back is not a viable option, his brain oh-so-helpfully pipes up to let him know. The potential consequences would be much greater without certainty of direction or destination. It would be just as easy to end up in Natlan than the forest, and wandering aimlessly through the desert for weeks on end would be infinitely more plausible. 

“Facts and your beloved plausibilities can’t get you everywhere, Haitham,” scoffs a voice Alhaitham knows far too well, a voice that is so clear and real and ringing in his ears that he almost turns around. 

But the sea is before him, so he ignores the tricks and mirages of his mind and doggedly plods along. 

————————————

Kaveh is done sulking. And camping. And hiding out in other people’s homes because he can’t get into Alhaitham’s. 

“I have a client!” Kaveh announces loudly to nobody in particular, except perhaps the dusk birds that startle and eye him warily as he brandishes the papers of the new contract in his lonely tent in the middle of the rainforest. 

The architect could really care less about the details of the job as he signs the contract faster than he’s ever signed anything in his life and makes plans to meet with the client and get started right away. With Alhaitham gone for archons only knows how long, he needs mora in his pockets and a reasonable excuse to travel into the desert so as not to flaunt his homelessness before all his friends. 

And because Tighnari is getting suspicious. Kaveh has crashed at his place a few too many times since Alhaitham left-probably more than he remembers, since he’s gone to the tavern quite a bit in the past few days-and the Forest Watcher has been eyeing the architect like he’s a plant that isn’t growing the way he’s supposed to. 

His whole living situation has somehow become a string of half-truths that somewhere along the way turned into a very confusing lie that Kaveh is too weary to untangle and deal with all the implications. His friends don’t know about his debt, his homelessness, his extended stay with Alhaitham, and now Alhaitham’s whereabouts have been added to that list. He obviously has no idea where the scribe is-apparently he was lying about going to Fontaine, since the Akademiya released an official statement reporting he was “on extended and indefinite leave”-but he’s been pretending he didn’t know that Alhaitham had even left at all, which is becoming a difficult story to keep track of. 

Anyways. At this point, simply telling the truth would probably be easier than suspiciously dancing around Tighnari’s probing questions, but thankfully Kaveh was saved by some crazy old man who wants to build an artificial oasis and mansion somewhere in the desert, and thus, his lie continues. 

All that aside, the architect is practically overjoyed to be back to work as he scribbles down his endless flow of sketches and ideas. His mood and creative flow had been oddly dampened since Alhaitham left, but now all that is behind him and he is happy for a project to take the scribe off his mind. 

Thank Kusanali. 

————————————

Alhaitham silently blesses every archon he can remember as he picks his way along the cliffside, the sea just below. 

He can see the boats, at least four of them near the shore and another dozen somewhere between the sloping swell of the desert leading down to the glittering water… and Fontaine. 

And Fontaine. 

The Nation of Hydro is surrounded by a wall of sheer, ever-flowing waterfalls, which Alhaitham had read about and heard of, but never witnessed directly. Above the water rise tall, sheer mountains with slopes of cool blue-green grass, and trees clinging to their steep sides.

A technologically advanced nation, separated from all the rest by an unbreachable wall of water.

And that wall is magnificent. 

From a student’s perspective, the fact that such constantly flowing water can even exist at all is fascinating to say the very least, and what is more baffling is that the land that towers above is somehow able to float comfortably on what can only be described as a sort of box of suspended water. 

Kaveh would say that it is beautiful.  

Alhaitham finally makes his way down the cliff and waves down a boat that is all-too-happy to take him just across the short stretch of sea to the partly submerged tower that rises up to Fontaine. 

Alhaitham is unsettlingly out of place with his dark green Sumerian clothes coated in a thick layer of sand compared to the townspeople on the docks in their bright colors and extravagant clothing. Each of them seems to have some sort of mechanically related quirk on their person, but they pay Alhaitham no mind as he passes.

A familiar flash of blonde hair catches his eye, and Alhaitham’s mind goes blank for a moment before his gaze finds a round, sparkly, floating Paimon a few inches away from the blonde hair.

Ah. The traveler.

The one who had started this whole mess. Alhaitham turns and makes his way towards the center of the tower, not wanting to be tangled up in another of the traveler’s questionable at best and disastrous at worst schemes. The outlander was tearing through Teyvat and upsetting every nation, and Alhaitham didn’t want anything to do with them after the insanity that had occurred in Sumeru.

The scribe enters the cool, cramped interior of the tower and finds only a cylindrical box in the center. Stepping within, it takes a moment for him to understand how to operate it, and then the elevator is smoothly funneling him up.

He allows himself to marvel at the unique controls. Sumeru, with its maze-like structure built around that one giant tree, could certainly use a similar type of mechanic to make transportation much more efficient. The only example of an elevator that he can recall is the disturbingly shaky circular platform that rises from the House of Daena to the Grand Sage’s office and was always malfunctioning. The thing was part of the reason he had rapidly resigned from Acting Grand Sage.

Kaveh would love puzzling out this elevator.

He steps out of the elevator once it slides open, blinking in the sudden sunlight. The space before him is small and cramped with a now unhindered view of the land of Fontaine.

Alhaitham looks ahead, to the strange, empty waterway before him that seems to curve around and into Fontaine. A few empty vessels bob in the still water that curves around the harbor.

Ignoring the curious civilians ogling him, he finds a bench to sit and wait for a vessel to return, and props open a book in his lap. 

After a while, the soft hum of water moving around a powered vessel alerts him to the arrival of the boat, and he looks up, only to stop short. 

There is a creature piloting the vessel.

The creature is quite short, and a soft blue with pink ears and distinct white markings. It wears clothes and a hat a blue to match its coloration, and has…blonde hair.

That hair is haunting him.

Straightening, Alhaitham mounts the stairs to climb atop the vessel, finding it equipped with nothing more than the creature on a platform at its head and a few small benches to the sides, which he takes a seat on. 

“Hello there, dear passenger!” the creature chirps. Alhaitham barely looks up from the book he’s opened once more. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

The scribe turns a page. 

The creature is silent, almost as if it were a machine waiting for a response before being able to continue its scripted speech.

Finally, bored of waiting, Alhaitham grumbles, “Yes. Get going.”

Just as he predicted, on cue, the creature continues brightly, “O-oh! It’s time to go already, isn’t it?”

The silence is replaced by the slow lapping of water around the vessel as it sets off again, moving at a steady pace. Alhaitham frowns slightly. He can’t tell if the creature is controlling the vessel or not, since there is no sort of panel or steering mechanism. The boat seems to simply control itself.

After several moments of blissful peace, the creature pipes up, “Welcome to the Clementine Line aquabus! This boat tour will take you to the magnificent Court of Fontaine, the most important city in our nation!”

Well, at least he’s going the right way, Alhaitham muses as he flips a page in the book that he’s already read before but enjoys glancing over time and again. The allegedly ‘most important city in Fontaine’ would probably be a good place to start looking for Faranak.

He almost laughs. Faranak. How long it had been since he had even thought about his purpose of coming all the way to Fontaine. And on such a silly whim, too. He can hardly remember his original line of reasoning for such a rash decision. It must have certainly been rational at some point, but he can’t quite remember now.

It’s all water under the bridge now, though. He can’t turn back, not after getting this far. 

He tunes back into the creature’s speech as it declares, “Back on topic! The destination of this trip will be the Court of Fontaine! If you’d like to learn more about the latest technological developments in Fontaine, the hottest new trends and cuisine, or upcoming sensational trials, please subscribe to the Steambird!”

Alhaitham briefly wonders what the Steambird is before recalling the newsstands he had seen scattered all throughout the area of the tower he had entered Fontaine through, each of them emblazoned with the bold Steambird logo.

How fascinating, if there are no other news sites in Fontaine. How can they possibly trust their information? Were the other competitors knocked out by this Steambird?

He stars paying attention again when the creature says frantically for no reason whatsoever, “Oh no, did I spoil it for you? Oops…anyway, coming up ahead on your left head side is Merusea Village, the hometown of all Melusines-myself included!”

So this creature is a…Melusine. Alhaitham scrutinizes the Melusine with new eyes. It had spoken of a village-were there many of them?

“It’s deep below the ground, just over there,” the Melusine continues, gesturing somewhere to its right. “We will now pass through Poisson Tunnel. Now that I think about it, very few people tend to take this line! Hmm..maybe it’s because humans don’t really like deserts?”

Deserts.

Alhaitham’s mind drifts absently back to his home, full of dark green and yellow and so far from this foreign cool blue and green and-

The scent of wood and fresh paint on a hot summer day as the door flies open. 

He always likes to announce his arrival, though he doesn’t need to. The street itself glows from miles away with his light. 

He can catch the flash of blonde hair but little more as the whirlwind that is him flies through the door and into the kitchen in a gust of light and sound and smell into a world that used to be cold and dark and old books rustling with disuse.

“After all, the most popular route in and out of Fontaine is through Liyue’s Chenyu Vale. I’ve heard that in places with lots of sand, even Clockwork Meka will start to malfunction. I mean, no rational person would try to cross a vast, hot, and dry desert to get to Fontaine, right?”

The scribe jolts out of his thoughts, folding his arms over his chest and fixing the Melusine with a hard look.

“Ah! I’m so sorry!” it immediately says, sounding panicked. “I didn’t mean to imply that you were irrational… Ahem! Looking ahead on your right hand side, you’ll see Erinneyes, where the Opera Epiclese is located!”

Alhaitham ignores the rest of the tour as the Melusine chatters on, presumably pointing out landmarks and potentially useful locations that he isn’t interested in whatsoever. If he wished to know the information the creature is rattling off, he would’ve researched it himself. But as it stands, he has no desire to be dragged into some research project alongside his own personal motivations for coming to Fontaine.

After some time, the Melusine at last announces, “Behind me is the destination of our tour, the magnificent Court of Fontaine! Please take all of your personal belongings with you when you disembark!”

Alhaitham rises as they pull into the station, and the Melusine decides that now is an excellent time to suddenly spew its safety disclaimer at him, which he promptly ignores and exits the vessel as soon as it bumps to a stop.

Finding nowhere else to go, he steps into a second elevator and presses the button to go to the floor that is the furthest down, one labeled “Station Main Hall.” This elevator is larger and more open than the one at the tower, and it seems to move more quickly.

When it stops, and once Alhaitham manages to navigate through the clumps of people to the exit, he finds himself in a center with a large, suspended sort of ring that oddly reminds him of the one in the Grand Sage’s office. Walls rise up high overhead, bearing the proud flag of Fontaine.

Dusk is setting, and citizens are slowly beginning to disperse, but Alhaitham finds with mild foreboding that there is no clear way out. The view of the sky is impeded by a dozen criscrossing waterways above, and the walls rise high around him. He doesn't know where to go, where to even begin.

He had not realized that Fontaine’s main city was a complete maze. 

————————————

“Rargh” is the sound that emerges from Kaveh’s mouth as he rakes his hands through his messy blonde hair, having forgone his red clips long ago as he examines his blueprint for what must be the billionth time. 

Because it is flawless! Perfect! Beautiful! Dare he say one of his best works to date!

And yet. 

“I despise clients,” the architect groans to his desk as his forehead hits the solid, unsympathetic wood. “Why did I choose this job?” He turns his head so his cheek is squished against the table, but at least he can breathe. 

This is what annoying, infuriating, impossible Alhaitham could not understand. He didn’t get that the Palace of Alcazarzaray meant so much to Kaveh not only due to its magnificence and spectacular glory, but mainly because the Lord Sangemah Bay had given him total, complete free reign over its design. No restrictions, no complications, no “ehh, maybe that door would look better there”.  Dori had given him utter freedom, the one thing he had longed for ever since graduating the Akademiya and finding his dreams crushed by stubborn clients who wouldn’t just trust the architect !

Alhaitham’s practical nature could never see just how much that kind of freedom mattered to Kaveh. He thought that everything the architect did turned out much the same-high quality, excellent, blah blah blah. But there was a certain something to the Palace that no other project of Kaveh’s had, that little personal flair of his that clients never allowed him to show. 

But now he doesn’t have the kind of luxury to pick and choose his clients on a whim, to find the ones who charge the most but meddle the least. Not with his debt the way it is now. The Palace was his one big break, and now he’s fallen quite drastically back down almost to where he began. 

Squabbling uselessly over minute details with clients, trying to save money and please everybody while also slipping in his own little tidbits here and there. Arguments that leave his head aching and send him back to his lonely room in a deserted hotel in the middle of nowhere, wrist cramping and his wastebasket overflowing with a slowly growing pile of discarded ideas. Until eventually, the final result is so far from what he had originally envisioned, had been such a slog to get to, that he’s incapable of finding the joy in it at all. 

Which deposits him back at the tavern, where he knocks back far too much wine, gets dragged back to Alhaitham’s house and scolded, and proceeds to repeat the same routine until his inspiration sparks once more and he sets out to find a new client, one he tells himself will be really great and cooperative and it’ll be amazing, just keep going!

Except this time, he doesn’t have Alhaitham to bail him out, doesn’t have that security to fall back on, doesn’t have the luxury of being able to recover from difficult clients. He has to tough it out. Once he’s done with this client’s project-because he will finish it, Archons be damned-he’ll have to find another. And another. And another. Because as much as he is grateful to Dori for giving him freedom with the Palace, she really is tight with her mora, and his debt will go on indefinitely if he doesn’t start getting his act together. 

He knows Alhaitham is the only reason she’s been so lenient with him for so long. But Kaveh’s time is running out now that the scribe is gone, and they both know it. 

Kaveh taps his aching fingers on the desk, scrutinizing his blueprint, calculating trajectory and distance and lines and weather difficulties and how achievable is it until his body gives up and he falls asleep with his cheek smudged against the charcoal, his mind clicking through a thousand possibilities. 

He wakes up at two in the morning when he finally figures it out and doesn’t go back to sleep until midnight, the sand crusted in his eyelashes and sleep dragging at his bones. 

But it’s done. The changes are done. 

And his mind ticks ticks ticks away at calculating each mora he still owes.

Chapter Text

Maybe if things were different, Alhaitham would have stayed.

Maybe if Kaveh was-was better. Brighter. 

More. 

Maybe if Kaveh hadn’t worn his heart on his sleeve and said everything that came into his head and was too kind to clients who didn’t care, to people who abused and exploited that kindness.

Maybe if Kaveh was smart enough to not be such a bore to Alhaitham, maybe he would have never left.

There are too many maybes in Kaveh’s head. Too many maybes as he sketches blueprints that he doesn’t care about anymore. Too many what ifs as he starts recycling old blueprints.

Even though he can kind of afford paper now.

Even though he can kind of afford rent at an apartment all by himself now.

Even though he can kind of afford to treat himself to a drink every so often now.

His debt is slowly, slowly trickling away. He’s taking more clients than ever before. The moment one job ends, Kaveh already has five more lined up that he works on at the same time. His mind is full of buildings and designs and calculations that he can barely keep track of. He’s constantly sketching late into the night and then the early hours of the morning, and then he goes to meet his client and builds all day.

It’s not healthy. He knows that. It’s taking a toll on his body that no body would ever be able to withstand in the long term.

But it’s working.

He spends almost every penny that doesn’t go to Dori on coffee. Extraordinary quantities of coffee. Every kind of coffee. The crappy stuff that’s basically a shot of caffeine, and then the better stuff, the richer, smoother, quality stuff that Alhaitham liked. Likes. Still. Probably.

He doesn’t know.

But he drinks it on days when he has a little bit more time. Sometimes those days come twice a week. Sometimes they don’t come for an entire month. It’s more often the latter than the former.

Kaveh has learned to keep everything he cares about, his whole heart, in one hand far, far away from him. He holds Alhaitham and maybes and what-ifs and questions at arm’s length and only pulls it back to his heart when he’s too tired to resist.

And creativity is rapidly joining that hand.

He’s too tired to create perfect designs for clients. Too busy. He has dozens of requests piling up and he has to take them all. Even though he can’t physically do them all, somehow he does.

So Kaveh starts recycling blueprints. 

It starts with calculations. 

He gets a couple of similar projects in the desert and just uses the same calculations with a couple tweaks for similar problems. And then he uses the same design he used to fix one problem to resolve a similar problem. And then suddenly the whole building starts looking a lot like another building he made.

He sees the similarities. Nobody else does. His clients gush praise, more so than they did before because now he’s not fighting them.

Now if they want the door on the east instead of the north, he’ll move it. Now if they want one more window, he’ll add it.

Fighting is fruitless when he doesn’t care. The design is just a flat base. He’ll tweak it according to specific requests and circumstances, but really, it’s all…the same.

Nobody notices it. But Kaveh does. His buildings, his designs, have lost their spark.

And how can they have a spark if even Kaveh has lost his own passion?

There is nobody to encourage him anymore, nobody to comfort him or say something infuriatingly reasonable when he’s drowning in his own mind.

There is just. Nobody.

Which isn’t quite true. Kaveh knows that if he asked, Tighnari and Cyno and Nilou and Collei and all the rest would be there in an instant. He has friends. He has people.

But he doesn’t want them to see him like this, drowning in piles of commissions and no longer drawing new buildings. Not like this, getting things in on schedule because he’s lost his eccentricity, the thing that makes Kaveh…Kaveh.

And he can’t stop. He can’t stop working to take a break or go on vacation or even breathe because he needs to pay off his debt.

He doesn’t have Alhaitham anymore. He’s lost his only crutch, and now it’s too late to find another. 

Because somehow, the scribe knew Kaveh. Alhaitham let him do what he wanted, let him have his crazed moods at morning hours where only the truly elderly or the truly insane were awake, let him cry over almost nothing and almost everything. 

Because Alhaitham was always there, with a sharp tongue and a snappy retort, with a pot of coffee and a dry observation, with a thoughtful analysis and always honesty.

Alhaitham didn’t filter himself for Kaveh’s sake. He didn’t say everything he thought, but he said what was true and debated what was theory. If something was bad, he would say so. If something was good, he would say so. 

Alhaitham would see past the base quality of Kaveh’s buildings and recognize he wasn’t trying. Alhaitham would recognize the loss of that spark and state it plainly. Alhaitham would push Kaveh to do better, to be better, to try. 

Because Kaveh is good enough to not have to try. His most basic, most uninspired work is still good to the untrained eye, though any Kshahrewar graduate worth a mora would scoff heartily at such a work.

But his clients are happy. And he’s making money. 

And Alhaitham isn’t here to tell him otherwise.

Because Alhaitham left.

His quill stills on the paper of the blueprint he’s drawing, one of his random bursts of inspiration that have become rare in recent months.

Kaveh can’t stop blaming himself, can’t quit turning over that problem to try to find some sort of reason.

Alhaitham was a creature of habit. Is. Was. 

But he wouldn’t just leave without a reason. He worked and came home day in and day out. He bought some sort of food if he knew Kaveh would get back late. He ate Kaveh’s cooking if the architect was home. He complained and squabbled with Kaveh about trivial things before retiring to bed at some wildly early hour.

Alhaitham wasn’t like Kaveh, who did impulsive things and never had his shit together. Alhaitham built a life that was snug and comfortable and Kaveh barged into it. So why would Alhaitham stay with such an intrusive force upon his perfect life?

But if that was true, why wouldn’t Alhaitham just kick Kaveh out? Why upset his own life just to get away?

Maybe Kaveh did something really bad. Or maybe Alhaitham is back and Kaveh just doesn’t know because he doesn’t have his keys so he can’t go to the house.

But that can’t be possible. Kaveh has had his ear pressed firmly to the ground for any shred of news regarding the vanished scribe, but after two months of speculation and rumors, interest turned to other, more present topics, leaving Kaveh fumbling.

Alhaitham is just. Gone. 

The Akademiya hasn’t yet established a new scribe, but there is a temporary one in Alhaitham’s place, and there’s been some talk about making him permanent. It has been six months, after all, and there’s no longer much hope. 

And Kaveh-

————————————

“Something’s wrong with Kaveh.” 

Tighnari broaches the subject abruptly over an after-dinner game of TCG. Collei is already sleeping, and Cyno had been quietly dealing the cards. He knew something was wrong with his long-eared partner, but Cyno was well aware by now that Tighnari would mention it when he felt it necessary and not a moment before.

“Something,” Cyno echoes absently, returning to the game as soon as he understands that there isn’t anything wrong with Tighnari or Collei.

“Yes.” Tighnari frowns at his hand and returns four cards. Cyno hands him four more. “I haven’t seen him around in a while.”

“I heard he’s busy.” Cyno shakes the dice in his hands and rolls. “A ton of commissions or something.”

Tighnari’s tail curls uncertainly. “Yes, but you know Kaveh.”

“I do,” Cyno agrees dryly, rerolling his dice.

Tighnari sighs. “You know what I mean, Cyno. Kaveh always finds time to see his friends. Or get blacked out at the tavern. He’s been swamped ever since…”

“Alhaitham.” Cyno finishes, scrutinizing his cards thoughtfully.

“Yes.” Tighnari’s ears twitch. 

“Favonius library.” Cyno rerolls his dice.

Tighnari rests his chin on his hand and sighs.

————————————

The desert to the forest and then back again. He’s started taking further commissions, widening his scope. The chasm on the border. Then Liyue. Mondstat. Even Natlan sends him a few requests.

The architecture in each region is so vastly different that Kaveh takes days just taking it all in. The new sights give birth to new designs that he weaves with the old to make something uniquely his.

He’s traveling so constantly that he’s practically off-grid. Nobody in Sumeru could do more than wager a wild guess as to where he is at any given moment.

Kaveh is just. Gone.

He tries to stay out of the Sumeru rainforest as much as possible, which is becoming easier as his reputation spreads, slowly but surely, through Teyvat. He takes commissions back in Sumeru every so often, but only ever the ones that give the city a wide berth.

He goes back to check Alhaitham’s house every month or so. But there’s only ever dozens of concerned letters addressed to him. And never Alhaitham.

He’s supposed to be working on a new design. The client wants a blueprint ready in a couple days.

But Kaveh can’t focus. He gets up and paces the quiet, cramped room he rented out, a room that carries the heat of the desert. A room with a tiny window that has an incredibly detailed view of a dull wall.

He leans his head against the glass that is nothing like the stained glass of his house and traces his fingers over the frame that is flimsy and crumbling. Just like him.

It feels worse because of how long it had taken just for Kaveh to stop skittering out of the room like a frightened animal when Alhaitham entered. How long it had taken for them to have more than just cordial, brief exchanges that arose as consequences of being roommates. How long it had taken for them to sit together, eat together, work-if not together, then in the same room.

Kaveh and Alhaitham had had to relearn each other. Years had passed since their fallout, and both had grown into men different from their younger selves. Stronger in many ways, but a different strength, born of pain and hurt and lessons learned the hard way.

Every time they interacted those first few months, they were haunted by ghosts of their past selves that Kaveh, at least, had fought so hard to shed.

The anger Kaveh had fostered as a student hasn’t faded. It’s twisted, morphed into something that isn’t better and isn’t worse and is just different. Duller. Faded with time.

If there was a world, Kaveh, in which we worked, I would have given that world to you.

So much anger that Kaveh held in. Tight in a fist close to his heart that lashed between his fingers and stabbed stabbed stabbed whenever he got something wrong, whenever his blueprint didn’t come out quite right, whenever his professors told him change this, do this, you’re too different, Kaveh, you’re not. Good. Enough.

And those words, that anger haunted him in the circles under his eyes and the hard lines of his face.

Nobody got to see that. 

Nobody except Alhaitham.

Alhaitham took his anger and carried some of it and let Kaveh lash out at him.

Even when it hurt him.

Even when it hurt both of them.

If there was a world, Kaveh-

And Kaveh-

Chapter Text

It happens on a day that is dreary with rain.

Kaveh has just completed a particularly trying commission and the Akademiya has managed to get ahold of him. They want to meet with him to discuss lecture plans and the like, but just the fact that they’ve even reached out is promising enough. The Akademiya, especially Kshahrewar, is notoriously short-staffed and underfunded, so someone as well-known as Kaveh holding lectures might be able to boost the struggling Darshan.

It’s a job offer, anyways, and one he intends to take. Even though it’s directly inside the city he’s been avoiding for the past few months. Even if his house is right next to it.

Thankfully, the rain provides ample cover as Kaveh moves quickly through the slick, deserted streets. Sumeru residents are used to the frequent rain, but most still hole up somewhere until it stops. Today, Kaveh is the only exception.

His pace slows involuntary as he nears the place he knows like the back of his hand, and the recollection of numerous drunken incidents surface. 

The house is unremarkable. There’s a clearly very old and bedraggled pile of mail on the front doorstep. The door and walls are in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. Kaveh had been meaning to get around to it a while ago, but…

At this point, it doesn’t even feel like his anymore. There is no shred of Alhaitham in this house, nothing of his presence or scent or soul that remains. 

And there is nothing, either, of Kaveh. The flowers he had planted and tended to are scraggly and overgrown. The door handle is in need of a shine, the windows begging to be dusted. No matter how busy his schedule, Kaveh usually finds time to tend to such things because Alhaitham either never notices or, if he does, incessantly nags Kaveh until he does it. The man is a master at evading work.

Alhaitham.

Kaveh’s hand comes to settle against the door, the cool wood he knows well, where he has let his hot and throbbing head rest after a few too many drinks countless times. Where the evening breeze has stirred his sweaty hair and coaxed him into closing his eyes. Where he was found, every time, by the same man he has now lost.

The lump that blocks his throat is a stone of hurt and loss. He presses his lips tightly together and feels the heat that pools at the corner of his eyes as the rain patters quietly down around him.

So much pain in that little vessel of salt and water that vanishes on his skin. Solid manifestations of grief that he was never truly able to relinquish.

The rain mingles with his tears until both become an indistinguishable mix on his cheeks, and he can almost convince himself that he wasn’t crying over that asshole at all.

He should turn away. Forget. 

But his hand stays on the door, and he lets it, lets the quiet rain lull him into a sort of state where he can almost feel the warmth, the gravity of the house.

What was, perhaps, in Kaveh’s heart, their home.

————————————

It happens on a day that is dreary with rain.

A fitting welcome for his arrival. Alhaitham’s clothes are torn and sandy and he feels like a sweaty, hot disaster. He hasn’t taken much time to rest, to eat, to shower during his travels. His single-minded focus has brought him nothing but pain.

Months. He had expected to be gone only a month at most. Alhaitham had not allowed, in his careful planning and calculations, for the sorts of troubles that had befallen him and eaten up precious days.

Like the storm that had delayed his journey back through the desert by several weeks. Like his stay in Fontaine, where finding Faranak had taken much longer than he had expected. Like the caravan breaking down in the beginning.

And now, he finally steps foot into Sumeru. His boots, gritty with dust and sand, on a path slick with the humid rain of the forest.

Alhaitham’s eyes rove through the forest, devouring the sights and smells, the sound of rain on broad leaves, the smell of rotted and rotting fruit and leaves that permeates through the entirety of the rainforest, the water sliding down the winding pathway that is really quite slippery for a path with high, open sides and no guardrails.

He looks up from his sliding boots as he draws nearer to his house. Alhaitham can only imagine what it will be like to step foot into the small, cozy building once more, to be greeted by the whirlwind of Kaveh’s materials scattered throughout and his infuriating reorganization of the bookshelves. His roommate will probably have also gotten rid of a vast majority of his expensive furniture that Kaveh complains is in poor taste, Alhaitham muses. His mood is already brightening. It has been quite some time since he’s been able to verbally spar with the blonde.

Alhaitham’s thoughts trail off as he catches a confusing glimpse of soaked, bedraggled blonde hair that vanishes around a corner. He can’t think of a single other blonde person in Sumeru, and it can’t possibly be the traveler.

Alhaitham quickens his pace, frowning as he hesitates before the door of his house. 

Well. He’s tired. And his clothes are a mess. And the rain is really starting to pour now.

Alhaitham slides his keys into the lock and enters the darkened house, which smells…dusty.

He places his keys in the bowl on the counter and flicks on the light, taking in the house.

It’s…empty. Not nearly as chaotic or Kaveh-y as he had expected. In fact, it seems almost as if nothing had changed since Alhaitham left.

Alhaitham dismisses the nagging worry at the back of his mind, heading to his own room. It’s certainly possible-in fact, probable-that Kaveh had simply gone off to the desert on a very long job, or perhaps a few shorter jobs, and hadn’t had much free time to spend at the house. Kaveh can be very productive when he hits certain bursts of inspiration, after all. 

So he doesn’t stop to think about it. He doesn’t go into Kaveh’s room to see the dust and untouched materials. He doesn’t open the pantry to see the abandoned and nearly expired foods. He doesn’t think about how there was an extra key on the one that he used to open the door.

He doesn’t spare another thought to the blonde hair flashing around a corner. 

————————————

Stupid. 

Kaveh’s shoes are squelching uncomfortably with water; the rain is pouring down by now, and he’s wondering if now is a good time to begin praying to the electro archon.

Lightning splits the sky.

Too late.

Kaveh hurries through the soaked streets and curses his sentimentality. If he hadn’t stopped for so long at…the house, he would’ve already been within the shelter of the Akademiya.

He rounds the corner and the door, the beautifully patterned door set onto the enormous tree trunk, comes into sight. Kaveh heaves a sigh of relief as he heads full force into it-

“Fuck.”

Kaveh’s shoulder is throbbing where he rammed it into the very solid, very much closed door. 

He curses again, laying his forehead on the unforgiving wood. These doors are never locked, but then again, Kaveh usually isn’t trying to get into the Akademiya during a thunderstorm. Maybe it’s their policy. But wouldn’t anybody looking to seek shelter from the weather go to the very public main building and library of Sumeru?

Well. Now he really has got nowhere to go.

———

“Ah, I knew today was excellent weather for a few kalpalata lotuses, but I must admit, I did not expect to be graced by such a rare find as the bedraggled Kaveh,” a voice quips from above the soaked blonde, amusement in every word. 

Kaveh just releases a heavy sigh, unwilling to look up to see those long ears twitching with barely restrained laughter.

“Is this what the mighty light of the Kshahrewar has been up to all this time?” Tighnari continues, hands on his hips as he grins at Kaveh’s crumpled form. “Attempting to be washed away in front of the Akademiya? Or perhaps decomposed? At this point, both are certainly quite plausible. How long have you been here?”

A warm, somewhat damp, gloved hand settles on Kaveh’s shoulder as Tighnari crouches beside him. 

“Come on,” the forest watcher coaxes softly. “Collei’s been worried about you.”

Kaveh doesn’t move from his hunched-over, sopping wet position.

“I’ll make soup.”

Kaveh moves.

———

Eventually, the architect settles into a new way of life. He drags himself out of his endless abyss of projects and clients and commissions and takes a job at the Akademiya holding night lectures. He sleeps during most of the day, plays TCG with Cyno and Collei in the evenings, and wanders through the forest with Tighnari on the days he isn’t teaching. 

Sometimes he cooks, cleans, when he isn’t sleeping through the morning hours. But for the most part, Kaveh avoids the sun and chooses the stars, avoids the chatter and clatter and company of the morning and chooses the seclusion of night, avoids reality and chooses…dreams.

Dreams. Which are still new to him, to everyone.

Dreams so vivid, so real that he jolts awake in a sweat every other night, eyes wild as his mind struggles to separate memory from reality from imaginary.

But a part of him, a large part that he doesn’t enjoy admitting to, cherishes the dreams, seeks them. It is perhaps why he spends quite so much time sleeping. Because if he cannot see Alhaitham in the waking world, at least he can see the man in the dream world.

Kaveh tries to keep the fragments of the scribe in his fingers, but they slip between the gaps like fish scales until even dream-Alhaitham is fuzzy and impossible to catch. His memories grow clouded with the slow march of time and hazy with neglect. 

Kaveh can’t forget. He doesn’t want to forget.

But the gray sheen of Alhaitham’s hair is fading in his mind, and the exact color of his eyes has become questionable, and the precise shaping of his outfit that Kaveh had thought he could never forget has turned doubtful. Alhaitham is just a blur of watercolors on the canvas of the architect’s mind. 

It reminds him of the days after the argument when the two were students. He had wanted to forget Alhaitham, had removed himself from all possible reminders of the boy, had reduced him to a random, dull ache that he easily ignored.

But now…

It is an unwelcome awakening to realize just how fast Kaveh’s image of Alhaitham has blurred. If Kaveh is to never see the scribe again, will his residual memories deteriorate further? Will he forget, perhaps, Alhaitham’s manner of speech, the barely-there quirk of his brow when he’s amused, his infuriating hand gestures when he’s made a point, the smirk that seems to constantly flit around his lips?

So many things Kaveh wishes he had said. So many things he wishes he’d done.

Haitham-

The word which slipped out of Kaveh’s mouth, followed by the damning sound of the door slamming shut.

So many things.

Kaveh absently grades papers, circling wrong answers and scribbling comments in the margins in his unsteady, crooked handwriting. Hands made to draw, not write.

He has some sketches of Alhaitham. He remembers drawing the man when they were students, and then later, drawings of Alhaitham sleeping on the couch (very rare), cooking in the kitchen (extremely rare), and reading (exceedingly common, he has a million sketches of that). 

And Kaveh-

“Kaveh?”

The blonde looks up, startled. “Ah-Tighnari. Hey.” He forces a weak smile and glances out the window. The sun is just dipping below the horizon. “I’m not late, am I?” He frowns, sure he’d checked his schedule.

“No, you’re not,” Tighnari assures him, one gloved hand resting on the doorframe, his head slightly tipped, gaze fixed on the architect as if trying to puzzle something out. “You have a visitor.”

“A-what?”

Kaveh’s brain jumps to life. He’s entirely unwashed; he’s quite sure he hasn’t showered in at least a week, he’s growing a scruffy beard, and his clothes are rumpled and carelessly arranged. The only thing that could be considered even moderately acceptable about his appearance is his (uncombed) hair, which, though longer now, and sloppier, is still wrangled into a few clips and braided.

But-a visitor? Who would want to visit Kaveh? He was a disaster, he looked a mess, and he was currently staying with the only person who would possibly care to visit him. 

Maybe Nilou? Though the performer was quite busy; Zubayr Theater had become quite popular recently, and though she sent Kaveh letters every so often, she didn’t have enough time to come visit him personally.

Perhaps it was the wanderer again. Yes, that was it. Lord Kusanali likely was checking in on Kaveh again.

“Tell him I’m busy,” Kaveh mumbles, turning back to his papers. He isn’t in the mood for another conversation with the snarky, arrogant boy. If Lord Kusanali wants to check in on him she can do so personally.

“I think you’ll want to see this one.” 

Tighnari’s green-brown ombre eyes are fixed on Kaveh, a curious look held within their depths. 

Kaveh holds his gaze for a long moment before sighing and pushing aside his papers, reluctantly clambering to his feet like a hibernating bear. The architect rubs a hand over his face, grimacing at the rough sensation of his stubble, and turns towards the door, mentally resigning himself.

Tighnari’s ears twitch. “I’ll leave you to it.” 

Kaveh doesn’t pay much mind to how the forest watcher slips away. He’s tired and just wants to get whatever meeting this is over with.

So when he opens the door, he is wholly unprepared.

For a man with skin a full shade darker than Kaveh remembers. 

With hair that is such a tangled disaster it makes Kaveh want to cry, around ears that are pale and bared.

With clothes that are familiar, but a little bit rumpled.

With eyes that Kaveh had never been able to picture quite right that were now right in front of him.

With a physique that has withstood the test of time, or whatever else this man has gone through.

Kaveh opens his mouth to say all the words he’s dreamed of, all the words he’s ranted to the walls and recited in his head, waits for them to tumble off his tongue in a wild, churning stream-

————————————

“Oh,” says the man pretending to be Kaveh.

Because Kaveh, Alhaitham’s Kaveh, would not look like a cat dragged through the mud and ungainly deposited at the gates of hell. 

Because his Kaveh spent meticulous hours fussing over his mess of hair every morning. His Kaveh spent far too long rummaging through his closet and bemoaning his apparent lack of sufficient wardrobe choices before ending up in the most unnecessarily extravagant type of wear for the most mundane occasion. 

And his Kaveh had a spark in those red eyes that no one could possibly quell. His Kaveh was bright and alive and said far too much and certainly wouldn’t spoil this open opportunity to fiercely scold Alhaitham with just a simple “oh”.

But. 

How could Alhaitham say all these things about Kaveh, presume to know the man? Perhaps in all these months, Kaveh had changed. Or maybe the Kaveh Alhaitham knew was never the real Kaveh after all.

All these words and more cross Alhaitham’s mind as he takes in Kaveh’s rumpled, plain clothes, his glaring lack of jewelry, the unsettling absence of his animated expressions.

And Alhaitham says, “oh.”

There is a long silence in which uncertainty parades across Kaveh’s face. Alhaitham can almost see the gears turning in the architect’s mind. Multiple times, the man opens his mouth before thinking the better of it and closing it once again. 

Alhaitham would normally feel content in the silence, would have basked in the unusual peace of it all. But in his time away, he’s grown to miss his roommate’s constant chattering and dramatic retellings. 

He’s missed Kaveh. But…

Kaveh clears his throat and rubs a hand over his stubbled chin before gesturing hesitantly to the earpieces dangling from Alhaitham’ fingers. “You..”

“We have much to talk about,” Alhaitham breaks in, his voice steady but not quite cold. He opens his mouth, prepared to add a snide comment, but stops.

Kaveh pauses before giving a slow nod. And then he opens his mouth and blurts out, “you took my keys.”

Alhaitham’s mouth quirks into a habitual smirk and Kaveh immediately scowls, his eyes flaring up with the glow of a red sun.

Ah. There he is.

Alhaitham’s Kaveh.