Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts with looking in a mirror.

It starts with another failed client who insisted they didn’t have the budget for the grand ideas of the Light of Kshahrewar. They needed something functional, not something pretty, and even after Kaveh had brought them another perfectly redone blueprint that had taken all night to complete according to their requests his client had merely shaken their head and left.

All he is left with now is the throbbing pain in his wrist and his hollow reflection staring back at him in the mirror.

“The Light of Kshahrewar huh?” 

The genius that will save our Darshan. 

That’s what they had always called him.

Kaveh isn’t so sure. How can he save something when he can’t even save himself?

Kaveh runs a shaky hand through his messy blonde locks. There are bruises under his eyes from all the sleepless nights of staying up to work on blueprints in hopes of impressing the client, in hopes that if he got the job done he could chip away a little at the seemingly insurmountable debt left behind by the Palace of Alcazarzaray. Then there were the sleepless nights because his mind couldn’t stop racing as he lay awake staring at the ceiling of the storage room on the second floor of Lambad’s while he wondered why he struggled so hard when it was all meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

His eyes catch onto the brown ends from when he had dyed his hair to attend his mother’s wedding from what seemed like lifetimes ago and the hole in his chest seems to hurt more than usual.

Kaveh can create and create, he can work and work and work, but nothing will ever fill the empty void that resides in the hollow of his chest. The fact is that Kaveh has nothing, and he always destroys anything or anyone good in his life. And everything else he does just leaves a little bit of what’s left of him behind that he can never take back.

The world wants a genius. They want the Light of Kshahrewar. They want something that does not exist. Because Kaveh is a well that has long since dried out, and his genius is always a little too much or not enough. And when that is all dried out for good, he will be nothing as well.

The world doesn’t want Kaveh.

That is something that will never change.

Kaveh adjusts the vision on his hip and takes a deep breath. 

He can hear the din from the first floor of the Tavern under his feet — the sound of laughter and cheers and the smell of alcohol in the air.

Just for tonight, he will find a different roof to put over his head. 

It’ll be a change of pace, a way to clear his head.

Then tomorrow he can wake up and go through the motions all again and hope that maybe then, it will be enough.

Kaveh wakes up to the speckled ceiling of Bimarstan and groans. 

His last-minute decision seems to have worked.

There is a certain murky quality to the thoughts and memories he tries to parse through from the night before due to the painkillers he had been given. Other than the dull throb on his abdomen from where he had let the hilachurl’s flaming arrow hit him, he feels fine.

The doctor tasked with his care, however, seems to strongly disagree and keeps reiterating just how lucky Kaveh is that it had not hit anything vital. Kaveh just laughs nervously in response as he promises he will be more careful next time.

Kaveh does it again another couple of weeks later. And again.

It hurts. 

It hurts.

Kaveh does not like the pain. He hates it even.

But a small part of him wonders if he deserves it as he reasons to himself that it is just for a change of pace, another way to put a roof over his head.

He laughs when the Amurta intern asks him how he had gotten the nasty cut on his shoulder this time. “A ruin drake caught me off guard while I was investigating some areas for a project.”

The lie comes almost too easily.

A couple of weeks later, Alhaitham re-enters his life. 

He takes the seat next to Kaveh at Lambad’s and orders a drink for himself. They had been talking indirectly for years now on the message boards and across various academic papers, but it is the first time Kaveh has seen the man since their fight in the Akademiya. 

Alhaitham has grown (did he hit his growth spurt after their fight?), and even though the man standing before him in his green cape and skin-tight shirt that shows off his toned physique is undeniably Alhaitham, Kaveh can’t help but wonder if this is truly the same little junior he knew back then.

Then Alhaitham opens his mouth. And Kaveh is a couple of drinks in too deep and the familiarity of it all and the longing for better times is all a little too much. It all comes out. Graduation. The Palace. His debt. And all the other slew of misfortunes that had befallen him.

It is sometime later outside the Tavern (Alhaitham had paid for his tab without Kaveh realizing) with Kaveh pressed up against him in a way he would only dare when he’s had one too many drinks that Alhaitham turns to him.

“How has realizing your ideals gone for you?”

There is no judgment in his eyes. He is looking at Kaveh, and for the first time in a long time, Kaveh feels seen in a way that goes straight to his core. He feels exposed in a way that he has not in a long time, and even though it is deeply uncomfortable, it is relieving to know that there is still someone out there who can see underneath the accolades he has accumulated. 

His breath catches and he shakes his head, “I don’t regret it. I would do it all again.”

There is the smallest upturn to Alhaitham’s lips, the loosening of a tension in his shoulders as he loops an arm around Kaveh’s waist. He presses a key into his hand; it is gold with a lion keychain on it for Kshahrewar.

“Stay with me. I have an extra room.”

“What?”

“You’ll pay rent. But it will be a roof over your head. It will be better than the second floor of Lambad’s.”

Kaveh opens his mouth, a protest on the edge of his tongue before he swallows it. “Just for a little while. Until I get my debt under control.”

“If that is what you wish.”

“Okay.”

Kaveh spends the first couple weeks in the house skittish. He takes his toiletries to and from the bathroom and makes sure his meager belongings are always packed and ready to go in his suitcase tucked into the corner of the wardrobe. He does not think Alhaitham is unkind enough to go back on his word like that; that is just not the kind of person Alhaitham is, but Kaveh is afraid. The only things he dares to leave out are the blueprints for his current commission tucked away in the bag he takes to his client meetings. 

He leaves early in the morning to find a quiet corner to hide away in coffee shops or the House of Daena to do his work and comes home late at night after Alhaitham has already gone to bed.

On other days, Kaveh is so tired he can not get himself to leave his room. So he stays bundled up in the safety of the blankets and sleeps his day away because otherwise his mind will eat him alive with the thoughts racing through his head. Kaveh thinks he hears a knock on his door some of those days along with the smell of food and the sound of footsteps and another door being shut. Kaveh merely just burrows deeper into the blankets and ignores the growl of hunger from his stomach.

Then one day Kaveh comes home to a drafting table pushed up against the wall of his room near the doorway. It is not the nicest nor newest drafting table he’s ever seen, but it looks well-loved and cared for and will serve its purpose nicely. Kaveh sets down the blueprints he’s been working on and slides his hands over the smooth grain of the wood. Something warm settles into a small corner of his chest.

Kaveh stops spending his days and nights out late right up until the shops kick him out and instead spends them in his room with the papers rolled out and his pencils and favorite pens and inks laid out next to him as he sketches and sketches and sketches.

A couple of mornings later as Kaveh is about to make his escape, he walks into the kitchen to see Alhaitham already up. It is a deviation from his usual routine that he sticks strictly to. He is groggy and clearly upset that he is awake this early in the morning, but he pushes a steaming cup of coffee towards Kaveh. 

“This one’s yours.” Kaveh takes the cup hesitantly. On the first sip, he realizes it has been brewed just the way he had liked it back during their Akademiya days (he still likes it the same way now). Another plate is set down in front of him piled high with steaming food. “I made extra. Don’t let it go to waste.”

Kaveh stops leaving so early in the morning before Alhaitham goes to work.

Kaveh starts leaving his products, hair ties, and bobby pins spread out on the bathroom counter. 

His clothes slowly start getting folded into the wardrobe rather than the suitcase pushed into the corner of it.

His favorite mug now sits in the cupboard right next to Alhaitham’s ready for their morning coffee. 

He makes a new filing cabinet out of some scrap materials and places it underneath the drafting table. It is slowly filling with papers and other documents.

A bookshelf is later dragged into his room to fill with some of the books he has been accumulating. He buys a couple more for Alhaitham and sets them up in the study because Archons does the man need it. There are books everywhere in the house. Kaveh has lost count of the number of times he has tripped over a new stack of books.

After Kaveh had blown up at the man after tripping over the fourth stack of books within the past hour, Alhaitham had just scoffed and said, “You clean it up then if it bothers you so much. You also live here.”

Kaveh buys another set of shelves for the books and, out of spite, a pretty tapestry that had caught his eye at the bazaar to hang over the entryway. He’ll make Alhaitham pay for it anyway. It’s for his house.

Kaveh starts mopping the floors, dusting the other shelves, and reorganizing the already existing bookshelves lining the study.

He starts getting up earlier in the morning because Alhaitham is not a morning person and burns the food on the stove more often than not. He makes breakfast and tries to prepare dinner every other day of the week. Alhaitham always wordlessly does the dishes afterward on days that Kaveh cooks.

As time goes on, they fall into older habits. 

The bickering and arguing about the endless amount of things they will never see eye-to-eye on but also about the incompetent scholars working in the Akademiya to the clients who have absolutely no clue how architecture works complaining about Kaveh’s designs. It is almost reminiscent of their Akademiya days, of better times when there wasn’t a whole ocean full of unsaid things hanging in the air between them.

Sometimes the fights edge towards dangerous territory, but even when it crosses over, a couple of days later an olive branch is offered and they return back to normal.

Kaveh wakes in a panic one morning when he looks around and realizes that at some point Alhaitham’s house, a temporary place he had been planning to stay at, had become a home for two.

Something twists in the empty hollow of his heart and he wonders–he wonders when it will all come tumbling down.

“Do you think it was worth it?” Kaveh asks as he sets down a plate and a couple of bulle fruits on the table in front of Alhaitham. The man is, unsurprisingly, reading through another thick tome on the divan. Liyuen Legends is written across the cover in golden brush strokes alongside an illustration of a golden dragon weaving across.

Alhaitham doesn’t look up from his book as he flips another page.

For some reason, they both seem to know they are talking about The Palace.

“Why does it matter what I think?”

“I wanted to hear your opinion. You always seem to have so many of those.”

Alhaitham scoffs as he flips another page. “When have you ever cared about that?”

“Maybe I do sometimes. Like right now.”

Alhaitham’s eyes glance up from the book as he flips another page, brilliant teal and flecks of red train on him as he narrows his eyes. “Do you think it was worth it?”

“Yes,” Kaveh says without missing a beat. “I would do it again.”

Alhaitham huffs in response as he glances over at the bulle fruits on the table. He studies them for a moment and then turns back to his book. “Then that is all the opinion you need.”

The truth is, there are moments like this when Kaveh wonders and wonders if things would have been different, better, if he had chosen to do something different. What would his life be like if he had not chosen to follow in Mother’s footsteps and study architecture in a nation that does not care for the arts? What would his life be like if he had not continued building the palace of his ideals out of pure desperation and spite even as he sold off everything to his name and tumbled deep down into debt? But some part of him knows without a doubt, that if he could go back in time, he would choose to make all of these choices again.

Kaveh regrets many things, but these are not the things he regrets.

He regrets asking his father to enter the Interdarshan Competition all those years ago. He regrets that he isn’t enough to make his mother happy after his father’s passing even as he picked up all the slack around the house and brought her freshly cooked food to her room on all the days she never left her bed. He regrets those heated words as he tore a shared thesis in two and the look of utter sadness under the surface of shimmering anger in those teal eyes he has come to know so well.

Kaveh regrets many things, but Kaveh does not regret The Palace.

Alhaitham glances back over at the bulle fruits sitting on the table as if contemplating something before flipping another page of his book. 

Kaveh rolls his eyes as he takes one of the orange fruits and starts peeling them. “It wouldn’t kill you to put down your book to peel these you know.”

“The juice would get all over my fingers and onto the pages of the book.”

“I meant you could stop reading for just a little bit and eat the fruit first. The auntie said these are freshly imported from Fontaine too. She gave me a discount since they’re in season.”

“I don’t recall us lacking fruit in the kitchen. You just bought a crate of peaches the other day.”

“Oh just shut up and eat these,” Kaveh shoves the freshly peeled bulle fruit slice into Alhaitham’s mouth.

Kaveh is in the kitchen tending to the curry on the stove when he hears the door open. Alhaitham walks in and he hears the telltale sign of his keys being put into the bowl and his cape being taken off. But then there is a clatter as something falls to the floor and hurried steps as Alhaitham brushes past him in the kitchen without his usual acknowledgment and makes a beeline for his room.

“Alhaitham-? Hey! Dinner is–” Kaveh’s protests die on his lips when he sees the pitiful expression on Alhaitham’s face as he quickly shakes his head and shuts the door to his room behind him. There is a thud and another and then the house is silent again except for the pot bubbling on the stove.

Kaveh peers around the corner to where the front door is and sees Alhaitham’s cape has fallen off the hook and is now sitting in a heap on the floor along with a pair of headphones.

He picks the cloak off the floor and shakes it out before hanging it back onto the hook where it belongs and places the headphones on the table. Some of the wiring is loose and one of the screws looks like it had been screwed back on haphazardly in a rush before the person had given up.

Alhaitham’s ears had always been sensitive even when they had been younger. He often got bad migraines from loud places like the Grand Bazaar and always stayed far, far away from them. The noise-canceling headphones Alhaitham wears now must have come sometime after their fight, but it’s clear that they’ve been a huge help in helping manage Alhaitham’s sensitivity to sound.

Kaveh turns the stove off and plates a serving of food for Alhaitham and himself before taking the headphones down to his room. He turns them over in his hands a couple of times examining them before nodding to himself. The design is fairly straightforward and he should have all the tools and parts on hand to fix it.

Kaveh gets down to work.

Feelings are something that are hard to explain. 

There are words to name them, but it feels like there are no real words to explain the way they bleed into each other.

There are no words to describe how they combine to form a hollow deep inside Kaveh’s chest that feels all-consuming. There is no logic behind why he feels the things he does. There is no reason for why there are some days he feels like he is trapped at the bottom of a deep well that has been covered and is quickly filling with water that is about to drown him.

It is like describing a painting to someone. The sky is blue and there are hills filled with grass and flowers. But it is impossible to describe the exact shade of blue of the sky, the shape of the clouds, the colors of the flowers, and the way all the parts are arranged on the canvas. He can explain to someone why he painted it, why he chose the colors he did, the theory behind the composition, the technique behind the brushstrokes, and the importance of the materials used, but using just words could never recreate the painting for anyone else. They would need to see it for themselves, and even then, they might see something entirely different from what he had created.

Everyone sees feelings and paintings differently, and Kaveh wonders if someone will take the time to understand his. He doesn’t know if he wants them to. Yet some part of him wishes that that day will come.

There are good days and bad days.

Sometimes the bad days outnumber the good ones.

Sometimes it is easier to sleep than try and run circles in his head trying to explain to himself why he can’t just get out of his bed and work on his blueprints or go to his next client meeting like any normal person would. Why can't he just do all the things that would make him the most mora the fastest so he could pay off his debt and stop leeching off of Alhaitham’s weird kindness? That is arguably the most logical thing to do. But Kaveh is not a being of logic. Humans are not inherently creatures of logic no matter how hard they try to be.

Sometimes it is easier to lose himself to his drawings and forget that the world around him exists. It is easier to forget that the real world is not as kind as he wished for it to be and that Kaveh is not actually as kind or smart or as good of a person as people make him out to be.

Alhaitham had always said Kaveh’s kindness seems to stem from his guilt and his idealism mixing together in the worst of ways. “Are you doing it for them? Or is it for the satisfaction you get afterward when they thank you and tell you you’re a good person? When they come back asking for more and more until they have taken everything from you?”

Kaveh doesn’t think Alhaitham can ever understand.

What is he if he does not give and give and give until there is nothing left?

He knows he does not have to. He knows he does not need to.

But when someone looks at him and tells him the Palace is beautiful or thanks him for creating a beautiful home for them, there is that fleeting warmth that enters the hollow of his chest that makes Kaveh think he can keep going for another day. Someone could still need what little he has to offer to the world.

And maybe that’s selfish, in his own way, needing someone to tell him that he’s needed in order for him to keep going. But aren’t humans inherently selfish? Isn’t an artist inherently selfish? He can not help but create and create at the expense of himself, and although he always says it’s for someone else’s sake, really, at the end of the day, is it not actually for himself?

He can look at something proudly and say that Kaveh is the one who made that. That if Kaveh did not exist this, too, would not exist. That however small and unassuming it is, it is a small part of him that he left to the world to remind them that he exists. A small part of him lives inside of it, whether it is just a rough sketch of the padisarahs sitting on the kitchen window or the blueprints that laid the foundation for his magnum opus.

Sometimes, Kaveh hopes that underneath the colors and layers of paint on the canvas or the erased pencil marks on the blueprints and smeared blots of ink on the pages, someone will understand him and the messy convoluted knot of feelings that live in the hollow of his chest. Even if it is just a little bit.

Where were you when Sumeru needed you most?

Kaveh finds Alhaitham in the House of Daena after he returns from a desert expedition. The expedition had seemed a little unusual; Kaveh did not really get much out of it. In retrospect, he suspects that it was a diversion to get him and some other people out of the city. Variables the sages did not want to account for while they executed their plan to install a puppet god.

They bicker. 

Kaveh finds out that the government had quite literally been overthrown while he was away. Devi Kusanali has been freed from her imprisonment. The corrupt sages’ plan has been thwarted. They are planning to install Alhaitham as Grand Sage.

“Acting Grand Sage.”

Kaveh rolls his eyes. “Same thing.”

He storms out angrily after seeing the smug smirk on Alhaitham’s face. 

Later when he comes home, he finds Alhaitham sitting at the table with a half-finished glass of medicine and his broken headphones on the table next to him. There is a prescription from Bimarstan for a concussion and a roll of bandages on the table along with the first aid kit still open.

Kaveh runs a hand fondly through the silver locks and wonders how Alhaitham became a central figure in a coup. Alhaitham does not do things that he does not want to or does not think benefit him. He would not put himself in danger and plan something so risky with no guarantee of success. That is something Kaveh would do. Not Alhaitham.

And now he is hurt. 

But he had succeeded. The group had succeeded. And isn’t that ironic? All those years ago Alhaitham and Kaveh had argued and torn a thesis in two because their group had been quickly falling apart at the seams. Alhaitham had told him he did not need any other group member, and that Kaveh was enough. And all Kaveh had done in response was stomp all over his heart.

Kaveh knows he should not be surprised. It has been so many years since then. People change. But it hurts a little to realize in quiet moments like this that he does not know Alhaitham as well as he used to.

Does that mean Alhaitham has remade his daily routines to include Kaveh because he wants to? Kaveh shakes his head. He doesn’t want to think about whether that is true, and what it means if it is.

Alhaitham blinks a sleepy eye open when his hand pauses, “Hmmm?”

“You should sleep in your bed. You’ll ruin your back like this.”

“-’m tired.” Alhaitham murmurs and closes his eyes again, “Head hurts.”

“Come on.” Kaveh tugs on Alhaitham’s arm more and manages to get his troublesome junior into his room. Alhaitham falls right back asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. 

It is not the first time Kaveh has woken up to a dull throb in his wrist. It is a common ailment for people who spend too much time gripping a drawing utensil or hammering away on their models and inventions late into the night.

Kaveh grabs some healing salve he had asked Tighnari for a while back and slathers it onto the offending arm before wrapping it up in a bandage.

He keeps drawing.

The pain gets worse. But he can’t stop. Not when he has a deadline coming up. He needs to make his monthly payment to Dori. He needs to make his monthly rent to Alhaitham. He needs to get a new rug to replace the ugly one Alhaitham had brought home the other day with a smug look of satisfaction on his face.

Kaveh had walked in on Alhaitham unrolling it out in the living room when he was going to grab a reference book he had left on the kitchen table. His back hurt and his wrist was throbbing but nothing could compare to the pain his inner artist experienced at seeing how ugly that carpet was. It clashed with the throw pillows he had bought the month before and was definitely not the right size for the living room. 

“What is that?”

“A new rug. I saw it at the bazaar when picking up some groceries.”

“No, I can see that. I mean, why is it here?”

“I bought it.”

“Take it back.”

Alhaitham studies the rug for a little bit then tilts his head, “Why would I do that? Nothing is wrong with it.”

Kaveh has to take a deep breath before he tells Alhaitham off for the next hour about how everything is wrong with it. He makes Alhaitham promise the next time he goes shopping for furniture or really any kind of home decor, he needs to be taken with.

Kaveh runs out of salve for his wrist.

Kaveh grits his teeth and downs a painkiller and keeps drawing. He’ll try to remember to ask Tighnari for a new tin the next time he’s over for dinner.

He starts using his other hand for more menial tasks that require less coordination. He can draw with it too if worse comes to worse.

It is late in the night when he is trying to ignore the sharp pain lacing through his arm as his pencil clatters to the floor and he balls up yet another useless blueprint that looks all wrong when he hears footsteps approach his door. A knock and, before Kaveh can even respond, the door swings open.

Alhaitham stands in the doorway awkwardly as he glances at all the crumpled balls of paper on the floor. He coughs and shifts his weight from foot to foot as if he did not already have the entirety of Kaveh’s attention. His fluffy hair is sticking up in all different directions, and he looks as if he is fighting to keep his eyes open.

“Was I too loud?” Kaveh asks. “Did I wake you?”

Alhaitham opens his mouth, swallows, and it looks like his half-asleep brain is trying to find the right words but is coming up a little short.

“Go back to bed. I’ll be more quiet. I just need to–”

“Are…are you okay?” Alhaitham interrupts. He swallows and walks a little closer, letting himself into the room. 

“What?”

Alhaitham gestures at the empty tin of salve still sitting on his desk and the roll of bandages. Then he looks over at Kaveh’s bandaged wrist and the other one that is shaking as it holds onto a pencil.

“Do you need to go to Bimarstan?”

Kaveh blinks. “What? No, it’s fine–”

Alhaitham’s eyes narrow, some of their usual clarity returning. “It’s not fine if you finished a whole tin of that.” He pauses, “You look like you’re about to cry.”

Kaveh blinks again. Is that why his vision is starting to feel watery?

“I’ll finish this and sleep. It’ll be fine.”

Alhaitham frowns but does not say anything more as he leaves.

Kaveh does not know at what point he falls asleep at his drafting table, frustrated that his hand does not work as it should. He must have slept in because the sun is already high in the sky by the time he wakes. 

Kaveh walks into the kitchen to find a new tin of salve on the table, painkillers, and some new herbal tea jars.

There is a note next to the tea in Alhaitham’s handwriting.

I asked Tighnari to come over after lunch today to take a look at your wrist. These are what Bimarstan gave me for you to use in the meantime.

Something warm clenches inside of his chest. It is weird because Kaveh does not like being looked after. It has been so long since someone has truly worried after him unprompted. He has gotten so used to being independent because he had to when Mother spent days without leaving her bed, and figuring out everything himself. 

He had gotten used to putting on a smile and dolling himself up in the mirror to look every bit the part of the successful genius of their darshan. Nobody knows. But he is sure that some people have seen past that veneer. They are simply good, kind people who know how to mind their own business. Sometimes, it does feel nice when someone goes out of their way to do something nice. Kaveh keeps reading.

They also instructed me to tell you to take a break. No drawing or writing or holding of any writing or drawing utensils for at least the next week.

Kaveh scowls.

Actually, he takes it all back. This is not nice.

It continues when Kaveh comes home from a particularly bad client meeting. He has redrawn this design over a dozen times now, and he thinks the excuses the client has are merely just excuses to not pay him for the job.

Kaveh had dropped the client in a fit of anger. Not his best move probably, but surely a different job with a better client who actually appreciates all the hard work and thought he puts into the aesthetics and design of the building as well as the structural integrity would be better to work with.

He lost count of how many times this client had tried to ask for certain elements to be removed or different materials to be used as if he wanted to go to sleep inside and find the roof caving in over his head at night. Kaveh assures you he does not suggest the use of certain expensive materials merely because they are pretty or because the job will cost more but because they are needed to make sure the structure is safe for use.

Kaveh is not sure what Alhaitham said later that night that caused him to start yelling. It was probably also not the smartest move on his part. It’s not Alhaitham’s fault he’s had a bad day (week?).

Maybe it was the casual remark about how Kaveh had put too much seasoning into the fish (It was seasoned just right, thank you. Alhaitham just doesn’t put enough seasoning). But soon Kaveh finds himself storming out the door of the house and heading for Lambad’s, Mehrak floating after him.

He pauses at the door to the tavern and stops. If he drinks himself into a stupor here, Alhaitham will merely be around a couple of hours later to pay off his tab and take him back to the house. Lambad will smile as Alhaitham walks in and asks if he is here for Kaveh and Alhaitham will simply nod as he places down a bag of mora to cover all the drinks Kaveh has had. He will tug the glass out of his hands he is currently nursing (usually Lambad has already switched it out for water at this point) and tell him that the tab is getting added to his monthly rent payment (It never is. Kaveh has done the math.). He will sling Kaveh’s arm around his broad well-built shoulders that have no business being that toned for someone who works a desk job as his 9-5 and help Kaveh stumble back to the house. He will hold Kaveh’s hair back as he throws up in the bushes and gently tug each and every hairpin out of his braid before tucking him into bed. Kaveh will wake up to a glass of water and painkillers on the side table next to him in the morning, and he will never be sure how to feel about it.

Kaveh shakes his head.

He doesn’t want to go back to that house tonight.

He doesn’t want Alhaitham’s weird kindness and the way he can look at him as if he is picking him apart and staring down into the deepest parts of himself that he tries so desperately to hide but yet some terrible part of him still wants to be seen and understood.

Kaveh thinks back to the days before he had been given the keys to the house and remembers there is another roof he can stay under for the night without being a bother to anyone.

It is a small encampment of monsters. 

He had done his research on the board posted outside of the Adventurer’s Guild as he always did before he pulled these stints. Katheryne looks at him with a tilt of her head and asks if Master Kaveh would like to accept the commission. Kaveh just shakes his head and thanks Katheryne for her help.

He stands in the middle of the ring of monsters: a Mitachurl with an axe, a hydro abyss mage, a couple of pyro slimes, and several hilachurls with clubs. He runs a couple of calculations. His dendro vision is strapped to his thigh; he can definitely take them all out after.

It just has to be enough to land him in Bimarstan overnight.

Kaveh clenches his teeth as Mehrak beeps wildly next to him. The first hilachurl swings at his arm. Mehrak bumps into his other arm trying to get him to move and dodge the attack.

Smack.

Mehrak runs an alarmed scan and then beeps again at Kaveh. A hydro abyss mage spell vaporizes on impact with the pyro slime nearby and Mehrak is sent flying.

“Mehrak–?!”

He turns to find her in the direction she is sent flying and a sharp pain explodes in his shoulder that has him gasping. There are stars in his eyes as he stumbles and turns to find the source of the pain only to see out of the corner of his eye the axehead of the Mitachurl hurtling down towards him.

No…nonono no, this isn’t how this was supposed to go.

The vision at his hip starts to glow.

Alhaitham glances at the clock as he shuts his book.

It should be around the time Kaveh is about to finish at the tavern. His woes drunk away temporarily and the sharp edges of the spines he uses to protect himself flattened just enough that he allows Alhaitham to take him home without a fight.

Alhaitham swings his cape over his shoulders and heads out in the direction of Lambad’s.

“Kaveh? He isn’t here tonight.”

Alhaitham stares. 

Kaveh isn’t here?

“Thank you,” Alhaitham manages to reply before he leaves the tavern.

Where else could he be? Alhaitham runs through a mental list of all the places Kaveh might think to visit when he leaves the house wanting to let off steam.

Tighnari’s? Alhaitham thinks a bit and shakes his head. Something tells him Kaveh would not want to go to Tighnari’s right now because the forest ranger would only lecture him on his horrible self-preservation habits. He had been rightfully angry last time when he had come to check up on Kaveh’s wrist and left stern instructions to Alhaitham to make sure Kaveh followed them. Alhaitham is not quite sure why Kaveh listens to Tighnari and not him when he asks him to take care of himself. But he guesses maybe it is on some principle of his since they do not see eye to eye on much anymore.

It is easier to get Kaveh to do something out of spite or to make a point after an argument than to get him to start believing Alhaitham cares about him. But Alhaitham cares, and he has never stopped caring, contrary to what Kaveh likes to think.

Alhaitham checks the House of Daena and finds it devoid of Kaveh. Kaveh is not up in the great tree branches looking up at the stars as he used to do sometimes as a student. Alhaitham checks the grassy field they had looked at the stars from as students and there is no one there.

Alhaitham searches every corner of Sumeru City he can think of and comes up empty. Would it be bad to go up to the Sanctuary of Surasthana at this hour and ask Nahida for help in locating him?

It is as he is passing by the Adventurer’s Guild and sees Katheryne wave hello that it all comes together.

“Grand Sage Alhaitham, you seem distressed. I can put up a commission if you are looking for something. The next adventurer will pick it up if a reasonable compensation is offered. I’m sure they would be delighted to help you out.”

“I’m looking for Kaveh,” Alhaitham pauses, wondering if he should describe what Kaveh looks like because he is unsure if Katheryne even knows who that is before she nods.

“Master Kaveh? Yes, he is a registered member of the Adventurer’s Guild. I saw him pass by earlier tonight. He seemed to be studying some of the monster encampments posted. I told him if he was interested in clearing them out he should take the commission.”

Alhaitham’s eyes widened. Since when was Kaveh registered in the Adventurer’s Guild?

He pushes the thought aside for now and nods, “That’s great. I was looking for him. Do you know where he headed by chance?”

Katheryne nods and gestures towards a couple of postings. They are monster camps relatively close to Sumeru city, but just far out enough into the forest that they are still a little bit of a trek. “He seemed to be deliberating between these postings. I think this one,” Katheryne taps one of the posters, “appears to be the one he was gravitating towards. He refused to take the listing in the end though.”

Alhaitham’s eyes scan the poster and note down the location. “Thank you for your help.”

“Of course. Ad astra abyssosque.”

Alhaitham runs.

After surveying the remains of the hilachurl camp that had specs of blood on the ground and the trails of familiar lingering dendro energy, Alhaitham’s heart felt like it was in his throat as he ran as fast as he could back to Sumeru City in the direction of Bimarstan. 

The words of the Amurta intern are ringing in his ears from not too long ago, “Mister Kaveh needs to take better care of himself, he’s been at Bimarstan too often this year suffering from injuries due to scouting around monster-infested areas. I believe he is a capable man, but if he continues to get into trouble and sustain injuries, something irrevocable may happen. Although this is simply a result of overwork, please, Mister Alhaitham, watch out for him. Make sure he doesn’t do anything reckless. Make sure he takes care of himself.” 

Alhaitham is not a man who relies on the powers of gods and supernatural beings, but right now as he runs, he prays. He prays to Devi Kusanali, to any god that is willing to listen to him, that he hopes his deductions are wrong.

Once Alhaitham re-enters the premises of Sumeru city he almost runs straight into a metallic silver and gold blur flying straight for him. He catches the familiar briefcase in his arms and watches as Kaveh’s beloved Mehrak beeps insistently at him. There is a dent on the edge of the briefcase and specs of blood and Alhaitham feels his heart plummet more as his suspicions are all but confirmed. Arrows flash across the screen and the words “Kaveh hurt! Please help!” flash at him. As Alhaitham holds the briefcase in his arms, if he didn’t know any better, he would think it was wailing – wailing like a child as it tries to pull Alhaitham in the direction of where its beloved owner is. 

“It’s okay. I’m going. Is he okay?” Alhaitham asks as he resumes his run. Mehrak makes a choked beeping noise that Alhaitham is not sure he wants to interpret.

When Alhaitham opens the door to Bimarstan he is met with the same Amurta intern he had met last time who quickly ushers Alhaitham towards a room in the back. He sees a familiar head of blonde hair through the crack in the doorway talking to the doctor. The doctor gives him a nod of acknowledgment as he leaves, and Kaveh’s eyes flick to him through the doorway.

Mehrak’s wails had quieted down to sniffles as she then flew out of Alhaitham’s arms to perch on the table next to Kaveh’s bed. Her light powers off and remains off even as Kaveh tries calling to her.

“Mehrak is likely in need of repairs. You, however, look even more miserable.” Alhaitham states as he walks to the side of Kaveh’s bed.

“Why are you even here?” Kaveh asks as he turns his head in the other direction. There are bandages wrapped around his head and one of his arms is in a sling. The sharp smell of antiseptic and salves hangs in the air, and Alhaitham wishes that he had been wrong even as the reality of the situation sinks in. 

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“It’s past your bedtime. Don’t you have work tomorrow? Something more important to do?”

Alhaitham frowns. There is an uncomfortable feeling hot and heavy building inside of him as he takes in the bruise on the side of Kaveh’s cheek. “I am here because I want to be.”

Alhaitham pulls up a chair to the side of the bed and sits down, reaching for a book that he realizes he does not have. His hand hovers around his sash and sighs as he puts his hand in his lap. He had left the house thinking he would be back within the next hour. “Do you want me to leave?”

Kaveh turns his head, ruby-red eyes studying him, but not meeting his. Searching for something, but for what Alhaitham is not sure. Apparently, Kaveh finds the answer he wants because he sighs and burrows himself into the blankets.

“I’m going to sleep. I’m tired.”

“Okay.”

Alhaitham sits by the side of the bed and watches as Kaveh’s breathing slowly evens out.

Something clenches painfully inside of his chest as Kaveh turns in his sleep towards him. 

Alhaitham tentatively takes the hand that had slipped out of the covers in his. Kaveh’s hands are smaller than his now, fingers long and lithe but covered in small scars from the cuts he gets from tinkering on his projects late into the night – when he is so hyper-focused that he never notices them accumulate. Alhaitham always places the first aid kit on the table right in front of Kaveh when he walks into the kitchen in the morning.

Alhaitham laces their fingers together and thinks about how warm they are in his.

The fingers in his hand tighten just the slightest bit as Kaveh makes a pleased noise in his sleep. Something in his heart that has been aching terribly this entire time finally unfurls a little. 

Kaveh is here. Kaveh is alive.

That is all that matters.

A concussion, dislocated shoulder, an already injured wrist from overuse, another on its way there as well, and a sprain to his ankle. 

The concussion is not terrible but bad enough Kaveh should not do any strenuous mental activities for the next two weeks either, including reading or working on client contracts and blueprints. His vision seems to be partially impaired by the hit but it should return with ample rest in the next few days. The doctor gives Alhaitham strict instructions that Kaveh should stay on bedrest for the rest of the week and that he should not be allowed near any drawing or writing utensils for the next two at the very least for his uninjured arm. He hands Alhaitham a bag of healing salves and medication and sends them home.

The Amurta intern waves to them on their way out and Kaveh smiles at her. He groans when they are finally out of earshot. He is being supported by Alhaitham on his good arm while Mehrak is clutched in the crook of his elbow held up by the cast of his bad arm. It is probably not good for his arm, but he had kicked up a fuss earlier when Alhaitham had tried to take the briefcase from him.

“You should have taken the wheelchair. You can barely walk in a straight line.”

“I’m fine. Stop fussing, Alhaitham. The doctor made it sound worse than it really is."

“How else am I supposed to interpret his diagnosis and instructions?”

“They’re just being cautious! I promise in a couple of days I’ll be fine and out and about again. The sooner I get work done the sooner I’ll pay off my debt and be out of your hair.”

Alhaitham’s breath hitches in his throat as that ugly boiling hot feeling returns to him. He takes a deep breath as he adjusts his grip around Kaveh’s waist. “Is that what you want?”

“I’m sure that’s what you want.” Kaveh makes a face as he pokes Alhaitham’s cheek from where his good arm is slung around his shoulder. “Can you walk any faster? What are all these muscles you have for? We’re going to get back by the time the sun sets at the speed you’re walking.”

“I’ll walk faster if you can look me in the eyes and tell me how a hilachurl camp managed to injure you this badly last night.”

Kaveh sucks in a breath.

Alhaitham pauses and Kaveh stops, turning to look at him. His ruby-red eyes refuse to meet his. 

Silence as he toes at a pebble near his foot. 

Kaveh studies the ground and quietly murmurs, “Now that’s just dirty, Alhaitham.”

Alhaitham huffs, and readjusts his grip around Kaveh’s waist again before quickly scooping Kaveh into his arms in one swift motion.

Kaveh yelps and hits his chest with his good arm, “Alhaitham! Alhaitham! What are you doing? I’m injured, not invalid! Put me down!”

Alhaitham just smirks as he continues his way back towards their home.

“These muscles aren’t just for show.”

“Jerk.” Kaveh huffs but he settles down, head pressed against the expanse of Alhaitham’s sturdy chest, and sighs. “Fine, we better get home before the hour is up then.”

By the time Alhaitham reaches home, Kaveh is sound asleep curled up in his arms.

Alhaitham gently brushes aside a stray lock of golden hair in Kaveh’s face. Kaveh looks younger when he sleeps – when it does not feel like he is holding the weight of the world on his shoulders. His expression is relaxed and peaceful and nothing like the horribly empty look in his eyes when he had told Alhaitham to leave earlier this morning when he had woken up to Alhaitham at his bedside. Alhaitham had stepped out while the doctor gave Kaveh a checkup and cleared him good to leave. 

“Why are you still here? Don’t you have work? You’re going to be late.”

“I called out. Nahida will understand.”

“Using me as an excuse now?”

“You’re not an excuse.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Why do you think I’m here?”

Kaveh falls silent.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Kaveh bites his lip and looks away, “You’re not going to no matter what I say.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Do whatever you want.”

Alhaitham sets the keys down in the bowl and slips off his shoes before making his way to Kaveh’s room. He carefully settles the man down in his bed and tugs Mehrak out of the cradle of his bad arm supported by the cast. He tugs Kaveh’s shoes off and carefully undoes all the clips in Kaveh’s hair before running his hands to untangle the braided blonde locks that Kaveh had asked Alhaitham to do (“I can’t leave Bimarstan with my hair looking like this! You still remember how to braid hair right?”). Kaveh presses closer to his touch and makes a displeased noise when the blanket is pulled up and the warmth leaves.

Alhaitham comes back and sets a glass of water on the nightstand. He places the painkillers the doctor had prescribed before quietly clicking the door shut behind him.

Alhaitham studies Mehrak on the table in front of him, fingers thumbing through a few books he had on hand about machine cores and other mechanics. He had opened up the briefcase as best he could with some tools he had taken from Kaveh’s room earlier and studied the mechanisms inside. In principle, a new set of wires would be all that’s needed. The core looked mostly fine if not a little dented from the force of the impact the briefcase had received. The outer shell could easily be cleaned and repaired to smooth out the dents. Kaveh can always make better repairs once he is all healed.

Alhaitham is not as deft with his hands as Kaveh, but surely with some research, he’d be able to get Mehrak up and running again.

It has been a couple of hours and Alhaitham is not sure where to begin.

His fingers tap the table as he runs a hand through his hair – this isn’t enough. He would need Kaveh’s blueprints for Mehrak to figure out which wirings were which. They had gotten so charred and damaged that they were hard to identify.

Alhaitham pokes his head into Kaveh’s room and sees the man is still sleeping. He feels a little bad rummaging through Kaveh’s drawers, but surely Kaveh wouldn’t mind if it’s to help fix Mehrak. It’s not like he would look at anything else.

Kaveh’s desk is still a mess of blueprints and crumpled papers but the filing cabinet he designed opens easily unlike the one in Alhaitham’s room that needs to be shimmied open at just the right angle.

The inside is filled to the brim with drawings, floor plans, and different documents. A couple of pencils are tucked into a tin at the front of the drawer and a clean pad of drawing paper. Alhaitham tries to quickly flip through the papers without lingering too much on the contents but his eyes can’t help but pause when he sees a drawing of a set of hands wearing familiar fingerless gloves.

Alhaitham tries not to think too much about it. 

(He supposes he is a convenient drawing subject since they live together. He remembers once when he had dragged Kaveh home from Lambad’s and Kaveh had complained how Alhaitham had a waste of an unfairly pretty face given his disagreeable personality.) 

He finds more sketches of floor plans and other inventions and also of him before he comes across two envelopes. 

They are cream envelopes, sealed with postage stamps already adhered to them. One is addressed to Faranak, Kaveh’s mother, in Fontaine, and another to Alhaitham himself, to the very address he is standing in right now.

Alhaitham’s breath catches as he stares down at the envelopes. He can’t admit that he is not curious, but this would be an invasion of Kaveh’s privacy. 

Alhaitham can hear his heart pounding in his ears as he wonders why Kaveh would have a letter addressed to him when he could just tell Alhaitham whatever it is he wants to say. Unless he wouldn’t be around to say it. Alhaitham quickly stops that train of thought as he glances over at Kaveh’s sleeping figure just to check that he is still asleep; He is relieved to find the man still is. He swallows down the curiosity eating away at him and keeps flipping through the contents of the drawer. He eventually finds what he is looking for, and carefully closes the drawer again before leaving the room. 

Kaveh’s blueprint fills in the gaps of what Alhaitham was missing, and he is able to get Mehrak back and functioning within the next couple of hours. Her outer case is cleaned and the dents smoothed out before she boots to life, floating into the air and doing a twirl before settling back down onto the table.

Mehrak beeps at him. Her display shows a smiley face before a “Thank you” flashes across the screen.

Alhaitham has never believed machines to be capable of understanding the complexities of human emotion when he struggled to himself on a daily basis, but as he watches Mehrak float into the air and do a circle around him, scanning him with its green light before letting out a happy chirp, Alhaitham thinks to himself that if anyone would be able to make their invention do the impossible it would be Kaveh.

Kaveh is the paradigm of what it means to feel and go through the full range of human emotions – joy, sadness, anger, regret, all of it flitting through his ruby-red eyes in a matter of seconds. Kaveh’s emotions were infectious. He could light up a whole room if he wanted to and was capable of making Alhaitham feel things he wasn’t sure he was still capable of.

“Alhaitham, have you ever loved someone before?”

Alhaitham turns to look at Kaveh lying in the grass next to him, hands intertwined in his as he scoots closer to him. His hair had fallen out of its braid and his Akademiya hat was somewhere in the grass next to them.

“I loved my grandmother.”

“Not that! Romantic love. A crush!”

Alhaitham’s brows furrow as he thinks for a moment. Kaveh watches him in anticipation as he presses even closer to Alhaitham’s side.

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you want to?”

“There is no need for something as illogical as love. Do you want to, Senior?”

Kaveh just laughs and it sounds like the sound of twinkling chimes. “Of course, you would say something like that.” Kaveh’s eyes turn to the night sky and the expanse of twinkling stars, the sliver of the moon in the sky and smiles. “I think it would be nice. Incredibly warm – love that is. Someone who could love you flaws and all.” He reaches his other hand out toward the sky, tracing a constellation that Alhaitham does not recognize. “It would be nice to know what it is like to love and also be loved.”

Alhaitham hadn’t realized it then, but he was probably already in love.

It was sometime weeks later when he had been lying awake in his dorm room with Kaveh’s warm weight pressed against him that he realized he wouldn’t do this with anyone else. That fondness and warmth in his chest when he saw Kaveh smile, when Kaveh rambled on about some new topic, or the trailing thought of how pretty his senior looked when arguing passionately about his ideals, was probably love. 


Alhaitham has never been good with people. He knows he is blunt and disagreeable and has a hard time understanding why people always act so irrationally. He had been fine accepting that after his grandmother passed it would just be him in this world. He would carry out her wishes and walk down the road he believes in, head held high, all alone if he had to. But then Kaveh had come barging into his life and filled it to the brim with his own love that Alhaitham couldn’t help but fall in love with him too.

Alhaitham glances at the door of Kaveh’s room.

Alhaitham doesn’t understand a lot of human emotions. He doesn’t understand Kaveh. But Alhaitham is sure of one thing – of the warmth that seeps into the hollows and crevices of his chest whenever Kaveh is in the room with him.

Mehrak beeps at him, stirring him from his thoughts. A happy face flashes across the screen along with a “♥?”.

Alhaitham’s eyes soften as he nods. “I do.”

Alhaitham has to gently prod Kaveh awake later at night to get him to eat some food and down his medicine. Kaveh sleeps again until morning. 

He seems to have regained his normal cognitive functions along with the sharp spines he always uses to protect himself. That’s how Kaveh is now. Alhaitham is just his roommate, his landlord, and he doesn’t want Alhaitham to get up in his business. To care.

“I can look after myself just fine. Go to work, Alhaitham. Aren’t you the Grand Sage?”

“Acting Grand Sage. Nahida will be fine a couple of days without me. She’ll understand.”

“Nahida?”

“Devi Kusanali.”

Kaveh makes a frustrated noise at the back of his throat, “Right, of course, Devi Kusanali does not need you at work. Right. But, I’m telling you to stop fussing! We’ve already been over this. I’m fine.”

The ugly burning hot feeling Alhaitham has been trying to reign in finally snaps.

“What part of you is ‘fine’?”

Kaveh’s eyes narrow, “What? Alhaitham, we are not going over this again. I’ve survived perfectly fine all these years without you fussing. This is nothing in the grand scheme of things. I’m trying my best here.”

“But when will your best stop being enough? When will I get a letter from Bimarstan or the Matra that a measly hilachurl camp you are more than capable of taking out on your own is all it took–,” Alhaitham stops. There is blood roaring in his ears and he feels like the world is spinning.

Ruby red eyes narrow at him.

“You could have easily killed those monsters. So why? Why did you–” Alhaitham stops again, realizing he is not sure if he wants to hear the answer to that question. 

There is a swirling mass that hurts inside of his chest and takes his breath away when he sees the way Kaveh is waving it all off like he had not chosen to get clubbed in the head by a mitachurl. How if Kaveh had not been lucky and just gotten away with a light concussion and his other more minor injuries Alhaitham would not have been in Bimarstan last night but instead be planning to visit the cemetery twice as many times a year, how he could have been returning to an empty house instead of a home for two.

“As you can see, I’m perfectly fine.” 

Kaveh waves his uninjured arm and flashes him a smile. It is one of those polite, empty smiles he flashes to his clients that does not reach his eyes. 

The ringing in his ears is getting louder. He focuses in on Kaveh’s red eyes and suddenly all he can see is red, red, red—

“Alhaitham?”

“Alhaitham, you’re shaking–”

Alhaitham looks down, suddenly realizing his hands are balled into fists, fingernails white as the sharp pain cuts into his palms. 

Alhaitham takes a deep breath.

“I need a moment to myself. Just leave everything on the table.”

The door clicks shut behind him.

Kaveh’s eyes flutter open to the late afternoon sun seeping in through the windows of his room, or well the room he had been given in Alhaitham’s house. He has a blaring headache, which is probably in part from the concussion he received and probably also in part due to how he feels sick to his stomach when the events of earlier today filter back into his head.

Some part of him is relieved that Alhaitham had not kicked him out. He is not sure why he was afraid of it happening. Alhaitham may be blunt and a little sharp around the edges and they may not see eye-to-eye on many things, but he is not unkind. He wouldn’t kick Kaveh out onto the streets to fend for himself while he was still injured. But the angry unreadable look that Kaveh had never seen before in Alhaitham’s eyes earlier this morning had made something in his heart twist so horribly that he couldn’t meet those teal eyes the next time Alhaitham had come in to place some food and medicine on his table.

Alhaitham had never looked at him like that before. 

Not when he had to drag Kaveh home after nights drinking at the Tavern. Not when they fought and argued over academic papers or aesthetics or their clash of ideals or how Kaveh was a little short on rent again because he decided to drop a disagreeable client. Not when he had ripped up their thesis in a rage a decade ago and stormed out of the room. Not when he had told Alhaitham to his face during that fight he never wanted to see or hear from him again when Alhaitham had just quietly admitted the night before while they lay curled up together in the cramped space of Alhaitham’s dorm room bed that Kaveh was all he needed in this world.


Kaveh hears the door crack open and the familiar beep-beep of Mehrak as she makes her way over to his bed. Kaveh ducks his head back under the covers and pretends to be asleep again as he feels Mehrak hover above him. 

“Is he awake?” Alhaitham asks from out in the hall and Mehrak beeps in response.

“Just leave the fruit and medicine on the table.”

Mehrak beeps affirmatively and he hears a plate being set down and the old ones being lifted away.

Funny, when had she started taking orders from Alhaitham?

Alhaitham finally starts heading back to work a couple of days later.

He leaves food in the fridge and portions out Kaveh’s medication on the kitchen counter as if Kaveh is incapable of doing it himself. The food is a little bland and could use a little more seasoning, just the way Alhaitham tends to cook things, but it is not bad. 

Kaveh wishes the medication didn’t make him so drowsy so that he didn’t sleep his days away, but there is not much else he can do.

Kaveh does not miss the fact Alhaitham seems to have been sorely missed in his absence in the Akademiya. When he enters the house on the dot at his usual time, his arms are full of books, scrolls, and other official papers and there is a furrow in his brow that would not usually be there. He takes them all up to the study before reappearing downstairs to start on dinner.

There are a few days when Alhaitham returns home later than usual, and it is with the same large stack of documents and books but also a bag of takeout in his hands.

Something heavy sits in Kaveh’s chest knowing Alhaitham is behind on work because he took days off to take care of him, but Alhaitham just scoffs when he tries to bring it up.

“No one knows how to file a document properly anymore without the Akasha. They’ll need to figure out how to do it themselves at some point. If I was there all they would have done was clamor at my door for me to do it instead before I shoo them off to try again themselves. Now eat your food before it gets cold.”

Alhaitham pointedly then turns up the dial on his noise-canceling headphones and ignores him for the rest of dinner.

The doctor clears him another week later so that he can return to reading again and doing light paperwork with his good arm. The doctor had given him a sharp look when he said light as if he suspected Kaveh was going to go home and go right back to drafting his blueprints.

He was not wrong. But Kaveh wasn’t about to tell him that.

Kaveh starts cooking dinners again, and Alhaitham starts returning home with less paperwork in his arms. Instead of nights spent cooped up in the study sorting through documents, Alhaitham returns to quiet nights spent reading on the divan while Kaveh quietly reads through some contracts for another potential client on the other.

Kaveh returned to his normal work appointments another week later. He is told to watch the strain on his arms, especially the one with the injured shoulder, but the sling is no longer needed.

Kaveh resumes working on floorplans. Alhaitham makes a point to come into his room every few hours with a plate of freshly cut fruit that he would then sit and watch Kaveh finish every last bite of before leaving. 

A couple hours later around Alhaitham’s bedtime, he would come into his room again and drag him off to bed. Kaveh would always protest (he could still work for a couple more hours!) but as Alhaitham stubbornly stood in the doorway with a frown on his face, Kaveh found himself giving in more nights than not.

It’s been a while since Kaveh has had the house to himself like this. Alhaitham had headed to the Grand Bazaar earlier in the day to grab some groceries. Kaveh had recited a list of all the items they were missing in the fridge and given Alhaitham a deadpan look not to buy anything unnecessary.

“What do you take me for, Senior, a child?” Alhaitham had scoffed as Kaveh had reminded him last time they had barely finished all the extra peaches Alhaitham had brought home before they went bad.

“You might as well be. And also haggle with the aunties, will you? It wouldn’t kill you to talk to them and save some mora.”

Alhaitham slips on his boots by the door and scoffs. “I get a better deal at some of the stalls than you do.”

“That’s only because those aunties still remember you from when you were,” Kaveh makes a gesture with his hand around his waist, “this tall. And that’s two stalls! Two!”

“I will be back in a bit,” Alhaitham says as he grabs his keys from the bowl and shuts the door behind him.

And then Kaveh is left with an empty house. 

It’s the first time he’s been alone in it for a while. Alhaitham has refused to leave his side recently, and he has been running around a lot during the day to make up for all the missed client meetings and deadlines from the last two weeks. 

Kaveh decides that today is the day he’ll give this place a good clean. It had gotten dusty in the interim, and Alhaitham’s stacks and stacks of books were getting out of control. Just the other day he had almost tripped over two right by the doorway. Really, was Alhaitham trying to get him to reinjure himself? After he organizes the shelves a little, he gets to cleaning up his messy drafting table.

Kaveh slides open the drawer to the cabinet under his desk and sighs as he eyes all the papers scattered across his desk and balled-up blueprints sitting on the ground still. The drawer was starting to get a little full; he might need to build a new one soon if he keeps accumulating new documents and blueprints. He should see if there is anything inside the current one he can toss first.

His eyes scan over the sketches interspersed through the papers and blueprints, anatomical studies of hands and torsos covered in charcoal and pencil dust. Some of the hand studies are wearing a pair of fingerless gloves intertwined with his, others feature a pair of multicolored eyes, their familiar intensity narrowed in concentration or furrowed in annoyance. There is a man reading on the divan, another of the half asleep look the same person sports in the morning before he drinks his morning coffee, fluffy bed-head on full display before Kaveh sends him back to his room to comb it down while his hand itches to do it himself. But it would be improper to fuss over his junior like that, after all, they’re just roommates now, barely friends. Landlord and tenant. 

Really, they might as well be strangers with how Kaveh doesn’t recognize a lot of the ways his junior looks and holds himself after all these years. It is not just how he looks; his baby fat and round cheeks are nowhere to be found, instead melted into a handsome chiseled jawline and a toned body to match. It had been like trying to read an old book but finding out half of the pages had been torn out and replaced with new and unfamiliar ones. Some things were so achingly familiar but yet so much was not the same. And it couldn’t be, could it? After all, it had been more than half a decade since they last spoke. After all, Kaveh is also not the same Kshahrewar student his professors and fellow students gushed and admired about with a bright future ahead of him. He is not sure he ever really was the person everyone thought he had been.

Another divider in Kaveh sees two familiar sealed letters. One had been written out in a hurry, the other carefully sealed with his mother’s name written across the top of the envelope.

Mehrak floats next to him and beeps as Kaveh pauses, taking the two of them out of the drawer. He stares at them and some part of him wonders if it would be better to burn them rather than let them continue to sit buried in his drawer unsent as their purpose was not needed. 

Not yet anyway. 

And hopefully not ever.

Kaveh wonders if Alhaitham had seen them when he had gone looking through the drawer for Mehrak’s blueprints on how the modified machine core worked. If he had, he had respectfully left them, even if he was deeply curious about its contents.

“Mehrak,” Kaveh starts as he holds the first letter addressed to his mother in his hand. It feels heavy just holding it, like having to acknowledge something he was in denial about even when he knew what was inside, what it meant, what had caused this letter to be penned.

Mehrak beeps worriedly hearing the crack in Kaveh’s voice. She does a loop around Kaveh and a scan with her greenlight and makes a sad face.

“Mehrak, what are you doing? I’m fine now. I-” Kaveh stops before he says something he isn’t sure is true. 

Does it really matter if he lies to Mehrak? After all, she is only a machine, the first thing that had really worked after he had begrudgingly moved in with Alhaitham. Something he tinkered on in between all the failed commissions that were already few and far between because his head was so heavy and loud and his hands were antsy and he just wanted something to turn out right for once.

And night after night as his hands ached and his thoughts raced Mehrak came to be from a pile of nothing. He had remembered scribbling at the bottom of the blueprint in excitement when the briefcase had lit up for the first time.

Mehrak is an ancient word, one I have used as the name for this suitcase. It means 'little light.' More than anything, I hope it really can understand what I'm saying.

Mehrak is smart, far smarter than anything that should exist under the state of Sumeru’s laws, and Kaveh sometimes wonders if the gods had blessed him when he had found the traveling merchant selling the machine core excavated from the depths of one of King Deshret’s ruins. 

“You are my ‘little light’ Mehrak. That’s why I named you that. I was so happy that these hands of mine could still do something right after everything had fallen apart. But really, I had been wondering for a long time now when it would be alright to stop trying.”

Mehrak makes a sad chirping sound and nudges Kaveh’s shoulder.

“I know it’s dumb. It’s cowardly. It doesn’t fix anything. But I just felt so empty inside. Surely no one would miss me. The Palace was finished. I had poured the rest of the broken pieces of what was left of me into it already, and all that was left was a shell going through the motions, to survive, because that is what we’re taught to do. What we’re expected to do.”

There is some logical part of him that knows that no matter how much he thinks he will not be missed there will still be a few people who will mourn him. But time will pass and they will eventually have to move on, and then Kaveh will just be another part of their memories but not enough to be missed. He will just be left behind again as he has already been time and time again. The world will always keep moving forward, and he is just another cog in the wheel that, if gone, will just be replaced by a new one.

The Palace, however, is his magnum opus. He hopes it will continue to stand in Sumeru for hundreds of years. A legacy of his love for architecture and the arts, the importance of beauty as well as functionality. It is his legacy. He had made his mark. Sumeru may not remember his name after he is gone, but at least they will see the Palace. So isn’t that enough?

“I thought about it a lot. I made a plan. I wrote Mother’s letter right after I had moved out of Tighnari’s because I felt bad continuing to crash on his couch with no end date in sight.” Kaveh traces the lines of his mother’s name on the letter, the loops of the letters on the cream-colored envelope. He had been wandering the streets for a couple of days before Lambad offered him the storage shed on the second floor of the tavern. He was finally prepared to carry out the plan, or Kaveh thought he was at least even though some part of him knew he would always be too scared to actually execute it, before Alhaitham had sat down on that barstool next to him and invited Kaveh back into his life.

“I wanted to tell her…I was sorry.” Kaveh swallows the lump in his throat. Mehrak floats in the air watching him patiently. 

The truth is Kaveh doesn’t think he deserves her forgiveness. Faranak would have given it; after all, that is what a good mother does. But she is also finally happy now, living her life in Fontaine with her new family. She is finally smiling again, creating again, and that deep cloud of sadness over her head is finally gone. Some part of Kaveh had always believed it was because he was no longer in her life tainting it with his presence, the reminder of the fact his father, her husband, was gone because of him. A reminder of why she was even unhappy in the first place.

“I wasn’t the good son she deserved. I wasn’t actually the genius everyone had said I was.”

After all, a genius does not ever stop being a genius. 

It just means Kaveh never was one. 

A genius does not go into debt without a mora to their name after they finish their magnum opus. A genius does not drink their sorrows away at the tavern at least twice a week. A genius does not lead their father to their death and ruin everything he touches. A genius does not destroy the only good thing he has going for him out of anger and destroy the friendship he valued most. A genius is not too ashamed to look his ex-friend, now roommate-landlord, in the eye so he decides it would be better not to leave his bed that day.

A teardrop smudges the loop of the ‘a’ on the letter and Kaveh blinks. Is he crying? Another teardrop smudges the ‘k’ and Kaveh sets the letter down. Mehrak makes a sad chirping noise and nudges itself into Kaveh’s arms. Kaveh’s arms tighten around the briefcase and Mehrak makes another beeping noise that sounds suspiciously like a sniffle.

“I…I also wanted to tell Alhaitham I’m sorry.” 

‘Sorry’ was not a word they said to each other. They bickered and fought and yelled at each other and slammed doors in each other’s faces but eventually, a peace offering would be made again and they would resume from wherever they had left off. But it felt unfair to leave without telling Alhaitham the two words. It felt unfair not to apologize for all the hurt he had caused all those years ago when he had torn their thesis in two and stomped all over his heart. 

Sorry for being a burden, for leeching off of your kindness. Sorry for being too scared to acknowledge the warmth in your eyes, the way you look at me sometimes when you think I’m not looking, as if I am the one who had hung the sun and moon and all of the stars in the sky. 

I’m sorry I’m not enough…that I’m not the strong person you thought I was.

“But it’s okay. Because I realized that the truth is, I don’t want to die.” Kaveh swallows the lump in his throat and takes a deep breath. “Some days I wonder if the world would have been a better place if I had not been born. If it would have been better if I had never existed.”

Kaveh thinks back to that moment when he saw the ax of the mitachurl come hurtling down, how the fear deep in his chest had made him bring up his claymore to block it almost instinctively, even as his arms shook and his dislocated shoulder sent a wave of nauseating pain all over his body. A ring of bright green dendro had manifested and knocked the monster back.

It is weird because Kaveh has realized he does not want to die, but he also does not want to live. At least not like this. But if he is just in a state of stasis in between the two, maybe it is better to just simply exist.

“The pain…it’s still there. It’s hard to keep trying. Some days, my all feels like barely enough to get out of bed. I don’t know if this pain will ever go away. I don’t know if it’ll ever get better. But I think it’s okay to keep trying even if it’s hard. Even if it hurts.”

Kaveh remembers the look of fear in Alhaitham’s eyes that he didn’t even know existed and the utter relief that washed over his face when he caught sight of Kaveh in his room in Bimarstan.

Mehrak sniffles again and makes a teary boop sound affirmatively. It nuzzles harder into Kaveh’s chest and he smiles fondly as he sets the letter down on his desk. He gently strokes the top of the briefcase, and Mehrak sniffles again butting up into his hand.

“My little light. Thank you.”

Kaveh is not sure how much Mehrak understands. Mehrak is supposed to be a machine, and her only programmed mission is to make him happy. But Kaveh is sure, in a way, that somewhere in the mechanical whirring inside as she makes those sniffing noises, she does understand the emotions behind what Kaveh had just said, just like he had wished all those nights ago.

One day, Kaveh will look back upon it just like he does these letters that had been left unsent. This mess of swirling feelings in his chest makes everything hurt and the whole world feels like it only exists in shades of dreary gray and he will realize that it is okay to not be okay sometimes. Because it, too, will pass. 

Things won’t always get better, not right away, and not linearly either, but he’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other. He’ll keep stubbornly holding on until the world isn’t always so cold and so dark but filled with sunlight and the colors of the rainbow.

A few months later, Alhaitham comes home with a letter in hand, a resignation letter to be exact. It has been approved by Devi Kusanali herself, and he has officially been demoted back to just the Grand Scribe. It looks like a weight has been lifted off of his shoulders.

Kaveh invites Tighnari and Cyno over for a celebratory dinner. He cooks all of Alhaitham’s favorite dishes and sends the man to pick up a special order of wine from Lambad’s for the celebration.

Alhaitham’s eyes are filled with so much warmth and pure adoration as he sets the crate down on the counter and then takes the finished plates of food to the table. Kaveh feels like his heart skips a beat because his eyes must be fooling him – is Alhaitham smiling? At him???

The Interdarshan competition comes and passes.

Kaveh falls ill soon after. It is as if his whole worldview that he had constructed to keep himself going all these years had crashed down around him.

The guilt, the sadness, everything…it had not been his fault.

Alhaitham merely smirks at him as he finishes explaining everything, as if he had not gone out of his way to look for information that has nothing to do with anyone but Kaveh himself, and asks him to thank him not once, but three times.

Bastard.

Some things may change, but Alhaitham’s disagreeable personality clearly has not.

But something warm still slowly seeps into the crevices of Kaveh’s chest and fills him up from inside when they are home sitting on the divan together. He knows that these cracks inside of him won’t be healed overnight, but right now, that warmth is comforting, unraveling a tightness, a loneliness, deep inside that he didn’t even know he had.

“Kaveh.”

He had always been scared of this warmth before. This warmth always makes itself known when Alhaitham is around him. But really, what had he been so afraid of? Alhaitham might not be the same little junior he knew back then but he was still Alhaitham, and Alhaitham does not go out of his way to do anything he does not want to. He is also incredibly stubborn. The years have softened some of his edges and sharpened others, but when he decides on something, he does not change his mind easily.

“Kaveh.”

There is a cool hand on his forehead and suddenly Kaveh is jolted back to the present. Teal eyes are staring at him with worry.

“Kaveh, you’re burning up, you need to rest.”

“You don’t need to fuss over me. It’s fine. These past few days have just…been a lot.”

“I know you can take care of yourself. But will you let me take care of you?”

Kaveh’s eyes widen, taking in the gentle look in Alhaitham’s eyes and he feels some of the walls he had spent years building up around his heart start to crumble.

“Okay.”

It ends with a warm body pressed against his on the divan as Alhaitham reads and Kaveh sketches beside him. 

It had been a few days since Kaveh had officially paid off the rest of his debt. Alhaitham had not asked him to move out. He had merely put together a small celebration for Kaveh, like Kaveh had for his demotion, and asked what Kaveh wanted to do next.

Alhaitham is tracing absent-minded circles with his free hand onto his thigh before he forgoes reading altogether to lean his head against Kaveh’s shoulder to look at the drawings in his sketchbook.

Kaveh feels his face heat up when he realizes the subject of his drawings now knows what he has actually been up to (Though it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise, right? He’s sure Alhaitham must have seen his desk drawer the one time he went looking through it for Mehrak’s blueprints) and pokes at Alhaitham’s cheek.

“You’re heavy.”

“Mhmm,” Alhaitham hums in response and his eyes roam over the sketchpad on Kaveh’s lap. “Think of it as modeling fee payment.”

“You–!” Kaveh splutters and Alhaitham chuckles as he relaxes further against Kaveh’s shoulder. Kaveh sighs, but it is filled with warmth and fondness as he runs a hand gently through Alhaitham’s silver locks. The man lets out a pleased hum and wraps his arms around Kaveh’s waist.

“Do you want to stay?” Alhaitham murmurs, lifting his head up. His face is mere centimeters away from his and the arms around Kaveh tighten.

For some reason, Kaveh is sure Alhaitham is asking about so much more than just their current position on the divan.

Kaveh feels something in his heart skip, the warmth pressed against him that had slowly slipped its way into his life filling in all the cold hollows inside of him, slowly but surely trying to make him whole again.

At some point, this house had become a home for two. 

At some point, the world had stopped existing in shades of gray but rather vivid hues of the rainbow again.

At some point, even if Kaveh knew that loving himself was hard, that it was easier to give and give and give rather than accept the love he had received himself, that even if some days will still be terrible in ways that he can't really explain, that it is okay to admit that he is not okay. Healing is not linear, but he is not as powerless as his mind and body like to make him feel. He can ask for help and then keep moving forward, one foot at a time.

At some point, Kaveh had accepted, even if those three words could be difficult to utter, that Alhaitham and him both understood what they were. That the quiet mornings with freshly made coffee and breakfast on the table and nights spent tangled up in the divan and then under the covers together couldn’t be anything else. Kaveh loved Alhaitham. Alhaitham loved Kaveh.

Teal eyes are still staring at him. Kaveh smiles and closes the remaining distance between them, warm lips meeting his own.

It is not really the end. Maybe it is better to consider it a new chapter. For he is also made up of everything that has already come before.

“Yes, I do.”