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Everything felt like it was catching up to Kaveh at horrible speeds. His head spun as he tried to drown his sorrows and stress in alcohol and wine. The muffled sound of people talking around him danced in his ears as he laid his head on the table; head hidden in his arms.
A past client's voice bounced around in his head. The shame he had felt when that client yelled at him for every small detail he supposedly missed came back tenfold. He sucked in a heavy breath before peeking past his arms and lifting his head up again to take another shot of whatever alcohol he had in front of him now.
Instead of alcohol beside him, it was a man that looked incredibly handsome while also strangely familiar. Kaveh closed his eyes and shook his head to get the growing headache away from trying to figure out how this man was so familiar.
The man–who Kaveh found out later to be Alhaitham, whom he was also trying to avoid after an argument they had earlier–narrowed his eyes at Kaveh’s sad and drunken form as if he was analyzing him before saying, “You should be getting home.”
Kaveh narrowed his eyes back at Alhaitham before hiccuping and scrunching his face up.
“And who are you to tell me what to do…” Kaveh muttered, his face still half-buried in his arms and his eyes red and puffy.
Alhaitham sighed and shook his head in feigned annoyance before standing up from the stool he sat on and putting his hand on Kaveh’s shoulder. Before Kaveh could put up a fight and protest Alhaitham had already lifted him up into his arms and started walking.
“Heyyy– Hey!!” Kaveh huffed, pushing against Alhaitham before promptly giving up after less than a minute and going limp.
Alhaitham re-adjusted his grip on Kaveh as he walked out of the tavern and into the busy streets of Sumeru city. The artificial lights lit up the night sky and the stars peeked through the clouds,
The two of them continued walking for a few minutes before he heard soft sniffling against his shoulder where Kaveh’s head was now laid as he succumbed to his fate. He had started mumbling words into his shoulder that Alhaitham could not decipher as only sniffs and sobs broke up the muddled and strangled words and sentences.
Alhaitham could only sigh as Kaveh put together barely-there sentences before one thing caught his attention.
“I- I wish alhaitham were here. I hate him. I hate him so much. But he’s the only person that would care if anything happened to me. He’s the only one that cares when I’m at my lowest even if the only way he can show that is fucking– fucking pissing me off. I hate him. I hate that I care so much about him as well and I hate that I love him…” Kaveh mumbled to himself, his arms tightly wrapped around Alhaitham’s shoulders and tears stained the fabric on Alhaitham’s shoulder.
Alhaitham froze for a moment at those words before he continued walking as if nothing happened. A faint flush dusted his face before he shook his head as if it would take the blush off. He continued to listen to Kaveh chattering sorrowfully about how much he wished people would like him or he wished he felt like he was enough for others around him.
“I try my best– but it feels like I never do enough to impress people or to make them happy… I wish I could just be enough for people but I’m always the second option to people and it feels like no one ever likes me no matter what I do,” Kaveh rambled on and he continued to sniffle as tears ran down his cheeks, “I try my best I do my best and always in return I get worse back, I’ll never be enough for anyone but maybe alhaitham… no. He’s… He’d never like me back, he'd never…”
Kaveh trailed off, not finishing his sentence as Alhaitham put a hand in his pocket, searching for his keys as his hand bumps into two pairs of the same keys. Ah. That's right. He’d forgotten to give Kaveh’s pair of keys back and that's what he was originally going to do before finding him drunk out of his mind at a tavern.
He let out a ‘hmph’ noise before fishing his pair of keys out of his pocket and unlocking the door to him and Kaveh’s shared house.
Sometimes Alhaitham wished Kaveh understood how much Kaveh meant to him, it always felt as if his care went over his head with no thought paid towards it. Then again, his advances were never direct like he usually is and many things went over Kaveh’s head that were not direct like that.
He stepped into the house with Kaveh still rambling into his shoulder and made his way to Kaveh’s bedroom after shutting the door.
Kaveh’s room was littered with Blueprints and drawings of buildings and architectural designs on any desk in the room with several pinned to the wall and marked out with red X’s. A few plates were set up on the table with pens and pencils littering part of the table as well.
Alhaithem looked around the room for a moment before walking over to the bed to set down an unwilling-to-let-go Kaveh on his bed. Alhaitham sighed in mild annoyance before easily grabbing Kaveh’s arms and coaxing him to let go of Alhaitham for just a moment.
After the still drunk Kaveh had let go of Alhaitham he quickly took the moment to take Kaveh’s shoes off and discard them on the floor somewhere in his room. Kaveh’s face was covered in tear tracks and his eyes were red and puffy while still being wet with tears.
Alhaitham moved Kaveh to lay down on the bed before turning and going to leave. Before he could fully turn on his heel and leave though, a hand quickly and desperately grabbed onto his wrist. He turned around to see Kaveh still sniffling as he tugged on Alhaithems wrist.
“Please… Don’t leave me here alone… I don’t want to be alone…” Kaveh mumbled, his eyes were blurry as he rubbed them with the back of his hand. Alhaitham narrowed his eyes at him like he had done back at the tavern, as if trying to figure out if this was a genuine request, and to no surprise at all, it was.
He looked back towards the door once more before letting out a weary sigh. He shook Kaveh’s grip off of him for a moment and took off his shoes, signaling to Kaveh he was not leaving anytime soon.
Kaveh sniffled again as he bit his lip and moved over on the bed to give Alhaitham room after he was told by him to move over. Alhaitham climbed onto the bed beside Kaveh with his back against the headboard.
The silence loomed over them as if it was a blanket, covering them from the world for now as if it was just the two of them.
Alhaitham heard a quiet, “Thank you.” from Kaveh before his eyes closed and his breathing deepened.
If Alhaitham whispered a quiet “I love you.” back and stayed sitting there the entire night, no one except him and the comforting darkness looming over the two would know.