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I. The First Time
It begins, as most misfortunes in Kaveh’s life do, with a perfect blueprint and an imperfect world. The Kshahrewar Grand Symposium on Sustainable Housing has just concluded, leaving in its wake an exhausted architectural prodigy, a mountain of unpaid invoices, and—most notably—a rather dramatic disagreement on whether domes are superior to arches. Kaveh, a champion of aesthetic integrity, is convinced that form is function; that beauty is an act of defiance against entropy. Alhaitham, a champion of whatever is most irritating at any given moment, has spent an entire afternoon puncturing that argument with the precision of a surgeon dissecting a particularly stubborn organ.
"I’m simply saying," Alhaitham remarks, voice infuriatingly even, "that ornamentation is superfluous to structural integrity. Your so-called artistic embellishments introduce unnecessary variables into an otherwise stable framework."
Kaveh, who has spent the last five hours defending architecture as the lifeblood of civilization, slams a palm against the tavern table. "Unnecessary?" He scoffs. “You sound like a man who has never been inspired a day in his life. A home is not merely a structure, it is a sanctuary! A monument to human aspiration! A statement against the void—”
"The void," Alhaitham interrupts, entirely unimpressed, "does not care for your flourishes."
Kaveh groans, dragging both hands down his face. "You—you fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of architecture. It’s not just about whether a structure stands, but whether it sings!"
"A building does not need to sing," Alhaitham replies, dry as the desert sands, "it needs to stand."
"Oh, and I suppose your soulless little rectangular nightmare of a house is the pinnacle of design?" Kaveh sneers, swiping his wine glass off the table with all the elegance of a man moments away from throttling his opponent.
“It’s functional,” Alhaitham replies. “Minimalist.”
“It’s an insult.”
“It’s a place to live.”
Kaveh throws his head back, despairing to the heavens. “And this,” he declares to the ceiling beams, “is what passes for intellect these days.”
Somewhere in the midst of this catastrophe, Kaveh manages to drink exactly half a bottle of wine, sketch out an impromptu rebuttal to Alhaitham’s argument in ink-stained napkin blueprints, and—though he does not realize it until much later—leave his keys on the table.
By the time he stumbles out of the tavern, the weight of his many grievances (and, more pressingly, three glasses of wine) making him stagger, the world is already blurring at the edges. He reaches into his pocket for the keys to his ever-elusive peace and finds—
Nothing.
“Hm,” Kaveh says aloud. Then: “Hm.”
Then: “Oh, you absolute menace—”
From beside him, Alhaitham merely hums, entirely unbothered. The moonlight slants over his face, cold and indifferent, and in his hand—glinting just slightly—are Kaveh’s keys.
“You—you thief!” Kaveh splutters. “Give those back!”
Alhaitham does not give them back. Instead, he tucks them into his coat, as if this is some trivial exchange rather than an act of outright villainy. “I’m doing you a favor.”
“A favor?” Kaveh is half a second away from grabbing him by the collar and shaking him until some sense falls out. “In what world is stealing my keys a favor?”
“In the world where you are, as we speak, too intoxicated to navigate a staircase without engaging in dramatic tragedy.” Alhaitham’s tone is maddeningly calm. “I’m not going to be the one who has to peel you off the floor after you trip over your own bad decisions.”
Kaveh glares. “I always trip over my bad decisions. That’s my right.”
“Not tonight.”
And that is how Kaveh finds himself forcibly shepherded back to their shared home, Alhaitham’s grip firm on his wrist, his own dignity in shambles, and his keys—his sacred autonomy!—held hostage by a man with the emotional sensitivity of a brick.
By the time they reach the door, Kaveh is still muttering about injustice, about tyranny, about the cruel hand of fate that has once again delivered him into the hands of his mortal adversary.
Alhaitham, who has long since tuned him out, simply unlocks the door, shoves Kaveh inside, and mutters, “Go to bed.”
And Kaveh, who is far too tired (and mildly grateful, but he’ll never admit it), does exactly that.
(He only remembers, much later, that Alhaitham never actually gave the keys back.)
II. The Second Time
It is, as most conflicts between them are, a matter of principle.
Kaveh’s principle: that he is a free man with autonomy over his own fate.
Alhaitham’s principle: that Kaveh is a chronic over-worker with a penchant for suffering, and that some decisions must be made for him, preferably with swift and decisive action.
The problem presents itself at precisely four in the morning, when Kaveh—bleary-eyed, hair a spectacular mess, hands still ink-stained from the blueprints he has been agonizing over all night—announces that he is going out.
Alhaitham, who had the great misfortune of witnessing this proclamation from his reading chair, does not bother looking up from his book. “No, you’re not.”
Kaveh, already shrugging on his coat, fixes him with a look of weary exasperation. “Yes, I am.”
Alhaitham turns a page, unbothered. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I— oh, Archons, are we really going to do this?” Kaveh throws his arms up. “I have a meeting, Alhaitham. An important one. At the Grand Bazaar. With a client. Who is paying me.”
“And I suppose this important client requested your presence at the most absurd hour imaginable?”
Kaveh scoffs. “Yes, actually! Some people do business at unconventional times! Not everyone operates on a rigid little schedule like you.”
Alhaitham flips another page. “No legitimate business is conducted at four in the morning.”
“Oh, and you’re the arbiter of what is and isn’t legitimate now?” Kaveh snaps. “How wonderful. Shall I consult you on all my professional decisions, oh wise and omniscient one?”
“That would be preferable, yes.”
Kaveh nearly hurls his satchel at him. Instead, he marches toward the door, only to realize, a second too late, that something is missing.
He pats his pockets.
Then his coat.
Then his satchel.
His keys are gone.
His head snaps toward Alhaitham, eyes narrowing in immediate accusation. “You did not.”
Alhaitham, still reading, does not even pretend to be innocent. “You weren’t going to make it there in one piece.”
“I am not some fragile thing that will shatter in the wind! I’m perfectly capable of handling myself—”
“You haven’t slept in thirty-six hours,” Alhaitham interrupts. “You nearly poured ink into your tea this morning. And I counted four times—four—where you walked into a chair and apologized to it.” He finally looks up, meeting Kaveh’s glare with infuriating calm. “You are not capable right now.”
Kaveh’s jaw tightens, his entire body vibrating with restrained fury. “You absolute tyrant.”
Alhaitham, unimpressed, marks his place in his book with a finger. “You call it tyranny. I call it damage control.”
“Give. Me. My. Keys.”
Alhaitham leans back in his chair, entirely unbothered. “No.”
Kaveh drags both hands down his face, inhaling sharply. “Do you have any idea how insufferable you are?”
“I’m aware.”
The casualness of the response nearly sends Kaveh into a blind rage. “I hate you. I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Oh, but I do! You are a menace! A walking violation of basic human decency! You stole my keys!”
“I confiscated them,” Alhaitham corrects.
“Oh, how generous of you! And what, exactly, gives you the right to confiscate anything from me?”
“The fact that you make consistently terrible choices.”
Kaveh gapes at him, floundering between rage and disbelief. “Consistently—?! That is not true!”
Alhaitham raises an eyebrow. “Do I need to list examples?”
“No, you do not—”
“The time you fell asleep on a scaffold—”
“I WAS WORKING—”
“The time you tried to fight an Eremite over the price of ceramic tiles—”
“He was overcharging—”
“The time you accepted a contract without reading the fine print and nearly got sued—”
“That was—irrelevant!”
Alhaitham shrugs. “I rest my case.”
Kaveh clenches his fists, takes a slow, deep breath through his nose, and—after several moments of silent, seething struggle—exhales through his teeth.
“Fine,” he says, voice dangerously even. “If I can’t leave, then you’re going in my place.”
Alhaitham blinks. “Excuse me?”
Kaveh crosses his arms. “You heard me. Since you’re so concerned, you can go deliver my plans to my client at the Bazaar. Since I’m so incompetent, surely you’ll do a much better job, won’t you?”
Alhaitham’s expression is unreadable.
Then—after an agonizing beat—he sighs, rubs his temple, and mutters, “Fine.”
Kaveh blinks.
He had been expecting a fight. Resistance. Mockery. Maybe another unsolicited lecture on why he should abandon architecture and take up something “less disastrous.” But instead—
Alhaitham stands. Takes Kaveh’s satchel. And, without further comment, heads for the door.
It is deeply unsettling.
Kaveh stares, a creeping suspicion unfurling in his gut. “Wait,” he calls, just as Alhaitham reaches for the handle.
Alhaitham glances back.
“…Did you already read my plans?” Kaveh asks, narrowing his eyes.
Alhaitham tilts his head. “Would it bother you if I had?”
Kaveh sputters. “Of course it would bother me! Those are my designs—”
“Then it’s a good thing I didn’t,” Alhaitham replies smoothly, opening the door. “Get some sleep, Kaveh.”
And with that, he’s gone, leaving Kaveh standing in the middle of the room, flustered and seething, both impressed and offended at the same time.
(And, though he will never admit it—not even under threat of death—grateful.)
III. The Third Time
It is, as most of Kaveh’s disasters are, entirely not his fault.
To start: The project was supposed to be simple. A modest redesign of a wealthy merchant’s summer estate. Elegant yet practical. A straightforward commission, one that—for once—did not involve half a dozen logistical nightmares, morally dubious clients, or last-minute crises that threatened to bankrupt him.
It was supposed to be easy.
And then, because the universe has never once allowed Kaveh peace, it wasn’t.
To be clear, Kaveh did not anticipate that the merchant’s wife would hate every proposed design he painstakingly prepared. He did not expect her to have the temperament of a particularly irate nobility dog. And he certainly did not predict that, after six consecutive hours of arguing over window placements and "properly sophisticated" floral arrangements, she would declare that he had terrible taste and dismiss him on the spot.
Which is how Kaveh, emotionally and physically exhausted, ends up at a tavern, drowning his sorrows in wine and the sympathetic murmurs of other unlucky souls who, like him, have suffered at the hands of the aristocracy.
“A crime,” he laments, slumped over the bar, his words slightly slurred. “A travesty of artistic injustice. Six hours—six!—of my life wasted! Wasted, I tell you!”
The bartender nods politely, used to this sort of performance.
“She said my designs were common” Kaveh groans, thumping his forehead against the wood. “Can you believe that? Common! Oh, I suppose she’d prefer an ostentatious mausoleum dripping in gold and bad taste. Soulless, the lot of them. I bet she thinks Alhaitham’s house is a work of genius.”
From behind him, an unfortunately familiar voice replies:
“Actually, I think she’d be appalled.”
Kaveh stiffens. Slowly, painfully, he turns his head.
There, sitting at a table exactly three feet away, is Alhaitham.
With a book.
And tea.
Completely unbothered.
“You,” Kaveh breathes, horrified.
“Me,” Alhaitham confirms, not looking up.
Kaveh squints, as if trying to determine whether this is a hallucination brought on by wine and suffering. “Why—why are you here?”
Alhaitham flips a page. “Because this tavern has good tea.”
“Oh, of course,” Kaveh mutters. “Of course you just happened to be sitting right here while I—” He stops, eyes narrowing. “Wait.”
Alhaitham does not react.
Kaveh straightens. “How did you know what she would think of your house?”
Alhaitham turns a page. “Because I was at the estate.”
Kaveh’s brain screeches to a halt. “You were what—”
“Delivering a report for the Akademiya,” Alhaitham replies blandly. “I overheard.”
“You overheard,” Kaveh repeats, as if he has just been personally insulted by the heavens. “You—” He runs a hand through his hair, exasperated. “Then you saw how she treated me! And you just—just sat there?!”
Alhaitham shrugs. “What did you expect me to do?”
“I don’t know—something! Defend my honor! Call her a tasteless hack! I would’ve done it for you!”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“I—” Kaveh pauses, scowling. “Okay, fine, maybe not in those words, but I would’ve implied it.”
Alhaitham hums, unimpressed.
Kaveh glares at him. “Unbelievable. Truly, you have no sense of compassion. None! Not even an ounce of sympathy!”
“Not true,” Alhaitham replies.
Kaveh scoffs. “Oh, really?”
“Yes.” And then, so casually that Kaveh almost doesn’t catch it—
“I have your keys.”
Silence.
Kaveh blinks.
Then: “You what.”
Alhaitham, finally, finally looks up from his book. His expression is infuriatingly neutral. “Your keys. I have them.”
Kaveh stares at him, mouth opening and closing. “How—how—”
“You left them on the counter when you ordered your fourth drink.” Alhaitham tilts his head. “You didn’t notice?”
Kaveh checks his pockets.
His keys are, indeed, gone.
His eye twitches. “You absolute—”
“You’re in no condition to walk home alone,” Alhaitham interrupts, returning to his book. “And I’d rather not find out what would happen if you did.”
Kaveh inhales sharply, vibrating with barely contained rage. “I—Alhaitham, I am an adult! I can handle myself!”
Alhaitham raises an eyebrow. “Can you?”
“Yes!”
Alhaitham gestures vaguely toward him. “You just spent ten minutes lamenting your own misfortune to a bartender who stopped listening after the first five. Your motor functions are impaired. Your decision-making skills are compromised. And your emotional state,” he gestures at Kaveh’s dramatic posture, “is—frankly—unsalvageable.”
Kaveh gapes at him, affronted. “I am not—” He stops. Blinks. “Wait. How long were you listening to me?”
Alhaitham turns a page. “Long enough.”
Kaveh groans, dragging both hands down his face. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Stop saying that!”
“Then stop saying things you don’t mean.”
Kaveh exhales sharply, defeated. “You infuriate me.”
“I know.”
“And you’re—you’re not giving my keys back, are you?”
Alhaitham closes his book with a quiet thud and stands. “No.”
And Kaveh—exhausted, frustrated, and perhaps a little too tired to keep fighting—simply slumps over the counter and mutters, “Fine. But you’re paying my tab.”
Alhaitham snorts. “Not a chance.”
And yet, somehow, when Kaveh stumbles home, his tab is mysteriously settled.
(He says nothing about it in the morning.)
IV. The Fourth Time
It begins with a door.
Not just any door—their door. The front door of their shared home, which Kaveh—despite being a fully grown, allegedly responsible adult—has somehow managed to break.
In his defense, it was not his fault.
“I barely touched it!” Kaveh insists, arms flailing as he gestures toward the fallen door, which now lies pitifully on the floor like a defeated soldier. “This—this is clearly a structural failure! A testament to the shoddy craftsmanship of modern construction—”
“You kicked it,” Alhaitham interrupts, flat-toned.
“Lightly!”
Alhaitham pinches the bridge of his nose. “You kicked the door, Kaveh. Twice.”
Kaveh scoffs, indignant. “I tapped it. Gently! And maybe nudged it a little harder because it wouldn’t open properly—”
Alhaitham gestures at the wreckage. “And yet, here we are.”
Kaveh sputters. “This isn’t—you can’t possibly think this is my fault!”
Alhaitham gives him a long, pointed look. Then, wordlessly, he crouches and picks up a single, very damning splintered piece of wood.
Kaveh clears his throat, suddenly fascinated by the floor. “Well. I mean. The hinges were probably already loose.”
Alhaitham sighs. “Why did you kick the door?”
Kaveh crosses his arms, defensive. “Because you locked it!”
“Yes,” Alhaitham says, as if explaining something to a particularly dense child. “Because you forgot your keys again.”
“That is not—” Kaveh stops, grits his teeth. “Okay, fine, but I wouldn’t have forgotten them if you hadn’t taken them last time!”
Alhaitham hums. “Interesting. So you’re admitting that your forgetfulness is a consequence of my actions?”
Kaveh narrows his eyes. “That’s not what I—”
“I see. By that logic,” Alhaitham muses, “you’re implying that my confiscation of your keys is, in fact, an effective deterrent against your carelessness.”
Kaveh glares, deeply unamused. “That’s not—”
“And that, by extension,” Alhaitham continues, ignoring him, “this entire door situation is a direct result of your own negligence.”
Kaveh lets out an incredulous, furious laugh. “Oh, unbelievable! I knew you’d try to spin this on me, you gaslighting—”
“I’m merely stating the facts.”
“You infuriate me.”
“I know.”
Kaveh exhales sharply, hands on his hips. “Fine. Fine! Let’s ignore the door for a second. Why did you lock me out in the first place?”
Alhaitham crosses his arms. “You were being insufferable.”
Kaveh stares at him. “That is the least valid reason I have ever heard in my life.”
“Disagree.”
Kaveh groans, dragging both hands down his face. “Alhaitham. Explain.”
Alhaitham gestures toward the coffee table, where four separate design sketches lie in disarray, all of them bearing the same telltale signs of aesthetic tyranny.
Kaveh’s eyes widen. “You threw them away?”
Alhaitham raises an eyebrow. “I placed them aside. You threw them on the floor.”
“Because you dismissed them entirely!”
“They were bad.”
Kaveh gasps, scandalized. “They were experimental!”
“They were structurally unsound, absurdly expensive, and one of them—” he picks up the most egregious example, “—was physically impossible to build.”
Kaveh crosses his arms. “That’s what visionaries do, Alhaitham. We push the boundaries of art and engineering!”
“By designing a floating marble courtyard with no visible means of support?”
“It’s called innovation!”
“It’s called a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
Kaveh scowls. “You just hate anything ambitious.”
“No,” Alhaitham replies, exasperated. “I hate stupidity.”
Kaveh lets out a deeply wounded noise, clutching his chest like Alhaitham has just stabbed him. “You—you soulless wretch!”
Alhaitham sighs. “And that,” he gestures, “is why I locked you out.”
Kaveh throws his hands in the air. “You are insufferable.”
Alhaitham smirks. “And yet, here you are.”
Kaveh glares at him, breathing heavily, vibrating with barely contained rage. Then, after a long, simmering pause—
He turns on his heel, snatches his satchel off the floor, and marches toward the door.
Or, rather, where the door used to be.
He stops. Blinks.
Then turns back, suspicious. “…How are you planning to keep me out now?”
Alhaitham smirks.
Kaveh gasps. “No.”
Alhaitham pulls out Kaveh’s keys.
Kaveh lunges.
Alhaitham dodges, stepping neatly out of the way, holding the keys just out of reach.
“Alhaitham,” Kaveh snarls, climbing onto the couch in an attempt to pounce.
Alhaitham calmly holds them higher. “Perhaps this will teach you not to kick things when you don’t get your way.”
Kaveh shriek-laughs—that unhinged, furious sound of someone who has been personally victimized by an act of remarkable pettiness. “You child! Give them back!”
Alhaitham smirks. “Say please.”
Kaveh lets out an indignant squawk and lunges again.
They wrestle for the next fifteen minutes, knocking over furniture, tripping over the fallen door, and nearly upending Alhaitham’s bookcase in the process.
Ultimately, Alhaitham does return Kaveh’s keys.
(After making him apologize. Twice.)
The door, however, remains broken.
(And neither of them is willing to call a carpenter first, because that would mean losing the argument.)
It takes them four days before someone else—out of sheer pity—fixes it for them.
V. The Fifth Time
It begins, as all great conflicts do, with a single, petty grievance.
A cup of coffee.
More specifically: Alhaitham’s cup of coffee. The one he had brewed with meticulous care, precisely measured, exactly to his preferred temperature—only to return from his bookshelf to find Kaveh drinking it, entirely unrepentant.
“Oh,” Kaveh says when he sees him standing there, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. “Was this yours?”
Alhaitham says nothing.
Kaveh, unfazed, takes another sip.
Alhaitham’s eye twitches.
A lesser man would have let it go. Would have rolled his eyes, sighed in exasperation, and made another cup.
But Alhaitham is not a lesser man.
He is, in fact, deeply petty.
So when Kaveh leaves for the day, blissfully unaware of the storm he has wrought, Alhaitham calmly, methodically, takes his keys from their usual resting place and pockets them.
Then, satisfied, he waits.
———
Kaveh returns that evening, humming, in suspiciously good spirits.
Alhaitham, already settled with a book, side-eyes him. “You’re in a good mood.”
Kaveh grins. “I had a fantastic day.”
Alhaitham does not like the sound of that. “Did you swindle someone again?”
Kaveh gasps, scandalized. “Excuse me—I have never swindled anyone in my life.”
“You upsold a noblewoman a water feature that doubled her budget.”
“That wasn’t swindling, that was genius.”
Alhaitham sighs. “What happened?”
Kaveh, still grinning, drops his satchel onto the counter. “I had a lovely lunch with Faruzan, where she absolutely tore into the latest research paper from the Kshahrewar scholars—hilarious, by the way. Then, I met a potential client at the Bazaar—seems promising! And, oh, the best part—someone finally fixed that awful, infuriatingly loud door at the Akademiya!”
Alhaitham blinks. “What door?”
Kaveh waves a hand. “The one near the main entrance—you know, the one that screeches every time it opens? The one I’ve been complaining about for months?”
Alhaitham vaguely remembers hearing Kaveh rant about something like that. He had, admittedly, tuned most of it out.
“Well,” Kaveh continues smugly, “I sent in a formal complaint weeks ago, but no one did anything. So I took matters into my own hands.”
“…Meaning?”
Kaveh grins. “Meaning I called in a favor with one of the mechanics, and they fixed it.” He crosses his arms, looking far too pleased with himself. “It was a menace, Alhaitham. A blight upon the Akademiya. But no longer! I have solved it.”
Alhaitham hums. “I see.”
“You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Hm.” Alhaitham turns a page. “I liked that door.”
Silence.
Kaveh stares at him, grin frozen in place. “…What?”
“I liked it,” Alhaitham repeats, entirely serious. “It was an effective warning system.”
Kaveh’s expression shifts from smug to slow, dawning horror. “You—wait—”
“It let me know exactly when someone was entering the building,” Alhaitham continues, calm and even. “More specifically, it let me know exactly when you were entering the building.”
Kaveh’s mouth opens and closes, hands twitching in vague, distressed gestures. “You—you cannot be serious—”
“Now,” Alhaitham sighs, shaking his head. “I have lost a valuable security measure.”
Kaveh lets out an inarticulate sound of pure outrage. “That is not— You cannot seriously be upset about this!”
Alhaitham shrugs. “And yet, here we are.”
“You are unbelievable!”
Alhaitham turns another page. “I suppose I’ll just have to find other ways to account for this unfortunate loss.”
Kaveh glares at him, deeply suspicious. “I don’t like the way you said that.”
Alhaitham doesn’t reply.
Kaveh huffs, muttering under his breath, and turns toward his room—only to stop abruptly. He pats his pockets. Then his coat. Then his satchel.
Slowly, he turns back to Alhaitham, murderous.
“…Alhaitham.”
“Hm?”
Kaveh’s hands curl into fists. “Where are my keys.”
Alhaitham does not look up. “No idea.”
“You absolute snake!”
Alhaitham smirks. “A petty retaliation, isn’t it?”
Kaveh gapes at him, furious. “I KNEW IT! You—you petty, spiteful—”
Alhaitham flips another page. “Drink my coffee again, and next time, I’m hiding your drafting tools.”
Kaveh makes an outraged noise and lunges for him.
Alhaitham dodges effortlessly, amused.
They spend the next twenty minutes wrestling over the couch, knocking over at least two chairs in the process. The keys remain, securely, in Alhaitham’s pocket.
(Petty grievances must be answered in kind, after all.)
+ I. The One Time He Didn’t
This time, it starts with rain.
A torrential downpour, to be precise—one that arrives suddenly, mercilessly, drenching the city in sheets of silver. It pounds against rooftops, spills over gutters, turns the streets into slick rivers of stone and light. Thunder rumbles overhead, low and unrelenting, as the storm rages on.
Alhaitham, who is indoors (where rational people remain during such weather), hears the front door rattle. Then the handle turns.
Then—nothing.
Silence.
For precisely three seconds.
Then:
“Alhaitham.”
A pause.
Alhaitham turns the page of his book. “Hm.”
From the other side of the door: “Alhaitham, I know you’re in there.”
“Yes,” Alhaitham agrees, perfectly at ease.
Silence. Then—an exasperated exhale.
“…Open the door.”
Alhaitham hums, flipping another page. “Did you forget your keys again?”
No response.
Ah.
Interesting.
Alhaitham tilts his head slightly, as if considering his next move. Then, after a long, deliberate pause, he smirks. “You do realize that if I don’t open the door, you’ll be forced to stand out there in the rain, correct?”
“Yes,” Kaveh grits out. “I am very aware.”
Alhaitham smiles to himself. The opportunity is right there. A perfectly reasonable chance to make Kaveh suffer the consequences of his own absentmindedness—to let him stew in the rain for just long enough to learn his lesson.
And normally, Alhaitham would.
But.
Through the door, beneath Kaveh’s usual theatrics, there’s something off about his voice. Something tired. Frustrated, yes—but without its usual bite. Drained.
Alhaitham frowns. “What happened?”
A beat of silence. Then:
“…Nothing.”
Alhaitham closes his book.
Kaveh is a terrible liar.
With a sigh, he rises to his feet, crosses the room, and unlocks the door.
The moment it swings open, he sees—
Kaveh, standing in the downpour, absolutely soaked. His hair is plastered to his forehead, clothes clinging to his frame, dripping water onto the stone step beneath him. He’s shivering, exhausted, his usual fire reduced to smoldering embers.
Alhaitham takes one look at him and immediately, instinctively, steps aside.
Kaveh doesn’t move.
Alhaitham raises an eyebrow. “Are you coming in or not?”
Kaveh blinks, like the question takes a moment to process. Then, finally, he steps forward, crossing the threshold.
He hesitates, standing there, dripping onto the floor. “…I’ll clean it up later,” he mutters.
Alhaitham rolls his eyes. “Just sit down before you catch something.”
Kaveh snorts, but it’s faint, lacking its usual sharpness. “Didn’t know you cared.”
“I don’t,” Alhaitham says, already walking away. “I just don’t want to deal with the inevitable complaints if you get sick.”
“Uh-huh.”
Alhaitham returns moments later with a towel, tossing it at Kaveh’s face. “Dry yourself off.”
Kaveh catches it with surprising coordination for someone who looks half-dead. “Gee, thanks.”
Alhaitham folds his arms. “Do you want to tell me what happened, or should I start making guesses?”
Kaveh sighs, rubbing the towel over his head. “It’s nothing.”
Alhaitham waits.
Kaveh groans. “…It’s work.”
Alhaitham gestures vaguely. “That’s not news.”
Kaveh scowls, flopping onto the couch. “My client changed their mind again. I spent weeks designing something perfect, and suddenly, out of nowhere, they’ve decided they want something entirely different!” He throws an arm over his eyes. “I was at the Akademiya all day trying to sort it out, and then—ugh.”
“Ah,” Alhaitham says, unimpressed. “So your suffering is self-inflicted.”
Kaveh groans, muffled. “I hate you.”
“I know.”
Silence. The rain continues to fall outside, soft against the windows.
Alhaitham watches as Kaveh—finally warm, finally still—begins to relax, the tension in his shoulders easing.
The keys are right there, sitting in the bowl by the door. Alhaitham could take them, just for the principle of it. Just to prove his point.
But tonight—
Tonight, he doesn’t.
Instead, he walks to the kitchen, grabs a second mug, and silently pours Kaveh a cup of tea.
When he sets it down in front of him, Kaveh blinks at it. Then at him.
Then, slowly, suspiciously: “…Are you poisoning me?”
Alhaitham resists the urge to dump the tea over his head.
Kaveh grins—just a little, just enough.
Alhaitham exhales. “Drink it before I change my mind.”
Kaveh huffs a quiet laugh. Then, with an exaggerated show of caution, he takes a sip.
It’s warm.
(He doesn’t say thank you.)
(Alhaitham doesn’t need him to.)
Outside, the rain continues to fall.