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It’s a little known fact that Alhaitham doesn’t want to lose Kaveh again.
He remembers the years without him, the days where the world felt colorless and the words of their fight circle around his brain like crows pecking at a dead body. The only contact he had with Kaveh was through fights on message boards and research papers, the two of them lulled into an argumentative state that seemed endless until he found Kaveh at the tavern one day, drunk off his wits and slumped over on the table.
That was the first day that Kaveh walked back and the first day where Alhaitham resolved to never let him leave.
The days after that felt tense, the two of them dancing around each other as if they couldn’t get used to their presence despite being the closest in their lives. Kaveh gets up and leaves before he even has a chance to make his morning coffee, determined to erase his debt so that he can get the hell out of there. Alhaitham will never talk about how much that hurts.
The days of dancing around each other turn into weeks of mild comfort that finally turn into months where they can share the same space and exist without putting more distance between them. It’s here where, hesitantly, they start a relationship. The relationship is minor at first. A few kisses here, a touch there, and a mild word of love that comes in the dead of night where the other can’t hear it.
Both of them are afraid of ruining this, but Alhaitham is more so. He dreams of saying something that makes Kaveh walk out the door and refuse to come back, the world once again colorless. Kaveh could tell him to jump out of a window and he would if it meant that he wouldn’t leave again. So when Kaveh gets a new commission that has him making a trip to the desert for a couple of weeks, he goes back to having a taste of that colorless world, semi-convinced that Kaveh won’t come back again.
And then he ends up pregnant.
It starts like this: A routine day at work leads to his vision darkening around the corners of his eyes. He blinks it away, passing it off as a lack of sleep before it gets worse, the world around him spinning and spinning until it gets dark. He wakes up in the bimarstan with Tighnari by his side, a worried look plastered to his face. His stomach turns and he has just enough time to ask the ranger for a trash can before he vomits into it, noisy and messily.
“I-I can’t be.” He spits, voice cracking around the bile. “W-We never–”
They never discussed the idea of children, their relationship far too fragile for him to say anything about it. He didn’t want to scare Kaveh off, to make him afraid of something that would cause him to leave again. If he didn’t have any ideas of leaving before, this is surely to be one of them.
“The test came back positive.” Tighnari says, attempting to be comforting. “The doctors double-checked and made sure that it was true. I even ran tests of my own and they came back positive.”
He shakes his head almost as if he does it hard enough, he can erase it from reality. “We’re not ready for children. Kaveh isn’t ready for children.”
He does not mention his fear of Kaveh abandoning him, of his boyfriend becoming his ex-boyfriend and walking out that door once again. He keeps that behind his teeth, where his tongue won’t let it go and infect anyone else.
Tighnari, however, must see something on his face. “I think instead of deciding for Kaveh whether or not he’s ready, you should ask him.”
The tone is gentle, logical in all faults and Alhaitham knows that Tighnari is trying to keep him from going off the deep end, but he feels like he’s already drowning in the waters, trying to break through the surface to gain that one bit of breath that will keep him alive. He nods his head, wordless as he lays back down in bed.
The doctors dismiss him hours later and Tighnari reminds him to drink plenty of fluids and try to eat as best he can with the morning sickness, but the idea of eating or drinking anything makes him sick. Instead, he crawls into bed, covering himself head to toe with thick blankets to block out the world.
Through his panicking, one thing remains obvious: He cannot keep this baby.
It isn’t because they don’t have the space or the funds for it. With his salary, they can easily afford anything and they can always turn Kaveh’s bedroom into a nursery. No, what he thinks about is Kaveh’s reaction. They haven’t been dating for long, only a couple of months at best. If he broke this now, if he came clean with it, he doesn’t know what would happen.
So, like the logical and not anxious man that he is, he picks up one of the pamphlets from earlier that day about abortion.
He flips through all of the information that he can, looks over every word and every picture and decides that he has to do this. It doesn’t matter if something inside of him screams that he’s going to regret it, that he’s making a mistake, that he’s wrong and that he should really talk to Kaveh about this.
He doesn’t want to be the reason for why Kaveh leaves again.
Unfortunately, the Archons have it out for him because Kaveh comes back the week he’s supposed to have the abortion. He’s dirty, covered in sand and sweat, but looks satisfied to be home nonetheless. He kicks off his shoes, tiredly walking over to the divan to flop down on it like a fish. His head rests on Alhaitham’s lap, blond hair flowing around him like a halo.
His boyfriend smiles up at him, lips formed into a sign of love that never fails to make something of Alhaitham soar into the sky. “How was your week?”
And just like that, that bird that was soaring in his chest comes crashing down, dead at his feet. He swallows, ignoring the fact that his fingers tighten around his book. Alhaitham has two choices in that moment: He could be honest and break it to Kaveh or he could be smart about this and–
“It was fine.”
–Lie as if nothing ever happened.
Kaveh, even more unfortunate, is as perceptive as they come when he isn’t dead tired and pulling all-nighters. He can always feel the worry in those red eyes, the silent questions that he wishes he could ask but doesn’t. Alhaitham doesn’t push him to ask those questions, not when he wishes that they would stay unanswered. But all of that changes the morning that he’s set to have the abortion.
The sun shines high in the sky and he opens the door to his bedroom, nerves shot but secret still tucked against his chest. He walks down the hall and stops in his tracks when he spots Kaveh sitting on the divan, cup of coffee in his hand looking far too pensive for his liking. Alhaitham thinks that if he can just sneak past him, if he can just make it to the door and walk out to Tighnari to get to the bimarstan, then everything will be okay.
And then Kaveh looks up.
“Can we talk?”
The architect’s voice is soft, pleading around the edges and he winces. He could still leave, act like he never heard Kaveh at all and get the most painful part over with. And yet, he finds himself walking towards the couch. Kaveh grabs onto one of his hands, pulling it into his lap. His face, kissed by the sun of the desert, looks at him with so much worry that it is physically painful.
“Are… you okay?” The architect asks after a long silence. “You’ve been quiet ever since I got home.”
He scoffs. “Aren’t I always quiet?”
“You are, but not this much.” Kaveh leans forward, getting Alhaitham to look at him. His scent, sandalwood and mint, linger in his nose. “Is there something on your mind? If there is, we can talk about it?”
He swallows, suddenly feeling the urge to cry. “Nothing is on my mind, Kaveh. I’m just tired.”
“But…” His boyfriends deflates, sagging into himself with a frown. “Alhaitham, don’t lie to me. I can tell that something is wrong. We… We promised to be honest with each other, so please don’t hide from me.”
And once again, Kaveh holds his heart and everything that it contains with gentle hands, fingers rubbing at the edge trying to gain access into his deepest thoughts.
“I’m pregnant.”
Kaveh jolts, blinking as the information sinks into him. He stares with a blank face, brain firmly in the clouds as he slowly breathes out.
“I’m getting rid of it. The appointment is in thirty minutes, so I need to be going.”
Alhaitham rips his hands from Kaveh’s grip just as the architect gets his bearings, grabbing his keys and opening the door. A rush of blond slams the door before he can even put one foot outside, Kaveh out of breath and shocked.
“W-Wait! What do you mean ‘getting rid of it’?!” Kaveh questions, brows furrowed. “Alhaitham–”
He twists the knob on the door, trying to pry Kaveh’s body off the door. “I’m not canceling the appointment, Kaveh.”
“I’m not asking you to! I’m trying to figure out what made you decide this!” Kaveh snaps, temper flaring. “If this is about money, we have plenty of it! If the space is the issue, we have my–”
“I don’t want you to leave me!”
The silence that falls over them feels heavy, their throats locked in collars that pull their thoughts downwards until neither of them can think anymore. Kaveh stares, his chest rising and falling in slow breaths. Alhaitham stares back, but at the floors, unable to meet the architect’s eyes. Outside, with the crack of the door, people bustle and the markets from down the street distantly call for customers.
Slowly, he shuts the gap until the noise is gone.
“What…” Kaveh starts, pausing to gather himself. “What makes you think I would leave you?”
Alhaitham swallows. “You did, once.”
Their fight, the only one they’ve ever had and the only one they’ve never dared to repeat again, scars over their hearts like burns. It’s a time in both of their lives that they would rather not remember, but do whether they like it or not. Alhaitham can’t remember the first time, if he ever did, apologize for the words he said that day.
He still stands by them, still stands by the truth of them, but he wishes that he could have said it in a way that didn’t make Kaveh think he wasn’t worth anything anymore. Kaveh gasps softly, barely almost there to the roaring of his heartbeat. If he leaves now, if he convinces Kaveh to let him go, he can get rid of this baby and both of them can resume their normal no matter how much it hurts.
But Kaveh, light of his life and the bane of his feelings, gently grabs his hand and pulls him back towards the divan.
He follows with little resistance, letting his boyfriend take the reigns in guiding him. Kaveh sits down first, adjusting himself to lay down on the soft cushions before dragging Alhaitham down with him. His head is situated on Kaveh’s chest, ear planted right over his heart. His fingers, calloused yet soft, brush through his hair in soothing motions.
“I would never leave you over this.” The architect whispers. “Never. I would never abandon you like that.”
He hates how much he believes in those words. “I thought that you wouldn’t be happy with the baby. I thought that you would have walked away again.”
“I could never walk away from you, Alhaitham.” Kaveh tucks a strand of hair behind his ear and it feels like he’s tucking away his thoughts, shooing away the idea that he could never be wanted. “I love you so very much. Leaving you back then was something that I always regretted and I don’t want for that to happen again.”
Alhaitham lifts his head from Kaveh’s chest, looking him in the eye. “So… You want this baby?”
“Of course, I do.” Lips touch the skin of his forehead, love and care in every crevasse. “I want them just as much as I want you.”
Somehow, that settles something inside of his chest. The scribe puts his head back down, shutting his eyes and letting Kaveh’s fingers run through his hair. It’s warm, the body heat coming off his boyfriend loosening the tension in his chest. It’s comfortable, loving, gentle. It’s Kaveh to a fault.
He opens his eyes again some time later, the clock striking half-past four and he realizes, with some haziness, that he’s missed the appointment.
He doesn’t bother rescheduling it.