Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Six months ago, Kaveh died.

It had started off as an ordinary day; he’d woken up, made himself breakfast and left the house early to meet with his client. As he’d hummed absently while making his morning coffee, how was he to know the fate which would befall him a mere hour later?

He’d been talking with his client at the time, at the Palace of Alcazarzaray, simply discussing the project he’d been working on. Throughout the conversation, his client’s behavior seemed…odd. Almost aggressive, and Kaveh had gotten worried, warning bells ringing in his head. He’d known they were frustrated with the project—had been for a few weeks—and it seemed the longer they talked over the details, the more agitated with it they became.

Kaveh would never have guessed that the simple question, Miss, is everything okay? would lead to this. All he could truly remember about the moment were angry eyes, a flash of silver and a stabbing pain in his chest.

When he finally woke up later in the garden, he didn’t know how long it had been. He thought maybe he had fainted, and his head felt strangely light—his body felt tethered to the earth and as if it could float away at any moment simultaneously.

He could still feel the phantom throb of the dagger right above his sternum, and when he rubbed the place where it had struck him, he could feel raised scar tissue there. It didn’t make any sense.

He knew he’d been stabbed—he had the scar to prove it—but he was obviously still alive, conscious in some form. And he still didn’t know how long he’d been out of it; still though, Kaveh couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something.

The feeling only solidified when he’d tried to leave.

The tethered sensation in his chest grew the further he went from the Palace, until he physically couldn’t step any farther onto the path leading back home, to Sumeru City; the tether squeezed his chest tightly, making it impossible to move past the invisible barrier he’d come across. He eventually resigned himself to sitting patiently in one of the gazebos for someone to come; surely he wouldn’t be stuck here forever?

An indefinite amount of time later—for Kaveh’s sense of time had become strangely warped, and it felt like both the blink of an eye and several long hours at the same time—people started gathering at the Palace. They whispered and gossiped to each other, many staring worriedly around the garden and the Palace. Corps of Thirty members showed up at some point, putting up bright yellow missing person posters and taping the entrance to the Palace off.

Kaveh tried speaking to all of them, yet every person that showed up didn’t—or maybe couldn’t—notice him. He’d belatedly realized that he was the one on the missing person posters, but he still couldn’t understand.

“I’m right here!” he’d yelled, desperately tugging at people’s arms and shouting right in their faces; they still took no notice of him.

Kaveh felt so trapped, confined in his own personal bubble that he’d never wanted to surround him, trying to show the world that he was still here, even when—after trying and trying—he knew it was no use. They stayed oblivious to his presence while he rattled the bars of the metaphorical cage he was now trapped in.

Days passed, and fewer people came to the Palace to search for him. The Corps took down the tape and the posters, and when people steadily began to visit the Palace normally again, there were hardly any whispers of “the missing architect Kaveh”.

And every night, as the visitors trickled down the path back to the city—to home—Kaveh would sit with his knees tucked to his chest, wondering if anyone would notice him, missing his home, his family, his life.

Missing Alhaitham.

Kaveh found himself wondering often if Alhaitham missed him too. He likely did—or at least, that’s what Kaveh told himself. On the two occasions that the man had come to the Palace during the investigation, it was for a very short time, and though his face was a stoic, blank mask, there were dark shadows under his eyes, and his brow had a consistent furrow that Kaveh longed to press his thumb against, to ease the scribe’s worries.

It warmed Kaveh to know that Alhaitham even came at all. He saw how stressed the man was the first time he’d arrived, giving the tiniest of flinches that only Kaveh could see when someone commented on the situation, and Alhaitham was close enough to hear. It only made Kaveh all the more desperate to know what was going on—to know why he couldn’t press against Alhaitham’s shoulder with his own to reassure him.

There were times when he tried—oh yes, many—but he simply passed through every time. Once, Kaveh thought he could see the smallest shift in Alhaitham’s expression, like he could feel Kaveh’s warmth next to him, but it was so small and lasted so short that Kaveh thought he probably imagined it.

It took a long time, but eventually, Kaveh used the tether to find himself.

He’d started experimenting with the tether, trying to see how far he could go from the Palace and wondering when he’d finally get bored of looking at it; he never did—it was his magnum opus after all. The tether hardly let him go five steps onto the dirt path that led away from the Palace, and a few days after giving up trying to go farther than that, he decided to try and see where the tether was its weakest.

He’d anticipated standing somewhere in the middle of the garden; what he hadn’t foreseen was that it would be over his body.

His very much dead body.

When the shock of finding himself, bloodstained and half-buried, had finally subsided, only the grief remained. Grief for his mother, his family, Alhaitham, all wondering what happened to him. Grief for himself, for the rest of the life he could’ve had. Kaveh didn’t know you could grieve yourself, but now, he finally understood.

Death had come for him sooner than he’d expected.

*

Six months ago, Kaveh died.

Alhaitham woke up that morning alone.

It was nothing outside of routine; Kaveh’s day often started much earlier than Alhaitham’s anyway. He simply did what he does every morning, rolling over to Kaveh’s rapidly cooling side of the bed, allowing himself one inhale of Kaveh’s scent and absorbing what remains of the warmth he left behind.

Perhaps, if Alhaitham knew what was going to happen that day, he wouldn’t’ve thrown those sheets straight into the wash as soon as he got up.

He went about his day like normal, and in the evening, when he was just wondering when Kaveh would be home—for he said he’d only be out in the morning—the doorbell rang.

He’d gone to the door with a smug smile already curving along his lips, ready to greet the architect and start on dinner together—Kaveh promised him his favorite pudding for dessert today, and Alhaitham was going to hold the blonde out on that promise, even if he had to bribe that pudding out of him. But he didn’t open the door to the loud, obnoxious ball of energy he was used to; instead, it was a Corps of Thirty member, solemn and apologetic.

Alhaitham’s smile fell instinctually back into the stoic expression he reserved for practically everyone but Kaveh, while internally, he was panicking. His thoughts had immediately jumped to the worst possible scenario; thoughts tend to do that, especially in stressful situations. Alhaitham automatically dismissed all the thoughts telling him that Kaveh was injured, or even dead, as minds always seem to turn to whenever there’s bad news. Those were silly notions; in fact, this probably wasn’t even about Kaveh, just something from work.

Alhaitham couldn’t have been more wrong, and he wishes he wasn’t.

When the man at the door delivered the message, Alhaitham almost laughed. Had he been thinking about something bad happening to Kaveh so strongly that he’d accidentally mistaken what the Corps member said? But no. The man’s expression had hardened at what must’ve been Alhaitham’s disbelieving face, and he stated it again, Kaveh has disappeared, and Alhaitham felt suddenly as if his heart was in his throat, choking him.

He barely managed to accept the Corps’ thin file on the case before slamming the door in the man’s face and just standing there.

Kaveh missing?

Alhaitham wanted to scoff. Wanted to cry a bit. Wanted Kaveh to jump out from behind the couch and proclaim it was all just a silly prank. Wanted to demand more details, because the file truly was pitifully small, and there wasn’t nearly enough information for Alhaitham’s liking. Tall, blonde, male…Last seen at the Palace of Alcazarzaray… It was the bare minimum, and it made Alhaitham’s blood boil.

For the first two days after receiving the news, Alhaitham pestered the Corps for more information—the one paper and reference photo in the file wasn’t enough, and neither were the tacky yellow missing person posters. He felt like they weren’t doing enough; he felt that the whole city wasn’t doing enough.

How could they not be frantically searching for Kaveh? The beloved, famous architect? Why weren’t they putting more effort into his case, into finding out what really happened?

For a whole week, the Corps barely worked on the case at all, other than to go up to the Palace, take minimal notes, and then tape it off from visitors. Speculations and rumors were flying around the city within days. Most of them made Alhaitham angry and irritated—was the Nation of Wisdom always this dense? Kaveh wouldn’t run away, and he certainly wasn’t having a secret love affair with some woman at the Palace.

Alhaitham visited the Palace only twice during the investigation; the first time was hard enough, at the beginning when there was still a large crowd to be often found gathered at the perimeter of the courtyard, and groups of Corps members walking around and pretending to scan for elemental energy, when really they were just staring blankly at the flower bushes. The people at the front—that Alhaitham assumed had been whispering about Kaveh and the lack of evidence of anything having happened—turned both their heads and their gossip to him, and their suspicious comments wondering what he was doing there, actually scanning for elemental traces, made Alhaitham wish they would all rot.

He desperately wanted to scowl at them all, to yell at them to fuck off; he wanted them to quit their gossiping, as if Kaveh going missing was just the next little scandal, and soon enough, another, more interesting story would come along. He wanted to force them to look for Kaveh too, or just scream in their faces. How would they feel if it was one of their loved ones that was missing? Didn’t they understand that Kaveh is a loved one to some people?

Alhaitham often struggles with his emotions, but when listening to those people, he felt repulsed, disgusted. It felt like they had no regard for Kaveh at all, and they might deny it—or may not even intend it—but it felt like every word was another cut along Alhaitham’s back; it felt like they were mocking him. What right did they have to scorn and question Alhaitham’s involvement in the case? They didn’t know anything about Kaveh and him.

It was on Alhaitham’s second visit to the Palace that his scans finally revealed something, and though his heart leapt for a moment—was he finally on to something?—it was only seconds later that he saw the dried blood, and the feeling of hopefulness withered to ash in his chest.

In all, Kaveh’s case stayed open for about a month. The Corps was getting tired of searching, and after the blood and traces of lingering dendro were found, they closed it. Wrote a simple report that Alhaitham was sent a day after his second visit. A monster probably got a hold of him and dragged the body into the forest, they said. Everything points towards his death, they determined.

Alhaitham crumpled the paper in his fists, staring blankly ahead. Dendro thorns sprung from his fingertips and ripped the report to shreds.

The rest of Sumeru may have given up on Kaveh, but Alhaitham would be damned if this was the end of it.

Chapter Text

Kaveh no longer has a way of tracking time.

He did at the start, when he’d first learned he couldn’t leave. He’d kept an ongoing tally from that point on, finding that in very specific areas—which he later morbidly learned were the closest to his body—he could interact with the world just enough to move soil or pull on the blades of grass. He found the best patch of dirt he could move, and tallied.

With the arrival of the investigation teams, the crowds of onlookers, searchers, and gossipers alike, and most especially Alhaitham, however, Kaveh lost track of his tally; it didn’t help that Alhaitham discovered traces of dendro is Kaveh’s very specific pile of dirt, and the Corps members shifted the earth too much when scanning the area more closely.

Safe to say, after everyone inevitably left, he no longer knew how long it had been since he “went missing”. 

It didn’t help that, other than the rising and setting of the sun, Kaveh’s sense of time had become oddly skewed; some days dragged, and Kaveh doesn’t mean figuratively—no, time seemed to spontaneously decide to slow down against his will, and he would watch the wind blow and butterflies flutter in slow motion. Vice versa, time also appeared to speed up randomly, visitors coming and going in a motion blur, between one blink and the next.

It was incredibly disconcerting, and it meant that Kaveh had to resign himself to no longer knowing how long he’d been trapped wandering as a ghost around the Palace.

What Kaveh has been observing for the past couple weeks, however, is a clue.

Just as Kaveh cannot interact with the physical world—with the exception of his buried body, and even then it's such a minuscule amount it hardly matters—the world cannot interact with him. He can’t feel the warmth of the sun or the coolness of a breeze. The only things tangible to him are the clothes he died in, which his ghost conveniently decided to keep, but it’s not like the clothes get dirtied or aged, nor are they very interesting after wearing them for an indefinitely long period of time.

As such, it means that Kaveh can’t feel the way that the temperature starts to grow colder at nighttime, or how the smell of late summer rain lingers in the air. It does mean that Kaveh notices the trees growing steadily more golden, and the flowers begin to wilt before the Forest Rangers are assigned to bring in plants that will survive better in the brisk autumn weather. 

It’s enough for Kaveh to determine that he’s been trapped as a ghost for at least a few months, and it only saddens him in his solitude. Is he really going to be wandering here, all alone, for the rest of time? Is he trapped here for a reason? Kaveh has read the ghost stories about souls being confined from moving on to the afterlife—is that what this is?

He hopes not; what a lonely existence that would be.

As he has that thought, something brushes up against his leg, and he jolts violently. He’s sitting in one of the gazebos as usual, on the stairs leading up to it. He’s not truly felt anything touch him in so long, or at least it feels like it, so of course it startles him.

Shakily, he looks down, and there next to his leg is a cat. It’s quite small, with fuzzy white fur and unique geometric stripes along its back and front paws. It looks to be just a bit older than a kitten, really—or at least, it was. The closer Kaveh looks, he notices the almost transparent sheen of its coat, not unlike the see-through glimmer of Kaveh’s hands and ends of his hair that he’s come to associate with apparently being a ghost.

The cat trills at him, reminding him with a clench of his heart the way Mehrak would click as she projected an image for him. It’s leaning up against his leg again, and though he flinches, the cat does seem to be solid, at least to him. He hesitantly lets one of his hands drop from his lap, letting the cat sniff at it curiously before it endearingly butts against his palm, seeking the contact.

Kaveh relaxes and pets the cat gently, thinking. Clearly, this cat must be a ghost too, otherwise he likely wouldn’t be able to interact with it. It makes him a bit sad, considering it’s clear the cat died young, and he feels a pang of sympathy for its possible owner. He doesn’t allow himself to feel the sympathy or sadness for long, though; if this cat is a ghost trapped here too, at least it means he now has a companion, and that is very reassuring.

With a little smile, he scratches the cat behind its ear. He already knows he’ll be calling it Mehrak, at least in his head; it really does remind him so much of his invention-turned-friend.

Now, he won’t be alone.

*

Alhaitham seethed for the first week or so after the shoddy excuse of a report had been sent to his home.

He stalked down Treasures Street to the Corps of Thirty three times, only one of them calmly. He was infuriated at the half-hearted investigation—he felt as though a piece of his own soul was taken from him; why weren’t they putting in more effort? A month’s worth of it wasn’t enough.

Inevitably, Alhaitham realizes the Corps can’t help, nor do they particularly want to. He notices that even the cityfolk are getting tired of his devotion to finding out what truly happened to Kaveh; they, of course, had accepted automatically that Kaveh was dead. They glance at him warily as he walks down the streets, laden with books and perpetually dark eyes.

He knows they notice the file he always carries around, the original investigation file. It makes people mutter about how his efforts are for nothing, about how he’s trying to find a dead man, but he ignores it. There wasn’t even a body found; how could the whole nation just assume that Kaveh is dead?

Thankfully, there is at least one person who believes him, or at least wants to help. Arguably, she’s the most important figure to support his research: Nahida, the goddess of Wisdom herself. When Alhaitham learns that she would like to assist his continued investigation, he enthusiastically agrees—or at least, as enthusiastic as he can be while the love of his life is missing.

Another two weeks into his research, Alhaitham decides to resign from his position as a scribe. It’s a decision that has been a long time coming, as Alhaitham has more than enough money to support himself—and hopefully Kaveh again soon—for the rest of his life, and working with the Akadamiya had grown more tiring than rewarding. Kaveh’s disappearance just happened to end up being the catalyst for his resignation.

When Nahida finds out he resigned, she comes to him with a worried expression on her face. Alhaitham has started to spend less time at home—which was rapidly losing all the signs of Kaveh that Alhaitham cherished, and he couldn’t stand being there alone for too long—and more time at the Akademiya library, pouring over tomes of divination and curses and omens and anything that could give a hint to someone disappearing or dying before they were supposed to.

“Alhaitham?” Nahida asks, and Alhaitham turns to her from his position, hunched over a desk with notes and pages spread across its surface.

“Miss Nahida. Is…something the matter?”

“I just…You’re still searching for what happened to Kaveh, aren’t you?”

Alhaitham’s expression hardens, and he nods stiffly.

“Then I need to tell you about something…It’s dangerous, but maybe it will help to give you more answers than questions.”

Twiddling her thumbs with a nervous frown, Nahida tells Alhaitham about the practice of Necromancy. Communicating with the dead. It admittedly scares Alhaitham, both because of its unconventional methods of getting things done and the fact that, if he decides to throw himself into studying the practice enough to perform it, it means coming to terms with the fact that Kaveh indeed did not survive whatever happened to him at the Palace that April morning.

It only takes one evening of consideration, however, before Alhaitham goes back to Nahida to ask for the books she told him about. As much as Alhaitham doesn’t want to accept that Kaveh is—could be—dead, it wouldn’t do to simply reject an offer of information or even just the possibility of a way to communicate with Kaveh; as much as Alhaitham wants to see him again, he’s also determined to find the truth of what actually happened, even if that means using unconventional methods of doing so.

For the next four months Alhaitham studies and reads. His eyes get used to straining to read tiny, ancient rune texts and old Natlan languages; his posture slowly worsens and he has to remind himself often to sit up straight instead of hunching over tomes while taking notes; Tighnari—and on one rare occasion, Cyno—has to come remind him to eat and rest properly. It’s not that Alhaitham rejects his health on purpose; it’s more that he forgets to do so, immersed as he constantly is in his research.

Late August and into much of September, Alhaitham takes a research trip to Natlan himself, determined to look further into a few obscure cases he’d read of in the more recent, credible books he’d acquired. The trip admittedly doesn’t help much, and Alhaitham is sure he’d need more time and study if he wanted to attempt to bring Kaveh back from—wherever he is. But still, it’s a start, and by the time it’s October, Alhaitham is back in Sumeru, ready to prepare a ritual even he isn’t sure will work.

Still, he has to try.

For all of October, Alhaitham throws himself into preparation for the ritual, brushing up on his rune work from way back when he attended the Akademiya. He learns how to flick his fingers to light a candle, drawing power from his Vision and turning the dendro to ash that will spark the wick. He draws the rune circle diagram so often that he could probably do it with his eyes closed. He digs up the small, velvet box that’s been collecting dust ever since he’d shoved it into a bottom drawer when he’d heard what had happened to Kaveh.

And finally, after a long, gruelling month in which the trees turned golden and then died and the cold autumn winds whipped at Alhaitham’s bedroom window, October 31st had arrived: the night the dead were said to be able to walk among the living, when the veil between life and death is at its thinnest.

Tonight, Alhaitham will see Kaveh again.

Chapter Text

Kaveh still doesn’t know how long it’s been since he died, but he does know that something weird has been happening for at least two weeks.

It had started when he was walking past the area his body was buried around. It had rained recently, but Kaveh didn’t really think much of it, because it wasn’t like the rain could affect him. Except apparently it could, because as he’d strolled along the stone path closest to the bushes where his body lay, he slipped. Actually slipped!

It was barely a slip at all really, and he could’ve easily mistaken it for the way his ghost form sometimes refused to stay on the ground, longing to hover just a few feet above it the way Mehrak occasionally did. He probably would’ve thought that too, if it wasn’t for the clear and intentional way his foot had stayed firmly on the ground the moment before, like it was actually responding to the weight of gravity for the first time in forever.

A few days later, Kaveh had been wandering along the border of the invisible barrier he’d by now memorized, except then, for just a moment, the tethering sensation that was always strongest around the border loosened for a split second, and it’d startled Kaveh so badly that he took two full steps past the barrier.

Of course, in the next moment, it forced him right back, but for five seconds at least, he’d been standing two steps past the barrier.

Safe to say, something odd is going on. He feels as though something is approaching, and he isn’t sure whether or not to be worried. But why else would his hands sometimes lose their transparency and he’d be able to subtly smell the flowers in the Palace garden? It feels to him as if every day, his attachment to the physical world has strengthened, and it only makes him more confused as each day goes by.

Eventually, it feels as though Kaveh literally can’t get anymore real unless he actually comes back to life. That’s probably an overstatement, seeing as Kaveh still can’t actually leave the Palace, nor can he pick flowers or kick stones around, but the wind ruffles his hair, and he can smell the petrichor lingering in the air, and there’s hardly a flicker of transparency in his fingertips.

It’s on this night that an unexpected visitor arrives at the Palace.

It’s late enough that no one comes to the Palace at this time of night. Kaveh estimates it’s around midnight, seeing as the moon hovers almost directly above the Palace, and he has to crane his neck to see it.

He’s playing, inside but near the entrance of the Palace, with Mehrak who—while he’s been steadily getting more weighed by gravity and reality—seems to get lighter and fluffier by the hour. She floats around his head, chirping at him occasionally while she bats at strands of Kaveh’s hair that, no matter how real he becomes, still decide to wisp around the frame of his jaw, as if he’s underwater.

Mehrak stills suddenly, before sniffing curiously, head twitching before she faces the door. Kaveh turns to the door as well, jolting in shock when it suddenly opens. Who in Teyvat would visit the Palace at such an ungodly hour?

It takes a minute for Kaveh to place the man who walks in, glancing around warily before moving to shut the door quietly behind him and then going to the center room, sitting cross-legged on the floor and drawing out a little bag of—salt?

When Kaveh does realize who it is, he gasps out loud, and the man looks up sharply as if he could hear Kaveh’s gasp, but of course, he can’t, and he puts his head back down and focuses on his salt.

What is Alhaitham doing here?

No, seriously, what is he doing? Kaveh abandons Mehrak in the corner of the Palace where they were playing, and instead watches, bemused, as Alhaitham draws out handfuls of the salt and sprinkles it in a perfect circle around himself. He then takes five candles out of a handbag Kaveh now notices slung around his waist and places them around himself in a pentagon shape, one in front, two behind, and two on either side. He takes out a piece of chalk as well, connecting every candle with a straight line, and then, in the gaps between the lines and the salt circle, he draws various Natlanian runes that Kaveh vaguely recognizes.

Alhaitham is silent and concentrated throughout the whole odd ritual, and Kaveh studies him closely as he meticulously draws the runes. Alhaitham’s hair has gotten darker and longer, the hair framing the sides of his face almost touching his shoulders where they used to barely brush his jawline. Alhaitham’s eyes are shadowed and tired, and his mouth—though he always seemed to have a more stoic resting expression—has an almost unnoticeable permanent downturn at the corners. 

The only familiar piece of clothing he adorns is his jacket, where his Vision is forever attached; Kaveh notices, with a throb of his heart, that Alhaitham has their house keys linked on a little chain along with his Vision. The rest of his clothes are unfamiliar, but they look wrinkled and a bit small on him, reminding Kaveh of leisurewear he himself used to wear around the house. 

As Kaveh observes, Alhaitham finishes the runes with a tiny, satisfied smile before he cups his hands around the candle in front of him. He then flicks his fingers and a small dendro vine curls around the wick of the candle before it withers to ash. Kaveh watches, confused, until Alhaitham snaps his fingers through the falling ash and it flickers, a flame drawing up from between his fingertips in an instant, lighting the candle.

Kaveh continues to watch, fascinated, as Alhaitham lights the other four candles this way and then he sits back with a contented sigh. Finally, Alhaitham takes a small board with letters on it from his bag, and puts the board almost hesitantly in front of him, along with a small circle piece with a hole in the middle, big enough to fit a letter. He sits back in the circle so that there’s enough space for him, the board in the middle, and one other person to sit on the other side of the board.

Alhaitham then fully relaxes and sits in silence.

Kaveh stares at him in silence. Then, before he can second guess himself, he decides to sit on the other side of the little letter board, directly in front of Alhaitham.

The second he sits down in the salt circle, Alhaitham sits up straight, immediately tense, as if he can sense that Kaveh is here. Kaveh is sure his heart has stopped—no pun intended.

“Kaveh,” Alhaitham says, and it’s barely a whisper, but Kaveh hears it. “Kaveh,” Alhaitham says, more confident now, and without a single waver in his tone. “Are you here? Can you hear me?”

Kaveh jumps, and automatically grows frustrated. How is he supposed to answer? Yes, he can hear Alhaitham, but Alhaitham can’t hear him!

As Kaveh tries to settle back into place, fidgeting, his knee bumps the edge of the board, and it shifts. It moves. Alhaitham grows absolutely still, eyes on the board. Then he sighs exasperatedly, as if he can feel Kaveh’s confusion. “The board is imbued with magic, Kaveh. You can touch it.”

Kaveh’s heart leaps, a smile already spreading across his face as he immediately reaches for the circle piece, watching Alhaitham’s face expectantly as he moves it to the H, then the I before picking it up and putting it back down on the I three more times. Alhaitham’s eyes grow suspiciously wet and he chuckles softly, his expression warm. “Yes, hello Kaveh.”

Before Kaveh can respond again, Alhaitham sits up on his knees and inhales deeply. He looks like he’s preparing to go to war. 

“Okay, just…We—don’t have a lot of time.” He stumbles over his words, and Kaveh can’t help but be a bit nervous, yet endeared all the same. “I…I’m sorry I made you wait so long, but—” Alhaitham clears his throat, “I promise, I’ll fix this. Fix everything.

“Do you trust me?” he asks then, and Kaveh can’t help but smile and sigh. When has he ever not? Kaveh nods, then remembers Alhaitham can’t see him and he turns back to the letter board, moving the piece to spell out Yes.

With hands shaking so badly even Kaveh can see, Alhaitham moves to board off to the side before standing, Kaveh standing along with him. He reaches with trembling fingers into his bag for a final time, drawing out a small, velvet box with a little gold clasp, and he cradles it in his palms.

“This is for you,” he whispers, hardly audible, and then he squeezes his eyes shut.

Kaveh moves forward with wide eyes, and the second his fingers brush the box, he feels the anchor to the earth he’s long since gone without falling back into place.

*

On October 31st, place your offering(s) for the dead. And when the clock reaches midnight, the dead shall be allowed to walk among the mortals…and take what has been offered to them.

Alhaitham has read that phrase in a hundred different books, and even though he knew that’s how it works, even though he could feel almost tangibly the weight of Kaveh’s presence in the Palace, none of it compares to the exact moment when he hears Kaveh’s sharp inhale, and his fingers brush against Alhaitham’s where they still hold the box.

Alhaitham snaps his eyes open and it takes everything in him not to immediately break down crying. It would take a stronger man than him, however, to stop from whispering, choked up, “Kaveh,” feeling the name wrenched from his mouth and throat and heart, spilling from his lips the same way Kaveh reverently brushes paint along a brand new canvas.

Kaveh’s brilliant vermillion eyes, where they had been curiously inspecting the box in Alhaitham’s hands, lift to meet his the second his name falls from Alhaitham’s lips, and Kaveh’s face grows slack.

“Alhaitham..?”

Alhaitham feels his bottom lip tremble pathetically, and he almost drops the box in his haste to get his hands on Kaveh, to touch him again, but he somehow manages to fumble it into his bag before clutching Kaveh’s left hand in both of his own like a lifeline. He can’t help his body from swaying forward, drawn to Kaveh like a magnet, and when Kaveh’s other hand falls to his side and curls oh so gently against it to keep him from falling, he lets out a soft whimper, eyes squeezing shut again at the contact. It’s all almost too much.

Alhaitham swallows twice before he manages, “You are here,” in a strangled whisper. Because yes, he knew he’d be seeing Kaveh again tonight, but knowing isn’t the same as knowing; as having Kaveh right in front of him, his breath puffing against Alhaitham’s cheek where their faces are inches away from each other, and his hands warm in Alhaitham’s grasp and against his side.

Alhaitham opens his eyes—because while at first it was overwhelming, having Kaveh here in front of him again, he suddenly cannot stand not looking at him. Kaveh is just staring at him with a grin, same as always, and Alhaitham’s vision blurs for a moment before he remembers to blink the tears away. He hungrily drinks in every detail of Kaveh: his eyes crinkled at the corners, his high cheekbones and skin paler than Alhaitham’s ever seen it, though that’s probably because of his ghostly-ness. His lips—curved in that soft smile that Alhaitham loves so much—that Alhaitham longs to kiss, but he holds back because now is not the time.

It’s Kaveh’s hair that really snaps him back into reality, though. It’s long and beautiful and shining blonde, but the ends…They’re faded into a light blue transparency, and they curl and float around Kaveh’s neck and shoulders almost ethereally.

Alhaitham clears his throat wetly, pulling away just a bit, and before he can stop him, Kaveh lifts the hand from his side and brings it up to cradle his cheek and swipe the tears away from his eyes. It almost makes Alhaitham fold again, just for the way Kaveh’s hands are so so gentle with him, like he’s one of Kaveh’s precious art pieces, and he wants to nuzzle into Kaveh’s touch so badly, but he can’t. Now is not the time, and they have to talk—

“Archons, I missed you.”

—And then Kaveh goes and says something like that, and Alhaitham just wants to sob in Kaveh’s arms like a baby, beg him to never leave again, curl into his warmth.

“I—I missed you too,” Alhaitham stumbles around saying, “gods, I—” He shakes his head, swallowing and carefully loosening his death grip on Kaveh’s left hand, bringing his hands to softly rest on Kaveh’s biceps, intending to put a little distance between them, because he almost just fell for it again, but they need to discuss things.

This ends up being a mistake, for Kaveh seems to take his open stance as an invitation to move both his hands to Alhaitham’s shoulders, caressing his neckline. Defeated, Alhaitham lets Kaveh take a moment to fuss with the collar of his jacket—like that fucking matters right now—and smooth down his bangs, as if it’s just another morning, and Kaveh wants them both to look perfect for the day.

The movements are so achingly familiar that it causes Alhaitham to almost break down crying again, so he decides they have to pause, at least for a few minutes, just to talk, to clarify what happened, because they have to. Alhaitham coaxes Kaveh’s hands from his jacket and gently kisses his knuckles, drawing Kaveh’s attention back to him.

Kaveh stills and looks back up at him, and the bright little twinkle that had entered his eyes the moment he realized Alhaitham could see him dims a bit. Kaveh sighs. “Yes, I know, we have to talk. I just…”

Alhaitham softens helplessly at Kaveh’s half-pout. “I know. Kaveh, believe me, if I could stand here in your arms for the rest of the night, I would, but…” Kaveh laughs, and the sound fills the empty Palace, echoing through the room and settling like an offering of Kaveh’s own in Alhaitham’s heart.

Before Alhaitham can pull away, Kaveh tugs him firmly into the circle of his arms. “Can’t we just…stay like this? For a bit?” Alhaitham debates arguing in his head, but of course, he inevitably gives in, unable to say no when Kaveh’s voice has an edge of desperation that Alhaitham’s whole being has held ever since Kaveh went missing in the first place.

So he relaxes in Kaveh’s hold. He allows himself to wrap his own arms around Kaveh, one snug around his waist, the other cradling the back of his head and tangling in the blond strands. Alhaitham lets himself breathe deep for the first time in six months, and even though it isn’t fixed yet, even though they still have to talk, even though Alhaitham can feel their time already slipping away like sand in an hourglass, he still lets the tension drain from his body as Kaveh sweeps his artist’s hands up and down his back, pressing them chest to chest and breathing in sync.

Alhaitham breathes.

Chapter Text

Kaveh knows he probably stands there, clinging to Alhaitham, much longer than Alhaitham intended, but he can’t help himself. Kaveh also knows it’s more of a comfort for Alhaitham than himself, because even though he hasn’t had physical contact in six months—other than Mehrak, of course—Alhaitham was part of the investigation; he probably came to the same conclusions as the Corps, that being that Kaveh is technically dead. Being able to hold him again, now, is likely a miracle in Alhaitham’s mind.

So he holds Alhaitham a little longer than he should, but Alhaitham clearly needs it, no matter how much he says they need to talk. Kaveh thinks, multiple times, that Alhaitham is actually crying, but he doesn’t pull back to see, partly because Alhaitham wouldn’t want Kaveh to see him like that, and partly because, the moment he pulls away, they’ll have to converse about Kaveh’s death—which Kaveh barely remembers the details of himself—and the case, and Kaveh doesn’t want to deal with it just yet.

After what feels like simultaneously forever and the blink of an eye, Alhaitham inhales sharply where his face was tucked into the crook of Kaveh’s neck, and he pulls away, visibly composing himself. Kaveh lets him go and pretends not to watch as Alhaitham wipes at his eyes, clearing his throat twice before speaking.

“So.”

Kaveh’s lips twitch up. “So?”

Alhaitham sends him a half-hearted glare before sighing and sitting back down on the floor. Kaveh deliberates pulling him back up for a moment, but he relents when Alhaitham huffs, and he sits next to him, pulling his legs close to his chest and wrapping his arms comfortably around his knees.

“How…” Alhaitham starts and then stops. He continues hesitantly after a moment, “How did this happen?”

Kaveh holds back a snort. “I died.”

“Kaveh,” Alhaitham scolds. “I know that. I meant, how did you die?”

Kaveh sobers quickly, and he glances down at his hands where they’re clasped together over his knees. “I…I don’t exactly know. I don’t remember much about that morning.” Alhaitham sits very still, and when Kaveh flicks his gaze to him for a second, he’s watching Kaveh very intently.

“I left that morning to speak with a client. I—I don’t even remember the project anymore, if I’m being honest.” He picks at a fingernail as he continues. “I…We were arguing. It wasn’t even that big a deal, I don’t think. Something about extra fees ‘cause of the withering zones?” Kaveh scoffs. “Who knows. Next thing I knew they had a dagger to my chest and my vision was fading.” Kaveh swallows heavily, absently rubbing the scar on his clavicle. “All I really remember is the pain. Everything else is just…a blur.”

Carefully, as if he’s scared to spook Kaveh away, Alhaitham places a comforting hand on his shoulder, leaning a bit closer. His body is warm next to Kaveh’s, and Kaveh, who hasn’t felt true warmth since he died, longs to edge closer, to soak up Alhaitham’s warmth and let him take the pain away, take him home.

“You know,” Kaveh begins softly. “I didn’t even know I was dead, at first. I was just…” He pauses, trying not to sound too somber about the whole thing. “Trapped. Here, at the Palace. I couldn’t leave. I didn’t understand what had happened until—Well, until I found my body, I suppose.”

Kaveh glances at Alhaitham then, and sees him frowning, that furrow in his brow again. Kaveh gives into the temptation to press his thumb against it, and just like he knew it would, the furrow disappears as Alhaitham sighs, looking very much like he wishes to simply cuddle up with Kaveh in the Palace for the rest of time. Kaveh wishes that, too.

“You…found your body?” Alhaitham says eventually. Kaveh tilts his head. “Yes. Why?”

Alhaitham looks like he wants to cry again, so Kaveh removes his hand from his shoulder, tangling their fingers together instead. “Well, there was an investigation.” Kaveh nods, because he knows this. “Just…We never found your body, so I assumed…Well, I guess I don’t really know anymore.”

“Oh.” Kaveh looks down at their entwined fingers, and smiles a bit when Alhaitham begins to rub soothing circles with his thumb along Kaveh’s palm.

“I’m buried under the fountain, in front of the gazebo,” Kaveh says after a moment. Alhaitham’s grip on his hand tightens. Kaveh chuckles softly. “It’s not too bad, actually. Surrounded by flowers in the springtime. They’re just bushes now that it’s autumn, but still. Could be worse. It’s quite beautiful when the flowers bloom.”

They sit in silence for a minute, Alhaitham still circling Kaveh’s palm with his thumb, and Kaveh leans on Alhaitham’s shoulder as hard as he dares, still subconsciously scared that he might fall through and become unnoticeable again at any moment.

“You deserve justice,” Alhaitham says eventually, his voice hardened. Kaveh already knows from his convicted tone that he’s going to reopen Kaveh’s case the second he gets home again. Kaveh only wishes he could be there to see it.

He shoves that feeling down and away, cracking a strained smile instead. “Look at you, Hayi. Still cleaning up my messes and taking care of me after I’m already gone.”

“It’s not your fault,” Alhaitham argues, brushing his bangs back with a frustrated huff from where they now fall in his eyes. “Life has been unfair to you.”

Kaveh turns to face Alhaitham better, reaching up with the hand not still holding Alhaitham’s and brushing Alhaitham’s bangs from his eyes for him. Trailing his hand down the side of Alhaitham’s jaw with a soft smile, he says, “It’s okay. No really,” he reiterates when Alhaitham looks at him disbelievingly.

“I…had a good life, I think. It ended a bit too soon, maybe,” he concedes, “but I don’t have many regrets. I had a loving family, I had good friends, I studied all I wanted and was interested in.” Kaveh glances around the Palace proudly. “I built this.”

Alhaitham squeezes his hand tightly again, and Kaveh looks back at him to see him with a tender smile on his face. Kaveh’s breath hitches. “And…I had you.”

Alhaitham’s eyes light up, and he grins as much as Alhaitham ever grins, which just means Kaveh catches a flash of his teeth before the corners of his lips curl up sweetly, the tiniest hint of a dimple appearing on his right cheek, if you know where to look.

“I had you, and I loved you—I still do.” Kaveh beams when Alhaitham raises his hand from his lap and cradles Kaveh’s cheek. His palm is so deliciously warm, and it takes everything in Kaveh not to nuzzle into the touch and just throw himself at Alhaitham. He can’t do that right now; they’re having an important conversation. Still though, it takes Kaveh a moment to remember what he was saying and get back on track.

“I…I know we weren’t perfect, but we were happy, and that was enough for me.”

Alhaitham’s face crumples, and Kaveh has to will himself not to cry. He fails. “It—was enough for me too,” Alhaitham says, stilted. “It still—it still is. I just want us—you—to be happy.” He untangles his fingers from Kaveh’s other hand and cups Kaveh’s face with both hands, wiping at tears Kaveh didn’t even know had fallen.

“I wanted so much more for us.” Alhaitham closes his eyes, looking as though he lost the war he came to the Palace to fight. He sways forward tentatively, and touches his forehead to Kaveh’s, his breath catching every now and then like he’s run out of tears, and now all he can do is let his throat dryly scramble for air. Their breath mingles, and Alhaitham inhales the air Kaveh breathes out like he’s sipping from a precious chalice.

“Me too,” Kaveh rasps, suddenly choked up at the sight of Alhaitham so vulnerable. “I—wanted more for us too.”

Alhaitham pulls away abruptly, and though he leaves one hand cupping Kaveh’s neck, the rest of him moves away, taking with him the warmth that Kaveh had somehow grown used to in just the span of a few minutes. He—embarrassingly—whines, wanting the warmth back, but Alhaitham shushes him before reaching into his handbag, drawing out the small velvet box that Kaveh had completely forgotten about.

With timid eyes, Alhaitham holds out the box to Kaveh, an anxiously devastated expression on his face. “I still want more for us, Kaveh.” He presses the little box insistently into Kaveh’s hands, his lashes fluttering as he looks down at it. “If you just let me—please.”

He opens the box in Kaveh’s hands, his eyes shying away from Kaveh’s gaze, and though Kaveh suspected the moment Alhaitham offered the box, he still gasps when it reveals the golden band inside, adorned with a ruby somehow the exact shade of Kaveh’s eyes. “Alhaitham…”

Alhaitham steels himself, a determined expression replacing the shy one he had just moments ago. “It’s supposed to be an offering, to ‘summon’ you, but…I’m not offering this. I’m asking.” Kaveh wrenches his gaze away from the ring, looking at Alhaitham as if daring him to pop the question here, now.

“I-I never really had the courage to ask. Back then, I mean.” Alhaitham’s speech is stilted and awkward and so very endearing. “And it’s what I regret most. I’ve had this for years, I knew you loved me, why couldn’t I just ask?

“And then it was too late,” he says, a strangled whisper, and Kaveh’s heart clenches painfully. “It was too late, and you were gone, and—What was I supposed to do, Kaveh, just leave it all alone?” His breathing is heavy now, voice edging on hysteria. “There’s no one else, there never has been—I—” He clamps his mouth shut, taking Kaveh’s hands in his own and removing the ring from the box, pressing it into Kaveh’s waiting palms and closing Kaveh’s fingers gently around it.

“I’m yours Kaveh, all yours. My heart, my soul; it belongs to you.”

Kaveh tightens his grip on the ruby ring, his vision blurring from the tears that threaten to fall, wanting nothing more than to say yes, to say he’ll never leave again, to promise they’ll be together forever. But—

“We can’t,” he whispers, and he tries so hard to make his voice gentle, soft, and yet it still sounds like a gunshot in the quiet Palace.

Alhaitham doubles down, works harder, “Please, just—be selfish, for once—”

“I-I’m dead—”

“I know!” Alhaitham shouts, and they both fall silent.

Alhaitham’s eyes sink shut, and Kaveh watches the tears collect in his lashes, falling down his cheeks like raindrops against a stained glass window. He looks so small, like this, with his lips pressed so thin it’s like he’s trying to hold himself back from screaming; he seems weak and so unlike the man Kaveh knew, but he still reaches out a shaking hand anyways, touching Alhaitham gently on his arm.

Alhaitham folds forward, letting his head fall with a soft thump on Kaveh’s shoulder. “I know,” he murmurs, almost inaudible and sounding so defeated that nothing could stop Kaveh from cradling Alhaitham’s neck and keeping a steady hand at his hip. Holding the man up when he clearly can’t do it himself.

Kaveh hears Alhaitham swallow harshly. His voice is hoarse when he speaks next, hardly words and more just breathing out the syllables.

“Kaveh,” he breathes, reverently, like Kaveh’s name is sugar that will dissolve when he tries to get a taste. “Kaveh, I—I could bring you back. There’s a chance,” he continues, rushed, like he thinks Kaveh will interject and say no at any possible moment. “I’ve read about some cases, in Natlan. Went there myself and—and I know, I’d need to do more research, there’s nothing…nothing concrete yet but—but I could, I don’t care how long it takes—” He cuts himself off abruptly, pulling away from Kaveh’s grasp just enough to meet his gaze. His eyes are red, and tears stain his alabaster cheeks.

“I don’t—care how long it takes, Kaveh, I have time. If you just let me,” he says, and he looks so forlorn it makes Kaveh so angry that he has to deny this man; Teyvat really was so cruel, taking him away from the physical realm before he was ready.

Kaveh opens his mouth soundlessly, eyebrows crumbling together, willing himself to speak, to just respond, and he can’t. He can’t be the reason that the almost imperceptible flicker of hope left in Alhaitham’s eyes is blown out. He can’t bring himself to say anything at all, so he closes his mouth and stays silent.

“I just want to bring you back,” Alhaitham sighs sadly. And then, like he can’t help it, Alhaitham leans forward and kisses him.

*

It’s so intrusive, and not at all what Alhaitham had been planning for this…confrontation of sorts. It’s spontaneous, unplanned, and messy, but gods he just could not sit here anymore, kneeling on the cold Palace floor with Kaveh sitting in front of him, his stricken expression like shattered glass still reflecting rainbow flares on the walls of Alhaitham’s soul. He couldn’t sit here anymore, half proposing and half pleading, all while holding back and pretending he didn’t want to absolutely devour Kaveh, with his wispy hair and gleaming eyes and plush lips so kissable it should be fucking illegal.

He’s so desperate by now, just wanting more, more, more for them. So he crushes their lips together, and when Kaveh kisses back, seemingly on instinct, Alhaitham can’t stop the quiet whimper that climbs up his throat. The kiss isn’t even open-mouthed, and their bodies aren’t even moving unless you count trembling hands; it’s actually quite chaste in comparison to practically anything else they’ve done before, and yet it’s this kiss that makes Alhaitham want to melt into Kaveh’s hands and let the architect carve whatever the hell he wants out of the remnants of his tortured heart.

And then all of a sudden, it’s a lot less chaste. Alhaitham can tell Kaveh is trying to be tender, softly passionate, but he is impatient, and he nips Kaveh’s bottom lip hard, Kaveh letting out a surprised gasp that allows Alhaitham’s tongue entrance to his mouth. He feels Kaveh’s hand trail up the nape of his neck, finally tangling in his hair and tugging, gentle but not soft enough to stop a little moan from bubbling up.

They break away long enough for Alhaitham to note Kaveh’s hooded eyes with satisfaction, and for Kaveh to mumble, “Alhaitham—” before he reels Kaveh right back in.

It’s hard to resist the urge to stand and just walk Kaveh back against a wall, but the still functioning logical part of Alhaitham’s brain distantly recognizes that stepping out of the rune circle is a bad idea, especially for Kaveh. So he contents himself with shoving Kaveh back enough to straddle his lap, kissing down Kaveh’s neck—dropping a delicate kiss on the scar above Kaveh’s sternum—before sucking a bruise on his collarbone with a vigor that seems to surprise them both.

It’s only when he belatedly notices they’re both half-hard that he pulls back, nibbling Kaveh’s lip one last time before sitting back fully. Seeing Kaveh flushed, lips kiss bitten, eyes dark, and breathing heavy, is almost enough to spur Alhaitham on again, but with a jolt, he finally remembers the very serious situation they’re in. Right, he thinks dazedly, ghost, bad proposal, necromancy.

“Sorry,” Alhaitham says, a bit embarrassed, licking his lips and lifting his jacket back onto his shoulder where Kaveh must’ve pushed it off—when did that happen?

Kaveh blinks at him, eyes still a bit hazy, before he lets his head fall against Alhaitham’s chest. He covers his face with his hands, and his shoulders begin to shake, and for one horrifying moment, Alhaitham thinks he’s crying again, but then he hears a little giggle, and that’s all it takes for Kaveh to practically fall apart, laughing so hard he shakes Alhaitham too where he’s still straddling Kaveh’s—lovely, delectable—thighs.

“Alhaitham, you—” Kaveh starts, trying to catch his breath and failing spectacularly. Alhaitham tries not to flush even more, but he knows he fails too. “Gods, I can’t believe you,” Kaveh mutters. Alhaitham crosses his arms, abashed, and—though he’ll never admit it—pouting.

“What?” he questions defensively, and Kaveh lets out an inelegant snort before nuzzling against Alhaitham’s chest in a way that makes Alhaitham’s stomach flip.

“You’re just so—ridiculous!” Kaveh laughs, and his voice is so warm it’s like sunlight creating rainbows out of fountain mist. “You—You come in here, with your bag of fucking salt—” Alhaitham doesn’t know why this is such a point of contention, “—and you question me about my death, and then practically propose—Archons. Alhaitham do you know how stupid it is to propose now of all times?”

Alhaitham starts to answer, but it seems Kaveh meant it as a rhetorical question, because Kaveh cuts him off as soon as he starts talking. “You propose, begging with your fucking puppy dog eyes—how am I supposed to say no to that?—a-and then,” he lets out a slightly crazed giggle, “then you just jump me like that, gods I forgot what it was like to kiss you when you get going…” Kaveh lets out a little exasperated huff, so fond it hurts. He glances back up at Alhaitham and snorts again. “And see? You’re still looking at me like you’d ravage me right here on the Palace floor if I’d let you!”

Alhaitham grimaces and starts to argue, but Kaveh has a point, so he acquiesces with a shrug. This only seems to set Kaveh off again, laughing so hard Alhaitham can’t help but join in, just a bit. It’s so light-hearted and unlike the tense conversation they were having before, and it just feels so good to laugh, a full belly laugh, the way Alhaitham hasn’t really allowed himself since Kaveh died in the first place.

“I’d have said yes, you know,” Kaveh whispers suddenly, and Alhaitham’s laughter dies in his throat. Kaveh still has a smile etched on his features, but it’s bittersweet now, and Alhaitham somehow knows, with dread creeping up his spine, that he’s going to end the night heartbroken again.

Kaveh takes Alhaitham’s hands in his own, kissing his palms. “If you’d asked—back then—I would’ve said yes.” Alhaitham swallows, knot in his throat.

“We’d have a small wedding,” Kaveh goes on, leaving Alhaitham’s heart in ruins with every word he speaks. “In Pardis Dhyai in the spring, when the flowers bloom. Only family and friends, because you don’t like crowds.”

Alhaitham inhales sharply, and Kaveh looks up at him with saddened eyes. “W-We could—”

“No,” Kaveh interrupts, pressing a gentle, placating finger to his lips, effectively quieting him. “Just as you only wish for me to be happy, that’s all I want for you, too.” He swallows and looks down, seemingly unable to meet Alhaitham’s eyes anymore. “Even if I’m not there to see it,” he whispers, and Alhaitham has been trying, oh so hard, to gather up the rapidly cracking shards of his heart, but he can no longer hold them without the cuts from their sharp edges, so he has no choice but to fall and lay down the broken pieces at Kaveh’s knees, begging him to be merciful, but for glass to be put back together, it must first burn.

Alhaitham feels tears cascade down his cheeks, unable to even attempt to stop them. He opens his mouth to protest, because this can’t be the end, there’s more for them than this, there has to be.

“I love you, Alhaitham, I really do,” Kaveh says, and Alhaitham doesn’t doubt it for a second, but he still wishes it meant that Kaveh wouldn’t be taking his soul with him when he inevitably leaves again. “That’s why I’m asking you to move on.”

“I can’t,” Alhaitham argues immediately, voice shaky, tears still flowing down the sides of his face. Kaveh makes no move to wipe them. “Kaveh—You know I can’t—”

“You have to.”

“Don’t—” Alhaitham chokes on his words, and he feels, in the back of his mind, their time running out. “Don’t make me live without you.”

Kaveh gently pushes Alhaitham off his lap, kneeling in front of him and cupping both his cheeks. There’s the most aching mix of love and pain in his expression, and Alhaitham wants to rip the world apart for him.

“Can you just try? I…I want to spend my days here knowing that you’re alright, or that you will be. Please…Can you promise me that?” Kaveh is pleading with him now, and he wants to promise that—wants to give Kaveh all the stars in the sky—but if he did, he’d just be living the rest of his life as a lie.

He shakes his head. “You know I can’t,” he says again, just wishing that Kaveh was at least willing to try.

Kaveh presses their foreheads together, opening one of Alhaitham’s hands to place something small and gold on his palm—the ring. Alhaitham’s breath catches. “Kaveh, what—”

“Seeing you tonight, Alhaitham…It was the greatest gift you could’ve given me,” he says, quiet, gentle, and reserved. Alhaitham realizes, with a jolt, that Kaveh has given up on himself, too.

Alhaitham grips Kaveh’s wrist tightly where one hand is still laying on his shoulder. “Kaveh, no, you can’t—” 

Kaveh cuts him off with a horrible, devastating kiss, slow and sweet and tasting like goodbye. “Kaveh—” he gasps the second Kaveh lets go. “No, not yet, please—”

“Thank you,” Kaveh whispers, the edges of his lips twitching up into a smile. Alhaitham squeezes his eyes shut as tightly as he can, knowing the exact moment Kaveh disappears again when his warm breath no longer puffs against Alhaitham’s cheek, and his hand, which had been holding tight to Kaveh’s wrist, scrabbles through the air, only grabbing for a fading blue mist.

Somehow, just like that, Kaveh left Alhaitham for a second time.

Chapter Text

It is exceedingly painful—much more painful than Kaveh would’ve thought—actively watching Alhaitham’s heart fracture into tiny pieces when their time ran short. Kaveh had felt it slipping away, the same way he could feel the harsh tug on his soul, aching to dissipate back into the realm of the unseen. He’d stayed for as long as he could.

Even now, Kaveh can feel the tether locking back into place, trapping him here in the Palace again. Even feeling Mehrak rubbing against his legs where he still knelt in front of Alhaitham’s broken form can’t comfort him.

He tries, just once, to touch Alhaitham, attempting to place a hand on his shoulder. His hand passes through, and he immediately wrenches it away, suddenly feeling like he’d be sick if he stays this close to Alhaitham—trapped and unable to console him—any longer. Alhaitham’s Vision abruptly flares a few minutes after Kaveh knows he’d disappeared, and Kaveh watches, in awe, as dendro flowers curl up in between the cracks of the Palace foundation, then subsequently wilt every time a tear falls from Alhaitham’s eyes.

He stands, quickly backing out of the salt circle, and the second he steps over it, all the candles that Alhaitham had meticulously lit are blown out by a soft, unexpected breeze that sweeps through the building. Alhaitham looks up with a hint of shock amidst the sorrow in his eyes when the room goes suddenly dark; now, the only light source is the daunting rays of moonlight piercing through the stained glass windows. The warming succor of the candles is gone.

It isn’t much longer after that that Alhaitham stands too. Kaveh notices, his mouth twisting in a frown, that Alhaitham’s legs are shaky, his breathing heavy and strained. Alhaitham puts himself together, collecting the candles and vanishing the salt with the help of his still-flickering Vision.

When he leaves the Palace, he doesn't look back, simply closing the door softly behind him.

Mehrak trills sadly at Kaveh’s feet, sensing his anguish. Kaveh just stares at the door in silence, wondering if he’d made a mistake.

*

Alhaitham steps outside the Palace into the clear, November night. The air is cold, but it’s refreshing too. And yet, somehow he feels even more suffocated out here than he was in Kaveh’s stifling presence, even when Kaveh faded to blue mist and the candles were blown out. A gaping hole is all that’s left in Alhaitham’s heart where Kaveh had built himself a home, only to tear down the foundations and leave himself buried in the rubble.

In a daze, he walks down the path from the Palace, stopping short at the fountain. Kaveh said he was buried here. Could Alhaitham even face it? He crouches down by the bushes, knowing he’d regret it but still digging up the loosened earth anyways. It doesn’t take long for Alhaitham’s hand to brush something cold and metallic, and, with a little pull, he unearths—

Kaveh’s Vision.

It is surprisingly clean after being buried under wet soil for half a year, the gold of the Sumeru emblem frame gleaming bright in the light of the moon. A little, intricate suitcase clip hangs from a tassel at the bottom, and Alhaitham knows touching it would summon Mehrak. He’s tempted to do it, to just have a little piece of Kaveh still left, but he can’t bring himself to. Mehrak may be just a mechanical invention, but Alhaitham still doesn’t want to bear the news that its inventor is no longer here to take care of it.

The worst part, however, is the Vision itself. It’s completely blank, and cold, unlike Alhaitham’s own warm, pulsing Vision hanging from his jacket. The Vision sparks weakly under Alhaitham’s feather-light touch, but Alhaitham knows it’s snuffed out forever, just like Kaveh’s own life.

Tears spring up in Alhaitham’s eyes, but he’d had enough of crying for one night, and he shoves the Vision into his bag, deciding that he just wants to go home. Alhaitham glances back at the Palace once before turning away and starting down the dirt path leading back to Sumeru city.

*

It doesn’t snow in Sumeru in the wintertime like Kaveh knows it does in the more northern nations like Shezhnaya and Mondstadt; in Sumeru, it just rains.

Yet again, Kaveh can’t keep track of time. This time, however, he isn’t trying to remember how long it’s been since he died. Now, it’s, How long ago was it that Alhaitham visited me? 

It’s almost worse than before, when Kaveh was simply living life in monotony, watching the season change and the flowers being dug up from the ground, their roots stretching to the dirt they were pulled out of. Kaveh feels remarkably similar to those flowers, longing to be anchored like Alhaitham had made him feel for that short time, yet still being pulled back into mist no matter how much he reaches for that physicality again.

The raindrops roll down the stained glass windows, and Kaveh watches them while Mehrak bats at them with her paws fruitlessly.

He may not be able to actually feel the freezing raindrops, and yet the cold seeps into his bones nonetheless.

*

Alhaitham walks home. He opens the door with Kaveh’s key without noticing. He shuffles into the living room, plopping his bag next to a sofa and just standing there for a minute.

He feels like crying again. He doesn’t want to.

His fists are unconsciously clenched at his sides, and when he takes notice of that fact, he forces himself to relax. As he does so, something shiny and small falls from his palm to the floor with a quiet ping! that snaps Alhaitham out of his daze.

Glancing down, he sees the ruby ring. He grinds his teeth together as he glares at it, lying on the floor, making a mockery of everything he’d done for Kaveh.

He picks it up, half of him wishing it would just snap between his fingers while the other half wanted to gently tuck it away in the little velvet box. He pushes both thoughts away, stalking to the bathroom and slamming the door before bracing his hands on the edge of the sink, breathing heavily.

He looks down at the ring again, angry and mourning and hating Kaveh, hating him so much for leaving him again, and not really hating him at all.

Alhaitham snaps his eyes shut before he does something stupid like draining the ring down the sink, trying to just—take a deep breath, regulate his suddenly racing heart.

His breathing doesn’t slow; it speeds up instead, leaving him gasping over the sink like he’s drowning. He feels as though Kaveh’s breath is the only air that could possibly help him breathe deep again, but Kaveh isn’t here to touch his lungs and coax away the vines of hurt that constrict his trachea.

Flowers curl up under the edges of the sink, bending towards Alhaitham’s hands still clenched on the counter. One by one, they wither to nothing but ash as Alhaitham finally fails to keep his tears from falling.

*

Kaveh finds a flower.

It’s one of Alhaitham’s, left from his breakdown what must’ve been weeks ago by now, a final offering that somehow hasn’t died. It peeks out from the hinges of the door to the Palace, and when Kaveh finds it, he instinctively tries to pick it.

His fingers pass through.

*

Kaveh stands in front of him with a pudding. He wears a dazzling smile, and he theatrically bows as he delivers the pudding like a fancy waiter on the table at Alhaitham’s place with a little flourish.

He starts to speak, but his face is out of focus, and Alhaitham can’t make out the words. His voice distorts, and Alhaitham is suddenly standing at the front door, a faceless man saying Kaveh has disappeared.

Alhaitham stares at the man in shock, feeling like the floor has fallen from beneath him—and that’s when he realizes it has. He falls and falls and falls, shattered pieces of stained glass passing him by. He catches glimpses of what’s reflected in them, but can’t make out anything more than a flash of sunset eyes, blond hair.

He looks down, and notices a light below him. Kaveh’s beaming form coalesces from the light, and Alhaitham’s heart leaps; Kaveh will always catch him.

He reaches out for Kaveh’s outstretched hand—

And his fingers fumble through nothing but blue mist.

Alhaitham wakes with his hand grappling weakly for the other side of the bed, cool sheets where a warm body used to be.

*

No visitors come to the Palace in the wintertime—which is just as well; if Kaveh was alive enough to feel the probably freezing rain, he wouldn’t want to go outside for a stroll either.

What Kaveh hadn’t really anticipated when he realized he’s dead is how incredibly boring it was going to get around here at certain times during the year.

Back in the spring and summer, it was much more lively; the flowers were blooming, petals raised to the sun, worshipping its warming rays. People came often, and regularly, as the Palace was a peaceful, beautiful spot to hang around or have a picnic in the gazebos if the city was too crowded.

Kaveh has always been a bit of a people-watcher, and since dying, people-watching was practically the only thing he could do around the Palace, so he became quite good at it, and began liking it more, too. Ah, the drama and mundanity of human lives! But ever since winter rolled around, Kaveh’s had nothing to do but sit around watching the bushes wilt and the rain fall and Mehrak sleep.

So he watches the bushes wilt, and the rain fall, and Mehrak sleep, all the while trying to ignore the little voice in the back of his mind, telling him he should’ve said Yes, we can, that grows steadily louder.

*

Alhaitham sends Cyno a letter at the start of the new year.

It doesn’t say much, just that he’s made a breakthrough with Kaveh’s case—sourcing Kaveh’s dead Vision as evidence—and suggesting that the Matra reopen the case to investigate Kaveh’s buried body.

It takes another month to properly examine everything, but with Kaveh’s bloodstained corpse—that Alhaitham literally can’t even glimpse without wanting to throw up, and not just because it’s a dead body—and the fucking murder weapon—just left there! Not much of a good murderer, were they?—everything ends up getting to Cyno, and the Matra officially declare Kaveh’s disappearance as a homicide.

Alhaitham attends the trial, smiling in pyrrhic victory at the unimportant woman who killed Kaveh as she’s being led away.

January and half of February pass, February ending with Alhaitham, Cyno, and Tighnari all having a somber little celebration at Lambad’s for successfully bringing Kaveh justice.

March rolls around. Alhaitham doesn’t really know what he’s doing with himself. He feels as though he’s mechanically going through the actions of “living”, while the inside of him simply becomes marcescent, there but no longer alive.

Tighnari comes over often, Cyno just as much, and Collei visits once, seeming a little put down by the heavy weight of Kaveh’s absence that seems to burden their shoulders whenever they visit Alhaitham’s house. Alhaitham knows it’s abundantly clear to them that he’s gotten desperate with trying to make the little building still feel like Kaveh lives here, pretending which such persistence that sometimes, it’s not as hard to pretend that Kaveh is just—on a vacation.

Alhaitham leaves an open seat somewhere in the house at all times, not letting anyone sit on the sofa next to him, and preparing an empty plate across from himself every night at the dinner table. He’s strewn Kaveh’s books and belongings all over the living room, where he resides most often—the bed feels too big and lonely now. A blanket Kaveh once crocheted lays permanently over the back of one of the sofas, and Alhaitham has tacked up every one of Kaveh’s doodles that he can find by the mirror in the bathroom.

It all makes his guests uncomfortable, he can tell; he just doesn’t care enough to change it. Cyno once commented, almost jokingly, that it sometimes felt like Alhaitham was just living with a ghost the rest of them couldn’t see. Alhaitham shut himself in the bathroom for the rest of the evening, staring quietly at a sketch of himself with little hearts around it that was stuck up next to the toothpaste bottles.

Living with a ghost. The phrase—just an off-handed comment, really—sparks an idea in Alhaitham’s head.

It’s a bad one. A really bad one, and he can’t believe he of all people, is thinking it. And yet, the idea takes root, digging into the sulci of his brain and spiraling through his thoughts twenty-four/seven like weeds growing rapidly and wildly, filling his head until it’s all he can think of.

He tries, as hard as he can to bat the idea away, to choke the weeds and focus. He half-heartedly begins more research at the end of March, trying to convince himself, with little effort, that he should just—defy Kaveh’s wishes and bring him back anyway. He doesn’t really try though; for whatever it’s worth, he does respect Kaveh’s request for peace, and on the more practical side of things, actually bringing a person back from the dead takes a level of skill, patience, and precision that Alhaitham just hasn’t had since Kaveh’s death. As much as he doesn’t want to be alone for the rest of eternity, he wants even less for what little that remains of Kaveh to be destroyed.

And throughout all of this, that fucking idea keeps coming back. Every free second he has, every quiet moment, all the hours he lies awake at night, uncomfortable and stiff on the couch, unable to fall asleep for the insistent, pestering idea.

He’d like to say that, by April, he’d resigned himself to it. He’d like to say it’s a last resort, that he wishes he wasn’t doing this, but that there’s no other way. None of that would be true.

Alhaitham is excited. He probably shouldn’t be, and it definitely isn’t normal, but by Celestia, he just can’t help it. If this works—and he’s almost positive it will—then he and Kaveh can finally be together again.

And so, on the one year anniversary of Kaveh’s disappearance in April, Alhaitham goes back to the Palace of Alcazarzaray, Kaveh’s cold Vision in hand and the weeds tangling happily in his mind.

Chapter Text

Even through Kaveh’s distorted sense of time, he can tell it’s been almost the same amount of time since Alhaitham’s last visit when he comes to the Palace again; about half a year, give or take, estimating using the change of the seasons. He absently wonders whether this is going to become a thing. Half of him doesn’t want it to be; it was so emotionally draining last time, and he thought he’d told Alhaitham to go away and be happy—or whatever. The other half desperately hopes it will be.

It’s springtime again—the flowers blooming and casting their fragrance so strongly around the Palace gardens that Kaveh sometimes thinks even he can smell a hint of them—giving Kaveh the inkling that it’s been several months at least; he hopes Alhaitham has been using that time well. He must have, if he’s coming back specifically to give Kaveh an update on it all.

No one else is at the Palace the day Alhaitham arrives. Kaveh doesn’t know if that means it’s a Sunday or if Alhaitham just has lucky timing; either way, he’s thankful for it, because Archons knows Alhaitham doesn’t need rumors circulating around him that he’s a crazy person who talks to himself about his dead lover.

He strolls in in the early morning, the golden rays of the sun highlighting his tired features. And yet, despite the shadows under his eyes and his rumpled hair, he’s holding himself so much differently from the last time Kaveh saw him; he has an air of a man victorious, like he’s still fighting that damned war he came to the Palace to fight, and his meeting with Kaveh had merely been a battle. He retreated once, but now he’s here to win.

Kaveh, bored and watching Mehrak swat at butterflies that pass through her, obviously notices Alhaitham as soon as he’s within view, sauntering up the path to the Palace. Kaveh’s breath catches for a moment, staring at him in the majestic morning light, and then he breathes normally again, albeit a bit labored, when it actually registers.

He watches carefully as Alhaitham passes by the fountain before crouching down, right where Kaveh’s body still lays buried—despite the renewed, and now closed, investigation that had caught Kaveh a little off guard a few weeks—or maybe months?—ago—and delicately picks one of the padisarahs sprouting there. A tiny smile grows on his face when he breathes in its sweet, vanilla-y scent.

He stands in that spot for a long minute, while Kaveh watches from the stairs of the gazebo. Mehrak tries to curiously rub against Alhaitham’s legs and fails. Kaveh eventually gets tired of standing afar, going over to Alhaitham himself, wishing once again that he could touch. He won’t try, because he knows he can’t, but he still wishes.

Kaveh doesn’t know if Alhaitham is somehow more sensible or susceptible to ghosts—especially after that ritual he performed months ago to get Kaveh’s attention (because there’s no such thing as ‘summoning rituals’)—but Alhaitham somehow senses that Kaveh is near, because the moment he walks up to Alhaitham and is within touching distance, he lifts his head and grins. The muscles in his face are tight, so obviously not used to smiling this wide, or even at all, that it concerns Kaveh a bit; has Alhaitham gone and made himself miserable again? 

Kaveh brushes it off and decides to ask later, then has to reform his thought to having to think about it forever, since he can’t ask later; he doubts Alhaitham will be doing the whole salt-candle-chalk-thing again, seeing as the man brought nothing but what appears to be his simplest clothes, whatever he’s fidgeting with in his pocket, and himself.

Alhaitham leads Kaveh, with Mehrak trailing along, to the gazebo to sit on one of the benches, half in the shade, with the other half of Alhaitham’s body cut through with sunshine. Kaveh thinks he looks beautiful, reminiscent of a Renaissance painting, and Kaveh longs to at least sketch some sort of design that could possibly capture Alhaitham’s glorious essence in this moment.

Alhaitham lays the padisarah on his lap, stroking the petals and glancing around the gardens idly, until Kaveh hesitantly sits next to him. Alhaitham relaxes immediately, as if even Kaveh’s ghost somehow fits the place by his side like they’re a pair of perfect puzzle pieces, slotting together even after a corner is chipped off.

Alhaitham clears his throat quietly, before talking.

“I have news about your case,” he says. Kaveh assumed, since he hadn’t yet actually heard about the results since the new investigation. “After our…meeting, I went down to the fountain. I remembered what you’d said, about your body being buried there.” A shadow passes over his eyes, but only for a moment, and he continues steadily.

“Basically everything needed to resolve what happened was there.” He smiles a bit, like he knows a joke Kaveh doesn’t. “Murder weapon, fingerprints, elemental traces…Everything. Some ‘murderer’, huh?” Kaveh smiles when Alhaitham chuckles, soft and as though it wasn’t all that funny when he first found out, but now that he’s had time to mull it over, it’s quite hilarious.

“Back when you were first declared missing, a different Matra was handling your case. Some shit guy from the Corps—I hated him,” he mutters a bit petulant, and Kaveh laughs. “Point is,” he continues, “I got everything to Cyno this time. Safe to say, justice has been served.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes, listening to the rustling of the leaves and bushes, and the chirping of the morning gales. Alhaitham breaks the silence by coughing lightly, and then smirking.

“I did come here to tell you about your case, yes, but…” Kaveh stills, something in Alhaitham’s tone putting him on edge. His voice is gentle and pleased, laced with softness that fits the morning’s quietness, but there’s some underlying edge about his timbre, and Kaveh can’t decide whether or not to be concerned.

“That’s not the main reason I’m here,” he goes on, and then pulls out whatever he was fidgeting with in his pocket.

Kaveh gasps.

It’s his Vision. Except…

It’s alive, glowing brightly and shining with dendro particles swirling around the frame, like it’s being actively used.

“I came here to show you this,” Alhaitham says, and Kaveh wishes, more than ever, that he could touch, because he’s never seen his Vision look so beautiful, and none of this makes any sense at all, not his Vision, not Alhaitham’s triumphant tone of voice, and not even his own confusing, mixed feelings about the whole thing.

Alhaitham suddenly coughs again, and Kaveh snaps his attention back to the man; it’s clear he has more to say.

“Today is the one year anniversary of your death,” he says softly, and Kaveh’s breath whooshes out of him. Alhaitham is somehow staring straight at Kaveh even though Kaveh knows that, from Alhaitham’s perspective, it must look like thin air.

Alhaitham averts his gaze, coughing a bit more forcefully, and Kaveh frowns, but then Alhaitham keeps talking. “I’ve…been thinking a lot. About our conversation that day. I debated for a while just—going against your wishes. The more I researched, though, the more I was…I guess scared. I—I didn’t want to mess up and lose whatever of you remains.”

He swallows heavily, and Kaveh watches him worriedly. His hand is clenched tight around Kaveh’s Vision still laying in his hand, and his breathing is oddly heavy, like he’s struggling for breath.

Alhaitham’s face suddenly splits into a wide, sappy smile, and Kaveh automatically smiles back, happy at the sight of Alhaitham happy. “I’ve loved you almost as long as I’ve known you, Kaveh, even at the Akademiya,” he rasps, coughing again but still adorning that lovely grin that Kaveh can’t bring himself to be worried; whatever is making Alhaitham look like that can’t be a bad thing.

“You—” he’s cut off from another cough, and he has to pause to cough a few more times, sucking in short breaths, before speaking again. “You asked me to be happy,” he says, and this time, when he coughs, blood spits out onto the back of his hand where he’s covering his mouth.

Kaveh sits up, instantly alarmed. Alhaitham’s eyes track his slight movement, eerily accurate for someone who can’t see him—or isn’t supposed to see him.

“Th-That’s why I’ve selfishly decided to do so the only,” —cough— “the only way I know how.”

It appears that was the last thing Alhaitham had to say, because right after he says it, he slumps back and gives into his coughing fit, half-laughing all the while, still clutching Kaveh’s glowing Vision.

The Vision flares, and all Alhaitham’s breath seems to leave him in an instant, before he sits back and closes his eyes peacefully, a tiny smile still curling the right corner of his lips, little dimple showing. The Vision suddenly cracks and goes completely blank, just as Kaveh knew it was when he died. As he has that horrible thought, Alhaitham’s Vision, hung by a simple tassel ‘round his wrist, gives a little puff of dendro, like a final breath, releasing one, two, three padisarah petals from the dendro, before swirling into a neutral blank gem sitting cold on Alhaitham’s wrist.

Alhaitham had just killed himself using Kaveh’s dead Vision.

*

Alhaitham blinks his eyes open, bright morning sunlight seeping into his view, mostly blocked by an angry, worried Kaveh. That’s when his ears register the previously muffled: “—hate you, you absolute fucking idiot! Get up right now, I swear to Celestia, if you don’t wake up within the next twenty seconds, I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Can’t kill me if I’m already dead, can you?” he whispers with a smirk, trailing his gaze over Kaveh’s beautiful, furious face where he’s standing over Alhaitham, who is still sitting inside his body on the bench.

Kaveh gasps, tears filling his eyes. “Alhaitham—” he breathes, sounding worried and angry and relieved and loving all at once. Alhaitham stands—experiencing the very weird sensation of being a soul stepping out of your own dead body—to get those few, precious inches of height over Kaveh so he can cup his cheeks. Kaveh shudders the moment Alhaitham’s hands meet his skin, and three tears fall in quick succession from his eyes.

Kaveh stands there, practically radiating worry and warmth, and Alhaitham wants to press them as close together as possible, but Kaveh will want to know what’s going on first; and sure enough only a few moments later, he pulls away harshly, clearly trying to push Alhaitham away at the same time, but failing miserably.

“Gods, I hate you!” he explodes, pointing a surprisingly accusing finger at him, anger written in every pore of his face now. Alhaitham might’ve been worried about Kaveh’s anger once upon a time, but he knew Kaveh wasn’t really angry; anger is just how he shows his worry and concern. Now, Alhaitham is just endeared, hardly listening to Kaveh’s ramble, instead soaking up everything about him; his still wispy hair, his eyes burning with anger on the surface with an underlying relief if you look closely enough, his puffed up, red cheeks, his ridiculous gesticulations, just his presence.

He eventually tunes back into what Kaveh is saying, catching the end of something like: “—and you can’t just do shit like that! What were you even thinking? What the hell was I supposed to think?! I-I thought—” Kaveh cuts himself off, looking horrified at his own train of thought.

Alhaitham’s brow furrows and he steps forward slowly, enough that Kaveh could easily push him away; he doesn’t, letting Alhaitham step close and take a hold of his hands, rubbing little circles over his knuckles. “What is it?” he says softly, releasing Kaveh’s left hand in order to cup his neck and smooth his thumb over the hinge of Kaveh’s jaw, swiping away another stray tear.

“I—Just…I thought I was—losing you,” Kaveh tells him, choked up and scared, and he uses his now free hand to fist the collar of Alhaitham’s shirt, clearly still trying to hold on to his anger. Any anger that was left visibly melts away when Alhaitham kisses his forehead, pulling him close.

Kaveh lets out a quiet soft little sob, and buries his face in the crook of Alhaitham’s neck, keeping a death grip on their still intertwined hands. Alhaitham sighs, more content than he’s probably ever been, nuzzling his chin on top of Kaveh’s head tucked under his own, dropping a kiss in Kaveh’s blond locks. Breathing deep for the first time in half a year, he slings his free arm around Kaveh’s waist and holds him close, wanting more and finally being able to have it. He briefly registers a tether like sensation locking around his naval, connecting him to his body forgotten behind them, but he pays it no mind, focusing on Kaveh’s subsiding sobs and the barely-there kisses he can feel Kaveh leaving along his neck and jaw where the blond is still hiding his face.

When Alhaitham finally pulls back, he doesn’t go far; it’s only to wipe away Kaveh’s tears, keeping a hand firm and steady at his waist, letting his other trail up to inspect the ethereal wispiness of Kaveh’s hair that fascinates him, before bringing his palm to cradle his cheek, his thumb lightly swiping over Kaveh’s bottom lip. He can’t get enough of studying every detail of Kaveh that he’s forgotten or has changed since he became a ghost. Alhaitham didn’t have the time when they met in October; now, he has all the time in the world.

“You asked me to move on, but Kaveh…” He shakes his head, still stroking over Kaveh’s cheekbone. Kaveh’s eyes flick between his own rapidly, his crimson gaze piercing and filled with so much hope. “I couldn’t possibly move on, not when I could simply have you here forever.”

Kaveh still looks nervous, and guilt resides in his expression that makes Alhaitham want to kiss him silly and knock some sense into him simultaneously. “What would you have me do, my artist? Come home every day to an empty house?” He presses their foreheads together. “I’ve been doing that for a year already, and it’s much too painful to do for however long I’d’ve lived naturally. I’ve said my goodbyes; there’s not much else in the living world that’s worth experiencing without you.”

Kaveh gives him a small, nervous little smile, his cheeks flushed pink and his eyes displaying such raw fondness it makes Alhaitham want to cry. “I made my choice, Kaveh, and I don’t regret it for anything. Death…It’s not something that scares me, and it never really has. Now that it allows me to see you? To hold you, and talk to you, and love you? Gods, how could I not be drawn to it?” Alhaitham brings up their still clasped hands to his mouth, kissing the back of Kaveh’s as butterfly-soft as he can. “I’m drawn to you in the same way; really, it’s only natural that we should be like this.”

“I just…” Kaveh hesitates, biting his lip; Alhaitham wants to bite it himself. “I…Are you—I mean, am I—Are you sure I’m worth it..?” Kaveh says it so timidly that it almost breaks Alhaitham’s heart again.

In answer, Alhaitham presses his lips to Kaveh’s firmly, kissing him thoroughly and lovingly, taking his time to nibble Kaveh’s lip softly before swiping his tongue over it to soothe the light sting, lazily tangling their tongues together in a slow, sensuous, purposeful manner. He lets his hand card through Kaveh’s hair, keeping him steady and standing with the hand set on his waist.

When he eventually draws back, Kaveh tries to follow, eyes still hazy, and Alhaitham chuckles, low and soft, before complying and giving him one, two more pecks and pulling away from the kissing completely. Kaveh whines a bit, but finally lets him go, still gripping his hand tightly enough that, when Alhaitham tries to pull his hand away, Kaveh won’t loosen his grip. Alhaitham laughs, squeezing Kaveh’s hand.

“Kaveh, let go, I need to get something.” Kaveh pouts at him, reluctantly tugging his hand away from Alhaitham’s. Instead of going for his pocket as he’d intended, he brings his hand to briefly lay on Kaveh’s shoulder, a comforting weight.

“I’m not going anywhere, I promise,” he tells Kaveh gently, and Kaveh takes a deep breath, and then nods. Keeping a hand, reassuringly on Kaveh’s side, he fumbles in his pocket for the ring, drawing it out and lifting it up to Kaveh’s line of sight between them.

It takes a moment for Kaveh to take his eyes off Alhaitham’s, and when he does, he only blinks at the ring slowly, like he can’t comprehend it. Then his mouth falls open, and he gapes openly at the golden band, his gaze rapidly switching back and forth between it and Alhaitham’s grin spreading across his face.

Alhaitham can’t say he doesn’t at least attempt to make it a more proper proposal—as proper as a proposal can even be when you’re a ghost—by sinking down onto one knee, but Kaveh grows adorably irritated as soon as he starts, swatting his arm and forcing him back up to his feet.

“This is an absolute shite proposal Alhaitham,” he scolds, “Again.” 

And Alhaitham can tell that Kaveh is trying so hard to be mad at him, but it just doesn’t have the same affect an genuinely angry person scolding him would, due to the fondness practically dripping from Kaveh’s tone, his eyes shining with mirth, his body curved towards Alhaitham’s subconsciously.

“Even so, you’re not refusing,” Alhaitham says matter-of-factly, infinitely smug because he knows Kaveh can’t say no this time.

Kaveh flushes and averts his eyes, crossing his arms, but his lips are twitching helplessly, and yes, Alhaitham knows he’s won.

“I’m still mad at you,” Kaveh says, like it will change anything. “And I think you’re crazy—absolutely insane.” He then holds out his left hand shyly, determinedly not looking at Alhaitham. “But…go ahead, I guess.”

Alhaitham beams and tugs Kaveh into another kiss, the blond yelping in surprise before reciprocating enthusiastically. He deftly slips the ring on Kaveh’s finger before pulling away. Kaveh smiles at him sheepishly, the golden light of the morning sun casting shining rays through the glass roof of the gazebo and making Kaveh practically glow. 

Kaveh’s eyes flick over Alhaitham’s shoulder absently, and then his eyes widen, and he gasps. Alhaitham looks back, wondering what Kaveh sees.

He would’ve gasped too, if he didn’t already know that he’d done that. He now only gives a small smirk.

On the bench lies his body, except flowers and vines twist around his limbs, splitting through his skin and veins. And, most notably, the small foliage that splits through his clothes are wrapped tightly around his chest, where Alhaitham knows they had suffocated him.

“Right,” Kaveh breathes, and Alhaitham turns back to him. He doesn’t really look angry, just a little worried, with a wrinkle in his brow that means he’s trying to figure something out. “How…How did you do it, then?”

Alhaitham smiles, caressing the insides of Kaveh’s wrists, a grounding touch. “I used your Vision to grow nilotpala lotuses in my lungs. They’re a species of water lily, of course, so I let them take the moisture from my internal organs before squeezing my lungs to suffocate me. It seems, in the absence of someone actually keeping them in check, they’ve decided to grow a little out of control.” Kaveh grimaces, and Alhaitham winces. Probably shouldn’t have been so graphic, then.

“I just…I guess I wanted my own death to be symbolic, and meaningful, seeing as I could choose how it would go,” Alhaitham explains, and Kaveh scoffs, a hint of a laugh bubbling up in the back of the man’s throat.

“Symbolic. You’re insane.” Alhaitham grins.

“I don’t think any sane person would dabble in death magic to see their lover again, let alone kill themself.” 

Kaveh smiles, and he sways forward, their lips barely touching when something rubs against their legs standing close together, and they both jump in surprise before Kaveh looks down and bursts out laughing.

Alhaitham looks down to see a cat, small and ghostly just like them, nuzzling affectionately against Kaveh’s legs. He blinks at it when it looks up at him.

“You…have a cat?”

Kaveh snorts, crouching down next to the cat to scratch around its ears, the cat chirping at him cheerfully. “More like Mehrak has me.” 

“And you named it Mehrak?”

Kaveh reddens and smiles up at Alhaitham bashfully. “It was an unconscious decision, and by the time I noticed it was already too late; she doesn’t respond to anything else.”

Alhaitham laughs and bends down next to Kaveh, leaning over to hesitantly pet Mehrak too, his and Kaveh’s hands occasionally brushing.

It seems they have a lot to catch up on, but they have time; for now, Alhaitham will catch Kaveh’s chin in his hand and pull him in for a kiss, sitting on the gazebo floor with a ghost cat, the morning sun rising high and mighty over the Palace.

Alhaitham smiles into the kiss, his heart swelling when he feels Kaveh’s lips spread into a grin against his own.

Yes. Now, they have time.