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Alhaitham has long since gotten used to the domesticity of having Kaveh in his bed. His nights, which used to involve only himself and perhaps a book, now end with the warm press of Kaveh’s cheek on his bare chest, with the soft snores of his beloved lulling him to sleep.
Their arguments have died down, too. No longer do they needle pointlessly at each other. They still talk, of course, still push each other to the limits in the name of academic enlightenment, but he no longer nags and pokes at his partner’s impressionable nature, and Kaveh no longer makes cutting remarks about his antisocial personality and detached disposition.
They haven’t changed. Merely grown into each other, perhaps, or as Kaveh likes to say, worn down around the edges. They fit together in ways they never have before, two puzzle pieces that once had to be roughly shoved together but now simply fall into place.
And yet.
Tonight, as Kaveh turns in his arms, as he hums drowsily and fixes those sleepy eyes on Alhaitham’s own before burying his face into Alhaitham’s chest, Alhaitham can feel the question Kaveh fights to keep down.
“Kaveh,” he says, resting his chin on his blond hair. “You’re thinking so loudly.”
Kaveh shifts, squishing his hands into Alhaitham’s chest, and says nothing.
“Kaveh,” Alhaitham says, a bit sharper, and his partner shifts to peer up at him, mouth still pressed to his chest.
Alhaitham sticks his tongue out and gently touches it to Kaveh’s forehead, and Kaveh makes a muffled squeak of protest before peeling himself off from Alhaitham’s chest.
“Don’t lick me!”
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he counters, running his hands through Kaveh’s hair. The strands are silky and delicate, yet sturdy enough to catch on his fingers as he tugs gently at a knot. Kaveh leans into the tug, sighing with contentment.
Then he shoves his face back into Alhaitham’s chest and mumbles out an unintelligible question.
“What?” Alhaitham says, because there’s nothing he can do besides gently coax Kaveh to speak. If he needles him, Kaveh will shut down, and while it is quite late, Alhaitham enjoys having conversations with perhaps the only man who is his match.
“I said,” Kaveh mumbles, peeling his face off Alhaitham’s chest, “would you still love me if I was a worm?”
Alhaitham bends down and swipes his tongue over Kaveh’s forehead once again.
“Hey!” Kaveh wriggles, retreating like a mole in a burrow, tunneling into the mass of blankets and farther away from Alhaitham’s offending tongue. “I said, don’t lick me!”
“That, Senior,” Alhaitham grumbles, reaching down to hook his hands under Kaveh’s arms and haul him back up to his chest, “is the least intellectual question you’ve ever asked me.”
“I mean it, Haithoomi,” Kaveh whines, once more starting his slow escape into the blankets that swathe their legs. “If I was a worm, would you love me? Take care of me?”
“No,” Alhaitham says flatly, and Kaveh harrumphs at his chest in displeasure. “It’s not realistic. Nobody would ever turn into a worm.”
“It’s theoretical,” Kaveh protests. “Nilou said it’s a common question for couples right now! It’s a test of undying love, and you failed it.” In mock despair, he goes back to shoving his face into Alhaitham’s chest, and Alhaitham sighs.
“Since it will never happen, you don’t have to worry about it,” Alhaitham murmurs, stroking Kaveh’s hair. “Now, sleep.”
So, in a world where humans did turn into worms, Alhaitham supposes, this would have been the obvious outcome. But, this is Teyvat, and humans do not turn into worms. Or into any other sort of hideous creature, for that matter.
He thinks this as he considers his one hundred tiny feet, as he looks up into the giant vermillion eyes of his partner as Kaveh runs a brush through his own hair.
“Let me get this straight,” Kaveh says blandly, as if he still cannot believe what sits before his eyes. “You told me you wouldn’t love me if I turned into a worm, and then we went to sleep.”
“Yes.”
“And when I woke up, my partner, the only person in Teyvat who wouldn’t love their boyfriend if he was a worm, has turned into a worm.”
“A centipede, actually. Worms don’t have legs.” Alhaitham waves a leg in emphasis, and forty-nine other legs wave as well, an undulating pattern that Kaveh’s eyes track with unnerving closeness.
Kaveh closes his eyes, sets down the brush, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay,” he says, sighing. “My boyfriend is a centipede.”
“That sounds like one of those vapid Inazuman novels Sethos keeps trying to recommend to us,” Alhaitham says, walking in an experimental circle on the bed. The mattress and sheets are plush, but he’s not heavy enough to sink into them, and it’s overall not a bad feeling. He’s not slipping and sliding around, at least.
“I’m telling you right now, I would flop dramatically back onto the bed if you weren’t at risk of being flung up to the ceiling and splattered into jam,” Kaveh says, narrowing his eyes. “Stay there, won’t you?”
“I can’t go anywhere very fast,” Alhaitham mumbles, and is nearly thrown off the bed as Kaveh gets up with a huff. Soon, his retreating back is blocked by the mountainous blankets, and Alhaitham turns to inspecting his rear end, finding that he can twist and turn whichever way he desires without pain. It’s not every day he gets to look at the body of an insect up close, especially one that won’t wiggle or attempt to escape.
He’s distracted by the return of Kaveh, who promptly and without preamble places a glass jar over his head, distorting the world around him and magnifying Kaveh’s eyes to a comical degree.
“Kaveh,” he begins, suffusing warning into his tone, and walks (or is it worms, he thinks?) over to the glass to press his tiny hands against it. Kaveh’s face gets impossibly closer, and Alhaitham scowls in displeasure.
“Don’t worry, Azizam,” Kaveh says, and it’s clear he’s holding in laughter. “I just don’t want you to escape. Or what if something finds you and eats you?”
“I will not get eaten—there’s nothing that would even eat me in the house,” Alhaitham snaps. “I can’t see anything in here, and I can’t stand straight.” Indeed, his feet scrabble for purchase, one hundred tiny legs skidding as he attempts to stay upright.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kaveh laughs, gently sliding a paper under the mouth of the jar and tilting it so that Alhaitham slides down the slippery glass with an inelegant ouhf. “Mehrak might want to keep you for herself. You’re so cute like that.” He reaches in to flick Alhaitham’s hair, but Alhaitham ducks out of the way with a hurried squirm.
“Let me out, Kaveh.” He tries to sound resolute, but it comes out a little high-pitched and not at all commanding. The glass under him is smooth, disorienting, and seeing his partner and everyday objects so big compared to his new body is overwhelming and unpleasant.
Kaveh tuts, peering at him with uneven eyes. “I don’t think so. We need to figure out what to do, and I won’t have you storming off to sulk if you don’t like our options.”
It turns out, after some discussion involving an unnecessarily smug Kaveh and an increasingly worried Alhaitham that they don’t have many options.
“You have to sneak me into the library,” Alhaitham says, pacing on Kaveh’s blueprints. He had refused to talk until Kaveh let him out, and, after promising that the last thing he wanted to do was get mauled by a stray mouse or bird, Kaveh had reluctantly obliged.
“You’ll need to go back into the jar,” Kaveh says, tapping the desk with a pen. “I can sneak you in, but you’ll have to stay hidden and in the jar the whole time. I’m not letting some bumbling student crush you because you’ve wandered off to do your own research.”
“Fine,” Alhaitham says, because, unfortunately, it does make sense. He’d like to stay uncrushed, if possible. “How will I write? I can’t even lift a pen, much less turn a book page.”
“You can tell me what to write, and I’ll write it,” Kaveh offers.
“That defeats the purpose of two people working on trying to figure this out,” Alhaitham grumbles, and pauses when Kaveh snorts. “What?”
“One person, and one worm.”
“Senior, can you not tell the difference between a worm and a centipede?” Alhaitham crosses his arms. Kaveh doesn’t stop snickering, however, and Alhaitham nearly growls in exasperation. Just to prove his frustration, he stomps over to the center of Kaveh’s blueprint and takes a giant, worm-shaped bite out of the top sheet of paper.
“Hey!” Kaveh yelps. “I need those for a meeting next week!”
The paper is slightly sweet, flaking apart in his mouth as he chews. It’s not half bad, and there’s a heavier flavor from what he assumes is ink that’s surprisingly palpable.
“You just ate the living room,” Kaveh complains.
Alhaitham grunts. “Tastes like paper.”
Kaveh bats him away gently. “Get in the jar, centipede man,” he huffs, “and let’s turn you back into a human.”
Their plan is ruined almost immediately.
Kaveh prepares his blueprints as an alibi and Alhaitham takes to pacing the length of the sideways glass jar; it’s slippery and awful, but, he assumes, it’ll be his home for the foreseeable future, so he has to get used to it.
He cannot get used to it. He’s barely five minutes in when he gives up with a gusty sigh.
“What is it?” Kaveh hurries over, a handful of scrolls in his arms.
“The jar,” Alhaitham says. “It’s slippery and cold. I need—something. Shoes? Is there a shoe factory for worms we can visit?”
Kaveh’s pretty lips turn downwards. “You’re really losing it, huh,” he says, dropping the scrolls on the table and plopping himself down in the chair. “How about this, Haitham, I’ll get you a washcloth and you can take a nap, and I’ll make you a hundred tiny little shoes for your sensitive little feet.”
“I am not sleeping in a washcloth,” Alhaitham snaps, crossing one set of arms.
“I’ll cut a scrap of pillowcase for you,” Kaveh says, “but I am not letting you crawl around our bed where I could accidentally crush you.”
“And render a perfectly fine pillowcase unusable?”
“Weren’t you the one boasting about your financial freedom?” Kaveh asks, pursing his lips.
“Kaveh,” Alhaitham begins with a huff, “if you haven’t noticed, I’m a centipede. They don’t really let centipedes withdraw money from the bank, I would assume.”
Kaveh closes his eyes and leans back. “Incredible,” he murmurs. “What’s your brilliant plan then, O Scribe?”
“I can’t focus with this jar,” Alhaitham says, and crawls out with a huff. The blueprints beneath are crackly and smooth but do not bend under his weight, and he finds that his feet stick to them much better than to the glass jar. “Can I live in one of your architecture models for the night until you make my shoes? Tomorrow we can go to the library.”
Kaveh gapes at him.
“What?” Alhaitham turns in a circle, imagining the inked walls as solid, raised things that tower over his small body.
“Let me get this straight,” Kaveh says, adjusting the stack of papers, and Alhaitham nearly slides off. “You want me to make you one hundred worm-sized shoes to fit your worm-sized feet.”
“Well, you offered.”
“It was rhetorical!” Kaveh exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. “Would you make me one hundred worm-sized shoes if I was in your shoes?”
“Well, seeing as I don’t have any shoes…” Alhaitham begins, and Kaveh yanks the papers out from under him. With a panicked, desperate flail, he tumbles onto the wooden desk with an undignified yelp, and Kaveh’s giant face bends over him.
“You’re being difficult,” he scolds. “Just because you’re upset that you’ve turned into a worm doesn’t mean you have to be difficult. I’m still here, and I still love you.”
Alhaitham looks down, scuffing at the wood grain with a leg. “Can we just go to bed,” he whispers, so quietly he’s not even sure Kaveh will hear him.
And Kaveh, the altruistic, compassionate man that he is, softens. “Of course, Haithoomi,” he murmurs, scooping Alhaitham up with gentle cupped hands. He sets Alhaitham down on the windowsill before moving his pillow to the nightstand, and, with Alhaitham’s nod of approval, moves him to nestle in the pillow.
Kaveh pulls out a tiny chisel and takes a scrap of spare wood from the desk drawer. “A hundred tiny shoes,” he says as Alhaitham crawls to the edge of the pillow to look. “Do you know how much I love you, to carve you one hundred worm-sized shoes?”
“A lot?” Alhaitham asks, and Kaveh nods empathetically.
“A lot,” Kaveh says fondly.
And perhaps that is why, that night, Alhaitham is not afraid when he goes to bed. And when he wakes up, a human once again, he has only a handful of tiny shoes and a minuscule bite hole in one of Kaveh’s blueprints to remember the day by.