Work Text:
Look, when Kaveh first saw Alhaitham, he almost hadn’t believed his eyes. Yes—Alhaitham had looked similar to when Kaveh knew him, of course. But he’d changed. What Kaveh knew as baby cheeks and soft long limbs had turned into something sharper, built. Kaveh hadn’t seen much when Alhaitham first approached him, because he’d been wearing long sleeves, clearly having just come out for some alone time at the tavern, and Kaveh’s aware that he had looked so bad that he hadn’t really offered up any protest at Alhaitham offering to let him stay for a few nights.
Which led him to being wide awake the next morning, nervously shifting in the kitchen because he should at least cook something for Alhaitham if he’s planning on mooching off him until he has a place to stay, right? But Alhaitham’s cupboards are empty, and even Kaveh can’t do anything with a singular bag of rice and not much else. He can make the rice, sure. Alhaitham can eat it plain if he wants, but Kaveh’s sure he’s not going to appreciate that.
It's when he’s debating if he has enough to go for a quick grocery run that Alhaitham comes out of his bedroom.
Very dressed up.
And very sleeveless. Kaveh blinks a few times just to make sure he’s not gone insane from the stress he’s been under recently.
“Alhaitham?!”
“Mn?”
“Are you—you have work. Right?”
“That is correct,” Alhaitham says, moving around Kaveh in the kitchen, retrieving a bag of coffee seeds from the cabinet. “Coffee?”
“Yes please,” he says automatically, and then shakes his head to get himself on track. “Wait, like this?”
“What’s wrong?”
“You go to work dressed like this?”
Alhaitham looks at him, then. His eyes are entirely blank in confusion. He only doesn’t say, what the fuck, Kaveh, because his grandmother raised him better than this, Kaveh can see it in his eyes. “Yes,” he says slowly. “This is my normal work outfit. Is there a problem?”
Kaveh opens his mouth to argue, and then snaps it shut. Because, for a moment, he’d almost fallen into the terrifying domesticity that was talking to Alhaitham, bickering with him like they’d do when they were in the Akademiya. For a moment, he’d fallen back into old habits just because he was so surprised at Alhaitham’s choice of clothing that he’d entered a fugue state.
Yes. It’s the choice of Alhaitham’s clothes, and absolutely not related in any way to Alhaitham’s bulging muscles, arms corded and thick, and his wide shoulders only accentuated by the sleeveless compression shirt he wears. And his coat. Even for purely aesthetical reasons, Kaveh wants to run his hands over it. It looks thick and perfectly weighted. He has a moment to wonder if Alhaitham got that tailor-made somewhere to match the rest of his outfit, and then he reminds himself that he barely has enough money to go grocery shopping, let alone commission someone for what is probably a very expensive piece of clothing.
“No,” he says eventually, flushing after he’s realized that he’s been staring at Alhaitham for however many seconds—“Sorry, no. Um, what are you having for breakfast?”
If Alhaitham is surprised by the sudden topic change, he doesn’t show it. “I usually get something from the café on my way to work,” he says, “I haven’t gone grocery shopping in a while. I’ll get to that today. If you want anything from the cupboards, feel free.”
“Right,” Kaveh says, as the coffee gets done and Alhaitham gives it to him in a glass because he’s very utilitarian and literally only has one mug for himself in the entire house.
“Do you not have friends over?”
“I don’t have friends,” Alhaitham says, voice entirely flat. Kaveh almost winces before he catches the small smirk at the corner of Alhaitham’s mouth, at which point he just glares instead. “I haven’t had anyone over, actually.”
That’s… actually pretty sad, Kaveh thinks. And then he remembers that Alhaitham would prefer to live on the moon if he could, just to get away from people. He doesn’t mean to say it, but the thought slips out from his mouth, anyways.
“Thank you. For letting me stay. I know you don’t like anyone being in your space all the time.”
Alhaitham hums. When he gets up to deposit the mug in the sink, Kaveh blinks. Had Alhaitham drunk all that really fast?
Just as he thinks Alhaitham’s going to ignore his statement entirely, Alhaitham pauses in the doorway, and speaks.
“You’re not just anyone.”
And with that sentence that shatters Kaveh’s entire brain, Alhaitham leaves for work, calling out a goodbye behind his shoulder that Kaveh almost doesn’t hear because of Alhaitham’s earlier words repeating in his head.
And then he thunks his head down onto the table, groaning.
Fuck. The crush that he’d thought he’d gotten over after their fight… well. There’s no denying it that he’s not as over it as he’d like to think.
In all their years of living together, Alhaitham has only seen Kaveh break down emotionally once, and it hadn’t been because of work or any deadlines imposed on him. Kaveh can procrastinate a project for weeks, panic, and design an entire house in the span of one day, and he frequently abuses his adrenaline and anxiety to put out plans that should take at least two weeks in one day, and yet Alhaitham’s never seen him properly stressed.
“I chose this job,” Kaveh tells him once, “What’s the point if I’m not at least a little bit always stressed about it?”
Alhaitham’s unimpressed eyebrow raise had told him all he thought of the subject.
The only time Alhaitham’s seen Kaveh emotionally distressed was when he received a letter from his mother in Fontaine, and it was about her new baby that was well on the way, and a request for him to meet her. Kaveh took it, ripped it, and spent the better part of an hour sniffling sadly on Alhaitham’s couch until Alhaitham had sighed and hugged him and it took him an extra half hour after that to stop crying.
So, no, he doesn’t get sad very often.
He does, however, get very stressed.
Especially when he looks up from whatever he’s doing and realizes that fuck I have two deadlines on the same day in one week and then it’s a mad dash for him to work towards his goal, and that’s when he starts putting himself to work in his room. And the thing is, Kaveh’s not going to be remiss in his duties as a housemate just because of something “as trivial as” deadlines, Alhaitham, don’t be stupid, and so he emerges every evening from his room looking like a dead rat to cook dinner for the both of them before Alhaitham comes home from work.
Usually, Alhaitham doesn’t catch him doing it. By the time he gets home, dinner is ready and steaming on the table, and he enjoys it, thanks Kaveh on the way to his room, and usually gets a thumbs up in response.
But today, he’s had the pleasure of getting off work early, and so he gets the extra pleasure of seeing Kaveh trudge out of his room, stretching and wincing at the pops in his back.
“You’re back early,” Kaveh says, yawning.
“Early day off,” Alhaitham says, and doesn’t even say anything about how Kaveh could have something like this too. They clearly live very different lifestyles, but Kaveh seems to enjoy his own, no matter how harried he seems about it.
Kaveh nods, and shuffles to the kitchen, the sounds of cooking starting up soon afterwards. Alhaitham goes into the kitchen too, to keep Kaveh company in case he needs a soundboard for his ideas. Alhaitham doesn’t help, not exactly, but sometimes he can rile Kaveh up enough that he ends up getting entirely new ideas. But today’s a quiet day, so he has the pleasure of watching Kaveh as he whips up a quick chicken masala curry.
His hair is tied into a bun, but half of it is trailing down his back like he pulled at it while working. Another half of his hair is sticking up into the air in a feat that defies physics. He’s wearing a worn-out sweater that goes down to his thighs that Alhaitham is reasonably sure that he actually stole from Alhaitham, and nothing else underneath. He’s pushed the sleeves up so he doesn’t get dirty, and there’s a pencil stuck to his ear, and, when Alhaitham gets closer, blue ink marks on one side of Kaveh’s cheek.
In all honesty, Kaveh looks like fucking crap.
And yet, Alhaitham can’t help but think—fuck, he’s so hot.
And then—
Oh no.
In a common sentiment shared by their entire group of friends, Cyno thinks that Alhaitham and Kaveh are exceedingly stupid.
Oh, they’re the wonders of their generation in both their darshans, obviously. Alhaitham’s a genius with logical patterns and the study of any language that comes his way. There isn’t one he doesn’t know, and even if he doesn’t, give him a day and he’ll have figured out a basic letter pattern based on its similarity to other languages. It’s only his own satisfaction with life that he doesn’t strive for more, and Cyno shudders to think about what could happen if Alhaitham’s ambition was to overtake all of Sumeru and not just stay at home annoying Kaveh like a husband would a wife. That’s probably his biggest ambition—to actually marry Kaveh and take him on a trip to Fontaine.
Kaveh is an uncontested genius—known for his Palace, Cyno knows people who assume that just because Kaveh created a work of art, that he didn’t care about structural integrity and all the foundation that went into a project. This is far from the case, as Cyno himself has seen—his friend has paid out of pocket for charity structures just to make their buildings sturdier and more resistant to whatever natural disaster could happen. He’s seen Kaveh work out whole mathematical equations in his head while Cyno sometimes still gets stumped with subtraction of numbers with more than two digits.
His friends, in short, are wonderful people and he is very happy for both himself and the greater good of Sumeru that they’re alive.
But Archons if they aren’t the stupidest motherfuckers alive.
Because the three of them have been watching Alhaitham and Kaveh just shoot these looks at each other throughout their entire dinner, and they always miraculously manage to miss these looks. Collei’s staring at them so very unsubtly like she’s dying to find out the ending of a soap opera. Tighnari’s ear is twitching in the way it does when he wants to slam someone’s head into a rock but he doesn’t because he’s a doctor and doctors don’t harm people.
Cyno? Well. He’s hoping they’ll finally get their shit together, because if they don’t, he’s going to put them in jail together and see how that turns out.
After yet another stolen glance from Kaveh, he decides that he cannot stand his friends anymore. He’s going to get new ones.
He stands up.
Remembers that everyone in Sumeru is afraid of him.
Sits back down.
“Cyno?”
“No,” he says automatically. “Ignore me. Everything’s fine. If you could do me a favour, though?”
“Of course. Though I’m not sure how much help I can be…”
“No, only you can help with this.”
“Oh, then, sure?”
Tighnari’s staring at him with avid interest.
“Tell Alhaitham to stop pining and ask you out entirely.”
The entire table falls silent. Collei has her hands over her face and her eyes are wide and sparkling. Beside him, Tighnari’s lip twitches like he’s trying not to laugh.
Kaveh, meanwhile, seems to have frozen entirely. Alhaitham has a similar expression, though he recovers faster and starts glaring at Cyno about it.
“I—what—Cyno—” Kaveh stutters, turning a bright red. Cyno’s fascinated by how red Kaveh is actually turning. And like he’s forgotten Alhaitham is there in his panic, blurts out, “Alhaitham isn’t pining! I—He doesn’t want to ask me out?! I—just because—are you making fun of me?!”
“Alhaitham,” Tighnari says, and Kaveh near jumps a foot in the air. “What are your thoughts on what Kaveh said?”
“I don’t know why you all are dragging this out,” Alhaitham says flatly. “I know Kaveh doesn’t have feelings for me the way I do for him, and we’ve been managing that perfectly fine.”
Kaveh whirls around. “You!” he squawks very unattractively, “You have feelings? For me?!”
Alhaitham blinks slowly. “I…” he hesitates, eyes darting over to Cyno. “I have. I thought… I thought you knew?”
“I—” Kaveh seems at a genuine loss for words. “Of course I didn’t know! If I—if I did then you think we’d still be here like this?!”
Alhaitham flinches a little at the words, and if Cyno hadn’t known the depth of his friend’s feelings, he might even be offended on Alhaitham’s behalf, but Kaveh’s always been a poor speaker under stress.
“What Kaveh means to say—is that if he knew, then you would’ve been dating for years already,” he helpfully provides, because he’s a good friend. “Not that you wouldn’t be friends at all. Right?”
“Right!” Kaveh agrees, “what other way could I have meant it!”
“Nevermind.”
And then Kaveh looks at Alhaitham, so soft, and Alhaitham is looking right back.
“Alright, you two,” Tighnari says, “Not in front of Collei—” a squeak from the girl—“go home and sort yourselves out. We’ll see you next week.”
And then they leave holding hands, and Cyno sighs, and hands over a pile of mora to Collei.
“Cyno. You were betting on them?”
Ah, well. At least the couch is comfy.