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It is a well-known fact that a selkie’s coat is the most important thing to them and their identity. It is what allows them to shift back and forth between their two forms and live both on land and in water. Most selkies, even to this day, prefer the seas where they grew up. They might leave to explore the shore, but most of them end up going back to the water where they feel like they truly belong.
Not, Kaveh, though.
He’d been one of the ones that were too scared to go up to shore, but once he did, once he discovered the wonders of the human world, he hadn’t wanted to go back. Of course he floundered, because there was no one to guide him and the little beach town he was in definitely figured out he was a selkie from day one, but they’ve all been really nice to him in a way that has Kaveh’s heart melting with joy.
There’s Tighnari, the botanist; he runs a little flowershop that Kaveh likes to frequent because their flowers aren’t nearly as colorful underwater. There’s Cyno, his friend, the policeman, though Tighnari likes to joke that there’s so little crime in their town that he might as well be jobless.
And then there’s Alhaitham.
Alhaitham’s the one who found him wandering along the beach, a little lost and very confused. Kaveh hadn’t even known what clothes were back then, so Alhaitham probably thought him a little wrong in the head when he found Kaveh lying on the beach with only his coat beside him.
But then they got to talking and Kaveh had found Alhaitham fascinating. A human, whose thoughts were entirely different from his own, who had sat down with Kaveh and talked to him for hours because he found Kaveh interesting too.
Kaveh had thought, naively, that humans would be like Alhaitham.
He’d been so very wrong.
Alhaitham hasn’t seen the issue with sitting down with a naked man on the beach, but apparently his friends hadn’t thought so—Tighnari had almost screamed when he saw Kaveh, and then they bundled him up to the nearest house—Alhaitham’s—and dressed him up.
That day saw Kaveh happy but tired, enough that he’d fallen asleep on Alhaitham’s couch, and when he woke up the next morning, Alhaitham had offered to let Kaveh stay at his place if he didn’t have anywhere else to go.
Kaveh had looked at his coat, still hung up from the wall and not stolen, and had fallen in love a little right then and there.
Now, with months of cohabitation under their belt, they’ve fallen into a routine; Kaveh, on account of not having a job, does the cooking and the chores. The first time he tried to cook he almost set the house on fire and it was very lucky that Alhaitham was there to stop it in time, though he likes to think he’s come a long way since then, since Alhaitham’s even complimenting him on his dishes now.
The only slight hiccup so far in his life is…
Alhaitham.
Kaveh doesn’t know if he’s being obtuse on purpose, but every time Kaveh accidentally drops his coat, Alhaitham just picks it up! And gives it back to him! It’s so aggravating. Doesn’t he know Kaveh’s trying to give it to him? Even draping it around Alhaitham’s shoulders makes him cuddle the coat for a while, until he has to get up and he always dutifully returns it to Kaveh when he passes by him.
Kaveh would tear his hair out in frustration if he could.
What’s worse is that this goes on for months. Alhaitham will look after him and buy him food and little gifts he thinks Kaveh will like, which is just as much of a courting custom for humans as it is for selkies. Every time Kaveh resolves himself not to bother Alhaitham with his feelings anymore, the human does something that makes Kaveh’s heart flutter in his chest.
He’s going to tell him, he thinks, when he holds a little bracelet made with small seashells and bits and bobs of dangly crystal. Aesthetically, it’s kind of horrible, but it has its own charm—and Alhaitham had seemed so very quietly pleased when Kaveh had told him he liked it.
That’s it, Kaveh decides, he’s going to tell Alhaitham directly. Give him his coat. He just has a few things to wrap up first.
“Alhaitham,” Kaveh hollers, stomping across the house. He doesn’t care anymore. He’s giving Alhaitham his coat directly, because there’s absolutely no way Alhaitham can miss it this time. He’s not going to give Alhaitham the chance.
From where he’s sitting on the couch reading, Alhaitham tilts his head up to look at him. “Hm?”
“Here,” Kaveh dumps his coat on top of Alhaitham. “Have it.”
Alhaitham makes a sound that’s more akin to the verbal form of a question mark. “Your coat?”
“Yes,” Kaveh says, and waits for him to take it. To realize Kaveh’s feelings, and hopefully reciprocate them, and then keep his coat away for safekeeping.
“Hm,” Alhaitham says, and sits up. Hands the coat back to Kaveh. “It’s okay? I have my own.”
Kaveh’s heart breaks.
He doesn’t say anything, because if he does, his voice will break too. Instead, he grabs his coat and hurries out of the house. Alhaitham doesn’t even call after him.
Maybe he should have expected this. Alhaitham is a human, after all, and he probably doesn’t want to be with someone like Kaveh. There’s plenty of other suitable candidates he can choose from, and just because he let Kaveh live in his house doesn’t mean he feels the same way Kaveh does.
He shakes his head as he hurries down the beach, feeling the wind whip his tears away as they drop from his eyes. He returned to the sea only days prior, when he made up his mind that Alhaitham would have his coat, something like a last farewell, but he goes back to it now, slipping on his skin and jumping into the water, cool against his fins. Immediately, he feels something in him settle, and he starts his way towards his mother’s reef.
“Kaveh? Are you alright? You were just here yesterday, what happened?”
Kaveh throws himself into his mother’s arms. She’s smaller than him, but she still happily nuzzles his face when he lets out a mournful howl.
“Alhaitham, he—he didn’t accept.”
“Oh, honey,” his mother says, cooing and soft, “I’m sorry. He doesn’t deserve you anyways.”
“You’re obligated to say that.”
“Of course I’m not. Paul! Paul, no one deserves Kaveh, right?”
“Of course, my love. He’s the pearl of your eye.”
“I think you’re laying it on a bit too thick,” Kaveh yells, loud enough so that Paul will hear him, and then lowers his voice again, “I didn’t know. I was… I was so sure.”
“Oh, my baby. Sometimes we’re wrong. It’s just life. And I’m sure you can work something out with him, or find another place to stay on land. If you’d like, you can come to live with us.”
But as much as Kaveh hates to think it, he feels like he’s outgrown the sea. The reefs where he grew up, playing with his littermates in the currents… these days all feel so far away, and Kaveh feels a hollowness in his chest that arises whenever he thinks about coming back home.
It doesn’t feel like home anymore, is the problem.
Home just feels like Alhaitham.
Kaveh spends a day with his parents, but he feels like he’s imposing on them, so he swims back to shore after that. His clothes have mysteriously disappeared from the cove he left them in, but they were old so he doesn’t really mind all that much. What he does mind is the walk back to the house, in which he only has his coat wrapped around his body to keep him warm against the cold winds of the weather.
When he twists the door open, he can hear something in the living room. Alhaitham on the phone with someone, he thinks, which is odd, because he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Alhaitham use it.
“—can’t have just disappeared with no warning? It’s been, what, two days and you still haven’t found anything—”
From where he’s pacing, Alhaitham swivels around, but then he stops entirely when he sees Kaveh. The phone slips from his grasp and lands with a thud that makes Kaveh wince on the hardwood floors. Self-consciously, he wraps his coat tighter around himself, pulling it down to cover the tops of his thighs.
“Hi,” Kaveh says, in a voice that totally says it’s fine if you don’t like me back, I really don’t mind that you rejected my courting attempt, haha, “What’s up?”
“Kaveh,” Alhaitham says, and he sounds wrecked, like something horrible happened in the days Kaveh’s been away, and it makes him move closer to Alhaitham nervously. What if Alhaitham needed support and Kaveh wasn’t there to give it?
“What’s wrong?” he says gently, “Did anyone get—”
He can’t speak anymore, because Alhaitham has him enveloped in the tightest hug ever known to man that Kaveh gasps a little. Alhaitham’s big, warm arms wrap around him, and Kaveh can’t help the way he relaxes into it, rubbing his cheek against Alhaitham’s shoulder in an attempt to soothe him.
“Kaveh,” Alhaitham sighs, “I thought—I thought you were gone.”
“Well, I was?” Kaveh frowns, unsure of what’s making Alhaitham this panicky. Does he have to be that worried about Kaveh going to visit his mother? “I do admit I didn’t leave a note this time.”
“What?” Alhaitham says. “Kaveh, you’ve been missing. I found your clothes down on the beach. Do you have any idea how that looks?”
“That I transformed and went to visit my mother?”
Alhaitham gapes at him. “What?”
Kaveh, a little uncomfortable with the way Alhaitham is gawping at him, snaps, “I’m not sure what you expected me to do after rejecting my courtship, but I wasn’t about to pretend like everything was fine? What the fuck?”
“Hold on—” Alhaitham says, looking more confused by the second—“what courtship ritual?”
“I—are you stupid,” Kaveh says exasperatedly, “I gave you my coat! You literally said no, and that you have other ones!”
“That’s because I do!” Alhaitham retorts, and at least he looks a little contrite when Kaveh glares at him, “How is that a courtship?”
It’s Kaveh’s turn to gape. “That’s, like, the most basic selkie knowledge?! I know you’re smart! I know you’re well-read! Have you been living under a rock?!”
For a moment, Alhaitham is silent. Kaveh runs through every possibility and outcome of this conversation in his head, but the one thing that he hasn’t expected is for Alhaitham to say quietly, “You’re a selkie?”
Silence.
“Yes!” Kaveh cries out, “How?! How did you not know! I’ve never hidden it!”
“You never bring it up around me!” Alhaitham tries to defend himself, at least a bit feebly. “And I thought you just really liked fish! And when you left for a few days and left a note I thought you were visiting your mother in another part of town. You never said anything about visiting your mother in the sea!”
The situation is so ridiculous that Kaveh can't help but laugh, and once he’s started, he can’t stop.
Tears bead in his eyes, and then Alhaitham is laughing too, trying to stifle it but he’s holding onto Kaveh’s arms, giggling.
When their laughter subsides, Alhaitham looks at him, some strange sort of tenderness in his eyes. “You… really meant? You want to give me your coat?”
“Yes,” Kaveh says, a little too fast, nodding to reaffirm the statement. “I—I’d love to. If you’ll have it.”
“I would,” Alhaitham whispers, and then his eyes grow wide. “I—I didn’t mean to reject you.”
Kaveh laughs, breathes easy when he leans forward to boop his nose into Alhaitham’s. “I gathered that. It’s okay.”
And then he slips the coat off his shoulders and presents it to Alhaitham with both hands, who takes it with the tenderness and carefulness of a man holding the most precious treasure.
And then he frowns. “But… if I take this as accepting,” he says slowly, “how will you go visit your mother? You do need your coat for that, yes?”
Kaveh shrugs. “I already said goodbye to her yesterday, so it’s fine,” he says, brushing Alhaitham’s cheek with his thumb, just because he’s allowed to touch, now. “And there’s no one else I visit, anyways.”
Alhaitham frowns. “How about this,” he says, “I accept. I accept your courtship, but I do not accept your coat as my possession. It is a part of you, Kaveh, and I am not taking that away, no matter how much you might want me to.”
Kaveh blinks a little. He hadn’t expected this type of response, but he smiles. Feels his heart melt into a little puddle of goo at Alhaitham’s consideration.
“Okay,” he says, soft, as he leans forward to press a small kiss to Alhaitham’s lips. “I accept.”
And then Alhaitham pulls away, tucking Kaveh’s coat under his arm, and Kaveh watches him retrieve his own coat—dark green and heavy, and absolutely soft to the touch—and then he drapes it along Kaveh’s own shoulders.
“There,” he whispers, “Now I’ve given you my own coat too.”
And what else can Kaveh do, but throw his arms around Alhaitham and kiss him so hard they both stumble?