Archive of Our Own

𓆦

Oftentimes Kaveh wonders how he manages to get himself into these sorts of situations.

The fact of the matter is that he has been playing for the Fontaine Fireflies since he was first drafted to the Teyvat Hockey League when he was eighteen, and, well, he thought he was pretty valuable to the team! An acceptable amount of valuable, at the very least. More valuable than whatever constitutes being called to the coach’s office one night after practice and being told in simple terms that they’re kicking him off the team.

“We’re not kicking you off the team,” says Furina, frowning. “We’re trading you to another team.”

That’s the same thing! supplies Kaveh’s stricken, muddled, my-world-has-just-turned-upside-down brain. You’re throwing me to the wolves. You’re disregarding all of my loyalty. You’re tossing me into a trash can!

“Okay,” he says instead. He swallows. He can’t meet her eyes. “Um. Where are you sending me?”

She smiles. “The Sumeru Snails!”

Kaveh blinks at her. Clearly, he has misheard. There is just no way his coach just said what he thinks she just said.

But Furina continues on, blissfully unaware of the molten rot growing fungus in Kaveh’s gut. “As you know, the Snails haven’t been doing very well these past few seasons.” Understatement of the fucking century, Kaveh thinks. “They’ve made room on their roster to take on someone more expensive, and we’re doing well enough that giving us two players in exchange for one comes out to be a better deal.”

“You can’t do this to me,” says Kaveh. “You can’t—isn’t there anything I can do?”

And Furina sighs. She shrugs. And she shakes her head.

Which is how Kaveh finds himself on a plane a few days later, clutching his backpack between the canvas of his shoes underneath the business class seat in front of him, staring out the window like some forlorn fucking actor in a music video. This can’t be his life. There is no world in which he thought this would ever happen to him. He’s heard all of the horror stories about players being snatched away from their lifelong teams, players who are told that there are better opportunities and uses for their talent elsewhere—because of course he has—but never once did he imagine he would be living in that very reality.

He shouldn’t be surprised anymore. Of course this would happen to him.

He takes his phone out and opens his contacts, staring down at the latest one: the Snails’ coach, Nahida. She had called him to talk briefly yesterday, asking whether he had figured out his living arrangements yet. Kaveh had stared blankly at the wall in response to that, because of course, on top of literally everything else, he had completely forgotten to apartment-hunt in the mess of packing up the past six years of his life into a few measly boxes.

When he didn’t respond for several long moments, Nahida had laughed a laugh that reminded Kaveh of wind chimes, and she had said to not worry, that she’ll figure something out by the time he lands in Sumeru, to just make sure he brings himself and that brilliant smile of his she saw two seasons ago when Kaveh had kissed the cup upon the Fireflies winning the playoffs.

He clicks his phone shut. He supposes that’s the end of that, now that there’s no chance he’s going to be winning any cups for the foreseeable future. Not like this. Not with his new team. The Snails fucking suck, and everyone knows it. Who the hell even names a professional hockey team after a snail? 

When he lands, it’s to the sight of the bright sun overhead, about fifty times hotter than it ever is in Fontaine. 

It’s almost nostalgic, this, walking through the Sumeru airport. He hasn’t been back for ten years, not since his mother took him by the hand and told him that their family was moving with her new husband overseas. He remembers being upset. Betrayed, almost. He remembers wondering why he couldn’t just stay in Sumeru. He had friends here. He had a life here. His father was buried here.

But, well, he can’t blame his mother for that. So he digresses.

He grabs a taxi to the arena and spends the entire ride there ignoring the painful pinch of his stomach rolling over and over itself. The streets are almost exactly how Kaveh remembers them: the long, arching trees of the rainforest, the winding roads, the shops and stalls and restaurants and bustling crowds of people.

It’s home, and Kaveh knows its home, recognizes that it’s home, and yet he cannot help but feel the sting burning deeper and deeper into his skin.

“Thanks,” he mutters to his driver when he’s dropped off at the front of the arena with his four suitcases, offering a generous tip before standing lamely outside the large building. 

He squints up at it.

It’s smaller than the Fireflies’ home ground, though not by a lot. It’s definitely grander, and overall nicer with its updates, which, honestly, is just depressing. 

Because the Snails used to be good. They used to be the best, actually. They won playoff after playoff, cup after cup, and the people of Sumeru’s hearts are still tightly intertwined with the club regardless of their less than ideal current standing. In fact, Kaveh’s pretty sure that if he had stayed in Sumeru all those years ago, he would have been drafted here instead of in Fontaine.

But that didn’t happen, did it?

“Kaveh!” comes a voice out of nowhere, and Kaveh turns to find a short woman in the front doorway, waving before walking over to him. “How was the flight?”

“Coach,” says Kaveh, starting.

“Oh, just Nahida’s fine,” says Nahida, waving him off. “Here you go!”

She motions for him to hold out his hand, and when he does with a slightly raised eyebrow, she plops a set of keys into his palm.

“Uh,” says Kaveh. “Thanks?”

“Al-Haitham offered you his spare room while you get settled into Sumeru,” says Nahida, and immediately Kaveh’s heart lodges into his throat, his jaw clicking as it drops in shock. “He told me he’d be out for the rest of the day, so you should have the place to yourself until whenever he gets back from whatever he’s doing!”

“Right,” says Kaveh, on autopilot.

“Right!” Nahida nods, smiling happily. “I sent you an email with Al-Haitham’s address and his number. I’ll let you get some rest today, Kaveh. We can do a tour of the arena later.”

“Right,” says Kaveh again, still on autopilot.

Because, of course, this brings him to the giant elephant in the room, the same one he’s been very pointedly ignoring ever since he got news of the trade: the Sumeru Snails are not only a shitty team with a shitty name.

They also have Al-Haitham on defense.

The same Al-Haitham from youth hockey camp. The same Al-Haitham who carried a too-big hockey stick and fumbled around the ice with skates one size off. The same Al-Haitham who stared blankly back at Kaveh when he told him he was moving to Fontaine in three days and that the next time they saw each other would probably be after the draft.

Kaveh’s fists come to clench by his sides.

Whatever. He has bigger worries than Al-Haitham right now. The main one being calling another ride for his four suitcases to the stupid address in his stupid email right now. He sighs. And then he sighs again. And then he curses stupid Al-Haitham in his head for being stupid enough to actually offer his house to Kaveh. Why the fuck would he do that? Was he not also purposefully blocking out all thoughts of this trade like Kaveh?

Whatever. Whatever. Kaveh mutters a profanity under his breath before begrudgingly ordering another ride.

Al-Haitham’s house is, quite frankly, way too huge for just one person.

One person assuming that, well, Al-Haitham is single. Or otherwise not occupied. Kaveh chews on that particular thought for a few seconds as he lugs his bags to the front door and decides once again that it is too much mental energy to be spending on Al-Haitham of all people.

When he gets in through the front door, he half expects Al-Haitham to be standing right there, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, staring at Kaveh with an unimpressed look. 

The last time they saw each other was almost a year ago, since of course the Snails didn’t qualify for the playoffs and the Fireflies went on to play three rounds. 

Even at games over the years, Kaveh and Al-Haitham never really interacted with each other on or off the ice. Of course, Kaveh had tried in the beginning, when they were still rookies and fresh faces in the league. Kaveh had waited outside the away teams’ locker rooms when the Snails had come to Fontaine, and he had offered Al-Haitham a wave and a dinner invitation when he emerged with wet hair and a mouth set with his team’s loss. 

He had declined the invitation. Kaveh had blinked back his shock, the rejection stinging more than he thought it would. 

Anyways, he never offered again, and the two went on to vaguely be aware of each other’s existence, never speaking more than a few words to each other only when absolutely necessary.

Kaveh supposes all of that changes now. Here. In this fucking house.

Archons above.

He finds a note taped to the kitchen counter when he enters:

Your room is the second door on the right down the hallway. There’s food in the fridge if you want it. I’ll be back by 9. You don’t have to wait for me.

Kaveh reads it once. He reads it twice. Then he crumples it between his fingers and tosses it feebly back onto the counter. He wasn’t going to wait for him anyway! There is no world in which Kaveh would wait for someone after such an insipid, emotionless note. Where was the Hi, Kaveh! I’m so excited to be living with you for the foreseeable future! Do you remember me from youth hockey? We had so much fun together! I can’t wait to have all of that fun with you once again on a professional team!

Right, so. Moving on.

And moving in! Kaveh opens all four of his suitcases right there in the hallway, peering down at them with his hands on his hips. If he works efficiently, he can get everything done in less than an hour. Then he can spend the rest of his time before nine p.m. mentally preparing himself for his reunion with Al-Haitham.

Halfway through unpacking, his phone dings with a text.

Unknown

[18:24] Unknown: hi, kaveh! this is tighnari, the snails captain--got your number from nahida. i heard you’ve arrived in sumeru today, so let me know if you need any help with anything!
[18:24] Unknown: also, cyno and i are hosting a get-together dinner tonight for the team. i’ve already told the others about it, and i thought it would be a good way for you to maybe meet the rest of the team properly before practice starts? please come!
[18:24] Unknown: [attachment: 1 address]

You have saved Unknown to your contacts.

[18:26] you: hi tighnari, yes i just arrived today! i will totally take you up on that dinner offer btw. what time should i come?

[18:26] tighnari: you can come literally whenever we’re just setting up right now

[18:27] you: ok i’ll leave after i finish unpacking then. shouldn’t be too long, maybe 7:30?

[18:27] tighnari: sounds good, see you then!

Kaveh clicks his phone shut and tries not to breathe a sigh of relief. This means, at the very least, he won’t be home alone when Al-Haitham gets here. This means, at the very least, a stall for time. And Kaveh will always appreciate stalling for time.

𓆑

The thing about Al-Haitham is that if it were anybody but Kaveh, he would be violently against the concept of sharing his house with anybody. He had been almost unbelievably affronted at the mere idea that he should put a roof over the head of his new teammate, at least until Nahida had told him that their new teammate was Kaveh. Then, Al-Haitham understood.

It’s not that Kaveh is particularly special, aside from the fact that he’s a hockey prodigy, intellectually stimulating, probably the most considerate and accommodating person in the sport, is charismatic in front of a camera, deals well with spats on the ice, has a great smile, has great hair, and has a nice face. None of that really matters. (It can’t matter. Al-Haitham already decided.)

Well, if he’s the only person that Al-Haitham will allow to sleep under his roof, then maybe it does make Kaveh a little special. But as far as Kaveh is going to know, he’s not going to know. Al-Haitham can be as blunt and unforgiving as he wishes to be, and this may be the only possible time that will actually work out for him.

Another thing that makes Kaveh kind of special—but not too special—is that Al-Haitham would have most likely turned down Tighnari’s dinner invitation if it weren’t the first time he was meeting Kaveh since they were in their teens. Al-Haitham does go to team dinners, because that’s just what you do if you’re on a team and also there’s free food involved. He doesn’t hate Tighnari, either, which is a plus. And most of the time, Nilou is there. But this dinner is later in the evening, and he hadn’t really felt like going out, at least not until Tighnari mentioned that Kaveh would be there.

Yeah. Fuck this, actually. It doesn’t even matter that Al-Haitham is here, standing solemnly in front of Tighnari’s door waiting for him to let him in.

The door opens. “We don’t take solicitors,” Tighnari says through the crack.

Al-Haitham shoves one foot through the opening. “If you close this door on me, I’m suing you for malicious intent to ruin my career and take my position, and then I’ll get Nahida to blacklist you from the league.”

“You can’t do any of that,” Tighnari complains, but he opens the door. There’s a hint of a smirk on his face.

The hallway, which Al-Haitham is already well acquainted with, leads down into the main dining room of Tighnari’s house. The space is occupied by a large table laden with steaming plates of food and several platters of cut fruits and vegetables, and Al-Haitham spots a couple of uncorked wine bottles already sitting out. Most of the team is already here, which he purposefully times so he doesn’t have to sit through the preliminary small talk, preferring instead to jump into whichever conversation is already ongoing.

The table is almost full. Al-Haitham catches a glance of golden hair in the corner, so he heads straight there, settling into the seat right across from Kaveh.

When he seats himself, he finds Kaveh already looking at him. He can’t quite make out the expression on his face, but it’s certainly conflicted. “Kaveh,” he says.

“Hello, teammate,” Kaveh says, appearing to decide on a smile that comes across a little like a grimace. Or maybe that’s on purpose. “It’s been a while. Actually, I feel like I never speak to you. Ever. Even at any of the several games we’ve played against each other. But now we’re roommates. Isn’t it funny how life works out?”

“Temporary roommates,” Al-Haitham reminds him, because it seems as though that tidbit of information would make him happy. Kaveh grimaces at him again. He glances to the side, where Kaveh’s glass sits half-drained. “Do you drink often? That can’t be good for your hockey.”

“I miss my mother, but not enough to need a second one here in Sumeru, thank you,” Kaveh says, lifting his glass to his lips. Unfortunately, the stain of wine looks good smeared against his mouth, a scarlet dash right through his smooth skin. Al-Haitham looks to the side, where Nilou happens to glance at him, her smile softening.

“Al-Haitham!” She reaches to him, placing both of her hands on his arm and smiling up at him. “I’ve been waiting for you to get here. You always come so late to these things.”

Across the table, Kaveh raises his eyebrows. Al-Haitham says, “I did not have much motivation to come early.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Nilou scolds, swatting him lightly on the back of his hand. “Our new teammate is here. Kaveh! Isn’t it nice that we’re all here now? Nahida tells me that you two are newfound roommates, but it seems like you guys are already acquainted.”

“Something like that,” Kaveh says, raising a glass of water to his lips. He makes a gesture toward Al-Haitham, as if directing him to take the handle of the conversation.

“We started in the league around the same time,” Al-Haitham says vaguely. “You see people around.”

“Around,” Kaveh echoes.

“Well, it’s nice that we’re all here together now,” Nilou says brightly. “I mean, I love this team, but we’ve seen better days, you know? I think a new change of pace will really freshen up the environment. I’m excited to get onto the ice! And to get to know you better! Your hockey is so impressive, really, Kaveh.”

Like everybody else who talks to Nilou, Kaveh softens under the force of her aggressive cheer. “You really think so?” he says, straightening a little like a dog wagging its tail after being bribed with a treat. “I mean, that’s so kind of you.”

“Well, of course,” Nilou says as if it’s obvious. Al-Haitham doesn’t quite roll his eyes, but Kaveh scowls at him briefly for whatever expression flits across his face. “There’s a reason everybody on social media is in an uproar that you’ve been traded to us. Oops, not to say that we’re a terrible team or anything! It’s a lovely group of people. We all… try very hard. Well…”

“I try as hard as I am contractually obligated to,” says Al-Haitham.

Nilou sighs. “See, here’s the problem, Kaveh. Do you think that by living with him, you can whip him into better shape? Al-Haitham’s one of the best players I’ve seen on the ice, but nobody that we’ve met has been able to get him to care.”

“Well,” Kaveh says, “seeing as though I’ve played against him multiple times throughout the years, I don’t know if anything will change suddenly now that we’re on the same team. I mean, if I couldn’t do it before, I don’t know if I can do it now.”

He says the last part with a bit of a scoff. Maybe he’s upset with Al-Haitham.

Oh well. “Hm, perhaps not,” says Al-Haitham, earning him a stronger glare.

“Al-Haitham,” Nilou says scathingly. She turns to Kaveh with a smile. “Sorry, he’s just like that. I’ve tried turning him on and off, and it never works.”

“It’s okay,” Kaveh says, giving her a grin. “I’ve worked with difficult players before, and it’s always a struggle before I’m really able to break through.”

So it’s not just Al-Haitham who’s showing an attitude, but at least that makes Kaveh so much more entertaining than the pacifying appearance he puts on for the cameras. There’s no way he’s that nice to everybody around him.

“Difficult players,” a new voice says, and they all turn to see Tighnari take a seat at the end of the table, proffering them a platter of crackers and dip. “You must be talking about Al-Haitham, then.”

“Seems like somebody has a reputation,” Kaveh says.

“I take care to maintain it,” replies Al-Haitham, stealing a wafer from the plate and staring straight into the other’s eyes as he bites through it with a sharp snap.

“Do you now,” Tighnari says disinterestedly, passing the plate around the table. “Here, Kaveh, take some food. We’re all here now, so we can get started. Welcome to team dinner, if I haven’t already said that. We take it pretty seriously here at the Snails.”

Something in Kaveh’s face changes at the last word, but he quickly smooths it over. “Thank you,” he says modestly. “I really appreciate the warm welcome. I know the transfer was a little unexpected, but with me moving back to Sumeru, I’m just glad to have a place to play again, and to have the opportunity to make this country a home once more.”

“We’re so happy to have you,” Nilou says again, leaning forward across the table to take Kaveh’s hands in hers, smiling brightly. Al-Haitham watches as Kaveh’s face melts into a mirroring grin, his eyes softening in a way they never do when he looks at him. “I, for one, am glad to have you on the team, and I hope that you’re able to find everything you want while you’re with us. And we will all work to give you the best experience we can.”

When she says all, she elbows Al-Haitham underneath the table, catching him right at the rib, but he doesn’t even wince, still looking at Kaveh.

“All of you,” Kaveh echoes, gaze turning to meet Al-Haitham’s.

“Yes,” says Al-Haitham. He kind of likes it when Kaveh is looking at him only, even when he’s on the verge of glaring. “Welcome to my home, Kaveh.”

“Thanks,” Kaveh says through practically gritted teeth. “I’m so excited.”

And that pretty much sets the expectations for the rest of the season.

❆

Teyvat Hockey League Updates @thlcentral
Kaveh has been reportedly traded from Fontaine Fireflies to Sumeru Snails.
50.4k likes, 359 retweets, 25 replies

REPLIES:

ellen ! @puckyou
Replying to @thlcentral
y’all cannot be FUCKING serious
963 likes, 42 retweets, 4 replies

sf-26 🙏 @leclercs
Replying to @thlcentral
i just genuinely don’t believe this is real. is this ai?
1.3k likes, 91 retweets, 8 replies

DMHU. @kavehisms
kaveh going from the fontaine fireflies to the sumeru fucking slowpokes was the last thing on this year’s bingo card and no, i don’t want to win
3.5k likes, 58 retweets, 5 replies

sprout 🌱 @bringingglory19
i’m literally from liyue and i feel kaveh’s loss from the fontanian country like a crime against my own nation omg someone shut down the thl while our life is still good
2.7k likes, 96 retweets, 8 replies

REPLIES:

rysa @rysarium
Replying to @bringingglory19
KAVEH DIED?????????
593 likes, 4 retweets, 4 replies

raven 🪴 @matsuwuhana
Replying to @bringingglory19 and @rysarium
he might as well as have
952 likes, 5 retweets, 3 replies

John @gretnagreen
Some of us Snail fans are actually happy about the Kaveh trade. Is anyone else thinking that we have a chance at the cup?
49 likes, 4 replies

REPLIES:

nilou left toe @lotuspond
Replying to @gretnagreen
a cup? stop i just laughed out loud
4 likes

⭐🌸 @starflowers
Replying to @gretnagreen
cup is too ambitious, try not scoring at the bottom of the rankings
6 likes, 1 reply

derrick @dee1
Replying to @gretnagreen and @starflowers
foul 😭
1 like, 1 reply

derek @dee2
Replying to @gretnagreen and @starflowers and @dee1
and true 🤷
2 likes

sumerusnails ✓ on Instagram
[a picture of the entire team in their hockey gear on the ice, lined up and smiling for the camera. Kaveh is in the middle with Al-Haitham on their left, but there is an observable amount of distance between them]
We are so excited to welcome Kaveh onto our team! Go Snails! 🐌🎊
394.5k likes, 582 comments

COMMENTS:

niloufar ✓
My fav! ♥️😁🤗
5,241 likes

kaveh_hockey_official ✓
@nilouhockeyofficial NILOUUUUUUU
3,495 likes

ilayrzanov
looks like they didn’t get the whole team’s approval before they traded kaveh in
1,394 likes

cynockey ✓
I am ready for a (n)ice season with @kaveh_hockey_official.
4,823 likes

kaveh_hockey_official ✓
@cynockey leave me out of this
5,124 likes

cynockey ✓
@kaveh_hockey_official ? you’re in the picture.
4,394 likes

highway_1009
i still can’t believe this is happening. wtf was furina thinking?
59 likes

sheepgarden
@highway_1009 get over it. WELCOME KAVEH!
137 likes

𓆦

All things considered, Tighnari’s dinner party came with more pros than cons.

Pro: Kaveh got to meet the team for the first time somewhere off the ice, away from the general area of the rink. He knew all the players beforehand of course—Tighnari on left wing, Dehya on right, Al-Haitham on left defense, Nilou on right, Cyno on goal, etcetera etcetera etcetera—but now he also knows that Tighnari and Cyno live together, and Nilou’s favorite hobbies include dancing on weekends and reading horror novels before bed, and Cyno says the worst possible jokes with the straightest expression ever.

Seriously. The worst possible jokes. Kaveh did not know it was even possible.

He gets everyone’s phone numbers during the last dregs of the party, small smiles exchanged as everyone gathers their things and makes their way out. Everyone except, well, Al-Haitham, considering how Al-Haitham decides to up and take his leave over an hour before anyone else. Not that it matters, in any case, because later, Kaveh finds that he’s been added to the team group chat, and he makes the logical conclusion that the one contact that’s remained a string of numbers is his.

He’s horrified to find himself familiar with the numbers. Of course, Kaveh had gotten a new number when he first moved to Fontaine, and he only ever saved contacts that had contacted him after, or people he had had to call or message. Al-Haitham, unsurprisingly, did not make that particular cut.

He also finds, on his phone, texts from his former teammates. Lyney has sent a plethora of flower emojis and Lynette has sent calm well wishes and Navia has sent a few paragraphs with updates from Fontaine and Wriothesley has sent a group selfie from the latest team dinner.

Kaveh hearts the picture and replies to everyone individually. Then he sighs. The next time he’ll see the Fontaine team will be during an away game after the season officially starts. He misses the familiarity. He misses not having to introduce himself to handfuls of new people and learning entirely new team dynamics.

But, in a strange way as well, this is familiar too. He was born here. He grew up here. Surely, he can make this work.

So, with newfound determination in his veins, Kaveh arrives at the first morning practice with a certain vigor reserved for small children. Or, psych patients. Either way, he’s smiling and skipping to the arena with his bag slung loosely over his shoulder, and he steps into the locker room only to find that his cubby has been placed right next to—

“Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh, stopping in front of him. “Ugh.”

Al-Haitham looks up from…is he seriously reading a freaking book right now? “Very mature.”

“Are you seriously reading a book before practice?”

“What else should I be doing?” says Al-Haitham. He swivels his head, as if making a real show of looking around the bustling changing area. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Kaveh, making a flourish as he seats himself down in his spot. “You could be going to the rink and getting a head start? Have you ever thought about that?”

“Doesn’t seem like something I’d do.”

Doesn’t seem like something anyone on this team would do, really, but Kaveh knows better than to voice that particular thought out loud.

So instead, he decides to completely ignore Al-Haitham’s presence next to him and goes about getting ready: he slides his right shin pad on, then his left, his right sock on, then his left, his left skate on, then his right, and when it comes time for his neck guard, he cracks his neck to the right, then left, then right again before putting it on.

When he’s finished, he finds Al-Haitham staring at him.

“What?” Kaveh frowns. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It’s not even a game day,” says Al-Haitham, which, well, answers that question.

“Yeah, but it’s my first practice on a new team,” says Kaveh, fiddling with his roll of black tape between his gloves. “One could argue this is even more important than a game day.”

“I am going to bring that up with you on our first game day,” says Al-Haitham.

“Fuck you, Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh.

“You really haven’t changed,” Al-Haitham continues, ignoring the way Kaveh very obviously stiffens even through all of the padding. They haven’t brought up youth hockey at all. Kaveh doesn’t even know if Al-Haitham truly remembers it. “You’re still wasting your time ruminating over fears that should not even be a consideration for someone with your abilities.”

“Hey,” says Kaveh, but it comes out a bit weaker this time. And hasn’t this always been the problem with Al-Haitham? He says things so bluntly, as if he has no regard for how Kaveh will react. And this—this half compliment, half barb. It’s so reminiscent of their younger days that for a moment, Kaveh is transported back. That indoor rink in the sweltering Sumeru summer, chasing Al-Haitham down the ice with no other cares in the world, bickering after camp over who made the better pass and settling it the next day over yet another argument about the same stupid shit.

He gets a reality check when Al-Haitham gives him a slow once over, like he’s sizing him up or something, before flicking his head away and beginning the trek to the rink. Kaveh stares after him, his lips pressed together in a thin line, before begrudgingly following.

When the cool air hits him, he takes a moment to let his shoulders drop. Despite not being away from it for long, he’s missed the ice. He barely registers the gentle hand on his shoulder a few moments later.

“Hi, Kaveh,” says Nilou, her red hair flashing below her helmet. She smiles brightly up at him. “It’s good to see you! How are you feeling?”

“Well,” Kaveh sighs. “I did just get shit on for performing my usual pre-game rituals pre-practice, so, as well as I can be doing after that particular blow, I suppose.”

Nilou grins. “You know,” she says, “I’ve really never seen Al-Haitham so animated before. He usually doesn’t even talk in the locker rooms, from what I hear.”

“You heard correctly,” says another voice, and Kaveh catches Tighnari’s now-familiar figure wobbling up to them. He raises an eyebrow at Kaveh. “I saw you guys. You made Al-Haitham talk before practice. Impressive. Can’t wait to see your next trick.”

“You’d get along with my former teammate,” Kaveh says as the three of them glide onto the rink. “Lyney was always performing tricks for us off ice. On ice too, sometimes, if you can believe it.”

Nahida is waiting for everyone by the goal crease, and she skates over to Kaveh to raise his hand. It’s a bit of an awkward angle, considering how incredibly short she is, but everyone seems to merrily go along with it as their coach introduces them formally. Kaveh supposes this brings him to another pro of Tighnari’s party: this really is not that bad. He doesn’t doubt that he’d be able to get along with his hometown team regardless, but the fact that they were all able to meet in a much lighter setting beforehand does wonders to settle his nerves.

By the time they get going with a scrimmage, Kaveh can’t help noting every little thing he sees:

For one, Cyno’s tape job is absolutely horrendous, Nilou tends to glide instead of hard pivoting, and Dehya glances one too many times down at the puck whenever she has it. He says as much to them during downtimes, and they all pull themselves together well enough, but extra half-seconds lost are just more half-seconds gained by their opponents in a game.

And Al-Haitham. Al-Haitham fucking coasts.

Kaveh sprints for him, practically slamming their sides together. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Through his helmet, Al-Haitham raises an eyebrow. “Playing hockey.”

“You’re not even trying!”

“I know through your rituals that you think this is a real game, but let me remind you—”

“Oh, so you’d give one hundred percent during a real game, would you?” Kaveh glares at him. Al-Haitham stares blankly back. “You’re cruising! I know you have power. I’ve seen it first fucking hand, Al-Haitham. Why don’t you put that build of yours to good use for once in your life—”

Al-Haitham ducks out of the way before Kaveh can chew even harder at him, and he’s left inching dumbly toward the plexiglass. His jaw drops, because of course Al-Haitham can use his speed to run away from Kaveh, he just can’t use it to block his mark.

The rest of the practice is not much better. Excellent set ups are made for a pass or a check, and not once are these opportunities used. To their credit, the rest of the team doesn’t play completely horribly, and everyone is clearly trying. It’s just that Al-Haitham isn’t. And it’s so endlessly frustrating that by the time they’re told to go home, Kaveh does not even glance in Al-Haitham’s direction once in the showers or the locker room.

His temper subsides a little when he’s saying goodbye to the rest of his teammates. He catches Al-Haitham’s eye from across the room, and when Al-Haitham cocks his head to the side as he looks at him, Kaveh huffs and looks away.

𓆑

Usually after practice, Al-Haitham is the first one to leave. Sometimes, if he can get away with it, he leaves even before practice is up, but that’s only when Nahida is suitably distracted and he knows he won’t be missed, especially if somebody else is playing poorly enough that all the energy is being expended there.

Today, though, he notices Kaveh standing outside the building before the parking lot, eyebrows furrowed as he peers at something on his phone. Al-Haitham pauses, his hand in his pocket pausing over his car keys.

“What are you doing just standing there?” Al-Haitham says.

Kaveh fixes him with a glare. “I’m waiting for an Uber to take my drive. I’m preoccupied, thank you.”

Al-Haitham slowly lifts an eyebrow at him. Kaveh watches him with increasing impatience. “What?” Kaveh says irritably. “Are you going to nag me now about calling a rideshare? Are you going to suggest I invest in a bike or—”

“I was just going to say that there’s no use for an Uber since I own a car and we’re going to the same place,” Al-Haitham says, effectively shutting up the other. “But if you’d like to pay out of your own pocket, go ahead.”

Kaveh’s mouth snaps shut. He shifts the strap of his bag over his shoulder, looking angry about the fact that everything Al-Haitham says makes logical sense. He’s silent for so long that Al-Haitham begins to wonder if he only talks to him when he has something to bicker about.

“Fine,” Kaveh huffs, looking to the side. “That would be nice, actually.”

“You can tip me later,” Al-Haitham says, fingers closing around his key. He jerks his head toward the lot. “My car is on the right.”

“I’m not tipping you for a carpool,” Kaveh says snippily, hesitantly trudging along with him when Al-Haitham sets off. “I guess you’re right. It does make sense to just come together. But…”

“It’s not a secret that you’re living with me,” says Al-Haitham. “Nahida mentioned it at Tighnari’s place.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Kaveh says, even as he looks slightly mollified. “And don’t forget, I’m not living with you permanently. This is just a temporary thing until I get my bearings and find an apartment.”

“Yeah,” Al-Haitham says, stopping at his car and popping the trunk. He deposits his bag in the back with a heavy thud, the sound ringing out with all the weight of the world. “I won’t forget.”

The car ride back, though short, since Al-Haitham bought the property knowing the commute time wouldn’t eat at his temper, is mostly silent, though Kaveh breaks two minutes in and begins fiddling with the radio. He puts on some Top 30s station, tapping his fingers on his thigh to the tempo as he stares absentmindedly out the window, drinking in the sight of the city. Al-Haitham has to remind himself that this is new to Kaveh once more after having left for so long, even though it’s become mundane to him.

They don’t speak again until they’re through the front door, Kaveh kicking off his shoes first and hauling his skates bag to the side of the hallway, looking at it contemplatively. “You know, the team is pretty terrible,” he says apropos of nothing, breaking the silence they’d mutually agreed on. He lets his bag slump onto the floor with a thud. “It’s pretty different from my team back in Fontaine.”

“Too bad they’re not your team anymore,” Al-Haitham says unsympathetically, sweeping right past him and heading to the kitchen for a glass of water. “Fontaine is many hours by plane from here.”

Kaveh scowls at him, crossing his arms and leaning against the arched entrance into the kitchen to watch him. “‘Too bad’ is exactly the kind of sentiment that’s leading them to get stuck where they are. Al-Haitham, I genuinely hate to say it, but you’re a good player. You’re fucking good at hockey. Do you know what an impact you would have on the others if you actually played as if you gave a fuck? Sometimes I watch you waffling around on the ice and I wonder if you’re pretending like you don’t know how to skate. And if I’m catching on that you’re good, then you’re doing a pretty shit job of pretending you can’t play, by the way.”

“Thank you for the compliments,” Al-Haitham says. Kaveh gives him such a dirty look that he’s in danger of engraving the expression into his face permanently, so he takes a long sip of water before continuing. “I wouldn’t expect such praise from you.”

“I’m not complimenting you,” Kaveh grits out. “So apparently you have listening comprehension problems on top of your sloth. Don’t be purposefully obtuse. You used to try at the hockey youth camp we both played in. I’m not the kind of idiot who forgets things like that, so don’t even try to pretend you don’t remember.”

Al-Haitham blinks at him, surprised that Kaveh remembers rather than the other way around. Most of their interactions, brief as they are, have taken place solely in the league, and the camp was long enough ago that Kaveh might have forgotten his face among the many others.

“Win or lose, I still get paid the same,” Al-Haitham says, gesturing around him with the hand carrying his glass. “I had to get the living room extended. Tore down the walls and everything. Good thing my salary funded the renovation.”

“You’re fucking impossible, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says. If he says it enough, then maybe Al-Haitham will start to believe it. “Aren’t you good friends with the rest of the team? If you play for them, and you represent them, isn’t the least thing you can do is show up for Sumeru and actually try? It’s not just you that’s suffering—it’s all of them, and now it’s me, too, okay? So I would appreciate it if the next time you pick up your stick, you actually mean it.”

“I thought you don’t hold the Snails in high regard,” Al-Haitham points out. “You really care that much how they do? You aren’t going to move back eventually?”

“This isn’t temporary,” Kaveh says, folding his arms. “I’m not the kind of player who gets traded around, which you would notice if you look up from your own skates once in a while. I’m here to stay, unfortunately, and I don’t want to have my statistics bogged down by your self-centeredness.”

Well. Al-Haitham ponders this.

That is true, and it’s not something he’s ever had to think about before. If Kaveh weren’t in the picture, then he could continue on as he already has been, which is playing as minimally as he has to and sitting down whenever he feels a little too out of breath. But if it’s Kaveh asking, and it’s Kaveh who’s telling him that he is a good player (which he already knows, thanks), then maybe he can switch things up. Just to see what will happen, and for no other reason.

Kaveh can never know, but if anything, Al-Haitham cares about Kaveh’s hockey more than he even cares about his own. It’s been like this since the beginning, since that youth camp they did together, the first time that they met.

Al-Haitham has never been the type to hold him back from pursuing something that he finds interesting, including people. If he had it his way, he would have tried to stay as Kaveh’s friend from the beginning, when Kaveh was first drafted to the Fireflies. A small needling part of him thought that maybe, just maybe he could also be drafted to Fontaine, but it was Sumeru that ended up picking him. 

Then the Fireflies started dominating the league, and there were no plausible trades that they would have entertained since their players were performing well, so Al-Haitham didn’t even try to leave Sumeru.

In applying rationality to his life, he’d stayed in hockey for the pay, stayed in the same house he grew up in with his grandmother, all for the sake of maintaining his contentment. With that same rigid logic, he knew enough at a young age to recognize that forming unnecessary attachments with people with whom he has no way of keeping regular contact with would—not be ideal. Would hurt, even.

So after youth camp, when Al-Haitham and Kaveh inevitably ran into each other across the seasons, he’d ignored all of Kaveh’s friendly advances until he forced him to give up. It was the only sensible action. Hockey players are too busy to be friends if they don’t play for the same team. If anything, it would only serve as a distraction. Not for Al-Haitham, for whom hockey has never been the priority, but for Kaveh, whose career is so promising that he ought to do nothing else but head straight for the limelight, with nothing else and nobody on the side to drag him back.

And Al-Haitham, with his growing, insensible attachments, can serve as nothing but a distraction.

Until now. Until Kaveh got traded to Al-Haitham’s team.

“Maybe I will give it a try,” Al-Haitham says, which is about as much of a concession as he will make but seems to infuriate Kaveh even more.

“Come on,” Kaveh says, reaching out halfway between them as if to punch him on the arm before thinking better of it, faltering. His hand falls against his thigh. “Our first game is coming up. Don’t you have any ego at all? Imagine what the press will say if you suddenly have this big turnaround.”

In fact, Al-Haitham cares the least amount he possibly can for his reputation, but he isn’t going to tell Kaveh that. “You’ll just have to wait to find out.”

Kaveh doesn’t say anything in response to that, standing by the doorframe, steaming. Al-Haitham looks at him for a long moment and then says, “Do you need anything?”

With a huff and nothing else, Kaveh snatches the glass of water, barely drunk, out of Al-Haitham’s hand and turns to leave. It’s a petty move, a small victory. Possibly Kaveh feels good about getting to stay at the house of his teammate who pisses him off without having to pay, leaving his bags everywhere and taking his dishes like he owns them. Al-Haitham, instead, curls his fingers over his mouth long after Kaveh has gone, thinking of drinking from the same glass that his lips had just touched.

𓆦

Vaguely, Kaveh wonders if anything he said to Al-Haitham about maybe giving the tiniest bit of a fuck landed in his head. It’s so endlessly frustrating because Kaveh knows. He knows that if Al-Haitham tried, even just a measly ten percent, the Snails’ numbers would shoot up without question—not only because it is a begrudging fact that ten percent of Al-Haitham’s abilities would account for that much, but also because if the rest of the team sees him playing to win, the team morale would just explode.

Still, Al-Haitham doesn’t make any move to improve his hockey at any of their subsequent team practices. He spends the entire pre-season waffling around on the ice while Kaveh relentlessly pokes at everyone on the team: he fixes Nilou’s break, lends Cyno an extra roll of his favorite tape and puts Tighnari on the job of making sure he never appears at the rink with whatever monstrosity he was using earlier, and he runs extra drills with Dehya and Candace and Layla after practice.

That particular one is great, because not only does Kaveh also get extra time to fine tune his hockey, but it also forces Al-Haitham to wait for him an extra half hour since they’ve wordlessly agreed to carpool home together every day. There’s a certain thrill in finding Al-Haitham in his periphery as he spins past Candace on the ice and races Layla to the plexiglass: it’s just so incredibly obvious that deep down, Al-Haitham wouldn’t mind joining them instead of just hanging around and waiting. It’s just that he doesn’t see the point in the extra practice. He probably doesn’t even need it.

Not that Kaveh would ever voice those particular thoughts out loud.

And on top of everything, Kaveh is also running into a brand new issue. One that he very much thought he had put to rest when he first left Sumeru all of those years ago, and once again one that concerns Al-Haitham, because of course it does.

It is just that he is so familiar. It is just that this country is so familiar. It is just that Kaveh has never had to live with anyone like this before, and he especially has never had to live with someone who so obviously knows so much about him—yet another part of Al-Haitham that Kaveh simply cannot understand.

Were they even really that close at youth hockey? Yes. Did Kaveh really spill so much of himself to him when they were teenagers? Yes. Has Al-Haitham always been so infuriatingly sure of everything in his life like this? Yes. It’s a yes and another yes and even more yeses. Kaveh’s head is beginning to hurt.

But everyday Al-Haitham drives them back to the house together and they put their keys away side by side and then they stare aimlessly at each other across the living room as if they are waiting for something, anything, to pull them away. Then Kaveh remembers himself and grunts and rolls his eyes and stalks back into his own room and thinks he is protecting himself for it. Then something will smell amazing and he’ll inevitably be pulled back into Al-Haitham’s orbit as the two have dinner together in the kitchen and silently do the dishes side by side. Their arms brush and their elbows knock together. His skin burns with every contact.

And really, it’s nothing. It’s the most nothing a roommate arrangement can get, because, seriously, they barely even talk to each other. They have nothing to talk about. One word out in the open and several wounds instantly reopen, and Kaveh is in no mood for any of that. He doesn’t know what Al-Haitham thinks about it at all, and he doesn’t want to know either. It’s a fine arrangement. It works.

He doesn’t think about how he hasn’t seriously looked for apartment listings in at least the past two weeks. Practice is stressful, he tells himself. He doesn’t have a lot of time these days, he tells himself.

It’s not like Al-Haitham is doing literally anything to encourage him to move out, in any case. Kaveh knows there’s a timer ticking above all of this, and he knows it’s no one’s responsibility but his own to get a move on with getting out of Al-Haitham’s hair.

But, honestly, what use does Al-Haitham even have otherwise for such a ginormous freaking house? If anything, Kaveh is the one doing him a favor.

Yes. That’s exactly it. He will blindly continue to tell himself this until it becomes an issue he can no longer ignore.

The season opener is a home game, and honestly, Kaveh is grateful for it. They’re playing against the Nightingales tonight, and he isn’t…nervous, per se. It’s more just that home game used to equate to Fontaine. Now home game equates to home. Real home. The more time he spends here the more sure he becomes that Fontaine was never his home. Not really.

That morning, he stops Al-Haitham with a hand on his chest in the kitchen, making Al-Haitham pause and look up coolly from the espresso machine whirring between them. 

“So,” Kaveh says. “Game day.”

“Game day,” Al-Haitham agrees before going back to his coffee.

Kaveh crosses his arms over his chest. “Did you sleep well?”

This makes Al-Haitham look straight back at him. He blinks slowly. “Seriously, Kaveh?”

“It’s a perfectly normal question to ask!” Kaveh exclaims, ignoring how the tips of his ears feel about fifteen degrees warmer than usual. Archons. Whatever. “Whatever,” he says. “Forget I asked. I actually don’t even care.”

“I slept just as I always do, since you’re so concerned about my health,” says Al-Haitham, twisting his mug out from under the machine and taking an experimental sip. Seemingly satisfied, he continues, “It is, after all, just another day.”

“Just another day,” Kaveh echoes. “Just another day, but of course one where you will actually try during the game for the first time, right?”

“We’ll see,” says Al-Haitham simply, turning away.

Kaveh chases after him. “The Nightingales are closest to us in ranking,” he says quickly, watching as Al-Haitham swivels back around, raising an eyebrow at his face. Kaveh frowns at the sudden attention. “You won’t even have to put a lot of effort into it, really. And I seriously think the rest of the team can do it given how much we’ve been practicing this season. I think we really have a good shot, Al-Haitham.”

“You said us,” says Al-Haitham. He tilts his head a little. Kaveh’s brows furrow. “Instead of the Snails.”

“Oh,” says Kaveh, then, “Is that seriously the only thing you took from all of that?”

“Winning the game is not only up to me,” says Al-Haitham. “Tighnari’s our captain. Perhaps you should take your pep talk to him.”

This makes Kaveh roll his eyes. “Oh, don’t worry. I will.”

“It’s settled then,” Al-Haitham nods. He holds up his coffee in a silent toast. This time, when he moves to leave, Kaveh doesn’t bother stopping him.

When he glides onto the ice later for warm ups, the entire arena erupts in cheer.

Kaveh blinks as he looks up at the stands. It’s a completely full house, Snails fans packing close together in every row of the arena. It’s the sort of welcome Kaveh never got even as a Firefly. He’s frozen completely when he feels a clap on his shoulder.

“They seem pretty happy to see you,” Tighnari grins. “Kaveh, do you ever think about how in most universes you would always have been a Snail? Maybe then our ranking wouldn’t have been so terrible from the get go. So, it’s all your fault, really.”

“Wow,” says Kaveh. “Seriously?”

Tighnari claps him again. “Well, off we go then!”

“Does Nahida know what a terrible captain you are?”

“We can revisit that conversation after we win this game.”

“Right, because of course us winning would be thanks to you.”

“You’ve got it,” Tighnari nods, and then he skates away before Kaveh can make any sort of retort. 

Cyno comes up next to him next. “I baked a cake yesterday.”

Kaveh starts in surprise, then turns to look down at him. “What?”

“It was to prepare to ice the competition,” says Cyno. He sniffs. “Get it? I combined icing in hockey with icing in baking.”

Kaveh blinks slowly. “Okay. Um.”

“It’s funny,” says Cyno, and then he also skates away before Kaveh can think about responding. Is this a bad omen? Kaveh supposes he can only wait to find out.

Next is Al-Haitham, because of course it is.

“No,” says Kaveh immediately.

Al-Haitham says anyway, “Do you still think that first practice was more important than the first game?”

“Fuck you, Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh, shoving him away. Al-Haitham glides back easily, his skates carrying him a few feet out before Kaveh rolls his eyes and scoffs. “And yes, for the record, I do think the first practice was more important. It set the entire mood for my place on the team!”

“You would have made your place regardless,” says Al-Haitham, and then he, like everyone else, skates away before Kaveh can say anything more.

And just like that, the game begins.

They get ahead in the first period, and it’s so exhilarating Kaveh feels as if he is physically carrying the wild cheers from everyone in the stands. 

The Nightingales’ offense has always been superb, but their defense is where they have obvious cracks—Kaveh blunders by with relative ease and shoots puck after puck toward the goal net and maneuvers himself expertly to be exactly in line with Tighnari and Dehya. Their partnership is, really, flawless. They all knew it during practice and they know it even more right now as they cut across the ice and weave themselves between the opposition. It’s the kind of harmony Kaveh never had with the Fireflies. He didn’t even know he was missing it until now.

The first period ends at 2-1 for the Snails. Kaveh shoots both of the scoring goals. Tighnari launches at him and rams their helmets together, grinning wildly.

“Amazing!” he screams over the cheering fans. “Incredible! Awesome! Spectacular!”

“Wow,” says Dehya, taking off her helmet, loosening her hair tie and running a hand through her wild brown hair. “You’ve officially turned our cap into a thesaurus, Kaveh. Congratulations.”

“Astonishing,” Tighnari breathes, eyes wide.

Kaveh knocks his shoulder with his fist. “It’s only the end of the first.”

Tighnari shoots him a bewildered look. “Kaveh, have you seen our stats? Two goals in first period? Archons above, we might actually have a shot at the playoffs this year.”

“Aaaand there he goes off to wonder land,” Dehya rolls her eyes. “Not that I wouldn’t want to make playoffs,” she adds quickly, turning to look directly at Kaveh. “I would very much like to make playoffs. Keep it up, Kaveh. Woo hoo.”

“Thanks,” Kaveh deadpans.

Al-Haitham goes back in before Kaveh does, regarding him with a long look before stepping onto the ice. Kaveh returns it, and like that, the two of them stare at each other over the hustle of the rest of the team, and it feels like an eternity before Al-Haitham is finally gone. He didn’t bother to talk to him during the intermission, so Kaveh didn’t bother either. Al-Haitham must know that Kaveh hasn’t been impressed enough by his game yet to comment. Clearly they are both fine with it for now.

In the second, Kaveh watches from behind the plexiglass as Candace weaves through Nilou and Al-Haitham and lands another point for the Snails. It is so exhilarating that Tighnari jumps out of his seat next to Kaveh and almost falls flat on his face. “Archons fucking above!” he curses, leaning sideways, punching Kaveh repeatedly in his ribs. “Kaveh, are you fucking seeing this! She used your move! The one you taught her at practice last week! Nahida! Nahida, I’m telling you, I swear to everything I can possibly swear to…”

Kaveh grins as he tunes him out, because Candace did, indeed, use his move. She throws him a thumbs up and Kaveh mirrors the gesture as Dehya rushes into her and knocks their helmets wildly together. He chances a glance toward the Nightingales’ defense: Xilonen is looking at the Snails’ team huddle with a vaguely impressed smirk, and Citlali’s hands are balled into fists, a frown etched over her mouth.

They probably thought it would be an easy win, just as it always is. They probably thought Kaveh’s singular addition wouldn’t add up to much when it came down to an actual game. Kaveh’s teeth grind together in rampant excitement. He feels crazier than he’s ever felt right now.

In the third, Tighnari turns to him and claps his shoulder. “Okay. We’re up again. Let’s win this fucking game, Kaveh.”

Al-Haitham also comes back in. He skates to stand briefly next to Kaveh. “We’re about to win because of you. I hope you’re ready.”

Kaveh glances up at the screens displaying the current score: 3-1, in the Snails’ favor.

He swallows. “Anything can happen. We haven’t won yet.”

He watches as Al-Haitham’s eyes sweep over their team: Nilou shaking her legs out in the corner, Tighnari and Cyno talking animatedly by the goal crease, Dehya waving excitedly up at the stands.

“We have,” Al-Haitham says after a moment, then he skates away so Kaveh can do the face off.

Mualani—the Nightingales’ center—skates out to stand opposite to him. She smiles, a little out of breath.

“Kaveh,” she says, sliding her stick out in front of her. “Wow. This is surreal, isn’t it? You guys are really good, by the way. Wow. I never thought I’d say that about your team. Sorry, I don’t know why I said that.” She shakes her head. “You guys are really good! Seriously. I think Citlali is about to explode.”

“Haha,” says Kaveh, and then, “Is she okay?”

Mualani waves a hand as they get into place. “Oh, yeah. She’s fine.”

Then the puck drops. And Kaveh wins the face off.

He flies across the ice with grim determination, fingers tightly coiled around the stick. In his periphery, he can see Tighnari and Dehya moving in line with him. Dehya is quickly covered by Xilonen and Chasca, Kaveh notes as he sidesteps past Citlali and launches off his right foot to gain speed over her, but Tighnari is, for the most part, open.

He grimaces, looking back over his shoulder for just a moment to make sure Citlali sees him change direction. As she chases him, Nilou appears in front of her, blocking her way so Kaveh can circle the attacking zone and stray nearer and nearer to Dehya.

Now the Nightingales are beginning to cluster around Dehya, while Chasca is making a valiant attempt to steal the puck, jutting her stick past Kaveh’s skates and curving messily in front of him on the ice. Kaveh evades her with relative ease, then twists lightning fast, slamming the puck across the ice so it ricochets off the board.

The arena seemingly freezes, and Kaveh watches, his heart racing, as the puck bounces off at an angle that completely misses Dehya, whizzing past the rest of the players, and landing cleanly in Tighnari’s stick on the other side.

It takes all of two seconds for Tighnari to send the puck flying toward the goal. It slips past the crease and lands cleanly against the net.

Immediately, everyone erupts into screams.

“What the hell?!” someone on the Nightingales is yelling at the top of their lungs as Tighnari, Dehya, and Nilou crowd him at once, cheering, holding his arms up as his hockey stick clatters down onto the ice.

The buzzer blares to signal the end of Kaveh’s first official game as a Sumeru Snail, and it shouldn’t be this surreal. He’s won countless games before. He has three Stanley Cups to his name, and he’s not even twenty five. But for some reason victory has never tasted quite this sweet, and it’s almost a silent relief: knowing his trade was not, in fact, the end of the world. That returning to his home town could be something good and not a bitter feeling in his mouth.

Later, after the team has exhausted their voices from screaming cheers and promising to go to Lambad’s after they’ve finished getting ready, Kaveh checks his phone to find litters of congratulations from his former teammates, the few non-hockey friends he had in Fontaine, and his mother. Congratulations, Kaveh. You were incredible! We were watching on the big screen at home! she sent about fifteen minutes ago, accompanied by a slightly blurry picture of Faranak and Henri’s giant flatscreen, Kaveh’s grinning face on full display over the final score.

“I told you,” comes another voice, and Kaveh glances up to find Al-Haitham staring at him, leaning over the thin line of his cubby, raising an eyebrow.

Kaveh’s voice is dry as he replies, “You know everything, don’t you?”

“At least you know,” says Al-Haitham before gliding past him. “Hurry up. Tighnari is going to personally drag you by the hair if you keep him away from his victory drinks even a second longer.”

Kaveh rolls his eyes and pockets his phone. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Let’s go then, shall we?”

“Let’s,” Al-Haitham deadpans, but Kaveh glances sidelong at him briefly as they rush to catch up with the others: there, nestled in the corner of Al-Haitham’s mouth, is the briefest, tiniest of smiles.

❆

fatal trouble @itsgettingblurry
guys genuinely what the fuck did i just watch
93 likes, 24 retweets

REPLIES:

hua cheng 4th death @taizi
Replying to @itsgettingblurry
No because my jaw is actually dropped right now. Someone needs to call me an ambulance
2 likes

heermonizing @stillmonster
UM SO THE SUMERU SNAILS JUST WON THEIR FIRST GAME OF THE SEASON? IS ANYONE ELSE SEEING THIS?
492 likes, 83 retweets, 12 replies

catalina @alvarez
I am about to say a sentence I literally never thought I would say in my life: THANK YOU FURINA DE FONTAINE!
4.7k likes, 107 retweets, 14 replies

Ritwik @dallastar
Kaveh’s fake at the end was actually cinema
985 likes, 214 retweets, 17 replies

wriothesley thighs @flameflies
i can’t believe kaveh has me booking flight tickets to sumeru just so i can watch him play irl again bruh
1.4k likes, 521 retweets, 73 replies

REPLIES:

navia 1 chance @neuvipucks
Replying to @flameflies
As a fellow Fontanian… we really did not know what we had until we lost it 😭💔
148 likes

𓆑

Their next game is away from home, their first with Kaveh on the team. They’d made the flight from Sumeru to Liyue to face the Leopards soon, and though it wasn’t the longest commute, traveling with the entire team can be a hassle. By the time they make it to Wangshu Inn, nobody is in the best of spirits.

“Make sure to sleep early tonight for morning practice tomorrow,” Nahida announces to the group gathered in the lobby, all of them clutching their suitcase handles and waiting for her to finish passing out their key cards. “No going out for any of you.”

“We’re a little far from the city to be doing that,” Tighnari says, and Nahida flips his card to him with unnecessary force, leaving him scrambling to catch it. “I mean, yes, coach.”

Nahida is down to the last two key cards by the time Al-Haitham realizes that only he and Kaveh haven’t received theirs yet, and she passes them the cards with a kind of grim amusement. “And you two will be together, since you’re already roommates. Okay, goodnight everyone! Get your rest so we can keep up our winning streak!”

“One does not a winning streak make,” Tighnari says, walking swiftly toward the elevators before Nahida can throw something at him.

Kaveh stares at his key card across from Al-Haitham. “I have feelings about this,” he announces, looking up and frowning. He wags the card at Al-Haitham. “You? Seriously?”

“You have feelings about everything,” Al-Haitham says, and thinking it to be a situation neither of them can do anything about, heads for the elevators as well, determined to get a good night’s sleep.

Kaveh follows him. Of course he does—no matter how much he seems to despise it, there’s nothing he can do about the room assignments now that they’ve been doled out, and unless he wants to make a bed out of the lobby couches, he’ll have to make do with Al-Haitham. Even Al-Haitham can admit that it’s a bit of a large leap from housemates to roommates, but he’s not going to complain.

They all bundle into the same elevator. “This is nice team bonding,” Tighnari says speculatively as they lift up a few floors. “Imagine we only have one bed per room.”

“If there’s only one bed, I’m going to do something drastic,” Kaveh says, sounding completely serious about it.

“It’ll be cozy,” Tighnari says, and then the doors open, the button on the door going dim. He cranes his neck around to look at it. “Is the whole team booked on the same floor? We can have a big sleepover.”

“Please count me out,” Dehya says, muscling her way through the crowd and dangling her room key off one finger at them in farewell as she walks away. “Nilou and I are going to have a peaceful, relaxing girl’s night, which means that none of you are welcome.”

“May I see the hoc-key card?” Cyno asks, emphasizing the second half of hockey. He waits a second before adding, “Get it? Because it has the word key in it?”

Tighnari tosses the key card at him without even looking, stepping to the right down the hallway. “Eugh. Kaveh, maybe we can trade roommates after all.”

“One would think to ask me first,” Al-Haitham says. He sets off to the left where their room is, giving a pointed look to Kaveh. Thankfully and begrudgingly, the other follows, though Al-Haitham doesn’t miss the somewhat longing look that he gives to Tighnari.

The room has more than one bed, as stupidly hilarious as that would be, and is big enough that they could ignore each other’s existence for a decent amount of time. Kaveh doesn’t immediately put on his headphones and drown out Al-Haitham as he half-expected, instead flopping backwards onto the bed with a groan and turning his face toward him.

“Playing against Liyue,” Kaveh muses. “We saw them a lot when I was still playing for Fontaine. You know, since they were so close. Some of my teammates were friends. We’d go to bars.”

“Well, that’s in the past,” Al-Haitham says, earning him a dirty look. “What?”

“It’s not so easy to just erase my history,” Kaveh says pointedly. There’s a shifting sound of him fumbling with the sheets, turning on his side. “Not everyone has that strange, unfeeling approach you seem to have for hockey. I don’t know. It just feels kind of weird to go up against these people that I know but in a totally different context. No one really knows why I was traded anyway.”

“So you’re worried about what they’ll think.”

“Not… exactly.”

Al-Haitham sits on the edge of his bed, looking over at Kaveh. “I think you are,” he says simply.

Kaveh grumbles something unintelligible, swiping one hand over his face. “Maybe,” he says from beneath that hand, the word slightly muffled. “They won’t say anything bad, they’re not like that. Probably the thought won’t even cross anybody’s mind. I’m just being… I don’t even know why I’m telling you, to be frank.”

“I don’t know either.”

“Okay, fuck you.”

“But I suppose somebody has to listen. Not many people on our team are particularly skilled at that.”

Kaveh appears to think about it. “Nilou, maybe.”

Al-Haitham tilts his head to the side in concession. “Nilou would be very good at it. She’d probably say something like, ‘There’s no use projecting those thoughts into the future when your mind should only be on hockey. Besides, it’s unfair to make assumptions about people you consider friends, and if you’re the only one thinking it, then an unsubstantiated thought shouldn’t be entertained in the first place.’”

“Yeah, she’d probably say something like that,” Kaveh says, his voice a little lighter. “Though it really just sounds like you’re the one saying it.”

“Maybe.”

Kaveh is silent for a moment longer, before taking one of the pillows and dragging it over his face so that Al-Haitham can’t look at him anymore. “We should probably sleep. Nahida told us to turn in early.”

Al-Haitham doesn’t respond, merely getting up to go through his bag so he can get ready to sleep. He’s busy unzipping one of the main compartments, the sound ripping through the silent room, when Kaveh’s voice stops him.

“Thanks,” Kaveh says, a little quiet.

“Of course, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says, before returning to his task. And neither of them say anything more.

The morning comes quickly with both of them actually honoring Nahida’s request for an early night, and the alarm that Al-Haitham set goes off much sooner than either of them would like. They’re quiet as they get ready, taking turns in the cramped hotel bathroom, silently throwing each other’s stuff at each other as they pack their bags. It’s a clean operation, and as Al-Haitham quietly observes Kaveh’s serious expression in the elevator down, he realizes that Kaveh’s game face doesn’t start when the buzzer goes off, but before even their morning practice.

Al-Haitham doesn’t think that he has ever once taken hockey so seriously. Maybe when he was little, but he quickly learned that he didn’t have to put in half the effort the other kids did to achieve twice the results, and so he gave up. It’s unexpectedly different in a way that makes him pause and compare their separate routines.

Practice is clean and efficient. For once, Al-Haitham finds himself paying closer attention than he normally affords to the sport—at this point, after playing for so many years, a lot of it becomes muscle memory, the way he can see a puck coming from the corner of his eye and instinctively dive for it. It allowed him to spare his mental energy for other things. But seeing Kaveh’s grit makes him pause.

Kaveh doesn’t mention the conversation they’d had the night prior even if the thoughts must be running through his head at double time now that they’re lining up to step onto the ice, but Al-Haitham does see him scan the crowd more than a few times, looking to see the team on the other side of the rink.

“Staring at them for ten minutes isn’t going to make them play any worse,” Al-Haitham says offhandedly to Kaveh, who scowls at him.

“Asshole,” Kaveh says, but quietly, since the cameras are roving over their faces, looking to pick up on their conversation and film their faces. “I’m focusing.”

“So am I,” Al-Haitham says, earning him a dubious look. “They’re probably over there doing the same thing knowing that they have to play against you and not just the Snails this time around.”

Kaveh blinks at him, surprise dawning on his face a belated second later. “That sounded like a compliment. What about you? Are you going to bring last game’s win to the table today? Do the Leopards have to hype themselves up to face you?”

“Like I said, you’ll find out,” says Al-Haitham, and then they get the signal to move out.

During a typical game, Al-Haitham doesn’t find himself thinking much about the sport itself. There have been a few times when video clips of him standing listlessly to the side of the rink have gained a bit of traction on social media when he simply didn’t feel like moving. Because their PR manager really didn’t like that, he’s been more diligent about appearing to be more engaged in the game.

This game, Al-Haitham isn’t thinking much about the puck, which would make Kaveh livid if he knew, but it’s actually his fault—he can’t stop turning over Kaveh’s words in his head. To know that Kaveh regards the other players so highly when he goes against them, and that maybe he applies that same regard to Al-Haitham. Al-Haitham wonders if Kaveh ever thinks about that hockey camp where they first met. He wonders if Kaveh ever worried what Al-Haitham would think of him whenever they faced each other on the ice.

Or maybe Kaveh didn’t think anything about it at all. Like he’d said to him, he works hard to make his statistics memorable even while playing for a forgettable team, and given Al-Haitham’s general lack of drive, he wouldn’t be surprised if anybody in the hockey world gave him much thought. He’s a good player, yes, but at the end of the day, he’s only as good as the effort he puts into the sport.

Which, historically, is not much.

Midway through the game, while they’re one point behind Fontaine but have fought valiantly all the way until then to not let the gap get any wider, Al-Haitham has a startling and uncomfortable thought: what if down the line, ten years later, Kaveh remembers Al-Haitham only as the guy on his team that he once shared a house with and nothing else? What if Kaveh, so caught up in hockey as he is, realizes that there is nothing in Al-Haitham to care about other than his general irritating nature?

Oh no. That would be… unfavorable. It is, decidedly, not a good realization to come to. In fact, it is so undesirable that Al-Haitham thinks that maybe he should change something.

If you asked Al-Haitham to explain what happened after the game, he would simply shrug and wave the matter aside. If Kaveh was the one asking, he wouldn’t be able to get a straight answer either.

In truth, it doesn’t matter how it occurs, but simply that it does—somehow, in some way, Al-Haitham pulls off a hat trick. The puck slams into the net, the opposing goalie struggling and failing to reach it in time, and the rink erupts into a roar as the points change. One more for the Snails.

“Huh,” Al-Haitham says aloud as a few hats rain down onto the rink, inspecting his stick as if surprised it could pull off such a performance.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Kaveh yells, sailing in from several meters away. His shout is the only warning Al-Haitham gets before Kaveh slams into him on the ice, sending them sliding before Al-Haitham plants his skates into the ground. “A fucking hat trick, Al-Haitham? You’re telling me you had this inside of you this entire time and you just decided to pull it out?”

“I don’t have to do it again if you’re going to react like this,” Al-Haitham says, the words slightly muffled between the helmet and Kaveh practically smothering him. It occurs to him that Kaveh’s arms are wrapped around his middle in a bear hug, and he’s practically shaking him from side to side. His heart rate quickens, barely detectable underneath his jersey.

“You better put in everything you’re willing to give,” Kaveh says fiercely, right in his ear. He still hasn’t let him go—distantly, he can hear the crowd roaring. For a moment, it almost sounded as though Kaveh were saying, everything you’re willing to give me.

Kaveh lets Al-Haitham go, still grinning broadly, and Al-Haitham feels slow, unable to move. He lurches forward a little. It’s at times like these that his natural nonchalance pays off—if anything, it looks as though he’s not giving any thought to it at all, rather than nearly being stunned straight.

“Do we have a deal?” Kaveh says. He extends his hand across the ice, the angle of his faith cutting straight through the cold.

Slowly, and with unintended ceremony, Al-Haitham takes his hand.

“People don’t always say that I’m a man of my word,” Al-Haitham warns him, even as they shake hands.

Kaveh grins sharply, almost wolfish in his hunger. “I’ll take what I can get.”

❆

sumerusnails ✓ on Instagram

[a picture of Kaveh and Al-Haitham embracing on the ice]

Friendship is magic ✨

15.7k likes, 859 comments

COMMENTS:

kaveh_hockey_official ✓
heartwarming on the ice
4,294 likes

niloufar ✓
Fav besties (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)
2,412 likes

al_haitham ✓
Who are they?
5,193 likes

kaveh_hockey_official ✓
@al_haitham 🙄
1,231 likes

eepysleepies
me and my two friends who are invested in the kaveh x alhaitham crossover are SEATED
592 likes

chrollover
we sure they weren’t just tussling in this photo?
959 likes

hudson williams’ legal representative @alhamburger
as a long term al-haitham fan, i cannot put into words how happy i am to see kaveh bringing him to his full potential
193 likes, 3 retweets, 8 replies

REPLIES:

chuuyaoi @dzailuvr
Replying to @alhamburger
bruh no way you’re attributing this to just kaveh as if it’s not al-haitham who’s the one putting it on the ice
49 likes, 2 replies

hudson williams’ legal representative @alhamburger
Replying to @alhamburger and @dzailuvr
i mean… if al-haitham hasn’t been performing like this until kaveh was traded to the snails and he’s a well known hockey legend, isn’t that a pretty easy conclusion to draw?
36 likes, 1 reply

chuuyaoi @dzailuvr
Replying to @alhamburger and @dzailuvr
is kaveh the magic hockey fairy all of a sudden
23 likes, 1 reply

Kat @landleopard.43
Replying to @alhamburger and @dzailuvr
Let’s all be friends and hold hockey sticks in celebration of our boys instead of arguing ♥️
42 likes

sheila @luguangz
I know it’s only been two good games but maybe supporting the Snails is no longer an act of masochism
1.4k likes, 42 retweets, 4 replies

jean moreau 29 @peachflower
[picture of Kaveh and Al-Haitham hugging on the ice]
i’m going to start a rumor
2.3k likes, 139 retweets, 5 replies

REPLIES:

fan changyu wife @butchergirl
Replying to @peachflower
rivals to lovers……….
513 likes, 3 retweets, 1 reply

heli sooha otp4ever @drunkdazed
Replying to @peachflower and @butchergirl
i like how you think.
31 likes

ming xiong @beefleafs
Replying to @peachflower
BEST TRADE EVERRRRR
130 likes, 2 replies

lina from liyue @morathecat
sports yaoi 😭 is so 😭 peak 😭
2.1k likes, 45 retweets, 13 replies

REPLIES:

bunny @seo.yeon.oh
Replying to @morathecat
which sport are we talking about there’s a lot of possibilities here
429 likes, 8 retweets, 4 replies

gorge @grussellsprouts
Replying to @morathecat
Brocedes????
558 likes, 3 replies

will @will_kempen
Replying to @morathecat
snails and fireflies my favorite bugs 🐛
1.2k likes, 4 retweets

woober @ikkerun
Replying to @morathecat
is this about the latest windtrace event
103 likes

🐶 @shanesnoopy
Replying to @morathecat
Hollanov????
732 likes, 1 reply

kt9 @lilkagz
Replying to @morathecat
Haikyuu????
848 likes, 3 retweets

good soup @ramyeonz
[gif of Cynthia Erivo tapping her fingers on her head]
the concept of the snails making it to playoffs…
95 likes, 4 retweets, 3 replies

REPLIES:

jungdeundan 🍊 @dianxia
Replying to @ramyeonz
your team dreams of the stanley cup. my team can’t even make it to qualifying. my piece of shit team i love so much
55 likes

al-haitham’s pr agent @alhamster
ALHAITHAM AND THAT HAT TRICK! ALHATRICK! MVP! THE PLAYER TO WATCH OUT FOR THIS YEAR!
1.2k likes, 34 retweets, 4 replies

REPLIES:

scara @scaramoomoo
Replying to @alhamster
he’s not all that
3 likes

e! @riverkois
like you think you’re normal about some grown man you’ve never met and then he punts a flattened ball into a net and suddenly your day is made and the sun is shining
3.5k likes, 294 retweets, 4 replies

sumerusnails ✓ on Instagram

[Transcript from a reel featuring highlights of when Kaveh was mic’d up during a home game against the Mondstadt Magpies.]

In the tunnel before the game:

Kaveh: Wow, you really didn’t even try with that motivation speech just now.
Tighnari: I think I tried brilliantly, actually, and I also think that you are just a big hater. Hey, Cyno! Is that a new stick?
Cyno: Yes. I should have let you tape it. I don’t think I did it right.
Al-Haitham: How long have you been playing in the league again?
Kaveh: Leave him alone, Al-Haitham.
Tighnari: No, I think that’s a perfectly valid question to ask, actually.

Before the face off:

Kaveh: How are the kids?
Ref: Good, good! Emi just turned five, so to her she’s basically an adult now.
Kaveh: Five! What a big girl. I remember when she came to that game in my rookie year. She was so small in your wife’s arms. And your older one?
Ref: I believe he is going through some sort of teenage rebellion phase.
Kaveh: Oof.
Ref: Haha, yeah.
Scaramouche from the Mondstadt Magpies: Your teammate seems to always be going through a teenage rebellion phase.
Kaveh: Hello, Scaramouche. Are you talking about Al-Haitham?
Scaramouche: Who else?
Kaveh: Hmm.
Ref: Are you two going to line up for the face off?

During the game:

Kaveh, getting checked against the boards: Ouch!
Kaveh: Al-Haitham, get the *bleep*—freak over here!
Albedo from the Mondstadt Magpies: Did you just censor yourself?
Kaveh: I’m mic’d up!
Kaeya from the Mondstadt Magpies: You do know they bleep those out, right?
Al-Haitham, skating over: What do you want?
Kaveh: Why the *bleep* didn’t you pass to me there? I was wide open!
Al-Haitham: I wanted to annoy you, obviously.
Kaveh: I know for a fact you did not just say that. Tell me right now that you’re not being serious.
Scaramouche: Pathetic.
Al-Haitham: What was that, Scaramouche? Did you forget about last week when the Sables shut you out? Remind me of the final score again? Three…zero?
Scaramouche: (string of bleeped out curses)

On the bench during the game:

Kaveh, after a breakaway: GOOOO! GO! *bleep* That was so *bleep* close.
Kaveh, after a save: YEAH CYNO! Oh my god, he’s going to have to redo that horrid tape job every game now.
Kaveh: AL-HAITHAM, WHAT THE *bleep* WAS THAT?
Dehya: I thought you were trying to censor yourself.
Kaveh: Tell Al-Haitham to stop being so *bleep* annoying then.
Dehya: Sounds pretty impossible.
Kaveh: Archons, exactly.

[End of reel.]

99k likes, 1.3k comments

𓆦

Kaveh, for the first time in a very long time, is on cloud fucking nine. Al-Haitham, a fucking defenseman, scored a hat trick against the Liyue Leopards. It very well might be the highlight of his entire year. Even the Snails making the playoffs wouldn’t even scratch the surface. He wants it to happen again. He wants it to happen on home ice. He wants Sumeru to rain them down with hundreds and hundreds of hats.

And it doesn’t stop there.

They play against the Inazuma Ibises a week later, and Al-Haitham makes a fabulous assist that has the Inazuman goaltender panicking and exiting the crease, only for Kaveh to swoop in, steal the puck, and score the point with ease. 

Against the Mondstadt Magpies, Al-Haitham skates so fast he ends up in front of Kaeya, which comes completely out of nowhere and throws off the Magpies’ game for the rest of the period. Al-Haitham then passes the puck to Nilou, who practically twirls on the ice like a figure skater to pass to Kaveh, who thunders past the Magpie defense to pass to Layla, who takes the shot in the final minutes of the game and scores the winning point.

Their statistics are skyrocketing with every game they play, and although Kaveh tries to stay away from social media as much as he can, the comments about the Snails’ sudden rise don’t evade his timeline.

The fans are thrilled. The THL is in commotion. The Snails used to be spectacular, but they haven’t won a Cup in almost twenty years. They haven’t even been close, haven’t had a chance at playoffs, in the past five. Nahida finds Kaveh and Tighnari after every game and makes them bend down to her level, patting their heads with a wide grin on her face, a good job, a keep up the good work, a I’m so proud of you and our team. 

She beckons Al-Haitham over once as well, and Kaveh watches with a dropped jaw as Al-Haitham dutifully lowers himself so that Nahida can tap him twice on the cheek.

After she’s skipped happily away, Al-Haitham straightens back to standing and raises an eyebrow at Kaveh. “Yes?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Kaveh says, but he’s grinning, and Al-Haitham rolls his eyes.

It isn’t until a good way into the season that Kaveh’s cloud nine comes down to a healthy cloud six. Perhaps even cloud five. Cloud four, if he’s really being generous. 

The first game against Fontaine, of course, happens to be an away game. This is not surprising news to Kaveh—it is just his luck that the first time he has to go against his former team, he doesn’t even get the privilege of dealing with it on home ice. No, instead he gets handed a key card in the hotel lobby that once again matches the one currently in Al-Haitham’s hand.

“Are we poor?” Kaveh demands, looking up and glaring at Tighnari. “Can we not afford a room for everyone individually? Is that what this is? Are you hoarding all of our money, Tighnari? Some captain you are.”

“It’s funnier this way,” comes Tighnari’s breezy response, which not only does not answer Kaveh’s question but also is a whole lot of bullshit that pisses him off so deeply he’s muttering under his breath all the way up the elevator and down the hall of the seventh floor.

Honestly, he doesn’t really mind sharing a room with Al-Haitham at this point, but that’s mostly because Al-Haitham has been very cooperative on the ice the past couple of weeks. Perhaps if the hotel were slated on top of a rink, Kaveh would be much more amenable to being roommates again. At least then he could pray that the hockey gods or whatever would somehow keep Al-Haitham’s good sportsmanship going in their shared living space.

Alas.

“Wow,” says Al-Haitham when the two of them enter their room. “Maybe we really are poor.”

Clearly, it isn’t their most extravagant hotel reservation. The two lone beds sit pathetically in the middle of the small space. Kaveh sighs. He rubs his forehead between his index finger and thumb.

“Fontaine is expensive as shit,” he mutters, then shuffles over to plop his suitcase down onto the floor and rummage through it for a clean shirt. “I’ve never understood the city’s rampant love for aquabuses. They’re too slow and too high up and too much of a safety hazard. They would be a tourist trap in any other city, but everyone here’s too obsessed with leaving their homes an hour earlier just so they can wait in the ridiculous lines to ride on one into the Court.”

“And how often did you use them when you lived here?”

“Every freaking day,” Kaveh grumbles, and when Al-Haitham gives him a look, he childishly sticks his tongue out. “It’s not my fault all the other forms of transportation around here are even worse! And it’s not my fault that the Fireflies’ rink is dab smack in the middle of the Court. Maybe people should stop being so obsessed with hockey, is what I’ve always said.”

“Of course,” Al-Haitham nods, moving to set his own suitcase down parallel to Kaveh’s. “Maybe you should stop being so obsessed with your salary too, is what you’re saying.”

Kaveh huffs. “I want you to know, Al-Haitham, that even if I was in mountains and mountains of debt, I would still find a way to live my life. I’d just also rack up a much more hefty tab at Lambad’s, probably. Which I guess would inevitably add to my mountains of debt.” He pauses, frowns, then shakes his head. “Stop distracting me. I need to change out of my flight-slash-aquabus clothes and nap for at least fifty hours to stop myself from thinking about tonight’s game.”

“I believe the game will be over by then.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to play on without me.”

Kaveh grabs a random shirt and moves to stand, quickly shedding his sweaty one. It peels away from his skin with a sigh, and he fiddles with the new one in his hands.

He glances across the room for a split second and finds Al-Haitham staring resolutely at the ceiling.

Something tugs in Kaveh’s gut, stopping him from putting on the shirt. It hangs limply from his wrist as he says, “Seriously? We literally shower together at practice, Al-Haitham. We live together, matter of fact. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

Al-Haitham mumbles something inaudible under his breath, and Kaveh strains to hear him.

“What was that?” he asks, head tilting, his body—still shirtless—leaning forward like a magnet.

More mumbling.

“You’re going to have to speak up.”

Al-Haitham’s shoulders drop. He twists around at once and stares directly at Kaveh as he says, “You’ve never changed in front of me when we’re alone.”

It brings Kaveh to a pause. It’s…well, true. There are always a handful of teammates with them in the team shower, and Kaveh mostly sticks to his own room when they’re at home. The last time they shared a room together at an away game, he did all of his getting ready in the bathroom. Honestly, he doesn’t even know what came over him just now, undressing so casually like this right where he knows Al-Haitham can see him.

But Al-Haitham is looking away again now, this time his eyes fully focused on the wall next to Kaveh’s head. And it may just be a nasty trick of the light, but the tips of Al-Haitham’s ears look like they’re smudged with red, ever so slightly.

Kaveh blinks. Then his hands move on autopilot. He quickly tugs the shirt on over his head and smooths the fabric down over his stomach.

He turns away. “You can look now,” he mutters, then makes a beeline for the bathroom.

Once he’s safely inside, he releases a breath and buries his face into his hands. How deeply fucking embarrasing. He doesn’t even know what he’s embarrassed about right now—just that he thinks he’s never done something like that before. He’s never put such little thought into an interaction with Al-Haitham ever in his life. And what the fuck was that? They’re teammates. They have been undressed around each other before. It happens all the goddamn time. 

There’s no reason for Al-Haitham to act so weird about it just because this time they’re completely alone. Honestly, it’s all Al-Haitham’s fault their normal mood was totally killed just now.

At the very least this is a distraction from Fontaine. From the very real game they have to play tonight. From the invitation currently sitting in Kaveh’s text messages from Lyney, telling him that if he doesn’t show up at drinks after the game, regardless of who wins or loses, then Kaveh will personally be picking up their entire tab at their next game against each other.

His mother is going to be there tonight too. She’s been following the season diligently on her television at home, but as soon as Kaveh got the date the Snails would be playing in Fontaine, he sent her her two free tickets immediately.

She had sent back a row of smiley faces, and Kaveh knows that she’ll be waiting for him after they’re finished tonight.

After he gets his shit together and goes back out into the room, he finds Al-Haitham sitting primly upright on his bed, his nose buried inside whatever paperback he brought with him on the flight. This is not surprising in the slightest, but the sight of him makes Kaveh start a little. Which is stupid. There’s nothing to be jumping over. It’s Al-Haitham, just like always.

“You know,” Kaveh begins conversationally. “You talk a lot of shit about my pre-game rituals when you basically do the same thing.”

With this, Al-Haitham puts his book down. “This should be good,” he says, and Kaveh scowls at him.

“Whatever,” he says. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Fifty hour nap, remember?”

“I remember,” Al-Haitham nods. “And when you wake up, everyone will be back in Sumeru. Good night, Kaveh.”

Well, at the very least, Al-Haitham seems to have gone back to normal now. 

“Good night, Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh with a huff, plopping himself down onto his own mattress. The two beds in this hotel room are closer than all of the ones they’ve shared previously—if Kaveh reaches out with his arm, his fingers will graze the edge of Al-Haitham’s sheets. “Just to be sure, you will wake me up before the game if I do end up attempting to fall asleep for fifty hours?”

“I suppose you’ll just have to find out,” says Al-Haitham, clearly deciding to go back to his book.

That’s good enough for Kaveh. He closes his eyes and falls asleep within seconds.

𓆑

While it’s not entirely true that the wins that the Snails have managed are attributed mainly to luck, it is fortune that lands them such a productive season so far, and it is fortune that, unfortunately, has its limits.

The fact of the matter is that the Fontaine Fireflies are a good fucking team. It’s no wonder that Kaveh reached such heights and was able to develop his potential under Nahida’s teaching while he was playing for them because when Al-Haitham’s team go up against them, the game is reminiscent of their past seasons. As in, from Fontaine’s very first goal, it becomes abundantly clear who the win will go to.

There’s no point in beating a boulder and hoping it’ll turn into a statue. Al-Haitham, per his calculus of effort weighed against eventual outcome, gives a halfhearted try, pushing around the ice lamely. He almost doesn’t want to look at Kaveh, knowing the kind of glare he would receive in return for his lack of exertion. But when he does catch his eye in passing, he seems too focused on his own performance, likely unable to escape the memories associated with his former team, to track many of Al-Haitham’s movements at all.

Kaveh, Al-Haitham can tell, gives the game his all because he is good and earnest and delusional in the way that athletes depend upon to get them past the finish line. And Kaveh, despite his good and honest effort, cannot singlehandedly defeat his old team. And so they lose.

When the timer loses its last second and the crowd rises into a roar, the first thing that Al-Haitham looks to is Kaveh, a habit he’s somehow developed over the past couple of games. Instead of the disappointment that some may expect from him, Kaveh instead looks at peace, a small, not overly joyous but yet not forced smile sitting on his lips. He’s looking at his team embracing on the ice with what Al-Haitham selfishly hopes is not wistfulness.

“That bar downtown is calling our name,” Tighnari says contemplatively, skating up to him and placing an elbow on Al-Haitham’s shoulder that is promptly shrugged off. “The good thing about the bottle is that it doesn’t care whether you’re a winner or a loser. And you can’t shrug out of this one, Al-Haitham, because it’s not all tears and vodka. Nahida thinks we’re going to make playoffs.”

“We’ll see,” Al-Haitham says, which is generous coming from him.

“I’d come, but I think I have an appointment with the enemy,” Kaveh says apologetically, pointing to the Fireflies on the other side of the rink who are starting to form a group once again. “You know, when in Fontaine. We’ll probably all end up at the same place, though. There’s only three good bars in this part of the city. And only one has the bartender that gives us discounts if we win a home game.”

The use of we doesn’t escape him. It strikes Al-Haitham in a strange way that Kaveh should be so familiar with a city that the rest of them know only approximately, by traveling through its veins in the automatic machinations of the sports season. So much of life forms underneath the hard skin of youth that Al-Haitham will never touch, not having been there for its growth. What Kaveh remembers in Fontaine pulls him away from the certain knowledge that Al-Haitham wields as a way of keeping him close.

“Right,” Tighnari says, narrowing his eyes at Kaveh, who simply shrugs apologetically. “But don’t think that I’ll forget about this.”

“Maybe after four drinks, you will,” says Kaveh cheerfully, clapping him on the back gently before leaving the two of them for his old team.

In practice, four drinks wasn’t enough for Tighnari to lose any of his memory, but after everybody on the team ingested that same amount of alcohol, their raucousness was enough to drive Al-Haitham away to the far end of the bar to get away from them.

It’s by no means quiet where he’s seated, but there are a few empty spots around him, enough that the noise isn’t driving him crazy. After having only nursed a couple of mixed drinks, he’s acquired enough of a pleasant buzz to be content sitting in silence.

At least until somebody slides into the tall chair beside him, sighing gustily and setting his glass down on the counter with a loud thump. When Al-Haitham cranes his head to the side, he’s not wholly unsurprised to see Kaveh there, cheeks flushed. The light turns his hair from gold to a sullen bronze, throat bared as he shoots the last of the dregs in his cup.

“Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says, his voice a little breathy. He wipes the corner of his lip sloppily with his sleeve.

The last sip Al-Haitham had from his drink remains bitter in his mouth. “Kaveh. I see that loyalty is hard-won and hard to surrender.”

Kaveh squints at him. “I hate when you talk at me like you’re reading from a book. And I’m a little drunk. You’re not allowed to do that.”

Al-Haitham shrugs, bringing his glass to his lips. “You seem to enjoy spending time with your old teammates.”

“Is that supposed to be an accusation? A mark of a good team is camaraderie, if you can relate to that at all. And I had to go see my mom since we’re in Fontaine. I had a good reason to celebrate.”

“I’m just observing,” Al-Haitham says, meaning it. If Kaveh couldn’t win against his old team, at least he can celebrate with them. He knows how difficult it can be to leave something or somebody in the past merely because they no longer belong in your present. “How drunk is a little drunk?”

“Enough for another drink,” says Kaveh, flagging down the bartender and pointing at his empty cup with a smile. He gestures at Al-Haitham as well. “You have some catching up to do. I saw you here on your own like the loner you are.”

“Maybe there was a reason for that,” Al-Haitham says.

“I’m sure there was no good one,” Kaveh says brightly. He settles his elbow on the counter, twisting fully to face Al-Haitham. “You’re not self-isolating out of shame for how you played today?”

Al-Haitham arches an eyebrow. “That makes it sound as if I have something to be ashamed of. Fontaine played a good game. You would know.”

“As if I didn’t see you fucking give up halfway through,” Kaveh says, “or maybe you never went into the game with the intention to win. You baffle me, Al-Haitham.” The bartender slides two drinks over, and Kaveh nudges one of them in his direction. “Finish that. You’re behind.”

“I was weighing the costs and benefits and figured it would be better to reserve my energy for later,” Al-Haitham muses. “Your old team is very skilled. Even if you and I pushed ourselves to collapse, that wouldn’t be enough to turn the favor. The next game can be our win to get us to the playoffs, but not this one.”

Kaveh shakes his head. He pauses only to take a healthy drink from his glass; following him, Al-Haitham reluctantly drains the rest of his remaining cup, taking the drink Kaveh just ordered him into his hands. The large ice cube sitting at its depths swills around, clear light glinting through its shape.

“The point of it is to be stupid, and love too much, and give up everything for the sake of it,” Kaveh says. “If you’re not there for that, then why even start in the first place? Why play in these leagues?”

“Salary’s pretty decent,” says Al-Haitham contemplatively. That makes Kaveh groan and throw his head in his hands so dramatically, invigorated by the alcohol, that Al-Haitham feels the corners of his eyes soften.

“Listen, I know you’re not being serious, so I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Kaveh says, wagging a finger at him. “I’ll give up, for now, since we’re not in the right place for a scolding and we’re supposed to be happy because we should make the playoffs. And I guess it’s not entirely your fault that we lost. That would underscore their abilities. They’re awfully good.”

“Did it feel strange to play against them?” Al-Haitham asks. He swirls his drink around. Now that he’s had more alcohol in his system, he’s warming up to it, his tongue a little sweeter.

Kaveh scrunches his nose. “Not really. I’ve played with them for most of my career, so it just felt like we were in practice and going against each other again. It was—well, frankly, it was really fun. Do you want another drink?”

Al-Haitham dutifully drains his glass as Kaveh flags down the bartender again. “More fun than it is with the Snails?”

“I’m not going to give answers that nobody wants to hear,” Kaveh says knowingly, then laughs a little, shaking his head. “Kidding. I like it here in Sumeru. More than I thought I would. I guess I don’t really mind playing with you again, Al-Haitham. God. Stop asking me questions when I’m drunk.”

His self-admonishment doesn’t stop him from taking another large sip from his new drink, however. “Well, do you have fun when you play hockey?” Kaveh says.

“Relatively,” Al-Haitham says. At Kaveh’s expectant look, he empties half his cup in one go, which goes down a lot easier than it did an hour ago. “Depends on who I am playing with and against.”

“Did you have fun today?” Kaveh says, rerouting the question. He props his chin against his fist and leans heavily into the counter. He must be properly drunk by now. Every sway of his body looks particularly heavy. “Playing with me.”

“I can’t tell if you’re searching for praise.”

The ice in Kaveh’s cup clinks against itself as he tips its contents entirely into his throat. “If I was, I’d look online. I’d expect more criticism from you than anything else, honestly. You can be mean, Al-Haitham. Even cruel. I don’t want to like you as much as I do sometimes, honestly.”

“You shouldn’t drink anymore,” Al-Haitham says, snatching the glass from Kaveh as an ache starts up weakly in his throat. He pushes aside his own drink as well, averse to the idea of losing any more of his senses. Pushing himself off the stool, he doesn’t miss the way Kaveh immediately tenses. “You can look online, then. I’m going back to the hotel.”

“It’s so early in the night, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says, standing unsteadily. “How are you getting back?”

“I’ll call a taxi.”

“That costs too much if you’re going alone. See if anyone else wants to leave with you.”

“They look busy,” Al-Haitham says, giving the bar a brief scan. The rest of their teammates are still clustered at the opposite side of the bar, some of them drifting off to mingle with Kaveh’s old crew.

“Then I’ll go with you,” Kaveh says unexpectedly. He lurches in, leaning into Al-Haitham’s space. “I’m drunk, anyway. I need to sleep it off or I’ll be nauseous during the entire commute tomorrow.”

Archons. As horrible as it sounds, Al-Haitham was actually looking forward to having some space away from Kaveh, even if it was only a few hours before bed in their cramped hotel room. At least back in Sumeru, they have their own rooms. The proximity is getting to him. Just last night, he hadn’t even been able to act normal in front of Kaveh while he changed, which men playing on the same team do all the time.

He’s sure that Kaveh thought his reaction was weird. To be fair, the only time that Al-Haitham has seen Kaveh not fully clothed has been in the locker room, and the atmosphere is completely different. During those times, he’s not thinking about things that would get him into trouble if they were spoken aloud.

Back in the hotel room, though, when Al-Haitham’s waiting on his bed and Kaveh is standing before him, peeling off his shirt to reveal his bare torso, all smooth skin and lean muscle, what is he supposed to think?

There’s no way he’ll be able to avoid the sight tonight if Kaveh leaves with him now, but there’s also no plausible explanation to ditch him at the bar.

“If that’s what you really want,” Al-Haitham says eventually, glancing to the side to see Kaveh calling an Uber on his phone, gleam white in the midst of the dim shadow. He sighs, running a hand through his hair. He hadn’t meant to drink this much. He hadn’t intended to come to the bar at all aside from knowing that Kaveh would be here, and now that they’re together he’s even less sure that it was a good idea to show up. The growing desire to be near him, even putting up with his stupid, inquisitive questions, almost makes him wish that they were still countries apart, if only for the sake of rationality.

“Car’s coming in seven,” Kaveh says, shutting off his phone. He looks up at Al-Haitham as if challenging him to back out. Al-Haitham swallows, the liquid courage in him burning back into uncertainty—his least favorite sensation, by the way, which displeases him so badly that most times he’d rather get rid of the problem entirely if that’s the fastest form of resolution. But given this ultimatum, there’s no more surrendering.

Back at the hotel, they’re quiet until breaking into the hotel room, Kaveh breaking the silence with a gusty sigh as he flops backward onto his bed, eyes immediately closed. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Al-Haitham, at this point hovering awkwardly by the hallway, makes to sit on the edge of his own bed. “You’ll have to remind me of it.”

Kaveh sits up indignantly, waving Al-Haitham over. “Come sit here. I don’t like talking to people when I can’t see their face. And I asked you if you have any fun when you play with me, or if I’m the only one who ever enjoys it.”

Al-Haitham settles unsteadily onto Kaveh’s sheets. Kaveh falls back into his previous position, the mattress creasing underneath his weight such that to look at him, Al-Haitham has to lean over him slightly, forcing eye contact.

“You are preferable to other players,” Al-Haitham allows. “Scaramouche played on the Snails briefly before he got traded to the Magpies. That was unpleasant.”

Kaveh squints at him. “I’m just going to take this as you telling me that you’re having the best time of your career with me at your side.”

Well, if Kaveh wants to put it like that, then Al-Haitham isn’t going to say anything to sway or support it. He lets the conversation simmer into silence instead, eyes drifting across the room until Kaveh speaks again, snapping his gaze back.

“It’s not the first time that we’ve played together though, is it?” Kaveh continues. “Youth hockey. We were in the same camp.”

Al-Haitham freezes. They have never actually talked about this before.

“You remember that?” he says.

Kaveh snorts. “Of course I do. I remember everybody that I’ve played with or against as long as they show any sort of potential, which you did. It wasn’t even that long ago, really. I mean, it was a small camp.” He shifts uncomfortably. “Did you forget that I was there?”

“No,” Al-Haitham says. “You never mentioned it.”

“No, you never mentioned it!” Kaveh says indignantly, scrambling into sitting so that they’re on the same level once more. “I was perfectly cordial over the years, even friendly in the beginning, but you treated me so coldly that I figured you forgot all about it. So I stopped trying. I thought that if you remembered me, you wouldn’t brush me off like that. Or treat me like a villain on the ice and barely spare a look at me off of it.”

It occurs to Al-Haitham that this is what Kaveh meant when he described him as cruel earlier in the night.

“We ran into each other a lot over the years, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says, blinking rapidly. “The league isn’t that big. Cities are small. But never once have I ever been under the impression that you were interested in me not just as a player, but even as a person.”

“It doesn’t make any sense to rub shoulders with people not on your own team,” Al-Haitham says.

Kaveh throws his hands into the air, looking around as if searching for someone to ridicule Al-Haitham with. “Who cares about sense? What about decency?” In all of his flailing about, they slide closer to each other, their legs mere inches from grazing against each other.

“There are plenty of reasons to keep logic in mind,” Al-Haitham says, ruffled. “You say we met often, but it was only a few times a year at most. It’s only different now that you’re in Sumeru. Of course it makes sense now to dissolve any animosity.”

“You think there was animosity,” Kaveh says, making mock quotation marks out of his fingers. “Wow. So we were on worse terms than I figured.”

“That was a hypothetical,” Al-Haitham argues. “It still would not make sense if I was buddy-buddy with Scaramouche if he plays for a different team, nevermind his difficult sensibilities. It compromises time. Such things are a distraction from the sport.”

“What do you care if the sport is meaningless to you anyway?” Kaveh says. “It’s not as if you care as long as you get paid.”

“It was your game at risk,” Al-Haitham says unflinchingly. “I was willing to be anything but a detriment to your career.”

Kaveh is silent for a long moment. He just stares. “But I just told you that I’m friends with people on other teams. It’s not out of the ordinary for me. It wouldn’t have been back then. Do you just think that you’re different from everybody else?”

“It was different,” Al-Haitham says immediately, even knowing that he shouldn’t. Kaveh’s stare goes hard, back to inspecting Al-Haitham as if trying to divulge him of all his secrets.

“Different? Different how?” he says slowly.

Al-Haitham looks at him calmly. “For a reason that would only serve as a distraction if you knew it.”

“Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says, then stops, leaving the word alone. At one point, hearing his name said like that would be a warning not to go any further. Now, it almost seems like an invitation.

Several possibilities spill out before them. In one, Al-Haitham could brush off any further questioning, say it’s late, disappear into the bathroom and only walk back out once certain that Kaveh wouldn’t push the issue anymore. In another, Kaveh could be the one to turn away, gaze hardening, or becoming apologetic, either or.

In this one, Al-Haitham merely looks back at Kaveh looking at him. 

“What are you trying to say?” Kaveh says, advancing. Their knees touch, and then their whole legs fall into each other. Kaveh brings one hand to rest atop Al-Haitham’s knuckles, his touch light. 

Suddenly, he laughs.

“I’m drunk, you know that, right?” Kaveh says, his face alit.

“I do,” Al-Haitham says, feeling wretched. His high is wearing off with a speed that leaves him dry.

“You’ll have to forgive me for this,” Kaveh says, taking Al-Haitham’s face in his hands, and then he kisses him, his mouth a little sweet from the mixer, his lips opening immediately to part Al-Haitham’s mouth, and Al-Haitham lets him, puts his hands on Kaveh’s waist and leans him back against the pillows so that he’s atop of him. And they’re making out, a ridiculous picture against the hotel sheets, hot and wet and desperate.

Everything bleeds from Al-Haitham’s mind in slow rivers. He’s been imagining this since hockey camp, flutters of this very image starting up in his brain since the moment Kaveh moved into his house, but it’s nothing compared to Kaveh in his hands now, and it’s nothing, means nothing, will never mean anything, knowing that they’re inebriated and Kaveh would have never come to this conclusion himself if he were sober. Even if he had the thought, he would have never acted on it. It’s an interesting combination of circumstances that led them here today. Even though Kaveh is attracted to him, it is useless if he does not love him too.

The thought rips Al-Haitham from the dream back to reality, forcing him to suddenly back away from Kaveh, his mouth still hot even as he puts as much cold space between them as possible. Still on the bed, Kaveh wipes his lips with the edge of his sleeve, watching him with dark eyes.

“You’re drunk,” Al-Haitham says, pushing away from Kaveh’s bed. He stalks toward the bathroom.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Kaveh calls, but he doesn’t move to stop him. “Al-Haitham—fuck. I shouldn’t have pushed you, but we both wanted it, didn’t we?”

Al-Haitham doesn’t answer, throwing the door to the toilet open and letting it close with a swift slam, knowing with a keen cruelty what his response to Kaveh’s question would be if he allowed himself to open his mouth again, sealed for the time being by the force of his idiotic desire.

Back in the room, Kaveh’s silence—loud even through the walls—tells Al-Haitham enough. That there is nothing more to pursue, so there is no use opening the conversation once more.

𓆦

Kaveh doesn’t remember when he went to sleep last night. All he can remember when he’s woken up by his blaring alarm at ass o’clock is Al-Haitham’s mouth, and his hands tight around his waist, and the way his silver hair drew a curtain around Kaveh’s face as he hovered on top of him. It is a mental image so startling that Kaveh immediately rejects it, shaking his head, grabbing his head in his hands and squeezing the feeling of Al-Haitham’s kiss soundly away. 

Of course, this proves quickly to be impossible. Why the everloving fuck did Kaveh kiss Al-Haitham? What in the actual hell possessed him to get so fucking drunk that he would resort to such drastic measures of self destruction? Surely Kaveh’s subconscious is kinder to him than this. Surely his body wouldn’t do something so fucking stupid?

He jerks properly awake at the sound of a door opening, and Kaveh spins around with wide eyes, only to find Al-Haitham emerging from the bathroom. He’s in a Snails t-shirt that must be at least one size too small for him and a pair of dark sweatpants. They are his flight-and-aquabus clothes. Kaveh momentarily forgets about how good Al-Haitham looks right now in favor of remembering that they have a flight back to Sumeru to catch in, and if he doesn’t get out of bed right now, there will be more consequences than just a missed airplane.

Namely, Tighnari.

Also, they have another game tonight.

He shudders, then throws himself out of bed.

This, however, just puts him directly in front of Al-Haitham, who is staring back at him in complete and utter silence, his face stony, his eyes sharp, as if he is waiting for something.

Kaveh waits back, because two can play at this game. He swallows as he tries to push away every stray thought that comes barrelling at him about last night. He stands there and makes direct eye contact with Al-Haitham and feels a part of him blow up in flames with each passing second. He doesn’t know how Al-Haitham is doing this right now. Why couldn’t he just move on and pretend like it never happened? Why couldn’t he just chalk it up to a drunken mistake?

Because the way Al-Haitham is staring at him is making Kaveh’s skin begin to crawl. He needs to get out of here. He turns before he can help it, and the part of him that would usually be screaming over losing this pathetic battle stays utterly subdued against the much stronger force that is practically screaming at him to get the hell out of Al-Haitham’s sight. 

He grabs his travel clothes and makes a beeline for the bathroom. Just as he’s about to slip past Al-Haitham’s still figure, Al-Haitham does the most terrible thing in the world: he slides in front of him. It happens so quickly, Kaveh’s nose ends up pressed against his sternum.

“No,” he says before he can stop himself.

“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham. His voice is so quiet, Kaveh almost misses it.

“No,” says Kaveh again, looking up at him.

This turns out to be the biggest mistake of all, because the expression on Al-Haitham’s face right now is nothing like anything Kaveh has seen before. His eyes are tired, as if he hasn’t gotten a lick of sleep all night. His bangs fall messily over his brows, and he looks as if he is seconds away from falling through the ground to his death. It is not a look Kaveh would ever expect Al-Haitham to wear, this earnest sort of wretchedness that’s completely foreign on his face.

Kaveh swallows. He looks away before he can do something stupid again, like grab Al-Haitham by the collar and pull him in and—

“I have to get ready,” he mutters, barely audible to his own ears. 

This time, when he hurries into the bathroom, Al-Haitham doesn’t stop him.

They don’t talk to each other at all the entire journey back to Sumeru. This proves especially awkward since their seats on the flight are right next to each other. Kaveh thinks that a special set of curse words should be specifically saved for Tighnari. Truly, he deserves it.

So Kaveh spends the flight pretending very hard that Al-Haitham simply does not exist. He knows this isn’t sustainable, considering they live together and will have to interact at some point or the other in the near future. For the first time since he arrived in Sumeru, Kaveh regrets that he didn’t put a little more effort into finding his own place to live. This wouldn’t even be a consideration then. He is so incredibly jealous of his parallel universe self in which he had that kind of hindsight.

He wonders if it’s too late to somehow change careers and become a physicist. Surely then he can engineer some sort of alternate timeline hopping device? The possibilities are endless.

Al-Haitham parked his car at the airport before they left, so they climb back in and set off for home. It’s still quite early in the morning, which Kaveh appreciates. He’ll definitely be clocking in for an afternoon nap later before the game tonight.

It is quite possibly the most awkward car ride of Kaveh’s life.

“At least play some music,” Kaveh mumbles, fiddling with the buttons on the dashboard for a bit before some pop tune starts playing through the speakers. Good enough. “Ugh. I feel sore everywhere.”

“Sore from the loss against your former team?” Al-Haitham snips as he turns onto the freeway.

“No,” says Kaveh, resisting the urge to snap at him. “I’m not mad about losing to the Fireflies. I played with them for years and I know how good they are.” 

“Tonight’s game is a wildcard,” says Al-Haitham.

“True,” Kaveh grunts. They’re playing against the Snezhnaya Sables. Normally this would be one of the most difficult games of the season, but a few of the top players caught a bad virus and will be out of the lineup. There’s no telling how it’s going to go.

He glances over at Al-Haitham and his set jaw, the way his fingers tap idly to the beat of the song, and he searches desperately for something else to say. Looking at him like this, when Al-Haitham is forced to keep his own eyes trained steadily on the road ahead, almost feels forbidden, like Kaveh hasn’t yet earned a right he now realizes he desperately wants.

The rest of the ride is spent in silence.

When they get back to the house, Kaveh drops his keys into the little dish Al-Haitham keeps neatly by the front door. Al-Haitham’s hand comes out too, their fingers brushing ever so slightly together, and immediately, Kaveh feels every nerve ending light up, gooseflesh painting his arms and eroding his skin.

He pivots and makes a beeline for his bedroom.

“Kaveh,” comes Al-Haitham’s voice, but it’s so much closer than it’s supposed to be, and then Al-Haitham is grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around and holding him firmly in place. The turquoise in his eyes is so much darker right now. His grip is almost bruising. He’s looking at Kaveh like he wants to kiss him again.

“I—” Kaveh starts.

“You kissed me last night,” Al-Haitham cuts in, and it should sound like an accusation but it doesn’t. He’s just stating it like a fact. Of course he waited until they were completely alone like this in their living room before bringing this up properly. Of course he would corner Kaveh and make sure he’d be forced to participate in this dreaded conversation.

Kaveh looks away, muttering, “Doesn’t seem like something I’d do.”

“You were drunk,” Al-Haitham continues, ignoring him, “and you kissed me.”

“You were drunk too—”

“Not as drunk as you were, clearly.”

“—and you kissed me back!”

Al-Haitham blinks heavily at him.

Kaveh falters, his mouth opening, then closing. Apparently this is the wrong thing to say, judging by how Al-Haitham is now staring at him as if he is hanging off the precipice of a very large cliff. He looks like he is one step from falling right off the edge. Kaveh can’t figure out if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

For some reason it is so thrilling to be under Al-Haitham’s gaze like this when for so long Kaveh has thought he was the last thing Al-Haitham wanted to see. He can’t help but remember it, the way Kaveh would contemplate saying hi, the way he would wave sometimes across the ice when the Snails were visiting and Al-Haitham would stare at him for a few moments before looking away entirely.

He doesn’t look away right now. And neither of them are drunk. Kaveh has actually never felt more sober in his life.

He reaches forward the same time Al-Haitham steps closer, Kaveh’s hands bunching into the front of Al-Haitham’s shirt and Al-Haitham’s ghosting his fingers across the curve of Kaveh’s jaw. It is so featherlight that for a moment Kaveh thinks that it’s some sort of phantom, but then, all of a sudden, it becomes very, very real.

Al-Haitham’s palms press against Kaveh’s neck and then they’re kissing, hard. All the breath swoops out of Kaveh’s throat as Al-Haitham presses himself impossibly close, kissing his mouth open, then closed, then open again. His toes curl against the wood of the floor. His hands flail where they’re still buried against Al-Haitham’s chest. He feels dead and alive all at once, the only tangible thing keeping him tethered to the earth standing right in front of him.

Sharp nails scratch against the back of his neck, making a shudder zap down Kaveh’s spine, and then Al-Haitham’s hands are threading through his hair and Kaveh’s are looping around Al-Haitham’s shoulders. He pulls him closer, and closer, and wonders how this can nearly be enough. How did he survive this last night and go about this entire morning while knowing what Al-Haitham tastes like? What kind of demon possessed him to make him able to travel back here in one piece? Perhaps, subconsciously, he knew it would turn out like this. After all, in what other way could this possibly end?

He breaks away, breathing hard. His vision is blurry around the sight of Al-Haitham’s red lips. They’re so smudged and it’s wonderful and Kaveh wants to always have this effect on him. He wants to be the only one. Finally he can put a name to the myriad in his head these past few months. He has, he realizes, always wanted to kiss Al-Haitham. Perhaps he has wanted it for a lot longer than he knows.

“Al-Haitham,” he croaks, and then Al-Haitham is pressing their mouths together again and licking the seam of his lips. It’s hot and it’s fast and Kaveh knows now that he never could have survived for the rest of his life with just that one drunken kiss.

Then his phone rings.

They both flinch away from each other, staring wide-eyed at the device sitting on Kaveh’s suitcase by the door. A flicker of annoyance mutes everything around them.

Kaveh mutters a curse under his breath when he sees Nahida’s name on the caller i.d. 

“Hi, coach,” he greets, trying not to touch his own mouth. Archons above. “Yeah, yup. Okay. We’ll be there.”

He cuts the line.

“Morning skate,” he says. “Remind me again why coach and Tighnari made these mandatory?”

“That’s your fault,” says Al-Haitham. “The team is good. Everyone cares a lot more now.”

“Whatever,” says Kaveh. His heart is racing so fast. He thinks there’s only seconds before an inevitable explosion. He looks up to Al-Haitham and meets his eyes, and something passes there, maybe. Maybe not. He doesn’t fucking know anymore. All he does know is that there’s no going back from this now. They can’t chalk this up to a drunken mistake anymore. 

This was never supposed to happen. They can’t be together; they’re on the same team. What if it goes wrong? What if they’re being too hasty and it doesn’t work out? What if after such a good fucking season, Kaveh is the one who inevitably brings the team down again? 

He would never forgive himself. He can’t do that to the team. 

𓆑

The last thing that Al-Haitham wants to do after kissing Kaveh for a second time without any further resolution is to play hockey. Granted, he rarely actively wants to play hockey, but the given circumstances don’t make it any easier.

Their morning practice went just about as expected—in complete silence. He never realized how overwhelmingly loud the other sounds of the game are, the scratching against ice, the grunts, until he begins wondering where Kaveh’s voice is. Every time he looks in Kaveh’s direction, he’s looking the other way, gaze drifting not toward the puck but instead to the ice, as if in deep contemplation.

Fuck. Al-Haitham has the stupid urge to throw his stick across the ice and leave to sit in their hotel room until Kaveh is forced to come back and actually talk to him. It seems impossible to them that they should have kissed twice without ever speaking about it. And as things go, it’s looking like they won’t ever get the chance to.

But quitting midway isn’t going to make Kaveh any more likely to hear him out, so he suffers through the rest of the skate, watching as Kaveh begs off getting lunch with the team to take a nap until call time. If that’s how Kaveh is going to be, then Al-Haitham will just have to wait. There’s no way they’ll spend another night in silence. If anything, Al-Haitham has learned to be exceedingly patient.

That night isn’t his favorite game that he’s ever played. Having a good base for his skills means that he can go on autopilot for most of it, which is good enough considering that they have Kaveh on their side and they’re slotted to win against their rivals for the day.

“Get your head in the game,” Nahida tells him sharply during the first intermission, a command that most of the team pretends not to hear, instead shuffling around amongst themselves. Kaveh, on the other hand, swivels to stare at Al-Haitham, his expression completely unreadable. “We can’t afford to lose now when we’re so close to making the playoffs.”

“Yes, coach,” he says, and he doesn’t mean to look at Kaveh, but he does.

Kaveh turns away, and Al-Haitham grits his teeth.

Out on the ice again, the pressure solidifies into mist across the rink—Al-Haitham, though not particularly concerned, can feel it from the rest of his team, and especially from Kaveh. He knows what it would mean for Kaveh’s career if he got branded as the player who finally took Sumeru to the playoffs.

A puck gets past Cyno, sailing into their goal, and Dehya heaves a heavy sigh to Al-Haitham’s right. “Getting a little too close for comfort,” she mutters, bracing herself briefly against her knees before pushing back up. The Snails are only one point ahead at this time, and there isn’t much of the game left, but he can tell pretty much everyone on the ice is getting twitchy as it goes down to the line.

In retrospect, he should have anticipated it. In a high-pressure game where everybody is focused only on the puck and not much else, knowing how much was on the line, a mistake would not just be likely, but expected.

But of course, you never expect to get blindsided until it happens. The puck spins toward Al-Haitham’s side of the rink with just enough momentum that he knows the Sables will score a goal if he doesn’t get in the way of it, and honestly, he can see Kaveh lunging for the puck as well, head crouched and low in anticipation. And even though he knows neither of them are in the right state of mind to concede to the other, and that they’re both coming in fast, he goes for the puck anyway as it launches toward the boards at the same time that Kaveh comes barrelling into his direct line.

The collision, at first, is blunted, a dull ringing in the back of his head. He’s somewhat aware of the fact that he just hit his head against the plexiglass, the ice spinning and blurring into white fog as he tilts forward, catching himself with his hands before he lands on the ground. Somewhere in the background, the crowd gasps into a hushed silence, and then an ache begins to start up.

“Al-Haitham!” Kaveh shouts to his side, and Al-Haitham grimaces, shutting his eyes against the blinding white light of the ice and shaking his head slightly to clear away the pain, which in turn only intensifies it. “Fuck. Fuck, what were you thinking? What was I thinking?”

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham mumbles, shakily pushing himself back to sit on his knees. He peels open one eye. Kaveh crouches in front of him, both of his hands reaching forward as though to land on his shoulders, though they falter at the last moment. In the corner, he can see the medical team racing onto the ice. “It’s fine.”

“Archons, no it isn’t,” Kaveh says, and he tries to say something else before Tighnari comes and tugs him away. He turns and slaps Tighnari’s hand, fighting to get out of his hold before giving up once the doctors approach Al-Haitham.

“It’s fine,” Al-Haitham says again, shutting his eyes again to grant himself a little bit of relief. Now that the impact has processed, he’s mostly annoyed that the collision is going to be a whole ordeal and that he’ll likely have to be checked thoroughly before he can move on with his life. The media will be a circus, too. He shudders at the thought of having to sit through an interview.

He doesn’t know if Kaveh heard his response, though, hearing his name called once more before the doctors start speaking to him, the mingling sound of their voices drowning out the fresh memory of Kaveh’s voice, so panicked Al-Haitham could believe that he cares, and the rest of the stadium watching him be wheeled out of the rink.

❆

THL Updates @thlcentral
UPDATE: Al-Haitham wheeled off ice following collision with teammate Kaveh, previously from the Fontaine Fireflies.
6.4k likes, 234 retweets, 21 replies

REPLIES:

cl16 @madison.square
Replying to @thlcentral
Look at that replay and tell me that wasn’t intentional…
491 likes, 8 retweets, 3 replies

i hate lando norris @drivetostuntonem
Replying to @thlcentral and @madison.square
why would either of them want to take out their own teammate when playoffs are on the line?? be so fr
582 likes, 3 retweets, 1 reply

cl16 @madison.square
Replying to @thlcentral and @madison.square
Looks to me like Al-Haitham is finally coming into his potential now that Kaveh has joined the team, and Kaveh doesn’t want to share the spotlight now that he’s on an objectively worse team. 🤷
423 likes, 4 retweets, 3 replies

i hate lando norris @drivetostuntonem
Replying to @thlcentral and @madison.square
kaveh would NOT be that petty. he’s always shown good sportsmanship during his time in the league, unlike many other players. we shouldn’t make assumptions based off one mistake
495 likes, 2 replies

cl16 @madison.square
Replying to @thlcentral and @madison.square
what do you know him personally lmao
341 likes, 4 retweets

Claire @sixsempreteen
Replying to @thlcentral
Please let the Snails make playoffs regardless. They deserve it 🙏
1.2k likes, 4 retweets

Isla @coucou
Replying to @thlcentral
Wishing al-haitham a speedy recovery!!
96 likes

estheryan 3rd collab @yuzhouzhongxin
al-haitham you’re too sexy to be taken down by a concussion
5.2k likes, 23 retweets

cloomfish @nowayback
man i thought kaveh and al-haitham were becoming good friends, what happened 😭 this rivalry is getting heated
2k likes, 19 retweets, 3 replies

REPLIES:

marquis of wu’an @xiezhengs
Replying to @nowayback
i believe it was a genuine mistake 🤞 they’re besties please 😔
42 likes, 1 reply

nilou gf @bountifulcores
Replying to @nowayback
no but did you see the way kaveh was gripping al-haitham on the ice after colliding with him… tell me that wasn’t homosexual
532 likes, 2 retweets, 1 reply

Snail City @moopstoops
Replying to @nowayback and @bountifulcores
i lowk thought he was confronting him?? 😭
422 likes, 1 reply

tbc when @neiljos10
Replying to @nowayback and @moopstoops
WAIT it depends on what angle the video u saw was from!! it kinda looks like kaveh is shaking him by the shoulders at one point but a closer pov shows that he’s trying to hold him up
1k likes, 13 retweets

autumn @deadleaves
am i the only one who thinks that al-haitham was the one who ran into kaveh or…
1.5k likes, 21 retweets, 8 replies

REPLIES:

Kevin @day2day
Replying to @deadleaves
can we not start rumors guys
583 likes, 10 retweets

eggwon @firefirefly
Kaveh genuinely looked so distraught after 😭 I just know he felt so bad
86 likes

REPLIES:

Parisa @pari9999
Replying to @firefirefly
Al-Haitham kind of deserved it tbh
1 like, 1 reply

lady crane @sum3rusnails
Replying to @firefirefly and @pari9999
[This reply has been deleted for foul language]

traduttore traditore @robinramy
[screenshot of the frame where Al-Haitham and Kaveh collide]
this is my doomed yaoi
2.8k likes, 39 retweets

luma @luminvies
somebody write a fic about this right Now
4 likes, 1 reply

REPLIES:

ink @moonsteps
Replying to @luminvies
😏
1 like

‘kawa @grandking
Updates, the Snails have announced that Al-Haitham is taking two weeks off to recover, thankfully the injury is not serious and we will see him on the ice again soon
5.3k likes, 43 retweets, 8 replies

REPLIES:

Sally @prongebrussell
Replying to @grandking
Yay!! 🎊🎉
4 likes

Murai @navyfullstop
Replying to @grandking
Hope team relations will be alright… 😬
9 likes

scara @scaramoomoo
Replying to @grandking
i don’t know why people care about this flop.
14 likes, 4 replies

𓆦

Kaveh bursts into Al-Haitham’s hospital room, much to the dismay of the nurse checking on him. He waits impatiently in the corner, watching as she finishes up, staring straight at Al-Haitham laying out on the bed. He doesn’t like hospitals. He hasn’t liked them since his father died. Watching Al-Haitham nod along to whatever the nurse is saying is making his own head begin to hurt.

“Are you okay?” he asks, stepping up to the side of the bed once the nurse leaves the room. “Al-Haitham, what the fuck?”

“Out for two weeks,” says Al-Haitham, closing his eyes. “It’s not terrible, but a safety precaution. You’ll have to finish the season without me, I guess.”

This guy. “Of course you’re over the moon about missing games. What if we lose our playoff chance singlehandedly because of you, huh? What then?”

Al-Haitham, still closed-eyed, raises a brow. “Do you think that will happen?”

“No,” Kaveh concedes, then slides into the chair at the foot of the bed. He moves it closer so he’s by Al-Haitham’s side, peering down at his still figure.

He spent the entire day ruminating over this. Over them. He came up with countless scenarios in his head about what this string between them could be leading to. He thought about them getting together and breaking up within a few months and thereby ruining the entire dynamic of the first line. He thought about waiting to give this a name until his contract with the Snails expires so that they can be together without the risk of breaking up their team. He thought about stopping this all together. Moving out. Treating Al-Haitham like the stranger that Al-Haitham has always treated him as.

That particular thought snags now.

“You’re an idiot,” he says to Al-Haitham. “You knew I was going for that puck. Why the fuck would you try to interfere?”

“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” Al-Haitham says. “If I was Cyno I would add another clearly here.”

“Shut up,” says Kaveh. “Just shut up and listen to me. Let me think since you obviously can’t.”

“You’ve been doing a lot of that today, haven’t you? Thinking.”

“Well can you blame me?” Kaveh snaps. “I have to. These are our lives at stake. Our futures. Our careers. I know you don’t give a fuck but I do give a fuck, and not only about mine. I want you to succeed and I know that you’re worthy of that even if you don’t think you are. You were the best defenseman in youth hockey and you’re still the best one I’ve played with since. We can’t—we have to think. We don’t have a choice.”

Al-Haitham is silent now as he watches him.

“What are we going to do if—if we commit to something stupid and then—and now you—and this—” Kaveh makes an aborted gesture with his hands. Frustration taps relentlessly at his skull. He can’t stop replaying it in his head: Al-Haitham crashing into the boards, falling down onto the ice, sitting there as the medics rushed over to help him. This, now, in this stupid fucking hospital room.

What would Kaveh do if they were on different teams, nations apart, and Al-Haitham fell like this again? After all of this?

“Is that what you’ve been worried about?” Al-Haitham asks softly.

Kaveh finds himself speaking before he can stop himself, the words spilling out of him, “What did you mean by what you said to me in Fontaine?”

This brings Al-Haitham to a pause.

“Tell me,” Kaveh demands, leaning closer, removing the gap between them. There has always been a gap, he realizes. “You said it would be detrimental to my career if we’d stayed friends after the draft. Al-Haitham, I wouldn’t have even considered us acquaintances before my trade here, let alone friends. The only time I thought we were friends was during youth camp. After that you would see through me every time our teams played against each other. You would barely even look in my direction, let alone acknowledge my presence. You don’t get to…you don’t get to act like you haven’t been just as much of a mindfuck over all of these years. If not more.”

“You were drafted to the best team in the league,” says Al-Haitham. His brows furrow. “You have always liked hockey more than anyone else I know. You wanted to be the best, and you didn’t need me distracting you from that.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t get to do that,” says Kaveh, anger bubbling in the pit of his stomach. “You don’t get to make that sort of decision on my behalf. That’s self righteous bullshit. You did it for your own selfish reasons and you know it.”

Al-Haitham’s expression shifts. For a split second, Kaveh regrets it. 

But then:

“And what are those reasons?” Al-Haitham asks. His voice has gone quiet now, and suddenly, Kaveh feels like he can’t breathe. “You know, don’t you?”

“Tell me,” Kaveh whispers.

Al-Haitham seems to decide something at that moment, because the next thing he says has Kaveh’s entire body freezing: “I wanted you to kiss me a long time before you actually did.” 

Kaveh takes a shuddering breath as the words sink in.

And Al-Haitham continues, “I suppose those are the same reservations as the one you’re having right now. But—”

“But there’s no going back now,” Kaveh finishes for him, and Al-Haitham blinks at him, then nods. He breathes slowly, air rushing through his lungs. There really is no going back now. “Al-Haitham,” Kaveh starts again, “you annoy the shit out of me.”

Al-Haitham’s lips part to say something.

Kaveh cuts in before he can, “But I think I love you anyway.”

Al-Haitham’s mouth closes. His eyes go impossibly wide.

“It killed me when you were ignoring me,” Kaveh says, his voice cracking. He can’t stop looking at Al-Haitham. He can’t stop thinking about how idiotic he’s being right now, doing all of this when Al-Haitham is in the hospital and very much should be resting right now. “It killed me so much, and I just had to pretend you didn’t exist half the time to deal with it. When Furina told me I’d be getting traded here I—I don’t know. I spent so long missing you when you were right there across the ice, and now you’d be there all the time and I didn’t know how I was meant to deal with that.”

“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham, and then, “I’m sorry.”

Kaveh shakes his head. His lips press tightly together. “No. I—I think I would have done the same thing. And I…I didn’t know how I felt about you back then, when I left Sumeru. I didn’t even realize it was affecting me so much until I saw you after the draft and you didn’t want to talk to me.”

“I did want to talk to you,” Al-Haitham says, and then, “Kaveh, I’ve loved you since youth hockey camp.”

Kaveh’s hands come up to cover his face, and he drops his head. “Al-Haitham.”

“I thought what I was doing was best for you,” says Al-Haitham, “but I…also thought it would be best for me. You did not return my feelings.”

Kaveh shakes his head.

“And it would have just been a distraction during the most important moment of your career,” says Al-Haitham softly. Kaveh feels his swallow as it tumbles down his throat. “I watched all of your games, you know?” Kaveh’s head snaps up at this. “Every time you held up the Cup I fought every urge to text you.”

“I was waiting for you to text me,” Kaveh rasps. “I kept track of every unknown number that texted me. I was waiting for one of them to be you.”

Al-Haitham moves to sit up, and immediately Kaveh catches his shoulders.

“Stop that,” he chides. “You’re literally in a hospital bed. You need to lie down.”

“It’s not that serious,” says Al-Haitham, and now he’s smiling. Genuinely, truly smiling. He reaches up to cover Kaveh’s hand with his own, then interlaces their fingers. Kaveh’s breath hitches, his gaze flying to Al-Haitham’s.

Then Al-Haitham tugs him closer, throwing Kaveh’s arm over his shoulder and grasping his chin between his thumb and index finger. He kisses him, chaste against his mouth, and immediately Kaveh pulls away.

“Al-Haitham, you’re literally hurt—”

“It’s not that serious,” says Al-Haitham again, pulling him against him, capturing his lips between his teeth. He gathers Kaveh’s face between his hands and tugs gently at the blond of his hair, and Kaveh feels his own shoulders drop in defeat. I wanted you to kiss me a long time before you actually did, Al-Haitham had said to him, and if that’s the case, Kaveh has a lot of making up to do.

tighnari

[23:47] you: i have news about my relationship status that you’re probably not going to like

[23:50] tighnari: NOW? NOW?????? RIGHT BEFORE PLAYOFFS??????? NOWWWW????

[23:51] you: we haven’t made playoffs yet
[23:51] you: also what the hell
[23:51] you: ?????????????

[23:52] tighnari: we’re 100% making playoffs
[23:52] tighnari: and what do you mean
[23:52] tighnari: you and al-haitham got together didn’t you :/

[23:52] you: WHAT THE HELL?

𓆑

“So, when are you moving out?” Al-Haitham says conversationally.

Kaveh, who had been resting his head against his shoulder, shoots up indignantly. “You better be fucking joking, and by the way, it’s not funny, Al-Haitham.”

Al-Haitham hums, pretending to roll the thought over in his mind. “I suppose I don’t mind you sticking around. You’ve already long overstayed your welcome. I’m used to it at this point.”

“If you were serious, I would have done something to you that would have taken you out of the season for good,” Kaveh huffs, settling back with his arms crossed over his chest. “See that you don’t cross me again.”

“That would be a social media spectacle,” Al-Haitham says. “The fans would call for your retirement.”

“They’d stick with me to the end, actually,” Kaveh says. “I understand that you haven’t had a loyal fanbase like that, but that’s reality for me.”

On the table, Kaveh’s phone begins buzzing with an incoming phone call. Kaveh points at the device. “See? That means I am popular,” he says smugly, right before Al-Haitham’s phone begins vibrating as well. “Huh.”

He turns the screen over to see Nahida’s contact, a zoomed in picture of the two of them smiling together on the ice. “Hello?” He shoots a puzzled look at Al-Haitham. “Yeah, he’s here. I’ll put you on speaker.”

“Al-Haitham!” Nahida says, her voice strained by the phone connection. In his pocket, his phone is still going off with notifications, which means he’s fairly certain what all the commotion is, but it would be nice to hear it from Nahida first.

“Hello,” he says.

“I’ve got some good news,” she says, practically humming. “Why don’t you guess—actually, no, I can’t keep it in. We made it to the playoffs! Our season isn’t over, guys! The Snails are going to the playoffs for the first time in almost a decade!”

Kaveh lets out a loud yell, standing so immediately that the phone falls out of his hand and lands on the ground, face-down. “Oh my fucking god! Oh my fucking god!”

Nahida is still going, the call somewhat muffled against the carpet. “Of course, this means that Al-Haitham will be expected at practice as soon as his doctor’s orders are up—”

“Al-Haitham!” Still on his feet, Kaveh pulls Al-Haitham up from the couch by the arm. He holds him by the elbows, shaking him back and forth. The joy on his face is so apparent, his smile stretched larger than Al-Haitham has ever seen it, that it makes him want to mirror the very expression. “We’re going to the fucking playoffs together!”

“I heard the phone call too,” Al-Haitham says dryly. He shakes his head a little, dipping his chin. “I’m glad. This has been a promising season.”

“Archons, I’m so relieved,” says Kaveh, putting one hand over his heart. “You know, coming from Fontaine back to Sumeru, I had no idea what to expect, and then I was told that I’d have to live with this guy that I always thought was a piece of shit. And now we made it to the fucking playoffs for the first time in over a decade.”

“You’re welcome,” Al-Haitham says. Kaveh punches him in the arm. “What? You were the one who told me to actually take the game seriously. That certainly helped.”

“Archons, I guess I did,” Kaveh says, his voice a little fond, still smiling stupidly. Al-Haitham freezes when Kaveh rests his head forward against Al-Haitham’s shoulder, sighing a little. “I just feel excited all over again. And, I guess, glad to do it by your side. Even with everything that has changed. Especially because of the change.”

Slowly, Al-Haitham brings one hand to wrap around the small of Kaveh’s back and the other to press his head further into his body, allowing the tension to seep out of his muscles and their bodies to sink together. “I am too, Kaveh.”

Al-Haitham’s phone finally goes silent—whoever was calling him must have given up after not receiving any reply. He shuts his eyes. Maybe he doesn’t mind hockey so much when it gives him so much to celebrate with Kaveh.

“Hello?” Nahida’s voice crackles over the phone on the floor. “Are you guys still there? Al-Haitham, can you come to practice on Tuesday?”

They jump apart as if caught, and Al-Haitham picks up the phone with weary amusement. “Yes,” he says, locking eyes with Kaveh, who is beaming at him. “I’ll be there.”

❆

kimiya @olts369
to the five sumeru snails fans out there: WE WON WE FUCKING WON WE’RE GOING TO THE PLAYOFFS
1.5k likes, 49 retweets, 4 replies

REPLIES:

in le clerc we all fam @forza.ferrari
Replying to @olts369
I LOVE THEM BUT I THOUGHT I’D NEVER SEE THE DAY
649 likes, 4 retweets

lucie @luckyi_nluv
sumeru slow-ass snails made it to playoffs this is a sign for everybody everywhere to shoot their shot because it might land
2.9k likes, 68 retweets, 2 replies

Bella @lamplights
KAVEH IS GENUINELY THE GOAT OF MODERN HOCKEY
694 likes, 42 retweets

miso hungry @pacthais
and all it took to win was two men embracing on ice amen 😌
3k likes, 56 retweets, 3 replies

REPLIES:

miso hungry @pacthais
Replying to @pacthais
anyone else on that rivals to teammates to lovers to winners pipe line
768 likes, 19 retweets

het het yaoi discussion emails walking home @sharon_death
hey, the sumeru snails going from last in the league to making it to playoffs made me think about our relationship and that nothing is beyond saving, hoping to break the ice so we can talk
5.6k likes, 432 retweets, 4 replies

hahvahd yahd @swayswayman
can this happen to the boston bruins
294 likes, 12 retweets, 17 replies

honk honk BITCH @tohruhondadealership
I would KILL to be in the locker room for that debrief
593 likes, 3 retweets, 2 replies

sumerusnails ✓ on Instagram

[triumphant picture of the team raising their arms in victory, clearly celebrating in a huddle]

See everyone on the ice 😎

18.5k likes, 239 comments

COMMENTS:

kaveh_hockey_official ✓
let’s go!!!!!!!! 🏒🥳
8,493 likes

cynockey ✓
I’m having a puck-tastic day
6,213

fontainefireflies ✓
About time 😂
10,254 likes

piastrami
my piece of shit team that i love so much ♥️
592 likes

al_haitham ✓
You’re welcome
5,595 likes

tighnari_on_ice ✓
@al_haitham ??? you were literally taken out of the season for two weeks
5,294 likes

kaveh_hockey_official ✓
@tighnari_on_ice you’re welcome…
5,566 likes

kaveh_hockey_official ✓
also @al_haitham i feel like i can take some responsibility for this because being roommates with me must have rubbed off on you. positively, of course
6,241 likes

inleclerb
@kaveh_hockey_official you guys are roommates?!?!?!?!
4,198 likes

al_haitham ✓
@inleclerb He said he doesn’t want to answer any questions at this time
7,459 likes

tighnari_on_ice ✓
@inleclerb yes
6,216 likes

kaveh_hockey_official ✓
@al_haitham @tighnari_on_ice both of you fuck off
7,459 likes

al_haitham ✓
@kaveh_hockey_official I can’t, I live here
8,134 likes

lumink
HAIKAVEH IS REAL
4,413 likes