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Several hours after sunset, the laughter in the tavern fizzles into gentle murmurs, steeped in nightfall and the scent of dew.
It has been a pleasant, if slightly chaotic evening, but Alhaitham is eager to go home all the same. Kaveh bids farewell to their friends — Tighnari, Collei and Cyno, Sethos who had decided to tag along, and the Traveler and Paimon who have stopped by Sumeru for a visit — while Alhaitham packs their food, arranging leftover fish rolls and shawarma wraps into a clay container.
They each hold a lingering heat against the pads of his fingers, but they are not as warm, he thinks, as the mischievous fingers that will curl around his own as they leave the tavern.
Molten, calloused, secretive fingers, sun-kissed and completely his to hold. Alhaitham's mind moves ahead of him, to a very near future; to the weight of Kaveh against his shoulder as they walk together and the steady cadence of his step beside him.
How, the moment they step into the borders of their home, he will give Kaveh a thousand kisses and be reminded he is not dreaming when Kaveh returns each one back. How Kaveh's shower will last a long thirty minutes but still bring with it notes of flowers and musky sweetness as Kaveh melts into his blankets when he comes to bed. Their blankets. They haven't picked a room yet, actually.
Unbeknownst to all their friends, their relationship has recently... evolved. Kaveh has made no move to tell anyone, nor has anybody asked, so Alhaitham keeps it like a secret too, savored only between their humid evening whispers amid the sheets.
It doesn't matter, he tells himself. Alhaitham looks to Kaveh, radiant under the tavern lamps, and remembers he has everything he could ever want.
Though Alhaitham's teased Kaveh before about his secretive tendencies, the way he guards his reputation like a tiger to a cub, it is another thing entirely when Alhaitham's heart is so deeply involved. Kaveh never seemed to like being seen with Alhaitham in public, always fretting as if that alone would showcase his living situation and that his so-called impossible roommate was Alhaitham. Why would this change now that they're together?
And, Alhaitham reminds himself, he's unapproachable for a reason. This isn't the kind of thing he himself cares about anyway. It is in his nature to be private, and Kaveh's secrecy, whatever its origin may be, benefits them both in the end. There is no reason for him to worry. Alhaitham does not need people approaching them both in the street and making commentary, nor does he long for his friends’ teasing jokes. But, a smaller part of him supplies, Alhaitham wouldn’t mind it either, to stroll with Kaveh hand-in-hand by daylight, sneaking kisses into his hair where others can see.
"...best of luck on your project, then, Kaveh," says the Traveler, raising a crystal glass in toast. "You must be pretty close to clearing your debt, now, right?"
Kaveh nods with a hazy smile, drunk on the fizzing mirth of good company instead of alcohol, and Alhaitham's chest swells with a cloying tenderness. "Yes, yes—soon, I’ll be able to spend as freely as I like."
The Traveler spares Alhaitham a smile, and then looks back at Kaveh. "I suppose you’ll be bidding farewell to his house soon, too, then."
The sweetness of their glance does not soften the blow.
Paimon, not noticing Alhaitham's souring expression, chimes in, "Oh, right! It's going to be weird not watching you two walk home bickering all the time..."
The group erupts into peals of laughter around them. It should be a happy scene, but Alhaitham only registers it a moment later, feeling his lips plastered shut in a thin line. The idea isn’t funny to him. For a while, it was quite the opposite; for a while, the thought of Kaveh leaving was a very real and dreadful timer, and Alhaitham—he snuffs out the worry before it can grow.
He already knows what Kaveh will say. He will sweep his hair off his neck as he is wont to do when he is nervous, give a shaky laugh or a halfhearted reprimand, finish with some form of affirmative hum, and provide an easy way to leave the conversation without giving too much away.
If not that, he might fly into a tangent about finally being rid of that place, (knowing fully well he intends to live there for another few years at least), or politely say something about having to leave the nest eventually and teasingly thank Alhaitham for his continued hospitality.
But he does neither. Instead, Kaveh goes strangely silent, shifting uncomfortably on his feet, and glances back between Alhaitham and their friends.
"Actually," he starts, sweeping his gaze along their faces, "I'll probably be walking home with him a while longer."
No one else seems to notice how he licks his lip.
"We are..." he murmurs, "...together, after all."
Alhaitham's heart stops working. For a moment it seems that the tavern, too, has gone completely still.
"... Together?" Tighnari starts, ears perked in curiosity. "I wasn't aware there were…more terms to your agreement." He says this leaning back in his seat, an effortless confidence about him, as if a pile of Mora has tripped into his lap. Alhaitham knows that look, and knows that with Tighnari, his questions are as innocent as his traps. As a clever ranger and the slyest fox, he’s providing a generous excuse fully expecting Kaveh to bite.
"Ah—Well… No, I… I don't mean us living together, Nari," Kaveh gently corrects, fingers catching softly on Alhaitham's wrist. "Though we do, still. I, actually... I mean..." Kaveh looks toward him, bottom lip quivering, as he loops their arms together. "Alhaitham and I..." he starts and says a second time. "We're, um... together."
Now, a wave of delayed shock blankets the table. And as if he hasn't been clear enough, Kaveh turns toward him now, saying for the third time, "Not just…in the same house, but together. We’re…seeing each other."
Kaveh's cheeks are dusted rose, the apples of them round and soft at the edge of his smile. Alhaitham wants to bite them. He settles for squeezing Kaveh’s hand instead.
Beside them, the table has erupted into a flurry of noises, but Alhaitham can scarcely hear it over the beat of his heart. Whatever sounds come through are distant, soft things, like fresh snow on a mountaintop, not reaching the warmth seeping between his fingers.
When Alhaitham does look back at the group, Paimon's reaction is the most dramatic. For such a small creature, she makes the loudest noises of all, and he almost begins to worry, because—is it truly healthy for her jaw to unhinge like that? Tighnari, seemingly satisfied, smiles back in half-feigned shock. The Traveler and Collei exchange a look, while Cyno, who was only focused on reorganizing his TCG deck, has completely dropped the cards into his lap. Sethos looks much like him, although the contents on his lap belong to his dinner.
And Alhaitham?
For one of Sumeru's most brilliant minds, he just stares, dumbfoundedly, at Kaveh. It is Kaveh's weight alone that keeps him from falling over, even though he has not drunk a sip tonight.
Collei finishes her wordless exchange with the Traveler in time to pipe up: "You mean—you're, like, together?"
Kaveh nods again, and makes a show of leaning into Alhaitham's neck. Actually, he is probably just feeling shy, Alhaitham corrects, because Kaveh is squeezing his arm so tightly and the corner of his smile is tangibly wide and shaky against his neck.
Collei lets out a strangled sound and starts swatting the Traveler, her eyes brightened with laughter and an exuberance of joy that Alhaitham thinks suits her tender age. Cyno is more flabbergasted than Alhaitham has ever seen him, and next to Sethos, both of them look like bona fide siblings.
"That—I—” Sethos fumbles about for sounds that might be words before standing. “I knew it!!” he exclaims at the top of his voice, with all the blazing conviction of someone who did, in fact, know it.
Alhaitham almost laughs, but Paimon shrieks right back, her brain finally having caught up to her wagging jaw. "No, wait—What?? Kaveh? You're together? With Alhaitham!?" She points at the two accusatorially, and Alhaitham feels Kaveh tug him even closer. "I thought you guys couldn't stand each other!" She whips around to the Traveler who is holding back a laugh at her antics. "Wait, is this some kind of prank?! Are you tricking Paimon?"
She has gotten better at asking critical questions. Good, Alhaitham thinks distantly, though he does wish it weren't being used on him right now.
Paimon, mistaking the Traveler’s glee for agreement, goes on. "Look at Alhaitham! He's stiff as a board, and he hasn’t even said anything at all. If you're acting, mister, you're not doing a good job of it!"
It is then that Alhaitham catches Kaveh's gaze, shyly creeping up from the corner of his eye. Oh, right. Alhaitham hasn’t reacted yet externally. His mind had already been melting like spun sugar under the banter and the sound of Kaveh’s voice, but if he didn’t say something soon, they might—
“I don’t think so, Paimon,” Cyno cuts in. “Alhaitham’s usually a great actor. I think this development may have been truly…”
“Cyno, don’t.”
“—off-script for him.”
Paimon shrieks again. “Cyno! Are you serious right now!?”
“No, I thought I was being quite humorous, actually—”
Alhaitham opens his mouth to speak but finds that his lips won’t narrow in to form the letters, much like when he was small enough to hide behind his grandmother’s skirt and hadn’t known how to stop his shy smile.
Oh.
Was he—is he—?
Collei pats Tighnari’s shoulder with a grin, and Alhaitham catches her whisper, “Look at his face!”
Heat floods his cheeks, though by now Alhaitham realizes it may have already been there.
“So, Alhaitham,” the Traveler says, “it’s true.”
Kaveh is looking up at him again, a shy smile on his own cheeks, and Alhaitham doesn’t care anymore about using his mouth to speak. It wasn’t a question, anyway.
He slips his hand around the familiar curve of Kaveh’s back and pulls him in until his hot face is buried in the crook of Kaveh’s neck, till those flaxen tresses curtain him in. Kaveh’s giggles make his chest rumble beneath him, and he remembers the sensation like falling asleep on a loved one’s shoulder when he was still small enough to be carried.
Kaveh threads fingers into his hair and under his capelet, pulling him even closer, and Alhaitham doesn’t care, couldn’t care what shrieks and oohs follow around them because Kaveh is so, so warm and safe, and Alhaitham only wishes they could be closer than skin somehow.
“Haithoomi,” he coos, hugging him tight. "I love you." Alhaitham makes a garbled sort of laugh that seems to make everyone else laugh, too.
It is a while later, after too many questions and Alhaitham's first time being tongue-tied in front of an audience, when they reach the crisp air of the world outside. It is not truly cold tonight at all but compared to the stove of Kaveh’s touch and the searing feeling of his palm against Alhaitham's back, it is an icy, snowy winterscape.
“Ah… Alhaitham,” Kaveh says, pausing somewhere behind him before they’ve turned onto Treasures Street. “You aren’t—mad, are you?”
Alhaitham whips around. Kaveh is paler in the moonlight, but no less radiant, no less warm. Kaveh's fingers twine and untwine with his own in a way that Alhaitham is learning to read as both hesitation and longing at once.
“I mean. Is it…okay, that I…” Kaveh looks off to the side.
No, Alhaitham thinks distantly, don’t look away from me.
“I mean, I know you’re a bit more private, but I thought, maybe—”
He doesn’t get to finish that thought, because Alhaitham is on his mouth before he can blink.
And oh, Kaveh's lips are as warm as he’s been dreaming. The magic of it makes Kaveh relax completely, and soon he is kissing back, cradling Alhaitham’s jaw with that callous on his thumb that Alhaitham is learning he absolutely adores.
Alhaitham kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him some more under the full moon, and it’s not true that he doesn’t care if someone sees—he hopes instead, rather worryingly, that someone will.