Chapter Text
Alhaitham stands at attention outside the crown prince's chambers, listening to the rustling of fine fabrics inside as Kaveh paces. The moonlight casts long shadows across the marble corridor, just like it did when they were children playing hide-and-seek down these same halls, unbound by crown and duty.
"You should not be awake at this hour, Your Highness," Alhaitham says quietly. “The Fontainian diplomats will be expecting a well-rested prince to be present at tomorrow’s negotiations.”
"The Fontainian diplomats can blame my restless conscience," comes Kaveh's strained reply.
Alhaitham glances down at the candlelight peeking out from under the door, the prince’s shadow flickering against the smooth tile.
It is not his place to reprimand royalty, but Kaveh's title does little to erase memories of moments spent wrestling in the gardens, hiding from tutors, stealing pastries from the kitchens together. They may be separated by station and status, but the care for a childhood friend has not been eroded by time spent apart.
And really, how far apart have they actually been, for all these years? The moment Alhaitham graduated from a trainee to a new recruit, he had requested to be put on duty near Kaveh’s chambers. And by either fate, circumstance, luck, or a certain degree of royal meddling, his scheduled night shifts by Kaveh’s door have not once been changed since he first appeared there.
"Restless over what?" he asks casually. Also not his place, to offer counsel when Kaveh has royal advisors to do that for him.
He still remembers when there was no one else to wipe his tears, though. “A prince does not cry,” Kaveh had told him between sniffles, years ago, after spraining his wrist falling from a garden wall. Alhaitham had dismissed that as “royal nonsense.” He would not dare use such insolent language with him now.
Kaveh is silent for a moment, then responds in a quiet murmur, far too vulnerable from a crown prince to his guard.
"There has been talk of a coronation ceremony. My father's health has continued to decline. It is only a matter of time."
Alhaitham sighs softly, letting himself lean against the wall, his head falling back against the cool stone.
May the powers that be protect me from Kaveh’s insecurity.
"You will make a wonderful king, Your Highness," he says, though he knows the empty words won't do much to assuage Kaveh's worries. His true interest lies in what the king’s health has to do with Kaveh’s conscience, but he suspects the stubborn prince would not willingly divulge that information.
"I am afraid it might swallow me whole," Kaveh admits suddenly, and Alhaitham’s heart skips a beat. Again, he is toeing the line between appropriate and familiar. "The responsibility. The expectations."
As heir to the throne, Kaveh can afford to stretch the rules about propriety. As a royal guard, subordinate to the crown prince and his family, Alhaitham cannot.
Alhaitham doesn't respond for too long. Telling. His fingers twitch where they rest on the hilt of his sword.
Kaveh’s words sound like a plea for comfort, something that Alhaitham has not been allowed to give for years. Something he has been aching to provide, if given the chance to.
Alhaitham cannot afford to blur the firm boundaries set by duty and honor.
And yet…
"The crown is heavy, and the weight cannot be borne alone," he says finally, releasing his sword and resting his hand instead against the door that separates them. Not to push it open, though it would take only a gentle nudge, but to feel the barrier. To remind himself that it’s there.
Kaveh's padded footsteps approach the door slowly, and Alhaitham quickly jerks his hand back.
"Loneliness has a heavy weight of its own," Kaveh agrees quietly. He’s right up against the wood, Alhaitham can tell by how close his voice is. "And a gilded cage is still a cage."
Alhaitham tries to steady his breath as he hears the creak of the door opening right next to him. He keeps his gaze fixed ahead, staring at the ugly painting across the hallway with a single-minded focus, but he catches sight of golden hair reflecting moonlight from the corner of his eye.
"These halls are too drafty at night for a delicate constitution," he mutters, fingers tapping at his scabbard restlessly.
"Is that an order?" Kaveh murmurs, almost directly into his ear. "Bold, for your station."
Something treasonous stirs in Alhaitham's gut at that tone.
More memories of their youth flash through Alhaitham's mind. Shared glances, touch lingering only slightly too long, and a whispered confession under the stars. Their relationship had been a lovely fantasy, in its earlier years, but one that was always going to be impossible to preserve indefinitely.
That doesn’t mean Alhaitham has to play nice, though.
"Then reprimand me, Your Highness," he responds levelly. "Call for the Captain of the Guard. Have me reassigned to night watch on the far towers."
The tension in the air is so thick it could be cut with a knife, and even without facing him directly, Alhaitham can feel Kaveh's presence like a weight on his chest. Then, a soft laugh rings out like a bell, echoing in the empty hallway, and the tension is marginally eased.
“Your own fragile constitution wouldn’t last long patrolling those freezing towers,” Kaveh teases lightly. That’s a lie, and they both know it, but it’s easier to dance around the truth than to openly acknowledge their desires and their powerlessness to turn them into anything more than a fantasy.
Alhaitham wants to remind Kaveh that his constitution is quite the opposite of fragile, to ask him what his real motive is for keeping him around after all this time, but the golden chains wrapped around them both always prevent such foolishness as is honesty.
“Your Highness is quite right,” he says instead. “I am lucky that the Captain is so forgiving of my fragility and keeps me stationed in the warmest wing of the palace.”
There’s a pause, and Alhaitham fights every instinct he has to turn and face Kaveh directly.
“But the draft is still too piercing for a crown prince in his sleepclothes,” he murmurs, looking down at his boots instead, examining the dust and grime on them. “Return to your chambers, Highness.”
He can hear Kaveh shift beside him, the rustle of fabric betraying his restlessness. “The fire has gone out, I need someone to light it for me,” he says, a hint of royal petulance peeking through. The childish tone is likely a farce meant to manipulate Alhaitham into breaking the rules, but it works like a charm, damn him.
Alhaitham lets out a long-suffering sigh, finally allowing himself to shift his gaze toward Kaveh. The prince’s long hair is in adorable disarray from where he’s certainly been tugging at it in his stress, and the embroidered collar of his sleep shirt does not come up far enough to hide his perfect collarbones.
Alhaitham forces himself to look up into Kaveh’s gold-flecked eyes, and prays that his helmet does enough to hide how his ears burn. Judging by Kaveh’s smirk, it does not.
“And I suppose Your Highness does not feel compelled to call for a chambermaid?” he remarks with false composure. His facade of calmness is wavering more by the second.
“Why should I bother a chambermaid when I have a perfectly competent guard right by my door?” Kaveh asks cheerily, ushering Alhaitham inside, sword and all. His touch burns where it lingers on Alhaitham’s arm.
Alhaitham notices immediately when the door clicks shut behind him that the fire in the fireplace is roaring. Kaveh’s spoiled cat, Mehrak, lies curled up on an ornate cushion right in front of it. He gives the fireplace a pointed stare, eyes flicking from the fire that clearly does not need tending to, to the now very smug prince in his slippers.
“Oh! It seems the fire has miraculously sparked back to life!” Kaveh comments brightly, pulling out a plush chair beside a table with a chessboard on it, already meticulously set up to play. There are also two ornate goblets along with a full bottle of wine sitting beside the board.
Ah. So this was premeditated.
Kaveh sits down gracefully, then gestures grandly for Alhaitham to take the seat across from him, crimson eyes sparkling with mischief. “A shame about the fire, but since you’re already here, I have been desperately longing to play a game of chess with someone who won’t let me win just to spare my ego.”
Alhaitham levels a suspicious glare at the items on the table, not yet moving to sit down. “Drinking on duty is considered grounds for dismissal,” he mutters, nervously tracing the leather on his sword hilt.
“My lips are sealed,” Kaveh replies, already pouring a generous helping of wine into both goblets. “Sit down, Alhaitham.”
There’s a degree of command in his voice that makes Alhaitham’s pulse jump, and his legs move without his conscious agreement, approaching the table and settling down in one of those ridiculously cushioned chairs. He looks down at the chessboard so he doesn’t have to watch Kaveh pour the wine. (If he pretends it’s not happening it might go away.)
The board is set up like it always used to be back when their games were a nightly thing. The white pieces are on Kaveh’s side, the black pieces are on Alhaitham’s side. He had always insisted that Kaveh get to take the first move, not because he’s royalty, but because he’s impatient, and eventually they had fallen into a pattern of playing that way every time.
Kaveh taps the table next to the board to get Alhaitham’s attention. “Reminiscing?” he teases. “We used to play like this every night. You’d sneak through the servants’ tunnels to bring me extra pastries from the kitchen, and I’d reward you by destroying you at chess.”
Alhaitham looks up, and his breath hitches at the familiar sneaky amusement in Kaveh’s expression. “‘Destroying’ is not the word I would use, Highness,” he responds evenly, though the way his hands are clenched into his trousers betrays his calmness entirely. “As Your Highness had so eloquently reminded us earlier, I am not someone who simply lets the crown prince beat me at chess to spare his ego.”
Kaveh laughs again, the bright sound stirring something dangerously fond in Alhaitham’s chest. The challenging look that’s leveled at him once the laughing is over, though, stirs something entirely different. Still dangerous.
“Then let the battle begin,” Kaveh says smoothly, reaching toward one of his pawns. “I expect a valiant effort before your inevitable defeat, guardsman.”
“Mm, we shall see.”
To his credit, Alhaitham does put up a good fight, sipping carefully on the wine Kaveh has provided them between moves. But he’s so focused on the game that he doesn’t notice how much of it he’s already had until he has to take off his helmet or risk overheating.
His cheeks burn when Kaveh raises his eyebrows at him over the rim of his own goblet.
“Getting warm?” Kaveh asks, voice dripping with faux innocence. “That brain of yours must be working hard to keep up with my brilliance, I can see the steam rising from your head.” His words are slightly slowed, usually perfect enunciation dragged down by the weight of his own indulgence in the wine.
“I am… merely letting myself breathe,” Alhaitham responds, speech similarly lacking in its usual precision. He averts his eyes from Kaveh’s flushed cheeks, his wine-stained lips, shoving down his treasonous thoughts about how they might taste. He settles on watching the fire while Kaveh considers his next move.
Mehrak yawns from her spot in front of the fireplace, stretching her little legs out in front of her. Alhaitham would like to lay his head down and stretch out like that, too. His eyelids grow heavy as the fire dances in front of his eyes, hypnotizing. He wonders faintly if he’ll be able to find his way back to the guards’ quarters at all, in this state.
There’s the gentle click of ivory against wood as Kaveh makes his move. “Check,” he says smugly.
Alhaitham’s gaze drags lazily across the board, considering the positioning of Kaveh’s bishop, a direct threat to his king. “So it is,” he concedes slowly. His thoughts feel like they’re wading through a thick syrup as he tries to come up with a way to counter. He frowns when nothing immediately becomes apparent.
“That’s checkmate,” he corrects tiredly after a moment, finally slumping back against his chair with a sigh. “Your Highness wins again.”
Kaveh hums thoughtfully, resting his chin on his hand as he watches Alhaitham, his stare far too intense for chess. “That was an easy victory,” he complains, one finger circling the edge of his goblet slowly. “Either your chess skills have severely deteriorated since we last played, or your intoxication is more severe than you’re letting on.”
Alhaitham shrugs, his limbs feeling loose and heavy. “It may be a combination of both,” he mumbles, tilting his head against the chair back and closing his eyes to keep the room from spinning. “Your Highness’ wine… is stronger than I expected.”
“Thoroughly drunk when you’re supposed to be protecting me…” Kaveh tuts disapprovingly. “I could have you thrown in the dungeons for this, you know.” His chair scrapes against the floor, and Alhaitham hears his padded footsteps approaching him.
He keeps his eyes firmly shut as he responds, refusing to give Kaveh the satisfaction of seeing him struggle for composure. “I distinctly recall being coerced,” he grumbles, but all his complaints die in his throat when he feels Kaveh’s hand on his cheek.
“Drink some water,” the prince says softly, pressing a simpler glass into his hands. It’s cold and grounding, and Alhaitham opens his eyes to blink down at it groggily. It’s clear. Water. For hydration. Because of course after getting him stumbling drunk on purpose, Kaveh still wants to make sure he won’t be too miserable later.
“How thoughtful,” Alhaitham murmurs, lifting the glass to his lips. He takes a long sip, the cool liquid soothing his parched throat. He watches as Kaveh pours himself a glass as well, eyes lingering slightly too long on the movement of his throat as he swallows. Sinful.
Alhaitham puts his water glass down with a decisive clink and stands up, the room spinning only slightly less as he picks up his helmet and puts it back on. “I should return to my post,” he says, lingering wine-heavy exhaustion tempting him to just collapse back down into the plush chair. He really doesn’t want to leave, which is why he definitely has to, before either of them does anything impulsive.
He takes one step toward the door, when he feels Kaveh’s hand catch his wrist, holding him back.
“Kav— Your Highness,” he corrects himself, his tongue almost slipping up due to the thick fog clouding his thoughts, obstructing his carefully-crafted professionalism. He cannot afford to let himself slip like this.
“I must return to my post before the next patrol rounds the corner and notices I am missing,” he insists quietly, tugging his wrist out of Kaveh’s grip. He doesn’t let him respond before he’s striding out the door and shutting it behind himself too loudly, the sound echoing in the empty hallway. He all but collapses against the cold stone wall, his head spinning with wine and longing, heart racing like there was more that happened than just some wine over a game of chess.
It takes Alhaitham a moment to settle down again, but by the time the night patrol appears down the hall, he is the picture of professionalism once more, back straight, eyes fixed on the opposite wall. The only indication of anything amiss is the slight flush still lingering high on his cheeks, but that could be easily dismissed as a trick of the flickering torchlight.
Once the patrol has marched past, Alhaitham lets out a deep sigh, leaning back against the wall again. It’s troubling how easily he allowed himself to be convinced to let loose when Kaveh asked him to. Perhaps he should request reassignment, if the prince wants to continue this little game of his past tonight, since loneliness may be more tolerable than the pain of digging into wounds that will never heal.
Kaveh’s childhood shadow does not stand guard at his door the following night. Or the night after that. Alhaitham’s patrols up and down the chilly halls of the northern towers are definitely less eventful, but also lonelier.
The next time Alhaitham crosses paths with his prince directly is at his coronation banquet. An extravagant affair, filled with delicious food, strong wine, and “good company,” as the Captain had put it. But Alhaitham doubts that any of the “company” is really “good.” Kaveh’s family has made a lot of enemies over the past year, and people have gathered from all corners of the kingdom today to celebrate the prince’s rise to power.
Kaveh himself looks the picture of princely composure, smiling brightly, thanking all who come over to offer their congratulations and condolences for his father’s passing. Alhaitham can see how heavily it’s all weighing on him, though. The trembling grip of his fingers around his goblet, the way he holds his shoulders just slightly too rigidly to be natural. Anyone who knows him well enough would be able to tell that he’s right on the edge of breaking.
Perhaps Alhaitham is the last living person who is able to see through him in this way, though. His grieving mother certainly cannot, these days. Alhaitham can tell from the way she stares into her plate that she is in no state to see past her own despair.
Their eyes meet once across the crowded hall. Alhaitham holds Kaveh’s gaze, but the soon-to-be king looks away quickly, taking a measured sip from his goblet.
Alhaitham exhales through his nose, irritated at himself that he expected anything different after weeks of self-imposed distance.
His eyes move from Kaveh’s averted face to the untouched food on his plate, and he tsks under his breath. Even provided with the most delectable meals catered specifically to his tastes, Kaveh will predictably refuse to eat when he’s stressed.
Alhaitham is about halfway through internally cursing Kaveh’s pickiness when the goblet in the prince’s hand slips right through his trembling fingers, clattering onto the table and spilling red wine into his plate. Alhaitham watches in horror as Kaveh blinks down at the mess he’s made, then down at his hands, which are shaking much more violently than stress alone can explain.
All it takes is one glance up at the flush on his cheeks, the confusion in his eyes, and Alhaitham is already sprinting across the hall, spear clattering to the floor, all previous commands abandoned in light of a royal poisoning.
(If he lies to himself, he can be convinced that it is only duty that propels his legs forward so swiftly.)
Kaveh tries to stand, tries to get someone’s attention, but his legs give out from under him the second he pushes his chair back, and he collapses onto the floor. Everyone but Alhaitham seems to be moving in slow motion, like they haven’t fully processed the weight of the situation yet.
“Seal the kitchens!” Alhaitham dimly hears his captain shout. “Detain every servant who handled His Highness’ wine!”
He’s almost to Kaveh. He can see him trying to lift himself up on arms that aren’t cooperating, his chest heaving with deep, labored breaths that look terrifyingly wrong.
Why isn’t anyone around him helping?
The moment Alhaitham reaches Kaveh’s side, his arms give out, and he would’ve hit the floor hard if Alhaitham hadn’t been kneeling right next to him already, catching him before he can split his chin open.
“You, call for a physician!” Alhaitham snaps at the pale-faced servant standing uselessly beside them. He doesn’t get to hear their response, or even see if they move to obey his command at all, because Kaveh’s entire body goes rigid under his hands at that moment, and Alhaitham’s attention snaps back down to him in alarm.
The chaotic din of the banquet hall fades into nothing more than muffled background noise as Kaveh begins to convulse in Alhaitham’s arms, gasping breaths whistling through teeth that are clenched so hard they might crack, his eyes rolled back in their sockets.
Alhaitham quickly lowers Kaveh back down onto the floor, and all he can do is make sure his head is protected and he doesn’t asphyxiate as he thrashes violently against the cold tile.
The strained sounds that are escaping Kaveh make Alhaitham feel sick with fear. The gurgling, the gasping, the aborted choking, each one is like a knife stabbed directly into his chest.
“I have you, Highness,” he says shakily, brushing strands of golden hair out of the corners of Kaveh’s mouth with a gentleness that pushes the boundaries of propriety. “I have you. Help is coming.”
He doesn’t know if Kaveh can even hear him, but the reassurance slips out anyway. It’s more for himself than for the seizing prince.
As long as he’s moving, he’s alive, Alhaitham reminds himself between waves of panic as the convulsions refuse to ease, foamy saliva sliding down Kaveh’s chin.
He can feel the slight tremor in his own hands as he cradles Kaveh’s head, murmuring a prayer to no god in particular that the physician will arrive in time.