Work Text:
Within the hour, Kaveh has disassembled the mechanical device, Mehrak beeping loudly over his shoulder. Taking a moment to admire his own handiwork, Kaveh hums approvingly to himself while picking up one of the smaller interlocking mechanisms and holding it up to the light.
It’s more dim inside the tomb than Kaveh would want for this kind of detail work. Light from the nearby torches flickers underneath his eyelids when he closes his eyes and, against his better judgment, rubs them furiously. He regrets doing this immediately when they begin to water from dryness and the few grains of sand that slip through, despite how tightly he shut them.
The fire in the torch flares up and Kaveh startles, immediately feeling the extra heat on his face.
Grumbling loudly, Kaveh leans back onto his hands, grimacing at the grittiness of the sand between his fingers and the stone floor. His red scarf slips down from his face onto his neck again and he exhales quickly, blowing his loose bangs from his eyes. It’s even hotter in the desert than it is in Sumeru City and while Alhaitham always admonishes him for complaining, saying that the city is worse because of the humidity, Kaveh disagrees.
There comes a point where the air is just unbearably hot, whether it has moisture in it or not.
The next time Kaveh is in Gandharva Ville, he’ll ask Tighnari to come up with some sort of counterargument to this — Kaveh is certain there are a few statistics he can use to frame his side as the correct one.
“Of all the pointless things— if he were here, surely he would agree with me,” Kaveh says as sweat beads on his forehead and slips slowly down his face. It’s uncouth but no one is here to see him anyway, so Kaveh wipes his forehead with his sleeve, grimacing at how sand and dirt stains the white cloth instantly.
Alhaitham finds fault with everything Kaveh does.
There’s no use fighting back save the fact that it would seem like conceding if he didn’t.
Kaveh sighs and looks at the neatly-placed geometric pieces at his feet. He has a few extra tools in his suitcase to put it back together far more quickly than the time it took to carefully disassemble it.
With another pleased hum, he pushes Alhaitham from his thoughts and returns to work.
***
Kaveh hates returning to the desert.
The guilt of his father’s death falls heavier on his shoulders as he walks through the ruins of King Deshret’s civilization. With every sand trap and quicksand mire, Kaveh wonders if this was the precise location where his father died during the Interdarshan Championship.
A competition that he wouldn’t have entered if Kaveh — as a stupid selfish child — hadn’t suggested it.
Kaveh closes his eyes, squeezing them tightly shut, and sees his father proudly lifting him onto his shoulders while saying that he’s decided to volunteer as the Rtawahist representative.
Kaveh had laughed and told his father that he would continue to advise him.
Opening his eyes, Kaveh looks up at the dusty and brightly-coloured canvas flap above his head. His travelling tent is exactly the same as it was years ago when he had shared it with Alhaitham.
Kaveh sighs.
In addition to his father, the desert reminds him of Alhaitham and Kaveh can only push his roommate and former partner from his mind so far before the memories return, unbidden and unwanted and painful.
Moving his hand down the stone pillar, Alhaitham looks almost delighted as a small, pyramid-shaped construct appears in the palm of his hand. Kaveh had told him to expect it, but his face lights up when it happens and Kaveh can’t help but lean forward as well, fingertips tangling in Alhaitham’s free hand.
Suddenly, Kaveh sees a different Alhaitham, the rare appearance of a passionate Haravatat scholar when he looks at or talks about something he truly cares about. It’s as if Alhaitham’s expression of wonder is illuminated by his own excitement and not the glowing construct in his hand.
Kaveh hasn’t seen anything more beautiful than Alhaitham working on something he loves.
A small squeeze of Alhaitham’s hand in his brings Kaveh back to himself.
He clears his throat. “Are you ready?” he asks Alhaitham. “This should be the last one. When we put this into place, the entire tomb will likely transform into something different.”
“‘Ultimately, the language of architecture guides the informed inhabitant and the visitor alike,’” Alhaitham quotes from an old Kshahrewar research text. Kaveh had shoved it into Alhaitham’s hands at the beginning of their project and ordered him to read it. “‘A purposeful and unintentional guidepost, architecture is a reflection of the values of the society that created it.’”
Breathing a soft sigh, Kaveh squeezes Alhaitham’s hand and brings it up to his lips for a soft kiss. Alhaitham’s fingers are smooth, without the calluses that litter Kaveh’s own hands from construction work. He places his scarf back over his face to protect it from the swirling sand around them and nods at Alhaitham.
“‘The Language of Sumeru Architecture.’ You remember.”
Alhaitham scoffs and releases Kaveh’s hand. “Of course I do. We reread it last week.”
Kaveh feels a tear fall from the corner of his eye. Sniffling, he wipes the back of his hand across his face gracelessly, taking care to keep any more stray grains of sand from getting into his eyes.
Travelling past the Wall of Samiel makes Kaveh feel like a visiting ghost, disconnected from everything but not wholly, with the half-severed tether tenuously keeping him attached by a thread.
Everywhere he looks, he sees a younger version of himself, nearly about to graduate after a successful thesis defense — his research partner in Alhaitham only a few years behind him even at the young age of twenty and the prodigy of the Haravatat. It was here that their research partnership had grown into a burgeoning relationship, fumbling first kisses and tangled bodies, the scent of salt and sweat never leaving their skin.
Kaveh visits the same places in Caravan Ribat and stays in the same room at the Gilded Journey and buys fruit from the same stalls and chats politely with the same people.
Some of them ask about Alhaitham.
Others take one look Kaveh’s face and do not.
Kaveh was the default speaker of the two of them during their travels — Alhaitham being a bit more tactless than even Kaveh’s own candid nature and Kaveh caring significantly more about what others thought of him than Alhaitham did or ever will — but has never been a good actor. Polite smiles and a dedicated prodigious façade were the most he could ever muster.
And now he cannot even do that most of the time.
When Kaveh closes his eyes he tastes Alhaitham’s lips on his own and smells the musk of Alhaitham in the morning. They would wake up beside each other despite the heat simply because they could.
Nothing can bring them back to that time and it makes Caravan Ribat and Aaru Village and the entirety of the Great Red Sands feel painfully familiar and impossibly alien.
It’s just like the house that he had refused and Alhaitham had accepted.
He hadn’t wanted the house in Sumeru City but now he lives in it anyway.
Even his interior renovations can’t fully remove it from the shared research facility it was years ago for him and Alhaitham.
He had always wanted Alhaitham but now he knows it’s impossible.
Every day he wakes up one door down from Alhaitham’s bedroom and is painfully reminded of this face.
He hates returning to the desert.
***
When he first spots Alhaitham at the southern doorway of the temple ruins, Kaveh tells himself that he’s seeing things.
After chasing the ghosts of their Akademiya project past the Wall of Samiel and through the desert, it makes sense in Kaveh’s sleep-deprived and potentially-dehydrated mind that he would imagine Alhaitham just as he was, standing imperiously in front of runic pane switch, research notes held out like a shield in front of his chest.
Breathing heavily, Kaveh blinks and looks down. Sand pours from a pile next to the two of them into a room below, revealed when Kaveh had accidentally stepped onto a cracked stone panel and the ground had given way. A drop of sweat falls from his forehead, disappearing in the depths.
Later, Kaveh will argue that this is intended and part of the larger puzzle mechanism that takes up the entire throne room. Alhaitham will agree but continue to berate him for not looking out for his own livelihood.
Now, Kaveh hears the loud pants of his own breath and the sifting sound of the sand. He can’t stop staring at the hole in front of them and the ground below. It has to be at least twenty-five metres beneath them, Kaveh thinks.
“There’s little use to this research if you’re trying to get yourself killed,” Alhaitham seethes in Kaveh’s ear, his voice unusually affected. Kaveh feels Alhaitham’s hands around his waist and suddenly realizes that it must have been Alhaitham who stopped him from falling.
The sand continues to drain, filling the cavernous room with a soft hissing sound.
“My father…” Kaveh says, choking back a lump in his throat, lest Alhaitham call him needlessly emotional like always. “My father disappeared and died in the desert. During the Interdarshan Championship. It was quicksand.”
He doesn’t tell Alhaitham the whole truth — that it’s his fault, his own careless words said to his father that are the reason behind his death — but Alhaitham still looks a bit stunned.
Kaveh feels Alhaitham’s arms tighten around his waist. Alhaitham’s head comes to rest on his shoulder.
“You know this isn’t quicksand,” Alhaitham says matter-of-factly. “We have to keep moving.”
Shaking his head, the memory fades from his vision and Kaveh realizes that the Alhaitham in front of him is taller and wearing his current attire rather than his old Akademiya uniform. Kaveh still could be hallucinating, but the more sensible and likely correct conclusion is that Alhaitham is also here in the desert at the exact same time as Kaveh himself.
He shouldn’t be surprised to run into Alhaitham here, but the sight of him makes Kaveh’s blood boil.
“Why are you here?”
Alhaitham startles at his sudden appearance and Kaveh can’t help but take a bit of pride in how the Akademiya Scribe and Acting Grand Sage stumbles slightly before steeling himself back into his usual stoic expression.
“That’s a pointless question. You know I study ancient runes from time to time.”
“You’re supposedly busier than ever with the Grand Sage’s betrayal and exile,” Kaveh counters. “And anyway, you knew that I was headed out here to refresh myself with desert architecture for Setaria’s school. Why didn’t you tell me you were travelling here too. We could have split the cost! You’re so selfish!”
Raising an eyebrow, Alhaitham sighs and closes the book in his hand. The cover snaps shut and the sound echoes through the underground pathway.
“Perhaps you forget that not everyone is as in dire monetary straights as yourself,” Alhaitham says. “Although I can’t possibly see how that would be the case, since your current situation is almost entirely manufactured by your own design, with help from Lord Sangemah Bay.”
“Ugh! Why, you—” Kaveh crosses his arms in front of his chest, mimicking the gesture he’s seen from Alhaitham for years. “That doesn’t change the fact that it’s more logical to split the cost and travel together. Is that not what guides all of your decision-making? Logic?”
Alhaitham’s eyes travel down and then back up the length of Kaveh’s body as he glares at Kaveh. “Unfortunately, not all of my decision-making is guided by logic.”
Shuddering under Alhaitham’s scrutiny, Kaveh flushes with anger at how his body still automatically reacts to Alhaitham after all these years.
“Regardless, we used to be…” Kaveh’s voice trails off as he realizes that he doesn’t really know what he should say.
“…research partners,” he finishes lamely, placing his hands on his hips in an attempt to look more intimidating. “I know you don’t approve of my methods or reasoning or…anything, but I didn’t think you would be this purposefully spiteful. I thought it beneath even you.”
Hurt seeps into the tone of his voice, stretching it thinly.
Alhaitham steps forward. An intense look burns in his eyes, enhanced by the flickering torches. Shadows dance on the stone walls behind him, making Alhaitham look almost monstrous in his quiet fury.
He’s gorgeous.
Kaveh swallows and shakes his head, as if the motion will banish all thoughts of Alhaitham’s beauty from his mind.
“You have a bad habit of speaking your thoughts aloud,” Alhaitham says. “I don’t think you realize that you do it and it’s going to get you into trouble. In fact, I’m sure it already has, given your inability to keep your mouth shut.
Kaveh’s angry retort sticks in his throat as he feels Alhaitham’s fingertips against his cheek, He can’t help but turn his head to lean into them, closing his eyes. The pads of Alhaitham’s fingers are smooth, like they always have been.
“In this case, there is a logic to my actions,” Alhaitham continues, his voice growing oddly hoarse. “That same logic was behind my offer of my home to my former research partner when his ideals had failed him—
“They didn’t fail me!” Kaveh interrupts, clenching his fingers into fists at his sides. His nails dig into the fabric covering his palms. “I stand by everything that I’ve done.”
“And the same logic was additionally behind my not telling him that I was headed to the desert,” Alhaitham continues as if Kaveh hadn’t spoken. “Although I knew that we were travelling in the same direction at the same time. I’ve found this particular internal logic most illogical. And most consistent.”
“I don’t understand,” Kaveh lies. Exhaling slowly, he closes his eyes, bracing himself for whatever insult is about to come out of Alhaitham’s mouth.
There’s only one logical conclusion to Alhaitham’s words and actions, yet balanced against their volatile relationship of the past year, Kaveh cannot make sense of it.
Fragments of the monumental argument that led to the dissolution of their research partnership echo in Kaveh’s mind. Theirs had been a fundamental disagreement of values, made worse by a shared stubbornness and, in Kaveh’s own case, a deep-seated desire to prove his worth beyond the confines of the Akademiya.
I need to hear it, he thinks, as if doing that much could will Alhaitham into being direct.
“You are the gorgeous one, Kaveh,” Alhaitham says wryly.
Kaveh’s eyes shoot open, realizing with growing dread that he must have not only called Alhaitham gorgeous to his face, but practically begged Alhaitham to say something aloud. Alhaitham smiles down at him, expression surprisingly soft.
Breath catching in his throat, Kaveh feels Alhaitham’s fingertips underneath his chin. He turns his head in time to see Alhaitham leaning in.
The kiss is like coming home.