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It’s always raining in Sumeru. Most of the time, Kaveh wonders why he even bothers to dry off at all, if he’s just going to get soaked again the second he steps out the door.
It’s always raining in Sumeru, but some people seem to be waterproof. It just slides off their backs like they’ve discovered some secret way to repel rainwater that Kaveh isn’t privy to. Their shoes don’t squish, their socks don’t bunch, their hair doesn’t stick to their foreheads.
How do they do it?
There must be something different about Kaveh, because he’s always leaving puddles wherever he goes. He must’ve been a factory mishap. There was a cog or a spring or something similar that goes into everyone’s assembly that just wasn’t included in his case.
To make up for it, Kaveh wears another’s face on top of his own, a hard shell covering his missing parts. It looks just like him, but doesn’t act the same way he would if he were to take it off. The shell is cracked in places, held together with tree sap and prayers to whichever god might listen.
Sometimes, the cracks are almost invisible. Those are the times when he knows what to expect, when he can say something and is able to easily predict how others will respond. Other times, the cracks are canyons, wide and gaping. Those are the times when everyone else seems to be holding a script that Kaveh is missing, when the actors in the scene are looking at him like he’s grown a second head, because how could he forget his line?
“But you’re speaking in a language I can’t understand!” he protests, wiping raindrops out of his eyes, and they all point and laugh. Hot shame floods Kaveh’s body like molten rock, flowing up from his toes to his face, where it slowly cools and hardens around the mask he’s already wearing.
And he would let it happen, again and again. For most of his life, Kaveh was convinced that if he became impenetrable through this process of shame, he would also stop being miserable; that his second face was a necessary precaution, that it needed to be as strong as possible, and that it eventually would become strong enough that nothing could ever get through.
Kaveh has been struggling with his neurodivergence for as long as he’s been aware of it, even before, and he still has moments when the mask cracks. In fact, those moments have been increasingly frequent lately.
He had thought that beginning to accept the fact that he is definitely not neurotypical would make things easier in the long run, but since he finally acknowledged it a few weeks ago, things have actually gotten harder. Kaveh has found recently that parts of his daily life that used to be at the very least bearable, such as meeting a client in a crowded restaurant, have become practically intolerable for him.
“Of course today, of course at this time…” Kaveh mutters to himself, in distress as he speedwalks home from a meeting he had to cut short. The client had chosen Puspa Café as their preferred location for a first look at Kaveh’s draft of the design, and of course, they had scheduled it for the busiest time possible in that tiny space.
The overlapping chatter and noise from the other patrons of the café had started driving Kaveh up the wall the moment he stepped inside, and he lasted all of half an hour (most of which he barely remembers) before it became too much.
Even now, though he’s free from the unbearable hell that is too many people talking at once, Kaveh feels… unsettled. More than unsettled, really. There’s this pit of dread in his stomach, a tightness in his chest and throat that he’s trying to ignore, signaling to him that if he doesn’t get home quickly, his body will choose for him when the right time to detonate is.
As long as Alhaitham isn’t home yet, he should be fine. As long as he has his key, and he can get it in the lock on the first or second try, everything will work out just fine. He’ll unlock the door, get in, go to his bedroom, and… and… and he can’t think of what he’ll do next. His brain feels like it’s been scrambled in a pan, swirled around and around until there are no coherent thoughts left.
There’s the house.
Up the stairs.
Key needs to go in the lock.
Get the key.
Put it in the lock.
Kaveh’s hands are shaking so badly that he can’t get the key in. The tide is rising, and soon he’ll be in over his head. His heart is trying to escape through his ribcage. Tears burn behind his eyes.
Put it in the lock. In the lock. In. The. LOCK.
The key slips to the side again, and everything falls apart around him. Kaveh can feel a scream building in his chest, but it comes out as a sob instead. The energy buzzing in his bones builds to an impossible high, and there’s nowhere for it to go. Everything hurts. He needs to go… somewhere, somewhere that’s not here. He needs to get out of his skin. Out.
His vision blurs, but he’s not sure if it’s from the tears that are streaming down his cheeks or if it’s something else. Reality is crumbling. He finally throws his key ring down onto the wooden porch and slams his fist against the door once, twice, three times, each impact of his hand paired with a pained cry.
Kaveh tries to hit the door one more time, but his fist doesn’t make contact with the wood. Something, or rather, someone, is holding his wrist in a firm grip, keeping him from further hurting himself. Kaveh sobs again when a gentle hand redirects his fist, which is still straining to hit, to harm, and brings it back down to his side, pinning it there firmly.
“Easy, Kaveh, you’ll injure yourself.” Alhaitham’s voice comes floating into Kaveh’s awareness from behind him, and Kaveh can only give a strained whimper in response, still trying to free his arm from where Alhaitham is holding it down.
Why is Alhaitham here? Doesn’t he have work? Kaveh thinks to himself, frantic thoughts swirling in his muddled brain. He shouldn’t have to deal with me when I’m like this.
“You’re not helping!” is what actually comes out of Kaveh’s mouth, sharp and panicked, rather than any of the more vulnerable thoughts.
His heart is pounding a frantic rhythm in his chest as he struggles to free himself. Kaveh feels constrained, trapped, caught. All he wants is to be able to move freely, but Alhaitham is holding his arm, he’s holding his arm, he’s touching him and Kaveh doesn’t want to be touched, and it hurts, and—
“Kaveh.”
There’s a strangled sound in response to his name. Did that sound come from him? Kaveh can’t tell. Everything is collapsing.
“Kaveh, I will let go of your arm if you don’t use it to hurt yourself or me. Nod to let me know you understand.” Alhaitham’s words are steady and calm, an anchor in the ocean of chaos.
Kaveh manages to nod, and his arm is immediately released. A rush of relief fills him at the feeling of being freed, and he quickly turns around to press his back against the door, sliding down the length of it until he’s sitting on the porch. The distraught architect rocks ever so slightly side to side where he sits, trying to soothe himself.
It’s safer with something solid against his back, a little bit, but he wishes Alhaitham weren’t here to see how unsettled he is. The tears continue to run down Kaveh’s cheeks as he clenches and unclenches his fists repeatedly, a potent shame now mixing in with the rest of the horrible emotions he’s feeling.
Alhaitham crouches down in front of him, keeping a respectable distance but making sure to be in Kaveh’s line of sight.
“Not an easy day, I presume,” he says softly, and Kaveh nods again, sniffling. That’s an understatement, he wants to say, but the words don’t come.
“It’s okay,” Alhaitham continues soothingly. “I know it feels safe to be sitting against the door like that, but let’s go inside so we can regulate together in private.”
He offers Kaveh his hand, not touching him without warning, just offering his hand if Kaveh wants it.
Kaveh does want it. He wants it very badly, in fact, now that it’s his choice.
He grabs onto Alhaitham’s hand tightly, his only grounding point in a swirling mess of bad, and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. Light and sound are still too much, the bad is still too bad, everything still feels too chaotic, too messy in his head, but holding Alhaitham’s hand, being near him, that’s good. That’s what he needs.
He continues to cling to Alhaitham’s hand as he leans down to pick up Kaveh’s fallen key ring, as he slips the key into the lock effortlessly, turns it, and opens the door.
Kaveh still feels untethered as they step into the house together. Reality isn’t lining up all that well, as if he were viewing things through a cracked mirror, slightly skewed. He lets Alhaitham lead him by the hand into the kitchen and sits down at the table obediently when he’s told to. In this state, decisions are not something he wants to be making on his own, and he knows Alhaitham knows that.
“I’ll pour us some water and cut up some zaytun peach slices,” Alhaitham says quietly, gently patting Kaveh’s clinging hand. “But you have to let go of my hand before I can do those things.”
Kaveh nods minutely, reluctantly releasing Alhaitham’s hand and watching as he takes a zaytun peach from the fruit bowl on the counter and begins rinsing it meticulously. Kaveh taps his fingers against the table restlessly while he monitors Alhaitham’s process, while he brings out a knife and a cutting board, then skillfully removes the stem from the peach and slices it into thick pieces, exactly how Kaveh likes them.
Once the zaytun peach slices and two glasses of water are placed on the table, Kaveh grabs Alhaitham’s hand again and pulls him down into the chair next to him. Neither of them speak while they sip from their water glasses and share the peach slices, their unoccupied hands intertwined.
As the sweetness of the peaches spreads across Kaveh’s tongue, he begins to feel himself settling down a bit, his mind clearing slightly, the bad feeling in his chest lessening. Drinking the water helps too, and Alhaitham’s silent presence perhaps even more.
“Better,” Kaveh murmurs, pushing the empty plate and glass away from himself on the table and leaning into Alhaitham’s side. “Thank you.”
I’m sorry, he wants to add, but he manages to hold the apology back. Alhaitham would just tell him there’s nothing to be sorry for (even if Kaveh disagrees, even if he believes that being a burden is the worst inadequacy of them all).
“I’m a mess,” Kaveh continues instead, still resting against Alhaitham as he looks down at his lap. “I’ve been getting overwhelmed like this so often, it’s maddening. I can hardly function.”
Alhaitham tuts quietly. “You’ve been masking so intensely for so long, it makes sense that you’ve gotten to the point at which it becomes unsustainable.”
Kaveh sits up properly and opens his mouth to retort, to argue that it shouldn’t be this way, but Alhaitham interrupts him before he can speak.
“But getting to that point is not a personal failure; it’s an inevitability when you’ve only just begun to grasp that your neurodivergence isn't a character flaw,” Alhaitham says, teal eyes fixed on Kaveh carefully, in that intense, overly intentional way that is so familiar to him. “You don’t owe anyone a performance, even when things get hard. Just being Kaveh is good enough.”
Kaveh looks down, fiddling with his fingers in his lap. There’s a charged silence while he considers the merit of arguing about this. In the end, though, he really wants to believe that Alhaitham is right.
“I know that, intellectually,” he admits finally. “But it doesn’t really feel true.”
“Yet,” Alhaitham adds gently. “It doesn’t feel true yet, but it will.”
He offers Kaveh a small fidget cube from his own pocket to occupy his restless hands, and Kaveh takes it without argument, the wooden pieces clicking together as he maneuvers them absentmindedly.
“I hope so,” Kaveh says with a sigh, allowing himself to list sideways to rest against Alhaitham again.
Alhaitham only hums softly in response, his arm carefully wrapping around Kaveh’s shoulders.
Kaveh lets his eyes unfocus, allowing the world around them to blur to a comfortable degree of fuzziness as he settles into the feeling of Alhaitham’s arm around him.
He’ll be okay in the meantime. As long as he has Alhaitham, Kaveh will be able to handle the many bumps in the long road to self-acceptance.