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Kaveh hasn’t seen Alhaitham all day. The rare solitude is a welcome relief from having his roommate constantly present in their apartment, since there’s quite literally no way to avoid him when they’re in that small space together. It strikes him as slightly odd that he hasn’t been around, but Kaveh is not one to question a stroke of good luck, with how infrequently those come along for him.
He’s on his way to meet Cyno and Tighnari, excited for a nice evening at the fairgrounds (even though he’ll be third-wheeling), when his phone pings with Alhaitham’s special notification sound.
“Miku miku beaaaaaam!” the phone chimes, and Kaveh sighs, rolling his eyes. Of course, he couldn’t possibly go an entire day without even hearing from him, that would be too much to ask.
At a red light, Kaveh peeks at his phone screen and nearly groans out loud at the message he finds.
Alhaitham
can you give me a ride?
The nerve of that man, not reaching out a single time throughout the day or even letting Kaveh know in the morning that he might need a ride somewhere in the evening! (Not that this isn’t a pattern for him. Kaveh has to concede that it’s not entirely surprising anymore.)
“He really needs to get his driver’s license soon,” Kaveh grumbles to himself, fingers flying across the screen as he types out his response while keeping one eye on the light.
Kaveh
i’m not your chauffeur!! where do you even need to go??
Alhaitham
the fair.
meeting tighnari and cyno.
i thought you were on your way there, are you not?
Kaveh does actually groan at that, tilting his head back against his seat and pinching the bridge of his nose. Of course. Of course Tighnari and Cyno invited Alhaitham to the fair with them, and of course he decided to actually come, for once in his life.
Kaveh suspects that he must be dealing with some sort of divine punishment for his shortcomings. His fingers tap aggressively against his phone screen, long nails clicking on the glass.
Kaveh
i’m halfway there already! you couldn’t have reached out sooner??
Kaveh watches the gray “typing” bubble intently as he waits for Alhaitham’s inevitably infuriating reply. He is watching so intently, in fact, that he entirely misses the light turning, and the driver behind him presses down on their horn and holds it there, honking long and loud.
Dropping his phone in surprise, Kaveh steps on the gas without properly looking and nearly rear-ends the car in front of him, whose driver had also clearly not noticed the light change yet. He manages to step on the brakes in time, but the quick stop jolts him forward, and his seatbelt digs into where his shoulder meets his neck harshly, pulling a pained gasp from his lips.
Kaveh’s heart is racing and his hands are trembling with adrenaline from the near-accident, but the driver behind him is still honking. He grips the wheel tighter, resisting the urge to roll down his window and flip the person behind him off.
“I can’t go anywhere, asshole!” he snaps, glaring at them through his mirror. Kaveh’s phone chooses that moment to go “Miku miku beaaaaaam!” again, and he has to resist throwing it against the windshield as hard as he can.
Thankfully, the driver in front of him returns to the conscious plane a few seconds later, and traffic finally gets moving again, but Kaveh is already riled up enough that driving all the way back to the apartment to pick up Alhaitham is the last thing he wants to do.
And yet, at the next light, Kaveh picks up his phone again, reading over Alhaitham’s reply and grudgingly typing out his own.
Alhaitham
i have no other way to get there. aren’t you always telling me i need to get out more?
Kaveh
fine!!! i’ll drive all the way back to pick you up, but you’re paying for gas!!
Kaveh can almost see the satisfied smirk on Alhaitham’s face as he reads that message, and it makes him want to scream. Or kiss it off him.
He shakes his head sharply, trying to dismiss the thought of kissing Alhaitham as he attempts to shift his focus to finding a spot to make a U-turn. The only reason he’d ever want to kiss Alhaitham would be to catch him off guard, that’s all. Kaveh bets he wouldn’t have too many smart remarks after that. He might even blush.
…Which wouldn’t be cute. It’d be embarrassing for him, and maybe satisfying for Kaveh, but definitely not cute.
“Miku miku beaaaaaam!”
Alhaitham
thank you, senior.
Kaveh despises the way his stomach flips at the honorific. It’s not like Alhaitham is using it out of respect. It is quite the opposite, actually, but for some reason, the clear disrespect attached to the word makes the warmth in Kaveh’s core glow even hotter.
“Pathetic,” he mutters to himself as he turns the car around to go pick up the man he’s tried so hard to convince himself he hates.
He has good reason to dislike Alhaitham, truly. His manner is abrasive, he’s self-absorbed and lazy, and his one goal in life seems to be to rile Kaveh up. Their personalities simply don’t align, as was clearly evidenced by the project that cost them their friendship in their undergraduate days.
Well, the project itself was never at fault. Kaveh has often considered what would’ve happened to them had they not decided to throw themselves into collaboration, and none of those imagined outcomes are ever any less painful than what actually transpired.
Their opposing ideologies would’ve torn them apart even if they had not attempted to collaborate on a thesis, but Kaveh suspects it was better for both of them that they had such a clean break.
Though maybe “clean” is not entirely the right word for what it was. Kaveh barely remembers any of the words they had exchanged on that final evening, but what he does remember is shouting, his voice hoarse with tears, “I wish I had never met you!”
He remembers tearing his copy of their thesis to shreds in front of Alhaitham, and he remembers his expression. It would’ve appeared blank and guarded to anyone else, but Kaveh, who used to know Alhaitham as intimately as he knew himself, he knew to watch for the tension around his mouth. He noticed the quick blinks and the quiet swallows, the way his fingernails dug into his palms. He knew that Alhaitham had been devastated, and he still chose to walk away.
That choice has haunted Kaveh ever since.
We weren’t even dating, he reminds himself scoldingly, trying to keep his attention from drifting away from the road. Logically, he should’ve moved on a long time ago, but Kaveh’s emotions rarely follow the rules of logic. He still misses what they had, even though it was unsustainable in the long run, even though they were bound to fall out one way or another. It was nice, and now it’s not, and that makes Kaveh unreasonably sad and angry.
He still can’t convince himself that he truly hates him.
Kaveh blindly clicks on one of his playlists to distract himself from his gloomy thoughts, and the first song that comes on is, of course, “Second Chances” by Gregory Alan Isakov. The only playlist of his that this song in particular is on is one titled with only the letter ‘H.’
He would laugh at the irony if it didn’t make him want to cry instead. Even just the strumming of the guitar at the beginning of the song, that gentle waltz, makes him want to tear up.
He’s cried to this song thinking about Alhaitham too many times already. Kaveh pokes his screen to turn off the music before the lyrics start, wiping at his eyes roughly with one hand and gripping the steering wheel tighter with the other.
It’s stupid, how little it takes to remind him that what he had with Alhaitham is now fundamentally unfixable, and how much that still hurts.
The rest of his drive back to the apartment is in silence, but the chorus to “Second Chances” sticks in Kaveh’s head regardless, echoing through his mind like an accusation.
I'm some sick hound
Digging for bones
If it weren't for second chances, we'd all be alone…
Alhaitham’s stupid teal-tipped hair shines starkly against the dull backdrop of their brick building as Kaveh turns onto their street. It’s frankly ridiculous how bright his hair is in comparison to his wardrobe. The addition of his ear defenders being the exact same color makes him look like a highlighter, and Kaveh doesn’t let him forget it, but that comparison doesn’t ever seem to bother Alhaitham, much to Kaveh’s displeasure.
Once he pulls up to the front of the building, Kaveh rolls down his window so he can yell at the offending highlighter, who hasn’t looked up from his book once. (Who brings a book to a fair, even?)
“Get in, we’re already late!” Kaveh complains loudly, waving his hand at Alhaitham in the hopes that something will get his attention.
Alhaitham glances up at Kaveh, then lifts one of the earcups off his ear and tilts his head to the side, like he wants him to repeat himself.
Kaveh glares at him. The audacity!
“What could I possibly have said? Get in the car, Alhaitham!” he snaps, slapping the side of the car door more loudly than necessary. Alhaitham flinches at the sound and quickly puts his ear defenders back on properly, but Kaveh doesn’t have the grace to feel bad, he just rolls up his window again and gestures sharply toward the passenger seat.
To Kaveh’s surprise, Alhaitham walks up to the car, opens one of the back doors, and takes the seat directly behind him, rather than the one up front.
“Antisocial much?” Kaveh mutters sullenly, even though he knows Alhaitham probably can’t hear him. He glances at his roommate through the mirror, and he’s already buried in his book again, ear defenders solidly in place.
At least he won’t be bothering me while I’m driving, Kaveh thinks to himself as he pulls away from the curb, trying to ignore the ache of loneliness that settles in his chest at the thought. He wasn’t even expecting to have to drive Alhaitham to the fair. There’s no reason he should be feeling slighted that an antisocial bastard like him doesn’t want to talk.
But a small part of him does feel that way, and an even smaller part is slightly worried. Alhaitham rarely declines the chance to argue with Kaveh. Even when he’s engrossed in a book, he will often put it down if Kaveh goads him enough. This odd silence is unsettling.
At every red light, Kaveh looks in the rearview mirror and watches Alhaitham read. He doesn’t look especially upset or overwhelmed… So why is he so quiet?
On the fourth red light they hit, he reaches behind his seat to tap Alhaitham on the knee until he looks up, meeting Kaveh’s gaze in the rearview mirror. Kaveh searches his eyes for a moment, then lifts one of his hands off the wheel, points at Alhaitham through the mirror, and signs the letters ‘o’ and ‘k’ with the same hand, raising his eyebrows questioningly.
Alhaitham only nods, which doesn’t assuage Kaveh’s worries whatsoever, but he doesn’t ask again, instead focusing on driving safely the rest of the way. If he doesn’t want to elaborate, Kaveh won’t push. For once. Not all battles are worth fighting.
Once they actually get to the parking lot at the fair, though, Alhaitham tucks his book into his bag and finally takes his ear defenders off, to Kaveh’s relief.
“I was reading about the word ‘love,’” he announces, folding his hands over his bag in his lap. Kaveh freezes halfway to unbuckling himself, and glances back at Alhaitham, confused. As far as he knows, Alhaitham has never been interested in “love” before, particularly “being in love.” Is this a sign that something has changed?
…Not that I have any stake in whether or not Alhaitham ever finds a romantic partner.
The hope rising in his chest feels like a betrayal, and he quickly tries to squash it. The two of them can barely hold a civil conversation most days, there’s no way they could ever become more than friends. And even “friends” is quite a stretch for what they are now.
Kaveh wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with someone so infuriating, anyway!
(He shouldn’t.)
“…And?” he asks cautiously, turning back to the front to finish unbuckling himself. “Learn anything interesting?”
Kaveh immediately regrets asking at all, since Alhaitham seems to be more than willing to dump on him absolutely all of the information he had absorbed about the etymology of the word “love” and the cross-cultural differences to the meaning of its direct translations. Now that he’s not buried in his book, the chatterbox (which only ever seems to appear for Kaveh) is definitely back.
Kaveh has to exert conscious effort not to sigh as they get out of the car, not wanting to take away from Alhaitham’s excitement about what he’s learned. Of course it was an academic interest in the word, and nothing more. Why did he expect anything else?
The endless stream of linguistic knowledge continues to flow from Alhaitham’s mouth up until they get to the ticket booth, where the music from the attractions starts to become too loud for him to keep his ear defenders around his neck. Even once they’re securely around his ears. Alhaitham only pauses for long enough to buy his ticket before the chatter starts up again, louder now because of his muffled hearing.
“Can you keep your voice down?” Kaveh interrupts while they walk, signing the words at Alhaitham while he says them, in case the background noise from the fair is too distracting for him to distinguish speech from the din surrounding them.
“Your ability to sign while talking has improved significantly,” Alhaitham says, speaking at the exact same loud volume as before. “Have you been practicing?”
Despite Kaveh’s frustration at his clear avoidance of the question, the architect’s face is suddenly flooded with a traitorous warmth — Alhaitham notices things, damn him. But instead of simply confirming that he has, in fact, been practicing, he immediately jumps on the defensive.
“And what if I have?” he snips, stopping in his tracks and crossing his arms, signing forgotten in favor of expressing his displeasure with being seen. “Would you make fun of me for wanting to make your life easier?”
Alhaitham stops walking when Kaveh does, turning so they’re facing each other head-on. He crosses his arms as well, mirroring Kaveh’s defensive stance. But instead of an annoyed frown like Kaveh’s wearing, his expression is adorned with a very slight self-satisfied smile.
“So you finally admit you were learning it for me,” he teases. “I thought the day would never come.”
The warmth in Kaveh’s face turns into a burning heat, and he widens his eyes at Alhaitham furiously, uncrossing his arms to instead form tight fists at his sides.
“You— That’s a baseless assumption!” he splutters, cursing himself for what he let slip. “I have… friends in the Deaf community!” A lie. “I mean— Just because I want to make your life easier doesn’t mean I was learning Sign Language for you!”
“Mhmm…” Alhaitham nods sagely, as though he were carefully considering Kaveh’s words, but his slight smile widens, which only further contributes to Kaveh’s indignation.
“You are absolutely infuriating!” Kaveh snaps, though there are many other less harsh words he could use to describe Alhaitham in this moment. Such as “attractive.”
It has always been beyond him to parse through why being taunted by his aggravating roommate makes Kaveh feel so… warm. It’s not just his face that’s heating up now, it’s Kaveh’s whole body that’s alight with something he doesn’t want to name as “desire,” so he calls it “agitation.”
Alhaitham’s only response to Kaveh’s comment is a careless shrug paired with that same smug expression Kaveh had imagined kissing off his face earlier. Slammed with a sudden powerful urge to grab that pretty face and actually do it for once, Kaveh has to work quite hard to force his legs to start moving again, lest he give in to those unhelpful impulses.
Thankfully, once they meet up with Cyno and Tighnari, Alhaitham finally starts behaving himself. It may have more to do with the fact that his mouth is otherwise occupied with the cotton candy he’d bought for himself, but Kaveh would like to believe that Alhaitham wants to put on a good face for their mutual friends.
The fair is loud and busy, filled with lots of screaming children and stressed-out parents, but it is also quite beautiful. The sun has begun to set, bathing the attractions in a red-golden glow, and making the twinkling lights from the various rides seem like hundreds of stars. But the prizes are what really draw Kaveh’s attention.
“Aww, look at that one!” he croons, peeling off from the group and hurrying over to point at a huge, grumpy-looking stuffed cat hanging above a sign that reads “TEST YOUR STRENGTH” in big, bold letters. “It’s got your face, Alhaitham!”
Alhaitham raises one eyebrow, joining Kaveh next to the stall and examining the giant stuffed cat with a critical eye. “Then win it for me,” he says flatly.
Kaveh blinks. “Huh? You want it?” He turns his head to glance at Alhaitham, expecting a playful smirk, but he looks dead serious.
“I want you to win it for me,” Alhaitham repeats, a hint of challenge in his voice. “Unless you think you can’t?”
Cyno nods enthusiastically before Kaveh has the chance to respond, dragging Tighnari over by the arm as well. “It would be a cat-astrophe if Alhaitham went home without such a purr-fect addition to his bedroom. Go on, Kaveh, win it for him!”
Kaveh and Tighnari both roll their eyes at the same time, but Alhaitham seems slightly amused at Cyno’s enthusiastic pun-making. That subtle twitch at the corner of his mouth tells Kaveh enough about how much he’s enjoying the goading.
Kaveh huffs, shoving his bag toward Alhaitham without looking at him. “Hold this,” he grumbles, rolling up his sleeves. “I can absolutely ring that bell, just you wait.”
He turns around and steps up to the staff member who is standing beside the two hammers, placing his hands on his hips. “I’m going for the grand prize,” Kaveh announces. “And I will win it, so don’t give me that baby-looking hammer, give me the big one.”
The staff member gives Kaveh a doubtful once-over. “Are you sure?” he asks cautiously, much to the rest of the group’s mirth. “It’s pretty heavy.”
Kaveh glares daggers at the group of people he once called friends, who are now laughing at him like they take great joy in his public embarrassment. Well, Alhaitham isn’t laughing, but the widening smirk on his face is close enough that it has the same impact.
“I’m sure!” he says sharply, holding out his hands for the bigger hammer. “Some people have showy muscles and can’t lift themselves off the couch when it’s time for lunch.” He makes a show of clearing his throat, then adds, “Actual strength doesn’t require looking like I take steroids.”
The staff member doesn’t comment again, but he still looks slightly doubtful as he hands Kaveh the bigger hammer. The doubt is wiped from his face entirely, though, when Kaveh takes it and swings it over his shoulder with one hand.
The group’s laughter dies down immediately, and Kaveh turns slightly to grin at them as he grips the hammer with both hands now.
“Not so funny anymore, hm?” he taunts, stepping up to the platform confidently.
“I hope you don’t miss the mark,” Alhaitham calls out from where he stands, a few feet behind Kaveh. He can still hear the smirk in his voice. “With how much you just inflated your own ego, I worry it’ll get in the way of your swing.”
Kaveh just rolls his eyes again, settling into his stance and adjusting his grip on the hammer, ignoring the amused “oooh”s from Tighnari and Cyno. He won’t reward Alhaitham with a response to that, it’s too clearly bait to distract him from what’s really important: winning.
He takes a deep breath, centering himself, then winds up and swings the hammer down onto the platform as hard as he can. The metal puck shoots up the tower like a rocket, slamming into the bell at the top so hard that even the staff member flinches at the sound.
Kaveh lets out a triumphant “hah!” and drops the heavy hammer down onto the grass. “There!” he chirps cheerfully, turning back to face Alhaitham. “Told you I could do it.”
Alhaitham only swallows when Kaveh turns around. His eyes are slightly widened, and a light pink dusts his cheeks as he clings to Kaveh’s bag, the cotton candy hanging entirely forgotten from his other hand.
Is he… blushing?
Kaveh’s heart skips a beat, and he immediately has to turn away, clearing his throat and taking the large prize from the staff member. He marches over and takes his bag back from Alhaitham, then shoves the stuffed cat at him roughly.
“Here,” he mutters, refusing to meet those eyes, still wide with something that Kaveh might’ve thought could be admiration, if he didn’t know better. “I said I’d win it for you, didn’t I? Take it.”
Alhaitham slowly gathers the large plushie into his arms, and Kaveh steps back quickly, hating how hard his heart pounds at the sight of him burying his face into its fur.
“I think he likes it,” Tighnari comments quietly, right into Kaveh’s ear, and he jumps, instinctively swatting him away.
“Shut up!” Kaveh hisses. “Of course he likes it, he asked for it!”
“And you won it for him,” Cyno fills in helpfully. “I’d say that’s paw-sitively char-meow-ing.”
Tighnari groans, but Kaveh is too busy trying to convince himself that there is nothing “char-meow-ing” about how Alhaitham is quietly petting the stuffed cat to mind the horrible puns.
Gods damn it, he is really cute, Kaveh thinks to himself, clenching his hands around his bag too tightly in his stress.
Why did he want to win that cat so badly? It’s going to be an eyesore in their apartment, that’s for sure. He’d like to think it was because Alhaitham challenged him, that it was all only to prove that he could, but Kaveh has begun to realize that he does a lot of things for the sole purpose of seeing Alhaitham happy.
He didn’t need to learn Sign Language to make communication with him easier. He didn’t need to give him a ride to the fair. And he didn’t need to win him a stupidly huge stuffed animal, either.
I really like him a lot, Kaveh realizes, and suddenly, his heart drops into his stomach as another, much worse realization slams into him like a brick to the head.
Fuck. I think I love him.
Everything around Kaveh fades away as they begin to walk toward their last destination for the night, the ferris wheel. Alhaitham still clings to the stuffed cat like it’s an anchor, and his ear defenders are pulled down around his neck now that the fair has begun to quiet down, but Kaveh isn’t watching him anymore, too distracted by his groundbreaking revelation.
It makes sense, in a twisted way, that Kaveh would fall in love with the one person who is the least likely to reciprocate. It also explains why everything hurt so much when they had their falling-out. Only love can hurt that badly. Kaveh should’ve known.
He thought he would feel better if he could sort out the tangle of feelings he has about Alhaitham, but now all he can feel is grief sitting heavily against his chest, weighing down his heart.
A “charming” moment at the fair is never going to be enough to fix what’s broken between them. Their personalities are a clear mismatch. They argue all the time, and they’ve both seriously hurt each other with careless words in moments of weakness.
Alhaitham must hate him, even if Kaveh could never properly bring himself to hate him back, and hatred does not easily morph into love.
The loss of what they could’ve had stings all the more when Kaveh is hit with the memory of how a younger Alhaitham used to look at him, back when “senior” was a term he used not to drive Kaveh up the wall, but to express admiration. His eyes would be wide with wonder and interest as Kaveh described his studies, hanging on to every word Kaveh said with earnest engagement, nodding along quietly.
And all that Kaveh gets from him these days is snark and scolding.
They could’ve had more. They should’ve had more. But it’s too late now.
Kaveh spends the entire rest of the walk across the fair in mourning, barely noticing how the reddish-gold glow that everything had been bathed in has faded into the deep purple of twilight, and how the lamps that are lighting up all around the fairgrounds are shaped like eight-pointed stars, twinkling in the night.
He finally manages to pull himself out of his sorrow once they reach the ferris wheel, a towering structure draped in colorful lights and flowery garlands. It’s beautiful, and absolutely overrun with couples. Cyno and Tighnari will, of course, ride together, and that leaves…
“I’m not going,” Alhaitham says firmly, completely unprompted. Tighnari had only looked from Kaveh to him questioningly; he hadn’t even opened his mouth to ask yet, and already, Alhaitham is declining, reaching in his bag for his book instead. Kaveh’s heart sinks.
“Do you really hate me that much?” Kaveh asks bitterly. He knows that it’s a childish question to ask, but he can’t help himself. Can Alhaitham really not stand just a few minutes in close quarters with Kaveh? Is his presence truly that unbearable?
There’s a moment of silence, then, “…No,” comes Alhaitham’s quiet response.
Shockingly, he doesn’t sound snarky or haughty. Not in the slightest. And when Kaveh looks over at him, he doesn’t see confidence or superiority, he sees… hurt, just for a fleeting moment, before his expression is carefully schooled into neutrality again.
Kaveh has no time to process the strange moment of vulnerability he just witnessed, because Alhaitham is already grabbing him by the arm and pulling him toward the waiting cabin.
“Get in,” he mutters, pushing Kaveh forward without ceremony, until he’s sitting down in one of the seats. Kaveh follows along with Alhaitham’s instructions obediently, mostly because he’s curious about his strange behavior. Is it related to the ride itself, or did Kaveh’s comment about hatred land wrong? (Most of Kaveh’s comments do, it wouldn’t be surprising. Ferris wheel-related discomfort would be slightly more interesting.)
Alhaitham sets down his giant stuffed cat in the seat across from Kaveh, but he seems to hesitate for half a second before he gets in himself. Kaveh almost thinks he looks worried, but he quickly climbs in as well and the gate shuts behind him with a final click.
“Make sure to hold on,” the staff member controlling the ride deadpans at them, and Alhaitham’s eyes widen ever so slightly. His hand twitches toward the lever on the gate like he wants to escape, but then they’re released with a stomach-turning swing, and he instead grabs onto the railing of the cabin so tightly that his knuckles bleach white.
“You’re not going to fall out,” Kaveh teases lightly, hoping for a snarky response, but Alhaitham only gives him a tight-lipped smile that looks more like a grimace.
Is he genuinely afraid? Kaveh doesn’t know what to do with an Alhaitham who won’t rise to his bait. For a moment, he just observes him in silence, trying to figure out what’s going on through his body language.
Alhaitham is gripping the railing of the cabin with both hands, tightly enough that it looks almost painful. There’s a slight tremble in his grip, and tension coiled in every muscle of his body. He appears to be getting more tense the higher they go, clenching his jaw so tightly that Kaveh is worried his teeth might crack.
He’s terrified, Kaveh realizes, and the thought immediately makes him feel nervous, himself. He’s entirely unused to dealing with an Alhaitham who is so scared he can barely speak, and he’s sure that his presence isn’t doing much to calm him down, either.
“You know, you didn’t have to prove yourself to anyone,” he finally says, more softly than he’s spoken to Alhaitham in a long time. “If you’re really this scared of heights, you could’ve stayed on the ground.”
“And let you think I hate you?” Alhaitham responds, voice strained. He glances down at the ground below and visibly pales, quickly squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. “Not a chance in hell.”
Kaveh’s heart jumps up into his throat at that. Isn’t his assumption that Alhaitham at the very least dislikes him based in fact? Why would he want to disprove it so badly — in the face of what seems to be one of his worst fears — that he’s willing to endure pure terror?
Kaveh’s mind races through endless possibilities and justifications for why Alhaitham would lie about not hating him, his heart pounding as he frantically searches his face for evidence of deceit. All he finds is fear.
Before he can gather the courage to actually ask about it, though, there’s a loud screeching sound, and the ride grinds to a sudden halt, swinging their cabin back and forth a little too roughly to be comfortable, even for Kaveh. Alhaitham looks like he’s about to either ascend to Celestia or be violently ill, clutching the railing like it’s the only thing keeping him from falling to his death.
“What is happening?” Alhaitham chokes out, eyes still tightly screwed shut. He sounds like he’s on the verge of tears, and it tugs at Kaveh’s heartstrings in a way he’s not used to with Alhaitham.
Kaveh looks around, and comes to the realization that they’ve ground to a halt at the very top of the ferris wheel, where the view is the most beautiful. (He concedes that it’s probably a good thing that Alhaitham has his eyes closed, though.)
“It seems the ferris wheel has encountered some technical difficulties,” he finally says, trying to keep his voice as calm and soothing as possible, despite his own emotional turmoil. “That’s pretty normal, for such an ancient ride. They should have it fixed soon.”
Kaveh looks over at the adjacent cabin, where Tighnari and Cyno are also glancing around curiously. Everyone else seems unharmed and only slightly shaken, but when he looks back at Alhaitham, his trembling has gotten visibly worse.
The idea of directly comforting Alhaitham feels as foreign to Kaveh as speaking in a different language. Making coffee the way Alhaitham likes it in the morning even though Kaveh’s always the one who wakes up first, bringing him leftovers from when he goes out to eat with friends, knowing when silence is needed, and never directly saying “I care,” that’s the language Kaveh is more familiar with, when it comes to his roommate.
But can he really just sit here, close enough that their knees could be touching, while he falls apart in front of him? Kaveh has never held back from explicitly offering kindness and understanding to other people before, why should Alhaitham be any different?
“It’s… It’s okay, Haitham,” he starts awkwardly, the old nickname slipping past his lips far too easily for comfort. “Nothing bad is going to happen. You can keep your eyes closed if you need to, but there’s no danger.”
“I know there’s no danger,” Alhaitham mutters, voice still strained with the effort of appearing collected. “That’s why it’s called an irrational fear.”
Kaveh chews on the inside of his cheek, slightly irritated at Alhaitham’s matter-of-fact response. Would it kill him to appear vulnerable for once? Offering direct comfort has (predictably) failed, perhaps a different tactic is necessary to get his mind off the fear.
“Who knew the ever-rational Alhaitham had it in him to be irrationally afraid of something?” Kaveh teases instead, trying to lighten the mood. He grabs the giant stuffed cat from beside Alhaitham and places it in his lap. “Here, have Mr. Grumpy-Face. He’ll make sure you don’t fall out.”
Much to Kaveh’s dismay, Alhaitham does not let go of the railing, even when the giant plushie is placed in his lap. Kaveh gently taps the back of one of his hands with two fingers, then gently strokes his bleached knuckles.
“Hey… you’re not going to fall out if you let go,” he murmurs gently, nudging the stuffed cat in Alhaitham’s lap with his other hand. “You might feel better if you were hugging a stuffed animal, though.”
Alhaitham grunts, slowly loosening one side of his grip on the railing, but instead of grabbing “Mr. Grumpy-Face” when he lets go, his fingers lock around Kaveh’s hand so tightly that it hurts.
“Feels better to be holding someone who could actually catch me,” Alhaitham explains sheepishly, finally cracking his eyes open to meet Kaveh’s, which are wide with surprise at the sudden shift in Alhaitham’s tone paired with the firm grip around his hand.
The warmth that spreads through Kaveh’s chest isn’t burning this time, it’s more like the soft glow of a well-combed fireplace, warm and steady. Not desire, but fondness, a dangerously vulnerable feeling. He squeezes Alhaitham’s hand back once, trying to ignore the fear that always comes with those softer emotions.
“I’d never let you fall,” he assures him confidently. “Who, then, would I spend my time having useless debates over nothing with?”
Alhaitham only nods nervously, keeping his eyes fixed on Kaveh, like he’s the only thing keeping him from spinning out of control. A strangely comfortable silence falls over the two of them as they sit there, holding hands, stuck at the top of the ferris wheel.
The stars above them glitter faintly, bearing witness to a rare moment of peace between two men who are never not at each other’s throats. Kaveh looks down at the stars below them — the lights of the fair, still shining brightly — and then up at their silent witnesses, and he smiles sadly.
“The constellations were the same on the night I tore our thesis to shreds in front of you,” he suddenly admits, looking down at where Alhaitham’s hand is still wrapped around his. “I went outside to lament to the stars afterward, so I remember what it looked like really clearly. I know the similarity is because of the seasons, but it feels to me like the sky is judging me for my missteps.”
Alhaitham is quiet for a moment, and Kaveh immediately curses himself for choosing to be vulnerable. A few minutes of peace between them means nothing in the grand scheme of their relationship. This was only another mistake. He tries to pull his hand out of Alhaitham’s, but his grip remains tight, unyielding.
“The sky would be judging us both, if that were the case,” Alhaitham finally says quietly, turning Kaveh’s hand over and pressing his thumb into his palm, almost like a massage. “I am not without fault. The fact that you think I could ever hate you is evidence enough.”
“You have good reason to hate me,” Kaveh argues weakly, still trying to pull his hand away. “I hurt you. I destroyed our relationship and walked away from the wreckage, and you just let me come live with you afterward.”
“Then when we started living together, you learned Sign Language to make communicating with me easier,” Alhaitham points out, letting go of the railing with his other hand, joining it with Kaveh’s as well. “And I rewarded you by making fun of your signing. Neither of us have ever been blameless, Kaveh. I think you know that. But no one is irredeemable.”
Kaveh is suddenly tempted to throw himself over the edge of the railing to avoid the conversation they’re having. This is pragmatism at its finest, balancing the blame evenly based on concrete evidence, so why does it feel like Alhaitham is looking into his soul?
“You can’t just say things like that,” he hisses, but the way he stops trying to resist Alhaitham’s grip on his hand is telling enough.
“Why not?” Alhaitham murmurs, brushing his knees against Kaveh’s for the first time since they got on the ride. It’s clearly intentional, and it makes Kaveh want to cry.
“Because it gives me hope, you asshole,” Kaveh snaps, hating the way his voice trembles. He feels cornered, like an injured animal, ready to strike back at any opportunity. There’s no softness anymore, only fear and anger. “Every once in a while, I foolishly allow myself to hope that maybe things could be different between us,” he continues, fighting against the lump in his throat that indicates another emotion: sadness. “But they never are.”
“Different, how?” Alhaitham asks quietly, gently rubbing his thumb into Kaveh’s palm. The breeze picks up slightly, and the cabin begins to rock gently, but Alhaitham doesn’t seem disturbed by it this time. “Things are different from how they used to be.”
Kaveh looks out across the fairgrounds instead of meeting the softness in Alhaitham’s eyes. He can’t stand it.
“I don’t know if I can explain it in words,” he mutters. The horizon offers him no comfort whatsoever, as twilight fades into the darkness of night. Only the moon and the lights from the fair illuminate them now.
“Draw it for me, then,” Alhaitham says suddenly, tapping Kaveh’s knee lightly with one finger. “Once we get down from this dreadful contraption, draw me a picture of what you want to be different.”
Kaveh turns his gaze back toward Alhaitham, raising his eyebrows. He looks much more at ease now, though they’re still so high up. The corners of his lips are even slightly turned upward in the closest thing to a genuine, not-at-Kaveh’s-expense smile that Kaveh has seen from him in a long time.
Cute. And it works, damn him.
“And what, you’ll do exactly what I draw you doing in the picture going forward?” Kaveh says, rolling his eyes with a small, uncontrollable smile of his own, the mood successfully lightened. “That’s giving me way too much power.”
Alhaitham shrugs. “Maybe. Depends on what you end up drawing.”
The ferris wheel takes the silent moment that follows to grind back into gear, and Alhaitham quickly grabs onto the railing with one hand, keeping the other locked around Kaveh’s tightly.
“Shit,” he breathes shakily, squeezing his eyes shut again. “I was just getting comfortable up here.”
Kaveh laughs quietly, scooting a bit closer to Alhaitham, just until their knees brush again. “If the movement is what bothers you, I’ll draw us stuck up here forever, since it seems that it’s the only way we can actually get to talking like normal human beings.”
“You better not,” Alhaitham grumbles, shifting his grip from Kaveh’s hand to his bicep, so their forearms are pressed together. “I’m never coming to the fair with you again.”
“As long as you’re still around to bother me elsewhere,” Kaveh teases. The pleasant warmth in his chest is returning, pushing out the fear, the anger, the sadness. Maybe things aren’t the way Kaveh wants them to be yet, and maybe the grief over lost time will be present for a while, still, but maybe that’s also okay.
Maybe changes in their relationship don’t have to be categorically in a negative direction.
The stars, again, are their sole witnesses as Alhaitham continues to cling to Kaveh’s bicep while their cabin descends from the top of the wheel. It’s only once they’re both back on solid ground that his grip shifts back to Kaveh’s hand. And instead of letting go entirely, Kaveh feels him squeeze lightly, just once.
“Always will be.”
Kaveh can see Cyno and Tighnari watching them from where they disembarked as well, but he doesn’t try to push Alhaitham’s hand off. It doesn’t feel that important to pretend, in this moment of fondness.
In this moment of love.
Because that’s what this is, Kaveh realizes. That’s what Alhaitham has been saying this whole time, quietly.
“I love you, I love you, I love you,” in the teasing, in the arguments, in the scolding and the nagging, a quiet chorus of devotion that Kaveh has been deaf to for years. He doesn’t hate him at all.
The night sky above them no longer feels judgemental, and tomorrow is a new day — one where Alhaitham will predictably wake up late to coffee that Kaveh has made to his tastes, and leech off him for leftovers, and nag and scold and complain. And Kaveh will always indulge him, knowing this time for sure that there is no true hatred living in the home that they share.