Archive of Our Own

The worst part of the entire thing was that Alhaitham didn’t even slam the door when he left. No, he closed it gently, as though the argument that still heated Kaveh’s blood meant no more to him than a casual conversation. 

And so Kaveh was left standing alone in the living room. His hands shook at his sides, and he knew without looking that his face was flushed. It wasn’t the first time he and Alhaitham had argued. Their history was littered with them, like potholes in a road. Little dips and valleys, and then a sinkhole right in the middle. 

Kaveh took a deliberate breath and tried to focus on the feeling of his chest rising. When the stretch of his lungs turned painful, he exhaled.

Fine. He wasn’t going to sit here and stare at the door like a neglected dog. If this was how Alhaitham wanted tonight to be, then who was Kaveh to stop him?

He turned his back to the wooden door and left for the kitchen.

Dinner was still on the table. Two untouched plates, both gone cold. Kaveh swallowed against the uncomfortable lump in his throat as he began the process of packaging their food up to go into the cryo box. He wasn’t hungry anymore. 

The only sound in the kitchen was the scrape of metal against the plates. Kaveh was used to quiet. Even when Alhaitham was home, their space was usually a peaceful one if Kaveh wasn’t actively working on something. But the quiet sounds of another person were missing. No pages turned in the living room. There were no sighs or hums, no shifting of fabric as Alhaitham got comfortable on the divan with whatever book he was currently parsing through. 

Kaveh was also no stranger to loneliness, after all.

The work was easy, which was the worst kind of work because it left Kaveh free to let his mind wander, to turn his attention toward all of the things he ran from with ink and wine and his voice raised in argument. 

Alhaitham was avoiding him. It had to be true, because Kaveh could not think of another reason that would keep Alhaitham late at his job other than his desire to see Kaveh as little as possible.

When Kaveh had first returned from the desert and learned of all that had transpired in Sumeru in his absence, his first reaction had been incredulity. Alhaitham? The Grand Sage? It seemed about as likely as Kaveh paying off his debt to Dori within the next year– theoretically possible if one discarded every truth about their characters. Kaveh knew, logically, that Alhaitham would make a very good Sage. He was level-headed, free from bias, and able to approach any situation with logic and cool rationality. In addition, Kaveh knew that he had never once held the desire to rise to a position of fame and power, and unless Alhaitham had changed that drastically in the years since they had been students together, this most likely remained true. 

Alhaitham didn’t want power. He never had. Power, as Alhaitham had so succinctly put it years earlier, means nothing if you don’t have the knowledge to use it.

And yet, the nights where Alhaitham came home late, sweeping through the living room with barely a grunt of acknowledgement, grew more and more frequent. What other excuse could Kaveh give, then, when Alhaitham hadn’t been home on time once within the week? 

How sick of Kaveh’s presence had he grown, to choose work over the comforts of his home?

A plate slipped from Kaveh’s hand and clattered into the tub of the sink, splashing soapy water everywhere. Kaveh stood there for a moment, watching the ripples in the water shrink until the surface was still again. Heat welled in his chest. His hands shook. 

Kaveh wanted to bite down on his wrist until he bled. Instead, he calmly dipped his hands into the water and picked the plate up once more. 

When the dishes were clean, Kaveh moved on to wiping down the counters, and then to sweeping the floors. Each task he completed, rather than settling the strange knot in his chest, only fed into the manic energy gripping him by the throat. Was this what the puppets of Zubayr Theater felt, when their masters yanked them around by their invisible strings? Every time Kaveh contemplated slowing his frenzied dance, the thing around his throat tightened its grip. 

Kaveh swept the floors, and wiped the surfaces, and gathered the stray books that adorned every surface of the space he and Alhaitham shared. The building that he had begun to call home, even if only in his head. 

When the living room was clean once more, Kaveh took the pile of books into the study to reshelve. It was a task Kaveh was oddly used to, given that none of the books belonged to him. He intended to drop them on the deck surface to sort, only to discover that there was yet another book already lying open.

This book was unfamiliar to Kaveh, but that was nothing new. Not a day passed where Alhaitham didn’t find something new to read, something he had decided was worth learning about. No subject was off-limits if it pleased Alhaitham to learn about. 

Normally, Kaveh would tidy it away with the rest of the books. There was a shelf in the study Kaveh kept clear for Alhaitham’s borrowed books. Not that Alhaitham could be bothered to use it himself, but Kaveh did notice when the shelf emptied every few days. 

But tonight, Kaveh was desperate for a distraction. He leaned over the book and was surprised to discover the page covered in neatly-labeled diagrams of intricate mechanical arrays. The script was measured and even. 

Kaveh pulled back the leather arm chair with a sound of scraping wood. The book was thinner than Kaveh had expected. Not a textbook then. A quick flip through the book revealed more diagrams, interspersed with personal musings about the effectiveness of replacing this crystal with one that had a different chemical makeup or that adhestive’s usefullness in sealing monitoring technology against the wear of extended use in the desert climate. 

What was Alhaitham doing with a Kshahrewar journal?

Kaveh turned to the title page, hoping to find an author’s name or perhaps a House of Daena designation that would tell Kaveh where to go to find similar texts, only to be met with a scrawl far messier than the neat labels that adorned the diagrams inside. 

May my child Alhaitham lead a peaceful life.

Oh. 

Kaveh didn’t know much about Alhaitham’s family. It had always been one of those topics that felt slightly out of reach, and Kaveh held too much respect for his junior in those days to demand it be brought down and laid bare for his hands. But they’d gotten close, once. 

Kaveh had managed to get his hands on a bottle of wine from Lambad’s, and he and Alhaitham had taken it up to the top of Razan Gardens in the late hours of the evening, or perhaps the early hours of the morning. They’d sat side by side, their legs dangling off the side of the stone path and into open air. The breeze was soft, scented with the aftermath of the afternoon’s storm. 

Kaveh had received a letter only that morning, sealed in cream-colored parchment and decorated with a golden seal that was entirely familiar to him. On the front, in matching golden ink that had shimmered beneath the artificial light of Kaveh’s dorm room, was his name. The strokes were delicate and sloping, as though the writer had taken great care with each line.

His mother’s name was in the corner, alongside an address from Fontaine that Kaveh didn’t recognize.

He’d thrown it into the trash without opening it. And he’d dug it out with trembling fingers after he returned from his classes that afternoon. 

The thought sat on his tongue like acid, and Kaveh swallowed another mouthful of sickeningly sweet wine to drown it out.

Would Alhaitham tell him to open it? Alhaitham, who had no family to call his own. Alhaitham, who had lost his grandmother and vanished for two weeks without a word to anybody, only to return one unremarkable afternoon with bags under his eyes and a strange weight slanting his shoulders.

Or would Alhaitham pin him beneath one of those analytical stares and ask why the thought of keeping it had ever crossed his mind?

In the end, Kaveh hadn’t asked. He’d buried the question with too much wine, drinking until his eyes and limbs felt too heavy to move. And when he woke in the morning with a blinding headache in his own dorm bed, he’d ripped open the letter without stopping to think and sent off an acceptance with the morning post. 

Kaveh brushed his thumb across the words, feeling the indent of a quill on paper. 

The diagrams Kaveh had seen were distinctly Kshahrewar, and he was not an idiot. Alhaitham’s grandmother had written a number of theses in her time, some of which Kaveh himself had cited in the pursuit of various classwork. 

This belonged to her. And now it belonged to Alhaitham, along with a last wish that was never meant for Kaveh to see. 

There was a taste on his tongue that was distinctly like guilt as Kaveh gently closed the book once more. There was still a stack of books left for Kaveh to deal with, but his heart was no longer in the task. 

May my child Alhaitham live a peaceful life. 

Kaveh ran his fingers absently along the spine of the thin journal. He was familiar with Alhaitham’s idea of peace. Solitude. Quiet. Never going out of his way for anybody. Alhaitham would sooner stand at the water’s edge and watch someone drown than wade into the water in their defense.

Except for Kaveh, of course. How often had Alhaitham stepped in to Kaveh’s defense now? How often has Kaveh been the cause of Alhaitham’s disturbed life, the stone thrown into the placid waters of Alhaitham’s peace?

Kaveh finished shelving the books in a quiet melancholy he couldn’t seem to shake. He returned to the living room, fingers itching for another task, but the floors were clean and the surfaces wiped. There was nothing for Kaveh to do other than gather his few things and vanish into the dark of his room. 

His bed was warm and comfortable– and now that Kaveh was thinking about it, really thinking about it, was this another imposition? Another thing Alhaitham provided for Kaveh simply because it was Kaveh who asked?

The quiet sounds of a city settling in for rest couldn’t distract Kaveh from this new question, this new problem that he turned over and over in his palms like a puzzle cube or a new device. Something Kaveh could pick apart until he knew it inside and out, until he could piece it back together in a new shape. 

This problem, however, had escaped Kaveh for years. Sometimes, when the wine softened his hand and sweetened his tongue, he would return to it the way he might find comfort in a proof with no solution, testing theories on scraps of paper and reveling in the way it challenged him. 

But now, as he watched the moonlight shiver on the roof of his darkened room, he wondered if the shape of the truth had always eluded him simply because he refused to admit that the shape of it would cut him as he fit it into place.

Why did Alhaitham let Kaveh stay?

He’d visited this shape before, cut his fingertips on the razor’s edge of it. But no solution ever presented itself. 

May my child Alhaitham live a peaceful life.

How could Alhaitham fulfill that wish with Kaveh taking up space in his home and his life? Kaveh was not oblivious. He recognized that Alhaitham shouldered more of the burden than was fair to expect of an old friend. He couldn’t even call them friends, really, not with the hole in the years between them, the wound that still bled in Kaveh’s chest when he poked and prodded at the memory. Kaveh might have been Alhaitham’s peace once, a lifetime ago. Peace in the shape of sweet, ripened peaches and arguments that felt more like discussions than diatribes. 

But Kaveh had surrendered that right. Thrown it back misshapen and malformed. 

“When will you stop pretending that your altruism comes from anything other than your desire to assuage your own guilt?”

Kaveh shook the sounds from his ears and pulled the blanket over his head. He’d spent years running from those words, from the moment they fell from Alhaitham’s lips and shattered on the floor between them. 

In that moment, he wished he’d never met Alhaitham. And now, laying in a bed that did not belong to him and watching the shadows stretch across the walls, he wished for it again.

Maybe, if he had never met Alhaitham in the House of Daena all those years ago, then Alhaitham could have lived the peaceful life his grandmother had hoped for him. 

(Would they have met for the first time as adults? Would Alhaitham have given him a second glance that night? Or would his eyes have slipped over Kaveh’s slumped form in the tavern as though he were nothing but furniture and decoration– shiny, yes, but useless, the way Alhaitham loved to talk about the touches of life Kaveh had brought into Alhaitham’s empty house. Unworthy of the time and the mora Kaveh dedicated to them.)

In the quiet, Kaveh could hear the front door open. Keys clattered into the ceramic dish by the door. The one Kaveh had bought right after moving in. The one Alhaitham has huffed about as an unnecessary purchase.

Kaveh rolled over until he was facing the dark wall beside his bed. Footsteps echoed, first heavy from boots and then lighter. Alhaitham always took his boots off at the door now. Another habit Kaveh had instilled in him within weeks of moving in.

("You’re tracking sand everywhere, Alhaitham.” Kaveh had said. “It’s not hard to just take them off!”)

There was a pit of anxiety in his chest, the kind that threatened to steal his breath and replace it with grit and ache. Normally, he would roll out of bed and drown the feeling– in wine, in work, it didn’t matter as long as it stopped. But out of bed meant into the house, and into the house meant opening himself up to Alhaitham’s commentary and judging eyes. Instead, Kaveh pulled the blankets tighter and willed sleep to find him quickly.

Sunlight woke him by trickling through the gauzy curtains. Kaveh had installed them over his windows months ago. Alhaitham hadn’t complained at the time, other than a throwaway comment about the waste of funds on curtains that wouldn’t even stop the light from coming in. 

(“What’s the purpose? It was my understanding that curtains were meant to block light.”

“It softens the light, not that you’d understand the concept of softness.”)

Kaveh laid there, in a bed that did not belong to him, in a home that should have been his, and he thought.

Alhaitham had been distant. He left early and came home late. He skipped meals. Kaveh had been called many things in his life, but he was not an idiot. Every time Kaveh worked his way through the facts, he arrived at the same conclusion. It was not a pleasant conclusion, but it was the right one in all the ways that mattered.

Alhaitham was avoiding him. This was not unusual in itself. They’d fought before, but it usually settled itself within days. This strange stalemate had been going on for weeks. Worse, Kaveh had no idea what might have caused it. He had been snappy when he’d returned from the desert to all sorts of ridiculous rumors– about coups and gods and Alhaitham, the new Grand Sage. 

(Alhaitham. The Grand Sage.)

But surely this wasn’t enough to deserve such an extended period of silence? 

Unless Kaveh considered what he had learned. Unless Kaveh added this one final piece of knowledge to the puzzle. Only then could Kaveh step back and see the complete truth, the one that had been hidden by the holes in Kaveh’s knowledge.

Alhaitham wanted him gone.

Alhaitham had taken Kaveh into his home in a moment of weakness, and now he regretted it. Kaveh’s extended absence had reminded Alhaitham of the peace he had sacrificed by allowing Kaveh to take up space, and now Alhaitham was communicating in his own way and hoping Kaveh would get the message before Alhaitham had to spell it out for him. 

Well. Kaveh would just have to give Alhaitham what he wanted, after all. A final nod to the junior that had once stood at Kaveh’s side, and the man that had walked away without once looking back. 

Kaveh threw his blanket aside. Seven days would be enough time for Kaveh to pack his essentials. Most of the things in this room had been bought with Alhaitham’s money, after all. He’d ask Lambad about crashing on the second floor couches for a few nights if he needed to, or he’d sleep in the Kshahrewar offices. Nobody in the Akademiya would look twice at Kaveh dozing on a drafting table for a few days. 

His mind was made up. All that was left for him to do was follow through, and then he and Alhaitham would both be free.

(So why did his stomach still churn?)

When Kaveh opened the door, the first thing that greeted him was the smell of coffee. This wasn’t unusual– Alhaitham was more shroomboar than human before his first cup of coffee, and it often took two or three before the man seemed fit to even speak, let alone read complicated dissertations and proposals. But the smell of fresh-baked pita was new, or at least unfamiliar. Most of Kaveh’s breakfasts during the week consisted of cold rice gone hard from the cryo box, if he managed to eat anything at all. 

Was Alhaitham… cooking?

Even the thought felt slightly absurd. Alhaitham did not wake up early to cook. Alhaitham did not wake up early at all. His routine was calculated down to the minute, meant to maximize how long he was allowed to sleep before he had to face his day. 

(He was a bit like a cat in that way– lazy, preferring to stretch himself out and nap in the sun over getting any actual work done.)

Normally, Kaveh would have no problem wandering into the kitchen. Alhaitham usually made enough coffee for both of them, so it seemed reasonable to assume that Kaveh would have food waiting for him alongside his usual cup of coffee. But now, with last night’s revelation still weighing heavy on Kaveh’s shoulders, he wondered if maybe it would be better for him to stay in his room until Alhaitham left for the day. 

Which was worse? Wasting the food Alhaitham may have made for him or finding out that his expectations fell short? 

Kaveh stood in his doorway, deliberating. Finally, his growling stomach won out over the disquiet in his chest, and he shuffled into the kitchen without much extra fuss.

There was, just like he expected, a mug of steaming coffee waiting on his half of the table alongside fresh pita. A thick piece sat on a plate alongside his mug, already slathered in honey and feta with pieces of sweet Ajilenakh fruit. Exactly how Kaveh enjoyed it.

His stomach twisted.

“Morning,” Alhaitham said from the stove as though this was their normal routine. Maybe it was, in a way. Now that Kaveh thought about it, how many coffees had they shared at this wooden table? Kaveh ran his fingers along the divots he knew by touch. 

“You’re making breakfast,” Kaveh replied. It was a deflection, and they both knew it, but Alhaitham let it slide. They had never apologized for their arguments, not once in the year Kaveh had spent under Alhaitham’s roof. And never for the one that always nipped at their heels but never showed its face.

“Astute observation.”

“Why?”

“Mmm.” Alhaitham pulled another pita from the pan, careful not to burn his fingers, and tossed it on the stack sitting on the counter beside him. “Perhaps I just felt like it.”

Kaveh looked down at his breakfast. The honey dripped from the edges in golden strings. Kaveh ripped a piece from the edge and swallowed it nearly whole. 

The sugar tasted a bit like acid on his tongue. Perhaps it was the honey that caused the “thank you” to remain stuck in his throat. 

Alhaitham’s eyes remained on Kaveh for a heartbeat longer, and then he turned back to the stove and set another disk of dough into the pan. 

“I’ll likely be home late again,” Alhaitham said to the oven. “Don’t skip dinner on my part.”

The argument was half-formed on Kaveh’s tongue before the memory of his earlier conviction stopped his voice. What did it matter to Kaveh if Alhaitham came home late? Soon, Kaveh would be gone from Alhaitham’s peaceful life and Alhaitham wouldn’t have to worry about warning anybody at all.

Kaveh hummed in agreement and ignored the suspicious look Alhaitham leveled him with as he finished the last of his pita. He took a second– he really didn’t ’t like to waste food, and Alhaitham had made enough pita for Kaveh to eat nearly a dozen of them– as Alhaitham sat opposite him with his own mug and plate. 

Kaveh chewed his second pita in silence. 

How much of Alhaitham’s life had shaped itself in deference to Kaveh’s presence? The kitchen was nearly unrecognizable in comparison to what it once was. Kaveh’s choices of art hung in parts of the wall that were once bare. Even the plates they used to eat were Kaveh’s choice, after he learned that Alhaitham had exactly three plates and zero bowls in his house.

(Alhaitham had argued that three plates were all he needed, given that he did the dishes every night and ate no more than three meals at home.

“What about company?” Kaveh asked. Alhaitham gave him a look that was so easy to read, he might as well have written the answer on his forehead.)

Kaveh had wanted to be free of Alhaitham’s home since the day he dropped the first box in that spare room with a sigh. So why was it that now, with a fledgeling plan and motivation to leave, Kaveh couldn’t bring himself to take that first tiny step?

I’m leaving.

I’m finally moving out. Aren’t you happy?

I’ll be gone by next week.

It’ll be like I was never even here.

The words grew barbs like wolfhooks. They refused to leave his throat.

Alhaitham stood and brushed his pants clean of crumbs. He finished the last of his coffee and dropped the mug in the sink.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said. Kaveh opened his mouth, though he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to say, but Alhaitham vanished out the door and down the hall before Kaveh could come to a conclusion anyway. The door closed with a soft thud, and Kaveh was left to stare at the dregs of his coffee in silence.

Kaveh did the dishes because it felt like a fair trade, and he had no clients waiting for him today. There was a draft sitting on the drafting table in the office that he really should look at, but something about the idea of sitting still at the desk and working on calculations itched beneath his skin. So instead, Kaveh packed.

Or, well, he tried to.

Two hours later, Kaveh found himself standing in the center of his room feeling a bit like he'd been tossed over the side of a sailing vessel and left to swim to shore on his own.

When did he get so much stuff? Sure, Kaveh had always been a bit of a collector, but surely he hadn’t become this extreme in the last year, right?

Or, rather, when had he unpacked all these things? When had his father’s rings stopped going into his jewelry box and started sitting out on his nightstand when Kaveh wasn’t wearing them? When had Kaveh stopped packing away all of his tools every night, as though he might have to escape with the dawn?

He’d promised himself when he moved in that he would never let himself become comfortable in Alhaitham’s home. It was always meant to be a temporary stop, the way he might pause for respite by an oasis before continuing his journey toward his destination. Even now, there were a few boxes tucked away under his bed that he knew he would never unpack until he had a home of his own. His parents’ journals. The blueprints he’d designed as a child, made entirely of whimsy and dreams but annotated in his mother’s careful hand. 

One family photo that he sometimes pulled out just to make sure he could still remember his father’s face.

(What kind of son would he be, to forget the face of the man who died trying to fulfill his silly whims?)

But now, here he stood, surrounded by things Kaveh had pulled from every shelf and drawer in his room. Papers where his wide, swooping handwriting contradicted against Alhaitham’s more cramped script. Half-written lists of groceries that Kaveh should just throw away, but for some reason couldn’t bring himself to. Rejected drafts. So very many rejected drafts, each one annotated in red ink as a step on the way to the solution. 

Books he didn’t remember buying. Scarves lined in warm fabrics for the cooler winter months. Pots of ink and quills too elaborate for the beating they take at Kaveh’s hand. 

Slowly, with shaking hands, Kaveh began sorting the items he knew he did not purchase into a pile on his otherwise-empty desk. Everything else went onto his bed. 

He’d need to find boxes. 

It wasn't much, but it was a start.

(It felt a little bit like saying goodbye.)

Kaveh worked through the day. He ignored his wrists when they began to ache and his back when it went stiff. He sorted through what he could and tried to stop his brain from thinking. 

Should he start pulling his art from the walls now? It was his blanket that rested over the back of the divan in the living room, and his books on architecture and mathematical theory and Deshretian technology shared space with Alhaitham’s own eclectic collection. 

Maybe… Maybe Alhaitham would notice Kaveh packing, and then Kaveh wouldn’t even have to have the discussion about moving out at all. 

Maybe Alhaitham would even help him pack. Put those useless muscles to work, feeble scholar be damned, and help Kaveh compress his life into half a dozen boxes.

Kaveh thought about that for a moment, turning some scrap piece of metal he’d found over and over in his hands. Alhaitham helping Kaveh pack. A familiar smile on his face, the one Alhaitham wore when he was excited about something but didn’t want to admit it. 

Kaveh threw the scrap at the pile of trash sitting by the door with far more force than necessary. It hit the wall before falling to the top of the heap. 

From its charging port, Mehrak beeped a sound that seemed almost concerned. Kaveh paid it no mind as he continued to sift through his things. The scarves he’d found were folded and placed on his desk. The thick blanket that had replaced Kaveh’s quilt joined the scarves, alongside a few pots of archival ink Kaveh must have pilfered from Alhaitham’s desk. 

When Kaveh finally exited his room, the shadows indicated that evening had begun to fall over Sumeru City once more. His stomach growled to remind him that he hadn’t eaten since the morning’s pita. 

Kaveh should cook, but the work had drained him, so he settled for some cold pita bread with some hummus and olives he’d found in the cryo box. He still needed to head into town and ask about boxes. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to talk to Lambad early about the possibility of moving into the second floor. Kaveh hoped he’d agree. It would be far more comfortable than sleeping on the threadbare excuses for couches that the Kshahrewar office had offered since Kaveh himself was a student. 

Kaveh ate his pita standing up. It was as he was clipping his cape closed around his throat that he heard keys sliding into the lock.

Alhaitham looked surprised for a moment when he registered Kaveh already at the door before that faded to a calm indifference.

“Heading to the tavern this early?” he asked. His own cloak slid off easily, and he hung it on the same hook Kaveh’s had just vacated. “You know, drinking on my mora isn’t a condition of your lease.”

Kaveh bristled.

“Actually, I was heading into town to discuss something important with Lambad.”

Alhaitham raised an eyebrow and straightened from removing his boots.

“Do tell. Could this important topic perhaps have something to do with your preferred beverage?”

Kaveh slammed his shoulder into Alhaitham’s as he passed. It took an incredible effort to not show the pain on his face when he turned back to Alhaitham.

“I’m not going to drink. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I already know you think I am a drunken fool, Alhaitham. I do not need to be reminded.”

Alhaitham hesitated, and that was enough for Kaveh. He pulled the door open, only to be stopped by Alhaitham’s hand closing around his wrist.

Kaveh turned. Alhaitham was looking at Kaveh’s wrist in his grasp, as though he wasn’t sure when he had done that. Kaveh pulled. Alhaitham held fast.

“Alhaitham, let me go.”

“No.”

“No?”

Alhaitham’s brows had always furrowed when he was thinking through a question or a problem. Some things never changed, no matter how much time has passed.

“I– Kaveh–”

“Say what you want, Alhaitham. Gods know I’ve never been able to stop you before.”

He’d tried. He’d tried, years ago, in a position just like this. 

Alhaitham seemed to be reaching the same conclusion, because it only took a moment more of working through something before he spoke.

“A year ago, I asked you a question.”

After all this time, they were still so in sync, weren’t they? Kaveh remembered. Kaveh remembered as vividly as if Alhaitham had said the words just the night before. Success gone stale and bitter in the dark, the taste of triumph turned to rot on his tongue. 

“How has realizing your ideals gone for you?”

Terribly, Alhaitham. Kaveh had given everything he had twice over in pursuit of his dream. And yet, Kaveh still could not muster up enough regret to truly wish he’d made a different choice. If tomorrow he woke up a year and some change earlier, on that fateful morning the news of Alcazarzaray’s fall had reached him, he knew which choice he would make. 

“Look around you, Kaveh.” Alhaitham’s grip tightened, bordering on painful as he spoke. “Look at your life. Is your answer still the same?”

Kaveh had always been good at hearing all the things that Alhaitham did not say. 

“Look at you,” he heard in the spaces between Alhaitham’s words. “A renter in an ex-friend’s house. A peaceful home that will never be yours. Are you proud of this? Are you satisfied?”

Kaveh straightened his spine, sharpened his shoulders, and yanked his arm free from Alhaitham’s hold.

“My answer is the same,” he said. 

Alhaitham sighed. There was a weariness there, a grief like the desert’s icy evenings that Kaveh didn’t quite know what to do with. Shouldn’t Alhaitham be glad to finally be rid of Kaveh? 

Why did he seem to care?

“Very well,” Alhaitham said. “Go, then.”

So Kaveh went. 

There was no victory in the bite of cool wind through his cloak, and no happiness to be found even in the bright interior of Lambad’s tavern. Lambad’s eyebrows knitted themselves together when Kaveh asked about his old spot on the second floor, but he was willing enough to have Kaveh’s company back for a few days, and even more grateful to offload a few of his empty crates.

Kaveh arranged to pick them up in the morning– hopefully with a little help– and was halfway out the door when Lambad stopped him.

“It’s not my business,” he said with the tone of a man who was quite used to putting his nose into other people’s business nonetheless. “But if you and– well, if you’ve had an argument, I wouldn’t take it too serious. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve argued and made up, now would it, Master Kaveh?”

Kaveh offered him a weary smile.

“I don’t think this is the kind of thing that will blow over,” he replied. “But thank you nonetheless. I’ll see you tomorrow for those boxes.”

Lambad nodded and turned to serve another customer, and Kaveh took that as his cue to leave. It wasn’t ideal, but knowing that Kaveh had somewhere to go soothed a bit of the knot he’d been living with in his chest all day. Not all of it, but enough. 

When Kaveh returned to Alhaitham’s house, it was to an empty kitchen and a closed door. Not that he had expected anything different, of course. Alhaitham did not owe him companionship.

Kaveh hesitated between his room and the living room. 

He should pack more. He had work to complete and drafts to finish and piles to sort.

He settled on the divan anyway, and rested his head in his hands. Palms pressed to his eyes until spots danced across his vision. 

Was this the right choice? Kaveh could survive without Alhaitham. No part of him questioned this. But surviving didn’t mean he would be happy.

Kaveh bit the inside of his cheek, turning the idea over in his mind. Was he happy? Was that how he had been feeling, here in the four walls of Alhaitham’s home? 

His gut reaction was a vehement no. How could Kaveh be happy living as a tenant in another’s home? Here he was, one of Sumeru’s brightest architects, living in borrowed space on borrowed money and stolen time. 

It had been in this very room, barely a month earlier, where Alhaitham had leveled Kaveh with one of those glares that spoke a hundred words in a dozen languages about Alhaitham’s opinion of Kaveh. 

“You're always quick to remind me that you're my upperclassman, and yet you do not problem-solve in the manner becoming of an upperclassman.”

Even remembering his words sent something in Kaveh’s stomach sour, as though the argument had occurred only minutes before rather than weeks. It had been too similar to their last fight, too close to the last time Kaveh lost something he’d wanted to keep. 

But even here, Kaveh couldn’t help but remember the week after. Kaveh had been limping, freshly released from the Bimarstan after his disastrous round three experience. His wrists were in braces and his leg splinted, and that wasn’t even touching on the bandages that wrapped his stomach and chest. 

Alhaitham hadn’t helped. But he had walked the whole path home with Kaveh, shortening his stride to something Kaveh could match. As though he knew that Kaveh had to make it under his own power. He’d unlocked the door with Kaveh’s own key and held it open for him, but he never once interfered. A man who would watch another drown if he felt it was their fate.

Except for me.

Kaveh shook his head as though the motion would clear such foolish thoughts from his mind. No use lingering on the things that would not be. Again, as though wielding it like a weapon between himself and his foolish thoughts, Kaveh thought the words he’d read only a day earlier. 

May my child Alhaitham live a peaceful life.

Kaveh had been called many things in his life. Loud, brilliant, urchin, dreamer. The Light of Kshahrewar. The Architect of Alcazarzaray. 

But never peaceful. Not for Alhaitham, who thought of peace as silence and a good book and a lazy afternoon in the sun. How could he find peace in Kaveh, a man who always had his eyes locked on the horizon? Kaveh, who spent every moment sprinting toward the distant future he knew must be waiting for him on the other side of this hill, this valley, this mountain. 

Kaveh flopped back onto the divan with a sigh. He kicked off his shoes and let them drop to the floor– a habit he’d chastise Alhaitham for. But it wasn’t Alhaitham, and Kaveh’s body ached from all the work he’d done in his room, and his eyes were heavy from dust and exhaustion. 

How could Kaveh ever imagine being happy, now that he could see how much his fleeting happiness took from Alhaitham? Was his happiness worth Alhaitham’s peace?

While Kaveh slept, he dreamed. It was a new experience. There had been research and study groups and even impromptu dreaming clubs forming all over the city, but Kaveh was perfectly content to enjoy the good dreams when they came and discard the bad dreams with the light. His dreams were usually formless anyway, the kind of dreams that fade like fog in the sun. 

In the months since the Akasha’s shutdown, Kaveh had dreamed of any number of things. Buildings taller than Deshret’s monument, whose sloping roofs and curving spires brushed the cloudless sky. Little beings of verdure, who wore leaves as hats and spun when he called out to them. The comfort of warm arms around him and a familiar perfume he’d tried to forget. A voice he could never quite remember in the morning– low, but not deep. A man’s voice, surely, but soft. Full of kindness. 

Tonight, he dreamed of Alhaitham.

It wasn’t the first time he’d dreamed of the man. Somehow Alhaitham had made himself a core part of his nights in the same way he had become a part of his days. 

In his dreams, Alhaitham was softer. No, that wasn't quite right. Alhaitham was himself, but it was like the sharpest points of him had been dulled by something Kaveh cannot see. Like a pebble from the riverbed, smoothed by time and the water’s cool grasp. 

They were walking home. The world around them was hazy and formless, as many dreams tended to be. It was night. In reality, their walk would be accompanied by sounds– cicadas that scream their summertime songs, or people taking their own paths home– but tonight it was quiet.  

Kaveh was leaning against Alhaitham’s side. His legs refused to support him correctly. He tilted his head back to look up and almost immediately wished he hadn’t. Had the lantern light always caught along his jaw that way? He wanted to reach out and trace the curve of it, already thinking of angles and ratios. Alhaitham caught his wrist halfway through the motion

“What are you doing?” 

“You look different. Sharper.”

Kaveh sighed. Where had his little junior gone? This man was as unfamiliar to him as his new room and the shape of his new life. He no longer recognized the friend he knew in the person standing before him. 

“You’re drunk,” 

“And you’re beautiful.”

Alhaitham paused. Was it Kaveh’s imagination that his cheeks turned just the barest bit of pink, that his eyes widened just a little?

“You’re very drunk.”

Kaveh huffed. “Wine cannot stop me from recognizing beauty when I see it.”

Alhaitham turned his head back to the path, but his arm tightened around Kaveh’s waist. His mouth curved up just a bit, subtle enough that even in the dream, Kaveh cannot be sure that it really happened.

“Alhaitham,” he said, but Alhaitham did not turn to look at him again.

When Kaveh woke, he was warm. He’d slept on the divan before, more often than he really cared to admit. Usually, it meant an aching back and the inability to fully turn his head come morning. He stretched experimentally, waiting for the twinge of pain that should come. It never does 

He blinked his eyes open and was met not with the ceiling of the common area, but the familiar one of his room.

He was in his bed. When did he return to his room last night? The last thing he could remember is laying back on the divan. 

Unless–

Kaveh dismissed the thought before it even began to form. He was smarter than pretending. It was just the dream that still clung to him like tree sap, dripping warm from his fingers. Nothing more. Alhaitham would not have bothered to bring Kaveh back to his room. Kaveh must have woken up, half awake at best, and wandered back into his room. Surely that explained the earrings sitting in a near pile on the nightstand and the hair clips resting beside them. 

Surely.

A jaw-cracking yawn and a long stretch to work the sleep from his bones before Kaveh was pushing back his blankets and rolling out of bed. He didn’t particularly want to, but the clock on his desk reminded him that he needed to head to Lambad’s. He was already going to be a little late to pick up the boxes he’d arranged. If he hurried, he could be on time enough that he’d hopefully be able to fix things with a charming smile and an apology. 

He gave the reflection in the mirror a quick glance as he hurried through his morning routine. The bags under his eyes were a familiar sight. Kaveh had never been very good at following a sleep schedule. And yet, there was a sorrow in his eyes. He looked away quickly.

Kaveh swallowed down the ache in his throat as he changed into fresh clothes. As embarrassing as it was to admit, a part of him didn't want to leave. It was comfortable enough, living with Alhaitham. Sometimes, he even thought that he might be happy. 

None of that mattered. Kaveh could mourn what he’d lost once he was gone from this house. What good was it to stay where he was not wanted? Alhaitham deserved his peaceful life. And if that no longer involved Kaveh, then so be it. 

Maybe in another life. 

Kaveh remembered to take his keys with him when he left. He wouldn’t be able to rely on Alhaitham letting him in for much longer, after all.

Lambad was gratefully kind about how late Kaveh was to pick up his boxes. Mehrak made easy work of the empty crates, and it was only a few minutes before Kaveh returned home with two fish rolls, a bottle of wine, and enough boxes to pack his life away. 

Soon, the wall by the door was completely obstructed by boxes. Clothes, books, art, none of it mattered. Kaveh threw things into boxes haphazardly. His fine silky blouses became wrapping for equally delicate manuscripts that would surely leave dust and flakes of color on the fabric. The Cask of Tomes he’d carefully decorated as one part of a quartet joined a box of blankets held together by increasingly more capable needlework. 

The only box that escaped this treatment was the box of Kaveh’s tools and memories. While he carried the most important of them inside Mehrak, he rarely had use for certain drafting tools while in the field. With delicate hands, he set three wooden boxes inside of a larger one. The first, inlaid with opal that gleamed even in the low light, was his father’s observation tools. His astrolabe, a compass, and the portable telescope Kaveh had first used to look at the stars when he was very young. The second box was made of dark wood and contained his mother’s drafting tools. Kaveh had never once used them in pursuit of his work, but he kept them by his desk nonetheless. 

Kaveh’s hands shook as he picked up the third. It was unremarkable compared to the first two, with a Kshahrewar emblem stamped on its unstained surface. They were the starter tools every Kshahrewar student received when they first enrolled. Nothing fancy, but serviceable. 

If he could go back tomorrow, would he make a different choice? Knowing what he knew now, knowing the pain and heartache that inevitably waited for Kaveh at the end of this road, would he have still chosen this path? If he hadn’t enrolled in the Akademiya, his mother would never have left for Fontaine. He wouldn’t be sitting in a rented room, drowning in debt and misplaced kindness.

He never would have met Alhaitham. 

Hesitant hands brushed the dust from the cover of the box until the silvery paint was visible once more. Then, he gently set the toolbox into the larger wooden box with the rest of the pieces of his childhood and closed the lid.

The front door closed with a quiet click as Kaveh followed Mehrak into the common space. There was a dull thud as Mehrak set the final box atop the rest, and then there was silence.

Kaveh stood in the empty space between Alhaitham and what was once his room. He was stung with a sharp moment of pity for the fish that had become their dinner. Was this how they felt in their last moments of freedom– caught between the place they were leaving and the net that would become their tomb?

“Welcome home,” Kaveh said weakly.

Kaveh had never once welcomed Alhaitham home, not in all the months they had lived together. He had shown relief for Alhaitham’s presence, set him to work within minutes of entering the house, but he’d never been grateful to see him. He’d never welcomed him.

(Another regret in the endless pile. A nest for a flightless bird, full of things that he’d stolen away in the night.)

Alhaitham looked around the room with those sharp, analytical eyes. Kaveh couldn’t begin to imagine what he was seeing, what quiet truths could be hidden in the shape of these boxes. 

“Spring cleaning?” Alhaitham finally asked. Disappointment coursed through Kaveh, sharp and icy as the first drops of rain down his spine. 

“I’m leaving.”

“Hmm.” Alhaitham removed his cloak with a flick and hung it by the door before toeing off his boots. Kaveh stood in the doorway and tried to tamp down the heat rising in his chest. 

“Be home before midnight or take your key,” Alhaitham continued. “I won’t be staying up late just to let you in if you forget.”

Kaveh’s hands were shaking. Then–

“Take your own damn key,” Kaveh snapped. He dug the metal from his pocket and threw it down on the wood between them. It hit the floor with a clatter, sliding until it came to a stop at Alhaitham’s feet. 

“I don’t need it.”

His voice only wavered a fraction. He would be proud of himself if he wasn’t so busy feeling miserable.

Alhaitham’s eyes remained on the key for a long time. Long enough that Kaveh considered walking out right now, boxes be damned. There’s nothing in them that can’t be replaced outside of the singular box that Mehrak had just carried out. 

Finally, he looked up and met Kaveh’s gaze.

“Why now?”

“What does that mean?”

“Exactly what I said. What made you decide this so suddenly?”

Kaveh shook his head. He couldn’t have this conversation now, not with the dust of his childhood still clinging to his fingertips. Not in the house that could have been his in another life.

“None of your business.”

Kaveh turned to go. He’d barely reached the door before Alhaitham’s hand closed around his wrist like a vice.

“Alhaitham,” Kaveh said, still facing the door. “Let me go.”

“Not until you explain.”

The grip on his wrist tightened, almost bruising in its strength. Kaveh tried to yank his arm away anyway. He had to try.

“No.”

“Then you’re not leaving.”

Kaveh scoffed. He could almost be grateful for the anger that rose in his chest to drown out the sorrow. At least when he was burning, he couldn’t feel the hollow that fire would leave behind. 

“Why? So reliant on my meager rent payment that you can’t afford to let me go?” 

“You and I both know that’s a lie.” Alhaitham’s voice was firm. Kaveh tried to wrestle his arm free again.

“What does it matter?” Kaveh demanded. “What does any of what I do matter to you?”

Alhaitham’s grip shifted, and then Kaveh was being flipped until his back was pressed against their front door. Alhaitham stepped forward to fill that empty space. Had he always been just that little bit taller than Kaveh? Even with Kaveh in his shoes and Alhaitham barefoot, Kaveh still had to tilt his head just the slightest bit to look Alhaitham in the eyes. Kaveh took a sharp breath. Alhaitham smelled like the Sumeru rainforest, like fresh air and the shade beneath the rainforest canopy. 

Alhaitham’s free arm settled against the wood of their door, and then he was close enough that Kaveh could almost imagine the sensation of Alhaitham’s breath on his lips as he spoke.

“Why is it,” Alhaitham asked, voice low, “that this is the only thing you cannot seem to comprehend? You claim to know me so well.”

Kaveh rose to the clear goading without a moment’s hesitation. “I do.”

“Then think, Kaveh. What do I get out of you living in my house?”

Kaveh brought his hands between them and shoved against Alhaitham’s chest. Unfortunately, it did nothing to solve their current arrangement. 

“What does it matter? You get free housekeeping, I suppose.”

Alhaitham laughed, but there was no joy in the sound. To the contrary, there was something acerbic in his laugh. 

“Very good. I took you in to clean my house. Should I purchase you a uniform next?”

Kaveh frowned and pushed harder, but Alhaitham still didn’t move. 

“I’m glad this is all one big joke to you, Alhaitham, but I’m serious. I’m done. I’m moving out.”

The hand on Kaveh’s wrist loosened abruptly. Kaveh opened his mouth to demand that Alhaitham move as well, only he was suddenly cut off by something very different.

Alhaitham’s mouth.

Alhaitham was kissing him.

Alhaitham.

Was kissing him.

Kaveh had barely registered this fact before Alhaitham’s free hand curled around the soft baby hairs at the nape of Kaveh’s neck and pulled with surprising gentleness. Kaveh made a soft sound against the warmth of Alhaitham’s lips– because Alhaitham was kissing him, as though this was something they did– and Alhaitham seemed to take it as encouragement. He moved closer, until Kaveh was pinned to the door from chest to thigh. 

Kaveh’s hands twisted into the fabric of Alhaitham’s shirt. 

Beneath his fingers, Alhaitham hummed.

And then Kaveh shoved with all of his strength. Alhaitham took a staggering step back. His lips were slightly damp and his cheeks flushed pink beneath the tan of his skin.

For a moment, they simply stared, Kaveh fighting for breath and Alhaitham watching him.

Then, Kaveh turned, wrenched the front door open, and ran.

Which, in retrospect, was kind of a stupid idea. 

Kaveh wandered Sumeru City for a couple of hours. Lambda wasn’t expecting him for at least a few more days, and Kaveh had too much self-respect to go crawling to him earlier than he had to. Asking for the space was embarrassing enough. How could he possibly admit that he’d been kicked out?

Hey Lambad, would you mind if I started sleeping on that divan a few days early? Yeah, Alhaitham kissed me and I ran away, so I don’t think I have much of a home anymore. How pathetic.

Kaveh’s feet carried him down and out of the city until he was standing at the docks that marked the water entrance to the city. He kicked his shoes off and dangled his legs over the edge of the wooden dock. The cool river water felt good on his feet, even as it also soaked into the fabric of his pants. Not that Kaveh cared. 

He leaned back on his arms and focused on picking stars from the sky, naming each of them one by one. It was something his father had taught him when he was very young. Something about how small his problems would feel when he considered just how big the world was. It usually helped, but tonight, all Kaveh could think about was warm breath on his face and the press of lips to his.

Kaveh let himself fall back onto the desk beneath him. He’d regret it later, when his hair smelled like fish and his clothes were damp from the remnants of the business that had happened on this dock. But now, it only felt right to let the still sun-warm wood heat him from beneath as he brushed his fingers across the curve of his lower lip. 

Why had Alhaitham kissed him? Even thinking the question left Kaveh feeling silly. Why did anybody kiss anybody? Kaveh was not an idiot, and he was not going to sit around like the protagonist of a light novel trying to read into something as clear as a kiss.

Alhaitham was smart. Alhaitham knew what a kiss like that meant. And so did Kaveh.

So the question was not why had Alhaitham kissed him, but rather what Kaveh intended to do about it.

This question, unlike the first, had multiple possible answers.

Alhaitham had kissed him. Therefore, Kaveh could infer that Alhaitham had some sort of feelings for Kaveh. How deep they ran or how intense they were, Kaveh couldn’t ascertain without returning to the house and asking some very pressing questions. 

Kaveh was smarter than entering a position like that without his answers ready. Alhaitham did not give knowledge for nothing, after all, and if Kaveh was going to ask for something of such high value, it only made sense to approach with something of equal worth to trade. 

Kaveh pressed the jagged edge of a nail into his lip, just to feel the way his skin gave way to the pressure. 

When Kaveh drafted, he considered each step in harmony with the last and the next. It did no good to consider his choices in isolation, because each piece had to be cohesive with the next. Otherwise, a design was just a mishmash of details, garish in its overabundance and useless in its scope. 

So with architecture, so with life. When Kaveh had signed away the deed to his childhood house, he had not done so lightly, But without that money, there would be no Palace, and without the Palace, there would be no Kaveh. Each decision into the next.

Here, Kaveh examined the branching paths before him, imagining them as lines of a blueprint. 

Choice one: he could return to their house and pretend that the kiss had never happened. Quietly, he would unpack his boxes and return to the uneasy truce that stood between him and Alhaitham. 

(But his grandmother’s shaking handwriting. The uneven pressure of ink to paper. May my child Alhaitham live a peaceful life. Could Kaveh call the thing that lived in the cracks between them peace? Could he live with himself?)

Choice two: he could follow the path he had barely begun to tread. Pack up the rest of his boxes and move out like he had planned. It would not be easy to wash his hands of Alhaitham, but it would provide Alhaitham with the peace his grandmother had wished for him. 

(The stars above Kaveh’s head, each twinkling with its own unseen light. Once, six of them had belonged to his father. Would Kaveh be able to live with himself if he denied Alhaitham’s grandmother’s last wish?)

Choice three: he could…

(Kaveh swallowed. The ghost of Alhaitham’s breath on his face, caught beneath the piercing gaze of the only man that had ever looked right through Kaveh to the weak point that barely protected his beating heart.)

Kaveh groaned and threw an arm over his eyes. 

“What should I do?” He complained to the universe. He’d never once received an answer from the stars, but it felt good to allow himself the moment of whining before he moved on. Ever forward. 

“You could try getting off the dock, for starters.”

Kaveh lifted his arm just enough to peer up at the familiar form that loomed over him. He was backlit by the city’s lights, but Kaveh would recognize that familiar face anywhere. The curve of his shoulders. The angle of his jaw.

“Go away, Alhaitham.”

“And leave you to get in trouble with the Corps of Thirty for trespassing? No thanks.”

Kaveh snorted, but did not argue any further as Alhaitham stepped around him and sat down with his legs crossed beneath him on the dock. Close enough that Kaveh could reach out and touch him, if he wanted. 

Did he want to?

Behind them, the sounds of the city drifted on the breeze. Laughter from the mercenaries that flocked to Lambad’s in the evenings. The chatter of merchants making their way home for the evening as they discussed their day’s victories and tomorrow’s plans. Beneath them, the quiet lapping sound of water around the dock’s support beams. 

Finally, Alhaitham spoke,

“If you wish to leave,” he said, “I won’t stop you.”

Kaveh turned his head toward Alhaitham’s voice. Alhaitham sat with artificial ease, but Kaveh could recognize the discomfort in the curl of his shoulders. He was nervous, Kaveh realized, though of what, he couldn’t be sure. 

“Why?”

Alhaitham exhaled and dragged a hand down his face.

“Because I know what happens when I try to change your mind on something.”

Silence between them. 

“But you want me to stay.”

“Yes.”

How could he say that, as calmly as if they were discussing the recent failure of a paper out of Spantamad, or the decline in the quality of Haravatat translations? Kaveh’s heart felt as though it might beat out of his chest any moment. 

“Why?” 

Alhaitham shifted beside him. The hands on his thighs fidgeted. If Kaveh reached out to take one of his hands in his own, would it be welcomed? Or would Alhaitham shy away now, after Kaveh had run from him so easily? 

“I didn’t think you’d argue with a roof over your head.”

“Stop deflecting.” Kaveh’s tone was sharper than Alhaitham deserved. He made a conscious effort to soften his voice as he continued. “I need an answer, Alhaitham. An honest one.”

Alhaitham went completely still. In that moment, he reminded Kaveh so sharply of a cornered animal that Kaveh stumbled over his next sentence.

“I mean– you don’t have to–”

“I’m in love with you.”

Kaveh nearly choked. He sat up, his head spinning from how rapidly he’d moved, but Alhaitham only kept his eyes on the shimmer of the moon on the distant horizon of the river. 

“I’m in love with you,” Alhaitham repeated. Bitterness coated the words that should have been sweet, turned their sugar into the bitter bite of acid and alcohol. “And it doesn’t matter.”

“What– of course it matters, you–” 

Kaveh had no idea what he was going to say. You’re in love with me? You could have so much better? You’ve never shown it? The rest of the sentence died in his throat. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Alhaitham repeated, “because you will never be in love with me. And I can live with that. Just… just don’t go.”

Kaveh swallowed. Alhaitham sounded so sure of himself, as though this was a foregone conclusion written in the stars above both of their heads. How could he be so sure, when Kaveh himself didn’t even know how he felt?

“Alhaitham, I–”

“Don’t.” Alhaitham stood abruptly. “Don’t lie to me. I don’t want your affection born from pity or obligation.”

Kaveh stood slowly, until he was shoulder to shoulder with Alhaitham. Together, they watched the distant ripples of the river as fish swam this way and that. Free from the net. 

Alhaitham turned to Kaveh and took his wrist. He flipped Kaveh’s hand until his palm faced the sky and pressed a piece of cold metal into his hand. 

“Come home, Kaveh,” Alhaitham said. 

The key in Kaveh’s palm glinted silver off the gold. Kaveh curled his fingers over it slowly, until the sharp edges dig into his skin.

“Okay,” he replied. Then, on a deep breath that felt as though it might burst his lungs, “Okay.”

Alhaitham exhaled softly and released Kaveh’s wrist. 

“How long?” Kaveh asked quietly as they began their walk home. Alhaitham’s shoulders tightened. 

“Kaveh.”

“Sorry.”

Kaveh wrapped his arms around himself. The city around them was as alive as ever, full of scholars and mercenaries, people from all walks of life finding joy in the stolen pockets of time between work and sleep. Alhaitham and Kaveh walked right through the middle of it, untouched by the revelry. 

It was only once the door was closed behind them and Kaveh was faced with the stack of boxes he’d prepared that he found his tongue again.

“Alhaitham.”

Alhaitham, who was already halfway across the room, turned to look back at Kaveh. Kaveh had begun to take comfort in this room, with its blend of their stuff and the touches of home. Now, with all of Kaveh’s things packed away in boxes once more, it looked… empty.

“How did you know? That you were…”

“In love with you?” Alhaitham finished. Kaveh nodded. His throat was tight. Unbidden, he remembered the feeling of warm breath and dry lips and the press of a body against his own.

Alhaitham smiled, but it was far more cruelty than kindness.

“It’s hard not to be.” Alhaitham tossed his cloak over the back of the divan. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Kaveh didn’t know what to say to that, so he simply watched Alhaitham retreat until the door closed between them. Then, with a heavy sigh, he turned to Mehrak and began directing it to return the boxes to his room. He’d unpack in the morning.

His bed was still made, thankfully, and he collapsed into it without much fuss. He was too tired to change clothes, so he simply wrestled everything off and dropped it into a pile by the bedside before pulling the covers over his head and curling tight, the way he did when he was a child.

Alhaitham was in love with him. Okay. He could… he could work with that. Through that lens, a fair few things began to make more sense. Alhaitham had not been paying for Kaveh’s food and drinks and forgiving a late rent payment here and there out of kindness or even pity. No, he had been accepting these things because he was in love with Kaveh.

Where did that leave Kaveh? He’d all but promised to stay. Kaveh was a lot of things, but he did his best not to lie when he did not need to. Plus, Kaveh could recognize a bargain when he saw one, even if he wasn’t necessarily good at them himself. Alhaitham wanted– needed him to stay. He was willing to trade his own comfort to keep Kaveh in his life. 

But was that fair to him?

Kaveh rolled over and tried to push the thought from his head, but it sat like a weight on his chest nonetheless. His sleep was fitful, wrought with images of nets and chains and the sound of his mother’s wailing, and when he woke, he felt worse than he had before he’d gone to sleep.

Alhaitham was not in the kitchen when Kaveh emerged, fully dressed, from his room, but there was a pot of coffee simmering on the stove that spoke to his presence. Kaveh pulled out his mug to pour himself a cup, paused, then sighed and returned the cup to its place.

Alhaitham appeared a few minutes later, still in his sleep clothes and with rumpled hair to match.

“Meeting today?” Alhaitham asked, his voice rough with sleep. He pulled two mugs down from the shelf and filled both. Into one, he poured a little cream and a mix of spices. Into the other went cream and some sugar. 

He brought Kaveh his coffee first. The thank you stuck in Kaveh’s throat, so he settled for a nod as he took the warm mug from Alhaitham’s hands. 

Alhaitham all but collapsed into the chair opposite Kaveh and eyed him over the rim of the steaming hot coffee. How he could drink his coffee so hot was beyond Kaveh, honestly.

“Thought you’d be gone,” Alhaitham said. 

“I promised, didn’t I?” Kaveh refused to admit how often the thought had crossed his mind in the moments between sleep and waking. It would do neither of them any good to admit.

“Why?”

“I just told you. Because I promised.”

“Why did you promise?”

Kaveh set the mug on the wooden table with a too-loud thunk. Why had he promised? Well…

“I don’t know.”

Alhaitham nodded and took another sip of his coffee. He seemed resigned, but there was something else in the edge of his mouth that he hid behind his mug.

“Well,” he said once he’d drained the cup. He stood and let the wooden legs of the chair scrape across the wood. “I hope you figure it out.”

Yeah, Kaveh thought quietly. Me too.

His meeting went by too quickly, considering that all Kaveh really needed to do was explain to a far-too-smug Lambad that he wouldn’t actually be needing his upstairs area for a bed. Once that errand was completed, though, Kaveh was left with hours to kill before Alhaitham would return home. He really should go home and unpack the boxes taking up space in their house. Instead, Kaveh allowed himself to wander up the spiraling paths toward the Akademiya, through its halls, and up to Razan Garden.

Kaveh settled on a stone bench tucked back from the pathway and leaned his head against the cool stone pillar holding the domed roof above him. 

“I’m in love with you,” Alhaitham had said. 

Kaveh exhaled in one aggrieved huff and dragged his hands across his face. 

There would be no going back from this. No third chances, no more grace extended from fate. Kaveh could sense that if he took a wrong step this time, there would be nobody waiting to catch him at the bottom of this fall. 

And it would be a steep fall, indeed.

He had to make a choice, then. 

Kaveh sat there, and he watched the sun set over the trees until the lamps of the Akademiya lit themselves around him, and then he stood and turned toward the second place he’d ever called home.

“Alhaitham, I’m moving out.”

Alhaitham tensed, then forced himself to relax.

“You’ve decided, then."

“Yes.”

Kaveh sat in the seat that had been his since day one. The mismatched chair, the one that did not belong to the set of kitchen furniture. He didn’t belong here.

When Alhaitham turned back from the stove to look Kaveh in the eyes, there was nothing but carefully measured blankness.

“Very well.”

“I’m not done,” Kaveh said. Alhaitham crossed his arms.

“Go on, then.”

“I’m moving out,” Kaveh repeated, “because I need to know.”

“Know what?”

“If I could love you too.”

Alhaitham’s adam’s apple bobs with a heavy swallow. Then, carefully– 

“You couldn’t find that out while living here?”

“No,” Kaveh said. “I don’t think I could.”

“Explain.”

Kaveh dragged his finger along the groove of the wood as he gathered his thoughts.

“If I told you that I loved you right now,” he finally began, “would you believe me?”

Alhaitham hesitated, caught. 

“No. I wouldn’t.”

Kaveh nodded. He had come to the same conclusion he could see Alhaitham working toward now. 

“Honestly, neither would I. I think…” He hesitated, then forced himself to continue treading the path he had laid. “I think this would be good. For us.”

For us. Alhaitham’s eyes sharpened, and Kaveh knew he had caught the word. Not for him. Not for Kaveh. For them. For us.

“So,” Kaveh continued, “I think I’d still like to move out. But maybe… once we’ve had some time apart…”

“You’d be willing to move back in?” The hope in Alhaitham’s voice cut so deep that Kaveh almost wished he hadn’t said anything.

“If that’s what we both want at the end of this road, then yes.” Kaveh forced himself to look Alhaitham in the eyes, and this was somehow worse, because now he could see the naked want in his expression. It almost made Kaveh want to take it all back, lie that he’d been in love with Alhaitham from the start. But no, the wounds of Alhaitham striking at his heart all those years ago still cut too deep for Kaveh. 

That didn’t mean he couldn’t hope that he could heal.

“I think… I'd like to live with you again, Alhaitham. As partners.”

“As partners,” Alhaitham repeated. Kaveh swallowed down the acid in his throat and stood to join Alhaitham at the stove.

“As partners. But for now, help me get dinner on the table. And then you can help me carry these boxes down to Lambad’s.”

Alhaitham nudged him with his hip, and Kaveh pretended he could not see the subtle smile curling the edges of his mouth.

“Using me as manual labor? I’m only a feeble scholar, after all.”

“Oh, shut up and pass me the pita, will you?”

Alhaitham dutifully passed Kaveh the cloth-covered basket, and in that moment, Kaveh could almost imagine a future not too far down the road where Kaveh returned to this house with his boxes and bags and settled them not in Alhaitham’s spare room, but in the master bedroom that Alhaitham had called his own for all these years. A future where they split chores equally and Kaveh could nag Alhaitham for leaving his books on every flat surface without worrying that this will be the thing too far, the moment too much. A future where they sit on the same side of the kitchen table and Kaveh didn’t think twice about pouring himself coffee from the pot when he found it simmering on the stove. 

But for now, Kaveh let himself find small comfort in the warmth of Alhaitham’s body at his side and the smell of home. 

“Tomorrow’s still my night to make dinner,” Kaveh said before turning and carrying the pita to the table. Once he had set the basket on the table, he turned and offered a confused Alhaitham a smirk.

“What, you didn’t think you were going to be completely rid of me? I said I was moving out, not vanishing off the face of Sumeru. You’ll be sick of me before long, I’m sure.”

Alhaitham paused in the act of spooning curry over two plates of rice to shake his hand with a small, fond smile.

“I would never dream of it, Kaveh.”

The road might be long, but as Kaveh took a steaming plate from Alhaitham, he thought that maybe, just maybe, they were going to be alright.