Chapter Text
It’s balmy out today. The wind sways gently, and the palms of the brightwood trees pat lightly against eachother. There’s the constant buzzing of Sumeru’s city, of merchants selling and children playing, of birds tweeting at the feeling of the sun. It’s romantic, Kaveh thinks as he walks. He hears the light padding of his shoes against the cobble stone, the rustle of his bags filled with what will be tonight’s dinner.
It’s not just a good day, but dare he say a great day.
Perhaps today he will even be kind to his…housemate. He had planned for making a pot of soup, the weather is agreeable after all. But he reconsiders. The complaining would ruin his mood, always with the comments and the complaining .
But it’s of no matter. Kaveh refocuses his mind, he smiles at a merchant as he walks past, admiring their rugs for only a moment. He thinks idly that the meat could be repurposed and a roast could be made. Delicious, none the less. Yes. That will do.
Kaveh thanks Lesser Lord Kusanali for the day, humming a tune he had heard the weekend before at the theater. How sublime it had been! He had went alone, fishing for something to make inspiration strike, it’s so hard these days after all. As Kaveh hums he recalls the students who had been watching not too far away, who had recognized him.
The Light of Kshahrewar! They had lamented, inviting themselves to talk during the intermission of the show. Kaveh had watched the stage hands move the pieces around to set the next scene for Nilou’s dance before he forced his eyes to look away, bringing a smile to his face for the students. Tired, they looked. But filled with that glow that only students have.
“Is it true you will be a professor come the fall?” One had asked, Kaveh couldn’t recall his face particularly. Just the redness of his eyes, they were quite striking. Like Sunsettias when they’re so ripened they may burst.
“What a shame! I graduate in a few weeks, I won’t be able to take your course.” Another had whined. Kaveh smiled, and offered his apology. To be the Light of Kashewer was a big title, but professor? That was manageable.
Take the job. Alhaitham had said, flipping a page in his book a few weeks back. Kaveh hated that he couldn’t even look up from his book while they ate dinner, even when lecturing about his life. You have nothing lined up after this job. None the less, commissions take a long time to complete, and you will waste your health away working the way you do without consideration for others.
Alhaitham had meant himself Ofcourse, Kaveh was known for working late into the night. Kaveh’s face soured, and he remembers taking a sip of wine to hide it.
You will have a reason to wake before noon. More so, you will have some semblance of a steady income. Is that not enough?
Kaveh soured even more, tossing his food around a bit on his plate. His fork had stabbed harder than he meant to into a helpless piece of brussel sprout, and he had felt bad enough for it that he lost his appetite. He could wake up before noon, he had thought bitterly to himself, he just often worked late into the night. Surely Alhaitham knew about the midnight strikes of inspiration that plagued artists, he had talked about it before. Though Alhaitham hardly ever listens anyways. Kaveh had set down his fork then and settled a prideful look on to his housemate.
I will not take this from someone who toils away dusk to dawn, oh great stand in Grand Sage. Lecture me after you’ve your nap, you’re more pleasant that way.
It was Alhaitham’s turn to sip wine after that, hiding the way his eyebrows twitched a bit in irritation. Kaveh had taken it as a victory.
Kaveh sighs as he sets down their groceries in front of the door. He pats his pockets, and yes. Another reason why today can be called a great one, his keys are safely within them. The golden lion twinkles almost as if in greeting before Kaveh slips it into the door and invites himself in. He’s sure to place them safely in the decorative bowl by the door, right next to the silver ones.
Silver next to gold. Ah, Alhaitham is home.
“Alhaitham? Help me with the groceries would you?” Kaveh calls out into the house, and silence answers him back. He huffs a breathe, sending hair flying off his face only to return to exactly where it was before. Wretched man, why would he put his headphones on in a silent home?
“Alhaitham! Is that too much to ask? I’m even making dinner !” Kaveh tries just once more, expecting very little. Silence is what he’s met with, and Kaveh resigns his fate. He will give that man a mouthful after he’s brought everything in. Maybe even toss a book or two at him since Alhaitham wants to ignore him as usual, perhaps a lesson will be learned that way.
And so Kaveh drops his shoes where they belong in the rack then picks all his bags up once again, grunting a bit as he walks out their entrance hall into the living room. The afternoon sun casts a warm light over the living room, the stained glass Kaveh had installed just months before makes the room just as how he imagined it. Warm, inspiring, welcoming.
Homely, even, but he removes the word from his mind.
Especially since Kaveh is taken, then. His anger melts away as he’s met with Alhaitham resting against the couch cushions, his chest rising and falling methodically with sleep. The book in his hand is closed but resting delicately against his stomach. Never, he thinks distantly, has he seen Alhaitham sleep without closing the book he was reading before hand. To watch for the spine he had been told in what felt like another life time.
The stained glass paints him in gentle golds, reds and greens. His face is calm, younger without that sharp look on his face as if he’s inspecting you. Always inspecting and analyzing. Instead, sleeping. Human. Something warm, something good lights in Kaveh’s chest. It is Alhaitham’s home, yes, but Kaveh thinks distantly, hesitantly, that he made it comfortable.
The blanket Alhaitham had called garish rests lazily over his thighs, and the feather filled pillow which is meant to be on the other couch rests comfortably under his head. Kaveh knew Alhaitham would favor it, the fabric unoffending and the size just right.
He’d feel giddy perhaps, if he didn’t feel like he was struck with lightening just then. Inspiration. He should take this chance, he thinks hurriedly as he checks Alhaitham’s ears for headphones. They sit on his ears, Ofcourse they do, they always do! And Kaveh rushes into the kitchen to at least just set the bags down on the counter
It’s in that same flurry that he comes to sit down with his sketchbook in one hand, a widdled down charcoal pencil in the other. There’s very little in this book, the leather still unworn due to newness. But Kaveh flips past a few rushed sketches of Port Ormos, of Tignari’s living room and past the last job he had done to a fresh page. Then, as he has a million times, he sketches.
He tries not to think of the fact that he’s drawing Alhaitham. Sleeping Alhaitham no less, but the scribe will have to forgive him. Art is art, and there is no greater pursuit.
Kaveh starts with the outline, where the edges of his brow should be. A few stray strands of hair, that one above his head that never stays down, even with one of Kaveh’s pin. He smiles ever so slightly at the memory. So long ago, it was. But the memory melts away into focus as he draws the outline of Alhaitham’s headphones, he can’t leave them out, no. Too important a detail to the scribe’s irritating character.
He wishes idly that he had picked color pencils instead, just to catch the slivers of color casted on Alhaitham’s features. They give his pale face some color, some warmth. He was always so pale, always behind a desk. Kaveh laughs a bit inside, because Alhaitham was anything but just a man behind a desk. With what feels like defiance, Kaveh lines some of the details of the pillow, the pillow he had picked out. Perhaps not an important detail, but oh. The fabric looked so lovely folded up as it was, maroons and burgundies casted beside silvers and viridians.
He moves on, the drawing coming together. Back up to where those long silver lashes let go into cheeks that have long since lost their childish plump. He remembers then, faintly, a drawing he had done. That he had buried somewhere so deep he no longer remembered where it was, a drawing of Alhaitham. He was a student, in the uniform and hat.
Had it been that long? Kaveh wonders as he takes the time to draw every lash. Perhaps too much, but if he is nothing if not detail orientated. That’s what he had done then too, every lash. And every shade of that hat, and his hair. And the dimple in his cheek, Kaveh remembers as he gets to Alhaitham’s lips.
He had been smiling in that drawing, Kaveh remembers because he had pointed the pencil at Alhaitham’s face to make sure the measurement was exactly perfect. Kaveh stuck his tongue out like a caricature of focus, with silliness he over acted, because he knew. Alhaitham found it amusing, he couldn’t help but tease and then he smiled, the dimple Kaveh was looking for showing up on his features and Kaveh scrambled to draw it, because he wanted to commit it to memory.
Kaveh realizes he’s stopped drawing once he swallows, his throat suddenly tight.
He stares at Alhaitham’s features a little longer, dimple no where in sight. Just a sleeping man, because there was no way Kaveh would be allowed to draw him otherwise. And he knows this, bitterly and almost with hatred Kaveh knows this, because that’s where their relationship stands.
He couldn’t forget it no matter what, they were no longer students. Forget partners, they were no longer friends even, no matter how much he owes to Alhaitham, no matter how he’s dressed this house in the costume of a home. They didn’t even live together, Kaveh was a tenant, a tenant on borrowed time and money, wearing on the already thin patience of Alhaitham. He reminded every time they argue, no matter who picks it.
Kaveh glances at his drawing. It’s better than when he was a student, almost perfect even. Years of adulthood matured his lines, and Kaveh smooths his finger over the seam of Alhaitham’s lips to soften the shade.
When he had drawn the first, Kaveh recalls he couldn’t finish due to the setting sun.
The colors are no longer right Haithem… Will you sit for me tomorrow?
He had been so nervous to ask, like he’d upset the moment in time, like waking up from a pleasant dream and not remembering it.
No, we have to write our thesis.
Oh.
There was silence, he remembers, coloring in the edge of his page to fill it then just as he did now
Don’t make that face like I failed your exam. This weekend. I will spare an hour.
In between the lines had been the words ‘for you’, Kaveh knew. And he had blushed. Then he glanced up, at teal eyes lined in red. Red the color of over ripe Sunsettias set to burst. They were close, so close, close enough to touch but nothing came and Alhaitham moved first to gather his books from Kaveh’s desk.
The weekend had never came. Because Kaveh.
Because, because I-!
“I suppose you are done with your drawing?” Alhaitham’s voice, awake and not at all marred by sleep, breaks Kaveh’s slew of thoughts. He damn near jumps out his seat, the drawing pulled to his chest in a panic despite how the charcoal might get on his linen shirt.
“What! You-! What an assumption- Wait, no! You were faking your sleep!” Kaveh accuses in stutters, angrier than he thinks he’s allowed to feel but he feels it none the less. Alhaitham just sits up to fix his head phones, setting the book in his lap to the table where it will sit till dinner.
“I tried to fall back asleep, but it’s quite difficult when someone stares at you,” Alhaitham explains, tossing the blanket off his lap. He’s undisturbed, perhaps annoyingly so Kaveh thinks.
“So say something !” Kaveh almost shrieks. Why is he so angry? His face colors with what he believes is humiliation.
“Why? You always complain about my little care for the arts, and now you complain because I did not disturb you. Be rational” Alhaitham answers, standing to move into the kitchen, taking note of what the blonde brought in today at the market. He’s more concerned with the yogurt than Kaveh’s irritation.
Kaveh releases his sketchbook, tossing it haphazardly on the table along with Alhaitham’s.
He had not stopped him, because Kaveh would have not wanted him to.
No, Alhaitham never does what others want him to unless there’s a paycheck behind it or the archon Herself.
He did it because he wanted to.
Kaveh should be happy, he thinks distantly. Because, no, they weren’t friends. They were something that once was, a very long time ago. Now tenants, now two people who argue incessantly, now a man who humiliates Kaveh in the living room he dressed for him and thinks nothing of it.
Kaveh marches himself into the kitchen right behind Alhaitham who makes himself busy washing vegetables.
“Do you think this is funny ! To see me worked up!” There is no argument, Kaveh knows that honestly. He does, he is not a fool. But he knows what Alhaitham leaves unsaid, and instead of it comforting him he feels irritation grate his nerves.
“Hardly, I don’t find much funny. You’re simply being too sensitive”
Oh, this man ! Kaveh clenches his fists once or twice out of frustrating. Why must he feel so humiliated? Why can’t he just accept that it’s what Alhaitham wanted, he is not mocking him, why must it sit so heavily in his chest that it leaves no room in his lungs but to pick a ridiculous argument. What is it in his chest that doesn’t let him feel the joy that there’s something, an inkling of something in Alhaitham’s.
“You’re like talking to a brick wall !”
“And you’re like a rooster squawking at dawn. Would you chop the carrots?” Alhaitham asks, undisturbed as he goes to unwrap the meat.
“I’M making dinner, would you stop!” Kaveh yells now properly, almost stomping his foot on the ground like a child. The fury and the messiness in his chest melts away into guilt immediately as Alhaitham’s hands fly to his ears on relfex, flinching ever so slightly.
Kaveh flinches in return, surprised at his own behavior. He feels he deserves the glare Alhaitham turns to give him, slinking a bit into himself as he swallows. But there is no hateful words in return, no yelling, no real genuine fight, even when Alhaitham is allowed to be angry at Kaveh in return.
There almost never is.
“Then make dinner Kaveh. Here.” Alhaitham answers after a few moments of silence, stepping away from the sink.
Kaveh stays in place though, starring at Alhaitham, and he stares back. The moment lingers, but Kaveh concedes first, rolling up his sleeves to wash and start dinner. He cannot bear to think of what is unsaid, and Alhaitham does not care to speak it as he returns to vegetables.
His junior content with silence, and he to rattled to speak, that’s how they continue through dinner. By the time the table is set and dinner is served, Kaveh wills himself to not think about the drawing, about what happened. About Alhaitham’s willingness.
Instead, he starts up conversation again, discussing his client and the annoying details of the assignment where they simply cannot agree. He leaves room for arguments, the petty ones, the comfortable ones where they simply do not see eye to eye and that’s all it is. The wine is bitter on his tongue, and the book on the coffee table does not show up for their meal. Kaveh idly considers he is happy he did not have to make soup to get here.
—————————————-
The evening comes to pass, and Kaveh sits at his desk. There’s only the sound of evening bugs outside his window while he sighs at the feeling of the cool night breeze.
He tries to work, he does really. But with the pencil in hand and a page that’s almost bigger than his draft table, Kaveh finds there is no inspiration. He cannot force himself to draw. Tiredness seeps into his bones instead and disappointment fills his head.
Instead of work into the night and cause more issues for Alhaitham, which would be another argument in the morning, Kaveh releases the pins from his hair in favor of crawling into bed.
He finds he stares at the ceiling, sleep never comes as quick as he’d like to. Then, at the back of his head, he can’t believe he would’ve considered today a good day.
——————————
“We should do your thesis together.”
It is Alhaitham who offers, and it makes Kaveh startle next to him. They are seated together in one of the highest ledges of the Academia. Alhaitham had been studying and Kaveh was busying himself with trying to capture the likeness of the lotus lamps in his sketchbook.
“My… my thesis?”
“Yes. That is what I said. We are both interested in the ruins”
Kaveh considers this, then he finds that his face slowly heats up. He cannot help it, this is romantic in a sense, whether Alhaitham agrees or not. After all, families are built off of papers in the land of Sumeru.
“Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t”
He’s so blunt all the time, and Kaveh squirms a bit under his stare. But his chest and his cheeks still feel warm. He doesn’t know what else to do but tease his precious junior.
“You know what they say about the nexus of family life in Sumeru. Are you perhaps flirting with me Alhaitham? A bit odd, but you’re getting better” Kaveh snickers, nudging him a little, attempting to lighten the seriousness that clings to Alhaitham wherever he goes.
“I am not flirting, I’m telling you. We have each other, and that makes a family. Do you not agree?”
Kaveh is stunned into silence after that. He’s a dreamer, a romantic at heart. He always wanted a story book lover with a dozen red roses and a declaration of love from the lighthouse in Port Ormos.
His head is always in the clouds, and it’s moments like this where he is grateful. Grateful that Alhaitham is down to earth, able to make dreams into reality rather than something to imagine.
“No… no you’re right. I will be happy to do our thesis together. Thank you for offering Alhaitham,” is Kaveh’s reply, and that little dimple shows up again just ever so slightly.
He almost thinks Alhaitham looks relieved. Kaveh cannot help the pure affection that wells in his chest when he leans into kiss Alhaitham gently. He hopes this will be what starts the rest of their lives together, what will be a sign of them, as both lovers and partners, once he’s long gone from the Academia.
Yes. What a good start.