Work Text:
It started with Kaveh’s third glass of wine.
Kaveh, just turned eighteen, said once, every scholar seeks new knowledge. Isn’t there knowledge in experience, and does it not fall upon a scholar to chase after it?
Alhaitham, sixteen at the time, rebuked, where does knowledge end, and ignorance begins? There is knowledge in experience, and ignorance in over-indulging.
It continued, then, for several more glasses shared between the both of them. An once calm evening at the Akademiya’s dorms, in a room that housed a man who would become pride, and a man who would become light, geniuses in their own fields, with no equals aside from each other. Mirrors, albeit unpolished ones. There is knowledge in conversation, in debate and discussion, and knowledge in experimenting.
“You can’t learn everything from books,” Kaveh continues, fifth glass of wine, “you may read that alcohol is bitter and burns down your throat, but if you do not know how it feels, can you truly say you understand it?”
Alhaitham, second glass of wine, chides in, “Must every scholar have a personal experience with knowledge, and if so, where does it place Rtawahist Darshan, who observes the stars but cannot touch them? Where does it place Vahumana Darshan, who makes an understanding of aetiology, but needs not live it?”
“Not everything is material, and you cannot compare that which is with that which is not. If we do not seek to grasp what life gives us, then what point is there in living?”
Alhaitham, sixteen, has not yet mastered the art of keeping emotions hidden, and he squints at his senior’s absurd statement. “Do you reach your hand towards fire to understand that it burns, or is it not enough to know that it does so? Do you acknowledge a sharp blade cuts, or must you slice your skin to verify its credibility?”
Kaveh, sixth glass of wine, refutes, “Those are harmful things! Of course there’s no need to experience pain to understand that it’s dangerous! There is no harm in alcohol!”
Not moderately, no, Alhaitham thinks, but does not voice it. Instead, what he says, is: “Then let me ask you, Senior Kaveh. Must every architect-to-be waste materials to learn how to bring a design to life, or is it not necessary to come to an understanding of it first, and put knowledge into practice, instead of finding it through trial and error?”
The argument persists, the night is young, and the newest geniuses of the Akademiya younger still. Their opinions continue on clashing, the wine continues on being consumed, and it brings them, eventually, to impulsiveness, to youth, to actions alcohol enables and encourages.
The lower half of Kaveh’s uniform is scattered on the floor. Alhaitham’s, next to his. There’s no telling whose is which, but it is not something that matters just yet.
A glass is knocked down over the table, papers and books scattered across it. Kaveh takes most of it. For the first time since the moon rose high up in the night sky, neither of their voices could be heard. Instead, from their mouths come different sounds, made when their lips find each other’s, tongue on tongue.
Neither of them have experience with it, and the kissing is all but perfect. Teeth crash, the kiss is messy. Kaveh drools, but Alhaitham only pulls back once there is a need for air.
The argument, then, continues.
“T-There is no detriment, ahh, in indulging in alcohol… It gives r-room for new ideas to flourish…”
“... Ideas such as this?”
Alhaitham, flushed face and burning ears, brings his hips back only to jerk them forward, once. Kaveh, burning face and flushed neck, responds with a choked gasp that escapes from his throat. He attempts to stop it with the back of his hand, but fails to do so.
“Y-You’re the one who keeps moving!”
Alhaitham does it again, and Kaveh responds the same way, louder this time.
“You haven’t said no.”
No, he has not. This, even a drunk Kaveh cannot explain. In the haziness of his mind, he fails to remember how it all even started. A heated argument, the lingering scent of wine, burning desires. The alcohol had made him feistier, and in the midst of their discussion, Kaveh rose from his chair to fetch papers and a pen. He had gotten too close to Alhaitham, too infuriated with the way he kept on arguing back, trying to prove his thoughts and opinions wrong, and found that an easy way to shut him up would be to kiss him.
Not only it hadn’t worked, but Alhaitham reciprocated the gesture as though it had been something natural to do, something he knew would happen, something he seemed almost prepared to do. One thing led to another, alcohol and repressed desire and the need for companionship and youth all blended together resulted in clothes scattered on the floor, and scholars finding knowledge in experimenting.
Alhaitham moves again, and Kaveh brings a hand to his stomach, as though that would make his junior stop moving.
“I… I was trying to prove to you… that even the intoxicated mind of an architect can, —ah, produce new ideas…”
“I don’t recall stopping you.”
Kaveh would have half the mind to argue back, to say that yes, he is stopping him, doing such a thing to his lower half, but Kaveh, too, is stubborn beyond words. He challenges the impossible and makes his name synonymous with improbable, ever bordering so close to one of the Akademiya’s sins.
Alhaitham’s taunt works, and it shows on his face, adorning a color so reminiscent with the vermillion of his eyes.
“Fine… I, I will prove it to you…”
It hadn’t been a good idea to move, let alone turn his body around.
Kaveh can feel Alhaitham’s cock even better inside of him as he tries to turn around over the table, reaching for paper and pen. He’s rendered to gasps and moans impossible to hold back, and though he props the tip of the pen on paper, he does not begin to draw. Kaveh’s forehead meets wood, chest heaving. Gods, he feels good. The way Alhaitham moves inside of him could so very easily distract him from his ideals and purpose, so easily it could make him forget what their argument is even about.
But Kaveh, stubborn, doesn’t give in, in spite of his moaning. He stills his pen, again, leans on his elbows to prop his body up. He does not draw.
“S-Stop moving… I can’t draw like this…!”
Alhaitham, who has not moved once, only stares down at the way his senior is either blissfully unaware, or has chosen to ignore the fact he’s moving by himself, chasing after that pleasure without his junior having to do anything.
Alhaitham exhales quietly through his nose, not immune to that same pleasure, let alone to his senior. “... You’re moving your hips yourself, Senior.”
“Ahh… L, Liar… I wouldn’t—”
No, Alhaitham thinks, he would not. It’s the alcohol, he knows, and he watches Kaveh will himself to stop his hips from seeking after that pleasure over and over. Alhaitham, however, in spite of what half the Akademiya thinks of him, is still human. He bleeds when cut, and bleeds in red. He has wants and desires like everyone else, albeit controlled and well-hidden, albeit ever for only one person.
Kaveh is beautiful, he thinks. Intoxicated or not, overwhelmed by pleasure or not. The orange within the green-blue of his eyes almost seems more fierce as it watches the way his senior’s ass swallows his cock every other time, ever so slowly, his attempt to still his hips hardly successful. There is knowledge in experience, for Alhaitham learns here that Kaveh, so impossibly stubborn, loses so easily to what makes him feel good.
And when has Alhaitham ever denied Kaveh what he wants?
He holds Kaveh’s hips, and pulls him against his body, his cock sliding deeper than it has been since the night started. Alhaitham’s gasp is silent, and Kaveh, caught off guard, moans loudly. This, too, is something Alhaitham learns about himself. He starts moving again, faster than before, every slam of his hips against his senior’s ass making a noise that echoes around their room. It’s lewd, but it’s drowned out by Kaveh’s own moaning that he fails to hold back. He rests his head against the table again, losing the strength to hold himself up.
“Weren’t you going to show me your new ideas, Senior Kaveh?”
Yes, he was. Was. Does Kaveh even remember them, consumed by desire as he is? Does he remember them, as Alhaitham holds his hand, helps him still the tip of his pen against paper? Does he remember, as Alhaitham leans down and whispers against his ear, “I will help you draw.”
Kaveh moans in response, far too lost in the way his junior is making him feel. His body is hot, his ears ringing, tingling from the way Alhaitham’s breath had tickled them. He is not responsible for the way his legs spread wider, awkwardly as Kaveh stands on tip toes, seeking more of that pleasure. Alhaitham, albeit younger, is big enough, bigger than someone’s first time should be with. His movements aren’t rough, but time and time again Alhaitham pulls all the way back to slam all the way in, and Kaveh can feel the precum leaking out of his own cock.
It’s way too good to think. His mind, hazy from the alcohol and intoxicated by pleasure, doesn’t allow any thoughts aside from how much he wants Alhaitham to keep going, to fuck him harder, to entangle his fingers between strands of golden hair and pull him back, kiss his neck, bite him—
“Senior Kaveh”, Alhaitham murmurs into his ear, and whatever stubbornness had been left in his body is gone, giving himself whole to desire and pleasure and lust. Kaveh’s moaning comes with uncontrollable gasps, so sweet in their tone that even Alhaitham, sixteen and not quite as good in keeping his self-control and restraint in check yet, loses himself to them.
The paper, pen and ideas are forgotten with ease as Alhaitham snakes an arm around his senior’s chest and pulls him back, his cock reaching even deeper still and making both of them shudder. Kaveh is so, so beautiful, especially like this, reddened, with tears threatening to fall from his mesmerizing eyes, lost in the way Alhaitham feels inside of him. And Alhaitham, still so very human, who still bleeds when cut, and still bleeds the same beautiful red as Kaveh’s eyes, has always been weak to one person only.
He has been exerting self-control and restraint for a few years now, ever since coming to realize his feelings for Kaveh. Albeit irrational in nature at first, Alhaitham has kept them in check, studying them, learning about himself, knowing that a romantic relationship is not something that would do Kaveh well just yet. His senior might not speak of his personal life often at all, but he is a book, and Alhaitham has read books all his life. The eyes are windows to one’s heart, a Liyuen poet once wrote, and Kaveh’s, vermillion the same way the trishiraite stones from Sumeru’s desert are, have always been clouded, lifeless. He smiles ever so bright, a man who would one day become the Light of Kshahrewar, but his eyes have not once matched his mouth in energy.
This, too, is not something Kaveh needs. This is an accident, a mistake that Alhaitham would learn from and adapt. Alcohol, at his age, is not something he should be drinking, but with experience comes knowledge; of how it tastes, how it burns down his throat, what it does to his body. He learns of his own limits, will learn then how to increase them. This is a slip likely to be ignored and forgotten, and for now he can only wonder if Kaveh would be brave enough to speak of it come the following days.
“—Haitham, Alhaitham…” For now, Kaveh moans at his touch, at his every thrust, and for now, Alhaitham, too, intoxicated like his senior, indulges in the debauchery.
His fingers settle under Kaveh’s jaw, turning his face to him. Gray and golden strands meet, their hot breaths becoming one. Kaveh is beautiful, even like this. Especially like this.
“You are fluent in Teyvat’s common language, Senior. Do make use of it.”
Brat, Kaveh would have thought, if thinking was a skill he still possessed at a time like this. Instead, so lost in Alhaitham’s touch, in the way he squeezes around his cock with each one of his movements, in how insanely tempting his junior’s lips are, thinking is not something Kaveh knows how to do any longer. It is, in the end, a good thing he cannot. If he were to think, there would be regret, there would be guilt, having Alhaitham do such a thing with him, having Alhaitham indulge him, asking anything out of Alhaitham. Pure goodwill is, after all, something Kaveh cannot accept, but Alhaitham is, even now, an exception.
And so, he asks, amidst choked gasps and wanting fingers that tread awkwardly through strands of gray, a desperate attempt at bringing Alhaitham’s face closer. “... Kiss me.”
And when has Alhaitham ever denied Kaveh what he wants?
With experience comes knowledge, and Alhaitham learns from experience. The kiss this time, albeit far messier, is equally less awkward. There is want, and there is passion, and there’s tongue on tongue, the taste of wine still lingering on their mouths, but Kaveh, he finds, tastes sweet. If he explores his mouth enough (which he does, of course, given the opportunity), Alhaitham will find, too, the lingering taste of a rambutan he had eaten just hours before.
He makes a mental note of it.
Alhaitham only notices his pace has increased when Kaveh breaks their kiss to moan louder, drowning in pleasure. Kaveh is beautiful, and the way his voice sounds, enchanting. If he had not been aware of his feelings before, surely this is when he would be certain of them. Alhaitham may not be the hopeless romantic that Kaveh is, may not dream of an idealized world where the sun is always shining and the padisarahs are always purple. He is nothing like his senior, but to each and every time Kaveh has waxed poetry on love, he understands their meaning more than ever. A weight in his chest that feels suffocating, that overwhelms him at the sight of that familiar flaxen golden hair, but one that does not hurt. It is a weight as irrational as many emotions tend to be when kept unattended, a weight that makes him want to say, I want you to be mine forever.
“—Inside,” Kaveh, amidst broken moans and choked up gasps, finds room to say, and Alhaitham notices, here, that he has long become too enchanted by his senior’s charms to find will to oppose him.
This, Alhaitham would not learn from experience, not even years from now.
His mouth meets Kaveh’s neck, exerting every last bit of self-control he has not to mark him with heavy kisses and possessive bites. His kisses, then, are soft, softer than Kaveh would ever expect them to be, gentler than he would ever imagine Alhaitham to be capable of, and that alone is what brings him to climax with a shudder and a loud moan.
And Alhaitham, who is ever so weak to Kaveh, ever enchanted by everything that makes him him, cannot resist the way his senior squeezes around him, and he orgasms soon after, carelessly inside as Kaveh had asked of him. Alhaitham, who is human, who bleeds in red, who makes mistakes like everyone else, does so here, as he sinks teeth down against skin, and bites Kaveh’s neck in spite of his restraint. It will be something to tend to later, when even he, logical and rational and reasonable Alhaitham, submits himself to desire, and lacks all the rationality he often brandishes.
There is, after all, nothing quite logical in indulging Kaveh, but fool in love that he is, he yet lacks the strength to stand his ground and hold himself together.
The next moments are spent finding composure again, cleaning, organizing the mess they had made, figuring out which skirt is whose. They need a shower, but late as it is, Alhaitham measures Kaveh’s capacity to survive under the shower without passing out, and relents, as he does whenever Kaveh is involved, to allow them to shower come morning instead.
“Was that anything like your books describe it?” Kaveh asks, sudden, inspecting the bite mark on his neck with a mirror.
No, Alhaitham thinks, it was not. The books he has read on sex had been largely scientific, speaking of it as a means to an end, what adults do to procreate. Intercourse, had it not been for Kaveh, would have the same meaning for him as it does in his books. It would be purely to create an offspring, to start a family. Alhaitham, age sixteen, knows he would not have a need nor an interest for it in the future — had it not been for Kaveh.
His books failed to describe the emotional weight that came with it. Alhaitham, who always held himself together with ease, crumbled down the moment their bodies had become one. No book he has read prepared him for the possessiveness that followed after, the desire to tease, the need for more. No description of the act included lingering thoughts of Kaveh, sprawled on a divan, near-nude with such a needy expression. No words he has read warned him of love, and desire, and want.
No, Alhaitham thinks, it was not. It was so terribly better.
What he says, instead, is: “The books archived in the House of Daena are backed with proof and evidence of their claims. Do tell, Senior. How are those ideas of yours flourishing, and when should I expect to see them, if alcohol is such an enabler? I am waiting.”
That, of course, is bait that Kaveh bites, that familiar red adorning his cheeks as it had just moments before. “Y-You…! I will prove it to you! Next time, I will absolutely prove it!”
Next time, Alhaitham notes. Next time they argue, next time they drink, next time they make mistakes, and do not own up to them.
Yes. He would patiently wait for next time.