Archive of Our Own

Alhaitham’s entire life revolves around the ocean. As a child in the city he’d been obsessed – he’d read every book, traveled with parents he now barely remembered to every shoreline. He had faint pictures in his mind of large hands holding his high, small and chubby, as he slapped his bare feet into salty, warm waters that soaked pale sand. As a teen he’d spent most hours of the day wandering by the river, following it as far as he could without the darkness of night encroaching too fast upon him that he couldn’t make it home before his grandmother sent a search party. It happened more than once though, despite his best efforts.

“It’s like a siren call for you, isn’t it? Oh, those waters might be beautiful now but the sea is not your friend.” She’d said, her hand warm on his cheek in soft relief at his return, then sternly firm under his chin, forcing him to look into her eyes. “You’d best remember what lies out there, beneath the waves, before it drags you right under without a second thought.”

He hadn’t replied, stubborn as he was, but he had listened. Without his parents she was all the guidance he had and even if her words went against the pull he felt, the need to be with the water, he held them in his heart anyway.

Alhaitham had always believed there was more out there. He felt it when he was young, as he walked the length of the river, he would have sworn on occasion there was the telltale ripple of a fin far too large to be native marine life, far too flighty and purposeful to be a lost and floating inanimate piece of trash, too. When he visited Port Ormos and stared into the vastness of the ocean he felt the distinct, unmistakable sensation of being watched; that when he stared into that ceaseless blue, it was staring right back. There was someone, something, somewhere – good or bad he didn’t know, but he was going to find out.

Now, as an adult just over midway through his twenties, he was spending every waking moment thinking of those waters. He had to. He’d die if he didn’t. The ship relied on him and as much as he hated the workload, it was better than wasting his days away on land wishing he were being rocked to gentle sleep by the endless waves instead. Alhaitham was in charge of books, of map making too, anything that required more than a simple glance of passing knowledge in truth. It felt as if day to day his occupation changed astronomically, one of the only crew members well versed in all areas of ocean faring academia – if he’d had any inkling of motivation for the spot he might’ve been captain. He was close, at least, had enough power and status aboard to find himself above most questions and complaints, and any that found their way to him were easily shrugged away. Others were here for money, for fame or revenge, Alhaitham was here to be with the water as best he knew how, without sinking himself to the bottom of it.

Nights were his favorite, perhaps the only duties he’d volunteer for were the watches. Everyone else would try and shake the obligation but Alhaitham reveled in it. It was quiet, almost silent beside the water’s sounds. On clear nights he’d lay himself on the hard, ageing wood of the deck and stare up into the endless expanse of sky, just to feel how small he was in comparison. He could chart the stars in his dreams, he knew them so well, like old friends painted on the backs of his eyelids. More often than not though his nights were spent with him leaning lazily onto the mist slicked edge of the barrier that held him onboard, his teal eyes staring out into the horizon’s void. If the moon was full she’d light the tips of eager waves, to allow their gentle greetings to be seen. It was hypnotizing in a way that never dulled nor bored him, an emptiness filled in him as he watched the ebb and flow continue forever.

Tonight was the perfect mixture of them. Alhaitham lay on his back on the deck, one arm behind his head as the other drew a slow line into the air, following the spaces between brightly distant celestial bodies. The moon was full and round and spotlighting him as though he were an actor on the stage, ready to clash swords or deliver a pained monologue. With every gentle lap of waves to the body of the ship it creaked subtly – she was old and weary, Alhaitham couldn’t deny that she had seen better days but still, on she sailed with her workers in tow. As he was about to shift the pointing of his finger he heard a thump. Not an unusual sound to hear amidst the hustle and bustle of the crew, one would think, a ship had to make many strange noises. It was true but here alone, during the dead of night whilst the rest slept, it was certainly somewhat out of place. If it had been singular he might have ignored it in favor of peace but it sounded again, another silence, then again. He sat up, brows furrowing as he strained to hear the direction of its source among the usual sounds the ocean surrounded him with.

Standing helped somewhat, the creak of the decking further from his mind now and he followed the methodical solid thunk until he was at the bow, carefully gripping the edge as he leaned over – he had no wish to find himself in the belly of the beast tonight. Staring out he saw nothing. His gaze, squinting and confused, lowered until he was forced to suck in a shock infused breath, almost choking on the salty air that rushed in.

A body. No. A person, yes – not dead though, only unmoving, but that changed soon enough. Lean, thin arms lifted and what Alhaitham could barely register as a rock between their fingers was brought down harshly into the side of the ship. If he hadn’t been so thoroughly shaken by the shape of a figure in the waters he might have laughed at the ridiculousness of it, what had they planned to achieve with such a rudimentary tool? He supposed that question could wait. The suddenness of his discovery had shocked him to inaction but slowly he had recovered.

“Hold still – I’ll get you out.” He called, saw how it startled them, watched how they dipped under the waves and felt panic for the sanctity of life. Alhaitham rushed then, ran as he rarely did to gather their largest net used for fishing – they had little else readily available for him. With muscles rarely used he tossed the mass into the water, saw thin fingers grip into the ropes as it fell and sank around them, perfect, he thought, an easy save. As he wrenched on the ropes, leveraging the pulley over a high beam, he felt how it burned through the skin of his palms. Who had thrown themselves overboard in the middle of the night? How had he not noticed? Lost in the stars as he was, he was never unperceptive. The rescued catch grew heavier as it was hoisted, water weighing down the scratching ropes – they moved incessantly too, wriggling and punching at the fabricated cage.

“Stop moving or you’re going to end up right back in the water.” He growled roughly, sweat forming across his brow as his shoulders ached from the pull, feet planted firmly into the deck as he leaned back with one last powerful wrenching. He tied off the rope so the net would hang and he might pull it closer by hand.

“Let me –” He started then paused, hand reaching for the ropes that held his saved prize. He could see how the rope burn had subtly bloodied his fingers but he ignored that now, entranced instead by wide, shining red eyes. Like rubies, even in the dead of night they seemed to shine from within. No one on board had those, he thought, nor the golden threads of hair that stuck like soaked seaweed to tanned, wet cheeks. Their fingers curled into the cage of ropes and they bared their teeth, surprisingly sharp, when Alhaitham’s hand encroached closer. Who was this? Who lived aboard that he had never set his eyes on? Who –

Had a tail?

His eyes had lowered, caught by the angry writhing against captivity. Glittering scales, turquoise and green, all the blues in between that Alhaitham hadn’t discovered yet. The tail that lay where legs should be, curving and long, was covered with gossamer little fins. This wasn’t real, was his first thought, I was right, was his second. As the seconds ticked by he noticed between each twitching set of thin fins were bloodied cuts. Some gashes were longer than others, some deeper, all of them leaked slow trickles of blood onto otherwise perfect jewel-like skin. His hand reached instinctively for the rope again, managing to pull firmly enough to swing it around to hang over the deck rather than the ocean itself. What he earned in reward was pointed teeth digging sudden and rough into the skin of his knuckles.

“Archons, fuck –” He wrenched his hand back and shook it out, feeling the warm dribble of blood that followed down his fingers. Not friendly then. No, that was wrong, his eyes returned to the wounds, how they wept and ached. Scared, he corrected.

Even as the creature – he hadn’t quite reckoned with the truth in front of him well enough yet to call them what they were – struggled, he brought the net low, taking all the bites and scratches that he was offered until the ropes fell away and his supposed rescue was complete. They lay free now across the moistened wood of the deck, their tail fin slapping angrily against it. This was madness, he thought, pure unfettered insanity. He saw swaths of bare honey gold skin that shone paler than it really was under the moonlight, long blond hair that stuck to that same flesh, wet and tangled. Their brows were low, angry and furrowed as he glared up at what Alhaitham supposed he saw as his captor. Alhaitham’s shoulders rose and fell with labored breaths after the exertion, his arms aching with the effort he’d put in to pulling the weight of a person soaked to their bones in water to the ship. His bloodied hands reach for the bottom hem of his shirt and draw it up, the fabric sticking at first with how damp it had become, but he shrugs it off easily in the end. The merfolk scrabbles against the surface of the deck as he moves closer, panic vibrant in their eyes as their hands can’t find a grip against the smooth wood, their tail useless too like this.

“Relax,” Alhaitham offers, unsure if they might even understand his tongue. He meets their gaze as he crouches, arms resting on his wide spread knees. He hoped even with the natural sternness of his face that his good intent might be visible in the catching of his stare. They still, if only for a moment. Alhaitham takes one end of his thin shirt between his teeth, tugs a knife from his belt and draws it through the other side. He repeats the process until he has archons knows how many strips of it strewn across his lap. Another sharp flip of a tail in his direction as his hands move, “Stop.” He reprimands, they obey, though they seem to do so rather petulantly.

Gently, with care to avoid any unnecessary pressure, he slowly wraps one strip around the thin end of the tail, watching how blood soaks almost immediately through the fabric. That couldn’t be helped, he supposed, this would have to do. It seemed to earn him a modicum of trust too, scarlet eyes losing their fury and instead humming with an electric kind of curiosity while he worked. He continued until the gorgeous expanse of shimmering scales was muddled with the cheap tatters of his shirt. It would be alright for now, at least until he could offer better.

“I’m going to help you.” He mutters, still not certain if his words meant more than indistinguishable sounds. “So no more biting.”

He’s met with an empty stare. Perhaps he really didn’t get it. Alhaitham sighs, lifts his hand to point to the bite mark left behind with a frown. He bares his own teeth, then, when he gets no response, points now to them then crosses his arms in the shape of an x. This earns him a huff, something recognizable as an unhappy scoff.

“Even if you pout, I’m not about to let you bleed out in the middle of the ocean.” He stepped further along the side of their body, his fingers dipping under and he felt a hefty slap of hands at his bare chest as wide eyes stared up into his unresponsive expression. It’s easier, he finds, to ignore the heavy hits than it had been to not mind the sharp stings of teeth, so he continues, his arms flexing as he goes. He lifts and the creature squeaks a sound of surprise. They’re heavier than they looked – the muscle in their tail, perhaps? He’d have to make a note of that later. Alhaitham shifts them in his arms, hearing how they yelp when he inadvertently presses into the still oozing cut of a single wound.

“I apologize if it hurts.” Their head is tilted, cheek pressed into his arm as they stared off into the darkness at the edge of the ship's side. He couldn’t see their expression, but they didn’t fight him anymore. “We have medicine and real bandages. At least, something better than this.”

He talks as they descend below deck, wondering if it’s for his new friend or himself, to help him ignore this decidedly odd set of events. He still couldn’t quite decide if he was still firmly rooted in reality or if the sea had claimed his mind, as it did to so many others. Alhaitham wanders to his personal quarters – lucky to have them now, not only for his solitude but to keep this discovery from the grubby, fortune hungry hands of his crew mates. He feels clammy hands clinging onto him as he walks now, holding on for dear life one moment then slipping from him with quickened ease as he lays the weight of the body on his bed. They seem oddly intrigued by the fabrics beneath them, kneading into them like a cat on a warm lap. Alhaitham supposed there weren’t many dry piles of blankets hanging around under the ocean, such a mundane sensation for him, it must feel odd to his new friend.

“I’m leaving, just for a moment. To fetch the medicine.” He makes sure they look at him as he gestures with his words. They say nothing, do nothing, so Alhaitham is left only to assume they understood the necessary parts. The trip, short as it was, felt like an age. He runs, careful and quiet, stuffing wads of old fabric into his pockets and precariously wedging small glass vials between every finger once he’s inside the rundown infirmary room. On the way back to his currently abandoned charge, his heart stops in his chest as he almost skids around a corner only to hear moving mouths and clambering feet. Two bodies roam the halls, chattering as they go, bottles of spirits clinking between them as they laugh cacophonously. He keeps his body pressed to the wall, feeling every slow trickling bead of ocean and sweat that rolls down his skin. When the sound is distant he peels himself away and creeps the few feet left to his room.

The merfolk is half sitting now, holding themselves up with their fingers clutching at the curved bottom edge of the porthole window beside Alhaitham’s bed. They stare out into the night until the door clicks behind him. Their head turns, the elegantly delicate features of their face half illuminated by pale moonlight on one side and the warmth of a single candle on the other. Of course they’re beautiful, he thinks, knowing my luck I’ve taken a bloody siren on board. It feels not unlike a spell, too, the way their eyes stare into his. They’re unrelenting, stubborn and sweet at once, a glittering kind of something trapped inside. Alhaitham blinks, snaps himself out of it and wanders closer despite his grandmother’s years of teaching.

“This will sting but it will be worth it in the end, better than losing a limb.” That’s all the warning he offers before pressing alcohol soaked cloth to one of the gaping wounds. The other jolts, cries out suddenly before his hands slap over his own mouth. “Sorry.” Alhaitham adds again, wiping at the flow of watered down blood that flows free.

Wrapping this time takes longer, careful and coordinated he makes sure each tie is just the right amount of tension, just the subtlest pressure – how he’d been taught to do it. When he’s done his hand glides, warm and gentle, across one bandage.

“What could have done this?” He’s contemplative as he says it, more to himself than anything else. The wounds were random, no distinct pattern for a predator that he knew of. His eyes are distant as he stares at the scales painfully peeling where they’d been caught.

“You did.” A melodic voice sounds and Alhaitham’s mind rings with it, like a bell struck within the very confines of his skull. His eyes flicker to meet red and he’s struck by the fierceness in them, even as their holder’s voice trembles. “Well… This ship, that’s what it’s called isn’t it? I’ve only read about them. The chain it carries, it caught me.”

“The anchor?” Alhaitham offers and watches the other nod.

“The anchor.” They repeat, their own fingers soothing over one of the cuts along their tail that was closest to them. “It rusts, and is sharp. It hurts.”

Alhaitham pauses, silent for a moment, then, “So you hit the ship with a rock?” And the other floods with mystifyingly endearing color. Embarrassment. His fingers ball into the bed sheets and the rubies Alhaitham had strangely begun to covet flitted away.

“I don’t carry weapons, it was all I had to hand. I had just been… Watching.”

“Watching?”

“It’s interesting. The things you do… The ships and the people. The way you make this thing move.” He explains, and Alhaitham’s amazed by the amount he says after so long in silence when words might have been most important.

“It’s rude to stare, you know?” the sailor teased, and that earns him another scoffed sound and blushing fluster.

“You stare, too.” He lifts a brow, questioning the accusation as he tidies up the now ruined scraps left of his shirt. “I see you staring from your boat all the time, especially at night. You stare at the water like you're paying it attention but you never see me. You’re not very good at looking out.”

Alhaitham stands like a statue then – letting the insult go for now – still as stone as he carefully but unnecessarily (they'll be thrown to the waves soon) folds strips of bloodied cotton.

“You saw me? Watched me?” He wonders aloud, turning to rid himself of the fabric and emptied medicinal vials. “For how long?” Silence, an unwilling expression that answers the question really, even if he didn’t mean to.

“A while, then.” Alhaitham understands.

“No!” He’s met with bashful anger, “Not… Not that long.”

“Is that so.” It’s not a question, how he phrases it, merely an agitating statement he accompanies with the barest hint of a smile. The beautiful creature ahead attempts to wriggle away then in sulking irritation, rolling themselves halfway off the bed before he intervenes, helping them back up onto the thin mattress.

“You’ll hurt yourself like that.” He murmurs, dizzy with the sudden scent of salt and sand, with an extra hint of something oddly floral for the ocean, that muddles his senses when it hits him. He lays the other down carefully, the tips of his fingers pushing into one shoulder to lay them down. “One night. Sleep here.”

“What?” They’re skeptical and Alhaitham can hardly blame them.

“Rest for one night, a day too maybe. I’ll help you back out tomorrow night. Let your wounds close a bit before you go flapping that thing around, you’ll make them worse like that.”

He expects resistance, an angry flounder again, but they settle strangely fast, lowering the damp mess of their golden hair to the single forlorn cushion below. Alhaitham wonders what had been more convincing, his well intentioned request or the pull of the strange new bed?

“What’s your name?” He asks, dragging down a folded blanket from a precarious shelf to lay it over them, they stare at it like it was the most foreign object they’d ever seen.

“Kaveh.” He offers after a few moments of deliberation, doe eyes looking up in search of a returned favor.

“Alhaitham.” He points to himself absentmindedly, not even looking at the other anymore as he grabs a notebook from a trunk, and a quill and some ink. He perches his large form on the top of the sturdy chest as he begins writing furiously. It’s the only sound for a moment or two, that hurried scratching noise, before a throat clears quietly.

“What are you writing?” Kaveh inquires gently, and Alhaitham only spares a quick glance up to him, then down again to his notes.

“Notes.” He answers simply, only expanding when he’s done with his sentence. “About you.”

“Me?” His voice pitches slightly, surprise and concern as he glances about the room. His hands ball under the blanket and he pulls it up to the bottom of his chin as he stares wide eyed at Alhaitham.

“You.” He confirms again, softer this time in the face of such worry. “I won’t show anyone, don’t worry. I just want to have my own validation.”

“For what? Is it like a diary?”

“Yes and no, it's more… A journal of discoveries? And it's so I know that I was right.” Alhaitham stares down at the book he held, the journal as old as he was, older even. His parents had owned this before him, his grandmother’s writing too was in here somewhere. He used it now for only the most important of his discoveries – Kaveh eclipsed them all by far. “I knew there was something out there, someone in the water. I just needed proof.”

“Oh. Alright.” Kaveh wriggles, somewhat uncomfortably with only the help of his tail and no water, onto his side. Alhaitham hears the sound and assumes he was turning to him but finds, when he looks up, the moist tanned back of him instead. There was silence then, and he supposed that was for the best. He needed to rest and Alhaitham still had to keep his post for the night. When he left he made sure to lock the door with the old clunky key he kept at his belt, less to keep Kaveh in and more to keep the nosy crew out.

For the rest of the night Alhaitham was far more distracted than he’d ever been, maybe in his life. He mopped up the remnants of Kaveh’s blood from the soaked wood – pocketed a duo of lost scales and wondered if it were proper to return them to their owner, or vaguely morbid to do so. When no clues of the visitor remained he sat as he had done before, perched himself on a sturdy barrel and watched as waves lapped serenely against the horizon, as if coaxing the sun to rise from the depths. He had only his own thoughts here now, only his giddy imagination in the confines of his mind for company. Where did Kaveh come from, exactly? The ocean, of course, but where? How did they live – was it the same as those above, just submerged? What did he know of humans, of the land – what didn’t he know? Alhaitham had too many questions, too many probing inquiries, and no time to fulfill them all. As he mulled over it he could hear his grandmother’s voice in the recesses of his mind, how she would warn him if she were here now.

“The ocean will eat you alive,” She’d say, “And not have the decency to spit your bones out when it's done.”

It was healthy, he thought, to fear something as untamed and expansive as the sea. As proven just this evening, there was no way to know exactly what lurked beneath the surface, and there were tales a plenty of sailors and pirates alike being lured to their deaths. Did Kaveh want to lure him to his death? Alhaitham pondered it as he stared at the dull curve of the sun peeking above the wobbling water. I’d probably let him, he thought unprompted, balking slightly at the admission he hadn’t meant to make, even in the secrecy of his own mind.

The next day was as quiet as the last. He worked and waited, watched as they saw nothing ahead nor behind, nothing to fight nor to plunder and so he was left in blissful peace with his books. It was maybe midday when someone almost bumped into him, rolling a robust barrel across the ship’s deck.

“Something fell in your room.” They gruffly announced, and Alhaitham narrowed his eyes above the coordinates he was studying.

“My room? How do you know that?” His hand brushed against his own hip as inconspicuous as he could manage. Cool metal touched his skin; the key was still there.

“Heard it.” They grunted as another deck hand helped them to hoist the barrel up into both their arms. “Big thump on the ground.”

Calloused fingers lift to rub into his eyes as he sighs loudly. Alhaitham simply nods, watches them as they don’t wait for more of a reply before simply just awkwardly wandering away with their barrel in tow. It’s easy to fold up his scrolls and maps, to shove them under one arm as he all but jogs to his cabin. He doesn’t let the door swing open, doesn’t need to invite the chance of someone ambling by and innocently getting an eye full of merfolk. Once inside it’s obvious what exactly the crewman heard.

“What are you doing?” Alhaitham questions without anger, only genuine curiosity, met with embarrassed silence as Kaveh sits – trapped, on the floor. He was sitting up at least, but he couldn’t do much more than that with the limbs at his disposal. The floor was slippery hardwood, and beyond that bare material it was covered in the occasional thick, scratchy rug. There was no purchase for his hands, and certainly none for his tail. Kaveh didn’t look up, his gaze transfixed on the end of his own fins as he seemed to refuse to answer for a while.

“Come on.” Alhaitham dropped the myriad of parchments he held onto his desk before he reached down, arms hooking under Kaveh’s armpits so that he might carefully hoist the man back onto the bed.

“I just…” He gestured, sighing as the blush that flooded his skin seemed to gradually recede. “I wanted to see what was in your book. The one you wrote in.”

It was becoming fairly obvious that above all else, Kaveh was curious. Alhaitham could understand that, could empathize with wanting to know all there was to know about a place you couldn’t go. He picks up the notebook from where it was precariously perched on the trunk from last night, taps it against his hand a few times before he – against all odds and habits – relents. It makes a soft thump as it lands in Kaveh’s scaled lap.

“Just ask, then.” He sits, once again on the large wooden chest, leaning his back against the subtly curved wall of the ship as his arms cross over his front. “Rather than hurting yourself to save your pride.”

“It wasn’t –” Kaveh starts to argue, but he gives up with his prize in hand, fingers ghosting over the leather bound book he now holds. He’s careful with it, exceedingly so, and Alhaitham’s oddly endeared to him in that moment. He’s never seen someone handle something so innocuous as if it might explode at any moment. Slim fingers draw each page over as if it might crack and disintegrate and it hits him then, that it's because, usually, they probably do. If Kaveh’s only read about human things from human books, he’s likely only had access to ones on beaches, or ships – shipwrecks. Books that have been soaked to the bone and left to rot. He’s careful because he normally has to be. The context doesn’t make the visual any less sweet, he finds, and Alhaitham is riddled with an unfamiliar affection as he imagines Kaveh laid out on damp rocks, bathing under the sun as he reads, trying to dry put and preserve each page as best he can.

“It’s so…” Alhaitham is startled from his daydream by that harmonious voice, and he raises a brow before Kaveh can find the words to continue. “Methodical. Scientific.”

“Yes?” He wonders the point of the observation, why Kaveh looked so inexplicably upset by it. Kaveh looks at the sailor (he often refused to call himself a pirate, reluctant to be lumped in with his crew) with scrutinizing eyes and a mouth pressed into a thin, unhappy line.

“You’re writing about me like I’m… Like I’m a thing. An object.”

Alhaitham’s own gaze narrows slightly now, he supposed that was true but he hadn’t had much of a choice. “You’re an unknown to me, there’s not much else I can do.” Kaveh’s shoulders sag a little and he tries to add on, “I wrote nice things about you, too.”

That earns him a slightly disbelieving scoff as the merfolk quickly rereads the sprawling paragraphs and bullet points. His finger stabs into the center of it and his voice is an almost bashful murmur as he recites the phrase.

“Quite beautiful, but what for?” Kaveh’s eyes lift and he scowls. Still quite beautiful, Alhaitham’s mind notes. “What for – What is that supposed to mean?”

“Everything has a purpose, doesn’t it? Most accounts of merfolk recount them as predators using their good looks –”

He feels the sharp thud as the single thin cushion from his bed makes firm contact with his face. His hand lifts to drag it down, to hold it dumbfoundedly on his lap. He can’t even bring himself to frown, really, the gentle attack taking him so off guard.

“I’m not a thing to study, Alhaitham. I’m a person.” A loud huff as he lowers his head to read again, talking all the while. “Your compliments, they’re all about… About things that only matter if you were going to put me in one of those things, that –” His hand flails slightly as he thinks. “A museum!”

There’s a pause, silent and heavy. Alhaitham watches Kaveh’s fingers clench into the dry, aged pages. His gaze doesn’t lift but there’s an odd agitated flipping of the end of his tail.

“You’re not going to put me in a museum,” Ah, Alhaitham thinks, the nervousness made sense now. “Are you?”

He sighs, plumping the pillow up between his hands as he stands. It’s placed back where it had come from, against the end of the rickety bed. Alhaitham sees now how Kaveh’s hair had dried, how it fluffed and swayed with all his movements, full of life. It had been so damp, soaked really, last night that it hadn’t moved an inch, simply stuck itself to his skin and stayed as it was. It had looked a darker blond, too, now it shimmered and shone under every gentle touch of light. Like a chest full of gold he glittered. Alhaitham hadn’t realized for how long he had stared until a more cutting, sharper version of his question sounded, “Are you?” Kaveh repeated.

“No.” Alhaitham finally responded, one hand stroking across his own face in exhaustion – the night was catching up to him now he was in his room. “No, I'm not putting you anywhere except home. Your home, to be precise.”

He’d lost patience for decency and personal space and sat himself in the limited area left on the low bunk. Kaveh jolts a little but doesn’t complain, merely shimmying himself closer to the wall. Perhaps his sleepiness was that overtly obvious.

“I’m sorry I didn’t write about you more… Creatively? Romantically? Mysteriously?” He groans as he lays himself down, eyes closed to the world so that he can’t see the sulking expression the other wears. Sleep feels inviting, heavy on his muscles as he breathes his words with lazy care. “I’m a scholar at heart, but I will endeavor to do better in the future.”

“Your apology is terrible.” The man says, quiet as a mouse. Alhaitham grunts in response as he feels his mind numbing to the idea of consciousness. “Were you happy? To meet me?”

The question takes him off guard but there’s little to disrupt his gradual fall to slumber now. He just barely cracks one eye open, seeing Kaveh staring once more out of the small rounded window with a blank, lonely expression. Alhaitham’s chest clenches without reason as his eye closes again.

“Mhm.” Is all he really manages, “I was.”

“Then write that.” Kaveh reprimands him gently, softly, and Alhaitham almost hears a smile in his voice as sleep wrestles him somewhere far away.

When Alhaitham awoke again Kaveh was almost exactly as he'd left him. His head clad in gold rested against the aching wood of the ship's wall as he stared distantly out into the now dark window. Alhaitham wondered what he was looking for, if anything. Perhaps he simply already missed his home, or he was just like Alhaitham and felt the ceaseless pull of the water, unable to tear his gaze away lest he miss something of interest. He stares too, for a while at least, tracing the picturesque profile Kaveh makes with his own teal eyes. He's never seen anyone like him, never been so immediately certain of objective beauty before. His skin was darker now the moon didn't illuminate him with a pale glow, naturally deeply sun-kissed and shining, as if minuscule specks of diamond dust had been blown across him. Kaveh's lashes were long and Alhaitham could see now, from how low and to the side he was, how they curved daintily up all on their own. They fluttered when Kaveh blinked and he must have felt the discomfort of being studied, his head turning now to look down at Alhaitham beside him. They're both silent and just when Alhaitham thinks he sees Kaveh's lips twitch with the promise of conversation there's a resoundingly startling knock at his cabin door.

"Are you coming to take this watch or what?" A gruff, low voice calls, another pounding of a fist following.

Alhaitham’s hands draw over his face as if to wipe away the residue of sleep.

"Coming now." He calls back, hearing how his voice rasps with the remnants of his rest. When he glances back up towards Kaveh the man turns his head suddenly away, avoiding the soft pressure of Alhaitham’s gaze. So he sits up, groans to himself as his muscles stretch and flex, and does his best not to jab nor jostle Kaveh in the process.

"Are you taking me with you?" He finally hears that melodic murmur again, head snapping to its source. Kaveh looks small, tired, his shoulders slumped as he sits and his hands fidget lazily in his lap.

"Mhm." Alhaitham hums, "You need to go home, don't you?"

Kaveh nods and it shakes the perfect waving placement of his hair. Alhaitham nods too, almost laughing at this strange awkwardness between them. There was no explanation for it, no obvious reasoning, but he wouldn't force a camaraderie that didn't exist. After he stands he uses the fortunate gift of strength he'd come to own to lift Kaveh again this time there was no struggle, no hit or nudge to ward him off. In fact one slender arm slips around Alhaitham’s shoulders as his other hand settles softly at the slightly exposed skin of his chest, peeking out between the lopsided low cut of his shirt's collar. It's suddenly strangely intimate. Kaveh is so sweetly cradled in his arms, and the man clings to him as if he might sink to the depths without him. Their eyes meet as Alhaitham adjusts the balance of him in his hold, the jostling movement bumping Kaveh against him and startling a hiccuped gasp from his lips. It does things to Alhaitham’s mind he chooses not to speak of, nor dwell on, lest he loses what semblance of sanity he had left after months at sea.

When he walks, careful and quiet so as not to alert any of the drunken crew nor the sleeping ones, he can still feel the burning heat of Kaveh’s eyes; crimson and shining they never seem to look away, and if Alhaitham were a weaker man it would have been more than enough to bring him to his knees.

"Here," He whispers though the ship's deck was clear besides the two of them, "I'll lower you with this. If you fall from here, even as good a swimmer as you, the shock will do more damage than good."

Alhaitham settles Kaveh into one of the small boats they kept tied to the edge of the larger ship. Lifeboat in name but they all knew if they started going down, it was unlikely any of them would make it this far. It’s used primarily for scouting or fishing, depending on the day. He tries to place him as comfortably as he can, but it’s an effort when the person you’re setting down is primarily composed of sensitively wounded fleshy scales. Kaveh winces, just for a moment, as old wood digs into the side of him and Alhaitham mumbles an apology. Tanned hands grip onto the edge of the ship as Alhaitham stares at him from where he’s leaning over. It’s a mirror, almost, of that first moment their eyes had met.

“Aren’t you coming?” Kaveh asks, and Alhaitham does crack a small smile then, the question had been so sweetly genuine.

“Of course not.” He slaps a hand against the ropes holding the vessel Kaveh sat in aloft. “I have to take you down, then hoist the thing back up.”

There’s no pause as he gives the ropes a single, slow yank and Kaveh yelps when the boat begins to lower. It’s only a moment before he has to let go of the ship. Alhaitham watches tanned, slender fingers slide away, as if he were falling.

“Alhaitham?” A cautious voice calls and he can’t lean over, can only continue to hold steady on the ropes in the dark, determined not to dump Kaveh unceremoniously into the waters below. He shouldn’t be doing this alone in truth, but he didn’t really have a choice – his strength would have to count for two now.

“Hm?” He grunts as loudly as he can as the boat swings a little but he brings it back under control.

Kaveh’s voice sounds again, though it’s less nervous and more… Disappointed, he supposed. “Aren’t you going to say goodbye? I’m almost there.”

Alhaitham laughs, to himself mostly, and he feels that loss of the aching pull when the boat just barely rests upon the shivering surface of the sea. “Why? Are you going somewhere?”

He can tie off the rope now, leaning against the thicker binding of it, one hand lifted to brace against a wooden pole. He smiles subtly down at the merfolk resting in the bobbing vessel below. The moon was still fairly round and large in the sky, not yet done with showing itself off to the ocean below. Alhaitham hoped Kaveh could see him clearly enough, that the genuine sudden affection was visible in his features even through the darkness and distance between them.

“You’re not leaving for good, are you?” He questions again, feeling how the salty winds whip his hair against his cheek, catching in the billowing sleeves of his shirt like sails. Kaveh stares up at him, wide eyed and lost for a moment. From here, far up as he was, he could see how the dull light illuminates his cheeks as they rise with a smile.

“No.” His voice is melodic again, floating with the ocean’s scent on the breeze. “I’ll be here.”

Alhaitham nods, as if he had known that would be the answer, and he gestures with one hand to the lapping waves. Kaveh stares for a moment longer, seemingly unable to tear himself away for that last minute. He’s moving, then, hands wrenching himself up and over the edge of the boat and it’s strange, even knowing what he is, to watch a person fling themselves so willingly into those endless depths. He’s graceful with it at least, what Alhaitham thought would be an almighty splash of limbs and fins is a gently smooth glide of a lithe body under accepting waves. It’s mesmerizing and he wishes it wasn’t under the curtain of night so that he might watch how Kaveh’s body moved between the rippling surface. Still, he could imagine.

He resurfaced a number of feet away, soaked as he had been the night before and bobbing in place. Alhaitham raised a hand, waited for Kaveh to do the same, then with surprising difficulty he turned himself away. The stars were less interesting that night he found, less hypnotizing with their distant charm. The world felt closer today, as if it were right under his feet.

To his concealed delight it really wasn’t the last time they would meet. Every week for a month or two, almost every day now, he could spot the glittering golden tendrils of Kaveh’s hair, or the shimmering scaled expanse of his lower half weaving through schools of silver fish, or under heaving, frothing waves. Alhaitham still took the night watches most of all, but there were occasions now that he volunteered for fishing duty during the day – as long as he could take it alone. He’d let strong arms lower him down, gruff about the work this would inevitably entail, but still he did it. He’d row as far as conceivably appropriate and set himself up, waiting and waiting until his boat rocked as a presence slipped by underneath.

“You look like something out of a nightmare.” Alhaitham commented as thin fingers gripped the edge of his tiny boat and a head rose from the waters, hair wet and sticking to the curves and dips of his face. Ruby red blinks at him from between blond curtains, accompanied by a petty pout.

“I look better when I don’t have to surface all the time.”

“You don’t like it up here?” Alhaitham fishes.

“... I like it just fine.” And catches.

“You know a lot about the land, don’t you? For someone who’s never lived there.” Alhaitham really does start to fish now, there’s only so many excuses he can make for spending hours out here and returning with nothing at all to show for it. He needed to eat, too.

“That’s rich coming from you, ocean boy.” Kaveh scoffs a little, avoiding the question with as much grace as his body employed to swim, doing his usual display of flopping backwards and floating on his back on the one side of Alhaitham’s boat, invisible to the ship in the distance. He looked pretty like this. Pretty all the time, if Alhaitham were being honest. As he was though, his hair splayed out on the almost still waves, his hands ghosting through the water to hold him steadily balanced where he lay within it, the beauty was certainly heightened. It was moments like these that Alhaitham’s mind wandered terribly. He’d think of useless things, like how Kaveh’s hair never seemed to dry out or grow crispy, always silken, despite the constant exposure to salt water; how his skin was unblemished and perfect even under the harsh beating of the sun – how, to human standards, he was completely naked, all the time.

Alhaitham shook his head and Kaveh looked at him with a furrowing of his own brow, confused by the sudden denial of nothing at all.

“I think the water is interesting and it’s always been there, the need to know. I can’t remember a time when I didn't want to learn about it.” He explains, even as his heart flutters awfully in his chest.

“Well… It’s the same for me.” Kaveh’s eyes flit up to the sky now, watching soft expanses of cotton like clouds float above them, blotting out the sun on occasion. A grayer day than the usual summer heat. “I’ve always liked watching you all. Everything’s almost the same, yet so different. I used to wish I could live up there.”

“And now?” Alhaitham wonders aloud without being able to stop himself.

Kaveh laughs a little, one hand softly splashing some water towards his seated form – still no bite on his poorly set up line.

“Now I know you’re all just as bad as the company down there, what difference would it make? Besides, I like the sea too. It’s my home after all.”

Alhaitham can only hum a sound of something like agreement – home had never been a thing to him, not entirely, it had been people or a feeling, but never had it been attached to a singular place. Kaveh seemed the type to be sentimental about an entire location, Alhaitham began to understand these things the more they spoke, though he was under no illusions that Kaveh was barely letting him scratch the well maintained surface of his mind. They spent a few hours like this, as they often did. Kaveh floating relaxed but sometimes restless, and Alhaitham struggling to lure anything close to his bait. He accused Kaveh fairly often of scaring away his potential catches and the merman had had the decency to look a little apologetic about it. Since then he’d made it a point to swim himself away, deeper than Alhaitham could see, only to return with a bundle of freshly caught creatures – though he never killed them for him, to keep up the illusion of course.

As Kaveh began to let go of the small boat when Alhaitham was all set up to leave, he reached out to grasp lightly at the merfolk’s wrist. He ignored the strange tension of the moment to deliver the news he had meant to.

“We’ll be returning to land soon, to Port Ormos. We have to restock, make some rounds… Things to check on.”

“Aren’t you pirates?” Kaveh gives him an incredulous look – almost childish, he thinks. “The books say you’re ruthless, that you take everything you need for yourselves.”

Alhaitham laughs, his hand tightening once around Kaveh’s wrist before he lets him go. “And do I seem ruthless to you?” The other doesn’t answer, only chews lightly on his lower lip as he slips his hands both under the water, far from Alhaitham’s touch. “The seas are bare for now. Better to cut our losses and recoup where we can than to sail forever and die of starvation – our reputation isn’t so awful that we can’t dock for a while. Not yet, at least.” Kaveh listens diligently, glances towards the ship with a curiosity, then back to Alhaitham.

“Okay.” Is all he offers in response. Alhaitham isn’t entirely sure what that means, whether he was simply accepting that their time together was about to dwindle significantly – or that he was planning to follow, as Alhaitham secretly wished he might. Only time would tell now, since Kaveh seemed so unwilling to.

They parted then, Alhaitham feeling how his shoulders ached with the drag of long paddles through heavy water. When he reached the ship again, fatigued and stinking of the fish Kaveh had dropped into his lap rather than the bucket provided, he stared up into the distant horizon. The sun was nowhere to be seen but it wasn’t time for sunset yet, he knew that much, and as he tilted his head back he felt a single slow droplet of moisture slip down his cheek.

“Rain.” He murmurs, a resounding repetition of the word heard all around the deck. An edge settled on the crew then. Everyone settling into their positions without complaint as with every moment that passed the number of drops that splattered across aged wood and tired skin multiplied.

Within the next hour Alhaitham, feet planted on now slippery decking and hands aching as they clutched thick rope, was being pelted by almost horizontal swaths of rainfall. His grip tightened to a painful extent as a wave rushed aboard, almost knocking his feet from under him and sending terrible shivers through his drenched body as the force all but winded him. He watched, fingers raw with the burn of the rope, as more than one poor soul was dragged overboard into the maw of the hungry beast. The ocean roared all around them, the ship rocking, angrily creaking and nauseously swaying with every hard push of the sea against it. It wasn’t quite worse than others he had weathered but the ship was older now, unrepaired for months after they’d set sail for this extended journey – she wasn’t prepared to take this, he knew that. He felt a distinct sense of anxiety as the ropes drew painfully across his damp skin. He might die like this. If it were his time, he supposed that was that, but a spiteful turn of thought made him curse the archons before his fate was yet to be sealed.

He wondered, too, how those like Kaveh fared during times like this. Was the ocean calm if you ventured deep enough – how deep was plausible for a creature like him? Alhaitham had visions of Kaveh safe beneath a blanket of dark, deep waters. Then nightmares of him being thrashed around by unrelenting currents and cruel bullet like raindrops – of his usually brightly shimmering body, lithe and beautiful, splayed gorily across lengths of reef and rock. Alhaitham felt the nausea hit him truly now, but he held firm, or as firm as he could at the least.

It wasn’t his fault, not really, when his grip failed him. Perhaps if he had volunteered for more than bookish duties he might’ve secured the barrels with more care and certainty. As it was they rattled, causing a ruckus inside their loose ties until it was inevitable that they should fall. It was quick at least, a rush of movement that took Alhaitham’s legs from under him. He hit the deck with such force he saw double, a blur of his surroundings as the next jolting wave brought him into salty, freezing water.

It was a mixture of expected panic and strange calm. He sank farther than he’d thought he might, the light of the sky growing ever more distant as his arms stretched toward the surface. He felt heavy, numbly unreal. His vision still blurred, worse now he was jostled by the still rowdy current, but he could see thin cloudy streams of red in front of him. Which part of his head did they come from, he wondered? His nose hurt, but that could have been how the ocean had forced itself up into his nostrils as he’d rushed beneath the surface against his will. It could be his lips, busted from the impact, or his brow from the same. He didn’t know but it was nice to think of something besides how his body was too exhausted to fight the pull of the deep below. He wasn’t heavy anymore, he thought, his limbs were light but in the way that they became useless. He couldn’t move them in the chill that surrounded him. Darkness crept into the edges of his vision and the way his chest ached with the lack of air became more of a burden than a lifeline. He’d heard it said by some that drowning could be peaceful, that it only hurt for a moment. Alhaitham wondered, hoped almost, that that might be true. It would be soothing in more ways than one to know it.

For the first time in more than two decades he saw his parents, the stern kindness of his father’s mouth and the gentle calmness of his mother’s eyes, clearer than they’d ever been. He felt near to satisfied then, strangely so, so cold he became empty – was this peace? He hadn’t realized his eyes were closed until now, and he felt the ocean sweep him into its current once more.

The next thing he feels is the horrific pulling ache of himself retching. His eyes haven’t even opened yet but he’s on his side as what feels like fathoms of the sea spray and dribble from his mouth. The more it goes on the emptier he feels, not peacefully as before, but horrendously so. Bile begins to mix with the salty water and he shivers, his spit sticking to his lips and attaching scratching mounds of sand to his skin. He’s startled into a coughing fit by the sudden intensity of his consciousness, and by a hand stroking damp hair back from his brow. He can’t form words, his throat only capable of a pained croak when he tries, and a soft voice hushes him.

“It’s alright.” Kaveh. Alhaitham’s eyes struggle against the crust of sand and moisture, blinking into near darkness. The dull light of an encroaching evening bounces from soaked skin and still dripping golden hair. He leans over him, his hand now massaging softly over Alhaitham’s all but bare chest – his shirt was spread wide open and his front ached as if he’d been beaten. He had, he supposed the ocean had done so, but he assumed too that Kaveh must have done his fair share of necessary damage as well, to rid him of the sea he’d brought ashore. “I know it hurts, but… Better out than in?” Alhaitham chokes on a sound that might have been a laugh. Kaveh’s voice sounds strange, muffled or nasally, and when he laughs in tandem Alhaitham can hear the tears in it this time. Are you crying over me? He thinks, his hand blindly coming to rest on where the other held his to his chest. What a silly thing to do.

He fell back to the darkness after that, not willingly but still he had to go. Distantly he can hear Kaveh speaking to him, perhaps to keep himself from going subtly mad with Alhaitham unconscious beside him, but it’s soothing for him too. The next time he wakes he’s a little cleaner, the sand brushed from his skin by tender hands he assumes, feeling one now shaking him as waves lap at his feet – he’d only managed to keep one shoe through it all and the water was cold against his skin.

“The tide,” Kaveh says, frustratedly distressed in his delivery. “Alhaitham, I can’t move you any further than this.” He manages to turn his head now, ignoring as much as he could how the sand beneath him seems to grate his skin as he did. Kaveh has all but beached himself in the name of dragging Alhaitham’s heavy frame up the shore. He must have laid there all evening, he thinks, he must be hurting too. Alhaitham lets delicate hands help him sit up, then stand. He wobbles and they clutch at his thighs to steady him, unable to reach higher. Kaveh’s eyes are round and concerned and so worth living for. Alhaitham finds whatever strength is left to catch Kaveh’s body with his arms, hoisting him up to loud protests.

“You idiot, I’ll be fine – You’re barely conscious, Alhaitham –” It falls on deaf ears, Alhaitham hearing nothing but incoherent sounds as his mind is still lost in the ocean's waters. When it’s too much too soon he stumbles to his knees, Kaveh falling with him and he grunts. The sailor pants around an apology but Kaveh only slaps at him with his tail, silently seething.

They’re only half on sand now, Alhaitham feeling how his fingers reach into the edge of foliage and he sees far stretching trees and dirt ahead in the dark. Best not to tempt any hungry beasts to his all too ready to eat self now though. They lay there for a while, Alhaitham catching the breaths that had eluded him for hours it seemed, Kaveh watching with serious intent. It was a little funny to Alhaitham when he realized Kaveh had started counting how many he took. He had to remind himself the other had almost seen him die and the humor of it wore off fairly quickly. Tender fingers once more pushed the hair that sat moist and annoying against his face.

“The ship is gone.” Kaveh informs him gently, as if it were a great loss to Haitham in particular. There is a sense of it, a detached kind of grief for what had carried him so steadily for so long, but that was all. What stung more was all the things he’d left behind, that now sunk as he almost had to the ocean floor. Kaveh’s hand fumbled with a kind of bag Alhaitham hadn’t seen him wear before, made perhaps of dried seaweed and other ocean plants, decorated prettily with all kinds of small shells. Something large and wet settled in front of his face.

“I saved this. I tried to dry it whilst you were… Whilst you were sleeping.” An understatement, if it made him feel better Alhaitham wouldn’t argue. “I’m not sure how much good it did, the leather is still soaked.”

Alhaitham pushed himself to sitting, letting his fingers bothered by sand roam over the darkly damp material. Oh he thought as his heart swelled painfully in his chest, my journal. His fingers flipped the cover open and he felt how Kaveh began to wring his own fingers, how nervousness overtook him, as if Alhaitham might be mad at him rather than the storm that had shook his bones and belongings loose. As he had said, it was soaked. The words Alhaitham knew but did not recognize as his parents’ were smudged lightly, the old ink running into the cracks of the parchment, still legible in places at least. His grandmother’s writing took the same kind of subtle battering, old and aged enough that the water had to fight to budge it into complete obscurity. His own notes were far worse off – frustrating but not world ending.

“I can try again. While you rest I can –” Alhaitham shakes his head. “But your notes.” Kaveh implores.

“I can rewrite them.” Alhaitham smiled crookedly, lips dry and aching, as their eyes meet, his weary and Kaveh’s concerned. “I’ll make the compliments less scientific this time.”
That earns him a shuddering hint of a laugh and Kaveh seems to relax – more than that the air seems to leave him as he relies on his own hands to keep him upright. Alhaitham can see now how he shakes, the muscles in his entire lithe frame trembling. It must have been a tremendous undertaking to swim as much as he had, with Alhaitham in tow. He couldn’t have spent much time easily flitting through deep waters that way, the man who had been in his arms in need of the storming air above. Then, after all of that, he’d dragged him up the sands with barely the ease of standing leverage. Alhaitham could see the reddened sores at Kaveh’s sides where sand had rubbed his skin raw.

“You saved my life.” He states, hoping Kaveh could hear all the weight such a moment deserved. “Thank you.”

“Is that the kind of thing that needs thanks? I wouldn’t… I couldn’t let you die.” His words are hushed and gentle, reserved in a way he hadn’t been since they’d met. Alhaitham’s hand lifts from the comfort of his journal and finds instead the damp silk of Kaveh’s skin, holding his hand in his own.

“Thank you.” He asserts again, his gaze as firm as the hold he had on the merfolk’s fingers. Kaveh stared at him and Alhaitham had the decency to pretend he saw only the wetness of the sea rolling down his cheeks.

“You’re welcome.” He offers with an endearingly confused tone and Alhaitham smiles his approval. The touch of warmth was not ignored, could it have ever been? But he did his best not to let himself fall too heavily into it. Kaveh’s fingers shifted subtly against his palm and Alhaitham wondered if he could feel how it made his pulse jump in his veins. He was willing to chalk it up to the near death experience, this newfound desire to be closer. That was easier than reckoning with whatever else might be wreaking havoc within the confines of his mind. Eventually their fingers had to untangle themselves, Kaveh looking away as if his tail in the moonlight was something he had never seen before – Alhaitham could hardly blame him if it really were what drew his attention, it was something he himself had never grown tired of.

Alhaitham, with all his expertise, created a fire small enough not to spread but big enough to warm him and light the immediate area. Kaveh’s eyes went wide with wonder as he did it. Alhaitham had to smack a curious hand away more than once in the process. It was uncomfortable for him, they discovered, the heat of it. Kaveh’s skin ached if he held himself as close as Alhaitham did for too long. Alhaitham offered to carry him once more and Kaveh had only the strength to decline him once. The ocean had swept in to take over a large area of the beach and it only took a few steps for Alhaitham to find his feet drenched in what had tried to kill him hours earlier. He walked until his hips were within the gently lapping waves now. Kaveh’s tail flickered and splashed in it as if fidgeting while he held onto Alhaitham as he had done that first day he’d been let go.

“I won’t go far.” He offered as a small comfort. Alhaitham swallowed the thought hungrily but nodded calmly in reply. Kaveh’s hand lifted as if he might cup Alhaitham’s cheek but he seems to relent to his more sensible senses and Alhaitham feels only the softest brush of warm fingertips at his skin. Kaveh laughs, the sound a little awkward, embarrassed even. “You can let me go now. Any deeper and you’ll sink again.”

Alhaitham holds him a moment more, holds him until Kaveh’s fed up of staring bashfully into the night and casts him a few furtively curious glances. Alhaitham leans close as his arms squeeze Kaveh’s body close. The man gasps quietly as salty, chapped lips press to his cheek. Alhaitham can feel the immediate rush of warmth to soft skin. He drops him immediately after.

“You –” Kaveh doesn’t sink, of course he doesn’t. He splashes though, purposefully aiming to soak Alhaitham to the bone and he succeeds. The sailor grins as he only weakly shields himself from the attack with one arm.

“See you tomorrow.” He states with a confidence he knows must infuriate his companion. Kaveh only grunts a few affirmations before Alhaitham is once more covered in waves of frothy sea when his tail flaps to propel him away.

Alhaitham had only his thoughts that night, and considering the day he’d had they were less than helpful or kind. Sleep was a distant friend, perhaps even an enemy by the time morning came. He ached all over, his throat was still raw and his stomach all knotted with remnants of anxiety and how it had released so much of its contents along with the intruding water yesterday. It was now, under the slowly simmering heat of the new day’s sun that he felt the need to be clean. He wanted out of his still damp clothes and to feel the efforts of the past day wash away from his skin. He found a section of rock only a short ways away that had a deep enough dent in itself to serve as something like a pool. Alhaitham undressed under the morning light with an eagerness he hadn’t employed in a long number of months.

When all his clothes had been laid out across smooth stone under the sun he himself stretched tall, feeling the aches in him ease with the needed stimulation. Naked as he was he could feel the gentle wind actress his sore skin, the sun warming it all the while and he sighed a contented sound. The feelings, the sensations, the notion of simply being alive – it was a thankful acknowledgment of them all.

The sea was quiet today, the storm having done its damage and passed on as many in the summer tended to do, so the out of sync splash caught his attention with little effort. Alhaitham turned his head only enough to scan the uninterrupted stretch of water behind him. He saw nothing – no one. Still, he thought, that doesn’t mean he’s not there. Alhaitham was certain he was in fact, spotting just the hint of a wet hand print left and rapidly drying on the edge of the stones he stood upon. Are you being shy? He wondered to himself with a subtle hint of a smile. He stretched out one leg toward the rocky pool nearby and made more of a mess of stepping into the water than he needed to, splashed around in the inviting liquid until he saw gold rise from the ocean, thinking his subject had settled in to bathe. Kaveh balked when he saw him, still standing as still and naked as the statues that littered those museums he had been so worried about.

“Good morning.” Alhaitham greeted him plainly. Kaveh spluttered as his head dipped beneath steady water again. Alhaitham was immediately charmed. He stepped to the edge of the rocks and crouched, arms on his knees as he waited for Kaveh to resurface once more. It took a little longer this time but eventually, after crimson eyes watch him from beneath clear blue, the merman gives in. He only lifts his face halfway out, to the bridge of his nose. The ocean ripples around his cheeks and Alhaitham marvels at how his hair settles like liquid gold on the slowly waving surface.

“What are you being so bashful about?” He asks, as if unknowing. He sees only bubbles in response, Kaveh’s mouth still firmly under water. Alhaitham taps at one of his ears but Kaveh only scowls at him. Ah, so he wasn’t meant to understand that anyway. Carefully – aware of how slippery the water made the stone beneath his feet – Alhaitham sits now on the edge of the thankfully firm surface. He lounges back, calves settling into the seas hold as his hands feel the warmth of the rock heated by the sun behind him, and how the subtle ridges dig into the calloused expanses of his palms. Gradually Kaveh lifts his head a little more, the water lapping at his chin now.

“What’s there to be so afraid of?” Alhaitham pokes and prods, his words leaving little room for Kaveh to avoid the unsubtle suggestions behind them. Alhaitham feels wet hands grasp at his knees, how Kaveh exerted pressure on the sturdiness of his lower thighs to lift himself out of the water. Alhaitham shamelessly watched how water rolled down the length of him. How it hypnotized and enticed with such unavoidable accuracy. He wondered if he had had such a want in him since the first moment, left unnoticed and unchecked, it had grown into what hounded him now. Perhaps, though, it really was only the idea that he might never be graced with another day to lay himself out for the taking like this, to see what might come of a moment of boldness.

“Why are you so energetic this morning?” Kaveh begrudgingly inquires and Alhaitham is glad to hear the gentle harmony of his voice again today. He feels how his hands shift, moving from the flesh of Alhaitham’s thighs to the rock beside his body. It was easier then for Kaveh to hold himself up, tail still twitching antsily in the water – it was hard to hide the rise and fall of his emotions when he was constantly having his secrets given away by the energetic limb. “You almost died.” He need not remind him.

“Is there any better reason?” Alhaitham argues in return, simply and plainly he states it and he sees how Kaveh has no retort for such a succinct and truthful answer. Alhaitham sits up a little straighter, making himself just subtly taller than the man holding himself up with only the strength of his arms. Large hands cup Kaveh’s face and the shock of it is evident in how his eyes widen, round and scarlet, and so deliriously stunning. Alhaitham leans closer and closer, pulling Kaveh up just an inch more, until their noses bump.

The next second there’s only salt. The taste of it is almost overwhelming but Alhaitham is so used to it from the past day, and the majority of his life, that it barely registers. All he can focus on instead is how absurdly soft Kaveh’s mouth is. All of it. His lips, of course, plush and rounded and giving under the pressure of Alhaitham’s. His tongue too, smaller but thicker, Alhaitham feels how it glides over his own as hungry as he himself had been. All of it so overwhelmingly tender and warm and his mind goes blank. Alhaitham hadn’t felt what that was like for so long – not in a good way, at least, a way he cared to be reminded of. Kaveh makes a sound, small and whining, that goes straight to Alhaitham’s gut. It twists and tenses it, and he feels how it sparks that fire of arousal – how it’s so immediately obvious, given his current state of undress.

When they part and Kaveh’s eyes are still closed, lips parted with a shaking breath, Alhaitham isn’t sure how to proceed. What could he do? He wasn’t here to pressure things, to force what may or may not be inevitable between them. Kaveh’s thick lashes slowly flutter open and it’s only a second before crimson shifts from holding his gaze, to glancing low. Curious as he was, it was only natural. Alhaitham’s not proud of how the staring only seems to ensure the continued growth of the heat between his legs, but it can’t really be helped. The warmth between his cheeks is gone in seconds. Kaveh’s shoulders shake and suddenly it seems like the weight of himself is too much, his hands slip and he’s once more returned to the safety of the ocean. Alhaitham stares at the empty space between his hands for a moment, maybe even as long as five whole tortuous minutes, but Kaveh doesn’t spawn there again despite his will to manifest him. He sighs, laying back to feel harsh stone against his sweat soaked back. As he stared into the open, ceaseless blue of the sky he swore he could still feel that softness between his palms. His fingers clenched as he thought about it, how all of Kaveh must feel that way. How the heat of his flushed cheeks was only the beginning, that that silky expanse stretched along lithe arms, the slow curve of his waist and the soft lines of his stomach. Alhaitham could imagine it all. He’d never felt anything like it, after all, how when their fingers brushed he felt the subtle notion of scales across Kaveh’s knuckles, smooth as his skin but glinting with a metallic shine if Alhaitham cared to look. He wasn’t entirely unconvinced yet that Kaveh wasn’t all a dream conjured by his heart and mind to soothe the aching loneliness of life at sea. It was a good dream, if he was, the best he’d ever had.

A weight on his knees again. He sits up enough to look, elbows digging painfully into flat stone but it’s inconsequential as dampened blond locks come into view. Kaveh tentatively draws himself up, crossing his arms over Alhaitham’s thighs and resting his chin on his own arm. He manages to hold Alhaitham’s gaze for a moment, comically tortured whilst his eyes long to stare elsewhere. He raises a brow and Kaveh relents to his silent questioning with a sigh, glancing – at least for a second – toward the half hard figure of Alhaitham’s generous length.

“I… It’s not the same.” Alhaitham hums a sound of something between confusion and acknowledgement. Kaveh flustered as he nodded towards the man’s crotch, as if he needed help figuring out what exactly it was. It wasn’t that he hadn’t known, of course he did, but he wondered just what differences were causing Kaveh to stumble.

“Is that right?” He states quietly, Kaveh’s curiosity getting the better of him again as he stares for longer, less flustered while he does. “How so?”

“It’s all just so – It’s so out there.” That does earn a quiet chuckle, even Kaveh having to huff a little sound of a laugh in response. “That’d take anyone off guard, don’t you think?”

“Maybe so.” Alhaitham might have been ashamed, too, if he hadn’t spent years on ships with crowds of uncaring, relentlessly filthy people. He’d seen it all, more than he’d ever intended to. There was no room for shyness in his daily life, not in this at least. Still, Kaveh hadn’t lived as he had, and if his explanation was true it was nearly impossible for him to. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Kaveh makes a small sound of understanding, one finger drawing slowly against Alhaitham’s thigh. Steady, gentle circles that grow higher and wider the longer they continue. It was comforting to know that somehow they had landed on the same page here. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, it was more soothing than anything, a familiar kind of tension that brewed between them so often. Warmth then, soft and slight, as Kaveh kisses at scarred skin above Alhaitham’s knee, drawing the touches up slowly. Higher and higher he went until he was dripping salty water onto Alhaitham’s legs and dragging the softness of his lips against the jutting bone of his hip. As Alhaitham’s hand moved, pushing soaked golden strands back behind one ear, Kaveh’s lips fell open above the already subtly leaking head of Alhaitham’s cock, tempting even as the sharpness of his teeth glinted behind them. His tongue lolled free and it was all but drawing over the heat of him when a sudden sound shook the stillness of the air. It was like a horn, but not as consistently pitched nor steady, like full lungs blowing into the curving delicacy of a conch. Kaveh jolted away from him with such a rush Alhaitham himself was shocked by it.

“Kaveh –” He called as the sound ceased. The other was looking around with a startled, lost expression, clutching at the bag decorated with shells that hung at his side. Alhaitham’s brows furrowed as he sat up but Kaveh didn’t look at him again.

“I have to go.” It’s hushed and hurried, his hands wiping at his face as if something of Alhaitham’s still remained – even with as little as they had taken from each other. He disappeared with that, beneath calm waves, to depths Alhaitham couldn’t follow. Would never follow.

It’s certainly not ideal, how he’s been left. He feels an odd emptiness as the water calms behind the strength of Kaveh’s tail and then there’s only him, the silence, and the aching in his core. His cock feels heavy against the firmness of his lower stomach but it’s inching further from his mind the more he stares out into the sea. What, exactly, had made that sound? Why too, had it drawn Kaveh so firmly from the sweet tension building between them? He’d been so close to bridging that gap, after all. He gets no answer that day at the very least. It’s spent building some semblance of a shelter with fallen logs and large, expansive leaves scattered about the edges of the forest beside the beach. Alhaitham isn’t certain which island he’s landed on – that Kaveh dragged him to, but he’s certain it’s not the mainland, not attached to Port Ormos or any other shoreline beyond its own. If their ship had sailed close enough that he could be brought here, though, then perhaps a scavenger might happen across them. He kept the fire lit just in case.

Kaveh didn’t return for two wholly tortuous and miserable days. When he did, waving a tanned hand from shallow waters, Alhaitham had built himself his miniature shelter against a gathering of tall rocks. It was sturdy enough, and kept the intermittent summer rains from leaking on to him. In truth it wouldn’t survive a storm like the previous one, but for now it was better than nothing at all. He’d ventured a few feet inside the treeline by himself. Had found fruit he recognized and gorged himself against his better judgement – he’d paid quite the hefty, uncomfortable price after. He’d been calmer then, picking only what he needed for that moment and eating slow and steady and sensibly. Water was the real issue here. He sipped at what he gathered from the trees – a trick he’d read a few times in various assorted journals collected over the years. It didn’t taste good, but it eased the rawness of his throat so that swallowing ached less the more the hours wore on. He imagined speaking might hurt less, too, if he had anyone left to talk to.

When he splashed through the shallows to his visitor he was met with an oddly eager smile. Too eager, he thought. They weren’t going to talk about it then.

“Sorry for disappearing like that,” He started, the waves splashing against his skin as he fished in the little bag he carried. He brought out a still snapping crab and Alhaitham stared like he’d been offered a warm sweater in a burning forest. “Dinner.” Kaveh explained, Alhaitham sighed. They really weren’t going to talk about it, he repeated in his mind.

Alhaitham had carried Kaveh back up to his little camp with the demeanor of a man carrying his own casket. Kaveh put on unbothered airs but he lay stiffly in the strong arms he was offered, his own tucked neatly against himself. No wandering hands today, then. He showed Alhaitham how to effectively kill the creature he’d brought him, humane and swift he did it, and Alhaitham realized just how shoddily and cruelly he would have accomplished the task by himself without Kaveh’s expertise. Alhaitham cooked and ate as if it were the sweetest bounty he’d had the pleasure to unearth. He offered Kaveh his share and was met with an almost shy wave of hands.

“Don’t you ever get hungry?” Alhaitham inquired, cracking one of the crab’s legs loudly, savoring the meat it offered after.

“Of course I do.” Kaveh huffed, one hand awkwardly rubbing at the opposite arm. “I just don’t eat… Like that.”

“Crab?” Alhaitham wondered. He found Kaveh staring at him with an essence of unbridled frustration – and awkward uncertainty.

“That too, I guess, but well –” He gestures vaguely to the ocean that lapped at the early evening’s shore. “There’s no cooking down there, is there? Everything I eat, it’s raw.”

Alhaitham does pause then, suddenly realizing how he had had to explain the idea of cooking to Kaveh after he had brought it up with an endearingly odd pronunciation. He had been ever so childishly curious about the fire, too. His gaze shifted to the peach toned plush mouth where sharply pointed teeth peeked out. Kaveh’s hand quickly lifted to hide them, fingers pressing into his lips to hold them shut. He would get embarrassed over the strangest things.

“That’s fine, isn’t it? It doesn’t bother me.” He rips another – well cooked, if he were to praise himself – strip of crab meat into his mouth. “I’d rather you eat than go hungry.”

Kaveh slowly lets his fingers slip but his lips stay firmly pressed together. He settles both his hands on the outstretched glimmer of his tail, fidgeting with his own fingers and watching as if it were as entertaining as one of the city’s plays, all so he didn’t have to look at Alhaitham.

“You already think I’m a monster, don’t you?” Alhaitham stills, fingers going lax around the shell he was about to break. He stares and can’t really bring himself to utter a sound for a moment. It’s confusing, startling to the core, that Kaveh would offer up such a question – Is that really what he thinks? After everything, he had conjured up such a strange notion?

“Why would you ask that?” Alhaitham sets his unfinished food down, wiping the back of his hand across his lips as Kaveh seems to regret his words now he’s faced with the aftermath of them. It was unfortunate for him that he couldn’t simply run from Alhaitham’s discerning gaze. “Why would you ever think that?”

“You called me – my kind, predators.” He gestures to the journal that sat beside Alhaitham, his sole remaining possession beside the clothes on his back. “I’ve read the stories too. What you think we do. Luring people to their death with our voices, or just dragging you under for fun.”

“They’re just stories. No one thinks they’re true.”

“You did.” Kaveh offers meekly. There’s not much to say, then. He supposed it was true, he had assumed there had to have been a semblance of truth in the writings, all that hearsay had to come from somewhere. Kaveh did bewitch him, too, but Alhaitham had grown fairly certain that was less mystical and more… Hormonal. He’d have been dead below the waves if he were still a teen, he feared.

"Kaveh?" Alhaitham offers, and waits patiently for the other to take it.

"What?" He's sulking, just a little bit, just enough to be noticeable whilst remaining within normal bounds.

"I'm not really in the habit of letting monsters anywhere near my cock." A loud sputtering that turns to a sudden choking, then finally a strained wheeze, as Kaveh’s eyes widen – though they look everywhere except at Alhaitham. "So no, I don't think you're a monster, certainly not a bad one."

Another silence stretches between their small encampment, Alhaitham setting aside his empty crab shell pieces as Kaveh's fingers continuously fidget, lifting to aimlessly braid the ends of his slowly drying hair. It's easy to get up and seat himself beside him, Alhaitham finds, in his mind it had been difficult but his body moves as if it were just a puppet on his strings, happy to be maneuvered as he wished. Kaveh keeps on twisting strand after strand of pretty gold, even as Alhaitham speaks.

"You're interested, aren't you?" Perhaps it wasn’t the question he should be asking, but after being left to his own devices for the past two days it had been the subject at the forefront of his mind. "In me?"

He wants to touch Kaveh's cheek while he wonders aloud, to brush his knuckle along that tempting curve of his jaw but he knows if he does it'll only be too much, too far, too sudden. His fingers instead catch his slim wrist, gliding up the warm expanse of his hand to stop the antsy fidgeting of tanned fingers. His hair was going to be grateful for it at least.

"I am." It's a more certain answer than Alhaitham had expected and it burned warmer in him than the fire against his skin. His hand squeezes softly around Kaveh's fingers and he guides his hand to settle on the firmness of his thigh. Crimson settles quickly on him with sudden surprise and Alhaitham greets him with amused teal.

"Then you can study me to your heart's content. I don't mind, I'm a scholar at heart after all." He eases the man's hand upwards just a breath and watches how indecently color floods his face. "Sate all your curiosity."

Silence. Contemplation, perhaps? Alhaitham can't be sure and he's ready to start the process of accepting his loss when he feels the light squeeze of delicate fingers to his flesh through roughened fabric.

“Stop being so damn scientific.” Is all the reprimand Alhaitham receives before his mouth is taken. The kiss is firm, heady and hungry, and he was confident enough to at least assume Kaveh had felt the loss of what they might have done those days ago. When the shock wears off Alhaitham lifts a hand to cup a damp cheek, his head tilting so he might press deeper against the other. The way Kaveh’s mouth opens for him is like a dream, supple and pliant; he whines a small sound as Alhaitham’s tongue slips against his own. He’s so lost in that, so intent on chasing every little noise, that he almost doesn’t feel how inquisitive fingers draw lightly over his crotch, his thigh long forgotten. Alhaitham hopes the way he kisses him then, fervent and needy, is enough to urge him forwards.

The first tug at the strings that fasten his pants elicits a gasp, rough and light, that reignites the rawness of his throat. He doesn’t mind. His hips push up subtly into Kaveh’s hand but he only continues to take his time, to go at his own adoringly slow pace. His slim fingers hook into each cross of string, tugging gently and loosening each binding until Alhaitham felt he might truly begin to lose his mind.

“Kaveh –” He lets the name roll like a growl through his chest, his hand gripping firmly at the nape of the man’s neck, fingers feeling the silken wet strands of hair that were stuck there.

“You said I could study you however I wanted to.” He argues, never missing a beat, even as his fingers continue to carefully undo tie after tie.

“That wasn’t exactly what I said.” His lips draw soft and sweet against the merfolk’s cheek, tasting that subtle remnant of salt that seemed to linger consistently on his skin.

“It was inferred.” Alhaitham huffs an air of laughter against tanned skin as Kaveh speaks, “If you wanted this to be quick you should have said so.” He shakes his head, nuzzling into that mesmerizing jawline that haunted him so sweetly each night and hears how Kaveh hums his gentle response.

He has the mercy to speed up just a fraction at least, Alhaitham feeling how the fabric at his hips loosens enough that warm fingers begin to slip beneath it now. Kaveh tugs and they both seem to gasp in differing unison when Alhaitham’s cock springs free, half hard and twitching under the cool air. Kaveh is well and truly distracted then, no longer eye level with Alhaitham but instead tilting his head so he might look down. He stares without shame now, without any sense of shyness, and his fingers dance along the length presented.

“Interesting.” He breathes, and Alhaitham almost wants to laugh at the genuine curiosity that tinges the sultry tone of his voice. The way long fingers curl around him stops the sound firmly in its tracks though. Kaveh’s fist, warm and tightly inviting, strokes along the full length of him once, then twice, his gaze now flickering up between the subtly weeping tip of Alhaitham’s cock and his expression as it falters, scrunching up slightly as pleasure builds. “Is that good?” Kaveh’s voice is as heated as his skin, each word felt with the subtle touch of his breath as he speaks against Alhaitham’s cheek.

The sailor nods, his hand slipping from Kaveh’s shoulder to grip instead at his wrist, holding him as he works deftly practiced fingers along his shaft. They stay like that for a little while, Alhaitham has no sense of time in these moments, with Kaveh’s head resting against his as he stares down to watch Alhaitham throb and leak within the confines of his seductively soft hold. He’s slow with it, but purposeful. His hand encompasses him more often than not, pulling from base to tip and relishing how Alhaitham’s hips try to follow the heavenly grip he has. Sometimes though he releases him, uses only the tip of his finger to trace the few veins that lay along Alhaitham’s length; he’d draw slow, tempting circles around the glossed with pre head, watching with indecently intent curiosity as another cloudy bead formed and stuck to his skin.

There’s no warning, then, when the weight of Kaveh’s temple against his leaves, and the softness of his hand is replaced suddenly with the wet heat of his mouth. Alhaitham almost jumps out of his skin, the eyes he’d held closed fluttering open to watch the back of a golden clad head dip low. He thinks of every curse he’s ever heard in that moment, recites them one after the other as the softness of a tongue envelops him completely. Kaveh’s less ardent now than he had been with his hand – His teeth, Alhaitham remembers, and it’s not nervousness that soaks him then but an as yet unnamed arousal. He ignores that, for now, no time to delve into the darkest corners of his mind with only enough of him readily available and sentient to focus on just how good even the careful suction of plush lips felt.

He’s careful himself when he lifts a hand, he dithers and tentatively waits, unsure, before he finally rests his broad palm against the back of Kaveh’s skull. He feels how his fingers sink into the softness of blond locks, how the ocean that soaked them moistens his skin now too. The gentle pressure earns him the most salacious sound yet, Kaveh moaning around the girth of his cock until Alhaitham can feel the vibration of it. It’s impossible to hold back the buck of hips then, how he chases that sensation, needs it. Kaveh’s head lifts just a little, pressing into the expanse of his palm as if surprised. It only lasts a moment. Within a second he’s dipping low again, lower than he had the first time, taking in more and more with a gentle hum to accompany each well earned milestone. Alhaitham is breathless by this point, starved and wanting and so without anchor he’s worried he’s truly still left floating somewhere at sea, sinking beneath such silky, inviting waves.

One of Kaveh’s hands is holding the base of him, stroking in tiny, quick increments along where his mouth couldn’t quite begin to stretch to. The other dipped lower, and Alhaitham felt the curious, gentle way they caressed him. Delicate, long fingers stroke across the curving shape of his balls, cupping them softly, firmer still when Alhaitham’s mouth drops open with a pleasured sigh of his companion’s name. He massages him slowly, thumb rubbing across the loose skin whilst his mouth, wanton and hungry as Alhaitham was, suctions along his cock.

“

– Kaveh,” Alhaitham grunts, his fingers coursing through wet hair now, gripping into what strands hang loose around his hand. He pushes subtly into the wet heat that encased him as he stroked against the man’s head, encouraging and soothing all at once. Still, he wasn’t long for this, no grip firm enough to keep him steady when Kaveh worked against him so beautifully. “I’m close.” He warns, his hand pulling slightly on the blond’s hair, as if to gently ease him off the throbbing cock between his lips. Kaveh wouldn’t relent though, only dropping himself back down with an eagerness as yet unseen. It’s all it takes, really, all Alhaitham has ever needed.

It’s as if the air is pulled from him, his chest rises but nothing comes in and his breath stutters with the force of his release. He mutters something about coming, something he’s sure might have made more sense or been more forthcoming and strong if Kaveh wasn’t sordidly slurping, loud and obscene, around the entire length of him. He’s sure his hand can feel every tense and flex of him, how he throbs and aches as warm streams of come coat Kaveh’s throat, his tongue, even his lips as the man eventually pulls himself off just before the fiery pull of pleasure fully subsides.

The relief is unlike any he’s ever felt, Alhaitham coming back to his senses slowly, one at a time, leaning back now onto the palms of his hands. He stares up, up and up, into the unending void of the slowly encroaching night sky. Early evening had long since passed, then. He feels beside him how Kaveh sits up, turns and sees how glistening white stuck to his lips, stark against the rubbed red plushness. Alhaitham wipes softly at it with his thumb, Kaveh turning every plausible shade of pink in the process – as if the act of wiping away his spend was worse than the act of pulling it from him. When he leans in close the other seems surprised, a breath catching sweetly in his throat as Alhaitham kisses him, gentle and light. It makes him wonder what exactly Kaveh thought all of this was. Did he really think this was all an odd experiment? That Alhaitham’s interest stretched only to the differences between their kind? The thought brought him only discomfort, on his behalf and Kaveh’s too. So he kissed him still. He kissed him softly and sweetly, kissed him in all the ways a man who only valued science would never think to. His reward was melodic, joyful sounds. Sighs of contentment and pleasure that were lost between the sensual gliding of their lips.

“It’s late.” Kaveh murmurs into the heated harmony of their breaths as soon as Alhaitham’s hand wanders low on his stomach. Fingers curve around his wrist to draw the hand back up, to his cheek, where Kaveh turns and peppers the palm with chaste kisses.

“Is it?” He truly didn’t know, didn’t care to whilst Kaveh lounged beside him. But the man nods and smiles, the expression is almost distant, and he knows this is all there’s going to be.

“Carry me?” Kaveh asks even though there was no need to. There’s a moment of rearranging, of Alhaitham tucking himself back into his trousers, tying them enough that they won’t trip him along the beach. He’s standing then, lifting Kaveh’s form with him and desperately wanting for him to kiss him when their noses all but touch. He doesn’t and Alhaitham is resolved not to, either. Kaveh’s arms loop loosely around his shoulders as he’s taken back to the waves that come and go as he did. Perhaps there was a moon out there below the surface that called to him as the one in the stars called to the sea. Maybe Kaveh wanted to stay, Alhaitham thought, but he couldn’t. Even someone like him, so methodical and mature, could hope so childishly sometimes.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Kaveh’s voice tears him from his pondering, from how he had been staring at him so unintentionally forlornly, one hand squeezing at his cheek and pinching as if he were just a boy again. Alhaitham frowns at him, Kaveh smiles. “I’m coming back.” And that’s enough.

He lowers him into the waters, watches him retreat into them until there’s nothing left to signal he had ever been here besides the aching in Alhaitham’s chest.

They continue like this for a while, maybe two weeks he thinks is most likely the time frame without the help of a calendar. Kaveh swims to the shore and delivers food, sometimes even things discovered from the wreckage of his own ship – and others. He finds him pots and utensils, bottles and boxes, things that can ease the strain of living here alone in the wilderness. Alhaitham can drink more than watered down rum and spirits now, with the aid of knives less rusted than the ones stuck at his hip – larger, harder fruits and the trunks of trees easily broken and felled by his hand. Kaveh rests his head on his crossed arms and watches whilst Alhaitham bathes in the rock pool, sometimes urging him closer like that first day so he might feel his way along strong muscles, that he might take Alhaitham into his mouth and ease him to the now familiar yet never boring edge, again and again. They’d eat together, too, Kaveh growing more comfortable with each day that passed and, as promised, Alhaitham was never once bothered by the things he ate, or how exactly he ate them. He learned more than he’d ever hoped he might about Kaveh in those times. They talked until their voices grew cracked and hushed some nights; his favorite things to look at were buildings, big or small, plain or fancy, it didn’t matter – he’d taught himself to draw with charcoal from the shore but he was still better with his own tools, beneath the waves. He’d become quite familiar with eating fruits and enjoyed most, but the moment Alhaitham tried to tempt him into biting the very tip of a chili he’d picked he watched as Kaveh’s face became tomato red and steaming – he didn’t trust a single piece of food Alhaitham offered him after that. He believed that all living creatures should help one another, and he and Alhaitham argued over the ideal until they were both sick of their own voices. He admired it though, Kaveh’s relentless enthusiasm for goodwill, his need to help even at the cost of himself, it was just another painfully endearing trait Alhaitham could never hope to share.

It was a day like that, with the fire burning into the darkness and Alhaitham laying beside Kaveh, that they were pointing out the stars one by one. Kaveh knew them, but their names were all different, and it had become something of a game between them to explain each constellation in turn.

“You haven’t written anything in your journal since you were on the boat.” Kaveh announces, suddenly, Alhaitham’s finger lowering from where it pointed. “Why?”

“Nothing to say.” He stated blandly, his hand falling so he could brush his hair back from his face – feeling how Kaveh’s head turned so he could scrutinize him in the process. “Why, are you hoping there might be something about you?” It earns him a gentle hit to his chest and Alhaitham turns onto his side, propping his head up on his hand.

“What shall I write? Nothing scientific, of course. Would you prefer I talk about your lips, or your hands – Perhaps I could even wax poetically about your eyes?” Kaveh’s skin blossoms in pretty pink tones, the blush creeping down his throat and over his chest as he huffs and swats at Alhaitham again as he mutters something about that not being what he had meant. The sailor grabs carefully at one violent hand, threading their fingers together so chastely that Kaveh seems stunned for a moment by the act. “Do I get a question now?”

Stillness, quiet, a slow tension that builds before Kaveh, after careful consideration, nods.

"What was that sound before, back then?" No answer, not yet. "Where did you go?" He adds, his voice soft and tenderly coaxing.

It's quiet, still, only the soft sloshing of the sea from one side and the crackling of the fire from the other.

"Home." Kaveh eventually lets the word slip free, quiet and tentative. His hand feels damp in his – clammy with sweat or only residual moisture from the ocean he doesn’t know, and Alhaitham can only assume it's a sign of rising nerves, the anxiety swallowing him as the waves might. "They called me back. They… It’s not good to spend so much time out here."

"With me." Alhaitham fills in the gap Kaveh had so graciously left and receives a quick, furtive glance in response.

"They're just worried." He sighs, gossamer baby blue twitching at the ends of his tail. "Nervous. They think history is just going to repeat itself."

That piques Alhaitham’s curiosity, his brows furrowing with unconcealed interest.

"What do you mean by that? He asks gently, softly, Kaveh's expression giving away exactly how sore this subject was. His eyes are focused on the flickering heat of the fire that caused him such discomfort, the orange hues reflecting dangerously in his already crimson soaked eyes.

"My father," He starts, his breath stuttering as he sucks it in through his teeth, as if it hurts even to say it. "He was a human, like you."

All of the curiosity, all of the anxiety, everything made sense with such a simple statement. That past tease though, shone through like a beacon in a storm. Alhaitham’s fingers tangled themselves between Kaveh’s even tighter than before, less a tender coaxing and now a soothing hold. He didn't ask another question, let the silence instead ease the hurt until Kaveh willingly reopened the wound himself.

"He died before I can even really remember. My mother had tried to live with him, to make all these changes, to survive with the minimum of everything. She was happy though, it worked for awhile, at least that's what they told me. I suppose it must be true, I do exist after all." His gaze lands on where their fingers are entwined and softly his free fingers draw over the back of Alhaitham’s hand, like he was following an unseen map. "She's better now, I suppose, but she was never really the same after… After he was gone. She loved him so much it almost killed her, too."

He couldn't imagine it. To give up so much of yourself to have it all be for nought, to be thrown back where you came from because the world couldn't bear to see you happy. Alhaitham felt a subtle ache in his chest then, for Kaveh's mother of course, but for the man right beside him too. For the boy who spent his life chasing the world he could have – should have known.

"They were warning me, keeping me home to lecture me." He starts again and Alhaitham dutifully listens. "Telling me all the awful things that might happen, that I've only prolonged my suffering by saving you."

Alhaitham’s chest serves as an anchor in that moment, it weighs him down where he sat, aching and heavy as he stares at the delicately carved profile of Kaveh’s face, half lit by the subdued flames. Enamored and silently adoring he watches, memorizes just in case it really were the last.

"That all depends on one important thing, doesn't it?"

Kaveh's gaze flickers to him, confusion evident.

"You'd need to love me for it to hurt."

The tension was more than palpable now, settling like all the heaviness of the ocean above them, drowning them where they lay. Perhaps it was too brusque, too confidently unrestrained, maybe he shouldn’t have said anything at all. Kaveh stares up at him from where his head rests on the folded fabric of Alhaitham’s shirt, a pillow for his weary head of gold. Their hands are still entangled and Alhaitham feels no move to break the contact, no forceful removal of him from the other. What he could feel though was the quickened puffs of Kaveh’s breaths against his chest, how their proximity left no prisoners, and unveiled all their secrets to the other where they lay.

“Do I really need to say it?” Kaveh murmured, and Alhaitham felt his lips quirk with the smile it brought.

“No,” He was honest, confidently so, perhaps stupidly so as well – but he had become so certain over these past days that Kaveh felt as he did, that they were as joined in this as they were in their desire, “but it would be nice to hear.”

He feels his hand being lifted, Kaveh’s held within it still, and the man brings it to one of his cheeks, pressing the warmth of Alhaitham’s sea worn skin to him. He’s not sure he’s ever been treated so gently, not since he was a child. The tenderness moves something old and untouched in him and he sighs, melting willingly under the affection Kaveh’s scarlet gaze ladles upon him now.

“I love you, even if I shouldn’t.” Kaveh’s perfectly pitched voice is muffled when he brings Alhaitham’s hand to his lips and the man smiles at the sound of it, how shyly honest he was behind the safety of his broad palm. Alhaitham kisses at the dampness of his forehead, trails gentle touches along the delicate bridge of his nose then pulls his hand from where it blocked the greatest prize of them all.

They kissed now until they couldn't breathe – a sweeter kind of death than the one Alhaitham had previously reckoned with. If it were Kaveh who would bring him low and let the pressure eat him whole, then he might not mind at all. Propped up by his free arm as he was, Alhaitham had to lean down into the other, feeling how Kaveh clutched at the bare expanse of his shoulder with a firmness that betrayed his need. Easing his hand free of the fingers that held it, Alhaitham stroked softly along the length of his body, savoring the stretching arch of smooth skin until he felt the unfamiliar ripple of scales. Kaveh stilled beneath him, rigid now at the touch Alhaitham soothed against him, the kind he’d never let him finish.

“Have you ever..?” He wondered aloud, Kaveh nodded without hesitation. “Will you let me?” He asks again, holding this conversation with only the silent affirmations Kaveh offered him. It takes some time for him to decide, to settle on which part of him might win this war, but eventually another nod follows, small and slow.

Alhaitham is then at the mercy of Kaveh’s instruction. His hand smooths over the glittering gem-like bumps of his scaled tail, to find nothing he understood to be what Kaveh needed him to touch. The confusion seems to ease the tension where Kaveh might have expected it to bring only more, he laughs, and Alhaitham has to sigh his defeat in the face of the unknown.

“Here,” A hand takes his, gentle and kind, and with bashful tenderness he’s directed somewhat centrally, lower than the v shaped dip that signifies the beginning of Kaveh’s lean tail. The more pressure Kaveh applies to his thicker fingers, the more the man urges him to stroke and rub, the more Alhaitham feels the scales give beneath him. A whimper sounds and he feels sudden slickness ease the glide – Kaveh’s eyes flutter shut with heavy lids and trembling lips below. There’s no sign to stop or to falter and Alhaitham is too lost to the feeling besides, eagerly following how his middle finger slips between turquoise fleshy lips, how slick folds emerge beneath subtly receding scales. Kaveh’s free hand lay against his own mouth now, muting the string of eager little sounds he let fall with each languid dip of a finger inside of him. Alhaitham, when he pulls his gaze from the slick heat beginning to surround his hand, can see how he bites into one finger, how he moans around the side of it and lets it soak up the sound.

There’s more, though. Alhaitham can feel it now. With each slow dip of what was now two fingers into the soaked hole, there was a growth of something, heated and throbbing subtly against his probing digits. It gradually, with something that seemed to ache sweetly in Kaveh, began to protrude, making itself known until a slick, long organ lay against Kaveh’s tail. It was hard, he found, not in the way Alhaitham was but still effectively similar. It was wider at the base and grew thinner, tapered, until it ended with a gentle curve. There was still space below it for Alhaitham’s fingers to push and pull, curve and tease, and each second more of stimulus seemed to urge a leaking stripe of something like precome from the tip of Kaveh. His stomach was coated in thin, sticky lines by the time Alhaitham slipped his fingers free.

“How does it feel?” He’s adoring as he says it, his hand now gently gliding along the odd new length that lays against Kaveh. The latter jolts when Alhaitham’s hand strokes him, groans his appreciation before he can even muster the strength to find a word.

“Good.” He sighs, “So good.” And Alhaitham has to kiss him then, he really has no choice in the matter. His body works faster than his mind, it’s true, but at least for once they were on the same page. He swallows every whine and moan Kaveh makes eagerly until he’s full of them. Their lips are fervent, sacrificing grace for need now, Kaveh’s arms wrapped loosely around Alhaitham’s neck as his fingers stroke his tapered, leaking cock all the while.

With their foreheads pressed together Alhaitham carefully shifts, settling his body over Kaveh’s, thick thighs straddling the swell of his tail. He’s reluctant to settle too heavily, unsure of how delicate the inner workings of such a limb might be, but he sits enough that his legs don’t truly burn with the exertion of holding himself steady. It’s its own kind of relief when Alhaitham’s own cock is free, the confines of his trousers forgotten as he strokes himself – already hard enough that he thought his selfish little movement might end him right there, but he clings on for the moment. One hand, wide and strong, sets itself under Kaveh’s cock. It’s heavier than Alhaitham might have expected, slippery against the calloused breadth of his palm, and it makes his gut heavy with a want he hadn’t known before. Lightly, tortuously so, he ruts his own length against it and marvels at the silken stroke it offers. They both gasp, again, in lascivious unity, Kaveh’s hands shooting out to grasp at Alhaitham’s thighs where they surrounded him. Rocking against him like this was enough to bring Alhaitham’s mind to sweet nothingness, numb and happily warm he dragged his cock against Kaveh’s over and over, until they were both trembling and weak, leaking slick all over the one another.

“Inside,” Kaveh’s voice is almost nothing amidst the other sounds around them, a hushed whimper of a noise that Alhaitham strains to hear beyond the thrumming of his pulse in his ears. “You can… In here.” A hand eases under his blue hued cock, fingertips pushing into the space that still remained beneath it and Alhaitham had to swallow the groan that threatened to rip free from his throat at the sight.

He held himself, felt the throbbing ache of his desire as he eased his cock lower – letting himself glide along the length Kaveh all the while – and watched as the tip of him was swallowed by a flexing, slick hole. Fuck, he thought. Fuck. How was he supposed to last like this? How was he supposed to cope when Kaveh’s voice pitched high and sweet as Alhaitham’s length sank deeper into soft heat. It was as if he were a teen again, let loose without a thought to how he might draw the desire out softly, slowly, only charging in and being bowled over more than once by the force of it instead. The honeyed skin of Kaveh’s arms stretches high above his head now, his body moving with each tentative thrust Alhaitham offers – there’s only one way he can do this, really, and he’s eager to find which angle best suits the man writhing prettily beneath him. Alhaitham leans over him, one hand large enough to catch both of Kaveh’s wrists beneath it and he holds them there, pressed into grating, rough sand. His other stays wrapped around the still unfamiliar length, easing his grip around it until he found the rhythm that made Kaveh’s back arch and his mouth fall wide and silent.

The sound of the sea is distant now, white noise compared to the way Kaveh moans saccharine and sultry at once; no comparison still to the obscene slap of Alhaitham’s sweat covered skin to slicked scales, how he grunts with each deep, fluid thrust of hips into enticingly tight walls. There’s never been desire like this, Alhaitham thinks, nothing that could ever come close. He's the lightning of the storm and Kaveh’s the waves rocking below, accepting every jolting touch as if it were going to be the last. Another strained groan and he knows it’s not going to be much longer, no dragging this out as long as he’d have liked, not enough time to satiate every adoring but obscene desire he could summon if he thought of Kaveh for more than a moment. Still, this was more than enough for him now, their bodies rocking together as best they could, his knees digging into damp sand at either side of Kaveh’s tail, shining under the light of the still crackling fire. With his one large hand still pressing Kaveh’s into the dense surface of the beach, Alhaitham leans low, pressing their foreheads together even as the wetness of Kaveh’s hair soaks uncomfortably through his otherwise dry skin. He can feel now every sound that leaves his lips, every call and cry that Alhaitham earns with the way he works him open on his cock, his breath warm on Alhaitham’s mouth as the distance remains steadily slim between them.

He wants to come, wants to feel that sparking pleasure burn him from the inside out, but he’s even more desperate to see Kaveh do the same. So his hand works tirelessly, roughened fingers stroking the length of him fervently, urging him closer to that sweet edge. Kaveh’s hips push up, finding more of the tight, slick grip of Alhaitham’s hand and the deep push of him inside. He focuses all his efforts to the tip that seemed unable to stop the steady slow dribble of pre from it’s tapered tip – Kaveh jolts at the attention, Alhaitham fixated on how his chest stutters upwards with the hitching of his breath, how his mouth is frozen open with a silent cry. He feels the soft walls of him flex, and he knows it’s done. His head tilts so he might look down, watching with an as yet unfulfilled hunger as Kaveh spills thick and warm over his fingers, the fluid all but clear compared to what Alhaitham was accustomed to. The same sticky fluid coated his cock where it still pistoned heavily into the flexing, tight heat of him. Kaveh was a mess in truth, scales and stomach covered with glistening come, his golden hair splayed out under his head like the stretching rays of the sun, and his bronzed skin was flushed deeply pink. Alhaitham could stare forever, but his eyelids grow heavy, his head falling into the salted crook of Kaveh’s throat as his pleasure drives him into the depths of impatiently awaited ecstasy.

With a breathless groan he comes, hand slipping from where it held Kaveh’s wrists willingly imprisoned and within seconds he feels the weight of arms around him, clutching his body close. There’s nothing but them in that moment, nothing but the subtle, languid sway of their bodies as if matching the drag and draw of the ocean waves. Kaveh trembled against him as he shook too, a shiver running from the top of his spine to the bottom as the tension in him unfurled in one jarring snap – like a rope cut. He fell with it, drifted beneath that sweetly suffocating surface and let his chest swell with only this.

When his eyes gradually fluttered open again he saw only the tanned column of Kaveh’s throat, the minuscule beads of sweat that formed there and slowly rolled down the pretty length. Alhaitham sighed, exhausted and satisfied it took all his faculties to facilitate him moving from the comfort of the warmth Kaveh offered. His arms fell away easily as Alhaitham sat up – carefully, aware of how they were still attached to one another. It’s a delicate kind of process, in a way, his length slipping free only so that might see how Kaveh’s aches at the stimulus, how Alhaitham’s release sullies the scales it leaks onto, ruining just how beautifully they reflected the stars above them. He wipes at him softly with the remnants of his clothes until Kaveh pushes his bothering hands away. He separated them fully then, swinging his leg away so that Kaveh no longer had to be restricted under his weight. Laying together like this, it was easy to forget where they were, who they were.

Their hands meet again, tentative touches of fingers before they’re truly held. They’re staring up at the sky again, watching how clouds flit in and out of their view, obscuring then framing all there was to see in the open void. He can hear the sound of his own pulse, feel the harsh beating of his own heart, among it too is the slowly settling panting of Kaveh beside him, his chest rising and falling with each savored rush of air.

“I’m going to build a house.” Alhaitham announces, and he hears more than sees how Kaveh’s head turns suddenly to look at him. “Not here,” He adds, “In Port Ormos.”

Kaveh just stares at him, his fingers fidgeting where they were locked between Alhaitham’s. The sailor continues, unperturbed, he’d thought about this long and hard – what else was he to think about when trapped here? “You can design it, that is your expertise after all.”

He finally turns his head to find crimson jewels, suddenly even more certain of what he was saying. “It can be close to the river, or by the coast. There’ll be a connecting stream to a pool – more than a pool. Something deep, something you’d like, somewhere you can come and go as you please. We’ll live together like that.”

Kaveh’s breath catches then and Alhaitham can see how his eyes shuffle back and forth, examining every inch of Alhaitham’s expression as if looking for where the joke would come in, where the catch was.

“That’s ridiculous.” He finally whispers and Alhaitham leans his head closer, their foreheads and the tips of their noses touching.

“If anyone can do it, it’d be us, don’t you think?”

“Why?” Kaveh’s voice hasn’t recovered yet, it seems, rasping and confused.

“Because we’re stubborn enough, and talented enough.” It’s an obvious answer he thinks, far too confident as ever but he believed every word.

“No,” Kaveh shakes his head and his fingers squeeze unintentionally tight around Alhaitham’s. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I love you.” Alhaitham doesn’t hesitate, his free arm lifting so he could brush a finger against Kaveh’s jaw – the way he had longed to before. It was as satisfying as he knew it would be, the softest, most fulfilling journey his hand had ever made. “And I won’t be able to carry you up beaches forever.”

Kaveh laughs then, a sudden almost choked kind of sound but it’s sweet, warming in Alhaitham’s core as they smile at each other. “Design something good, okay?” And Kaveh nods, once at first, then eagerly as he wriggles his body closer to the sailor’s. It’s the first night since that very first one that Kaveh stays, and the first time he does so without it being necessary, a choice he makes that solidifies something between them more than words ever could.

The next few days are soft, slow, spent learning all there was to learn of the other – inside and out. Alhaitham set out to repay every loving touch of Kaveh’s mouth he’d had before now with his own, not satisfied until he’d rendered his lover a mess beneath his adoring tongue. He read, too, books Kaveh had delivered soaked and almost ineligible but good enough to scratch the itch. When the pages grew boring or were too smudged to be read properly he’d look up over the crusted pages and watch Kaveh instead. How he’d splash through the shallows collecting shells and small creatures to show to Alhaitham, or how he’d sprawl devilishly stunning across the flat, warm stones, bathing in the sun. He’d lay on his front and rest his soft cheek on his crossed arms, tail gently slapping against the rock as if a metronome keeping time of their affection. Those were the times when their eyes might accidentally meet and Kaveh would smile and Alhaitham would feel how the earth moved beneath them both. It was strange when he was gone now, stranger than it had been to start. There was a fear now that he knew of what Kaveh had been told – a horror that he might never return, successfully warned away or held from Alhaitham against his will.

It was to his terror then that it would be him to do the leaving.

It was barely morning, the sun still rising slowly, no more than a peeking curve of orange warmth on the horizon. It was enough though. Alhaitham, awoken by aggressive splashing, could see the flexing of shoulders, the battering strokes of oars, the telltale shape of a small boat being rowed to shore. The fire, he thought, someone’s seen the fire. He was lucky when they dragged themselves to his small encampment, they drew no swords nor did they threaten him with words, they offered only help in return for a fruit or two, some fish if he had any. He did, of course, seemingly a genius fisherman to his saviors – not the scrounging lover he really was, Kaveh having filled his stockpile all by himself. Alhaitham had taken to being a kept man, if he were honest, but he might keep that one to himself.

They had known his ship, they had known him, and with a few weary glances he realized he recognized their faces. They weren’t all that close, in truth, had only sailed together on occasion but it was better than the cruelty of strangers. They clasped one of his hands each and tugged him to his stumbling, sand crusted feet. He was led, journal in hand, to the shore and only then did reality hit him. Kaveh. He took a few steps back to their confusion. He begged for an hour at first, or two, they tried to understand but there was nothing he could say that wouldn’t jeopardize the secret he so desperately needed to keep. Even as he bargained time pressed on but there was still no familiar parting of waves, no distant waving of an arm in the dark waters. Alhaitham thought he might be sick as an odd nausea swept through him. He promised he would be only a moment, they gave him a wary glance but nodded.

At his encampment he ripped a page from his journal, scribbled hastily across the paper until it was full with his unusually slanted and messy words. There was a collection of old bottles here, that had once held rums and juices from the ship, ones Kaveh had lined up and wistfully knocked against with his finger – the sounds are pretty, he explained when Alhaitham stared at him as if he were mad, I like the colors, too. Within one that still had its cork beside it he shoved the paper, didn’t care if it crumpled or if a small tear occurred, only knew that it had to be inside, had to be safe. He stood then, measured with his gaze against his memories where the shoreline might be in an hour, or two. There were only guesses available for when Kaveh might show himself, and Alhaitham had no way of pinpointing the perfect location – somewhere Kaveh could reach without him was all he needed. He settled on a spot and dug the bottle part way into the sand. Crouching ahead of it he willed all his wishes into the thick glass; that Kaveh would think to look, that he would believe him, that it wouldn’t be long until they were together again. Even this swath of ceaseless water couldn’t keep them apart forever, he was certain, the sea would bring him home eventually.

The ship that took him back to Sumeru’s coast was well equipped besides food, and Alhaitham brought enough to fix that for a few days at least. Long enough for him to see the rickety buildings and swaying flags of Port Ormos. Still, even the familiar colors of his home and the sun on his back didn’t bring a warmth to his blood now.

It was a year. An entire year. He realized that day it was exact, as he hammered a spindly nail into freshly planed wood. Stepping back he could see how the shape had come along, how it was almost exactly as the image he glanced at had shown. One of the pages of his journal, scribbled in and redrawn over and over, but the end result was perfectly him – them. He remembered that day exactly, how Kaveh was sunbathing as he had done so often, hair swaying in the salted breeze and he’d smiled to himself when Alhaitham laid his weight over his warm, bronzed back.

“What is that?” He’d asked and Kaveh had hummed softly.

“Our house.” And Alhaitham had felt himself smile, nose buried into the fluff of Kaveh’s golden locks. “This is for me, the pool, and the roof has to be green, like the leaves here. And that’s where we’ll keep a chicken – I read about them, they make eggs, I’m sure you’re aware.” He adds more and more, explaining each aspect in detail that endeared Alhaitham to him so fully and with such affection he couldn’t understand how there could be more, but there was. There was always more.

Now he steps back, careful not to slip into the alarmingly deep pool he’d spent weeks digging himself beside the house, making sure the wooden steps sloped at the perfect angle into the hole; he’d brought sea plants from the coast to decorate in the depths before he connected the flow of it to the river, watched it fill and felt an emptiness he couldn’t explain the fuller it became. He stares up, following a trail of something like ivy that had grown down one slim wooden pole at the front of the building. The roof was green, of course, colored like those huge billowing leaves Kaveh had grown enamored with. The painting had been difficult, not Alhaitham’s exact forte, but he’d done his best – followed each line as if his life depended on it because Kaveh would know, would see, any little mistake he left unperfected. He loved that about him though, how seriously he took his passions, even to a fault, and Alhaitham wouldn’t be the one to disappoint him.

A squawk sounded and Alhaitham hummed, glancing at the familiar little feathered creature that ran in lazy circles in it’s expansive enclosure.

“You think so too? The roof really could do with another layer, couldn’t it?” He wipes the back of his hand across his forehead, feeling how sweat stuck his bangs to warm skin. He’d be done in a few months, as long as he didn’t rest too much before winter set in. He’s deep in thought, looking down to the journal propped up on the recently cut trunk of a tree, surveying every line and measurement strictly detailed. Then he’s shifting, something tight around his ankle pulling harshly and there’s only air, and a splash.

He’s underwater – aware enough at least to not gasp any of the salty liquid deep into his lungs. His eyes are squeezed shut from the impact and he feels himself sink a little, though no anxiety sets in despite his past experience; he’d never fall out of love with the sea, it seems. There’s a softness against his cheeks, a fidgeting kind of touch that makes his eyes spring open. Crimson.

Kaveh floats above him, the light of the sun through the water framing him from behind as if he’d been sent down from Celestia itself. His hair drifts in waves, the water constantly shifting it from side to side like the tendrils of the kelp Alhaitham had potted deep in the sandy earth below them. He could see, too, a bag hooked over Kaveh’s body, how it was stuffed full, fit to burst with bottle after familiar bottle. Hands reached for him, grabbed fearlessly at his face and pulled him close. Lips, soft and warm, covered his and Alhaitham felt the sensation of air passing between his lips – At least he wouldn’t drown with Kaveh hanging from his mouth.

When his chest ached and his hands stopped their slow weaving through heavy depths and grasped instead at Kaveh’s arms, a warning, he felt how he was pulled upwards, felt too how the water breaks above their heads as they surface as one. A gasp, loud and choking, masked beneath the sudden press of lips again. Alhaitham has to laugh, then, even as he struggles for air, on the verge of passing out he still feels so suddenly, affirmingly loved.

“I need air.” He rasps as Kaveh lets him go for a moment, a sudden realization settling into the darling features of his companion. They stop treading water and Kaveh helps push Alhaitham’s larger frame up onto the bank, following with ease. When Alhaitham stops panting, slim arms fling themselves around his shoulders. Their dampened heads lean against the other. The only word Alhaitham can think of to explain it is; surreal.

“You found them.” Water trickles down his nape and makes him shiver, his lashes heavy with droplet after droplet as well. His hand taps at the bottles in Kaveh’s bag and the man lets him go enough to hug the carrier close.

“Eventually… Not in order.” He spills them out onto the grass beside them, one delicate hand gently touching each one in turn as if they were precious – like treasure unearthed at the ocean floor. “I thought you were dead, it was so stupid – of course I know you didn’t have a choice, but wasn’t there a better way? You really made me suffer, you know, it’s been so long I really had almost –”

Alhaitham touches under his chin to lift his head as he speaks and he hushes the rambling concerns with his mouth, Kaveh relaxing into the softness of the touch and quieting as though immediately soothed by the tenderness of his kiss. “I looked everywhere.” He breathes, and Alhaitham knows it’s true.

“I knew you’d find me.” He assures him, one finger tucking soaked blond strands back behind an ear. “So I had to get things ready for you. You’d have been mad if you arrived and there was only a shack and a puddle, wouldn’t you?”

Kaveh turns his head now, hands clutching at the grass as his eyes grow wide, a shimmer shifting across them that Alhaitham hadn’t seen in so long, if ever. Moisture was always apparent across his body but the swell of tears so obviously free across his lash line felt new, intimate and tender. Kaveh’s mouth opens then closes, his nose scrunching subtly as he nods silently.

“Everything… You really did it all.”

“Even the chicken.” Alhaitham points with one still dripping wet hand, smiling when Kaveh bursts into laughter.

“Even the chicken.” Kaveh squeezes his eyes shut as Alhaitham reaches out to wipe a hand softly against his cheek, whether it be residual ocean or new tears, he clears it away. “We’ll have to name it.”

“You can do that later, you still need to see the rest.” Alhaitham stood, a little wobbly on his feet after the fright but he rights himself without much to it. As he begins to set off a hand reaches up and grasps at the billowing beige of his sleeve. Kaveh stares, wanting but not speaking. Alhaitham raises his brows as if it were the only effective way of inquiring after what he expected.

“Well, for nostalgia’s sake,” Kaveh coyly tugs Alhaitham’s arm down further and further, so he has to bend to ease the pull. “You’re not too old to carry me yet, are you?”

It’s so distinctly him, such a frivolous request on the surface but deeper beneath that it was gentle, needing, an echo of the closeness they’d lacked for so long now. Alhaitham doesn’t say a word, only tenderly obeys. The weight of him in muscled arms really is nostalgic, he finds. Like muscle memory he shifts Kaveh until he’s settled as he always used to be, easily fitting to Alhaitham’s body as if made to be there. Wet arms link around his neck and Kaveh rests his cheek against his own shoulder as he stares at Alhaitham, all unending affection and burning gaze. His hair is longer, Alhaitham thinks, wonders what’s different about him too, things only Kaveh might notice.

Kaveh openly and loudly adores the rest of the unfinished house, too. Alhaitham carrying him from room to unfurnished room, all awaiting Kaveh’s touch of gentle genius – it’s all one floor, fairly open so that the addition of an elongated shallow pool could fit between each section. Kaveh could be anywhere he wanted to be here, with him.

When all had settled, when it was no longer banging nails and creaking wood, when mundane routines became the norm, welcome and tender, the house was finally a home. On a shelf above the comfortable green loveseat there was a row of thirteen bottles, some with papers inside, still dirty with sand and smelling of tangy sea salt. Behind them hung half a dozen frames, parchment with frayed edges and smudged wet ink sat inside them. Each of them was a love letter, more romantic than the last. An ardent call of adoration, for soft lips and tender hands, for delicate fingers and affection filled eyes, for a sweetly sharp mind and a tongue to match.

He wished his grandmother could see him now, how at the end of it all, the sea had loved him just as much. Alhaitham kept his journal still, the one she had gifted him with his parents' words inside.

He wrote in it every day, each evening routinely he detailed all the things he had seen, had loved. Every ageing page starting with a lovingly scrawled, To Kaveh.