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The house is quiet.
This isn’t unusual given the time of day, the afternoon light seeping in through the windows. Alhaitham should still be at work by this time, his shoes missing from the rack. No, the quietness isn’t what unsettles Kaveh. It’s the stillness of it all, the feeling of something haunting their home that has shivers running down his back. The air is heavy, cloying and claustrophobic.
Kaveh steps through the front door, shutting it behind him. It closes with a thud, the sound echoing through the house. He toes off his shoes, leaving Mehrak and his bag by the front door. He steps further inside, looking around. The house still looks the same, the books still resting on the coffee table. From the left hallway, he can hear the water drip from the kitchen from the leaky faucet.
But there’s still something wrong. Kaveh turns into the right hallway, the direction of Alhaitham’s office when he decides to bring his work here when he puts off going to the Akademia. The office is empty, void of the person who owns it. His desk is organized, papers lined in a neat pile. Alhaitham’s bedroom, just a few feet from the office, is also perfectly fine, exactly the way they had it when they woke up that morning.
And yet, Kaveh can’t shake the feeling of someone watching him.
He turns around, jumping when he sees Alhaitham standing right behind him. Kaveh presses a hand against his chest, heart racing. The Acting Grand Sage stares at him with a blank look, lips pressed into a thin line.
“Alhaitham!” Kaveh lets out a slow breath. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
His junior steps closer to him, closing the gap between them and Kaveh finds himself backed into the desk of Alhaitham’s office. From up close, Alhaitham’s eyes glow red, a crimson color that reminds him of dried blood. The Scribe’s hand lifts up to his cheek, caressing it gently.
“I love you, Kaveh.” Alhaitham says but it feels wrong, too monotone and clinical, as if he is saying it to say it. “I missed you.”
Kaveh swallows. “I… missed you too. Why are you home?”
“I needed you. I wanted you.” The Scribe presses him further into the desk, his butt pressing uncomfortably in the wood. “You’re mine, Kaveh. Just mine.”
A shiver, something foreboding runs down Kaveh’s spine and he laughs, unsettled. He backs out of the corner, planning on walking past Alhaitham before his wrist is captured, pulling him backwards until his back hits the desk with a painful thud. He winces, breath knocked from his lungs and Alhaitham stands over him, eyes still red but tinged with something that Kaveh can’t describe.
“You’re mine, Kaveh. You don’t understand how much I love you.” Alhaitham leans over him, index finger running down his chest window. “I would murder for you. I would burn the world down for you. I would cut myself open and show all the veins in my body if it meant that you would love me. I would take out my own heart if you found it pretty enough.”
All the words do is serve to make Kaveh feel sick. “A-Alhaitham… W-What are you talking about?”
“No one else can have you, Kaveh. Only me. Only I can have you.” Alhaitham presses him further into the desk, holding him down with his hands on his hips. “I’m the only one deserving of you.”
This time, Kaveh pushes him off, putting space between them. “I’m not something for you to own, Alhaitham! I’m my own person!”
“Do you think anyone else will ever love you like I do?” Alhaitham says it as if it doesn’t break something inside of him. “I’m the only person who loves you, Kaveh. Not your mother. Not Tighnari. Not Cyno. Only me.”
“They love me too!” Kaveh yells, teeth gritted. “Just because they don’t love me like you do doesn’t mean that they don’t love me too!”
Alhaitham tilts his head. “Could they really love something broken like you? Something so worthless that it got itself into debt because it wanted to be a selfish little soul?”
“Selfish?! I put myself into debt because I wanted to, Alhaitham! I wanted to make the Palace! I wanted to finish it!” Kaveh ignores the pangs of hurt in his chest. “That’s my pride and joy as an architect!”
Alhaitham, for the first time, scoffs. “Pride? How can you feel prideful in something that ruined you? Face it, Kaveh, your passion project was for nothing. All of that work you did was for nothing. You could have made something of yourself if you listened to me. I’m the only one who has your best interests in mind. I’m the only one who can take care of you.”
Kaveh responds by kneeing Alhaitham in the stomach.
The Scribe falls to his knees, arms wrapped around his middle. Kaveh runs past him, but Alhaitham’s hand catches his ankle, pulling him down. He barely catches himself, his nose hitting the ground and he feels something crack in it. He’s flipped onto his back, Alhaitham on top of him.
His face is still blank, but he can see the fury in his eyes, the tick in his jaw. Alhaitham’s hands run over his body, ripping his shirt in half. He gasps, trying to push Alhaitham off him. The scribe pushes his hands away, pinning his arms to the floor. Alhaitham leans down, tongue starting from the bottom of his stomach and going upwards to the middle of his chest, lips kissing his heart.
“You’re mine, Kaveh. No one else can have you.” Alhaitham’s lips move down to his stomach, the muscles flinching from the unknown touch. Alhaitham isn’t deterred by it, just keeps planting kisses on his skin. “I’ll fill you, Kaveh. I’ll fill you to the brim. I’ll breed you with children and keep you with me forever. You won’t be able to run. I’ll lock you in our room and feed you and our child. I’ll take care of you forever.”
Alhaitham kisses his stomach again before resting his head on it. “Can you imagine it, Kaveh? Your stomach, round and filled with something that we created, our child kicking inside of you. You’ll run your hands over your stomach and I’ll capture your lips in a kiss. Our baby will be born and they will be the best in all of Sumeru.”
“You… No!” Kaveh attempts to pull his arms out of Alhaitham’s grip, but the Scribe tightens his hold on them. “I don’t want this!”
Alhaitham laughs, something dark and twisted. “It’ll be okay, Kaveh. You’ll change your mind when you see our child growing inside of you. I’ll hold your hair back when you vomit in the mornings. I’ll rub your little flat tummy and whisper sweet nothings to our child.”
Alhaitham moves up and his boner brushes against his thigh, Kaveh’s heart dropping into his stomach. The scribe smiles at him with such love that he thinks that he never wants to see it again, not after this. Kaveh lifts one knee and aims it at Alhaitham’s dick, the hit hard enough to get the Scribe to let go of him.
The architect lifts himself off the ground and he bolts, running down the hall and slamming the bedroom door behind him. He twists the lock, summoning his claymore to hold as a shield. Kaveh listens to Alhaitham’s footsteps come closer to the door before the Scribe knocks.
“Kaveh, come out. It’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you.” Alhaitham mutters through the door. “I’ll take care of you and our baby. We’ll be one happy family.”
The architect shakes his head. “I said no! I’m not opening this door and I’m not having a baby with you!”
Alhaitham goes silent before he pounds on the door, the harshness making him nearly drop his claymore. “Open the fucking door!”
The words repeat themselves, a matra of open the fucking door and I love you, Kaveh, come out please that serve to make him feel sick. He backs himself into the corner of the room, falling down to the ground and his claymore vanishes in specks of golden light. The architect covers his ears, knees pulled up to his chest.
He can still feel it, Alhaitham’s tongue running up his body and he gags, the motion of his stomach making him sicker. Tears run down his cheeks, fear pulsating through every inch of his body. He screams, his voice scraping against the cords of his throat and the sounds mix together to become a mess of noise in his head, overwhelming and intense.
He’s thankful that he passes out when he does.
━━━━━━━━━━
Kaveh wakes up to absolute silence.
The pounding on the door is gone, Alhaitham’s mutters removed from existence. His body is sore and cramped from being in the corner and his spine cracks when he stands up, legs asleep. He shakes them awake, moving closer to the door. The door’s lock is destroyed, resting in tatters on the floor like someone took something heavy and smashed it.
Looking down the hall, he sees a broken vase resting near the mess of his door, the roses that were once planted in there lying in the broken glass, water flooding the mess. He steps over it, slowly walking down the hall. The wood creaks under his feet, the sound unnerving as he gets closer to the living room.
Alhaitham is sitting in one of the chairs.
Mehrak floats over him, a frowny face to her case as she spins around him as if she’s trying to get him to pay attention to her. It doesn’t work, not with Alhaitham’s head in his hands. His headphones rest on the coffee table, the device dim and it dawns on Kaveh that they ran out of power. A misstep, a loud creak of wood, has Alhaitham’s head flying up.
His eyes are clear.
Green fills the iris of his eyes, the red pupil planted firmly in the middle of it all. There’s no crimson red, not anymore. All that stares back at him is grief, guilt, and horror. Alhaitham stands up suddenly and Kaveh flinches, taking a step back. Something crumples in Alhaitham’s face and he looks closer to crying, if he wasn’t already.
“Kaveh…” The Scribe whispers as if he’s afraid of breaking whatever is left between them. “Are… Did I… Are you hurt?”
The architect nods his head, pulling his bruised wrist towards his chest. Black and blue shines against the pale skin and Alhaitham adverts his eyes away from him.
“I called Cyno to come here.” The Scribe leans back in the chair, eyes still locked to the floor. “He’s bringing Tighnari to check over your wounds.”
Kaveh furrows his brows, looking between him and Mehrak. “How did–”
Before he can finish his sentence, the knob to the front door turns, slowly being pushed open as Cyno’s head peeks in to survey the damage. Tighnari stands behind him, first aid kit in his hands as the General lets the Ranger pass by behind him. Tighnari makes a beeline for him, gently grabbing his wrist and pulling him over to the other divan.
Alhaitham flinches despite the fact that he’s not even close to him, pushing himself further into the couch as if it’ll make him vanish into a void. Kaveh’s head is tilted backward, Nari’s fingers prodding around the bridge of his nose. The bones shift under his fingers and he pulls back, yelping.
Alhaitham’s eyes lift from the ground and he can see the Scribe resist the urge to come over to him, to hold and to comfort. Kaveh doesn’t know if he’s thankful for that or not. Cyno looks between the both of them, purple eyes scanning the situation before his head turns to look over at his… Are they still boyfriends after this? Can Kaveh actually stand to lay in the same bed as Alhaitham after this?
He isn’t sure anymore.
“What happened?” Cyno asks, voice slipping into something more commanding.
Alhaitham reaches upwards, ripping off his headphones and he reaches into one of the notches, pulling out a small red capsule. The bright red of the headset fades back into calming green and he drops it into Cyno’s hand.
“Forbidden Knowledge. It… takes the deepest desires of someone and brings them to life.” Alhaitham explains, purposefully keeping his eyes off Cyno. “Someone planted it on me. I don’t know when they did it or why, just that someone did it.”
Kaveh swallows, stomach turning with nausea. “If it takes your deepest desire… then did you–”
“No!” Alhaitham stands up from the divan, eyes widen and frightened. “I would never want that for you!”
Somehow, Kaveh has a hard time believing that. “You told me that… no one else would love me like you did. You told me that you were going to breed me, that you were going to lock me in our bedroom so that it would be just the two of us. You told me that–”
“Stop!” Alhaitham covers his ears, hunching over himself. Kaveh can’t see his expression anymore, covered by the Scribe’s bangs. “Please stop… I beg of you.”
Slowly, Tighnari turns his head to look back at him. “Kaveh, I need you to be honest with me. Did Alhaitham sexually assault you?”
Kaveh’s once calm heartbeat picks up again, his chest tight with panic. His gaze snaps over to Alhaitham, hunched over in grief and Kaveh feels like he can’t breathe, his lungs filled with cement. Tighnari kneels in his line of sight, blocking off Alhaitham and grabbing his hands with gentle touches.
“Kaveh, I need to know in the case that we need to take you to the Bimarstan.” Tighnari’s voice is soft, nearly whispered between the two of them. “Did Alhaitham sexually assault you?”
The architect shakes, tears flooding his eyes. “H-He… He just licked me and his boner brushed against my thigh. That’s all.”
“Is that the truth?” Cyno chimes from behind Nari. “If Alhaitham hurt you, we need to know.”
Kaveh nods. “It’s the truth, I promise. A-All he did was those two things and rip my shirt.”
“He’s right.” Alhaitham’s voice is muffled in his hands, but it sounds as loud as ever. “I attempted to rape him, but I didn’t go any further than licking him. The bruises and broken nose were my doing, but I didn’t… You have to believe me.”
The pain in Alhaitham’s voice hurts, serving to bring more tears into his eyes. Cyno bites his lip, a conflicted look on his face before he moves forward, grabbing the Scribe’s arm.
“I’ll need you to come with me so that we can make an official statement.” Cyno pauses when he gasps, nearly getting up from the divan if it weren’t for Tighnari pushing him down. “Most likely, they’ll release him once it’s been proven that he hasn’t done anything. If you want to press charges, tell me now.”
Kaveh looks over at Alhaitham, their eyes locking and he can see the pleading in his eyes, the silent begging to do the right thing. He could say yes, could ask to have charges pressed against him. But he looks at the little red container in Cyno’s hand, the grief in Alhaitham’s face that feels like the Scribe is digging himself a grave and planning on burying himself in it.
Kaveh, somehow, can’t bring himself to make aid in making that grave.
“No, that’s fine. I-I don’t want to press charges.” He mutters, looking away from Haitham’s gaze. “Just… find the people who really did this. Find the people who hurt both of us. Please, Cyno.”
The General nods, leading Alhaitham out of the house and the air goes quiet as their footsteps fade. Tighnari looks down at him with eyes that feel like pity, but he knows Nari better than that. Mehrak beeps near his ear, her voice saddened and he reaches out for her, holding her close to his chest.
“Can you reset my nose?” He asks, voice tiny. “I just want to go to bed…”
Tighnari nods, wordless as his fingers press against the parts of his nose, resetting it back into place with a quick snap. He winces, tears falling down his cheeks and the Ranger digs through his bag to pull out bandages. Tighnari disappears from the living room to head over to the kitchen, the sound of the sink running in the background.
Kaveh gets up from the divan, Mehrak still in his arms as he walks to their shared bathroom that sits down the right hall. He flicks on the lights, blinded by the flash before he takes the steps towards the mirror. His heart pounds as he looks into the sink, Mehrak beeping sadly at him as he rubs her handle.
Slowly, he raises his eyes to look into the mirror.
Dried blood marks the area around his mouth, starting from the tips of his nostrils and ending at his chin. It cakes to his lips and when Kaveh runs his tongue across them, all he tastes is copper. Dark circles line under his eyes, hues bloodshot from all the crying he’s done. He doesn’t dare pull off the gloves to see what the bruises underneath look like.
His ripped shirt stares back at him, dried saliva running up and down his skin.
If he closes his eyes, he can still see Alhaitham standing over him, pinning him to the floor as his tongue runs over his abs, his head settled against them as he whispers words about children that he doesn’t want and children that he will never have.
He wanted them, once upon a time, back when Alhaitham has held him with love in his eyes and gentle hands that promised to protect him.
Unbidden, a gag rises between his lips and his throat, Mehrak flying from his arms as he grips the sink, nails digging into the porcelain. Stomach acid and spit spill into the drain, tears running with them. He gasps, but the noise sounds like a sob, something broken and hurt. He falls to his knees, top of his head resting against the doorframe and he feels like he’s the collapsed building now, crumbled into nothing.
He feels like he’s the one being lowered into the grave.
It hurts knowing that something that he once wanted has been turned into something tainted, something ruined that he can never hope to have again. He once dreamed of their children running around their house, tiny little versions of them that they created from a union of love and affection.
Now, Kaveh can only dream of not flinching when Alhaitham touches him.
A scream, filled with grief and mourning, rips from his lips, hysterical in so many ways. Footsteps run down the hallway, stopping right behind him and Tighnari’s hands fall on his shoulders. He whips around, face buried in the Ranger’s shoulder. Nari’s fingers run through his hair, taking out the knots and all he can think of is Alhaitham doing the same and he gags into the Ranger’s shirt, coughing out another sob.
“I-I can’t!” He says, hyperventilating. “A-All I… All I… Nari !”
Tighnari shushes him, uncaring of how Kaveh is getting blood on his shirt. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. You’ll be okay.”
Kaveh doesn’t feel like he will.
━━━━━━━━━━
He finds Alhaitham at the dinner table the next morning.
His eyes stare into his coffee cup, steam still running from the liquid. The Scribe barely makes a sound when he slowly walks into the kitchen for his morning coffee. His nose hurts, black and blues crossing the area around his nose and Tighnari had told him that it was going to last a few days. Kaveh dares to not walk out of the house without makeup covering it all.
He doesn’t want people to get the wrong idea.
His hands shake as he pours out the coffee, putting in his sugars and mixing it around. He turns around, shuffling to one of the chairs next to Alhaitham. The moment he sits down, the Scribe rises from his seat and moves to the next one, putting space between them. Kaveh can see the bob of his throat, the hands that also shake when he lifts the cup to his lips.
“Are you… okay?” He asks in a whisper.
Alhaitham flinches violently, a jerk of his body that sends a part of his coffee spilling onto his hand. Kaveh stands up from his seat and speedwalks to get towels, coming back to dab the mess off Alhaitham’s hand. Before he can even touch him, the Scribe pulls back, eyes wide and gaze seeing right through him.
Alhaitham’s eyes are bloodshot, red veins lining the whites of his eyes. Dark circles and bags decorate his skin, giving him a look as if he hasn’t slept in hours. Kaveh wouldn’t put that past him. The Acting Grand Sage stands up from his chair, grabbing his cup and pouring the coffee down the sink.
The ceramic clatters, the Scribe walking past him and towards the main hall. The architect follows after him, watching just in time as Alhaitham throws his shoes on, movements jerky and unstable. Alhaitham catches himself against the doorframe when he nearly falls over, Kaveh stepping forward to help catch him.
It would have worked if Alhaitham didn’t flinch from him, back slamming against the door as if Kaveh were made of fire and not flesh.
“What are you doing?”
Kaveh pulls his hand back, settling it against his chest. “Helping… you?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to?” He says as if they’ve never done this before, as if their entire lives weren’t meant for helping each other. “Alhaitham, you aren’t going to hurt me.”
Alhaitham swallows, the sound audible. “You don’t know that.”
“I do know that. I know that you wouldn’t hurt me unprompted, on purpose. You wouldn’t hurt me just to prove a point.” Alhaitham had done that once, back during their Akademia days when their thesis was driving them both apart and the divides felt so large at the time. “I trust you, Haitham.”
Alhaitham stares at him, eyes looking him over before he suddenly raises a hand. Unknowingly, unwantingly, Kaveh flinches, stepping back with a ferocity that makes him stumble. The Scribe looks at him as if he told him that he hated him and maybe, perhaps, that's exactly what Kaveh just did.
“Alhaitham, wait!” Kaveh lifts himself off the floor, attempting to close the distance between them but Alhaitham just pushes himself further against the door. “It’s not… It’s not you that I’m scared of.”
It’s the person that did this to them, the person who put the tiny little capsule into Alhaitham’s headset and let him run loose. It’s the person that ruined the both of them, thoroughly wrecked them beyond all reason. It’s not Alhaitham; it could never be Alhaitham.
“You flinched when I tried to touch you.” The Scribe says as if it is supposed to be evidence against him and not the other party. “You’re scared of me, Kaveh, don’t lie to me.”
“Alhaitham–”
“Don’t lie to me!” Alhaitham yells, face twisted into angered grief. “Don’t lie to me like this, Kaveh! If I hurt you…!”
Alhaitham takes in a deep breath, closing his eyes. “If I hurt you, I need to know. If I ever made you scared of me, I… need to know.”
“And if I said that you did, what would you do then?” Kaveh questions, heart sinking. “What would you do, Alhaitham?”
The Scribe responds by turning around, opening the door and grabbing his keys, the door slamming behind him.
━━━━━━━━━━
Alhaitham doesn’t talk to him.
Kaveh might have been comfortable with this a long time ago when he still hated Alhaitham, when he still wanted him out of his life and Kaveh would have revealed in knowing that Alhaitham was avoiding his existence. But now, it just hurts. The two of them have gone back to sleeping in their own rooms, the quietness suffocating Kaveh every time to retires to his room for the night, Mehrak the only comfort he has left.
He doesn’t even see Alhaitham in the mornings anymore.
All he sees is the morning light shining through the windows, the pot of coffee still warm but no Scribe to drink from it, to slowly enjoy it before going to work for the day. The plates are untouched, food rotting in the fridge, but no Scribe to scold him for not going shopping. It’s almost as if Alhaitham doesn’t live here anymore, the house left to his name, in his honor.
Kaveh doesn’t want honor. He wants his fucking boyfriend back.
“What happened when Alhaitham came to headquarters?”
Cyno looks up at him from his lunch, something neat that Tighnari packed for him. He can tell because of the tiny letter written in the Ranger’s handwriting, telling Cyno to have a good day and for him to take care of himself. The General looks away from him for a brief moment and Kaveh sits across from him, forcing Cyno to look at him.
“Cyno, what happened?”
The General sighs, something tired and worn. “Alhaitham willingly came down to the headquarters to give his statement. He told me what happened and the events leading to when he got back home before you did and the events that took place afterwards. I told Alhaitham that he was free to go and that we would make sure that we caught the person who did this…”
“And then?” Kaveh raises an eyebrow.
“And then he held out his wrists. He put his head down, begging for me to arrest him, that he had committed a crime, that he had raped you, that he had hurt you.” Cyno puts aside his lunch, crossing his arms. “I told him that he wasn’t being arrested, that you had dropped the charges against him, but he didn’t listen to me. He kept insisting that he needed to be arrested, that he had done something wrong.”
The architect swallows. “...What happened after that?”
“I took him back home. I told him that you needed him and that he needed to get his head together, that both of you needed to be careful in the case that they target you again. He didn’t say anything, just shut the door in my face and I went back to headquarters to finish the paperwork.” Cyno raises his own eyebrow. “Why? Did something happen?”
Kaveh deflates, feeling lifeless for a moment. “Alhaitham hasn’t been coming home. I mean… He has, but I don’t see him anymore. He comes home and he just… goes to his room. He doesn’t come out for food or coffee anymore. He just locks himself in his room until he has to go to work again. I haven’t talked to him since the… incident and it’s been a week since then.”
It can’t be because of the bruises, Kaveh hopes. Those faded just a few days ago, his nose finally healed and he’s never been thankful to breathe through his nose. It can’t be the saliva burning his skin, he washed that off the day after the incident, scrubbing his skin raw until he felt like he was clean.
Unless…
“Do you think… that Alhaitham blames himself for what happened?” He asks, looking down at his lap.
Cyno hums. “It’s possible. I’m no expert like Tighnari is, but I can assume that he might be feeling that.”
“But he didn’t do anything!” It feels like a lie when he says that, like some part of his brain is denying that truth. “It wasn’t him! It was that stupid capsule!”
“Do you think that Alhaitham sees it that way?” Cyno stares at him as if he’s ripping him apart, peeling all of the layers off his bones. “Kaveh, I want you to think about it like this: Imagine if you were in Alhaitham’s shoes, wearing his headset. Someone, for some reason, puts a capsule into your headset, setting free your deepest desire. Your desire, for some reason, is for you to have Alhaitham all to yourself.”
The architect swallows. “Yeah?”
“Alhaitham comes home and you corner him in some room, telling him that he’s yours, that you won’t let anyone else have you, that no one else will love him like you will. You push him down to the ground, break his nose, and rip his clothes. You nearly rape him before he kicks you off him and you spend the next several hours banging on his door to get him to come out so that you can rape him.”
Cyno’s eyes soften. “Wouldn’t you feel guilty over that, even if you weren’t really yourself?”
I would , Kaveh thinks without a second thought, I wouldn’t know how to live with myself.
“But…” The defense dies on his tongue, fading into nothing. “He didn’t…”
“We know, but he doesn’t believe in it. Alhaitham, just like you, isn’t dealing with this very well. He cared about you, still does. He hurt you, nearly raped you. That type of trauma isn’t going to go away with some gentle words and reassurances that you trust him.” Cyno pulls his lunch in front of him again, shoving his fork into it. “Both of you need time, whether that be together or separated, but this isn’t either of your faults.”
The architect chuckles. “Didn’t think I’d hear those words from you.”
Cyno smiles. “I learned from a certain fox.”
━━━━━━━━━━
Kaveh wakes up to the sound of the front door opening and closing.
He sits up as Alhaitham walks into the door and… God, he’s a mess. The dark circles from days ago look like bruises under his eyes, highlighting the green in his irises. Stubble lines his chin, unshaven and unkept. His cape hangs off his shoulder, barely clinging on to his form. If possible, Alhaitham looks thinner.
The Scribe suddenly turns, walking in the direction of his room but Kaveh is faster. He launches up from the divan, jumping over it and nearly falling on his face in the process. He catches himself, grabbing Alhaitham’s wrist and pulling him backwards. His arms wrap around the Scribe’s waist, sweat and musk hitting his nose.
Alhaitham is stiff in his arms.
“Don’t– Don’t go!” Kaveh gasps, out of breath and his legs burn. “Don’t leave. I want to talk to you.”
He can feel Alhaitham look over his shoulder, the muscles in his back twitching. “Why?”
“I talked to Cyno today. He told me what happened between you and him. I want you to know that I don’t blame you, I never did.” He could never blame Alhaitham for this, no matter what the little voices in his head scream. “I’m sorry for not thinking about how you were feeling in all of this. I didn’t know you felt that way until Cyno put it into perspective for me, but Haitham, I need you to know: I trust you.”
He turns Alhaitham around, angling his head to look up at the Scribe. Alhaitham’s eyes are shiny, glittering like gems and Kaveh feels his breath being taken away. Alhaitham had always been pretty, something so perfect that it made his heart swell with affection. It still does that even now, even through the trauma and the grief.
“I trust you the same way I have always trusted you. I trust you to hold me when I feel sad, to pick me up when I feel hurt. I trust you to be there to catch me, to whisper words to me when I get lost in my head.” He raises his hand, resting his palm against Alhaitham’s cheek. “I trusted you then and I trust you now. You could never hurt me and I believe that with every fiber of my being, so believe me when you don’t believe yourself.”
Alhaitham lets out a shaky sigh, his arms coming around to settle loosely around his waist. His head, eyes half-lidded, falls to his shoulder, planting itself in the crook of his neck. Kaveh’s fingers weave into Alhaitham’s hair, fingers untangling greasy knots.
“I love you, Haiyi.” He whispers. “I love you so very much.”
Alhaitham breaths in his scent, arms slightly tightening around him. “I love you too. I missed you.”
“I missed you too.” Kaveh pulls away, kissing his cheek. “Will you let me feed you? I went shopping while you were gone and I restocked the fridge. I’ve noticed that you haven’t been eating much.”
Alhaitham nods and his arms slip from his waist, his right hand catching onto his left. Their fingers intertwine, something delicate and hopeful. Kaveh pulls Alhaitham in the direction of the kitchen, forcing him to sit down at the dining table. It’s late, nearly twelve in the morning, but Kaveh still puts his heart and soul into it. He makes something light, passing along the Scribe’s favorite book in the process.
Alhaitham looks between him and the food, an affectionate look passing over his eyes before he digs in, spoon clinking against the bowl. The architect watches him, a fond gaze melting into something soft, something so loving that it reminds him of the better days when the two of them sat in the corners of the library, huddled together as they whispered little facts that they found in books.
Kaveh still loves him, even if Alhaitham can’t love himself right now.
━━━━━━━━━━
Things, eventually, return back to normal.
The tension and fear between the two of them slowly fades, settling into their bones as something mostly normal. They go back to sleeping together, Alhaitham’s bed a comfort for him. They wake up in the mornings, his head resting on the Scribe’s chest as Alhaitham smiles down at him and warms his heart. Alhaitham drinks his coffee and eats his breakfasts and argues with him over pointless things that mean nothing at the end of the day.
Kaveh goes back to appointments with his clients, attending therapy appointments with a therapist that Tighnari had commended to him back when he had a breakdown at five in the morning. He goes back to laying his head in Alhaitham’s lap, his fingers brushing through his hair and life is perfect.
Which makes what happens next all the more worse.
“I want to have sex.”
Alhaitham nearly drops his book, eyes suddenly wide as he looks up at him. It’s an impromptu declaration, something so blunt that it scares both of them. But they’ve been doing good; he’s been doing good. He doesn’t want to keep this part of their life untouched, never to be heard from again. He wants to feel Alhaitham against his body, to feel his breath waft over his cheeks and his fingers brush down his limbs.
He wants to feel Alhaitham again.
“Are you sure about this?” The Scribe asks, clearly hesitant. “Is this something that you want?”
Kaveh nods. “I do.”
He thinks that he has never been so sure of something in his life, so convinced to have this one part of himself back, to not let it be taken by anyone else. He wants to reclaim it, to hold it to his chest and remind himself that sex can be positive, that sex can be a good thing, that sex can be something healing.
He blatantly ignores all of the other things sex can do to a person.
So later that night, after Alhaitham has turned off all of the lights in the house except for the one in their bedroom, his hands pressed on his shoulder as concerned eyes gaze down at him with so much worry that it feels like Kaveh might choke on it, the architect takes off his shirt, his necklace hitting his collarbone and he lays back in bed.
He bears himself to Alhaitham, an invitation to take back what used to be theirs, to reclaim a part taken from them. His lover’s fingers dance over his body, feeling for every twitch and every sign to stop; Kaveh gives him nothing but soft smiles and half-lidded eyes. He ignores the slight tinge of panic under his skin; he needs this.
He won’t let them take this from him.
Alhaitham leans down, his lips brushing against the skin of his neck. His heart pounds, a mixture between anxiety and arousal. The Scribe’s fingers find his hands, holding them tightly as if he’s afraid that Kaveh is going to fly off into the sky. Kaveh won’t, not this time. He closes his eyes, ignoring the distant feeling in his body to focus on the gentle kisses that Alhaitham presses into his skin, soft and worshipping.
He shivers for a different reason other than the touches.
Alhaitham undoes the sash around his neck, pulling down the lower half of his clothing. The cold air of their bedroom touches his vagina, making him gasp. Alhaitham, ever so gently, brushes his fingers along his lips, his body jerking with the feeling. A whine, low and horny, escapes from his lips. Alhaitham captures the sound with a kiss to his lips, swallowing it down and he ignores how it felt for Alhaitham to kiss him that day, rough and barely kind.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Alhaitham whispers into his ear. “We don’t have to do this.”
Kaveh responds by wrapping his legs around Alhaitham’s waist, pulling him closer. The Scribe rolls his eyes, sighing as he undresses himself. At least, that’s what Kaveh can infer because he hasn’t opened his eyes again since he closed him, fighting down the pricks of panic that won’t go away.
Alhaitham won’t hurt him.
Alhaitham will be kind to him.
Alhaitham will catch him.
Kaveh flinches when a dick coated in lube brushes against his hole, Alhaitham staring down at him waiting for a permission that he isn’t ready to give. He reminds himself through the screaming of voices in his head that Alhaitham won’t hurt him, that Alhaitham won’t rape him, that Alhaitham will protect him.
He nods his head.
Slowly, the Scribe inserts his dick inch by inch, Kaveh’s back arching off the bed. Alhaitham stays there, settled in the space between the point of no return and the point where Kaveh is trying to convince himself that he’s gotten past his trauma, that he’s fine now, that he’s worked through it.
But then Alhaitham starts moving and all connection with his brain is gone.
He doesn’t see his Alhaitham anymore, the one who loves him with all of his heart and who remembers exactly how he likes his coffee in the morning. He doesn’t see his Alhaitham anymore, the one who would hold him close and tell him that he loved him. He doesn’t see his Alhaitham anymore, the one who carries him home when he gets too drunk.
He sees the other Alhaitham, the one with red eyes and the giggly drunken smile that looks like he’s going to enjoy hurting Kaveh far too much. He sees the other Alhaitham, the one who pressed him against the floor and kissed his stomach and told him of how much he wanted to breed him. He sees the other Alhaitham, the one who pounded on his door and begged for him to come out so that he could spend the next nine months with a baby trapped inside of his stomach, those red eyes haunting him.
“--eh!”
He feels wet down there, thick and runny and he wonders if Alhaitham has already cummed inside of him, his little sperm making their way to the egg in his womb and he wonders if the baby will have Alhaitham’s green eyes or the red eyes that make him violently ill.
“--veh!”
He wonders if Tighnari would be mad at him for this, pushing himself to do something that he wasn’t ready to do and facing the consequences. Would Tighnari kick him out of his house, slam the door in their face because the other Alhaitham had been right when he had said that only he could ever love someone like him.
“--aveh!”
Would Cyno come back to arrest his lover, ignoring the fact that he was the one who ignored all of Alhaitham’s words, all of his signs. Isn’t he the one raping Alhaithm now? Isn’t he the one who needs to be arrested?
“Kaveh!”
The architect comes back to the living world, body shaking like a leaf in the wind. He feels sick, far too gone from reality and Alhaitham is hovering over him, his cock still firmly placed inside of him and he feels the drip of precum on the Scribe’s dick. He flinches, swallowing down the scream hidden in the back of his throat.
He hates himself for this.
“Kaveh?” Alhaitham shakes him as if he’s still long gone, never to come back. “Love, are you here with me?”
He nods weakly. “Wha–... What happened?”
“I don’t know. You were here one moment and then gone the next. It was like you… left.” Alhaitham’s hands leave his shoulders, running down his arms to meet up with his hands. “You went limp and it felt like you were staring right through me.”
Kaveh remembers his therapist saying something about that, a method in which the brain protects the self. He remembers it being called dissociation, a concept that Kaveh has only encountered a few times.
He remembers back when it had been worse, when the architect would draw on his blueprints and something about the lines drew his mind back to that day, his body pinned to the floor and the only thing he would remember is Alhaitham holding his hands, thin red lines on his arms because he kept scratching himself.
“I’m sorry.” He mumbles because he is. Guilt is the only thing he feels, the only thing he can taste on his tongue and he hates how bitter it feels. “I should have…”
There was a lot of should haves, far more could haves, but Kaveh isn’t in the mindspace to rip himself apart, not when Alhaitham is staring at him with the same brand of guilt that he had seen back then, the crumbling building reflected back at him and he feels like throwing up.
“...Alhaitham.”
His lover ejects himself from him as if he was the problem, as if he was the one who caused all of this. The Scribe backs off of him, to the end of the bed, and sits there with watery eyes that threaten to make tears fall down his cheeks. Kaveh, in the middle of all of this, feels like the worst person alive.
He sits up, ignoring the ache in his back from hunching over his desk so long, and crawls over to Alhaitham. He raises his hand, fingers brushing against the Scribe’s cheek before he violently flinches away. Kaveh pulls his hand back, shocking and disgusted with himself. Alhaitham gets up from the bed, wordless as he pulls on his clothes and crawls into bed, his back facing the architect.
He shuts off the lights on his side of the room, casting it into darkness. Like this, Kaveh can’t tell if Alhaitham is crying, if Alhaitham is grieving, or if Alhaitham is genuinely considering throwing him from the house for this little stunt. He lies down, still naked as he pulls the covers over him, the sheets cold against his body.
“I’m sorry, Alhaitham.” He repeats, hoping that his lover can hear him. “I thought… I thought that I was ready. I really thought I was. I just… I didn’t want to lose this part of our relationship, the connection that we have. I didn’t want them to ruin this.”
He hears Alhaitham shift from the other side of the bed, the blankets moving against his arms. Kaveh can feel Alhaitham’s eyes burning into his back, small holes made into his soul.
“I asked if you wanted this.”
The architect flinches, something inside of him shattering.
“I asked you if you were ready. I asked you twice and you said yes to both of them. I gave you an out before we started, before I even went inside of you and you said yes.” Alhaitham’s voice is small, tinier than Kaveh ever expected it to and the guilt roars like a storm in the middle of an ocean. “I believed you, Kaveh. So why? Why didn’t you stop me?”
He doesn’t really have an answer for that, his tongue tied together into a knot that suffocates him. Nothing that comes to his head seems sufficient enough for an explanation, nothing that wouldn’t just create more scorched earth between them. He curls in tighter on himself, teeth biting down into his bottom lip.
“I trusted you.” Alhaitham’s voice sounds broken and Kaveh feels like dying, of opening a grave and crawling inside of it. “But you…”
Kaveh, sometimes, forgets that trust is a fickle thing, nothing to be taken advantage of or used. He knew that Alhaitham still had complicated, some might say traumatized, feelings surrounding what happened to them. If anything, Kaveh should have made sure that Alhaitham was okay with it, should have communicated with him if Alhaitham had wanted it instead of assuming that he would have been, instead of being stuck in his own head.
And now, Kaveh is staring at the shattered glass around them and wondering what went wrong.
“I’m sorry.” He finally whispers, not daring to roll over and see the grief on Alhaitham’s face. “I didn’t want… I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Alhaitham says nothing, the silence surrounding them like chains. He closes his eyes, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.
“You already did.”
━━━━━━━━━━
Kaveh wakes up to a quiet house.
The sun shines through the sliver in the curtains, creating a line down the width of the bed. The architect sits up, still naked and far too tired to deal with any of this. He looks behind him, the Scribe’s side of the bed cold and messy. He runs his hand over it, eyes burning with grief. He blinks them away, pushing himself out of bed and tossing on some clothes.
He leaves their bedroom, frigid floors creating shivers down his spine. He reminds himself to turn up the heat in the house before the coldness of winter settles into Sumeru. He turns the corner into the kitchen, expecting to at least see Alhaitham there.
It’s just him.
The coffee isn’t brewed, there’s no dishes in the sink, and nothing in the kitchen seems to be touched. He looks at the dinner table, the cleanliness turning his stomach. Without a thought, he spins around, speed-walking into the living room to find nothing there, not a sign of life in the house. Ignoring the panic in his chest, he walks back into the right hall, pushing open the doors of Alhaitham’s office.
It’s still just him.
The birds chirp, the people outside lightly chatter from the open window, and the breeze of the wind brushes against the curtains. It’s still just him. He walks forward, slowly moving towards the desk as he brushes his fingers against the surface. It’s still just him. A letter catches his attention, his name neatly scrawled across the surface. He picks it up, unfolding it with gentleness.
He notices Alhaitham’s writing before anything else.
Kaveh, the letter starts, if you are wondering where I’ve gone, please don’t worry and please don’t look for me.
After what happened last night, I think we need some time apart from each other. Both of us are still hurt, still wounded and still traumatized from what happened and all we are doing is hurting each other in trying to figure out how to best cope with everything. Please do not think that this is me abandoning you, I want you to know that I still love you, that I still care about you with every inch of my heart.
But I can’t hurt you anymore.
I can’t stand by your side in the current time knowing that I’m the reason why you go back to that awful day, that it isn’t me that you see but the one that hurt you, the one that nearly assaulted you. I can’t stand by your side in the current time knowing that I haven’t healed myself, that bringing myself to touch you sends me into a panic because I’m worried that I will just hurt you again.
I can’t stand by your side knowing that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me that you weren’t ready.
I will come back, just not right now. I love you with everything that I have and I will always keep you with me.
Please take care of yourself.
Alhaitham.
The architect doesn’t feel real anymore.
He doesn’t feel like he’s here anymore, like the world doesn’t exist around him anymore. He sinks to the floor, mind disconnected from body and he goes up and up and up into the clouds, the bright sunny skies suddenly cloudy with thoughts and memories and heartbreak that feels like it will kill him.
Like this, he can see the day his mother walked out of the house, the rain pouring outside as he screamed for her name, as he screamed for her to come back because he didn’t want to be an orphan. Like this, he can hear the tease of Alhaitham’s voice, the one that darkly purrs that no one will ever love him like that Alhaitham loved him.
Like this, he can see the scorched earth of his own making, the dying trees and the rotting grass that all scream that this is his fault, that he was the one who ruined everything, that he was the one who drove Alhaitham away, that he was the one who drove his mother away, that he was the one who drove his father away.
He’s always the one destroying everything.
The tears, unlike last time, won’t stop no matter how many of them he wipes away. They come relentlessly, reminding him that he is the hammer that shattered the mirror, that he is the fire that burned the grass into something dark and dead. If he had kept to himself, would that have kept Alhaitham around? If he had listened to the thoughts in his head, would have that kept Alhaitham from leaving?
The only thing that answers him is the cold seeping through the window, running up his arms to freeze him to the bone.
He rises up from the ground, letter clutched to his chest and he stumbles, falling down to the ground. His body hits the floor with a thud and he looks up from the ground, reaching out a hand towards the front door and wishing that it could materialize Alhaitham, that it could bring him back so that he can atone for his sins.
Mehrak beeps over him, spinning around him and he thinks that it’s an accurate representation of his life these past few months: A never-ending spiral that only serves to make him sick, to remind him that he should have been the one to die in the desert instead of his father. Mehrak flies away from him, out the open window and he cries harder.
Even his creation doesn’t want him anymore.
Maybe that Alhaitham had been right after all. Maybe he really was worthless, useless in so many ways that it only drove the people he cared about away from him. Kaveh curls into himself, hand pressed against his stomach. Maybe if he let that Alhaitham fuck him senseless, he could have stayed. Maybe if he let that Alhaitham breed him, he wouldn’t have left him with a letter and broken heart.
“C-Come back!” He screams into the cold, empty air. “Don’t leave me! You can do whatever you want to me! You can fuck me, breed me, abuse me, lock me away forever! Just don’t leave me! Don’t leave me, Alhaitham!”
The house is still empty, the smell of a desperate omega filling the home. He chokes on it, gagging on his tears as he coughs. He feels empty, hollowed out like someone stuck their hand inside of him and ripped out everything. He wants to be full again, wants to be made whole again, wants to not be split into pieces anymore.
The front door bursts open and Cyno runs into the house, Mehrak beeping incessantly behind him. His head swivels around before his eyes land on him and the architect sobs, pathetic and pitiful. Is this what Alhaitham saw before he left? Something so pathetic that it needed to be left alone? Something so pitiful that the best mercy for it was leaving it to die on the corner?
Cyno is suddenly in front of him, grabbing him by his forearm to lift him up from the ground. The Mahamatra kneels before him, uncovered eye staring into him with concern and Kaveh stops himself from jumping into his arms like the worthless mess that he is.
“H-He’s gone…” He heaves, pushing the letter into Cyno’s chest. “H-He’s gone… He c-can’t stand me anymore.”
Cyno takes the letter, his eyes quickly scanning over it before looking back at him. The General helps him off the ground, getting him back on his feet. Mehrak pushes herself into his chest, her handle under his chin as she beeps and boops at him. He can’t understand it, not when the despair is clouding his mind, but he wraps his free arm around her.
He pulls her close and slowly, her beeps stop.
“Let’s get you to Tighnari.” Cyno says with softness. “You can stay with him for the night.”
The architect pulls his hand back. “N-No! I can’t! I can’t be a bother to you! To him! I can’t have both of you leave me too!”
Cyno reaches out again, slowly and carefully. His hand is warm, calloused and scarred from his work as the General Mahamatra, but it’s somehow comforting.
“Whatever you seem to think about yourself is wrong. You staying the night with us isn’t going to drive us away or make us not love you.” Cyno says with a confidence that makes him gag again. “We are your friends, Kaveh. Nothing you could do in this moment could make us change our mind in that.”
He gasps. “Y-You would after you found out what happened last night.”
“We can hear about that back at Nari’s home. Are you okay to walk?”
Kaveh, against better judgement, nods his head.
━━━━━━━━━━
Tighnari’s stare feels like poison.
The Ranger’s fingers are tight around his cup, face blank and Kaveh feels like sinking into the couch and hoping that he can never be found again. The air is thick, tense with an anger that feels both natural and unnatural to Tighnari. Gently, the Forest Ranger places down the cup, his back straightening.
“Kaveh.”
The syllables of his name make him sick, arms tightening around his stomach.
“You…” The man sighs, rubbing at his temples. “Even if you thought that Alhaitham would be okay with it, why didn’t you ask him first? You know that–”
Kaveh flinches, swallowing back bile. “Tighnari, please . I don’t… I’m really not ready for you to lecture me.”
“I should. What you did was dangerous and you know that. You knew that Alhaitham had issues surrounding what he did to you and you ignored that for the sake of wanting to restore what you had.” The scorn in Nari’s voice feels like a fire in of itself. “Kaveh, answer me this: What was more important in the relationship, sex or love?”
“Love.” Kaveh responds without missing a beat.
“Then why did you act as if sex was the only important thing you two had?” Tighnari’s lips turn into a frown. “I understand that you didn’t want to have things change between you and him, that you wanted to save what was ruined and restore it back to how it used to be. But that takes time and effort and communication.”
The architect shuts his eyes. “I know.”
“Do you? Because there’s a man wandering around out there who thinks that the only thing meaningful between the two of us is sexual pleasure.” Tighnari stands up from the other couch, moving around the table to come sit next to him. “Kaveh, you didn’t lose anything with Alhaitham. Things changed, but you didn’t lose anything. Both of you were hurt and are still hurting. Both of you needed time to heal and to talk with each other about what was okay and what wasn’t, not to jump into things and hope that they work out.”
“I know.” He feels like he’s repeating himself, saying anything he can in the desperate hopes that it can comfort him. “I know… I’m sorry.”
Tighnari deflates, pulling him into his arms. “I’m not the one that you need to apologize to.”
━━━━━━━━━━
Kaveh’s woken up at five in the morning to someone shaking his shoulder.
He buries his face into Nari’s couch, whining when the person doesn’t cease their shaking. He peeks an eye open, lifting it upwards to witness Cyno staring down at him. He sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“We found the person who put the capsule in Alhaitham’s headset.” The world freezes and Kaveh pauses. “They were an akademia student who was displeased about Alhaitham taking over from the previous Grand Sage and changing, what they thought in their eyes, things that never should have been changed.”
He nods. “Where are they now?”
“Down at headquarters.” Cyno looks away for a brief moment before turning his eyes back to him. “I’m not supposed to do this, but I’m allowing for you to ask him some questions. We have all the information we need to press charges, but…”
The architect tosses his legs off the couch. “You want to give me a chance to say my peace?”
Cyno nods. “It’s only fair since you were also hurt in this. I would have given Alhaitham a chance to ask his own questions if he was still here.”
He gets up, inhaling a breath before facing Cyno. “Take me to them.”
The headquarters are quiet at this hour, stray members fumbling around them as Cyno leads him to the room where they’re holding the rogue student. Cyno follows him into the room, closing the door behind him as he stands off next to him. The student, younger than both him and Alhaitham, stares up at him.
His hair is unruly and there’s a smile of satisfaction across his face despite being arrested. The architect doesn’t bother sitting down, settling on stepping forward to the table.
“Are you the one who put Forbidden Knowledge in Acting Grand Sage Alhaitham’s headset?” He asks.
The student’s smile gets wider. “That I am.”
Kaveh stares, face blank and eyes lifeless. The student smiles up at him as if he won the entire world, as if he had finally bested the Acting Grand Sage. The architect moves closer to the table, letting his hand gently rest on the surface.
“Do you know what Forbidden Knowledge does?” Kaveh tilts his head, earrings glinting in the light. “They take the person’s deepest desire and make them act on it, bringing that desire to life.”
He pulls out the chair, sitting down across from the student, hands resting in his lap. “The day you planted it in his headset, he came home and attempted to rape me.”
The student’s face falls, skin paling. “What–”
“The Acting Grand Sage that you wanted to take down so badly pressed my body into the floor and told me that he would lock me in the house, that he would rape me and breed me until I was filled with his children, that no one could never love me like he could.” Kaveh blinks at the student’s gaping mouth. “That same Acting Grand Sage gave me a broken nose and sexual trauma to last a lifetime because of you.”
“Sir Kaveh, I didn’t–”
“I thought about killing myself because of you. My life was taken away from me because of you. My lover’s life was taken away because of you. You ruined both of our lives, traumatized us deeply, and made our relationship hell because you wanted your beloved sage’s actions reinstated? Because you couldn’t bare the thought of not having his words floating around in your head?”
The student’s face twists into a look of anger. “Listen–”
“Fuck you.” Kaveh spits with all of the venom in his body. “Fuck you and fuck your little plan. I didn’t come here so that I could hear your justifications or your sob story as to why you did it. I came here to show you what you did to me, of what you did to Alhaitham because rest assured, I will make sure that the General Mahamatra makes every moment of your life a living hell from now on.”
He stands up from the chair, narrowing his eyes. “May the Archons have mercy on your soul because you won’t ever find it from us.”
The architect turns around, slamming open the door and walking out. Kaveh ignores all of the eyes staring at him, at Cyno calling his name from afar. He just wants this to be over, for his life to go back to the way that it used to be before the student ruined it all. His house is in sight, the lights still on and he walks faster, opening the door and closing it behind him.
The house is still cold.
He slides down the door, arms wrapped around his legs and his face buried into his knees. Mehrak beeps from her charging station but he doesn’t answer her. He can’t answer her with the lump in his throat, the face of the man who ruined his life burned in his eyes. When he thinks about that night, he doesn’t see Alhaitham anymore.
He sees the student, eyes bright and smile wide with dangerous intent.
Kaveh spends the rest of that night in the bathroom, stomach churning with illness.
━━━━━━━━━━
Alhaitham doesn’t come back home.
The days turn into weeks that turn into months. The seasons change and settle, the coldness of Sumeru chilling his bones. Kaveh waits, and waits, and waits for the front door to open and for Alhaitham to walk through them, alive and well and still having a place of Kaveh in his heart. He waits when he’s tired. He waits when he’s excited to see him. He waits when he has hope. He waits when he wants nothing more than to hold Alhaitham in his arms and tell him that he still loves him.
The longer Alhaitham doesn’t come back, the less Kaveh believes that they’re still together.
The hope slowly bleeds out of him as the days pass, the moments on the couch waiting for him become moments when Kaveh lays down and stares into the walls with a pillow tucked in his arms. He hasn’t charged Mehrak in months. He wonders if this is what Alhaitham felt like after he left, coming back to an empty life with an even emptier home.
He wonders if Alhaitham ever thought about ending things in the time that he was gone.
Kaveh only eats to eat nowadays, only drinks to drink, to keep himself alive because some bitter part of himself still hopes that Alhaitham will still walk through those doors, that he’ll come back and apologize for leaving him like this, for hurting him like this. Christmas comes and goes, the house dark as Kaveh surrounds himself with bottles of the strongest alcohol he can find and all of the pictures of Alhaitham that make him want to die on the inside.
He has no idea why he’s making himself suffer like this.
He drowns himself in work and alcohol, the days blurring together until they are nothing but days and nights with no time between them. He stops going to therapy, stops going to see Cyno and Tighnari despite the two constantly knocking on the front door, and stops taking his medications.
The withdrawal is a nice grounding feeling.
He picks up cigarettes alongside his alcohol, the smoke filling his lungs and he feels satisfied that he’s driving himself one more day closer to death. The nights he dares to pull himself from the house to go drinking, he finds himself slumped over the table, vision blurring with alcohol and tears.
He’s the one carrying himself back home after those, stumbling home and not bothering to count the amount of times that he falls onto his face.
Sometimes, if Kaveh is desperate enough to forget what Alhaitham’s voice sounds like, he lures over the unassuming person who lets their eyes roam over him. It always ends in kisses and his body pressed against the walls outside and inside the tavern, bruises littering his body as he sees past the Alhaitham in his brain that stares down at him with disappointed eyes.
They haven’t been a thing since December.
It’s now March, nearly crossing into April.
Kaveh doesn’t bother opening the door to Alhaitham’s room anymore. He doesn’t want to be overwhelmed by the memories of a relationship that isn’t a relationship anymore. The last time he had done so, he spent the night crying on the Scribe's bed, his clothes stuffed under his nose as he screamed for Alhaitham to come back.
That had been on Alhaitham’s birthday.
He hadn’t come back no matter how much he screamed.
His days are repeated over and over again, filled with drinking and smoking and work and makeouts that never serve to make him feel better only to come back home to an empty house and cries himself to sleep so that he doesn’t have to stay away any longer. The sleeping pills have become his best friend when he wants to stop dreaming about Alhaitham.
It comes to a head one day when he’s coming back home from a client, the keys shaking in his hand and he wishes for the comfort of a bed to sleep the entire day away. The door unlocks, his shoes tossed off as soon as he shuts it behind him. He tosses his keys into the bowl when he notices a set of keys resting there that he doesn’t remember being there when he left.
A clearing of a throat catches his attention.
He looks up, hair falling into his face as Alhaitham stands across from him. His hair is wet against his forehead, black tank top fitting tightly across his chest. A trash bag is held in his hand, most of the bottles around the couch stuffed inside. The Scribe has stubble on his chin, giving him an older look that doesn’t fit him. The dark circles under his eyes are noticeable alongside the bags that accompany them.
Alhaitham looks at him with something apprehensive.
Kaveh turns around and heads for his bedroom.
“Kaveh–”
He spins around, nails digging into the palm of his hand. “You left! Four months, Alhaitham! Four fucking months! I thought we were over! I thought you moved on! I thought you abandoned me on my own and you come back thinking that everything is going to be okay?! That I won’t be angry with you for leaving me when I needed you?!”
“Kaveh, listen–”
“What happened to communicating, Alhaitham?! Or was that just reserved for me and me only?!” Red seeps into his vision, blurred with tears that he won’t let fall, not for him. “Fuck you! Fuck you for coming back! Fuck you for breaking my heart! Fuck you for abandoning me! Fuck you for not talking to me before you walked out that fucking door just like my mother!”
Alhaitham steps forward, garbage bag falling from his hands. “Kaveh, I’m–”
“I’m sure that your grandmother is really proud of you right now.”
Alhaitham grinds to a halt, his hand nearly touching his own. Kaveh swallows, teeth grinding against each other as his chest rises and falls with heavy breaths. The guilt feels heavy in his stomach and when he’s thinking clearly later, he’ll apologize for the harsh words. But right now, all Kaveh does is turn around and walk away, slamming the door to his bedroom.
He lets himself cry in private.
━━━━━━━━━━
Alhaitham is still there when he comes out of his room in the morning.
The living room is clear, the bottles of alcohol are gone and the house is dusted, restored to a glory that Kaveh couldn’t bring himself to keep up. The Scribe sleeps on the divan, book resting against his chest as he softly sores. Kaveh has half a mind to go back to his room and get ready for the day before leaving the house before Alhaitham can see him.
Instead, he finds himself stepping closer to the Acting Grand Sage, keeping his footsteps light against the floors.
From up close, Alhaitham looks more tired, more worn that he had remembered when he first came home. The stubble is thick, prickly against his fingers as he brushes them against his cheek. The dark circles kiss his skin with stories of sleepless nights and part of him wonders how well Alhaitham slept during those months, where he went while he was suffering alone.
His fingers brush his cheek gentle, softly as if there’s still an amount of love and care Kaveh has for him, as if that hadn’t been ripped out in month two without Alhaitham. He swallows against the foreign affection, against the want to lean down and kiss him. He swallows against the words he really wants to say, against the feelings that fight in his chest.
“I hate that I still love you.” He says instead, thumb brushing against the Scribe’s skin. “I hate that I still want to protect you like this.”
“Then do.” Alhaitham’s eyes open, his hand grabbing onto his. Green and red eyes stare back up at him, glossy and tired, but still full of the same love that makes Kaveh’s insides melt. “I won’t mind.”
The architect sighs through his nose, suddenly exhausted. “You left. You left me alone in this house, with my thoughts, for four months. You promised to come back. You said that you wouldn’t be gone for long, that you would still love me.”
“I do still love you.” Alhaitham says it as if it’s a fact of the universe, something so undeniable. “I just… Kaveh, I left because I knew that I couldn’t support you the way that I was. Traumatized, hurt… I didn’t think that I would be of any help to you if I couldn’t be there for you when you were suffering.”
“So you thought the best idea was to leave me behind with nothing more than a letter and some faulty promises?” Kaveh blinks, slow and quiet. “Do you realize how fucked up that is? That you could just leave me like that without talking about it with me first?”
Alhaitham narrows his eyes. “And lying to me about being ready for sex without asking me if I was okay with it also isn’t fucked up?”
Kaveh resists every urge to smack him.
“At least I didn’t leave my boyfriend on his own for four months so that he could go searching for the soul that he never had.” He spits
Alhaitham scoffs. “At least I actually tried to solve my problems instead of just drinking them away.”
“At least I kept the fucking lights on.”
“At least I didn’t go making out with other men while my boyfriend was gone.”
“At least I didn’t act like a fucking coward!”
“At least I didn’t act like a whore.”
Kaveh bristles, teeth digging into his bottom lip. He ignores the watering of his eyes to pull his hand away from Alhaitham, moving over to the other divan. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, sucking in a breath that makes him feel like dust. The empty spot on the divan sinks next to him and a hand settles itself on his knee.
“What are we doing?” Alhaitham whispers. “Why are we hurting each other?”
Kaveh doesn’t have an answer for that, not one that makes sense. Slowly, he lowers his hand from his eyes, letting them fall onto his thighs. He tilts his head, resting it on Alhaitham’s shoulder.
“I don’t know.” He whispers back, letting his hand wrap around Alhaitham’s. “I’m sorry for the comment about your grandmother and for calling you a coward… and for calling you soulless. That was too far.”
Alhaitham buries his mouth into the top of his head, a mockup of a kiss. “I’m sorry for calling you a whore and for insulting you for the way that you coped. You dealt with me leaving you in the best way that you could and mocking you for that wasn’t fair of me, not when I was the one who put you in that position.”
“Did you really mean to leave me like that?” He asks.
“No, not for that long.” Alhaitham mutters into his hair. “I only meant to be gone for a week at most, but… The thought of coming back home scared me. Not because of you, but because I was scared of hurting you again. I was scared of triggering you again, of sending you back to a place that you didn’t want to be in.”
The architect looks down at his lap. “Me being triggered wasn’t your fault. I should have communicated with you about how I was feeling instead of pushing past it and pretending like it never existed. I didn’t… want what we had to be taken away from us by someone, for you to leave me because I couldn’t make you happy. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life looking at our crumbling relationship and knowing that I could have done something about it if I just… ignored it.”
Alhaitham pushes him off his shoulder, green and red staring down at him. “Do you think that sex is the only other thing keeping us together?”
He nods.
“Kaveh, darling, no.” The Scribe leans down, planting his lips against his forehead. “Even if you weren’t ready, even if it took months for you to get comfortable with the idea of sex again, I would never leave you because I wasn’t getting it. You’re more valuable to me than some sexual encounter. You’re the one who I wake up beside, the one whose hair I brush out of your face, the one who I kiss and hold because the love I have for you has no depths.”
Alhaitham pulls him into his chest, his warmth soothing. “I love you more than I love sex, please remember that. Sex with you is amazing, yes, but it is not the only thing I love about you. I love your heart, your empathy, your kindness. I love the way you care about people, about me. I love the way your eyes light up when you talk about something that means deeply to you. I love the way you laugh and giggle and smile, the way your cheeks flush when I say something utterly romantic.”
“Alhaitham…” The architect whispers.
“I love you for you, not for what you can give to me.” Alhaitham’s lips meet his forehead again, a gentle press that has Kaveh melting against him. “I love you with all of my heart and I’m so sorry that I hurt you like this. I’m sorry for all of the comments that I made about you, for leaving you on your own with no support from me, for making you think that you were alone. I never meant to do that to you and I hope that you will give me another chance.”
Kaveh closes his eyes, finally lifting up his arms to wrap them around the Scribe. “Just please don’t leave me again. I don’t care what fights we get into or what we say to each other, just… please don’t leave.”
“I won’t ever leave you for as long as I still live.” Alhaitham smiles down at him, love and affection hidden in his hues. “But… did you really makeout with men while I was gone?”
He nods. “I thought we were over. I didn’t see a single letter from you or see any sighting of you or any word if you were coming back or not, so I assumed…”
“I see.” Alhaitham leans closer, capturing his lips in a kiss. “I suppose that I’ll have to put in extra work to remind all of Sumeru that you still belong to me then. But before that, when was the last time you ate anything?”
Kaveh looks away with silence lingering.
“Well then, I guess we’ll have to fix that.”
━━━━━━━━━━
The bedroom is quiet.
Alhaitham holds him in his arms, the bed plush under their bodies. The Scribe is slowly drifting off to sleep, the sound of his heartbeat echoing in his ears. He closes his eyes to listen to the sounds, the thuds of a heart that he had missed for so long.
“Cyno caught the person who put the capsule into your headphones.” He mutters, voice laced with the edges of sleep. “They found him a few weeks after you left.”
Alhaitham shifts against him, pulling him closer. “Is that so? Have you heard any updates?”
“None yet, just that Cyno is still working on figuring out how long he should be imprisoned for. He was a student who attended the Akademia who wanted to reinstate the ways of the previous Grand Sage and thought Forbidden Knowledge would make that happen.” He yawns, tears gathered at the edges of his eyes. “Cyno did let me speak with him.”
Alhaitham suddenly sits up and his body flops down into the bed, a whine leaving his lips at the missing warmth. “What?! A-Are you okay?! Did he hurt you?!”
“Relax, Haiyi.” Kaveh reaches up, pulling Alhaitham back down onto the bed to rest his head back on his lover’s chest. “Cyno was in the room with me when it happened. I’m fine, I’m safe. Nothing happened to me in that room, though I’m sure that I did make that student regret everything he did.”
Alhaitham looks down at him, eyebrow raised. “What did you do?”
“I told him what happened.” Kaveh feels the way that Alhaitham’s breath hitches under him, the fear seeping from the alpha. “I know that I shouldn’t have done that, but… I wanted him to know how much he took from me, from you. I wanted him to know of the lives that he ruined, that he changed because of his actions. I don’t even know if my words got through to him, but it felt good to get it off my chest like that.”
“Alright…” The Scribe kisses the top of his head, smoothing back golden locks. “Just don’t do that again. I would like to be there in case anything goes wrong. I can’t afford to lose you again.”
The architect smiles, soft around the edges. “You won’t lose me again, I swear.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”