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Kaveh struggles to pinpoint a catalyst for this moment. Their return from the tavern was the same as always. Nothing too atypical. Kaveh fumbled getting the door open, dropped the keys out of the lock, cursed, picked them up, entered - all while Alhaitham lingered slightly behind, silently watching his roommate struggle with the simple task of returning home. The only thing he can pinpoint is that Alhaitham didn’t take the opportunity to tease him for it, but Kaveh put that down to the simple fact they had both been drinking.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t explain why Alhaitham is now resting on Kaveh, between Kaveh’s legs. Kaveh is afraid to move them in case he loses this intriguing display of rare affection. Thankfully, Kaveh has never considered Alhaitham to be heavy, therefore Kaveh’s focus remained on his racing thoughts, mirror snapshots of the night cycling through his brain, trying to find a memory worth consideration. He comes up short.
Kaveh's fingers brush, feather-light, against small wisps of Alhaitham's hair, afraid and careful not to rouse him. This goes on for several minutes before Kaveh experimentally lays his hand flat against the side of Alhaitham's head. He stirs a little at the sudden touch, but he does not wake. It is involuntary; automatic. Just as automatic as it is for Kaveh to clear the wisps of stray hair from his sleeping face and thread nimble fingers through the rest. As involuntary as it is for Kaveh to notice Alhaitham's ear is directly placed slightly left of his sternum - over his heart.
It is so abnormal, uncharacteristic, and downright mystifying of his roommate that Kaveh already knows something is wrong without having to look for any more signs. For now, he will let Alhaitham rest. It can wait until morning.
*
Kaveh doesn't remember falling asleep. He remembers stopping his ministrations in Alhaitham's hair because his fingers began to tire, but that's the last thing. He doesn't ever remember closing his eyes.
When he looks down, he finds a groggy Alhaitham, slowly summoning consciousness back into his body from a slower-moving shift away from dreams due to the alcohol from the night before. A little before Alhaitham succeeds in becoming part of the waking world again, Kaveh takes the opportunity to inquire into what was bothering him last night.
Alhaitham doesn’t answer. He is like a statue made from stone, unmoving, and if Kaveh moves, he’s sure Alhaitham’s eyes will follow without needing to follow his movements. Instead, he mentions something about drool on the pillow and laundry. Kaveh is immediately irate over that being what he chooses to focus on first; too irate to recognise the controlled change in atmosphere for what it was at first.
Before Kaveh moved his piece on their infinite game of chess to retaliate, Alhaitham has already dislodged himself entirely from their position, effectively avoiding the question and successfully distracting his roommate. Invoking Kaveh's ire was a necessary strategy.
Right. He will not ask again.
*
The second night doesn’t happen for another month, but it is as bemusing as the first. Kaveh's hand ends up in that gesture of tender care again with a line of savoury questioning to temper the sweetness. He's come to conclude this is something Alhaitham just… needs from time to time.
In the morning, Kaveh pretends to still be asleep, even releasing all the tension in his body to become deadweight. He feels Alhaitham's weight shift off him… then the sharp poke of a cheek. Kaveh opened his eyes to glare up at him.
He should have known that wouldn't work.
*
If this is only one of those things Alhaitham needs from time to time, Kaveh will offer it without being asked. It will become one of those things they're both painfully aware of but don't talk about. It will become one of those things where they will carve a space for the other to fit inside and ignore the bloodshed.
It will join the others in their silent suffering, begging for attention they will both turn their backs to and move around, offering their words to veiled sarcasm and empty insults instead. It will hang over them, sharpening Damocles’ sword that hangs by a thread over them, but they won't talk about it.
Somehow, Kaveh’s hand has slowly moved to the small wisps of hair at Alhaitham’s neck, thumb gliding softly over his cheek, warm breath periodically ghosting over Kaveh’s arm. His skin is soft, which is slightly irritating because he didn’t wash his face before going to sleep that night, but Kaveh fails to be angry about it. Anger is not possible for Kaveh when Alhaitham’s shallow breath feels warm and steady; peaceful.
The morning follows, as it is wont to do. Kaveh feels the question bubble up in his chest again, threatening to escape his throat. He swallows it back down with considerable effort, attempting to quell the flame of his curiosity down to flickering embers. He will never snuff it out completely, but as long as he does not cross that line, as long as he does not let the sword fall, he’s allowed to have some iota of that flame left.
They say nothing now. Kaveh wakes before Alhaitham, waits for Alhaitham, and Alhaitham only releases Kaveh from his weight before their lives return to the usual, the common, the “used to”. It is not a secret, only one of those things they do not talk about. It is not a dream, but to Kaveh, it feels like one. It doesn’t happen every night, only the nights Alhaitham has had a little too much to drink, therefore it is as imperceptible as dreams as an abstract concept.
They don’t talk about it, won’t talk about it, so it is almost like it never happened, never happens. It is an incomplete memory, a foggy remembrance; a dream. It is almost as if the real Alhaitham has been replaced by a dream Alhaitham. Not of Kaveh’s making, but someone else’s. An intruder in the night. Yet, Kaveh is all too painfully aware they are one and the same. The same Alhaitham, solid and firm, as the one who walks in the light of day.
*
The answer Kaveh has silently been searching for comes somewhat naturally instead of having to be pried out of the carved marble of Alhaitham’s chest. It doesn’t come quickly or sharply like Kaveh might have once wanted. Instead, it starts with his noticing of a familiar emblem in Alhaitham’s study while Kaveh clears the disorganised mess before Alhaitham complains about being unable to find things later.
Surprisingly, the Ksharewar emblem was actually not the first thing Kaveh noticed. It is the handwriting. It is unrecognisable, and Kaveh knows Alhaitham’s handwriting like he knows the back of his own eyelids. It is slightly messier, but in that way it can be likened to calligraphy rather than described as illegible. Kaveh holds it between his fingers like he has found priceless treasure.
Later, when Kaveh asks Alhaitham about it, Alhaitham answers in the same way he always does. Straightforward, factual, cerebral. They belonged to his grandmother, Kaveh asked who his grandmother was, Alhaitham answered, Kaveh recognised the name. Here, Kaveh thinks nothing of it, talking anecdotally about how much the annotated books of hers he found when he was at the Akademiya helped his studies.
His curiosity sated, the conversation was over. Kaveh returns to his design, Alhaitham returns to his book, and if Kaveh had lingered slightly on his roommate’s form for a little longer, his penchant for noticing even the smallest detail, the smallest shift in configuration, would have taken over.
It’s not until later, until Alhaitham’s head is in that position just left of his sternum, the cage between his heart and Alhaitham’s ear keeping them apart, that Kaveh realises. The realisation hits him like a mature Geo Shroom-Kin charging full speed ahead. He recognised the name, following into the thought how most journal compilations of her research notes were posthumous, following into how she’s Alhaitham’s grandmother ─
Kaveh feels those dying embers relight themselves as a blaze of understanding. He feels the flames of the fire lick around his heart. He feels his heart break a little at the dawn of realisation, under the weight of understanding.
Kaveh has never suffered the kind of losses Alhaitham has. He has never had part of his innocence chipped away from him by death, nor had he ever been uprooted and planted somewhere both familiar and unfamiliar. He lost his own grandparents long ago, but he didn’t have to suffer through the grief alone. Kaveh never had to save research notes for tangible evidence as proof of existence.
Kaveh could never imagine, not fully, how this visceral wound of grief and pain culminated into Alhaitham checking if Kaveh is still alive throughout the night.
Kaveh’s fingers still thread through Alhaitham’s hair as they usually do, his thumb swipes at his cheek softly as it usually does. New to this now familiar scene is his other arm cradling Alhaitham to his person gently, careful and afraid. Careful not to rouse him, afraid to move him from his position. There is a new assurance in these gestures now that Kaveh understands.
Assurance he is here, alive underneath him. Assurance he is not going anywhere and if he does, even for the briefest of moments, he will drag himself back walking through fire and brimstone if he must. Kaveh can’t decide if this situation is brutally soft or softly brutal, but what he does know is this intense vulnerability is something Alhaitham needs… from time to time.
Damocles’ sword can stay hanging by its thread. Kaveh will carve out a space for this Alhaitham in his chest.
The blood that sings to be acknowledged and saved will have to make its peace.