Chapter Text
“Acting Grand Sage? Do you have a moment?”
A young scholar no older than twenty hovered uncertainly in the doorway, eyes bright with the kind of enthusiasm that usually heralded an impractical, expensive proposal paired with an even more unrealistic sense of urgency.
Alhaitham didn’t bother disguising his sigh. “Make it brief.”
“Ah - thank you!” The scholar stepped inside at once, balancing a steaming cup from Puspa Cafe in both hands as he took the seat opposite Alhaitham’s desk. “It shouldn’t take long. I just have a few questions for you about my thesis topic.”
Leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, Alhaitham raised an eyebrow at the mug being offered to him and shook his head. When the man didn’t immediately begin speaking, Alhaitham raised a hand in a slightly agitated gesture and motioned for him to proceed. “Ask.”
“My apologies,” the scholar said quickly, placidity flickering into place a half-second too late. “I wanted to bring you something as thanks for agreeing to speak with me - I asked the barista to make your usual, so it should be to your taste.”
Alhaitham fixed him with a blank stare and regarded him in silence. Awkwardness filled the air as the man fidgeted in his chair, fingers tensing slightly around the mug before he leaned forward and slid it across the polished surface of the desk with a scraping, unpleasant rasp, mouth held in a strained yet polite smile.
Ordinarily, Alhaitham would’ve refused outright. Accepting gifts tended to invite prolonged interaction with a stranger... and Alhaitham had no intention of indulging this conversation any more than he had to. However, the scholar appeared determined to carry on as slowly as possible unless Alhaitham welcomed the coffee, hovering in a state of quiet expectancy. With a sharp, irritated click of his tongue, Alhaitham snatched the mug and lifted it to his lips impatiently.
Only then did the scholar’s shoulders loosen, tension draining from him in a small, uneven exhale that prickled uncomfortably at the edges of Alhaitham’s subconscious. But before he had time to register it as more than a passing oddity, the man launched into a barrage of questions - rapid, rehearsed inquiries about the Akademiya’s history and current inner governance structure.
Alhaitham sipped the coffee between succinct replies - sweetened just as he liked it, unremarkably ordinary. Yet something about each swallow felt just slightly off, stirring a faint dissonance just outside his periphery that was as persistent as it was difficult to identify. After answering a handful of generic questions, Alhaitham set the mug down and cleared a strange tickle from his throat.
“What did you say your thesis topic was again?” Alhaitham asked.
“Political stability and security,” the scholar replied without hesitation.
Alhaitham narrowed his eyes. Regrettably, he dealt with anxious, overeager researchers daily... but the precision in this one’s movement went beyond simple nerves; every shift of posture, every breath between questions, felt just a little too calculated. “This is all information you could obtain from a faculty member in the political sciences department,” he said coolly. “If there’s nothing you specifically require my input on, then -”
“Yes, I - right! Yes.” The scholar stumbled over the interruption. “I do have questions that are meant... just for you.”
“And those would be?” Alhaitham prompted dryly.
“Well, part of my - uh, research concerns the long-term sustainability of political secret-keeping. So I was wondering...” There was a peculiar steadiness to the scholar’s gaze now as he paused - not bold exactly, but overly intentional, like he was measuring the effect of each word before letting the next one fall. “... What sorts of weak points does the Akademiya’s security system have?”
Something strangely warm flickered beneath Alhaitham’s skin.
Frowning faintly, he opened his mouth to deliver a measured, neutral response - but his words lurched ahead of his thoughts, spilling out before he even knew he was speaking. He found himself halfway through an explanation of the archivists’ tendency toward disorganization at the end of the month when all the departmental budget reports were submitted before he snapped his mouth shut.
Alhaitham was well-known for his honesty. This, however, was something else entirely - too immediate, too detailed... and far too instinctive.
“Something wrong?” The scholar asked innocently.
“Yes,” Alhaitham responded unthinkingly. “I’m dizzy, you’re behaving oddly, and I’m annoyed that you’re still here.”
He was momentarily just as shocked by his abrupt dismissal as the scholar was, simply staring blankly at one another for a beat. Then the scholar blinked, gathered himself, and nodded. “Erm... right. Of course. Just a few more questions, then.”
But Alhaitham’s next answer came out just as bluntly.
And the one after that.
Instead of backing off, the scholar pressed on - each question coming faster now, delivered in that same measured cadence that probed a little deeper every time. And with each response Alhaitham struggled against the urge to articulate an uncharacteristic amount of detail for, his tongue loosened into something increasingly intrusive and insistent, words slipping free more quickly than he could intercept them.
When he nearly divulged the inner workings of Nahida’s powers - knowledge protected at the highest levels of the institution - he decided he’d had enough. “I’m done for today.”
Far too pointed, the scholar glanced at the mug then swallowed, now refusing to meet Alhaitham’s eyes. “Okay,” he said with a deceptively casual tone. “No problem. I can come back another day. Just one last question - what would you say is your greatest point of weakness?”
If it hadn’t already, it clicked then that something was profoundly wrong as the truth Alhaitham hadn’t fully admitted to himself flew off his tongue before he could even register the question.
“Kaveh.”
The realization assembled itself all at once, each invasive question snapping into place like pieces of a nefarious puzzle.
“Why’s that?” the scholar asked quickly, but Alhaitham was already on his feet.
The room tilted as he braced himself against the desk, fingers curling beneath the edge to press the concealed emergency matra call button. He inhaled sharply to scold the researcher, but ignoring a direct question no longer seemed to be a recourse his mouth would allow. Overwhelmed by dozens of abrupt, unbidden thoughts of the myriad of ways Kaveh could unravel him - all while trying to construct a plan to extract himself from an increasingly dangerous situation - he simply launched into the truth.
“He makes me feel things that are completely illogical. I’d give up everything I own just for him to hug me the way he used to when we were students. His laugh is the most magical sound I’ve ever heard. His hair makes him look like an angel when the morning light hits it in the kitchen, and I’m so in lo -”
With tremendous effort, Alhaitham forced his jaw shut with a harsh, painful click of his teeth. The pull toward candor receded slightly, seemingly momentarily sated by his confessions; and when he opened his mouth again, the correct words finally came out.
“You,” Alhaitham said quietly, voice edged with something dangerous, “have made an exceptionally foolish decision.”
Fear flickered across the scholar’s face, his hands trembling slightly in his lap... but the cunning confidence Alhaitham would’ve expected to see in his expression never surfaced - only anxiety, bare and ill-prepared. Whatever scheme the man had become entangled in, it was clear he had borrowed it rather than built it.
Still, Alhaitham understood that distinction did not make him harmless. It merely meant the true threat lay elsewhere - and Alhaitham had no intention of discovering how far that shadow reached.
Grateful that most people in the city remained unaware of the full extent of his abilities, Alhaitham exhaled a sharp, frustrated breath, closed his eyes, and flickered to the other side of his office door. He stumbled on what was usually a very precise landing, catching himself against his assistant’s desk as the room lurched.
“S-sir?” she stammered, startled into dropping her pen by his sudden appearance. “What -”
He had just lifted his hand to slam two fingers onto the matra call button on her desk as well when the main doors burst open. For once, Alhaitham was thankful for the urgency of his obnoxiously high-ranking position as three uniformed matra rushed into the room, spears raised.
“Detain the man in my office for attempted espionage,” Alhaitham ordered. “And keep the coffee on my desk, too. It’s evidence. I can’t stay here - it’s not safe for me to be in public right now. One of you will escort me home immediately in case the poison is delayed release.”
“Poison?!” Alhaitham’s assistant squeaked, hands flying up to her mouth. “Sir, you should go to the bimarstan -”
“No. Home is where I need to be right now.” Alhaitham nodded toward the matra then turned and strode out the doorway without another word, ignoring the scholar’s spluttering protests as the guards forced their way through the office door and seized him behind Alhaitham’s retreating form.
He moved quickly through the cobblestone streets, drawing on what little stability he had left, flanked by a matra who was thankfully managing to keep pace with him. The short walk only reinforced the reality of his state of mind, though, unable to muster any sort of platitudinous apologies as he dodged through the crowded pathway.
When a cluster of meandering senior researchers taking up far too much space blocked his way, Alhaitham shoved past them. He intended to say excuse me.
“You walk like morons,” was what came out instead. “Get out of my way.”
They scattered with scandalized gasps as Alhaitham grunted a vague, apologetic noise and continued on. His control - or what of it remained, anyway - was seemingly sufficient only to propel him forward, not to stop unwelcome honesty from leaking through. Worse yet, the matra, blissfully silent until that point, now began repeatedly shooting concerned glances in his direction.
“Spit it out if you have a question,” Alhaitham said shortly as they rounded a corner.
“Sorry, sir,” the matra replied, voice gruff but firm. “I just want to make sure you’re alright. You don’t look too good.”
Alhaitham meant to dismiss him with a curt, single-word reply.
Instead, his traitorous mouth responded, “I’m not. I feel like my chest is going to explode if I don’t get home to Kaveh within the next thirty seconds. I’m worried they may have been targeting him as well, and he’s too polite for his own good. Also I hope he’s not wearing those damn little shorts he’s been parading around the house in lately. I don’t want you seeing how sexy his legs look in them.”
The matra nearly tripped over his spear. Alhaitham lifted a hand sharply to silence the man’s attempt to stammer out an awkward - albeit polite - reassurance that he wouldn’t let his eyes wander regardless of Kaveh’s attire when they arrived, then hurried ahead to unlock the door.
By the time he shoved it open, the warmth in his bloodstream had quickened into a steady, disquieting thrum.
Kaveh looked up from the divan where he sat sketching one-handed, the other hovering over a half-eaten bowl of fruit Alhaitham had prepared for him that morning. “Hey, you’re home early, what’s -” Kaveh cut himself off mid-sentence as he locked eyes with Alhaitham, registering the thin sheen of sweat covering his body and the tightness in his posture.
“I am,” Alhaitham said mildly, ushering the matra inside and closing the door behind them with a heavy thump.
“What happened?” Alarm overtook Kaveh’s expression as he looked back and forth between the two of them, dropping his sketchpad and leaping to his feet. “Why is there a guard here? Did you get hurt?”
“Some idiot decided poisoning me to obtain state secrets would be an optimal use of a Tuesday morning,” Alhaitham replied with a deep sigh.
Kaveh’s hands hovered uselessly in the air for a few moments as he stared at Alhaitham. “I’m sorry, what?”
Leaning back against the wall, Alhaitham let out a weary exhale. “Truth serum,” he said tiredly, raking his fingers through his hair then dropping his hand down to rub his throat. “I can’t lie.”
Kaveh’s eyes widened. “Oh my gods. Are you - are you okay?” Hurrying forward, Kaveh - with his blessedly fully covered legs - guided Alhaitham onto the divan, hands steady despite the panic in his voice.
“I don’t know. I’m just glad you’re wearing pants,” was all Alhaitham managed to answer.
Kaveh shot a confused glance over toward the matra - who had abruptly developed a deep fascination with examining the ceiling as he shifted his weight from foot to foot - then back to Alhaitham with a baffled expression. But before he had the chance to ask another question, to which Alhaitham would almost certainly give a far-too-revealing answer, he gestured for the matra to sit and began recounting his morning to fill the air with a less damning type of honesty.
Kaveh’s eyes grew larger with every word - and when Alhaitham reached the moment he’d identified Kaveh as his own weakness, he once again found himself incapable of fabricating any other answer in its place. Instead, he redirected his words to a different sort of truth. “I... realized at that point there was something wrong, and that there must’ve been something in the coffee he gave me. Then I activated the emergency protocol and left.”
“Archons.” Kaveh made a dismayed noise, then leaned over to fumble in the end table for his akasha - now defunct and repurposed as a simple communication device. “Okay. I understand why you didn’t go to the bimarstan, it’s clearly not safe for you to be in public right now. But we need to make sure you’re not in danger from whatever was in the coffee.”
“I doubt I am,” Alhaitham replied. “The drug seems fairly weak and unsophisticated - it forces honesty, not obedience. If I do speak after being asked a question, it seems to be compelled into accuracy, but I can choose to stay silent if I try hard enough. I suspect it was a home-brew.”
“Still, I don’t want to risk it.” Kaveh tapped on the akasha until he reached Tighnari’s contact, then pressed the dial button and set it on the coffee table. The faint hum of the device filled the room as the holographic screen flared to life, casting soft green light across the pillows scattered on the divan and illuminating the concern on Kaveh’s face.
Tighnari answered almost immediately, already wearing an anxious expression to match the tight set in Kaveh’s jaw.
“Alhaitham was poisoned,” Kaveh said without preamble. “Some sort of truth serum, probably. Is Cyno -”
“I’m here,” Cyno cut in abruptly, appearing beside Tighnari with a deep frown. “I was just on my way out - I got word that someone was detained in your office, Alhaitham.”
Alhaitham nodded and recounted the evidence again, more carefully this time - first addressing Cyno, then explaining his symptoms to Tighnari once Cyno departed with clipped instructions for the matra perched stiffly on the far end of the divan to arrange backup for a temporary post outside the house.
“You should be fine,” Tighnari sighed eventually, rubbing at his temples. “If it’s a mild serum and the effects don’t get any worse than the dizziness and forced honesty, it’ll probably wear off on its own within a day or two. I’ll make sure to keep my akasha on - if anything else changes, don’t wait to call me, okay?”
With a muttered thanks, they disconnected the call and turned to the matra.
He tapped rapidly at his akasha for a moment, then rose to his feet and explained the guard rotation he was establishing around the property. Of course, Kaveh being Kaveh, he offered snacks and drinks as the man headed for the door, bustling through the house despite the tension riding his shoulders.
Alhaitham was grateful when the matra declined; vulnerable as he was at the moment, he didn’t want to be around anyone other than Kaveh. It was deeply unsettling to feel so out of control of his own words - the very thing he typically wielded with notoriously precise mastery.
Silence settled over their home once the door closed. Kaveh lingered there for a moment, offering one last assurance for the matra to knock if he needed anything before finally turning back toward Alhaitham.
“... So.” He studied Alhaitham with a careful, appraising look. “How do you really feel?”
What a terrifyingly open-ended question. If he responded honestly, the clearest answer was: scared shitless I’m going to tell you I’m in love with you.
“I don’t feel well,” Alhaitham managed to say instead.
Kaveh was at his side again in an instant. Brushing aside the hair from Alhaitham’s face with agonizingly gentle fingers, Kaveh pressed the back of his knuckles to his forehead, checking his body temperature in a way that only made it rise faster.
“You don’t feel feverish,” Kaveh murmured, brow furrowing thoughtfully. “But if you’re getting worse, we should call Tighnari back.”
Leaning subtly into the touch, Alhaitham focused on the sensation of Kaveh’s skin against his and let out a shaky breath. It took far too much effort for him to select his words, to avoid admitting that his discomfort had less to do with the poison than it did with the fear he’d reveal too much as his restraint was siphoned away.
“No need,” Alhaitham said honestly. “It’s not severe, just... uncomfortable.”
Kaveh still looked unconvinced, but sighed slowly in concession. “Promise you’ll be honest if it gets worse?”
“... I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
A soft puff of laughter escaped Kaveh, the tense strain of his fingers relaxing slightly as he pulled his hand back. “Right.”
The immediate absence of his warmth was devastating. Alhaitham very nearly requested Kaveh’s hand back - but he managed to swallow it down, acutely aware of how precarious his situation had become. Clearing his throat - which unfortunately did very little to settle the volatile truths building within it - he tried to find an easier way around the confessions by removing their subject instead.
“You don’t need to sit here with me,” he said carefully. “I’m overwhelmed, anyway. You should go... do something else.”
“Oh,” Kaveh murmured understandingly, then stood and made his way to the kitchen doorway. “Okay. If you need a minute to yourself, that’s fine. I’ll just go do the dishes - but will you please stay out here instead of going into your room? I want to be able to keep an eye on you.”
Fighting the urge to tell Kaveh that he didn’t actually want a single millimeter of space, another less guarded truth somehow slipped out before he could stop it. “Fine,” Alhaitham said instinctively. “Go ahead. I’ll come rewash the dishes later.”
Kaveh paused mid-step and looked back with a puzzled expression. “Huh?”
Dammit.
Exhaling a frustrated huff, Alhaitham leaned forward with his elbows braced on his knees. The admission itself wasn’t catastrophic, but that almost made it worse - even inconsequential truths were escaping without his consent, eroding the firm partitions he’d spent so many years constructing.
“You... have a bit of a skill issue,” he admitted. “Your wrists are too dainty. It makes you terrible at scrubbing the dishes, so I usually redo about half of them after you’re done.”
Kaveh’s cheeks flushed a dangerously pretty shade of vivid, indignant pink. “Dainty? I - wow.” He crossed his arms and stomped lightly, performing the exact adorable little rabbit-kick Alhaitham normally trusted himself not to comment on. “I can handle cleaning a pan without disintegrating, Haitham. I’ll just go wash them extra hard -”
“Don’t,” Alhaitham hissed between his teeth, shaking his head and forcing down the affection climbing its way up his throat. “This is why I didn’t tell you - I knew you’d just get offended and hurt yourself trying to prove a point.”
“Why does that matter?” Kaveh shot back with a petulant, irritated huff. “I’m sure it bothers you to have to redo them.”
Alhaitham pressed his palms against his eyes as the serum tugged insistently at his tongue - but the words burned too hot behind his teeth, demanding release. “Because your happiness and wellbeing are more important to me,” he said, jaw clenched tightly around each word, then immediately cursed under his breath.
After a few moments of stunned silence during which he received no response, Alhaitham lowered his hands to find Kaveh staring directly at him, expression frozen somewhere between shock and something far more vulnerable. Usually so quick-witted, Kaveh seemed to be experiencing a rare moment of speechlessness - but then something shifted as he blinked and looked away, fixing his gaze on the ground beside Alhaitham’s leg.
“You don’t - I didn’t think you - um...” Kaveh faltered, tone unreadable. “That’s really how you feel?”
“Obviously,” Alhaitham replied dully. Pushing past the compulsion to elaborate, he retreated backward into the corner of the divan and let his face fall into his hands to avoid having to look at Kaveh; that soft, almost shy expression beginning to overtake his features was too dangerous for Alhaitham’s already weakened restraint.
“Okay,” Kaveh murmured after a moment. “I, um... thanks, I guess. That’s actually weirdly sweet.”
Alhaitham only responded with a hilichurlian grunt.
“Well... I’ll just go do those dishes with my unskilled, dainty wrists then,” Kaveh said quietly as he turned away, voice now stripped of its earlier edge. “Let me know if you want me to grab you anything, okay?”
Alhaitham fully intended to let Kaveh leave - archons only knew he needed to give himself time to gather his thoughts. But the tenderness in Kaveh’s voice lodged itself right under his ribs, rendering him suddenly unable to fit a simple acknowledgement past his lips.
“I don’t want you to get me anything, I just want you to come back.”
“What?” Hands held before him in a vague, grasping gesture, Kaveh spun around again with an even more confused expression now. “Didn’t you just say you needed space?”
“I - I just...” Alhaitham trailed off, trying to wrangle his reserve of self-discipline that had seemingly finally grown tired of obedience, turning traitor in the most intimate, threatening ways. It felt as though the affection he’d kept locked away for so long was seizing control of his mouth, prying itself loose piece by piece.
Concern softened Kaveh’s expression, clearly interpreting Alhaitham’s hesitance as growing discomfort from the physical effects of the poison. “Haitham,” he said gently. “Do you need something?”
Definitionally, the answer was no. But in Alhaitham’s heart, the word 'need' carried a far deeper meaning. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully.
Well aware of Alhaitham’s penchant for semantics, Kaveh rolled his eyes fondly and stepped closer. “Okay, do you want something?”
“I want you to sit with me and play with my hair.” The answer leapt out before Alhaitham could redirect it, carried along by the raging current of longing to feel Kaveh’s hand on him again that overrode logic entirely.
He wished he could claim it was a joke. A hallucination. Anything. Unfortunately, the serum didn’t allow Alhaitham the mercy of his usual convenient fictions.
For an excruciatingly long stretch, he was met with nothing but a shockingly fervid stare within embers of crimson flaring behind Kaveh’s eyes. Then, finally, Kaveh’s lips curved into a small, tentative smile as he crossed the room and lowered himself onto the divan beside him.
Currently unable to withstand eye contact from so near, Alhaitham let his lashes flutter shut. Somehow, that only sharpened everything else; in the hush of the living room, sound swelled even through his headphones - the quiet shift of the pillows as Kaveh adjusted himself, the soft rustle of his shirtsleeve as he lifted his arm, the faint creak of the divan as he leaned forward. As the seconds ticked by, Alhaitham didn’t move - scarcely dared to even breathe - hardly able to believe Kaveh wasn’t repulsed by his request in the first place.
Alhaitham barely managed to hold back a satisfied sigh as Kaveh’s fingers slowly slid into his hair - tentative at first, drifting lightly through the top layer as if afraid to overstep, testing boundaries that had never before been spoken aloud. The attentiveness tugged painfully at something deep in Alhaitham’s chest.
When he reclined against the back of the cushions to offer a better angle, Kaveh followed with growing confidence. Yet even as Alhaitham screamed at himself internally that Kaveh was simply helping him because he was too kind to decline, each movement was agonizingly gentle for his tortured heart as Alhaitham leaned helplessly into a touch he’d never once allowed himself the courage to ask for.
Alhaitham had never much enjoyed physical contact. Even an accidental brush against a passing stranger in the Akademiya corridors usually sent a visceral recoil through him, skin prickling with disgust and overstimulation. Strangely, though... he had never wanted that distance when Kaveh touched him. He only ever wanted more.
“You’ve never given any hint you’d like something like this before,” Kaveh said quietly, voice softened by a subtle, fragile openness that somehow destabilized Alhaitham even more than the heavenly glide of his fingers. “I can do it more often if you want me to. Does it feel nice?”
Alhaitham’s pulse stumbled, acutely conscious of the heat radiating from Kaveh’s body so close to his own. “Yeah,” Alhaitham responded, funnelling an unreasonable amount of willpower into stopping the sentence there.
They sat together in silence for several blessed minutes as Kaveh experimented with pressure, stroking patiently through his hair. Eventually, Alhaitham tugged his headphones off just to feel more of those soothing hands - only to immediately regret it when Kaveh’s fingers dipped behind his ear and began massaging lightly.
The unnerving intimacy of the direct contact with his skin made the ache in Alhaitham’s chest intensify. The gentle caresses and easy closeness mirrored the shameful fantasies he kept sealed away in the privacy of his own mind... but worse still, his body was now reacting just as it always did in those imagined moments.
As Kaveh applied pressure beneath the curve of his ear, Alhaitham inhaled sharply, heat pooling low in his abdomen in a tight, constricting coil.
“Sorry,” Kaveh said at once, stilling his hands. “Did that hurt?”
“No,” Alhaitham answered quickly. “It feels amazing, but I’m going to get har-” He clapped a hand over his own mouth just in time to muffle the last word before it could fully escape.
Kaveh went pale, sending dread creeping into Alhaitham’s stomach as they stared at one another. “So you - what, you don’t like how I’m doing it?” Kaveh asked worriedly - thankfully seeming to have misinterpreted his final word as hurt rather than hard. “Should I stop?”
“No,” Alhaitham mumbled into his own palm.
Entirely unaware of how deeply, helplessly infatuated Alhaitham was, Kaveh only looked more confused. “Then why did you -?”
Parting his fingers just enough to speak carefully between them, Alhaitham simply reiterated: “I’m overwhelmed.”
For a few moments, Kaveh studied him closely, eyes tracking the barely perceptible flush Alhaitham could feel creeping up his neck to meet Kaveh’s fingers where they sat suspended on the impossibly sensitive skin behind his ear. Frustrated by his inability to keep his feelings for Kaveh from overcoming his meticulously curated willpower, Alhaitham sat up straight, schooling his expression and forcing himself not to visibly react with the despair he felt when Kaveh’s hand dropped away.
With a strangely heavy sigh, Kaveh scooted forward on the divan and reached for the water jug on the coffee table. “Tighnari said you need to keep hydrated to flush the serum out of your system,” he muttered as he poured a glass. “Maybe it’s just not moving through you fast enough. Here...”
Alhaitham took a small sip from the proffered cup then set it back down. As Kaveh leaned forward to replace the water jug on the table, the deep V in the back of his shirt - which always revealed that inexplicably sensual curve of a perfectly shaped spine - fell open a little more, taunting Alhaitham with smooth, sun-kissed skin that he was not permitted to touch. It was a sight he’d long-since memorized in secret, traced endlessly with his eyes and never, ever with his hands.
“You have a very distracting back.”
It wasn’t until Kaveh turned with an incredulous look on his face that Alhaitham even realized he’d said it aloud. It seemed all the mental acuity being rerouted to continue with the half-truths and carefully structured sentences was starting to take its toll - confessions were now beginning to slip out at their leisure if he let down his defenses for even a moment.
“What... what does that even mean?” Kaveh asked softly, glancing down behind his own shoulder as though expecting to see something out of place on his back.
Fighting the compulsion to explain exactly what it meant - how he’d stolen countless glances of that elegant line when Kaveh was bent over his drafting table, the dreams where he kissed his way down the open seams of Kaveh’s shirt and left marks with his teeth just so anyone else looking would know that Alhaitham had been graced with the gift of his skin even once - Alhaitham tried to say 'nothing' several times before giving up, choked by the word each time it nearly made its way to his lips. Instead, his reflex to lie served only to shove him deeper toward honesty.
“I want to touch you every time you turn around.”
In the rigid silence that swallowed the room, Alhaitham clamped his mouth shut once again, muscles aching with the effort of keeping his honesty contained.
Kaveh squinted at him. “Why? Because my shirt is 'impractical' or something?” He mimicked Alhaitham’s voice and made air quotes with his fingers.
Alhaitham tried to think of a way to respond neutrally, hands twitching against the cushions as the serum swirled higher in his throat. But Kaveh’s dismissal - the skeptical assumption that Alhaitham’s emotions were borne from irritation rather than desire - needled his consciousness. Did Kaveh truly not realize how devastating he was? Did he think it was simply too preposterous that the alluring curves of his body could be so deeply etched into Alhaitham’s mind?
As his instability and emotional overload deepened, the effort required not to blurt out something damning grew more taxing by the second. “No,” Alhaitham said tightly. “It’s... you’re just distracting.” He could feel the heat creeping upward along his skin, now reaching the tips of his ears. Gritting his teeth as if it might physically trap the truth inside his mouth, Alhaitham shook his head. “Just - gods. I don’t - I can’t -”
“Is becoming inarticulate a potential side effect?” Kaveh asked cautiously. “You never stutter like this. Maybe we really should call Tighnari.”
“No,” Alhaitham muttered. “It’s because I keep trying not to tell you how much I -” He cut himself off with a strangled grunt and pressed a balled up fist to his mouth.
Much to Alhaitham’s alarm, Kaveh’s expression crumpled. Alhaitham watched the sweet waters of the fragile trust he’d slowly been graced with again over years of shared space and quiet understanding begin to recede before his very eyes, like a tide retreating from the shore.
“Oh,” Kaveh said, voice suddenly heartbreakingly small. “I didn’t realize you were trying not to insult me.” His lips tilted upward in a feeble attempt at a smile. “But whatever it is, if it’s this hard to keep in, I’m not going to stop thinking about it. I’d rather you just tell me.”
It was a devastatingly vulnerable plea, especially from someone as stubborn as Kaveh. Alhaitham exhaled a sharp, panicked breath and reached for him without thinking - then stopped himself with a sudden jerk of his hand, fingers curling uselessly into his palm. His body felt hijacked, every one of his faculties now trying to revolt against him, straining to pull Kaveh into his arms with a three-word confession he’d successfully buried for more than half his life.
“That’s - that’s not it,” Alhaitham choked out hoarsely, lifting a hand to his temple instead and pressing firmly in an attempt to quiet the progressively deafening volume of his thoughts. He shut his eyes, unable to bear the sight of Kaveh’s face twisted with that pained expression.
Quiet settled with a heavy weight between them, stretching too long and pressing in from all sides. Eventually, Kaveh deflated with a sigh so resigned Alhaitham braced himself for a retreat - though he knew he needed the distance regardless to focus on crafting a believable excuse for his behaviour. But instead...
“Please just tell me what I did wrong,” Kaveh whispered. “Is it really that bad?”
Oh. Oh. Alhaitham simply wasn’t strong enough for this - not after growing used to Kaveh’s trust again, to being bathed in the domestic comfort they’d fallen into in the house that had slowly become a shared home. Ignoring the fact that his heart was now lurching toward Kaveh with every beat, Alhaitham fisted his hands in the blanket in an attempt to cling to his sanity.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Alhaitham said earnestly.
Kaveh let out a hollow little laugh. “Then what are you keeping from me?”
The urge to tell him the truth was so instinctive this time that it physically pained Alhaitham to swallow the words down. With a strangled gulp, forced to lean forward in order to successfully retract the confession his throat was trying to expel, Alhaitham shook his head. “I don’t want to tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because once you know, I won’t be able to take it back,” Alhaitham said sharply, his frustration with himself now bleeding into his tone as yet another thread of truth spun out past his lips beyond his control. “But nothing you do is ever wrong. It’s extremely annoying, actually. Even when you keep me awake all night hammering at your models, I can’t bring myself to care enough to stop you because I just like hearing you in the house.”
Kaveh looked startled, leaning back slightly with his hands braced against the cushions as if he needed support. He stared at Alhaitham with open disbelief, searching his face for telltale signs of irony or hyperbole - and finding only broken honesty. “You... you do?”
Say no, Alhaitham begged himself internally.
“Yes. I hope you never move out.”
Damn his stupid tongue.
Kaveh looked even more bewildered as he tried to process the sentence. Alhaitham’s fingers tightened in the fabric as he struggled against each word now clawing desperately up toward his mouth, exhaling a sharp breath as he was struck straight through the heart by a paralyzing bolt of fear of what his admissions could truly wreak.
The possibility of losing Kaveh a second time suddenly rose to the forefront of his mind in an overwhelming flood - the frigid silence of mornings spent alone, the absence of familiar footsteps pattering through the house, Kaveh’s empty chair at their dining room table, nights settling into unnerving quiet without the reassuring clamor of his presence down the hall, mornings stripped of his beautiful form caught in gentle, golden light, their shared space emptied of the thoughtless keepsakes Kaveh had scattered through it simply by living there, threaded through every room like a pulse. The terror flared so sharply it felt like a punch to the gut as he met Kaveh’s wide, questioning gaze.
“You don’t want me to move out?” Kaveh breathed softly, a hint of wonder now creeping into his voice. “Even once I can afford to?”
Something tentative shone in Kaveh’s eyes - a reflection of that fragile tide of trust beginning to test its way back in. Helpless, Alhaitham found himself instinctively trying to coax it forth, luring it closer with his own gravity as though he were the moon desperately tugging at the cosmos, begging to be noticed by the warmth of the sun.
“I don’t,” Alhaitham confirmed quietly.
If letting some truths through made it easier to keep others hidden, he supposed this one could be justified as harmless. Platonic, even. After all, he could argue that it was the comfort of a routine, the reasonable fondness of a man grateful for his best friend’s presence after years of loss and distance. It was normal to enjoy sharing space with someone you trusted, wasn’t it?
Unfortunately, his mouth was no longer cooperating with reason as he unwittingly added, “I’d miss you, Kaveh.”
Kaveh’s mouth parted slightly, his expression softening into something achingly, preciously sincere. And, as a smile slowly returned to the plush, pink lips Alhaitham longed to kiss so adamantly, blinding relief washed over him so strongly it nearly unseated him from the divan.
“I don’t want to leave either,” Kaveh whispered. He hesitated for a moment, toes tapping lightly against the floor as he bit his lip without seeming to notice - which Alhaitham had half a mind to scold him for, practicing unconscious seduction while Alhaitham was fighting for his life - then let out a quiet breath. “I’d miss you too, Haitham.”
For a long stretch, they simply gazed at each other, silence subtly whirring with something charged and unspoken. Words began forming behind Alhaitham’s lips once again, pressing insistently against his ribcage in an attempt to fight their way out of his heart and leap right into Kaveh’s ears - and he knew with a sudden certainty that if he didn’t look away now, he would lose control entirely.
There were consequences for staring at the radiance of the sun for too long.
Struggling with the sensation that he was holding a live bomb in his mouth and desperately searching for a safe way to dispose of it, Alhaitham sat forward abruptly and cleared his throat, flexing his thighs as he prepared to stand. “I think I should go take a nap,” he said hoarsely.
“Take it here,” Kaveh insisted, tugging him back onto the divan. “I don’t want you to be alone right now. Please just - let me stay with you, okay?” He paused, then added gently, “And if you’re worried about saying something insulting, it’s fine. I’ll do my best to let it go, I promise.”
It was, unfortunately, the most dangerous reassurance he could have offered.
“Just tell me what you want me to do so you can be comfortable,” Kaveh murmured when Alhaitham failed to respond beyond a strained groan, then began unfurling a blanket and draping it over him with painstakingly gentle hands. “Do you want me to wear your headphones? That way I won’t hear anything you don’t want me to.”
A vision of Kaveh wearing his headphones with the noise cancelling turned all the way up, skin bare and held entirely in Alhaitham’s grasp - perhaps with some dendro ropes restraining his limbs as he writhed on the cushions, begging for Alhaitham with no concept of how loud he was being - pushed against the confines of Alhaitham’s skull with such brutal clarity that his breath stuttered. For a dizzying second, Alhaitham worried that the serum might somehow force the image into the open too, projecting it directly from his mind like an akasha hologram given the sheer force of it.
But Kaveh only watched him patiently, innocent and sweet, waiting for instruction on how best to make him comfortable. The contrast made him feel all the more guilty for his impure thoughts.
Alhaitham searched desperately for a way around the damning admissions volunteering themselves as answers to 'things he wanted Kaveh to do' - hoping for a passable half-truth. When none came, Kaveh sighed in the wake of his prolonged silence and shifted away.
“Okay. Just try to sleep,” Kaveh murmured. “But I’m your... I’m your friend, Haitham. You don’t have to be scared of me.”
The word friend sliced the air like a blade.
“Don’t call yourself that,” Alhaitham snapped before he could even process the sudden spark of irritation.
Kaveh recoiled slightly at the sharpness in his tone. “I... what?” His hand slipped from the edge of the blanket, fingers going slack with surprise.
The hurt flickering across his face was unmistakable. Alhaitham groaned with a tangle of anger and panic at the razor’s edge his tone kept adopting - too quick to snap as the overwhelming effects of the serum pressed against every side of his consciousness, unable to keep his composure without admitting that if it were up to him, he’d be Kaveh’s husband, not his friend.
Fighting against the impulse to correct Kaveh, to say you’re so much more than that, you beautiful moron; I’m so in love with you it breaks my heart to know you’ll never call me more than just your friend - Alhaitham wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders, turning his face toward the cushions and pressing his forehead into the soft fabric in hopes it might muffle his thoughts.
It didn’t.
“Just - don’t,” he mumbled. “I don’t like hearing you say it.”
“Alright,” Kaveh said slowly, fidgeting with his fingers in his lap, tone deliberately even despite the harsh strain layered beneath it. “What should I call you then? Roommate? ... Acquaintance?”
The question landed like a stone dropped directly into Alhaitham’s chest. His entire body locked up, fists tightening in the blanket. He was getting emotional whiplash from how quickly things were swinging between too tense and too intimate, careening violently from gentle warmth to taut silence with no warning at all, leaving him scrambling to brace for impact every time it shifted.
“I just - fuck. Can we be done with this conversation for now?” Alhaitham said tightly.
Kaveh relented, though something somber lingered in his eyes despite his valiant attempt to hide it. “Fine. Can you just tell me if sitting with you is the part that’s making you uncomfortable, Haitham? I told you I just want to help. I thought we...” He trailed off, exhaling a soft, defeated sigh as he shook his head. “I thought we were closer than this again, but maybe -”
“We are!”
Unusually shrill, the sharpness of his own voice startled Alhaitham’s uncovered ears as much as it did Kaveh. Unfortunately, the sound also seemed to be just jarring enough to tip Alhaitham over the edge, triggering a full system collapse.
Alhaitham shoved the blanket from his lap - suddenly furious at the fabric for daring to touch so much of his skin at once, furious at the room for being so colourful, furious at the quiet sounds of the house now amplified tenfold, furious at Kaveh for being so easy to love in a way that made it impossible to even think, and above all, furious at himself for being so weak. The serum churned all sensory input into a volatile, magnified heap, filling his mind with a choking haze that blurred the edges of his thoughts and left him grasping for reason that was now impossible to access.
Though he looked shaken by the sudden outburst, Kaveh - kind to a fault - still tried to calm him. “Okay. All you need to do is tell me what you need,” he said carefully, palms raised apprehensively. “Am I just - I don’t know, sitting too close or something? I’m sorry you’re so tense, I hate that I’m making you -”
“It’s more the fact that you exist at all that’s making me tense,” Alhaitham blurted before he could stop himself, torn from him by raw impulse.
Kaveh looked as though he’d been struck across the face.
“It’s not a fucking insult,” Alhaitham raced to clarify, the edge of his voice cracking into something dangerously close to a whine. “I - archons, I wish this serum would wear off faster.” Dragging a hand harshly though his hair, he propped one leg up on the divan and began bouncing the other restlessly against the cushion, overwhelmed by the amount of pure energy now pulsing along his skin.
“I’m not sure how being bothered by someone’s existence could possibly be taken as anything other than an insult,” Kaveh muttered.
“Well it’s not.”
Kaveh scoffed. “How?”
Because I love you.
“Because I don’t know how to be around you without wanting to -” Alhaitham stopped himself, breath hitching as though he’d narrowly avoided stepping off a cliff. “Look, Kaveh - if I don’t stop talking, I’m going to say something I can’t take back.”
“I want to know what that something is,” Kaveh said stubbornly.
“Please, I just...” Alhaitham swallowed harshly, voice hoarse from the strain of such a wide range of emotions he had no practice carrying aloud, head pounding from overuse. “I don’t want you to hate me. It’s nothing you’ve done wrong, so just drop it.”
Kaveh frowned, but after searching Alhaitham’s face for a moment, he nodded sullenly and scooted back. “Whatever it is, it wouldn’t make me hate you... but okay,” he murmured.
“I promise it’s not what you think,” Alhaitham added weakly. It’s worse.
“Okay,” Kaveh said again, clearly unconvinced.
“It’s just that your presence makes everything harder.” Including me.
Kaveh flinched. “... Okay.”
Face twisting into a pained grimace, Alhaitham shook his head. “I - ngh... not like that. That came out wrong too.”
Staring at Kaveh’s pretty face, Alhaitham tried to force his increasingly overwhelmed mind to conjure something that would reassure Kaveh that his thoughts weren’t negative - without revealing how astronomically far in the other direction they actually tilted. Drawing in a steadying breath, he meant to say that he was just going to lie down and that they could talk about it once he woke up - after which he would hopefully have regained more of his restraint.
But it was nowhere close to what actually came out.
His thoughts, tangled and overcrowded, clamored to outpace one another; and as he hesitated - caught between what he wanted to say and what he absolutely could not - the serum simply chose for him, hauling up a random truth and shoving it past his lips before he could lock it back down.
“I’ve always found you the most beautiful when you’re trying to work something out in your head like this. I love sitting in here with you while you work on your designs - you get so engrossed that I can just stare for hours without you noticing.”
Kaveh’s mouth opened then closed again, expression recalibrating as though his features were being forcibly rearranged beyond his control - flickering between concern, frustration, hurt, and simple confusion - as he blinked rapidly at Alhaitham.
“What?” Kaveh’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Did... did you just call me beautifu-”
The pressure inside Alhaitham’s chest spiked sharply, heat flooding his face as the realization of what he’d said fully caught up with him - panic layering itself over longing until it felt like his ribs might crack under the weight of it. He lurched to his feet abruptly and turned his back to Kaveh.
“Dammit. You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” he hissed into his hands, forcing himself not to glance back at Kaveh, unable to stomach whatever expression he might now be wearing - though he was sure Kaveh’s confusion would soon be giving way to either revulsion, disgust, or pity.
“What does that mean?” Kaveh asked, his voice unusually flat.
“It means you shouldn’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to,” Alhaitham snapped. Each sentence scraped closer to the truth, pressure building behind his lips until it felt less like speech and more like something living within his chest trying to force its way out.
He heard Kaveh rise to his feet behind him. “If I didn’t want the answer, I wouldn’t ask.”
“You just - you don’t. You don’t,” Alhaitham said, shaking his head. The serum curled through his veins like something invasive, vines suffocating a tree - creeping and irreversible, tightening with every breath. “You don’t even understand why, though, and I -”
“Then help me understand,” Kaveh pleaded, frustration cracking through the careful control in his tone.
Alhaitham squeezed his eyes shut as Kaveh’s hand slid around his bicep in an attempt to turn him back around. He rooted himself to the spot, muscles trembling as the swarm of love confessions screaming through his head surged impossibly louder, each one fighting to make its way out before the rest.
“I don’t want to,” Alhaitham practically growled, hands twitching against his face to physically fend the thoughts away.
An annoyed scoff sounded much too close to his ear as warm breath began caressing his shoulder. “I don’t know what you could possibly be hiding from me that’s so awful you’d rather make yourself sick than just say it, Haitham.”
“Archons, will you - I just... gods, Kaveh, stop breathing like that!” Alhaitham demanded, his heart now pounding hard enough to make his voice shake. Unable to keep his body from spinning off track, his mind supplied vivid, deeply unhelpful speculation of how it would feel for Kaveh’s breath to fill his own lungs instead. “I can never fucking focus when you’re this close.”
“Stop breathing?” Kaveh pressed, hurt sharpening his voice as he once again mistook Alhaitham’s affection for cruelty. “Why do you even want me to live here if you’re that profoundly bothered by the faintest sign of life?”
“I didn’t say that,” Alhaitham shot back too quickly, jaw aching from how fervently he was trying to hold himself together, words tripping over one another in their rush to escape. “I - fuck. That’s not what this is, okay?”
“Then what is it?” Kaveh asked, tugging a little harder on his arm and finally forcing him to turn.
Breathing shallowly, Alhaitham shook his head - too full, thoughts colliding and stacking until there was no longer any space between them, every single one now swimming dangerously close to the surface.
“I just -” Alhaitham began, though the plea broke apart even as it left him. “Just stop pushing me, I can’t...”
“Fine,” Kaveh cut in with a defensive, stubborn pout on his pretty lips, though it was undercut by something restrained and deliberate. “I’m sorry. You’re clearly too overwhelmed to even be around me right now. I’ll go sit in the other room for a bit, alright?”
“Wait, no - I don’t want you to leave,” Alhaitham said instinctively, throwing both hands in the air and glaring at Kaveh with a strange mixture of annoyance and helplessness - most of it aimed squarely at himself.
“Would you make up your damn mind?” Kaveh huffed, voice strained and kept carefully quiet for the sake of Alhaitham’s sensitive ears - which only made the knot in his chest tighten further. “I’m not trying to corner you, Haitham. Do you want me in here or not?”
Tension spiking, Alhaitham opened his mouth, unsure what was even going to come out. But as soon as the first few words surged up, unmistakably veering toward I always want you, he swallowed them back down with brute force. This time, however, the resistance physically caught in his throat.
He choked.
Kaveh’s irritation vanished instantly. “Haitham?” His hands flashed to either side of Alhaitham’s face, eyes sharp with concern. “What was that? Are you okay?”
Okay? No, Alhaitham was not okay - he felt like he was mere seconds from blowing up his whole life. Unable to answer, he simply shook his head.
“It must be the serum,” Kaveh said quickly, lips pressing into a determined frown - already pivoting into problem-solving the way he always did when someone else was in distress, even though he was still clearly upset. “That’s it - I’m calling Tighnari back.”
Alhaitham felt like he was vibrating out of his skin. He shook his head again more forcefully than he meant to, accidentally dislodging Kaveh’s hands as something urgent and cloying strained violently against the confines of his body.
“I don’t need Tighnari,” he ground out. “I’m not sick.”
“No, this isn’t normal,” Kaveh insisted. “We’re going to the bimarstan if you won’t let me call him - or at the very least, I’m getting that guard to request a medic.” Without hesitation, his hands rose right back up - one landing firmly on Alhaitham’s shoulder to hold him in place, the other reaching up to his forehead again to check for fever.
Alhaitham began to protest, trying to tell Kaveh he didn’t need medical attention - but Kaveh blew out a resolute exhale and turned toward the door, fingers lacing with Alhaitham’s in an attempt to tug him toward the foyer. It was that devastatingly gentle touch, combined with Kaveh’s sudden rebounding crash into his chest like a rubber band while Alhaitham remained frozen in place like a statue, that sent everything within him tearing past the point of containment in a single, explosive surge.
“Hey,” Kaveh said with a slight wheeze as he gazed up at Alhaitham from uncomfortably close. “Quit being stubborn, we need to check that the serum isn’t making you -”
Alhaitham tried to draw in a breath. He tried to swallow down the words again, to clamp his jaw shut - but his chest heaved, muscles spasming as a loud, broken groan of frustration ripped free instead. His resistance collapsed all at once, sending the truth detonating upward from somewhere deep and unguarded, striking him in the gut like a sucker punch he had no hope of bracing for.
“IT’S BECAUSE I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU, YOU IDIOT!”