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“ I am eternally, devastatingly, romantic, and I thought people would see it because ‘romantic’ doesn’t mean ‘sugary.’ It’s dark and tormented — the furor of passion, the despair of an idealism that you can’t attain.”
- Catherine Breillat
—————————
He tries his hardest to be quieter, softer, muted and blurry around the edges.
Of course, anyone who hears those words would never make the immediate connection to Kaveh. Kaveh is in no way any of those words.
He’s bright, artistic, loud, brash, every colourful word in the whole of Teyvat. He’s a friend when you need, a comfort, a bit of life to splash across the dull greys.
You see him draping himself across the waxed wooden counters in bars, an empty glass of wine hanging gingerly from his reddened finger tips, cockily asking the bartender for another glassful.
You see him traipsing down the Akademiya halls, arms full of drawings and blueprints, inky sharp lines made with a quill and splashes of watercolour to indicate his vision. There’s a bright smile plastered across his face as he waves at previous friends.
You see him pushing through the busy marketplaces, Mora clinking distinctively in his embroidered money pouch (whether that mora be his or Al-Haitham’s, that’s something only for him to know), staring wide eyed at new stalls and cheerfully chatting up with vendors as he buys ingredients for dinner.
Thing is, if you knew Kaveh, or at least had seen him in his past endeavours, you’d know all these characteristics to be his.
These characteristics even earning him the admiration and love of his friends, his colleagues.
Even those who would want much more.
He’s been in countless relationships, women, men, anybody in between. He can’t say for sure how many serious ones he’s been in, with the sporadic spread of hook-ups, talking stages and one-night stands, he really can’t tell you an exact number.
Thing with Kaveh is, he loves living vicariously, on the edge, doing the things he loves. He creates grand designs of tall towers and exquisite palaces that he knows will never even leave the drawers of his bedroom, he constantly makes new friends in the bar, drinking buddies who swig wine with him casually on Wednesday evenings. He puts on bold statement outfits and slathers on makeup and promptly leaves and comes however he pleases.
He is a vitally irrevocable force that draws people in, like a planet drawing in a loose moon, like a fishing hook riddled with bait waiting for the next fish to come, like a syrupy pool of honey strewn across, beckoning the ants closer and closer.
With that and his looks combined (it was no lie that he was conventionally attractive. Satiny sun-kissed hair and a willowy figure, slender fingers and a graceful yet coy smile. Of course it were true), he garnered the attraction of many across Sumeru.
But was that attraction true and raw like love was meant to be? Or was it shallow, selfish, and toxic?
Did they truly know him and love him for all of it? Or did they simply want to relish in the fact that they were dating Kaveh, The Light of Kshahrewar?
Did they know his body at all? His mind at all? His heart?
Kaveh, running into relationships, loving too easily and letting himself open with no regard for his feelings, has dealt with too much cruelty.
People who ridicule him, restrict him, intoxicate him, manipulate him. Has he ever found anyone in this godforsaken city that loves him for his true self?
Over time, he’s learnt a few lessons. Seen the patterns and learnt how to adapt. The love he’s experienced, it hurts, but that’s how it is, isn’t it? Thats just the difficulty of it all.
So that leads him to now. With Al-Haitham.
His roommate, a blunt man with no awareness for social cues nor sarcasm. A man who just so happens to be the Acting Grand Sage of Sumeru, yet carries noise cancelling headphones everywhere he goes. A man who is always head first in old, yellowed books, whether eating, relaxing, hell, even in the middle of tedious board games he’ll suddenly pull out some book about the ever expansion knowledge hidden in runes and temples.
He was a strange man to some, admirable to others. To Kaveh, he was his rock, his foundation, his world.
Because yes, they argue on a daily basis, they bicker over mora, living arrangements, furniture, food, books, practically anything if it’s ever existed on Teyvat they’ll argue about.
And yes, they seem more like rivals who’s guts loathe the sight of one another.
But behind closed doors, behind emerald curtains that obscure the world from their chambers of rooms, they are something else. Something more loving, affectionate.
Yes they still argue, they still clash and mingle distastefully, but they are loving, they are kind and soft with one another, vulnerable even.
They are lovers, starstruck by night and intoxicated with sun rays by day. Their pinkies always interlaced.
Al-Haitham is his, and he is Al-haitham’s
Their relationship has lasted for maybe a month now, the night of confession and tears now long gone in the cabinets of memories, archived away for special keeping. Now they just live together, love together.
But that’s the thing. This is another serious relationship.
Meaning, the possibility for it all to happen again.
And he knows, that there is the possibly that Al-Haitham may be like the rest. May only love him for his aesthetics and body, for just his outer shell and for nothing inside.
And it seems wrong, to keep something so incredibly hurtful and crushing for his soul, for his heart.
But, he needs this.
He needs Al-Haitham to stay, as selfish and bratty as it sounds, he would rather live life with love as a lie than live all alone in darkness and heartache.
So he’ll pretend.
So now we’re back at the start.
This is why he tries his hardest to be quieter, softer, muted and blurry around the edges.
To hide, to push his flaws away.
Or history repeats itself.
-
“Kaveh.”
He whips his head around, the slice of mango sticky and thick in his mouth, residual juice staining his lips.
“Yes, honey?”
“Don’t call me that.” He snarls, toxic waste oozing from his lips.
“..sorry.”
“What have I told you about eating excessively? You know, you’ve seemed to have gained some weight recently.”
He stares down at his stomach, his chest area, his thighs. He stares at the pudgy fat around his calves, feels the way his chin rolls up against his neck, uneasily imagines the slight chub sitting around his belly button.
yeah. He’s right.
“…really.”
“Yeah, maybe cut down on the snacks, darling .”
(The pet name was said with too much sarcasm and heaviness for it to be considered real, to be considered a gift to Kaveh.)
“I will.”
“Good.”
-
“I’m home!”
Her voice tasted sweet like honey, sticky dates and Zaytun peaches all in one. The signature tinkle of her keys jangling across her waist belt echoed though the apartment. Kaveh felt giddy, like a dog awaiting his owner to come home from a day of work. He doesn’t know what, but he’s felt restless all day. Maybe it’s from finishing all his work in an hour.
“Darling!” He coos, leaping from the couch and spreading his arms to envelop her in a hug, something warm and cosy to bundle her up in.
However she flinched backwards, cringing in disgust, “Ew, what the fuck Kaveh? What’s this all about?”
He stops dead in his tracks, a deer caught in headlights. His arms are still held open in a stupor, and his expression morphs from excitement to hurt confusion.
“Huh? I’m just excited to see you, that’s all.”
“Well, just, back off, okay?” She scoffs, and it cracks his heart a little bit more than he’d like, “I don’t need to be smothered.”
She pushes past him, swishing her hair over her shoulder and trekking off down the hall.
If he continues standing there stunned for the next few hours, then nobody needs to know.
-
“You know, you’re liked used goods.”
Kaveh’s heart freezes at that comment. Throat clogged up and eyes stinging subtly, “what?”
“Used goods.”
“You run into relationships, seeking out someone to fill this goddamn incessant nagging hole in need of attention. So you throw yourself around carelessly and let yourself be used up dry by all these people.”
“Your lucky I’ve even stayed for this long.”
He gulps, hanging his head shamefully, woefully. He’s tired.
“Yeah, I guess I am. Thank you.”
So, so, lucky.
-
If he continues being the way he is now, all subdued and crushed under the water, obstructing the surface from seeing his clear, sharp outline of a creative mind, if he hides all that makes him flawed and unattractive, then maybe he’ll finally be able to keep this.
Maybe this will be longterm, him and Al-Haitham. Maybe he’ll finally have something to call his own. A loving relationship.
If he becomes perfect for him, there will be nothing left to be nitpicked or pulled apart.
If he is perfect, then everyone is happy.
————————————
“I’m not too gone to be healed, am I? I’m not too gone, am I?”
- Alice Notley, In the Pines: Poems; “In the pines”
—————————————
Al-Haitham has definitely noticed.
Ever since they started dating a month ago, he’s noticed the way Kaveh’s changed.
Sure, they still bicker and argue, Al-Haitham still takes both the keys and Kaveh still drinks and drinks until he turns into a delirious madman.
But, he’s different. In a way.
Almost like slowly, someone’s taken the things that he knows Kaveh by. His iconic characteristics and mannerisms dimmed to become something more, ideal. At least for other people it would’ve been.
Sometimes, Kaveh acts like he’s treading on egg shells around him.
When an argument gets too heated, he’ll withdraw, trembling slightly and apply what Al-Haitham wants. He’ll shuffle away, sighing exasperatedly and just, do whatever he wanted. Sometimes he didn’t even lose the argument. Al-Haitham could’ve been clearly in the wrong, yet he’d still get up and fulfil his needs anyway.
When eating, he never takes extras like he used to. Every evening he’d always eat to his content, swiping tidbits off of Al-Haitham’s plate and never leaving anything behind. Now, he just sticks to his own plate, sometimes even leaving food behind, strewn on the plate.
When coming to physical contact, he’d always let Al-Haitham initiate. Back when they were still friends and nothing more, Kaveh would always dish out casual touches. A hand on the shoulder, intertwined fingers, arms wrapped around his torso. Now he just, sits, and waits. Let’s Al-Haitham do as he pleases, whether that be completely averting his contact or sitting so close that barely millimetres close the gap.
It’s all for him. All for Al-Haitham, what he wants, what he likes.
Kaveh’s changing himself to fit him better.
And god doesn’t that infuriate him.
Always one for logic, he can’t help but see the stupidity of the situation. Relationships traditionally are meant to have something for both to indulge in, not just a one sided act. They’re meant to give love and equally receive it back, not give and give and give until you’ve run dry.
He doesn’t understand what’s spurred this on. They were just as comfortable as ever as friends, what has it between them that has change but a change of status?
He tries his best, to show Kaveh that he loves him all the same, no matter changed or not, he’ll talk to him softer, touch him gentler, stare at him longer.
So he decides, they need to talk.
He needs to get to the bottom of whatever Kaveh’s feeling.
For Kaveh’s pain is his to share.
-
“We need to talk.”
Kaveh freezes. HIs slippers squeak to a harsh stop, his hands almost drop the sketchbook he’s holding, his mouth dries up and his palms feel clammy.
This is how it always ends.
What had he done now? He was sure that he had done everything right this time. He was sure that he had restricted himself enough, that he had been so ideal and sculpted perfectly for Al-Haitham’s tastes. If that were the case, why were they talking? Why did he have such a serious face on? Why was he trembling more and more violently by the second?
He pauses, forces his lips up into a sweet, decadent smile that hides all the fear and insecurity that rushes in, “Yeah, what about?”
“About you.”
He winces, almost blanches at the bluntness. He stalls, placing the sketchbook on the kitchen counter, brushing out his hair, smoothing over his white shirt, all the wrinkles and the slight ink stains. Finally, finally, he moves to sit next to Al-Haitham on the couch. Not so close that they’re touching, but enough to indicate a closeness in their relationship. He didn’t want to upset him anymore than he already was, after all.
“Oh. What…is it, about me?”
“You’ve changed.” Al-Haitham states, “You’re…different.”
He perks up in surprise, “What…do you mean?”
Play the fool. Let him think you’re the same as always. That these changes are your true self. Let him believe your lies and deceit. Let him live his fantasy, live happily with the new, fabricated you.
“Ever since we started dating, you’ve changed. Like, you’re scared of me. Like you’re trying to change yourself for me.”
Fuck. Curse Al-Haitham for being an observant bastard.
“You are doing things that please me and me only, you walk around me like at any moment I’ll explode in your face and you never do the things you used to. The things you liked.”
“Oh…And?”
Al-Haitham is visibly taken aback, baffled by the statement.
And Kaveh is too, at that reaction at least. What is so shocking about his behaviour? What Al-Haitham has just brought up, aren’t they all good things? Changing himself to fit Al-Haitham? To make Sure he’s happy, that he’s enjoying the relationship, even if it is more than him.
He sacrifices his pleasure for him. Isn’t that love? Full of sacrifice?
“Kaveh…can’t you see what’s wrong with that?”
He doesn’t. This is what people want in relationships. Someone who understands them, caters to their needs, becomes the idealistic partner just to please them. That’s how its always gone for Kaveh, why would it be different for Al-Haitham?
(A tiny voice in his head wails, “Why is it this way?! Why don’t I get that love?! Why can’t I be loved the same?!”
And in that same way he berates it back, “Silly conscience, you can never get the things you want. Life is unfair, and this is they way love is.”
It spits back quietly, “what a stupid rule.”)
“Isn’t that what you want though? I’ve become better Al-Haitham! Doesn’t that make you happier?”
It should make him happier, so why does he look so horrified? So panicked? Why did his eyes widen and show off the array of fear splayed across his expression? Why did his lips twitch and downturn in distaste? Why did his veiny, scarred hands inch closer and closer to his own trembling, delicate ones?
(Why were his hands trembling anyway?
Maybe it hurt. A little more than he’d like to admit.
Love hurts.)
“Kaveh…Kaveh, no, I—“
He reaches out, grasps both palms into his own, holds them steadily, tightly, like they may slip from existence into nothing at all. Like he’s the deteriorating dust of an ancient statue, fragile, forgotten, and on the verge of fading to nothing at all.
His hands already feel too warm, too soft, too pretty and special for him. The electrifying feeling pulses up his arms and trickles down his spine. Golden, saccharine love. Touch was always his weak spot.
He shakes even more violently, just the simple act of hand holding causes him to judder. How touch-starved is he?
How pathetic is he? Requiring this to just feel something?
“Kaveh, you don’t...you don’t have to change for me.”
It’s his turn to be shocked.
“Huh?!”
“I love you just the way you are Kaveh, I fell in love with the true you, you don’t have to change any characteristics to fit my ideal because I already love all of you. There is nothing you need to changed.”
He reaches, strains for that glimmer of hope.
He doesn’t need to change anything.
Could that be true?
Could it really be true that someone could fall in love with him, him and all his flaws, all his mistakes and failures and pasts. Can someone really accept all of that and call it their own? Love it and cherish it like it wasn’t any different?
You know, you’ve seemed to have gained some weight recently
I don’t need to be smothered
You know, you’re liked used goods
Your lucky I’ve even stayed for this long.
He scoffs.
“Thats impossible. Who could love me?”
Silence. Nothing but the distant rhythmic ticking of a clock and the soft evening wind outside. Silent, until—
“I could. I do.”
Whispered, uttered so faintly, gently, gingerly, he almost loses it in the gaps of the wind. Almost doesn’t catch it.
And that. God. He’s sick of lies.
I love you! Well why didn’t you stay?
You’re beautiful! But you haven’t even seen me
You’re so precious to me! Then why did you cast me off like everyone else?
I could. I do. Lies Lies Lies.
Lies.
No one could love him wholly. No one could could love him true and raw and honestly. It’s all a mountain of lies lying underneath the sole so this feet.
(And yet, who is the one who indulged in the lies?)
“Fuck! Stop lying, they always lie! It always ends like this!”
“How can you love me like this?! An Emotional train wreck of feelings?! Can’t you see?! I’m changing for the better!! Maybe you don’t see it now but, you’ll see in the future! In the long run, this is what you’ll want! Someone quieter, prettier, less dramatic!”
“I’m changing for the better!”
Al-Haitham flinches, every bit of hair sticking up against his neck, a frigid cold seeping down his body. The mere tone of desperation and downright despair made his whole body shake.
Al-Haitham isn’t a sensitive man. He’s strong, he can withstand brusque blows to the stomach and snarling rumours that curl around his head across the streets.
But this, Kaveh, all sorrowful and bitter, fat tears rolling down continuously across his naturally flushed cheeks. This Kaveh, full of abhorrent words, all directed to himself and only him, his mind only filled with an unclear fog that obscures him from seeing the truth.
That he is loved.
It makes him want to sob for him. To wail resentfully for the people who made him like this.
He swears he will hunt every last one of them down.
Meanwhile, Kaveh’s still sitting there, vision blurry and subdued as the tears keep coming, still trying to absorb everything. Its all too loud, its too much, too overwhelming. He can feel the walls visibly closing in on him, the cold plaster numbingly brushing against his shoulder blades. The lights blaring brighter and brighter in alarm at how quickly it is all spiralling. How he is spiralling. He’s a mess, of snot tears and emotion. If Al-Haitham had loved the perfect him before, hell, even the person he was before all this, then he’d certainly not love him now.
This is the end.
Or is it?
Because why is he suddenly being enveloped in Al-Haitham? Surrounded by only grey and black? Why is he body suddenly melting at the contact shivering at the sheer warmth of it all? Why is he melting? Caving?
This is a cruel joke.
Even if so, why is he indulging in it? Why does he want it so bad?
Why does he let Al-Haitham hold him while whispering softly the calming affirmations he needs to calm down? Why do his scarred hands calm his breathing? The rise and fall of his chest calm his own racketing heartbeat? The soft jangle of the jewelled cords along his headset take his mind away?
“Kaveh, breathe, everything’s okay.”
Is it really? Can he really call this okay?
“Kaveh, I love you. All of you. Every single version of you, I love. And I don’t know who’s told you otherwise that you’re other versions are unloveable, but I swear to the Archons that I will make them pay for the harm they have done to you, mark my words.”
Is this real? Tangible?
Is he dreaming?
“…Do you really love all of me? Even the ugly me?”
Al-Haitham raises his head, making eye contact with his sniffling figure. His own, blurred, scarlet eyes meeting Al-Haitham’s sincere viridescent ones. A myriad of colours, complimentary and all, meeting in the middle, intertwining, speaking.
“Darling, there is no such thing, and even so…”
“I’d love you anyway.”
He whimpers, finally, finally letting his body do what it wants. Slamming into Al-Haitham, burying his head in to his shoulder and inhaling, letting the scents of old, musty books and pardisarahs finally relieve him. Finally, his body slumps, stops resisting and lets itself just be, next to Al-Haitham, one with Al-Haitham.
“I don’t know what to do.” He murmurs into his collarbones, “I don’t know what to do with this.”
Al-Haitham chuckles softly, lovingly, “it’s hard, isn’t it?”
He nods. Its all he can do. All he can convey. Words feel too lithe and insignificant to fully convey everything he feels in his chest.
“How about this Kaveh,” Al-Haitham muses, hands glazing over his skin, goosebumps prickling up against his flesh as he lets himself be touched, lets himself be held, “How about we take a bath? I’ll wash your hair for you, just like on your bad days, and you can talk about anything and everything, maybe even nothing at all if that’s what you prefer.”
He imagines it. His body laid bare in front of Al-Haitham, his stomach, his chest, the cavities, the dents, the scars. His pallid skin stretched over his ivory bones and the bulges of muscles toned over his stomach and arms and legs. Everything bare for him.
But he imagines himself sitting in warm water, while Al-Haitham’s deft fingertips card through his hair, contact against his scalp. He imagines it and wants to cry.
He’s never been treated so kindly, with such fragility and gentleness. Nobody’s ever given him the option of talking or not, never given him the offer to sit down and wash together, to be treated with care and love, proper love, not fabricated lies.
He chokes back a sob.
“Yeah…I’d like that.”
-
The bathwater is warm and bubbly, a faint scent of Sumeru rose oil drifting through the air. The water sloshes slightly over the edges as Kaveh adjusts, his body feels thawed, yet exhausted. Exhausted from the act.
Al-Haitham’s fingers are capable of many beautiful things. Transcribing scripts, wielding a sword, tending a garden.
Soothing him.
His fingers sift through his hair like it’s nothing, deft and nimble, yet all with the comforting weight that he carries himself with. They press against his scalp and wipe the grime out of his roots, massage the shampoos and fancy, scented oils into his hair follicles.
And not once has Al-Haitham commented on his body, from the moment he got undressed to this moment right now, where his lower half is obscured by murky water, and his upper half drips with bathwater, horribly naked.
And its honestly a wonder how he hasn’t fallen asleep yet. The comfortable silence that hangs in the air, only the soft sound of water sloshing and bubbles popping to accompany the two. But they don’t mind.
Maybe that’s why Kaveh feels he needs to speak.
“You know, I never knew, that love could be so…”
Al-Haitham hums in encouragement, still concentratedly rubbing in the bubbles.
“Fulfilling?” He suggests.
“Gentle.” Kaveh settles on. He brings his fingers up, wrinkled from the water, reddened from the nights of sketching to appease himself.
“I never knew that love could be so nice. The people who loved me, I realise now they were never nice to me.”
“They would…They…” He swallows thickly, something lodges in his throat. Its difficult still. Coming to terms with it.
Coming to terms with the fact that he isn’t the broken one, but merely everyone else just couldn’t be bothered to try like he did. It hurts, but it makes sense now. Somewhat it relieves him, to know that he was not the one in the wrong after all. That all he wanted to do was love and be loved, and that was alright.
(“See?!” The little voice cried out again, “I was right! I was right all along! We can be loved all the same!”
To that he smiles apologetically, “I’m sorry for ever doubting you.”)
“Take your time Kaveh, we have all the time in the world.”
“They’d…I did everything for them, you know? I would hug and kiss them, make them food, buy them gifts, even pleasure them! I did all they wanted, but, did I ever get any of it back? Actually, its kind of embarrassing… I’d get even worse treatment, I’d be told to back off, to stop being so clingy, to stop taking up so much space…”
“Once they even told me to stop eating so much, that my body was ugly, could you believe it? And I let it happen.”
Al-Haitham listens on sadly, he knows that Kaveh bounces from relationship to relationship, tragically breaking up with one only to get with another. Hell, he had been there to comfort him through his worst ones. But he had no idea the severity of it all. He wants to punch himself for how oblivious he was.
“I can’t believe that I thought that was love.” He breathes, a broken cry of regret, “I can’t believe that’s what I thought you’d do to me. I’m sorry.”
Kaveh exhales, all the pent-up energy now oozing out effortlessly, albeit painfully. He feels, lighter, freer, pleased. Doesn’t it feel so good? To be able to love without restraints? And to receive what he’s always wanted? Doesn’t it feel so, pleasing?
Al-Haitham sighs, ceasing his hair-washing to cup Kaveh’s cheek, delicately, tenderly, “Do not apologise.”
“In the past, yes, those people should’ve never taken advantage of you and your loving soul. To see someone so willing to give everything they had to you only to act cruelly and greedily is the most distasteful thing someone could do. It is unfortunate how unfair the world is.”
“But now, it is time to heal. To learn to love again and to be loved again. Now is a time for you to grow and flourish, to become yourself again.”
“And I will be there every step of the way. No matter what.”
Tenderly, he trails kisses up the ridges of Kaveh’s spine, along the thin bridge of his neck and the indent at the back of his skull, up along his wet hair until finally, finally, reaching his forehead, his nose, his eyelids.
His lips.
Softly, the drew in for a kiss, a sensitive, tentative kiss yet still spoke thousands and millions of ‘I love yous,’ so much love and amiability pouring out with every touch.
And Kaveh sinks into the kiss, lets it surround him and swallow him up, lets the kiss repeat to him over and over again, I am loved. I am loved. I am loved.
And Al-Haitham faintly grazes his fingertips across Kaveh’s body, feeling it all under the palm of his hand and letting it know, over and over again, you are beautiful. you are beautiful. you are beautiful.
You are worthy. worthy. worthy.
And of nature and of man, of logic and fact, of art and soul, of all that is earthly and all that is cosmic, there is one fact that stands true and alone.
Al-Haitham loves Kaveh, and Kaveh loves him back.
And this time, Kaveh will never let himself endure another night of suffering under the cuffs of restraint and toxicity.
He will be loved. Like the world, like the forests, like the mountains, like the rivers and lakes and the moon, he will be loved.
And it will be Al-Haitham who makes sure of it.