Archive of Our Own

Al-Haitham has begun to dream.

All in all, this is not too strange. He has been dreaming since the deactivation of the Akasha, although no scholar has yet to find out why, despite all their postulating on their meanings and patterns. For Al-Haitham it seems that most of his dreams consist of abstract movements, and they fade away as soon as he opens his eyes.

Not a huge loss. It would be illogical and fruitless to indulge in something that exists only inside his own mind, after all, like he has seen some laymen do.

At first the dreams come to him with the grace of a good friend. No more than hazy, yellowed images: a flash of white hair and a wrinkled smile; someone lunging at him as he breathes in desert sand; the smell of wine, and laughter, and a glimpse of cards. Then they start taking shape. He hears an old woman’s voice reading him poetry. He often finds himself dreaming in snippets of moments – when he wakes, they stick to him like an embrace, and stay with him throughout the day.

But the first time he dreams properly, it feels so real that even he, for a moment, is fooled.

They’re in Razan Garden. Al-Haitham knows this place; he often goes to have his lunches here when he wants to avoid some sage or another, sitting in the shade of the pavilion with a nice book. There is no book this time. An oppressive heat presses down upon him instead; it’s the vapid barrel of a summer’s day, the air heavy with humidity. Upon his brow he can feel sweat beading and the leaves of the vines that grow on the Divine Tree casting what little shade they can on his skin. The smell of ripe orchids permeates the air.

From here, the world seems hazy and sick with sunlight. There’s a slowness to the dream-world: Al-Haitham feels that he is trudging on feverish earth, watching other students pass by, obscured by the haze of July as they are. The only clear sight he has is of the boy next to him: blonde-haired, crimson-eyed, holding his knees to his chest.

“This place is much better than the cafeteria, isn’t it, Haitham?” The boy’s fingers, he notices, are stained with ink and patterned with henna. He’s dizzying, from where Al-Haitham sits: everything is far too bright, and the boy is far too golden. The sun spins like a halo from behind his head. Still he settles in Al-Haitham’s heart like water on desert sand when he turns to him, eyes wide with a desperate sort of sympathy. “Don’t listen to those people, okay? They’re only jealous of you.”

“I don’t care what they think of me.” It’s a struggle to get the words out. What were they even talking about? He feels overwhelmed, but even the thought of leaving is painful. He wants so badly for that gaze to stay trained on him as it is now: he wants it trained on him forever, no matter how intense it gets.

“I know, I know,” the boy hums, his voice softer. “None of them know you like I do, anyway.”

“They don’t,” agrees Al-Haitham, easily. They lapse into a silence then, but Al-Haitham does not mind, and neither does the boy, it seems, who leans his head back on the bark of the tree and smiles. A private smile; it dimples his freckled cheeks. They weren’t freckled when Al-Haitham saw him last, were they? Perhaps it is the sun, then, that brings them out, like sediment on the bed of a dried river. He wonders what else he can find out about him if he sticks around. He wants to know everything.

“Hey, Haitham,” Kaveh begins suddenly, sitting back up, and then even he’s starting to go fuzzy around the edges. His melodic voice fades into silence just as Al-Haitham leans in, desperate to know, desperate to listen to him. Please, he wants to say, please tell me more. But even the smell of orchids is gone now. Before the heat bleeds into the empty, cold darkness of his bedroom, he hears the voice of a little girl that is indistinguishable in the midst of his sun sickness.

All that he is left with when he wakes is a fleeting warmth and the feeling that he has lost something indescribably precious to him.

-

Something is missing.

Al-Haitham must have misplaced it somewhere. He’s checked everywhere for what this missing thing may be: he’s checked under his bed, under the divans, even in the spare room, where he rarely ever goes except to store his books. He’s checked his office too, high up above the house of Daena; and he’s asked his secretary, who simply told him that he had no idea what Al-Haitham was talking about.

He can’t find it, but he has no idea what it may be. Al-Haitham usually has a good memory. He remembers everything he’s read and he knows everything that he owns, but that damn itch won’t leave him.

Something is missing. Something is missing, and it feels like an empty, aching pit in his stomach.

“Are you sure?” he asks again. His secretary purses his lips.

“I’m sure, sir,” Lambad says, scratching his beard, and then stares at him as if he’s gone insane. Maybe he has. “I tidy your office after every shift. I would have seen if you'd left something behind.”

“Hm,” Al-Haitham grunts, and checks the time. It’s five on the dot, so he starts putting his books back in his satchel, and lining up the papers on his desk. Something is missing. This is such a hassle. Why did he even choose this job?

Yes, why did he choose this job? Isn’t this extremely uncharacteristic of him?

"Sir–” Lambad interrupts his musings, looking nervous. Al-Haitham can see from here how his brows have furrowed, and how his hands, usually somewhere on his own body, are clenched and shaking at his sides. “Sir, you know you still have a meeting at six with the Rtawahist sage?”

“No meetings after five.”

“Yes, but this is–”

“I’m clocking out.” Al-Haitham picks up his satchel and lugs it over his shoulder. His collar is itching; this robe is so uncomfortable. He can already tell that the Rtawahist sage is going to be at his door first thing in the morning tomorrow, bothering him about missing their meeting. There are so many things he needs to sign and read over and check tonight at his house before that happens, and he still needs to make dinner, clean up the books in his study, and have a chat with General Mahamatra Tighnari before he leaves. And something is still missing. “See ya.”

“Devi Kusanali,” he mutters as he finally, finally exits the House of Daena. Why the hell did he choose this job?

He remembers taking it willingly, at the time, having graduated from Haravatat with honours and written several papers on a variety of different topics. Logically, he knew he was the best person for the job; perhaps that’s why he’d accepted when the other sages had voted on it after his predecessor had passed (even though Al-Haitham was the youngest sage, and now Grand Sage, in centuries). He was a genius, and not particularly ambitious. He was probably the least likely person in Sumeru to abuse his position, unless it was to get special access to restricted sections in the House of Daena.

That did not mean there were other people that were less qualified. Al-Haitham knew this, and knowing him, he would have known this back then, too. Surely, there are other people who have different ambitions, and other geniuses in Sumeru, the land of wisdom itself. So why did he accept? It seems even his own memories are unreliable these days; the thought makes his stomach churn, and he steels himself to get back to his house quicker than usual.

Inexplicably, his stream of thought snags, as if caught on something, and redirects itself as he’s walking. A research centre stands innocently by the bark of the Divine Tree, and even though Al-Haitham walks by this way every evening, he stops.

He’s seen this research centre before. He’s dwelled on it often, in fact, and even has gone so far as to look up its records in the archives: it’s nothing special, just a research centre for a thesis project that was then repurposed as a home for some scholar or another. Nothing special. Nothing, except that looking at it makes that ache worsen.

Something he’s noticed recently: he’s been thinking strange things.

He’s been dwelling on useless matters, and he’s constantly worried that something that is important to him is missing. When he’s alone in his house he finds himself waiting anxiously for something that never comes.

It’s understandable why he’s been questioning his position in Sumeru: after all, someone with his personality would never willingly choose to be Grand Sage, at least not under normal circumstances. But he can’t explain the other things he’s been thinking, waiting for.

Something is deeply, terribly wrong, he thinks, and he wants whatever he has lost to that wrongness back.

–

Some nights he dreams of nothing at all except that little girl’s voice, whispering all sorts of warnings and instructions. But he cannot make sense of them when he wakes up; he only finds himself longing to return to that warmth he felt in his first dream.

–

He begins noting down the disparities.

His abstract feelings, no matter how unusual, are unsuitable for academic investigation of this kind, so he begins by focusing on the tangible. Firstly, his job: for now, that’s the most glaring disparity. Then he branches out.

The Sage of Spantamad is currently a woman who is too old to still hold office, yet no one seems to be holding her accountable. The Grand Scribe is a pink-haired woman who is too shrewd and mora-obsessed to hold the position she’s in and not aim for higher. The General Mahamatra is a Valuka Shuna who is definitely unsuitable for missions out in the desert, but he holds the title with pride anyway. Other things: Devi Kusanali has deactivated the Akasha Network without explanation and is still nowhere to be seen; for many months there has been little or no news from other nations, and no tourists at all.

From there, he’s not left with much. He’s brought up his concerns to others before, but he suspects that the people around him are beginning to think him crazy: that won’t help his investigation whatsoever, so he stops asking around and resolves to pivot back to those abstract feelings he cannot externalise nor explain. He has come to the conclusion, after all, that if he cannot trust neither what he sees nor what he remembers, the key to this problem must be in what he feels.

A persistent feeling of emptiness, and longing. He’s lost something important, that’s for sure, but what? An object? He notes down his observations through the day as the weeks pass by and finds that the feelings are at their strongest when he’s at his house. Expectancy, he finds: he’s waiting for something to happen, but whatever it is never comes to pass. So it must be something animate, if not an object. A person, perhaps. But who?

Al-Haitham doesn’t get attached to people. He is decidedly not someone that enjoys social contact, nor someone who actively seeks it out. He has a vague memory of a presence in his life when he was younger, but he no longer remembers that period of his life very well, only a sense of fleeting warmth and comfort. Maybe that’s something else that has been taken from him.

He cannot think of anyone else that could possibly fit the role. A person, in his house, longing… Those thoughts circle around his head the entire day, and he finds himself struggling to focus. It certainly is an interesting problem, when viewed from the outside. And an interesting reaction from himself, too – what kind of person could he have longed for like that, much less let into his house? Al-Haitham is a very private person, after all. He likes his own space. What's worth giving up that?

He thinks some more. He’s been doing a lot of thinking recently, but he’s not sure what else he can do in this situation apart from perusing the records he’s read over multiple times by now or asking other people, which is useless at best and risky at worst. What kind of person would hold his attention? Someone who challenges him, surely, and someone who makes him think: someone who he would not get bored talking to. An equal, then. A mirror.

Does that kind of person really exist? They have to. He fears this emptiness would never go away otherwise.

“Grand Sage, sir,” Lambad says, then, knocking on his desk to catch his attention. “There is someone here who wants to see you.”

Does Al-Haitham have a meeting scheduled? “I’m busy.”

“It’s the merchant Lord Kaveh Bay. He would not take no for an answer, sir. He insisted on seeing you now.”

Al-Haitham sighs. He distinctly recalls from his memories not finding these kinds of meetings and duties as taxing before all of this began. Now, he can feel his own patience running low with the constant demand for his efforts.

“Fine. Let him in.”

When Al-Haitham sees who enters, he pauses for a moment. The man, looking furious, is supremely beautiful: thick golden hair cascades down his back, intricately twisted into a braid and interwoven with ribbon, the jewellery wrapped around his neck and wrists a similar blinding shade. Al-Haitham has never thought anyone particularly beautiful before. But this man… There is something about him, standing in the dim light of his office that makes him look absolutely radiant – as if the sun had risen on him, and was now casting its rays upon Al-Haitham’s very being. Even without having spoken his entire presence is loud and bright in a way Al-Haitham has not observed in anyone else.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he feels, inexplicably, that he recognises this man.

“I don’t have much time,” he begins, “so make this quick, please.”

The man's bangles jingle noisily as he raises his wrist to point at him. “You! Do you have any artistic sensibility?!”

“Hm. Depends on who you ask.”

“I submitted a proposal for the renovation of the House of Daena multiple times, each time with the necessary forms, and they have all gotten rejected? What’s the meaning of this? Do you want that place to remain as dull and insipid as it is now?”

Ah, yes. Al-Haitham remembers this particular proposal. An ambitious, if not idealistic, reimagining of the House of Daena, complete with intricate archways and mosaic tiles. At first, he had been intrigued: the proposed design had been somehow up-to-date with Kshahrewar standards, despite the merchant declaring that he’d come up with it himself, but Al-Haitham had soon realised that the proposal seemed to prioritise the design over the function of the space. In essence, the proposal simply consisted of adding a few embellishments and trinkets to the already-existing structure of the House of Daena and not much else. It was stunningly beautiful; and utterly unnecessary, by his standards, so he had rejected it. And now this man has taken it upon himself to bother him about it.

“It was an unnecessary redesign. I hope you can understand.”

“Un–” The man takes a deep breath, still managing to glare at Al-Haitham throughout. At that moment, Al-Haithan very much thinks that this man looks like a puffed-up bird, his golden hair now in tangles around his head from all his animated gesturing, his eyes widened considerably. “Forgive me for being too direct, but surely you do not expect all students to study in that… uninspired hall every day? There have been several – and I’m sure you, of all people, have seen them, Sir Grand Sage – Vahumana studies on how working spaces can influence the productivity of workers and students alike. I’m sure the House of Daena as it is now is decidedly not beneficial to the productivity of any student apart from those that are particularly artistically uninclined.”

Interesting. This merchant – what is his name, Kaveh? – is apparently reading Vahuma research articles in his spare time. “Students are free to study at home or in their own dorms if they wish. Additionally, a project of this size is far too costly for me to accept.”

“What about the students who cannot study in their own houses? Or students who don’t stay at the dorms, or who cannot afford an adequate working space? You clearly have no consideration for those kinds of people! And did I not say in my own proposal that I would pay for all the renovations? You only need to approve the project!”

He had mentioned that, actually, and Al-Haitham had thought it extraordinarily stupid. This man may be rich, but he seems to be content with throwing his wealth around everywhere for what appears to be ‘altruistic’ causes. He’s heard rumours of the merchant who donates half his profits to the people of the desert; extrapolating from existing patterns, it's not hard to conclude that this Kaveh is who those rumours are referring to. How did someone like him manage to come into wealth in the first place? Someone so idealistic and willing to give up his own comforts is someone who, logically, should not be in the position to come to any wealth at all, let alone in the position to keep it. Another, more intriguing disparity. Al-Haitham finds himself excited to look into this particular problem.

“You do realise its cost, yes?” he asks, just to be sure. Perhaps someone as rich as this man simply has no understanding of the value of mora.

Kaveh sniffs. “‘The poor suffer from the rich’s wealth. Thus the rich should give away their wealth for a good purpose,’ says the Sage Biruni.”

So he’s well-read, too, although Al-Haitham recalls it being a different sage that said this particular quote. Was it Sage Zolfikar?

“He never said that.”

“He did. And this is my own mora! So I decide what to do with it.”

“And I decide whether or not to approve the project. I haven’t approved it, so you may be on your way.”

“You–!” Kaveh interrupts himself once again, bringing up a fist to shake at Al-Haitham, although Al-Haitham doubts that someone as bleeding-hearted as this man would ever resort to violence. Here, another intriguing detail snags on his thoughts. How did this man become a merchant of his current renown? He seems absurdly bad at negotiation, caring far too much about too many things, and with a horrible temperament to boot. How this man doesn’t stop himself from rambling at length in much more important meetings than this is a question that even Al-Haitham cannot answer. “Fine. But this isn’t the last you’ll see of me! You’ll come to realise that I was right at the end!” And then he huffs, quite self-satisfactorily, turning on his heel as his braid swishes behind him. Al-Haitham spots the redness crawling up Kaveh’s exposed back as he leaves and finds himself resisting the urge to smirk.

How dramatic. And how interesting, he thinks, and continues to think about it for the rest of the day.

–

He dreams of a warm embrace. He dreams of homes with his favourite stew on the table, wrinkled hands, a soft voice, reading. He dreams of blueprints on the table.

The literature on the topic is exceedingly sparse. At some point Al-Haitham stops trying to make sense of them, and instead starts to look forward to sleeping, just to feel that warmth again.

–

His thoughts remain stuck on Kaveh, in the dizzying heat of the days that pass.

Al-Haitham thinks of the design extensively. What does it reveal about that man? A smart man, perhaps even a genius, surely: the design does integrate form and function brilliantly (although sacrifices have been made) and the principles and calculations are surprisingly accurate. Certainly up to modern Kshahrewar standards. This merchant must have taken some time out of his day to read through Kshahrewar’s manuals.

And now Al-Haitham is imagining that moment, Kaveh reclining against a railing in his famous palace, flipping through the pages of a book and biting his lip in concentration. Or perhaps seated in the House of Daena, between those archways he so vehemently described as insipid, head half-laid on his arm while the other props the book up on the table. What would he look like, trying to focus? He seems like a man constantly in motion. Would he get bored? Would he jump up halfway through, start pacing, unable to keep still? Al-Haitham, lying in his bed, pictures Kaveh’s flushed face from that day, the golden hair on his nape stuck to his skin and tangled between the ornaments on his neckpiece; he pictures Kaveh gesturing as he rambles and he pictures his fiery eyes, wide between thick blonde lashes. How could Al-Haitham go about directing that attention, that gaze, towards him, even if just for a moment?

Al-Haitham is a naturally curious person. He thinks a lot on a great many topics, often extensively when his interest is piqued. Kaveh does interest him. He certainly is the most intriguing disparity of the ones he’s found, beyond Al-Haitham’s own condition; on top of that he seems to be a thought-provoking person in general. He is exceedingly unusual in his mannerisms and ideals.

But Al-Haitham has never thought about a person this much before, nor fantasised as much as he has in the past week – about a singular topic, no less. This should be highly uncharacteristic of him. It doesn’t feel uncharacteristic though, and no matter how much Al-Haitham despises baseless conjectures based on personal inclinations, he can only come to the conclusion that this is yet another thing that has been taken from him.

So: Kaveh. There’s his new lead. It takes him to Treasures Street after his shift is over, where merchants and tradespeople congregate around him so noisily that he turns his headphones up to their highest setting. He’s heard often that the merchant frequents this street. It shouldn’t be too hard to spot him; his hair is unusual among the people of Sumeru, and surely his obstinate noise would catch Al-Haitham’s attention even from the other side of the street.

In the end, it's the hair that does it. He doesn’t even realise he’s gravitated towards the stall until he’s nearly behind the man, watching as he forks over a frankly absurd amount of mora on…

On some keychains. The man behind the stall grins in pure glee, having successfully tricked another naïve customer into spending mora on what is very clearly a shabby scam at best. Al-Haitham should not intervene. He has always been of the idea that people should pay the consequences for their own behaviour; this case isn’t any different. If Kaveh wants to spend all his mora on foolish endeavours like this, why should Al-Haitham care? Maybe the man just needs to wisen up and stop believing everything he hears, lest he lose all that mora he had apparently worked so hard to earn.

Al-Haitham places his hand on Kaveh’s wrist before he can put the mora pouch down.

“This man is scamming you,” he says, and watches – perhaps a bit too intently – as that ruby gaze turns on him, suddenly narrowed in fury. Kaveh snatches his wrist back and holds it to his chest: but the mora pouch remains in his grip, and the shopkeeper suddenly looks profoundly afraid.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Kaveh bursts out, now once again flushed down to his exposed chest. “It’s not a scam, I… The profits from these keychains go to hungry children in the city. It’s not a scam, right, Hasan?”

The man in question is silent. Now Kaveh turns back to Al-Haitham, wearing a strange expression.

“I hope you haven’t forgotten that healthcare is free in Sumeru,” Al-Haitham tells him, watching the vestiges of Kaveh’s hope fade from his face. “There are not many children that go hungry here.”

Kaveh blinks. “I-I know that!”

“Do you? Because it seemed to me as if you were about to spend an exorbitant amount of mora for a cause that would go to no one.”

“I wasn’t…” He looks down, and then up again, opening his mouth to speak before Al-Haitham grasps his wrist and drags him away from the stall. This close, he can smell the perfume oil that Kaveh has dabbed on the inside of his wrist; rose oil, oud, something inky and powdery underneath. He recalls the design once again, and remembers that Kaveh had drawn it himself. Does he draw a lot, then? He imagines the ink staining Kaveh’s hands, and imagines the paper stained with that ink, and imagines the inked hands that press that paper down onto a table.

By the time they’re far away enough from the stall, Kaveh looks more than slightly sheepish. There’s a hint of dusk-red staining his cheeks; even his eyes, which have been so fixed on Al-Haitham until now, are averted in embarrassment.

“Well,” he says, voice small. “I suppose I should thank you.”

“I suppose you should,” agrees Al-Haitham, and then, unwilling to let the silence stretch: “Do you often fall for scams like that?”

Now Kaveh’s back to glaring again. Al-Haitham basks in that attention, even for a moment. He’s delightfully easy to rile up, isn’t he? “Excuse me?”

“I just mean,” Al-Haitham begins, watching the flush crawl up Kaveh’s neck, “that for a merchant, you’re awfully bad at spotting when someone is trying to con you.”

Kaveh scoffs. “Maybe I just have empathy! Not like you would understand, Sir Grand Sage.” He spits out the last part like it’s an insult. Maybe it is, but to Al-Haitham it sounds fundamentally wrong instead; shouldn’t Kaveh be calling him by name? It makes the distance between them seem all the larger – which it should be, considering this is only their second meeting. But Al-Haitham has come to understand that these abstract feelings of his hint to something bigger, and he’s not letting them go now.

So, “Al-Haitham,” he says.

Kaveh blinks, clearly having been readying himself to argue further. “Sorry?”

“Al-Haitham. My name. I don’t care for formalities.”

Maybe his grimace shows on his face, because Kaveh huffs out a laugh as the tension drains from him. “If you feel that way, why did you become Grand Sage?”

“I don’t know.” He really doesn’t. “Why are you a merchant, if you’re so willing to give your profits away like candy?”

“Well, for the mora,” Kaveh says, slowly, but even he looks a little unsure. “Why else? Every merchant will give you the same answer, I would think.”

“You don’t act like you’re in it for the mora.” It’s true. Al-Haitham has now seen first-hand how Kaveh is willing to fork over his fortune for anything he deems necessary, but he’s read about it, too: there are countless accounts in the Akademiya’s files recording Kaveh’s endless donations to charity, which seem to only be increasing day-by-day. It’s yet another disparity. In the past, he donated only occasionally – nowadays he seems to be willing to give away the majority of his profits to all sorts of causes. “If you did, you’d at least by trying to prioritise your profits, wouldn’t you?”

“Who says I’m not? And anyway, it’s none of your business. As someone with too much mora to know what to do with, I have a duty to help people who are less privileged.”

“A duty,” Al-Haitham repeats. “I would argue you have no obligation at all to do any of that. If someone finds themselves in an unfortunate situation, it's up to them to get themselves out of it. Sumeru has plenty of opportunities for that if they wish.”

There’s a moment of silence as Kaveh stares at him incredulously, then shakes his head, turning away. “What about all the people that can’t access those opportunities? The people across the wall of Samiel, children in difficult homes, those suffering with illnesses…” he tugs at his hair, suddenly looking anguished. “I can’t bear the thought that I can do nothing to help them.”

The sight twists something in Al-Haitham’s chest. “You can’t help everyone.”

“I can certainly try.”

So, Al-Haitham’s initial assessment was correct: this man is a hopeless idealist, clearly, who has no regard for himself or reality. An idealist who, even if given the opportunity, could never end up in the position Kaveh currently finds himself in. More support for his current leading hypothesis, he notes down mentally. And certainly an interesting dilemma indeed.

“And what happens when you run out of mora?” he asks, now morbidly curious. “When you have nothing left?”

“Well, someone will help me out in return, of course.” Then he grimaces. “...They would, right?”

And if Al-Haitham thinks, completely illogically, that he would very much like to be the one to help Kaveh in that situation, he doesn’t voice it out loud.

–

One night he dreams of shredded paper, and a deep, bone-set cold. He sees Kaveh, tear-streaked; he sees the inside of an empty house. Is it normal to feel this devastated, just from a dream?

–

Only a few days pass by without seeing Kaveh before Al-Haitham begins to feel restless.

Is this normal? Probably not. His investigation has more or less centered itself around Kaveh now – the unknowing victim of Al-Haitham’s sourceless sensibilities. Every other lead he’s followed has ended up dead or untraceable, after all. And maybe Al-Haitham just wants to follow this one in particular.

He spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about Kaveh. By now he’s come to accept it; there’s a certain rightness to thinking about him, talking to him, even seeing him that Al-Haitham cannot find anywhere else nowadays, now that everything else feels wrong and unnatural.

He finds himself curious about Kaveh in a desperate, longing sort of manner. Often he imagines Kaveh’s day-to-day life with silent fervour, alone in his empty house. He imagines Kaveh’s hair undone. He imagines himself undone, untethered by Kaveh’s presence and aching from the warmth. Unnatural sentiments, surely, but it feels so right it seems wrong to question it.

If his leading hypothesis proves true, it would all make sense in the end, anyway.

It seems a stroke of luck is in order. When he walks into Panah’s tavern that night there Kaveh is, slumped over a table in the corner, hair messy and spilling over the dark wood. His only company seems to be a bottle of wine and a half-drunk glass. It would be improper to disturb someone he’s only talked to twice, but when has Al-Haitham ever been the type to follow convention? He sits himself down as soon as he spots him.

“Feeling down?” he asks, watching with trepidation as that crimson gaze finally, finally turns itself on him. For his part, he can tell immediately that Kaveh is in a very bad state, his usual proud shoulders turned downward and cheeks tear-stained. He wonders what he can do to fix it – although he knows very well such a thing is beyond his responsibilities. But he does want to fix it.

“Huh… Al-Haitham…?” Kaveh slurs, more than a bit drunk. “What… what are you doing here?”

A bit pleased to hear his own name in Kaveh’s voice for (seemingly) the first time, Al-Haitham allows himself to relax his posture. He doubts he’ll be leaving soon, anyway. “I was buying wine. What our renowned merchant is doing here, is the real mystery. You didn’t have any nice drinks in your palace?”

Kaveh tries to scowl, but it doesn’t last long. “Don’t wanna drink there. I hate it. Feels so empty…”

“Empty?”

He’s met with a nod. “How did I even stand it before…? I can’t recall… it doesn’t even feel like a home.”

Really, Al-Haitham understands. Apart from those abstract dreams that have been plaguing him for the past few months and his own unreliable memories, he has never felt at ‘home’ like certain poets and writers describe it – not anywhere, certainly not in his quiet house. If Kaveh feels the same way, then…

“Have you been having strange dreams?”

Kaveh blinks. “Wha– yes. How– How did you know?”

“No reason,” he says, and then, watching Kaveh’s face fall, decides to elaborate: “I’ve been having them too.”

“Of course.” Kaveh slumps back down the table. “Of course, you of all people…”

What’s that supposed to mean? He feels his heart stutter, quite unusually, in his chest. Perhaps Kaveh feels it too, this wrongness; perhaps he even feels the connection between them, tethering them together.

With no response from Al-Haitham, Kaveh keeps talking. “I just mean… d’you feel it too? I feel like I can say anything around you. Even though you make me so mad. It’s so stupid…”

“It’s not stupid at all. I feel the same way.”

Kaveh smiles, and it dimples his freckled cheeks. “Re.. really? I’m so glad.” Then his smile is gone. “You know, sometimes I feel like… like I chose the wrong path. I don’t understand why I decided to.. to be a merchant, of all things. I remember wanting it so badly at the time, but… but I hate it. Even if I can help people with my mora. I should’ve been an artist. Do you feel that way too?” He buries his head in his hands. “What am I doing?”

Looking profoundly disoriented, Kaveh fumbles blindly on the table before finding the handle of his glass, taking a sip. Some drops spill down the side of the glass; Al-Haitham watches the path the droplet follows down Kaveh’s neck, watches the trail it leaves behind, glistening in the dim light of the tavern. It almost feels sacrilegious, to be allowed to see this. Doesn’t Kaveh usually take care to keep up appearances?

Al-Haitham, impulsively, reaches for the glass himself. Kaveh has already had enough, he thinks, and the wine he chose is one that Al-Haitham also enjoys on occasion. He takes his time savouring it. He doesn’t even think Kaveh has noticed – instead, the man seems to be staring at his hands, brows furrowed.

Al-Haitham would do anything to know what he’s thinking.

“I think you’ve had enough,” he says, after finishing the glass. Kaveh still looks mildly disoriented, even as his head swivels – rather slowly – to glance at Al-Haitham. His eyebrows furrow as he tries to process what Al-Haitham has just said.

“No,” he stutters out, finally, banging his head on the table. “Don’t wanna… go back…”

Without thinking, Al-Haitham blurts out, “Then come home.” He coughs into his fist. “With me, I mean. I’m sure my house is nearer, anyway, and you’re in no state to go back by yourself.”

Kaveh nods, and it’s all Al-Haitham needs to stand up, dragging the blonde up with him. As they leave, he tells Panah to put their drinks on his tab. After all, he’s the Grand Sage for now, and can afford a few bottles of wine.

By the time they get home, he can tell that Kaveh is half-asleep, slumped over himself and mumbling. It would be sensible to let Kaveh lie down on the divan, have him sleep the liquor off, and come back to check on him in the morning.

He takes Kaveh to his bathroom instead.

“Come on,” he says, even as Kaveh slurs something indistinguishable in response. “You need to wash your face.”

He washes Kaveh’s face for him. He takes note of every detail: the freckles on his cheeks, slightly faded; his neck; his skin; his warmth. He really is warm, whether it’s from the alcohol or not – it almost hurts to touch him, because it’s just such a pain to pull away. He wants to keep him close forever.

Right now Kaveh, to Al-Haitham, feels very much like sunlight through a window. He’s so distant, but the door is right there; if Al-Haitham wants, if he finds his way in the darkness of his house, he can walk out, step into his garden and bask in the rays, warmed to the bone.

Has he always felt this way, then? As he leads Kaveh back to his bedroom, he thinks of what they might have meant to each other, before all this. Were they friends? Lovers? Perhaps they were nothing at all, and it was just Al-Haitham, hopelessly following a light he would never reach.

It doesn’t matter, really. He has Kaveh now, leaning against his shoulder, and his hands are in Kaveh’s hair as he pulls out the pins between delicate strands.

“Hey, Haitham?” Kaveh says, so quiet in the darkness. Al-Haitham tucks him under the covers. “Why do I feel like I know you?”

Al-Haitham smiles. “You do know me. I know you, too.”

In the morning, he will tell Kaveh what he has found. In the morning they'll come to realise the truth, and they'll put on their cloaks and head out to fix it, together. And they'll have many misunderstandings and arguments and fights, and they'll never reach a true consensus, not ever, and they'll be together for all of it anyway.

But just for tonight, Alhaitham goes to sleep feeling warm for the first time in a long while.

-

He dreams of peace.

Coffee, cardamom, dried saffron, still heady with the spice of the summer; Al-Haitham comes into awareness with this on his heels, and watches blearily as he pours the now-foaming drink into an ornate, gaudy finjan. It spills over as soon as he focuses enough to realise he’s doing it.

“Careful!” says a voice from behind him. “Don’t spill too much, Haitham, do you know how much those beans cost? It’s a Natlanese blend!”

“I know, I know,” he placates, and moves to wipe down the counter with the tea towel hung up next to him. He pours the remaining coffee into the other cup, much more boring than the other, and breathes in its spiced steam. It smells, frankly, divine. After the mess of a conspiracy Al-Haitham had to deal with the day before, returning to this – his warm home, a slow morning – it feels so sweet it's almost sickly.

As he turns, crimson eyes look over him, wary. “You’re more out of it than usual.”

“Hm. I suppose I’m still a bit tired.”

Kaveh sighs, brows furrowed in worry. The sight twists something in Al-Haitham’s chest: he wishes, illogically, that Kaveh would never have to make that face again – even if Al-Haitham is the primary recipient of his gentle care.

“Move aside, then. I can make breakfast myself.”

Knowing better than to argue, Al-Haitham moves to the other side of the kitchen, leaning against the island with his cup as he watches Kaveh flit about. It feels almost sinful, this watching: Kaveh still in his sleeping clothes; Kaveh with his hair let loose, spilling in golden rivulets down his shoulders; Kaveh, bare-faced, freckles just now starting to fade as July bleeds into the cooler winds of August. Kaveh with drool staining the collar of his thobe. Does anyone else get to see him like this? There is a satisfaction in knowing that this sight is relegated to Al-Haitham, under the safe roof of their shared home, bathed in sunlight.

He doesn’t remember the house being this warm before.

“It’s so unfair that they made you go through that,” Kaveh says, and Al-Haitham just realises he’s been talking all this time. “For Ilyas to erase his own memories…” he shudders, then, sparing a glance back at Al-Haitham. “Just to get back at you. I could never imagine doing something like that, no matter how desperate I was.”

“What, erase your memories?”

“Yes!” Kaveh raises his hands in frustration, fork still in his grip. “No matter how much suffering I’ve gone through… to give up what makes me myself… it’s unimaginable. I’d lose everything, and I would be none the wiser.”

“Well, you wouldn’t lose everything,” Al-Haitham says, watching as Kaveh goes back to chirping the eggs in the bowl. “There are no ways to fully erase all memories in a person’s mind. You’d likely retain most semantic information and associated items. Ilyas still remembered that he hated me, even though he’d forgotten everything else.”

At that, Kaveh gets a strange look on his face, but says nothing. They lapse into a peaceful silence together, accompanied by the sound of the city waking up outside, students walking from their dorms to the Akademiya. Al-Haitham should get going soon too, lest his work pile up more than it already has in his singular day of absence.

“I’d probably still remember you, too,” Kaveh says suddenly, voice now much quieter. “Even if I forgot everything else.”

That, Al-Haitham has no objection to. How could he?

From the moment he first met Kaveh, he knew that he was going to be bound to him for the rest of his life. He’s read books about love at first sight, but theirs was never that: a curiosity, perhaps. He wanted to know Kaveh, the golden senior who would not leave him alone, and he wanted to dive into Kaveh’s mind and devour every idea he could reach. He suspects Kaveh wanted to know him too. Maybe the younger Al-Haitham knew back then what that curiosity would grow into, but he had let it fester until it bloomed, trembling, in his palm.

After their fight he never allowed Kaveh to unravel from him. Having felt that warmth, how could he have been expected to let it go? He chased it from research articles to message boards in Port Ormos, far away from home, and chased it even farther – in those cold days he would have taken anything. Well, here he is now, comfortable in their shared kitchen. Even when their conversations have more misunderstandings than agreement, even when they fight into the early morning and even when he has to fetch Kaveh from his own misery every other night, Al-Haitham knows, deep in his bones, that he’s never going to leave.

It’s too late to go back, he thinks. Their fates have already been wound too tight; both of them have made it so, binding themselves together piece by piece. They can never be unwoven. Al-Haitham won’t let them, even if he has to stitch their threads back together himself.

“The same goes for me.” He lets himself smile, warmed by the gentle sunlight. “I’d recognise you anywhere.”