Archive of Our Own

“Would you like me to put it in your bedroom for you?”

“Yeah, sure,” says Kaveh absentmindedly. He’s busy thinking about how, exactly, he’s going to repair the binding on the very fine economics volume in his hands. It’s beautiful, but also truly ancient. He leans over his shoulder. “Seriously, Haitham, where did you even get this thing? Did you inherit it from some hundred-year-old lady?”

Predictably, Alhaitham’s voice floats back to him from the general direction of Kaveh’s bedroom. “Are you saying you don’t like hundred-year-old ladies? I’m sure your Madam Faruzan would hate to hear that.”

“You mean your Madam Faruzan?” Kaveh yells back, just to be petty. “She’s Haravatat, isn’t she?”

Alhaitham doesn’t respond. Kaveh considers this a resounding success.

Kaveh turns the book over and frowns at the binding. It’s very peculiar. Maybe if he took some wood glue, and pasted the pages to a flexible clay panel instead of a traditional spine, so as to preserve the paper…

“Kaveh,” says Alhaitham suddenly.

Kaveh glances up. “Oh! I didn’t hear you come back. What do you need?”

Alhaitham motions to the downed bookshelf. Then he looks at Kaveh.

Ah. He wants help moving the bookshelf out of their living room. Probably to his own room, since it’s his bookshelf. Kaveh makes a show of sighing, and picks himself up off the floor. “You can’t do that and expect people to understand.”

“You just understood.”

Through the levels in the bookshelf, Kaveh glares at him. “I don’t count. I’ve had twelve years to learn everything there is to know about you.”

Alhaitham makes a sound. “You don’t know everything about me.”

“What! Of course I do,” says Kaveh, because everything can be an argument if he tries hard enough.

“Okay,” says Alhaitham. “What do I want most in the whole world?”

Well, that’s easy. Kaveh knows Alhaitham’s dreams better than he knows his own. “You want future scholars to use your research as a building block for their own rather than taking it at face value. Oh, and you want everyone to respect you enough to give you discounts at the market, but also enough to leave you alone when you don’t want to talk to them.”

“Wrong,” says Alhaitham. “I want you to help me move this bookshelf.”

Kaveh gives him a look so scathingly unimpressed that he half-expects it to burn through the wood. He heaves the bottom of the shelf high onto his shoulder, just to make a point.

Following his cue, Alhaitham lifts the other end of the fallen bookshelf. “I want this in—”

“Your room, obviously,” Kaveh fills in. “Probably on the left side, because that doesn’t block your natural light.”

Alhaitham breathes a half-laugh. “You’re still mad I said you don’t know me.”

Yeah, he totally is. Kaveh wants to cross his arms, but he’s holding half a bookshelf, so he settles for huffing loudly. “Name anyone else who knows you even half as well as I do.”

“…”

“That’s what I fucking thought,” Kaveh says smugly. “Face it! I’m the only person in your entire twenty-nine years of life who’s bothered to learn all of—”

Alhaitham sets down his end of the bookshelf.

Kaveh blinks. They’re right at the doorway of Alhaitham’s room, and he can’t really see beyond the wood of the bookshelf. “Uh, Haitham? Aren’t we moving this?”

“There’s a slight issue.”

Probably there’s not enough clear floor space. Kaveh sets his end down and leans over Alhaitham’s shoulder. “I bet it’s not even that bad. We can just move your shit from the floor and…”

Then Kaveh actually sees it.

The problem with Alhaitham’s room is that there’s no roof on it.

The whole place is, quite frankly, a mess. Kaveh looks up incredulously through the remnants of Alhaitham’s roof. “What the hell happened here?”

“Well, based on the wreckage of the Snezhnayan robot on top of my destroyed bedframe, and the robot-shaped hole in my ceiling—”

Kaveh glares at him. “It was a rhetorical question. Shut your stupid mouth.”

“My mouth’s not stupid. This mouth knows thirty languages.”

“Thirty-three, actually.”

Alhaitham looks at him sideways. “You’re still mad.”

“I am not.”

“Hm.”

A moment of silence. They stare at each other across the remnants of the ruined bedroom. The bookshelf creaks and settles against the floor.

“But seriously,” Kaveh says, because he just can’t help himself. “Who could possibly know you better than I do? I mean, if there’s someone that important in your life, I have to know about them. What if they want to come over, and I’m here? I’ll have to run away. Or maybe we can think up a hiding place for—”

“I’m not ashamed of you, Kaveh.”

Kaveh’s voice dies in his throat.

Alhaitham, in true Alhaitham fashion, decides that he doesn’t need to elaborate on that at all. Instead he says, “Nothing to be done about that,” and walks right back out of his room.

Kaveh rushes to follow him. “Wait, wait! What are you going to do?”

Alhaitham looks at him like he’s lost it. “Isn’t it obvious? You’re right here.”

Because he’s an architect? He’s got to be joking. “I just completed the biggest project of my life. Forgive me if I want a couple days to get drunk off my ass and sleep in until noon before you make me fix your goddamn roof.”

“I meant that you’re right here.”

Kaveh blinks. “Huh?”

“Our house has two bedrooms,” Alhaitham says slowly, like he’s explaining something he thinks is very simple. “Now it has one.”

Kaveh’s jaw drops. “I’m not giving up my bedroom. I just talked about how much I want to sleep. I thought we were doing well for once! Are you really going to make me crash with Tighnari?”

“No,” says Alhaitham. “You’ll crash with me, obviously. We’ll just sleep together.”

Then he steps over the bookshelf and walks right back out.

Kaveh watches him go, still baffled. So baffled, in fact, that he doesn’t register until much, much later that this is the first time Alhaitham has ever called it our house.

***

It’s not a big deal. It isn’t. They already share many things. They share coffee from the same pot every morning. They share books and pens and academic materials. They share shampoo, but not conditioner, because Kaveh uses it and Alhaitham doesn’t. They share clothes, on occasion, when Alhaitham takes him out to dinner and lets Kaveh dress him up like a pretty accessory. This always leaves him smelling like Kaveh’s perfume for a couple days.

And now they’re sharing a bed. It’s not even different. It’s not different at all.

This is what Kaveh tells himself in the shower. It isn’t very effective. But at least their pipes weren’t harmed in the attack; the water pressure’s great, and it’s hot enough to leave his skin flushed.

When he stumbles into the living room past midnight, hair twisted in his towel, Alhaitham is still sitting in his usual armchair. Kaveh stares at him. “I thought you’d already be asleep.” If he’d known Alhaitham was still up, he’d probably have put on that cream that’s supposed to make his dark circles less intense. And he’d have dried his hair, at least. Maybe put on socks without holes in them.

But all of that doesn’t matter, because Alhaitham doesn’t even look up at him. “I figured it would be easier if we went to bed at the same time.”

“You can’t start staying up late because of me!” Kaveh says, affronted. “You hate staying up late. You’ll die.”

“You’d be afraid to wake me if I was already asleep. Then you’d sleep on the couch and ruin your back.”

“Well,” says Kaveh, because this is entirely true. In fact, he was coming out to the living room to do exactly that.

“You would then get drunk instead of taking painkillers,” Alhaitham continues ruthlessly. “You would come home wasted, make it my problem that you’re in pain, and then make me pay off your tab. And I’d have to cook you breakfast while you’re hungover.”

Kaveh’s face heats with guilt. He likes when Alhaitham does those things, but. “You don’t have to do any of that. I can take care of myself.”

Finally Alhaitham looks up. “So can I.”

“I know damn well you can,” Kaveh mutters, bitter. He’s not even mad at Alhaitham. Most of the time when he’s mad at Alhaitham he’s just mad at himself, and doesn’t know who else to take it out on. “You’re the model of self-sufficiency, or whatever.”

“You misunderstand,” Alhaitham says. “I meant that I can take care of you, too.”

Kaveh stumbles. His socks with holes squeak against the hardwood floor.

Alhaitham shuts his book with a crisp noise. “I’m going to bed. You’re coming with me.”

There’s no arguing with him, not here. Kaveh gives up on his chivalrous idea of letting Alhaitham have his bed—the very thing he’d complained about earlier—and follows him into his own bedroom.

He’s been in Alhaitham’s bedroom a hundred times, whether to bring him coffee or yell at him or quietly take a book from his shelf while he’s asleep. But Alhaitham rarely comes here. Weirdly, Kaveh feels a bit self-conscious. It’s unreasonable. Alhaitham already knows what he’s like. He lives with him, for fuck’s sake. But still.

Kaveh opens his mouth, probably to apologize, definitely to put his foot in it. But before he can speak—

“Don’t,” Alhaitham says.

Kaveh’s so caught off guard that he forgets his embarrassment entirely. “Don’t what? How could you possibly know what I was going to say? You didn’t even look up at me.”

“If you were going to apologize for the state of the room, you don’t need to bother. I’ve seen much worse from you.”

Kaveh shuts his mouth.

“Besides,” says Alhaitham. He sets his earpieces on the side table and pulls back the covers. “I think we’re much past the need to be polite. Do you think you have to apologize for who you are, like I don’t already know?”

“Well—yes!” Kaveh splutters. His face is hot. He’s not sure if he’s offended or flattered. “You don’t like the way I live. You never have.”

“And yet here we are,” says Alhaitham flatly. “Turn out the lights, I’m going to sleep.”

“I—well—fine!” He switches off the lamp. Then he stands there staring at the bed. In the dark Alhaitham is nothing more than a shape under his blankets. Kaveh thinks briefly about drawing him like this, small and singular. If he gets in, they’ll both be shapes.

“Stop it,” Alhaitham says into the pillow. He sounds tired. It’s about two hours past his bedtime. “I can hear you thinking. Just sleep.”

Honestly, it’s a miracle he stayed up this late to begin with. Kaveh laughs under his breath a little. “You hear me thinking? I thought you were already sleeping.”

Alhaitham makes a vague noise, which could mean anything. For his own peace of mind, Kaveh decides it means he didn’t hear a thing. He lifts the covers and gets into his side of the bed. His side. What a concept.

“Night,” Kaveh says, quieter. Some softer part of him wants to reach out and tap Alhaitham’s wrist or something, but his hand falters halfway there.

Alhaitham’s quiet next to him. He doesn’t move in his sleep. He lies perfectly still. Kaveh can’t even hear him breathing.

Kaveh sleeps heavily. In his mind he draws Alhaitham’s face with a single line, never lifting his charcoal—just tracing him over and over again, until his hands are stained black.

***

Morning. Kaveh wakes early—too early—didn’t he say something about sleeping in until noon? But it’s cold. Why is it cold? Their heat isn’t broken or anything. He had a hot shower just last night. What on earth could have happened to…

Then he notices that all the blankets are gone.

Kaveh stares down at his own legs. There is, indeed, no blanket on them. Huh.

Something on the other side of the bed makes a noise. Kaveh glances over. A single ray of sunlight is falling onto the other side of the bed, perfectly illuminating the giant pile of blankets. It’s very cinematic. Kaveh sighs in relief and pulls the blanket back towards him.

The blanket doesn’t move.

Kaveh frowns. He pulls again. No dice.

“Stop,” says a voice from beneath the blanket pile.

Kaveh actually sits up straight. He stares down at the suspiciously Alhaitham-shaped blanket pile. “Hold on,” he says, more shocked than anything. “You’re a blanket stealer?”

“Usually they’re my own blankets,” Alhaitham says defensively. It’s funny—most of the time he’s got the perfect response to everything, like life is a debate he’s spent hours preparing for in advance. But this response is so instinctive, so childish, that it startles a laugh out of him.

Alhaitham burrows further into the blanket. Like this, his face is entirely hidden, so that he’s just a lump and a few floppy strands of hair.

He looks so small. Kaveh doesn’t have the heart to bother him, so he sighs and gets out of bed.

His sleep robes are all thin satin, not enough to really protect him from the cold. No matter, though. He’ll wear one of these for tonight, and then tomorrow they’ll go get Alhaitham’s blankets from his bedroom and Kaveh will get his own back, and they’ll be perfectly fine together.

When he tries to sleep again, he’s still cold, even in his robe. But Alhaitham’s clearly tired too. After all, he did just as much of the world-saving as Kaveh did, this time around. Besides, it’s his bedroom that was destroyed. Kaveh knows him better than he knows himself. He knows damn well Alhaitham misses his space like a limb; knows that he grounds himself in predictability, steadiness, routine. A blanketless night is a small price to pay, to give him back some of his missing comfort.

He looks over at Alhaitham in his bed. He seems smaller than usual, somehow, buried beneath all of Kaveh’s blankets. But he also seems like he belongs there, amidst the relics of Kaveh’s life.

Kaveh smiles. He tugs his satin robe closer. A small price to pay, indeed.

***

“So,” says Alhaitham, as he pours milk into Kaveh’s coffee, just the way he likes it. He pushes the mug across the table. “The blankets.”

Kaveh takes the mug. “My blankets,” he corrects.

“Our blankets.”

Kaveh glares at him over the rim of the mug. “It sure didn’t seem like they were ours last night.”

“I was cold,” says Alhaitham. He bristles like a startled cat. It is, Kaveh thinks, very endearing. “Why do you have so few blankets? I thought you loved to buy pointless things.”

Kaveh feels the beginnings of the usual argument about his purchases welling up, but shoves it back down. His blankets are important. He can’t let Alhaitham distract him with the promise of another rehashing of their perpetual debate. “Clearly the blankets do have a point, if you want them so badly.”

Alhaitham’s eyebrow moves up, just slightly. Over the years Kaveh’s learned that Alhaitham doesn’t quite smile, but his face is still very expressive. The eyebrows are always telling. This one means he’s impressed, or maybe pleased. He probably didn’t expect Kaveh to have a counterargument ready this early. “Yes,” Alhaitham says. “I run cold. Don’t you remember that from our desert research? I fared much better than you.”

Kaveh glares at him. “Excuse me! I seem to distinctly remember you sweating through your shirts just as much as I did. You stripped down to your socks almost daily.”

“You would remember that.”

Kaveh nearly spits out his coffee.

Alhaitham’s eyebrows move again. Smug, this time. He takes a victorious sip of his stupid black coffee with honey.

“I hate you a little,” Kaveh mutters. He looks down at his own reflection in the milky-brown coffee. The color mellows out his dark circles and smile lines. It almost makes him look like he’s still the prettier side of thirty. “You make me sound like some perverted upperclassman trying to lure in a pretty young thing.”

Alhaitham snorts. “Look at us now,” he says drily. “Fighting over blankets like children. I thought you were supposed to be the mature one.”

“I’m very mature. I take my coffee without sugar.”

“I have a nine to five, a regular salary, a house, fairly good cooking skills, and a steady relationship with all the important people in my life.”

“You also organized a coup,” Kaveh points out. “Twice.”

Alhaitham clicks his tongue. Instead of arguing back, he turns around to the cutting board, where he’s been chopping fruit to put in Kaveh’s yogurt. “Keep talking like that and I’ll put cilantro in your parfait.”

Kaveh immediately shuts up.

“Back to the topic at hand,” Alhaitham says over his shoulder. “The blankets.”

“Oh! Right,” Kaveh says. “Well, that’s easy. If my blankets aren’t enough for you, we can just grab yours from your bedroom. Then you’ll be just fine, and you won’t need to steal my blankets anymore.”

“My bedroom,” says Alhaitham flatly. He turns around and raises his eyebrows at Kaveh. “My bedroom, which still has metal shards from a robot crashing through the ceiling.”

Shit. He’d almost forgotten about that. That poor robot was beat up to hell and back, and there’s probably a fine layer of metal dust over the whole room from its crash landing. And if Alhaitham breathes any of that in from his blankets, then his lungs would be… “Well, maybe we could wash them?”

Alhaitham reaches for the cilantro.

“Nope, okay, message received loud and clear,” Kaveh says quickly. “Hm… Oh! You could wear extra clothes to bed!”

“You already know how much I sweat.”

That’s true. He remembers that quite well from the desert trip. “Why do you sweat so much, anyway? Aren’t you cold all the time?”

Alhaitham, his back still turned, shrugs. “My grandmother had the same thing during menopause. Perhaps it’s genetic.”

“You don’t have menopause,” says Kaveh. “You’re twenty-nine years old and a man.”

Alhaitham makes a noise. Maybe a laugh; maybe not.

Kaveh groans into his already-empty coffee mug. “What do you want me to do? It’s not like I’ve got enough money to buy new blankets whenever I please. If you’re so bothered about it, go buy yourself whatever you like.”

Alhaitham finally turns around again. This time he’s holding the yogurt, made with fresh plums chopped into near-perfect cubes floating in a layer on top. In the glass, it looks like geometric rain has fallen onto plush white sand. He slides it across the table to Kaveh. “You’re out of coffee,” he says. He takes the mug back and replenishes it.

The yogurt really is perfect. It’s even got a pretty honey drizzle over the cubed plums. Kaveh squints. “You’re trying to butter me up.”

“It’s working,” says Alhaitham shamelessly.

“Yep,” says Kaveh. He shovels some plums into his mouth. Delicious.

“Great,” says Alhaitham. “We’re going out shopping for new blankets at eleven. Be ready five minutes early. I don’t like to wait.”

Kaveh looks up at him with his mouthful of yogurt.

“Don’t give me that look,” says Alhaitham, because damn it all, of course he understands. “I’ve thought through all the possibilities, and we have to go together. I can hardly put blankets on your bed that you don’t like. We have to both like them.”

“Hmmm,” says Kaveh.

“Also I don’t feel like talking to other people today.”

There it is. Kaveh grins at him. “You’re talking to me just fine.”

Alhaitham turns back around again. “You’re not really others, to me,” he says, quieter.

Thank god Alhaitham’s back is turned. He can’t see Kaveh missing the bowl entirely and dropping his spoon onto the table like an idiot.

“Anyway,” says Alhaitham, like nothing happened at all. “Eleven.”

“Ten fifty-five,” Kaveh corrects. “You don’t like to wait.”

Alhaitham smiles with his eyebrows again. He’s sweet, once you know how to read him. Kaveh smiles with his mouth and eats the rest of his geometric parfait.

***

The blankets they buy are heavy. Kaveh heaves them halfway home, and Alhaitham carries them effortlessly the other half of the way. Kaveh makes a few comments about it—“I ought to make you carry lumber for me every time I get a commission”—and Alhaitham does that thing where he pretends not to hear him and walks faster. Kaveh’s reminded of when they first met, back when Alhaitham was seventeen and still embarrassed about being a genius. It’s very funny.

When they get home, they pile the blankets onto Kaveh’s bed unceremoniously and wrangle them into place.

They’ve bought three layers of blankets. The first is a thin silk sheet, the kind of thing Kaveh likes during the summer when the nights are short and hot. The second is a thin cotton blanket, light enough to keep Kaveh warm. The third is bulky: cotton filled with sumpter wool, like a captured cloud.

“Seriously, I think I’ll sweat to death under that thing,” Kaveh complains while they shift it into place. “It’s ridiculous. No one needs that much blanket.”

“I do,” says Alhaitham. Weirdo.

Kaveh sighs. “You’re so lucky I like you. I’d have kicked anyone else out of my bed for this.”

“I paid for it.”

“Hey! You’d have paid twice as much if you didn’t have me there to sweet-talk the vendors into giving us discounts.”

Alhaitham’s mouth twists in amusement. “If you weren’t there I would have paid nothing. I wouldn’t have spoken to anyone.”

Kaveh steps back and squints one eye at the bed. “Eh, I think if you gestured with enough gusto they’d probably have figured it out. I usually do just fine understanding you. I think this corner’s a little off—can you pull more on your side?”

“Yes, but we’ve established that you have twelve years of practice,” Alhaitham says. He pulls the blanket. “How’s that?”

“A little more.”

Alhaitham obediently pulls the blanket further toward his side. “You know we’ll just mess it up again when we sleep in it,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

Kaveh frowns. “We won’t mess it up that badly.”

Alhaitham gives him a look. “If you say so.”

He looks like he knows something Kaveh doesn’t. Kaveh rolls his eyes at him and puts his hands on his hips. “Well, it looks great now. So there. Anyway, come into the kitchen. I’ll get started on dinner. How do you feel about soup? I’m thinking we could make stew and then use up the rice from yesterday.”

“The plums are going to go brown.”

Kaveh snaps his fingers. “Right! I could make plum and pork stew. Uh—you don’t want it with a lot of ginger though, right? I always put too much for you.”

“I don’t mind,” Alhaitham says. “You like it that way.”

Kaveh gives him a fond look. And here he thought he was supposed to be the self-sacrificial one. “Go read or something. Relax for a bit. You look exhausted.”

Alhaitham takes his book and sits in the living room quietly, earpieces on. Kaveh sets the water to boil and watches him out of the corner of his eye. He’d never expected it could be this peaceful, living with Alhaitham. They used to argue so much. Funny: they’ve argued for so long that he knows everything Alhaitham believes in, now. Like a negative-space painting—Kaveh’s drawn so many brushstrokes around him that what remains in the middle is a perfect portrait.

Kaveh leaves out half the ginger in the recipe. Alhaitham takes his earpieces off for the meal, and they eat in quiet, parallel ease.

***

The problem with buying blankets they both like is—

“You have got to be kidding me,” Kaveh says into the darkness.

Alhaitham pulls all three blankets tighter. “It’s a three-blanket experience,” he says, muffled by all the fabric. “We bought them together. They’re meant to be experienced as a set.”

Kaveh sits up and stares at him. “There’s just no way you need a double layer of that comforter. For fuck’s sake, Haitham.”

Alhaitham’s eyes peek out of the top of the blanket pile. “You’re just jealous.”

“Yes!” Kaveh says with gusto. “Yes, I’m goddamn jealous! They’re my blankets! Give me my blankets back.”

“Our blankets.”

Kaveh is too tired to care. “Fine. Then give me any part of our blankets.”

Alhaitham does not. He tucks his head back into the pile.

“How do you even breathe in there?” Kaveh asks. He kicks at the part of the lump where he thinks Alhaitham’s legs are. “Hey. Hey. Hey. Give me back some blankets.”

“No.”

“Aughgh,” says Kaveh. “You are the worst ever. I cannot believe I like you.”

“Mmm,” says Alhaitham. “You like me?”

Kaveh’s so baffled that he stops kicking him. “Do I like you?” he asks incredulously. “Haitham, I’ve stuck around with you for—what, twelve years now? You think I’d still be around you if I didn’t like you?”

“Oh,” says Alhaitham. “I like you too.”

“Great,” says Kaveh, who has known this for a while. The part where teenage Alhaitham followed him around like a lost duckling for a year kind of gave it away. Also the part where he let Kaveh live in his house and paid for all his stuff. “Now give me back some blankets.”

Alhaitham sniffs. “No.”

“Don’t you like me enough to give me one blanket?”

“No.”

Damn. Kaveh looks at the Alhaitham-shaped lump and sighs. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he says, and then he lunges.

Alhaitham yelps into the blankets. It’s muffled so much that it sounds sort of pathetic. He can’t fight back from underneath his three-blanket armor, so it’s not very hard to wrestle him down. He’s rolled up in the blankets like a flower-shaped pastry, so Kaveh pushes him over to unravel him. The only problem is—

He rolls off the bed and hits the floor.

“Shit,” Kaveh mutters, already clambering off the bed. Poor Alhaitham is lying like a corpse in the middle of the unraveled pile. “Haitham, are you alright? I just meant to unroll you. I didn’t mean to—”

Alhaitham grabs his arm and tugs him down.

“HEY!” Kaveh yells, but it’s no use. “Get—off me—oh my god, ow—”

“Don’t unroll me,” Alhaitham says, like a petulant child. He kicks Kaveh’s legs with force. “I was cozy.”

“You big bastard!” Kaveh elbows him in the side. “That hurt.”

“That’s rich coming from the one who pushed me off the bed.”

“You stole my blankets!”

“Our blankets.”

Kaveh groans and kicks him again, and then before he knows it they’re in a full-blown fight on Kaveh’s bedroom floor, elbowing each other like kids staying up past their bedtime. It’s so stupid that Kaveh bursts out laughing, and then Alhaitham looks down at him with stars in his eyes and makes that expression with his eyebrows again.

“Behold,” says Kaveh, still struggling for breath. He spreads his arms like a museum curator displaying an artwork. “The Akademiya’s best and brightest.”

Alhaitham flops down next to him. “I don’t know. I was always a bit dull,” he says.

Kaveh turns his head. “You’re kidding. You, dull? I’ve never met someone smarter in my life.”

“Let Tighnari hear you say that.”

Kaveh snorts. He turns his head back and smiles. “He knows where he stands with me.”

Alhaitham huffs a laugh. Instead of looking at each other, they both look at the same spot on the ceiling.

“My back hurts,” Kaveh says at last.

Alhaitham makes a noise. “It’s because you’re old.”

“Rude! I am three years older than you. That’s—that’s practically nothing. And we graduated only a year apart.”

Alhaitham breathes into the night air. Strange. When he’s asleep he’s so quiet. Maybe he knows, subconsciously, that Kaveh takes comfort in the reminder that he’s alive and well, that his breath is steady and even.

Kaveh sighs and stands up from the floor. He extends one hand down to Alhaitham to help him up. Alhaitham takes it. He’s heavy. Kaveh struggles to pull him up, but eventually they both make it. They stand at the foot of the bed, looking at the aftermath of their blanket fight.

“Told you we’d mess it up,” says Alhaitham.

“Shut up,” says Kaveh, a little fondly. “Help me fix it.”

Alhaitham picks up the pile of blankets, and together they untangle it all.

***

In the aftermath of the disaster, Sumeru moves on. Kaveh is glad for the return to normalcy after the near-death-experience they all had in the desert, and the seventy-two hours he spent awake making Akasha terminals with Alhaitham. So when Tighnari offers the usual meetup for drinks—“And TCG,” Cyno adds hopefully—Kaveh happily accepts.

They meet at Lambad’s like usual. When he arrives, Kaveh orders a bottle of desert wine and takes his seat with a flourish.

“Nice,” says Sethos, leaning forward. “You got the good stuff. Vulture vintage?”

Kaveh pulls the bottle away from him with a grin. “Are you even old enough to drink?”

Sethos laughs at him. “Just because I’m young and spry doesn’t mean you have to act jealous.” He takes the bottle and pours them each a glass. “Cheers! To the Sumeru of today.”

Kaveh drinks to that. He sets down the glass delicately, still half full, where a couple years ago he would have downed the whole thing and immediately poured himself another.

Cyno turns the bottle over in his hands and grimaces. “I shudder to think how you’ll pay for this without Alhaitham.”

Kaveh waves his hand. “Oh, he’s coming. He’s at home right now. Long day, you know how it is. He’ll be here later, once he’s recharged enough to enjoy socializing with us.”

“Well,” says Tighnari, with a pointed look at Cyno. “Five players is too many for TCG, and I’d hate to make one of us just watch. That’d be no fun.”

Cyno, who has been busy cleaning his custom-designed Albedo-illustrated cards with a glasses cloth, visibly wilts.

Kaveh almost laughs. Tighnari’s one sneaky bastard; the years sure haven't mellowed him, that’s for sure. He’s still going strong. “How’s Collei doing as an official Forest Ranger?”

“Not much different, really,” Tighnari says, his voice audibly softer. “I already trusted her with every task a Forest Ranger can handle. The only difference is now she gets to wear my trust like everyone else.”

“Tighnari’s been spoiling her,” Cyno says in an undertone. “He commissioned her a custom uniform. It has modification options depending on the level of pain in her leg. She can wear it with or without a brace. And it has the color scheme she likes.”

Tighnari’s ears bristle. “It’s practical.”

“He wanted to get her a custom-designed Forest Watcher cane, too. With vines on it.”

Tighnari looks at Cyno and inhales.

“Which he did not do,” Cyno says quickly. “Because he is reasonable and dedicated and also very, very beautiful. Stop looking at me like that.”

“I think it’s reasonable to be proud of her,” Kaveh interjects, before Tighnari can do something drastic, like telling Cyno he won’t get tail-brushing privileges for a week. (Last time he’d done that, Cyno had cried and actually fallen to the floor to beg him for forgiveness. Granted, he was also about five beers deep.) “It makes sense to reward her achievements. She’s doing great!”

Tighnari looks mollified.

“Tell us how you’ve been doing,” Sethos offers. Clever guy. “You two worked real hard on those Akasha terminals. You deserve a break.”

“Amen,” Kaveh says, taking another sip of the desert liquor. “Ah. Yeah, it’s been good! I’ve had a few commission requests, but I’ve put them on hold for now. Alhaitham’s just getting back to work with the new Sages.”

“They’re not half bad,” Cyno says. “They’re giving the Matra much more oversight, which is responsible.”

Tighnari nods. He peels a rambutan carefully—did he bring his own snacks to the tavern? What a weirdo—and smiles a little. “I’m glad you’re resting. I’ve heard you complain about your back one too many times.”

“It hasn’t been perfect,” Kaveh says. “I mean, Alhaitham’s room was destroyed, so I’m suffering the consequences.”

Sethos stares at him blankly. “Alhaitham’s room? Like his office?”

“No. Like his bedroom.”

Sethos’s brow furrows. Then he brightens. “Oh! Didn’t know you guys were a separate-rooms kind of couple. Not that that’s invalid or anything, it’s just not what I expected. You didn’t seem like…”

Kaveh blinks at him several times. “Of course we have separate bedrooms,” he says, before his brain can catch up. “Or—I guess we don’t now, but we used to. Before the house was destroyed.”

Tighnari suddenly looks very interested. He leans forward over his half-peeled rambutan. “So it’s going well?”

“Heavens, no. It’s awful! I mean, Alhaitham is the world’s worst blanket stealer. I mean the worst. We’ve fought about it at least three times now. And he sleeps on a completely different schedule from me, so I always wake him up when I come to bed, and it makes me feel so guilty because he makes this face at me.”

No one looks very offended on his behalf.

“And he’s an awful snorer,” Kaveh says, just to see if he gets a reaction from them. “And he wears the world’s worst pajamas to bed.”

“He’s not a snorer,” Cyno says.

Kaveh crosses his arms. “How would you know?”

“We’ve slept together.”

Kaveh stares at him. “Excuse me??”

“Not voluntarily,” Cyno says, waving his hand. Tighnari passes him the peeled rambutan and gets to work peeling another. “After the fight in the desert, Candace made us share a bedroll to figure out our differences. It worked wonders.”

Kaveh had no idea that happened. He was busy in the desert nearly dying of heat exposure on a commission. “Is that why you get along now?”

“Mm-hmm,” says Cyno, dead serious. “That, and we bonded over Dehya beating the shit out of us. That would probably help you two a lot, actually.”

“Maybe let’s not try that,” says Kaveh quickly. He’s seen Dehya off-duty enough to know that she doesn’t mess around. “Besides, Alhaitham and I get along just fine.”

“You do nothing but complain about him,” says Tighnari.

“Well,” says Kaveh. His face feels hot. Maybe he’s drinking too fast. “If I told you all the things I like about him, we’d be here all day.”

All three of them, sitting on the other side of the table, share a very conspicuous glance. “You know what,” says Sethos, very delicately. “How about you try telling us anyway? I think it’d be cool.”

Huh. Weird, but Kaveh can hardly pass up an opportunity like this. “Uh—he’s smart,” he starts, a little awkwardly. “Like, crazy smart. And I know he’s a bastard about it, but he acts like that because he really has earned it. He’s sweet when he wants to be. A quiet kind of sweet. Things you don’t even notice until you look back at them. Like, he knows when I’m going to have a panic attack, and talks me down. I don’t even notice things like that until later. He never asks for anything. He just does it. And—and it drives me crazy sometimes. He’s done everything for me. Not in a big way. Not like he’s given me the world, but—you know, he’s like the ground under my feet. Solid. And I just sort of know in my bones that he’s not going anywhere.”

Silence. All three of them look at him, baffled.

“What?” says Kaveh. “Is there something on my face?”

“You’re in love with him,” says Tighnari, the bluntest of the lot.

Kaveh blinks. He blinks again. “Well—kind of, I guess.”

“Kind of, I guess?” says Sethos incredulously. “You can’t be serious. Those were like wedding vows.”

Kaveh stands up from the table, affronted. He opens his mouth to argue back.

“I’m pretty sure that chessboard thing was actually an archaic wedding ritual,” says Cyno, the bastard. “Hermanubis told me he and his wife did that to prove their devotion to each other.”

“WHAT?” says Kaveh.

“Oh! Great,” says Sethos, beaming. “Hey—a toast to you, our newly-married architect! I’m the only single one here now. Guess it’ll be my turn soon.”

Tighnari raises his stupid rambutan instead of a glass. “Cheers,” he says, flat with amusement.

“I AM NOT IN LOVE WITH ALHAITHAM,” Kaveh yells at the top of his lungs.

The whole bar goes silent. Comically, as if they’re in a musical or something, the crowd of patrons parts to reveal a newly-arrived Alhaitham at the entrance.

“Hello to you too,” Alhaitham says, raising one eyebrow.

Kaveh immediately sits back down. He plunks his face into his hands.

“Hmm,” Alhaitham says, as he takes his seat next to Kaveh. He turns the wine bottle in his hands. “Expensive.”

“Don’t speak to me,” Kaveh says into his hands. “I’m going to hide in the corner out of shame. Goodbye.”

Alhaitham does that thing with his eyebrows again. “I’ll pay for it. I don’t mind that you have expensive taste.”

Kaveh groans in shame.

“Now that Kaveh’s out of commission, we have four people again,” Cyno says hopefully. “Just the right amount for TCG!”

Tighnari sighs heavily. “Fine,” he says, like he hasn’t been happily married to Cyno for six years, or whatever. “Deal me in.”

***

That night Kaveh gets tipsy enough that he asks for Alhaitham to steady him on the way home. He fakes a few stumbles so that Alhaitham will keep his arm wrapped around his waist, even though he’s actually much closer to sober than drunk. Alhaitham hums like he knows Kaveh’s full of shit. He holds him the whole way home anyway.

They brush their teeth in the bathroom together. Kaveh changes into his light pajamas and Alhaitham puts on his cotton robe. They climb into bed together, sleeping at the same time for the first time since that first night.

When Kaveh turns out the lights, Alhaitham shuffles around. Eventually he says, “You’re not in love with me?”

Kaveh sighs. “Not in a way that matters,” he says softly.

“It’s you and me,” says Alhaitham. “Of course it matters.”

Kaveh opens his eyes and looks at the ceiling. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Once,” says Alhaitham slowly, “when you were drunk, and I came to pick you up, you asked me to marry you.”

“Oh,” says Kaveh.

“You said it didn’t matter what my answer was, because you’d never look at another person in the whole universe either way.”

Damn. That does sound like something Kaveh would say. “I don’t remember this.”

“You were pretty wasted,” says Alhaitham. “Also, this was four years ago.”

Kaveh turns over and groans into his pillow. “Four years? Haitham, have mercy on me. You went all this time knowing that I want to marry you, and you still did all of this?”

Alhaitham’s quiet for a minute. “You don’t usually tell me when you want things. I know that if you ask for it, you must want it more than anything else.”

Kaveh exhales harshly. He forgot, somehow, that if he knew Alhaitham perfectly, then naturally Alhaitham would know him perfectly, too. The negative-space portrait goes both ways.

“And you were drunk,” says Alhaitham, softer. “You didn’t mean it, not really. I wanted you to be ready.”

Kaveh closes his eyes. It’s easier to talk to him like this, in the mellow darkness. “I might never be ready,” he admits, a little desperate. He’s only ever seen the ugly side of marriages, when they fall apart. If that happened to the two of them, he wouldn’t survive it. Maybe neither of them would. “I don’t want to ruin things, not with you.”

“I know,” says Alhaitham.

Kaveh breathes out slowly. He counts the inhale: one, two, three.

Then Alhaitham pulls the blankets over to his side.

“Hey! I’m still awake,” Kaveh protests. “You can’t steal the blankets while I’m awake. You have to wait until I can’t fight back.”

“Mm,” says Alhaitham. “I didn’t know you made the blanket-theft rules.”

“Well, I did,” Kaveh says petulantly. “Give them back.”

“Come and get them.”

Kaveh blinks. He looks over at him. “Haitham, I—well, I’m still bruised from last time, on the floor. Just give them back.”

Alhaitham lifts one end of the blankets. He looks at Kaveh; in the dark, his eyes shine streetlight-gold. Like a lighthouse guiding him home. “Come and get them,” he repeats, like an invitation.

Kaveh swallows.

“Stop being stupid,” Alhaitham says. “Nothing’s changed, Kaveh. I knew. I’ve always known.”

“Okay,” Kaveh says, barely above a whisper. Slowly, he inches closer, still half-afraid that Alhaitham will kick him out and decide to hate him. The space in the blankets with him isn’t that big. When Kaveh settles, he’s pressed up against Alhaitham’s back, maybe too close for comfort. He tries to shuffle away a little.

Alhaitham tugs him back. “I said, stop being stupid.” He drags Kaveh’s arm over his waist, slinging it over him like a casual mark of closeness.

Kaveh exhales into his hair. It smells like the shampoo they share. “You’re in love with me too,” he says, a question he already knows the answer to.

Alhaitham hums. “Not in a way that matters.”

Kaveh grins into his hair. “It’s you and me,” he says. “Of course it matters.”

***

“I’ve been thinking,” Alhaitham says, when Kaveh’s finally drawing up the blueprint for the fixed roof of his bedroom.

“Ooh, dangerous,” Kaveh replies, not even looking up. “What is it? I’m thinking of changing the roof on your bedroom to match the entryway. The asymmetry would make the house look more interesting. And we can add skylights if you want.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about.”

Kaveh looks up. “Yeah?”

“Don’t redesign my bedroom.”

Kaveh sighs. He tucks his carpenter’s pencil into his hair to free up his hands. “Really, Haitham? You couldn't have thought to tell me this three hours ago?”

“You misunderstand.” He sets something down on the table: the lamp from his bedroom. “You’re not redesigning my bedroom. You’re redesigning your workshop, and my office.”

Kaveh’s hands falter. He looks at the lamp and crosses his arms. “You’re saying you hate my blueprints being all over the bedroom,” he accuses fondly. “And you want me to move all my shit out of here.”

“I’m saying we don’t need two bedrooms,” Alhaitham corrects.

Kaveh looks up at him. “Oh.”

Alhaitham puts the lamp on his side table—when did it become his side table, Kaveh wonders?—and sits on the window ledge. “Once the roof is fixed, we can move everything into there. You can choose wherever you want your easel to go, and my bookshelves can go on the other side.”

Kaveh’s hand smudges the graphite on his roof sketch. “You mean—you want us to share an office?”

“I won’t take up much space,” Alhaitham says. “I won’t bother you.”

“That’s a yes.”

“Yes,” says Alhaitham. He leans against the window. His gray hair is dyed red and purple and orange by the last remnants of the evening sun. “I want to be everywhere you are.”

Kaveh looks at him a little incredulously. “I can’t believe you, you know? I can’t believe you’re real, and I just get to have you.”

Alhaitham smiles with his shoulders instead of his mouth. He stands from the windowsill. “You look stupid,” he says. “There’s graphite on your face, and the pencil’s sticking out of your hair at a weird angle.”

“Thanks,” says Kaveh drily. “Good to know.”

“And yet—” He takes the pencil out of Kaveh’s hair and hands it back to him. “—After all that, I still like you.”

Kaveh takes the pencil and smiles a little. “Nice save.”

Alhaitham exhales slowly. “I’m trying to say that you don’t ever have to want what you already have.”

Kaveh stares at him.

“Don’t ask me to get married,” Alhaitham says, halfway to a plea. “Don’t ask for what you already have. Do you understand? It’s yours. It has been for a long time.”

The gears grind to a halt in Kaveh’s brain. What he comes up with is, “Don’t tell me we got married while I was drunk and I don’t even remember.”

Alhaitham breathes a laugh. “No. Nothing like that. I just mean—” He pauses, like the words are eluding him. “I’m with you, alright? I’m with you.”

It’s a quiet moment. The kind of thing he probably won’t ever say again, not with his words; the kind of thing he’ll say every day with his actions, instead. “I understand,” Kaveh says. He reaches for Alhaitham’s hand and holds it tight. “I’m with you, too.”

“Mm,” says Alhaitham. His thumb taps against Kaveh’s fingers, just once, and then he lets go. “Put your easel on the left side of the room. It gets more natural light.”

Kaveh turns his pencil over in his hand. “That sounds good.”

He goes back to working on the sketch. This time he draws the room itself. On the left, he adds a tiny easel, and on the right, a tiny bookshelf. A miniature matched pair. Their bedroom; their office; their shared life.

(Their house.)