[ he only distantly registers kaveh's departure, the shroud of alcohol draping back over his consciousness as alhaitham tries to shut out whatever the other was up to - touching him, speaking to him, packing his things, coming, going. it had been a long time since he'd seen the bottom of more than one bottle, but it was doing at least a mediocre job of papering over the cracks in his defenses, keeping up the appearances of being held together even if it were by a thread.

he's staring blankly into the pale liquid, unaware that the blonde had even come back in the room when the scribe is mildly startled by a paper being waved in his face and that musical voice cutting through the clouds of his sulk like sun after rain. looking somewhat sourly down at the interruption, alhaitham realises that kaveh was offering him the very last thing he wanted to see right now - and barely, he restrains himself from snatching it off the other and tossing it away. ]

What does it matter why I'm drinking? [ he mutters into the glass, gaze averting back to staring off into the distance at nothing in particular. ] Like I said, your things were everywhere. I don't have a categorical knowledge of which one in particular that is.

[ but the way he says it belies the fact that isn't true; alhaitham's voice is so much more raw than normal, emotion snaking into his level words and corrupting them to betray true feeling. after a beginning of life where everything he'd wanted was taken away from him, the scribe had designed an existence where that simply couldn't happen - until now, until he dared to think about things outside himself.

in a more tired tone that sounds more like a rhetorical question than anything else, but important because kaveh still hasn't left his side; ]

What do you want from me?