[ It is a day of celebration, long awaited after the period of mourning, and the bleakness of war that had come before that. The war had been won at the cost of the lives of both the kingdom's monarchs, a bittersweet victory that left the people adrift and the crown prince's heart broken in more ways than one. In the days that followed, the people of Sumeru observed tradition, grieved for their king and queen, and Prince Kaveh—
Kaveh was thrust into the responsibilities of training for his new role, given no time to mourn his mother and father except for the tears shed bitterly into his silken pillows at night.
"King", they called him at the coronation, as the goddess laid the twin crowns of gold and flowers upon his head, but the title makes him feel sick to his stomach, and, kind as ever, she tells them that it's okay with her if he would rather still be a prince. And so here he sits, a prince with the powers of a king.
The celebrations go late into the night. Kaveh doesn't feel much like celebrating, though, and so he makes an excuse to leave just as soon as propriety will allow. He should go back to his quarters, but he shakes Cyno—his new head guard—with a promise that he'll do just that, and then...
Well, he ends up wandering, instead. And where else would his feet take him but the palace gardens, those same beautiful gardens in which he so often played when he was younger, more carefree?
Kaveh sits on one of the benches, looking out over the gardens, and his kingdom, and the world beyond.
Even after the years between them, years filled with battlefields and borderlands, years where duty became weapon and shield alike, Alhaitham still moves like shadow when he chooses. Just silence and stillness make it so he's untraceable even if he's barely hidden. He watches from the colonnade, half-obscured by moonlight and ivy, the garden lamps casting soft halos around the figure slumped on the marble bench.
Crowned not in name but in weight, Kaveh is still so achingly golden in the dark. Dimmed, somehow, as though grief had folded itself into his very silhouette.
Alhaitham should leave. That’s what he's good at now, isn’t it? Knowing when to withdraw? Knowing when his presence no longer brings comfort? Kaveh had made that much clear, hadn’t said the words, not truly, but grief has its own sharp tongue, and Alhaitham knew better than to argue with loss.
But it is difficult, sometimes, to remember that restraint. So instead, he steps forward. Boots quiet on the stone. No armor, only the dark green scholar’s coat he’d once worn to tutoring sessions beside Kaveh, back when the most dangerous thing in the world had been poorly recited history.
He just lets the air settle between them as he lowers himself to the far end of the bench, keeping a respectful distance. It’s been years since they’ve shared this garden. Longer still since they’ve shared the same ease.
Then, softly: ] You always used to climb the orange trees when you were upset. I think one of them still bears a scar from when you fell.
[ He startles as Alhaitham sits on the far end of the bench, having not noticed his childhood friend and former guard even as he approached. After a moment though he calms, looking away with a breath as he tries to get himself under control—his eyes are red-rimmed, and he doesn't want the other man to see him this way, even now.
His breath stutters over several forms of address before he lands on the right one— ] Haith— Ser Alh... Lord Alhaitham. [ —and by the time he's done, his voice is little more than a whisper. A breath, as he swallows his pride, and tries again: ] It has been a long time since I was that young man.
[ He hates how stilted, how awkward, his words sound. He isn't that person anymore. He can't afford to be that person anymore, not since his parents died and his guard quit his post. Not since everyone left him behind.
Now, he is a king, and he—
He blinks back fresh tears, swallows hard against the lump in his throat. He will not cry, not right now. ]
[ He doesn’t flinch at the fumbling of his name, nor at the hollow edge wrapped around the title. But something still flickers across his expression like the brush of wind through an open door. Regret, maybe. Something like an ache.
He almost speaks then. Almost says you don’t have to call me that. Yet, Alhaitham has never been one to speak without reason, and Kaveh is already doing enough work holding himself together.
So he lets the silence rest for a beat just long enough to soften the tension in the air.
When he answers, his voice is gentler than anyone save Kaveh would expect, like the slow turn of a page. ]
My students are insufferable.
[ Well. Perhaps the tone is gentle, not the words. ] The war made philosophers of everyone. I’ve been lecturing for ten weeks, and not one of them has written a thesis worth the ink.
[ It’s a joke, and not a joke. But it’s soft around the edges. He leans back slightly, bracing one arm against the bench’s edge, his gaze flicking toward the treetops, where the leaves still catch the golden thread of the palace lights. ]
[ It's frightening, how easy it is to fall back into old habits. Kaveh rolls his eyes as Alhaitham calls his students "insufferable", sighs when the other complains about their theses, and while the look offered to the other is tired and sad, there's something of a hint of their usual fire behind it. ]
You know the saying, Lord Alhaitham. If you have a problem with everyone, perhaps you are the problem?
[ And then, because the words feel too harsh even to him: ]
You know yourself that your standards can be impossible for the average person to meet. Perhaps you should consider trying to see things from their perspective. Or at the very least adjusting your expectations. We both had our fair share of terrible theses when we were first studying.
[ Well, he had. Prince or not, he'd been told more than once that he couldn't stay up all night and expect to get something sensible out of his quill. Alhaitham, though... Kaveh's not sure he ever had any problems, despite training in the soldiers' tents and studying when he could. ]
[ A breath huffs out of him, short and sharp. Amusement, rather than offense. It's the sound of something old and familiar cracking through the quiet like dawn light through a shutter: Kaveh scolding him, as if no time has passed at all.
The corner of his mouth tugs upward, subtle but unmistakable. Not quite a smile. Something that might have once lived only in the space between them, back when the world was gentler, and their lives hadn’t yet turned to duty and ash. ]
If my standards are impossible, it’s only because I’ve seen what you could do with a few sleepless nights and a dull quill.
[ He doesn’t say I memorized your second-year treatise on symmetry in sacred geometry. He doesn’t say I carried your ink-stained notes on the inside of my breastplate like a fool. He just lets the compliment stay soft and steady as starlight.
But he senses the flicker of fatigue beneath Kaveh’s words. The strain in his voice that wit can’t quite cover. So after a pause, he shifts, turns a little more toward him, knees angled slightly inward. He hums. A thoughtful sound. Eyes drifting from the trees to the man beside him, as if he recalls this just now, and not has kept stored in his chest for the past years. ]
And if I recall correctly, your first thesis had sixteen footnotes on a poem you didn’t cite. You called it artistic license.
[ It’s dry, but not cold. There’s fondness there. And yet, he knows exactly what kind of energy that sort of comment will ellicit. ]
[ He doesn't look up. He doesn't need to; he's know Alhaitham more than long enough now to hear the smile in his voice without seeing his face. It makes a smile form on his own in answer, an expression he covers with a hand as he shakes his head. It's inappropriate for him to smile at such a comment, after all.
Even if it's a comment that makes him feel... special. Important, in a way that his very royalty doesn't. All Kaveh has ever wanted is for Alhaitham to see him, to see him the same way Kaveh has always seen Alhaitham—
Nevermind that Alhaitham's attention has always been for quill and book and sword alone, when he says things like he's saying now, recalling memories as if they happened hours ago instead of than years, it makes Kaveh feel like he has been seen...
But of course he hasn't. To allow himself to think so would be stupid. If Alhaitham had seen him, if he returned Kaveh's feelings, then he would never have left.
Don't talk like that. Please.
But of course Alhaitham turns further toward him, names another memory, and Kaveh's heart pounds against his ribcage. He laughs to hide it, but the sound is hollow. ]
Right. I got in a lot of trouble with our professor for that one. So... that's what I mean. Give them time, and you'll find someone who can meet your standards.
[ And it won't be him, and he'll hate them forever, but he'll smile because Alhaitham is happy— ]
[ He doesn’t press the comment further, neither does he remark on how Kaveh’s laugh doesn’t ring quite right. He’s not sure if it’s the way Kaveh’s shoulders shift too quickly, or how his gaze is fixed too precisely on the darkness ahead. But he knows the shape of Kaveh’s real joy, how it curves through his whole frame, how it lifts the edges of his words and fills the air around him like birdsong in spring. This isn’t that.
Instead, he lets silence stretch its arms again, familiar, gentle, yet still oppressive. He watches the lights flicker against Kaveh’s profile, golden like a page halfway turned. The tilt of his neck, the fall of his hair. All as he remembers, but changed too. War does that. Loss even more so.
Alhaitham doesn’t know how to mourn parents the way Kaveh has had to. But he knows what it is to lose someone who was always there. Who shaped the shape of your days.
He never thought he’d have to mourn Kaveh from afar as well.
Maybe that’s why he speaks the next words as softly as he does, letting them drop like stones into still water, no splash, only ripple. ]
They say you refused the title.
[ Not a question. He knows it’s true. Heard it whispered at the gates of the academy, murmured in the halls of the library like some romantic footnote in history.
The prince who grieved too hard to wear a crown. ]
[ Alhaitham speaks, and Kaveh stills. When his reaction comes, it's too slow; he turns his head, but his old friend will see the glint of tears in his eyes before he does, telling the truth of his pain even as he tries to hide it from him. ]
That's what they're saying, is it?
[ His tone is light, but the thickness of tears is evident in his voice, as much a giveaway as his eyes. ]
I suppose on the surface it must look that way. But the truth is, the title was never mine to refuse. Whether he walks among his people anymore or not, the name of king belongs to my father.
[ The dignitaries are unhappy with this choice, of course; it was only by the grace of the goddess that he got his way on the matter, and he knows that she is gentle only for the sake of his feelings, that sooner or later she will encourage him to move forward.
Kaveh plans to fight that day for as long as he can. ]
You think I'm being foolish.
[ Like Alhaitham's words, Kaveh's do not form the shape of a question. He has known the other man for long enough, after all, to be certain that he'll scorn such an emotional attachment. ]
[ He does not look away when Kaveh’s eyes glimmer, does not offer the courtesy of pretending not to notice. For all that he’s built a life on logic and withdrawal, some truths deserve to be witnessed. Instead, he listens to the ache beneath the defiance, the shape of loss hiding inside every word. He remembers how Kaveh used to fight for the smallest things with a righteous certainty, who would get the last honey cake at a festival, discuss whether the sun or the moon held more beauty. This is no small thing. This is his grief refusing to be displaced. ]
No. [ No embellishment, offered in the same way a sword is offered, hilt-first, to someone you trust not to use it against you. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, gaze low. ]
You loved him. You’re allowed to be a son before you’re a sovereign.
[ A breath. He hesitates, the next words heavier, quiet: ]
[ For a moment, it almost feels like he and Alhaitham are on the same page again, just like they used to be all those years ago. The scholar tells him that he doesn't see him as foolish, offers kindness and understanding and for just a moment Kaveh feels supported, understood. For just a moment, he thinks that maybe he can delay the inevitable even longer—with Alhaitham on-side, surely the goddess will understand Kaveh's wish not to change the status quo.
But the idea is shattered in the very next moment when his former bodyguard tells him, voice quiet and heavy, that he can't do this forever.
He turns his head further away from the other. ]
I will do my duty.
[ His voice is stiff. His heart aches. For the first time in years—the first time since he was essentially banned from alcohol—he desperately wants to drink. And he can't do that, so...
He needs to leave. Go to bed. Something. Anything that isn't sitting out here with another person who left him behind.
He closes his eyes, takes a breath—pushes himself to his feet, all without looking at Alhaitham. ]
Thank you for your concern. It has been a long day, and I have many duties to attend to in the morning, so I will take my leave now. Be well, Lord Alhaitham.
[ And, should the other not try to stop him, he will make to leave. ]
[ He watches Kaveh go, doesn’t stop him, and doesn't call after him, not breaking the space between them. He only watches as the prince stands, brittle around the edges, moving away through the perfumed dark with all the dignity of someone holding themselves together by the seams.
Alhaitham remains on the bench after Kaveh is gone. The garden quiets around him. He sits until the lanterns burn lower, until the cicadas sing their last for the night, and when he finally leaves. Old habits of watching over him die hard, even now.
He doesn’t see Kaveh for days after that. Not in council, not in the library, not even at a distance from the training yards. But then, late one evening, too late for any reasonable business, the hour heavy with the hush of those who should be sleeping, a servant, nervous, finds Alhaitham in the scholars’ wing. He bows low, eyes averted.
“Lord Alhaitham. His Highness is—well, he’s asked for you.”
There’s a pause, a hesitation that says more than the words.
“He’s in the solarium.”
When Alhaitham arrives, the room is lit by only a few low lamps, their gold spilling in trembling pools over glass and stone. The scent of wine hangs in the air, rich, but just faintly desperate.
Alhaitham stands just inside the doorway, watching. ]
[ He lasts, in the end, almost a week. A whole week of holding himself together when every part of him feels like it's breaking. He fights against it every steps of the way, reminds himself time and time again that he can't fall apart just yet, that he can't fall apart ever, that Sumeru needs him—
In the end, it happens after a day full of meetings. Kaveh and his advisors sit in at table after table, talking through trade deals, alliances, all those things his father and mother already had in place before the war, all those things that need management now that they're gone, now that the war is over.
At the end of it all, he breaks.
Kaveh was never meant to be king. He lacks the training. He's not ready.
He misses his parents. He misses Alhaitham.
And so he drinks, despite knowing he's not meant to, sneaks into the wine cellar and goes through an inordinate amount of alcohol all on his own. By the time he sends for Alhaitham, he's not just drunk—he's wasted.
He's lying back on one of the lounges when he hears Alhaitham's voice and tries to sit up, giving up after a moment to lie back instead. His hand opens; an empty bottle falls to the floor, its sound ringing through the room like a bell.
I didn't think you'd come, he wants to say. I thought you don't care about me anymore.
The words die in his mouth, and tears well in his eyes. ]
[ The bottle’s sound is sharp in the quiet, sharper still against the ache in his chest.
He takes it in—Kaveh sprawled on the lounge like something wilted, the wine blooming in a heavy, sweet note around him, the way his fingers twitch as if reaching for something he’s already convinced himself he can’t have. His words, soft and slurred and so heartbreakingly honest, slip through the air like a confession meant only for the walls, a blade turned inward.
He closes the door behind him gently, as if the room itself might shatter with too much force.
He approaches slowly, boots whispering against the marble, and lowers himself onto the edge of the lounge, close enough that if Kaveh reaches, he won’t touch empty space by accident. Far enough that Kaveh won’t feel cornered when he’s this raw, this undone.
His voice lands low and steady. A counterweight to Kaveh’s trembling. ]
[ He does reach, seeking something to hold onto, fingers grounding against Alhaitham's knee and holding tight as if doing so will somehow stop the other from leaving him all over again. ]
I'm not. [ The argument comes soft but strident, a shake of his head as alcohol-blurred eyes look up at him, as he shakes his head even though it makes the whole world spin around him.
(It's okay if he spins, now that Alhaitham is here.) ]
My advisors are doing it. They're managing everything. There's too much I don't understand. They act like they're understanding but I can tell they're frustrated with me, and why wouldn't they be? I'm the king, I'm meant to know these things—
[ His voice rises, catching dangerously on his words as his throat thickens with his unshed tears. ]
I don't know what to do. Please..
[ It's unspoken, the help me, but there, just as much as it always has been between them, whenever Kaveh has let fall the walls of his pride. ]
[ A drowning man will grab anything. Yet Kaveh has always reached for him. Familiar, old, and too precious, the weight of his fingers feels like a sunbeam streaming across tree branches, and Alhaitham finds himself hating the fact that he finds solace in the too-feverish warmth seeping through the fabric. He has seen this before. Not in this room, not in this body grown older and worn thin by responsibility, but—
He sees a boy gripping his sleeve after a nightmare. He sees a young man with a broken project clutched to his chest, asking if he should just start over. He sees, too, the moment he walked away, heavy with armor and duty, leaving Kaveh alone on a balcony with eyes full of questions that never found answers.
And now the boy, the young man, the prince, the king-not-king—all the versions of Kaveh he’s ever known—collapse into this one moment, pooling at Alhaitham’s knee like spilled wine. Before he knows it, he's laying his hand over Kaveh’s, an act so small. A ritual that has been repeated so many time it has lost meaning and none at all.
His thumb traces a line across Kaveh’s knuckles— and it feels like he is smoothing over cracks in a porcelain vase he’s spent half his life trying not to touch. Like steadying the part of himself that still wants to gather him close the way one gathers something precious that’s been dropped one too many times. ]
You're not meant to know. [ It's a lie and a fundamental truth. Do Kings know better? Does anyone? The Scholar always asked and can't ever say. ] You're not failing, Kaveh.
[ Alhaitham's hand covers his, a thumb skims over his knuckles. He grounds Kaveh just as he always does, offers that calm comfort that has always helped him through those roughest of moments. Strong and gentle in ways Alhaitham will never admit, he reassures him, and despite the enormity of his grief, there's a moment where Kaveh thinks he could almost believe him. Almost.
He's not meant to know. He's not failing. It's okay. This is what Alhaitham would have him believe, and for a single moment he almost does. But... but he...
He swallows hard. No. He has to believe it, because if he doesn't, he'll break.
(Who is he kidding? He's already broken.)
He turns, presses his face into Alhaitham's shoulder, a shaky breath or two or three dragging the other's scent into his lungs. He means to argue, but instead something in him caves and sinks and bends, and three breaths become four, before he looks back up again, his eyes red-rimmed, the ache of his heart written all over his face. ]
Why did you leave me, Alhaitham? [ His voice is a whisper. ] How am I meant to do this without you?
[ And then, because he's drunk and he's not thinking right, because he's hurting and terrified of being left alone, because his heart has been broken now for so long, he holds the other's gaze for just a moment longer before he leans forward, his fingers finding the front of Alhaitham's shirt, mouth insistent with desperation as it presses against his. ]
[ Alhaitham has been struck in battle before. Steel splitting skin, bruises blooming like ink, breath torn from him, but nothing hits like this. Nothing ever has but Kaveh's words and his feelings. And when Kaveh presses his face into his shoulder, when the breath shudders through him like something collapsing, Alhaitham holds still because he’s afraid any movement will break the fragile thing reaching for him. He tells himself he’s steadying Kaveh, he does not admit he is steadying himself.
He doesn’t get time to answer, to say that he left for the kingdom, for Kaveh's sake, because he had very little confidence on their land's strategists, who he had uncovered to be conspiring against their own country, between bloodied battles and uncomfortable tents. He left for Kaveh. Because he'd be the first target, he doesn't get to say any of that, that he left before he could give Kaveh one more thing to lose.
Because then Kaveh is looking up at him, broken, bright, and unbearably earnest, with eyes that held the sun when they were children now hold storm after storm.
And then Kaveh leans in.
At first, Alhaitham thinks he’s misreading the moment, wine on breath, grief in bones, the trembling urgency of a man who’s lost too much. But then Kaveh’s fingers knot in the front of his shirt, pulling him down as though drowning men can anchor themselves to granite, and the kiss crashes into him like a wave that has spent years waiting for shore, and it melts something he had no business letting thaw.
His heart stutters, then hammers, and his hand finds Kaveh’s cheek with a sureness that defies reason but feels right. He cups his face, thumb brushing the trembling line of Kaveh’s jaw, and lets himself answer. The taste is wine and grief and something unbearably sweet beneath the salt of new tears. Kaveh’s hands are desperate in his shirt, his mouth almost feverish, the plea for solace echoing in every breath he draws.
Alhaitham deepens the kiss, kisses Kaveh until the prince’s sobs hitch and falter, until the trembling lessens, until the world narrows to the fragile press of lips and the warmth of breath shared between them. He kisses him until there’s nothing left in the world but the two of them, suspended in this trembling moment where pain and love are so tangled that he couldn’t separate them if he tried.
He pulls back only far enough to breathe, his hand still gentle but firm on his cheek, as if Kaveh might drift away if he lets go. ] I've got you.
[ Alhaitham doesn't reject his kiss, but answers it with gentleness and passion both, deepens it in a way that has Kaveh clinging to him. This, this is what he's always wanted even when he hasn't been able to say it for all the things keeping them apart—keeping him silent. This is someone who left him, just like everyone else has—only this time, he's here, not gone, holding Kaveh, grounding him against all those things that want to hurt him. Despite himself, the prince-turned-king has never once stopped chasing, hoping, hurting—
But right now, Alhaitham has him. Alhaitham answers, lips on lips, thumb brushing away tears.
Slowly, Kaveh's hitching breaths even out. Slowly, his trembling turns to strength. The world is nothing but the two of them, soaked in the sweet, intermingled tastes of wine and hope.
The scholar pulls back; the king chases until he understands it's only for breath, and then he holds, looking up at him with tear-wetted ruby eyes, with cheeks flushed not only with alcohol, but now also with desire. I've got you, says his once-bodyguard, and Kaveh wants to believe it, wants to hope that things will go back to how they were once before.
And so, once breath has been taken, he leans in again, lips soft in the way they brush against Alhaitham's, but insistent with all the things he's wanted and never allowed himself to say before. ]
Then... never let me go again.
[ It's a whisper said right before their mouths collide once more, Kaveh's fingers trailing up into Alhaitham's hair to clutch, pull, cling. ]
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sempiternals2025-10-13 12:02 am
Someone save me, I am pleading
Kaveh was thrust into the responsibilities of training for his new role, given no time to mourn his mother and father except for the tears shed bitterly into his silken pillows at night.
"King", they called him at the coronation, as the goddess laid the twin crowns of gold and flowers upon his head, but the title makes him feel sick to his stomach, and, kind as ever, she tells them that it's okay with her if he would rather still be a prince. And so here he sits, a prince with the powers of a king.
The celebrations go late into the night. Kaveh doesn't feel much like celebrating, though, and so he makes an excuse to leave just as soon as propriety will allow. He should go back to his quarters, but he shakes Cyno—his new head guard—with a promise that he'll do just that, and then...
Well, he ends up wandering, instead. And where else would his feet take him but the palace gardens, those same beautiful gardens in which he so often played when he was younger, more carefree?
Kaveh sits on one of the benches, looking out over the gardens, and his kingdom, and the world beyond.
What is he going to do now? ]
no subject
Of course he does.
Even after the years between them, years filled with battlefields and borderlands, years where duty became weapon and shield alike, Alhaitham still moves like shadow when he chooses. Just silence and stillness make it so he's untraceable even if he's barely hidden. He watches from the colonnade, half-obscured by moonlight and ivy, the garden lamps casting soft halos around the figure slumped on the marble bench.
Crowned not in name but in weight, Kaveh is still so achingly golden in the dark. Dimmed, somehow, as though grief had folded itself into his very silhouette.
Alhaitham should leave. That’s what he's good at now, isn’t it? Knowing when to withdraw? Knowing when his presence no longer brings comfort? Kaveh had made that much clear, hadn’t said the words, not truly, but grief has its own sharp tongue, and Alhaitham knew better than to argue with loss.
But it is difficult, sometimes, to remember that restraint. So instead, he steps forward. Boots quiet on the stone. No armor, only the dark green scholar’s coat he’d once worn to tutoring sessions beside Kaveh, back when the most dangerous thing in the world had been poorly recited history.
He just lets the air settle between them as he lowers himself to the far end of the bench, keeping a respectful distance. It’s been years since they’ve shared this garden. Longer still since they’ve shared the same ease.
Then, softly: ] You always used to climb the orange trees when you were upset. I think one of them still bears a scar from when you fell.
no subject
His breath stutters over several forms of address before he lands on the right one— ] Haith— Ser Alh... Lord Alhaitham. [ —and by the time he's done, his voice is little more than a whisper. A breath, as he swallows his pride, and tries again: ] It has been a long time since I was that young man.
[ He hates how stilted, how awkward, his words sound. He isn't that person anymore. He can't afford to be that person anymore, not since his parents died and his guard quit his post. Not since everyone left him behind.
Now, he is a king, and he—
He blinks back fresh tears, swallows hard against the lump in his throat. He will not cry, not right now. ]
How fare your studies?
no subject
He almost speaks then. Almost says you don’t have to call me that. Yet, Alhaitham has never been one to speak without reason, and Kaveh is already doing enough work holding himself together.
So he lets the silence rest for a beat just long enough to soften the tension in the air.
When he answers, his voice is gentler than anyone save Kaveh would expect, like the slow turn of a page. ]
My students are insufferable.
[ Well. Perhaps the tone is gentle, not the words. ] The war made philosophers of everyone. I’ve been lecturing for ten weeks, and not one of them has written a thesis worth the ink.
[ It’s a joke, and not a joke. But it’s soft around the edges. He leans back slightly, bracing one arm against the bench’s edge, his gaze flicking toward the treetops, where the leaves still catch the golden thread of the palace lights. ]
no subject
You know the saying, Lord Alhaitham. If you have a problem with everyone, perhaps you are the problem?
[ And then, because the words feel too harsh even to him: ]
You know yourself that your standards can be impossible for the average person to meet. Perhaps you should consider trying to see things from their perspective. Or at the very least adjusting your expectations. We both had our fair share of terrible theses when we were first studying.
[ Well, he had. Prince or not, he'd been told more than once that he couldn't stay up all night and expect to get something sensible out of his quill. Alhaitham, though... Kaveh's not sure he ever had any problems, despite training in the soldiers' tents and studying when he could. ]
no subject
The corner of his mouth tugs upward, subtle but unmistakable. Not quite a smile. Something that might have once lived only in the space between them, back when the world was gentler, and their lives hadn’t yet turned to duty and ash. ]
If my standards are impossible, it’s only because I’ve seen what you could do with a few sleepless nights and a dull quill.
[ He doesn’t say I memorized your second-year treatise on symmetry in sacred geometry. He doesn’t say I carried your ink-stained notes on the inside of my breastplate like a fool. He just lets the compliment stay soft and steady as starlight.
But he senses the flicker of fatigue beneath Kaveh’s words. The strain in his voice that wit can’t quite cover. So after a pause, he shifts, turns a little more toward him, knees angled slightly inward. He hums. A thoughtful sound. Eyes drifting from the trees to the man beside him, as if he recalls this just now, and not has kept stored in his chest for the past years. ]
And if I recall correctly, your first thesis had sixteen footnotes on a poem you didn’t cite. You called it artistic license.
[ It’s dry, but not cold. There’s fondness there. And yet, he knows exactly what kind of energy that sort of comment will ellicit. ]
no subject
Even if it's a comment that makes him feel... special. Important, in a way that his very royalty doesn't. All Kaveh has ever wanted is for Alhaitham to see him, to see him the same way Kaveh has always seen Alhaitham—
Nevermind that Alhaitham's attention has always been for quill and book and sword alone, when he says things like he's saying now, recalling memories as if they happened hours ago instead of than years, it makes Kaveh feel like he has been seen...
But of course he hasn't. To allow himself to think so would be stupid. If Alhaitham had seen him, if he returned Kaveh's feelings, then he would never have left.
Don't talk like that. Please.
But of course Alhaitham turns further toward him, names another memory, and Kaveh's heart pounds against his ribcage. He laughs to hide it, but the sound is hollow. ]
Right. I got in a lot of trouble with our professor for that one. So... that's what I mean. Give them time, and you'll find someone who can meet your standards.
[ And it won't be him, and he'll hate them forever, but he'll smile because Alhaitham is happy— ]
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Instead, he lets silence stretch its arms again, familiar, gentle, yet still oppressive. He watches the lights flicker against Kaveh’s profile, golden like a page halfway turned. The tilt of his neck, the fall of his hair. All as he remembers, but changed too. War does that. Loss even more so.
Alhaitham doesn’t know how to mourn parents the way Kaveh has had to. But he knows what it is to lose someone who was always there. Who shaped the shape of your days.
He never thought he’d have to mourn Kaveh from afar as well.
Maybe that’s why he speaks the next words as softly as he does, letting them drop like stones into still water, no splash, only ripple. ]
They say you refused the title.
[ Not a question. He knows it’s true. Heard it whispered at the gates of the academy, murmured in the halls of the library like some romantic footnote in history.
The prince who grieved too hard to wear a crown. ]
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That's what they're saying, is it?
[ His tone is light, but the thickness of tears is evident in his voice, as much a giveaway as his eyes. ]
I suppose on the surface it must look that way. But the truth is, the title was never mine to refuse. Whether he walks among his people anymore or not, the name of king belongs to my father.
[ The dignitaries are unhappy with this choice, of course; it was only by the grace of the goddess that he got his way on the matter, and he knows that she is gentle only for the sake of his feelings, that sooner or later she will encourage him to move forward.
Kaveh plans to fight that day for as long as he can. ]
You think I'm being foolish.
[ Like Alhaitham's words, Kaveh's do not form the shape of a question. He has known the other man for long enough, after all, to be certain that he'll scorn such an emotional attachment. ]
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No. [ No embellishment, offered in the same way a sword is offered, hilt-first, to someone you trust not to use it against you. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, gaze low. ]
You loved him. You’re allowed to be a son before you’re a sovereign.
[ A breath. He hesitates, the next words heavier, quiet: ]
But you can’t stay here forever.
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But the idea is shattered in the very next moment when his former bodyguard tells him, voice quiet and heavy, that he can't do this forever.
He turns his head further away from the other. ]
I will do my duty.
[ His voice is stiff. His heart aches. For the first time in years—the first time since he was essentially banned from alcohol—he desperately wants to drink. And he can't do that, so...
He needs to leave. Go to bed. Something. Anything that isn't sitting out here with another person who left him behind.
He closes his eyes, takes a breath—pushes himself to his feet, all without looking at Alhaitham. ]
Thank you for your concern. It has been a long day, and I have many duties to attend to in the morning, so I will take my leave now. Be well, Lord Alhaitham.
[ And, should the other not try to stop him, he will make to leave. ]
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Alhaitham remains on the bench after Kaveh is gone. The garden quiets around him. He sits until the lanterns burn lower, until the cicadas sing their last for the night, and when he finally leaves. Old habits of watching over him die hard, even now.
He doesn’t see Kaveh for days after that. Not in council, not in the library, not even at a distance from the training yards. But then, late one evening, too late for any reasonable business, the hour heavy with the hush of those who should be sleeping, a servant, nervous, finds Alhaitham in the scholars’ wing. He bows low, eyes averted.
“Lord Alhaitham. His Highness is—well, he’s asked for you.”
There’s a pause, a hesitation that says more than the words.
“He’s in the solarium.”
When Alhaitham arrives, the room is lit by only a few low lamps, their gold spilling in trembling pools over glass and stone. The scent of wine hangs in the air, rich, but just faintly desperate.
Alhaitham stands just inside the doorway, watching. ]
You sent for me?
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In the end, it happens after a day full of meetings. Kaveh and his advisors sit in at table after table, talking through trade deals, alliances, all those things his father and mother already had in place before the war, all those things that need management now that they're gone, now that the war is over.
At the end of it all, he breaks.
Kaveh was never meant to be king. He lacks the training. He's not ready.
He misses his parents. He misses Alhaitham.
And so he drinks, despite knowing he's not meant to, sneaks into the wine cellar and goes through an inordinate amount of alcohol all on his own. By the time he sends for Alhaitham, he's not just drunk—he's wasted.
He's lying back on one of the lounges when he hears Alhaitham's voice and tries to sit up, giving up after a moment to lie back instead. His hand opens; an empty bottle falls to the floor, its sound ringing through the room like a bell.
I didn't think you'd come, he wants to say. I thought you don't care about me anymore.
The words die in his mouth, and tears well in his eyes. ]
I can't do this, Alhaitham, [ he whispers. ]
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He takes it in—Kaveh sprawled on the lounge like something wilted, the wine blooming in a heavy, sweet note around him, the way his fingers twitch as if reaching for something he’s already convinced himself he can’t have. His words, soft and slurred and so heartbreakingly honest, slip through the air like a confession meant only for the walls, a blade turned inward.
He closes the door behind him gently, as if the room itself might shatter with too much force.
He approaches slowly, boots whispering against the marble, and lowers himself onto the edge of the lounge, close enough that if Kaveh reaches, he won’t touch empty space by accident. Far enough that Kaveh won’t feel cornered when he’s this raw, this undone.
His voice lands low and steady. A counterweight to Kaveh’s trembling. ]
You are doing it.
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I'm not. [ The argument comes soft but strident, a shake of his head as alcohol-blurred eyes look up at him, as he shakes his head even though it makes the whole world spin around him.
(It's okay if he spins, now that Alhaitham is here.) ]
My advisors are doing it. They're managing everything. There's too much I don't understand. They act like they're understanding but I can tell they're frustrated with me, and why wouldn't they be? I'm the king, I'm meant to know these things—
[ His voice rises, catching dangerously on his words as his throat thickens with his unshed tears. ]
I don't know what to do. Please..
[ It's unspoken, the help me, but there, just as much as it always has been between them, whenever Kaveh has let fall the walls of his pride. ]
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He sees a boy gripping his sleeve after a nightmare. He sees a young man with a broken project clutched to his chest, asking if he should just start over. He sees, too, the moment he walked away, heavy with armor and duty, leaving Kaveh alone on a balcony with eyes full of questions that never found answers.
And now the boy, the young man, the prince, the king-not-king—all the versions of Kaveh he’s ever known—collapse into this one moment, pooling at Alhaitham’s knee like spilled wine. Before he knows it, he's laying his hand over Kaveh’s, an act so small. A ritual that has been repeated so many time it has lost meaning and none at all.
His thumb traces a line across Kaveh’s knuckles—
and it feels like he is smoothing over cracks in a porcelain vase he’s spent half his life trying not to touch. Like steadying the part of himself that still wants to gather him close the way one gathers something precious that’s been dropped one too many times. ]
You're not meant to know. [ It's a lie and a fundamental truth. Do Kings know better? Does anyone? The Scholar always asked and can't ever say. ] You're not failing, Kaveh.
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He's not meant to know. He's not failing. It's okay. This is what Alhaitham would have him believe, and for a single moment he almost does. But... but he...
He swallows hard. No. He has to believe it, because if he doesn't, he'll break.
(Who is he kidding? He's already broken.)
He turns, presses his face into Alhaitham's shoulder, a shaky breath or two or three dragging the other's scent into his lungs. He means to argue, but instead something in him caves and sinks and bends, and three breaths become four, before he looks back up again, his eyes red-rimmed, the ache of his heart written all over his face. ]
Why did you leave me, Alhaitham? [ His voice is a whisper. ] How am I meant to do this without you?
[ And then, because he's drunk and he's not thinking right, because he's hurting and terrified of being left alone, because his heart has been broken now for so long, he holds the other's gaze for just a moment longer before he leans forward, his fingers finding the front of Alhaitham's shirt, mouth insistent with desperation as it presses against his. ]
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He doesn’t get time to answer, to say that he left for the kingdom, for Kaveh's sake, because he had very little confidence on their land's strategists, who he had uncovered to be conspiring against their own country, between bloodied battles and uncomfortable tents. He left for Kaveh. Because he'd be the first target, he doesn't get to say any of that, that he left before he could give Kaveh one more thing to lose.
Because then Kaveh is looking up at him, broken, bright, and unbearably earnest, with eyes that held the sun when they were children now hold storm after storm.
And then Kaveh leans in.
At first, Alhaitham thinks he’s misreading the moment, wine on breath, grief in bones, the trembling urgency of a man who’s lost too much. But then Kaveh’s fingers knot in the front of his shirt, pulling him down as though drowning men can anchor themselves to granite, and the kiss crashes into him like a wave that has spent years waiting for shore, and it melts something he had no business letting thaw.
His heart stutters, then hammers, and his hand finds Kaveh’s cheek with a sureness that defies reason but feels right. He cups his face, thumb brushing the trembling line of Kaveh’s jaw, and lets himself answer. The taste is wine and grief and something unbearably sweet beneath the salt of new tears. Kaveh’s hands are desperate in his shirt, his mouth almost feverish, the plea for solace echoing in every breath he draws.
Alhaitham deepens the kiss, kisses Kaveh until the prince’s sobs hitch and falter, until the trembling lessens, until the world narrows to the fragile press of lips and the warmth of breath shared between them. He kisses him until there’s nothing left in the world but the two of them, suspended in this trembling moment where pain and love are so tangled that he couldn’t separate them if he tried.
He pulls back only far enough to breathe, his hand still gentle but firm on his cheek, as if Kaveh might drift away if he lets go. ] I've got you.
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But right now, Alhaitham has him. Alhaitham answers, lips on lips, thumb brushing away tears.
Slowly, Kaveh's hitching breaths even out. Slowly, his trembling turns to strength. The world is nothing but the two of them, soaked in the sweet, intermingled tastes of wine and hope.
The scholar pulls back; the king chases until he understands it's only for breath, and then he holds, looking up at him with tear-wetted ruby eyes, with cheeks flushed not only with alcohol, but now also with desire. I've got you, says his once-bodyguard, and Kaveh wants to believe it, wants to hope that things will go back to how they were once before.
And so, once breath has been taken, he leans in again, lips soft in the way they brush against Alhaitham's, but insistent with all the things he's wanted and never allowed himself to say before. ]
Then... never let me go again.
[ It's a whisper said right before their mouths collide once more, Kaveh's fingers trailing up into Alhaitham's hair to clutch, pull, cling. ]