sapio | open.

"I merely wanted to hear if you had any assumptions about it," which, perhaps, is a little cruel, to have Kaveh voice and air out why he's not reaching out to him for help, albeit Alhaitham himself pegs it only onto how he is: not one to do so unless strictly necessary.

While mostly composed, Alhaitham is not without his tells himself. His eyes skim over Kaveh's form as he stands up, from those rather beautiful if deceptively strong fingers to the set of his shoulders as he pushes himself upright, the way his eyebrows knit just under that stubborn lock of hair. He's checking on him to ensure he won't fall or stumble and can in fact stand, regardless. That's what Alhaitham tells himself, anyway. There's a slight shift to the Scribe's face as he hears that last claim. Two, fast blinks, a curious slant of his own brow. "How does one rest an arm, exactly?"

“As opposed to answering my question properly in the first place-!” He’s not so out of his mind that walking will be an issue, even if he feels light as a feather.
Before he leaves he turns to wave at the staff, showering them in drunken praise, “delicious as always—! See you soon!”

Kaveh is the one who grabs the door open for themselves to leave, more or less because he can’t actually keep still or keep hands to himself.
The flow in his clothes normally disguises his true strength, not that he could take Alhaitham down by any means.
He glances at him, his bandaged arm specifically, “you sleep on your side, and avoid using it too much.” It’s almost like he speaks from experience, which it could be. Spending so much time with materials in the field is bound to go wrong at some point, especially the heavier ones. “Are you still messing with me?”

The Scribe takes more measured, but methodical steps. A quick exchange of mora for the meal and drinks, some more to pay for the tab he has at the tavern (and he will never unhear the joke Cyno once said about a 'tabern'… 'Because tab. Tavern. Get it?') and a quick wave to follow after his roommate.

"Is it so wrong to want to hear what's on your mind first?" he asks, though frowns even if he does consider doing exactly that, a comment on how he usually sleeps on his back and if that's alright dying on his lips.

"How am I messing with you now?" It would, apparently, hurt Alhaitham to sound a little bit more earnest. Instead, it verges on exasperated, if weakly so.

“What’s the point in expanding on my line of thinking when I’m always met with some witty jab or critique of yours,” he sighs, gazing up at the silence of the night and how it caresses the leaves on tree branches. The moonlight passes through them just right, it makes interesting shapes that he can’t help but admire.

“You always mess with me,” he responds softly, dreaming, still absorbed in how the breeze feels through his clothes and hair. Every thought floats through his mind and he glances at him again. “Taking things so literally, and all. Anyway. You go on ahead. I want to stop by the pavilions. I should have brought my sketchbook.”

"And here I thought you enjoyed a divergent point of view," light refracts beautifully in Sumeru City, he'll give it that. Kaveh's crimson eyes get a little darker in the evenings, and somehow they always seem to capture the light. Once in the early years of their friendship, the then-aspiring architect had talked to him about how lighting was everything to an artist, be they architects, painters, sculptors, and even the latest trend from Fontaine, photographers. A young Alhaitham had noticed then, how light seemed to chase after Kaveh instead, how his eyes carried the littlest embers even when something reminded him of his parents, what could have been, what ifs. He had stared, oftentimes, serene when caught, unabashed.

He had named it appreciating beauty for once. At least that explanation had lasted for a while. When Kaveh looks at him, ruffled gently by the fragrant breeze of saffron and rose, he wonders how exactly it took him so long to realize it's not the case. "I'll go with you."

Kaveh will never cease his explanations to him on why and how art is so vital to their existence. He accepts that Alhaitham can't wrap his head around the concept, tragic as that is. They're like a sun and moon, opposites and yet equals, both giving meaning to the shift of night and day.

The Akademiya is void of people this hour, it truly makes for a different sight in the gardens where bioluminescence thrives. He remembers the first time he first invited Alhaitham here in hopes he would find the scenery better to get lost in his books.
"Take your headphones off. There's no way you can truly appreciate your surroundings this hour wearing them," otherwise, why bother following me? "Notice how the forest below almost appears black, yet in our minds we know that's not the case. Our minds fill in the absence of information with the facts we know. Put aside the facts for a moment, and you don't see a forest, or a tree, but different strokes in different shapes littered with kisses from the moonlight. Don't tell me you don't think it's beautiful, at least."

Steps slightly heavy with remnants of exhaustion from the previous night's ambush, the Razan Garden bathed in the soft glow of moonlight almost infuses him with some well-sought respite. Still, it’s a breathtaking sight. The glow of the flowers makes every edge in the night look fuzzy, the walkways between them winding and coiling. Alhaitham appreciates that the air is cool and moist, the city's temperature dropping as night enfolds Sumeru City in its embrace.

Alhaitham's attention is drawn to the pavilions that stand amidst the blooming flora as they wander through the garden. When the architect introduced this spot to him, he noticed Kaveh's occasional checkups. Which, Alhaitham had felt immensely thoughtful, perhaps unnecessarily so. Nowadays, as he walks through the garden, his steps echo moments with silent understanding, shared support, and even care. Hushed excited voices about something learned in class. Shared meals curled under a particularly large petal.

Vivid had been a word that Alhaitham attached to him as he studied its origins and what other languages used to convey the same thing. A metaphor for his passion and enthusiasm that permeates everything he touches, steps light and sure, movements graceful and fluid. Words weaving a tapestry of emotions. It was as if Kaveh's poetic expressions served as a mirror, reflecting the untold stories Alhaitham guarded in his heart.

Even now, Kaveh feeds some energy into Alhaitham, with it, an unwarranted and unaware pillar of support in his tiredness, breathing some sort of life into him. However, nowadays, appreciation would most likely get him a ‘Stop messing with me!’, he figures.

Because vivid is also the open wound on his arm and the one on their relationship. He knows both yearn for healing, resolution, ask for the natural closure of things. And yet, one is a delicate thing, something frail due to it being based on constant motion and change, but is slowly and surely (Alhaitham will make sure of that, regardless of the outcome) on the way to its mending.

The other, Kaveh wrapped it nicely, and it should heal even faster.

The headphones on his shoulders jerk with the way he cants his head. “‘Kisses from the moonlight’? Where did I read that before?”

Kaveh gracefully walks the line between contradiction and frustration. Alhaitham makes him regret many things, meeting him in the first place sitting at the core of his heart. Yet he treasures every memory, every thorn, every secret there is to him. Just what did he think of when he decided to follow him here?
Kaveh wears a frown he glances over, scrutinizing, and admiring his features in full when the headphones are off.

As much as this hurts, Kaveh knows it's ultimately what he needs, what he deserves. His mother suggested companionship, but he doubts she meant that his state would be in constant agony. "Who knows, I'm just rambling," Kaveh leans against one of the columns, watching over the forest in the distance. "The breeze is nice," he adds, thinking it's best to keep the conversation simple so as to not ruin it entirely. Talking about art would be a waste of his breath in the presence of Alhaitham anyway.

Yet when he doesn't think about the abstract beauty of nature, he thinks about all the moments Alhaitham and him spent here. Moments worth grains of sand in a hourglass, moments he didn't think he'd never entirely lose so suddenly into a dune of time.

"I didn't say you had to stop," Alhaitham shifts his weight from one foot to the other, resting his good shoulder on the same column, just behind and to the side, a glance over the shoulder away. After spending so much time in this place, he knows that there's a better place to see the view, where the breeze is even better, and another day, he would have grabbed the architect's wrist, tugged him along to follow, and stand there instead.

He crosses his arms instead, finding purchase on something—anything—to stop his hand from moving.

Alhaitham is silent for a rather long while. He knows that something is bothering Kaveh, and it's not the rift between them, not the injury on his arm. Not those alone, anyway. The drink makes his filters grow looser, though, so if he wants to ramble away, the Scribe's headphones would still rest on his shoulders.

He knows he doesn't find the silence oppressive, or weighty. He's comforted by it, often. He also knows it may not be the case for Kaveh. "It is. It's coming from the South, that's why there's more moisture in the air."

There are certain emotions that even alcohol could never let Kaveh speak of. Unfortunately, those are precisely the ones that drown him.
Kaveh leans over enough to give him a glance, “it’s been a while since we went to Port Ormos, I remember nights being like this all the time there.”

He voids every intimate occasion as if they didn’t exist, and after sometime listening to the wind caress between them, he sighs. “It’s getting too late,” so he starts his way down again, pausing only so he can wait for Alhaitham to catch up at his side. “And about earlier, you really wouldn’t want me to go on and on about abstract art and nature. Don’t act as if you really want go, it’s not necessary.”

Each glance is matched with a look back. Alhaitham only dodges his gaze to think about his own schedule, a very precious thing that he keeps in his mind. "I have business there in three weeks. Come with."

Forever moving, forever restless, Kaveh is someone who will shift and hem and haw, as opposed to Alhaitham's own mutterings and pacing when they're at home. While one is open about it, difficult to miss, the other prefers to do so behind closed doors, in the comfort of his living room or office. But he's used to this by now, even if he would have stayed in the garden longer. Alhaitham follows easily, though he's struck by the implication that he's not doing something out of his own will. There's something there that irks him, no matter how patient he tries to be. He can understand being unaware of something, being blind to someone's intentions, but when they're so plainly obvious, he can't help but wonder if this all stems from Kaveh's unwillingness to see. "Oh? Because I'm the kind of person to follow along with others just to please them?"

"Maybe," is the best he can muster without agreeing nor rejecting the offer. There's no telling how Kaveh will feel three weeks from now and he would rather not give Alhaitham any false promises.
"You're right, that would imply you'd be pleasing me, Archon forbid," every word drips with venom as he carefully makes it down the ramp, "you don't have to tell me why you're putting up with me now, all I ask is that you don't make fun of me," rest in piece, Alhaitham. The alcohol doesn't help.

The seed is planted, and the idea will sprout eventually. Even though Kaveh is not without his whims and caprices, Alhaitham knows that if not in the next three weeks, sometime else could be considered. Now he knows that Kaveh misses Port Ormos, and that's something that he intends to work with.

Carefully, he walks just one step ahead of Kaveh down the slope, looking over his shoulder in case he stumbles or trips. While he's alright enough to be able to walk, he knows that Sumeru City is no stranger to topples even to its most veteran inhabitants. Some harsher darshans in the Akademya even use the streets as a means of hazing their younger scholars.

Which is just foolish, Alhaitham had always thought.

He walks there for support nonetheless, even if he does look up at the night sky and wonders if the doubt cast upon him is written in the stars. "Ah, yes. I must have entirely forgotten that I am the kind of person to seek the approval of everyone, even more so from the person that shares a home with me. Of course, there's absolutely nothing riveting about our conversations, despite our difference in opinions and perspectives. How silly of me."

The less Kaveh allows himself to see, the less he gets to mourn once distance inevitably splits them again. It is an understatement to point out just how much goes on in Kaveh's mind when he's this drunk, or when he's too emotional. First, there's everyone's issues that weigh him down, then there's the made up issues his mind convinces him could exist, and then there's reality at the pit of it all, wrenching his heart.

So to that, Kaveh says nothing. He feels guilty entering the house again after that exchange, yet he knows it might have been for the best. He hides away in the bathroom first, taking a quick shower; the tank is running low and it's not like he wants to leave Alhaitham without water.
"See you tomorrow, then," he says once he's out and wearing a night gown that is just as stylish as something that could be worn in public. After that, he shuts himself in his room, but he hardly gets any sleep.

Once again, he reminds himself, he's alright with silence. He appreciates it, even.

And yet, when the pipes stop making sounds and there's a moment between the shower stopping and Kaveh leaving the bathroom, no words that his eyes are fixed on in his book manage to seep into his mind no matter how much he read them.

Behind Kaveh lingers the scent of the shared soap they use, that somehow seems to cling to Kaveh better than it would ever do to him. He looks up to reply with a 'see ya', watches the bedroom door close, and finds himself staring at it for a while.

With a slight 'tsk,' he snaps the book closed and gets up, goes take a shower himself. When he's done, wrapping the bandages around the cut on his arm is once again, an issue. He's not stylish at all in his sleeping attire, a mere pair of year-loosened pajama pants and maybe a shirt if it's cold enough. He'll just sleep as normally as he would, probably get something distracting and droning on his headphones going.

The silence, this time, is stifling. He tries to sleep under the pressure.

Alcohol tends to knock him into oblivion, which is why his drinking habit has been spiraling out of control lately. Suffering through hangovers is worth getting some semblance of sleep.
There are nights he wishes he didn't have to dream. Stress plagues them even there, twisting euphoria into nightmares, memories into static, off colored visions that could put a withering zone to shame. Faceless crowds share a single voice that accuses him, that no matter what path he takes, Alhaitham is bound to run into hurt.

That's why he normally wakes up early and in a pool of his own sweat. The birds are barely chirping outside as they nuzzle each other to keep warm. Yet the sun hasn't broken through the horizon and the house is fairly dark, still. Kaveh wastes no time in busying his hands in the office, seated and beginning some new sketches. Under candle light, he tries to bring back to life the darkened canopies from the night before. Yet that somehow turns into a faint mirage of Port Ormos creeping up in the distance. Even his own imagination keeps taunting him, it seems. Maybe he truly misses it. He glances over at the hallway, void of thought, full of agonies, and missing him, too.

On the subject of sleep, Alhaitham tends to leave no comments on it. The point of it is to ultimately rest, and he is aware that an active mind like his needs plenty. The dreams that inhabit his mind are wildly subjective, now that the does dream them, and he still finds the novelty of it so very curious.

That night, however, he tries not to venture too much into those. He really needs the rest. Perhaps their archon is helping him in that regard by not sending him one.

So when he does wake up, it's with sounds of Kaveh around the house, perhaps the piping again, or a door opening and closing as he looks for something. Alhaitham gets up, his body mindlessly going through the motions. Sit up, wait for a few seconds, stand up. Second order of business: Get some sort of coffee.

In the fuzziness of being half-awake, he looks over at the office and doesn't stop the warmth when he sees the architect and it blooms in his chest. The familiarity, the comfort of him being there, is too strong for him to feel any urge to school his expression or to sharpen the edge of his gaze. He rubs at his neck, and mutters a ''Morning' in a quiet voice before he pads over to the kitchen.

Someone’s presence is what makes a house into a home. Kaveh glances up from his stacks of papers at Alhaitham, watching him emerge from his room to the dim morning pouring through stained glass.

He grips his pen tighter and looks back down, “good morning. I already grinded the coffee beans,” it’s the least he can do to pad his way to an apology for the night before. He will never actually say the words, not to give Alhaitham all the right. The last thing he needs is another sarcastic remark like you finally understand, I’m impressed.

Kaveh gets up to follow him to the kitchen. His hands are worn with constant drawing and strain, despite their delicacy. He grabs himself a cup so Alhaitham can pour him coffee once it’s finished. “I’m not promising anything, but I’ll try to make time for Port Ormos three weeks from now.”

"Ah, thanks," a mutter. Alhaitham is known for being sharp, striking, all precision and liquid motions as he goes through his day. There's no word without meaning, no action without reason. Right after he wakes up, especially before he gets his coffee, everything feels fuzzy, however, the softness of sleep tends to cling to him for longer than it should. So it's both out of sheer necessity and practice that he grabs the ground beans, tapping the dust gently from the grinder and into a small container with careful ease. "How much sugar do you want today?" He asks as he places the water over a low flame.

Perhaps none, but Alhaitham is nothing but adaptable when it comes to waking himself up. It's both pleasant and not—the comfort of his home and the presence of his roommate makes it easy to endure and even revel in it, but Alhaitham appreciates the power of a sharp mind, so the listlessness can feel like being held hostage by exhaustion, longing for the return of mental clarity.

Or total emptiness, in the rare few occasions where he allowed himself not to think. He pours the coffee carefully into both cups and leans against the counter as he waits for his own to cool and the coffee to settle at the bottom. He nods, his eyes looking for something in Kaveh's face that betrays emotion about the location. There's a slight quirk on his lip. "Did you dream about something that made you change your mind?"

There is nothing like the scent of coffee filling the morning air. Kaveh sips slowly to avoid burning his lips, cold hands cup around the entire mug. He keeps fantasizing about times that are only justified to live in canvasses and dreams. Kaveh wears emotions on his sleeves even when he shouldn't. He can't turn them off.
"What?" He glances at him and takes another rebellious drink, "n-no. If you don't think I'll get in the way of your business, it's cheaper going together. Besides, you alone in Port Ormos? Who knows what kind of ugly thing might make it home with you. It's better if I go with."
That's convincing, right?
He drinks again. "It needs more sugar."

With a confident step and motion, Alhaitham gingerly grabs Kaveh's cup, fingers holding onto the brim and plucking it from the architect's grasp. For all its decisiveness, that it's an early morning and Alhaitham's own caution makes the gesture gentle, familiar. "I'll make you another," he mutters as though it's not an issue, which isn't. He's used to it. "You should let the coffee cool a little before drinking it," is the only complaint as he flicks his fingers from the heated cup, the warmth too much to a feeble scholar's pads.

"I wouldn't have asked you to come with me if I thought you'd get in the way, you know?" Rhetoric, while he waits for the coffee to boil again, is just part of his day-to-day by now. He distracts himself with the loosened bandage on his arm and decides to remove it to check on the cut. The ointment did wonders, he'll have to thank Tighnari later. "Speaking of, I'll need you to help me with this again. Should be the last day."

Famous last words.

If Tighnari were here, he might begin to lecture Alhaitham for removing a bandage and exposing a wound like that when working in the kitchen. It's unsanitary. Kaveh isn't that nitpicky, however, and he observes his darkened flesh on the edges of the cut while they wait for their second batch of coffee. It's a lot less raw.

"Fine," he sighs, even Kaveh thinks that mornings should be easy and peaceful. He inches closer to him and barely grazes his skin around the wound. "It looks like it's healing fast," and as if they were both on sync, Kaveh speaks on his behalf, "we'll have to thank Tighnari the first chance we see him. He's always looking out for us. . . Um. I'll go get some new bandages," he turns away swiftly and disappears to the bathroom just like that. He takes an extra minute to rinse off the lag off of his face with water and comes back a little more put together. "So how many of them were there? I still find it odd someone as strong as you would get a scratch."

While working for Azar, a Rtawahist at heart, he had plenty of time allocated to reading and allocating work from that darshan. One, in particular, had called to Alhaitham's attention, if anything because so many scholars had found it farfetched, if completely inane and baffling.

The research defended that the grand tapestry of existence, the cosmic symphony of their world found its roots in a primordial explosion, scattering the seeds of creation, giving birth to stars, and the very essence of life itself. That humans, beings, elemental and not, are but fragments of that cosmic cataclysm, woven together by the same stardust.

So when Kaveh picks up from his thoughts in the same way he had done to the mug from his fingers, he can't help but think of it. How it could be easily explained that they both carry the echoes of ancient explosions, the remnants of long-gone stars that once burned brightly in distant celestial realms. Each embrace, each shared moment between them is but a testament to their shared essence.

Finding solace in the idea that they're so intimately connected, to each other and the universe, seems so very comforting.

And entirely too simple. Still, Alhaitham wonders, if the reason they clash so much is because they're shards of the same material, reflecting the cracks of their selves at each other.

"Five," he says, placing the new brew on the counter beside the architect. He doesn't like that he had to fight. Had he been paying attention enough to the man behind all of this, he would have probably avoided this outcome."Don't drink it, yet."

How they stars dictate their existence is out of Kaveh's knowledgeable bounds, but it doesn't mean he's unable to feel or experience them. Still, his reasonings are all too poetic for rationality to support. He'd always been drawn to Alhaitham, from the moment he first laid eyes on him to irrational vexations that lead them into conflict. One could even argue that it's because he cares that he's so easily triggered by him, even when Alhaitham is the one hurt. Anti-matter to matter, one cannot exist without the other. Unforunately, they are just as complex. Kaveh is, at times, still embarrassed of his own attractions even when those immediately around them are aware. Romance is not something the stars are capable of explaining after all, not to his understanding.

"Hold still," he demands firmly as he takes his arm into his care again, dabbing the ointment over rough edges using surgical precision. It might be easy to dismiss an artist's hands until they are put to the test; he has immaculate control. He's steady as though he were outlining his blueprints or working on linework from memory. To some degree, he has Alhaitham's body memorized, too. He loops the bandage around his bicep, snug but not so tight that blood wouldn't circulate. He deliberately prolongs the process to wait for his coffee to cool, and he adjusts the edges, making sure they wont roll down with movement, "Must have been five tough ones, or maybe you should admit that you can't do everything alone. . There, it's not too tight, is it?" He reaches for his mug now, standing back so he can admire his own work sipping away.

They're mesmerizing, they've always been. Those hands have always garnered Alhaitham's attention like someone picking tea leaves, the liquid precision of them something that the Scribe himself had coveted before, before rationalizing his way into how he had other traits that compensated for that lack. Still, the fascination lingered, from the beautiful way Kaveh's fingers flicked to shoo people or a concept away, to how he tended to snap them when struck with an idea or a plan. Alhaitham's eyes are fixed in how they move, and how those digits uncurled from their palm like a bird of paradise flower. Harmony in gestures always escaped him, he believes.

And in those little things, he did consider his way of looking at them to be romantic. Perhaps he was wrong, however, or not enough. With how things turned out, it's a little hard to say.

With a shake of his head, though it's both so say that the bandage is perfect (he can't tell), and that this was not a matter of asking for help (he finds that silly). "One of them summoned a bird, it was particularly difficult to deal with even with my blades," he drifts his gaze up to the architect, their similar heights making it easy for him to find his carmine eyes. "They attacked precisely because I was alone, Kaveh. You're not going to tell me that I need a bodyguard now."

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Tabern. Goodbye

i'm so sorry

we love cyno here

he's lovely when he keeps his mouth shut

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clutches chest, that's such a good last line <3

:’) thank you <3 they kill me

so frustrating and yet.

kaveh so dumb :(

smh

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