Archive of Our Own

The flowers—as most flowers are wont to do—blossom in the spring.

They trickle out over dinner when the buds begin to unfurl. Kaveh mistakes it as an early summer cold, a byproduct of the sudden, unseasonable warmth. It had already been a shit day; he’d lost funding on a project he’d already put three months of work into, and the café had been sold out of the one flavoring he liked best, and he’d forgotten his keys again, so he’d had to wait outside of the house until Al-Haitham came home to let him in. On top of that, Al-Haitham came home later than usual, but he did uncork a bottle of one of those fine Liyue wines he likes to flaunt over Kaveh and poured a glass of the vintage, wordlessly handing it to Kaveh when he meandered into the kitchen some hours after he’d fully stewed in his room over the day’s events. Then, Al-Haitham had prepared dinner—that bastard—and he’d set the table with candles and flowers and the rest of the wine Kaveh had already started in on.

And he’d made fatteh.

Kaveh’s favorite.

How was he meant to survive that?

So, they’d sat down for dinner and Kaveh was arguing something innocuous even though Al-Haitham had a book spread between his fingers and didn’t appear at all interested in anything Kaveh was saying, no matter the dire importance regarding the state of Sumeru’s architectural integrity.

“You wouldn’t know beauty if it bit you in the ass,” Kaveh snaps, impatience with this conversation—or the absence of one—beginning to settle in as he swirls the fine Fontainian vintage Al-Haitham had poured for the meal around in the crystalline glass he cups.

Al-Haitham steadfastly flips a page in whatever archons-forsaken tome he’s reading and arches an eyebrow, gaze never leaving the page. “Wouldn’t I?”

Kaveh rolls his eyes in answer. He sips from his wine, sets the glass down with a deafening clink. He spears another bite of the dinner Al-Haitham made for him and wonders what the catch is. Al-Haitham doesn’t give when he won’t get anything in return. Perhaps, he’ll demand that rent payment goes through for real this time. Maybe that’s it.

Another page is flipped. Kaveh can’t help flickering his gaze towards the sound. Al-Haitham hasn’t even touched his food. Even that’s infuriating. Kaveh gnashes his teeth as he chews. The corner of Al-Haitham’s eye twitches.

“Don’t,” he says placidly.

Kaveh swallows a thick mouthful. “Don’t what?”

This is what finally, finally draws Al-Haitham out of his book. He levels a hard glare at Kaveh over the brittle, yellowed pages of the book. “Don’t be obtuse, either.”

Kaveh rolls his eyes again. He clears his throat. There’s a tickle that’s been resting in the hollow there and he swallows down a mouthful of wine about it. “Anyway…there’s a show that the Zubayr Theater is putting on that I thought you would be interested in. It would be good for you to get out, for once.”

Al-Haitham’s steely gaze grows harsher. “When will you give up this delusional idea that I’d like to engage with your artistic endeavors?”

Kaveh bristles at this. How could he not? He coughs quietly into a closed fist before spitting at Al-Haitham, “It’s a historical, you absolute ass. Nilou says they’ve been practicing Khaenri'ahn for months to get it accurate. I thought you, oh great Haravat scholar, of all people, would be interested in something like this. So, you’ll have to forgive my oversight on the matter.”

“Khaenri'ahn is a dead language. I hardly believe these actors would be able to speak something that cannot be spoken.”

“Oh, don’t give me that, Al-Haitham. You speak Khaenri'ahn .”

“Yes. That’s because I’m a genius.”

Kaveh bristles some more. His throat tightens around his rage—and around that inescapable tickle—and he drains the last of his wine. Infuriatingly, Al-Haitham is already tucking a finger between the spine of his pages to free up one hand and reaches over to grab the bottle sitting between them. It’s effortless for him to reach over and one-handedly refill Kaveh’s glass. He does so without blinking an eye. It’s deliriously attractive and Kaveh mourns a time when he could ogle such a move and still have hope that something might come of all these gestures.

He thinks about ignoring his newly refilled glass, just to spite him, but that tickle crawls up the back of Kaveh’s throat in a cough.

The cough burbles out of Kaveh like a bark, loud and unseemly and enough to make Al-Haitham startle and a real expression morphs on his features.

Kaveh clamps a hand over his mouth as he hacks, ducking his head into the crook of his arm to save himself some dignity. He can feel Al-Haitham’s eyes fixed on him. He’s grown used to the disappointed weight of it; that disappointment was basically signed into the roommate contract when Kaveh moved in; he lets it roll of his shoulder as his body fights against him.

There’s something in his throat.

It can’t be a bit of food; he’s more than washed down more than enough wine to clear whatever bites of Al-Haitham’s dinner he’d eaten. Something else is worming its way up his throat. Something foreign. Kaveh swallows down the next cough, holding his breath and forcing his body into submission.

Distantly, he hears Al-Haitham call his name.

His voice is muddied and muddled, buried beneath the cough that overtakes Kaveh as he clamps a hand over his mouth and spits the offending thing into his palm.

Kaveh crushes the thing and shoves it into his pocket without looking at it.

“Have you drunk so much you’ve lost all your faculties?” Al-Haitham asks, a bark in his tone and a wrinkle pinched between his grey brows. “Have you forgotten how to breathe?”

“Oh, please.” Kaveh rolls his eyes and pretends his voice doesn’t come out breathy and strangled. “A few glasses of wine over dinner are hardly enough to make one drunk. I know you’re unfamiliar with the concept, so you’ll have to excuse me for doing something as human as coughing.”

With a huff—and by the grace of the Archons—Al-Haitham snaps his book shut. “Are you so deluded as to think I wouldn’t be concerned after your fit?”

An old ache flares between Kaveh’s ribs. He raises his eyebrows in shock. “Will wonders never cease.”

“Are you ill?”

Kaveh balks at the question. It’s sharper than Al-Haitham’s typical bluntness.

“I’m not.”

Al-Haitham peers at him for a moment, setting his book on the table’s edge. It’s that calculating look, the one a bright-eyed and brilliant first year had leveled at him over a shared table tucked into some obscured corner of House of Daena, the one where Al-Haitham looks to be attempting to puzzle Kaveh out. Kavah hates that look. He’s never been anything other than open and honest with Al-Haitham.

Except now.

Now, Kaveh pushes back from the table and stands with his half-filled glass of wine cradled between his fingers. He valiantly does not notice the way Al-Haitham watches the way he stands.

“I’ve a commission to work on,” Kaveh says. “Thank you for dinner.”

The wrinkle of Al-Haitham’s brow deepens. “You don’t have any new commissions.”

“What do you know of it? I don’t tell you everything.”

A beat passes. “Of course.”

With that, Al-Haitham picks up his book and resumes his reading. Kaveh feels a bit like a dismissed child, but it was his idea to get up and leave in the first place, so he huffs loudly and turns on his heel to storm off to his room.

He does not slam the door like he considers doing.

The lock clicks softly into place.

Amidst the tattered remains of his artistry scattered about the quiet sanctity of his room, Kaveh pulls the offending object that he’d coughed up like a particularly dusty desert fox and holds it out in his free hand. The thing unfurls to reveal something botanical in nature. A petal, almost. Or maybe exactly that. Kaveh flicks on the lamp on his bedside table and holds the specimen beneath the glow.

It is a petal.

Not of any flower Kaveh can recognize, but a petal none-the-less.

It is a pale blue thing, almost translucent beneath the light of the lamp, and veined with darker lines that gave shadow to the damp, curling thing. Kaveh strokes his thumb over the petal, taking in the silky-soft texture of the flower. And it’s definitely a flower. Kaveh can feel the life-blood thrumming through the thin veins against his palm. It beats against the thrum of his own heartbeat.

Kaveh stares at the thing for a while and when he’s sure that it’s not going to just disappear, to stop existing as something that has been expelled from his body, Kaveh curls his hand into a fist that crushes the petal between his fingers. The flesh ripples and tears. Soft moisture bleeds into Kaveh’s palm.

He stuffs the thing into the bottom of his trashcan, beneath shredded blueprints and a half-hearted attempt at a letter to his mother. He takes up residence at his empty desk and sets to work on the remnants of his glass of wine. He’ll sneak out later, once he’s sure Al-Haitham has gone to bed or to read in his own room or whatever it is he does with his time so he can fully forget about the flower and the dull ache in his chest and the slight rawness in his throat and the dinner Al-Haitham had made.

…

A second petal works its way out of Kaveh a week later, after a late night at Lambad’s. He chokes the thing up after Al-Haitham deposits him in his room after he came to collect him.

The third makes itself known in the middle of yet another argument. This one is one of Al-Haitham’s favorite: rent.

Kaveh’s never paid a mora of rent for use of Al-Haitham’s spare bedroom and Al-Haitham loves to remind him of this fact.

If you’d set aside your ridiculous artistic ideals, you might be able to pay your way for something more than a glass of wine, Kaveh.

The fourth and fifth begin to make Kaveh nervous when they slip from his lips together, as a pair, after a rather pleasant afternoon spent strolling the Grand Bazaar. They’d been out of coffee beans, so he’d told Al-Haitham he’d pick up some more and Al-Haitham—incredibly—announced that he’d come along. Kaveh holds the petals in his hand for a while, thinking of a story his father had told him as a child.

And then, the fifth comes.

The fifth petal comes up bloody and unassuming, choked out as Kaveh watches Al-Haitham in his garden sprawl across the courtyard of the house. The garden was a surprise to Kaveh when he first moved in, all brilliant, crimson mourning flowers. And it was even more of a shock to know that it was Al-Haitham himself who tended to the garden and not some hired help that came with the house.

Kaveh likes to watch him in that peace, with his arms bare and his muscles bunching with the effort of tirelessly pruning the leaves of the plants. He is all smoothed edges and creased linen in that light. There was not a hint of the prickly scholar, so focused on practicality and convenience, as he spread fertilizer through the damp dirt.

With grime caked beneath his neat nails, dappled in golden sunlight, Al-Haitham looks so much like the shy boy Kaveh had befriended at the Academia.

He does not turn away from the window as he coughs up the fifth petal. Not when Al-Haitham is in this state.

Blood stains his fingers and the sleeve of his shirt when he spits the petal from his lips. He smears the red beneath his own nails like the dirt of the garden Al-Haitham meticulously tends.

He schedules an appointment the next day.

…

“It’s a rare disease for sure,” the doctor says, his voice low and solemn, “but results conclude that the flowers are a symptom of Hanahaki disease.”

Kaveh doesn’t react immediately. How can he? On top of his financial woes and the drying well of his creative inspirations, contracting a fairytale illness doesn’t seem too far-fetched. Why not? Perhaps Al-Haitham will finally kick him out onto the streets to top it all off after he learns the truth of all of Kaveh’s ugly, unending feelings for him so Kaveh can wither away alone in the wilds.

“I’m not sure how familiar with the disease, but the flowers are a physical manifestation of a particularly strong emotional affliction,” the doctor continues. Kaveh wants to scoff. Emotional affliction is a terribly ridiculous way to go out. “Typically, this is an unrequited love, but there are certain cases I’ve seen cases of deep hatred causing the blossoms to bloom. The important first step in curing the disease is identifying the person the emotions are directed towards and working to distance yourself from them.”

Now, Kaveh does scoff. “You might as well bury me now.”

“It’s a difficult step to make,” the doctor nods sagely and barrels on as though Kaveh didn’t say anything at all, “but there was a recent case that showed significant progress after the separate from the subject of the patient’s affection. The flowers nearly receded completely once the connection as cut.”

“And that cured them?”

The doctor hesitates. “…The patient’s circumstances changed and they decided that it would be more beneficial to have the surgery.”

“Surgery?”

“Yes. If distance is not proving to be a worthwhile effort and the disease is not improving, the next step is surgery to remove the roots from your lungs,” the doctor says. “The removal of the roots also removes the love the patient has for that person and, in some cases, removes the memories of them.”

A somewhat hysterical laugh burbles out of Kaveh. He clutches the edge of the bed, clinical paper crinkling in his grip. “And what am I supposed to say to my roommate if all my memories of him get erased?”

The doctor’s dark brows rise towards his thinning hairline. “They’re your roommate?”

“Yes, and I’m not really in a position to distance myself from him at the moment,” Kaveh says. He grits his teeth and stares at a crack in the plaster wall near the door. “And anyway, things between Al-Haitham might be rocky right now, but I wouldn’t want to be without him. We tried that once, before, and it was terrible. I won’t do that again.”

Something complicated crosses the doctor’s face.

“Yes, yes, the Acting Grand Sage,” Kaveh says, waving a hand around his face. “He’s just as kind and unfeeling as he appears, I assure you. Is there other cure? Anything at all?”

The doctor’s mouth works around something. Words unspoken and get buried under the straightening of his spine. His neutral expression settles back into place. “There is a medication that can suppress the blossoms from progressing. But it’s not a cure. It’s simply a bandage.”

“Then, give me the bandage.”

“If that’s what you would like. Your condition is still in the early stages. There might be a chance at reversing the effects with the medication and an effort at separation, despite the circumstances.” The doctor started scribbling on his notepad. “I’d like to see you biweekly for now, so that the progression can be monitored. Is that doable?”

Kaveh agrees and takes the slip handed to him with the prescription scrawled across the page. The doctor wishes him a good day and slips quietly from the room. The silence echoes in the small room. Kaveh stares down at the scrawl. He swallows around a phantom pain in his throat. Or perhaps it’s not a phantom. He’s coughed out five flower petals, after all.

The words on the slip of paper begin to blur and Kaveh closes his eyes to them. He crinkles the slip between his fingers—just a bit—imagining the feeling of the petals between his fingers instead. He thinks of the bridge of Al-Haitham’s nose and the light in his eyes when he knows he’s right about something (which he usually is) and Kave does not cry but it’s a near thing.

Ignoring the ache in his chest, Kaveh gathers his things and leaves the exam room with his head held high and his prescription tucked in his fist.

…

There was a time when Al-Haitham meant more than the entire world to Kaveh. When he was a bleary-eyed first year at the Academia, who still hadn’t selected a darshan, who slunk up to Kaveh’s favorite table in the library and silently tucked his head into his books and only looked up to add commentary to Kaveh’s frantic mutterings over his blueprints. There was a time when his combative nature and barbed comments weren’t quite so poison-tipped, when they inspired and infuriated in tandem. Once, he felt like the only person in Sumeru who could understand Kaveh’s work, even with his analytical, academic mind and hyper-rationality. He was the moon Kaveh’s tides pulled on; he was in ever design Kaveh had ever built

No, scratch that.

Al-Haitham still means more than the entire world to Kaveh.

It’s just harder to reconcile that now that he longer holds that same place in Al-Haitham’s eyes.

There had been a fight.

They were working on a project, and they had disagreed. They fought. The fighting wasn’t unusual for them; they were stubborn and set in their ways, but this fight had been different. It had been more. Bigger. Worse. Words had been said. Words Kaveh now regrets, wishes he could suck back into himself and never think himself capable of thinking them, let alone saying them.

He likes to think Al-Haitham regrets those words, too, given the circumstances. He has to believe there is remorse there.

They didn’t speak for a while.

The tides had receded and Kaveh’s money had run dry.

Al-Haitham had found him—homeless, penniless—and had offered him a room. Even at his lowest, Kaveh had never considered the estate they had been gifted in reward for that project as a solace to his suffering. He had given up his half of the reward for the benefit of those less fortunate. Al-Haitham had claimed it without a second thought.

It was always yours, Kaveh. Besides, don’t you qualify the less fortunate you were striving to benefit?

The offer had bitten Kaveh like a winter wind in the coldest desert night. But he had nothing. And the hole Al-Haitham left was a gaping, cavernous thing. Kaveh was desperate to fill it with any scrap of sand he could. Even if it hurt.

Even if it killed him.

…

It’s was as though the simple act of diagnosis keeps the flowers at bay. For a time.

Kaveh takes his medicine, he goes to his appointments at Bimarstan. He stays in his room when he knows Al-Haitham is home, and he does not succumb to Al-Haitham’s invitations. He takes a commission that he’s really excited about for the first time in a while, which helps. He can absorb himself in his work and forget about the flora taking root in his lungs.

He wonders if the flowers are still growing at all.

After his fourth appointment, when the doctor agrees that there hasn’t been any significant progression, Kaveh takes that as a win and heads to Lambad’s for a celebratory drink. Or two. Or three.

“This project with top the Palace, Lambad, I swear,” Kaveh says, “That tragedy will be behind me, and I can put all that behind me.”

“Uh huh,” Lambad says.

“I’m serious,” Kaveh squawks. “I’m sure I’ve said it before, but there’s no distractions this time. I’m free. This build…Archons, this build is it.”

Distantly, a door opens and closes.

Kaveh leans forward on the bar, waving his empty glass around in a silent request for more. Lambad, the saint, takes the cue and plucks the glass from Kaveh’s fingers.

“No distractions is good, Kaveh,” Lambad says as he gets to work. “I’m glad. You haven’t been here as much.”

“Ah, you’d miss my patronage if I didn’t come as much. You know I’d never leave you,” Kaveh says. He fully slumps over the bar, pillowing his head in the cradle of his arms as he watches the bartender work. His head is fuzzy, spinning in just the right way. He thinks of his blueprints and the scalloped arches he wants to work into the courtyard of his design. He does not think of the flowers and the blood and Al-Haitham. “After this project, I should have enough for my own place.”

“Oh? Where would your own place be?”

“Hmm, probably still in the city. As I said, I could never leave you. Not truly. But somewhere that’s not where I am now. Somewhere with lots of light. And plants. I’d like to grow my own plants. Not those stupid blue ones. Something with red flowers, probably.”

“You can probably grow red flowers where you are now.”

Kaveh snorts. “As if Al-Haitham would let me do that.”

“Oh?” a deep voice rumbles far too close to Kaveh’s ear. Far too familiar, far too unwelcome. “Wouldn’t I?”

Kaveh nearly jumps out of his skin. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Collecting you,” Al-Haitham says. He steps back and folds his arms across his chest, the muscles in his arms bunching with the effort.

“My valiant knight.” Kaveh rolls his eyes. “Your efforts are unneeded. Lambad here is just about to pour me another round. There’s no need for you to wait up.”

Kaveh looks over at Lambad expectantly, who holds up both hands to show that he’s been dutifully washing Kaveh’s empty glass instead of filling a new one like the traitor had promised.  

“It’s almost last call, anyway,” Lambad says with the appropriate amount of sheepishness.

Kaveh seethes. “You snake.”

Lambad shrugs and Al-Haitham clicks his tongue.

“Stop embarrassing yourself,” Al-Haitham says, swiping for Kaveh’s arm. Kaveh expertly dodges the blow by gracefully toppling form his stool. “It’s late. Come home.”

Home. Kaveh barks out a laugh.

“Sure, whatever you say.” Kaveh slides off his stool and wobbles magnanimously. Al-Haitham catches his elbow in a steadying grasp.

“Thank you, Lambad,” Al-Haitham says as his fingers burn holes into the thin material of Kaveh’s shirt. He deposits a pouch of mora onto the bar. Lambad is all too happy to swipe it up.

“You don’t have to keep tabs on me like this,” Kaveh says (and absolutely does not whine) as Al-Haitham steers him towards the door. “I can take care of myself, even when I’m plastered.”

Al-Haitham just hums, the sound rumbling through the pressure points where their bodies touch. He keeps his hand on Kaveh’s hand, even though Kaveh’s half-hearted attempts to escape, and steers him towards the door.

Though spring has fully set in, the night air is still tinged with the desert’s chill that slips between the eaves of the Wall of Samiel. Kaveh shivers against the gusts, burrowing into himself. Al-Haitham’s fingers tighten.

“I can walk on my own,” Kaveh says. There are sparks running up his arm from the contact. So much for distance.

“Without falling over? Or running into anything?”

“Obviously, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says right before tripping over a flowerpot that obviously waltzed into his path the second Al-Haitham let go of his arm.

Al-Haitham chuckles.

Even when it’s at his expense, Kaveh likes the way his laugh sounds.

But to his credit, Al-Haitham lets Kaveh make the rest of the way home unaided. Kaveh only knocks into a couple pieces of hostile architecture. He doubts they’ll even bruise that badly.

Once they’re back at the house, Kaveh tumbles over the arm of the daybed and sprawls across the soft cushions. He sighs as he stretches his arms over his head. Something pops in his right shoulder. There is an ache against his ribs as his breath escapes him. The world spins pleasantly and he flicks his shoes off. Through hooded eyes, he tracks Al-Haitham as he moves through the living room to turn down the house for the night.

Al-Haitham is methodical in his actions. One by one, the lamps get snuffed out and room is quickly bathed in only the dim glow of the streetlamps flooding through stained glass windows. Kaveh bathes in the twilight. Once Al-Haitham has finished, he ends his rounds in front of Kaveh. His bangs fall heavily over one eye. The other one glints in the in the red-gold of the stained glass of the window.

“Come on.” Al-Haitham extends a hand. “Bed.”

Kaveh scoffs. He closes his eyes. There’s a light tickle in the back of his throat, the unpleasant reminder that he hasn’t dreamed up his diagnosis. “I’m not tired yet.”

Al-Haitham remains stone still. Kaveh can hardly see the rise of breath in his chest. The glint of the ridiculous gem in his chest is the only hint. “You’ll whine in the morning. Come.”

Grumbling and telling himself he’s doing this of his own free will because he actually is tired, Kaveh takes Al-Haitham’s hand and lets himself be pulled up. And because Kaveh has never been graced with an ounce of dignity, the second his feet hit the floor he stumbles over his own discarded shoes and barrels into Al-Haitham’s chest. Al-Haitham catches him. Strong arms cinch around Kaveh’s waist. A wide, flat palm spreads between his shoulder blades, another curled around his waist. Kaveh’s arms land on Al-Haitham’s chest, his thumb brushing the stupid gem. The mythical heart that is allegedly kept save beneath Al-Haitham’s ribs thuds heavily against Kaveh’s palms.

He's slouched like this, tucked against the long line of Al-Haitham’s body. He has to tip his head back to get the right angle to look up at Al-Haitham and curses himself when he does. That cool, calculating mask Al-Haitham gives him is earth-shattering this close. Al-Haitham’s fingers tighten against Kaveh’s waist. Kaveh parts his lips, just slightly, and Al-Haitham flicks his gaze down to track the motion, his eyes on Kaveh’s mouth.

The world spins. Kaveh spins. He knows what it looks like when he’s about to be kissed, what it feels like. The tension crackles like a summer storm in the hinges of Kaveh’s jaw.

Al-Haitham’s exhale is soft and short. It fans out across Kaveh’s skin. He shivers. His own name slips across Al-Haitham’s lips. Reverent. Devoted. All of the air is sucked out of the room. They are the only two people to exist in the world for a second. Only a second.

And Kaveh remembers why he will not let go of Al-Haitham.

He will not cut the rot from his body because here, in the stained glass shadows of their home, Kaveh means something to someone. At least, for a moment.

Petals and branches press against soft tissue and cells. Kaveh chokes on them. He swallows around it, throat tight and working to suppress his own desire. Al-Haitham’s gaze burns holes into his skin, and he wonders what would happen if once—just once—he could have what he desired.

But dreamers never win, so Kaveh presses against Al-Haitham’s chest until he is free and tells Al-Haitham that he’s going to puke. He secludes himself in his room and retches a bouquet onto the blueprints for his next magnum opus. His own blood flows in crimson rivulets that stain the page and his body quakes with the effort.

He cries at the sight of them. The petals. They taunt him, red and terrible and blue like the ocean with weeds and plant life. His tears scald as the slip over the curve of his cheeks and he does not think he will ever face Al-Haitham again. He will not eat or sleep or breath again with the weight of the petals in his lungs. A wet, gasping sound escapes him and Kaveh knows that he is wrecked.

Beneath the gap of the door, Al-Haitham’s shadow falls upon the tiled floor.

Kaveh thinks, deliriously, that Al-Haitham might just open the door without asking or knocking and find him amidst the gore of his devotion.

The shadow hovers, lingering. Kaveh imagines Al-Haitham with his looming form and his expressionless eyes pressing Kaveh down into the petals and the blood and kissing him in earnest. They would make a mess of things. Kaveh’s blood would stain the pale locks of Al-Haitham’s hair, of his own. It would be a fickle, wretched thing. A new blossom blooms within the empty gaps of Kaveh’s chest cavity.

And then, the shadow moves on.

…

“There has been a sudden and severe progression in the disease,” the doctor says at their next appointment. “The medication won’t have much of an effect if you continue on like this. Has something happened recently with the object of your affection?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Kaveh sniffs.

“Perhaps that’s the problem?”

Kaveh folds his hands over his chest and tries not to look too much like he’s sulking. Because he’s not. There’s nothing to sulk over. Of course, that’s the problem. Al-Haitham’s always been an expert at stringing Kaveh, even though Kaveh genuinely believes that this is the one thing Al-Haitham doesn’t mean to antagonize him over.

Despite the warnings about the medication’s ineffectiveness, the doctor ups his dosage and gives an imploring request to continue distancing himself from Al-Haitham.

“Though you have no obligation to regale the moment to me, I’m sure you can pin the moment the disease took such a sharp turn,” the doctor adds. “It would be best to recognize moments and extricate yourself from the situation as quickly as possible.”

Kaveh cringes. The flicker of Al-Haitham’s gaze falling onto his lips flashes across his mind. A hand spread tight and taught against his ribs. The wine-addled thoughts wishing and wanting to close that distance once and for all.

The disappointment that followed with the gore.

“Are you the leading expert in Hanahaki or something? This doesn’t seem very scientific and reasonable.” Kaveh asks, pushing all thoughts of kissing and blood from his mind.

“Something like that.” The doctor scribbles something on his notepad. “Alongside Lesser Lord Kusanali, I have made the most physical progression into hands-on study of the disease.”

“Lesser Lord Kusanali?”

The doctor hums in agreement. “Do you know the legend of Hanahaki?”

Kaveh shakes his head.

“It is said that the disease was born from the memory of the Goddess of Flowers. After her death, King Deshret was consumed by Padisarahs. They flooded his lungs until he drowned on his love for her, his grief for her.”

Kaveh frowns. He’d listened to enough of Al-Haitham’s sleepy mumblings curled up between the shadows of the House of Daena for that to make sense. “I’m not sure that’s how King Deshret died.”

The doctor simply shrugs, giving a wry, tired smile. “As you’ve said, Hanahaki isn’t scientific nor reasonable. There is only so much a mere doctor can do when faced with the whim and will of the gods.”

“And Lesser Lord Kusanali helped with your success story?”

“She was quite instrumental, yes.”

This surgery seems less and less appealing. Kaveh would hate to burden the Dendro Archon, of all people, with something so trivial as his own doomed, unrequited love.

“Could I,” Kaveh says slowly, “I mean, is it at all possible to talk with this other patient?”

The doctor goes rigid at the request. Kaveh quickly walks the request back.

“I don’t mean to pry,” he says, waving his hands about like an idiot. “I-I just thought it might help my decision. To see how they’re doing. Or something.”

“Of course. It’s a perfectly reasonable request,” the doctor says, face held in a perfectly neutral expression. “I will speak to my patient. But he is reticent. I cannot say how willing he will be to talk.”

“That’s fine. I understand,” Kaveh says. And he does. “Anything helps, I suppose.”

…

Kaveh returns home days later from client meeting with shoulders weighed down by the levity of the disagreement they’d had over the diamond designs Kaveh had implemented into the accents of the build—the client had called them cliché, of all things—only to be greeted to the sight of Al-Haitham glowering at the kitchen table. A storm cloud looms and ozone crackles within the walls of their haunted home. Kaveh means to beeline to his room without engaging with whatever Al-Haitham is stewing over.

They haven’t spoken since the night at Lambad’s, since Kaveh’s regression, since his appointment.

Kaveh doesn’t see any need to change that now.

But then, Al-Haitham calls his name, sharp and bone-chilling. It’s inescapable, inarguable. Kaveh freezes where he is, heart crashing against his ribs as his lungs ache. He turns. A smile cracks across his face as he greets Al-Haitham.

“Oh, hello! I didn’t see you there!”

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says, deep and low and rich. That ozone slips between the gaps of Al-Haitham’s teeth and spills across the pile of petals that he’s glowering down at. Kaveh’s blood runs cold.

“Yes?”

“You are sick.”

“Ah? What makes you say that?” The words shake themselves loose of Kaveh. He stares at the petals, blue and brittle and curled with age. Al-Haitham has gone through his trash. He’s rifled through Kaveh’s room to unearth this secret. Rage simmers in his molars, soft and low, distracted by the mounting panic that claws at his raw throat.

Al-Haitham doesn’t look up, doesn’t meet Kaveh’s gaze.

“You have Hanahaki.”

Kaveh’s first response to his disease born out of Al-Haitham spoke from Al-Haitham’s mouth is to laugh. It’s a snorting, burbling sound that escapes him.

“What could you possibly know about Hanahaki?”

“I’m not playing this game, Kaveh. Answer me: do you have Hanahaki?”

Kaveh has only heard this bitter bite from Al-Haitham once before. When they fought.

There isn’t any room for argument.

“Yes. I do.”

All of the air is sucked from the room. Kaveh can feel each pulse of his heart in his ears. He stares at Al-Haitham and the flowers and their Archons-damned kitchen table. Kaveh picked it out when he moved in. He told Al-Haitham the space was missing something and had drawn up the finances for Al-Haitham during their first week as roommates.

“Who is it?”

The dreaded question. Kaveh swallows hard around the lump in his throat.

“Does it matter?”

Al-Haitham’s sharp gaze snaps up to pin Kaveh where he stands. A muscle in Al-Haitham’s jaw twitches. Kaveh’s not sure why Al-Haitham is so upset about this revelation, but a traitorous voice in the back of his mind flaunts false hope.

As though Kaveh hadn’t said anything, Al-Haitham asks, “When are you having the surgery?”

Kaveh startles at the question. He’s still standing frozen in the space between the kitchen and entryway, eyes bulging. Leave it to Al-Haitham to take the most rational, emotionless course of action.

“I’m not.” Kaveh replies immediately before he can think of something contrarian and witty to say. “I’m not having the surgery.”

Al-Haitham is still for a moment. He stares at Kaveh like he’s grown two heads. He rakes a hand through his hair, an unfamiliar gesture. His downy hair slips between his knuckles, fluttering back into place to shadow his eyes once again. Still, the glow of his green irises escapes. Distress simmers there.

“Of course,” Al-Haitham says. He laughs, just once. Bitter and clipped. “Of course.”

Al-Haitham stands. His chair scrapes across the tile. In the harsh light of the kitchen, Al-Haitham looms. His fingers curl into fists and there is a slight tremble to him. Kaveh has only seen him like this once before. He’s shaken by the sight.

“You’re a delusional fool, Kaveh.”

He doesn’t wait for a response before. The silence the follows the sharp steps retreating down the hall and the quiet snick of a bedroom door opening and closing is deafening.

For a while, all Kaveh can do is swallow down the confusion and the panic. It takes him several gasping breaths to remember to exhale as well. His secret is out. Al-Haitham’s anger is bewildering. Since they came back into each other’s lives, since Kaveh moved in and they went from no contact to living underfoot of one another, Kaveh has been unable to shake the feeling that he’s missing something when it comes to Al-Haitham. The pain of being someone who used to know the other man like the back of his hand to becoming someone he must tiptoe around to avoid misunderstanding is a heavy one.

Eventually, Kaveh pulls his mask back on and slips into his room. He does not think about the shadows of Al-Haitham’s presence the linger in the halls nor the way his lungs stick on each breath he takes nor the brittle bits of his own body sitting on the kitchen table.

He tries to work on projects. He paces the lengths of his room. A fog has settled over his mind. He coughs and cannot clear his throat, but there aren’t any petals that come out. He counts that as a win.

Long past the time Al-Haitham goes to sleep, Kaveh ventures out of his room to wash up before his own attempt at sleep. He nearly trips over the parcel waiting just outside the door. It’s a thermos container, Kaveh realizes when he sets it on his desk. There is a spoon and a note on top of the container, which Kaveh sets aside in favor of removing the container’s lid. Inside, the minty bean soup is still hot, as though it was just taken off the stove. The fragrance fills up the room and Kaveh’s mouth waters. He stares at the soup for a moment, trying to grapple with the fact of the dish’s appearance at all, though he sets that thought aside when his stomach rumbles.

The note catches his eye when he reaches for the spoon.

Petals catch in his throat as he takes the note instead. Leave it to Al-Haitham to sign a note that only he could have written.

To help your throat – A

…

“You might be a fool, as they say, but you’re a brilliant one,” Al-Haitham had said in the aftermath of Kaveh’s wildly contested thesis presentation.

He had been waiting for Kaveh outside the presentation hall and folded him into his arms when Kaveh collapsed with the weight of his surefire failure. Kaveh had sniveled against Al-Haitham’s shoulders until he couldn’t any longer and Al-Haitham had taken him by the hand to lead him away from the public hallway they were loitering in. He had tucked them into a secluded garden that overlooked the sprawl of Sumeru beyond the city. He didn’t once let go of Kaveh’s hand as the sun set around them.

“Your gentleness frightens them. It is the core of your genius,” Al-Haitham had said, murmured soft in Kaveh’s ear. Salt tracks dried on his cheeks. “That’s why they push you. That’s why they fight you.”

Kaveh had huffed. “I’m not soft, Al-Haitham. I’m not some fragile thing to be protected. I don’t need that. I need to be seen.”

Al-Haitham had shifted beside Kaveh. The warmth that had bloomed from the place their shoulders had been pressed together seeped away. Their knotted hands remained knotted between them as Al-Haitham lifted his left to catch Kaveh’s cheek beneath his palm and tenderly urged Kaveh to face him. At some point in that year, Kaveh had learned the ways in which Al-Haitham ticked. Though Al-Haitham’s expression had remained as impassive as ever, Kaveh could see the slight downturn at the corner of his mouth. He could see that spark beneath the fathoms of his gaze. He didn’t wear his noise cancelling headphones. They weren’t even slung around his neck. Kaveh had already realized he loved Al-Haitham and was reminded of that fact in all the points Al-Haitham touched him.

“It’s okay to be soft,” Al-Haitham had said, voice a whisper that caught in the breeze. “It’s okay to be protected.”

And Kaveh’s heart had beat to the tune of protect me, protect me, protect me.

…

A week’s worth of minty bean soup is delivered to Kaveh’s room, each one affixed with a mundane note. Try to get outside today. Remember to stretch out your fingers if you’re sketching. Drink some water too. Mindless, thoughtless, innocuous notes. All signed with an infuriating, scrawled A. Kaveh keeps every single one.

He remains a veritable hermit in his room for nine days.

On the tenth, the note asks a question, though not so directly as that.

Nilou’s show will have its final performance tomorrow – A

Kaveh stares at the note for a full turn of the earth around the sun. He eats the food slowly—Al-Haitham has started to vary his meals to reflect what he would normally prepare, in addition to the soup—and considers opening the door. He’s been cautious about the proof of life in the house. He’s hardly left the house. Nilou’s show has been the last thing on his mind. It feels as though a lifetime has passed since Kaveh brought it up to Al-Haitham.

Low light flickers along the base of the door. Al-Haitham is still awake. The note crinkles in Kaveh’s palm. He hasn’t set it down yet. The breath in his lungs rattles with his inhale.

The flowers have softened during this week of isolation.

Tomorrow. He’ll talk to Al-Haitham tomorrow.

…

Kaveh doesn’t sleep that night. He burrows himself in the farthest corner of his bed in a nest of blankets heaped around him in a defensive line. Al-Haitham’s notes sit in a pile at the foot of the nest. His thin, neat scrawl is a haunting thing. Kaveh threads a hand beneath the blankets and presses his palm to his chest. His lungs expand. The twisting root system filling his body stretches and reaches to regain the footholds on the thin tissues of his organs. He’s getting used to the feeling of the flowers.

Just as he’s gotten used to Al-Haitham’s twisting affection.

The thing about Al-Haitham is that Kaveh has always loved him. Even when he was a shy, awkward first-year who hadn’t yet decided on what mask he would wear for the public, even when he was scrawny and his hair grew too long and his Akademiya robes didn’t fit quite right. Before Al-Haitham, Kaveh had been buried in his studies. He had been hellbent on his legacy, of climbing the ranks of Ksharewar and building a name for himself, of proving himself to his parents and to the Akademiya and to the arts.

After Al-Haitham, there was hope.

There was somebody.

For a time, Kaveh had thought they understood one another so well that they were on the same page as to the natural progression of the relationship. Those hungry looks had to have meant something. Those lingering gazes had to have meant something.

When they fought that last time, Kaveh had been okay. He had been fine. He carried on because he thought Al-Haitham would come to his senses—as he usually did—and talk Kaveh out of his own anger. But a year had passed and then two turned into three and Al-Haitham seemed to have well and truly disappeared from Kaveh’s life. He learned to move on. His mother sure had. She had fled Sumeru with her head held high and a desire to leave the shadows of her life and Kaveh’s childhood behind. She left him the house and Kaveh had tried his best. Really, he had. Despite the absence of the two people he thought would carry him through his adult life, Kaveh persisted. Until he couldn’t anymore.

And there was Al-Haitham, appearing like a shade in the Grand Bazaar when Kaveh was at his lowest, destitute and desolate.

In this house, everything is as it was when they were closer than brothers in the Akademiya but slightly to the left. They no longer walked in synch, though Kaveh’s affection for the man remained.

When the sun crests the horizon, Kaveh leaves the safety of his cocoon and brews a pot of coffee in the kitchen. He drinks a full cup in the dawn-hewn shadows and has started in on his second by time Al-Haitham finally emerges from his room.

He delights a bit in the way Al-Haitham startles at the sight of him.

Al-Haitham is sleep-rumpled and soft looking as he pads into his kitchen in his sleep clothes, his hair a disarray and his expression unguarded. It has been a while since Kaveh caught a glimpse of Al-Haitham without one of his masks drawn.

“I’d like to go to Nilou’s show tonight,” Kaveh says before that mask can form. He meets Al-Haitham’s wide-eyed stare above the rim of his mug. “If you’re free.”

“Of course,” Al-Haitham answers immediately and solemnly.

Kaveh narrows his eyes at him over the mug. “You don’t have to hang out with me just because you think I’m dying.”

“You are dying, Kaveh. And since you are dying of a curable affliction, you are all the more a fool. Though I’m not about to waste the time I have left about you, if dying is what you’re insisting upon doing.”

It takes a while for Kaveh to sort through the meaning of Al-Haitham’s words. He flounders for a while, mouth moving and words failing him until he can come up with a simple, “Oh. Okay.”

“I’d still like to go to the show,” Kaveh breaks the silence again, “If you’re willing.”

“Tonight works for me. We can get dinner beforehand.”

“Oh! Uh, yeah. Sure. Sure, that’s fine.”

Al-Haitham raises an eyebrow. “Did you have other plans?”

“No, no. Nothing else. We ah. We should go to dinner first. That would be good.”

Al-Haitham’s eyebrow tickers higher like he doesn’t really believe Kaveh. “You could always take Tighnari. Or that traveler.”

“I—what?” It takes a moment for the weight of Al-Haitham’s words to sink in. “Why would I take Tighnari? Or the traveler. If anything, you’d be more likely to take the traveler and that little fairy of theirs since you like to run off on secret, government-overthrowing missions with them.”

For a moment, Al-Haitham is silent. He fumes. His eyebrow twitches and ah, this is why Kaveh fights with him. This is why he presses those buttons. Because when those buttons are pressed, Al-Haitham lets slip the mask and some sliver of emotion slips free and Kaveh is let into that silent world of the inner workings of Al-Haitham’s mind that he was once so privy to.

Even so, Kaveh can tell when he’s pushed too far.

Lowering his gaze to his hands and his mug and its draining contents, Kaveh says, “I would like to go to dinner before the show. If you’re willing. That would be nice. Thank you.”

Al-Haitham’s tension unfurls out of the corner of Kaveh’s eye. He ticks into motion, uprooting himself to pour a cup of coffee for himself. He settles himself into the seat across from Kaveh. Sunlight crosses the bridge of his nose. The loose sleepshirt he wears exposes a swath of his chest and the gem that glitters against his sternum. The sight of him cuts Kaveh cleanly. Somehow, Celestia planted this man directly into a collision course with Kaveh’s life and he never stood a chance at escaping him.

They finish their coffee in silence. It’s an easy silence, one of those echoes of the past where—if Kaveh were to close his eyes—the flip of a page of whatever book Al-Haitham is reading almost sounds like the page of a heavy textbook. The sun tracks higher into the sky. Al-Haitham snaps his book shut and announces he has to get going. Kaveh drinks another cup of coffee. The third one stings his raw throat less than the previous two. It takes Al-Haitham seven minutes and twenty seconds to get ready. Kaveh counts them with scratches of his nails against the grain of the table. When Al-Haitham emerges, adjusting the straps of his gloves, he pauses at the table. Kaveh stares at his own fingers.

“I’ll see you later,” Al-Haitham says in a low, soft voice. Kaveh keeps his downcast gaze steady. He bites his tongue. Silently, Al-Haitham leaves.

…

The day passes in a crawl. Kaveh spends the day meandering, flipping a pencil between his fingers and humming nonsense to himself as he thinks of the best way to keep the flowers down for the whole performance. He’s only been able to stomach the flora for a few minutes in Al-Haitham’s presence in the past few days. Even after the exchange this morning, Kaveh had spent the better part of an hour coughing his lungs up in the bathroom. The best idea he’s come up with thus far is to escape just before intermission to have the theater bathroom to himself and pray that simply sitting next to Al-Haitham for an hour and change won’t count as a tax to the curse of his unrequited love.

Still, he’s able to pull himself out of his theorizing and his pondering to shower and change. It’s been some time since he’s put more than the minimal amount of effort into his appearance. It’s nice to go through the motions of styling his hair and painting on elaborate makeup and styling an outfit for a night outside of the scant few walls of his home. Al-Haitham’s home. Whatever. He takes his time with himself. He does a facemask and everything.

He takes so much time with himself that he’s planned out everything for the night out long before Al-Haitham will be home. The varnish on his nails has dried, his outfit hangs neatly off the closet door, and his hair is neatly pinned back to dry in the perfect fall of waves that he can let the gentle anticipation of a night out with Al-Haitham provides. The feeling is of another world, locked out of time and cradled between Kaveh’s hands—a time where every possibility of stealing Al-Haitham’s attention did not hinge on roots in his own lungs and the coins in Kaveh’s lightened purse.

So, with the time he has before Al-Haitham gets home and the levity in his lungs, Kaveh stretches out on his bed and runs a hand along the split seam of his robe, his fingers raising goosebumps along his exposed skin. It’s been difficult since the erasure of the Akasha terminal, but Kaveh has the fresh image in his mind of Al-Haitham sleep-rumpled and beautiful at the breakfast table. It’s easy to put that image of Al-Haitham in the context of the mourning after, a morning after Kaveh had been able to touch and kiss and hold.

Kaveh pinches his eyes shut. The image of Al-Haitham all soft and sleepy spills beneath his eyelashes. He curls his fingers beneath the belt of his robe, thinking of the way Al-Haitham’s lips had curled around the rim of his coffee mug this morning. How they’d look curled around something else, something that is hot and curling against Kaveh’s ribs. He trails his hand down farther, skating across his sternum and the soft planes of his belly. He contemplates the ethics of indulging. It’s been years since he gave into the urge. He was living in the dorms the last time, actually.

But the petals are soft in his throat and anticipation flutters gently against his ribs. Kaveh presses his hand downward. With the memory of Al-Haitham’s lips playing across his mind, he gives in.  

There had been a time, back in the dorms, when the thought of a kiss from Al-Haitham had been an intoxicating probability. It was one that had never come to pass, in retrospect, but Kaveh keeps the memory of those near misses close to his mind. Late nights in the House of Daena bent over heavy tomes and scribbled drafts. A hand clasped around a mug of coffee in the morning, Al-Haitham bent over his bed of fuchsia flora with dirt caked beneath his nails. Hot bowls of soup and a soft knock to Kaveh’s door. He tosses his head back against the pillows, eyes pinched shut. He thinks about fingers smoother than his own, delicate and unmarred by the callous of a pen. Hot breath in his mouth, smelling of mint and the light soap Al-Haitham keeps in the basket in their shared bathroom.

Archons, what Kaveh would give to thread his fingers through that hand.

It’s over quick and quietly. Kaveh bites down on his lip to keep the cry from spilling loose. If he is quiet, he can pretend that he hasn’t committed the act. If he is quiet, he can pretend this was merely a chore.

He shakes the robe loose. The lukewarm air of the house chills Kaveh to the bone. He keeps his eyes shut for a minute, for two, before he flicks them open and sighs up at the ceiling. A cough tickles at the back of his throat. Kaveh swallows down around it.

The afterglow washes over Kaveh for a while, the tides ebbing with a bitterness that is difficult to bear. He closes his eyes and lets himself bask in the feeling. The old, familiar ache of disappointment and the solemnity washes over him. It is bitter on his tongue. Sighing, Kaveh spends a few mournful moments swallowing down copper and regret.

If there’s anything the Light of Kasharawar can do, it’s to bottle up every drop of emotion and sell it at an event.

Kaveh makes quick work of cleaning himself up. He showers again, quick and brisk. He doesn’t look at himself in the mirror as he passes. It’s too fogged anyway. He dresses quickly—the outfit has already been playing itself across his mind since Al-Haitham offered the night out. Since it became a reality.

The delusions of his unrequited love might have been dashed by the flowers blossoming in his lungs, but Kaveh’s not so far gone as to not want to look his best around Al-Haitham. That way, at least, he can convince himself that Al-Haitham—should he be any other, normal, feeling human being—will be mourning the loss of what could have been between them.

Because Kaveh is hot.

He’s a catch.

He’s brilliant and beautiful and it’s not his fault the person he’s cursed himself to love can’t spare him a backwards glance. It’s hardwired into Kaveh’s bloodstream to be doomed. It’s the shadow beneath his feet at midday.

And when Al-Haitham comes home exactly seven minutes after he gets off work at the Akademiya, Kaveh has tucked the melancholy of his lapse in judgement away and he lounges on the couch below the front window with a sketchbook in his lap. He tracks the way Al-Haitham carries himself as he walks past the window. The loose and lanky silhouette is reflected on the page before him. He flips to a new page as the key fits into the lock.

Al-Haitham is gracious enough to spare Kave a glance when he walks in. His gaze skips over Kaveh for the briefest of moments as he deposits his keys into the bowl by the door. Metal clangs against metal. Al-Haitham’s expression doesn’t so much as flicker.

“I made reservations for dinner in an hour,” Al-Haitham says. “Can you be ready?”

Kaveh snaps his sketchbook closed and uncrosses his ankles. He sighs dramatically, pushing his bangs back off his forehead as he arches his back like a cat. He does not look at Al-Haitham as he says. “I think I can manage.”

Dinner is a stilted and awkward thing. It’s a nice restaurant, the one Kaveh’s best clients take him to. Their table is tucked away on the second floor, softly lit by candlelight and glowing in the muffled din of the restaurant. Al-Haitham is deliriously normal. He is stoic and quiet, sits straight and perfect and tall. It’s all so typical, so normal—except that they have never sat civilly at a restaurant since Kaveh moved into the house and he has the ever-growing weight of his affection for Al-Haitham blossoming in his lungs. He’s been able to keep the worst of the symptoms at bay, thanks to his self-imposed seclusion in his bedroom these past few weeks, but all of that seems to have been for naught in the face of dinner and a play with Al-Haitham. Kaveh picks at his food. The meal is expensive; he feels bad for wasting it, but his throat constricts around the petals with each bite he takes.

“How have you been feeling?” Al-Haitham asks out of nowhere.

Kaveh pauses, spoon midway destroying the neat pile of rice on his plate. He flickers a glance up at Al-Haitham. He is met with a very serious stare. Kaveh is quick to focus back on his meal.

“How do you think I feel?” Kaveh says, just before thick guilt washes over him. Al-Haitham is trying—perhaps for the first time in his life—to make an effort.

“I think you feel tired,” Al-Haitham says. “I think you feel a bone deep weariness that you couldn’t quell, even if you slept a hundred hours. You can’t think, you can’t breathe. I think the life that’s growing inside of you terrifies you, so you’ve opted to ignore the fact that it is consuming you and will let it eat at you until you’ve disappeared completely. All while you languish in your self-inflicted torment because whoever your affection is directed towards seems a more worthwhile cause than your own life.”

Kaveh’s mouth falls open halfway through Al-Haitham’s speech. The dressing-down Al-Haitham delivers flays Kaveh to the bone. For a moment, he considers just telling him, to just confess. That would wipe the self-righteous smirk off Al-Haitham’s face. Kaveh thinks about the wide flare of his eyes, the way the grim line of his mouth would slacken. He would apologize, Kaveh knows. For as high and mighty as he is, Al-Haitham is not haughty enough to not recognize when he is wrong.

However delightful that image might be, though, it would only lead to petals and ruin. The pity in Al-Haitham’s eyes is more than Kaveh can bare.

Instead, to the food he pushes around his plate, Kaveh says, “You’re right.”

The startled twitch of Al-Haitham’s brow at Kaveh’s concession is almost as sweet as a confession.

“You’re right, of course. I’m tired and I’m scared and I don’t want to think about this at all. But you have it in your head to save me or whatever, so you can’t even dignify me with a night out.” Kaveh spears a lotus root. He mashes it a bit, so it turns pulpy against the plate. He can see Al-Haitham open his mouth to reply, but Kaveh barrels on. “And anyway, I’ve asked the doctor if I might speak to his patient who received the surgery. To see if it’s worth it.”

“And…you think that might help?” Al-Haitham’s question is slow and calculating.

Kaveh nods. “Perhaps. Perhaps they’re thriving and have moved on from whatever calamitous love cursed them and they’re married with a new spouse or something. Surly, giving up something as precious as love must be worth it.”

“Might it be that the ultimate devotion is giving up on love for the sake of love?” Al-Haitham asks.

Kaveh blinks. Al-Haitham meets him dead on with that impassive stare of his. When Al-Haitham doesn’t elaborate, Kaveh scoffs. “And what would you know about love.”

Al-Haitham rolls his eyes and tucks back into his meal. “Nothing. Obviously. Of course. It’s merely an intellectual quandary. What if…this person who had the procedure because the object of their affection was in need. The symptoms of Hanahaki increase with proximity, yes? So, perhaps they sacrificed their own affection for the person they love in order to save them.”

“I suppose,” Kaveh says slowly. The theory makes sense when Kaveh thinks about it. Though he can’t imagine being selfless enough to give up the piece of himself carved out for Al-Haitham. But if Al-Haitham’s wellbeing hinged on Kaveh’s survival… “In any case, I won’t know until I talk to them.”

Al-Haitham hums and says nothing more on the topic.

They finish their meal and make their way to the theater. There is a steady stream of people filing into seats. Kaveh likes that the theater has grown in popularity since reinstitution of Lesser Lord Kusanali. The people of Sumeru—of the Akademiya—seem to have opened their minds to a greater appreciation of the arts.

The seats Al-Haitham secured are close to the stage, though not too close to blur the view. Al-Haitham buys Kaveh a glass of wine at the concession counter before they sit, their fingers brushing as he passes the glass to Kaveh. It’s sweet and rich, better than the bottom shelf stuff Kaveh gets from Lambad’s. They settle into their seats in comfortable silence as low chatter hums around them. Al-Haitham’s thigh presses close to Kaveh’s, not quite touching but close enough to feel the heat of him. A deluded flutter of hope ruffles the petals in Kaveh’s lungs. He coughs quietly into his fist and ignores the sharp look Al-Haitham gives him.

Nilou is lovely in the performance. Everyone is. It’s old legend, a tragic love. Tears prickle Kaveh’s lashes by the end of the performance. He stands and claps with the crowd, whooping when Nilou takes her bow.

“I’d like to wait around to see Nilou,” Kaveh says as the audience begins to flow towards the exit once the lights have risen and the cast as disappeared backstage. “She was so lovely, don’t you think? We ought to sing her praises.”

“Wasn’t your gaudy display praise enough?” Al-Haitham asks, but there’s no bit to his tone and he’s paying for another glass of wine for them both. “Surely she could hear you.”

Kaveh elbows him in the ribs. Al-Haitham grunts softly, but hands Kaveh the provided glass of wine anyway. “She’s our friend, Al-Haitham. Don’t be so prickly.”

Al-Haitham rolls his eyes. Still, he doesn’t complain as they wait.

A few of the other performers come out first, mingling with the lingering crowed for a while. Kaveh is nearly finished with his glass of wine and feeling the effects of the flowers starting to bloom into an attack. He swallows it down with the last of his wine just as he spots Nilou’s fiery curls slipping out of the backstage. She spots Kaveh and Al-Haitham almost immediately, floating over to the corner they’ve been lingering.

“Kaveh! Al-Haitham! It’s so good to see you! I thought I saw you out there.” Nilou wraps Kaveh up into a hug once she’s close enough and Kaveh accepts readily. She smells of lotuses and spice and the squeeze of her small arms around Kaveh sooth something he hadn’t even realized he’d been missing. He’s been so holed up in his room and wallowing in his own misery that he’s neglected seeing any of his friends at all.

“Nilou, you were absolutely radiant, a vision of the stage.” Kaveh presses a kiss to her cheek as he lets her go. She beams, shining like the sun as she flits to Al-Haitham. He returns her hug in a stilted manner, awkwardly folding one long arm around her in a way that makes Kaveh snort into his empty glass.

“Yes,” Al-Haitham says. “The casts efforts at Khaenri'ahn was…admirable.”

Nilou giggles, tucking her hair behind her ears. “That’s high praise, Mr. Acting Grand Sage.”

Al-Haitham grunts, a bright flush creeping across his cheeks.

“I’m so happy you were able to make it,” Nilou says. “Kaveh, it’s been too long. Where have you been hiding away?”

“Ah, you know, toiling away with my artistic genius.” Kaveh waves a hand with a shrug of his shoulders.

“He’s been sick.”

“Sick? Are you alright?” Nilou’s brows pull together and Kaveh has half a mind to stomp on Al-Haitham’s foot.

“Nothing a little rest can’t help,” Kaveh says. “My dear roommate is being dramatic.”

Al-Haitham huffs.

“Well, I’m glad you were able to make it.” Nilou glances between the two of them, the concern not yet faded from her expression. “Things are…going well between you two?”

Kaveh laughs, loud and full-bodied and catching around the petals creeping up his throat. “He’s an insufferable ass, but he’s not a half-bad date.”

“Oh! Of course.” Nilou gives Kaveh a sly smile, one that Kaveh will not read into nor do anything to counteract. Across the theater, someone calls out to Nilou. She looks over her shoulder and shouts back. “We’re going to the tavern for an afterparty. You two should come!”

“I’d never say no to a night at the tavern,” Kaveh says and winks. He hooks his arm around Al-Haitham and tips his gaze towards him. His jaw is set in led, expression as steely as always. “Care to join?”

“Fine.”

“Perfect!” Nilou clasps her hands together with a little bounce. “I have to go find Dunyarzad, but I’ll meet you there.”

“Sounds lovely.” Kaveh kisses Nilou’s cheek once more and she gives him another quick hug before drifting away.

When she’s gone, Al-Haitham takes a step back from Kaveh’s touch and glowers. “Is that a good idea?”

“It’s still not Nilou, if that’s what you’re worried about?” Kaveh says with a groan. “Yes, it’s fine. Let me just go to the bathroom and then we should head over.”

In the bathroom, Kaveh retches up the flowers he’d been holding at bay and the wine he’d drunk during the performance. The crimson gore laughs up at him. He cleans up the evidence of the petals and swallows down a few mouthfuls of water from the sink before joining Al-Haitham outside the theater.

Lambad’s is aglow with performers and their friends and family. It’s livelier than any night Kaveh has spent languishing over the bar top. He hasn’t spent a loud, raucous night out since he was student, probably. Something about the flushed, ruddy faces of the performers flocking around Nilou makes Kaveh ache.

Al-Haitham sticks close to Kaveh’s side once they grab a drink from the bar and fit into the pulse of the afterparty. That aching nostalgia throbs harder against Kaveh’s chest. Al-Haitham is out of his element here; he’s uncomfortable and seeking safety and Kaveh’s nearness but staying for Kaveh’s sake.

“We don’t have to stay long,” Kaveh says out of the corner of his mouth to Al-Haitham. Fingers tug lightly at the loose sleeve billowing around Kaveh’s forearm.

“It’s alright,” Al-Haitham says. His voice has that stoney edge different from the indifferent monotone he usually speaks in. The masks have been drawn. “We can stay however long you like.”

Despite his better judgement, Kaveh kisses Al-Haitham’s cheek. That faint rasp of stubble tickles a memory of a different sort of night spent with Al-Haitham, filled with the same hazy glow of a drunken bar but with the levity Kaveh fears their relationship will never see again. He can’t bring himself to catch Al-Haitham’s reaction before seeking out Nilou in the crowd.

For the rest of the night, Kaveh loses himself in the crowd of half strangers and friends. Al-Haitham still sticks close to Kaveh’s side, silent and sturdy just behind Kaveh’s shoulder. He likes feeling like he’s guarding Al-Haitham, standing as the first line of defense towards wayward questions positioned towards Al-Haitham. He doesn’t drink any more for the rest of the night, simply waving around his first drink from the beginning of the night. He doesn’t need it. It’s heady enough to debate the artistic integrity of stairs versus ramps with the partner of the show’s director. For one, fleeting night, Kaveh can pretend to who he once was before the petals of his devotion doomed him.

Just past midnight, Al-Haitham shows signs of cracking. His shoulders droop and the sharpness of his gaze wanes to something heavy-lidded and glazed. All his terribly hard edges have blunted and Kaveh is helplessly endeared to the sight of him. He pushes back a lock of Al-Haitham’s hair, tucking it behind his ear and leaning in close.

“Come on, let’s get you home.”

Recognition flickers in AL-Haitham’s muddled gaze. He shakes his head. “No. ‘m fine. You’re having a nice time.”

“I was and now I’m tired. I want to go home.”

Al-Haitham nods, placated. He used to play this song and dance in school, fighting his own exhaustion and discomfort for Kaveh’s sake. It was one of the false threads of hope that had blanketed Kaveh in between exams and papers. Now, Kaveh is just wrapped in those threads to buffer against the roots sinking into his lungs as Kaveh smooths his thumb along the sharp line of Al-Haitham’s jaw and reminds himself that the way Al-Haitham leans his head into Kaveh’s hand is a conjuration of his illness. A delusion.

“Alright,” Al-Haitham says placidly. “Home.”

They detour to give a brief goodbye to Nilou, who is curled around the Lady Dunyarzad in a cozy corner of the tavern. She laughs as she waves them off, her fingers idly curling with Dunyarzad’s. The touch is slow—a half-minded habit, no doubt—but the sight of it devastates Kaveh anyway. He links his arm with Al-Haitham’s and tugs him from the tavern before he can think about it further.

The heat and humidity of the day has been burned off when they step outside. Kaveh doesn’t  drop Al-Haitham’s arm and Al-Haitham doesn’t back. Nor do they speak as they meander their way home. The nightbirds call overhead somewhere, deep in the jungle, a Rishboland tiger roars. When they reach home, Kaveh grabs the keys from Al-Haitham’s belt because he has forgotten his own and Al-Haitham is still a little too dazed to do it himself. The lock fits with a heavy click. Kaveh tugs at Al-Haitham’s arm, urging him inside to the darkened entryway.

It’s only when they’re fully inside and the door is shut and locked behind them when Al-Haitham steps away. He lets out a low sigh as he takes a turn of the room. The sound of it shakes Kaveh to his core as he deposits Al-Haitham’s keys into the bowl by the door, right beside his own. He waits.

Al-Haitham slows in front of a table behind the couch. There’s a painted vase filled with the mourning flowers Al-Haitham grows. Their dripping petals are dim in the low light of the living room. Al-Haitham plucks one stem from the vase, pinching the green stalk between two fingers. He brings the flower to his nose. Downy lashes flutter against his cheeks as he inhales. The gem in his chest catches a beam of light from the street. Kaveh bites his lip.

“Haitham?” he asks, his voice an uncertain warble against the stillness.

“I thought it would get easier,” Al-Haitham says. He strokes at one of the weeping petals. “After.”

“Al-Haitham, what do you mean?”

Al-Haitham continues to stare at the flower. He doesn’t register when Kaveh approaches. Not until Kaveh reaches out and curls a hand around his wrist. Al-Haitham startles, the way he does when too many people brush up against him when they’re in a crowded space. Kaveh instantly drops his wrist and steps back.

“Sorry, sorry,” Kaveh says, holding up his hands in surrender.

Al-Haitham sets the flower down on the table, gentle as anything. When he looks at Kaveh—finally, finally—the haze in his gaze has fully cleared. He shakes his head, reaches back out for Kaveh. Kaveh holds stock still as Al-Haitham cups his face between his palms. Long stretching fingers tuck behind Kaveh’s jaw. Al-Haitham’s hair—ruffled from his fussing—his pushed back to reveal an openness to his expression that Kaveh hasn’t seen in a long time.

“It’s never you,” Al-Haitham says.

“Okay,” Kaveh says. His heart thuds in his throat. “Okay.”

A shaky exhale whispers from Al-Haitham as he presses his forehead to Kaveh’s. He smooths a thumb over the curve of Kaveh’s cheekbone and Kaveh settles his hands on the swell of Al-Haitham’s chest. The heavy thrum of his heartbeat burns at the pads of Kaveh’s fingers.

“I thought I could escape you,” Al-Haitham breathes. He pushes his hands into Kaveh’s hair, knocking aside the pins and jewels strung there. Something clatters to the floor around them. Kaveh tilts his head up. Their noses bump.

“Why are you always running from me?” Kaveh asks.

Al-Haitham scoffs, breath wine-scented and sweet as it washes over Kaveh. “I have never once run from you. I have always been here, waiting on you.”

The kiss that follows, as sweet as it is, curdles the flora in Kaveh’s lungs. He curls his hands into the sleek material of Al-Haitham’s shirt, desperately clinging to this moment—to him—as Al-Haitham parts his lips against Kaveh. A hint of tongue, the sting of a tug of hair, an inexorable collision of bodies pressing close, so close—

Kaveh pushes back from Al-Haitham and his scalding mouth. He stumbles, knocking his hip into the table’s edge.

“What are you doing?” Kaveh hisses. He presses the back of his hands against tingling lips, hating the flush burning in his cheeks and the racing of his heart. Bile and blood pools at the back of his throat. “Are you drunk?”

“Kaveh, please.” Al-Haitham rolls his eyes, but he has a matching stain splashed across his own cheeks and his pupils are blown wide. “That was hardly enough to get me drunk. You, of all people, should be able to know that.”

“You’re such an ass.” Kaveh’s eyes burn. “You don’t get to do this to me. Not this time.”

For once, Al-Haitham is stunned into silence. Kaveh can’t bare to look at him, at the slick shine to Al-Haitham’s lips as his mouth hangs open. Huffing with indignation and having said his piece, Kaveh marches past Al-Haitham. The petals are clawing up his throat, anyway, and Kaveh would like to scrub the sour end of the night from his tongue.

Just as he thinks he’s free and clear, Kaveh’s stopped by Al-Haitham’s hand gripping his bicep.

“Who is it,” Al-Haitham asks, words breaking at the end.

Kaveh shakes him free. It’s easier than he anticipates. Al-Haitham’s arm swings limply to his side.

Steeling his resolve, Kaveh says, “If you can’t figure it out, you never will.”

Kaveh squares his shoulders and marches away. He doesn’t think about Al-Haitham as he coughs up flowers before bed. He doesn’t think about the kiss they shared or the easy way he and Al-Haitham had floated around one another throughout the night as he pulls petals from his throat. The kiss doesn’t even linger in his dreams as he forces himself to sleep later with a raw throat and a heavy heart.

…

Lesser Lord Kusanali greets Kaveh in the exam room when he arrives at Bimarstan.

She’s sitting on the exam table with her hands in her lap, bare feet swinging back and forth, back and forth.

Kaveh very nearly scrabbles after the nurse that drops him off at the room, convinced he’s been brought to the wrong place, but the cane he’s taken to walking with gets in his way and the door snicks shut before he can catch them. Faced alone with a god, Kaveh tenses.

Thankfully, the god speaks before he can.

“Hello Kaveh,” Lesser Lord Kusanali says. “It’s nice to finally meet you in person.”

Kaveh’s eye twitches at the implication of her strange greeting. He takes a step farther into the room. It’s as familiar to him as his—Al-Haitham’s—home but this intruder makes him uneasy. “I-how can I help you? Lesser Lord Kusanali.”

Should he bow? Fall to his knees? Sumeru didn’t have a hard and fast rule about the recognition of deities—largely due in part to the whole cover up from the Akademiya about the existence of Lesser Lord Kusanali and all—but he feels like he should be doing something other than awkwardly hovering by the door.

“I believe you’ve been told that I had a part in the operation to remove the Hanahaki from the most recent patient to have the procedure,” Lesser Lord Kusanali says, feet still swinging and voice light and airy as though there isn’t a care to her in the world.

“Right.”

“They asked me to be here to discuss the procedure with you,” the archon continues. That was the point of today’s visit. In addition to the normal check-in, the previous patient had agreed to speak with Kaveh. “They think it will be…beneficial to have an unaffiliated third party in the conversation.”

Kaveh raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t the other patient the unaffiliated third party?”

Lesser Lord Kusanali hums. Her swinging feet still, falling against the exam table with a soft thud. She pats the bed beside her in invitation. Slowly, Kaveh crosses the room. It’s strange to feel so intimidated by the least intimidating person probably ever.

“How are you feeling, Kaveh?” she asks once Kaveh’s seated. She turns her cherub face up towards him and smiles softly. Her voice sounds like tinkling bells and it tickles a long buried childhood memory of whispers in his mother’s garden.

“Um, fine. Considering.”

“Yes, considering.” Lesser Lord Kusanali pats Kaveh’s thigh. The featherlight weight of her small hand brings more comfort than Kaveh would have expected. His shoulders ease, a tension he hadn’t realized he was carrying dripping off him. She takes her hand back and returns it to the folded knot in her lap. “I’m glad you’re considering the procedure. Your doctor has disclosed you have been quite insistent on not having it. What’s changed?”

Al-Haitham’s mournful eyes after kissing Kaveh softer than anything.

“Scientific curiosity, I suppose. To weigh all the options.”

“Smart. Would you like me to tell you how the operation will go?”

“Sure.”

“It’s rather simple, actually. Not even an operation in a medical sense,” Lesser Lord Kusanali begins. “They’ll have you all set up and put you to sleep. Then, I’ll come in and extract the roots from your lungs.” The archon wiggles her fingers with a green flare of Dendro. “And retract the life from the flowers, making them shrivel up until there’re nothing more than some harmless dust particles that will leave naturally. You’ll have a cough for a few days, some bruising on your lungs—based on the progression of your flowers it might take a few months for the bruising to clear up—but after that you’ll be well on your way to recovery.”

“And that’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Just missing the nasty, wonderful unrequited love for my former best friend and roommate?”

“Kaveh,” Lesser Lord Kusanali says, incredibly tender. “It’s not a proven prognosis yet. Love is not an exact science. Anything could happen. The previous patient exhibited the same care and love for the object of his—their—curse, just carried it in a different way. And in their most recent check-in to monitor their recovery, they exhibited a change feelings for them.”

“With no sign of…relapse?”

The Lesser Lord hums again. “Perhaps its time the two of you speak. Would you like that?”

“I—yeah. Please.”

She pats Kaveh’s knee again and hops off the bed. He’s left alone with the ticking of his pulse and the flowers in his lungs as he waits for her to return. He wrings sweaty fingers in his lap. It’s been a week since Nilou’s show and the subsequent kiss. Kaveh has largely ignored Al-Haitham but it’s only partially because of the kiss. Dizzy spells have been overtaking him, and he can hardly stand on his own. It took everything for Kaveh to get to Bimarstan today.

So, maybe it is all about the kiss after all.

The door cracks open and Lesser Lord Kusanali pokes into the room.

Followed by the long shadow of Al-Haitham.

“No,” Kaveh says automatically. “Absolutely not. Fuck this.”

Clumsily, Kaveh hops off the bed. He grabs at his cane, but it clatters to the ground. Kaveh continues muttering, swearing, under his breath as he stoops to pick it up. Darkness spots his vision and he almost grabs the cane—he does—but Al-Haitham swoops in because of course he does and takes both the cane and Kaveh’s elbow. Kaveh shakes him off once they’re standing, then snatches the cane from Al-Haitham. He shoves at Al-Haitham’s chest for good measure.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Kaveh asks. The darkness doesn’t fade, even as he leans back against the bed.

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says in that slow way he always fucking speaks to Kaveh.

“No. Stop. What is this?” Kaveh holds his free hand up to block Al-Haitham from his vision. Lesser Lord Kusanali stands to the side of the door, a small wrinkle between her brow marring the serene expression on her face. “I thought I was supposed to meet the other Hanahaki patient?”

“Kaveh, it’s me,” Al-Haitham tries again.

“Haitham, stop. I said stop. Please.” Kaveh doesn’t take his eyes off Lesser Lord Kusanali as his pulse ratchets up. He sucks in a quick, raspy breath and then holds it, saves it in his lungs. “What is he doing here.”

“Al-Haitham is the other Hanahaki patient,” she says softly. “He asked me to facilitate the meeting between the two of you.”

“Facilitate?” Kaveh is bordering on hysterical. This can’t be happening. This can’t. He tightens his grip on the cane and pushes off the bed. “We could’ve had this meeting in the damn kitchen.”

“Like you would listen to me there.”

“Because all you do is tell me what you think is best and berate me for every little thing I do, Al-Haitham!” Kaveh whirls to face his roommate. “Nothing I do is ever good enough for you, so why would I want to listen to you about anything. Especially this.”

Al-Haitham coughs lightly in his hand.

“Kaveh, this is the conversation you’ve been looking for,” Lesser Lord Kusanali chimes from her place at the door. “It’s not from who you wanted, but it will help. Al-Haitham has made a miraculous recovery and—”

“Oh, miraculous, huh? He’s so polished and perfect and put together that he’s even good at curing himself of a magical love illness.” Kaveh can hear how he sounds; his own voice grates at his ears and this is not the impression he wanted to impart on the Lord of Dendro, but Archons, he can’t help himself.

Lesser Lord Kusanali takes it in stride. Her patient smile persists. Kaveh wants to throw something. He very nearly does but Lesser Lord Kusanali continues.

“Let’s sit. For the sake of scientific curiosity.”

“I-I can’t do this.”

“Kaveh,” Lesser Lord Kusanali says. “Will you trust me? I think you’ll appreciate what Al-Haitham has to say, if you give him a chance.”

Kaveh barks out a wet laugh. He makes the mistake of glancing at Al-Haitham and ice picks through his veins at the sight of him. The haggard set of Al-Haitham’s mouth is jarring. There’s a sorrow in his eyes that Kaveh only thought capable of being captured in paintings.

And then he knows.

He knows.

“No. I’m sorry. Thank you for being here, but I really, really can’t do this.” This Kaveh says to Lesser Lord Kusanali, wheeling away from the very sight of Al-Haitham and fleeing the room.

He doesn’t move fast, not with the cane and his unsteady balance and the overwhelming edge of panic threatening to take hold of him. It’s more of a blind shuffle that takes him home—to Al-Haitham’s. When he gets there, he all but collapses against the door, the wood sun-warmed and study beneath his shuddering body. He’s sweaty and heartsore, petals clogging each short breath he takes.

And his keys aren’t in his pocket.

His archons-damned keys aren’t in his pocket.

Kaveh could cry with frustration. He does cry with frustration. He is crying. His cheeks are damp, salt-tracked for who knows how long. The pressure of the roots piercing his lungs intensifies and Kaveh doubles over himself to vomit a splat of flora onto Al-Haitham’s shiny doorstep.

And his shiny shoes.

The front door’s lock clicks open.

Kaveh rights himself, falling back against the doorframe now the door itself is swinging open and looks up at Al-Haitham. Midday sun blots Al-Haitham in shadows. His solemn expression betrays nothing, but he holds out a hand. Their joint set of keys swings from his pointer finger. Kaveh takes it.

“You wanted to talk in the kitchen, yes?” Al-Haitham says as he closes the door behind them. Oddly enough, being tucked back in their home instead of the exam room at Bimarstan—with the Dendro Archon of all people—eases some of the panic webbing through Kaveh. “So, let’s talk.”

“Talk about how you had Hanahaki and didn’t think to mention that earlier?”

Al-Haitham drops Kaveh’s hand and deposits their keys in the bowl by the door. The lion charm attached to Kavah’s set grins cheerily.

“It didn’t seem important to tell you.”

“Not important? How is that not important? So, you could keep up your charade of not believing in love? What was it you said to me? That I’m a delusional fool for not having the surgery?”

Al-Haitham calmly fills a glass with water at the sink. Kaveh takes the proffered glass with more force than necessary. Cool drops slide over his knuckles. The sip he takes is a soothing balm on his aching throat.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Al-Haitham says as he watches Kaveh drink. He pulls out a chair at the kitchen table, holds the back of it as he waits. “It’s not true. The way you love is…overwhelming. All-encompassing. I knew—knowing what I do about Hanahaki—that you would let it kill you for the sake of your love.” Kaveh flinches at the accusation. But it’s not an accusation, is it. It’s exactly what Kaveh was doing: giving in to the hopelessness of his affection for Al-Haitham. Softer, Al-Haitham says, “I’m sorry I’ve never been able to love you the way you need.”

Kaveh exhales sharply. The petals near his trachea flutter. He coughs lightly and soothes it with a sip of water. Al-Haitham is still standing by the pulled out chair, so Kaveh takes it. He leans his cane against the table and sets his glass on a coaster.

“Okay,” Kaveh say softly. “I’m ready. Tell me, please.”

Al-Haitham melts into the seat across from Kaveh. He runs both hands through his hair, knocking his earpiece off. It falls around his neck. Without it, Al-Haitham looks vulnerable. He is vulnerable. For Kaveh’s sake.

“I was diagnosed while we were working on that project,” Al-Haitham says, pushing his bangs back. He tugs them once, the swell of his throat bobbing as he swallows. “It started before that, but I didn’t go to Bimarstan until the project, when it started getting worse. And when I realized what it was.”

Kaveh huffs a disbelieving laugh. “What about that project made you realize that?”

Al-Haitham looks at Kaveh slowly, in that unblinking way as he waits for Kaveh to piece it together for himself. Kaveh isn’t going to stand for that. Not right now. He growls inelegantly.

“You said you wanted to tell me, Haitham. Don’t make me guess.”

For a moment, Al-Haitham just stares. Fathomless. He gazes at Kaveh in such a way that Kaveh thinks he might just stand up and leave. But then, he blows out a breath, and he scrubs a hand over his face. The action smudges the kohl around his eyes. It makes him look foolish. It makes him look beautiful.

“You’re right,” Al-Haitham says. “I’m sorry.” He tugs his hair and sighs again, gaze fixed on the table instead of on Kaveh. “You’re brilliant, Kaveh. You always have been. I’ve known it since the moment I met you. But I’d never seen you in your element like that. We’d never worked like that together before and. And even though we disagreed and fought, there was a light in you I hadn’t seen up close. And when I did…”

Al-Haitham trails off, a wistful look softening all his edges until he ducks his head into his hand and coughs. It’s the same hacking cough Kaveh has become so familiar with. Al-Haitham cups his hand around his mouth and Kaveh tracks the careful way he wipes whatever has slipped past his lips and hides it from view.

“So, there was a relapse,” Kaveh says quietly.

Al-Haitham tucks his balled fist under the table. “It’s nothing. Just early stages. The petals only came back a few days ago. It won’t kill me to confess. The roots haven’t taken hold again.”

“You’re sure it’s safe?”

Kaveh’s heart clenches when Al-Haitham gives a stilted shrug.

“As I said,” Al-Haitham continues as though the petal didn’t even exist, “I’ve never been able to love you in the way you need. So, we fought.”

Kaveh wants to protest, to explain the fickle roar of his own pride that turns all of Al-Haitham’s barbs into points that he drives into his own chest, but he stays silent.

“It wasn’t even the worst fight we’ve ever had.” Al-Haitham laughs humorlessly. “We could’ve carried on as we had. An apology, you’d probably cry. We’d talk it out. We’ve done it before. But with the diagnosis…I suppose that I’m no better than you. I couldn’t go through with the procedure. I’d rather let you go and hate me and keep the flowers dormant than lose my love for you.”

Of all the ways Kaveh had let himself dream of Al-Haitham confessing, this is the farthest scenario from Kaveh’s wildest imaginations. Still, it stirs a wonderful fluttering in Kaveh’s chest that has nothing to do with the flowers in his lungs.

“Distance worked. The flowers shriveled and went dormant,” Al-Haitham says. He’s staring pointedly at a corner of the table. “But I missed you. I missed you like I would miss the blood in my veins.”

“Oh, archons. You’re getting poetic.”

“I know. That’s the unknown effects of a disease born out of unrequited love will do that to a man.”

“Haitham—”

“I heard about how things had gone for you. About your mother leaving and the project with Lord Sangemah Bay. And then I saw you in the market, haggling over something so mundanely trivial.” Kaveh flinches at the reminder. Those days of scraping by play across his mind. He shudders to think about Al-Haitham worrying for him from afar. “It was as though I was hit with this realization, then: that you needed me more than I needed to continue carrying this torch for you.”

“You were so absent after I’d move in,” Kaveh says carefully. “I thought it was because you couldn’t stand to be around me. But you were recovering, weren’t you?”

Al-Haitham nods. “How are you feeling? Can you walk?”

“I’m not that deteriorated.”

And truth be told, Kaveh’s dizziness has cleared with the water and rest. He feels mostly back to normal, though he doesn’t doubt that the dizziness will return once he stands. But he can manage walking. For Al-Haitham.

Kaveh forgoes his cane for Al-Haitham’s outstretched arm. He blames the way he leans into Al-Haitham’s shoulder on his flickering vision. Nothing else.

They go to the garden. Kaveh has only set foot in the courtyard a handful of times since moving into the house and never with Al-Haitham. He’s preferred to watch Al-Haitham tend to his strange hobby from afar and the few times he ventured into the quiet sanctuary, he had been too overwhelmed with the knowledge that this was Al-Haitham’s own space that he hadn’t invited Kaveh into to truly enjoy the space.

Now, with the invitation of Al-Haitham’s guiding arm, Kaveh takes in the space.

The courtyard is small, but the waves of red flowers overwhelm the space, bathing it in a crimson glow that softens the edges of the walls caging the space in. A river of smooth sandstone rocks twists a small path between the neat beds. The small fountain in the center of the garden should be a focal point as it babbles away, but it is largely swallowed up by the sheer absurdity of mourning flowers that claim the rest of the space. There’s a stone table nestled between the beds at the far corner from the door. Kaveh knows because the few times he’s tried to sit out in the courtyard, he’d brought his sketchbook and commission requirements in attempt to make some progress. He never did.

Kaveh’s appointment had been early and by now, the day had trickled on to nearly midday. The sun beats down on the courtyard. The mourning flowers flare their petals towards the golden shine. Kaveh feels a bit sick over the sight of them and then is awash with a guilt over his own aversion.

Al-Haitham guides Kaveh to the table. Once again, they sit across from one another, warmed by the sun and tinged with the rosy glow of the mourning flowers.

“I presume Nahida told you about the procedure?” Al-Haitham asks once they’re settled.

Kaveh nods.

“She was still in captivity under the Grand Sage at the time, so she wasn’t the one who conducted mine,” Al-Haitham explains. “Which is probably why I ended up with the seed in the first place. Tighnari is good at his job but he’s no Archon.”

Kaveh’s brow furrows. “Tighnari did yours?”

Al-Haitham hums. “When I spoke to the doctor about the surgery, he requested Tighnari’s help. He doesn’t have a vision and didn’t feel comfortable extracting the roots physically.”

“So, Tighnari took out the roots, and you got left with a seed which you decided to plant it and grow it into this?” Kaveh waves his arm in gesture around the courtyard. “Why? Why would you want to keep looking at all these damned flowers.

Kaveh would be happy if he never saw a blue flower—of any variety—for the rest of his life after this whole ordeal is over.

The babble of the fountain fills up the space between them as Al-Haitham considers his answer. Kaveh twists his fingers in his lap. He watches the corner of Al-Haitham’s mouth twitch. The dappled sunlight catches sterling in the waves of his hair. Kaveh can’t fathom the cost of tending this garden, this stark reminder of the turmoil and pain Hanahaki no doubt wrecked over Al-Haitham’s body. What could be so worth it?

“For you,” Al-Haitham says finally, gaze fixed away from Kaveh. “I kept them for you. As a reminder. Even if I was giving up my love for you, I needed to remind myself that I did it to give you this home.”

Something fractures in Kaveh’s chest. The sob that escapes him is garbled, choked up around a petal worming its way up his throat. He clasps a hand over his mouth and doubles over to wretch it up in the garden. His own blood sinks into the soil as the blue petals splat limply amongst the stalks of the mourning flowers. Al-Haitham is there by his side, a gentle hand on the center of Kaveh’s back. When the fit subsides, Kaveh finds Al-Haitham crouched beside him, peering up at him with those fathomless eyes.

“You could have told me,” Kaveh says, his voice warbled around the tearing in his throat. “Did you really not think you could?”

Al-Haitham thumbs at Kaveh’s cheek, the pad coming away wet. “At one point, I had thought so. But after we fought, I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t be.”

“You said you thought we could fix things.”

“Fixing things is different that still being in love with me.”

A new round of hot tears spill from Kaveh. They pour down his cheeks, soaking into Al-Haitham’s hands as he cradles Kaveh’s face.

“You’re so stupid. For such a smart man, you’re so stupid, Haitham.”

Al-Haitham chuckles softly. His face is so open, so gentle. Kaveh can’t remember the last time he’s seen Al-Haitham look at him like that.

But that’s a lie, isn’t it.

He had looked like that the night of Nilou’s show, hadn’t he.

“I’ve always been stupid about you. Isn’t that what you always say?”

Kaveh wraps a hand around Al-Haitham’s wrist, holding him in place. The leather of his gloves is warm beneath Kaveh’s hand. Faintly, his pulse races beneath the pads of Kaveh’s fingers.

“There’s no hope then, is there?” Kaveh rasps. “You’ve had the procedure. Your…feelings for me are gone, right?”

The knowledge that confessing to Al-Haitham right now, in the garden born out of Al-Haitham’s carved-out love for Kaveh would kill him might do the task before the flowers.

But Al-Haitham is shaking his head. There’s a small tick of a smile flickering across his mouth and Kaveh thinks about Al-Haitham kissing him that night—the night of the show.

“Only you could overturn medical intervention in the name of love and the gods. Deshret must have loved Nabu Malikata fiercely,” Al-Haitham says. He takes one hand away from Kaveh’s face and reaches into a pocket. He produces a still-damp mourning flower petal that he presses against Kaveh’s palm. Tears cling to his feathery lashes when he meets Kaveh’s gaze. Kaveh doesn’t think he’s ever seen Al-Haitham do something so human as cry before. “I don’t think I could exist without loving you, Kaveh. I am in love with you, unequivocally so.”

Kaveh hardly has time to register the confession before Al-Haitham’s gentle touches fall away and it’s Al-Haitham that is doubling over to cough flowers onto the pavers. The mess of blood and flora stain the pale stone crimson. Kaveh crumples to the ground beside Al-Haitham, hands fluttering around him, trying to find any way to ease Al-Haitham’s coughing as the flowers spill from him as he sobs.  

When it’s over, when the last of the petals have been expelled from Al-Haitham, he sags into Kaveh, his back slumping heavily against Kaveh’s chest. Kaveh wraps his arms around him, holding tight to Al-Haitham’s heaving chest. Al-Haitham tucks his head beneath Kaveh’s jaw. His breath comes quicky and heavy. The scent of blood is too much to be masked by the garden and Kaveh dares to press a kiss to the top of Al-Haitham’s head.

“There. That wasn’t so bad,” Al-Haitham says roughly. His long legs sprawl out across the path. The heel of his boot edges into the puddle of blood.

Kaveh stares at the petals. It’s truly just petals. No roots or stems or seeds. Then, he hooks a finger beneath Al-Haitham’s jaw and tips his face up. He bumps his nose against Al-Haitham’s, their lips a hairs-breath apart. Al-Haitham reaches for him, slipping a hand along Kaveh’s jaw to bury itself in his hair. Kaveh’s scalp tingles at the gentle pull. His eyes flutter closed. The sanguine taste of Al-Haitham’s mouth is so, so close.

“Haitham, I—”

“No.”

Kaveh freezes. His eyes snap open and he reels back to stare at Al-Haitham.

“Don’t say it.” Al-Haitham presses his thumb to Kaveh’s bottom lip as he bites his own. His gaze flickers across Kaveh, studying him, taking him in. “Not yet. Let me take you to Bimarstan. The flowers have been growing for weeks. We don’t know what it will do to you when they’re uprooted.”

Huffing out a laugh, Kaveh smiles. He cards a hand through Al-Haitham’s hair, pushing back his bangs to see him fully. “You were wrong, you know.”

Al-Haitham raises a brow. Kaveh stretches to kiss the arch of it, then then bridge of his nose. He dips down to press his lips to Al-Haitham’s, tasting the metallic tang and powdery pollen, undercut with something sweeter and more precious that was wholly Al-Haitham.

When he pulls back, Al-Haitham has a dazed look about him. Kaveh kisses him once more, just because he can.

“You’ve always known how to love me best.”

Al-Haitham smiles wide, that real and true one that is best kept secret. A secret for Kaveh himself to tuck between his rib. Al-Haitham kisses him again, holding fast and tight as they learn each other for the first time again.

Later, they will go to Bimarstan and under the careful observation of doctors and nurses and the Dendro archon, Kaveh will tell Al-Haitham that he loves him.

And later still, Kaveh will consider adding blue to the red blooming in the courtyard of the house they share.

But for now, they have the knowledge and the evidence of their love tucked away between soil and roots.