03: planning without acting, steadily becoming what i hate
Kaveh did not greet Alhaitham in the morning. He locked himself in his art studio, and the most he acknowledged of Alhaitham's existence was when he thanked Alhaitham for bringing him a cup of black coffee. This time, Kaveh didn't try to hide his exhaustion and absolutely wretched mental state, instead opting to push Alhaitham away by being aloof.
Normally, Alhaitham wouldn't be so easily deterred. But he had work and Archons-dammit he was the Acting Grand Sage, so he couldn't just not show up anymore. They really needed to find a new Grand Sage soon.
Alhaitham arrived in his office thinking about how Kaveh had taken a shower before Alhaitham had awoken, if his wet hair and scrubbed face was anything to go by. Yet he had been able to see dry bits of blood remaining underneath his fingernails.
That was something he occupied himself with as he worked through document after document, sat in meeting after meeting, and talked with countless people about various subjects that somehow all had nothing to do with selecting a new Grand Sage to take his place. He really, really hated his job.
Kaveh it was, then. He stamped a document and thought about the careful manicures Kaveh put himself through and scarcely managed to drag Alhaitham into. His fingernails were always sharp and clean, each one evenly cut to match the rest on his hands. On some occasions, he put enough care to adorn his hands with rings and ornaments that Alhaitham would say looked ridiculous on anyone else.
They looked good on Kaveh, so he had kept his thoughts to himself. Not that his comments would've deterred Kaveh from wearing such adornments, but rather that Alhaitham hadn't felt the need to make strong commentary on a topic that he was contradicting himself in. It would be the impulsive route to take.
Alhaitham wasn't the only one that thought this way in any case. He didn't care to listen to others opinions, but when he was running errands with Kaveh or eating dinner with him at a nice restaurant, it was nigh impossible to ignore when the architect would get comments on his appearance. They ranged from his rings and nails to his face and hair. While Kaveh didn't wear make-up, he did have an extremely extensive skin care routine.
The ointments and bottles were strewn all over the bathroom. Alhaitham had constantly nagged Kaveh about the clutter once upon a time. It didn't take long for Alhaitham to learn that there simply was no taming the beast. As soon as it would get organized, it would descend into chaos the very next day.
His hair was different. It wasn't that he didn't try to do anything with it — he still used shampoo and conditioner — the process in caring for it was lackluster in comparison to the attentiveness he applied to his skin. The hair situation was this: he had naturally shiny, lustrous, soft blond hair. It was as true of a fact as the sun rising to signify daytime and the moon rising to signify nighttime.
Alhaitham wasn't jealous of it. As a matter of a fact, he admired the way Kaveh kept up with his body as well as he did; he made sure to eat his vegetables, work out six out of seven days of the week, and drink eight full cups of water a day. Ever since they'd started living together, Alhaitham has only seen Kaveh falter in his routine a handful of times.
It was no wonder, then, that people constantly reminded Kaveh of his beauty. He had even received the title of Epitome of Beauty. Kaveh didn't preen with the compliments, and the only time he ever reacted was when Alhaitham commented on his appearance himself.
Kaveh's hair hadn't smelt like the shampoo he used. His fingernails were dirty, and his face lacked a normal shine that came after he had applied various creams to his face directly after showering. It wasn't the physical aspect of it that concerned Alhaitham; it was the fact that Kaveh hadn't brought himself to do any of his routine at all.
If Alhaitham hadn't brought it to him, he didn't think Kaveh would've had his morning coffee, either.
Alhaitham stamped another paper and abided his time until he could leave the office and track down Lesser Lord Kusanali. He had another meeting to attend, a stack of papers to read through, and then he would be free to spend his remaining hours as he pleased.
He supposed that was the difference between him and a true Grand Sage. Most sages would stay afterhours to work on extra projects to improve mundane aspects of civilian and darshan life. They would load themselves to the brink of mental collapse and barely have any free time to live a comfortable life.
Alhaitham was no such sage. He moved through the motions of the meeting and skimmed through the stack of papers until the moment the small hand marked the beginning of a new hour. He made it a point to complete the most important document early on and delegate anything he possibly could onto other scholars and sages in order to work more efficiently, so that left him with the ability to not work overtime.
Good. Now he had to find his Archon and put an end to these sleep-walking disturbances.
The first place he checked was the Sanctuary of Surasthana. The large, green half-globe carried the sound of his lone footsteps from one side of the sanctuary to the other. It wasn't necessarily a surprise that Kusanali wasn't there, but he had hoped that she would be for convenience's sake.
On his way to the House of Daena, he ran into Tighnari. Well, ran into wasn't the right way to describe it. He passed by the Forest Watcher while treading down the fourth flight of stairs. Even though he worked out as often as Kaveh, Alhaitham was beginning to feel each step burn his calves. Tighnari, for his part, seemed unaffected.
"Alhaitham!" Tighnari called, making sure to put himself in front of the Scribe to prevent him from breezing past him. Damn Tighnari and his acute awareness of Haitham's behavioral patterns. He and Cyno were insufferable in that way. "Have you seen Kaveh around?"
Alhaitham looked at him, considered the time he would waste by idling with Tighnari, and decided that it wasn't worth it to avoid the conversation. Tighnari would only drag him back by the scruff of his collar and demand an answer. "Last time I saw him was at the house this morning."
The Forest Watcher hummed and said, "He was supposed to meet me for lunch earlier today, but he never showed. Do you know if there was an emergency he had to attend to?"
Kaveh hadn't gone to lunch with Tighnari. Not only that, but he hadn't sent a letter or messenger to let Tighnari know that he wouldn't be able to make it. Very uncharacteristic of him; if there was anything that Kaveh cherished more than his work, it was his friends.
"I haven't seen him all day. I wouldn't know," Alhaitham responded monotonously, though his mind was picking apart the new information. If he hadn't gone to lunch, it was likely he hadn't eaten. The Scribe would have to pick up food on the way home.
Tighnari nodded resolutely, but his eyes were calculated and narrow. "Very well. I'm concerned for him, and I've just finished my lecture, so I'd like to accompany you to your home to check on him if he's there."
Normally when someone said they'd like to do something with someone else, they were really asking if it would be okay to do that thing with that person. When Tighnari said it, he wasn't asking. He was going to do it whetherit inconvenienced Alhaitham or not.
"I'm not going home yet. Go on your own," he said. When Tighnari crossed his arms leveled him with a stare that would soon turn into an unavoidable scolding — since the Forest Watcher was fluent in Sumerian sign language — Alhaitham continued: "I'm looking for Lesser Lord Kusanali."
"Oh," Tighnari said with a flick of his ear. "I just saw her in the Grand Bazaar. She's been busy with everyone asking her questions regarding their dreams. Is that what you are going to her for?"
"Sure," Alhaitham replied curtly because he didn't want to reveal more about Kaveh's situation if he didn't have to. He wasn't particularly interested in his own dreams, though if they continued to run in a negative trend then he would have to seek out advice in order to correct it.
Alhaitham pushed past Tighnari to continue down the steps, and of course the Forest Watcher followed. "What have your dreams been about?"
"No."
"I'll ask Kaveh when I speak to him," Tighnari replied easily. Alhaitham didn't grant him the satisfaction of a response. "It's good that you're going to see Kusanali. I have a few questions for her myself regarding the nightmares Collei's having."
For the first time in their entire friendship, Tighnari piqued Alhaitham's interest twice. "Is she okay?"
"I knew you cared about her," Tighnari said with a teasing smile. "She will be, eventually. Her dreams have been memories from her past, but ones that she had subconsciously forgotten. I'm no stranger to trauma responses, so I know that they are particularly traumatic for her to have repressed them for so long."
It was a possibility that her and Kaveh's situation were extremely similar. Alhaitham's stomach twisted uncomfortably. He blamed it on hunger.
"Does she talk about them?" He asked. If she was holding it in, it would be a point to his theory that Kaveh was dreaming of his distressing memory due to not telling Alhaitham the contents.
"After some convincing, yes. It's hard for her to relate all the details for obvious reasons," Tighnari said, "but she tries. I fear there are more memories that she's going to dream about, and I don't want that to interfere with all the progress she's made in healing from her trauma."
Alhaitham compared and contrasted Collei to Kaveh. There were two key differences:
One. She was reliving at least two separate memories. Using Alhaitham's current hypothesis, Kaveh was only dreaming of one.
Two. She talked about her dreams in at least a little bit of detail. Kaveh did not do as much as utter a word and, for a while, denied remembering his dreams in the first place.
Alhaitham did not have enough information on Kaveh's dreams to tell if the memory he was living was one that had been repressed or not, though the probability was high. The fact of it being traumatic went without saying: his leg had been severely injured, his fearful reactions, and current aloof manner were indicative enough.
Based on what he gathered, Alhaitham decided that the differences were not major enough to overshadow the glaring similarities. "How has this affected her when awake?"
Tighnari gave him a squinted glance as they stepped onto the lowest level of Sumeru City, joining the afternoon crowd. "Collei's trying to hide it, but she hasn't been faring well. She's been irritable, quiet, and skittish, and she's having trouble eating." He paused, and then asked, "You're oddly interested. Are you having nightmares as well?"
"It's none of your concern," Alhaitham said.
The Forest Watcher clicked his tongue. "It's Kaveh, isn't it?"
Alhaitham sighed irritably. There was only one person that could control a conversation with Alhaitham, and it was Tighnari. Despite the many experiments Alhaitham had conducted, he still didn't know how Tighnari kept doing it.
"Alhaitham, is Kaveh okay?" The Forest Watcher asked. His voice was colored with uneasy tension.
"Don't ask me questions you already know the answer to."
They walked into the Grand Bazaar and before Tighnari could respond, they spotted Lesser Lord Kusanali on the stage. She was talking one on one with a man Alhaitham didn't recognize, and resting along the edge of the platform were various items piled together. Gifts for the Archon.
Kusanali didn't seem to notice them until Alhaitham made his way onto the steps of the stage, ignoring everyone around him that tried to get his attention. Behind him, Tighnari apologized on his behalf to each one of them. Alhaitham couldn't care less. He was off the clock and didn't have to respond to people if he didn't want to.
When she saw them, her eyes widened which caught the attention of the man. He looked behind him, saw the Acting Grand Sage, and quickly bowed his head to Kusanali. Flustered, he said, "It- it looks like the Grand Sage needs you. We can continue this another time, yeah?"
"Oh, you don't have to go, it will only take—" Kusanali tried, but the man was already retreating down the flight of stairs. Tighnari even tried to whisper an apology, but he was too far gone to hear it. "Ah," she sighed and shook her head. "Good afternoon, my Scribe, Forest Watcher Tighnari."
Her hands were wrung together in front of her, and her head was tilted ever so slightly. If she was overworked from her busy schedule, she didn't show any signs of it.
"Likewise, Lesser Lord Kusanali," the Forest Watcher returned. His tail slightly swished back and forth, almost hitting Alhaitham in the process. "We've come bearing questions concerning the nightmares of our friends, Kaveh and Collei."
The Dendro Archon wasn't surprised. She nodded and said, "A lot of people have been having trouble with nightmares. Since it's been years since many people in Sumeru have dreamt, the subconscious has been unable to properly process certain information, so there has been an extremely high rate to have them. I'm sorry for this; I rushed to deactivate the Akasha and didn't realize what kind of effect it would have on you all."
Her disappointment and regret was completely genuine, and her bright green eyes were downcast to her wiggling fingers. Tighnari opened his mouth to mend her sorrow, but Alhaitham beat him to the punch.
"I was in the room when you shut down the Akasha system. I know there was no better way you could have accomplished your goal," he said. "You should not regret doing what is right for your people."
"Thank you, Alhaitham," she said with a strained smile. Tighnari's face was scrunched up with shock as he looked at Alhaitham. The Scribe didn't return the favor. "I happen to be familiar with both of your dreams, as well as Kaveh and Collei's. Since you are Dendro Vision wielders, I am more attune with your bodies and subconscious than everyone else. Think of it this way: every person's mind is a box. In order to get inside, I have to first unlock the box. For most people, they require the right key to be placed in a padlock, and I have to search to find one that fits the mold. But Dendro wielder's boxes are bound with a code that I already know the numbers to."
For some reason, this caused Tighnari to start. "You've seen… all of our dreams?" He asked, his voice pitched higher than it was before.
"Yes," she replied innocently, which strongly contrasted the horrified look on Tighnari's face. "Is there something wrong?"
"No, I—" Alhaitham understood now. It was kind of funny, actually, to watch Tighnari's face grow red and his ears press back into his hair. "Maybe… refrain from looking into mine in the future?"
Though she nodded in compliance, Kusanali clearly didn't know what the issue was. "I don't mean to intrude. I noticed that many of you were having dreams causing adverse emotions, and I wanted to make sure you weren't causing injuries to yourselves. I don't like to wake you from them, though. As I've told Alhaitham already, I don't believe I should be cutting off your dreams before you can fully experience them considering how long you've gone without them."
Alhaitham cleared his throat. "That's what I've come to ask you about today."
"Oh, Kaveh," she murmured, her face drawn together apologetically as she moved her arms with her words. Sign language likely came easy to her for this reason, Alhaitham thought. She already talked with her hands. "When I observe dreams, I usually don't have to go all the way in. I can observe from afar. However, Kaveh is actively blocking me out. After I unlock his box, his entire dream is surrounded by a glass wall that I can't bypass. I can see through it, but that's all I can do."
An impassable glass wall. How was Kaveh able to accomplish this, but not Collei? The first conclusion he came to was age: since Kaveh was older, his memory-dream had an overall different behavioral pattern than Collei's. Other than that, he felt a little stuck. It's one thing to not willingly tell Alhaitham about his nightmare, and another to be able to block the literal god of dreams.
"I'm working on how to find a solution, but for now I'm going to have to interrupt your sleep until I can wake him myself. I'm sorry," she said.
Alhaitham shook his head. "Don't be. Someone needs to keep him safe."
"Safe? Is Kaveh in danger?" Tighnari asked, ears perked back up now that the attention was off of him and his dreams.
Kusanali nodded. "Like Collei, he's been reliving a memory in his dreams. He's developed a severe case of sleep-walking from it."
"So his sleep-walking patterns are a direct reflection of his dream?" While it was useful information, gaining the knowledge wasn't as gratifying as Alhaitham thought it would be. Kaveh was clearly trying to escape something.
"For him, yes. Unfortunately, there isn't much I can tell you without breaching Kaveh's privacy," she said. Then, she reached out her hand to touch her fingertips to Alhaitham's. Her unclipped nails pressed gently into the back of his hand. "But he needs you, Alhaitham. Until he lets me in, I can't help him."
Her eyes were big and doey, and Alhaitham's heart beat at an irregular pace. "He won't talk to me," he said quietly.
"I'm not surprised. I've seen what's happened in his memory. It…" she trailed off to take a shuddering breath. "I wish I had been there for him when it happened originally. No child should have gone through what he had. And Tighnari," she said, turning to the Forest Watcher with her water coating her eyes, "the same goes to Collei. I'm sorry for everything she has gone through."
Tighnari nodded in acknowledgement, but he left the conversation for Alhiatham to continue. The Scribe took Kusanali's small hand into his own with a tender grip. "Is there anything more you can tell me?"
Blinking away her tears, she shook her head. "Let him tell you what he wants you to know. If I reveal anything to you prematurely, it will only make him retreat further into his shell. More than that, I don't want to betray his trust. He's been taken advantage of enough in his life."
Alhaitham dropped her hand from his hold. He couldn't think of anything more to say, though his mind was racing to process all of the words Kusanali had said. The Archon was empathetic, and she felt for her people more than Alhaitham had for anyone in his life. Nearly crying over Kaveh shouldn't have bothered him the way it was.
Seeing his silence, Tighnari finally spoke his peace. "Do you have any suggestions on how to help Collei and Kaveh with their nightmares? Since most scholars of the Akademiya are so new to dreaming, everyone has the same questions as I do without any answers."
"There isn't a solution to nightmares," Kusanali said, placing a finger to her chin. It was a motion she did whenever she was thinking, and Alhaitham had gotten used to the habit after working with her to disable the Akasha and gradually reframe the Akademiya. "They are like a virus that has no medication. The best you can do is provide comfort and support until they pass."
Tighnari frowned but he bobbed his head in acceptance. "I thought you might say something like that. Is there a way to prevent Kaveh's sleep-walking?"
"No, not until the nightmares end. It's also possible he'll remain a sleep-walker for the rest of his life," she remarked. "Alhaitham, all you can do is lock the doors and put away sharp objects so he doesn't injure himself."
What good that did last night, he thought. Blood had coated every part of his roommate's body, and he'd appeared so fragile.
"Thank you for all your help, Lesser Lord Kusanali. We'll be heading off now," said Tighnari while lightly tapping Alhaitham with his tail. "If you need any help, we'll always be here for you."
The Archon smiled and giggled softly. "Please, call me Nahida."
"Of course. Goodbye, Nahida," Tighnari waved and retreated to the steps. Alhaitham followed closely behind, nodding to Kusanali as his nonverbal farewell.
In an effort to calm his mind and body and organize his thoughts, Alhaitham took off his hearing aids and held them safely in his hands. He walked in a separate direction from Tighnari, not caring whether or not the Forest Watcher lost him in the city.
He breathed deeply. Alhaitham did not often get nervous or overworked, but the sounds of the crowd and press of bodies a little too close for comfort was taking its toll. Coupled with the Archon's commentary on Kaveh's dreams, his hands were left to shake and his lungs to constrict. His heart was banging against his chest, desperate to jump out and leave blood all over the ground.
Overstimulation was an old friend that he didn't introduce to people.
Alhaitham separated the new information into two categories: information on Kaveh's dreams and information on how to help Kaveh.
In the first category, Kusanali had said three things of importance:
One. Kaveh was blocking out Lesser Lord Kusanali. It wasn't clear how he was managing, nor how to bypass the mental wall.
Two. His dreams were directly influencing his sleep-walking behavior.
Three. The memory he was dreaming about was from his childhood, and was particularly traumatic. Based on Kusanali's reaction, it's more likely than not the same situation as Collei's: a previously repressed memory suddenly remembered.
In the second category, he learned two things:
One. He couldn't stop the nightmares nor the sleep-walking.
Two. He had to remove sharp objects and lock as many doors as he could. The issue was stopping him from breaking more windows to escape the house.
Kaveh was stubborn. This wasn't a revolutionary discovery of any sort; anyone who had any sort of intellectual conversation with the man would come to the same conclusion in a matter of minutes. His will to prevent anyone from knowing about his memory was stronger than Kusanali's Dendro Vision connection. Getting Kaveh to open up about his past was going to prove more difficult than he originally thought.
Perhaps he should take inspiration from when they reconnected after Kaveh built the Palace of Alcazarzaray, where Kaveh had been drunk for days on end and spilled out his guts to Alhaitham in a haze.
No. That wouldn't do. Intoxicating Kaveh intentionally while he was undergoing high amounts of stress would encourage his alcoholic behavior.
Alhaitham ordered in sign the food he planned to bring home to Kaveh, and Tighnari — who had rejoined him at some point during his wait in line — translated back and forth for them.
Alhaitham didn't know how to comfort people. He knew how to glean information and how to manipulate a conversation in his favor. He wasn't good at supporting like Kusanali suggested he should do. How he got Kaveh to talk about his parents, along with his guilt and depression, had come from a mixture of long nights with alcohol and deadlines and self-induced injuries.
It was quiet reassurances and physical affection that Alhaitham wasn't comfortable with. He wasn't comfortable with supporting people.
But he could try. Alhaitham knew he would die in a burning house if Kaveh was still inside.
Thus, he revised his hypothesis: Kaveh's dreams were an extremely traumatic, repressed childhood memory that more or less didn't concern his parents, was a source of immense pain and grief, and wasn't something he should work through alone.
As Tighnari grabbed Alhaitham's order, the Scribe put his hearing aids back on.
"Are you okay now, Alhaitham?" Tighnari asked, his eyebrows furrowed together and eyes squinted with worry. The Acting Grand Sage didn't respond, causing the Forest Watcher to chuckle lightly. "Good. I'm sure Kaveh will appreciate that you did this for him."
— If he was even home. He could be off satisfying his addiction again, avoiding both the nightmares and the client he was no-doubt trying to please.
They walked in silence back to Alhaitham's house, keeping up a brisk pace as the crowd died down with the sun. Alhaitham was once again struck by the epiphany Kaveh put him through last night: why did Alhaitham make him the exception?
Alhaitham still did not have an answer. His mind was blank, like a chalkboard that had been wiped clean. Tighnari handed him the bags containing his and Kaveh's food, and he considered asking Tighnari his thoughts on the matter.
Instead, he said, "It was Cyno, wasn't it?"
The Forest Watcher looked at him with confusion, mouth opening to question him before he remembered his interaction with Kusanali. His ears pressed back against his head and the hairs on his tail spiked straight up in the air. He sucked in a painful breath. "I'm never doing anything nice for you ever again," he hissed.
"Good riddance," Alhaitham replied. Tighnari groaned, and for the rest of the walk his face didn't lose its bright flush.
They didn't knock at the door. It was locked, interestingly enough. Kaveh usually forgot to lock the front door when he went out, so either he never left the house after Alhaitham did, or he remembered for the first time in three months to lock up behind himself.
Tighnari gazed at the top half of the front door. "What happened to the window?"
"Kaveh," said Alhaitham.
"Oh."
Surprisingly, the blanket he'd tied over it was still intact. He thought Kaveh would have replaced it with a board or at least something sturdier than cloth that could blow away in a harsh wind.
They walked inside and were immediately greeted with the sight of massive papers, ink, and paint spread out across the living room table and couches. In the center was Kaveh, sitting on the floor and hunched over a blueprint. He didn't move at all to the sound of Alhaitham and Tighnari entering the room.
"We have an art studio for this, you know," Alhaitham called. It wasn't uncommon for Kaveh to do this. When a client was particularly picky, Kaveh ended up having so many designs and blueprints that usually took up one or two extra rooms.
The architect responded with a low whine, still keeping his eyes and hands on the paper in front of him. His hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, and splotches of black ink stained his skin and clothes.
"I see you've been busy," Tighnari mused. For a moment, Kaveh didn't react. Then his head shot up, eyes wide, and dropped his pen. His eyes were bloodshot, and dark circles showed his exhaustion and stress. More than that, he hadn't groomed himself any more than what had been able to accomplish that morning.
Hastily, Kaveh stood up, stumbling and narrowly avoiding the papers by his feet. His body trembled slightly. "I missed our lunch. I'm so sorry, Tighnari, I really mean it. I… I got caught up in work," he motioned around himself, his voice set at a morose tone. "And I completely missed the time. How can I repay you?"
Tighnari dismissed the question with a wave of his head. "I'm not upset, I just wanted to check on you to make sure you had eaten."
Kaveh pressed his palms together. "I appreciate it, but I'm fine, really."
"I brought you back fish rolls from Lambad's," Alhaitham said, holding the takeaway bag in the air.
"But you're right, I didn't eat," Kaveh hurriedly amended, carefully stepping through his hand-made chaos to reach the fish rolls. When he reached them, Alhaitham only smelt ink, paint, and sweat rolling off of Kaveh. No trace of food nor alcohol.
He was barely able to hold the bag as they made their way to the dining room, and it took all of five seconds for Kaveh to tear into his fish rolls when they sat down. Alhaitham was slower with his food, though usually they ate at relatively the same speed. Tighnari didn't have any food. Alhaitham guessed the plan was to eat and stay the night at Cyno's house since that's what Tighnari ordinarily did when he came into the city.
The Forest Watcher and architect held small talk while Alhaitham finished eating, talking mainly about the design Kaveh was working on and the lectures Tighnari was teaching in the main city for the time being. Eventually their conversation came to Collei when Tighnari off-handedly mentioned her staying with him and Cyno while he was in Sumeru City, since he didn't want to leave her alone in Gandharva Ville.
"Oh? I thought she was doing well since her recovery from Eleazar," Kaveh commented, his elbows on the table and chin resting in palm. Despite eating a full meal, he didn't look any better than he had before.
"Physically she has, but this whole dreaming thing has really rattled her. She's having nightmares of her past, horrible memories that she had repressed," Tighnari said. "I'd rather be there for her in case it happens again."
Alhaitham watched as Kaveh held his breath for one, two, three seconds. His face didn't falter or change. Then the architect continued with ease. "Poor Collei. These dreams were meant to be a momentous occasion, but alas, what brings one person joy must then bring another sorrow. For everything that she's gone through, she deserves a bit of peace."
The Forest Watcher nodded and shifted in his seat, flicking one ear back. "Speaking of which, how have your dreams been?"
Alhaitham suppressed a groan. Though for his part, Kaveh didn't show any signs of distress. "I haven't remembered them all too well, unfortunately. Haitham's had better luck than me."
Taking the attention off of himself, Alhaitham noted. Such an obvious attempt wouldn't pass by Tighnari, but he knew their friend couldn't press too hard without revealing all that he heard from their conversation with Lesser Lord Kusanali, who had explicitly wanted them to not tell Kaveh all that they knew.
"I'm told you've been sleep-walking. Are sure everything's okay?" Tighnari asked, smiling knowingly. Kaveh's head whipped back to Alhaitham fast enough to give him whiplash. The glare he received only made the Scribe roll his eyes.
Kaveh grit his teeth and spoke to Tighnari while looking at Alhaitham. "I have been, and it's awful. I've already managed to break our window, but I'm sure he's already told you about that."
The Acting Grand Sage stabbed at his butter chicken calmly. Damn you, Tighnari.
"He didn't tell me anything, really. It came up in conversation and I figured it out on my own. Plus, those puncture wounds say it all," he amended. If he thought that was going to forgive him of his previous transgression, Tighnari was sorely mistaken. "Are you taking any measures to prevent that from happening again?"
Slowly, Kaveh nodded. "I found a restraint that I'm going to use. The hope is that I won't know how to untie a complicated knot while asleep, but I won't know for certain until tonight."
"Interesting," Alhaitham commented. "Tighnari didn't know he could use restraints until his dreams started, either."
Polishing off the last bit of his plate with content, Alhaitham reveled in the sound of dead silence.
"You know, I'm starting to get hungry," Tighnari's chair squeaked against the floor as he pushed himself from the table. "I'll take my leave. Goodbye, Kaveh."
"Uh, bye, Tighnari?" Kaveh called uncertainly.
"You can't blame him for being in a rush," contended Alhaitham, just loud enough to make it to the foyer. "He'll be eating really well tonight."
The front door slammed shut.
Kaveh huffed in exasperation, standing up less aggressively than Tighnari had. "Could you try being civil for once in your life? He's not going to come by here for another year because of you."
"Good," Alhaitham said, gathering their plates as Kaveh threw away the takeaway bags. "How much longer are you going to be working on that commission?"
"As soon as I possibly can– the client is quite urgent on the matter. No real deadline, but I'll likely have the proposal approved and final design by the end of the week."
Alhaitham glanced at the front door, where part of the blanket had come undone from Tighnari's rude departure. "We need a new window."
"Can't you get it yourself? You're not doing anything every afternoon," Kaveh grumbled, returning to his spot on the floor. There was only one clear spot on all of the couches combined, supposedly where Kaveh was sitting before he moved to the ground. Alhaitham preferred to read in the living room, but today seemed like an office day.
Lightly imitating his roommate's voice, he said, "You'll complain that I didn't get the right kind of window, it doesn't match perfectly with the other windows, and it doesn't fit correctly into the door frame."
"I don't sound like that! And yes, I have no doubt you will get the wrong kind of window! But not by accident! You'll do it on purpose just to make me upset!" Kaveh exclaimed, his lips pulled backwards in the way he always does when they argue about nonsense.
"We'll go together in a week from now," Alhaitham decided. "Happy?"
"Very!"
Kaveh's shoulders were raised as he put his head back down over his work, and Alhaitham stood there for a second longer than he should have. Despite the wonderful performance Kaveh put forth, Alhaitham was able to see straight through the facade. Not only was Kaveh stressed over the deadline of his commission, the burden of his nightmares and sleep-walking was still heavily weighing on his shoulders.
However, Kaveh had work to do and a tight schedule to work under. He didn't have the time to get into a real argument with Alhaitham about nightmares and childhood memories, not when it would inhibit his work. Additionally, he'd already made a plan to keep himself safe at night.
They couldn't talk about it tonight. Tomorrow, perhaps, if the architect had spare time.
Alhaitham ignored the tight feeling in his chest and retreated into his office, escaping the sight of puncture wounds staining pristine skin and ink clumping strands of blond hair together. Hair that hadn't been washed that morning, nor had been cared for at all throughout the day. Nails that hadn't been filed and cleaned. Blood on the cuffs of his pants that must have been from a reopened scab. Ruby eyes that were guarded, dulling any of his real emotions and hiding his turmoil.
Kaveh was naturally beautiful and charismatic, so it wasn't obvious to most when he wasn't caring for himself. Alhaitham noticed, though. He always did.
The Scribe pulled out a thick book he had been reading, an ancient text documenting the progression of agriculture and irrigation in King Deshret's civilization, and sat down on the loveseat. His hearing aids didn't pick up any sounds from the living room. Alhaitham shifted restlessly.
He was used to listening to Kaveh's pencil strokes next to him as he read books on ancient civilizations.
