The final rays of sunlight filtered through the paned glass of the little house above Treasures Street, bathing the contents and occupants in the last bits of warmth before night set in. Kaveh was hunched over a sketchpad, the familiar sound of the quill in his hand scratching against the hand rolled and bound parchment. It was a familiar sound these days to Alhaitham, one that even found him turning off his soundproof headphones to listen to as if it were white noise. Somehow his roommate's incessant sketching had become a comforting sound amongst the final footsteps of exhausted Akademyia students and Matra members trudging back to their dorms and homes in the city.

"What is it this time?"

"Huh?"

Kaveh's gaze rose, depositing the writing instrument back into the pot of ink. He had a myriad of much more technologically advanced writing tools at his immediate disposal and yet preferred the nostalgia of using a quill and ink. Alhaitham had never understood it, but then again, he knew that questioning Kaveh's motives in anything would mean a lecture longer than he was usually willing to listen to. This time however, he sensed that there was more to it. And had they not spent long enough hiding from one another?

"…. I... uh…"

Alhaitham's chin leaned over Kaveh's shoulder. It was getting the best of him. Really, Kaveh was getting the best of him. Kaveh wondered if Alhaitham could feel the heat rising in his cheeks. A light cough, he couldn't close the pad in time to hide the interior drawing from his roommate. His friend? His… oh archons. A curious noise fell from the Scribe, eyes adjusting to the drawing in the waning light.

"A house?"

Was that a hint of disappointment in Alhaitham's voice? It took Kaveh off guard, leaving him speechless for a few moments.

"You... wouldn't understand."

The response was hurried. There was no way he was defending this to his roommate. He was in no mood, even with the little bit of wine in his system. Before he could stop himself, Alhaitham sat up, releasing the space between himself and the architect. "If you wanted to move out so badly, you could have just said." There was a twinge of anger in his voice, and it cut Kaveh to the quick. He sucked in a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose, already missing the close physical contact.

"You- that's not it!"

"Well then, what is it?"

Kaveh wanted to explode. To yell and fall into their old familiar movements so he didn't have to explain himself, but before he could, Alhaitham laid a hand on Kaveh's knee. A silent reminder that there was no running from the real problem this time. They'd been doing this more often than not lately, and Kaveh couldn't get rid of the image of the Alhaitham he'd met back in their Akademyia days, when he had been so unaware of the loss his friend had been through. Guilt wrecked him for a split second before he responded, the words like bile bubbling up in his throat. Just thinking about his parents gave him heartburn. Sure, his mother was alive and not all that far away, but it was still... well he'd have to admit he felt like he didn't belong in the life she'd created for herself away from him. Kaveh wasn't about to do that.

"In my mother's journal she wrote down the specifications of some furniture I wanted in my bedroom as a child. There was even a rough composite. I thought... I'd try and draw it." Because maybe it would make him remember her face. Or his father's, which had long since faded from Kaveh's memory. Kaveh had no idea what he was searching for anymore.

Silence fell between them. Alhaitham's hand was still on his knee and Kaveh didn't know what to make of that. They weren't unfamiliar with physical touch, and it was often these days that Kaveh found himself pressed into Haitham's side, or one of them had a hand or shoulder or elbow touching the other. What was there to say? Kaveh wasn't going to protest, that would mean admittance that he was in fact touch starved - even if that was public knowledge.

"Haitham?"

"Hmm?"

"You just went silent." The scribe went silent again, his thumb brushing gently over Kaveh's knee, fighting off visible emotion when the architect's hand fell on top of his. "Is it bringing you the closure you need?"

Kaveh's shoulders slumped. "Not really. Those memories never really do, but maybe one day they will. You can't just forget the past. You of all people should know that."

Noticing that Kaveh had pressed himself back into his side, Alhaitham actually set his book down, turning his full attention to Kaveh. A pause before his response, unsure if he even wanetd to reveal so much about himself. After all, Alhaitham was no stranger to forced ignorance when it came to his own memories. "My grandmother used to say something to me, when I was growing up." He could still see her, glasses on the bridge of her nose, tucked somewhere in her home library with a steaming cup of Sumeru Rose tea. A small noise from Kaveh brought him back down to earth and he continued. "Alhaitham, do not live on your unfulfilled dreams." He often wondered how disappointed she'd be in him. His gaze rose to watch the other man, seeing the wheels turning in Kaveh's mind.

Instead, his words were met with sigh, one that Alhaitham noticed was absent of Kaveh's usual dramatic grandeur. "Life is full of pain and suffering, but I guess the dwelling on it only makes crumbling palaces instead of homes, doesn't it?"

Silence reigned between them once again.

Kaveh shut the sketchpad, setting it aside, shifting to take their wine glasses back into the kitchen to clean them out, lost in his own thoughts. Alhaitham noticed that Kaveh's glass wasn't empty. He noticed the little stain on Kaveh's sleeve, and the way that the fluttering sunlight illuminated his hair, and for a moment, Kaveh was bathed in fire, and Alhaitham might have even bothered to say he was engulfed by the image. And for a moment, all of the memories faded against the backdrop of oncoming evening, Kaveh's visage the only thing pinpointed in Alhaitham's narrow view.

"Alhaitham, are you listening?"

"Of course I am, Kaveh."