Chapter Text
"Can you tell me what the hell this is, Alhaitham ?!"
Alhaitham reluctantly looks up from his book, vaguely annoyed. Kaveh's voice is so piercing it cuts through his headphones like a knife through butter.
He narrows his visual analysis to answer his roommate's rhetorical inquiry. First, the roommate in question, standing in the doorway. Kaveh is wearing a bathrobe in the least possible Kaveh way : a hastily tied knot, plushy fabric revealing way too much shoulder and poorly cuffed sleeves. His usually well-kept blonde hair falls flat and wet on his shoulders and drips on their carpeted floor. His cheeks are flushed red, his eyes glinting, his mouth distorted into a grimace, teeth showing, his whole demeanor frantic and overall form disheveled.
Then the environmental clues. The bathroom door wide open behind Kaveh, the hallway filled with hot steam pouring into the living-room and slowly raising the previously optimal temperature. And… yes, a puddle of soapy water slowly creeping its way onto the floorboards.
Finally, the object of Kaveh's yelling and disgusted expression, held between two fingers. A messy thread of humid, entangled hair, so light it's almost translucid.
With all that taken into account, It isn't hard to guess that Kaveh has barged out of the bathroom, barely dressed, to show Alhaitham the traitorous object clogging the shower siphon. And now the dirty bathwater filled with those weird-smelling products that Kaveh likes so much is spilling onto the very delicate wooden floor.
Not only that, Kaveh is evidently holding Alhaitam responsible for this disaster. Or more accurately, what he thinks to be one.
This apparently useless and painfully long reasoning actually took Alhaitham about half a second.
"I don't know, Kaveh," he sighs. "Why don't you tell me ?
"Oh, don't you get smart with me ! This is obviously your hair, have you seen how light it is ?!"
Alhaitham rests his arm on the upper part of the couch and tilts his head to squint at said light hair. Three options are laid out in front of him : Either he needs glasses, or Kaveh possesses some kind of ability that enables him to detect pigments, or he's just not willing to admit that the hair is actually his. Alhaitam is more inclined to believe the latter.
This is honestly such a trivial and repetitive matter it feels like a mere play to him. This is just water, just some hair and some interrupted shower. It's annoying, sure, but not that big of a deal.
He could tell Kaveh that he is making a fuss about hair clogging the shower on a sunday morning when most people try to sleep in, that the neighbors will complain about the noise, that while he's hellbent on trying to pinpoint whose hair this is the overflowing water is probably leaking through their floor and into the apartment below, that he should drop it and go put some actual clothes on because does he not have anything better to do with his time ?
But Alhaitham doesn't tell Kaveh any of that.
When you always get the villain's part, you tend to know your lines by heart.
"We both have light hair, Kaveh. Except mine are short and yours aren't. Now, I don't think short hair would tangle around itself and provoke such a result," he sighs while gesturing to the growing puddle of water that Kaveh has yet to notice.
Judging by the way his voice goes at least an octave higher, this is clearly not what Kaveh wanted to hear.
"I swear to the Sevens, the day when you take accountability for something is the day the world ends!" he shouts, angrily waving his index finger around.
"Kaveh…"
"You can never admit you're wrong, but you become a lot less knowledgeable when it comes to whose hair clogged the shower, or whose turn it was to wash the fucking dishes, or who leaves their dirty laundry on the couch for weeks on end –"
"Kaveh –"
"– or who forgot to get the package waiting at the post office ! And then mister Scribe of the Akademiya, best of Haravatat and best of men and walking encyclopedia suddenly goes I don't know, Kaveh, I don't know, why don't you guess, Kaveh –"
"Kaveh, the water."
Kaveh doesn't even get the time to turn around before the water reaches his heels. His mouth gapes open, forming a perfect 'o' shape and when he's going to emit the most awful, most inelegant curse –
Alhaitham turns off his headphones in one swift movement, just in time to bask in the most pleasant, perfect, uninterrupted silence he's ever experienced.
Well. Almost uninterrupted.
There are several seemingly futile facts behind this almost.
One, being deaf does not mean living in a state of perpetual and eternal silence the second your hearing aids are turned off. You can be mildly, moderately, moderately-severe, severely or profoundly deaf. Alhaitham is moderately to moderately-severe deaf. Without his hearing aids, he won't hear the TV, the cars roaring outside or the shower running – just like he didn't today. He barely notices people talking around him or to him, unless they raise their voice.
Two, being deaf comes with its lot of sensory issues. Alhaitham doesn't hear people screaming in the apartment down the hall, but he hears when a fork and a knife clash against each other. Or the larsen caused by a wrong manipulation on an amplifier. Or long, nonhuman screeching like nails on a chalkboard. He always has. Apparently, it was so distressing for him as a small child that he'd sometimes cry for an entire day despite his grandmother's best attempts at soothing him.
(Picturing Alhaitham as a child feels wrong and so does picturing him as a teary-eyed, snotty, bawling mess. Try to mix both and you get an unsettling, rat-like midget that you want to hold in your arms and kick as far as humanly possible.)
His grandmother was indeed unsettled ; worried, even. How could she help her sweet grandchild out ? Soon enough he would reach his sixth birthday, which meant elementary school was just around the corner and so would be the incessant rattling of cutlery, the screaming of other children, the squeaking of newly-bought shoes on the floor. And whether or not he turned his hearing aids on, Alhaitham would hear all of it. That wouldn't do at all.
But she was a smart woman, a respected scholar whose whole life revolved around finding solutions. So she called a few acquaintances from the Akademiya, and soon Alhaitham's simple and plain hearing aids were both that and noise canceling headphones. His hearing was enhanced, but the noise could be muffled. Up to a certain extent.
Which leads to number three : Kaveh is loud. Always has been.
That and he always managed to find a way to be loud without even talking.
Back when both of them were still Akademiya students, Kaveh's voice went extinct for a whole week after a particularly windy day. Right before that very important, very solemn speech he was asked to give to the Kshahrewar first years with all six Sages present. Anyone else would have taken the opportunity to put the responsibility on someone else's shoulders, but this was Kaveh. Kaveh, soon-to-be Master Architect, Representative and Light of the Kshahrewar, Kaveh who would rather travel naked to Snezhnaya than going back on his word. So he locked himself in his dorm room with honeyed infusions, tissues, cold soup and a bunch of books until the fated day arrived.
Alhaitham, standing in a corner of the room crowded with squirming first years barely out of adolescence, watched Kaveh climb the podium with a well-crafted smile, feverish eyes and a red nose. His senior disappearing for several days was enough to stir his already well-developed curiosity.
So he came, and he watched.
He watched as the Sages exchanged worried whispers. Would he make it ? He didn't look well. It would be troublesome if he fainted in front of all those fresh new recruits. The other Darshans would be right at their throats for neglecting a student's health, and Kaveh wasn't just any student.
They fell completely silent as soon as Kaveh started signing.
Sumerian sign language was not included in common courses, so Kaveh's first gesture was to compell any student who could interpret fluently to join him on stage. A small girl raised a shaky hand, which Kaveh grabbed enthusiastically to help her up. And there it was. A hundred of gawking freshmen, wide eyes hooked to Kaveh's flying hands, the girl's voice growing more and more confident as the speech went on, dumbfounded Sages and Alhaitham watching it all unfold from the sidelines.
He remembers admiring Kaveh's dedication at proving people wrong. Most people wouldn't spend their sick days learning sign language for a ten-minute speech. Most people wouldn't wait for the applause to sink in and die out before heading backstage. Most people wouldn't have been able to get out of sight before collapsing there. Kaveh was certainly not like most people. Alhaitam wondered what it was that drove him on. His sense of duty ? The reluctance to break an oath ? Spite ? This one particular question he never found an answer to.
The point is, Kaveh's body can sometimes be louder than his words. Alhaitham doesn't see him rush to the kitchen, but he feels every hurried step through the floor's vibrations. Every uselessly large movement sparks a change in air circulation. Every tissue he grabs to absorb the leaking water flaps wildly in the corner of Alhaitham's vision. He feels him cursing too, but that is more of a safe guess. Voluntarily or not, Kaveh makes himself impossible to ignore.
So yes, almost uninterrupted silence.
Alhaitham is only moderately deaf, but at times like this he nearly wished he could expose himself to an unhealthy amount of decibels just so he'd never have to hear Kaveh's voice again.
Having this kind of thoughts means his patience is running thin, and his rationality along with it.
Patience is a virtue, they say, a natural quality you're either lucky enough to possess from birth or that you accommodate to living without. Alhaitham thinks that this particular saying is an insult to the years of work he put into his own, slowly built and calcified patience. He does not pride himself into saying he's a wonderfully patient, benevolent man – because that would be a bold-faced lie – but still, anyone can recognize his aptitude to put up with things that most would quickly frustrate upon. Like long meetings with Darshans professors too running out of their wit for them to be interesting, or archiving manuscripts in the house of Daena for an entire day, or the spreading of baseless and stupid rumors all around the Akademiya.
Or Kaveh.
But dealing with Kaveh throws him out of the 'patience' circle and right onto the slippery slope of 'self-control'.
And there's a line Alhaitham would rather not cross.
So he lets go of his book and puts on his shoes and coat, absent-mindedly patting his pockets to make sure his library card and ID are still where he left them. The House of Daena will be empty at this hour and time of week, which is exactly what he needs right now. He still has papers and archives to sort through anyway. Even Scribe duties seem more appealing than dealing with his grumpy roommate.
Said roommate only looks up when he hears the characteristic clang of keys being grabbed.
"Where are you going?!"
Alhaitham can't quite make out the words, but there's not a lot of questions Kaveh would ask in such a context.
"Somewhere quiet." He can feel Kaveh bounce up to his feet with an unnatural speed that only angry people seem to be blessed with. Well, it's not actually a blessing, but a compilation of adrenaline and various other brain chemicals than enhances physical abilities.
"Wha- The nerve of you !! May I remind you who it is who decided to –"
The door closes shut behind Alhaitham.
He relishes in the silence filling the hallway for a few seconds before making his way to the elevator. The floor will have dried by the time he's home, and Kaveh will throw a dry remark or two at his face, but that's all there is gonna be to it. This has become their routine, anyway. Nothing to dwell upon.
None of them can remember how long it has been – or they just don't want to.
Another day, another fight. Always going in circles around each other, always going through the same rehearsed choreography. Pushing each other away. Thoroughly incompatible.
Kaveh yells, groans, roars, shouts, cries, laughs, exclaims, interrupts, rages.
Alhaitham says, tells, sighs, informs, chuckles (rarely), points out, nuances, considers, reasons.
What Alhaitham lacks in natural presence, he compensates with charisma and wits.
What Kaveh lacks in authority, he makes up for with loudness. Taking space. The element of surprise.
The Haravatat Grand Scribe in the shadows of the library and the Kshahrewar Master Architect flying towards the sun, never to be stopped.
Yet they are not opposites.
Yet they're not fire to water. No, they are fire alike. Never far yet never touching.
Because for all their brains and smarts, neither of them knows what would happen once both their pyres meet. Perhaps there will be a devastating explosion. Perhaps there will be fireworks. Perhaps they will extinguish their light trying to keep up with the other. Or perhaps there will be nothing at all.
Neither of them know, and even if they did know their answers would diverge, as they always do.
They never seem to agree on anything.
Yet they were once friends.
How disappointing, that friendship can shrink on itself in such a way, and shrink, and shrink –
– Until there is nothing left to return to.