citylogs | [ open ] kaveh's permanent catch-all

Bit of a workaholic, aren't you, Kaveh. [It's not even a question; Kaveh is a busybody, the sky is blue.] Doing all of this on top of every other project, giving me food -- who else do you give food to?

But we're out here. We might as well.

Says who? You?

[ pot, kettle etc. ]

And didn't I say I made too much? I made too much again this morning; [ kaveh wrinkles his nose, here, ] but I'm not sure if Ghost will be glad if I dropped another container at her door, or if she'll throw a book at me.

[Daan waves his free hand dismissively.] Hey, I hate working. I just happen to do it anyway, because people won't stop getting hurt.

You said I drove you to make whatever-that-was. C'mon, Kaveh.

Oh, that was just you. I was furious that you haven't had mortadella before. What kind of a man can go on in life without proper mortadella? I did make too much of that, too. Who else have I fed?

[ kaveh thinks. day threes are much like this: a little too bright, his thoughts a little like scintillating stars. it's getting harder and harder to recall, and far too easy to recall. ] Tighnari, Cyno, I made Tsuruno take a container, too, and a whole basket of fruit. It's too bad that Midnight doesn't eat homemade food, otherwise I'd drop the rest on him and be done with it. Ah. [ kaveh brightens, satisfied with the conclusion: ] I'll give the rest to Netzach.

Right. [Daan sniffs, a little amused.] Workaholic, like I said. You really do fuss over people.

So who's fussing over you?

[ the look kaveh gives daan is a bit wry in form. ]

It seems that you are trying to, in your own way.

Nah, no thanks. I don't care to Mother Hen much.

[he said, like a liar]

I'm just getting the feeling you're something of a hypocrite. I don't say it to insult you; a lot of people tend to go with the "do as I say, not as I do" mindset.

Come now, Daan. You became a doctor to lend a helping hand - you are, and I say this with much affection and some exasperation, a professional Mother Hen.

[ kaveh looks. he studies daan for a moment. ]

No, I don't take that as an insult. In fact, a few people have told me so in not so many words. You must also understand, however, that the mind comes up with reasons all on its own, when trying to justify a course of action.

I don't fuss the way you do. I just give medical attention.

[He glances at Kaveh, raising a brow.]

Great, so I'm not the only one. Look, I'm obviously... not unfamiliar with having my own reason and justification for what I do. The same is for you.

But if I have to advise you the way I do to Midnight, then it's a bit worrisome.

Now, don't go that far. You took offense to being compared to Midnight; you should understand that I would take similar offense. The bar is entirely too low! In fact, that particular bar is touching the floor, and is at risk of sliding downhill at any given moment.

[ the barb leaves kaveh's tongue. he breathes out. ] Daan, like I said to you before, my biggest problem right now is a long-standing argument. In the grand scheme of things, it's hardly a real problem.

Then you should know how serious I am when I'm saying it.

[A shrug.] But a problem nonetheless. Is it your entirely-too-long-of-a-list companion, Alhaitham?

Or spiteful. Is this about me being critical of your sandwich-making skills? You can just tell me these things instead of going for the low-hanging fruit.

[ but there is no heat in the censure. kaveh looks for a moment. and then: ]

Not-companion. [ kaveh says, looking grim. ] He is merely Alhaitham. He is himself, and only ever himself. If you must know, the two of us are not on speaking terms right now. Or rather, I don't know what to say to him.

Look, I could be walking slightly wrong and you'd probably get on my ass about it. It's not that. ...It's... hm. How do I put this... when I was learning how to be a doctor from my mentor, it was strict. There is always a rule of proper exchange. So, I suppose, I like to give as good as I get; if you're going to worry about me, then I'm keen to do a bit in return.

[It's a roundabout way of saying that he is legitimately concerned for Kaveh, but such is the way of Daan having been too practiced in protecting his heart of glass.]

...But he's important to you nonetheless. What could this argument possibly be that's keeping the two of you from speaking to each other?

[ kaveh looks. daan really is, kaveh thinks, a hopeless man. there's nothing that quite veils his care. the man is a doctor who chose to love despite his life circumstances giving himself very little reason to do so. how is kaveh supposed to pull the veil over his eyes, when daan is only ever so true? it shames him.

he breathes out. kaveh thinks - if this allows daan to care, then it's worth kaveh's uncertainty to explain. it has to be. ]

... walk with me. I haven't seen the new district yet. We can mark a few spots for the new mobile clinic for the month on our way. [ kaveh begins to walk. it's always easier, to do something while speaking. kaveh can't bear not doing things. ] Shall I start here? Much of what you said resonates with me, about yourself, about your capacity to be loved. Perhaps that doesn't please you to hear it, but it is the truth.

No, that does make sense, based on our previous conversations.

[Daan hasn't forgotten. His memory, alas, is exquisite; he remembers too well how Kaveh remarked upon his courage when admitting anything about Vergilius, after all. The comments following.]

I only hope you can't relate too deeply.

[ kaveh grimaces. ]

Not to the extent of being worrisome, no. In fact, it's superficial at best. It's just... difficult to explain otherwise, I suppose. You are going to think this story is ridiculous, especially in the face of what you've had to gone through. But you did ask for it, so you'll simply have to bear it.

[ where to start. kaveh absently pulls a pencil out from the crow's nest of his hair. it dances across his knuckles. the words come low, and slow. kaveh hasn't told many people this story; kaveh doesn't intend to. but he'd resolved, after all - because this will justify daan's care. that needs to be what it is. ] Alhaitham and I were friends, once. A very long story short, we had a falling out. He said something to me that cut me to the quick; I told him that I regretted him. A decade ago, we were no longer on speaking terms. But years later, at the lowest point in my life, he invited me to live with him. In truth, he's done quite a lot for me over the years.

Recently, the haunted house took away his autonomy. [ it's the fury, kaveh thinks, that seethes when he thinks of it. who did the city think it was, to make them do what they didn't wish to do? do make alhaitham do what he didn't want to do?

but it comes, and it goes, and it's the sorrow that lingers: ] In the aftermath of it all, I asked him why. Why was it that after all this time he'd chosen to reach out his hand. Do you know what he said to me, Daan?

[ kind, sorrowful daan, who had the courage to let himself be loved, and to say so to kaveh, of all people. kaveh borrows a little of that courage. he says: ] He said it was because it's me.

I promise you, I've had to heard the most petty shit amongst the high class nobles when I was training as a doctor. Nothing you say will seem ridiculous.

[And so, it is no trouble at all to give Kaveh his attention, to listen. The Haunted House, once again, had struck; Daan knows that too well, after all. Vergilius had attacked with the intent to kill, fought against the urge for the slightest second to give Daan the chance to put an end to him. A miserable thing.

But he'd never been scared of Vergilius. Just for him. Always, just for him.

He looks at Kaveh, his expression softening. He doesn't mind that it does.]

Was that answer not enough for you? Or was it simply too unbelievable, after you two had your falling out?

[Because that, too, was something he could understand. Daan, who didn't think he could be loved until most recently.

And it does seem to him that Kaveh suffers from similar thinking.]

[ 'friends' kaveh had said, as if one could distill it down to such, two young men squeezed into an akademiya-standard cot meant for one, heads bowed together so closely that a hit to the back of one would resound in the head of the other, debating the principles of liyuen metallurgy and the etymology of ancient enkanomiyan verbs long into the night. of tearing through the vahumana conferences not because they were invited but because they invited themselves, arguing through the corresponding periods of literature and the guest speaker's interpretation of the cultural nuances of it until they were thrown out and banned from future attendance. of heads tipped together in blatant procrastination as they looked to self-determination on the rooftop beneath the stars, not in the astrology of the rtawahists, but in each other, in themselves, in the reflection of themselves.

friends, if the mere act of not being one meant the loss of your limb, or half of your heart. but this, kaveh doesn't say, because daan knew that pain in a literal way, and it also didn't seem important to clarify. it was what it was, and it was what it no longer is.

instead: ]

Oh, no. [ kaveh says, and the look he gives his hand and his pencil is a haunted one. he breathes in. ] No, not that. Perhaps in a way. But the crux of the matter is this - I killed my father, Daan.

[ kaveh bears his teeth. there is nothing in it that resembles a smile. daan's expression softens, and kaveh thinks - i will disappoint him. i will. ]

I resent this city. I loath it to the bottom of my being. This isn't the first time I've told this story, but perhaps I stand in defiance of this city by making this the first time I've chosen to tell it. As a child, I killed my father. My mother was never the same after. She was an architect, just like I am - she was never again able to draw, never again able to hold a pen without trembling. She left when I was young for another country; she is much happier now. I've carried that with me and willingly because it is my burden to bear. My fault, and my atonement.

Didn't I say so to you, Daan? That I'm not a good man, or a kind man. I'm not even a decent man. That is what is unbelievable to me. That Alhaitham would know this, would know all of this, and say what he did. Because it's me. As if he didn't know that I knew what he knew - that I knew what he said all those years ago. The answer he gave wasn't just not enough, it was a deflection, through and through.

I can't forgive that.

[What is worse, he wonders. Is it worse to kill family when you're an adult and in full control and thought of your actions? Or as a child, not fully realizing your actions? Or perhaps Kaveh did know.

But he does relate. Horribly, really, he does.

Daan slides his free hand into his pocket.]

I told something similar to Vergilius, you know. In my desperate attempt to have him hate me. It was the truth, of course, despite its... complications. But I said it, thinking to myself that would be it. This would be the reason for him to hate me, and I thought I was prepared to be on my own, because I'm frankly used to that.

...He didn't. He said he couldn't. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what the man sees in me, even right now.

But you... being you, that's probably enough for Alhaitham. What seems to be an easy thing to him, because of what he sees in you. Even if you can't. Even if you see nothing worth being loved. I don't know the man, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's all the answer he needed to give, because it makes sense to him.

Or I could be talking out of my ass. Who knows.

[ the three of them have something in common, kaveh thinks. he has known this. it had merely been a footnote since - that all three of them are orphans. alhaitham's living relatives are all dead; an accident, old age, the lack of any relatives close enough to claim the familial plot. kaveh's father is dead, and his mother has left to remarry. he loved them and loves them still, but he had grown up on his own. and daan - his parents had left him in a field.

kaveh breathes out. he smiles. it's a wry one; it's a sorrowful one. it's a bitter one all the same. ]

See? Courage. [ kaveh says, ] I continue to think so. You've courage to you, to think that way, to allow yourself to think that way, to dare yourself to try. But you know, Daan. Alhaitham doesn't make mistakes. I left him unsupervised for three weeks to go dig a hole in the desert, and when I came back, he had toppled our government because he didn't like where the new regime was taking his working hours. He's that sort of man. Alhaitham is an island unto himself, and he doesn't make mistakes.

So it follows that it would be unforgivable if he were to make a mistake. I don't want him to make the mistake, of choosing to love someone that can't be loved. In the unlikely scenario that he did mean what he said, I can forgive the honesty. But I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for letting him make a mistake that I could have prevented.

Edited 2023-11-11 11:15 (UTC)

And why, precisely, is that you cannot be loved? What's so deeply flawed in you that makes it impossible, Kaveh? Because you killed your father? I could ask the reasons why you did it, I suppose. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe your father was a bastard and you had to. Or it was a shitty decision in the moment. What's that change, exactly, in this conversation?

Or is it something else you're referring to?

[Daan shrugs.] I'm not even saying you have to run into his arms and all will be well. Sometimes shit's more complicated than that. But you might as well at least tell me why you think that way, when even apparently I'm not a lost cause despite the blood on my own hands.

[ stricken. that's the emotion for it, if kaveh had any left.

what kaveh does have left: the impetus to stop. the road stops. he stops. he stops as if he has come to the end of the sidewalk, the very edge of the world and the precipice that follows, that unending drop. kaveh curls in on himself. he crouches, his face buries itself in the wrap of his arms. it's overwhelming; it's too much. kaveh has never done anything by halves; it follows that even this is the way it is. that kaveh is hiding his face not because there is an abundance of emotion there, but because there is nothing there at all. ]

Because [ kaveh says, and this takes him all he has to say, to say it aloud, ] your kindness comes from a place of a gentle heart, Daan. Don't argue with me on this. I've enough fury and rage to contend with and more, for the kind of gentle soul you are. For how much your circumstances, your parents, let you down. But everything that I do - the kindness and otherwise or whatever it is that people wont to call it - is driven by guilt.

[ ... he's said it, kaveh thinks. he's said it. he's said it aloud.

quietly, as soft as dust: ] Alhaitham said that to me. It was what broke us apart. And now, I've said it to you, Daan. What a farce this is.

[For a moment, Daan is quiet, his eye gazing over Kaveh sitting where he is. Overwhelmed, but also not enough. A dam contained, just so. He looks up and out into the city, contemplative.

He'd like to argue, that his heart is more hardened than that. That he's been cold, he's been cruel, he's spilled blood, but it is all circumstantial. Everything is. So he doesn't debate it, when really this is about Kaveh anyway.]

One of the first things I ever learned is that the world isn't going to give you anything. You bleed, you weep, you beg for things to be different -- oh, but the world doesn't care. It will keep turning, and you don't matter in grand scheme of things. Not even a lone ant in the field, you're a speck. Stars, ultimately, have more meaning than a single human life.

[He exhales slowly, not quite a sigh.] And so, humans learn to be selfish in their ways. It's impossible not to be. That's just how we are. I don't even think that's necessarily wrong. We're so, so very flawed.

[Daan steps a bit closer to Kaveh, crouching down slightly by him, but not completely next to him.]

You feel guilt, and you try to make it up with acts of generosity. A bandage, for a wound that's been left to fester.

Maybe he wants you to just be more honest, than trying to make reparations for what can't be undone. I don't know. But that's what I would tell you, in his position. No one can undo what's been done, try as we might. Hell knows I've made my attempts; you've seen it yourself.

...So what do you do. Dwell? Or find a way forward? I'm just barely finding my way with the second option, personally.

[ courage.

there is another perspective to be had. there always is. there are those who stood upon the stage and announced it. there are those who argued in shisha parlours and tucked between the booths at lambad's, arms akimbo as they gesticulated through their claims. there are those who whispered it beneath the sun or the stars as they held onto their beliefs. certainly, alhaitham would have been the one to assert so, that only he need assert a principle for it to be true, for only he needs to believe in it to have it be so. kaveh is the first to argue against it. wisdom is the clashing of perspectives; wisdom can only be gained through the collection of thoughts across multiple people, all striving for their own version of wisdom beneath the canopy of the divine tree.

it follows, that kaveh's first instinct is that he wants to argue. he wants to bare his teeth. there's an angle that kaveh often takes on when he is about to go on the offensive; it's the angle of his head, the tilt of which brings out the cooler shades of pink along the rims of his eyes. only those who don't know kaveh well think that he tends towards flight. it's that look that finally breaks through the pall of emptiness, that great blank canvas that kaveh retreats to when there is nothing and there is everything: first comes the fury and the teeth of it, that kaveh knows - that the world is unfair, and that the flaws of humanity come first, that mere bandages exist for festering wounds. but that is not all that the world is. that you can claw your way through with a kindness so terrible that it tears apart those who dare to stand against it, to bind together those by blood and sweat and toil for the bonds of mutual assistance that leaves no room for dissent. kaveh's idealism has fangs and claws. kaveh's colour is red. red is associated with blood.

but what comes after - is the grief. what comes after, as always, is the guilt. kaveh looks at daan. he looks. for a moment, the only thought he can parse is this: that if so, if the only way is forward, and kaveh knows that the only way, through flame and blood and tears is forward - of course kaveh deserves to walk forward alone.

his thesis, however, cannot be verbalised. he would be shamed if it did. daan has crouched by him. kaveh is already not alone. ]

... forward, of course. [ kaveh says, in a voice as raw as he feels, stripped to the bone and left to desiccate. ] Isn't it so? That the only way is ever forward, even if you must crawl through it, the ruins of your life, what's left of your pride. I've always found a way forward, Daan. I have always managed, one way or another, because if I didn't, I would die, and my heart with it.

But perhaps you see it clearer than I have all this time. That though I have moved forward, time has stopped regardless. I have been dwelling in that argument all along. I haunt myself.

Forward. [Daan says, to agree.] Even when you think you should stand right where you are, and rot. But we might as well walk forward, and see what's next. I never thought that I would gain anything, to be honest. And... here I am now, afraid of what I can now lose.

[But he's trying. Hell, he is trying to hold onto it all and not think of what horrible things can happen tomorrow and the following. Despite the blood on his hands, despite the laughter of cat and wicked dealings, despite the frustrating involvement of gods and sacrifices and cults, Daan is still managing forward.

Frankly, if he can do it, anyone is capable. That is what he thinks right now.]

It's easy to get stuck in the past. I'm just as guilty for that, Kaveh. It's what I've been doing for awhile now.

...But if I can even manage this much, then a nosy bastard like you can do it easily.

[ open ] kaveh's permanent catch-all

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it's six in the morning i forgot to add i love ur joke tags friend they give me life

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