citylogs | [OPEN]

If so, then ask Cyno yourself. I'll have no part shuttling off responsibility.

[ He looks up at Cyno briefly. (Cyno won't do it, he knows.) He looks at Kaveh again, nudges at his shoulder until they're facing each other. ]

This is the solution that doesn't risk his life. I, personally, would rather him awake than dead of asphyxiation.

[ ... He tilts under and up, looking through the curtain of Kaveh's yellow forelock. Trying to catch red eyes. ]

Where are you, love? Speak to me.

[ oh, god, cyno. kaveh squeezes his eyes shut. the image of tighnari shows. kaveh couldn't do that - not to cyno. not to tighnari. cyno would do it, cyno would do anything to save any of them if it came down to it, he would rend his flesh from his bones and strip his nerves down to raw, live wire and kaveh had only needed to ask. but kaveh couldn't do that to cyno, because kaveh knows, deep down, that this isn't a responsibility he can shunt off. midnight is right, kaveh thinks. the thought spirals from there. midnight is right. midnight can't be right. because kaveh knows the objective truth, and the subjective truth, and all the other truths in between, and the little blackened, selfish part of kaveh suddenly thinks - but he can ask.

midnight says the word 'dead'. kaveh goes pale. the blood drains like water through a sieve. midnight doesn't come into view until much later, until that white, blank canvas melds into light again, and kaveh is staring out and into the pink of midnight's gaze again.

speak to me, he says. kaveh opens his mouth. ]

Anywhere. [ kaveh manages, ] Anywhere but here. [ he can't breathe, is the thing. out of the corners of his eyes, alhaitham's chest is still rising and falling, and kaveh hasn't stopped counting. 432. 433. ] Midnight, you don't understand.

[ in a voice as thin as the breeze, ] I can't be his solution.

[ One might ask why and how Midnight and Alhaitham managed to get along so well in the first place. It's true that Midnight has a knack for becoming the ideal conversational partner for whoever he's speaking to in any given moment, but that doesn't account for the truth of his ability. The ability hinges on truth, and the truth is that Midnight has many facets, and his secret is that he knows which ones to wear for everyone. They are all him. They are all incomplete.

It is a rare and special privilege to know one's completeness has a place with someone else.

He got on with Alhaitham because he, like Alhaitham, strives to see in objective truth. A child cannot atone for his own sin, so he should not hold himself accountable for it. A man with power has the capacity to treat others with justice and mercy, and irrationalities such as jealousy should not interfere with giving it.

Objectively, the truth is here. It's clear, in smooth, straight edges, startling in its simplicity. ]

No one is anyone's solution, love. What we have are solutions, which can be applied to solve problems.

[ Midnight puts his hands on Kaveh's arms. He shakes him very lightly. ]

You are the one defining your place here. If Alhaitham were conscious, he would agree that your place in relation to who he is, at the moment, is irrelevant. Since I am conscious, I would also add that it is not at all a reflection of any useful impressions you might have about yourself.

You have a tool. Alhaitham would not begrudge you in using it. Do you understand? You are the one stopping yourself. You are, therefore, the only one who can let yourself go. Kaveh, what do you want?

[ one might ask why and how kaveh and alhaitham managed to get along so well in the first place. the obvious answer: they didn't. not really. there wasn't a single topic upon which they agreed, a single debate that didn't end in frustration, a single conversation that couldn't eventually be heard from the top of the divine tree right down to its base. it was kaveh and alhaitham. it was alhaitham and kaveh. it was them. but it was also what brought them apart.

today, it's the clipped logic of it that filters through. today, what kaveh thinks - that is what alhaitham would say.

the familiar rage flickers. it catches flame. kaveh burns for it. midnight shakes kaveh, and kaveh reaches back, and the vice-clamp of his hands squeeze midnight's shoulders. they are hands scarred and callused, bent with the requisite strength to wrest dreams into a reality where dreams come to die. kaveh says, ]

No one is anyone's solution, but there are solutions that people want, and there are solutions that are abhorrent. The tool that can be used here is no objective measure of efficiency and absolution - the tool on display can help as equally as it can harm, and only the person that is harming and has no say in it has the right to judge. My place in relation to Alhaitham must be relevant because I am Kaveh, and he is Alhaitham, and there is nothing more relevant than this.

[ kaveh draws up to his full height. he looks at midnight. he is in tears, and furious for it. ] Midnight, did all the stories not say that sentiment must be part of it? Perhaps not love, Midnight, but even simple positive regard. If I kissed Alhaitham, and he does not wake up - what would that say?

It says you hate him, and we must proceed to Cyno, or your friend Tighnari, or any matter of other people who might have a fraction of softness for him. There is no shame in that, Kaveh.

[ ... Midnight reaches up, smooths the hair off Kaveh's face. ]

If one kiss is enough to make you reevaluate your entire relationship with one man — and Kaveh, he is just a man — that means that you must do it. Otherwise, you will sit here in indecision until another solution presents itself.

[ ... Midnight sighs. All of this over one kiss... All of Midnight's kisses are holy. That's why they must be given. Kaveh, he is beginning to realize, does not have the same faith in his own. ]

Kaveh, you are an academic. You must realize that in between an answer and a question lies motion. Right now, you're sitting still. Is the comfort of nothing really enough?

[ Because if Kaveh abhors anything, it's complacency. Beyond whatever worth he thinks he has is his desire for more. That does not have value, because such things cannot be bought or sold. ]

Edited 2023-10-19 07:35 (UTC)

[ midnight smooths the hair from kaveh's face. in turn, the violent shake of kaveh's head brings it back. a red clip falls loose. it rolls to a stop by their feet. 454, 455. ]

No, Midnight. You misunderstand. [ the look that kaveh gives midnight is heartbreak. ] There are no correlations as to which way the positive regard must come from. The positive regard can be from the person sleeping. So if I kiss Alhaitham, and he doesn't wake up, what does that say?

[ because there had been a child in the hallway of the mall. because he had held in his hands a knife.

kaveh breathes out. it shudders with it, the force of the terror, the fear. ] And what does it mean if he does? Midnight, he would have made a mistake.

[ because kaveh isn't certain if he wants to know what it means - that alhaitham hates him, that alhaitham loves - no, that is impossible. but if it does, if it works, then it means alhaitham has made a mistake.

because kaveh is not a good man, or a kind man, or even a decent man. kaveh can't be liked, or loved. ]

If it's the former, then he hates you. If it's the latter, then I've made the same mistake, Kaveh. And I have erred in many ways, but not in that.

[ So this is in his court firmly, now. This is why Midnight would not be Haravatat, Kshahrewar, Rtawahist. This is where rationality fails.

Kaveh shakes. There is no need. Alhaitham is only a man. Midnight stood by and watched Alhaitham carry him away, and intended for that to be the end. And see how he shakes now. Kaveh had the gall to be so livid about the depth of Midnight's misunderstanding. ]

Kaveh. Indecision is itself a decision. What this tells me is that you would rather live in a world without him.

[ And suddenly, his hand is in Kaveh's collar. He gets very, very close. ]

And let me tell you that I would not think a second to remove him from your life. If his existence brings you this much pain, I'd much prefer you only think of me. I tell you how to help him because I do love you. Do not disrespect my decision to come to your aid. If not of him, think of me, you pathetic fool.

[ midnight's eyes are pink, kaveh thinks, really are pink. they are pink in the way one might describe the crush of flower petals mixed with the shavings of certain wood. you couldn't use that shade of pink to describe a young child's dress. that would be too benign. it's the sort of pink that came with promise of warning, a single band of it across an insect's wing, a tiger's claw. it was a pink that reminded you that it was humans who attributed weakness to it, that in nature, it had always been the colour that informed predators that there was blood in the water. vampires are predators. vampires prey on humans. midnight's hand wends into kaveh's collar, and pulls him in. and kaveh thinks -

there had been a time wherein kaveh had been ten, and young, and fresh with loss, standing at the jamb of his door while his mother stood in the kitchen. the lighting that day was a gaussian blur. it cast the world in gray. he still remembered the rattle of the pot as it boiled on. he still remembered the way his mother had looked at it as it did. she hadn't seen the pot that day. and kaveh, he had stood there at the door, paralysed with indecision, until the pot boiled over like so. and kaveh thinks -

there had been a tunnel, wherein the sound of water permeated like the prickle of melting ice. and kaveh thinks - ]

Midnight. [ the word is a rasp. it's stone on wood on steel. kaveh reaches with his hand. his fingers skim first the line of midnight's temple, and then the contour of his cheek. it ends at his collar. it ends with the red of kaveh's eyes, brimming, who looks at midnight, and leans in.

it ends at the junction of collar to jaw. it ends in a kiss. kaveh presses it to the corner of midnight's lips. it's a fervent thing, feather-light. it evaporates like dew. kaveh's fist wends into midnight's collar in turn. their faces, which had been very, very close, gets closer still. ]

Thank you. [ kaveh says, and by the last sound of it, his voice manages not to break with it. the syllables, the consonants, the terror and the grief and the love. ] Thank you, Midnight. But if you are going to harm him, you will have to kill me first.

[ it was midnight who came. it is midnight that kaveh lets go. he tears himself towards alhaitham. he lays there, still, 521 breaths in. he is liquid mercury and silverine light, and he is as still as death. alhaitham has always tended towards stillness, but kaveh knew - that his smiles began first in the shift of his shoulders, in the line of his eyebrows, in the crinkle of his eyes as it changes the contour of his cheeks. it rarely ended in his mouth. it never needed to. kaveh knew - the flick of his fingers as he turned his page, the incessant narration of his murmuring as new ideas flit, the subtle rub of heel against floor as he paced. kaveh knew - that between the act and the motion lay the shadow, and that was where alhaitham existed.

netzach made a mistake. midnight made a mistake. alhaitham did not make mistakes. you pathetic fool. kaveh's hands are shaking as he brings them to alhaitham's collar. his breath catches as he lowers his head.

525, 526 -

their lips meet. ]

[It was nothing.

And then, like drawing the mind out of the deep ocean of slumber, it was something. Alhaitham's body eases. There is soft warmth touched to his lips, and the barest crack of his eyes that grants the blurry sight of gold and red from between his lashes. It is the scene from a dream.

For the longest time, people in Suneru did not dream. When they had finally been returned to them after 500 still years of sleep, Alhaitham found his rest little different than it was before. He does not remembers his dreams--most of the time. It is only rarely, when one lingers too long into the morning light, that he can recall. Sometimes it is the warmth of his childhood home. Sometimes it is an amalgamation of dry texts desperately searching for reason. Most times, it is Kaveh.

It is Kaveh, kissing him.]

[It is Kaveh kissing him... and he's terrible at it.

That makes sense, considering Kaveh certainly doesn't kiss any people. But Kaveh's not one to accept the medicore in himself. This is awkwardly pressed, his collar is tugged, there's a quiver from the lips above his.

Ah. This is not a dream. He had been in the garden with Kaveh, trying to reverse Cyno's transformation, and he blacked out after he hit the table. And now Kaveh is kissing him.]

[He does not know how they got to this point. He does not know where to even start figuring out how they got to this point, except asking Kaveh directly. But that can wait, can't it? The answer will not change in two minutes. It will not become more urgent in five.

...

He'll blame it on the daze. How he closes his eyes in full once more. How he reaches a hand up to nestle in the back of Kaveh's hair, a gentle anchor as he tilts his head just so to properly lock one pair of lips to the other. It is languid, the slow coaxing of a movement to say here, this is how it's done.

And he can blame it on the haze of having only just drawn back into something from nothing, by the tender touch of a kiss.]

[ the heartbeats in lieu echoes like death knells. alhaitham is warm. alhaitham is still warm. there had been a chasm between them, once. perhaps there had always been. two men standing on opposing shores beneath the green canopy of sumeru's wisdom. once, they failed to reach synthesis. they still do. the wait is always the worst of it. kaveh remember waiting that day, when the expedition was due to return and his father along with it. as minutes turned to hours, he remembers, as hours turned to days, as days turned to weeks. kaveh couldn't be made to wait, is the thing. as time moves on his body moves on, but his heart remains ever there and ever the same. his heart had remained there in that house in that corner with the grandfather clock still-ticking, still-waiting, and there were so many little fragments of kaveh scattered about that collectively kaveh as a gestalt never existed in the first place.

but each of those little pieces have gathered along the ticking of breaths beneath kaveh's lips, and kaveh waits. he waits with intent, he waits with terror, he waits with guilt, he waits with grief.

and then -

alhaitham breathes.

532, kaveh counts, and then forgets to count, when a hand slips into the wild golden mane of his hair and pulls him close. kaveh's entire body lurches at it; kaveh's entire body melts into it. alhaitham's lips move, and the wet brimming tears slip down the contours of his cheeks to rest in slow-moving rivulets. it's not until the moment passes that kaveh realises that he's kissed, and he's been kissed back.

the revelation is heartbreak. kaveh's guilt lies in the brief moment before it all, the bang and the whimper both: he closes his eyes, and lets himself drink in alhaitham's warmth.

then, kaveh is the first to move away. he pulls away with a gasp. a hand smears tears across his jaw. ]

... Haitham.

[They are more than close.

The warmth hovers between them. There is the faint taste of salt. It always starts at his ears, with Alhaitham. The ting of red that follows the round of them. They are tucked safely under plush and metal. It blooms on the nape of his neck like a hotspot. It is shadowed behind collar and hair.

It is, just faintly so, on the curve of his cheeks.

It is Kaveh who pulls back first, Alhaitham's hand sliding down his shoulder as he does. The moment is too short. He is forced to let it go. He has to return to the rest of reality. Alhaitham opens his eyes and stares up, first, at--] Kaveh.

[There is the salt, the tears. He is reminded, again, that there is a gap. He is missing a piece to understand how the before became the now. He shifts his hand, using the glide of his thumb to wipe some of those tears from Kaveh's heated face.] What are you crying about?

[ alhaitham's hand moves. it takes more than what kaveh has to keep himself there, for the pad of alhaitham's thumb to run itself along the brimming red edges of his eyes. alhaitham's thumb comes away moist. sorry, kaveh wants to say, and the word dies as always in his throat. it piles up along the corpses of all the other sorrys and thank-yous over the years. it builds a dam in the chasm of the unfathomable sea.

through the tears, kaveh can see thus: alhaitham, in green and red. and kaveh thinks, he's alive. ]

You. [ kaveh manages through the dam and the tears and the red burn of his cheeks. ] And you took your time, waking up like this. The nerve of you - [ it's kaveh's hand that shifts back down again, uneasy and restless, to push back the long strands of alhaitham's silver hair. he needs a haircut. he's needed it for some time. and yet - ] you always oversleep.

[Oh. Alhaitham takes stock: he is lying on his back. There is the thin touch of fabric that separated him from the grassy ground below. There are seeds and their packets scattered around him. The tea table is still knocked sideways. Out the corner of his eye, he can see Cyno back to himself.

He remembers the taste of ginger. He remembers teas that turn people into something other than themselves. This one, it seems, had merely knocked him out.

And yet Kaveh weeps for it. He is still missing a piece. Kaveh's fingertips run slightly cold against his warm face. His palm feels hot cradles to Kaveh's cheek.] You just don't sleep enough.

[ kaveh, who has always run cool. alhaitham, who has always run warm. it's impossible not to turn his cheek into it. kaveh can feel the calluses there, counts them as he does so - sword-drawn calluses carefully set, the smooth edge of his hand that is perpetually protected by his two-fingered archival gloves, the edge of a nick where a paper-cut is still-healing.

alhaitham's hands have always been the most understandable part of him. they simply are. he is simply alhaitham. ]

I don't want to hear about that from you right now. [ kaveh breathes. the breath is much in the way of a sigh. slowly, kaveh's hand reaches to clasp alhaitham's. he holds him there. he can feel the steady thrum of his heart. this is the proof, kaveh thinks, that you are alive. ] ... Alhaitham, take a moment to take stock. How is your condition? How do you feel? If there's an anomaly, say so - don't just endure it, or so Lesser Lord help me I will make it something unendurable.

[Alhaitham's fingers curl as his hand is gripped. It is with the prelude of a deep, steady breath that Alhaitham shifts so that he can sit.] I'm fine, Kaveh. In fact, it feels like I just woke up from a nap.

[To Kaveh kissing him. The question sits unasked on his tongue, because there are seeds scattered around and Alhaitham knows of only one cure.] It was ginger. I fell unconscious immediately after tasting it.

[ which then, kaveh thinks, leads to the question that's been unasked all along. its sits nestled in the silence, blank lines between words. alhaitham sits. kaveh leans back to give him room. his knees, kaveh thinks, are sore from kneeling. scraped, from having poured over the seed packets time and time again.

kaveh draws breath. ]

... we couldn't get you to swallow, Alhaitham.

... So you were going to force them down with your tongue?

[That's not even remotely what it was. Alhaitham knows that's not what it was. Kaveh knows that Alhaitham knows that's not what it was, an on goes the spiral of silent understanding.

But, see, he had kissed Kaveh. And Kaveh had responded. The surge in could not be reasoned away as for the sake of a curse that had already just been broken.]

[ kaveh starts: ]

No! [ the reaction comes before the understanding: that alhaitham knows it couldn't be what it was, that kaveh knows alhaitham knows that it couldn't be what it was, that the hierarchy of understanding has yet to collapse. but kaveh can't quite parse the thought. alhaitham's mouth had moved beneath his. kaveh shakes his head. ] No, it's nothing like that. Alhaitham, you weren't swallowing, so the solution was - Midnight said -

[ kaveh's breath shudders, ] it was a kiss. It was to wake you up. I'm. [ sorry, alhaitham. but the words die. they always do. ]

[Ah, so they are admitting to it. Even if Kaveh looks admonished at the thought.

Alhaitham's free hand cups his chin.] That's different than the other teas.

[And yet, the fantastical nature of the tea party makes it not out of place, doesn't it? He was unconscious and couldn't swallow. Mondstadt fairy tales tell the story of a sleeping beauty woken only by true love's kiss.

...

Alhaitham's fingers brush over his lower lip.]

[ it's impossible not to. predators are attracted to motion. kaveh looks. kaveh observes the slide of alhaitham's fingers as they line the lower jut of his lips.

he looks away. ]

It is. It's, um. It's the ginger tea.

I know. That was the only thing I tasted. [He'll record it later. For now--Kaveh looks away, so Alhaitham looks at Kaveh. Fixes him with his considerable attention to study every line of reaction. Because they had just kissed, even if only out of compromise.

They have never kissed. This is not the well worn habits from the days in which they were an operant of one. This is not Kaveh and Alhaitham as they know it. This is a leap over a chasm they haven't actually filled.

Alhaitham stares, silent. He wonders if Kaveh will meet him at the halfway point, or if his feet will remain firmly rooted on the opposing ground.

Or maybe Kaveh has nowhere to leap at all. Maybe it is only a compromise.]

[ on the other side of the precipice, kaveh looks. the awning chasm between them is murk. the silence fills it. the silence buries it. but you couldn't bury a chasm without filling it. and mere rocks into the well will only reveal to you the sound of water far, far below. kaveh looks, and looks, and waits, for the sound of water.

they say the desert is beautiful because it hides a well. kaveh is no well. kaveh is the desert. there is no water. ]

We should leave, then. [ kaveh says, in a voice so small, the bare breeze carries it far. ] I want to leave, Alhaitham.

[Kaveh does not apologize. He does not acknowledge. He does not move. The stillness has always been a poor fit for Kaveh. It is the turn inward, the burying of himself that makes it so uncanny. Kaveh should never be so still.]

That's fine. [Alhaitham's gaze flickers away. He reaches for the red hairclip that has scattered.] I don't care to be here any longer either.

[The clip, then, is slid back into Kaveh's hair in the same place it had fallen out. The gap was visible as he'd turned away. The gap was present.

The gap is always present.

With just as little fanfare, Alhaitham moves to stand. He looks towards Cyno.] I see you're back to yourself.

[OPEN]

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1/? c has given this kiss a rating of 3/10

2/?

3/3

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