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[The whole walk is tense and silent. Alhaitham has to put all of his focus on his own steps and his own balance. That Kaveh hovers to the front is noticed, categorized, and filed away. A reminder not to falter to him, or to Tsuruno at his side.

There is a bench. There is a crowbar, and Alhaitham doesn't have quite enough in him now to verbalize that this is a questionable choice given his apparent bouts of aggression. Kaveh's hands reach for his.

Alhaitham snatches them away before he can touch them. The pause is tense, defensive, and then Alhaitham grips the crowbar himself without any assistance. He doesn't say anything as Kaveh walks away. He doesn't promise anything.

It's only when Kaveh's footsteps disappear that he lets out a low, shaken exhale.]

[ There's a second where she's barely able to suppress a flinch when Kaveh guides her hand to the crowbar, likely only saved from it being revealed by Alhaitham yanking away from Kaveh's grasp. It's too familiar to the mop, the feeling of clutching it for dear life, realizing she's going to have to use it to fight.

She understands why he's doing it, which is why she doesn't move her hand away, but the thought makes uneasiness swirl within her chest. And she breathes out, less shakily, once Kaveh runs off.

Quietly, tentatively-- ]

Al...?

[ There are a lot of questions in his name, but the concern is primary. ]

[It's the slow release of tension in his shoulders, first. The agitation is carefully packed in, bit by bit, and all that's left is the sheer exhaustion of everything. Of the past days, weeks, months, years of it all.

It takes a moment before he looks sidelong at Tsuruno.] Yes?

... Are you...

[ No, that's not really the question, is it? She knows the answer to it, anyway. ]

Something... happened, it feels like. Between you two.

[Alhaitham is still. He gaze slips down to his hands instead.] Only the same thing that always does.

[Like this is rote. Like it's expected. Alhaitham will push and push until Kaveh sets aflame the fragile bridge between them because he can't bear to let anything grow between them. They're fail to reach synthesis. They fall apart. Is this not just a constant repetition of the fight that tore them apart?]

I just need some time. [Preferably time where he doesn't have to look at Kaveh. He would normally be the one to leave but it's hard to stagger to his apartment with a bleeding head wound.]

If this is the same thing that always happens, then maybe you guys need to deal with it differently.

[ How, she doesn't know. But if this is how it goes, with them being brittle at each other, snapping off those fragile edges, retreating to recover, going back to it...

Then nothing would ever change. Until one of them loses patience and then it's a change for the worst.

Tsuruno pauses, adjusting her posture; she'd rather not lean back completely against the bench. ]

I know you probably want to deal with things... with this, on your own. But I do want you to know...

I'm here, okay? Whether you need me or not.

[Alhaitham snorts.] It must look quite simple to you, but Kaveh makes a complication out of everything.

[And maybe Alhaitham is equally to blame for refusing to let go. For always making the decision to chase Kaveh instead of accepting the loss of him.]

I don't think it looks simple at all.

Like, honestly, it felt like there were five layers of things I missed...

[ Just by being there. ]

There's a lot of history between us. [Too much of it to ever live completely separated from the other. They tried. Kaveh called it a haunting, what they filled the space with.

Alhaitham's head tilts back as a sigh slips out.] I said before that Kaveh doesn't want to reconcile.

Yeah, I remember.

[ She glances down at the sidewalk, tiredly. ]

He was really worried about you, though. When I was trying to carry you.

Of course. Kaveh can't help himself from caring, even when he'd rather not. [Kaveh would make them strangers if he could. If his heart was capable.] But he won't actually allow anything but resentment to exist between us.

He knows, right? That you don't actually resent him?

[ Like. To her, this seems incredibly obvious, but she doesn't know the full extent of their history. ]

[Alhaitham opens his eyes, staring up at the sky. He eases forward slightly to right his neck, instead looking at the building across the street.]

It doesn't really matter how I feel about him so long as that's what he wants to see in me. He can't understand something he won't accept in the first place.

[So, it's a complicated question. He does, but he'll convince himself otherwise as long as that's what he believes Alhaitham should feel.]

...

[ A very quiet sigh. ]

I really hope he winds up being like... ten percent less stubborn one day.

[ Because this is levels she's rarely seen before. ]

[Alhaitham's expression twists into something awkwardly caught between frustrated and fond.] I wouldn't count on it.

[Because Kaveh would not be who and where he is if he wasn't so stubborn. Indeed, he wouldn't be in Alhaitham's life if he wasn't. He never would have stood a chance against Alhaitham's walls.]

[ Well, that is what we call Situational Stubbornness. And Tsuruno glances at him quietly, then up ahead with a rueful smile. ]

Or that your stubbornness beats out his, maybe. I'm not sure, but...

... I just want you two to be happy.

Oh, I have no intentions of leaving him alone unless he actually means it. [And that's the thing, that if Kaveh ever wanted to let go he would make it irrevocably clear. He had done so once. He's caught between the two, though, and he's stuck with Alhaitham for as long as it takes him to choose to cut him off.] I'm content as long as he's around. As for Kaveh, he'll have to stop denying himself happiness first.

So... not really anything I can help with, huh?

[ Her shoulders slump a little, but she bites back a wince as her back twinges in response. Okay, fine. No demonstrative acts of resignation.

But isn't that how it usually is, she thinks. Your biggest obstacle is very often yourself, in the end. She knows that firsthand. ]

It's not something you can fix. [Alhaitham tilts his head to look at her.] But you can continue to care about Kaveh. That isn't nothing, even if he struggles with accepting it.

[And Kaveh is well loved. He can accept it in fractions from everyone else, and Alhaitham believes that eventually it will be a tipping point that he no longer will be able to deny his own worthiness.

It'll take time and be difficult. But he sees it as a very possible path forward.]

Then nothing's changed. I've been caring about both of you for a while now. That's not going to stop being a thing, either.

[ Sorry not sorry to either of them, honestly. Even though she's still going to feel low-key awful about inadvertently being the cause behind Alhaitham's suffering for the past few days. ]

Hmm. [Alhaitham's expression eases into a smile that exists briefly. Tsuruno is also stubborn. In this, he can only regard it as a positive trait.]

[ the entire way back, kaveh catastrophises. this isn't new for kaveh, for whom the imagination is both a blessing and a curse bound in the way of an oft-circulated joke regarding people minding their own business and celestia seeing fit to grant them the gift of prophecy. though in this, kaveh wholly wishes that none of his visions come true. they say that pessimists experience the terrible twice: once before it happens, and once when it does. in the ending samsara of his mind, kaveh is experiencing it a thousandfold, each time with slightly different and nearly inconsequential details.

see this: alhaitham losing control once more, made to bend to a will not of his own, teeth meant to rend; tsuruno unable to run in time. kaveh's fault for leaving them alone.

see this: tsuruno's thin hands taking that crowbar between them, a puppet to a higher will as she bears down on alhaitham. kaveh's fault for leaving them alone.

see this: alhaitham's condition worsening. an aneurysm, a rupture somewhere no-one could have predicted, a lifeless body on a bench as tsuruno looks on in horror. kaveh's fault for leaving them alone.

it goes a little like that, until kaveh has seen their deaths a hundred times and a hundred times still. but kaveh isn't sure if the alternative would have been better: alhaitham bleeding out, kaveh and tsuruno helpless to stop him. at his heels, tighnari is there. his presence is a steadfast balm, a singular lifeline keeping kaveh's shoulders square. kaveh's pleated dress sways around his knees as he jogs back at a clip, leading tighnari to where he'd left his heart still lodged somewhere in his throat.

the path curves. the bench comes into view. please, please, please - there. relief floods kaveh as alhaitham and tsuruno come into view. the cold claw in his chest remains in a tight grip, but the worst of it - the imagined death masks - is rapidly set aside as kaveh scrutinises them both for new injuries. ]

Tighnari, over here. [ kaveh calls, then falls to a stop, one knee in the dirt as he takes first tsuruno by the shoulders gently to look her up and down, and then - to look at alhaitham, the flit of his red gaze inscrutable. ] Good. Good, both of you seem intact, and neither of you seems to have gotten into trouble beyond documented compare. [ the sad, wry twist to his lips: ] Praises all around, I suppose.

[ Of course Kaveh catastrophizes. That is what he does best, after all. Taking a situation and then thinking of the worst possible outcomes. Tighnari can't say that he blames the other for that, necessarily. It makes sense that this is what Kaveh does. Thus all he can do is provide support the other man as they make their way over. A gentle touch or nudge here or there. Attempts at some conversation just to keep the other taking and not spiraling.

But then they are there, arrived, and Kaveh darts forward. Immediately goes about reassuring himself in regards to the condition of the other two.

And now Tighnari is about to work. ]

I assume Alhaitham is the more pressing need here?

[ Which means he is immediately getting out some sort of potion that he's brewed. To help with bloodloss. ]

Yep. [ Instantly. Look at this man, he is a mess, she did that.

Whoops. She has no idea who this is, beyond what Kaveh has explained, but it's not Daan, so that's one less person she's worrying this time around. A limited blessing. ]

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