al haitham x kaveh smut oneshort

you never tried loving me (but ill let you start now)

"Just call me. Those were the words that were making him feel this way, the words that were currently staring holes in his head. He had never read something that made him feel so anxious yet so relieved at the same time.

Two weeks ago Kaveh had stormed out of their apartment after a particularly bad argument. Since then, he had still not came back, nor had he called or texted. That ━ for some unknown reason ━ had changed tonight. He was just about to go to bed when his screen lit up with a notification, he had begrudgingly checked it, swearing that whoever it was would pay for messing up his strict sleep schedule, only to see it was Kaveh.

Kaveh who was finally texting him back after two weeks. He had sent two messages, one right after the other. Fine, Im over this, and Just call me. In seven words and one comma he had somehow managed to unlock and whole vault of emotions that Al-Haitham swore he would get over. After those messages, the house returned once more to feeling too empty ━ too quiet. It had officially been 5 minutes since he had read the messages, and he still wasn't over it.

He knew it was irrational, that this was out of character for him. That this was no way for the Scribe of the Sumeru Akademiya to be feeling after a mere one comma and seven words. It was, quite frankly, inappropriate behavior for someone of his status. Yet, none of those thoughts made the feelings stop. He decided to just give in. Their relationship was already half ruined, what was left to break tonight.

The little telephone button had never felt so intimidating before, it had never carried so much power. Calling was something he had grown accustomed to for his job, he hadn't gone a day in the last 5 years without making a call, so why did it feel so difficult for him to do now? Why was he struggling with something that was so simple it only required him to move his finger less than a centimeter. Apparently, even throughout all this thinking, some of his courage still stood strong.

"Hello? Al-Haitham? Are you there?" Kaveh's voice shouldn't've ever been that relieving to hear.

"Yes, I'm here. What do you want? I'm trying to go to bed." Although Al-Haitham had wanted to at the very least be kind to Kaveh this once, show him that he wasn't worth leaving, his voice still betrayed him. Old habits die hard.

"Look, I'm sorry okay. I just wanted to let you know━ I'm in Avidya Forest right now, and I'll be by to pick up my stuff within the week."

What. This wasn't their normal routine. That wasn't in the script. Normally Kaveh would call him and warn him that he was coming home and that he wasn't a robber or a murderer coming into his house in the middle of the night. Telling him that he was actually moving out this time was something that Al-Haitham would've never expected to hear tonight.

It had always been the same thing with Kaveh and Al-Haitham, they would fight and argue, Kaveh would leave for the night, but then he'd finally call and say he was coming home, and the next morning he would wake up with Kaveh right up against his back. Kaveh had always been the one person he couldn't truly push away, and although he would never admit this to the man, he loved him for it. He loved the way that Kaveh would stick with him, the way that it was always Kaveh and Al-Haitham, Al-Haitham and Kaveh. They had been inseparable, no one knew why, seeing as most of the time they talked to each other they argued.

But Al-Haitham had always seen the arguing as something that was theirs, something that would always be theirs, and something was fun. But now after learning that maybe this time he truly did push Kaveh too far, and that this time Kaveh wasn't coming back, he started to rethink everything. The way Kaveh's eye would twitch when things got particularly heated ━ something he had always just thought was him thinking ━, maybe now he was realizing that that was probably a sign Kaveh wasn't taking things in the same 'fun' way he always was.