And just like that, the end of the world came looming to borders he had once found to be so terrifying in their own way. Separating home from elsewhere, home from nowhere and home from here, the dunes of sand that he had stepped across many times before, right beneath the very skies that never quite knew whether to bring sun or rain on days that were already filled with obstacles. He hadn’t thought too much about it then, how the sand in his shoes could’ve been a one time experience or how the treacherous sun that always seemed to be at its brightest in moments he traveled might have found itself fading the next time he turned his head. It hadn’t been a thought, because who, truly, would stop to think that today is the last day, or today is the beginning of the end.
No one in their right mind would find themselves capable of thinking such thoughts, and even those who were on the brink of losing their mind (oh, he knew that feeling too well, that impending doom caused by his own awful choices in life) could truly find it in them to speak such words sincerely. Today is the last day, the beginning of the end, and Kaveh couldn’t quite recollect where or when he had signed up for it. Not this, but that. The looming doom on the horizon, the crackling ecstatic in the air and the burdening weights distributed to far too many all at once. Had he signed up for it the morning he had been late for work, or the evening where he had come to take a second look at research tied to the man who stood behind it all, offering nothing but a sneer and passing comment to himself in regards to the researcher’s mental stability? Or had it always been in his cards? The hand dealt the moment he first ran into disaster and always seemed to find a way back to the very same ruins, serving the same full house of suffocating doom and destruction every single time; was that where it had started?
Or when it had all actually ended?
The cold breeze of the desert didn’t make this easier, the thoughts and the impatience between them all. One action, once choice, one fickle hope in the minds that thought they knew, or at least managed to make themselves believe that they somehow knew. Blind faith, but away from the gods and towards the hands and hearts of those that believed themselves to be decent enough. Correct in reading, of course, correct numbers too. But not even the brightest minds of Sumeru could do anything beyond thinking and doing, they couldn’t peer into the future and avoid the wrongs in their rights. No, they could only calculate and hope, fold their hands and offer prayers to… Right, that was why they were here in the first place.
There was, truly, no God to pray to for she stood alongside them on the very borders and within the sandy dunes of the desert. She, too, partook in the makeshift belief tied to that of humankind and their occasional wonders, resilience alike. Leave it to human kind to find ways to topple the gods, for they have long come at a loss in a world that actively develops against its omnipotent users. Leave it to those that would rather construct a device than to reach for something a little too far away, the lazy and the impatient, the heart and the brain that never stops thinking.
But oh, how Kaveh, for once, wish it could stop thinking.
They should’ve just left it there, left it to the conversation they had shared over a makeshift meal on that very roof that very night. Something warm for the long wait ahead, and something meant to soothe the unsettling sensation of dread. You get antsy when you’re hungry, as if Kaveh could’ve rejected that passing comment as he had shared his meal with the scribe. He was right, of course, he did get antsy. Frustrated, too, if he went too long without proper food, and while Kaveh laughed it off like any other day this was different. This was now. And whilst the biting desert wind and the stars in all its glorious sight would’ve taken him back any other evening, it didn’t quite work now. No, as beautiful as the sight itself was, it was full of premature grief. Sand, stars and the passing memories of journeys made through the very area. They had shared meals like this before. He remembered that. Just as Kaveh remembered their trips throughout the desert itself, with how the constant complaining of sand in his shoes and the scorching heat had him in such despair. Oh, he had whined and he had complained, and Al-Haitham had been as silent as ever, as silent as now.
Silent as then, silent as always.
Silent like himself, the lingering spices of their shared meal not quite willing to part with his tongue as they remained on that roof above the sandy dunes. Earrings shifted in the breeze and while there was a distance between them where they sat, Kaveh inched closer. Hand first, fingers reaching over to the scribe’s with beckoning tugs that would bring their hands closer. In midst of the colder wind came the warmth, the very one from their hands.
“I believe in us,” Kaveh stated confidently, no doubt. None at all.
He did believe in them, believe in what they could achieve for he knew, knew so well what their minds could get up to whenever they found it in themselves to align. As different as the two of them were, they could think and they thought well. Some would even have dared to claim that they thought brilliantly together, covering over every little detail as they looked at something with different glances. Kaveh with his consideration of gentler details, and Al-Haitham with his attention to the overlooked minimalism of decimals and most logical explanations. Maximalism and minimalism at its greatest, covering each and every corner of passing ideas.
Of course Kaveh believed in them. Believed in them who had once been and the ones that took their time to figure everything out, piece by piece putting a picture back together that had come undone. It was near impossible not to believe in them, and believe in him, just as he believed in himself. He did so believe in them, together, and yet his grasp of the scribe’s hand would tighten with such hesitance for he knew the double-edged sword in that very belief and knew the hope that kept it all together. Belief, faith. He who always turned his heart to his God whenever he was in question, and now could only find himself offering it in blind faith to Him, the one who had walked beside him through more disasters than the architect could think of. No god came close, not now, not in this moment. This hope held no value in the hands of those that were omnipotent, only those that were logical.
But, oh, it was a fickle hope, so scared of misplacing itself or stringing along a line of unfortunate events. Kaveh’s heart did have a talent for such. One disaster after another, seemingly having developed a gift for pulling at the wrong string at the wrong time, or perhaps even right string at the wrong time. Something cursed and something wicked, with such immense ability to blow everything up; what if his belief wasn’t strong enough to carry it through?
Or, rather… what if it was strong enough and they weren’t?
“But,” there’d be a lump in his throat, forming alongside the brewing, bubbling tension within his chest. It ached. Every passing thought and word seemed to cut into the insides of his throat, carving themselves into him. He wouldn’t, or rather couldn’t, look to Al-Haitham in that very moment, no. Instead Kaveh settled his gaze on the evening horizon, with its flickering stars and the passing memories of them slowly finding their way back together. “There is a part of me that remains nervous, even now, Haitham. Not because I don’t believe in us and the others, nor because I have convinced myself that there is only one way out of here, but because… it’s dread and uncertainty. As many times as I might have read about something similar, it was never me experiencing it. I never felt the tension in my body or anxiety in my heart, nor was it my eyes witnessing the slow unravelling of the world. For once, I have to confess that I am scared, more scared than I have ever been in my life and that terrifies me. It terrifies me because I think and I wonder, what if? What if we won't make it? What if I make a mistake again that causes everything to crumble? There are so many thoughts and potential scenarios, and they scare me... Scare me because I have never been good with fear. Anger? I can handle that. Grief? I know it all too well, but... what can you really do with fear?”
He was hopeless in that aspect, hopeless in how he had tried to avoid scary things throughout his entire life and hopeless in how he had learned to tackle most fears. As a child, he had been afraid of the big bugs in the garden, but he had learned to observe them from a distance and eventually catch one, even if it left him standing in the garden with his hands around the buzzing bug with tears running down his cheeks. Bravery, his father called it. Kaveh didn’t quite understand the weight of that word until he had come to learn how to handle the dark of his own room, giving names to all the sounds that haunted him. Old wood, rusty screws, wind; he couldn’t name the disaster’s sounds, nor could he simply clasp his hands around it. It wouldn’t do any good, and it certainly wouldn’t solve anything. To place both hands around the two of them wouldn’t help either, and should he try to name the scary sounds in this very moment, with his hand around Al-Haitham’s, Kaveh could only think of it as regret.
The sounds were regret, and they had him lower his head. Away from the starry horizons and the fleeting memories of them sharing laughter around a campfire, days where such disasters as now seemed so far and foreign and where the comfort of a tent had solved everything. What Kaveh would’ve given to go back to that very moment, just one more time.
Just in case (it seemed like yesterday they laughed in the library, young and ambitious).
Just in case (it seemed like yesterday where he had first kissed him).
“Al-Haitham,” and merely speaking his name took him through passing images of other moments he had said that name. Sometimes in anger, sometimes in warmth. He had spoken that name a million times and it had grown fondly on his tongue, just as it had cut against it. “I intend on on holding your hand again on the other side of this, and you don’t get a choice in that, but, just in case… Just in case we…”
Shouldn’t he have found peace in that what if, having lived it that is? Shouldn’t he have found peace in the rapture up ahead, he who had torn himself away from this hand before? He should have, and yet he hadn’t. For despite the disaster that had once brought the two of them to their own personal calamity, Kaveh had returned and the broken pieces fit too perfectly within their picture to be torn out, now. He had made peace with it all, and he had returned from whence he came, hand in hand with the only one he could describe as regret and love all at once.
A staggering sigh slipped out of the architect, drops trailing down his cheeks.
“Just in case there should be a different outcome of this, I want to tell you that I am sorry,” and he might have said it before, might even have touched upon it briefly, but there was a time and place for everything and tonight was a time for this. “I am sorry for what I said when we were younger, and I am sorry for walking away from something that could have been fixed – there was not a single day where I didn’t regret doing what I did. There are no excuses for what I said during our project together, and I have no interest in looking for any either, because the truth is simple. I got upset, and I have never been good at being upset just as I haven’t been too good at admitting when I am wrong, but… it doesn’t matter right now, not anymore. In working alongside you again, I remembered it all. Every laugh, every lighthearted argument and every mutual joy whenever we solved something, not because we got it right but because we got it right together. There’s no better feeling in the world than to stand beside someone who sees things the way you do and who sees through it till the end… and I truly regret not seeing our project till the end together, just as I regret leaving you behind.”
Young and stupid, still stupid but less young. Wise beyond one’s years? Not quite, but perhaps wise enough to admit when one has made a mistake and that said mistake has been weighing on a loving heart for quite some time. Now that, that would be bravery, at least in the eyes of those who had loved and lost all at once.
"In my regret, I also need to thank you," he continued, for there was not only hurt that needed to be shared between them. No, there was gratitude, too. Lives lived apart that had somehow managed to co-exist up until the point where that red thread between the two of them once more tethered them back together. "Thank you because you took me back in when you didn't have to, and I say this because you didn't have to. That night, that now feels like yesterday, was just any other night that you could've walked through the tavern and away from me, but you didn't and I don't think you understand how that changed everything. Somehow you always pick up the pieces I leave around me, and even when you didn't have to, you still did. Not only that, but you... you did it as if nothing had happened, and I know far too well where I would've been without your kindness in that moment, in all moments."
They bickered, they argued, they slowly learned to understand one another again. One preferred their tea like that, and the other remembered, wheres the other preferred their coffee like that, and the other remembered. Like this, they had taken turns in closing in one another, slowly orbiting back around one another as they had once done. Not quite sun and moon, no, not chasing one another, but the sun against leaves and the running river across rocks. Blending into one another, never complete without the other. Where would an insect rest without its leaf, and where would the river run calmer without its rocks holding its currents back? They weren't perfect, they weren't calm but they were themselves for each other, and that sort of dedication didn't come cheap. Sometimes, it came with a price too great to pay.
“I can leave this world with many regrets in my heart, but not that one,” he’d let out a half-hearted chuckle, short-lived but present enough to crack a fickle smile behind those blond locks. “How unromantic. Leave it to me to admit that I was wrong in a moment of potential disaster whereas most lovers would proclaim their love…”
Wet eyes blinked slowly, eventually braving themselves to gaze to Al-Haitham with a torn smile, nowhere near interested in wiping the tears that had come around; “... I suppose that’s our kind of love though, right? Admitting when we are wrong, and swallowing our pride… even if it takes some sort of calamity to get us there.”
It was pathetic, but it was them.
“Next time the world is about to collapse and require us on the front,” he’d smile, a little warmer this time, lifting the scribe’s hand to press a gentle kiss against his knuckles and then wrist, the latter a little firmer than the first. “I will try to make our potential final moments more romantic, if you’ll let me.”
