Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kaveh is hardly through the door – quick and stealthy as they always like to be – before they draw up short at the entryway. They squint their eyes, wrinkle their nose at the sight before them.

‘What are you doing?’ they demand, caustic as an Amurta healing poultice.

Nilou’s smile tips down at the corners, the greeting stuck in her throat. Alhaitham, to her right, doesn’t even bother putting the book in his lap.

‘Reading.’

Kaveh parades forward with stomping feet, but only after they’ve lined up their shoes (and Nilou’s sandals, Alhaitham’s boots) at the door. Mehrak, swinging from their belt, beeps to life when they grip and haul it up. Kaveh lingers in the sitting room and scowls at the sight of them.

‘When’s the last time you read to me? And anyway, what could you possibly read that could interest her?’ they demand.

‘A history of dance throughout the age of King Deshret,’ Alhaitham replies. ‘A thesis completed by a Vahumana researcher that somehow escaped destruction by the Sages.’ He fails to mention how pessimistic the author has been, speaking of dance as some kind of vehicle for religion and nothing else. But: Alhaitham adds, ‘When was the last time you asked me?’

Tossing their head, Kaveh comes up to Nilou to give her a gentle kiss on the cheek; Mehrak offers its regards in one of her favourite beep-boop patterns. Their stola whips behind them, nearly cutting Alhaitham on the chin, as they disappear ‘round the corner to set Mehrak on its charger.

Nilou wrings her hands. She feels like a rock come between them. This threeway partnership is a spring bud, whilst they have been together for years. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

Alhaitham looks at her with open confusion. ‘For what?’

‘I didn’t mean to–’

‘Well!’ announces Kaveh, returned to the sitting room absent Mehrak. Without further elaboration, they sit in Alhaitham’s lap, throwing their legs over Nilou’s knees. ‘Keep reading, then!’

Nilou gawks.

Alhaitham grunts, does just that.

Kaveh and Nilou go whirling about, whirling about.

With the help of Mehrak, Kaveh’s pushed most of the sitting room furniture aside. One of the sofas has been jammed into the doorway, its left arm resting in the hall. This is where Alhaitham perches as he watches them revolve.

The heat bleeds through the open windows, and there are countless dust motes joining them in their one-two-three journey. Alhaitham doesn’t bite back the smirk that that thought creates. He’ll get his lecture in due time.

Now, there are two lights in his life that shine brighter than the summer sun. They toss off the hands of humidity, which flee instead to make a lover of his book, curling the pages and warping the text. The tale of the blacksmith and his revolution do not live up to the moment capturing his attention.

He’s never experienced a complete silence of his thoughts. Even now, Alhaitham can feel the frenetic energy rattling his skull. He’s on the cusp of overstimulation. His tongue is left inert behind his teeth.

Although.

Alhaitham has never experienced an emptiness of thought, but rare are the occasions when he can detach himself from his musings. Whilst Nilou leads Kaveh through unfamiliar steps – in the midst of Mehrak playing a Spincrystal from Port Ormos, jaunty and energetic – he feels no need to retreat into himself. He is a part of this present moment. He is here, just as much as the breezy curtains and the spinning dust and the sweat rolling down their temples.

When Nilou extends her hand to him, Alhaitham rises. A murmured word from Kaveh’s lips to Mehrak’s ears lowers the revolutions of the Spincrystal, reducing the music’s speed.

There is not much of a dance three people can do together. There is not much Alhaitham can offer without tipping over into the abyss of too much.

So, Nilou grasps his fingers; Kaveh holds his in her own.

They sway in place, hand in hand in affectionate hand.

Kaveh comes to with a start, arms falling wide. Nilou takes her chance to secret herself between them, pressing up against his chest.

‘Shh,’ she soothes, drawing the duvet back over them both. ‘It’s just me.’

He’s unused to sleeping together with… anyone. In the desert, he and his lovers return to separate pallets. Even in the midst of autumn, no student of the Akademiya who wasted time cuddling could expect to pass their exams.

And in all of their time together, he can count the number of times Alhaitham has rested against him on one hand.

Kaveh licks his lips, embraces her. Without her breast forms, Nilou folds into him in all ways lithe. Her calves, tangled between his, are hard like rock. She has a dancer’s muscles.

(And she is his beloved. He holds back the urge to dive below and kiss her shins.)

‘Go back to sleep,’ Nilou says, her voice reassuring. Kaveh’s eyelids start to dip. ‘It’s… ah…’

‘Hm?’

She hasn’t the time to explain. On his other side, Kaveh feels the curves of Alhaitham’s unbound chest when he’s drawn back against it.

Nilou follows in his wake, huffs in gentle reprimand. ‘Haitham… I was here first.’

‘Then don’t let me interrupt,’ Alhaitham replies, the words vibrating across Kaveh’s skin.

He can count, for the first time, he’s ever been sandwiched between two people. Kaveh already knows this is going to grow uncomfortable, and fast. Sumeru autumns do not relent in heat, but plunge into the darkness of winter arbitrarily. The first bead of sweat licks down his spine.

Nilou kisses the bottom of his jaw. Alhaitham puts his chin to the back of Kaveh’s neck. He’s already melting, but in every perfect sense.

‘Gonna die,’ he proclaims to the room.

‘Of heartbreak? Or how much you love us?’ That’s Nilou. At long last, she surrenders to teasing him.

‘You’ll be fine.’ That’s Alhaitham.

‘I will not,’ huffs Kaveh.

But he will be. And he is.

Everything is just fine.