Chapter Text
Whiskey Sour
“Are you drunk?”
Kaveh slid dark eyes towards the voice from where he was laid out on the divan. There was a half collapsed diorama on the coffee table in front of him.
“No,” he responded to the Scribe, blinking stickily, his vision not quite focusing.
Alhaitham sighed, crossing his arms. “Kaveh, it’s not even noon yet.”
“I said I’m not drunk,” Kaveh argued, rolling over and facing the cushions. He was, admittedly, lying, but telling the other man that he was indeed drunk at ten in the morning on a Tuesday was not exactly something that came naturally to him. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Shouldn’t you?” countered Alhaitham.
Kaveh’s mood instantly soured, a bitter taste on his tongue. He folded his arm under his head and curled up a little bit more into himself, mumbling, “I’m taking a break.”
“A break for right now , or an extended hiatus?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does.”
Kaveh glowered, clenching his teeth against a sudden rise of emotions. He rolled back over and sat up, the world tilting around him as if alcohol was sloshing in his ears and setting his brain out of balance. He looked at Alhaitham, standing across the room and staring at him.
“A break for right now, then,” Kaveh answered. He gestured to the diorama, “See? I’ve been working.” Then lower, under his breath, added, “But I might just give up and quit altogether… Doesn’t matter anyway.”
Alhaitham’s face was stony, as per usual. Before turning away and abandoning the conversation, he said, “You have a problem. You’ve been drunk every single day for the last two weeks.”
“I’m not drunk!” Kaveh called after him angrily. His face pinched at the overwhelm of hot agitation and he swore, sweeping the diorama off the coffee table and sending it clattering to the floor. He knew without a doubt that Alhaitham would have heard the crash, but he didn’t care.
He pressed his heated face into his hands, rubbing it aggressively as he tried to control his breathing. Then, before he really knew what he was doing, he was walking toward the refrigerator. He tore it open and dropped into a crouch, reaching way back into the very bottom shelf and pulling out a bottle of vodka. He grabbed the only juice in the fridge—mango juice—with his other hand and messily poured the two drinks into one glass (equal parts vodka and mango juice) before returning them to the fridge, careful to hide the alcohol way at the back behind a bag of cabbage.
It was probably unnecessary, as Alhaitham likely knew about it. However, old habits die hard.
Kaveh took the drink to the bathroom, locking the door and plopping himself down on the toilet lid. He propped his feet up on the laundry basket, humming to himself as he sipped on his drink. He stared at the wall, letting himself become lost in his own thoughts.
He finished the drink in only ten minutes, the mango sweet on his tongue and soothing the burn of the vodka. It went straight to his head and he swayed slightly when he got to his feet, whispering a quiet, “Whoa…” to himself as he steadied himself. A giggle at the ridiculousness of his own situation escaped him. How pathetic was he to be getting drunk in the bathroom in the middle of the day? At his grown age, seriously…
Kaveh unlocked the door and stepped out, going to take his glass back to the kitchen. At the sink, he paused, looking out the window as he absently scratched a nail against the cold wood of the counter. He hadn’t smoked in years but a cigarette sure was sounding good right about now. Maybe a walk down to the bazaar to buy a packet would do him some good. Fresh air would settle his dizziness, right?
He opened his mouth to call out to Alhaitham and inform him he was going out, but decided against it and shrugged instead, grabbing his mora, keys, and jacket before leaving the house, the door slamming shut behind him. He started his way down to the bazaar, hoping he didn’t look as drunk as he felt. He’d gotten quite good at hiding his own drunkenness over the years, so as long as he focused on putting one foot in front of the other and keeping his gaze up he should be fine.
At the bazaar, he stopped by various stalls, making pleasant conversation. He stopped by a few of the stalls selling alcohol, taking advantage of their free samples, before he went to the little, run down convenience stall at the end of the road.
“Good morning,” Kaveh greeted the vendor, smiling. His vision seemed skewed.
The vendor grunted in response, ignoring Kaveh as he perused the items he had for sale. After pretending to take interest in the other things, Kaveh collected some mora and then pointed behind the man, saying, “One packet of Sekhmetah’s, please. And a lighter.”
The vendor turned around to grab the two items and as Kaveh handed over the mora, he was interrupted by a voice.
“Kaveh, hey.”
Kaveh jumped, accidentally crushing the cigarette packet in his hands as he hastily shoved it into his pocket. He turned around to face Tighnari.
“Hey!” he said, aching at his own forced happiness. “What are you doing in the city?”
Tighnari’s nose was scrunching up, his ears turning outwards. He looked at Kaveh and said, “You reek of alcohol.”
“I was trying some of the samples that Hasaan and Malabar have at their stalls,” Kaveh said, gesturing lamely back in the direction of the vendors.
Tighnari shook his head. “No, you smell like a bar.”
Kaveh’s shoulders tensed and he tersely said, “Well, you’ve always had an overly sensitive nose.” He headed off, realizing it was rude, but not caring all that much. He wasn’t in the mood to be scrutinized and he felt giddy for a cigarette.
Unfortunately, Tighnari followed after him.
“Are you okay?” Tighnari asked.
“Yes? Why wouldn’t I be?”
Tighnari tilted his head this way and that before answering, “You’re drunk on a Tuesday morning.”
“I’m not drunk.”
“And I’m not an idiot,” Tighnari said, blunt. “I do have an overly sensitive nose and it can smell both the excessive alcohol that you’ve consumed and the agitation on you. Also the tobacco in your pocket.”
Kaveh clenched his jaw so hard he nearly heard his teeth crack. He reached up and tugged at a strand of his hair, focusing on the painful sting of his scalp instead of the anger sitting in his stomach.
“What are you doing in Sumeru City anyway?” Kaveh asked, blatantly ignoring Tighnari’s accusations.
“I have to do some research at the Akademiya, but now I’m a bit more invested in figuring out what’s going on with you.”
“Well, prepare to be disappointed because there’s nothing going on. I just had a bit to drink this morning because I was bored and Alhaitham pissed me off so now I want a cigarette. There’s nothing to read into.”
“You haven’t smoked in months,” Tighnari pointed out.
“And? I deserve a cigarette for being a good boy,” Kaveh responded with bitter sarcasm. “One cigarette isn’t going to make me relapse.”
Tighnari gave him a doubtful look. “I’m pretty sure that’s what everyone who relapses says.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not everyone.”
“You’re shutting me out again.”
Kaveh sped up his pace, trying to shake Tighnari off. “I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. What’s really going on?”
Kaveh spun on Tighnari, the sudden movement nearly tipping him over as his brain went tumbling inside his skull. “ Nothing , ‘Nari. I swear. Not everything that I do has some deeper meaning. Sometimes I just do things. Now… Go away. Go to the Akademiya. I want to smoke and I know you hate the smell.”
Tighnari looked at him pleadingly. “Don’t smoke, Kaveh. It’s not going to end well. It was so hard for you to quit. Don’t just throw that away.”
Kaveh moaned, his head falling back in frustration. “Tighnari…” he said, dragging out the last syllable of his name. “Please. Can you just trust me when I say that I have it handled? Will you leave me alone if I promise you I won’t smoke?”
“Fine,” Tighnari said. He held out a hand. “Give me the cigarettes, then.”
Kaveh gave him an ire look before reaching into his pocket and retrieving the crumpled packet, aggressively putting it into Tighnari’s hand.
“There. Happy?” he snapped.
“Not particularly,” Tighnari said. “But I’ll let you get on with your day. I’ll see you and Alhaitham on Friday.”
“Yeah, see you,” Kaveh grumbled. He watched him leave, lingering around for a few minutes before turning on his heel and returning to the stall at the end of the bazaar.
“Pack of Sekhmetah’s, please,” he said, smiling sheepishly at the vendor.
A cigarette had never tasted so good.
“Kaveh, wake up, we’re supposed to meet up with Cyno and Tighnari in five minutes.”
Kaveh jolted awake, inhaling sharply and grabbing his head. He looked at the clock, grimacing through the pounding headache he had.
“Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?! You let me sleep for four hours!” Kaveh cried, stumbling out of bed and blurrily clambering for his makeup.
“You never told me to wake you up,” Alhaitham said, turning to look at Kaveh’s reflection in the vanity mirror. He glanced silently at the empty beer and wine bottles that cluttered the surface of the vanity. He knew that Kaveh had been drunk again.
“You can go without me,” Kaveh said, his voice wavering with something Alhaitham couldn’t quite place. “I’ll meet you there.”
Alhaitham turned to leave. “Alright. I will see you there then.”
He left the house, purposely grabbing Kaveh’s keys as well as he went. He didn’t have a particular reason for doing so, but found something inside of him doing it anyway. He started his way down to Lambad’s, going to the second floor to meet Cyno and Tighnari at their usual table.
The two said hello as he approached and Cyno asked, “No Kaveh?”
“He’s coming in a bit,” Alhaitham said, sitting down. He looked at the bottle of wine sitting on the table, wanting to pour himself a glass but also not having the heart to. “He overslept.”
Tighnari was eyeing Alhaitham closely.
“You smell of cigarette smoke,” he stated.
Alhaitham pinched his shirt and brought it up to his nose, inhaling deeply. “Do I?”
“Only faintly. It’s Kaveh, isn’t it? He’s smoking again.”
“Yeah…” Alhaitham said, grimacing. He considered bringing up his other concern to the two. After quick contemplation, he decided to say something before Kaveh showed up. “He’s been drinking a lot too. A lot , as in every single day for the last two weeks. First thing in the morning, too.”
Tighnari’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I ran into him at the bazaar a few days ago. I could tell he’d been drinking heavily then as well. Did something happen?”
“He hasn’t told me if anything has. He destroyed a miniature he was working on, so maybe a client dropped him again. He’s just been… weird lately.”
“Should we say something to him?” Cyno asked.
The three looked at each other for a moment before Alhaitham said, “Maybe not. He’ll just get upset and I don’t feel like dealing with that tonight. I’m sure he’ll be back to normal in a few days.”
Cyno agreed. “He has a pretty quick turnaround time.”
Tighnari seemed less sure. “I guess but… He’s always had a bit of a drinking problem and he has a pretty addictive personality. Even just two weeks of this could put the nail in the coffin. Also, he hasn’t picked up smoking any of the other times he’s been down since quitting, and there were a few times that he was really down.”
More silence as they thought about it. Alhaitham finally reached over and poured half a glass of wine, but he just swirled it in his hand, staring at it while he created a small whirlpool.
“If you don’t want to talk to him, I can,” Tighnari said. “I won’t tonight, but maybe sometime next week. I just don’t want it to get as bad as it was when he first moved in with you.”
Kaveh’s mental state back then seemed to be ingrained in each of their brains. He had seemed to hold it together until moving in with Alhaitham, and after his body realized that he was safe and he wasn’t in survival mode anymore, it all came crashing down. And rapidly . He’d been depressed for months, barely making enough to keep up with Dori’s payments and spending most of his time in bed. And when he wasn’t sleeping the day away, he was drunk.
“Yeah, that was pretty bad,” Cyno mumbled. He could remember the night that he had been called to Lambad’s—before Lambad had come to realize that Alhaitham was better for a first contact—and Kaveh on the floor of the tavern’s bathroom, suffering from alcohol poisoning and saying that he just wanted to die.
Kaveh arrived about twenty minutes later, smelling of cigarette smoke and an overpowering mint scent, clearly an attempt to cover up the smell of tobacco. Additionally, he was looking drained, his usual makeup doing little to brighten up his dull skin and dark eyes, but he smiled widely and greeted them, up-beat, as he pulled out a chair and sat down.
The other three tried to ignore how off Kaveh was. It was a lot easier to do so when he was being open about not being okay, and just wanted a sense of normalcy. When he was actively denying and ignoring that there was something wrong, however, it made being normal a whole lot harder.
And it became exponentially harder the longer the night went on and the more Kaveh drank. He had already been lingering on drunkenness before arriving, and now he was past the point of no return. When he reached for the wine bottle again, Cyno snatched it away.
“Cyno,” Kaveh whined, pouting, stretching across the table to reach the bottle. “Gimme.”
“No, I'm cutting you off,” Cyno said, frowning. “You're going to give yourself alcohol poisoning at this rate. Drink some water.”
Kaveh looked at the empty water pitcher and scowled at Cyno before grabbing the pitcher and sweeping away, going to the staircase to have it refilled downstairs. The three watched him stumble away and then suddenly, his head disappeared beneath the banister, followed by a series of loud thuds and the sound of glass shattering. The three jumped up, running to the stairs and looking down to where Kaveh was now laying at the bottom, groaning loudly.
They ran down the stairs to him, a few other patrons already getting up to help.
“Archons, Kaveh,” Alhaitham said, bending down to grab his arms and sit him up.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!” Kaveh cried out, swinging out a half closed fist and weakly punching the side of Alhaitham’s thigh. “You're hurting me, you brute!”
Tighnari looked down at the glass on the floor and then at the blood rapidly staining through Kaveh's shirt.
“You idiot, Kaveh,” Tighnari said, barely withholding his frustration. “You've got yourself all cut up. You probably have glass embedded in your skin. Can you stand? We need to take you to Bimarstan so they can get it out. Did you hit your head?”
Someone was coming over with a broom.
“Slammed my head on the edge, but it didn't really hurt,” Kaveh said, shrugging. He grabbed onto Alhaitham, using his body to pull himself to his feet. “I'm fine. I'll just go clean up in the bathroom then we can play more TCG.”
Tighnari gave Cyno and Alhaitham a look, silently telling them he would go with Kaveh to the bathroom. He followed after Kaveh, hands ready to grab his swaying form lest he trip.
In the bathroom, Kaveh stripped off his shirt and turned his body to the mirror, looking at the thin rivulets of blood running down the back of his shoulder and arm. Tighnari stared at him—at his body—and his gut iced over at the prominence of Kaveh's ribs and spine.
He swallowed, shaking his head and tucking that away for another time. He grabbed some paper towels and poked Kaveh's back, saying, “Let me clean you off.”
Kaveh stood silently as Tighnari dampened the towels and began wiping away the blood, pressing against the little nicks and cuts until the bleeding slowed. He picked out bits of glass with his claws, doing the best that he could.
His eyes snapped up when Kaveh lifted a hand to his mouth and his shoulders hunched up suddenly. Tighnari looked at his reflection in the mirror, seeing his eyes squeezed shut as his hair hung down around his face.
“Kaveh, what's going on? Please talk to me,” Tighnari begged quietly, his heart hurting. “We know something is wrong. Let us help you.”
“It's not worth it,” Kaveh said quietly, his voice shaking as he fought against tears. “I'm not worth it.”
“Yes, you are,” Tighnari whispered. He pressed the towel against a particular cut that refused to stop bleeding, leaning around Kaveh slightly to try and get a look at his face. “Did something happen with a client?”
Kaveh huffed a sneer, bitterly saying, “Because it’s always a client, right? Because I’m so pathetic I let my emotions be governed by other people’s opinions of me and my work.”
“That’s not what I said and I don’t appreciate you putting words in my mouth. If it wasn’t a client, then what happened? Did Alhaitham do something?”
“No,” Kaveh sniffed.
Tighnari waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. He made another educated guess.
“Is it something to do with Dori? If you need money–”
“It’s not,” Kaveh interrupted, suddenly turning from Tighnari and putting his shirt back on. His lower lip was trembling as he struggled to keep his tears from falling.
Tighnari stared at his friend's splotchy, haggard face, tears swirling in his eyes, and softly pressed, “Are you sure? Kaveh, if she raised the interest again without informing you, you should tell Cyno. He can open another investigation into her. We all know her methods aren’t legal, and just because she hasn’t made any mistakes–”
“Stop, Tighnari, stop,” Kaveh said. He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, breathing raggedly. “Please, just drop it. I’m going to cry if you keep asking. Just leave it alone, please.”
“Will you talk to me when you’re ready, at least?” Tighnari asked, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the scent of anxiety and despondency coming from Kaveh in waves. It overpowered the scent of alcohol, tobacco, and mint entirely.
Kaveh turned his back to Tighnari and ripped off a paper towel from the dispenser, wiping his nose shamefully. “Maybe,” he mumbled. “I don’t know. I’m going home. Can you let Alhaitham know?”
“Sure,” Tighnari said quietly, watching Kaveh leave the bathroom. He sighed heavily and washed his hands before returning to the second level where Cyno and Alhaitham were waiting. He sat down. “Kaveh went home. I think something may have happened with Dori. He won’t talk to me though.”
Cyno leaned back, crossing his arms. “Man, usually he just needs a little poke to spill his woes. And he usually tells you everything without even being prompted,” he said, saying the last bit to Tighnari.
“I know , which is why I can’t stop jumping to the worst case scenario about what might have happened.”
“What would be the worst case scenario in your mind?” Alhaitham asked.
“I don’t know, him being blackmailed or exploited by Dori in some way,” Tighnari shrugged, anxiously picking at his nails. “He shares everything unless it’s something he’s embarrassed or ashamed about. That’s why I’m so worried.”
“Surely not,” Alhaitham scoffed, but there was a strange twinge to his usual tone.