When Al Haitham dreams, it's in shades of sandy blonde and red, metallic gold and feather-blue. His nightmares are colored much the same.
Kaveh leisurely strolls ahead of him, shoes leaving deep treads in the soft desert sand. He keeps a careful distance, arms length, and in return Al Haitham keeps an eye on him, the other man's back dead center in his sights.
He curses the sand in his boots and the long line of footprints he steps into, already the exact shape of the soles of his shoes.
They aren't lost. Al Haitham knows where they are. They've been here before. They are still here.
Kaveh doesn't watch their feet. His head is constantly tipped back with his eyes on the stars and their constellations (of which Al Haitham only knows two, Vultur Volans and Paradisaea). He'll walk right into a cactus like that. Al Haitham yells ahead for him to watch where he's going.
Kaveh reaches up to touch the side of his head in a strange motion, but otherwise there's no acknowledgement. They press on into the dark of night.
Something squelches beneath Al Haitham's boot.
It stops him short, pulls his attention like a magnet and as much as he wants to, he can't ignore it. He doesn't want to lose any more ground. But something won't let him move on. Al Haitham watches as red seeps into the golden sand, spills beyond the border of his bootprint until he slides his foot aside.
It's an ear.
It's a human ear, and there's a heavy earring attached, metallic gold, gems red and green, a familiar shape, a familiar shade-
Al Haitham opens his mouth to yell. Chokes. Swallows the lump in his throat as he quickly restarts his pace. Tries again.
"Hey!"
Another squelch under a hurried footstep. He doesn't stop to look. Al Haitham is pretty sure he knows what it is.
"Kaveh, hey!"
The path becomes littered, little slices and small pieces, fingertips and knuckles, Kaveh's arms once held casually behind his back now strewn along the sands. Every time Al Haitham extends his hand to him, reality warps and bends like the twisted image in a broken mirror, lines mismatched and edges jagged. Kaveh flits just beyond his grasp, fleeting fae, no longer able to hear him or to reach out to him. Al Haitham can only grit his teeth and follow.
His right foot marches forward. His left follows. His right again. His left suddenly doesn't follow, and Al Haitham is thrown off balance and pitches forward, swinging his arms outward to land on his palms and keep his face off the ground, because he's been in the desert enough times to know what a foot suddenly being stuck can mean.
Quicksand.
Al Haitham curses and swears in just about every language he knows as he tries to spread his weight as evenly as possible, stay afloat at the top of it because if he sinks, he knows he'll be done for, and shit, Kaveh.
His neck cranes uncomfortably in his search, Kaveh had only been a few feet in front of him, he can't be sunk much further, and he's in the desert much more often than Al Haitham anyway, he'll be familiar with what to do-
Kaveh stands in front of him, empty sleeves fluttering loose. Still just out of his grasp, still watching the stars. The quicksand is already up to his calves.
"Say, Al Haitham..." It's the first he's spoken this whole time. His voice resonates somewhere deeply nostalgic in Al Haitham's chest, produces a ripple that momentarily stuns his heart.
Kaveh is sinking.
Al Haitham stretches out on his belly as far as he's able, it's quickly up to his knees, Kaveh isn't even trying to redistribute his weight or pull himself out, it's at his thighs, Al Haitham sucks in a breath and yells for him, his hips, yells louder, his waist, Al Haitham's trembling fingertips can almost reach, his chest, Kaveh drops level with him, quicksand about his neck like a noose.
Kaveh's head tips back, back, impossibly far back, until it hangs, angle awkward, and he's looking right past Al Haitham with his tired smile and gouged, blinded sockets full of starlight.
"Do you believe in karma?"
The quicksand swallows him entirely and Al Haitham dives, shoves his arms deep and pushes off with the one foot he'd had left on safe ground, because he can't, he can't, it's not the same without Kaveh, not anymore, he needs him, no one else keeps him sharp, no one else challenges him like Kaveh, if he can just grab him, if he can just pull him back up-
Al Haitham thrashes, against the sands, against gravity, against the hardwood of his bedroom floor. Clumsily scrubs the back of his hand across his face to rub the grit of quicksand and sleep out of his eyes.
Sometimes he thinks he preferred it when the Akasha was still harvesting his dreams.
He pops his head out from under his weighted blanket and lays where he'd fallen out of bed for a moment, blinking blearily against the lamplight shining from his desk in the corner. Deep breaths. His consciousness shifts along the blurred line of nightmare and reality, crosses over the slow transition into wakeful awareness.
He's home, Kaveh is home. It's dark out. The house is dead silent.
He's just going to go check, he tells himself as he peels himself out of his sweat-soaked shirt and roots around for a replacement. He's already losing memories of his nightmare, the details spilling away from him like wet ink, but he knows he needs to see Kaveh. It'll feel better to do something, anything, than try to go straight back to sleep.
He's quiet when he slips out of his bedroom door, because they both keep late hours but their bedrooms are right next to each other, and Al Haitham will never hear the end of it if he wakes his roommate up.
Lights off, door shut. Nothing conclusive. He moves out to the main room.
Kaveh sits on one of those ridiculous sofas he'd ordered three of for some reason, back to him as he tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. A mostly-empty wine bottle stands tall on the table, next to the cobbled-together remains of an architectural model that's been picked and fussed over for four days straight now.
"Kaveh? What are you doing?"
This earns him an exaggerated startle, but Kaveh doesn't turn to look at him, preoccupied with whatever new sketch or blueprint he probably has in his hands. "Ohhh, nothing," he slurs cheerfully. "Just working. Just thinking."
Kaveh has always been the world's chattiest drinker. Al Haitham waits for the rest of it.
"Say, I think...I think I asked you this years ago, back then, but you never answered me." Al Haitham feels all the blood drain from his face in ominous familiarity, drip cold down the length of his spine. Kaveh sinks into the couch until he can tip his head over the back of it, looking up at him with a tired smile and exhausted eyes.
"Do you believe in karma?"
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Hiiiiiiiii how are you? Id like to request a farah with a extremely hyper energetic and bubbly reader🫶🏻🫶🏻
Hello! I'm doing fine! I went to my country house for the first time this year and grilled some sausages and meat with my parents, so I had a pretty good day today!
Farah with an Energetic and Bubbly Reader
It would most definitely be different from what she’s used to, being surrounded by serious, and mostly grumpy people at all times. But it’s not like you could blame them either, they’re at war and need to be alert, not having the time to be cheerful. SO having you along is definitely a breath of fresh air. Someone, who doesn’t think of all the bad things that could happen at any point in time. You’re always up for an adventure, even if Farah doesn’t always have the time for them. Don’t get me wrong, she’d love nothing more than to explore the world with you, go inside every forest and every cave just to see some cute animals and maybe pet them, but she can’t unfortunately. Even so, she can appreciate you being this bubbly, it’s nice. You may talk a lot, but that’s alright, sometimes she’s too tired to talk anyway and lets you take the lead. Not having to think about all the godawful things war brings with it for a few moments is nice, especially if it’s because of a loved one. Besides, you’re always in a good mood, and it rubs off on her as well, leaving her smiling and thinking about the time you pet a cat and ushered her to do the same as you held the mammal out towards her. You having a lot of energy can be a bit exhausting to her at times, though. Sometimes, when she’s tired, she just wants to rest a bit, but you always wanna do big things with her. She’d love to, again, but she can’t always. But once all of this is over, she’s gonna take you to an amusement park. Not because she’s never been to one, definitely not because of that, but because they seem like something you would enjoy. However, on those days where she has a bit more energy as well, you’re more than welcome to dance with her, or maybe even race each other to the top of one of the hills nearby. Farah wants nothing more than to share her country with you, especially the good things such as the culture and the landscape, so she would never say no to the both of you going outside when you can, provided the times are a bit more peaceful. If she’s feeling especially playful, or if you’re being too energetic, Farah will tire you out a bit by play fighting with you. Good luck trying to beat her. She may play fair with you, but that doesn’t mean she won’t go all out trying to get you to calm down a bit. However, she will apologize if she accidentally hurts you, such a thing was never her intention.
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I need to know which 1989 vault songs you consider divorced zukka coded
heehee this is a test right? because the answer is, of course, all of them to some extent. never doubt my ability to divorcedzukkaify anything that has ever been written.
-"slut!" is from zuko's pov... "everyone wants him, that was my crime / the wrong place at the right time / and i break down, then he's pullin me in / in a world of boys he's a gentleman" is of course about sokka
but! don't forget the lines "lovelorn and nobody knows" (their whole relationship was a secret) "love thorns all over this rose / i'll pay the price you won't" the divorce of it all...
that's for later though. for now, they have the bridge, where they both know it's a huge risk but they are taking it anyway "you're not sayin you're in love with me but you're going to half awake takin your chance, it's a big mistake i said, 'It might blow up in your pretty face' i'm not sayin, 'do it anyway' (do it anyway) but you're going to" LIKE HELLO.....sad
-say don't go.........do i even need to say anything. no. but i will anyway. overall this song is from zuko's pov and i mentioned this last week but even though sokka is the one who is leaving, the chorus could be applied to zuko's pov by thinking of it as zuko internally begging sokka to say don't go when they're in the middle of a huge argument and zuko is getting called away for fire lord business. also the bridge makes me crazy because every time i listen to it my mind plays the high definition emotionally intense amv made from shots that only exist in my mind of sokka rejecting zuko's proposal. phew!
-now that we don't talk...sokka's pov! "remind myself the way you faded til I left...i cannot bе your friend, so i pay the price of what i lost and what it cost..." HELLO. also "what do you tell your friends we shared dinners, long weekends with?" WELL! "truth is, I can't pretend it's platonic, it's just ended" and the outro is more of sokka thinking well now that we don't talk i don't have to get sucked into the mess that is the fire nation political atmosphere i don't have to suck up to anyone or pretend that i like this life because i don't and i never did!
-suburban legends "when you hold me, it holds me together and you kiss me in a way that's gonna screw me up forever" SHUT UP!!! are you joking. they were born to be suburban legends they were born to change the world to fix the world and then return home but whoops it's not that easy...."I know that you still remember we were born to be national treasures when you told me we'd get back together" bruh
"i broke my own heart cause you were too polite to do it" ...this is what sokka tells himself but really he breaks his own heart because he thinks it's going to fall apart anyway so he might as well have some control over it right! but also zuko is too polite to do it, even when things were obviously crashing down between them he didn't want to let go of this he didn't want to stop trying nothing would ever make him give up on him and sokka. teehee.
-is it over now? i mean. was it over then? and is it over now? hint: it was never truly over and they will each have moments where they try and move on but it never ever works out or gets far because they will always be hung up on each other....anyway. "i think about jumpin off of very tall somethings just to see you come running and say the one thing i've been wanting, but no" wow and of course "if she's got blue eyes, I will surmise that you'll probably date her him" 😵
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