Newfound Fondness.

i’m in love with the kaveh disaster dad au you have and i would love to see alhaitham becoming closer with kavehs kid. like mr stoic over there having no idea where those books and supplies about that very niche thing they were talking about yesterday came from

newfound fondness.

summary. alhaitham grows a little more fond of the orphan kaveh insisted on adopting.

trigger & content warnings. no applicable warnings.

tropes, pairings, fic length, & other notes. fluff. alhaitham x child!reader. 0.9k words. they/them pronouns for reader.

author's thoughts. hello dear <3333 i really needed a shorter request to write bc all of my other requests are a bit more lengthy and i'm in just a little bit of a burnout state so i am delighted by this request. i love my adoptive dad kaveh series...... i also realize now that i don't really talk too much about alhaitham and his relationship with [name] compared to how often i talk about tighnari and kaveh's relationship with them. also cyno???? i have neglected him too??????

at first, alhaitham wasn't keen on bonding with kaveh's adopted child; a child would only disrupt the comfortable life he has both built for himself and worked so hard to maintain. of course... he ended up being wrong. terribly wrong.

all throughout [name]'s first few months of being integrated into their new family in sumeru, they don't spend much time—if any at all—in kaveh and alhaitham's shared house. most of their time is spend in gandharva ville or in sumeru city, the latter being either on the weekends with kaveh or throughout the week with tighnari (if he happens to need something from the city and decides to let them tag along). given this fact, it's not at all a surprise that they didn't really know much of alhaitham, aside from the casual mentions of him from their other sumeru family members.

later on, as kaveh slowly grows into the vacant father role in their life, filling the empty space, they start spending weekends at his house... which is really the scribe's house, but at the time, that detail meant nothing to them. alhaitham never bothers to correct them, either. it doesn't really matter.

sometimes kaveh has to run errands and doesn't want to take them out in the glaring midday sun; they didn't grow up in sumeru, and they're already having a hard time adjusting to the heat (not that he's any better at handling it), so he doesn't want to risk exposing them to the sun at the peak of the day. sometimes he has to go meet one of his clients for a consultation and can't take them with him. who knows? either way, kaveh always makes these trips as quick as possible. his weekends belong to no-one but his kid. his clients find his doting behavior very cute, thankfully, so he hardly ever takes long.

alhaitham is always home during these occurrences (kaveh forbids him from leaving, since he wouldn't so much as dream of leaving his child home alone at such a young and vulnerable age—not that the scribe would leave them home alone, but still). naturally, this led to unavoidable meetings.

alhaitham quickly picked up on the many odd behavioral patterns kaveh's child displayed.

they were quiet—with him, at least. they were happy and expressive like most other children their age with kaveh or tighnari or collei, but with him? they never said a word, only speaking when spoken to, quietly shuffling around the house without so much as a peep... but more importantly, he sure as hell noticed the way they'd peek around the wall and shyly watch him as he read. they never got closer than that, though, and they'd run off if they realized he had seen them. based on this, he simply came to the conclusion that they were shy.

...or anxious, he supposes, but there is a vast difference between anxiety and shyness, and what he sees in them is not necessarily anxiety.

eventually, he does get sick of it. it's not like he worried about coming off as intimidating, no. it's just that if [name] maintains a poor image of him, it would eventually be an inconvenience for him. yes, yes, that was all. he just needed to kill a potentially dangerous rumor at its source before it got vastly out of hand. that's all.

"come here."

the way he sounds when he beckons them over is admittedly a little harsher than what he meant to be, so he's very much glad that they still do come over to him, timidly fidgeting with their sleeves.

"since you seem so interested... sit down, i'll read to you."

"h— huh? really?"

"hurry up before i change my mind."

as alhaitham reads to them, he points out words they may not understand and explains what they mean, also going as far as to help them pronounce some words that they mentioned having trouble with back at gandharva ville.

"oh... tighnari showed me that word, but i can't get it right."

they also can't pronounce tighnari's name correctly, which makes alhaitham's lips quirk upwards ever so slightly.

"here... i'll show you. which word is it that you're having trouble with?"

though it is something of a tutoring session, alhaitham finds that there's something... calming about it. he doesn't bother moving them away as they gradually get closer, only adjusting to accommodate them.

he also doesn't say anything when their weight falls a little heavier on his chest.

...did they really feel safe enough to fall asleep, just like that? the thought makes a fond warmth spread in his chest. he has no intention of telling kaveh or anyone else, though.

kaveh comes home later to see his child curled up asleep in the scribe's arms.

(the second he points it out, which of course he does, alhaitham's cheeks flush a slight pink and he coughs, telling kaveh to come get his kid and claiming that they wouldn't leave him alone.

the architect has never rolled his eyes harder than he did at that.

alhaitham's newfound fondness is obvious, but kaveh decides to leave it alone for now.)

from then on, they are just as excited and bubbly when they see alhaitham as they are when they see any of their other family. he's even gotten accustomed to hoisting them up, balancing them on his hip, and just... carrying them around.

oh, and alhaitham has no idea where those hobby supplies came from. he's got no clue where those books on a hyper-specific topic that they mentioned offhandedly the other day came from. he has no clue. none in the slightest.

...

maybe alhaitham is a little soft for them. just a little.

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