Work Text:
It was funny, in both the strange, peculiar sort of way and in the comical, laughable sense, how Kaveh seemed to wake up early on his worst days.
As he glanced across to the clock on his bedside table, he was just about able to see the time reading five a.m. in the morning light, the sun having barely risen.
Mehrak wasn’t due to wake him for another two hours, and couldn’t help but find it cruel how his body and mind insisted he be awake the longest on the bad days, as if it was something he was meant to savour, to relish in.
And what a privilege it was - to want to cry at the thought of rolling over in bed. To let out a quiet sob as he sat up, meeting his own tired gaze in the mirror at the end of his bed. Bringing his knees to his chest, Kaveh pressed his face into them, wrapping his arms around himself so tightly as if to hold himself together in the wake of his terrible existence.
It had been an okay day yesterday. All things considered, it had been a good day. He hadn’t forgotten his key, his client was at least somewhat pleasant, and he’d gotten a decent amount of work done.
So why today?
Why now?
If there was a pattern to it, perhaps it’d be easier. If there was some way to predict it and plan accordingly, maybe he’d be able to cope a little better. But instead, the bad days seemed to come out of nowhere, suffocating and incapacitating, breaking him down into a shell of himself.
No rhyme, no reason, just a deep, aching sadness that he was never quite sure he would come out of again. Every time it happened he’d always think what if this is it? What if this is the time that breaks me?
And even though it hadn’t been before, even if he had a 100% survival rate of bad days so far…
There was always an exception to the rule. Always a breaking point. At some point, you can only take so much.
So he uncurls himself, covers himself with blankets, hides himself up against the wall as he stares out into the space that wasn’t quite his, and waits.
For solace, for death, for something to change, something to shift, something to make his existence any less pitiful.
Instead, two hours later as scheduled, Mehrak wakes him up.
Or she would wake him up if he’d been granted the mercy of sleep. Instead, he was granted two hours alone with his thoughts before Mehrak began to chirp and beep at him, flying at him from his desk where she’d been left the night before, her eyes glowing with something mechanical and joyful.
“Mehrak, alarm off,” Kaveh says hoarsely from under the blankets. She obeys immediately but continues to hover as she waits for him to get up, and start his morning routine.
He doesn’t - because what’s the point?
He’s well aware of everything he has to do today. He has a meeting this afternoon, he has a draft due tomorrow. He needs to go grocery shopping, it’s his turn to make dinner–
He just doesn’t care. Can’t bring himself to care. Today will be a lost day. Probably tomorrow too. Possibly the rest of the week, possibly the rest of his life. What does it matter?
They’ll be irritated if he doesn’t show up to the meeting this afternoon, if he doesn’t finish the draft. That’s a problem for future Kaveh. If there is a future Kaveh - and of course, at this moment, that’s hardly a guarantee. Alhaitham is an adult. He can buy his own damn groceries, make his own godforsaken dinner.
Without him, the world will keep turning, the sun will still rise, life will go on, and that’s just fine.
Mehrak is still watching him - even with his eyes squeezed tightly shut, he knows that. He can hear her whirring and processing, and he can only think, thank god she’s not sentient, thank god she doesn’t realise the horrible, pitiful world he lives in.
He feels cruel, sometimes, for even bringing her into this world.
And then she starts beeping at him again, and he thinks thank god she doesn’t have the ability to speak.
“Mehrak, off.” He says again, this time more insistent.
But she doesn’t turn off, of course she doesn’t, because he’d programmed her to not leave him alone until he gets out of bed. One too many missed appointments after all-nighters resulted in that stupid decision, so she continues to hover and whir, and judge.
He counts the seconds in his head before she beeps at him again. He makes it to three hundred before she starts on at him once more.
“Beep-beep! Beep-beep! Beep–”
“Mehrak. Please, just leave me alone.”
He hears her hum as she processes the instruction, then hears the door open and close.
Oh.
She actually did leave him.
That’s fine, that’s what he wanted, right? Besides, everyone leaves him. It’d make sense that even she would too, eventually.
Kaveh finds himself curling in on himself a little more, eyes stinging with tears he’s too tired to cry. He deserves this. He deserves to be alone. He deserves to rot here, on his own, in a bed that isn’t even his.
“Hey, Kaveh,” There’s a sharp knock on his door. “Control your machine. It let itself into my bedroom and–”
Kaveh doesn’t bother to listen to the rest. He drags the blankets up and over his head, trying to shut out Alhaitham, trying to shut out the world.
Not today. Today, he is not a person who can deal with things. Today, he is hardly a person at all.
He breathes out, and there is silence. Then the sound of a few more chirping beeps, then another sharp knock.
“Kaveh, wake up. It won’t leave me alone.”
Kaveh doesn’t care. Alhaitham continues knocking.
Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away.
He hears the door creak open.
“Kaveh.”
Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away.
Footsteps making their way across the room, Mehrak whirring.
“Kaveh?”
Please, just go away.
The blankets are ripped off of him and tossed aside. He feels Alhaitham standing over him.
Fuck.
“What’s wrong with you? Get up.” Alhaitham demands. Mehrak lets out a beep alongside him as if agreeing. Kaveh makes no effort to open his eyes, no effort to move. Maybe if he lies there long enough, and pretends to be asleep, pretends to be dead, pretends not to be there - Alhaitham will take the hint and leave.
But Alhaitham had never been any good at taking hints, and so Kaveh felt himself being gently shoved.
“I know you’re awake. I can tell by your breathing.” Alhaitham says, a little more softly this time.
“Go away.” Kaveh mumbles.
He hears Alhaitham sigh. Fantastic. Not even eight in the morning, and he’s pissed off his roommate-slash-landlord. Maybe the next words out of Alhaitham’s mouth will be telling him to gather his things and get out. That he doesn’t want a pathetic leech like Kaveh living in his house any more.
“Are you ill?”
“No. Go away.”
Kaveh feels a cool hand being pressed to his forehead, and he weakly swats it away.
“You’re not feverish,” Alhaitham comments, and Kaveh cracks one eye open.
“I said I wasn’t ill.” Looking up at Alhaitham, Kaveh is mystified to see something akin to concern across his features.
“What’s up with you then?”
“Nothing.”
“It doesn’t seem like nothing if you’re refusing to get up, and your machine came into my room this early to beep at me.” Kaveh glances across at Mehrak, noticing how she too has a concerned expression. Neither of them appears to be angry at him, they’re instead worried, which is so much worse.
“Leave her be,” Kaveh murmurs, shutting his eyes once more. “Leave me be.”
“Not until you tell me what’s wrong with you.” Alhaitham challenges.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“And as I said, it doesn’t seem like nothing. Based on your–”
“Please, please just go away.” Kaveh finds himself begging, and he hates how there’s a slight edge to his voice. It sounds like he’s about to cry. Maybe he is.
Alhaitham sighs again, and Kaveh listens to his footsteps heading back across the room towards the door.
“... Do you want anything for breakfast?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? You weren’t in for dinner last night, and–”
“I’m not hungry.”
He almost wants Alhaitham to argue with him. To tell him to get up, to stop being such a waste of space. Drag him by the arm out of bed and force him to do something with his miserable existence.
He doesn’t, though. Instead, Alhaitham leaves, and he hears Mehrak clunk herself down on his desk with a low hum. Kaveh waits for the door to click shut, and when it doesn’t he cracks his eyes open to find it left slightly ajar.
On any other day, Kaveh would groan, haul himself up and across to shut it properly. But today is not any other day, today is awful, and so Kaveh drags the blankets back over to hide himself, closes his eyes, and wishes himself away.
A few minutes later, the door creaks open, and there are careful footsteps across the floorboards. Kaveh holds his breath as he hears something being set down on his bedside table.
“Peaches. And water. You should at least eat or drink something, even if you refuse to get up.”
Kaveh wants to say that it’s not a refusal, he can’t get up, not today, not now.
Instead, he says nothing at all as Alhaitham seems to wait for a few moments.
“Just… Let me know if you need anything else.” He says quietly, before he leaves once more. The door clicks shut this time, and Kaveh exhales.
He cracks his eyes open a little. Alhaitham had left a plate with cut-up peach slices on it, and a glass of water. Mehrak sits vigil on his desk, her eyes flickering occasionally.
“I’m sorry,” Kaveh tells her, voice scarcely louder than a whisper. “You deserve better than me.”
She chirps - Kaveh isn’t sure what she means, but he hopes it means that she’s not angry with him. He wasn’t sure if she could be angry with him, but that was beside the point.
He glances at the clock. Half past seven. Kaveh swallows - his meeting is at two p.m. but he very much doubts he’ll be feeling better by then.
“Can you send a message to my client? Apologies that I can’t make it today, and… I’ll be in touch to reschedule.”
Mehrak beeps in the affirmative, her screen showing an envelope and then a checkmark before returning back to usual.
“Thank you,” Kaveh murmurs, turning over to face the wall and shutting his eyes tightly.
On most difficult days, he can force himself to be a person. Yes, it’s a struggle to get out of bed, but he can slap his cheeks, stare at himself in the mirror and tell himself Come on, now. Just get on with it. He can will himself into existence, put on the persona, and wear the mask.
Today is a bad day. And so he can hardly do anything at all.
He sleeps - or he thinks he sleeps. He doesn’t dream, he only curses himself in moments of wakefulness. He hates being like this, what person wouldn’t? Hopeless, helpless, working from the inside out, unable to just damn well get over himself. Pathetic, useless, a waste of space, a waste of oxygen.
He wants to scream and throw things and hit the wall with his fists. He wants to cry and cry until he has no tears left, big ugly anguished sobs that shake and wrack his body. That’d be better than this. Anything would be better than this.
The emptiness he feels is aching. Painful, even. He imagines it as a gaping wound in his chest - like someone has reached inside him and stolen his heart, his lungs, all that keeps him moving, keeps him working, keeps him whole.
And yes, he’s felt like this before. And he’s come out of it before. He knows that time is usually the only cure, but he is sick of waiting and hoping because deep down, he knows that this time, there may not be solace. There may not be a way out. This could really, truly be it. A sorry end to a sorry excuse for a life.
Alhaitham comes back a few hours later. There’s a knock on the door, and when Kaveh doesn’t bother to respond, he lets himself in anyway.
Along with Mehrak, who had apparently let herself out again to go and get Alhaitham.
“It’s past lunchtime,” Alhaitham informs him, and Kaveh can’t bring himself to care. “You haven’t eaten anything.”
An astute observation, Kaveh thinks, though he doesn’t vocalise it. Mehrak clunks back down on the desk with a low ‘beep’.
The edge of the mattress sinks as Alhaitham sits down on it, and even with his eyes shut, Kaveh can imagine him, twisting his hands together as he searches for the right words.
“... Are you awake?” Alhaitham asks, eventually. Kaveh stays silent, and Alhaitham shakes his shoulder gently. “Kaveh?”
“I’m awake.” Kaveh mumbles, voice muffled by the fact that he has his face mostly shoved into his pillow.
“What’s going on with you? Did something happen?”
Alhaitham sounds so gentle that it makes Kaveh’s chest ache even more. He doesn’t deserve gentle. He doesn’t deserve care, or kindness. Not when he’s like this.
“Nothing happened.” Kaveh manages, and he isn’t sure where he finds the words from.
“Is it… Is it just a bad day then?” Alhaitham tries, and when Kaveh doesn’t respond he continues. “I’ve seen you have bad days before. Not like this, though.”
Because I don’t inflict them on you, Kaveh thinks. Because I hide away, so you don’t notice. So no one notices.
“Mehrak seems worried about you.” Alhaitham says, and at the mention of her name, Mehrak gives a little ‘beep-beep!’
“She can’t worry.” Kaveh mumbles. “She’s a machine.”
“It– She seems oddly alive at times though. You must agree with that, surely. How did you make her?”
Kaveh exhales, peeling open his eyes and turning his head slightly so he can look at Alhaitham, whose gaze seems to be focused on Mehrak. She’s up off the desk now, hovering in midair.
“I’ve already told you,” Kaveh says, and Alhaitham glances across at him, tilting his head slightly, his expression unreadable.
“You can tell me again,” Alhaitham responds, and Kaveh sighs, turning his head back to the wall.
“I don’t want to talk.”
“That’s fine.”
The pair sit in near-silence for a few moments, the only sound is the quiet whirring of Mehrak as she hovers between them.
“... I thought you had meetings today.” Kaveh murmurs eventually.
“I did. I cancelled them.”
“Why?” Kaveh’s voice is hoarse as he speaks, and he squeezes his eyes shut as he awaits Alhaitham’s answer.
“I was concerned. You don’t seem like yourself.”
Kaveh can’t help but huff out a laugh. “I don’t feel like myself.”
“You can talk to me about it, if you’d like.” Alhaitham offers, and Kaveh wills the tears stinging at his eyes to go away.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Kaveh sighs. “Besides, why would you care?”
He expects Alhaitham to bite back with something along the lines of I don’t, but you’re really harshing the vibes so if you could get your shit together, that’d be great.
Or something like that. He doesn’t.
Instead, Alhaitham says “I care,” in a tone that makes Kaveh want to believe he actually does. Kaveh doesn’t know how he’s meant to answer that, so he stays silent.
“I can stay, if you want me to.” Alhaitham continues. “If you don’t want to be alone. I can bring my work in here.”
“Why are you being so nice?” I don’t deserve you being nice.
“As I said, I care. And I’m concerned.”
Kaveh huffs another laugh, though this time it’s wet with tears. “If you’re worried about me offing myself in your spare room, don’t be. I can’t even get out of bed.”
He can practically hear Alhaitham raising an eyebrow. “Is that something I should be worried about?”
“No.” Kaveh pauses. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
The mattress rises as Alhaitham gets up, and Kaveh can feel his heart begin to race. Please don’t go, he wants to say. Please, please don’t leave me alone.
This is the first time I’ve felt semi-okay all day.
“I’ll just get my things and make some tea. What kind do you want?” Alhaitham says, and Kaveh feels like he can breathe again.
“I don’t want tea.” He mumbles in response.
“I didn’t ask whether or not you wanted it, I asked what kind?”
Kaveh shifts slightly. “I don’t care.”
Alhaitham seems to wait for a moment, and then Kaveh feels something land on the mattress near his head.
“Beep-beep!”
“I told you she was worried about you,” Alhaitham says, and the smirk in his voice is more than evident. “I’ll be back soon.”
After Alhaitham leaves, Kaveh manages to roll over. Stares right into Mehrak’s pixelated little face.
“You’re too good, Mehrak.” He murmurs, before leaning forward to press his forehead against her. “Thank you.” She gives a low hum in response to him, which Kaveh takes to mean ‘It’s okay.’
Mehrak settles in beside him, and it’s not the most comfortable position, to be hugging a hard metal briefcase, but he doesn’t care.
Alhaitham returns with two mugs of tea and a stack of papers underneath his arm. He sets one of the mugs down on the bedside table, along with the forgotten peaches. “Lemon beebrush,” He provides. “It’s supposed to lift the spirits.”
“It’s just tea.”
“Drink it while it’s hot.”
Kaveh makes no attempt to do so, instead watching as Alhaitham gathers the papers and tools strewn across his desk into a neat pile. He sets them aside as he places his own down, taking a seat in Kaveh’s wooden chair. He sits side-on at the desk, either so he can watch Kaveh, or so Kaveh can watch him.
Clutching Mehrak to his chest, he feels her comforting hum reverberate through his body, reminding him that he is, in fact, someone with a physical presence.
He allows his eyes to shut as he listens to the rustling of papers, and the scratch of a quill. A few tears slip down from his eyes, silently, and Kaveh sniffs.
The quill pauses in its scratching.
“Kaveh?”
“What?”
“... It’ll be okay,” Alhaitham’s voice is low as he speaks, and Kaveh badly wants to believe him.
Between Mehrak’s quiet whirring, Alhaitham’s soft breathing, and the resumed scratching of the quill, Kaveh didn’t think he’d ever felt so safe.
He only hoped tomorrow he’d be awakened by his alarm.