Work Text:
The first thing Kaveh notices when he wakes, is that Al Haitham is still asleep. The darkness wraps around Al Haitham like a soft wool scarf, and he looks almost, cute isn’t the right word, but endearing maybe. Sweet. He can almost see slivers of the junior that used to follow him around the Akademiya bleeding into present-Al Haitham’s sleeping form.
The second thing Kaveh notices is the throbbing pain behind his eyes. As if a particularly petulant child was living inside his skull and stomping all over his brain. Fuck, he thinks, not again.
---
The first time it happens, Kaveh is seven years old. It is a particularly warm summer day, the type of weather best spent completely idle. He wakes from a nap, sheets wrapped around him sticky with sweat, to find a pulsing pain in his head. He thinks he’s going to die.
---
Waking up with migraines had been terribly common in Kaveh’s youth. Luckily, as he had gotten older, they had declined in frequency. Maybe a divine being had taken pity on him and decided his misfortunes had caused him enough misery.
Kaveh is, by nature, extraordinarily strong willed. He cannot change that. If he wasn’t he would not have graduated the Akademiya with such high honors, he would not have been heralded as the greatest Kshahrewar mind of his generation, and he most certainly could not have survived knowing Al Haitham. He’s known Al Haitham in many parts. First in the halls of the Akademiya, as a fellow classmate, researcher, and debate partner. Then after, when all interaction dried up except for scathing criticism left on public message boards. That Al Haitham was not present, but neither was he absent. That Al Haitham had still known and had still been known. And yet even further after, living in the same house. They now share as many silent evenings as fights. And while still explosive, both men have learned to reign in anger and pride so that no blow is irreparable. Not again.
Kaveh lives by his word and will because everything he does he falls just a little in love with. And Kaveh loves so intensely that there is no cost, nothing he cannot give up, to fulfill what he has set his mind to. People may call his sacrifices foolish, but don’t they see? His choices are made for his soul and for love. To act otherwise would be giving up on his dreams, his morals, his ideals. It would be losing a part of himself he’d rather lose all else to keep. He cannot live any other way. It’s who he is.
His will manifests in other ways too. He lays back down, determined to wait this out. Or at least deny its existence a while longer.
Stubborn and petty, Al Haitham would say.
Pot, Kaveh would reply, kettle.
He resolves himself to return to sleep, but the churning of his stomach only grows. And while stubborn, Kaveh is not foolish. It’s a testament to how many times this exact sequence of events has occurred when Kaveh manages to both pin up his hair and make it into the bathroom before the next wave of nausea hits.
---
Kaveh remembers the terrible sensation of food passing through his throat a second time vividly. When he arrives at the grim conclusion he is not long for the world, a mere two days before his eighth birthday, he bursts into tears. Alarmed, his parents rush to his side, a flurry of too-loud concern and soothing gestures. His mom holds his hair as he vomits into a bucket. He thinks he felt better after.
---
For the next inevitable step in this sequence of events, Kaveh kneels over the toilet, body tensing and heaving in a terrible rhythm. Behind him, Al Haitham appears in the doorway. If Kaveh were looking, he’d see the concern in Al Haitham’s eyes. His voice betrays no such emotion.
“I told you this would happen,” Al Haitham sighs, “You’ve lived in Sumeru all your life. Should you not know better than to run around all day in the sun, without so much as a drop of water?”
Kaveh turns toward Al Haitham’s voice, takes one look at Al Haitham, and vomits onto the floor.
---
Afterwards his father tells him a story. “Once upon a time,” he says, “there was a village built around a great tree. The tree was old, so old, the villagers could not even comprehend its age.”
Here is where Kaveh cuts in, “how can the villagers not know the tree’s age? It’s just a number.”
“Well, Kaveh, sometimes when numbers get really really large, they become more complicated. Now pay attention to the story."
---
A mug of water is pressed into his hands.
“Rinse.”
---
By the time he enters the Akademiya, he’s grown accustomed to the headaches and vomiting. It’s a good thing too. Kaveh barely got through his exam today. The material itself was not difficult, and he’s sure he did well, but the exertion had only made his migraine worse. Once the exam was over, Kaveh, unsteady on his feet, stumbled to a nearby restroom. He’s sweating and swearing over a toilet bowl when he realizes he has an evening class today.
He’s going to have to wash his hair before then.
---
Kaveh is lying on the bed again.
“Al Haitham.”
“Haitham.”
Who does this asshole think he is? Ignoring his senior like this. His sick senior. Kaveh kicks him.
“You can’t be feeling that bad if you have the energy to kick me”
Unbelievable.
“It’s a good thing you chose Haravatat. You would make a terrible nurse.”
“Sleep.”
---
Somehow, his migraine has the decency to wait until after his deadline. Kaveh thanks the mercy of whichever god who still exists to answer prayers. Still, it means he's leaning against the bathroom wall of his dorm instead of at the celebratory post-project party. At least there'll be no one else in this bathroom tonight.
---
“You can’t stop me.”
“I can.”
“I’ll fight you.” Kaveh won’t. If he were feeling well, he could put up enough of a fight to, if not beat Al Haitham, be enough of an annoyance that hopefully Al Haitham gives up. But in his current state, Kaveh would probably just vomit on Al Haitham. On second thought.
“If you try to stop me I’ll vomit on you.”
“That is exactly why you should stay home. I’m sure your clients would be terribly pleased to be vomited on by the great Light of Kshahrewar.”Before Kaveh can get a word out, Al Haitham continues, “I’m taking your key. Don’t even try to leave. Rest.”
He’s out the front door before Kaveh can respond.