Chapter Text
Aches and pains are commonplace, now that Kaveh has lived long enough to see the white overtake the blond, after years of destroying his hair with dye to maintain the image of the ever-youthful “Light of Kshahrewar.” He’s become less attached to that image as he’s grown older, especially since he’s stopped taking clients. He supposes that’s a good thing, but he has noticed that people have become less interested in him since his retirement, which makes sense. It’s not like he has much to offer, now that his joints are too old and stiff to create anything meaningful.
He finds meaning in other things. Nature, for example. Nature was the first architect, creating beauty and pattern and structure in places one would never expect to find them. The waves on the beach. The center of a sunflower. The curl of a fern. It’s all so beautiful, and so small. Kaveh has learned over time to slow down, to appreciate those small things. His ability to walk with the help of a cane has been indispensable in this pursuit, as has Mehrak’s magnifying feature. His eyes may be better than Alhaitham’s, but his eightieth birthday was last week, and his vision is definitely not the same as when he was in his thirties.
Kaveh thinks that they’re getting by okay so far, though. Their government is well enough off that the medical care they’ve both needed as they’ve aged has been readily available. Alhaitham has glasses that allow him to see well enough to function on a daily basis, (though audiobooks are a necessity), Kaveh has physical therapy and medicines for his joints, and, of course, most importantly, they have each other.
His life has been inextricably intertwined with Alhaitham’s since that very first meeting, all those years ago, and Kaveh would not have it any other way. It had been a bumpy road, to begin with, but Kaveh can now say, with a happy sort of certainty, that the vast majority of their time together, these sixty-odd years of intimacy and closeness, have been smooth and comfortable. Kaveh has learned to be gentler with his words, to be more tender in his approach to living with and relating to others. He no longer fights so hard against care willingly given, the walls around his heart softened with time, patience, and love; patterns of hurt unlearned, slowly but surely.
They never did end up getting married, which Kaveh doesn’t actually mind as much as he thought he would. He was hung up on it for a while, but eventually, it just didn’t seem necessary to define their relationship in the eyes of the law. Earlier on in their relationship, Kaveh would often wax on and on about the importance of tradition and the symbolism of marriage, until Alhaitham pointed out that the rigidity of his thinking when it comes to love and relationships is more of a barrier than anything. (Of course, “pointed out” doesn’t do justice to the number of times they had to have that conversation before Kaveh finally conceded that he might have been thinking about it too rigidly.)
Now, it’s simple: they live together, they share a bed, they say “I love you” before they turn off the lights. It’s morning kisses on the cheek, afternoon snuggles on the couch. It’s a supportive hand, a gentle touch. It’s unspoken understanding, and needs being met. No need to further define a relationship that has felt so natural for so many years.
Today, Kaveh is painting a field of sunflowers while Alhaitham is out on his daily walk. His painting style has become more impressionistic as his joints have deteriorated, and Kaveh has found that the style lends itself well to natural landscapes. He doesn’t paint as often as he would like to, because it does hurt after a while, but when he does, it brings him peace of mind. The brushstrokes are meditative and calming, and even though the result is never as technically skillful as works he had done when he was younger, he enjoys the process itself more than anything else.
“Welcome home, Alhaitham,” Kaveh says when he finally hears a jiggle of the doorknob, signaling Alhaitham’s return from his walk.
Alhaitham likes to test to see if the door is somehow unlocked before putting his key in, even if he’s sure he locked the door before leaving the house. Usually, it takes a couple seconds for him to enter after jiggling the doorknob like that, because he always has his key ready, so Kaveh is often greeting him just as he steps foot back inside. This time, though, it seems that Kaveh spoke too soon. The jiggle sounds, but there’s no follow-up sound of Alhaitham’s key in the lock. Instead, silence.
“Alhaitham?” Kaveh calls out again, putting down his paintbrush and turning his chair towards the door. A quiet muttering starts up, just barely audible behind the door, but Kaveh can’t make out what Alhaitham is saying.
“Haitham, are you coming in?” he tries again. He really doesn’t feel like getting up from his chair to open the door, his knees haven’t been cooperating lately, and he’s been sitting in front of this canvas for a while.
“Sorry, one second, I can’t find my key,” comes Alhaitham’s befuddling response.
Kaveh can barely believe what he’s hearing. “You can’t find your key?” he repeats incredulously. “Who are you, me?”
He reaches for his cane, hanging off Mehrak’s handle nearby, and slowly, carefully, rises to his feet. His back twinges and his knees creak when he straightens up, and Kaveh winces. “I swear, this must be the beginning of the end,” he mutters to himself, half-jokingly, as he shuffles across the floor towards the front door.
“I’m coming to your rescue, my darling old man,” Kaveh says then to Alhaitham, who’s presumably still searching for his key outside. “You must really be getting old if your memory is finally failing you,” he jokes, turning the lock and opening the door for his partner.
“I suppose that must be true,” Alhaitham responds, wearing a slight frown. Kaveh leans in to give him a kiss on the forehead, then steps aside to let him in.
“If you keep frowning so hard, your face will just stay like that forever,” he advises helpfully, trying to keep things light as he closes and locks the door behind Alhaitham.
Alhaitham just rolls his eyes, patting down his front pockets for the fifth time, clearly still trying to figure out where his key went. “We’re a bit too old to be worrying about wrinkles, don’t you think?”
“Speak for yourself, old man,” Kaveh says playfully, reaching over to grab Alhaitham’s key where it sticks out of his back pocket. He jangles it out in front of him. “Missing something? You were checking the wrong pockets.”
Alhaitham hums thoughtfully, taking the key out of Kaveh’s hand and examining it, as if he were making sure it was the right one. “So I was. That’s weird, I never put my key in my back pocket.”
“That’s right, because you don’t like accidentally sitting on anything you’d want to put in a pocket. But aging is inevitable, unfortunately,” Kaveh points out gently. “Your sharp memory is a thing of the past, now that you’re pushing eighty. Honestly, it’s impressive that you’ve managed to keep your wits about you for so long. I can barely remember what we had for breakfast most days.” He winks, and pats Alhaitham’s arm. “Welcome to the club called ‘mental decline,’ my dearest.”
Kaveh is not worried, he tells himself. It’s normal for someone who’s seventy-eight to forget which pocket they put their house key in. But after the incident with Alhaitham’s key, he does end up paying a lot closer attention to anything that could be a warning sign of further cognitive decline. And what he notices makes him wish he had started looking closer a lot sooner.
Alhaitham is misplacing things a lot more often than he ever has before. His pens, his glasses, his key, even his headphones. More often than not, before they leave the house, Alhaitham spends at least ten minutes trying to remember where he put his noise canceling headphones, which are essential to his functioning outside the safety of their home.
As Kaveh continues to examine his habits and patterns, he notices that Alhaitham is also… forgetting. Forgetting if he’s eaten, when he last showered, if he’s brushed his teeth yet… Without Kaveh there to remind him, he would probably end up either not doing those things at all, or going to the other extreme and doing them far too many times.
“You brushed your teeth yet?” Kaveh finds himself asking, again, as Alhaitham climbs into bed beside him one night. He knows he hasn’t, the question has become a formality at this point, with how consistently Alhaitham forgets to, and how closely Kaveh is watching him.
Alhaitham makes a contemplative sound as he settles down under the blankets. “Not sure,” he says thoughtfully. “Should I go do that?”
That’s another thing about Alhaitham’s recent behavior that has been rubbing Kaveh the wrong way. Throughout the time that they’ve known each other, Alhaitham has very rarely been unsure, or asked for much reassurance, but these days, it’s every other sentence. He’s always asking for Kaveh’s agreement or input on decisions he’s perfectly capable of making on his own, like what to order at a restaurant, how to dress for an occasion, what to read, when to shower, or, like he’s asking now, whether to go brush his teeth. If it was anyone else, Kaveh wouldn’t even factor this in as a possible concern, but this is Alhaitham. The guy is almost by definition fiercely independent, opinionated, and decisive. At least… he was.
“Yeah, go do that,” Kaveh responds softly, though what he really wants to do is just scream. He’s tired of pretending he’s not worried. “Come back right away though, we need to talk before you fall asleep.”
Alhaitham groans quietly as he puts his glasses back on and lifts himself out of bed again. “Alright, alright,” he grumbles. “I’ll be right back.”
True to his word, Alhaitham is only gone for a few minutes, and comes back with toothpaste still stuck to the corner of his mouth. Kaveh reaches out to wipe it away after he sits back down on the bed, keeping his hand on Alhaitham’s cheek even once the toothpaste’s gone.
“Okay, love,” he starts, trying to sound put-together and calm. “I know it’s late, but I’ve been wanting to tell you that I’m worried about you. Worried, and a little bit scared.” Instead of continuing, he averts his eyes. Kaveh’s not sure why, but saying it out loud makes it feel more true.
Alhaitham tilts his face into Kaveh’s hand, then nods slightly, continuing Kaveh’s thought for him. “I think I know why…” he murmurs. “I’ve been… forgetful, lately. It’s not like me. I know that it’s normal to experience some cognitive decline as we get older, but this feels like… more. It feels like more than I’m comfortable with, and too quickly. I’ve been forgetting words, too. The other day I couldn’t remember your name for a few seconds. That’s unusual.”
Kaveh nods, too, looking up again and stroking his thumb across Alhaitham’s cheek gently. “Yeah, it is. It’s a little concerning. I wanted to bring it to your attention in case you weren’t already aware of it, so we can keep an eye on it together. Maybe even go see a healer if it gets worse. Does that sound okay?”
“Mhm.” Alhaitham closes his eyes as Kaveh strokes his cheek. “Thank you for bringing this up to me. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Kaveh says quietly, leaning in to give Alhaitham a kiss on the cheek before pulling back and turning off the lamp. “We’ll talk more in the morning, yeah? Get some sleep.”
Kaveh can hear the change in Alhaitham’s breathing as he falls asleep, not long after they both settle down in the dark. He himself, however, lies awake for much longer, tossing and turning, considering best-case and worst-case scenarios, worrying about what even a best-case scenario would mean, regarding how much time they actually have left. Are these memory issues a sign that he’s going to outlive Alhaitham? Him? Kaveh, who spent his 20s and 30s drinking his life away? That wouldn’t be fair, would it?
He had been ruminating on thoughts about the end of his own life since his eightieth birthday last week, because, truly, how much older can an ex-alcoholic get? But he hadn’t yet considered the fact that Alhaitham is really only two years younger than him, and despite leading a much healthier life than Kaveh had when they were young, seventy-eight is “getting there” in terms of age for even the healthiest of people.
Kaveh shakes his head, trying to dislodge those thoughts from his brain. Dreading the worst isn’t going to change anything about the situation, or its outcome. He should sleep. Alhaitham is aware of what’s going on, and they’ll keep an eye on it together. It’ll happen the way it happens. The only thing Kaveh can do is stay vigilant.
In the morning, Kaveh wakes up to a lot of pain. He’s noticed over the years that his joint pain often decides to flare up when he’s stressed, leaving him in both physical and mental agony. It’s also raining, he notes once he manages to drag himself out of bed and into the kitchen. Humidity is often a trigger, too. The world seems to be against him today, because they happen to be out of coffee, as well. Lovely. He’ll have to take his meds with water, this time.
Once Kaveh takes his meds and is in a slightly lesser amount of pain, he decides that he’s going to leave the house after breakfast and take a trip to the House of Daena. Maybe there’s insight about Alhaitham’s condition to be gained from the medical journals he knows are kept there.
He takes his time with breakfast, but Alhaitham is still fast asleep when Kaveh is finally getting ready to go. They’re still opposites when it comes to their sleep habits, even after all these years. Kaveh goes to bed late and wakes up early, and Alhaitham goes to bed early and wakes up late. This circumstance is not uncommon, so Kaveh simply leaves a note in large, bold letters on the nightstand, right next to Alhaitham’s glasses:
I AM HEADING TO THE HOUSE OF DAENA
WILL BE BACK FOR LUNCH
LOVE, KAVEH ♡
As he walks, leaning heavily on his cane, he talks to Mehrak, who is floating beside him. Some part of him knows that Mehrak is only as smart as he programmed her to be, meaning that she doesn’t have any more facts about the situation than he does himself, but it feels nice to be able to talk through it with her.
Well… “talk through it” might be a stretch. Since Sumeru outlawed artificial intelligence, he hasn’t made many significant changes to the way she responds to prompts and commands, since anything more than what she already does might be stretching the law. To make her more fun to “talk to,” all he’s done is give her a set of audio files to play when she “hears” certain words or phrases. How he created those audio files is much more complicated.
He had solicited Collei’s help with creating a voice bank for Mehrak, consisting of all the phoneme combinations that exist in their dialect of Sumerian. Alhaitham had been a great help in actually identifying every combination there is, but Collei did most of the heavy lifting. It had been a very long recording session, but once it was complete, Mehrak had a voice of her own, that Kaveh could then program to say specific things. He’s still not quite sure why he couldn’t have just recorded the phrases he wanted Mehrak to be able to say using his own voice, but something about that just felt wrong at the time. Mehrak may not be human, or even have an actual personality, but Kaveh never could help personifying her.
“Mehrak, when will the rain stop?” he asks wearily, wiping raindrops off his glasses for the umpteenth time. This is a phrase that triggers a specific answer from Mehrak that Kaveh is very familiar with, but he likes the back-and-forth enough not to mind that he already knows what she’s going to say,
“The rain will stop once you’ve accepted the fact that being wet is your current reality,” Mehrak answers cheerily.
Kaveh chuckles quietly at her response, even though he has it memorized at this point. “You’re a wise old thing, aren’t you? Acceptance is the catalyst for change. You’d think, by eighty, I would have internalized that. Thanks for the reminder, Mehrak.”
“You’re welcome, Kaveh!” Mahrak says brightly, as they continue their way over to the House of Daena.
There’s no one on the streets, probably because of the early hour and the rain, so Kaveh unfortunately has no human help navigating the slippery ramps that lead up to the Akademiya’s main building. He leans on his cane and on Mehrak for balance, but her levitation capacity isn’t what it was, so he’s careful not to have too much faith in her ability to catch him if he falls.
Luckily, the treacherous path up to the Akademiya doors does not claim any casualties today, as Kaveh does manage to shuffle his way up there without falling. He’s only slightly relieved when he makes it inside, because his shoes are still wet, and the Akademiya’s insistence on tile floors makes even indoors precarious for an unbalanced old man like him.
Kaveh’s decision to be cautious turns out to have been well-informed, as it only takes a few steps out onto the tile for his foot to land slightly wrong, causing him to slip and lose his balance. He grabs onto Mehrak on instinct, though he knows he’s just taking her down with him, and braces for a bad landing.
Less than a second before disaster, he feels someone grab his arm and pull him back upright, jolting his shoulder painfully, but saving him from a full wipeout.
“Ah! Thank you!” Kaveh says, a little breathlessly, putting a hand to his aching shoulder. “You probably just saved me a visit to Bimarstan.”
When he turns around to properly thank whoever had saved his skin, his heart jumps into his throat. The young Akademiya student beside him looks so much like Alhaitham did at that age, it’s almost uncanny. The dark gray hair, the light eyes, the curve of his nose, the chubbyness of his cheeks. The only obvious difference between this boy and the Alhaitham of the past is the green Amurta symbol on his hat.
The Amurta boy gives Kaveh a worried look. “Are you alright, mister? I didn’t hurt you by accident, did I?”
Kaveh shakes his head quickly. “No, no, I’m quite alright. I would’ve had a nasty spill if you hadn’t caught me. Thank you again.”
The boy looks relieved at that, and he gives a polite bow. “It’s no problem. I’m glad you didn’t fall, sir. Please be careful, the tile can be slippery.”
Kaveh thanks the boy one more time before continuing on his way to the House of Daena, more carefully now. The boy’s face sticks in his mind as he puts one foot in front of the other, thoughts of Alhaitham’s and his time at the Akademiya crowding him suddenly. When he opens the doors to the House of Daena, he instinctively looks over to the corner where he and Alhaitham had first met.
“What a long time ago, that was,” he murmurs to himself. Alhaitham had looked so young when they first met, that two year gap seeming endlessly wide. He had been Kaveh’s cute little junior, so naive and innocent, yet shockingly intelligent at the same time. Kaveh had always wanted to protect him from the world, even before he realized just how much the young boy had come to mean to him. He never would’ve dreamed, though, at the time of their first meeting, that he would end up spending most of his life with Alhaitham. That they would grow old together.
As he skims the shelves for the medical journals he had come to find, he does his best to ignore the less pleasant memories that come with their Akademiya days. The insults, the shouted words, the tears, the shredding of paper, the regret. They had discussed and moved past the thesis dispute decades ago, but the memories of the things he had said and the things he heard back still ache, like old wounds.
Kaveh spends around an hour hunched over medical journals, skimming over the jargon he doesn’t understand, and barely processing what little he is familiar with. His head is filled with memories, all too vivid to allow him to focus on the words on the page, and he leaves the House of Daena with no more clarity than he had entered with. The few articles he had managed to digest told him nothing he didn’t already know. Suddenly worsening issues with memory can be a warning sign for a whole slew of different medical conditions, all more prevalent in people over the age of sixty-five. That much, he was aware of already. He had hoped that reading more about what’s happening to Alhaitham would make him feel better, but all he’s left with as he slowly walks home is an aching shoulder and a heavy heart.
When he gets home, Alhaitham is sleeping on the couch, his face half-buried in a pillow. For some reason, he looks much older to Kaveh than he usually does. He’s always had certain “old man” habits that Kaveh made fun of him for when he was younger, such as sleeping during the day, or reading on the porch, but he’s also always had this sort of youthful energy about him that seems absent, these days. Seeing him do those “old man” things now makes him look, well, old. It’s scaring Kaveh, a little bit. Aging is inevitable, he knows that, and he’s accepted his own physical and mental decline with what he would call grace, but for some reason, he’s been really bothered by the recent reminders that Alhaitham is experiencing the same process. It’s not that he thinks Alhaitham is immune to aging, but some small part of him really believes that he should be. Immortality isn’t always a gift, but Kaveh would be much more at peace if he knew for sure that Alhaitham would still be around when he has to say his final goodbye.
“I’m home,” Kaveh says quietly, approaching the couch and running his fingers through Alhaitham’s hair. He barely stirs, clearly quite deeply asleep, despite the early hour. Kaveh decides not to bother him. He’ll sleep through the night regardless of how much he naps during the day, Kaveh knows. If he wakes him up now, he’ll just get a grumpy Alhaitham for the rest of today, which wouldn’t be ideal. He should continue his sunflower painting while Alhaitham naps. That’s a quiet enough activity, and it might help get his mind off the inevitability of death, at least for a little while.
So Kaveh gets set up to start painting again while Alhaitham sleeps. His fingers and back already hurt from hunching over and turning the pages of the medical journals he was reading before, but he really does need to do something to distract his mind. As he paints, he focuses intently on every stroke of his brush, not letting his mind wander. Every time it does drift away, he gently redirects it back to the simple movement of his brush and the bright smears of paint on the canvas. They’ll be okay. No matter what happens, they’ll be okay.