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A look at the clock read 20:34.
“We should have dinner.”
Kaveh didn’t seem to have heard him. His figure was scrunched over the living room table, golden hair pulled into an achingly tight bun and unwashed for a few days. He was scribbling furiously over a mind map filled with too many intersecting arrows and confusingly colour-coded facts, seemingly having compromised his so-beloved sense of aesthetics for the sake of practicality given their time constraints.
Unclear and muddled as it was, the mind map did do an excellent job of representing how both of their minds would probably look if one could peer into the skull. Messy and contradicting itself at every other sentence, running on three hours of sleep and a few cups of water, barely. Alhaitham had refilled his cup several times over the past few hours, but Kaveh’s remained untouched except for a couple of unreliable sips.
“It’s past dinner time,” he repeated, standing up and stretching his left wrist.
Haravatat’s assessments were almost entirely essay-based, which meant the exam period was essentially spent writing non-stop for three hours at a time in the Akademiya halls, then writing non-stop for even more hours while preparing for the next exam. The pressure wasn’t appreciated by his dominant hand. Perhaps he should follow in Kaveh's footsteps and train for ambidexterity.
“I’ll just finish this up,” Kaveh murmured, eyes still locked onto the page.
Sighing, Alhaitham made his way into the kitchen to scour the cryo box for something to feed his neglected tummy. They were in his childhood home, which was too spacious for its single inhabitant; Kaveh had practically moved in over the last few months, much too uncomfortable in the house his mother had left behind with a ghost or two living in the walls. Having someone by your side during the Akademiya’s infamous exam period was blissfully helpful in preventing a young scholar from cracking from pressure, but Alhaitham still wished his grandmother was there.
For her smile, her voice, her humming and her hugs, mostly, but also because, in moments like this, he felt more intimately the effect of having no one to take care of him. Most of the neatly packaged food in the cryo box was prepared by his own hands, and after the meal, they would have to wash the dishes. The thought made him huff in displeasure — wet food was a sensory nightmare, and it disgusted him to an unreasonable extent. It was usually a chore Kaveh took care of, but he couldn’t allow Kaveh to do it by himself when he had been working incessantly for over five hours. Knowing his best friend, he would smile brightly despite the deep eyebags circling his cheeks and chirp that the chores were no problem, concealing the coiling fear of failure knotting up his gut.
Alhaitham would normally take the time and effort to dissect Kaveh’s mood and reassure him of his worth, but, tonight, the exhaustion seeping into his limbs clouded his vision to everything except for the thought of being able to relax.
The cryo box had nothing in it but leftover soup from takeout over the weekend. He slammed the lid much too forcefully before inhaling sharply, one hand on his forehead.
“Haitham?” There was the sound of a chair scraping — awful, what an uncomfortable noise — and a few muted footsteps behind him.
“Haitham?” Kaveh repeated, more gently this time. He was close enough that Alhaitham could feel the warmth of his body, but they weren’t touching. Kaveh knew better than to touch him when he was feeling overwhelmed — a hug often felt constricting, closing off his chest so that he couldn’t breathe.
It wasn’t the case of this particular moment, which had much more to do with frustration than anything else, but Kaveh’s quiet sentiment didn’t go unnoticed. He had always been much more perceptive than he let on.
“It’s nothing. We’ll have soup for dinner. Please set the kitchen table.”
“I can go to Lambad’s and get something else. It’s not a problem.”
“It is a problem,” Alhaitham snapped, reopening the cryo box with calculated restraint. “We’re both short on time. We can pass by Lambad’s tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Kaveh’s tone didn’t sound very certain, but he complied regardless, reaching for two bowls. “What do you still have to do today?”
“Review flashcards for Advanced Phonology and revise my Enkanomiyan vocabulary.”
He had an oral assessment the following morning, which meant he had to speak for fifteen minutes on end — perhaps more tiring than a three-hour exam. And it was at an early hour too, which meant he would need to drown in coffee to be awake enough to achieve a decent grade.
Really, Alhaitham didn’t care about his performance as long as he passed. However, knowing that this was most students’ mindset, the Akademiya’s professors had increased the grade boundaries until only thirty percent of students passed straight away. It was only the more insane ones (Kaveh included) who desperately wanted to surpass that threshold by a considerable amount.
And Alhaitham, at this moment, deeply regretted having piled on four foreign languages to achieve fluency in in just one semester. It had seemed like a reasonable idea a few months before, when he calculated the workload he needed to graduate with twenty languages by the age of twenty-one, but now, the sheer number of exams he had scheduled over two weeks was maddening.
“I can help you with the flashcards,” Kaveh suggested cheerily as he refilled Alhaitham’s cup of water.
“Focus on your own work.”
“Let me help you, Haitham. Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”
He watched the soup swirl with heat on the stovetop. “Precisely. Take care of yourself. I don’t want you to lose even more sleep because of me. I’m perfectly capable of studying on my own.”
Rolling his eyes, Kaveh rested his chin on his hands. “It’s just a couple weeks of all-nighters. I’ll live.”
And, really, he had a point. It was only two weeks of this unbearable stress, two weeks of not sleeping enough and ripping himself off the bed while his limbs physically hurt — was that normal? —, two weeks of this and then it would be over. A short, temporary sacrifice. And then, after graduating, he could get a simple, cushy job at the Akademiya with short working hours and a comfortable income.
He could deal with the regular Akademiya workload, which sent most students into sobs on their second week of class. Really, he could juggle one hundred pages of reading for class per day and a lengthy assignment a week and thirty hours of lectures while still having free time, but this. This was something else entirely. There was little he despised more than giving up his ability to have a modicum of peace.
The soup started to bubble. He watched the liquid with an unconscious grimace, its strong, hearty smell suddenly much too strong for him. He had entertained the naive hope of perhaps reading a little during dinner as a respite but, evidently, that would be impossible. This finicky, splashy thing would get his pages dirty.
How fucking excellent.
Another glance at the clock told him it was now 20:41. It would be past nine when they were finished eating, and nine was usually the time he climbed under fluffy covers with a book to unwind from the day. It would be much later than ten when he could finally close his textbook, and ten was usually the time he turned off his bedside lamp to drift into sleep.
The soup taunted him with its little bubbles. It reminded him that he couldn’t read today, and he couldn’t sleep, and he couldn’t listen to music in the privacy of his room for a half-hour, and he couldn’t even talk to Kaveh about something inconsequential, because they were drowning in revisions.
“I think it’s hot enough, Haitham.”
He had really thought he’d be able to sleep enough, this exam season. But evidently not. He had thought that, surely, if he sacrificed all his free time usually spent on reading and whatnot, he’d be able to, at the very least, sleep eight hours a night, even if his body craved nine at minimum.
It was all grinding down his patience. The books on the shelves in the living room taunted him, and the black smudge of ink on his wrist taunted him, and the empty cryo box taunted him, and that fucking soup, too, taunted him. Even the—
“It’s hot enough.”
The sudden voice, much closer than Alhaitham would have expected, made him flinch. Kaveh moved away instantly, blinking in surprise.
“Are you okay?”
“No,” he spat, before breathing deeply. That smell was nauseating. “I’m stressed.”
Kaveh, damn his unnerving and limitless empathy, smiled apologetically. “I know, Haitham. The Akademiya is a torture machine. But we’ll get through this together, alright? And when it’s done we’ll sleep in for two days straight and enjoy our holidays.”
“I want to sleep.” It sounded childish even to him, and he hated saying something so petulant to Kaveh, of all people — the only one whose opinion of him actually mattered. “I haven’t read for pleasure at all in two days.”
“Maybe you can take a short break? Read a little after dinner, relax, then go back to studying. No harm done.”
“Much harm done, because I don’t have that time. I already don’t have enough time to sleep.”
“You can sleep twenty minutes later to do some reading.”
“I can’t sleep twenty minutes later because I’m already sleeping three hours later, so that’s three hours and twenty minutes later, and it’s actually four hours and twenty minutes later, because I have to sleep nine hours, in fact, not eight, and I’m waking up exhausted every morning, and I hate—” His lips were quivering. “I hate feeling like this.”
Kaveh gently sneaked his hand over to the stovetop, turning off the heat. “Let it out. Don’t be embarrassed. You have the right to be tired.”
Alhaitham whimpered as he stepped back, leaning against the counter. His vision was starting to cloud with tears, and he thought, this doesn’t help at all, you’re feeling this way because of the sleep deprivation, the solution is to sleep, you’re wasting more sleeping time by taking a moment to cry.
But he knew it was fruitless to fight it. It was a natural physiological response, and there was nothing he could do. A couple of quiet sobs choked in his throat, and several drops of salty water travelled down his cheeks.
Kaveh approached him with a concerned frown. Kaveh, who should be studying or eating, not focusing on Alhaitham, because he, too, was sleep-deprived and stressed and overworked. He was even more sleep-deprived, in fact, often still hunched over that cursed table when Alhaitham stepped out of the corridor to brew the morning’s pot of coffee.
“Kaveh,” he breathed out, with a wobbly voice. “You have to take care of yourself.”
Kaveh cocked his head at that, confused by the change in topic. “I know. You too. But, right now, Haitham, you’re not feeling well, so it’s time for me to take care of you, alright? Like you do with me.”
He offered the cup of water, and Alhaitham accepted it with a sniffle. The tears kept coming down, more noisily now, and it seemed that the flood walls had opened and wouldn’t be relenting any time soon. He surrendered to the sensation, even though it would have his nose blocked soon, a sensation which he hated, and drank more water.
“Do you want a hug?”
He considered it. Kaveh looked warm and soft in the oversized shirt which hung off one of his shoulders, and a curly blonde lock had found its way out of his tight bun.
“Yes.”
Kaveh approached him slowly and with a gentle smile, guiding Alhaitham’s face to bury itself in the crook of his neck. “There we go.”
His arms encircled Alhaitham’s torso with their soft cotton sleeves, warmly but not firmly enough to have him feeling suffocated. The tender embrace, complete with the subtle smell of the shampoo they shared, felt surprisingly… soothing. It eased the nausea that had taken hold of Alhaitham’s gut, loosening the sensation into something almost bearable.
Kaveh, Kaveh, all around him, in his five senses. His even breathing was right by Alhaitham’s ear, and its cadence was grounding. His fingers started to run gently in between grey locks, rubbing affectionately at his scalp, and Alhaitham properly melted into the touch.
The relaxation in his shoulders made him realise that it was fine. It was going to be fine. Because Kaveh was holding him, so whatever was going on really couldn’t be that bad, because there was blonde hair between his fingertips and that one mole on Kaveh’s neck was right under his nose and this hug was warm, and— someone was taking care of him.
It was always Kaveh. Always Kaveh that he wanted in moments of vulnerability, only Kaveh that he trusted to see the irrational part of him and not change his opinion of him. It always came down to the two of them.
“Thank you,” he murmured, after a long few moments, which meant, in common tongue, I love you.
“I’m always here if you need,” Kaveh replied, gently, which meant, really…
Well. Alhaitham didn’t know. Yet.
Alhaitham looked towards the large, elegant clock on the wall of the Grand Sage’s office, which read 20:34.
Namely, three hours and thirty-four minutes past the end of his official working hours.
He wasn’t daft, naturally, knowing perfectly well that there was no such thing as “working hours” for a Grand Sage, acting or not — he remained at the Akademiya until the work for the day was complete, which included reviewing mountains of paperwork and unneeded bureaucracy and too many meetings with people who shouldn’t have ever been given positions of power.
The Spantamad Sage was rambling incessantly about something utterly irrelevant, and Alhaitham’s head was starting to ache from having heard too many objectively idiotic opinions in one day. He longed to increase the noise cancelling on his earpieces and drown out the noise.
“We will continue this discussion tomorrow,” he announced, noting that six whole minutes had passed and the Sage was still talking.
“But, sir, this is a matter of utmost importance in—”
“I disagree. We will resume tomorrow morning.” He internally sighed at the thought of having to come into work before nine. “I have several matters to attend to before the end of today, and this meeting was scheduled to end at eight. Therefore, I have no time left. Good evening.”
The Sages were, at least, intelligent enough to understand that they were being kicked out and nothing would change his mind. There was an uncomfortable hollowness in his tummy from too many hours without a proper meal — he and Kaveh usually had dinner at seven —, and that, too, was grinding at his patience.
He would work through the rest of the outstanding paperwork at home, rather than here. No task can be completed to a decent quality when one is exhausted and hungry, as Alhaitham had learned in his student days, and it would be stupid to fight your own biology. He would go home, eat, perhaps take some time to unwind, and then unfortunately sit at his desk.
“Welcome home,” Kaveh called as he opened the door, smiling that gorgeous bright smile of his. It managed to immediately improve Alhaitham’s mood by an impressive extent. “What an honour, to be in the company of the Grand Sage.”
“Acting.”
“Nonetheless,” Kaveh sang, pecking his cheek. The proximity meant Alhaitham managed to inhale the floral scent of the expensive shampoo Kaveh kept in their shower box — which Alhaitham secretly used, too —, and he wrapped his arms around his husband to keep the scent right there.
“Bad day?” Kaveh murmured, hugging him back.
“Long day.”
He hummed, running his fingers over Alhaitham’s scalp with tender firmness. “Dinner’s ready, if you’re hungry. I made that absolute crime against cuisine you like, the stew baked into a pie.”
“Thank you.”
“Anything for you, sweetheart.” Kaveh kissed his lips sweetly, melting into the touch.
“Mm.”
Dinner was a more than welcome respite but, unfortunately, he was still forced to return to bureaucracy once his stomach was content.
The clock read 21:37 as he pored over an application for funding. Then 21:43 as he moved on to the next one. And 22:58 by the time he moved on to the last document.
A welcome warmth poured onto his shoulder as Kaveh rested his chin there. “I brought you some tea.”
He took a large gulp of the lovely calming blend, stretching his left wrist against the mug’s handle.
“I’m almost done. Will you come to bed with me?”
“I still have a blueprint to finish.”
Alhaitham turned his head back with a grimace. “These clients aren’t worth your sleep. Will I have to carry you to bed again? Your husband is in need of cuddling tonight.”
Throwing his head back in laughter in that gorgeous, delicious way he always did, which was impossible not to fall in love with, Kaveh rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll wake up earlier tomorrow morning, then.”
“Me too, unfortunately. Seven.”
“We’ll wake up together, then.” Kaveh nuzzled his hair — much shorter than it used to be, there was no need for an uncomfortable bun anymore — onto Alhaitham’s shoulder, placing a chaste kiss on the exposed skin.
“I can wake up at six fifty-six then, for an extra four minutes of cuddling with you.”
“What were you saying about things not being worth losing your sleep over?”
“I wasn’t referring to time in your arms.” He leaned comfortably against Kaveh’s touch. “You’re always worth it, my love.”
It was 23:19 when they collapsed into bed together, Kaveh giggling warmly against Alahitham’s soft smile, and the stress dripped off him like water. He buried his face in the crook of Kaveh’s neck like he always did, kissing that same pretty mole.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Kaveh kissed his forehead. “I’m always here if you need.”