Chapter Text
Kaveh could tell something was wrong from the moment he woke up, face down at his messy work desk. No matter how much he slept, the weight of the constant all nighters clung to him, never quite being able to shake the fatigue they caused him. Lately, there's been less and less of a point in sleeping at all, just stolen hours he could spend perfecting his latest design. However like what had obviously just occurred, sleep would steal him away without him even realizing.
This time was different, from the moment his eyes creaked open, a sharp pain assaulted them, digging into his eye sockets and temples. He winced audibly and screwed his eyes shut again. He lifted his head slowly from the table, papers sticking to his cheek before falling away. The shift sent a surge of white hot pain through his skull, Kaveh grabbed his face and gritted his teeth, drawing in hissing breaths to try and ride out the pain. In a few moments the worst of it subsided, although he still had to squint in the dim candle light. Even it burned his eyes.
He wasn't unfamiliar with migraines, terrible work hours and near constant sleep deprivation were nothing new, add a dependency on alcohol and feeling awful was routine—though today was particularly brutal.
He closed his eyes and leaned back over his desk, resting his forehead on the back of his hand, and hanging his head low. His face inches from the drawing he had fallen asleep on, a project whose deadline quickly approached and caused a pit to form in his stomach when he thought about the work ahead. He let out a long sigh, his face still contorted in pain.
He felt sticky, he had fallen asleep in his outside clothes, not bothering to change out of his fine garments before making good on a stroke of inspiration that hit him hours ago. A thin layer of sweat clung to his body, making his delicate cotton shirt stick uncomfortably to his skin. The deeper lines of his face collected small amounts of sweat as well, and he could feel it starting to gather around his eyes as he continued to squeeze them shut.
A wash of heat coated his face, like he was sitting slightly too close to a fire. Everything was uncomfortable—each breath through his nose felt like it was setting his upper lip on fire. His headache hammered like a blacksmith’s anvil, each pulse a fresh blow that sent waves of agony crashing through his skull. It drowned out any thought before it could form, leaving him with nothing but shuddering, whistling breaths through the pain. It took a monumental effort for, in his misery, a singular, painfully simple, and disjointed, thought to form,
"Change clothes... and... and water."
He sat up once more, doing his best to ignore the drumming in his skull. He brushed his hair back, took a deep inhale, and steeled himself for what comes next. In some aspects it might have been funny, a man readying himself to stand from his desk chair like it was some big leap of faith. He placed a shaking on his desk, and the other on the back of his chair and hoisted himself up, grimacing as his headache surged.
Now upright, a wave of dizziness washed over him, akin to what one would feel from standing up too fast. His vision was pulled away from him at the edges, narrowing to a thin tunnel of flickering light as the darkness rushed in. Blood pounded in his ears. The world spun like a carousel, and as he took a few wary steps towards his wardrobe, the ground tilted beneath him. Gravity pulled him from every direction, yanking him sideways, sending him stumbling, swaying like a drunkard. The world itself swirled, twisting, like a vortex. He tried his best to stay upward but with his vision all but robbed from him, the floor rose up to meet him as he collided with a small side table, sending them both crashing into the ground.
He sat there a moment in a messy heap on the ground. His body entangled with the furniture, trying to regain himself. He took slow deliberate breaths. Though his body begged him to gasp for air, he forced himself with a stubborn resolve, to calm down.
He blinked, his eyes were wide open but they only saw darkness. He tilted his head up, opening his chest up to let in more air. If someone were to walk in on him now, they would probably mistake him for a marathon runner, not someone how stumbled a few feet.
"Ah… That’s right…"
His tumble must have caused a very loud noise, with just just him, but the wooden table also hitting the floor. He looked towards the window, it was dark outside, though he couldn’t be sure of the exact time, it was most likely very late at night, or even early morning. Either way Alhaitham was sure to be sleeping. Kaveh prayed that he was able to sleep through the racket he caused. Not out of consideration however, the idea of his roommate walking in on him in this sorry state was enough to make his stomach turn and skin crawl. To the point where he was turned off of the water Kaveh originally planned to get, not that be believed he had the wherewithal to get it now.
Kaveh cringed at the thought of Alhaitham seeing him like this, in a sorry pile on the ground. He would probably take more than a few unnecessary jabs, ones at his work ethic, ones at his appearance, and a few at his drinking habits for good measure. It was enough to make Kaveh’s head hurt on a good day, and today… well… he just didn’t want to deal with his roommate at the moment.
He took a few more grounding breaths while he waited for his vision to return. His body felt heavy, like each of his limbs had been drained and filled with sand. The room itself was quite warm but the cold floor and layer of sweat that coated him made him shiver. He leaned forward to begin a crawl towards his bed, giving up on walking entirely. It wasn’t a lot of distance to cover but every movement was a hit to his pride, his face flushed at the very thought of someone seeing him, and he made a conscious effort not to make any noise that would alert his roommate. He stayed low to the ground and moved slowly, like Rishboland Tiger stalking its prey. A noise came from somewhere in the house, Kaveh tensed up, listening intently for anything to follow, not daring to move a muscle until he was absolutely sure no one was there, and still waited a few more minutes after that. When he eventually made it to his bed, it took a great deal of effort to hoist himself up into a seated position. He leaned onto the wall his bed was pushed against, like the floor it was cool to the touch, but in a way that felt like heaven on his flushed face, he didn’t want to lean away from it.
“In a moment I’ll change,” he thought to himself, although he made no effort to move from his current spot. His body still felt leaden, like a heavy blanket was pinning him down, making even the smallest movement feel like a monumental task. He had things he had to do, the drawing that laid on the desk needed to be finished urgently. It was a large, multi-person project for a client high up in the Akademiya. Doing a good job meant new doors and better opportunities opening up to him, and a potential for high paying work that he desperately needed, he was already behind on rent as it is. As a result, Kaveh was more than eager to take on a larger workload to distinguish himself, not knowing how much he’d regret it now. He cursed himself for wasting so much time, if he hadn’t fallen asleep he could’ve made somewhat of a dent in the mountains of work he had to get done. The drawing he was working on was awful, and still needed heavy revisions before it could even be considered presentable, he just did not have time.
He wanted to work on it some more—he needed to. If only…if only he wasn’t so… so tired.