Work Text:
There are a lot of things Alhaitham needs to get done soon.
Really, there shouldn’t be. Nahida has finally convinced him to use some of his long built up vacation time after his stint as the Grand Sage to have a moment to himself and his partners. Cyno can’t exactly have as long of a vacation as the Scribe, but even he’s gotten some time off to be at Alhaitham and Kaveh’s home. Tighnari, once he heard about all the relevant free time, easily relinquished some of his duties to Collei and the other forest rangers. Collei has sent her heartfelt regards and is apparently very proud of herself for being trusted alone for this long, so Alhaitham’s heard.
Kaveh can’t be as easily convinced as the rest of them, but he hesitantly agreed to lessen up on the projects until their time together is up, which is more than the rest of them could’ve hoped for.
For Alhaitham, this is a time for tying up loose ends and finishing the last dregs of paperwork. Alhaitham should be ecstatic — or, at least, his version of it. But since it’s his last few days before he’s off for a couple of weeks, people have instead decided that these are the exact moments they need to submit all of their applications, drafts, and whatever else. Cyno and Tighnari just came in today, and he wasn’t even able to see them until late this evening because he’s been so swamped.
This amount of work was something he became used to as the Grand Sage, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. It exhausted him, made him more prone to sensory overload and just general discomfort. When he got back to being just the Scribe, he became too relaxed too quickly once his workload had lessened, and now it’s come back tenfold. Alhaitham was tired.
So why couldn’t he just go to sleep?
His partners were sleeping soundly next to him. Cyno and Tighnari had easily made themselves comfortable despite the limited space. It started with the two of them having their own separate room in Alhaitham’s house, but quickly devolved into them just crawling into bed with him and Kaveh. The other room has no use now, except for when Collei sleeps over.
Most of the limited space comes from Kaveh sprawling himself out wherever his limbs can reach. Alhaitham’s not quite sure where his leg ends and Kaveh’s leg begins. It’s nothing that’s troubled him before, though. Kaveh runs alarmingly cold, so Alhaitham and the others subconsciously like to keep him close at night. This doesn’t bother him.
Cyno and Tighnari are on the whole other side of the bed, so it’s not them either. Neither of them move much or make sounds in their sleep — Tighnari would wake himself up if that were so, and Cyno has trained himself over the years to keep both quiet and alert while sleeping.
Alhaitham has switched positions at least ten times by now, which is a first for him. Usually, he can fall asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. So what’s the problem? He has to get to sleep soon, or else he’s going to be even more miserable at work tomorrow. His eyes keep opening of their own accord for no good reason other than to stare at the ceiling or the faces beside him.
There’s no disturbing fabrics around him that might hinder his ability to relax — he’s already thrown the blankets off of him a couple times to be sure of that. He’s not too warm or too cold. There’s no odd sounds that scream out at him. What was wrong?
Alhaitham takes a deep breath. In, and out. He only had a couple days left before he could be done with his work and pass it all off to the substitute. Just a couple of days. He has to finish a certain amount of it, though, or at least make a good amount of notes for said substitute, otherwise they’ll have no idea what they’re going through. Alhaitham has a very specific routine and way of organizing his things before they’re officially filed. Just another task.
Technically, he didn’t have to do any of that. He could just leave the substitute to their own devices. But depending on who’s going to be filling in for him, it may just leave him with more work in the long run. Alhaitham has met his fair share of people in the Akademiya who will simply not do something if they don’t know how to sort it out, for a place dependent on learning.
Now there’s a thought. What if his substitute is someone completely incapable? He’d be left with more work than he did as the Grand Sage if that were the case. Granted, no one could do his work as well as he can — he’s the Scribe for a reason — but would he even be able to rest easy at home knowing that there could be a mountain of unfinished, lazily done work awaiting him?
He feels a little frantic now. Maybe he should try to do some things in advance. There’s not really much he can do in that department, his work comes from waiting on other people’s work. Hm, a conundrum. What else can he do besides what he’s already doing? Go into work right now, instead of sleeping? He’s beginning to seriously consider it.
Alhaitham sighs, but the tight, uneasy feeling in his chest doesn’t come out with it. Perhaps he should get up. Not to go into work, obviously, but maybe he can read for a bit or something.
Alhaitham carefully untangles himself from Kaveh’s many limbs and tries not to fall off the edge of the bed as he regrettably gets out of bed. His body feels heavy, he’s so tired, but he just can’t sleep. It must be late by now — there’s not a single sound that he can pick up from outside.
He trudges toward the kitchen, planning tomorrow’s (today’s?) day out in his head as he grabs a glass from the cabinet. If he gets there as early as possible, and bypasses Nahida’s occasional check-in, he might be able to finish enough work so that he can come home at a reasonable time. The perfect day in his head would maybe include a nap at lunchtime, but Alhaitham’s not even sure he’ll have time for lunch itself.
He takes his glass of water to the divan and settles down there, grabbing a random book from the table and opening it to a random page. He’s able to actually read for a good couple minutes or so, before his thoughts drift back to his plan for the day and he ends up stuck there again. Nahida would be very upset if she found out he was skipping lunch, and because those little eyes are disturbingly all-seeing, she probably will find out and subject him to a long meal-filled chat with her. He doesn’t have time for that, as much as he does enjoy her company.
Alhaitham drops the book on the divan, not even bothering to mark his place, and rubs his hands over his face a few times. What else can he do? How can he utilize his limited time? He has to. He’s not one to worry about others' opinions, but his partners are especially important to him. If he’s working the entire time they’re taking off for him, that would certainly make them upset. He knows the upset of not being able to drag Kaveh away from his work, after all.
God, Alhaitham feels sick. Is he sick? He can’t be sick, not now. Now would be the worst time possible to get sick. He can’t be sick. He doesn’t feel warm whenever he drags a hand across his own forehead, but could still be sporting a fever nonetheless. The nausea is definitely there, though, and his breathing is shallow in a way reminiscent of his particularly bad meltdowns or sensory overloads. But there’s no sense to be overloaded, Alhaitham has already been over that.
As he begins tracking his symptoms and trying to figure out what he’s come down with, his breathing slowly gets worse. He can feel the tightness in his chest, and tries to reign it in, but it just becomes more labored and strained.
Alhaitham instinctively moves a hand to his chest, above his heart, but the panicked feeling slowly creeping in only reaches its peak when he realizes how fast his heart is beating.
Is he having a fucking heart attack?
God, it wouldn’t be impossible. He distantly thinks that with the amount of stress he’s been under, maybe he should be surprised a heart attack hasn’t come sooner. Then, the reality of the situation sets in, and he stills.
He’s having a heart attack. He needs help. He needs to wake somebody up, maybe? Tighnari. He needs Tighnari. Tighnari’s a doctor. Or something. He can help.
Despite this train of thought, Alhaitham stays exactly where he is, seated on the floor in front of the divan with his shirt gripped in his hands. Just get up. It’s so easy. He can’t move. Why can’t he move? And how did he get to the floor in the first place? Wasn’t he just sitting down on the divan?
There’s a noise other than his warped lungs, and he thinks it’s a voice. He’s not sure if it’s his or someone else’s, but he can’t tell because his vision is so blurry all of a sudden.
Something touches his arm, incredibly gently, but Alhaitham still flinches away like he’s been burned. He blinks away the blurriness, distantly registering the fact that his eyes burn slightly, and locks eyes with Tighnari sitting in front of him.
Thank fuck. Alhaitham tries to speak, tries to get out something along the lines of Tighnari, I’m having a heart attack, help, but all that comes out is a pathetic whine.
“I know, I know, you’re okay,” Tighnari says, holding his hands palm-up in front of him, voice surprisingly calm considering the fact that Alhaitham’s having a heart attack. “You’re going to be okay. Can you hear me yet?”
Alhaitham swallows some of the pain in his throat, tries to calm his breathing a little and fails, instead settling for a nod. Tighnari nods back, a small smile tilting up on his face even with the evident worry in his eyes.
“I need you to breathe, Haitham. You’re okay,” Tighnari says, but Alhaitham just whines again.
“I can’t— I can’t breathe— I’m—“
“Yes you can.” Oh, like it’s so easy. Alhaitham tries to glare at him, but he’s not sure it’s very intimidating in his current state. It must not be, because Tighnari just grabs one of his hands and gently unravels it from his shirt, then moves it to his own chest. Alhaitham can feel him taking exaggerated breaths under his palm, up and down.
He tries to follow it, he knows that’s what he’s supposed to do, but it’s so hard. He thinks he lets out a sob, maybe, because Tighnari’s breathing hitches for a second before he’s grabbing Alhaitham’s other hand too, just to hold it. It’s always strange for them to see Alhaitham cry. It’s strange for himself too.
Eventually, Alhaitham hones in on Tighnari’s breathing and feels a little less like he’s going to die. He can hear his heart pounding in his ears, but he can’t see black spots anymore, so that must be a good sign. He tries to relax his muscles and ends up just falling forward into Tighnari, who catches him easily and guides his head to his chest to continue matching his breathing.
He closes his eyes for a minute, just to focus on it, and when he’s able to actually hear Tighnari speaking placating and soothing words above him, he realizes he doesn’t feel so suffocated anymore. He can just feel Tighnari’s arms around him and the vibrations of his chest and his soft tail brushing against his back. Somehow, his heart attack has passed. Or something.
There’s a sniffling noise coming from beside them, so Alhaitham finally opens his eyes to see Kaveh in his line of sight, sitting next to them with red, puffy eyes as if Alhaitham’s plight was just too much to bear for him. He silently curses Kaveh’s wild empathy, certainly not for the first time.
Once Kaveh sees his eyes open, he gives him a shaky smile and tilts his head to be straight ahead with him. “Hey,” He says, wiping his face as subtly as he can — which, for Kaveh, is not subtle at all. “You back with us?”
Tighnari stops talking at that, and it’s only when he stills that Alhaitham realizes he’s been rocking them. It felt nice. Soothing. Tighnari always seems to do that with Alhaitham, something about a calming stimulation to help focus and comfort. He makes to lean back to look at Alhaitham’s face, but seems to think better of it when Alhaitham shakily wraps his arms around his torso.
“Hey there,” Tighnari greets in a soft voice. Alhaitham can hear the gentle smile in it. He tilts his head up to see it for himself, and the smile only widens. The furrow in his eyebrow doesn’t leave, though. “How are you feeling?”
Alhaitham blinks up at him. Better, he means to say, but all that comes out is, “Did I have a heart attack?”
A huff sounds from behind him, and Alhaitham has to twist a little to see Cyno on the other side of Tighnari, expression widely blank as usual. There’s a twitch on the corner of his mouth though, a slight amusement prevalent even with the badly hidden concern in his eyes.
“No, not a heart attack,” Tighnari sighs, moving one of his hands up to card through Alhaitham’s hair. “It looked to be a panic attack.”
Alhaitham turns back to him, blinking some more. Huh. I suppose it did feel similar to a sensory overload, he thinks. He feels a little embarrassed that his first thought was ‘death from heart attack,’ now that he really considers it.
He sees Kaveh attempt to touch him out of the corner of his eye, before apparently backtracking and leaning back again. Alhaitham sighs when he sees his stupidly adorable watery eyes, and stretches an arm out wordlessly.
Kaveh understands, though, immediately moving closer to lean on Tighnari and hold Alhaitham’s hand, his other hand moving to rub up and down his arm comfortingly. It’s reminiscent of when Alhaitham does the same for Kaveh, massaging his hand and arm whenever he cramps up and has to stop working.
Cyno moves closer too, dragging a hand up and down Alhaitham’s back, and for a moment he thinks he can just fall asleep here. What a wonder that would be, after the night he’s had.
After a moment of mentally running through said night in his head, he realizes something. “What made you all come out here?” He asks. He doesn’t think he was yelling. God, he hopes not.
Kaveh frowns, tilting his head. Tighnari raises an eyebrow at him and looks over to the side. Alhaitham follows his gaze and finds his abandoned glass of water broken on the floor. What a pain.
Alhaitham simply hums, “I don’t… remember doing that.”
“You were having a panic attack,” Tighnari repeats, “It’s possible you hit it on your way down from the divan.”
Right, and he slipped off of the divan, too. Maybe in his subconscious plea to get help. He sighs, burying his face deeper into Tighnari’s chest. He got his shirt wet. He would apologize, if he didn’t know that Tighnari wouldn’t care.
“Have you experienced panic attacks before?” Cyno asks, and a pang of guilt shoots through Alhaitham at the gravelly voice that tells him Cyno just woke up.
“Not beyond sensory overload, or meltdowns,” Alhaitham answers, and hopes his voice isn’t too muffled. He doesn’t want to lift his head just yet.
Tighnari hums, sending a vibration through his chest that Alhaitham just wants to crawl into at this point. “Did anything trigger it? Did you have a nightmare?”
He shakes his head, dreading the next question.
“Have you been experiencing more stress than usual lately?”
He grumbles a little, tightening his arms around Tighnari. “Possibly.”
Kaveh sighs, and Alhaitham can almost feel the eye roll in the air. “I believe it’s a yes or no question, Alhaitham. You didn’t experience anything as bad as this during your time as the Gra— Acting Grand Sage, did you?”
“Not to this extent, no.”
There’s a moment of silence, as if they’re waiting for him to elaborate. He doesn’t.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Tighnari assures, “But we’d like to know what’s wrong, to better support you.”
Alhaitham hums a small noise of acknowledgement, and thinks about it for a moment. Really, he’s so tired right now that there’s not much thinking to be had. As relaxed as he is, it’s almost easy how the explanation starts to slip out. “There’s so much to do.”
Cyno lays down on the floor, and Alhaitham feels even more guilty about him being tired before he realizes that Cyno’s just doing it to get a better view of his face through both his and Tighnari’s arms. Or, as much as he can, anyway. “How so? With work or something else?”
“With work,” Alhaitham answers, “I have to get a lot of things done before my vacation time starts. There’s going to be a substitute, but they won’t know how to handle things unless I finish up the in-progress things first and write out some notes—“
“That’s not necessarily true,” Cyno says, easily. Alhaitham turns his head a little, just to level him with a glare. “I mean it,” He says, “Nahida would not allow someone who didn’t already know the ropes to take your place.”
“It’s true you might have to leave some notes about the organization process or maybe some specific applications,” Tighnari nods, “But they know the position they’re filling.”
Kaveh stills his movements just to hold a hand between his two own, “I agree. Lord Kusanali would know best.” His voice wavers a little, still slightly uncomfortable with referring to his god so ‘casually,’ in his words.
“But, since I’m leaving, people are taking it as an opportunity to bombard me with all of these specific cases that they know will need to be handled by myself—“
“Every student knows the consequences of procrastinating a deadline. I know I do,” Kaveh huffs out an almost-laugh, “That’s their responsibility. You can finish them when you return to work, or they can take this opportunity to revoke their stuff to actually work on.”
“Not everyone is as bad of a student as you were, Kaveh,” Alhaitham mumbles, like a habit.
Kaveh slaps his arm in retaliation, “I am the top of my Darshan! How dare—“
“The point is…” Tighnari cuts him off, “…that you don’t have to get yourself worked up over this. It will all be dealt with one way or another.”
“You usually aren’t this obsessed over work,” Cyno comments, and Alhaitham laments his word choice. He’s not obsessed. “You are the pinnacle of leaving work at the workplace. Did something happen, or is it just remnants of being the Acting Grand Sage?”
Alhaitham actually considers that for a moment. “I suppose it could be a combination of things. I got too used to the lessened workload from the transition back to Scribe, and then…” He sighs. His partners better not get big heads about this. “I was worried whenever you all wanted to spend time off together as well.”
Kaveh gets that sad, watery look in his eyes again, and Alhaitham has to resist the urge to say something mean to balance it out. “What do you mean? Are we bothering you?”
“No,” Alhaitham says quickly, “I enjoy being with you all. That was the problem, though.”
“You were concerned about being too occupied with extra work to spend time with us. Such as coming home late today,” Cyno guesses, spot-on. Alhaitham supposes it’s likely because Cyno also has the same concern a lot of the time.
“You all were putting your work off, too,” Alhaitham nods, still leaning all of his weight onto Tighnari. He doesn’t seem to mind. “I didn’t want to have it all be for nothing.”
Tighnari takes a deep breath, and sighs it out. Alhaitham tenses at that, some deep-rooted fear of misunderstanding that he hasn’t had since early childhood coming to haunt him. Tighnari must notice, because he tightens his arms around him and starts rocking them again, taking Kaveh with them since he’s also still leaning on Tighnari. Maybe they need to give him a break.
“I understand what you’re saying,” He says, “Whenever Cyno and I had first gotten together by ourselves, he and I had to have some discussions about that too. I won’t lie to you and say that it wouldn’t have hurt if you did spend all your time working, so your fear was not unfounded.
“But it doesn’t have to come to fruition in the first place. You could spend more time on the work for the substitute, but you don’t truly have to if it’s going to cause you this much stress, physical and otherwise. Like I said, your notes would be enough and you can handle everything that couldn’t get done after you’ve had a true and proper break,” He finishes.
Kaveh lifts his head up abruptly, as if suddenly coming to a realization. “Did you even get any sleep tonight? Before you came out here?”
Alhaitham stays silent for a moment, trying to think up a convincing answer as he wonders what time it is, but it apparently goes on for a moment too long, as Kaveh just groans. “Haitham. You’ve got to be exhausted. You were up so early this morning!”
“I agree with Tighnari,” Cyno says, sitting up quickly, “In fact, I agree so much that I’ll be coming with you tomorrow to make sure all you do is write notes for your substitute. Then, you’re coming straight home.”
“What?” Alhaitham finally drags his head away from Tighnari’s chest, blinking slowly at the light that invades his eyes. Someone must’ve turned them on earlier. “But there’s still—“
“Were you listening to any part of what I said a moment ago?” Tighnari raises an eyebrow, adopting what they, Collei, and occasionally the Traveler like to not-so-affectionately call the ‘doctor look.’ “You need sleep. And probably another glass of water. Have you been eating alright? Kaveh, has he been eating alright?”
“Hell if I know, he’s been getting up so early. I’m not sure if he’s had breakfast the past few days.”
Alhaitham sighs, closing his eyes and rubbing a hand over his face. “Okay, I get it.”
“Do you?” Tighnari challenges.
“Yes. I will go to sleep, get up at a reasonable hour, write notes for my substitute, and then come home to start my vacation,” He swears under the eyes of all three of his partners in a dry voice.
“Good,” Cyno says, just as dry, and he starts to stand up. “To bed, everyone.”
“Yes, General,” Kaveh drawls annoyedly, even though he’s getting up just as fast.
Tighnari has to help Alhaitham stand because his legs are falling asleep, which would be embarrassing if literally any other part of this night hadn’t already happened. Even when he can properly stand, though, Tighnari still keeps a hand on his back on the way to the bedroom.
Kaveh’s picking up pillows when they get there, which must’ve fallen off the bed in their rush to figure out what happened in the living room. If Alhaitham were to hear glass breaking in the middle of the night, he’d certainly assume the worst too.
Hm. That reminds him. “We should probably clean up the broken glass.”
Tighnari not-so-gently pushes him onto the bed, in a much less exciting way than that had happened last time. “No. Bed.”
“It’s a problem for tomorrow us,” Kaveh agrees, settling in next to Alhaitham and immediately attaching himself to his side like a particularly stubborn mosquito.
“I’ll remind you of this conversation when one of us gets glass in their foot,” Alhaitham says, more dramatically than he feels. His eyes are already slipping shut.
“When the first to wake up turns the lights on, they’ll see it,” Tighnari says, curling up on Alhaitham’s other side. “Hopefully.”
Cyno, instead of slipping into the blatantly open space beside Tighnari, deposits himself directly onto Alhaitham’s torso, knocking all of the breath out of him, ironically.
“Why,” Alhaitham grits out, because despite popular belief, Cyno actually weighs quite a bit with all that muscle. Cyno simply shifts himself a little so he’s not killing Alhaitham, but still remains mostly on top of him.
Usually, Alhaitham sleeps on the edge of the bed when all of them are here. He likes having the choice to get up without disturbing anybody, and likes to have his own space without feeling suffocated. But it seems his autonomy has been limited for the time being by his partners, and the pressure honestly feels quite nice right now. If he wakes up later and decides he wants out, they’ll easily move, but for now it’s comforting. Soothing.
Alhaitham has just barely fallen asleep when Cyno speaks.
“You know, breaking glass is a lot harder than it looks.”
Alhaitham glares at the top of his head. Tighnari says nothing, blessedly, but Kaveh in all of his kindness just has to make a quiet, tired hum of acknowledgment.
“It’s actually quite a pane.”
Tighnari lets out a quiet sigh, Kaveh grumbles and shoves his face into Alhaitham’s shoulder, and Alhaitham just closes his eyes again.
When there’s no more reaction, Cyno continues. Because of course he does. “Perhaps it’s better understood in a written form. You see, I meant pane as a glass pane, but it’s a homophone—“
“Cyno. Go to sleep.”