#haikaveh#アルカーヴェ
Alhaitham and Kaveh had been married for two years; it's something everyone had known. After all, it's the marriage of two of Sumeru Akademiya's best—the Grand Sage, and the Light of Kshahrewar.
Nobody questioned if they hadn't had any kids—they're both busy people, so perhaps they needed a little more time.
What everyone didn't know was—that Kaveh had actually wanted one badly. Despite how it looked like, he loved Alhaitham, and would like to bear his child.
But he remembered Alhaitham once said that he wasn't suitable for kids, so he never brought the topic up.
They still had sex—it was always enjoyable, a way to join their bodies and hearts—secured with a piece of condom and Kaveh's birth control pills, just to be safe.
But even safeties could fail, if fate willed for it.
Somehow, by magic or miracle Kaveh didn't understand... He looked at the calender and realised that he hadn't experienced any heat symptoms that month.
And lately he had been throwing up way too much in the morning.
Was it even a surprise, when Kaveh visited a doctor and got told that he's seven weeks pregnant?
He asked about aborting option, to which the doctor answered.
"Go home and think about it well. Come back next week if you have decided that you won't regret it, Sir Kaveh."
Kaveh obeyed.
That night, as Alhaitham embraced and thrusted into him, Kaveh reached a hand to his husband's cheek, brushing a drop of sweat rolling down his skin, and thought about how handsome Alhaitham was.
Would the child be a boy or girl? If it's a boy, Kaveh hoped he'd grow up to be as handsome as Alhaitham.
If it's a girl, Kaveh's sure she'd be very pretty, too, with silver hair and sharp emerald eyes, a brilliant mind and quick wits. Like Alhaitham.
Of course, Alhaitham noticed. With those smoldering gazes he stared at Kaveh and put his hand over Kaveh's.
"What's wrong?"
Kaveh shook his thoughts away.
"Nothing. Just thinking that you haven't fucked me as hard as you used to be. Is my husband getting old?"
There's a pleasant feeling bubbling in Kaveh's chest when Alhaitham growled at the provocation.
"Don't cry or beg to stop. Don't complain if you can't walk later."
"I'd like to see you try."
(He's terribly sore in the morning afterwards, but sated... And also contemplating.)
The days came and went by, and then good news came; that the new, long-term project in the desert that Kaveh had proposed long time ago had finally been approved by the Grand Sage.
Perhaps this was how fate played itself, and Kaveh was more than willing to go along with it.
When it's time to depart, Alhaitham seemed reluctant to let him go. Kaveh was confident that his husband didn't know about the child yet, but perhaps the instinct embeded deep inside couldn't be fooled. However, Alhaitham always prided himself in his rationality and not instinct.
"I'll be fine," Kaveh reassured him. "It's just for eight months. Don't skip meals and let your books scatter around the house, okay?!"
"...you sound like a wife."
"I *am* your wife! ...archons, Alhaitham. If you really want me to go, just say so."
"..."
The lack of biting reply from Alhaitham kind of surprised Kaveh. Even more surprising when Alhaitham bent down to give Kaveh a kiss. In front of the expedition team, and the other Sages, out in the open.
"See you."
Kaveh was so stunned he forgot how to retort back.
Thankfully nobody commented about it when they departed to the desert, Kaveh's face and nape flushed red, his bite mark throbbed.
How he wished to turn back and tell Alhaitham that he didn't want to go, that he's pregnant. He'd beg to Alhaitham to let him keep this child.
But he gritted his teeth and fought against the instinct.
He loved the child, but he loved Alhaitham more. He didn't want Alhaitham to hate him, that's all.
Kaveh knew he couldn't hide his pregnancy forever.
It's easy to lie to the others when he swayed from dizziness as heatstroke, but as his belly gradually grew, he had no choice but to tell a white lie.
"I'm pregnant, but don't tell Alhaitham yet! I want to surprise him."
The team agreed to keep it a secret only if he stayed in Aaru Village and supervised the project from there. Kaveh had no choice but to accept, albeit grumpily, but deep inside he's grateful for their thoughtfullness.
Aaru Village and Uncle Anpu welcomed him warmly and—surprisingly—kept his secret well guarded, but as the time ran out, Kaveh grew extremely nervous.
He's alone, without his Alpha, for first labour. It's terrifying, he often woke up at night drenched in cold sweat and tears.
But he had chosen this, and Kaveh was nothing but determined.
And then, time for labour came at the seventh month of the project—with lots of pain and tears, Kaveh delivered a healthy baby girl, with silver hair like Alhaitham's and red eyes like his.
Kaveh cried the first time he held his baby and nursed her. She was mostly quiet, only fussy when it's time for milk and nappies.
She turned exactly like Kaveh had imagined: a spitting image of Alhaitham.
The villagers all adored her, even Candace and Uncle Anpu.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—the project ended up completed in time, a month after Kaveh gave birth to his baby.
He had to go back to Sumeru City, but he couldn't take his baby back.
The child he gave birth to and had come to love so deeply.
The night before they went back, Kaveh secretly met with Candace and Uncle Anpu and begged them to take care of his baby.
"I... I can't bring Aliyah home. Alhaitham doesn't want kids."
"Kaveh-san..." Candace called his name with pity, and Kaveh hated that.
"Please... I beg you. I'll take care of all the expenses, I'll come visit her whenever I can, but... I can't take her home. I'd rather have her entrusted in your hands rather than put her in the orphanage!" Kaveh said, desperate. "Please help me."
"...okay," Candace finally said. "We'll take care of her."
Kaveh was relieved, but the feeling was short-lived when he moved to transfer Aliyah from his arms to Candace—and she cried, loudly, for the first time since she was born.
No matter whatever they did, Aliyah didn't stop crying until her face was blue and her cheeks damp from tears. When dawn came, she dozed off from exhaustion, and Kaveh reluctantly let go.
He practically ran off to Caravan Ribat as fast as he could, fearing if he stopped—
—and looked back, he wouldn't be able to leave.
The journey back to Sumeru City was uneventful, and before long, Kaveh was home, back to his husband...
...yet for it, he left a piece of his—and Alhaitham's—soul, in the desert.
-part one — END-
uum... i didnt expect it to get this long... moreover to have my notif explode... 😭 thank you so much for enjoying my fics!
part 2 will be posted tomorrow. i might write a proper version of this and post in ao3 later.
Mehrak knew, the moment she got picked up from the ruins, that she had found her Goddess once again.
She's been sleeping for a long time in the ruins, a djinn who lost her way the day Malikata died.
Dwelling inside a sentinent that King Deshret built, her consciousness faded, but never died, waiting. Believing that someday, her Goddess would come for her again.
And she did! Except...
"Ah...! Y-You're alive?"
...had her Goddess reincarnated into a male human?
Mehrak blinked, and the Goddess-reincarnation laughed.
"Oh, you're really alive! Look at you, aren't you adorable?" The human cooed at her while holding a metal tool in his hand.
He had beautiful golden hair with brown tips, a pair of the brightest crimson eyes Mehrak had seen.
If Kaveh was asked about his life until now, he'd probably say it resembled a bad, cheap tale of romance novel from Inazuma with a haughty, yet hot young CEO of a company for male lead and a poor, yet beautiful and brilliant female lead.
His husband, Alhaitham, just sat in the back with wireless headphone over his ears and a book in his hand, deep in his own world. But his free arm was looped around Kaveh's waist, pulling the blond close to him. Even when Kaveh protested, Alhaitham wouldn't let him go.
A lot of people knew how the CEO and Co-Founder of Neo Sumeru, Inc. Alhaitham proposed and eventually married his partner, Kaveh, but only several who knew how their relationship began.
Kaveh, especially, remembered their first meeting vividly, almost five years ago.
Kaveh stared at the paper in front of him that said, in bolded letters:
Positive, gestation age predicted to be six weeks.
...seriously?
Kaveh didn't know whether to thank or curse Alhaitham's obviously very virile seeds for this.
They hadn't been trying for long, anyway! Come to think of it, didn't they only do it like... three times since both Alhaitham and Kaveh decided to drop off protection to try for a second child?
He sighed, folded the paper back and tucked it inside his pocket.
They had been very busy lately, since Sabzeruz Festival was right around the corner and there're a lot of preparations ongoing. As the Grand Sage, of course Alhaitham had been busier—even if he didn't want to—and was getting home either late or absolutely exhausted every day.
He remembered feeling weak and cold, even when Alhaitham cradled him in his arms. People came and went by while he drifted in and out of consciousness.
All he could think of was Aliyah.
It's been two weeks and every time Kaveh closed his eyes, he saw a little girl, her face hidden in the shadow, crying.
"Mother, father, where are you...? I... I don't want to be alone..."
And every time he reached his hand out, she disappeared like smoke.
He remembered the days when he was just like that little girl, crying in loneliness, without the warmth of parents, and he vowed to himself that it wouldn't happen if he ever had a kid.
And yet he did. He abandoned Aliyah in the desert, her cries still echoed in his ears.
#haikaveh#アルカーヴェ
Kaveh was not the same since he returned from the desert.
When Alhaitham went home that night, Kaveh was already home, back facing Alhaitham as he sat on the dining table. His hair was a mess and his shoulders tense; it seemed like he hadn't noticed him.
He approached Kaveh and placed his hand on Kaveh's shoulder, and the other flinched so hard Alhaitham might have thought he had electrocuted the other. When Kaveh turned to face him, Alhaitham was... perplexed.
His Omega looked *terrible*.
He had seen Kaveh at his worst; sleepless nights of drawing, sharp sound of steel rulers meeting whenever Kaveh moved them, or thumps of hammer as Kaveh tried miserably to make the stiff, bent model straight again. Dark circles under his eyes, little creases of exhaustion.