Work Text:
“I was not planning on having children,” he whispers.
He is very close to Cyno; their legs are intertwined so they could both actually somehow stand, and Tighnari can feel Cyno’s breath on his neck, while Cyno is trying to do his best and not touch Tighnari’s tail. Well, it wasn’t like Tighnari would probably mind, but—distractions.
“I’m not asking you to be her father,” Cyno answers, also whispering.
“I think you do, by the fact that girl can’t even read. She doesn’t even know how to write her own name, Cyno. Do I look like a preschool teacher to you? I agreed on helping the girl to become a medic, not to teach her everything and to take care of her—”
Cyno puts his hand over Tighnari’s mouth, and the other man does a face like he was on only offended – but also ready to bite him. Before Tighnari can decide what to do, there is a soft voice, shyly saying ‘I’m done’. Tighnari looks at Cyno once again, and open the door to the little pantry that he had in his house. When they leave, Collei is standing in the room, her hair still wet, all ready with her too big pajamas, that Tighnari got from one of the mothers in the village.
She gives him back the towel, and Cyno just takes the half full basin and takes it away to throw the water out.
Well. She could at least clean herself.
“Collei,” he says, smiling. “All ready for sleep?”
She doesn’t answer for a moment, playing with her too long sleeves. Tighnari looks at Cyno, who only shrugs, and comes closer to Collei, and kneels down before her. He isn’t sure what to do… Collei wasn’t yet the best with human touch, and with her illness, it would make her feel pain.
“I don’t wanna,” she only says, and Tighnari tries to think what his parents would do.
“Bad dreams?”
“Mhm.” She nods her head, visibly shy.
Tighnari looks at Cyno, and his eyes were screaming ‘not asking me to be a father?’ and he nods at Collei, getting up from the ground.
“Come, then.” For a moment, he wants to try to hold her hand, but reminds himself that it wasn’t very good choice with her, and just motions for her to go through the door. “I will read you a nice fairytale. It helps children to sleep better,” he explains. “Fairies always keep bad dreams away.”
Tighnari gives Cyno one last look, and goes with the girl, leaving Cyno all alone.
“Fuck,” Cyno whispers.
He maybe omitted some truth from Tighnari, but he wasn’t prepared for him to back down from the deal; and if he did, Cyno would need to find someone else to entrust Collei with. It would be the worst case scenario, of course; and there was literally no way for Cyno to be even sure that she would be safe with anyone else. Truly, Tighnari was the only person in Sumeru that Cyno would entrust his life – and Collei was maybe even more important than that.
He doesn’t know what to do with himself, so he just starts walking around the room. There isn’t anything… particular here; he’s been to Tighnari’s home many times before, and he was able to recognize every corner. There were a little butterflies that he kept in the glass frames on the walls; bookcases full of volumes in boring, earthy colors. The bed, barely fitting two people, nightstand with a lamp, desk full of papers that Tighnari was working on. A additional room with small bathroom, a little pantry in they were squished just few minutes before.
Cyno took a deep breath, and shook his head, trying to calm down his nervous breath. It wasn’t like him to show his emotions so clearly – but with Tighnari, it was… difficult to do anything else.
When Tighnari comes back, Cyno is ready to talk with him.
“Do you know what happen to her?” Cyno asks.
Tighnari stops, holding book close to his chest. Tales from Mondstadt, it reads.
“Well, you told me about—”
“Did you know why she was running away?”
Tighnari quiets down. Before answering, he just stands in a place for a moment, not moving; and then, he closes the door, locks it and comes to the window, closing it too. Slowly, he puts the book that he was reading for Collei into the bookcase, taking a deep breath.
He is not stupid – he knows the tone that Cyno is using. He knows the look in his face better, than he probably knew his own parents. It was things, that Tighnari shouldn’t know, but Cyno is going to tell him it all anyway. They knew each other for a long time already – and Tighnari, even a mere scholar, was quite familiar with the way that Cyno was working. With who was he working with. With the way that his clothes would sometimes smell like blood, and his arms would be full of purple marks.
Before, he tried to not think about Collei like that – she was maybe a little bit wild, but this was a child. It’s awful, to even imagine, that a child can be somehow meddled in Cyno’s business.
“No,” he answers finally, turning around to look at Cyno.
“She was born sick. Her parents gave her to Fatui to take care for,” Cyno explains slowly, observing Tighnari. “Human experiments.”
Tighnari takes a deep breath.
He tries to speak, answer, but there is no sound coming out of his mouth; he closes them again, placing his own hand close to heart. There is unfamiliar warm feeling that comes from it – but it doesn’t feel nice, it doesn’t feel safe, it feels like he just ate something that is burning hot, chocking on the fire. He doesn’t move, but his heart bits faster and faster, and for a moment, he cannot understand the information.
Cyno shouldn’t be even talking about this. He was General Mahamatra – Tighnari was just a mere scholar. A Forest Ranger. He shouldn’t ask questions, he—it would land them both in trouble, ah, it would land Collei herself in trouble! Why didn’t Cyno report anything about her to sages?!
“Fuck,” he says finally, and it’s probably the first time that Cyno hears Tighnari curse, because he opens his mouth a little bit. “Here? In Sumeru?”
“I’m not sure,” Cyno answers. “It was conducted by one of the scholars, but he was long time ago banished from the Akademiya and Sumeru as a whole. I tried to look for some clues, but Akademiya wasn’t aware of his methods.”
Tighnari sits on the bed, the terror written all over his face. There were… stuff that Okay. Right. He needs to know, not matter how hard it was to hear it all.
“What did they do to her?”
“… not sure,” says Cyno again, and Tighnari raises his head to look at him. “Only she knows the answer, Tighnari. Most of the children that were with her… are not here anymore,” he ends, trying to make it sound somehow better, but Cyno has no clue how to make dead children sound better. “We don’t know how many there was and if they’re still there—”
He stops, when Tighnari makes a weird sound; he is frustrated, and Cyno knows that by the way that Tighnari runs his hand through his hair, and touches the ears, stopping them from nervously twitching. It was hard to talk with him about topics like this; they were not children, but it wasn’t things that people liked to hear about.
“For The Greater Lord Rukkhadevata,” Tighnari whispers. “Why hadn’t told me that before?”
“I didn’t know how,” Cyno says, honest.
He should’ve, maybe. But how to bring up this topic? How to even let Tighnari prepare? ‘Hey, Tighnari, when do you feel like talking about torturing children and murdering them?’.
“I don’t know what to say, Cyno.”
Cyno comes closer; he kneels down in front of Tighnari.
“I want you to keep her here,” Cyno says, placing his hand on Tighnari’s knee and looking him into the eyes, serious. “Her sickness will not only be monitored by the best of the best in Sumeru, but she will be always safe here,” he explains.
“Cyno.” Tighnari smiles weakly. “You ask me after you already gave me the child? She was here for few days – she’s sometimes very wild, and very hard to understand, to take care of, but I will not back down now, not in situation like this. She already trust me, all because of you.”
It sounds reproaching. It makes Cyno bite his lips to almost taste metallic taste of blood; he puts his head on Tighnari’s hands, closing his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“I will manage,” Tighnari answers. “We all slowly going to accommodate to each other. I wasn’t trying—Archons, Cyno, I am not trying to push her away. I will help you, I told you I will, but you need to explain to me all the things about her. If I will be the closest person that she can call trustworthy, I need to know how to help her.”
“I didn’t knew how to tell you this.”
Tighnari takes deep breath, and slowly lifts Cyno face from his legs, looking at him.
“Where are her parents?”
“I don’t know. I think they may still live in the city, but… I don’t want to give her back to them,” Cyno says quietly. “I tampered with her documents in the Akademiya’s database,” he continues, and Tighnari opens his eyes wide, surprised by that. “Told them that her parents had died. I know that they wanted good, but they fucking left her, Tighnari,” he continues, anger seeping through his tone. “What is the point of giving her away to help her, if they never go to get the kid back?”
There was… a little bit more – he was pretty certain that her parents went to have more children, and live very, very happily. He could go and arrest them; hide it from Collei, maybe get rid of them without really disclosing anything to Akademiya. But there were children involved, and maybe Cyno wasn’t the most moral person – but he wasn’t planning on making children orphans any time soon.
He prefer to think of them as they never existed at all.
“They never looked for her?”
“As far as I know?—No. They maybe were scared of getting punished for getting into illegal things, but if they are, they just shouldn’t expect to just get her back.”
Tighnari stares for a moment, trying to think, reminding himself to breath and not to choke on all of this.
“Okay,” Tighnari finally says, taking a deep breath. “I agree with you, okay. Her parents are dead.”
“Mhm,” Cyno mumbles, slowly caressing Tighnari’s left hand with his knuckles.
“Down the line she can develop a lot of more problems,” Tighnari mumbles to himself, holding Cyno’s hand between his a little bit tighter. “I knew that we need to monitor her mental health, but we seriously need to take care of it. Some of more serious things develop later for children that experienced trauma very early in their life, and it could seriously be a problem for her later… She will have some problems anyway, being sick, but… Well, I think I know what caused her delay in schooling, then. You don’t really plan on teaching kids anything if you’re just gonna get rid of them anyway—”
The rest is mumbled into Cyno’s lips; when he grabs Tighnari face into his hands, comes closer, getting in between Tighnari’s legs and presses his mouth together. Like is hungry, like he wants to eat Tighnari alive, or say I love you very much, or whatever, really – Tighnari squeezes his eyes shut, kissing him back, as an answering please leave nothing from me, and I love you very much too.
When Cyno backs down, Tighnari opens his eyes and his breath is shaking. He was really, really close to crying just now – maybe not from sadness, maybe not from anything but from the mere frustration of the situation. Tighnari never cried, really, not even as a child; but he would break down in front of everyone, trying to deal with things that were too hard to think about work.
Fuck. Why is he making a fool out of himself in front of Cyno?
“Breath,” Cyno asks him, and Tighnari nods. “I know it’s a lot. I didn’t want to tell you because it’s not good for anyone, but you need to know,” he explains slowly, still holding Tighnari’s hands. “When the problems come, we will deal with them.”
“Okay.”
“And you will contact me any time you need help,” Cyno continues. “Money, schooling supplies, medicine, information, or if anything happens to you, to Collei, to your family. Okay?” Tighnari nods, and Cyno sighs softly. “Please. I know that you like to do whatever you want, but she’s mine responsibility too, alright?”
Tighnari takes a deep breath, nodding his head. He tries not to think about it, but he knows that the couple of next nights are going to be hard – but he needs to get over it, at least in front of her. She doesn’t need him acting like a reminder of the things that happened to her.
“Yes. Yes, Cyno, yes.”
“Okay.”
Cyno kisses Tighnari’s hands, and Tighnari tries to breathe again.
“Is there anything else I should know?”
“Please ask her, if she wants help in writing a letter,” Cyno says softly. “Her family may be gone, but she has another in the Mondstadt. Friends and people that love her very much. I don’t want for her to forget them. I think she may be still too shy to ask you for help,” he explains.
“I will.”
“Thank you.” Cyno places a soft kiss on the back of Tighnari’s hand. “For all of this.”
Collei hears this story, when she is older – old enough to understand their relationship, old enough to understand that Tighnari was merely a young man himself, not really sure how to take care of a little girl, that came from pain and blood. She hears this story, and hears Tighnari apologizing to her; because in his head, she’s still that child, and no child wants to hear about being left by her parents, and shoved into arms that don’t really want to take care of her.
She’s not mad – she’s not. She really, really isn’t mad. Or sad. It’s almost, somehow, relieving – to hear that no matter if she was a problem, they still decided to take her in, take care of her.
So, in return, she tells Master about The Doctor.