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”I should have stopped him,” Cyno says. It is late in the evening. Kaveh has gone to bed, and only Alhaitham sits opposite him, rolling the last of his wine in his cup.
Two weeks ago, Cyno and Alhaitham kissed. One day ago, Cyno found a researcher’s laboratory in the wastelands of Old Vanarana, and the burned children inside.
Cyno had held the researcher for questioning before. He had no evidence, then. No evidence until it was too late.
“You couldn’t have known,” Alhaitham says shortly. “If you had known, you would have acted differently. There’s no point in ruminating on it.”
“Right,” says Cyno and packs up his guilt and his frustration and his heavy terrible sadness, and he does not mention it again.
It is months before it happens again. Cyno hunts criminals and rogue researchers. He catches them and dispenses justice, as is his duty.
But Cyno is human, even with Hermanubis inside him. And humans err.
He does not intend on telling Alhaitham. He comes home before him - not home , because Cyno still has his room in the matra barracks, but without himself quite noticing, he has not slept there in weeks.
So that is to say, he comes to Alhaitham’s house before him. Kaveh is away on a research trip, and the house is quiet.
The books in Alhaitham’s library are sorted by topic, but not alphabetically within that. Half of them have undoubtedly been shoved back on their shelves by Kaveh, who barely respects Alhaitham’s system enough to group similar books together.
Cyno has some time, and his head is pounding with the force of his mistakes, so he sets to work.
First, he rearranges the topics by darshan, and then alphabetically within them. Semantics is followed by semiotics, which is followed by syntax and pragmatics, all within Haravatat. In Spantamad, leylines come after Irminsul, but books on elemental reactions are subgrouped before it.
Sorting the books doesn’t make him feel better, but it makes him feel less ill at ease in his skin, less like he’s being chafed at by invisible ties in every direction.
“–no. Cyno.”
Cyno’s head snaps up. He’s climbed halfway up the bookcase, precariously balancing a book on Snezhnayan archaeology at the tip of his fingers to place it on the correct shelf. In the doorway stands Alhaitham, frowning slightly with bafflement.
Cyno clears his throat, pushes the book into place and climbs down, brushing his uniform free of any dust. “Alhaitham. Welcome back.”
“You rearranged my books,” Alhaitham says. His face is slightly pinched. If it weren’t for Cyno’s shame at his failure as Mahamatra weighing him down, he would have reached up to smooth Alhaitham’s frown out with his fingers. “How kind of you.”
“They weren’t right,” Cyno says quietly.
“The books? They may not be correct, but they still have value.”
Cyno bites his tongue, frustrated and unable to explain, reduced to a child by nothing but his own emotion, his own inability. His own failures, the major and the minor.
“Ah,” Alhaitham says after a moment. “This is about the girl?”
Cyno allows himself a short, terse nod.
There was a girl. She turned down the matra’s help and convinced even Cyno that he would be better served elsewhere, and now she is at Bimarstan. He wasn’t there, and he wasn’t adequately persuasive. He didn’t see .
Nothing escapes Alhaitham, not even when he wants it to. Of course he knows. Cyno sees his mouth begin to open and cuts him off:
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Alhaitham closes his mouth. “Very well. Have you eaten?”
Cyno shakes his head. The thought of food makes him queasy, but arguing with Alhaitham about it feels even worse, so he follows him into the kitchen to sit while Alhaitham cooks.
The kitchen is silent. Cyno looks at the ramshackle tree for mugs Kaveh made a few weeks ago, with wood he had to spare after changing his mind on a project. “Now that there’s three of us living here, there’s not enough room for them all!” he had said.
Cyno had corrected him, but quietly. Alhaitham had not.
Alhaitham moves with practiced ease between the counters and the stove, fingers finding jars of spice and herb without needing to lift his gaze from the pan.
Before long, aromatics are weaving through the air. The smells warm Cyno, as does the sight of the long, resolute planes of Alhaitham’s back. He must have discarded his coat by the door, only wearing a tight black top and his ever-present gloves. Cyno can see his shoulder blades move through the fabric. He looks sturdy in this kitchen, illuminated by an orange evening sun, sturdy like he might be able to hold Cyno up if he broke.
It doesn’t matter. Cyno doesn’t care to test it, and he will be fine on his own. He always has been.
"Come taste,” Alhaitham says, rousing Cyno from his musings. He stands up slowly, coming to Alhaitham’s side, and leans in to eat from the offered fork.
It’s his favourite, he realises belatedly. Alhaitham has made his favourite dish. “Thank you,” he says through the mouthful of rice, yoghurt and nuts. Alhaitham tilts his head, smiling faintly, and nods.
“It passes the test, then?”
Cyno nods, swallowing, and leans up to press his lips against Alhaitham’s cheek. He feels his evening stubble against his mouth. “Really good.”
Alhaitham touches his waist, briefly, a grounding touch. Cyno leans into it before stepping back, reaching for plates and cups and cutlery.
That is how the evening passes. Cyno is fine on his own, but Alhaitham is there, and he is thankful.
The third time, there is no reason.
Cyno wakes up and wishes he didn’t. The world seems sluggish and dull, food has no taste in his mouth, and everyone’s troubles seem so inane and meaningless.
He can hear Tighnari’s voice scolding him in his head, telling him that this is because he pushed himself too hard, his expedition went too far, but even that is not enough to urge him to do anything but float through his day. Tighnari is not here.
He sends a runner boy with a note to Alhaitham’s office, telling him he will be unavailable for dinner tonight. The likelihood that he’ll eat at all is low, but he has enough presence of mind to leave that out of his note.
Cyno does his paperwork slowly, and goes home only once he realises everyone else has left. His favourite TCG deck is in his bag, but he has no desire to stop by Puspa Cafe on his way home. It’s easier to crawl into bed, close his eyes, and forget all about the guilt and shame that threatens to pull him under if he recognises it for what it is. His room at the matra barracks is dusty, unvisited most nights, and he settles in alongside the room's forgottenness.
That works for a few hours, at least, until someone knocks loudly on his door. Cyno rolls over in bed, intending to ignore it, but the hammering doesn’t cease - so he gets up, groggy and unkempt, and opens the door.
“Please leave,” he tells Alhaitham’s chest before recognising the golden embroidery. He looks up at him, startled. “Alhaitham?”
“Come with me,” Alhaitham says. “It’s an emergency.”
“An emergency?” Cyno’s gaze clears up at once, and he reaches for his headpiece. “Show me the way.”
Alhaitham leads him to the centre of Sumeru City, to Alhaitham’s own residence, and opens the door to his study. The books, usually neatly stacked along the wall on elegantly crafted shelves, are gathered haphazardly on Alhaitham’s desk, in his chair, and on the floor. A few books remain on the shelves, but they lie flat, their organisation abandoned.
“Well?” Alhaitham asks. His voice is soft, and his hand rests on the small of Cyno’s back. “Are you up to the task, General?”
“I don’t really feel like sorting your books,” Cyno says, taking off his headpiece and moving closer to the first pile on the floor. Alhaitham loves his books, and seeing them on the floor is all wrong, so he can at least lift them off the floor. And once he’s looking at them, it doesn’t feel right that Hilichurl Linguistics is right next to The Architecture of King Deshret’s Tomb - they’re distinctly Haravatat and Vahumana, and they should be on different shelves…
“I’ll make some tea,” Alhaitham says. Cyno means to thank him, but once he finally gets a chance to look up from the sorting, Alhaitham is gone.
The books are finally starting to look happy again when there’s a light touch on his shoulder. Alhaitham stands next to him, holding out a cup of tea, and Cyno rises to his feet.
“Thank you,” he says. His voice hurts, as does his throat, but the tea is warm in his hand, the liquid dark gold. Alhaitham’s eyes, when he meets them, are deep teal.
“Thank you,” Alhaitham says in response. “I was about to lose control of my whole library.”
Cyno perches on the edge of Alhaitham’s desk, recently unearthed. He sips the tea, feeling the spices burn pleasantly down his throat. “Why did you pull your books down?”
“Aarav said you didn’t seem like yourself.” Alhaitham pauses. “And you cancelled on me, even though I know you were looking forward to tonight. You were telling me all last week that you were excited to see the deck I’d built.”
“Ah…” Cyno drinks. “I am excited. I think.” There is a tingling feeling in his hands, in the back of his neck. Excitement? He excels at reading others, but his own emotions mystify him. “How does that relate to the books?”
“It helped last time, didn’t it? You like arranging things.” Alhaitham says it matter-of-factly, like that isn’t a strange thing to like. Perhaps it isn’t, to someone like Alhaitham, who never cared much for conforming.
Quietly, Cyno says, "I do. Thank you."
Alhaitham comes up to him and puts his tea cup down, bracketing Cyno with his legs where he sits on the desk. He smells like the sun as he leans forward, one hand resting on the desk. Cyno tilts his head up, eyes closing momentarily as they kiss. The kiss has colour.
It takes minutes before they part, and Cyno keeps a hand resting on Alhaitham's side even as he straightens back up.
"You should have told me something was amiss."
"I was fine," Cyno says. "I am fine. I don't see the point in wasting your time by forcing you to coddle me."
"I'm not being forced to coddle you just because you tell me how you're feeling," Alhaitham replies, exasperated. "What's the matter?"
Cyno rubs his forehead. "The mission."
"The mission?" Alhaitham frowns. "It was a success. I read your report."
"Not fast enough," Cyno says. "Not good enough."
Alhaitham sighs. "Holding yourself to impossible standards is a pointless endeavour."
"They're not impossible! I would be able to meet them if I were *better."*
Alhaitham takes his hands. Cyno fixes his gaze on Alhaitham's earpiece, inhaling. "Cyno," Alhaitham starts, and then he says, "No. You wouldn't."
"Alhaitham--"
"Even if you were the best," Alhaitham continues, "you would not meet your own standards. You have beaten every record set by your predecessors, ripped up every precedent of ineptitude and inertia, and you still claim yourself lacking? Have some mercy on the rest of us."
Cyno's gaze shifts to Alhaitham's nose, stunned. "Us?"
"Well, yes," Alhaitham says. "Those of us trying, despite our best interests, to keep up with you."
He squeezes Cyno's hands. "I'm the one falling behind," Cyno says quietly. Alhaitham's mouth twists, and Cyno steels himself for an argument he doesn't know how to have, but Alhaitham says simply,
"No. I disagree."
Cyno exhales shakily into the space between them.
"Are you hungry?" Alhaitham asks, and Cyno nods.
"Yes." And because he is, because he is hungry and thirsty and he can see the flecks of orange in Alhaitham's eyes, and he can listen and he can care, he says, "Thank you."
Alhaitham smiles slightly. "You're welcome."