Archive of Our Own

Tighnari can’t see anything.

He can only hear.

Hear the chittering of shelled, segmented legs.

Hear heavy footfalls on creaking wooden stairs.

Hear frantic breathing. Fear. The sheer panic of being alone.

He can hear a heartbeat thudding like the dull knock of a fist on a door that never opens. The person grows desperate. They slam their hand against the wood, gasping out cries for help, barely getting enough air as they draw their fist back and hit again. Their rhythm slows. It fades until only a sporadic beat is left, faint, hopeless.

Then, he hears nothing.

The complete silence zooms around in his ears like a ringing alarm, and then morphs into voices.

They’re cheering. They’re telling him to fight. They’re laughing at the blood on his hands-

He can see his hands now, covered in glinting red, trembling in front of him. The darkness recedes more and reveals his legs, dark fabric completely soaked beneath his dripping fingers.

Tighnari can’t blink, can’t close his eyes, can’t look away- his gaze is locked onto that horrible glinting red and he can’t stop it- the bleeding, the cheering, the burning in his veins.

He’s locked in place. Frozen. Crystals creep along the liquid on his fingers, black against the crimson. He can’t move. He can’t do anything.

A hand grasps his chin ever so lightly, gentle fingers guiding up his gaze to peer into the darkness instead of the horrors unveiling themselves around his feet.

“It’s over,” echoes a voice from somewhere. “It’s over, Nari.”

The touch of those fingers against his skin makes his heartbeat return, slowly but surely, a rhythmic pounding against his sore ribs.

They’re warm.

They imbue his skin with their heat, melting the crystals that crackle along his eyelids as he blinks for the first time.

They burn.

They send a searing heat through his nerves, shooting down into his chest, nestling painfully inside of his heart.

They retreat for a moment and clasp themselves around his neck instead-

Unforgiving-

Relentless-

Violent-

Tighnari can’t breathe-

Tighnari gasps in a shallow breath through strained lungs and forces his eyes open so abruptly that the light that greets them stings.

For a moment, he registers nothing else but the flaring panic in his chest, the way he still can’t breathe right, the fact that there’s still something pressing against the skin of his neck-

He grasps at it with his free hand and yanks it over his head, chucking it onto the ground- whatever it is- and tries to inhale a full breath.

Then, more of his senses start filtering back in.

The light is from a lantern set on the dinner table- his dinner table- he’s home.

A page is turned but the movement never finishes and instead falls silent midway through.

Cyno’s feet lay propped up against his own thigh, buried beneath the fur of his tail, and Tighnari is sitting upright on the couch with a crick in his neck.

His neck, it hurts- it stings, all concentrated in one spot- he clamps his hand against it, feeling for blood, feeling for anything out of the ordinary, feeling for a plastic shell, perhaps, but he comes up empty.

He pulls his hand back again, and Cyno stirs at the movement of his arm brushing past his tail, so he stills completely.

He can’t wake Cyno. He has to stay quiet. There’s someone in the dining room. He can’t breathe right.

A chair scrapes across the wood and a shadow moves along the wall and Tighnari freezes, staring at it, stuck in place-

He can’t be stuck, he’s free, he’s home, but he can’t move, he can’t wake Cyno, he can only stare-

Alhaitham appears in the gilded frame of carved wood that decorates the doorway and his face is obscured by the shadows in a way that makes his expression impossible to read.

He can see Tighnari’s wide, blinking eyes clear as day, no doubt, so there’s no hiding the fact that he’s awake, but for some reason he can’t think of what to do next. He just stares and tries to force oxygen into his lungs regularly and quietly.

Upon his first attempt, Alhaitham jogs towards him and crouches by his feet. Tighnari can finally see his face a little better.

He’s concerned.

“Breathe,” he says softly, steadying himself with a hand against the armrest.

“I’m trying,” Tighnari gasps, but it’s not working just yet.

“Can I touch you?” Alhaitham asks, and Tighnari hesitates for a moment but then shakes his head. Not right now, not when his touch might turn searing hot on his skin.

“Are you hurting anywhere?” Alhaitham asks next, and Tighnari clasps a hand against his neck again.

Alhaitham cranes his neck to glance at the spot he touched and frowns. Then his expression evens out into understanding and he settles onto one knee to let the strain off his ankles.

“Focus on my voice, alright?” he says, “Nothing else.”

Tighnari blinks at him and he takes it as a cue to continue.

“You just slept in an unfortunate position, that’s why your neck hurts. There’s nothing here that can hurt you, nor is there any way for anything to get in. You are safe here, Tighnari.”

What he’s saying does make sense.

He’s home.

It’s over.

Of course nothing’s hurting him now that he’s here. He’s supposed to know that. He even knew it out on the road, that it was all over and that he was under protection again. He knew it at the Inazuman inn and he knew it on that boat and he’s supposed to know it in his own living room too.

“I might not know what happened out there, but I can assure you that it’s over now. Nothing like that will ever come to pass again. You’re back home. Not a single person here would lay a hand on you. Please, take a deep breath for me.”

Tighnari finally finds himself able to, the soft rumble of Alhaitham’s voice evening out his constricting muscles, unclenching his airways, washing over his mind like a stable line, an anchor to clutch onto.

Tighnari breathes in and then slowly breathes out, and it doesn’t go without a stutter or two, but it goes.

“Good. Keep up that pace. You’re awake now.”

“...Thanks,” Tighnari mutters, “and sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” Alhaitham says. “... Do you want me to stay with you?”

Tighnari does. He’s not planning on going back to sleep in any case, and the nights are long when he’s the only one awake. He wants to wait for the sun to rise and watch it happen, just to get started on getting his sense of time back. He wants to be aware of his own house for as long as he can, taking in all of the minor changes, familiarizing himself with it again. He’d love to read with Alhaitham, but he doesn’t have his glasses yet and his head already hurts.

“I don’t want to keep you up for my sake,” he says, “I’m good now.”

He makes sure to lay his hand flat on his leg to stop its shaking from showing through.

“I was awake anyway,” Alhaitham says. “All you’d be doing is keeping me company.”

Alhaitham stands up and gestures a hand to the dining table.

“Come on. I’ll read to you.”

And with that he turns to head back, leaving Tighnari sitting there for a moment, unsure of what to do.

He realizes that with those simple words, that easy invitation, Alhaitham had seen right through him in an instant and played the perfect card, impossible to refuse.

Tighnari makes sure to stuff the crumpled blanket that had been covering him across Cyno’s legs to make up for the lack of tail, and silently steps past the coffee table, into the light of the lantern.

He can see now that the thing he’d ripped off his neck was a scarf. Someone had put it on him after he fell asleep. How kind, but also unfortunate.

Alhaitham settles into the seat Tighnari suspects he’s claimed as his own from the very start and flips his book all the way back to the first page, waiting patiently for Tighnari to settle himself in as well.

Tighnari chooses a spot with a view of the window and Alhaitham moves the lantern so it’s not directly in his view and able to burn an imprint into his eyes.

Then he just… reads, and Tighnari only listens and breathes, staring past the marbled glass and to the faint moon that hangs somewhere far off in the sky. The flame of the lantern dances along Kaveh’s carefully outlined frames of iron. Alhaitham’s soft tone of voice fills the silence. Tighnari traces his fingers past the grain of the wooden table surface.

He spends the night listening until the sky turns green and only later realizes that Alhaitham dozed off himself somewhere along the way.

Oh well, no matter. It’s morning now.

The fact that he can see that with his own eyes is enough to calm his mind for the day to come.

---

Kaveh has made it his personal mission to dote on Tighnari in any subtle ways he can. Unlike the Inazumans, no one comes up to him to ask him how he’s doing outright. They all just try to make his life as easy as possible and make sure he could wish for nothing while he wastes his day away on the sofa with a book in his lap.

It’s kind and thoughtful and well meant and stifling and embarrassing and slightly horrible too.

The first thing Kaveh does for him is fix his glasses, inserting new frames into them that he once again manages to scrounge up from older, found pairs.

Alhaitham had made it a goal to scavenge for as many spare items he could, just in case anything broke, such as bike tires, batteries, rolls of tape and rope, packaged toothbrushes, sets of tweezers and scissors, cups and plates, ballpoint pens and, apparently, glasses.

While this does make Tighnari’s life quite a bit easier, as he can actually passively make himself useful, it also traps him on the couch or at the dinner table quite effectively. He’s got no excuse to do more strenuous work if he can also dig through books with Alhaitham and correct the kids’ homework.

He’s not complaining about getting to stay inside, not at all, but the others not even letting him get his own cup of water is just absurd.

Tighnari will be focused on one thing for a while and when he next looks up to give his eyes a rest, he’ll find whatever he was drinking to be replenished and whatever dishes he’d left behind to have disappeared.

He’ll exude a single chill from the cold and within minutes, either Cyno, Kaveh or Amber comes to drape something or other across his shoulders carefully.

Collei will occasionally slip him a note with a few crooked words on it to cheer him up, even when he’s not in a particularly bad mood at all.

Bennett clunks and creaks around the living room with a broom in hand, making sure to avoid whatever spot Tighnari is sitting at and save it for another time lest he has to ask him to lift up his feet for a moment.

The only person treating him the exact same as he did before he left is Razor, who doesn’t say much to him in favor of sitting silently next to him and rake his nails through Tighnari’s tail when he doesn’t have anything else to help out with. Even so, his fellow hybrid seems a little more aware of the shift in atmosphere too, considering the amount of time he now actually spends by Tighnari’s side.

Tighnari truly does love them all, but he’s also going slightly crazy with the attention.

It’s on a morning that’s particularly mild for the season, that Kaveh offers to help Tighnari wash his hair in the backyard.

He doesn’t feel like he’s necessarily been neglecting his hygiene and has to consider for a moment whether he finds the offer helpful or slightly offensive, but then Kaveh assures him that it’s truly just to hang out and make sure he doesn’t get his bandages wet again so they don’t have to be changed.

Tighnari is pretty sure the bandages can come off soon, actually. The bullet wound is all closed up and he’s not at too much of a risk of pulling it open again. Just resting, supporting and cooling it occasionally will be most of what he needs to be doing, but still, Kaveh seems set on helping him so Tighnari follows him out into the backyard and settles down in the chair Kaveh has hauled outside.

“Welcome, welcome, dear customer,” Kaveh says, playing up his voice to sound extra posh. “What may I help you with today?”

Tighnari drops his head back over the backrest and stares at him upside down.

“I merely came upon a personal invitation from a kind Sumeran gentleman,” he says, “blond hair, pretty tall. You might know him.”

Tighnari is glad to see Kaveh genuinely smiling as he fills up the little bowl in his hands and starts combing Tighnari’s hair fully back with his fingers.

“My, what a kind sir indeed. He sounds familiar. Perhaps you’d consider passing on my regards to him?”

“Sure,” Tighnari chuckles, closing his eyes against Kaveh’s touch.

It’s fairly absurd, sitting out in the snow like this, pretending to be old-timey Mondstadtian men in accent, but it somehow works for the both of them, and it’s not like Tighnari’s life has been remotely normal for a few months now, so he supposes a scene like this was to be expected at some point.

Kaveh starts pouring the cold water across Tighnari’s hairline in small rivulets, mindful to keep a hand in place to shield his ears, but still, Tighnari can’t suppress the nearly violent shiver that racks through him.

“Wahh- that’s freezing,” he gasps, trying his best not to squirm away from Kaveh’s touch. Kaveh just chuckles and rakes his fingers through his hair again.

“Not to worry, dear, there will be fresh towels and some hot tea awaiting you after your session.”

“I don’t think your character should be calling me ‘dear’,” Tighnari says.

“Well, I’m calling you ‘dear’, because you are. Now, tilt your head up a little more,” Kaveh guides him a little more upward and the cold water trails down the back of his head into the nape of his neck.

“Ah- Couldn’t we have done this inside?” Tighnari gasps, pressing his eyes tightly shut against the cold. “It may not be- functional, exactly, but I do have a bathroom in my house.”

Kaveh starts working a handful of shampoo into his hair and Tighnari relaxes again, despite the chill.

“Heh, apologies,” Kaveh says, “I just figured it’d be easiest with the water supply nearby. Besides, have you guys even cleared out the bathroom of debris yet? The door never seemed to be in great condition.”

“We did a little bit,” Tighnari admits, “But we never fixed anything in there so it still looks quite messy.”

“Well, I can’t have my best client cut himself open on a piece of cracked porcelain, now can I?”

“Aren’t I your only client?”

“That’s beside the point.”

“You know… I’m not made of porcelain myself,” Tighnari says softly, “I can handle washing my own hair.”

It’s not like he doesn’t appreciate or enjoy Kaveh’s company, nor the nimble fingers massaging his scalp, but he just wants to make sure Kaveh’s not going out of his way to make Tighnari’s life easier at the expense of his own. Besides, even just sitting still like this has got his muscles thrumming with restless energy while they wait for someone else to do the work for them.

“I know,” Kaveh says gently, “But I don’t want you straining that shoulder accidentally. It’ll be a while before it’s fully healed.”

“I can do it with one hand.”

“And get water inside your ears?”

“I think you’re forgetting that I control said ears.”

“Right. But my point still stands. You’ve done enough worrying and coping for a lifetime. It’s okay to let us help you every once in a while.”

Tighnari heaves up his hand and joins Kaveh in frothing up the soap near his ears, making sure to get his fringe fully covered as well.

“It feels like a little more than every once in a while, though.”

“You feel stifled by it?” Kaveh asks. He starts back up again with that awful water to rinse everything off and Tighnari retracts his hand. He holds it out above the grass so Kaveh can rinse the soap off his skin too before continuing on.

“A little.”

“Sorry about that. We just want to make sure to all pitch in a little bit to make you feel better.”

“I know… That’s very kind of you all, but I really haven’t been all that bad.”

“You’re still injured.”

“So is Cyno. You’re not washing his hair.”

“I would,” Kaveh says, “But that’s also because Cyno’s arms are fine. We help him with other stuff.”

“Hm,” Tighnari merely says, squeezing his eyes shut once again as Kaveh wraps a dry towel ungracefully around his entire face, shuffling the fabric back and forth across the sides of his head. “Mphf- Hey,” Tighnari mumbles, trying to get his features free with his loose hand.

Kaveh just chuckles and releases his hold, lifting up the towel and undoubtedly making Tighnari’s hair look like an incredible mess. He just starts drying it normally, moving in between the ears and down to his neck enthusiastically, as if he’s trying to generate warmth by mere motion alone.

“Just let us care for you,” Kaveh says, clutching Tighnari’s head in his hands and leaning past the backrest, across his shoulder, to meet his eyes. “We’re all just very happy to have you around again, safe and in one piece. The same goes for Cyno. It’s all born from our affection for you guys.”

“I know…” Tighnari mumbles, staring back at Kaveh with an involuntary pout because of the hands framing his face.

“Good,” Kaveh says, patting his shoulder and pulling back, “Now, how about you relocate back inside, good sir, and I’ll finish the procedure by brushing out those tangles, hm?”

Tighnari just sighs and mumbles an ‘Alright, thanks’ as he trudges back inside.

He supposes Kaveh’s right. He’s known that all along, but perhaps it would do him some good to just try and accept their doting for what it is and live with it until it fades naturally. They won’t be able to keep this up forever, especially not if he makes sure to show that he’s fully alright now.

Now, to get that chill out of his skin before it can develop into something more achingly familiar.

---

Tighnari’s lost track of the date, and he can’t find a calendar anywhere. He doesn’t know why this is such a big deal to him, but it is. Cyno’s notebook, Alhaitham’s journal, Kaveh’s sketchbook, Collei’s homework- they’re all put away neatly somewhere and he can’t find any of them to check their signed dates. He’s not about to go uproot his entire house in a one-handed flurry of restlessness just for the date, but he’s just about on the edge of considering it.

He’s rummaging through one of his desk drawers in a crouch that’s got his ankles straining with discomfort because he’s been sitting here, checking and rechecking for about five minutes straight, when Collei calls up for him to come eat.

Tighnari chucks a sorted and bound stack of spring seeds onto his desk and rights himself, groaning softly at the soreness of his muscles. As soon as he gathers himself enough to shake off his frustration a little, he steps past his rolling chair and somehow manages to scrape the back of his heel up against the plastic foundation of it, both tripping himself up and pushing the chair over ungracefully and loudly.

He manages to angle himself so his right side takes the brunt of the impact, but still grunts upon the sudden contact with the floor.

He huffs out a breath as he lays there, more thoroughly annoyed than anything. Then he freezes.

“What was that?” he hears Bennett ask.

His left foot is bare, his sole planted firmly on the hardwood flooring of his bedroom, and the skin of his heel burns with the superficial scrape the old plastic had left as it brushed past.

“Tighnari,” Cyno starts from the bottom of the stairs, “Everything alright?”

For an irrational moment, Tighnari doesn’t breathe. Then, with a short gasp, he hauls himself upright and pulls his foot off the floor, cradling it on his other leg instead.

“Yeah-” he calls down, “just knocked something over.”

He snatches the sock from where it had gotten hooked on an outsticking part of the cracked foundation and pulls it back over his foot with a strangely unstable breath.

“Ah, okay. Careful.”

As if he needs to be told that.

Tighnari catches himself in his frustration, making sure to take a couple of steadying breaths before letting any of it shine through his voice. It wouldn’t be fair to take anything personal out on the others. They’re just trying to be considerate. They’re just trying to look out for him.

“Always,” he says back, and hauls himself to his feet with the edge of his desk as support.

There’s a hole in his sock now, by his heel on the side, and although it doesn’t make his skin touch the wood, it does create a specific, unwanted cold spot of air brushing past it which still sends discomfort coiling through his limbs.

He’ll fix it later. They’re waiting for him downstairs.

Tighnari makes sure to straighten out his cardigan and hair before trudging downstairs, finding the others already seated by the dinner table.

Cyno has kept the spot next to himself free and as soon as Tighnari sits down, brushes a gentle touch of his leg against Tighnari’s.

He sends him a small smile and hopes it comes across as genuine.

“Who wants rice?” Kaveh asks, as if there’s any other option available.

All things considered, they’ve been able to get a little more varied and creative with their cooking recently, through the added options of dried rice and pasta that Alhaitham had stored up on from a general goods store near the village center.

The kids hold out their plates like eager little birds, waiting for their mother hen to scoop up their fill and Kaveh chuckles at their enthusiasm.

“Cute,” he mumbles under his breath as he starts to divide the portions.

Tighnari can’t help but notice that he and Cyno get an extra scoop as compared to the rest. Then, Cyno gives him even more of his own, mindlessly transferring some from his own plate over to Tighnari’s.

Tighnari would like to return the favor and give anyone else some of his now, but he knows they’d just protest and dump it right back.

They’re just trying to look out for him. He needs to eat well in order to get well, he can hear Alhaitham say in his mind, ignoring the fact that he already is well.

He’s not a patient, he’s just a guy with his arm in a sling, that’s all.

He’s not a victim of anything. He just doesn’t know the date and it stresses him out.

“What day is it again?” he asks Cyno softly, but it’s Alhaitham who answers.

“The fourteenth.”

“Ah,” Tighnari says, “thanks.”

Well, that’s not what he wanted to hear. He knows it’s going to be the fourteenth every month, over and over again, and yet the title irrationally doesn’t sit very well with him. Instead of referring to the day he got abducted as exactly what it is, whenever they have to discuss anything related to it they just call it ‘the fourteenth’. Everybody knows what that means now.

It’s already been a full month, and yet, it feels so much longer and so much shorter at the same time.

Tighnari just decides he has to settle with the fact that today might not be his day when he notices the lack of clean chopsticks on the table. There’s four pairs, distributed along the table randomly, and the rest of them had gotten a pick of the Fontainian cutlery set his parents had gotten as a wedding gift way back.

It’s pretty much one of the most harmless knives he could have ever gotten presented to him, its dull blade more so meant for leveraging the food onto a fork than to cut anything with, but still, he finds himself shooting it an undeserved frown.

It’s petty, he knows, to get frustrated with a utensil, but he can’t even use the darn thing for a lack of both of his hands free, so all it's doing is just laying there, taunting him silently.

He’s sure whoever made the table didn’t even realize its redundancy when they put it down, but still, it feels like something of a personal slight against his mood.

Tighnari suddenly becomes aware of the fact that everybody’s been quiet since Alhaitham’s declaration of the date. He looks up from his plate and promptly locks eyes with Razor, who quickly glances down to his own food again.

“Anyone up for some cards later?” Cyno asks, breaking the silence.

“Do you mean anyone, or just between you guys?” Amber asks, her tone good-natured, but her words a bit pointed.

“Anyone,” Cyno clarifies. “with some more motivated players, at least we might be able to finish a full round before falling asleep.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kaveh asks at the same time as Bennett says: “I’ll join!”

“It means that we somehow never get anywhere once a conversation gets going,” Cyno says, smirking at Kaveh.

“Once those two start each other off, you mean,” Tighnari says, gesturing his fork between Kaveh and Alhaitham.

Cyno just nods and Alhaitham rolls his eyes slightly.

“You’re not that much better yourself, Cyno,” he says.

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Collei pipes up, staring innocently at her food.

“At least we don’t raise our voices over something as trivial as whether a spade resembles a leaf or an actual shovel,” Cyno says.

“No, you just bicker about the phonetics of a painfully niche word, just to prove that a certain joke does or doesn’t work,” Alhaitham counters.

“I thought you were interested in discussions about language.”

“I’m interested in conversations that provide critical insights, not just nonsensical attempts to prove a point that isn’t there.”

“Oh, like the spade-thing is so important,” Kaveh says.

“And this is how we never get anywhere,” Tighnari mumbles.

“Well, I’ll join too,” Amber says. “Collei?”

“I… don’t really know how to play,” Collei says.

“We’ll teach you!” Bennett exclaims, “It’s really fun once you get the hang of it.”

“I’ll pass tonight,” Tighnari says, simply because he doesn’t want to risk losing his temper over something that can be easily avoided.

As soon as he’s said it, though, he’s not sure he made the right call, because now all questioning eyes are on him.

“Aw,” Collei pouts, “but I wanted to play against you.”

“I’ll join again some other time,” Tighnari says, shooting her a small smile of reassurance.

He catches Kaveh glancing at him with a hint of worry and has to refrain from sighing too obviously.

Alhaitham is looking at him too. And Razor, once again.

To avoid making anything seem more suspicious to them, he also refrains from explaining himself further. The ‘just tired’ excuse will just set them off on more worrying and ‘I’d like some peace and quiet’ sounds a bit rude even to himself. They’re not even necessarily true. He just wants to be outside of their eyesight for a while to simmer down by himself, nothing more.

“Alright then, that’s settled. Do you want to try, Razor?” Cyno asks.

“Sure. I’m not good though. Cards are hard,” Razor says.

“Well, that’s no problem,” Kaveh says, “We play with inexperienced players all the time.”

He makes sure to direct his slight clearly at Alhaitham, and adds a snide smile, just to draw a reaction from the man.

“I taught you how to play,” Alhaitham retorts, clearly ticked off, just like Kaveh had intended.

“That doesn’t say anything about your level of skill,” Kaveh says.

“You’ve haven’t won a game against me in months,” Alhaitham says, earning a soft snicker from Bennett, who then glances innocently to his plate.

Kaveh huffs out a breath, rolling his eyes, and leans a little closer to Tighnari, telling him: “We’ll keep it down.”

“Please,” Tighnari says, actually finding himself to shift his tone to a more teasing one too.

Then his mood crashes back down instantly when Kaveh continues with:

“Everything alright?”

Tighnari glances up from his food and counts, one, two, three, four- all. All eyes staring at him curiously.

“Yes?” he responds, trying to recall whether he’d said anything worrying during the conversation.

“It’s just,” Kaveh continues, “you’ve been frowning quite a bit, I just thought maybe you had a headache or something?”

So he’d been looking this entire time. Great.

“I don’t,” Tighnari says, “Don’t worry.”

“Well, get some rest anyways,” Amber says, chipper and kind. “You could even claim the bed if you’re turning in early. Nobody would mind.”

“I’m just-” Tighnari starts. Goosebumps run along his arm for no discernable reason. “I’m just going to read or something.”

For some reason, anything he says now feels like a flimsy excuse to disprove their words, even though it’s true, he probably will go read -- what else would he do by himself these days? So then why does it feel like he’s lying to himself -- lying to them -- when he tells them not to worry.

The useless knife glinting up at him tells him he’s a liar.

The scrape on his heel, the cold spot through his sock, the feeling of rough hardwood somehow lingering beneath his foot -- they all tell him he’s a liar.

It’s just a bit of a bad day and he just doesn’t really feel like playing cards, that’s all there is to it. It’s no excuse, and it’s no reason to turn in early or to worry or to keep staring at him.

Cyno touches his leg again beneath the table, a subtle call for his attention, and when Tighnari glances at him he finds that same question etched into his eyes -- Everything alright? -- and Tighnari sends him a tight smile to quell his worries once again.

He’s alright.

He just doesn’t really taste any of the food he’s eating and he just stiffens in his seat every time he looks at that useless knife -- that good for nothing, spotless blade-

That could rip open a creature’s neck in a heartbeat if he only put enough desperate force behind it.

The thought catches him completely off-guard, and Tighnari stops chewing, swallowing a tasteless bite and realizing the conversation was once again puttering along while he wasn’t paying attention. He doesn’t even know what they’re talking about. He doesn’t particularly care.

He needs to step out for a moment, he needs to be sure nobody is looking at him while he processes that graphic image and the pounding of his heart it brings.

“Be back in a sec,” he mumbles to Cyno as casually as possible, slipping out of his seat and ignoring the way Cyno’s eyes trace his movements because he is, admittedly, heading the wrong way if he were to go to the bathroom or get any more water or even just get something else to add to the meal -- he’d have to be in the garden for all of that.

Instead he heads upstairs with quick steps and goes for the door that’s not very much used these days.

The bathroom is still all kinds of depressing to be in, and cold too, but it’s one of the only rooms with a lock and unboarded windows, so it’s not entirely dark in there without a lantern. The light of the early evening manages to bathe the place in a pale blue glow.

Tighnari makes the bad decision to take off his socks and stand on the dusty tiles with bare feet, just to get that hardwood grain off his skin, replacing it with a freezing, smooth surface instead.

It could just as well be ice. At least not snow or forest flooring. It’s something.

He places a hand against the cracked sink and leans against it, meeting his own eyes in the mirror, hoping his face isn’t too obviously flushed or distressed.

It is. And it’s also really not what he needs to see right now.

He swoops down his ears, just so they’re not begging for so much attention, always attracting eyes, always the first thing people notice, always a carrier of his heart on his sleeve. He clamps his mouth shut as he regards the faint lines of pink on his cheek that nearly look purple against his skin in this lighting.

Despite their care, the scratches had scarred anyway. An inescapable reminder of that night-- all of those nights and all of those memories connected to them.

There’s a little note on the thin shelf underneath the mirror.

Collei had been here too.

She’d been leaving small notes like this around random places in the house. He figured he’d let her, claiming it as writing practice, but he really wishes she would stop.

The gestures are sweet but they just solidify the fact that she observes that he’s in need of hearing the words. She knows he’s got good days and bad ones, she knows Kaveh’s questions and Cyno’s nudges aren’t without reason, she knows he’s not okay.

She sees right through him, and Tighnari needs her to just stop looking.

He folds it open anyway.

I like yor eybrows, it says, and Tighnari frowns in confusion.

He glances up at himself, catching sight of his eyebrows, and frowns deeper.

Huh?

Underneath that it says:

And yor cheeks too, because you smile with dimpels.

Hehe, made you try it out, right?

Don’t look too hard, yor great the way you ar.

Tighnari looks at himself again and finds nothing more than a grimace on his features. It’s dimpled, sure, but that’s not what he gets stuck on.

Collei had done more than just see through him. It’s like she’d read his mind. A mind that he very much wants to keep away from her if he can help it, for her own sake and his.

She knew that he wouldn’t be smiling if he ever came to look in the mirror. She knew that he’d focus on all of the things that had changed and ignore everything that’s the same, like his eyebrows or his cheeks. She knew that he’d stare at himself until he couldn’t discern his own face anymore in the low light, everything blurring together in blobs of pallid skin and dark everything else.

Now, it’s not because of the light, but he can’t see himself all that well regardless.

He unhooks his glasses and places them on the flat part of the sink, rubbing his eyes with the palm of his hand harshly, trying to fight the stinging behind his eyes.

She had been looking, like everyone had been looking, and although that very fact sends chills through his limbs, the fact that he’s now alone in the dark and cold without any protection between his feet and the floor just makes everything so much worse-

He’s trapped. He can’t feel comfortable in any situation, he can’t be with others, he can’t be alone, he can’t be bundled up without feeling constrained and he can’t be exposed because the air would sting at his skin how it had done back there-

It’s not over. It might never be over.

If his mind is going to turn intrusive and violent on him any time he sees a knife, or when his dreams force him to confront what he'd rather forget right in front of the others -- because there’s always someone awake enough to hear him gasp for breath -- it’ll never be truly over.

It’s not over for Sucrose and that kid.

Dottore may have died or maybe he didn’t but there are other evils, other men with intentions and minds just as vile as him, and they’re locked up there even though he promised her-

A soft knock sounds on the door and Tighnari flinches, stumbling back a step and nearly losing his balance as he stares at the door with wide eyes.

The others can’t see him now. He looks awful, he looks worrisome.

“Tighnari?” Collei asks softly, and Tighnari gasps out a silent sob because out of anyone Collei can’t see him like this.

When he doesn’t respond, pressing a hand against his mouth to keep quiet, Collei continues:

“Are you in there?”

She just sounds curious, not suspicious.

Tighnari doesn’t trust himself to speak if he wants to keep it that way.

“Hello?” Collei asks, audibly trailing away from the door to glance into the other rooms and see if he’s there.

Maybe if he just stays quiet and waits it out she’ll give up after a minute and head back downstairs? But he’s still going to get questions. He’s still going to need to explain himself. He’s already stayed away for too long without explanation.

The hand against his mouth isn’t making it any easier to breathe, and he sits down on the tiles just to make sure he doesn’t accidentally fall or stumble again at his constricting lungs.

“Hey, I-uh… I can see the door is locked,” Collei says softly, making sure to keep her voice from reaching downstairs. “There’s nothing really useful in there, I think, so… Well, can you open the door, maybe?”

The longer he’s staying silent, the worse he’s making the situation, but Tighnari is just stuck- stuck with locked limbs, with breath midway in his throat, with a voice that would absolutely fail him if he tried to use it.

“Is… is everything alright?” Collei asks, and Tighnari just wordlessly shakes his head and presses his eyes shut, trying to breathe, because it’s not- nothing is- he isn’t alright.

“I’m sorry to invade your privacy, but I’m gonna open the door soon, okay? I just want to make sure that you’re okay.”

But it’s locked, she can’t open the door from the outside, she’s not supposed to be able to-

The lock twists without Tighnari touching anything and the door handle is slowly pushed down.

Tighnari’s heart pounds in his chest and he hides most of his face behind the single hand he has free, covering his eyes with uselessly spread fingers and pressing the palm of it against his lips. He sits back against the wall, in hopes of her somehow only noticing the shadows and overlooking his pulled up legs.

She doesn’t.

Collei pops her head through the crack and notices him immediately, a quiet gasp escaping her at the sight of him.

She hurries inside and closes the door behind her, locking it again and sliding to her knees right in front of him, eyes wide and unsure.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

Tighnari doesn’t tell her, and instead gasps out a pathetic mix between a sob and a breath, ducking his head to avoid her prying eyes.

“Did you hurt yourself?” she asks, “Did you-” she falls silent for a moment, “... is it a panic attack?”

Tighnari really shouldn’t be surprised that she picks up on it so quickly, knowing that she herself has had her fair share of them before.

He nods, pressing his face into the crook of his elbow just to stifle the sound of his breathing, lest anyone downstairs hear.

“Oh, stop-” Collei starts quickly, a bit panicky herself, “stop covering your face, stop covering your face.”

She lays a hand on his arm to draw it away but Tighnari holds it fast because he can’t have her seeing his full face the way it is now.

“You’re just making it harder for yourself to breathe, please,” she says, drawing her hand away, unsure of what to do.

“Don’t look-” Tighnari gasps, voice horribly unsteady. “Just-t don’t look, please.”

Collei immediately looks away and takes a moment to consider before settling down beside him and staring straight ahead instead.

“Can you lower it now?” she asks, and Tighnari slowly does as he’s asked.

The first thing that escapes him is a sharp inhale of breath that makes Collei flinch.

“It’s alright,” she starts, “I’m just looking at the wall, I’m not seeing anything. It’s just the two of us here. Nobody will hear. Just try to breathe a little deeper.”

Tighnari knows that this is the exact thing he would say to her if the roles were reversed, but just like when Alhaitham told him that one time, it’s frustrating to be told to breathe when you’re trying but it’s not working as it should.

“Uhm- uh, what do you see? Can you name three things you can see?” Collei asks. She knows the tactics- of course she does. She’s probably had to help herself through attacks of this kind plenty of times before. She might have even taught herself to unlock those twisting locks with a coin or something else flat, just to lock herself in places she could ride out the wave of panic by herself.

Tighnari tries to answer her question because she really is trying to help him and he’s not helping himself by hyperventilating.

“Sink,” he rasps, “hand. Eh- pipes.”

“Good. How about three things you can feel?”

“Cold. Floor-t-tiles.”

He doesn’t get further than that, and Collei glances down at the floor, suddenly lunging for the socks he’d discarded against the opposite wall.

“Can you put these on?” she asks, holding them out to him, but Tighnari shakes his head.

“They don’t help,” he says after, because she’s not looking at him.

Collei is clearly a little lost for a moment, trying to rack her brain for the best course of action, and Tighnari feels absolutely horrible for putting this on her and making her feel like she can’t tell anybody else or ask for help -- because she shouldn’t be seeing him like this -- but he can’t have the others seeing him like this either- one is already bad enough.

She reaches over and tugs the bath mat across the floor to lay in front of them.

“Here, put your feet on this,” she says, clearing away some of the dust on it with some quick swipes of her hand.

Tighnari does and immediately the strange texture makes him falter. It’s uneven, but too soft to be anything else but a bath mat. Nothing but a plain and regular bath mat.

“Now, what do you feel?”

“The bath mat,” Tighnari says, “Wet hands. Cold air.”

“Okay, alright, and-uh… Hearing? Do you hear anything? I mean- what are three things that you- uh-”

“You,” Tighnari says, cutting off her stuttering attempt at collecting her thoughts. “My heartbeat. Your heartbeat.”

Collei hesitates for a moment and then asks, genuinely curious: “You can actually hear my heartbeat?”

Tighnari nods and then realizes she’s still not looking at him, so he also says “Yeah.”

“Cool,” she whispers. “Uhm- Do you- do you feel calmer now? Did that work?”

“A little,” he says, breathing heavily through his nose, in and out.

“Good, I’m glad. So… can you tell me what’s wrong now? I just- I want to help, whatever it is. Nothing is too weird or scary or intense for me. I can handle whatever it is.”

Tighnari is sure she can, but he’d never divulge the full details of his thoughts to her. She’s had to handle things much too mature for her age already. Hearing about his creature-killings and broken promises won’t do anything but give her more nightmares than she already has.

But she is here, and she is trying. Tighnari at least owes her an answer.

“I- uh…” he tries, racking his brain for what to say. “I-”

They can both tell he’s not doing a very good job at it, so Collei saves him from trying to explain himself for just a little longer.

“I could just keep talking, if that would help,” she says. “Actually, yeah, that might be better. Don’t tell me what’s wrong, just… listen to me talk, okay? Nothing else.”

Tighnari glances at her and finds her eyes to be roving across the shadows by the sink, searching for a hint at what he’s feeling, what he’s trying to convey, but not finding anything.

“‘kay,” he says softly, and she takes a steadying breath, gathering her words.

“So, I found something kinda cool the other day,” she starts, seemingly a little unsure of her own attempts, but pushing through, “I’d totally forgotten it was in my pocket. Yoimiya had given me a little glass charm back when we were spending some time together. It’s shaped like… well, she said it was supposed to be a bunny, but it looked more like a little blob to me. It only had some little eyes and a spot a little lower in between, which could have been a nose or a surprised mouth,” Collei chuckles, shaping her fingers into a little oval about the size the charm would have been.

“It looked a bit like pudding, so I told her that, and then she said that she thought mochi would be more accurate. I just smiled and agreed with her, but I don’t actually know what mochi is, so…”

“It’s a desert,” Tighnari adds softly. “Pretty close to pudding.”

A slightly absurd turn of conversation and train of thought, but one that he welcomes just like all of the other absurd situations he’d encountered this far. As long as they’re good-absurd and not enemy-treating-gunwound-absurd-

“Hm,” Collei hums curiously, “I bet I’d like it. Is it hard to make?”

“... for us, yeah,” Tighnari says slowly, trying to recall the details of his very limited experiences with the snack, “I don’t think we can get all of the ingredients by ourselves.”

“Oh, well, maybe they have it over in Inazuma,” she says, “we can ask when they’re here… Can I look at you now?”

Oh- right.

“Yeah,” he says, “sorry.”

“No need for that,” Collei says, turning and smiling at him. Tighnari just hopes the low lighting hides away some of the less pleasant parts of his face. “You always say that to me, so now I can say it to you. No need to feel sorry.”

“...I am, though,” Tighnari admits, frowning, “You should be having dinner, not talking to me about… glass charms and mochi.”

He trusts her to pick up on the unspoken meanings behind those words.

You shouldn’t have to be told to look away because I can’t stand to look at the scars on my own face, especially not if you can smile regardless of them and notice the dimples instead.

You shouldn’t have to leave sweet notes to fight the lingering tension beneath my skin, when it’s my job to pull myself together and make you forget there’s tension in the first place.

You shouldn’t have to try and look through me to see if everything is alright because everything should be alright- you deserve someone alright- you deserve to let it all rest and move on and I can’t hold you back in that just because I can’t control my own thoughts-

But instead he mentions mochi, and Collei holds out a hand in mid-air for him to take if he wants to.

When he does, she sighs out a content breath and meets his eyes.

“But I like talking to you about glass charms and mochi,” she says, “and… I want you to feel like we can talk about that any time. I want to hear your thoughts on… Inazuman desserts.”

Tighnari is slightly caught off guard at how he finds himself impressed at her careful wording. She knows exactly what she’s saying, and she knows he knows what she means.

Still, he frowns, and sighs out a reluctant breath. Before he can tell her something along the lines of my thoughts are nothing special, trust me, they’re better left unshared, she looks away casually and says:

“You know… I used to feel the same way, I think.” She’s once again so careful with her wording, Tighnari wonders what she’d have said if he hadn’t made such a fuss about discussing the topic. “Most of my nightmares… they’re not about the monsters out there. I never really tell you what they are about, just ‘cause I don’t want to bring down your mood with my dumb thoughts-”

“They’re not dumb,” Tighnari interjects, and Collei chuckles.

“I know,” she says, “but it feels that way sometimes. When I see you and the others sleeping peacefully, or just having normal conversations, or even just hugging each other, just like that… I feel like I’m kinda exaggerating my own feelings. I just wonder… why I can’t do those normal things as easily as you can. Sleeping should be easy, you’d think,” she huffs out a laugh, but there’s no humor in it, “And yet I’m pretty bad at it. I feel like it’s dumb that I think about… the stuff in my nightmares so often, to the point of becoming uncomfortable with normal things. But you never think that.”

Tighnari blinks at her and feels dumb not knowing how to respond to that. Then he catches himself in the exact train of thought she’d just described.

“I just want to make sure you know that I don’t think that about you either. And neither does anyone else. So even if you need to step out for a moment during dinner… No one thinks that’s weird or dumb or irrational. We just don’t want you to be alone when that happens. I know I always feel better when you find me, so I thought… you might feel better if someone came to find you too.”

For a moment, Tighnari thinks through her words, the silence between them profound but not loaded. It should be, when he thinks about it. His mind should be blaring alarm bells at what she just said, because she just admitted to seeing right through him once again, but it’s not. She’s right, after all.

His thoughts might not be dumb, but he sure is. He’s such a hypocrite.

Tighnari has to withhold an incredulous chuckle at his own denseness and instead redirects that energy into smiling at her.

“I do,” he says. “It helped.”

The way Collei’s smile grows and crinkles up the corners of her eyes does something to his own attempt, turning it more genuine.

“So, you’re a bit better now?” she asks, hopeful.

Tighnari nods.

“Much,” he says, “thank you. For helping me just now. And for being so darn thoughtful.” He shifts onto his knees and invites her for a hug, which she gratefully returns with a giggle.

“I only learned from the best,” she says.

When she draws back, he sees a hint of a frown slip onto her face again. “What about right now? Are you going back downstairs to finish dinner, or…”

Right. That.

“I think I’m going to hang out in my room for a while,” he says. He’s not sure he’ll be able to make his face look at all presentable enough to face the others, having nothing at his disposal to fix it but his hands and a mirror he’s planning to avoid. “Sorry to put this on you. You’ll probably get questions when you go downstairs… You can lie to them if you want, you shouldn’t have to excuse my actions on my behalf. I realize I’ve made a bit of a scene walking away like that,” he sighs heavily, settling back on his heels. “I hope I haven’t ruined your evening like this.”

“What?” Collei says, sounding a little incredulous, “Of course not. I’ll just keep it vague and tell them not to worry -- that we talked it out and that you’re all good now. Our friends are really thoughtful too, you know? If I say that, they’ll know to trust you until you’re ready to approach them yourself. We’ll go play cards and have a good time and… if you change your mind you’re welcome to join us at any time.”

“Thanks,” Tighnari says, shooting her a genuine smile, “I really do think I’m going to read though. I don’t think I’ve got it in me to mediate too much bickering tonight.”

Collei giggles and gets to her feet, nodding wisely.

“Understandable. I’ll fill in for you and lecture them in your place.”

“A good skill to practice,” Tighnari says with a chuckle, following her up. “Well, have fun then. And thank you again.”

“Will you stop thanking me already?” Collei says, a playful exasperation in her voice. “I didn’t do some huge gesture or anything. I just… care for you, that’s all.”

She glances at her feet as she says it, and the surge of warmth that runs through his chest reminds him painfully of another conversation, not too long ago, that had left him smiling with fondness for his charge.

“That’s worth thanking on my part, don’t you think?” Tighnari asks, “I pity all those who don’t have you around, even. I’m grateful you came, Collei.”

Collei ducks her head entirely and mumbles:

“Now you’re just trying to embarrass me.”

“I would never,” Tighnari says, bringing up a hand to ruffle her hair softly, “and you started it.”

“I didn’t start-”

“Oh, you started it way back in Inazuma when you exclaimed that you loved me,” he teases, chuckling at the way she flushes.

She nearly pouts as she says: “I just- I was just-”

She gives up on trying to justify her words and simply brushes past him, eyes boring into the ground with a quick: “Whatever, just don’t- Ugh, nevermind.”

He hears her hurry downstairs and knows she’s only doing that to avoid more potential headpats, but he knows she’ll hide out on the bottom of the stairs for a moment to make sure her face isn’t too red from embarrassment.

Tighnari huffs out a laugh, a genuine one, and shakes his head at her adorable flusteredness.

When he makes his way through the hallway, cold socks pulled on once again, he makes sure to mumble after her: “Make sure to beat Cyno for me,” just as he’s passing by the staircase, because he hears her heartbeat still and knows she’ll catch it.

Then he makes his way into his room, drops onto his bed, and grabs for the nearest book to him, the one on his nightstand. When he opens it, a note flutters out from behind the cover.

Hav fun reading! Hope its not a booring book!

Tighnari hasn’t even bothered to look at what he picked up, exactly, but even if it’s Bennett’s math textbook, he’s sure he’ll have a better evening than he could have imagined he would have when he woke up that morning.

He knows the date.

He can hear the other’s voices downstairs.

The covers are soft beneath him and his dimpled cheeks strain slightly from smiling so broadly. His hair is light, and his muscles are a relaxed sort of exhausted now that he’s rid them of their tense thrumming.

And to think, all he did was break down and get put back together with the most gentle hands that could have handled him, probably. All he’d done was listen to Collei relate herself to him, and suddenly he doesn’t feel like the outlier anymore.

He’s just one of the many who’s gone through too much for their own good. Collei is like him, and Razor is like him- Kaveh, Amber, Cyno- everyone. They’re all like him.

Collei might not tell him of her nightmares directly, but she depends on him to calm down. Cyno might not seem like the type to let memories bother him, but he’s had his moments where the darkness lingering in his gaze was unmistakable too. Kaveh doesn’t mention his father and Amber doesn’t mention the people she’d left behind and Razor doesn’t really speak of the things he’s seen-

But Collei has her moments of genuinely restful sleep. Cyno’s eyes light up like no lantern could ever hope to rival when speaking of the things that interest him. Kaveh recalls fond memories at any occasion he gets, Amber keeps on writing regardless of audience and Razor is going outside again.

There will come a day when all eyes are on him and Tighnari does nothing but grin back.

There will come a day, when both of his arms are freed and none of his socks have holes in them anymore, that Tighnari will sit them all down and speak of all that happened.

But for now, he tucks the note in between the pages to keep as a bookmark and reads the first words unseeingly, already zoning out with the white noise from downstairs to lull his mind into a gentle buzz. He doesn’t even get through the first full page before the pages flutter closed, resting on his chest, and he breathes deeper than he has in days.