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Tighnari's hands are always cold.
The sun rises in the east, Sumeru is the nation of wisdom, and Tighnari's hands are always cold. It's simply a fact of life.
-
It's the beginning of the rainy season, and the scent of petrichor floods Tighnari's senses as he navigates around newly soft ground. It simultaneously calms him and puts him on his guard. The rainforest is alive, and he must be more vigilant than ever when one of his senses has been rendered useless like this.
Still, it's a beautiful day. The thick foliage shields him from many of the raindrops, and the remaining ones are deflected by a large umbrella. The air is cool and refreshing against his skin, and the wind makes a valiant effort to ruffle the fur on his ears.
On his way back to Gandharva Ville, he passes by a small patrol of fellow rangers. Scavenging for flora, judging from their gear. Because of the downpour, he can't tell who's who by sight, and his nose isn't fully functioning right now, so he keeps his greeting polite and impersonal. They trudge past each other, exhausted yet still deriving a strange, wild energy from the rain.
When Tighnari arrives at his hut, he sees the tell-tale glow of a lamp he did not light through the clouded windowpane. He suppresses a smile. There's really only one person it could be. Well, two, but Collei had already left a month ago to study at the Akademiya. Amurta darshan, just like Tighnari. He couldn't be any prouder.
"I'm home!" The door swings shut behind him as he begins the arduous task of pulling off his muddy galoshes. At least, since he had the foresight to pack an umbrella (that he leaves under the hut's tiny awning to dry), he barely has to wring out any dampness in his clothes.
"Welcome home," Cyno's voice echoes from the kitchen, where an utterly delicious smell is wafting from. "I'm making mushroom stew, but it won't be ready for another half hour or so."
"That's alright." Tighnari says. "I ate when I was out today, so I'll be okay for a while longer."
Tighnari hangs up his bag on nearby rack, lines up his shoes carefully next to the door, and makes a beeline for the couch. He doesn't intend to nap; it's hard for him to fall asleep with such a barrage of smells and sounds anyway. Still, he closes his eyes and focuses on the rising and falling of his chest, Cyno puttering around in the next room over, and the delectable scent of the upcoming dinner.
He drifts back into wakefulness with a hand on his shoulder gently shaking him awake. "Dinner's ready," Cyno murmurs in a low tone that does something to Tighnari's heart, even when half asleep. "I hope you don't mind that I woke you."
"Not at all," Tighnari reassures him, yawning slightly. He wasn't fully asleep, anyway. Gait slightly unsteady from lethargy, he follows Cyno to the kitchen, where their places have already been laid out at the well-worn wooden table. Cyno ladles out the stew as Tighnari cuts up some fruit for the both of them. It's quiet, almost like a ritual.
It's Tighnari who is the first one to break their comfortable silence a few minutes into the meal. "You're back early," he remarks.
Cyno finishes swallowing his spoonful of stew before speaking. "The suspect was tracked down earlier than we anticipated. I have a few days off before I get a new case."
Tighnari is selfish. He wishes all of Cyno's cases were done this early.
After the dishes are done, Tighnari sits at his desk in the living room and reviews his notes about environmental conditions in the Avidya Forest areas he visited today. All of the Withering Zones might have been cleared out, but their long-term effects on soil, water, flora, and fauna still have yet to be studied. The pitter-patter of rain outside is a comforting background noise as he works.
Cyno steps out of the bathroom, skin glistening in the dim lamplight Tighnari is reading by. A towel is wrapped around his waist and his chest, like always, is completely bare.
"Come to bed."
Tighnari's hand is still scrawling notes, albeit a bit more haphazardly than before. It takes all of his willpower to stay focused on the pages in front of him. "I have to finish this entry first."
"Two minutes."
Tighnari scoffs. "You think you make the demands around here?"
Cyno's lips quirk upwards. "It's not a demand. It's how long I think you'll last."
"You know I last longer than that."
Cyno draws closer. The scent of the soap he uses is warm and almost seems to envelop Tighnari in a haze. "Not today."
And, well. He's not wrong. Tighnari's notebook is stowed away very, very quickly.
When they're sated and sleep is about to overtake them, Tighnari wraps his arms around Cyno's torso, relishing the warmth he seems to radiate.
Cyno mumbles something. "...ands cold."
"What?"
"Cold."
"My hands?" Tighnari pushes himself up on his forearms to talk to Cyno, who seems too exhausted to lift his head from the pillow.
Cyno musters the energy to nod, pushing his head into the crook of Tighnari's neck. "S'okay," he murmurs. "You're not cold, just your hands. Not a cold person."
Tighnari's hands might be cold, but right now, he feels warm. He brings one of his cold hands up to touch his cheeks, and yep- he's blushing.
As Tighnari surrenders to sleep, him and Cyno still intertwined, his last thought is an idle one: that he and Cyno suit each other, even in the tiniest of ways.
-
When Tighnari agreed to take on some commissions in the desert with Lumine, he expected, at most, some extra mora and new tracts of land to study and assess for problems and improvements.
He didn't expect Cyno.
Lumine had simply smiled (all too knowingly) at him when the adventuring party was assembled. Aside from the three of them, there was a young boy from Liyue who always seemed to have his nose buried in a book. Xingqiu, Tighnari thinks his name is.
It doesn't matter at the moment, though, because their party has been split up. Lumine is exploring with Xingqiu, and she's left Cyno to watch over Tighnari. The petty part of Tighnari wants to point out that the Liyue boy wearing dark clothes in the middle of a desert ecosystem probably needs more supervision than he does. He doesn't voice this complaint, because he gets to spend more time with Cyno this way. Cost-benefit analysis, as Lord Sangemah Bay would say.
It's like this: Tighnari is wearing clothes that are lighter and scratchier than usual, and he's slightly woozy from the heat. He keeps slightly listing into Cyno's path, which is mostly unintentional. Mostly.
"Careful." Cyno's hand closes around Tighnari's wrist as he nearly loses traction on the side of a dune. Tighnari is shocked by how hot the hand that grasps his wrist is, rough with familiar calluses and slick with sweat.
"Gah!" Tighnari's first instinct is to shake off Cyno's hand, but he remembers his precarious position at the last second. "Your hand is like a furnace!"
"Your hand is cold," Cyno counters, hauling Tighnari back up to slightly more solid ground. "It feels nice. In fact, it might be more apt to say-"
"Cyno, don't you dare-"
"-it feels ice."
"I hate you."
Cyno smiles, and Tighnari feels his knees weaken. Which is never a good thing when you're standing on the unstable surface of desert dunes. "I know, I'm awful."
"You are incorrigible," Tighnari says, fondness bleeding into his voice.
"You love incorrigible."
In lieu of a response, Tighnari pulls him in for a kiss. It's entirely too hot to be sharing body heat like this, but he can't really bring himself to care.
The kiss deepens, and it takes them a minute longer than expected to pull away. They're both red-faced, and Tighnari feels beads of sweat rolling down his neck and getting trapped under his clothes.
It's Cyno who speaks first. "That was hot."
"..."
"Do you get it? Because we shared body heat when the temperature was high, it was literally hot. But also, because of physical attraction-"
"Cyno!"
-
They run into each other in the city, which is a most unexpected meeting place.
It makes some sense for Cyno; although his General Mahamatra duties have him traveling all over Teyvat, even venturing out into the desert on occasion, he reports back to the city upon the conclusion of a job. Tighnari, however, dislikes the city immensely. He put up with it during his time at the Akademiya, but it was murder on his ears and caused his opinion of the average scholar's wisdom to plummet to the ground. Nowadays, he sticks to the Avidya Forest as much as he can.
Tighnari smells Cyno first, which isn't as weird as it sounds. He's gotten strange looks when trying to explain his heightened senses to know-it-all scholars who have no qualms about touching his ears but are so quick to write off other quirks of his Valuka Shuna biology as "different" in a bad way.
Some kind of grilled scent. A crackling, sulfurous scent.
Meat and Electro. Definitely Cyno. Probably had tahchin.
His suspicions are confirmed when Cyno turns a corner. In one hand is a roughly-hewn bag stuffed to the brim with purchases from the Grand Bazaar.
Tighnari cups his hands around his mouth to ensure he's heard over the din of the mid-afternoon crowds. "Cyno!"
Before spotting Tighnari, Cyno had looked as stoic as ever, even to Tighnari himself. Now, however, his expression has changed in the minutest ways that, while meaning nothing to passersby, signify that Cyno is overjoyed to see him.
"Tighnari!" He pushes his way through the crowds, and people part instinctively for him. Even off-duty, Cyno is imposing.
"Cyno." They don't hug in public as a general rule (too much hassle with both of their respective statuses), but a smile spreads across his face that he makes no attempt to suppress. "New case?"
"Tomorrow," Cyno says. "The suspect is in the city, so I'll still be here for a few days." The if you want to stay goes unsaid.
Tighnari despises city life. He left for the Avidya Forest all those years ago and never looked back.
He says a mental fuck it and links his fingers with Cyno's, savoring the familiar warmth. Cyno blinks, something like hope dawning in his eyes. "I'll be here too."
"Tighnari..." Cyno leans in closer. Close enough for their lips to almost touch, for their breaths to mingle. They're about to kiss. In public. Tighnari is acutely conscious of the people around him, and yet he almost doesn't care.
"...yes?"
Cyno steps backwards, and Tighnari feels the sensation of warmth disappear. "Your hands are cold."
"You tease." Tighnari swats at his shoulder with fake anger.
Cyno grabs his hand again, and the warmth soaks into his fingers once again. "It's okay, I still love you," he deadpans. "Even with your cold hands."
"Just because you seem to have been smiled upon by the Pyro Archon in addition to the Electro Archon-" Tighnari huffs.
"And you the Cryo one? That's so cool. Get it? Cool, because-"
"Cyno."
They stay holding hands even when being swept up in the flow the crowds. If any citizen of Sumeru City were to let their eyes linger on a certain table outside of Puspa Café that day, they would see the chief officer of the forest rangers and the General Mahamatra sharing a Padisarah pudding, clasped hands reaching across the table towards each other.
(Isn't it a wonderful thing, to balance each other out?)