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Tighnari has always been sensitive to harsh weather conditions. It’s unsurprising, given his ancestral roots and his aversion to the desert heat, but it’s also inconvenient for living in a rainforest that is hit by the occasional tropical storm.
Of course, he’s used to it—having grown up in the forest, it became second nature for Tighnari to adapt to these occasional annoyances. The way that rain would linger in his fur, the damp smell impossible to completely vanquish for several hours; the way thunder echoes in his ears, sending little vibrations across his skull; the way the scents of a storm invade his head and leave a humid taste on his tongue well before the first clouds even roll in.
That’s all they’ve ever been for him. Minor annoyances. Never something to be afraid of.
Until now.
“Shit!” Dehya shouts as the first streaks of lightning crash around them. “What the–lightning!?”
Tighnari stumbles backward from where he’d been fighting close combat with two Fatui soldiers—almost immediately, their angered shouts turn to screams as they’re buffeted by rain and harsh winds, and, inexplicably, vivid purple streaks of lightning.
He flinches at the onslaught of sensations overwhelming him. He had not sensed the storm approaching at all, and it’s this thought that ricochets around his head as his chest heaves for breath. It’s not a natural storm.
“Haypaysia,” he breathes, anxiety seizing his chest.
The Fatui soldiers are already retreating, dodging bolts of lightning as they scramble. Weapons scatter the ground. Bodies fall, arms flying in a feeble attempt to cover their heads. The ones that have already fallen are being further assaulted by the weather.
Rain and wind lash past him. Thunder fills every inch of his ears.
It’s all incredibly overwhelming.
Tighnari clutches his bow tighter as Dehya whirls around to face him. “We need to get out of here!”
He barely hears her over the roar of the storm. He feels paralyzed, his feet rooted to the spot, as each bolt of lightning illuminates his vision with an intense shade of violet. There’s so much of it. Almost like it’s specifically targeting them.
Almost like—
It’s when the next bolts of lightning pierce the bodies of the fallen Fatui with deadly accuracy that he realizes. It is specifically targeting them.
Their screams are drowned out by the storm. There’s blood; they can’t avoid the onslaught, and their injuries quickly ramp up as they’re literally torn apart in front of Tighnari’s eyes. It’s brutal. It’s horrifying.
For the first time, he finds himself afraid of lightning.
It’s when Tighnari barely manages to dodge a purple streak before him that he’s finally kicked into motion. Fear for Haypaysia flies to the forefront of his mind. “We need to get to the greenhouse!” he yells to Dehya.
Luckily, she hears him, and nods once in easy affirmation. They leave the Fatui behind—Tighnari resolutely ignores the sight of their writhing bodies, the sounds of their agonized shrieking—and start heading back into Pardis Dhyai.
The storm crashes around them as they run, proving to be almost impossible to avoid. Tighnari keeps his ears flat to his head in a feeble attempt to drown out the noise as much as he can. He can’t breathe through the thickness of damp air, and he fights the urge to shudder.
No natural storm has ever been this intense. Tighnari reluctantly resents his Valuka Shuna origins for making him so excruciatingly sensitive.
“Fuck!” Dehya curses as lightning flies between them, increasing in both volume and intensity. “How is this shit even possible—?!”
Tighnari’s too focused on his movements to respond, gritting his teeth at the wild assault of rain and wind. The storm echoes in his ears. He runs, skips, jumps to dodge the bolts of electric whizzing by, doing all he can to redirect his focus from the sensory overload.
Not much farther to the greenhouse. They’ll be sheltered there, and he can check on Haypaysia and the Traveler, make sure that everyone’s safe—
When the inevitable finally happens, it’s as though time grounds to a halt.
Tighnari has never believed in cliches. He knows that falling in love is a gradual process rather than a heart-stopping moment of clarity at first sight. He’s never experienced his life flashing before his eyes in moments of dire straits. And yet, right now, the entirety of Teyvat appears to hold its breath as a bolt of purple lightning strikes directly into his ribcage.
Tighnari drops to his knees.
The breath is punched out of his chest in a cut-off scream. Immediately, the edges of his vision begin to blur, giving the storm a darkened, hazy filter. Each one of his senses seems to stutter like a broken record as his entire world stops.
He sees purple. Bright, vivid purple, and for a few agonizingly long seconds, he knows nothing else.
Then, almost like an afterthought, the pain arrives. It’s quick to spread—searing heat blooms from the point of impact on his ribs, spreading all the way across his right side like little vines of fire. His hands fly to that point instinctively. Even as his vision swims, as his muscles spasm in response to being electrocuted, his medic brain subconsciously fights to address the situation as fast as possible.
“Tighnari!” Dehya’s voice is frantic from above him, barely audible above the roll of thunder, above the sudden and relentless ringing in Tighnari’s ears. “Fuck!”
At another time, he might’ve started to scold her for her excessive use of profanity. She’s still a stranger to him, of course, but she wears her emotions freely. It surely won’t do her well as a mercenary to be so easy to read.
The pain threatens to choke him. Tighnari squeezes his eyes shut, focusing on breathing. In. Out. In. Out. His chest has tightened dramatically, his heartbeat fast and erratic, and he tries to concentrate, to remember the differences between the types of respiratory failure.
All he can see is purple.
“Get to Haypaysia,” he grits out, strained, as his body begins to fold in on itself.
He isn’t sure if Dehya can even hear him. His vision continues to fade, the entire world toppling to one side every time his eyes move, sending fresh waves of vertigo down his spine.
Concentrate. Breathe slowly.
He’s mustering up the strength to rip off a portion of his hoodie to check for burns when the pain seizes him completely, and he flops forward with a groan. Dread finally seeps into his mind, warring with rationality. Is the wound fatal? Surely not. Lightning strikes are rarely fatal.
And yet, Tighnari can’t deny it now: he is very afraid.
The calm, logical side of his mind is shrinking further and further beyond reach, steadily being overtaken by blind panic. Everything he has ever learnt about medicine and treatment feels inaccessible now. The wave of agitation is consuming him whole.
Before he can move again, his body is abruptly hauled upright by two strong hands. Tighnari hisses as pain shoots through him once more.
“—not leaving you, you idiot,” comes Dehya’s voice, much closer to his sensitive ears than before.
It takes him a second to realize that she’s lifting him. He tries to protest—to tell her to leave, he’ll only be deadweight for her and she has to get to safety—but his voice fails him in the face of agonizing pain. Too late, anyway, since Dehya is already pulling him close to her chest with one arm secured tight around his body and the other cradling his head like a child. Her heartbeat drums rapidly away with a ferocity not unlike the thunder.
She smells like rain and storm and sweat, but beneath it all, the desert. Distantly, Tighnari thinks of Cyno.
It’s ironic, he realizes, to be potentially mortally wounded by lightning. How fitting. If someone like Cyno can hold Tighnari’s beating heart in the palm of his hands, that also means he has the power to crush it. The worst part is that Tighnari would never fault him for it, whatever the circumstance.
As his consciousness blurs and begins to fade, he wishes that he’d at least told Cyno how he feels.
*
When Tighnari comes to, the first thing he notices is that the storm has subsided.
He’s lying on the ground, propped up slightly against a column of the rotunda he’s beneath. It’s not the greenhouse, but it’s close—he supposes that Dehya retreated to the closest possible point of safety for them both. Smart.
Rain falls in a thin but steady drizzle. The clouds are still charcoal gray, blocking out the light of the sun, and a harsh, damp scent lingers in the air. As his awareness increases, so too does the pain. Tighnari groans when he can no longer ignore it—it’s like a small fire is burning away one side of his body, resolute in destruction. He has to grit his teeth when the feeling gradually intensifies.
Lightning. Purple. Burns. Lightning. Burning, screaming, dying—
“You awake?” Dehya asks from beside him. She’s crouching over his body with a look of concern twisting her face. “Hey, don’t move. Jeez, you scared me back there. You’re lucky that I’ve helped treat victims of lightning strikes before.”
Tighnari finally notices that his hoodie, cape and tunic have been carefully removed, leaving him in his black undershirt. He pulls himself up slightly and winces when white hot pain flares in his ribs. “Did you—have you checked on—”
“I haven’t left your side,” Dehya interrupts him, frowning. “Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, you were only out for a few minutes.”
Worry swirls in his gut. “The storm—”
Again, Dehya cuts him off. “It stopped quickly, same way it started. Seriously, will you stop worrying about everyone else for one second and focus on yourself?”
Tighnari pauses, running a brief mental assessment across his own body. His heartbeat has stabilized. His breathing is steady, albeit a little ragged from the heaviness of his chest. His ears are warm but his hearing is intact, and his eyesight is unaffected.
Truly, the only point of concern is the searing pain radiating from his side, the remnants of electricity still buzzing along his skin.
“I’m fine,” he manages after a moment, studying her face. “The wound—it’s not fatal.”
Dehya sighs. “I know, but you still need rest. You’ve been burnt and it looks pretty nasty. I’ve cleaned it as much as I can with water from my waterskin, but that’s all I can do right now.”
Tighnari glances down. His shirt has been lifted, revealing an expanse of reddened skin already so angry and welted that he can’t suppress a wince at the sight. He can already tell it’s going to scar.
Still, he supposes it could be much worse. The memory of fallen Fatui soldiers flashes through his mind’s eye, accompanied by their agonized screaming as they’re torn apart in front of him. The way there had been so much blood—
“Hey,” Dehya’s voice cuts into his thoughts, a touch softer this time, as she reaches out to place a hand on his shoulder. Tighnari flinches at the contact, and she quickly retreats with her hands raised. “Sorry. You were spacing out a bit there.”
Frustrated at himself, Tighnari shakes his head. “Really, I’m fine. Thank you. We need—we need to find the others.”
Dehya narrows her eyes. “Didn’t I tell you not to move? You just passed out. Come on, humor me for at least a few minutes and rest first.”
“It’s unnecessary,” he argues. “The shock of the event led to an unfortunate consequence, but I’m awake now. Whether I lie here or stand, it won’t make much difference.”
“You might get dizzy again,” Dehya points out.
Tighnari grimaces. “Yes, that is likely,” he says. “However, the length of resting time required to abate that dizziness is far too long for our current situation. I want to check on my patient.”
Dehya sighs heavily. “You won’t let up, will you?” When he simply stares at her, she rolls her eyes. “Alright, you win. Do you need help standing?”
“No,” Tighnari says, carefully pulling himself up. It hurts—pain lashes through the entirety of his right side like a throbbing pulse—but he can manage it.
“So,” Dehya starts as they begin moving at a slow pace. “How do you know Cyno? He must be pretty important to you if you could trust us immediately like that.”
Tighnari fights a rising flush, not glancing across to her. She isn’t wrong. “We went to the Akademiya together,” he says. “We kept in touch after graduating and following our separate paths. He… is a very dear friend to me.”
“Is that so?” Dehya asks, and Tighnari can hear the smug amusement in her voice. “Just a friend?”
“Just a friend,” Tighnari repeats. When he finally looks at her, she’s smirking back at him, but she wisely says nothing.
To his relief, the Traveler and Paimon come rushing out to meet them before they can get very far. They fill each other in on the situation. Tighnari releases the breath he’d been holding upon learning that Haypasia is unharmed and everyone is safe. The comfort in this knowledge far exceeds any irritation he gets from learning about the Akademiya’s plans.
It’s later, when he’s dismissing the trio from the greenhouse to remain by Haypaysia’s side, one arm hovering loosely over his wound, that Tighnari allows himself to look back on the events.
The Fatui had quite literally been ripped apart in front of his eyes. Their raw panic had been blatantly apparent from the switch between resolute soldiers to men—men that were simply afraid for their lives. As deep as his resentment for those soldiers runs, he would never wish a fate quite as horrific as that upon anybody.
Tighnari runs a fingertip along the edge of his tunic. He feels the residual electro energy spark and jolt, as though itching to be released. A god creation plan, he thinks with contempt, remembering the familiar arrogance of the Akademiya’s scholars. Just what do they think they’re going to achieve from this?
He looks down to where the fiery sensation burns away at his skin. It’s a superficial injury at most—it’s false lightning, technically, if these were electro strikes from this Balladeer person himself. Nothing that can leave truly lasting damage, he’s sure. The worst that he will get from this is an ugly scar raking across his ribcage.
Still, he feels the buzz of electric pulsing through him as real as anything else. He shivers.
*
Tighnari manages to avoid scrutiny when he slips back into Gandharva Ville. His main concern is running into Collei—since the recent decline in her health, Tighnari has been trying desperately to keep her from any potential stressors so as not to trigger any unnecessary anxiety. This wound, he knows, would be incredibly likely to send her spiralling.
Luckily, Collei is in deep conversation with Amir outside of her own hut when Tighnari arrives. She doesn’t notice him sneaking home.
Tighnari leans against the front door and sighs. The best thing for him to do now is to brush aside any lingering thoughts and memories so that he can focus on cleaning and dressing his burns. It takes him a moment of simply breathing before he can move, which he refuses to acknowledge.
He is fine. He is safe.
The wound isn’t awful—he’s certainly seen worse across his time as a Forest Watcher. Tighnari takes painkillers and begins the treatment in a pleasantly mechanical steadiness. He washes the burns, applies antiseptic and wraps a bandage around his torso, careful not to apply too much pressure to the parts where the skin is already blistering.
Tighnari has treated so many various wounds and injuries that he’s finding the process oddly relaxing. It’s effective in emptying his mind, allowing him to focus on something else. Right now, he doesn’t need to acknowledge what happened to him, or the panic he’d felt knowing the danger that Haypaysia could have been in if he hadn’t been able to protect her.
Once he’s finished, Tighnari sighs again and reclines in his bed, carefully rolling his shoulders. He’s stripped down to his black undershirt and some comfortable joggers, but the strain of his muscles remains tight, particularly across his chest. He carefully presses his fingers around the edge of the bandages, testing the pressure points to identify where the worst pain flares up. Most of it has thankfully reduced to a dull ache, something he can easily ignore.
Rest will do him good. It is, after all, the next logical step to recovery.
And yet.
When Tighnari closes his eyes, he sees their faces again. The panic-stricken eyes. The lips pulled impossibly wide into piercing screams. The blood.
Lightning. Streaks of electro. Purple. Intense, vibrant purple.
Tighnari’s eyes fly open and he sucks in a sharp breath, his heartbeat rabbiting away in his chest. He curses under his breath. He’s being irrational and he knows it—panicked recollections combined with an increased heart rate are a trauma response, particularly after a day like he’s experienced. The brain works to flood the body with stress chemicals like adrenaline in order to avert danger. It is perfectly natural to react this way mere hours after the traumatic event, because the brain is attempting to force itself into survival mode, even without the immediate threat present.
But frustration clouds his mind regardless. Tighnari shouldn’t feel this way. Not with his abundance of medical experience and field application. Not with his precise understanding of healthcare. Not least because of his position as a mentor, as someone that many others look up to and follow, day after day after day.
It’s maddening, then, that every time he closes his eyes he sees purple.
A disturbance in the forest catches his attention, causing his ears to perk up on his head. It’s only a faint rustle of undergrowth. Deliberately quiet steps—careful and precise, but easily lost to the breeze. Impossible to catch for someone that isn’t listening for it.
Tighnari finds himself smiling before Cyno even reaches his hut.
The sun has set and twilight is descending upon the forest in hues of pink and orange when he opens the front door, revealing a haggard-looking General Mahamatra. It’s clear that Cyno has run here. His hair is wild even beneath the headpiece, and faint trails of sweat trickle down the column of his neck. Tighnari tries not to stare.
“Tighnari,” Cyno breathes, his voice hoarse.
Swallowing, Tighnari steps aside to let him in. It’s an invitation that Cyno wordlessly takes without hesitation.
They stand in silence for a few moments. Tighnari has so many questions for him—how has he been lately, is he staying safe, is his work against the Akademiya progressing well, are there any updates he should be aware of—but the words are inexplicably caught in his mouth. The most prominent thought on his mind right now is something he can’t help blurting out—“Why are you here?”
It sounds harsh, and he immediately clamps his mouth shut when the words leave him. Something unidentifiable flickers across Cyno’s face. It only makes him feel worse.
“I had to see you,” Cyno says, so quietly that Tighnari nearly misses it. “Lumine told me what happened at Pardis Dhyai.”
Tighnari avoids his gaze, staring instead at the restless twitching of his fingers. “I’m fine,” he promises gently. “I just need to rest. That’s all.”
“The person that did this to you—” Cyno starts, but cuts himself off. Tighnari glances up, surprised at the venom lacing his tone. It’s something he’s never heard Cyno direct at him before.
“It doesn’t matter,” he insists. “It’s over now, and I’m—”
“Tighnari,” Cyno growls.
Tighnari recoils, stunned. Cyno has closed the distance between them and is staring intensely into his eyes. The look on his face isn’t too dissimilar from his expression when he’s focused on tracking someone down, but at the same time, it’s completely different. It sends an involuntary shiver down Tighnari’s spine.
When Tighnari says nothing in response, Cyno raises a hand and brushes his fingertips against the line of his jaw. He holds his breath.
All traces of the pain and fear are forgotten for this moment of delicate intimacy between them: something he is so, so desperate to maintain.
“I realized that I was close to losing you,” Cyno murmurs. His eyes lose their edge of ferocity and soften into something sadder—something anguished. “I couldn’t—Tighnari, I couldn’t accept that. Do you understand? I was terrified.”
“I thought you didn’t get scared,” Tighnari manages, his voice weak.
Cyno shakes his head slowly. His eyes never leave Tighnari’s. “I don’t,” he affirms. “Only when it comes to you. You… You are my weakness.”
There’s a charged moment of silence between them, where they’re standing on the precipice of something else. Anticipation and fear and devotion rush through Tighnari all in one hit. He gasps at the intensity of it. It burns.
“Tighnari,” Cyno says again, and he looks so wrecked, so openly vulnerable for quite possibly the first time in all the years they’ve known each other, and in the end, that’s what makes it so easy for Tighnari to close the distance and kiss him.
It’s a fleeting kiss—barely more than a touch of lips, undoubtedly because neither one of them had been expecting this now. But when Tighnari takes a second to think about it, he realizes they’ve been carefully tiptoeing around something more for so long that this next step has always been inevitable. It’s almost ridiculous, really, how they’ve been waltzing around one another until a traumatic event forces them together like this.
But the rest of his thoughts evaporate completely when Cyno adjusts his hand to grab the back of his neck and pull him in for another kiss.
This kiss is much more intense than the first. Tighnari’s own hands come up to grip Cyno’s shoulders, and in response, Cyno carefully slides his other hand along the expanse of Tighnari’s uninjured waist. Their bodies press harshly against each other, trapping a thick line of heat between them. Tighnari thinks he could die like this and he’d be satisfied.
When Cyno nips lightly against his lower lip, Tighnari groans into his mouth, and he’s immediately rewarded with Cyno’s tongue tracing along his teeth. He’s starting to feel lightheaded at the sensation. Behind him, his tail is swaying excitedly, a clear betrayal of his rising emotions.
Because this isn’t just lust. It’s Cyno, and it’s everything that comes with this for them both.
Cyno’s hand trailing upward to weave fingers into his hair, his nails scraping the base of Tighnari’s ears. Cyno’s body heat—which has always been higher than Tighnari’s—feeling like a physical pull between them, a current of fire running across his skin. Cyno, always so serious and hardheaded in the face of difficult situations, immediately losing his composure at Tighnari’s touch. Cyno, Cyno, Cyno.
When they eventually break apart, Tighnari is already feeling overwhelmed, his chest heaving for breath. Part of him feels quietly relieved to see that Cyno isn’t faring much better—his headpiece is askew on his head and a faint flush paints the bridge of his nose, spreading all the way down to his chest.
“Hold on,” Tighnari pants, bringing his hands closer to Cyno’s neck, resolutely ignoring the shudder that it causes. “I think we need to talk.”
Cyno’s jaw works in what Tighnari recognizes as stubborn defiance. But it only lasts a moment before he relents, his body slumping closer to Tighnari. “We do,” he agrees.
Tighnari swallows, his heart fluttering. “What does this mean?”
“It means that I cannot be without you,” Cyno says without missing a beat. Tighnari stutters out something unintelligible, but Cyno presses on before he can even move, staring resolutely into his eyes. “For almost as long as I’ve known you, Tighnari, I’ve been enamored with you. I will do anything to protect you. Whatever happens with our relationship, regardless of what you say to me now, this fact will remain the same for as long as I live.”
An enormous burst of affection threatens to swallow Tighnari whole. He inhales sharply and stares right back into Cyno’s amber eyes. The raw emotion there is what catches him off guard—stereotypically stoic General Mahamatra Cyno, laid bare at his hands, exposed for his eyes only. The very thought alone is what completely robs him of words.
He loves Cyno. He is wholly and unequivocally devoted to Cyno. He thinks he probably has been for many, many years now.
“That’s more romantic than I was expecting from you,” he finally chokes out.
If Cyno sees the responding emotion on Tighnari’s face, he doesn’t comment. He simply smiles, tracing the edge of Tighnari’s lip with a thumb. Tighnari hadn’t even noticed his hand move to cup his jaw. “It’s not my fault,” he says. “I just have so mushroom in my heart for you.”
A beat. Two beats. Cyno says, “You see, because mushroom sounds like—”
Tighnari kisses him.
It’s an effective way of shutting him up, he notes with delight, as Cyno melts into him with no resistance. Tighnari’s hands tighten their position around Cyno’s neck, his fingers pressing lightly into the tanned skin.
Cyno’s mouth is warm and welcoming and wonderful. He tastes like desert heat, but it isn’t unpleasant—it’s so distinctly Cyno that any other association simply fades into insignificance.
Tighnari is so overwhelmed by Cyno and all that he is that he forgets, briefly, about his injury. It’s only when Cyno grips his waist a little tighter to pull him closer that he hisses in a sharp breath, breaking the kiss in the process.
Cyno’s eyes immediately narrow, concerned. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Tighnari says, resting his arms more comfortably along the line of Cyno’s shoulders. “It’s just fresh, that’s all. It will heal quickly.”
Cyno looks doubtful, concerned. Tighnari is about to comment on how hilariously similar he looks to Collei in that moment when he’s interrupted by gentle kisses along the edge of his jaw, effortlessly rendering him silent.
Cyno’s lips press carefully and reverently against his neck, the tip of his tongue tracing his skin. Tighnari bites down a moan, his entire body melting in response.
“Let’s get you to bed,” Cyno murmurs.
Excitement flares in Tighnari’s stomach, immediately spreading throughout his body. Still, he pushes it down. “We can’t. Not tonight.”
To his internal disappointment, Cyno pulls away completely, but his eyes are glimmering with amusement. “I didn’t mean like that, Tighnari,” he says. “You need to rest.”
Tighnari almost chokes on his embarrassment. “O-Oh. Right.”
“But,” Cyno continues in a low voice, bringing his lips close to Tighnari’s jawline, “I’m not opposed to the idea at all. In fact, I’m finding it very hard to resist you right now.”
Tighnari, in an attempt to combat his own embarrassment, weakly swats at Cyno’s shoulder. “Enough. You’re right, I do need to rest.” He hesitates as he pulls away again, unable to meet Cyno’s eyes. “Will you stay with me?”
He doesn’t need to look up to know that Cyno’s demeanor has softened once more, giving way to open, clear affection. Cyno takes one of his hands and presses a light kiss against his knuckles. “I will stay with you always,” he says.
Tighnari wants to roll his eyes. He really, really does. Instead, his body betrays him—he smiles just as openly, leaning into the love that he’s being offered.
*
Cyno stays in Tighnari’s bed through the night. It’s less awkward to undress and slip into bed together than Tighnari had anticipated—if anything, it feels almost familiar, as though they’d had this arrangement for years. Their bodies slot together like puzzle pieces. Tighnari’s tail settles comfortably along the line of Cyno’s hip, and Cyno presses one hand into the small of his back, his fingers tracing absentminded patterns across the skin beneath his sleepshirt.
It feels dangerously natural: the two of them lying together in this moment of suspended quiet. Tighnari breathes deep and slow, relishing in the comfort of Cyno’s scent. Desert heat. Sandalwood and sun-baked skin. Warmth and familiarity and—love.
Tighnari swallows, his instincts fighting between delight and fear from the weight of emotion. It should be surprising, all things considered—they’ve never confessed to one another, instead choosing to dance along the border of what is acceptable between friends for many years now—but it feels right, somehow. Like this conclusion has been predicted from the very beginning.
“You know,” Cyno says after many, many moments of silence, instantly jerking Tighnari’s brain back into full awareness. “This isn’t how I planned for things to happen.”
Despite all the feelings battling for dominance in his mind, Tighnari smirks. “Oh? And how were you planning it?”
Cyno shifts until both his arms are encasing Tighnari in a loose-limbed embrace. His head is above Tighnari’s, lips pressing between the gap of his ears as he speaks. “I wanted it to be romantic,” he admits. “I was going to ask you out properly. I’d even asked Kaveh for help. No jokes or anything.”
Tighnari almost snorts. “Really?”
“Really,” Cyno says. “It’s been a long time coming.” He pauses for a moment, planting a gentle kiss to Tighnari’s hair before continuing. “I was going to make a whole day of it—I was gonna take you out for dinner, walk through the forest back to your place, even spend the evening with Collei. I wanted it to be something special for you. You know, something that you wouldn’t forget.”
Tighnari feels his heart swell, nearly choking him with emotion. “It would always be special as long as it’s with you,” he murmurs.
Cyno only smiles and pulls him into another kiss—this one considerably more gentle than the last few. His lips move slowly and leisurely. Tighnari relishes in the feeling, allowing himself to forget about his surroundings and his life and everything else that could possibly serve as a distraction to this.
“You say I’m romantic,” Cyno teases as he pulls away, a smirk pulling at his lips.
“Shut up,” Tighnari mutters.
Cyno laughs, and the sound is so delightful that Tighnari pauses, gazing at him in wonder. The line of his body is relaxed—his arm is slung comfortably across Tighnari’s middle, fingertips grazing the edge of his collarbone, and his legs splay atrociously across the bed like they can’t decide which direction to rest. His clothed hip is further shielded by the teal of Tighnari’s tail, tanned skin being gently tickled by the fur. He looks so at peace and at home that Tighnari’s breath hitches.
“I love you,” he says, completely untethered from his own reality for this brief moment. “I love you so much, Cyno.”
As though sobered by Tighnari’s words, Cyno straightens in the bed, his bright eyes immediately roaming Tighnari’s face with reverence. “I love you,” he says, and it’s fierce, insistent, like he’s forcing the words to form their own sentience. “I have loved you for as long as I’ve known you, Tighnari.”
Tighnari shivers. They’ve felt the same way all this time. Wasted opportunities eat away at him, tackling the weak points of his heart, but—
He knows that it doesn’t matter. For all the time they’ve known each other, this has surely been the inevitable ending. Every glance, every action and every quiet moment they’ve shared has been building up to this. It’s thrilling and desperately vulnerable. Something that Tighnari would not trust to anyone aside from Cyno himself.
He kisses Cyno again. Small, brief and delicate, but enough to press the real meaning through his lips alone.
“It’s alright,” he murmurs when they part, tracking the movement of Cyno’s eyes. “We have all the time in the world now. I’m not going anywhere.”
He had expected those words to relieve Cyno of the distant, anxious look in his eyes. Instead, that emotion seems to amplify. Cyno grimaces and runs his hand lightly across Tighnari’s ribcage.
“I need to leave first thing in the morning to rejoin Lumine and the others,” he says. “But, Tighnari, once this is all over, I’m coming straight back to you. No matter how far apart we are in distance, I will always be by your side. You are what matters the most to me.”
Tighnari wants to laugh—this devotion, this stark possessiveness has not been so blatantly apparent until now. It’s thrilling. He’s never experienced something like being wanted so sincerely that his own heart jumps in his chest.
“I know,” he finds himself saying with shocking clarity. “And I, you.”
They fall into themselves for a while after that—hands tracing skin, mouths pressing desperately against the jut of bone. The heat sparks between them with a renewed determination. It is all Tighnari knows and, selfishly, all he wants to know.
*
But with Cyno sharing his bed comes an unexpected issue by the way of Tighnari’s newfound anxiety.
Nonsensically, he is unable to sleep, despite the exhaustion weighing down on him from the day’s events. Cyno falls asleep fairly quickly, and Tighnari finds himself simply watching him for a long time.
He looks younger like this. His hair is a little tousled, a shock of white against his pillow, and his chest rises slowly with every breath. He remains curled on one side with an arm flung across Tighnari’s middle as though he requires the point of contact to rest.
Seeing Cyno like this makes Tighnari feel notably calmer, and so he attempts to fall asleep again, focusing on the warmth of their bodies.
Within minutes, a heaviness so sudden and sharp presses onto his chest. It feels as though it’s caving in on itself. Tighnari’s eyes fly open and he gasps for breath, suddenly painfully aware of all of his senses. The room around him spins, his heartbeat almost doubling in speed frighteningly quickly.
He cannot breathe.
Tighnari scrambles to sit upright, clutching desperately at the center of his chest. He fights to pull breath into his suddenly-empty lungs. All the while, the heaviness of his chest spreads like a gaping chasm.
What in Teyvat is happening to him? A heart attack? His entire body shakes, a line of pure and abject terror shooting from his ears all the way down to his tail. He feels like he is dying.
He is dying. He is falling. He cannot regulate his breathing, he cannot move, he cannot think—
Warmth at his back momentarily pulls Tighnari from the endless spiral of doom and back into faint awareness. He shivers, panting for breath, as Cyno pulls him very carefully against his chest, running his hands lightly along Tighnari’s trembling forearms.
“Breathe slowly,” Cyno says in his deep, calm voice. “Try to take your time with it. Focus on breathing.”
With his chest still seized in a tight grip, Tighnari tries his hardest to follow the instruction. He inhales long and deep, his breath stuttering, and exhales loudly, raggedly. He does this over and over, trying to focus on nothing but breathing, trying to push away the raw fear spinning in his mind.
After a while, he manages to focus more on the movement of Cyno’s hands. The steady rhythm of gentle pressure being applied along his arms. His fingertips pressing lightly into his skin.
Tighnari’s breath slows. The tightness in his chest loosens. His body, physically exhausted, slumps backward. He has no idea how long it’s been.
Cyno does not stop moving his hands. “You are safe,” he murmurs by Tighnari’s ear. “I’ve got you.”
Tighnari doesn’t realize he’s been crying until he finally becomes aware of the blur around his vision, fizzling when he blinks to clear it. Another tear slides down his cheek. His next breath is a gasping sob.
Cyno simply continues to hold him through it, wordlessly comforting. It takes a long time of them both sitting there for Tighnari’s rationality to return.
A panic attack. That’s what it was. The realization sinks into him slowly, followed by a rising reaction of shame.
Tighnari doesn’t get anxious like this. The last time he’d experienced a panic attack, he’d been too young to understand what it was. Now, with his knowledge of panic disorders, he is frustrated that he hadn’t recognized the signs—that it had even happened to him in the first place. He knows better.
“Thank you,” he eventually murmurs into the quiet of the room. “I’m sorry about that.”
One of Cyno’s hands trails from his arm up to his chest. It rests over his heart, as though Cyno is checking for the beat. “You have nothing to apologize for,” he says firmly.
Tighnari shakes his head, looking down at his own hands. They’ve fallen to his lap. “It shouldn’t have happened,” he says. “I’m being ridic—”
“Tighnari,” Cyno cuts him off, his voice sharpening. “It’s not ridiculous at all. It’s actually completely understandable. Whatever the reason, it’s okay. This can happen to anybody at any time.”
Tighnari falls quiet. He knows that Cyno is right—has talked Collei down from enough panic attacks in a similar manner that, really, he’s being a bit hypocritical. It doesn’t make it any easier for him to accept.
After a moment, Cyno pulls him even closer to his chest, pressing a light kiss to the top of his head. “You’re safe,” he says again, his voice softer. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He finds, with surprising readiness, that he does. So he tells Cyno everything.
From the moment that the Fatui soldiers had arrived all the way through to Dehya and Lumine’s departure, he recounts the events. The way that the unnatural bolts of electro had come from nowhere and increased with rapid intensity within seconds. The way that the soldiers had flipped into horror, some of them falling and being torn apart before his eyes. The way that he had frozen, the way that he had feared for his life.
It feels like a weight is lifted from his chest the longer he talks it through. All the while, Cyno’s hand continues to trail light patterns along his arm, keeping him grounded. He remains silent and absorbs every word.
When Tighnari finishes, he leans his head back against Cyno’s shoulder and closes his eyes. He is exhausted. All he wants to do is sleep.
“Can I help at all?” Cyno asks quietly, breathing the words into Tighnari’s hair.
Tighnari frowns. “I’m not sure there’s anything you can do.”
“Well,” Cyno murmurs, finally raising his hand from Tighnari’s arm. He turns it so that his palm is facing upward, then hesitates. “Do you think exposure would help?”
Tighnari doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, and he’s about to ask when Cyno generates a tiny shimmer of purple electro energy across his fingers. He freezes, his entire body tensing.
The electro disappears in an instant. “If it doesn’t help, forget I suggested it,” Cyno says gently.
Frustration at himself is what makes Tighnari shake his head. He forces his body to relax back into Cyno. “No, it’s a good idea,” he says genuinely. “Let’s try it.”
“Are you sure?” Cyno asks.
“I’m positive.”
There’s a contemplative hum behind him before Cyno flexes his fingers again. “Okay. But tell me as soon as you want me to stop.”
Tighnari watches the electro materialize in the palm of Cyno’s hand. His muscles tense again, but this time he concentrates on trying to relax them.
He watches as Cyno’s hand is slowly enveloped in a light shade of violet. The electro shimmers, pulsing a faint light in the darkness of his room. Cyno manipulates the energy to form a ball. After a few more moments, it begins to reshape, the edges smoothing out into a small heart.
“I was trying to figure out how to control lightning,” Cyno says, “and then it struck me.”
A beat. Tighnari snorts before he can stop himself. “You’re ridiculous.”
Cyno grins against his ear. “Want another one?”
“Please, no.”
He can’t deny it, though—the electro looks beautiful like this, in a state of controlled light, shimmering and sparking.
Cyno closes his hand around the heart. A moment later, the electro fizzles out into nothing, plunging the room back into darkness. Tighnari blinks until his eyes adjust.
“Okay?” Cyno murmurs.
Tighnari, overcome with emotion for the second time that night, nestles his face into Cyno’s neck without replying. Cyno’s arms wrap lightly around his middle. They sit like that for several seconds just breathing together.
The silence is broken by a yawn that rips itself involuntarily from Tighnari’s throat. He feels Cyno’s chest rumbling with light laughter. “Time for you to rest,” he says.
“Right,” Tighnari whispers. He lifts his head and noses at Cyno’s jaw until they’re kissing again—only featherlight, gentle presses, causing a little smile to bloom across his face. “Thank you, Cyno.”
Cyno kisses him once more. “I love you.”
When Tighnari closes his eyes and sees violet again, beneath the knee-jerk reaction of distant panic deep within his chest, he’s reminded of safety and love.