Blood painted the walls, covered the floor and continued to rise around Cyno’s prone body. He sat up. It squished between his fingers, coated his skin in thick, liquid copper.
Lick it, his mind whispered.
Cyno brought his hand to his lips. Just one taste, just to see what the fuss was about-
He woke with a start, heart hammering in his ears.
After a mission gone wrong, something is happening to Cyno that he can't explain.
1drwrhaino theme for this week was sense of distance! (physically close, emotionally distant...) have some 3.1 cytham aaru village angst 😳
I like to think that they were in one room with two beds. Haitham just stared at Cyno from across the room like 🧍until Cyno gave into his longing for cuddles. they don't mention it again until Sumeru is finally saved
Cyno: this never happened 🧍
Haitham (with bite marks all over his neck): sure, General 😤
Alhaitham x Cyno - I’m going to ask you how you are and I would like you to answer me honestly
Consciousness returns slowly. Bits and pieces of feeling start to sink through the thick shroud of numbing darkness that surrounds his mind: the heaviness of his lungs in his chest, the weight of his limbs, and the stinging sharpness of light even behind closed eyelids all serve to draw him back into wakefulness.
Cyno opens his eyes. The familiar green patterned ceiling of the Bimarstan greets him and the knot of tension in his mind untangles itself from his thoughts. He made it back. He’s safe.
Through the open window he can hear the mutterings and grumblings of a busy street.It must be around lunch time if the belligerent complaining of one particular passerby is anything to go by. If he listens hard enough he can even hear their companion attempting to console them over how the tavern was a very popular spot and tables filled up quickly.
A potent scent of incense, jasmine, makes him wrinkle his nose and he starts to shift on the bed. This turns out to be a mistake when searing pain shoots up his left side — broken ribs a part of him realizes, at least three — causing him to hiss loudly into the quiet.
Moments later the curtain by his bed is roughly pulled aside and Cyno blinks in shock as Alhaitham stares at him with wild eyes that suit a consecrated beast rather than the Grand Scribe.
Cyno narrows his eyes as he takes in Alhaitham’s appearance. He looks tired, there are bags under his eyes that weren’t there when Cyno saw him last; wishing him luck by the city entrance while also bluntly reminding him not to be overconfident, just having happened to drop by while out on his morning stroll which they both knew never took him anywhere near the main gate, another step in this dance of theirs they’d been partaking in since that fateful clash outside Aaru village.
Cyno remembers how tempted he’d been to reach out and pull Alhaitham down so he could seal that teasing mouth with his own. Would it be tentative? Clumsy? Would it be a simple peck on the mouth or an awkward clash of teeth as they stared into each other’s eyes with surprise?
But he hadn’t discovered the answers to any of those questions. He’d left Alhaitham standing there on the road, the weight of orange-ringed eyes piercing into his back until he was finally out of sight.
Now with Alhaitham looming over him, reaching out to cradle Cyno’s cheek with one shaking hand, Cyno wonders how long Alhaitham had stood there watching the road once he’d disappeared into the forest.
This is dangerous. Cyno is still disorientated, the world is threatening to spin away from him and there’s a feeling of nausea bubbling in his gut. He wants to close his eyes against the stinging artificial light and press into Alhaitham’s touch, wants to bury himself in its warmth and ignore the way his entire body aches.
He opens his mouth, to say what he doesn’t really know, only to freeze when Alhaitham drops to his knees on the bed and curls his other hand around Cyno’s neck.
‘I’m going to ask you how you are and I would like you to answer me honestly.” He says, as dogmatic as Cyno has ever heard him. But there’s a tremble underlying his words that rings in Cyno’s ears.
He’s learned how to find the truth and he sees it in the way Alhaitham crowds up close to him, he feels it in the careful touches on his cheek and neck; incredibly careful and mindful of the bruising that peppers Cyno’s face. He hears it in Alhaitham’s heavy breathing, still not settled after bursting in through the curtain.
Cyno nods slowly. His own palms itch to mirror the hold Alhaitham has on him but he clenches the bedsheet to reign in the impulse.
Alhaitham sucks in another breath. This one steadier than the others, but Cyno’s sharp ears can hear the racing of his heart that bely the appearance of calming down.
“How are you?” Alhaitham asks gruffly, seemingly unaware of the way he’s started to rub along Cyno’s cheek with his thumb.
Cyno doesn’t respond right away. The question itself is simple. It’s one he’s been asked time and time again by people who care about him; friends and family who worry about him because they know the heavy burden of his job and what he must do to fulfill it. He’s heard it asked with various degrees of concern, sometimes mixed with irritation when Tighnari was in a certain mood, and often repeated if he doesn’t reply with a satisfactory answer.
Somewhere in the Akademiya there must be someone who can explain to him why it feels different when Alhaitham asks the question now, in this room, cradling Cyno’s face in his hands and looking at him like he’s afraid Cyno is going to disappear any second. Maybe Lord Kusanali can elucidate the way Cyno is helpless to do anything but lean close and press their foreheads together. Maybe she can put into words the complicated mix of joy, hope, and guilt racing through his veins as he takes in the heart wrenching relief that pours from Alhaitham’s every word and action.
Their breaths mingle in the rapidly shrinking space between them and Cyno embraces Alhaitham.
“Everything hurts.”
“Do you want me to get the doctor?”
“Not yet, just…stay for a moment. Please?”
A hand slides through white hair, comforting them both.
Cyno owns a small shop. Witches are generally a small presence in the supernatural world. Witches use potions and blood rituals, herbs and alchemy for their so-called magic. It's very natural and old art. He sells herbs, books, unusual trinkets. He is well regarded in this underbelly of society for his discipline but also the ability to procure most rare artifacts. He often travels a lot in order to find new ingredients for alchemy. He has a small shop set up in the corner of a cobblestone street, he inherited it from his adoptive father with many of his collection.
Haithm is old vampire, not very ancient but still old. Generally quite alright with keeping up with his hunger, however because at some point was corrupted with anicent magic (knowledge), sometimes he reacts very poorly to big amounts of blood. He is one of clerks in akademiya, sometimes does lectures. This month he was travelling a bit so he is a bit more on edge and tired. As such, there was an accident with a student at academy, which turned out quite bloody.
Haithm felt hunger like never before, combined with how tired he was... He wasn't doing well. Of course he didn't want to attack anyone, so he tried to leave the scene as fast as possible and fight it off. It wasn't that easy, as he found himself in empty dark corridor, gasping and fighting with the hunger, slowly loosing sanity. And then he felt himself being pulled down, by this unknown figure that smelled familiar - of herbs, of old books, of that little shop in the corner of the street where most annoying witch lives.
But he hears gentle, but commanding voice telling him to drink.
So he does.
And mind you, he tried a witch blood before, some many years before, and it was truly disgusting. He and any vampire can agree that if anyone's safe from vampire bites it would be the witches. Something about contact with herbs and blood rituals makes their blood simply off putting. As if it was contaminated.
Cyno, whom he knows as witch shop owner whom he sometimes comes in contact (to procure books or potions, or other interesting trinkets), made it a point of the conversation. Very smugly, may I add.
But now, for Haitham this was most delicious blood he ever tasted. As if magicsl itself was thrumming through Cyno's veins.
They separated.
But now Alhaitham is curious as to this peculiar phenomenon of cyno's blood. Was it just his hunger? Maybe his tastes changed? Maybe its Cyno's blood that tastes different.
One way to find out. He's, at heart, a Scholar afterall.
(Cyno's blood would probably be delicious to all, he has special kind of bloodline, which he isn't aware of. But well, now he thinks that there's something very wrong with Alhaitham when he stated his blood is tasty.