Tiny Bee~k 2023 Day 7 - Stillness
Cyno feels restless when he returns to Sumeru, almost bordering on being jittery. The mission had been a failure, though through no fault of his own—he could hardly be blamed for the researcher he was pursuing blowing himself up with barrels he wanted to use on Cyno—but things like that always weigh on Cyno’s mind.
And they tend to make him restless which the repeated flexing of his hand is a testament to.
Still, Cyno tries to push it out of his mind; he has to report back to Alhaitham since Nahida—who he now normally reports to, is away with the Traveler—and after that he can finally crash in his home.
Some sleep will do him good, he hopes, even though he doubts he will get much of it.
When he steps into Alhaitham’s office, he supresses a sigh. Alhaitham is currently in a somewhat heated debate it seems and Cyno knows just how much he hates it when those get interrupted. And especially for something like Cyno’s report, which absolutely can wait a moment longer.
Cyno sees Alhaitham’s eyes briefly dart over to him, so he knows he has been noticed, but just a second later Alhaitham focuses back on the scholar standing in front of his desk.
Cyno finds a seat for himself somewhere to Alhaitham’s left, intend on waiting this whole thing out, and even though curiosity gets the better of him, he has a hard time following along what is being said.
It seems as if Cyno is more tired than he thought because his eyes keep closing and every time it happens, getting them open again is harder than the time before.
Cyno tries to filter out the voices, simply concentrating on the cadence of their speech but even that lulls him to sleep.
There is just something about Alhaitham, Cyno distantly thinks. Something about the way he talks, the way he acts that seems calming to Cyno.
Or maybe it simply is the otherwise stillness of the office, he immediately thinks after, refusing to believe that Alhaitham could have any kind of affect on him beyond annoying him.
He smirks at his own thought and then he knows nothing for a while.
“Cyno?”
At hearing his voice Cyno jolts—not awake, because he hasn’t been asleep, thank you very much, but out of whatever kind of trance he had found himself in.
“I know you generally look with disdain at researches but I didn’t think we were this boring to you,” Alhaitham says, a teasing smile playing around his mouth and Cyno blinks two times before he fully finds back to himself.
“It’s just been a long day,” he explains, not rising to Alhaitham’s teasing and finally gets up, ready to give Alhaitham his report and then go home to crash.
The fact that he lays awake in his own bed for hours, is of course not puzzling at all.
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