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“Enough,” Cyno says.
Alhaitham pauses, datapad in hand, finger poised over the next name of the long list of Jaeger pilots he was rattling off.
He says, “You’ve yet to find a match.” As if Cyno doesn’t know that already.
“Surely I’ve tested with every pilot in Sumeru by now,” Cyno says. “It’s only a matter of time until we’re pulling pilots from Liyue.”
“... I’ve been reaching out to my contacts there for available candidates,” Alhaitham admits. “You were going to meet them next week, if this current list doesn’t pan out.”
Cyno shakes his head. “This is getting tiresome.”
“What choice do we have?” Alhaitham snaps. “I’m spending a lot of my own time helping you with this, you know.”
“I never asked for your help.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s my job, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“You never give me a moment to forget it.”
Alhaitham has hardly granted him even a minute of peace since Cyno returned from his forced leave of absence. Bereavement and medical leave, the higher ups said, despite Cyno’s protests. All Cyno wanted to do was get back to work, back to the Shatterdome that’s more a home to him than his dark apartment in Sumeru City. The wounds of the flesh mended quickly enough. But the wounds of the mind—that would take more time, the medics said.
As if anyone could know Cyno’s mind better than himself. He still feels it, sometimes: the frayed edges of Taj’s connection to his brain. His mind still reaches for it subconsciously, in the way one reaches for a limb and expects it to move, to answer. Now nothing greets him but silence.
Cyno didn’t expect to find a new partner easily. He was lucky to find Taj in the first place, and there’s no one else who knows him quite as well, except perhaps Tighnari. But Tighnari’s place is in the labs, picking apart Kaiju brains and other salvaged matter. He’s always been there for Cyno, but he can’t help him with this.
Perhaps Cyno’s time as a Ranger has ended. The Jaeger Hermanubis will need a new pair of bright, skilled Rangers to pilot it. Or it’ll be chained and stored away like an old champion that’s outlived its prime.
Cyno’s not sure which option would be less painful.
Alhaitham gives a low sigh, snapping Cyno out of his thoughts. “Cyno, I’m not doing this out of some desire to torture you, you know.”
Cyno frowns. A barb poises itself on the tip of his tongue, but he bites it back.
“Why, then?”
“You’re a good pilot,” Alhaitham says. “We need you.”
Like it’s some kind of simple and unshakable truth. A few months ago, Cyno might have believed it, too.
He says, “A good pilot wouldn’t have let Taj die.”
Silence. Alhaitham sets his datapad down on a table, set up in the training room where he’s been watching Cyno go through bout after bout with different partners, each more hopeless than the last. This has been the routine for two weeks now. If it’s driving Cyno to his wits’ end, surely the same goes for Alhaitham, too.
Yet here he is, refusing to let Cyno go on by himself.
“You need to get out of your own head,” Alhaitham says. “That’s the point of all this.”
Cyno glares. “Stop talking like I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m far more familiar with the Drift than you, sitting in the command center every day.”
Alhaitham scoffs and moves towards the rack of polearms against the wall. Without warning, he grabs one and tosses it to Cyno. Cyno catches it without breaking eye contact.
He balks when Alhaitham starts shrugging off his jacket.
“What are you doing?” he says.
“We haven’t exhausted all of our options in Sumeru just yet.” Alhaitham tugs off his boots and places them near his abandoned jacket. He takes a polearm of his own, then meets Cyno in the middle of the padded training mat.
Cyno has never seen Alhaitham in anything but full uniform. Without the jacket, he wears a fitted black top, sleeveless. The muscles of his arms flex as he adjusts his grip around his polearm. His form is one long, lithe line—he doesn’t look like someone who sits at a desk all day.
He falls into a ready stance, his gaze sharp and bright.
Cyno shakes off his initial stupor, then says, “I’m not doing this.”
Alhaitham rolls his eyes. “Don’t pretend you don’t want to pummel my face in.”
“I’m not fighting you,” Cyno says. “You’re not even a pilot.”
“Not anymore.” Alhaitham says it so flippantly. Cyno frowns. He didn’t know that. He opens his mouth to speak, but Alhaitham goes on, “How about I be the last of today’s candidates? If nothing else, you get to work off your frustration and make me shut up.”
It’s a tempting prospect. Even though all of this has Cyno feeling off-balance.
He sighs and looks at the polearm in his hands, testing the familiar weight of it. Well, it’s not like he’s met anyone promising thus far. One spar shouldn’t hurt.
He falls into a ready stance of his own.
“Three strikes,” he says to Alhaitham.
The corner of Alhaitham’s mouth lifts in a smirk.
Cyno moves first.
A quick stab of his polearm, right at Alhaitham’s middle. Alhaitham side steps it easily. Cyno is swift to follow, stepping in where Alhaitham steps back. Cyno goes for another strike, this time aiming for Alhaitham’s right side. Alhaitham raises his polearm to block it.
He’s fallen for the feint. A deft twist of Cyno’s wrists, and the polearm rounds towards Alhaitham’s newly exposed left side.
Cyno kills the momentum just before it touches him.
“One,” he says.
Alhaitham’s eyebrow twitches. “Maybe I’m rusty,” he says.
Cyno resists a smirk. Alhaitham was right; this is doing wonders for his frustration.
They each step away, then settle into their stances.
Cyno moves first again.
And again, Alhaitham moves away from him. Cyno attacks swiftly, aggressively. He’s always believed the best victories are those won quickly. But Alhaitham dodges each strike through agile footwork or glancing blows off his polearm. He’s not bad. He’s not bad at all.
So far Alhaitham has only been on the defensive, so it comes as a surprise when he ducks beneath a swing of Cyno’s polearm and lashes out with a leg to knock Cyno off his feet. Cyno falls to one knee.
Alhaitham’s polearm stops a mere inch from his face.
“Now it’s one to one,” Alhaitham says, looking down at him.
Cyno refuses to be impressed. He pushes the polearm out of his face and returns to his feet.
Alhaitham rolls his shoulders. He hardly looks like he’s exerted himself, except for some stray strands of hair that have fallen over his eyes. Just a touch less composed than usual.
Cyno wants to see him on the ground. “Come on,” he says, brandishing his polearm.
He shoots forward.
Alhaitham doesn’t step back this time. Their weapons clash and meet head on. There’s more force to Alhaitham’s movements—when he parries Cyno’s blows, Cyno finds himself pushed back with more strength than before. Alhaitham even cuts in with a few attacks of his own, quick jabs at Cyno’s open spots. Cyno’s sharp instincts keep them from landing, but it’s more difficult than he anticipated when they first started this. Hell, Alhaitham is more difficult than any of the trained pilots that have stepped onto the mat today.
Not that he’s telling him that.
In any case, Cyno is one of Sumeru City Shatterdome’s best fighters. He’s not about to lose that title.
Alhaitham moves to strike Cyno with a broad sweep of his polearm, and it’s all the opportunity Cyno needs. He ducks beneath the swing, then twirls behind Alhaitham. A swift knee against the back of Alhaitham’s leg sends him kneeling on the mat with a grunt.
Cyno traps Alhaitham’s neck with his polearm in front of him, one fist on either end of the staff, caging him in. He can’t see Alhaitham’s face, but he can see the labored rise and fall of his shoulders.
“That’s two,” Cyno breathes.
Alhaitham doesn’t hesitate. He rolls out from Cyno’s trap and back onto his feet in one nimble move. Cyno sees the polearm coming for his middle and stops it easily enough.
What he doesn’t expect is Alhaitham rushing in until their faces are only a breath apart. Cyno’s eyes widen.
His back hits the floor before he can even register what’s happened.
Alhaitham’s polearm stops right at his neck.
“And two for me,” Alhaitham says. “Don’t get cocky.”
Cyno stares up at him, heart thumping in his chest. Alhaitham pulls the polearm away and steps back. He doesn’t do something humiliating like offer a hand to help Cyno up, but Cyno can tell he’s thinking about it. His cheeks are flushed with exertion, strands of hair clinging to the fine sheen of sweat on his brow and neck. Cyno can feel sweat cooling on his own skin.
They’re both breathing heavily. The timing of their inhales and exhales mirror each other, in sync.
Cyno shakes his head. He rises back to his feet, polearm in hand. He takes a deep breath, then readies himself. Alhaitham does, too.
They move at the same time.
Where Cyno strikes, Alhaitham dodges. Where Alhaitham stabs, Cyno parries. Their footsteps follow one another like an intricate dance, guided by a rhythm only their bodies seem to know. How and why that is—well. Cyno has an inkling.
Hah, there’s no kidding himself. It’s not an inkling. He knows it like he knows how to pull on his Drivesuit, and how to make a Kaiju bleed. He knows it like he knows his own name.
Alhaitham takes a swing at Cyno’s shoulder, and Cyno blocks it, pushing his polearm away with a grunt. Alhaitham’s guard is cracked open, just for a moment. Cyno moves in.
He thinks—distantly, like it isn’t his own thought filtering into his mind—that Alhaitham lets him.
Cyno knocks him flat onto his back. He follows him down and seats himself firmly on Alhaitham’s hips.
Alhaitham’s polearm falls out of his hand and rolls off to the side. He doesn’t reach for it. His eyes stay locked with Cyno’s. Cyno’s own polearm is aimed at Alhaitham’s neck.
For a long moment, they say nothing, the silence broken only by their harsh breaths. Cyno can feel Alhaitham breathing with the rise and fall of his body between Cyno’s legs. He can feel the heat of him even through their clothes.
Alhaitham watches him calmly, curiously, with his mouth parted. His tongue darts out over his bottom lip, and Cyno’s gaze zeroes in on it like a shark finds a single drop of blood in water.
Cyno lowers his polearm. “That’s three,” he rasps.
Neither of them move away.
Alhaitham slowly, so slowly, raises a hand. His fingers ghost over Cyno’s knee where it digs into the side of Alhaitham’s rib cage. Cyno doesn’t stop him. Alhaitham’s hand settles flat on his knee, then moves upwards, dragging along Cyno’s clothed thigh.
Cyno shivers. He drops his polearm. He leans forward, placing his hands on Alhaitham’s shoulders. Alhaitham’s free hand goes to rest on Cyno’s other thigh. Their breaths feel warm and damp between them. They are still breathing in tandem. Cyno thinks they feel like one single heartbeat, hot with blood and electricity.
“Cyno,” Alhaitham murmurs, and Cyno feels the rumble of his voice. “You—”
An alarm blares overhead.
They tear away from each other. It feels disorienting and wrong.
But the alarm is still sounding and the room fills with a flashing red light. It means only one thing.
“I have to go,” Alhaitham says, sitting up. Cyno scrambles off of him. Alhaitham goes for his boots and jacket, putting himself back in order, back into the officer he usually is.
Cyno remains standing awkwardly, not sure what to do or say. When he watches Alhaitham stride towards the room’s exit, he impulsively grabs his wrist.
Alhaitham stops, turns to look back at him. He doesn’t pull away.
“Alhaitham,” Cyno says, then swallows. “I— Be careful.”
Alhaitham regards him silently, and Cyno tries so hard to puzzle out what he’s thinking through his body language, through the flickers of emotion across his face. Through the Drift.
“I always am,” Alhaitham says finally. The corner of his mouth quirks. “Besides, don’t think you’ll just be here sitting pretty. We might need you.”
Cyno furrows his brow in confusion.
“Cyno,” Alhaitham says, “we’ll talk later. Promise.”
Cyno sucks in a breath, then nods. He lets go. Alhaitham walks away.
Cyno stays for a moment longer, the heat of Alhaitham’s skin lingering on his fingers. Something else lingers too, at the once frayed edges of his mind. They’re stitching back together, weaving into something new.
He drags a hand over his face, and says, “Fuck.”