#haitham: [standing behind you as he looks over your shoulder while you work] | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

magicalbats · 4 months ago

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When There's Lightning (Cyno x reader)

Rating: R-18+

Word Count: 11,102

Warnings: afab!reader, chubby!reader, pining, unrequited feelings, established relationship (with Al-Haitham), possession, noncon, nipple play, biting, scratching, marking, unprotected sex, creampie, knotting

A/N: This is the second to last commission from this batch, and I am so, so happy I got to work on this one. The setting, the scenario I was given, the character. Mwuah. Chefs kiss. I hope everyone else enjoys it too! @frozenfauna you've been one of my greatest friends over the years and it was such an honor to fulfil your vision. Thank you for always offering me your support and advice when I need it most. 🫶🏻

⭐

There’s a heaviness in the crisp morning air, but Cyno can’t tell if it’s real or a figment of his imagination.

He thinks it could go either way, really, as he stands there with his arms crossed over his chest and watches the spectacle that unfolds before him. It almost makes him sick, almost makes him reconsider the wisdom in even taking on this task in the first place. But in defense of his decision making abilities he knew full and well that the source of the problem was within him, so he couldn’t really blame anyone but himself for his own misery.

It’s certainly not your fault that the almost iridescent glow of bright early morning sunlight bounces off your cheeks to make you look truly ethereal, and it’s not Al-Haitham’s fault that it makes Cyno want to kiss you so bad. That blasted Al-Haitham. In truth he hadn’t even thought the scribe would make an appearance today let alone linger for as long as he had. He was usually much too strict with his clockwork schedule to deviate much from its well worn path but evidently, for you, he was willing to bend a little.

And Cyno really couldn’t blame him.

“Don’t forget to take a break every once and a while when I’m gone, okay? And make sure you eat regularly too.”

Scoffing a quiet sound, Al-Haitham sedately reaches out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear. The gesture is soft and affectionate, even when his words don’t quite seem to match. “I think I should be the one telling you that. I value my time far too much to lose track of it but you on the other hand …”

“Oh, stop it!” You huff, delivering a quick and lighthearted swat to the meat of his bicep, and Al-Haitham graces you with one of his secretively small smiles. It used to be a rare, nearly unheard of occurrence for the scribe but it’s been making more and more frequent appearances recently. It was pretty clear what the cause of it was.

“You and I both know I’m not exaggerating. Stick a dusty old slate in front of you and you’ll get lost in it for hours on end if no one intervenes.”

“Alright look, this isn’t about me right now.” Laughing softly, you nudge even closer to your paramour until the two of you are practically standing right on top of one another. Huddled close, your voices drop to an intimate whisper as you share your final goodbyes.

Rolling his eyes under the brim of his mantle, Cyno quickly glances away to focus his attention elsewhere. He couldn’t bear to observe another moment of this, but obligation as well as the pretense of needing to appear as if his heart wasn’t twisting itself into knots inside his chest keeps him firmly rooted in place. He would endure it just as he always had and you would remain ever unaware of the turmoil that wages a bloody war within him whenever he stood in your presence. It was torture but it was also the right thing to do.

He and Al-Haitham were friends, and you’d already made your choice. There was nothing left for him to do but accept it and move on.

That was far easier said than done though, and Cyno has to try very hard to keep his expression neutral when you finally shuffle over to where he’s standing just off to the side of the city gate. Adjusting the straps of the heavy pack over your shoulders, you give him a bright, eager smile that feels like the sharp jab of a dagger in his gut but he pretends not to notice it just as he has with everything else about this unfortunate situation.

“Ready to go?”

“Yep!” You bob your head once, practically dancing on your toes in excitement. Clearly you were looking forward to this trek out into the desert a great deal and Cyno couldn’t conceive dallying even a moment longer knowing just how important this expedition was to you. But if it weren’t for Al-Haitham the two of you would have already long departed and set off without any need for further delay. If it weren’t for Al-Haitham …

“Do me a favor and try to keep her out of trouble for me, yeah?” The scribe calls over, drawing Cyno’s gaze.

“Of course. That’s why I’m tagging along, isn’t it? All the preparations have already been made so you’ve got nothing to worry about. By my estimate we should have enough provisions to last about a week out there but I’m sure we’ll be back before then. The el-Bahari temple isn’t that far from Caravan Ribat.”

Giving a single nod of acknowledgment, Al-Haitham turns his gaze on you. “And did you remember to bring your waterskins?”

“My answer hasn’t changed since the last time you asked that question. Yes, habibi, I have my waterskins.” You give a quiet laugh and, seeing his chance, Cyno quickly jumps to take it.

“Good, and I have a backup in case you need it. I also took the liberty of packing us a lunch for later. I hope you like sand-wiches.”

A beat of surprised, befuddled silence passes over the still gate before you let out a mildly flustered huff of air.

“Oh, Cyno …”

Exhaling a slow breath of his own, Al-Haitham shifts his weight and brings a hand up to brace on his hip. “If he’s comfortable enough to be making jokes then I trust you’re in good hands. Have a safe trip and try not to do anything too reckless. Don’t forget how dangerous the desert can be even with a Matra at your side.”

“The General Mahamatra.” You correct, shooting Cyno a quick smile. “We’ll be just fine, won’t we?”

He honestly isn’t so sure about that when he can feel the lump in his throat solidifying into something that threatens to choke him up. But he still nods, hearing himself say, “Yes, there won’t be any problems while I’m with you.”

He just sorely hoped that was true.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The temple is a cavernous, sprawling monument that seems to stretch on for miles and miles. Among the largest that still remained, it would have taken weeks, possibly even months to explore the whole place and all its secrets. There were innumerable compartments and hidden rooms littered throughout its winding halls and subterranean levels, but luckily most of the hard work had already been done by past researchers of yesteryear. Those enterprising scholars had diligently mapped out every nook and cranny they could access to the point where el-Bahari was largely overlooked by most modern day academics who didn’t see the value in studying something that had already been studied ad nauseum.

But you were not most academics.

It was one of the many things Cyno liked about you, and as the two of you step into the spacious antechamber just within the great entrance hall he can feel his admiration for you growing ever stronger. He himself may not have been the most studiously inclined but he’d spent more than his fair share of time around people who were. In fact, he quite enjoyed the more eclectic ones and you are no different in that regard.

The change in your demeanor is clear as day when you hone in on the hieroglyphics carved into the slate effigy just up ahead and he watches you make a purposeful beeline towards it with a fond twinge. Yours were not the first eyes to alight upon the stone figure by a long shot but it is that unguarded passion which sets you apart from all the rest. It wasn’t fame you were after or even a need for more research funding that had brought you here, and it is likewise what convinced him to play bodyguard in this manner. That, and the fact he couldn’t have in good conscience left your safety in the hands of anyone else. Your heart was in the right place and so was his.

Sedately trailing in your wake, Cyno comes up behind where you’re knelt to inspect the inscription at the base of the figure. He allows himself only a brief moment of appreciatively glancing over your hunched frame before dragging his attention upward. It is a statue of Hermanubis, he realizes with a mild pang of familiarity.

“This is impressive work for a temple not dedicated specifically to the grand priest.” He offhandedly comments, earning himself a quick look from you.

“You’ve never been here before?”

“Only once, and it wasn’t in any capacity that would have allowed me to casually look around. Paleontology isn’t my strong suit so the remains of ruins don’t usually hold much interest for me.”

Blinking in rather open surprise now, you tip your head back to look at him full on. “That’s a bit of a surprise. You’re originally from the desert, aren’t you? I would have thought you’d be more interested in the connection you share with places like this.”

“I may have been born here but all I’ve really ever known is the city in the rainforest. I’m afraid there isn’t much I even remember about my time spent here.”

Noising a soft sound of acknowledgment, you start to say something else but then your eyes drift away from him to focus on another part of the dusty antechamber. Thoroughly distracted, you push back up to your feet before shuffling over to regard a mural painted on the adjacent wall. Cyno watches after you for a moment — to make certain you’re safe and the perimeter secured, or so he tells himself — before redirecting his gaze back up at the statue.

It’s not as if he could really deny the truth in what you’d said. Even if he didn’t remember it much this was still his birthplace and, feeling compelled, he reaches out a hand to press his palm flat to the smooth detail of Hermanubis’ slate leg.

A zap of static electricity instantly rushes through his skin and he yanks his hand back like he’d been burned. Unease starts to snake through his gut as he hesitantly peers down at his own fingers, half expecting to find them charred to a blackened crisp. The skin is resoundingly unharmed though, as if he’d only imagined that intense electrical surge and nothing more. How odd.

“Cyno?”

Snapping out of it with a small jolt, the Mahamatra turns to look over at you through the shadowy, dust mote ridden gloom. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just … checking in on you.” Your wavering smile quickly stabilizes and grows, spreading across your face with an eagerness that makes his heart race. “I think this is the right place. It’s exactly like the books in the House of Daena described. Now we just need to find that mechanism it mentioned.”

Shrugging off that disconcerting rush of electricity, Cyno turns from the ancient monument of Hermanubis and wanders in your direction. “A mechanism? Are you looking for a hidden room of some kind?”

He hadn’t bothered to ask about the details when they meant so little to him in the grand scheme of things. Keeping you safe and hydrated in the arid desert heat had been the top concern at the forefront of his mind up until now, but he was starting to wish he’d at least hedged the topic a little bit. All he knew was that there was something here you’d wanted to study and, given all the foot traffic this particular temple has seen over the last few decades, he hadn’t thought this would turn into a very labor intensive expedition.

Anxiously adjusting your supplies pack, you glance around the otherwise untouched and silent chamber. Still excited and eager, but perhaps feeling a bit daunted now by the full scope of this undertaking. “According to those books there should be some sort of prayer room dedicated to Hermanubis somewhere in here. A scholar was able to get inside and notate what he saw a few hundred years ago, but once the door closed he couldn’t get it open again. Many people after him tried to no avail before eventually deeming the mechanism broken and everything inside was quickly classified as lost relics.”

“And you think you can repair it?” Cyno asks, tipping his head to one side inquisitively.

“I’m going to try.” You optimistically shoot back and it makes the knot in his stomach twist just that little bit tighter. Whether it was his intuition or a sixth sense premonition, Cyno couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

It didn’t feel like danger in the strictest definition of the word. There was no one else inside this temple that he could discern, at the very least no one who was alive and breathing. Even as far as regional fauna was concerned the only creatures he’d spotted were the occasional scorpions that skittered across the block-tiled floor. They were likely the only humans within miles of this place.

But then what was this oppressive, static charged atmosphere hanging in the air? If he hadn’t known any better he’d almost think a thunderstorm was fast approaching with all the destructive force of the gods themselves but it wasn’t the right season for that. There were no monsoons coming in off of the southern coast for at least another few months. So what was it then?

You’re speaking again, he realizes, rattling off something about a corridor up ahead that should take you where you need to go. At his soft hum of acknowledgement, you start to shuffle further into the ruins but Cyno hangs back long enough to peer up at the statue of Hermanubis again, as if it would give him any of the answers.

It doesn’t, of course. He isn’t naive or fanciful enough to be disappointed by that, and he just gives his head a slow shake when he feels the spirit dwelling within him start to stir slightly. This was not the time or the place for his control to start slipping. He was going to have to be exceedingly careful moving forward.

“Are you coming, Cyno?” You call back to him, already halfway across the room.

Pointedly stamping down his unease, he steps around the broad base of the statue and makes his way after you. In his dominant hand, he idly flexes his grip around the long polearm he carries, hoping the comforting and familiar weight of it would help ground him. He isn’t so sure it works but for your sake he wasn’t about to let his focus slip that easily. There was a job for him to do and he was determined to see it through to the end.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

An hour or so later, you finally find the mechanism.

It is an odd, curiously constructed device that Cyno, for his part, can make no logical sense of. The apparatus in the center of the tri-pronged base doesn’t look like it should do much of anything after having lain still and dormant for so many centuries, and even at its inception he’s unable to puzzle out what purpose it may have served. But he knows just enough about the ancient technology of King Deshret’s long bygone kingdom that he recognizes it for what it is and understands that it should do something.

He isn’t quite convinced that it can be repaired though, but he keeps those thoughts to himself as you kneel down and set your glowing lantern aside to get a closer look at the structure. Your brow is knit in concentration as you poke and prod at the thing, feeling along the base of it where it’s securely anchored into the floor. Even though Cyno isn’t a bad hand when it comes to puzzles he knew that the inner workings of technology this old and esoteric was more than a bit beyond his scope.

So he takes the chance to glance around the room, noting the mural faded from the cruel passage of time on the opposite wall and the air ducts in the ceiling. The two of you had traveled quite deep into the ruins to reach this place and yet there always seemed to be a distant, vague current of oxygen traveling through even the deepest recesses of the monument's bowels. The ancient civilizations that once flourished here were especially adept builders and it was clear that they’d even left behind a very functional ventilation system that supplied most if not the whole entire place with a stuffy, slow moving draft.

It was much appreciated even if it didn’t do much to dispel all the dust and sand grit hanging in the air, and he slowly turns back around after completing a full circuit survey of the immediate area. You were still fiddling with the mechanism, groping along the side of one of the tall prongs as if in search of a hidden switch of some kind now, and his growing curiosity finally wins out.

“Are you truly confident you can get it to work again?”

“Of course I am.” You murmur, distracted by the task at hand as much as the beads of sweat slowly starting to form and roll down your temple. It was a bit stifling in here. “What, don’t I seem like I’m brimming with confidence? I thought you’d have more faith in me.”

Cyno tries to fight it but he grudgingly allows himself to smile at that, taking consolation in the knowledge that you were much too preoccupied to notice it. “My apologies for bruising your ego then but that’s not quite what I meant. It’s just that your expertise is more in the field of paleontology, isn’t it? I didn't expect you to have so much functional knowledge on the inner workings of a machine, particularly one as old as this.”

Humming softly under your breath, you carefully follow the prongs up to the top of the apparatus where the center piece is located. “You’re not wrong about that.” You relent. “I’m certainly not Kaveh who can tinker around with just about anything and figure out how it works. I’m also not like Al-Haitham who just has that kind of information on hand for no other reason than he happened to read it in a book once before.”

A sharp pang shoots through Cyno’s chest at the mention of your lover and he rather stiffly shifts his weight from one foot to the next to conceal it. “Perhaps we should have asked Kaveh to come with us then.” He says, pointedly avoiding saying the same about the scribe.

“That’s only a last resort if I don’t have any other choice. I wanted to try it myself first. Just to see if I could do it, you know?”

He lifts a brow. “And you think you can do it because …?”

“I read a book about it.”

It’s such a decidedly Al-Haitham answer that Cyno can’t quite stop himself from scoffing, as impressed by the simple gumption of it as he is rueful about the unintentional reminder that you hadn’t picked him. That it wasn’t his personality traits and bad habits rubbing off on you rather than the genius scribe’s.

But the sound is thoroughly masked when you seem to at last locate what you’re looking for and, with a triumphant exclamation, the mechanism starts to glow a faint, almost iridescent blue. The suddenness of activity is close to startling for as unassuming and benign it is, and Cyno is immediately on high alert with his spear at the ready.

Nothing happens though. The floor neither gives out in a crumbling mess of debris and stale sand, and neither does the ceiling collapse down on top of the two of you in wrathful vengeance. Everything is just as still and as quiet as it had been seconds before the apparatus abruptly came to life, save the hushed sound of excitement you make as you sit back to admire your handy work.

“There! Now that that’s taken care of we can move on to step two!”

Cyno really doesn’t like the tendril of unease that forms in his gut now. “There’s more?”

“Yes, if the texts were right then there should be a secondary piece of the mechanism that we’ll need to adjust so that the two can connect with one another. That's easier said than done though, of course.” Heaving a quiet sigh, you push up to your feet and wipe your hands off on your pants. “This is the part that stumped all the previous scholars who tried to get inside this room. The positioning needs to be very exact for them to communicate and …”

“And?”

Sheepishly, you turn your attention elsewhere. “No one could quite figure out where the second piece is but there was some suspicion that it might be in a part of the temple that suffered a collapse. It’ll take some digging around on our part, I’m afraid.”

Cyno’s grip on his polearm tightens, making the knuckles creak softly under the force. “Alright. I’ll help you look for it but we’re not splitting up.”

“What? But that’ll take so much longer!”

“I don’t care.” He hisses, all but biting out his words now. “This place is massive. If you get turned around in here it could take me hours just to find you again, not to mention if something were to go wrong. I came here to protect you and that is what I will do. Either we stay together or we can leave and return to Caravan Ribat right now. Those are your only two options.”

For a moment you look truly stunned by that declaration. The disbelief is written across your face in broad sweeping brushstrokes, confusion and even a pinch of affront creeping into your startled expression. It’s like you couldn’t believe what he was saying to you and, in all honesty, Cyno is a little surprised at himself too.

He hadn’t meant to drop the tone of his voice and take on the kind of stern, authoritative command he’d usually only implement with criminals or lower ranked Matra who answered to him. You were neither of those things and he’d never spoken to you like that before.

Whatever had come over him quickly clears though, the fog rolling back and dissipating from his mind to leave him once again clear headed and in control. Drawing a clipped breath, Cyno readies an apology for his slip but you’re quick to turn away from him, giving him your back now.

“Fine. I understand the position you’re in so I won’t argue about it but don’t talk to me like that again, Cyno. You may be the Mahamatra but I’m your friend, not one of your subordinates nor a child you get to reprimand.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He softly relents, feeling some mixed up, confusing sentiment welling within his chest which slowly expands with the steadying breath he draws. On one hand there was an undeniable sense of guilt at having forgotten himself like that, for snapping at you when you didn’t deserve it, and that loss of control worries him even for as brief as it had been. But on the other there existed a sort of pride in your ability to not only set your boundaries but also enforce them. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that you would deliver a punishing dose of retribution if he slipped up again, and it made him all the more appreciative that it was you who had captured his heart rather than any other.

You were fierce in your own way and he respected that, even when you simply refuse to acknowledge his apology and instead shuffle off in a direction seemingly picked at random. He’s quick to follow, although he allows you to keep a few paces ahead so as not to intrude on your personal space given your current agitation with him. It could be mended in time, consolations given to soothe the ache given by careless words to vulnerable pride, but your safety was non-negotiable. Cyno would prefer you to be angry with him for decades to come before he ever conceded you to the shadowy underbelly of the great al-Bahari temple.

The notion that he himself might be the greatest danger you face within the labyrinthine tombs never so much as crosses his mind.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The second half of the mechanism is finally located and, with no small amount of head scratching, you and Cyno at last manage to maneuver it into position. The blue pulsing light from the first could now shine its incandescent beam into the receiving center node via a series of reflective surfaces along the pathway, which his knack for puzzles had helped a great deal with. A distant rumble of inner mechanical workings grinding open can be heard even from far down the long dusty corridor, and the two of you quickly hurry back to the antechamber room where the locked door resided.

At some point in the last few odd hours, it seemed that you’d forgotten you were supposed to be upset with him for his carelessness and both of you had worked in amicable solidarity with one another, for which he was immensely glad. But to avoid reopening that stinging wound to pride and ego, he’d decided to hold off on trying to apologize for it again until after you’d already made your way out of the ruins together. It wouldn’t do to further escalate an argument you were willing to let rest, after all, and more importantly he still didn’t have the best feeling about the preceding series of events that brought both of you here. There was something strange hanging in the air, like a subtle electrical current so weak all he could pick up from it was the occasional, distant pulse of crackling energy.

He realizes then, only when you and him reenter the sealed antechamber to find the once tightly shut door now wide open, that he hadn’t felt particularly good about any of this. Even that dewy morning standing in front of the city gates three days prior had carried with it a vague sense of foreboding in retrospect. He’d chalked it up to Al-Haitham’s presence at the time, his own traitorous heart creating rifts where they ought not exist, but these ruins had only further highlighted that something was not right.

First it had been the statue of Hermanubis and the static shock he’d felt the moment his fingers grazed its smooth surface. The stormy tension in his body had continued to steadily mount after that until he then snapped at you, something he neither thought you deserved or understood the cause of. He wasn’t upset with you, couldn’t imagine being mad enough about anything to lose his cool as he had.

And now he was watching you make a beeline straight towards the gaping, silent maw of the room's entrance that would take you into a part of the temple that hadn’t seen another living being in almost three hundred years. Only untrampled grounds lay ahead from here on out and Cyno just couldn’t wrap his head around any of it.

But he follows, hot on your heels and with his spear clutched so tightly in hand that he half expected to feel the slick ooze of blood dripping down his palm at any moment. His heart pounds a wild, trapped animal rhythm against the interior of his ribcage as he quickens his pace only enough to reach the threshold before you do. He doesn’t cross it but rather stops just at the edge of it and peers inside the ancient chamber with the aid of the flickering lantern he holds up in his opposite fist.

He has but a few seconds to take stock of the new surroundings. The shape of the room is that of an inverted T with the doorway situated along the widest part, and at the far end directly from where he stood was another stately effigy in honor of Hermanubis, the lost great sage.

You’re coming up behind him then, easily sidestepping and going on ahead to wander further into the gloomy dark and down the perfectly straight aisle. Cyno almost catches himself trying to stop you but he refrains, because he knew it would be futile when you already had your sights set on the goal and because he simply wasn’t confident that he would be able to find his voice.

The atmosphere in this space isn’t just heavy or oppressive, it’s downright bone crushing. He can scarcely draw a full breath and he wonders how it is that you don’t appear to even notice it, but then he feels the spirit within him shift towards wakefulness. It made a certain amount of sense, of course. If this particular room really was meant to venerate and pay tribute to Hermanubis then it didn’t seem so far-fetched that what was left of him on an immaterial level would react to these surroundings. There was familiarity here, but there was also a sinking, suffocating sense of dread.

Willing the spirit back into dormancy, Cyno forces himself to move after you and he takes his first step into the chamber of worship.

He regrets it almost instantaneously when a sharp, debilitating zap of electricity races up his leg into the rest of him and very nearly sends him sprawling on his ass. Staggering a step, he numbly stands there in frozen silence while that jolt of energy courses through every inch of him like a hot livewire. But unlike before, unlike the first time in the great hall just beyond the entrance to this place, it doesn’t fizzle out or dissipate. It just keeps bouncing around inside him, traveling the continuous circuitry of his veins and tendons, every individual ligament and bone until it at last finds the dwelling place of that ancient soul.

The resulting surge of power feels to him like it rivals that of a lightning strike zeroed in on a metal rod and his body is the conduit that further amplifies it. Cyno draws a sharp, half strangled breath to warn you but his mouth is no longer capable of human speech. The words become jumbled and inarticulate, lodging firmly in his throat where they stay even when he manages to croak out a weak sound of distress into the stagnant air. You're too far ahead of him now though, you don’t hear it when you’re too busy using your own torch to light the handful of wall sconces at the far end of the narrow corridor.

The flames that flicker to life are weak and irresolute at best, likely having very little oil left in their lamp wells to feed into the wicks for very long. But it’s enough to cast the room in a dull, almost eerie glow for the time being and he can now see that the statue is not the only thing residing on the far side of the room.

There’s a raised dais situated directly in front of the towering slate figure and surrounding that platform on either side were over a dozen pots of clay, sealed with dried red wax and adorned with long wilted and decayed flower bundles. Further back sit chests of various sizes but all of which were of equal importance, as evidenced by their stately appearances and shapes. Some were painted in fine, vibrant colors with specks of gold worked throughout while others were meticulously hand carved to depict long forgotten scenes of a bygone civilization. And even further than that, beyond the numerous pots and chests and the dried out corsages, there were weapons lining the sides of the walls. Swords and spears, dusty old hunting bows and their decorated quivers, emblazoned shields and even war banners that were moth eaten to the point of being unsalvageable.

Cyno understands then why you’d wanted to get into this room so badly. Why you’d refused to give up even after spending almost a whole hour on unearthing and then positioning one single mirror just right for it to reflect the incandescent beam the way it needed to.

In the same breath he also understands, intrinsically and beyond even a shadow of a doubt, that this was no chapel of worship but rather a place of ritual and magick. This was a stage of offerings and sacrifice, an altar to the esoteric and the mystical.

It was his altar.

He startles at that sudden thought.

Some fundamental part of him recognizes that it is not his own mind that had conjured the idea, that it was not his voice that spoke it into his ear with all the silken assurity of simple fact. But even knowing that the only possible explanation was that the fragmented spirit was the one who thought and who said it, he was suddenly having a very hard time differentiating between the two. Where did he end and where did Hermanubis begin? Had they ever been separate entities at all, or had he only imagined that they were?

Helpless before its great power, Cyno can do nothing but watch as if from a great distance as he drops the lantern in his hand with a dull clatter and his body takes another step forward, and then another. He’s no longer in control of himself but he can’t quite seem to wrestle it back from the Tighnarian sage, or what was left of him. It’s like being trapped inside a prison of his own flesh and blood. He can hear his lungs drawing breath, can even hear you excitedly talking about the contents of the room as he draws nearer, but he can’t make his mouth move the way he wants it to. He also can’t stop his feet from carrying him up onto the dais, his hand coming up to reach for you even when he wills it to stop.

All at once you seem to notice that something is wrong and he rails against his own skin when you turn to look up at him. It’s like he’s seeing you through a hazy lens, the edges of his vision grainy and wavering as if he were standing in the middle of a dense, encumbering fog, but your face he can see in almost startling clarity. The kissable lips that call and beckon to him even now, the soft quality of your rounded cheeks and, perhaps most clearly of all, the surprise reflected in your widened eyes when you find him standing directly behind you.

There’s no chance for you to react. He watches himself grab your upper arm and physically drag you away from the statue, towards the center of the raised platform. You squawk in surprise, trying to wrench yourself free and dig your feet into the ground to stop the forward motion but it’s no use. Even if he’d been in his right mind you never would have stood a chance before his far greater strength. You, an academic and a scholar who spent most of her free time in the House of Daena, while he trained day in and day out to hone the tightly packed musculature in his body.

His looks were deceiving and many a criminal has had to come to terms with that firsthand. Now it seemed to be your turn to realize exactly what he was capable of. This isn’t what Cyno wanted for you but all he can do is watch on, his horror mirroring yours, as he mercilessly shoves you onto the ground. The resulting bodily thump sends shockwaves of anger coursing through his system and he rages, pounding against the invisible barrier that keeps him locked out of his own personhood. You're completely unaware of any of it as you gingerly push up onto your elbows, peering at him through the flickering shadows.

“Cyno? What are you …”

Trailing off when he extends his hand out to the side, you watch him drop his staff with a seemingly careless gesture. The heavy clatter of his weapon hitting the floor seems to frighten you into action and you twist, clambering on hands and knees to get away from him but it’s much too late for that. He’s too quick, and he descends upon you with a vengeance.

His hands grab at you, ripping you back by the shoulders to make you sprawl out at his feet. Your shriek of terror goes unheeded and he drops to straddle you, locking his knees around your middle even as you wildly thrash and kick in retaliation. You manage to get one good, solid punch in right on his sternum which nearly succeeds in winding him, a distant note of pride lighting up the back of his mind for a split second, but it’s all for naught. He easily manages to snag your flailing wrists and he leans forward to pin them against the dais with his weight.

Your struggle only increases, ratcheting up to even greater levels of desperation as you mindlessly buck underneath him in an attempt to dislodge Cyno from his perch. He’s almost reminded of an unbridled wild horse out in the lawless desert, so determined to break free that you’d rather tire yourself to the point of exhaustion than give up. But he more than anyone else knows just how futile it really is. Your chances would have been slim anyway, but with the grand sage controlling his body …

“Dammit, Cyno, let me go! This - this isn’t funny!”

A low, rumbling snarl rises in him, vibrating through his chest up into his throat. It’s a truly animalistic sound, one that he’s never heard himself make before, but one that he’s caught Tighnari issue on rare occasions. It’s a growl of warning and threat. A vestigial leftover from when his race was still young at the dawn of the age and a little bit closer to animal than human. Cyno hadn’t even thought his vocal cords would have been capable of making that kind of noise, and he realizes the cause of it with no shortage of existential dread.

All of your writhing has made his cock stir to life where it’s trapped between your body’s, his skintight pants doing very little to conceal or dissuade the swelling erection. It’s distant and vague, like he was experiencing it through the malleable gauze of a hydro slime, but the excitement pumping through his veins now is unmistakable. It almost disgusts him, almost makes him internally retch, and he quickly renews his frantic efforts to take back control.

Unconcerned, or perhaps not even noticing the state of its host, the spirit leans further over you so it can shove his nose into the crook of your sweat dampened neck. The deep, savory inhale he’s forced to pull in brings with it a sweet, almost saccharine rush of endorphins and the smell of fertility which dizzyingly overloads his senses at its potency. He’s never experienced anything like it before, had never been able to scent something, let alone someone, on such a deeply primal level as this. It too must be a result of the grand sage’s physiology then. Something his human body wasn’t naturally capable of but which this horrid, stifling place had facilitated with its long dormant excess of power.

Cyno cries out then, shouting at you to fight it off, when the energy starts to drain from your heaving body. Shuddering faintly underneath him, you reluctantly grow still and try to catch your breath while he noses at you, sniffing over your erratic pulse and behind your ear. The way he almost seems to affectionately nuzzle into your hair makes you swallow hard enough for him to hear the muscles in your throat working but no matter how much he yells you just can’t hear him. Even if you could, he isn’t so sure you would have listened to anything he had to say at this point.

You didn’t really have any reason to trust him after this.

“Please,” You gasp, in a voice so small and uncertain it doesn’t quite sound like yours anymore. “Don’t do this to me. Just let me up and - and we can talk. I promise. Al-Haitham - -“

He cuts you off with another low, threatening growl, one that Cyno almost finds himself in agreement with. Even in a situation like this you still couldn’t forget about the brilliant scribe waiting for you back home. It was almost as astounding as it was sickeningly foolish.

At the same time he realizes just how horrific that thought actually is, and he reels back against himself in shock. Such notions were not his own. He could never think that way about anyone but least of all you. It was the sage, it was Hermanubis manipulating his feelings and twisting them into something they’re not, surely. Cyno may have been suffering in silence out of his love for you but that didn’t mean he’d ever think of you so disparagingly. He’d never — he could never -

“Cyno, stop it!”

Your shrill cry breaks through his stupor and he focuses back in on the sensation of running his teeth over your skin, lightly nipping at your throat. The taste of warm, salty skin floods his tastebuds at the first experimental lick and the spirit must find it just as delectable as he does because it quickly does it again. Ignoring your renewed struggle, noticeably weaker now, he simply laps over your pulse for a long moment, enjoying the feeling of blood wildly pounding a violent rhythm underneath the fleshy topmost layer.

He soon sets his sights on what lies underneath though and his teeth come out to sink into the sensitive juncture of your neck. But what should have been a mere love bite, a surface marking at best, turns out to be something much more animalistic when Cyno feels his canines sink into your vulnerable throat. A sharp, haggard inhale rattles through you as skin breaks and blood wells up to rush inside his mouth. It nearly makes him gag even as his cock gives an eager, excited flex against your lower stomach, instincts that were not his own driving him ever closer to your inevitable ruin at his hands.

Understandably horrified but helpless to stop it, Cyno watches from somewhere far removed from his own body as he extracts his teeth from the wounds and replaces them with what was supposed to be a soothing tongue. He recognizes it for what it is, even if this was not a behavior natural to him. A mating bond. A mark to claim ownership.

You must understand it too, surely, because you’ve suddenly become very still and quiet, save the hot tracks of tears running down your face. Either that or the blunt trauma to sensitive nerves had shocked you into a semi comatose state, but he doesn’t think that’s what it is. The friend group you’d been welcomed into even long before you’d started dating Al-Haitham was a very close one. Tighnari wasn’t exactly secretive when it came to this unique facet of his race’s culture and all of you had met his mother on more than one occasion. All of you had seen the long healed scar on the side of her neck. They didn’t make any qualms about it when such practices were just a normal part of their lives.

But neither you nor Cyno were Tighnarians. It shouldn’t have even been possible for his human canines to pierce the skin so smoothly and, far more importantly, it shouldn’t mean the same thing either. It shouldn’t carry with it the same weight and authority as a true mating bond … right?

He desperately tries to convince himself of that even as he leans back, sitting up to admire his bloody mark on your once pristine throat. The sight of it makes Cyno internally cringe away but there’s no escaping the proof of what he’s done to you when he himself was trapped inside his own mind. He’s a helpless spectator who can only track the motion of his hands when he releases your limp wrists and reaches for the front of your blouse.

Fisting the soft cotton, all it takes is one solid tug to send the buttons flying and clattering across the dust covered ground. You gingerly tip your face in his direction, wincing slightly when even just that brief movement makes the tendons in your abused neck scream in protest. Flushed and panting, you look up at him as if in a daze and Cyno feels the first real tendril of genuine terror snake through him. You were visibly pale and sickly looking even in the shuddering light from the sconces on the wall, and his gaze nervously flicks towards the bite mark. Had that damned spirit opened up an artery?

He doesn’t get his answer, of course, watching himself part the destroyed front of your blouse to reveal your heaving breasts to the static charged air. There’s a thin, flimsy brassiere standing in the way but he shreds that easily enough too, ripping it with a sharp jerk that makes your chest bounce free. He feels his mouth start to water at the sight of your bare tits, so round and heavy, the fat little nipples standing up on them perfectly inviting and juicy. It was a near perfect manifestation of what he’d envisioned they would look like, as is the rest of you.

You’re so soft to behold and grabbable, especially in the middle where your trousers have created a fleshy pudge that begged to be affectionately squeezed. But instead he finds his hand reaching for your chest where he appreciatively palms the curve of one breast to feel the weight of it. You suck in a slow, delayed breath at the contact but it’s already too late for protests. He zeroes in on the stiffened bud with his fingers, pinching it and then tugging at it, and the way your back bows with a low whine makes his cock violently jump in his pants.

They must be receptive, he realizes, and the spirit must realize it too, for he leans down to capture that fleshy nub in his mouth. The responding shockwave of intense arousal leaves him feeling lightheaded and borderline delirious even as he works over your teat with a harsh, demanding suck. Twitching at the sensation, you shift on top of the dais as if you were beginning to come to, yet your movements were still far too sluggish and weak to truly fight him off. All you succeed in doing is squirming underneath him, softly gasping while he pulls the stiffened nipple towards the back of his throat and vigorously suckles at it as if to draw out a spurt of warm milk.

Logically Cyno knew you couldn’t possibly be lactating so it didn’t make any sense why he would feel so compelled to drink from your breast. It was, if nothing else, an effort in futility. But either due to the sharp, overwhelmingly potent cocktail of fertile hormones clouding his already compromised judgment or because the fragmented pieces of Hermanubis didn’t understand that you weren’t a Tighnarian female, he’s simply unable to make himself stop. He just keeps sucking and sucking, until he can feel the pulled taut bud of your nipple turning soft and malleable, and you finally rouse yourself enough to seethe at him to stop.

Hissing like an incensed serpent, you manage to bring your hand up to shove at his head where it’s bent over your chest. At first it doesn’t look like it’s going to do you any good but then, much to Cyno’s shuddering relief, he backs off with one last sloppy wet slurp to your tit. He pushes up to look down at you, admiring the puffed up, darkened bud and the glistening sheen of moisture coating it. His cock leaks at the sight of you sprawled out underneath him like that, flexing against the second skin of his pants as if in demanding search of entry to your body.

Even for as distant and dulled as it is when he was no longer in control of himself, he’s acutely aware of just how great his need really is. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d been quite this hard or quite this sticky with eager precum. It wasn’t just that he wanted you in the simple way any man wants to sink himself into a warm, wet, welcoming body. He needed you to the point that it felt like he really might die if he didn’t follow through on it.

The inherent fertile lushness of your womanly curves and heavy breasts call to him like a siren's song, and he watches himself reach out to tweak your poor, spit lathered nipple between his fingers. Fleshy and pliable, the engorged nub readily bends to the pressure he exerts and you grimace even as you try to push him away again. In retaliation, he gives your teat a mean little twist and pulls on it, making you squeal and dramatically arch your back to lessen some of the sting.

It doesn’t work, of course, and by the time he finally releases you the nipple is achingly stretched and fresh tears are coursing down your face in heavy rivulets. There’s something almost humiliating about it, the way he plays with your tit for his own pleasure rather than yours, unconcerned with such trivial matters like how you might feel about it.

Cyno’s guilt nearly matches his intense arousal, and he cringes in some potent combination of the two when he sedately reaches for your neglected breast next. You realize what he’s doing a split second later and, all but spitting at him, you viciously lash out to scratch at him with your nails.

“You bastard! Stop!”

He doesn’t so much as acknowledge the claws you rake down his neck and chest even though he can feel the sting of it through the muddled fog. It hurts, no doubt about that, but his body remains undeterred as he latches onto the cushiony swell of your tit and possessively squeezes, making the meat of it bulge up between his fingers. Starting to recover now after the shock of being bitten and claimed with a mating bond, you come alive under him again and you wildly twist in an attempt to free yourself. You’re cursing him, shrieking so wildly your voice starts to become hoarse, but it’s like he doesn’t even hear it. The external, physical form of him is some immovable, unflinching force that only seems to know how to take, take, take and you have no choice but to give.

Pinching your chest tight enough to make the nipple bulge up and out, Cyno swoops down to flick his tongue over the stiffened tip. You mewl faintly at the sensation, scrabbling to get your sweat coated hands around his neck so you can shove him off. He doesn’t give you a chance to get your grip in place though, his teeth once again coming out to bite down on your teat, and you abruptly go stock still at the first hint of pressure. Given how easily he’d torn into your neck your fear was well founded, but all he does is lightly grind his jaw back and forth for a moment before tugging on the bud. You seethe at the stretch, idle fingers flexing helplessly against his shoulders.

“Damn you, Cyno … once I tell Al-Haitham about this you’ll pay! Do you hear me?” You half sob, hiccuping softly on your grief. “You need to stop this before you make it even worse for yourself. I’m willing to protect you if you’ll just listen b - but this bite mark …”

His ears perking at the name of your lover as much as the empty threats, the Mahamatra watches himself release your straining nipple and sit back to look down at you. Casually, he reaches out to pinch the teat and twist it, making you weakly yowl at the discomfort, but he remains ever unmoved. Your reasoning and bargaining would never reach him as long as he was not the one piloting his own body, and Al-Haitham had no power here in this ancient place of sacrifice.

Sacrifice.

Everything comes crashing down on what was left of Cyno’s subconscious mind all at once. That was what had given the spirit within him the boost needed to overpower his consciousness. It was responding to this place and the residual, lingering magick therein, and it probably wouldn’t be quelled back into slumber until after the ritual had been completed. The material offerings were already here, leftovers from centuries spent in seclusion and silence where even the dead did not dare tread, their tithings delivered in sealed clay pots adorned with flowers and dozens of artisan crafted chests. All that was left was a pound of flesh and blood.

Your flesh and your blood that was already staining the collar of your blouse and drying against the side of your neck.

What remains of him reels at the tidal rush of understanding that floods into his mind but even enlightenment is not enough for him to wrestle back his control. All he can do is watch in dismay and stomach twisting dread as Hermanubis directs his hands down to your pants. Outright shrieking now, you mindlessly kick and pound your fists against him to no avail. His patience with the buttons quickly wears thin and he resorts to simply grabbing two handfuls of the crotch, ripping it apart at the seams with a violent wrench that jostles you. Gasping for breath, you twist around and try to drag yourself away from him but he just grabs what’s left of your torn trousers and drags you back to the center of the dais.

Even as you beg and plead for him not to do it, Cyno’s hands once again descend upon the shredded fabric and he rips an even wider hole down the center. He quickly flips you back over then, forcing you to look up at him while he yanks his own pants down and out of the way with a clatter of his golden sash. You fight him every step of the way, just as fierce and unrelenting as he’d known you to be, but you were regretfully outmatched. No amount of struggle on your part deters him when he was not in his right mind or capable of making any conscious decisions, but that doesn’t stop you from trying.

An intense shudder races up his spine the moment his wet cockhead hits the air, so sticky with oozing precum it almost feels like he’s found release once already. He knows that’s not true though and his back molars ache terribly at the blind surge of sharp tinged arousal that crashes through him as he moves to position himself between your legs. Keeping your lower half pinned and in place with one hand, squeezing the meat of your love handles hard enough to bruise, he sets his sights on your dainty little panties next. But rather than shred them the same as he had your pants, he simply hooks his finger and yanks the laughably thin fabric aside.

The first glimpse of your sweet, fleshy cunt very nearly bowls him over on the spot and his mind reels in something not unlike disbelief. This part of you is even more lovely and inviting than he’d imagined it to be, when he dared to imagine it at all. Soft, pudgy lips create a tantalizing seam that runs up the centerline of your body, the hair there framing the flushed part so perfectly it seems intentionally made to further torment him. Most surprising of all though is the vague dampness wetting the curls as if you were excited. Like having your nipples pulled and tweaked, and hungrily sucked had turned your own body against you in the worst possible way. He knew you didn’t actually want this, there was no way you could, and yet … and yet —

“Don’t you dare!” Your shrieking suddenly registers in his mind and he internally jolts at the frantic terror in your voice.

The sight of you spread out underneath him, wet and ready and waiting, so soft and round in all the right places, had momentarily taken him out of the moment. But now he has no choice but to look at you, wide eyed and tear stained, covered in your own blood, sucking in half strangled gasps for air while he stiffly guides himself to your entrance. There’s no stopping it though, he just can’t seem to overpower the great sage no matter how hard he rails against it, and the backs of his eyes start to tingle as soon as his cock presses into that center seam.

He pushes, using his body weight to sink himself inside the tight clutch between your legs and to keep you obediently in place for him. It’s probably not necessary at this point when you’ve all but exhausted yourself, screwing your eyes shut and seething at the pressure of having your cunt forcibly invaded, but otherwise staying mostly still. You also probably understand that any further struggle could cause you more harm and discomfort when it had already escalated this far. No matter how much you didn’t want it, it was about survival at this point. You were smart enough to see the wisdom in letting him have what he wants in the here and now, so you can exact retribution for his egregious actions later. And he doesn’t doubt that you will.

But in the moment he’s much too consumed with the wet, gripping warmth of your inner sleeve to think too hard about what might await him once you leave the secluded isolation of this temple. There were sure to be consequences for what he’s done here and rightfully so, a pound of his flesh for yours. Yet that looming possibility doesn’t seem to hold much weight to it when your guts were actively working to suck him in.

You hate every minute of it and that’s clear as day in your pinched facial expression but your cunt has a mind of its own, and it hungrily accepts his cock with a welcoming wet squelch. Excessive precum mixes and mingles with copious slick to smooth the glide of him into your body, making the penetration easy even when you valiantly try to clench the muscles and keep him out. Against your will, you take him one sinuous inch at a time until he at last settles snug and tight against your labia with nowhere else to go. Internally, his eyes start to roll back at the intense, pulsing warmth of you squeezing around him, but externally he remains as stonily unaffected as ever. Evidently Hermanubis was not nearly as moved by this situation as Cyno was, far more concerned about taking and claiming his offering than enjoying it.

And he does take it, just as mercilessly and selfishly as he’d bitten into your neck to mark you as if you were little more than one of his long forgotten concubines. Hands braced against the dais now, he leverages himself into a steady rhythmic pace that has your tits energetically bouncing even as you continue to ineffectively push at his chest. You must know that it’s much too late to stop him when he was already driving his cock as far into your guts as it would go but that doesn’t stop you from trying. It also doesn’t stop the tears from streaking down your cheeks or the hushed, hiccuping sobs that his thrusts seem to dislodge from your throat. They’re so threadbare and soft that the quick paced plap plap plap of his hips smacking into you nearly drowns them out.

Cyno feels sorry for you almost as much as he feels sorry for himself. This was not the way he wanted to have you nor was it the way he thought you deserved to be taken. But the physical compulsion driving his hips forward is almost as powerful as the spirits hold on him, and he can’t stop it. You just felt so good gripping his cock and you looked divine under him even with a wet face and dried blood starting to flake on your neck. It’s no wonder he gives himself over to the pleasure, ill gotten though it may be. Throws himself into it with abandon and he doesn’t try to fight it when he feels his swaying balls draw up in warning.

Thrusts stuttering at the onset of his orgasm, he doesn’t immediately understand why it feels like you’ve gotten ten times tighter until it abruptly occurs to him that his range of movement has been mysteriously reduced. Where once he’d been able to freely piston into the welcoming cradle between your legs, he now finds he can only move back a small fraction before being forced to shove himself back in again. Confusion marches rampant through his mind and almost succeeds in distracting him from the shuddering release that begins to bear down on him. But then, as if taking mercy on his helpless, foolish host, Hermanubis tips his head down to regard the spot where his body connects with yours.

He doesn’t quite comprehend what he’s seeing at first and then it clicks. The same semi corporeal energy that created the oversized, monstrous hands to overshadow his own when he was channeling the great sage’s full power had culminated at the base of his shaft and had formed a … a knot. A faintly glowing, impermanent bulge that was effectively working as a plug to keep you tied to him even when he tried to pull out. He couldn’t dislodge it from your stretched open cunt even with his vigorous attempts to complete a fully executed thrust no matter how much effort he put into it. All he could do was slam his hips forward, forward, forward, again and again, bruising your cervix given the dire tinge of your breathless wails, and in the process he only succeeds in bullying that faux knot all the way inside you.

This is something else that is not a normal part of his physiology and should therefore not mean much of anything to him. Yet somehow, someway, the visual of your raw pussy being forced to take the whole thing, finally stretching wide to accept the fattest part of the rounded girth before weakly trying to close shut around the base, sends him violently careening over the edge with a wounded lurch.

His movements are even more limited now that he’s got you well and truly plugged but that doesn’t really seem to matter. Narrow hips jumping from the sheer force of his orgasm, Cyno kneels on that dimly lit altar before the ever watchful eyes of Hermanubis’ statue and basks in the mind numbing relief that comes with his cock spraying your insides creamy white. He tries to keep fucking you, driven by the instinctive urge that is not his own to deposit every last drop of his potent seed into your womb, but he only succeeds in working his spend even deeper into your cunt with the tiny little thrusts he can manage.

Suddenly, and without even a moment's warning, the spirit within him recedes and he’s forced back into his body with a haggard, suffocating gasp. He slams into his own consciousness, his own skin like he’d been shoved off the highest mountain peak in the world and then hit the ground at full speed.

All at once he’s aware of the thick sheen of sweat coating his entire body, the flushed static coursing through his flesh and bone. His spine dramatically bows towards the ceiling when he sucks in one frantic, heaving breath after another. It’s a violent thing, refitting himself into his own flesh again, filling out all the little nooks and crannies that he’d been forced to vacate. His hands feel weird, his fingers wrong and gangly where they’re splayed out on the surface of the dais. His stomach feels like it’s caving in, turned inside out and then flipped around in some unnatural fashion that seems to him like it hurts. Even his cock felt wrong where it was still wedged deep inside your cunt and weakly pulsing with the last lingering spasms of his release.

Hair hanging forward, Cyno just stares at you in wide eyed, shell shocked disbelief. Perhaps some naive part of him had hoped it was just a dream, a nightmare, a sickening vision of what might have been if he allowed himself to lose control of the remnants of the great sage. That is not the case though, and the way you vindictively stare up at him through the tears still wetting your lashes thoroughly dispels any doubt about that. He’d not only hurt you, scared you, forced himself on you and taken advantage of you … he’d irreparably shattered any and all of your trust in him.

There was no coming back from this for either of you.

Gods, and what about your future! If his seed took and you —

“I’m sorry.” It’s all he can think to say, croaking out each individual word like he hadn’t used his voice in a few dozen centuries. That didn’t feel too far from the truth, but all you do is turn your head away with a soft sniffle.

“Save it for someone who cares, Cyno. Get off of me. I want to go home.”

Home, where you could refuse to ever speak to him again. Where you could seek comfort and peace in your true lover's arms, not his, and figure out what you were going to do moving forward.

It wasn’t fair to you nor was it something he actually deserved after what he’s put you through, but a tiny, vaguely human voice in the back of his cotton stuffed mind whispers at him that he could always keep you here forever. Make this your new home. Fill you with child after child until his claim on you was so uncontestedly concrete that no one could ever take you away from him, least of all that blasted Al-Haitham.

This was his temple after all, wasn’t it?

⭐

Crossposted: here

#genshin impact #cyno #cyno x reader #self insert bullshit

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