#luocha

You felt Caelus go still for a half second, then he looked down at your joined hands like he only just noticed, and a slow helpless smile broke across his face. He turned it away quickly, but not quickly enough.

"I... hadn't noticed," he said, which was such an obvious lie that you laughed.

"Liar." you teased.

"I mean--" He turned your hand over in his, studying your fingers like it was a puzzle he was trying to work out. "It just happens. I'm not doing it on purpose."

"Does that mean you'd stop if you thought about it?"

He looked up at you, actually considering it instead of deflecting. He was quiet for a moment.

"No," he said finally. "Probably not."

You squeezed his hand and he squeezed back immediately, his hand answering for him before he could with words.

"Well...good," you responded plainly, feeling heat bloom on your face.

He made a small, embarrassed sound and looked back out at the sky. His thumb started moving in slow circles against your knuckles, and you weren't sure he knew he was doing it.

March was still hovering throughout all of this, and you heard the distinct click of a camera shutter.

"March, I swear--"

"For the scrapbook!" she called, already retreating. "You'll thank me later!~"

Caelus exhaled a laugh through his nose. "She's not wrong."

"Don't encourage her."

"I like it," he said quietly. "I like...this."

You tucked your face against his shoulder to hide your grin. "Yeah, so do I."

Dan Heng - Imbibitor Lunae

His horns were always one of the last things to go, followed by the subtle scales on his skin.

They receded in slow tides downwards, iridescent, catching the light in ways that made you marvel at the sight. His breathing was ragged and his hands were shaking still from the earlier battle.

You reached for him, fingers finding his before closed around them in a firm hold, pressing his trembling palm flat against yours.

His pupils were still slitted when they found your face, unfocused, breathing more relaxed now. The scales along his wrist thinned, flickered, before dissolving against your skin

It took three minutes until his horns dissapeared against his head. You had counted before. Without your hand, it sometimes took closer to ten minutes.

Himeko was standing a few paces back when you finally looked up. She had her arms folded, watching as though she just confirmed a theory she had for a while now.

"Every time," she said simply.

Dan Heng pulled his hand from yours in that moment, as though he realized he had borrowed your time once again without asking.

"It helps him come back faster," you explained, although it came out more defensive than you intended.

"I can see that." Himeko's voice was gentle. "I'm not questioning it. I'm just noting that you also hold his hand when he hasn't transformed at all. At breakfast. On the Express. Walking through port."

The silence that followed was Dan Heng's particular kind, the sort that filled with everything he was choosing not to say. He flexed his fingers once, studying them like they belonged to someone else.

"It started... as a necessity," he said quietly.

"And now...?" you quietly asked.

He looked at you before looking back to his hands.

"Now I look for your hand without any reason."

You took his hand again and his fingers closed around yours immediately without any hesitation.

"Then stop letting go after," you told him.

He nodded once with a small smile and didn't let go of your hand again for the rest of the evening.

Jing Yuan

Yanqing fell into step beside you both somewhere between the Exalting Sanctum and the Alchemy Commission, matching Jing Yuan's unhurried stride with restless energy.

"Can I ask you something?" Yanqing said, directed at Jing Yuan but glancing at you.

"You may."

"Do you two ever not hold hands?"

You looked down. Your fingers were threaded through Jing Yuan's, resting in the space between you where your arms swung gently with each step. His grip was loose but certain.

You honestly couldn't remember reaching for his hand. It might have been at the door, although it could have been earlier.

"We take breaks," you offered.

"When?" Yanqing asked, genuinely.

Jing Yuan tilted his head as though this recollection required calculation. "I believe there was a Thursday perhaps."

"I'm being serious!" Yanqing said, mouth twitching. "The Cloud Knights are talking about it. Someone started a tally."

"A tally," you repeated flatly.

"Of what?" Jing Yuan asked.

"Consecutive days. The current count is forty-something."

You groaned. Jing Yuan looked delighted in the particular way that involved his expression barely changing at all, just the corners of his mouth tilting up.

"Tell them the real number is higher," Jing Yuan said. "Their intelligence-gathering needs work."

"You're impossible," you told him.

He hummed. His thumb traced a line across the back of your hand, idle and sure. "You chose this you know."

"I chose you. The hand-holding was your idea."

"And you've lodged no formal complaints yet."

"I'll lodging one now if you want." you shot back.

"No need." He brought your hand up, pressed his lips once against your knuckles without breaking stride. "Your complaint is already denied."

Yanqing made a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan and quickened his pace until he was several steps ahead. "I'm walking in front. I'm not watching this."

"Smart boy," Jing Yuan murmured. "I've trained him well."

You bumped your shoulder into his arm and he absorbed it with ease as he folded your hand more firmly into his.

Jiaoqiu

It started months ago after he lost his sight, your fingers become a compass he never asked for but never refused. At some point necessity turned into habit it, and neither of you acknowledged it.

The festival crowd hummed around you as Jiaoqiu steered you by scent for the last hour, pulling you through the lantern-lit streets with his tail swaying behind him. He stopped at a stall, ears perking forward.

"Here." He picked something up from the counter, a skewer of something glazed and fragrant, and brought it toward your mouth with his free hand. His other hand stayed locked in yours. "Try this. Open."

You leaned forward and bit. Sweet, smoky, the glaze cracking between your teeth. "That's really good."

"I know. I could smell it from three streets away." His thumb was moving across your knuckles. He did that when he was pleased. You didn't think he realized.

"Sooo," Feixiao said from behind you, "is tonight the night, or are you two going to hold hands for another six months?"

Jiaoqiu's ears flattened for a split moment before they righted themselves. "Feixiao. How long have you been there?"

"Long enough to watch you hand-feed her. Very platonic of you."

"I was sharing food. It's polite."

"All while still holding her hand. You hold her hand whenever she's around." Feixiao stepped around to face you both. "You even did so through that entire Seat of Divine Foresight briefing last week."

"She was nervous."

"She was asleep."

You choked on the skewer. Jiaoqiu's mouth twitched, caught, and the tips of his ears flushed darker than usual.

"My question stands," Feixiao continued, grinning. "Are you making a move tonight, or not?"

Jiaoqiu turned toward you with a composed expression, but his fingers shifted in yours, lacing them tighter.

"That depends," he said quietly, "on whether she wants me to."

The festival noise filled the pause. You squeezed his hand once. Twice.

His ears lifted. "Understood." he confirmed to himself, squeezing your hand back.

Moze

"Fourteen steps and neither of you has broken contact. That must be a new record." Jiaoqiu teased.

Moze's hand tightened around yours out of reflex, as though something he thought was hidden got dragged into the open.

You stopped walking and Moze stopped alongside you. Jiaoqiu was leaning against a pillar with his arms folded, ears angled toward you both, tail curling with amusement.

"How did you even--" you started.

"Two sets of footsteps falling at the same rhythm, close enough to share a shadow. You don't need sight to figure out something that obvious." he smiled. "Moze, you're usually quieter than this. She's thrown off your gait."

Moze said nothing, jaw set. His hand had not let go of yours, which you suspected was the loudest thing he had ever done in front of another person.

"It's not a problem," you said, because someone had to speak.

"I never said it was." Jiaoqiu tilted his head. "I think it's sweet. The most feared Shadow Guard on the Luofu, walking around holding hands like a schoolboy on a festival date."

"Jiaoqiu." Moze's voice was flat, but the warning came through clear.

"I'm leaving, I'm leaving." Jiaoqiu pushed off the pillar, still smiling, and passed you both. His tail deliberately brushed your arm as he went.

The corridor was quiet again and Moze exhaled through his nose.

"You can let go," you told him. "If that made you uncomfortable."

He looked at you. His expression gave almost nothing, but his hand stayed in place.

"No, I prefer this." he said.

You smiled, nodded and started walking again and he matched your step, firming the grip he had on yours.

Fourteen steps became twenty. Then forty. He did not let go at that number continued increasing.

Blade

You were sitting on the floor of a safehouse and Blade was beside you, back against the wall with his eyes closed. Your hand had found his twenty minutes ago and he let it happen.

Kafka walked in without knocking.

Her eyes dropped to your joined hands and stayed there. The smile that crossed her face was slow and curling.

"Oh~" she said. "Is this a new development?"

Blade's hand was gone before she finished her sentence. He pulled it back like your touch had burned him, fingers curling against his own thigh, jaw tight. He didn't look at you.

Kafka tilted her head. "Did I interrupt something?"

"No," Blade said.

You grabbed his hand back.

You did it hard, with an angry huff that came out louder than you meant.

Your fingers locked around his and pressed them flat against the floor between you. He went rigid as he stared at your hand on his.

"Stop doing that," you said.

"Doing what."

"Pulling away every time someone sees. Like you're something I should be embarrassed about. Or it is the other way around?"

The silence was heavy. Kafka leaned against the doorframe, watching, and for once she did not fill it with something clever. Even she knew when to leave a wound alone.

Blade's voice came out rough. "Don't be foolish" he said in regards to your last remark. "... Regardless, you should let go."

"No."

"I'm not--" He stopped. Started again. The words sounded like they were being dragged out of him. "This isn't a part of my script."

"Well that sucks for you, but your script doesn't get to decide that for me."

He looked at you as bewildered as you're ever seen him be.

Your grip tightened and his hand turned slowly, until his fingers threaded through yours and gripped hard until his knuckles were taut.

Kafka exhaled quietly and slipped out the door.

Luocha

The market in Cloudford had been busy enough to justify standing close.

At least, that was the excuse you had been using for the last hour, but it was wearing thin, because the crowd had thinned out ten minutes ago and your hand was still in Luocha's.

He hadn't mentioned it. He carried his bag over one shoulder and held your hand with the other as he examined dried herbs at a stall with composed focus.

You were studying a display of ceramic bowls when the stall owner, an older woman, looked between you and Luocha and smiled.

"Your husband has good taste," she said, nodding toward him. "He always picks out the best ginger root I have. You're lucky, keep a good hold on that hand of his."

You opened your mouth to correct her, but Luocha spoke first.

"She's too kind to admit it, but she's the one who spotted this stall the first time we came through." He set the ginger on the counter and reached into his coat for payment, his other hand still holding yours, steady and uninterrupted. "I just followed along."

The woman laughed while you stared at him. He didn't look at you, but the corner of his mouth lifted enough to confirm that he knew what he had done.

You waited until you were three stalls away before pulling him to a stop.

"You didn't correct her."

"Correct her on what?"

"She called you my husband."

"Did she?" He said as though it was unremarkable news about the weather. "I must not have noticed."

"You notice everything, you wouldn't let a detail like that slip by."

He turned toward you and adjusted his grip on your hand, lifting it slightly to press his thumb into the curve of your palm.

"Perhaps I simply didn't find it worth correcting."

Your breath caught but he started walking towards the next stall with you in tow.