Chapter Text
WHEN it comes to exploiting people, Kaeya Alberich is a master .
Despite what his status as the Cavalry Captain of the Knights of Favonius would suggest, Kaeya’s not above using underhanded tactics to achieve his goals — valiance and chivalry bores him to no end, and he’d much rather amuse himself with handling things the anti-hero way. As long as everything falls into place the way he wants it to be in the end, the nature of the means deployed mean nothing to him. Call it despicable or reckless, but that’s none of his concern.
For a master of manipulation like him, Kaeya has several methods up his sleeve.
It’s on a fine night at Angel’s Share when he sits with you for a glass of exquisite Death After Noon, his one good lilac orb watching over your intoxicated figure as you slam your glass of whiskey on the counter of the tavern, the glass-like cubes clinking and a few drops of the amber liquid splashing out of it. Unlike Kaeya, your resistance to alcohol and its mind-impairing effects is stupidly weak — it’s all present in the way your crass, yet clear speech has devolved into nothing but garbled gibberish just after three shots of whiskey.
Your horrendous alcohol tolerance gives him second hand embarrassment. But it’s why alcohol happens to be one of his favourite inanimate partners-in-crime for his manipulative endeavours, with its potent capabilities in inducing a degeneration of one’s mental maturity — because unlike him, not many are blessed by the Archons with a high tolerance to the liquid. And this ...is when its effects come into play.
For one, you become extremely stupid in the brain when you’re in an alcoholic daze.
Charles, the tavern’s bartender, raises a concerned eyebrow at how you’ve suddenly decided to start counting the number of eyelash hairs on your two [S/C] eyelids. Such strange sights aren’t anything new coming from you, but it’s nonetheless a peculiar one that he can’t seem to get himself accustomed to. Well. At least you’re not trying to juggle his poor wine glasses unlike the last time you were here — that was quite the troublesome mess that he had to clear up.
He shoots Kaeya with a worried glance at your rapid mental deterioration. Despite your age, you act like you’re five and if he’s being honest, he worries for you, really. Alcohol only makes it even worse. “Captain Kaeya...I hope you don't mind me asking, but is dear [Y/N] going to be okay like this? She doesn't seem like she can hold her liquor any longer...”
Kaeya lets out an amused chuckle. “Oh, don’t worry about her. She’ll be fine, as long as I’m watching over her,” he says as he slings his arm around your shoulder. You let out an involuntary hiccup (from his gesture or from the alcohol, or a mix of both, no one really knows) — he pats your back gently in response, before returning his one-eyed gaze to the bartender.
Charles isn’t convinced, but he nods regardless. “I’ll...leave you to take care of her then, while I entertain the other guests in the tavern. If you need another glass of wine, I’ll be upstairs with the guests.”
“But of course. The two of us wouldn’t want to hold you back, after all. Wouldn’t we, [Y/N]?”
“Frog,” you reply offhandedly, before letting out another unceremonious, unladylike hiccup. Kaeya interprets it as your way of agreeing with him in your drunken daze.
Bewilderment surfaces on Charles’s face. But before he can open his mouth to question your odd response, a customer yells drunkardly for his presence, and with that, he hurriedly departs to tend to the tavern’s matters, leaving the two of you alone. Your alcohol-muddled brain surprisingly is able to perceive this as a chance to ask the question you’ve been waiting to ask for a long time.
“Say, Wannabe Pirate. I have. A very important. Question. To ask,” you drawl with your speech slurred heavily, but Kaeya’s more than intelligent to discern what you’re saying.
He chuckles with mirth at your nickname for him. “Ask away. We have all night, after all.”
“I want to. Know. about the secret. Behind. Your. Flawless skin.”
Kaeya nearly chokes on his cocktail at your question.
You raise an eyebrow weirdly at his immediate reaction. “Whaaaaat?”
It takes him a second to regain his composure. Before long, there’s a lopsided grin that starts to stretch across Kaeya’s face as he beckons you forth with a hand gesturing towards himself. In his head, a witty response has already begun to form and solidify. “It’s nothing. Well, lean closer to know the truth, then. It’s quite a private matter. A secret, if you will.”
You lean closer as you’re told, eager for his answer.
He cups his hand to cover the gap between your ear and his lips, whispering the answer into your ear. It’s rather ironic, considering how he’s trying to tell you a ‘secret’ — the action itself isn’t discreet at all. Then again...whatever he’s telling you is all for the sake of pulling your leg. There is no secret to his flawless skin after all, it’s all just a byproduct of his genes.
“All you need...are slugs. ”
You blink a few times. The first, in confusion. The second, in realisation. The third, in shock. The fourth, in dismay. The fifth and last, in sheer horror . It takes some time for the horror to fully settle in, considering how intoxicated you are, but when it does, your face morphs into an expression of comical discombobulation and disbelief.
“Ew! You. Freak nasty,” you yell while pointing your finger at Kaeya, wagging it and scooting away a few seats from him for theatrical effect. You’ve always been somewhat dramatic when it comes to expressing yourself, though Kaeya supposes that’s a quirk of yours that he’s taken a liking to. It makes you fun to hang around as one of his underground partners, and entertaining to poke fun at. “Slugs? Slugs? Slugs?! ”
He pulls you back towards himself promptly, shushing you with a finger to his lips. “I did say it was a secret. It’s sensitive information I trust you enough with! Now, won’t you keep it down?”
“B-but! You’re a freaaaaak naaaasty! What would. You do. With. Those grossssss creatures?! Bleghhhhh!”
“It’s very simple. All you do is put them on your face for a few hours before you sleep. And voila! Flawless skin. Like mine. You see, to produce astonishingly positive results, you often need to deploy...unorthodox methods. I’ll have you know that the slime secreted by the slugs has quite the effective face-lifting and exfoliating agent packed into it. It’s a secret only I know which I trust you enough to know. Catch my drift?”
It takes you some time to process whatever Kaeya’s just said (a load of nonsensical bullshit disguised as eloquent, sophisticated speech), although you don’t detect the absurdity of his words in your drunken stupor. Blame it on the alcohol influence, but past situations reveal that you’re not much better in playing the game of logic and sense with him even when sober. It plays to Kaeya’s advantage, not to yours.
The idea of using slugs still has you surprised, nonetheless. You furrow your brows, mustering what you believe is a very intense squint. “Are you. For reaaaal?”
“But of course! I never lie,” Kaeya declares, winking.
You process this information thoughtfully, staring up at the ceiling. It seems like he’s managed to convince you into believing his non-existent, nonsensical skincare routine. For a moment, Kaeya wonders how hard you’re having it being this dumb in the brain.
He watches you intently as you grab your glass of whiskey, drinking a mouthful before setting it down again, hanging your head down. There’s something that he’s been curious to know about ever since you’ve let it slip that you liked somebody in Mondstadt during one of your conversations, although you’ve been surprisingly hard to trick into revealing who exactly was (un)lucky enough to be the recipient of your romantic feelings. That was when you were sober, but now...
He smiles.
Kaeya leans forward, chin propped on the back of his hand as he puts his elbow up on the counter. There’s a glint of mischief in that unique four-point star of his single exposed eye, a hint of scheming sly present in the way his lips curl upwards to form that smirk of his. “Well, I’ve told you one of my secrets already. How about you sweeten the deal and tell me one of yours in exchange?”
“What. I am. A verrrry. Truthful person. There are. No secrets.”
“Oh come on, [Y/N]. You do keep a few! Perhaps you need me to start things off? Maybe...you can start by telling me who you’ve had your eye on.”
The statement alone sends heat rising to your cheeks as the image of a certain man surfaces in your mind. In your eyes, he’s the embodiment of perfection, of grace and beauty and all things that have you helplessly head over heels every time you think about him or have your gaze fall upon his figure. Are you infatuated with a man whose eyes burn bright with the essence of zealous crimson and whose hair bears the brilliance of the scarlet colour? Perhaps you are. Do you have a chance with him? Probably not, but it doesn’t hurt to admire him from afar, so long as you keep your feelings under tight wraps.
“Eh. I suppooooose. Thaaaat. Is a secret,” you mumble as an afterthought. A long sigh escapes your lips.
Kaeya tilts his head curiously at your reaction. “Well, what do they look like?”
“Him? The sexiest dude.”
“Aw. And I’m not the sexiest?”
“Naw. You are. Just. Uuuhhhh. Blegh. I guess.”
Kaeya’s sure he knows who this person is already, gathering from his observations, but he wants to hear it personally from you, to hear you utter the name to confirm his suspicions. He feigns a pout at your amusing, yet blunt remark. “Ouch. Then what’s the name...of this man you’ve deemed to be sexier than me? I must know who it is to contend with him.”
Your eyelids feel heavy, and with each second that passes, keeping them open has become more of a challenge, and with it, your ability to stay awake. “Di...luc…Ragnvindr.”
Kaeya’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second, before they narrow into a look of playful connivance as he watches you slump onto the counter, unconscious and knocked out by the liquor. Downing the remainder of the alcohol in his wine glass, he sets it down gracefully before laying out a few pieces of mora on the counter. The tavern has done what it needed to do for him today — he’s satisfied with the answer he has obtained from you tonight. Tomorrow, he’ll figure out a way to make use of that information. Or...maybe later into the night in his sleep, whichever works better for him. He’ll find out later.
It’s around this time when Charles reemerges from the foot of the tavern’s stairs, watching Kaeya sling your arm around his shoulder and carry your intoxicated figure out from the tavern. It’s noted that he does it with utmost care, from the way he holds your delicate frame gently with his grip.
You’re known to be one of the Cavalry Captain’s closest friends, after all.