Chapter Text
Sucrose and Timaeus are muttering under their breaths in conspiratorial whispers - this isn't something new; they come together habitually during the lulls of their afternoon research before Noelle brings them their meals. Light falls over the alchemical room in rich, warm tones as the sun sets, even the motes of dust in the air are dyed in a gleeful pink. By all means, it's an average everyday experience, an easy beguilement. His guard is down before it even has a chance to go up — which is why he doesn't expect either of them to bare their fangs and nip at him so hatefully.
"Timaeus," he says, and there's a complex set of emotions bubbling in his stomach from the book laid out in front of him as his eyes flick from the source of his disrespected personal space to what is the worst thing he’s ever seen in his life — Love Attacks like C10H14NO5PS; An Alchemist's Guide to Dating. The cover looks like it belongs on a trashy bodice ripper and the models on the front look suspiciously like Kaeya and Lisa in Darknight Hero masks. The inside is probably worse, though, and Albedo glances over subheaders and tiny print detailing dating etiquette and sticky notes and and bright green annotations with award winning pick up lines such as We're a better pair than sulfur and mercury; will you be the white queen to my red king? and Just like parathion, you take my breath away.
The feeling festering within him is regret, he realizes, for deciding to use the main workshop instead of the offshoot camp, and a desire to walk away and leave for Dragonspine without a moment's delay surges like quicksilver. Unfortunately the nearest exit is behind Sucrose, and she must be feeling very brave to corner him like this. "Parathion doesn't quite take people's breath away, though it does cause respiratory arrest."
A miasmic pause ensues as Timaeus attempts to catch any train of thought. Rather difficult, for him at least.
"It's romantic, sir," he protests, finally grabbing hold of one.
"Parathion metabolizes to paraoxen - it ends up replacing sulfur with oxygen in the bloodstream. It makes you nauseous, makes your muscles spasms, seizes your airways.”
“Just like love,” Sucrose mumbles solemnly. Betrayed and baffled at Sucrose’s compliance with Timaeus, he turns his stare towards her.
“It can kill you.”
“Heartbreak can feel a lot like death,” says Timaeus, with a soft, melancholic tone that makes Albedo briefly think he’s going insane. “Not shooting your shot, I think, is a bit worse than death.”
Albedo stares, and with intent to provoke says, “death is preferable to this conversation.”
Neither responds to that, but instead Timaeus shoots a glance at Sucrose, miming something with his hands, and failing to be subtle, makes theatrical mouth movements before she stares at him wide eyed and nods. Sucrose opens her mouth, trips over her tongue twice before even getting a chance to speak as she eventually fumbles out, "I think… There's a lot of good advice in this book! The date ideas are, um, really cute… the pick up lines are very clever too. Probably the best parts of the book. I highlighted the key points."
Unfazed, he sends a dry look towards Sucrose for enabling Timaeus’ behavior and apparently annotating and helping with the creation of this horrific book. Albedo’s eyes follow her line of sight before he freezes.
Now officially fazed, her name wheezes out of him, just a tad higher than he expects. "Sucrose, you’re actually serious?"
He stares at a particularly stained sticky note with like daisies and chamomile, we're similar enough for me to aster-pire for you, and thinks the window suddenly looks like a bizarrely enticing exit at this very moment. He flicks the sticky note off the page with a mild expression and a growing sense of existential horror, and Sucrose’s awful pick up line falls to the floor, upside down, hiding its contents from view as the archon’s intended.
"I think," she starts, unaffected by his childish behaviour, "you could use this to woo the traveler."
“How much did it cost to get Majorie to bind this?” Albedo asks, a distinct but familiar feeling of energy sapping from his body with this ridiculous interaction.
There’s a heartbeat of silence, and that tells Albedo it costed more mora than it was worth.
“Here I thought I was good to you. What have I ever done to be put in this situation?” He eyes the window longingly.
"I think it's a very good idea!" She taps the glossy page with her nail, and she only trips over her words five times—it’s a new record, "imagine, you two dancing at a ball, one of you in a dress -"
Timaeus chimes in, addressing an issue no one in the room was thinking about, "preferably the traveler in a dress. Albedo would probably snap in half wearing one."
With feeling, Albedo cuts in, still terribly confused and repulsed by the entire situation, “I admit, I do not have the shoulders for a heavy ball gown; that amount of fabric looks stressful.”
“Lumine in a dress, then,” amends Sucrose, but she gives him a smile as if there’s something she wants to say but thought better of it at the last minute (regardless, he doesn’t want to hear it.) She tilts her head thoughtfully, after a moment, “I, ah… I think I can lend you some of my old suits, maybe changing up your style could help? Lisa says she likes my look, she thinks it’s cute, so… so maybe it will work for you.”
“I wasn’t aware clinical anxiety was a look.” Unamused, Albedo takes a step back away from them both, and disregards them entirely.
“But maybe clothes that you haven’t worn to sleep several days in a row would be slightly better, though.” She’s giving him that clipped, closed off smile again, and delicately covers her mouth as she speaks in toothless irritation, “but… well, if you really think whatever you have looks better, Mister Albedo, I suppose you’re correct... Who am I to judge at all? Though, it’s not as if you have any other friends to get a second opinion from. It… it really is a wonder why.”
Before he can respond to her jab, Timaeus, to Albedo’s eternal regret, opens his mouth once again, “but here’s how you confess to her.”
“I don’t remember asking for your advice,” he says. But Timaeus is just a tad too persistent, outside of alchemy, it’s one of his biggest flaws. Thrusting the book in his face, Albedo catches sight of a large, bolded print in the flipping pages — circled and underlined with hearts and paw prints is a subsection called Doing Taxes Romantically, You and I, Together Like an Ionic Bond.
It’s all a bit too much for him, and, overwhelmed, Albedo gives in to the siren call of his newest desire and quickly defenestrates himself.
Note: jumping out of a window might have been a bit of an overreaction, and it most certainly wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world. Fortunately, he ended up relatively unharmed. Unfortunately, he landed in Cyrus’ arms.
The taller man looks at him with something bright in his eyes, and Albedo is filled with sudden, undeniable dread — hearing Cyrus ramble is just as mentally taxing as reading a Sumerian textbook or watching Kaeya and Diluc struggle to make amiable conversation without bickering with the force and passion of star-crossed lovers destined for divorce. It feels around the same as tossing his brain into a butter churn then trying to tape the liquidized pieces of meat into a solid mass again.
“Did they inspire you to confess so fervently?” He asks, awed.
Albedo makes a mental note to dock both of his assistants' paychecks.