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“Kaeya? What are you doing here?” Albedo blinks placidly at the knight standing before him, knee-deep in the Dragonspine snow. “You do know there is a blizzard right now, don't you?”
“Well, I clearly didn’t know it when I set off.” Kaeya flashes a smile and sweeps a gloved hand through his hair, shaking the snowflakes out of his damp bangs. “I was on patrol and got caught in the storm. It’s a good thing I know the way to your campsite. Mind if I come in?”
“Yes, I do mind, actually. Please leave.” Albedo meets Kaeya’s eyes and holds his gaze for a long moment. Kaeya feels his grin starting to slip.
Albedo’s face is completely expressionless, but as he opens his mouth to speak again, Kaeya can almost detect a hint of amusement in his voice. “I am merely joking. Please come in. It would not do for you to freeze to death.” He beckons for his guest to step inside the cavern, and with a chuckle, Kaeya follows him to his desk, kicking the snow off his boots.
Though only a single pair of braziers stand at the entrance to the campsite, Kaeya’s muscles, tense from the cold, relaxing in increments he walks deeper into the cave. Perhaps it’s thanks to Albedo’s inexplicably soothing presence, but the small lab feels much warmer and cozier than it had appeared to Kaeya at first. As Albedo moves towards his desk, the knight takes a seat on one of the crates partially buried in the snow, catching a glimpse of the unfinished sketch on the easel next to him as he settles down. “Nice place you got here, huh?”
Albedo doesn’t acknowledge the remark. “It was rather careless of you to come to the mountains without regard for the forecasted snowstorm.” He turns toward his crafting bench, where a large beaker is bubbling, the liquid inside an evil-looking green color. Kaeya takes the opportunity to glance around at the shelves stacked with scientific-looking gadgets, old books, and vials filled with colored liquid. One in particular catches his eye — it glows a faint blue in the dim light. He rises to his feet, leaning forward to examine it.
“Don’t touch that.” Kaeya jerks around to find Albedo standing directly behind him. His eyes widen in amazement. No one has been able to sneak up on him for years.
“Wow. Hi.” This close, Kaeya realizes that Albedo’s eyes are bluer than he thought they were. The alchemist barely comes up to his chin, but when he lifts an imperious eyebrow, Kaeya suddenly feels smaller. It makes him realize how little distance is between them, and his instincts tell him to take a step backward towards the shelves lining the wall behind him. He shoves down the urge. Kaeya doesn’t back down for anyone— not Fatui Harbingers, not archons, not even Lisa when she’s angry. “Looks like you have me trapped.”
Albedo doesn’t appear to hear the teasing undertone in Kaeya’s voice. “It would appear so, yes.” He doesn’t step back like Kaeya expected him to; Kaeya supposes that it’s difficult to have an embarrassed reaction when you don’t even understand that you’re being flirted with.
“You know, the last time I was this close to anyone, we were both a little tipsy.” Kaeya wonders how far he can push this. He leans in. Albedo still doesn’t flinch back. “He was a good kisser, though.”
Albedo pauses for a moment, as though he is contemplating something. “May I?”
Kaeya opens his mouth to retort but finds that words, usually so easy for him to spin into gold, are eluding him. “Sorry?”
Albedo rises up onto his toes and presses a chaste kiss, feather-light, to Kaeya’s jaw. It’s the briefest contact, but Kaeya reels back in surprise, banging his shoulder blades against the wall behind him.
“Be careful not to knock anything down,” Albedo appears just as calm as ever. “Was that satisfactory for the time being?”
A laugh finds its way onto Kaeya’s lips. “More than satisfactory, maybe. You caught me off-guard.”
Albedo frowns. “Strange. I didn’t count on a reaction like that.”
“Like what?” Kaeya feels half-drunk. What is Albedo trying to do to him? Was he really tramping through a blizzard only five minutes ago?
“I assumed you would be honest. A man such as yourself would surely tell me in no uncertain terms that my kiss conveyed my clear inexperience. But you still—” Albedo raises a hand to ghost over his own lips. “You say you enjoyed it, and I don’t discern any signs of falsehood. Unless—” He tugs off one of his gloves, and then his slender fingers are pushing into Kaeya’s neck, just below his jaw. Kaeya can feel his heartbeat drumming away in his ears, and he can’t tear his eyes away from the careful concentration written on Albedo’s face as the alchemist measures his pulse.
“Elevated,” Albedo mutters, and Kaeya reaches up to catch his wrist with a smile.
“So you were testing me?”
A flicker of something in Albedo’s eyes. “Perhaps.”
Kaeya laughs and allows his hands to slip down to rest on Albedo’s waist. “I’m sure the results were inaccurate because you gave me no warning. I didn’t have time to process it.” He leans in to murmur in Albedo’s ear. “Also, I don’t think a sample size of one kiss is very accurate.”
Albedo stirs, and for a moment Kaeya thinks he’s going to pull away, but then his hands are rising up to cup Kaeya’s face and he’s stepping closer, their bodies flushing against each other. “You are correct.”
The second kiss lasts a good deal longer than the first. Kaeya draws back long enough to say, chuckling, that yes, this is satisfactory, in fact, way more than satisfactory, and Albedo kisses him back into silence, whispering against his mouth that data evaluation should come after the experiment.
When Kaeya finally opens his eyes again, he would swear half an eternity has passed. “For a scientist,” he gasps, “you’re not half bad at this.”
A hint of a smile seems to tug on Albedo’s lips, and he presses one more soft kiss to the corner of Kaeya’s mouth. “For a knight,” he murmurs, “you appear to know a lot about experimenting.”