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i
Albedo had a rather loose grasp of what it meant to want . Whether it was for something or someone, he didn’t understand the mania behind it. Lust—an ideal he understood far less than romance, was quite the popular notion amongst the people in Mondstadt recently, and with the holiday of love growing close, people’s wants only grew stronger.
Seated in the farthest corner of Diluc’s bar, Albedo mulled over this: he didn’t get it, didn’t know why. Hesitantly he eyes his company for the night, dressed up in his signature blue uniform, but lacking his usual fur collar, Kaeya sat opposite Albedo. His eyes closed and head tipped back with the mouth of a wine glass pressed against his lips. It had been his third drink that night and they had only just arrived in the tavern a half hour ago.
He raked his eyes over the Cavalry Captain, for a moment he could study him without Kaeya’s own gaze unnerving him.
According to the voices of Mondstadt, Kaeya was the epitome of ‘Lust.’ All grace and elegance poised together in a smooth, sensual manner—from the words Kaeya chose to the way he moved and presented himself. All of it had been scrutinized and commented on since he had entered the public eye at eighteen years old. At so young he had been one of the most desired men in Mondstadt, second only to his brother Diluc.
But Albedo saw none of this when he looked at Kaeya—instead, all he saw was a shell of what Mondstadt wanted Kaeya to be. A hollow, manipulative flirt. A womanizer. But Kaeya was none of that, he was tired most of the time, too tired to flirt, too tired to love somebody. But people didn’t care about that, the trauma he’d been through wasn’t theirs to unpack or feel responsible for. No, what they wanted was him, particularly, his body.
“I never placed you to be so forward with your interests, Albedo.”
Albedo’s mind snaps to the present, he realizes he’d zoned off staring at Kaeya, embarrassed at having been caught he quickly looks away, coughing into his hand, “You and I both know that’s not what I was doing.”
Kaeya hums, leaning forward as he sets down his empty wine glass, “Are you going to share your thoughts?”
Albedo looks back, brows furrowing as he considers telling Kaeya what he’d been thinking of. It wouldn’t be a revolutionary observation, Kaeya was far more self-aware than people gave him credit for, but he doubted he’d like to hear something so depressing from someone who was at surface level, only his colleague. Eventually, he realizes sharing something was better than staying silent.
He settles for, “I was wondering why you didn’t tell Jean.”
Kaeya stiffens, his hold over himself tipping as his eyes grow wide, for a moment Albedo seems to have seen right through him, and he knows Kaeya didn’t expect it.
“…What—” Kaeya’s voice cracks. He slowly reigns himself back in, straightening himself as he lets out a shaky laugh, “—What do you mean?”
“She accepted Diluc’s invitation to attend the ball with him. I’d assumed you would be taking her.”
Kaeya smiles to himself, his fingers dancing around the edge of the wine glass. Albedo realizes he’s nervous. “I didn’t ask her, why would she go with me if I never asked her?”
“Why didn’t you?”
Kaeya sighs, “Is there a reason behind your incessant questioning tonight, Albedo, or are you just bored?”
Albedo taps the tip of his finger against the table, the drink in his hand has grown warm and he’d long since neglected it. He’d only accepted Kaeya’s invitation to go to the tavern out of courtesy—he had no interest in casual drinking. But as the words arise in his mind he eyes the liquor in his hand, and without further hesitation, he downs the whole drink; the words leaving his mouth soon after.
“Can I ask you a question?”
-
Kaeya’s lips are rough and his actions are sloppy, fueled by his wine-drunk mind he presses Albedo against the wall of the Tavern. Hungry and slightly out of it.
Gloved hands grip Albedo’s waist, as Kaeya towers over him. He hadn’t meant for it to get this far but somewhere along his line of questioning he’d brought himself up onto Kaeya’s lap and Kaeya had closed the space between them with a few gentle notions of showing him the answer and another drink. He’d accepted both and had eventually found himself pressed against the outside of the Tavern wall.
They were behind the front entrance, no one sat outside, and barely anyone would come back. Something about their current predicament sent heat running through Albedo, but it was the danger of getting caught that thrilled him, Kaeya’s mouth on his seemed to do little to answer his questions. Slowly, his hands left Albedo’s waist, unbuttoning his shirt as his lips left his and made their way down his jaw to his throat. His tongue licked greedily at his skin, sucking and biting hard enough for Albedo to know there would be bruises there come morning.
“I didn’t take you for an exhibitionist, Albedo—have you always been so kinky?” Kaeya says, giving Albedo no room to answer as he bites down on his collarbone. He kneels, his head by his chest as Kaeya kisses open skin, teasing and licking as he talks, “Or do you just want me that badly?”
There it was again: want.
The word burned itself into Albedo’s mind, want want want . Did he want Kaeya? Gazing down at the Cavalry Captain, he let out a shaky breath. Gingerly he raised his hands to cup his cheek, brushing his thumb against his face. Surprised at the gentle motion, Kaeya leans back on his heels as he stares up at Albedo.
“You don’t want this do you?”
“I’m sorry,” Albedo says.
Understanding sparks through Kaeya and a moment later he smiles. He pats Albedo’s hand as he stands back up. “You wound me Albedo—since when were you such a heartbreaker?”
Albedo laughs, “If it’s any consolation, you’re a far better kisser than Diluc.”
He leaves before the entirety of his words can sink in for Kaeya. Smiling to himself as he steps out of their space behind the tavern and back into the loud streets of Mondstadt’s nightlife. Only slightly disappointed that Kaeya hadn’t been able to answer his questions.
ii
Dragonspine was cold and dreary to most, a place filled with more dead than living. Despite it being filled with mystery and promised treasure, very few adventurers ever traversed the snowy paths. Easily daunted by the danger the mountain promised, from monsters to treasure hoarders and even the hostile Fatui, Dragonspine was a dreaded place amongst Mondstadt’s verdant greenery.
Maybe it was this aversion that he found solace in Dragonspine. Accompanied by the silence of snow, Albedo was never bothered by the idle chatter of people, he was never asked to stop and chat, invited to drink, or asked for help on expeditions. He could avoid all that by staying in his camp, immersed in his sciences. He understood it was a novelty prized only by him, therefore he saw no reason to invite anyone with him.
The fact that Sucrose would occasionally visit him at his camp was a notion he found surprising. Why make the arguably inconvenient trek up the mountain to simply ask him a few questions and watch him conduct his experiments?
Their fields of study were different and Sucrose would gain very little from Albedo’s area of interest. His experiments offered her nothing of value and yet she insisted on accompanying him. He didn’t mind the company but he never knew why she would go through something so tedious for barely any fruitful outcome.
He decides to ask her so on one such day: They’re seated around a fire, their impromptu camp set up on a cliff overlooking Wyrmrest Valley. A few steps down and they would fall right into the entrance to Durin’s heart. It thrummed beneath Albedo’s feet, he wondered if Sucrose could hear it just as lively as he could feel it. She sat across from him, legs crossed and eyes focused on the notebook in her hand as she busied herself with writing down notes from their recent experiments.
Watching her intently he’s reminded of how young she had been when she’d first approached Albedo. She had just joined the Knights as part of their research team and Jean had asked Albedo to familiarize himself with his partner. Sucrose had barely been able to look him in the eye much less speak to him. But now here she was, inviting herself on his expeditions and openly talking to him of her own studies and research.
Albedo finds himself smiling at the thought.
Sucrose sees this, she puts her book down as she stares at him inquisitively, “Anything on your mind, Master Albedo?”
Albedo shrugs, waving her off as he disregards the matter, “Ah, nothing, I was just thinking… have you finished your notes, Sucrose?”
Sucrose hesitates, but turns her notebook to allow Albedo to see, he reaches for it and as his fingers brush against hers, she drops the notebook, a small gasp as she turns red, “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to—your hands, they’re just… so cold…” She trails off, embarrassed as she picks up the notebook and covers her face. Albedo’s hand hovers between them, as his eyes focus on the red dusting the tips of her ears. His mind flashes back to his night with Kaeya—it had been a few days since then and Albedo had almost buried his thoughts on the matter.
But here they were again, along with a different question, “Sucrose?” He asks, reaching forward to pull the book away from her face, she resists but ultimately lets him take the notebook away, Albedo stuns at the way Sucrose blushes, eyes averted from his gaze, “May I ask you a question?”
He sees her shoulders drop but she nods, turning to face him as she lets out several breaths in an attempt to get her blush under control, “…Yes, Master Albedo?”
“Why do you go out of your way to come see me?”
It’s clear the question hits her unexpectedly, throwing her for a loop Sucrose grows bright red as she begins to stammer, he’s reminded yet again of the nervous young girl from before.
“W-What! I… I don’t go out of my way!”
Albedo cocks an eyebrow, “Your strain of interest is bio alchemy and yet you insist on accompanying me on my experiments despite it having no connection to yours when you could be using that time to further your own studies.”
Sucrose opens her mouth but no words come out as she startles at Albedo’s forwardness. He realises he’s rendered her lost when she sits there quiet, for the first time since they’ve met, with no thoughts on the matter.
“Sucrose?” He asks again, “Was that too much?”
Slowly, she shakes her head, the color returning to her face as she raises her hands to pinch her ears back down, a nervous habit Albedo had noticed.
“I think you know why, Master Albedo,” she whispers, voice soft as she admits her confession. Albedo considers it for a moment, his chest aches with something, a feeling he would later realize was guilt—guilt at having put his friend in a painful position. But right then he mistakes it for something else entirely.
Maybe this was ‘ want ’?
He gets up and moves to sit by her, when Sucrose jumps at the proximity he tucks his hand under her chin, “Don’t—don’t worry.” He says.
“M-Master Albedo… what are you…?”
He’s not sure of it himself when he presses cold lips against hers, but Sucrose is warm where Albedo is not. And where he is confused and unsure, she is thrumming with energy. But when he pulls away Sucrose doesn’t stop him.
“I—I thought…”
Sucrose smiles softly, taking his hands in hers as she rests her head on his shoulders. “How silly… I knew it for the both of us, Albedo—but you don’t like me like that.”
Albedo swallows, to him it had made sense when it came to Sucrose. They were partners already, and had worked closely for years, she knew him better than most. If not her then who…?
“Are you worried?” She asks, and Albedo wonders if she can read his mind.
“How did you know you felt it for me? That want —how did you know you wanted me?”
He can feel the way her face burns at his question, he lets her bury her face in the crook of his neck, “Master Albedo you can’t just ask people things like that!”
He chuckles softly, “I’m sorry.”
Sucrose shakes her head, “It’s… It’s not that simple,” she admits, “ Wanting is not the same as loving. You can want someone and not love them, and you can love someone and not want them. And I… I loved you, Albedo.”
“But you didn’t want me?”
Sucrose lifts her head from his shoulder, slowly she shakes her head. “I didn’t want you.”
He smiles at her fondly, thankful for the revelation, he leans forward again, but this time to gently place a kiss on her cheek, “It would have been an honor to want and love you, Sucrose.”
And he knows he means it, even if he doesn’t fully comprehend it. In a odd way, he thinks he does love her. But in the same way he loves Klee. In the same way he loves Alice. In the same way he loved a dear friend.
They stay there, in the soft silence. Albedo thinking over her words, reflecting on what she’d told him, comparing it to what Kaeya had said. In the end, when it’s time to leave he is left far more confused than ever.
iii
It would make sense that the next person he posed his questions to were Aether, unlike how Albedo felt around most people, awkward and unsure how to navigate, the Traveler made conversation much easier. Speaking didn’t require as much effort or rehearsal and pauses in between were no longer spaces he rushed to fill because somehow the silence that followed was far more overwhelming than the conversation that weighed down on him.
But when Aether sat next to him in his camp he found the words dying on his tongue. He still hadn’t entirely comprehended what it meant to want yet looking at the Traveler he knew that it wasn’t this.
“I don’t want you,” he says plainly when Aether sits down.
He falters, raising both eyebrows as he stares at Albedo, confused, “What?”
“But… I think I love you?”
Albedo watches the way Aether’s face twists, from confusion to relief, settling down once he begins to piece together what he had been trying to put across. “Do you now?” He teases, “Ah, I’d always assumed our love story would be a lot more dramatic. Fleeting and remorseful.”
“Ending with me dying in your arms?”
Aether grins, “Precisely.”
Albedo rolls his eyes, leaning back on his arms as he closes his eyes. They were in Dragonspine, Aether had visited after an expedition and the two of them had sat down after making dinner. “Funnily enough, I was here with Sucrose a few days back—she told me, You can love someone and not want them. ”
‘I love you,’ stays unsaid, the words too precious to him to part with when Sucrose had trusted him enough to say it.
“Do you love her?” Aether asks.
Albedo opens his eyes staring at the darkening sky as he remembers their conversation, “Yes, but in the same way I love you, or Alice, or Klee.”
“Like a friend.”
Albedo considers this, but then he realizes no, not like a friend. “Like family,” He says.
Aether smiles at him, he brings his knees to his chest, hugging them as he rests his head on his arms and turns to look at Albedo. “I miss her—Lumine. Sometimes it feels like all I’ll ever do is miss her.”
“You’ll get her back.”
Aether sighs, “She’s different, I can get her back but I won’t have her like I did before. We’re no longer Aether and Lumine. Now it’s like, Aether, and then Lumine.”
Albedo listens. Sitting silently as Aether tells him of his sister, of everything that had been through together. And as he listens he realizes: relationships are complex—romantic, platonic, lustful, just when he thinks he’s figured one out, another one just as perplexing is presented to him and he finds himself back at the beginning, staring at an empty space, hopelessly lost as he tried to piece together what anything means.
But he also realizes that it’s fine. That the complexity was sometimes worth it. As Aether speaks, as he talks about how they used to travel together, he smiles—he smiles despite how much it hurts to miss her.
“It’s worth it, then—loving them,” Albedo says, “You miss her so much but it’s worth it because there’s something to miss. There’s someone to miss.”
Aether stops, silence hangs between them for a minute, but it’s never heavy and it’s certainly not damaging, eventually Aether sighs. “Yes, it is worth it,” he admits, “The same way it’s worth it to love someone even if you don’t want them. Because sometimes wanting can also hurt.”
“Have you ever loved someone like that?”
“No,” He says, ”Have you?”
Albedo doesn’t think he has, but when he thinks of everyone he’s met, all the confessions he’s heard and all the hearts he’s had the pleasure of caring for, he thinks maybe he has. “I’m not sure,” he confesses.
Aether hums, nodding, “Would you like to?”
Albedo doesn’t reply, his mind whirring at the possibility, would he like to? He wants to say yes, of course, but then when he thinks about it he’s not sure he can. He’s loved people, he’s loved so many people. His mother, Aunt Alice, Klee, Sucrose, Kaeya, Aether… so many people he’s cared for and adored. Why would he need to want more? And yet he finds himself saying:
“I would. I would like to.”
Aether smiles at him, soft and understanding. He lifts his hand and places it over Albedo’s. “You remind me of someone else I know. He’s said something similar, of wanting to but… well he told me he doesn’t think he’s capable of doing so but between you and me he’s more than capable.”
Albedo sits up, interest piqued at Aether’s comparison. “Someone like me?” He asks
Aether nods, laughing to himself as he raises his head to look out at the snow. “When I left Mondstadt it felt like I was lost all over again. I didn’t know where I was meant to go and I didn’t feel like I fit in anywhere. It was so comfortable back here, and I knew all of you—starting over felt daunting and I didn’t think I could do this when Lumine didn’t even want to be found. That was when I met Xiao—it felt like I wasn’t lost anymore. In an odd way, he reminded me of you, and then soon enough it was alright. Getting caught up in saving another nation really makes your anxiety over meeting new people pretty insignificant.”
Albedo stared at Aether, unsure what to say at the Traveler’s confession.
“You’re a lot like each other. You think you can’t do it—that loving someone and wanting to love someone is impossible for you. But if only you saw yourselves the way other people saw you. It’s so easy to love someone. Even easier to want them.” He turns to look back at Albedo, tightening his hold over his hand, “You are capable of love, Albedo. And one day I hope you find it.”
Albedo swallows, his voice strained when he speaks, “I—Yes, I hope he finds it too.”
Aether grins, mischief glinting in his eyes, “Maybe you can find it in each other, what do you say Paimon, would you like to play Cupid—Valentine’s Day is coming up after all.”
The excited pixie comes up behind them, and Albedo manages to not roll his eyes at Aether’s teasing.
Set them up—what a foolish thought.
But as he thinks to himself, losing his focus in his thoughts, it dawns on him, it was strangely comforting that there was someone who thought the same way he did. Even if Albedo had never met him, to be seen and understood so deeply by sharing such ideals—in an odd way he felt close to him. How curious.
He wonders how it would be like to meet him.