Chapter Text
Albedo remembers once asking his creator a multitude of questions on human emotion.
He remembers looking in the mirror; at his porcelain skin and extraordinarily fluffy hair, the intricate braids his creator weaved together, and the too-big lab coat she told him to wear whenever he was around her. He looked into his shimmering blue eyes, quivering azure orbs that were too big and too dull to properly replicate a child’s, and then he looked at the opalescent golden star that marked him by the gods.
He remembers tracing the outline of the star, feeling small bumps form on his skin, and looking up at his creator.
“What is this?” She’d glanced at him, unable to take her eyes off her crafting table, hands continuing to pour and mix and scribble and shake, with an unreadable expression flickering in her iris.
“It’s a star.” He blinked, his eyebrows furrowing as he adjusted the too-long sleeves of his too-big lab coat.
“Do all humans have stars?” She let out a sound similar to laughter but worlds away from it. One of the first things Albedo learned was that his creator never laughed.
“No, Albedo. Only you do.” The unspoken words of ‘ it's what sets you apart. Makes you inhuman. It’s what shows you that you’ll never truly be who you were supposed to be.’ is left unsaid. Something about how she said it, how it landed in his ears made his skin crawl.
“Can you get rid of it?”
“No, Albedo.” The boy shivered, wrapping the too-big lab coat tighter around himself, and for once in his short life, he’d appreciated how the collar reached his ears.
✩₊˚.
Albedo had once asked his creator what drove humans to exist as they do.
He had multiple hypotheses scribbled down in a Moleskine notebook, crammed in between measurements for growth potions (a failed attempt) and diagrams of crystal flies, and none came close to what she had said.
His creator had looked at him, in the careless, disinterested way she looked at him when he asked something that he should’ve already known and answered;
“Regret is the basis of humanity.
It is one of the fundamental principles of society and evolution, alongside trust, envy, and love. Some even say trust and regret share a similar sort of taste in prey.”
He stood there, in a lab coat with sleeves only rolled up once, and crossed off all his previous hypotheses. His eyebrows furrowed, and he tapped his pen to his lip.
“Do I have love?” His creator never mentioned him having human emotions, always saying that it was his exoskeleton that resembled a human, not the internal machinations of his heart.
Albedo surmised it was a good question, for his creator paused her movements, setting down her beaker and turning towards him. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes seemed troubled. Her lips turned downwards at the corners, and he waited patiently for her to reply. She didn’t— not until days later, as she tucked the blanket up to his chin with the fire crackling beside him, brushed back his permanently unruly hair, and said that you learn to love someone.
He never understood, as he mostly never did with the answers his mother gave him under the fake stars of Teyvat, but he nodded anyway, in the self-assured way he saw his mother nod when she explained something to him and expected him to understand and be awed at once.
Albedo closed his eyes, thinking about her answers and everything he could’ve possibly regretted in his almost-a-decade of living, as sleep overtook his artificial body.
And while Albedo Keindepriez may have many regrets born of such a human principle, this isn’t one of them— and will never be one of them.
It begins with shimmering galaxies and scars more beautiful than the setting sun, with the brush of fingertips and the glint of a smile.
He breathes in, brushes back the loose strands of his hair, exhales shakily, and fixes the grip on the dagger resting precariously in his hand. His fingers seemed to form a mind of their own, flexing and maneuvering the weapon with slender fingers and a practiced ease and grace that seemed entirely like him.
He hears a knock on the door and twirls the dagger in a daze.
"Come in."
The door opens; a familiar creak of wood shifting on rusting metal hinges swinging open with exaggerated exuberance.
It hits the door stopper— a rickety thing that dug into the point of the door that now had a slight indent in it, courtesy of unused energy thrumming under skin— the point of his weapon grazes the air just beside the shimmering skin of his companion's face. To his credit, his face remains impassive.
Uncharacteristically faux laughter ripples through the stasis of his room, the gently falling dust particles that shone especially bright in the sun's rays seeming to get increasingly disturbed as their flurry grew erratic.
"Please, have a seat."
Albedo’s eye twitches in the slightest as he sees the other trace his finger — spindly and covered in onyx black gloves with the most peculiar of cuts— down the edge of his blade, now embedded in the wall before pushing it down and watching in unconcealed joy as it seemed to spring back like an elastic band. He hears laughter barely attempted to be concealed but quieted down as though the other seemed to remember proper etiquette and the other makes themself comfortable on his office chair. His finger spasmed before returning to its place on his pen.
The other seems to deem his chair unsatisfactory and hops onto his desk, sprawling across the desk like a cat and stretching out his muscles with a satisfied hum. He looks up, eyes lidded and mirth shining bright against his uncomfortably wide smile.
Albedo blinked inquisitively at the other, head in one arm, and a gentle upturn of his lips, which he tried desperately to hide, made its way onto his face.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of meeting the most bewitching assassin of the century?"
“The cushioning of your chair seems to need reupholstery, it is almost as flat as my hair on the worst days.” Albedo’s eye twitched, the action as clear as the morning dew after the most unpleasant of rainfalls.
“Mr. Alberich, may I be as—”
"Please do skip the formalities, just Kaeya will do…" The assassin blinked, head tilting in the slightest as a lock of hair the shade of shimmering galaxies fell to expose collarbone. Upon further inspection, it seemed as though there was a glittering substance consciously applied to his skin—the hollows seeming like an especially sugary dessert.
Albedo’s mouth felt dry, as though it were a sweltering afternoon. He swallowed and looked back up at Kaeya’s face, ignoring the similar shimmer around the corners of his eyes.
“Albedo Keindepriez, most delighted to meet you, Sir Alberich.”
Kaeya laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners with genuine humor, and the constellations in his eye seemed to bounce right off the slightest point of a dark wing tracing crystalline orbs.
“No, no, the pleasure is all mine, Monsieur Albedo.”
Distantly, Albedo noted that the way Kaeya let his name tumble loose from the confines of his lips made it seem like his name was a word that meant something truly sacrilegious. The way his accent made the ends of all his sentences trail off in a seemingly captivating drawl.
He replied with an ‘hm’, turning to his chair and taking a seat. His head seemed to ache with a foreign pulse, and he slumped forward, chin coming to rest in his palm and hair falling forward. Albedo closes his eyes and prods at his temples fruitlessly.
“My, how forward of you, Monsieur Albedo,.” He blinked his eyes open and saw how he’d gotten a bit too close to the other’s face, his hair framing the other's face just slightly.
“And here I thought you were the quiet type….let’s say, save it until date number two?” Kaeya looked to the side, putting a finger to his lips and seemingly pouting in thought. The mischief in his eyes and the sly upturn of his smile overruled the sultry look.
The smile broke free from its shackles.
"Say, Kaeya ," The name was familiar in the rasp of certain vowels, but entirely unfamiliar with the weight it carried in the world, and yet spilled like silk from his lips. He decided he liked the feeling of it. "I presume you know how to handle weapons. Care to help me improve my skills?"
Kaeya laughed in a delighted sort of shock before nodding. "With the dagger you threw at me not five minutes ago, I'd say your control is exemplary for being a office worker with absurd hours." Albedo stifled a scoff before sitting up and turning to grab his document when he felt the frigid edge of a blade rest lightly on the skin of his throat, exactly in the middle of the star. His grin grew wider.
“Why don’t we leave this for date number three, Kaeya Alberich?”
The laughter he heard then seemed to be sourced from the heart, borne of delighted shock and budding excitement.
“My, my, Albedo, you are an interesting one, aren’t you?”
“I like to think I am, though most would disagree at first glance.” A coy grin he was sure sent in his direction.
“I don’t like to mingle with people I don’t find to be intriguing.” A puff of laughter tumbled onto his neck and down his spine. “Should I be flattered then?”
He turned impulsively, sensing the loosening of the grip on the blade before grabbing it from Kaeya’s hand and pressing it against an absurdly glittery spot of skin. Albedo’s breathing, gentle and measured, blew thickly against Kaeya’s tied-up hair, making it flutter about in the wind. He didn’t answer, just flashed the other one of his rarely shared coy grins before backing up completely and handing Kaeya paper and a pen.
“Sign here for the contract to be finalized.”
He could hear the slight exhale from Kaeya before he spoke.
“I guess I should be.”
✩₊˚.
“Your handwriting looks so royal. Are you sure you aren’t a prince of some sort? One who had handwriting lessons from a young age. I promise I won’t tell anyone if you are! My lips are sealed.”
Kaeya’s eye sparkles mischievously; the kaleidoscope of stars shimmering under the soft honey glare of the sun, his brow raising to kiss his forehead, disappearing behind a ruggedly unruly lock of hair falling like an especially rebellious waterfall, as he tucks another loose piece of his hair behind his ear.
He lays draped across the plush couch at the foot of his study, hand over his face up until he deems it too boring and imitates a particularly annoying leech; plastering himself onto the back of Albedo’s chair (which he thought was perfectly upholstered with no need to fixing) and looking over his shoulder.
He presumed his face contorted into something unpleasant as Kaeya's lips parted in laughter. Genuine laughter, not perfectly crafted to float across the waves of stuffy air in a melody similar to a mermaid’s. This laughter was a hoarse thing, quiet and scratching with disuse. Albedo found it to be the most beautiful thing he's ever heard.
“Getting a reaction out of the most impassive of them all! I must be truly special.” He coughs and resumes his expression of nonchalance, and looks back at his papers.
“Hardly.”
“Ouch.” Kaeya slumped even farther forward, chin resting on Albedo’s shoulder instead of his head, muttering low and soft against his ear. “And here I thought we were about to get past the talking stage.” His chin was pointed, digging into the meat of his shoulder uncomfortably, yet Albedo didn’t want to shake him off.
He knew Kaeya could sense his defeat, and Albedo could sense his smile. Albedo couldn’t see it, but he could feel its brilliance.
There were parts of Kaeya Alberich that Albedo felt nobody knew about. Like how his nose was slightly crooked from a scuffle as a child that never quite healed properly, how his canines were slightly pointed, how his knees would crack during his stretches at the start of every day, and how underneath the overly sweet scent of his champagne perfume, there were hints of lilies and cedarwood. It overwhelmed him, made him dizzy, fogged up his mind, and all rationality seemed to shatter and leave a whirlwind of emotions he couldn’t quite grasp.
“I’ve heard that all relationships and trust are built on communication, are they not? It would be truly unfortunate if we were to skip past that and jump into an unstable relationship. We should at least make it to the first date before you start calling it quits.” He swallowed, slow and unsteady as he desperately tried salvaging what was left of his papers.
Kaeya’s eye widened slightly, sunlight bouncing off the glitter on his eyelid before he masked his momentary surprise with a cheshire grin. "Oh? So, there’s hope for me still? For us?”
Albedo glanced up, eyes locking with Kaeya’s in time to see the momentary waggle of eyebrows underneath a wave of night sky. "Hope, yes. But you'll need more than witty remarks and dashing looks to keep up."
The assassin chuckled softly, his breath warm against Albedo’s ear. "You think I’m dashing?”
He paused, wondering what heavenly being was causing such grief to enter his life, hopelessly picking at loose threads to salvage the situation. Albedo presumed he paused for a beat too long, for Kaeya’s grin grew wide and smug.
“Dear me, Albedo, I didn’t take you to be such a... slacker. Shouldn’t you be working instead of ogling your work partner?”
The audacity. He moves to speak and finds his jaw snapped shut, an invisible sort of thread stitching his lips together as molasses slowly fills his mouth and lungs. He breathes in sharply through his nose.
“Shouldn’t you be doing something worthwhile instead of disrupting your work partner's work ?” At this, Kaeya lets out a breath of faux exhaustion, slumping onto Albedo’s chair even more than he had previously. His hair fell from its perch behind his ears, tumbling loose and blocking the sun from the window at his side. “But it's unbearable!! Paperwork has got to be one of the most annoying parts of the job.”
“Mind you, paperwork is the main part of my job, therefore meaning I do the majority of your work alongside mine. I’m sure the esteemed Kaeya Alberich won’t fall prey to a mere file now, would he?”
“Pfft, as if. I plan to retire and live on a beachside manor in the tropics.”
“Your assignment sheet awaits you, then.” Beside him, there was a loud groan and a thud. Albedo hid a smile behind his hand.
“Is this part of the job really necessary for me to do? Can’t I just kick butt on the field?” The sun’s rays hit his window at an angle, shining straight into his eyes, and he squinted slightly.
“That is merely half of your job description. I’ll have to file for another partner then, Kaeya Alberich. I appreciate a partner who can complete their work efficiently.” The assassin stiffened, his eye widening as all semblance of amusement left his expression.
“Now, now, is that necessary, beloved partner? I’m sure we were paired together for a reason, and besides, I’m such a hard worker! Possibly the hardest worker in the whole of Teyvat!”
“Hardly the case.”
“You wound me with such doubt about my prowess in the art of paperwork, dearest Albedo. It is a skill I keep hidden unless it is a dire situation.” Kaeya smiled, a lopsided thing akin to a predatory smile, and a conniving smirk merged together, the point of his tooth peeking out between two rosy lips, and he reached for a pen from Albedo’s pen holder.
“Is that so? And keeping me as your partner is a dire situation?” There was no verbal response to his question, just the heat of Kaeya’s arm against his and the stiffness of his posture that answered enough. Albedo turned his focus to his papers, flexing his hand before resetting his grip on his pen. He lets out a breath, a smile playing on his lips and something warm settling in his gut.
Beside him, Kaeya’s eyes burn hot like the darkest coal in a fire as his pen loops across the page in lazy swirls.
✩₊˚.
“You’re making your thinking face,” Kaeya’s breath tickles at the juncture where it hits Albedo’s spine, hot and ever-present even as his body backs up slightly when he begins to read his latest file over his shoulder. “What’re you thinking about, dearest Albedo?”
Albedo huffs, flipping the page when Kaeya lets out a sound signifying he finished reading that page as well. “What do you think, Kaeya?”
“I think you’re dreadfully bored with such menial tasks and are thinking of your latest success in the laboratory.”
Kaeya grins against Albedo’s crown, and Albedo resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Close. I was thinking about you.”
“Oh.” A pause. Raw with his genuine surprise and unwanted honesty. “Well then. Ahem, thank you, dearest.”
Albedo sighs. Kaeya is worse than an emotionally repressed teenager when it comes to honesty. It would’ve been endearing if he weren’t draped over Albedo and his chair like a gaudy imitation of an octopus.
“Get back to work, Kaeya.”
“You hate me. Why do you hate me, Albedo? I thought what we had was special…Something worthwhile, y’know, where we considered each other’s happiness before anything else.”
“You not working is making me unhappy, Kaeya. What do you have to say about that?”
“I say that I am a terrible partner and will continue to make you unhappy. Over there, lying on your couch. Without files.”
“Get back to work.”
“...I suppose there must be sacrifices made to achieve asylum…”
“Thank you. This conversation is making me very happy, by the way.”
“I hope your beloved files give you a papercut.”
“That’s making me very unhappy, Kaeya.”
“I do not wish to speak of you anymore.”
“That’s also making me very unhappy, Kaeya.”
“Why you–”
Scattered laughter. A flutter in his ribcage. Smiles hidden but heard through poorly disguised amusement.
✩₊˚.
“You know, this device is quite innovative.”
“How so?”
“Now I can hear your voice so close to my ear even when you’re so far away from me.”
“To your left.”
Silence, and then a surprised grunt and the swish of a blade escaping its sheath.
“I feel as though I am a husband going out to war, with my blushing wife dutifully waiting for my return. Don’t you feel like that resembles us, dearest Albedo?”
“Four doors down, I’ve disabled all of the cameras, you should be in the clear as long as you don’t attempt something ridiculous.”
“Ah, I can almost picture your voice welcoming me home “ Welcome home, my dearest. I’ve made you your favorite meal in the excitement of your arrival! Oh…where are my manners, you look to the side, blushing, would you like dinner first, for me to draw you a bath, or…would you like m—”
“Behind you, 3 o’clock.”
Here is the uncalculated; Kaeya’s words are tearing into his flesh.
Always have, always will.
And as gunshots echo within his earpiece, as his eyes are wide and unblinking, stinging as he stares at the silhouette of someone burned into his very being through a screen, he feels himself get dismembered and mauled by sugary-sweet words and silk-spun smiles.
As shadows bend and twirl around the contours of Kaeya’s body, Albedo watches, as a dying man would, the almost cat-like grin Kaeya sends his way while effortlessly getting rid of all the ambushers.
Here is the uncalculated; Albedo is a soul lost at sea, and Kaeya is the mermaid luring him in.
Always has. Always will be.
And to get back at him for his sugary-sweet words, Albedo waited until the perfect moment to speak;
“Ahem, as I was saying, or would you like me–” There was a pause, one where Kaeya resumed his dramatic walk towards the door at the end of the hallway, hands behind his head as his lash fluttered shut. He flashed a smile, his usual sultry and mirth-filled grin. “Ah, enjoying the view, are we, partner? Not that I’m complaining, of course. Wow, my dearest partner, the apple of my eye, is finally accepting my meaningful and devoted advances! Oh, how I could cry with happiness!”
“And so what if I am? Will you strike a pose for me? Make sure it’s pleasant to the eyes, I’ve been staring at the screen because of you for far too long. Though the reason I am staring at the screen isn’t too bad, don’t you think, dearest partner?” It was whispered, low and soft into the microphone, Albedo’s lips curling into a slight smile by the end of his lazily spoken phrase.
He relished in the unintelligible noises coming from Kaeya as he stumbled and bumped into the wall beside the door he was supposed to enter.
“Come now, Kaeya, I told you not to do anything stupid, didn’t I?” Kaeya cleared his throat, straightening himself up and dusting off his impeccable clothes. Albedo bit his tongue to suppress the laughter bubbling up inside him.
Victory was close. He could almost taste it.
“Ahem, of course! Who do you take me for, dear Albedo? I’m the best at my work, nothing could mess me up!” Kaeya stuttered through his sentence, and Albedo saw his slinger fingers curls around the door handle and pull through his green-tinted screen.
The door didn’t budge. “Albedo…Didn’t you say you unlocked all the doors? Dear me, is my dearest partner that bad at his j–”
“It is unlocked, Kaeya.”
He watched, entranced, as Kaeya’s deft fingers curled around the handle once more and pushed.
The door swung open soundlessly, and Albedo’s jaw ached with the pressure of keeping his mouth shut.
“Oh. It was a push door. I knew that. Dearest Albedo, did you think I fell for that?”
Victory was within his grasp. He just needed to persevere.
“Of course. My favorite partner couldn’t be felled by a push door, could he? Maybe this partner of mine could even perform the rest of the mission without a hitch, and I’ll consider rewarding this partner in some way. What do you think, Kaeya, would my partner like that?”
“I think he’d love that. What might the reward be, Dearest Albedo?”
“Perhaps, I might take him up on the offer of dinner. Do you think he’d like that?” Albedo heard a contemplative hum from his earpiece before Kaeya let out a noise of approval.
“Good, good. Then maybe I’ll humour him if he does the job well, no?”
“I’m sure this partner of yours will do the job splendidly, as usual.”
“Mmm, I think so too.”
As Kaeya’s shoulders stiffened, and he quickly made his way across the empty room to the hidden passageway, completing his moves with renewed vigor, Albedo let the laughter finally break free.
Victory was his. A job well done with minimal work was within his grasp.
And maybe an evening spent with Kaeya wouldn’t be so bad either.
✩₊˚.
The stars twinkle above him, sprinkled across a sky composed of vibrant hues of orange and blue. The pair had made their way down the bustling streets of the market; a small but homey place on the outskirts of the city, with giggling teenagers, old ladies haggling over prices, their coughing husbands, excitable young kids running after each other, and the most feared duo of assassin and hacker.
Albedo bumps into a burly man and momentarily loses himself in the crowd, the hairs on his neck rising the longer he isn’t with his unbearable partner. He blinks, fiddles with his hair, picks at his nails, and makes his way toward a stall with Inazuman Tri-colour Dango. Albedo had just handed over the money when he felt a gentle press of fingers on his lower back.
It seems the cause of his problems has found him. And for a startling reason, Albedo found himself smiling at the thought.
He turned abruptly and shoved one of the sticks towards Kaeya. “For you.” He stated bluntly.
For an awkward moment, nothing happens.
Then, Kaeya smiles.
His creator once told him that empires rise and empires fall, burning crimson cities and mottled green remains mixing and merging with the chrysanthemum of ephemeral reign. Civilizations rise with a single ideal and are brought to ruin because of a dream born of desire. It burns and aches, simmering under the shining sun and boiling under the rising moon, and festering deep within under the press of your ribcage. Even the greatest of philosophers and the strongest of warriors fall prey to desire. Albedo realizes that he, too, would fall for that desire. If that desire was seeing that smile once more.
Twinkling faux stars merge with shimmering blue galaxies, and suddenly, Albedo is dizzy with an unfamiliar feeling. There’s a hollow, fluttery feeling behind his bones, and he vaguely wondered if the water he’d drunk earlier today contained slow-acting poison.
He sees the intent of that smile, meant not just to show Kaeya’s interest, but filled with a sort of startled gratitude. He recalls past moments; evenings spent doing everything and nothing besides the crackling fire of his office, and his contented smile shared like a secret between them. Kaeya would ramble, and Albedo would delightfully smile and ask questions, trying his best to make them difficult enough to get Kaeya to scrunch up his nose in a way that always reminded him of a small animal. And regardless of it all, Albedo’s hand would settle on Kaeya’s head and ruffle his hair.
“Thank you, Albedo.” The blonde sees the slight tremble of the other’s hand, the unruly cowlick that Kaeya spends hours trying to tame before the sun rises peeking out, and knows that Kaeya needs the sugary delicacy more than he did.
“It’s very sweet.”
“Like you.” He flushes and looks to the side to avoid Kaeya’s perceptive gaze.
“I’d advise you to keep your thoughts within your mind.” A pause, one where Albedo’s hand found home in Kaeya’s, and gentle tugging parted them through the crowd. His rationale provides him with his actions being so that they do not get separated again. Nothing else. Of course. “Will you have rice?”
More silence, though this time Albedo felt that the streetlights shone just a little bit brighter, a little bit warmer.
“Whatever you say, dearest Albedo.”
Albedo is looking at the unnervingly gentle smile Kaeya is sending in his direction when he realizes he never wants to look at anything else for the rest of his life. There are bits of rice stuck to the corner of the other’s mouth, and Albedo cannot help but smile, cannot help but tease him as he would, and then carefully pick it off.
Nothing changes, the world keeps spinning on its axis, the food vendors continue luring customers with their booming voices and aromatic delicacies, and Albedo and Kaeya continue to be Albedo and Kaeya.
It is simply a fact– that the skewers in his hand are sticky, the stars are shining, the sky is blue, and Albedo is terribly, unfathomably, in love with Kaeya Alberich.