Chapter Text
“I don’t get those two,” Scara grumbled, looking off to his right.
Sethos leaned over to follow his gaze and quickly caught on to who he meant. A little ways down the street, that architect guy was berating that scribe over something or other again.
“They are a little odd, aren’t they?” he agreed. “Sometimes I can’t tell if they love or hate each other.”
“Not that.” Scara shook his head. “I mean, their whole relationship makes no sense. At first I thought the grey one was strategically forcing Blondie to be indebted to him in order to exploit him, but it's been over a year and I’ve only seen him buy more things and do more favors for him without getting anything in return. I can’t figure out what his plan is. Is he playing some long con, or is he just stupid?”
“You’re joking, right?” Sethos raised a brow at him.
Scara shot him a glare in response. Like he was the type to make dumb jokes.
“They’re friends! At least, I think they’re friends. That’s what friends do–help each other without expecting anything back.”
“No one does that,” Scara argued.
“Oh really? Then what have I been doing with you these past months, friend?” Sethos challenged.
“Completing menial tasks in exchange for being allowed in my presence.”
“Hahahaha– oh you’re serious, ” Sethos’s laughter died out once he saw the look on Scara’s face. “That’s quite an ego you’ve got there.”
“You only noticed that now? And here I thought you were one of the smart ones.” Scara’s attempt at an insult only brought a smile to the other man’s face.
“You did? That’s pretty high praise coming from you!” The excitement only lasted for a few short seconds before he began pouting. “Seriously though, you wouldn’t talk to me at all if I wasn’t useful to you?”
“No. What’s wrong with that?” Scara replied. “Would you still make yourself useful if I didn’t talk to you?”
“Well, yes.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not!”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I like you, and I want you to be happy.”
Even if he couldn’t prove it, Scara knew that was a lie. Sethos was far too clever to waste his time on a fruitless “friendship,” especially with someone as unpleasant and unlovable as him. He was willing to bet that Sethos wanted to use his relationship with the Dendro Archon to gain her favor, or that his intuition told him there was some sort of intel to be gained from hanging around Scara so often.
No one would ever help him because they like him.
“What’s the real reason?” Scara pressed.
The question succeeded in catching Sethos off guard, but he recovered and came up with a response annoyingly quickly.
“That is the real reason—at least part of it,” Sethos told him. “It’s also because I know you like me.”
Scara sputtered. “Like hell I do!”
“You do! You like me so much, it’s adorable,” Sethos asserted. “But someone somewhere convinced you that relationships have to be transactional, so you tell yourself that you’re only keeping me around to use me.”
“And what makes you so confident you’re right?”
How dare this insignificant pest make such bold, false claims about him!
“Because there’s nothing I’ve done for you that the Traveler or any of your classmates haven’t done, but I’m the one you spend all of your free time with, and if you haven’t noticed, you start most of our conversations, not me.”
“That’s—!”
Completely, irrefutably true. Scara started the conversation they were having right now, and they were only walking around together because Scara asked Sethos if he wanted to come with him to get some shopping done. Why didn’t Scara tell him to run the errand for him? There was a hundred percent chance Sethos would’ve done it. He told himself that today was his way of repaying him for getting one of his classmates off his back before, but was a full day of his time really an equal payment for the mere minutes Sethos had saved him?
Could it be that…Scara wanted his company? No, that was impossible. Scara was so right when he said that Sethos was clever. No one else could get in his head like this—barring Buer, who quite literally got into his thoughts. There were only two logical explanations for today: 1) Sethos was an evil mastermind with an unknown but surely insidious goal, or 2) Scara had grown so attached to this…this mortal that he was going out of his way to find excuses to be with him.
It was obvious which one was right.
“Let me be crystal clear so even your tiny brain can understand,” Scara all but snarled. “I don’t like you. I don’t trust you. You want to know why I spend all my time with you? I know you’re up to something, and I’m keeping you on a tight leash so you can’t execute whatever it is you’re scheming.”
The hurt look on Sethos’s face at his words made Scara feel sick to his stomach. He must be appalled by the notion of a grown man acting like a kicked puppy just to manipulate him.
“You don’t mean that. I can prove it.” With that declaration, Sethos walked away, disappearing into the crowd before Scara could argue.
The next day, when Scara arrived at the Akademiya, a classmate he recognized but couldn’t recall the name of handed him a lidded cup.
“Some guy said to give this to you,” she said. “I didn’t catch his name, but his eyes were way too green and he looked like he’s from the desert. Friend of yours?”
“No.”
Scara eyed the cup suspiciously as he moved to take his seat without another word to his classmate. He knew Sethos wouldn’t be dumb enough to poison him and leave a witness, but he’s seen the way students mangle their coffee with cream and sugar, so naturally he was wary. He thought about throwing it away, until he noticed a familiar scent coming from it.
No way, it’s…
Taking a tentative sip, Scara was pleasantly surprised by the taste of unsweetened, Inazuman tea. It was perfectly bitter, not too strong or too weak. He noticed several pairs of eyes on him as he lowered the cup and realized with horror that he was smiling. Yanking the rim of his hat down and lifting the cup back up, he hoped his face was hidden as he continued to enjoy his drink.
This gesture must be his little bee’s way of apologizing for storming off on him yesterday. Scara supposed he could forgive him, and he would tell him so when they met up for lunch later. Not that they made any specific plans to do so, but for a long time now, not a day went by that Sethos failed to show up between Scara’s classes and bring him something to eat.
One thing was bothering Scara a little bit, however. He was certain he never once mentioned anything about liking this particular tea. Was it a lucky guess, or did Sethos find out somehow? There was no use dwelling on it. Scara had long since accepted that a little bit of creepiness mystery was part of the package when it came to that man.
With the first half of his day finally behind him, Scara made his way to his usual meeting spot with Sethos. Rather than seeing the man in question, however, all he found was a lunch box with a note on it that read “Hat Guy ♡” sitting alone on the ground. So that’s how it is. Sethos felt the need to prove that he was serious about still being useful even if they didn’t talk anymore, did he?
If allowing Scara to reap all the benefits of friendship without having to participate in all the boring parts he hated was Sethos’s idea of making a point, the only person he was upsetting was himself.
That imbecile. He won’t last three days without crawling back to me.
The day after that, Scara slammed open the doors to the Sanctuary of Surasthana. For reasons he himself wasn’t sure of, he was in an especially foul mood. His classes somehow got even more boring, he was once again greeted by a box in lieu of a person at lunch time, and now he had a bunch of crap to deliver to people he didn’t care about. Not that he was upset about spending lunch time alone. It was just rude not to hand it to him in person, that’s all. He trudged his way over to where all the letters and packages usually sat, but there was nothing there.
“Buer.”
His voice echoed in the large, empty space. It wasn’t a question, but the meaning was clear.
“Good afternoon, Hat Guy,” the Dendro Archon greeted cheerfully. “Your friend already took care of your work for today.”
Scara’s eye twitched.
“Friend?”
Rather than entertaining his remark, Buer pressed ahead with the conversation. “He said he was worried that you’d be in a bad mood today, and he didn’t want you to have any extra stress. He cares a lot about you.”
“That little–!” Scara slammed his fist against the wall.
Sethos thought he knew him so well, didn’t he? The audacity to assume that one day without seeing him would have a significant impact on Scara’s emotions.
“It seems like he was right,” Buer giggled. “Would you like to talk about it?”
“No.”
Scara retreated to his room without looking back.
On day three of this stupid game they were playing, Scara entered the House of Daena with a scowl that caused everyone else there to avert their eyes and anxiously scramble away from him. Who knew being surrounded by morons all day without a smart person to rant about them to would be so exhausting? And now he had to do research for a paper he had no interest in. Who did his professor think he was, forcing everyone to “broaden their horizons” by assigning everyone a topic randomly.
Scara made his way to his usual table near the back of the room, and was instantly assaulted by the sight of another stupid “Hat Guy ♡” note. This time it sat atop a stack of books with multiple pages painstakingly tabbed out.
“Don’t tell me…”
He checked the covers of each book, and sure enough, they were all about his current research topic. How on Teyvat Sethos found about something he’d been assigned today and already poured over these many texts in such a short amount of time, Scara couldn’t begin to fathom. Was he sure he was human?
Why would anyone go through this amount of trouble for someone who doesn’t even like them, all to get absolutely nothing in return?
Because I like you, and I want you to be happy.
Scara groaned and hit his head against the table. No. He wasn’t falling for that. That could not be the reason. Sethos was crazy, and it was starting to drive Scara crazy. Screw waiting for that stubborn jerk to give up, Scara was going to confront him about this, and he was going to make him pay for this mental torment.
Two weeks after what Scara was now considering to be one of the biggest mistakes of his life, he was going completely insane. He learned the hard way that Sethos was not an easy man to find. He wasn’t surprised that someone who managed to keep their very existence secret for two and a half decades would be stealthy, but this was utterly absurd. He managed to get in and out of the Akademiya and the Sanctuary of Surasthana, the two places where Scara spent most of his time, every single day without Scara catching so much as a glimpse of him.
It didn’t matter if he asked his classmates, his teachers, the locals, or even the so-called God of Wisdom herself, Scara couldn’t track him down. The closest he got to learning anything was the millisecond of hesitation from Cyno when Scara tried asking him, but the damned general didn’t give anything away. Scara briefly considered the viability of torturing the information out of him, but he doubted that was the best way to get back on Sethos’s good side. Just two weeks ago he had smugly claimed he was keeping that man on a short leash. He was a fool not to see that Sethos had chained himself to him willingly, and Scara could only hold onto him if he let him.
Now Scara was in hell, and he only had himself to blame. His favorite tea had become unbearably bland. He didn’t bother eating lunch anymore. His classes felt as if they had doubled in length, and he’d been scolded like a child twice for snapping at his peers. The free time he got from having his chores taken care of for him was funneled into hunting Sethos down instead of relaxing. How was it even possible that scouring his own delivery route, which Sethos must be using to do his job, still yielded no results? Distantly, Scara was aware that his current day-to-day was essentially identical to how it was before he'd met Sethos, easier even, but he was certain he wasn’t this miserable before.
A lifetime full of isolation, betrayal, and torture, yet this was what finally made him crack. His past self was right—love was a terrible weakness.
When it was time to break for lunch, he headed outside and began to shout, uncaring of the numerous people who turned to stare at him.
“You win! Are you happy now? You! Win! I like you! And it’s not worth pretending I don’t anymore. I—!” Scara paused and took a deep breath. He really didn’t want to say this next part, but… “I’m sorry, okay?! The nicer you were to me, the more horrible I was to you, and I’m sorry! Now will you please end this stupid game and come back to me?!”
His own voice echoed back at him as Scara waited for a response, but none came.
This was just great.
Scara had always known deep down that it was only a matter of time until Sethos got sick of taking his crap. That’s why he tried so hard to push him away before he grew attached. If he’d realized sooner that it was already too late to prevent that from happening, he would’ve stopped pushing and held on tighter.
Now he was alone.
On day fifteen of his new waking nightmare, Scara almost didn’t go to class. It took some literal, physical pushing from Buer to get him out of bed and out the door, but now he stood outside the Akademiya. He braced himself to walk in and be handed a cup by that classmate he still didn’t know the name of. Instead, when he walked through the door, he froze as if seeing a ghost.
“Good morning,” Sethos greeted him casually, like they’d seen each other only yesterday.
Channeling the power of anemo, Scara flew straight at him, grabbing him by shoulders and slamming him into the nearest wall in under a second. As he stared down at the infuriatingly chipper smile that Sethos wore, he thought of all the ways he could wipe it right off his face. He wanted to slap him, or punch him, or maybe even knee him in the jaw as revenge for what he’d done to him. He swore that was what he intended to do, so it came as a surprise to both of them when he chose to kiss him.
Scara didn’t quite know what he was doing. Truth be told, romance wasn’t exactly top of his priorities list for most of his life, so he’d never done this before. It felt nicer than he expected, however, so he didn’t stop until Sethos began to squirm.
Right. Humans needed to breathe.
Sethos heaved desperately for breath once Scara released his grip, causing Scara to grin in amusement. Perhaps doing this a few more times might be revenge enough for ditching him without damaging Sethos’s pretty face.
“W-When I said you liked me, I didn’t think you liked me like that ,” Sethos panted.
“Is that a problem?”
“No sir!” Sethos shook his head fervently, his eyes positively shining.
“Good.”
The second Sethos began breathing evenly, Scara kissed him again. This time, he didn’t let go until ten seconds past when Sethos started tapping his arm and trying to turn his head away.
“Uh oh. I’m being punished, aren’t I?” Sethos gasped.
“You catch on quick.” Scara smirked, then stole his breath away once more.
They were both aware that they were causing a bit of a scene, as none of Scara’s peers even pretended not to openly stare as they walked by to get to class. They were too happy to care.
When Scara let Sethos go once and for all, relinquishing his hold on his shoulders, the poor thing’s legs gave out, and he slid down the wall to the floor.
“Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again,” Scara commanded .
“I won’t. I promise.” Sethos beamed up at him, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Scara smiled as well.
There he was again, running to and fro, helping random strangers without asking for anything in return (yet still receiving plenty of gifts and praise for his efforts). Scara could tell that the humidity was getting to Sethos; he was pouring sweat, and his breathing sounded heavier than usual. With a loud sigh and a roll of his eyes, Scara used his vision to send a cool breeze his way. He grinned as Sethos shut his eyes and enjoyed it, and he chuckled once Sethos finally noticed that said breeze was only affecting him and began looking around curiously.
As soon as they made eye contact, Scara dropped down from the tree where he’d perched. He quickly closed the gap between them, standing close so his hat blocked the sun from his love’s eyes. He knew he didn’t give off any body heat of his own, so he didn’t have to worry about making Sethos uncomfortable.
“You almost done with that?” Scara asked, glancing at the envelope Sethos held.
“Mhmm! Just gotta get to the end of the street, then let the sender know it’s been delivered. Why, did you wanna do something after?” Sethos asked.
“Actually I…” Scara blushed. “I wanted to accompany you and, y’know…keep you cool or whatever.”
Why was that so embarrassing to say out loud?
“Oh! Okay! I don’t have anything to pay you back, though. Unless…” Scara was damn near blinded by the brightness of Sethos’s grin. “You’re finally admitting I’m right and doing this for me pro bono.”
“Calm down, moron. I am getting something out of this,” Scara denied.
“And what might that be?”
With a soft laugh, Scara reached a hand up to cup Sethos’s cheek, running his thumb over his lips.
“Your cute smile.”
Sethos combusted at that, his cheeks turning bright red and eyes blowing wide like saucers. That reaction was the real prize Scara was after, and it was more than worth it.