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Albedo's office in the Knights of Favonius Headquarters smelled of chemicals and medicinal herbs Illuga had never encountered in his life.
He hadn't touched anything since the alchemist closed the door to give them some privacy, something Illuga was infinitely grateful for, because discretion was exactly what he needed right now, with so many erratic thoughts spinning around in his head.
Illuga sighed.
He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the small glass vial resting on the table, which held a clear liquid inside that did absolutely nothing, still, and remained exactly as Albedo had left it, transparent and still.
That liquid would determine the results of why they were there in the first place, and Illuga watched it directly just to make sure he didn't miss a single change inside it.
Albedo had left them with written instructions on a piece of paper that neither of them had actually needed to read, because he'd explained everything so thoroughly that even Lohen's sarcastic questions had gotten logical, concise answers, ones that helped them understand the technical terms the alchemist used even better.
Now they just had to wait seven minutes.
Seven minutes.
If the liquid stayed the same, or turned slightly yellowish, the result was negative. But if it turned crimson, the result was positive, and it would confirm what Illuga had been suspecting for days.
He wasn't going to pretend he hadn't been counting every single one of those seven minutes, and they'd barely gotten through the first one, because he was nervous and anxious at the same time, which wasn't a great combination, he was already feeling nauseous just from knowing the result was coming.
The truth was that Illuga wasn't someone who gave in to nerves easily. He thought of himself as naturally calm, someone who had learned to breathe slowly before speaking and to think before losing his head or doing something reckless he might regret later.
But right now his head was spinning and his palms were sweating.
Seven fucking minutes.
Illuga could have sworn they were the seven slowest, most agonizing minutes of his entire life.
A minute and a half, he estimated. Maybe two. Time seemed to stretch the longer it went on, and Illuga felt himself growing more unraveled by the second, losing composure before he even knew the result yet.
From the chair by the window, Lohen was watching him with a grin plastered on his face.
He was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, back straight against the wooden chair, with that careless posture that was so characteristic of his arrogance, as if nothing in the world mattered to him right now. His chin rested in one hand, eyes fixed on Illuga with an attention that might have seemed tender if it weren't so unmistakably radiating satisfaction at his eventual suffering.
He hadn't said anything in the last few minutes, and for someone who rarely shut up, that silence was more telling than any comment could have been, but knowing him, Illuga was certain he was enjoying every second of this.
Because of course, Lohen loved seeing him like this.
That was what irritated Illuga most when he managed to push past the nerves enough to notice it — that Lohen was enjoying this. Genuinely. That while his own stomach was twisting itself into knots, Lohen was just sitting there, calm, almost eager, with that particular excitement of his when he'd found something interesting and wanted to savor it for as long as it lasted.
"Can you stop staring at me?" he asked, feeling Lohen's gaze heavy on him.
He didn't even have to look over to know his smile had widened with satisfaction.
"No," Lohen answered, with the same lightness he'd said good morning that morning. "Did you know you scrunch your nose when you're too worried? It's cute."
Illuga let out a tired sigh and decided to go over the details of how they'd ended up in this situation instead of counting every second until the seven minutes were up.
They'd arrived in Mondstadt almost exactly two months ago.
The decision had been, in part, Illuga's.
He'd wanted to see Mondstadt because it wasn't a city he'd ever visited before, and he'd been curious for a while about whether the wines were as good as people said, and whether the wind across the meadows was really as magical as he'd read in certain books that claimed the Anemo Archon spoke through it. But he'd also wanted time with Lohen where nothing had to justify the time, like a mini vacation, in a way. Or an early honeymoon. The label didn't really matter, because Illuga just wanted to be with Lohen, and Lohen had been happy to bring him along, which was his way of saying he'd wanted him to come, too.
And everything had been wonderful that first week.
Mondstadt had welcomed them with that familiar warmth it extended to outsiders, and Illuga had loved it from day one. They'd explored at their own pace, because honestly, he'd been fascinated and paid attention to everything, while Lohen, for his part, had been Lohen. He just wanted to take him hunting, go after some illegal encampments, or whatever else involved action and blood.
They'd walked together around the outskirts of the city, joined by a little girl named Klee, who seemed to adore Lohen because he was the only adult who let her run wild without setting limits, and Illuga had found himself falling even more in love with that almost childlike version of Lohen, the one without so much violence in it. That day was the closest thing Illuga would have called a walk, if Lohen and Klee hadn't insisted on jumping the fence of Master Diluc's vineyard just to see what would happen, which turned out to be nothing, because the vineyard was even more boring on the inside than the outside, though they'd found the jump itself plenty exciting, while Illuga had spent the whole time more worried about breaking the law than having fun.
It had been good. Simply good.
But Lohen's heat caught them both off guard a couple days later.
Though now, in hindsight, Illuga found himself wondering if it really should have caught them so off guard because Lohen's cycles were just as unpredictable as Lohen himself at his finest.
His biology, apparently, operated with the same baffling logic as the rest of him — on its own rules, its own schedule. Illuga had learned to read some of the signs over time, but Lohen was perfectly capable of giving no signs at all when he didn't feel like it and sometimes he simply didn't feel like it. So when the heat came, it came the way almost everything with Lohen came — no announcement, no warning signs, and with the full force of something neither of them had been bracing for.
They got through it together — no surprise there — the way they had the times before. But this time it had been… different.
Illuga knew that with Lohen, everything was different from how it had been with other people before, in the few cases where there had been other people. Not necessarily easier, because Lohen wasn't someone who made things easy, and his rut was no exception. They were both omegas, on top of that, and Lohen's nature was demanding more than Illuga could actually give, but Illuga tried to meet him there anyway, and for Lohen, that was enough, despite his somewhat extreme fixation with pain.
When the heat finally broke, Illuga thought that would be the end of it. He couldn't remember exactly how many days it lasted, only the exhaustion that came after, and how disoriented he'd felt once it was over, naively believing they'd spend a few more days in Mondstadt, that Lohen would find something to destroy or someone to talk into a fight to get his energy back, that he'd finish reading the book he'd bought at the market and finally walk through the southern neighborhoods he still hadn't seen, and then they'd head back to Nod-Krai. Simple as that.
But five days after the heat, while they'd gone to restock supplies at the market before heading back to the inn, Lohen passed out.
Illuga remembered the exact moment with perfect clarity — watching Lohen try something at one of the stalls, some cured ham the vendor was swearing up and down was a specialty from the Fontaine region, gesturing dramatically to sell it. Illuga remembers simply blinking, and then Lohen was no longer standing. No warning, no stumble beforehand, not even a flicker of having gotten dizzy or started feeling off. His knees just gave out and he went down sideways, and Illuga got there in time to soften the fall but not to stop it entirely.
He was only out for a few seconds, and when he opened his eyes, the first thing he did was look at the vendor and ask if he could still take the ham.
Illuga had taken his temperature, checked his pupils, asked every question he could think of to make sure it wasn't serious and Lohen had answered everything with total indifference, as if he genuinely couldn't care less and found the concern completely unnecessary.
He'd blamed it on not sleeping well for days, which was true enough, neither of them had slept properly since the heat, and it was also true that Lohen's relationship with sleep was one Illuga found a little reckless, so he let it go. It made sense, at the time.
But when it happened again, Illuga's patience started wearing thin.
The second blackout was Klee's fault though putting it that way wasn't entirely fair to her. Just a little.
A few days later they'd run into the girl almost by accident one morning. Klee was making her way down the street with a bag that clinked in a mildly alarming way and an expression that was suspiciously excited. Lohen spotted her before Illuga did, and something in his face shifted in a way Illuga knew well, a look that always stirred an odd mix of fondness and caution in him at the same time.
"That kid's carrying explosives," Lohen had said, with more enthusiasm than concern in his voice.
"Should we tell Master Jean?" Illuga had asked, but Lohen was already walking over.
What followed was pretty predictable, because Klee turned out to be exactly the kind of kid Lohen clicked with in an alarmingly natural way, and in under ten minutes they'd exchanged enough information about blast radii and materials that Illuga genuinely considered going to find Jean and reporting it himself.
They ended up spending the rest of the morning with her. Klee dragged them out to a meadow north of the city where she swore there were enormous frogs — the frogs turned out to be completely normal-sized, but the meadow was nice and the sun was warm at that hour. Lohen spent a while trying to convince Klee to teach him how to make one of her small bombs, which Illuga shut down at every turn, and eventually all three of them ended up sitting in the grass with no particular purpose.
Then Klee and Lohen started playing, and things got complicated.
It had been Klee's idea to see who could spin in place the longest while the other threw things at them to make them fall. It was a game with no apparent logic, one Illuga would have turned down without a second thought if Lohen and Klee hadn't both looked equally excited about it. He didn't join in, but he watched carefully, just in case.
And clearly, something happened.
It was Lohen's turn to spin after Klee had lasted a full minute without falling, and after a couple of rotations, he went face-first into the ground. Illuga didn't worry at first. It's part of the game, he told himself, and he even smiled watching Klee celebrate her victory with way too much enthusiasm. But when the seconds kept passing and Lohen didn't move, the smile faded.
That time, it took Lohen half a minute to come back around, and instead of blaming the lack of sleep, he shrugged it off as having gotten too dizzy.
Illuga was scared, but he let it go again, just so he wouldn't worry Klee.
And since Lohen didn't seem particularly bothered and just kept playing, Illuga decided not to be a killjoy and not to panic too soon.
He regretted that now. Considerably.
A week later, when Illuga was starting to feel like they'd overstayed their welcome in Mondstadt and the urge to get back to Nod-Krai was becoming a need rather than a thought, Lohen started getting sick in the mornings, and Illuga knew they were in trouble. Because the blackouts didn't look like coincidences anymore; they were starting to make a kind of sense that went well beyond Lohen's half-baked excuses.
They told themselves they'd stay just a couple more days, clinging to the vague hope that Lohen would get better, but with each day that passed, Lohen had some new symptom he was working hard to hide from Illuga.
The vomiting and the nausea, not even counting the blackouts, were a clear sign something was wrong with him, and every time Illuga tried to have a real conversation about it, Lohen brushed it off like a joke — or said it was just the poison he'd been drinking finally kicking in, as if that made it smaller.
Poison.
It was the most logical explanation, given that Lohen did the kind of things Illuga never fully understood the origin or the reasoning behind, like drinking poison on purpose, to build up resistance to its effects and come out stronger, as he put it. He did it methodically, exposing his body to small doses in a way that contrasted strangely with everything else about his character, and the side effects of that process lined up with what Illuga was seeing.
And that hypothesis was the obvious one, given who Lohen was.
Illuga had believed it for several days, because it was the most straightforward explanation, because it had precedent, because this was Lohen, and with Lohen the answer was rarely simple but almost always eccentric.
But then Lohen hadn't wanted to go hunting.
That was when Illuga knew it wasn't just the poison.
They'd been in Mondstadt more days than he would have liked to admit, not doing much of anything in particular, and one morning Illuga had mentioned with complete, studied neutrality that there were monsters south of the city that might be worth checking out. Hilichurls with elemental variety, according to what he'd overheard at the market the day before. The kind of thing that normally had Lohen on his feet before Illuga even finished the sentence.
Lohen had looked up from what he was doing and said no. Just like that.
No.
Illuga had stared at him for a moment. Then he'd gone out for a walk alone Lohen hadn't wanted to move much from where he was either, and spent two hours sitting by the riverbank, thinking.
If it wasn't the poison, then…
By the time he got back, he'd already made up his mind.
The next day they went to find Albedo.
The alchemist hadn't asked unnecessary questions, which Illuga was grateful for and would keep being grateful for — because Lohen wasn't easy to deal with, and if he was scared at the mere idea of something more than malice growing inside Lohen, Illuga didn't even want to imagine what Lohen was feeling in that moment.
Albedo had listened to the description of the symptoms with careful attention, noted a few things down, and then said calmly that it could be several things, but they needed to rule out the most obvious one first.
And the most obvious one was exactly what Illuga had been trying to avoid thinking about.
Pregnancy.
"I have a reagent I've tested with other omegas before," he said.
Illuga swallowed too hard.
"How reliable is it?" he'd asked.
"I made it myself," Albedo confirmed. "It works."
Illuga and Lohen exchanged a look uncertain. Or rather, Illuga was uncertain and Lohen just looked bored.
"Can you say something?" Illuga had said, hoping for more than a smirk. "Is this okay with you, or—"
"I just need a blood sample," Albedo cut in.
Lohen had visibly perked up at that, which hadn't surprised Illuga in the slightest.
The reagent was a small vial of thick glass with a clear liquid inside, which Albedo had prepared with an efficiency suggesting this wasn't his first time doing it, though he hadn't said anything to that effect either.
The instructions were simple: a few drops of blood directly into the liquid, wait seven minutes without shaking, and wait.
And wait, and wait...
Lohen had pricked his finger without flinching. Without flinching, and with a smile that was far too pleased, he'd let three drops of blood fall into the clear liquid with the satisfied focus of someone conducting a genuinely interesting experiment.
The liquid had absorbed them slowly, like ink spreading through paper, unfurling from the center outward in wisps that dissolved before reaching the walls of the glass, draining the blood of its color, turning it transparent.
Then nothing. Just the liquid, still.
And now Lohen was sitting in the chair by the window, one leg crossed over the other and his chin resting in his hand, watching Illuga with that teasing smile he saved for moments he found particularly entertaining.
"How much longer?" he asked, not moving.
"Hmm." Illuga turned his head toward the vial on the table with the same casual interest he might check the weather outside. "Two minutes."
Lohen nodded once and said nothing else.
Illuga felt the knot in his stomach pull a little tighter, and he let it, because fighting it would have cost more energy than he had available at that exact moment. He could feel the warmth of the room on his face, his neck, the inside of his wrists. He wondered if this was what Lohen had been feeling these past weeks, and the thought stilled him for a moment.
Because if the vial turned crimson, it was Lohen who had been feeling it. And that meant things Illuga hadn't let himself fully put into words yet.
"You're still staring at me," he said, eyes not leaving the vial.
"And?"
"You think this is funny?"
Illuga looked over at him. Lohen had the same smile as before, but there was something behind it that Illuga knew well. Lohen tilted his head slightly, as if genuinely considering the question.
"No," he said finally. Then, slower, he contradicted himself. "I mean — yeah. You're probably just overthinking this."
"Me?" Illuga asked, almost indignant.
"Who else?" Lohen answered, like it was obvious. "We're both omegas. There's no fucking way your sperm is capable of knocking me up."
Illuga sighed.
"We're just doing this to rule out the possibility of—"
"It wasn't necessary, Captain." The smile didn't budge. "You really think my body is capable of growing an actual baby after all the poison I've put into it over the years?"
"Lohen, it's just to rule out—"
"Rule out what, exactly? That a monster is growing inside me? Because I definitely don't want that."
Illuga wanted to laugh — not because it was funny, but because if Lohen actually thought that way, they were screwed. Really screwed. Though, on the other hand, it was the most straightforward answer Lohen had given him all month, so he took it without comment.
They looked at each other for a moment. The room was quiet except for the sounds of the city filtering in through the window, and in that silence Illuga realized the nerves had pulled back a little or maybe he'd just stopped paying attention to them.
Lohen stood and walked over. He stopped right in front of him, arms crossed over his chest, with an expression that was almost impossible to read.
"Come on, breathe," he said at last. "I'm not pregnant, if that's what's got you this worked up."
Illuga straightened.
"You passed out," he said. "Twice."
"I was dizzy."
"You throw up almost every morning."
"The poison," Lohen shot back.
"You didn't want to go hunting."
"That was one time."
"Then explain to me why you wrinkle your nose every time you catch a smell that's too strong."
Lohen let out a short, sardonic laugh.
"That's why you think I'm pregnant? I'm not. Trust me."
"You don't know that."
"Of course I do, just look at the stupid vial—"
And then, as if by magic, the seven minutes seemed to have evaporated in a matter of seconds.
They both turned toward the table, and Illuga's breath left him the moment his eyes landed on the vial.
The clear liquid was no longer clear at all.
It was crimson.
Not a pale crimson or anything that could be mistaken for another color. It was deep, rich, unmistakable like the drops of blood Lohen had let fall into it. Illuga stared at it for what was probably ten seconds but felt considerably longer, and then he looked at Lohen.
Lohen was staring at the vial with an expression Illuga had never seen on him before. The smile from earlier was gone, and what was there didn't fit into any category Illuga had ever filed him under. It was something quieter, deeper, as if something that had been in constant motion had found, for the first time in a long while, a place to stop. His jaw was slightly slack. His eyes fixed on the crimson glass with a focus that wasn't analysis but something that came before analysis, something closer to the pure reception of a fact that hadn't yet found somewhere to settle.
"That's crimson," Lohen said, though it came out more like a whisper.
"Yeah," said Illuga.
"But we're both omegas. It's biologically impossible."
Lohen looked at him then, and there was something in his eyes that on any other face would have been tenderness — though on his it came mixed with other things that were harder to name.
"Apparently," Illuga said. "That was a myth."
"Oh Barbatos, we are so fucked."