✧ambrose✧

“You have a talent for phrasing things in the most unflattering way possible,” Albedo replied. His impassive face offered Kaeya no satisfaction at all.

And at this, Kaeya laughed, because Albedo was starting to make him nervous again. By this hour, the streets were entirely deserted, and with no one around to corroborate Albedo’s existence, Kaeya was beginning to wonder if he really might be chatting to a ghost after all. There was something uncanny to the way he moved, the way his skin shone silver under the moonlight, the way he hovered, listless, in the middle of an empty street, as if waiting for Kaeya to come find him. Kaeya was hardly unfamiliar with being haunted; his childhood home is full of ghosts, versions of himself and his family now lost to time, ephemeral flashes taunting him from his peripheral vision. It did, however, put him at a disadvantage, to be unable to even hold his opponent’s shoulder while being seen right through himself.

Kaeya wanted to hold Albedo’s shoulder, to take his chin between one set of fingers and trace the other down his neck, to feel the texture of his skin and that little yellow birthmark.

--

“Wonderful.” He clapped his hands before him and nearly jumped at the sound, echoing off the cobblestone and down shadowed alleyways like furtive whispers. “Then I look forward to working with you as well, Albedo. You seem like a reasonable man. I’m Kaeya, in case it slipped your mind amidst everyone else you met at this morning’s meeting.”

“I remember your name,” Albedo said. “You make a strong impression.”

As Albedo disappeared into the night, his coat fluttered behind him in loose waves, the thin fabric threatening to dissolve entirely into the encroaching shadows. The night took him in like a lover, enveloped in its broad embrace until nothing remained of him but Kaeya’s fragile memory and his coattails, still dancing on a wind Kaeya could not feel. The world began to move again only as he departed — drunkards and other night owls stumbling around the corners, the light breeze whistling between the buildings — though Kaeya lingered in place for as long as polite society would allow. Between panicked breaths, his heart raced so quickly he could hardly distinguish the beats.

--

It was then that Kaeya was first afflicted by an urge which would haunt him for years to come: to thumb at the star on Albedo’s throat just as the man himself so often did. He envisioned it blending perfectly into the skin surrounding it or else peeling off and lodging itself under his thumbnail like a sticker; he imagined that Albedo would look entirely nonplussed or else shake and squirm under the slight touch; he hoped to see the same far-off visions Albedo did when he caressed his own neck, which always made him look so skittish and dazed. That night, he quashed the desire by squeaking his thumb against his own wine glass instead, wondering fervently if Albedo’s skin might have the same cold texture.

--

It was only a couple hilichurls which came stumbling out of the bushes that evening — most likely some stray wanderers, the rest of whom had already been picked off by other Knights before them. Dealing with them has been standard fare for centuries by now, so there was never any real danger for a pair of Knights of Favonius captains. And, you know, they aren’t really people anymore.

It didn’t take much to send them running for the hills. “That ought to scare them off,” Kaeya said. “I don’t expect they’ll be encroaching on the city anytime soon.” Then he laughed until he could breathe again.

“Why are you holding onto my arm?” Albedo asked.

And it wasn’t such a strange question, really, because Kaeya was, as it turned out, holding onto his arm, nice and tight around the solid bones of his elbow, fingertips digging into his bicep hard enough to cause a muscle cramp. Albedo examined him from below, face as impassive as it always was: when he fought, when he worked, when he painted, when he chatted with someone he did not find particularly interesting. But the exertion had taken its toll on him nonetheless — because Albedo was real, corporeal, with hard elbow bones Kaeya could feel against his palm — and left him panting lightly. Kaeya was hardly starved for combat experience, and in his time he’d seen the face of bloodlust a thousand times, from battle-hungry rookies throwing themselves into death’s arms for the thrill of it, to seasoned professionals who treat killing like a sport. Albedo, beneath the flushed cheeks and the tousled hair, simply looked bored.

--

yap:

despite the title, this fic was not actually that inspired by "i bet on losing dogs" by mitski (i just found it a catchy title) but moreso by her song "if i leave" off her newest album. really good btw you should listen to it

the idea behind this fic was very... fluid and was never meant to fill out a full piece like this. i always really love relationships where the characters clearly love each other but aren't necessarily good for/to each other, especially when they almost fetishize aspects of their partner that they themself hate - so kaeya fixating on albedo's inhumanity, for example. kaebedo, to me, have always been simultaneously codependent and avoidant/distant. maybe this is the purest form of that

this piece is also very intentionally ambiguous. i didn't really write it with the goal of persuading the reader to feel any particular way about the relationship, i kinda just wanted to explore the emotion. make of it whatever you will

i read a quote somewhat recently that supposed amateur authors tend towards present tense because it means not having to commit to positioning your narrator within time. i feel like i took that criticism a little too personally perhaps, and the tense fuckery in this piece is probably a direct result of that