Been a while since I've consumed this much media, and I'm loving the pace and complexity of the newer animes (~2020 onwards). You can get through a whole character arc in a few episodes, where in the past, that would have been used to stretch out a single battle/game/interaction.
I still love the animes I grew up on, and makes me wish they would remake some of them using today's pacing and animation style (Price of Tennis in HD, anyone?).
Preview: Varka stumbles into your bakery one quiet morning, drunk and brazen enough to attempt to steal some of your bread for himself. That one day turns into a habit, and you find yourself with an extra kitchen hand who consumes too much of the baked goods.
Word Count: 5.2k
A/N: Had a ton of fun with this. It's a slow romance that develops entirely in the kitchen, because I wanted to write something where Varka never really has to be the Grand Master.
The cobblestone streets of Mondstadt were rarely quiet. But at two in the morning, even the most dedicated patrons of Angel’s Share had finally stumbled home.
Varka was walking off a heavy night of drinking. It had been a week since he and the expeditionary force returned from Nod Krai, and the city’s taverns were still insisting on keeping his cup full. The night air was crisp, biting at his exposed forearms, but it felt like a gentle spring breeze compared to the environment that he had been trying to survive for years.
He was halfway back to the Knights of Favonius headquarters, fully intending to sleep through his morning meetings, when he sensed heat radiating from one of the nearby buildings.
It was followed immediately by the intoxicating scent of melted butter and toasted oats.
Varka stopped in his tracks. He knew that smell. Before the expedition, he used to take a detour during his patrols at dawn to a tiny storefront just to buy a burnt scone from a stubborn and perpetually flour-covered novice baker. He had spent years up north remembering the way she used to glare at him when he asked for a free bread roll.
Following the scent down the street, Varka expected to find the same cramped little shop.
Instead, he found your sprawling, industrial fortress.
The entire lower block had been knocked through and combined. Massive, frosted glass windows glowed with the orange light of large hearths. The quiet hum of ovens made for high-volume production vibrated through the brick walls.
Curiosity completely overrode his exhaustion. Varka stepped into the alleyway and pushed open your heavy back door.
A wave of heat hit him as soon as the doors flung open, wrapping around him like a heavy wool blanket. A dusting of white flour drafted through the air. Four apprentices were moving in a flawles rhythm around you, sliding massive trays into the brick ovens and hauling out dozens of perfectly golden loaves.
And standing at the dead center of the chaos, directing the flow of the room with the precision of a battlefield commander, was you.
You weren't the stressed, overwhelmed baker he remembered. You stood tall, your hair tied back in a messy knot, and with a heavy canvas apron wrapped around your waist. You looked incredibly commanding, effortlessly orchestrating the production.
Varka was so completely captivated by the sight that he forgot he was blocking your doorway.
SLAM.
You slammed a large wooden spatula against a stainless-steel prep table. The crack echoed over the sound of the ovens burning.
"Read the sign on the door, mister," you snapped without even turning around, your eyes fixed on a batch of rising dough. "Health and safety regulations. No non-staff members in the kitchen during production time. If you want a loaf, the storefront opens at six."
Varka’s awe shifted very quickly to amusement.
"I don't think I can wait until six, sweetheart," his voice was loud and it rumbled through your production room. "And I seem to remember a time when you were practically begging me to buy your burnt scones just to keep the lights on."
You froze. The spatula slipped a fraction of an inch in your grip.
You turned around slowly, and your eyes widened as you took in the sight of him. Scarred, impossibly broad shoulders. The long teal coat. The wide grin that hasn’t changed the slightest.
"Archons," you breathed, your strict kitchen-commander persona slipping. "You're actually back."
"I am," Varka grinned as he stepped into your bakery, ignoring both your warning and the apprentices who were scrambling to get ouf the Grand Master’s.
He looked around and the genuine awe settled back into his face. "What in Barbatos' name did you do while I was fighting for my life in Nod Kra? You bought the entire block."
"I expanded," you replied with a smile, your shock quickly wearing away as you settled back into your signature stubbornness.
You crossed your arms and tapped the spatula against your bicep. "Someone had to secure the bread contract for the Knights of Favonius since their Grand Master decided to abandon his paperwork and go play in the north."
Varka let out a laugh that rattled the baking sheets on your cooling racks. "So you're officially on my payroll now. Excellent. That means I can grab myself a sweet roll."
He took another step toward the racks, but you instantly stepped into his path, pointing the end of the wooden spatula against the center of his chest.
"Absolutely not. I don't care if you can single-handedly wrestle a Ruin Guard, Varka. You are tracking alleyway dirt into a sanitized food prep zone, and you are entirely in the way. Out."
Varka looked down at the wooden spoon pressed against his chest, and then back up to you. He had spent the last several years commanding an army, dealing with diplomats, and fighting monsters. Nobody told him no.
He found your fierce defiance incredibly attractive.
"I'm not leaving this kitchen without tasting what's in those ovens," Varka purred, leaning down just a fraction so he was firmly in your space, his bright blue eyes entirely focused on yours. "So what is it going to cost me?"
You stared up at him, refusing to yield. You looked at his massive, heavily muscled arms, and then gestured over your shoulder with the spatula toward the dark cellar door.
You fought back a smirk as you replied, "The delivery cart from Springvale just dropped off twenty sacks of unprocessed wheat.”
Varka’s grin stretched from ear to ear, “And?”
"My apprentices usually need a pulley system to get them up the stairs. You want a sweet roll, Grand Master? Grab a sack of flour, or get out of my kitchen."
He didn't hesitate for a second. He discarded his coat, kicked off his boots, and rolled up his dark sleeves to reveal the full length of his forearms and part of his biceps.
"Give me some work boots and show me the cellar.”
— —
That one encounter with Varka led to a shift in your evenings that you couldn’t have expected.
It was 2:15 AM on a Tuesday. The heavy back door of your bakery didn’t just open – it groaned under the weight of a man who clearly didn’t know the meaning of a gentle entrance. The bell above the frame gave a frantic little jingle, and the smell of ale and the cool night air collided with the warm haze of your kitchen. You didn’t have to look up from the sourdough you were kneading to know who it was.
“You’re fifteen minutes late, Grand Master.”
The heels of your hands moved steadily through the dough, as you fought back a smile and the urge to look up at him fully.
“I was beginning to think that Jean finally figured out how to lock you in your office.”
“She tried,” Varka’s voice boomed for the doorway. He sounded extra cheery, a sure sign that he’d spent the last few hours at Angel’s Share. “But she forgot that I know all the secret passages. Besides, the paperwork was starting to look at me sideways. I had to defend my honor.”
You finally looked up, brushing away a of lock of hair that had found its way out of your ponytail. Varka was leaning against the doorframe, his coat thrown over one shoulder, and his blonde hair a wild mess. His eyes were bright with mischief and there was a tell-tale flush across his scarred cheekbones.
You sighed, but also could no longer stop a smile from tugging at the corner of your mouth. “You’re a drunk hazard, Varka. If you trip and fall into the industrial mixer, I’m not explaining to the Knights of Favonius why their legendary leader is shaped like a cinnamon twist.”
“I’m a master of balance,” Varka countered as he tossed his coat onto a hook mounted on the side wall. He rolled up his sleeve and stepped into your space, the heat from him rivaling that of the ovens. “And I’m the only man in Mondstadt who can haul those grain sacks around without needing a pulley system. You need me.”
“I need a sober assistant.”
Despite the teasing, you stepped aside to let him pass you towards the area where the heavy sacks of wheat were stacked.
“Do you even know what time your morning briefing is? Kaeya was lurking around my storefront at sunset, asking if I’d seen a ‘very large, very loud stray dog’ wandering around this area.”
Varka let out a laugh, the sound of which has become all too familiar over the course of a few weeks. He hoisted two sacks over his shoulders without so much as a grunt. “The briefing is at eight, sharp. Which means I have five hours to make sure that this bread is perfect, and another hour to find a very strong cup of coffee.”
You watched him move around your production area with ease – his physical power turning the most difficult tasks in your kitchen into child’s play.
“Besides, I can be late. Good for the rest of the Knights to be confused once in a while.”
You shook your head and allowed yourself to laugh at his absurdity. It had become a bizarre, whispered legend within the headquarters over the past month: the Grand Master was increasingly absent from his morning rounds, leaving Jean to run the drills with a deepening frown while the rest of the Knights traded confused theories about secret diplomatic missions or a new training regimen.
None of them suspected he was currently covered in flour, hauling sacks, and arguing with a baker about the proper way to knead dough.
“You’re going to get caught,” you teased, reaching out to swat his hand away as he tried to sneak a pinch of raw, unsweetened dough.
That didn’t stop him, and he continued to reach for lumps at different stages of the baking process just to sneak a taste. You left your station completely to basically play whack-a-mole with the Grand Master’s hand.
Varka caught your wrist in mid-air, his large, calloused thumb stroking the pulse point of your hand. The playful glint in his blue eyes softened into something much heavier, much warmer.
“Let them wonder,” his voice dropped to a low and intimate register that made the heat of the kitchen feel like a secondary concern. “I’d much rather be the drunk hazard in your kitchen the the legend behind a desk. Now, give me the scraper. The dough isn’t going to shape itself. And I believe I’m owed a very large sweet roll for my services.”
— —
On one Friday, the back door rattled violently on its hinges before swinging wide open to reveal a soaking wet Grand Master.
The rain was lashing on the cobblestones outside, but Varka looked entirely unbothered. He shook the water off himself, sending a spray of rainwater across the threshold before stepping inside. This time, he radiated the sweet aroma of Dandelion Wine.
You’ve made the habit of greeting him without looking up. You tell yourself it’s to keep your focus on the dozen baguettes on the tray that you were currently scoring. But part of you knew it was to hide the ever growing smile that would appear on your face the moment he walked in.
“You smell like a tavern floor, Varka. And you’re tracking mud onto my clean tiles.”
“Diluc kicked me out,” he announced proudly while grabbing a towel from a nearby rack to wipe himself down. “Something about being a disruptive influence on the younger knights. Just because I challenged them to an arm-wrestling tournament.”
“A tournament that you undoubtedly won,” you replied, shaking your head in fond exasperation. “Do you at least remember why you came here? Or are you just looking for a dry place to sleep off the alcohol?”
“I came for the ovens, sweetheart.”
Varka didn’t even wait for your instructions. He squeezed past you, his chest brushing your shoulder, and headed for the ovens. He grabbed the heavy crank that rotated the internal shelves, a mechanism that usually required two of your apprentices to turn, and pulled smoothly. Weeks on and you still marvel at how he makes the tasks look so simple.
Varka’s voice rumbled through the room as always, as he squinted into the ovens to watch the bread rolls baking. “Jean sent a search party to the Whispering Woods yesterday morning. Apparently, I missed a very important meeting and they wondered about my safety.”
“Because you were here until six in the morning eating almond pastries,” you pointed out.
You followed him to the ovens and inspected the crusts. You reached for the crank to give it one more turn, and Varka wrapped one hand around yours to help you push.
“They’re going to realize that you’re hiding here eventually. I beg you to please not bring the knights to my prep tables.”
“Watch me keep them guessing,” Varka challenged softly, looking down at you through the haze in the air. His bright blue eyes were entirely focused, the wine doing nothing to dull his attention. “If they can’t figure out those meetings on their own, they deserve to panic. The bread, however, requires my utmost dedication.”
— —
At some point, Varka’s presence was no longer a surprise. It was an expectation.
It was 3:00AM on a Wednesday. You were wiping down the stainless steel counters, exhausted and running on a few hours of sleep from the day before, when you realized that Varka had gone suspiciously quiet.
You turned back to find him sitting on a small stool that looked entirely incapable of supporting his weight. He had his elbows resting on his knees, and he was demolishing a slightly burnt cheese danish that you had intentionally left out for him. He looked drained, and for the first time, his aura was truly that of a man who worked two full-time jobs.
“Tired, Grand Master?” You asked him softly, leaning back against the counter and crossing your arms over your chest.
Varka swallowed the last bite of the danish and let out a heavy sigh. “There are visiting diplomats from Fontaine arriving tomorrow. Or… today, I suppose. They want to discuss trade and border security. It’s going to be four hours of people talking without actually saying anything.”
“And what time is the meeting?”
“Nine, sharp. In the main hall. Gotta look respectable.” Unlike most other days, he genuinely sounded distraught. You chucked as you watched him rub his crumb-dusted hand over his face.
“It’s three in the morning, Varka,” you reminded, “You reek of alcohol, you have flour in your hair, and you insisted on helping me load the delivery carts. Go get some rest today, or you’re going to be a disaster.”
He grumbled in protest, “I am going to be spectacularly late.”
You kept your eyes pinned on him as he stood up and closed the distance between you. Varka stopped right in front of you, effectively caging you against the counter.
He reached out, his fingers catching a stray lock of hair, and tucked it behind your ear. He left his hand hovering by your cheek, his knuckles brushing lightly against your cheekbone and sending an immediate flush of heat up your face.
“The Knights are baffled,” he murmured as he pressed his hand firmly against your cheek. “They think I’ve taken up a secret, high-altitude training plan to prepare for another Abyssal threat. Jean is practically tearing her hair out trying to cover for my morning absences.”
You leaned into his touch, the warmth of his hand melting away your exhaustion. Simultaneously, you fought off the urge to think of this as anything more.
“You’re a terrible commander.”
“Terrible, indeed,” Varka agreed with a smile. He held his hand there for a few more seconds before dropping it back down, and placing both hands on his hips. “However, I make an exceptional kitchen hand. Put me to work, [Y/N].”
— —
It was 5:00AM on a Sunday. Once upon a time, you had kept strictly to your schedule of closing up shop on Sundays to allow yourself a break – but sometime in the last few years, one week of allowing “just a little bit of baking” to happen on a Sunday morning quickly became habit. And because you didn’t want to force any of the apprentices to come in on what should be a day of rest, you usually ran the bakery on your own at a much lower production level.
In the last few months, you found yourself an extra hand on Sundays in the form of Varka.
The work was mostly done for the day, with the last batch of bread baking in the ovens. You let out a long exhale as you untied the canvas apron from your waist. Varka sat beside you, sitting on a wooden stool that he had practically claimed as his.
He reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a small, heavy, and tightly-bound pouch and set it on the table with a thud.
You raised an eyebrow in question.
“Just something I picked up in Nod Krai,” he said with a grin, though his eyes were scanning your face thoroughly for your reaction. “Didn’t know what to do with it until now and kept it buried in my quarters. Honey, but tastes different. And a piece of unrefined Snezhnayan spice bark.”
You looked at the impossibly rare ingredients then at the man who had carried them across continents. Your instincts took over and completely overrode your exhaustion – you stood up, grabbed a mixing bowl, and got to work.
The dough took shape. The honey mixed in. The bark used to spice. You kneaded and folded the dough with care, and the kitchen filled with an aroma so incredibly warm that it made your head spin.
Once the dough was shaped, you set it on a basket and sat down beside Varka. It needed an hour to rise.
For a while, neither of you spoke. The only sound was the distant howl of the wind outside. Your mind started to wander and you let yourself fully absorb the absurdity of what your life had become. Your were sitting in a dark kitchen at five in the morning, keeping watch over a rising loaf of bread with the Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius. You didn’t know what to call this. It wasn't a casual fling, and it certainly wasn't a formal courtship. You didn't go on dates in the city plaza with your arm laced through his.
Instead, you were quietly carving out permanent space for a man who didn't fit anywhere else.
It dawned on you that you now actively anticipated the rattle of your back door in the wee hours of the morning. You had started ordering his favorite teas. You were anchoring him, and he was doing the same for you. It was a sanctuary built in the quiet hours before dawn.
When the hour finally passed, you baked the small loaf until the crust was a perfect, golden brown. As you pulled it from the oven, the intoxicating scent of caramelized frost-honey and smoke filled the air.
You sliced the warm pastry down the middle and handed the larger half to Varka.
The size of his hand made the pastry look small. He took a bite, closed his eyes, and let out a heavy sigh. When he looked at you, his blue eyes held a reverence that made your heart race.
— —
That single pastry set a dangerous and highly illegal precedent. Varka had always treated the rules of Mondstadt as mere suggestions, and over the next few weeks, he effectively turned himself into a smuggler of culinary oddities just to see what you could do with them.
He would show up at 2:00AM, haul the sacks of flour from your cellar, then dramatically present his newly acquired prize on your prep table.
Once, it was a heavy crate from Dragonspine filled with berries that refused to freeze, no matter how cold. You spent the rest of the morning turning them into a berry-filled galette that cleared the chill from his bones.
Another time, he walked into looking extremely smug while carrying a small box full of jueyun chillies and assorted flowers from other nations. On the bottom corner, you noticed several Liyue merchant stamps.
“Varka,” you sighed, “did you steal this from the Knights’ impounded goods?”
Varka, as usual, was entirely unapologetic. “I liberated them from administrative purgatory.” He spoke with a grin while he rolled up his sleeves. “Make me something spicy, sweetheart.”
You extracted what you needed and baked them into soft buns that Varka devoured by the half-dozen.
The most ridiculous offering came on a rainy Thursday. Varka ducked into the kitchen, soaking wet, and proudly placed a handful of glowing mushrooms on your cutting board.
You stared. The mushrooms pulsed with a faint, eerie light. You couldn’t even tell if they were edible. “What in Barbatos’ name are these?!”
“I have absolutely no idea.” Varka replied happily as he grabbed a towel to dry his hair. “I found them in a cave near Wolvendom. They just looked interesting.”
You wanted to scold him for bringing potentially toxic flora into a sanitized kitchen, but you couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled up in your chest. After a careful inspection to ensure they were just harmless fluorescent fungus, you baked them into a focaccia.
That same day, you sent the apprentices out of the kitchen so they could begin preparing the storefont and sat with Varka, a sizeable portion of focaccia still left on the table next to a pot of tea. The kitchen was quiet and so was Varka. His broad shoulders were relaxed and he stared into the glowing embers of the ovens. You wondered if the exhaustion of working two jobs was catching up to him.
You watched him for a moment, the nameless feeling in your chest swelling until it was impossible to ignore.
"Varka.”
He turned his head, his blue eyes focusing on you with that heavy, undivided attention.
"Yeah?"
You hesitated for a split second.
"Why do you spend your time with me?"
The words hung in the warm air, vulnerable and quiet. He kept his gaze on you.
"I mean it. You have an entire city that worships the ground you walk on. You have an army at your command. You could be anywhere, with anyone."
You looked down at your hands. Not knowing what to do with them, you started tracing a track on the wooden table from where your teacup sat to the edge of the table.
“I'm not complaining. I like having you here. I look forward to you barging in my kitchen every night, more than I probably should. But you're the Grand Master. And… I just bake bread.”
Varka didn't answer immediately. The air in the kitchen felt suddenly thick.
Slowly, he reached out, his large hands gentle as they caught you by the waist. With one smooth pull, he slid you off your stool and guided you to stand right between his knees.
“Because out there, I'm a monument,” Varka answered. HIs voice was quiet. Vulnerable.
“Out there, I have to be the shield, the sword, and the infallible leader of the Knights. I can't be exhausted. I can't be unsure. I belong to Mondstadt."
Varka shifted his hold to wrap his arms completely around your waist. He pulled you flush against his chest, him still seated, and leaned his weight forward so he could rest his forehead gently against your shoulder.
His words were whispered now. His breath warm against your collarbone. And his voice stripped of all its usual jest and bravado. “In here, I’m just a kitchen hand. You don’t ask me for strategies or for salvation. You just ask me to carry the flour, you order me around, and you make sure I’m fed. You are the only person in this entire nation who looks at me and sees me.”
You could feel your heartbeat, and with how close you were, you were sure he could feel it too. You swallowed hard and instinctively let your hands come up to rest lightly in the think hair at the nape of his neck. As your fingers laced through his hair, Varka let out a long exhale. And with it, it felt as though the tension of years of leadership simply bled out of his shoulders.
For a while, he simply held you, with his face buried in the curve of your neck and your arms wrapped around his shoulders. You didn’t need to name the feeling. As you stood in the quiet of your kitchen, holding the physical embodiment of strength while he finally rested, you knew that you were exactly where you were supposed to be.
Time passed in a blur. You weren’t sure if five minutes had passed or thirty, but the next thing you noticed was the first light of dawn trickling through the windows of your kitchen. Out front, your apprentices were unlocking the main doors of the storefront, preparing to greet the early morning rush of Mondstadt’s citizens.
You and Varka moved in sync. He stood up and helped you tidy up the kitchen, while finishing up the last of the focaccia and going through a few pieces of sweet rolls that he had stolen earlier without you or the apprentices noticing. When he was down to the last piece, he broke off a portion and popped it into his mouth before offering the rest to you. You took it, your fingers brushing his, and the quiet domesticity of the moment settled deep in your bones.
With everything clean and set, and with the last of the focaccia and stolen sweet rolls gone, Varka let out a satisfied rumble. He turned towards the massive sink in the corner of the kitchen, looking more relaxed than a man who was supposed to be leading a cavalry inspection in two hours had any right to be.
He turned the tap and let the water rush over his hands. As he scrubbed all evidence of your bakery off his arms, you grabbed a clean and slightly damp towel from the rack and walked over to him.
“You can wash your hands all you want, but if you walk into the Knights’ headquarters looking like that, Jean is going to know exactly where you’ve been.”
You stepped beside him as he turned off the tap, and he shifted to face you. He looked like a disaster. His clothes were dusted with flour and there was a smudge of soot on his collarbone.
“I consider it the uniform of a highly successful secondary career,” Varka grinned, completely unrepentant as he shook the excess water from his hands.
“I consider it a health code violation,” you countered, though your voice lacked any real bite.
You began to brush the flour from his chest with the damp towel. As you wiped the soot from his collarbone, letting your knuckles brush against his bare skin. Just like he did earlier, Varka lifted his hands and placed them gently on either side of your waist.
For the second time that morning, you froze. The warmth of his palms caught you completely off guard. The towel stalled against his chest as you looked up at him.
Varka, too, was completely still. He didn’t tighten his grip or pull you closer. He just looked down at you, his eyes searching your face, checking if he had overstepped. It was a question, conveyed entirely in the way he kept his touch feather light, ready to drop his hands the second you asked him to.
As the initial surprise melted away, your shoulders relaxed and you offered him a smile. Your hands settled more firmly against his chest.
“You need to shake out your coat before you put it on, too,” you continued, your voice suddenly a lot softer than you intended in the quiet kitchen. “Otherwise, Kaeya is going to start asking why the Grand Master smells like roasted oats and—”
“You know,” Varka interrupted gently, a smile breaking on his face and his eyes full of fondness, "Kaeya actually cornered me yesterday. Asked if I was secretly building a retirement cabin out in Wolvendom, given how often I've been disappearing.
“And what did you tell him?”
“I told him I hate carpentry.”
You laughed. And with a gentle tug, he pulled you forward until you were flush against his frame. He paused one more time, giving you every opportunity to step back.
“Alright?” He asked.
You looked up into his impossibly earnest eyes and nodded, completely enveloped by the heat radiating off him.
"Good," Varka murmured, his joking tone fading. “I spent my whole life dragging expeditions out into the freezing snow because I thought being inside the city walls was suffocating. Turns out, I was just hanging out in the wrong alleyways. Or maybe I just hadn't met a baker stubborn enough to put me to work.”
His smile was intoxicating.
“I'm not looking for another frontier to conquer. I’m actually perfectly happy right here, hauling your wheat. If you'll keep me around.”
Your heart hammered against your ribs. The fierce independence you had worn like armor for years completely dissolved under the warmth of his presence.
A matching smile breaking across your face. “The front door opens at six. But the back door... the back door is always unlocked for you.”
Varka lowered his head, closing the distance between you, but he didn't kiss you right away. He stopped just a fraction of an inch from your mouth, hovering there. His breath was warm against your lips as his eyes dropped to yours one final time in a silent request.
You answered by dropping the damp towel, sliding your arms up to drape around his broad shoulders, and closing the gap.
On occasion, you had let yourself wonder what Varka’s kiss might taste like. Sweet like the sugar that dusted your pastries, or warm and spiced. It was all of that all at once. You let out a soft sigh against his lips, letting your eyes shut close as you anchored yourself to him. Varka’s arms wrapped securely around your waist, lifting you just slightly onto your toes. He kissed you with the devotion of a man who had stopped running and realized exactly how lucky he was to have been caught.
When you finally broke apart, the morning sun was streaming fully through the frosted glass, bathing the flour-dusted kitchen in a brilliant, golden light.
Varka kept you wrapped securely in his arms, resting his forehead against yours as that familiar, wolfish grin returned in full force.
"Well, since we’ve established my permanent residency... does this mean I get free sweet rolls for life?"
Varka never failed to make you laugh. You reached up and brushed a final streak of flour from his cheek, before rising to your toes to press one more kiss to his lips.
It's a strange feeling when you see your childhood crush after all these years; he's grown up, and I've grown up and fallen even more in love with him.
Preview: An entirely casual evening with Alhaitham is filled with the mutual satisfaction of observing (and criticizing) fellow scholars from the safety of your dinner table. Over the course of the evening, you realize that his observation has also long been directed at you.
Word Count: ~4,300
A/N: A first attempt at Alhaitham, in which I imagine what a date with him might look like, with what I think is the closest possible thing to outright flirting. I initially struggled with capturing his tone and personality for a longer story idea, and decided to write this as practice.
Others: Alhaitham, Romance, Fluff, Reader Insert, Alcohol / Drinking, kind of a confession but not really, just... judgement
Lambad’s Tavern on a Friday night was exactly the kind of chaotic, high-decibel environment that Alhaitham actively avoided. The air was thick with the smell of spiced meat and beer, and the overlapping arguments of at least fifty different scholars.
Yet, the Scribe was already there.
He had arrived precisely fifteen minutes early to secure the only acceptable location in the tavern: the curved booth in the farthest, darkest corner. With his back flush against the wall side, he had a perfect view of the tavern’s entrance, while the heavy shadows entirely shielded him from unwanted attention.
He was nursing a glass of wine, his noise-canceling earpieces tuned to filter out the ambient roar, when the heavy tavern doors swung open to welcome the figure he had been anticipating.
You.
Alhaitham paused, his glass halfway to his mouth.
He watched as you stepped inside, pausing as the doors shut to let your eyes adjust to the dim lighting of the tavern. From a distance, Alhaitham immediately began logging the variables of your appearance, entirely abandoning his assessment of the tavern.
You were breathtaking, donning a tailored maroon dress the dipped low to your shoulders and stopped a few inches above the knee – entirely foregoing the standard Akademiya uniform. The fabric perfectly framed your elegant posture, one which Alhaitham would never admit to admiring and one that he instead catalogs mentally as just another fact about you. Your hair was pinned up with a long silver stylus, though the long day of had allowed a few dark strands of hair to fall loose.
You looked exhausted, brilliant, and entirely out of place in the tavern.
To Alhaitham, you also looked like the only variable in the room that was worth cataloging.
Your eyes narrowed as you finally spotted him in the shadows, and you began your march across the crowded floor. As you approached the table, you naturally moved to slide into the empty bench directly across him.
“Sit here,” Alhaitham instructed smoothly, his voice a low drawl that cut perfectly through the noise. He didn’t move to make space – he simply patted the few inches of wooden bench directly to his right. “The acoustic reflection from the far wall makes the opposite seat practically deafening.”
You paused, raising a skeptical eyebrow at his reasoning, but obliged and slid smoothly into the booth right next to him.
The physical proximity was immediate. And overwhelming.
Your shoulders brushed. Alhaitham noted the way that the faint, familiar smell of sweet flower and fresh dye mixed with your subtle floral perfume completely overrode the smell of the tavern. You noted how the fresh woody scent that wafted from his direction was unlike what you usually detected from the Scribe.
“I’ll have to admit, Alhaitham,” you spoke as you leaned back against the booth. You couldn’t hide the tiredness in your voice, but your eyes remained sharp and entirely focused on him. “When you suggested dinner, I didn’t expect you to pick the loudest, most chaotic building in Sumeru City. I thought you despised sensory overload.”
“I do,” Alhaitham replied calmly, turning his head slightly so that he was looking directly at you.
You raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.
“However, the dim lighting in this specific corner perfectly highlights the gold flecks in your irises. I concluded that it was an acceptable trade-off.”
You blinked and your breath caught slightly.
My eyes..?
Your mind stalled for a second as you tried to determine whether the Scribe was simply stating a fact or openly flirting with you.
Before you could formulate a rebuttal, Lambad himself appeared at the edge of the table, bypassing the throng of waiting patrons. He set down a massive platter of heavily spiced meats, warm flatbread, and a second glass containing the same dark Fontainian wine, placing it right in front of you. You noted that there was no soup. No messy, inefficient broths.
Lambad gave Alhaitham a nod and immediately vanished back into the crowd.
Your eyes scanned the table and the perfectly curated, spill-proof meal laid before you. You picked up your wine glass, swirled its contents briefly as you took in the smell of the wine, before taking a small sip. You looked sideways at Alhaitham over the rim of your glass, “You pre-ordered? We haven’t even been sitting here for two minutes.”
“Waiting for a server is an inefficient use of time,” Alhaitham noted, casually picking up a piece of flatbread.
“You really hate wasting time that much?” You teased, with a smile finally breaking through your exhaustion as you set your glass down. “Everything always comes down to absolute efficiency with you.”
“Not everything,” Alhaitham corrected smoothly, his silver-green eyes watching the movement of your hand, then moving slowly up to your eyes. “I simply eliminated the wait time so I wouldn’t have to divide my attention between the tavern staff and you.”
“Oh? How courteous,” You feigned sass, even as your heart skipped another beat and as you fought off the heat building in your face.
He took a slow sip of his own wine, completely unbothered by the sudden flush in your cheeks.
“Not a courtesy. I vastly prefer looking at you,” he added, his tone as casual as if he were reading a grocery list.
You stared at him, entirely trapped into the corner booth, realizing with a sudden, thrilling jolt of adrenaline that the Scribe didn’t invite you for a casual academic dinner. He had orchestrated the entire evening exactly to his liking, and you were possibly the primary objective.
As the evening dragged on, the noise in the tavern increased exponentially in volume. It was a chaotic symphony of clinking mugs and overlapping conversations. And because of the volume of the room, speaking at a normal conversational distance was increasingly, well, impossible.
Alhaitham didn’t seem to mind. He simply shifted closer, resting his right arm casually along the curved wooden back of the booth directly behind your shoulders. He didn’t put his arm around you, but the warm presence of his arm was difficult to ignore. His right knee brushed against yours under the small table – and then, very deliberately, stayed there. The point of contact was entirely unapologetic.
“Three tables down, near the pillar,” Alhaitham murmured, leaning in so his voice vibrated right next to your ear, “the Rtawahist student staring into his ale.”
You took a sip of your wine to push down the meat in your throat, while following the line of his gaze. “The one who looks like he’s trying to mathematically deduce the volume of the contents of the mug?”
“Precisely,” was his reply, as he tore off a piece of flatbread with his free hand. “He has been staring at the same star chart for twenty minutes. However, the parchment is upside down. Based on the aggressive tapping of his foot and the ink stains on his left cuff, he is attempting to cram for Madam Faruzan’s mechanics practicum tomorrow morning.”
“A fatal error. No one crams for Faruzan and survives,” you noted dryly, reaching for a spiced skewer.
“He will undoubtedly fail,” Alhaitham agreed, taking a bit of his food. “It is a highly inefficient use of his tuition. Your turn.”
You swallowed a bite of the skewer as your eyes scanned the crowded room. Your gaze landed on a loud, boisterous table near the center of the tavern.
“Alright. The merchant standing by the bar,” you kept your gaze locked and trusted Alhaitham’s eyes to track the same. You leaned a fraction of an inch closer to him so you wouldn’t have to raise your voice, “The one currently buying a third round of drinks for that Eremite mercenary crew.”
Alhaitham’s eyes flicked over to the man. He scanned him for exactly three seconds. “He is attempting to project financial superiority to negotiate a cheaper escort contract. Loud, and incredibly transparent.”
“Transparent in more ways than one,” you hummed, a wicked smile playing on your lips. “He keeps adjusting his cuffs so everyone can see his tunic. He’s been bragging to the bartender about his ‘authentic imported Liyue silk’. But the drape is entirely wrong.”
Alhaitham’s eyes shifted to you, his brow raising in genuine curiosity, “Is it?”
“It’s clearly a standard Sumeru cotton blend.” Your voice carried absolute authority as your botanical expertise took centerstage. “He likely had it treated with a synthetic gloss to mimic the sheen, but you can tell by the stiff, unnatural creasing at the elbow. Worse, he used a cheap indigo substitute.”
You subconsciously raised a highly condescending eyebrow as you continued to scan the man from a distance, “By the time he sweats through the evening, the dye is going to bleed. He will have bright blue stains all over his neck and wrists by midnight.”
Alhaitham stared at you. For a long moment, he didn’t say a word. The corner of his mouth twitched, slowly curving upward into a deeply amused (and devastatingly handsome) smirk.
“Remind me to never lie to you about my wardrobe,” His voice was a low but amused drawl. He spoke as he leaned his head back against the wood of the booth.
“Please. You only wear perfectly tailored, functionally flawless garments,” you scoffed lightly. “It would be a complete waste of my diagnostic skills.”
Alhaitham hummed in quiet agreement as his left hand moved from the table to whatever small space existed between you. His fingers lightly, almost absently, traced the seam of your sleeve.
“Your turn,” you challenged, hyper aware of the slow and deliberate brush of his fingertips against your arm.
His gaze once again fluttered around the room before landing somewhere close. “The couple in the adjacent booth. Vahumana and Amurta.”
You followed his eyeline, leaning another fraction closer to him to catch the angle, “The one where he hasn’t stopped talking since we sat down?”
“Precisely.”
Alhaitham was so close that you thought his lips would brush your temple as he spoke.
“He is currently attempting to impress her by reciting an entire dissertation on desert sedimentation. Unfortunately, he is citing a thesis that was debunked three years ago.”
You winced in mock second-hand embarrassment. You narrowed your eyes, tapping your index finger against your wine glass. “Oh, that’s painful. And she’s completely checked out. Look at the angle of her shoulders. SHe’s positioned herself exactly forty-five degrees toward the main door.”
“Plus, she’s aggressively rubbing the cuff of her sleeve,” you added, catching the subtle destruction of the fabric. “It’s a self-soothing gesture. She’s fraying the linen thread while probably calculating how soon she can politely fake a migraine and leave.”
Alhaitham leaned his head in completely until you felt the tickle of his hair by your forehead, crowding your personal space under the guise of the loud tavern noise.
“A tragic failure of conversational economy,” he said as his eyes slid away from the doomed couple to settle on your profile. “If you intend to monopolize someone’s evening, you should at least ensure that the data exchange is mutually engaging.”
You turned your head to look at him, fully realizing how close his face was to yours. “And what is your assessment of our data exchange, Scribe?”
“Flawless,” he stated simply.
The moment the word left his mouth, a heavily intoxicated scholar stumbled backward from a nearby table, his weight tipping dangerously close to your secluded booth.
Alhaitham didn’t even blink. His right arm, still set behind you on the booth, moved closer until it was fully wrapped around you as he pulled you slightly closer to him and just an inch further from the intoxicated scholar. His left hand moved from the table in a flash, his long fingers wrapping firmly around your knee under the table to brace you, while he shot a single glare of absolute death at the stumbling scholar.
The drunk man took one look at the Scribe's eyes, visibly paled, and immediately scrambled in the opposite direction.
The threat was gone in two seconds. You felt Alhaitham pull away slightly – his left hand retreated back to his own lap, and his right arm momentarily released its hold on you from behind before his right hand found its spot back on your thigh where his other hand previously sat. His long fingers curved securely over your kneecap, his wrist resting casually against the fabric of your dress where it ended just above your knee. The heat radiating from his palm was electric.
Your train of thought was derailed. Spectacularly. You stared at the wooden table, fingers slightly tightening their grip on the stem of the wine glass.
After several long seconds, Alhaitham reached out with his left hand to pick up his wine glass. He took a slow, unbothered sip. He leaned back in as he set down the wine glass. You could once again feel the ghost of his breath against your skin.
“You were saying?” He prompted softly, his voice dark and incredibly smug. “Something about the data exchange?”
You forced yourself to take a slow breath, refusing to break character despite the spike in your pulse, while his thumb traced a slow and entirely distracting circle against your knee. You were trying very hard to ignore the fact that you were currently losing a war against your own composure.
“My data,” you managed to stay, voice still remarkably steady despite the current conditions, “suggest that you are incredibly adept at reading a room. But a tavern full of exhausted scholars and drunk mercenaries is a very elementary sample size, Alhaitham.”
You gestured around the room with your hand as you spoke. Without breaking eye contact, Alhaitham smoothly slid the heavy ceramic platter of meats a few inches to the left, saving the the cuff of your sleeve from dragging through a pool of spiced oil.
“Are you proposing a more advanced subject?” He asked, not flinching one bit at the challenge.
“Read me.”
You turned your body towards him, leaning into his space.
“You’ve been ruthlessly dissecting strangers all night. Tell me what your brain has deduced about the woman sitting next to you.”
A smirk slowly appeared on his face. “You project a baseline of absolute authority, which functions as your primary academic defense mechanism,” he spoke immediately and matter-of-factly. As he did, he reached across the table with his free hand to pick up the bottle of wine, and without eye contact, he refilled your glass to the optimal line before you even registered that your glass was nearly empty.
Alhaitham didn’t need to look you up and down. He didn’t need to pause and study your demeanor or posture. You sense, terrifyingly, that he had silently cataloged years worth of data on you without you realizing it.
He continued, “You weave natural textiles with a brutal exactness, but you purposefully use a smooth silver stylus to pin your hair up instead of the usual textured hair pin. You know the metal will inevitably slip and allow a few strands to fall loose by the evening. You deliberately engineer your appearance to seem slightly undone, because you would rather look exhausted than unapproachable.”
You sat perfectly still, the accuracy of his assessment piercing right through your armor. A sudden warmth blossomed in your chest.
“Furthermore” Alhaitham murmured, his eyes never once leaving yours, “When you are merely being polite to a colleague, you maintain unbroken, intimidating eye contact. But when you are genuinely captivated by a subject, your eyes flicker away briefly every thirty to forty seconds, you subconsciously tilt your head exactly six degrees to the left, and you trace a nearby object with your index finger. Tonight, your index finger has consistently traced the rim of your glass.”
You looked down.
Your index finger was currently resting dead-center on the crystal rim of your wine glass.
You immediately pulled your hand back, dropping it to your lap as a flush of heat rose rapidly to your cheers. You felt completely exposed.
But you were an academic just as respectable as he. You did not concede that easily.
“Very observant,” you managed to say while feigning competitiveness in your voice. Though you were entirely sure that he noticed the cracks in both your voice and your composure. “I suppose it’s my turn?”
The smirk never left Alhaitham’s face. He leaned back just a fraction to give you the floor, but the grip of his right hand on your knee tightened. “By all means.”
“You project a baseline of apathy. The untouchable and unbothered Scribe,” you began, mirroring his cadence. “You let the entire Akademiya know that you despise inefficiency. Yet, here you are, spending hours in the loudest, most chaotic tavern in the city, engaging in a highly inefficient and entirely un-academic conversation.”
“I would argue that this isn’t inefficient.”
You ignored his comment and what it meant, “I’m not done.”
He let out the closest thing to a laugh, “Carry on.”
You tapped your finger lightly against the base of your wine glass. “You ordered an expensive, vintage Fontainian wine, despite the fact that Sumerian wine is significantly cheaper, readily available, and pairs better with Lambad’s menu. I hypothesize that you ordered it because I made a passing comment about Sumerian wine being too sweet during a joint logistics meeting three months ago.”
Alhaitham’s eyes gleamed with undeniable thrill, but he didn’t interrupt you this time.
“And finally,” you concluded, leaning in close enough that your shoulders pressed firmly together, “Despite your notorious insistence on maintaining strict personal space, your body has been angled towards me the entire night and you have been invading my space entirely. And the light on your earpieces is dark. You turned the noise-canceling function off the moment I sat down.”
You tried very hard to read the look on Alhaitham’s face. It was somewhere between amused, satisfied, and thrilled at your exchange. A low hum of genuine amusement vibrated in his chest.
“A flawless counter-analysis,” he praised softly as he slid his right hand up your leg by an inch. “Your methodology is impeccable. I suppose I should match your level of detail with an even more detailed analysis.”
You raised your eyebrows at him, “More detailed?”
His reply came smooth, “Yes. Concerning the real-time data.”
Beneath the table, his grip tightened just a fraction as his fingers slid slowly, deliberately, along the sensitive line of your inner thigh.
You gasped quietly, a sharp intake of breath that was instantly swallowed by the Tavern noise.
“For instance,” Alhaitham continued, his voice dropping an octave as he seamlessly invaded the last remaining inch of space between you, “your heart rate increased the moment my hand touched you.”
You felt pinned by Alhaitham’s gaze, and you were incredibly aware of the heat of his hand.
“Your conversational pacing has increased by 10% as you are subconsciously trying to compensate for the sudden rush of adrenaline,” Alhaitham continued his observation, his eyes tracking every flutter of your eyelashes.
“You grip the stem of your wine glass tighter every time I lean closer. And your pupils are currently dilated at a percentage that has absolutely nothing to do with the dim lighting of this corner booth, and everything to do with my proximity.”
He tilted his head exactly six degrees to the left, a mockery of your own “captivated” tell.
You didn’t notice when his face got so close to yours.
His breath was heavy in your space as he spoke, “Tell me… is my data inaccurate?”
You didn’t pull away. Whatever facade you had both put up with the last few hours of banter dissolved, leaving behind an undeniable truth that neither of you had the energy, or desire, to hide anymore.
A smile slowly broke through your expression. Your response came out as barely above a whisper, “The data is flawlessly accurate.”
Alhaitham’s smirk likewise softened into something you rarely saw on his face – a small but real smile, and a look for pure warmth. His shoulders relaxed a fraction, and his fingers stopped their distracting movements on your leg, settling into a firm and grounding pressure. He looked profoundly satisfied.
“I’d like to make my intentions clear,” he continued softly, and the opening of that statement caught you off guard, “I invited you here because I wanted you to look at me exactly the way you’re looking at me now… completely captivated.”
A small chuckle escaped you, and you fought back the urge to kiss him right then and there. “You are incredibly arrogant.”
“I simply know what I want,” he countered smoothly. He let the quiet moment stretch between you, simply enjoying the proximity, before he finally withdrew his hand from beneath the table.
He reached behind you to pick up your cloak from the edge of the booth and motioned for you to stand, “Come.”
You chuckled as you stood, giving him space to move out of the booth himself, before turning your back to him to allow him to drape the cloak over your shoulders. The brief brush of his hands against your arm was entirely deliberate.
“Terminating our little engagement so soon, Scribe?” You teased as you looked over your shoulder at him.
“I am proposing a relocation,” Alhaitham corrected. His hand came up to rest on the small of your back, a gesture that was equal parts protective and possessive as you began to navigate your way out of the tavern.
“My house is perfectly quiet, and I’ve made sure Kaveh isn’t around,” he added before you could ask where to next.
You quickly learned that navigating a crowded area with Alhaitham glued to your side made for easy work. With the aura that he projected, the crowd naturally parted for you. As you approached the door, you instinctively reached for the leather pouch of Mora in your pocket.
“Wait, Alhaitham, we need to settle the tab,” your voice was just loud enough to be heard over the noise.
Alhaitham didn’t even slow his stride. He guided you smoothly past the crowded bar, barely sparing a glance at the tavern owner, who offered him a cheerful wave in return.
“It’s been taken care of,” he said matter-of-factly, pushing open the heavy front door and holding it open for you.
You stepped through the door into the cool evening air of Sumeru City, unable to hide the smile on your face. “Taken care of? When? You never left the table.”
“I paid Lambad before you even walked in,” he responded as he stepped out after you and let the heavy doors swing shut.
The solid thud of the wood instantly cut off the noise from the tavern. The sudden quiet of the city streets wrapped around you like a blanket. You stopped by the steps and turned to look at him with a mix of amusement and disbelief.
“You paid for a date before it even started?”
Your insides did something funny as you spoke. You weren’t sure if it was alright to refer to this as a date. He certainly didn’t ask you on a date – it was just dinner. The same way all your shared coffees and lunches before this were just that: just coffee, and just lunch. Not a date.
But Alhaitham didn’t seem bothered at all. The rigid, perfect posture that he usually maintained at the Akademiya finally relaxed, his shoulders dropping slightly as he breathed in the quiet evening air. “Standing around in a loud crowd arguing over who pays the bill ruins the momentum of a good evening,” he reasoned smoothly, “Besides, I was ready to leave. I didn't want to share your attention with that room for a second longer than necessary.”
You let out a soft but genuine laugh at his response. Of course.
“You are impossible, Alhaitham.”
“You appear to be quite attracted to 'impossible''.”
His lips turned up into a half-smirk, half-smile. He stepped up beside you, offering his arm in one fluid motion, “Shall we?”
You slipped your arm through his, leaning slightly against his side. The walk to his house was a stark contrast to the sensory overload of the tavern. You didn’t need to speak to fill the silence – the quiet between you was deeply comfortable. It was the effortless coexistence he valued above almost anything else.
As you approached the wooden door of his residence, the quiet anticipation that had been simmering all night was at its peak. Alhaitham withdrew his key, unlocking the door with a click. He pushed it open, revealing the dark and perfectly quiet sanctuary of his home.
The quiet stretched until you walked in, the ambient light from the street fading as the door clicked shut behind you, and the scent of old books and clean soap surrounding you completely.
You felt him step close behind you, and his hands found your waist from behind. He leaned forward until his lips were an inch away from your ear, “More wine?”
You nodded. The way his breath felt against your ear made you shiver, and there was nothing you could do to mask the response.
He chucked at your reaction as he pulled away. As he walked past you, one hand lifted up behind your head, deliberately finding the silver stylus that he had diagnosed earlier. With a smooth pull, he slid the metal free and your long, dark hair came tumbling down your shoulders. He kept the stylus in his hand as he glanced back at you before turning the corner to his kitchen, your hair rolling down falling across your frame exactly the way he had wanted to see it all night.
You sighed, one long exhale, and smiled. When you first walked in Lambad's Tavern tonight, this was certainly not where you thought the evening would take you. But you weren't about to complain.
A/N: Yes, there is not a single kiss I debated it heavily. I have a draft where it devolves quickly into senseless kissing the moment they walk inside his house because of course that's what I would want to happen. But no. We did not go there. TYSM for reading.
Preview: Varka is a man with incredible control. Most of the time. But sitting with you on the edge of a cliff, wine drunk on a cold night, he knows his control is fraying. And you, too, are entirely aware of your own control hanging by a thread.
Word Count: ~3,500
A/N: It is 3AM and my brain has been fully occupied by the idea of Varka completely holding back his urges (and failing misereably). This is the result. I played with a couple of settings but liked this one the best. Hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Others: MDNI! Intimacy is not explicitly described but is heavily implied; Varka, Romance, Reader Insert, Alcohol / Drinking
The wind howling across Starsnatch Cliff was supposed to be freezing at this time of the year, but sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the Varka made it feel like a warm summer eve.
You sat near the cliff's edge, your boots dangling over the sheer drop to the ocean below as a sea of white Cecilias swayed in the twilight behind you. To your left sat Varka, and on his far side nestled safely in the tall grass so the wind wouldn't roll them off the precipice, sat two bottles of imported Liyue wine – a ridiculously strong vintage that he had "confiscated" from the Knights' restricted storage.
The first bottle was completely empty. The second was halfway there.
"I'm just saying," you laughed, leaning back on your hands and looking up at the colorful twilight sky, "leaving a helmet balanced on a stack of encyclopedias at your desk is a terrible decoy. Jean is going to figure out you went AWOL the second she asks it to sign a logistics report."
"Give the helmet some credit," Varka’s booming, chest-deep laugh echoed over the roar of the ocean. He was sprawled out beside you, taking up an absurd amount of space, leaning his weight on one massive forearm with his body angled slightly towards you. He didn't bother with his usual armor tonight, wearing just a linen shirt unlaced at the collar. "It's a very stoic helmet. It has my exact leadership style. It delegates."
"It's going to finally cause your impeachment as Grand Master," you teased, bumping your shoulder against his massive bicep.
"Let them try to overthrow me," Varka grinned lazily, turning his head to look at you fully. The fading sunlight caught the faint lines of the scars across his cheek. "Besides, I couldn't sit in that office for another second. The walls were starting to close in. If I had to read one more supply chain complaint from the cavalry captain, I was going to throw my desk out the window."
"You're restless," you noted, the teasing edge softening into something more familiar.
You had spent years surviving domains, tracking monsters, and mapping the frontier with him. You knew the Grand Master better than almost anyone in Mondstadt.
"I'm always restless," Varka admitted, his voice dropping a fraction as his gaze traced the line of your profile. "But it's better out here. No titles. No salutes. Just the wind, good wine, and the best knight I've ever had the pleasure of fighting beside."
You hummed in agreement, feeling a sudden, completely un-platonic flush rise in your cheeks at the warmth of his tone. To distract yourself, you decided you desperately needed another drink.
Because the bottles were sitting in the grass on his far side, you had to lean completely across him to reach for them. You shifted onto your knees and stretched over his sprawling frame, your chest brushing lightly against the solid wall of his chest, your face just inches from his as your fingers brushed the cold glass of the half-empty bottle.
Varka went completely still.
You pulled back with the bottle, settling back onto the grass beside him. You took a slow sip of the wine straight from the bottle before you finally caught the look on his face.
The carefree Grand Master was suddenly gone. His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek. His blue eyes were fixed on the column of your throat as you swallowed, stripped of their usual wicked humor, and replaced by something dark, heavy, and wildly predatory.
The air between you, which had been light and easy just seconds ago, suddenly felt thick enough to cut with a broadsword.
"You're awfully quiet all of a sudden," you noted, a playful smirk touching your lips as you lowered the bottle. You shifted your weight, intentionally bringing your knee to rest flush against the length of his thigh. "Wine finally catching up to the great Knight of Boreas? Or are you just out of complaints about the Knights hiding their alcohol stash from you?"
Varka let out a breath that sounded more like a suppressed growl.
"The wine isn't the problem," he rumbled. His voice had dropped a full octave, vibrating with a dangerous and barely contained friction.
He sat up fully, the sheer, intimidating size of him suddenly very apparent as he shifted his posture to tower over you. He reached out and took the glass bottle smoothly from your hands. His fingers were entirely steady, but you noticed the way his massive knuckles had become more prominent from how hard he was gripping the glass.
Instead of taking a drink, he set the bottle in the grass behind him, entirely out of your reach.
"You are playing a very dangerous game tonight," Varka warned softly, his gaze dropping shamelessly to your lips before dragging back up to meet your eyes.
"I'm just sitting here, Varka," you countered innocently, though your heart was suddenly hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs.
You didn't back away. You leaned in just a fraction of an inch closer, the alcohol making you bold, the undeniable gravity between you finally snapping into focus. "Are you telling me the strongest man in Mondstadt can't handle a little proximity? I've seen you stare down a dozen Ruin Guards without breaking a sweat."
Varka closed his eyes for a few seconds as a heavy sigh escaped him. When he opened them, the raw, unfiltered desire in his expression was shocking. He was a man accustomed to taking exactly what he wanted on the battlefield, driven mostly by instinct and brute force. Watching him actively fight that instinct – watching what you could only interpret as desperation to treat you with reverence rather than claiming you like a prize – sent a thrill straight down your spine.
"A Ruin Guard is a machine. It's easy," Varka grated out, his voice thick.
He lifted his hand to run it through his hair. And for a split second as he brought it back down, you thought he would drop his hands on your bare shoulder. Instead, his hand bypassed your shoulder, with enough heat that you could feel it radiating from his palm, and pressed his hand down on the grass beside your hip.
His fingers gripped a handful of grass to keep it occupied. His voice fell to a whisper, “You, on the other hand… are a completely different kind of ruin.”
Varka’s eyes were locked onto yours, carrying a weight that you’ve seen only a handful of times in all the years you’ve known him. “I am the Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius,” he murmured but not to you in particular.
His voice was strained, and it sounded as if he was repeating the title like a prayer for restraint. You were incredibly aware of how his chest heaved with his heavy breaths under his linen shirt.
"I swore an oath of chivalry. I am supposed to be a gentleman. I am supposed to protect your honor, not think about exactly what you would sound like if I pinned you against the grass right now."
You froze.
“I… never asked you to protect my honor,” you whispered, the teasing edge completely melting away in the face of his honesty.
“I know,” he groaned in response. Varka leaned ever so slightly forward until his forehead rested heavily against yours. The scent of pine, wind, and wine wrapped around you.
He didn’t close the gap to kiss you, though his mouth hovered an agonizing breath away from yours. You could tell that his restraint was hanging by a thread. “And that is exactly why I am losing my mind. If you look at me like that for one more second, sweetheart, chivalry is going straight off tihs cliff.”
You stayed completely frozen, the heavy warmth of his forehead resting against yours.
Protect my honor.
The words echoed in your mind, loud enough to drown out the crashing waves below. For years, you had been his most trusted knight, his drinking buddy, his equal in the dirt and the blood. You desperately tried to blame the sudden, frantic heat in your veins on the wine. You tried to push the feeling away, to retreat back behind the comfortable, sturdy walls of your banter. But as you breathed in the sharp scent of him and felt the sheer amount of restraint he was radiating, the walls completely crumbled.
You wanted him.
You have wanted him for much longer than you were willing to admit.
Sensing the dangerous shift in the air, or perhaps realizing that his own control was fracturing, Varka abruptly pulled back. He created a foot of space between you, scrubbing a heavy hand over his face. He shifted his gaze away from you and instead stared out at the open ocean, visibly forcing his lungs to draw a steady breath.
"The, uh... the wind is picking up," Varka muttered, his voice still painfully raspy and he frantically searched for a distraction.
He pointed blindly toward the dark horizon. "Kaeya mentioned a storm front moving in from the Whispering Woods. We should probably... I might need to order the night watch to reinforce the lower gates. Check the tie-downs on the merchant stalls."
It was such a desperate pivot back to his knightly duties that you might have laughed. But Barbatos apparently had a wicked sense of humor.
As if to prove Varka's point, a violent gust of wind suddenly whipped across the precipice, with the gust being aggressive enough to nearly lift you off the grass. With a sharp gasp, you pitched sideways, your hands flying out instinctively to grab onto the closest, heaviest thing available to keep from tumbling.
You grabbed Varka.
He reacted with the lightning-fast reflexes of a battlefield commander. His massive arm wrapped entirely around your waist, yanking you flush against him and instantly anchoring you against the wind.
But as you collided with him, the casual intimacy of the rescue shattered.
Pressed tightly against the left side of his body and practically straddling his leg, you could feel every rigid muscle in his body vibrating with tension. And as your leg tangled with his, you felt the unmistakable, rock-hard bulge of his arousal pressed tight against the worn leather of his trousers.
You stopped breathing.
Your fingers froze where they gripped his shirt in between his stomach and his chest.
The realization hit you like a physical blow. He wasn't just fighting the urge to lean in for a kiss. He was completely consumed by a physical hunger he was fighting a losing battle to cage.
The wind died down and left a deafening silence in its wake. Varka didn't let you go. His arm remained securely locked around your waist, keeping you firmly pressed against the very evidence of his undoing.
"So much for the stoic Knight of Boreas," you whispered. You tried for your usual teasing tone, but your voice came out shaky and completely breathless. You didn't pull away. "Are you sure you're thinking about the lower gates right now, Varka?"
Varka let out a defeated groan, dropping his head back to look up at the stars.
To look anywhere except at you.
"I haven't thought about the gates in three hours," Varka confessed, his voice a devastating rumble in the dark. His grip on your waist tightened just a fraction, his thumb unconsciously stroking the curve of your hip. "I told you, [Y/N], I am a man hanging on by a thread. And you just threw yourself onto my lap."
"It was the wind," you protested softly, entirely unsure of what to do with your hands. You left them resting on him, hyper-aware of the blazing heat radiating through his leathers. "I was just trying not to fall off the cliff."
"Right. The wind," Varka mumbled as a breathless chuckle escaped him. Slowly, he lowered his head to look back at you. His blue eyes were blown wide, swallowed by the dark. "You know exactly what you're doing to me. I can fight a war, sweetheart, but I cannot fight you. If you don't move back to your side of the grass right now... I'm going to assume you don't want me to be a gentleman anymore."
Your heart was pounding a frantic rhythm in your chest, loud enough that you could hear it, and loud enough that you were sure he could hear it too. The teasing banter had run its course, leaving you teetering on the edge of a completely different kind of cliff.
Your hands moved instinctively. They slid up a few inches to press flat against his chest. And from that position, you could feel his heart hammering just as wildly beneath his linen shirt.
You knew you should push him away. He was Varka. He was the Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius, (arguably) your best friend but also (undoubtedly) your commanding officer, and a man trying with every ounce of his willpower to keep you both from crossing a line you could never uncross. You knew you shouldn’t be the one to break his resolve.
But Archons, you wanted him.
You made a half-hearted attempt to retreat. You pushed against his chest just enough to shift your weight backward, sliding just a few inches to the side with the full intention – or so you lied to yourself – of scooting off of him.
But your body completely betrayed you. You stopped, still very much seated on Varka. You couldn't force yourself to completely get off him. You were frozen halfway, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, staring up at him with wide eyes. You couldn't form a single coherent thought, completely paralyzed by the tension radiating from him.
Varka took that single second of hesitation as your definitive answer.
The last fraying thread of his chivalry snapped. With a low, ragged sound that was entirely animal and completely unbecoming of a Grand Master, Varka shifted. His arm hooked securely around your back, and in one fluid motion, he bore you backward and pinned you against the cool grass of the cliffside.
He took the brunt of his own weight on his forearms but caged you completely. All of a sudden, all you could feel was Varka’s heat enveloping you completely. He didn’t look you in the eye, and instead buried his face into the curve of your neck. You slowly exhaled the breath you didn’t realize you were holding in, as you felt him settle his weight down on you – the rigid and undeniable length of his arousal pressing hot and hard against your thigh.
You could feel his breath come in shallow bursts against your neck. Each one sent a shiver down your spine.
"Tell me to stop," Varka commanded. His voice was a broken rasp against your neck, completely stripped of its usual authority. It was a desperate plea for you to save him from himself, giving you one final out before he lost his mind entirely.
You lay there, the wind howling over the cliffside, your hands sliding up his broad shoulders to tangle fiercely in the thick blonde hair at the nape of his neck. The pause felt like a physical weight, stretching the tension until it was absolute agony.
"Don't," you whispered.
Varka let out a sigh. He finally lifted his head, his bright blue eyes burning with fire in the twilight. He didn't hesitate for another second, and he closed the distance and crashed his mouth down onto yours.
The kiss was an absolute collision.
There was nothing gentle or knightly about it. It was the kiss of a man who had been starving for years and had finally been handed a feast. You felt his mouth press heavily onto yours as he fully commanded the kiss, which tasted sharply of the dark Liyue wine and the intoxicating heat of his own desperation. You let out a breathless sound that he swallowed completely, as his tongue sweeped past your lips to deepen the kiss.
Your head was spinning. You momentarily told yourself it was the wine, before fully allowing yourself to melt under the weight of his kiss. Soon after, you met his ferocity with your own, your hands sliding from his hair to grip onto his shoulders to pull him heavier against you.
His hands also began their own exploration. Still braced up on his left forearm, his left hand found its way to your neck, while his right hand traced the line from the side of your chest down to your hip. You were aware of every movement of his hands against you, and for a brief moment you wondered what it would feel like to have him run his hands everywhere.
When he finally broke the kiss, it was only to drag his mouth along your jaw, pressing open-mouthed kisses down your throat. You arched up into him, your arms wrapping around his neck as the cold of Starsnatch Cliff completely vanished, replaced entirely by the furnace-like heat of his body pressing you into the crushed grass.
The roaring ocean below, the threat of the coming storm – the rest of the world simply dissolved.
You’re not sure whose control flew off the cliff first. Maybe it was yours. Maybe it was Varka’s. Maybe it was both at the same time. But somewhere between him first kissing you and him now trailing his lips down your throat and chest, you had crossed a line that was impossible to undo. Every kiss was a confession. Every shift of his hips against yours was a question that you answered by pulling him closer.
Varka handled you with both urgency and tenderness as he stripped away the layers of your clothing with hands that trembled ever so slightly. Hands that were desperate to feel bare skin. But even in the absolute ruin of control, he shielded you from the cold of the wind, his frame securely over yours as your bodies merged together.
It was a beautiful, chaotic surrender. There was no strategy, no battle plans. Just the desperate, heavy friction of two people who had spent years fighting side by side finally crashing together in the dark.
---
You had absolutely no idea how much time had passed.
The violent wind from earlier had mellowed into a steady, evening breeze, and the colors of twilight were replaced by the dark night sky filled with a tapestry of brilliant stars.
You were lying draped over Varka, the crushed white Cecilias acting as a bed beneath you, and a mix of both of your clothing pulled on top of you as a makeshift blanket to keep the cold at bay.
The night was completely silent, save for the rhythmic, soothing crash of the waves far below and the steady, heavy thud of his heartbeat right beneath you.
Varka’s arms were still locked securely around you. One of his large hands rested heavy and warm on the bare skin of your lower back, his thumb tracing slow, lazy circles just above your waistline. The other was tangled comfortably in your hair. The frantic, desperate tension that had plagued him all evening was completely gone, replaced by a bone-deep contentment.
You shifted slightly, resting your chin on his chest so you could look up at him. In the starlight, he looked impossibly young. The heavy burdens of the Grand Master were nowhere to be found on his face; he just looked entirely at peace.
"If Jean sends a search party up here," you murmured, your voice raspy and quiet in the dark, "I'm going to throw you off the cliff and tell them you fell."
Varka let out a chuckle that vibrated through your entire body. He didn't open his eyes, simply tightening his arm around your waist to pull you a fraction of an inch higher up his body.
"Let her send the entire cavalry," Varka murmured lazily, his rough voice thick with sleep and satisfaction. He pressed a blind, warm kiss to the top of your head. "They can wait. The paperwork can wait."
"What about your knightly honor?" you teased softly, letting the side of your face rest on the space where his chest meets his shoulder, while your finger absently traced a small scar near his collarbone.
Varka finally opened his eyes, looking down at you with a completely unapologetic smirk.
"I left it in the office," he rumbled, shifting his hand to gently cup the side of your neck as his thumb stroked your jawline. His gaze softened, the playful smirk melting into that fierce, unwavering devotion that made your heart skip a beat. "And to be perfectly honest, sweetheart... I don't think I'm ever going back for it."
He kept his hands there. Kept you warm against him. You closed your eyes, letting the heavy weight of him and the blazing warmth of his body anchor you completely to the cliffside, perfectly content to let the rest of Mondstadt wonder where their Grand Master had gone.