Thank you for the ask! <3 I accidentally significantly more than a snippet, whoops. >> But I'd been reminded of this pet pairing of mine while looking at Eula's voicelines earlier today, and while I don't always manage it I do like to hit all the elements in these prompts, and then the moment I looked at this one the idea for fitting this pairing into it sprang into my head and demanded its chance.
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ETA: Now on AO3.
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This isn't what Sucrose had expected when Ms. Eula said that she would protect Sucrose personally on the way to Liyue Harbor. Some bandit gang has been kidnapping doctors, alchemists, and similar such people on the roads through the Guili Plains, and while Sucrose is strong enough to protect herself while gathering materials, she *is* grateful for extra protection from the kind of threat posed by a large, organized band. Still, she'd just assumed it meant she would ride along with the merchant caravan Eula is already protecting.
Instead, the first night they camp, someone had asked Sucrose what she was going to Liyue Harbor to do, since she certainly wasn't a merchant she didn't seem to be a knight. She'd just opened her mouth to explain that she was an alchemist, and that she was going to confer on certain herbs with a healer there, when Ms Eula spoke over her.
"She's here as my personal companion," Ms. Eula said haughtily, giving the merchant a glare so fierce that she quickly mumbled an excuse and scooted over to talk to one of her companions instead. When Sucrose finished dinner and went looking for her tent, she found that Ms. Eula had put Sucrose's bedroll in the command tent, side-by-side with her own.
"Um... you don't have to do that," she said. "I brought my own tent."
"I swore to Master Jean and Captain Albedo that I would take personal responsibility for your safety," Ms. Eula said, just as haughtily. "That includes protecting you from any spies that may be in the caravan. If you're with me, they have fewer chances to ask you questions you can't formulate a dishonest answer to."
"Oh," Sucrose said, her face hot with the realization that she'd almost made Ms. Eula's job harder by giving herself away, and that was how Ms. Eula had arranged their sleeping arrangement ever since.
Their sleeping arrangements aren't the only way in which Ms. Eula has backed up her assertion that Sucrose is her *'personal companion.'* She insists that Sucrose walk with her when she's pacing alongside the wagon, and with Mika when she's gone ahead to scout. She puts her hand on Sucrose's shoulder, or takes her arm, or even takes her hand once, when Sucrose slips and nearly falls in her mud, and keeps her fingers laced with Sucrose's for nearly a mile after she pulls her out. And Sucrose is only making it harder for her by getting more and more flustered with every gesture that makes it clear what 'personal companion' is supposed to *mean*.
The problem is... well, there are several, but they all have the same central root. Sucrose wouldn't get so flustered as to nearly bely the pretense, nor pull jerkily away from Ms. Eula when she finds herself too aware of her touch, nor drive herself deeper and deeper into sleep debt by lying stiffly awake all night long with Ms. Eula's back against her own, if she didn't enjoy Ms. Eula's attention so much. The logical knowledge that her affection is false doesn't change the emotional or physical effects. Ms. Eula is a very beautiful woman, and her dedication to keeping Sucrose safe makes clear the kindness that lies behind her intimidating exterior. Sucrose is experiencing a very natural reaction that would be fascinating to observe, if it was happening to anyone else.
Instead she's been observing Ms. Eula, which only makes it worse. Sometimes she nearly thinks that she catches evidence that her feelings are returned--Ms. Eula's hand lingering a little too long, her anecdotes when they walk together becoming a little too personally vulnerable, her strong back pressed against Sucrose's own a little too firmly to be an accident in her sleep. But then Ms. Eula sees Sucrose jump at her touch and makes an excuse for another patrol, or hears Sucrose stammer an inadequate response to their conversation and abruptly changes the subject, or notices her embarrassment in the dark and carefully rolls away to the far edge of her bedroll, and Sucrose doubts her observations after all.
Besides, that Eula might harbor the same feelings is a highly unlikely hypothesis. It's not one that Sucrose is confident enough in to test, not when the results of that experiment might be so disastrous.
It should be a relief to get to Wangshu Inn, where bandits wouldn't dare to operate and Sucrose can safely get her own room. That she finds herself fantasizing about sharing one of the Inn's famously comfortable beds with Ms. Eula is all the more reason that she should get her own. This may not be a subject for experiments, but she can surely run a few small-scale personal trials to determine exactly how far her reactions to the situation have progressed.
There are a few other folks from Mondstadt there already, a smaller group on the way back from Liyue Harbor that have hired their own protection. Some of them know some of the merchants Ms. Eula's company is escorting, and they cluster together at dinner, laughing and talking, while Ms. Eula and Sucrose and Mika join the rest of the Reconnaissance Company at a table of their own. Drink flows steadily, until Sucrose is light-headed and half the knights are flushed. The laughter from the merchants grow louder, as well as their looser and looser talk.
"Wonder what the Lawrence has over her?" one of the merchants on their way back says, far too loudly, and gives a braying laugh. "She might look good, but I wouldn't kiss a fish that cold if you paid me a million Mora to do it, and I can't imagine a hoity-toity Lawrence is anything but a selfish tyrant in bed."
Every back at the knights' table stiffens at the insult. Sucrose draws herself up, too, and turns about in her chair, flushed red and with no idea what she's going to say but still certain that Ms. Eula deserves some defense.
"Leave them be," Ms. Eula said, just as loudly, her chin high and her hand cool on Sucrose's arm. The touch sends a shiver through Sucrose that isn't just from the chill. "Such insults from drunken idiots aren't worthy of a response, even proper vengeance."
Given Ms. Eula's own attitude, that seems hypocritical. Sucrose goes even redder when she sees the faint concern in Eula's scowl and realizes that this dismissal is for her sake--that she's protecting Sucrose from embarrassing herself in an argument she hasn't the least idea of how to make.
The braying merchant, though, has already noticed Sucrose turning towards him, and he grins maliciously at her. "Come on, don't try to lie to us. You wouldn't be cuddling up with a Lawrence if she wasn't making it worth your while."
Ms. Eula's hand tightens on her arm, as if to hold her back. But Sucrose isn't the sort of knight who rushes in with sword or spear. Anger bubbling up, as well as an impulsive desire that some analytical part of her notes is undoubtedly due to the alcohol, she rises to her feet.
"Her time and attention is worth the time and attention I give to her. It's a mutually beneficial relationship," she tells him, and deliberately turns her back, which brings her directly face-to-face with Ms. Eula.
Who is just as red in the face as Sucrose herself. Certainly that's the alcohol, but Sucrose looks at her widened eyes, her slightly parted lips, the way her breath is caught, and decides, impulsively, that maybe her unlikely and overly-optimistic hypothesis is worth testing after all. Surely she can get away with attributing any experimental failures to the alcohol. Leaning in, she presses their lips together.
For a moment Ms. Eula is stiff and frozen, lips unmoving against Sucrose's own. Then she responds, tilting her head back and to the side to better fit them together, with nothing but warmth in her answering kiss. She lets go of Sucrose's arm only to catch her hips and pull Sucrose into her lap; Sucrose clambers eagerly into it, pressing up against her, running her hands over the muscles of her shoulders and the curve of her sides. Eula shivers and gasps into Sucrose's mouth.
She should have touched Eula back ages ago, instead of freezing up at every contact. If she had, she wouldn't have been so worried about testing her hypothesis. Right now the results are *extremely* promising. Though, Sucrose reflects as Eula adjusts her grip to hold her up as she rises and marches into the inn, she should certainly repeat the experiment multiple times. Just to verify the results.
