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The Cavalry Captain doesn't trust him.
Which—touché. Tartaglia trusts Alberich about as far as he can throw him, maybe a bit less. There’s something about the man that sets every nerve of his on edge, makes his hackles rise in ways that haven’t happened since he was a child lost in a forest, more fearful and brash.
It might be the way that Alberich walks with a certain sway that tells the world he’s used to getting what he wants. Or the way he looks at Tartaglia through the corner of his eye, a languid up-down that finds him lacking after stripping him bare. Or it might be the way his Foul Legacy claws for the man, the way it attracts him to any Abyssal thing.
Either way; the feeling’s mutual. Alberich falls into step with him, a pace behind the Traveller, and meets Tartaglia’s eyes with his own starry one under a perfectly curved brow. He reeks of Abyss, and Tartaglia's teeth ache—for the fight he knows would hurt, for the enemy he craves to eradicate.
But he can’t. Alberich is a ‘friend'’. Sometimes he thinks the Traveller forgets Tartaglia isn’t really a child, with the way they had lectured him before Alberich had joined them in Fontaine. Kaeya is a friend. If you want to fight, we can do it after you help me find the seelies.
What was he, a dog? The Traveller might as well have said, down boy, I’ll give you a treat if you’re good. Well, not that Tartaglia can blame them—it worked, hook, line, sinker.
Alberich still hasn’t looked away. Tartaglia tilts his head, and glances forward at the Traveller and Paimon. They’ve fallen behind already, with how the two travelling companions have been flitting from window display to window display, oohing and aahing at the food and the local crafts—though, knowing Paimon, more so the food.
He makes a mental note to buy some of the ceramic figures for Tonia, before returning to the matter at hand.
Alberich’s visible eye is still trained on him, lips still drawn in a smirk that should be infuriating how good it makes him look. He must know it too—men like him know, to the detriment of everyone around them.
“See something you like, Captain?” Tartaglia finally says, cocking a brow.
“Oh, certainly,” Alberich answers, as if he'd been waiting for Tartaglia to make the first move. It feels like he’s already lost something, when Tartaglia hadn't even been aware that there was a competition. “I’m also rather curious how my dear Traveller got a mighty Harbinger to help out for such a... menial task.”
“Anything for my comrade,” Tartaglia smiles at him tightly. Finding the remnants of the seelie race in a country he had been implicitly banned from wasn't exactly Tartaglia's idea of a relaxing holiday—he had been thinking about heading to Dragonspine and clearing the thing bottom up, after stopping by Liyue and catching a drink with ex-Geo Archon “Zhongli” Morax. But the Traveller hardly ever asks for favours, and who is Tartaglia to deny a rare friend? He isn’t quite sure how having a half-functional Hydro Vision is in any way linked to being able to locate Fontainian seelies any quicker, but who's to say.
“I could say the same for you,” Tartaglia continues. “What’s a captain of the Knights of Favonius doing so far from home?”
Alberich hums, tapping at the plush of his lip with a long, slim finger. “I would say Snezhnaya is quite a bit further away than Mondstadt. But anyway, we must be of the same ilk. After the darling Traveller informed me that their current travelling partner has caused not one but two diplomatic incidents in Fontaine, how could I refuse after they asked for my help?”
So he did his research. Sneaky, slimy little guy.
Well, not that little—they were of similar heights. But what counts for Tartaglia's analogies is hardly material accuracy and more so spirit.
“It’s actually three,” Tartaglia says, offhand, and Alberich barks a surprised laugh.
“My apologies. Please let us know if we should be worried about the Maison Gardiennage tailing us on this journey as well.”
They wouldn’t dare risk another international incident with a Harbinger, not with the political influence Snezhnaya has now—even if they were able to link Tartaglia with one or two prison breaks. But Tartaglia entertains the thought anyway, smiles far more genuinely at the thought of a battalion of gardemeks rushing at them, at the chaos such a fight would provide.
“Wouldn't think of doing otherwise, comrade.” Tartaglia says, teeth bared in a barely diplomatic grin. He gets it now; why this infuriating, beautiful man sets him on edge. “I was wondering if that Vision of yours was just to show.”
Pretty, cooly elegant, with a penchant for politics and smokescreens all while smirking infuriatingly at their conversational partners as they herd them into a dead end. And to tie it all together, a cryo user.
It wasn’t a delusion, but fuck—out of all the other Harbingers he’s always hated Signora the most.
Kaeya watches the Harbinger constantly.
At first it’s purely intellectual—when his dear Traveller had asked him for his help in solving a Fontainian mystery, Kaeya had guessed that his role would be much like the one he played during Liyue’s annual Lantern Rite, or at most their jaunt to Fontaine would be a small, two-person job. Imagine his surprise when the Traveller informed him that he already had the Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers on the case, and that they were friends. Friends!
He’s had a faint feeling since they first met, but the Traveller was quite skilled at finding the good in just about anyone.
Kaeya does not have that same skill, Barbatos willing. Nor does he quite trust the Traveller’s judgement in people. And, at first meeting, when Tartaglia scans him with the most unreadable eyes Kaeya has seen on another person before grinning and holding out a hand for him to shake, Kaeya knows he was right not to trust.
It sends a shudder up his spine, how fake the man can be.
But Kaeya had meant it when he said that they were of the same ilk. He pastes on his most charming smile, and catches the way Tartaglia’s eyes narrow slightly at the sight. Caught you, he thinks. You’re not infallible.
So it’s intellectual, at the start. Kaeya watches him to gather information—the Fatui influence in Mondstadt is still something to be circumvented, rather than outright addressed, and while subtle probing revealed that Tartaglia has never once been stationed to Mondstadt, though he would love to properly visit the City of Freedom someday (he had glanced at the Traveller with the subtlety of a needy puppy when he said so, and Kaeya had to stifle a snort as the outlander completely ignored him) any insight into the Fatui’s inner workings was valuable.
Ah, you could never really escape from working, could you? Kaeya had even broken out a few of his prized paid vacation days for this trip. Master Diluc better thank him with a bottle of dandelion wine for his service to the further protection of Mondstadt, if the man didn’t try flambé Kaeya for liaising with a Fatui first.
The Harbinger watches him right back. It rankles Kaeya, slightly, that he can't read what Tartaglia draws from his observations; those lightless eyes give nothing away. But eventually the Harbinger stops—bored of the constant suspicion and of Kaeya, likely—and Kaeya can tell from his flickering gaze that his opinion of Kaeya has settled for distaste and not much else.
He can work with that. Better to be underestimated than to be prepared against.
So he continues watching, as the four of them wade through marshlands and cross lakes and duck under Fontaine’s many, many waterfalls, searching for these elusive Oceanid-seelies of old.
(Kaeya might be a well-practiced liar, but he can at least admit in the privacy of his own mind that watching Tartaglia’s expression light up as he soared down the face of a cliff on the rapids was—enrapturing.)
And slowly, steadily, his suspicion abates.
Not all of it—not even most of it. But Kaeya can only watch Tartaglia genuinely attempt to help the Traveller find a variant of a seelie Kaeya's not even sure actually exists, wipes at Paimon’s mouth when they set up camp and cook the fish he catches along the rations Kaeya had so thoughtfully brought like a hapless older brother—he can only argue with himself about the dangers of the Fatui for so many days before he has to acknowledge the truth. The Harbinger cared for the Traveller as much as Mondstadt does, and that could only be a good thing.
Diluc would have his neck, if he could hear Kaeya’s inner monologue. But Kaeya had no desire to bear the man’s moral cross and the hatred of the Fatui that came with it. They both knew the world to be in shades of grey—but Diluc had always been born for the light.
Kaeya was not.
It did not help that the big bad Fatui Harbinger was also rather easy on the eyes.
Which is how they find themselves a week after the Traveller had first solicited them for his ‘treasure-hunting expertise’ (which was proving to draw up a blank); Kaeya still watching the Eleventh Harbinger but for hardly any chaste purpose like information gathering.
Instead, he’s quite sure that if Tartaglia was made aware of the weight behind Kaeya's gaze on him, he’d stop preening under it and aim his arrow away from the hilichurls for once and instead at Kaeya's head. Or maybe he wouldn’t—if Kaeya was lucky, maybe he would continue to bask under its weight, let Kaeya come a bit closer. Let Kaeya finally reach out and touch that damned triangle of—
Calloused fingers snap in his face. “Captain,” Tartaglia says, a patronising smile in his voice. “If you think for any longer, the food's going to get cold.”
He’s still using that title, keeping up his formalities. Kaeya doesn’t quite understand why. While he might have originally thought they were cut from the same politicking cloth before, it had become quite clear that the Tartaglia in front of the Traveller lapped up their brutal honesty with glee, and rather detested his fellow Harbingers for being, in his words, ‘slimy schemers’. They both lived for the glory of the stage, the thrill of acting out the role of a mastermind in a play, but unlike Kaeya, Tartaglia seemed to prefer to keep those things behind the walls of an actual theatre.
Though if he’s being honest with himself, Kaeya quite likes how the title rolls off the Harbinger’s tongue.
“—tain. Captain? Hey, I know the Traveller said that you were the brains of this operation, but you have to get out of your head at some point.”
Tartaglia crouches down to meet his eyes, and it’s enough to jolt Kaeya out of any more stray thoughts around the man’s tongue, blinking them away. “And what were you meant to be,” he retorts dryly, “the brawn?”
“Obviously not—the Traveller’s the brawn. As for me...” Tartaglia frowns. It’s rather endearing. “I'm the chef.” He holds out the skewer to Kaeya again.
It’s rabbit, slightly charred. Tartaglia had convinced Paimon to hand over the mushrooms she had collected instead of hoarding them away in whichever pocket dimension that also held her stomach, and he had seared them too, sandwiching the meat between them. Kaeya considered himself a bit of a meat skewer connoisseur, if you will, but the stick in Tartaglia’s hand actually managed to smell halfway decent; which, considering their supplies and how deep they were in Fontaine’s wetlands, was a skill that must have been blessed upon Tartaglia alongside his Vision.
Kaeya takes it from Tartaglia’s hand. Tartaglia grins and moves to sit next to Kaeya by the fire, tearing into his own skewer.
Firelight refracts off his hair, setting orange strands alight. It looks soft to the touch.
The Traveller had been coaxed away by Paimon, who had claimed she had seen the blue wisp of a seelie—she really just wanted to distract the group from the fact that she had taken two people’s worth of skewers, but the Traveller and Tartaglia indulged her, and Kaeya hardly saw why he shouldn’t do the same.
But it meant that now he was alone with Tartaglia, and there is no one to distract him from the way his heart almost kicked into his throat at the sight of that smile.
“It's burnt,” Kaeya says, fully aware that it's childish. But he can’t say nothing, not when the silence Tartaglia found so comfortable would leave him alone with the harrowing realisation that Tartaglia was not only attractive, but Kaeya was attracted to him.
Tartaglia pouts at him.
“You’re a younger sibling, aren’t you,” Tartaglia says. “Always complaining.”
“No, I’m not, actually,” Kaeya lies. “And you would think that because...?”
“Because I have three younger siblings, and you act just like them when they want attention,” Tartaglia responds, dry. His bottom lip still glistens from the melted fat of the rabbit.
It takes only a few seconds for Kaeya to come to terms with his newfound attraction, and a few more to decide what he's going to do with it.
“Funny, I don’t see anyone around here who’s attention I would want.”
Tartaglia mimes an arrow to the heart. “And here I thought we were getting closer,” he bemoans. His eyes are still unreadable. It instils an unfamiliar dread.
Kaeya laughs, because that is the next appropriate step in this song and dance. What a contradiction. This man sat next to him, who so obviously hated the smoke and mirrors of politics, is harder to read than anyone of Kaeya's associates. “You want us to get closer, Lord Harbinger?” He purrs out the title. Tartaglia barely reacts.
See, Kaeya knows what he looks like. It’s not to say it’s his best asset or anything, but it has its time and places. Tartaglia doesn’t seem solely attracted to women, but—he also doesn’t seem interested, which feels vaguely insulting.
“Drop the title, please, comrade,” Tartaglia winces, polishing off the last of his skewer. “Only my subordinates call me that.”
“I hope you return the favour, then,” Kaeya demurs.
“Sure thing, Captain Kaeya.”
Kaeya snorts, and chucks the stick of his skewer into the fire, watching the flames crackle into black curls for a few moments. They sit in silence. It is only a tiny bit uncomfortable, more in how unfamiliar it is than any grievance Kaeya has with the company; the Traveller (and Paimon in turn) make great conversationalists, but as much as Tartaglia seemed to like chatter during the day, he was a man of few meaningful words.
And in the evening, when there was no need for phatic chit-chat, a man of few words at all.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Kaeya says, finally casting his stone and breaking the surface of silence. Tartaglia glances at him from out of the corner of his eye, gaze pulling away from the stars peeking out behind the broken canopy above them.
Longing, Kaeya can pick up, from the muted emotions that flicker across his face. A homesickness Kaeya no longer could understand.
It’s a sharp, cutting sort of weakness on the man in front of him. It’s also the first emotion Kaeya’s managed to gleam from him that Tartaglia did not want him to, and with it comes a sense of achievement, of smug, smug pride. Kaeya wonders if the stars in Snezhnaya looked anything like the ones in Fontaine, or the ones in Mondstadt.
How funny were the surface-dwellers to focus so much on the stars, when it was all fake anyway.
Tartaglia is silent for a moment, combing through their past conversations for the question Alberich—no, Kaeya, since the man wanted to shed decorum so badly—was talking about.
He wasn’t quite sure about the man, still. The affection the Traveller held for him wasn’t fake, though truthfully Tartaglia did not understand why; Kaeya made jokes at their expense more often than not, set them on wild goose chases just because he thought it would be funny. Granted, there was always some kind of reward or treasure to be found in the end that would wipe the start of their tribulations from the Traveller’s and little Paimon’s mind, but Tartaglia was not so quick to forgive, not so quick to forget.
But after a week in the man’s presence, Tartaglia grudgingly admits that comparing him to Signora was a bit too much. Kaeya was—one, far more bearable to be around, and two, actually funny. Don’t let it be said that Tartaglia couldn’t appreciate a good joke, even the ones at his comrades’ expense.
He still snickered at the memory of the Traveller and Paimon’s reactions to escargot, helpfully supplied to them by Kaeya when they looped back to the city. Renown and tasty dish it might have been, but without even a warning? And they called Tartaglia a sadist.
And Tartaglia sensed that he was far stronger than he liked to let on, even while pulling his weight when they came across a stray treasure hoarder or stumbled into a sleeping hilichurl camp. Not just because of the Vision glowing by his hip, though Tartaglia did itch to test himself against a cryo user again. There was a saunter in the way he carried himself that spoke of a wolf in sheep's clothing, one who liked to play dumb and weak until the perfect time to strike.
A viper, maybe? Or a peacock with its flashy distractions? Tartaglia shrugs internally; he’s never been the best at metaphors.
“What was your question?” He finally asks, after he racks his mind and comes up empty.
Kaeya pouts at him, his one visible eyebrow downturned like Tartaglia had just killed his dog. “I asked if you wanted us to be closer, Lord Tartaglia,” he answers, twisting around so that they are facing each other, Kaeya's knee nearly brushing against the outside of his thigh.
Tartaglia groans. He knows that he was the one who won’t let the joke die, but that doesn’t mean he enjoys it when it gets turned against him.
But the answer gets the gears in his head turning. He’s a man of many wants. To become the strongest. To conquer the world. And—obviously—to collect the fight he is owed from his dear friend the Traveller. Possibly more than just one before the Tsaritsa calls him back to Zapolyarny. But another want he’s noticed he began developing, as the days passed, was to find out whether the swordwork of the Cavalry Captain of the Knights of Favonius was only so effective on hilichurls.
The man still set Tartaglia’s teeth on edge. With how much Abyss he reeked, it was likely he always will, and the feeling is only compounded by the sensation he always gets that Kaeya can see far more of Tartaglia than he lets on, more than Tartaglia wants him to see.
But no matter. Even if Kaeya could read the homesickness on his face tonight, or myriad of other naked thoughts that flicker across his face, it's not like the man could do anything with them, and nor did he seem to want to.
It’s part of the reason why Tartaglia finds himself begrudgingly drawn to the knight. And what was a better way to be closer than to have a friendly spar with one another?
“I'm not opposed,” Tartaglia says, and misses the way Kaeya’s eye widens, briefly. “How about a spar?”
“A... spar?”
Tartaglia cocks his head. It is the first time he’s seen Kaeya look so wrong-footed.
“It is the perfect way to get to know someone,” Tartaglia explains, slowly. “Unless you don't want to?”
Kaeya stares at him. While amusing to see the conflict so clearly written across his face, Tartaglia doesn’t exactly know what there is to be conflicted about. After all, Kaeya had been the one to bring this topic up.
“...What's the harm,” Kaeya finally sighs. “Pick a time and place then.”
Tartaglia snorts. What’s the harm? If this goes well, there'll be plenty of that to go around.
Kaeya doesn’t know what he was expecting, but perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised every flirtatious signal he had emitted flew straight over a man who was also called the Vanguard, famed for being a living weapon. Not that Kaeya had any serious intention behind any of his signals, but still. An unfamiliar sensation to be rejected, and unfamiliar still that it is not from disinterest, but rather the other party's failure to even detect said interest in the first place.
And now they were scheduled for a spar. What even was his life.
But... he can’t say he’s complaining, not as they return to the city and Tartaglia doesn’t even bother to hide the spring in his step, so enthused for their little impending clash.
Strange, strange man. It’s a spar, and the winner won’t even gain anything.
Though that might be interesting, setting a wager. In the unlikely event Kaeya wins, there were many things he could ask of a Fatui Harbinger that Tartaglia might then be honour-bound to comply with. The man seemed like the type to care about his vows.
Many, many things...
“Don’t be dozing off now!” Tartaglia says. They’re in a clearing at the back of the inn the four of them have booked into, on their way back to the city in search for more clues regarding the Traveller’s possibly-non-existent seelie. It’s far out enough that no one should hear the sounds of their fight, and the Traveller had been made aware of their spar in advance.
Not that they really had a choice in the matter, with the way Tartaglia had proudly announced it over breakfast the next day, before whining at the Traveller to fight him as well.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Kaeya says, running the flat of his palm against the underside of his blade tenderly. He was more of a lover than a fighter in his own personal opinion, but as a knight he could see the appeal that came with a good duel between sword masters. “A bit unfair to bring a bow to a knife fight though, don’t you think?”
Tartaglia laughs, and unstraps the war bow he had been using for the extent of their travels, laying it down carefully by the edge of the clearing. Kaeya has seen him shoot a hilichurl through the eye and pin its innards against stone, infusing his bow with hydro with each shot. He could generate arrows as well, ones that kept their shape until you were skewered on them, before dissipating back into mist as if they were never there.
Range, power, and a logistical wet dream. It also comes to mind that Tartaglia must be very useful when the Cryo Archon wished to get rid of someone without a trace. After all, water was everywhere, let alone in the Nation of Hydro.
And a pain to counter, at least until Kaeya could get up close and personal. He had seen Tartaglia bludgeon opponents with his bow before, but his sword will still give him that edge—at least, that had been what he was planning, until the bow was discarded and Tartaglia approached him with the gait of a prowling cat, stretching out his arms above him.
“I would never,” Tartaglia says, sweet smile like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. But his eyes are assessing, and Kaeya flips his sword with an ornamental little twirl to hide his shock when a glimmering blade of hydro coalesces under Tartaglia’s hand. He lets out an appreciative coo as he mirrors Kaeya, caressing the body of his new weapon. “You deserve better than that, Captain.”
“I thought we agreed to drop the formalities,” Kaeya says helplessly, his eyes flickering away from—everything; the beautiful curve of the one handed sword in Tartaglia’s hand, a mimicry of Kaeya’s own Favonius issued blade, the rare shine in Tartaglia’s eyes as he sizes Kaeya up, the flush high on his cheeks from excitement more fit for the bedroom.
Tartaglia hums. “That we did. Excuse my memory, some things you might just have to beat into me.”
And then he lunges.
Kaeya doesn’t know why he had thought this would be a “little clash”, in hindsight. A mere possibility of a spar had Tartaglia lighting up with genuine emotion after weeks of Kaeya's subtle needling drew barely a false smile. Any fool would have known that this would be no ordinary fight.
Kaeya blocks with the back of his sword, and twists when Tartaglia’s blade hits the guard with a foreign, muted noise of constrained water against Mondstadt steel. The level of control it must take, to maintain the shape of a weapon with an element that rejected all forms of solidity; Kaeya had few doubts before, of the accuracy of all the rumours surrounding the Vanguard, but the remaining are blown away before the rest of his thoughts follow and instinct takes over as he dodges the follow up blow to his head.
“That could have—” Kaeya steps forward with a stab of his sword where Tartaglia’s guard had dropped—people often dropped their guards in the middle of someone else's words “—been dangerous,” Kaeya grunts when Tartaglia parries, avoiding the low sweep of his leg with a hop back.
Hardly appropriate for a sword fight, though with how Tartaglia's eyes had lit up at Kaeya’s counterattack, it seemed he held far less reservations for fighting dirty physically than he did for its political counterpart.
Tartaglia looks confused, even as he deals a series of slashes that have Kaeya reeling. He fights like an old memory, one before the knights and shrouded in abyssal darkness. He fights like no one Kaeya’s ever fought, no one Kaeya’s ever seen, not even in those shadowy memories before he first learnt how to handle a blade.
“Why? You would have dodged.”
Fuck, he’s crazy.
He fights like he breathes it every day, the blade an extension of his body—with how its constructed from his own hydro, it might as well be. But Kaeya is not a Captain for nothing. At the very least, he can hold his own—his pride won’t allow any less.
They exchange a few more blows that rattle up Kaeya’s arms before he falls back. Tartaglia does the same, and they circle each other slowly, coming to similar conclusions. Evenly matched; it was a wonder then, why Tartaglia bothered to use a bow when he was so much more comfortable with a blade.
Then Tartaglia smiles. And if Kaeya hadn’t already understood that the man had a few screws loose before, that smile would have been the final nail. It said something about Kaeya probably, that it was still kind of attractive.
“You’re good,” Tartaglia says. “Why don’t we up the ante a bit?”
Kaeya thought the ante was very much already ‘upped’, but he wasn't about to say so out loud. “Why? Scared you might lose?”
A laugh. And then the sword loses its shape, elongating into a swallow, its twin forming in Tartaglia's right hand. “You’re quite confident for someone already out of breath,” Tartaglia mocks.
He wasn’t even a swordsman. He wasn’t even a swordsman.
No wonder they called him a weapon of war—Kaeya could create a workable sword, one that wouldn’t fracture into a thousand little shards of ice at first impact, but only because of his familiarity with the weapon itself. For Tartaglia to so easily transition between blades, ones Kaeya already senses are just as solid as its predecessors... how much has he been holding out on them?
“Says the man who needs two blades instead of one. Compensating for something?”
Tartaglia laughs. “I can make it as big or as small as you want, darling,” he says as he steps closer, and Kaeya barely has time to burn at the innuendo before he’s sucked back in the flow of the fight—block, redirect, strike! Now, again, before he can get his guard up, fuck, no, dodge dodge dodge—
He can hear his blood singing in his ears. He’s bleeding as well, probably, but it makes him grin more than anything. Sparring with the knights was a controlled affair, and Diluc barely liked to indulge him while dear Sister Rosaria was far too lazy in the day. But sometimes Kaeya understood and even craved the allure of bloodshed, a bit of a tussle that got the heart pumping with some healthy fear of, if not death, bodily injury.
He pushes forward, goes for a gap in Tartaglia’s guard he instinctively knows is a trap but must set off anyway, tip of the blade almost at Tartaglia’s chest and ready to pull back at the last moment—
When a blur of hydro blue flashes in front of his Vision, and Kaeya leaps back, narrowly dodging the spear head where his nose had been a second before. He doesn’t come out unscathed—there’s a scratch on his cheek that hasn’t opened up quite yet, like Kaeya’s very own skin can’t believe it’s been cut, and...
He slams his right eye shut. His left eye watches as his eyepatch floats down in the air before Tartaglia’s hand lashes out to catch it, holding it up between his fingers with a curious expression on his face, a glistening spear of hydro in his other hand. Red dyes the tip of it, Kaeya’s blood swirling within the blade. “You have a perfectly good eye under there, don’t you, Captain? Why hide it?”
Kaeya ignores his question. “Is that how you want to play, Tartaglia?” He says. He had thought that they would refrain from using their Vision beyond Tartaglia’s need for a weapon, but if the Harbinger was to be the one who would throw that unspoken rule out of the window, Kaeya would hardly complain.
After all, everyone knew the advantage cryo had over hydro.
Tartaglia was always right about these kind of things. He knew the Cavalry Captain was hiding something, knew he was underplaying his own abilities, even while they were sparring, and that wouldn’t do. The question was how to coax the man out of his shell.
Cutting the eyepatch hadn’t done much, though Tartaglia had guessed otherwise with how much Kaeya seemed to hate being seen without it. It was only an Abyssal eye, black bleeding gold, and with how much the guy stunk of it, it’s not like masking it with a flimsy bit of cloth would make a difference.
In the end it took Tartaglia’s switch to his spears before he finally got what he wanted. Oh, a fight against a strong opponent’s fullest potential was truly one of the best things life had to offer, especially against such a skilled Vision user.
He weaves around blasts of ice, lets the weapons he forms get wilder, more unpredictable—axe, scythe, briefly a claymore and then back to a one-handed sword. Briefly, Tartaglia considers if it would be worth flooding the immediate area with his narwhal just to see Kaeya’s reaction, when—
—his precious swallows are blocked by Kaeya's blade. Kaeya doesn’t immediately parry, only watches him with a smirk, pressing down on his grip and stepping closer to Tartaglia as Tartaglia frowns, confused at this lull in battle—
Only for him to glance down at the state of his swallows and curse in Snezhnayan roughly, jumping back at letting them go before Kaeya’s cryo can creep up to the guard and encase his hands in them.
Brilliant. The power it takes, to override another Vision user’s construct—many in Snezhnaya had tried, and many had failed, and you’re telling Tartaglia that a mere Captain of the Knights of Favonius, of a peaceful, freedom-loving, weak nation could do so without breaking a sweat?
Tartaglia feels his cheeks ache with how wide he grins.
Oh, he could kiss him.
It becomes apparent that Kaeya overestimated himself and that Tartaglia was merely toying with him, like a cat with a particularly ferocious mouse.
He attempts to freeze Tartaglia’s feet to the ground in a last ditch grab at victory, only to get his own feet swept out from under him with the body of Tartaglia’s spear. It disappears almost immediately, replaced with the knives Kaeya had long since realised are Tartaglia’s preferred weapons (the bow had not even made an appearance once the entire fight, which begs the question of why Tartaglia used it so religiously before this in the first place) held to his throat.
Kaeya freezes. Tartaglia sits atop of his stomach, effectively pinning him down. It brings Kaeya no small measure of pride to see his chest heave, and his eyes trail down the man’s neck, following the droplets of sweat that bead and pool against his collarbones.
His eyes flicker even when he’s shadowed by the sun. For a brief, breathless moment, Kaeya’s not sure if the blade under his throat will pierce his throat, if the hand Tartaglia has pressed innocuously against the front of his stomach will curl around a hydro knife and gut him like a fish—but then the blade wobbles before splashing over his face.
Before Kaeya can even splutter out his complaints against the water—his clothes are soaked, and don't even get him started on his fringe—Tartaglia’s got two fingers under the glistening golden clasps of his collar, yanking him half way off the ground and—
Oh. His mouth slots over Kaeya’s, and he kisses like he fights.
Kaeya’s hands, frozen by his sides, sneak up to settle against Tartaglia’s sides. His left brushes against that damned patch of skin, before sliding under the opening of Tartaglia's shirt—hey, he’s an opportunist—gripping at the man’s waist and nudging him back so that Kaeya can finally sit and press up against Tartaglia’s open mouth. He smooths a hand over the fabric of Tartaglia’s grey pants, and his hand falls away from groping at Tartaglia’s stomach to guide his legs down over Kaeya’s thighs.
Like this, he’s splayed over Kaeya’s lap. Like this, he must be able to feel Kaeya’s hard crotch against his own, and he breaks away, panting like a dog and looking down with a confused furrow of his brow.
That would hardly do. “Tartaglia, darling,” Kaeya coaxes, guiding the hands that are still on his stomach and against his collar to go up around his shoulders. “How do you want me?”
Tartaglia blinks at him, and Kaeya waits, hands stroking at his thighs and hip comfortingly. Slowly, steadily, some of that battle shine fades away. It’s a shame—Kaeya rather liked seeing him so lively. Still, he stays quiet, patient.
“Mmm, just don’t hold back,” Tartaglia says, after a thoughtful pause. “I hate it when my opponents hold back.”
Okay. Maybe not all of that battle lust has siphoned out of his system, but Tartaglia was also grinding against him with increasingly frantic movements, and Kaeya was only so good of a man.
And he had a suspicion. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together, not with how alive Tartaglia looked while they were sparring—so much more so than when they had cleared out a few hilichurls or dealt with a few treasure hoarders—and not with the lack of any interest Tartaglia seemed to have up until a few moments ago. It’s strange that, for once, it’s not Kaeya's looks or smooth words that have charmed someone, and instead his swordsmanship, but he takes it as the compliment he knows Tartaglia surely means. The thought that fighting Kaeya had Tartaglia like this sets something in is stomach to burn, low and heady.
Don’t hold back. Kaeya’s hands creep up back to his hips, and they tighten there roughly, enough so that Kaeya knows it would ache. He holds Tartaglia still even as the man tests his grasp, squirming, and after a beat Tartaglia just groans in his ear, head falling forward until their foreheads are pressed against each other, each panting breath falling hot on Kaeya’s lips.
“You’re a battle maniac, aren’t you,” Kaeya murmurs. "What does it say about me to know so many of you?"
“Oh?”
“My brother, for one.” Rosaria. That up-and-coming deputy. Was there something about him that attracted these kinds of characters?
“Hah!” Tartaglia laughs in his face. “I knew you were a younger sibling.” A hand withdraws from around his neck, and the next thing he knows, a calloused thumb is pressing against the cut on Kaeya’s cheek, smearing at the flakes of dried blood. “You have my attention now, Captain,” Tartaglia says, smug and teasing, as his fingers flutter over Kaeya’s jaw in torturous little brushes.
How Kaeya wanted to wipe such a smug look off that handsome face. “‘Kaeya’,” he says instead, before leaning up to kiss him again.
They come up for air a few moments later. Tartaglia blinks, dazed.
“What was that?”
“‘Kaeya’,” Kaeya repeats. “You still haven’t dropped your formalities.” Perhaps if it was someone else, anyone else, Kaeya would have preferred to have them call him any one of his titles, beg him with ‘Sir’ on their lips. But with Tartaglia...to let him continue doing so felt like operating at a loss, and Kaeya could only take so many losses in a day.
Tartaglia smirks down at him, lazy and seemingly content to play with the length of Kaeya’s hair. “And I told you that you had to beat it out of me,” he says. “Which you didn't, if I have to remind you.” He laughs, slightly, at the end of his words, like he didn't believe Kaeya had a chance in the first place. Which, fair. But...
Kaeya fists a hand in rust coloured hair, relishes in the hiss it garners, the way Tartaglia shudders and melts, almost unnoticeably, into his lap. He tugs Tartaglia’s hair until his ear is by Kaeya's mouth, so close that if he opened them his lips would brush against the shell. “...And if I fuck it out of you instead?”
"I'd like to see you try, Captain."
He doesn’t know what expression ripples across his face before he can clamp it down, but from the way Tartaglia’s eyes light up, it must be something base, so animal that it stokes this crazy man’s bloodlust the same way an actual fight did—and Kaeya can’t get enough of it, the way Tartaglia can barely tear his eyes away from Kaeya; the way his hands clench at his shoulders before sweeping down his back, the rungs of his spine, at his ass; the way he smiles—like Kaeya’s a pet dog he’s expecting to have to reprimand after it bites.
Kaeya has never lived up to anyone’s expectations of him but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t try. He nips lightly at the ear right in front of him first, laughs when Tartaglia stiffens, before moving his way down—nibbling at the reddening skin by his jaw, the long line of his neck, and then coaxing his shirt collar away to bite at his shoulder, right by the junction of his throat and collar bone.
“Well, I live to serve.”