Chapter Text
The Traveler had lost track of time in between the laughter and the drinks Venti kept slipping to him. At one point, an exquisite young woman had come up. A body that looked sculpted by master hands, and a face to match; but her beauty didn’t compensate for the fact that she seemed uncomfortable taking up room, uncomfortable existing in general. But seeing Amber transformed her, a smile upon her lovely continence and her strange diction relaxing into hushed tones of endearment.
Amber had teased him earlier for not making a move on her in the past, but judging by the way the blue haired young woman brushed back a strand of hair from her face, and the way Amber gave her thigh a teasing pinch in return, he felt confident that she didn’t much mind either way.
They eventually drifted away after a dance or three, the last ending with the blue haired woman upon a table, a crowd cheering her on as Amber playfully tossed coins at her feet. After that… after that… Amber’s hand upon his shoulder, words that had slipped from his ear just as soon as they’d been spoken, then they were gone. He was left with the bard, who had been steadily supplying him drinks, and the man across the table. He couldn’t decide if the man was trying to make love with him with just his eyes, or peeling back his clothes, skin, sinew, bone. Laying bare the only thing the Traveler had but others couldn’t take. Regardless, he found it hard to look at Kaeya once Amber was no longer there to temper him.
“Another!” Venti cries in flushed euphoria, an arm clasped about the blonde's shoulders. He had wondered why no one seemed to make a comment on how much and how quickly he kept downing his drinks, as half of them were being discreetly passed to his bench companion. But the barkeep kept supplying and he noticed a few jovial shaking heads, so he felt it safe to assume this was Venti’s usual state. Taking a sip of his drink, he closes his eyes and lets the buzz and warmth of it filter down through him. This was a good tavern; they didn’t start giving them swill after the fifth round of drinks as some were ought to do when the patrons became too drunk to tell the difference in a drop in quality. Money was money, and drunk money flowed faster than most. Kaeya seemed to be holding up well, though he had notably only had two glasses as opposed to the fifteen shared between he and Venti. As if summoned by his idle thoughts, Kaeya leans forward and the Traveler has to quickly avert his eyes from the temptation of bountiful flesh that his low-cut blouse offered. (Low-cut)
“So tell me, dear Outlander, now that our darling Amber has retired for fairer company… are you fucking her?”
The wine that he chokes and sputters on burns his nose, giving him far more of an experience than he had wanted. “I–I’m SORRY? Has someone been s-spreading rumors? I… she has been in my room before yes, but, I–“
“Kaeyaaaaa, don’t be mean!” Venti interjects with a baleful pout. He leans into the Traveler so his head is nestled into the soft dip of Venti’s waist with the way the bard is half standing upon the bench. “I like him! Don’t do your bully thing!”
Bully thing…?
Kaeya laughs and the Traveler hates how it shivers through him. The space between his thighs aches and he curses himself for falling into juvenile temptation the past weeks, pleasuring himself at the hints of a laugh this man left behind.
“Sorry, sorry, I simply had to ask to see if our dear Outlander here has been enjoying himself on some of Mondstat’s finest.” A slow sip of his wine, a look away, and then back. “But perhaps… you prefer a rougher touch?” Kaeya raises a brow and glances across the tavern, and the Traveler, trapped as he was between the buzz of wine and the intoxicating company of the two men, was helpless not to comply. He looks over, to where Diluc is bent down, lifting a new barrel of mead with ease. Even at this distance, the finely curated muscles of his back, his arms, pulse, contract, and…
The Traveler shakes his head and looks into his cup. The swirling depths of the blush red wine beckon him deeper. It’s an early summer special, a wine pressed not from grapes, but early strawberries, a tartness lingering amidst the notes of cherry, honey, and the grassy sweetness he’s come to recognize as unprocessed sweet flower. Obsessively light upon the tongue and a flavor that made knocking back one, two, five, easier and easier as the night went on.
He doesn’t speak, though he can feel Kaeya’s smirk upon his skin and the ghost of a touch as he reaches across and runs a single finger down the Traveler’s arm. Involuntarily, he lets Kaeya turn his hand over, laying upon the table. He traces a finger over the smaller male’s warm palm, like frost skittering over a sun-warmed meadow. The blonde can’t help the sound that leaves his throat as Kaeya continues on, his dark-hued fingers pressing firm and insistent into his palm, rubbing, stroking. No more than a touch, skin to skin, his gloves off and tucked against his hip. He regrets slipping them off at this moment, the sensuality of raw touch going straight between his legs.
He looks up at Kaeya as he lessens the pressure and retreats to stroking along the calloused edges of his middle finger.
“I’ve heard a rumor…that you’ve been searching up some of the forbidden books in the library, hm?” Kaeya’s voice is soft, the edge of perpetual ice gone, his gaze consuming the Traveler.
Trapped between his thighs, tightly clasped, the Traveler’s cock twitches at Kaeya’s tone, but it’s too late. The chill of a threat has already dripped down his spine and chases the hot flush of arousal into submission. He starts to pull his hand away, the game clear to him now. An innocent, flirtatious question, the innuendo that the forbidden nature of the books has everything to do with erotic subject matter. But Lisa would never bar him from such subject matter. She would, however, try to put as many innocent and offhand obstacles in his path as she could when he started asking about an incident happening about 500 years ago. An incident he could put no name to or explain why he knew something had happened, his details going no further than that.
Apparently, he hadn’t been as alone as he thought he had been on the few scarce nights he’d tried to sneak in and riffle through some of Lisa’s locked cabinets.
And here, struggling through the wine fogging his mind, was the cavalry captain’s game. Get him drunk, and (mostly) alone. Start with a bold question, one that would set him on edge, an insult and an advance in the same breath. The comfortable flirtation of teasing came next, and with the Traveler giving no offense to the previous question, the beginnings of an advance, the promise of temptation, the testing of waters. And finally, once he knew he had the Traveler tied up, a golden bird willingly hopped into the cage, the actual question that had probably been burning within him the whole night. But as drunk as the Traveler was, he was not nearly drunk enough not to recognize another player within the game. For that was what he was as well. This land and its people a board laid out before him, and him, navigating and using what cards he was dealt to get closer, closer to-
To something that didn’t even exist, if he went off the information he’d managed to glean from the only cabinet he’d opened, even after three nights of attempts.
Several things happened at once then.
Kaeya’s eye narrows just as the Traveler starts to pull his hand away, but in a rare stroke of fortune the blonde was sure he was undeserving of, a figure slides up besides Kaeya and brushes a hand over the captain’s shoulder. He pulls away of his own volition then, though his gaze lingers upon the Outlander before him. The hand belongs to a figure who feels like an inky smudge upon everything he had come to recognize as Mondstat itself.
Mondstaters had a tendency to run pale, but they were generally rosy-cheeked, freckle-kissed, sun-toasted. This woman looked as if the sun had not graced her visage in many a year. Sharp, sharper than Kaeya, but while he was glacial chip and splinter, she was ragged thorn, broken glass edges. Beautiful, but terribly so.
But for Kaeya, she smiles, a joke only she knew the punchline to, all the rest of the world here for her amusement. “Bastard! You’ve started without me. And here, I thought we were drinking buddies, I didn’t know you’d downgraded me to just a friend.”
Delight rambles across Kaeya’s face as he turns to her and holds out a glass, the Traveler relaxing some, thankful for the attention to be off himself for a moment.
“Awuh, Rosaria, give him a little leeway! Diluc busted out the summer special from last year for tonight, how could he resist?” Venti burbles, still balanced half seated, half standing, his hip bumping the Traveler with every swing of his arms.
Rosaria, a name as fitting as the dour veil upon her head, laughs. The crackle of softness is there when she looks from Venti to Kaeya again, smacking the taller man in the arm. It’s gone just as quick as she glances to the final figure at the table, but a deferential smile held up just for him.
“Rosaria, this is the Outlander! The Traveler from afar! Isn’t he the sweetest thing you’ve seen in ages?” Venti laughs and pulls the Traveler into a half hug, his vision momentarily obscured by the swing of Venti’s cape. If he hadn't been obscured as he was, maybe he would have taken note of the quick look passed between Kaeya and Rosaria, maybe he would’ve felt a prickle of worry upon his skin. But things don’t always happen the way they should, so when Venti pulls away, Rosaria and Kaeya are giving them both a bemused look.
“Mmm, almost as sweet as my little sunshine,” Rosaria snorts, her arms crossing over her chest. The Traveler flicks a glance across her arms and isn’t the least bit surprised to note the casual lithe muscle, the nearly hidden scars across her skin. They speak of something far beyond the life of a nun from a nation whose main issues resolved more around wine production than they did security. However, the Traveler had begun to have his doubts about this place and its idyllic promises. Nothing this good came without a price.
“Oh, how is she? I do so miss playing with her! But Diluc pays in wine, while the sisters pay in prayer, and I promise you, if I’m going to see a woman on her knees, it won’t be to talk about Barbados!” Kaeya dissolves into laughter alongside Venti, Rosaria giving a soft chuckle and a kind look towards the Traveler.
“You’ll have to excuse us, friend.” The word friend falls from her lips too soft, too practiced. “You’re in good company here, but Kaeya has neglected to mention his prior engagement for tonight, so you’ll have to see us off.” Her hand, which the Traveler just now notices has stayed on Kaeya’s shoulder, slides up and around to the nape of the mans neck. Kaeya looks up towards her, then back towards the remaining two. His eye settles on the Traveler. “It has been an utter pleasure finally putting face to reputation, and I hope I get the chance to commit much more of you to memory in the very near future.” Kaeya grabs his hand while the Traveler flushes, too much wine on his tongue for him to form a response in time.
Lips, warmer than the words they speak, brush across the top of his hand. Quick, and nearly unnoticeable, the trace of a tongue on his skin, and the Traveler is throbbing. He closes his eyes, and once he opens them, the pair is gone and across the tavern. Another moment, Rosaria’s hand falling down to Kaeya’s lower back, and they are obscured by the crowd still cheering on the bard upon the front table.
“…another!” Venti’s laughter rings out, and the Traveler sucks in a shaking breath.
It’s five rounds later, and the Traveler has been dragged into two drinking circles of which he didn’t know the words to, but he certainly drank to when prompted. Venti seemed to know every word and sang with gusto, even when larger men were slurring and keeling over from drink. The Traveler had long since lost sight of his companions and had not gotten even a whiff of Jean the whole night. Diluc remained ever present, but Venti kept them both constantly skirting away from him, especially when the Traveler started to stumble, knocking drinks over and garnering a few wandering gropes as the two of them swirled past.
He was feeling soft and fuzzy around the edges, most of the tavern a comforting blur as he grasps Venti’s hands and lets himself be coaxed upon the table. A warning tingle as he spots a slash of red across the tavern, but now, everyone has eyes on him. Venti has climbed beside and a lyre has found itself into the slight man’s hands. He’s looking at the Traveler and his lips are moving but no words are coming out. Just… music. Sound that swells within him and then he’s dancing, his body twisting fevered, memories he didn’t remember having pulling him into poses unfamiliar. The music pushes him on and on and on and then- Then! Diluc’s voice, hot press of anger upon his ears, but it tingles through him, even as Diluc stands there and shakes his head at the Traveler and Venti, collapsing into each other with laughter. The door! The door, and then it’s-
Quiet.
The Traveler stops, Venti’s hand still in his, and looks up. The sky yawns above, the moon wrapped in a lover's embrace of clouds, tender consolation.
“You’re not from here.”
His voice is so quiet, the Traveler mistakes it for the breeze tickling a strand of his hair loose. He blinks and looks to Venti with his strange golden eyes, and Venti smiles as he moves closer, a hand pressing to the bare skin of his stomach. Clarity battles with the haze of drink in Venti’s gaze as he looks him over. “I know them all, you know. All of my children. I-…nh…” His teeth scrape across his lower lip and the Traveler can’t look away as Venti presses a hand to his forehead, sweeping his bangs back and hat off as he sucks in a steadying breath. “Hehe, you don’t belong here. Not at all! But-“
The Traveler blinks, slow and heavy, everything feels like warm honey right now, and Venti’s mouth is pressed over his. Something in the back of his brain cries out and his hands push against the smaller male, but the bard hold him tight. An archer’s hands: lean with muscle and bone. Small, but strong. Gentle and bruising. He tastes like blood and regret and a clear gulp of moonlit water. Summer wine, a breath of fresh air. The panic is screaming now, an underlying tingle slipping into him from the kiss, a thread winding and questioning, invasive. It tastes of something deeper and far, far older than a young bard with a drinking problem should be. It tastes…familiar.
He pushes again, but betrays himself just as quickly. The pounding of his heart, a warning, a threat, is loud; but the throb of his body is louder. Still, he stumbles back once Venti releases him, the petite expanse of his chest heaving. He doesn’t look at him as he suddenly pushes off the wall and away, terrified of himself, of this thing that is hiding in skin before him, of how terrified he is and how terrified that he doesn’t care. The Traveler finds his feet long enough to stumble away from the back of the Angel’s Share, his eyes scouring for someone, anyone to use as an out. But as he fumbles over grass already dew-kissed and behind buildings with closed-eye windows, there’s no one. So he sinks to his knees and listens to the slight footsteps that move up behind him.
“You taste like sunshine,” his companion laughs. “Pure, unfiltered.”
The Traveler struggles to his feet and it doesn’t take much, the press of a hand to his hip, and he’s backed himself against one of the buildings.
“You should be careful. lesser men are going to get a taste of you and never come back up again.” The bard laughs, and the Traveler feels his mouth close over his again. He’s too drunk, he can barely stand, can hardly talk, but as Venti’s hand slides up, towards the ache between his thighs, he parts them.
It’s easier after that, the cold brick at his back as he lets the other man devour his lips, his mouth, his tongue hot and quick into the smaller blonde’s mouth. Not much smaller, but small enough that Venti can steady him. The taller male fucks his tongue into his mouth, and the Traveler wraps his arms around him, shaking hands clutching at his back. He’s scared, and he’s hard, and he eagerly lets Venti hook his thigh up and around his slim waist. The bard's hand, which had only been teasing and cupping at the bulge there, now moves to firmly grasp his waist. He pulls them both taut, and in unison they gasp into the other's mouth.
The Traveler shoves back first, whimpering at the friction between them.
“Hehe, look at you!” the bard's voice murmurs, lips sliding across his freckled cheek. “You can say no… you should say no.”
But he doesn’t, his whimperings turning to full fledged moans as he ruts against the other man. Hot and slick within his pants, he can feel the tip of himself soaking through. The night has been too much; the past few weeks have been too much. He’s shaking as Venti moves a hand to push up his shirt, his nipples immediately hard and begging for attention in the kiss of cold night air. Of course, Venti complies, twisting one deftly, cruelly, giggling as the blonde male flinches at first, then presses into the touch.
“They told me you were such a good boy, so pious and pure. They want you to join the church… but how can a body like this be allowed in?” The words swim in his head, not quite making sense, overwrought as he is.
So he lets the wine, still sharp on his tongue, and the firm insistence of Venti’s hands guide him. The Traveler kisses him, tentatively pressing his lips over the other’s teeth, but is quickly pushed back. Venti’s tongue is hot and quick, stroking and shoving him back until he can feel his knees buckling. So Venti pushes against him again, a hand between them both peeling away layers of fabric. His eyes flutter, his head swells, the sensation of his arousal released from its confines shocks him back. Sniffling, he looks down, to where it’s pressed against the straining bulge in the bard’s shorts.
“I know you’re not here to do what she did,” Venti says softly, but the words don’t catch, the Traveler just whines and turns his face away as the other man bucks forward. He can feel him like this, hot and big, bigger than so small a frame should be.
“Mmmm… why?” he says, his mind still caught on why he was here, why Venti had such seemingly disproportionate anatomy, and nothing to do with the words still hanging fresh in their ears. Venti laughs and rubs over his nipples again. The smaller blonde arches, precum dripping from the tip of him as his open mouth pants, hot clouds of breath trapped there.
“Because you don’t taste like she did,” Venti murmurs, his mouth closing over the Traveler’s once more, claiming it again and again until the Traveler is clawing at him, fingers clutching at his sleeves. He’s wet and throbbing, shaking from the simple slide and grind of the other male’s hips against his. It’s too much, and hiccuping and gasping for breath, he tries to squirm away.
“Where are you going like this?” Venti laughs, his own breath clouding up. “If you want something, say it.”
The Traveler shakes his head, his mouth babbling incoherence in between moaning whines. A swift buck of Venti’s hips, and it doesn’t matter, he’s done, his thighs shaking as he pumps out cum across the both of them, his voice crying out so loud Venti slaps a hand over his mouth to stifle it.
“Shhh! There’s good people sleeping here, you don’t want to wake them up, have them see you a mess like this, hm? Dear, dear Outlander…”
The voice whispered in his ear only makes him shake more, a final bead of cum beading up at his tip before his shoulders slump.
“S-sorry, I’m sorry…I didn’t. On you? I just…we just…met, I’m sorry?”
“Hm, embarrassed? You really are so…” Venti sighs and cups the Traveler’s face, their eyes meeting as he pours over every detail of the blonde’s face. It’s like looking off a cliff in that moment, the Traveler’s head swirls, endless depth in those green, green eyes. He turns away with a whimper and rolls his body away from the bard and along the wall. There’s a gap there, a space between the two slumbering buildings, beyond which is the main street. Far enough away that he can barely hear the continued din from the taverns there, but close enough that he could see figures moving past.
A hand sliding along his lower back makes him gasp and regain focus. He tries to turn, but Venti places a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Shhh, you don’t have to look if you’re embarrassed, little sunshine. Just look ahead, look at all the people who…”
Deft fingers slide the waist of his pants down and off, his undergarments next, both bunched down around his ankles now. A noise of complaint trembles in his throat, but the hand at his shoulder is insistent, as is the aching throb reawakened between his legs.
“N-no, I- They’re going to see!” He hisses, his knees shaking as he clenches them together.
“Only if you make noise! Best be quiet there, songbird.” Venti hums to himself as he slides two fingers into him, and then it doesn’t matter anymore. His vision blurs, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. The fingers inside him are slender and calloused in a way that has him sinking to his knees, they curl, and the Traveler is nearly undone all over again. But the bard doesn’t stop there, coaxing, stretching, pulling more sweet notes from him. He is but an instrument under the other man’s fingers, helpless and obedient under his expert ministrations.
A burst of sudden laughter from further down the alley makes him freeze, clenching around the digits still curling him open.
“I’m gunna take a piss, hol’ on.”
“Aw, not right here! If KoF sees you-“
“Shuddup and they won’t!”
A rasp of laughter and a man comes into view, blocking the light that had previously been filtering through the alleyway. The Traveler slaps a hand over his mouth, his addled brain too far gone to realize he could move, he could twist away, not be in full view of searching eyes and ears. Instead, his legs buckle and he sinks down to his knees, Venti’s voice now quiet behind him.
“Oooh, naughty! I’m going to make sure their ale spills over later,” he giggles, and the Traveler feels the hot touch of…
“No,” he cries out suddenly, the man at the end of the alley briefly looking up at the noise, the soft sound of his piss hitting the cobblestones briefly pausing.
“Wassat?”
“What’s what? Shut up and finish, the girl with the sweet tits is almost off shift, I want to try and see if I can catch her.”
“Oh fuck off, as if she’d ev-“
Their words amble into white noise as he ducks his head down. It’s big, too big, whatever Venti is currently rubbing across the sweet cleft of his ass, upturned and quivering as it is. The head of it teases at his hole and he jerks away, whimpering.
“You’re g-going to…k…kill me! I’ll die! Please!
“I know what you are,” he chuckled. “And I know you’re not going to die~” Hands grip him about the waist as the head of Venti’s cock nudges at his already stretched entrance, puckering and begging despite the fear coming hot and fast in the Traveler’s veins.
“I will, I’m going to, g-going to-!” A slow press, and his hand can’t stifle the sound that seeps out of him. Slowly, slowly, he’s stretched open, forced open by Venti’s manhood. One inch, and he pauses, just the head of it in the Traveler as he shakes and pants. Quickly, he jerks his head up to blink at the mouth of the alley, but they’re gone. Gone, alone again. He lets out a slow breath that’s just as quickly sucked back in as his hips twitch back of their own violation, the simple movement of it making his eyes flutter with a wash of pleasure.
“Awuh, are we missing our audience? Hmmm, don’t worry, I’m sure we can have you making enough noise for an encore!” And then his hands gripped the Traveler’s sides, the unexpected softness there giving under Venti’s grip as his hips slammed forward.
He was right, the Traveler did make a noise, and it was loud enough for a few passing heads from across the street to turn in question. But he couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t- Breath rough and rasping, his arms shook, knuckles curled against the filthy ground, his eyes barely registering the stream of pearly white that had rocketed out of him so forcibly, he had forgotten how to breathe.
“Oooh, look at you,” Venti whispered, his grip loosening to rub over the smaller males back, eyes watching the mouth of the alleyway. Protective in a way the Traveler wouldn’t see, but the city itself recognized. “You needed this, hm? Well, don’t ever say I’m not a giving god.” Gingerly, he pulled back, the mass of his cock making the Traveler groan, his hips pulled back in the movement before he regains himself enough to pull forward. Venti doesn’t have to pull fully out to have him dripping and whining on his cock, so he doesn’t, a slow and gentle rhythm as his fingers twist around the Traveler’s hair. His braid looks touched by silver in the moonlight, liquid gold sliding through his fingers. The owner of said braid whimpers quietly into gasps, mostly spoken to the ground as he rides along the bards rhythm, hips in tandem, his heart pounding in his ears.
“…a god?”
“Oh, shhh. Don’t worry about that, okay?”
“O…okay.”
“Mhm, you won’t remember most of this, but that’s okay.”
A sigh, and Venti falls across him, a kiss pressed to the shell of his ear.
“Goodness, you’re sweet. You take me so well… you can feel it, can’t you?”
He can. And as Venti pulls back again and gives a more firm thrust, pulling back until just the tip of him is holding his place, the Traveler can’t take it. Tension holds his body taut, wanting, desire overflowing in him, fed by the wine thrumming warm and languid within him.
“Please!” The sob of it comes out louder than he expected, a figure breaking off from the crowd meandering down the street, towards a tavern. They stop and peek into the alley to investigate the sound, just in case. During more festive times or nights like these, unexpected and boisterous, such sounds were not unheard of within the city, especially in dark and private alleys like they were. Still, just in case, they took a step into the alley, their gods eyes watching their every move.
“In…inside….” The Traveler drops his head, shame burning him up from the inside out.
“I thought you’d never ask~”
The next thrust rocks him to his core, a hand fisting in his braid and lifting his head so his golden eyes can fix on the figure still peering in, trying to discern the combined bodies through the gloom of night. His eyes widen and he slaps a hand over his mouth. Again, and it feels like his stomach starts to bulge from the full bulk of the shaft impaling him, but that’s impossible. Impossible in the same way he cums before the third thrust even slams into him, every part of him shuddering as the puddle between his legs grows that much larger. A melodic gasp behind him and arms wrap around his chest. He’s bent back, perked nipples and shameless erection bared and begging for eyes upon them as Venti spills moans against his neck. He spills something else within him at the moment as well, burst after burst of cum until the Traveler can feel it seeping back through the tight seal of his ass, clamped as it is around the cock impaling him.
The figure at the mouth of the alley laughs and steps forward, and the Travelers vision swims, blurring colors and sensations seeming to rearrange the sound into something more familiar. A breath of winters air, and he cums again.
His head falls back and his body slumps, eyes fluttering as he manages one final act of sliding his hand up to entwine with the fingers still holding him securely about the chest.
“Ah, look at you. I went too far, huh?”
His eyes close, and the world falls dark.