Work Text:
Do you know where friendship ends and passion does begin?
It's between the binding of her stockings and her skin.
(Stockings, Suzanne Vega)
Albedo is not sure when exactly he realised it.
Perhaps it was the time he stepped into the kitchen in thigh high tights – comfortable, convenient to wear, and easily more accommodating for the hot weather – and Kaeya stared at him with an unexpected, slack-jaw shock that left Albedo pondering.
Or the way Kaeya seems to have a fixation with his thighs every time they have sex: mouthing wet kisses there and stroking the skin of his inner thighs until Albedo begs him to put his mouth where he more urgently wants it.
Either way, Albedo is a researcher, first and foremost.
He puts his hypothesis to the test.
“Good morning, Sir Kaeya.”
Albedo has always been free to saunter in and out of Kaeya’s office whenever he pleases, but today, he is on a mission for the Acting Grandmaster herself.
“The Acting Grandmaster sent me to collect some titles.”
It is unmistakable: The downward slide of Kaeya’s gaze; the surprise that starts in his eyes –
Quickly smoothed over by the usual teasing smirk. Kaeya leans back on his chair.
“Sure thing, darling.”
Calmly, Albedo makes his way to the bookshelves to count out the books that the Grandmaster has requested. He makes a show of it, stepping across Kaeya’s line of sight, taking his time to pull down the required volumes, twisting his body to reach some of the less accessible ones.
When he turns, there is a barest flush creeping across Kaeya’s composed features.
Quite unnoticeable, to anyone other than Albedo.
Albedo makes his way around Kaeya’s desk until he is standing beside him, before he leans closer, and manages a concerned frown.
“Everything alright?” he asks, keeping his voice light, breath brushing against Kaeya’s ear.
For an infinitesimal fraction of a second, Kaeya’s eyes narrow.
Then, his hand reaches up to brush Albedo’s cheek: a soft gesture – like he does, every time Albedo visits his office – but slower, more deliberate.
“Of course,” Kaeya says, equally lightly. “Just wondering whether you’d need help with the books, love.”
It is more distracting than he has anticipated.
He runs into Kaeya two more times that morning, and each time, he can feel Kaeya’s gaze on him, long after he has turned away:
A warm drag down his body, lingering at his thighs, when he bumps into Kaeya in the corridor. A heated glance at his lower body, when he walks by a meeting room where Kaeya is holding court with the door half open.
It sends unbidden tingles spreading through his stomach, even as he thinks about it afterward: the desiring gaze that Kaeya can hold him with, that always makes him slightly breathless.
The first time he ever saw Kaeya looking at him like that – before he knew that he was capable of these mortal pleasures, these mortal tangles of heat and want – it had lasted just for a second. They had been lying together in Albedo’s bed, in Dragonspine, and Albedo – curious, experimental – slipped his thigh over Kaeya hip and his hand down his chest. The flare of heat in Kaeya’s eyes was quickly smoothed over by a lighter kiss on Albedo’s forehead, but Albedo caught it nonetheless. It sent nerves alighting beneath his own skin, and his own chest hollowing with a new, reciprocal longing.
(Now, it is always the look that precedes Kaeya pressing him into his arms, or against the wall, or onto his bed, followed by an aching desperation and a riot of sensation and Kaeya, Kaeya, Kaeya.)
“You’re staring,” Kaeya murmurs, and Albedo’s focus snaps back to the corridor he is in. Kaeya’s eye gleams. “You shouldn’t keep poor Timaeus waiting, you know.”
“I’m just passing through,” Albedo says, keeping his voice as steady as possible, trying to ignore the heat that rises in his face.
He resumes his step, deliberately looking away from Kaeya.
Kaeya’s gaze, however, follows him all the way down the corridor.
“Captain of the Investigation Team, do you have any updates on the Fatui activity in Dragonspine?”
Albedo snatches up his documents and hastily turns toward Jean.
Kaeya’s meddling hand has messed up his notes. He has been doing it all through the meeting: fiddling with Albedo’s papers, playing with his supplies with those long, troublesome fingers.
Trying to sort them out, Albedo clears his throat.
“Well, there are signs that they are focused on the Northern part of the mountain. We believe…”
Something warm settles on his thigh.
Kaeya’s hand. Albedo feels it, at the crevice of bare skin he has left – deliberately, just for Kaeya – between his pants and his boots.
Of course.
Well, he could say a word and Kaeya would stop, but…
Deliciously, tinglingly, Albedo’s skin reacts to his touch.
Glancing over at Kaeya, Albedo narrows his eyes. Kaeya just smiles placidly at him, tilting his head in mock-curiosity, as though he can spend all day learning about crimson agate and Fatui ranks.
“We believe that their activities correlate with Crimson Agate deposits,” Albedo continues, keeping his voice steady. “The investigation team has been tracking their movements, and it appears that…”
Kaeya’s hand moves.
Just half an inch:
His thumb, slipping beneath the seam of his shorts to stroke slow, languid circles into his skin.
Albedo fixes his gaze on his notes.
“We are considering a diplomatic meeting to further iron out the transparency of the…”
Kaeya’s circling thumb trails further, slowly toward the inside of his thigh.
Languid, lazy circles between his legs.
Heat tugs, unbidden, in the pit of Albedo’s stomach. Involuntarily, his thigh flexes against Kaeya’s fingers, seeking the hypnotic touch. He has to force himself to relax the muscle, but not before he catches, from the periphery of his vision, the half-smirk that curls the edges of Kaeya’s lips, that shows that he has felt it.
Kaeya’s hand is well hidden by the table. A quick survey of the room shows that it is out of sight of the others.
Quickly wrapping his speech up, he unceremoniously shuffles his notes and opts to glare over at Kaeya. The man has his face held up by one palm, eyeing him with a lazy smirk.
Albedo hopes that the others do not see the flush that has crawled up his neck. Determinedly, he schools his features into a deadpan stare, and turns away from Kaeya.
Kaeya’s hand is still lingering on his thigh.
And the tug in his gut, the burning in his skin – seeks for his touch.
He is getting distracted.
Just the sight of Kaeya, striding toward where he is waiting for their lunch at Good Hunter, is enough to make hunger bloom in his lower belly. The playful tapering of his hair near his waist, the casual sway of his hip –
Kaeya’s pretty hips. Albedo wants to tug him closer; trace his fingers along that lovely line of his hipbone, and the beautiful dip above them; feel the way Kaeya would twitch when Albedo would press it down with just one hand, the other trailing down between his legs –
(Kaeya’s hand, caressing Albedo’s cheek before guiding his head down to take him deeper –)
He is getting distracted.
This whole thing is his game, after all. He must not get ahead of himself.
“So the captains are here for lunch!” Sara smiles.
As Kaeya approaches her, Albedo slides himself nimbly between him and the counter, so that Kaeya’s chest is pressed against his back. A surprised hand comes up to his shoulder to steady him, but Kaeya does not pull away: chest flush against Albedo’s back, groin against Albedo’s ass –
As subtly as he can manage, and keeping his face and arms steady where he is eye level with Sara, Albedo shifts his hips: a deliberate rub of his ass, against the body already pressed against him.
He catches it:
The barest intake of breath, hissed, a few inches from his ear.
“What can I get for you?” Sara smiles.
“Grilled fish, please,” Kaeya says, nonchalant as ever, but Albedo can catch the firm bite beneath it, which is not usually there. The kind of undercurrent that Kaeya gets when he gets particularly hungry, when he circles his fingers around Albedo’s wrists and tightens.
It sends a thrill of delight racing up his spine.
Very slowly, then, Kaeya steps back.
“I see Eula waving,” he says, briskly. “We should hurry up.”
He has quite forgotten how they have ended up like this.
Kaeya came into his office for… something. Documentation about whopperflower activity, or whatever excuse he gave, to slip his arm around Albedo’s waist and coax him from his seat to the couch.
And now, Kaeya’s mouth is a delicious, hot slide against his, and his free hand is lazily fingering the exposed crevice at Albedo’s thigh, and Albedo is so worked up he cannot quite be bothered to care that they are in his office on a work day in the afternoon, where anyone can walk in.
“What happened to your full length stockings?” Kaeya drawls into his lips, a single finger dipping beneath his shorts to stroke his skin in languid motions. Kaeya can feel his mirth against his lips. “No longer scared of the cold, hmm?”
Albedo shudders. He likes Kaeya like this: likes him bold, and hungry, like he wants to devour Albedo whole.
“I’ll take care of you, darling.”
Arms circling around him, Kaeya presses him back so he is leaning against the back of the sofa, and Albedo’s legs open, as though of their own accord, to accommodate Kaeya between them.
Kaeya kneels before him; leans over him, body a warm, breathless press, braced over him.
“So impatient,” Albedo murmurs, gesturing vaguely at the door. “Can’t even wait a single day. Anyone can walk in…”
“But you’re too pretty to be kept waiting,” Kaeya says with a mock-pout. “Teasing me all morning. Do you know what you do to me?”
And Archons, those words that send want curling between his legs.
Kaeya pauses, then, to look up at him.
“You remember our safe word, sweetheart?” he says, more quietly.
Albedo swallows, and nods.
Then Kaeya’s mouth is on him again, against his jaw, a line of wet kisses down the side of his neck, his breath a low hum against Albedo’s throat.
He trails lower, then, hands sweeping across Albedo’s hips until the fingers that have been torturing him are replaced by his mouth. Albedo shudders, hips twitching instinctively to seek his touch.
Kaeya’s hands reach up, and Albedo gets a flash of hope that he is finally going to touch him where a more urgent need is building, between his legs. But Kaeya’s hands merely settle on his hips to hold them down, finger resuming the languid motion that had started on his thigh earlier that day – a lazy undulation of fingers, in tandem with the slow heat of his mouth against his thigh, licking closer between his legs, but not quite –
“So beautiful like this.” Kaeya whispers, and it goes straight to Albedo’s cock.
Albedo tries to shift his hips, but Kaeya easily presses him to the couch, and he has to bite back a moan because it always makes him dizzy, how easily Kaeya can hold him down like that.
Two can play at the game.
Panting, he reaches down to cup Kaeya’s face, and Kaeya looks up at him from beneath long, fluttering lashes, a mock-quizzical gleam in his eye. Holding his eye, Albedo slips his fingers to the back of Kaeya’s head to tangle in his hair, and tugs, just the way Kaeya likes it.
A gasp and a whimper – quickly hushed as Kaeya bites his lip and schools his expression back into neutrality, but Albedo knows that Kaeya knows that he has seen it.
As quickly as he has come, Kaeya’s hands fall away from Albedo’s body. Albedo whines in disappointment, but Kaeya just gets to his feet and throws him a smirk.
“Shouldn’t get too carried away,” Kaeya murmurs, eye gleaming, reaching for his coat.
“You’re leaving?”
Kaeya’s smile widens.
“Like you said, Captain, anyone could come in here.”
Kaeya’s voice is steady, but Albedo can see the flush that dusts his cheeks and the slight tent between his own legs – covered quickly by his coat.
“You came to me,” Albedo murmurs. “I know what this… does to you.”
Kaeya’s infuriating smirk only widens.
“Well, but we wouldn’t want the esteemed Chief Alchemist to be seen by anyone in such compromising positions, would we?”
And then he is exiting with a last languid wave, leaving Albedo on the couch, flushed, half-hard, and aching for his touch.
He is not sure how he gets through the rest of the day.
He presses his hand to his crotch for some brief relief, but all it does is make him think of Kaeya again. (Kaeya curling his arm around his waist to press them close and grind their cocks together. Kaeya’s pretty mouth, wrapping around him –)
Thankfully, he is back to normal by the time he moves from his office to the laboratory to join Sucrose, and if he is a little more impatient than usual – thinking of Kaeya, just a floor down from him in the Favonius Headquarters – he hopes she would not take it to heart.
(Kaeya in his office, long fingers handling his pen like a delicate art; nimble lettering; the ghost of his fingertips across every page. Is he thinking of Albedo, too, with a hand on his cock?)
Away from Sucrose’s line of sight, Albedo allows himself to clench a single fist.
Then he doggedly carries on with the Regisvine Core dissection that he has in front of him, determinedly not thinking about Kaeya.
Kaeya comes to him first.
Not even bothering to knock, he lets himself into his laboratory and takes a seat right next to Albedo.
“It’s getting late, love.”
It is true. From what he sees through the windows, night has fallen, and a vague dull ache is pressing on his head. Even Sucrose has already left.
There is something different in Kaeya’s tone, now. Different from the seductive breathlessness that has curled across Albedo’s skin all day. He sounds… gentle.
Getting to his feet, Kaeya moves behind him and presses his thumbs to his shoulders to loosen the knots that have formed over an evening of poring over his work table. Almost automatically, Albedo sighs and leans into his touch. It does always feel good, to relax these not-quite-muscles. (Kaeya’s hands do, often, make him quite forget that he is made of chalk and Khemia.)
Kaeya’s skilled fingers, skilled tongue, skilled at all he touches – unraveling all the knots in Albedo’s shoulders, and stomach, and heart.
“So tense,” Kaeya murmurs, a hint of suggestiveness creeping into his voice again. “Maybe we should head back.”
A single finger slides, innocently, past Albedo’s shoulder to the front of his throat. Light as a feather, it ghosts over the mark on his neck, and he has to bite his lip to hold in a sigh. The warmth in his gut awakens again – that heat that has been building in him all day, since he first saw the way Kaeya looked at him, wanted him, just with a bare crevice of skin.
“Knew I’d make you come to me,” Albedo whispers.
“You’ve won, then,” Kaeya murmurs, finger grazing the shell of Albedo’s ear as he tucks his hair behind it. “Care to collect your prize?”
Albedo exhales, very, very slowly.
“And are you my prize, Sir Kaeya?”
It is intoxicating, the way he fits in Kaeya’s arms when Kaeya carries him, against his body, where the beat of his heart races beneath his skin. It does always take his breath avail, how Kaeya can easily lift him up like this, as though he is wanted, as though he can fit perfectly against his chest. They are technically still out in Headquarters, between the offices and apartments sections, where anyone can see them, but it just adds to the exhilaration of it, of the hunger that darkens Kaeya’s eyes as Albedo looks up at him and runs a finger along his cheek.
Kaeya’s lips are on his the moment they enter his apartment. He does not break the kiss as he lays Albedo down on his bed, crawling in after him. Albedo lets him undress him – quickly peeling away the layers of his shirts and pants before unceremoniously discarding them across the floor.
When Kaeya unlaces his boots to reveal the thigh-high tights he wore in place of the usual full length stockings, however, he pauses.
Albedo looks up to find Kaeya staring. Kaeya’s hand, still holding Albedo’s shirt, is trembling.
Albedo opens his legs and dips a finger beneath the elastic of a single stocking.
“Should we take this off, too?”
The moment breaks.
“No,” Kaeya growls. “Keep them on.”
Without waiting for a response, he presses Albedo into the sheets again, and one hand closes, finally, around his aching cock. Albedo twists his head and moans as Kaeya’s mouth closes around a single nipple, his other hand slipping roughly between his legs to rub at his rim.
The first lubed finger makes him gasp, biting his lip so hard at the intrusion he tastes metal. Kaeya’s other hand continues its languid motions over his cock, soothing him through it. One becomes two, and then Kaeya is finding a steady rhythm, in and out of him, and Albedo is keening as a well-aimed thrust finds his sweet spot and sends him trembling, all over.
“So worked up already,” Kaeya murmurs, curling his fingers deeper inside him. His voice is a delicious vibration against Albedo’s ear. “And I thought I was to be the one seduced.”
“And are you not?” Albedo bites back with a groan, closing a hand around Kaeya’s cock.
Kaeya’s moan shudders between them both. His fingers begin to work at Albedo’s sweet spot with a fresh vigour that sends Albedo’s back arching, hips rolling uselessly, torn between rocking backward against Kaeya’s fingers and forward into the hand stroking him.
Then, Kaeya lets go of his cock. Albedo whines at the loss of sensation, but almost immediately, Kaeya slings an arm around his hip to pull their bodies flush together, until his cock is throbbing against Kaeya’s stomach, and Kaeya’s own erection drags against his thigh, hot and damp. (Because Kaeya wants him, because he has gotten Kaeya this way –)
“Kaeya…”
He sounds completely wrecked, even to himself.
He is not going to last long. Not after the day’s worth of foreplay, and not with the exquisite fingers now torturing his prostate with precise, relentless circles that sends him arching against Kaeya’s body.
“Kaeya, I’m –”
Kaeya presses his mouth to his neck, and Albedo can feel his smile, right against the mark at his throat.
“Come for me then,” Kaeya murmurs into his skin. “You deserve it, don’t you? Dressed so pretty for me all day.”
And the pressure at the base of Albedo’s stomach snaps.
Kaeya fingers him through it, slowing only as Albedo’s moan tapers into a whimper of discomfort as he comes down from his high, face buried in Kaeya’s shoulder, body trembling through his release.
“Archons, Albedo.”
When he opens his eyes, it is to see Kaeya wrapping a hand around his own cock, staring at him with an open hunger that makes him dizzy again.
“You’re so… pretty, sweetheart.”
Kaeya bites his lip as he strokes himself, flushed and already leaking between his legs. Albedo reaches forward with his own hand to join Kaeya’s on his cock, before pushing himself up so he can bend over Kaeya and shifting until he is seated between Kaeya’s legs.
Holding Kaeya’s gaze, he leans forward and wraps his mouth around Kaeya’s cock. Kaeya groans, quiet and tortured, hips jerking up to meet him. His hands come up, then, fingers tangling in Albedo’s hair to pull him closer, down, deeper. Albedo licks a stripe up him and swirls his tongue around the head, and feels Kaeya’s fingers tighten in his hair, and a shudder that rolls through his body.
Archons, it is always so delicious – these reactions that Albedo can pull from him with his hands and mouth. He has done his research and observations well; knows the exact way to hollow of his mouth that elicits that particularly throaty groan; the precise angle of his wrist that sends Kaeya keening.
“Such a pretty mouth…” Kaeya groans, half a sigh, staring down at him with hooded eyes as Albedo bobs his head. It goes straight to Albedo’s own cock, already stirring in interest again. He loves hearing Kaeya’s voice; loves the nakedness of his desire – something he has learned to cherish, since the days Kaeya would bite his lip and press his face into his pillow every time Albedo touched him like this.
“Albedo, fuck, I –”
Kaeya is close. Albedo can tell by the labouring of his breath ajd the insistence of his hands now guiding Albedo’s head –
Albedo pulls his mouth off Kaeya’s cock.
Kaeya lets out a gasping, broken whine, and Albedo crawls up his body until they are face level and kisses him; swallows the breathless curse that Kaeya breathes into his lips; wonders if Kaeya can taste himself on his lips.
“Want you to fuck me,” he murmurs into Kaeya’s mouth. “Want you to come in me.” At these words, Kaeya’s cock twitches against his thigh, and a jolt of delight sizzles through Albedo’s stomach.
“Want me to fuck you…” Kaeya repeats in a half-moan, cupping his cheek with a trembling hand. “You’ve been begging for me to fuck you, all day.”
Beautiful, Albedo thinks, silently. The sight of Kaeya like this: desperate, flushed, hips twitching in aborted jerks, staring at Albedo with an intensity that hollows his chest –
Faster than he anticipated, Kaeya flips them over. There is a brief sound of the bottle of lubricant before Kaeya is above him again, Albedo’s legs opening automatically to accommodate him. As he waits for Kaeya to slick himself up, Albedo presses his hand to his own cock – already fully hard again – to alleviate some of the pressure, the anticipation of what is coming.
When he has finished preparing himself, Kaeya surges forward to brace himself atop him, pressing Albedo’s legs further apart. A ripping sound causes Albedo to look down, and he widens his eyes to see that the quickness of Kaeya’s motion has torn a seam of his left stocking, which is unraveling as Kaeya pushes him further up the bed and wraps his hands around his thighs.
“That was my – ah – my second last pair, you –”
And then Kaeya is inside him all he can focus on is how full and hard and good Kaeya’s cock is, splitting him open. The head of his cock slides over his abused sweet spot and Albedo cries out, wrapping his arms around Kaeya’s shoulders to pull him closer, deeper.
“But it’s what you wore them for, didn’t you?” Kaeya hisses, pulling out and slamming back in. The other stocking rips then, as Kaeya roughly raises Albedo’s leg to angle himself. “Put them on for me to rip them.”
Kaeya’s pace is merciless, now, and Albedo knows that neither of them are going to last.
“I knew you would – be weak to it,” Albedo gasps. “I was right.”
Without slowing the pace at which he is fucking him, Kaeya leans closer and presses his mouth to Albedo’s throat.
“So good for me.” The vibration of his voice, straight into the most sensitive spot of Albedo’s neck, makes him see stars. “Ah –”
Albedo is so close. Almost without realising it, he is wrapping his legs around Kaeya’s hips to keep him inside him, so that Kaeya is now grinding, in quick, shorted thrusts, against his sweet spot, and the pressure and stimulation builds and builds –
“Come for me,” Kaeya whispers, sounding as wrecked as Albedo feels, burying his face in Albedo’s neck and wrapping a hand around his neglected cock.
Albedo does.
With a final thrust and a delicious stroke over the head of his cock, he comes, all over their chests, and vaguely wonders how debauched he looks – the filthy whine he lets out; the way his thighs are still spread wide and encased mid-thigh in ruined stockings; the way he is trembling all over beneath Kaeya, hips still rolling in desperate, messy jerks down onto Kaeya’s cock; the groan and the hot spill deep inside him as Kaeya comes shortly after with a full-body shudder, face pressed into his shoulder.
As the breath settles back into his chest, Albedo opens his eyes to Kaeya wiping the sweaty fringe from his eyes.
Their legs are still tangled together. Arms wrap around him, gently pulling him in until their lips are a breath apart.
“You’re so beautiful,” Kaeya whispers, stroking a hand across his cheek. “In… every way, you know.”
A single, tender finger traces across his cheekbone and down, around to his jaw.
Albedo leans in and kisses him. Kaeya whimpers into his mouth, and Albedo sucks lightly on his beautiful bottom lip and drinks in his sigh.
“Did you feel good?” Kaeya murmurs. Always so eager to please, Albedo thinks, affectionately.
Then, a more mischievous light creeping into his eye again –
“Got what you wanted?”
Albedo hums.
“More accurately, I’ve figured out what makes you want me.”
Kaeya sighs and presses their foreheads together.
“I want you all the time,” Kaeya whispers, and Albedo melts into the kiss again: the soft heat of his mouth, and the gentle rumble of his voice.
He drifts off to sleep pressed against Kaeya’s bare chest, Kaeya’s hand stroking soothing circles into his back.
Kaeya wakes to dim morning light, and soft sheets, and Albedo.
The sheets smell like Albedo. Everything smells like Albedo. Albedo, who makes him ache.
“I know you’re awake.”
Albedo’s voice.
Albedo.
Kaeya opens his eyes and his mouth goes dry.
Albedo has opened the night curtains while leaving the day blinds on. Framed by the window, he is dressed in Kaeya’s oversized shirt, hanging off one bare shoulder. A pair of fresh thigh-high stockings come up just a few inches below where the shirt tapers off to reveal milky, bare thighs and nothing else underneath.
As Kaeya watches, speechless, Albedo lifts one lithe, graceful leg onto the countertop of Kaeya’s dressing table, and bends over to run his hand along his stockinged calf. The backlight throws his silhouette into relief, the dips of the flowing shirt teasing at the beautiful lines of his body, and –
“Albedo,” Kaeya manages, hoarsely. “Come here.”
“Good morning, Kaeya,” Albedo just murmurs, with a gleam in his eye because he always knows exactly what he is doing. “Just trying to… stretch myself out.”
Holding Kaeya’s gaze, he curves his back in a slow, deliberate arch.
Kaeya could have moaned.
“Come here.”
“Why should I?”
Very leisurely, however, Albedo makes his way to bed again. (In Kaeya’s shirt and a pair of thigh-high tights and nothing else – )
Dipping one half-clothed thigh over Kaeya’s hips, he straddles him, and the oversized shirt pools at his hips and against the sheets, revealing more of his bare thighs.
“You’re not that insatiable, are you?” Albedo murmurs with a pout. “I was just doing my stretching. You always use up my precious time.”
Trembling, Kaeya runs his hands over the exquisite line of Albedo’s hip, the soft skin of his thighs, and the infuriating band of his stocking. Slipping a single finger beneath the elastic, Kaeya gives an experimental tug and lets it snap back against Albedo’s thigh. He does not miss the delicious hitch in breath, the tremor that shudders through him.
“Albedo,” Kaeya whispers, hoarsely. “You don’t know what you do to me.”
(Albedo knows exactly what he does to him. And he always wins at that.)