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chickenparm · 2 years

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Where You Willed the Moon - Pt. One

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Scaramouche/f!Reader (reader is the traveler, but not lumine) 10,756 Words - NSFW Unhealthy Codependence, Enemies to Lovers, P in V, f!Receiving Oral, Thigh Riding, Mentions of m!Losing Virginity, Pining, Bullshit Sereniteapot Magic, sub-ish Scara when it counts :^)

Spoilers for the Sumeru story, and spoilers for 3.2 based off leaks.

(written pre-3.2)

---

The sound of metal hitting the floor is eerily similar to the tolling of bells over Monstadt. Ones that call the populace to the cathedral - those who practice, that is. While you hadn’t been much to worship Barbatos after puzzling out Venti and his identity, it’s a different sort of church that you kneel at now.

One made of crumbling metal and stray static, enough to set the hair on your arms on edge. Your fingertips touch the metal floor and with it comes the zapping of loose electro. You’re far enough away from the residual pools of water and towering cryo structures that you can almost forget what’s brought you here.

The ignorance is shattered in seconds by the sound of a choking sob, one ripped through teeth in a fit of fury and heartbreak.

“Not like this… not like this…!”

Your knees scrape against the floor painfully, though it’s miniscule compared to the pains you feel elsewhere in the aftermath of this worship. You’re wholly unconvinced that this is the sort of prayer that he’d been hoping for. Wishing for.

Demanding of you as metal arms towered over you in a threat of total annihilation if you simply didn’t concede.

The helmet of the metal monstrosity lays in jagged ruins at the center of the room, an altar for you to prostrate in front of if you hadn’t emerged the victor. Your fingers curl over the side as you crawl through the wreckage, hauling yourself up and over the lip to fall next to the prone figure inside.

Your own body gives out as you collapse on your side, facing Scaramouche’s broken expression as his limbs lay dormant, body spent after expending the entirety of his less than holy divinity in the battle he’d lost. All you can hear is the sound of his heart breaking and his nails digging into the steel and metal that encases the two of you now.

For a brief moment, as you slide down into the cradle and land so, so close to him, you’re taken aback by the sight of him curled on his side. Like a bug almost, squashed without a care. Without a thought. But you’ve thought about him far too often for this battle to have been meaningless. As meaningless as a simple showdown between some generic good versus generic evil could be, you suppose.

For a moment, it seems as if the world no longer exists. The structure rises and curves inward enough that only an oval of ceiling is visible. There are cracks far, far above from the stress of your clash. One hand clutches over his chest, cradling the place over his heart if not for the way his knuckles and tendons strain at his skin with the force of it. The arm attached to the shoulder he’s laying on is stretched out as if to reach toward you.

His words speak the opposite, all but screamed as his teeth gnash with every syllable. “Get away from me, you… you worthless-… GET AWAY-”

“Stop that.”

Your response isn’t elegant. It isn’t the proper way to speak to a God, especially not one that had held himself so highly above others that he never saw the one coming from below to strike him down. Now you’re on equal levels, cocooned in metal and darkness as static spits back and forth.

“It’s done.”

“Not like this.” His voice wavers as he repeats himself. Then once more, even weaker, “...not… like this.”

“That’s enough, Scara-”

“I’ll say when it’s enough! Get up and face me!”

It would be far more convincing if you weren’t staring at his visage, watching as a thick stream of tears travel across the bridge of his nose, into his temple, and soaking the indigo hair that’s dampened with blood from a gash across his hairline. With a weak hand, you absently reach forward to push the hair from his forehead and judge that the wound isn’t so deep.

If his hair weren’t matted with sweat and tears and his absurdly dark lifeblood, you’re certain it would feel like silk against your fingertips. You rub a lock between them anyway, just for the sake of touching him in a way that isn’t outwardly malicious.

His head jerks back, the hair slipping from your fingers as he does so, and you’re greeted with an expression of pure loathing. It’s disgust that colors him as his lip curls and he sneers at your audacity. At what in particular is unclear. Certainly you’ve done a lot today to earn his ire; tenderness may just be the most heinous of all your transgressions.

But he can’t fight you anymore. Not while he’s so exhausted that he can barely shift his head. You’re certain he’s only awake now out of an endless well of spite and rage, borne of a lifetime threaded with consistent disappointment and betrayal. You’d seen his memories, you’d witnessed the wrongs committed against him. One after another, interspersed with moments in-between that showed you who he might have been had things just been different.

At the time, you’d carefully schooled your features in fury against him. But on the inside, you nurtured a twisted sort of understanding. You’d be just like him, if things had gone differently. Your powers stripped away, your only family is far beyond your reach, and somewhere out there is a goddess that wronged you in so many ways.

It’s this kinship that leads you to reach for him once more, dirty fingers dragging against a cheek that you’d thought was made of porcelain at one point. No being has the divine right to be crafted so beautifully, especially not one made of flesh. Yet here he lays, sucking a startled breath through his grit teeth as you sweep away tears and blood.

“It’s alright now.” The words crack around the thickness in your throat, brought on by exhaustion and your own welling emotions. “We’re done.”

“We? We’re nothing.” It’s a snake’s hiss, but the fangs are long gone. “All of this is nothing. All my work, everything I’ve done…”

“That’s not fair to yourself to discount everything. I always thought you were the kind of person to turn a blind eye to your failure-”

A bitter laugh leaves him, the smile that accompanies it is ugly and twisted, filled with the tang of bitterness far worse than one should have from a simple defeat. The world is silent. The electro has sputtered out, the groaning of metal settling has finished, and all you’re left with is your own heart pounding in your ears and the ragged sounds of Scaramouche’s frantic breathing.

Off in the distance, one of the pillars of cryo cracks and groans, the residual heat in the room from Scaramouche’s errant use of pyro created an environment unfitting for ice. It will take time for them to truly melt on their own, but they protest under the pressure nonetheless. In the remains of the metal body, it’s almost frigid.

“You’ve seen it. I know you have. If it wasn’t leading to this moment, to my victory… then what was the purpose of it all? Why would the gods have deemed it right to leave me broken three times?”

Four, actually, if you’re to count this time. You decide not to.

His real name settles at the tip of your tongue as you fight the instinct to call him such. It’s found a home in your mind since you’d suffered his memories, warping your perception of him from one of distaste to empathy. Like it or not, you understand him now. Perhaps more than anyone else could.

Another shaking breath fills his lungs, and for a moment he holds it as if he’s not quite ready to let go. Then, all at once as if he’d been punched, it leaves him in a harsh sob that turns the twisted expression he wears into something far more heart wrenching. Rage and fury is gone, and to take its place is despondency so deep it takes your breath away.

And with that cry comes another, wetly forced from the back of his tongue as it catches on phlegm and his own spittle. Just before his eyes clench shut, Scaramouche looks at you with a gaze that suddenly seems far younger than it had moments ago. Hopelessness, pain, fear. You recognized it painfully from the moment he’d entered the hut and witnessed the beginning of his third betrayal.

“If it was all for nothing, what do I have to continue on for? If you have even a shred of mercy in your body left for me, then end it now.”

Instantly, before you can consider the ramifications of his request, you deny it. “No.”

“Then you’re far more cruel than I ever gave you credit for.” From the first syllable, his voice cracks until he’s left whispering the words. Resignation is a poor fit on him. You’re unwilling to let him continue to hold it close to himself.

Shuffling closer, until you’re nearly nose-to-nose with him,you feel the absence of his body heat that would surely be there with a human. Your fingers glide from his cheek to his hair once more, pushing it all from his forehead once, then twice, over and over in a soothing motion that he visibly melts into. Not so long ago - seconds, really - he would have fought against this. Now, he leans into your touch as if it’s the only thing keeping him pieced together.

“Scaramouche.”

His body stills, but he refuses to open his eyes to acknowledge you. While he claims you’re merciless, you have enough kindness to give him a few moments longer of your comfort before you try again. “Kunikuzushi.”

“...Hm?”

“Would you like to try again?”

“No, I’m not sure I’d be able to put up as much of a fight the second time.”

“That’s not what I meant.” You can’t help the curl of your smallest smile as you lean close enough for your forehead to press firmly against his own. It’s clammy and sticky with his blood, nearly cementing the two of you together as one. That wouldn’t be so bad, you think.

“If I took you away from here, would you trust me not to betray you?”

The answer doesn’t come. Only the steady press of his skull against your own, harder and harder until it just toes the line of beginning to hurt.

Only then does he shakily breathe out, “No.”

With a bitter smile of your own, you push yourself onto your hands, then your knees to pull him into your lap. Blood rushes in your ears at the shift in position, and your wooziness lasts for only a moment before you’re back in control. When your vision clears, you realize rather quickly that your fingers clutch to him a little too hard - he never even flinched.

Trust or not, you’ll take him anyway.

—

Explaining the destruction of Scaramouche is easier. Convincing everyone of your honesty is even moreso.

Why would you lie? Scaramouche was your enemy, the mastermind behind everything that’s happened in Sumeru. The samsara, the expedited withering of Irminsul, the foul actions of the Akademiya… All of it would be attributed to Scaramouche, if the presence of Dottore hadn’t been confirmed by multiple witnesses.

With one harbinger dead and the other having taken flight with the Dendro Archon’s gnosis, the only enemy that remains is one consisting of the sages that had knowingly assisted in the Fatui’s deeds. There are no monsters to fight, no evil to thwart in martial combat, and thus you state your intentions to take some time to rest.

At first, it made you nauseous. Being pulled through time and space is unpleasant to the uninitiated, but multiple trips for both yourself and the adepti have left you more than experienced in managing the sensations.

All you see are stars. Streaking past you in a blinding array that leaves you breathless every time you witness it. Your little pocket dimension is somewhere unknown within the fabric of reality, yet you can almost recognise the patterns that shoot past you so quickly they’re gone in the blink of an eye.

Aether may feel like home, but your feet hitting the cobblestones of your teapot home is a close second.

While there are storage buildings scattered across your land, only one truly dominates the skyline with its shimmering tiles and sturdy dark wood. A wall surrounds it, but it’s purely for aesthetic reasons - who could invade you here, when permission is required to enter? Brute force would never succeed.

It’s instinct to call on Tubby to tell you of happenings in your absence, yet this time you refrain. There is another here, and while you’re unsure of the exact amount of time that’s passed between this realm and reality, you’re almost certain he’s exactly where you left him. The door to your home groans open - the only sound that interrupts the careful silence.

In the entryway, you kick your shoes off to avoid damaging the tatami, and make your way to the second floor. The stairs barely shift under your weight thanks to Tubby’s meticulous upkeep, meaning your presence will go unnoticed if he happens to be on edge.

But your subterfuge is entirely for naught. As you slide the door open and step into what you’ve claimed as your bedroom, you take in the sight of Scaramouche still unconscious in your bed, even as the sun shafts illuminate the high cheekbones and furrowed brows of his face.

With little more than a thought, the sun shifts across the sky until it sits low on the painted horizon, just above the stylized waves that surround your home. The light no longer beats against his face, instead casting the room in a warm glow that almost makes the air feel thick. In the distance, you hear those very waves as you nudge one of the windows open to allow a breeze to shift through.

At first, you’d expected to need to provide medical aid. You’d been prepared to fight him on it, up until he passed out in your arms before you brought him here. Tubby had done most of the work - bringing him from the threshold of your home, cleaning most of the blood off, changing him into something that didn’t smell of smoke and ash and whatever remained of his dreams of grandeur.

Without the trappings of his harbinger uniform, Scaramouche looked far less menacing in shades of azure and green. It stood in contrast to his hair that was still matted - Tubby couldn’t do everything without thumbs, you supposed.

Hunger claws at your naval, but you’re far more preoccupied with sitting halfway at his side and picking through the mess of his hair with a fine-toothed comb. It doesn’t take at long as you thought it would, and isn’t nearly a long enough excuse for you to be in his space like this.

The implications of your need to be here make your skin crawl. You retract your hands so quickly that the comb clatters to the floor with the sound of wood on wood. Scaramouche doesn’t stir, at least to your knowledge, and you take the time to rise from the bed and reach for the abandoned object.

A vice clamps around your wrist, holding you in place with a grip tight enough that it’s certain to bruise. It takes all your strength to rip your arm away and stand from the bed. Scaramouche looks at you with half-lidded eyes and a haziness to his gaze. A thud follows his hand hitting the bed once you’re bereft of him.

A long breath leaves him at first, as if he’s testing his lungs and reassuring himself that they’re still functional. After a swallow that reaches your ears with its sound, Scaramouche tries again to reach for you. All that leaves his mouth is, “Don’t leave.”

And against all your instinct to leave, your desire to stay wins. The bed dips as you sit at his side once more, a careful distance away with your hands in your lap. The lacing of your fingers is so tight that your knuckles are as pale as bone with the pressure.

Scaramouche doesn’t look away, even as his gaze grows hazy with its focus. It’s not clear he understands who you are as one of his hands reach out and tangle in the fabric of the clothes across your back. “You left before.”

“I had to make sure no one was going to question anything.”

Pale lips quirk into the smallest smile, just for a single second. It leaves as soon as it comes, the quickness in stark contrast to the slow way he blinks up at you - weariness incarnate, it seems. “I woke up and all that was here was your… little bird.”

“Tubby. That’s it’s name.”

“It’s a stupid name.”

Scaramouche is feeling better, it seems. The lacerations he once sported have knit themselves shut, the bruises have turned from fresh red and blue to a sickly green akin to the sky before a storm at sundown. Your skin beneath his grasp is alight with far too many sensations, goosebumps traveling along your arms.

Scaramouche zeroes in on them, and there’s that twisted little smirk again that stays far longer. Blessedly, he doesn’t say a thing about them. Perhaps he can be a benevolent god, when he wants to be.

“I need to go for a little longer-”

“I said stay.”

“I need to eat, Scaramouche.”

The name makes him flinch, his hand falling to the bed and leaving you bereft of his grip. A yearning little part of you misses it fiercely. Fear isn’t the right word when you pinpoint how wrong it is for you to have become attached like this, yet after having learned so much of his life in the span of moments, you feel an involuntary kinship that colors all your thoughts of him.

His reaction to the name isn’t explained. While most of him is tucked beneath the blankets of your bed, the hand that had been touching you lays above them with his palm to the sky and his fingers clenched into a loose fist. They only clench tighter as he pointedly looks up at the rafters and says, “Don’t come back, then.”

That strikes at you. His petulance is completely unwarranted, and you’re helpless to your own urge to plant your hands on your hips and call him out on it. “Make up your mind. Do you want me to stay, or do you want me to leave you alone? I’m going to have Tubby make up a second bedroom. Then you can hide out in there if you want to be a child.”

“I’m not-” With one movement, Scaramouche pushes himself up on a hand to sit up. His elbow shakes with the effort, clearly not up to the task of moving so quickly just yet. A sick sense of pride shoots through you with how solidly you’ve beaten him. Through grit teeth, he continues, “You’re the one coming and going as you please.”

“What’s gotten into you?”

Scaramouche flinches at your hiss, avoiding you all over again, judging by the stubborn set of his brow. Just like him, you’re exhausted, and you don’t have the time nor energy to entertain his whims right now. With purpose, you turn your head and call for your teapot spirit. In a dusting of tiny fireworks and drifting petals, Tubby appears and opens their beak to begin bombarding you with everything they’ve been waiting to say.

And you’ll give them that when you have time, but for now you hold a finger to your lips and they get the hint. Folding the sleeves of their robes together, Tubby listens as you ask, “Can you bring me something to eat? It doesn’t matter what, don’t trouble yourself too much.”

“Of course! Give me a little time, and I’ll have something splendid for you!”

Your request to not go out of their way is entirely lost to the empty spaces in the room as they disappear. Blowing out a long sigh that feels too much like resignation, you carefully sit on the side of Scaramouche’s bed, your back turned to him and your hands on your knees to brace yourself. When Tubby comes back, you’ll get them working on that second room.

In the meantime, the hand along your spine returns, this time splayed out with a palm pressing firmly against you. It’s a simple touch, one that you close your eyes and relish now that he can’t quite see your face. The expectant moment lingers with a quiet anticipation before Scaramouche breaks it without remorse.

“Why did you do it?”

“Bring you here?” Shuffling behind you, and you assume it’s a nod. “Would you believe me if I said I empathize with you?”

“One little peek at my memories, and we’re suddenly friends now? You feel sorry for me?”

“Is that so bad?” Your head turns so you can look at him out of the corner of your eye. Though he’d been quiet and restrained, it’s clear that there’s fury bubbling beneath the surface that you now must quell. “I think we’re more alike than you realize. Yes, I felt sorry because you never deserved any of that, even after all the problems you’ve caused as a result.”

“I’m not some good guy under all this, you know. I’m not putting on some front to trick you - this is who I am.”

Behind your eyelids, you see him in white, curled in the cavernous wooden halls of his domain and clutching himself in the mockery of a hug. Tears run down his cheeks, one after another, in a constant stream of loneliness and despondency. Perhaps that isn’t him anymore, but neither is this tyrant that’s bent on the divinity he was meant to receive.

“It’s not. We change through our lives, but I don’t think even you know who you are now.”

“I still don’t trust you.” It’s said as a barb, a last ditch effort to snipe at you when he’s at a loss for words. That’s all you need to confirm that you’re right - Scaramouche is lost and adrift all over again. Eccentric wanderer from Inazuma indeed.

Tubby returns with your food - a simple fare of cheeses and meats that you consume quickly. Scaramouche doesn’t partake as he stubbornly turns on his side and turns his back to you. Whether it’s in derision for your offer, or he’s still petulant that you backed him into a corner, you’re unsure. Either way, you expect this to be an uncomfortable affair.

When there are only crumbs left on the plate that Tubby brought, you chew the inside of your cheek to stifle a yawn. While there isn’t another bed, you’re certain you can find a futon in one of the storage houses that dot your little estate. It’ll do for now if you toss it in the other room with tatami flooring.

Rising to your feet, you stretch your hands to the rafter as if to grasp them, working at the hunched muscles you’d been nursing for a little too long now. The blood rushing in your ears nearly drowns out Scaramouche’s question. “Where are you going? I told you to stay.”

“You also told me to leave, so which is it? I need to get some rest.”

“...Stay.”

Great, that solves that, but you still need to find somewhere to rest. As if he read your mind and pinpointed the exact thing you’d cave to, Scaramouche blindly reaches behind him and flips the blanket back. It’s an open invitation that your hands are tied about - obviously he expected you to take it.

With not nearly as much hesitance as you expected, you blow air from your cheeks and turn to your dressing screen to change. If he insists… then who are you to deny him? Ditching your adventuring clothes is an affair that’s far quicker than you’ve ever done before, and even as you return to him in only a few minutes, he’s still waiting expectantly. This time on his back, one hand across his heart as the other picks through his hair while noting the tidiness of the strands despite the remnants of your battle clinging to them.

Scaramouche doesn’t say anything about it, and neither will you.

The bed dips as you slide in, keeping a careful distance between yourselves as you mirror his position on your back. The bed normally smells like you, but now it carries some odd mixture of yourself and the male besides you. You’re not quite sure if you like it or not.

“Are you a vampire? A mummy, perhaps?”

“What?”

“I only ask because sleeping like that only comes from being a stiff, undead creature.”

Rolling your head to the side to look at him, you realize you hate Scaramouche’s attempts at humor. There’s no smile on his face, but the tension at the corner of his eyes has melted away, leaving something serene and… nearly happy in its absence.

Scowling with indignance, you roll on your side until you’re facing him and fix him with that expression unimpeded. It does nothing to bother him, and you’re startled by a laugh. High pitched and breathy as he takes in your irritated compliance. “Is that so bad? Alright then, go to sleep.”

“You first. I need to make sure you’re not going to strangle me.”

“I could just be pretending. Then the moment you start to dream, I’ll wrap my hands around your pretty throat and squeeze until you’re blue.”

“Not if I break out of your hold and strangle you first. I bet you turn an ugly shade of red while you’re wheezing.”

There’s that laughter again, high and manic as he gives you a twisted little grin. There’s no humor in it, only a pleased sort of madness as he meets you blow-for-blow. “I bet you’d beg. ‘Please, Scaramouche-’”

“Maybe I’ll let you start the suffocation early so I die faster and don’t have to listen to your sad attempts at humor.”

Scaramouche turns until he’s facing you, mirroring your own position as his hands fall in the space between your bodies. You can’t help but let your eyes turn to them, taking note of long, thin fingers whose nail beds are still caked with blood that Tubby couldn’t quite get to. As he notices your gaze, his fingers twitch before they spread open, wiggling pointedly as if to demand something of you.

All you have to offer is your own hand, but it seems as if that’s what he wanted all along. His palms are cold, just as the rest of him is, but he seems to relish in the warmth you hold in turn with how he lets out a nearly inaudible, shuddering sigh.

“I won’t strangle you. I’ve decided to keep you.”

“You’re the one in my home.”

He has nothing to say to that. Instead, he squeezes your fingers together with his own and lets his eyelids droop - an acquiescence of a stalemate between the two of you and the mocking attempts at one another’s life. When indigo lashes brush the top of his cheeks and a long sigh leaves his nose, he finally speaks to you.

“I still don’t trust you.” But I’ll try.

The implication isn’t lost on you, as much as you’d like to disbelieve it. This moment is proof of him giving in, even if it’s only a few scant centimeters. The end result is unclear, but you’re content with chipping away toward it for as long as he’ll let you.

—

“How you ever managed to be such a thorn in my side is beyond me.”

Cracking an eye open, you look up at Scaramouche as he looms over you, blocking out the sun that’s been hanging high in the sky for far too long. He’s like an eclipse, and the rays bloom from behind his head like a halo. You wonder if he’s aware of himself, or if it’s unknown to him the exact amount of natural transcendence he carries like a second skin.

On its own accord, your mouth opens to ask just that, yet he cuts you off by planting his hands on his knees to bend down closer. The trailing sleeves of his haori brush at the grass near your ears, caging you in and tunneling your vision toward the one thing you haven’t been able to look away from. There’s no need to draw your attention when his gravity is inescapable.

“How many times have I agonized over your meddling in Sumeru, and you were laying in the grass somewhere just like this?”

More than you’d like to admit, probably. At least while you were in the forested lands. In the desert, you were all business as Cyno nearly dragged you by the ankle through the dunes. No time to waste, he’d said. You couldn’t agree more as that unforgiving sun beamed down at you like it had a personal vendetta against your survival.

At your lack of verbal answer - because physically you were blinking slowly up at him with a crooked smile that spoke volumes - Scaramouche grimaced and sank until he was seated just above your head. If you shifted a bit, your head would be cradled in his crossed legs.

Would he push you away, or pull you in? His preference on your proximity seemed to wax and wane at unpredictable intervals. Some days he was your shadow, just in the corner of your eye as you went about your morning exercises, caught up on some reading, satisfied your need to simply exist for a while without pressing issues at hand.

And some days you wouldn’t see him until the false evening where your energy would wind down and you’d share a bed with him far more comfortably than you’d expect. You always woke first, and you’d always find him wrapped around you in one way or another, hair brushed into his face and moving gently with his exhales.

It’s in these moments where you’d watch him - both in the sleepy hours of the morning and times like right now - that you can’t help the whirling of your thoughts down avenues they shouldn’t be veering toward. There are dark corners that beckon you closer, promising things that should never come to fruition.

But the promises were beautiful. Soft veneer that belied the sharpness that’s sure to cut you to the bone if you let it. But you’ve been through worse things unwillingly - what’s a little willing self-inflicted pain when the payoff would be so sweet?

Those alleyways are left behind in favor of tilting your head to smile at his upside-down figure. This could be enough. You’re not even sure there's a true possibility for more, yet you dream of it nonetheless. Shameful isn’t enough to describe it.

“Where have you been?”

It’s an innocent question. It’s all you can muster, as every other topic you’d like to broach comes with the implication of heaviness. Scaramouche will bring his thoughts to you at his own pace - you’d tried to rush him only once, and he’d shut you down so quickly with a sneer and barbed words. It wasn’t worth the grief to hurry him along.

So you keep it simple, and if he appreciates it or not, you’d never know. But it earns an answer anyway. “I got restless. I looked at the rest of your domain. It’s rather bare. Do you not have the means to fix that?”

If anyone else asked, you would’ve laughed it off. But Scaramouche says it with a little too harsh of a tone, and it makes your cheeks warm as you hurry to defend yourself. “Why would I need to do that? All I need is right here.”

Maybe there’s a little implication there. You hoped for him to pick up on it, and the subtle pink of his cheekbones beginning to flush is the sign showing you that he had. Pointedly, he lifts his chin and turns his gaze forward, setting you free from the snare of his gaze. It’s like cresting from beneath water as the pressure lifts and you’re left reeling from the aftermath of such visual entrapment.

With a quiet sigh from his nose, his entire posture nearly melts. His back hunches, his elbows find his knees to rest on, his hands are tantalizingly close enough for you to want to reach for. Impulse control had never been your strong suit on the best of days.

While today was pretty good, you were powerless to reach for one of those slender hands and bring it above your face, watching as his fingers splay of their own accord. You’re treated to the sight of slim fingers that obediently follow where you place them as you push and pull, pressing your thumb into his palm to cup his hand before urging him to flatten it out again.

All at once, his hand comes down on your face - without force, but the grip he has is enough to startle you into kicking your legs out and scrambling to pull him off. Stubbornly, he refuses to let you go, his voice tinged with a tone that’s awfully close to a certain kitsune you know. “You wanted to see my hand? Then look at it.”

—

The veranda that surrounds your stone garden is a point of interest to him, considering you find him there at all hours with his feet over the edge while he draws shapes in the sand that would soon revert back to its normal state. And in his lap he holds a number of things - scrolls and books you’ve collected on your journeys, trinkets he’s found in your home, an Anemo vision.

The latter startles you the most. It’s in the Inazuman style, but the glittering green of the gemstone is telling. Venti knows. He must, if it’s to be believed that bestowment of visions is an extension of an Archon’s will.

Settling beside him with a grunt, you look at the metal he turns over and over in his hand. From what you understand, receiving a vision is meant to be a happy affair, one that comes with the realization of one’s dreams and ambitions. Yet Scaramouche has been quiet during his stay here, barely antagonizing you in favor of sitting in this very spot and contemplating everything and nothing at all.

“Have you made up your mind, Scaramouche?”

Instead of stringing you along and causing you grief, Scaramouche instead clutches the metal in his hand until you’re certain the edges dig into his skin painfully. “You know my name. Use it.”

It flows off your tongue like it’s been waiting for you to speak it. “Kunikuzushi.”

It sounds like a song, despite its inherent meaning. Whether he chose it for himself, or it was given to him by the Shogun, you’re unsure. The tension in his shoulders drops, and you’re left with a former Fatui harbinger that’s hunched in on himself, looking smaller than ever. The Anemo vision pulses in his palm.

“I have something to ask of you.”

Not demand, not even request. Kunikuzushi implies that you can simply say no, if you want. It’s haunting to know that you’re not convinced you could deny him something if he asked it earnestly enough - as he’s doing now with subtly pleading eyes and hands that shake around his newfound vision.

Against your best interests, you answer, “Anything you want.”

“Don’t say that.” It’s sharper, said as a warning before he softens again into vulnerability. “You were right. I don’t know who I am now. I’m… angry. There’s so much of it that I easily let it fill every part of me until there was no room for anything else.”

Despite opening your mouth, you think better of it and say nothing. He doesn’t seem to mind that you’ve foregone a response, and continues on, “It’s still there. Maybe it always will be. Maybe it’s a byproduct of how I was created. She held no regard for emotions, and seeing them in me turned her away.”

You’re well aware. Painfully aware. In your dreams you see snippets of his life you witnessed, and they hover over you like a nightmare that you can’t shake.

The Anemo vision is no longer strangled, instead it’s cupped in his hands as if he’s cradling something precious. In a way, he is - that vision is the manifestation of the ambitions he’s come to a decision on.

“No matter how someone attempts to be perceived, everyone has emotions. Me, you, the Shogun. I’m sure every god up in Celestia is unable to hold themselves above that standard. It’s not a human thing, it’s a curse that everything with sentience is given.”

For the first time since you woke up in that bed and found him clutching your hand with both of his own, gripping you like a lifeline, you reach out with your own hand to lay on the back of his shoulder. Your fingertips brush the ends of his hair, the softness tickling across your skin in a way that you’ve quietly missed.

“So yeah, there will always be anger. There are also a million other emotions too - you can’t get rid of them all. You can let one take over, but in the end you’re still feeling. You’re still angry. You’re still hurt.”

The last word hits him so hard he flinches, eyes clenching shut briefly before opening with slow blinks. Realization is clear on his face as he turns to look at you, something new in his eyes that you haven’t seen before.

You’re barely given time to decipher it before his tongue darts out to wet his lips and he finally asks of you, “I’ve been selfish for my whole life. Hundreds of years, the only thing I’ve cared about is me. Without the anger I’m empty, and without the selfishness I feel like a stranger to myself. The thing I want to ask is that you let me stay by your side. There’s clarity here, and I know it will be lost the moment I’m alone again.”

“You won’t be.” On reflex you answer, and you’re certain it’s the correct one. You’d never be able to doubt your decision when it comes to him. “Learn to trust me, I won’t willingly let you down.”

And the smile you receive with your acceptance can only be described as radiant, even as it barely curves on his lips. It’s genuine, nothing like the mocking ones you’ve seen before. You have a need to reach out and sweep across it with your thumb, committing the shape to memory, yet you hold yourself back for good reasons.

He doesn’t trust you, but he’s trying.

—

Scaramouche - Kunikuzushi, you remind yourself - doesn’t smile often. At least, not in any capacity that isn’t malicious or antagonistic. There’s very little joy to be had on his end, you realize. It’s a task you’ve unwittingly taken on to at least bring him some iota of happiness. You just want to see that smile he’d given you on the veranda once more.

And despite your efforts - needling him for his favorite food until he relents, offering to spar and being shot down, showing him how the spincrystals work - none of them ever make a dent in his perpetual melancholy. That is, until you catch him going through one of the storage buildings where you keep miscellaneous items used for ascension.

There’s a look on his face that has nothing to do with the fact that he’s been caught, and everything to do with the purple and blue shard cluster in his hands. It glimmers in the low light, but not nearly as bright as the look of glee on his face. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Oh, I knocked that off Childe a while back when we were fighting. I keep it to lord over him when he gets too cocky.”

“‘Gets’? As in, continued interaction?”

Jealousy is painfully easy for you to spot, even on someone like Scara- Kunikuzushi. Against your deep, deep desires to call him out on it, you simply lean one shoulder on the doorframe as you cross your arms, the picture of nonchalance no matter how feigned. “We meet up when I’m in the area and fight. I haven’t lost yet, but he keeps trying.”

“You realize it’s like a drug to him, right?” He turns the shard over and over, watching the way the blue shifts like sunlight through the surface of water. “If you let him win, he’ll lose interest.”

“What if I don’t want him to? It’s the highlight of my trips to Liyue.”

The gleeful smile is gone, and in its place is a downward turn of his lips that leaves you feeling suddenly bereft. Even a smile out of malevolence toward Childe is better than him being disgruntled about nothing at all. The hand holding the shard falls to his side, still clutching it but with far less care. “Is it now?”

“We’ve had a couple solid heart-to-hearts in the middle of battle. I think if things were different, we’d have been good friends.”

“Really? How good is ‘good’?”

You don’t have to think about it. It’s exactly what it sounds like, but you know you’re starting to tread some dangerous waters with how he refuses to look at you, the joints in his hands cracking with the sudden pressure of his grip on Childe’s Foul Legacy shard. The hesitation is unfortunate, and you realize your mistake within seconds.

The clatter of the shard to the floor barely registers before you realize you’ve been swung around to the outside of the building, trapped between the wall and Scaramouche. Because that’s who this is now - not Kunikuzushi who’s gone through the motions of attempted reconciliation with the parts of himself he’d tried to cast off. This is the Harbinger, the Balladeer, and you’ve unintentionally played with fire.

His eyes have grown wide with subtle fury, sclera suddenly dwarfing his irises without diminishing the effect of blazing indigo that pins you just as surely as his body does. The grip he has on your shoulders is near bruising - but only for a moment, up until you shift at the discomfort and it all seems to come rushing back to him. Where he’s at, who he’s with, what he’s been trying to do in the safety of your domain.

As if burned, his hands rip away from you as he stumbles back one, two, three steps. Despite his lower than normal body temperature, you feel cold without him caging you in. The sun above isn’t sufficient to warm you now - not while he’s looking at you as if he’s seen a ghost. His hands shake as they hover in front of him, held aloft as if he’s afraid to bring them close to himself for fear of what he thinks he’s done.

Scaramouche is absent once more. Dormant, but not entirely gone. You realize it now, as you should have from the very beginning.

“Kuni-”

“Don’t.”

It’s a plea, but you’re not sure for what. It could be space, it could be forgiveness, it could be any number of things that you’d willingly give him if he only just asked for it. Rather than do anything of the sort, he simply turns on his heel and stalks across the open grass away from the mansion you called home.

As empty as the other parts of your domain may be, something must have brought him comfort if he was seeking it out in his moment of weakness. Leaning heavily on the wall, you watch until the winding paths take him from your sight and you’re left alone - regretful and confused.

—

Kunikuzushi doesn’t come to you again - not for the remainder of the day, not for the one following. Worry had begun to set in as you settled for the evening, yet it’s swept away neatly as you’re awoken in the night to your bed shifting. Before you can even start to protest against the intruder, you’re met with a quiet, “Sh-sh-sh”. Just the tone tells you who it is.

Immediately you settle as he slides in next to you, close enough that he takes your body heat and bounces it back at you. As he shifts, you feel his skin against your own and an involuntary sigh leaves you - it’s undoubtedly pleased, but he makes no verbal note of it.

He doesn’t even ask. You don’t need to give him permission. The absence of both is an open invitation for him to enter as he pleases, slipping into bed and keeping a respectable distance, yet holding your hand tightly just the same. It doesn’t take much thought to know that he feels far too alone, and sharing a space with you is the smallest comfort he needs.

“It’s just me.”

You know.

“Can I stay here tonight? Just tonight. I won’t again.”

That’s a lie.

“Are you awake?”

Yes, but you feel adrift in your own body. Calm, relaxed, sharing warmth with him keeps you docile. It keeps your breaths even and your eyes closed. A shuddering sigh leaves him, almost as if he’s laughing nervously. You don’t even flinch as his free hand raises to your face, brushing the back of his knuckles against your cheek before his palm cradles you.

“It’s not healthy to be this attached but I can’t stay away.” Another breath, in and out as it washes over you and pushes you further into sleep. His voice is barely a whisper, as if he fears waking you up with his nighttime confessions. The sweeping of his thumb under your eye draws a quiet hum from you - content and happy.

“I’ll always be selfish in some way. I don’t want to lose this feeling, I don’t want to be away from you and forget how this feels. It’s safe. I can’t remember the last time I felt that.”

His confession of your existence as a source of comfort brings a full feeling to your chest, and you’re certain if you were a little more lucid, you’d be welling with tears. Yet all you can do is turn your face just enough for your lips to press against the base of his thumb, brushing in a half-hearted attempt at kissing him there.

It makes his breath catch, and for a moment you think he realizes you’re awake. Perhaps he knows anyway, and is revealing all this to you with that knowledge in mind. A pressure on your forehead arises as he leans into you, his own forehead resting there and the tip of his nose brushing yours. You’re so warm, he’s so close, your head swims in lazy circles.

“I’ve known of you for so long, but it’s only during our time here that I’ve come to know you. It feels silly to be this dependent on another, but I-...” A thick swallow punctuates his self-interruption, and he doesn’t continue for just long enough that you think he’s given up. Desperately, you want him to continue - to keep whispering these things to you in the quiet of the night, the barest hint of insanity lacing his voice.

“I want to be. With you. Here, outside, wherever you are.”

It goes unsaid, but the implications are strong enough that you finally crack your eyes open to catch a glimpse of his own. The color is washed out in the shades of nighttime, leaving amethyst to fade into a cool gray that looks frantically back and forth between your own. Before he can panic, you shift close enough that your legs tangle with his own and you can curl a hand along his ribs. Your fingers slot between each one.

It’s moving so fast, this odd dance you’ve been doing with him, yet even now you feel like you’ve known him for every one of the hundreds of years he’s wandered Teyvat. Something changed, swiftly and starting from the moment you’d witnessed his memories, and there’s been no effort on your part to stop it.

It’s welcome. Wanted, even. His fingertips press into the skin behind your ear and you accept his guidance where he leads you - to his lips. Cool and soft and steady, not insistent like you expected. Not fervent and hysteric like you might have once experienced. Instead it’s almost like a plea for you to let him stay with you.

Your answer is to respond in kind, letting him take what he’d like - whether that’s comfort or something more physical. A sound leaves him, similar to a whine that peters out into something breathier. It’s almost needy in a way, and strikes something inside you to give him what he’s so clearly asking for - begging for.

The shirt he wears to bed is thin and easy for you to bunch up more and more until you can slip your hand beneath and feel his skin. It leeches your warmth, taking more and more from you as his kiss grows into that desperation you’d initially expected. Each rib is counted up to his chest, and your palm rests over his heart as if you wanted to protect it somehow. He leans into your touch, all but arching into you as you work his shirt higher.

In the span of time it takes for him to pull away and let you remove it, he’s grown flushed and frantic. The two of you crash back together with too much force, rolling until you’re below him and he cages you in as if you keep you from running - you’re not sure you ever would want to.

Before, when he’d just awoken with a new sort of life before him, he claimed he would keep you. But now, as he whines as you touch him - stroking down his chest, along his stomach, past his navel - begging for the opposite. “Don’t let me go. Don’t turn me away, please.”

“Never,” You swear it like an oath, a promise that you never intend to break, and the suddenness of the wetness at your neck startles you when he buries his face there. Whether he’s hiding from you or the world, you’re unwilling to let it continue. With both hands on his face you lift him and take in the sight of something that could have been mistaken for anguish if you weren’t so sure of his relief.

He collapses in your hold as you bring him closer, wrapping your legs around his hips in a halfhearted attempt to keep him secure. There isn’t an ounce of fight in him as he molds against you - face to face, chest to chest, hips against your own insistently in a way that makes it clear what he wants. What he needs.

“Never,” you repeat, holding him close by the back of his head, gripping him tighter to you as if to meld into one being. It wouldn’t be so bad to share yourself with him in every way possible, down to the very last molecule that makes up your being. Whatever happened in that moment with Haypasia, where you’d taken her hand and allowed her to guide you to him, it’s changed you.

There is no regret in that thought. Perhaps if something fundamental had gone wrong, where he’d taken hold of your will and twisted you into something that suited his needs, you’d have felt more wary. Instead, it almost feels the opposite with how he grips at your hips and drags against you with movements both languid and frenetic.

Teeth find the straining tendon of your neck, dragging along it with purpose that’s never fulfilled as he avoids leaving the marks you’d gladly accept. Any trepidation is left at the wayside as the pressure between you builds to unmanageable levels - and you want more. It’s too much, but you’d continue to let it spiral so long as you could continue to feel like this.

“Scara-... Kunikuzushi, I need more. Please… please-”

“Anything you want.” He murmurs into your ear, teeth finally finding purchase against your earlobe shortly before pulling away. The sharpness of it makes you flinch, nearly distracting you from the way he looms above you while working at the drawstring of his pants. “Keep me by your side, and I’d do anything you asked.”

“Anything?” You hummed, pushing up on your elbows to look at him more closely, silhouetted by the parted screens at his back. At your will, the moon in the sky freezes at its apex, lighting him with its coolness.

He’s ethereal, truly a being from another plane of existence - nothing in Teyvat could compare to this. No sight in all of your travels would approach the divinity before you that stares back with tear stained cheeks and mussed hair, fingers shaking as he hooks his thumbs into the band of his pants to pull them down.

Neither of you speak as he reaches toward you with intent, pulling your own shorts away with moves that are clumsy and unpracticed. Despite your sudden impatience, you allow him to move at his own pace here - removing your clothing, crawling up your body, smoothing the backs of his fingers along the insides of your knees before pushing them apart. His swallow is audible above the sound of crickets just outside, betraying the false confidence he’s failing to show.

“Anything.”

His confirmation comes in three syllables that are accompanied by his breath across your wetness. Shivers make their way down your spine, culminating in your knees pressing into his shoulders on reflex. It does nothing to deter him, even if you wanted it to - you desperately do not.

His first touches are his thumbs, spreading you apart and gazing with parted lips and a look of enraptured awe on his face. It’d almost be amusing if you weren’t blindsided by his immediate leaning in to taste. One long, flat swipe of his tongue is all it takes to make you shudder beneath him, your fingers wrapping around hair that slips smoothly between your digits.

The pressure of your grip urges him on further. To be more adventurous, to push inside you with fingers and tongue until you’re breathless and writhing beneath him. It’s you that whines now, pleading for him to continue more and more and more. And truly, he meant anything, as his pursuit of your pleasure is tireless and without pause nor question.

“I-I need you, I need more-”

With a deep breath, he pulls away to look at you through his lashes with no shortage of expectancy. As his lips move, the low light of the moon catches on the mixture of your pleasure and his saliva. “Soon. Let me have this, don’t be impatient.”

The scolding quiets you only slightly, just enough for him to grasp you once again with increased desperation. His fingertips dig into your thighs, harder and harder until you’re certain you’re liable to bruise. Yet you welcome it - the physical signs of Kunikuzushi on your skin. The proof of his existence here with you.

Between the sounds of his heavy breath and the press of his tongue inside you, you’re listless and left adrift at his whim. He once claimed you were cruel, but his insistence on keeping you at the edge is far more merciless than you could have hoped to achieve. Even as you begin to plead again, begging him to just set you free, he simply hums against you as if that would be enough to placate.

With your grip on his hair so tight, you have to be hurting him, yet tugging at his locks only urges him further. Instead of chastising you once more for your neediness, he instead indulges you. What was once teasing and exploratory becomes pinpoint and purposeful. Thin fingers that had simply pressed inside you now become three, then four that stretch you suddenly.

It’s divine, the closest to Celestia you’re certain you’ll ever reach, and with infinite mercy he allows you to come undone around him.

He does nothing to quiet your whines, nor does he attempt to stop you from rocking against him with near brutal force as you chase your climax despite being in the throes of it. In the apex of your release, he’s the anchor that keeps you grounded and guides you back down with softer touches and hums of approval.

Kunikuzushi calls you home, and you’re more than willing to slump in his arms as he crawls up your body and rolls until you’re on your side with him, cradled against his collarbone that’s damp with sweat. Your heartbeat fills your ears with an erratic tempo, and a slip of your hand along his neck reveals his own is thrumming just as quickly.

There’s nothing to say. No life changing proclamations, no confessions that would shatter the foundations of the very world you’re hiding him away from. Only the slow blink of your eyes as you stare at him in unfiltered wonder. Somehow, reality feels shifted and you can’t pinpoint exactly which axis it’s turned on.

There’s an unmistakable pressure against your thigh when you slide it between his own. The effect is immediate - his hips roll as he chases the friction you’d teased him with, a sharp exhale that’s akin to disbelief leaves his parted lips, and his eyes unfocus for the briefest moment. His skin catches on your own as you drag your hand from his neck to his chest, then his ribs and down his side to the hip bone that juts out from his skin. All it takes is a nudge of your palm to set him into moving against you with a rhythmic rolling that provides the pleasure he’s earned.

There’s something dark and addicting about the thought of him using you for his own pleasure like this. Only the barest of input is needed from you, giving ample room for you to watch the myriad of expressions on his face. Tension, relief, the glittering of tears welling at the corners once more.

“You’re so beautiful.”

The words leave of their own accord, but you make no attempt to stop them. All it does is make his face crumple before he turns sharply, burying it in the pillow beneath his head as if that would hide him from your sight. You’re almost tempted to let him do as he pleases, but you’re reminded of the vision you’d burned in your mind of the transcendence you’d witnessed of him in the moonlight.

And more than anything, you want to see if it tarnishes as he comes undone, or if it refracts against itself in a dizzying whirl of colors and sensations.

Rolling him onto his back is effortless, but his hips buck to chase you as you pull away the friction he’d been savoring. You’re far less sadistic, despite his prior insistence, and placate him by straddling his hips instead. There’s a new sort of pressure against him - one that’s wet and searing hot and all but begging for him to thrust up into it with the madness you’re certain still lurks beneath the surface.

Yet he stills, clutching the pillow at the sides of his head, suddenly afraid to touch you. Without his guidance, you’re left in control and it gives you a surge of bravado so strong that you barely attempt to stem it. Your hips roll once, and in turn his eyes roll beneath fluttering lashes. All you can make out is a half-lidded gaze as he watches you rock above him, taking his pleasure into your own hands rather than allowing him to use you himself.

“I-I can’t… it’s too much-”

You had your suspicions, but his frantic exclamation proves that you’re treading ground with him that’s yet to be explored. On any other occasion, you’d be delighted to have him release on you, painting your skin and marking you as his own - yet this is meant to be special.

A shift of your hips and your hand guiding him is all it takes for him to slide home easily, thanks to your own eagerness. A broken whine leaves him, cracked at the edges and scraping pleasantly against your ears as you let him bask in the moment. Beneath your splayed hands, his ribs shudder with every labored breath as he strains to make sense of what he’s feeling now.

Below you, he seems so far away. So small as he white-knuckle grips next to his head, dangerously close to catching his own hair in the crossfire. Leaning down until you’re flush with him, you run your fingers through the indigo strands to sweep them up and out of the way, revealing the entirety of his face to you.

Cradling his forehead with your palm, you take the chance to lean in and kiss him - softly, with all the tenderness you can put forth. It tastes sweet on your tongue, clinging saccharine to your teeth even as you pull away and marvel as the flush of his cheeks, the wetness traveling down his temples and into the fabrics beneath him.

His time is up, and you give him no more time to adjust as you rock your hips enough for him to slide partly out, then all the way to the base again. His pupils seem to shrink as his eyes snap open, staring sightlessly over your shoulder as you move slowly. Permanently catatonic, you’d categorize him as such while you focus on his bliss while taking this from him.

“Touch me.” When he doesn’t respond, you coo, “Kunikuzushi…”

“I-I… I can’t.”

“You can’t? Or won’t?”

It’s a tease. Surely he’d give in if he were able to, but it’s impossible to resist goading him when he looks so thoroughly broken beneath you. Your fingers trace his hairline again, asynchronous to the rolling of your hips, and you hum in acknowledgment as he swallows thickly to answer, “I-I’m going to… Please, I don’t... it’s too…”

Fragments of sentences are all he can give to you, but you understand his desperation just the same. His cheek is cool against your own as you lean closer, murmuring into his ear, “Go ahead. Fill me up. Claim me. I’m all yours, and you’re mine.”

It could’ve been a number of things. The reassurance, the closeness, the promise of letting fate entwine the two of you so tightly that there’d be no undoing such a tangle. Any one of them could have led him into throwing his arms around you and crushing you to his chest as he writhes. A choked sob leaves him, muffled by your shoulder as he all but buries himself in you in every sense of the word.

And you let him, the only sound you make is one of surprise as he releases into you with force, doing exactly as you told him to. In the wake of his climax is a series of full-body shudders, barely contained by the way he anchors himself to you with all his strength. Thin fingers feel like knives as they dig into your shoulder blades, his elbows hooking beneath your arms to lock you in.

The sound of his breath in your ear is like waves crashing on rocks, like rain on a metal roof - loud, all consuming, washing out the rest of the world if you let it. And you do, without complaint and without hesitation as you let him writhe against you in search of the last dregs of his pleasure that he’s found with you.

He doesn’t relent. Not as his movements stop, not as you pull away enough to kiss along the column of his neck and thread your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, and not as his breathing picks up speed and shortness again. If it were anyone else, you’d have made a comment about the tears that wet your shoulder - but he’s in a league of his own.

All you do is roll until you’re on your back once more, cradling him with your arms and thighs as the dam breaks and you wait patiently for the torrent to subside.

The moon stays exactly where you willed it.

#scaramouche #scaramouche genshin #kunikuzushi #kunikuzushi genshin #spoilers using leaks for upcoming #written pre-3.2 #scaramouche x reader #f!reader #female reader #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #maybe one shot #maybe two shot #depends on what happens after we tickle his toes and he gets his beach episode redemption arc #mdni #mind the a/n for spicy tags

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