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The first time Varka laid eyes on the Wanderer, the world seemed to narrow to a single point—those piercing violet eyes, the delicate curve of his jawline half-hidden beneath the wide brim of his hat, the way his lithe frame moved with effortless grace. Something primal coiled in Varka’s gut, hotter than any battle-lust. Gods above, he’s exquisite. The thought hit him like a stray claymore swing—unexpected, brutal, leaving him momentarily breathless. He imagined pinning that slender body against the nearest tree, the hat tumbling to the grass as he claimed that sharp mouth, those slender legs wrapping around his waist—
Unfortunately for him, his unholy thoughts are cut short when Albedo moves to introduce them. “This is Kazacchi-san,” the alchemist says smoothly, gesturing between them, “though some know him as ‘Hat Guy.’” The Wanderer’s nose wrinkles ever so slightly at the nickname, his fingers tightening around the rim of his hat. “Please don’t call me that,” he murmurs, polite but firm. “I prefer ‘Wanderer.’”
Varka’s grin is all teeth, chest burning with something far more dangerous than camaraderie. “Any friend of Albedo’s is a good friend of mine!” Lies. He didn’t want friendship—he wanted the Wanderer a blabbering, moaning mess beneath him, those porcelain fingers clawing at his back as he ruined him properly.
Wanderer, for his part, merely raises an eyebrow at Varka’s boisterous greeting, unimpressed—or at least pretending to be. But the way his breath hitches ever so slightly when Varka claps him on the back (too hard, too close) betrays him. “Hmph.” He adjusts his hat with deliberate slowness, eyes flickering away—but not before Varka catches the faintest dusting of pink high on his cheeks.
“You” Varka begins, suddenly breathless himself. “You fight with Anemo right?”
Wanderer’s lips curl into something dangerously close to a smirk. “And if I do?”
Varka leans in, voice dropping to a growl. “Then we should spar sometime.”
The tension between them snaps taut—electric, undeniable. Wanderer exhales sharply through his nose, fingers twitching at his sides like he’s resisting the urge to reach for his Vision right then and there. He’s silent for a long moment before tilting his chin up defiantly. “Fine,” he says at last, voice dripping with challenge. “But don’t come crying to me when you lose.”
Varka throws his head back and laughs, loud enough to startle a flock of birds from the trees nearby. “Oh, sweetheart,” he purrs, low and rough, “I never lose.”
Albedo watches the exchange with thinly veiled amusement, glancing between them before clearing his throat pointedly. “If you two are quite finished flirting with each other,” he deadpans, “we were in the middle of discussing-”
“Absolutely nothing important,” Varka interrupts smoothly, eyes never leaving Wanderer’s face. “Right, Albedo?”
Wanderer scoffs, turning away—but not before Varka catches the way his throat bobs when their gazes meet again. Gotcha.
Later, as the group disperses, Varka lingers—just long enough to brush his fingers against Wanderer’s wrist as he passes. The contact is fleeting, deliberate, and Wanderer freezes mid-step, shoulders stiffening. “Don’t forget,” Varka murmurs, breath hot against the shell of his ear, “you promised me a fight.”
When Wanderer finally turns to face him, his eyes are dark—not with anger, but something far more dangerous. “I never promise anything,” he breathes.
Varka just grins, slow and wolfish. “Liar.”
And with that, he strides away, leaving Wanderer standing there; pulse racing, skin burning where Varka’s fingers had been.
☀︎☆
Later that night, Varka lays awake in his tent, muscles still humming from the day’s skirmish—but it’s not exhaustion keeping him up. No, the discomfort tightening his pants is far more insistent, his cock stiff and aching despite his earlier attempts to relieve the pressure. He’d tried—Archons, he’d tried—but every stroke of his hand only brought Wanderer’s face to mind: the way his lips had parted when Varka leaned in too close, the sharp intake of breath when their skin brushed, the challenge simmering in those light indigo eyes.
With a growl, Varka palms himself through his trousers, biting back a groan. Fuck. He couldn’t even think about anything else—not when every damn fantasy featured Wanderer beneath him, gasping his name, those slender thighs trembling as Varka—
A rustle outside his tent snaps him from his thoughts. His hand stills.
Wait.
Was that—?
The flap of his tent lifts ever so slightly, just enough for a sliver of moonlight to spill across the floor—and Varka’s breath catches.
Oh, sweet fucking Barbatos.
There, silhouetted against the night, stands Wanderer.
And he’s not wearing his hat.
Wanderer’s lips twist into a scowl, though the flush creeping down his neck betrays him. “You’re too loud for your own good, Grandmaster,” he grumbles, voice low but sharp. His gaze flicks pointedly toward the rowdy knights drinking outside, their laughter muffled by distance, but still audible. “You’re lucky they’re too drunk to hear you.”
Varka doesn’t bother hiding the way his cock twitches at the sight of him and has the audacity to grin when Wanderer’s eyes dart downward and widen. “What,” Varka purrs, shifting just enough to make the fabric strain over his thighs, “are you doing here?”
Wanderer doesn’t answer—not with words, anyway.
Instead, he steps inside. And lets the tent flap fall shut behind him.
“Helping you out,” Wanderer mutters, his voice barely above a whisper as he kneels between Varka’s thighs and before Varka can so much as blink, slender fingers undo the laces of his trousers with practiced ease and free his cock before taking it all the way down to his throat with ease.
The groan that tears from Varka’s throat is filthy, his hands flying to tangle in Wanderer’s hair as his hips jerk upward—but Wanderer doesn’t pull away. No, he leans into it, hollowing his cheeks with a wet, obscene noise, eyes fluttering shut as Varka’s cock sinks deeper into his throat.
Varka watches him take his cock into those perfect pink lips stretched wide around him, spit-slick and obscene, and the sight alone is enough to make his vision blur at the edges.
And then—Archons—Wanderer sucks.
Hard.
Varka’s grip tightens in Wanderer’s hair, his hips bucking upward uncontrollably as Wanderer’s tongue drags along his length, teasing the vein underneath before swirling around the tip with shameless precision.
“Fuck” Varka chokes out, his thighs trembling.
Wanderer pulls back just enough to smirk up at him—smug bastard—before sinking down again, his fingers fondling Varka’s balls with deliberate, teasing strokes.
And Varka? Varka is done for.
The heat of Wanderer’s mouth—wet, tight, perfect—has Varka seeing stars, his cock twitching violently with each slick slide of lips and tongue. He barely registers the way his hips stutter forward, fucking into that sinful mouth with reckless abandon, but Wanderer doesn’t protest—no, he encourages it, swallowing around him with a choked-off moan that vibrates through Varka’s entire body.
Then, without warning, Wanderer pulls back, his lips swollen and glistening, his chest heaving as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You think too loud,” he pants, voice wrecked.
Varka doesn’t give him a chance to finish.
In one swift motion, he flips them, pinning Wanderer beneath him and crushes their mouths together, tasting himself on Wanderer’s tongue as he grinds their hips together with a groan.
“And you” Varka growls between kisses, “are too damn good with that mouth.”
“That was the warmup,” Wanderer murmurs against Varka’s lips before pushing the knight away and back down, his tongue lapping at the head of Varka’s cock with deliberate, teasing strokes. He wasn’t planning on letting go of it anytime soon—not when Varka’s thighs trembled beneath him, not when every choked-out groan from the Grandmaster’s lips sent heat pooling low in his gut. He bites down at his thighs leaving small hickies here and there before going back to that monstrous cock.
Varka almost loses his mind, fingers tightening in Wanderer’s hair as Wanderer swallows him down again, his throat fluttering around the thick length of him with shameless greed.
And when Wanderer hums—low, satisfied—Varka sees white, his back arching off the cot as pleasure coils tight in his stomach.
Archons.
He wasn’t going to last.
Wanderer was too good with that mouth—and he didn’t have a gag reflex, which made Varka nearly cum several times, his breath coming in ragged gasps as Wanderer swallowed him down again and again with shameless precision. But every time Varka’s hips jerked upward—every time his cock twitched against the back of Wanderer’s throat—Wanderer pulled back, smirking up at him with swollen lips and hooded eyes.
“Not yet,” he murmured—before sinking down once more, his fingers digging into Varka’s thighs to hold him still.
Varka groaned in ecstasy (and frustration) as Wanderer teased him mercilessly, his tongue swirling around the head of Varka’s cock before dragging wet, open-mouthed kisses along the length of him.
And when Varka finally reached for him. Wanderer leaned back just out of reach, his lips slick and glistening in the dim light of the tent.
“Patience,” he whispered before licking a slow, torturous stripe up Varka’s cock. “Can’t have you come so soon”
Varka swore loudly and fisted the sheets beneath him.
He was going to ruin this brat once he was done.
☀︎☆
The first pulse of cum hits the back of Wanderer’s throat—and he nearly gags, nose wrinkling in disgust but he swallows it down anyway, lips tightening around Varka’s cock as he drinks every last drop.
Varka slumps back against his bedroll, chest heaving, his grip loosening in Wanderer’s hair as the last dregs of pleasure ebb away but Wanderer isn’t done yet.
No, he climbs into Varka’s lap, thighs bracketing Varka’s hips as he leans in, breath hot against Varka’s ear. “Was that satisfactory enough for you?”
And Varka doesn’t have an answer for that. Not when Wanderer’s weight presses deliciously against his spent cock, not when the scent of sweat and sex hangs thick in the air between them.
So he does the only thing he can think of.
He kisses him.
And hard.
Wanderer makes a noise—something between a gasp and a whimper—but he doesn’t pull away.
No, he melts into it, his hands tangling in Varka’s hair, his hips grinding down in slow, filthy circles.
☀︎☆
The tent flap rustles slightly as the distant sounds of laughter drift in from outside, muffled but unmistakable. Someone’s approaching.
Wanderer stiffens, his breath catching and Varka growls, tightening his grip around Wanderer’s waist as he shifts them both deeper into the shadows of the tent.
“Stay still,” he murmurs against Wanderer’s lips—but Wanderer doesn’t stay still.
No, he bites down on Varka’s bottom lip—hard enough to draw blood—and whispers, voice dripping with challenge “Make me.”
And Varka does. Because when has he ever backed down from a fight?
With a rough tug, he flips them, pinning Wanderer beneath him and smothers Wanderer’s answering gasp with another bruising kiss.
Outside, footsteps pause in hesitation before fading away.
Neither of them notice.
They’re busy.
☀︎☆
Varka’s hands roam Wanderer’s body with rough urgency, fingers catching on fabric until he tears it aside, exposing pale skin, the sharp jut of collarbones, the delicate curve of ribs and when his mouth finds Wanderer’s nipple, biting down just shy of pain, Wanderer jerks, a choked-off whimper escaping his lips.
“Ah! Varka~”
Varka smirks against his skin, tongue swirling around the stiff peak before moving lower—down the trembling plane of Wanderer’s stomach, past his hips—and then—
Oh.
His breath catches. Where he expected to find a hard leaking cock—there was nothing.
No, not nothing.
Something better.
Pink, swollen folds, glistening wet and Varka’s mouth waters.
Wanderer tenses, hands flying to cover himself but Varka catches his wrists, pinning them to above his head as he leans in, breath hot against Wanderer’s cunt.
“Whatever you’re thinking of doing—” Wanderer warns with a trembling voice but Varka doesn’t let him finish.
No, he dives down—tongue dragging through slick folds—and Wanderer screams, thighs clamping around Varka’s head as Varka sucks hungrily at his clit. “No! It’s, ah! dirty-”The first thrust is brutal—Varka’s cock splitting Wanderer open with a single, unforgiving snap of his hips—and Wanderer chokes, his nails tearing into the bedroll beneath him.
Varka doesn’t give him time to adjust—doesn’t care—because the moment he’s buried to the hilt inside Wanderer’s trembling body, he loses it.
His hands grip Wanderer’s hips—hard enough to bruise—as he fucks into him with reckless abandon, each thrust driving Wanderer’s face deeper into the sheets.
“Archons” Wanderer gasps, voice ragged but Varka doesn’t slow down.
No, he speeds up, bending over Wanderer’s back to bite at his shoulder, his cock plunging deeper with every punishing stroke.
And Wanderer—gods—Wanderer takes it. Takes him like he was made for this.
His cunt clenches around Varka’s cock and Varka groans, his rhythm stuttering as pleasure coils tight in his gut.
He’s close, so close but he cannot cum just yet
Varka flips Wanderer onto his back—one hand gripping his thigh, the other pinning his wrist—and fuck, the sight nearly ruins him.
Wanderer’s lips were swollen, spit-slick parting in a gasp as Varka drives into him again, his violet eyes glassy with pleasure, his chest heaving beneath Varka’s weight.
And oh, the way he looks—
Flushed pink from chest to ears, hair mussed, sweat-slick skin gleaming in the dim light—
Varka’s grip tightens—his hips snapping forward—and Wanderer whimpers, his nails digging into Varka’s forearm as pleasure rips through him again.
“Fuck—” Wanderer chokes out—his voice breaking—and Varka growls, bending down to capture his lips in a messy, biting kiss.
“Mine,” he rasps—their foreheads pressed together—and Wanderer—
Wanderer agrees.
His legs wrap around Varka’s waist—pulling him deeper
One particular thrust has his cock kissing Wanderer’s cervix making Varka groans, his rhythm faltering as pleasure started to coil tight in his gut. He was close
“Let me just pull out—” he grits out, already shifting back but Wanderer snarls, his hands clawing at Varka’s shoulders. “Don’t you dare”
“Inside,” he demands, walls clambering around Varka’s cock like it refuses to let go. “Mark me from the inside out Varka”
“What if a baby results from this”
“Then I’m set for life,” Wanderer snarks, lips curling into a smirk before sealing them against Varka’s in a searing kiss. “I can’t live without your cock anymore.”
With a final, ragged thrust—his hips stuttering—Varka spills, his cock pulsing deep inside Wanderer as thick ropes of cum flood his womb.
Wanderer shudders—his back arching—as his own climax crashes over him, his cunt milking Varka’s cock with pulsing intensity.
And Varka—Archons—doesn’t stop.
He fucks into him through it until Wanderer’s cunt overflows, sticky white trickling down his thighs as Varka still.
Panting, trembling, ruined. Wanderer’s legs tighten around his waist, keeping him close as he whispers, voice wrecked
“Do it a-again. We have to make sure it takes”
And Varka feels his dick hardening inside again, grins.
“Gladly.”
Because Varka isn’t stopping until Wanderer’s belly swells with his seed, until every thrust leaves him gasping, until his cunt remembers nothing but the shape of Varka’s cock.
He fucks into him again slowly as his hands roam Wanderer’s trembling body, tracing the curve of his hips, the dip of his waist—imagining how it’ll look rounded with his child.
And Wanderer wouldn’t have it any other way, he arches into every touch, every kiss, every bruising thrust—his voice breaking as he pleads “More.”
So Varka gives him more.
And more.
And more.
Until dawn paints the tent in gold, until Wanderer’s thighs tremble with overstimulation, until his belly aches with the weight of Varka’s cum.
Only then does Varka finally, finally pull out.
☀︎☆
Varka’s thumb traces Wanderer’s abused pussy watching his cum drip before pressing it back inside with a filthy squelch. “I have to marry you, my dear,” he murmurs, voice rough, lips brushing Wanderer’s ear. “Can’t have another man see you like this.”
Wanderer’s smirk is lazy and sated as he hooks a leg over Varka’s hip. “Do it then,” he teases, fingers tracing idle patterns on Varka’s chest. “Else I might just find another.”
Varka flips their positions, crushing Wanderer against his chest in a searing kiss. “I’ll sweep you off your feet, sweetheart,” he vows, hands roaming Wanderer’s sweat-slick skin, already imagining him swollen with their child. “My beautiful wife. Everyone in Teyvat will be jealous of you—our wedding blessed by Barbatos himself.”
Wanderer hums, eyelids fluttering shut—too exhausted to snipe back.
And Varka holds him close, pressing a kiss to his forehead as sleep claims them both.
Outside, the first light of dawn creeps across the horizon painting their tangled limbs in gold.
[BONUS]
(A Crash Course in Consequence)
The air in Albedo’s Dragonspine lab was, as always, crisp, sterile, and smelled of chalk and cold stone. It was a stark contrast to the frantic, sun-warmed, breathless haze that had been the Wanderer’s reality for the past several weeks. He’d come to the alchemist complaining of a persistent system malfunction—a deep fatigue, sensory hypersensitivity, and a strange, fluttering instability in his core that no amount of self-diagnosis could parse.
Albedo, ever the impartial scientist, had run his tests. Now, he stood before his… friend? Colleague? Fellow artificial being?… holding a glowing diagnostic slate. His teal eyes were calm, but held a faint glint of fascinating discovery.
The Wanderer stared at the complex glyphs and energy readings, which meant absolutely nothing to him. His brow was furrowed in sharp, irritated confusion. “And what does *that* mean?” he snapped, gesturing vaguely at the slate.
Albedo blinked, as if the question was oddly redundant. He stated the conclusion with the same tone he’d use to announce the composition of a rock sample.
“Congratulations. You’re pregnant with a child.”
The words didn’t register. They were sounds, empty of meaning. The Wanderer’s mind, usually so quick, simply… stalled. He replayed them.
Pregnant?? With a child.
His brain attempted to connect the clinical term to the roaring, golden-haired, impossibly warm reality that was Varka. To the feeling of being pinned beneath that solid weight, of being kissed until he saw stars, of the reckless, hungry nights where they’d barely slept, where caution and consequence felt like concepts for lesser, boring mortals.
“Huh?” It was the only sound he could manage. Small. Stupid.
Albedo, mistaking his stunned silence for a need for further clarification, obliged with brutal, educational clarity. “The repeated introduction of viable genetic material into a receptive reproductive system, without prophylactic intervention, has a high statistical probability of triggering zygote formation and implantation. Your unique constitution, while synthetic in origin, possesses the analogous anatomical and biochemical structures necessary for gestation.” He tilted his head. “In simpler terms: not using protection while having sex leads to pregnancy. And you do have the correct biological components for it to happen.”
The clarification did not help. It made it worse. It framed the dizzying, all-consuming passion of the last few months as… a biological process. A predictable chemical reaction. Like mixing volatile reagents.
A hysterical, breathless thought bubbled up through the shock.
“This is what I get for having sex?’
The absurdity of it—the divine puppet, the failed vessel, the Balladeer, brought low by something as mundane and animalistic as unsafe sex? was so profound it bypassed panic and went straight to a kind of dizzying, existential amusement.
He voiced the thought aloud, his voice flat. “So. This is what I get for fucking like rabbits do.”
Albedo considered the analogy. “The comparison is apt in terms of frequency and lack of long-term planning, though lagomorph gestation periods and social structures are notably different. But in essence, yes. This is the typical outcome.”
The finality of it crashed down. The amusement vanished. The reality was a cold stone in his gut.
He was pregnant. With Varka’s child. A child he had no blueprint for, no purpose for, no idea how to even begin to handle. He’d just started figuring out how to *be* with someone, how to accept being loved, and now he was slated to become a source?? A creator. The very thing he had such a complicated relationship with.
He looked down at his own abdomen, the perfectly flat plane of synthetic muscle and elegant structure. Soon, it would not be. It would change. He would change. Irrevocably.
A weak, humorless laugh escaped him. He ran a trembling hand through his indigo hair.
“Well,” he muttered, the words dripping with a sense of bleak, cosmic irony. “I’ll be fucked.”
Albedo, taking the statement at face value, nodded in solemn agreement. “That,” he said, returning to his notes, “was the established causative action. The current condition is the resultant effect. I can provide you with some preliminary texts on prenatal nutrition for unique physiologies. I believe Lisa has a few.”
The Wanderer just stood there, in the cold lab, the world having fundamentally reshaped itself in the span of thirty seconds. He was no longer just a lover, a fighter, a wanderer. He was an incubator. And he had absolutely no idea what to do next, except maybe go find the man responsible and punch him very, very hard. Or kiss him senseless. He hadn't decided yet.
“Grandmaster Varka did mention that you two will wed if such an event happens, right?” Albedo’s simple, logical question hung in the cold air, a needle popping the bubble of the Wanderer’s spiraling panic.
The Wanderer’s gaze, which had been fixed on some horrifying internal middle-distance, snapped back to Albedo. He blinked. The memory surfaced, clear and vivid amidst the hormonal haze and shock.
The first time. The world reduced to skin, heat, and the overwhelming, terrifying rightness of it. Afterwards, tangled and breathless, Varka’s face had been a constellation of awe and a fierce, sudden protectiveness. He’d cradled the Wanderer’s face, his thumb brushing a cheekbone, and his voice was a rough, solemn vow.
“If anything comes of this… if we make a life… I’ll marry you. Properly. In front of everyone. You’ll be my husband.”
The Wanderer, still drowning in sensation and the unfamiliar vulnerability of being so thoroughly seen, had scoffed. “Don’t be absurd. Just… wait. Let’s just… be this. For now.”
He’d been afraid. Afraid of the commitment, of the chains, of making something so immense and real out of the fragile, new thing between them.
Now, standing in Albedo’s lab with the consequence of not waiting blooming inside him, he gave a slow, dazed nod.
“He did,” he muttered, the admission feeling like pulling a thorn from deep in his flesh. “Right after our first time. Sweaty and stupid and grinning like he’d won the grand prize of Teyvat. Said if this,” he gestured vaguely at his own, still-flat stomach, “ever happened, he’d make it official before the sun set that same day.”
He let out a sharp, brittle laugh. “I told him to wait. To not be an impulsive fool. That we should… I don’t know. *Know* each other first.” The irony tasted like ash. They’d ‘known’ each other in the most primal way possible, over and over, but the idea of vows, of permanence tied to a potential consequence, had felt like too much weight on a feeling that was still too new and terrifyingly bright.
Albedo simply listened, his head tilted in that bird-like way he had when observing a fascinating emotional reaction.
The dam broke further. The clinical shock was wearing off, leaving behind a churning, messy swamp of vulnerability. “He promised, you know,” the Wanderer whispered, his voice losing its edge, becoming something younger, more afraid. “When it was… when we were… He’s so loud, Albedo. In everything. His laughter, his fighting, his-his passion. He just… takes over. And I let him. I wanted him to. I was the one who locked my legs around him and told him not to pull out. I demanded he fill me up until it took. I wanted to feel it, to be so full of him there was no room for anything else, not the past, not the fear, just… him. And he… he just laughed, that great, booming laugh, and promised he’d breed me so well I’d be the most beautiful, round wife Mondstadt had ever seen when he finally put a ring on my finger.”
He finally looked at Albedo, his light indigo eyes wide with a kind of horrified awe. “And now… here I am. I got exactly what I asked for. I trapped him with my own body. I’ve literally turned myself into the ‘beautiful, round wife’ of his dreams before the wedding even happened. It’s not a promise of forever because he loves me. It’s a… a duty. A consequence. A life sentence he’s too honorable to run from.”
The fear was palpable now. Not of the pregnancy itself, but of its meaning. He had wielded his own body as a weapon of possession, a desperate, carnal claim, and now the claim had been answered in the most tangible way possible. What if the vow, when it came, was just a man upholding a reckless promise made in the heat of the moment, not a heart choosing to stay?
Albedo was quiet for a long moment, his gaze analytical. “Your analysis is flawed,” he stated finally, not unkindly. “You are viewing the sequence linearly: demand, conception, then obligation. You are ignoring the initial variable.”
“What variable?”
“His immediate offer of marriage,” Albedo said, as if it were obvious. “Before the conception event. The promise to ‘breed’ you was not a new contract; it was an enthusiastic affirmation of a pre-existing commitment he had already volunteered. Your… request for insemination was not a trap. It was accepting the terms he had already laid out. You are not a consequence he is bound to. You are the desired outcome of a mutually agreed-upon process.”
He picked up a piece of chalk, sketching a quick, absurd diagram on a slate. “See? Variable A: Varka’s offer of marriage. Variable B: Your consensual sexual activity. Variable C: Your specific request during B. Outcome: Current condition. Variable A is the foundation, not a result of C.”
The Wanderer stared at the stupid chalk diagram. It was reductive. It was absurd. It was also, infuriatingly, logically sound.
“So you’re saying… he wanted this. All of it. From the start.”
“The data suggests a high probability,” Albedo nodded. “Your current form may align with his stated aesthetic preference for a ‘round wife,’ but the preference appears to be a subset of a larger preference: for you. In whatever state you occur.”
The simplicity of it was staggering. He’d been spiraling into a narrative of entrapment and obligation, and Albedo had calmly dissected it and pointed out the obvious: Varka had wanted to marry him from the first night. The pregnancy wasn’t a trap; it was a welcome acceleration of a plan already in motion.
He was still terrified. He was still overwhelmed. But the cold stone of dread in his gut warmed, just a fraction, into something else—something like the first, fragile hint of a dawn he hadn’t dared believe in. He wasn’t a sentence to be served. He was a dream, coming true in the most chaotic, roundabout way imaginable.
“But… I orchestrated the entire thing while he was too delirious with lust to think straight. What kind of foundation is that for a marriage? For a child?”
The lab was silent save for the faint hum of alchemical equipment. Albedo processed the data. Not just the biological, but the emotional. The guilt. The fear that the greatest intimacy of his life had been a manipulation.
Finally, Albedo set his slate down. “Your analysis is flawed,” he stated, his voice still calm, but lacking its usual clinical chill. “You are assuming Varka’s cognitive functions were impaired to the point of coercion. Based on my observations of his baseline behavior, his decision-making under hormonal influence is likely an amplification of his core desires, not an abolition of them.”
He picked up a piece of chalk, turning it over in his fingers. “He wished to marry you after the first act. You postponed it. Your subsequent… requests during intimacy were not a secret plot. They were a mutual escalation of a pre-existing agreement. He promised to ‘breed’ you because he wanted to. You requested it because you wanted it. The pregnancy is not a trap. It is the mutual, if recklessly accelerated, fulfilment of a shared objective.”
Albedo met his gaze. “You are not a manipulator. You are a co-conspirator. And now, you are facing the logical, physical outcome of that conspiracy. The foundation is not deception. It is mutual, overwhelming want.” He paused. “Whether that is a stable foundation is a separate question. But it is, undeniably, a shared one.”
The Wanderer stared at him, the alchemist’s words slowly penetrating the fog of guilt. Co-conspirator. Not a trap. A mutual, reckless, passionate pact.
He had demanded. Varka had promised. They had both gotten exactly what they’d asked for in those feverish moments.
He was carrying a child he had, on some level, asked for.
He was going to marry a man who had, from the first moment, wanted to claim him forever.
He was scared. He was in over his head.
But he wasn’t trapped. He was… committed. To a path he had, with eyes wide open and legs wrapped tight, chosen to walk.
The hysterical panic receded, replaced by a shaky, profound, and utterly exhausted acceptance.
“Well,” he sighed, the fight draining out of him, leaving only the undeniable truth of the life growing within. “I suppose I’d better go find my co-architect. And maybe let him buy me a ring. Before I start throwing up on his boots.”
Albedo gave a single, approving nod. “A rational next step. I look forward to shopping for your wedding.”