Archive of Our Own

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Ororon asks one last time, just in case he can somehow avoid his fate.

Mavuika actually snorts at him. “Are you questioning the wisdom of your archon?” she drawls, grinning widely. “Yes, I’m sure. We need to know The Captain’s motives. You know that better than anyone.”

“I just don’t think I’m the best choice. Maybe if you asked, he’d—”

Mavuika raises her eyebrows. “He’d what? Say he’s here to save Natlan for patriotism? Ask me for my gnosis outright?” She looks at him pointedly. “Pull another Night-Wind expert out from the shadows to distract me with a smokescreen?”

Ororon flushes. It’s not like Capitano pulled him out of the shadows, exactly—Ororon chose to save him all on his own. It wasn’t some grand conspiracy. It was just Ororon’s blind faith, put into action. “I already told you I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Crossing her arms, Mavuika smiles at him. “Actions speak louder than words, Ororon.” She pats his shoulder. “Bring me his real motives​​—not the half-truths he keeps giving me—and I’ll consider you forgiven in full. No treason charges whatsoever.”

That does sound pretty good. Ororon doesn’t particularly want to be tried for treason. Although he’d likely be acquitted given how much Capitano has contributed to the war effort, the charges would still change people’s perception of him. And besides, his granny would never let him hear the end of it. Her own grandson, tried for treason! All for saving a Fatui harbinger he only knew through weird stalking! He shivers just thinking about it.

“All you have to do is ask,” Mavuika says gently. “It’s worth trying.”

Ororon sighs. “You really think he’ll tell me? I don’t think I’m that special to him.”

Mavuika only laughs. “Oh, Ororon,” she says, shaking her head. “Just ask him. I have a feeling he’ll give you a satisfactory answer.”

That’s the thing about Mavuika. She knows exactly what to say to leave Ororon no choice.

***

Capitano isn’t living with him anymore, but he did give Ororon the key to his private quarters at the Natlan permanent Fatui base before he left. Ororon had tried to reject it, but they both knew it was a cursory effort. He wanted to see Capitano again. He wanted to know where to find him. When he put up his halfhearted protest, Capitano had just laughed.

(Well, he hadn’t just laughed. He had pressed the key into Ororon’s hands with more force than necessary, looked at him with a glint in his eyes, and said, “We both know you want it.” Ororon still gets shivers just thinking about it—his intense gaze, his steely voice, his surety of Ororon’s desire. Ororon wasn’t a hundred percent certain he was talking about the key, just then.)

When he shows up at the Fatui complex, the guards don’t even blink. In fact, they lower their weapons and incline their heads in short bow.

Terrible security protocols, he thinks, frowning slightly. “I’m here to see The Captain,” he says, just in case that wasn’t clear. “Don’t you need to search me or something?”

“Sir,” says one of the guards, looking at his feet. “The Captain has cleared you in advance. Please enjoy your visit. If there is anything you—” At this point she coughs a little, her face going bright red, but she persists. “If there is anything you require, let us know. Sir.”

Ororon tilts his head. Usually Capitano’s soldiers treat him like one of their own, joking with him, complaining with him, drinking with him. None of Capitano’s soldiers have been afraid of him before, and yet here she is, practically trembling in her boots. What did Capitano say about him to have his soldiers so nervous? “Are you alright?”

“YES,” she squeaks, incredibly high pitched. “Yes, I’m, uh, fine. We’ll give you and The Captain your privacy. Uh, sir.”

Ororon watches, bewildered, as the other guard bows and drags her away. He’s left standing at the entrance to Capitano’s quarters, completely alone. The door before him is suddenly intimidating. Ororon swallows and tries in vain to slow his heartbeat as he approaches.

He doesn’t even need to use the key. Capitano opens the door for him before he has the chance.

Suddenly Ororon is face-to-face with the mask. He’s not used to it—when Capitano was recovering in his home, the mask was banished. It’s oddly intimidating, seeing him in his full commander’s glory.

“Um,” says Ororon, shifting on his feet. He doesn’t like looking at the mask; he isn’t quite sure where Capitano’s eyes are. “Hi.”

Capitano tilts his head slightly in some imperceptible emotion. “Come in,” he says, sounding faintly amused. “I did tell you that you were welcome any time.”

The apartment is smaller than Ororon expected. As he unfastens his boots in the entryway, he can see almost the entire place. A living room ahead of him; a kitchen to the left; a door to what must be the bedroom and bathroom on the right. Not much else. It’s more suited to a moderately-decorated commander than a top-ranked harbinger.

Next to him, Capitano takes off his mask, placing it on top of the coat rack. He closes his eyes and shakes his hair out, running his fingers through it. Ororon watches, entranced, as he combs it out. He’s sort of beautiful, or at least Ororon has always thought so. Like a crumbling stone wall is beautiful. Like a washed-out graffiti mark on his granny’s wall is beautiful. Where Ororon carries the weight of his past in his soul, Capitano wears it on his face.

“Is that better?” Capitano asks, his eyes still closed, a slight smile on his mouth. “I can tell you’re staring. Your breathing pattern changed.”

Ororon blinks, surprised, but doesn’t bother denying it. “You can tell from my breath?”

“Of course. Your breath just slowed, because you know I’m looking at you.” He reaches for his hair tie and pulls his hair out of it to cascade across his shoulders. “Slower breathing rhythms indicate relaxation. Usually, when people don’t perceive any danger, their breath slows. I could hear the tension leaving your breath.”

Does he really pay him so much attention? Ororon’s face feels warm. Sure enough, his heartbeat and his breathing have slowed down. Standing before the door, he felt miniscule, and yet standing before Capitano himself, he feels level with him, the same as always.

“It’s good,” Capitano says, finally blinking his eyes open. “I always aim for my men to be comfortable around me.”

Ororon feels lightheaded—it must be warm in here—so he reaches for the fastenings of his coat. “I’m not one of your men.”

Capitano smiles with his slanted mouth, like he knows something Ororon doesn’t. He reaches out, setting his hand on top of Ororon’s shoulder. “Hm. Do you want help with that?”

Ororon knows full well how to take off his own coat. He’s been wearing it for the last three years. He wove the damn thing himself. “Yeah,” he breathes anyway. “Please.”

Capitano’s hands are gentle and liquid-slow as they drag his coat off of him. His fingertips trail down Ororon’s bare arm in the coat’s wake. Ororon looks fixedly at his hands, scared that if he looks at Capitano, he’ll be looking back.

“What brings you here?” Capitano asks, sounding amused.

Ororon watches Capitano’s fingers drag over his own hand and tries to keep his breathing even. “Can’t I just want to see you?”

Capitano laughs, low, right next to his ear. From his arm Capitano switches his grip to Ororon’s waist, turning him around. Ororon goes easily. Anything would be better than watching his hands, Ororon thinks… His large, skilled commander’s hands, well-worn underneath the rough leather of his gloves—

“You wouldn’t.”

As he pulls off the coat, Capitano drags his blunt nails across Ororon’s back. Ororon feels dizzy with the sensation, too light to hurt but too harsh to ignore. “I wouldn’t what,” he asks, faintly hazy.

Rather than answering, Capitano hums next to his ear. “Tilt your head.”

Ororon tilts his head.

“A little more.”

Before Ororon can move, Capitano’s hand presses against the side of his neck, gently pressing it where he wants Ororon to go. Ororon’s head falls like a marionette with its strings cut. Capitano’s nails progress up along his spine and drag up his neck, down the exposed side. Ororon jolts a little, but doesn’t move away.

“Your hood,” Capitano explains, taking the fabric in one hand. “It was caught beneath your ear. I didn’t want to pull on the fabric. You wove it yourself, didn’t you?”

Ororon huffs out a breathy laugh and rights his head again. They both know none of that was necessary. “Don’t distract yourself. Weren’t you saying something?”

“Mm. You wouldn’t come visit me for no reason.” Capitano taps his fingers against the back of Ororon’s shoulder, like a signal, and turns Ororon back around by his hip. “So tell me—what brings you here?”

Ororon has never been good at lying. “Your motives,” he admits. “I’m curious why you insist upon helping Natlan avert our fate, even at a cost to yourself. You could have died, you know, if I hadn’t saved you.”

One side of Capitano’s mouth quirks up wryly. “You know of Khaenri’ah. You know I wouldn’t have died.”

Ororon presses his lips together. “It’s the idea of it. Giving up your life, even if you’ll get it right back, isn’t easy. It takes immense dedication. Death isn’t something people undertake lightly.”

Capitano exhales a breathy laugh. “Don’t you want to talk about something more uplifting? My soldiers would never drag the conversation down like this.”

“That’s why I’m not one of them.”

Capitano fixes him with an odd look from the corner of his eye. “You’re not as far off as you think.” Before Ororon can make sense of this, Capitano places the coat in his hands. “Here.”

Ororon takes the coat. He hangs it up on the rack, directly below Capitano’s mask. Both of their pieces of armor hung up in the doorway, and both of them left defenseless. The thought makes him smile a little.

“I’ve told you my reasons for offering my assistance several times already,” Capitano says, walking into the living space. He leans against the back of a chair, still standing, his arms folded across the back of it. He motions toward the chair. “Take a seat.”

Ororon doesn’t sit. He leans against the wall next to Capitano instead, keeping them on even eye level. “You lied.”

“You think I lied,” Capitano corrects. “And if I’m not mistaken, your only reason for doubting me is the pyro archon’s distrust. If it were up to you, and you alone, would you trust me?”

Ororon knows his answer. Of course he would. He went against his own archon to save him. He kept him in his own house for weeks while he recovered. His trust in Capitano is anchored deep within him. Ororon imagines, sometimes, that it’s taken root in the missing half of his soul, filling out the empty space within him, making him feel whole. “I don’t know,” he says quietly.

Capitano looks at him searchingly. After a long moment of silence, he pushes away from the chair he’s been leaning on and says, “You didn’t sit.”

Ororon leans further against the wall, propping both shoulders against it. “Mm. Didn’t feel like it.”

“I asked you to.”

“And I didn’t,” Ororon says, smiling a little with the corner of his mouth. “You’re not used to that, are you? Everyone listens to you. Everyone does as you say.”

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself. You, too, do as I say.”

“Not always.”

Capitano raises one eyebrow.

Ororon isn’t sure what makes him say it. The words come out in a rush, like a confession: “I had a second drink. That night, when you told me to only have one. I asked one of your men to give me another.”

Capitano barks out a laugh. “Oh, Ororon. You think I didn’t know that?”

Ororon’s face heats up. He did think that. His only secret from Capitano, and it was never secret to begin with. He crosses his arms, then uncrosses them, then ends up settling them both against the wall at his sides. “I wasn’t drunk.”

“Mm. Not drunk, perhaps. But you kept looking at me, and you were breathing so much faster.”

Ororon doesn’t remember breathing any differently than usual. What he does remember is that one of Capitano’s soldiers started talking about her sweetheart back home, and suddenly everyone was talking about love and sex and they were all laughing and Ororon had never tried it before and he wondered, just then, if he ought to give it a go, and the fire was warm and he was feeling a little lightheaded and before he knew it he’d been thinking idly about Capitano kissing him with his hard mouth for several minutes, and the conversation had moved on already without him even noticing.

“I knew what you were thinking when you looked at me then,” Capitano says, smiling slightly. “It isn’t hard to tell, with you.”

Ororon has no idea what his face is doing. He’s thinking about Capitano kissing him again. Never indicative of his full attention. “What was I thinking of?”

Capitano paces over to his wooden cabinet, opening one of the glass doors and carefully retrieving something—a bottle and a crystal glass. He sets the glass down on the table with a clink. Ororon watches him pour clear liquid into it, steady and unfaltering.

Ororon remembers the clear liquor the soldiers gave him and moves closer to the table, looking at the glass. “Fire-water?”

Capitano nods. He picks up the glass, examining it under the evening light. “Did you like it?”

“What?”

“The fire-water. Did you like it?”

Ororon blinks. He didn’t expect that question. He isn’t sure if he liked it or not. He liked the night, the cold air, the warm gaze of everyone around him. He liked belonging to a group for once instead of being the outcast. The taste of the liquor was irrelevant. “I… I think I liked it.”

Capitano takes a long sip from the glass. Ororon watches his lips move, watches the slow path of liquor down his throat and the ripples captured in the glass as he sets it back down.

“Kissing me,” Capitano says finally. His eyes shine like the remnants of fire-water on his mouth. “That night, after you had your second drink. You were thinking of kissing me.”

Ororon huffs a laugh. “Yeah,” he admits, a little breathless. “Yeah, I was. Don’t tell me​​—you knew because of my breathing rhythm?”

“No. I didn’t know at all.” Capitano takes another small sip of fire-water. “I only said that because it’s what I was thinking of.”

“Kissing yourself?”

Capitano laughs and sets down the glass again and says, “Come here.”

“No,” says Ororon, still thinking of that second drink and the high of doing something Capitano asked him not to, of being caught and never facing consequences for it. He steps further from the table, back towards the wall right of the entrance.

Capitano looks him in the eyes. “You don’t wish to?”

“I don’t answer to you,” Ororon retorts, backing up further. The wall comes up behind him, and he nearly stumbles over its sudden approach. He has nowhere left to retreat. “I’m not one of your men.”

“Right,” says Capitano, his tone perfectly neutral. He takes one single step closer, measured and slow. “You’re not one of my men. You don’t serve me.”

“Uh huh,” Ororon breathes, captivated. Looking away seems impossible.

Another step. “I don’t hold any power over you.”

Ororon doesn’t want to lie, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Another step. Just one more would close the distance between them completely. “You aren’t loyal to me.”

Ororon swallows thickly. “I never said that.”

Capitano takes a half-step, not far enough, not close enough. “You never said you were.”

“I am,” Ororon says quietly, watching Capitano blur into two as he draws closer, too close to keep his eyes on without feeling dizzy. “You know I am. You know I’d follow you anywhere, and sit beside you anywhere. I chose to place my trust in you. That’s why I’m not one of your men—they don’t have that choice. I can leave any time, and yet I won’t. Believe me. I won’t.”

“I know,” Capitano murmurs. He reaches out, brushing one hand through Ororon’s hair and down to his jaw. “Of course I know. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

Then he dips his head, pulls Ororon up to meet him, and kisses him.

Some unnoticed, ever-present tension melts away from Ororon’s spine, and he relaxes into the security of Capitano’s hold. One of his hands settles around Ororon’s waist, pressing him gently against the wall, while the hand at his jaw tilts his head to fit their mouths together. It’s not how Ororon had imagined—he’d always pictured their first kiss on a battlefield, somewhere where they both believed their first would also be their last. Like a sinner’s final confession before facing their fate. There had to be consequences, he believed, for receiving something he desired so greatly. But Capitano kisses him sweetly in the quiet mundanity of his apartment, with no impending doom, no danger on the horizon, with the war over and their futures secured. Capitano kisses him like he doesn’t want it to be their last.

When he finally pulls back, Ororon leans forward, stealing another kiss. Capitano exhales a breathy laugh. “I imagine that lived up to your fantasies, then?”

Ororon looks at him, dizzy from the lingering wetness on his lips. “In my fantasies,” he says, “we did a hell of a lot more than kiss.”

Capitano’s eyebrows raise in slight surprise, which melts quickly into a satisfied, devious smile. “I thought so.” He strokes his thumb over Ororon’s cheek, almost condescending in its gentleness. “Let me guess—you wanted me to steal you away to some quiet corner and fuck you right then? Take you home and keep you in my bed all night and half the next day?”

“No.” Ororon musters up the best challenging look he can manage and says, “You know what I imagined?”

Capitano tilts his head.

“I wanted you to fuck me right there in the camp,” Ororon murmurs. He wraps his arms around Capitano’s shoulders to look up at him, enhancing the angle of their height difference. “I wanted everyone to know what you were doing to me. I wanted you to slap a hand over my mouth and tell me to be quiet and fuck me so hard that everyone in the camp heard me anyway.”

Capitano looks at him in silence for a few seconds. Then, out of nowhere, he sighs out a semblance of a laugh. “You,” he grumbles, “are the worst influence I’ve had in decades.”

“I was only giving you the information you asked for.” Ororon tries to put on his best innocent eyes, the kind that get him out of trouble constantly, even with his archon. “Like any one of your men would.”

Capitano’s hand slides down to his waist. He grips both sides of Ororon’s waist hard and exhales, just once.

Ororon loops his arms together and wraps his legs around Capitano’s hips. “Well, Captain?”

Finally, Capitano shoves him up against the wall and locks their mouths together, hard and urgent. He wastes no time biting Ororon’s lower lip, not quite hard enough to bleed, but hard enough that he yelps into the kiss. Capitano presses forward, inescapable, his thumbs digging hard into the divots above Ororon’s hips. He shifts away from the pressure, but the wall behind him has no give, so he has no choice but to stay in place, exactly where Capitano wants him.

The contact is so all-consuming that Ororon doesn’t quite know where his own body ends and Capitano’s begins. His half-empty soul feels full again, pressed together like this. Somehow, Capitano’s heart feels warm, like it contains enough bright light to spill out and fill the void in Ororon’s chest too. His eyelids feel heavy; he lets them slip half-closed, his grip on Capitano’s shoulders weakening.

Capitano stops. He pulls away and carefully untwines Ororon’s legs from him, setting him back down on solid ground. “Breathe,” he instructs, placing one hand against Ororon’s lower back like this will somehow remind him.

Ororon takes a quick breath, exhaling it just as fast.

“Slow, and deep.”

Ororon shudders. He tries again, slower, fuller. Capitano watches him breathe with intense concentration, like he’s studying him. Ororon tries again, even slower this time.

“Good,” Capitano says. “You sound comfortable again.”

His stare is strangely heavy. Ororon’s mouth feels dry. “You like it. You like listening to my breath.”

“It’s your life,” Capitano says simply. “Were you not breathing, you’d be gone.”

Ororon isn’t quite sure how to respond to that. He just nods.

“Of course, it’s not just that. It also tells me things you don’t say aloud.”

Ororon has to remind himself to inhale, to exhale, to keep the pace even. “Like what?” he asks. “I think I’m pretty direct. I don’t hide much.”

“You hide your arousal.”

Ororon blinks. His face is warm.

“Like that,” Capitano says, sounding deeply satisfied. “You blush so nicely, and your breath deepens, all the way down to your navel.” He places a hand against Ororon’s lower stomach and presses lightly, as if to demonstrate.

Ororon nearly chokes. He can hardly think beyond the vague, nondescript need for more.

“So?” Capitano says, removing his hands entirely. Ororon didn’t realize how much he was relying on Capitano’s hold to stand up straight; he sways slightly without any points of contact. “Am I correct?”

“Fuck me,” Ororon says, almost a plea with how fragile his breathless voice sounds. “Don’t you owe me, for saving your life and all? Won’t you give me what I want?”

Capitano looks at him, fondness thick in his unnaturally dark eyes. “I thought we’d get there. Hold still.”

Hold still? Ororon doesn’t think he’s moved in minutes. Why would—

Capitano picks him up. Ororon yelps.

“It’s not far,” Capitano says quietly. His voice vibrates through his chest and into Ororon, shaking through him like a passing storm. Ororon sighs out a breath. He’s never felt so overwhelmed and yet so calm.

In all his imagined scenarios, Capitano had been—well, perhaps not careless with him, but at the very least impatient. Ororon had imagined it: he’d be thrown onto a bed, if he even got that courtesy. He’d have his clothes torn off and thrown to the side. He’d be wrestled into position and held there until he could no longer remember how to resist. But reality is, of course, different. Instead, Capitano is painstakingly gentle as he sets Ororon down on his bed. Even when he pushes Ororon’s shoulder to help him lay back, his touch is soft. Even when he takes off Ororon’s pants and strips off his sleeveless undershirt, he’s mindful of them, maneuvering them off like he’s imagined it a dozen times before. Even when he takes off his own clothes, he’s unhurried with it, allowing Ororon to watch like it’s a show. Even when he presses two fingers inside of him, his touch is easy and slow, almost too much so.

Ororon feels lightheaded with the contrast. Capitano’s fingers are completely still inside of him, letting him adjust. Clinging to the last vestiges of his imagined scenario, he asks, “Do I need to be quiet?”

Capitano leans down over him and laughs against his throat. “No,” he says, his warm lips brushing against the sensitive skin. “I won’t keep you quiet. You must have noticed—I enjoy listening to you.”

“But it’s an apartment complex,” Ororon says, tipping his head back to give him more room. Obligingly, Capitano kisses below his jaw, down his shoulders and his collarbones. The kisses are relaxing, almost enough to make him forget where Capitano’s hands are. “Your—your soldiers might hear us.”

“Let them,” says Capitano roughly, and bites the junction of his neck.

Ororon hisses at the sting, and Capitano licks over it, soothing against his burning skin. “They don’t know,” he tries weakly. “That you and I are…” He doesn’t quite know how to say it, so he just trails off.

Capitano lifts his head, cold amusement in his eyes. “You must not have heard: the Fatui keep no secrets. Everyone under my service knows about our attraction. Being quiet would do nothing to change that.” And he finally moves, pressing his fingers up and further into Ororon’s hole, fucking them in and out right over his sweet spot.

A shiver runs down Ororon’s spine, ending right where Capitano’s fingers crook inside of him. “H- how would they know? I— haa, I never said anything.”

“Anyone could see the way you look at me,” Capitano murmurs, pressing harder up into him. The slow pace combined with the forcefulness has Ororon’s head spinning. He’s not even fucking him fast—still barely moving—and yet the sensation is overwhelming, so much that it’s making him feel clouded over.

“Maybe it’s just— hha, that I don’t know anyone else,” Ororon gasps, writhing against the sheets like he can escape. But Capitano holds him in place easily, keeping him down with one hand against his hip. The slow, torturous slide of his fingers is all he knows.

Capitano hums and leans down, his mouth right below Ororon's ear. “You don’t look at mere acquaintances like you want them to fuck you.”

A third finger presses against Ororon’s entrance. He exhales hard and groans as it presses in next to the rest. He feels oddly relaxed, the tightness seeping out of his body with every word Capitano says, every slow, deliberate drag inside of him.

“One of my officers asked me,” Capitano continues, like they’re having an ordinary conversation, “if I was going to bring you back to Snezhnaya with me. She asked if I would keep you.”

Keep him. Like another fascinating thing to add to his collection, to keep on display for his enjoyment. Ororon feels too warm, suddenly, and he tries to squirm away.

Instantly, Capitano’s free hand presses down against his hip, hard enough to pin him in place. His fingers scissor apart inside of him, stretching him enough to feel it, enough to distract him from anything else.

Ororon realizes, just then, that he’s made a miscalculation. Somehow, he’d mistaken Capitano’s slow pace for real gentleness—and yet, he’s at Capitano’s mercy now just as much as he was in his imagination.

“I told her I’d have to ask you.” Capitano spreads his fingers apart and presses against his walls and asks, “So? Do you want to be kept?”

Ororon chokes on air. Does he? He can’t quite imagine it. “Your trophy,” he says nonsensically, his eyes sliding half-closed. “You want something. A—nn, fuck, a reward.”

Capitano pauses, his fingers slowing inside of him. “A reward?”

“That’s your real motivation,” Ororon declares, tipping his head back. “You wanted to—to find yourself a loyal warrior in Natlan and make them your bitch.”

Capitano freezes in place. Oh, Ororon thinks, elated. Oh, he’s right.

“That’s what I am, isn’t it? Your bitch?” A smile creeps up the corners of his mouth. Finally, an angle he can gain an advantage in. He’s uncovered a weakness. “I have good hearing. I know your soldiers call me that behind my back.”

“I’ll have them punished,” Capitano murmurs, eyes hazy-dark as he starts sliding his fingers out. “For slandering you. For demeaning your importance to me.”

Ororon blinks. That isn’t what he expected at all. “But I—”

Before he can continue, Capitano’s mouth is on his, ravenous. Ororon’s surprised yelp is muffled into the kiss. Capitano looms over him, settling nearly his entire body on top of Ororon’s to press him in place. Ororon can hardly breathe with their closeness. His chest feels tight, like Capitano is overflowing into him, pouring his soul into him through his kiss.

“You aren’t,” Capitano breathes against his lips, when he finally relents. “I’ve told you: you’ll never be less than my equal. I owe you my life, and you owe me nothing.”

Ororon is struck silent. Capitano is the first harbinger; Ororon is a vegetable farmer. How could they possibly be equals? And yet Capitano has never treated him with anything but respect, and has always held him in high regard, not just as an ally but as a person, as a night-wind illusionist and a warrior. Of course Capitano would treat him that way even now, when he has every ability to use his power and take what he wants.

“Let me prove it to you,” Capitano says, with one brief kiss against the corner of his mouth. “Let me make love to you.”

“Alright,” Ororon whispers, looking up at him through entirely new eyes. “Make love to me.”

Capitano fucks him slow, pressed chest-to-chest like he can’t bear for their hearts to be apart for a single second. He holds Ororon like he can somehow drag them closer together through the contact, and thrusts into him like they’ll merge into one if he stays deep enough. Ororon breathes him in and breathes him out and sinks back onto him every time he pulls away. It’s so intense, so overwhelming, that Ororon can barely see by the time his climax swells within him.

“Do you know,” Capitano says above him, his black hair cascading like a curtain around them both, “why I’m really staying here? In Natlan?”

“Nnnh, no…” Ororon’s hands scramble for purchase on Capitano’s back. “Can you—faster? I’m, mmmn—”

“Fuck,” Capitano mutters, and for once, he actually does fuck him faster, rolling their hips together in a fluid, filthy motion. “It’s because,” he says roughly, “my soul goes quiet around you.”

Ororon moans and drags his fingers up higher to find traction in Capitano’s hair.

“You feel it too, don’t you?” Capitano changes pace again, even faster, without prompting. “Your soul settles when we’re together.”

Ororon can hardly think against the rush of sensation. “Is that what it is,” he says hazily, his chest feeling warm again. Is that what it feels like, having a complete soul? Is that what he’s been missing his whole life? Does Capitano feel the same thing around him, that ease within his heart?

“When this is—over,” Capitano says, faltering for once to inhale shakily. “When the dust settles, I’ll ask you again if you want to be kept.”

“I’ll say yes,” Ororon tells him, almost laughing with how breathy he sounds.

“Then you and I, we’ll—we’ll run off together.” Capitano’s hips stutter and he leans closer over Ororon’s chest, pressing closer. “We can live somewhere quiet. The Sumeru countryside, or the Liyue mountains. We’ll do whatever you like.”

“Radishes,” Ororon gasps, pulling Capitano down with both his hands, “We’ll grow radishes,” and kisses him hard.

Capitano makes a broken noise into his mouth and comes. It barely even takes ten seconds for Ororon to follow.

For several minutes they lie there, chests pressed together at the heart, that same odd warmth echoing through Ororon’s chest, where his soul must be. Eventually he notices that Capitano is breathing at the same pace as him, maybe intentionally, maybe not. Either way, the sound of their combined inhales and exhales is relaxing enough that his body’s exhaustion finally begins catching up to him. He’s maybe halfway to falling asleep when Capitano finally stirs.

“Do you mean it?” Ororon asks, only half-conscious of his own voice. “When this is all over, you’ll want to stay here, with me?”

Capitano sighs. Maybe it’s Ororon’s imagination, but his smile looks sad, his eyes heavy with blue-black abyssal decay. “Of course I will, Ororon,” he says quietly. “I’ll always want to.”

Ororon hums, content. He closes his eyes.

”Come on—don’t sleep yet. You’re filthy.”

“And whose fucking fault is that,” Ororon mutters, rolling his eyes as best he can.

Capitano laughs and offers a hand to help him up.

Ororon looks at him, his hand outstretched, his face half taken over by the abyss, his soul overflowing with light, and thinks, This is where I will spend my days. For once, the thought doesn’t scare him, not in the least. He has had all his best days by Capitano’s side. The tournament; the awakening of his ancient name; the battle against the abyss; the easy acceptance of the Fatui soldiers. To settle here is the fate he has always wanted.

He takes Capitano’s hand, and his soul is warm.

***

(Ororon only realizes later, staring at the glorious ice-cold throne of Ochkanatlan, that Capitano only promised that he wanted to stay—never that he actually would.)