eternal flame | tartaglia x reader

Chapter Twelve

You grimace as you shoot back more fire-water, feeling a warmth rise to your chest as it settles. Beside you, Beidou frowns as she sips her much milder drink, but doesn't comment on your rapid consumption of alcohol.

"You want some?" you ask your friend, waving the bottle in her face a little bit tauntingly.

"I'll leave the fire-water to you Schneznyans. Wanna tell me what the occasion is?"

When you shake your head it's as if you can feel the movement of your brain in your skull. Maybe you should have paced yourself a bit more.

"Aren't I allowed to pay my dear friend a visit?"

Beidou sighs and grabs the bottle from your hands, holding it just out of your reach. "Sure you can. Usually you don't show up already half corked before even setting foot on their ships, though."

You lunge forward to try and swipe the fire-water from Beidou's hands, but your fingers barely graze the bottle before she raises it further up. It's obvious that you're not getting your liquor back until you give her some version of the events that transpired over the past few days. Your tongue feels half-limp in your mouth, and your brain can't really come up with full sentences right now, so you instead slam your shiny new vision on the table in front of you.

For the first time in your months knowing her, you see Beidou stunned into complete silence.

"Yeah, he's also having an affair," you feel a chuckle rise to your throat, "And half my house burned down."

Beidou takes a swing straight from the bottle of fire-water.

"Shit," she exhales.

"You wanna stay with the crew here for a bit?" she finally asks, a few moments after the shock has settled for her.

You don't think that the shock will ever settle for you. It's as if shock has seeped through your nerves and sank into your bones. It's a constant buzz, a constant pin-prick at your skin, a constant pulse ringing in your ears.

"Maybe," you reply, not really feeling like explaining Ajax to her either. "I have a room at Wangshu Inn right now so,"

Beidou nods, silently again. Her visible eye still hasn't moved from your vision on the table.

Maybe you shouldn't have revealed anything in the first place.

"Captain Beidou!" Juzo, the chief mate, calls out from somewhere distant. "The Qixing have summoned for you."

Beidou's frown deepens, and she glances between you and the vision and the bottle of booze one last time, "Talk about bad timing. Stay here until Kazuha gets back, he'll take you back to the inn."

You shrug and tilt your head back, relishing in the way that your blood rushes to the top of your head.

Beidou places two hands on your shoulders and looks into your eyes. "You'll be okay," she tells you, before pulling you into a quick hug.

"Thanks," you say, but there's no spirit behind it.

"Do not get off the Alcor alone," Beidou repeats, "Kazuha will be back soon."

Obviously, you get off the Alcor alone.

The joints of your limbs feel fuzzy as you take another step forward, one foot after the other through the streets of Liyue. You don't really know where you're going, or where you are. In fact, you can't even bring yourself to look down, with your eyes focused on the stars above. That's something that you rarely see in Snezhnaya, a clear sky at night that reveals an entire galaxy above. Just another one of Liyue's charms that you've fallen for.