Maybe? (ONGOING)

Chapter I ~ Dandelion Wine

"That was quite the entrance you made there," the ginger commented toward the captain.

All he had gotten was a laugh in response, followed by a sip of his drink. He then turned to the harbinger and said with a smile, "I feel everyone should know when they're Cavalry Captain, Kaeya shows up."

That had brought a laugh from the ginger who made a point to keep that name memorized, for future reference.

"Maybe you should just set up a banner to drop when you walk in with a bard playing some sort of tune for you."

"That actually may not be that bad," Kaeya then leaned close to the other with his hand cupping around his ear to whisper, "But then Mr. Grumpy behind the counter would throw a tantrum."

Kaeya moved away again as both of them started laughing, causing said Mr. Grumpy to glare at them, making them laugh a bit louder.

When both were over the laughing, they each drank a bit of what was in front of them, the harbinger occasionally stealing glances of Kaeya. He eventually broke the silence by blurting out after some thought, "Tartaglia."

The captain stoped what he was doing, his glass halfway to his mouth, and turned with a distracted look and asked, "What..."

"Tartaglia. My name's Tartaglia," he paused to look back at the captain, "But to most of eveyone, I'm known as Childe."

Tartaglia then turned back to look forward and take another sip. He then continued, "You told me yours, I thought it was only fair to tell you mine."

Kaeya smiled and responded, "I already know who you are," going right back to drinking.

Sighing, the harbinger put his glass down gently and asked, "I'm guessing the Acting Grand Master wanted you to check up on the fatui?"

Kaeya nodded but then explained, "She did tell me to, but she never told me when. Plus I didn't even know you would be here."

With a small, "Okay," Tartaglia finished his beer before asking for another glass.

Once he had it he started talking again and asked, "What're you drinking?"

With a smirk, Kaeya held the glass out to Tartaglia, "Try it."

Without thinking, he took it and drank some. It was surprisingly delicious. He thought he might just have to ditch the weißbier for it.

Kaeya could tell that the ginger enjoyed it being that his face was very readable at the moment. "Good, isn't it?"

Quickly nodding, Tartaglia asked again with more enthusiasm, "What is this?"

"Dandelion wine," he took the glass back, "It's my go-to drink here."

Tartaglia smiled wide and claimed, "Well maybe I'll order it from now on too," he broke off to drink some of his own beer which wasn't quite as good.

"It'll even have some perks to it," the ginger started again.

Confused, Kaeya raised an eyebrow and motion with his hands for the other to continue.

"The first one, it tastes amazing. And the second," he continued to face forward while looking at Kaeya from the corner of his eye. "The second one," he shrugged nonchalantly, "It'll remind ne of you whenever I drink it."

The captain, now slightly flushed, said, "Well, I'm definitely one to be remembered."

Tartaglia smiled.

"Indeed you are. Just like dandelion wine."

•~~~~•~~~~•~~~~•~~~~•~~~~•

Another week went by and still not a single word from the Tsaritsa on when they were allowed to leave. Yet Tartaglia didn't seem bothered by it as much anymore.

Not much of the rest of the night at the tavern stuck in his mind, but he knew there was no way he'd get that damn Cavalry Captain out of his head.

It definitely didn't help that they'd pass each other occasionally throughout the city and pick up with idle chatter until one of them had to leave because of the Knights or the Fatui calling one of them. Those conversations unfortunately didn't last more than a minute or so because of it.

It got on the harbinger's nerves so much that he eventually told the rest of the Fatui there to leave him, "the hell alone," if they ever saw him talking with Kaeya. Though it helped a bit, there were still the Knights and other citizens who decided that they always just happened to need Kaeya whenever he was with him.

Despite all that, they had still managed to make plans to meet at the tavern tonight.

Many of the Fatui avoided the harbinger that day considering that when he was in a good mood, it usually meant he was going to force one of them to fight him at random.

Yet he had no plans for that, he simply couldn't wait to see the newest thing to draw all of his attention away from even the Tsaritsa.

He'd be damned if anything would get in the way of him being happy because of him.

He couldn't wait for when the time came for him to head over to the tavern. He just wanted to drink dandelion wine with Kaeya.

Word count: 843

Date: 25/3/22