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The water embraces him warmly, like a comforting hug—not that he has a lot of experience with hugs. Still, Scaramouche closes his eyes and slips under the surface, until the noises from the other side of the door dull and he feels the silence welcome him.
He doesn’t remember the last time he’s taken a bath, or gotten a chance to… well, rest this unobserved. Buer had been kind and understanding, but she had worried for his well-being, hadn’t trusted him alone long enough to really… bathe like this.
The water is warm, not uncomfortably so. It was, at first, but he’s spent quite a while in the tub now, and it’s gotten more manageable.
Scaramouche slowly floats back up to the water’s surface, takes a breath. His hair sticks to his neck now, to his forehead, and he wipes it away. Stares down at his knees, and his legs. The foam spots the water here and there, dissolves under the gentle touch of his hands.
His skin is softened by the warmth of the water and the mixture of herbs the bard has sprinkled into it. He runs his hands over his chest, rubs at the spot where a human’s heart is placed. Slides them down along the countless surgical scars on his torso, down to his thighs.
A soft knock against the wooden door startles him, and he slumps further into the tub. The door opens and that bard Venti sticks his head through the door. “Mind if I join you?”
Scaramouche shakes his head. “Go ahead.” It’s not like he’s new to being exposed around people. He has long since lost count of the times he’s been stripped bare on an operation table, since he’s been examined and cut open. Being seen is not an unfamiliar experience.
Venti closes the door behind himself and undresses without any apparent concern. Scaramouche doesn’t mean to watch him, but he finds it hard to look away once his eyes get caught on silky skin. Venti has his back turned to Scaramouche, littered with tiny cuts and scars, long healed. Scaramouche looks closer, and he realizes that they’re kept on purpose—indeed, they could’ve healed over and disappeared completely, but perhaps Venti had kept them as a reminder, had made sure his divinity does not hide them as blemishes.
The scars on Scaramouche’s body are different. His skin usually heals over fast, much like Venti’s does, as he assumes from the picture he’s putting together, but the lines cut open time and time again, carved deep into whatever synthetic skin Scaramouche possesses—they do not heal.
Venti turns around, gives him a cheeky smile as he untangles his braids. His chest is adorned with a teal… tattoo of sorts, stretched out over his thorax. There’s another one, wrapping around his thigh, and when Scaramouche blinks, he can almost imagine them glowing faintly.
“Pretty, eh?” Venti asks, climbing into the bathtub. It unsettles the water, makes waves, and Scaramouche scoots back a little to make space. “I haven’t had a bath this warm in ages… oh, that’s nice.”
Scaramouche watches him get settled, watches Venti dip his head under the water, much the same way he had earlier. Watches dark hair drift on the surface. He almost reaches out to touch it, just to see what it would feel like, but he stops himself. Isn’t quite sure what to make of that, either.
Venti’s eyes are blue and green, all the colors of Mondstadt’s landscape, and they look at Scaramouche with utmost curiosity. “Are you comfortable?”
It’s not the question he expected. Not even close. Buer had asked him variations of it—are you alright? Are you hurt?—and his…friends had asked him something similar, many centuries ago—are you feeling fine? Are you doing okay?—but no one has asked whether he’s comfortable in a very long time.
“Why would I not be?” he asks back, snaps, really, and Venti tilts his head. Waits patiently, for him to reconsider and think. Scaramouche swallows and drops his gaze to the surface of the water, to the foam caressing Venti’s knees. “I don’t mind this situation,” he settles on, which is as close to the truth as he can manage.
“I’m glad,” Venti says, the brightest smile on his lips, and Scaramouche presses a hand to his chest. Wonders if he’s ever going to smile that bright again. He remembers a time where he had, but those years have long faded. He wouldn’t mind trying again, he thinks. Probably not. “Nahida tells me that you are making progress with improving yourself.”
“Do you know her well?” He can’t help but ask, doesn’t know whether he’s even meant to say anything to Venti’s statement. He wouldn’t know what.
Venti slowly stretches out his legs, one after the other, on either side of Scaramouche. He finds that he doesn’t mind the closeness. Craves it, even. Slips a hand down to touch the teal tattoo on Venti’s thigh under the water, and trails his fingers alongside it. “I think so,” Venti ends up saying, which strikes Scaramouche as weird—either you know someone well, or you don’t.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, she’s been imprisoned for 500 years,” Venti offers, attempts to explain. He runs his fingers through the ends of his hair, detangles wet strands from each other. “We used to hang out a lot before the… tragic happenings of the Dark Calamity. I suppose she was not much different from how she is now.” He laughs there, an insecure little thing, and Scaramouche frowns, feels like he’s missing something, like there’s a part of the puzzle he doesn’t grasp.
Maybe that’s the difference between a True Archon, and a God who ended up falling despite his best efforts. He tries not to resent Venti for it—after all, Venti did not bring his fall, nor did he ridicule him, or even once try to prove that he’s something better than Scaramouche for being an Archon.
Venti does not deserve his contempt, so Scaramouche swallows it back down. Locks it away in the emptiness of his chest, and lifts his head to meet blue-green eyes.
“She’s always had a kind heart,” Venti finishes, blinking against– ah, tears maybe. It makes Scaramouche feel a little better to know he’s not the only one suddenly overwhelmed by stray emotions. “I’m glad to see she’d been able to help you start your journey as a wanderer.” He smiles, “that’s it now, isn’t it?”
He doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s probably not an untrue statement, and that will suffice as much as the entirety of the complex truth. For the moment, at least. “Yeah,” he says, and it feels lame. Feels like it doesn’t really encompass all he is, and all he was. All he could be, if he tried—all he might be, with this newfound freedom that he has no idea how to utilize.
Venti sinks down into the water and smiles at him. “Do you have a plan where to wander first?”
“I’m a wanderer, not a traveler,” Scaramouche says, cocking his head to the side. “That’s a lot more aimless.”
“A lot more chances to encounter the unexpected,” Venti hums. Scaramouche isn’t sure whether it’s a trick of the light but he swears Venti is winking at him. “Drifting through the world. Letting the wind lead. I find that rather delightful.”
“You’re a traveling bard, aren’t you?” Scaramouche asks. His fingers slide along Venti’s leg, and he cups his hand over his knee.
“Very much so indeed,” Venti hums, leans forward. “Would you like to hear a tune?”
He nods, eyes catching on the tattoo on Venti’s chest. It stretches out over smooth skin, expands with every rise of his chest. He wonders, distantly, whether Venti possesses a heart, or if he lost it with the Gnosis, much like Scaramouche himself.
“Alright, turn around,” Venti says, and it’s truly a testament to Scaramouche’s—Buer would probably call it growth —that he does so without much hesitation.
“Oh, these have healed nicely,” Venti comments, and Scaramouche tenses as cold fingers brush against his back. “Ah, sorry– would you rather I don’t touch you?”
“No, it’s alright,” Scaramouche says, and finds it the truth. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”
“Alright.” Venti pulls his legs back, unsettling the water and it sloshes dangerously close to the edge of the tub. “Is it alright if I wash your hair?”
Cold fingers slide against the back of Scaramouche’s neck, push up into his hair. The mere idea of it catches him so much off guard that he forgets to say anything at all.
He doesn’t remember anyone ever offering to wash his hair for him, nor touch him quite this gently.
“My dear Wanderer?” Venti’s voice is unbearably soft, but Scaramouche manages to nod anyway. Tries not to fall apart then, when Venti scratches his scalp and slides his hands down Scaramouche's back. “Listen closely,” Venti whispers, and he’s warm and gentle and Scaramouche feels a little less lost than he had that morning.
Venti sings him a jaunty song, of little adventurers and—if Scaramouche understands this right—explosives, as he caresses Scaramouche’s hair and washes it with the utmost care. The repetitive rhythm of Venti’s fingers carding through his hair is sleep-inducing, and he finds himself slump sooner than he’d like.
It’s not at all like him to allow his body to relax like this, to expose himself to someone else in quite this manner. But Venti’s presence is calming like a morning breeze, and refreshing like a summer’s gale, and Scaramouche finds himself not minding the wind all that much when it’s kind.
“Feeling good?” Venti asks with a cheeky tone to his voice, and Scaramouche hums thoughtfully.
“It was a good song.”
“Ehe, I’m glad you liked it.” Warm, wet hands pat Scaramouche’s cheek and he twists around to look at Venti, who’s grinning at him like he’s been granted Celestia’s greatest gift. Something inside of Scaramouche twists, but he thinks it’s not necessarily twisting in a bad way.
He reaches out hesitantly, ghosts his fingertips over the teal that marks Venti’s heart and lungs. Finds himself asking, “can I wash your hair as well?”
Venti tilts his head, surprise flashing over his face for a split moment, but then it morphs into something softer and he nods. “Yes, that would be very nice.”
His hair curls in Scaramouche’s hands when it’s wet, and he follows the waves with his fingers as he washes it. He tries to copy Venti’s actions, scratches his scalp with slow and tiny movements, washes the soap out as thoroughly as he can.
His hands are cupping Venti’s head as he gently guides it back to dip the hair under water. Those blue-green eyes look up at him with mirth, an easy smile on Venti’s lips. Scaramouche can’t quite explain what he’s thinking next, what he’s feeling.
All he knows is that he’s leaning down, lines up his mouth with Venti’s, and swallows the laughter that bubbles up from the bard under him.
Warm, wet hands reach up, curl up in Scaramouche’s hair and pull his head down, and for a moment he wonders if they’ll drown like this, with the taste of each other on their lips.
His eyes get caught on the tattoo again, glowing faintly, and he isn’t sure if it’s the light, or perhaps his imagination. Scaramouche pulls back, watches the sea in Venti’s eyes, feels his own lips twist into a smile.
“Is this what flying feels like?” he wonders aloud, doesn’t realize he’s spoken the sentence until Venti shifts, twists himself back up into a seated position.
He’s looking at Scaramouche with an air of brilliance, and it’s downright intoxicating. “Not quite. Flying is a little different.”
Scaramouche hums thoughtfully, stares down at his hands, the very ones that have held his own heart and the world, the ones that have taken lives, that have hurt, and sewn and forged.
“Would you like it if I taught you how to fly?” Venti asks, intertwining their fingers.
“Yes,” Scaramouche breathes, “I’d very much like that.” He squeezes Venti’s hands, ones that have been warm and gentle, but no doubt have been bathed in blood as much as Scaramouche’s own.
Maybe this warm, wandering bard can still teach him a thing or two about the meaning of freedom.