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godineedsleep · 4 months

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Venti x Reader

summary: Venti and his continually reincarnated lover

wordcount: 1.4k+ | tags: mild angst, fluff, reincarnation trope

pairing: venti

Barbatos knew ever since he had taken the form of his friend that life was fickle. He watched people pass on like grains of sand in a time glass, one after the other, soon forgotten about as others followed suit. But the wind does not forget. Not so easily.

He once again felt his bleary eyes open, the calls of his people ringing behind his ears. He felt anemo swirl up around him, eyes flicking around the forest he lay in. It was different than when he closed his eyes, bushes in the wrong place and trees moved, but it was not much of a shock. He felt the prayers of his people chorus behind his ears and heeded their call.

And then he met you. You, who was so fierce and brave and still so kind yet in the face of war. He watched as you fought, talked with you, and sat complacent as you charmed him. You had asked for his name, once. He had told you to call him Venti and to remember him as the eccentric bard home to Mondstadt.

And then he watched as you were slain. You had been strong, vision or not, but you were unlucky just once. And Barbatos watched as your chest concaved to the force of the blade, and as your blood joined the many already fallen, and he felt a strange sense of calm as an arrow flew through the head of the enemy.

Barbatos mourned you, just like he did every mortal. He mourned you by the bottle, by the sweetness of the wine that trickled down his throat. He mourned you as he mourned all the fallen of Mondstadt he couldn’t protect, as he mourned those who died trying to protect the nation he held so dear.

During a Windbloom Festival, over two hundred years later, Venti saw your eyes again. You had changed- you were a little shorter, hair a little lighter- but those eyes, with a bold determination as you bickered with a shopkeeper about her price of goods, he couldn’t forget. Your mannerisms stayed unchanged, you still had the familiar inflections and your hands still held the hems of your clothing when you were stressed.

Venti slips behind you, glancing towards the rather annoyed shopkeeper.

“What seems to be the matter here?” He chirps, voice light as he smiles towards the two of you. The shopkeeper barely spares him a glance before dismissing him.

“I’m sorry, I can’t take payment right now.” She turned back to you, eyes sharpening to a glare in an instant.

“And I told you, I won't lower my prices. What you see is what you pay.” Venti winces as you grind your teeth, watching you become more agitated.

“Your prices are extortionate.” As you continue to rant, Venti looks down at the shop's products. You had been pretty accurate- for selling simple wrappers to hold windblooms when gifting them, they were at a high price. When glancing around, he found this was the only stand selling them.

“It takes advantage of people just wanting to enjoy Windbloom- how did you even decide this was fair?” The shopkeeper stares at you flatly.

“Inflation.”

“The economy has been on an incline for a while, you lying-” Venti places a couple of mora on the table, cutting you off. He grins at the cashier, eyes twinkling.

“I believe this should be enough, correct?” The shopkeeper diverts her attention immediately to the coins, swiping them off the counter before any objections. She thumbs over them, waiting a few seconds before pushing the bundle of paper towards you.

“Take it. Next.”

Venti dragged you to the side, glancing at you. You were a bit dazed by his action, eyes trailing up from the bundle of thin papers in your hands to stare at him- studying him. So, he thought, it was only fair to return the favor. You surely had changed, your clothing less knightley and more of the common folk- and you dressed comfortably, too, which was good- but as your eyes dragged over his own appearance he found himself admiring that familiar fire, kept safe within the borders of your iris.

“You…” he hears your voice, hesitant and unsure, and hates how it reminds him of your demise. Your former demise, he supposes.

“We haven’t… met before, have we?”

Barbatos finds himself strangely silent, feeling the warmth as you hold his hand to keep him still. Like he would run. And he finds himself smiling, whether from the absurdity of that notion or the look on your face he didn’t know.

“Maybe when we were younger.”

It's a few years later when Venti finds himself gently strumming his lyre, your head in his lap, during a bright summer day. It was cool, with the wind constant and the shade of the tree at Windrise. You were dozing off, smiling as you listened to his song. And when you looked up at him, eyes tired yet shining and happy, he couldn’t stop himself from pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. He loved the way your eyes crinkled as your smile widened, and he relished the way you pulled him back down for a proper kiss.

It was these small moments Venti cherished, where the two of you shared these quiet moments together, where he could simply enjoy your company. The moments the both of you could just sit, stop for just a moment, where he could hold you and sing to you and you could just be happy with him.

And then you died again.

It was different this time, though. You had lived long this time, the crows feet beneath your eyes that used to only appear as you smiled became more permanent. He wished he could have grown old with you. He wished he had the heart to change his form from how he died, to give you the sembalance of growing old with your partner. He wept in your arms time after time, agonized over that fact.

But even if he could age, Barbatos thinks, it wouldn’t change anything when you eventually passed. While even when a gust of wind peeters out, it only resumes someplace else. At a different time.

He held your hand, bony and thin as it was, as you looked at him with the smile he so adored. And you passed.

And so he slept, for years and years and years, until he was needed again.

He would wake again and again and again, and would meet you again and again and again. Sometimes your hair would be different, other times your frame. But your eyes were always the same. They always looked at him with a distant sort of recognition, and that small flame would always be lit.

He would never force his way into your life. There were lifetimes that went by where you simply said hello to him on the street, just as many as the two of you would become friends. You would have your own loves too, aside from him. He found that any lover he would try to have would only remind him of you, so he abstained.

In the times you were gone, sleep and wine became his friends. His children of Mondstadt were easy to converse with, yes, lively and kind as they were. But they never had the comfortable familiarity you brought. Only the remembering of ghosts long past.

Venti finds you again, years later, humming a gentle song on the base of the tree of Windrise. And you look up as he walks over, smiling. But he stops, shocked, as he sees more than just the usual faint recognition in your eyes. There was something… more there. He can’t help himself from gently murmuring your name, and just the sound sends you smiling and laughing.

He feels you crash into him, shocked still, arms instinctually wrapping around you. Venti finds himself laughing along with you, the bottle of wine he had brought to drink dropped somewhere to his side. When he finds your eyes, he sees recognition he hadn’t seen in them before- at least, when the two of you met for the first time. And he sees your eyes filling with tears: of relief, happiness, and other emotions he couldn’t place.

“You haven’t changed a day, my love.” You smile up to Venti, grinning wide as he gently wipes your tears from your face. Your smile wavers for a moment, growing bittersweet. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

And Barbatos smiles, gentle, as he runs his fingers through your hair.

“For as long as the wind blows, I will protect you, just as you have protected I.”

And you smile. And he thinks that his patience has been worth it.

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