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Dragonspine is most often a destination that you venture to alone.
Your traveling companions - whoever you have at your side at the time - conveniently have a thousand excuses on hand to avoid following you into the mountain's snowy landscape. You managed to coerce Kaeya into it once , and as a result, he's developed something of a sixth sense when it comes to impending trips into the frigid mountain range.
Even Paimon keeps herself tucked away in her pocket dimension with a request for you to simply call for her when things are a little warmer, a little less snowy.
Really, you don't mind it so much. Dragonspine has become a place of peace for you; it's somewhere that you can get away with the assurance you'll be completely alone. That isn't something you get very often these days, as much as you appreciate your friends.
So, when the time comes around for you to make a trip there, you don't bother to ask anyone if they'd like to accompany you. You can't fault them for not wanting to go there - it's really rather cold, and the activities you have planned don't involve much combat. Albedo requested your presence for a few experiments that only you can help with, and with the wrap-up of Sumeru's numerous fiascos, there's an abundance of free time on your hands before you start the cycle all over again in Fontaine.
Organized and ready for travel, you completely miss the eyes that look from the second level of your teapot home, elbow on the railing and chin in their palm. Only when the bag is swung over your back do you look up and see the Wanderer, looking for all the world like he wasn't watching you pack and re-pack and second guess how many warming bottles you'd need.
“Snezhnaya hasn't been moved ahead in the order, has it? You look like you're ready for a blizzard.”
“It hasn't, but close enough.” You shift the straps so they don't bunch up the fabric of your cloak and the warm clothing beneath it. “Albedo asked me to join him in Dragonspine for a little while.”
“Alone?” An eyebrow raises, the single word feeling rather weighty for something so innocuous.
Rather than question it, you focus more on trying not to lose your balance as you crane your head back to look at him. Maybe the bag is a little heavy, its weight tugging on you as you clarify, “He didn't specify that, but you guys don't seem to like the cold so I figured I'd go on my own.”
The Wanderer's sandals hit the floor with a quiet tap as he lands next to you, effortlessly using the vision at his chest to safely fall from the second floor to the first. There's an arm's length between you, a careful proximity he keeps from everyone, and it's something you find yourself noticing a little too often with a little too much annoyance.
He doesn't have to keep his distance from you. But if that's what makes him comfortable, you're in no place to be demanding things that he's unwilling to budge on.
“First of all, don't lump me in with them. I can't even feel the cold.” That could be the truth, or it could be a lie. You've heard a complaint or two out of him about the humidity of Sumeru, certainly the opposite end of the spectrum must also affect him.
He doesn't give you any chance to call him out on that before he promptly invites himself. “And second, it's dangerous. Someone should go with you - it'll have to be me, I guess. Lucky you.”
“Lucky me.” You parrot back, and while it's meant to sound derisive, it fails to do so when there's a smile spreading on your face.
---
“Use another warming bottle. You're shivering.”
“I’m fine. I need to make sure they last the trips to and from Albedo's lab-”
“Surely he can make more when you get there. What sort of alchemist would he be if he can't make something to keep you warm ?”
The snow crunches under his feet and your own as he keeps pace next to you. The distance has grown smaller, so much so that the wide brim of his hat keeps the soft flurries of snow from landing on you too much.
The Wanderer isn't warm. He hasn't bothered to change into thicker clothing, despite you offering him a cloak at the minimum. There's no body heat coming from him, nor is there the faint clouding of his breath in the air. You wouldn't think he was affected at all if it weren't for the dusting of pink across his cheeks and the tip of his nose.
But rather than worry about him, he's far too worried about you. First, it was your scarf being wrapped around your neck incorrectly. The moment the snow had begun to fall, he tugged you to a stop and unraveled it a little too roughly, only to snugly tie it back around the lower half of your face.
And when you nudged it down to breathe easier, he tugged it back up with a pinch of his fingers and an annoyed sound.
Then, the issue with the warming bottles. You had enough to reasonably get you to and from Albedo, but the Wanderer seemed convinced you needed to have one in use at all times, regardless of how wasteful that might be.
Equal parts annoying and endearing is the way he'll occasionally tug on your cloak to pull you to a stop, his hand sweeping across your shoulders to knock off any built up snow before telling you to stay put. After the third time he does this, you petulantly ask what he's doing and he shrugs with all the nonchalance of someone that's reading a grocery list, rather than being a complete mother hen.
“I’m checking around the bend for Hilichurls, obviously.”
“Without me?” Your answer raises in pitch, only mildly annoyed that he’s been leaving you behind.
A disbelieving sound leaves him, and he gestures to you broadly as if that would explain things. When it doesn’t , he has the grace to clear things up. “When humans get cold, their reaction times get worse. It’s easier for me to handle it if there’s something ahead.”
And then, a knowing smile starts to spread across his face, ominous and far too reminiscent of a time when he wasn’t someone you could depend on to keep you safe. “Unless you use a warming bottle to counteract that.”
Without complaint, you let him travel ahead around the bend to verify that it’s safe. When he comes back with the scent of burning clinging only faintly in the air, you keep your mouth shut. There’s something smug about him as he dusts himself off from imaginary dirt and says, “What a coincidence, there’s a fire up ahead. You should warm up there.”
Coincidence indeed.
His fingertips graze the skin of your cheeks as he tugs your scarf up on each side, up and over your nose once more. As an afterthought, he tugs your hat down over your ears as well, spending a little too long making sure you’re situated to his liking.
“And keep your scarf up. Your nose is more likely to get frostbite than anywhere else. I’m not above holding it for you.”
“I’ll suffocate!” Your words are muffled, but he understands them just fine as he turns away and sets off down the marked path.
Over his shoulder, he calls, “But you’ll be warm doing it. Let’s go, I didn’t put in all the work to get this fire going just for you to mess around until it burns out.”
The hilichurls that once sat around this fire have been pushed into the thin bushes, their leafless branches doing nothing to hide the prior occupants. You don’t say anything about it, neither does the Wanderer. He sits close enough to you next to the fire for his shoulder to press solidly against your own, you don’t say anything about that, either.