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There is a smell that is particular to the stirring of broth, it carries the starchiness of freshly boiled potatoes, piled with the distinct red bitterness of beets, sautéed with tomatoes; cabbages; carrots; thinly sliced and diced onions and finished with squares of beef. It is sour and it is sweet, it clings to your nostrils and it tells you that this is warmth, it tells you that this is comfort in a bowl.
Borscht.
Ajax inhales and he can taste it, cloying on his tongue. He swirls it around his mouth, savouring the bright flavours that stick to his gums. He inhales deeper and he’s swallowing it, mouthful after greedy mouthful. It sends a heat spiralling from his stomach, to his ribs, to his heart.
It’s wonderful.
It’s just like he remembered.
He opens his eyes and the breath of winter teases his neck, behind his ears, down his spine. There are splotchy dark patches in his shorts from where frost has begun to climb, etching delicate snowflakes along the fraying hems. His knees are blotchy, scabbed over and angrily red. His fingers shake, just a little. He clenches his fist, to remind it that it’s alive, that it hasn’t frozen along with the lake beside him.
His mouth is dry, scratchy even and it hurts to swallow.
( “I can’t take care of you.”)
But—
It’s okay. Everything is okay, because if he closes his eyes once more, if he inhales a little deeper and lets his chest concave inwards a little further, if he does everything just right: he can taste it. He can feel the bowl beneath his palms and it’s scorching hot, the way it should be and he’s not seated in the snow, legs curled as he tries to huddle for warmth— No, he’s not. Instead, he’s sitting by the fireplace, with a spoon in one hand and a meal in the other and everything is okay, just like that.
Right?
(“Get out of my sight, you ungrateful brat.”)
Right.
As he drinks spoonful after spoonful, chews morsel after morsel of vegetables, of meat and spices intertwined, something begins to bloom. It’s innocuous at first, similar to a hitched breath, a brief stutter in the beating of his heart. It perches itself in between his ribs, curling through each bone and it curls inwards and then it curls outwards and it’s blooming.
(“Nobody wants a child so nasty. Stop crying.”)
He chokes on his mouthful, bowl clattering from his grasp into his lap, spoon tinkering against the edge of the ceramic (there’s nothing, there’s nothing. Why do you lie? —) and he can’t breathe, suddenly, all at once.
His throat scratches, and dries, and splinters, and he’s bleeding .
And it’s blooming.
The bud unfurls its petals, unwinding and stretching its limbs and it says: here I am .
It fills his chest as it climbs up his throat and he can’t breathe and his fingers (they’re numb, so fucking numb—) claw at his neck, they tear into the skin with a frantic type of haze, blunt nails scraping against flesh but it’s futile, it’s all useless as he chokes and retches and gurgles over the pressure that builds until it’s overflowing and he’s drowning from within and then—
Petals.
They tumble, one after another, and he can’t stop. Can’t prevent the sounds of a boy suffocating from his own creation. They’re purple and white respectively, coated in a splatter of red and it’s so similar to the shade of borscht that he almost pretends it is.
With trembling palms Ajax gathers the petals in his fingers and stares.
He lets out an incredulous laugh, teetering on hysterics as he gazes upon the products of his own suffering.
Ah.
Of course.
Of course it would turn out like this.
⸝⸝⸝
Ajax is thirteen years old the first time a flower sprouts beside his lungs and he never takes a full breath again.
⸝⸝⸝
“Hmm,” a man with a glare for spectacles regards him, dark eyes coolly assessing the boy before he turns to the woman adjacent. “Hanahaki,” he clicks his tongue decisively.
Ajax stares at the wall beside the man’s ear, gaze unwavering.
“It’s common with foster children, not to worry,” he assures the woman. She smiles placatingly, placing a carefully positioned arm around Ajax’s shoulder to draw him closer.
“I was so worried,” she whispers, a hand placed over her mouth, “when he came home covered in blood. I thought he had slipped in the ice, you know boys, always acting out dangerous stunts in the snow…” she pauses, “Is it curable?”
“Oh yes, most children outgrow it with the care of a loving family, and I have no concerns there ma’am,” he smiles towards her.
“Ah, I’m so glad, of course we will do our best to show Ajax that he’s loved,” she squeezes his shoulder, “he’s fit in so well with my son already.”
⸝⸝⸝
“Let go,” Ajax whispers, voice strained, neck pulled upwards at the incessant tugging of his hair. There are fingers, ruddy with mud and hard with callouses that yank at his strands, twisting them far past comfort and it hurts.
“This colour is so ugly,” the boy above complains, grip tightening, “you can’t hang out with me if you look like this.”
There’s nothing wrong with his hair. He’s fine. Ajax is fine. His hair was made that way, and his siblings had the same and it was fine . There’s nothing wrong with him.
“I…” he gasps in pain, “I don’t want to be around you anyways,” he glares, eyes defiant.
The boy grunts, teeth snarling over the edge of his lip as he pulls harder and something is tearing and it hurts. Ajax lets out a whimper, elbowing jutting out to fend off the assault.
“No one else likes you,” the boy spits, vitriol. “Mum forces me to talk to you, but no one likes you and no one ever will.”
It’s not true. It isn’t. Ajax knows that. This boy, his supposed foster brother, he’s just being malicious. It’s not true.
“I don’t care,” he grunts, reaching up to scratch at the fingers that hold him. “Let me go, you’re gonna pull out my hair!”
⸝⸝⸝
Ajax screams as he is forcibly dragged upstairs. He continues to scream as the boy grasps a pair of scissors and he doesn’t stop screaming until he’s left alone on the bathroom floor.
Hair grows back, of course.
It is a silly thing to cry over, so he muffles his cries into his palms.
⸝⸝⸝
“He didn’t mean it, you know that right? That’s just how boys play.”
⸝⸝⸝
He’s forgotten at dinner, again.
Ajax makes his way to the frosted over lake, and kneels down in the powdered snow. He inhales, and his breath hitches halfway but it’s okay, because when he closes his eyes there's a plate perched on his lap and it’s full of heat. He can smell the grated garlic and onions that have been placed in between the batter of grounded potatoes and flour, he can smell the vegetable oil that it was shallow fried in and when he lifts the pancake’s edge to his mouth, he can feel the crunch and then the softness inside.
Draniki.
His plate is piled high with pancake after pancake and he knows he won’t be able to finish all of it— he never has.
He savours every bite and his fingertips burn just a little, because they’re fresh out of the pan and he didn’t wait long enough before taking his serving. Typical of him, really. They’re so good he can’t help himself, and his mother always told him he ate with his eyes and not his stomach but—
His mother… She—
He opens his eyes, and there is snow falling. Ah. That’s right, it was forecasted this morning. The flakes are a type of soft disintegrating cold on his cheeks, his nose, his eyelashes. They bury him deeper and Ajax lets the snow settle, pretending he is but another tree in the clearing.
It stings a bit. Snezhnaya’s air is filled with a numbing type of chill; frigid and sharp. But it’s not that bad, not when he closes his eyes and the plate returns, warming his lap— like this, Ajax can ignore the gnawing of his stomach, as it twists and snarls, angry and resentful. It becomes indistinguishable from the frost settling in his bones and he turns a deaf ear to his body’s cries.
Right, draniki.
He picks up another pancake and smiles, taking a large bite.
⸝⸝⸝
“Oh Ajax, dear, I’m so sorry. I was so sure I put a plate out for you…”
⸝⸝⸝
In class, Ajax picks at a loose thread in his shirt, it’s far too big; large under the arms, the collar stretched out too wide for it to sit just right. It’s easy for the wind to sneak in, for its lithe fingers to crawl up his stomach and cling to his chest.
⸝⸝⸝
Ajax falls ill.
His temperature rises, until he is scorching in his own skin. Every breath he takes falls just too short of enough, and he yearns. He yearns for something other than the old mattress he lays on, with the spare blankets that had been handed down through obligation. He wants, he wants, he wants. Anything but this. Something more. Something less.
His foster mother kneels beside him, placing a cool palm on his forehead. “Oh dear, you’re quite unwell. Too many days in the snow, hmm?” she smiles and he should smile back, he should agree but he doesn’t want to because he knows .
“I can’t spend too long in here, wouldn’t want to become sick as well. Let’s just give you some medicine, okay?” she hums, setting a glass of water by the rickety old bedside table along with a packet of pills.
There’s a burning that surfaces beneath his eyes, and it’s not from the fever.
“It’s okay, son, you’ll feel better soon,” she tries to placate and he flinches.
“Ajax?”
“Why do you lie?” he whispers, hoarse and shivering and he clutches the sheets with white knuckles.
“Lie? What are you talking about?”
“You don’t love me,” his nose clogs, and he feels underwater as his eyes glaze over, red and furious. “You don’t love me.”
“Ajax—”
She presses a palm to his cheek and he shies away, backing into the wall because it’s wrong . Everything is a lie, and she smiles as though she cares but she doesn’t. Her words are coated in pretence, deceit dripping from her tongue, and it’s everywhere, in her fingers, in her hair, her eyes.
It’s in his chest, and it builds and builds and builds. Winding along his ribs, dipping into every crevice in his sternum and squeezing. It curls around his lungs restricting and tightening until his heart is stuttering and another bud is unfurling, just like that.
Purple and white petals decorate his bedsheets and there is guilty, bloody evidence written all over his lips, sticking to his fingers and dirtying his shirt.
“You don’t love me,” he repeats once more, low and sombre and breaking.
⸝⸝⸝
Ajax is fourteen when he is moved into his fifth foster home.
⸝⸝⸝
“We hope you enjoy your stay with us,” the man and woman smile down at him and they are kind, he can see it in their eyes. Their hands are soft— they have never been raised as a weapon, as a force of justification, he can see it in the smooth plains of their palms.
His shirt collar sits just around his neck, and it is not taut, it is snug and there are no creeping fingertips of frost. Ajax is warm.
It could be love.
Maybe.
⸝⸝⸝
It is not.
There is blood in the sink and petals stuck in his teeth.
It is not love.
No matter how kind they are, no matter the way they brush his hair (so, so gently), no matter the homemade meals they make from scratch (for him, for him, for him—), no matter how they hold him or smile at him.
It cannot be love.
It’s not love.
His fingers grip at the edge of the sink’s ceramic rim, slipping, slick with saliva and the deep red of his insides. His knees ache as he inches towards the floor, head bowed. It’s not love. It can’t be. He wants it to be.
He pretends for a moment that it is. If he closes his eyes, maybe— maybe if he closes his eyes for long enough, this bathroom will disappear and everything inside it will too, all the bloody, bright truths that say you are not loved will fade from existence and he can go on living as though everything is okay. If he never looks into the sink again, if he never meets his own reflection, he’ll never see it.
But there’s a tightening in his ribcage and it says I am here, don’t forget me, I am blooming.
What a hideous plant pot he makes.
⸝⸝⸝
In the end, Ajax requests a transfer.
He ignores the hurt in their eyes.
Perhaps, if he thinks about it a little longer, perhaps, the reason this particular family is so hard to leave, why it makes him ache just that much more— is because they were kind, they were. There’s no mistaking it. There’s no mimicking the generosity they lent to him, the warm hands.
And that’s even worse. What does it say about him? That even the kindest people are incapable of loving him. What does it say?
He was a burden in the end, to them. He knows it.
So you see, perhaps that’s why he can’t stand to stay any longer and why it stings so much to go.
⸝⸝⸝
His next family is… one of the worst, he supposes.
But somehow, it is a startling relief, to be treated how he was meant to.
There are no homemade meals, if any at all. Most definitely never any kind hands. And it’s okay, in fact he welcomes it. It’s easier, than the pretending, than the hope for something better.
This way, he can let it die. This way he lets the little light in his heart fade out, snuffs it before it has a chance to grow any bigger, any more ambitious. He lifts his foot and digs his heel into it, crushes it beneath his weight, mercilessly, and tells it to never rise again.
It is easier this way.
⸝⸝⸝
The next family—
⸝⸝⸝
The family after—
⸝⸝⸝
The family—
⸝⸝⸝
Ajax falls on a winter’s day when he is fifteen.
He falls through the earth to a place no one can reach, where blackened hands cling to him and drag him further. It is dark there. It is so very dark and he cannot see what he kills, not really, and that’s for best when the number climbs higher than he can count.
Tartaglia rises from the abyss.
⸝⸝⸝
His thirteenth— fourteenth (?) family, is well, not really a family at all. It is a last ditch attempt to rid Snezhnaya of him, the foster care agency runs out of willing hosts, no one wants an unpredictable, untameable teenager with chronic Hanahaki.
The doctors say he should have been cured by now. Tartaglia laughs.
So his next family is not a household, it is not a home by the lake, or near the city. It is the military.
⸝⸝⸝
Tartaglia supposes, that objectively, the military is a cruel environment for a teenage boy. The punishments they deal are not forgiving, there is no mercy in their fists and far too little tolerance for mistakes. But well, subjectively, it is perfect for him.
The military is not made of warm meals and caring embraces. It is crafted from strength and resilience alone.
It’s perfect.
⸝⸝⸝
In the darkness of the bathroom, Tartaglia bends over a sink, masking the sounds of his retching with a fist. His throat is raw from the scraping, his body tearing itself apart. How satirical, to have the very thing meant to keep you alive, attempt over and over again to end you. Ichor drips from his lips and god , does he wish this wasn’t so tedious.
It’s inconvenient, really— to be impeded with such a useless disease.
“Tartaglia, is that you?”
He startles, limbs shaking.
It’s just a comrade, it’s fine.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he whispers, voice cracked.
“What are you doing in the dark? Nearly scared the shit out of me.”
He chuckles lowly, ignoring the pain that follows, “pissing in the dark is a calming experience, you should try it some time.”
The other man must snort or something before turning away, closing the door.
Tartaglia sags.
It’s fine. Everything is fine.
This finicky condition of his, it’s not important.
He avoids staring into the sink as he turns the tap on full blast.
⸝⸝⸝
Tartaglia is seventeen years old when he meets the Tsaritsa.
She is… Tartaglia doesn’t hold many things in high regard, but for her, he raises his palms and places her on the highest shelf. She is not kind, not even remotely. There is no love inside her, for she is not made of it and she has none to spare for anyone else, especially not him. It is just what he craves. There are no pretences, no deceit hidden beneath her tongue, she will never love Tartaglia, will never feign it either.
It is what he needs. (What he deserves).
⸝⸝⸝
The Tsaritsa says she wants power, control.
Tartaglia is more than willing to aid her.
⸝⸝⸝
He gains a vision: Hydro. It suits him, he supposes, after all ice is but frozen water.
⸝⸝⸝
In between training, he finds his way back to the frosted lake, and he takes a seat. He stares into the icily glazed waters and avoids making eye contact with his reflection. He inhales and it stops halfway, as it always does and he closes his eyes.
He draws the air inwards and the sharp sweetness hits his nose, tart, tangy and syrupy. There’s the scent of freshly baked dough, that yeasty aroma that makes his mouth water. In his palms there is a bun, golden brown and filled with fresh cherries. He raises it to his lips and bites into the pillowy, tender dough, the crust baked to perfection to create a crisp and fluffy texture.
Pirozhki.
It’s sugary sweet and so, so warm.
He sighs and leans back against the wooden backing of his chair, it wobbles ever so slightly— one leg had always been a bit faulty, but it worked just fine and there’s no use throwing out perfectly good furniture. There’s the flickering heat of the fireplace beside him and he can hear his father feeding more logs to the flames while his older sister helps their mother prepare dinner. He can hear his little siblings run amok around the living room, darting into the kitchen where they will surely receive a scolding and—
Tartaglia opens his eyes.
Back to training.
⸝⸝⸝
He is twenty-one when he’s sent to Liyue.
“Take the Gnosis of Rex Lapis,” she tells him.
Tartaglia inclines his head, an arm crossed to the opposite shoulder in a bow.
“Of course,” he says.
⸝⸝⸝
Liyue is startlingly warm, humid from the sea that surrounds it and its heat is sticky, cloying to the air and dampening to the back of his neck, to the rise of his forehead, to the middles of his palms. He rolls his sleeves to the elbow in an attempt to relieve the pressure.
“Not used to the weather?” A small girl questions, gaze a mixture of inquisitive and knowing all at once.
Tartaglia can’t be bothered to partake in small talk, least of all discuss the obvious.
But he’s not Tartaglia here, he’s ‘Childe’. Childe is a friendly man. So he smiles, a little abashed, rubbing a hand at the thin hairs on his nape.
“Something like that,” he concedes, “I’m sure I’ll grow used to it eventually.”
The girl stares at him, head tilting as she assesses something. Her eyes seem to set in a resolve, determination of some kind shining through.
“Are you thirsty?”
“Huh? Oh, no, no,” he waves a hand half heartedly, “I’m fine.“
Her thin fingers come to snag at his elbow, firm in their grip, “come with me.”
Tartaglia goes to pull away, averse to touch that isn’t aimed to harm but then Childe is there, forcing him to relax and smile accommodatingly. Tartaglia bites his tongue hard to resist retorting something about personal space and the etiquette shown to strangers.
⸝⸝⸝
There is a bookcase of texts that he cannot name, dusted and set carefully beside one another in the mahogany wood. A glowing lantern resides in the centre of a wooden table and it glows, setting the room alight with its warmth, soft and golden. A low chandelier rests upon the ceiling and dips down to meet the rest of the room.
Childe stares for a moment. Or two.
“Sit here,” she pats the seat of a wooden chair firmly, and he decides not to disobey, not with the finality she speaks. “I’ll be back in just a moment.”
And so she leaves him, alone in a room that does not feel a part of Liyue. It is as though he had travelled somewhere, perhaps to the past, the moment he stepped foot in this room.
It is only a minute or two after that he realises there are dishes on the table, all covered with metal lids that have detailed patterns engraved onto the handles. Cutlery, folded into napkins and gold rimmed wine glasses. It looks enough to feed six guests a generous portion each and yet—
And yet only one man opens the door.
Childe pauses, eyes lifting from the display just as the man halts, hand still resting on the doorknob as he glances between Childe and the dining table.
“Ah, I beg my pardon,” the man inclines his head, “I didn’t realise I would have a guest tonight.”
“Oh!” Childe startles, standing up and raising his hands, fingers splayed. “No, no. I’m no guest. A girl led me here, but it was my fault for blindly following her,” he lets out a bashful chuckle, reaching up to scratch at his nape. “I’m sorry for interrupting your meal, I’ll just—” and he makes a motion towards the door.
“It’s quite alright,” the man says instead, moving to close the door behind him. “Company is welcome. I wouldn’t mind you joining me this evening,” he offers a smile and Childe has to look away.
“Unless you would rather leave, of course,” the man doesn’t seem too perturbed either way. “I won’t keep you if there are other matters you must attend to.”
Childe should leave.
He really, really should.
Amber eyes bore into his.
Childe smiles, “well, I’ll admit, I am a bit hungry.”
⸝⸝⸝
Zhongli.
That’s his name.
Childe would rather he didn’t have a name to a face. Liyue isn’t for companions. But more than that: Tartaglia isn’t made for companions. Comrades, yes. Acquaintances, maybe. But never companionship. He knows where that gets him (bent over the sink, over the toilet, over a bin. Throat lurching. Retching. The stench of blood on his lips—).
So maybe Zhongli is his name, but that is of no consequence to Childe who is merely in Liyue for a moment. Childe who he will forget just as the many before him.
Still.
It is the slightest bit entertaining when the man starts to ramble on about the origin of the Mapo Tofu that serves as one of their many side dishes— seriously, why are there so many portions for a single man? Just how wealthy is he?
Childe barely takes in a word the man says, too busy watching the way his lips move around the syllables. The way he delicately tears the meat off his chopsticks like a royal. The way his hand folds around the utensils like second nature. It’s a little bit dangerous.
But again, it is of no consequence. One evening spent with a strange man will simply become a blip in his memory.
“Do you not enjoy the tofu, Master Childe?”
Childe blinks, glancing down at his empty chopsticks gripping at the air. “Oh, no. I do. I’m just—” Not used to having this much to eat “—This is my first time trying it, that’s all. I’m getting used to the uh, flavours.” He tries for a grin that Tartaglia would never produce.
“Ah I see, of course,” Zhongli nods, “please do take your time then.”
Childe fumbles with the chopsticks and it’s a blunder that he unfortunately can’t disguise as part of his persona. Tartaglia has little experience with utensils outside of forks, spoons. Can’t remember the last time he used a knife that wasn’t to maim. The food in the military is packaged in small containers with plastic sporks and the last time he ate a full meal must’ve been—
A while.
“I apologise for my table manners,” Childe feels the need to say, bashful in a way that isn’t all pretend. There’s a need to speak formally where he feels well underdressed beneath the man’s watchful eyes.
“I am not accustomed to these, ah, ways of eating,” he gestures down to the wooden sticks between his fingers.
“Do not apologise,” Zhongli smiles, a small thing. “I am impressed actually, that you would attempt to use something you are not familiar with. Your consideration for my culture is appreciated, Master Childe.”
Childe fumbles, figuratively of course. He opens his mouth and finds he has no words. He is not often praised off the battlefield. Not for things like this.
It is odd.
It leaves him uncomfortable.
Childe clears his throat with a nervous laugh, “you are too kind, Mr. Zhongli.”
“Not at all,” Zhongli replies, and it’s too sincere.
“Do you know where that girl went?” Childe questions instead.
“Girl?” Zhongli tilts his head.
“Yeah, kinda short. Dark hair? She had a hat on,” his description is absolutely terrible, so it’s surprising when Zhongli’s eyes light up in recognition.
“You must mean Hu Tao,” the man murmurs with a following sigh, “she is quite hard work, and meddlesome too. I’m assuming she was the one to lead you here?”
The exasperation in his tone has Childe stifling a smile of mirth. It is so unlike the brief Zhongli that he has gotten to know and it is oddly… endearing.
Which is worrying.
But again , of no consequence because—
⸝⸝⸝
Tartaglia doesn’t glimpse Zhongli for a week after that. The man turns into a blip and he has more important matters to focus on. Like the gnosis of a Geo Archon.
⸝⸝⸝
Tartaglia has an abundance of mora, from the Fatui. More than enough to indulgence himself twice over with whatever he desires and yet, he prefers to get by on the bare minimum.
A small Liyuan snack here. A coffee there. It’s enough. He’s never needed more. (Or deserved more.)
Besides… nothing in Liyue compares to the homemade meals of Snezhnaya. Absolutely nothing.
It’s why he sits by the pier long after the sun has settled, peering across the sea and ignoring the gnawing in his stomach. Liyue is at its coldest in the evening and it still doesn’t compare to the frigid temperatures of his hometown. Tartaglia supposes he shouldn’t crave frostbite in his fingers, or the chill that seeps underneath his shirt, unforgiving and sharp. But he does.
It’s not homesickness.
It’s really not.
He has never really had a home in Snezhnaya— not since— he’s— he’s never had a home anywhere. You can’t miss something you’ve never had, he tells himself.
He stares into the dark, slowly drifting waves, steadfastly avoiding his own reflection lest he get a glimpse of his own eyes.
“Master Childe?”
Tartaglia does not startle. He’s a soldier.
He’s merely… startled, minutely.
“Ah, Mr. Zhongli,” Childe smiles up at the approaching man, “I did not expect to see you here at such a time.”
“I could very well say the same,” the man replies, voice steady and soft simultaneously as he takes a seat next to Childe.
Tartaglia resists the urge to widen the gap between them. He tries not to focus on the heat that radiates off the man, the way their knees could touch if he shifted just slightly, the subtle earthy tones in the man’s cologne. It’s all so unpleasant.
“Ah, I was just trying to capture Liyue’s… beauty, at this time of night,” Childe says eventually when it feels like the man is waiting for his response.
“Liyuan waters are known for being especially mesmerising at the height of nightfall,” Zhongli murmurs, something indulgent in his tone as he too gazes out onto the open sea. “Would you like to know a tale? Of how they say this sea was formed?”
Say no.
It’s a simple word. One syllable. Two letters. A single utterance. Tartaglia has been told no his entire life.
“Okay,” says Childe.
⸝⸝⸝
Zhongli makes it a habit of meeting him after dusk, sitting at the very same pier and spinning tales of any and everything.
Tartaglia cannot understand why the man keeps coming back, night after night.
What’s more confounding is why he keeps going back to that same spot. Why does he wait, expectantly, for the man’s presence every night? Why does he start to anticipate his visits? Even worse so, why do his thoughts of Zhongli start to bleed into the daylight, long after they have both gone their separate ways with other matters to attend to?
Tartaglia doesn’t like the man. He barely tolerates him. Really.
He’s using Zhongli for intel. That’s what he’ll tell the Tsaritsa. Because it’s true, honestly.
⸝⸝⸝
“Master Childe, pardon me if I am overstepping my boundaries here,” Zhongli starts, turning away from the sea to stare into Childe’s eyes.
Childe resists the urge to look away.
“I have been worried recently, about your…” In all the time Childe has known Zhongli— not that long, if he’s being completely honest— he’s never seen the man so hesitant to voice his thoughts, used to the consultant talking for hours on end about whatever flits through his mind.
This is why Childe tilts his head in confusion when the man trails off, offering an encouraging nod to continue.
“I have merely been concerned with your eating habits,” Zhongli admits, a furrow to his brow.
Childe finds himself speechless.
Zhongli must take his silence for irritation as he’s quick to expand, “please do not assume that I feel you are incapable of taking care of yourself. You are a very capable young man from what I have learned. I only wish that you would put more thought into having sustainable meals throughout your day.”
There’s a lot to unpack there that Childe can’t even begin to comprehend but— “We’ve only ever met after dark, how would you?—” He cuts himself off, unable to hide his confusion.
“Ah,” and then Zhongli has the nerve to look bashful. Bashful. Is it the night sky playing tricks on him or is there pink dusting the man’s cheekbones? “My apologies, but I have glimpsed you more than a few times throughout the day and I noticed that around lunchtime you would tend to carry on working whilst your co-workers had their breaks… I understand that I may be mistaken and have jumped to unnecessary conclusions…” The man trails off, looking more and more sheepish by the minute.
“You noticed?” Childe asks before he can stop himself, eyes wide.
“I have always paid careful attention to my companions,” Zhongli tells him. The man wears honesty like there was never another option to begin with. Like lying is something of an old myth told to children, an abstract concept he’ll never grasp. He wears honesty like it’s a part of him.
Huh.
Childe looks away, clearing his throat. “Well, you’re right. It seems that I have not been eating as well as I could be. I— ah— I suppose I just don’t know enough of Liyue’s cuisine to order a meal,” he scratches the side of his head with a laugh. “But it’s nothing to concern yourself over, Mr. Zhongli. I am more than accustomed to eating on less than this, even. It’ll be a while before this poor soldier falls ill from a little starvation.”
When he turns back to the man, Zhongli’s expression is severe. Childe blinks. “Er? Mr. Zhongli?”
“This will not do,” Zhongli says, sternly, amber eyes shining with something oddly determined. “Master Childe, if you would allow me. I’d like to eat dinner with you.”
If Childe was drinking something, he would have choked on it. “O—oh?” He laughs, voice cracking. “Mr. Zhongli, I didn’t know you swung that way haha.”
Zhongli looks confused and it has Childe’s ears burning with something like embarrassment— when has he ever felt embarrassed? “I’d like to eat dinner with you for as long as it takes for you to become accustomed to Liyue’s food. I’d like to show you my favourite dishes, and hopefully this will improve your appetite.”
Oh.
Childe has to look down at his gloved fingers, twisting around each other with a faint tremor. “That’s— that’s much too much to ask of you, Mr. Zhongli. Really. There’s no need to—”
“I would like to,” Zhongli interrupts him with that unwavering determination of this. “I enjoyed our last meal together although it was our first and only and I wouldn’t mind having more with you.”
What’s Childe supposed to say?
No?
Really?
It doesn’t even feel like a choice this time round. Not when he looks up and finds Zhongli’s eyes staring into his, not when he can’t find anything but honesty and a warmth that’s too good to be true in the man’s expression.
“Okay,” whispers Childe.
⸝⸝⸝
Tartaglia hates Zhongli.
Really, he does.
Please believe him.
⸝⸝⸝
“If you hold it a little higher up, yes, just like that, move your fingers up a little further,” Zhongli instructs softly, hovering over Childe’s finger like a particularly fretful mother hen. “That’s it, well done, Master Childe.”
Childe ducks his head, ears flaming. “Thanks,” he mumbles, trying his damn hardest not to lose a handle of the lone noodle between his chopsticks.
“You’re a quick learner when you put your mind to it,” Zhongli observes, fond. Fond. Surely not.
“You’re a good teacher, Mr. Zhongli,” Childe says instead because he’s never had to deal with this before. Isn’t there an instruction manual on this type of thing? How to stop your acquaintance from complimenting you unnecessarily. Yes, that would be very useful about now. If only to keep Childe from self combusting.
Zhongli smiles at him.
Childe looks away, taking a bite of the noodle before it slips out of his grasp.
It tastes like how this moment feels. The sauce coating the noodles is sweet, almost too sweet. Indulgent. Like Zhongli’s gaze. Warm. Too warm. Like the outside of Zhongli’s ankle knocking against his, blazing heat at the point of contact. Savoury in a way that isn’t too salty but just enough to keep him grounded. Like Zhongli’s voice, slow and steady and made of an unbreakable quality, a silk that will never tear.
It’s delicious. It’s so fucking delicious.
⸝⸝⸝
Tartaglia shakes over his bathroom sink. He doesn’t dare look in the mirror.
Throat itching, fingers clawing at his neck, his sternum, his ribs. He’s on fire. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
He ignores the blood under his fingernails, decorating his chin, sliding out of his heaving mouth, gathering on his tongue.
Haha.
He’d become complacent, for a moment. Drinking in the atmosphere of things he didn’t deserve. Looking into eyes that he shouldn’t. Eating from hands that should never feed him.
Tartaglia takes longer to clean himself up, longer to apply salve to his bruised throat because he deserves to feel it burn. He deserves this. He really does. It’s only natural.
⸝⸝⸝
Zhongli calls them companions. Friends.
“A table of two for me and my friend here.”
It makes Childe’s throat crawl and that’s why he knows that none of it can be real, no matter how honest Zhongli looks. The best liars are the best for a reason after all.
⸝⸝⸝
“Ah,” Childe’s eyes widen as he takes a bite into the soft bun. It sings whispers of familiarity in a way that leaves him at odds, swirling the savoury flavours around his tongue. “This tastes like something back in Snezhnaya,” he admits.
Zhongli looks at him in interest, eyes curious and patient all at once.
Childe isn’t too sure why he continues to speak. His childhood has never been up for grabs as a conversation topic. “There were these buns, pirozhki ,” he says in his mother tongue, “some of them were filled with meat fillings like these. They are not exactly similar,” he hums before taking a bite. “These are steamed and pirozhki are oven cooked. But still…” He trails off.
“I’d love to try your favourite Snezhnayan dishes one day,” Zhongli smiles at him.
Childe can’t stand when he looks at him like that.
“I’m sure you’d like them, my favourite version of pirozhki was the one with fresh cherries inside. It’s not the most popular but,” and then he shrugs before saying something he really shouldn’t. It must be the taste of familiarity that leaves him loose mouthed and pliant. “When I was still flitting from foster home to foster home, I’d rarely get fed most of the time,” he laughs. Because it’s funny. It is. Really. “I used to imagine all my favourite foods, and I’d close my eyes and sit in the snow and for a while, just a little, I wouldn’t feel hungry anymore,” his voice descends into a whisper, eyes downcast.
“But yeah, anyway it’s—” Childe looks up with a smile only to falter.
He’s never seen Zhongli make an expression like this before.
He’s never seen anyone make such an expression before. Not for him. Not for Tartaglia. (Not for Ajax.)
Why does Zhongli look so heartbroken… for him?
“It’s really not that bad, Mr. Zhongli, it’s all in the past now, haha,” Childe laughs, setting the bun down to scratch his head.
“You have a tendency to downplay your pain, Childe,” Zhongli says. “I wish you wouldn’t,” the man’s eyes are hurt.
“I—” Childe fumbles.
“Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me such a sensitive part of your childhood,” Zhongli says, quietly. “I won’t disregard your trust in me, or the importance of what you have shared.”
“Ah—” Childe blinks rapidly, looking down at the half eaten bao bun, “seriously, Mr. Zhongli, you really never hold back with your words, do you?” He ignores the stinging behind his eyes.
A hand is placed over his, startlingly warm.
“Zhongli. I’m sure we are past such formalities by now, aren’t we?”
What is Childe to do?
Say no?
Like he’s said before, it’s hardly a choice anymore.
⸝⸝⸝
Tartaglia chokes on the blood in his mouth. Heaving flower after stupid fucking flower.
This is the part where he leaves. It’s the part where he packs his bags because he’s gotten too close. He’s let warm hands wander too far. He’s left himself defenceless and it’s time to reel it in. It’s time to put on his coat and move on.
This is the part where he leaves.
It is.
Come on.
This is part of the story where he gives up on pursuing the unreachable.
It’s time to leave.
It is.
Really.
⸝⸝⸝
So why…?
“Zhongli, you sure have a penchant for picking the most expensive of treasures, don’t you,” Childe muses in exasperation as he pays for some apparently extremely rare jewels that cost more than an average Liyue’s citizens monthly rent.
“Ah,” Zhongli has the audacity to look away, sheepish. “I do tend to get away with myself when I find pieces of art that are crafted with such history and thought ingrained into them.”
Childe simply sighs, not at all fond. Really. He isn’t. “Well, it would help to remember your own mora next time round,” he says but it’s light-hearted at most and he knows he’ll pay for anything else the man wants in a heartbeat.
Why is he still here?
⸝⸝⸝
He doesn’t mean for it to end up like this. Not with their touches between each other becoming more frequent by the day. A hand on his back. Fingers grazing against each other. Knees touching. The ghost of Zhongli’s breath trailing his neck as he instructs Childe with the chopsticks, a chin over his shoulder.
Childe doesn’t know how it escalated so far. He doesn’t know why he’s with Zhongli more than he’s apart from the man.
He’s lost sight of his original mission completely. It’s going to bite him in the ass he knows.
But—
Hear him out.
Maybe Childe can have this. Not Tartaglia. (And certainly not Ajax). But Childe, this façade created purely for Liyue. Maybe it’s okay for him to have this, just temporarily.
Maybe it’s okay to laugh freely.
And maybe it’s okay to lean into Zhongli’s touch when the man reaches for him.
And maybe it’s okay for him to smile easier.
⸝⸝⸝
Strangely, his throat doesn’t itch so bad anymore.
Strangely, when he glimpses his own reflection by accident, he doesn’t cringe away.
Strangely, when Zhongli looks at him, fond and indulgent and all, he can’t help but let him.
⸝⸝⸝
Zhongli’s lips taste like smoke, unhurried, slowly roasting wood. Like fire. Like warmth. And when he sighs into Childe’s mouth he can’t help but inhale it all, desperately, achingly. Take all the man is willing to give him.
Zhongli is gentle. The pads of his fingers are rough, and the palms of his hands are stubborn with callouses but he’s soft. Steady and soft and when he cradles Childe’s jaw, it has his eyes fluttering shut.
Weightless.
Kissing Zhongli is weightless and grounding all at once. Tethered to the earth by a single man lest he float away.
But more than that, kissing Zhongli is nice.
As simple as that, and it may not mean much to many, to have a kiss be just nice.
But to Childe— (to Tartaglia), it means everything.
(When was the last time things have just been nice?)
⸝⸝⸝
This new development in their relationship isn’t as startling as Childe thought it would be. It doesn’t feel like falling. Not like a straight drop to the bottom.
Instead, it’s gradual. A slow descent into Zhongli’s waiting arms. (When did he turn into such a sap?)
It feels like it makes sense. Like it’s only natural that Zhongli should want to kiss him and he should want to kiss Zhongli. Like it’s only natural that he would love Zhongli like this. Like it’s only natural that he— that he could be—
Like it’s only natural that he could be loved too.
⸝⸝⸝
(This is why Childe knows that it’s bound to crumble. It’s only a matter of waiting. Tartaglia laughs bitterly.)
⸝⸝⸝
“Ajax,” says Childe one evening when it’s just the two of them, on the balcony of Childe’s apartment outlooking Liyue’s quietest hour. He whispers the word into the air, feeling hesitant and brave all at once.
“Hmm?” Zhongli turns towards him, gaze attentive as always.
“My name,” Childe starts, resisting the urge to scratch his neck. “It used to be Ajax.”
Zhongli is silent for long enough that Childe thinks the conversation is gone with the gentle wind of Liyue. Maybe it’s not information worthy enough to deign any kind of response. Maybe it’s a terrible name. Terrible like dead eyes and strange hair colours. Terrible in all the ways that Childe always will be. His throat itches.
“And what name do you prefer?”
Childe pauses, swallowing, thoughts spinning to a halt as he turns to the man. “What?”
“Which name have you preferred throughout your life?” Zhongli questions, eyes steady, “what name has the fondest memories tied to them, or the most importance? What conveys the real you?”
Childe looks away, quiet. “…Ajax,” he whispers like a sin.
“Alright then,” Zhongli says, and then he smiles and leans forward to cup Childe’s jaw.
And then he kisses Ajax.
⸝⸝⸝
Zhongli is Rex Lapis.
Childe— Tartaglia— Ajax was a pawn.
Zhongli— no, Rex Lapis, knew all along.
Okay.
Okay.
Childe sits by the pier alone.
Betrayal is a silly thing to cry over. It really is.
So he blames the dampness on his cheeks on the rain.
(It doesn’t rain in Liyue).
⸝⸝⸝
Tartaglia summons his hydro vision before he’s even reached the archon, eyes vacant and hard as they should be. As they always should have been.
Zhongli had said he wanted to talk.
Tartaglia had laughed.
There’s no need to talk. There’s nothing to talk about.
If the God of Geo wanted to battle, they could battle.
His attack is blocked before he can even think of planning a second, Zhongli’s gaze unwavering in determination as he deflects the water. He shouldn’t look beautiful after all this. Tartaglia shouldn’t find him beautiful after all this. Life is so fucking unfair.
“Let’s not fight, Childe,” the archon tells him. Demands. Like he’s better than Tartaglia. The bigger man. The bigger god. It makes the rage in his chest burn brighter.
Tartaglia is a hardened war soldier.
So it makes no sense why he flinches, when Zhongli raises a hand towards him.
It makes no sense why he takes a step back, arms raising to his shield his face as though he is seven years old again with a bloody nose and bruised knees; muffled cries into his palms and the smell of liquor slinking past the gaps of his fingers; in a cupboard, locked away for days and it’s so dark, too dark—
“Childe? Ajax, can you hear me?”
He gasps, letting trembling fists fall to his side. Hydro vision falling away. Zhongli, with kind eyes. Zhongli with hands that have never hurt him. Zhongli who is reaching towards him. Zhongli who is an archon.
“I will not fight you,” the man’s tone is firm and it has something painful twisting in Tartaglia’s stomach.
“I’m not scared of you,” he says, and he’s aware that his words are tilting, sliding past his tongue with a stutter he can’t hide well enough.
When Zhongli takes another step forward, he takes a step back.
It’s mortifying when his back hits the wall. It’s mortifying when Tartaglia looks up into the archon’s eyes and realises that he’s terrified.
He had never been scared of his Tsaritsa. Never. Not even once, despite the fear she claims over everyone else. He hadn’t been scared of his fourth foster home, with the alcoholic father that beat him as a pastime. He hadn’t been scared of the twelfth foster home, with parents who starved him and gripped his hair hard enough to bleed.
However, Tartaglia had been scared of one of his foster mothers. Maybe the eighth? Or the tenth? He’s not sure. But she was warm palms and sweet smiles, and she held him when he was all anger and fury. And— and Childe had loved her, he thinks. And then there were petals in the sink and it had hurt more than anything else. It had hurt more than fists in his stomach and hands in his hair because he let her. He let her hurt him.
It’s the same now, he realises with an increasing panic. Here, on Liyue. Here on Teyvat, Zhongli is the one. Zhongli is the only one who can hurt him and no matter how Tartaglia may raise his fists and bare his teeth, if Zhongli wants to take a spear and pierce him through the stomach—
Tartaglia will let him.
The most terrifying thing in the world is that Tartaglia will let him.
If Zhongli wants to be mean, if Zhongli wishes to break his heart, if Zhongli desires his death , Tartaglia will let him.
There’s something unfurling in his chest and he chokes on it, desperate to suppress what he knows is inevitable.
He’s blooming, over and over and it brings tears to his eyes.
Blood graces his lips and he looks up into startled amber eyes.
Tartaglia can’t breathe.
The world turns to black.
⸝⸝⸝
“Ajax? Ajax, are you awake?”
He comes to slowly. Reluctantly. Eyes opening into a darkened room. Wincing. He breathes in and feels his throat splinter. The smell of blood clogs his nostrils.
There’s a hand in his hair, so soft, so gentle that it has tears rising, prickling at the corners of his eyes.
It’s not fair, he wants to say if only his voice would let him.
Don’t be so kind to me when I can’t defend myself, he wants to scream.
Don’t be so kind to me ever again.
The petals are pouring from his mouth before he can utter a single sob.
⸝⸝⸝
“I hate you,” Tartaglia whispers, voice breaking as he shakes in the man’s hold.
“I hate you,” Tartaglia tells him again as Zhongli carefully wipes away every drop of blood.
“I hate you,” Tartaglia swears as Zhongli strokes a hand through his hair, never swaying from his gentle ministrations.
“I know,” replies Zhongli in a tone that is indulgent and patient, like soothing a distraught child.
Tartaglia hates him.
He really does.
Please believe him.
⸝⸝⸝
Zhongli is there every time he wakes up, every time he throws up flower after flower. Zhongli is there, with a hand behind his back, a hand in his hair. A steady voice whispering words of encouragement through it all.
He never leaves.
Like he isn’t the very reason that Tartaglia is bent over the toilet bowl.
Like he’s meant to believe that Zhongli loves him.
“Why are you doing this?” Tartaglia croaks eventually, finally drained of all his festering anger. Left hollow, aching and numb like he always feels, eventually, when there’s no more rage to mask his hurt, his vulnerability.
“Doing what?” Zhongli hums as the man towel dries his hair with a painstakingly slow efficiency because he knows Tartaglia’s been suffering from headaches. Tartaglia hates him. So much.
“You don’t have to pretend to like me anymore,” Tartaglia says, “The mission is over, remember?”
He feels Zhongli pause his ministrations. Hand in his hair stilling. Tartaglia readies himself. Waits for the man to leave his side.
“Ajax,” Zhongli murmurs, moving to sit eye level, voice soft but his eyes betray him, glowing amber and deadly serious. “I love you.”
Tartaglia— Ajax’s breath gets caught in his throat. Ajax wants to lean up and kiss him, very suddenly. He wants to smooth his fingers up broad shoulders to curl around the man’s neck, to pull gently at the strands that grow there and smile. He wants to say, I love you too , and then they can fall against the bed and tangle their legs together until the sun fully rises.
Ajax wants a lot of things. He always has.
But there’s something that lingers in the back of his mind, persistent.
Ajax, I love you.
(“He’s too much work, that Ajax boy, no one can handle him”)
Ajax, I love you.
(“How did your parents ever deal with you?”)
Ajax, I love you.
(“You’re too greedy. You want too much. You’re so selfish . Ungrateful and selfish”)
Ajax, I love—
(“No one will ever love you.”)
“You don’t mean that,” Ajax says with an empty smile.
He watches as Zhongli’s eyes cloud with confusion. “Ajax?” He feels the man’s fingers smooth along his hairline, pulling stray strands away from his face. “What do you mean?”
Ajax laughs and it’s a twisted, horrible thing. “I mean that you don’t love me. You don’t know what it means to love me.”
“Ajax—”
“Maybe you loved Childe, to some capacity, maybe even Tartaglia. But not me,” Ajax pushes himself away from the man, moving to stand on shaky legs and Zhongli follows.
“Why do you always believe that you’re not worthy of love?” Zhongli is hurt. He can hear it. See it in his expression but Ajax knows it’s only because he’s finally been caught out. He can’t pretend anymore. Because he too, is incapable of loving Ajax, and maybe it feels like failure. Like his fifth foster home, with an old couple who had tried so hard and still—
Been unable.
“It’s not about belief,” Ajax tries to say but it comes out as a snarl. “It’s the way it is. The way it has always been.”
“The business with The Tsaritsa was never truly about you, Ajax, I never meant to hurt you. I have loved you regardless, Fatui member or not. Harbinger Tartaglia, or Childe,” Zhongli speaks and his words thud against Ajax’s skull. “No matter what version of you I see, I love you.” Zhongli reaches for him, to touch his head but Ajax turns the other way.
“It’s not you,” Ajax says. It’s me, it’s me, it’s always me.
“You’re not understanding me—”
“We don’t have to play pretend anymore,” Ajax interrupts. “You’re a god, I’m a mortal. I was sent here to kill you. You may find me fascinating, you may even be fond for some odd fucking reason. But it’s not love. ”
Zhongli looks as though he has been slapped and Ajax cannot fathom why.
He watches as Zhongli’s eyes turn dark, angry.
“Do not minimise my feelings for you,” he growls. “My godhood does not affect my ability to love and it is insulting that you would insinuate such.”
Ajax opens his mouth only to find himself without words. “I—”
“Do not tell me how I feel, Ajax.”
“That’s not—” Ajax struggles, “I’m not trying to insult you . It just— I—” and there’s a pressure, growing, furling and unfurling in his ribs and it takes his breath away.
He gasps and it stops halfway, chest stuttering. His hand reaches up to clutch at his sternum, knees buckling beneath him as Zhongli catches him a split second before he hits the ground.
Zhongli is saying something that he can’t hear.
Blood pours from his lips.
Purple and white decorate the floor.
“ See,” Ajax manages, hoarse and trembling and so, so fucking sick of this.
He tries to ignore the tears blurring his vision.
“You may think you love me, but you don’t, ” he wants it to come out fierce, angry and resentful but it’s a whimper, a cry. A sad, sad break in his voice as he tries to keep it all together. To not fall apart in this man’s arms as he wishes for something that will never be.
“These flowers, they’re for you. I’m choking on them for you,” Ajax spits, bitter. “How could you possibly love me?” He questions, breath hitching.
“Ajax…” Zhongli says at last, voice devastated. “These aren’t for me.”
Ajax turns to look up into sorrowful eyes.
“These are for you.”
⸝⸝⸝
It’s odd, when you have that sudden clarity of how you will end.
You realise, with a slow sinking stomach and a mouthful of blood, metallic on your tongue, that you—
are going to die.
You can run from unrequited love easily enough, jumping from foster home to foster home, from bed to bed, from lover to lover with only the lingering petals in your throat as a morbid reminder. That’s easy. It’s what you have been doing your entire life. It’s never been enough to kill you, not when you keep yourself from getting too close, too attached. Not when you’ve learnt.
How do you run from yourself? That’s the question. That’s what eats away at your mind as you stare into the mirror, into eyes you have grown up with.
How do you outrun your body?
How do you—
How do you stop hating yourself?
⸝⸝⸝
“I have seen these petals before,” Zhongli says, voice grave and reluctant as though he cannot bear to continue. “The colour of them, they are meant for the self. A reflection of your feelings inward, rather than out.”
Ajax laughs, loud and bright and shaking. He laughs and laughs and laughs in Zhongli’s hold. Laughs enough to cry. To weep. To sob and scream because what can he do?
There is no remedy for this.
There’s no way to fix this.
He laughs until his throat is raw and more petals are pouring out.
Unrequited love for himself, isn’t that so fucking pitiful?
⸝⸝⸝
If anything the revelation makes him feel all the worse, there are petals on his tongue more often than not. Zhongli is permanently by his side day and night just to ensure he doesn’t choke in his sleep. Ajax silently wishes he’d just leave him to it. Maybe that’s the problem to begin with.
“Your mind needs to heal,” Zhongli tells him. “You need to recognise yourself as worthy of love.”
Ajax can’t look at his reflection when he hobbles past the bathroom mirror.
“Don’t you have better things to do?” Ajax wonders one evening when it’s just the two of them, Ajax in his bed and Zhongli in a chair beside him. He’s too weak to stand by the balcony, the closest they get is opening the window. Too much blood loss, says Zhongli with something breaking in his voice. Ajax wishes he wouldn’t care so much.
“Better how?” Zhongli muses, eyes stuck to a book he’s currently skimming. The title is in Liyuan but he can make out the word ‘remedy’.
“Something more worthy of an archon’s time?”
“Ex-archon,” Zhongli softly corrects before turning to look at him. “You are worth every second of my time.”
With all the supposed blood loss, Ajax didn’t think he still had the capability to blush. Zhongli sure does love to prove him wrong. Ajax sinks into the covers, trying to hide his burning ears.
“You can’t just say things like that,” he mumbles, eyes averted.
“Say things like what?” Zhongli questions, but Ajax knows he’s teasing him. Can tell by the tell-tale smile his voice carries, the high inflection of his words.
“I hate you,” Ajax says instead.
“I love you too,” Zhongli replies.
⸝⸝⸝
Zhongli is willing to stay forever if he has to, Ajax realises.
He may not love him like he says, but— but Zhongli cares for him in a way that no one else has since—
Since—
( “Ajax, my beautiful boy.”)
It’s been a very long time since Ajax has been cared for like this, and it’s why he knows that him withering away like this is going to hurt Zhongli, even if just temporarily, and he can’t stand the idea of seeing the man looking so heartbroken.
Ajax does not want to hurt Zhongli.
“Zhongli,” he murmurs, swallowing around a mouthful of fresh blood. “I want you to go.”
Zhongli’s expression is already hardening into that predictable stubbornness, “Ajax I—”
“You love me, I know,” Ajax smiles, and maybe he does know. “I don’t want you to watch me die.”
Zhongli looks stricken but he has to persevere.
“I know you think I can get better,” Ajax says softly, “but I have been battling this almost half of my life. I don’t think I can fight anymore.”
“Ajax if you would just—”
“You can’t love me enough for the both of us,” Ajax has to close his eyes and breathe. Inhale. Exhale. “No matter what you do, it won’t be enough.”
Zhongli is silent beside him.
Good.
“So you should go,” Ajax opens his eyes, “so that you don’t have to watch me die, and so that I can at least feel like I’m saving something.”
He turns to look at Zhongli, ready to tell him that he’s serious only to let out a soft gasp.
Zhongli has never cried before. Not in front of Ajax. He wasn’t even sure the man was capable of tears, and yet, they run, free flowing down his cheeks.
“Zhongli…” Ajax finds himself without words.
“Let me stay,” Zhongli, no, Rex Lapis, an archon, pleads. To him. To Ajax. A mortal. “Please, if I can only have one thing. Let me stay with you until I can’t any longer.”
What…
What was Ajax supposed to say?
No?
Really?
He’s truly never had a choice when it comes to this man.
“Okay,” Ajax says.
⸝⸝⸝
There’s a little boy by Ajax’s bedside. He has fiery red hair filled with soot, and blue eyes that are slowly losing their spark. Smoke dusted cheeks and small fingers.
He climbs up onto the bed and looks at Ajax.
“Can I stay with you?” The little boy whispers, “I don’t know where mama is, or papa, or— or—” and he bursts into tears.
Ajax watches, unmoving.
He watches as the boy cries and cries and cries, big heavy tears rolling down baby soft cheeks. No one likes a crier. No one likes crying children. They’re nuisances. So loud. They deserve to be punished for their tears. It starts to give him a headache.
“You’re a cry-baby,” he tells the child, “I don’t want to look after you.”
The boy’s lip wobbles, hiccupping on a sob as his expression becomes devastated. Ajax watches as the boy fumbles off the bed, disappearing out the door. He watches him go silently, and when he looks back up there’s another boy by his bedside.
Lanky and feigning disinterest. This boy is trying his hardest to act tough. He’s wearing a top three sizes too big and it sags around his skinny frame. This boy does not sit on his bed. This boy shifts from foot to foot, nervous and false bravery all at once.
“Is my hair ugly?” The boy croaks, voice cracking on the edge of puberty. Eyes wide and searching for reassurance, from anyone, absolutely anyone.
Ajax stares at him. Takes in his pale complexion, the small smatter of freckles dotting his nose. He looks at his hair, bright and obnoxious. So unlike everyone else.
“Yeah,” Ajax admits with a shrug, looking the other way.
When he looks back the boy is gone and there is a man.
A man who looks just like him.
Ajax looks away immediately.
“Look at me,” the man demands.
“No,” Ajax refuses.
“Why?”
“I can’t stand you,” he grits his teeth.
“What did I do? Where did I go wrong?”
Ajax mulls over it for a long time. Hours, days maybe. Time all feels irrelevant. He thinks and thinks of anything else to say other than the words on the tip of his tongue, any other explanation than what has been running through his head all along, ever since the day he lost everything. Any other reason. Anything at all.
He comes up empty.
“You were born,” he says at last.
“I thought so,” the man replies, like he was just waiting. Waiting for confirmation of what he had always known to be true.
Ajax wakes up to Zhongli’s hand in his.
His pillow is damp beside his head.
“Ajax?” Zhongli’s voice is a soft murmur, “did you have a nightmare?”
“Something like that,” Ajax says.
⸝⸝⸝
Ajax loses time.
He sleeps more.
When he’s not sleeping, there’s the constant taste of metal on his tongue.
“I’m tired,” he tells Zhongli. Love me, he thinks quietly. Love me because I can’t do it myself.
Zhongli replies with a hand in his hair, a kiss to his brow, a hand in his own, a hum in the silence.
Ajax loves Zhongli. He doesn’t know if it’s the right way. He doesn’t know if he’s even capable of love, doesn’t know if he lost it after falling into the abyss or even before that, if he lost it much longer ago, six years old in a burning house. Ajax isn’t sure, but he loves Zhongli with all he has left in him.
⸝⸝⸝
There’s a little boy that Ajax wishes he could love. A small crying boy who turns into a tall, sorrowful boy who grows into a broken, hollow man.
Ajax wishes he could love him so very much.
“In another life,” he tells the little boy by his bedside, reaching over to pat the soft beautiful hair that used to remind his mother of ripe oranges under the sun. “I’ll love you, in another life.”
The little boy smiles.
⸝⸝⸝
Zhongli kneels down to touch the soil, tender soil that is thrumming with life, vines twisting and turning, all growing around the gravestone and spreading outwards along the terrain.
Red roses.
They spread for miles long, vibrant and in full bloom despite the season.
“Hello,” Zhongli says to the flower closest, reaching down to press a kiss to its petals.
“Would you like to hear the tale of how these very mountains were formed?” He settles down on the soft land. “So it started, perhaps a millennia ago…”