Chapter Text
Scaramouche is freezing. Coming out of the water is always an ordeal, his damp skin taking on the temperature of the cool night. He finds himself struggling to keep warm, after all he’s cold blooded. He’s always hated being in human form. He misses his tail, his legs are wobbly, and he’s horrendously short.
His clothes are wet, still on him since the last time he transformed, black shorts and a tight black t-shirt. They stick to his skin and plunge his body temperature. He needs to get warm, fast. There’s a starfish tangled in his hair. He plucks it from his strands and tosses it back into the sea. He’s not by the docks, instead he finds himself on a rocky shore a ways away from the city. The jagged edges of the rocks cut into his bare feet as he steps over them, looking for a main road.
He walks the streets of Mondstadt following Childe’s scent. The other man has a particular smell, well everyone does, but he likes Childe’s best. Childe smells like sea spray and wood musk and a little like starlight and Scaramouche traces the smell onto the Mondstadt University campus. There’s not a lot of people around, it’s far past midnight and the only other souls that are out are hopelessly drunk or terribly exhausted.
“Can you direct me to the dormitories?” He asks a couple girls walking in his direction. There’s one with brunette hair and another with sea green who looks oddly familiar. The strangest part is she does a double take when she sees him. He wonders if they’ve ever met.
“Take a left at the end of that road and cut through the quad.” The brown-haired girl says as the green-haired one checks her glasses. He thanks them and bids them farewell. Scaramouche approaches a tall building. Childe’s scent is strong here so he supposes it’s the right one. He waits outside the dormitory until a passerby takes pity on him and scans him in.
“I forgot my ID.” Scaramouche lies.
“I don’t really care.” Says the student. He looks down at Scaramouche’s bare feet and raises an eyebrow before walking down the hallway. A man after his own heart.
After he bandages his finger, Childe’s first order of business is getting Scara a towel. He only has one, because what kind of college student can afford two towels in this economy? Kaeya eyes both of them suspiciously as Scara tracks water into their dorm.
“I’ll get the mop,” Kaeya sighs and crosses the room to the closet where they keep their cleaning supplies. He digs around until he finds it and then proceeds to mop up as many of the puddles as he can find.
In the meantime, Childe hands Scara the towel, which is slightly damp from his earlier shower. The siren takes it wordlessly and drapes it over himself. It almost reaches the floor, and like this he looks decidedly non-threatening. Childe can hardly believe this is the same man who had all of the Research Facility losing their shit.
Childe notes that Kaeya’s made himself scarce and he thanks the Archons for that because even like this Scara’s still not quite human. He still has the otherworldly aura to him and his ears and teeth are slightly pointed. His pupils are slitted and his skin seems to glow a bit.
“So…” He starts, and struggles to finish his sentence. How did you get here? How did you find me? How are you walking? Why are you here? Childe has a multitude of questions and they all swirl about in his head and get stuck in his throat so he asks:
“Are you okay?”
Scara looks down, refusing to meet his eyes, and Childe has never seen him look so timid. He shakes his head and all of a sudden his knees buckle and Childe springs into action and holds him steady. Only then does he notice the blood seeping out of his shirt.
He carries the siren into his room and sets him down on his desk. For a moment he considers moving him to his bed, but he’d rather not get blood all over his sheets. There’s not much on Childe’s desk, just E’s book and a crumpled up Econ P-set. He brushes both off with a clumsy hand and rifles through his drawers for a first aid kit. He can feel Scara’s gaze burning into him.
“How did you get here?” He finds the kit next to his calculator which has been growing cobwebs since he (barely) passed linear algebra.
“Walked.” Scara says. Childe rolls his eyes.
“You know that’s not what I meant.” Scara grins at him, closer to his normal self now that he’s drier, and two little fangs peak from beneath his lips. He shifts on Childe’s desk which creaks precariously.
“Can you take your shirt off?” Childe asks as he pulls gauze and a tiny pair of scissors from the first aid kit.
“Couldn’t even buy me dinner first?” The siren smirks at him and Childe rolls his eyes.
“Please?” Childe’s mind is brought back to the second time he’d met the Siren. Please let me help you. He’d asked, and Scara had. He hopes it works this time.
“Well since you asked so nicely.” Scara shrugs his wet shirt off and tosses it unceremoniously to the floor. A puddle starts to form beneath it and Childe eyes it warily. The last thing their dorm needs is more water damage, but he has more pressing matters to attend to.
There’s a deep scrape marring the skin of Scara’s side. Childe presses the gauze to it and blood seeps into the white fabric. It’s darker than human blood, and more purple. His eyes flick up to the siren’s face and his breath hitches because Scara is staring at him. His eyes are a storm, deep blue irises that Childe could get lost in.
“You’re so—“ Childe speaks before the words fully form and Scara presses a finger to Childe’s lips to stop him from continuing.
“Focus on patching me up.”
It’s half past one when Childe finishes bandaging the wound. He didn’t need stitches, which is good because he doesn’t quite trust himself to do them well in this environment, and there’s no way an urgent care is open at this hour. He ties the gauze off neatly.
“So, are you gonna tell me how you got here?” Childe asks again. He doubts he’ll get an answer, but it can’t hurt to try.
“Do I have to?” Scara asks him earnestly and Childe sees hesitation on his face. He shakes his head.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Scara yawns, seemingly satisfied.
“Do you want something to eat?” Childe asks and promptly kicks himself when Scara raises a thin eyebrow at him.
“I bet you’re exhausted.” Childe deflects. He’s tired too, he hasn’t been sleeping well since the release. “You can take my bed, I’ll take the couch let me get you something dry—“
“Please don’t leave me.” Childe pauses, not sure if he really understands what the other man is saying. The words are timid, out of character, and Scara seems to shrink in on himself.
“Okay I won’t.”
The sleeping situation is not as awkward as Childe anticipated. He does have to adjust to having someone else in his bed. He hasn’t brought someone home in ages, not that this is anything like that. His bed is just large enough for two. He’d forgone the twin xl for his Senior year, having sucked it up and gotten a full size bed at the beginning of the year. His wallet was mad, but his back thanked him.
He can feel the siren pressed up against him, the man having seemingly no concept of personal space, not that there is much space. Childe is a large man and Scara takes up a deceptively big chunk of the bed. He’s freezing, and Childe is certain he’s leeching off of his body heat like some kind of lizard. It’s alright though, because it’s Scara, and he’s missed him.
The other man has his back to him, he’s sleeping soundly. Every once in a while the siren will shiver. Childe feels like an awful host. He only has one blanket which is ratty and hopelessly thin. He ponders what the worst thing that could happen would be, if he were to take the other man into his arms. He reaches an arm out to do so, then stops himself. It’d probably be too much. Instead he scoots just a little bit closer and hopes that his body heat is enough.
The next morning, he doesn’t quite know what to do with the siren. So he takes Scara to class with him. He’d dried the man’s clothing overnight, but Scara doesn’t have any shoes, so he wears Childe’s which are about 3 sizes too big. They enter the lecture hall and Scara plops down in the seat next to him. Five minutes later the girl that usually sits to the right of Childe enters the room; she audibly scoffs when she realizes her chair’s been taken. Scara sticks his tongue out at her as she glares back.
“What is this class about anyway?” Scara asks after his impromptu staring contest. The girl had eventually given up when she’d realized that the man had no intention of blinking.
“You don’t want to know.” Childe whispers back.
“You’re being very cryptic, you know.” Their attention is drawn to the front of the room as the professor coughs.
“Let's get started shall we.” He addresses the room.
Sea Snail Ethics - Lecture 14 : What Makes a Mollusc. The man writes on the chalkboard as groans sound from around the room. Childe doesn’t know why they don’t just get a projector like a respectable research institution. The professor then launches into a particularly long winded anecdote about his recent trip to Natlan. Much to the dismay of the entire class. Out of the corner of his eye Childe can see the girl in front of him writing a social media post calling him a colonizer. All 20 of her followers are going to eat that up.
“Didn’t you need something from me?” Scara whispers after the fifth minute of an in depth explanation of how the man got sun poisoning waiting to catch a glimpse of the Pyro Archon.
“What do you mean?”
“Weren’t you working on some kind of research project?” Oh yeah! His thesis. He’d been so caught up in his other classes and his position at Favonius that he’d almost completely forgotten about the paper.
“Yeah, you’re actually going to help me?” Childe blurts just a little too loud. The girl in front of him turns to shush him like she’s actually fucking listening to the nonsense from the front of the room. Scara flashes his fangs at her. Childe can see the color drain from her face as she quickly turns back around.
“Of course I am.” The siren hisses back. “We’ve already been over this. Equivalent exchange. A question for a question.”
“When do you want to start?” Childe ignores his tone, crystalflies in his stomach.
“How about now? This class is fucking useless anyways.” Scara laughs. “If you really want to know all about molluscs I can tell you all there is to know, but I think we have better things to be doing with our time.” The Professor turns to face the room and gives everyone five minutes to discuss with a partner but by that time Scara and Childe are already out the door.
“Umm the feeding thing, how does that work?” Childe asks as they walk. He leads them through the quad. A couple people’s heads turn to look at them, well not them but Scara. The siren pays them no mind.
Scara smirks. “I thought you already knew.” Childe’s face goes bright red.
“I’m more interested in the mechanics of it.” He stutters, wiping sweat from his brow.
“Well it’s an exchange of energy. I take whatever emotion you’re feeling, and in turn you take some of my abyssal energy. Don’t look so concerned. It’s not permanent, it dissipates in a couple of hours.”
“Oh.”
“Unlike sirens, humans like you aren’t often tainted by the abyss, your innate elemental energy purifies it.” .
“Do different emotions have different tastes?” He asks, mostly for his own curiosity.
“Not really.” Scara shrugs. “But different people do.”
“What do I taste like then?” Childe cocks his head to the side. He tries to ignore how the question sounds.
“Hmm, kind of bitter.” Scara replies, and Childe can’t help but be a bit disappointed.
“Don’t look so down. I love bitter food.” Scara says matter of factly, then grins when he sees Childe’s shocked expression. “Are you writing all of this down?”
“Shit!” Childe reaches into his backpack to grab his notepad as Scara laughs openly at him.
They travel halfway across campus before they reach the library. It’s the earliest in the day Childe has ever been, and the sunlight streaming through the high arched windows is almost oppressive. The room is packed and there’s very little seating space. Childe takes him to the basement that he first found E’s manuscript in.
There’s only a couple other people down there. One of whom is not so subtly playing online TCG. Childe watches on in glee as the guy’s Cicin Mage takes 8 damage. That’s what he gets for playing the fucking Fatui.
“The first thing I’d like to know is if any of these books have merit.” He drops a stack of dusty tomes on the table. Scara looks at him incredulously.
“These books look older than me.” Childe doesn’t ask what he means by that. Scara reaches for the first manuscript and a cloud of dust blows into his face. He sneezes, and Childe laughs. Scara fixes him with a withering glare. They settle into a rhythm. Scara paging through the books and tearing the authors to shreds as Childe takes notes.
“This one actually got one thing right.” Three hours later, Scara peeks his head up.
“Really? What is it?” Childe is desperate at this point for any shred of information.
“Heartless creatures of the depths.” Scara reads from the first page. Childe cocks his head to the side.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Sirens aren’t natural. They aren’t born. They’re merfolk without hearts. I doubt the author meant it in that way, but I’ll give him credit where credit’s due.” Childe listens intently. The revelation is shocking but if he lets the shock get to him he won’t be able to hang off of Scara’s every word.
“Here.” Scara grabs Childe’s hand and places it to his chest a little left of center. “Feel.”
And Childe waits. He waits for the gentle thrum of a heartbeat that he’s used to, but it never comes. Scara’s chest is silent, and after a moment Childe realizes he’s not even breathing.
“So what is there?” He asks reverently..
“I don’t know,” Scara shrugs. “Maybe empty space.” He continues,“Merfolk are different from humans. Our magic will keep us alive even without a heart, but it’s a miserable existence.”
“I don’t understand, how does someone lose their heart?” Childe shudders at the idea.
“Sometimes something terrible will happen and it becomes a burden the merfolk cannot bear. Their heart will break. It’s not often that this happens, but when it does it’s devastating. The birth of a siren exudes a lot of abyssal energy. It corrupts the surrounding sea and every living creature in the vicinity.” Scara’s voice is grave. “Another way is someone could get too close to the abyss. There’s portals all over the bottom of the ocean. The energy will eat away at their soul and heart until there’s nothing left, leaving behind a siren.”
“Is that what happened to you?” Childe asks carefully. He feels like he’s walking on eggshells.
“No.”
“What broke your heart then?”
“Nothing.” Childe doesn’t understand.
“I don’t—“ He pauses. The look on Scara’s face is strange and hollow, like he’s barely even there, caught in a storm of bad memories. Childe decides not to pry any further instead changing the subject.
“So what’s your question for me?” He asks Scara, who looks a bit surprised that he remembered.
“Hmm I’m not quite sure what I want to know right now. But I’ll let you know in the future. Think of it as an IOU.” Childe isn’t sure that he wants to owe the Siren anything, but he’d already agreed to answer whatever he asks.
“Do you have anything else you want to ask me?” Scara looks up through his lashes at him and Childe swallows thickly. And yeah Childe does have questions for him, he thinks he could sit here all day and just ask questions if only to hear Scara’s voice as he answers. There’s one that’s been burning at him though ever since the siren showed up at his doorstep.
“How are you here? I mean…” Childe gestures down to his legs.
“Ah that.” Scara purses his lips. “I’ve always been able to transform into a human. I’m not quite sure how it works, and I don’t do it often. He stretches and Childe’s gaze is drawn to the little stretch of skin that is exposed over his hip. Scara seems to notice because he laughs. “Eyes up here.”
“Can other sirens do the same?” Childe blushes and looks back up to his face.
“Not to my knowledge, but I’ve only ever met one other siren.”
“Really? Who?” Scara grins at him.
“Let’s just say you have a tendency to keep very dangerous company.” He flashes his fangs at him and Childe has no idea what that means, so he files it away in his mind for later. “Don’t think too hard about it. It’s getting late anyway.”
Childe looks at his watch and is shocked to see the time. He gathers his things as Scara puts the books back. As they walk out, the guy playing TCG swears softly and slams his laptop shut. Night has fallen.