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It’s in the moments after the Abyss has taken over, that he lets himself remember. 
He feels like he’s dying, with his head buried in the snow and his glassy eyes staring at a white expanse, slowly turning red. His ribs pierce into his side, sharp and tight, constricting his lungs which wheeze for air. 

It’s only when he’s dying that he remembers his name. Ajax, it had once been, before they stole it from him, before the Abyss took and took and took . And now what is he? A mindless soldier, a pawn, a fragile copy of himself?

And then, as it always does, the Foul Legacy clears away and they whisk him off to doctors and nurses who glower down at him with needles and herbs, struggling to save his failing body. Until at last, he wakes and they tell him he will regret it when he’s older. But for Ajax, what is there to regret? His transformation is like taking a cigarette and letting it build up a sickness in his failing lungs. Yet, he’s going to die young anyway, so what point is there in elongating the process? There will be no older version of himself to feel regret. 

There are visits from Il Dottore, and there are days spent in the isolation of his own room, staring up at the ceiling and losing himself all over again. Sometimes, he forgets. Sometimes he wakes in a cold sweat, when the moon still hangs low, her pale face illuminating the untouched snow outside his window, and wonders why the space next to him is empty. Absent .

Il Dottore asks what he wants and it’s all Ajax can do to tear his eyes away from the wall and ask for a remedy to “stop from feeling anything at all.”

The Good Doctor considers this show of weakness with a frown. He doesn’t wear his mask in front of Ajax anymore, and all the scars and lines of his face are visible. “There’s no remedy that would be able to numb physical illnesses to that extent. Maladies of the mind are worse. I will not give you the medicines you ask for.” 

It wouldn’t work anyway. Ajax has always defied expectations. He has always ‘felt too much’. Instead, the Good Doctor gives him something to regulate the Abyssal taint inside of him, and warns him should he forget his daily intake. He’s not supposed to use the Foul Legacy again.

He thanks Dottore and returns to his empty musings. He’s sick without cause, even the Abyss shouldn’t be able to affect him so much.

But isolation can.
And that’s when the name slips from him, when he becomes Childe again. 

_______

A year has passed since Liyue. 

His family still believe he’s there, safely tucked away near the shoals of the ocean and the comfort of the restaurants on Yujing Terrace. Tonia’s letters get redirected, and he pre orders medication from Doctor Baizhu to send to his father. The pharmacist seems to take pity on Childe and sends him updates with each parcel, ‘Liyue Harbour is all but rebuilt; Master Xingqiu has passed his Akademiya entrance exams; Wangsheng Funeral Parlour is doing well. ’ 

It’s the only information of a past life that Childe is allowed to divulge in, and he refuses to read the letters when anyone else is around, but still they elicit a smile and he places them in the box with his sister’s and the small amount of communication he receives from Mister Lyney Snezhvich and Miss Lynette Snezhevna -two Fontainan Fatui he met during his visit.

Fontaine was supposed to be a respite. ‘Rest is good for the bones’, his Ma would always say, when she found him studying late, when academics still meant something to him . Although, Childe doubts he can trust her judgment now: after all, she cast him out without batting an eye. The trip in itself had been a bore at first, and he did little but challenge the champion duellist in an attempt to distract himself from the weight crushing his lungs.

Even the companionship of the Traveller hadn’t been enough, although he supposed it was uplifting to know not everyone he had met in Liyue despised him. And then, Fontaine had brought him back to meet the depths of the Abyss, and the hollow whispers haven’t left his mind since.

They creep up on him in the silences, in the hubbubs, in those moments when the chairs squeak against the ground as a Harbinger meeting draws to a close. When the Regrator turns to him with those strangely bright eyes and feigns concern. “What is it, Tartaglia?”  
It’s all Childe can do to smile back at him and pretend he can’t hear the mantra of the Abyss. “Oh, nothing, Pantalone. Tell me, how is the Northland Bank faring at the Liyue Branch?”

It’s worse at night, locked away in his rooms. He feigns sleep, but his candle burns brightly all through the early hours. Sometimes, he sits at his desk and works through the paperwork that he would never have done in the past - The Tsaritsa praises him for picking up slack in La Signora’s absence, and he feels his heart sink. It’s enough to distract his exhausted mind and drag him into morning when the cool rays of the Snezhnayan sun remind him to take his medications and block out the Abyss festering inside of him.

Childe becomes somewhat nocturnal, working through the nights and falling asleep in the spaces between missions. This works to some extent, until Nina Alanova asks her superior if he’s suffering from narcolepsy, and Childe comes to the uncomfortable conclusion that he must at least attempt to get some sleep at night.

The days soon slip into a monotonous routine: wake up at an unholy hour, medicate, receive orders and relay them to his troops and then work until his body collapses in on itself. It’s not sustainable, and often he forgets the simple things in between his tasks, like remembering to eat and remembering to socialise, but the Abyss no longer unsettles him as much, so he counts that as a success. 

Of course, even this rudimentary good can not last. In winter, as with all ailments, it gets worse. The Abyss is louder, pounding against his ears. He can understand it now. That mantra, that drumbeat of sound, it begins to scare him. The whispers tell him to ‘kill’, and to his dismay, he finds he has no blood to satiate it with. It starts with hillichurls, and when their heads roll onto the ground, it’s enough to quench Childe’s bloodlust but not the ache of that vile affliction.

Mortals, it wants. After every Harbinger meeting, it asks him for Il Captino’s corpse, or Columbina’s -whoever irritates him the most. It’s not enough to merely quell his emotions, the Abyss can sense whom Childe likes and dislikes. It plays on his mind, telling him that the world would be better off without Il Dottore after he makes a cruel joke about people from the rural towns. It tells him to decapitate the treasure hoarders stealing from a group of naive children, trying to buy fake medications for their ailing mother. And then, it sets its sight on Liyue. On Morax. 

Ajax had tried to hide from any mention of the Archon. Zhongli of Wangsheng Funeral Parlour had hurt him, and had betrayed his trust. But oh, Zhongli had been kind. The only one in Liyue to give up time for him. To take him to all those expensive restaurants and actually listen to him, treat him like a person, rather than another soldier to sneer at. And Childe had loved him and loved him and loved him..

‘But he was a liar’ the Abyss says, and Childe is broken from his reverie.

“Shut up,” he kicks a rock in the snow, and some of his troops glance up at him. They’re organising a platoon against one thing or another, probably traitors, it’s usually traitors. He hates seeing Fatui turn on their own, be it turning traitor or turning on traitors. Blood is shed, people die, the next morning their bodies are hung from the gates around Zapolyarny palace, and their families are given two days to leave the Capital.

“Lord Tartaglia?” A soldier asks. It’s that girl again, Nina. Childe realises that she has a Dendro vision, something rare for Snezhnayans, but then so is a Hydro vision. Water just doesn’t mix well in a land of snow; it’s the same for plants in a nation where vegetation is so very hardy and tough, nothing like the beautiful flora of Sumeru’s rainforests.

As a boy, the people of Morespeok had cursed Childe for his vision. ‘He’ll freeze us all’, they had said, and even though his Ma had told him their judgement was twisted after the ice lake incident from a mere few months ago, Childe had gone on to hate his vision and the misery it brought, until he discovered just how versatile water could be.

Childe summons his hydro blades, he would use the bow but his hands are shaking. “I’m fine, a little distracted that’s all.”

“Hm,” Nina considers this, and her mask slips a little. A half crescent of her face is revealed, and Childe winces when he realises that she looks young. Younger than him and that’s saying something. A child, eighteen or nineteen perhaps. Her eyes are grey, like snow on a stormy day, the same as Tonia’s. She straightens the mask, and the illusion is broken, “we have been walking for a while. It’s strange, I wonder why we were sent to find traitors so far away.”

Childe considers this. It’s true, they had crossed over one of the valleys, taking them well away from the Capital, on foot as well. The trip had taken them two days, and they were yet to see any sight of these traitors..

Oh. Childe realises his mistake. Why would the Rooster send a whole battalion of them for a few mere traitors? Unless… Unless the fight was to be bigger than that.

“Miss Nina,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. With all his badges and regalia, he is a beacon of hope for the Fatui. The troops he leads put their faith in him, and he must not falter save they grow scared. At the moment, the group crowd around a campfire, warming their hands and their thermoses of soup, they laugh and poke fun at each other, lighthearted, oblivious to what is to come. “Make sure to prepare yourself, okay? I have a feeling this won’t be an easy fight.”

The girl doesn’t seem to believe him. “We’ll be ready for them, don’t worry. Come on Lord Tartaglia, have some soup with us.”
Childe joins the troops and searches for his medications, only to find that he’s already taken the last one. He curses, he should have asked Dottore for more.

It turns out Childe is right. When they make it through the valley, they find themselves in a campsite stretching across a quarter of the mountainside. Childe grimaces, even with his large platoon, Pulcinella clearly underestimated how many troops to send. The only positive is that they have the element of surprise.. If they can use that to their advantage, Childe may only lose say one or two troops?? And-

Oh for fuck’s sake .
Childe watches the arrow fly in disbelief. So much for the element of surprise.

“Be honest with me, who just shot that arrow?” 

When no one steps forwards, the Harbinger places his head in his hands with a groan. There are already shouts rising up from around them, people dressed in Fatui masks all around. It’s impossible to distinguish between the traitors and the members of Childe’s group. He bites the inside of his cheek, trying to still the rising panic inside of him. ‘Give in to the Abyss, Ajax, we can slaughter them all for you.’

“Everyone travel around in groups of three, target people who are alone unless you recognise them from our ranks. If anything happens to anyone in your group, come back to this spot and await further instructions. You have two minutes to find a group before we attack.”

Childe’s group consists of Nina and an Inazuman man named Hasumi who doesn’t have a vision but his skill with a polearm makes up for it. He nods to Childe, the silent type, and pulls his hood over his head. Together, the three of them make their charge. 

Blood hits the snow. Birds flee the sky as the screams begin to rise like a demonic choir. Wolfish howls gurgle from slashed throats and bodies litter the ground. Childe’s hydro blades tear through the crowd with no remorse, mowing down anyone foolish enough or be on their own. It’s cruel, he knows this, yet they went against Her Majesty and he would
Give
His 
All
For
Her.

The Abyss curls at his fingertips as he drives his blade into someone’s chest, their body falling away, limp and broken on the ground. They will be carrion for the birds in the morning. It’s no way to respect the dead, but he can not respect traitors. They have given up Snezhnaya, given up the Tsaritsa, for whatever foolish, worthless ideal they held. People like that deserve this fate. 
‘Kill them, kill them, kill them’.

Someone beside him screams and the spell is broken. He turns, just in time to see Hasumi clutching a pale Nina. An innocent bloodstain blooms out from where the dagger had been stuck in her chest. She’s dead before her knees sink into the snow. Childe’s lip trembles.

They’re not supposed to make friends in the Fatui. This is why. Subordinates die easily, the only people he can really trust to stay alive are the Harbingers, but even then there could be casualties. Look at La Signora, for instance.
He barely knew the girl anyway. She had a dendro vision, and she had given him soup. But she had Tonia’s eyes.

‘Give in’ the Abyss says, and he does.

The Foul Legacy takes over his body, stretching his limbs and dulling his mind. It’s like there’s cotton in his brain. A burning pain rips through him and a shriek is torn from his throat. He can’t see properly, his heart is too small for his transfigured frame, and it pounds against his ribcage.

“That transformation of yours will kill you one day.”

His nails become claws and he is at last the beast he was born to be. Tartaglia, a son of the Abyss, destroys everything within sight.

_______

Ajax wakes in fits. First, his lashes flutter open, irises flickering frantically across the whitewashed walls and tiled ceiling, before they close again and he falls back into unconsciousness. 

The next time, his body feels like it’s on fire and he screams and screams and screams until someone rushes in and injects a needle into his arms. This time, the world doesn’t flicker away, it instantly turns black.

The third time, he feels so exhausted he struggles even to open his eyes. The room he’s in is all too bright, and the blanket pulled up to his chin is scratchy and too thin to properly keep him warm. He tastes bile in his mouth, but his throat is so sore he can’t even swallow it down. 

Eventually, one of Dottore’s segments enters. He stares, unimpressed, at Childe , and pours himself a glass of water. “Sargent Hasumi brought you in,” he says at last, “you transformed again. You’re not supposed to do that anymore.”

Childe says nothing, feeling suddenly so incredibly small and fragile, despite the years he spent building muscle on his lean frame and learning to protect himself when no one else could. 

Dottore’s sigh is long and drawn out, and Childe can sense the exhaustion lingering on him. “Her Majesty has ordered you to take some time off. They’re sending you back to Morespeok tomorrow.”

Childe snaps up, blue eyes round as planets. “No- no I can’t go there.”

“No? Too scared to face them?”

Childe bristles, how does Dottore know? How does anyone know? He had tried his hardest to hide his family from them: reading Tonia’s letters only in the safety of his own room, refusing to mention anything about his parents or his history. How does Dottore know?

“Anywhere else. Anywhere .”

Dottore considers this with a thin smile. Childe can never tell if they’re genuine or not, with the way his mask covers his eyes. The answer is most likely the negative, knowing the good Doctor. “Then you can rot in your rooms at Zapolyarny.”

_______

The Capital is a damning place. The streets curl into back alleys where dust and rot climb up building walls like ivy. There is never enough light, even when the sun shines directly above. There are always shadows to hide in, like the narrow spaces under bridges where knives are commonplace.

The skyline is the ugliest part. Green roofs are dull, the paint chipped away to a mouldy sort of grey. Half the buildings don’t reach even a quarter of the height of the Palace, which towers above the rest of the city like a hawk circling its prey. And prey the city is, with the Fatui marching around its borders, culling anyone who dares to disagree with them.

Childe sees this all from his window. There’s a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, but still his body shivers. Years of building up muscle have been pointless: his frame has become smaller, spindly in the month of bedrest the good Doctor ordered for him. 

There’s a cup of tea in his hands; the kitchen has a difficult time finding him these beverages, and most days he goes without. The taste of firewater has become rather familiar to him again, and he hates himself all the more for it. He’s seen what alcohol does to people, and he knows he shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t, in his current state.. But it dulls the endless laughter of the Abyss in his ears.

By now, he misses Harbinger meetings under the guise of ‘recovering’, but everyone knows the truth. Most nights, he sits at the desk by his window, scribbling useless words onto paper because he has to do something, he has to be productive.

He burns the paper in the morning, along with the letters he receives from the House of the Hearth. He never opens them anymore, but they leave a floral scent in his fireplace. This lasts three weeks before they send someone to get him. 

“Childe,” Pantalone’s tired drawl emerges from behind the door as the other Harbinger raps his knuckles against it. As a general rule, Childe is not a fan of any of his colleagues, but he doesn’t mind the Regrator so much. Pantalone may be stingy with his mora, but there are worse things to be stingy with. He kills, like the rest of them, but only when people refuse to part with their coin. It’s not children, at least.

Childe lets him in with a groan, but not before he tosses the blanket back onto his bed. The room may be in a poor state, but he will show at least a little strength to the other Harbinger. “Pantalone, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Pantalone turns up his nose at the state of the room, sniffing into a bag of lavender as if he would somehow catch the plague from merely being around the eleventh. “Il Dottore tells me you refuse to see him.”

Yes, because Il Dottore is an asshole.

“I was wondering if, perhaps, some time away from the Palace would do you good. There’s no harm in it, Childe. Everyone gets… homesick, from time to time.” 

The words sound like a taunt, like Pantalone is searching for a weakness within him and drawing it out in a display of his own self-righteousness. As if to state that he is the victor, the better, the one who manages to survive the Fatui where the others fail.

Childe grits his teeth, “I am not homesick.” He can’t go back, he can’t face Tonia, Teucer and Anthon, not after what he did to Liyue: a nation destroyed by his own hand. He can’t face them after the Abyss either, not with its death waltz playing in his ear. What if something goes wrong? What if the Abyss takes over and it’s not a Hillichurl’s pleading eyes but Teucer’s facing his killing blow.

“No?” Pantalone wrinkles his nose and Childe can’t tell if it’s in scorn or in disappointment. A silence descends over them, the Regrator taps his fingers against the polished wood of the desk, itching to say more. They stand at an impasse, with Childe’s nonplussed expression meeting his, neither willing to make the first move.

“Go home, Childe.” Pantalone says at last, huffing out a sigh. His years show in his exhaustion, just a tired man dealing with an unruly kid. “It’s doing you no good staying here, even the Knave agrees.”

There will be no more excuses, no more false pretenses. Pantalone wills it, and Childe will be forced to take his advice one way or another. He files for sick leave that very same day, three weeks off, back to the confines of tiny Morespeok, where a single wrong move could cost the entire town their lives.

He has dreaded going back for a very, very long time, but strangely, his shoulders sink in relief when the sick leave form is accepted, and they send him on his way. Pantalone joins him to the city gates, being the only Harbinger, save the one in Fontaine, willing to spend any amount of extra time by his side. He watches Childe reach the carriage in silence, and refuses even to wave a goodbye. The eleventh nods in his direction, that being the single moment he acknowledges the other for their entire journey.

And then, he’s watching the treeline fly by, travelling the long journey home.
Home. Ah, he’s missed this.

_______

“Big brother!” Teucer, the scamp, throws himself at Childe the moment he steps into the threshold of the house. Childe has a moment to push his younger brother away before he topples onto the snow in a heap of limbs. Teucer laughs and laughs and Childe feels strangely light. 

How could he imagine the Abyss would let him do any harm to his baby brother? Childe loves the kid more than himself, of course nothing bad will come of it. He gives Teucer another hug, before stepping inside the familiar cottage.

The walls are the same ugly yellow colour his Ma had painted all those years ago. The interior is the same cramped and confined space it has always been, only now it’s filled with even more trinkets. There are many ‘mister cyclopses’ scattered about (Ruin Guards, which Teucer has a strange fascination with), and sporting trophies his younger sister has acquired.

Said younger sister’s footsteps flurry down the stairs, and she stands before Childe with wide, grey eyes, and a huge grin on her face. “Ajax! You’re back.”

Ajax..
He remembers now, that’s the name the Abyss stole.

“Tonia!” He laughs, a little shakily, and gives her an awkward older-brotherly pat on the shoulder, which she snorts at, before hurrying away to bring Anthon into the fray. At last, the four of them are united, and Ajax is back with his family, the only family he needs.

Still, as always, there is something missing. There should be another presence beside him, another man to greet his siblings with him. A man he had so desperately wished to introduce them to but now never will.

As evening approaches, Childe is forced to sit on a wooden chair and eat a meal with his family. They expect him to be Ajax, despite the fact that Ajax is no longer alive, that he died in the Abyss. But if Childe must be Ajax, then so be it.

Ajax sits across from his parents, the mother and father who raised him for half his life, then conspired against him for the rest. Do they still despise him? Do they worry about his presence and what influence he may have on poor ‘baby’ Teucer. He doesn’t say a word to them for the whole meal, and only Tonia notices when he makes an excuse to leave to the respite of his old room.

He sits on his bed, the one which hasn’t changed since his childhood, and stares at nothing. Will he really have to spend three weeks here? His home is a place where he is not wanted, where his parents treat him both like a child and a threat. He’s twenty five, an adult in his own right, yet he still shrinks beneath their withering stares.

“Ajax?” Tonia enters the room with a cautious note to her voice. She’s grown up a lot since he last saw her, she’s taller, and she’s traded her pigtails for a hairpin which reminds Ajax of the one Zhongli used to wear to formal events - like that party on the Pearl Galley.  

She invites herself inside, sitting next to him on the bed, and stares up with shining eyes. She still regards her big brother as someone aspirational, rather than the monster the Abyss turned him into. It won’t last long, soon enough she will see him under the same vision as his parents do, but for now he drowns himself in the luxury of her kindness. “You seem upset.”

“It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Is it Ma and Father again?” Tonia asks, and Ajax wonders when she had managed to grow up so much. She presses her small palms against his shoulder, a reminder that she’s here, that there’s still someone who cares for him despite the hostile air lingering in their house. It won’t last long, but for now he lets himself calm down. 

It feels wrong to be comforted by his sister on such a trivial matter, when he’s killed people with his own bare hands before. He doesn’t deserve her affections, his parents are right: he is a monster who needs to be taken away from his younger siblings.. But he can’t bring himself to leave.

“They’ll warm up to you eventually, I’m sure.” Tonia says the same lies she always has, but for once, Ajax doesn’t have to force the smile on his face when he turns to her.

A week passes in relative quiet. Ajax rises before the sun, training in the field outside, until Teucer and Anthon come along in their heavy coats and throw snowballs at him. It becomes a routine, one he’s sure to miss when he returns to the Fatui.. He can’t remember smiling this much, laughing this much. 

Liyue.
Zhongli had forced the same laughter from him, the same smiles. Zhongli had made Childe feel light, and Ajax feel lighter. ‘Liyue’ -it was no longer a nation, it was a dream.

His parents avoid him like the plague, working later and later and refusing even to nod his way when they pass him in the corridors. When father has to leave for a ‘business trip’, Ajax can’t say he’s surprised. He may be older now, an adult himself, but he still craves their validation like a kid. 

Nothing good can last.
It doesn’t take long for things to go awry. Ajax is sitting on the sofa next to Tonia who’s pouring over schoolbooks with an unamused expression on her face, when it hits him. A pain in his chest, spreading down to his very fingertips. He doubles over, hands clawing at the fabric of his shirt, pulling it taunt over his heart. He can’t breathe.

The Abyss seeps into his mind. Black shadows speckle the corners of his eyes. “You’re a machine. This life with your siblings, this ‘Ajax’, is all a lie. You’re a machine and that’s all you will ever be.”

“Ajax?” Tonia yells when he rises from the couch. He pushes past her, stumbling for the door. Fuck, he forgot his medication, didn’t he? How could he have let something so important slip?

He reaches the bathroom and hauls himself inside. Tonia rattles the doorknob, but it’s locked and she can’t get to him. Good. He doesn’t want her to see the monster the Abyss turned him into. He wants to be Ajax for a moment longer. Can he not be her big brother for a little longer, at least?

Childe sinks to the floor, his body pressed against the cool tiles. He curls in on himself like a wounded animal, sparks of pain sizzling through him. It’s a humiliating sort of agony, the type to make him want to close his eyes and sob, but he doesn’t because Tonia’s outside the door and Tonia can not know that he’s weak. 

His eyes widen, and he staggers to the sink, coughing red into the basin. Disgusted, he wipes his mouth, smears of blood staining the pale skin on the back of his hand. The recovery process for his Foul Legacy grows worse with each transformation. Il Dottore can prescribe as many drugs as he likes, but the symptoms will only increase.

‘It will kill you one day’.
Will he reach twenty six? Twenty seven? His years are limited and swiftly running out. Each transformation takes more and more out of him and soon he will have nothing left to give.

Childe leaves the bathroom with a hand pressed against his head and a fresh pinprick where he’s injected his medicine into his arm. His sister eyes him warily.

“Ajax, what was that?”

Childe stares at her, and realises he forgot to think of an excuse. He opts for the truth, or part of it. Tonia is smart, she’ll see through any lie he offers. “They gave me time off because I’m sick; don’t worry though, I’ll get better soon.”

Childe is wrong. It does not get better.

He spends most of his time struggling to be Ajax as he counts down the minutes until his next dose of medicine. There’s a constant throbbing behind his eyes, and his limbs begin to feel like sacks of heavy lead. One day, he runs a fever, and forces himself to go outside because nothing but the snow can cool him down.

He walks through Morespeok on two bad legs, and his head sags lower and lower. He feels like he’s fallen asleep where he’s standing, except in some terrible irony, he’s still aware of every fiber of his body. Everything burns, like he’s been thrust into the flames of a deadly inferno.

The Aunties in the market square cast him anxious looks as he passes by their stalls, dragging his feet. They know him as his father’s elusive son, a man who rarely visits home ever since he received that fancy job in the Capital. Usually, they scorn him for being one of the lucky ones to escape the claustrophobic town, but today one of them even dares to ask if he’s okay.

Childe feels too nauseous to do more than nod, and shake away their concerns about his thin clothes, it’s too hot anyways.

He makes it to the sea, before he collapses. The sea is a beautiful thing, reflecting stardust where the light hits it. The scent of salt is the same in every nation, and when he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine that he’s back beneath Liyue’s summer skies.

_______

This must be some sort of sick joke.

Tartaglia opens his eyes to face his childhood room. It’s dark outside, with the window barely offering any light at all, and when he squints he can almost make out the faint stars plastered above. His throat feels dry and his first instinct is to blindly reach for the glass of water someone has placed by his bedside. Even this small movement is enough to send his vision spinning.

There’s a voice outside his room. A particularly smooth voice which sounds just as velvety when speaking Snezhnayan as it does when speaking Liyuese. That bastard knew Snezhnayan this whole time?

A second later, the door opens and Tartaglia is facing the cor lapis eyes of the man he despises most in this world. Zhongli watches him owlishly, refusing even to blink. Neither make their move, staring silently at each other. Why here of all places? Why couldn’t Zhongli just leave him alone, as he had done for an entire year? Why now, when he was with his family?

“You’re unwell,” Zhongli says at last, and Tartaglia turns away, building up the walls of his fortress. He won’t let Zhongli in, not anymore, not ever again. 

“Harbingers do not get sick,” Tartaglia says, all too stubbornly, and the rasp in his voice gives him away. Zhongli’s eyes crinkle into something far too soft, and Tartaglia balls his hands into fists. 

‘This is your chance,’ the Abyss says, ‘it would only take one strike-’

Tartaglia rolls onto his front and screams furiously into the pillows. Even Zhongli is baffled, a telltale creak of the floorboards indicating that he’s moved away. 

“Childe?” 

“Why are you here? No- How? How are you here, Zhongli?” Tartaglia grits out. Oh who is he kidding? His mind isn’t sharp enough to be Her Majesty’s eleventh, his head feels like it’s underwater, everything muffled by the waves of the ocean. Childe is the one blinking back at Zhongli, face contorted into something like contempt.

“Big brother don’t be annoyed-” It’s Teucer who brings Childe back to his senses. The boy clings to Zhongli’s coat like a shield, his big, blue eyes threatening to spill. “Ma and Father were away and you got sick and-” Teucer sniffs, holding back a sob, “and we didn’t know what to do.. But then I remembered about a ‘Xiansheng Zhongli’ from your letters so I invited him here- It’s not his fault! He’s been helping you get better…”

Childe begs for patience as he turns to Teucer with the comforting expression of ‘Ajax’, and ruffles his ginger hair. “I’m not upset at you, don’t worry. You were trying to help. How about you go and tell Tonia I’ve woken up now, okay?”

Teucer nods and scurries out of the room, sniffing. Childe sighs, tensing up again, and faces the person he hates more than any Harbingers. No, that’s not quite true. Childe can’t find it in himself to wish death upon Zhongli, as he did with La Signora (and look how that one worked out). “Was that what happened?”

“Yes,” Zhongli dips his head. Even beneath Snezhnayan furs, Zhongli commands the same elegance as he always does, looking strangely princely in his regalia. “I apologize for the intrusion, under normal circumstances I would have asked you beforehand.. However, from your brother’s letter, it seems that you were in a desperate state. You’ve been asleep for three days since I’ve arrived, five in total.”

Childe scoffs, before pain ruptures across his skull, and he hisses in a sharp intake of breath. Zhongli’s concern is pathetic, he opens and closes his mouth like a fish, reaching out desperately. Childe would have laughed, if not for the way his ribcage feels like it’s splintering. 

“In my bag,” he manages, “front pocket-”

Zhongli searches frantically, pulling out one of Il Dottore’s ugly, big needles, and drops it in Childe’s open palm. The glass is cool against his skin, and completely useless. His hands shake too much to pull his sleeve down, and they are certainly unable to inject the medicine into a vein. 

The ex-Archon notices his plight, his face turns a ghastly shade of pale, and he slams the needle into Childe’s wrist. 
Childe yelps, “Zhongli what the hell? That hurt.” 

The medicine works almost instantaneously, and before long he has enough energy to sit up. He glares around the room, refusing to meet his companion’s eyes.

“Better you are a little hurt than you die in front of me,” Zhongli hisses, and strangely, he sounds much more afraid than Childe expects.

Always the wolf.

At the end of the day, that’s all Childe is. All bark and bite, with no room in his tainted heart to allow these actions of kindness. Zhongli is a liar. Zhongli knows nothing about him, cares nothing for him, otherwise he wouldn’t have pretended to be a gentleman, one who managed to worm himself into Childe’s life like a cavity, he would have told Childe the truth from the start.

Would he? Even now, the Harbinger knows his excuse is weak at best. Zhongli couldn’t have told him he was Morax, otherwise his contract, his entire plan, would have been for nothing. But it still hurts, worse than any Foul Legacy transformation.

As the wolf, Childe prides himself on ruining what little goodness he has left in life. It happened first with his Ma, when he yelled and yelled at her after the Abyss took him. In the end, she had finally given up on him. When the Fatui took him away, she refused to say goodbye. Then, in the early days of his training, Childe had beaten most of his fellow recruits bloody during their training spars. After that, they never invited him out for drinks (not that they would have anyways, he was fourteen, the person closest in age to him was nineteen). No one wishes to be bested by a kid.

The wolf bites.

“As if you’d care if I died. How could I possibly mean anything to you, Zhongli? I want you to leave. Go home. I don’t need you.” 

Zhongli hovers over his bed with his brows furrowed together. He hums over his words, considering something. The crease on his forehead is maddening, Zhongli is so airheaded, how dare he look so thoughtful. 

Tartaglia doesn’t regret his words, he really doesn’t. Zhongli deserves it; Zhongli has been nothing but cruel to him. Perhaps he does want to spite him, perhaps he does want to die in his arms, like all the other people Zhongli loved. Like Guizhong with her glaze lilies.

But Childe doesn’t want that, not really. Strangely, the ache in Childe’s chest is not about Zhongli’s betrayal at all, rather the fact that the consultant had disappeared for a year without once attempting to make up with him.

“Childe,” Zhongli says, in a sickeningly soft voice, “your parents have left you alone, sick, in a house with three younger children. You can not look after them, so for their sake, I implore you, let me stay. At least until you are well.”

Childe stares up at his ceiling, the cracks in the paint swimming together until it’s a blur of grey. He blinks, sluggishly, and feels his head sink lower. “Fine,” he grits out, as he falls back against his pillow, “you can stay.” 

It’s the last thing he says before he falls asleep again.

_______

The second time he wakes, Zhongli is nowhere in sight. Anthon sits at Childe’s desk, scribbling away at some drawing or another. He turns when he hears the shuffling of Childe’s blanket, and a pearly grin takes over his features. “Ajax! Come see this.”

Childe stares at his brother with a nonplussed expression. He can barely muster the energy to stay awake, let alone get up and walk over to the desk. Anthon seems to realise this because he winces in apology and picks up the paper instead. It seems to be some sort of blueprint, one of Teucer’s favourite ‘Mister Cyclopses’, but fit with what seem to be tiny cannons.

“It’s a battle bot…” Anthon’s smile dims a little, “ah- it’s for- for school.”

“What an interesting school you go to,” Childe mumbles, too exhausted to keep up the conversation. Although he does take the soup from his brother’s hands when it’s passed to him. He doesn’t feel particularly hungry, but it appeases Anthon when he takes a spoonful. 

The mixture is both light and rich. The taste is familiar, certainly nothing Snezhnayan, and it warms his empty stomach. “Zhongli made this, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Anthon says, a little sheepishly. He rocks on the balls of his feet, “he’s been helping a lot actually. He gave me some cor lapis for my battle- for homework.”

Childe is definitely going to have to have a word with the consultant about that. He stares down at his reflection in the glassy surface of the soup. Somehow, he has lost Zhongli’s orbit. They circle two different suns, in two separate galaxies. Zhongli is estranged to him, ebbing out of reach, and Childe is forced to watch him float further and further away.

Childe is an anchor, stuck stationary in the same place he has always been. Zhongli is the bird who hovers above the waters, ready to take off into the skies. Blue sea, blue sky, the same, yet different, achingly so. Childe hasn’t even managed to pluck one of his feathers.

“Did you thank him?”

“Ah-”

“Did you forget?”

“I’ll- I’ll tell him now!”

Childe watches in faint amusement as Anthon tears out of the room. Left, for a moment, in his own company, Childe assesses his own state. His head still hurts, but he’s in significantly less pain, which either means his medication is working, or he’s working through the sickness his transformation left him with. He hopes it’s the latter: he wants Zhongli gone as soon as possible. Doesn’t he? Would it really be so bad to find Zhongli’s orbit again?

Childe takes another spoonful of soup. It’s aggravatingly good, made with all the Liyuese spices he has missed so much, although the rich flavour is a little nauseating. When had Zhongli become so good at cooking? Actually…had Childe ever noticed? They had always ordered food from Wamin or Luli Pavillion, Childe can’t recall a single home cooked meal the two of them shared.. The thought makes his heart sink slightly: there are a plethora of things he doesn’t know and will never know about Zhongli. 

He buries his head back into his pillows with a groan. He hates feeling unproductive like this. There’s no fever to dull his perception of the slowly passing hours, and his body refuses to sleep. He will have to survive the slog. Soon, hopefully soon, he will be well enough to claim his life back and send Zhongli home. Then, he can be Tartaglia again, proud, venomous, wolfish Tartaglia who will slay everything in sight for Her Majesty. Not just a mere Harbinger, but a Harbinger of death.

It takes Zhongli two hours before he finally decides to visit Childe. His arms are crossed protectively around his middle, and his hair is down for once, looking somewhat frazzled. He dips his head, a steaming cup of tea in his hands. Despite himself, Childe is grateful to reach out and take the Chenyu brew.

“Your siblings call you Ajax,” Zhongi says, as a way to break the silence. 
Childe snorts, rather unkindly, “Ajax is a forgotten name for a forgotten brother. You’re not to use it, do you understand me?”

Zhongli nods, solemnly, and Childe feels his smile fade. A forgotten name. If the Ajax part of him had made it out of the Abyss, Childe is sure he would be a different man. In his youth, Ajax had been kinder. He gave up everything for his family, but he was meek and timid too. A good person? Childe supposes Ajax had been som ewhat of a good person, although he was a crybaby too. 

Ajax had been scared of his own shadow, something worsened by the campfire stories about the bears and the boars in the forests outside his house. Once, when he had been looking after his baby sister, he had heard twigs snapping behind the trees, and he had taken her and ran and ran and ran all the way to one of the Babushkas working in the market.

He can’t imagine that boy surviving the Fatui. Ajax was someone who was not marked by shadows, nor bloodlust. There was no Abyss corrupting his mind, turning him into something he shouldn’t be. Ajax would have forgiven Zhongli by now.

“Childe-” Zhongli stares at him through amber eyes, eyes which have trapped all the constellations of the sky. For the most part, he has always donned an emotionless facade, but he gives everything away in the eyes. Desperation. 

Ah, but Childe isn’t ready for this conversation yet.

“My sister wanted to buy some new books,” Childe coughs, “you’ll go into town with her won’t you?”

Zhongli stares at him with a strained sort of sadness, “as you wish.”

He leaves shortly after, as Childe feigns sleep. It’s childish, but he refuses to move all day, even when Tonia brings in a bowl of hot kasha for him. He watches the steam rise from his bedside table, refusing to take a bite. His siblings will worry, but he lets himself lament in his own self-pity for a while longer. Zhongli’s presence has thrown him, at the very least.

When night falls, he finally lets himself breathe. He lights the candle on his desk, hauling his battered body from his blankets to sit over by the window and scrawl messages onto paper. They’re not letters, per se, but many are notes to his Fatui regiments. He also finds himself writing to the family of a girl with a Dendro vision, but that letter is fated for the next morning’s fire. 

The candle burns bright and low, wax dripping onto the surface. He works through the night, ignoring the agonising headache this brings, and the cricks in his hands. He needs to keep working, he needs to keep his mind occupied. Even with Dottore’s medicine, he can still hear the Abyss. 

Work is one solution, another would be to slash through hillichurl skulls, but he’s been barred from any physical exertion. Still, by the third night he breaks this unspoken rule and wraps himself in his winter coat.

It’s just a walk, he tells himself, a simple walk and nothing else. He needs a break from that stifling house -which is not the fault of his siblings but rather that of a Liyuese man and the scent of the vanilla perfume his Ma uses.

He treks through the snow, shivering more than usual. It’s not a particularly cold night for a Snezhnayan winter, but he can still taste ice in the air, and the sky is a cloudless mass of darkness. There’s not a single star in sight.

He can’t see where he’s walking anymore. He’s gone too far into the fields, vanishing into misty meadows where everything around him is white. His boots make prints against the clear snow, and he sinks with each step. Where is he? The snow is the same all around, he could retrace his steps, but his tracks are already covered. The Heavens open, flakes of snow falling around him like frozen tears.

Has he really been stupid enough to get lost in Morespeok?
How could that have happened?

“Anyone there?” Childe calls out, a little pathetically. His question is echoed back to him, the resounding noise is answer enough. He huffs, crossing his arms and watching his breath form clouds in the air. He’s not a Harbinger for nothing, a little cold air won’t hurt him..

There was a boy named Misha who once belonged to Morespeok. He used to check his father’s rabbit traps every evening, until one day he left his house and never came back. His parents didn’t find his frozen body until Spring, hundreds of yards away from the hunting grounds. The verdict was that he had disorientated himself in a snowstorm and gotten lost, freezing to death in the process.

Childe rubs his hands together with a grimace, and wishes for a Pyro vision. He hasn’t exerted himself too much, but with his poor health, he knows he won’t be able to last in these conditions. Hell, he should have just stayed inside and let the Abyss fester. 

What if he can’t find his way back? What if he dies here and his siblings don’t find out until morning? What if they’re the ones who stumble upon his frozen body?

Something brushes against his shoulder and Childe tenses. His first thought is a desperate, primal instinct. It must be a monster trying to kill him. He’s isolated, a perfect target. ‘Strike, before it has a chance to fight you,’ the Abyss tells him, and for once he agrees. He struggles to summon his hydro blades; his hands shake too much to get a good grip on them and he springs around and stabs. There’s a sickening tearing sound as his blades sink into flesh.

Zhongli stands before him, both hands collapsing the blade buried in his stomach, and Childe stills. There’s blood blossoming on his coat, the golden embroidery turning red. No. No, no no no no.
No.

“Zhongli!” Childe yells. The bloodstain grows like a ripple in the ocean. Staggering, Zhongli coughs, speckles of blood spraying the snow as it seeps from his lips. Childe has killed him. Childe has killed him. Childe has killed him.
‘It’s a monster’ the Abyss whispers, ‘a monster wearing Zhongli’s clothes. Finish it off. And if it is Zhongli, is this not what he deserves? For deceiving you? For using you?”

“No!” He roars, trying to pull the Abyss from his mind. “You don’t get to say that!” He wants to take it out, to hack it to bits. He wants it to die. He wants it to die.

Zhongli.
Zhongli’s dying.
He stabbed Zhongli.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Except the blood stops spreading and Zhongli doesn’t look… dead. He’s still standing, albeit a little shakily, and the blade is no longer sticking into his stomach. He has one arm wrapped around his middle, using the other one to dab a tissue to his mouth to wipe the last of the blood away. “I assure you, I’m quite alright, Childe.” 

“But- But I stabbed you-” Childe can’t quite breathe. He gasps for air, but the oxygen which meets his lungs is only half the amount he requires.

“Yes, but I healed it. An Adeptus ability.” Zhongli seems far too calm for someone who has just been stabbed. It’s possible that there’s a light smile on his face too, but that would just be psychotic so Childe hopes he’s imagined it. “You must learn to control your reactions.”

“I didn’t want to stab you!” Childe protests, before realising how deranged he must sound. Goodness, the Abyss was really getting to him, wasn’t it? Perhaps it’s time for more of Dottore’s medicines.

“I believe you, Childe.” Those four words are enough to calm the erratic beating of his heart. Taking a breath, Childe steps away from the ex-Archon, his boots kicking up tufts of snow. His hands are still shaking, and he can’t do anything to stop it. For all the boldness a Harbinger is meant to have, he truly can be cowardly.

The thing is, people don’t just ‘ believe’ him. People see him as vicious, as a man compelled by little more than bloodlust. He’s renowned for painting the fields red. There are stories following him around, stories where he’s something like a demon who feasts on mortal flesh. He’s a monster to so many people. And yes, Tartaglia may be a monster, but Childe- Childe hopes he still has a shred of humanity left.

It would have been easy for Zhongli to give up on him. Perhaps, it’s even foolish for him not to. Although, Zhongli is not so different from Childe. He may have once been a god, but that god is still the one who lied to Childe, who left him.

Who came back. 

Something cold hits his jacket with a dull thud and Childe blinks down at the snowball. The culprit stands with a slight quiver to his lips, seeming all too happy with himself, “you seemed to be thinking too hard,” is all he says.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Childe snorts, forgetting the absurdity of it all, “I have been subjected to enough snowball fights to last a lifetime.” He scoops up a particularly large clump of snow and chucks it the consultant’s way. Zhongli barely has time to duck before Childe showers him with another attack.

When they finally return home, dripping water onto the carpets and shivering in their suspiciously blood-stained clothes, Tonia regards them both with a look of pure irritation. “What happened to looking after him? Surely all this snow will just make it worse. And Childe, running away like that? Did you knock your head?”

Later, as he sinks into the bath Tonia forces him to run, Childe concludes that Zhongli may not be so bad. They will have to talk, eventually, but for now, this small display of trust is enough. 

The Abyss is becoming an increasing worry however. It had taken him off guard today, but how long would it take before the Abyss was commanding his every-judgement? He will have to find a solution before he injures someone else.

_______

The following days become somewhat mundane. Childe wakes, eats breakfast his siblings or Zhongli have made, and on good days is allowed to sit with them all in the cramped living room. On bad days, he’s forced to stay under his blankets in complete misery. Zhongli joins him on some of these occasions, telling him stories until he’s managed to forget a little of his predicament. It’s… nice, he supposes. He’s missed this. He’s missed Zhongli.

Liyue had felt like a break from reality. It had been kind to him, a nation where he didn’t have to spend each day washing blood off his palms, watching his Fatui companions fall. People.. People didn’t die in Liyue. The Fatui stationed there did little more than work the bank and tackle a few stray treasure hoarders or monsters roaming the fields -there’s the debt collecting of course, but that had rarely turned violent.

Compared to the bloodlust of Snezhnaya itself, Liyue is a patron saint. Childe wishes he could return to its wings, protected by the strange, false life he has made for himself there. Even the Abyss had left him alone on foreign land, only spitting poison when it felt like sulking. 

His recovery is slow, slower than usual. Zhongli sits by his side most days, reading or scribbling away in a notebook. One day, the Harbinger asks what he’s writing, and all Zhongli can respond with is ‘thoughts’ Childe doesn’t press the matter, everyone is allowed their secrets. Still, with Zhongli and his siblings’ help, his bags are packed by the third week of his stay, and he’s able to spend mornings running about with his younger brothers again. 

At one point, Zhongli dares to push the question, “you seem better, Childe. Do you wish for me to return home now?”

Childe considers this. That was the contract they had made, wasn’t it? But he can’t accept this- It feels like he’s only just found Zhongli again, he can’t lose him so soon… Even if it is only temporary, even if they still haven’t talked properly. There has been no resolution, but still Childe can’t let Zhongli, can’t let the man who lied to him , go. Zhongli is his true north, guiding him home.

“No. You must stay,” Childe scrambles for a reason, any reason, so as to not look quite as pitiful as he knows he does. “There’s a party early next month, you’ll be accompanying me.”

What has he just said?

Childe turns away, his face heating up. He refuses to look Zhongli in the eyes after such a bold declaration. Is he an idiot? 

The Fatui host a ‘party’ twice a year. They’re extravagant affairs, where only the highest ranking diplomats are invited. All the Harbingers in Snezhnaya are required to go, save for Il Dottore and Sandrone for their behaviour at the last one.

People are forced to buy fancy clothes, dress their finest, and gorge themselves on extravagant food and exquisite wine.

“A party?” Zhongli considers, and from the twinkle in his eyes Childe can tell he’s recalling a specific event on the Pearl Galley, where Childe had found a case of firewater and ruined the festivities with his drunken sea chanties.

“A sophisticated one, I assure you.”

“Of course.”

Childe falters, “you don’t have to come if you don’t want to-”

“Nonsense! I will go. Although I’ll have to find some rooms to stay in.”

Childe stares at his bags lining the hallways, and Zhongli’s relatively small case containing little save his notebook and changes of clothes. “I have rooms in the Zapolyarny Palace, you may take one for the remainder of your stay.” 

Zhongli takes a step forwards, his hands hovering over his luggage, lips pursed. “Why are you offering this to me?”

There are so many words which go unsaid. So many intricate thoughts behind an expressionless facade, words which ripple in golden eyes. Stardust in an overwhelming abundance.

But Childe can’t take this conversation, one which has the ability to tear this tentative relationship they have built apart. There are bridges and walls and towers and castles in their world, they are miles apart, and Childe won’t let them drift further.

“Gratitude,” he says at last, “for helping me recover.” 

There’s more to it than that, but neither choose to question it. Facades are better, at least those can dull the sharp edges of fact.

A while later, Childe says goodbye to his siblings. His parents are returning home in the evening, and he wants to avoid them as best as possible. Teucer and Anthon wail into his arms, and for a moment, Childe allows himself to be Ajax, as he holds them tightly and sweetens his goodbye with the promise of letters.

“I feel like you’re always leaving us behind, Ajax,” Tonia confesses, when she helps him carry his bags to the carriage awaiting him and Zhongli. “You’re barely ever here, and when you are, you seem so different.”

Ajax stares at her, softly. “If I had it my way, I would visit more often.”

“I know,” Tonia sighs, her shoulders heave as she pulls him into a tight hug, “I’m glad you have MIster Zhongli, you’ve seemed happier this time around, despite your illness.”

Ah.

“I’m glad I have him too.” 

_______

Zapolyarny Palace is the same as ever when Childe returns. There are the same domed roofs, the same cold, stone walls and the same towering shadows which seem to fall over everything. He shivers into his winter coat, and wonders if Zhongli would like to see the library.

His companion seems astounded at the palace, standing before it with a slack jaw and eyes like round marbles. It takes Childe nudging his arm for him to step inside, and even then he spends a few minutes staring at the spiral staircase in the main room.

“Good grief Zhongli, it’s a staircase,” he scoffs, a little too fondly, “what’s so great about it that you have to stop and stare like that?”

“I haven’t seen Architecture like this for decades,” Zhongli breathes, and at once Childe feels his heart sink. It’s strange, he has almost forgotten about the ex-Archon’s immortality. Zhongli has led hundreds of lifetimes. What’s all this show for? Childe isn’t special to him, not when he’s a mere mortal who will pass away in the blink of an eye for a god . He should never have taken him here, he should have sent Zhongli home the day he arrived in Morespeok.

But Zhongli is addictive.

“Her Majesty’s finest,” is all the Harbinger says, his expression souring, “come on, we should get to the rooms before Pantalone comes over and tries to make you pay a fee for stepping foot on his precious mopped floors.”

“I don’t actually have to pay to be here, do I?”

“No- no, obviously not.” 

Childe follows the familiar route to his rooms. They’re large compared to most of the quarters in the Palace, but the smallest of the Harbinger’s -due to his positioning. Still, there are three bathrooms, two sitting rooms, two bedrooms and an expansive library with more volumes than he could read in a lifetime.

He shows this room to Zhongli first, unable to keep the smirk from his lips when the ex-Archon stifles a gasp. “If you want anything, take it. I have more than enough books.”

Zhongli smiles at him, a smile which is ill-suited for his usually expressionless features, but something about it makes Childe feel light. Zhongli used to smile like this when he faced a particular item he liked in Liyue market. “This is… breathtaking.”

“Oh go on, take a look at the books. I doubt I have anything in Liyuese, but you can read Snezhnayan?”

“I suppose so, I may be a little rusty.”

A little rusty? Childe recalls how Zhongli had perfectly read out Anthon’s homework for him, and those bedtime stories to Teucer and- Good grief, Zhongli had done a lot for his siblings, hadn’t he?

Childe busies himself with collecting books he thinks Zhongli might like, and his companion sits on one of the desks, pouring over the tomes. Things last like this for a while, as Childe reaches for the topmost shelves, dusting the covers of ancient texts he’s never bothered to read, but ones with titles interesting enough he’s sure the ex-Archon will devour them.

His hand hovers by one of the shelves, inches away from picking up another volume. What is he doing? This is Zhongli, the man who left him on his own for a year, three hundred and sixty five days. The man who lied to him, the man who still hasn’t apologised.

Childe stares down at him from one of the mezzanines. He looks so elegant, with his chin resting on his palm, and his hand curled around a book. To think this man was capable of hurting anything feels obscene, yet… Yet Childe remembers the months he spent staring at grey walls, refusing to go outside his rooms, refusing to eat, refusing to do anything..

Zhongli’s gaze flickers from the book, watching him. There’s something vaguely insurmountable about him, and Childe feels his chest seizing up. ‘Look at him, in your home, with your possessions, undeserving of it all.’

“I’m tired, I’m going to bed,” the Harbinger manages, and scurries out of the room. Only later does he realise he forgot to tell Zhongli where to sleep, although his midnight wanderings reveal the man curled up in one of the library’s armchairs, eyelids closed. He does nothing about it.

_______

“Pray tell me, Childe, who is this man whom you’ve brought to the Palace?” Pantalone stops him at the end of a Harbinger meeting, pitching the bridge of his nose. He smells strangely alkaline, and Childe wonders if he’s paid a visit to the Good Doctor’s laboratories recently. 

“A friend from Liyue.”

“A friend?” Pantalone sighs, a long and drawn out thing, “do you really need me to explain how reckless you’re being? What if he finds out Fatui secrets? Do you really think Her Majesty will be happy with this?”

Childe waves his hand, in what he hopes is a blasé movement. “Considering he is a Fatui secret, I don’t believe the Tsaritsa will mind.”

He leaves Pantalone gaping at the end of the corridor, making his way back to his rooms where Zhongli is scribbling away in his notebook. “Ah Childe,” Zhongli says, “how was the meeting?”

“Same old.” Childe sits across from him in a plush chair, his leg bouncing against the floorboards. They’re silent. It’s horrible. Silence used to be a rarity between them, whenever there was a void in the conversation, Zhongli would always find a way to fill it, but now they’re tense and whatever they used to have has been severed between them. 

In Liyue, Zhongli’s home had felt more like ‘Zhongli and Childe’s home’. Ekaterina would complain sometimes that Childe had spent days away from his rooms in the little hotel he rented on Yujing Terrace. They had spent so much time together. Childe still had those forsaken chopsticks on his bedside table. 

It has amounted to nothing.

Childe is left with the remnants of their affections, and yet he can’t let go.

“There are five days until the party,” he mumbles, simply because it’s something to break the silence festering between them.

“Indeed. I shall have to find something to wear.”

“Zhongli, your clothes are the epitome of elegance, I think you’re fine.”

“Nonsence,” Zhongli seems genuinely affronted, “it’s a special occasion! I must put in some effort.”

“Then you can come clothes shopping with me tomorrow, how does that sound?”

The market square in Snezhnaya’s Capital is not a thing of wonders. Even Morespeok has silks finer than the cheap shimmery stuff sold at the ‘Authentic’ Inazuman fabrics store. Still, if you know where to find the right shops, you can leave Zapolarny feeling satisfied. 

Zhongli’s eyes widen in excitement when he steps onto the powdery snow and scurries around the stalls. Childe quickly hurries him away from a set of fake jades, to the back alleys where the less reputable, but better quality, establishments lie. 

“Madame Mila’s tailor shop, you can’t go wrong with this.” Childe takes Zhongli’s arm, without really intending to, and drags him inside. The shop has the air of a rundown building about it, but the lanterns still flicker on, illuminating the few suits and dresses in the window. 

“Childe,” Zhongli says, a little pitifully, as they step into the shop. 

“You didn’t bring mora?”

“Perhaps..”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll pay.”

The moment Zhongli enters the shop, he does exactly what Childe expects him to do, and asks the Fontainian woman at the counter for the most expensive fabrics. ‘Something flowy’, ‘something breathable’, ‘something in the traditional Liyuese gold’. 

Childe mourns his empty wallet as Zhongli picks out a dark suit. Childe goes for something much cheaper: these events are never anything of particular interest for him, and he doesn’t have a mountain of mora to waste under Pantalone’s new regime. Besides, Zhongli says the bottled blue colour goes well with his eyes..

“I would like the jacket to be embroidered with Snezhnayan architecture, and have the coat clasp be a narwhale, like the one on Childe’s jumper.”

Poor Madame Mila seems happy to see them go, although her register is heavy with the coins Childe gave her for making their clothes a priority. He wonders if he should complain to the ex-Archon, but when he turns he sees Zhongli’s broad smile, and he loses the willpower. Instead, he settles for placing a greedy hand on his arm, and steering him back to where their carriage awaits, except-

A certain market stall catches Zhongli’s eye and he stops dead in his tracks. They’re selling shashlik for an outrageous price, but Childe caves anyway. In Liyue, there were no new experiences Childe could offer him, the ex-Archon had seen everything there was to see. He had been there for its birth, and would most likely remain until its death. But Snezhnaya is new. Childe can share his own history with Zhongli.

He buys two skewers, and hands one over, careful not to let it fall. Zhongli bites into it, and a fleck of snow falls onto his nose. He smiles, and the image is something so pure, so joyful, that Childe wishes for a Kamera to catch the moment.

Their walk is ambient. Zhongli talks and talks and talks, and for once everything feels familiar. It feels real. He mourns the moment before it’s gone, wondering how long it will be until he sees Zhongli beneath this light again.

It snows the whole way home.

_______

The Abyss worsens the night before the party. Childe wakes with flailing limbs, thrashing around his blankets. His breaths are shallow from the remnants of a nightmare he’s already forgotten. There’s darkness all around him. He can’t see a thing.

The Abyss is loud. Deafening. It sounds like the screams of an opponent on the battlefield. It sounds like death as it tells him to ‘ kill, kill, kill.’ Everything flashes white, like a bolt of lightning. No longer shrouded in darkness, the light blinds him and he falls.

He lands on the floor with a sickening thud. A liquid, warm and thick, oozes from his nose, and when Childe presses a finger to it, it’s black rather than red. 

“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up .” 

 The Abyss refuses to listen, cackling laughter, whispering voices, everything is enveloped in sound.

The Abyss takes. It takes his mind with each Foul Legacy transformation. It takes his health. Soon, it will take his life. He can’t keep fighting it like this, not when Il Dottore’s medicines are growing less and less effective. He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want the Abyss to kill him-

He can’t breathe. 

“Childe!” Someone roars, and he feels his arm go numb as something grabs hold of it. He cries out, and the grip is loosened. He can’t see anything, he can’t understand the garbled words whispered to him as the needle sinks into his forearm.

The Abyss quiets its yells, turning into little more than a throbbing headache. His sight comes back too, slowly, the darkness blurring at the edges until it becomes light. Zhongli stands over him with the needle in his hand, and a terrified expression tarnishing his slender features. “Are you alright?”

“Abyss,” Childe coughs out, forcing himself into a seated position. His head burns and he feels vaguely nauseous. His nose is bleeding, but to his relief the blood is blood and not a dark sludge. 

“The Abyss?” 
Oh fuck.

The look of horror on Childe’s face tells Zhongli all he needs to know. He sits down, crossing his legs on the persian rug. “Tell me.”

Despite the imperative, it’s a request more than it is an order. Yet, it’s a request Childe doesn’t have the strength to deny. Zhongli seems so desperate, so strangely afraid for a god, that he sees no other option.

“When I entered the Abyss, it sort of.. latched onto me. Now, it festers in my mind, trying to take control of me. Il Dottore’s meds are helping, but… I’m scared, Zhongli. I’m so scared it’s going to try and take over, and make me do something horrible.”

“Like stabbing me?”

“Yes,” hysterical laughter bursts from his throat, “that was the Abyss. Zhongli I- I don’t know what to do.”

And suddenly, Childe is Ajax. He’s that lost boy who needs comfort, who needs shelter, who needs someone to hold him tightly and tell him everything is going to be okay. And Zhongli does just that. He wraps his arms around Ajax, refusing to let go until the Harbinger’s pulse is no longer erratic, and his strangled breaths become something more stable.

“We will figure something out, Childe, I swear it.”

Ajax’s lip trembles. The assurance, however true it may be, sparks hope in him. Maybe Zhongli’s right: maybe together they will be able to come up with a solution.. He wants to live, it’s selfish, he’s Fatui he’s not supposed to assign value to his life, but he wants to see Teucer grow up, he wants to see Tonia graduate, he wants to read Anthon more bedtime stories. And he wants more time to spend with Zhongli.

Inexplicably, he pushes Zhongli away with a sudden agitation. “How can you swear it? There’s no ‘we’, you left, Zhongli. It’s been a year and only now have you come back to my side. I don’t need your help, not when I know it’s meaningless to you.”

“Meaningless? No- Childe listen to me-”

“No Zhongli. You listen to me. You left me for a year, an entire year. You lied to me. Was it all a game to you? Everything? I don’t know why you even came back, just go home. I don’t need you.”

“Childe listen to me-”

‘That’s not who I am’, Ajax wants to scream. He’s the lost lamb of Morespeok, the Fatui prodigy, the gentleman demon. “Go home!”

“Childe I care about you.”

“Really? You haven’t made that very clear.”

Zhongli’s lip trembles, his hand hovers in the air, caught between reaching out and retracting back in. “ I’m sorry. ” 

“I know what you must think of me, but I assure you, my care has always been genuine. It’s not a lie, it never has been. I truly adore you, Childe. I never intended for it to be this way. I thought you would just be another Fatuus in Liyue, I never thought we would grow close.. But we did. I couldn’t tell you because of my contract with your Archon.”

“I’m sorry I lied to you. No apology or excuse will ever be able to make up for it. I’m sorry I left you alone. I thought you needed space. To an immortal, time seems infinite and I forget how short it can be for mortals. I should not have wasted so much of it being foolish. I miss our strolls together. I miss our conversations. Childe, I miss you.”

Ajax is an anchor, and Zhongli is a ship drifting a little too far from shore. 

“You’re such an idiot,” the Harbinger sniffs, burying his head into Zhongli’s shoulder. Care? Adoration? Why do those words ring true? “Don’t do that ever again. Don’t keep things from me. Don’t leave me on my own.”

“I will not, I promise.”

A promise is like a contract, set in stone. Ajax had no reason to doubt Zhongli. He’s ready to forgive him. The consultant had come back to him. He had gone to Snezhnaya just to look after Ajax, and for that, Ajax is only grateful. 

“I want to show you something.” Zhongli gets to his feet and exits the room to return with the notebook he’s been writing in ever since he arrived in Snezhnaya. He opens it to the first page, where neat letters in Liyuese script fill the paper.

Ajax flips through the notebook in awe. Each page tells of moments in Snezhnaya, snapshots taken with a Kamera. There are Teucer’s drawings scribbled into the corners of pages, and Anthon’s maths calculations in an untidy, Snezhnayan scrawl. But most importantly, Zhongli has written about Ajax. About his illness, about the food he likes, about his favourite scarf, about his favourite walks in Morespeok. Every documented item is sickeningly full of the care Zhongli has offered to him.

“I made this to keep track of you when you were unwell, but it morphed into a journal of sorts documenting my time here. I realise that most, if not all, of my favourite occasions are when you are with me.”

Ajax can only clutch the book in awe. He smiles, and it’s enough.

They stay talking until Ajax doses off, and when he wakes up, leaning against the wall with a crick in his neck, he sees Zhongli’s figure slumped on his desk chair, and smiles. There’s a blanket covering him, and he doesn’t want to imagine how it got there.

“Zhongli,” he croaks, shaking the consultant’s shoulder. The dark haired man blinks up tiredly, his defences dropped so early in the morning. A sliver of light from the half-closed curtains catches in his starry eyes.

Even with the new day, Ajax forgets to don his mask. With Zhongli next to him, he is not quite the bloodthirsty Tartaglia, or the venomous Childe, who usually occupies his body. He smiles toothily, like Ajax, and doesn’t seem to need to keep up appearances, unlike his Harbinger counterpart.

“Ah-” Zhongli stretches his stiff muscles, wincing when his spine clicks back into place. He stands up slowly, not used to such uncomfortable sleeping positions. “Good morning Childe- I apologize I must have fallen asleep without realising..”

Ajax hums as he pulls a sweater from his cupboard. Most of his clothes here are spare uniforms, but he keeps a fair amount of comfortable clothing too. He can’t stop smiling, the memories of Zhongli’s words still linger in the air like clouds of mist. “I didn’t know gods have to sleep.. Should I get us breakfast?”

“Sleep isn’t imperative, but even gods can be overwhelmed by exhaustion, so I prefer to sleep as often as a mortal would.. And yes, breakfast sounds lovely.”

Ajax ends up taking Zhongli back to the shopping district, where they buy croissants from a dishevelled, Fontainian cafe. Zhongli doesn’t comment on the state of the place, which Ajax appreciates, despite the hair he finds in his food. Snezhnaya is… crueller than Liyue, in some parts. Outside the Capital, the nation thrives with its small towns and villages where the shops are artisan, but Zapolyarny is so overpopulated that no one can afford more than something run down.. Or they join the Fatui, of course, for free room and board.

Snezhnaya is not humble, in comparison to Liyue, the buildings are still towering, and the Palace’s foundations are pure spun gold, but it’s certainly not as welcoming. Ajax stares at his tea, another Chenyu blend, and it strikes him just how much he misses Liyue, with its intricate statues and lively atmosphere.

It would be nice to go back.

“This ball,” Zhongli cuts a square of pastry, “what is the significance?”

“It’s something they can put on the recruitment posters.”

A silence spreads between them. Whilst it’s not uncomfortable, Ajax can sense the displeasure in Zhongli’s gaze.

“What’s the matter?”

“I worry, sometimes.. The Fatui seems like a dangerous place.”

“I’m strong Xiansheng, don’t worry about me.” Ajax catches the slip up a moment too late, as a glimmer of warmth shines on the consultant’s face. He can’t say he’s upset by it, if a simple word is enough to make Zhongli smile like that, and forget his concerns.

He sips his tea with a frown.

If the Abyss doesn’t, the Fatui may just end up killing him, but Ajax has long since accepted that. Only now, with Zhongli sitting across from him, does he wonder if he made a mistake all those years ago, when he let his father drag him to the recruitment centre. 

_______

Evening approaches as Ajax dons his suit. He evaluates it in the speckled mirror, wondering if he should trade his velvet shirt for a cashmere one. He swaps out his usual earring for a pair of cor lapis studs which Zhongli had bought for him (or rather, Zhongli had made him buy for himself) a long time ago.. He hopes Zhongli notices.

When he deems his outfit acceptable, he makes his way to the guest room and raps his knuckles against the door. There’s the sound of shuffling on the other side, before Zhongli enters the corridor. 

There are no words which could be enough to describe him. ‘Radiant’ does not come close, ‘stunning’ can not compare to the way his loose hair cascades down his back like silk, ‘handsome’ is a foolish word for it’s too simple to describe the elaborate way he’s dabbled rouge around his eyes.

“Zhongli you’re-”

“Breathtaking.” The consultant whispers, his eyes rounded into almonds as he stares and stares and stares, and Ajax feels his ears warm and a stupid grin forming on his lips. 

He takes Zhongli’s arm, steering him down the halls. “You stole the words from my mouth.”

They walk, arm in arm, to one of the great halls. Over the past few days, Fatui agents have been running in and out of the room, covering it with lavish red carpets, golden tablecloths, and baskets and baskets full of fawn lilies. Stepping into the space, one can feel overwhelmed by the sheer size of everything.

A stage takes up the centre of the room, where Ajax has seen operas performed by the greatest actors in all of Snezhnaya. Today, it serves the purpose of holding a buffet, with more food than the whole of Snezhnaya could consume. By morning, it will be tossed to the crows.

The hall is already alive with movement, a live orchestra sits in the groove beneath the stage, violins and flutes creating intricate melodies which are lost to the tapping of feet as people spin and twirl and trip over the polished floors. Zhongli stands in the midst of it, cor lapis eyes roaming around the room. He spies the flowers first, nodding in a strange sort of approval. 

“What do you think?” Ajax asks, pulling down the cuffs of his sleeves, and oh he feels so light. There’s no need to play a role here, not when everyone has become fluid, dancing and glistening beneath an artificial sky, forgetting the names and faces they meet.

“Oppulent,” is the fanciful word the consultant settles on. A small smile forms on his lips as he outstretches a hand, “but this music certainly demands a dance, does it not?” 

Where their hands meet, electricity sparks. Ajax eagerly accepts as Zhongli whisks him to the dancefloor. There are people all around, but he finds he lacks the will to care. Although he takes the lead in their waltz, wrapping his arm around Zhongli’s middle and moving in time with the beat.

“I confess,” Zhongli says, as they sway, “it has been a while since I last danced like this.”

“A while?” Ajax considers the many events they had attended together in Liyue. It’s true, never once had they danced. Never once had they felt so free, so unrestricted. “I suppose we didn’t do things like this in Liyue..”

“No I suppose we did not.. Childe… may I be presumptuous to ask if you regret it? Liyue, I mean?”

Ajax steps to the left, narrowly avoiding another dancing couple who laugh uproariously at the apologetic grin he flashes them. Regret it? What they had in Liyue was a silent thing. It was an agreement without words, an agreement built upon a mutual need for company. Silent hand holding, stolen kisses… 

A contract without words can mellow quickly. Ajax finds he doesn’t want that, he doesn’t want to ruin what they have now. This fragile acceptance they both share, this tentative line between trust and delusion. Ajax needs to cross the border, he needs to fall into Zhongli’s arms.

“How could I possibly regret it?” The music pulses, a heavy drum beat sends vibrations through the ground and Ajax picks up speed. “You may have lied to me, but that doesn’t mean our time was wasted. Zhongli- you came back to me, will you… will you wait until I come back to you as well?”

Time seems to still as Zhongli watches him, owlish eyes blinking like flecks of gold caught in the fog. The people around them continue to dance, as if separated by a different reality to the stationary figures. 

“Always,” Zhongli says softly, “I will always wait for you.”

The thunderous music roars to a close and people begin to applaud. The honour of a thousand Fatui soldiers clapping is more than a standing ovation, and the orchestra makes a feeble effort to bow, before their music is forgotten to the laughter of the party once more. 

Ajax feels his heart racing. Strange, nervous tremors shoot through his hands as he shakily pulls Zhongli away from the floor to the steps leading to the stage. He needs some firewater after such a confession, the burning liquid the only thing to dull the nervous fluttering in his stomach, which feels worse than nausea.

‘Always’, Zhongli promises, always. What a fool that man is. Ajax doesn’t have ‘always’. The Abyss is catching up to him and each mission he’s sent on results in death. One day, it’s a girl with a Dendro vision, another day it could just as easily be the eleventh Harbinger himself. He needs to make a decision soon, he needs to find his true north.

There’s no more time for these games, for these frivolous parties and playing at nursemaid. There’s a hand reaching for Ajax and he must choose to accept it before he falls too far.

They make their way to the buffet table, where many other agents have gathered, sipping glasses of red wine or downing shots of firewater. The Harbinger pours himself a glass, wondering if he should nurse it or just drain the whole thing. 

“Osmanthus wine?” Zhongli whispers, as he takes the bottle, staring at it in awe.
“Ah, yes I asked Pantalone to bring it specially. It’s so you’ll actually drink instead of sipping tea all night.”

Ajax looks up, before wishing he hadn’t. Zhongli wears an expression of unadulterated joy as he uncorks the bottle. “Thank you Childe, truly.”

Ajax stares at the liquid as he twirls the stem of his glass. “Ajax.”

“What?”

“I told you Ajax was forgotten.” He turns away, refusing to meet amber eyes, “I was wrong.” Zhongli has drawn it out of him, that decayed part of himself. Zhongli has brought that boy from Morespeok up from the ashes, and it feels good to be Ajax again. 

“Ajax,” Zhongli repeats, and the Harbinger feels the tension leave his shoulders. Yes, this is the right decision, Zhogli is the right decision. He should take that hand, pull himself out of the pit he’s fallen into. He needs Zhongli, he won’t be complete without him.

“Lord Tartaglia!” A voice interrupts his musing, and Ajax spins to face a Fontanian man dressed in a black suit and a velvety, cherry-red shirt. Lyney Snezhvich grins up at him, eyes forming half crescents in an expression which remains strangely cat-like.

During his trip to Fontaine, Ajax had the pleasure of meeting the Snezhvich twins and their younger brother Freminet. Despite leaving their letters unread, Ajax supposes his relationship with them isn’t so bad. All the same, he clings onto Zhongli’s side, suddenly afraid that Lyney is going to ruin everything.

“I told you, ‘Childe’ is fine,” Ajax grins, pouring himself another glass of firewater, “is the Knave here then?” He searches for Arlecchino, but his search comes up empty.

“Father’s busy so she sent my dear sister and me in her stead!” Lyney spins, squinting through the crowd, “although I don’t see said sister anywhere. Perhaps she’s scouted out the teacakes on the dessert table. Now, that’s not important, you must tell me who your companion is, Childe!”

Surprisingly, the interaction doesn’t take a turn for the worse. Lyney talks amicably with them, until his twin arrives and Zhongli manages to coax a few words from her about her favourite flavours of tea. The conversation flows, the wine flows more. Ajax forgets to count how many shots of firewater he’s downed, nor how many goblets of osmanthus wine he’s stolen from Zhongli. At some point, he’s sure someone’s replaced the alcohol in his glass for water, but he doesn’t really care.

The evening sinks into night as Ajax makes the rounds. He speaks with Fatui and guests alike, the conversations just long enough to look friendly without lingering to answer any uncomfortable questions. Zhongli follows him around, for the most part, although he’s easily swept away by people conversing over trade imports or other business dealings. By the end of the night, Ajax is sure Zhongli will have accidentally started a new business empire.

‘Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable? This party of killers in fancy dress? Doesn’t it make you want to rip something apart?’

Ajax pinches his nose bridge, the glass in his hand clattering against the floor. It doesn’t shatter, surprisingly, but the water sloshing inside spills against the floorboards.

“Childe?” A grey haired girl, Lynette Snezhevna, asks, as she picks up the empty glass, “are you alright?”

“Must’ve had too much to drink.” He waves it off with a dazzling smile and his customer-service voice. The small crowd around him go back to their chatterings, but Lynette still eyes him warily as he finds someone to clean up the mess.

And this is where it begins.
The Abyss creeps up on him. It takes and takes and takes. It stirs the monster inside of him awake.

‘Fight them, you know you want to. A bit of bloodshed would make this party come alive!’

Dawn begins to rise as Ajax struggles to snuff it down. Whether his defenses are lowered because he’s not acting as ‘Childe’ but rather as ‘Ajax’, or whether it’s because of the alcohol, he does not know, but he struggles to hold it back. He feels it in his fingertips at first, the need to tear something, to destroy something. Soon, it’s a pounding in his head, a battering of bones against bones.

This can’t happen here, not in front of the Fatui. Not with the other Harbingers standing guard, watching him. Not with Zhongli by his side, not when things were finally going well-

‘Look at them, celebrating whilst their comrades are killed. Think of that poor Miss Nina. Do you think they’ve buried her yet? Or is her body lost to the snow..?’ 

He’s going to kill them. Oh hell, he’s really going to kill them. He’s raised his hydro blades without intending to, the shine of the sword willing a massacre. Senselessness will take over, he will become something savage, something predatory. He will be the wolf. 

The lights are blinding and the creature feels stunned. It turns to the crowd, the song of destruction on its lips. The murderers begin to scream, their voices rising in a harmony which sounds so grating on the ears. It needs to end their terror, their voices, it hurts too much not to.

And Ajax is muffled by clouds. He floats on dark waters, staring through the creature’s eyes, unable to stop the inevitable. The Abyss cackles and laughs and goads the creature on, like a savage lion and its retainer..

The creature moves, lavishing in the terror, the trembling, of the murderers around it. It searches the crowd, finding the worst of them all. The dark haired man with golden eyes who tried so hard to crush the creature, to ruin it. It snarls, hydro blades ready-

No. 
Ajax kicks at the water, choking as the dark liquid pools over his lips. He won’t hurt Zhongli. He won’t. He won’t. 

“Ajax?” Zhongli whispers, the name for only him to hear. It’s a name unknown to the creature, to the Abyss, but Ajax feels it. Ajax, not Childe, not Tartaglia, Ajax. 

And Morespeok’s lost little lamb does the only thing he can. He plunges his blade through the creature’s stomach.

_______

‘We’re trying to help you.’ 

The water comes up to Ajax’s ankles. He wades through it, glimpses of moonlight catching on the surface and illuminating his path. He follows it to the creature, a pitiful, redheaded man wearing a deep blue jacket, who lies motionless in the water.

‘You were created to be a vessel of destruction. Live up to it.’

The creature coughs up blood. Red stains its lips and suddenly it’s no longer a grotesque monster, but rather a mirror of Ajax himself. Oh- Ajax stoops down, pressing his fingers over the creature’s wrist. Its pulse is weak, as weak as Ajax’s own.

He is the creature.
He’s dying.

‘Figured it out yet? We can save you, just let us.’

Something warm and golden envelopes him. It feels like a bath of warm sunlight, soothing against his battered body. It gives him enough strength to spit on the creature’s face. He turns, snarling, to the Abyss. 

“Enough.” Ajax says, “I don’t want this.”

‘You’re a fool, Childe of Snezhnaya. You can snuff us out, but we will never truly be gone.’ 

_______

He wakes as Ajax. It’s too much effort to put on another face nowadays.

His ribs heave with each breath, wheezing in the oxygen. Everything burns, like he’s been submerged in a vat of boiling water. The feeling is different to the aftermath of the Foul Legacy, where his head hurts so much he feels like he’s dying… Is he dying? No, dying tastes different to this. Dying tastes like ash, this tastes like blood. Blood means living, doesn’t it? It’s our lifeforce after all.

He cracks an eye open, hissing at the bright room. It’s a familiar one: the usual room Il Dottore sends him too when he’s had an Abyssal attack. There’s a sharp pain around his middle, one which even lying still can’t diminish. It festers, growing worse with movement and never seeming to grow any better.

Experimentally, he places a hand against his stomach, feeling the bandages, sticky with drying blood. There’s a coat around his shoulders, but he has no idea where the rest of his attire is. Perhaps they had to rip the suit to get to his injury..

So the creature he stabbed was himself?
A burst of manic laughter forced its way from his throat.
He stabbed himself? 

“Tartaglia.” The monotone drawl of the Good Doctor alerts him to his senses once more. Ajax glances around the room, secretly searching for the familiar sight of dark hair, but he does not find it. In Zhongli’s place are four Fatui, Il Dottore, Pantalone and the twins. “You woke quickly, we were expecting at least another day.”

“I always want to subvert expectations,” Ajax says, forcing himself into the role of ‘Childe’. With no Zhongli on sight, he can’t risk revealing himself. 

“Subvert expectations? Was that why you tried to kill yourself?”

Childe raises his eyebrows. He imagines the sight, the eleventh Harbinger bringing a knife to himself for seemingly no reason. Ah- yes that probably looked quite bad. Still, the Good Doctor should be able to presume the truth, his words are cruel. It’s all Childe can do to muster enough outrage to scrunch his face into a glare. “ What? It was the Abyss, Dottore.”

“Whatever.” Il Dottore shakes his head, bringing a hand to his face. He pushes his mask back, revealing eyes which are red around the rims. “I have been trying to keep you alive all day, I’m going to bed.”

Silence descends on the miserable group as Dottore slams the door behind him. Childe is left with the sudden realisation that he’s still searching for Zhongli, the only person who could (probably) make this situation any easier. Even so, the Good Doctor’s absence leaves him feeling slightly lighter.

Despite her usually silent disposition, Lynette, strangely, is the first to speak. “Don’t worry about him, Childe. He’s only upset because Mister Zhongli was the one who managed to help you.”

So Zhongli saved him?

“Yeah he used some strange healing magic. All this glowy golden colour..” Her twin waves his hands. 

“I take it this guest of yours is Morax?” Pantalone offers a dull tone and it’s evident he already knows the answer and couldn’t care less. 

“ Obviously . Where is he anyway?”

“At the docks. Her Majesty has sent him home. It’s not good politically to have two Archons on Snezhnayan soil.” At this, the Regrator grins, somewhat cruelly. Despite his allyship with the Eleventh, being one of the only Harbingers to stand the redhead’s presence, Pantalone can still be as cruel as any of them.

“Ex-Archon.” Childe bristles. He doesn’t let the nervousness in his voice show, but he didn’t even get to say goodbye to Zhongli. What will it be like without him? Silence again? That same grave misery which seemed to descend like a bag of bricks, crashing into his life? “Besides he’s supposed to be dead, what does it matter? Why has she sent him home?”

“Enough questions. I’ll leave you to these Agents, I have business to do.” Pantalone stands from his chair, and from his poorly disguised yawn, Childe can guess what ‘business’ must mean.

“Well he seems grouchy.” Lyney stands to close the door behind Pantalone, 

“You’ll find all the Harbingers are. Has the Knave not asked you home yet?”

“Father asked us to keep an eye on you, she was worried after she heard what happened.”

That seems… oddly nice of Arlecchino. Their relationship had never been friendly, but neither was it one filled with sharp words and sharper wounds. Childe should thank her next time he visits Fontaine -if he ever summons the willpower to go there again.

“You don’t happen to know when this boat leaves, do you?” Childe forces himself to sit up, wincing as he upsets the bandages around his stomach. He hopes he doesn’t sound too desperate, but the twins offer him curious expressions.

“Half an hour- Do you need-”

“Can you take me there?” This time the desperation is clear in his voice. With a shaky hand, he moves the blankets off of him. They fall in a heap on the floor, and Childe swings his legs to the side of the bed, breathing shallowly.

“Childe, that's really not a good idea-” Lynette whispers, as she reaches for the blankets he’s dropped, “you’re not well enough to move, let alone walk to the Harbour.”

Lyney, ever the romantic of the twins, shakes his head at his sister. “Don’t be harsh, Lynette. Childe here is motivated by his affections for Zhongli, isn’t that a good enough reason? Besides, we can’t defy the orders of our higherups, can we?”

Lynette glares at her twin, but she relents. She finds Childe a shirt from the wardrobe, something drab and loose, which brushes against his bandages, but at least it won’t draw much attention to him and his bloody torso. Lyney stands to his side, helping him limp to the door. Moving is excruciating, and he’s forced to pause every so often to breathe, but they make it down the corridor without incident. He doesn’t even fall down the stairs, and soon enough they reach the carriages by the Palace stables.

Childe collapses into his seat, silently catching his breath and letting the twins -or rather Lyney- converse as he presses a hand to his aching temple. Snezhnayan scenery flashes by, snowheaps and fir trees eventually turn into a dark ocean and the grey sands of the beach.

The ship stands steadfast at the docks. It’s huge, like an ominous presence looming over them. Childe leans out the window, squinting up at it as he searches wildly for Zhongli. His eyes lock onto a figure by the bow, an elegant brown coat blooms out around him, golden patterns shining like candlelight.

He practically falls out the door, tumbling into the sand and Lyney rushes to his side, helping him get to his feet with a muffled curse. The ache is bearable, in fact he can ignore it in Zhongli’s presence, he just needs the ex-Archon to notice him so he can say goodbye. 

“Zhongli!” He calls, praying that his voice will carry with the wind. “Zhongli! Zhongli! ”

The figure turns and his pinprick eyes meet Childe’s. There’s a moment where they pause, simply looking at each other, before Zhongli leaps from the bow. He lands gracefully on the ground, patting dust off his jacket as if a thirteen foot drop was nothing. There’s cheering from the ship and children climb onto the railings for a better look.

Zhongli has time for no one but Childe. He races towards him, a sight which seems incongruous with the ex-Archon’s calm nature. When he reaches them, he’s almost out of breath.

“Ajax, you’re awake!”

“You’re leaving-” is all the Harbinger can say. Lyney helps steer him into Zhongli’s arms. Ajax buries his head against Zhongli’s collarbone, listening to the steady beating of his heart. 

And it hits Ajax that this is goodbye. That Zhongli is going to return to Liyue, leaving everything in Snezhnaya behind. They can write, but how long will it be before the letters stop coming? Before Ajax has managed to get himself injured so terribly that not even Zhongli will be able to save him?

He doesn’t have all the time in the world; he’s not immortal like Zhongli. Each day draws him closer to death, a bloody one, he’s certain of it. He doesn’t want Zhongli to find out through an agent months after the fact. He wants Zhongli to be there when he falls, to hold him in his arms and promise that they will meet again in another lifetime.

“Take me with you,” he whispers.

This shouldn’t be a consideration. Going somewhere without Her Majesty’s orders is almost comparable to a crime. He’ll be going against orders, abusing the faith the Tsaritsa put in him.. Still, he can’t let go. He thinks of Liyue, his second home. Of warmer skies and a bustling city street filled with noise and life. 

He will risk the Tsaritsa’s wrath. A goddess of love should be able to accept his motives. Besides, Zhongli makes him feel safer, protected. Everything is possible when he stands next to the man he loves. Even boarding a ship and escaping to Liyue. 

Zhongli extends a gloved hand, and Ajax takes it without hesitation.  

Pantalone is going to kill him when he finds out.