Chapter Text
Another two weeks pass before you’re able to remove the stitches from Ajax’s wound, totalling a month and a half since he’s come to be in your care. The once smooth plains of his abdomen were half eaten by the gnarled scar. Your sloppy skills making the lines jagged and frayed, completely out of place amongst the unblemished pink, freckled flesh that surrounds it. Ajax says nothing, complaints mum when there were many more things to occupy his mind.
Such as what scent he’d like his bath to be. After nearly two months and no other reasons for you to object, the two of you were holed up in your bathroom. Ajax, undressed save for a towel tied around his waist, and you in a thin muslin nightgown that left too little unexposed. The days were unbearably hot, as were the nights with the warm stagnant air of your cottage that could hardly keep the temperature mild during the extremes of Mondstadt’s fickle summers.
Water slowly filled the basin of the tub, splashing from the hand pump against the porcelain. More blue than clear with the wolfhook juice you added in hopes of keeping infection away. You watched with half lidded eyes as Ajax pursued your cabinet. He already pulled out your shampoo and conditioner, more than content to smell like you but was looking for more when there was little else. Eventually, he brandishes the glass vial of mist flower soap, passing it to you to pour into the bath.
It's a subtle fragrance, vaguely floral and clean the way undisturbed snow is.
“Reminds me of home,” Ajax says, grunting as he leans some of his weight on the counter.
“The mist flowers?”
He nods, absentmindedly scratching his abdomen. Right above where the towel sits. There’s a wispy patch of ginger hair there that starts at his belly button and keeps going beneath the towel. It reminds you of when Crepus Ragnvindr’s beard grew in the colder months. Wiry and rougher than the hair on one's head or arms. You’d seen Diluc and Kaeya shirtless before but they were boys then, Ajax was a man. Most men around Mondstadt sported heavy sets of armour or layers upon layers of clothing to protect their skin, leaving little to the imagination. Though rather lithe, his long limbs weren’t gangly. They were well proportioned to his body and height, there were muscles there in spite of his sudden sedentary lifestyle. As were his legs, they were long. Longer than yours. He was taller than you, something more apparent the longer he stood, crowding your small, derelict cottage with his body.
The soft call of your name snaps your attention back to the conversation, “Sorry, you were saying?”
There’s a half smile tugging on his lips.
That was another thing. Ajax smiled in a conspiratorial sort of way. Impish that gave way to boyish charm and his age. It’d be endearing if it wasn’t the sort of impish that was unsettling. Unlike Kaeya who used charm and intrigue to gather information, you couldn’t tell if this was just a facade he wore.
“I wasn’t saying anything,” he laughs, “But, the bath is nearly full. You may want to stop it, lest it overflow.”
You gasp, pulling your hand away from the pump. The last of it poured out in a half hearted drizzle. Some splashed onto the bare skin of your arm. It was tepid as always. Perfect for the cloying heat.
“Sorry.”
Ajax waves you off with a toothy grin, “Help me into the tub?”
“You’ve been standing perfectly well,” you bemoan, “Must I?”
“I can stand yes, but if you recall I can hardly lift my arms or legs?”
He staggers closer to where you're perched. A stubbly little wooden stool that rocked from its uneven legs. From how low to the ground you were, Ajax nearly towered over you.
“You no longer care if I strain myself?” Ajax questions, coming close enough for your feet to brush, “I’m wounded, even more so.”
The very tops of your cheeks feel warm. The kind of warm that bleeds through your skin in an awful, exposing flush. One that creeps down your neck until it’s dripping into your thighs. Uncomfortably sticky and slick with sweat, shame, and something you don’t know the word for.
“It wouldn’t be proper,” you stutter, rising to your feet. Nearly nose to nose, “I know I agreed but you’re well enough to do it yourself. And besides, it’s … it’s much too … Much too! For strangers that is.”
You glance away, peering out the window behind the tub. There’s nothing but singing cicadas and twinkling stars to help you now.
“Much too what? Intimate?”
“Yes,” you cough, folding your arms over your chest.
Ajax cocks his head to the side, “Are all Mondstadians raised to be ashamed of their bodies?” He questions, “I told you, I have six other siblings. It’s not uncommon in Sneznhaya to bathe with one's siblings. In such a cold tundra, hot water was something of a rare commodity.”
“What? That's not…” you groan, “You’re not my brother and we’re not children. It’s inappropriate.”
“You promised me a bath, it’s not a proper one if I can’t wash my hair.”
Ajax juts his bottom lip out, his expression pleading. Klee was more convincing when she swore she hadn’t ventured all the way up Stormbearers Point to terrorize the local fauna.
“I know you were unfairly put in this position and I sincerely apologise for that,” he breathes, his chest heaving as he struggles to get all those words out, “I will pay you back handsomely once I am well enough to leave.”
Your brows furrow. If he promised repayment to every soul that lent him a helping hand, it was no wonder he found himself profoundly indebted to the Fatui.
“There is no need for repayment,” you relent, casting your gaze to the floor, “Let’s consider this a one time thing.”
“I swear I shall not ask for another bath until I am well enough to hold my arms above my head.”
You nod a few times before offering your hand to him, eyes pressed shut.
“What are you doing?”
“Offering you my hand?” You reply, “So you may get into the tub with support?”
Ajax pushes your hand away, “How am I meant to do that when you can’t see what you’re doing,” he says, cupping your chin with the palm of his hand. The pads of his fingers are calloused and rough, “Open your eyes.”
Your eyes meet his blue ones. They crinkle at the corner as he offers you a smile. Your blink once then twice. Shoulders tightly wound.
His towel drops to the floor with little fanfare. He kicks it away without a second thought. Your hands are taken by his.
“Keep your eyes on mine.”
You nod, exhaling the breath you were keeping. His brows stitch together in discomfort when he lifts one leg, hooking it over the side. That’s when his hands travel up your arms, his nails digging into your shoulders through your night gown. The second leg is easier to lift, all that was left was crouching. That was the hardest part even in the living room where he could use the couch for support. With your eyes glued to his, you can see how the veins in his temple throb, where a bead of sweat begins to form, the tiny scar just above his left eye brow. An inspection really, of all the moving parts of his features. You had just gotten used to inspecting his face as he slept.
“Are you okay?” You ask when his arms begin to tremble.
Ajax releases a guttural sort of sound you assume is meant to affirm his well being. Eventually he’s able to sink into the tub, water splashing over the lip and onto your nightgown.
“There we go,” Ajax chirps.
“I’ll grab the soap.”
The stool squeals against the bathroom tiles as you drag in closer. A washcloth, soap, and chipped cup in hand. Some soapy bubbles swirl along the surface of the water, but none big enough to cover the vast amount of skin bleeding through the tinged surface. You keep your eyes pinned just behind his head.
“The water's good,” Ajax murmurs, watching as you gingerly dip the cup in to gather water, “Not as pleasant as a dip in the lake would be.”
You roll your eyes, titling his head back to keep the water from getting in his eyes as you wet his hair. Rivulets pour down his shoulders leaving his skin glistening. You swallow hard.
“You can find a lake to swim in when you’re not likely to die from the bacteria in it.”
Your sarcasm rewards you with a laugh and a twinkle in his eyes. Something that cuts the edge of this mechanical process.
Washing his hair was easy, you got it out of the way first. Scrubbing his scalp with your shampoo and silently instructing him to keep his eyes shut. Rinse and repeat. It's the thought of touching his body, even with a soapy washcloth as a barrier, that makes your mouth run dry. Ajax has to take your hand in his after you’ve made a mess of the lather, pressing it to his chest.
“Is this what you were afraid of?” He quips, puppeteering your movement.
You clear your throat, “I’m just wary of your injury.”
“You gave me the clear, Miss doctor.”
“Miss is just fine,” you mumble, “I’m no doctor, just well read.”
With his hand over yours, you cup one of his pecks. You can feel how his nipple pebbles to attention even through the cloth but brush it off as an involuntary reflex from the rapidly cooling water.
“You could be a doctor,” he insists.
You shake your head, shutting your eyes. You didn’t need your eyes to scrub at his skin. His chest heaves with each breath beneath your touch and his heart beat, steady and rhythmic, claws at his rib cage. You could practically feel his blood pulsing through his veins. The very same blood you scrubbed yourself raw of, in this very tub. Blood that stained your carpet and other nightgown, that matted his hair down to his temple, and made his pasty skin look ghastly against all the crimson.
“I could never,” you say, chewing at the scab that never healed on your lip, “To hold someone's life like that? In my hands? I couldn’t have the confidence or maybe the ego. Either way, it terrifies me. I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands steady”
Ajax shrugs his shoulders, “You saved mine,” he counters, as if it were proof of something other than dumb luck, “For which I’m eternally grateful.”
You didn’t dare think of what would happen if he hadn’t lived through that first night. If one morning he failed to open his eyes. What your days would look like, lying in wait for the Fatui to come knocking on your door to collect their bounty. Maybe, you’d be next on their list.
“That was a blessing from Barbatos,” you say, forcing your eyes shut to conceal the terror that swam within them, “Dumb luck that ensured you’d be able to return to your family some day. So please, don’t joke about this, Ajax.”
“Hey,” his voice softens. It reminds you of how Your father and Crepus would speak to sick animals they needed to put down, “I’m alive.”
He presses his hand right to where his heart is. A hair above where his scar starts. It thumps even harder now that your hand is pushed firmly into his skin.
“I’m here, I’m here.”
Tears prickle at your eyes, welling up against your lower lash line, “Thank Barbatos.”
“He is not my saviour,” Ajax whispered conspiratorially.
“That’s blasphemous!” You chuckle wetly.
He laughs with you, “I didn’t take you for the pious type.”
“I am when the occasion calls for it.”
Just like that, the moment passes you. The emotional whiplash yet another thing you find yourself getting used to. At the very least, Ajax’s squirrely nature allowed you to keep some things just for yourself.
Silence swathes the two of you like a stiff, itchy blanket. You scrub at his skin in silence until it’s pink and devoid of all the ointments you slathered on him that morning. Ajax clears his throat to grab your attention to his pruney hands.
“I think it’s time I got out, lest I turn into a fish.”
“Tell me where to stand,” you reply, drying your hands on the towel hanging off the counter.
Ajax thinks for a moment, perhaps mentally calculating the height of the tub. He settles on reaching out his wet hands to clasp your elbows, using whatever strength he has in him to pull you in the tub.
You push him back against the tub with one hand, shaking the water off of you, “What are you doing?”
“Get in the tub.”
“Are you crazy?” You ask, bewildered. This was the only spring night gown you had that wasn’t falling apart at the seams or stained.
“It’ll be easier to help me stand,” he explains.
“My clothes will get wet.”
Ajax purses his lips, “I would tell you to strip,” he starts, “But you’ve made it clear you’re … uncomfortable.”
He tries to pull you in again, surprisingly strong for a man who got winded trying to stand for more than ten minutes at a time. More water comes splashing down to the tile, water that you’ll be responsible for cleaning.
“Stop, you’re making a mess.”
You swing your leg over, shivering once your foot is submerged. Then comes your other foot until you’re half straddling-half standing over him. Ajax loops an arm your waist to steady you when your legs tremble. The porcelain was slick with the soaps, soaks, and oil you used. Your nightgown billows around your hips, exposing more and more of your skin.
You shiver.
“Cold?”
“Yes,” you murmur.
“How do you think I feel,” Ajax jokes.
His hands were hot. The warmth cutting through the cold with each languid stroke up and down your spine, over the growing goosebumps.
You swallow down a snarky quip, “How am I to help you stand,” you say instead, “Let me go.”
Ajax lifts his hands at your command, ever the good boy. Should he get his strength up in the coming days, he’d be good to keep around with how well he listened. Your garden wouldn’t be so neglected if you could enlist him to work with his hands as repayment.
You stand, splashing a bit more water around. A shiver wracks through you from the loss of his warmth. Still, ridding yourself from this room was much higher priority than relishing in the warmth of another's touch. It wasn’t something you needed. Lifting Ajax from the tub was much easier than helping him into it. You’re soon nose to nose once more, bodies dripping with soapy water. His breath fans across your face. The breeze from the cracked window makes your nipples harden, poking through your thin nightgown. Ajax offers you a crooked smile, before slinking out of the tub, gathering up his long abandoned towel without fuss. You’re about to speak, to question the ease in which he moved when he winces, still half bent over. You choose to avert your gaze to the bottom of the tub instead of his bottom.
The water slowly drains once you pull the plug, leaving you a drenched rat in the tub, wringing out the excess water from your nightgown. When he’s dried and wrapped tightly in his towel, Ajax turns back to you.
“Thank you,” he says, before turning to leave.
Your cheeks flush and you sigh a bit in return. Your swift exit from the tub is far less graceful, you trudge from the bathroom into your bedroom. The sun’s long since laid to rest and your plants were sure to beckon you into the yard the moment it rose. You needed to sleep an hour ago but the price of appeasing the Fatui and their captive outranked your need for rest. You can’t help the second sigh that slips out as you catch sight of yourself in your mirror. Though dusty and only lit by the two candles, it illuminated your visage quite well. Making it all the more apparent how sheer your night gown had grown. Plastered to your skin, the stark white was translucent and bleeding the colour of your skin. Your breasts were visible as was the mound of hair between your legs, leaving you open and exposed to those prying blue eyes. You tear it off your body without a second thought, it lands on the floor with a wet plop. It eventually finds its way to the windowsill to dry while you bury yourself beneath the blankets of the bed.
The top sheet scratches against your clammy skin. It's too hot for the flush that thrums beneath your skin. For the oppressive heat that sits low between the walls of your room. Your body feels restless with your racing thoughts, though your eyelids are too heavy to keep open. Your fingers twitch with an itch to do something, anything. You kick your feet out in frustration, the sheet falls off your body in the process leaving it bare.
Then you turn, roughly flopping your body to the side. In the dark, all you can make out is the rough shape of your dresser with its spindly knobs and crooked drawers. You turn again with a huff. The thrum you feel refuses to dissipate. It only worsens, growing until you can no longer ignore the ache between your legs and the rough pounding of your chest. You slowly slide your fingers down the slope of your belly until you reach your pelvis. The thatch of curls is damp from sweat and something you’d rather not name.
You stroke your fingers through your lips, but find yourself all too self-aware. The walls were as thin as parchment, Ajax was just on the other side. He could hear you if he was still away. He probably wasn’t but he might’ve been. And it didn’t feel good. Your nails were too long and sharp against the sensitive skin, there was nothing salacious about stroking yourself, just humiliating.
“For fucks sake,” you groan, grabbing your pillow to scream into.
A floorboard creaks down the hall and you still.
Ajax calls your name from somewhere in the darkness, “Are you alright?” he calls, “Any dragons that need slaying? Or perhaps a spider?”
You pull the sheet over your body before you find your voice, “No, I’m fine,” you call back but footsteps grow closer, pausing outside of your door, “Ajax-”
Slowly it creaks open, lit by a candle is Ajax. His hair the colour of fire and his eyes dripping with concern, “Are you sure?” He asks, stepping into your bedroom, “That was quite the yelp.” He says like you were an injured dog.
How humiliating it is, nothing but a thin sheet between you and him as he sits at the edge of your bed.
“I’m fine, thank you,” you mutter, sucking in a deep breath. Your chest rises, up, up, and then down, sporadic. Again, and then again, only trying to soften when Ajax sits on the edge beside you.
Each muscle stills as you peer at him.
“I’m not so useless anymore,” he whispers, pressing the back of his hand to your forehead, “If you have need, you can call for me.”
“You can’t stand for more than ten minutes without needing to catch your breath,” you huff, shifting away.
Ajax presses closer, his hand trailing down to your bare shoulderblade, “For now.”
Heat laps at your skin through the sheet, the flickering candle flame a hare's breath away. Ajax’s face was half obscured, a shadow cast across his brow bone. His lips purse, surprisingly full even with the scar cutting into the plump flesh.
“You’re not my…”
It dies on your throat. Your head hazy from exhaustion and the sweltering air that constricts your chest.
“I’m your friend,” Ajax says, a finality to his words that makes you squirm.
Your eyes fell shut, “Go to bed Ajax.”
The floorboard creaks beneath his weight. If nothing else, he listened like a devout pet. Scuttering back to bed without a fuss. Just a single glance over his shoulder. The contours of his sinewy muscles exposed, the dim light exaggerating them. You keep your eyes closed until the footsteps fade into silence.
Sleep comes in fragmented pieces. Flashes of flesh and tongue pressed against your eyelids. A soothing voice to lull you back into your dreams. Assuring whispers that the real nightmares existed in the dark crevices of the waking world.
When morning comes, pouring in through your drapes and bathing your room in a warm golden glow, exhaustion is carved into your bones. The routine helps. You make a hearty breakfast and eat it on the floor of your living room. Ajax can stand long enough to do the washing before you lather his skin with salves and ointments. Though there's little conversation to be had as if the pair of you were little more than two spectres moving through the space, gliding around each other as if touching for too long would burn.
The knock on your door comes just as you’ve readied yourself to tackle the garden. A pair of ill fitting boots on your feet, your blouse half tucked into the bloomers you sported. You pressed your face to the makeshift peephole you drilled into the wood before opening it. On the other side stood Diluc. As composed as always in his gold embroidered jacket and fitted dresspants. Your heart seized and for a moment you feared you might drop dead.
You took a step back, cringing as the floorboard squeaked beneath your wait.
“Ajax,” you hiss, slowly craning your neck around to look at him.
“Hm?”
Ajax is still hunched over the sink, drying a stack of dishes. His gaze doesn’t lift to meet yours.
“There is someone at the door,” you whisper through gritted teeth.
Diluc knocks against the door against time. The boards shake on its hinges.
“I know,” he says, his tone laced with mild confusion, “Will you not answer it?”
“Go to my room, shut the blinds and the door.”
“But-”
“Now, Ajax.”
He mutters something beneath his breath, probably thinking you to be a paranoid loon. In spite of the time that's passed, Ajax wearing your clothes, bathing with your soaps, he still kept himself branded by the Fatui with his delusion. Diluc would sniff it out of him before you’d have a chance to blink. Your bedroom door clicks shut. The front door swings open. A falcons cry on the breeze.
Diluc toyed with the cuff of his jacket, attempting to look busy.
“Good morning,” you greet, forcing a smile to your lips, “It’s quite the surprise to see you all the way out here, has Venti finally drank the Angel’s Share out of business?”
His brows furrowed but he didn’t respond, instead he forced his way through you and the doorway. His body brushing against yours. His jacket was warmed from the sun. He perused through your house as though it were his own, pausing to inspect the chips on the sides of your newly cleaned plates, and thumbing at the peeling wallpaper. In a way this was his home, before it was yours alone, it was the perfect spot for all sorts of adventures away from the prying eyes of the knights.
“Diluc?”
“Yes?” He snips, his vermillion eyes snapping to meet yours.
You bit your lip, avoiding his piercing gaze, “What are you doing here?”
“I meant to check on you after the storm, however the winery suffered beneath it,” he explains, shrugging off his coat. Instead of the usual charcoal dress shirt, he sported a simple white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to expose his thick forearms, “I had to attend to it before I could visit.”
The weathered window shutters creak as Diluc tests them.
“You didn’t need to. Only a few of my crops suffered from the heavy downpour.”
“And the roof?” He questions, raising his eyebrows.
“Perfectly intact from your last repay job,” you hum, crossing your arms over your chest.
Your ratty old shirt and the equally abysmal bloomers make you feel woefully underdressed and wholly exposed. Even in his most casual attire, Diluc still paints the picture of his namesake. With his neatly tied auburn hair and stern disposition. Painfully perfect, more than deserving of the title, Master Ragnvindr, just like all the men who came before him.
Diluc stroke closer, his fingers ghosting over the back of the sofa, “In truth, that is not the only reason I’ve come to pay you a visit,” he sighs, the sound as deep as the rings around his eyes, “Barbara is concerned, she said you left the city in a hurry, but not before procure an obscene amount of medicinal ointments and elixirs.”
“Barbara is always concerned,” you bemoaned, your mouth opened wide for a little white lie, but Diluc is faster.
“Are you in trouble?”
Never one to dance around.
“No,” you huff.”
Your stomach churns with the same sort of sick feeling you get before you vomit. Just without the growing salvia in your mouth to warn you. A stigmata of your own creation, it twisted your stomach and intestines into bloody knots that bulged against your skin, begging to be released. Honey words in a soft dulcet song, whispering in your ear that the truth just might release you of this self inflicted torment.
Diluc smells of ash and musk. A devilishly comforting concoction that reminds you of Yule with the Ragnvindr’s. When ice white snow trickles down from Dragonspine to coat the bare, spindly branches of trees, and the flicker of flames and twinkle of mirth is the best reprieve for the bone shaking chill. His embrace beckons you like a siren's call. He was never one to touch freely, not since his fathers death– his brother's betrayal. There were just as many walls around him as there were around you. It asphyxiated you, the longing to be held, to pretend you and he were two kids hiding in a long forgotten house nestled in the vast nothingness of Stormbearers Point.
“Your parents are worried for you,” he says after a moment, his fingertips brushing your elbow, “It’s become apparent that you’ve yet to tell them you’ve returned to Mondstadt. They fear you may be dead.”
Whatever emotion lingers inside your blackened hair shrivels up like shored sea urchins slowly roasting as the tide escapes them.
You release a sardonic laugh, “They had no concern whether I lived or died when they threw me out on the eve of my eighteenth birthday," you mutter, steeling your jaw, “Now what? They’ve enlisted you to track me down because they’re beginning to lose face for disowning their teenage daughter? Or perhaps, they seek someone to care for them in their old age.”
Diluc sighs your name, his fingers curl around your elbows, forcing you to peer up at him.
“How much Mora have they offered you.”
Your name slips off his tongue again, slow and steady with an edge of warning, throbbing beneath the surface, “They’ve offered me no Mora.”
“Then why are you here?” You ask, your voice a hair away from a shout, if you were any louder, Ajax was sure to make a mess out of things, “I know it is not because you believe me to be better off with them!”
Your body trembles in his firm grasp, the heat spreading from his hands threaten to swallow you whole, “You’ve become a recluse in the months you’ve been back,” Diluc huffs, “You come into town for medication you have no business needing, and refuse to speak to anyone in anything other than falsehood. Pray, tell me why I shouldn’t be worried.”
Feet scuttle upon the floor in the other room, weight pressing against the door. Your breath hitches.
“Diluc, I-”
“There was once a time where you and I told one another everything, what happened?” He questions, leaning over until his nose brushes yours, “Have I too, wronged you?”
Before the jagged stone crusted around his slow rotting heart, Diluc was an earnest boy. You see that now in how his brows droop, his lips pressed into an anxious line rather than the usual disinterested one. The gruff rasp that so comfortably snaked through his words, building a nest around them, vanished from its home.
You shake your head, a profound sense of emptiness in your stomach, “We haven’t been those people in a very long time, Diluc,” you whisper, your voice cracking, “We can’t be them again, you know this better than anyone.”
You think your heart must be rotting too.
“So let us stop pretending.”
“I don’t understand you,” Diluc huffs and somewhere in his eyes, there's a pit of sadness, “We’re friends and yet you shut me out unless it's convenient to you.”
Your face feels cold, cheeks streaked by tears you didn’t know existed, “And yet you do the same to Kaeya…” Your words hang cruelly in the air until you sniffle, “I’d like you to leave now, Master Diluc.”
His hold on you dissipates like fog rolling over hills in the morning, all too quickly as though it were never there in the first place. All that’s left is the slight tingle where his hands burned into your arms, the press of palms left etched like a terrible birthmark. The two of you feel too small for this house as he mechanically dresses back in his coat. His broad shoulders take up too much space and your frame feels mountainous amongst the wobbly chairs and creaky floorboard.
You watch as he passes through the house like a wisp of smoke, the door shutting behind him oh so slowly. To then follow him out, perched on a log in your garden. His fiery hair and inky black clothing a sharp throne amongst the ever blue sky and swaying green grass.
The garden’s wilted around you, crying out for you to spare some of your tears for the soil. You sit and stare numbly ahead.
Ajax finds you sometime later, his leg brushing against yours as he sits. The sky has turned golden by then, with streaks of purple that warn of the lunes call.
“You’ve been out here for a while,” he comments, a plate of food in his hands, “I take it your boyfriend does not appreciate the secrecy.”
You roll your eyes, that much you can muster, “Diluc is not my boyfriend,” you sigh, taking the plate he passes to you. It’s a hodge podge of leftover vegetables, meat, and bread that's a day away from going stale, “Maybe before I might’ve … But now it's different, he’s different. He wouldn’t …”
“I see.”
“Did your mother never teach you that it's rude to eavesdrop,” you say, tactfully steering away from the Diluc sized iceberg you spied in your peripheral, “That was a private conversation.”
Ajax shrugs, flicking a bit of hair from his eyes. His fringe was getting too long, he’d be in need of a haircut soon, “She did however, my master taught me listening was the most important thing one could do when they wish to learn more,” he explains, “You hardly ever speak about yourself, was I to ignore this opportunity.”
“Secrets have just as much value.”
Though it wasn’t much of a secret to the people of Mondstadt, the tragic end Crepus met that spring night so many years ago. Nor was your disappearance. They were spoken in whispers, cast upon the cobbled steps of the city's walk. It was what clouded their vision when you and Diluc filtered through, your images morphed to fit whatever narrative they decided on that day.
“Diluc’s father was killed by a delusion," you mutter, peering out into the evening sky. It was free of clouds and birds, just an expanse of nothingness, “On his eighteenth birthday. He used it to defeat Ursa the Drake after that harbinger lured it into the city.”
Ajax shifts uncomfortably next to you, “Harbinger?”
“Il Dottore, the doctor. The one who likes to experiment?”
“Yes,” Ajax breathes, his head bobbing in agreement, “You think he is to blame?”
You nod, taking a forkful of food to your lips before speaking, “They wanted to see if the delusion would work,” you explain, “So, they created a situation where Crepus would have no choice but to use it. To protect his son. And then, he died.”
His leg bounces nervously beside you but stills after a moment. You couldn’t begin to conceive what might be drifting through his mind.
“If Diluc saw your delusion, he may have killed you himself.”
“I don’t-”
“Yes, you do,” you turn to face him, eyes wet with tears, “It’s on the other side of your vision, innocuously hidden. I saw it, I felt it with my own two hands, don’t try to deny it now.”
Ajax swallows, avoiding your gaze, “It’s not what you think.”
“Tell me then, Ajax,” you say, “Why do you possess a delusion? Why have the Fatui tasked me with keeping you alive? I have my theories but none of them would stand to reason if Diluc found himself on a warpath.”
For a long while, Ajax is quiet. That disturbs you more than anything. How the air has stilled and you find yourself face to face with the truth. That perhaps all your well made assumptions were nothing more than sweet lullabies you placated yourself with. That Ajax was indeed a member of the Fatui, important enough that needed to be kept alive, his condition a secret to smother all signs of weakness.
“The delusion was a gift from my master,” he says finally, his nimble fingers grasping at yours, “A reward for completing my training.”
His eyes, as blue as the ocean, peer into yours with a desperate pleading.
“She bought it off of the doctor because it would grant me immense power,” Ajax explains, “I’d be able to create my own elemental reactions and wouldn’t be affected by the drawbacks because I already possess a vision of my own.”
Your heart hammers wildly against your rib cage. The bones rattle against your insides. They slosh back and forth. You can hear it. The wet squelch of bone against viscera. It traps the food you try to swallow at the very top of your throat.
“Why would you need a delusion if you already possessed a vision? Who other than a soldier would need to possess such power?”
Ajax lets out a bitter laugh, “I was an unruly child, set in my ways,” Your lip bleeds all over again, the skin ruptured and pulsing from your nibbling teeth, “My father enlisted my master to prepare me for the military in the hopes that I’d be contained. I was decidedly not, I had my own goals and that brought me a great deal of trouble. The Fatui found me, figured I’d be indebted to them if they saved my life and wouldn’t refuse another offer from them.”
“So, you’re not…” you croak, too nervous to get the words out.
“No, I despise them, my father,” he suckles down a deep breath, a wheeze on his lips from his still bruised ribs, “I loathe to think of the day where I’d be in the palm of their hands, a docile puppet for their wicked ways. I’m sorry that you were put in this position because of my own stupidity but I don’t regret it.”
Bile scalds your throat, inching upward in the hopes you’d spill your dinner into the grass below your feet, “My birthday is a week after Diluc’s,” you whisper, afraid that even the bugs were listening, “By then, I already had taken out a loan from the Northland Bank to fund my move to Sumeru. The day before my birthday my parents found my acceptance letter from the Akademiya. It was too late, I couldn’t give the money back. I had nowhere else to go.”
Your name, shaped by his lips feels treacherously tender for a man you hardly know.
“I am so sorry.”
“I dropped out halfway through the first semester,” you gripe, stabbing at the food on your plate, “In the end it was all for nothing. I lived there for some years, barely making enough for the room I rented. But, it was better than crawling back here on my hands and knees for a time. I couldn’t bear the humiliation, Barbatos seemed keen to spare me of it, that’s why he kept this cottage standing.”
“How do you mean?” Ajax asks, glancing back to the shack.
“The owners of this cottage passed long ago, it's been abandoned far longer than I’ve been alive,” In a sense, it was almost as much as a landmark as the grand willow in Windrise, “We used to come out here and play to escape our parents. I’ve claimed it now, to be mine alone.”
Ajax continues to stare at you, his eyes darting all over your face but he doesn’t say a wonder. The gentle call of cicadas dance between the silence, the evening air charged with the inevitability of summer.
“Barbatos provides. The winds didn’t claim it so I could.”
His pinky brushes yours where it sits on the log. A spark of lightning gathering where skin meets skin.
Tears lap at your cheeks in thick rivulets, dripping into your plate. Of all the tears you’ve shed in your lifetime, these torment you the most. An incessant buzz inside your ear, reminding you of how pathetic it is to cry pearled tears as if they had any value to a body outside your own.
“I couldn’t bear to face them,” you say, though Ajax remains tight lipped, “For them to know that they were right, that I am a failure.”
Ajax is blushed pink from the heat when you face him, freckles stark against the milky white expanse. His bottom lip is between his teeth, raw and bloodied from how he chews it. A mirror image to your own. Heavy on your tongue is sweat salted skin and ichor. You wonder if he’d taste the same. If the taint of delusion has its own flavour for you to suckle on.
Your mind travels back to Diluc, the rare desperation woven in his words. How his cold eyes softened to melted butter. If there was anyone across the whole of Teyvat who understood how you felt in this very moment, it was Ajax. Bound at the ankles across from you, caught in her web all the same. You both reached out with severed hands in the hopes that prey could turn a shade of savior, perhaps predator too.
He wipes an errant tear from your cheek. His thumb just as calloused as the rest of his hand, “Dry your tears,” he murmurs, “There’s no need to cry.”
“Because you are here?” You ask, numbly pressing into his touch.
“Yes,” he responds with a frightening decisiveness.
“The interest is too high,” you sob, a wet hiccupy sound erupting from your chest, “I’d never be able to pay it off on my own but I could never ask them, ask him for help.”
The palm of his hands is warm. Inviting. He knows just how to cradle your face, make you feel like you’re a kid again, leaning into your fathers hand.
There’s an empty promise that sits in wait on his tongue. You can see it, hear it almost, over the hum of birds and bugs, the lively songs that carry on the wind. Ajax keeps it pressed to his cheek as if it were a hidden move he couldn’t yet reveal.
You lean closer. Ajax still smells of you, of Mondstadt. All the things you love about it. Fragrant flowers and berries, the way the wind smells just before it rains. It clings to him like he’s always been here, tucked away in some far corner, waiting to be unearthed by your gentle hands. The accent clipped around his words sound less offending now. You hear the distant call of a loon, as terrifying as it was beautiful. Ajax was much of the same.
“Ajax,” you breathe, tilting your head to the side.
His face is half obscured, shrouded by the warm golden glow of the slumbering sun that tickles the edge of his hair. Your mouth twitches, aching to sink into a frown that you don’t allow.
Ajax coos your name in response. His nose brushing yours. How did you get this close? Close enough to smell the mint on his breath, to inhale what he exhales. If you were to speak, would your lips brush against his? A ghost of a kiss. That could be enough, more than you’d deserve, you think. Somewhere, a bird flaps its wings and trills into the night. A divine message if you ever saw one. Barbatos wants you to. To love and to be loved, if you could call it that. If he would too.
You close your eyes without meaning to, leaning in until your lips graze him. A purr comes rolling out from his chest, like he must be pleasantly surprised. His fingers snake around your neck, holding you steadily in his grasp. In all the ways that fate has cheated you out of something, apprehension was not an attribute you wished to nurture. Your garden, your grave, it was all the same. To deny yourself now felt foolish, more so than any of the fantasies you conjured up amid adolescents. You gasp into his mouth, he swallows it. Your heart relentlessly pounds so hard you fear it might seize to move at all.
His tongue swirls around yours, pushing forward the taste of blood and mint that lingers. It’s wholly perplexing, that this is what kissing was. A greedy affair where no part of you was left untouched. Impossibly different from the chaste kisses of youth that felt scandalous at the time.
Your chest heaves when you finally pull back to gulp down a breath. Ajax’s hands are still tangled in the roots of your hair, just resting there. He’s waiting for you to say something, anything.
“I shouldn’t have,” he mumbles, bashfully looking away, you see it again; the red in his cheeks, two perfectly ripe apples begging for you to take a bite out of them, “You were in distress, I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m so sorry.”
You shake your head without realizing it, “I want you to kiss me again,” you whisper, brows furrowing, in a voice strangely unlike your own.
Selfishness felt good. A rarity amongst the dull ache of constant humiliation. To chase that feeling, giving up everything wouldn’t be so bad. You’d done it once before.
“Please kiss me,” you say, this time with more conviction.
Ajax presses his forehead against yours, a shudder trickling down his spine.
“Okay.”
This kiss is fervent. Ajax, desperate to hold on to this mirage of you wanton and asking for him. If he blinked, or allowed doubt to creep, he’d lose it. His teeth click against yours. Ravenous for another bite out of you. You open your mouth wider, allowing him the space to lap at your molars. Ajax could memorize each ridge for himself, then he might truly know you. He could take a step into your skin to study you from the inside out, you the ever willing host.
No one but him could ever understand. No one but him could ever love you, could they?