Chapter Text
"Okay," Ajax mutters under his breath, before he slowly inhales. "Here we go," he announces to no one, while holding the blade steady. He's about to stab himself in the gut, he thinks, realizing how crazy it is.
Whatever, he tells himself and pushes the blade into his flesh in one go. The initial pain makes tears fill his eyes and a gasp escape his lips. Keep your mind cool, cool like... like your queen.
"Cool, cool," Ajax lets out a shaky breath, and his hands begin to tremble. He wonders why he's acting like this. It's not the first time he's been stabbed, and definitely not the last, so why is he acting so dramatically?
Biting his lower lip, he pushes the blade deeper– it takes a second to realize that he's got no idea what he's doing. Because even if there was something inside of him, how would he know where it is? And that he's not actively cutting important stuff?
The Abyss will heal it if I mess up.
Knowing it's too late to chicken out, Ajax keeps digging. Digging for something. He imagines he will, sooner or later, find something solid, which must be what he saw moving inside.
But what if it was just his stomach asking for food?
Maybe he was just hungry and was seeing things.
The lack of sleep and food can do that to you after all.
He would know.
Right when he was starting to lose hope, the tip of the blade touches something, and Ajax smiles in victory. Gotcha.
However, when he tries to stab the thing, something really weird happens. And it all happens very fast.
One second Ajax is holding the blade with both of his hands and the next the knife is being thrown across the room, as if a magical force had grabbed it.
"What the fuck?" Ajax whispers under his breath, blankly staring at the bloodied knife now stuck in the opposite wall. Then, his head snaps down to look at the wound– there is no wound, Ajax finds out.
"What the fuck?" He repeats, growing dizzy and breathless.
It turns out he passed out on the bathtub, and only woke up the next morning, with a sore neck and a nasty back ache.
Ajax still remembers what happened. In case there was any doubt left before, there's something definitely wrong with him. He needs to see Baizhu as soon as possible– he's the only doctor he trusts, despite that trust not being exactly mutual.
After all, Ajax is still considered a criminal in Liyue, according to the rumors... the rumors they spread around the townfolk. Ajax sighs, holding his head in his hands for a second. This is all so messed up. Why did he have to meet Zhongli at all? He got him into this mess in the first place!
That's not true.
He would never regret meeting Zhongli, no matter how deeply it hurt him now.
The admission, even if it's just for himself alone, leaves Ajax feeling defeated, hugging his knees close to his chest like a little child.
Eventually, Ajax was able to get out of the bath and actually got something to digest. The pasta, that he was fortunate enough to find in one of the cupboards, felt like ash as he forced himself to eat it. After that, he gave the bath its actual use and took his precious time in the hot water– that felt amazing.
Since he's still considered a threat to Liyue, Ajax can't exactly come out of the apartment he's rented showing his face and all, so he waited for the sun to start setting before putting one single foot out the door. Still after that, he puts on his largest coat – that he brought to Liyue while already wearing it, since he brought no baggage – and wears it like a cloak, mainly to cover his signature ginger hair and leaves his delusion behind– if worse comes to worst, he has his vision and the Abyss to back him up.
Making his way to the Bubu pharmacy takes Ajax a few minutes and, before he knows it, he's knocking on his door.
"It's you..." Baizhu says, with wide eyes. And while he does look surprised to see him, Ajax doesn't find fear or anger in his eyes, and that's good enough for him.
"May I come in?" Ajax tries with a begging smile, and the doctor nods his head at him. However, before he replies, he steps outside and takes a look around them. Luckily, the streets are almost empty, and the few bystanders couldn't care less about their business.
"Come in," Baizhu finally opens the door to him and lets him pass through, before he locks it. "How can I help you, sir?" The doctor asks him with a polite smile, and Ajax has just noticed the absence of the snake around his neck.
"I have a parasite... or something," Ajax says with a sigh, before he crosses his arms over his chest. Not even the fact that he's in... the best hands availible, there's this certain anxiety that doesn't seem to go away. The lack of good sleep and food may not be helping him, though.
"What makes you think that?" He gently asks as he motions for Ajax to take a seat on the couch beside his desk. "What symptoms have you shown?"
"Well, I threw up a lot a few days ago and nothing had drastically changed in my diet," except the fact I simply started eating again my homeland's food... "and a lot of stomach ache..." that and the fact there's something literally moving inside me... that can't even be stabbed...
"Anything else?" Baizhu asks him with a serious look, as he poured them both a cup of tea from the teapot on his desk. "Because there are many things that could cause that," he explains, handing Ajax one cup.
"I'm certain it's a parasite, don't you have anything for that, doctor?" Ajax cuts in, growing even more nervous. He can't exactly give Baizhu the details of his... predicament, but he's not leaving this office without a solution. He's sure he'll grow mad if he does. "I've also been feeling very drained and tired," Ajax adds, and it's no lie.
That does seem to catch the doctor's interest, who lowers his cup of tea back to his desk and clears his throat. "Well, if you've been frequently vomiting, you may be a little dehydrated. We could run some blood tests."
"Thank you," Ajax says, and his smile blooms like a flower in the warm spring. Blood tests are better than nothing, and, as far as he knows, with modern medicine and all that, can show many things about a person.
Baizhu goes somewhere behind the folding screen that separates the "office" from the bed where a patient can either rest or lay down. Ajax imagines Baizhu must have another bed for himself, but indulges the silly thought of him using the same one as his patients, just for the sake of killing time.
When he returns, Baizhu has a little box that looks like an aidkit. He lays it on the desk and opens it, pulling out a needle and some cotton, so Ajax takes this as his cue to start undressing, thus it will easier to reach his arm.
"Those are definitely too many layers of clothing for someone in Liyue," Baizhu comments, after Ajax takes off the second layer, meaning the jacket of his suit – the one he'd taken to his childhood home. At least he didn't have his vest on too. "Have you always run this cold, Childe?"
"Not really, no," Ajax replies with yet another sigh as he rolls up one of his sleeves. "Just when these other symptoms started, I began feeling very cold, very often."
"How many days have the symptoms persisted?"
"Uh... a few days ago," or maybe before that? After all, when he was with Zhongli, perhaps he did feel a bit cold, or maybe a bit of stomach ache here and there. He really can't be sure, now that he's faced with such an obvious question. "Or maybe a few weeks?"
Before he knows it, Baizhu's taking the needle out of his arm, which leaves Ajax blankly blinking at the amazing doctor. Ajax had never had a problem with needles, but he's always felt them, but not this time around!
"Worry not, Childe, if there's anything wrong, we'll find out," Baizhu gently assures him with a soft smile as he holds the needle with his blood.
After that, the doctor disappears into the other side of the room, and is, instead, replaced by his snake pet, who joins the room, seemingly materializing out of thin air. Once there, the snake only glares at Ajax like he's the enemy. Actually...
"Hello?" Ajax makes a poor attempt at conversation, and only gets an even worse glare in reply.
"You better not try anything, harbinger," the snake warns him, and, any other day, Ajax would've had to bite his tongue to stop himself from downright laughing in its face. Except today the warning makes him strangely sad. Because, is that all he is to all Liyue – well, except Hu Tao, Xiangling and maybe the other kids he got to meet before it all went down –? A threat?
"Changsheng, come on now, don't be mean," Baizhu says from the other side of the big room, and his comment has the snake sticking out its tongue to Ajax before leaving.
After a few moments, Baizhu returns and he's awfully quiet now, almost looking nervous. Ajax, of course, tries his best to ignore this.
"Would you like more tea?" Baizhu asks him, with a polite smile.
"Please," Ajax nods at him, and doesn't mention that it would be lovely to get something to eat with the tea, knowing that would be way too unpolite. Besides, Baizhu is doing him a huge favor by merely treating him without calling the Millelith. Ajax can't ask anything else of him.
Soon enough, Ajax gets lost on the tea being poured into his cup, and, by the time he looks up, Baizhu has left again.
Ajax thinks he could fall asleep here, the couch feels really cozy and the room temperature is so warm...
"Childe!" Baizhu's distressed call has Ajax snapping out of his little trance and straightening up. The doctor runs towards him with a horrified look. "There's something wrong in your blood..." he trails off, almost looking scared to finish the sentence.
"Wrong? How?" Ajax's heart drops into the pit of his stomach.
Baizhu goes to lean against his desk, adjusting his glasses. "There seems to be... abyssal energy in it..."
Oh.
"Oh," Ajax mumbles under his breath, blankly blinking at Baizhu, before looking down at the ground. Right. Tiny detail he missed there.
"You're not surprised... so I take it you knew about it," Baizhu concludes with a hum before Ajax can further elaborate, and almost sounds relieved. "And I have no interest in sticking my nose where it doesn't belong," the doctor adds with a small smile before leaving once again. "Be right back."
The next time Baizhu shows up, there's a mix of surprise and something else, but at least it's not the disturbing fear – that's only disturbing because it's in your doctor's face – from before.
"So? What is it, doc?" Ajax says with a tired smile. It must've been less than an hour, but it surely feels like he's been here the whole day.
Baizhu clears his throat, taking a seat beside him. His snake pet is nowhere to be seen. "Childe... this is no parasite," Baizhu starts, and he has yet to look up and meet his eyes.
"Then what is it?" Ajax asks, frowning. Why couldn't the doctor just spit it out? If he's dying or something, Ajax would like to know it right away.
"As odd as this may sound... Childe," Baizhu clears his throat, licking his lips. Finally, he spares a short glance in his way, and there's that disturbing fear again. Shit.
"Childe, you are pregnant."
"What?"