Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“So, my currently eldest in the house finally decided to stop moping and leave his room, after all.”

His mother’s amused voice suddenly came from behind in the darkened room, startling him out of his unnecessarily deep and intense staring at the kitchen table’s wooden structure before she approached one of the unoccupied chairs to make herself comfortable across from her offspring.

She softly tutted. “No, never mind, you still look unhappy.”

“I’m fine, just tired.” Childe huffed out a short laugh, hoping she would let it go as he rapped his fingers against the structured surface of their worn and well loved family kitchen table, purchased many years even before his own birth. “Really, you worry too much.”

Of course, the woman who birthed him only rose an unbelieving eyebrow—and coupled it with an unimpressed look while she was at it—as she wrapped her robe tighter around herself.

Understandably so.

The room was frigid, he belatedly realized.

Very much so, as he had not even noticed the fireplace going out even though the last bits of slightly milder autumn temperatures were approaching their inevitable end, too lost in his musings to notice the drop in temperature in the room or much of anything if he were to be honest.

Childe lifted his head to look outside the window, only the shine of the moon, reflected on the ice crystals covering the plane of glass greeted his sore eyes.

It was always freezing in Snezhnaya, the nation being decked in a coat of white all year long but soon even the waterway connecting the icy kingdom would freeze over so deeply, no ship would be able to safely pass the frozen depths.

Childe had missed the blindingly white snow and cruel temperatures of his home in Morepesok with a passion. Almost as much as his family.

When the frosty air had finally entered his expanding lungs—which soon had started to ache with that familiar, delicious burn—it had filled him with such elation, he immediately had broken out into an honestly excited grin that must’ve even reached his eyes as he had gripped the frozen railing of the ship taking him home.

Admittedly, the first thing to do so after that whole affair in Liyue had gone down.

A few days ago, after he had sent boxes of food and presents home, he had quickly packed up his lighter, summerly Fatui uniforms to instead don his much thicker, Snezhnayan winter wear in preparation for the drop in climate and boarded the first official Fatui ship after La Signora back to Snezhnaya.

His gaze had been stubbornly locked on the unruly sea ahead—his long and warm coat draped over his arm for the moment and a small bag with his sparse and little belongings on his shoulder as the morning wind had viciously whipped his hair into his eyes and face—he had quite literally left the balmy autumn air of Liyue Harbour behind as his stomach had churned with indescribably mixed feelings.

The Fatui vessel had been headed straight to the frosty palace of Her Majesty, the Tsaritsa, without any stops.

It had been better like this, he told himself.

Afterwards, he had been quick to make his way to his homey seaside village when his Archon had deemed their mission a success and dismissed them until further notice.

It surely hadn’t been a mission he himself would’ve called as such but he bit his tongue and departed for the next ship that same evening.

After all, he had promised Tonia that he would come home as soon as possible after his work in Liyue was done and he always kept his promises.

Always.

And it definitely was his promise to his sister that made him leave so fast without much of a farewell to anyone in the palace or even back in Liyue.

Yes, definitely.

Nothing else came to mind which could’ve had such an effect on him, not even—

Suddenly the untouched cup of tea in front of him he had absentmindedly been staring at moved away from his vision. Childe quickly looked up, only to see his mother empty the beverage into the sink. “Wha—“

“It seems unlikely to me that you would want to drink that cold tea,” the woman explained calmly, rinsing the used cup before grabbing two new ones out of one of the cupboards above her head. “I’ll make a new batch for us.”

He sighed and nodded in thanks.

“So, my dearest child,” she began when she had finished the preparation, mirth warming her eyes as she sat back down and delicately slid over one of the tea mugs to him, making even the corner of his own mouth twitch a tad. “What happened? This behaviour is unlike you.”

“Really, I’m just tir—“

“Don’t lie to me, Ajax.” She softly chided him as she furrowed her brows in worry. “I let it fly until now to not worry your younger siblings but it’s just us now.”

Indeed, it was.

His father had been called away to a neighbouring village to help with work shortly after his arrival and his younger siblings had been so elated that one of their elder brothers had come home, that they refused to go to bed until either sleep took them even sitting up or they were allowed into his bed.

The Fatui’s eyebrows creased.

He had been a good, older sibling since his return. Helping his mother with the little ones, taking them out to play in the snow or on grocery trips, had helped Tonia braid her hair just like in the Liyuen books he had gifted her and had taken over some of the food preparation with th—

“Don’t make that face.” His mother brushed some of his hair out of his eyes with a gentle smile. “I know what you must be thinking. Don’t worry, you’re a good older brother but I’m worried about you.”

Childe pouted at her before he let his eyes wander to the steaming beverage in front of him in silence. Well, there went his attempt to keep his sour mood a secret.

He thumbed the too hot mug, only letting go when it burned the calloused pads of his fingers to quickly cool them off before he started anew.

“I was really hoping that I wouldn’t have to do this,” his mother huffed out before she rummaged in one of the pockets of her robe.

He hummed distracted.

“What’s that?” the older woman asked with another sigh laced with guilt, as she held out something in his periphery.

He opened and closed his mouth as he stared at the decorative Cor Lapis hair tie softly cupped in her hand.

“At first I thought it might be a gift for one of your sisters or me but not even you would have made such a poor choice in colour considering the tone of our hair,” she slowly said, not unkindly. “So this must be something else, no?”

Childe swallowed haltingly and furrowed his brows. “Where did you find this?”

He had made sure it was burrowed in the deepest corner of the pack he had stuffed into his closet after his arrival. His initial plan had been to throw it into the ocean on his way back on the ship. Well, it obviously hadn’t worked, had it?

“You spoiled Teucer so much that he was looking for more gifts inside of your bag while you were still asleep this morning,” his mother explained fondly as she turned the expensive looking ornament to herself to take another look at it in the dim moonlight. “Thinking it was a gift, he gave it to Tonia who brought it to me.”

“I see,” he huffed out, unhappiness unwillingly bleeding into his voice as he picked up the cup of tea in lieu of a distraction.

“So?” The woman shot him a soft but expectant look.

“It’s obviously a hair tie,” he said tersely before gulping down some of the tea, burning his mouth with a slight wince.

Maybe the burn would help with the unpleasant and unwanted feelings bubbling up. Though, he doubted it would help for more than a fraction of the time it took him to down the whole mug.

She gave him a look coloured with worried exasperation. “We both know that is not what I meant.”

The corners of his mouth turned down even more as he avoided looking at her or the item in her hand, distractedly toying with a sore in his mouth he had acquired after biting his cheek bloody during an especially fierce nightmare of his time in the Abyss.

“Whom does it belong to or—“

Huh, he wondered.

What should he call him after everything that had happened?

Rex Lapis?

The Geo Archon? Morax?

The God of Contracts and Commerce?

Maybe a simple ‘traitor’ or ‘backstabber’ would suffice? Though, it seemed that ‘stranger’ would fit the bill, as well.

Suddenly, everything had changed and there was nothing much left but for the unwanted memories. Unwelcome memories of a stranger he never really knew.

The unpleasantness of the bitter taste in his mouth became almost unbearable as he was sitting there in some mock show of calmness to not scare his own mother sitting across from him.

The desire to thrash something or better yet someone who could pack a punch overtook him.

Something. Anything.

His attempt to not dive head first into all the memories of how close the consultant and he had been—how much he had trusted the other—failed miserably.

Staving off the hot anger bubbling up at the last moment before it could erupt like a volcano, he swallowed thickly.

“I got it repaired for that consultant,” he interrupted her with an almost toneless voice.

“That handsome Zhongli-Xiānsheng of yours that you constantly talked about in your letters?”

He couldn’t suppress the slight wince at the mention of that name nor the frown marring his face but still obediently nodded once without looking at her.

His mother hummed in understanding. Though, what she understood he didn’t know, nor did he want to. But unfortunately, she couldn’t read his thoughts.

“To be honest, after all of your letters, I had thought you’d bring him with you when you came,” the woman admitted as she carefully sipped her tea, the Cor Lapis accessory left sitting between them after his revelation.

Childe frowned at a ridge in the surface of the table that his eldest brother had accidentally made years ago when he and his siblings had huddled around the furniture to secretly look at his newest knife he had purchased behind their parent’s backs.

“Me too,” he whispered to himself not being able to stop the beginning of the heartbroken smile that slipped through his facade as his eyes started to suspiciously burn against his will before he cleared his throat.

His mother grabbed his calloused hand in hers and caressed it. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Surprisingly he wanted to.

But he wouldn’t.

“I can’t.”

The woman pursed her lips in understanding. “Is it confidential?”

He nodded.

After all, he usually kept his family out of his Fatui business as he wanted them to have a peaceful and comfortable life without any unnecessary worries. Everyone but the youngest knew he worked for the Tsaritsa. However, he had never disclosed what his actual position entailed.

And he wouldn’t.

Nor would their Archon be happy if he told his mother that the consultant was the Geo Archon who faked his death—whom they had taken his gnosis from. Well, La Signora and the Tsaritsa, not him, he thought bitterly. He had been but a puppet in the grand scheme of things. An utter fool, made into laughingstock.

“Then how about this,” she said as she leaned forward, sensing his turmoil. “Describe it without the confidential details?”

It was tempting.

Maybe his mother wouldn’t entirely understand him, as she didn’t with a lot of things anymore. Especially after his disappearance into the snowy forest that turned him into who he was now, a sometimes unhinged person who was lusting for a fight pretty much most of the time. But she did her best to not judge him for it regardless, feeling much too guilty for not fulfilling her motherly duties and letting him run away from home in the first place.

Not that it truly had been her fault back then. The boring life just hadn’t been for him and he had used her trust in him to vanish into thin air.

Childe swallowed the growing lump in his throat.

“He was playing with me,” he huffed out with a humourless smile.

Surprised, the woman looked at him. “But that doesn’t seem to fit with your description of him in all those letters. You always wrote how kind he was—”

“Yeah, well.” He squeezed her smaller hands in his bigger ones before she squeezed back to offer comfort to him. “Guess, I was wrong.”

He shrugged nonchalantly as she frowned in thought.

“Have you talked to him?” The Fatui looked up at her in question before she continued. “Tonia has read all the letters to us. I don’t believe that my smart and capable son would’ve so deeply fallen for something like that.”

Childe shot her a dry and unconvinced look.

“Please, would I leave any of your siblings in your care if I thought you stupid or unreliable?” she said with a scowl. “I just can’t imagine the sweet and kind man from your letters doing anything bad—“

“Mama, believe me, you don’t even know half of it,” he groused out with another humourless but desperate laugh. “Maybe he just wanted to watch me squirm and empty my Mora pouches for him, who knows.”

He expected her to reprimand him for interrupting her but she only watched him in silence.

Suddenly there was a thud deeper inside the house.

Had their voices woken his siblings? He lifted his head to carefully listen for the approaching pads of little feet.

They had kept their voices hushed. He shared a look with his mother before the bathroom door closest to them, made out of massive wood, was shut shortly afterwards. He didn’t miss the tired and little, boyish grunt accompanying the sound.

The corners of his mouth lifted softly.

Teucer should’ve listened to him. Drinking that cup of hot cocoa before bed had been a bad idea for an uninterrupted slumber. However, it was hard for him to deny the boy anything. Or any of his younger siblings for that matter. He was sorely aware how much he spoiled the lot of them. Though, he somehow couldn’t even feel bad about it.

“May I give you some advice?” his mother asked softly when the door to the bedroom his siblings were sharing for their pyjama party that night closed again.

Childe mulled it over as the woman patiently waited for his answer.

He must’ve been very obvious in his horrible mood for her to seek him out and to stubbornly persist like that. Normally, she wasn’t the meddling type of mother unless her children really wanted or needed her help.

To be honest, he hadn’t really wanted her to help him but maybe some part deep inside of him needed her to.

Or he was being melodramatic. Also possible.

He nodded, slowly. At least, listening to her advice wouldn’t hurt.

“I’m not saying that it’s the same because I don’t know any details,” she started slowly. “And I don’t know that consultant personally.”

Childe noticed how she hadn’t used the other’s name after she had witnessed his involuntary wince.

His chest warmed with gratitude.

“But long before we had you and your siblings, your father and I once had a situation that—roughly saying—boiled down to me phrasing something very badly and him disappearing without a word.”

The Fatui hummed in interest.

“I don’t know what situation could’ve been the trigger for whatever went sour between the both of you or what even happened but ours was when your father saw me hug another man in a Café,” she confided in him as his eyes widened, hearing this for the first time.

He opened his mouth but his mother shook her head for him to continue listening to her story.

“Turned out, he thought I was going behind his back with another man when said man was my dear cousin who had come for a visit,” she said with an amused smile. “I am not saying that your situation is similar—maybe that consultant of yours really was as deceptive as you say—but you’ll never know unless you talk.”

“But—“

“I know you and you definitely inherited that stubbornness and that trait of not talking things through from your father,” she said with a fond smile. “But sometimes talking really can be the solution.”

He pouted as she stood up.

“You’re an adult, so it is not my place to tell you what to do but I’ll be here if you need me.” She softly cupped his face in her hands to kiss his forehead and looked at him like she knew something. “And the Tsaritsa forbid if I’m wrong, I’ll simply have to visit Liyue and settle this the old Snezhnayan way, no?”

She grinned at him, mirth colouring her eyes.

Childe snorted at the ridiculous, mental image of his petite mother handing a literal god his own ass in a death match.

Winking, she sauntered out of the kitchen, leaving him and his thoughts alone in the moonlit room.