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Childe sat beside the hearth of his home, staring out of the window, watching the snow fall in wisps. It was a blizzard outside, Childe could barely register the people working through the snowstorm.
His eyes were however unseeing, somewhere lost in his thoughts. His mind had been numbed into oblivion and back, forcing it to adjust to the new environment he found himself back in.
His hands twitched, imagining a sword or a spear clutched in them, the bloodlust throbbing from the edge of his nails all the way to his heart and down to his toes. His body itched to move, to destroy, to feel the thumping of his heart obliterate his vision into seeing nothing but red.
Red and Skirk. For she took pride in Childe’s existence.
But Childe remained impassive, lest his family noticed and deemed him insane. Not that he wasn’t, he would be a fool to deny he had breached the gates of insanity. Though he didn’t care, no one had been through what he saw in the Abyss, they wouldn’t understand, they had no right to push the term into him.
“Ajax?” His mother called him softly, hovering a distance away.
Childe reacted to the name and gave her his attention.
“Is it a bit warmer, honey?” His mother worried, tucking the blanket on his lap. “Would you like some soup?”
Childe was cold, but he barely registered it. Back in the Abyss, he’d bled without his gloves when he parried a danger. In the Abyss, the cold was but an afterthought to the thrill of the battle. And that thrill was a warmth unlike another.
These blankets and these soups barely held a candle to the fire that thrill presented.
Childe shivered, feeling exposed and abandoned.
“No.” Childe said simply, turning his chin away. He felt his mother’s eyes on him, fretful and sympathetic.
“Ajax...” His mother coaxed, touching his arm.
Childe’s skin prickled, and Ajax resurfaced. He turned again, smiling faintly, weakly, but smiling nonetheless. “Mom, I just need rest. Please.”
His mother stared just for a second longer, then returned a tearful smile, understanding and compassionate. She left him, ushering Anthon and Tonia who were peeking from the door.
His younger siblings met his eyes, the desire to speak to him showing in their little fistfuls and worried features. But they retreated.
Childe stared back at his hands; red, blistery and calloused. It has been two days since he was found in that pile of snow. His parents still couldn’t get an explanation out of him, his older and younger siblings alike seeking a form of acknowledgment. But Childe couldn’t give it to them.
Not when he wasn’t sure which way to function anymore.
He had felt it, Ajax had showed up there, displaying an act of kindness towards mother. And Childe wasn’t sure what to make of it. He barely recognized the boy he once was, yet how could that boy display a sliver of himself?
They’re family. His voice -no, Ajax’ voice- said from within. We care for family.
Childe huffed, sharply turning his gaze to the window. Of course he cared; they were but a sorry lot in a tiny house in an unrecognizable village in Snezhnaya. He wasn’t immoral or a beast. That wasn’t the problem. The issue was his ache for the blood.
And that ache was priority.
***
A little over a week and Childe was able to sit with his family around the table. He sat among his folks and siblings, drinking his soup.
His older brother spoke of academics, trying to fill the void of the silence caused by the awkwardness. His older sister just catered the food, easing the burden on their mother. Anthon and Tonia ate in silence, though they kept throwing glances to Childe, desperate for recognition.
Ajax took over then, smiling when a reaction was needed, nodding when spoken to. Going as far as complimenting the food.
Childe had worked it out with Ajax, that boy festering in the back of his mind. He wasn’t totally useless, after all. If he could get him through social interactions, Childe would be nothing but relieved for his omnipresence.
Ajax, somehow, understood the lust of blood. He didn’t dare present a clarification for it, but the connection between the two was provided. He wasn’t disgusted in Childe, and by respect, Childe wasn’t disgusted in him. Ajax was... a liability. For as long as Childe remained prisoner in his home.
As a few days passed, Ajax made an observation and relied it on to Childe. There was a shortage of food. Or rather, there were too many children and less vegetables to be fed. Anthon had complained for the lack of meat, earning a shush from mother.
We can go hunt, Ajax remarked, heart aching with every breath his younger siblings used to complain. We... we’re stronger. We can do it.
I’m stronger. Childe reminded him, insisting that Ajax was nothing now. Yet, he paid no attention to his own threat, instead clinging to the hopes of getting lost and falling into the Abyss once more. This time with no hope to be spat out.
He was enamoured with that darkness.
I don’t want to worry them again. Ajax seemed to pull at Childe, halting him in his steps.
Childe’s eyes went wide, wide. The understanding of two people clashing in one body dawned on him heavily.
That night, he sat in the corner of the bathroom and pulled on his hair, trying to make sense of it all.
Then, a couple of days later, the words came tumbling out of his mouth, a proposition to hunt to his father. He couldn’t disappear again unannounced, not when they kept watch over him.
His father watched him for a moment, his eyes holding a glint of hesitation and... apprehensiveness. Childe gulped, realizing that his father’s gaze changed when looking at him.
His father only agreed if he was to accompany him. Childe supposed there was no helping that.
Walking the forest seemed a distant deja-vu, looking for a hunt to squeeze blood from. His father kept a strict eye on him, watching him way too closely.
The forest was filled with animal scents. So it was no surprise when his father warned him of going a certain direction, only for Childe to run that very direction and meet a boar a triple his size tower over him.
“Ajax!” His father’s scream was a distant sound.
Childe looked up, a smile slowly spreading on his lips. It has been so long.
How he missed the feel of a hilt in his hand. How he missed the scent of a disaster incoming, only one slit away.
Childe grinned, his Vision manifesting his weapon of choice in hand.
In less than five minutes, Childe had ripped the boar’s heart out, threw it away, and heard the roars of the boar intensify and dissipate with every thrust.
Childe thrust the blade time and time again into the flesh, drawing blood, delighting in how it splashed on his face.
The euphoria of it all took hold of Childe’s soul in clutches.
The moment the creature quieted down, Childe stilled, looking back at the figure standing in shock behind him.
His father stood frozen, terror in his features. The son he thought he knew long since changed. Childe panted, hands shaking because the battle he long awaited was done before he relished in it. It was too quick for his liking.
Though he focused on his father, terrified eyes meeting his dulled, senseless ones.
Ajax took a breath then smiled in apology. “I thought we’d really need the hunt, so i really couldn’t help but jump at the opportunity. I’m sorry for running off like that. But,” Ajax squeezed the back of his neck, adding a laugh. “We’ve got food now.”
His father regained his composure, walking over to Ajax and, with a moment of uncertainty, held Ajax close to his chest.
Ajax returned the hug, stroking his father’s back with as much compassion as he could get across.
That felt really good, Ajax found himself musing. It felt good to take out his –their- aggression on the beast. Childe was a force to be reckoned with.
Ajax halted in his thoughts, licking his bottom lip. The bloodlust was understandable... but he sensed as much satisfaction from Childe as he did in the hopes of feeding their family. Childe still cared.
Childe took a moment to think about that, eyebrow holding a twitch.
His father held him longer, muttering a thank you and words that weren’t comprehensible.
His father squeezed him tighter, and Childe squeezed back.
***
Their return back home was silent and awkward. His siblings expressed amazement and shock, though his parents stood to the side.
It wasn’t the terror, it was rather true concern. Childe tried not to mind the staring and constant worry, but it was so present it proved hard to ignore.
From that day on, his father approached him with a hover and a whisper. He didn’t dare approach Childe from behind, didn’t dare meet his eyes, and both Ajax and Childe wilted.
His mother didn’t put the same distance between Childe and herself, but put expression in her actions. When she hugged her children, she always held Childe last and a bit longer than the others. When Childe was in the kitchen, holding a knife and peeling, she put her own work down and hugged him from behind for the whole duration he used the knife.
It was suffocating. And… sweet. Skirk never hugged him like that. Oh, she smiled at him, she taught him the ropes of combat and cleaned his injuries, but she never held him.
Ajax stirred inside of Childe, stressing that he -that they- had gotten hugged before by their mother. That they received gestures of love and returned them before.
They were born here, lived with people here. The Abyss was but a place of darkness, where they had temporarily lived.
Childe agreed to disagree. The Abyss was a place of Rebirth.
Ajax wondered which one was their true home.
Childe didn’t know.
***
When Tonia came home with a bruised face and her hair in muddy clumps, ponytail abandoned, Childe rushed out in a fit of fury.
Gritting his teeth, he charged head first into the playground behind the statue of their Archon. Tonia’s bullies were preoccupied with games and mockery, not having realized they angered what should not be angered.
Childe walked up to them and punched the first boy in his sight, knocking him out of his feet. The rest turned around, spluttering in a daze, attacking back, but they never had a chance.
Childe knocked them all out of their feet, his fists tightly clenched. Ajax seemed satisfied, and congratulated their brotherly instinct.
“You bother my sister again and i’ll show you more than my fist,” Childe threatened, looking down on them.
The bullies were beaten to tears and sobs, and in the end ran away in fear.
And then Childe realized, that he hadn’t drawn a single drop of blood. He had felt a thrill and intensity at seeing his baby sister crying and covered in mud, but the urge to kill wasn’t there.
Ajax looked at his hand, drawing his lips in a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He reacted as a big brother. And that was human.
Childe was human too. And like Ajax had proposed at first, he was but a human morphed by horrors. The realization came with a dizziness, sudden and perturbing.
Does this mean, Childe began, we’re the same?
Ajax paused, taken aback. It means there’s both of us... but with different priorities.
Childe snarled. Getting stronger and seeking battle should be your priority too. You were a weakling, you have no right to exist.
Ajax whined lowly. I might be a weakling, or might have been a weakling, to be precise. But the Abyss shouldn’t have such an impact on us. It was a horrifying place.
It was a wonderful entity, Childe said.
Ajax retreated willingly, forcing Childe back into the front. He got upset, Childe could tell by the amount of recoiling in his chest. Childe couldn’t comprehend what he were anymore nor what he wanted. Could he... no, could they go on like this?
Childe shivered, the thought of killing Ajax crossing his mind. That bastard was nothing but hinderance. He didn’t know how to deliver the killing blow though.
And even more mind chilling was the chance that they were both losing themselves. Was Ajax... Was Childe... losing himself? For the second time?
Ajax was just a child festering with childhood dreams, Childe was to make sure of that.
***
“Brother!” Anthon announced as he entered the room, grinning widely.
Childe borrowed some of Ajax’ graces and put a smile on his face. “Everything okay?”
Anthon grinned wider and latched himself on Childe’s lap, looking up with eyes that glimmered. Childe’s chest locked, seeing himself in his kid brother. He had been once as small...
“I’m so happy, brother,” Anthon laughed. “Mother and older sister are cooking the deer you hunted yesterday. We’ll eat so much at dinner.”
Childe grinned, patting his brother’s head. The admiration and respect Anthon held in his eyes, along with the clinging, it was precious. Especially when he only did so with Childe, claiming him as the bestest big brother. Tonia was of the same opinion, and Childe’s heart never swelled as much with appreciation.
Speaking of Tonia, she walked in with a crying toddler latching in her arms, wailing quite loudly.
“He won’t stop crying,” Tonia hurried to Childe, pout on her lips. “Can you calm him down?”
Teucer was pushed into Childe’s arms before he could coax Ajax into coming back. The toddler snuggled in his chest, sobbing still but calmer than before.
Childe held him preciously, taking in the freckles dusting his cheeks and his precious big eyes. Eyes like Anthon’s, like Tonia’s, and like Childe’s. They should take pride in them, and Childe found himself smiling as he addressed Tonia and Anthon with that remark.
A few snuggles and coos, Teucer had calmed down, having simply been agitated by his sleep being perturbed. Anthon brought a storybook and asked Childe to read it. Childe supposed there was no denying the request when even his darling sister snuggled on his other side.
The smile on his face was nothing but pure joy, and at that moment, Childe realized he’d do anything to protect these kids and their dreams. Anything so they wouldn’t be tainted by the forces of the world and the Abyss.
Ajax poked around. See, we do care.
Childe swallowed as he kept reading. We do. I... do. But I’ll keep getting stronger.
Keep getting stronger so we could protect them, Ajax clarified, resurfacing a tiny bit, allowing them both to peek through. We are the same. A bit different to our cores, but for them, we are the same.
You should have been morphed into me, Childe stressed. This is perturbing.
I agree. But back in the Abyss, you were so driven into battle that you just kicked me aside. Or rather... I kicked myself aside?
Childe smiled, a chuckle escaping him. Tonia glanced at him, titling her head at the sudden amusement in his voice. Childe just shook his head and kept reading.
Anyhow, you navigate this world much better than I do, Ajax said with a drawl. I like your version of me better.
It’s because I'm the one The Abyss gave life to, Childe said. You’re the one Morepesok gave life to.
And yet, we are the same brother these kids look up to, Ajax had an impression of a smile on his face.
How ironic, that I'm the "Childe" when you are the one who clings to childhood dreams... Childe mused, mind tousling with the concept of dealing with two personas in one body.
Childe held the toddler in his arms tighter, his other two siblings having scouted even closer to him. The raw fear he held against Ajax taking over had dimmed, now instead replaced with concern.
A child born into light, family and laughter. In contrast, a child who was born into darkness, monstrosity and screeches. Who was to say who the real one was?
Or had they been both equally false, Childe and Ajax?
The answer to the question wasn’t presented for a long time. Instead, an alternative, a denouement, was thrown into Childe’s -the stronger one’s- life.
It was when quarrel broke in the market between two merchants, Childe standing at the side watching with his father and brother. A youthful woman had forced herself between the two, only to get a punch in the face.
Then Childe stepped forward, and created chaos.
The market wound up a mess of goods splattered on the floor, thanks to nothing but Childe’s Hydro Vision. On top of that, he had punched the two merchants until they both lost several teeth to his fist of a fourteen-year-old.
The talk went on for days after that event, and the people pressured Childe’s parents into finding a solution for their "deranged" kid. In the end, his father was forced with a heavy heart to send him to the Fatui, hoping that the strict military would bring both his newfound arrogance and bloodlust to a stop.
That’s where Childe discovered a different kind of darkness.