Work Text:
Inhale. Exhale.
Curious wind flows across the sea of flowers, rocking their frail bodies to the rhythm of nature’s music. Their tender petals clink with each other creating a beautiful sound out of a human ear’s reach.
Inhale. Exhale.
Zhongli, however, can hear it. Being a god has its perks, he supposes. The delicate bell-like sounds surround him in a sweet-tasting atmosphere. The glaze lilies’ music had become his favorite sound of nature the moment he had heard it, all those eons ago. in all of his long years of living, almost nothing had ever managed to get close to the level of appreciation he has for the divine music of glaze lilies.
Almost nothing.
Inhale. Exhale.
Recently, a certain young man’s voice has become a lovely song to his ears. It’s nothing like the beautiful sounds of nature. His voice is gorgeous, but something else entirely. Zhongli has heard people from the city say that the young man is annoying, his chatty personality always present, mouth never staying shut for more than 5 seconds. Zhongli is embarrassed to admit it, but he had thought the same way when he had first met the man, though the more he and the young man got closer, the more addicted to the melodic sound of his speech Zhongli had become. His voice is loud yet relaxing, his speech is almost always filled with nothing of importance, yet Zhongli swears he can find all the answers about the world in it.
Zhongli has lived a long life, but he still can’t learn from his mistakes. He wasn’t created to love. His love destroys.
Inhale. Exhale.
Seeing Childe so peaceful is a sight Zhongli can’t seem to comprehend fully. The young man’s body is lying completely still. Only his chest is moving, rising and falling with every shallow breath he takes.
Inhale. Exhale.
Zhongli sits down next to him, carefully placing Childe’s head onto his lap. The man lets out a displeased whine but, apart from that, remains still like a marble statue, so ethereal yet so lifeless. Zhongli places his hand on Childe’s hair and starts gently stroking the silk strands until his fingertips reach the cold bloody mess at the back of Childe’s neck. The wound is too big, too deep. They have only a couple of minutes left to spend with each other.
They both have hoped for an eternity.
Inhale. Exhale.
Love has been easy for them. Falling in love hadn’t felt like two stars crashing into each other, but like two smalls springs flowing from far away yet finally connecting in some lake hidden in the middle of the woods, which would keep their love until the end of time.
Zhongli can remember only one person he loved as hard as Childe. He already knows that he won’t survive his lover’s death this time.
Inhale. Exhale.
Zhongli looks down at the young man on his knees. A couple of seconds pass, and Childe finally opens his eyes. Zhongli sees so many feelings inside of them: confusion, rage, disappointment. And fear, so much fear. Fear of death, fear of the unknown, fear of eternal loneliness. Fear for the friends. Fear for the family. Fear for his lover. Zhongli manages to give him a calming smile, stares into the bottomless ocean of his eyes as much as he can, trying to burn the rich color into his memory, and finally, with his other hand, the one not covered in blood gently closes Childe’s eyelids and leaves his hand on his face to not let him open his eyes again.
Because Zhongli can still see the pure inner child underneath all of those layers of fear and he is not strong enough to witness that child fade away from existence.
Inhale. Exhale.
Zhongli closes his eyes too. He lets himself listen. Listen to the divine melody of oncoming death. The choir of glaze lilies around the pair wails in agony as if it can sense the misery of a godly creature sitting among them. Yet through the loud cries of flowers flows a quiet melody created by the two men. Childe’s desperate breaths and Zhongli’s calm ones intertwine, creating a voice of love that tells about happiness, sadness, and what could’ve been if the universe was fair.
Inhale. Exhale.
The voice prays for death to go away, and yet death comes as soon as it can. Zhongli can feel its little threads start to envelop Childe’s soul in order to take it from this world.
He brings his bloody hand closer and, with his nail, cuts right across the palm. He waits for his and Childe’s blood to mix and presses his lips to the mess. With wet red lips, he kisses Childe for one last time, just a simple touch of lips no longer than a couple of seconds, but during thought seconds, he makes a blood oath. He promises to live his life to the fullest because Childe won’t. He promises to take care of Childe’s family because Childe won’t rest if his family won’t be safe. And he apologizes for promising to love him forever because Childe will want him to move on.
Inhale.
The death threads collect the last piece of Childe’s soul and then let the wind take them far away from here, to the land where even the gods are no more than weak lambs. The voice of love has lost his other half. Zhongli has lost his will to stay alive.
Exhale.