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There’s blood everywhere again, and you’re only half sure none of it is yours. You’re fast most of the time, sure, but even you don’t always have full control over a situation.
You’re still standing, which says a lot, but your legs ache nevertheless, so you sit down on the grass, leaning back against the rock behind you and looking up at the moon and the soft white glow it emits.
It’s quite pretty when you take the time to appreciate it. Most of the time, you’re running from location to location, not even bothering to glance up at the sky that watches over you, each star like a set of eyes to make sure you stay safe.
Since that night at Wangshu Inn, you haven’t bothered to contact him, even if he is looking for you. It’s like a sixth sense, knowing when he grows closer or farther, and considering you slipped out before he woke in order to avoid talking about it, avoiding him is all you can think about doing now.
Maybe it’s best that he doesn’t see you anyway, not when you can’t remember what you’ve been doing and how much time has passed since you ran. Gods know you’ve tried to keep track before, but giving up is always so much easier that there’s no point in trying when it might hurt more than it might help.
Perhaps that’s why you don’t really notice the arrow shooting through the air until it’s lodging itself in the upper left of your chest, knocking some sense into you, and now you’re definitely sure you’re bleeding. Your eyes dart here and there, trying to figure out where it was fired from before there’s a piercing sound in the wind and you barely dodge the second arrow.
The only thing you can count on now is your instincts, moving in a way you learnt from Her, toes barely touching the ground before you’re on the move again, getting closer every time they fire again, body moving like there are steps in the air for you to use to your advantage, eyes scrutinising every inch of your surroundings.
With night having just fallen, finding them is going to be difficult the deeper into the woods you go, but you’re not one to give up easily either, so even if you have to chase them all night, you’ll find them and pierce their eyes with their own arrows, making sure to nab their heart in the process.
The trees prove useful to you as much as they do to them, allowing you to swing from one to the other and cover more ground faster, picking up speed when you can hear footsteps running in the distance, ears twitching when they hear the sound of heavy breathing getting closer and closer, your senses homing in on the figure.
They’re almost within your grasp and you push yourself off a thicker branch, ready to stop them right in their tracks, but there’s something aiming for you too in that same moment, and you don’t have time to avoid the thing lunging for you before it’s colliding with you, wrapping arms around you so you don’t hit your head on the ground, but also so you can’t run away.
Confused and angry, you bar your teeth, ready to rip the person on top of you to shreds even if they force your arms down so you can’t move them, and they snarl right back, their own fangs shining in the moonlight along with golden eyes holding a betrayed look in them that shuts you right up, not a part of you fighting against him anymore.
The two of you lie like that for a while, listening to each other breathe, knowing whoever was after you is long gone and probably never coming back to finish the job. If you could get going now, you might still be able to track them down by their scent, but with how things currently stand, you know that possibility is out of the question.
He lets go of your hands, standing up, offering you help so you might do the same, but you ignore him, turning your entire body away and remaining on the ground, back to him and knees pulled to your chest. You have nothing to say to him, and he should know that without even asking, not even a thank you or an apology.
“You ran. One night you’re asking me to help you and the next morning you’re gone, no note no nothing,” he says quietly. The tone of his voice almost breaks you. “I don’t expect you to find trusting me easy, but I did expect you to at least try for a little longer. Maybe even tell me that it wasn't working.”
Any other day you might find it in yourself to entertain him, but right now you’re bleeding from more than one place, you’re not sure when it was you actually last saw each other, you’re feeling too many things to be able to focus on a singular emotion, and you’re unable to feel any sort of empathy for him.
“Fuck off, Alatus. I don’t need babying, I don’t need any yakshas chasing after me to make sure I don’t hurt myself. I developed survival skills for a reason, and I can make use of them perfectly fine,” you spit, knowing you’re in the wrong as soon as you say the words.
But being angry gives you an excuse. It helps you not feel what your body has been asking you to feel for so long, and if you lose him the process, then you won’t be surprised. Everyone leaves sooner or later, so why not drive them away first? It’s not like anyone ever stayed despite that.
He’s standing right behind you, but you don’t turn, don’t look up. “You’re killing yourself like this. One day, that arrow is going to hit in a place other than near your shoulder and it won’t be made of wood and metal. It’ll be laced with poison, and you’ll never be able to get up again.”
“So let me die!” you shout, standing up and feeling your blood spike. “Who gives two shits whether I survive my next fight or not! It’s not like there’s a whole lot for me to live for anyway. I’m not the one here bound by a contract that can never be broken.”
It’s a low blow, you know that, but you’re seething and tired of someone looking out for you. The pain is nice, it’s comforting, and he’s trying to take that from you. That one sense of security you have, and he wants to take it, replace it with something you’re not even sure will work.
His face contorts. “You’re right, I am bound by a contact that won’t ever be over. But that’s not why I chase you. I chase you because I give two shits about whether or not you survive your next fight. My duty to Rex Lapis has nothing to do with me looking out for you. I don’t know how long I have to keep telling you that.”
“Because you’re lying,” you answer back, not an ounce of hesitation before you say it. “There’s no point in looking out for someone that won’t look out for themselves because you’d go crazy doing so. It would exhaust you to your breaking point, and there’s no one who can handle caring about someone to that extent.”
You so badly want to be wrong, so badly want to believe that he’d really be there for you no matter what, but you know how these things go. They say they care until it’s too much to put up with, until they look at you with fear in their eyes because you’re coming home covered in blood again, unsure of what happened and where you were, begging for an explanation.
Losing time, losing feeling — These are all things you’ve experienced one too many times to ignore, and you’re just no longer willing to put others in danger because of your own problems. Maybe once you think up a solution, you’ll be able to function a little more normally, in a way that everyone finds pleasant and easy to put up with.
“Because most of the people you ask to look out for you have too many things they’d have to sacrifice in order to do so,” he says quietly, looking up at the patch of sky visible through the treetops. “Other than Liyue, there’s nothing else for me to keep an eye on, and that comes in handy when you’ve got a demon you have to run after every couple of weeks.”
His words itch at your skin with how gentle they are, how far away he is from anger, and at that point you break. Your legs give out on you and something pounds at your head, the quietness of the night almost overwhelming. He’s by your side in an instant, catching you where you fall, helping you sit up.
You hold onto him, your bones aching and your eyes closing, body tired but relaxing in his hold instantly. “I hate running,” you state. “I hate it so much and it kills me every time I have to, but I don’t know how to stay. Because staying is harder than I think I’ll ever be ready for.”
“Alright. Stay with me for just one night for now then, all the way to the morning, but nothing longer,” he suggests. “I’m not asking you to give me eternity, just a few hours. And then come back the next night, just after the sun falls.”
He’s giving you a plan, something to stick to, like a routine. It’s designed to make sure you don’t feel trapped, and even though you know the premise is that you won’t be allowed to leave during those few short hours, your chest doesn’t seem to collapse, your breathing doesn’t get heavier.
You let him pick you up, feeling the air around you both shift, and with a nod of your head, that same wind picks up until it sounds like needles whizzing past your ears and then stops entirely, the heavy atmosphere of the forest long gone, and his shoes are taking steps on soft wood, walking towards a room you know well.
Once placed on the ground, you avoid looking in the mirror, feeling bare despite being fully clothed, hyperaware of the fact you’re not clean, that you’re covered in something that would repulse anyone who saw it, and the thought makes you shiver.
“I’ll get the water ready and then leave until you’re clean. Call me back when you’re ready,” he says, moving towards the door, presumably to get the water that’s heating over the fire, but there’s a weakness to you now, a weakness that doesn’t want to lose him by accident, a weakness that catches him by the wrist before he can leave.
“I, um. You don’t have to leave. It’s not like it’s nothing you’ve ever seen before, and I—” You take a breath. “Don’t… go.” Even though you know he would be right outside the door, waiting for you to finish up, the thought of him staying with you isn’t all that horrifying, so he might as well remain with you.
He smiles, in a genuine way he doesn’t do often and not for just anyone, and you’re even more aware of your existence in that moment before he leaves to get the water. Still, despite your hesitance, you begin to undress, sitting down in the basin and pulling your legs to your chest as you wait for him to come back.
It takes a while to fill the basin about two-thirds of the way, and you hear him talking to Verr Goldet vaguely in the distance, sorting things out, almost feeling like a nuisance for making him go through all this just because you couldn’t take care of yourself for a little while longer. You do your best to ignore the conversation, sitting in the warm water, waiting for the final addition.
When he walks back in, you don’t look up, just wait for him to fill up the water. Once he’s turned around, you reach for the soap, ready to wash up properly, but his hands get there first and when you look up, he’s half undressed himself, as though he means to get in with you.
You make some space; he takes off the rest of his clothes and gets in next to you. His hands on your skin is a feeling you haven’t felt in years. It’s gentle, like the first time, and even though you were too out of it to completely appreciate it, now none of it escapes you.
“These are new,” he says, tracing the scars on your thighs and ribcage, and you look down with him. “Remember where they’re from?” he asks. Even if you do, that doesn’t exactly mean you can up and tell him.
“Fell into a thorn bush. Didn’t catch myself in time,” you answer nonchalantly. He knows you’re lying, and waits for the truth, and you sigh. “Treasure hoarder ambush. I didn’t see them coming and they stayed out of my line of sight.”
“They’ll fade. Eventually,” he reassures, but you already know by the time that happens, they’ll be replaced with new ones, by accident or not. It’s just the sort of lifestyle the two of you live, and it makes markings unavoidable when there’s a job to be done.
His own set is impressive, centuries in the making, and whether or not some of them have really faded is hard to tell. Your fingers go over the bumps in his skin and when he flinches, you recoil immediately, not having realised you’d overstepped. He catches you before you can push yourself away, looks at you in a way that reads it’s okay, I just wasn’t prepared.
With hesitation, his fingers reach out for your face and the dried blood that’s still on it, and you lean forward, letting him know he’s free to do as he pleases. He’s gentle, like he’s afraid simply touching you is going to hurt you, and before you can stop yourself, you chuckle, shaking your head.
You move the hair out of his eyes, looking at their golden colour that you’ve gotten used to seeing in harsher situations than this. “You worry a lot about the little things for someone who claims human emotions aren’t for him. Your hands on my skin isn’t going to send me flying or anything, trust me.”
“I just… I’ve never done this before. It’s not exactly a regular occurrence given that there aren’t many people I would do this for.” The air sits heavy around you, so you take initiative, resting your forehead against his, listening to each other breathe.
Taking things slow benefits not only you, but it also helps him adjust from a life with no one by his side to someone there, consistently and with little time apart, and you appreciate it.
“I know.” His thumb is stroking the back of your palm, using it as a method to quiet his thoughts. “Thank you. For everything.”