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Aether had come to learn that grief was somewhat like the ocean. It was always there, a constant presence, even if he wasn’t always conscious of it. And sometimes it all came over him at once, fierce waves breaking on the shoreline… and in those moments, all he could do was try to keep his head above water.
But tonight the traveler found himself drowning. He sat in bed, a small light diffused by the screens decorating the room illuminating his companion’s sleeping form beside him. But the form swam in and out of focus from tears filling tired brown eyes, and Aether hastily brought a shaky hand over his mouth, trying to catch his breath and come back up. This was all more than he would’ve ever imagined finding in Teyvat, and he was so grateful for all the love he’d found here, but on nights like this it felt so wrong . Lumine should be here, in the room across the house, sleeping soundly with a companion of her own.
Tears came faster now, hot and stinging his eyes. His mouth opened for a deep breath and instead, a choking sob broke the peace of the bedroom. The young man stumbled as carefully as he could from the bed, quick and stuttering steps moving him over to the window where he hit his body into the sill, throwing the shutters open and letting his upper half hang out into the crisp night air.
It was too much. Aether was completely underwater now, the last small bits of self control gone. Wracking, ugly sobs poured out of him with wild abandon, and a faint sliver of gratitude crossed his mind that his home was born through adepti magic. No one could hear him gasping for breath, see how frantically he wiped tears from his eyes that were just immediately replaced, and no one else would ever know how he crumpled to the floor when a warm hand pressed into the small of his back.
From there, strong arms pulled him close, fingers passing gently through loose blonde hair while he sobbed. “Aether… Aether, I'm here, it’s alright...” The low rumble of his barely awake partner's voice felt like it buried down into his bones and the crying became just a little less harsh, the young man pulling a desperate breath into his lungs.
“I don't know how much longer I can do this! I want her back. That’s my baby sister! I-” Another strangled noise broke him off and he swallowed, wiping at his eyes again. “I feel like we were together just yesterday but it’s been so long and now I don't know when I'm ever going to see her again, and I don't know what I can do or how to keep going and it’s all so much and-”
More sobbing. And this time Aether just let it roll through him.
He was free-spirited in nature, and had loved to tease Lumine their entire lives that no matter how much more mature she was he’d always be just that little bit older. But now all he thought of was that maybe he hadn’t been good enough at it. If’d he’d really been worthy of being an older brother maybe he could’ve done something.
“Maybe it’s all my fault, maybe if I'd done better she’d still be here. But I don't-- I won’t get to-- this isn’t fair! And even if I ever get her home again it’s never going to be the same! How do you go back to living a normal life when everything you had was pulled out from under you?” Hands grasped pointlessly into the air in front of them, reaching out for something they wouldn’t find. Stuttered breathing filled the quiet of their room, raspy from how raw the sobbing had made his throat.
“Aether, none of this is your fault. You’ll find your sister and bring her home.” And then, softly, almost as an afterthought, “...we’ll find her.”
The young man could feel his eyes swelling from how hard he’d cried, and reached for one of the older man’s hands to lay it across them. His fingers were cooler to the touch tonight, and the weight was comforting as well. Soft kisses littered his head and down across his neck, and a tiny smile graced his lips.
Aether realized something that night, while Zhongli held him close beneath the open window. He wasn’t sure when it would happen, or what it would take, but the hope of things being alright again was lit back up in his chest. Grief may be an ocean, but without noticing he had found a lifeline to pull him back to the shore.