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Kaeya is well-familiar with the abyss. It comes to him in a sickly smell, a taunt and a jeer and a phrase he can never forget; and the similar vacancy, the ache and the dull, prominent throb reflected in Childe’s empty eyes is the closest he can describe as being home again.
It’s in the way Childe’s smile is never quite stable, in the way it never reaches his eyes. It’s in the way he is caked in blood, with eyes alight yet dull, full of excitement irreplaceable. If Childe’s glance wanders to Kaeya’s, the latter cannot help but feel lost in the depths of azure eyes.
And when he loses himself in Childe, in the way he feels he forgets his name, when he forgets about the danger of seeking a home beyond his motherland, is when Childe’s smile finally tilts his eyes into a joyful lilt.
On days Kaeya feels less man than a monster, on days Kaeya is left to reminisce on times of sorrow without a drink in his hand, Childe careens towards him. It’s those days where Kaeya’s smile is tighter than the day before, the days when Kaeya whispers secrets upon secrets that only another individual plagued by the abyss would understand.
Childe only smiles, nodding affirmations between similar whispers and laughs, with a taunt and a jeer and a similar phrase that echoes in Kaeya’s head when the sun has fallen far beyond the horizon. It’s those days when Childe’s eyes reflect something other than utter neutrality, when Childe speaks of his own experiences with a riddle, dancing around the true meaning in a waltz meant for two.
Carefully, very carefully, Kaeya waltzes with Childe - swaying, stepping, pivoting - perhaps to hear the low, boyish timbre of Childe’s voice speaking of ice fishing. To hear the intimate whisper of Childe’s true name in the heat of the tavern’s conversations. To gaze into Childe’s eyes, which were dim even under the direct light of the tavern, the eyes that reminded him of who he was.
In Childe’s eyes is a mutual feeling of knowing that both of them were meant to be dead. It’s the same prideful expression, the way Childe brandished himself and the abyss’ lessons with something akin to pride that reels Kaeya into his orbit. In Childe’s eyes is a mutual thought that the other is familiar, saccharine, and bitter at once in a reminder of what their life had spiraled to become.
When Childe is more monster than man, when Childe has nothing inhabiting his mind than the need to shed blood, Kaeya gazes upon him with a comparison. Childe, in those moments, reminds him far too much of the abyss for him to comfort him, soothe his wounds and lull him to tranquility. His laughter rings clear in the grassy field, where the wind stays forever peaceful, and it carries his laughter across the plains.
The look in his eyes is inhumane, similar to his original home - and Kaeya suppresses the urge to slip into the same manner he adapted to back then. Suppresses the urge to demand how Childe swore loyalty to an archon, an archon associated with those that caused the horrors of Khaenriah and the abyss. It’s those days when Childe’s cologne dissipates to make way for the cloying aura of Kaeya’s home, when his smile is wider and his eyes are blanker than ever. It’s those days when Kaeya offers nothing but an audience for Childe’s abhorrent acts.
But when Childe offers that same boyish, unstable grin with a far too threatening amount of visible teeth with an outstretched hand, Kaeya takes the bloodstained one in his own, and watches Childe’s eyes become crescents in his joy.
Childe’s eyes don’t lighten, they don’t become mirthful or bright as they should be - but something in Kaeya croons at the relief that comes from Childe in waves. Even as Kaeya’s boots’ soles stain with the blood coating the floor, as the dried blood stains fading into his glove are layered over with more, his eyes cannot peel away from Childe’s.
Childe’s eyes are the most vacant and dull in those moments that the ache and throb of the abyss return to Kaeya, but he cannot muster anything more than a smile - for Childe was an unstoppable torrent that had wrenched open his eyes, in a demand to look at him. Look at me, his visage pleads, even when his mouth is wrenched closed.
To see him for who he was, to see what he wanted in Childe, to nitpick and choose and select as the Tsaritsa had so painstakingly done before. He’s never seen Childe so elated in his moments of destruction when Kaeya whispers out Ajax , his eyes wide with glee, smile becoming less predatory and more bashful.
Cautiously, very cautiously, Kaeya begins a slow dance with Childe in a puddle of blood, the squelching and wet sounds acting as the music they would create a melody for. Childe, with a smile, waltzes with Kaeya, sweeping, sliding, dipping - all while Childe’s shaky, uncertain voice narrates something Kaeya cannot care to pay attention to.
How could he pay attention to his words, when his silhouette was so beautifully illuminated by the moonlight peeking over the distance? How could he resist smiling in bloodshed if Childe’s eyes had the closest thing to genuine happiness rather than a reminder of the pain he had gone through?
Kaeya careens towards Childe, intertwining himself fully into Childe’s being, undeniably lost in the enigma that Childe was. He forgets his worries, forgets why he was so scared of finding the things he was trying to lose in Childe’s eyes when he’s smiling so freely.
Childe and the abyss is something Kaeya is well-versed in, having had enough experience with both to understand the similarities between the two. However, where the abyss was sickly sweet, Childe is closer to something bittersweet, a vaguely subtle sweetness that didn’t stick to his tongue unpleasantly.
The similarities of the two are enough to sate Kaeya’s desire for punishment, the emptiness enough to keep him awake at night wondering for the safety of Childe, wondering for the fate of himself and the Harbinger - worrying for the future of the abyss.
But now, when their boots are soaked in the blood of something Kaeya cannot identify, when Kaeya can see nothing but the mockery of light in Childe’s eyes, Childe’s smile finally looks stable to him, and he whispers a secret meant for the two of them in the words of I love you.