Work Text:
It always goes like this:
Kaeya is the first to wake. As soon as the first rays of sunlight slip past the bars of the hotel room’s curtains, he will always find himself stirring. Months ago, he would have startled himself awake; his eyes shooting wide open, his entire body recoiling out of the bed. His lover would stir then, grumbling about how energetic Kaeya was so early in the morning, especially after the previous night.
Now, Kaeya allows himself to wake up slowly. It begins with his fingertips, twitching against strands of red hair that he had grown familiar with, and it ends with his eyes squeezing shut in a futile mockery at sleep. There is intimacy shrouded there, a peace Kaeya hasn’t allowed himself to indulge in for so long.
It should terrify him. It does terrify him. But it is early and he is lying next to a boy he might have been able to love in another lifetime, and he cannot find it in himself to be afraid.
(He already knows that he will be scared again the moment Childe stirs, but he pretends that he won’t. He knows he is consuming poison, but Kaeya is Kaeya, so he does what he does best. He feigns ignorance.)
For now, his armour lies scattered on the ground by the foot of the bed, right next to his clothes. Kaeya is selfish, and he drinks every inch of the masterpiece that was Childe. His eyes, which when open, always look at Kaeya with a kind of reverent devotion that Kaeya doesn’t deserve. His freckles, constellations scattered across the bridge of his nose and the expanse of his back. His mouth, wicked in both its repertoire of remarks and uses. The rise and fall of his chest, each breath warm and peaceful.
Kaeya is helpless to the urge to touch, so he does. He traces the lines of Childe’s jaw with the tips of his finger, light brushes outlining his lips. Bruises trace down the side of Childe’s throat, marks that Kaeya himself had left behind, and he traces along those, too. Childe shifts, but he doesn’t wake. Kaeya smiles.
This is what home feels like, Kaeya thinks. It isn’t the first time he has thought this, but he stores it away in that little crevice in the corner of his mind that it may as well be.
One day, what they have here will breach the confines of secrecy. He can see Childe growing restless already. It’s in the way his gaze keeps lingering on Kaeya, questioning and frustrated. Childe won’t demand more than what Kaeya can—will—give, Kaeya knows. Childe is a gentleman like that, always too good to him than he deserves. That’s not what makes this dangerous.
No, what makes this dangerous is the way Kaeya finds himself breaking every single, damn rule he has instilled into his bones for Childe. He doesn’t do it a second time, unless it’s Childe. He doesn’t talk to his partner once out of the room unless out of necessity, unless it’s Childe. He doesn’t do dates that lead to him sleeping alone with butterflies in his stomach as his only companion, unless it’s Childe. He doesn’t do committed relationships, but he would do it if it’s Childe.
Kaeya was stripped of his armour, laid bare for Childe to pick apart as he so wished. Except, Childe doesn’t pick him apart. Instead, with careful hands, Childe navigates through his body, memorizing the crooks and the crevices, and uses the knowledge to make him feel worthy. To make him feel as if he could be something more than a weapon, or the cavalry captain, or a tool for vengeance or whatever it is that the world expects of him.
To make him feel loved.
It is both a gift and a curse to feel that way, Kaeya quickly learns. On one hand, here is a man who he knows would give him the world if he asked. On the other hand, he also knows that despite his best efforts, he cannot return that kind of devotion with his own. He can give Childe nights full of blinding pleasure and days filled with bright laughter, but how much longer until it all ends? Kaeya knows he cannot outrun his past, and Childe’s loyalty will always belong to his family back in Snezhnaya and his Archon. There is no room for Kaeya.
Kaeya swallows and withdraws his hand as if touching Childe hurts him. Because it does. It hurts him. The knowledge that he can have this now, but he cannot make it last sits sour at the back of his mouth, tasting like bile. What they have here, this cannot last. It is only a matter of who will leave first.
(Kaeya. It’s always Kaeya. He will leave first, again and again, and again, even while his heart bleeds and shatters because he will not let himself be Childe’s ruination. Childe will hurt and perhaps he will grieve, but he will learn to live again—to live without him—and he will learn to love all over again. And Childe will live the life that he deserves to live, and Kaeya will learn to let him go.)
Kaeya grabs his clothes and mechanically puts them on. He lists off each of the garments, names all the clasps, refers to each straightened crease, and locks away all thought of Childe’s warm hands on his skin from last night, taking them apart carefully and methodically. None of his past partners ever cared about his clothing beyond complaints about how complicated it was. But Childe had taken the time to understand them and somehow, he had managed to slip them off him at a speed even Kaeya can only dream of achieving.
He stops and curses himself. He banishes all thoughts of Childe from his mind, locking him away in a heart-shaped box at the furthest corners of his mind. This is the one weakness that he cannot afford because there is no way to work his way around it. There are no paths he can craft around this failing, no walls he can build to hide it from the world. One day, Childe was going to be the death of him, and he has a feeling he won’t even bother trying to stop him.
So Kaeya allows himself this small dignity. He draws away from the bed and circles around the foot of it to head out the door. Childe had insisted on sleeping closest to the door. Kaeya had cursed him for it in his head, but he has never been good at denying Childe anything, so he lets him. Now, Kaeya is suffering the consequences of his own weak will. It’s harder to leave when he can get a long look at the way Childe’s hair falls over his eyes, the way the sheets reveal the planes of his back, the way Childe’s body curls in the direction of the bed in which he had been sleeping in earlier, the way one of Childe’s hand was outstretched as if he had stopped himself from touching Kaeya.
Kaeya turns his back and feels the dull ache in his chest. It hurts. It will always hurt. But he has learned how to love the pain and savour it. The hurt is good. It means he’s still human. It means he loves Childe, even if it’s not in the way that matters.
He steels his heart and walks away.