Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

YEAR X: It was the ending of everything that had ever begun.

And the event came with such suddenness, that when it happened, nobody could fathom what to do. Sirens ripped through the city and beyond the noise of crashing rubble, there were wails—the cries of hapless children running from inevitable deaths and mortals hoping to live. The monsters came from nowhere it seemed, only some darkness that they prayed would never come. It must have been prophesied in a book long back, or a scripture, but humankind has always been ignorant enough. 

When the world was on the precipice of turning into a new generation, the tragedy sent time into a void and the new age was classified under something entirely different. Not much has changed since then, however much time must have passed since the first ripple of chaos. 

YEAR X-II: Childe sits at the edge of his bed, stirred by yet another monstrous wail beyond his window. The sounds have gotten farther since the government has made an effort at trying to annihilate the mysterious creatures, but having been there at the start of it all—he still has nightmares. Waking up some mornings dawns on him as a relief more than a disappointment to another inevitable day of fighting for survival, only if the ringing in his ears would spare him for a second. He’d wish for a quiet dream for once, like in the past when he could think of idling in a forest with blue-veined trees or sliding against waterfalls with a weapon too enchanted to exist; but they are only dreams. 

Childe rises from his bed belatedly, limbs sluggish and his heart aching in his chest. He turns his gaze to the alarm clock that still sits on his bed stand, the one with cracked glass and time that’s no longer accurate to the world in this state. He grimaces as he tries to unfold and stand straight, that dastardly searing pain slicing through his abdomen like the first time it happened. He stumbles forward to the closest wall, pressing the top of his scalp against it to look down as much as he needs. He doesn’t dare to look all the way down for fear of seeing the wound at its worst.

Lifting his shirt gingerly, he sees a slash plastered across his pale skin. It still bleeds as it used to a year ago and the skin swelling around it can only get more hideous. Even with stitches, the wound is adamant about reopening with every attempt at standing up or moving around but it’s hardly a reason why every morning is worse than the last. 

Childe drops his shirt grudgingly and looks, with bleary eyes, at the other side of the room. His apartment is sparse, to say the least—he has not tried to occupy it with needless things when it’s not even his own. On the other note that he would like to make this place seem more like a home, he’s not capable of going outside. His injury has rendered him almost completely immobile, leaving only little strength in his legs to limp around. The thought sickens him. Managing dignity, he drags himself across his bedroom walls until he reaches the living room. 

To no surprise, it’s in the same dishevelled state as it was in before. 

There are identical styrofoam boxes of takeaway food scattered across the ground, some spilled over and reeking of rotten meat while the others are only mementos of the time he has spent slogging around in this slump. He leans against the doorframe, one arm still over his abdomen and the other by his side, yet neither willing to move from their comfortable positions. Childe squints his eyes at the drawn windows as he hears shrill howls outside, then the shot of a rifle.   

His own is tucked away in a cupboard, in his living room. 

There is a secluded place in the apartment where sits, quietly, everything that is a reminder of the past life that he lived—something untouched and permanently overlooked despite being in clear vision. Childe sees the glint of an old badge he used to possess, glistening under the light of a kerosene lamp on the couch. He knows why it’s there and not with the rest of his things that are meant to be concealed from his mind, but it brings too much guilt that Childe has to pull his eyes away from it immediately. 

The doorbell rings but it’s a mechanism created to make only the quickest of sounds, enough to alert the residents inside a space. Childe snaps his neck towards the door and alert, hobbles towards it. He has a penknife in his pocket that he is trained to wield in even the most compromised states but as far as he knows, there are no sentient monsters in this apocalypse that can ring doorbells. He opens the door widely, confidently, and outside is a familiar face. The only familiar face. 

Signora stands tall, reaching almost the height of the doorway itself. Her heels have not gotten any taller but there seems to be another change every time she drops by. Sometimes she’s wearier and her eyes are sunken, other times her mascara drips so far down that it blends with the charcoal uniform. She wears a half-smile today, meaning there is news that could be half-worth it to hear or she brought a word of mockery in tow with the daily meals. Childe snatches the bag from her hand and counts one styrofoam box and two bags of water—he squints his eyes. “They’re not giving me anymore?”

“I snuck you extra water. They didn’t want to give you any,” Signora replies dully, her half-smile deflating into a frown. He shouldn’t have said anything, he realises, because seeing her so stern only reminds him of the stick-in-the-ass lieutenants and ass-high sergeants he had to deal with in the past. Childe nods, knowing he has nothing better to say. Allowing a boxy smile, he slowly takes a step backwards to close the door in front of him. Signora cuts him off, wrapping her fingers around the door to hold it open.

“I have some time to spare.” 

“My apartment smells like shit. You don’t want to be here.”

Signora glares at him. An expected reaction. She hates it when words are put into her mouth, and when people aren’t straightforward with her. The latter would know better than to reject her offer outright, having lived closely with her in barracks for three years and fighting alongside her for longer. “You reek of rotten flesh. I have visited you every day since your retirement and—”

“It was not a retirement,” Childe argues, looking at her through his lashes. His head has been hung low since the beginning of their conversation, only occasionally meeting her eye. His shoulders sag and he’s been hunched over for the sake of not provoking his injury for the umpteenth time but this topic riles him up every time.

He hates it—every time a comrade comes by and tries to tell him that leaving the army was his own choice. “I would’ve continued to fight with them, even with torn ligaments and my chest ripped to shreds by those monsters. That’s what he would’ve wanted too—”

His voice wavers there. Childe looks up, despite the ache in his neck, and he sees the pity flash over Signora’s eyes. She presses her lips thinly and hardens her expression. They pause for a moment that never seems to pass until there is a warning tremor that passes through the ground and for a split moment of realisation, Childe’s eyes widen. He grabs the latter by the wrist and yanks her inside his apartment, to no protest. As he slams the door shut, something splatters against the front door and an agitated growl echoes through the chaos.

Signora steps to the side, her hand trembling in his grip. She swallows thickly, her heart had stopped in her chest for just a moment. Childe turns his head to look at her pale face and when he lowers his gaze, he realises she hasn’t pulled away from him just yet. He looks up at her again and they lock eyes for a burning second.

Before a flame ignites, Signora snatches her wrist back and takes a step backwards into a pile of unwashed clothing. “You haven’t cleaned this place at all. It’s like living in a dumpster.”

Childe lifts his shirt to show his scar—obvious amongst many others—still crimson red and pulsating. The ripped skin around its edges fails to recover from the force of the talons that tore them and his platelets fail to bridge the gaping hole in his core that would continue to exist; unfixed. It’s an answer enough for the young woman as she starts to pick up old containers and lose sacks of drugs that can barely be called medicine. 

Childe lowers his hand and reaches a hand for Signora, trying to stop her, “What the hell are you doing, Lohefalter?” he yells. 

She slaps him away, not with any animosity or bite but out of desperate concern for the decaying man standing in front of her.  “Trying to help you,” she states with girth, tossing the trash into a bag. “And fuck, I hate the formalities. Clearly, you haven’t been telling me things but you’re not taking care of yourself at all and you haven’t gotten over what happened—” 

Signora rambles, and the latter lets her until he realises she intends to cross a dangerous boundary. He steps forward firmly and looks in her eyes with a glare. 

Childe exhales sharply. “You’re not helping me.”

Signora knows that look in his eyes—the faltering one with dying blue. He’s trying to be defiant, to convince himself and everybody else that he’s doing well. He will blame his situation on everything but his inability to move on from the… incident. It was an unspoken vow to never speak of it around him and everybody sought to keep it, but worse things happened and not long after, the attack occurred that would ruin what little of the world that Childe threaded together.

“Unless you can save me from this torture and fix me so I can return to the army, you’re being no help—”

“I’m no doctor, Childe, but living in a dumpster isn’t helping you either. Dude, I can’t even move my foot around without kicking into the trash,” Signora groans, stepping down on a box of uneaten noodles. It crushes under her feet and the remainder spills on the ground, staining her heavy-duty boots. 

With no electricity, it would’ve been stuffy enough in the apartment as it is but wearing armour and in a situation like this, the humidity kills her. She knows arriving only a second late from her duty would land her in hot water but seeing Childe like this has strung her last nerve. When her old associate doesn’t respond, she looks at him, deadpan, and with a sigh, beckons him over. 

“Come on. I’m not trying to make things worse for you.”

“I don’t even want to be around anymore, okay? The world’s ending and I’m stuck here with nothing to kill time and it’s the worst feeling in the world. You being here isn’t helping me because obviously nobody gives a crap about me anymore or wants me back on the squad. I was their best soldier.” 

“Give it a rest,” Signora snaps. “You weren’t the only one that lost him.”

And when the words leave her mouth, they suddenly feel so wrong. 

She looks up at him and her words crash down on her with so much effect that the screaming outside stops for a dreadful second, ears numbing to any sound. Signora does not move but she loses her grip on the bag in her hands and plastic clatters on the ground. It’s far too late.

She looks at Childe and for even a second, she wishes she felt bad but there is so much about how his shoulders sag even further and the veins press against his thinning skin that she is sick of seeing for so long.

There’s no lie in her words but the bitter residue of spitting them out continues to burn every time she tries to swallow. 

Signora, with cautious movements, picks up the bag again and continues shoving things into it as if nothing happened in the first place. The ringing in her ears has worsened since the settled silence and picking up trash for her unconsolable former affiliate isn’t making matters any better.

“Can’t you just drop it already?” Childe yells, and it’s so startling that Signora flinches. She snaps her head towards him, eyes squinted and with only a hint of betrayal in them until her ignorance dawns on her. Still, without those words being said, she knows Childe would never break out of it—this cycle of falling and falling again until, someday, he might walk in front of a monster and walk to his end himself. 

“Then pick yourself up to yourself if you’re not going to let me do it for you. Don’t fucking act like I was the one that kicked you out of the squadron when I was the only one that defended you in front of Lieutenant Tsaritsa. I’m the only one who has ever chosen to visit you even though you’re considered dead to the country with your fucking injuries and you really can’t bury yourself in this load of shit because you couldn’t save—” 

Childe slams his hand firmly against a table and sends a box of his things clattering on the ground. It scatters in the heaps of trash but it’s barely a concern when he’s seething and could do far worse with only his fists. He locks eyes with Signora and there is only rage as he bellows, “You didn’t fucking love him like I did. Yes, you told me I shouldn’t be with my comrade and yes, I should’ve taken your fucking warning but I couldn’t help myself and I couldn’t save him. You don’t know what it’s like living with that guilt."

He beats his fist against his chest and it hurts, and worse than that, it burns—igniting a disastrous flame down in the pits of his stomach which had borne his regret silently till this point. 

Signora looks down on him, with no real emotion in her eyes, as he fights against her with every last bit of his strength. He raises his fingers to her and spits in her face, and with such little distance between them, anything regrettable could happen in the next second. She forces herself to maintain an unperturbed expression but she knows, deeply, that Aether’s death was something she shouldn’t have brought up at all. She lived with the guilt too—of losing people she loved—but Childe has reached a point of madness that she can’t save him from. She would’ve liked to try. “So be it.” 

“Yeah, walk off like you always do—” 

Signora hardens her jaw as yet another gunshot ricochets through the air, and with another loud thud, the carcass of a deadly beast collapses to the floor. “Shut the fuck up, Seargent,” she demands, turning to look at him one last time. She pulls out a rifle from her bag and carefully places another hand on a handheld, preparing to step outside the door, given the number of lurking creatures they must’ve attracted to the area with their yelling. 

“I fucking hate you,” Childe yells out to her sourly. The door shuts firmly to his face. He stares with his jaw parted in shock until a small, defeated sound squeezes out of his throat, leaving it drier than it was before. He stumbles backward onto the couch, jostling past greasy plastic bags and tubs of painkillers that failed to kill him as he wished for the longest time.

Childe falls on something soft and fabric rips under his weight. He chokes out a sob. 

(“Fatui” Military Records 

Recorded: YEAR X, 01-01 

“What the hell are you doing?” Childe screams bitterly, yanking off his gas mask as he storms into the men’s barracks. He’s not supposed to be here unless he’s injured because his comrades fighting at the front lines need all the help they can get but Childe might as well have been shot in the heart, after hearing the disastrous news. He flings his mask to the ground and breathes heavily, heat spreading across his face like an unrestrained virus and he looks almost sick from shock. 

Aether stands in the middle of the cluttered space, in front of his bed with his essentials packed into a bag and a gun in his hands. His face is duller than it usually is; void of the youthful innocence and the shine that the average soldier loses during the war. His face is messy with mud and ash—meaning he hadn’t left the battlefield much earlier. Neither of them flinches as a grenade is set off in the distance, blasting another flesh-eating beast to smithereens. Aether does not once look up and the tension between them only grows into a snarling beast that tears either of them apart. “It’s my duty.” 

He continues shoving things into his bag mindlessly. 

Childe storms forward, a firm thud in the ground every time his boots march against the concrete. He doesn’t hesitate to step close—to cross the invisible boundary that should’ve been avoided but seconds before he can grip Aether’s arm to turn him, his hand is slapped away. He recoils and another bomb is released in the distance, rippling a massive tremor through the ground. “Don’t touch me, Tartaglia. You can’t stop me from doing this,” Aether says, but with tearful eyes. 

“If you really wanted to go, you wouldn’t sound so guilty,” Childe argues, no less stubborn. He knows he is being selfish and he knows, in every way, that he should not be when this was the expected outcome from the very beginning. It was a decision doomed to bite them in the backs eventually but neither of them wanted to count on it happening; or at least, one of them. “Aether, what the fuck? Are you seriously planning on leaving me here? You weren’t even going to fucking tell me—why the hell did I have to hear it from Scaramouche before you?”

Aether bites back tears. He zips his bag tightly shut and stands up straight, fitting his protective armour. He adjusts his waistbelt and ties his knotty hair into a ponytail. Such simple actions, yet each leading to the same end that neither of them can stop. “Aether,” Childe orders with force. 

Aether stands at attention, peeling his eyes away from his packing for only one moment. “I can’t abandon my sister. Even for you. Scaramouche wasn’t supposed to tell you in the first place and yes, I didn’t intend for you to know. If I went missing altogether, you would’ve forgotten me at ease and we would’ve both been fine in our ways—” 

Childe grabs Aether by his face, throttling him with both hands. “Can you even hear yourself?” And he wished so desperately that he didn’t have to look into those sad, hopeless eyes but he feels a part of his heart chip away every second he searches for colour in that fading honey brown. With every second, the glow of the flame they once had diminishes and the weight hits him worse than the moment before; until the final epiphany crashes down on him that the man in front of him is not the Aether he loved. 

But still, he tries to salvage it—he tells himself that there are parts of their relationship that they can mend and that by some chance, he’ll muster words powerful enough to convince Aether to stay but his palms feel empty in the next second and one of his cheeks burns up. Childe’s eyes widen but he cannot be more surprised. “If you walk out, we’ll never see each other again—” he screams at the top of his lungs and they’re no longer orders but pleas from one lover to another. He presses his hand against his wounded cheek and watches haplessly as Aether flees from him. “Aether. God, can’t you hear me?”

Aether turns on his heel one last time, cocking the pistol in his hand. One hand on his wrist, and the other around the trigger of the gun, he holds it in the air; right where he shouldn’t. Childe stands back, jaw agape. He presses his lips together and slowly stands upright, raising his hands over his head. “I can’t let you stop me from making this decision,” Aether spits, expression darkening. His voice breaks but he doesn’t allow even a hint of his sadness to show, “We were nothing. Nothing happened.”

“I fucking hate you,” Childe berates him and they’re the only words he would’ve meant. A small, guilty smile curls its way onto the latter’s lips as he surrenders a final nod of acknowledgement. Lowering his weapon, he fixes his bag on both his shoulders and lowers his mask. It was a fitting farewell; 

till it wasn’t.) 

Childe scrunches his nose in disgust as a pungent stench as bad as a rotting corpse hits his nose. He snaps his head towards the door and to his horror, he sees it left ajar. His eyes widen as each beat reminds him of an aching possibility that something has gone wrong and that he shouldn’t have raised his voice that way—and oh God, he promised himself he’d never raise his voice again, that he’d never treat his friends like crap no matter how much they hurt him because, in times like this when the world feels like purgatory, he shouldn’t abandon them.

He shouldn’t have yelled at Signora because he might lose her next and he’ll never get the chance to say sorry—but when he opens the door, he finds a vishap dying at his feet, its corrupt energy dissipating into the air. He turns to the blood splatters on the floor and no surprise, the rest of the dimly-lit apartment corridor is dirty with remnants of destruction.

Beyond him, he sees the bodies of ancient creatures risen from cores of evil, swinging their talons through the air and slashing across buildings in their rage.

With another sound, Childe knows he would attract the attention of the skulking monsters slithering around sinfully in the dark corners of the building but with Signora nowhere to be seen and his chest burning badly, he’d rather die than live with more guilt. He swallows a coil of fear and hardens his gaze, pulling a dagger from the switch compartment. 

“Signora?” he yells from his place and for a moment of deadly calm, all the sounds in the world still. His heart beats at a ravenous pace and with a sidestep to the left, he dodges the scale of an agitated vishap.

They are especially dangerous—and have been—since the beginning of the apocalypse but Childe knows he is better than one gash across his body, that the army could’ve disposed of him but he is more than the weak-hearted spirit that moped around in a shabby apartment for months. He sees aggravated whopperflowers curling their way up the building walls, twisting and turning their petals and spinning fatal spikes in his direction.

Childe runs. “Signora?” he shouts again. 

A bevy of vishaps rolls after him at their fastest, eyes glowing purple like the colour of poisoned miasma. He has overheard enough conversations of the medics’ to know that a single hit is deadly enough to kill a man half his size. Childe is in nothing but a sweater and jeans, but being exposed to the air this way with no mask or gear to protect his skin is, by far, the most stupid decision he has ever made in his life. 

“Signora!” he calls her name a final time, praying to the world that the slip of his words hadn’t led to the death of another friend. He hacks and slashes mindlessly, relying purely on instinct to save himself from the wrath of the monsters he brought upon himself.

Childe turns around the corner to the staircase, rushing down at his quickest when he sees white not far beyond him. The figure turns her head before he reaches her but the adrenaline has his head spinning and the toxic miasma in the atmosphere has weakened his muscles worse than they already were. Childe hears a voice before he crashes into something soft and the deafening sound of gunshots reverberates through the air. 

For the one second that Childe closes his eyes, his head feels heavier than it ever has. He wrenches his neck to look over his shoulder and sees the sputtering carcasses of treacherous beasts dying in the stairwell behind him, slathered in a pool of blood. “What the fuck were you thinking when you decided to run out here?” Signora scolds him, voice muffled into an animatronic-like sound because of her mask.

Childe raises his head and with hazy eyes, meets her icy blues. “I thought you were going to die.” 

“This motherf…” Signora grimaces, pushing him up onto his feet. She curses under her breath and pulls a mask out of her uniform to press against his face, only for the time being. “You’re supposed to know not to run out in the middle of the damn world without any armour. Did you lose your braincells?” she scolds, holding him by his underarms to force him onto both his feet. Her gaze falls in her attempt to help him and at that very moment, her words come to a halt. Signora bends and notices blood pooling from his hip, gushing out at an abnormal rate.

Terror-stricken, she looks at Childe and there’s no strength in his limbs.

His face is pale and sweat trickles down the side of his forehead, to no relief at all. 

“I smelled something bad the second you left like someone was dying. Fresh blood and you know monsters’ blood doesn’t stink like human blood. If something happened to you, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself,” Childe admits to her blatantly, barely thinking but as honest as he could be.

Signora makes a face at him, barely affectionate. Though she would like to be, her exasperation emerges victorious above her tumultuous wave of emotions. It should be predictable enough that Childe would be foolish enough to run out in the middle of an infested hallway when he is barely in the condition to walk.

“Besides, if it were me, you’d do the same,” he mutters with the smirk of a bastard. 

“I certainly wouldn’t,” she scoffs, turning a head away. Pressing a piece of torn cloth against his re-opened wound, she hoists his arm around her shoulder and lugs him back to his apartment. 

(“Fatui” Military Records 

Recorded: YEAR X, 01-08 

Childe sits bitterly at the corner of the shelter, facing away so anyone would know better than to approach him. His mind is in a stir and there’s nothing he can do to save himself from this mess. It has, approximately, been a week since Aether’s leave and six sleepless nights. It was a snippet of knowledge he swore to keep to himself, knowing that an announcement would cause unnecessary speculation amongst the soldiers about the reasons behind his leave. Someday or another, he would receive an official document in black and white, confirming Aether’s transfer to a separate mission; to find his sister. 

Then, he will find other things to blame—apart from his inability to convince him, for not being too soft-hearted in the wee hours when there was nobody else to watch what they did, for not acting on the promises that they threaded together. 

Childe clenches his jaw in an attempt to manage his anger but the thought of watching Aether walk out of the barracks has him spiralling again. The harrowing ache of bearing the pain of his lost love has him pressing his forehead against the walls of the barracks. He hears voices at the back of his head, then the return of soldiers marching inside to recuperate. He turns his head and notices a handful of glances in his direction, each with awkward smiles and pitiful stares. 

Childe looks back around with no change in his sentiments, forcibly tying a bandage around his hand to suppress an old wound. He bites one end of the bandage with his teeth, all while forcing his many faults from bombarding his mind endlessly. He’s in the middle of a war, goddamnit, and to sit here while he’s displaced from his own family in the desolate world is unthinkable for a man of his spirit. 

He can’t be fazed, and of all things, he mustn’t blame himself. Aether chose to make the decision; to leave him and the rest of them behind to look for his sister when she’s been missing for too long. Even though they promised each other they would never leave each other, that they would be the last two to live till the end of the world—he should have known better. Childe always promised that, when Aether would go, he would come along and they’d look for Lumine together. 

And Aether would always tell him, “It’s something I have to do on my own. I don’t know where she is—well, she could be on the other side of the universe. I’d still search for her, even then, until I see her body and find out what happened with my own eyes. I requested a special undercover mission with the sergeant herself but she won’t permit so many of us to go and… if anything, I don’t want to rope you into my mess when you’re one of the army’s best soldiers.” 

To that, Childe would always promise him that there was nothing worth in the world more than the people he cares about—with the apocalypse taking everything from him, including his family, he only had Aether left to love. A bitterness engulfs his heart with thorns as he dwells on his loss. What used to exist as grief in a tiny, concealable form twists into anger and then hatred. Childe rips off his bandage with his teeth and then fixes his gear tighter than would allow comfort, ignoring the voices beckoning to him in the foreground. 

“Sergeant, we have received unfortunate news on one of the soldiers,” Viktor marches towards him with hastened steps. He is one of the more reliable generals, loyal and committed to the army for a long time. Had he been stronger, he could’ve easily joined the higher ranks. He pauses at attention at a respectful distance, saluting him. Anxiety riddled his expression, he seems inclined to keep his words to himself but Childe holds up a hand, forcibly stopping him from speaking. 

“I am not in the mood right now, Viktor. Send them to the medical bay or have Signora deal with the matter, I don’t want to be bothered right now,” Childe instructs firmly as he stands. This news only reminds him of the fact that his moping will do no good for the world, or himself, and that he would rather die with a bullet to his heart than succumb to self-pity. He wipes his hand against his face, smearing mud and liquid gasoline against it—if neither, then it must be one of the substances he messed around with in the armoury. Viktor continues to fumble with his hands, uncharacteristic of himself. 

Scanning the surroundings, Childe notices the frequent glances being shot across the room between the soldiers, each wearing an expression of solemnity and paleness. Just beyond the flapping fabrics of the shelter’s temporary walls, he sees the flashes of torches as, seemingly, entire teams of soldiers march across the ground in a frenzy. He hears a buzz in his walkie-talkie and then, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, he begins to realise something is wrong. 

“Emergency message for Tartaglia. Read back, over!” 

Childe holds the walkie-talkie up to his mouth, watching as the soldiers fall into an eerie silence around him. His heart races in his chest, and a creeping sense of doom slithers in like a menace. “Tartaglia, reporting. Over.” 

“Corporal Aether has fled the central camp and has removed all tracking devices. Major Tsaritsa confirmed that there were no official instructions to dispatch him to any mission, and reports state that he was meant to be on the frontlines. What was one of your soldiers doing astray, Tartaglia? Over,” Dottore scolds him, with no more bite than an exchange between two soldiers. Of all matters at hand, however, none of them make any sense to him. Childe furrows his eyebrows as the words of his associate echo through his mind, garbling into senseless gibberish by the end of a long silence. 

It can’t be. He wouldn’t have. 

Childe fixes the straps on his shoulders and scans the room with a venomous stare, warning each of his soldiers from making a move that would be dire on their part. None of them have opened their mouths since but there are whispers in the air—the embers of a flame yet to be ignited. It’s no lie that each of the soldiers is smouldering with the heat of their sergeant’s raw gaze scrutinising them. Childe composes himself and upon clearing his throat, storms out of the barracks. 

Once outside and away from the watchful, curious eyes of the soldiers, he continues, “I was personally informed that Aether was dispatched on a special mission. Alone. I know no details of the operation even though he was formerly under my squadron, I swear on my name. Over,” Childe presses his hand to his mouth, chewing his nails nervously as he watches the chaos unfold in the camp. He is uncharacteristically nervous and he cannot make sense of it; it must be Aether’s absence driving him mad. 

The voice on the other side of the walkie-talkie starts to muffle. Another voice joins, a woman’s. “Break, break, break!” she interrupts. Childe taps his foot against the ground impatiently, unable to make sense of the situation. He can’t predict what the situation could ripple into; if he’d be forced to reveal secrets that he wasn’t meant to keep in the first place. 

Aether lied to him, and worst of all, Childe would forgive him still. 

“Lohefalter, reporting. Priority report—Tartaglia, we found him. Perimeter defence found him lying on the other side of the electrified mesh gates, heavily injured. We have sent out a medical team to assist him but he was confirmed to be a defector so we must take action immediately—” 

Then, she keeps talking and talking but all the words in the world fall deaf to his ears. Childe’s eyes widen with the slowest of movements as time crashes to an abrupt halt for what feels like a lacking time. His hand gradually loosens grip on the device, a chill running up his spine. There are no words to describe the emotion that tumbles into him, leaving with it such a big crater that he finds himself unable to speak. 

Childe looks around, his gaze going hazier but in the pitch darkness illuminated barely by the faraway lights of the guarding lamps, he can’t make out even silhouettes to ground himself. It’s as though he’s dreaming. 

How he wishes he were. 

“Tartaglia? Tartag—Are you there, sergeant? We need to know your decision—” 

“Where is he, Rosalyne? Repeat. Repeat,” he demands. Childe knows he must maintain his calm, that he should not act on his emotions as would state the most basic of rules when becoming an officer of his ranking. But when it comes to Aether—he has been driven mad. He is aware of the consequences he must bear as a result of his misconduct but he could never sentence Aether to his hatred. 

“Control yourself, Tartaglia. Stop thinking with your heart. Over,” Dottore interjects. 

“He’s at Block A, intentions unclear. We are unable to bring him into the camp due to the infestation of aggravated vishaps outside. Most of our squadrons have been dispatched to survey the situation of the city so we cannot afford an attack on the base. I suggest we follow standard protocol. Over,” Signora replies, trying to calm herself. It’s a situation they’ve never dealt with before—an escaped soldier crawling back to camp while barely on the verge of living. 

Childe knows precisely what she means by ‘standard protocol’: to open fire upon appearance. The thought sends his stomach churning and with the flurry of it all suddenly weighing on his shoulders, he’s seconds away from emptying his stomach on the bare ground. “There was a miscommunication of instructions on my part. I instructed him to scry the outer areas for officer Lumine, despite knowing the risks involved. It crossed my mind. I failed to convey the instructions to Major Tsaritsa so please—” his voice breaks there, struggling to add more worth to his lie. “Do not open fire. I repeat, do not open fire. I will report to Block A myself and send the backups to guard the perimeters. Over,” he commands. 

“Understood, Sergeant. Over and out,” Signora reports, cutting the connection. The other voices echo her words and repeat the same words, Childe drops his walkie-talkie. He presses his hand against his mouth, lurching over as a bead of cold sweat rolls down his forehead. He lied for Aether—one that could threaten his position in the army at that. Childe slaps his cheeks firmly, snapping himself out of his thoughts. With time running thin, he doesn’t have even a second to spare to think. 

He runs inside the barracks, all to pale faces and soldiers standing at attention with their seargent’s reappearance. Childe claps his hands together and orders them to rise promptly to their feet, instructing them to rush to the front block with hopes of retrieving Aether from the danger zone with stronger defence. He fixes his armour on and then fetches a rifle from the armoury, ensuring he is well-prepared. 

Before he embarks, he sees a reflection of himself in a shard of broken glass. For the first time in a while, he realises how much the apocalypse had taken from him, much less the rest of the world. They were at a war with thousands of sinister things, and most of the time, with themselves. Childe pulls his mask over his face and marches out of the barracks, in unison with the deafening thunder of military boots.) 

Childe flinches as he awakes to white light in front of him, startled by the abrupt end to an unwelcome nightmare—well, unwelcome, but an often visitor regardless. He has gotten so accustomed to falling asleep to them that the guilt that settles afterwards is a well-learned feeling. He squints as he follows a floating white light passing from one side of the room to the other, dangling mid-air in the darkness. He should be scared but years of training in an abyssal wilderness have taught him to be alert to only the right things; and people. “How long was I out?”  

“Few hours,” Signora answers, placing the lamp on the bedside table.

There’s not much furniture in the apartment. Most of them are destroyed, and the functioning ones are little things built into a usable state for the sake of living a survivable life.

Childe slides up against the bed frame, clutching the wound on his abdomen out of habit as he shakes himself awake. Signora’s gaze falls to the position of his arm and offers the grace of telling him, “It started bleeding badly. I thought you got spiked by one of those creatures but turns out, it started acting up on its own.”

“Yeah,” Childe chuckles hoarsely, rolling his tongue over his teeth. “It does that sometimes.” 

Signora leans against his cupboard, tossing him a packet of water. She watches him with a particular look in her eyes—the one that’s mixed between judgemental and concerned. There is a calculated way that she ever shows worry, and it’s rarely ever through her words. It’s only when she does things that she would never do that one would realise she does care; like passing her intolerable former associate a packet of water instead of asking him to do it himself. “I heated the meal in your microwave thing.”

“Thanks,” Childe replies casually, not meaning it. He sits up slowly, enough to sit up straight before his posture curves permanently. They say it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t happen to a grown man but scoliosis is a problem he doesn’t need in the middle of an apocalypse. While he’s drinking the packaged mineral water, he asks, “You think they’d put poison in my food? Cyanide or something. Easy to find.” 

Signora squints her eyes at him. Then, she purses her lips, expression softening. “Maybe.” 

“They want me to die, don’t they?” Childe laughs. He has gotten used to it by this point, and to hate anybody for it would be ridiculous when they’ve been treating him like he’s dead for the past few months. It wasn’t like kicking him out was enough for them, but they didn’t want any unnecessary humans like him, injured and sure to be dead meat the second humans start catching whatever the monsters did. “They’d never admit they booted me because I’m useless to them, though. Tsaritsa gave me a lot of crap about how I didn’t do the right thing by sending Aether off when I shouldn’t have and—” Childe stops himself there. His hand hovers mid-air and he diverts his gaze. He takes another swig out of his water like it’s alcohol or anything that could get him high out of his mind.

“You lied, didn’t you?” Signora asks; plain and simple. She asks with an arched eyebrow and Childe looks at her, thinking she could consider doing makeup so they don’t look so awkward half the time. He pouts at her childishly, only annoyed she’d ever ask the question. When the moment passes, he averts his gaze from her and tilts his head back to finish the rest of his water. 

“Yeah.” Childe drops his arm to his side, staring at his ceiling with the remnants of the mineral water on his lips. He doesn’t like the wetness but the water tastes horribly artificial too. He’ll get over it. “Any new monsters appearing around the city or something? Humour me. I miss the fun stuff.” 

Signora’s reluctant to tell him too much. She glances towards the sole window in the bedroom, but the curtains are drawn and she’d know if there were any cameras in the area. The army does not bother with cameras, especially when the enemies aren’t the humans and Childe isn’t of their concern. They’ve wanted him dead for a while, sure, but they hardly know of his location apart from Signora happening to know of his whereabouts after scrying him out herself. 

“You know of the Geovishaps, the fucked up older brother of the Vishaps, right?” Childe nods, paying close attention to her words. “Turns out their hatchlings are hostile as well. There’s a metaspecies called Primo Geovishaps which is the—” Signora pauses to think. 

“Fucked up grand-uncle of the regular Vishaps?” Childe muses. 

Signora shrugs. “Yeah. We suspect there’s a more dangerous enemy than the ones that we’ve discovered so far, however. Most of the cities have been cleared of the normal Vishaps but they’re eventually going to keep returning until we find out who’s responsible for awakening these monsters in the first place. Still, we’re in a better state than we were two years ago,” she elaborates.

It’s only expected of her to be so precise with her knowledge, to be well-kept up with the information of the operations within the army. It has always been efficient and with her being promoted to Platoon Sergeant, she’s had a bigger contribution to the success rate of the missions than before. 

Childe manages a smile, nodding to her words. He holds himself back from saying anything bitter, this being the first time he’s had a proper conversation with anybody in two years. He doesn’t owe Signora his sourness, especially after their earlier argument so he keeps his mouth shut and instead, focuses his attention on standing up without embarrassing himself. Childe drags his shoulder against the wall and defying the weakness in his eyes, pushes himself onto his legs. 

Signora reserves the temptation to make any comment about his weak state—or so, she tries. “It’s been two years since you got the injury. It should’ve dried up by now.” 

“It should’ve,” Childe repeats, not facing her. “But it didn’t.”

“I’m inclined to think it has something to do with—”

Childe sighs loudly, cutting her off mid-sentence. He grips his hand around the doorway and gives her an exasperated look, a silent warning before his last strand of patience truly snaps. “It doesn’t, okay? And you don’t have to bring him up every time we try to have a conversation because I’m perfectly fine,” he grimaces and continues to hobble into the sitting room. Signora follows him with her eyes, arms folded. She ponders on it for a good second until she hears metal clatter in the living room. She swears under her breath and rushes with the lamp in her hand. 

“Come on, Ajax,” she grimaces in return, watching him double over at the corner of a table. A metal pot lies by his foot on the ground so to be standing there after knocking into a table’s edge in a house that’s on the verge of falling apart—Childe is not perfectly fine. Signora helps him into a chair and pushes him into a position that’s comfortable for sitting. Like a tired sister would with her infant brother, in a step-by-step process, she opens the styrofoam box with heated porridge and white chicken and slides it towards him.

Then, she lays out a plastic fork and spoon on either side of the box and stands with one hand pressed against the table. “Is lying in your blood?”

Childe lifts his shirt to reveal his bleeding wound. “Wanna check?” 

“Fuck you,” Signora groans, pressing a hand against her forehead. He shrugs, leaning forward against the table while eyeing the food. He’s not picky but something about living today seems especially difficult and being on the precipice of a throbbing headache is no help either. Reluctantly, for the sake of seeming fine in front of his guest, he picks up the spoon and shovels a spoonful of the mush into his mouth. Tasteless, as always. It comes with no surprise. 

Signora continues to watch as Childe eats with no change in his expression, uttering no word of complaint or even a groan. She shouldn’t be surprised that two years of isolation has changed him this much but their exchange from that morning had given her some hope that he was just as valiant as before. “We need to talk about something important. I came here for a reason and I bought myself a few hours with enough trouble so you’ll have to hear every word, whether or not you like it,” she begins, straightening her back to assert her words. 

Childe seems nonchalant towards her suggestions. Instead, boredly, he continues to throw food into his mouth and swallows without chewing in a lifeless motion. “It’s not like you’ll give me an option,” he sputters, bits of his food flying out along with a reminder of the lacking courtesy he still kept from his days in the military.  

Signora lets out a huff. It’s a conversation better to have over and done with. “You should leave this city.”

“Nope,” Childe says flatly, closing the styrofoam box. It makes a deflated sound as he twists the small jutted extension back into the hole to keep it shut so the chicken he didn’t eat wouldn’t spill out. He doesn’t meet her eye when he denies her suggestion fully but he means it in all seriousness.

Signora takes a firm step closer but the latter rises from his chair, stopping her from moving forward.

“I have been living here for the past two years, well and good, and with no help from the Fatui. It was all I had going for me after they didn’t let me meet my family one last time before they started evacuating the public. Then, I had Aether and I seriously can’t talk about him right now.” 

“So that’s what you’re going to do? Stay in this city when it’s still a hazardous zone because you used to live here once before the apocalypse began, and maybe there are some remnants of the life you once lived,” Signora scoffs, annoyed by his forced ignorance. When he doesn’t reply in a beat, she snatches the chance as an opportunity to continue, “You’re not letting it get through to you, Ajax. There’s nothing left for you here. You won’t find your old home, the old places you used to go to, or the old things you used to love. They’re all fucking destroyed. Hell, this apartment isn’t even your own. I don’t know why you force yourself to settle when you could just move on.” 

“I can’t move on,” Childe retorts. “And it’s not your fucking place to tell me what to do. Back then, Aether and I promised we’d come back to a place like this—an apartment in the middle of the city that’s my home and we’d learn everything about it. I’d teach him everything I learned and loved and—God, you wouldn’t get it, you really wouldn’t—” he blurts, flailing his arms agitatedly.

“I lost my husband,” Signora reminds coldly.

“At least you got to marry him,” Childe scoffs. “What did I have with Aether?” 

“Sitting here and burying yourself in the trash until you die isn’t how you want to waste your life, you dumbass,” Signora swears. Her eyebrows are creased so deeply, that they may etch permanent marks into her reddened face. She hoped he would listen; that he would finally give up on grieving and decide to move on but two years has done nothing for him and she’s no saint either. 

She glances towards the door, knowing full-well that the second she storms out, she’ll give up on him for good so, with all her might, she scolds, “I know he meant something to you. I know you loved him but I know what it’s like to lose the person you care about the most and watch them die in front of your eyes. Sure, you can blame me and tell me I’m in a better position because the army keeps me busy but I still have to face nighttimes the same way you do and I still know what it’s like living with a fucking stain you can never get rid of.” 

Childe’s expression morphs into one of guilt as he leans against the table, relying on it for the tremendous support that’s keeping him from falling. He’s on the verge of tears but a soldier knows better than to cry, retired or not. He locks eyes with Signora, paying heed to every single one of her words, however much they pierce the heart he’d locked away with chains. Protecting it has done nothing for him except cause more despair. Childe inhales sharply and despite it all, he listens. 

“So, Ajax—please, use your goddamn brain and live your life. Move to a different city, somewhere that isn’t infested with monsters like here. It doesn’t have to be far, it could even be the nearest one. Find a damn hobby. Stop killing yourself over something that happened years ago. That wound down there,” Signora takes a moment to breathe and points at his stomach. “I know damn well that it doesn’t hurt as much as the wound you opened up there,” and then lifts her finger to his chest.  

Childe lets out a knowing laugh. “It’ll end up killing me one day.”

“It’d suck if you died here,” Signora mourns. “Your corpse would become one with the trash.”

“Fuck you,” Childe snorts, letting out a laugh. The latter allows a chuckle in return.

When a second passes and their moment of light-heartedness dies, the silence that settles between them is uncomfortable. There should be an answer; an undecided one, as of now, until the decision is said out loud but with the way Childe is twiddling his thumbs, it’s like he anticipates it too. “I will… consider your suggestion,” he says with a deep breath. 

“A yes, then?” Signora confirms. She knows, that asking him to vanish from Snezhnaya would only cause more trouble on her part—she’d have to explain how she had no involvement with it, and that he’d chosen to escape because the living conditions were so terrible where he was staying. Being a part of the Fatui has taught her enough about lying and adding to her sins, but at this point, does nothing. 

“You’d never see me again, then,” Childe remarks, turning to dispose of his unfinished meal in the trashcan he has never once used in all his time of living here. His nose has gotten used to the stench of rotting food, except human flesh, which is an acquired scent—he doesn’t hope to learn it anytime soon, however. Signora only rolls her eyes at his statement and starts equipping her gear, finally reminded that she cannot seek homage here forever. 

She looks up at him as she’s fitting her armour. With a confident smirk, she says, “I’d find you.”

“Only if you wanted to,” he corrects, smirking back. 

Signora fills the air with a laugh; a final one. She clicks her straps firmly shut and ensures her armour is fixed tightly on her. The Vishaps are rarely active around nighttime but there are plenty of other dangers to be worried about at the time. Childe simply watches it all from his distance, not saying or doing anything. He rolls over his words, again and again, not to say they get easier the more he thinks. A fresh start, he thinks, watching his old friend with a blank look in his eyes.

When she’s done, she pulls out a pamphlet she’d hidden in her clothes underneath and sneaks it to him. “A map of the safe zones. The subway is the safest method, it’s downtown.” 

“Nice,” Childe remarks, tucking it into the hem of his pants. He walks Signora to the door, allowing a small smile on his face in farewell. She doesn’t look sad to leave; in fact, prideful more than anything, as though she would at the end of a successful mission. “Maybe I’ll vanish tonight. Go somewhere new and bleed out under the moonlight.” He steps back to open the door. 

“Goodnight, Sergeant,” Signora greets, giving him a firm nod. 

Childe nods back in acknowledgement, feeling a flicker of the pride he’d long lost. “Goodnight.”

And as he shuts the door to her, he hears a gunshot ricochet through the air and the dying howl of a monster that had been waiting close by. 

(Unknown Source

Recorded: PRE-X, 01-01 

It always starts with something. There’s a point in everybody’s lives when it feels like the world is too big, and there is too much to choose from. It can be intimidating for some of us, but some would argue that the world is better this way than when it’s too small and leaves enough space for only one person. It’s the kind of matter that could be talked about for hours—if you have the heart for it. Not many do. 

Childe props himself up onto his shoulder, lying on the damp grass, moist with dew. He wiggles his eyebrows as the young man lying next to him, only to be shoved away with a hand to his face. He chuckles, a little too loudly, and Aether panics. “You’re going to get us caught,” he hisses and out of instinct, pounces on the latter. He pushes the latter onto the ground, locking him between his arms with one of his hands pressed to Childe’s lips. “We’ll get into trouble,” Aether continues to berate, oblivious to the position he’s gotten himself into. 

Childe lies, stunned for a second. His eyes smile not long later and Aether can feel a smirk beneath his palms. It’s only, belatedly, that he starts to notice their compromising position. He retracts his hands, still sitting hip-to-hip with someone he shouldn’t be trusted alone. Heat rises on his cheeks—and that’s the cute thing about him—how the redness doesn’t spare even an inch of his face. “You’re fucking adorable, man,” Childe swears, hopelessly enamoured. 

Aether does that thing where his eyes widen in shock (like Childe’s compliments aren’t so predictable already) and a glimmer floats through the honey brown like stars. His face gets visibly redder if it can, and he holds onto Childe by his wrists. He pouts, “You need to stop.” 

Childe tries to push himself up again, a sultry smile growing on his already-bruised lips, “I want to kiss you so badly right now. Let me,” he pleads. His voice is a careful whisper and he’s trying to be quiet for once in his life but he only sounds that much more seductive this way. Aether presses a hand against his mouth, forcing him down on the ground again. No less embarrassed, however, he knows how to pretend in front of the bastard. 

“Say please,” Aether raises an eyebrow.

Childe visibly rolls his eyes beneath him. He rises once again, pushing the latter back by the shoulder and switching their positions at ease. He wouldn’t say it’s a matter of him being stronger—Aether could put up a good fight. Only if he wanted to. “Isn’t it scandalous? A corporal and his—” he starts to tease but the latter yanks him down by the collar and stops him in the middle of his sentence. Childe grins into the kiss, rubbing his thumb against Aether’s jaw. And there are big things like this that spark enough of a fire in a small world; that makes every space feel enough even though it’s shared with two people. 

Aether pulls away first, but he doesn’t release his grip on Childe’s uniform. He breathes heavily, their faces in the same proximity they were before. With the sun rising beyond them in the yonder, they should be trekking off to the barracks before the sergeants drag them by the year against their will. Aether is, also, the first to turn his head away to scan the surroundings with those worrisome eyes. “Can’t you look only at me for once?” Childe pleads, awfully sweet. 

Aether sighs. In a small world, there are smaller things too—like the things people do. The things that make you happy, the things that make you dream, and the things that drive you mad in the most beautiful way. Childe’s face glows under the shine of the sunlight and with that doggish grin on his face, Aether finds himself too distracted to answer. “We have to report back before the sun rises…” 

Childe twirls Aether’s braid with his finger. “Yeah. But I want to be with you.” 

Aether cracks a smile. “I guess we can talk.”

“We’ll talk then,” Childe relents, rolling over onto the grass behind him. He heaves a happy sigh and tucks his arms behind his head, watching as the teal slowly seeps into the vermillion sky. “What do you want to talk about?” he asks, turning to look at Aether. 

“What do you want to talk about~?” the latter returns his question.

“How I like the way the colour of my eyes reflect in yours when we’re staring, or the way your lips get kinda purple after we kiss, or the drumming of your heart because it makes mine race too—” Childe smiles, listing off sweet-nothings off the tips of his fingers. It’s no wonder why so many people call him a tease, but it’s incredibly difficult to think of him that way when he sounds so sincere too. Aether hushes him before he can continue, burying his face in his hands. 

“Is there nothing else in this vast, vast world you want to talk about apart from me? Someone you miss, or something you want to do? Let me learn about you, Ajax,” Aether pleads, turning his head. They meet eyes and for a second, Childe thinks he can’t be serious. He tries to laugh it off but he knows how to read Aether’s voice and he hasn’t sensed anything but earnestness from it. By the end of his laughter, Aether’s still watching him with wide eyes, expecting him to talk. Childe is… surprised, is all. He didn’t think there’d be a person who was interested in learning him. 

With an innocent smile, he turns his head away and recalls. “Someone I miss—my family. My younger siblings, especially, Teucer and Tonya. I’m supposed to see them at the end of the year once I get a break from the army for a week. Can’t wait for that, heh,” Childe says. “What I want to do… I’d like to do a lot of things. There are a lot of things to do in such a big world, aren’t there?”

“You don’t always have to think about the bigger world,” Aether argues. “There are plenty of things you could be happy with in your own smaller world, like… well, I don’t know what you like. You talk too much about me,” he replies bashfully. 

Childe shrugs nonchalantly. “I do like you a lot. It could be enough to fulfil a world of wishes. What about you, then, pretty boy?” He turns his whole body, lying on his elbow to face Aether to offer his full attention. He widens his eyes too, nothing you’d expect from a soldier with brutal skill and calloused hands like his own. Aether likes his hands as they are, though. He likes too many things about Childe. 

“What about me?” Aether jokes. 

“Come on,” Childe whines, reaching a hand to tickle him. 

Aether slaps it away, knowing full-well what he intends to do. He turns his body too, lying on his shoulder with a distant look in his eyes. They’ve never had trouble facing each other like this, and it’s the best part about being in love with each other. They could watch each other for hours and they’d never get sick of it—except, maybe, the butterflies that leave them dizzy sometimes. “I miss my sister,” Aether blurts in what seemed to be a welcoming silence.  

Childe is a little taken aback by his answer, only because he had never heard Aether talk about his family much. He has mentioned a name occasionally when they’re with the other generals, or when he’s asked about the lily-crested headbands in his bag. He narrows his eyes, trying to recall a name—“Lumine,” Aether says out loud and when he does, her name fills the space between them. It nuzzles between the two of them, squeezing itself into their little world and making a mark of its own. “She was an officer in the army as well. We were travellers before we were soldiers but she went missing after a harrowing accident. I haven’t been able to find her, but it’s the reason I joined the army, to begin with.” 

“It’s a pretty name,” Childe agrees, not knowing what else to say. “And she must’ve been pretty too,” he adds, noticing the growing smile on Aether’s face. There’s a tone of melancholy that lingers in the air, and some truth in their stories makes them the same for even a moment. Childe can’t imagine what it would be like to lose Tonia. 

“She’s my twin,” Aether clarifies. He talks about her like she’s still present, living somewhere, even though anything over a few months of separation would mean… Childe can’t bring himself to think about the possibility. He shouldn’t dare, especially when Aether still counts on the chance. “I’ve gone to so many people. I try to talk about her with people, the sergeants, and colonels. They have the power to find her if they wanted to. They’ve done the same with other officers. None of them tried.” 

“I would’ve,” Childe interjects suddenly, but he says it with confidence. Aether’s eyes have been drifting elsewhere for the while now, staring at the clouds and the sky that’s now blue and the puddles on the grass that remain from last night’s rain. But now, they look at the only beauty in the world and he marvels. “I would’ve looked for your sister, no matter how long it took. I promise, if you go out to look for her someday, I’ll go with you and we’ll find her together.” 

Aether’s words lodge themselves at the back of his throat. His lips part in utter shock and like he’d heard a sonnet in a dead language of romance, his heart comes drumming like it never has before. He sits up against the grass, braids dishevelled and intertwined with strands of grass. “You mean it?”

“Of course,” Childe frowns, barely understanding the gravity of his promise. “I’ll follow you till the end of the world. You only need to allow me.” 

Before their rendezvous can continue, a gruff voice beckons to them from behind. Scaramouche—they both recognise—specifically after waking up only seconds ago. They think of ignoring him until they hear him grumble under his breath and realise how close he is. “Are you deaf?” he scolds, demanding both of them to stand before he has to face a scolding for not finding them both on time. 

Scaramouche trots off soon after, prattling on about life being difficult enough without having to deal with people, and the other two burst into a fit of giggles. In moments like this, in a seemingly big world, there are smaller things too—smaller people. Ones with hearts that could chatter for hours about the bigger world and count on meant-to-bes.)

Childe hasn’t tried to see the world since it shunned him away two years ago. There were many reasons why he couldn’t leave—stepping his foot outside the apartment meant putting himself in grave danger which he wasn’t capable of fighting with limited weaponry and the wound that never stopped bleeding. The medics at the camp tried their best to help him but as policies stated, he was thrown out when he proved to be of no use to their operations. At this point, looking at its ugly, infected state—he awaits the day that the pain morphs into a monster and stops his heart. 

Besides, Snezhnaya was one of the most hazardous cities because of the sheer number of beasts that were emerging in its perimeter, and Childe knew this too. He could’ve left a long time ago when the apocalypse was at its peak and the public was being evacuated to different regions.

As a former sergeant, he could’ve easily worked a deal with Scaramouche to sneak him into another city and aid him in starting a new life but it was his own choice to stay. It hurt, in a way, to watch his hometown crumble with his own eyes but for the longest time, he’d rather die where his heart belongs than elsewhere. 

He has seen the monsters that aren’t Vishaps, the slimy little ones that burst out from the concrete roads or crawl out of the sewers, but he won’t hold it against Signora for not letting him know of the danger.

Childe lets out a shaky breath as he looks at his selection of clothes stuffed into a single drawer.

He doesn’t have many options—apart from his several sets of uniforms, he only has windbreakers and clothes of washed-out colours. He chooses one with a stitched whale on it, made by Tonia when she was learning how to stitch a few years ago. A small smile grows in memory of the first time he received it, a small taste of the happiness that used to fill his heart, once upon a time.

Childe plops on the bed and pulls off his shirt gingerly, squirming every time he feels an uncomfortable pull in his muscles or another burn. There’s never been a point where it ever stops hurting, and he blames it on the fact that he dwells on it so much. He can’t help himself, not when it reminds him so vividly of Aether’s—he stops the thought there. Childe changes into a fresh set of clothes and shrugs his windbreaker onto his shoulders. He tosses his bloody clothes into a bucket in the corner of the room, disposing of them.

Anything displaced is better off disposed of in the apocalypse.

Before leaving, Childe notices the freshly-wrapped bandages around his abdomen and his bruises cleaned, something that catches him by surprise. He tilts his head, poking around the wound when it dawns on him that Signora must’ve treated him when he was knocked unconscious by the toxic air outside. He sighs under his breath, shaking his head. And she’d still deny she cares for me. 

Equipped with only a mask and a pistol to guard him, Childe walks out into his world for the last time. When the morning comes, he’ll have to be off somewhere else, making a home in a different city even though he could do little to save his own home from ruins. He places his hand over the knob of the door, looking down at it with a wistful daze in his eyes. And then he opens it, and for a second, the world is bathed in illustrious, shining blues—as a canvas would look on a starry night, the world is aglow. Childe closes the door behind him slowly and exhales deeply. 

Even whilst standing in a ruined corridor with mossy walls, he would miss this world. 

With a hand in his pocket and the other ready over his weapon, he walks gingerly along the hall etched with memories that aren’t his own—deep with nostalgia, somehow standing on its feet despite the rubble that surrounds it. The beginning of the apocalypse was cruel and the monsters are as brutal as they were before, snatching whatever they could from humankind with deep-rooted resentment. Nobody was ready for destruction of this kind, especially when monsters were only fictives some time ago.

Childe walks through the neighbourhood that isn’t his own, admiring the cracks drawn across the abandoned structures and the flickering neon signs. He hears the scuttle of feet, of a tiny little thing seeking to live but a growl engulfs the sound only moments later.

Childe doesn’t turn his head to the sounds, he only listens. As time passes, the sky seemingly grows that much more livid over time. The stars are especially beautiful on a mournful night such as this one, twinkling for him as he passes under a cloud of nostalgia laced with pain. In the dark shadows of an alleyway, he sees a Vishap curled into a ball, chest rising up and down with each breath; peaceful, slowly lulled to sleep by the nocturne. 

Sometimes, easily forgotten, monsters are living beings too. 

Childe wanders until his feet grow weary of walking. He dawdles along the same path, the same asphalt road leading straight to nowhere. He doesn’t fear getting lost. There is nothing left of this city except the beasts that have made it its home. He might wonder, out of curiosity, if anybody is living in this world apart from himself. It would be nice to meet someone like himself, lost. 

Not far away, there’s the hissing of a reptilian creature and the scuttling of footsteps. Childe turns his head to the front and the path narrows itself to the bench that sits in the middle of its end. He pauses for a moment, untucking his hand from his pocket. For a second, his hands grow colder and the colour fades from his pale palms. He inches closer, tugging either side of his windbreaker in a feeble attempt to warm his chest. Coming close enough, he notices a metal railing stretch for metres on end, barricading the pavement from a river that has frozen over. The night wind tousles his hair and introduces him to winter.

It has been a long time. Childe continues to walk ahead, hands tucked beneath his armpits. 

He stops, five feet away from the bench when he notices, under the faltering light of a sidewalk lamp, that there’s another silhouette in front of him. It sits quietly on the bench in its silent marvel, perfectly still as though it’s a statue. Childe gulps, fidgeting with his fingers in thought. There should be no monsters that he knows of that can sit upright on a bench, making no sound at all. 

Childe walks stiffly until he looms right over the bench. He stands at a safe distance, his hand tightly wrapped around his gun, should the worst happen and zombies prove themselves to be real—but, as he’s standing there, he doesn’t feel any sense of danger. The stranger on the bench has tawny hair and whitened skin, pale as the winter moon. He might be a man, though Childe doubts a man’s hands could be so pretty if they’ve ever held a weapon. He manages to stand for a while before the stranger takes notice of his presence—looking up at him with glowing amber eyes. “Ah,” he breathes with widening eyes. 

The edges of his tawny hair are, in fact, stained with some kind of caramel. Even the edge of his low ponytail, the one which is tucked over his shoulder, is tainted with it like he’d eaten a toffee candy messily and gotten it all over himself. He isn’t wearing a mask, but he seems perfectly fine despite the air affirmatively being toxic. Childe tilts his head in confusion. An enigma, more than he is a beauty. 

The stranger shifts to the right side of the bench, making more room for another person. “Would you like to sit with me?” he offers. The skin around the corner of his eyes crinkles, indicating a smile. 

Childe is wary, but there’s no reason for him to reject the offer. He nods silently and nuzzles into his spot, still leaving a comfortable space between him and the latter. He positions himself in an almost stoic manner, still half-confused that his air-headed thinking proved to have some merit. Childe side-glances towards the man beside him and his chest squeezes for a second from the elegant beauty of the man beside him—how he’s seated well and proper, looking outward to the river covered with a layer of ice with light floating in his amber eyes. It’s difficult not to pay attention to them, they look a lot like…  

Childe clears his throat. “I didn’t think there was anybody out here. Apart from me.”

The stranger laughs, nodding his head. The former soldier scratches his neck in confusion, bearing an awkward smile. He’s not sure if he said anything worth a laugh. He feels a shiver run down his spine, perhaps anticipation, as he awaits the stranger’s answer to his question. He never speaks; all he does is squeeze his hands between his thighs and look out to the river. “How long have you been here?” Childe asks. He doesn’t look like he’s from around here, but there should be no reason for a civilian to wander into dangerous territory willingly unless they seek to die. 

“Oh, well,” the stranger coughs, placing a hand over his mouth. “I’m not sure. I came from Celestia.” 

Childe scratches his head, looking at the ground intently as though it would give him an explanation. He hasn’t heard much of Celestia, even though it’s closer to Snezhnaya than other cities. He has heard it’s inhabitable there—a place blanketed in pure white, with mountains and a palace built on clouds. They call it ‘heaven’ in some places but Childe believes there’s no space for heaven in a world like this. “Are you from there originally?” he continues to ask, not concerned about boundaries. 

Should he be? They might well be the only two people in Snezhnaya. 

It couldn’t matter what’s exchanged between them two because the world could certainly end tomorrow, or one of them might die the second the sun blinks in the morning. In the measly chance that they’re both still alive, there’s a likely chance two lost souls on a bench in a city of ash would not have another person to confide in. The stranger doesn’t look like he would be from Celestia—in fact, he might feel warm in Snezhnaya’s brutal colds if he’s native to the place. “I am not,” he answers, eventually, with no deliberation. There is a slow, poised confidence in the way he speaks. 

Childe feels awkward next to him, battered with scars he’s no longer proud of. He tries to hide his hands in his sleeves, overly conscious of the cuts across them and the etched marks of the guns he used to handle in the army. “I see,” Childe responds, voice unusually quiet. He hasn’t always been so bad at conversation. It could be because the man beside him is a stranger, or the fact that he lacks the words—or, well, he could be too stunned to speak. “Do you have a name?” he initiates again.

By this point, it seems he’s the only one interested in a conversation. The stranger shows no sign of disturbance and his face is rested in a state of equilibrium. He purses his lips when the question is asked and he replies with mirth, “Yes, I do. It has been quite a while since anybody has asked.” 

Childe cocks his head and heaves a chuckle. “I guess so. I mean, there’s no need for names when there are barely any people around. Is Celestia any better than the rest of the cities?”

The stranger expresses confusion towards the question; a new emotion. It doesn’t seem like he hadn’t expected it, moreover he would’ve thought it to be something obvious. Even then, his emotions have a way of swimming prettily across his features, as though he has perfect control of them every time. Childe could study him for hours and he might still be confused how he exists this way—so surreally. The stranger replies, after some deliberation, “Celestia isn’t like normal cities. It doesn’t have residents.”

“Do you have a knack for cities with no people, then?”

The stranger takes some time to think, but when the meaning of the words sinks in, his lips crack a smile. He allows a short, airy laugh that’s easily lost with the wind but it’s a melodious sound. Childe might be going crazy with the way he thinks about this man; it might have been too long since he has been around another man. “It’s a coincidence,” the stranger enlightens him. “Liyue is my home but the journey is rather long. I have decided to take a break here.” 

“Nights are more dangerous in Snezhnaya. You shouldn’t be here,” Childe reminds, only to be courteous. Then, he thinks, there may be no point in saying this to a man who walks out wearing no mask at all, and ostensibly unarmed in the face of all the dangers in the world. 

The stranger turns his head for the first time. Their eyes meet. “But you are here as well.” 

For a flustered second, Childe feels his heart skip a beat. He swallows the lump in his throat and looks away firmly, feeling heat rise beneath his skin. It’s such an odd feeling—something he can’t seem to shove away even as he seems to pull the sides of his jacket tighter together and curl forward like a little child. He shouldn’t be so embarrassed by looking a stranger in the eye, perhaps a pretty stranger, but he shouldn’t be so frazzled nonetheless. “I’m an exception,” he grumbles, words muffled by his mask. “I have lived in this city all my life. I wanted to die here too.”

He feels the stranger frown next to him so, still, in his curled-over stance, he turns to look. He remains silent for a beat and Childe awaits his response with bated breath. “You’re a young man. You should not be thinking about death, however soon it may be.” 

“Well, you don’t know me. I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Childe chuckles, straightening his back. He stretches it against the bench, kicking his legs out into the air and flailing his arms up. He lets out a pleasured sound, not as sad as he thought he would be in the face of that question. Surprisingly, despite his bold gestures, the gash across his abdomen doesn’t scald him. He doesn’t think about it even once. 

“May I know your name?” 

Childe squints at the strange use of formalities. By now, he would’ve thought their acquaintanceship would let the stranger loosen up and forfeit the phlegmatic aura he’s been keeping. He re-adjusts his position on the bench so he’s more comfortable and replies, “Which one?” 

The stranger isn’t fazed by the return. “The one you like most.”

“Ajax, then,” the former soldier replies without hesitation. He starts playing with his fingers bashfully, wondering if the latter would call him by his name. It’s been a long time since he has heard it from a foreign tongue, and he has never tried to utter it on his own either. He side-glances towards the stranger who nods in acknowledgement, mouthing the name before uttering it out loud. He’s behaving like it’s something difficult to pronounce. Ay-jax. It’s simple. Childe starts doubting himself too. 

“Ajax,” the stranger says out loud, sending the former shoulder’s heart tumbling down the road. It might be from the surprise of it, thinking the stranger would never spit it out, or the fact that he’s been sheepish since sitting here, with another human, and feeling safe for the first time in a while. “My name is Zhongli. Do you believe we’re well-acquainted now?” he asks, turning with an innocent glimmer in his eyes. 

“Uh,” Childe sputters, words failing him. “I guess so.” 

It’d only mean he can’t refer to the stranger as ‘the stranger’ in his head anymore, since he really does have a name. It’d take some getting-used-to, he comes to realise, as he starts chanting the name under his breath and embarrassing himself every time he spits out a different pronunciation of it. Not much has changed since knowing each other’s names, except, maybe, the fact that they can be a little closer than strangers. 

Neither of them speaks for a while, and the silence fills itself with the animalistic snoring of sleeping beasts or sinister hisses of ones searching for prey. Childe looks at Zhongli, basking in the moonlight with his chiselled features resting the same way they were when they first chanced upon each other. Not a lot of time must have passed since their first exchange, and the former soldier doesn’t feel like leaving so soon. Instead, he wonders what the latter is thinking about with those dewy eyes of his—what he sees in the lake with no life, in the grey air splintered with dust. 

Then, his gaze falls and he notices Zhongli’s hands again. They aren’t veiny like a soldier’s, or calloused—but his fingers are long and healthy, sculpted out of stone itself. There should be no reason for a regular man to be wandering around the world in the middle of an apocalypse, especially when it has only gotten worse since two years ago. “You weren’t in the military,” Childe assumes. 

“Indeed,” Zhongli confirms with a nod. “I am… a doctor, of sorts. A healer.” 

Childe lets out a gasp of realisation. “Ah. It makes sense.”   

Zhongli starts folding his sleeves, presumably for no reason at all. It’s only because the latter has been staring that he has noticed the little things—though, he would say, observance comes with being a soldier. He doesn’t usually pay attention to details because he’s so callous and his personality is often too big to be delicate enough for gentle observations. With Zhongli, noticing little things becomes easy because he doesn’t do much at all, apart from the way he squeezes his hands between his legs when he’s cold or doesn’t shift his overgrown fringe even though it blocks his eyes. 

“You were in the military,” Zhongli assumes, returning the same amount of certainty with his tone. 

Childe nods, but he’s not sure he’d like to talk about his time there. It wasn’t anything good— no, that’s a lie —or, the good parts are overshadowed enough by the bittersweet ones that it’s no story worth telling at the end of the world. He would’ve liked to tell tales of his valiance and courage long in the future, when the world is still bright with white skies, to his younger brothers and sister. Childe feels the soreness in his abdomen return as the memories flood back, earning a grimace out of him. 

Zhongli diverts his attention towards him, eyes furrowed with concern. “Oh, was I not supposed to ask?” he questions apologetically, words laced with guilt. 

“Ah—no, it’s not about the question,” Childe shows a pained smile. “If you’d allow me to share my worries for a moment, I could tell you the problem. I could talk about bullshit for hours so you have to be careful about your answer, Mister Zhongli,” he jokes, massaging his lower chest. He has a charming smirk on his face, one that crept onto his face on its own—ah, he hasn’t done this in a while. 

“It would never trouble me, Ajax,” the acquaintance reassures. “I’d be quite happy to listen, in fact.” 

And then he shows a smile that’s so lovely and bright that he might as well be more beautiful than the night sky altogether. Childe finds it difficult to not return the gesture. It must have been a blessing, a mistaken chance that he would be allowed to feel so capriciously since the tragedy back then but when his heart is set afire with the passion of a thousand burning stars, he does not shun it away. 

(“Fatui” Military Records

Recorded: YEAR X, 01-09 

And to every beginning, there is always an end. Humans are particularly vulnerable to endings, even though they are promised a long time before it. They are fragile, brittle things with bodies that could, in comparison to the strength of the universe, snap like a twig. To understand the ripple of emotion that follows an end, many words have been woven into existence — none sufficient enough to describe that which follows Childe like a shadow as he marches through the darkness. 

Even though he’s carrying heavy-duty armour, he feels as though he’s running empty-handed with how helpless he fears. The news echoes in his mind, repeating endlessly like a broken record. What had once been hatred softens into the deepest form of anxiety as all he worries about is Aether’s well-being. Heart on his sleeve, he wouldn’t care for even a second if it was ripped right off. Childe marches in no order, cutting formations and jostling past his affiliates to reach the far end of the camp in such little time. With each passing second, his heart beats louder and trembles through his body. 

Under circles of blinding light at some space in the camp, Childe sees numerous troupes standing at attention around the electric mesh gates. His eyes widen and his pupils dilate in terror, fearing that the worst has already happened. He prays with all his heart that Aether is still alive, because his Aether is strong and would not succumb to a measly wound. His Aether wouldn’t give up on what he loves, and if he has returned, he must be calling out to Childe, however way he can. 

The wind tousles Childe’s hair as he quickens his pace, the thunderous marching speeding up and spiralling out of the rhythm it had with the other soldiers. “Aether!” he screams at the top of his lungs, betraying all code of duty that binds him. “Aether?!” he shouts, and he does so with yearning from the absolute pits of his chest because there is no part of him that would not give up his soul to hold Aether again. As though the wind is carrying him, he hears his name being called back by a small, dying voice. 

‘Save me, Ajax. Save me,’ it calls to him. Childe pauses around the wall of soldiers standing by the metal gates, hearing the flurry of panicked instructions being flung into the air by army commanders and officers unsure what to make of the solution. In a blur, he sees Signora on one side and Scaramouche on another, and some of the other higher-ups he cannot face in a moment like this. “Move,” he says with a gruff voice, shoving through them to stand forward.

True enough to what he’d heard, and what he hoped against, he sees Aether lying on the ground, flat on his stomach as crimson pools around him. Blood is smeared across his face and his battered limbs — it’s as though the colours of his body are melting onto the ground itself. Childe halts for a good second, stalling in absolute shock. Aether, his mind thinks but his voice doesn’t cry out in time. 

He sees the Vishaps in the close vicinity, waiting with their fangs bared and talons sharpened. Opening the gates would lead to one of two horrible outcomes: an infestation of the army camp itself, or Childe risking his own life. He doesn’t care for either. 

Wasting no time, he lunges towards the electric mesh and unties the wires to the massive gates protecting the military camp from the monsters just beyond. He hears voices screaming at him over the rattling, but he can only pay attention to so much. Childe’s eyes frequent between the wire and Aether who tries to crawl towards it, slowly dragging his dying body across the ground in his feeble attempt to survive. “I’ll save you, Aether, I’ll save you!” Childe cries with what’s left of him. Over the haze of panic, he feels hands grip his arms, yanking him away from the gates. 

“It’s not safe, Tartaglia!” one of them warns. “There could be something worse out there that we can’t see! You’ll hurt yourself!” another scolds, pulling him back. 

Childe fights away from the cacophony of defiant voices and continues to struggle with the gate until it finally gives way and bursts open. “Close it immediately,” he yells, turning back once he has squeezed himself out through the gap he allowed himself. “Do not open it until I have him,” he instructs firmly, locking eyes with the soldiers defending the perimeter of the camp. They stand at attention, cocking their rifles in obedience to the sergeant's words. 

Childe turns on his heel, wielding his gun as he notices the pack of Vishaps waiting to attack him, hissing at him and threatening to charge. He knows, that making a single move would push him into a race against time and he’d have only seconds to defend Aether and himself from them. He swallows and inhales a deep breath, bracing himself for what would have been the most brutal few moments of his life. 

“Aether!” Childe yells with all his strength as he dashes forward and falls to his knees. Aether raises his head, coughing up blood on the ground. He holds himself up with the strength of both fists and looks at all he has lost with his fading consciousness. He regrets it all, but he still smiles. “Hang in there, please. I’ll save you, Aether. I’ll save you,” he chants under his breath, roping Aether’s arm around his shoulder and trying to offer him enough support to stand. By this point, the Vishaps have started to launch themselves towards the gates of the camp in an attempt to break through the barricade. 

Gunshots are fired in the air, abruptly cutting through what would have been a peaceful night exactly one year ago. It’s wishful thinking, remembering this at a time of chaos. “I didn’t think you would come to save me, especially after I hurt you,” Aether chokes up, another tear mixing with the mud and blood on his dirtied face. Childe looks at him, pained, and his heart aching worse than anything else in the world. 

“I would do anything for you,” he cries, voice trailing off as he lugs Aether with all his strength. It hurts that, after all this time, the one person he has ever loved dearly found his affection too difficult to believe. In the vastness of it all — surely it might’ve been. Look at the chances; two men who met by chance after joining the military, each seeking different things from the world. Yet, now, Childe can’t even be sure that he and Aether are wishing for the same thing. 

Aether’s smile falls when they are only centimetres from making it to safety. “You should leave me, or something very bad is going to happen.” Childe cocks his head in confusion.

Then, he hears it. A monstrous growl like no other, the strength of its voice sending a terrifying rumble through the air. The soldiers start calling out to Childe, begging him to return, but he shakes his head vigorously, denying any chance of abandoning Aether there. He stares furiously at the gate that’s only a few feet away — he’s so close. He must not give up. “Please. Leave me here,” the meek voice continues. 

“You’re being stupid,” Childe snaps. “I won’t leave you here.” 

Aether shakes his arm off the sergeant’s shoulder, succumbing to the pain in his wounds. He collapses weakly to the ground, the strength fading from his stature. He coughs out onto the ground and bile pools down the corners of his mouth. He presses a hand over his heart, and that’s where Childe sees a spike pierced through one side of his chest and protruding out of the other side. “There is more to this… world,” Aether begins, his voice wavering as he withers. “...than me. Learn them, Ajax, and leave me.”

“Tartaglia!” a voice yells louder than the rest of them, but before Childe could snap out of the trance that had seemingly overcome him, he hears a blood-curdling roar tear through the air. He sees a monster like nothing before, twice his height and with enough strength to carry mountains. It charges toward them, beating its chest furiously. Childe stands over Aether’s body, falling to his knees.

“Tartaglia, do not be foolish! Return ASAP!” he hears in the foreground over the static in his ears.

Childe closes his eyes as he hugs Aether’s dying body in his arms. “I cannot leave you before the end of your world,” he wails, deeply terrified of what’s to come. He doesn’t let it show on his face, but in the way, his own body is trembling wildly and he’s biting his lips to anticipate the worst. Aether looks up at him through his lashes, left with no strength to speak or reach. There is only guilt until all the sounds in the world fall deaf to their ears and Childe chokes up. 

His eyes widen as something sharper than threading needles rips across his back, as though tearing his skin off clean. A stabbing pain jolts through his body, paralysing him but he does not once let go of Aether, even in his dying state. If he had more strength, Aether would have scolded him for being so foolish — for not abandoning him even though he could not be saved. All too late, grenades are flung in an attempt to incapacitate the massive beast. 

With what little strength is left in him, Childe bites on his lip and continues to drag his torn body and Aether towards the camp. He cannot feel anything except the excruciating pain of being attacked time and time again, and a sudden emptiness where his lungs are supposed to be, and — really, for a second, he’s certain that the whiteness that flashes before him is a sign of the end. Even if it was, he would not blame anybody for such a painful end . After all, it was a valiant sacrifice. 

If they dared to fault him for following his heart, the worst they could call him is Romeo. 

At an undistinguished point in time, Childe hears the rattling of metal and explosions in hindsight. Before the world truly fades to ashen black, he feels the grip of a hundred reaching arms trying to hold his ripped body; none trying to pry him apart from Aether. He hangs his head low, pressing it against Aether’s chest as he gives in to the throbbing pain-numbing his ability to stay conscious. 

For his failure, he mumbles a prayer. For Aether, he mumbles an apology.) 

Zhongli halts in respectful, solemn silence. He lowers his head and cups his hands together, eyes pressed tightly shut. He returns a prayer, wishing well upon the lost soul and the injured one that sits beside him, lacking the proper condolences to express his thoughts. Childe, on the other hand, has never felt lighter. He feels, in some way, relieved to have been able to tell his story to somebody, for it to not have died with him when it was so bravely stupid in many ways. 

He wipes a tear out of his eye, thinking it would be his last. They don’t exchange any more words but Childe bursts into a fit of laughter right after his narration and a stream of tears pours from his eyes before he can restrain himself. His face flushes crimson, the same shade that Aether adored and he’d grown to hate over the years, so he buries it in his hands; even though Zhongli can’t see anything behind his mask.

“They all thought I was foolish to protect somebody who was already dying. If I hadn’t stayed there to defend him, he would’ve died but I might’ve been able to continue my life in the army,” Childe confesses with an airy breath. 

Zhongli slides his hand an inch closer to the latter’s on the bench, closing the distance between them by even a fraction of space. It wouldn’t do much—in fact, it might not do anything at all. He hopes it may be some comfort, at the end of the day. “I think you were immensely brave,” he adds with honesty. Childe looks up, searching his eyes for any hint of falsity. “I have done the same. I was fortunate enough to escape unscathed, however, I was too late. I live, every day, regretting the five seconds I was too late.”

“I do the same,” Childe admits, hanging his head low. His chest is lighter than it has been since Aether’s death, and even till this morning, he clung to the fact that he would never be able to think about it without being burned again by the past.

Surprisingly, speaking about it to a stranger presented an outcome he would’ve never foreseen—so, maybe, he has the world to thank for this chance. 

A moment later, he feels something cold fall against his exposed hand. He looks down before up and he notices several things at once—Zhongli’s hand unexpectedly close to his own, a snowflake melting to the heat of his hand, and the sky littered with city-esque falling whites. It dawns on him, then, “It’s snowing.” Childe’s heart comes aflutter with the realisation as another snowflake falls on his mask, where his mask would’ve been, had he been able to take it off. Zhongli raises his chin to the sky where he shares the former soldier’s moment of surprise. 

“Indeed,” he agrees with a smile. “How lovely it is, as well.” 

Childe stretches out against the bench so that his head is lying on its backrest. He buries his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker and with a genuine glimmer of joy fluttering loosely in his eyes, he turns towards Zhongli again, “How come you don’t have to wear a mask out here? I tried walking out without a mask earlier but I ended up falling unconscious.” 

“I believe it’s because of your injury, not the miasma. It is… at manageable levels, for mortals too,” he explains intellectually. Even though he claims to be a doctor, Childe finds his diagnosis somewhat difficult to believe when army protocol still requires soldiers to wear gas masks out in the open. He ponders on it for a few moments and at this point, it doesn’t even matter if he passes out to the miasma a second time. Childe lifts his head and tugs off his mask out of impulse, breathing in a gust of fresh air.

Zhongli looks at him in awe, his flushed face from being trapped away in a humid mask for a while and how his freckles seem to glimmer under the yellowish light of the lamppost as well. He swallows an unnamed feeling before it surfaces as nonsensical words. “You are quite handsome,” he states unabashedly, despite his perceivably shy demeanour. 

“Quite?” Childe teases, quirking an eyebrow. They share a laugh, and the former soldier scratches the back of his neck as he does when he’s shy. He knows his face is heated, though he could only wonder which of the options Zhongli has assumed. It’s too much—isn’t it? Expecting something out of this chanceful encounter, in the middle of a bench, at the heart of a desolate city. “I think you’re handsome too. Not in the usual way, though, it’s like… sort of like a god?”  

Zhongli remains quiet for a while before offering his thanks. He blushes too, in a weird way, that the red doesn’t splash his cheeks but ends up at the tips of his ears instead. He lowers his gaze and in his soft voice, offers, “Perhaps I could take a look at your wound. I have not practised healing in a… while, but I know my theory well and there is a chance I might be able to close your injury. It sounds troubling, even now, despite you mentioning some time has passed since you got it.” 

Childe narrows his eyes at the doctor, reading into the offer a little too much. A beat passes and he looks down to where the injury must be, hidden under his several years of clothes. It’s bearable now that it’s cold, and he’s not stuck in a stuffy apartment with his rotten thoughts but if Zhongli manages—maybe, he’d be able to avenge himself and return to his dignity. He wouldn’t be able to march up to the military bases and demand his position back, or even continue to stay in Snezhnaya to prove anything but he might be able to build his life from scratch without counting on the number of days he has left. 

“I doubt you can do anything but… worth the shot, I guess,” Childe says brightly. He knows, subconsciously, that he shouldn’t be accepting such a dubious offer from a stranger he has known for only thirty minutes, a self-proclaimed doctor who claims to be able to heal something even the medics at the camp couldn’t. Dottore was a skilled doctor (who often didn’t put his hands to good use) so Childe took it that his wound could never be healed the second Dottore gave up on his treatment. The others were quick to abandon him after he was thrown out which was… unsurprising. 

He stares inconspicuously as Zhongli pulls himself together—pulling out a broken wristwatch to check the time before tucking it away again, brushing his hair over his shoulder, and adjusting his shirt so it doesn’t crinkle when he stands. It’s after that much time that he finally rises to his feet and Childe lifts his head, following his motion. Zhongli smiles at him, irises aglimmer with the ochre of fire and so awfully pretty that Childe finds himself returning the same smile—only, ten times more awkward like he’s a prepubescent boy in front of his first love. 

They start to walk and Childe notices that he’s only a fraction shorter than the proclaimed doctor, an observation he shouldn’t make at his old age when it comes to eyeing attractive men but he ends up cracking a laugh at his predictability. “Laughter is, indeed, a good medicine,” Zhongli remarks, seemingly oblivious to the latter’s oblivious staring. 

They make an interesting pair. 

“You laugh when you don’t have anything to say,” Childe mentions, and it’s supposed to sound accusatory like ‘you’re no better than I am’ but it hardly plays off as anything more than affectionate. The doctor cocks his head in confusion, tilting his chin up in thought. It’s like he wasn’t aware of his habit. The former soldier bites back a smile, praising himself over the fact that he took notice of something that Zhongli hasn’t realised about himself. 

The doctor, after some time, replies, “Only for pleasantries. I don’t believe I smile a lot.”

“You smile very well when you’re around me, sir,” Childe corrects, leaning forward to look at the other man’s expression. He wears a teasing little grin on his face, mischievous, and one of his eyebrows is quirked in playful curiosity. Zhongli looks down at him, his blank expression slowly softening until a smile snakes onto his lips—that, is beyond his control. “There we are, you’re smiling again,” Childe spots, pointing at his lips. 

Zhongli perks up, pressing a hand against his face to wipe off his smile. 

Beyond them, the vaster world continues to grow colder by the second as white peels off the sky and trickles elegantly down the air which—for some reason, has lost its acidity since hours ago. Snow collects on the street, nestling in between the cracks on the asphalt road or the stone buildings lying in shreds along the roadside. It shouldn’t be such a pleasure to walk along a stretch etched with marks of a time of misery but Childe can’t help himself from the innocent warmth that fills his heart. He should, maybe, mourn his last day in the city that used to house him but for now, he thinks, isn’t it so beautiful that we’re under the same sky; hearts beating us to death and so alive?

(“Fatui” Military Records

Recorded: YEAR X, 02-09 

On one of these days, Snezhnaya experienced one of the worst snowstorms to date. It felt like a rebellion from the gods themselves, trying to fend away the beasts by the raw force of nature; or it could’ve been a scolding to the humans — berating them with the harsh snow and unforgiving winds. The monsters only mutated into stronger beasts, parading down the roads and wreaking havoc through the cities in the bleak mid-winter. Humans, brittle and vulnerable to the snow that was too-cold, could barely fend for themselves without the monsters and either succumbed to hypothermia or fell dead to the beastly grasp of the snow-covered demons. 

Childe awakes around a month after the “incident”, hanging onto his life by a single thread. Returning to his consciousness after a coma that the army thought he would never break out of is an otherworldly experience — something like rising from the dead. He opens his eyes groggily, and with much struggle, as though his eyelids were pasted together. He feels too many things at once as his senses return to him—the blinding white shining upon him like heaven’s lights, the immense pressure of oxygen being forced through his nostrils, and a severe ache through his entire body. Childe lets out a grimace, shaking his head left and right whilst his eyes are still-half closed. 

Beside him, there is a flash of blue and a pair of hands reach for him, fidgeting with the numerous tubes being penetrated through his skin. Childe chokes up as the gas mask is finally pried off his face, allowing him a moment to breathe fresh air — however dusty, unclean, or contaminated it may be. He feels an ache in his lungs which squeezes out a pained noise through his throat, causing the unknown doctor beside him to make a note under his breath in panic. “He’s conscious,” Childe hears, but he very much disagrees with the diagnosis. He can barely feel anything, thanks to the induced numbness of sedatives.

All of a sudden, the hushed ringing in his ears unclogs and he hears the beeping of a machine beside his head. He opens his eyes fully, and with success, minutes after his initial attempt. Standing in front of him, he identifies Dottore, the only doctor at this camp, and Signora standing at the foot of his bed. He can barely string a thought together but he raises a hand weakly to signal his consciousness. Signora edges towards him, leaning towards him to ask what he means. 

In his daze, Childe mumbles, “Where is Aether?”

A chill passes through the air, sending a shiver of fear down the spines of the soldiers. Outside, there is the roaring of engines and moving wheels garbled by the howling winds. The walls of the barracks flap vigorously another gust of cold wind blows through it, littering equipment with chunks of snow. Childe counts each second by the plummeting sounds of dense hail upon the metal bars supporting the walls, no passing moment easing his tension. 

There is a question that follows as Signora stands up again, positioning her hands in front of her hip mournfully as though there has been a loss. She says something to Dottore who, in turn, scribbles something on the clipboard in his hands and shrugs. Signora scolds him in return, which Childe hears clearly. “Stop being so nonchalant. We can’t hide it from him forever,” she barks tautly. 

“If you want to give him a heart attack, I’m not stopping you, ma’am,” Dottore retorts, raising his voice to be louder than hers. He flails his arms in the air and the papers with his medical diagnoses are sent fluttering around the room like they weren’t valuable in the first place. Childe, in the midst of it all, tries to make sense of his surroundings and what must’ve brought him here — lying in a medical bed, bandaged, and mentioning a name… Aether… Aether… And then it makes sense. 

Childe shakes his head against the pillow, trying to force himself to sit up. “What happened to Aether?” he pleads, managing enough strength in his vocal chords to ask again. He looks between the two other people in the room, certain that they know what happened to Aether. Silence punctuates the air, following his question, and Childe’s eyebrows crease in confusion. He covered Aether that day… during the “incident”. He should be alive. 

He wrenches his name to look around the medical barracks but he fails to catch the buttery blonde he hoped to see — and beyond him, at the foot of his bed, Signora is standing with a hand pressed to her temples. Dottore is feverishly sorting through his papers, adamant on something. “What happened to Aether?” he asks again, a tremble in his voice. A pang of fear shoots through his heart and the heart monitor starts to beep frantically. The doctor snaps his head in its direction, yelling something at Signora which is garbled by the sound of Childe’s ringing ears. 

“I can’t do it , Dottore — fuck!” Signora swears, tightening her jaw. “He’s dead. Ajax.”…)

Childe rubs his palms to warm himself as the winter chill starts to creep up on him. He lifts them to his face and then blows, hoping the strategy lasts him long enough till the end of his journey. They’ve been walking for quite a while, or, enough time to leave Childe to his discourteous thoughts. He looks down at his open palms, the scratches that tear over the lines of his hands, and recalls how Aether would tell him that they’re beautiful because he could feel each scar when they locked hands. Sometimes, he still hears the man’s voice in his head, talking to him at night when he’s alone.

Childe can’t recall the wholeness of his grief that followed the knowledge that Aether was no longer around, nor any of the dates. For a long time, he tried to remember bits and pieces by scrounging around in his thoughts—searching papers and old records that could’ve dated when they did things. It could’ve been anything; big things, little things, and he would’ve clung onto it like Aether could be revived through the sole power of his mind. Now, he’s grateful enough to forget.

He owes it to himself—moving on. Remembering the old things, the dates and memoirs and keepsakes would’ve thrown him into the cycle the same way it started and he would only be living his life on recycled sorrow. Still, as he’s standing there, lending his happiness to another man, Childe wonders if Aether would be able to forgive him—watching him from whatever far corner, or bright star he’s watching from. 

“...Are you alright?” 

Childe looks up. He swallows the lump in his throat and ruffles his hair out of habit. “I’m alright,” he replies hoarsely, and his heart starts beating faster. He realises how far he’s been lagging only when the doctor reaches out a hand to invite him closer, to which Childe grins awkwardly and scurries forward to close to the distance between them. “I felt nostalgic.”

Zhongli turns to meet his eye. Above them, there’s a small hanging lamp that illuminates them in a polite, honey yellow. It’s bright, shining boldly like a miniature sun of its own. Childe’s eyes flicker to the door behind him for a moment, and the washed-out sign reads ‘Pharmacy’ in his native language.

He feels something soft brush under his eye for a second so his gaze drags back to Zhongli, who, with no warning, rubs the digit of his finger under Childe’s bottom lashes. His eyes widen in silent realisation and his moment of frantic surprise, his shoulders tense with the sudden contact. Zhongli hovers his finger at its position a little too long for comfort. He retracts his hand soon enough, cupping them together with a shy blush dusting his face.

“I’m sure he was a lovely person. He would have been comforted to know you still love him dearly.” 

“Ah… well, he would’ve liked me to move on,” Childe replies bashfully. 

He doesn’t receive a reply to this, apart from the creak of an opening door. Zhongli nods at him, for lack of better words, and steps aside for the young soldier to step inside. It’s been a long time since he has been in other buildings, walking into them like they are ordinary places with memories of lives lived instead of nameless areas designated by how hazardous they are. The first step inside clouds his vision with darkness, then the next, and the one after that as well. 

Childe can feel his heart thumping in his chest with each one, until he accidentally kicks something and it shifts harshly across the floor. He feels something stiff pressed against his back, holding him tightly, and a pair of fingers wrapped around his hand. He stifles a sound of surprise and Zhongli whispers against his ear, “I didn’t have many lamps to illuminate this place. Please do not frighten yourself.”

Childe’s starting to think it’s intentional—this hazardous behaviour. He speaks like he’s ancient but his actions have a way of making up for his words, not in the way that’s of any aid to Childe. He’s guided through the darkness, praying that the doctor can’t feel his heart thrumming at his fingertips, until he finds a kerosene lamp at the far edge of the darkness. Zhongli pulls away from him shortly after, leaving a patch of yearned warmth where their bodies had been pressed together. He lowers himself onto one knee to pick up one of the unlit kerosene lamps lying beside the one with a lit fire and ignites a flame, all with nimble touch. 

Childe is quite aware of his staring but self-restraint has crossed itself out as an option by this godforsaken point. He watches owlishly as the doctor finally rises to his feet with two lamps, one for himself and one for the man gaping at him with his jaw agape. “How long have you been staying here?” he asks, for the sake of conversation. Carrying the lamp, he can see the room a little better and with it, he sees the many boxes of medicines on the ground. 

He sees shelves lined with pill bottles and medicine carriers, and cardboard boxes scattered across the ground, ravaged for whichever essentials residents could find before evacuating the city. He’s no doctor but he knows some names—not that he’d try to pronounce any of their names.

“Not long,” Zhongli remarks ambiguously, tapping Childe by the shoulder. He gestures the soldier over to a medical bench at one side of the room, one with a changed cloth. There is blood splatter across the ground, and shards of broken glass from the shattered windows but there are some parts that seem arranged.

“I came here with a purpose, actually, to look for someone. However, I doubt I can fulfil it.”

Childe looks up again and this time, for the umpteenth time, he finds Zhongli gazing at him again. He has a particular look in his eyes, an unrecognisable one that the former has never seen before. He thinks on it for a second, then sees Zhongli ushering him towards the medical table instead. Flustered at the realisation his thoughts have been drifting too far, he ducks his head and scurries into place. 

“I wonder what purpose a doctor may have to fulfil in a desolate city,” Childe speculates, hopping onto the medical table. He dangles his legs in the air and wraps his fingers around the cold metallic edges, hair tousled as a gust of wind blows through the window with no glass. Zhongli sets his lamp down on a counter behind him, with medical tools and tablets of sorts. He falls into a practised silence, like he is a professional and has done this many times before. Childe is happy to watch from where he’s seated, lips pursed and enamoured by every move of this man. 

Zhongli never ends up answering his question. He turns around with a cotton bud soaked with disinfectant, clenched between what looks like a pair of tweezers. He looks at Childe expectantly, who takes a few moments to process what to do. “Oh,” the soldier mumbles quietly before peeling off his windbreaker hastily and then lifting his shirt. He glances down at his wound. “Be careful with me, please,” he whispers, trying to hide the fear in his voice.

“I will,” Zhongli assures him, but the latter still fears the worst. At some point, he finds himself squeezing his eyes shut and bracing the worst but he feels something soft tickle against his wound and a sting that doesn’t hurt any more than a pinch. He feels something soft brush his skin, so Childe slowly opens his eyes, watching Zhongli handle him with perfect care. “Your wound is infected badly. It’s a wonder you have such a thriving character, even with it,” he comments. 

“You think I have a thriving character?” Childe confirms, flattered. He doesn’t expect a response, despite knowing about the doctor’s typical bluntness so he laughs to himself and turns his head away. Yet, to the unexpected, he hears a short laugh and then a hum of acknowledgement. 

“Yes.” 

Childe looks up through his lashes, not lifting his head entirely. He can feel his heart drumming away, getting louder with each second. He’s sure, with them being so close, the doctor is only being respectful by not bringing it up. He ponders, for a second, what could happen between two men in the middle of a dark room when there are no stakes for either of them?

Seated this way, it’s almost sickening how Zhongli looks almost prettier—even though he’s obstructed by ginger strands of hair, and only a portion of his face is illuminated by the light. He raises his head a second later, locking eyes with Childe for an intimate moment. His hands pause and then his gaze drops. 

“What’s your specialty, sir?” Childe questions, a smirk growing on his lips as he notices the change in atmosphere. He could be bold, only if it means he has a chance. Zhongli seems cool-headed enough to deny any form of shyness showing on his face, but he’s certainly no good at hiding his blush. 

He continues with his handiwork, treating Childe like he’s a sculpture of his belonging. “Hm?” Zhongli asks after he fails to hide an embarrassed sound. 

“Your specialising field?” 

Zhongli makes a sound of realisation and quickly looks away. He fidgets with a handful of instruments, switching the now-bloodied cotton swab for another clean one, dredging it in yet another kind of pungent medicine that wafts in the air. Any scent is better than rubble, however, so Childe doesn’t complain. “I did not really… study it. I suppose I dabble in all fields.” 

“What about the heart?” Childe interjects, perhaps too quickly, but the timing has little effect on the matter at hand when they’re already in a compromising position. A few inches and an accidental action— should I be thinking about his “stranger” this way? He ducks his head even further to read the latter’s expression. He follows Zhongli’s quiet look of awe. The doctor’s hands pause mid-air, and he’s in the middle of his careful inspection but to be interrupted with such a— comment , his words are stuck in his throat. Childe closes his eyes till they’re only slits and inches his face closer, daring.

Zhongli’s breath catches. “I suppose I could heal a broken heart,” he breathes out, palpably mesmerised by the last man he should be doing this with. He feels the rhythm in his breathing break as he watches the distance between them close till there’s such little space, they’re sharing oxygen within limited space. His gaze falls and oh—he couldn’t even ask the Heavens’ help when it comes to a moment like this. Zhongli stares at Childe, waiting for him from such a close distance, basking under the moonlight that streams upon him from behind; like an angel, waiting for its god’s blessing. “...if it’s for you,” Zhongli sputters and, giving in to the urge, presses his lips against his “stranger”. 

Childe’s hands move masterfully like a craftsman with his art, behaving as though he has known this stranger for centuries when it has been mere minutes. He finds Zhongli’s jaw and handles him with only the most delicate touch, in spite of the calluses on his hands. He’s no expert with beauty and he’s certain he has only done anything to destroy it but such a moment like this—so pretty and raw with emotion, one could never guess a mere soldier who hoped to die could yearn so poetically.

Zhongli cranes his neck to deepen the kiss, stretching his back even though he’s on his knees on the floor. He kisses as he would never break away from it—like preserving art with varnish or immortalising words into stone. 

“Experienced?” Childe asks, pulling away for a moment to breathe.

Zhongli breathes against his lips, his face reddened like a reddened moon. “Hardly.” He reaches in again, holding his patient by the hem of his shirt and slowly rising to his feet. He hides a smile as he hears a gasp from Childe as he’s pushed against the bed, pressed between two arms and barely in his mind. He doubts he has been thinking with his head from the moment he ran into the stranger; the sole moment itself must’ve been a catalyst to the unravelling of events between the two.  

“I apologise—” Zhongli mumbles quietly once he breaks away himself, fearing he must’ve been too bold for the other man with the way his heart is racing beyond mortal limits. He tries to step away, for fear of being too much, and quite frankly, he has already done too much by crossing a boundary such as this. Kissing the man whose life was in his hands—really, it’s unthinkable. He wouldn’t regret it for a second. 

Childe holds him by the wrist, not even putting much strength in his attempt. “Don’t. I wanted to.” He proceeds to squeeze out a laugh thereafter, despite having no oxygen in his lungs or heart from what he’d done with the pretty stranger. Zhongli can’t help but think this would’ve been the only outcome for the two of them, however way they would’ve met. 

“You should go to Liyue after tonight,” he advises softly. 

Childe cocks his head. “So we’ll run into each other more often?” 

Zhongli hadn’t meant it that way initially. “Yes,” he says, regardless. 

“Maybe I will, then.” They fall into a comfortable flow of events after that, in which the doctor returns to treating the soldier as he was meant to in the first place, neither of them the wiser. It would have been easy to rest in this silence, to pass time by counting heartbeats or focusing too much of his attention on treating a wound that should’ve been fatal. 

Instead, he begins, “What if I told you that our meeting was not purely coincidental?”

“I would not believe you,” Childe muses, pressing his lifted shirt between his armpits out of laziness. “If you are superstitious though, I wouldn’t blame you. It’s cool, believing in supernaturals and fate and all that fun stuff,” he babbles, fidgeting on the table like a little child. 

Zhongli can only smile in response to that statement. He stands back, and despite doing nothing at all, a layer of skin starts to grow over the wound that would not stop bleeding. It will be a slow and gradual recovery but with what little magic the doctor could work with his hands, it starts to dry. In spite of knowing this, Zhongli doesn’t mention the positive news. “May I make a selfish request?” he says in its stead, fixing his clothing. 

“You may,” Childe permits. 

“Do not… return to Snezhnaya for a while,” Zhongli advises. “Your wound will only heal once you have moved to a better place, because… a change in environment would be healthy… and the chances of landing yourself in trouble in this city are high. Liyue would suit you well but, of course, if you find your heart longing for the scenery of other regions, anywhere else would suffice. You deserve happiness.”

He covers his lies with half-truths, praying his uncertainty wouldn’t bleed into his words. In his position, he can only offer advice—but whether or not the young man would listen to him is another question altogether. He has snatched his share of joy, perhaps selfishly, but Ajax deserves love beyond his comprehension. 

“I wonder if we will meet again,” Childe speculates. 

Zhongli reminds him to lower his shirt again, after changing him into a fresh set of bandages. Fixing his glove to hide charcoal hands and yellowed veins, he smiles, “When the time comes.”