Archive of Our Own

For you

Because you're still hurting
aren’t you?

What a thing,
to be both starving and empty.
To ache for love—
to take the scraps from its table,
and yet, run sickly from the feast.
LOVE DISORDERS AND OTHER OLD HEARTACHES, Ashe Vernon

Childe doesn't have a favorite color. At least he wouldn't say he has. As a kid he used to feel bad about the sole idea; favoring one would mean to neglect the rest and there were so many pretty colors to choose from, he didn’t want to decide. He liked to draw with them all, paint his works in rainbows of all kinds of shapes instead of settling for a single color.

When his family realized, they made it a habit to ask him again and again — his answer to the question changed every single time, the five-year-old completely unaware of the scheme or the chuckles of those around him when they ruffled his hair and told him that he made a good choice (again).

He filled in drawings with as many colors as possible. They used to shine on the white underground of fragile copy paper, and spill over the thin edges he cut himself on so often. They would pool at his feet, puddles of bursting intensity, and fill up an entire room and Childe relished in using every existing pencil in that huge crayon box his mother had given him one Christmas. The pencils were all equally used through the years, shortened and shortened and then shortened some more with every sharpening. They had dark smudges on the coating indicating what color they were and at some point the wood encasing the lead was frail, chipping away and breaking apart under the slightest pressure. By then, though, Childe had almost used them up fully so it didn't hurt all that much when his mother finally threw them out.

He’s always been particularly fond of blue though. There’s a comfort in it that he can’t explain and won’t find in other colors, something that will make him pick the color when he’s asked on a whim. He used to pick his notebooks or pencil case in pretty baby blue or ask his sister to paint his nails cobalt. She always complied with a laugh and Childe used to stare at his nails for hours, enamored with the shade on them. He even had blue for his braces growing up and never even considered choosing another color.

Maybe because it reminds him of the sea, the blue of the waves off-shore, in the distance where his father’s fisherboat is just a speck on the line of the horizon. Childe loves the sea more than anything else. Nothing makes his heart beat as loud and strong in his chest as the calm power the waves emit, rocking him along to the beach or further and further out.

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

When he’s fifteen, he meets Scaramouche. The boy is two years older than him and wears an everlasting frown on his face. Maybe because he has to repeat an entire school year because Inazuma doesn’t have the same curriculum as Shnezhnaya does. Or maybe because he’s got no friends at all.

Childe decides to change the latter. He sits next to him during lunch and partners up with him for group work. He has pretty, pretty eyes. Periwinkle, if Childe’s not mistaken and his sister’s teachings of colors and shades has done him any good. His lips are thin — maybe because he’s always pulling them into a flat line or a scowl when he sits in class — and his skin is fair. He’s as pale as the snow outside, no freckles or a single mole in sight. It’s almost unsettling, seeing someone so ethereal. Childe doesn’t dare touch him, too frightened to leave the same dark smudges on his skin as his fingers left on the pencils back then — until Scaramouche snaps at him for it.

“D’you think I’m made of glass or some shit?!” His gaze is burning, a storm brewing on the cusp of lashing out. If he looks close enough, Childe can see lightning flashing in those dark irises, rain pouring. His heart tugs.

“What do you mean?” he asks, a confused laugh bubbling up in his chest.

Scaramouche’s frown deepens, his eyes widen and the fire grows hotter. There’s thunder rumbling in the distance — it rings in his ears.

He watches the older boy pick up his tray of food. Half of the dishes are completely untouched and the other half is not even finished — maybe Scaramouche’s light complexion comes from being unhealthy as fuck, if his eating habits are anything to go by. The glance he gives Childe as he gets up makes him shiver — if looks could kill, he’d be long since dead.

“If you’re so repulsed by me that you can’t even touch me, then stop wasting my patience by hanging off of me.”

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

The next day, Childe stops Scaramouche in his tracks by grabbing his wrist as he tries to brush past him without any form of acknowledgement. He closes his hand firmly around it and he feels the edge of the joints dig into his palm. Scaramouche’s skin is as cold as it looks, but it doesn’t faze him. If anything, Childe tightens his grip as if he could lend him some warmth with it.

The glare he receives is devastating, but Childe isn’t scared — and he’s definitely not repulsed. He meets the stormy eyes in waves of courage, fifteen and stupid unraveling seventeen and barely any wiser.

For some reason, he’s the one that feels stripped bare.

“See you at lunch?” he asks him and Scaramouche only scoffs. Pulling away from Childe’s grip, he shoulders his backpack again and Childe lets him go without another word. But sure enough, come lunch Scaramouche is seated at their usual table at the edge of the room, where the shadows cave in and make the Inazuman boy go unnoticed. Where Childe’s presence will inevitably chase them away and brighten up the little corner.

Scaramouche won’t say anything about him showing up as he does all the other days and Childe won’t stare at his every move in reverence.

Well, maybe he will, but that won’t be the only thing he does. He’ll reach out and touch in his gestures, shove Scaramouche by the shoulder or knock their heads together until the older boy complains, yet never withdraws fully.

Although his eyes are periwinkle and his skin is white and his hair is pitch black, he reminds Childe of deep, brooding purple. The one he used to paint the sky in eeriness when he would draw a thunderstorm.

Scaramouche is the dark clouds piling up in the sky and thunder in the distance. So far Childe hasn’t been struck by any lightning

He smells like petrichor.

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

Growing up with Scaramouche is as if you’re looking at a shadow. A mirror of everything he does and is and yet so fundamentally different that Childe feels like he doesn’t really know him even after years have passed.

They differ so much that it’s a surprise they get along at all — but opposites are said to attract, so that’s probably why Scaramouche allows Childe to stick around. They spend hours upon hours in Childe’s cramped bedroom or Scaramouche’s, which is twice as big and just as empty. It’s there that Childe learns about a house that isn’t a home, how a place you spend most of your time in is nothing else but that. An enclosed space to shelter from the weather, but nothing of emotional value, so unlike his own bedroom that’s littered with memories you can’t see the carpet anymore. The walls are full with posters and pictures, all four corners stuffed with useless clutter that he simply can’t part with yet.

But to Scaramouche, his house is no haven and just a place to sleep, that’s why he prefers Childe’s.

“Feels like a hug,” he mumbles one day when Childe asks him about it. He is partially embarrassed about the humble home of his family and partially about his family themselves. At Scaramouche’s no one’s ever home, they can do whatever they feel like all day long. Here, voices fill the air at every hour of the day, his mother telling Childe to help his father unload the catches he made when he returns home or grab ingredients for dinner from the garden. Scaramouche has yet to complain about how busy his homelife makes him whenever the boy’s over, but still Childe feels bad. Judged, because Scaramouche keeps looking at him with those scrutinizing, dark eyes but never says anything.

That day however, the shrug he gives him is a breath of fresh air. Regarding Childe with those same eyes, he adds, “Your family loves you.”

It sounds more significant coming from those thin lips than it ever did in his own head. Equal parts admiration and warning not to take it for granted. Childe realizes then that the silence of Scaramouche’s house can’t be much of a blessing when it’s all you ever hear.

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

Their differences become more and more striking as they grow up. Scaramouche likes to stay inside no matter how sunny and mild the temperatures are, no matter what Childe suggests. Where he picks up basketball and then boxing, Scaramouche enjoys curling up on a couch or in a bed and burying his nose in a book. He has his shelves stacked full with them to the brim and yet he keeps on buying new ones. In fact, that’s the only activity for which he’ll come outside voluntarily. As soon as Childe mentions a bookstore, he perks up.

His skin never tans because of his hermit lifestyle, but altogether, his appearance doesn’t change a lot from what it looked like when Childe met him for the first time. He stops growing after hitting 163cm, but his hair is shorter now, tickling the base of his neck instead of reaching a little past his shoulders and at some point he begins to paint his nails black. Some form of polish is always stuck on them, either fresh or chipped beyond the point where it would still seem somewhat aesthetically pleasing — Scaramouche doesn’t care though. He never cares about what people might think or say and simply acts upon his own thoughts and wants.

Way too often, Childe catches himself staring at him almost longingly — not because there is something more he’d desire from the older boy, definitely not, but simply because he admires Scaramouche for his endless courage. Despite what everyone thinks and regardless of the big mouth he has, Childe curls in on himself when push eventually comes to shove.

Scaramouche notices because he always catches his gaze. It’s instinctual at some point, the familiar weight of Childe’s blue eyes washing over him and he lifts his head, gaze dragging up from his nails and the brush of the nail polish to him, pinning him into place. For a moment it’s silent and Childe feels his cheeks heat up at being caught so obviously staring.

But then— “I’ve got blue or green, if you want one of these. Or you wait until I’m done, I’m not gonna take turns with my nail polish.”

It takes Childe by surprise at first and he finds himself unable to answer. Instead of agreeing, he hears countless voices of other boys back when he was younger (but not young enough anymore) telling him nail polish is for girls and stupid. That he’s a girl with the baby blue or pastel pinks on his nails. Childe hears his own frustrated yells of denial still ring in his ears and if it weren’t for Scaramouche’s eyes tethering him to the present, he’d probably feel the scratch of his vocal cords from screaming so loud, too.

Childe isn’t sure when he started caring about their judgment more than about what would make him happy. And he isn’t sure when Scaramouche noticed the desire in his gaze whenever he pulled out his little flask of black polish.

The two other bottles are in the same drawer where the other boy gets the black polish out of, nestled between a bunch of socks. Childe goes for the blue first, but the green is pretty, too. Deep and saturated, a beautiful emerald — he grabs the bottle before he can think better of it. The next thirty minutes he spends on the floor with Scaramouche, concentrated on applying the liquid polish on his nails and not his entire finger.

He fucks up his left hand and he should’ve expected it, applying with his non-dominant hand. Scaramouche makes fun of him all evening, but Childe can’t help but laugh along and stare at his hands (the right one more than the left one, if he’s being honest) in fascination. The green looks nice.

And it turns out emerald green nails look even better dunking a basketball during an school game. No one has anything to say about the polish afterwards, when they’re in the locker room. Scaramouche’s black harmonizes with them too when he offers one hand for a silent high-five as soon as Childe stumbles out of the sticky room, doused in twelve different deodorants at least.

What his teammates do question, though, is his relationship with the older boy.

“So… you and Raiden?” Itto asks one day, a broad grin plastered all over his face.

Confused, Childe blinks at him, pen hovering mere millimeters above his sheet as he’s hunched over his desk at the library. “Huh?”

“Hey, it’s fine if you swing that way, Childe,” he chuckles and shrugs, but Childe is genuinely confused, because what is he talking about?

“He’s my best friend,” he replies, but it sounds like a question even to his own ears. He’s not quite sure what to make of this conversation in its entirety.

Apparently, Itto doesn’t believe him. “Sure, sure,” he sighs, terribly amused as he turns back around in his seat, focusing on his own studies, “That’s why you stare at him with starry eyes and shit.”

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

Here’s the thing: Childe has read enough sappy romance books and watched countless dramas because his mother and his oldest sister are weak for those cliché plots. He’s very much aware of the friends to lovers trope and the onesided-not-so-onesided pining plots. But Scaramouche is his best friend and that’s it. That’s all there is to it. He never even considered there to be more than that. They spend so much time together, Scaramouche is like an extension of himself, albeit a very different one. Childe wouldn’t want to miss him for the world, but it isn’t a crush. It isn’t love.

Sure, they’re closer than Childe is with any of his other friends. He won’t deny that — and Childe has many friends; he loves the masses, he loves the people. Childe loves socializing and as if he’s glue he sticks to groups of people without the need to fully belong to them — except Scaramouche.

They call Childe bright. His mom often says he lights up a room whenever he enters it, his grandma tells him he smiles like the sun. He has no color, he’s light. He supposes that’s why he’s got so many friends, why it’s so easy for him to make them, because there’s a certain warmth in his gaze and reassurance in his posture, comfort in his friendly touches. He’s welcoming with every word, or at least he tries to be. People like to bathe in light, they stretch their faces towards sun rays and hope to catch them if only for a moment.

If people are comfortable, they’ll stick around. He’s good at welcoming each and every single one of them. If you asked his mother, she’d tell you that that’s the biggest reason why Scaramouche and him are so close — a boy that has shadows clinging to his neck will chase after the sun like a beggar, will sink to his knees and pray like a damned to his god.

Childe knows it’s the other way round. Scaramouche, for all his pale skin and dark clothes, that black nail polish and the Doc Martens, has lightning in his eyes and the electricity runs through Childe every time he touches him. It keeps him alive — it’s not Scaramouche chasing after Childe. It’s Childe chasing after Scaramouche.

Not that anyone would care about that, but apparently someone has started to see it. Even if it isn’t love.

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

Funnily enough, Childe doesn’t even know all that much about love in the grand scheme of things. He’s read so many books and watched countless movies and shows and yet he’s got no real experience with it.

Ever since his growth spurt last year and the build up of muscles through boxing, he’s had two or three confessions of blushing, stuttering girls at school. He rejected them all with soft smiles and comforting words, his stomach twisting up in uncomfortable knots at the mere idea of it — a relationship.

He has thought about it long and hard and realized why the idea made him so uncomfortable; it’s because he couldn’t treat any of these girls right anyways. Childe doesn’t have time for such commitment. He’s everywhere and nowhere — all over the place and never permanent. And he doesn’t want to be anything other than that, if he’s being honest.

Slowing down, stopping, feels like stasis and it makes Childe’s skin itch with unshed energy, begging to be freed. He can’t deal with it and so he doesn’t even try. He doesn’t want to experiment at the expense of someone’s feelings and hurt them if he can’t perform accordingly. So he declines and stays transparent, not invisible, holds the same pressure as everyone around him, so he’s there and people are aware but no one can sense him, regardless — halfway one and halfway the other, the inbetween, the line you draw between shadow and light. The place where water touches the shore, both wet and yet never belonging to the sea either. A ghost.

Scaramouche’s the phantom, so it’s not that weird that they make their unusual friendship work quite well. Actually, if he thinks about it, Scaramouche is his only permanent — or the only permanent thing he chose on his own volition. His priority is basketball and the school’s championship, his next three exams which he hasn’t studied for yet, his graduation in summer, and, well, the periwinkle boy with his chapped black nail polish that is lying on his stomach on the carpet of his bedroom currently, solving his math homework.

Childe doesn’t need more. He doesn’t want more.

He’s got Scaramouche, what else should he ask for?

Purple and Blue have always gone well together.

Until Scaramouche tells him about how he’ll spend his first year of university back in Inazuma. Back home, is what he calls it, but Childe understands it well enough. He’s not sure what to say, because what do you say to such information? Are congratulations in order?

Then why are these words shards in his throat?

A long moment he spends simply looking at Scaramouche, blinking in a dazed manner. His body is strangely cold and his chest uncomfortably empty. No, is what he’d like to say.

“A whole year?” is what he settles on eventually. His voice is a whisper and Scaramouche probably takes it as awe rather than–

than what?

Denial?

Fear?

Childe should be excited for him. Deep down he knows he should and somewhere, in the crevices of his being he definitely is. But his shoulders sink under the heaviness of a weight he can’t identify and his breathing is labored.

For once it’s Scaramouche’s grin that lights up the entire room and Childe wonders how many times he’s seen the older boy smile like this. He’s pretty sure this is the first time and the realization is far from pretty.

Another weight on top of the thing crushing him.

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

Without Scaramouche things are different.

His bedroom is too quiet without a second person’s breathing and the rustling of clothes when they move. Childe finds his gaze wandering to the spot on the floor where the other boy used to lie so often and his heart aches when he finds it empty. Every time it’s a fresh reminder that his best friend is at the bottom of the map now, the other end of the world. He’s in a completely different corner, a grid square Childe has never been to and probably never will.

The time difference between them makes Scaramouche head to bed hours before Childe, although he loves staying up way too late. When Childe makes it home after university, he has an hour, maybe two, of seeing Scaramouche’s face on his smartphone or laptop screen. His voice is always a bit metallic and distorted through the speakers. It sounds a little hollow, the richness of his slightly hoarse words lost to the winds. Childe wants nothing more than to reach through the screen and pull Scaramouche through it, back into his bedroom, back home.

He feels lonely, even if Scaramouche is still spending time with him, even if he has old friends that go to the same university as him and a few that even have the same lectures. It’s just not the same, he supposes. None of them are his best friend. None of them come home with him to rot away on the carpet in his room until they’ve worn a slight indentation into it — one that Childe treats like a shrine. A grave.

(He’d plant flowers on it and put a tombstone up behind it: I wish you’d lie here. Instead, I mourn the phantom of you that haunts these walls.)

It’s simply not the same. Not with only two hours a day where he can hear Scaramouche’s voice crackling through his laptop or phone. Not when these hours are often dedicated to doing assignments or homework, something they don’t share anymore, because Scaramouche is several countries and an entire ocean away, attending a different university, but also different courses.

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

Childe feels him slip away. It happens during finals season and it's terrifying to put it bluntly.

Their phone calls aren't daily anymore, because more often than not Scaramouche feels so tired he's already passed out when Childe barely finished his last class of the day. On weekends, when they'd call for longer than just the regular one or two hours, Scaramouche goes to the library instead and studies with some classmates. Childe isn't sure where they stand, since he complains about them frequently and says he'd rather be left alone, but the point is, he spends more time with them than with Childe despite his bitching and whining.

He gets it, really. It makes a lot more sense to study with people that share your classes than with your best friend simply because he's your best friend. Childe can't be mad at him for that, but he can't help his own emotions.

It's ridiculous, it's so, so stupid, but Childe feels so terribly alone. Left behind. Abandoned.

That's rich, coming from someone who has friends everywhere, he’s aware, but there's a voice at the back of his head and it whispers, cruel and petulant, that these people aren't Scaramouche. No one can hold a candle to him, not even close. Childe doesn't even want them to try, it'd be futile. Itto can't fill out the silhouette in his chest although he's taller and broader than that frame. Kaveh can't either, although he's got more than enough time to try.

Childe doesn't feel the same way around any of these people.

The worst part is, Scaramouche doesn't even seem to notice. He lives his life miles and miles away from Childe and apparently he doesn't mind the unfamiliar silence between them. Apparently Childe is the only one who's pained by it, who doesn't have a clue how to deal with it.

At first he tries to hold onto Scaramouche and keep him right where is — An entire universe away but still here, next to him in some way. He asks about calling, movie nights, tries to text more or at least be online when Scaramouche finally decides to reply to his messages. But Scaramouche goes offline as quickly as he shows up, regardless of Childe's attempts to keep the conversation alive and it gets exhausting being rejected all the time.

It gets scary asking again.

Loneliness keeps chipping away at him the way one carves out statues of marble. Childe feels the sharp edge of the chisel, the thrum of his uneven surface breaking away under its blade piece by piece, bit by bit, every time the hammer comes down on the handle. He wonders how he did it before Scaramouche, live like this, but he can't remember.

He can't recall the life before Scaramouche was a part of it and maybe that is why it's so difficult to live without him now. How do you turn back into something when you weren't really anything before?

Spending his evenings and nights alone, without the comfort of a familiar, deep voice, Childe learns that loneliness isn't a monster. Far from it. It has no teeth or claws but it still manages to rip him to shreds day after day after day. It's a black hole, a maw in its own terrifying right.

He doesn’t know a lot about these things, except for the fact that beyond a certain threshold, a so-called event horizon, it’s impossible to escape its gravitational pull. Lately, he’s stuck only millimeters behind it every day anew. He wakes up and he starts out in the same spot, unable to defy the pull, rendered helpless against the struggle and all he can do is accept it. Let himself be pulled in, watch as the infinite void comes closer and closer — there’s never anyone around to wrench him back.

It’s his fault for never saying it. He doesn’t talk about it. Childe never asks for help and he knows he should if he feels this bad about something. For some reason, though, he can’t open his mouth and push the words out.

A part of him, a very, very selfish one admittedly, wants someone, anyone at this point, to see without his screams drawing the attention. Oh, Childe wishes he would be seen. He wishes someone would notice how he’s floating and being pulled in, would at least come closer and ask.

But Scaramouche is busy. He’s tired. He is sorry, I’m out longer than I thought, can we do another day?

He’s on the other side of the world and without a connection and a camera he won’t see Childe’s tears when he gets a sure! Don’t worry about it.

He doesn’t know a lot about black holes, except that when the pull becomes too strong, it will start to compress and stretch you at the same time as it rips you apart. We’re not talking about shreds anymore, then, but smaller. It will tear you apart and then it’ll tear you apart again and then again, too many times to count.

The saddest part is that the reason why you can’t escape past the event horizon is because the velocity needed for such an act exceeds the speed of light, which is the speed barrier of the cosmos as we know it. Which, on a basic level, means you can shine light into a black hole, but it won’t come back out to you. It won’t even reflect a part of it, something that gets thrown back in one last, desperate attempt to survive — it gets simply swallowed by infinite, unfamiliar, terrifying darkness. When not even light stays it can’t get a lot lonelier anymore.

Childe falls asleep before he reaches the singularity and wakes up, once more, just a hand’s width past the event horizon. No one ever notices.

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

At the beginning of his second year at uni, after Scaramouche has extended his stay in Inazuma (he smiled just as bright as the year before) Childe meets Lumine. They’re in the same seminar because she failed it last summer and has to redo it. She’s a beautiful woman, with a blinding smile.

Despite the blonde hair and the golden irises that light up whenever she gets to talk about anything she’s interested in, she reminds Childe of fierce red. The kind of a traffic light or a stop sign. The one his oldest sister would wear as a lipstick shade for some time when he was younger. Almost blood, but not quite as dark. Warmer, too.

With her around, the indentation in his carpet becomes easier to ignore. When her big eyes focus on him, he doesn’t cling to Scaramouche as much anymore and he notices how much his hands hurt from gripping so tightly, how they’re all read and how his palms are almost chafed from the friction.

It’s easier to let go when Lumine occupies a spot on his bed and they do an assignment together. The red reminds him of the famous string of fate connecting people and he thinks he could like this. After all, Childe has always loved the idea of soulmates.

As it turns out, the idea is not quite the same as reality.

Six months later, Lumine confesses to him. She asks Childe to be her boyfriend and Childe can’t bring himself to agree, because when he sees her, he doesn’t— that’s not the same.

That’s the first time he realizes there’s something wrong with him. Something that no one has ever mentioned before, something that no one has seen on him so far. It brings him back to quiet libraries and teasing grins, someone asking if he’s in love with a boy who leaves stains of purple on everything he touches. Childe had the same answer back then, but less poignant.

Lumine is pretty and she’s funny and she’s lovely. He’s much closer with her than he was with all the other girls that ever confessed to him. Maybe almost as close as he was with Scaramouche. When he thinks about it, he still likes the idea of a red string of fate, of soulmates, he’d go as far as saying he’d want—

Want what.

Want—

Because it’s not a girlfriend. That idea is uncomfortable.

But regardless of what is wrong with him, Lumine is a friend, nothing more and nothing less. He can’t word it prettier or make it something more without lying directly into her face and deluding those hopeful eyes. Childe doesn’t understand it, but he doesn’t question it in that moment, because Lumine deserves better than half-assed responses or hesitating silences. He knows nothing will prevent the heartbreak but Childe offers her a smile and an apology despite that and he hopes it will soothe her pain just a little.

With that she withdraws. It’s the most obvious thing to do after a rejection and Childe can’t blame her, never would. He’d let himself have space too after that, but at the same time he wishes she wouldn’t.

With her absence, the maw opens up again. That terrible darkness that doesn’t even let light escape pulls him back in and Childe is ripped apart in his loneliness just like he was before.

I want—

No one’s there to grab him and pull him out of the event horizon. Once more, Childe is abandoned just millimeters past that line and it’s unfair to feel this way. He rejected her. He has so many friends, people greeting him in the hallways or at lunch, asking him how he’s doing and whatnot. Scaramouche does text him, even if it’s in all his sporadic, short glory.

Childe feels so lonely in the middle of all these kind people. He feels invisible and he knows he could say something and he should, but why is no one seeing him?

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

When he tells Scaramouche about Lumine during one of their rare calls, the older boy scoffs. “Don’t know why you’re surprised about that.”

It’s silent for a moment, Childe watches him confusedly. Scaramouche picks up on it almost immediately and in return he moves closer towards the screen of his phone, squinting through the camera as if he’s trying to see him better through the poor connection. “What?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

There’s another beat between them, Scaramouche staring at him unblinking, unmoving, before he suddenly leans back on the couch he’s situated on. The look he gives Childe now is quizzical at best and mistrusting at worst.

“Aren’t you aro too?” he asks back brusquely and Childe confusion only grows.

“What?”

“Aromantic,” Scaramouche repeats, slowly as if Childe’s the most dense person under the sun, “You didn’t know? Like– no romantic attraction or interest–”

“What are you talking about?” Childe interrupts him. His voice sounds strangely breathless and something slings around his throat, drawing tighter and tighter. “I am attracted to both genders–”

“Sexually, yes, that’s a discussion for another day. When were you actually in love, though? Or why did you reject that girl?”

Scaramouche’s gaze is sharp, calculating, that much Childe can recognize even with the bad quality. He stays quiet while Childe’s mind runs a hundred miles a second, trying to catch up with what he’s just heard.

But it would add up, given that he rejected Lumine — not just because of his lack of a crush, but also the inherent discomfort of the sole idea of having a girlfriend. It makes sense, it makes so much sense, it makes way too much sense. Suddenly that something wrong inside of him has a name and it starts with A. The letters fill the gaps of a crossword puzzle with terrifying accuracy.

“So… you’re saying I’ll never fall in love?” he mumbles, eyes wandering over the posters still stapled to his walls. He doesn’t care what he’s focusing on as long as it’s not Scaramouche’s face on the screen of his phone.

He hears him sigh, though, and just like that his attention snaps back to the other boy.

He’s tipping his head back against the backrest of the couch, staring up at his ceiling as he cards a hand through his black hair. Childe spots the signature chapped polish on his nails for a split second.

“Not necessarily.” His voice is a lot more gentle than what Childe is used to. Probably because Scaramouche realized that he did, in fact, not know and he just opened the gates to a big fat existential-sexuality crisis in the span of two minutes. He’s not sure if he likes it or not; Scaramouche isn’t nice just to appease to someone’s feelings. Childe has never been so fragile that he’d even consider minding his tone and words — he’s not used to this type of comfort from his best friend and the softness makes it seem as if the whole thing is that much worse.

With a little grunt, Scaramouche shifts in his seat and continues. "Your experience is as unique as everyone else's. You might — but considering what you've been like so far, I'd say it's… unlikely."

Childe's mouth works a tad faster than his brain. "But I—" he stops himself automatically, because what?

What is there to deny or refuse?

But. But, but, but—

I want—

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

Green. This new word and its definition is the color green. It's tinted with it, two different shades of it, actually — Childe doesn't know what to do with either of them.

He never cared all that much about green. It lacks any comfort of blue although he knows the basics of color theory and is aware that his ocean and some yellow are the base for this.

But it's green, inconspicuous and bland. To be honest, he's never thought longer than three seconds about that color. There is nothing that reminds him of it, nothing to coin it to — except this new strange thing, that Childe almost doesn't dare speak out loud. It sounds so foreign in his mouth, ties a knot into his tongue and he stumbles over the syllables (Just what is this thing?).

But he supposes that it could fit. Somehow, at least, if he attempts to shape it a little to make it fit the hollow space carved out in his chest. When he holds it against the light, it doesn't break and refract — maybe because it's already a tiny fraction of light itself, something broken apart making up the bigger picture — but instead it is a green-tinted glass through which Childe sees Lumine's hopeful eyes.

It could fit. Deep down Childe knows it could and that it will as soon as he's tamed the unknown entity revolting at the thought of how it could paint him green and white and black. Not red. Not blue. Not purple.

It takes him back to silent libraries and asks him the same question as Itto did back then. This time around, Childe doesn't have to answer, but he knows the reason anyways.

It takes him back to childhood days, middle school, this tiny sliver of time and life when his best friend wasn’t around yet, still faraway and non-existent to the same consciousness that clings to him now. It asks Childe in naive, childish curiosity, "Who's your crush, Childe?"

He remembers this moment, although years have passed. He does, because the confusion of the whole situation drilled itself into the crevices of his brain with such intensity, he could never get truly rid of it again. Not that Childe wasn’t aware what the word or the question meant, he did, he simply hadn't given it any thought up to then whatsoever. There wasn't anyone befitting that title and so it never came to use.

Childe still remembers how he shrugged and turned back to the doodles on his math sheet. "No one," he muttered, his voice a whole stretch of indifference and disinterest.

But the fourth grade girls didn't take no one for an answer. According to their playbook, everyone had someone. And everyone will get someone eventually and a nine-year-old definitely has gotten far enough to achieve that milestone.

The girls giggled and cooed, and circled him like a group of vultures ready to pick him apart by skin and flesh until nothing but bones would've remained. "It's okay," they whisper-shouted, as if that would've made them any less suspicious, "We won't tell her."

Her. Childe tensed up back then. Pulled his shoulders up a little bit and hunched further over his desk and sheet, almost burying his face in it if he could. Hiding away from their burning, obnoxious stares and mocking grins. He didn't want to participate in this.

Her, her, her — how does a nine-year-old explain what if it isn't a girl? How does a child fight a stereotype and the norm of the world when he doesn't understand just where he doesn't quite fit in, because maybe, just maybe, Childe has always liked boys a bit better than girls, although he finds them both so, so pretty. But no one has ever said such a thing out loud and he simply isn't brave enough to be the first.

Pretty doesn't equal a crush though. At least Childe doesn't think it does; he hasn't found anyone that would be pretty enough even after a new haircut that he would bestow such a high honor upon.

The green persists as the girls do. One of his classmates' fingertips are stained that color as she shoves him rather harshly, clearly getting impatient. "It's fine, Childe, just tell us her name."

There was no name. There never was a name, but they kept pestering him every free minute.

"What are you so scared of?"

"We swear we won't tell her." As if the oath of a nine year-old would mean a lot. As if it even mattered, when all the girls in his class were on his case anyways.

No one. The answer is clad in dark and light green, then white, then gray and finally black. Not that a bunch of children knew that combination, though.

He hated it back then, the way they couldn't just leave him alone, but nowadays Childe can't blame them. They didn't know there were other answers to love than of course. Childe only found out about it a few hours ago and he's currently losing sleep over it, so how could these girls possibly have known more than him? When all they ever learned was to dream of a picket-fence life at the dead-end of a street, convinced to have two children, one girl and one boy or maybe twins, wouldn't that be cute. Hell, Childe himself has never seen a single movie with such an end or read a book with green-gray colors for its cover.

Consequently, he had no choice but to play by the only valid rulebook to get them off his back — he named a random girl one year above them whose name he heard shouted in the hallways once. The girls didn't know her but they screeched in delight at finally uncovering his 'secret' regardless, erupting into a fit of laughter right afterwards.

He supposes you don't usually pick a name and stick to it when you're talking about a crush.

Green takes him back to a horribly empty and impersonal bedroom. Despite that, it was a room Childe treasured as if it was the hall of a king. The jewel-studded and gold-painted throne at the far back was a simple gaming chair in purple. Childe’s ruler never wore a crown, but chipped black nail polish instead and it shimmered like the finest onyxes regardless of the ugly edges.

He stares at the little emerald green flask in the drawer, lying on top of a bunch of socks. It’s the only memory of green that is vivid and intense. Bright. And something tells him that he should’ve realized back then, even if he isn’t sure how he possibly could’ve figured this out with a mere nail polish.

When he looks over his shoulder and focuses on the boy lying on the floor, immersed in painting his nails, shoulders rising and sinking softly with every breath he takes, he notices that maybe it’s not about the nail polish.

But what about Scaramouche? He never loved him and now at least he knows he probably never will if he hasn’t so far. So how can it be about Scaramouche? What does he have that Childe has yet to tame? He never had him, not in that way. He never will and he doesn’t want to have him like that anyways. He’s always been content with how things were until—

Until.

He’s still lying in his bed when the thought strikes him. The red digits of his alarm clock spell out 4:07, the seven changing to an eight in a split second. Childe almost knocks the damned thing over in his haste to grab his phone right next to it.

Even on its lowest setting the screen is still blinding, causing him to squint against it as he pulls up google and begins to type in his words into the search bar. It takes four whole websites until he finds it, because all these people talk about is only ever the fucking flag itself and how there’s so many different types of attractions and frankly Childe doesn’t care about anything of that. What he’s looking for isn’t what they’re talking about when they explain aromance. They talk of desire; aromantic people generally have no desire for a romantic relationship.

Childe thinks that might be true for some of them, and to some extent he surely agrees, that’s why he is so uncomfortable with the thought of having a partner romantically, but it’s also useless — there is something, buried beneath his discomfort and lack of romantic attraction, something that screams for him to take notice of it. It reaches out with desperate hands towards the word relationship, tries to grab it, snag it away and straight out of the text where it is sure to leave a gaping space behind that resembles Childe’s heart. Instead it uselessly scratches against the screen of his phone, begging for something more detailed than this.

He finds it towards the bottom of the fourth page. A small word, inconspicuous as the color green itself, so specific most people never think to mention it. It speaks of intimacy, but not romance. His want receives a provisional name with it. It sounds a little funny and when Childe mumbles it into the silence of his bedroom, it bounces off the walls in a distant echo. It’s even stranger than the first one but it feels okay. It feels like something Childe can make work of. The thing screeching and crying quietens down at the sound of it, but it doesn’t stop scratching at his ribcage, trying to break through the screen and into the text.

The word isn’t quite green and more periwinkle and Childe doesn’t understand how. He never had Scaramouche like this, he had him—

He had him.

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

The indentation of his carpet is still there. It will never leave and Childe wouldn’t want it to. His longing has strewn flower seeds upon it, but nothing has ever grown from it. How could it, when nothing is there it could nurture from?

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

It’s four fifty-two am and Childe realizes he has been mourning for a long time now.

.-.. --- ...- . .-.. . ... ...

For spring break, Scaramouche invites Childe over. It sounds insane and a little bit it is, because the plane tickets cost a fortune yet his best friend decides to pay for them without batting an eye. Given that he used to live in a whole mansion back in Snezhnaya, Childe assumes he barely notices the hole they leave in his bank account.

Scaramouche got a cute little apartment in the middle of Inazuma City. It's above a bookshop and has a little balcony adjacent to the living room that oversees the vast sea stretching out far below the main island of Inazuma. In the distance Childe can see other ones and to his left Tenshukaku is rising up into the air at the highest point of the island, a bit further away from the heart of the city itself.

It’s late when Childe arrives, the sun long since set and darkness stretching out in the sky above them. The moon is halfway full and it shines directly into the tiny guest bedroom Scaramouche has, providing a soft little shine of light when Childe can’t be bothered to turn on the light.

When he’s changed into a pair of more comfortable clothes, he joins Scaramouche in the living room, sitting down right in front of the couch and stretching his legs out. The balcony door is wide open, the white chiffon curtain that reaches the parquet floor is fluttering in the breeze that streams into the room. It’s fresh, bordering on the edge of cold, but Childe can handle it with a hoodie thrown over his shirt.

Scaramouche hands him a cup of tea and because Childe has always been a bit too impatient, he promptly burns his tongue on it. Wincing, he places the cup down on the coffee table and throws his best friend an accusatory glare for his stifled snickering as he gets comfortable next to him.

“How have you been?” he asks Childe. The question is sincere, although there is still a tint of amusement in his voice and the sound makes Childe pause for a moment. This is unlike Scaramouche, asking about his well-being so directly, so softly, which tells him something’s up.

He throws him an inquisitive glance, but Scaramouche’s head is lowered and his gaze is directed at the tea in his own cup. He’s stirring it slowly, the metal spoon causing a soft scratching sound over the ceramic, and then his eyes suddenly lift. They drag up, up, up at the same time as he lifts the cup and takes a tiny sip himself. He looks at Childe over the rim and his expression gives absolutely nothing away. It’s almost polite and a gut feeling tells him that some tiny, wicked smile curls Scaramouche’s lips behind that cup. He doesn’t comment on it.

Instead, Childe sighs and scoots forward, away from the couch, so he can lie down on the floor and stare up. At the ceiling there's a patch of glow-in-the-dark stars — Scaramouche has them in every room, chasing away perpetual darkness. Even with the soft glow of a floor lamp right behind the couch, bathing the room in a warm light, they shine pretty brightly already, intense yellow twinkling against a white-ish surface.

He could lie, because such a question usually doesn’t demand for honesty. Usually, it wishes for a lie. Pure courtesy and politeness, that’s what this word combination is supposed to be — except when it comes out of Scaramouche’s mouth. He never cared about courtesy or manners.

Scaramouche only asks this question if he wants the truth. The fact that he asks instead of thinly veiling his care and worry with a layer or snarky comments speaks volumes itself. Childe is well aware that he could lie, but why would he when the sincerity is so palpable for once?

And could he really lie when he’s been aching to be seen, to be heard, so badly?

The carpet beneath him is soft and fluffy as he relaxes into it with his full weight. Childe sinks his fingers into it as deep as he can, until the tips scrape over the bottom, hard surface pressing up against him. The rough feeling is grounding, but he still thinks that this is all ridiculous. He's twenty-two so why does he feel like twelve and watching a music video of two boys kissing for the very first time? Why is his throat as dry as back then, why does he keep thinking about it hours after closing youtube?

He should’ve figured this out earlier, too. In hindsight it’s plainly obvious and Childe is somewhat ashamed to have been so blind to his and Scaramouche’s friendship — what it meant to him on a deeper, emotional, molecular level. He should’ve realized it back then, what this means, and then this carnal desire of his would’ve never had the chance to lash out the way it does these days.

Childe could’ve squashed this subconscious impression before it even would’ve had the chance to form. Now it’s way too late — and yet, he feels like he’s running out of time before he even had the chance to catch up with it.

He’d like to pretend as if he’s fifteen again, when everything was clouded in uncertainty and when his fears weren’t even there to begin with. Back when Childe was unaware about event horizons or a gravitational pull that not even light itself can escape. When his desires were reflected in a set of eyes a bit older, a bit lighter around the pupils, and green was just a color. He wants to stop feeling so fucking lonely although hes surrounded by people.

How do you explain this ache as something less selfish than what it is?

Childe doesn’t know, so he doesn’t try.

“I’ve been terribly lonely,” he mumbles. The sound comes choked, thick with despair and yet so hollow that the emptiness threatens to make all the individual letters burst apart. It rings ugly in his ears and scratches against the back of his throat as though they’re shards of glass. But a fluffy white carpet isn’t the worst place to bleed out on.

Scaramouche notices. Of course he does, it's Scaramouche after all. His hand finds Childe's on the carpet and slowly, tentatively, their pinkies intertwine as Scaramouche hooks his thinner one around Childe’s. Childe follows the example of his breath, deep and calm, with pauses between each inhale and exhale as the silence stretches out.

"I'm sorry," Scaramouche says, a soft sound, genuine. Somehow it makes it that much harder to keep the tears at bay. Childe wants to clutch his hand like a man drowning in the ocean, but his waves aren't blue, they're green, and he knows he can't ask all this of Scaramouche, so he doesn't dare implying the need for it.

He shrugs a little funnily and choppily on the carpet. "It's okay. I know you're busy." The worst part is he means it. Childe's words are as sincere as they can be, but some nasty, ugly, selfish part of him wants to be mean instead and throw a fit, because it still hurts. Why am I not important enough?! It wants to ask when Childe knows he is — just not like that.

Next to him, Scaramouche hums. He hears him shuffle on the carpet, then groan and from the corner of his vision he sees him lying down as well. Their pinkies never lose each other.

It's silent for another moment, but now the air is loaded, Scaramouche's words and Childe's own rubbing against each other until the static begins to crackle. Childe can almost see the sparks — he readies himself for the blow, because he knows Scaramouche and he knows there's something waiting.

"How have you been filling the void?" He asks him as if on cue and then he adds, "Looking for a friend to connect with on a deeper level and being let down every single time?"

It comes like a celestial hammer, hits him with all of Scaramouche's bluntness and Childe shatters into tiny little pieces. He hopes it looks pretty for all it's worth, at least, that this pain of his, this selfishness, has some shade or form to it that makes it loveable, if only just a little. If he can believe what has been said about him, it should be, because when you refract something bright (light) the individual wavelengths will appear as components of the whole. Maybe Scaramouche can see a rainbow instead of greed after holding up a prism and letting Childe crash into it at full speed.

"So you've realized." Tears burn behind Childe’s eyes and his throat is closed up. He refuses to look anywhere but up at the glowing stars. As if they could save him from his own pathetic heart by reaching down and pulling him up to sit between them.

Scaramouche makes a dismissive little noise at the back of his throat. "Figured it out around the same time as you, I'd say."

There's so much that Childe wants to say in response to this, he nearly chokes on the words sitting in his throat. Each sentence is more selfish than the last, though, so Childe swallows them all, wincing at the sharp sting they cause. They bounce around in his head, the echo of a curse, but Scaramouche has seen too many ugly parts of him tonight and Childe refuses to become a monster.

I have so much love to give but never in a way people want. Never in a way that is good enough for the world around me, always too much or too little. What I crave isn't there, there's barely a word for it. Why can't I have what everyone has so easily? How do you ask to be a priority without the relationship status of being one?

He listens to Scaramouche's breathing and follows its example just as before. Childe wishes he could follow the example of his life.

Why is everything so confusing and scary? When did it all become so complicated? When did growing up stop being only about going to sleep hours past your bedtime or playing outside although the sun has long since set? When did it turn into "Who am i" and "What do i do" and "Please stop this pain, please save me" — how can you be the scared one when your ID spells maturity and knowledge in a bunch of numbers? How can an adult need saving when a child calls them a hero?

What does Childe know about this anyways.

But when he chances a glance at Scaramouche, twenty-five and barely any wiser than him, he looks right back at Childe and his gaze is knowing. There's a comfort in being simply seen, something Scaramouche usually isn't good at with his scrutinizing, judgemental eyes. But now they spell the color of lavender for once, big and warm and bright. A hand reaching over the railing that Childe tumbled over. a lifeline in the midst of these waves. Safe shores in the distance. Comfort.

Maybe Childe can allow himself to be fifteen and scared again, with someone around who’s years ahead of him, ready to keep him steady, even if it's not like that.

"I love you, Ajax."

Childe turns his head away at breakneck speed, a pained groan and then a just as desperate, raw laugh escaping him before he can stop them. It's the last nail in his coffin; the tears leave a burning trail on his skin as they gain the upper hand and his vision grows blurry. Instead of stars he sees patches of yellow. Nothing out of Scaramouche's mouth has ever sounded so final. Don't say it.

"I won't build my life around you," he whispers. Childe is glad that Scaramouche never bothers to beat around the bush, even if it's not what he wants to hear, and that he doesn't comment on the tears streaming down the sides of his face and dripping onto the carpet below.

"I wouldn't ask you to," he replies, voice hoarse and words trembling. He suppresses a sob, but his shoulders shake regardless.

Scaramouche's pinky curls tighter around Childe's. "I know. You'd never be so selfish." He sounds so sure of it, as though it's an undeniable truth, one that will prevail for a lifetime, no matter what's to come. Meanwhile Childe bites back another, bitter laugh, but fails to keep the sob inside. How utterly ironic of Scaramouche to say that, when Childe has been feeling anything but selfless. Especially when they both hear his unsaid But you want me to still hanging in the air.

And god, how much Childe wants him to.

He doesn't bargain, though. He doesn't plead and doesn't beg. But he allows himself to grasp Scaramouche's hand properly and he clings to that, at last. Grips him with a strength that must be crushing to the other man, but if it hurts him he doesn't say anything about it. He holds onto his hand with everything he has, because it's the only durable lifeline in this storm and Childe doesn't want to drown.

Somewhere between glowing stars and burning tears, he asks himself if he'll ever go back to being bright after this or if he'll forever be a scattered set of colors.

Will this loneliness forever be a part of me?