Work Text:
Childe is nowhere to be found.
Lumine isn’t even sure if that’s a good or bad thing, in the first place. No Childe means no drama — no fights, no angry adepti, no angry Qixing — no angry people in general. Liyue Harbour is calm, Childe is either holed up at the bank or in a fight outside the city, and no one needs to call the Traveler in to help wrangle the Eleventh Harbinger out of another diplomatic disaster.
But. This isn’t Liyue Harbour.
“He could be in serious danger right now. We can't let him perish in there!” Paimon whizzes dizzy circles around the entrance of the Mystic Onmyou Chamber, her voice shrill with panic.
The door had only just (rather rudely) spit them back out into the outside world when they realised that Childe and Shiki Taishou had been separated from the rest of the group. Thankfully, the latter emerged unscathed only moments later, but Childe’s whereabouts remain a mystery. So here they are now, pacing the grass flat, worrying about one man trapped alone inside an ancient, deadly, trigger-happy domain for archon knows how long.
And Lumine — Lumine doesn’t want to care, but…
“How long until we can get back in there?” she asks.
Shiki Taishou drifts towards the door, his drawn-on brows sloping downwards in a look of frustration. “As far as I can remember, the rearrangement of the chamber does take a while… I’d give it three to four days before it opens again.”
Paimon gasps. “Three to four days!? That’s such a long time! Are you sure Childe will be okay?”
Lumine stares at the sword in her hand, brows furrowed. Those monsters likely won’t pose a problem for him, but there’s also the possibility that Kamuna Harunosuke might be roaming the chamber deeper in. And how long can humans go without proper food and water? From what she knows, they starve quite quickly, don’t they?
“I still think he’ll be fine.” Xinyan shrugs as she brushes at a stain on her sleeve, “He puts up a good fight, and the domain had crates of fruits and vegetables inside, right? I mean, s’not exactly gourmet stuff, but it should keep an adventurer like him up and runnin’.”
Paimon’s anxious flitting ceases just the slightest bit. “I-I guess so, but… how will he sleep? Or shower?”
Xinyan winces. “Well. I s’pose that's up for him to figure out...?”
“Gods, what if a monster attacks him while he’s taking a nap!?”
“He’s been through worse, Paimon,” Lumine finally says, letting her blade dissolve in a quiet sheen of light. “If there’s truly nothing Shiki Taishou can do, we should take this time to head back to the city for some rest and extra supplies.”
“That would be the best course of action,” the shikigami affirms. “You must all be tired after spending the entire day in battle… I sincerely apologise for the trouble I’ve caused.”
Xinyan frowns, patting the paper figure on the head consolingly. “Aw, c’mon, no need for that! We came to help because we wanted to, Shiki Taishou. Don’t worry too much about us — we’ll take care of ourselves and be back right as rain!”
“Now that you mention it, Paimon does feel kinda grimy after walking through that musty old place,” the pixie mutters, before she reaches down to tug on Lumine’s hand. “Okay, let’s go! Some peace and quiet would be nice.”
Lumine nods. It certainly would.
-
She does not get some peace and quiet.
Surprisingly, the fault doesn’t fall on Paimon’s endless chatter or Xinyan’s experimental jam sessions in their shared inn room (“Come stay with me,” the musician had offered, “It’ll be like a sleepover!”) — rather, it’s Lumine’s own pesky thoughts that just won’t leave her alone.
She twists and turns, fiddles with the duvet in her hands to no avail. Even now, in the dead of night, sleep evades her, and it’s because of Childe of all people.
It’s maddening. She knows he is capable, knows it better than anyone else from the fights and adventures they’ve shared in Liyue. And yet, a twinge of worry sprouts in her heart whenever she thinks about him trapped in the chamber. It’s been three days — how is he faring? Is he tired? Is he hungry?
...Is he hurt?
Humans are fragile things, no matter how hard they might try to fight it. Her journey in Inazuma had served as a harsh reminder of that notion — there are still times where she thinks of Signora, eyes wild and hair disheveled, shrieking and clawing like a cornered animal as she tried to back away from the gaze of the Raiden Shogun. It would have been a disservice to call it a fight — all it took was a single stroke of that divine blade to plunge Tenshukaku into horrified silence. So much furious flame and passion, extinguished in an instant by the indifferent hand of a god as if it were nothing to begin with.
Lumine thinks back on Childe, only a man, only human. He’d told her that he would crush the thrones of gods underneath his heel. That he would some day conquer the world, and she would be there by his side to see it. Lofty ambitions that he gets closer to with every step, through sheer, unadulterated will, and he has put himself on such a high pedestal that it’s a very long way to fall.
It… scares her, she’s come to realise. There are no limits for someone like him, just points of progress to push past again and again — and there is only so many times he can do that until he breaks.
She’d seen it happen with Teppei. Would she find Childe like that one day, too? A body thin and unmoving, slumped against a wall, the dying light of a Delusion clutched in his grasp —
“Stop it,” she hisses to the silence of the inn room, heartbeat roaring in her ears.
The ceiling light stares back at her. Somewhere to the left, Paimon snores.
Lumine heaves a sigh. Perhaps a midnight stroll is in order.
-
Her feet take her to the stove beside Kiminami Restaurant.
Ocean Crabs. A sprig of mint. Garlic. Fennel. Calla Lily blossoms.
Lumine’s hands move before her mind does, fishing out ingredient after ingredient even though it’s two in the morning and she has more than enough food already stored in her pack. The soldier patrolling the street is, thankfully, merciful enough to turn a blind eye to the sight of the esteemed Traveler cooking in near darkness.
There is absolutely no reason in particular for why she’s doing this, she thinks. Absolutely not. Even when she reaches back into her pack and brings out a handful of plump, ripe tomatoes when the original recipe for Calla Lily Seafood Soup calls for none. No, her choosing to make this dish (or rather, the variation of it) is simply… a coincidence. Happenstance.
This is just what a responsible adventurer does — make sure her team has enough supplies to fuel them through their journey, right? Lumine watches ivory petals swirl about a pot of reddening broth and nods.
It has no correlation whatsoever to the way a young man with auburn hair would walk her through the recipe on a chilly night, explaining each and every step of his craft with wistfulness tinging his voice. It definitely has nothing to do with how they would sit together on the grass as he ladled her a bowl, the steam curling off its surface fragrant and rich, the campfire casting his figure in a warm, flickering glow.
Well, don’t just stare at it. Eat up! It’s good, I promise.
A taste of a home that isn’t hers. A smile, dimpled and bright, and the strange, strange feeling of comfort —
“ — Traveler?”
Lumine’s flinch nearly knocks the entire pot over.
“Woah, careful!” Xinyan’s hands shoot out to hover above Lumine’s shoulders, her amber eyes blown wide. “Sorry, didn’t mean to give you a fright there.”
“Oh, Xinyan.” Lumine lets out an exhale. “It’s fine, I was just… caught off guard. What brings you out here at this hour?”
At that, the girl gives her an incredulous smile. “Why, I could ask you the same thing! Saw you creepin’ out the inn room and got awful curious, so I decided to follow.” Her gaze then moves towards the soup, and she lets out a chuckle. “Gotta say, I didn’t expect to see you polishing your culinary talents this late at night.”
“...Yes. Well.” The spoon dips back into the broth. Lumine stirs it a tad faster than necessary. “We’re returning to Shiki Taishou and the chamber tomorrow, so it would be good to have some extra rations on hand, wouldn’t it?”
“Can’t disagree with that!” Grinning, Xinyan peers over the rim of the pot before giving it a sniff — and immediately lets out a gasp. “Ooh, this smells amazing! Is this a Mondstadt dish? Don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.”
Lumine laughs, albeit a little weakly. “You could put it that way.”
-
When they return to the Mystic Onmyou Chamber, Childe looks like he’s just had the best day of his entire life.
Paimon groans. “I can’t believe it. Not a single scratch on this guy, and he looks happier than ever!”
The man in question only beams. “Naturally. Did you think I’d be anything but in a place like this?” He spreads his arms, gazing heavenward as he breathes an utterly blissful sigh. “An ever-changing world of endless, exhilarating combat… it’s a dream come true, really.”
As Lumine studies him from head to toe, she starts to feel the beginnings of something hot — unpleasantly so — curl in the hollows of her chest. An indignant sort of embarrassment, if you will. All those hours spent fretting over this man, her enemy by technicality, going as far as to lose sleep and cook out on the unlit streets of Inazuma City, and he was just having a whale of a time in here tearing through all foes he could wish for.
It’s been a while since she’s felt this silly. Aether would probably have a good laugh.
“Hey, what’s with that expression?”
Lumine blinks. Her gaze has probably sharpened into an unconscious glare over the past minute, because Childe has an eyebrow raised towards her, though he still seems thoroughly amused.
“Well, we’re kind of annoyed, obviously!” Paimon answers for her, crossing her arms with a disgruntled huff. “We thought you could’ve run into trouble while you were stuck in here, but you were clearly having a blast!”
“Oh?” Childe perks up, then, mirth in his voice as he says, “Were you worried about me?”
He’s looking right at Lumine.
And at that moment, even though her pack has been enchanted to never weigh more than a feather, the bowls of soup and water bottles resting within it suddenly feel like the heaviest things she’s ever carried in the eons of her life.
She doesn’t meet his eyes.
“A little.”
-
Half a chamber in, when they all sit down to take a break and patch themselves up, Lumine finally hands Childe the culmination of three days’ worth of her worry.
“Here.” The blood-coloured broth is still piping hot in its ceramic dish, carrying a tangy scent through the air that’s familiar in a way she loathes to think about. “Take it.”
Childe just stares.
A painfully uncomfortable beat passes as the two of them stay frozen in place. He doesn’t make a single move to take the bowl from her — rather, he regards it with wide eyes as though he’s never seen civilised tableware or soup on Teyvat before. Lumine resists the urge to grit her teeth. Honestly, what’s wrong with this man?
“Did all that fighting knock the common sense out of you, too?” She shakes the bowl slightly, nudging it closer to him with more force. “I said take it.”
Childe takes it, at long last — then proceeds to stare at the soup while it’s in his lap instead. His spoon skims the surface of the stew, moving about chunks of fresh crab and octopus that he seems to study with a careful eye. Lumine’s leg bounces against the floor. Xinyan is not-so-subtly peeking over at them and Celestia damn it all, why does she feel so anxious?
“Well?” she snaps, taking a scoop from her own bowl. “Don’t just stare at it. Eat up.”
Without waiting for a response, Lumine turns back to focus on her own food, ignoring the scalding temperature of the soup in favour of avoiding conversation. But a minute barely passes before she’s interrupted, a hand closing over her own.
“Hey.”
Lumine glances to the side. Childe is looking up at her from where he sits cross-legged on the floor, a slow grin blooming across his face, dimpled and bright. “This recipe… it’s mine, isn’t it?”
His bowl is already empty. There’s a crinkle in the corner of his eyes that makes her ribs feel funny and she positively despises it. “...Maybe.”
“I knew it!” Childe laughs, the sound loud and fond and sincere . “The taste is unmistakable. You really hit the mark on this one, girlie — it feels exactly like home.”
This close, his eyes are startlingly blue. Lumine can make out the faint spray of freckles that dot the bridge of his nose, and she’s struck with the urge to trace her fingers over every single one of them.
“That’s…” she pauses, her head feeling light. “That's good to hear.”
The curve of Childe’s lips turn sly. “You must’ve missed me a lot, huh?”
Lumine shoves him in the shoulder. “Keep dreaming.”
Another chuckle, then his expression softens — wearing the same face he’d shown back in the Ruin Guard factory. The man before her suddenly not quite Childe, not quite Tartaglia, but… someone else. “Really, though. Thank you. For doing all of this.”
Lumine casts her gaze to the floor with a scoff. “No need for that. I didn’t do anything, I just… happened to have extra supplies on hand.”
And Ajax, as she would soon come to know him as, only smiles. “Of course you did.”