Chapter Text
Cigarettes.
Childe could have chosen to turn around and pursued a spot devoid of smoke and people, but he chose not to and walked on ahead. On what he liked to call his usual spot, the 3rd stair from the top, facing the sea, sat a figure with a cigarette in hand.
His sour mood surprisingly did not worsen upon seeing you, he merely approached and asked simply, “may I?” if he could take a seat beside you or not.
“Make yourself comfortable,” you replied amicably. Childe placed himself down beside you and stared at the arena below. Two mechanical forms, one fashioned as a male and other female, engaged in beautiful dance. Step by step, disciplined set of steps, executed by sheer mechanics of lifeless parts, and yet, there was a strange beauty to it. It looked as if they were alive, and in love.
“Want one?”
He turned his head to find the box of cigarettes snapped open in your outstretched hand. He shook his head slightly.
“No, thanks, I don’t smoke.”
“Alrighty.”
You retracted your arm and breathed in deeply from the cigar. For health and fitness purposes he obviously strays far far away from anything that could possibly affect his performance, including, but not limited to smoking. The wise choice would have been to choose another place to sit so as to avoid, your smoke from affecting him.
But he didn’t want to.
In silence the both of you sat under the moonlight, the waltzing mechanics infront of your eyes and the gentle splash of water from the fountain filling the air. It was a beautiful, beautiful night.
“So,” childe began. “What brings you here?”
You let out a large cloud of smoke and shrugged, your lips turned upside down. You appeared to be of his age, give or take a year. H/c hair brushed back and e/c eyes filled with some lost emotion akin to what filled his heart. “I…needed some air,” you replied. You turned your head and your eyes met. Startled, childe realised he had been staring.
“It’s peaceful out here,” you continued. “And the sky looks pretty and they-“ you pointed at the mekas on the floor, “they dance so well, I love watching them dance.”
Scared he might end up staring again, he had fixated his gaze away, but the happy rise of your voice at the end of that last sentence made him look again. A faint smile bent your lips upwards.
“Sounds like a good reason enough,” childe replied. A beat passed and you asked-
“And what about you?”
The heaviness of his heart returned to him at this question. Yes, he hasn’t been feeling the best mentally, often finding himself in a bad mood and hence drifting from place to place, from this task to the other to keep himself occupied, distracted, happy whatnot. Coping, in one word. Not sure about how to explain the convoluted reasons about how he came to be here, without exposing his identity, he just kept quiet.
He could feel his gaze on you, and the pit of his stomach tightened at that.
“Frankly, I was in a bad mood and thought coming here would help.”
This spot, facing the dance of the icespine dancers has been a refuge for the past few days for him. Only tonight had he found his refuge occupied by someone else. But instead of annoyance or disappointment, what childe had felt was a strange expectation. As if by coming to occupy the same spot at the same time as him, fate might have given him the gift of confidence.
An isolated bubble of space and time where he could perhaps take his mask off and bare himself.
“This place does help with that,” you said, heaving another great puff of smoke, “ I often come here when I don’t feel good, or just…need a break. Let me know if I should leave you alone, I can find another place honestly.”
“Nevermind that. You can stay.”
Childe heard a light chuckle escape you. “Alright then,” you said. You finally pulled the cigarette out of your lips and smashed the remains on the concrete of the stairs. The smell however still lingered in the air though. Silence settled in the air between the two of you and after a while childe found his muscled relaxed.
“Whatever it is,”you said quietly, after a long stretch of time,almost starting him, “I hope you figure it out. I hope things get better. I know it’s not much but you can come here anytime, I will be here whenever you need.”
For a stranger he met merely minuted ago, that was a lot of sympathy. He scoffed internally, but also somehow found himself feeling glad and bathing in said gladness. It was confusing but childe didn’t mind it. It was the pleasant kind of confusing.
“Sure.”
The hands of the clocks ticked away and the stars moved across the sky. Childe doesn’t know for how long you sat there together, in silence and in an unexplained kind of comfort.
Only when the horizon began to lighten ever so slightly, he stood up. “I have to take my leave,” he told you. “I never asked for your name by the way,” he added.
“Y/n L/n,” you replied with a smile. “And you?”
“Nice to meet you Y/n, You can call me childe.”
.
When Childe returned home that night he had a peaceful and dreamless sleep. And the next morning, he found himself chirpier than usual.