Enjoy my first completed longfic, finished over the span of 4 months.
Thanks to FruitPieFantasy for beta-ing! My impostor syndrome would have caught up to me without your encouragements. <3
His name is Childe.
He may have had more names, but there is nothing in his mind when he tries to rummage through it, only endless buzzing. It makes his head spin, so much so that he falls face-first into a snowdrift.
The man he is travelling with is at his side at once, helping him to his feet with murmurs in a language he can’t recognise. Everything is white, and he isn’t sure if it’s because of the snow or his fizzling vision.
As the man slings him over his shoulders, he sees a vague outline of something in the distance, a stark black structure against the white of the snow. Somehow, he knows that it is a house.
Has he been here before?
Tears begin to well in his eyes as he struggles to keep them open in the biting wind. He doesn’t remember being this fragile, he thinks to himself as his consciousness begins to slip.
The last sound he hears before he passes out is the sound of a door opening, and the soft voice of the man who is carrying him.
~~~
He wakes up to yelling. The sounds are distant, but enough to trigger the remnants of his headache. Opening his eyes yields nothing of note, except the darkness visible through the window.
He rolls over and goes back to sleep.
~~~
He wakes up once more, this time to sunlight streaming through his window and a pair of bright blue eyes inches from his face. They blink once, then twice, then their owner takes a step backwards.
‘Huh,’ says the child. ‘You used to jump when I did that.’
‘Who are you?’
He doesn’t intend for his tone to be so harsh, but the slump in the boy’s shoulders sends a prickle of guilt up his spine. He recovers quickly enough, however, and continues blinking owlishly.
‘I’m Teucer. Nice to meet you.’
The boy holds out a hand, hesitates, then withdraws it.
‘Uh… I just want to be sure,’ he says, twiddling his thumbs. ‘Do you still have the monster?’
‘The… what?’
And then, in a vain attempt to bat at the fog in his brain, he says, ‘I don’t know you. I’m sorry,’ he adds at the look on Teucer’s face. ‘I just got here a few days ago, and I don’t remember a single thing. That includes you, and everything else here.’ He gestures around the room.
He calls it a room, but it is more comparable to a prison cell. Its wooden floors and walls are completely bare, with the bed he’s lying on being the only piece of furniture in it.
‘From what you’ve said, I think I’m supposed to know you. So… mind elaborating?’
Teucer frowns, tapping his foot. A sharp pain shoots through Childe’s head once more, and he hopes Teucer doesn’t notice the way his features contort from discomfort.
‘I don’t know how to solve this problem,’ says Teucer. ‘I’ll get my parents. They always know what to do.’
The boy totters out of his room, and Childe takes a deep breath before standing up. His legs feel like twigs with the way his body sways. It almost feels like his bones are too heavy, weighing him down to the floor. With the help of the wall, he manages to make his way out of his room.
Teucer is standing in front of a woman, fidgeting behind his back. The woman is saying something, though it all sounds like buzzing to Childe. He shakes his head.
That seems to work. Her voice is clearer now, though the words seem so far away, like they’re floating towards him from the end of a long tunnel. He catches the words ‘father’ and ‘deal with him’.
It occurs to him that neither of them know he’s here. He chooses the least threatening way to catch someone’s attention and coughs gently.
Both Teucer and his mother jump. For a moment they stare at each other, the woman’s chest heaving as she looks from Teucer to Childe. She shares her son’s red hair and blue eyes, and Childe wonders if he has them too.
She reaches out first, breaking through the thin, icy film between Childe and the rest of the world, and envelopes him in a bone-crushing hug.
‘They told us you died,’ she says, her voice trembling despite her efforts to keep it steady. ‘We watched them burn your body and get rid of the ashes. They told us you were—anything that remained of you was too dangerous to preserve. But you’re here. This isn’t a dream, is it?’
Childe wraps his arms around her, cautiously. ‘I don’t think so. You feel real.’
She chuckles, a small, broken thing, then tears herself away from him. She is smiling, and he has to admit that it is a beautiful smile.
‘You’ve been travelling for days. He certainly didn’t let you stop and catch your breath,’ she says, beginning to shove him down a corridor. ‘I’ll draw you a bath. Let me know if you need anything.’
~~~
The water is warm on his skin, and he sinks further into it so that it fully envelopes him. He may not remember a single thing, but this… this is not entirely unpleasant.
The door opens behind him, and a pile of towels is deposited to the side of his tub. His mother—he has a mother—runs her hand through his wet hair and gives him a kiss on the top of his head. She is not one for verbally expressing affection, he learns very quickly. He sits up straighter just as she opens the bathroom door again.
He hears her pause, then approach him. Her fingers trail over a spot on his back, directly beneath his neck.
‘What’s this?’
He reaches back and touches the spot she has indicated. Breaking up the expanse of smooth skin is a ridge of overlapping metal links, extending along the length of his spine.
‘I don’t remember getting this.’
‘He said this might happen,’ his mother says. ‘It doesn’t matter. What does is that you’re home.’
She kisses him again, this time on the cheek, and leaves.
When the water loses most of its warmth, he manages to drag himself out of the tub and somehow dress himself. The sweater is too scratchy, but the fog in his brain distracts him from most sensations.
Everything is ephemeral, he thinks to himself as he leaves the bathroom. This peace feels so horribly fragile, and he has a feeling that a flutter of a butterfly’s wing will shatter it. His legs are moving, but the earlier heaviness brought on by pain is replaced by an ethereal floatiness. He would have preferred the former.
He makes his way into what he supposes must be a living room. The two couches, facing an old shelf of books, are patched up with odd bits and pieces of cloth. It gives off the illusion of falling apart at the seams. The lampshades see a similar treatment, and so do the curtains, framing a window that looks out into the blizzard raging outside.
A fire crackles in the hearth, and he finds himself moving closer to it. The smell of burning firewood convinces him to unclench his jaw and sit down, watching the white-hot wood crack and fall apart under the heat of the flames.
He smiles, feeling the muscles in his face strain from the effort. His mother was right. He is home.
‘Mama, I’m home.’ Someone has opened the door. Childe snaps to attention, keeping his eye on the two figures emerging shivering from the blizzard outside. ‘Anthon got himself into a fight, the stupid—’
The girl’s voice falters when she sees Childe. He can’t think of anything else to do except smile and hope she finds it unthreatening.
She jumps back, placing herself between him and the boy in the oversized ushanka behind her. ‘Not a step closer. Tell me what you want, demon.’
‘Tonia!’ His mother is there in an instant, flinging open the door of the kitchen and standing in front of Childe. ‘It’s just Ajax. He’s back.’
Ajax. That is his name as well.
‘I don’t believe you,’ Tonia hisses, trying to shove her brother out of the door, which proves difficult with the boy’s continued attempts to look over her shoulder. ‘We all saw what he became. Whatever he is now, he is not my brother.’
He barely knows these people, but something in his chest shatters nonetheless.
‘He’s harmless. Completely harmless,’ says his mother. ‘He spent the whole day asleep and even offered to help me in the kitchen. He’s not… that thing anymore. It’s just Ajax.’
‘Ajax who lied to us about what he really was. I’m not going to say “I told you so” when he decides that Teucer looks tasty, but I’ve warned you.’
With a final look of contempt, she drags her brother after her, who gives Childe a small wave in his general direction (his ushanka has fallen over his eyes). Their mother clicks her tongue. ‘Honestly! They’ll get used to it. Come.’
‘I don’t remember volunteering,’ he says as she leads him to the kitchen. She laughs.
‘You're a natural at this. I need your help more than ever, now that your father actually comes home for dinner!’
Her face falls as soon as the kitchen door closes behind them. ‘Ajax,’ she says, her voice so much softer. ‘Listen to me.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘No matter what Tonia or the others say, I’ll always be happy that you’re home.’ He is so much taller than her, he realises when she holds a hand up to his cheek. ‘You brought back some part of yourself, against all odds, just for us.’
She has to tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek.
‘I would love to remember,’ he murmurs. ‘I’m sorry I can’t. You’re all lovely and I can’t even remember you.’
‘Well,’ she says, heading towards the stove and tying her hair up into a knot. White threads lie among the brilliant red of her hair, and the emptiness in his stomach carves deeper into him. ‘I try to look on the bright side of things. We can start over, become a family again. Wipe the slate clean.’
‘Clean of what?’
She doesn’t look at him, too intent on lighting the stove. ‘It’s best if you don’t know.’
~~~
It seems that her trust was misplaced, because not only did he knock over the pot on the stove while trying to season the stew, but he also managed to set his mother’s apron on fire. Credit where it’s due, she only looks mildly disappointed as she puts it out with a glass of water from the tap.
‘Speaking of which,’ she says as she wrings her apron out over the sink, ‘I thought you used to have a Vision? Hydro, I think.’
‘A Vision?’ Memories come streaming back, of shining gems fixed to belts, embedded in clothes. ‘Oh, yeah. I don’t—’
‘You don’t remember,’ she says, sighing. ‘Still, it probably doesn’t matter. Ah, he’s home!’
Indeed, someone is opening the front door, which Tonia and Anthon walked through earlier. His mother bustles out of the kitchen, and because he has nothing to do, he follows.
A man steps through the door, tall, rugged, his hair more white than red. As soon as Childe exits the kitchen, the man stops in his tracks, the fishing net hitched on his shoulder sliding to the ground.
‘Ajax?’
Childe nods.
‘You’re… real.’ He doesn’t bother to close the door behind him when he approaches Childe, lifting an uncertain hand. ‘Last night… it wasn’t a dream.’
Childe licks his lips. ‘I’m back, dad.’
The words sound flat, like someone else is speaking them, but the man rushes forward to hug him nonetheless, and Childe realises that he is crying, his shoulders shuddering with each sob.
‘I’m so, so sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault.’ His lips move of their own accord.
His father doesn’t let him go, not even when he wriggles, trying to get out of that vice-like grip. His mother’s cough brings both of them back, and father and son break apart to stand awkwardly in front of her.
‘Whatever discussion you want to have is going to be more productive on a full stomach. I’ll call the kids. Tonia?’ she calls as she heads towards their bedrooms, leaving Childe alone with his father.
He laughs, a strained sound against the shrill winds of the storm outside. ‘Dinner first, huh?’
He makes for his room, not wanting to handle whatever situation this is alone. Some may be of the opinion that ignorance is bliss, but the context, or lack thereof here, makes him feel blind.
Dinner is uneventful, and the fish stew might as well be the same as water. With the way his mother is smiling, though, he tries his best to nod in approval as he eats more of the bland mixture.
Is this supposed to taste different? Or does his amnesia extend to his sense of taste as well?
There is another, more urgent matter in the shape of his father’s attempts at sneaky glances in his direction. He supposes he must face that issue, though he is not sure if any of his answers can satisfy.
That issue approaches him as soon as he excuses himself to go back to sleep. His father is upon him in a second, strong, calloused hand clasping around his shoulder.
‘Ajax. We need to talk.’
He lets himself be led outside of the house. The blizzard has died down, and the remains of a fence poke through the snowdrift. His father leans against the fence and pulls out a bottle, uncorking it and holding it out to him like a peace offering.
Childe takes it, though he doesn’t drink. The smell of the drink is strong, and the taste will be no different.
His father begins.
‘I have to admit… I am ashamed of my earlier disbelief. Last night, I insisted to Yulia that you had to be an impostor of some kind. There was no way you would be able to survive an Archon, especially not after your… actions on his land. She said I just didn’t want to face you, and she was right.’
‘Ajax, when you were fourteen—’
Childe finds himself shaking his head. ‘Let bygones be bygones. I don’t remember it, and neither should you.’
He is drifting, and his words are the singular thread he uses to hang on to this reality. His father’s lip trembles.
‘That does not erase what I did to you. You were changed, irreversibly so, but you were a boy. And what did I do? I let my fear get the best of me.’
Childe hands him the bottle. His father takes a hearty swig from it.
‘I just want to say…’ His hand finds Childe’s and squeezes it firmly. ‘In all those years you’ve been away, I—we would never have turned you away if you wished to come home. And if I ever made you feel like you weren’t welcome, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for abandoning you.’
Childe stays silent.
‘You don’t remember that, do you?’
He shakes his head.
‘Ah.’ His father drinks another mouthful from the bottle. ‘The gentleman did warn us. Whether you have your memories or not, what is important is that we savour this second chance. I promise you,’ he says, looping his pinkie finger around Childe’s, ‘I will not squander this opportunity to love you again.’
When they go inside again, the last string that connects him to reality is frayed. He doesn’t understand. His father’s promise was a good thing. His mother’s confidence in him was, as well. By all rights, he should be happy.
When he can no longer bear the hollowness that gnaws at him, he goes back to sleep.