Chapter 5: Vessel of Mediocrity


 

‘Wake up.’

Her voice is cold, robotic once more as she shakes Zhongli by the shoulders.

She can’t see him, Childe thinks, his vision fading in and out as he twitches on the floor. The floorboards are all perfectly identical, he thinks, the last shred of clarity in his mind managing to realise exactly how bizarre that thought is before fizzling out.

Pain. His fingernails dig into the floor. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Help me.

Sounds of something ripping, then flowers land next to him. The tearing noises continue, the woman continuing to rip the flowers off Zhongli.

The smell of rot grows stronger.

He can’t hold on. He needs to run, to get away to someplace where this awful constricting pain can’t get him. He should have passed out long ago. Why is his body still willing to push through?

His spine has a heartbeat of its own. It throbs separately from the thing in his chest, its links flexing and stretching, as if being close to his skin is unbearable. His face is pressed to the ground by its weight, and he knows he has to get it off him.

He reaches behind, every movement making his muscles scream in pain, finding the links that line his back. Blood drips down his fingers as he claws into his back, his skin and bones giving way, as if it, too, wants this to be over.

A hand wrenches his arm away from his back, and he returns.

‘Is that the last of it?’

He tastes iron in his mouth from his teeth grinding against his lips. Something sticky is running down his back. He swipes a finger over the wet spot and brings them up to his eyes. Even through his vision, blacked out by large dots, he can tell that it isn’t red. Just sweat.

‘I think so.’

His voice sounds surprisingly calm for what had just transpired, of which his sore muscles are the only proof. The woman nods at him.

‘I need your help with this situation.’

She gestures at the table. He averts his eyes as much as possible.

Zhongli is now resting his head on the table, surrounded by torn petals and vines. He’s still wearing his heavy coat, Childe realises. Now, however, his shoulders rise and fall with his breath, though the crease between his eyebrows stay constant.

‘He won’t wake up. I knew he was losing his powers, but not to this extent.’

‘What’s happening to him?’

She leans against a wall, summoning her polearm again. Childe takes a step back.

‘He’s dying.’

‘But…’ His answers. His past.

‘Making a puppet took a toll on him. He hasn’t been at his best for years, but after your body was completed, he got worse. He would spend so much time asleep, just recovering his energy. He’d remember less and less, but,’ she says, idly twirling her weapon, ‘he would always talk about you.’

Something constricts in his chest, but he pushes it away.

‘Watch over him for me. I’m going for a walk. She’s refusing to face this, again. You’d think she would learn by now…’

She heads out of the door. Childe breathes a sigh.

Zhongli stirs in his sleep. He’s probably overheating in that coat.

He shouldn’t be doing this. He barely knows the man. But his limbs move of his own accord, moving him towards the sleeping man, slipping his hands underneath his coat and gently shrugging it off.

For a moment, there is calm. And he is so, so tired.

There is another chair near the table. Has it been there before? It doesn’t matter, he realises as he sinks into it. He rests his head on the table right next to Zhongli’s, and closes his eyes for the first time in days.

He understands, and he will indulge as well.

 

~~~

 

He wakes up to cough petals out of his throat.

The vines are growing around his fingers, his neck, pinning him to the table, joining the other man on this altar of decay. He can’t move.

‘Come on… Get up!’

A blade slices through the vines around his wrists, and she is dragging him from his seat, cutting down the last of his bonds. As soon as he is free, she thrusts a small dagger at him. ‘Take this. Make yourself useful.’

Zhongli isn’t even visible under the sheer amount of flowers on the table. It slows down the process considerably, the two of them having to make sure they aren’t cutting into anything vital before slicing down the growths. He holds his breath as he works, knowing very well what he will smell.

These vines have thorns, and he grits his teeth against the various lacerations on his fingers. The woman has brought out her weapon and is slicing through the flowers with practised ruthlessness. But no matter how quickly they work, they grow back just as fast; the woman growls in frustration and slashes through a lengthening vine.

Childe forces himself to think. If cutting them down is fruitless, then he will have to do something more drastic. He remembers the way Zhongli rests his right hand on the table, marking the exact position with a cross-slash with his blade. Before it can get swallowed up by the cacophony of red, white, blue, he makes a cut, deeper than he has ever gone before.

A glimpse of a dark glove is enough. Childe reaches into the opening and pulls. Zhongli’s hand twitches in his grip and he holds on tighter, now carefully slicing around his arm.

The vines stay determined. Childe pulls harder, jaw hurting from how hard he’s clenching it. He’s close, so close to getting his entire arm free—

His glove slips off. Childe curses, tossing the glove away and grabbing Zhongli’s hand.

Skin on pale, clammy skin. Childe groans, the now familiar pain in his head resurging. He can’t stop now.

Through the haze of throbbing pain, he turns his attention to Zhongli’s arm and slices down.

The flowers unfurl their wings to take flight, and Childe sinks his dagger into Zhongli’s arm.

Thousands of translucent wings flutter around him, but Childe can only meet the horrified eyes of the woman holding a polearm, watch as her gaze drifts to his dagger, hilt-deep in Zhongli’s arm.

Then, faint groaning as the man between them wakes up, blanketed by butterflies; the insects rest on his shoulder, nesting among dark strands of hair, proboscises extending, like they are eager to taste the decay that rests just beneath his skin.

Drawing a shuddering breath through his lungs, Zhongli sits up. He turns tired eyes to Childe, following his arm down to where his white-knuckled hand is still wrapped around the dagger.

Unsteadily, uncertainly, Zhongli stands up. His other, gloved hand seizes Childe’s hand and rips the blade out. His expression is unreadable, but Childe knows he doesn’t want to meet his eyes.

Zhongli’s eyes find his.

The pain that rips through his head sends him to his knees, and he is strangely aware of how beastly he sounds when he screams. Every individual link in his spine is on fire, and he knows that it is trying to tear his ribcage apart. He scratches at his back, cleaving through skin with nails that feel too sharp. Get it off me. Silently at first, then in what is left of his voice, ‘Get it off me!

It’s incoherent, but hands, one gloved and the other bare, find his face, tilting it upwards. In the tunnel that remains of his vision, amber eyes close for a brief second as Zhongli sighs.

‘Childe.’ The hands slide behind his neck, resting on the top of his spine. ‘I am sorry.’

He doesn’t have the words to describe the agony that is Zhongli’s bare skin on his. Yet he can’t pull away, pinned in place by the accursed thing on his back, piloting his body with spider-silk threads.

There are butterflies resting on his head, his shoulders, as he leans forward to press his lips to Zhongli’s.

His hands curl themselves in Zhongli’s hair, wanting him to be closer, to never leave again. Zhongli responds in kind, his bare hand around the back of Childe’s neck, the other sliding down his shirt, stopping when it finds the beginning of the links that line his back.

The claws dig themselves deeper, accompanied by thoughts that are not his. Take me home. I don’t want to be alone. Please. Tolerate me for just a while longer, don’t leave me.

Zhongli pulls away before the tears rolling down Childe’s cheeks can reach his lips, his fingers digging firmly into his spine.

He turns away when he tears the spine from Childe’s back.

Someone is screaming, but the voice isn’t his. Throat dry, sparks of broken circuits burrowing themselves into his skin, Childe slumps forward, the last conscious part of his mind hoping that he stays in the peaceful blackness that welcomes him.

 

~~~

 

‘Ei…’

‘Whatever you want to do next, you will need to do it yourself.’

‘I—’

‘You may have thrown yours out the window the moment he died, but I have limits, Morax. Causing a living being pain? I have sworn to myself—’

She cuts herself off when he gets up, throwing the covers off of the bed and striding immediately to the man standing right outside the threshold of the bedroom.

With all his strength, he slaps Zhongli across the face.

To his credit, the man actually looks ashamed. His—not Childe’s—thoughts are clearer than ever, now that the accursed thing in his head is gone. He wishes they weren’t.

‘I think you’ll find,’ he says, surprising himself with how different his voice sounds, ‘that most people—that I—do not appreciate being used as a vessel.’

He takes a deep breath, relishing the feeling of actually useful lungs. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, from the top.’

Zhongli appears to have shrunken down to half his original height, but he nods and stands up. Ei backs away.

‘Your eye.’

His left eye is gone, and in its place is a flower with blue and white petals. A glaze lily.

‘My apologies.’ The monotony in his voice is at odds with the way he sways, struggling to keep himself upright. ‘My time is due. They know it as well.’

‘No more riddles,’ snarls Childe—no, he is not this pathetic man’s memories. ‘Everything. From why I was created.’

Zhongli looks from him to Ei and sighs. He stands aside to allow Zhongli to enter his room and seat himself at his desk, folding his hands in front of him like this is nothing more than a business meeting.

‘I killed him.’ Zhongli’s fingers twist together. ‘It was inevitable. His obsession ran too deep for me to comprehend.’

‘Who was he to you?’

Zhongli doesn’t wince at his tone. ‘A friend.’

Ei exhales, long and slow. If Zhongli notices, he makes no comment.

‘I misjudged him. Even with his consciousness preserved and implanted in a new vessel, his memories restored, he did not wish to return to our realm. I… have been too blind.

‘I placed much emphasis on keeping contracts, to the point where my name was always mentioned in tandem with them. Ironic, isn’t it, that I can’t keep the simplest promise to a friend.’

‘What did you promise him?’ The words are out of Childe’s—his mouth before he realises. Zhongli rests his face in his hands. His voice is so much softer when he next speaks.

‘I told him—I told him that I would welcome him home one day, no matter what he did.’

Ei tugs on his sleeve, and he knows that he should leave as Zhongli takes a deep, shaky breath.

 

~~~

 

Outside, Ei clears her throat. He shrugs in response.

‘Seems to me that you were involved.’

‘Until he did… that. There are other less painful methods to remove an anchor.’

‘That’s what it is?’ An anchor, he thinks. ‘Does that mean Tartaglia’s mind is still… somewhere?’

Ei sits down at the stone table in the courtyard, folding her hands in her lap. ‘Dealing with the realm of consciousness is not my domain. However, I do know that Morax initially preserved his mind with a knowledge capsule.’

He has never heard those words before, but his brain contains enough memories to go off of.

‘An invention from Sumeru. Chances of us finding the Dendro Archon?’

Ei shakes her head. ‘You could try asking him.’

‘No chance,’ he says. ‘How do I leave this place?’

‘Well, the teapot on this table—’

His train of thought is much faster now, he thinks to himself as he slams a hand onto the teapot, followed by familiar nausea.

To be honest, he isn’t sure why he is trying to find the consciousness of a man he doesn’t even know. By all accounts, all they share are his face, and even that is debatable. It’s not like Tartaglia has done him any favours, with the constant migraines and pain.

I don’t want to be alone.

He shakes his head. He shouldn’t be remembering that moment, when Zhongli’s lips had met his and everything had gone haywire. But the ghosts of claws scratch feebly, the aftertaste of despair lingering in his mouth.

Don’t leave me. A silent plea from the monster in his head, to the only person he knew could stand him.

‘Fine.’ He finds his footing in the room he has just landed in. Immediately, he notices the incense burner in the northern corner of the room.

It has been knocked over.

He checks the door. He doesn’t remember if Zhongli had locked it before they entered the teapot realm. Well, only one way left to find out what has happened.

He opens the door and heads down the stairs.

Muffled voices reach his ears. Sitting on the counter, like she has never left, is the girl with the pigtails, swinging her feet. And talking to her, eagerly perusing what looks like a coupon for a free coffin, is a short man with a bowl cut.

Wearing a stupid, giant hat.

Hat Man notices him, that familiar smirk coming to life on his face. ‘Oh? Feeling much better now, I see.’

‘How did you know that?’ Wait, there was a more pressing question. ‘Did you stalk me all the way here?’

‘That’s a harsh word,’ Hat Man says, tucking the coupon into his pocket, much to the delight of the girl with pigtails. ‘Trust me, if it weren’t for direct orders from Buer, I would be all the way back at the Akademiya writing my thesis. Frankly, you—and that includes you, Tartaglia—are incredibly boring.’

The last sentence slides off him. He’s the luckiest man (puppet?) in the entire world, he thinks, slightly woozy, as he replays that second sentence in his head over and over.

‘You work for Buer? The Dendro Archon?’

Hat Man chuckles. ‘Oh, that look on your face… I wouldn’t say I’m working for her. We do have an arrangement—’

He doesn’t hear the last part, because he has grabbed the little man by his shoulders and kissed him on the forehead.

‘I love you so much.’

‘That is repulsive.’

‘Hem, hem.’

The two of them turn to the girl, still perched on her receptionist’s desk. ‘Do you mind?’

‘He probably can’t.’ Hat Man takes a step back, rubbing at a spot on his forehead with visible disgust. ‘But seeing as you’ve been such a gracious host, I shall explain.’

 


 

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