if you've ever wondered where that cannibalism tag comes in... well.
My nature is much kinder to me than his. My creator, perhaps seeking to spare me the depthless hunger that grips most of our kind, had made me as close to human as he possibly could. The Tsaritsa called me one of a kind once, and I still remember the envy in her voice on that day. I’ve never seen her eat, though the smell of copper and stagnant water clings to her like a cloak.
Now, I am beginning to think that I still share some of that nature, despite my creator’s attempts to purge it.
I finish most of the corpse on the docks, all the while wishing I could have something more substantial between my teeth. I miss the food from my homeland, of course, warm broths and savoury pork, but there is a second desire that overrides that homesickness.
If I were more romantic in my wording I would call it a desire to keep, to protect. To have him by my side as I try and try to rationalise what we have between us. Ah, he has so little time left. Let me split him open and poke at that trembling heart, see how it beats. The whiteness of his ribs, how they move when he breathes.
Fundamentally, I suppose I am still a beast.
~~~
He’s not too late this time.
Teucer is asleep in his room, Tonia watching over him. ‘He only fell asleep two minutes ago,’ she says. ‘He was just so tired.’
‘I took care of him,’ says Childe.
‘I still wish you’d tell me what he is.’
Sunlight streams through the windows, across Teucer’s blankets and into Childe’s eyes. He blinks. It’s bright, too bright. If even the midwinter sun has this effect on him…
He’s made a grave mistake. His sister slumps back in her chair, closing her eyes as her breathing slows. He doesn’t look at them as the desire to sink his teeth into flesh rises unbidden.
The more it—he feeds, the hungrier he gets. It’s a miracle he can still exist in this form, starved and diminished as it is. Fragile human body. He hasn’t looked in a mirror in a very long time, dreading what he’ll see. Would his ribs protrude? Would he poke at his stomach and find out that everything inside him has decayed?
If he had a chance once, it is gone now. He’s lost to his final opponent, this depthless desire for blood. Futile, maybe, his efforts to fight it. It always wins, over his complicated love for his family, his doomed love for Zhongli, his love for life.
He looks down at his hands, terribly pale, knuckles prominent. He wouldn't be getting that fight, after all. Another broken promise.
This room suddenly feels suffocating. He strides to the door, opening and closing it as gently as possible. Tonia’s eyebrows twitch at the creak of the hinges, but he is already halfway downstairs. He can hear his parents in the kitchen, talking about one thing or another. One thing is for sure: he can no longer pretend to be part of this home.
When he opens the front door, however, he finds his path blocked.
Zhongli is there, wearing that silly hat he’d picked out in the village. Wordlessly, he holds out a red scarf, which Childe takes, feeling numb. The scarf is his, left behind at the inn.
In the sun, the gold of his eyes is almost blinding. Childe turns away. Another beautiful thing, another open wound.
Soft brown strands flutter in the wind as Zhongli steps closer.
‘The winter solstice is tomorrow,’ he says. Of course, a funeral consultant would understand that this is his end. All silence, no glory. ‘Would your family allow me to…’
His words trail off as Childe leans forward, planting a kiss on his cheek.
‘They won’t mind,’ says Childe. There is enough blood in him still for the rising heat in his cheeks. ‘Teucer really likes you.’
‘All right.’
He doesn’t move, gaze fixed on something distant, as he always does when he thinks.
‘Come on in, then,’ says Childe, finally.
‘There are some things I need to talk to you about.’ Childe does not miss the way his fingers find the high collar of his coat, ghosting over the spot where Childe bit him.
‘You can try.’
‘We don’t have much time.’
‘I know that.’
‘Let’s go inside.’
‘… yes.’
The door closes behind them on a cold winter’s dawn.
~~~
He explains, the best he can, to three children who’ve never felt a harsher bite of wind than that of their village’s gentle snowstorms. There is harsher weather out there in the world, and he wants them to stay away from it. Better a caged bird than a dead one.
Still, he has no control over his siblings. Not when Teucer’s eyes still shine with adventure and Anthon’s curiosity continues to grow. So much like himself, once.
He hopes that at least Tonia would understand. Almost a young woman now, she sits in her chair, looking remarkably like her mother.
He’ll stay till the end of the year, he promises them. But no longer. He doesn’t promise he’ll come back, not in the way he described to Zhongli. Truthfully, between his deteriorating mind and very few friends, he’s unlikely to have a functional clone of himself. He tells himself that and brushes the winding questions of who are you what are you how much did you leave behind under the creaky floorboards of his own bedroom.
He tells them of the winter solstice as well, and that does seem to cheer them up. Anthon does seem interested in the customs of Liyue, brought here by his older brother’s strange new friend. As the boy heads downstairs, dragging Teucer with him, Tonia turns to Ajax.
‘I don’t seem to recall you ever saying sorry to us,’ she says.
He is terrible at lying to them, and her especially. ‘It wouldn’t have sounded sincere.’
‘Hmm. Man of action, huh?’
She gives him a faint smile and follows after her younger brothers.
~~~
For winter solstice, Zhongli only manages to bring a new dessert. The children gather around him as he works in the kitchen, mixing rice flour and water. He does allow the children to help him, asking them to look around for some food colouring. Childe realises this is the first time he’s seeing Zhongli sweat, beads running down his immaculate face.
‘Your parents were very generous,’ Zhongli says when Tonia goes to break up a fight between Anthon and Teucer, possibly over the last beet. They had been meaning to get some these few days. ‘They immediately fetched the flour I needed from the village when I asked.’
‘They’re likely just curious,’ says Childe. ‘They’ve never really left this village, and winter solstice… well.’
‘Do you not celebrate the solstice?’
‘Well, usually you’d have people going from door to door to sing carols, but I’ve ruined that for them. I don’t think their reputation’s ever recovered from, well, me.’ He shrugs in what is hopefully a nonchalant way. ‘Shady doomsday cult things.’
Zhongli clicks his tongue, from pity or from exasperation, and continues to knead the dough. He looks out of place in an apron, like a fish out of water—wrong analogy. This man is perfectly at home in the kitchen.
Childe changes the topic. ‘So, how do you celebrate the solstice?’
‘Of all the customs that we used to have,’ says Zhongli, ‘the few that remain are family dinners and tang yuan. This dessert,’ he clarifies, now kneading the dough into small pellets. ‘I will forever mourn the impact of less free time on our culture.’
‘Oh.’ Childe blinks. Someone is crying in the storage room to Tonia’s reassuring words. He should probably go check on them, and he tells Zhongli that much.
‘Wait,’ says Zhongli when he tries to leave.
‘What is it?’
‘I need some time to talk to you. Tonight.’
‘Okay.’
‘I want answers,’ he says quietly, looking down at his hands, covered in flour. ‘Give me closure and let me keep it.’
~~~
Dinner that night is more eventful than usual. The children are as lovely as ever, and Teucer had to be stopped from coercing Zhongli into increasing the concentration of sugar in his tang yuan by more than three times. Anthon scoffs and says something about diabetes, and that almost coaxes a smile out of their parents.
Childe supposes the food is good. There is nothing on his tongue except a lingering bitterness, even as he takes a sip out of Teucer’s triple-concentrated sugar water. Each swallow gets more difficult than the last, his body rejecting what once sustained it. He bites down the gag reflex anyway.
He owes them normalcy, at least.
When Tonia carries a groggy Teucer upstairs, Zhongli insists on cleaning up the mess that he’d made in the kitchen. Childe’s parents refuse, saying they’d never make a guest of theirs do that. But Zhongli is stubborn, and it is with reluctance that Childe’s mother guides her husband back to their room, both wearing guarded looks as they realise the same thing Childe does.
They are alone, in the pale yellow glow of the dining room’s lights. Zhongli gets to work, clearing up dishes and asking for containers to put leftovers in.
‘Come on,’ says Childe, handing him a plastic container. ‘Spill it.’
Zhongli looks down at the pot of soup he is holding, thinks, then shakes his head.
‘I meant, tell me. I’ll give you your closure, you just need to ask.’
‘Give me a moment,’ says Zhongli.
Childe hands him a ladle. Zhongli seems eager to stay in motion, moving back and forth between the kitchen and dining room in between tasks.
‘I had wanted to ask,’ he says, ladling soup into the container, ‘what do you think of our relationship?’
Childe blinks. ‘First question, and you pick the hardest one.’
‘I will take any answer.’
Childe inhales, pauses, exhales.
‘I—I wish,’ he begins. Zhongli stops moving, knuckles white around his ladle. ‘I wish I could call us friends.’
‘What’s stopping you?’ Zhongli’s voice lacks its usual steel.
‘It’s just—I don’t know. Aren’t friends supposed to be good for each other, at the very least? And I’m…’
‘I am here of my own free will, Childe.’
‘When I envisioned a companion,’ says Childe, ‘I’d wanted someone like me. Someone who would hunt down the stars with the same unending hunger, and in the end, one of us would devour the other. You are nothing like that. You’re unambitious, you’re not above lying to get what you want, and you don’t even like me that much.’
Zhongli opens his mouth, but Childe cuts him off. ‘And I still lo—like you. I don’t know. Maybe I was lonely and you were pretty, and nice enough for me to delude myself. I’ve never been smart about these things. I don’t understand.’
For a moment he thinks Zhongli is going to yell. He closes the container of soup with more force than necessary, and Childe shifts into a defensive stance. But Zhongli just sighs, tension visibly leaving his shoulders.
‘You’re right.’
He turns, extends a hand. Childe takes it, and the unrestrained part of his mind thinks that they are going to dance. He hasn’t danced in years, not since…
‘You were right about me, that night at the docks.’ Zhongli takes a step forward. Childe matches it, stepping backwards. ‘I do not have the courage to love what is in front of me.’
The kitchen is small, and Childe allows Zhongli to hold him closer, placing a hand on his waist. He laces his fingers through Zhongli’s other hand, feeling the man’s breath hitch when their torsos almost touch.
‘It’s not your fault,’ murmurs Childe. He can feel Zhongli’s breathing. Awfully shallow. ‘Blame Rex Lapis. You are his shadow, after all.’
‘I refuse to use that excuse again,’ says Zhongli. Their dance takes them closer to the threshold of the dining room, and that gives Childe enough space to do a twirl. Slower than what he used to do, but enough to strain his left calf. Zhongli places both hands on Childe’s waist, then continues, ‘I’ve lived separately from my god for years now. I have my own home, my own job, my own friends. Not his, even if I hold his memories. I am my own person.’
Childe feels himself smile at that. Zhongli is not done yet, however.
‘I should take responsibility for your condition,’ he says. ‘If I had not…tempted you into your transformation…’
‘It’s okay,’ says Childe quietly. Zhongli dips him almost to the floor, long, elegant fingers gripping his waist with so much force it hurts. ‘I would have found him eventually. It was a matter of time.’
Zhongli is close, so close Childe can smell the smoke on his clothes from a day in the kitchen, and the underlying smell of ozone. Has it always been so unsubtle?
Zhongli’s eyes are bright gold. Childe closes his eyes and turns away, those twin suns scorching his soul.
‘Childe. Childe.’
Childe cracks open an eye and almost recoils at the horror on Zhongli’s face.
‘You’re bleeding.’
He hears it before he feels it, the soft plink of liquid falling onto smooth, tiled floor.
the dance scene was inspired by honkai star rail's lesbian death tango, better known as rondo between countless kalpas. thank you acheron for existing