Chapter Text
A boy fell in.
The lake swallowed him whole, ink bleeding into ink, shadow seeping into shadow. There was no light in the abyss, only hunger—endless, gnawing, whispering hunger. He did not fall with screams on his lips. The dark is not so kind as to let you keep your voice.
He does not remember the moment he stopped being a boy.
But he knows what came crawling out.
Now, in the hush of Liyue’s evening, Tartaglia—Childe, Ajax, monster—stands at the edge of the harbor, fingers curled tight against his palms. The sea is vast before him, a silver mirror rippling under the moon, reflecting back something that almost looks like a man. Almost.
But his reflection does not flinch the way he does when Zhongli steps beside him.
"It is quiet tonight," Zhongli murmurs. His voice is stone smoothed by centuries, warm like the earth before the dawn. Childe swallows against the tightness in his throat.
"Yeah," he says, rough and low, as if the silence might shatter if he speaks too loud.
The waves reach for his feet. He does not step back. He wonders, distantly, if the sea would take him as easily as the abyss once did.
Zhongli does not ask him what he is thinking. Perhaps he already knows. Perhaps that is why he sighs so softly, why his fingers twitch like they long to reach out but know better. Zhongli is not a man who acts without certainty, and Childe—Childe is nothing but uncertainty now.
"You should rest," Zhongli says at last.
Rest.
Monsters do not rest. They wait. They endure. They do not wake up gasping from dreams where they are still drowning, do not shake with something like grief—no, like hunger—when they see blood on their hands, do not reach for another heartbeat just to remind themselves that they are still here, still human.
Childe exhales.
He does not look at Zhongli when he says, "Do you really think I deserve that?"
Zhongli does not answer at first.
Childe thinks that silence should not hurt, yet it cuts cleaner than any blade. A hesitation, a pause—he can hear the weight of a god’s thoughtfulness pressing against the air between them. Zhongli is a man who chooses his words like a sculptor chooses marble, careful and precise, stripping away the excess to leave only truth behind.
Childe already knows what the truth must be.
“No,” he says before Zhongli can speak, a sharp breath, a bitter laugh curling at the edges. “It’s alright. You don’t have to lie.”
The words sit heavy on his tongue, a confession, an accusation, a plea.
Zhongli turns to face him fully now. Childe does not meet his eyes. He keeps his gaze locked on the sea, as if its restless, shifting depths hold all the answers he has long since lost. The salt in the air stings against his skin, but it is not sharp enough to wake him.
Nothing is.
“I do not lie,” Zhongli finally says, his voice steady, as if speaking something unshakable. “But I do wonder why you insist on denying yourself even the smallest kindness.”
Childe does not answer. He presses his lips together, tasting the bitter remains of unsaid things.
Zhongli has never seen the abyss. He has never drowned in it, never clawed his way out with fingers bloodied and bones splintered, never lost himself so completely that even his own reflection became a stranger.
He does not know what it means to become something else, something wrong, something hungry and ruined beyond repair.
Childe’s breath comes shallow. He flexes his fingers, staring at his hands, the hands of a warrior, a soldier, a killer. His hands have always held weapons; he does not know how to hold anything else.
“I don’t deserve kindness,” he says, and he hates the way his voice cracks like ice under too much weight. “Not after everything. Not after what I’ve done.”
A boy fell in.
A monster crawled out.
Zhongli watches him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. He is not unkind, but he is not soft, either. He is stone—ancient, immovable, wearing the wisdom of countless lifetimes.
"You speak as though you alone are burdened by the past," Zhongli murmurs.
Childe clenches his jaw.
"Maybe I am," he mutters, barely above a whisper.
Zhongli tilts his head slightly, considering. Then, with the kind of certainty only a god can carry, he says, "You are not."
Childe stiffens.
Something in Zhongli’s voice reaches past his defenses, a steady current beneath his words, something vast and sorrowful. Childe risks a glance at him, and for the first time, he sees it—grief.
Not pity. Not sympathy.
Grief, old and quiet and endless.
Childe’s breath catches. It is strange to think of Zhongli, of Rex Lapis, as someone who carries grief. Gods do not suffer the way men do. Their pain is distant, unshaken by the fleeting tragedies of mortal lives.
Or so he had thought.
Zhongli turns back to the sea. The wind catches in his hair, and for a moment, he looks impossibly far away.
“I have lost many,” Zhongli says, the words measured, carefully chosen. “I have buried entire generations, watched the rise and fall of empires. I have seen war, destruction, loss beyond measure. And still, I remain.”
Childe swallows, his throat dry.
Zhongli continues, quieter now, “It is not always the dead who suffer the most.”
Childe flinches.
The words are a spear driven straight through him, cracking through the armor he has spent years forging around his ribs. He does not want to be understood. He does not deserve to be understood.
Because if someone understands, if someone sees him, then what excuse does he have left?
The abyss had stripped him of everything, but this—this fragile, breaking thing inside him—he had kept buried. Had locked it away beneath masks of confidence and bravado, beneath sharp smiles and sharper blades, beneath the name Childe—not Ajax, never Ajax.
Ajax had drowned in the abyss.
Childe does not know what came back in his place.
And yet, here Zhongli stands, speaking to him as if there is still something left worth salvaging.
Childe exhales sharply, forcing a smirk onto his lips, something bitter and hollow. “You always talk like you have all the answers.”
Zhongli does not smile. He only looks at Childe with that steady, endless patience, like time itself waiting for him to catch up.
“I do not,” Zhongli admits. “But I know this much—you are still here.”
Childe’s breath stutters.
Simple words. Soft words. But they carve into him deeper than any blade, cutting through the fog in his mind, through the weight of everything he has tried to bury.
You are still here.
Not a monster.
Not a weapon.
Not a remnant of something lost.
Just here.
The sea reaches for his feet again, gentle waves lapping at the edge of the dock. He watches the water move, shifting and endless, and for the first time in a long time, he does not think about letting it take him.
Zhongli does not press him for an answer. He only stands beside him, waiting, as if he has all the time in the world.
And maybe he does.
But Childe—Ajax—does not.
He exhales, a slow and shaking thing, and finally, finally, he turns away from the sea.
---
He turns away from the sea, but the sea does not turn away from him.
It clings to him, brine and memory, salt and ruin. It hums in his bones, whispers in his blood. It is in the spaces between his ribs, in the marrow of his limbs, in the shadows of his mind where nothing has ever truly healed.
It is in the moments between sleep and waking, when he jolts upright gasping, reaching for a knife that is not there, hearing voices that do not belong to the living.
It is in the way he hesitates before stepping into the bath, waiting for the water to turn black, for hands to pull him under.
It is in the way he cannot bear to stand still in the dark.
The abyss has never let him go.
And Zhongli—Zhongli, with his patience, his quiet words, his way of looking at Childe like he is still human—does not understand that.
He does not understand what it means to belong to the abyss.
The water calls him still. Not with kindness, not with mercy. But with inevitability.
You should have drowned, the abyss tells him, the weight of it pressing against his skull. You should have stayed.
The longer he is back in the mortal world, the more he wonders if he ever truly left.
He does not sleep that night.
He does not remember the last time he slept without dreams, without nightmares clawing at the backs of his eyes. Sometimes, when he is alone, when there is no one to hear, he wakes choking on a scream that never fully escapes.
Tonight, he does not even try.
Instead, he sits by the open window, letting the cold Liyue air scrape against his skin. The city is quiet at this hour, its streets emptied, its lanterns burning low. There is something about its stillness that makes his hands itch, his body tense with something restless and wrong.
He should leave. He should run. The abyss does not let its creatures roam free for long.
Childe exhales, pressing the heel of his palm against his forehead, as if he can force the thoughts away, as if he can silence the echo of something too deep, too dark to name.
He should not be here.
He leaves before dawn.
Not far—just into the city, away from the weight of closed spaces, away from the too-quiet of his room, where Zhongli’s words still linger like the ghost of something he cannot name.
You are still here.
Childe does not know what to do with that.
He walks the empty streets, feet carrying him with no destination, no purpose, only the familiar pull of movement. He has never been good at standing still. Standing still means thinking. Thinking means remembering.
He cannot afford that.
By the time the first hints of morning light begin creeping over the horizon, he finds himself by the harbor again. The sea stretches endless before him, the tide rolling in, gentle but insistent.
He closes his eyes, and for a moment, he lets himself imagine—
Not sinking. Not drowning.
Falling.
Back, back, back. Back to cold and silence, back to where everything was stripped away, where he was nothing but a thing with teeth and blood and instinct.
He does not know if he would climb out again.
A boy fell in.
A monster crawled out.
Maybe this time, the monster should stay.
“Childe.”
His breath catches.
Zhongli’s voice is quiet behind him, but it does not startle him. Of course Zhongli would find him. Of course Zhongli would come.
He does not turn around.
“You don’t have to—” His voice cracks, and he swallows it down, forcing a sharp laugh. “You don’t have to check on me, you know. I’m not—” worth the trouble, worth the effort, worth saving “—your problem.”
Zhongli does not answer immediately, and for that, Childe is almost grateful.
Then—
“You are not a problem.”
The words are so simple, so effortless, that they make something inside him ache.
He clenches his jaw. “You don’t know what I am.”
“I know enough.”
Childe lets out a breath that is almost a laugh, shaking his head. “Then you know I’m not someone who should be standing here.”
The sea murmurs at his feet. The abyss is always calling.
Zhongli takes a slow step closer, measured, careful. “And yet, here you are.”
Childe exhales sharply, fists curling at his sides. His nails dig into his palms, a sharp, grounding pain.
“I don’t want to be.”
He means for the words to come out stronger, but they don’t. They come out small, frayed, unraveling at the edges.
Zhongli is silent for a long moment. Then, with a weight that feels ancient, he says, “I know what it is to carry something you cannot put down.”
Childe closes his eyes.
No, he thinks. No, you don’t.
Because if Zhongli had truly known, if he had truly understood, he wouldn’t still be standing there.
He wouldn’t be looking at Childe like he was something still worth speaking to, still worth saving.
The abyss does not let go.
And neither, it seems, does Zhongli.
---
Zhongli does not leave.
Childe wishes he would.
He wishes the man would turn his back, walk away, let the silence settle between them like stone, like finality. Zhongli does not belong in this moment, in this sharp-edged, fraying thing that Childe has become. He does not belong at the water’s edge, staring at a monster and speaking as if it is anything else.
I know what it is to carry something you cannot put down.
The words burrow into Childe’s ribs, nestling between the cracks, unwanted.
He doesn’t turn around. He keeps his gaze locked on the sea, watches the tide crawl in, swallow the shore, drag itself back out again. The rhythm of it is familiar. It does not change, no matter how many bodies sink beneath its surface.
Childe wonders, not for the first time, how many dead things the ocean holds.
How many lost names. How many silent mouths. How many screams that never made it to the surface.
And what is one more?
His fingers twitch at his sides. His body is restless, a tight coil of something waiting to snap. He is tired. So, so tired. But it is not the kind of exhaustion that sleep can touch.
It is in his bones. It is in the air he breathes.
It is in the way he has not felt clean since the abyss spat him back out.
Zhongli exhales quietly behind him. Not impatient, not frustrated. Just there, just waiting.
Childe hates him for it.
“Why do you keep—” His voice catches, and he swallows it down, grinding his teeth. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
A beat of silence.
Then—soft, steady—“Like what?”
Childe’s laugh is bitter, raw. “Like I’m still—” human “—like I’m something worth standing here for.”
Zhongli is quiet.
Too quiet.
And then, finally, he says, “Because you are.”
Childe breathes in, sharp. The words should mean nothing. They should roll off him like water, slip between his fingers like all the other empty reassurances he has heard before.
But they don’t.
They settle in his chest, heavy and aching, like something dangerous.
Like something hopeful.
And hope—hope is something Childe does not allow himself.
Hope is for the people who never had to carve their way back to the surface with bloodied hands and shattered bones. Hope is for the people who do not wake up choking on screams they do not remember making. Hope is for the people who never drowned.
Zhongli doesn’t understand.
How could he?
He wasn’t there when the abyss wrapped its fingers around a child’s throat and whispered, You are not a boy anymore. You are hunger. You are fear. You are a thing that kills to live, lives to kill, and nothing else.
Nothing else.
Childe tightens his fists. He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t let Zhongli see the way his hands are trembling.
“You keep saying things like that,” he mutters, his voice low, rough, scraped raw. “Like you think words can fix what’s broken.”
Zhongli steps closer, slow, deliberate, careful as though approaching something that might bolt, might lash out, might crumble under its own weight.
“Words cannot fix what is broken,” he agrees. “But neither can silence.”
Childe flinches.
It is the kind of truth that lands like a blade.
Silence is the only thing that has ever stayed with him. The abyss did not sing lullabies. It did not soothe wounds. It did not whisper comfort in the dark.
It only watched.
It only waited.
And when Childe clawed his way free, when he emerged gasping and empty, when he stood on the shore and looked at the world through unfamiliar eyes—
Silence was the only thing that met him.
No welcome. No relief.
Just silence.
Because the boy that had fallen would not have made it out.
And whatever had crawled back in his place—
There had been no words for it.
Only now—now—Zhongli is standing here, speaking to him as though there is still something left to say.
Childe squeezes his eyes shut. His body is so tense he thinks he might snap. “You think—” His voice wavers. He grits his teeth. “You think it’s that easy? That I just have to listen to some flowery bullshit and suddenly I can—” what? Pretend? Believe? Hope?
Zhongli does not interrupt him.
Childe exhales sharply, shaking his head. “You don’t get it.”
A pause.
Then—
“You are right,” Zhongli says. “I do not.”
Childe stills.
“I do not know what it is to fall,” Zhongli continues. His voice is steady, but there is something old and aching beneath it, something that almost sounds like regret. “I do not know what it is to lose myself and come back someone unrecognizable. I do not know what it is to wake each day and feel the weight of that loss pressing against my ribs.”
Childe’s throat tightens.
He does not move.
Zhongli shifts closer, not enough to touch, not enough to startle. Just enough to be there.
“But I do know,” he says, quieter now, like something fragile, something careful, “what it is to grieve something I can never return to.”
Childe’s breath catches.
It is not a wound, not a weapon, not a declaration meant to cut deep.
But it does.
Because for the first time, Zhongli does not sound like a god.
He does not sound like a man with all the answers, all the wisdom of the world tucked neatly behind golden eyes and measured words.
He sounds—
He sounds like someone mourning.
And Childe—Childe knows mourning.
He has lived in it. He has breathed it in like air, let it sink into his skin, into his blood, into the spaces between his ribs where something vital used to be.
He does not turn around.
He cannot.
If he does, Zhongli will see it.
The way his hands shake. The way his chest tightens. The way something in him has started to crack.
The abyss does not let go.
And yet—
And yet—
Zhongli stays.
Childe runs.
He doesn’t think. He doesn’t breathe. He just moves.
His feet slam against stone, heartbeat hammering in his ears, breath sharp and ragged. The harbor fades behind him, swallowed by the twisting streets of Liyue, by lantern light and shadow, by the echo of Zhongli’s words still carving themselves into his ribs.
I do know what it is to grieve something I can never return to.
Childe does not want to hear that. He does not want to understand that.
Because if he understands it—if he lets himself believe, even for a moment, that Zhongli is telling the truth, that he is not alone in this—then something inside him will break.
And he cannot afford to break.
He cannot.
So he runs.
The city is still waking, soft murmurs of life stirring in the streets, but Childe does not stop. He barely notices the people he passes, their tired, curious glances—doesn’t stop to see if anyone calls out to him. His mind is too loud, too full, too much.
His chest aches. His lungs burn. But he keeps running.
Faster, faster—
Like if he can just outrun himself, he won’t have to feel any of this.
The cliffs rise before him, jagged and steep, the sea sprawling far below.
Childe barely registers how he got here. He barely registers the sting of scraped hands, the burn in his legs, the uneven rhythm of his breath.
His body moves on instinct, his limbs remembering the climb before his mind does. The old paths are still familiar beneath his hands, the rock face still rough, still solid, still real in a way nothing else feels real anymore.
Higher.
He doesn’t stop until there is nothing above him but sky.
The wind howls against him, cold and sharp. Below, the ocean stretches endless and empty, its waves dark in the early morning light.
Childe stares down at it.
His fingers dig into the earth at his feet.
The wind tugs at him, urging, beckoning. The sea murmurs below, patient, waiting.
You should have drowned.
The abyss does not let go.
It never has.
Childe exhales shakily. His legs are unsteady. He feels—thin. Frayed. Like he might unravel if he moves wrong, if he breathes too deep.
He thinks—
If he steps forward, if he just—
Would the abyss take him back?
Would it open its arms and pull him under, whispering, this is where you belong?
Would it let him rest?
His fingers twitch.
But then—
A voice in his head. A voice he has not heard in years.
Soft, worried. Small.
“Big brother?”
Childe chokes on a breath.
His knees buckle. He hits the ground hard, hands bracing against the dirt, chest heaving.
Teucer.
His family.
The warmth of his mother’s arms, the laughter of his sisters, the way his father clapped a hand on his shoulder the last time he came home—
His heart is beating too fast. His stomach twists, nausea curling tight in his throat.
What would they think—if they saw him like this?
What would they say—if they knew?
A monster crawled out.
Teucer had looked up at him with so much trust in his eyes. My big brother’s the strongest.
But he wasn’t.
He wasn’t.
Childe squeezes his eyes shut, gritting his teeth so hard it hurts.
The abyss should have taken him.
But it didn’t.
And if it didn’t, then—
Then he has to live with what he is.
He has to keep going.
Even if he doesn’t know how.
Even if it feels impossible.
Even if—
A presence behind him.
Childe doesn’t turn. He already knows who it is.
Zhongli does not speak.
He does not move closer.
He only waits.
Childe swallows hard, his throat tight. He digs his fingers into the earth, grounding himself, trying to breathe.
He does not know how long they sit there, wind whipping through his hair, waves crashing below.
But Zhongli does not leave.
He never does.
---
Childe does not move.
Neither does Zhongli.
The silence stretches between them, stretched taut like a bowstring, like the moment before a blade finds its mark. The wind howls against the cliffs, salt and cold and biting, but Childe barely feels it.
His breath is still ragged, chest rising and falling too fast, as if his body cannot decide if it wants to run or collapse.
He should have run farther.
He should have disappeared before Zhongli could follow.
But Zhongli is here, standing behind him, waiting, watching, staying.
And Childe—Childe cannot stand it.
He cannot stand it.
Because if Zhongli stays, if Zhongli does not turn away like he should, then what does that mean?
It means there is something in Childe worth staying for.
And that is a lie.
He forces himself to his feet, movements jerky, unsteady. His body is still shaking, but he clenches his fists, ignores the way his stomach twists, forces his voice into something sharp, something cold, something that will make Zhongli leave.
“You need to stop this.”
Zhongli says nothing.
Childe grits his teeth, turning, finally facing him. Zhongli stands a few feet away, expression unreadable, amber eyes dark with something—something Childe does not want to name.
Childe exhales sharply. “You keep following me. You keep talking like you understand, like there’s something left of me to save.” His hands are shaking. He clenches them tighter. “But you don’t. There isn’t.”
Still, Zhongli does not speak.
Still, he does not leave.
Childe steps forward, his whole body too tense, too frayed, his breath sharp. “You don’t get to do this,” he snaps, voice rising, cracking at the edges. “You don’t get to stand here and look at me like that.”
Zhongli tilts his head slightly. “Like what?”
Childe laughs, short and harsh. “Like I’m still human.”
The words hang in the air between them.
Zhongli’s gaze does not waver.
Childe exhales sharply, pushing forward, anger curling in his chest like something bitter, something desperate.
“Like I’m not a monster.”
Zhongli’s brow furrows slightly.
Childe steps closer. His pulse is too fast. His breathing too uneven. His vision too blurred, his own voice almost unrecognizable.
“You want to fix something that can’t be fixed,” he spits, the words slipping free before he can stop them. “You want me to be something I’m not.”
Zhongli’s lips part, as if he wants to say something—as if he wants to argue.
But Childe doesn’t let him.
He can’t.
Because if Zhongli speaks, if Zhongli tells him something gentle again, something that hurts, Childe thinks he might break.
So he shoves him.
Hard.
Zhongli barely stumbles.
Childe breathes in sharply, hands still curled into fists, and does it again.
This time, Zhongli takes a step back.
Childe’s chest tightens.
“Go,” he breathes, voice low, rough, pleading. His hands are still trembling. “Just—go.”
Zhongli looks at him, golden eyes searching, expression unreadable.
Childe swallows. His throat feels tight. His whole body feels like it’s shaking apart, like something inside him is cracking, splintering, unraveling.
“Go!” He shoves him again, harder, teeth gritted, his voice breaking—breaking. “Why won’t you just leave?!”
Zhongli catches his wrist.
Not harshly. Not with force.
Gently.
And that—
That is what finally makes Childe snap.
His whole body seizes up, and something inside him breaks, something he has been holding together for too long, something that should have shattered long ago.
His other hand comes up, curled in a fist, but it does not land.
Because Zhongli does not flinch.
He does not step back.
He does not let go.
He just stands there, holding Childe’s wrist like it is something fragile, something breakable, something that still belongs to him.
And Childe—
Childe cannot take it.
His strength leaves him all at once. His legs buckle. His breath stutters. And before he can stop himself, before he can even think, his fingers clutch at Zhongli’s coat, trembling, desperate, helpless.
“I don’t know how to live like this,” he chokes.
The words slip free before he can stop them, before he can shove them down, before he can smother them into silence.
Zhongli does not let go.
His grip on Childe’s wrist stays firm, steady.
“You do not have to do it alone.”
Childe shakes his head, breath hitching, whole body trembling. “You don’t get it,” he whispers, voice wrecked, voice raw. “The abyss doesn’t let go.”
He clenches his fingers in Zhongli’s coat, knuckles white.
“It doesn’t let you be loved.”
Zhongli is silent for a long moment.
Then—soft, steady, like something carved from stone—
“Then let me defy it.”
Childe’s breath catches.
His grip tightens.
But he does not pull away.
But he does not move.
His fingers are still curled into Zhongli’s coat, breath shallow, uneven, his whole body trembling like he has been struck. Like the words have broken something inside him, some last, fragile defense he had tried so desperately to hold onto.
Then let me defy it.
The abyss does not let you be loved. It does not let you go. It does not let you try.
But Zhongli—Zhongli is standing here, holding onto him, like he means it, like he believes in something that cannot be believed in.
Childe wants to scream at him.
He wants to shake him, shove him, tear himself away from the impossible gentleness in those golden eyes.
He wants to demand why.
Why him?
Why is Zhongli doing this, why is he standing here, why hasn’t he walked away like he should?
Why is he treating Childe like there is still something left of him to save?
But Childe doesn’t say any of that.
He only shudders, fingers curling tighter, breath shattering in his throat.
And Zhongli—Zhongli only watches him, quiet, steady, waiting.
Then, gently—so gently it almost breaks Childe more—Zhongli speaks.
“Do you want to try?”
Childe sucks in a sharp breath.
The words sink into him like a blade, like an open wound, like something he cannot touch without bleeding.
He almost laughs, but it catches in his throat, twisting into something ragged.
Try?
Try?
How do you try when you don’t even know how to begin?
How do you try when every part of you is broken, when everything inside you has already been hollowed out, when the only thing you know is how to fight, how to kill, how to destroy?
Try to be human again?
Try to live?
Childe shakes his head, voice hoarse, uneven. “I—I don’t know how.”
Zhongli does not hesitate. “Then let me show you.”
The answer is too immediate. Too steady.
Too certain.
Childe feels like he cannot breathe.
His throat tightens, his fingers twitch, his pulse pounds in his ears.
It’s too much.
Too much hope, too much patience, too much of something Childe does not deserve.
He stares at Zhongli, vision blurring, shaking his head again, more desperate this time.
“I don’t know how to be something other than this,” he chokes, voice thin, voice fraying, voice breaking.
Zhongli’s grip does not loosen.
“You are more than what the abyss made you.”
Childe exhales sharply. His whole body seizes.
His hands tremble. His vision swims.
He wants to tell Zhongli he is wrong.
That he doesn’t understand, that he can’t understand, that Childe is not something that can be fixed or saved or loved.
That the abyss did not just take him.
It made him.
That the boy who fell in never came back.
That only the monster remains.
But when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out.
Because Zhongli is looking at him, steady, patient, unchanging, like stone shaped by time, like mountains that have withstood centuries, like something Childe cannot break, no matter how hard he tries.
And it is too much.
Too much kindness.
Too much warmth.
Too much of something Childe does not know how to hold, how to accept.
He shakes his head, voice hoarse. “You don’t get it.”
Zhongli watches him, gaze unwavering.
“Then tell me.”
Childe swallows, something thick in his throat.
He wants to turn away.
He wants to run again.
But Zhongli’s fingers are still wrapped around his wrist, his touch steady, grounding him in something real, something tangible.
So instead—
Childe lets out a breath, shuddering, uneven, and tells him.
Tells him about the abyss.
Tells him about the cold, about the dark, about the endless whispers that crawled into his skin, into his bones, into the marrow of who he used to be.
Tells him about the first time he saw his own reflection and did not recognize the thing staring back.
Tells him about the fear.
Not of the abyss itself.
Not of the darkness.
But of himself.
Of what he had become.
Of what he had lost.
He does not realize he is crying until Zhongli reaches up—slow, careful, gentle—and wipes a tear from his cheek with the back of his fingers.
Childe flinches.
Not because it hurts.
But because it doesn’t.
Because it has been so long since anyone has touched him like this.
Since anyone has looked at him and seen something other than a weapon.
Since anyone has seen him.
Zhongli’s fingers linger, warm against his skin.
And then—soft, quiet—he asks again.
“Do you want to try?”
Childe exhales, unsteady.
His chest is too tight. His hands are shaking. His whole body hurts.
And maybe—
Maybe he will never be human again.
Maybe the abyss took too much. Maybe he has forgotten how to be anything other than a monster.
Maybe he will never escape what he is.
But—
Maybe Zhongli is willing to stay anyway.
Maybe Zhongli does not need him to be something whole.
Maybe trying does not mean knowing how.
Maybe it just means—
He lets out a breath.
His fingers uncurl from Zhongli’s coat.
Not completely.
Not yet.
But enough.
Enough to try.
---
Childe tries.
At first, it is not even a choice—it is survival, raw and desperate, scraping itself into the marrow of his bones.
Because Zhongli does not leave.
Because Childe has pushed him, has shoved at him, has thrown every sharp edge he has in his arsenal—every broken, jagged piece—and Zhongli has not turned away.
Because Childe is so, so tired.
Because the abyss still whispers, still tugs at the edges of his mind, but for the first time, someone else is standing between him and the fall.
So he tries.
He stays in Liyue longer than he meant to, lingering in the city’s golden glow, in the warmth of lantern light and steady hands.
He eats meals he doesn’t have the appetite for, but he eats them anyway, because Zhongli places tea in front of him without a word, because he watches him with quiet patience, because he does not force anything—but he expects it.
He sleeps in a bed instead of on rooftops or in shadows, lets himself rest without a dagger in his hand, without a nightmare curling in his throat like smoke.
He lets himself believe, for a moment, that maybe this is enough.
That maybe he can stay.
That maybe he can learn to live without the abyss clawing at his ribs.
But then—
The setbacks come.
Like the tide creeping in when you’ve already convinced yourself you’re safe.
The first one is small.
Barely a whisper of what’s to come.
Zhongli catches Childe’s wrist one evening when they’re walking through the harbor—gentle, just enough to still him, just enough to get his attention.
It is not a threat.
It is not meant to hurt.
But Childe flinches.
His entire body tenses like he’s expecting impact, like he’s bracing for something, and for half a breath, he isn’t in Liyue anymore—
He is somewhere dark. Somewhere wrong.
A place where hands are not gentle, where grip means hold him down, break him apart, make him forget what it is to be human.
His vision spins. His pulse pounds in his ears. He yanks himself free and stumbles back, breath coming too fast, lungs locking up.
Zhongli’s eyes widen slightly.
“Childe.”
His voice is calm. Steady.
Safe.
But Childe doesn’t feel safe.
Not in his own skin. Not in this moment. Not with his own mind betraying him, his own body reacting before he can even think.
Zhongli does not reach for him again.
He just waits.
Watches.
Lets Childe take a shuddering breath, forces the world back into focus, forces the now to be louder than the then.
And then Zhongli nods, like he understands.
Like he sees it, even though Childe has never told him what happened, even though he has never spoken the worst of it.
That should make it easier.
But it doesn’t.
Because it means Zhongli knows.
It means he sees Childe as something broken.
And that—
That makes Childe want to run all over again.
The second setback is worse.
It is a bad night.
A very bad night.
Childe has not had them in a while—not like this, not so raw, so violent.
But when it comes, it is worse than anything in months.
He wakes gasping, shaking, barely able to breathe past the phantom weight of something pressing down, past the claws still buried in his skin, past the abyss whispering in his skull—
You are still ours.
He stumbles out of bed before he even knows what he’s doing, his body moving, his mind not catching up fast enough.
The walls are too close.
The room is too close.
It feels like something is curling over him, swallowing him whole, pulling him back down—
No, no, no, no, no—
He’s in the streets before he realizes it, heartbeat a frantic drum against his ribs, air too thin, too sharp.
It takes a long time for the world to steady.
For his own hands to stop shaking.
But when he finally looks up, when he finally stops running, there is something waiting for him.
Or rather—
Someone.
Zhongli stands at the edge of the street, lantern light casting shadows across his face, dark robes still.
He is waiting.
Like he knew this would happen.
Like he knew Childe would break again.
And for some reason, that—that is what makes it worse.
Because Zhongli is standing there like he expected it.
Because Zhongli still came anyway.
Childe swallows hard, his throat raw, breath uneven.
He does not speak.
Zhongli does not either.
He only tilts his head, watches him, as if to say, And now? What will you do now?
Childe does not know.
He does not know if he is still running.
If he is running from Zhongli, or toward him.
If he is running from himself.
But he knows he is tired.
He knows he cannot keep doing this.
And Zhongli—
Zhongli is still there.
Still standing.
Still waiting.
Childe exhales sharply, something breaking apart in his chest all over again.
He tries.
But the abyss does not let him go.
And he does not know if he will ever be able to leave it behind.
---
Zhongli stays.
He does not leave when Childe gives him a reason to.
He does not flinch when Childe breaks apart in front of him, when the abyss rips through his skin, when the past drags its claws through his ribs and makes itself known.
He does not speak when Childe cannot breathe, when he stands in the empty streets of Liyue, trembling, haunted, eyes too dark, too distant, too lost.
He only waits.
Childe hates it.
Hates the quiet patience. Hates the steady presence. Hates the way Zhongli never recoils, never turns away, never gives him the disgust, the rejection that he is waiting for.
Hates the way Zhongli sees him.
Not just the mask. Not just the Harbinger, the warrior, the monster.
The boy beneath.
The boy who fell.
The boy who never crawled back out.
And it is so much worse.
Because Childe is not meant to be seen like this.
Not this wreck of a thing, not this hollow ruin, not this creature still trapped in the abyss even when his body is free.
It should have swallowed him whole.
It did.
It should not have spat him back out.
And yet—
Zhongli is still here.
Waiting.
Watching.
Staying.
Childe does not sleep that night.
He barely breathes.
Zhongli does not press.
He only walks beside him, through the darkened streets, past the harbor, past the lantern-lit homes, past the world that is still so far out of reach.
Childe feels the weight of it all pressing in on him, something too large, something too raw, something that will not heal.
At some point, his body remembers exhaustion, and he finds himself sitting against a stone wall, knees drawn up, head tilted back.
He does not know what to do with the silence.
He does not know what to do with himself.
Zhongli watches him for a long moment, then slowly settles beside him.
He does not touch him.
Does not speak.
Does not force him to look at him, to acknowledge him, to do anything except breathe.
And it is unbearable.
Childe lets out a hollow laugh, raking a shaking hand through his hair. “You really don’t give up, do you?”
Zhongli hums, tilting his head slightly. “I have lived long enough to know that persistence often bears fruit.”
Childe scoffs, looking away. “Yeah? What fruit do you think you’re getting out of this?”
Zhongli does not answer immediately.
When he does, his voice is quiet.
“Perhaps I am simply waiting for you to realize that you are worth the effort.”
Childe stiffens.
His throat closes up.
His hands clench against his knees.
He does not want to hear this.
He does not want to be told something like that, something gentle, something that digs under his skin and makes him want.
He does not deserve that.
He swallows, exhales sharply through his nose. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Zhongli glances at him, unshaken. “I do.”
Childe laughs again, but it is sharp, empty, bitter. “You don’t.” He turns his head, meets Zhongli’s gaze. “You don’t know what I did down there. What I became.”
Zhongli holds his gaze.
“I do not need to know.”
Childe's fingers twitch.
His stomach turns.
His pulse hammers, something wrong, wrong, wrong curling in his chest, something ugly, something aching.
He looks away. “You should.”
Zhongli does not answer.
Because they both know that if Childe tells him—
If he says it out loud, if he names the things he did, the things he became, the things he lost—
It will make it real.
And he cannot survive that.
The days after are slow.
Painfully so.
Childe still flinches when Zhongli moves too fast, when a voice is too loud, when a sound reminds him of something that should not be remembered.
He still wakes up in cold sweats, still sees the abyss when he closes his eyes, still feels it inside him—clawing, whispering, pulling.
And yet—
Zhongli stays.
He does not press.
He does not expect.
He does not demand.
He only exists alongside him.
And Childe does not know what to do with that.
Does not know how to handle kindness that does not ask for anything in return.
Does not know how to be something other than the abyss’s leftovers, something other than the thing that crawled out of the dark, something other than a blade waiting to be used.
He does not know if he will ever be anything else.
But Zhongli—
Zhongli is still here.
And maybe—just maybe—Childe does not have to figure it out alone.
But he still doesn’t know how to let Zhongli help.
He tries. He fails. He tries again. The cycle repeats, over and over, until it is more of a pattern than a choice. Until it is carved into the very foundation of his days, the rhythm of falling and not quite rising.
Because healing—if this even is healing—is not a straight road.
It is a winding path, filled with pitfalls, dead ends, steps that lead nowhere, and places where the ground simply crumbles beneath him.
Some days, it feels like he is moving forward.
Like he is something more than just the abyss’s discarded thing, more than the wreckage left behind when a boy fell and a monster crawled out.
Some days, he eats.
Some days, he sleeps through the night.
Some days, he can hear Zhongli’s voice without feeling the itch to run.
But then—
Then there are the other days.
The ones where he cannot look in the mirror without seeing something wrong.
Where his body feels too much like something borrowed, something that should not exist in the sunlight, something that should not be here at all.
Where he wakes up with his throat raw, his fingers shaking, his mind still somewhere else.
Where the abyss’s whispers return, curling in his ribs like smoke, slithering between his bones, reminding him—
You do not belong here.
You never did.
You never will.
Zhongli finds him on one of those days.
The kind where he cannot stand to be inside his own skin, where the world outside feels too sharp but the inside of his head is worse.
He has not slept. He has not eaten.
He is braced against a wall in an empty alleyway, fingers digging into the stone, breathing too hard, too fast, too shallow.
He does not know how long Zhongli has been standing there.
But when he lifts his head, when he looks up—Zhongli is watching him.
Not with pity.
Not with judgment.
Just… watching.
Childe swallows, exhales sharply. Forces a laugh that is not a laugh.
“You got a habit of showing up at the worst times, xiansheng.”
Zhongli steps forward, slowly, carefully, the way someone might approach a wounded animal. “I would call it the opposite.”
Childe snorts, shaking his head, but there is no humor in it. His fingers tighten against the stone. His voice is hoarse. “What do you even want from me?”
Zhongli stops a few feet away. He tilts his head, considers the question.
And then—
“Nothing,” he says simply.
And that—
That makes something snap inside of Childe.
Because he does not know how to exist without someone wanting something from him.
The Fatui wanted a weapon. His family wanted a protector. His enemies wanted a corpse.
The abyss wanted everything.
And Zhongli—
Zhongli wants nothing.
It makes no sense.
Childe pushes off the wall, glares at him. “That’s bullshit. Everyone wants something.”
Zhongli does not argue.
He only holds his gaze and says, “And what is it that you want, Childe?”
Childe opens his mouth—
And nothing comes out.
Because he does not know.
He has spent so long being shaped by what everyone else needed him to be, by what the abyss made him, that he does not know what he would be without it.
He does not know how to be something that belongs to himself.
His throat works. His hands shake.
He swallows.
“I—” His voice cracks. He clenches his jaw, inhales sharply, shakes his head. “I don’t—”
He cuts himself off.
The words will not come.
Zhongli watches him.
And then, instead of speaking, instead of forcing something into the silence—
He kneels.
It is not a grand gesture. It is not dramatic. It is not submission.
It is patience.
It is understanding.
It is a reminder that Childe does not have to stand alone.
Childe turns away sharply, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. His breath shudders. His throat aches.
And Zhongli stays.
The worst nights are the ones where he forgets where he is.
Where he wakes up back in the abyss, breath ragged, heartbeat frantic, eyes wide and seeing something that is not there.
And the worst part?
It is not always a nightmare.
Sometimes, it is not sleep at all.
Sometimes, it happens in broad daylight, when something is too familiar.
When a sound is too close.
When he is walking through the harbor, and suddenly, he is not there anymore.
Suddenly, he is back in the dark.
The abyss swallows him whole.
His body locks up. His breathing goes shallow. The world spins.
And this time, Zhongli is not there to pull him out.
This time, he is alone.
And this time—
He cannot get out of it himself.
He stumbles back into a side alley, presses himself into a corner, digs his nails into his palm so hard that they break skin.
Not real, not real, not real.
It does not help.
The abyss is here.
The abyss is always here.
He doesn’t know how long he is there before Zhongli finds him.
But he does.
Childe barely notices him approach.
But then—warm hands, gentle hands, catching his wrists, grounding him.
A voice, quiet and steady.
“Childe.”
Childe gasps, the world tilting, his ribs locking up.
But the warmth is real.
The voice is real.
He blinks rapidly, vision clearing, heartbeat slowing.
And Zhongli is there.
Always there.
Childe sags, shaking, exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with his body.
Zhongli does not let go.
And for the first time in years, Childe lets himself lean into someone else’s hands.
Just for a moment.
Just long enough to remember what it feels like to be held.
Zhongli helps.
Not in the way Childe expects.
Not by fixing him.
Not by saving him.
But by reminding him that he does not have to do this alone.
By reminding him that maybe, just maybe—
There is something left of him that is still worth saving.