Day 3: 'Bite Down'

CW: blood, injuries, wound stitching, cauterization


Childe watches him with wild eyes, still drunk on the high of battle, nostrils flaring. He's on edge. Adrenaline courses through his body as he jerks.

"Ajax," starts Zhongli, pressing a hand against his sternum, but Childe flails.

"I'm—that—The Abyss." The last part comes out as a hiss.

Childe is drenched in the acrid taste of it. Zhongli's nose twitches at the sharp smell. He cannot begin to fathom exactly what Childe saw there, he's only glad that he made it in time to pull him back before he fell entirely through the veil.

He shouldn't have been at the Chasm—but that's a complaint for later. Childe's side is drenched with blood that stains the grass underneath vermillion. Zhongli pulls at his clothing, ripping open the front of Childe's shirt to assess the damage.

"Zhongli," he murmurs. Zhongli ignores him, fingers ghosting along wet skin, searching. "Zhongli," he tries again, "Zhongli—"

"Ajax." Zhongli's voice is firm enough to shock Childe still.

"The Abyss," says Childe again, his voice pitched low as he trembles. "It called to me, it wanted me. I went, and I—" He sounds so utterly haunted. "It's always talking to me, you know," he babbles. "The Abyss lurks in my skin, in my ears, in my head. It wants blood. It's what drives me to fight. Wet knuckles and the thrill of the hunt, and the way that my prey looks when they lay underneath me—"

Zhongli presses his fingers against his mouth to quiet him. "Where does it hurt?" he asks, ignoring his rambling.

"It's so hard not to listen."

Zhongli grips his jaw firmly, squeezing just enough for Childe to wince under the pressure. "I'm trying to help, so listen to me. Where does it hurt?"

"A Lector," he finally mutters, shrinking back. "Nicked my side. It's deep, I can tell."

The first words of sense he's mumbled since Zhongli pulled him from the depths. He'd felt the strangeness in the air, and he'd arrived at the Chasm just in time to see Childe slip through the gate. Barely tugged him back by his coattails.

Zhongli rolls him onto his side, poking and prodding at the vulnerable skin. Childe whines once he hits a tender spot, and Zhongli wipes away the blood with his jacket sleeve, revealing a long and nasty gash too deep for a mortal to handle.

Childe isn't a mere mortal, though. Zhongli has never asked, he's only assumed—but one doesn't become a Harbinger so young without dastardly tricks up their sleeve. None of the Harbingers are normal, Childe included.

"I can't take care of this here," he says softly. He tugs Childe up, earning him a pained groan. "Apologies. It will only be a moment."

Childe's head lolls against Zhongli's shoulder as he curls around him. The air swirls as Zhongli tugs at the ether, and they're pulled into a different pocket of space away from prying eyes.

His Serenitea Pot is already quieter. Calmer. Full of the smell of tea and glaze lilies, not blood and Abyss.

Zhongli drops Childe to his bed with little care for the silk sheets. "Sit," he says, pressing his hand against Childe's sternum once more. And then, simply, "Stitches."

Childe does as he asks, though the light in his eyes has dimmed to barely an ember. His lips are nearly blue and shivers wrack his body.

It takes too long to find a needle. He has no thread. Zhongli settles back against the bed, drumming his fingers over the mattress as he thinks. Time is not on his side, regardless of Childe's strength. It ticks away with every breath like the grandfather clock sitting in his den.

Then, a thought. He plucks a hair from his head, wondering if it's the worst choice. It isn't, death is, and Childe is already knocking on its door.

"Zhongli," he whispers, eyes drooping.

"No, none of that." Zhongli leans close, shaking him. "Stay awake. Keep those eyes open for me."

Childe jolts, eyes wide again. They fall on Zhongli, recognition flaring in them.

He whines when the needle digs into his flesh. This was the sort of work that Guizhong did, so while Zhongli knows the basics, his hand is heavy, his work sloppy.

"Talk to me," he says as his hair gets caught on muscle, pulling through with a stuttering drag. "Talk to me, Ajax. Tell me something."

"It wants me back, it's been begging for me to come back for years, Zhongli." Zhongli can't help but pause. He regards Childe with a pinched expression, caught between listening or fixing him up.

"It's all I ever hear, sometimes. Come back, it says, as if stealing my childhood wasn't enough. Did you know, Zhongli? All it takes is a trip down a hole. Darkness and death. It was rank. Months for me, but only days for them."

Zhongli has long suspected the Foul Legacy was a matter of the Abyss, but due to Dottore's meddling, not because Childe took an unexpected trip as a child. His brow furrows as he sets back to work, his attention split.

"I came back wrong. That's what Pa says, and I know he loves me, but he didn't know how to handle me. But the Fatui did."

More stitches, more groans, more whispered confessions as Childe spills something he keeps close to his breast.

"But still, it lingers. I'll never be free. It's dimmed a little. When I'm around you. But then I go back home and it's like it never left. The Abyss runs in my veins. I'm part of it, and it's part of me. I'll never—"

Zhongli tugs a little hard when he knots his work off. He cleans the wound, but it's red and inflamed. Angry.

It is not enough. Zhongli's stitching is haphazard and messy. Blood already seeps from the edges. His gaze falls onto an old candle on the bedside table. An everlasting one that will never dim, courtesy of Marchosius's expert paws. Zhongli swallows thickly as he reaches out to it.

"Zhongli." Childe is more alert now. Tired, but alert, he looks at him with determination. Zhongli has seen his scars and he knows this is not new to him. Childe knows what to expect.

Zhongli leans forward, undoing his tie and pulling it from around his neck. "Bite down," is all he says before shoving the soft silk behind Childe's teeth.

#

Childe's screaming is worth it if it means that he lives. Even if it's a sound he'll never forget. Even if it rose bile in his throat, distraught at seeing Childe in such agony.

He sleeps now, dozing in Zhongli's bed. Everything is a mess, stained red and pink. Covered in sweat. Childe moans softly, and though his skin is hot and slick, he seems to be in decent enough shape.

Zhongli now knows that it is the Abyss that haunts him, not his overbearing job as a Harbinger, or the Tsaritsa's expectation of loyalty. This is what Childe fears the most. It's buried its way underneath his skin like a parasite. He breeds in him, kissing Childe's mind with tendrils of affection.

It isn't affection. The Abyss knows only darkness.

Zhongli reaches out and brushes his bangs back. Childe sighs softly, leaning into the touch. His eyes flutter open briefly. "Zhongli," he murmurs, voice choked with soft affection.

"Darling," says Zhongli. It is soft. They've always teetered on this will-they, won't-they, but he firmly takes the first step as he dips low and presses a kiss to Childe's brow.

"Don't go," says Childe. "Don't leave me alone with it. I still hear it. I still feel it. I'm cold and it won't let go."

Zhongli slips underneath the sheets without hesitation. Still in his trousers and a bloodstained white shirt. He slots himself against Childe, tugging him close by the waist. Gingerly. With a careful touch. "I won't let it take you."

It is a promise, set in stone. Zhongli never says anything lightly.