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Childe stares down at his phone.
He turns it on.
Watches the display. A message from Signora. A notification from his instagram. Spotify telling him an artist he likes is releasing a new album in five hours.
He turns it off.
On again.
The rhythm continues just a few more times, a gentle back and forth between him and screen. Like the tide upon a shore, he pulls away and then forwards once more, hoping to find something new in the sand the next time he approaches; but no, the beach is still just that. Sandy.
At this point, he’s beyond sighing. He schools the heavy weight of his heart in his chest away; he’ll pick it up later.
Right now, he has another cup to down.
“Here’s your beer,” Lumine’s shoulder gently bumps against Childe’s to catch his attention over loud music, and as one hand slides his phone back into his pocket, he uses the other to grab the plastic cup she hands him. He doesn’t miss the way her eyes trail after his phone on its way into hiding, but he chooses to ignore it. If she wants to comment, she will.
“Yorsh,” Childe corrects with a click of his tongue. His tone drops into something vaguely offended, but then he smiles, roguish and with a little too much teeth. “It’s stronger, you know?”
Lumine gives him a weird, weird look. Ajax’s biggest talent has never been social observation, but her judgement is practically radioactive, so it’s hard to miss. She looks disappointed, almost; it irks him. Something in the back of his mind is offended, a little hurt, even, by that show of distrust, ‘cause he doesn’t think it has anything to do with his choice of drink (despite how often she criticizes that, too).
“...Don’t judge, Lumi,” he mutters. When his phone vibrates in his pocket, he has to physically restrain himself from pulling it out. It’d be hypocritical to prove her point just as he’s trying to defend himself, and Childe doesn’t like losing. “I’ll talk to him today.”
Lumine’s eyebrows lift and disappear behind her bangs. She crosses her arms.
“Ajax,” his name sounds like the way a disappointed parent will let it roll off their tongue. He can almost see his mother’s face – pulling away whenever he’s a little too much, distancing herself from his behavior as if she wasn’t the woman that raised him, completely unable to reunite this strange man with the image of a son that exists only in the past. Ajax takes a gulp of his cup, leaning into the feeling of vodka burning on the way down.
“Ajax,” Lumine repeats his name, with a little more force – as if she knows his mind has travelled to somewhere else. He forces his eyes to focus. “You’ve already tried that. He keeps avoiding you.”
Ajax wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and flashes her a grin. “It’s Kaeya,” he says, as if that will somehow explain everything. Until recently, it did, even if Lumine couldn’t see it.
“Ajax,” god forbid, she says it again, and Childe almost wants to ask her to stop. For so long, that name was associated with disappointment, until his friends gave it purpose and made him feel like he had the right to be a person again; he doesn’t want Lumine to take that privilege away. His throat feels dry, so he drinks again.
“That’s exactly why I’m worried,” Lumine murmurs. Childe wants to bite back— fuck, he doesn’t like it when people worry. He’s capable of taking care of himself, isn’t he? He’s not a burden that someone else has to carry, and when he throws himself into a fight, he wins. It feels wrong to have a friend doubt him like this. What is he, if not his determination?
“I want to keep trying,” Childe shrugs. He smiles, well-aware it won’t reach his eyes, let alone convince Lumine. However, it’s the truth. He’s kept pushing for weeks now. Sooner or later, he’ll win. He has to.
“Look,” this time, Lumine doesn’t sigh. Perhaps she’s noticed that he doesn’t like the disappointed attitude, and instead, she fixes him with a glare. “I get you. I really do get you, but don’t hurt yourself. You’re worth more than chasing him around. You’re not a dog.”
Even if Lumine insists that he isn’t a dog, he doesn’t think it’s too off the mark. A wild one, sure, one that can’t just be tamed with a few commands and a treat, but nonetheless an animal capable of domestication. If he gets food, he’ll come back. If he wants something, he’ll keep asking for it, over and over. Give him a bone, someone. Yes, say good boy, and he’ll do it again.
He needs purpose, after all.
“I don’t think that’d be too bad,” Childe admits. His tone is playful, but his smile is a little too tight. “After all, dogs are pretty loyal, right? As am I to my goals. I don’t give up very easily.”
Lumine looks at him with a gaze that says she knows and has experienced it first-hand, probably more times than she’d like to remember. His drive (or stubbornness, as people without passion like to dub it) has landed him in several difficult situations, but he views the fact that he hasn’t been kicked out of school or thrown in prison as a victory. Even if both were a close call.
This might be a close call, too, but he’s going to win.
“I don’t want you to waste your worth,” Lumine shakes her head, then takes a sip of her own cup. He’s not sure what’s in it, but it smells fruity. A little like a perfume he knows.
Childe’s phone vibrates again.
“...Look,” Childe finally sighs, using his free hand to run through his bangs, keeping the edge of his palm on his forehead. The sweat there feels gross. He probably smells, doesn’t he? “I get it. If it doesn’t work out today, I’ll drop it.”
… Ah, and there he goes, even after all his bravado. Failure tastes bitter.
But it’s been coming, he knows. It’s the reason why he’s actually been able to stop himself from checking his notifications twice in a row— during the first week, he could hardly keep his hands off his phone, constantly waiting for a message (and sending an unhealthy amount himself, too). Hope was strong, then, and trust in their relationship too. He knew Kaeya.
Kaeya had always been one to push when he felt like he’d bitten off more than he could chew. Childe just had to show him that he could handle it— that he wasn’t gonna choke.
He thought it’d be that easy, at least. Now, after three weeks of radio silence and watching Kaeya continue to post on his instagram like absolutely nothing happened, except for removing every picture with them together, hope is scarce. Kaeya is really, really good at running, and even a racecar can’t keep up without gas to run on. Childe likes a challenge, yeah, but he’s not a masochist. He’s also not stupid.
He takes another sip. It really does taste foul.
“...Really?”
Childe feels a mix of pride and hurt at the hesitation in Lumine’s tone. Hurt that she thinks he’d lie (he is a lot of things, but a liar isn’t one of them – a trait he’d spent a lot of time convincing someone else of, too), but also pride that she’s aware he doesn’t usually give in like this. She’d probably been ready to fight a war to get him to see straight.
He’s caused her too much trouble, hasn’t he? Damn.
“Yeah,” Childe sighs. He finishes the motion of his hand through his hair, then gives her shoulder a gentle slap on the way down. “Really, comrade.”
In the next moment, Childe is seconds away from spilling yorsh all over both of them and actually causing them to smell like shit when Lumine, perhaps a little tipsy, too, pulls him into an unexpected hug. For a second, Childe doesn’t know what to do – his hands hover in the air, one trying to balance his drink while the other doesn’t know what to do at all. He wasn’t made for physical affection. He’s at a standstill.
Then he remembers what he’s been taught. He gently uses his free hand to return the embrace.
As they pull away from each other, Lumine looks up at him.
“Well? Go get him, Ajax.”
–because even after all this scolding and chastising, Lumine’s still rooting for him, and it makes Childe’s heart feel light.
“I will,” he grins, and then he takes off into the party.
If he promised her this will be his last attempt, he’ll just have to win tonight.
·· — ✶ — · ·
Kaeya is easy to find.
Of course he is. He’s a man that likes hiding in plain sight. Just like a spider spins a web, Kaeya’s the kind of predator that likes having connections everywhere— when something’s off, he’ll feel the strings being tugged at, and he has a straight line to go manage it. He doesn’t even have to be in the center to feel the vibrations; he can stay in the shadows instead, come out when he feels safe and go back when it’s time to hide. The best way of defense is, well, a lot of it, really. If you ask Kaeya, at least. Offense is too straight-forward for him; unless he’s really cornered, he wouldn’t want to risk his reputation. He’s always cared a great deal about what others think of him.
Childe tries to tell himself that’s why Kaeya’s here, at the party – his reputation. Because he doesn’t want people to know he’s suffering from post-breakup blues. Childe doesn’t want to believe he’s already over him, ready to socialize and go to a petty excuse for a get-together that’s mostly a cover for the hosts really wanting to improve their social standing and get laid at the same time. He knows he’s expendable, sure, but at this speed…
His fists close and open. Anyway.
Kaeya is in the main room of the party, where the music is too loud, people are dancing too close and it smells too much like smoke. Even though Childe’s been there, done that, his nose wrinkles when the putrid tang of hash hits him, drowning out even the beer-vodka right under his nose. Fuck, he hopes it won’t stick to his clothes; even now, he still lives at home. He’s forced to when he can barely pay his college tuition, and if he comes home stinking like drugs and whatever else his parents associate with ‘relapsing into bad habits’, he doesn’t know what they’ll do.
Well, he does. He just doesn’t feel like thinking too hard about it.
It’s great timing, though. Childe doesn’t want to think, and as soon as he has a proper view of Kaeya, he’s prevented from doing just that.
Even in this shithole, Kaeya is still beautiful.
It’s so fucking unfair.
He’s talking to someone Childe doesn’t know, and Childe has a perfect view of his side profile. His skin glows in the heat of the room, bronze under dimmed red lights. His hair is pinned back into a bun, fixed with some sort of black flower accessory that Childe can’t tell much about from this distance– but somehow, even though he can’t see that, he can see the way Kaeya’s highlighter sparkles along his cheekbone, how his lashes flutter every time he blinks. His teeth are pearly white, smile just as beautiful as it’d been a month ago. Even if it’s not directed at him anymore.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Childe knows he smells like beer and sweat. He knows he looks a mess, and it feels like an offense to intrude upon Kaeya’s space, to taint his air with the spoils. However, if he’s to keep himself from rotting, he needs this conversation to happen.
He can never go down without a fight. He’d rather lose than not try at all.
He feels guilty. This attempt will ruin Kaeya’s evening, he thinks. He doesn’t want to remove that smile from his lips, even if he knows what it means when Kaeya’s dimples don’t quite show and his eye refrains from crinkling at the corner.
But, fuck— he’s never wanted to be right about something more than he wants to be right about Kaeya. When he gave himself to him, it didn’t feel like a mistake.
When Kaeya told him he was happy, it didn’t sound like a lie, either.
… Okay.
Childe breathes. He reminds himself that he is Childe, Tartaglia, a boy who returned from an infamous bootcamp and came out on top, a boy who sought out fights he knew he’d be likely to lose because it’d make him stronger. A boy who ended up besting all of the ones he’d ever lost to. He is not the type to shy back from a challenge, so it’s pathetic of him to hesitate. This is a conversation. He has put his life on the line before, for god’s sake – his heart is nothing.
Risking it isn’t something to fear when it doesn’t belong to him anyway.
Childe downs the rest of his drink in one, big swig, drops the cup on the floor, and then he walks.
“Kae.”
To Kaeya’s friend, the nickname must sound desperate. Childe hears it, too, but there’s no need to cover it up; hiding something from sight won’t hide it from the other four senses, let alone the sixth. And it’s not for them, anyway— he doesn’t give a shit that all of Kaeya’s friends might know him as the ‘desperate ex’ from this day on. Certainly not if wearing his heart on his sleeve will convince Kaeya that a fragment of what they had is still worth coming back for.
Kaeya turns around.
“...Childe.”
Childe’s heart burns. His fists spasm in the air— a month ago, they’d have reached without hesitation, slid along the curve of Kaeya’s hips and around his waist. Now, he knows touching Kaeya without permission would be asking for his own death. Kaeya’s private – Childe fought a war for the first kiss.
It stings so bad to know his lips are off limits tonight. He wonders whether his lipstick is just subtle today, or if somebody else kissed it off of him.
… Yeah, okay. No more stalling. Even now, Childe has the audacity to feel possessive, and he wants Kaeya away from all the onlookers. That vulnerable glint in his eyes, the hint of fear as he regards Childe that makes him feel as if he’s about to throw up either his stomach or his heart— they hurt, but they’re for him, and he’s sure as hell not going to share tonight.
“Can we talk?”
What he wants to say is that they need to talk, but he knows that Kaeya needs the choice. If he tries to force him, he’ll run, so Childe has no choice but to ask nicely and wait with a patience he’s never possessed as Kaeya considers him, swipes his eyes up, down, once, twice, looks to the side and then slowly back at Childe’s face—
“...If you insist.”
·· — ✶ — · ·
Childe feels bad as they walk up the stairs. After all, he already knew Kaeya would have to say yes— again, Kaeya is nothing if not conscious about his reputation. Given that Kaeya broke up with him out of nowhere and didn’t announce it on any platforms, not everyone knows where they’re at. To turn Childe down in a room of people would be asking for attention.
… not that Kaeya seems like he’s very content about accepting his invitation anyway.
Well, Childe will take what he can get.
As they walk down the hallway, Childe opens every door he can get his hands on. There’s a locked door, a bedroom where someone’s making out on the mattress, and a bathroom that stinks of bile. He settles on the second bathroom on this floor— holy, whoever lives here must be rich. But Childe has better things to think about right now.
He drags Kaeya through the door by the wrist. His skin is chilly. Childe lets go before he can think too hard about that and lands his hand on the doorhandle instead, shutting it closed. He lingers there for a second— he wants to lock it to make sure they won't be interrupted, but he also knows he can’t. Kaeya wouldn’t like it.
Besides, Childe prefers the idea of Kaeya being in here of his own volition and not because he has nowhere to run. He lets go of the handle.
When he turns around, Kaeya is smiling at him. It’s the same smile he’d used in the crowd downstairs– polite with a twinge of something awfully charming, a little smug, like he knows something Childe doesn’t. It distracts the victim just enough that most wouldn’t realize how the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
Childe realizes, of course, and it hurts to see Kaeya put this kind of distance between them. The physical distance was one thing— to see it transfer to Kaeya’s mentality, to have every little flaw Kaeya had once gifted him hidden from view once again, hurts. He feels like he’s been robbed of a fortune.
Well— he’s always been good at stealing, hasn’t he? Kleptomaniac, his mom once called him.
“So?” Kaeya’s eyebrows lift and his eyeshadow sparkles beneath the white light of the lamp above. There’s a little drop of sweat on his brow. Childe’s fingers twitch at his side, and he spots the way Kaeya’s gaze flits downward and then goes up again. “I hope there was a good reason for bringing me up here,” Kaeya says it playfully, but his arms are crossed over his chest and there’s an awkwardly large space between them. Childe’s forehead pulls into a frown.
“Don’t give me that,” he cocks his head to one side. He doesn’t bother to reciprocate the smile on Kaeya’s face; it’d be stupid to think he could fool Kaeya anyway. He stares at Kaeya’s smile for one second, another, then lets out a groaning sigh and runs his hands through his hair, closing his eyes. He enjoys the darkness for a second— if he ignores his other senses, Kaeya’s presence feels the same as it always has, even when nothing else is.
When he opens his eyes again, Kaeya’s frowning at him. Childe likes this better than the smile.
Kaeya tilts his head. His eye narrows. “Then what do you want?” It’s clear he’s trying to sound amused, but Childe can’t help but think that he sounds more frustrated than anything. His body language says so, too– one arm swings out in a defeated motion that urges him to respond. “I’m trying to be comfortable here,” he jokes. The joke isn’t funny.
“Fuck,” the curse slips out before Childe can catch it, but he embraces the honesty. “Kaeya, nothing about this is comfortable.”
Kaeya’s shoulders raise a little further. As if he thinks that if he raises them high enough, it’ll save him from having to listen. Childe thinks it’s equally angering and devastating that Kaeya, who’s usually eager to hear everything absolutely everyone has to say, would rather be deaf today.
“Then let me leave,” Kaeya’s tone has sharpened. Like a knife’s edge, it’s been honed into something devoid of the amusement from before.
That’s better, even if the words frustrate him.
“...Kaeya,” Childe sighs, and the name feels foreign on his lips. He wants to say it over and over until it feels familiar again, but he restrains himself. “Kaeya. You can’t be this smart and still act this fucking dumb, please. You know that’s not what I meant.”
Of course he does, and the fact that he doesn’t say anything confirms that. Kaeya doesn’t look like someone who’s trying to deny anything, just… someone who really wants to leave. His arms are pulled tight across his chest once more, as if trying to compress into himself so he may hide from Childe’s eyes. Fuck.
Childe takes a deep breath. Again, his fingers comb through his bangs. They’re still sweaty, and this time it has very little to do with the heat.
He breathes again and tries to calm the thrumming in his veins. Whenever he gets worked up, his body thinks he’s looking for a fight— he needs a second to get the discord out of his system. He doesn’t want to fight Kaeya. He wants to win, yes, but for once he’d rather negotiate than bang it out with fists, even if this is the furthest from his field of expertise he’s ever gotten. He’s good at making use of what he has, so right now, he’s trying to forgo his weaponry and approach Kaeya with his body bare instead. It’s just a little harder when Kaeya’s gaze keeps straying.
“Look,” he sees. It sounds a little desperate, like he’s longing for something more than just eye contact. “...Can you tell me if it’s me, at least?”
Kaeya doesn’t respond immediately. His eye drifts off to somewhere on the floor, and Childe sees the way Kaeya’s manicured nails dig into his arms, undoubtedly leaving indents through the fabric of his dress shirt. Childe waits for him, even as he longs to reach forward and forcibly pull Kaeya back to the present, to pull until they’re one again.
Kaeya raises his eyes. When he does, he looks more like prey than anything— an injured rabbit watching the fox, wondering why he hasn’t gone for the kill yet.
“...It’s not,” he finally says. Childe feels a few kilograms being lifted off of his heart, but it doesn’t touch the remaining hundred. Kaeya’s nails dig in a little deeper, and he smiles again, but his eyes are somewhere else. “It’ll never be you.”
Childe thought so. He’s happy, yeah, but most of all, he’s frustrated. Very much so.
“Then why the hell did you leave?”
He doesn’t mean to sound so accusatory, but he can’t quite quell the part of him that was taught that the best defense is an offense. He tries to stave it off even as Kaeya goes quiet again.
… Is this conversation going to take all night, or what?
The frustration sets his veins on fire, singing his skin. There comes a point where it’s too much energy to keep in his body, and as an outlet, Childe finds himself closing the distance between him and Kaeya— fuck, he feels bad, he spots the way Kaeya’s eyes widen in shock and he takes a step back, but Childe’s hand is already on his arm, gripping him and forcing him to stay.
“Why did you leave, Kaeya?”
Kaeya, infuriating as he can be, has resorted to looking down and zipping his lips shut. The rabbit has been caught, now, is waiting for its demise without any fighting at all, a trait Childe simply can’t accept or unite with his own nature. He wants Kaeya to bite, to give him a challenge, to do something so he knows he cares—
“Answer me, Kaeya!”
—and Kaeya chooses flight. He rips himself out of Childe’s grip, and Childe only has a second to feel bad for what he’s done before Kaeya starts scratching him apart.
Figuratively, of course. Kaeya doesn’t look like he wants to go near him at all.
“Shut up!” Kaeya snaps. His eye is watching Childe now, set alight with something both afraid and incredibly angry. “Can you stop asking? I don’t owe you an explanation for anything. I’m free, aren’t I?” His voice cracks on the last words. His eyes are burning holes into Childe’s skin.
Part of Childe wishes they’d burn a little brighter. If it ends now, he’d like a mark to remember Kaeya by.
But he’s not losing, he tells himself.
“If you were free, you wouldn’t be doing things that hurt you,” Childe responds. He wills his voice to be a little more level, remembers the exercises about self-control he was forced to learn. Fuck— it feels horrible to need to pull on them now, when Kaeya should never have had to fear that part of him in the first place. But a lot of things that should’ve never happened are going on right now, right? So he’ll save the guilt for later and win first, just like he’s always done, how he’s survived.
He gets bold.
“This isn’t what you want, Kaeya.”
Kaeya goes from looking like someone ready to fight to a deer caught in headlights. The facade he’d donned before is gone— not because Kaeya opened the door, but because Childe beat it down.
Fuck, the guilt is creeping in.
Kaeya knows his walls aren’t able to hide him anymore, so his hands do the job instead. His palms press against his face.
“Fuck, can we just— can we just drop this, Ajax?”
Even when Kaeya’s trying to repair himself, to build his walls back up until he can walk out of here and pretend he’s not affected, not hurt, Kaeya slips and crashes. He seems to realize as soon as the name leaves his lips— he curls a little further into himself.
Ajax grabs that small victory and pulls.
“No, Kaeya,” he says. It’s one of the most determined nos he’s ever told him. “We can’t.”
Childe feels it before Kaeya moves. It’s in the way the air shifts— the tension seeps out, replaced by something lighter, less stifling. Childe can finally pull in the oxygen he’s been missing for a while, and as his lungs fill out, he feels relief flood him as well.
Kaeya sinks to the floor with his head still covering in his hand, crouching until his soles have to lift.
“Fuck,” Kaeya’s voice breaks again, but this time, it goes off into a laugh. It’s been so long since Childe’s last heard it that he wants to bottle it up— even if it’s clearly not one of happiness, it’s genuine, and that’s more than most people get from Kaeya. “I’m pathetic, aren’t I?” Kaeya squeaks. Childe thinks he hears him sniffle.
… He looks down at Kaeya for a few more seconds before the guilt hits him like a punch to the gut.
Fuck. He’s been unfair, hasn’t he? He knows Kaeya’s the type to get defensive when he feels cornered, and he knows that Kaeya hates the feeling of being forced to tell the truth, and yet, he’d kept pushing. He’s always been violent, but he was supposed to keep that part of him away from Kaeya. Not hide it— just not use it against him.
And here he is, having pushed until Kaeya felt vulnerable enough to cry.
Childe’s only seen him cry twice before. When Crepus died and when Kaeya told Childe he loved him for the first time.
It feels horrible to add a third. Even if he did it to win.
Childe’s eyes start stinging, too.
“... Get up here,” he says, suddenly all desperate to get him to listen again. Kaeya shakes his head without any verbal response, and like the hypocrite he is, Childe abandons guilt once more and grabs Kaeya’s wrists. With force, he pulls Kaeya onto his feet, who, shocked as he is, is caught off balance and stumbles forward.
Childe catches him and pulls him to his chest.
…He’s horrid at this. At using his body in a way that isn’t violent. But he tries, he tries hard as he wraps his arms around Kaeya and squeezes him, digging his nose into Kaeya’s scalp until everything he can smell is his shampoo.
“....Jax?”
Kaeya’s tone is… worried.
Childe almost wants to start laughing.
Fuck, even now when Childe’s front slipped and all the violence came through, even when he pushed someone like Kaeya to the point where he could no longer laugh but was forced to fall to the floor and admit to his vulnerability, Kaeya is worried about him. He doesn’t like it when people are concerned— it’s a little insulting, and besides, it’s not an emotion people should have to feel because of someone like him. And still, it feels… nice. To hear that tone directed at him.
Like he’s still worth something.
Maybe this is why it hit so hard to be left. Not just because he loves Kaeya more than he’s ever romantically loved another person, but also because nobody else has ever made him feel more worth something than Kaeya does. No exceptions there.
He’s never liked vulnerability, but he trusted Kaeya enough to grant it to him. And even if it’s been partially misused, abused until Childe ended up at this party, drunk and frustrated enough to abandon his own masks and force Kaeya to respond, he’d give Kaeya that trust again. Over and over, probably.
It’d be hypocritical not to do so, given how Kaeya is a much, much better person than Childe will ever be.
“....Can I stay?” It’s far too vulnerable. Childe shouldn’t act this soft, lest he accidentally convinces someone undeserving that his edges aren’t jagged and dangerous to stray too close to.
Kaeya’s face presses a little further against the curve of his throat. Childe feels Kaeya’s breath against his pulse, and his heartbeat doesn't change in the least.
In a voice smaller than anything Kaeya’s said today, Kaeya whispers: “...can you?”
Childe lets out a breath. Finally, his heart feels light again.
“I can’t possibly do anything else, Kae.”
·· — ✶ — · ·
As soon as Childe’s phone dings, Childe's already grabbing it.
He can hear Lumine sighing across from him, sees her lips moving and her pen tapping against the math homework in front of him, but his eyes are zoomed in on Kaeya’s profile picture on his screen. Kae’s calling. Fuck, if that doesn’t do something to his heart.
“Sorry,” he says absentmindedly, not even looking up as he places his thumb on the pick up button and brings it to his ear. “Kae’s calling.”
Lumine says something about him surely failing his math exam and her taking none of the blame, but all five of Childe’s senses have left the room and are glued to a man miles away, threatening to go into overdrive as his voice sounds, happy and a little teasing over the speaker.
”Hey, love. Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Childe must’ve turned his volume too far up, since Lumine reacts to Kaeya’s voice – but, hey, he doesn’t want to miss a single syllable after how many weeks he had to go without hearing him speak. He ignores whatever Lumine’s saying that sounds vaguely like ‘yes, please hang up before I lose all chances at making him focus for the next two hours’.
“You never are, starlight.”
Lumine’s forehead hits the table. Childe has never felt happier.