. . Taking Care Of Him When Hes Sick !

ᵔᴗᵔ . . taking care of him when he’s sick !

ᴖ.ᴖ . . gen!reader ⁝ wc. 1.3k ⁝ reblog

lance mcclain

“lance, wait—”

“sick snuggles!” is what you had last remember hearing him whoop before your dumb boyfriend plops on top of you.

his cheek settles on your chest, a lopsided grin stretched on his lips. he lets out a big content sigh. no pillow in space nor on earth can compare to your body, it felt right, perfect even, to cuddle with you. he bemoans your attempt to leave his grasp.

it isn’t completely out of the ordinary for him to pull a stunt like that on you. a flair for the theatrics must be encoded in the mcclain dna. still, a part of you presumed his ill state to tone it down but it didn’t, it appears to intensify.

and it left you feeling disoriented, to say the least.

the blanket he carried from his room drapes over your body and his. it nearly slaps you in the face if it were not for his quick reflexes saving you. while the moment felt heavenly to him, you sadly couldn’t say the same. you were reading a novel allura had recommended when he came waltzing into your room, demanding your attention.

he can be a lovable headache at times. knowing the ins and outs of his personality for years now, you sigh, there was no way of fleeing this. and as easy as that, you’ve come to terms and accept you were wedge into this position for god knows however long he wants.

"too late, gorgeous." lance winks, flashing you a sleazy grin. not a second later, you watch his face contort then let out the most egregious sneeze.

you cringe.

observing him, you notice he looks worse for wear. he really should be resting in his room, not here braving the chances of infecting you. hunk and coran will have a field if that ever happens, you thought, snickering to yourself as you picture butting heads over earth versus altean remedies.

your expression soon changes when you hear the man atop of you whining over his current state and how ‘un-pretty’ he feels because of it.

what.

lance didn’t actually expect a reply since he did have a habit of talking to himself out loud and yet it didn’t stop him from doing what he did next. suddenly, he stares up at you, the frown and puppy eyes combo, silently questioning you if he does appear as bad as he believes.

“no matter what you look like, or how you feel, i will love you the same.” twirling the strands of hair on his nape, your little ministration affords as a great distraction from his irrational thoughts.

“you mean it?”

“more than ever.” you firmly nod, earning a prolonged “aw!” from him topped off with a messy kiss on the cheek.

the moment was ruined after he pulls back from your touch and scowls at you. “hey… wait a minute… you didn’t answer my question! that mean i do look ugly.”

your boyfriend babbles on and on, playfully scolding you for ‘lying’ to him. you puff your cheeks; surely, he’ll tire himself out sooner or later, you note. any time now, his voice begins to slur until it becomes incoherent mumbles then emerging into low snores.

facing down your chest, you find lance already knocked out. the tiniest of smiles paints across your lips. this was the most peaceful you’ve seen him in a long while. you recently notice how the current turn of events started to take a large toll on his state of mind.

he loves to play it off, pretending it didn’t hurt him. he never takes it to heart, making light of grim situations for the sake of preserving the team’s spirit. it warms your heart to finally see him at peace; even though it might be at the expense of getting sick or a stiff neck later, he deserves it.

keith kogane

whether keith liked it or not, he had to reveal his vulnerable state if he wants to get better. his ailment wasn’t too major to place him back in the healing pod, it wasn’t too minor to brush off and leave him to his devices either. coran already gave him medicine to combat the flu he caught for pushing his body too far on the last mission.

even though it worked, the effects left him feeling loopy and speaking out of turn. thankfully, it didn’t spark up a fight, or an argument, despite he and lance getting into a short back and forth.

when asked, the other paladins were incline to help in these situations. it was only right since they are a team and it was expected they look after their own. nonetheless, keith’s stubbornness made it more grueling than it should’ve been. they would’ve plead shiro to try and change his mind but he was preoccupied recovering from his own injuries.

you were the last resort.

hunk, pidge, and lance know he has a soft spot for you. the chances of him saying no to you were low regardless of his adamant refusal to let anyone see him.

“are you still with me? …hello? keith?” using your free hand, you wave across his face to get his attention. ever since you return to his room from the kitchen area with the soup hunk prepared for him, he’s been acting out of sorts.

“i’m fine, i’m fine! you don’t need to fuss over me.” his voice sounds gruff. to his dismay, he falls into a short coughing fit a beat after he finished his sentence. your eyes bore into his unimpressed, as the tips of his ears turn pink.

he was grateful you didn’t comment on it.

you place the bowl in his hands. “here, eat this then go take your medicine; i’ll be changing your wound dressings when you’re done.”

one… two… three… you grab the spoon and press it against his lips. he was taking too long to move and the soup was getting cold. you manage to feed him a couple scoops until he takes the bowl from your hands and ate on his own. you snicker. you’ve never seen the red paladin so self-conscious before.

keith lowers his head further to avoid your watchful eyes. he didn’t want you to see the color on his cheeks.

once he was done eating, you hand him his medicine. he makes a face. you ask him if he wants you to help him with that too and your remark forces him to take it without another word. reaching for the first aid kit, you find him on the verge of dozing off. the side effects must be kicking in, you’ve got to make this quick.

“you’re pretty,” he mumbles, focusing on the feeling of your touch while you apply a slather of ointment on his arm then wrap it with fresh gauze.

were you always been this gentle? he wonders if you behave this way around the others too when they were sick or hurt. an heavy sensation weighs on his chest over the thought of you treating someone who isn’t him.

“you’re only saying that ‘cuz you’re delirious,” you argue, as you pack away the supplies.

keith shakes his head like a child persistent to prove he was telling you the truth. “no, i’m not! i’m being honest. you’re… you’re beautiful.”

silence dominates the room.

not knowing what else to say, you stand up to give him time to rest but his hand extends out to hold your wrist. you look down and find him staring at you, pleading for you to listen to what he has to say. “stay with me… please? …or until i fall asleep at least.”

you couldn’t say no to him, not when he looks at you fondly like that. with a sigh, you nod then take a seat on the side of his bed. his hand not so subtly trails down and intertwine with yours. his thumb rubs lazy circles on your skin until you felt him stop and hear light snores behind you.

do not disturb | wc: 2.7k

Cyno hums in contemplation, the cool water flowing over his fingers. He turns the faucet off just as he hears footsteps on tiles and takes a towel to his hair, counting the four seconds he knows it takes to get to the room.

“Cyno, I really don’t- oh,” you stop in your tracks, right on time. He doesn’t have to turn around to know you’re holding a familiar folder of papers with complaints outlined in red ink. “Sorry. I didn’t…”

“You should really learn to knock first.” He thinks it’s funny because the rooms here don’t actually have doors, just sweeping arches for the great big important spaces, and then tiny arches for less important rooms (like his apparently), and then medium-sized ones for… well other things. Kaveh was the Kshahrewar graduate, not him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. And… and…” He can just hear you bristle. You even straighten up a little judging from the faint shuffling. “And I don’t know, maybe you should put up a sign or something.”

Cyno rubs the white towel over his head slowly, finally standing up from where he’d been kneeling. “Maybe I should.” He’s seriously considering it—you always bring up good points. “Though, I thought everyone knew only my room is in this wing. You’d have to go out of your way to get here.” That and he’s just come back from an expedition. No one bothers him after those.

Thick water droplets and remnants of the desert circle around the drain. You hadn’t walked in on much. He had been rinsing off the sand grains that stuck to his arms and shoulders and were especially annoyingly weaved in his hair, but he’d also removed his armor—he didn’t typically wear much anyway so to see him with even less was probably too cruel, even by your standards.

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I honestly can't get the image of soft! Cyno out of my head.

People are terrified to the bone whenever someone even so dares to utter his name but you, you sing it like a song and he's always listening, always admiring the sound of your voice. He sits in his office and stares blankly at the documents in front of him, his mind occupied by the thoughts of you - what were you doing, with who are you with? Do you miss him, why aren't you visiting him in his office? Ah, he gets so grumpy when he doesn't see you for a period of time, no matter how short it may be. He prowls the halls of the renowned Akademiya, his entire aura and being darker than the night itself, his eyes feel like daggers to whom ever dares to even take a single glance at him. The General Mahamantra is in a foul mood and Cyno thinks he's being subtle.

He has no idea that the students have legitimate escape routes prepared and other safety precautions in store for these dark times. No one wants to see Cyno on a good day, let alone a bad one. (But not you though, no, you never avoid him... You come to him willingly, like a cute little puppy, the thought alone just makes him want to smile.... He'll be more than happy to even give you some treats if it means you'll stay more.)

Cyno also has no clue that everyone managed to catch on that he is absolutely smitten. Those longing looks of his leave nothing to the imagination and despite his harsh words and tone, Cyno always perks up whenever someone says your name. (People are careful with this though. No one wants to get flayed alive by the General Mahamantra is they make the mistake of speaking ill of you... )

And even if you do something reckless, foolish, downright dangerous, Cyno still doesn't have the heart to be completely mad at you. One of his worst nightmares is seeing you all alone in the desert, lost and bloody, surrounded by the enemy, all of which want to end your life for good. To add salt to the wound, he can do nothing and ponder over the fact that he wasn't there to save you, to be there for you.

That's why he can get so irritated and impatient with you sometimes.

"Stay inside the city." he orders you, but you always just brush him off with a smile and a wave. Don't be so casual with him about this, please, he isn't joking around. His bleeding heart can only handle so much, he doesn't need this excess stress.

"If you aren't in the city, I won't be able to watch over you..." is what he wants to say but the words die out on his lips as he watches you go, his spear in hand and his chest aching with pain.

He can do nothing but watch and sulk from the shadows, sucking in the gentle smiles you so carelessly give to strangers as he sharpens his weapon, ready to end anything and anyone if they dare taint you.

breaking up, breaking down

pairing/s: albedo, childe, diluc, kazuha, scaramouche, xiao, venti, zhongli x gn!reader

summary: if there’s anything you can expect to be consistent in life, it’s that everything has an end. or — genshin men and how they are after you break up with them.

note: angsty in everyone’s part, but it got too lighthearted in childe’s bc i simply cannot take that ginger seriously (affectionate)

ALBEDO

There aren’t any notable changes to his routine. He’d still go about his day, working on his experiments and scribbling down notes, occasionally taking a break to sketch a pretty flower he saw or the wing pattern of a passing butterfly.

And then he finds himself drawing the outline of an eye, then a nose, then lips. Until he suddenly stops in the middle of drawing a strand of your hair blowing in the wind, your face frozen in a smile staring back at him through the canvas of his sketchbook.

It hits him then, the realization, the heart-wrenching clarity of what happened that leaves him sitting in his chair, staring at your face in paper and wondering where he went wrong.

He tries to distract himself by continuing his research, but his mind has a hard time focusing on what needs to be done. It’s agonizing, he doesn’t think he’s felt this way before, never even thought he’d ever feel such pain. In a way, he’s glad his master isn’t here to make a study of what emotional pain means to an artificial human like him.

He sees you two weeks after you broke up with him, laughing as you tried to haggle with a merchant for their wares, unaware of the charm you exude that draws people in like moths to a flame. But then your gaze moves, searching through the crowd—and Albedo should really leave now, avoid barging into your life because there simply isn’t a place for him there anymore—but he does none of that.

Your eyes meet. He doesn’t think he was imagining it when he saw yours dim for the briefest moment. (His heart hurts. Why are you looking at him like that?)

You make your way through the busy street to reach him. He tells himself he should leave, but for the first time in his life, he does what contradicts his logic and stays.

“You look good,” you tell him, something melancholic in the tone of your voice. Oh, if only you knew.

“You as well.” He wants to say more, wants to say how radiant you looked under the sun, the light hitting you in just the right way that has him itching to grab a pencil and immortalize the image in paper—but he holds his tongue. “I need to go.”

Your face falls. He wishes he wasn’t the cause of it. “Ah, right. You must be busy, as usual.” There isn’t a hint of bitterness to your voice, just resignation.

He leaves after bidding you goodbye, feeling the heat of your gaze at his back as he walked away.

CHILDE

He wants you and he will do everything in his power to have you back.

In the early days after you broke up, you won’t hear a word from him. Not a peep. You only hear passing news that dead monsters and hilichurl camps near the vicinity of your home have been utterly eradicated. Passing travelers claim how the areas were ‘strangely flooded’ even though it hasn’t rained in weeks.

Then come the gifts. From flowers to clothes to accessories to different delicacies that are all worth more than your entire life’s paycheck. And when that doesn’t work, Childe sets to work on his recruits.

You suddenly find yourself constantly being approached by a startling amount of Fatui recruits ranging from normal lackies to gunners to cicin mages, and even that one memorable time when a mirror maiden approached you in the middle of buying groceries and proceeded to buy everything in the store, saying all of it was for you.

The Fatui recruits had one thing in common: they all had nothing but praises to say for the Eleventh Fatui Harbinger.

“Master Childe defeated all the recruits in under ten seconds!” “Have you heard how Lord Harbinger killed twenty geovishaps and came out without a single scratch?” “I saw him buying that exact same shirt yesterday, it cost one million mora! He’s so rich!” “Lord Tartaglia has been so down lately. He keeps saying how much he misses his beloved.”

“Did you know? Even Lady Signora wept after she heard that you and Master Childe broke up.” That one, you’re certain never actually happened, and you made sure to tell that with an unimpressed look to the pyro agent who told you. As if Signora would ever cry, she’d probably throw a party for you for finally leaving Childe.

In the end, after cycling through so many recruits, he had no choice but to come to you directly.

…Which is how you woke up at six in the morning to the ground shaking and the sound of an eerily familiar laugh right outside your house.

You open your window to find Childe fighting a lawachurl right in front of your house, a ring of Fatuus surrounding and cheering him on. His smile brightens to an almost comical degree once he sees you and your bedhead squinting out from a window.

“You look so stunning today, beloved!” He steps back from an earth-shattering punch by the lawachurl. “I’ve brought you the biggest lawachurl I could find so I can show you how worthy I am of you!”

He then proceeds to—and you have to blink a few times to see if you’re not hallucinating—fist fight the lawachurl. And he’s actually winning. No vision, no weapon. Just his bare fists.

When the commotion wakes up your entire neighborhood, you have to go down there and yell at him to stop or take this fight somewhere that isn’t right in front of your house! He complies with a grin and a promise saying he’ll meet you later.

There’s something fond curling in your chest that you try and fail to smother. With an exasperated tone, you tell him that yes, you’ll find time in your busy schedule to meet him. He lights up like you just agreed to marry him and yells out rapid orders in Snezhnayan to his recruits.

“I’ll see you later!” He blows a kiss in your direction that you ignore. You turn away and walk back into your house, trying (and failing) to fight the growing smile on your face.

DILUC

It’s not evident to anyone who doesn’t know him well, but Diluc takes it close to heart and buries it among countless other regrets that have accumulated in his life. The turbulent feelings that threaten to overcome his mind at any hour of the day manifests itself in him becoming more withdrawn.

He’s gloomy, more brooding than usual, and the reason becomes apparent once the other patrons notice the lack of a certain person who usually sits by the bar during his shifts. Your usual laugh accompanied by teasing grins and playful swats at his long hair when you think no one is looking are nowhere to be seen.

One particularly drunk person had come up to him as he was wiping down the counters and asked why you weren’t there. Anyone who had been there to see the sight would tell you that he didn’t say anything, hadn’t been able to say anything. He just… stood there, hands frozen mid-motion and eyes drawn somewhere, lost in thought.

He slips up sometimes. Asks the maids to prepare a dinner for two only to stop in the middle of talking as he realizes what he just said. At breakfast, he pauses in the middle of reading his daily papers to turn his head to the right, a question on the tip of his tongue that dies when he sees the empty spot you usually occupied. It’s the pitying gazes that follow when he slips up that he hates the most.

He makes your favorite drink sometimes, on the days when he’s on shift and feeling particularly self-destructive. It stays hidden under the bar counter, hoping against hope that you’ll walk through the door and greet him with an upbeat ‘good evening!’ that makes his day all the more better. You never do.

It’s on a bright, sunny morning when he’s out overseeing the delivery of wine to the tavern that he sees you again. His heart soars for all but a second before it comes crashing down, because Diluc Ragnvindr does not deserve nice things.

You’re holding the hand of some nondescript man, grinning and laughing and emitting such a great sense of contentment that he can almost feel it from where he’s standing meters away from you.

You’re happy. It’s been months and he’s still wallowing in old hurts. You’re happy.

Did you ever smile like that when you were with him? He likes to think so, but the realistic, pessimistic thought is that you’re probably better off not being with him. You’re happy. Happier now than you were when you were with him.

Everything he’s ever loved has been hurt directly and indirectly by his hands. He turns away from the sight of you and pretends to be preoccupied with his task. Maybe it’s for the best that you left before it could happen.

KAZUHA

He tries not to take it to heart. He understands why you left, knows it before you even made the decision to leave. And in the aftermath, much like a leaf adrift in the wind, he roams about aimlessly, lost in thought.

Grief is not an emotion he’s unfamiliar with. As he sits by the cliffs overlooking the endless ocean, grief burrows its way to his chest like an old, unwelcome friend. He doesn’t fight it. He’s learned the hard way that fighting it is a losing battle, like picking at a scab, hoping that doing so will make it heal faster, yet only succeeding in worsening the wound.

Kazuha isn’t a stranger to loneliness, of letting the wind kiss his tears away as they dried on his cheeks. He is, however, unfamiliar with this new kind of ache in his chest. And only after much rumination does he conclude what it might be.

The loss of his family, the loss of his heritage, the loss of his friend, and now, the loss of his lover. A master of loss, he could almost call himself. His old friend would certainly find such a title amusing.

He finds himself writing letters to you, even with the knowledge that he’ll never be able to send them to you. It’s the thought that comforts him, the pretense that he still has someone to tell of his travels, someone to simply come home to, even when he knows he isn’t welcome anymore.

In his weakest moment, when he had too much to drink and too little self-restraint, he sends one of the letters to you. He’s forgotten whether it’s the one where he laments the loss of your presence, the one where he begs you to have him back, or the one where only three words are written, a small blot in the ink where a stray tear had fallen.

He waits, and waits, and waits a little more, staying for a whole month in the small village he’d addressed the letter from for the small, improbable event that you may have written back. He learns later on that the letter never made it to your hands. The ship it had been on had lost all its cargo to the sea, including his letter. When he heard the news, he hadn’t known whether to be relieved or lament on what could have been.

It isn’t unpleasant to see you again. Kazuha has had time to let go of his hurt, but still, the image of your nostalgia-inducing eyes leave in him a sense of loss he thought he had already settled. Your mirage smiles, “Kazuha.” Had he been a weaker man, he would have folded and swept you up in his arms.

Nobody asks why his eyes have a slight sheen to it after he forces himself to walk away from you. He stands atop the beach and lets the waves wash over his bare feet, closing his eyes and imagining what could have been had he let himself succumb to the desire of holding you one last time, even if you were merely a mirage from the past.

Truly, the golden apple archipelago is a place where dreams are made into reality.

SCARAMOUCHE

He tries to act above it all, feigning indifference as if the entire thing is just a mild inconvenience to him.

Oh, you’re leaving him? That’s fine, he doesn’t care. Do you know how many people would kill to share his bed? You were tolerable, a way to pass time. Don’t think you were anything special. You, a normal person? Don’t make him laugh. You were nothing more than a pet he kept because you entertained him. It’s good that you’re leaving, actually. It saves him the trouble of having to get rid of you.

He’s… not very kind about it all. Defensive and on guard, hackles raising with every word that comes out of his mouth. He hates every second of it, but he can’t stop because stopping is to admit defeat, it means having to acknowledge that you meant something to him after hundreds of years of loneliness. He let you in his carefully guarded walls, and now—now you’re leaving him? Abandoning him after he bared himself open to you?

You are just like her.

Scaramouche stops before he can say those last words. The red that had been threatening to overcome his vision slowly recedes, leaving a numbing sort of clarity that washes over him like the rising tides of Inazuma’s beaches. His mouth feels dry, throat closing up.

There are tears streaming down your face.

He wishes you’d do something. Hit him, yell at him, curse his name. Anything. Just… anything but this silence that hangs heavy in the air, cloying in it’s thickness and threatening to drown him with words that can never be taken back.

He doesn’t apologize, won’t ever apologize. He is a god, and not even you would make him say those damnable words. He sees the way your eyes dim in understanding as you realize the same thing, and that, perhaps, is why you turn your back to him and walk away.

He wishes he could say that he called out for you, that he grabbed your arm and made you stay, that he just… held you. Instead, he watches you leave him, face blank and a phantom ache resonating in his hollow chest. The silence after you leave feels like the night before his creator abandoned him.

He tells himself it’s fine, that you’ll come back. You always do. This is just one of many arguments that always get resolved after a day or so—except. Except, he doesn’t let himself think of any other possibility. You’ll come back. (You have to.)

The months following your absence is a blur, spikes of irritation mixed with hateful words and barbed insults directed towards anyone who so much as breathed the wrong way. His subordinates are half-contemplating desertion just to escape his wrath. They all wonder where you’ve gone. You’re usually the one who soothes the Balladeer when he’s in one of his moods, like the godsend that you are. Though none of them are brave enough to mention your name after what he did to the foolish recruit who asked of your whereabouts.

Years pass. You never did come back.

He still gets the occasional reports about you and your general wellbeing, still sends out his best soldiers to clear out any monsters who’ve settled near your home. You never find anyone else after him. It brings a strange sense of relief in him when his monthly reports on you end up without a hint of a new lover.

He tries to forget you, but even with a new heart and the ascendance to godhood, there is still a lingering sense of loss and past regrets.

XIAO

He lets you go without argument. He’s used to people leaving him, but this is… different.

The thought of you there, physically within reach yet unable to to cross the distance that separates you from him. It’s a different kind of agony from the ones that have afflicted him for millennia.

He sometimes finds himself standing by the balcony of Wangshu Inn, eyes roaming over the vast landscape of Dihua Marsh, looking for the slightest hint of your silhouette. The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs always attracts his attention, anticipating your signature greeting and the smell of whatever mortal sustenance you’ve deigned to make for him to, as you once put it, let him experience the delicacies that this world has to offer.

You can’t call yourself ‘having lived a long life’ if you haven’t tried all the tasty food, Xiao!

…He misses you, though he will never admit it, perhaps not even to Rex Lapis himself.

His time—which once consisted of you, killing monsters, you again, roaming the lands for the remains of old gods, tasting whatever you cooked for him, and accompanying you so you can get home safely—is now comprised of nothing but endless slaughter. He tells himself it’s not a distraction, but it’s a thinly veiled excuse, weak even to his own ears. How low he has fallen to create such feeble excuses to justify the hurt that spreads from his chest to the tips of his fingers.

He used to pick up small things and trinkets in his time scouring the land for evil. A shiny pebble that reminded him of your eyes, a particularly large sweetflower that you would gape comically at once he showed you, qingxin flowers he plucked from the highest mountains just so he can see the way your face lights up in a smile. He still does all these things, only now, the objects are stored in a realm made in the likeness of your home, placing each one in a shelf or table that he thinks you would have arranged them in.

One time, he panics when he sees the flowers start to wilt, and in the heat of the moment, he placed adeptal power in them to ensure they will never die. To this day, he isn’t sure why he did so, only that he imagined at the time how upset you would be that they died in his care, even though he knows how unlikely it is that you will ever discover his hobby of collecting flowers and storing them in his realm.

Perhaps he hopes you’ll come back to him, so that when you do, he can see the way your eyes brighten up once he shows you everything he got for you while you were away.

It’s unlikely, he knows, but it’s nice to dream of it. He thinks his siblings would be proud to see him finally have a little hope for something.

VENTI

He spends the rest of the week in the tavern drinking as much as he can. For once, Diluc doesn’t try to reproach him for drinking what he can’t pay for.

He doesn’t exactly get drunk—can’t get drunk, more like. To a god like him, drinking a hundred barrels of Mondstadt’s finest wines won’t even be enough to get him tipsy. He is the god of freedom (and wine, he’d like to add), he can outdrink every single one of the archons and still have enough semblance to go to war. And yet…

You appear on the seventh day like a salvation, face contorted in worry when you see him slumped on the counter and one inch away from falling off the stool. It isn’t difficult to act the part of a drunken bard, pretending to sway on his feet and donning a fake intoxicated grin as he asked Charles for another glass.

The wind tells him of your arrival, but he ignores it just as he ignores the way his heart soars when the wind brings him the barest hint of your scent. He wishes you didn’t come here. He wishes he didn’t act so drunkenly. He wishes you were more heartless and ignored whoever must have tattled on him drinking Angel’s Share into bankruptcy.

You call his name. He pretends he’s asleep just so he doesn’t have to face his problems. Ha. How ironic. Will he wake up to Mondstadt destroyed by the remains of Khaenri’ah this time? He nearly did once.

He hears you sigh before he feels you bring his arm across your shoulders. You help him get off the stool, an arm around his waist to help keep him steady. The weight of Diluc’s disapproving gaze for deceiving you about his drunkenness is heavy, but he tells himself it’s alright. He just… wants to be selfish for once. If he has to act drunk to feel your arms around him again, he’ll suffer this humiliation as many times as he can.

“Venti,” you start as you walk him in the direction of your home. “I was worried, you know. Aether told me how much you’d been drinking since…” You trail off. He feels you shaking your head before continuing, “Just… don’t be so reckless with your health.” You laugh, mildly sardonic that’s directed more towards yourself than him. “Ah, what am I saying… you won’t even have any recollection of this tomorrow anyway.”

He wants to say something, but saying something means breaking this moment between you, it means revealing that he doesn’t actually need your help because once he starts speaking, the dam will break and everything will come spilling out. I’m sorry, I miss you, I love you.

The front door to your house opens. He’s gently placed down your couch, a blanket thrown over him as you thoughtfully take his shoes off for him. He feels you linger by his side, can practically hear the conflict in you.

He’s unprepared for the feeling of your warm breath on his skin, your lips hovering over his face before placing a chaste kiss on his forehead. “Goodnight, Venti.”

He leaves before the sun rises.

ZHONGLI

He only smiles, small and understanding with a hint of sorrow at the corner of his eyes.

He tells you he’ll respect your decision, but should you change your mind, he will always be here. You say it’s doubtful, he would’ve probably found someone else by then. Zhongli doesn’t correct you, only leans in and places his lips on the top of your head, as gentle as he’s always been with you, somehow managing to convey with a single gesture how high he holds you in regard.

And for the barest, infinitesimal moment, you half-contemplate the idea of staying. It’s a wishful thought. You end up leaving before you can change your mind.

He’s still as grounded as ever, but there’s a fragility to it, a certain brittleness that threatens to crumble from within him. He is the Lord of Geo, and yet he is so easily undone by you. The pain is temporary, he knows from past losses, but it doesn’t lessen the ache that resonates in his chest.

For the first time in his long life, he curses his golden memory that makes him incapable of forgetting, though that which he curses is also something he is grateful for. He can’t bear having to suffer losing the memories of your time together.

Your relationship is amiable, like that of old, awkward friends you had fallen out of touch with rather than that of old lovers. It’s what you wanted after all, this sense of normalcy. He has become such a vital part of your daily life that you simply couldn’t cut him off of your life entirely.

He doesn’t know which is worse; having to act as a mere friend when he wants nothing more than to wrap you in his arms and never let go, or to have no contact with you at all.

Morax is not one to ask for things, not one to plead his case to anyone. He was a selfish and proud god, a necessity that was shaped from him by the war. To love a mortal enough to leave his throne and fake his death would have been unthinkable. But that is why he is no longer Morax. He is Zhongli.

And Zhongli? He wants you. Desperately. Enough that he is willing to beg should you ask it of him.

His deceased enemies would laugh in mockery at what has become of the fearsome Morax. How low he has fallen—but it is a burden he is willing to bear. He will suffer as many humiliations as it takes to have you back.

The only issue is that you don’t want him anymore. But he is a man who finds gold where others would see stone. If he has to build his way up from friendship all over again, then it is a task he will do so gladly. As many times as it takes for you to want him back.

1 through 3 out of 7 : xiao and zhongli

(do not tag as ship 🔪)

I just want them to talk.