Remember Me at Summer's End [ZhongChi/TartaLi]

Chapter 4 - Reflections and Remorse

27th Day, 8th Month

Drip.

Cold.

Drip.

Wet.

Drip.

Cold.

Eyelids heavy, but open.

Dark.

The sky is an endless black expanse, and the clouds from the storm linger, dusting Childe in a fuzzy half-rain. A drop of water runs down the side of his nose, trailing across his cheek. The damp from the ground has fully infiltrated into his clothing from below, icy fingers clawing along his back. He turns his head and his muscles cramp, frigid and stiff, but he forces himself so he can look down on Liyue below.

Home.

No longer home.

The lower half of his body throbs, but he doesn't let himself look. He needs to stay calm. It's a miracle he hadn't gone into shock, his body shutting itself down from the inside. He intends to keep it that way.

Calm.

Breathing.

Not thinking about the grinding and crunching within when he shifts. Not thinking about the way the throbbing grows into a drumming, hammering, pounding, reverberating in his head in an agonising echo if he shifts or breathes too heavily. Not thinking about how he's never going to walk—

Not. Thinking.

The lights flicker below and he can make out the shadows of the patrolling Millelith. Tonight they swarm Liyue on high alert, lining the docks in a formation running the entire length of the city, facing toward the ocean with their spears at the ready.

There is more than one monster here tonight.

To them, he too is a monster, throwing aside their hospitality and risking their lives to play games with gods.

Perhaps they're right.

But for this, he'd do it again. All for the greater good.

Zhongli.

Where is Zhongli? Childe scans the streets, hoping to catch a glimmer of golden tipped hair.

It's fruitless. If it had worked, Zhongli would come back for him... wouldn't he?

Has he failed?

After everything, has he let them all down?

He turns back to the sky, licking at the raindrops landing on his face. Mud squelches into his hair, oozing against his scalp, and a clump of hard ground pokes awkwardly into his shoulder blade. He attempts to shift to a more comfortable position, but a blinding pain ripples up his body, searing through his crushed hips and he cries out.

No-one can hear him.

Here he is alone, so he releases, vocalising his agony in a way he never does. He can bite his cheek through the stitching of a stab wound, ball his fist and slam the table when a broken joint is reset, but this supersedes any of that. He lets it out until his voice is hoarse again, reduced to silent, shuddering gulps.

He is alone.

Perhaps he will remain that way. They should be coming for him, but how long has he been here? He can't blame them if they made the choice to leave him. After a fight to the death with Rex Lapis himself, no mortal could hope to remain alive.

Not that he'd intended for it to be to the death.

He'd wanted...

What he'd wanted and what he could have expected are two vastly different scenarios.

He wants Zhongli back. He wants to go home, listen to Zhongli read a history book while cozied up on the couch, a waft of tea drifting across to him each time Zhongli takes a sip from his cup.

Instead he's lying on the ground in the rain, with nothing but the stones prodding into his back and the taste of blood for company.

He's dying. He can feel it.

If they don't come soon, he's going to die here, not knowing if Zhongli will ever...

A burst of pain jolts through him anew, but he can barely muster the energy to whimper, to clutch at the sparse grass and sloppy mud beneath his palms.

He's so, so tired.

His eyelids close themselves, trading the black of the sky for the black of his fading consciousness, and he drifts away.

*   *   *   *   *

Author's Note: Psps if you're concerned after this one, just reaffirming that there's no character death this fic 😊