Original Zandik x Depressed Old Reader HCs
To anyone who struggles with mental health problems right now: you're not alone.
(I'm sorry I know I told someone the next one would be fluff, DON'T WORRY, I'm working on it.)
• You've been with Zandik through thick and thin. Through Akademiya days, through expulsion, through expeditions, through Fatui times. You are both ancient as time, both have seen too much. So if you're depressed, he doesn't pity you(he hates pity in general), he doesn't give you toxic positivity, he doesn't promise you that everything is going to be okay. He simply understands.
• He would recognize the depression patterns immideately. Zandik would see the signs: the hollow eyes, lack of reaction, passivity that you've never had before, as well as the fact that you've often been in a bad mood recently.
• Zandik would sit besides you for hours. Not because he's ignoring you, but because he cares too much to let you be alone in your dark thoughts, even if he doesn't show it with meaningless loud words. Rarely he would say something like: "I know. Every morning, I wake up disappointed too. But you're still here. So am I. That's enough for today."
• He could also point at his own trembling, old, wrinkly hands and say: "See? I'm falling apart faster than you. Probably have only months left, you idiot. If you waste them in despair, I will resurrect purely to scold you."
• Zandik, the very man who could defeat gods, would suddenly be making you tea with sandwiches at 3 AM because you haven't moved from bed all day and didn't eat anything. He'd grumble about "wasting his precious sleep", him being "inefficient" but he would still do it anyway. Even if his hands were too shaky to hold a cup, he would still try. You lost count on how much cups he already broke.
• He would also hold you close at nights, not asking for deep conversations about science how he did when he was younger, even though his old bones hurt from uncomfortable poses.
• Also, somehow novels you mentioned you were intrested in a long time ago started to appear on your bedside table. You didn't question it.
• Zandik could dissect gods, could create clones of himself, could rule the very substance of life if he wanted, but he somehow couldn't cure your depression. It enraged him. But the anger was never directed at you, it's at his own helplessness. Not to mention how much it hurt his self-esteem as a genius scientist.
• He would never try to cure your depression with experiments though. He would only try to use already proven medical methods that existed in Teyvat, but only see every last one failing. He knows some wounds aren't exactly scientific, despite him wanting them to be.
• He'd make jokes about both of you rotting away together. He would say something like: "At least our bones will tangle in grave. I will make sure of it." But deep down, he was afraid you are gonna give up before he does.
• Zandik kept all the gifts that you gave him. You don't know where he keeps them. In fact, you think he already threw them all away. But sometimes he'll go in his personal lab, open the secret shelf by the table and reread your ridiculous valentine cards that you put in his locker at the Akademiya, reread your silly love letters. He missed you so, so much.
• He'd try to monitor you: to make sure you eat, sleep, go out, but his own age doesn't let him. He also needed a caretaker himself. This was the second time his helplessness enraged him. But he would never, ever trusted his Segments to monitor you.
• Deep down, Zandik will ask himself for the first time: was it his fault? Were his experiments too dark? Did watching him decay too broke you? Even if you told him it wasn't his fault, he would carry this guilt deep inside him anyway. It was such a strange feeling.
• You'd both know death was coming for one of you. One of you will die eventually first. You'd both pretend it isn't.
• If you die before him, he'd live his final days in sorrow. He'll try to pretend he's not affected by that to maintain his persona, but everyone who knew him noticed that the spark in his eyes was gone. Because you were the one who made this spark appear in the first place. With your stupid corny jokes, with your awkwardness and your unconditional love. He'd pass away not long after. Zandik would spend his last days in complete ruin, not eating, not sleeping, just staring at your empty chair. The Segments would simply just watch him decay. Some of them will point out that the emotional lamentation clearly accelerated the process of original speciman's death in their research papers.
• If he dies first, Zandik would leave you his final experiment: a small device that plays his voice whenever you need it. His last words were recorded on this device.
• "You're allowed to be sad. You're allowed to miss me. But you're not allowed to give up. I didn't preserve your life for so many years for you to waste it. Now, go. Be angry at me, be mad, hate me. Be alive. That's an order."
• He still didn't understand. You could never hate him. He was the best thing that ever happened to you and the only constant that ever made sense in this dark world.
