ᵗʰⁱˢ ᵍᵒᵈ ⁱˢ ᵈᵃʳᵏ ,

DISCLAIMER :  tag suffers from very extreme bouts of psychosis that most often present as auditory  &  visual hallucinations .  if you are triggered by unreality ,  please take care following .  tw for cannibalism ,  violence ,  gore ,  horror ,  religious themes ,  and more .  written by ash ,   twenty - six ,  he  &  they .

❝  wait. did you mend this ?  ❞  diluc’s made it clear he doesn’t like anything about his situation ( stitches that pull at sore skin, trapped with a harbinger  ——  the enemy, truce or not currently withstanding ——  for company who doesn’t know when to shut up, frustrated and miserable about both ), but that doesn’t mean he won’t appreciate the kind act in itself. he’s been taught to show gratitude, to be courteous to those who help ( even if, at times, it’s not entirely desired and more so through grit teeth ). there’s precision and quality to his work, as though he’s been taught by a professional. it’s impressive. and considering a part of him had been deeply ashamed the moment he realized he’d likely permanently ruined the seams with his carelessness, he means it more than he thought he would.  ❝  thank you.  ❞  diluc meets his gaze.  ❝  that wasn’t necessary.  ❞

tartaglia,  eleventh harbinger,  vanguard of her majesty the tsaritsa,  doesn’t play with his food.  

there’s meager fare on the road,  and witnessing a superior swallowing down meat so raw it’s still wiggling is bad for soldier morale,  or so he’d been told by signora.  a dark cast sickly pall over an already dire situation  --  how he’s learned to take his hunger pressed into the recesses,  nooks and crannies where the smell of blood is thick and the air heavy  ( down,  down,  down into a crack in the world,  shattered sky through which nothing escapes  /  it all returns here ).  he had learned to satiate with necessity,  like taking medicine;  a spoon of honey,  to disguise the viscosity,  the gradual slide settling cold sludge into his stomach.  his mother’s favorite method of wrangling naughty,  sickly kids into submission,  when even the fever couldn’t do the trick.  it’s too bad honey doesn’t disguise the taste of iron.

that is to say:  by the third or fourth day,  he has settled into the realization he’s going to allow one of the greatest thorns in the fatui’s side...  to live.  he’d been at his mercy,  after all,  injured artist’s tongue spilling curses in dizzying array out faster than the blood.  plenty of creativity for each subsequent threat,  and none of the charm to go with it.  yet he had assisted anyway.  the wound had been the size of a fist,  slashed down the middle and purpling ‘round the edges;  the smell of blood had been so strong it’d made his teeth ache,  and instead he’d stitched it together like he was any other pair of old socks under his tender care.  there’s a discomfort that comes from saving someone’s life,  too heavy to really focus on in detail;  the awareness of how strange it is,  the reversal of his own nature.  it didn’t feel wrong,  but it didn’t feel right either.  just...  irritating.

or maybe that was just a side effect of sharing a living space with mondstadt’s most frustrating man.  how many times had he sewn him up,  anyway?  what he should say is:  he isn’t a medic.  what he should say is:  he isn’t a seamstress.

( what he should say is :  you’re a threat to the fatui,  and i am a harbinger.  it’s nothing personal ).

instead,  he sits at the kitchen table with curved fingers ‘round the heavy weight of a sharpening stone,  and blinks stupidly at him as he tries to comprehend exactly what he’s just said to him.  ragnvindr,  thanking him ?  what a ridiculous concept.  but it’s his chest,  really,  that’s giving out,  not his hearing.  his mouth curves around the taunt even before it’s formed,  a sinuous little thing.  he doesn’t let it complete,  but it’s there anyway,  no speech necessary.  tongue between teeth clamped down,  pink between lips parted in a smug grin.

what he says is.  ❝ of course. ❞  which is a ridiculous thing to say.  they’re enemies.  there are a thousand things they should be doing that don’t include sharing a house,  sharing supplies,  sharing food or weapons or skillsets.  tartaglia  --  ajax,  really,  since he’s shed the title at least for now  --  thumbs at his bottom lip and returns to his task as if he hasn’t just cracked right through the ice and plunged into the freezing cold.  and even worse,  he continues that reply when the brief silence becomes too uncomfortable to ignore.  ❝ are you surprised ?  my sister taught me.  katya.  she hated taking those lessons alone,  so she dragged me along. ❞

ache   never   ending.      it’s   never   known   anything   else,      and   if   it   did,      it   didn’t   remember.      one   of   the   thousand   pieces   of   humanity   carved   away   from   its   silhouette   and   swallowed   whole   by   whatever   things   skirk   stuffed   into   this   body   in   her   selfishness.      its   selfishness.      you   called   out   to   me,      and   it   knows   she’s   right.      she   had   no   reason   to   lie.     whether   he   stayed   or   not   meant   nothing.

so   they   didn’t,      but   it   did.      it   stayed   right   here,      inside.      curled   up   in   this   chest   and   mind   and   howling   like   a   starving   beast,   feeding   of   every   single   desire   ajax   has   ever   had   and   taking   it   for   its   own.      even   now   it   lives   on,      feasting   on   the   life   it   takes   in   exchange   for   mending   its   wounds.      they   didn’t   ask   it   to;      they   didn’t   ask   for   this   price,               yes   you   did————–  

guttural   yelp   when   spine   hits   floor,      spitting   out   the   blood   in   throat.      already   they’ve   both   mended,      it   knows   it,      it   knows   when   it   sits   upward   their   blood   will   just   be   blood.      it   doesn’t   matter   who   it   came   from.      we’re   the   same   regardless;      hollow   shells   that   taste   rancid.

                “      you   think   …      "               ah,      throat   still   sore.      words   slur   through   sloughs   of   blood.               "      you   think   i   was   trying   to   kill   you?      ”

it   laughs.      sickly,      coated   in   iron.      pushes   up   on   palms,      heaves   through   the   itch   and   crawling   horror   of   its   mending   skin.      this   swimming   disgust               (   how   horrid   to   be   around:      two   nightmares   feeding   off   of   mutual   unease   )            makes   it   dizzy,      even   as   corpse   crawls   back   onto   knees,      trembling   like   a   ragdoll.      

“      don’t   overestimate   my   kindness.      i   just   wanted   to   know   if   you   look   like   me   on   the   inside,      too.      "                  teeth   bared   ‘neath   lips   stretched   just   too   wide.      canines   that   bite   into   its   own   lip,      still   bathed   in   streaks   of   its   own   blood.      hungry.      bored.      mad,      above   all,      desperate   to   crawl   inside   his   skin   and–perhaps   be   whole   again,      a   piece   of   something,      but   they   have   nothing   to   offer   one   another.      two   black   holes   don’t   create   a   galaxy.      it   was   never   about   freedom.             "      aren’t   you   curious         ?         ”

a torrential downpour,  but he thinks,  with no small amount of irony,  how it never used to rain in snezhnaya.  even in the summer,  morepesok was too cold;  the breeze off the ocean carried with it the memory of winter,  bracing chill that left even the edges of the sea crackling with ice.  it sung like the abyss  --  that black hole sound of clear ice,  hollow and empty in the rising wind.  a crack in the world,  so far down that when he landed he’d barely made a sound,  but maybe the crack had been in him first.  when the wind comes,  it winds through him in the same tone,  same as it sounds ringing through the cavernous depths of ice snezhnaya houses in its bones.  

the voice that reaches him through the bloodied fog of his mind,  stored in the emptied cavity of his chest where all the worst memories have made their home,  is barely even a voice so much as that ringing.  his breath clenches tight in his chest.  panic,  he thinks.  that’s what this feels like.  the world dimming around him until it is just two pinpoints of fractured light,  reflections of each other in the vague  &  sinuous stillness of a lake.

“  you’re--  you’re always trying to kill me.  “  a hissed response through half-chattering teeth.  he clamps down until his jaw aches,  until he feels the pain like a reminder.  something to drag him back out of the depths,  out of the abyss,  out of the loss.  if he thumbs the edges of his ribs,  the core of his heart,  he’d feel nothing but the outline of what used to be there  --  he knows it,  he does!  he’s too afraid to even look for fear of being right.

(  what did you take from me?  what did you take from me?  repeated over and over,  but when he parts his lips all he says is ---  )

“  we’re nothing alike.  you’re nothing!  “  this is what he’d been in the depths,  inside the skittering,  wet darkness.  the way it had plastered itself on his skin,  in his skin,  sunk in and spread like a slow rot.  a panicked,  terrified animal that had only calmed with a weapon in its hand.  he craves it now.  the comfort of fingers curved over a familiar handle,  the pulsating ebb and tide of the waves.  “  i’m me and you’re--  “  nothing!  an imitation!  a ghost,  something dead that isn’t dead and something alive that isn’t alive!  but his mind seizes on every accusation,  caught in the flesh like a bur.  what if he’s the imitation?  what if he’s the ghost?

his breath leaves him.  a slow death rattle.  he curls his fingers into the rapidly cooling pool of blood,  the congealed mass of it sticking to his fingers.  he’s going to be sick.

There's a low snarl as he finally pins the young Harbinger against a wall. Teeth bared as he looks down at him in disappointment. "I believed we could have had some amicable relationship between us Ajax, but you make that difficult. Avoiding me at every turn. And for what? Because you cannot face who I am? Or are you still feeling hurt over the betrayal?" 

He tuts. “At least take the time and effort to learn the full story before making a decision.” Without care he invades more of his personal space. Trapping the eleventh between himself and the freezing ice wall. “A shame really.” He states. Sounding remorseful yet not showing it as he lowers his head. “I’d have loved to continue our relationship.” Tongue extends, slowly licking a long strip upon tags neck. Taking his time to savour the moment and see how he reacts.(he remembers the days when he did this and Ajax simply laughed in amusement at his silly antics)

“But we can’t can we?” Tone bitter. “You believe there is nothing more between us.” With small growl, sharp teeth are bared once more and he strikes like a starved python. Teeth latch on Tartaglia's neck in a vice like grip. Teeth piercing soft squishy flesh. Drawing blood that tastes coppery with hints of the foul darkness of the Abyss within it. Yet, he doesn’t spit it out. Instead he relishes in the taste. Swallowing not one but two mouthfuls of the hot liquid that spills from Tartaglias neck.

Satisfied, he unlatches carefully. Holding Childe in place, just to not nick him once more. (how kind) Tongue latches on to lick the blood stained neck, cleaning it as well as once can with an open wound. Once finished, he steps back, licking the blood of his lips as he looks down at the man he once considered his friend. (Maybe even his lover if they where brave to admit it.)

“You may work for the Tsaritsa for now. But remember my love. In the end, your heart and soul will always belong to me. Even if you don’t realise it.”

the problem with his treacherous heart is how awfully it craves forgiveness.   in another world,   in another light,   it wouldn’t be such a problem.   dust off the remnants of a relationship scattered into pieces and set to the arduous task of restoration   --   difficult work,   but not impossible.   instead,   he seethes.   he imagines zhongli’s throat beneath his hand,   his blood on his tongue.   a grotesque artwork of every desire he’s ever felt,   good or bad,   mangled into each other until he can’t separate one for the other.   how many nights has he laid in bed now,   playing it all over in his head?   an endless performance behind his eyelids:   opening act,   closing scene.   the betrayal he had felt;   an endless pit in the core of his stomach that demanded recompense.   satisfaction.   revenge or flesh or something to satiate the gnawing.

instead,   he has only this:   avoidance,   which is certainly not doing anything to combat the growing hunger,   the growing whispers of abyss-tinged shades that drag him to sleep dreaming of zhongli beneath him gasping   --   in pain?   in pleasure?   whatever,   whatever.   he can’t tell the difference.   maybe he never could.   ( all of it leads to the same place  /  covetous longing disguised as fury,   fury disguised as bloodlust,   bloodlust disguised as desire ).

a tangled knot he can’t hope to unweave,   so he doesn’t even try.   he isn’t afraid of anything.   he crawled out of that abyss into the noonday light of a day he can’t remember,   sloughed off skin for a wolf underneath.   but maybe,   maybe,   ( maybe zhongli brings him close ).   that’s the cornered thing talking when he has him trapped,   ice against his back spreading shivers and goosebumps down sun-freckled arms.   liyue had left its mark and he wishes it hadn’t.   he wish he could sleep.   he wishes he was left alone to suffer and pine and gnaw it out   --   the desperation and the hurt   --   like the desperate self-cannibalization of an animal trapped within the jaws of a trap.   

amicable relationship,   he says,   and tartaglia hisses out his answer between his teeth.