Hiya! :)

   This year, however, he has you. Sometimes he still finds it hard to believe how someone like him, ever the storm's eye, could become so precious to you. The two of you originally met in Sumeru; Childe was stationed there for a while on menial duties, and you were a stressed-out student working on your final thesis. He would often see you at the same café he'd stay at to do paperwork. It didn’t take long for him to look forward to seeing you, and without even meaning to, he memorized your usual order. Little did Childe know, you’d noticed the cute redhead always sitting at table seven and had developed a little crush on him within a few days. One day, he finally decided to introduce himself to you and the rest was history.

   “Baby, did you want a candy cane in this?” you ask, peeking out from the kitchen. Childe turns from the massive tree in your living room to you, equally massive grin on his freckled face.

   “Yeah, please,” he says. A minute later, you shuffle back into the room, mug of hot chocolate in each hand. He takes one of them in his left hand, planting a kiss to the top of your hair. “Thanks, baby.”

   It’s been a long day between shopping for holiday decorations, choosing a Christmas tree, somehow getting it stood and decorated (Childe insisted on having the biggest one that might possibly fit through the door, and who were you to tell him no when his eyes were so full of light?), and making mildly offensive snowmen of each other. In Childe’s defense, you started it when you built a dopey-looking snowman with horrendously neon blue buttons for eyes and said, “I made you. Spitting image, yeah?” In retaliation, he made a snowman with huge ears peeking out over a scarf wrapped up to a pair of big eyes with deep-set eye bags. This earned him a snowball to the back of the head, which then of course turned into an hour-long snowball fight. That ended when you sneezed once and Childe immediately gave you his jacket, scarf, gloves, and hat (on top of what you were already wearing) and brought you home.

   You hum and sit longways on the couch, toying with the sleeves of your pjs. Childe bought a pair of matching Christmas pajamas for the two of you, practically wagging an imaginary tail when you laughed and agreed to wear them with him. Outside, fresh snow sparkles on every surface, reflecting the stars. In the window, the reflection of little lights strung around the tree melds with the sky. Turning your gaze to the tree, you smile to see the berry garland that Childe’s family had sent. Evidently, they had been told all about you and how important you were to their beloved Ajax, and Childe had excitedly explained to you that they’d made the garland specifically for you. They had also sent a tin of homemade Pryaniki, a type of holiday cookie from his hometown.

   Childe comes over and lays on your chest, body stretched out along the sofa. You move your knees a bit so the two of you can get more comfortable, and he rests his chin on your sternum to look up at you. Your fingers find their way into his hair. Childe will never get tired of the feeling of your hands laced through his hair, mindlessly twirling it or gently scratching his head. He’s quite literally had dreams about it, on days he had no choice but to be away from you, and would always be irritable when you weren’t actually there.

   You pick up a book and start reading where you’d recently left off, enjoying the weight of your boyfriend on you. As you turn the pages, you feel his breathing slow into a steady rhythm. Your own breathing starts to sync with his, and soon you feel your eyelids getting heavy.

   Just one more page, you think to yourself, and then you hear crunching. You move the book to glance at the man on your chest to find him eating one of the cookies his family had sent.

   “Where’d you get that?” you ask, amused. He hadn’t gotten up even once since you laid down together.

   “My pocket,” he says simply, and pops the rest of it in his mouth before stuffing his head back into your chest. You just furrow your eyebrows at him for a moment, then fall into a fit of giggles.

   “I didn’t even feel you move,” you laugh. Childe turns his head to the side just enough to look at your face.

   “Want one?” He pulls out another, offering it. This only makes you laugh harder.

   “No. It has hair on it.”

   Childe makes a face. “No,” and stares at it. “They were wrapped in a napkin. It should be-” he mutters, then interrupts himself with a quiet, “eeeeuwh.” He picks the hair off, holding it to the light.

   “It’s yours,” he grumbles. “Your hair is everywhere. Are you going bald?” he says, then immediately continues, “I would still love you if you were bald. But maybe I should sweep the house tomorrow.”

   You snort. “Maybe.”

   “How’s your book?” Childe asks, coming up onto his forearms. You shrug.

  “It’s alright. I don’t like the main character, but I wanna finish it so I can move on,” you say mindlessly. Childe gives a little lopsided grin.

   “It’s boring?” At this, you nod. He slides a hand down your arm and starts stroking your hand with his thumb. “Put it down for a while, yeah?”

   You raise your eyebrows at him. “Weren’t you just about to fall asleep?’

   Childe leans closer to your face. “No.”

   You push the book up between your faces; you know exactly what he wants, but it’s fun to tease him. “Oh. Well… Go to sleep.”

   Childe makes an exasperated noise and leans back. You ignore him, stifling another laugh, and expect him to lie back down within a moment or two. Instead, he sits and stares at you for a solid five minutes until you finally give up and set the book onto the coffee table.

   “What do you want?” You ask, laughing through your words. A wolfish grin breaks out across Childe’s face.

   “Atta girl.” Then he starts to get up, and you watch him curiously. He goes to the sliding door that leads to the yard, gesturing for you to follow him.

   Once you get outside with him, Childe turns around to face you and lets himself fall into the snow, long limbs splayed out, his body hitting the soft ground with a crunch. “C’mere,” he says, muffled by the ice.

   “Oh,” you mutter, and go flop down right on top of him. He lets out a grunt.

   “I meant next to me. We were gonna make snow angels,” he complains.

   “I know. But I don’t want to get all cold and wet, I already showered when we got home. ‘s too cold,” you grumble. Childe snorts and rolls over, dumping you into the snow effortlessly. Almost immediately, you can feel the snow melting through your thin pajamas and chilling you to the bone.

   “Ooops,” he sings, eyebrows raised in amusement.

   You grab his face in your cold hands and push him to the side, shimmying out from under him before he can move. You dart inside, shutting and locking the door behind you.

   Childe tries to follow you, clutching his side through laughter, but pauses when he can’t get the door open.

   “Ooops,” you grin, watching it dawn on him that you'd locked him out, and head into your bedroom to dry off and put some warm clothes on. He watches through the sliding door, incredulous, as your discarded shirt flies out from the room. You change clothes, let him stay outside a few extra minutes for good measure, and then go back to let him in.

   You expect to find him sitting against the wall, moping and grumbling about the cold, but instead he’s lying shirtless in the snow, making snow angels. Lots of them. All the fresh snow that had covered the yard was now turned halfway to slush due to all of Childe’s flailing. You lean against the doorway, shaking your head.

   “Having fun?” You call out—he’s on the other end of the yard. His orange head pops up from the snow, and for a moment it’s like seeing him for the first time again, only much better. He shakes the snow out of his hair, grinning widely. Red-nosed and rosy-cheeked, glimmering eyes like the nighttime sea. Flushed chest, freckles and scars gleaming with melted snow, teeth glinting in the dark; everything that’s made him beautiful since you’d first laid eyes on him in that dim café is highlighted in this moment, along with all the things you’d learned and come to love about him. He jumps up, then starts looking around.

   “I dunno where I put my shirt,” he says, and you step to the side to make room for him to come back inside.

   “Don’t worry about it,” you tell him, and he shrugs, heading back to the house.

   “Sorry for dumping you in the snow,” Childe says once he’s inside. You hand him a towel wordlessly.

   “Are you mad? I’m sorry, baby,” he says again, starting to sound a little worried, which makes you feel a little bad. Only a little, though.

   You grin. “Why don’t you make it up to me, hm?”

   Childe nods eagerly, following you to your room.

   “Come warm me up,” you say, shutting the door behind him.

   He’s in for quite the long night, it seems.

The streets of Fontaine are already bustling once more; the great flood, prophesized for decades, has finally come to pass and proved to be (for the civilians of Fontaine, at least) a false alarm. For those who aided in the disaster's aversion, however, the effort expended on Fontaine's protection left them in varying levels of exhaustion. Aether was certainly no exception.

I glance at him across the table. We're sitting in our room in the Hotel Debord, eating breakfast. It's the only place that came out with minimal damage, and Neuvilette arranged for us to stay here with no expenses until we'd decided what to do next. Paimon chews on her pancakes slowly, eyelids still heavy with sleep, but Aether hasn't touched his plate.

"You okay?" I ask, quietly.

"I'm tired of this," he says, and Paimon and I share a worried glance.

"Don't say that," Paimon says. "If we keep going, we'll be that much closer to finding Lumine! I know you can-" I shake my head at her gently, and luckily, she gets the message. Right now, Aether needs a break. The bags under his honey-colored eyes are darker than I've seen them in a while, and he can't be in a good place after yet again dealing with a whole country's bullshit and not getting much in return. He finally looks up at us with a troubled expression.

"Finding her isn't the problem anymore," he mumbles. "She doesn't-- It doesn't matter if I find her again. She doesn't want to come home." Aether's voice wavers slightly at the end of his sentence.

"Why don't we stay in the room today?" I suggest. Aether shakes his head.

"No... I should go take some commissions. There's a lot to do to get Fontaine back on its feet," he says, somewhat resignedly.

"Aether, you don't owe your energy to Fontaine or its people. You've done more than enough already," I tell him. "You're tired," I add after he doesn't say anything. At that, he nods.

"I'm tired."

A few moments later, we're back in bed. Aether and I lie on our backs, staring at the ceiling. Paimon lies curled up next to him. All three of us sit in silence until Paimon dozes off, her slow breathing the only noise to be heard. I glance at Aether.

"I miss her," he says. "I miss my sister."

I roll onto my side to face him.

"I just can't understand why she doesn't want to see me. Why can't we just... figure it out?" He continues, haltingly. I just sit and let him talk.

"She knows I'd listen if she would just tell me why she's allied with the Abyss. She should know I would try and see her side of things. I don't know why she won't just talk to me," he says, the last part coming out more like a plea. I reach out to grab his hand gently, and he turns over to face me.

"Do you remember the first time I found her? In Mondstadt?"

"Yeah," I murmur.

"I was so happy to see her," he breathes. "I just wanted to run up and hug her. Like when we were kids. And she was so... cold. And it made me wonder-" He trails off again, frowning.

"It made me wonder if it was my fault. I don't even know what she'd been through those 500 years I was asleep. And with my memory being as messed up as it is, I'm not even sure what happened. What if I did something horrible and I don't even remember? She might be perfectly justified in hating me, and I don't even know why. I don't know how to make it right." He seems more and more upset as he talks.

I take both of his hands, gently, and run my thumbs across his scarred knuckles. All I know about the twins' situation is what Aether has told me and what we've pieced together along the way. I can't truthfully tell him that it's all okay, and that things will be simpler once we find her, but it hurts to see him so miserable.

"She hasn't blamed you for anything, Ae. And you're right, maybe you don't know what's been going on with her these past few centuries, but you've been trying. You've been trying so hard. I know we aren't sure why she's so adamant about you taking the whole journey before she'll talk to you, but she never said that she didn't want you to go home to her, right?" I say.

Aether sighs heavily. "Yeah." He moves his hands, now holding mine instead, and fidgets gently with my fingers. "Yeah, I know." With that, he turns into me and lays on his stomach with his head on my shoulder, resting an arm over my torso. I wrap my arms around him, one hand rubbing slow circles on his back and the other going to play with his golden hair. We sit like that for a while, only the sounds of our breathing filling the room, until Aether mutters a little, "Thanks," into the crook of my neck.

"Hm?"

"For this. For always letting me relax when I need it," He says, lifting his head. "I think sometimes you can tell what I need even before I do. I'm really lucky to have you, y'know?"

I grin and lean to kiss his forehead. "You are, aren't you," I tease, which earns a chuckle from him. He lays his head back down and soon enough, he's fallen right back asleep. I begin to doze off as well until Paimon's little voice mutters something.

"Hey, don't leave me out," she whines, and I lift my arm from Aether's back to invite her over. She floats up and rests on my other side, her little cheek pressed against my arm.

"Comfy?" I ask, and she nods sleepily before immediately falling back asleep, clutching me like a stuffed animal. The warmth of my two companions quickly makes me drowsy, and soon, I feel my breathing fall in sync with theirs. I smile as I drift off, incredibly glad to be a source of comfort to these two.