Bitchim

cw: fluff, suggestive at the end.

at exactly 10:30 pm, your adopted four-legged son tugarin alerted your husband that it was time for their usual stroll outside before bed. you had offered to take the adorable little thing out but alyosha refused the help. after all, he couldn’t have his beloved outside alone when they aren’t accustomed to the grueling snezhnayan weather.

after only a few minutes of waiting for your husband and child to return, you noticed alyosha’s coat still on the rack by the door. in his haste to leave quickly, he must have grabbed his robe instead of his usual hunting coat. you reached for it and figured you’d catch him before they got too far. however, by the time you opened the door and peered out, they were gone.

in the couple seconds that the door was open, some cold air managed to rush in, causing a slight chill to settle across your body. you were already holding the coat when you thought might as well and dawned it to warm up.

it weighed heavy on you as the soft, yet hefty fur lining embraced you like a warm hug. you retreated to bed and snuggled up under the covers. a little while later, you heard boots crunching down on the snow outside and the lovable bark of your fine furry friend.

alyosha knocked the snow off his boats then led tugarin inside the house, helping him get settled in his doggie bed. “alright buddy, good night.”

“woof woof!” your son barked in response.

he disrobed to get back in bed when he finally got a good look at you. “my my, well aren’t you cozy?”

“oh! i noticed you forgot your coat so i was going to take it to you. by the time i made it out the door you were gone and i got cold, so i put it on.” you replied with a sweet smile.

“i don’t think i’ve ever seen you wear it before. you look so cute my love.” he replied while pinching your cheeks, causing you to giggle.

“i have put it on before. one time you left it in the bathroom and i had forgotten to grab a robe so i wore it while getting ready for bed.” you innocently confessed.

alyosha seemingly lost his composure a bit. he blurted out a stuttered response. “y-you wore it… n-naked?”

“yea… do you not like that i did that?” fear that you had somehow made him uncomfortable rattled through you. the nervousness was palpable in your voice.

“no! no! i don’t mind it’s just…” he paused for a moment. clearly trying to find the best words to use.

“p-please do not put the image in my head of you naked with nothing but my coat on. i-it’s too much for me to handle…” in that moment he was rather grateful for the harsh conditions outside. the cold caused his cheeks to get red which concealed the strong blush that was creeping in from imagining you naked in his hunting coat.

the man got a very fun surprise when he woke up in the morning. you were in his coat with nothing underneath while sat on top of him. quite the fun morning indeed…

You tried to poison 25 and he drank it on purpose to challenge himself to find a cure and he did it in 4 hours. Failed.

You blew up his piano once and you failed.

You tried to hypnotize him into falling off a cliff and he played along and floated back up because disappointing you would be fun.

You put glue in the shampoo of his youngest segment. Definitely not your proudest moment but he tried to get you to eat a bug. Success, but it didn't count for much.

You tried infecting him with elezar and he just showed you old notes from that messed up clinic.

At one point you glued on an academiya graduation outfit to one of his old photos just to taunt him. He made you throw it into an incinerator.

Failed to eliminate him with a gun. Failed to keep him sealed in an old puzzle. Failed to get rid of him even when the rest of his clones were deleted. Failed to get rid of him when he disappeared and you hoped he was on some other planet entirely. Failed when he rewrote himself as a diety, he still came back after that fight to taunt you.

You just got used to failing and to saying 'hello again' more than you said goodbye to him despite the attempts.

You tried to poison 25 and he drank it on purpose to challenge himself to find a cure and he did it in 4 hours. Failed.

You blew up his piano once and you failed.

You tried to hypnotize him into falling off a cliff and he played along and floated back up because disappointing you would be fun.

You put glue in the shampoo of his youngest segment. Definitely not your proudest moment but he tried to get you to eat a bug. Success, but it didn't count for much.

You tried infecting him with elezar and he just showed you old notes from that messed up clinic.

At one point you glued on an academiya graduation outfit to one of his old photos just to taunt him. He made you throw it into an incinerator.

Failed to eliminate him with a gun. Failed to keep him sealed in an old puzzle. Failed to get rid of him even when the rest of his clones were deleted. Failed to get rid of him when he disappeared and you hoped he was on some other planet entirely. Failed when he rewrote himself as a diety, he still came back after that fight to taunt you.

You just got used to failing and to saying 'hello again' more than you said goodbye to him despite the attempts.

The wood crackles in the fireplace, lazily, as if time came to a standstill. The flames lick up the firewood without any hunger, soon about to become dying embers. The room is warm, the lighting dim and shadows deepening.

And in the intimate half-darkness, even monsters grow relatively tame. Their sharp teeth dulled by comfort, their high-strung nature soothed, lulled by the tentative sense of safety that can be felt in the soft shadows. 

“Hold still,” Zandik whispers into your ear. His hand strokes your cheek, the other combing your hair back from your face. “I don’t wish to hurt you.”

So you do. You close your eyes, eliminating the most taxing of your senses, to truly focus on what’s important - his touch. The tenderness of his handling of your face, your hair, every movement precise and slow. He doesn’t pull on your hair, whenever his fingers find a tangle, he loosens it with utmost caution. 

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."

🎨_azuremei_ on x