Hello! As An SA Survivor, I Really Appreciated Your Story With Naoya. My Comfort Character Is Nanami

☆ itto drabble.

THINKING ABOUT... going through baby photos with itto.

"LOOK AT YOUR LITTLE BOOTS!!!! YOUR BOOTS!!!"

your boyfriend, itto, is practically screaming, with his face mere inches away from the aged, creased photo of you as a toddler. he just can't help himself. he is completely entranced by you; your smile, your outfit, your height, everything, little you was just so cute! (of course, he still thinks you're beyond adorable now... but your boots!!!)

"i get it, i get it, the boots are cute-"

"BUT THEY'RE SOOOOOOOOO CUTE [NAME]"

nothing can get through to him; not grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him, nor ruffling his hair or even poking his horns. just wait until he sees your little ducky sweater...

"AWWWWW YOUR SWEATER!!! YOU'RE SUCH A CUTIE"

he points a finger at the yellow pullover, which was a couple sizes too big, hanging off your shoulders and stopping a little past your knees. he really is a child at heart, but you have to admit, it's something you really love about him.

you'll have to wrestle the photobook off of him if you want even a chance at getting your boyfriend back, no matter how much he whines and pouts afterwards.

if anyone is a cutie, it's him...

send a request!┊more drabbles┊taglist applications

© FICTOCULUS 2024; please do not steal, translate, or repost my works as your own

Dragonfly

zhongli/f.reader

genre: morax/zhongi, immortal!cursed!reader, miko/shrinemaiden!reader, angst, hurt/comfort(?), slow burn, reunion, traveler is NOT y/n, implied xiao/traveler,

warning(s)!!: mentions of: death/repetitive deaths, war, past suicides, the suffering of immortality in a mortal body, for the sake of this fic dragonflies are semi-common in teyvat/liyue lol, xiao considers zhongli/reader parental figures, things will definitely not follow canon timelines, Xiao is a frequent/important character, characters may be ooc (im sorry)

w.count: 15.6k (i am so sorry)

SYNOPSIS: fate and time are cruel kings ruling over even gods. morax is no exception. the only human he ever fell in love with was twisted by fate to battle him in a brewing war. the image of the burning temple that she resided in rested behind his eyelids and not a day goes by that he does not still mourn and yearn. time had cruelly taken you away from him. or... had it?

“Hello Traveler!” The soft yet chipper voice of the ever-pranking funeral director calls out from behind the blond Outworlder. The day in Liyue was still young and bright as the umber-clad young lady walks up to both them and Paimon who had floated herself bouncily from the Traveler’s right shoulder to the left. 

“Oh,” Paimon begrudgingly acknowledges, form bobbing in the air comfortably. “It's Hu Tao.” 

“Paimon,” Traveler scolds, crossing their arms over their chest. Paimon just sighs as the blond looks to the funeral director who had come close enough for conversion and unfolds their arms, bringing them down to their sides relaxingly. “Good to see you, Hu Tao,” they greet with a small nod.

“Indeed,” Hu Tao nods back, closing her eyes briefly in glee before reopening them. “It is lovely to see you. Are you here to visit Liyue? Or, perhaps another pressing matter brought you back to this nation once again.” 

“It’s nothing drastic,” Traveler dismisses. “We just.... had some time on our hands. So, we’re just visiting.” Partially, that was the truth. However, the full truth was that there was most definitely something the pair could be doing instead of wandering around Liyue. But it was important to take time for yourself sometimes, right? 

“Well, feel free to stop by the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor if you’re interested! I’d be happy to host the both of you for a meal.” 

“You mean, Zhongli would host us?” Paimon quips up knowing that, as Hu Tao’s consultant, Zhongli’s job descriptions can vary in terms of tasks. However, when Paimon spoke Hu Tao lifted her arms up towards herself. One wrapped around her chest and rested the elbow of her other, resting her curled fingers against her chin in thought. 

“Perhaps, not this time. Zhongli has had something on his mind these days.” The woman brought her curled hand and arms back down, now gesturing them softly in front of her as she spoke more. “It would feel distasteful to ask him to host guests at the moment.” 

The mention of Zhongli being mentally occupied made the Traveler and Paimon look at each other. They were privy to a lot of information the consultant kept tucked away from public knowledge- for good reason. The staged death of Morax for one. Although Hu Tao had once speculated that Zhongli could possibly be an Adeptus, she surely didn’t know that she wasn’t exactly far off from a bullseye. 

Still, the fact that Zhongli, the former Lord of Geo, was distracted so much that Hu Tao had essentially dismissed him of some of his duties was a concerning thought. He never seemed the type to dwell so much on something that it obstructed his work.

“I’ve tried asking him about it before,” Hu Tao continues, “since he gets like this around the same time every year. All he’s ever spoken to me about it is that someone he knew from his past had died around this time. It felt… wrong to pry into his past more for some reason.” It wasn’t an odd statement coming from her. She often took her work very seriously, even if she herself was a spitfire of a young lady. 

“Someone from his past died?” Paimon asked, already knowing about his past with the Adepti and The Seven. Perhaps, it had something to do with them? Either way, the concern was planted in the Traveler’s chest, so it felt only natural to find the ex-Archon and try and get some answers out of him. Maybe, since the pair had already known about his identity it would be easier to talk about. Or, that was the hope at least. 

Hu Tao and the Traveler spoke briefly for a moment longer with the usual snarky comment from Paimon before going their separate ways. Hu Tao had apparently been on her way out to fulfil a clients few specific requests and her stop for a chat was pushing to make her behind on her work. Paimon didn’t mind if she went on her way sooner rather than later, the dealing with the dead had always been creepy to the floating companion. 

Regardless, Hu Tao was a nice lady. Traveler would make sure to stop by and see her more, maybe indulge her hobby of poetry a bit. 

The two had walked around the busy streets of Liyue for a while trying to find Zhongli. He wasn’t at the funeral parlor, much to their dismay at making it an easy search, so they just starting wandering hoping to catch him somewhere along the way. Soon enough, they had wandered just far enough to catch a glimpse of his long brown tailcoat at Liyue Harbor. 

In retrospect, they should have started their search here if the funeral parlor was a bust. 

Zhonglig stood with his hands tucked neatly into each other behind his back, shoulders slack as he looked out over the landscape. He was basking in the solitude at the top arch of the harbor’s bridge when he hear the approaching sounds of footsteps. Turning his chin, he unclasped his hands and let his arms fall from his back before turning to greet the approaching Traveler. 

“Ah,” his deep voice reverberates and only the closest to him can detect the faux sound of a choked strain in it. “Greetings, Traveler.” 

“Hello, Zhongli!” Paimon greets floating just a fraction ahead of Traveler. “What were you doing?” She already begins to pry with a suspiciously high-strained voice. It just makes Traveler silently sigh and shake their head. She really needed to work on being more conspicuous. 

It’s quiet for a moment before Zhongli already catches on. Perhaps he can be a bit dense about certain aspects of the mortal realm, but he was by no means a fool. A smile finds its way on his lips in a moment of mild amusement at Paimon’s grace, or rather lack thereof. 

“I was merely lost in thought. Reminiscing about the past, you could say.” 

“The past?” She pressed again.

“Paimon,” the Traveler hisses for the second time that day. The floating girl just opened her jaw in mock offense before floating closer to them. 

“What? What did Paimon say now!” 

Zhongli’s low chuckle was a soft tune that at least showed he wasn’t offended by the blatant attempt at coaxing his thoughts out of his lips. 

“Did the Director send you to find me perhaps?” The fact that he was trying to slowly steer the conversation away wasn’t lost to the Traveler. Paimon and them both looked back to Zhongli shaking their heads. 

“Not exactly,” Traveler starts. 

“We did run into her though,” Paimon tacks on. “She told us you had been down in the dumps, so we came to check on you!” Paimon’s small hands came to her hips and her chest puffed out as if proud of her actions of checking in with a friend. 

Zhongli chuckles once again at the way Traveler places their hands on their hips as well,. Though, they were instead sending a playful scowl at the back of Paimon’s head.

“It is quite refreshing to see the two of you bicker,” he chides. “It certainly helps in easing the mind.” Once more, the two’s attention was drawn back to the former god. 

“So,” Traveler starts before Paimon could interject with something else, “there is something on your mind?” There was a growing fit of silence between the group of three, no one speaking in fear of shattering something they couldn’t exactly describe. Zhongli seemingly caved with a minuscule sigh kept more to himself than the harbor’s breeze. 

“The assumption that I’ve been a bit… preoccupied is correct. Lately, it seems I cannot focus on certain tasks for too long. My mind has a bit of a tendency to wander around this time of year.” Zhongli can already see the look of curiously mixed with concern written into the eyes of both Paimon and Traveler. His own eyes flick around the bridge and beyond the harbor’s main port before returning back to his visitors. “If you’re very interested to know, then I would not mind trying to explain it all over some tea. Though, it would be best if we took the topic of conversation elsewhere.” 

The sudden shift in his demeanor was almost palpable. It was like a cloak of grey mist started to waft around his very being at the mention of speaking his mind. Now that the two outsiders got the confirmation that whatever it was that was plaguing him was of the past he doesn’t let others know of, they were ready for a lengthy story. 

Zhongli had graciously invited the Traveler and Paimon to his personal abode, a place they had never even set eyes on. Of course, they knew he had to have had a place to stay and sleep, but for some reason it felt like all he ever did was walk around Liyue, do his work at the funeral parlor, or listen to stories at the Third-Round Knockout. It shouldn’t have been a shock to know he had his own home, but all the same, it was. 

It was simplistic inside, with the shelves being the only things of high value because of all the collected items he had bought and stored on them. Gesturing them both to a set of chairs between a table, he began brewing tea to serve as promised. 

Traveler sat awkwardly at first. Shuffling around in their chair while Paimon floated around the open space of the house being nosier than she should’ve been truthfully. Still, Zhongli didn’t say anything about her snooping so she continued to do so until the homeowner returned with a tray in his hands. 

A decorative teapot sat in the middle of the dark, wooden tray atop a plain towel; the steam of the hot, freshly brewed tea wisped out gracefully from its spout. Beside it were three small teacups placed upside down that clattered with the smallest sounds of finely made clay as he set the tray in the center of the table. Along with them was a small dish of cubes of sugar and a small creamer that held milk inside it. 

Zhongli skillfully took the teacups and flipped them over, setting them all upright and easily pouring the exact same amount of tea into each. The brew was dark and the steam wafted around the tabletop before dissipating into the air only to be replaced immediately with more. He slid two cups toward Traveler and the other to Paimon once she stopped her floating around and settled once again as the third member of the current party. He offered the milk and sugar to the two of them as well. 

“I prefer my tea black, but please help yourselves.” Zhongli settled into his own seat easily. One arm resting on the arm of his perch and the other on the table top to curl his fingers around the cup he had prepared for himself. His legs crossed out of habit and it was then that the Traveler realized he had taken off his tailcoat. It was purely out of habit to take it off when he had arrived to the privacy of his own home, and he didn’t even realize it himself- not that it mattered. It was simply a different look than they were used to. 

Paimon began dropping sugar cubes into her cup a bit too clumsily as small droplets splashed on her hand from the objects breaching the liquid causing her to yelp. In turn, the two seated companions offered her chuckles of amusement as she blew on her hand. Of course, it was hardly an injury- it was more a fright than a burn. 

“It’s hot,” Zhongli chided. 

“Gee, you think!” She then started dropping in cube after cube much more delicately. Or, rather she would drop them from the same height as before but immediately fly away when she let go so the upcoming splash wouldn’t touch her again. The Traveler made their own additions to their tea as well, but much less messily. 

The three settle into a comfortable silence filled with small sips of tea and clicks of returning cup to wooden table top. That is, until Zhongli broke it by placing a small wooden box on the table in front of him to join in with the teatray and it’s accessories. 

It was an elegant box the size of his fist. Golden edges wrapped in angular designs and a locked latch in the front of it. On the top of the lid was the symbol of a Geo Vision. At first, the two travelers thought that maybe this box is what he stored his fake Vision in when it wasn’t on his person. Pulling a small key from under his long-collared shirt, he unlocked the box and opened the lid. From where the Traveler sat with the lid facing them, they still couldn’t get a peek inside. 

The last thing they expected Zhongli to pull out of the cushioned, plush lined box was a hair ornament. 

Modeled in the shape of a dragonfly, the piece was carefully handled by the ex-archon and placed so very delicately on the table. The wings of the dragon fly were filled with a crystal that shone green and teal, the colors shifting with the light and angle as which it was gazed upon. The piece itself was designed as a hairstick, acting as an elegant means to pen up locks of hair- the metal rod of the stick seemed well suited for such a job. Matching teal-green crystal beads hung from the bottom tips of each wing as decorative tails. 

It was a beautiful piece to gaze at. 

Zhongli kept his hand on the table right next to it, his fingertips just a breath away from touching it again. When Paimon got a bit too close while gazing at it, Traveler could see the slightest twitch run through his fingers. As if the ex-Archon was anxious about Paimon getting too close to it. Still, to not be rude he said nothing as she continued to narrowing gawk. 

“Paimon, back up a little,” Traveler said, sitting forward a bit to try and act like they were trying to get a better look while simultaneously trying to get Paimon to back off a bit. When Paimon floated back to her place by her teacup, Zhongli’s shoulders loosened like he was relieved at the distance between the reckless floating fairy and this clearly important item. 

“You were curious on what has been on my mind, yes? This is a one reason I’ve been rather… absent as of late.” 

“You’ve been spacing out over a hairstick?” Paimon asked astonishingly. Zhongli shook his head. 

“Not quite.” His fingers uncurled and genly brushed over one of the beaded tails, letting the crystals bump over his fingertips. His eyes softened, yet that cloak of grey melancholy came back to him. “It’s more about who this was going to belong to.” 

Traveler and Paimon both had questions, but remained silent. They both settled into their respective places ready to listen to the story he was surely about to unweave. They knew that the tea would grow cold and kettle drank empty by the time it was all finished. Though, the look in his eyes and the way his voice grew softer in a way that pulled at the heart made the eternity of sitting in one place much easier to bare. 

“This ornament was going to be a gift to someone I knew a very long time ago. I never had the chance to give it too her, however; so, I keep it here with me where it is safe. I cannot bare to throw it out, even after all this time.” 

It seemed crazy, how the two swore his eyes had grown misty just saying those few sentences. How this story is going to start all because of a crystal dragonfly from millenia past.

There were many places that had been tainted and driven to ruin due to the war raging by the Archons. Gods were battling each other for power, others trying to flee from another’s unjustly wrath. Some even tried defending their people instead of taking place in battles or retreating. It was chaos and there were few corners of the old world of Teyvat that wasn’t splattered in a thick muck of bloodshed. 

Still, that didn’t mean everywhere had been tainted. No. This fact rang true as Morax had discovered one fateful day a small territory cleansed of blood and impurity. 

Hidden behind a barrier he had stumbled upon in the middle of a half dead forest, the invisible viel hid everything beyond it from sight. In fact, if he hadn’t happened to be near it, the Archon probably wouldn't have noticed it in the first place. The barrier itself easily gave and allowed him passage inside which led him to believe it was more of a mask than a shield. 

Walking through it led him to a forest of lush floral and trees that thrived surrounding a small section of land that housed no more than 500 people perhaps. A small village with huts scattered around plots of farmland and a rather luxurious palace atop it all. It was a farcry from the near-deathly state of the outside world and the whiplash of it made him momentarily wonder if he was somehow succumbing to some sort of hallucination. 

Morax walked through the dirt paths all the way until the thick wall that cut off the eastern styled palace from the rest of the people. Walls tall and made of a stone the God of Geo had to have created at somepoint. The craftsmanshift of it was marvelous he had to admit as there was not the slightest crack between the stacked stone. Easily vaulting himself onto the tall wall, he gazes beyond it’s perimeter. 

Inside of the sturdy walls, he could see six different buildings. Along the two side walls of stone stood two houses each. Two west and two east, separate yet built so similar he could easily mistake the four as clones of each other if not for his experienced eyes that had seen such fine details over his life. Connecting these four abodes from west to east were grey, stone paths. The same cobblestone led beyond the front gate he had forwent as he perched atop the wall and led straight forward to a single building that was larger than the rest. Morax assumed that was the main estate just from the grandeur of it compared to the lacking other four. 

Though, the final building is harder for the curious immortal to see. It was built directly behind the main estate, no doubt also connected with the same clean stone paths that weaved through the courtyards. All Morax could see of this building was it’s roof, the same tiled and burned color as the high status homes around it. 

Morax straightened his body from it’s crouched position and began to gracefully walk along the stone wall. Getting new angles of the buildings inside, he soon grew close enough to the main estate that he easily lept to it’s roof. Landing as if the air lessened his weight, he could now view that one single building he hadn’t yet more clearly. 

Immediately, the Archon recognized it as a temple that without a doubt housed priests and priestess alike. Some may be masters at their craft and others may be but small, inexperienced fledgings beyond those sacred walls. 

The idea of a temple like that in an uncharted and untainted territory flared his curiosity. So much so, he was hardly in control of his instincts as he once more lept gracefully from the estate’s rooftop onto the stone paths. His barefeet made a sound of collision when his heels touched the man-made path, and continued to make the same shuffling sounds as he walked straight into the temple. 

Morax did not run into a single person in the temple, though he could hear matras and practices from around different open training fields. Even the soft plunks of arrows being driven into targets for archery precision and the chiming of bells for cleansing. The open halls of the temple and the roof over his head that kept the sun’s heated glare from his figure felt comforting. 

Being in a place so filled with peace and sounds of anything but war was outlandish to the otherwise warrior-type god. Morax had contracts to fulfill and his own principals to protect while fending off other gods trying to level his unnamed throne. Taking out a few of his own violation never did any harm to strengthen his gag between himself and others.

The god had walked so freely that he soon found himself under the sun again. Instead of in the open halls of marble floors and burgundy columns, Morax was standing amidst a field of wild grass, flowers, trees, and bushes. It was like the lush forest outside the stone perimeter allowed a single bit of it’s ecosystem inside the temple just for the mortals to bask in. 

A small humming of wings quickly caught Morax’s attention amidst the sounds of the wind’s breeze and dancing leaves. His chin led his head in the direction before coming to see a small dragonfly hovering around him before landing on his shoulder. The view of the insect was neary cut off by the hood he always wore over his head, but the bug itself was peaceful just resting it’s wings on the god’s shoulder for respite. 

For a moment, the warrior of countless battles felt relief. For just that moment, the weight of such responsibility with his temperament lifted all because a small insect decided to rest on him. 

The dragonfly’s respite did not last. The little critter’s wings began to hum again and soon began to hover off and before Morax could stop his feet, he found himself following it. Bare feet stepping over well worn paths of flattened grass and dirt patches. Not long from where had previously stood, he stopped at seeing where the small insect had flown to in lieu of himself. 

The eyes of the archon landed on the first person Morax had seen since entering this temple- although uninvited, presence unknown and undetected. Reaching out a delicate hand with her index finger extended, the dragonfly landed easily on the appendage. 

A priestess knelt elegantly in the tall grass, previously inspecting herbs when she heard the familiar buzz of wings. The hakama pants that folded at her legs were neatly pleaded without a crease out of place and her kosode tucked perfectly into the trousers- not a wrinkle to critque. Her hair had been loosing tied back with a red hair ribbon that fluttered in the breeze that kept the tall grass swaying like waves of spring. 

The wind picked up when the dragonfly lifted off her fingers and off back towards Morax. It was like the little creature had led him straight to her and was now directing her vision back so they could meet each other’s gaze. 

It was all thanks to that one, small bug that Morax and first made eye contact with you.

“Oh,” your small voice of surprise- at seeing such an odd looking man in the overgrown, private gardens of the temple- carried on the same wind that the dragonfly danced in. You stood and dusted off your knees, knocking any sticking dirt off your bottoms before standing up properly. You inspected the man in front of you.

Arms dark as earth with cracks of glowing gold. Clad in a white cloak that split five ways down  and encompassed with a golden belt at his waist with a hood pulled over his head. The hair you could see whipping lightly in the wind behind his back was dark in color matching his arms. His trousers were wide open and baggy around his legs, only encasing snuggly around his ankles. His impressive stature gained your attention easily and you could tell he wasn’t exactly something mortal. It would be ridiculous to think just at the sight of his arms alone, not to mention the air around him seemed so… powerful. 

“My apologies, I wasn’t aware we were expecting a guest today,” the courteous smile you sent him made him wonder if you weren’t at least a little apprehensive of his unexpected presence. 

“You weren’t made aware because no one aside from yourself is aware of my being here.” 

“I see,” you muse. “I hope you are aware that qualifies you as a trespasser.” 

“Trespasser?” Morax gapped, losing his composure for a moment. His brows dipped in offense under his hood, his pride kicking into his throat through his words. “I am no such being.” 

“Ah, but aren’t you just? You said yourself, no one knows you’re here. Yet, you end up in the presence of this temple’s Miko. If that does not mean you’re trespassing, what does?” Morax’s eyes hidden under his hair and flick from your head to your feet and back up again. You were the head shrine maiden? You seemed so young and yet you held such an important position? It planted a pebble of doubt in him.

Then again, if he focused on you properly, he could barely see a small circular arua around your frame. It was like a barrier was placed around you, one protected you from the outside and anything that could taint you. Exactly like the barrier surrounding the territory he had more or less invaded. Honing your spiritual power like that so young, he would’ve perhaps tutted in impressiveness if you hadn’t challenged his very being moments ago. 

Still, Miko or not, he still outranked you. Crossing his arms over his chest, their golden geo pulsed with a soft light. 

“With such a rank you possess, are you still so unaware when a God stands before you? A pity.” 

“On the contrary,” you smile to him and his brow again twitches at your nonchalance. “I’m being quite respectful if you think on it. If you were simply a noble who lives among the palace homes, I would’ve quickly dealt with you since only a select few from outside are allowed entry into the temple. Much less this garden which is private and limited to my attendance only.” 

“Are you implying you could force me away at any moment should you please?” His voice grew tight in challenge. His sense of traquilty from before discovering you was dimming and the frigid air of his battle sense were returning even as the wind continued to caress you both. 

“I assure you I would do no such thing. I’m simply proving that even in the presence of a God, I will not yield since I do not even know which is in front of me. Not to mention, this land has no God to speak of or for. So, if you think about it that way, I am where one would hypothetically stand.” 

Oh. 

Morax felt something stir in his chest at the teasing tilt in your voice that spilled over your lips that curled into a smile. Your eyes were so clean and clear, it was like staring into crystals and he had the urge to create a new form of geo just to replicate them. The feeling was foreign to him, but it shocked him greatly when he realized it wasn’t an unwelcome stir. 

He finally dropped his crossed arms and began to decrease the distance between you both. Morax came to stand in front of you so he could get an even better look at your features. As such, you could now look easily under his hood as he stood above you. His eyes seemed to glow a lovely shade of amber that complemented his glowing, golden skin and dark hair. 

“Address me as, Morax,” he instructed. Your taunting smile turned soft and wide as your eyes closed in the most pleased expression he had seen in years. His amber eyes widened at the innocence and the small bells of laughter that left your throat towards him shook his unshakeable core. 

“That’s much better,” you said, now obviously pleased. “I’m, y/n. It’s an honor to meet you, Morax.” 

It was his name rolling off your tongue- spreading into the wind that had blown harshly for but a moment- that sent an earthquake that started at his chest and spread through his whole body. It was the sound of his own death sentence and he was once again shocked at how he easily accepted that he would definitely be back to this temple. Be back to this garden of overgrown grass and floral. 

Morax would definitely be back to you. 

As promised, Morax had been back to that temple several times since the first time he met you. When the weight of the archon war was- ironically- too heavy, or if he needed a place to escape just for a moment he would seek you out. It was quiet ridiculous how you had somehow wormed your way into his very soul and wrapped him around your finger. 

The Lord of Geo had come to learn much about you in the time he spent by your side. Your favorite flowers and scents, when you had started your priestess training, when you had progressed to the skill level you possess now and how long you had been the acting miko of the temple. Your favorite type of weather, or time of day, or season. In turn, he had confessed things about himself as well. 

How he had been around for as long as the world- or so it sometimes felt that way. How he’s in the middle of a grand and merciless war with other gods presumably because of issues to do with celestia. How he had taken many lives of both mortals and gods alike all for the sake of his own land and people. The very feeling of battle is engraved in his bones like names on a tombstone, yet it didn’t seem to push you away. 

It was laughable. The very Being of war and battle was utterly infautated with you, a mortal being of purity and values. Of course, you were alway assure him that what he did was just his own values, especially his strictness with any contract he made. You neved judged him for his sins and the weight they carried, but you never outwardly agreed with him either. You told him what he needed to hear, not what he wanted and he cherished those words so dearly. If he had any less self-restraint, Morax could easily let himself take your very words as law itself.

Yet again, it was another day he had left his duties behind him as he found you kneeling in the fields of grass once again. Leaping from the outerwalls, to the rooftops of the estate, to the roof of the temple, he easily lands like a pebble hitting sand next to you. It was the rush of air beside you that alerted you of his attendance rather than any sound he made- or didn’t make. 

“Hello again, Morax,” you greet as you thumb through the herbs and check the petals of nearby wildflowers. Morax kneels at your side before sitting fully in the grass, one of his knees bent up to prop his arm on with the other stretched out in front of him. A rather relaxed position you had insisted he use instead of kneeling for however long he visits would last. 

“Good afternoon,” he replies. It’s silent for a while after that. The atmosphere of simply being with you was good enough for Morax. That was until the urge to speak and hear you speak in return hit his throat. “Your people seem more rowdy than usual.” He didn’t need super-enhanced senses to tell that the noise had increased since his last visit. 

“You can tell that even though you’ve never properly been inside?” 

“I have been inside.”

“No one knew that thought,” you tease with a finger that flicked back and forth a few times. “So, it isn’t a proper stroll in my temple.” Morax playfully chuckles at your antics. “You are correct though.” 

“Is there a reason?” He had noticed it since he arrived, but the air around you seemed heavy. “Something seems to be weighing on you.” 

“You’re perceptive. I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked about that considering-” 

“Y/n.” 

You sigh before the hand that had been thumbing at flower petals falls back into the tresses of wild grass and to the ground at your side. 

“The monks are gathering in a rush under Master Jiang’s orders.” Morax’s brow furrows at the information. You had mentioned this Master Jiang before. He was apparently a traveling monk that had previously been nomadic. Though, since the archon war had only gotten worse over the course of time, he had settled in the safety of your barrier and subsequently in your temple. 

On the rare occasions you let your irritations get the best of you, you spilled your guts to Morax about how he was constantly chanllenging your power and position in the temple. Thinking he was better because he was older with more experience beyond the protective walls of your home. Along with the misguided misogyny of being a man. It was one thing after another, spouting off about anything that irked you until you got all your curses off your lips in the privacy of the archon. 

Morax had not met this Jiang- not to mention anyone else outside of you inside the temple sense his visits weren’t exactly documented- but he already strongly disliked him. Now, he was trying to taking charge of your temple?

“For what purpose.” You do no respond to him right away and it sends a jolt through his nervous system. “Y/n. For what purpose,” he repeats with a heavier tone. You let out a sigh that feels as heavy as your aura as you sit in the field of wildgrass and flowers with the closest being to your heart. 

“He’s afraid that we’re going to soon be effected by the war as well.” You didn’t need to specify which war, he was more than well aware which you were referring to. 

Among the other things he had learned about you, he had come to understand why your people were save from the archon’s destruction so far. It was because of you and your power. 

Inside the temple was a specific place for you to practice your skills and keep the barrier around your precious home. That didn’t showcase all you could do, however and Morax knew it. Keeping the living things inside safe and keeping all the taint out. If something did happen to get inside your barrier, you were quickly dispatched to purify it. You could tell the moment something breached your safe haven, all the proof he needed as his first appearance to you. 

You had admitted ot him once that the reason you didn’t immediately cast him out was simply because you didn’t feel any hostility from his presence. He had no intention on hurting your people or home, so you allowed him access in. That barrier was an extension of your power; constant proof you were so much stronger than that stupid old monk was trying to plat down. 

Morax had only heard the sound of your birch tree bowstring plucked once before, and the air instantly felt cleaner. He’d heard bells in the distant halls while he waited for you in the treetops of your private garden to avoid the chance of being seen. While with you, he had picked up on a masking you placed over him so he couldn’t be detected by others and kept safe from prying eyes. Your power still astonished him even after all this time. 

“That’s asinine,” he growled. The whole ordeal of it all just set the message that they didn’t trust you and your abilities. After all you had done since you were a child to protect these people, after everything you’ve sacrificed, and they’re doubting you now? When your powers were in their prime? It was insulting. 

“Morax-”

“Do not try and save their value but udnermining your own.” 

“I’m not!” You cry in exasperation. You let out another sigh before letting your body lean into his shoulder and against his propped up leg. Morax froze up as your body softly collided with his own. While you had him attached to your very being, hook line and sinker, he had never once touched you. Not a single brush of his fingertips to your body or even allowing your legs to touch as you sat side by side. 

The side of his body you rested on felt like a volcano on his geo-ingraved skin. 

“Sorry,” you whisper. “Could I stay like this just for a moment longer?” 

His arm that you leaned against came to wrap around your shoulder and push your head further against him. The archon lowered his leg to join the other on the ground just so he could have you closer to him. His chin rested by your forehead and he closed his eyes letting you invade every one of his senses. Squeezing your form as he felt the trembles you tried to conceal and force to stay inside, not letting yourself break as much as he wanted you to. Morax wanted you to feel safe and open with him, but he understood all too well how difficult a task that was as someone of your strict upbringing. 

“Stay here as long as you need. I will not move.” Morax was geo, the land itself. He created mountains and stone and they all know his name. He was a god of contracts and his words were just as serious as those that he holds so strictly to them. The Lord of Geo would stay your unyielding pillar for as long as you needed him. That he promised to himself as he felt your small drops of tears silently fall onto his chest that he dare not mention. The urge to wipe them away and treasure you like a fragile bell ached within him, but he dare not act on those either.

For but a brief moment, Morax- the Geo Archon- wished for a single second he was mortal. That he was like you.  

Morax had no idea how this happened. What had gone wrong? Was it him? Did his sudden intrusion into your life of purity ruin everything? As a god, did his divine hands finally touch something he was never meant to?

Weeks ago you had urgently awaited his normal time of arrival but as soon as he showed, you urgently told him to leave. To leave the temple, the palace, the barrier- all of it- and never come back. You had demanded he return to the world he knew, the one filled with smoke and war and ongoing conquests. His chest filled with thick, black tar as you screamed at him and he did what any sane being would do. Morax screamed back, unable to understand and he was losing his patience bit by bit.  

The Archon wanted answers, none of which he demanded for were satisfing. The monks had finally discovered that you had been meeting with an outsider from beyond the barrier; to make matters worse, they knew it was Morax who had been active in the outside war since it begun. They were focring you to make a decision and the best course of action was to push him away before things got too out of hand and would be to a point where you could do nothing. 

It made no sense to Morax. He could help, he was certain of it. He’d let you direct him, use him how you like and pull his actions like a puppet on willing strings. He’d follow your every order to the letter if you just wouldn’t force him out and shun him like you were desperately trying to do. 

You wouldn’t yield. 

Morax hated your stubbornness now more than ever. You finally forced him away with a bracellet you had made yourself that was nothing but clear-ringing, golden bells threaded with red string. The sound they made amplified your power and he knew at just the meresight of them you were trying to make him leave. 

With one flick of your wrist, he could feel invisible threads of nothing wrap around his limbs and begin to tug. Once more he tried to reason something- anything- out of you, but was met with nothing but a second ring of bells that yanked his whole being out of your barrier. Forced out and finding himself outside, he was furiously frustated. Summoning his polearm, he let out a cry before thrusting it into and then subsequently through the neearst tree effectively slicing it down.  

Your final words to him stay in his ears like a parasite- pounding against his eardrums so violently he was afraid they'd burst if they continued to torment him. 

“If you ever return, I will have no choice but to take further actions, Morax.” 

Morax had to stay away from you. It’s what you wanted; or maybe it wasn’t your wish- but it’s what you said. What you demanded he do. Still, he didn’t know when this happened. Morax didn’t know when he decided that the last thing he would ever do is stay away. 

Therefore, Morax still returned into your barrier and through your territory. Just as you had said, you were true to your words. 

The moment you felt his presence trespass inside your barrier, you evacuated the palace and with the same bells you sent him away with, you summoned him back. It was like he was teleported with magic, the same invisble strings that had yanked him out now drew him in. The ringing of your bells reverated in his ears before he was standing in that same overgrown field. 

Morax stood in the one spot he first saw you and you took presence in the spot he had found you kneeling. This time, there were no dragonflies humming in the air and something in him knew there never would be again. 

“I told you,” you choked. 

“I refuse to listen to a moral’s orders,” he bit back. It was a lie. He said he’d listen to your every word, and he meant it. Even when his desperate pleas to stay by you landed him nowhere by alone. 

Morax knew there was only one option left as he eyed the staff in your hand. Your grip was so tight around it your hand trembled with the sheer force of it. Your head shook with micro-swivels on your neck as you kept your eyes on the ground. 

“You should have.” Morax’s polearm materialized at his side in a moment before he took it’s familiar grip into his palm. He had only ever told you of his weapon, never wanting to show you in case it tainted you somehow. All that silly precaution seemed so pointless now. 

The gentle breeze he was accustomed to had become bone chilling as you lifted your chin to finally look at him. Morax almost caved seeing your angry tears, but as you moved to engage in battle, he let his body move on it’s own. The god who was so accustomed to battle just wanted to shut his brain off for this one. 

Morax didn’t want to do this. 

The battle between you both was a long one. You screamed at each other. Sometimes words, sometimes just sounds of angusih and pain. You knew Morax was holding back on you, you didn’t have the power to fully stop a god and you knew it. Morax knew it. Whether he was holding back because of his affections for you or because he was toying with you, you couldn’t figure it out. The power of your barrier did limit his abilities some, but it was hardly enough to be considered a handicap.

Still, somehow, you had knocked his polearms from his hand before you forced him onto his back into the grass. 

His cloack was torn and his arms of geo-glowing beauty seemed dim and dark like the shadow cast over his eyes. His hood had been knocked back while his hair was tosseled and battleworn. Your body and his were covered in cuts and burns and scrapes. Everything hurt from inside your body to the outside. 

You had him on his back as you climbed over him. Your legs pinned his arms down and your weight sat on his chest, the bottom of your staff pushing into his throat as your labored breaths shook throughout your whole body. All you had to do with lift your staff just a fraction and slam it back down and you could do some major purifying damage to his body. It probably wouldn’t kill him… but what if it did? Did you have it in your to purify a god? Maybe if you tried, it would take all your strength and you could die together. You almost scoff at yourself- 

-wouldn’t that be just poetic.

You could feel his own chest heaving under your weight and you knew he could easily throw you off him if he wanted to. Just like before though, he did nothing. He just lay in the grass beaten and battered as he glared beyond the staff’s pole into your face. You hated the look in his eyes.

“Will you not follow through?” He chastised with so much venom you wanted to vomit. The staff shook once with both of trembling hands holding it above his neck. You had to- it was your duty. You would be betraying your people if you let him live. For your people, for the cowardice monks who forced you here, for your ignorance for thinking you could keep Morax by your side without consequence. For everything you had trained for until now, you had to get rid of him. You had to!

Morax sucked in a breath as he readied his neck to be pulverized. Your staff came away from his throat… and soon your weight was being pushed off his body entirely. Raising to your shaking, exposed legs from your torn trousers, you took staggering steps backward from him. Morax’s glare morphed into shock as he raised to his elbows to watch you retreat. 

“What-” 

He watched  your chest heave with frustrated tears. Choked, uneven sobs tore at your throat as you screamed before throwing your staff far from your grip. You heard it clank against Morax’s discarded polearm and thought for a moment how ironic it was. Your weapon reuinited with his in your moment of weakness- your lowest point of failure. The moment you threw duty away and chose yourself for once. 

“I can’t,” you cry, falling to your knees into the singed and destroyed field that once flourished so wonderuflly. “Please, go,” you beg. Morax climbs to his feet, wincing at the wounds on his body before calling for his polearm again. Once it was again in his grip, he looked at the dried blood of yours that litered the blade. The Lord of Geo immedately dismissed it, watching it disapate into the air from whence he summoned it. He simply stood there, looking down at your crumbling frame. 

What were you doing? You were going against your practices and willingly letting a supposed threat escape. He took one step in your diection, still so woefully attached to you. Watching you tear at the seams and keep unraveling in front of his very eyes. He was at a loss; what could he do to even begin to ease your suffering when he himself was part of it?  

“No.” You could feel his eyes on you and his want to approach you burnt the top of your head at which he gazed. “Be gone.” You demand once again like the first day you chased him off. You didn’t hear him move and in a fit of nothing left, you tore off your bell bracellet and threw it in his direction. “Go back to where you belong!”  And in a mere moment, his presence vanished and you broke completely. The eyes of the monks watched as you sobbed in the gardens, the battle they made you wage concluding with no victor. 

“Zhongli…” the story behind the hairpiece and his grief was heavier than either Paimon or Traveler was expecting. 

“I had planned to gift this to y/n during one of our meetings. I knew she wouldn’t be allowed to wear it of course,” he chuckled bitterly to himself. “For a great many of reasons. Still,” it would’ve proven to myself she was mine. Zhongli cleared his throat. “Regardless, I think I’ve spoken enough for once. The tea has run out and you both surely have other arrangements as the day is waning.” 

“Paimon doesn’t think-” 

“Then, we’ll be off,” Traveler interjects. Zhongli was just being polite but what he was really saying was that he wanted to be alone. “Thank you for telling us. Y/n sounded like a wonderful person.” 

“Tis but a story.” The way he replied made it sound like he was trying to convince himself more than them. The two left his home, leaving him still sitting at the table with an empty teacup and still holding that crystal winged dragonfly like it was Teyvat’s most precious treasure. 

It was quiet between Paimon and the Traveler as they walked aimlessly around Liyue. The Traveler’s mind boggled at the information they had been told and grew curious to any they hadn’t. They were almost certain that there was more to your story, but Zhongli couldn’t bare to say anymore. 

“Wait,” Traveler stopped in the middle of the path, bringing their hand to cup around their mouth in thought. “That all happened during the Archon War, right?” 

“Paimon thinks she remembers him mentioning that. Why?” 

“Do you think Xiao would know anything about it?” Traveler thought about it, but if memory served Morax was the one who granted Xiao his name. As Paimon looked at the blond with wonder, a voice spoke behind them. 

“You called?” 

Paimon’s screech echoed into the air as the Traveler spun around, not expecting the very apedtus to show up. Xiao sure took the calling of his name seriously. 

“Paimon never-” the floating companion looked to the blonde. “Oh, yeah. I guess we kinda did.” Xiao crosses his arms as he stands expectantly. The daytime hours were few in remaints and the streets began to slowly thin in populous, so he was less reserved about being around people, Though, he still didn’t want to linger either. Regardless of his wants, he noticed the air of tensity around you both. 

“Did something happen.” It wasn’t a question, it hardly was when Xiao was involved. 

“Do you know anything about a woman named y/n?” Xiao’s body when frigid as he dropped his arms and quickly stepped up to the both of you. Coming nearly toe to toe as the Traveler squeaked and took a half step back. 

“How do you know that name.” Once again, Xiao wasn’t asking. Traveler looked around and decided that standing in the middle of the road wasn’t the best place for this conversation. 

“Let’s go somewhere else.” 

The newly formed trio had migrated outside the city and out into the wilderness by a river.  Xiao and Traveler took to sitting among stones, Xiao crossing his legs and Traveler letting their’s dangle. Paimon’s ever floating presence never going too far from the two. They sat and listened to the sound of the bable of running water, trying to find a way to reopen the previously halted conversation. 

“Did Rex Lapis tell you about y/n?” Xiao ripped the bandage off first, something Traveler was almost thankful for. “That’s the only possible conclusion I can think of if you know her name since she wasn’t memorialized during her lifetime.” 

“Yeah, he did. I’m pretty sure he chased us out before he could tell us everything though.” Xiao nodded. Earnest understanding shone in his eyes but there was something else behind those irises of his, but the Traveler couldn’t figure out what it was. “Did you knew her too, Xiao?” He nodded again. 

“Not long after Morax found me and gave me my name, I found out that he was frequently paying visitation to a mortal woman. I thought he was being reckless, so he took me to meet her one day.” 

“He took you himself?” Paimon questioned. 

“Yes. He wanted to prove a point.” 

Xiao could still remember his first impression of you.  You had scolded Morax as soon as he landed in the familiar garden, arms crossed and mouth opening in reprimands. Calling him foolish for bringing a highly detectable entity beyond your barrier- one he didn’t even realize he had breached with his archon- and that if you hadn’t masked his spiritual signal just like how you did with his own, he’d be in a world of trouble. 

Seeing Morax take your scolding as he stood there bemused, Xiao’s first thought was that he did not like you. He distrusted you. What kind of mortal argues with a god on what they can and cannot do like you did? It was ludicrous. Still, the moment Morax introduced him as his newest comrade named Xiao, you smiled at him. You sent along with that smile a warm welcome and he suddenly felt awkward. 

“Xiao,” you called to his back before he was to leave with Morax at the need to return back outside your walls. He did not turn around to face you, but he did not move until you spoke again. “Feel free to come back and visit anytime. I’ll keep you covered.” 

“Rex Lapis- Morax- was the one who saved me and gave me the name Xiao. I respect him and owe him a great deal- a debt I may not truly be able to ever repay in full. In mortal terms, some may say he’s like a father to me.” Xiao’s chin lifted up to the darkening sky. The day had felt so long, the Traveler hadn’t realized just how late it was beginning to get. “If Morax was a father, then y/n was my mother."

The yaksha can still remember the first time he had sought you out for himself without Morax with him he was recoiling from karmic debt. It didn’t take a genius to know that he felt lighter in your presence- your purifying light helping ease his burdensn whether you did so purposely or not. 

It was late into the night when you had awoken abruptly from your sleep to the sensation of Xiao passing through the barrier. You sprung up from your futon, quickly focusing on his approach and cloaking him the best you could. His energy was rough, dark and pulsing and it worried you. You quickly made your way out to the garden where you knew he’d be and unshockingly enough was when you arrived. 

Curled into himself on his knees, his arms wrapped around his torso as black smoke engulfed him like vines. Gasping and sweating, he weakly stay collapsed in the grass as you ran to his side. 

“Xiao!” You whispered in anxiety as you knelt next to him, your eyes teary in fright. “What’s happening to you?” He didn’t answer, just shook his head with heavy, labored breaths. The moment, your hand came to rest on his back, his eyes rolled back with a fraction of his burden easing off his shoulders. Xiao slumped into you, his shoulder and neck pushing into your legs as his head rested partially on your stomach. His sudden collison knocked you back into the grass, your previously kneeling form now firmly planted on the ground. 

“Please,” he gasped as your other hand had come to his shoulder that wasn’t pushing into your lap. “Please, could you… sing.” In truth, he wasn’t sure why he asked that of you. He didn’t know what possessed him to request something so odd, but regardless of the oddity, you did. Your mouth had opened and you slowly and softly began to sing him a lullaby he had never heard before that night. 

It was like a blanket of early morning mist started to coat his burning, heavy body. His aching came to a slow stop as his mind became clearer. You sang the lullaby over and over again until the effects of his karmic debt had disappeared into the evening air. Even when he went completely lax on your lap and your hands had moved to run through his hair and across his back, you kept singing until early that next morning Morax had come to retrieve his missing Adeptus. 

As Xiao in the present looked at the stars, tracing constellations, he once again was reminded of your lullaby. You sang that to him many times after that and he remembered every single instance. It wasn’t far-fetched to say that the reason Barbarto’s song’s calmed him so is because he’s reminded of you in those moments and tunes. 

Yes, Xiao came to revere you just as much as his Archon- even though you were just a mere mortal. 

“So,” Traveler spoke up softly, trying to gently pull him from his obvious reminiscing. “What happened to y/n? Zhongli mentioned that he had fought her, but what happened then? Did they ever see each other again?” 

“No,” Xiao’s face contorted into a grimmance as his fist’s balled in his lap. “Y/n was executed before Morax could ever see her again.” His fists were so tightly balled they shook, clearly he still resented the fate you had been subjected to. 

“Executed?!” Paimon exclaimed. “But- but why?!” 

“Because she let Morax live.” The yaksha’s eyes narrowed as he gnashed his teeth. “Those filthy monks that poisoned her temple confined her to a dungeon cell where they starved and deprived her of anything. Letting her suffer for days before placinig a curse and executing her all because she refused kill an Archon.” 

“Did those people really not like Archons that much?” Paimon asked. 

“They were monsters!” He exclaimed. “Y/n had been raised to choose the people over her own desires, but the moment she wanted something for herself they-” 

“Xiao,” Traveler interrupted, reaching out their hand to place it on his folded knee. 

“She didn’t deserve the fate they gave her.” Traveler only nodded at his solemn tone. “When her execution was carried out, Morax… he reacted to an extreme.” 

“An extreme?” Paimon inquires. Xiao nodded, lifting his head back up from where it had been tucked towards his chest in anger. 

“The moment y/n’s barrier disappeared Morax stormed inside. He destroyed everything he could get his hands on. I… I was with him.” Xiao was enraged at the news of your demise, but he knew as he watched the back of his Archon as took the lives of the lowly monks who dared try to outrank you that the grief and emotions Morax felt course through him far outweighed his own. 

By day's end, the entire palace, surrounding village, and temple were all up in flames or crushed into rubble. Standing among the burning wreckage that stunk of ash, blood and death Morax plunged his polearm into the earth and screamed with no one left to witness him aside from Xiao. Instead of trying to approach his archon, he instead kept his eyes on the remains of buildings going up in flames like a personal pyre in remembrance of you. 

“After that, Morax stopped talking about her to anyone. It was like he pushed her into the recesses of his mind and tried to erase her altogether. With the meeting of other Archons and the assembly of Liyue, it seemed like he was trying to move forward.” 

“Poor Zhongli,” Paimon whined. “Star crossed lovers sure are sad to think about.” 

“To this day, there’s no one y/n has cared for as deeply as Morax.” At Xiao’s confession, Traveler’s ears perked. Did they hear that right? 

“Hold on,” they started, “what do you mean ‘to this day’?” Xiao’s body stiffened. He cleared his throat before he looked away, hoping that silence would push past his slip up. “Xiao!” 

“It meant nothing.” 

“Liar.” 

“I am not.” 

“Paimon thinks so too!” 

“Your input does not encourage much.” 

“Hey!” 

“Xiao,” Traveler tries again, arms crossing over their chest as they straighten their sitting posture on the stone they still sat on. Xiao cursed himself at deflating so easily in the face of the blond’s pressure. 

The Adeptus took after his Archon in that sense it would seem. 

“If you can keep it a secret,” he hesitated, “then I have somewhere to take you.” Xiao’s face turned back and looked the Traveler into the eyes.  They could see just house uneasy his gaze was, yet still under it was a stern ‘this is important’ before everything else. They nodded deeply towards him and force another sigh from his lips. The two of them jump from their stone seats as Xiao points in a direction. “Then follow me.” 

“Paimon can keep a secret too!” 

“Somehow, I doubt that.” Still, Xiao let her follow him too. The more the merrier you’d say- or at least he hopes. 

“I had no idea there was a place like this in Liyue!” Paimon exclaims after Xiao had taken both her and the Traveler along a path through the forests and into a clearing. After approaching what appeared to be nothing, his figured seemed to pass through something. The two who accompanied him both gawked at his sudden disappearance into thin air before he was reappearing from nowhere. ‘Hurry up,’ he had told them as they cautiously followed his once again disappearing back. 

Beyond the boundary of nothingness was a fairly large home that was longer than the clearing thy where previously in. The path forward was lined with trees and during the daytime they provided comfortable shade for any who walked under them. Now though, they just casted nighttime shadows of moonlight. The air felt different from the forest’s air as well. As if it had been filtered through something and made even cleaner than normal. 

Xiao walked with confidence through the path of trees and up the steps of the elongated home like he had done it a million times before. He didn’t even stop to check and make sure that both Traveler and Paimon were still behind him and hadn’t instead wandered off. The lanterns that lit the halls cast moving shadows along the walls and they danced off Xiao’s back as they continued to trail after his heels. 

Soon, he came to a stop outside a set of doors before looking at Traveler briefly then back again. He knocked twice around the hardened sides of the doorframe and didn’t wait for any signs of noise before taking further action. Sliding them open, he stepped inside and the Traveler and Paimon naturally followed.  

It was a large room, a small floor desk tucked away on one side littered with papers, books and ink. Another set of doors opposite from the ones he had just walked through led out to an open terrace that further pushed out into a stone garden. On the opposite side of the room was an unfurled, messy futon that lacked a body to rest inside it. 

Xiao sighed at seeing the empty futon and made his way out the doors to the wooden terrace. Apparently he had found who he was looking for since he began to speak and it wasn’t to the Traveler. 

“Why are you not resting?” 

“How could I when I have visitors?” A voice answered him and it made the skin on the Traveler’s face flush. It sounded clear like bells and was as soft as a gentle stream. Holding such composure- it reminded them of Zhongli’s voice and how aged it was. Xiao backed up into the room again as someone had came inside. 

The dark hour left the woman mostly unseen, but Xiao was quick to start lighting a lantern for light. 

“Thank you, Xiao,” she commented as the wick began to burn with a flickering flame. Traveler’s face remained flush at the woman in front of them. She didn’t just sound wise, she looked it. Like she had seen many years and experienced many things- but still looked so young. Xiao moved to her side and Traveler didn’t need to ask if the woman in front of them was who they thought she was. “Are you friends of Xiao’s?” 

“Yes,” Traveler whispered before they cleared their throat and answered again. “Yes, we are.”

“I see.” Xiao cleared his own throat, turning his head away at the gaze the woman sent him. Luckily the lantern didn’t light the room the greatest so his tinted cheeks stayed between the duo and didn’t reach the Traveler’s eyes. Looking back, she smiled warmly and it seemed exactly like how Zhongli explained. “It’s lovely to meet you both. My name is y/n.” 

“WHAT?!” Paimon exclaimed before slapping her hands over her mouth. Both at the discourtesy and the late hour she had yelled into. 

“I assume you have a great deal of questions,” you tell them, “but, for now I think we should table all that for tomorrow. You’re both more than welcome to stay here for the night. Xiao can lead the way for you.” 

With that, somehow the two travel companions ended up in a guest room with two futons and Xiao telling them to get some rest before leaving and presumably going back to your side. 

You had once again left your room to sit on the terrace and Xiao joined you. Sitting beside you, his head coming up to your shoulder in height as you both looked and focused on nothing. 

“Are you upset with me?” He asked. 

“Not particularly, no. Shocked, maybe. I wasn’t expecting someone else to follow in behind you from the forest.” 

“I apologize.” 

“There’s no need.” You slowly bring your hand up to rest on the back of Xiao’s head, a comfort to both him and you. Just like how Xiao described you as a mother, you didn’t ever think of him as anything less than what you assumed a son would be like. “It’s actually helped me with something that’s been on my mind lately.” 

Xiao just grabbed onto the sleeve of the robe you wore, not saying anything but conveying enough for you to understand. 

“I’ll explain it tomorrow. For now, how about a lullaby?” Even from the guest room and with Paimon already asleep, the Traveler could hear a faint song in the air before drifting to sleep. 

“Sooo, how old are you?” 

“Paimon!” Traveler yelled. “That’s rude!” 

“I was just asking a question!” 

“Ask a different one!”

The small squabble that earned a sigh from Xiao the next morning led you into a small laughing fit. The group of you were gathered in a drawing room used for when Xiao would visit you during your days. You’d spend time listening to things Xiao would encounter outside, and while it was a good way to pass the time you would otherwise spend alone, it felt better with more lively guests like this. 

“Xiao’s older than I am, so please rest assured I’m younger than you think.” 

“Xiao’s older?!” 

“Ahem,” the Yaksha interrupts by clearing his throat, “age matters aside, don’t you think now would be a good time for an explanation. If we’re gone from Liyue too long, Zhon- er- Rex Lapis could get suspicious.” 

“Why’d you correct yourself like that Xiao?” Paimon asks before you answer for him. 

“He feels like Morax’s mortal name makes me uncomfortable. I’ve told him time and time again that it doesn’t bother me, but he insists on using his other titles. Feel free to keep referring to him as you’re used to, I won’t get confused.” 

“How considerate of him,” Paimon dryly says, pulling another chuckle from you. 

“In any case, Xiao is right. I assume he told you about me, seeing as he brought you here himself.” 

“Sort of,” Traveler starts. “Zhongli is actually the one who told us about you. Xiao just told us more.” A shocked look passes over your features when you hear that the former Archon had opened up about you at all. “He said that someone from his past died around this time and we were worried about him. We kind of… pressured him into telling us.” 

“I don’t think that’s true,” Xiao said as he crossed his arms. “If Rex Lapis truly didn’t wish to speak about it, he wouldn't have. Believe me. He’s too stubborn.” 

“Be nice,” you lightly chide him. “Still, it’s a shock. I thought he would’ve buried his memories of me long ago.” 

“I’ve told you,” Xiao spoke up again, “Rex Lapis- he still-” 

“Xiao.” Your voice was stern for a moment before he clammed up. 

“Sorry,” he spoke defeatedly. Instead of staying quiet and letting the awkward air cloud up the room, he started up the discussion of why he had brought outsiders here in the first place. “Traveler, do you remember when I told you that Lady y/n had been executed?” Traveler nodded and was shocked at his use of a title. He didn’t use one at all when he was talking about you yesterday? Did he always address you personally like that? “Do you also recall how I mentioned how before she was killed, she was cursed.” 

“Oh yeah,” Paimon acknowledges. “Paimon remembers you saying something like that.” 

“It’s because of that curse that she’s still alive.” 

“They cursed her not to die? Doesn’t that seem kinda dumb since they apparently executed her for not defeating Zhongli?” Paimon’s face scrunched before her entire being deflated. “Paimon doesn’t get it.” 

“That isn’t quite correct. I can die,” you inform them. Xiao’s fist twitched as his gently grasped the fabric of his pants in his palms. “In fact, I have died several times. The curse i bare is that I cannot stay dead.” 

“Isn’t that still contradictory to what the monk’s were trying to accomplish?” Traveler asks. 

“Not necessarily. Back in my original life, I had broken a vow I had been raised on: placing my people above myself and never being selfish. That one sacred vow being broken was enough for Jiang to label me a treasonous traitor. This eternal life of mine is punishment for that crime.” 

“That’s so dumb!” Paimon exclaims. You continue to explain after she’s finished huffing. Her puffy face was quite amusing to look at as she crossed her small arms like she was offended on your behalf. 

“My curse resets my life to the point in time I was killed. Therefore, any injuries or illnesses I received in previous lives have all but vanished. I can still starve and freeze to death. I can become ill and contract diseases just like a normal mortal. I’ll die if I'm stabbed and I’ll scar if I’m burned. Still, even after all that, I’ll simply wake up again like none of it happened. This prolonged suffering is what Jiang and his acolytes were after.” 

“That’s terrible,” Traveler whispers. “Have you died many times?” 

“I’ve lost count.” You raise your hand to look at your palm that has been the same as the first time you woke up from death. In the ruins of your destroyed temple you were foggy minded and confused before your entire being filled with dread. “I’ve lived so many lives I cannot remember them all, but I know I’ve touched on every type. I’ve gone mad, harming people around me and myself. I’ve given in to every sin in hopes that they would allow me to die and not come back. I’ve even tried ending the cycle myself, but all to no avail.” 

You took a deep breath before dropping your hand back to your lap. 

“As stained as I am now, I’m hardly the priestess I used to be. I can never be that pure original version of me, but I’ve long accepted that. I’m quite… content with my life right now.” 

“Content my foot,” Xiao huffed. “You were planning to stay alone for a lot longer if I hadn’t found you.” 

“Wait,” Paimon piques, “found you?” 

“It was purely by chance,” you explain. “Sometimes, I’ll venture into Liyue but under a cloaked disguise so I’m not recognized or detected. Some years ago, I accidentally ran into Xiao near Wangshuu Inn and spoke his name purely out of reflex. He heard me and well, it was safe to say he wasn’t exactly pleased as he tracked me down.” 

“I was frustrated,” he corrected. “I came to find out you were alive and hiding for eons after thinking you were long dead.” 

“I know.” 

“Imagine how Morax would feel if he knew!” 

“I know, Xiao,” you repeat. “That’s something I actually want to talk to you about.” Xiao stills in his rampage before his arms slowly uncurl and his posture takes on something uncomfortable. “You’ve kept my life a secret for some time now, omnienting the truth from the Archon you respect so much. I’m sorry for asking such a selfish request.” You turn to look at the slack faced boy before bringing your hand to cup his chin affectionately. Traveler felt like they were impeding on a parental moment as they tried to look anywhere but you both. “If you want to, you can tell him the truth now.” 

Xiao’s hand comes to quickly clasp around your wirst that started to fall away from his face. His mouth opens before it closes again. He was torn between what he’s been wanting to do for so long and the open permission to actually do it. 

“Are you… for certain?” 

“Yes,” you swallow a lump in your throat. “I’m certain.” Xiao quickly takes your wrist out of his grip before he’s rushing to stand up. He stands with such a force he teeters on his feet before going to the door. He didn’t want to wait a single moment longer. “Xiao!” He stops momentarily and he’s reminded just for a brief moment how you spoke his name like that to his back the first day he ever met you milinia ago. This time though, he spun to look you in the eyes. “Take this with you,” you had gotten up from your place and placed your hand out of a nearby window. Bringing it back in not longer after, an insect of glimmering colors hummed through the space and landed on his shoulder. 

“A dragonfly!” Paimon exclaims as Traveler also rose to their feet ready to follow Xiao out. Xiao just nods before dashing out of the door. Being inside your barrier always made it hard for him to teleport between locations, so he had to get outside first. “Traveler, lets catch up with Xiao!” Paimon says, pointing after him. 

“Yeah,” they agree before looking back to you as you stay by at the window. 

“Get going now,” you urge before Traveler was awkwardly bowing to you and running out, calling Xiao’s name to try and get him to ‘slow down and wait up!’ 

Once alone again, you felt a coil settle in your chest. It was the same tightness you felt when Xiao had found you. Found out you were alive as you confessed everything to his insistent pleading after following you into your barrier. You braced your hands on the window pane before swallowing a lump in your throat. 

You never got the proper chance to tell Morax how you felt about him in your original life. It was wrong for a mortal like you to fall in love with a god- much less in the middle of a world altering war. You would’ve been far more foolish to confess your feelings than you were when you let him go. 

The tight coil only grows barbed spikes as you remember the last time you ever saw him. Laying beneath you as you pinned him down. Standing before you as you demanded him away. Feeling the empty air as he vanished right before you eyes. 

Xiao had told you that he was the one responsible for destroying your home. Burning it all down and destroying everything in his sight all because you had died. He was so filled with anguish and you didn’t know if you fully believed it. Xiao insisted that Morax hasn’t cared for a single soul as much as he cared for you. Even know as he lived as Zhongli you still hadn’t been replaced. You didn’t know if you believed that either. 

“I won’t regret this… will I?” You ask no one as you feel yourself start to pathetically cry. “Weak,” you call yourself as you stand alone in the empty home you constructed for yourself long ago. 

“Did you find him yet?” Traveler asks Xiao as they met back up in the middle of Liyue. Zhongli wasn’t at the funeral parlor and Hu Tao didn’t know where he had meandered off to before they came looking for him. He wasn’t at his home nor was he listening to that storyteller at Three-Round Knockout like usual. “Last place is the harbor. He was at the bridge when we found him, so let’s go look.” 

They made haste to the bridge, but with crestfallen faces it was devoid of any kind of descended Archon. They were about to recollect their thoughts and try and figure out if there was any other place he frequented they could try when someone spoke up behind them. 

“You all seem troubled,” the familiar voice of Zhongli startled all three of them as they all whipped around to look at him. He looked as composed as usual, maybe even a bit better than yesterday. Maybe airing some of his grievances helped him out a bit after all. Still, who knows how the news Xiao had for him would effect his mental well being. 

“Rex- ahem- Zhongli, I need to speak with you.” In the heat of the moment, Xiao almost addressed him as Rex Lapis. Calling him that in the middle of the busy day would be a mistake, so it was good he caught himself. Zhongli looked at Xiao’s steadfast gaze and let it travel over to the blond and their companion who’s always had an issue keeping quiet. 

“You all look stiff, like something has happened.” 

“That’s Zhongli for you,” Paimon remarks. “Always perceptive.” 

“So, it’s as I surmised.” 

“I’ll explain everything, but it can’t be here.” Xiao stepped in. 

“I understand,” Zhongli sighs. “Come with me. We can talk outside the city away from any possible prying ears. I would prefer to not be cooped up indoors.” 

Just like the day before, Zhongli took the group out to the same river Xiao did; it was far from the people and now he stood cross-armed and ready for any sort of explanation. Traveler stayed quiet, knowing it was Xiao’s wish to say something first and made sure Paimon stayed quiet too. If anything, they were there to make sure nothing got out of hand- this was truly between them. 

“On behalf of someone else’s word, I’ve been keeping something from you. It’s about… It’s about, y/n.” 

“Xiao,” Zhongli bit and Xiao felt the words get stuck in his throat the moment your name left his mouth. Zhongli’s tone was already on edge. Just the mention of your name was enough to make the Archon nearly growl. The former divine being had been feeling the blanket of grief hold him down more this year than previous ones, the fact that he opened up about you just the day prior to the Traveler made old wounds throb. The last thing he wanted was to talk about you and make everything hurt all over again for another time. 

“I understand you don’t want to talk about her, but please hear me out.” 

“I will not entertain whatever thoughts you think you need to say. Y/n died a long time ago, you should leave her in the past.” His words were ironic since he himself couldn’t even do that. 

“You don’t understand.” 

“Xiao.” 

“Please, she-” 

“Enough!” 

“She’s still alive!” Xiao, fed up with his god not letting him get a word in, blurted it out. He inwardly recoiled, not wanting to just say it like that. He wanted to ease into it, try and slowly explain it so Zhongli would accept it easier. “Y/n, she’s… she’s alive.” 

There was silence so heavy it kept Xiao’s head down with an invisible force. His eyes stayed locked onto the boots of the one person who he respected the most. If he had never felt fear before this very moment, now would be the perfect introduction to it as he felt the burning gaze of Zhongli on his skull. 

“Is that an attempt at a ill-advised jest,” Zhongli’s voice put on a dangerous tone. It was understandable and justified however. Who would just believe that the one mortal an Archon fell in love with thousands of years ago was alive? It sounded ludacris and Zhongli did not enjoy feeling like a fool. 

“He’s telling the truth!” Paimon defended. Her mental restraint on not talking snapped at seeing Xiao look so meak under Zhongli’s overwhelming stature. Zhongli’s gaze shifted from Xiao to Paimon who squealed at the intensity before flying to hide behind the Traveler’s shoulder. His gaze was hard, stern, and angry. 

“What could you possibly know? You only just learned about who she was through me- without my telling you so, y/n would be only a memory shared between Xiao and myself alone.” 

“We know because we met her,” Traveler tell him. His fists clench and his jaw locks. 

Zhongli couldn't stand lies or liars, and yet he wanted everything the group in front of him said to be bold face lies. Zhongli trusted the Traveler and Xiao the most out of almost anyone he knew presently. He trusted them with his secret and they always tried their best in their own duties and goal to find their sibling. He respected them and trusted them with his life as both Zhongli and Rex Lapis. 

But did he trust them with your life? 

With the promise of you being alive coming from Xiao and backed up by the Traveler, the former Archon was notably torn. He didn’t want to get his hopes up and have this all be some sort of illusion. A trick of the mind that will leave him crumbling just like the day he first lost you. He didn’t thinking he could take that kind of anguish again. 

The Traveler stepped up and took Xiao’s hand in one of theirs and the other took hold of Zhongli’s. Paimon floated out from behind them as the blond made both of the immortal being bring their gazes up to them. 

“Xiao can take you to her just like he did with us. Y/n is waiting.” The curled fist of Zhongli’s lessened enough to wrap around the Traveler’s comforting touch. He looked back at Xiao who had been looking at the blond with such gratefulness for salvaging the situation before calling his attention back. His amber gaze had loosened up, but they weren’t the normal eyes of Zhongli. Morax was peeking around the irises of the tallest among the group. 

“This is no lie?” 

“I would never lie to you.” 

“Yes,” he breathed out, “I know.” He took a breath, feeling so embarrassingly out of character. It was then that he noticed the small insect that had been on Xiao this whole time. The trio had seemed to forget you sent them back with the dragonfly, but Zhongli knew. He sucked in a breath as he looked at it. “Take me to see her at once,” he commanded. Xiao wasted no time in teleporting all three of his companions to the edge of your barrier he had memorized the location of. 

Zhongli’s hand was dropped by the Outworlder as he walked to the edge of it. He could sense the familiar power from years past and reached his hand up to place his palm on it. It bent with his palm like a bubble before it pushed through, rippling the distorted view of cloaked foliage behind it. He hesitated, but a slight push at his back had him walking in- well, stumbling in. 

His face mirrored the Traveler’s when they had first seen the area behind the barrier. He could feel you everywhere and his body started moving before he could stop. Xiao and Traveler called after him as he took off into a sprint towards the house under the tree’s shadows. It felt like a ribbon had tied itself around his wrist and was yanking him forward. The dragonfly that had sat perched and patient on Xiao had taken off with Zhongli, acting as a guide as it flew in front of him. 

“Take me to her,” he pleaded with the buzzing bug. “Like last time,” he remembered how a similar bug had led him to you that first time. He felt so vulnerable as he ran into the house, barging through the doors and dashing through halls with abandon. Zhongli felt mortal with his emotions controlling his actions and his desperation oozing out of his very core. He should be in better control of himself, but he can’t control his body no matter how much he tries. “Take me to her!” 

The dragonfly had flown to a corridor that led into a vast open space. Stairs of three steps led out into an open garden with bushes, flowers, and carefully created paths to walk. It was a far cry from the overgrown, wild garden of the past. A stone canopy held up with four strong pillars covered the peaceful place from the sun and a small stone table sat among the paths intersection. 

His breath was labored, chest heaving as the dragonfly continued out into the garden and his pace slowed down until the insect had taken a turn just outside the cover of the canopy. The dragonfly stopped, perching itself on an outstretched finger and Zhongli almost collapsed. 

“Thank you,” you said to the dragonfly before it lifted off your finger and took off in a random direction, its job fulfilled. The sun bathed you in a golden light Zhongli could remember from eon’s ago and as he stared at you, a tear fell heavily and unstrained from his eye. 

You weren’t sure what to say as you looked at him, but when you saw that tear fall you were ready to immediately apologzie. You never got the chance. Instead you were frozen in surprise when he had somehow appeared directly in front of you and encased you to himself. 

Sealing his body to yours, his arm wrapped around your lower back and one of his hands pushed your head against his neck. His back curled inwards, bending you backward enough so that your back arched and he could form you to him even further. You were so warm and he felt himself choke as his nose took in your scent from atop your head. It was different from before, but he could still smell you in it- altered or not. It proved that you weren’t some fake, you were real.

Zhongli nuzzled into the top of your head, greedily taking in everything of you he could. You had placed your hands on his sides before sliding them up to his back. One of your hands snagged into the fabric of his coat and the other stayed wound around his back. He could feel you start to shake and he felt a bit better than he wasn’t the only one overly-emotional. 

“You’re alive,” he whispers into your hair, voice cracking enough the wind could easily pick it up and take it somewhere far away. You just nodded into his chest as he somehow gripped you to him tighter, closer. “You’re alive,” he repeats like he’s trying to convince himself this isn’t a dream. 

“Yes,” you sob. “Yes.” 

As the two of you stood under the sun in a garden different from the one in his memories, he took no notice of the three other figures who had finally caught up to him after taking off on his own. Xiao felt a weight lift off his chest at seeing you two finally reunited and Traveler gently took his head in comfort. He had no chance to get embarrassed at the action, instead he just squeezed it back as he watched his long-seperated family cling to each other. 

Xiao felt whole again for this one moment and he knew that you both did too. 

“I’ve missed you so,” Zhongli confesses into your locks and you almost laugh if it wasn’t choked up on your dying sobs turned to sad sniffles. “Oh, how I’ve missed you.” 

“I’m sorry,” you sniff as you let your arms slowly start to retract from him. He knew that things needed to be discussed and explanations needed to start somewhere, but he was reluctant to let go. His arms released you, but his palms were quick to gently cup your cheeks instead to tilt your face up to him. Your eyes were swollen and the whites of them irritated due to your tears. He looked no better.

Zhongli ran his gloved thumbs over your cheeks and across your eyes when you closed them when he got too close with his touch. He planted his feet between yours before pushing his forehead on yours and choosing to bask in your sun bathed body before anything close to closure ensues. 

“Um,” you break the silence, but like last time, nothing else gets out before your interrupted. 

“Call me by my name.” 

“What?” 

“My name,” he repeats. “Please.” He didn’t want to hear his mortal name or any of his other countless name and titles he’s collected over the years.  No. His ears yearned for the name you knew him by. After all this time, he just wanted you to call him-

“Morax.” 

Zhongli collapsed at last. His hands that cupped your cheeks dropped as did he. He came to his knees in front of you, his empty hands easily latching onto yours in lieu of your cheeks. His head hung as he sat- kneeled- at your feet. You shuffled in astonishment and shock as he took your hands and pushed them against his forehead pleadingly. 

“Again.” 

“Morax,” you whispered and he could hear the embarrassment in your tone. He chuckled as a shiver ran through his entire being. 

“Once more.” 

“You’re being spoiled.” 

“I think I’m more than qualified.” He hears you chuckle and he could perish right here in this very instant without regret at the sound. It was just as he remembered.

“Morax.” 

“This time,” he starts speaking as he feels you slowly start to join him on the ground. Your hands had twisted in his grasp to hold them back. “This time,” he starts again, “you’ll stay with me, won’t you?” 

You pull both of your encased hands to your lips, kissing his gloves and he wishes he took them off. His wish must’ve been yours as well since you slowly started to remove his gloves and revealed the dark, golden imbedded skin he kept hidden to the public eye. Your eyes remained closed as you worked, like you had dreamed of doing this so many times you didn’t need your sight. Once again, you placed your lips on his knuckles and it was like his skin was alight with lava. 

Reopening your eyes, you adjusted your hands so that your fingers were now interlaced, fingertips resting on top of each other’s hands as your palms were on the warm ground to lean closer to him. You push your forehead back against his, breathing in his air that became tangled with your own. Smiling so softly at him that he released one of your intertwined hands to push his fingers into your hair behind your ear and pull you even closer to him. He wondered if he could meld your very existence into his own and become the earth itself among the garden.  

“I’ll stay until you don’t want me,” you declare.  

“I’ll never not want you, my dear. We have too much time to make up for and many stories to share, should time continue to allow it.”

“Time is nothing but a concept to me now,” you chuckle bitterly. You would tell him about it all later, but now wasn’t the time. It would dampen the mood too bitterly for your tastes.  

A contract was made under the sun behind a barrier that had kept you concealed and hidden from his faze. Your intertwined hands were the signatures finalizing that contract. Zhongli wasn’t ever going to let you slip through his fingers again- he promised himself that as he held tighter onto your warmth and you to his. 

Zhongli couldn’t wait to finally give you the hairstick he had held onto for a millenia in your memory. Even more, he couldn’t wait to see it glimmer under your locks of hair since there was nothing and no one holding you back anymore.  

a/n: pls god like/reblog/tell me your thoughts. this is babies first genshin fic and it's got so many words im so anxious i could throw up. i only edited this like one and a half times bc words became mushy and my eyeballs started melting. pls excuse the shift between past and present tense, my eyeballs - as aforementioned- are melting

if @scara7102 sees this it wouldn't let me tag you uh oh

ok i know i have like 6 asks in my box right now, but i keep having a bunch of random ideas lately.

like imagine rough sex with childe. he's all stressed because of work, so you offer to help him out and he just manhandles tf outta you (✨consensually, ofc✨)

warnings: dom!childe and sub!fem anatomy/pronouns reader

rough sex, marking, a little choking, some dacryphilia, overstimulation, cussing, petnames (childe calls reader princess, babe, and good girl), size kink. also let it be known, anytime there is penetration, they're using condoms. we promote safe sex here ♡ aftercare at the end bc i'm a soft bitch idc!

"holy shit, princess." childe gasped, chuckling as his fingers pressed into your hips. "how are you still so fucking tight?"

your hands gripped the blankets beneath you, balling the fabric into your fists. it was extremely hot with childe's body pressing yours into the bed roughly. you could feel your hair sticking to the sides of your face from the sweat lining your skin.

you were still so sensitive from all of the rough foreplay earlier in the evening. he fingered you while mouthing at your clit until you couldn't distinguish when you actually were coming.

childe snapped you back to reality as you felt his hand pressed against the column of your neck. his fingers gently squeezed the sides, nothing to cause pain, only to restrict your airflow briefly.

you let out a quiet squeak as your attention turned back on him. "hey, what are you thinking about, pretty girl? don't get distracted while i'm fucking you, now."

you parted your lips to speak as he shoved his cock deeper inside you. the tufts of hair lining his pubic bone swiped over your oversensitive clit perfectly as you writhed under him.

he slowly let go of your throat, opting to grip your chin instead. "i was-oh i was thinking about you eating me out-!" you ended with a gasp as childe angled his hips, pressing impossibly deeper. "fuck, you're gonna break me-" your eyes began to water with crystal clear tears as childe cooed.

"oh how pretty.." he wiped the tears that spilled from your eyes with his thumb. "you can take it, can't you? i thought you wanted- fuck...i thought you wanted to be my good girl? make me feel better after my shitty day at work?" childe reminded you as you bit your lip, reminding yourself of your promise.

you gingerly nodded as he grinned, moving your fists from where they were balled up above your head. he pinned your wrists down with one of his hands, reminding you just how large he was.

"look at how small you are, babe. you're so cute." he almost went soft for a moment before he suddenly pulled out. childe gripped your waist firmly before moving you around on the bed as he wished. his hands were large against your body, covering more of your skin than your own could. and he lifted you with such ease, it almost made you wonder what he really did for a living.

until he pushed you face-first into the bed. he raised your hips up, forcing your back to arch deeply before sliding back in.

"childe-!" you cried out, muffled by the bed sheets as he firmly gripped your hips, beginning to pick up the previous rhythm.

"do you feel good, princess? hm?" he grinned as you nodded breathlessly against the blankets.

"yes- fuck- i want more! harder!" you begged him, thighs shaking slightly. childe swore he saw hearts in his vision listening to you beg for him.

"you're even dirtier than i am. how adorable." he obliged, however, thrusting into your pussy faster than he had before, hips now angled perfectly to hit the spot he knew you loved.

you moaned into the bed helplessly, held down firmly by childe as you begged to come.

"you have been a good girl..." he went quiet, pretending he was pondering the thought as he suddenly reached one of his hands down to play with your clit.

your hips jumped when he made contact with the bud, hearing him laugh behind you.

"go ahead, pretty girl. come on my cock for me." childe coaxed as he rubbed harsh circles into your clit. combined with the stimulation to your front and deep inside you, it wasn't long before your thighs began to shake as you reached your high.

you collapsed further into the mattress before childe once again changed your position for you.

now you found yourself on his lap, your back against his chest with his cock still deep inside of you.

he kept one hand spanned over your throat, pinning you to him to prevent you from falling forward as he continued to thrust into you. you cried out, nails digging into his thighs lightly.

"childe! i can't! i just came!" you gasped, writhing and squirming on his lap to no avail. he held you tightly against him, and you could tell even now he was holding back somewhat.

he kept thrusting up into you, leaning his head down to kiss your shoulders. he moved the hand on your throat just slightly so he could kiss your throat.

he suddenly bit down gently, sucking at the skin beneath your ear as you squirmed. "no not there- i have to- they're going to see and-"

"let them. i want everyone to know who spoils you fucking rotten." childe grinned behind you, continuing to place marks up and down the column of your throat. he trailed some across your shoulders and collarbones too, all while pressing himself into you.

you could tell he was getting close by his uneven thrusts as you tried to move your hips down against his.

"i'm gonna come soon, pretty girl." he warned you anyways, though he could tell you knew by your movements to aid him.

his hips suddenly stilled inside of you, slowly humping into you as his hand went lax around your throat.

as a result, your head fell back against his shoulder, hearing his soft breaths and groans in your ear.

he slowly eased himself out, being gentle with your sensitive pussy as he laid you down on the bed.

he tied the condom, throwing it away in the trash before pulling his boxers back on and disappearing into the bathroom.

he was back in seconds with a wash cloth and tub of water, kneeling on the floor. he pulled you towards the edge of the bed as you laid down exhausted.

"deja vu, huh?" he teased, referring to your position as your face heated up. he slowly moved the washcloth over your sensitive areas, clearing away any slick left on you.

he was careful with you, despite the roughness he was capable of and demonstrated nearly five minutes prior.

"all clean." he smiled at you, kissing your forehead as he tucked you into the bed, removing the dirty blankets and replacing them with new ones. as soon as he laid down next to you, your eyes threatened to close, cuddling into his chest, feeling his soft breaths against your neck as he lulled you to sleep.

how jjk men would react if they found out you sh…

Warning(s): cw//self harm, graphic depictions, mentions of depression, anxiety, sensitive content, angst/comfort

-> if you or anyone you know is struggling with self-harm, suicidal thoughts, depression, etc., know that you aren’t alone. as someone who used to struggle with these things myself, i understand how difficult it can be, but know that you are strong and you are loved. and thank you for the ask, this is a very important topic and i appreciate the vulnerability of the request. sending all the possible love in the world to all of you.

gojo, geto, nanami, toji, choso, sukuna

satoru gojo: satoru has an incredible sense of sight, thanks to his gift of the six eyes, as well as very keen observation skills. he picks up on little habits you harbor very quickly during the beginning of your relationship. you always choose to wear long-sleeved clothing, even when it’s warm, and you tug at your sleeves as though you are desperately trying to conceal a certain part of yourself from the outside world, from him. he doesn’t understand why at first. the thought crosses his mind that you just aren’t comfortable in sleeveless clothing, but you’ve shown him pictures of yourself from a decade ago when you’d wear variations of different tank tops, short sleeves, and more. he doesn’t understand what changed somewhere along the line. perhaps your sense of style has shifted? maybe you don't like your arms? (he can't understand how because he finds them to be the most gorgeous arms he's ever seen).

but no, something is nagging at him in the back of his head, churning the contents of his gut as though there is something he needs to know, to see that you were hiding, and when the moment unveiled itself, he instantly saw. 

you’re in your kitchen while satoru watches you from the other side of the island, leaning over and gazing at your movements with a soft smile. his blue eyes scattered across your body, admiring you while simultaneously searching for any clue, any answer to his hovering questions.

“where’d i put the containers,” you murmur to yourself in the midst of making lunch for the week, moving about your space rather slowly. 

satoru offers his own help, pointing a slender finger over to the space above your head. “did you check that cabinet?” he asks.

you turn over your shoulder and quirk your brow. “oh, do you live here now? suddenly know where everything is?” you ask playfully, a small smile rising to your lips as satoru chuckles. 

“not yet,” he winks. “but i sure am working on it, though. you know i have to make myself familiar with the space in case we share it someday.”

“is that so?”

“or, of that doesn't work out you could always live with me. i’d love to have you.”

“we’ve been together for three weeks, satoru.”

“yeah, but what does that matter when it comes to loveeee,” he pouts and you giggle, shaking your head as you turn back to reach for the cabinet. you stand on your tiptoes and reach out, sleeve of your sweet draping down to your elbow.

satoru is quick to his feet to help you, though you’re more than capable, when he catches the sight of what looks like a scar streaking over the inside of your wrist. his face falls and his brows angle, marching over to you quickly with a look of urgency on his face.

you don’t register how fast he is moving until you feel him behind you. you turn and look up, caught off guard by the way his eyes had hardened and his pupils shrank. your hand stalls on the cabinet handle, the scars on your arm completely slipping your mind momentarily.

“satoru? you okay?”

he doesn’t answer, grasping your wrist in his hand gently and pulling it down from above you. your eyes flicker up to the movement, and when you realize what is happening, your heart sinks. your eyes go wide and you try to tug your arm away, but satoru’s grip tightens slightly, extending your arm by your wrist to display the inside of your forearm before him. 

he thinks his vision is blurring over, his heart ringing in his ears, his breaths quickening as his eyes detail over the row of rigid scars lining from your inner elbow up to your wrist. his world collapses around him, lips stretching into a disbelieving grimace as his wild eyes survey the damage. some of those scars look newer than others, scabbing over with specs of purple, while the others are far older. 

you panic, trying to tug away again, but satoru’s grip on you is too secure. a lump forms in your throat as you search for things to say, anything to say that could take your boyfriend’s attention away, that could excuse the sight before him as something else. “s-satoru, wait-” you stammer, your voice weaker than you had intended it to be. 

satoru looks like he can’t hear you, nose flaring as he stares, and stares, and stares, and suddenly, your vulnerability is bare naked before him, on display for him to judge, to belittle, to curl his brows at and determine as pathetic and weak. you can feel yourself about to cry already, shaken by this sudden attention.

“satoru,” you whisper, arm trembling within his grasp.

“what is this?” he breathes out so quietly, his voice betraying himself and hardly reaching over a brush through the wind. when you do not answer, those pained eyes are on you, tormented by the sight he has just witnessed. “(y/n), what is this?”

you feel small, avoiding his eyes and looking all over the floor. “i- it’s nothing,” you murmur.

“nothing?” he repeats, as though he has been burned by your response. the white haired man quickly seeks out your other wrist, reaching down to your other side as you try to turn away, but he, of course, manages to seize it and extend it like your other arm and roll up that sleeve. the same row of scars litter your beautiful skin.

satoru’s a mess, frightened, confused, devastated. this is what you had been hiding from him all this time? “this isn’t fucking nothing, (y/n), they’re all over you! what did you do?”

you still can’t respond, you can’t muster up an excuse, you can’t do anything. satoru’s concern is far too overbearing, his gaze too intense, and his hold on you too secure. it feels like he has you laid out on a slab before him, stripped of your clothes as he examines your body with contempt.

he’s disgusted. he’s ashamed, you think. 

amid his grief, he catches the terrified look in your eye, your lips tugged downward as if to prevent yourself from crying. you look so scared.

how could he have not seen this sooner, that you’re hurting? that you’re hurting yourself? 

“baby, what did you do?” he repeats, softer this time as he leans down to look at you, your body trembling in his hold. his thumbs graze your inflamed skin, hesitant to touch you for fear that you may break.

“please don’t,” you breathe out in a huff, voice wobbling as you scrunch your eyes closed. “please, don’t look. just forget you saw it, please.”

“forget i-?” satoru has to stop himself from lashing out poorly, from allowing his emotions to overcome him in what he understands is clearly your moment of need. “how could you ask me to do something like that? (y/n), your arms, baby!”

“satoru, please-” you shake your head. you want to shrink away, to hide, to vanish into thin air. “i don’t wanna talk about it. please.”

“(y/n),” he exhales, closing his eyes to gather himself. “(y/n),” he repeats softly, hands releasing your wrists slowly and sliding up your arms to delicately hold your shoulders. “we can’t not talk about this. you have to tell me what’s been going on. you have to, baby, you have to understand how scared I am right now. help me understand. let me help you, let me take on whatever burden you’re carrying, please, I’ll do anything as long as it means you’re not hurting yourself.”

his hands move to your neck, cupping over the skin as he ducks his head down to look at you more clearly. 

“i can’t stand the thought that you’ve been- and i haven’t-” satoru was stumbling now, throat straining as the urge to cry rose. “why didn’t you come to me? i’m right here for you, (y/n), i always have been. why didn’t you tell me?”

“...it’s embarrassing,” you manage to say, your voice fragile, on the verge of breaking. you can feel your boyfriend’s eyes peering into you even with your own eyes closed. “didn’t want you to see… I didn’t wanna be a burden.”

satoru’s heart is breaking for you, hurt that you could even think of yourself as a burden to him. “have i- have i done or said anything to you to make you feel that way?” he asks genuinely, and you cringe, turning your head to the side to open your eyes.

“no, of course not.”

“then why would you think that, baby?”

you shrug helplessly, tears welling into your eyes. satoru sees you, all of you, his heart thrumming to capture the pain you feel and to lift it from your chest, to help you breathe even just a little bit. he releases a weighted sigh, one of sadness, of love, of heartache for you, and he’s pulling you into him as your arms dangle limply at your sides. 

you scrunch your eyes and immediately break down into him, sobbing into his shirt as his warm hands wash over your frame and cradle your head to him, the muscles in his face tight with anguish. he holds onto you like he’s horrified that you will fade away within his arms. 

“i’m just so tired, toru,” you cry into his chest, dampening the fabric of his shirt. “i’m sorry.”

satoru doesn’t respond, afraid that if he speaks, he’ll end up crying too. you’re his girl, his beautiful, loving girl, and the fact that you have done such harm to yourself is incomprehensible to him. if you love him so, how can you hate yourself enough to have done this?

“how long?” is all he can ask you, breath heaving into your hair and ear. you hesitate, for he already seems so wounded by his discovery. “tell me.”

“...two years…”

he’s crushed. how did he not see sooner? how could he have been so blind after having bragged about being able to see everything so clearly? how could he have left you like this?

he holds you tighter, digging his head into the crook of your neck and hunching over, your eyes now seeing over the curve of his broad shoulder. 

“i’m sorry, baby,” he apologizes to you in turn, fingers curling into your hair as he holds your scalp. “i'm sorry I wasn’t paying attention.”

you’re confused as to why he’s apologizing to you since the entire thing is your fault. satoru has a tendency to take on your emotions, piling them onto his own weight of carrying the title of the strongest. you never understood why he did so naturally and willingly, and why even now as you stood limply in his arms, he’s crying for the things you did to yourself.

he pulls away with shiny red eyes, gazing down into your shiny red eyes and tear stained cheeks. you’re so beautiful, he thinks. he hates that such beauty has been suffering in so much silence.

“(y/n), I love you more than anything in this goddamn world. please don’t- don’t keep doing this to yourself. if you’re hurting, come to me. hurt me if you have to lash out, but don’t hurt yourself beautiful.”

“i would never even think of hurting you, satoru.”

“then don’t think of doing it to yourself,” he says firmly, and you press your lips together. 

“…i-i don’t know how to… to stop,” you mumble, and he’s taking your hands in his and kissing them gently.

“i’ll help you. we can get you help, baby, I promise. just promise me, please,” he begs you, holding your hands close to his heart. “you come to me when you feel like doing that, okay? you come to me. and I’ll do whatever I can. let me help you. let me be there for you. i won’t let you push me out, (y/n).”

you're crying again, tears streaking over your face as satoru’s love captures you within his words, within his warmth as he forces you to understand that you are not alone, and never will be. 

satoru kisses your hands again. his lips reach your cheek, and his hand comes to tuck your head into his shoulder again, holding you and telling you that you have him to go to when your world grows dark.

geto suguru: if suguru could sum you up into one word, he would say that you're his universe.

everything in his life he does for the sake of you and his girls, for the sake of keeping you safe and making you happy. your happiness and your comfortability are the only things that suguru prioritizes above all else, making them his very goal to serve each and every day.

suguru's not the most stable, you know that and he knows that himself. he has his off days, where he falls quiet and the world around him numbs itself and the noise becomes a muffle in his ears until you step into view, giving him a smile and wrapping his big frame up in your small arms, your voice whispering to him and breaking through the fog. you're his sanctuary. you're his safe place, and he loves you so much. he owes his entire life to you, therefore ensuring that you feel just as loved as you make him feel is very important to him.

so when he catches sight of the scars on your stomach one day by accident, when you lift up mimiko to sit on your shoulder as nanako jumps up for you to pick her up to, and her shoe kicks up your shirt from your waist momentarily, suguru freezes.

are you hurt? did someone do this to you? did you do this to yourself?

countless thoughts are racing through suguru's mind as he stares at you in a daze, watching you laugh so joyfully along with the girls as though no trouble plagues you.

but there is. you've just been hiding it. hiding it far too well.

his mind is elsewhere for the rest of the day, unsure of if he had been imagining things or not. he knows you so well, or at least he thinks he does. how have you been hiding those marks littering your lower abdomen? how had he missed them?

he thinks back to the moments you two were intimate and recalls that you never wanted to remove the tanktop you wore or let him kiss further than your ribs. he recalls the days you all went to the beach and you kept a white shirt over your swimsuit or elected to wear a onepiece. he recalls how quickly you change when he's with you, your back turned to him as you rush to throw something on over your upper body.

the signs... they're all there. you've been hiding yourself from him, but why? what have you been doing? have you truly been harming yourself, or is that thought a trick of suguru's worst fears?

he tries to keep himself calm around you and the girls for the remainder of the day until they are put to sleep and the two of you are alone again.

you sit on the edge of your shared bed, rubbing lotion over your arms with your back facing suguru again. he watches you carefully, back resting against the headboards and hazel eyes trained on your figure as though you aren't real.

he waits for the proper moment, waiting for you to crawl up and curl under his side, his arm subconsciously wrapping over your waist as your head lays on his chest. he stares at the ceiling for a moment, thinking as weighty silence overcomes you, then he's cautiously speaking.

"(y/n)?"

the soft call of your name brings your head up to peer at him curiously, blinking innocently. he turns down to look at your face and his heart clenches. while he knows that he knows what he saw, he doesn't want to believe it. he doesn't want to think that you, such a selfless and caring person for him, would hurt yourself.

you hum up at him, wondering what he has called you for. you see the pensive look in his face, the subtle knit in his brow as he stares at you, gears in his head turning. "yeah sugu?" you say gently.

he doesn't want to ask, but he has to. he doesn't want the confirmation, but he needs to know.

"i want to ask you a question..." he says, and you grow slightly befuddled.

"...okay?" you start. "is it serious?"

"yeah, it is," he admits, and you suddenly grow nervous, immediately catching an idea of what this could be about. you don't like the look on his face, the way he appears so serious.

"...alright," you mumble, suddenly meek.

the black haired man stares for a few more moments, just looking at you, taking in your the features he feel so deeply in love with, the features that bring him comfort and peace. "i saw something earlier, when you were holding mimiko," he begins softly, thumb caressing your back to ease you into the conversation.

you feel your heart jolt anxiously, trying to keep a straight face so as to not give your nerves away, but knowing suguru, he could likely already tell that you're getting antsy.

you lift your head to look at him, hand resting over his chest, and his eyes follow you smoothly. his eyes are focused, lips in a firm line.

"your shirt lifted, and i saw your stomach. i saw some marks. a lot of them, actually," he says, and you still completely, like a deer caught in headlights. his hand presses gently into your back, trying to keep you present with him as his concerns grow worse when he sees you stiffen against him. he frowns, denial still taking hold of him. "(y/n), please tell me those aren't what i think they are," he sighs heavily.

you feel caught.

you knew that suguru would find out at some point or another, but that didn't make this moment any less horrifying for you. it's so quiet in your room, so isolating, no background noise of the girls giggling or the distant buzz of the tv to help weaken the intensity of this point in time. you feel like a spotlight is shining overhead, an audience awaiting eagerly for you to reveal your secrets to the crowd.

suguru sits up slightly, his calmness gradually shifting into terrified incredulity. your eyes are on his face but your gaze is elsewhere, far off. you look uncomfortable, stuck, and no explanation hits suguru's ears.

"(y/n)," he says your name again, looking desperately down at you. "tell me i'm wrong."

you wish you could, you really do, but you can't lie to suguru. he knows you too well, he loves you too much, and to lie to him would be like denying his understanding of who you are.

you feel your skin flush with shame and anxiety, heartbeat likely loud enough for your boyfriend to hear.

you worry. you worry about your boyfriend's judgment, for his reaction. is he going to be angry with you?

"hey," he snaps you out of your daze with the drag of your chin, forcing you to meet his eyes as he stares at you helplessly. you look at him and frown, ashamed that you are the reason he looks so pained. "what's going on?"

the question comes out so delicately, it makes your heart break. a whisp of understanding blends into his tone with empathy, yet a crushing sense of sadness and guilt that overpowers the aforementioned emotions. you struggle to look him in his kind eyes, dreading his consolation that you feel you don't deserve.

"talk to me, (y/n)."

you chew angrily on the inside of your lip, looking down at your finger as you pick at his shirt. he watches your brows furl, an array of different feelings capturing your features. "i was gonna tell you about it..." you murmur, and suguru is floored.

"what?" he breathes out as though he has no more air. you wince, lowering your head. "you-" he pauses, mind jumping from one place to another. "you did that to yourself?"

"i'm sorry, i-" you can feel your throat growing tight. "i've been trying to-"

"to stop?" he tries to finish for you, grasping for any kind of explanation. he's devastated, not only because you've been harming yourself, but because you've been so busy looking after him and the girls that he hasn't noticed. you're the one who always comforts him, but while you've been doing that, you've been aching on the inside and trying to hide it.

you nod meekly when he concludes for you. "i just- i thought the feelings would go away, so i didn't say anything, but they're just getting worse and i don't know what to do anymore and i only feel better after i..."

"(y/n)," he stops you gently, his heart shattering upon listening to you ramble, spilling out the things you have been holding onto for what he assumes to have been so long. "you've been dealing with this all this time?"

"...it's on and off," you confess. "some days are better than others, but..."

suguru finds your words familiar, for he often finds himself in the exact same mindset; feeling functional and confident some days, and others, not so much, but you're the reason why he's able to handle his bad days, yet he hasn't been the same for you for as long as the two of you have been together.

he feels almost sick. he loves you to death. you're his everything, but you've been in pain, and he hasn't seen it.

the way he's looking at you now makes you feel guilty, remorseful, embarrassed. you know you should have told him, but you could never find the strength to. you had always been too scared. and the longer you self-harm, the less you are willing to admit to yourself and to your boyfriend that you have a problem.

you're shocked, though, when suguru's hands tighten over you and his face grows bitter, not with you but with himself. "how could i have been so stupid?" he grumbles, distraught. "and so selfish? all this time, you-"

"no, suguru, please, it's not your fault," you try to tell him.

"i should have seen, baby, i should have noticed something sooner. and all this time, instead you've been looking after me when i should have been looking after you."

"don't say that, suguru," you shift, looking sadly into his eyes. "it's my fault. i'm the one who did this, i'm the one who's to blame. i'm the stupid and selfish one, not you."

suguru's frown deepens, sad eyes looking over your face. you blame and belittle yourself just as easily as suguru does, and he can't stand it. he can't stand to see you like this, to be so aware of hurt before him. he wants, no, he needs to take all that pain away from you. he needs to exorcize it, rid your body of it, cast it away so that you can be happy from now until the rest of time. he needs you to be okay.

"i swear on my life, (y/n)," he begins firmly, eyes boring straight into yours, holding your cheek. "i will do everything in my power to get you through this. whatever it takes, no matter how long it takes, i will be here for you. you're not alone, you understand? you don't need to pretend for me. the girls love you- god i love you so fucking much, and i can't stomach to think of the times you've suffered in silence for my sake. i'm no good if you're no good, baby. i need to know these things, i need to be able to help you."

your nose twitches and your jaw clenches as you look into him, breathing growing unstable. suguru has always been so generous and so loving. he has a way with his words and how safe they make you feel even during your worst moments.

"but what if i can't do it, sugu?" you whisper, his thumb catching the tear that leaks from the corner of your eye. "what if i'm not strong enough to get better?"

"you are strong enough," he affirms confidently. "more than strong enough. and when you feel weak, lean on me. but you have to promise me something."

you nod slowly, mutely, keeping his gaze as he stares at you lovingly, wistfully.

"promise me you won't do it," his words come out as a quick, hasty breath. his brows curl further upward, his desperation plain on his pretty face. "promise me you'll let me know as soon as you want to, but don't hurt yourself again, (y/n). don't do it. i'm begging you. you don't deserve that pain."

though you are unsure if you can even make that promise to yourself, you force yourself to try. for suguru's sake. "okay," you mumble, and he sighs, kissing you softly and pulling you to his chest to whisper sweet nothings as his hands soothe over your stomach and your back.

nanami kento: you twist your fingers around each other as you sit in the living room while kento cooks in the kitchen. you're nervous, more nervous than you have been about anything in your entire life, but you know that you need to rip off this bandaid to approach your boyfriend about such a serious matter.

recently, you find yourself returning to the old habit that you believed to have been relinquished. you thought that you had gotten better, that the urge to self harm had completely gone away after having spent so much time in therapy trying to heal, but recently, you've been feeling down again, useless, angry with yourself. you didn't want to tell nanami at first because you didn't think that your current mood would go beyond feeling depressed, but now that you've started scratching away at your thighs and your arms again, you know that you need to let him know what's going on. you know that you can't go on like this anymore.

but you have no idea what to say.

nanami has been nothing but doting toward you, bringing you flowers every morning, making your meals, ensuring that you remember to schedule doctor's appointments or to keep yourself warm when it's cold out- the man's life revolves around your comfortability, and while you know he would be far more offended if you keep this to yourself, you're horrified to see his reaction when you tell him that you relapsed.

nanami is well aware of your past difficulties with your mental health, and he always tells you that if you are ever in a dark space again, he needs to know. even so, he hasn't been with you when you're like this. the two of you got together after the multiple therapy visits that helped you to shift mindsets, so now that you feel this way again, and while in a relationship with nanami no less, you feel petrified.

you don't even notice when he rounds the kitchen counter to make his way over to the dining table, setting down two plates of food. he looks over and catches the way you stare ahead blankly, lost in thought. you've been doing a lot of that lately and he wonders if something is wrong.

nevertheless, he knows that if something is bothering you, you'll tell him. "sweetheart, dinner's ready," he calls out, and you snap your head over to him, his voice bringing you out of your daze.

you stand wordlessly, movements somewhat robotic, as you slowly make your way over to the table. "thanks, ken," you say softly, lacking your usual energy, and at this point, your partner knows for certain that something is off.

he watches you carefully as you sit down, pushing in your seat for you and pecking your forehead before sitting down next to you. "tell me how your day was," he starts, brushing off his hands and reaching one out to rest one on your knee as he always did at the table. he's prying, you can tell, trying to learn if something that happened throughout the day affected your mood.

your heart is hammering loudly, your eyes stuck to the plate and unable to look up at him. "it was okay," you respond.

"just okay?" he questions and you nod slowly. "did something happen?"

you flicker your eyes up to his brown ones suddenly, caught off guard by the question. he sees the questioning in your eyes and replies accordingly.

"you seem to be a little off, this evening, that's all."

you hum, unsure of how to respond to his observation. you look away again, contemplating. just say it, you think. just tell him, just get it over with.

as you struggle against yourself, nanami only grows more concerned. you don't confirm or deny his comment, and the way you turn away has him wondering if he's done something to hurt you.

"did i do something wrong, darling?" he asks.

you furrow your brows and quickly shut down the idea. "no, no. not at all, ken. it's nothing you did."

"then... there is something troubling you?"

you stall a bit more now that you're on the spot, cursing the fact that kento is always so quick to pick up on the smallest changes in your demeanor.

"(y/n)?" he calls you when you don't answer.

"i have to tell you something," you say abruptly. you see nanami's brows raise ever so slightly, soft brown eyes looking over your face in an attempt to read the situation before you tell him anything. "it's... a lot. so i need you to just... bear with me. and please don't be mad."

nanami's brow twitches slightly as he looks at you, head tilting. he grabs the bottom of his chair and shuffles it closer to you, leaning over slightly and running his hand over where it resides on your knee.

"i could never be mad at you," he tells you earnestly, as though it's the most honest thing he's said in the world. "what's the matter, my love?"

god, he's so sweet to you it makes you physically ill that you have to break this news to him.

"...do you remember when we talked about... um..." your voice fades off, nanami's concentrated gaze only making you more nervous for what his reaction will be.

"take your time," he encourages you, and you only feel worse.

you return to chewing on the inside of your lip anxiously, picking at your shirt under the table. the blonde man beside you is ever so patient, allowing you to gather your thoughts before you verbalize them.

"...um...it's.... about what we talked about a while ago..."

"...and that would be regarding?"

"my... past."

nanami furrows his brows, still not quite understanding. "i apologize, honey, what about your past?"

just rip the bandaid. just rip the bandaid.

"my past with self-harming," you rush out, and the weighty silence that follows is enough to make you want to sink into the floor and let it swallow you whole.

you can feel his eyes burning into you, processing what you just told him, and all you can hear is the pound of your heart in your ears as his hand stills upon your knee.

nanami, on the other hand, is completely shocked by your revelation. while he understands that your relapsing has always been a very realistic possibility, he never wanted to entertain the idea that it could very much so happen- at least, not while he's around.

a sense of fear grips him. are you going to tell him that you relapsed? have you already hurt yourself? has he failed to be there when it happened??

"did you-" he doesn't know what he wants to ask, or how. he hates that he is already jumping to conclusions, but the way you are structuring this conversation with him only leads him to believe the worst. "what happened?"

your head hangs low and your fingers taut on your shirt, lips tightening as they press together. you can hear the disbelief in his voice already, and it breaks you.

"i relapsed."

the brown-eyed man clenches his jaw, falling completely silent once more to not react in a way that may worsen your state. you feel his hand tighten into a fist over top of your leg as he lowers his head, rubbing his eyes with his fingers and inhaling sharply. you feel like a child who is awaiting punishment as you look at his hunched state, a million questions of what he will do next running through your mind.

you hate to do this to him. nanami already has so much on his plate, you know this is the last thing he needs to be stressing over. you wish you could be okay for him. it's not his fault that your mind takes you to these places, and you don't want him to bear responsibility as though it is his doing. even so, you already know that he will because that's the type of man kento is. that's the type of boyfriend kento is.

you wait a few more moments in unbearable muteness. after what feels like forever, kento lifts his head again and rests his chin on his fist, elbow propped on his knee. he's looking to the side, deep in anguished thought. he no longer looks surprised, but rather guilty and frustrated. "when?" is the first thing he asks.

"yesterday," you answer dejectedly, and he almost jerks, his body twitching in reaction. "...are you mad?"

nanami looks at you and his hardened expression immediately softens into something melancholy. "no- no, of course not, (y/n), no," he shakes his head as if the notion is unfathomable, releasing his fist to cup your knee again more securely. "i will never be angry with you for what you're going through. never. no, i'm not mad."

you nod quickly, a meek sense of relief and sorrow taking over you, a weight heaving from your chest upon letting it out. "okay," you whimper.

"come here, my darling," he coaxes you softly, opening and grabbing your hand from under the table delicately to lead you to stand over him. his hand guides over the small of you're back once you're up, leading you to sit on his lap with your back pressed against the table and your legs dangling over one side of his chair.

he holds your forearms gently, looking up at you with sad, understanding eyes. "are you comfortable showing me?" he murmurs so intimately, easing you into his warm consolation.

you don't nod or answer him verbally. instead, you wordlessly roll up the sleeve of your sweater to reveal angry red scratch lines running up your inner forearm. nanami's lips curl in pain as though he can feel the sting of your scars, holding your arm gently for him to look over it.

the sight kills him, though he tries to keep his cool. this isn't about him, it's about you, but goodness, the image of the scars on your beautiful skin makes him hurt like no other pain he's experienced.

"is this all of it?" he asks you, and you shake your head.

"there's some on my thighs," you mutter, looking down.

he nods. "alright," he sighs. "alright."

"...i know you have so much on your plate already... i just-"

"don't. don't even," he stops you, eyes still roaming over your irritated skin. nanami usually commends himself for remaining collected in times of crisis, but he's desperately fighting a part of him that wants to yell out and cry for the sake of you.

he imagines you struggling with this on your own, long before he came into your life, and the thought makes him cringe to picture just how far this must have gotten. these scratches he is surveying now already look bad enough. were the other ones worse?

"(y/n), you know this isn't okay," he looks up at your face and sees how you are avoiding his eyes. you look so small compared to how you usually carry yourself, and it kills him. "to harm yourself like this... you can't treat yourself this way, darling, you know you can't."

"i know," you mumble. "i just had a moment, and now i'm scared that- that i'll go back to how things were."

"as long as i'm with you, you won't. i promise you that," nanami swears. "it was just this one time since you last?"

you nod. "yeah..."

"okay," he nods once more, convincing himself that this is something he can help stop before it gets any more out of hand. "why'd you do it this time, my love? what were you thinking that led you here? is there something i can do differently? is it work? is it a combination of things?"

"i wish it were that easy to explain, kento," you frown, glancing up at him helplessly. "but it's just... it's just a feeling i can't put into words. i can't pinpoint the source. i just... one minute i felt like i couldn't breathe, and the next i was..."

"okay," he repeats, letting you know that you no longer need to say anything more. you don't have to revisit it. he understands. he will take care of it. he'll help you. "okay, darling. how about this. i call off of work tomorrow and we can sit and talk about seeing a new therapist. then we can go out and do whatever you want. just for fun. does that sound okay with you?"

your nose flares and your lips tug to the side as you nod, truly not comprehending how you managed to find a man so patient with you. "yeah, that's good," you say softly, and nanami is at least relieved that you are willing to take further steps into a better direction.

"good," he whispers, rolling the sleeve of your sweater back down so that you no longer feel exposed or feel like you have to think any more about the things you did to yourself when you felt alone. "it's alright, my love. we'll get through it. you'll get past this just like you did last time," he encourages you, moving to caress your shoulder lovingly as you hold his gaze. "it's okay," he tells you again, and you nod weakly, leaning over to plop your head against his shoulder.

nanami holds you to him and exhales, food completely forgotten. his only priority now is to be there for you in the ways he could not before the two of you met.

"thank you for telling me."

choso kamo: choso worships the ground you walk on because he can not fathom a world without, nor the fact that you happened to stumble into his life on a whim. to imagine you hurt is the very worst thing that the man can think of, and the notion that you would hurt yourself is beyond his comprehension.

you aren't actively trying to hide any of your scars when he finds them. the scars are old, faded reminders of the pain that you used to endure and how you attempted to cope with it. while you are now six months free of self harming, the scars remain very present.

choso happens to catch sight of your scars when you are getting changed. he's sitting at the edge of your bed, face flushed, as he watches you blissfully change out of your pajamas and into clothes that you feel are best suited for a walk to the ice cream shop that choso has proposed. it's a bright sunday afternoon, and the brunette is eager to take advantage of the weather with the woman he holds close to his heart as well as his baby brother, who the two of you intend to meet at the store.

you're now dressed in nothing but a large white shirt and underwear, your legs bare as you strut around the space freely. choso's jade eyes follow you as you walk, completely obsessed with the way you move. he could watch you do the most mundane things for hours, which he truthfully tends to do anyway.

your back is to him before you round the bed, disappearing into the bathroom momentarily before coming back into the living room. choso's eyes still don't leave you, tracing over your face down your figure and finally to the front of your bare legs.

he falters, and his brows draw together when he catches dark marks littering over your inner thighs, only revealing themselves with the movement of your limbs as you walk.

the pale-skinned man grows confused and slightly concerned. he's never seen those marks on you before, and simultaneously, never on anyone else he knows either. he finds them to be a strange form of battle scars, especially due to the placement, the small size, and the sheer number of them. some of them take different shapes too, blurring together or over each other, while some stand out alone. they almost look like burns, but it's hard for choso to really tell.

you proceed about your business, searching through your drawer to pull out a skirt, when choso speaks up.

"love? what are those?" he asks curiously, perplexed.

you turn over your shoulder, shutting your drawer closed with your foot. "hm? what's what, cho?" you ask him, unsure of what he's referring.

choso, still slightly flustered by the vision of your half exposed body, nods his head into the direction of your lower legs. "those," he says again, and you look down, still lost.

you lift your foot momentarily, checking to see if something is stuck under or on top of it. you then survey the rest of your body, searching for something out of the ordinary. "uhhh," you trail off. "i'm not sure what you mean, baby. you're talking about my legs?"

you are far too desensitized to and familiar with the image of your scars to process that choso has never seen them before. the brunette, however, is unsatisfied, wanting an answer that you have yet to provide.

he leans forward, lifting his hand and pointing his finger directly to a patch of dark spots peeking out from your inner thighs. you follow his gaze, eyes landing on the culprits, and your shoulders drop in realization. "oh," you say shortly, choso retracting his hand.

he looks at you innocently, awaiting a response while you try to figure out how to explain this sight to him.

you don't want to worry him, but knowing choso, if you lead with the fact that these scars are there because you inflicted them onto yourself, he would have a heart attack, failing to find reason to your words.

even so, you know choso only wants to understand you as much as you desire to understand him. he wants to see the ugly parts as well as the beautiful parts of you that he is so drawn to, and if you hide it from him, that would only create a rift in your budding relationship that you aren't entirely too keen on creating.

you want him to know you, all of you, and these scars are as much of a part of you as the bones in your body and the blood pumping through your skin.

they're a sign of what you've been through, what you've overcome, and who you are now. they're important, and choso should know why they are there.

"that's a good question," you sigh, putting your skirt on the bed as you move to sit next to him at the edge of it. choso immediately turns to you, glancing over the marks shamelessly now that he has a better view of them.

"did someone do that to you?" is the first thought that crosses his mind, red drifting into his vision at the mere idea that someone has hurt you in such an intimate way.

"...no," you shake your head, lifting one leg up onto the bed, brushing his own, as the other dangles. "i put them there. a while ago," you explain honestly.

choso scrunches his brows tighter, eyes flickering up to your face then back down to try to identify what exactly the marks are. "what are they?" he repeats.

you exhale, puckering your lips as you prepare yourself for this difficult conversation. "they're burns, cho. from a match," you tell him.

now, the half-curse is incredibly confused. burn marks? on your lovely skin? in a place where only you could reach? put there by yourself?

you burned yourself?

"i don't understand," he frowns, shifting to face you better. "why would you..."

"i used to be in a really bad place, baby," you purse your lips, watching as his face contorts with consternation as he comes to understand that you purposefully harmed yourself.

"what do you mean? bad enough to do this to yourself?" he sounds mortified, his voice growing ragged the moment his tone picks up volume.

his pupils, moments ago blown pools of affection, are now shrunken dots of shock.

"don't look at me like that," you beg him, placing your hand over his own. his eyes snap to the sudden contact, then back to you with concern. "sometimes, when certain people are suffering from depression, or anxiety, or just overall bad thoughts and they feel like they have to... break out, or maybe punish themselves in a sense... they resort to hurting themselves."

choso gulps, lump forming in his throat as he listens to you with shaking eyes. "and that's what you did? you felt like you needed to punish yourself?"

"it's hard to explain to someone on the outside. i know it sounds... crazy, but it was the only way i knew how to cope with everything that i was dealing with."

"why didn't you come to me instead?" he immediately asks and you give him a sad, knowing look.

"because, we didn't know each other then, cho?"

"i don't care," he shakes his head, eyes keeping yours. "you should have found me."

the idea brings a hint of a smile to your lips, choso's sweetness warming your heart. "i didn't know who you were, baby, that would have been like begging a stranger for help."

"so?" he scoffs. "i loved you the moment i met you. it wouldn't have made any difference to me.

you sigh again, bringing your other hand to rest over top of your boyfriend's as you smile softly at him in an attempt to get him to calm down.

the panic is still written all over his face as he takes in your smile, the vision somehow only making him sadder. you're so gorgeous, inside and out, and that smile is only scratching the surface of your unending beauty.

to know now that your radiance was once outweighed by the torment in your mind encouraging you to harm yourself... well, it makes choso want to ball his eyes out. it makes him want to confront the physical manifestation of your past traumas and pummel it into the ground, bashing its head in for all the hurt that it has caused you.

"i ended up just fine, cho," you reassure him.

"why didn't you say anything before? were you trying to keep it from me?"

"no, baby, i just didn't think to tell you. i kinda forgot about them," you say, and that comment alone makes choso soften his features slightly.

"you forgot..." he recites your words. "does that mean you're better now?"

you hum in affirmation, smiling warmly. "it's been a while since i've hurt myself or done anything like that. i got through it. i'm okay now, these scars are just a permanent reminder of the past."

his frame sags slightly with relief, brows lifting as he looks over you with a blank expression. "i think i understand," he mumbles, looking back down at the marks. "i'm sorry you ever had to go through any of that."

"it's not your fault. you weren't there."

"i wish i had been. so i could have helped more. i know you said you're better, but maybe if i had been there i could've stopped you from hurting yourself at all."

"i wouldn't put that responsibility onto yourself, cho. it was my responsibility."

"still," his brows arch slightly. "i would have stuck with you every second of every day to make sure that you never had a second alone to do any of it. i wouldn't have let you, and i won't let you now." a thought seems to pop into his head when he finishes his last sentence. "you wouldn't go back to trying to hurt yourself, (y/n), would you?

you exhale. "i mean, i'd like to think i wouldn't, but sometimes these things aren't linear," you admit. "i just know that for now, i'm okay."

"the second you're not, though, you'd tell me?"

"yes. i would."

"you promise?"

"i promise, baby."

"okay," he sighs. "because i don't think i'd be able to function knowing you're upset."

the brown haired man leans over, carefully holding your thigh as he looks over your marks again, no longer flustered by your bare skin but entirely focused on the severity of your burns. you look down at him, hands slipping from his own as he surveys you closely like he's a doctor.

"they don't hurt anymore, do they?"

"nope. just scarred."

choso looks at you for a bit longer in silence before looking back up at you from his hunched state. "can i kiss them?"

you laugh softly, hand falling into his hair at you gaze at him with your heart aglow. "you want to kiss them?"

he nods. "so they can feel loved."

you coo, thumb smoothing over his temple as his eyes swell with adoration right before you. "of course you can."

toji fushiguro: toji is absolutely no stranger to scars. he's a human man with no cursed energy, having had his fair share of close calls on risky jobs that have left him with slashes over his calves, small pierces in his flesh, and cracked callouses. then, of course, there's the scar on his mouth bestowed upon him by his oh-so-loving family, which will be stuck with for the rest of his life.

scars follow toji like moths follow a flame, and he's numb to it. he believes that they are a part of life, both physically and mentally, especially with the kind of life that he leads. whether the wound is a large one or a small one he can barely see, he accepts scars as a part of who he is-

who he is.

while toji likes to parade around with a hardened exterior decorated with faded, scabbing wounds, that is something he deems fit for him and him only. he doesn't care what other people do with their lives as long as they leave him the hell out of it, but for the love of all the money that he has acquired over the years slaughtering sorcerers, he will be damned if he finds a single, tiny little scratch on your body.

scars are for toji, not for you, his darling little girlfriend and the day he finds out someone has hurt you enough to leave behind a mark is the day he's putting several bullets into the culprit's head.

toji's worst fear, though he hardly discusses it, is losing you and watching you get hurt. god, he practically lives to protect you, and to feel as though he has failed to do so would wound him detrimentally. he's a tough guy, but you make him so soft, and admittedly he wouldn't want to be soft for anyone but you. you're his rock, his little hot head, and he loves you more than life itself.

if you're hurt, he will lose it.

therefore, when he finds out that you're self-harming? oh, he's on the verge of losing his fucking mind.

he does a double-take when you step out of his room and into the kitchen with a towel wrapped around your body, his eyes widening and his brows arching immediately.

now, toji knows your body inside and out. he's explored every inch, he knows every crook, every crevice, every mark, every texture, and he has never once in the six months you have been together seen the red lines over your inner wrist.

he watches you with twisted lips as you grab an orange from the counter before walking back into his direction. you're almost back into the room when toji calls you.

"uh uh," he stops you, and you pause, turning over your shoulder and purposefully moving your left wrist to press into your towel.

"what?"

"come here," he orders and you give him a strange look.

"why?"

"i wanna see somethin'. come here."

you're quick to snap back easily with your own sarcastic retort, clearly in a foul mood over something. "if you want to fuck, can you wait until i'm fully dried off and after i finish this?' you hold up the orange in your other hand, a perturbed look on your face.

"i don't want to fuck, (y/n), i want you to come here."

toji's voice comes out sternly, and on the verge of anger. you survey his posture, his arms leaning over his legs as he cranes to look at you with a suspicious, firm expression. you can tell that he's serious, and a sudden sense of fear overtakes you that you mask with annoyance.

you don't say a word when you slowly walk up to him, crossing your arms over your chest to conceal your wrist, the hand holding the orange tucked under your elbow.

"what is it?"

toji holds out his palm. "give it."

"...my orange?"

"put it in my hand."

you huff, carefully maneuvering your arm around to keep your inner wrist pointed toward your body as you bring forward the orange and plop it aggressively into his hand. toji watches your other arm the entire time, taking clear note of how you refuse to let your wrist show, and you know you're fucked.

the green-eyed man tosses the orange to the side of the couch and holds out his large palm again, eying you intensely. you look down at him with a frustrated frown, shrugging. "i don't have anymore oranges."

"don't be cute, doll."

"what? do you want my hand?"

"you know i want your hand."

you roll your eyes, raising the hand you had held your orange with when he stops you. "not that one. the other one."

your heart pangs, shaking your entire body as he looks to you expectantly. how the fuck had he managed to notice the scar on your wrist so quickly?

the moment you hesitate, he knows that what he saw earlier is something to be concerned about. you normally never hide yourself from toji, and the way you go about hiding your arm now is defensive enough to raise several brows. he knows you're not dumb, too. he knows that you know exactly what he wants to see.

"(y/n)." he cocks a brow, the severity of his demeanor only making you more uneasy.

he can't see. he can't see what you've just done. he'll hate you. he'll look at you like you're crazy.

"what if i don't want to give you my hand?"

"then i'll just grab it for you, and i don't think either of us wants to go there."

you release a trembling, aggravated breath. you can't get away with anything when toji's around, and while you ponder having chosen to get an orange later, you know deep down somewhere you wanted toji to see. you wanted him to help you, which is why you walked out of that bathroom half an hour after having put those scars on your arm.

"hand, now."

you turn your eyes away with a grunt, slapping your wrist into his hand facing downward. toji is quick to whip it upside once he has a grip on you, and his eyes seem to freeze over the sight of three fresh slices on your upper forearm up close.

his jaw clenches, then unclenches, then clenches and unclenches again as his lips twitch and his eyes adjust to the vision. you're hurt. not only are you hurt, but it looks as though you've recently been hurt. you've hurt yourself.

toji has a hard time figuring out what to do. he's not good with things like this, but he knows that seeing you with scars on your arm is quite literally about to set him off. he always imagined having to defend you from others who seek to hurt you, but never having to defend you from yourself.

he can't fathom it. he's struggling, the muscles in his eyes are twitching, and he can't handle it. he can feel his heart begin to race, unsure if he is angry or scared or mortified or devastated.

there are three lines in your arm. bright red. staring right back up at him.

and you put them there?

no way, you put them there.

but you did. clearly you did, or else you wouldn't be looking so guilty right now.

but when did you? how did you? why did you?

he doesn't know what to think. he doesn't know what to say. he swore he'd always protect you, but how does he even begin to try to protect you from yourself?

"are you out of your mind?"

the question leaves him rather calmly, a low inquiry that you are unsure is meant to be directed as an insult or a genuine ask.

you can't look at him. you don't even know what to think yourself. it had all happened so fast while you were in the bathroom, before you got into the shower.

one minute, you were staring angrily in the mirror, cursing your reflection as your wicked thoughts sprouted grubby arms and guided you toward the pair of brow scissors that you kept in your makeup cabinet on the left side of toji's bathroom.

you wanted to feel in control of the disdain you felt lurking within your soul. you wanted to feel something for fear that you would never be able to feel again, and before you knew it, you were dragging the exposed blade over your skin.

"d'you wanna explain why i'm looking at these cuts on your arm, (y/n)?"

and you know, you know that it's a bad sign when toji uses your name instead of the plethora of pet names he normally elects to call you: doll, princess, mama, girl, pretty baby- anything but your actual government name, and when you hear it roll from his tongue under these circumstances, you can only imagine what's going through his head.

you shift on your bare feet, looking down at your toes. "dunno," is all you say, and toji scoffs in disbelief.

"you don't know?" he emphasizes. "that's all you have to say?"

"if you wanna embarrass me, go ahead, toji. seriously, i'm tired."

"what the fuck makes you think i wanna embarrass you? i wanna know why the fuck my girlfriend walked out of the bathroom with cuts on her arm!"

you rip your arm away immediately when he yells, storming back off into his room and slamming the door behind you.

toji jumps up, suddenly frazzled. he doesn't want you alone in there. he doesn't want you out of his sight.

the navy haired man moves quickly to his door and grabs the handle, only to find it locked. he jiggles it harshly and bangs on the door. beginning to panic. "open the door, (y/n)," he shouts, meeting no reply.

little does he know, your back is pressed against the other side as tears crash over your cheeks. you don't know how you expected toji to react, but the look on his face just now and his tone of voice was enough to send you running off.

you feel ashamed, weak. you shouldn't have gone out there at all. you should have waited until you were dressed, discarding the whole idea of letting toji see what you did so that you could suffer in silence without his help, because what help could he truly provide anyway?

toji's a tough man, but he's soft for you. he would stand in front of a moving train for you. he would sacrifice his life for you, so when you don't answer, he imagines the worst.

"open the door," he says again, weaker, tugging desperately at the handle though he knows it won't budge. he knows he could break the door down, and he's prepared to until he hears you sniff amdist his pounding. he immediately stops, face dropping.

fuck.

this is bad.

he knew it was before, but for some reason, it's only now registering how bad this is.

you're in pain. you hurt yourself because you're in pain and you need him, but he doesn't know how to help you. he's never dealt with anything like this before.

his hand slides from the door and to his side, forehead knocking against the door though his other hand remains tight on the handle. he just needs to see you.

"princess," he mutters defeatedly. "don't make me kick this door in."

silence.

"please," he softens even more. "please, (y/n), let me in."

the house falls quiet once more and you give in. you feel so lost, and the only person who can at least comfort you, in his own way, is toji.

you slowly turn to unlock the door and step back as toji opens it swiftly, staring down at you with wide eyes and at least relieved to see that you haven’t done any further harm to your body.

he does, however, see your tears.

his face tightens as he bends down to scoop you up in an instant, your legs and arms tightening around him as you snivel into his shoulder, his large palms sliding over your body. he feels your small body tremble against him as he walks the two of you over to the edge of his bed, sitting down as you cling to him like a koala.

"i dunno what happened," you whimper into him. "i dunno why i did it. i dunno. i dunno."

you say it over and over, your voice as broken as toji feels listening to you.

he wishes he knew what to do. he wishes he was better equipped to handle this, but never in his worst nightmares did he dream that he would find you here, his fiery girl, the love of his life.

he's been so busy trying to protect you from the outside world that he hasn't even thought about the things that could harm you from within.

he stays silent as you babble to him through tears, holding you just like he knew how. he doesn't want to picture those scars on you. he doesn't want to picture what led you to put them there. he just wants to hold you, to at least let you know that he's here and he's not going anywhere. he may not know how to help, but he knows how to love you and he hopes that's enough.

"i'm not letting you out of my sight, y'hear?" he says gruffly into your ear and you nod meekly. "i'm not letting this happen ever again. not as long as i'm alive."

he mentally swears to rid your house and his of any and every sharp object he can find and to throw it all in a safe as you sink into him.

toji knows how to protect and toji knows how to fight. though he's more acclimated with fighting others, if he has to fight to protect yourself from your innermost demons, then hell, he will find a way to do just that.

sukuna ryomen: lord help you and lord help anyone within a fifty-mile radius when the king of curses discovers that you've been harming yourself.

sukuna is not at all very good with his words or his expressions of affirmations. he is a being of action, and he believes that he has proven his love for you enough by simply allowing you to be in his presence longer than anyone else ever has or ever will.

at first, when he sees a scar or two on your leg, he thinks its just an accident or a result of you being clumsy. then, three more pop up, then five, then far more than he's even willing to count, and he decides that this scar pattern is somehow intentional.

he knows no one else has marked them onto you because he is prepared to kill anyone who comes too close, especially if they have ill intentions. if you were in danger at someone else's hand, he would be the first to know and the person meaning you harm would be dead before they could even think about touching you.

therefore, when he sees that the only person normally within your company is him, uraume, and yourself, the process of elimination leads him to you.

he goes about confronting you rather harshly, as well, for he knows no other way to be.

you're out in the garden of his large residence one day, soaking up the sun, when you hear familiar, loud stomps heading your way from behind.

you turn around and squint to peer up at sukuna, who is standing over you with a menacing glare in his crimson eyes. you don't necessarily find this out of the ordinary, so you greet him as usual.

"hi, kuna," you say sweetly. "you good?"

he is not good. not at all, so he gets straight to the point. "come inside, woman."

you quirk a brow. "why? i just got out here?"

"do not question me."

"can it wait, like, fifteen minutes?"

"do you wish to live in the next fifteen minutes?"

you sigh, entirely too used to sukuna's facade of cruelty around you. you know by now that the king of curses would never dare to hurt you.

"i do intend, to live, yes," you smirk.

"then you will come inside as i have demanded."

"no, sukuna. i want to stay out here for a bit. i've been inside all day."

the pink haired man fumes, teeth grinding together in agitation. he doesn't want to delay this conversation any further than it has already been delayed, but of course, you choose to be difficult.

"very well, we will do this out here," he growls and you smile.

"good."

you don't prepare yourself for when sukuna grabs the back of your chair and whips out around to face him with the unpleasant screech of the legs against the cobblestone. you wince, then retract your face when sukuna lowers his to stare at you from mere centimeters away, one of his arms grasping to push up the lose leg of your shorts up to reveal the set of scars littering your skin.

your eyes go wide, his movements too quick for you to process all at once.

"are these your doing?" he hisses and you gulp.

"s-sukuna-"

"i did not ask for you to say my name. i asked if these scars are your doing."

his eyes are piercing, striking directly into yours. "what are you talking about?" you whisper shakily.

"are we going to pretend like you're an idiot now?" he snarls. he's so mean, but he feels it's for good reason. your body has been tainted, and for some reason, you have been doing the tainting. he needs to know why.

you shake your head weakly. "no..."

"then answer me properly. i will not repeat myself a third time."

you bite down on your lower lip, heart ringing in your ears. you didn't even know sukuna paid attention to you enough to catch wind of something like this.

"yes... i did this," you finally tell him, and sukuna is livid.

"and why would you be doing something so foolish? scars are not something you are meant to give yourself, human."

"please don't be a dick, sukuna, not right now."

"i am asking a perfectly reasonable question and i expect you to answer it," he glowers. "now."

"you wouldn't understand if i told you," you frown and he clicks his tongue.

"stop assuming things of me before i lock you inside of my room where you can not escape or even fathom doing something like this to yourself again under my supervision."

you curl your brows, frowning up at your boyfriend. "if i tell you, you'll call me foolish."

"because this is foolish," he grunts. "but i will not if my doing so will get you to fucking explain yourself."

you shake your head, looking down and contemplating before deciding to just get it over with so that he can stop putting you on the spot. "sometimes i just feel shitty," is all you elect to say.

but sukuna is hardly satisfied with this response. "so you choose to inflict pain upon yourself instead of calling upon me?"

"i told you, you wouldn't understand," you say. "it's not something i can easily explain to you either."

sukuna narrows his eyes. "fine."

he lowers himself to grab you legs and throw you over his shoulder. you squeal, grabbing onto his back as he begins to walk you back into his home and toward his room. "sukuna!" you kick your legs around. "put me down!"

"no. you're coming with me, and you're going to sit and talk me through every single thought that has crossed your little mind to make you think that injuring yourself in such a way is tolerable within the walls of my residence. then after that, you'll come with me everywhere i go from this point on."

"what?!" you exclaim from where you hang upside down. "I don't wanna go everywhere you go," you wine.

"too bad. you should have thought of that before you decided to harm yourself."

sukuna is horrible with words, and far more horrible with expressing his concerns, but despite your temporary discomfort with how he goes about approaching the situation, you can still see in the pinch of his brow and the stiffness of his posture, combined with his refusal to let you go without a proper explanation, that he cares very deeply for your wellbeing.

stop making fanfics about characters raping and sexually assaulting y/n, you are fucking disgusting people who romanticize a serious crime that happens every day to children and women

"but that's just reading dark romance" that's not a dark romance, that's just the stuff of a horrible fetish, IF YOU HAVE A RAPE FETISH, GO SEEK FOR FUCKING PSYCHIATRIST HELP!!!!!!!!!!

Rent-an-s/o!

About: You work as a rental s/o! The guys didn’t book you or anything, you’re just friends (with budding feelings) hanging out.

A/N: I wrote this while listening to Centimeter by the Peggies (if you know, you know)

Characters: Xiao, Childe, Venti

Wordcount: about 300 each

Commissions Open!

Also works the same job (is a rental boyfriend!)

The cafe’s heaters radiate warmth around the building like the hug of a fireplace. Chatter mingles with the smell of sweet vanilla and holiday spices, just as Xiao stirs his drink to mix the caramel with its contents.

“So, Mr Top-Rated Boyfriend,” you tease. “How hard was it to arrange a break during the Christmas period?”

Xiao raises a brow. “About as hard as it was for you…?”

You nod in faux-seriousness. “I see, so it was a hard-earned battle…”

“Was it that bad?” His lips quirk amusedly. “Or did you just get into a debate with your agency again?”

“I had to cancel a recent booking,” you admit, taking a bite of your dessert. “It was a regular client though, so they were understanding about it.”

A frown. “We could’ve just rescheduled our own hangouts, you know.”

Noticing Xiao’s expression, you make a resolute stab at your plate. “Nope, I wouldn’t allow it! Cafe-hopping with my best friend is a very important event, and I wasn’t about to back down just for a bit more money.”

His lips quirk. “What if it was a lot more money?”

“Hmm… it’d have to be enough to pay for a tower of macarons, and even more.” You nod to yourself, successfully drawing a laugh out of him. The playful mood makes your heart feel light, and you rest your elbows on the table to lean closer. “…So yeah, I wouldn’t have abandoned you.”

“I’m honored,” Xiao’s ears are slightly flushed from the walk you took earlier. You can’t help but admit that he was cute, on top of being really attractive. Golden eyes twinkle as he rests his cheek against the palm of his hand. “So what shall we do for the rest of winter?”

How cruel for him to be like this, and for you to feel at home with Xiao; you wonder if he feels it too, the push and pull of emotions leashed by both your occupations.

Keep reading

𖤐 * ∿  NAMES IN A CITY 

𖥻  CHARACTERS

childe, kaeya, xiao x gn! reader

𖥻  GENRE

angst with a happy ending ( except for one of them )

𖥻  SUMMARY

how they react to your “death” — and how they react after you “come back to life”

𖥻  WARNINGS

no graphic descriptions, but the usual ones of injury mentions, crying, things like that

𖥻  LINKS

masterlist

𖥻  NOTES

please like and rb ! it really helps <3

childe

i.

he got sloppy

you two were on a mission together, and you were sent to eliminate a group of treasure hoarders 

and he isn’t used ot having to watch his back – he’s always had you for that

but he hadn’t expected you to go that far

he didn’t see it coming – he didn’t see the dagger being thrown

all he felt was the sense of being pushed back, and then a burning sensation that blasted him back

you were never one to use your pyro delusion – you had always believed that they weren’t reliable and they took too much out of you

this isn’t the first time he’s seen you transform – but he doesn’t remember it being this bad

the fire blasted him back, and was so hot that he couldn’t get anywhere near you 

he does try though. but the ringing in his ears doesn’t stop, and when he tries to stumble to his feet, he just falls back over

and at some point he passes out

ii. 

the minute he wakes up he’s searching for you

it’s always been just you and him – partners, both in battle and out

but when he’s been dragged to the hospital and when he makes it back to the battlefield – 

the battlefield is charred, a mess of blood and weapons

and you’re nowhere to be found

iii.

he waits for you for two weeks

he refuses to believe you’re dead in that time – he waits by the battlefield, hoping you’ll come home

he always leaves the lights on, terrified that you’ll come back one day, and not recognize your own house

but after two weeks pass, he finally accepts the fact that you’re “dead”

and he goes to what used to be your favorite place

there’s a mountain in snezhnaya that you and him used to go to – it’s taller than any other mountain, and it was where, when you were teenagers, you used to draw his and your initials in the snow

the entire place feels like you. and it makes hie chest ache

he doesn’t know for how long he sits in the snow and just cries – on the mountain top, he doesn’t have to worry about ugly crying, crying to the point of screaming

he’s completely unaware of the figure that sits in the trees behind him.

( more under cut )

Keep reading

could i ask for some reversed au for scaramouche, childe, kaeya & albedo? 👀 i love ur writing its so good

Hey! Thank you so much! This is my first time doing a reversed AU, and I wasnt there during the first part of Genshin (i started around the first Lantern Rite), so Scara's and Albedo's may be a bit shitty, but I hope you like it!

-ˋˏ✄— Reversed AU !

ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: Reversed AU ! You are the character, they are the player !

Characters: Albedo, Kaeya Alberich, Scaramouche, Tartaglia

Pronouns: they/them

.navigation. // .genshin impact masterlist.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳ Albedo | Kreideprinz

He started playing the game at the very beginning

It was intriguing, how could he not?

The beginning was normal, fun, exciting

Then they mentioned a chief alchemist somewhere along the way and his reaction was something like:

"Oh? A person of alchemy? This would be intriguing..."

He likes alchemy, after all

A few days — or had it been months? — had passed, and the new 1.2 update had been released, alongside a new area in Mondstadt called 'Dragonspine'

Lo and behold, the chief Alchemist of the Knights of Favonius had turned out to be the new 5 star character, Y/n!

He wasn't smitten at first, only interested

They had many similarities to him

They came home the first 30 pulls on their banner, and Albedo was elated!

After a while of doing the event (getting a bit mad at Reckless Pallad for being a damn idiot), he started enjoying and (though unknowingly) liking Y/n

You bet he finished the event just to get the sword to r5

He farmed their artifacts well and made them the best support ever, occasionally using them as a DPS too

The moment your sibling had been introduced, the first thing he thought of was how she was so similar to Klee, and how your relationship with her was similar to his and Klee's

Haha he wished for them too, got around 70 pity though

Talks to Klee about you and your sibling, and to no surprise, she likes you and your sibling too!

A bit sad about the death flags around your character, but he knows he can't do anything about it just yet

He smiles so fondly whenever you do the idle animation with the twig

When he found out you were an artist, he wss even more elated!

Hey, when did his social media accounts turn into a Y/n fanart page?

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳ Kaeya Alberich | Frostwind Swordsman

Probably didn't start playing when the game was released, but somewhere near the beginning

The first part was nice, he thought

The little drunkard bard reminded him of one of his drunkard musician friends, and the brunette with the red bunny reminded him of one of his coworkers

Got to the point where you fly over Mondstadt chasing after Dvalin, and then he gets back to the ground and—

Oh? Who's this? Why do they make Kaeya's heart do the badump badump?

Swoons at your voice like holy shit

Was very happy you were a free character, but got very pissed that it meant you were not in any other banner, was so rare to get, and disliked being used by others in domain

Ok so what if Y/n is a free character? They deal 10k+ normal atk damage piss off >:/

Gives you the best build ever, for every type too

Pysical dmg dealer? 10k dmg. Cryo DPS? 20k DMG with a 60k crit.

When the Serenetea pot was released, he made an altar for you and put you in his bedroom :)

Insults your sibling

Why does your sibling remind him of Diluc?

Reads your lore, cries, disses on your sibling and Diluc, repeat

Doesn't matter who's in the team, he will find a way to add you in

Defends you so much on co-op like "just because they're a f2p 4 star character doesn't mean they're shittier than your 5 star whaled character >:/"

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳ Scaramouche | Baladeer

Honestly I don't know what possessed him to play the game when it was released

Boredom? Curiosity? Was he being held at gunpoint?

Either way, he just skimmed through the beggining, boredly reading dialogue until the very first event happened

Wasn't very interested at first, didn't like the astrologist and was a bit annoyed by — how was her name spelled again?

You showed up a bit after, standing over a guy on the ground

The character seemed a bit normal at first, polite (which kind if irked him) so he completely ignored them

Yada, yada, yada, they're talking about astrology and the meteors and—

"Hi!"

There you are again.

"Sounds interesting... Mind if I join you?"

The astrologist quickly took the screen once again, brining the traveller and the princess away in a ball of hydro

Oh? How interesting...

As soon as they were gone, your façade dropped, revealing to him your true intentions

Oh, he was intrigued

Then their introduction was revealed

Y/n, huh? The 6th Fatui Harbinger?

Then your agents showed up, one of them stepped a bit out of line, declaring how they would make haste of a mission unassigned to them and—

"...Are you deaf or just stupid?"

That hit straight onto Scaramouche's heart

After the event, Scara just kept waiting for another reveal, but months and months past and you were no where in sight

Until the 2.0 update, at least

Inazuma, your nation of origin

Maybe he'd get lore about you

Purely plays the game for you now, waiting and waiting

When you finally show up in the quest, he's weak in the knees

Calls you his favourite menace to society

Always wonders, are you shorter than him?

Legends has it he's still waiting for your banner till this day

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳ Tartaglia | Childe

I'm not entirely sure when he'd start playing, but it's before your first banner

Played the game because he found out Scaramouche liked a characer in it and wanted to diss on that character

He was a bit too late for their first appearance, but that's fine

He'll keep playing either way

He finally reached Liyue, where he arrives and there's alot of people around this lady

Aaaand there's the Geo Archon, falling from the sky, presumably dead

His mission was to sneak away, so he did just that, very skillfully

Finally reaching a cutscene, he stretched his limbs and watched

"Hey buddy— hold still."

Huh? Who was that? A new character?

They jumped up from the back of the stairway, hydro blades casting a rainbow effect to the screen as it met sun rays

They fought off the guards and holy shit—

That was— You were—

He's speechless

Continues the quest, and when Paimon mentiones something about doting on you, he's all like "YES"

You're rich? Ok, he would spoil you rotten, doesn't matter

His heart skips a beat at your laugh because it's so adorable like—

When your banner came out, he may or may not have whaled haha

Gives you the best artifacts, triple crowns you, you're always his main DPS

Y/n profile, Y/n namecard, "Hey buddy— hold still" signature, you name it

Cries at your deathflags because he won't let his skrunkly, his scrimblo, his lil bufoon die

"Mihoyo Hoyoverse let me into the game, I'll protect them!"

You're a family person? He's a family person!

Adores your little sibling, reminds him so much of Teucer

"You have many siblings? I have many siblings! We both have so much in common we should just get married alrea—"

Calls you his favourite piece of shit

Or, his full nickname for you, "my favourite piece of shit haha /hj I love you what's your ring size—"

—PATCHWRK !

hello !! i saw that your requests are open and if they're not then I'm really really sorry but if you don't mind could I request xiao, venti, kazuha and scaramouche with a s/o who reminds them they love them every day and tells them stuff like "you're doing great, I'm so so proud of you" "you're the most amazing person I met and my heart belongs to you and you only", and they're also very clingy as in they like to hold hands a lot, give kisses and stuff

you can skip this if you want to, but I do hope you have a wonderful day/night <33

overly affectionate s/o — genshin hcs ⸝⸝

— [warnings]. scaramouche not proofread </3

— characters . . . xiao , venti , kazuha , scaramouche

— notes . . . i had no idea what to put as the title bc i forgot the word i was trying to write </3 hope you like it ! ♪( ´▽｀)

魈 XIAO

— oh god, are you TRYING to kill this poor yaksha ???

— i hc that his love language (giving and receiving) is physical touch so despite the scowl that was static on his face, he couldn’t be more happier that someone like you had no problem with being all touchy

— this poor dude NEEEDSS this sort of attention from someone , the fact you’re able to so willingly and nonchalantly convey your feelings to him does make him a bit emotional at times

“heyyy xiao xiao” you slumped over his shoulder with a playful grin, he replied with a simple “hm?”

“You are so easy to love.”

“Is that a good or bad thing..?” he tilted his head to the side for a moment.

“I wouldn’t be telling you unless it was good because I love you sosososooooo much !” and then began the onslaught of kisses and heartwarming laughter with xiao’s arms carefully hugging your torso and your hands on his cheeks.

— whenever you initiate any form of physical contact first his heart does a lil ₊˚୨`˖˚˳⊹

— despite how much he loves you and your affections he will never outright admit it, although he’s rather obvious that he enjoys it with the way his cheeks bloom in a cute pink

— whenever you randomly cling onto him or start spewing your heartfelt love confessions he does truly feel like his years of karmic debt are being washed away as if it was just a mere grain of sand, you’re one of or more so the only person who makes him feel so loved and happy

— on his good days he tries his absolute hardest to reciprocate the same energy, it’ll take some time but for you he would do anything

温蒂 VENTI

— the people of mondstadt both utterly hate and love you guys, no one truly knows how to feel because you’re both so incredibly endearing yet it gets very tiring hearing the same sickly sweet confessions you throw at each other

— mondstadters aren’t over exaggerating either, before venti goes off to play a song on his lyre for his audience, you two spend what feels like hours just holding each other and being reluctant to let go and go off to your own duties

— not that you guys care :p (obviously) venti believes that if people love each other , what’s really the harm in showing off that love ?

— your clingy behaviour is more than welcomed , he absolutely cherishes it

— venti loves being randomly clingy with people he cares about, it’s just natural for him at this point, and the fact you do it as well sometimes even more so than him, he’s ecstatic <33

— he has those days where he’s not his usual ‘venti’ self, not even the melodies of his lyre or the small nudges from dvalin could get him out of his mood , days where he feels like the weight of the world is on his shoulders are the days he appreciates your kind words to an even bigger extent

venti made a small ‘mpf’ noise after falling down onto your lap his arms near the side of his head. the night was slowly eating the sun away to capture mondstadt in darkness, therefore the winds were slightly harsher. you lifted venti up so his head was resting on your chest, he hugged your waist as you played with his hair.

“i could spend the rest of the evening explaining to you in detail how much you mean to me and how happy i am to have met you, but” he looked up at you with a hint of blush, “i think there’s a better way to convey me love for you.” you dipped your head down and began pressing kisses all over his face, each of them holding fruitful feelings.

before he even knew it, he was beaming gleefully his sadness long forgotten. “i love you, windblume.”

“well i love you even more.”

— he hopes you find him as much as of a safe place as you are to him

枫原方吨 KAZUHA

— kazuha officially keeps a tally on how many compliments you dish out to him daily, the highest was around 33 on his birthday, and to say the least it was an.. interesting day

— now hear me out, i feel like kazuha’s love language would also be physical touch just because he loves the reassurance that you’re there with him, it just makes him all warm inside

— he’s not extremely talkative, he doesn’t really vocalise his love for you he prefers writing it down in the form of a haiku or with a hug and a peck on the cheek but you definitely do enough of the talking in the relationship to make up for the both of you

— after he gets comfortable in your relationship you can rest assured that your demand for his hugs and kisses will not go unfulfilled!

— kazuha appreciates it, not only the words you say to him but just you in general, you’re so positive that sometimes he wonders if the archons blessed him because there’s no way someone as sweet and kindhearted as you exists

— you’re the exact type of person he’s been needing, someone who holds him no matter the circumstance and someone who reminds him of his worth without wanting anything in return

kazuha was writing a simple letter to his old friends in inazuma, asking about their well-being before you decided to plop yourself right next to him with that smile he adored. you leaned your head on his shoulder, “how are you so pretty? it’s unfair because i want to cuddle with you aaaallll day long and give you so many hugs since you’re just so amazing and do you know much i love you-“

he laughed before placing a chaste kiss on your lips, “yes my love, i’m more than aware of your love for me.”

— even when he’s out on his voyages, traveling across the seven nations of teyvat, his thoughts never fail to linger to the thought of you running up to entrap him in a bone crushing hug

国崩 SCARAMOUCHE

— you two are the literal embodiment of this:

Scara: “I absolutely despise physical touch, if I find that any of you even tugged at my clothes by accident or not I sha-“

You: “Hi.”

Scara: “So that was a joke-“

— whenever you squish his face with both you hands and begin kissing him that scowl on his face is a big cop out for the amount of love he feels for you, the butterflies in his stomach try to communicate to him but he refuses to acknowledge it

— it’s rather endearing to see his cheeks puff up when you retaliate his words (that genuinely hold no malice towards you) with something sweet like “ok, but i love and adore you”

— he will die before allowing you to do this in front of his subordinates, has it stopped you from trying? nope!

— one time you did it in front of childe and honestly scaramouche was at his limit at that point, he ofc didn’t lash out at you but the eleventh fatui harbinger

“you’re doing so well,” you gave him a peck on the cheek, “i love you sooo much, hehe, did you know that?” scaramouche crossed his arms and averted his gaze towards the floor, not sparing you a single glance out of pure embarrassment.

his ‘frenemy’ shall we say, was finding superb amusement out of the fact the well-feared balladeer was melting like ice cream left out in natlan over the fact his precious lover is cooing at him like some sort of lost child (childe’s words not mine).

and thus, the yelling and cursing at the red haired began, childe saw the rage in scara’s eyes and decided it was his time to run, your boyfriend was certainly not letting him get away that easily. But before he left off to chase and beat the shit out of childe, he gave you a quick peck on your lips.

— perhaps you fuel his ego a little bit too much with your praises and endless compliments, but despite that, scaramouche feels a deep level of comfort whenever you reassure him of his skills or just himself in general

©IHEARTGANYU do not copy, steal or repost <3

uno reverse (2)

summary. you are the eleventh harbinger tasked to steal the archon of geo’s gnosis. childe is a wandering traveler who wishes to fight powerful opponents.

pairing. fatui harbinger! reader x traveler! childe

warnings. not beta read. may contain spoilers for the liyue archon quest.

when childe was accused for killing morax and was chased by the entirety of the millelith, he once thought this was it. he’s pissed of the qixing because of his big mouth and now he was going to jail.

that was all proven naught when you came in.

your vision swirls to life, knocking out everyone who was chasing him. when you turned to him with a dazzling smirk and glinting eyes, childe felt his heart stutter for a moment. though he knew you were part of the fatui judging by the mask fastened on the side of your head, childe swore it was love at first sight.

he has fallen in love. with a fatui member.

and now, that same fatui member who spent mora like it was nothing precious is gleaming with power that only belongs to fatui harbingers.

that explains why you were so powerful.

you were the eleventh harbinger of the fatui — who wielded an electro delusion and was known as the tsaritsa’s killing machine.

to others, it was a betrayal.

but for childe?

it made his heart sing.

he summons his hydro vision, and he revels at the way your lips curled and how your eyes gleamed dangerously. it sends shivers down his spine as you laughed.

“oh? so you intend to fight me?”

your lips curled, vision coming to life.

“good. i won’t kill you childe. i’ll just play along, to feel the thrill of battle~!”

childe breathes in, heat creeping up to his cheeks at your words.

dear archons, please save him.