Chapter Text
Aether knows perfectly well that he is the darkness to his sister’s light, and that without Lumine’s guiding glow, he’s beginning to slip.
Paimon doesn’t know—well, Paimon has seen, and has commented on it, but she doesn’t know how he is losing control of his hard-won hold on his morality.
“Sometimes,” she’d commented once, “it’s like kicking a hornet’s nest, you know?”
Aether had looked up from the remains of a hilichurl camp, blood streaked on his face, the body of the hilichurl’s tribal leader slipping wetly off his sword. The corpse slurps and thumps as it falls off, and his grin grows wider, grows teeth. “What makes you say that?”
“I mean, you see a camp, you run straight for it,” his elfin companion says, cheerfully. “Sometimes, they’re not even doing anything, you just see them from over a rise or a hill and then you’re flying for it and BAM! Boom! Tornado! Wake of earth!”
“Does it…bother you?” he asks, carefully. He shakes his sword to get the blood off, and it spatters on the bloody, wet ground. His chest unfurls in delight at the sight of it.
“Nah!” Paimon says. “Just as long as you give me aaaall the Mora, after!”
He huffs a laugh, and the darkness in his ribcage undulates in glee. Yes, yes, the monster in his chest says, blood and money and death.
(Aether, no, his twin sister, his other half says, but the memory of her soft voice and inexorable hands is fading like moonlight.
Aether, yes.)
Aether has never been more alive as when he kills.
Well. Sometimes.
And then, somehow, he is caught up in a rush towards the Golden House, and the rescue of the Exuvia of Rex Lapis or something or other. Truth be told, he doesn’t really care—events in Teyvat have been carrying him along, like a fast-flowing river he doesn’t particularly care to fight against. Wandering Teyvat has gained him good fights, torn-open wounds and broken bones and the cold thrill of ending someone’s life beneath his blade. And more than that, progressing here would mean progressing in his quest to find Lumine (Lumi, Lumi, twin sister, other half, where are you?). So he guesses it’s worth it.
And then, Childe, that frustrating little Fatui Harbinger bitch, bares his teeth at Aether and says, “You could never defeat me.”
YOU DARE? The monster in Aether’s chest snarls, and Aether feels the fury begin to course through him. YOU DARE TELL ME I CANNOT DEFEAT YOU?
“You’re delusional,” Aether spits, and beside him Paimon nods frantically. “You are a weak, pathetic little man, with no power of your own other than what your precious Tsaritsa has given you.”
Childe’s blue eyes narrow, and oh, this lanky man with his shaggy red hair and limp water-hands—oh, now he looks feral. Now he looks like a killer. “Take that back,” he snarls, “the Tsaritsa is to be adored above all else.”
Aether laughs, wild, furious, a wild thing never before seen on the face of Teyvat. Around them, the Mora clinks and shifts. “You are a fool, Childe,” he taunts, “a fool, and your Vision does not even come from your Tsaritsa.” His blood heats up within him, and his grip on his sword grows tighter. “Come. Face me. Face a GOD!”
And then they both launch at each other.
Oh, Childe with his hydro Vision is an easy fight. Aether could weep at how disappointed he is. His sword slashes, sharp as a wind blade and deadly as a spire of rock—he manifests earth to trip up the less graceful Childe, and drives his ridiculous cape into the ground and leaps over him, opening a wound down his scalp. Childe screams in agony as the blood drips down his face.
“Perhaps,” Aether taunts, “it would have been wiser to face me with weapons you are good at, instead of foolishly showing off with a bow you have no idea how to handle.”
Childe snarls, draws his bow, flickers with the raging storm—
“Ah ah ah,” Aether says, and a meteor manifested from nothing crashes down on Childe’s bleeding head. “Your form is horrible. Your shoulders are stiff and ridiculous. Who taught you how to draw a bow? They did a terrible job.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Childe screams, and a sword and dagger made of water manifest into his hands. “Shut the fuck up, Aether!”
“Crass, crass,” Aether says, cackling, and the redhead darts in to stab him. Aether parries, and the blade falls away into splatters of water. “Do you honor your Tsaritsa with such a foul mouth, Childe? I’m sure that’s not your true name. Who names their child, Childe?”
Childe growls, and from the power of his Vision a whale begins to rise, whipping from the floor and thrashing about, trying to trap Aether beneath its humongous body. Aether channels wind beneath him and flies up-up-up, and then a spear of rock appears in his hands that he hurls straight down. Had Childe not dodged, he would have been impaled on the floor, bleeding out.
“Come now, Childe,” Aether taunts, when his opponent does not answer. Arrows of water fly at him in staccato beat, and he dances through them all, not even getting his cape wet. “Has your pretty mouth nothing to say?”
“You have a lot to say on the subject of my mouth, Aether,” Childe finally says. “Have you been fantasizing about it?”
Fantasizing about it? The idea draws Aether up short, and in the wake of his distraction Childe manages to land a hit that will bruise his ribcage. Childe is very pretty, a beautiful man if too skinny…
“Well, well, well,” Childe says, realizing he’s got Aether off-kilter. “Have you? Have you been lying awake thinking of me, Aether?”
The answer is no, because Aether does not spend his time thinking about lesser mortals. But he doesn’t answer, busily dodging Childe’s next volley of arrows, and the Harbinger takes it as admission.
“Ha!” he says, a foul ugly laugh cracking through the air. “Would never have guessed it. Aether, the Traveler, a manly specimen, a man who can control two elements if he chooses—and he’s a fucking cocksucker!”
“How crass,” Aether says. Suddenly all his anger cools, drawing in on himself to become hard and condensed as a diamond. “Perhaps they don’t know of tolerance and acceptance in Snezhnaya, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with sucking cock, if you want to. In fact…men, women, and people of all stripes have begged for the opportunity to suck mine.”
(It’s true, but not in Teyvat. But Childe doesn’t need to know that.)
“I—I—what?” Childe stammers, and it’s all the opportunity Aether needs to slam a spike of diamond-hard rock through Childe’s chest.
The Harbinger ROARS, his Delusion manifests, and Aether is shown a Childe crackling with lightning and crashing like a storm.
They do battle once more, and then Childe feints, manages to get to the Exuvia—
And finds no Gnosis.
“You!” he howls. “You! You got to it ahead of me! That’s why you’re able to channel two elements at once! You have the power of Rex Lapis within you!”
“Fool,” Aether says, laughing like a wild thing. “I am a god.”
“Yet the Tsaritsa is greater than you,” Childe spits, and then Aether sees the Foul Legacy Transformation for the first time.
The resulting clash is a battle of the titans, with lightning and storm brought to bear against wind and rock. Aether’s meteors slam all around Childe, corralling him in, and then the outlander soars high above to deliver a plunging attack that knocks the breath out of the Harbinger. Childe himself does not slack—his lightning-fast attacks gash Aether all over, blood dripping down his midriff. The outlander god’s hair is plastered to his face with blood and sweat.
But Aether is a god, even one stripped of power, and no matter the transformation Childe is still mortal. Too soon that he has a panting, broken, bloodied Childe on the floor in front of him. His blade is planted securely on the man’s chest, and cuffs of rock anchor Childe prone on the floor.
“What was it you said earlier,” Aether hums, pushing his sword into Childe’s chest just a fraction, just for the pleasure of seeing the taller man flinch. “You won’t kill me? You’d let me go? Was this your full power, Childe, because truth be told, it was pathetic.”
He drives the point of the blade in a little more. “You are pathetic.”
“S-shut up,” Childe coughs, “cocksucker.”
“How tragic,” Aether tuts, “that you should have such a useless slur as your only comeback. Perhaps I should teach you that it’s not so terrible to be a cocksucker? Hmm? Your mouth is very pretty.”
Childe’s blue eyes go wide, and Aether’s glance drops to his full, bloodied lips. There’s a bruise forming on his jaw from the ferocity of their fight. Childe’s red hair is stuck to his face with sweat, and his breathing comes fast and—horrified? Aroused?
Aether steps on Childe’s chest, and the Harbinger lets out a huff of startled pain. He points the tip of his sword at Childe’s mouth, and rests it on the Harbinger’s lips.
“A-Aether,” Childe stammers. He moves his head to avoid the tip. “What—“
“Where I come from,” Aether says casually, “there are many many ways to refer to people who give fellatio.” Childe shudders. “Cocksucker is one, as you’ve said. And another is sword-swallower.”
The Harbinger lies extremely still beneath Aether.
“Tell me, Childe,” Aether says, a dark cruelty suffusing his tone, “are you a sword-swallower? If I asked you to, ah…swallow my sword…would you?”
Childe lies very, very, very still, and keeps his mouth firmly closed against the point of Aether’s sword.
“Pity,” Aether murmurs, and withdraws the sword. He steps off of Childe, and gestures for Paimon. “Come on. It’s time for us to go.”
“Are you sure?” Paimon chirps. “Or are you and Childe going to exchange some more homoerotic battle taunting?”
“Tartaglia,” Childe rasps, struggling to sit up. Aether’s rock shackles don’t let up even for a moment. “My name is…Tartaglia.”
Aether watches the blood drip down Tartaglia’s lip, and the monster in his chest purrs in dark delight.
“No,” Aether says, “we’re done here.”
💫💫
Later:
“I could have killed him,” he says, reflectively, to Paimon. It is a few nights after the monster in Guyun Stone Forest awoke, with the help of Tartaglia—no, Childe, when he is being a Harbinger he is Childe. Aether and Paimon sit now beside a fire, and the outlander watches the smoke spiral up a beautiful starry sky that Childe had once blotted out with the advent of a dying deity.
“I could have killed him,” he repeats, and for once his elfin companion is quiet. “In fact, I think I should have. It would have been so easy.”
“It’s true,” Paimon says finally. “But, I think, given all the trouble he’s caused, you should do something much worse to him.”
“Much worse? Like what? Torture? Pulling off all his fingernails? Flaying him and then making him kneel on salt?”
“Aether!” Paimon giggles. Paimon giggles, faced with the darkness and fury that rages barely chained in Aether’s chest. “I mean, you could, if you wanted to, but that seems unnecessary. I think the best way to torture Childe is just to keep beating him, and beating him, and beating him, until he acknowledges that no matter how he serves his Tsaritsa, no matter how much stronger he gets, there’s always going to be someone stronger, and it’s going to be you.
“And then you kill the Tsaritsa and wrest her Gnosis from her corpse,” she adds, cheerfully. “And then you make Childe kneel to you!”
“Bloodthirsty,” he comments. Aether remembers Childe flat on his back, fear in his eyes, blood all over his beautiful creamy skin. What would it be like, to have Childe on his knees, blue eyes wide and wanting, as Aether loomed over him, a god once more? “I like that.”
Paimon giggles.
💫💫
And then:
And then, Childe lies slumped against a wall, the Foul Legacy Transformation having taken all his strength from him again. Teucer, Childe’s little brother, runs around the Mr. Cyclops research facility, calling for his brother. Every muscle in Childe’s body is limp with exhaustion, and his red hair is dark with sweat.
Aether looks at Childe, and all of a sudden wants.
“I could kill you right now,” he says, fingering his sword. “It’s been nice and all, Childe—” He sees the Harbinger flinch, “But you are a pest and a thorn to me personally, and a danger to Teyvat if I let you live.”
“The danger part…” he coughs, “you don’t seem to care much about that. About the danger to Teyvat, I mean. You care more about…me being annoying.”
“Lumi—Lumine,” Aether says, and he almost chokes on the name. The precious name. “Lumine would have wanted me to care for this world, so I will.”
A beatific smile spreads across Childe’s face, and he says, “That’s how I know you won’t kill me. You have a sibling, after all.”
And Aether snaps.
He doesn’t HAVE a sibling now—he doesn’t have Lumine, brilliant moon-glow love, holding him back from the worst of his impulses. He doesn’t have Lumine and that’s why his sword is tacky with the blood of a hundred thousand battles, he doesn’t have Lumine and that’s why he went along with amusing Teucer the annoying little brat, he doesn’t have Lumine and that’s why—
“Paimon,” he snaps, “get the child out of here.”
“Childe?”
“No, Teucer,” he snaps. “Get him out of here before I do something that will scar him for life.”
Childe’s eyes go wide. “Aether, you wouldn’t—“
“You don’t know what I will and won’t do,” he spits, “but no, I won’t kill you. But Paimon, get the boy OUT.”
“But how?!”
“I don’t know and I don’t care, make it happen.” He walks right towards Childe, and rocks slam into existence around him, lifting and trapping him into a kneeling position.
“A-Aether, what—“
“I’ve decided,” he says, and laughs in delight at the fear in Childe’s voice. “I’ve decided I’m going to teach you that it’s fun to be a cocksucker.”
“No—no, I don’t—Aether,” Childe stammers. “Come on now, that’s not funny, I don’t—“
“I think you do,” Aether croons, and moves so that Childe’s heaving breaths move right across the fabric of his leather trousers. The hot, slightly wet breath on his cock is enough to make him twitch and stiffen—not that he hadn’t been half-hard already, at the thought of Childe at his mercy. “I think you’re going to open my trouser placket, and you’re going to swallow my cock to the root.”
“Aether, that’s—no, I won’t, I’m not a—“
Teucer’s voice rings out the research facility: “What do you mean, we have to go? But my brother!”
Aether smirks directly at Childe’s stricken face. “The faster you get me off,” he croons, “the faster the precious doting toy salesman can get back to lying to his baby brother.”
Childe’s eyes were wide with fear and lust, and his fingers move to his Vision and Delusion. Aether tuts, and plucks them from his grasp, dropping them neatly in his bag.
“Now, pretty boy,” Aether says, faux-sweetly, “are you going to do it nicely, or are we going to have a fight?”
“I’d—I’d much rather have a fight,” Childe snarls, but there’s no anger to it, just a touch of fear.
“We’ve had a fight, Childe,” Aether says, and grins darkly. “I think you remember the winner of that one.” He begins to undulate his hips against the Harbinger’s face, a crass and unmistakably sexual motion meant to shame the other. Childe gasps.
“Pretty mouth,” Aether says, and slips a thumb in, levering it against the taller man’s tongue. Childe hesitates, almost as if he’s planning to bite down, but then closes his lips around Aether’s callused thumb. “Good boy. What a pleasing mortal.”
Childe shudders.
Aether unfastens the placket of his trousers, and his cock springs free just inches in front of Childe’s mouth. Childe’s beautiful blue eyes go wide at the sight of it, and instinctively he backs away. Aether grabs the back of his head with one hand and says, “Uh-uh-uh, we’re not fighting any more today. We’re going to have a little lesson in throwing around slurs. More than that, we’re going to have a little lesson about how you don’t knock it till you tried it.”
A pearl of precome shimmers on the bulbous head of Aether’s pale pink cock, and Childe’s eyes keep darting to it. The outlander laughs, and forces the Harbinger’s mouth open. Childe resists, but only for a moment, and then opens his mouth.
“Beautiful,” Aether praises, and a flush appears on Childe’s cheekbones. “So pretty with that mouth all open, desperate, wanting—oh, you’re going to gag on this, Harbinger, you’re going to gag and you’re going to love it.”
And then he shoves his hips right up against Childe’s mouth.
The Harbinger chokes, unprepared, and Aether doesn’t pull back, letting Childe’s mouth and throat convulse around the new intrusion. He takes huge heaving breaths through his nose, and blond pubic hair flutters with the frantic breathing.
And oh—Childe’s mouth. Warm and wet and ever so soft. Childe closes his lips around the base of Aether’s cock. He looks up at the outlander with wide wet eyes, his cheeks hollowed out but not moving. He isn’t objecting, but he doesn’t know how to do it, either, and the monster in Aether’s chest purrs in delight.
“There we go,” Aether says, smirking. “Aren’t you beautiful like that.” He slaps Childe for the pleasure of feeling his cock against the skin, and the other man’s cheek reddens with the slap. “Aren’t you so pretty like that. But this is cocksucking lesson one, so I’ll tell you: start by suckling on the tip. Like a candy cane.”
Aether’s belly flares with heat and arousal as the Harbinger actually does what he is told. His clever mocking tongue wraps around the tip, and then a shy tongue probes at the slit as Childe licks. And then the Harbinger begins to suck properly, his cheeks hollowing in and out—the rhythm unpracticed, inexperienced, but unmistakably willing.
“Oh, baby,” Aether breathes, and begins to thrust. Careful, this time, not selfish and punishing. Childe’s blue eyes dart up to Aether’s golden ones, and hold. Aether’s cock slips in and out of the other man’s mouth, the length of it disappearing into pursed lips, and Aether says again, “Baby, don’t you look good like this…on your knees for me, a pretty little cocksucker—“
Childe moans, the sound vibrating down Aether’s cock, and then stills completely.
Aether laughs.
“Do you like that, baby?” he croons, and fists both hands into Childe’s wild red hair. “Do you like being called a cocksucker?” The Harbinger shakes his head no, but Aether pushes his cock in through the red, wet lips, and Childe’s tongue chases the tip desperately, his tongue slipping around the length. “Big, bad, powerful Harbinger, thanked by his lessers for giving them the privilege to spar with him, but get him on his knees in front of an outlander and—“ he pistons his hips to punctuate his words, “he’s—gagging—for—it. You know, I really don’t get why you haven’t done this sooner, beautiful boy, it would have kept you warm in Snezhnaya, and you’re so pretty like this, I bet they would have all lined up for you…”
Childe pulls his head back, but only so he could flick and suck the tip harder, and Aether moans. “Yes, baby, just like that.” His cock was throbbing, and his balls—“Pull back, baby, suck my balls,” he commands, and Childe abandons Aether’s cock and began to suck at his balls.
The Harbinger almost hums in delight as he fills his mouth with Aether’s balls, and Aether shudders at the pleasure of it—Childe’s tongue slipping into every dip and crevice, and sucking first one then the other into his mouth. Then he goes back up the shaft, sucking sloppy kisses up the length of Aether’s cock, and then pushing his own head back down Aether’s cock and sucking the tip.
“You want this so bad, baby,” Aether realizes, and his hands don’t do anything but rest in Childe’s hair as the other man bobs back and forth on his cock. Childe’s hips thrust forward ineffectively, and Aether laughs to see that the other man’s cock is hard in his pants, tenting the fabric obscenely. “You want this so badly. Look at my cock bulging in your throat. Look at those wide pretty eyes. You’re tearing up and you aren’t even stopping. Look at you go.”
Childe draws back, chokes out a wet breath, and says, “Aether—Aether, please—“
“What is it, baby?”
Childe shudders at the pet name. “Please…my hands…”
“Oh? What about your hands?”
“Let them free!” the other man begs, “please, let me touch myself, I want it so badly, Aether, I want to come—“
“You want to come sucking my cock? You want to jerk yourself off with a throat full of cock?”
“YES,” Childe cries out, “yes, please, let me get off, Aether, I’ll—“
Aether laughs, wickedly. “And what assurance do I have that you won’t fight me the moment you get free?”
“Aether, please,” Childe begs, and he looks utterly wrecked. Aether’s cock bobs against his cheek, smearing his tearstained face with spit and precome. “Please, Aether, please, I want—I want—“ He thrusts his hips into the air ineffectually. “Please!”
Aether laughs. “Oh, baby,” he says cruelly, affectionately, “I love when you beg.” The rock shackle cuffing Childe’s left hand—his non-dominant hand—shatters, and as soon as it does Childe is thrusting his hand down his pants and freeing his cock, and jerking it frantically.
“Oh baby, baby, that won’t do,” Aether purrs, “you’ll hurt yourself. Stop that.”
Childe obeys, shuddering all over, trembling with the effort of it. Aether slaps his cock against his cheek just for the fun of it, and Childe chases his cock and captures the tip, sucks at it and holds it in as he shivers, waiting for Aether’s next movement. Aether spits into his hand and slicks up Childe’s cock, and the other shudders at the feeling of it.
“What a lovely cock you’ve got there,” Aether says, smiling, and Childe looks up with wide wanting eyes. “It’s just the right length, and your skin is so soft. You’ve gotten so worked up, baby, look at how flushed it is.” He strokes the Harbinger’s cock. “All that for me?”
“Yes—yes—“
“You got hard sucking cock? You got hard being a cocksucker, Childe?”
“Tartaglia,” he cries out, “my name is—“ Aether gives a punishing pull, and he breaks off into a moan. “Call me—Tartaglia—“
“Okay, Tartaglia,” Aether soothes, “that’s my baby boy, Tartaglia, sweet Tartaglia. When you’re being my sweet little slut, you’re Tartaglia.”
Tartaglia moans again, and sets back to sucking Aether’s cock. Aether’s belly twists and flares, the throb in his shaft thudding through his blood as Tartaglia bobs up and down his length. He swallows it all in one go, and then slides back up, flicking the tip—a quick suckle of the tip, and then pressing wet sloppy kisses down the shaft and then repeat. All the while, his own hand moves on his cock, frantic pulls as his hips thrust for friction.
“So good—such a pretty boy,” Aether chokes out, his hands tightening in Tartaglia’s red hair. He pulls at it, and Tartaglia moans wantonly. “I’m going to—I’m going to fuck your mouth, baby, all you have to do is keep your mouth open and breathe through your nose, can you be a good boy and do that for me?”
He doesn’t let Tartaglia answer, thrusting selfishly into the Harbinger’s mouth, but Tartaglia gamely tries anyway—he lets out a “Yes yes yes” before Aether is fucking into him, and Tartaglia makes glrk-glrk-glrk sounds as his throat is violated—but is it really violation, Aether thinks viciously, happily, if Tartaglia fucking loves it?
His moans echo through the facility, Paimon and Teucer forgotten. As he fucks in cruelly, Tartaglia’s tongue chases and sucks sloppily whenever he pulls out.
“God, baby—I’m going to come, where do you want it, down your throat or on your face?”
“Ah—ah—“ Tartaglia sobs out, unable to answer. “I’m coming, Aether, god, AetherAetherAether—“ and white come splatters the gray stone floor as Tartaglia shudders his orgasm. At the same moment, Aether pulls out of Tartaglia’s mouth and releases streaks of come on his face.
Tartaglia looks up at Aether, panting heavily, white streaks in his red hair. Aether smirks and wipes the come off his face with his thumb, offering it to Tartaglia.
The Harbinger opens his mouth and sucks Aether’s thumb clean.
“Beautiful,” Aether praises, “what a beautiful precious boy, Tartaglia, taking all of that so well. An A plus for your first lesson on cocksucking, baby.”
Tartaglia flushes, and ducks his head down. “Don’t—don’t call me—“
“Baby?” Aether says, mockery threading through his voice. “But you liked it so much earlier. Didn’t you, baby?” He forces Tartaglia to look at him, and he slaps his softening cock on the other’s come-streaked face. “Don’t play games with me. You sucked me like you were born to it and you loved it.”
“I—I did,” Tartaglia whispers, “damn you to all the hells, Aether, I—“
“You,” Aether pronounces, laughing wildly, cruelly, “you are a cocksucker, and you are good at it.” He releases the other rock cuff, and pulls Tartaglia up from his kneeling position. The other man staggers, and slumps across the wall.
Aether steps forward and presses him against the wall. His hand goes down to Tartaglia’s own soft cock, and he strokes it gently. Tartaglia jerks at the overstimulation.
“Good boy,” he breathes hotly into Tartaglia’s ear, “you did so well, sucking me so sweetly like that.” He puts his full weight against Tartaglia, and while the other is taller, Aether is stronger and bulkier. His hands go to Tartaglia’s ass, and he squeezes the cheeks viciously—Tartaglia jerks, and looks at him with fearful, aroused eyes.
“Not today, baby,” Aether promises, “but next fight…that ass is mine.”
“I—I—“
“You’re going to be a great ass fuck,” he says, smiling sweetly, holding the Harbinger’s blue gaze. “You’re going to be so good for me, you’re going to loosen up so lovely. I bet no one has ever had your ass before. I bet you’d be my sweetest virgin boy.
“I’m going to open up your ass,” Aether continues, gripping Tartaglia tighter. “I’m going to fuck you so hard, and you’re going to scream for it, and you’re going to beg me to come in you and breed you. You’re going to beg me to impregnate you, baby, and you’re going to fucking love every minute of it.”
Tartaglia’s entire body shudders, his face flushing red-red-red and going down to his chest.
And then he says, “You…you promise?”
Aether laughs, like the wild, feral, bloodstained god that he is. Blood and death, the monster in his chest whispers, blood and death and sex and power.
“Yes, Tartaglia,” he says, already dreaming of their next fight, “I promise.”