Chapter Text
Childe didn’t have any particularly strong feelings about dreams. Most of his experience on the subject came from his youth; nights spent amongst vivid fantasies, vague shapes, and bizarre plots strung together by an overactive imagination flowing into something so tangible they dared to feel real. And when morning came, she would gently erase them from his memory.
These days he barely remembers what that had felt like. He imagines that sort of sleep must have been bliss.
It had been a rough transition. The first night after his return from that cold, dark place, he lay in bed, vigilant of a phantom predator. When he did manage to sleep he was plagued with visions, haunting him, clawing at the corners of his mind, taunting him. Every time he closed his eyes it was as if he had never left that horrid place.
He lived like that for a long time, sleeping in small spurts. His mother once commented on the bags under his eyes. He lied to her. “It’s probably just the lighting.” Neither of them believed him, but she never asked again. Two months later he was sent away to a place where no one asked about trivial things like eye bags.
These days Childe manages to sleep through the night, at the expense of dreams. Really it was a small sacrifice considering the alternative always seemed to end with him tangled in sheets, covered in sweat. He loathed the way seconds would inch by as his eyes would take their precious time to adjust to the dark, the only sound filling his ears being the thundering of his heart.
Childe does not dream anymore, but he supposes he prefers it this way.
So when his eyes open to a hazy view of the sky and not the bland beige of the ceiling in his hotel room, the obvious does not occur to him.
He blinks several times in an attempt to acclimate to the light streaming through, what appears to be, stocks of wheat? Without shifting his head he glances around at the abundance of wheat that surrounds him, shooting upwards as if to greet the clouds that roll lazily overhead. As his senses start to come back to him, he is becoming increasingly aware of how hard the earth is beneath him.
He slowly sits up, unhappy to find that the stiffness in his joints follows him. It feels as though he’d been laying there for hours before he came to. Which begs the question: How long had he been out?
He has no memory of how he could’ve gotten here. He racks his brain trying to recall if he drank last night. He doesn’t remember alcohol, but then again perhaps he drank himself so silly that he can’t even remember his first sip. He wants to argue that it doesn’t feel like something he’d do, but on the other hand even he can recognize that these days he’s acting more and more out of character.
With a clearer view of his surroundings, he tries his best to make out something recognizable. The landscape that lay before him appears soft in the dwindling light, saturated in the warmth of the sun’s final rays. His eyes follow the wheat field as it stretches out until it tapers off at the base of the mountains. The clouds float by unbothered, whispy, and translucent. A breeze gently sways the spikes of wheat, causing a rippling effect across the plain.
He has the oddest sensation that he knew this place. It felt familiar somehow. Not the sort of familiar that reminded him of home; this peaceful, mild climate was nothing like the frozen tundras of Snezhnaya. A year ago, before he had spent time in Liyue, that likely would’ve been his first guess. But now he’s spent a year there, traversing all over her terrain. From where he sits currently in this field he recognizes not a single feature. Sure, the wheat is nearly the same, the mountains almost sit in the right place, and the clouds have the same consistency as he remembers, but wherever he is, it’s not exactly Liyue. At least not the one he’d come to know.
Perhaps drunk Childe had discovered some new unexplored region of Liyue. He snorts out loud at his own idiocy. There was no way that could ever be true. Liyue was far too old. He was probably still drunk. That was the far more logical explanation. Still, he didn’t feel drunk.
He inhales deeply, soaking in the crisp air of dusk. It smells like the onset of spring, which is odd because last he checked it was firmly autumn. He should probably be more concerned by the discrepancy, but he finds he can’t bring himself to care. He likes it here.
He figures he should move, to try to figure out where he is and where he’s going. Ekaterina will probably be looking for him by now. She’ll have sent out people. They are probably hunting him down as he sits here. How embarrassing. He should go tell them he’s alright.
He sighs, flopping back down onto the hard ground. It wasn’t worth it. It’ll be no less embarrassing to be found asleep in a random field than to have to explain that he passed out in a random field. Besides, it's quiet here. Katya likes the quiet, she’ll understand. His eyes are beginning to get heavy again. He’ll explain and she’ll understand.
He fails to notice how quiet everything is until a loud noise threatens his peace. He squeezes his eyes tighter, hoping that whatever it is will go away. It does not. In fact, it gets louder, ringing out incessantly. The noise is remarkably irritating in the way that sometimes it would stop, only to start back up. By its fourth cycle, he relents, allowing the noise to come into focus. It sounds like something heavy against wood. Then he hears the unmistakable sound of his name. It’s Katya. He knew she’d find him, although he hoped it wouldn’t be so soon.
“Master Tartaglia!” His eyes shoot open. No lazy sky and gentle wheat stocks greet him; only the bland beige of his hotel suite.
Oh. In hindsight, this makes more sense.
Ekaterina’s knocking is still reverberating throughout the room. He sighs. It had been a nice dream, probably the last for a very long while.
“Childe!” The knocking is getting more aggressive. “You’re going to be late!”
“Yah, Yah I’m coming. Don’t break your wrist.” He wretches open the door mid-knock. “Morning Katya.”
Ekaterina’s hand stumbles as it comes down on nothing. She quickly recovers. “You’re late.” She glares up at him, clearly with far more violent words on the tip of her tongue. They both know she won’t say them. She might be a decade his senior but he was still her boss. It mattered little, Childe could practically hear the unspoken words in her tone alone.
Instead of saying what she wants, she says, “Don’t Katya me,” as she pushes past him into the room. “I informed you yesterday that the ship leaves at ten, did I not?”
Childe laughs sheepishly, allowing her to shuffle around his room. He’s grateful that he fell asleep in his clothes, though the wrinkles give him away instantly.
“Yes, you did. I remembered. Look, I even packed.” He gestures to a table she had walked right past in her haste. She pauses, her gaze following where he points. Just as he said, there laid a small pile of luggage haphazardly stacked. Ekaterina tries and fails to mask her surprise.
She clears her throat. “Right.” Childe fights the instinct to roll his eyes. Ye of little faith.
She makes short work of grabbing his bags, lugging them out with surprising ease. Seeing her behind a desk all day makes it easy to forget who she really is. He supposes the same can be said for him. Though he doubts Ekaterina would be surprised by his own juxtaposition. She was remarkably hard to shake. He liked that about her.
Under normal circumstances, no subordinate would be allowed to speak to him in such a manner. However, after a year practically confined to desk work and niceties, the two of them had formed a certain understanding. He’d hardly call it a friendship, but there are only so many times you can stitch someone up or remind them to not get blood on the paperwork before a sort of bond is formed. He knows it’s been a long year for her, so he cuts her some slack. Besides, it was admittedly refreshing to have a subordinate who wasn’t terrified of him.
She speaks over her shoulder as she adjusts her grip on the now neatly balanced luggage, defiant against the notion of another trip. “Be at the dock in an hour. The ship doesn’t care if you’re on it. It leaves at ten with or without you.” She makes to leave but stops abruptly right before the threshold. “Oh, and I’d recommend ironing your clothes. They’re wrinkled.” With that she exits as swiftly as she came, the door clicking closed behind her.
He does as she recommends and goes about the rest of his morning. The dream slips from his mind completely.
It is a quarter to ten when he arrives at the docks. Ekaterina shoots him an impatient look but doesn’t comment. His luggage has already been stowed in his cabin, all that’s left is his person. He boards unceremoniously at five minutes till. The crew races around him in preparation for cast off. He stands on deck, a motionless figure amongst the chaos, watching the dock.
He hadn’t told anyone that he was leaving today. Rather, he didn’t have anyone to tell. Yet as he stands aboard the ship and looks down upon the dock he can’t help but search for someone, anyone, to see him off. Someone he could smile and wave to, someone who might be sad to see him gone. It’s only been a year, but to Childe, it might as well have been ten. In many ways, he feels as though he is a different person now. Funny how that works. When he looks down onto the hustle of the mid-morning docks, he sees no one, except his employee.
Ekaterina stands stiffly amongst the crowds. She doesn’t wave nor does she smile. He is grateful for Katya, of course, he is, she didn’t have to be here. She could’ve left as soon as he boarded, but she stayed. Sometimes it was frightening how well she could read him. She was reliable like that, and frankly probably too accommodating. He is grateful, but at the end of the day she is his subordinate and he is her boss.
When he looks her way she gives him a terse nod. From this distance, he can’t read her micro-expressions. He wishes she wasn’t wearing a mask, maybe then he could see that she secretly had glassy eyes. He knows it’s selfish, but he hopes she’ll miss him. He hopes that his leaving will affect somebody. That when she passes by his empty desk she’ll feel just a little pang, nothing crippling, just enough to make her stop for a second and think of him. He wonders what will happen to his desk.
At ten, Ekaterina promptly departs, and Childe watches her as she disappears amongst the hustle and bustle. He doesn’t take it personally, he knows she has work to do.
He’s gonna miss her.
Only that’s not what really keeps him standing on deck. He’s aware no one knows that today is his final day in Liyue. That in three day's time, he’ll be in Snezhnaya once more. That he might not be coming back. He knows that no one is coming. He knows, yet his feet remain firmly tethered to the spot, fingers curling into the wood of the railing.
It’s now been a week, and while in many ways he’s still reeling from having the rug pulled out from under him, the anger has greatly subsided. He’s still pissed at Signora, it’s only fair, but in his line of work holding grudges did him little good. In short, he hadn’t seen it coming, but he can’t say he expected anything less from her. Zhongli on the other hand.
They haven’t spoken since that day. He had made sure to avoid all of their usual spots. Perhaps it was petty. No, it was definitely petty. He told himself he was busy. That was a lie. He’d always made time before and he could easily now. Except he hadn’t needed to avoid anything, because no invitations ever came. He had nothing to decline. He now wishes he had at least ordered takeout from Wanmin one last time.
He ran in circles all this week, parsing through imaginary speech after imaginary speech, grasping at words, searching desperately for the right ones.
The lack of invitations did nothing but exacerbate the situation.
For days he had played out scenarios of his boarding. The Zhongli in his mind would stop him. Sometimes this imaginary Zhongli would apologize, and sometimes Childe wouldn’t let him. He imagines himself laughing in Zhongli’s face, telling him some bald-faced lie, getting the last word. The Katya in his head tells him he’s being childish. He’s inclined to agree.
In the present, it is five minutes past ten, and the anchor is being hoisted. Childe gives the dock one last glance in some delusional hope. He scans the crowd of people. Not one of them looks familiar. He turns away with a sense of finality, his gaze set on the sea. He has a long journey ahead of him.
It’s better this way, he isn’t suited for long-term company.