#FOULWATERS ʳᵘⁿ ᵈᵉᵉᵖ , ━━━ tartaglia , the eleventh harbinger , & the tsaritsa's vanguard , of hoyoverse's genshin impact . unaffiliated with the rpc . though i mostly follow canon , i take a lot of liberties with the lore & universe to write tartaglia how i see fit . heavily inspired by : monstrous beings , eldritch abominations , gothic horror , and all the themes that revolve around each of those .
DISCLAIMER : tag suffers from very extreme bouts of psychosis that most often present as auditory & visual hallucinations . if you are triggered by unreality , please take care following . tw for cannibalism , violence , gore , horror , religious themes , and more . written by ash , twenty - six , he & they .
characters who are so inauthentic. characters who only show what they want other people to see of them. characters who simply must have control over every part of themselves. do you even get it
when you pray , what do you pray for ? this is the house that built you , and you’re going to burn it down . what is a home , if not the first place you learn to run from ?
for him , you learn the art of being [ DEAD ] . ( ac )
❝ wait. did you mend this ? ❞ diluc’s made it clear he doesn’t like anything about his situation ( stitches that pull at sore skin, trapped with a harbinger —— the enemy, truce or not currently withstanding —— for company who doesn’t know when to shut up, frustrated and miserable about both ), but that doesn’t mean he won’t appreciate the kind act in itself. he’s been taught to show gratitude, to be courteous to those who help ( even if, at times, it’s not entirely desired and more so through grit teeth ). there’s precision and quality to his work, as though he’s been taught by a professional. it’s impressive. and considering a part of him had been deeply ashamed the moment he realized he’d likely permanently ruined the seams with his carelessness, he means it more than he thought he would. ❝ thank you. ❞ diluc meets his gaze. ❝ that wasn’t necessary. ❞
tartaglia, eleventh harbinger, vanguard of her majesty the tsaritsa, doesn’t play with his food.
there’s meager fare on the road, and witnessing a superior swallowing down meat so raw it’s still wiggling is bad for soldier morale, or so he’d been told by signora. a dark cast sickly pall over an already dire situation -- how he’s learned to take his hunger pressed into the recesses, nooks and crannies where the smell of blood is thick and the air heavy ( down, down, down into a crack in the world, shattered sky through which nothing escapes / it all returns here ). he had learned to satiate with necessity, like taking medicine; a spoon of honey, to disguise the viscosity, the gradual slide settling cold sludge into his stomach. his mother’s favorite method of wrangling naughty, sickly kids into submission, when even the fever couldn’t do the trick. it’s too bad honey doesn’t disguise the taste of iron.
that is to say: by the third or fourth day, he has settled into the realization he’s going to allow one of the greatest thorns in the fatui’s side... to live. he’d been at his mercy, after all, injured artist’s tongue spilling curses in dizzying array out faster than the blood. plenty of creativity for each subsequent threat, and none of the charm to go with it. yet he had assisted anyway. the wound had been the size of a fist, slashed down the middle and purpling ‘round the edges; the smell of blood had been so strong it’d made his teeth ache, and instead he’d stitched it together like he was any other pair of old socks under his tender care. there’s a discomfort that comes from saving someone’s life, too heavy to really focus on in detail; the awareness of how strange it is, the reversal of his own nature. it didn’t feel wrong, but it didn’t feel right either. just... irritating.
or maybe that was just a side effect of sharing a living space with mondstadt’s most frustrating man. how many times had he sewn him up, anyway? what he should say is: he isn’t a medic. what he should say is: he isn’t a seamstress.
( what he should say is : you’re a threat to the fatui, and i am a harbinger. it’s nothing personal ).
instead, he sits at the kitchen table with curved fingers ‘round the heavy weight of a sharpening stone, and blinks stupidly at him as he tries to comprehend exactly what he’s just said to him. ragnvindr, thanking him ? what a ridiculous concept. but it’s his chest, really, that’s giving out, not his hearing. his mouth curves around the taunt even before it’s formed, a sinuous little thing. he doesn’t let it complete, but it’s there anyway, no speech necessary. tongue between teeth clamped down, pink between lips parted in a smug grin.
what he says is. ❝ of course. ❞ which is a ridiculous thing to say. they’re enemies. there are a thousand things they should be doing that don’t include sharing a house, sharing supplies, sharing food or weapons or skillsets. tartaglia -- ajax, really, since he’s shed the title at least for now -- thumbs at his bottom lip and returns to his task as if he hasn’t just cracked right through the ice and plunged into the freezing cold. and even worse, he continues that reply when the brief silence becomes too uncomfortable to ignore. ❝ are you surprised ? my sister taught me. katya. she hated taking those lessons alone, so she dragged me along. ❞
he isn’t looking at him as he says it, but he can see his reflection warped in the surface of the sword. he isn’t admitting anything right now. just a name, just an anecdote. nothing treasonous except for the fact diluc is even alive right now. ❝ maybe you could thank her instead. ❞ the sword goes abandoned, shoved towards the middle of the table in favor of propping his foot onto the edge of his seat, bent leg pressed to his chest to rest his chin upon the knee. he considers his company through a hint of self-satisfied amusement. no humor except them; the perfect joke. ❝ it would probably be easier on your stomach than thanking me. ❞
( @foulwaters ) : — kiss & tell . — a kiss shared while holding your dying lover . hey marina .
❛ tag ? what’s wrong ? ❜
he has looked somewhere between upset ( & . ) lost all morning , mind clearly elsewhere . ayato is hardly the type to talk about feelings , would hate to bring them up when her lover may wish to keep them to himself — but then , if there is any support he can give , he wants to . it is the least he can do , for all of the tenderness he has taught her . she cups his face in her hands .
ache never ending. it’s never known anything else, and if it did, it didn’t remember. one of the thousand pieces of humanity carved away from its silhouette and swallowed whole by whatever things skirk stuffed into this body in her selfishness. its selfishness. you called out to me, and it knows she’s right. she had no reason to lie. whether he stayed or not meant nothing.
so they didn’t, but it did. it stayed right here, inside. curled up in this chest and mind and howling like a starving beast, feeding of every single desire ajax has ever had and taking it for its own. even now it lives on, feasting on the life it takes in exchange for mending its wounds. they didn’t ask it to; they didn’t ask for this price, yes you did————–
guttural yelp when spine hits floor, spitting out the blood in throat. already they’ve both mended, it knows it, it knows when it sits upward their blood will just be blood. it doesn’t matter who it came from. we’re the same regardless; hollow shells that taste rancid.
“ you think … " ah, throat still sore. words slur through sloughs of blood. " you think i was trying to kill you? ”
it laughs. sickly, coated in iron. pushes up on palms, heaves through the itch and crawling horror of its mending skin. this swimming disgust ( how horrid to be around: two nightmares feeding off of mutual unease ) makes it dizzy, even as corpse crawls back onto knees, trembling like a ragdoll.
“ don’t overestimate my kindness. i just wanted to know if you look like me on the inside, too. " teeth bared ‘neath lips stretched just too wide. canines that bite into its own lip, still bathed in streaks of its own blood. hungry. bored. mad, above all, desperate to crawl inside his skin and–perhaps be whole again, a piece of something, but they have nothing to offer one another. two black holes don’t create a galaxy. it was never about freedom. " aren’t you curious ? ”
a torrential downpour, but he thinks, with no small amount of irony, how it never used to rain in snezhnaya. even in the summer, morepesok was too cold; the breeze off the ocean carried with it the memory of winter, bracing chill that left even the edges of the sea crackling with ice. it sung like the abyss -- that black hole sound of clear ice, hollow and empty in the rising wind. a crack in the world, so far down that when he landed he’d barely made a sound, but maybe the crack had been in him first. when the wind comes, it winds through him in the same tone, same as it sounds ringing through the cavernous depths of ice snezhnaya houses in its bones.
the voice that reaches him through the bloodied fog of his mind, stored in the emptied cavity of his chest where all the worst memories have made their home, is barely even a voice so much as that ringing. his breath clenches tight in his chest. panic, he thinks. that’s what this feels like. the world dimming around him until it is just two pinpoints of fractured light, reflections of each other in the vague & sinuous stillness of a lake.
“ you’re-- you’re always trying to kill me. “ a hissed response through half-chattering teeth. he clamps down until his jaw aches, until he feels the pain like a reminder. something to drag him back out of the depths, out of the abyss, out of the loss. if he thumbs the edges of his ribs, the core of his heart, he’d feel nothing but the outline of what used to be there -- he knows it, he does! he’s too afraid to even look for fear of being right.
( what did you take from me? what did you take from me? repeated over and over, but when he parts his lips all he says is --- )
“ we’re nothing alike. you’re nothing! “ this is what he’d been in the depths, inside the skittering, wet darkness. the way it had plastered itself on his skin, in his skin, sunk in and spread like a slow rot. a panicked, terrified animal that had only calmed with a weapon in its hand. he craves it now. the comfort of fingers curved over a familiar handle, the pulsating ebb and tide of the waves. “ i’m me and you’re-- “ nothing! an imitation! a ghost, something dead that isn’t dead and something alive that isn’t alive! but his mind seizes on every accusation, caught in the flesh like a bur. what if he’s the imitation? what if he’s the ghost?
his breath leaves him. a slow death rattle. he curls his fingers into the rapidly cooling pool of blood, the congealed mass of it sticking to his fingers. he’s going to be sick.
a whisper thin end. “ you’re nothing. we’re nothing. “
There's a low snarl as he finally pins the young Harbinger against a wall. Teeth bared as he looks down at him in disappointment. "I believed we could have had some amicable relationship between us Ajax, but you make that difficult. Avoiding me at every turn. And for what? Because you cannot face who I am? Or are you still feeling hurt over the betrayal?"
He tuts. “At least take the time and effort to learn the full story before making a decision.” Without care he invades more of his personal space. Trapping the eleventh between himself and the freezing ice wall. “A shame really.” He states. Sounding remorseful yet not showing it as he lowers his head. “I’d have loved to continue our relationship.” Tongue extends, slowly licking a long strip upon tags neck. Taking his time to savour the moment and see how he reacts.(he remembers the days when he did this and Ajax simply laughed in amusement at his silly antics)
“But we can’t can we?” Tone bitter. “You believe there is nothing more between us.” With small growl, sharp teeth are bared once more and he strikes like a starved python. Teeth latch on Tartaglia's neck in a vice like grip. Teeth piercing soft squishy flesh. Drawing blood that tastes coppery with hints of the foul darkness of the Abyss within it. Yet, he doesn’t spit it out. Instead he relishes in the taste. Swallowing not one but two mouthfuls of the hot liquid that spills from Tartaglias neck.
Satisfied, he unlatches carefully. Holding Childe in place, just to not nick him once more. (how kind) Tongue latches on to lick the blood stained neck, cleaning it as well as once can with an open wound. Once finished, he steps back, licking the blood of his lips as he looks down at the man he once considered his friend. (Maybe even his lover if they where brave to admit it.)
“You may work for the Tsaritsa for now. But remember my love. In the end, your heart and soul will always belong to me. Even if you don’t realise it.”
the problem with his treacherous heart is how awfully it craves forgiveness. in another world, in another light, it wouldn’t be such a problem. dust off the remnants of a relationship scattered into pieces and set to the arduous task of restoration -- difficult work, but not impossible. instead, he seethes. he imagines zhongli’s throat beneath his hand, his blood on his tongue. a grotesque artwork of every desire he’s ever felt, good or bad, mangled into each other until he can’t separate one for the other. how many nights has he laid in bed now, playing it all over in his head? an endless performance behind his eyelids: opening act, closing scene. the betrayal he had felt; an endless pit in the core of his stomach that demanded recompense. satisfaction. revenge or flesh or something to satiate the gnawing.
instead, he has only this: avoidance, which is certainly not doing anything to combat the growing hunger, the growing whispers of abyss-tinged shades that drag him to sleep dreaming of zhongli beneath him gasping -- in pain? in pleasure? whatever, whatever. he can’t tell the difference. maybe he never could. ( all of it leads to the same place / covetous longing disguised as fury, fury disguised as bloodlust, bloodlust disguised as desire ).
a tangled knot he can’t hope to unweave, so he doesn’t even try. he isn’t afraid of anything. he crawled out of that abyss into the noonday light of a day he can’t remember, sloughed off skin for a wolf underneath. but maybe, maybe, ( maybe zhongli brings him close ). that’s the cornered thing talking when he has him trapped, ice against his back spreading shivers and goosebumps down sun-freckled arms. liyue had left its mark and he wishes it hadn’t. he wish he could sleep. he wishes he was left alone to suffer and pine and gnaw it out -- the desperation and the hurt -- like the desperate self-cannibalization of an animal trapped within the jaws of a trap.
amicable relationship, he says, and tartaglia hisses out his answer between his teeth.
he doesn’t want to talk. he doesn’t have anything to say. all those words will do is curl around his tongue and singe him like settling his hand into a fire. if he gives room for one, they’ll all spill out, this awful sickness that’s hollowed him out and made a home of him since he stood bereft in the echoing halls of the northland bank for the last time. he isn’t going to say anything, except he is. bristling before he’s even thought it through. scrambling hands shoving and pushing at the body beneath ( dig in, dig harder, tear at this stupid mortal body until he can find the divinity beneath and finally, finally lap at it all he wants ), snarling as he palms the edge of one sharp jaw and pushes. it does little. of course it does. he’s immovable as rock. he wants to laugh, delirious with the fury of it all.
“ there is nothing between us. you’re--- you’re nothing--- “ cornered animal, snapping at any hand that gets too close. zhongli’s has always been the closest. idiot. fool. naive child. the tongue on his neck is warm, and he shivers despite himself. “ don’t tell me you have regrets. you made your choice. “
blustering, of course. he isn’t a liar by nature but he is by trade.
“ i should’ve killed you right there--- “ it’s a thought halted in its tracks the moment teeth pierce, dissolving into a high-toned gasp that catches in his throat and rattles. archons. fuck. he thinks a sudden, dizzying array of panic-tinged phrases, all in language his mother would disapprove, but he’s gone lax even before they come to fruition. fluttering lashes, dark crescents casting shadows along his cheekbones, his head tilting as if to give better access. the clawed hands that dig into shoulders do so now with a violently altered purpose. it’s all so muddled in his chest. he can’t even tell what he wants.
to end it all: his lips part on a single, quiet moan, fluttering like the sudden nausea in his stomach. he’s going to be sick. the shadows at the corner of his visions, abyss-tinged peripheral, have gone suddenly silent. an audience at rapt attention.
his tongue curls around a curse. around zhongli’s name. around his heart. he shoves again, and this time the bastard actually unlatches. the altogether wrong choice, as he pulls back, and he can see the gleaming shine of blood on his lips. fuck. fuck. and then for good measure, he thinks it one more time. against the walls of his archon’s palace, he wobbles and worships another’s name. it is not a great feeling. of course he vocalizes exactly what he’s feeling right now, the sudden plunging sensation of realizing he’s fallen from a cliff and hadn’t even noticed until he hit the ground. love, he thinks, which is an awful lot like desire. love, craddled by the ice at his back and the warmth in front of him.
oh, he’s so fucked.
“ i hope you enjoyed that. “ dazed, flat ocean eyes staring up at him, a hand sliding to cup over the fresh wound, slick with his own blood. it’s already gone cold and tacky on his skin. a foolish, fleeting thought, but he wishes zhongli’d warm it with his mouth. at least here, the desire doesn’t quite make it to his face. “ it’s all you’ll ever have of me. “
he digs in with fingertips until he feels the well of pain. the world roars back to life like a furnace, like the coal drops of his blood. malice-coated maw releasing to slam into the other’s sternum. if he were stronger, he could drive in until he could feel his heart. he could take it out himself. a replacement, for the one he stole from him.
