I know Kachina came out a while ago, but it still makes me so infuriated that they gave her a Hopi name while also doing absolutely nothing as for actual Hopi representation?? They gave her a Hopi name, then made her skill hopping around on a drill. When a lot of the modern (and historical) offenses of American colonizers is illegal oil drilling and mining operations on native land in the west. Hoyoverse just doesn't give two shits about cultural representation anymore, and I'm very sick and tired of seeing people STILL trying to defend Natlan or claim that Hoyo isn't doing active harm towards popular representation of the cultures they claim to take 'inspiration' from
No warnings for this one except it was written a little over a year ago as a random idea for a rarepair!!!! But looking back on it, I enjoy it enough to post it. Also it is in fact unfinished!
Word count: 1545
Below the cut:
Water drips down the faucet, metronomic and repetitive, and it plops into the already-existing puddle that sits at the bottom of the sink. Soapsuds and remnants of past meals cling near the drain, shifting just barely with each beat.
He should leave. The thought stays where it forms, his limbs too heavy to follow through with the command. His muscles ache and his mouth is dry, but even just swallowing water would be difficult in his current state of dread. He’s been thinking too much.
The table is clean; as it nearly always is. Save for a few decorations; a mix of choosings from Kaveh’s shopping trips and whatever Childe’s family sent as gifts. The rest of their house is no exception. The chairs, the cabinets, the details in the archways, the rugs; it’s all Kaveh, with some assistance from the harbinger’s pocket.
Ironically, the same can’t be said for his study. It’s a mess, just as it usually is. ‘An organized mess’, Kaveh huffs whenever Childe enters to bring him a plate of food, reminding him that ‘so long as he’s under his roof, he won’t be a starving artist’.
Kaveh turns his head to glance across the room at their open kitchen. His shoulders are slumped, head tilted back as he lays on the couch like a soldier bleeding in a trench. In every visible corner of that room– of this house in its whole– there is nothing that would suggest that Kaveh was never here. In the same regard, there is no way to mistake that Childe wasn’t here either.
It’s a home. That much is obvious. The harbinger poured his heart (and an ungodly amount of money that Kaveh never likes to scoff over because doing so would force them to talk about where it came from) into making sure of it. It’s domestic.
He couldn’t leave. It was a stupid thought, and he considers opening a bottle of wine– some shockingly expensive thing Childe got from a friend in Liyue– to wash it down. The thought turns a few minutes more, before he ultimately gives up. One small glass would turn to the whole bottle, and Childe would come home to find him curled up in bed sobbing.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Even when it was the two of them sharing drinks after a nice homemade dinner, it wasn’t shocking for a few tears to shed and Kaveh to bury his face in Childe’s shoulder. He’d never felt so loved, and no matter how he tried to deny all that he was blessed with, Childe’s determination was a warforce.
If he left now, fairly early into the evening when the sun hadn’t yet set, where would he even go? He was just an architect. What was he against a harbinger? If the idea were written, he’d crumple it up and throw it into the wastebin with the rest of the designs that failed to meet his standards of perfection. He’d sooner let the archons martyr him than run without explanation. For everything he’d done, Childe deserved better.
When Childe got home, would he reek of battle? When he’d come to kiss Kaveh on the cheek, would he be covered in sweat and failing to hide the blood on the cuffs of his sleeves? Whose would it be? Some poor merchant who couldn’t repay his debt? If they weren’t who they were, would Childe strike down Kaveh for all the debts he made?
He’d been in their place before. People who struggled, not without anguished attempts to be better, and had to put themselves through debt. Did Childe ever look at them with mercy and think of his lover? Did he ever think ‘what would Kaveh think of me?’ when he held his blade to the throat of some lowly agent? Or was the only thing on his mind the brilliance of red?
Leaning forward, shoulders hunched and his face buried in his hands, Kaveh sighs in frustration. He should leave. That should be the choice. How could he, someone who prided himself on what he did for others, always trying to be the better, knowingly welcome home someone who killed so easily? How could he help a harbinger cook meals like an old married couple, go shopping for furniture, or bicker with about the placements of the decorations in the bathroom? They spend mornings together, cuddled beneath the covers and within the same hour, fighting about the wrinkles in Kaveh’s good shirt when Childe was adamant that he’d ironed it the night before.
But who was Childe when he wasn’t with Kaveh? Kaveh’s eyes drifted towards the door now, as if expecting some sort of heavenly apparition to appear before him in explanation. Would the boyish lover exist at all? Would he be worse if Kaveh dared to argue about his violent habits, the challenging remarks here and there that seemed to run deeper than playful comments? If Kaveh left, would he be dealing the killing blow to whatever man was left in the harbinger, and all that would remain was a monster?
Would he have to be the one to travel back to Snezhnaya and solemnly explain to his family how their son was no longer human? How he was a harbinger, not a toy seller, and he lavished in violence for no reason other than pleasure? What would Kaveh do then? Would Childe’s mother sink to the floor and weep, his father pacing the room and telling him to sternly leave? Would any words be able to leave Kaveh’s lips at all when he’d look at Teucer’s face, bright-eyed and hopeful?
He can’t leave. In the back of his mind, he knows he doesn’t want to either. Not just because of all that he’d be responsible, but because who would Kaveh be without this? Here, he had a home. Even though it felt so wasted on him, Childe loved him with such fevered dedication that any doubt was suffocated by the sheer amount of adoration he was showered with.
When Kaveh sat on the couch and memories of his mother began to creep back in, there was nothing he believed more honestly than that Childe would soon come home to force back his troubles. Maybe he enjoyed the fight; a never ending battle with Kaveh’s worries and fighting back the past with a blade and soft-spoken reassurances. And when Kaveh followed his lover to Snezhnaya for visits to his small village, there was something that felt undeniably good about sitting in a dining room surrounded by the faces of a happy family.
They welcomed him like he was one of them. Even if Kaveh tried, there was no place to be found in that house that wasn’t cluttered with signs of love. They threw it at him– an obvious sign of where Childe got it from– without a second thought. It was overwhelming the first time he visited, and there was no doubt it would continue to be so.
If he left, he’d lose that. He’d go back to where he had been: lurking in Lambad’s surrounded by cheap alcohol that he’d have to scrape by to even afford. Days would pass him by, blurred together like his vision when he drank, and all hope would flicker away from him eventually. Undoubtedly, he was happier with Childe. And undoubtedly, Childe was happier with him.
It was at times like this that he felt inconsolably guilty for making himself sick with overthinking. Obviously, he couldn’t leave. Still, the thought pestered him. The thought of Childe’s career, his passion for the grotesque, his future marked with red-stained blades pestered him. Was he being complicit in the happiness of a murderer?
Would it be too much to say that perhaps, in some small way, it was what Kaveh deserved? Karma, maybe. He got his happiness, but not without endless pain alongside it. For all the strife he’d caused his mother, for the death he caused his father, why wasn’t this what he deserved? He’d never see himself perfectly content, designing libraries and churches and estates– instead, he was lying on his couch, in a home he never had to pay for yet was all the same his, mulling over nothing until his head hurt.
Kaveh wished he was better. He wished he wasn’t like this, trapped in an endless cycle of guilt that kept him suspended between staying and leaving. If he left, he would ruin Childe. If he stayed, he’d ruin himself. And Kaveh was nothing if not selfless.
Childe would come home soon, bringing groceries and anecdotes about his day. Dinner would be made together, seeing as Kaveh didn’t have the energy to hide himself away in his study, and it seemed inevitable that the harbinger would notice his melancholy. His exhaustion would seep into the conversation and he would be defenseless if Childe asked him what was wrong. But he wouldn’t be able to do much more than string together half-baked confessions of his hatred for Childe’s profession. More than that would border on blaming Childe, and in no world did Kaveh blame him for the quality of his life. Kaveh was one that didn’t fit; the singular out-of-place detail that makes the whole design faulty.
sorry for not posting for a bit!! things have been busy and i wanted to draw more hsr characters BUT this is what i have . for now. anyway it is not surprising that these freaks are my favorite especially polka kakamond my beautiful freak wife <3 i am a hertamond truther
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