— THIS PLACE IS QUIET ( AND I SEEK YOUR WARMTH ).
i. SYNOPSIS : it was an old hurt. it itches beneath your skin. it gnaws at your nerves and nags the back of your mind, wishing, demanding, pining so senselessly, so selfishly. you were human, a kinder part of you says, and why would and why should you feel so ashamed of wishing for something so necessary? or in which, you are starved, and he tries his best. ( neuvillette / zhongli x gn ! reader )
ii. WARNING(S) : angst and comfort, implications of touch starvation, moving away from home ( neuvillette ) past grief, food as a love language ( zhongli ), everyone is affection starved here, heavily self indulgent like guys kjhghj i had a slump and i feel sad so here feel sad with me, hugs and kisses. NOT PROOFREAD.
# masterlist
&& . neuvillette · ( it's a distance ; where you feel close yet so far )
i. THE FEELING SETS IN BEFORE YOU COULD COMPREHEND IT. It’s like a ghost — with its slow creeping, that gradual haunting that hovers over your head and turns your spine to ice. It’s in the way your hands shake, in how you wake up and miss that non existent warmth enveloping your body and wish for it through your blurry eyes ( you wish as much as you could, and you hope…hope it comes true ). It’s loneliness and it’s a bitter taste in every evident way.
Fontaine was new, despite years gone by and Fontaine was unfamiliar. The court held structures that made you feel small in its magnanimity, the waters were too clear a blue, the air smelled of distant smog. The most you have of home are the small things. A dish from your grandmother, a beaded bracelet from your cousin, all little somethings that lay scattered in your drawers ( and they were treasures, treasures that settle deep in your chest ).
Then there’s Neuvillette. A friend perhaps, for you were not sure what he considers you — who made your chest ache a new kind of ache. He made you long for a few more lasting moments, for his hands enveloping yours. He gifts you shells he finds on the beaches and talks about spring water and sea life. And you listen, for the loneliness runs deep and the itch beneath your skin, it screams.
Sometimes you think you see him stare for a little too long. At you, at your back, into your eyes. You wonder, you let yourself hope, you unearth old optimisms and think he knows that ache, that he wishes it too. Then the veil lifts and you see Neuvillette — polite, kind, gentle Neuvillette, who loves his melusine daughters while his gaze on you was of caution ( you were glass in his eyes, fragile, breakable, human ).
Selfish. You’re being selfish. Stop being selfish.
You tell yourself this every day, when you place his shells alongside your beaded bracelets. When you watch him stand in the rain, a stark and solitary figure in blue amidst grimey gray ( he looked so far away then ). So you long for it. You long for it silently as you turn over, starved, starved, starved as the silence grows clamorous and your ears ring and your chest feels heavy with lead and iron.
( You cry. You claw your hands into the bed. You try to feel something. You hug yourself in the dark. You tear everything apart till your palms are bloody and nothing is left, if only to justify feeling like an apparition in a world full of people.
You do none of these things ).
ii. LIFE MOVES ON AS IT ALWAYS DOES AND AS IT ALWAYS SHOULD. You do not. You cannot. You call out for them to slow down, you want to catch up. You run and run and run after them.
Nobody stops and you are left behind.
iii. NEUVILLETTE FINDS YOU AGAIN, like the river finds the ocean and the stars find the night. He speaks to you, for he has no one else but the melusine and he tells you about the flowers growing beneath his window and the birds trilling in his gardens. The little, human things he found fascinating and beautiful.
“Doesn’t it feel lonely?” you ask him one day, when you gather enough courage to be daring, to be blunt. He looks stunned as he considers it. Perhaps it was never brought to the surface before, when the people of Fontaine content themselves with his distance.
“It does.” he admits. “But what place does my bias have in court?” None, was the answer, but you do not want to say that.
“Then why are you speaking to me?” You ask. Why would he, when he looks upon human company with indecisiveness?
Neuvillette has no answer to give, but you see the way his eyes soften and how hesitance blooms forth. You see yourself in him, at least bits and pieces of it. You see his pining. You see the melancholy. It's the steady beat, the coming and going of the ocean. Its the distant blue line in the horizon. “Oh…” you mutter.
“Oh.” he echoes. He almost sounds like he’s teasing you. You look away ( your heart is in your throat. You want to kiss him ).
"Then…can I hug you?" You ask. "Even if it's just this once?"
"A hug?" He echoes. “Is that all you wish for?”
"A hug." You nod.
Neuvillette seems lost, and a little unsure. But he holds his arms out in acceptance. Your heart leaps in response, and your chest feels full, brimming, overflowing, falling into arms ( you were tearing up. You could hear that sated part of you weep ). The scent of petrichor hangs heavy around him, and he was warm, warmer than you expected, like sunned out sand on a beach.
Then he melts.
Neuvillette hugs you back with the air of a man deprived. You wonder how long he’s gone without a kind touch — decades? Centuries? You aren’t certain of it, you can’t bring yourself to imagine being so lonely for so long ( it feels stifling, like you were drowning. What was it like for him? Was it acrid air? The relentless heat? A pursuit of something so far away? ).
“Neuvillette. You’re holding me too tight.” you whisper but you don’t care. The itch was gone and that weight was gone and despite being squeezed into a bone crushing embrace, you feel like you could breathe again.
His hold on you relaxes. “My apologies. It’s just that…” A pause. You watch him think, pick out his words, make sense of this overwhelming deluge brimming in his eyes. He rests his chin on your shoulder. “This is nice.” he tells you.
It was.
&& . zhongli | rex lapis · ( i love how strong you are ; why can't i be too )
I. THERE WAS AN EMPTINESS IN THE FOOD YOU make. It lacks its cohesion, its warmth, the silent ‘i love you’ whispered when you take the first bite. You read over those recipes left behind with feverish obsession, down to its blotted corners and the ink splattered edges. You try again and take another step. And there was that absence, that hollow chest and you feel like breaking, falling apart, tearing into your heart with bloodied, phantom hands.
( Why couldn’t you do it right? )
Sometimes you wonder what Zhongli would think, when he sees you like this, hunched over the counter with a grip too tight as defeat hangs strong from your back. You wonder if he pities you, when he holds you aloft to his chest, if he thought this was pointless, childish, unnecessary. But he says nothing, his presence soft comfort and his touch, steady reliance. You tell yourself to calm down. You take a dep breath. You let it go.
It’s been years. Months upon months, weeks upon weeks, days upon days. You're taking too long, they say. It happened ages ago, they say. You feel slow, vulnerable, picked apart as they point out the disparity and talk about them with such ease. You could hardly bring a word out of your mouth without stopping, without pulling yourself together, without thinking of the way the warm life in their hands faded.
The pain never left. It festers like a dull ache at the back, like a forgotten itch that blooms on bad days. It stays, evolving through the tides, changing itself while it's claws stay obstinate in clinging on.
The pain never left, it was still there and with every failure to emulate that old, comforting taste, it shows it's ugly face and smiles.
There is an emptiness in the food you make. It lacks its cohesion and warmth.
You feel the same way.
Empty.
II. ZHONGLI USUALLY COOKS DINNERS when time permits. He prepares soup from fresh bamboo shoots and Springvale boar. He folds his dumplings with practiced ease. He wipes away the residual grains of rice from your cheeks with a soft smile. To him, it's as easy as breathing, with centuries of practiced ease stemming from a fleeting interest.
"Are you hungry?" He asks when he spies you poring over papers. Stacks and stacks of it, teetering above you like mountains of yore. You looked so small there, half buried beneath your anger, your sadness, the knowledge that that time of the year slowly creeps forth like a prowling beast. You wonder what flowers you should take when you go to wash their grave. Maybe silk flowers. Maybe lilies. Maybe nothing at all.
( No, you cannot do that. )
You look at him and nod. You help him set the table and season the last of the meal. When he brings the food over, you wordlessly dig in. It tastes good. It tastes warm. It tastes like what Zhongli feels like — grounding, subtle, welcoming.
You don't realize you're trembling till he kisses your forehead with a gentle "I'm here." ( there were no tears. you don't think you have any left ).
III. "SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH ME." You tell Zhongli one day, lifting the pot up to the stove. “Zhongli, is there something wrong with me?”
“It’s all a matter of perspective. You are a little more upset with their death anniversary a few days away. But I don't think something’s wrong with you.” A straight laced answer, as you come to expect. Zhongli was direct, as direct as his contracts, with little room for fine print and lies steeped and gilded in gold. He was the clarity in polished gems. You know you could trust his word more than anything else in the world.
Your silence draws a concerned gaze. He grasps your chin and turns your face to him and his touch; it feels like warm pinpricks and you lean into it despite it all.
“I still can’t help but think there is something wrong.” you admit. “I cannot get their recipes right…i miss them…i miss their food, i miss their hugs, and our talks, and their jokes…” you falter, then shake your head. “It’s been years.” you know that.
Years.
Years dedicated to recovery and mending your broken heart of losing the few good things you felt you had. But with every trickle of lacquer between the fissures, a new one seems to obstinately grow and you’re left with a sticky mess of gold and shattered pieces in your hands.
“Zhongli…how do you do it? How do you live knowing you won’t see her again?”
Guizhong was always an open secret between the two of you, the moon to his sun, the most gentle of gods. He spoke of her fondly, with the lilt of her lover and he looks at you and whispers those words; she would have loved you, did you know that. She would have loved you just as much as I do. Guizhong was sacred, just as much as they were. A someone lost to tragedy and a someone you idly think of with an enduring sadness ( that poor woman ).
Zhongli’s hands cease chopping the vegetables. You think you asked the wrong thing.
“I miss her every day.” he admits. “I see her in the Glaze Lilies by the marsh. I see her in the ruins of Guli plains. I see her in Liyue, in its finest details, in its motifs that she crafted with such care…” he pauses. “It’s an ache that will never go away, dear heart.”
His brushes her hand over your chest, above that beating organ nestled in your ribs. “It will never go away. The world, your life, the way you wish to live it; it will all change along with it. Maybe it will be too minuscule to notice, maybe the shift will be a large one. I could never recreate Guizhong's brilliance much like you cannot recreate their recipes to the perfection your memories entail…but I will say this: never berate yourself for letting yourself feel.”
The tears prick at your eyes. You rarely cry. You never try to. You always push them back for the world has little need for them.
“I’ll be next too.” you realize.
“You will.” he nods. There is a sad smile on his lips.
You break ( You’ll be next. You’ll leave him to walk this road, you’ll leave him with this pain that he must live with. You’ll leave him ). “I’m sorry.” you gasp, your throat constricting and your vision blurring. You think your screaming, as your vocals stress and strain and snap and quiver like they’re being pulled too hard and fast like a rubber band. “I’m so sorry—”
Zhongli kisses your lips, then your forehead.
“It’s alright.” he assures you. “Love, let me have you while I can…as you will have me.”
You press your face into his chest. Zhongli smiles as he hands you a bowl of his soup. He feeds you when your hands shake too much. He whispers comfort in your ears. And you grasp his fingers when you are done, kissing his knuckles with a shaky sigh. He promises to help you pick out the flowers. He offers to help you wash their grave.
“I’ll try to stay.” you whisper. “For as long as i can” and you will. You want to. You need to.
Perhaps you should try cooking again tomorrow. Perhaps you should make something for him, something despite it’s imperfections.
Something he can remember you by.
Zhongli shuts his eyes. He looks golden against the setting sun.
You’ll keep that promise.
❪⠀🎬⠀❫ AINE SPEAKS ;;
this whole thing was fueled by slump-based feelings. it's a little more personal, a little more messy but i kind of like it. but yeah, feelings are hard sometimes so i'll write them out instead.
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AINE | 2023. do no plagiarize, repost or rework this piece.
