frostbite — pt. 17
pairing ; childe x gender neutral!reader
content ; childhood friends to “rivals” to lovers, slow burn
cw ; some mentions of murder and abuse
notes ; HEYYYYYYYYY IM NOT DEAD I PROMISE
oh my goodness it’s been kind of literally one whole year ;w; im truly so sorry i’ve been gone for so long. like i said in the ask, college absolutely nuked all of my creative juices for writing and i was just struggling to get myself interested in genshin again. i didn’t lie when i said i plan on finishing this fic, however long it takes and you can count on that!!!!! also i’d like to give special credit to @hayhopm for sending me that ask that made me feel so guilty about being gone that i actually finished the chapter ;w;
finally!! i do suggest rereading the previous chapter since the first scene here continues from the end of the last one!
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the duke sits across from you at his desk, eyes somber and somewhat soft, as he analyzes you quietly with concern that feels far too intimate.
silence fills the office as both of you respectively think of how to approach whatever happens next. actually, that’s mostly what wriothesley is doing— you’re far too spent to think of anything at this point, so you opt to merely staring at the neatly patterned teacup in front of you and analyzing each microscopic paint stroke on the porcelain. you hear a faint bubbling to your right and assess that the water for the tea has finished boiling, your suspicions are confirmed when wriothesley silently pours hot water in your cup and sets down four tea bags in front of you.
eyes lazily scanning each bag, you eventually settle on the chai option, reminiscing of sumeru. the duke sighs.
“how’re your hands?”
you tilt your head ever so slightly down to look at your knuckles. they’ve been bandaged arguably sloppily, but you suppose having to dress the wounds on your hands as they shake with adrenaline may excuse that. the gauze around the knuckles has already begun to stain with ugly brownish red, though at least they no longer hurt as wildly as before.
“they’re fine. s’ not hurting as much anymore.” you mutter, not bothering to look the duke in the eyes as you answer him. he sighs indignantly and you feel like a child in timeout, the urge to curl into yourself and cry quietly becoming harder to fight.
“you wanna know how i became the duke of meropide?” wriothesley asks blankly.
you finally meet his gaze— it’s unreadable. once again, you feel like a young student who has just been called upon to answer a question in front of the entire class, though the answer falls short on your tongue. you feel small. luckily? it seems this question isn’t one wriothesley ever expected you to answer correctly, because he lets out a tiny, huffed chuckle.
“i was a prisoner in the fortress.”
now you shoot up in your seat, completely taken aback by the revelation. wriothesley’s amused grin grows, like you’ve reacted exactly how he expected you to.
“my trial wasn’t very long either, i pleaded guilty almost immediately. i mean, can you imagine going up on that podium in front of an entire audience and the iudex himself as a scared teenager?”
he was imprisoned as a teenager? god… what kind of crime warrants a minor to be locked in a place like this effective immediately? well— in all fairness, you did technically get here for stealing a cake. young wriothesley could’ve gotten into meropide for drawing something indecent on the wall of a building for all you know.
you entertain his last statement for a moment and you find yourself relating to it more than you originally thought. scattered memories of your time in the medical course at the university of snezhnaya pass through your mind, how excruciating it was to be the youngest amongst your classmates as they and your professors all suffocated you with expectant gazes. you were so young when dottore recruited you too…
you forcibly blink yourself out of those memories, the spiced aroma of chai that wafts over to you serving as a means to ground you back to where you are. inhaling deeply, you fill your chest with the courage to ask—
“can i ask… what you did? to go to meropide?”
wriothesley’s smile doesn’t drop and it feels as though you’re playing right into his hand, whatever his hand is right now.
“y’know, i still think about what you said during our first talk— when i asked you if you enjoyed working for the doctor. i’d love to know why you feel so… strongly about him?” he muses. god dammit, you should’ve expected him to mention that.
you’re too exhausted to put your guard up and try to read through the duke’s intentions, so you sigh in defeat and look off elsewhere to wonder how you should put it. it’s strange— your feelings haven’t changed, obviously, but your throat still tightens and restricts the words you haven’t even thought of stringing together yet. your expression sours in frustration and wriothesley takes that as his queue to actually answer your question.
he braces himself with a deep breath and begins his story. “i was an orphan… and i was adopted by a shining couple. they even adopted many other kids before and after me— seemed like they’d be the perfect parents, but… as you might guess, didn’t turn out to be the case.”
wriothesley’s periwinkle eyes had long since looked off to nowhere, focused on something beyond you, as he lets out an utterly humorless chuckle. and as your stomach drops with his last sentence, his eyes seemed to significantly darken.
“they- they treated us like livestock, sold or married off to nowhere and to never be found again.” the duke snarls with disdain. “then they kept adopting more and more kids and selling them off again and again and again— children. real, actual children who’d already been stripped of a normal life regarded as products. could you imagine?”
you don’t feel like you need to answer, you’re well familiar with someone with a complete disregard for human life.
“never in my life had i felt such a seething, burning hatred for someone, i was a teenager after all— but that didn’t matter to me, i-i just couldn’t take it anymore. so i killed them.”
oh.
that’s why your words that day stuck with him so deeply, because they were once his words too. your mind subconsciously forms the image of a teenage wriothesley, standing over his dead foster parents, covered in their blood— whispered thoughts say that the image reminds you of childe when he came back from the abyss. a numb, heavy hostility entrapping what would’ve and should’ve been a happy young boy surrounded by other happy children. it’s been so long since you’ve felt like you’ve utterly understood and sympathized someone. you had him all wrong.
you might even allow yourself to acknowledge how your hand briefly itches to grasp onto the duke’s own tightly closed fist that rests tensely atop his desk.
“i… i don’t even remember much of when it happened, i just remember blinking and suddenly i was covered in blood and breathing heavily. but most of all, i remember that they were finally.. finally gone.” wriothesley’s eyebrows briefly tense somehow even further than they already had, showing how painful it was for him to recall those memories.
“…and then you were arrested for killing them and sent to meropide, right?”
your, albeit rather easy, deduction is confirmed by the duke’s expression finally softening as he lets out an exhaled laugh, this time genuine, before nodding gently.
briefly looking back down at your bandage hand, you think on it.
“they called me his lapdog.” you wince.
wriothesley’s relaxed expression sobers, there’s almost a pitying light to his eyes, as though he comprehends the offense you’d take to that even if not familiar with the doctor himself. so that’s what your outburst was about.
“a-and the worst part—“ your lips tremble as you swallow hard, taking a moment to make sure you maintain your composure enough to at least finish the thought. “is t-that… no matter how many fights i pick, how many times i punch that dummy, how many times i oppose… i’m not like you, i-i can’t do it.”
you don’t even realize you’re crying until the tears that had gathered on your lashes finally give way and slide down your cheeks warmly.
“i don’t k-know if i’m being realistic or a c-coward but… i just c-can’t do it. he’s j-just so out of reach and.. and he k-keeps doing these terrible things with no repercussions, nobody stopping him— how is that f-fair?” you sob, any notion of composing yourself completely out the window.
“y/n—“ wriothesley tries to start coaxingly.
“and i h-hate… i hate knowing that i won’t be the one to do it, i hate knowing t-that killing him is just- i-i don’t know.. p-physically beyond me. and in the end i’ll just be known as the w-weakling assistant who did n-nothing… nothing but—“
there’s a grounding pressure on your hands that, after you blink away the tears clouding your vision, reveals itself to be a pair of large, calloused, bandaged hands. gradually, the air returns to your lungs and the ringing in your ears fizzles out back into the faint machine humming of wriothesley’s office. speaking of him, wriothesley is now kneeled down in front of you, face neutral but dusted, weirdly, with torment and sympathy. he holds your hands in a particular manner that provides enough pressure to snap you from your spiral yet simultaneously feels like the duke has the finest, most fragile porcelain teacup in his grasp. only after your breathing has assuredly evened, wriothesley speaks.
“y/n, you are not weak.” he states firmly, slightly squeezing your hands with each word for emphasis.
“do you honestly think you’ll only be known as dottore’s assistant? you are a doctor, for archon’s sake, you save lives! you think some title that doesn’t speak to your capabilities is all that matters?
and you don’t need to be strong or great, you don’t need to save lives, be the one to take dottore down, to be valid, y/n. you can just… be— you can just survive.”
your breath hitches.
you can just survive.
silence swallows the office as neither you nor wriothesley move an inch, you as you take your time to process the duke’s words and wriothesley as he waits with bated breath for your reaction. the thing is, as foolish as it sounds, you don’t know how to react. it seems like such a silly, obvious notion— that you have permission to not be a savior, to just be a survivor. you feel as though you’re underwater with weights tied to your feet, slowly sinking as you try to swim back up and reach toward the light of the surface but ultimately sinking back down, you’d like to let yourself think the way wriothesley suggests, but you don’t know if you’ll actually allow yourself to do so. perhaps in time you will.
but for now, you’ll grant yourself a moment of respite, grant yourself a moment to actually believe that to be true. you slowly slide off the chair and onto your knees as your shoulders shake— wriothesley’s hands leave your side to hover over each side of your body, as if he’s preparing to brace you. brand new tears form and slide down your face, somehow even warmer and stronger than before. your jaw trembles endlessly as weak sobs escape you and suddenly, your body shakes too much for you to handle, so you fall forward.
into wriothesley’s chest.
his arms stutter briefly before wrapping around you with caution. your sobs have grown uncontrollable, you just keep crying and crying into the duke’s shoulder and he just keeps holding you. you’ve gone past any crumb of self consciousness, forgetting that you’re a prison inmate crying in front your warden and wail like you’re a child weeping into a warm embrace. slowly, one of the duke’s hands that rests on your back starts moving up and down comfortingly.
you leave the duke’s office shortly after, wiping your eyes of any evidence that you cried as you step out of the tower. when you reach your dormitory, it’s like gravity has decided to strengthen itself tenfold— the exhaustion of all you’ve done in the past few hours finally seeping into your limbs as they cry for nothing more than the mediocre bedding you sleep on, going to show how desperately you need to rest.
though, you don’t allow yourself to doze off just yet, as you spot what looks like a playing card with a grinning cat printed on the back, the image is familiar to you but you’re too tired to place exactly where you’ve seen this cat before. turning the card over, you’re greeted with a request, ‘meet me at the production zone tomorrow.’.
you furrow your eyebrows at the cryptic wording but think on the request… the only people who you knew in the fortress were the traveler and paimon, well, as far as you know— so for someone to seek out your dormitory to send a message must mean serious business.
and it’s a good thing you’ve learned you can be intimidating today.
—
the next day, you follow through with the card’s request and step on over to the production zone. on your way there, you spot wriothesley and sigewinne off in a corner of the fortress discussing something that pertains to the clipboard that sigewinne holds. she’s the one who spots you first and waves at you so brightly and cheerfully that it manages to pump you with a little more energy to keep on going, something you’re in desperate need of.
wriothesley follows suit, frosty eyes landing on you and you swear they soften. at least, they melt into a knowing look, though not knowing in a way that’s condescending or pitiful— like it merely holds something only the two of you will ever know and hold with care in your minds.
the head nurse looks up at her boss with teasing suspicion and swats him with her clipboard to grab his attention, which he immediately snaps to with a barely visible bashful heat in his cheeks.
your chest does something weird at that.
anyhow, you take the elevator down to the production zone with an antsy feeling tickling at your fingertips. the grinning cat card came to mind and you try as hard as you can to remember where you’ve seen that damn image, vague notions and memories of fontaine city streets flash behind your eyes as the only association you can muster. it’s still excruciatingly not enough for you to place the cat.
though there’s no need for much more pondering, because as soon as you arrive at the production zone, you spot a familiar glimmering tailcoat that can only belong to one certain traveling companion as it peeks out from behind one of the pillars of the area. you approach it with curbed amusement, finding that the tailcoat’s owner is indeed paimon, accompanied of course by the traveler and… wait—
“lyney?”
“magnificent, we’re all here.” the magician gives you his signature charming smile like you’re meeting at a cafe in the streets of fontaine and not in fucking prison. though what befuddles you even more is that your two other friends don’t seem nearly as taken aback by lyney’s sudden appearance inside the fortress.
“what- how- why..” you stammer incredulously.
“ah, that’s right! i only stumbled into these two earlier, not you, sergeant. well it’s no matter, come here everyone, and keep it down.” lyney says simply, remain as cryptic as the card he sent you.
the three of you follow the blond as he leads you to a further corner, one a little more secluded and shrouded in shadows. some form of deja vu hits you as you find the magician’s very own twin sister waiting for you there, though you’re less surprised to see her after seeing her brother first, if anything you’d be more shocked if they had somehow been separated.
“oh, lynette! you’re here too! you two really are inseparable.” paimon greets.
“that’s right, my brother simply can’t stand to be away from me.” lynette comments teasingly.
“uh, it’s not just lynette, freminet is also here. do you still remember him?” asks lyney.
the memory of meeting the siblings with childe replays in your head and you particularly recall how reclusive and shy freminet was, the notion that he’s in the fortress but not with his siblings makes you frown all over again.
“oh, you mean that diver from the house of the hearth, right? paimon remembers seeing him in the court of fontaine before.”
“why are the three of you even here? and where is freminet?” you finally speak, a feeling of something not being right creeping up the back of your neck. something flashes in lyney and lynette’s eyes at your question about their brother, but lyney quickly recovers and playfully feigns sheepish innocence.
“sadly, even the tiniest of things can land you in prison these days, you know. i put together a street performance and used the popularity we gained from
the opera house incident to attract a big crowd.”
“and then..?” paimon pushes indignantly.
“next, i invited audience members to participate in the show. and then, with the entire audience watching… their wallets suddenly disappeared!”
you fight the urge to sigh.
“my brother was charged with theft, and i was charged as his accomplice, having assisted him in his crime.” lynette adds.
“it really isn’t that bad… the missing wallets are all in the leftmost drawer of the maison gardiennage’s big filling cabinet. we just need to see how long it takes to discover them.” the magician teases coyly.
“yes, we should be released then.”
“in terms of the magic trick itself, i think the performance went perfectly.”
in any other occasion, you’d find the twins’ attitudes endearing. unfortunately, for now it only serves to concern you how they haven’t addressed their brother’s whereabouts from behind their charming masks yet.
“…leave it to lyney to magic himself himself into prison.” paimon sighs.
“that’s.. amusing and all, lyney. but what are you two actually doing here?” you interrogate, crossing your arms expectantly— from the corner of your eye you see the traveler nod her head in agreement with your attempt to center the matter at hand.
lyney’s flamboyant smirk falls into something more serious, directing himself toward the traveler. “indeed. last time i hid my identity from you, i promised that i’d tell you absolutely everything if you were angry about it, no more secrets.”
so i don’t plan on keeping anything from you this time either. at the moment, the house of the hearth’s interests don’t conflict with yours at all. we were instructed by the father of our house, the knave, to come here and conduct an investigation.”
your eyebrows furrow. had arlecchino sent the siblings to look for childe?
you suppose it makes sense, the knave had some responsibility over childe and she assuredly would’ve sent someone to find him on her behalf. perhaps if you hadn’t been so panicked when he was arrested and acted so abruptly, you could’ve spoken to arlecchino and arranged to work with her and the siblings in their investigation. something about the notion of doesn’t feel completely right though.
“told you so! see, paimon guessed right.” she gloats to her traveling companion.
“as for what we’re investing… perhaps you haven’t heard, but the fortress of meropide hides a secret. some even say that the entire fortress exists just to protect it. the house of the hearth has been investing this for a very long time, trying to uncover its mysteries…
but recently all of our informants, including the ones that had infiltrated the guards, suddenly vanished and have not been heard from since. we believe that this is a direct provocation, and it’s the reason we came here.”
“why is the house so interested about this secret?” the traveler asks.
the magician appears to brace himself before sharing his next sentence. “father has somehow managed to confirm that focalors does not have fontaine’s gnosis.”
“what? how did she come by information as huge as that?” you ask, endlessly puzzled.
“father has her ways… many of them are beyond our imagination, and we’ve never had the chance to see her at work. but we trust her conclusions.” certainty seeps through lynette’s words.
“it was this information that led us to suspect that fontaine’s gnosis might be in the fortress of meropide, and is related to that secret.”
your mouth feels sour as you realize just how little you actually know about wriothesley and the fortress. the moment you shared in his office seemed so genuine and special.. but of course he couldn’t share all of his secrets with you— at the end of the day, you were still a prisoner, a fatui, and he was still the warden.
“so it’s all about the gnosis again.” paimon sighs.
“well, that’s about it from our side. how about you three? did monsieur neuvillette send you here?”
a brief silence engulfs your circle. you only notice how quiet it is because there’s no longer a background noise to your spiraling thoughts— you look around to find that the traveler and paimon actually want you to answer that particular question. you suppose it’s warranted.
“hm? oh— yes, we’re here to investigate what happened to childe after his imprisonment.” you answer passingly and go back to staring off at nowhere, finding yourself too awkward to look the group in the eyes at the moment.
paimon nods. “the knave has been applying a lot of pressure on us.”
“heh, you don’t need to worry too much about that,” lyney chuckles amusedly. “she’s just asking for a report on master childe’s predicament as a means of pressuring you.
father used the situation as a pretext to negotiate with two high-ranking officials in the court of fontaine. she actually just wants to be able to make concessions on this matter for gains elsewhere, almost like a bargaining chip.”
“sometimes, you need an excuse to do things you otherwise couldn’t, and a harbinger is more valuable than you might imagine.” lynette adds.
while it is a smart strategy and ultimately expected of someone like arlecchino, you still find the necessity to keep yourself from frowning at the notion that childe’s whereabouts and well-being aren’t actually a concern, at least a primary one. thankfully, lyney remedies that immediately after.
“of course, it’s not a complete farce. if we do manage to find out what happened to master childe too, then diplomatic relations with fontaine could improve and snezhnaya might even be able to adjust its stance a bit.”
“is it paimon or does it feel like we’re the only ones who actually care about childe’s situation… the relationship between the harbingers must be as bad as ever.”
you shake your head, arms crossed semi-tensely. “they hardly have a relationship to begin with… besides, i’d say arlecchino is just managing what can be sacrificed for an advantage at this moment of the operation— lyney, i imagine you’re saying this to suggest a team-up?”
you look over to the magician, whose eyes light up ever so slightly in satisfaction and admiration that you have seemingly comprehended his intentions so swiftly. the blond turns to the traveler, who has fallen into a pensive pose as she evaluates whether or not to accept the suggestion.
“even though we have different objectives, we’re both here to investigate the fortress of meropide. it would be more efficient for us to work together.” he proposes.
the traveler thinks for a few seconds more, but ultimately refuses with a shake of her head. lynette turns to her brother, who looks to have near invisibly deflated at the answer, and shrugs at him with a ‘i told you so’.
you sigh lightly, gently putting your hand on the traveler’s shoulder as a means of getting her attention.
“i know it may not seem worth it to you but i really do think we should accept. we won’t do much more other than exchange info and there is the likely off chance that our interests may cross with theirs.
we’re too early on and barren on leads to not broaden our options right now. and… i trust them.” you argue.
as you say the last sentence, you give the twins a look over— your first meeting with them replaying in your mind. it almost feels like the two of them do the same, because lyney’s eyebrows lower microscopically in appreciation and lynette’s lips move a hair’s breadth into a smile. looking at the traveler again, her golden eyes look into yours deeply as she considers your input. parallel to that, the magician has also moved into a pose of deep thought.
“lyney seems to be thinking pretty hard about something…” paimon comments and lynette nods with a sliver of fervor.
“of course he is! lyney has been looking forward to reaching an understanding with you ever since we last met— or i should say.. we were really looking forward to teaming up with you this time.”
the blond shoots up beside his sister, taken aback with surprise and embarrassment. if the corner of the production zone you found yourselves in had even a singular percentile more lighting, you’d be able to see the subtle flush that takes up lyney’s cheeks.
“lynette! just tell them everything why don’t you…” he grumbles petulantly, bringing a hand up to sheepishly scratch the back of his neck.
while lynette amusedly comments about it being okay to open up a little, you notice the traveler shift. the sigh she lets out is abundantly reluctant, but nonetheless she finally agrees to the cooperation as long as it remains an exchange of information.
lyney smiles triumphantly and nods. “very prudent of you, and consistent with your behavior since we first met. that’s reasonable enough, and i agree to cooperate on these terms as well.”
the young magician proceeds to share with the three of you that through he and his sister’s investigation, they’ve learned about a supposed ‘forbidden zone’ of the fortress. you shoot up immediately after lyney’s explanation, snapping your finger towards the traveler and paimon, who look to have had the same idea as you before any of you even manifest it.
“that could be where childe disappeared off to! i certainly wouldn’t put it past him.”
you suggest, a warm and fizzy sensation takes over your chest at the prospect of a possible lead on childe’s whereabouts. the logical voice that plagues your brain tells you not to get too excited ahead of actually investigating properly.
nevertheless, you foolishly allow yourself to hope he is in fact somewhere around the forbidden zone and hope you’ll be able to reunite again soon.
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