WAIT! ONE MORE REQUEST AND I'M DONE I PROMISE-
So how about Sagau Zhongli, Venti, and Childe be like when their god, who has been known to be a single pringle ever since they came into existence, is suddenly announcing they are finding a consort among their acolytes?
word count. 2k
୨୧ — ꒰ cw. yandere, unhealthy relationships, possessive & obsessive thoughts/behaviors, sagau + cult au shit, religious themes, g/n reader.
୨୧ — ꒰ a/n. i had to go back and reread my childe fic to remember how i characterized him fuck my baka chungus life. anyway im sorry it's been a while but as it turns out if you sit down to write something you'll actually write, so here's this!!
zhongli
Despite himself, Zhongli is unable to quell the dim light of hope that swells in his chest.
It's one he's instantly ashamed of. Zhongli is, as one so aged and so familiar with you, intrinsically aware of how little he compares. Where you step, he follows; his mind beckons even if his body resists. To think of himself as somehow worthy of you would be his greatest folly.
Yet he does so anyway, no matter how desperately he tries to kill his arrogance.
The fear is overwhelming, but the acerbic aftertaste at the thought of you with anyone else is worse.
The shame at his own hubris gnaws away at him, but Zhongli can't find it in himself to entirely let it go, to better himself as he should. If bettering himself comes at the cost of losing the opportunity to be entirely yours, he would rather be consumed by his pride.
He knows he should be disgusted by himself. To want is a terrible sin. It's one thing to worship you, and another to see himself kissing your skin every time he closes his eyes.
When Zhongli is beside himself, alone with only his thoughts to keep him company, he wonders what it would be like to be yours. His mind supplies every possibility with no incentive. He aches, and wants, and feels so vividly and impudently that he thinks his thoughts must be some kind of punishment.
You're everything, he thinks. There is nothing in this world that is comparable to you.
What would it be like, to feel you? Would you give him that honor? Has he done enough to deserve it? Or do you torture him so, filling his mind with images— things he should never think, things he should never imagine— because he dares to think himself worthy of calling himself yours, in a manner no one else has before?
Zhongli's greatest failure is that he's unable to stop himself from wanting.
He's ached before. He ached for the thousands of years he spent without you. He ached when he saw you for the first time, enraptured, unable to understand how a form could be so perfect. He ached when he let his fingers linger on your skin for longer than he should at every opportunity, he ached when he wondered if you found his achievements worthy of praise, and he aches every time he has to leave your side.
This hurts more, somehow. To want for something he knows he could never receive. To want for something he knows he isn’t worthy of. But knowing doesn’t ease it, when he follows after you every day like an old, obedient dog; when your back is as familiar as the sky overhead, as commonplace a view; when he imagines what it must feel like to have your fingers run along his skin, touching and prodding, pressing long enough against his skin to leave imprints in their wake.
He wonders how heavenly it would be, to be yours. He imagines it so frequently it begins to become difficult to differentiate reality and fantasy. Your skin, his skin. His warmth, your warmth. Your touch, your touch, your touch.
You.
Zhongli doesn’t realize that he’s said anything at all until you’re staring at him, a certain look on your face that makes him stammer. It’s only the two of you, and suddenly the room feels much smaller than it is; every uniform pattern underfoot suddenly holding him still, the air suddenly dry, and his body suddenly tense and taut.
Zhongli wonders if this is fear. He wonders why it feels so cold. Why suddenly all he can see is you— why suddenly, nothing else matters.
His heart is tumultuous in his chest, aching and creaking and so, so loud. He can feel it in a way he’s never felt it before, and he wonders if this is how every mortal who’s ever knelt before him felt. Did they, too, feel their throat tighten by a phantasmal hand? Did they, too, feel so tiny and insignificant; like their lives were in the center of another’s palm, to be lauded or ignored?
Did they, too, wonder if they were enough?
You’re smiling, he realizes, but he doesn’t know if you’re smiling because you find it all amusing, or because you wish to comfort him.
Your smile is a thing of wonder. He finds it doesn’t matter if you’re doing so because you find him funny or pathetic; his fingers tremble either way.
“I was waiting for you,” you say, and you speak the words so softly he wonders if he misheard.
venti
Venti is aware he's too selfish for his own good.
He knows he shouldn't be as needy as he is. Ideally, he would rise at your call and simper at your demand; and he does, except he does it even when you haven't spoken a word.
Watching you with others feels like a brand on his skin. A strange, terrible emotion that he knows must be some sort of blasphemy. Venti washes it down with whiskey and wine and tries his best to mask it with mirth. You wouldn't like him if he was anything but the blithe bard who worships you.
He worships you. That's the problem, he thinks.
You don't even have to do anything specific for his skin to feel like it's not his own. You glanced away from him. You smiled at someone else. You laughed at something that wasn't him. You exchanged this look with someone else and it almost felt like there was something there in your eyes, something he could never have—
Venti stops the thoughts there. It's always been like this. He's demanding when he shouldn't be.
He's not ungrateful. He chokes on how intensely he loves you. It's so suffocating it hurts.
Venti wishes he could worship you properly.
He wishes he could have you all to himself. He wishes you'd never look at anyone else. He wishes he could have some sort of assurance that you love him past your words. He wishes he could stay by your side always, that he could stick himself to you, that he could intertwine your nerves and bodies until everything he is becomes all of you.
Selfish.
What you give him should be enough. But it's not.
You say you're looking for a consort. Venti's heart twists with a sickening flutter.
He imagines it so sweetly it's painful. He dreams of loving you purely. He writhes with restless agony every night. He wants to hold your hand and feel your warm palm against his. He wants to rest his head on your shoulder. He wants to touch you, delicately and softly, until he knows every part of you. He wants to know you, enough that it's a semblance of how much you know him.
That sort of intimacy is something he doesn't deserve. He wants it anyway.
Venti knows his thoughts are some sort of sacrilege. He doesn't care. All he wants is for you to hold him closer than you have before.
You'd be warm, he thinks, and his fingers twitch imagining it. He'd be safe with you.
He would be yours.
Selfish to want and arrogant to believe he has any place so close to you. Neither matter.
Venti lies his head on your lap, trying to appear as small as possible. Love me, he wants to whisper. Love me.
He doesn't. Instead, he says: "choose me."
Venti doesn't look at you. He tries to project confidence in his voice, but all that comes out is a weak tremble. It's still a plea, after all. He's still only begging you, even if he tries to paint it as something else.
You card your fingers through his hair, pinning his hair behind his ear. The softness hurts. It hurts more than the fact you haven't said anything yet.
He braces himself, hugging his arms to his chest.
"Okay," you say, voice warm and so, so soft.
Venti's chest heaves.
childe
Childe knows his thoughts are wrong.
His desires aren't what they should be. He should be happy you glanced at him at all, and for the brief, blissful moment where everything is you and you're all he knows, he is.
You look at him, and the world is right. The euphoria feels like it might break him each time, but he somehow manages to stay standing. A testament to his worship, he thinks, that he can hold on just long enough for you to look at him some more.
Then you look away, and suddenly it feels like you've just gouged out his heart and gutted him.
It's not your fault. You breathed life into his body, but you can't shoulder each of his mistakes.
A mistake, he tells himself. Something he needs to fix. You wouldn't like him if he showed you that part of himself.
It becomes harder to fix when you announce you're looking for a consort.
Suddenly, everyone looks more disgusting than they did before. They're not just people who are demented enough to believe they have any right to your time or attention. They're people who now believe they're worthy of you, and it's that thought that makes him sick.
There is nothing in this world that comes close to you. There is nobody in this world that could hope to be truly worthy of sitting by your side.
He feels his stomach twist because of the hope that dwells within it.
Childe remembers when you were all he had. Your whispers were his only company in the abyss. When he's with you, he's reminded of it, and every time you look away from him, he's reminded of how many times he called for you and was met with dead air.
People think he was saved when he was ripped from the abyss. Childe thinks anyone who believes that are fools. The day he was ripped from you felt more like a death than a miracle.
He doesn't blame you. You saved him and that should be enough. You look at him and that should be enough. You breathe in his presence and he should be euphoric to share your air. And he is, but so neatly tucked along the inseams of his soul are thoughts of how much better it would be if he didn't have to share you at all.
Childe tells himself the thoughts aren't his. The dreams aren't his. The will to make them into reality isn't his own. The urge and the turmoil aren't of his own making.
You're not his. Your gaze isn't his. Your attention doesn't belong to him. Your love is not uniquely his own. It can't be, he tells himself, but then you smile so sweetly in his direction, and he wonders if it could.
He knows he's pathetic and needy and sick. He knows the burning in the back of his eyelids every time he sees you with another is far from holy and far from what you deserve.
Childe's disgusted by the fervor and desperation of those around him. He's disgusted far more by his own desires. He's disgusted that he begins to lean into them as time goes on.
You smile, and he buzzes. You laugh, and his world tips. You look at him and he wonders if the affection he sees in your gaze could be anything more.
"Ajax," you murmur, petting his hair.
Childe kneels before you like a loyal hound. He doesn't move, hunching his shoulders. He wishes he could make himself smaller. Maybe he'd be more palatable. Maybe you'd like him more like that.
"Pick me," he says.
He doesn't realize he's spoken until your fingers stop threading through his hair.
Childe freezes, an apology on his lips, but he can't bring himself to speak. He can't bring himself to look up at you, either, his copper lashes trembling.
"I have," you say, your fingers resuming their ministrations as if you'd said the most obvious thing in the world.
Childe shivers, nestling closer, hiding his face so you don't see him break. You rub his trembling back despite it, shushing him gently as his tears wet your clothes.
