reel me in
warning: angst -> comfort | fighter!reader and character are sparring but when reader gets pinned to the ground, they recall a traumatic event (non-specific, but hints at a near-death experience from past fight), and start to panic - the characters calm them down and bring them comfort (tw: pinned to the ground, feeling of being trapped, anxiety and difficulties breathing, sparring leads to panic)
character x gn reader | request | anthology
includes: childe, kaeya
Childe
“Is that all you’ve got?” You cried out through heaving breaths. Every muscle in your body was screaming from the onslaught of blows, but it made you feel alive. Fighting Childe was like wrestling the sun - and you were obsessed.
Childe straightened, turning back toward you with a grin so wide you knew your taunt would get him going. The way his eyes flashed in the sunlight, the shimmer of sweat on his shoulders, biceps made your heart flutter. It was so exciting - the heat of battle - no wonder Childe loved sparring so much.
“You want more?” He beamed, stalking toward you, slowly, meticulously, his eyes trained on you as if you were prey in the woods. “Then don’t hold back. Let me see it all!” He roared as he dashed your way. His water-blade crashing against your two daggers. Sending a shockwave through your arms. It hit your chest with so much force that you pushed against him, sliding on the dirt to reposition and get a better angle but he was ready with another swipe. You barely ducked out the way in time.
The match was heated, invigorating. The two of you lost yourselves in the midst of it all. Egging the other on, laughing at the thrill, pushing until something was certain to break. You just didn’t expect it to be like this ... didn’t expect it to be you.
With expert skill, you dodged away from his swing. Twisting your foot and leg leg so you could roll over his back and slip into the tiny opening he left, but when you landed on the other side of him, his leg swiped yours and you fell, hard, onto the dirt. The force knocked the wind out of you. A rock punched against your shoulder making your arm go numb for just a moment, but long enough that he could take full control.
His hands grabbed your wrists so you couldn’t swing at him. Faster than you could comprehend, he had you pinned. Disarmed with your hands under your arching back, he held you captive.
Shaking your head didn’t relieve the fog, struggling only made it worse. The sweat on your brow stung your eyes until you could barely make out his figure. Then, it all came flooding back.
“Now that was fun,” Childe panted above you, his hair clinging to his forehead, his cheek, but you could hardly see his familiar, comforting face. The past was crashing into you, and you couldn't’ breath.
“G --- et off ---”
“Don’t tell me you can’t overtake me. Hah, you’re better than that --” Childe teased but you weren’t having fun anymore. Panic started to set in, your heart was beating erratically, out of rhythm and control. You shook your head, thrashed just like you did once before - yet nothing changed, just like ... “... and we were just getting sta-”
“G-GET OFF!” You screamed. The words came out strangled, fearful. Childe let you go and you scrambled out from under him. Your nails digging through the dirt in a frantic escape. “get off. get off ...” You groaned, crawling free from him until there was enough distance for you to catch your breath.
“Woah, are you alr-” Childe’s words caught in his throat when you turned to sit on the ground, arms coiled around your legs, hands shaking as they hid your face from him. “Hey --” he called to you. Calmly, softly, but you didn’t respond. Couldn’t respond. In your mind it was still happening, and you needed it to stop.
Everything was turned to maximum. Every sound, every smell, every sense in you stung. Your mind was on fire and you couldn’t calm it down. Something touched the fingers digging into your leg so you violently swatted it off until your hand came to a stop and your itching eyes found the reason.
Childe was kneeling in front of you, his expression twisted to one you’d never seen before. His common smile was turned into a deep frown, brows furrowed and eyes were searching you intently. His jaw clenched, the hand holding yours looked pale.
Still shaking, you wiped your eyes and he slowly came back into focus. This wasn’t your past, you weren’t about to die alone, beaten, bloodied - you were safe. You were safe.
In an instant, you twisted your hand to grip his wrist and held on so tightly that his arm began to shake.
“I’m sorry,” you mumbled, head shaking to return to your senses. The noise was starting to fade; you took a few more breaths to bring it back to normal.
“You went somewhere else on me ...”
“I know -- I’m sorry,” you apologized, swallowing to wet your dry throat. “I’m alright now.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, I promise. It’s ... it’s nothing,” you pressed your fingers to your forehead and shook again, mostly to work out your nerves, but the action didn’t convince him you were okay.
The dirt around you crunched, grinded against itself as he moved toward you. When you glanced at him under your salty fingers, you noticed he was blocking you with his long legs. One at either side as if to be a human shield.
You sighed, and tried to get him to ease off, “I’m really okay -”
“A warrior must be ready to face any challenge,” he began, cutting you off as if you never said them, “In victories or in failures, the outcome is irrelevant - what matters,” he said as he tugged your arm and pushed against the hand blocking you from his sight. You moved them only enough so you could see his eyes, and he could see yours, “what matters is learning from the experience. You are here to fight again. You survived - no matter what it took to do so.”
Childe’s gaze was intense, his words pierced your heart making it difficult to breathe again but he was right. You survived. You were here and that’s what matters.
Your lips trembled, so you adjusted your grip on his wrist and held tightly.
“I survived,” you whispered.
“You survived.”
“I survived,” you repeated and covered your face while Childe shielded you from the rest of the world.
--
Day’s later you shared with him what had happened and he listened without judgement. You noticed how he incorporated some new moves into his training with you - ones to avoid the mistakes of your past and then, without prompting, on a warm summer night, he told you of his own and for the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel so alone.
--
Kaeya
“Pick it up!” you shouted to the knights as they ran through their drills. By this point they shouldn’t be so sloppy, but it seemed your expectations for them were too high.
Groaning, you turned the other way and began to clean up the training grounds. Practice swords, spears, and other equipment were left on the dirt and even though you weren’t the only one tasked with training the new recruits, you knew your partner wouldn’t be much help.
“How’s it going, teacher?” Kaeya’s silvery voice slipped through your annoyance like water passes through a fisherman's net. Unfortunately for him, you weren’t in the mood to hear it.
“Fine. Here,” you said and handed him the pile you’d managed to pick up while he was standing in the shade, “Take these back to the racks for me.”
“My, what a cold temper you have,” he teased. Even though you couldn’t see it, you knew he held a smirk on his lips. “And here I was coming over to congratulate you on all your hard work.”
“Ha,” you huffed. You were starting to wonder if Jean was mad at you. Why else would she ask you to work with this ... this ... slacker. He may be pretty, and you, stupidly, had a crush on him, but why was he always so ... aggravating. “If you’re not going to help me, at least don’t stand by sidelines watching. It creeps me out.”
Kaeya picked up the pace so he could match your strides. It was easy for him with his long legs and all. “I thought you loved when my eyes were on you?”
Luckily you were already so irritated. If you weren’t you probably would have been more affected by his comment, “Nope. Not me.”
“Really?”
“Mmhm. Ugh,” stopping suddenly, you shouted toward the recruits to come back but when you glanced back at Kaeya, he was just standing there, smiling. “Are you going to help me with the demonstration or not?”
“Why of course,” he beamed and you wanted to punch him.
“Good. Grab us some swords and meet me in the circle.” He gave you a playful confirmation before walking off toward the racks.
Why couldn’t you have fallen for someone else? You asked yourself as you headed toward the panting new knights to explain the next portion of their training. It wasn’t the first time you had them spar with each other, but this time you were going to be demonstrating several moves they needed to learn in order to stay alive. As much fun as being an aggressor is, if you didn’t learn how to block or dodge oncoming attacks - well, the research institute was working on some new mechanical prosthetics if they needed it.
Once Kaeya returned, you had him demonstrate several jabs so you could show them how to avoid. After that, you had them mimic you as you moved out f the way of Kaeya’s swings. It was almost like a dance, the two of you, and it was starting to draw an unnecessary crowd.
“Shall we show them in real time?” Kaeya inquired with a smile, “They are unlikely to fight slow moving assailants after all.”
You weren’t really planning on doing that, but he was right, so you relented. “Alright, but don’t throw out anything fancy.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he hummed, getting into his stance.
“Alright - watch us closely and count how many times I use the moves we just showed you. Got it?” The knights nodded so you got into position. “Let’s go.”
Lunging forward, you made the first contact and Kaeya deflected it easily. He reacted faster than you planned with a counter swing that you had to narrowly block with the edge of your wooden sword. The noise rang out across the training ground drawing an audible gasp from the crowd.
The two of you started simple but eventually lost yourself in the spar. Kaeya moved like a skater on ice and you danced along with him. The feeling of the wind rushing past your face as you dipped under his swings, when you swirled past him to get the advantage. It was a blast, and reminded you why you fell for him so hard.
Kaeya might be a slacker, but his swordplay was flawless.
You wanted to bring it back to focus but Kaeya was distracted and before you knew it, your guard was too far down to catch his next move. Like a flash of lightning, he was in front of you one second and behind you the next. Your weapon swung up to block a blow to your chest but you were off balance and fell backward as he had intended. Before you could taken in a breath, Kaeya was gripping your arm and twisting it behind your back while his play sword rested against your neck and his cheek pushed against the side of your head.
“Got you,” he declared and pulled you closer to him. You were captured, and it distorted your reality.
It was like you fell into a deep pool. Your body went cold, your mind triggered every alarm it could as you wiggled against him to get free but he was having too much fun to notice that you were clearly not.
“Kae--”
“We certainly put on a show,” his voice drifted past you but you could hardly hear him. Waves crashed against your senses, deafening the world around you. It felt impossible to catch your breath, even when you gripped your shirt and pushed against Kaeya’s arm. Something hit your foot so you stumbled forward only to be reeled back in. “Leaving so soon?” He asked and you panicked.
“L-let me go - let me go - let! go!” Fear and violence overcame you until you were finally free from his grip. The edges of your vision were so dark that all you could see was the building in front of you, the confused expression on his face as you turned to face him, the bobbing blobs in the distance as you tried to call it for the day. You opened your mouth but nothing came out. All you could feel was a sense of dread and your nails biting into the flesh of your palm.
Kaeya dropped his weapon. You watched him turn to the crowd but couldn’t hear what he was saying. You just stood there, lost, back in that place you never wanted to visit again.
A cold hand grabbed your balled up fist and, like magic, you were in Kaeya’s office with no recollection of how you got there.
Someone called your name. Who was it?
Touch, the sensation of skin against your cheeks. Hands - someone's hands. Whose hands? WHOSE HANDS!?
You flailed your arms to push them away but they didn’t leave until you could hear the voice of Kaeya calling your name.
“... do you hear me?!” he shouted, and you did. You did. “You’re okay! - it’s me. It’s me.”
“... Kae...?”
Kaeya’s head dipped forward when you recognized him. “There you are.” His tone was tense. When he looked at you again it was like he had aged since you last saw him. He shook his head and moved his thumbs under your eyes.
“What happened?” you asked, confused and disoriented. One minute you were out on the training field and another you were in his office. Did you black out?
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I don’t -- I don’t know ...” looking down, you tried to assess what was happening. Your body felt worn, exhausted. Your fingers were curled in and stiff but they weren’t like that originally. Right? Why was there sweat running down your spine? Confusion was soon replaced by worry but Kaeya was there to catch you. “Kaeya - I don’t remember --”
“It’s alright,” he reassured you by grabbing your hands and holding them steady. You could tell he was contemplating what to do. You’d known Kaeya for so long. He was always so confident, so playful but right now he seemed afraid to even touch you. “It’s alright,” he said again and took a step closer, but not too close. He sighed and then explained what happened. Perhaps he hoped it would make you feel more in control or, perhaps, it would give you the knowledge you needed to understand why you vanished in front of his eyes.
He was right. As he explained the sparring match and what happened moments before you panicked, you knew exactly why it had happened.
In training, you are taught how to protect yourself and your fellow knight. You know the dangers of the job but you can never fully grasp the severity of it until you’re there - face to face with life and death. This was your hidden scar. One you didn’t intend to let others see.
It took a while, but you slowly started to share what had happened. Kaeya listened without questions, without jokes. He just listened, and when you were done he didn’t give you pity or tell you it was in the past. He simply offered his hand and vowed to leave it open for you whenever you needed it.
“You’ve always been around to lend me a hand. It’s due I return the favor. Whenever you need me, I’ll be here with you to carry on,” he affirmed and though he couldn’t heal the space left in your chest, his words made it a little lighter.
“Thank you, Kaeya,” you replied, squeezing his hand like he was yours. “I guess this means you’re stuck with me?” It was meant to be a joke to lighten the mood, to bring back his teasing but it seemed to backfire.
“Well that’s an odd way of proposing to me.”
“I wasn’t proposing --”
“You weren’t?”
“No ...”
“Ah, a shame then,” he lamented and let go of your hand to walk toward the door. You followed him, watching how he leaned against the closed door with a sorrowful expression on his face.
“W-wait, did you want ... me too?”
“We will never know now will we?” He threw up his arms into a deflated shrug but made sure to keep a sharp eye on you and your slowly rising embarrassment. “Best not keep them waiting, teacher,” he smirked before walking out of his office and leaving you, once again, flustered.
--
