Work Text:
I say goodbye to a blackbird
I say goodbye to my own words
She's an unlucky girl, who can save her?
—
If Scaramouche had to come up with a human being he genuinely enjoyed spending time with, he wouldn't name jack shit. The only archetype of humanity he can temporarily endure are children of babbling age, before they unfortunately wrestle into more than just big eyes and squishy cheeks.
He doesn't understand how people can withstand talking to one another and smile as if they gain something from the interaction. Scaramouche is three quarters on the verge of disbelieving the concept of friendship itself. It's all fake, as is the sky, as is his artificial self. It's baffling how naïve those happiest really are. But, that is just the role of the human condition.
With an absent mind, he watches the whip of another Harbinger’s hand, the Rooster.
Even with this fault, he finds himself latched onto by every unwanted relation currently sat beside him. All ten of them, for reasons he can no longer fathom.
He can only be grateful that some of them are worse than others. The Captain seems to take very little interest in him and keeps to himself outside of meetings. He, in that regard, is truly exemplary. Sandrone, while appearing hostile, interacts minimally with those who do not frequent her workshop; and the Knave is a woman too wise to waste time bothering him.
From those few, many others could learn. Tired from the questions, the talking, the snark, the smiles; he continues to exist among others. Ones that look up to him, down on him, expect something from him.
People are disgustingly presumptuous. He will give them nothing. If nothing does not make them leave, the pain will.
Except for one man.
“Well, that was boring.” Childe notes, waltzing over. “Hey, Scara. What are you doing after this?”
‘Killing myself’, Scaramouche would like to say. Instead he informs Childe that he will be walking for fifty minutes in the snow. It works, because Childe does not follow him on his way out.
As he lays flat on his back on a cold duvet sheet, he listens to the occasional footfalls marking the carpeted hallway. Zapolyarny palace is a preferable environment for Scaramouche. The landmass stretches so vast he’s hardly ever forced to encounter more than a guard or two in the halls. Anything he needs comes delivered upon request. Still, it’s lamentable that he cannot claim an entire corridor for his own. He could live without the commotion of his co-workers retiring serving as a constant reminder that he is, as long as he stays here, surrounded by fools.
…Hm.
Tartaglia is an anomaly. People don’t normally put themselves in the way of Scaramouche’s gaze, let alone vie for it. But Childe drinks from his attention like a fountain of raw energy, uncondoned by and unidentifiable to Scaramouche, as if he cannot exist the same way without it. Scaramouche doesn’t look at him. If and when he does, the feeling returns and he becomes sick.
He cannot be wanted. It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t help anyone, in fact, it may do the opposite. What happens in the warzone of want is far worse than a lonely existence.
Want hurts. He understands that feeling from centuries past. In the lightened morning waking free from burden. Those brief, stolen moments held precious within his mind before reality finds him, curled up by the cherry tree he cried beneath, his hiccups and gasps savored by nobody but the moon and squirrels. The black days of wishing, missing, longing. And the foolish hope that good will come, as will better. Hollow words embarked upon a gullible mind.
Naïvety.
And so; he no longer wants.
But now he witnesses dilating pupils as he comes by, a slight adjustment of posture. Touching his wrist when he is near. The stabbing seizes him, every time. System overheats, goes haywire, shuts down, reboots and steams. It is as vicious a cycle as life itself. He can’t think, he can’t stop it. And Childe must notice, the way his eyes are on him in a crowded room. Yet he does nothing either.
Wanted harms. And Scaramouche is exhausted.
Nothing bad comes of nothing, yet nothing good ever comes of something. It’s the prospect of something that wracks his brain for hours of the day and night. That rattles his framework like a parasite, poking and prodding until the wires are obfuscated. It ends in frustration. Always.
He is… confused. Sick. Extremely sick.
And the door sounds.
His joints lock. Eyes widened, listening. Inherently human; base instincts. It disgusts him. Whatever this is isn’t rational, he knows. He will not cry as his tear ducts want. He has trudged through his body’s treachery before– overcome stupidity.
He puts in the passcode with shaking hands, opens the door, and is met with all that is juvenile in him bundled up into one, overwhelmingly abnormal person.
“You lied,” states the ginger with a red-tinged nose and a light frown. He shakes the snow from his ushanka and blows the damp pieces of hair away from his face.
“You went,” Scaramouche says.
“I’m not afraid of a little snow.” His boots shuffle from side to side, frozen and squelching.
“You’re human.”
“Huh. I guess that makes one of us.”
“That was really stupid of you.” His mouth is dry.
“I wanted to see you.” He says as if it’s completely normal and Scaramouche can barely stop the bile rising up in his throat, a feature so infrequent in his body the sensation is sown anew. Childe’s lips glisten with melted snow. Cracked and whitened, they almost look like glaciers. Dead eyes glisten as they blink stray droplets away. Childe catastrophizes all Scaramouche has worked for. When there are boundaries, tall boundaries, Childe will reach through the bars. If he can’t get far enough at first he will gnaw at them until they are bent, and leave them carefully unbroken.
That’s so Scaramouche won’t startle and run. But he does, every time.
“That’s nice. I don’t want to see you.” Scaramouche’s grip on the door tightens subconsciously, and of course Childe notices.
“Are you okay?” he asks quietly, right eyebrow raised. Nothing about him is suggestive of anything besides what he chooses to display on his face. Scaramouche usually likes this about him, that he is able to reside on the inside contrary to how he may be on the outside. He does not like it when it is used against him.
He is not an animal. To be approached as one brings something so fundamentally aggressive within to the surface that it boils inside him, and it burns.
“Get out of here before I kill you.”
They stare at each other.
“...No.”
“Get out,” Scaramouche rasps.
“Close the door then.” The tips of Childe's boots remain pressed against the doorframe, but never any closer.
“...”
“Close the door, Scaramouche.”
And Scaramouche stands there, frozen, although he is not the cold one. The storms crackle, the tsunamis rise, there are no cherry trees, squirrels– and the moon is nowhere in sight. He has a door, and a choice.
Patient Childe watches. There is no inflection in his eyes. There is attention without judgement. There is a point, and it’s too good to be true.
Loving Childe waits. Will he always? How far can Scaramouche run until the lines blur, the truths, forsaken, turn to bitter lies? Until he is free of the curse of human love, the oasis where nothing comes to harm?
It will be a long, long way until he runs far enough. Childe’s honesty is too fast. Scaramouche is running out of breath– and it seems these are the final.
As now he is bested.
The door swings. Scaramouche sways on his feet. Childe shoots out to steady him but Scaramouche flinches, eyes wide.
“No!” he barks, stumbling back. Thin arms wrap across his middle.
His frame shakes by some unreasonable force. The world is large and malicious, and the floor in front of him is close.
“I opened the door,” He turns away, frantic. “Please, I opened the door.”
He cannot see Childe– take in his expression. All he can do is examine his own sandaled toes, closed and dug in.
“You… opened the door.” Scaramouche hears the surprise in his voice, blank shock yet to be coloured by any cognition or emotion. He hikes his shoulders higher, preparing for something he can’t predict.
Childe plays it carefully. Scaramouche can tell from the silence, the slow way the wooden sill creaks.
He shouldn’t have allowed this, that was unbelievably brainless. How does he go back? Is this fixable? What the hell did he just do? Has he ruined his own life? Is he stupid? What is happening to him? What changed? Did something change? Anything at all? Or had this already happened without him realising? Is he drunk? Is he actually stupid?
“Can I come in?” Childe inquires cautiously.
He’s stupid to have asked, because Scaramouche finds he can’t answer. First of all, he doesn’t know. Secondly, he does care a lot about the resulting reaction, but about 30 different sides of him are all screaming strange, convoluted opinions on every aspect of the situation, and he can’t really make out the important ones.
So Scaramouche just… doesn’t respond.
Which Childe, being a smart boy, takes as a ‘no’.
Although he doesn’t leave either. He should, really he’s just wasting his time, but apparently he isn’t because some time between that day years ago and now, Scaramouche has become an unwitting, broken child.
Against his will, the tears sting his eyes once more.
He bites his lip, which now tastes wet.
“...Why don’t you hate me?” Scaramouche hates the way he sounds so weak, so insecure. He hasn’t been that way in a long time, and remembers now why not.
He rocks forward, holding himself tighter. Belatedly, he realises that what he’s doing is oft mimicked by a weary woman.
He is… cradling himself.
His own thoughts betray him in such cruel ways.
“I’m well past that stage.”
Oh, yes, how he betrays himself.
“You should.”
“Mm. Why is that, comrade?”
“I could kill everyone you love.”
“You could,” he assents. “But you won’t.”
Scaramouche growls, spins on him. “And why wouldn't I?!”
“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “Why haven’t you?”
Answers fly past violet eyes; he hasn’t met them, why would he go out of his way, there’s no need, they’re no threat.
Then Scaramouche realises he’s been trapped. He is too slow.
“I hate you.”
“Is that really true, Scaramouche?”
He wills his hands to sit still at his sides. “Yes, it is. I can’t stand you. You are a bothersome pest so far below me I can hardly see you, and when I find you on the bottom of my shoe, I vomit inside my mouth because you are that remarkably grotesque of a creature.”
Childe remains unfazed. “Okay. Well, I can see you very well, and I don’t think you’re grotesque at all.”
Scaramouche wants to die, wishes he were dead already so he wouldn’t have had to experience this. Wishes he never bothered.
Childe grins. It’s halfway impish.
“Leave. Now.” He waves the taller man away. The swish of his hat cuts their goodbye short.
“See you, Scara.”
“Hn.” And the door is slammed shut by a violent kick.
—
EPILOGUE - Moments later
—
“You’re lucky, you know.” Signora says, supervising the escort of her bags. She will be heading to Inazuma in the quick mist of morning. “To have someone like that in here.”
“I know.” Childe strips off his gloves and blows into his cupped palms.
“Oh dear.” Her voice tinges with something dark.
“...Yeah.”
They wallow in a mutual silence. A perfect mirror of the brittle future, a portal to the lost past.
“...Listen,” she coaxes. “I don’t care much about what happens to you or that freak individually, but I know something good when I see it. Don’t ever, ever let go of something good.” She wags her finger. “And don’t let him, either. Repressed ones are real slippery bastards, and he’s going to need the support.”
“I won’t, Signora.”
“Good. Mm, ta ta now. Mama has a carriage to catch.”
“Goodnight, Signora.”