[ Favorite dish.... Childe does extremely well not to tense up at that, somehow already coming to terms with this sort of thing occurring having to be understood as the norm. He still doesn't understand why Zhongli has forgotten so much but somehow remembers him enough to come halfway around Teyvat to locate him.
Instead, he focuses on the feeling of hands massaging him, deciding to think hard on when the last time he had anything like a massage such as this... probably the time Tonya wanted to try and replicate one technique from a spa he took her to, and he ended up with a pulled muscle from her being just a little too ... let's just say unrefined in her new craft. ]
Okay, I'll make a special version just for you, Xiansheng~! [ he chirps with a smile even if it can't be seen by the older man. A special version... without fish. Surely, he can adjust the recipe (he feels like maybe he had even started doing this back in Liyue but never got to present it,) it's not as if all of Snezhnaya has access to fish and it's a countrywide staple. There's good meat to be found, and surely the spices can be put together for something that the adeptus will more likely enjoy.
He blinks back his eyes from watering, going to rub at them and wondering if he got something in them or he's just that unused to the bath and its gentle steam.
( haha, there's no reason to be upset. he can keep Zhongli with him the less he remembers, right? So anything he remembers is really just a danger that he might suddenly somehow remember that none of this is his things are—! )
Besides, he remembered what Childe said about the food to him even if he doesn't remember that he already knows well that Childe is incredibly fond of fish— wait, no, is it that he doesn't actually remember he himself doesn't like fish, instead?
... Ah ha, no that's ridiculous. It might be both, but how could it be him remembering Childe's likes and not his own dislikes?
Maybe he's just too old to keep up the charade for himself that this misfortune could somehow become a boon for the harbinger. It could, of course— but that has nothing to do with their relationship and everything to do with if he still had to retrieve a gnosis from the other. There's no way to steal the true heart of someone in this manner, even if he somehow believed it could be done. Nothing comes to mind or has since he started thinking of it beyond every memory coming forward reminding him how impossible it is. He wonders briefly if he thinks this is awful for Zhongli when in reality the memory loss perhaps may very well be strangely easier without the burden of millenia for the old Archon.
Cautiously, he asks with concern: ] Are you really okay, Zhongli-xiansheng? You don't remember a lot of things, but it doesn't hurt, you said, right? Did the doctor in Liyue provide you anything to take to help with the symptoms? I want to make sure you are comfortable from now on.
[ Surely he can do something even if he can't win Zhongli's heart even with so many memories lost. why does not having that still upset him.... what good would that do, would it even be real if it was possible? No, probably not, feelings and memories go hand and hand, afterall. Right now he just wants to hug onto Zhongli and never let him go. Never let anyone hurt him or take anything else away from him.
... isn't Zhongli the cause of so much of Childe's own hurt, though? It's so easy to act like that never happened when presented with this affectionate (it's not affection, is it, it's just desperation for something or someone he knows and can ground him as still belonging somewhere.)
I want it to be real affection though, even if it's too late...
(Is this any way to live? Does Zhongli even want to live in a world where everything he loves and knows is slowly scraped away by a knife that can cut through stone?)
Stop caring. Stop acting like that idiot you were when you first stepped off the boat in that foreign country.
Isn't it funny that Zhongli's presence and predicament has the harbinger sinking beneath the waves of the past: a place he isn't welcome, a place he can never belong to. Then again, is the future all that different? If even an Archon can have their self erased away with time.... what hope do humans and anything lesser have?
What an awful way to think about life. ]
So... just tell me when something upsets you or hurts or anything like that, okay?
[ Maybe pretending is what Childe has really always been best at: maybe pretending is all he has to offer Zhongli in the end. If only he could stop himself, but it seems he's a glutton for punishment no matter how well he knows better. ]
no subject
Instead, he focuses on the feeling of hands massaging him, deciding to think hard on when the last time he had anything like a massage such as this... probably the time Tonya wanted to try and replicate one technique from a spa he took her to, and he ended up with a pulled muscle from her being just a little too ... let's just say unrefined in her new craft. ]
Okay, I'll make a special version just for you, Xiansheng~! [ he chirps with a smile even if it can't be seen by the older man. A special version... without fish. Surely, he can adjust the recipe (he feels like maybe he had even started doing this back in Liyue but never got to present it,) it's not as if all of Snezhnaya has access to fish and it's a countrywide staple. There's good meat to be found, and surely the spices can be put together for something that the adeptus will more likely enjoy.
He blinks back his eyes from watering, going to rub at them and wondering if he got something in them or he's just that unused to the bath and its gentle steam.
( haha, there's no reason to be upset. he can keep Zhongli with him the less he remembers, right? So anything he remembers is really just a danger that he might suddenly somehow remember that none of this is his things are—! )
Besides, he remembered what Childe said about the food to him even if he doesn't remember that he already knows well that Childe is incredibly fond of fish— wait, no, is it that he doesn't actually remember he himself doesn't like fish, instead?
... Ah ha, no that's ridiculous. It might be both, but how could it be him remembering Childe's likes and not his own dislikes?
Maybe he's just too old to keep up the charade for himself that this misfortune could somehow become a boon for the harbinger. It could, of course— but that has nothing to do with their relationship and everything to do with if he still had to retrieve a gnosis from the other. There's no way to steal the true heart of someone in this manner, even if he somehow believed it could be done. Nothing comes to mind or has since he started thinking of it beyond every memory coming forward reminding him how impossible it is. He wonders briefly if he thinks this is awful for Zhongli when in reality the memory loss perhaps may very well be strangely easier without the burden of millenia for the old Archon.
Cautiously, he asks with concern: ] Are you really okay, Zhongli-xiansheng? You don't remember a lot of things, but it doesn't hurt, you said, right? Did the doctor in Liyue provide you anything to take to help with the symptoms? I want to make sure you are comfortable from now on.
[ Surely he can do something even if he can't win Zhongli's heart even with so many memories lost. why does not having that still upset him.... what good would that do, would it even be real if it was possible? No, probably not, feelings and memories go hand and hand, afterall. Right now he just wants to hug onto Zhongli and never let him go. Never let anyone hurt him or take anything else away from him.
... isn't Zhongli the cause of so much of Childe's own hurt, though? It's so easy to act like that never happened when presented with this affectionate (it's not affection, is it, it's just desperation for something or someone he knows and can ground him as still belonging somewhere.)
I want it to be real affection though, even if it's too late...
(Is this any way to live? Does Zhongli even want to live in a world where everything he loves and knows is slowly scraped away by a knife that can cut through stone?)
Stop caring. Stop acting like that idiot you were when you first stepped off the boat in that foreign country.
Isn't it funny that Zhongli's presence and predicament has the harbinger sinking beneath the waves of the past: a place he isn't welcome, a place he can never belong to. Then again, is the future all that different? If even an Archon can have their self erased away with time.... what hope do humans and anything lesser have?
What an awful way to think about life. ]
So... just tell me when something upsets you or hurts or anything like that, okay?
[ Maybe pretending is what Childe has really always been best at: maybe pretending is all he has to offer Zhongli in the end. If only he could stop himself, but it seems he's a glutton for punishment no matter how well he knows better. ]