#I COMPLTELY UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE SAYING

[ruershrimo]

like it’s the old love. | part 1 FINALE: section a | "merry christmas"

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features albedo (literally just him this time lol)

warnings: like in every other chapter the reader is fem!reader, there's a little bit of swearing, lots of cringe, perhaps a bit of angst and this chapter is COMPLTELY TEXT (sorry!!), but it's mostly okay in terms of not having anything that bad (please lmk if there's anything that warrants any warnings, though!)

notes: merry (extremely late) christmas, everyone! I meant to finish this before christmas so I could time it all together, but between writing for the event, travelling overseas and my poor planning, I wasn't able to finish it in time. I'm so sorry if it feels rushed! (this was also probably the chapter that I struggled with the most-- you'll understand once you read it, haha.)

summary: you finally want for things so passionately that you'd run for them instead of holding yourself in place again, and he's what you're running for. now you know for sure that you won't let go.

For the next few days everyone eagerly prepares for Christmas. Every few days Alice takes chunks of time out of her schedule to shop for gifts with Klee, while you and Albedo stay in spending time with each other, watching movies, doing housework or adding more decorations around the house, or spend time outside instead, eating at restaurants or cafes. 

“Do you think there’s anything else we should add?” you ask him with your hands in your pockets, the two of you standing before the front gate. Compared to the densely packed apartments or bleak streets back at home, their house is an idyllic thing, like something from a Christmas movie. Like always there’s snow piling up on the sidewalk and the porch— which was an extremely rare occurrence back at home— and all the other houses on the block are caked with snow like frosting on a cake. The sun has begun to set, and the lines of lights on every picket fence and every door brighten up the street like glowing fairies. You anticipate the glow of the stars from behind the chimney overlooking the roof and the porch, clusters of falling snowflakes flanking each side. 

“Not really,” he replies, “This is alright.” 

“I think we did a pretty good job,” you say, hands rested on your waist in a mix of satisfaction and jadedness, “I don’t think we’ve ever really done everything on our own, so I thought it wouldn’t go as well as other Christmases, but I think I’ll just say that this’ll be one of the best Christmases ever. —Okay, I know that sounded over-confident, but— it’s not over-confidence or anything, it’s a fact!” 

He’s staring at you with mirth in his eyes, and there’s nothing you can do but do the same to him, like there’s forces pulling you together and it’s so simple, you wonder why you hadn’t realised you weren’t in love with him before. 

You really want to be selfish— you’d already done it before, roping him into this arrangement. To demand more time from him, more loving gentleness and tender care in each gaze and hand. But how could you? Even if he loves you too, would he ever say it? If he knew would he ever tell you, and if he’d known why hadn’t he? Was he scared like you? Had you made him wait? 

Could you really risk telling him that, aloud, if it could ruin things like it did before? 

—

On Christmas Eve, he takes you out for a walk on the beach. 

It sounds a little silly, really. In the past it would just be a simple hangout, but now that you were together, it was a date he could take you for. 

The change was so simple, and although nothing really changed on a superficial level— not the jokes, or the conversations, or the giggles or the calm unchangingness of his tone— things still felt different, somehow. (Or maybe it was just you.) You were a couple, now. It was silly that you were still trying to wrap your head around it, even if you were the one who suggested it: the two of you went on dates sometimes yet still continued on with rituals like hot chocolate and winter beach walks that you had before, so now everything's at once different and the same. 

It was confusing, to say the least. As if you were crossing a tiny little bridge from Point A to B, but you weren’t quite there yet, and you were still considering if you should go back to Point A or whether Point B truly was supposed to be the destination for the both of you. 

“Merry Christmas,” you cheer as he stops the car, “Woo!” 

He opens the car door for you. What a gentleman, really— so you’d really been this lucky knowing someone like this for so long, and not realising you’d fallen in love with him? 

Or were you just too scared to? If so, what changed?

“Merry Christmas,” he chuckles. 

The two of you walk side by side as the wind blows through our hair again. You can feel the chill of winter again, tickling your ears and every time you try to face the cold again you’re only hit full-force by its numbingness, sliding your face back into the collar of your fully zipped jacket for a sliver of warmth. When you take your hands out of your pockets for a while, you feel like you’re soaking them in iced water. 

Your hands bump against each other apprehensively with touches so faint you can barely feel them on your numbed skin, but you can tell that, though it may just be an illusion due to humans’ innate body heat and how cold everything feels, his hands feel warm, and it’s as if they get warmer with every light graze against your hand that there is. You’re not looking— if you did, your chest would constrict ever so slightly, yet in the most comfortable way possible. If you had a tail like a dog’s, looking at the proximity of both of your hands would cause it to wag uncontrollably. 

It’s not like how it felt before with everyone else, when you’d constantly be red-faced and you could sense your emotions slipping so painfully yet so easily out of your control like sand from the gaps between your fingers. Being with Albedo isn’t masochistically thrilling like that— it’s comfortable, even if a part of you feels as if you could fall from the gap between Point A and Point B at any moment. Because although it seems scary, there’s something like a harness that secures you in the end and tells you that you’ll be fine, even though you know there’s a high chance you won’t be; even though you know that some few eight letters and your own insecurity can be enough to end things and send you plummeting down into an unforgiving torrent of snow as seventeen or so years of friendship and closeness can only crumble. So as scary as it feels, a part of you wants to hold on to that harness— hold on to him— and survive. 

Then like puzzle pieces your right slips into his, and he doesn’t let go. 

His hand is warm, so unbelievably warm. 

This is the happiest you’ve felt in your entire life. The past few days of your life have been the happiest you’ve ever been no matter how bleak you know things will be once you’ll be back at home in Liyue. 

This is the simplest (though maybe the edgiest as well) way you could put it: every year you’d live feeling like you were a shell of a person watching another’s life through the screen, putting on masks and switching them for others with every door you closed and every day that passed, no matter how many people you’d known from school: if you feared being hurt by envy or your own love for them, they would never come close, or at least not close enough. The only end to it was winter and your holidays spent with Albedo, Alice and Klee. Whenever you stepped into their house, despite how cold everything would feel, you’d feel invigorated, like you were living your own life again. 

“So why the sudden date?” you question, your face warm and the sand devoid of anything besides seashells and prints of the two of your shoes’ soles, “This is probably our first official one.” 

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.” 

About something good? Or something bad? 

You hope it’s something good. You don’t want this moment to end. 

“...what is it?” 

“I…” he pauses. So he’s nervous, which means it’s either something terribly good or terribly bad. “I wanted to ask if this could be permanent. …or if we could solidify things, I suppose. I mean that we could try to be a couple, an actual couple— like one that isn’t bound by a one-year arrangement. But then again, it’s hard to define this when there was never that much of a difference to how actual couples are like, anyway. 

“I think it’s just that…” he says, voice uncharacteristically abashed, and it takes every bit of strength and control in yourself to dart your eyes to the ground in avoidance, “I think I’ve loved you for quite a while and realised that I should finally say it.” 

At that moment it’s like your heart stops, almost flatlining. And now you’re scared and you don’t know what to do, you want to think but you want to answer, you’re going to regret what you say next but you’ll say it regardless even though you know what you need to say isn’t want you will say, oh god— 

You suppose it’s in your inborn nature to ruin everything, because as he continues to stare intently at you, you open your mouth and say words that were already filled with regret long before they were uttered. 

“… I don’t think I can do that.” 

“…you don’t? I… I understand, I’m sorry. But…—but please just think again, [name], I’ve always wanted to say this. 

“I think I’m going to go back in the car for a while.” 

Damnit. You ruined it. You ruined it all. 

Thank god there wasn’t anyone else there, because you don’t think you’ll be able to handle this without the absolute lack of any other’s presence. 

He heads back to the car on the same path that the two of you came from, and as you watch his quick footsteps and how unrelentingly fast his back— the only thing that’s facing you— fades into a smaller and smaller silhouette, you feel like all you can do is stand there and cry and watch him leave like everyone else. 

Like there’s a phantom force holding you by the legs, never letting you walk, never letting you change this for once. 

In all your years alive, you’d fallen in love with countless people, had your heart broken countless times without them realising, never wanting to take a single step for others because you were scared. Because you didn’t think you could do anything at all. And you hated it. You hated those feelings, hated how you tried all you could only for your efforts to go unnoticed in the faces of people who only truly recognised the best. 

But not now, not again, not when this is the happiest you’ve ever felt; when this makes years of unrequited feelings from others and school years spent with that inexplicable, unmoving loneliness that never left even when you’d befriended those people all worth it. Even if you were blessed with a good background, with a brother who cared despite not understanding you, with parents who were busy but only so that you and your brother could have good futures, this felt like one of the only things that really did make you happy. This felt like a blessing you’d claimed yourself; one that you had to chase after, and maybe that was what made it all worth it. 

So you run after him, leaving sole marks on the sand again, telling your legs to move no matter how much you wanted to fall back, head giddy with all sorts of emotions that screamed for you to just sprint after the one good thing you wanted to keep as the strands of your hair flailed about and you felt the wind howl viciously at you, at your face, everything. 

You know you’re a coward. You know you have a life that sucks. You know you’re too scared of changing it. But you’ll stop; you hope to whatever god who exists that they’ll let you keep this. You hope to yourself that you can have this because now you know even if you’re a coward you’d fight tooth and nail to have it always, to have someone love you the way he does. 

—

When you’re there his tone has changed, slightly less controlled, slightly more helpless and your heart twinges in so much pain when you hear it: 

“I’ve loved you for so long, but you run away from everything you’re scared of,” he says, and the sadness tugging on his tone is almost tangible, but it’s full of conviction and you’re not sure what makes it hurt more: you being forced to hear the truth you denied and refused to believe from the one person you expected not to hear it from, or you being fine with it if he’s the one telling you this? 

“You run away from not being the best, you run away from things that you want because you’re scared of failure and rejection and change. 

“Please, [name]— rejection and failure aren’t as horrible as they sound. You think of the life you have after all of this as death, and you don’t question whether you can have a future you enjoy or not because you’ve hammered into your own head that your only two options are trying things which can only lead to inevitable failure, or sticking to what you think you have to do to survive, no matter how much you hate it you’d rather stick to it out of your own fear.” 

His words hurt and feel comforting at the same time, inundating your senses to no end like sweltering hot chocolate burning your throat and tongue, or like an embrace that chokes you and only makes you want to dissipate into it and cry. You barely even notice your quivering lips and the tears running down your cheeks the same way rain falls when the sky opens up and weeps uninhibitedly. It feels like the pot that’s had water in it for about all of your life has boiled over and overflowed. 

“Please, just say something. I don’t know if I was wrong, but if I were then maybe I never knew you at all, and I’m sorry if that’s the case.” 

You shake your head and scramble for words only to find none for you to say. 

“Please just be selfish. Please, for once, stick to the things you want. Please just hold onto things no matter how scared of them you are.” 

You squint your eyes in pain and even more tears flow down to your chin. 

“...please, do it out of love.” 

Then you snatch your hand away from his and jump to him, your arms wrapped desperately around his head. Even they don’t want him to go while every part of you is pressed flush against him without a second thought and ignoring how there’ll be an ache in your upper arms if you’re ever pulled apart after comes as easy to you as breathing. 

“…no— I’m sorry, Albedo, I’m so so sorry! You’re right, you’re fucking right, I’m just a coward, I—” you ramble, the words pouring out of you like gushing water without a single moment of respite for you to catch your breath— “I wasted all of your time, I played with your feelings even though I knew how you felt but I was selfish all along for that because I never wanted to ask if we could be anything more, I was just— I was too scared of it all so I took advantage of you like that, but—!” 

He holds the back of your head and pulls you nearer to him as if you weren’t ever near enough. 

“Every year, Albedo, every year when I stayed here because I had no one else to spend time with, it was with you! And every year, god, every year, I cried to you and wasted your kindness as I only kept crying about my own problems and never helped take care of yours, I just kept viewing each year as one hell after another, I—” 

In your slight haze you notice how he’s crying, too, ever so quietly, you can barely hear it as his low cries reach your ears. 

“—I love you, Albedo, I love you so much. Sometimes it hurts so much and that makes me scared. And my life sucks so much but even trying to change it makes me scared. So I’m useless, just useless and selfish, I—” you gasp for air. 

“—so be selfish, why don’t you? Don’t worry about me, don’t worry about being a burden,” he almost shouts, then gets softer again, “Because you are, at times. But you’ll never be some stain on my life like the way you view yourself as. I’ll listen to you cry each time— don’t care about me like that, put yourself before me, please,” he pleads, “It’s better for the both of us if you put yourself before me. And try to be “useless” in that sense for once since you never were in the first place, why don’t you—” he says between tears and shaky inhales, “Be selfish and feel what you want to feel, feel what you have to feel. If you need to, use me as what you can lay your back on after everything. It’s horrible but I’ll do it regardless, so just let me help, please, I don’t want to watch you continue to hate yourself and your life like this!” 

And then you cry and cry and cry for what seems like an eternity, as if years and years of feeling like you aren’t living your life, of feeling useless and unnoticed to the people around you, just spill out so simply and turbulently. He just continues crying, crying for you despite how lonely he must feel from his own experiences, from a mother who never cared much for him unless when he was impressive or could keep up with her in all things related to the sciences she loved more than her own son; from the impossibility of him ever being able to be on the same playing field as him in terms of intelligence and curious thinking in the same way the mother who left him did. 

You don’t know how you’d never thought of it before, that small child the same size as you being sent to live with his aunt his whole life when his mother who could have taken care of him merely chose not to due to her work. But then the two of you weren’t so different, no? Yet he was so different, so wonderfully different, an inspiration to you that you envied yet placed on a pedestal more and more through the years. Did it ever make him feel lonely, then? Did he feel as happy as you did for the past few days you were together, partly because both of you rarely mentioned how he was “perfect” and how you weren’t? Did he ever look at you and wonder if he could be like you, the same way you wanted so much to be amazing like he was, did he ever look at you with envy? 

How could he ever envy you, though? He was so good, so blindingly, painfully good. A good son, a good friend, a good person. 

…why are you so good, Albedo? You choke out through tears after a while, “Why do you have to be so good to me? Why, why? Why do you do this to yourself?” 

“I don’t even know,” he replies, softly, his mouth buried into your hair as if he’s using your head to muffle himself, “I’ve been doing it for years and I want to do it forever. I don’t know anyone who can know you like I do and not want to do the same.” 

“I’m so sorry. I love you so much. I’m so, so sorry. I’ll try to be selfish from now on. I’ll try to learn to want to have things for myself again.” Just let me have this. 

You hold him tight and cry into his shoulder. 

Everything’s quiet. The grey exterior of his car seems so serene when illuminated by the stars that twinkle despite the tarry, black colour of the sky, and so is he, his moonlit blonde hair in your peripheral vision, the relaxing slothfulness of his breaths, the droopiness of your eyelids as you rest your chin on his shoulder. Everything’s calm. 

Yeah. You’ll be alright, you think. You’ll be able to have this, to keep this. 

You’ll be just fine if he holds your hand through it. And then maybe you can hold his, too. 

—

“I’m happy,” you whisper on the drive back. It just felt natural to head back home after, anyway. And maybe sleep in the car once it was parked in the driveway instead of coming back inside. Then maybe tomorrow you could go on for real this time, watching movies and making hot chocolate and having conversations at the foot of his bed, and at that moment you think that’ll be all you need to be content for your whole life. 

“Hm?” His head turns to you for a moment before turning back to face the wheel. 

“I’m happy I have this,” you say, “Even if my eyes are going to be swollen on Christmas Day.” 

One of the numbers on his satnav’s digital clock changed. 12:00, it read. 

“At least you’re not alone in that aspect,” he smiles, and you lean your head against his so that it’s touching him ever so slightly. “Merry Christmas, [name].” 

“Merry Christmas,” you say back, “I love you.” You really, really do, and you’ll say it every chance you get to do so now as compensation for all the times you hadn’t said it before. 

“I love you too.” 

You close your eyes and sleep. 

(When he returns to that sleeping neighbourhood, he turns off the engine, but doesn’t leave the car. The next morning, when the sun’s rising and you open your eyes to lines of houses adorned with reds and greens, you hold his hand and snap a picture of his sleeping figure again. You hope he won’t mind when he wakes up.)

end notes: and that's the start of part 1's wrap-up! the next chapter will probably be mostly fluff that'll take place during new years, and that one will probably be really short, too. I hope that that way, we can end this series and this year on a high note! part 2 of litol will be coming out in the first half of next year :).

taglist: @sn1perz , @n3r0-1417, @kika-a, @chalksdreams

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[that-foul-legacy-lover]

thoughts on moth childe; I feel like he can read your mood pretty well and can gauge how and when you like to be physically touched and coddled. Like he can read ur aura or smth lmao but he uses it to his advantage when you're feeling particularly irked and stingy specifically. idk about other people but its always 50/50 for me to be touched when I;m in a mood like that. Just imagine this huge monster purring while sitting at your feel staring at your until you gesture him to rest his head on your lap or smth!!! Or if you're not the touchy feeling type he just continues to sit/ lay around you purring extremally loud on purpose to make you feel betterrrr AUGh <333 hope this made some sort of sense

this makes total sense because you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. even before Child got stuck in Foul Legacy he knew a lot about your habits and emotions from just spending time with you, and once he's in Moth Mode tm it's amplified by at least 10. he can very clearly tell when you're not in the mood for physical contact and he is very respectful of it!!! and even when he thinks it's alright, he always waits for your permission to snuggle up on your legs (plus when he's waiting for you to give the "go ahead" sign, he's sitting next to you on the cough and staring with a big sparkly eye so he's just ADORABLE)

and if you're very much NOT in the mood to be touched but also need to not be alone, Childe will curl up beside you and rumble so loud so you can hear it clearly. sometimes it makes you fall asleep and lean on him, and he treasures that when it happens!!! very gently patting your head and pulling a blanket over you so you can sleep well <33 honestly i think he understands not wanting physical contact at times because he was like that when he first got stuck in Foul Legacy- you were the only one who could touch Childe without him freaking out, and it took a very long time for him to warm up to other people like Zhongli or the Traveler!!!