clashing tens and hundreds of times / a light from tens and hundreds of years ago

[monoceroscaeli]

Who: Childe and Lumine
What: Lumine chooses violence this month and Childe happily obliges while dealing with Moon Presence stuff
When: December!
Where: The Gate

Content Warnings: they're just fighting and yelling at each other so idk if something comes up we'll put it in the subject line



[Trudging through the snow, Childe makes his way over to The Gate, his favorite place in all of Trench. He's easily found there, frequenting it whenever he can when he's not doing his odd jobs. Today the seats are empty, as there's no grand show of Hunters that take on monsters today, leaving it open for people to train. He's hoping someone who's particularly strong is available for sparring today, having finally had a good night's rest from the monstrosities that occurred during the previous month.

As he arrives, he beelines to where he can usually meet an unsuspecting Hunter to try to spar with him. But to his surprise, he sees a familiar face waiting for him instead. He tilts his head, before approaching her.]

Well well, I certainly wasn't expecting to find you here. Were you waiting for me?

[It's...a bit strange, it's not like her to show up here and wait for him. She's never done that before.]

Comments

[traversal]

[ the scream sends a jolt down her spine and lumine finds herself rushing through the hallway to his bedroom. normally, she'd be a little hesitant entering someone else's bedroom (and house, for that matter) but this is an emergency—or at least, that's the excuse she gives when she busts into his bedroom.

honestly, she's not entirely sure what she should be expecting. after all, childe's more than capable of defending himself in any kind of break-in. what she's not expecting is him still in bed, clearly asleep and plagued by a nightmare. she takes note of the bandages all over his body, hastily wrapped in some places, and wonders where she's gotten those injuries; after all, lumine doesn't remember beating him that badly during yesterday's fight, enough to be bandaged even across the chest.

she jumps again when he mutters darkly in his sleep before she sits next to him on the bed. she gently places a hand on his forehead—no fever, but he's soaked in sweat—and frowns. something's clearly bothering him, enough to disturb his sleep. and while lumine has yet to master the ability to walk into dreams as a paleblood, she can at least do one thing.

... though she does muse if it would even work on someone asleep. it still has to, right? it should even be more effective without any blocks in their mind, so.

lumine hums a familiar inazuman song softly as she slowly, carefully coaxes his mind to relax, to sleep soundly, to dream pleasant things. she doesn't pull her hand away until he finally calms down and stops tossing and turning, until his expression turns serene. ]

[monoceroscaeli]

[At first, his expression even while asleep is a grimace, whimpering with anxiety and fear as he continues to be plagued by the nightmare. Images of watching every person he knows be eaten alive, followed by his own demise slowly becomes less and less prominent as Lumine's powers influence his mind once again. He feels like he's falling, gasping for air before the landscape changes and melds into something more familiar, something that felt safe and warm. In his dream, he can see his hometown, though the backdrop isn't of Snezhnaya, but of some non-existent place that his muddled mind creates, and the smiling faces of his friends and family surround him in this disjointed reality. There's a nice song too, he's never heard it before but it soothes him, as he continues to dream.

Back in his bedroom, his breathing slowly calms after several minutes, and his body looks visibly relaxed than the frantic tossing and turning he was doing before. He starts talking in his sleep again, clearly talking to his family.]

No, guys....lay off...she's not here just to play everyday...

[His expression turns to annoyance, because it seems his siblings are bothering him now.]

Are you sure...? Okay... No Teucer, you'll understand when you're older...

[traversal]

[ so he talks nonsense in his sleep. great.

but if he's talking to teucer, then he must be dreaming about his family. she supposes that that's better than whatever nightmare that's managed to slip into his dreams. still, lumine gives it a few minutes before she finally withdraws her hand from his forehead and starts rummaging through his bathroom for the first-aid kit, more bandages, and a towel.

she starts with his arms, mostly because she's not entirely sure if she can even fix the bandages around his chest without making things worst. it's a mess, clearly haphazardly done that it takes her a while to unravel the bandages and reveal his injuries. she wonders to herself what's gotten himself into, enough that he's injured all over.

lumine continues to hum the song, her blood magic seeping from her fingertips to keep him enveloped in his dream. ]

[monoceroscaeli]

[His family continues to badger him, and even though he sounds exasperated with them, he wouldn't have it any other way- he loves them more than anything.]

Mom...Lumine's not my girlfriend, stop. No, I didn't say that in the letter... [He snores, taking another deep breath as he slumbers.] Well, yes, I do...

[The soft humming of the song seems to pull itself to the foreground, and his eyes flutter open and he turns his head towards Lumine. He's not quite awake, but he seems entranced by her song as he gazes at her with heavily-lidded eyes, still very much under her influence. But his mind is starting to wake up...]

[traversal]

[ what.

lumine pauses from her ministrations to stare at his face, a look of surprise and confusion dawning on her expression. had she been under the influence of her temper once more, then perhaps she would've shaken him awake (never mind that he's injured and all) and demand what he even meant by that. so he's really lucky that she's feeling strangely better now, just as lucid as she normally is in aether's presence.

... weird.

she doesn't notice immediately that he's waking up, however, resuming her task of redressing his wounds and injuries. she's shifted to the other side of the bed to work on his other arm, bloodied bandages temporarily left at his bedside table. she'll clean it up afterward when she's done. ]

[monoceroscaeli]

[What...?

His mind floats with the tune of her song, and his eyes somehow track her movements to the other side of his bed. There's someone here, he thinks, and his head slowly rolls from one side of the pillow to the other. Who's here? He can start to feel the touch of her fingers against his skin, as she redresses his injuries. He feels her lift his arm up, strong yet gentle hands wrapping something around his arm, but he has a vision simultaneously of an arm wrapping around his in the dreamscape that Lumine has helped him create.

He can't see who it is there, either...he can only feel his heart beat stronger.

His eyes open a little bit more, and a blurry image of someone in white is there with him at his bedside. His breathing becomes more shallow, struggling now to free himself from the liminal space between consciousness and unconsciousness, to try to speak to see who it was here with him.]

[traversal]

[ she senses him stir, her gaze flickering at his face once more from the arm she's finished redressing. lumine quickly shifts in her seat, leaning forward to press her hand once more on his forehead and silently issue her command: to sleep, to dream, to rest. she doesn't need his fussing to make her job of fixing him up a little more challenging, and she certainly doesn't need him knowing that she's done this, either. it'll just complicate things.

only when his breathing has evened once more and he's fallen back asleep that she moves on to redressing the bandages around his chest, grunting at his dead weight when she holds him against her. stupid harbinger jock.

she's smelling of vileblood and disinfectant by the time she's done with him, tucking him under his sheets and closing the door to his bedroom. she definitely needs a shower after this, she thinks grimly, washing the towel and bandages in the bathroom and hanging them to dry on the rack. she cleans up his apartment after, tossing out the soiled bandages and wiping his blood clean from the surfaces. once that's all done, lumine checks on childe again.

once she's confirmed that he's still asleep, she heads off into the cold, locking the door behind her. strange how she's feeling surprisingly refreshed and rational, for once, but that can only mean she'll finally have a quiet dinner with her brother tonight. ]

[monoceroscaeli]

[His struggle doesn't last long. Once she presses her hand against his forehead, the commands that flow into his mind unimpeded tell him to sleep. Once again, he can't help but obey them, his resistance fading as he falls back under the spell she places on him. His eyes, now far too heavy to open any further, close; his breathing becomes deep and even, and he begins to dream once more. The dream is nice, and his sleep talking ceases, save for a few content whimpers he lets out before his dream takes full effect.

Anything she does to him afterward won't wake him, sleeping far too deeply to wake up even when she picks him up to redress the bandages around his chest. When he wakes hours later, he picks himself up slowly out of his bed. He notices that the apartment is different- someone had cleaned it up for him while he was out.

His bandages were changed, and his spare ones were clean. He knows he didn't do that, especially when the blood that he knew he'd accidentally smeared around his kitchen sink and on other surfaces while he was trying to take care of himself had been cleaned up. He wonders who could have been here, but he's got a few people in mind to ask later about it.]