childe always prided himself on his ability to maintain a proper, sophisticated composure. outside of battle, he was polite, respectful, formal. donning a mask of false calm had been a skill he acquired at a young age, so lessons in proper harbinger etiquette only reinforced habits he was already familiar with.
the only person who was easily able to break childe’s composure is zhongli.
the first time childe felt his mask slipping was when zhongli gave him an unexpected, heartfelt compliment. a simple confession of his feelings, from zhongli’s point of view. he admitted he enjoyed spending time with childe, and that childe brought joy and something to look forward to in his daily routine. how childe had become one of his dearest friends, and how he cherished that friendship.
for zhongli, he was just stating a fact. but for childe.. he felt his cheeks burning up, and for the first time in a long time he stuttered, floundering for a response while looking anywhere but in zhongli’s eyes. zhongli had laughed, not at him, but a soft, fond laugh, like he was pleased he made childe react in such a way. he made sure to say so, much to childe’s chagrin as the redness in his cheeks spread to the tips of his ears.
from that point on, childe decided it was ok if he relaxed around zhongli a bit. it was ok not to be so formal and proper all the time. zhongli was his ‘dear friend’, after all.
the second time zhongli made childe lose his composure was when he revealed he was the geo archon. when it was discovered that for the entire course of their relationship, zhongli had been lying to him. he had pretended to care for childe, pretended to befriend him, all to get childe to lower his guard. when childe found out he was nothing but a pawn to zhongli.
his heart ached and his eyes stung, self deprecating thoughts swimming frantically around in his mind. but he forced himself to push down his emotions, smothering them until he could barely feel anything. he didn’t need to embarrass himself in front of zhongli more than he already had. he could wait until he was in the privacy of his own home before breaking down.
zhongli ultimately didn’t give him the chance.
he knew it was wrong, to follow after childe and attempt to force a conversation between them so soon after his betrayal. but zhongli couldn’t stand to see childe so upset, heart hurting knowing he was the cause of childe’s pain. it was selfish, but he needed to correct his mistake, to apologize for hurting childe as soon as he could.
when he showed up on childe’s doorstep, zhongli had anticipated anger. he was prepared for yelling, for scathing words, even for childe to lash out physically.
what he wasn’t prepared for was childe’s anger quickly melting away, being replaced with round, wet eyes, shaky breaths and a quivering lip.
he definitely wasn’t prepared for tears.
“it’s kinda pathetic, isn’t it?” childe bit out, his efforts to hastily wipe his tears away and not let zhongli know he was crying in vain as his eyes quickly welled up again. “i’m supposed to be the tsarista’s fearless vanguard, but instead i got my heart broken because i fell for the cruel tricks of a god.”
no amount of desperately telling himself to keep it together could stop childe from breaking down at that moment. zhongli showing up at his door was like ripping a bandaid off a wound before it fully recovered, or pressing a fresh bruise. he couldn’t help but react to the emotions washing over him, waves of sadness and betrayal and heartbreak and embarrassment crashing into him like the waves that lap at liyue harbour.
once again, zhongli had made childe’s mask slip. once again, his words and actions had gotten under childe’s skin and made a place for themselves in childe’s heart. but unlike the first time, where his heart was full of giddiness and the shy and tender feeling of falling in love, now all childe was left with was a painful, empty feeling, and a persistent little voice that told him he should’ve expected this.
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Tiber had some really nice dog interactions this morning!
we met another whippet and I let him off lead in the public park for the first time!
Tiber was going absolutely berserk about having a friendly sighthound running circles around him and play bowing. I didn’t have his harness on him this morning, only his collar, and I couldn’t get him to calm down all the way and was worried he’d choke himself. he’s been getting to a good place with his recall lately and we’ve been discussing trying him off lead in the smaller quieter park anyway, and the other whippet seemed really well trained and responsive to her owner so I figured if I let him off he’d want to stick close to play with her.
he did really well! got some nice zoomies out and was really good about coming back to me. I usually ask him to tap his nose on my hand for recall and he was a little too distracted to follow through completely with that, but he was very very good about running by me to check in and reorienting towards me when called. I think we have a little more work to do, but I’m very proud of him!
I kept it short and got him back on leash once they were done running their circles.
a little later on our walk we ran into a very old lurcher. they both wanted to greet each other very badly, and Tiber was being very polite about it, so I walked him over. she was 14! he was very gentle with her, but was also play bouncing a lot lol just giving her some extra space when he did so. she bounced around back at him a little, but I think she was too old and wobbly to really go for it. but it was very cute watching them bounce at each other. her owners were very sweet and we chatted a bit and that was very nice.
and then we had a nice passing by greeting with a little daschund on the way home. as always with daschunds he was entirely enamored with her. they had a little cute happy sniff session.
those were the big exciting ones today, but he’s been doing better about dogs on our walks in general lately too! I’m very proud of him. I am thinking tho that I want to try to find some more opportunities to give him outlets for his dog friend excitement.
the other day, he was very good about waiting for the ok to go greet a little terrier-thing while we asked his owner if they could say hi. and he was being so self-disciplined but ALSO soooo excited. he literally plonked his ass down and just sat there vibrating in place until he could go up.
it was very funny and cute to witness and he’s being so good and trying so hard. but I’m worried he’s getting amped up too much trying to hold back and worried about him going over threshold? Idk I gotta see if I can find any info on excited reactivity I guess.
here he is passed out on the couch after exciting walk^^
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god I really used to love my starlight so much. our anniversary would be — or is in two weeks. and i always feel hopeless and depressed when he enters my mind. I don’t go a day without thinking about my TF F/Os because I had that habit of thinking about them for 3 years straight. now it’s going to be 4 years, 1 whole year of having cptsd attacks and being triggered just looking at this fictional franchise. i used to love them so much. now I wish I never ever knew of their existence, then I never would have met my abuser and none of this would have ever happened to me
I love Barbie and Ken so damn much, but I am never going to love anyone the way I loved my robot F/Os and now they’re gone and my brain marks them as “unsafe” and marks *all* F/Os as “could be potentially unsafe. Barbie and Ken may love you now, but later they might become dangerous. You’ve learned that people you trust and love are going to hurt you and everyone you care about has bad intentions towards you. If it could happen with starscream, whom you loved more than anyone, then it’s gonna happen with Ken/Driver/Six/etc. you loved this F/O unconditionally and someone convinced you that you’re only lovable to them through violence and disrespect of boundaries to the point of feeling stalked. if this could make Starscream feel like a threat to you, when you felt 100% safe and secure with him at all times… well, just about anyone is a threat now. Nobody is ever fully safe for you” so wow it’s almost like I’m traumatized or something
and yet my brain won’t just put TF down and let me forget them entirely, they keep coming into my head and I keep mourning and grieving and crying and stress vomiting and UGH 😭😭😭 I wish I knew a way to heal but I don’t! know! how! And I can’t afford cptsd therapy any more than just once every couple of months so my healing progress with TF feels nonexistent.
and I’m scared I’ll never feel safe with ANY f/os ever again. not just TF. Like … I love Ken so much but I never feel 100% safe with him. or I might have days where I feel safe, but I don’t believe he loves me, I feel like I’m only lovable if I’m someone’s punching bag. god. I miss my old self, I can’t believe it’s been a year. This should have been 4 years of loving STSC but it’s just been a year of mourning everything I’ve ever lost
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