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“Get in.”
Kazuha flies for half a moment before his shoulder cracks against what feels like hardwood floor. He bites hard around the gag between his teeth, crudely thankful that it at least keeps his captors from the satisfaction of hearing his pained noise. The blindfold doesn’t budge.
“We’ll start small. Build up from here.”
He hears the massive door slam shut. Wooden. Thick. He wriggles his hands against the ropes binding them behind his back, just to try and get some feeling back in his tingling fingers. The pins and needles have already set in. His legs too have been bound at the ankles and the ropes snarl against his skin.
The wood beneath his head moves. Ship. That’s what it feels like, but he doesn’t know. He’s been blindfolded since they got ahold of him; then, waking up only to be thrown to the floor. He has no idea where he is, what his surroundings look like. Even the faces of his captors are mysteries. He doesn’t know what happened to his Vision, but he can feel hisses of it in the dank air of this cramped, fuggy space. Wherever it is, it’s near enough that he isn’t worried.
He wriggles his hands some more. His wrists are numb, fingers stiff. Wincing, he tries to slip his wrists out of their joints to slacken the ropes enough to twist free, but when he tries he’s met with a limp lack of resistance that makes him pause.
His—
Unless he’d been knocked around far worse than he initially guesstimated—enough that he’s lost track of his bones— his wrists are already dislocated.
He tries kicking his ankles out of socket next, but this is harder to tell. Without his hands he can’t get proper leverage and his thighs have been roped together, too, which should be cheating. He thrashes through two more foiled attempts before going limp. If he can’t wiggle himself free, he should lie low and catch the guards off their guard. “Take the soul out of the soldier,” Beidou would say.
Archons, Kazuha misses the sound of her voice.
But, bide time. Soon enough.
Kazuha must have had a substantial amount of adrenaline left in his bloodstream, because the pain fades in gradually, then less gradually, and then all at once it seems his nerves are crackling like fireworks inside of him, and it’s all he can do to bite down on the gag between his teeth and clench-unclench-clench his fingers. His wrists (dislocated), his head (concussion), his ribs (bruised); his chest is worryingly tight, and the space around him seems to have shrunk. The ropes snag and tear at his skin.
He hears the massive door slide back, and a streak of light hits his eyes through the blindfold. He half-pretends to flinch, curling his head down into his chest.
He hears a chuckle. “Smart.” Footsteps (long strides, masculine voice, heavy gait). A presence kneels before him and a hand presses down on his shoulder. “So, you gonna keep groveling or are you gonna finish wishing up and tell me where the Crux Fleet is headed?”
Kazuha remembers.
The blow to the head spaced him out, but now. Now he remembers.
He doesn’t move.
The hand on Kazuha’s shoulder presses down harder, and he hears another, colder chuckle. “You know what? I get the feeling pulling off that gag wouldn’t make you any more likely to talk.”
The hand curls into a fist against Kazuha’s shoulder, disappears—then reappears in Kazuha’s gut.
The strike takes all his air with it. He doesn’t even have the chance to yelp before another strike takes that out of him, too.
And another.
And another.
Kazuha presses up against the hull of the ship, crushing himself in as tiny a space as he can manage. He tastes hot and acidic blood in his throat. He can’t feel his hands beyond the twang of pins and needles. His lungs feel soaked and even as his head pounds and thoughts flutter in and out like butterflies, he knows that isn’t good. The blindfold is damp.
“Up.”
Kazuha is heaved to his feet by his upper arm. His wrists clack together and he bites down, again thankful for the gag. Clumps of hair are caked to the back of his neck and to his face. He feels his ribs shift in a way they were never supposed to be able to, and bile sears his mouth.
“Are you ready to be cooperative?”
Kazuha hangs his head.
“Come on. All you gotta do is tell me where the Crux Fleet is headed. Can’t be too hard, right?” Fingers twist into his hair and yank until he’s forced to lift his head. He smells filth and wine. “Come on. What’s it gonna take before your self-preservation kicks in, huh?”
Kazuha doesn’t speak.
“Cool.”
He’s let go. Slams into the wood.
When he comes back, it seems he was only out for a moment or so, because the same man’s presence is still there, he landed in this position and there's a new sound, one of something wooden and heavy being dragged against something wooden and solid. Then sloshing water.
“Good, you’re up. Just in time.”
Thick fingers snarl through his hair again and haul him upright.
“We’ll start with ten seconds and go from there.”
His head is shoved underwater.
The furthest he’s kept under is a hundred and eighty two seconds.
He’s left on the wood again, soaked and choking on the water in his lungs between scraps of stale air.
The door hulks open. Kazuha shivers, involuntary chills scratching at his skin. His blood is on fire as his bones strain against muscle, numb and swollen.
“Had enough yet?” Same man every time. “We can make a fun little endurance game out of this, see how long you can hold out.”
Kazuha can scarcely breathe, but his heart lurches into his battered ribs and he drags a heavy wind of air through his teeth.
“I will never let you hurt them,” Kazuha snarls. “If you’re tired of trying then you’re going to have to kill me.”
“Really? I’m surprised you can still talk. Do you think they’d recognize your voice? Well.” Footsteps. Long. Heavy. “If you won’t be useful to us, the next best thing is to make you useless to them too.”
Metal slides against a scabbard.
“Just don’t say we didn’t give you an out.”
Kazuha’s blindfold comes undone and falls to the floor in a crusted filthy spool of frayed material. Kazuha blinks into the darkness.
The metal of a sword gleams in front of his eyes.
It slashes across his eyes.
Help
Help
Help
Help
Wooden floor. Soaking bandages mottled around face. Can’t feel arms. Can’t feel legs. Scorching. Hurts.
Breathing— hurts.
The door kicks open.
“Kazuha!”
Kazuha’s heart roars in his ears.
He’s drowning again.
Footsteps, quick and light.
“Kazuha—oh my god, Kazuha.”
Hand touches his shoulder. He recoils violently with some kind of a cry, and then the hand that touched him recoils too.
“Kazuha, it’s Beidou. Kid—kid I promise I’m not going to hurt you, I’m gonna take you home.” Voice tight. Presence sad. “I’m so sorry, Kazuha.”
Beidou.
Beidou.
Beidou Beidou—
Panic clutches in his chest when he can’t move and his lungs spasm, but she knows. She makes a broken sound too, like his, and then he’s gathered into her hold.
Tight grip. Lean muscle. Smells faintly of booze, strongly of the ocean.
Beidou.
Beidou.
She clutches him with just one arm, the other hand moving. He hears the scrape of metal against a holter and his heart jolts—but only instinctively, because she would never hurt him. The gag disappears. The ropes binding his hands disappear and blood gushes into his fingers.
Kazuha chokes.
“I know, I know.” Beidou takes his hands in hers, massaging his palm with just the pad of her thumb. Glass shoots through his nerves as blood fills his skin. “Shh, I know, I’ve gotcha. Oh my god, how long did they keep you like this?”
He doesn’t want her to know.
She massages his hands until he’s calmed down, then slices away the ropes at his ankles and thighs. The rush of blood makes him sick and it hurts even if it’s nowhere to the extent of his hands. Beidou massages blood back into his legs until he’s caught his breath.
The flat of the blade slides gently between his scalp and the bandages around his eyes.
too close too close too close
Kazuha thrashes away from the dagger. He hears the sound of metal clattering to wood, then Beidou takes his forearms and pulls him still.
“Okay, okay—you’re okay, sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out. I’ll leave it alone.”
He gasps for air, dizzy with the strain of moving and the adrenaline saturating his blood. Beidou’s hands leave his forearms, but then her arms come around his shoulders again and he’s drawn against her. He feels her lungs as she breathes. He hears the lump in her throat when she swallows.
“You’re okay,” she says, her words small. “Shit, you’re okay. You’re okay, Kazuha, you’re okay.”
He shoves his face into her shoulder and sobs until he can’t breathe.
Between one gasp and the next, he’s spooled into Beidou’s arms and pressed against her heartbeat, a cloak wrapped around his shoulders as he quakes from pain and fever. He recognizes the moment Beidou steps over the Alcor’s threshold.
“Captain!”
“Oh, Archons—”
“Move it out!”
“Kazuha!”
“Oh my god, Kazuha—!”
“Kazuha!”
“Kazuha…”
Home
“Don’t crowd him,” Beidou, the vibrations of her voice singing against his throbbing temple. “Drake, get us out of here. Suling, Juza—”
“Of course.”
Kazuha’s eyes are still wrapped (would he be able to see even if they weren’t?) but his heart leaps at the sounds of their voices. Despite the tightness in his joints and the searing pain, he grabs out blindly for them and Juza catches his hand.
“You’re doin’ okay, buddy, we’ve gotcha.”
If Kazuha weren’t too tired to cry, that would have done it.
He’s carried below decks, sick from the movement of legs beneath him and the sound of footsteps echoing against the wood. A door swings on creaky hinges, and he smells Suling’s quarters: hot metal from his blacksmithing hustle mixed with clinical alcohol and bitter herbs.
“A’ight, kiddo, going down.”
He’s settled gently on a bed, only just stifling the panic that surges up in him when Beidou pulls away. He must not hide it well, because she takes his hand and shushes him.
“You’re alright, kid, we’re here.”
A hand slips under Kazuha’s neck. “Juza, could you run up and get Grub for me?” Suling. He sounds stressed.
“Oh, sure, uh.” Juza squeezes Kazuha’s weak fingers. “Be right back, bud.” Then he’s gone. Kazuha tries not to panic.
It’s stupid. He isn’t alone, but the echo of abandoning footsteps makes his soul screech and he can’t silence it.
The rim of a cup is pressed to his lips. Kazuha jolts. “Just water, Kazuha.”
Kazuha tries to nod and swallows when Suling tips the cup.
He’d— choked on water, but when was the last time he drank water? It’s refreshing, if nerve-wracking, and it isn’t until Suling is pulling away that he realizes how desperately thirsty he is. And then how sickening it is to have something in his stomach.
Suling’s hands settle on either side of Kazuha’s ribs as light as can be. “Can you take a deep breath, Kazuha? I don’t wanna freak you out, but I think—” A pause. He imagines Suling and Beidou exchanging a look. It’s been so long since he’s seen their faces. He just wants to see their faces. “I need you to take a deep breath even if it hurts. I gotta listen to your lungs.”
Kazuha doesn’t know if he can, but he nods anyway. Suling’s ear settles over his chest with the same lightweight pressure as his hands, and Kazuha braces himself before breathing deep.
Pain.
He sort of hears Suling say something, but it could just as well be the ringing. Darkness floods his brain in cloudy blotches. Pain brands his ribs to his lungs and fills his throat.
He comes to with an arm straddled around his stomach, the other holding his head as he’s leaned over a bucket, coughing. The coughs tear his chest apart like wet parchment. And the coughs are wet. Very wet.
“Breathe, Kazuha, breathe.”
Can’t
He coughs until it makes him sick. The fluid in his lungs gags him, acid and water strangling him again. His heart pounds in feeble and hopeless desperation.
“We’ve got you, kid, we’ve gotcha.” The arm around his stomach is solid, though the voice behind it isn’t. There's comfort in Suling’s transparency. “There you go, you’re okay.”
Kazuha coughs hard and tries to get a breath in between, while Beidou holds his hair out of his face. She’s still avoiding the bandages. “Suling’s got you, kid,” she says. “You just focus on breathing.”
Kazuha forces his body to go limp. As promised, Suling holds him, and Kazuha sobs dryly between gags.
By the time he’s caught whatever breath he could, the door opens and two sets of footsteps shuffle in. Their gaits… Juza, and he’s brought Grub.
Grub’s voice is extra stiff, and unmissably so. She’s overcompensating.
Suling says something about Kazuha’s joints.
Kazuha recognizes their hands—Grub’s clinical but mindful, Suling’s nervous but steady—-but his mind screams to run, hide, get away.
“It’s alright, Kazuha,” Grub says, mindfully recapturing his hand between hers. He feels himself shaking. “This is going to help.”
His head is fuzzy, instincts howling. But Beidou takes his opposite hand, and he feels Juza’s hands with Suling’s down by each of his ankles. He knows them. They wouldn’t hurt him.
“Alright,” Suling says, “we’re gonna try and get it over with quick, you ready?”
No, but he nods because he wants it to be over.
“Do you want a countdown?”
He shakes his head.
“Okay, bud. Deep breath.”
He blacks out the moment they twist his joints.
Someone shoves something down his throat.
It’s thinner than water and tastes like vodka.
He wakes up cold.
The bandages on his face feel… different. Softer. They aren’t crusted to his skin, they don’t smell like infection, and though his eyes burn, there's a distinctly soothing feeling to it, like ginger tea on an ailing throat. It’s a cool burn, rather than a scorching one. He swallows.
Suling must have changed the bandages. Probably applied some sort of salve.
He tries not to think too hard about what they must have seen.
Water runs over his scalp, a washcloth folded over his forehead to soak up the excess. Kazuha’s heart jumps, but he breathes before it can turn into fear. He didn’t notice before but the lip of a metal tin is digging into the nape of his neck, and someone’s cupping the back of his head. His hair is heavy. Wet.
Someone’s washing it, and judging by their hands he has to guess it’s Xu Liushi. Xu Liushi’s touch is careful, fingers tracing through the water and oils in Kazuha’s hair. Kazuha can’t imagine what he looks like between the head wound, his eyes, the beatings, the… drowning. He must be a mess.
the next best thing is to make you useless to them
“Kazuha? Hey—erm, I can’t tell if you’re awake or not, but if you are, I’m just washing your hair. You can go back to sleep. Sorry if I woke you.”
Kazuha doesn’t know what woke him, but he wouldn’t mind being woken by Xu Liushi or by anyone on this ship. It would be a nice change to be woken by them instead of…
Yeah.
He wouldn’t mind being woken by them.
Kazuha wakes up again later to his own body’s rebellion, fever bright and hot as his insides churn. Huixing’s at his side, gripping his shoulders as he leans over the bed.
“I-It’s okay, Kazuha, it’s okay! I’m going to get Suling, your fever got higher and he said—would you be okay on your own? It would just be for a minute—”
no no no no no
“Okay, okay—I—”
The door opens. Kazuha flinches, but the sound is thinner than the door back on that ship, and faster, and the footsteps pounding through it are familiar.
“What happened? Is he alright?” Beidou.
“N-No, his, his fever is a lot higher and I need to get Suling but, he won’t let go.”
He won’t?
Oh—his fingers have latched onto the front of Huixing’s shirt. He wills himself to loosen them, but his body won’t respond. He wills harder and nothing changes. He can’t let go.
make you useless to them
Why can’t he let go?
“Here, I’ll take him. You could probably use a breather by now anyway, right? You look exhausted.”
“Okay…” Reluctant, but not argumentative. “Thank you, Captain.”
With some shifting, Kazuha’s hands are carefully unclenched from Huixing’s shirt. Panic spikes in his chest and he stamps it down. Stupid. Stupid. They’re still here. They aren’t going to leave him like this, they promised they wouldn’t and he knows them well enough to believe it.
“Take it easy there, kiddo.” Beidou settles in beside him and draws him against her side by his shoulders. He hears Huixing’s footsteps retreat; then the door clicks quietly shut behind her. “You awake?”
Kazuha tries to hum. Beidou runs a hand up and down his arm.
“Just out of it?”
He tries to nod.
“Yeah, I don’t blame your body for shutting down a little. You aren’t doing too hot.” Beidou’s hand shifts to settle against his forehead. Her touch is cool, calloused but soft. “Huixing was right about your fever.”
Fever. His wounds are probably infected. That makes the most sense. Tack that on to malnutrition and dehydration and general stress and it’s no wonder his body couldn’t take the strain. His immune system never stood a chance.
“Can you talk, Kazuha?”
Kazuha stiffens. She grips him tighter. He listens for her heart. It pounds, and so does his. He— He can talk, can’t he? He should be able to, he… should be able to… he hasn’t talked though, not since— which is why she’s worried, right? He never meant to worry her, but she’s worried, and, he… he should say something.
He—
can’t.
He tries. What comes out is a lot of air and a noise like— he doesn’t know what the noise is, but it’s unhappy and distressed, higher-pitched and full of cracks. And that’s all he’s capable of.
make you useless to them
“Did they do something to your voice?”
Anger sharpens Beidou’s words, but he shakes his head. Unless he was unconscious or frighteningly out of it—and he doesn’t find it likely they could have damaged his voice without him knowing.
“... I see.” She doesn’t sound sure. “Huixing should be back soon with Suling, you should try and get some rest until then. Suling’s probably gonna wanna look at your eyes.”
I’m sorry.
He feels her flinch. He traces the character again on the back of her hand.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
“Kazuha—”
Forgive me.
She grabs his hand. “Goddamnit, Kazuha, no.”
make you useless to them
She presses his hands together between both of hers, squeezing. “Don’t apologize, Kazuha, and don’t you dare ask for my forgiveness. I won’t hear it.”
She isn’t wrong, but he doesn’t like being restrained. He twists his wrists, but the joints are still tender from dislocation and he isn’t physically stronger than Beidou on his best day. She lets him go anyway.
“Sorry, I won’t—” She breaks off. He wonders what kind of expression is on her face, where she’s looking. “Don’t apologize again. I won’t tolerate that kind of bullshit on my ship, not even from you. Got it?”
He leans into her side. Nods.
“I’m sorry I grabbed you,” she says.
He doesn’t have the energy to shake his head.
“... We’re heading home to Liyue,” Beidou goes on, bringing her arm around his shoulders. “Gonna have Baizhu and that kid of his check your eyes, see what they can do. You just take it easy until then.”
He remembers the bandages wrapped around his head. It’s easy to forget they’re there, he’s become desensitized to them after so long. Beidou’s hand slips under his bangs to reach his forehead.
“Fever’s still going strong…”
He tries to sleep so he doesn’t have to think about the stress in her tone and how much he’s putting her through.
“Hold still. And you gotta let me know if it starts to pull on anything.”
Suling finds the corner of the bandage and slowly unravels while Kazuha sits straight, balled fists pressed into the blankets bunched around his legs. Beidou’s still here, seated beside him and Suling. He wishes he could see her face, or Suling’s, but with how hard his heart is pounding maybe it’s for the best that he can’t.
The bandages come off slowly, cold air hitting his skin as they’re removed strip by strip. Then finally the last of it is unveiled. What Kazuha thought would be relief twists into a feeling of deep exposure and vulnerability. The last time his eyes were unwrapped, he was staring down the blade of a sword as it slashed across them. That’s all he can think about.
Suling’s hands touch his face. He jumps. “Sorry,” Suling says, sincere but distracted. “Can you try to open them, Kazuha?”
He takes a deep breath, nods, and slowly pries his eyes open.
He isn’t expecting anything—kept expectations low on purpose as to not be disappointed—but muted light floods his senses. It isn’t impressive, and he still can’t make out form or shape or Suling’s and Beidou’s silhouettes, but there's something there. The light from a lantern, a candle—something. As faint as it is, it’s something.
“Can you see anything?” Suling asks. “Just nod or shake your head.”
Kazuha nods, hesitant.
“Is that a ‘kind of’?”
Kazuha nods.
“Can you see this?”
Kazuha waits, and shakes his head when nothing changes.
“What about this?”
The light shifts to the left and glows brighter. He nods.
“Alright, good. Good. Are you in pain? You’re still pretty medicated, so, maybe not, but…”
Kazuha shakes his head. He is, but it’s nothing compared to what it was.
“Alright. I’m gonna reapply the salves and keep them bandaged for now. Gotta change the rest of your bandages, too, take care of the infection…”
make you useless to them
The first layer of fresh bandages wrapped around his eyes cut out the glimpse of light.
“Are you sleeping okay, Kazuha? Been able to rest?”
He doesn’t know, and explaining what sleeping feels like would require words, and that isn’t something he has the capacity for. Why can’t he speak? Not being able to see makes sense, his eyes are injured, but his voice… that much should be fine. Why can’t he at least explain what he’s experiencing? It would help Suling understand how to treat him, wouldn’t it? Why can’t he do it?
“Kazuha?”
He should respond. He’ll worry Suling and Beidou if he doesn’t respond. But seconds tick by, the thoughts melt in his head before they become anything real and he doesn’t know what to do. He forgets what Suling asked.
“Kazuha.”
make you useless to them
He tries to say he’s sorry, if only for making them worry.
His voice doesn’t come out. Something does—like a squeak, or a choke, or a sob—but it isn’t an apology and it isn’t what he meant. The frustration swing-dances with the steadfast panic in his chest and makes him claustrophobic.
“It’s okay, Kazuha, you don’t need to speak. Here,” the bandage is secured, the end tucked in, “lie back a bit.”
He’s maneuvered, backwards, and flails a bit until he catches up with what was spoken. Don’t need to speak. But he does, he— wants to, wants to, damn it why can’t he speak?
He sinks into pillows and blankets, and the frustration would make him scream if only he could.
“Take it easy, kid,” Beidou says, her hand coming to rest on his forearm. “No one’s upset with you.”
He’s upset with him. Why can’t he speak? Why can’t he speak? Why can’t he—
Make you useless to them
A door opens, and Kazuha’s ears are ringing too much to pick apart whose footsteps are whose. “What’s going on? Is he okay?”
“I don’t—no, no, he isn’t. He’s burning up.”
“Can we help?”
“Yeah, is there anything we can do?”
“You can sit with him, I need go find my mortar—“
Juza and Huixing settle in with Kazuha. His mind screeches and he reacts, clutching for something to hold onto. Juza shuffles closer. Huixing drapes herself over Kazuha’s side.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, we’re here,” Huixing says.
Juza’s large hand cups the side of Kazuha’s head. “Nothing’s gonna hurt ya, buddy, not anymore.”
Not anymore. Not anymore.
It’s—
Over.
But it isn’t. But it isn’t.
But—
Beidou grips his arm, hard, before her presence dips from his side and he thinks he hears her speak with Suling. With Juza and Huixing’s weights against and around him, the panic ebbs, if just barely.
Beidou returns to his side and grips his hand, fiercely. “Kazuha, listen to me. I don’t know what the hell those fuckers told you—you’re one of us. You hear me?” Her grip is so tight it hurts, but he’d never let her go. “If you never see again, if you never speak again—none of that shit changes anything. You’ll always be ours.”
“That’s right,” Huixing says. “Nothing changes for us.”
Useless, Kazuha draws onto her arm before he can stop himself.
She jumps, like she’d been shocked—and then she hugs him, nearly vicious, and snarls, “No,” right up against his ear. “Don’t you dare.”
Can’t, Kazuha writes.
“I know,” Huixing says, “but that doesn’t—we love you. Kazuha. Don’t you dare—”
Beidou must’ve caught on, because she grabs his shoulder and squeezes it, as does Juza, and Suling’s hand rests against the top of his head.
Kazuha cries until he can’t anymore.
They reach Liyue Harbor. The trek there is… endless, but realistically couldn’t have taken more than a week. Kazuha dozes through it with frail snippets of clarity, lulled and disoriented under fever and pain. Bandages are changed. Cold, wet towels are folded across his brow. He tries to speak and cannot. He falls asleep with one crewmate at his side and wakes up to another. Often several others. Huixing, Furong, Juza and Beidou; Suling, Xu Liushi, Grub—he can account for all of them, in between bouts of fever, bouts of retching, bouts of delusion and fear. They stay, changing bandages, speaking gently.
Perhaps he would be ashamed if he hadn’t missed them so much. If he didn’t think for a moment, trapped in that place, that he would never see them again.
He’s carried to Bubu Pharmacy, tucked against Juza’s broad chest with Beidou’s coat wrapped around him, bandages wound around his head and eyes.
Baizhu removes the bandages slowly, while Kazuha rests against the headboard of a patient bed with Beidou, Suling and Juza present. When the bandages peel free, it is dark, and Kazuha’s heart pounds.
“It’s the middle of the night,” Baizhu tells him, sensing it, “give me just one moment.”
A light enters Kazuha’s field of vision. A pinprick of it, barely anything at all, but a light nonetheless. Kazuha chokes on the tightness in his throat, his hand coming to his mouth.
“It is a candle,” Baizhu says, his voice searingly gentle. “Can you see it?”
Kazuha nods, trembling. The light moves sideways, out of the way but where he can still see it. He jumps when cold fingers touch either side of his face.
“Apologies, I should have warned you,” says Baizhu, closer. “I’m going to apply a bit of my healing to your eyes, but I won’t lie to you. It is likely your vision will never be the same.”
He expected this. He nods.
“I will wrap them first,” Baizhu says. “It will be quite jarring when—no? You don’t want me to wrap them?”
Kazuha keeps shaking his head.
“It’s gonna be overwhelming as hell, kid,” Beidou says. Her tone isn’t as heavy as back on the ship, but close. “There’s no shame in taking time.”
Kazuha keeps shaking his head. It’s not a matter of shame; he must see his companions, his friends, he must, must—
Baizhu stills his frantic head shaking, both hands flat against his face. “Alright, alright. I understand.” The concern in his voice has softened into something a bit warmer, and the edges of his thumbs press into the skin just under Kazuha’s eyes. Instinctively, Kazuha shuts them. “Open them when you’re ready,” Baizhu says. “I’ll tell you when it’s finished. This may feel a bit strange.”
Kazuha grips the hem of his cloak, nodding. Beidou’s fingers twist around his own and he loosens the fabric to squeeze her hand. He’s sure Juza holds his breath. Suling presses his hand to Kazuha’s shoulder.
Baizhu is right: it feels strange. Itching behind his eyelids, a crawling sting as though he’s opened his eyes underwater, and then a soothing coolness that reminds him of his fever. The sensation fades, the pain behind his eyelids recedes, and Baizhu barely gets the words out of his mouth before Kazuha is opening his eyes.
Baizhu was right about another thing: it is overwhelming.
Spotty, shadows, undefined. The moon is not full, but it is piercing. Beidou tells him not to push himself. Suling urges him to take his time. Kazuha blinks fervently, though, tries to get used to it, tries to get used to it—it’s not much, hardly better than before, but he can see—
However much time passes later, his heart stops ringing in his ears, and he can make out Beidou’s face. She’s moved to sit in front of him with her hands against his forearms. He can’t really see her—spots, shadows, shapes—but he can see more of her than he did a moment ago. She is worried, but she smiles when he meets her eyes, and Kazuha’s breath hitches.
“Hey, kid,” Beidou murmurs, fond, her voice wobbling near the end. “There you are.”
Kazuha doesn’t have the strength for it, but he lunges at her anyway. She catches him, squeezing him, and it’s all he can do not to weep.
The ship celebrates that night. It’s a quiet and unsaid celebration, without the usual hype and noise, drinking and fanfare, but Kazuha can tell. He sits against the hull of the ship, wrapped in blankets, technically not well enough to be out of bed but too stubborn to stay below decks. The ship bustles with activity, with his fellows stopping by him often to make him drink water or ruffle his hair or make sure he’s warm enough. Suling hardly leaves his side. He hears Beidou holler as they leave Liyue Harbor.
The rock of the waves, the light of the moon, the smell of the ocean. The smiles of his fellows, the gentleness of their touch. His vision is shapes, shadows and light, incomplete with shreds of definition. Still overwhelming. Still worth being overwhelmed.
He is home.
Beidou drops to his side with a heavy huff of air. Even with half his vision, he knows it’s her by her steps. Her breath. “Off to the next trade route. Holdin’ up alright, kid?”
Kazuha tips into her side in response, bumping his head into her shoulder. He feels her laugh.
“Good to hear. Seems like that fever’s finally been knocked down a peg. Gave you a run for its money, there.”
Kazuha tries to force words up his throat. It doesn’t work, clotting in the back of his mouth like mucous. The defeat rings heavy, but Beidou ruffles his hair.
“Meant what I said,” she says. “No matter what happens from here forward, you’re still you.”
Kazuha’s breath hitches. Thank you, he draws into her shoulder.
She bats his hand away, gently, and heaves herself to her feet. “I’ll keep counting on you as our barometer. But not tonight. Tonight you rest.”
Kazuha nods, and listens to her footsteps as she moves away. He rests against the side of the ship and listens to the crashing waves, mingled with the merry voices of his comrades.
He is changed. But his captors, ultimately, failed.
He is home.