#no wonder at all!! why haitham is so enamoured by you 🥺 to love is to be changed and to love is to learn and to love is to know and this

[tohruies]

a realisation that home was here. home was now. and it had been all along … 🥺💘

— ☆ 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐒

alhaitham x ryu. this is obviously a selfship piece for ryuhaitham and it’s in first person. canon au. comfort. fluff. read here if you want more context on us. 0.7k wc

I sat curled on the couch with a blanket drawn tightly around me, staring at the modest decorations I’d strung up days ago when Alhaitham first left for Akademiya business. The lights, the strings of ribbon—they felt out of place here, like foreign embellishments in a world that had no meaning for them.

Christmas. Once upon a time, it had been everywhere—woven into every light, every note of music, every breath of winter air. It wasn’t as though I’d celebrated Christmas extravagantly but the absence of it here made the ache of displacement settle heavy in my chest. Even if I’d only half-participated in the holiday back then, its laughter and warmth had always been a comforting constant.

Teyvat moved without pause. The winds of Mondstadt whipped across snow-buried plains, Sumeru’s ever-shifting leaves played on the breeze and Liyue’s lanterns flickered against a fading sky. It was timeless and unchanging, as if the universe was indifferent to the celebration I longed for. But like the decorations I’d strung up, Christmas had no place here. And in that knowledge, my homesickness deepened, the distance between my old world and this one stretching farther.

Suddenly, the door creaked open, and I startled, my gaze snapped to the figure entering. Alhaitham’s silhouette was outlined against the dim light of Teyvat’s evening and in his hand was a small neatly wrapped package, the paper a rich shade of crimson, tied with thin, silver silk that shimmered softly in the light.

“You’re back,” I mustered, rising slightly from my seat.

“I am,” His gaze swept over me, and a crease formed between his brows. “You look troubled.”

I offered a fragile smile, “Just thinking about… you know.” I trailed off, eyes drifting to the window where whimsy unbeknownst to me twinkled in the inky expanse above.

Without preamble, he extended the gift toward me. “Here.”

I blinked in surprise, looking from his hand to his face. “What’s this for?”

“Isn’t it customary to exchange gifts for… Christmas?”

The word fell from his lips tentatively, as though testing its weight. His eyes searched mine for any sign that he had mispronounced it. Then, a bittersweet ache unfurled in my chest.

“You… remembered?”

He remembered. Even in passing, even if I hadn’t explained it in detail, he had remembered. And more than that, he had acted on it.

“You mentioned it once,” he replied, the faintest hint of awkwardness colouring his tone. “I don’t fully understand the tradition, but it seemed important to you.” He paused, then added softly, “I thought it might remind you of home.”

My fingers brushed the wrapping paper, tracing its edges as a quiet laugh escaped me. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

“It matters to you. If it makes this place feel less foreign, then it’s no trouble at all.” He spoke as though his sentiment was the simplest truth in the world.

I bit my lip, his words filling the emptiness in my heart like the flickering flame of a candle in the dark. Slowly, I unwrapped the gift, the paper falling away to reveal a delicate glass ornament, its shape a perfect, crystalline star. It caught the lamplight, scattering prisms across the room like a reflection of something celestial—like fragments of a distant sky.

“It’s not much,” he almost sounded apologetic, “but stars seem to hold significance in your world’s imagery for this holiday.”

I stared down at the gift, my vision blurring as the sting of tears welled unexpectedly. The ornament trembled in my grasp, held close to my chest as the first drops slipped free, unstoppable. “Thank you,” I whispered, so softly it felt like the words might dissolve and me with it.

Watching me closely, a shadow of concern crossed his face, as though uncertain whether he had made me uncomfortable. “You’re crying…” His voice wavered, caught somewhere between a statement and a question.

I wiped at my tears, smiling through them. “They’re happy tears,” I told him. “I really needed this.”

Alhaitham sat beside me with the same calmness that defined his every action. The silence now brimmed with a bubbling warmth, deeply felt like a steadfast anchor.

“If you’d like,” he started, “then we’ll celebrate it. Here, every year. However you wish.”

His offer settled gently. “I would like that,” I said, already untethered.

Alhaitham nodded, brushing his hands against mine, the touch so tender it seemed to carry a promise with a three word phrase hanging in the air. As the glass star shimmered between us, the ache of homesickness began to ebb. In its place bloomed a sense of belonging.

A realisation that home was here. Home was now. And it had been all along.

© 2024 grimmweepers — do not repost, copy, translate, modify my work on any platform

divider: @/adornedwithlight