"THAT" (Scaramouche x Reader)

That

"I want that."

He raised his hand, a finger pointing at the boy cradling a sniffling child in his chest, wet like a snarling dog under the rain with manic eyes drifting here and there, through every darkest corner looking for an escape that will never exist.

Not with the fatui, not like this, had it been anyone else then by some miracle...maybe?
If it had been that Childe then surely he would know mercy, but there was no one else that stood before them than the balladeer. The archons that have abandoned them since the beginning of time if fate did exist, for it meant that he was already on an unavoidable path to meet you.

The agents, his guard to be specific, surround them like an animal that needed to be captured. Well the boy specifically was more like an animal cornered with its cub. The scuffle resounded with every splash of rain unto skin and clothes, a scratch against the pavement that scratches already marred skin, and the helpless cries of a child...still no one dares to look, to turn their head into this little corner between buildings and cared enough to check if anyone needed help.

Not that Scaramouche didn't expect it, especially in this corner of Liyue where mortals indulge in the sins of the flesh and their cravings so depraved, illuminated only by a glowing red. He doesn't look back when he turns, bells ringing with every move, the act of this play has come to a close and he is about to meet its main actors.

They will take the boy to him, there's no doubt about that, to his room all cleaned and dressed like an item ready to be used at his disposal. Those stupid fatuis will talk, when he's not around to hear lest they want their tongue cut, about what he does in the bedroom; even though he didn't specifically meant that but he was too prideful to admit that he was in the wrong here.

That he hadn't meant the boy, rather that the hole within his chest, a heart that was rightfully his taken, moved at the sight of them - the boy protecting the younger even at the cost of his. Those blows from the unknown man would no doubt add another body to be disposed of by that part of the city if he hadn't intervened.

He wanted that, still unsure of what specifically "that" meant; the protection? Love? Relationship? He doesn't understand, just that he wanted it for himself, for a moment he was envious of something lower than him. What a selfish child Scaramouche has become.

Scaramouche doesn't find it necessary to correct their actions, the agent's stupidity as much as it annoys him was a source of his entertainment, even if he was the only one laughing. They act like a caricature of puppets yet so humane in their core(as changed as they have been), their actions were like plays that he once had enjoyed in Inazuma and once more he'd much rather find where this could go.

The walk to his stay was quiet, the rain not letting up caused people to stay indoors and drowned their noises with endless pitter patter; an agent had tried to catch up to him and put him under an umbrella but that was ignored in favor of his hat that sheltered him already. His thoughts run back to the morn, reviewing every event that led him to this: a woman opening the door to his room as he enters, a shocked expression falling onto his visage.

It's surreal how these things could go, a spiral leading one thing to another, deeper and deeper into the rabbit hold. It was a game; the Tsarista wanted to reward him with anything that he asked for, not that he could've asked for the electro archon's gnosis, so he was stumped on what he had wanted to ask of a god. Finally he settled to find something, anything that might interest him enough to want.

He's done this before, people watching, just not in this part of Teyvat; it was his first steps in Liyue, the land still recovering from tragedies, still looking for its bearing yet thriving nonetheless. He'd watch them from afar, like books in the grand library to be picked and read that entertain him to no end, living breathing stories some yet to be written and others almost finished. He finds, early in his life, that through this he witnesses many hearts and forms an idea of what he wants his to be like.

Maybe it was the way he slinked in the darkness even in broad daylight, his steps were too light, his shoulders too laxed, was he walking on the moon under the sun? They say people of the same land could note simple things that differ them from others: an accent, preference to taste or even the way they pause in their speech.

If he gravitated into the shadows like it was a natural thing to do, hopping from one person's to another, then Scaramouche who was made by a being formerly, would be the one to cast an encompassing one, staring and watching every critter that moved under his.

What dirty little secrets could this boy be hiding under those thick lashes that looked straight into the road? What do those hands that haven't stolen from a pocket even swamped in the crowd do? The curtains certainly do roll for him in these electric eyes, the spotlight set as much as he may try to avert from it.

He follows him doing the most mundane tasks of mornings : bringing things for courtesans here and there; a tea leaf, a medicine and some even cloth. An errand boy then, but even Scaramouche knew that was a font. What happens in the day doesn't mean anything in the covers of the night, because who would do these things in the red lights district of Liyue? Who had lived virtuously in the dumps of sin? Neither child nor adult has stepped here without taint.

And as he expected, the act continues till the highlight has finally come under the late afternoon sun baring another stage light when the boy feeds another: one much younger, smaller and does nothing but cry. A child. How boring, one must think but you see, even Kunikuzushi has a certain kindness towards children unblemished like a bud in the garden of this world, so this too he understood; what he couldn't though was the thought that the other was probably starving yet he kept no bread to himself.

'What a kind heart and how boring,' he says to himself observing the two, wondering if it will harden with time to birth another villain.

It went on like this, for a few more hours, yet he never took his eyes not from the boy, rather the child that had now held more of his interest. What of it that made the other want to protect and be kept? Certainly they are not siblings for they look much too different and young to be parent to offspring; even then only a fool would have borne a child in this place, death would certainly be a mercy for someone at such a tender age.

When did the climax of the story begin? Had it been when the moon hid in the heavens or when the rain fell; or was it when the man emerging from one of the doors began shouting nonsense to the older, menacing and threatening more than any monsters that they've probably seen.
Scaramouche should've intervened by then, but there was something that glued him to the ground, eyes widened and fixated as the other was pushed almost to the edge of death hit by hit, yet still cradling that useless crying child in his chest like it was the most precious thing in the world.

It was that! He had wanted that.

That was when he had raised his hand and claimed, "I want that," in a trance, unaware of what he'd ultimately began.

He was shocked. Yes, that was the right emotion to describe how he felt at this moment. How unexpected everything had become. For what he thought was a boy to be presented in his chambers like some common whore turned out to be a young woman dressed like a courtesan that was a poor imitation of those from his land.

Yet he'd never mistake that scowl and those eyes that burn, screaming to protect. Protect. It's soft and filled with love, and there it was again the flash of wanting something.

It's no wonder that your first question was: "where's the child?"