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No matter how long it has been since Childe last picked it up, the Gnosis is warm.
It had been warm when he ripped it out of Zhongli’s chest, but that was to be expected. Cradled within him for millennia, suffused with his lifeforce. As much of a heart as a god could ever have — though now that Childe knows Zhongli’s secrets, he knows that he had no heart.
The light spilling from the deck above comes in tiny beams. Pearls of dust suspended in mid-air. Childe sits in the gloom. His vision glows where it sits in his lap. The Gnosis glows brighter, as if it seeks to outdo him.
It’s a strange thing. Childe had meant to put it away — tuck it somewhere safe and leave it hidden until he reached Snezhnaya — yet he cannot bear to keep it from the light. He cannot bear to stop touching it.
This was Zhongli — Morax’s — source of power. A token awarded for a thousand years of slaughter. Such a tiny thing. He could close his fist and it would disappear.
He tips it to the side. The shimmering gold liquid contained within does not tip with it. It bubbles and dances of its own accord, patterns pressed up against the tiny crystal sphere. Faces, he swears, trapped in the flames. An empire turned to sand. Rivers of blood that flow to the sky. This is the heart of the world, this is the pulse of the land. It rips open, an oil slick of darkness that rushes across the floor, hands reaching up to grasp at his ankles.
The maw of the snow opens up beneath him, and Ajax screams the whole way down.
A drop of sweat hits Childe on the forehead. Another, bursting like the first swell of rain before the storm. He lets his head loll back and digs his nails in further, determined to leave a mark. Determined to be remembered — for Zhongli to dress before work and be unable to forget exactly what transpired the night before.
Forget — how could he forget this? How could they brush past this, now this whole thing has been blown wide open. That electric hum in the air, all those stolen glances. All the times Zhongli’s hand had lingered a moment too long on his waist. All those gifts; a seaglass brooch, the exact same blue as Childe’s eyes; a wicked dagger carved from a single sheet of stone; a lone blood red earring that Childe dutifully dons every day; a tiny jade statute of Rex Lapis that Childe had haggled down to something reasonable.
This gift: a kiss. Soft and hesitant, Zhongli's touch feather light on his jaw. The gentle catch of their lips together, Childe's heart beating a traitorous tune.
"I hope this is okay," Zhongli had said, and Childe had answered by grasping his face and kissing him back.
It was always meant to lead to this.
"More," Childe moans. Stars burst across the backs of his eyelids. "Fuck, Zhongli more. Please. I can take it. I can take it."
"You are insatiable," Zhongli says, and Childe wants to keep him talking forever. He wants to hear his voice affected like this — heavy with lust — and know it was because of him.
He wants to crawl inside Zhongli, wants to be torn apart and be remade by those beautiful hands. He wants Zhongli to fill him up until he cannot think, until every part of him has been replaced by him, until his entire body is moulded to his shape.
"Only because of you," Childe croaks. "Only because I know you're holding back."
And Zhongli growls: "Only because I do not wish to hurt you."
"What if I want it to hurt?"
He doesn't tell Zhongli this is the first time. He doesn't tell Zhongli no-one has ever touched him in this way, no-one has been inside of him, no-one has fucked him. No-one has smothered him in kisses and told him he is beautiful, ran their tongue along his scars. No-one has made him feel like this: like his heart is some feathered creature, fluttering desperately inside the cage of his chest.
Like he still has a heart. Like he wasn’t torn in two in the abyss, like he isn’t just the stitched together ghost of a boy that died a long time ago.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Zhongli says. Another drop of sweat, running down Childe’s bared throat. Slippery across the planes of Zhongli’s back. It’s the peak of summer, and even at night Liyue harbour is sweltering, a humidity that clings to Childe’s skin and makes him all the more homesick for the briefest of moments.
In Snezhnaya the fire would be roaring, and there would be snowflakes kissing the windowsill. Childe would strip off his clothes and slip into a bed that had only ever held one body. He would not be here with Zhongli. He would not feel this:
Like a hand pressed straight through his throat. Another, excavating his lungs. Zhongli’s eyes drip molten gold, and Childe groans, clenching down around him, parting his lips.
“I deserve it,” he says.
Zhongli kisses him. Zhongli covers his body with his own. Zhongli grinds his hips deep and cradles Childe’s face with gentle hands.
“You deserve so much better," Zhongli says; and Childe falls apart, piece by piece.
The mood when he returns to Zapolyarny Palace is not one of celebration. He is not a victorious warrior returning home. There is an emptiness inside of him that is reflected by the state of the throne room. Something he does not examine when he kneels before the encroaching snow, the Gnosis held up in offering.
A second passes in silence. And another. Childe’s breath blooms in the cold air, and his heart rushes in his ears. The tips of his fingers are numb even under his gloves. He cups the Gnosis between his palms, hoping to leech off its perpetual warmth, and then—
“Where did you get this?”
Ice on slick ice, the steady click of Tsarista’s crystal heels against the palace floor. A flurry of snowflakes rush outwards, and a figure appears, the everwinter made whole.
Childe cannot help but be in awe every time he sees her. How could he not?
This is a god. This is his god, someone who does not hide behind false names. Someone who wears her divinity like a crown, who sparkles with the everwinter frost. Someone who will not drag their claws along the bloodied husk of his insides, someone who he trusts with his everything. She will deliver them from the end, from the farce of the divine. From those who peddle in lies and deception and seek to hurt them all.
“From Morax, your Majesty.”
The Tsaritsa stops before him and regards him for a second. A halo of icicles fans out behind her, and her clothes shimmer as she moves, refracting countless beams of light into a shoal of shimmering rainbows across the tiles.
“You took this from him?” she asks. There is a hole in her chest, punched straight through the carapace of ice. Blackened around the edges, a scar on display for all to know what had been stolen from her.
She and Childe, they are alike in this way.
“I did, your Majesty. He was in hiding. He thought himself my friend. He sought to trick me.”
He did trick me. He climbed inside me. He made a home. He has had me in every way, laid me bare. He has torn out all my veins and left them shredded and empty on the stone streets of Liyue Harbour.
Her crystal clear nails scrape gently against the palm of Childe’s hand, and she plucks the Gnosis from between his fingers. She opens her hand, and it floats before her.
The shimmering liquid within seems more active than ever — it leaps, inverting and clinging to the top of the sphere. A few drops fall and dance around themselves in mid air, before it all succumbs to gravity and rushes to the bottom again, bubbling lazily.
“The God of Contracts has often engaged in such low behaviour,” she says. Her eyes are a shade of blue so light they are almost pure white. "He is a manipulative rat who has always enjoyed bending the rules.”
Childe suppresses a flinch. He remains kneeling, staring up at his god in reverence. He ignores the twinge in his chest, the voice that tells him to defend Zhongli.
Zhongli is not a rat. Zhongli does not stoop low. Zhongli is good and kind.
(Do you not remember that Zhongli lied to you?)
“You have done well,” the Tsaritsa says. A snowflake falls on the tip of Childe’s nose. Its edges are like blades. “Thank you for this gift. Rest up, my child. There is still a long fight ahead of us.”
Childe died when he was fourteen.
He saw it with his own eyes. A beast the size of a palace, its claw protruding straight from his gut. Viscera splattered across the floor of the cave, and blood poured from his mouth, and his bones splintered through his pale skin — glistening white, oozing marrow and torn muscle, such a fragile little creature he was.
He died. He knows he died. He held his own heart in his hands. Watched it beat its last beat, a flood of blood spilling across his palms, staining the floor at his feet, and his body collapsed, and there was nothing to think any more.
The gods are cruel creatures.
Childe dies.
Childe loses his heart, and his guts, and every drop of blood in his body. The thousand eyes of the abyss stare as he collapses to the floor, sobbing and bleeding, and no-one hears him draw his last breath.
Childe wakes up.
All alone. Something dripping from the walls. A hollow blue light radiating from the cavity of his chest.
No. His chest is whole. His skin is whole. He presses a palm against his breast and feels the steady thrum of his heartbeat.
The gods are cruel creatures, because surely no eye was turned to this dark corner of the universe. It should be beyond their jurisdiction — why else would they not answer his prayers? Why else would they not rescue him? Why else would they allow this to happen?
And yet someone has played a sick joke. Someone, somewhere is watching.
Childe dies. Childe wakes up with something new.
He throws the gleaming Hydro vision against the floor, wraps his hands around the back of his head, and starts to scream.
"C'mon, xiansheng,” Childe says. Outside the open window, on the street two storeys below, the indiscriminate chatter of Liyue harbour floats through the air. Sunlight paints the floor, catches on the shards of gems arranged neatly on the shelves of the wall opposite, and a light breeze blows.
It’s a beautiful day, and Childe is fucking bored. “You deserve a break,” he says. “Or — how about this — I'll hire you for the day. Whatever your fees, I'll cover them.”
“It is not a matter of Mora,” Zhongli says. He clears his throat, though he doesn’t look up at Childe — he only continues to examine the stack of papers on his desk. "It is a matter of a job that needs to be seen through to the end, and myself not wishing to rush it, or take time off — even if that time is paid."
"You are so unfun sometimes,” Childe says. He yawns theatrically and reclines as far as he can on Zhongli’s couch, stretching out, exposing his stomach to the air.
Zhongli does not reply. The sound of his brush against the paper continues.
It’s been like this — Childe is restless. Childe is ruined. Last night Zhongli had taken him to dinner, and explained the storied history of the dish they’d eaten, and then they’d walked amongst the lantern light along the harbour’s edge, and Zhongli had bought him a gift. A single glass glaze lily, the stem so fine Childe was sure he’d snap it.
He didn’t. He placed it on his mantle, and it glistened in the glow of the hearth, and Zhongli had torn his clothes from him and pinned him down to the bed. He’d kissed Childe like he was drowning, and Childe had let him in.
Again. Let him inside of him, body and mind. Dug his nails into Zhongli’s back and moaned his name until his throat was raw. Slept beside him, woke to find that he’d been clutching Zhongli in his sleep, like a child in the dark of winter.
Childe flicks a spot of lint from his thigh, and groans.
And now he’s been poisoned. And now he’s been possessed. Is this how it always is? Is this what sex does? You let someone in, and now they are all you can think about. They are all you desire. Every waking thought, every breath he draws. Every ache of his muscles and pump of his blood.
Childe stands up. He crosses the ridiculously plush rug. He stays Zhongli’s brush with one hand, and caps the bottle of ink with the other.
“Xiansheng,” he says, and this time he lowers the tone of his voice. Speaks from the back of his throat; practically purrs.
Zhongli looks up. Slowly, deliberately. His gaze bores into Childe, and for a second Childe forgets what he was about to say. He forgets everything, swept up in the warm depths of Zhongli’s eyes.
“Yes?” Zhongli asks. His gaze falls to the exposed skin of Childe’s stomach, then drags back up to his face, and he tilts his head slightly to the side.
Childe sucks in a breath. Oh, there is something about Zhongli. Something he can’t quite put his finger on. He wants to present to him a thousand gifts. He wants to worship him, belong to him in every way.
Childe shivers, something hot crawling up his throat.
“Just…” Childe says, and he rounds the desk. Cups Zhongli’s jaw and leans down to kiss him.
Drops to his hands and knees and crawls between his legs. Zhongli doesn’t protest — he merely fixes a hand in Childe’s hair and pets him, teases the strands of his hair, tells him he’s so good for him, and Childe’s sluggish veins light up like a summer night sky.
“And how much Mora will that be?” Zhongli asks. His fingers caress the back of Childe’s head; gentle, encouraging.
“It should be no more two thousand, sir, if that is favourable?”
Zhongli hums. His hips jerk up slightly, forcing his cock deeper into Childe’s throat. Childe nearly sobs, barely able to contain himself, tears streaking down his cheeks. He stands on the precipice of madness, so close to breaking down and rutting against the floor like an animal. The front of his pants is damp, and his underwear is ruined, and every minute feels like an hour, but he knows he has to be good for Zhongli. He knows he has to perform well.
Gods, he wishes to be torn apart and devoured. He has Zhongli’s cock in his throat, and he wants more of it. He wants to feel him in every part of him, be fucked so hard he can’t even remember his own name.
“That seems fair,” Zhongli says. “If that is all, I will have a contract written up within the next few days. Unless you wish to discuss anything else?”
No more, Childe pleads. Prays to the heavens above. To Rex Lapis — this is his domain, after all. Grant him this small mercy. He’s learned his lesson — learned how much it hurts to want and not to have.
“Not at all. Thank you for your time, Mister Zhongli.”
“It was a pleasure,” Zhongli says. He lifts his hand from Childe’s hair and pushes something across the desk. “Do not hesitate to inform me if Wangsheng Funeral Parlour can provide you with anything more.”
The door clicks shut. Zhongli lets out a breathy groan.
“Apologies,” he gasps. He tugs at Childe’s hair, and Childe pulls off him, near sobbing, his lungs burning, every part of him consumed with a wildfire want.
There is the lust of battle — the blood that flows in Childe’s veins — and then there is the lust of desire. The way he shakes, the croak in his voice as he says Zhongli’s name and tips his head back. Zhongli’s fingers in his hair, the leather of his gloves against his scalp.
“You are unreal,” Zhongli says, and he nudges his cock against Childe’s lips. “So beautiful, Childe. You did so well. You always perform so magnificently.”
“Please,” Childe says.
He’s falling. He presses the heel of his palm against his cock and bucks his hips uselessly upwards.
He’s falling. Dizzyingly, uncontrollably fast.
It all meant nothing, didn’t it?
Everything Zhongli said — it was all a lie. Just to placate him. Meant to keep him close like a dog on a leash.
The furs in his bed are soft against his scars, though nothing can compare to the warmth of Zhongli’s skin.
Nothing will compare to the warmth of his chest — the searing heat as Childe had plunged his hand straight through Zhongli’s sternum and tore the Gnosis from his vessel.
The warmth of the Gnosis as he’d cradled it all the way home. As he’d watched the liquid dance inside. Pressed it against his lips and let the heat bleed through his mouth.
What kind of strength would be earned from devouring the heart of a god?
Childe rolls over in bed. He curls his hands into fists. He tries not to remember the feeling of a body pressed against his spine. The way Zhongli’s hands would tangle with his and how his breath would tickle the nape of Childe’s neck.
All this will fade, he knows. In time.
“You were screaming in your sleep.”
Childe blinks. The winter storm howls outside. Scaramouche is sitting at the end of his bed, toying with a shuriken. His eyes flash when they make eye contact.
“Can you shut the fuck up?” he adds. He presses a finger against the flat of the metal, then turns the shuriken over. Tiny violet sparks dance from its edges.
It’s not the first time Scaramouche has broken into his room. It doesn’t matter how many times Childe changes the locks, or reinforces the door, or tells Scaramouche to quit it. He’ll show up again eventually.
(If Childe didn’t know better, he’d say Scaramouche enjoyed his company.
He’d never voice that, though. It’s too much to assume anyone would want to be around him for any reason other than necessity.)
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Inazuma?” Childe asks, wary.
“You fucked that one up,” Scaramouche says. “Coming home with the Gnosis. Tsk. I was supposed to leave next week. Now I have another month in this frozen shithole.”
“How is that my fault?” Childe asks.
Scaramouche hesitates for second. Examines him. “You really don’t know?” he asks.
“Know what?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Of course it matters, Childe wants to say, but he has no idea what it even is. If Scaramouche is lying to him just to play with him; just to tease out a reaction.
Just to make a mockery of him, as Zhongli had.
“Have you met the Raiden Shogun?” Childe asks, instead.
The shuriken takes off a tiny lock of his hair as it flies past, embedding itself in the wood of the headboard.
“Why do you care?”
Scaramouche’s tone is aloof, but his expression is as if Childe has just presented him with a plate of shit and told him to tuck in.
“You don’t like her?”
It’s gone in a second, wiped away by another flash of Electro that dances between Scaramouche’s thumb and forefinger, back and forth like a fish swimming through the water.
“Again, why do you care?” he repeats.
“I just want to know if they’re all the same,” Childe says, then clarifies: “Gods.”
Scaramouche laughs. “The Raiden Shogun is a heartless bitch,” he says. He throws the bolt of Electro against the floor. “Just like our dear Tsaritsa. Just like every one of those fuckers in the sky.”
Scaramouche stands, sleeves of his jacket swaying, crosses the room and pauses at the door.
“To gods, we’re merely playthings. The sooner you realise that, the better.”
The thing is — no-one has ever wanted to keep Childe. The world let him fall through the cracks, but even death would not take him. His parents wouldn't keep him — they sent him off the Fatui. The Tsaritsa has chosen him as one of her Harbingers, the first true honour of his life, but now she has sent him halfway across the world.
There’s always a but. There’s always an if, a way to rid themselves of him. He is always at arm’s length. Only useful for one thing.
Cool breeze, spring rain dripping from the eaves and the leaves of the knotwood trees. Gull cries, wave song.
Childe rests his elbows on the balcony and breathes deep.
The Rite of Descension is tomorrow. Tomorrow Rex Lapis will appear, and Childe will rip the Gnosis from his chest. He will fulfil his purpose. He will find his place. He will —
“What troubles you?” Zhongli asks. He buries his face in Childe's hair and breathes in, sets his hands on Childe’s hips.
He will commit a horrible crime against the God of this land, and he will have to leave Zhongli behind.
“Nothing,” Childe says. He covers Zhongli’s hand with his own, and squeezes his fingers. “Just thinking how much I'll miss Liyue when I go back home.”
“Just Liyue?” Zhongli asks. There’s a smugness in his voice that Childe is sure he’d find insufferable on anyone else — here it just makes his knees weak.
“I might miss some other things too,” Childe admits.
Zhongli’s lips brush against his neck. “Such as?”
“I didn’t take you for a vain man,” Childe says.
“I would not consider myself one either,” Zhongli says.
“But?”
“But I must admit I do take some pleasure in hearing you say my name.”
“Zhongli,” Childe says, tipping his head back as Zhongli nuzzles at his jaw.
“Like that,” Zhongli purrs, hot against his skin.
Childe moans. His heart cracks open, and he shuts his eyes, listening to the pant of Zhongli’s breath, the soft rustle of the fabric as he unbuckles Childe’s belt.
“Zhongli.”
There are things Childe is good at. Fighting. Fishing. Cooking. Following orders.
Collecting what is owed.
Zhongli owes him, right?
One more chance. One more chance to stab him in the heart. Brick slick beneath the heel of his boot. Waves crashing against the wharf. The scent of brine and the oil of the markets, smoke wafting from the restaurants overhanging the harbour’s edge, the sound of thousands of lives trundling on.
Blood on the slaughter docks, the catch of the day flopping as it drowns in the stormy air. The flash of a knife's edge, sharp as a smile.
Liyue blooms like a delicate flower, and Childe returns to the land that has lost its god.
He is a Fatui Harbinger, after all. He never forgets his debts.
It is easy to take his due. They meet on Mount Tianheng, where the grass gives way to dust and stone, when the sun is at its zenith and the water sparkles impossible blue.
It is easy to take his due, but he knows Zhongli is giving him a simple way out. He can feel it in the way his blows barely shake his bones, in the steady defence he puts up against the endless flurry of blows Childe lands upon him.
It is easy to take his due. To show Zhongli what he has, what he has always had within him. If this is to be a true fight, then neither of them should hold anything back.
A mere human should have never been able to take on the burden of the Foul Legacy form. His blood should have leaked from his eyes. His bones never should have mended. He should have collapsed, skin sloughing off.
Should have. So many things should have happened to Childe, but Childe is not normal. He is not just a human. Every bone in his body shatters, and his muscles rip and tear, and the darkness of the abyss floods into his soul, and Childe climbs to his feet.
His blood boils. All the universe is his to conquer.
“Show me your true strength,” he says, and the very earth trembles beneath him.
Zhongli does not move. He does not flinch. He merely stares up at the monster in front of him and says its name — Childe — in a way that causes blood to flood Childe’s mouth.
“No!” Childe roars, and he lunges.
Zhongli deflects the blow with ease. Brings his spear up and parries it, kicks Childe in the chest and then draws up a pillar of Geo to block his next blow. Childe’s monstrous fist smashes straight through the rock, but in the time it takes for him to free his arm from the rubble Zhongli has already moved.
“No!” he repeats. This isn’t how this is supposed to go. This is supposed to be a fucking fight.
Zhongli doesn’t care. He’s never cared. He’d rip Childe’s organs out and devour them whole if he could. Childe knows it's true, he knows it’s true.
Another pillar of stone rises. Childe punches through it with a fistful of Electro, then launches forward, darting across the ground and swinging down at Zhongli’s tiny body.
The attack connects with a resonant boom, a shockwave that races across the dirt and kicks a cloud of dust up into the air. Childe slashes blindly with his claws and summons a torrent of Hydro to swirl around him, hoping desperately to hit Zhongli a second time.
“Come out!” Childe shouts. Around him is a faint halo of light, an artificial glow filtering through the dust, and after another swipe he gives up on chasing Zhongli and instead leaps skyward — or attempts too, anyway. He barely leaves the ground before he collides with something and crashes back down to the ground — and when he tries to rise he finds his legs are bound by solid rock.
Childe thrashes. He claws at the stone around his ankle, sends out razor sharp discs of Electro through the shimmering dust, and is rewarded with a gasp of surprise from his right side.
In an instant he follows up on the noise with a flurry of Hydro javelins, though this time there is no sound but the steady thud of rain hitting the earth.
“Why are you hiding, Morax?” Childe says. “Afraid you’re going to lose?”
The dust dissipates in an instant. A voice comes from behind him — speaks from within him.
“Morax is dead,” Zhongli says. Childe twists to face him, and is nearly blinded by the gold light that surrounds Zhongli’s form — a shimmering shield of jade that oscillates and pulses with every breath. “And yet you invoke his name.”
Something slams into Childe — a fist of solid rock, an iron grip that locks around his waist and pins his arms to his sides.
“You don’t like hearing your name?” Childe asks. The armour grafted to his skin buckles inwards, and a drop of blood dribbles down his arm.
“You would be wise to watch your tongue,” Zhongli says. His eyes, too, glow pure gold. The tips of his hair glow gold. His hands glow gold, and as he raises them a shackle of stone locks around Childe’s thigh.
Childe jerks again. Another plate of armour tears through his flesh. Black blood drips steadily onto the dirt at his feet.
“You promised me you’d fight me,” he says. This is unfair. He hates this. He doesn’t want this. He wants to feel the earth shake beneath him. He wants to pound his fists into the jade cage that shimmers around Zhongli’s body. He wants the lightning to sear him from the inside out. He wants to fight until he can’t remember his own name, until he can’t remember anything. Until he is just the battle, and nothing else.
“I have fought you,” Zhongli says, simple.
“More!”
The butt of Zhongli’s spear thuds into the ground. Held against his side, it stands a full head taller than him.
“The earth beneath your feet is soaked with the blood of those I have slain,” Zhongli says. “I have no desire to see yours join them.”
“But what if I want it?” Childe asks. He thrashes against his binds, but they only tighten. His claws dig into his thighs. “What if I deserve it? I’m just another conquest, aren’t I? Just one of thousands for you. Slaughter me then. Run me through before I become stronger than you. And I will. I will become stronger than you, and I will kill you, Morax.”
“Childe,” Zhongli says. He shakes his head, and there is no graveness in his voice. Only softness. Only things a creature such as Childe doesn’t deserve. “This isn’t you.”
Behind his mask, Childe smiles. If there is one thing he’s sure of, it’s this: “This has always been me.”
Childe's body has not been his own since he was fourteen.
This skin is not his own. These bones are not his own. This blood, this heart. Even his name is taken from him. He is stripped bare and torn to shreds.
He looks at his hands and does not recognise them. He looks at his reflection and does not know the man who stares back. He is twisted beyond comprehension, no room for anything else.
He is a tool. He is a weapon. He is a walking corpse.
He is nobody.
“Your actions continue to both frustrate and astound me,” Zhongli says.
“That’s a good thing, right?” Childe says. He sets his teacup down on the tray Zhongli has been patiently holding in front of him. “To make someone as well learned as you feel that way?”
Zhongli sighs. The corners of his eyes crinkle fondly. “You are one of a kind, Childe.”
Childe grins at him, lounging back on the lush pillows of the bed and trying not to wince as his bruised ribs groan in protest. “Keep talking…”
Zhongli places the tray on the bedside table, then turns back to him. “Common sense tells me not to indulge you,” he muses. He leans down and presses a kiss to Childe’s forehead, and Childe angles his face up.
“But?”
“However, I find that you,” Zhongli continues, kissing Childe’s cheek, then his jaw, then capturing his lips. “Mmm. You are most worth indulging in.” He kisses him again, deep and slow. “Even if you do cause me undue stress.” He gently presses his palm against the bandages on Childe’s flank. “I do wish you wouldn’t be so reckless.”
“But that’s the only way it’s fun,” Childe murmurs, biting at his lips. “Imagine if we were all stuffy consultants who sat in our offices and collected antique trinkets.”
“An antique is not a trinket,” Zhongli says. He kisses beneath Childe’s ear. “It is something exquisite. Something that has withstood the test of time, and become all the more beautiful for it. An antique tells a story of endurance.”
“You talk an awful lot,” Childe says.
“What would you prefer I do then?”
Childe laughs. “I can think of plenty of ways you could occupy your mouth.”
Childe blinks.
Porcelain tinkles. There is the gurgle of water. A low hum.
He breathes in, and then out. His head hurts, swollen with memory. His lungs hurt more. His bones hurt most. Each time he transforms it gets worse. He wonders if one day they will simply refuse to mend themselves. He wonders if one day his body will give up on him and collapse, no longer able to sustain the burden of his power.
“You’re awake.”
Zhongli is standing in the doorway. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up. A few wet spots soak the fabric near his belly.
“Evidently,” Childe says.
Already, he wants to run. Already, he wants to offer himself up. Lay bare all the ways this body can be hurt, and invite in that which he deserves.
He should have never left Liyue.
Zhongli clears his throat.
“I harbour no ill will towards you for the theft of my Gnosis."
He should have never come back.
“Did it hurt?” Childe asks. His shoulderblades press against the polished wood of the headboard. The sheets are impossibly soft beneath his scarred palms. Zhongli sits on the side of the bed, steam floating up from the cup of tea in his hand. He isn’t looking at Childe. He’s staring out the window, out into the warm Liyue night, out into the lantern’s glow and the moon hanging silvery over the still bustling harbour.
“This body heals easily,” Zhongli says, mild.
“Did it hurt when I tore your Gnosis from your chest?”
Zhongli takes a sip of his tea. He pauses for a moment, then swallows it down. He still doesn’t look at Childe.
“In terms of an Adepti, it hurt no more than any other wound.”
“And in terms of a human?”
Another pause. Zhongli rubs his finger against the rim of the cup.
“All those that possess a vision have the potential to become an archon, human or otherwise. All they need is a Gnosis, and a willingness to accept the burden that comes with it.”
“And in terms of a human?” Childe repeats.
Faces, flickering in the flames. A horror that seeps down to his very soul. Eyes in the tarry dark. Always watching. Always watching.
“I am not human. For all the years I have walked amongst your kind, I still cannot claim I truly understand your species. But for most humans, I believe it would be the most painful thing they had ever felt.”
Childe winds the sheets in his fist. His heart thuds, hard and steady, against the walls of his ribcage.
“I suspect that would not be true for you, though,” Zhongli continues. “Not after what I saw today.”
It’s now that he looks at Childe — that he pierces him straight through. The gaze of a dragon, a heat that prickles at Childe’s skin, and Childe finds himself attempting to back up again, even as his body fights to crawl forward.
“When I lost my Gnosis, I lost not only a portion of my power, but I lost a piece of myself. I had held it for so long it had in some way become infused with my core. The removal of anything so entwined with one’s being was always going to cause undue agony.”
“Undue,” Childe repeats. He scoffs. “I wish I’d made it hurt more.”
Zhongli stares at him. “Do you really?”
“You lied to me.”
“I did.”
“Without remorse.”
“At first, yes.”
“You’re still lying.”
“I have no need to lie to you anymore. Nor do I wish to.”
“You’re still lying.”
“Why did you come back to Liyue, Childe?”
Childe hesitates. He wants so badly to sink his teeth into Zhongli. He wants to claw and bite until he tastes blood, until he invokes retribution. He wants to hurt Zhongli the way he hurt him, scrape his insides raw and feast on his golden flesh.
“You don’t know, do you?”
“Spare me the lecture,” Childe snaps. His ribs ache.
“I do not wish to lecture you,” Zhongli says. A few flickers of golden light dance from the tips of fingers. “I only wish to offer my deepest apologies for all the trouble I have caused you.”
“You can start by leaving me the fuck alone,” Childe says, but there’s far less bite in the words than he’d like. More hysteria. More the crack of porcelain, claws like knives digging into his flesh.
“You are the one who has come here.”
“And I wish I hadn’t!” Childe says. He intends to shout. He almost sobs. “I’ll kill you, I swear on it. I’ll kill you for all of this.”
“Childe…”
Childe leaps from the bed. Vaults to his feet, Hydro surging through him as he draws his weapons and brandishes them at Zhongli. The barely healed wound along his ribcage tears open, and fresh blood soaks the silk of his shirt.
“Don’t follow me,” Childe warns. He holds his sword up, teeth clenched, leg almost buckling beneath him as he backs out of Zhongli’s bedroom.
His vision dots with colours. Blood drips on the dark wood.
No footsteps chase him. No ghosts, no memories. No slavering beasts. No dragons or demons.
Childe rests his palm on the front door, his lungs burning, and when he pushes it open he falls straight through.
There is no end. There is never any end. Childe bows over the tub in his temporary accommodation and spits black blood onto the polished metal. He spits feathers and tufts of fur, spits stone and smooth shards of bone. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and watches as it boils and fizzes, like cold water on a hot pan.
It winds tight around his throat. He breathes deep. He can’t breathe. He breathes deep. The blood shifts. Fragile limbs, stretching towards him.
There is no end. There will never be any end.
He reaches out and rests the tip of his finger against the barely formed arm that bubbles from the blood. It grasps at him, tiny tendrils that leave smears against his pale skin. He thinks it might be warm.
Maybe Childe is fundamentally broken.
That’s what he thinks this might be. Like a doll, all smashed up, parts they couldn’t quite put together again.
The Fatui should have been good with that — with what they did for Scaramouche, and the Marionette. Fix the dolls, make them stronger. Fix the boy, make him stronger. Burn all this out of him.
He is a child of Snezhnaya, a child of the merciless everwinter. He should not feel. He should not fear. And yet…
After the winter comes the spring. The buds press through the snow, and the rivers churn sluggishly. Blood melts and flows, and the world enters rebirth. Cold white, giving way to the ochre earth.
Childe’s hands, pale as ice, pressed against the dark wood of Zhongli’s door. He shoves it open with no attempt at grace. It slams against the stopper.
Zhongli is sitting at his desk, a book open in front of him. It's the first time Childe has seen genuine surprise on his face — though not the first time he has caught him off guard.
“Childe,” Zhongli says. He straightens up in his seat.
“Why do you think I came to Liyue?” Childe asks. The fabric of his shirt sticks to his side, caked with dried blood.
Zhongli purses his lips. Something flickers behind his eyes.
“You told me I don’t know why I came to Liyue,” Childe says. “Why do you think I came here?”
“You are the only person who can know your heart,” Zhongli says. “I can’t tell you your truth. I can’t give you your own answer.”
“What do you want the answer to be, then?” Childe asks. Outside, a mist of rain spirals between the narrow rooftops. It hits the back of his neck. His muffler flutters nervously in the wind.
Zhongli’s chest rises and falls. He opens his mouth, then closes it. Goes to stand, then stops. Childe keeps his breath even, one hand braced on the doorframe to stop himself from collapsing. His entire body still feels as if it has been turned inside out, all his viscera on display.
(Isn’t this what he wanted? Bare it all, give it all.)
“May I propose a contract?” Zhongli asks.
Childe laughs. “You are unbelievable.”
“Childe,” Zhongli says, and the way he says his name is enough to make him stand to attention. Spine straight, the way a good soldier knows how to. “It’s a simple contract. I will offer you the truth, if you offer me yours. Does that sound fair?”
“Nothing you do is ever fair.”
“You don’t have to agree—”
“I agree,” Childe says. The rain gets thicker. His vision is hot where it sits on his belt.
Zhongli raises an eyebrow.
He didn’t expect me to agree, Childe thinks, and he takes some delight in once again briefly gaining the upper hand.
“Very well,” Zhongli says. “Would you like to come in?”
As if by command, the rain lashes against the side of the building, soaking through the back of Childe’s trousers. Childe steps inside and shuts the door behind himself. He takes the seat furthest from Zhongli, and doesn’t know how to dissect the feeling in his stomach when Zhongli makes no move to join him in the sitting room.
“What do you want the answer to be?” Childe repeats.
“I might have hoped,” Zhongli says, his voice soft, “that you would return to see me. That you would forgive me, or at least want to forgive me.”
Childe’s pulse lodges itself in his throat. It’s like he has swallowed something small and desperate, kept it trapped there.
“I have missed you terribly, Childe,” Zhongli says. He shuts his book, and steps away from his desk. “Why do you think you returned to Liyue?”
There is no sign of the mournful wind within these four walls, but Childe thinks he feels it anyway. Caressing his weary bones, cutting straight through him, like the perpetual blizzard that carved out the spindly streets of Morepesok.
“I think you know why,” he says. His voice cracks. Zhongli shakes his head.
“To hope for something and to know it is true are very different things,” he says. A peal of thunder rolls overhead, and the porcelain on the shelves quivers in anticipation. “This is a lesson I have learned very well.”
“Then what?” Childe asks.
Zhongli crosses the room slowly, and with utmost grace. As has always been befitting of him. The Prime of the Adepti. The once and former Geo Archon. The man whose heart Childe ripped from his chest and yet here, beneath his hands, is still alive. Still breathing. Not unyielding as stone, but steady and strong.
“I hope,” Zhongli says, and his warm fingers brush against Childe’s neck as he fixes his muffler. “That you would stay a while longer. Forgive this old man, but I don’t know where to start. I only offer you my honesty, and hope that is a beginning.”
“It is,” Childe says. He trembles beneath Zhongli’s touch. His heart beats heavy in his chest. “And I will.”
The call comes five days later. A letter, stamped in wax, Tartaglia handwritten across the front in the Jester’s elegant script. Ekaterina delivers it to him personally, by way of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlour. It is, as always, a harrowing reminder that the eyes of Zapolyarny Palace are everywhere.
It is, as always, a harrowing reminder that Childe’s body belongs to a heartless god.
“We all must do our duty,” Zhongli says. He stands with his hands clasped behind his back, cut out a striking figure against the slate storm-clouds that roll over the harbour.
“You make me want to give up on it,” Childe says. The letter had summoned him to Inazuma, in pursuit of the Balladeer. The Electro Gnosis was missing. The Tsaritsa’s crusade against the divine marched forward in perpetuity.
“Don’t,” Zhongli says, shaking his head. “You cannot run from your responsibilities. You are a Fatui Harbinger — you swore an oath. Keep it for me, would you?”
Childe nods. “It was the greatest honour of my life,” he says, and this is no lie. “I’m sorry it led to the theft of your Gnosis.”
“You followed your directive,” Zhongli says. Mild. He’s smiling. “I must say, I do find some pride that you were able to figure out my true identity.”
Childe smiles, too. Someone from the boat behind him calls his name — Lord Harbinger, we need to set sail soon.
“Even if you never return,” Zhongli says, holding up a preemptive hand as Childe goes to interrupt him. He will return. “Even if you never return, Childe, I have cherished our time together. Be safe, would you? There is always a home for you in Liyue Harbour.”
“I can’t promise you safety,” Childe says. “There is battle to be joined. You know how I am.”
“You are a fine warrior. Reckless, but fine. You have many more battles to fight yet.”
“You’re awfully hopeful.”
Zhongli gives him a wistful smile. “Sometimes hope is all we have.”