Chapter Text
The nights in Liyue are long.
Childe sinks deeper into the tub, feeling water around him as he submerges himself all the way to the chin. The warmth is welcome, soothing away all the tension and soreness in his muscles. He’s spent the last few days running around, wrapping things up before releasing his post at the Northland Bank. Tomorrow will be homecoming. No more letters. No more toys shipped to the siblings. For the first time in many moons, Childe himself will return home.
That idea somehow feels a little strange now. He’s been too used to living in all sorts of different cities, albeit temporarily, yet Liyue’s the only one where he’s taken a piece of it to carve in his heart and call it “another” home. Snezhnaya to him will always be home, of course, but more than the cold and the snow itself, to him it is his family. Perhaps it’s true what people say about home; it’s actually not the place, but the people. You’ll call a place home when you have someone you love there whom you'd want to return to. (Does he have anyone in Liyue to return to, though?)
He doesn’t know how long he’s been in there. Everything feels slow as he absentmindedly listens to the muffled noises from the teeming harbor outside, still lively even at this hour, an accompaniment to the louder, echoing sound of dripping water in the bathroom—it is a constant thing, that sound, as if it sought to replace the seconds that Childe doesn’t want to count. But time is just like that whether you care for it or not, slowly, relentlessly, ticking away.
Somebody approaches the door; Childe hears familiarity in the footsteps. It’s one of those things that he’ll recognize anywhere.
Come gentle knocks on the wooden door, and Zhongli’s mild voice travels inside. “Childe.”
“It’s unlocked.”
The door creaks open when Zhongli enters and Childe turns to indolently run his eyes over the man. He’s wearing a dark-colored robe, loose and relaxed unlike the usual stiff and clear-cut coat, only halfheartedly tied at the waist that the lines of his neck and upper chest are visible. Quietly, he commits to memory this image of homey Zhongli. It may not be the first time he sees the consultant like this—sometimes even with fewer clothes, or none at all—so nothing is really special, but still Childe wants to remember every minuscule detail of it, for after all, this might be the last time they’ll ever see each other.
“You’ve taken quite some time. I come to check on you.”
“Oh,” Childe responds. Too bad, he was actually hoping for something more exciting than that. He dangles one arm outside the tub, beckoning. “I thought you miss me already.”
Zhongli comes to his side, a thin smile on his lips. “Maybe I do too.”
Childe touches the other man’s forearm, wetting the sleeve of his robe, but Zhongli doesn’t complain. He doesn’t really mean anything by it, and doesn’t expect Zhongli to do anything. In truth, other than nonsense, he doesn’t really have anything else to say to this man either. There were simply too many things happened between and around them, and how they concluded, how it all made him feel—Childe is simply too tired to even begin talking about it.
Deep down, he knows he’s still feeling resentful at how Zhongli had basically used him. Sure, he was the bad guy in this story, but he’d never intended to hurt Zhongli the funeral parlor consultant, even when he summoned an ancient sea god and nearly destroyed his home. But even then, as he waited for Morax to come out and save his city, Zhongli stayed at the back of his mind like a part of conscience he couldn’t shake off. In the worst case, Childe would have pulled him to safety and made sure the man was unharmed, though later all thoughts of it shattered when he’s called to the Northland Bank and discovered that the archon he’d been looking for this whole time was the very same man he fell in love with.
Ha. Childe can’t even manage to get that angry about it. Turns out falling in love doesn’t feel too much different from falling into the Abyss, both devastated him, yet both also pushed him to keep going.
Zhongli raises a hand to brush wet hair from his face, leaning down and planting a kiss on the forehead as he does. It’s chaste and warm, lasting just long enough for Childe to think that it’s genuine affection.
Look at how you’re treating me, Xiansheng, he faintly thinks, how can I not fall for you?
Zhongli helps him up and dries him afterwards, patient and meticulous, like he always does with Childe and everything else. While Childe himself may share the latter trait with him, the same can’t really be said for the former. At least not in this regard. So with hair still damp and one foot on the bathroom floor, Childe shoves the man onto the door frame and captures his lips with his own.
There’s a huff of breath, identical to the one Zhongli usually makes when he’s holding back a laugh. When he kisses back, he tastes a little like that bitter tea they had after dinner, yet Childe still desperately licks into his mouth, trying to savor every last bit of whatever this is that they’re having.
The former Geo Archon somehow manages to lead them to the bed. Childe pushes him down, lips still interlocked, hands fumbling to undo Zhongli’s sash. He rubs his hips against the other’s until he feels the first waves of arousal, an effort that doesn’t go unnoticed.
“You still haven’t had enough?” This time Zhongli doesn’t hide his amusement. His chuckle has a lovely lilt at the end, pleasant like a wind chime, while a soft rumble vibrates from beneath his chest, like Earth itself. He kisses the corner of Childe’s eye, gently scolding with a hint of something that Childe would like to think of as fondness, “Insatiable.”
Childe replies with a grunt, followed by a harsh kiss to shut him up. He actually hates all of this. He hates how easy it was for Zhongli to have reduced him to this state, and no matter how much it is against common sense to sleep with your supposed archenemy, he still comes crawling back to the man at the simplest invitation. Whether it’s for lunch at Wanmin, afternoon tea, or evening walk around the harbor—whatever the pretext may be, if Zhongli calls, Childe attends.
It’ll be the last time, anyway, he reminds himself, so take all you want.
He wastes no time straddling the other man, mouth peppering kisses down to Zhongli’s neck, scraping teeth not enough to break the skin, but hard enough to entice a moan and Childe is torn between wanting to ravage him or to draw this out forever.
It’ll be the last time, he repeats once more.
Childe bites down, pressing the ex-archon’s wrist against the mattress as he sucks a mark on the soft skin right below the jaw, as if he's allowed to, as if Zhongli was actually his. It drives him crazy seeing Zhongli dress in that tightly-wrapped collar, always prim and proper without a single hair out of place. What would the people of Liyue think if they saw the ever-perfect Mr. Consultant, their former god, like this—messy and half-naked in bed with the enemy of the state? The thought never fails to excite Childe, serving as another leverage to his ego, making him heady, drunk on the power he holds over one of the oldest—and most wonderful—beings in Teyvat.
He’s long stopped questioning whether he deserves this. If Zhongli wants him, in any way, then it’s all that he has the capacity to care about.
Zhongli strokes his back, quiet moans escaping his lips as Childe continues to leave marks on his neck, probably higher than what’s socially acceptable. But does it matter? Zhongli may no longer own a Gnosis, but he’s still an adeptus, a god, what’s a few superficial bruises on the skin for him? He can just use his godly powers or something to make them disappear, right? As easy as wiping spilled water on a table’s surface. His marks, his presence on Zhongli’s mortal vessel, his whole existence in Zhongli’s too long of a life is just short-lived like that. Too brief. Too insignificant. Too forgettable.
The sudden realization of his own impermanence hits Childe like a tidal wave. The nights in Liyue may be long, but he’s already dreading dawn, for he will have to leave, and perhaps they will never meet again for the rest of his brief mortal life. He’s now hyper-aware of how, in the face of centuries-old god, he too is nothing but a fleeting existence. Maybe when all of this is over and they part, Zhongli will remember him only as one of the faces in the crowd, who has spent a bit of time with him—not much, just a little bit, like a side hobby Zhongli started and soon abandoned—and then Childe will be nothing more.
Like a drop of water on an enormous stone. It stays for a little while, then evaporates.
As much as Childe wants to carve himself on that stone, wants to etch his presence on it, he’s powerless against time and he knows it.
The thought of it is too distressing that he stops moving without realizing. Zhongli stares at him with a slightly concerned look, as if he really cared, as if Childe’s wellbeing was really important to him. “What’s wrong?”
Childe shakes his head. “Nothing.” He pulls away, sitting straight on the man’s lap while his index finger draws circles over one of the kiss marks near Zhongli’s clavicle. “Just changed my mind. I want you to do me instead.”
Those dark eyebrows raise, but Zhongli doesn’t question him any further. He secures a tighter grip on the young man’s waist and leans in to kiss him on the mouth, tender at first, before gradually showing lust and hunger. Childe keens, leaning further into the kiss, letting himself burn and melt, succumbing to the other’s smoldering touch. If he really can’t last in this man’s life, then Childe would rather Zhongli take him, would rather Zhongli leave him with marks that he’ll bear for a while—a little something to amuse himself during the first days of the journey back home.
Zhongli’s lips trail down to his chest, teasing the soft buds of his nipples, alternating between sucking and licking on both until they perk up at the attention. Childe’s breath hitches when he feels sharp teeth graze the skin, right above a scar from an old injury, and he inadvertently purrs when hot tongue follows after, soothing the sharp sensation of the bite. Zhongli does it again and again, branding him with teeth that sometimes feel too sharp to be of human, then relieving him with the wet and delicate swivel of his tongue.
Eventually Childe’s laid on the bed, the other man on top of him, with his legs splayed open for Zhongli to take. If it was any other time with any other person, Childe will surely push them away, being under somebody else’s control is unacceptable to the warrior side of him, not without fighting tooth and nail first to earn his place as the victor. Yet strangely, it’s never a competition with Zhongli, at least not here, where the battle is not with the said man, but with himself instead.
And when he sees the way Zhongli stares at him, with hungry eyes gleaming in the color of the finest Cor Lapis, Childe knows it’s a battle he’s already losing.
“Are you all right?” Zhongli asks, the heated gaze dims a little, replaced by that of worry. Childe doesn’t like seeing that expression, but it’s a good look on him—the consultant looks good with any kind of facial expression, actually, it should be a crime.
“Hmm?”
“You look a little distracted,” warm hand caresses ginger locks and Childe leans into the touch, “we can stop if you’re tired.”
“I’m okay,” Childe says, perhaps a little too hurriedly, “was just busy admiring your handsome face.”
Zhongli lets out something that sounds too dignified to be a snort. “Very well.”
A small bottle is uncapped, and the familiar smell of Silk Flowers wafts to Childe’s nose. It’s the kind of smell that’s gentle but lingers, much like Zhongli himself.
The first finger goes in without resistance, he’s still loose after Zhongli took him a couple of hours earlier, when Childe got bent over the dining table and pounded from behind. The second finger follows, and he can’t help but shiver at the cool sensation of the oil. Zhongli fingers him slowly, taking the time to stretch every part of his inside although he knows Childe has just taken something much bigger and still pliant from it. This time Childe doesn’t rush him, and instead he closes his eyes, basking in the feeling of being thoroughly and carefully spread open, gasping when those long fingers find the sensitive spot and massage his prostate.
“Z-Zhongli—ahh.”
The man stops moving his fingers. “Does it hurt?”
“No,” Childe says, breathless, grinding his ass down as an emphasis, “I can take more. I’m ready now.”
Zhongli bends down at his words, nibbling his chin before capturing his lips in a searing kiss. Childe kisses him back without thinking, hands going to the back of the man’s head, stroking dark hair and pulling off the tie on the long ponytail. Heat coils at the bottom of his stomach when Zhongli’s tongue pushes past his lips, exploring, searching, claiming—drawing out whimpers from Childe, that Zhongli savors like his favorite wine.
He makes a muffled whine when he feels the fingers leave him, his hole clenching around nothing. But Zhongli is indulgent with him, much like how Childe also likes to spoil him, and the younger man immediately feels the tip of something hard and thick nudging his entrance. Lips still insistently pressed again each other’s, Zhongli swallows Childe’s groans as he pushes in, slow and heavy until his entirety settles inside. A hand roams around the younger’s stomach and thigh, rubbing lightly, helping him adjust. It’s the worst version of Zhongli that Childe encounters on this second part of the night, the one who treats him gently—too gently, it hurts—and almost lovingly.
Childe honestly prefers to be fucked out of his mind like earlier, because if this really is their last time together, then it’ll be easier to forget everything that way, when he’s simply lost in wanton abandon and not having his chest twinge in painful hopes because Zhongli treats him like a lover.
“Gods, I’m gonna miss this feeling,” Childe says, in a futile attempt to distract himself from how good Zhongli’s palm feels on his skin.
“Only this feeling?” Zhongli’s face stays impassive, but Childe doesn’t miss the witty humor seeping into his voice.
“What? You want me to miss you too?” He tugs the man closer, deliberately blowing hot air to his ear as he whispers, “Or do you want me to miss you cock?”
Zhongli’s gaze visibly darkens, and he gives an abrupt thrust which Childe isn’t completely unprepared for, but still makes him yelp anyway.
“What happens after this?” The former archon begins moving, sluggish, torturous, reaching deep enough to turn Childe’s blood into molten lava. But the Harbinger is determined to make this last, so he says nothing about the infuriating speed and relishes the sweet torment.
“After all this? I get on a ship and return to Snezhnaya.” Childe kisses Zhongli’s face and everywhere else his lips can reach. “I’ll have an audience with Her Majesty, and personally report mission failure—well, not really—but I still kinda failed my personal mission.”
“Will you get punished for it?”
Separated from you is already a punishment of itself, Childe wants to say, but that kind of comeback is way too honest and sappy, so he settles with a simple, “I don’t know.”
Zhongli hums, a response he doesn’t know how to interpret, then grinds down heavily into him. Childe’s moan is unbridled, legs immediately circling around the other man’s waist, trying to pull the other impossibly closer.
The man buries his face at the junction of Childe’s neck and shoulder, and utters against his pulse, softly, like he really means it, “I will miss you, Childe.”
Childe sighs, replying with a chuckle that he hopes sounds casual enough, “I’ll miss paying for our meals and all of those little trinkets of yours too.”
There’s another suppressed rumble, Zhongli holding back a laugh as he keeps moving in and out of him. He then pulls away his head slightly so they can look at each other in the eyes. Zhongli is staring at him with something akin to fondness, and Childe tries to ignore this poignant feeling in his chest that threatens to break free and make itself known.
“When you have time in the future, will you visit Liyue again?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Childe closes his eyes. He suddenly feels a little indignant. He might have accepted the fact that he’s only a pawn for the more powerful players pulling strings from behind the scene, but the feeling of being used, the fact that he was manipulated, it actually still hurts him more than he’d like to ever admit—and in truth, it’s less about him getting tricked, but more because it was Zhongli who did it.
His Zhongli-xiansheng, beautiful, perfect, ethereal, who has stolen Childe’s heart before he could even get close to the damn Gnosis.
“I really don’t know you at all, do I, Zhongli?” Childe says, not really a question, and only when he hears the man reply that he realizes he just said those words out loud.
“I barely know you myself.”
Childe opens his eyes, meeting golden orbs in the dimness of the room, getting angrier when he can’t decipher the look Zhongli is showing him. That man should just shut up. He really should just shut up and focus on fucking him. Childe gives a tug with his legs, feeling both unreasonable and rightful at the same time.
“I’m sure you already know all there is to know about me from the Tsaritsa, and Signora—and whoever else that you were colluding with behind my back,” Childe says, a little bit too sharp for his own liking, “you even knew already that I was after your Gnosis.”
“That’s not what I meant, Tartaglia.”
Fuck. If he had known how good his Harbinger name sounds from Zhongli’s mouth, he would’ve made the man call him that every time they’re in bed.
“Then what is it, Morax?” Childe is now goading. “What is it that you still want to know?”
There’s a dangerous glint in Zhongli’s eyes at the mention of his true name, but he doesn’t respond outright. Instead, he grips the back of Childe’s thighs to raise both of his legs, and begins thrusting into him earnestly. Childe gasps and moans at the sudden increase of pace, whimpering every time Zhongli reaches deep somewhere inside him. His hand finally goes to his own neglected cock, already red and leaking, but the consultant swats his hand away, and wraps Childe’s length with his own palm, pumping him in time with his thrusts, fast, scorching hot, merciless.
“Fuck—archon’s sake, Zhongli—” Childe throws his head back, almost falling apart when Zhongli hits his prostate again the same time he roughly thumbs his slit. “Hah, ahh—!”
Numbness slowly overtakes his legs as whatever coherence he still had to throw jabs at Zhongli earlier vanishes, yielding to the fiery stir that wrecks his inside. Zhongli always makes him feel so, so full, his every thrust precise, sending loops of heat he can feel all the way to his throat. Childe’s senses are overwhelming him, he’s aching in all places and inundated with intense pleasure in all those places as well. Zhongli is grunting above him, a deep, carnal sound from the back of his throat, a hint of something feral and primal, and it’s extremely arousing. Beads of precum sliding down his cock, he’s pushed to the edge way faster than before, and Childe knows he’ll be a goner soon.
“Tartaglia,” Zhongli growls, “look at me.”
In the hazy state, Childe struggles to open his eyes, trying to focus on the man above him. The god’s eyes glow like beacons in stormy seas, calling out to him, grounding him; the red adorning the underside of his eyes is very, very beautiful; Childe never felt more enamored than he is right now.
They stare into each other’s dilated pupils, sharing a breath, and Childe wants to engrave this moment into his soul.
He’s now feeling it. The budding explosion at the lower part of his stomach. Childe’s clenching hard around Zhongli’s thick cock, nails scratching his back, still trying to look at the man until tears and sweat blur away his vision. He no longer listens to noise from outside, the room is only filled by the sound of their ragged breaths and the filthy slaps of their hips meeting.
Overloaded; he’s aware of nothing and everything at the same time, and by instinct alone he knows that Zhongli is as close as he is. The man rests the back of Childe’s thighs over his shoulders, bending him in half, plunging even harder and deeper into him. Zhongli gives another series of hard pounding and Childe trembles, he can’t hold on anymore.
“Morax,” he calls like a cuss, “Zhongli, Zhongli, a-ah, I’m—”
Childe climaxes, world turning into blinding white, mind dispersing in a momentary bliss, moaning so loud he thinks fuck off to dignity.
Zhongli fucks him through it, not slowing down for the least bit, until Childe quivers underneath him, until it’s nearly unbearable, before also losing himself, spilling inside him. Childe’s eyelids flutter, squirming and clenching as he feels Zhongli’s warmth filling his inside. He feels like half of his brain just melted out, but he uses the last remaining of his strength to pull the god—his god—by the nape and kisses him, all tongue and teeth, almost mewling into his mouth.
Afterwards, Zhongli pants against the skin of his neck, while his thumb is lightly rubbing his hip. Childe is quite sure he’s fallen asleep at some point in between, before he gets woken up when the other man pulls out.
He grieves the loss, already hating the empty feeling, then jolts when he feels Zhongli’s finger enters him again, scooping out whatever’s left of him inside. Childe lets him.
“Contrary to what you may think,” Zhongli says, low, and between getting distracted by the finger moving inside him and the post-sex languidness, Childe needs a few seconds before realizing that the other man is still referring to the conversation they had earlier, “I don’t actually know everything, and much less about you.”
Childe’s hum is noncommittal. His head is definitely not ready yet for this discussion, although his other head, he must confess, is already twitching again from Zhongli’s touch. “Okay. For example?” The sooner this talk ends, the sooner they can get down to business again, right?
“I don’t even know your name.”
“But you do,” he replies in confusion, “you call me Childe all the time.” Or Tartaglia, like just now.
Zhongli’s smile is small, a little mellow, even. “But that is not your name.”
Childe blinks, finally starting to understand what the ex-archon means. While he now knows Zhongli’s identity as Morax, perhaps Zhongli still doesn’t know him beyond his persona as Tartaglia the Eleventh Fatui Harbinger. “Oh… I guess you’re right.”
The man falls silent for a while, as if waiting for him to speak. But Childe has nothing to say, so they only stare at each other, almost peaceful, like nothing else is worth mulling over and only their presence in each other’s space that left matters.
Slowly, the sense of urgency overtakes Childe again. Zhongli may not be in a rush—he’s had all the time in the world, and he’ll still have more years to come, even maybe centuries—but Childe isn’t the same. A mortal’s life is short, and his time is too limited. He glances at the floor under the window and sees the soft stream of silver from the moon hanging on the night sky outside. Time goes on; they still have some.
The nights in Liyue are long, but Zhongli feels like a fleeting dream.
And before dawn approaches, Childe wants to savor every little bit of this dream, short as it may be.