Chapter Text
They kiss. Slowly. Softly. Wandering fingers are warm and gentle and curious, and Zhongli shapes Childe like fine masonry. They trail across each other's skin, exploring lines and ridges and scars.
Zhongli's human-shaped vessel isn't entirely so. Across his upper body spreads obsidian "skin," rough as cliffs and every bit as defined. There are amber streams running between gaps in his earthen armor. Past his hips he returns to being "human-like," and Childe can't help thinking that having a corporeal form is the worst. Wanting Zhongli feels like sacrilege. Touching Zhongli feels like heresy. He does not deserve to trace the history etched into this god. Adeptus. Dragon. Thing. Person.
That doesn't stop him from doing it anyway.
"What are you made of?" Childe asks. He pokes Zhongli all over.
"Primarily, elemental energy," Zhongli says.
"You're part qilin, yeah? Are qilin elementals? Was one of your parents a god and the other a lizard? Was the lizard a god-lizard?"
There must have been some wild sex for the purposes of procreation.
The fondness on Zhongli's face is more than one should show a Harbinger prodding at their stomach. (Tartaglia, for one, has never shown fondness for Harbingers prodding at him.)
"Not quite," Zhongli says. "Illuminated beasts are born of the elements and nature's will. We are given shape by our environment. What becomes of us after is a matter of self-determination."
The answer inspires further questions. Childe asks them between curious sniffs of Zhongli's chest, arms, and neck. He squishes his face against Zhongli's surfaces and inhales. It's dirty, but like dirt, not filth. He thinks he likes it. Zhongli doesn't seem to mind.
"So you don't have parents," Childe thinks aloud.
Zhongli tilts his head. Childe wants to pull his hair. Hard. Then get his ass kicked for it.
Handsome. Pretty. Mine.
It takes a second for his dumb comment to sink in. Then he can't shove his dumb foot in his dumb mouth fast enough.
"That came out wrong," he mutters. "Sorry."
Zhongli settles a hand on Childe's waist and squeezes. It's meant to be comforting, probably, but Childe makes a new sound. A squeak? A squawk? It sounds like he doesn't know what to do with himself. (Fitting, because he does not.)
"No need to apologize." Zhongli's free hand brushes fringe from Childe's face. "The land gave me life and other beings to call family. I would argue that fulfills part of the criteria for human parents."
Everything he says so fucking pretty.
Ajax's relationship with his parents is less functional than Zhongli's relationship with his, and Zhongli's singular parent is the abstract concept of "natural order."
"That makes sense," he decides.
"Few would agree with you."
"They are well within their rights to be wrong."
Zhongli nearly snorts–snorts! Zhongli! Childe's heart stops. And Zhongli says, "Humans tend to view their relationship with the world around them differently on cultural and individual bases. You happen to be delightfully open-minded."
"I've heard I'm great at parties."
"We'll have to attend one together, that I may see for myself."
Childe ignores the thud in his chest as he noses at Zhongli's collar. "That sounds enjoyable."
"I think so, too."
"Give me an occasion to wear my regalia. I'll be as dressed-up as you are on any given day."
Zhongli puffs air at him. "I wouldn't know what to do with myself, were you more enticing than you already are."
"Do you have a secret thing for men in uniforms?"
"I'm not sure. If that man is you, I probably do."
Zhongli is tender, and it makes Childe throb ache burn. Holding him close enough for comfort and distant enough to keep Childe's claustrophobia at bay. They may not have many intimate experiences like this together, yet, but Childe is acutely aware of how precious it is. It will only become more treasured with time. The ebb and flow of conversation, subtle catering to each other's preferences—they fill cracks older than their budding relationship, wash wounds that have long gone neglected.
Flowers sprout in Childe's lungs where Zhongli's pheromones sustain him as oxygen. Shooting stars fall from Celestia in his eyes. And Zhongli is the heavens begging to be toppled by the only man Zhongli seems to think would grant such a wish.
"Where do you keep your antler-horn-things and tail? And the giant noodle body?" he asks.
"'Noodle body?'"
"Rex Lapis. The qilin. The dead guy."
The one I tried to drown the city over.
"Ah. The exuvia, you mean. It is a Geo construct based on the image used most often in artistic portrayals of Rex Lapis as an Archon."
"Do you take that form often?"
"I did occasionally. I will not be for the foreseeable future."
"Why not?"
"Rex Lapis is dead, Childe. I prepared his funeral."
They share a flat look.
"Then what's this form?" Childe asks. He lays a palm on Zhongli's rock-hard abdomen.
Zhongli wraps an arm around him and plays with messy waves. "Any physical form I take is malleable as the energy that creates it. I can present as an illuminated beast. I can present the elemental energy below my outer shell… This is but what I choose to do with it."
Childe skims the basalt protecting Zhongli's rib cage. "You're like a matryoshka doll."
Zhongli huffs. "Those round nesting dolls? I fail to see the resemblance."
"You're Geo energy, inside of a rock, inside of an adeptus, inside of a god, inside of a retired Archon, inside of a person."
Zhongli lifts Childe closer to him—closer to his unnaturally flawless face. He pulls them both deeper into the pile of pillows and blankets around them. Childe tries not to think of it as their nest, but it feels awfully similar to a nest. They sink into the sheets together and snuggle into their not-nest.
"I am one man, no more or less than you," Zhongli says.
"No more than–Zhongli, I am Her Majesty's living weapon. You are you. We are not the same."
"Are we not?" He strokes along the curve of Childe's ear and says the most embarrassing things. "We both present as male alphas. We are both warriors. We share similar interests. We're fiercely loyal, perhaps to a fault, and stubborn in our values. We want similar things of life."
Childe has to grip Zhongli's shoulders to prevent himself from crumbling. He shakes Zhongli. "You just retired. I'm not even halfway through my elaborate plan to ascend to greatness."
Zhongli shrugs. "The greatest of men know they cannot survive alone. People need others who will support them, whom they will support in turn."
The weight of the words drops heavy on Childe's shoulders. "Yes, but that's different."
"How so?"
"It feels like you're more of a man or human than I am and you're a rock."
Zhongli laughs.
"Rude."
"Excuse me. It seems I've forgotten my manners."
Childe elbows him. "Apparently, Mister Zhongli."
Zhongli covers his mouth with his hand. It doesn't quite stifle the giggles. Childe should bite him. He'd taste like charred meat, seared across the top with charcoal to crunch. The thought makes him salivate. He licks his lips.
"I believe we have different understandings of what it means to be human," Zhongli says. "If you see humanity as adherence to customs and fulfilling certain roles, then I was human before I could craft a human-shaped form. By default I would be 'more human.' In the man I know you to be, however, and in those parts of yourself you've yet to share, I find untapped potential I could never have. For all of your masks, you are authentic in a way I cannot be."
Something rattles Childe's ribs. It chokes his heart and his lungs don't work. He forgets how to breathe. His eyes are wet. He could throw up.
Zhongli peels back his layers like a potato skinned wrongly. Ajax is the potato. A chunk of him has been sawed off and tossed to the compost. He could rip Zhongli apart and wear his body as a blanket and it wouldn't be enough to hide himself.
It's agonizing. He wants to demand more praise but his stomach turns at the thought. Zhongli's attention is intoxicating. Childe doesn't deserve any of it.
"Can you… Would you touch me, Zhongli?" he asks weakly. It's hard to convince himself he's not pathetic.
"Is that what you want?"
His voice is too small for his body. "Yes, please."
It's Zhongli with his back to pillows and Childe between his legs, crawling over top of him, nuzzling, kissing, coating Zhongli in his scent and bathing himself in Zhongli's. It's comforting, and he hopes Zhongli feels the same with his.
He touches Zhongli's calves in fascination, kneading muscle and tracing definition up thighs that could crush him. And might crush him. He wonders what would happen if these thighs cracked his skull open.
Gods, that'd be so hot.
Zhongli never pushes; only lets Childe play as he chooses. And Childe is grateful for it; the suspicious tent in Zhongli's underwear assures him it's enjoyable for both of them. He takes great measures to ignore his own body betraying his composure.
"Sorry. I asked you to touch me and I'm doing all the touching."
Zhongli's eyes are closed, his head tilted back. "It's alright. This is relaxing. I haven’t been this close to another in a long time."
"Me either." Childe doesn't add that this is a first in his entire life.
Zhongli cracks one eye open and smiles. "Take your time. I can wait until you are satisfied."
Childe lightly whaps his partner's calf. It doesn't jiggle, turns out–it's nothing but muscle. He swallows the urge to bite into it.
"You can imagine me being satisfied with something?" he asks.
It's meant as a joke, but the reply he gets is serious. His brain malfunctions, much like a Ruin Guard with its eye poked out. He's forced to ask Zhongli to repeat himself.
A smug aura is all the response he gets.
"Gross," he mumbles. A fiery blush takes his cheeks. He squeezes Zhongli's knees and earns a laugh.
"I think I've been well-mannered. Patient, even."
Zhongli is patient. Too patient. It's frustrating.
Childe is no spring chickadee, but there is not even the remote possibility he could catch up to Zhongli's experiences. If the Inazuman light novels he read had any truth to them, Morax got more ass than a community outhouse. He doesn't know if Zhongli has bedded anyone as Zhongli before, or how many people Zhongli has bedded, or how many suitors Zhongli has beside Childe himself.
He wants to know so he can dissuade them. He doesn't want to know because he is trying not to let his impulses win and Zhongli is not nearly as aroused by murder as he is.
Childe decides it would be rude to ask, and unlike Zhongli, Childe is not rude, therefore he does not ask.
What does “arousal” look like on him anyway? Like this, yes, but maybe…
He pictures hungry eyes, sharp claws, and canines scraping down his back. He pictures Zhongli's arms wrapped tight around his waist, holding him close while dripping sweet words down the back of his neck. Fuck, he wants that. He wants Zhongli the way one wants a blanket when freezing. Water in the desert. Nose plugs in a field of corpses.
Perhaps, necessity.
Childe isn't quite sure what to do with these new feelings, but he thinks Zhongli would make an excellent weighted blanket.
He drums his fingers on Zhongli's feet. He asks, "Patient enough to still want me, old man?"
Zhongli speaks like the strings of a bass. "How could I not?"
"Do you have anything in mind?"
"Whatever you are comfortable with. I am at your mercy."
"Please, just tell me."
Zhongli taps him with a foot and makes a face. "You've never told me your preferences."
Childe makes the same face. "You never told me yours, and I asked your preferences months ago."
"Oh? I can't seem to recall."
Childe swears to Celestia that he is going to kiss the sarcastic smile off Zhongli's mouth. Then fight him. Then kiss him again, if Zhongli doesn't knock him out.
"I've never let anyone touch me. I've never done…closeness." He gestures between them.
What do I do with how I feel for you?
Zhongli blinks.
"You look surprised,” Childe says.
"I am, a bit." Zhongli opens his arms to invite Childe in.
Childe crawls further up Zhongli's legs. "Someone your age has enough experience to not-be surprised in the bedroom."
"I have plenty of experience," Zhongli says. "That experience just so happens to be irrelevant."
Childe nose-exhales. "How reassuring to think that neither of us are in any way prepared for this. Oh, I'm so fucked."
Zhongli bumps Childe with the inside of his thigh. The surprise knocks Childe forward into his arms with an oof. Zhongli curls around him, then, holding Childe captive against his chest.
"Perhaps not."
"Mmm?" Childe hums into Zhongli's (phenomenal) pecs. He was under the assumption he was the fucked one. He fully expected to be taking it up the ass for the first time today. The thought made him uncomfortable, but it seemed far less awful with someone he…
Someone I what?
Zhongli says, "You and I individually may not be prepared, but I believe that we are. This relationship has been a learning experience for both of us. I imagine that the learning will continue as we do."
The platitude reminds him of a machinist in Snezhnaya, whose interests include tinkering with parts from disparate bodies. (Tartaglia's previously included.) The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, so they say.
His whole includes Zhongli now. Zhongli is part of him. Zhongli—the only man worthy of him. The man himself, Morax, said no man is worthy of him. And there is no man like Zhongli. That must mean Zhongli's whole includes Ajax, too, doesn't it? There is no one else like him. There is no one else like Zhongli.
He will eat his mask if Zhongli turns out not to be his fated partner.
Barbs tangle between his ribs, constricting Ajax's frigid little heart. He is not equipped to handle these new thoughts and feelings.
"Shouldn't take too long. I'm a quick study, xiansheng," he grumbles.
"You are." Zhongli rests his chin atop Childe's head. "You previously alluded to past sexual encounters, and I assumed you learned from those."
Childe looks anywhere but at Zhongli or Zhongli's chiseled pecs. He swallows, then wets his drying lips. "Yeah, and none of those were like this. I’m used to hooking up, not, you know.”
"'Hooking up?'"
"Getting together with the intent to engage in physical intimacy. Usually no-strings-attached."
"I believe I misunderstood what 'hooking up' is."
"What did you think it was?"
"Certainly not that."
"Should I be concerned?"
Zhongli clears his throat. "It’s nothing worth discussing now. I didn’t expect today to be a ‘hookup,’ though. By your definition it could not be."
"What did you think inviting me over today was going to be?"
"More conversation over a drink. We would play a game. You would eventually doze off, and I would have the privilege of watching you sleep."
"I'm not sure if that's romantic or unsettling."
"I don't require sleep, but I find comfort in your company in such private moments."
Romantic. Got it.
"Nothing needs to happen that you don't want, Ajax."
"I do want. But it's not want in a way I know how to talk about. This isn't my area of expertise."
"Nor is it mine," Zhongli reminds him. The irony is striking. He nips at Childe's ear and covers it in kisses. Childe grabs his biceps. Then his hips.
"Fuck." The curse falls breathlessly from Childe's mouth before he registers it. He's being seduced all over again. "You were carved out of actual, real stone, weren't you?"
"The same as you were in battle."
"Mm, yeah. I've been carved up alright."
Zhongli rests his head on Childe's collar and takes a deep breath like it's his first in eons. He hums, content, and squeezes Childe as one might their pillow.
"You smell like the home you've told me of. A sea of salt, lined by forests of birch and pine," he says.
Childe winds Zhongli's hair around his hand. "For a guy that doesn’t perceive romance, that is definitely romanticizing."
Zhongli tilts his head back with the pull, exposing his throat entirely. He holds Childe's gaze. "I've had a change of heart."
Childe strokes the muscle where Zhongli's neck meets his shoulder. It's tough. Everything about Zhongli is powerful. "What's the occasion?"
"You," Zhongli says. Like it's obvious.
"I'm an occasion?"
"The most important of my human life."
"You are definitely the first person to feel that way about me," Childe says lightly.
Zhongli draws Childe closer. "And I plan to be the last. You are the first I have offered myself to this way."
"And I plan to be the only."
"There could never be another."
"Glad we’re on the same page."
"You once thought it was fate, if I recall." Zhongli's words are light and lilting. He's not wrong.
Still, Childe doesn’t mention that this hasn’t changed. "I would be into you even if that wasn't a factor. I can't not want you."
"A pleasant coincidence. I can no longer see myself without you, either."
The thought strikes Childe odd. He stiffens in Zhongli's embrace. Are those his pheromones that smell like pissing one's pants in the face of danger?
What does it mean, to not picture a life without someone—to picture the rest of your life with them? How does someone process the loss of a permanent fixture? Grief is a thing he didn’t understand until thinking he’d lost Zhongli, and he nearly punished all of Liyue Harbor for it. It’s a reciprocal, he thinks, to another thing he doesn’t fully understand.
He isn’t sure if he’s ready to put the word to it after how his parents took his one letter, but there can’t be loss without something to lose. When he thought it was gone, he accepted it was there.
What is it?
"Ajax, you realize I plan on spending my retirement with you, yes?" Zhongli asks. He props Childe up on himself and searches his face.
Childe loses his ability to use words for a long while. Then, "I know. I just never thought of it like that. It's a lot, when you put it that way."
Zhongli touches Childe’s face. "I marked you under the presumption I could spend the rest of my life as your partner."
"The rest of your life is going to be a long time."
Zhongli nods sagely. "It may well be."
"...How old are you again?"
"Very." He ruffles Childe's hair. "Is that a problem? I thought my alpha didn't mind a man aged like wine."
Childe fucking dies.
His alpha. His alpha. His alpha.
May Her Majesty save him from salivating like a wild animal and stuff his scent gland with potpourri.
"That's… You marked me, xiansheng. You're my alpha. Not the other way around."
Mine. Mine. Mine.
Zhongli makes a confused little sound. It reminds Childe of how Zhongli reacts when he learns new information from strangers or sees a neat rock.
"Forgive me. I'm not as sure of pair-bonding mechanisms as I once was." Zhongli bats his lashes up at Childe.
Childe stares at him blankly.
A moment goes by.
Another.
And another.
"Wait, you want me to—"
Zhongli interrupts him. "The mutual pair-bond between partners is a contract made with heart, mind, and body as one. It is a contract that belongs to humans and Celestia–a contract that I have no claim to. But I would like to have that with you, Ajax, if you'll have me."
Willing submission to Childe, a desire to have Childe as an alpha and a partner when there have been others before him? His dick stiffens at the thought, though those before him weren't human and Zhongli wasn't either. Fated partners sound more plausible if the agreement underpinning a mutual pair-bond is monitored by Celestia. And if only humans and Celestia are involved, what will come of a mutual bond between them?
It's a loaded implication Childe doesn't have time for. Zhongli wants their marking to be mutual.
"You allowed me to call you my mate. I would like you to call me yours. Is this not mutual?" Zhongli tilts his head downward.
Submitting. To me. Mine.
Childe throat bobs. “It is. I’d like it to be. Do you want that?”
“Should I not want that?” Zhongli asks.
Words come out a little too fast, a little too frantic. “No. Unless you don’t. It’s okay if you don’t. Whatever you want. Back home people look at you strangely if you have a partner and only one of you is marked, but Liyue is different.”
“How do you look at partnerships where only one person is marked?”
“Whatever works for them,” is what he says. What he thinks is that it warns of an uneven power balance in a relationship, and that it’s an easy way to treat partners as sex objects. If that’s what anyone wants it’s not his place to criticize but he’s seen what one-sided bonds do to people, how a collection of nighttime butterflies is synonymous with wealth.
"...You're apprehensive," Zhongli says.
Childe nods.
Zhongli takes one of Childe's hands and brings it to his lips. He rubs his thumb over saw-toothed scars. "It's quite the commitment to ask of someone. Mutual assurance in the face of an unknown future. Where no one can be certain what's to come, who they'll meet, what they'll be."
Childe nods harder.
And Zhongli, like it's the simplest thing in the world, tells him, "Exciting."
"Exciting isn't exactly how most people would put it."
"How would you put it?"
Claustrophobic. Dangerous. Terrifying.
A moment goes by.
Another.
And another.
"Ajax…"
"Sorry. Thinking."
"We don't have to do anything you don't want to do."
"I do. I really do. I want that. With you. It's a lot to take in when put so simply."
"You were quick to offer yourself to me before."
"I know. That was different."
"How so?"
"I expected to be dead the next day. The whole 'lifelong commitment' thing was only going to last a few hours."
Zhongli wavers. He frowns. "Is that the only reason?"
Childe grabs him, scrambles to find the correct place to hold on. "No. I would do it again. And again. And now, if you asked me."
"Allow me to make myself clearer." Zhongli cups Childe's face and pulls him close, where their lips brush. Childe shivers. "Would you mark me, and allow me the privilege of being your mutually-bonded partner?"
Briefly, Childe forgets how to talk. He's fairly certain he's erect, and he considers slapping himself for it. Before he can ruin the sentimental moment, he kisses the corner of Zhongli's mouth and holds him tighter.
"It would be my honor."
The golden ore through Zhongli's body glows, then dims, and a faint pulse of Geo vibrates in Zhongli's chest. He offers no explanation but a secretive smile. Their next kiss, like the first, takes Childe's breath away.