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“Childe, will today be the one? The one you take my gnosis, that is.”
The two men simply stared up at one another from their meals, largely untouched on their plates, a somewhat blank look on both their faces. Zhongli looked as he always did, impassive, plainly looking back into Childe’s eyes for an answer—an answer that may reach his face before it reached his tongue.
Childe lifted his eyebrows, making a face that may resemble someone abruptly asking him something in the middle of a bite (which may have been the case, if he had actually been eating anything), returning the other’s stare without speaking.
Strangely, the air never stiffened when Zhongli asked that, not even the first time he had.
Even more bizarrely, it almost felt comforting, that Zhongli knew of his own demise. After all, there was no betrayal if he was already aware. There was nothing underhanded left to do if the victim was aware of his own death, his own deadline, where and why his throne would falter and crumble, and who was responsible for toppling it over. His victim knew how he’d soon be brought down to a similar mortality as the people who worshipped him, without Childe having to betray anything or anyone anymore.
The only betrayal now, would simply be if he didn’t do it.
Didn’t follow through with his task.
Take what he came here for.
...
Childe smiled in a way that didn’t reach his eyes. His grins never really did anymore, anyways.
“Hmm… Well, Consultant, what would you do if I said yes? That today really is the day I take your gnosis?”
“But you wouldn’t. Strategically speaking, that would trample more of your plans… after all, garnering trust—”
Zhongli gently picked up his cup.
“—and utilizing the art of sabotage, would be the best way to take down a deity with the lowest amount of casualties. I believe that would be something you’d say.”
The Archon held no bitterness in his voice, nor his expression. He was speaking from a point of pure analysis, as if he was on the same side as Childe, advising him on exactly how to make the right move. After drawing the lid to his mouth and taking a quiet sip, he put his now empty hands to his chin, idling his glance to Childe’s face again. Staring into his eyes with no shine, nothing to show life back from, in utter contrast to the one sitting across from him. Perhaps that was what separated Godhood from the lowest forms of mortality, their eyes.
The Harbinger smiled wordlessly, only chuckling in reply.
“Do you plan to fight back? Then at the very least, I have an interesting battle to look forward to.”
“Mm… I haven’t given it enough thought to know just yet.”
Zhongli paused, his face looked distant briefly, staring back down at the tea he had just drank idly, as if thinking it over. In all the Archon’s many years, in all his boundless knowledge and of course, in his status as God of War, Childe expected a snappy answer, an immediate nod of the head. Something along the lines of, “I’m waiting for you to try to take my gnosis, so I can kill you. I’m just letting you have your little powertrip before I do so just to be nice. You’re beneath me after all, so I’m pitying you.”
...Zhongli would never say that.
Maybe the only reason Childe assumed he would is because… well, if he was in Zhongli’s position, he would. Of course, with his own jovial spin to the message, making it playful and making it Childe’s own, he would happily play with the person trying to end his life. Hell, he has, to stray opponents trying to get revenge for the damage a man named Tartaglia has done to his friends, his army, his… whatever else. He was a known killer on the battlefield, who found blazing joy in taking what was rightfully his— victory, and spitting down on the people who assumed otherwise.
It was addicting, after all, to have physical reminders of your own worth displayed right in front of you.
Because he was Tartaglia, a feared name on the battlefield, and—
...Right. In Liyue, to Zhongli, he was Childe. And Childe was mortal, a more mortal and feeble existence than Tartaglia ever would be.
“I will have to see when you eventually do it, Childe. If I plan to fight back or not.”
Childe’s face hardened a bit at that reply. He blinked twice with a lowered gaze, before sighing lightly, putting down the chopsticks he was still struggling to manage with. Zhongli had shown him how to use them a few times now, yet he still fumbled with them with an amateuristic hand. Like a stupid foreigner, which he probably seemed to be.
He had probably asked these things already when Zhongli had brought up Childe’s inevitable betrayal before, but for some reason not yet aware to him, he kept speaking, placing his chin into his palm as he eyed Zhongli. The other was once again taking a drink of his tea, the cup held in a ginger palm, as if doing it without grace would somehow be greatly improper of him to do.
“Do you plan to tell the Traveler?”
“Ah. Hm.”
Zhongli paused again, furrowing his brow for a moment, before replying without much else strain.
“No. Why would I?”
“You can’t tell me you haven’t picked up on how suspicious they are of me, right? Surely that’s something you want to discuss with your little companion, right?”
Childe raised an eyebrow, and despite expressing confusion, he still had a small smirk against his lips.
“I thought this was a matter between us.”
What? Someone trying to hurt him, hurt Liyue, damage the city and its god beyond repair… was a matter only between its victim and perpetrator?
“Do you not take me seriously?”
Childe sat up a bit in his chair, frowning. Why was he treating all of this so passively? Like it was something as simple as knowing of a surprise party, unworthy of much thought, but aware that it was eventually going to happen. There was no urgency in anything Zhongli said or did, as if he was just waiting, and he had no qualms in his mind that there would be no victory for Childe. That nothing he’d do would topple the reign that is his godhood and status.
Maybe that was just ideas he was projecting onto the other man from his time and experience on the battlefield, but still, Tartaglia, naturally, takes offense to the notion of that.
To the idea that a mortal didn’t stand a chance against a god, no matter how bizarre it sounded said back.
Childe firmed up his frown as he stared at Zhongli, who met his eyes as prompted, maybe even picking up the annoyance that the other was experiencing. He didn’t say anything for a while, as if waiting for Childe to make a conclusion for himself, or if he was finding the words for his own. Zhongli wasn’t one to use his acts for malice, he didn’t think out his words as something that could work the faintest bits of doubt into another—while Childe was the stark opposite, and he found the silence telling to his suspicions.
“We plan to take down Liyue, you know.”
He spoke without thinking, and he blinked twice, as if shocked by the news he already knew, already planned. As if he was worthy to have that sort of reaction. It was his plan after all. And now he was likely ruining it all by saying that. He was once again being unprepared, and being impulsive, all loosely because Zhongli wasn’t giving him the proper attention a threat deserved. Saying it like that made Childe feel small, and it made him feel idiotic.
Zhongli widened his eyes in reply, before furrowing his brow, bringing a hand up to his face. He closed his eyes in a quiet pause, frowning.
“...I see… I suppose taking down a city’s god would be the first step to do that.”
“Do you plan to do anything now? Anything? I just revealed my plan to you, after all. That the city you look after will soon falter—that’s my plan, to destroy the place you love, until it's erased from the map all together.”
He was trying to antagonize him at a certain point, get a reaction out of him, or something, like his pride was bruised that an Archon didn’t see a threat in someone so insignificant. His passiveness had begun to leak into Tartaglia like an insult—like someone threatening the god’s own life wasn’t worthy of his time, worthy of his wrath nor worthy of his victory. His expression resembled that offended feeling, his usual grin growing cold, an unfamiliar anger in his face.
“...I suppose I should let the Traveler know of this. I expect that’s what you want me to do, as you mentioned them earlier..”
“You don’t think I’m capable of doing it, do you. Of killing you.”
Zhongli almost grimaced at those words, a solemn look falling upon his scrunched face, his gaze lowering ever so slightly. For a brief moment, he looked weak, looked fragile just like the victim Childe kept describing him as in the back of his head—it was unusual, and despite Childe’s better judgements, he hated it. He should really stop pressing the other man like this, digging his hole deeper—it was unlike him, he who was calculated and certain.
He, who found himself only ever able to slip up like this in front of Zhongli.
“Childe.”
The other man had already stood up, and taken a step towards him, in which Childe followed suit rather quickly, the two standing face to face again—closer than what their table would allow, which was likely the point of them standing anyways.
Placing his hand against his own chest idly, Zhongli let out a gentle, somber breath, before meeting Childe’s eyes again. For some reason, when he first saw Zhongli stand, he assumed the other planned to hit him so hard he passed out, or whatever Gods of War did— ...but right now, he seemed just… tired.
With a beat, he began to speak.
“I am someone very capable of hurting you.”
“I know that.”
“But… I do not wish to. I wish you did not plan to follow through with what you came here for, as well. Because I do not wish to hurt you, and following through with your plan requires that I do.”
The Archon paused again, thinning his lip. It felt wrong, for there to be an almost melancholic, stiff moment between the two of them, especially when Childe had made an art form out of twisting situations into something more easily digestible. But no words were forming, and even if they were, he didn’t know how he was planning to get them out. They were like this due to his own petulance, after all. It really did feel like a father scolding a child after he did something disappointing, or something, and that was plainly uncomfortable.
“I suppose I keep bringing these things up in hopes you would call off your operation. But I was a bit naive to think it is that easy to do that. For you to do that.”
“...My apologies, for speaking so much about my own feelings. It is unlike me. But I suppose, it is unlike you, as well.
***
The next dinner, Zhongli didn’t ask about his gnosis.
The next time the item even crossed Childe’s mind was when it was finally held in his gloved hand, gold, and small, and fragile. Crushable. Everything in contrast to its beholder, yet both had found their way at the palm of his hand. Grasping his fingers around the item slowly, and unlatching them again to stare at it, Childe eventually laid his eyes back onto Zhongli.
Eyes that now matched the lifelessness in Childe’s were now staring back from the Archon’s place on the ground, beneath him.
It was quiet.
It didn’t feel as good as he expected it to be. As good as he was preconditioned to it being—after all, all his previous battles should’ve been a practice to the one that he had just fought now. A lowly warrior against a deity… yet it was quiet, uneventful, and there was little fight nor struggle. It was like he had won by forfeit.
It must’ve hurt him, like he said. To be the one who had to hurt Childe.
Because he never really did, in this one sided fight.