Chapter Text
“I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed.”
Childe didn’t spare Zhongli a glance, instead he continued to sit in the dark, shoulders slumped. He looked pathetic, weak, tired and worn, he didn’t look like Childe.
“But all I could do was to get drunk again.”
How had they gotten here again? What had he been doing? The glaze lilies that usually bloomed the most beautiful blue were now drooping.
“Worse, the bar patrons even ended up liking me!”
Childe’s laugh was wet but there was no sight of tears. All bitter and sarcastic, like when he was angry but he wasn’t angry now? AT least Zhongli didn’t think so. Had it been a joke? Criticism? Judgement? Where was this all coming from?
“There I was trying to get pushed off the dark edge and I ended up with free drinks...while some poor son-of-a-birth was in a hospital bed, healers all around him as he fought like hell to live.”
Childe was never this open, he could tell the man, the boy, the weapon, the mortal was not lying. Was this new found trust because of their visit to the Qingxi? Was it because of the pristine white paper with that frozen silver wax seal? Words written in Snezhnayan cursive? A form of writing even the great Rex Lapis could never understand.
“Nobody would help me die…”
A shaky breath in, a sneaky breath out.
“The drinks kept coming, as the next day waited for me with its steel clamps, its stinking anonymity, its incogitant attitude.”
Zhongli had to remember that Childe was barely a man, only nineteen, just a kid, just a child who, for some reason even he didn’t know was turned into a weapon, sharpened to a point by the Tsaritsa herself.
“Death doesn’t always come running when you call it.”
Childe flicked his eyes to the figure beside him, Zhongli had forgotten it was not only him and the mortal child here. The more he dwelled on it the more it became clear, to him it was insignificant, normal, fluid. Xiao’s anger had been warranted, Childe had tried to steal his gnosis although had it been Childe in that moment or was it Tartaglia, the weapon, the cold, ruthless, unforgiving weapon, undefeated in battle or was it Childe, just a lost kid? He couldn’t remember now.
“Not even if you call it from a shining castle or from an ocean liner.”
Ocean liners, he remembered Childe talking about those, a new creation from Snezhnayan labour and Sumerian intelligence.
“Or from the best bar on earth, or the worst.”
Xiao had said something, something about Childe not knowing what it was like to suffer, not knowing true fear and Childe, who usually just stood and smiled, replied with a joke and a chuckle had stopped walking, the grin on his lips had fallen and Zhongli had never seen the man- no, he had never seen the boy wear such a blank, bored, emotionless expression before.
“Such impertinence only makes the gods hesitate and delay.”
His blue eyes had stopped shining...now that Zhongli was truly thinking about it had those blue eyes ever shone? No, they hadn’t, they had never been the colour of noctilucous jade, instead they were the colour of Prussian blue pigment powder, something that doesn’t shine.
“Ask me, I’m nineteen.”
He licked his lips, he had taken his gloves off, his jacket was left behind in his office because Liyue was hot despite it barely being March, Childe had tucked his shirt into his trousers, favouring instead to roll up his sleeves and undo the buttons on his shirt. Zhongli looked at the scars, the places where his skin was ruined, marred by claws of creatures Zhongli couldn’t recognise, scars not made by elements which was odd, the blades where his skin was purple from the cold and yet Childe didn’t seem to notice or may he just didn’t even care.
“I was sixteen.”
He carried on, shocking Zhongli as the archon thought the boy was done but no, apparently not. He could feel Xiao grip tightly onto his sleeve, forcing Zhongli to remember how young Xiao had been when they had first met.
“Two years into my training with no one who didn’t fear the name Nikto.”
Ah, yes, Zhongli had heard one of the Fatui agents under Childe’s care call him Nikto. Tartaglia, a name given to him from the Tsaritsa, Childe an alias, Nikto the name the boy went by in the army.
“They didn’t ask how old I was, I don’t think they cared either. They didn’t see a soldier nor did they see a monster. They just saw a boy with scars and bags under his eyes so black they probably looked like black eyes.”
Zhongli forced himself to remember that Childe was a hydro user, a hydro user being born in Snezhnaya was unheard of because of the cruelty of it all, the hydro archons always swore to never gift a child of Snezhnaya a hydro vision so Zhongli had always been confused.
Zhongli could almost imagine it though, a dead eyed boy sitting on a barstool, surrounded by laughing men who gave him free drinks, who ruffled his hair, say things like “you remind me of myself at your age.” And “if you’re ever looking for a real nice girl, my daughter said she wouldn’t mind meeting you!” Unaware of that child’s deep, endless spiral of blood lust and festering self-hate.