Work Text:
The deceased God of Contracts is sulking on the front steps of the bank when Childe emerges, chin on his palm and brow furrowed deep.
Childe doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, or maybe drop-kick Zhongli down the stairs so that his head cracks on the street below and the people of Liyue can see what their god is really made of. Yellow and red-golden lights float above the rooftops; a light summer breeze carries laughter from down-harbor all the way up here.
It rings sour in Childe’s ears. Morax’s corpse has barely cooled, and yet this nation which should be shoring up their defenses, this nation which should be mourning, have become slack-jawed children at a few firecrackers and light tricks. Her Excellency sent him to conquer, but where’s the challenge when Liyue offers itself to him on a silver platter? They’ve made the game too easy. They’ve made it boring.
Zhongli doesn’t startle when Childe sits beside him. It’s strange, seeing what power remains now that the god’s been burned out from the body. The money - no. The arrogance - yes. The almost preternatural awareness of Childe’s movements, moods, thoughts… But maybe that’s a different kind of power.
“You’re moping,” Childe says, choosing this instead of nearly a dozen greetings he could - should - offer Zhongli. “Or maybe - oh, my Lord, I’m sorry, does the human body break down so quickly? Those are lanterns down, those blurry shapes you’re trying so hard to see. But don’t worry! I’m sure somewhere in your beautiful city we can find a glass-maker willing to let the Geo Lord sweep his floors for a pair of bifocals.”
He’s made his voice light, and Zhongli laughs along with him. He has a way of making it reach his eyes even when he’s lying: Childe has spent hours in front of the mirror trying and failing to replicate the trick. Another Archon trait, perhaps.
“I am thankful for your concern, Childe. But my eyesight remains adequate, as I’m sure it will for some time yet. No, now I am merely… thinking.”
Childe sweeps his hands out in front of himself in invitation. “Please, my friend, fill me in! Unless,” he cuts in as Zhongli hesitates, “your thoughts are too lofty for a home-grown mortal to comprehend?”
Zhongli laughs again. Softer, and trailing off quickly as his attention is caught by lights on the harbor. He watches them, and Childe watches him; the red around his eyes, his lips. His chest, rising and falling out of necessity, now, rather than habit. The Tsaritsa said an Archon’s Gnosis was their heart. Childe would love nothing more than to crack open Zhongli’s chest and see for himself if she spoke true.
“I would never insult your intelligence, my friend,” Zhongli tells him softly, although Childe still finds himself leaning closer as a bouquet of firecrackers explodes somewhere down below. Even up here the air smells like ash. “It is simply… How do I say this? It is a selfish thought, and I do not want you to think less of me for it.”
If given a thousand years in the Abyss to contemplate a response, Childe still wouldn’t know how to respond to the deceased god of contracts’s concern over staying in his good graces. So instead he just goes for his first response, a chuckle and an inquisitive, “Oh?”
It seems to do the trick; Zhongli’s shoulders don’t loosen, but he at least looks Childe’s way for the first time since he sat down. Childe, calling on all of his training and inborn charm, summons up the most reassuring smile he can, which after a moment Zhongli obediently mirrors.
“You’re right, friend, and I’m sorry for presuming less of you.” Childe, who said absolutely nothing, nods along. Zhongli has no power in Liyue anymore, save for securing prime funeral arrangements and dropping boulders on stray hilichurls, but surely whatever deep dark secret he’s harboring could be of some use to the Fatui. If nothing else, humiliating Rex Lapis could deal a significant moral blow to these frighteningly weak-willed people.
“I just... I find myself wondering, as the people celebrate... Please understand, I am not some tyrant, sitting on high and demanding they wail in the streets,” Zhongli says ruefully. “Nor do I seek to deny them transformation. Renewal. The chance to carve Liyue according to their own visions. And yet.”
And now his voice is wistful, which Childe had never thought a god could be, until he met Zhongli. “And yet. Their joy, their happiness. It came so quickly, do you not think? As if that’s all there was to feel.”
A flash above the harbor. Screams, and laughter, and lights like shooting stars. Zhongli is still looking into his eyes. Childe wonders if the lanterns are reflected there, or maybe something else.
If anyone ever wrote a Handbook for Harbingers, here is where he would be advised to press his clear advantage. Morax, already vulnerable, is all but offering his throat: a few choice words, a few carefully timed pushes, and who knows what he could secure for the Tsarista? A broken ex-Archon is still a useful puppet. I know where they would mourn you, my friend. I know where you could be of use.
But where’s the fun in winning a game that’s already been conceded? Victory is only sweet when the opponent wants it more.
This is how Childe will justify it later. Only to himself, because no one will ever ask him about that night far above Liyue Harbor, when he gathered Zhongli’s slender hand in his and squeezed them tight together.
“Listen, Zhongli,” Childe says, and can’t stop the flash of delight when Zhongli does sway nearer. “No, no, not to me. To them, the people. Don’t you hear it?”
“Perhaps,” Zhongli murmurs, “it is my hearing that begins to fade.” He smiles to indicate the joke, but it goes quickly. The smell of ash is closer. Zhongli is closer.
“There’s a saying in Snezhnaya: a god always feels the heartbeat of his city,” Childe lies. “I thought it would stay true for you, at least for a while. Their celebration is for you, Archon, don’t you hear? They honor your…” he can’t help himself from scowling a little here, but Zhongli doesn’t seem to notice, “Skybracer, but the source of their laughter, the source of their tears - yes, tears, of course you don’t see that, who’d want to be out on the streets crying on such a lovely night like this - it’s you. Rex Lapis. You taught them to love their city, and so they mourn you the only way they know how. By loving it.”
Childe wonders if the chess game is still being played; if he remains a pawn on a vast board whose patterns he will never hope to comprehend. Because for a moment he thinks that he would forsake all his vows and powers, if it meant Zhongli would smile at him like he does now, as true and as brilliant as fireworks over the harbor.
“A wonderful thing to say.” Zhongli tightens his grip around Childe’s hand. Childe doesn’t pull away. “And a wonderful story to believe in.”
When he opens his mouth Zhongli keeps smiling. When he speaks Zhongli keeps smiling. What else would he let Childe do? “Why believe? Why not trust, Zhongli? Just this once - why not trust?”
Childe is buttering him up. He’s pulling the strings. He's building Zhongli's strength and spirit, so that once he inevitably wins, victory will taste that much sweeter.
He’s lying to himself, and he knows it.
“Trust you?” Zhongli is laughing again. This time, it sounds true. “Childe, when have I ever not?”
But the Tsaritsa is far, far away, and Zhongli is leaning in.
Above the harbor, lanterns bob in the wind. Beneath the ash there’s a faint perfume, like funeral lilies.