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It was 2 AM when Zhongli felt arms snake around his body and the familiar scent of seabreeze hit his nose, “Ajax, why’re you awake?”
“It’s raining, the thunder’s real loud, and you weren’t there next to me. So I went looking for you in case something happened,” Ajax murmured, tightening his arms around Zhongli as if the male would disappear if he didn’t hold him tight enough. If he didn’t hold him at all.
Ah.
Zhongli can’t help the soft chuckle that leaves him at that. No matter how many times he heard it, it still leaves a warm feeling in his chest when Ajax—his little puppy—is worried something might happen to him. To Zhongli, the 108th head of the Jin（金）Family, the oldest crime family in Liyue. Zhongli, someone who knew how to slice someone’s throat by the time he was fifteen. Zhongli, someone who took the name of Morax and dove into the underworld at twenty two to replace his father who was ill. He would be offended if he wasn’t so endeared by the redhead.
“I need to finish this report, love,” Zhongli replies, turning his head a bit to press a lingering kiss to Ajax’s ear, “Want to sit on my lap as I finish?”
Ajax was silent for a few seconds, fingers nervously picking the loose strands of thread on Zhongli’s shirt before he gave a small shake of his head, “Can I— can I sit by your feet? That is— well, if it’s not a bother. I mean, I don’t mind your lap, it’s just— just—”
“Deep breaths, Pup.”
Ajax’s breath hitched at that and Zhongli knew he had gotten it right. With a small smile on his lips, the Liyuen man leaned back against the other male’s chest, fingers brushing against his arm with occasional light taps as he waited for a response. When all he got was a soft whine and a tuft of hair underneath his nostrils, Zhongli chuckled softly and angled his head to press a kiss to Ajax’s cheek, “Stay with me, Pup. Why don’t you pick a collar for tonight, hm? I’ll help you put it on then you can keep me company as I finish this.”
A small nod of his head is the only response Zhongli got as he felt Ajax’s warm embrace left him. Turning his head as he watched the redhead disappear before he went back to the paper in hand, sharp amber eyes reading through the lines of the report his agent had sent him regarding the raid on one of their weapons warehouses.
It was smart, Zhongli thinks, blinding a few of the cameras and waiting for the agents who patrol to take care of the cameras before they entered through the unguarded areas. But they were sloppy; they didn’t know all the blindspots, and they didn’t know he had a tracker on all of his weapons. The Jins’ family insignia was a dragon, afterall, and dragons tend to guard hoards of treasure.
When Ajax returned into Zhongli’s office with his collar of choice in hand, he took a few seconds to appreciate the view from the doorway. The way the other male’s brows were furrowed in concentration, long hair tied loosely into a pony-tail. Sometimes Ajax finds it terrifying how he was able to drop everything he worked for; leaving the nation he grew up in, betraying the organization he devoted his life to, killing the Queen who he vowed to serve. But as his hand tightens around the collar, there’s a familiar warmth around his chest and he realizes; as scary as all of it was, Ajax would do it all over again if it meant he would have Zhongli’s arms to fall into.
“Xiansheng,” he murmurs, walking towards the male by the desk, the collar he chose was a black velvet collar with the Jin Family’s insignia hanging on the center. Ajax kneeled by Zhongli’s legs after he carefully placed the collar on the desk, his hand holding a loose grip on the Liyuen’s pants.
“There’s my good little pup,” Zhong says, affection dripping from his tone as he cupped Ajax’s chin and swiped his thumb over his lower lip before he takes the collar, carefully securing it around Ajax’s neck, “Now, stay.”
The next few minutes pass in silence, the only sounds in the room were from Zhongli flipping through the report pages and Ajax’s occasional shifts as he tries to find a comfortable position, which he later found as his arms wrapped around one of Zhongli’s legs and his head on the other male’s thigh.
It’s endearing, Zhongli muses, as he tore his eyes away from the papers in front of him and onto the tuft of red hair on his lap, fingers carding through the unruly locks. In moments like this, Zhongli finds it hard to believe that the male before him is the feared Tartaglia; the male who ended the Snezhnayan crime Queen’s life, the male who kills with no remorse, the man who betrayed a nation.
In the silence of the night, Zhongli remembered something his grandfather once told him about people and their faces. People have three faces, he would say, the first face you show to the world, the second face you show to your close friends and your family, and the third face you never show anyone; it is the truest reflection of who you are. And in moments like this, when they’re just Zhongli and Ajax–not Morax and Tartaglia–does Zhongli realize how true the saying is.
Childe and Tartaglia are confident. They’re outspoken, driven, and ruthless. Childe is the face Ajax puts on the most. He’s charismatic, cunning, and will smile at anyone and everyone; smiling as if there is nothing wrong in the world and as if he had never done anything wrong. He has a silver tongue that could charm politicians out of thousands and millions of mora, seduce numerous men and women into the bedroom for information, and as he held the knife against their throats with a manic smile on his face, his Childe mask melts and comes in Tartaglia; the mask he puts on when he’s out on the field.
Tartaglia is a name everyone in Teyvat fears, from his prior reputation as the Queen’s watchdog to his current reputation as Morax’s doll. He is skilled with any type of weaponry and will not hesitate to kill. No one knows how many lives Tartaglia has taken, how many families he had destroyed, no one knows how Tartaglia really works; for no one ever lived long enough to figure it out, and even if they do, they don’t survive to tell the tale.
But Ajax. Ajax is a softhearted boy who would sit on Zhongli’s lap during meetings, he would lay his head on Zhongli’s shoulder as he traced the intricate Liyuen pattern on Zhongli’s coat. Ajax is someone who often falls victim to nightmares and night terrors; often thrashing in his sleep as his hands would blindly hit Zhongli, but the taller male just holds him while whispering infinite ‘It’s okay, you’re safe. I’m right here.’s into his ear until he calms down. Ajax is someone who will cower into Zhongli’s embrace at the first sound of a thunder, he will seek the Liyuen man and stay with him until the rain stops. Ajax is someone who watched his city get burned down and his family slaughtered from the orders of a Queen who he used to serve. Ajax is someone who only Zhongli has the privilege to see and hold.
I’m so in love with you it’s maddening.
With Ajax taking over his thoughts, Zhongli knew he wouldn’t get any work done tonight. Gently untangling Ajax’s arms from around his leg, Zhongli picked the sleeping male up into his arms and carried him into their shared bedroom, softly shushing the male in his arms as he heard him whine, “At ease, Pup. Go back to sleep, yeah? I’m just gonna move us to the bedroom.”
“The report?”
“Far less important than you.”
“X– Xiansheng,” Ajax whined, hiding his face on the junction of Zhongli’s neck and shoulder, fingers gripping onto the ends of Zhongli’s hair. And as he was laid down on their shared bed, Zhongli hovering above him with his hands on either side of his head and Ajax’s fingers intertwined on the back of the other male’s neck did he notice how bright Zhongli’s eyes were.
“Xiansheng.”
“Yes, pup?”
“I have feelings for you, as much as someone like me can have.”
“I know. I love you, too, all sides of you.”