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Rose gold mornings are so sweet, what a kind feat it is when pale sunlight shines through the thin red curtains and paints the walls coral. Light laps at the floor, at the bedsheets, bringing with it promises of a peaceful day.
Once, Zhongli did not often appreciate the sunrise. As an immortal being who’d seen thousands of them, he’d allowed them to lose their meaning. Each day was just that; another day, and he’d paid them even less mind during the great Archon war. An old friend had helped him to relearn the importance, the beauty of each sunrise. He does his best to make the most of each one now.
Awakening to the heat of a human body each morning is something Zhongli is certain he’ll never get used to. He basks in the warmth, provided more so by his partner than the thin sheets they lie under.
His ever beautiful Childe is asleep next to him, facing him with his arm tucked under his head and breathing in long, relaxed breaths. A tell-tale sign he’s fast asleep, without a single care in the world. His lashes flutter just slightly; he must be dreaming — of what, Zhongli wonders — as it’s not the same sleepy, languid movement they make when he draws them open each morning. It always amazes Zhongli, the little things he notices about Childe the longer they’re together. He wonders if other humans are this expressive in their rest.
Childe’s bangs have fallen to one side and obscure his eyes just a little. Zhongli brushes them back with a touch so soft he can hardly feel the strands on his fingers. The most it gets out of his beloved is a small twitch of the brow.
Zhongli withdraws his hand and lies still, admiring the softness of his sleeping partner. Childe looks so precious like this. So gentle and peaceful, as if he doesn’t have the weight of his God’s expectations wearing down his young shoulders.
As if he’s not a dangerous warrior with a manic lust for spilling blood, for seeking out conflict, trained up into a revered killing machine at an even scarier age.
That side of him is one that hasn’t surfaced around Zhongli in some time, though Zhongli is sure he still unleashes it in his work as a Harbinger.
Childe breathes in deeply and turns his head away from his arm a bit. Zhongli can see him clearer now, could count each freckle on the man’s lovely cheeks if he so desired. As a former Archon he’s certainly got the patience and mind to. Maybe he would have, had he not already done it a thousand times over. He’d been so enamored with them when they’d first met (he still is); freckles are rather uncommon amongst the citizens of Liyue and it was not often he was able to see such endearing features up close.
He wants to ravish Childe — kiss him all over his pretty face, one for each and every single freckle he has — until his cheeks run red and he can’t think straight. And all the same, he wants to hold him gently and slowly, feel the softness of his skin and the way it moves beneath his fingertips.
He opts for the second choice and draws his love in close, sure he can still see his resting face. The movement seems to rouse Childe, as his lashes flutter once again — this time to reveal tiny slivers of sleepy blue.
For a long moment, Childe simply stares. Not at Zhongli, or anything in particular for that matter, just stares without much reaction as he gathers his bearings.
It’s just another thing that Zhongli finds utterly endearing. Childe emerging from the cusp of sleep is an entirely different Childe than the one he is used to during the day. This Childe isn’t loud or assertive, ready to fight everything that moves and frustrated when he cannot. Zhongli loves every single side of Childe equally, but he’ll relish in the fact that Childe in the morning is a side that only he will see.
Childe, mind muddled and soft with sleep, always feels so loose and pliant in his arms. He does only in the early hours of the morn or when they fall into bed at dusk, tangled in each other’s limbs. He flows as water would; never quite controllable, though willing to take shape in the binds of those he trusts as he sees fit. He is all around Zhongli, reducing the once immovable Archon to no more than a pebble in a brook, a rock in a sea of blue.
Some mornings (including this particular one) would find Zhongli pressing warm kisses to Childe’s exposed shoulder, the skin there chilled to the touch as the sheets had slipped down in their sleep. Others would find kisses far less chaste, but this is a sweeter morning than those. Zhongli wants nothing more than to curl up close to his beloved and to hold him tight.
“G’morning,” Childe mumbles, pulling back enough to see Zhongli’s face.
“Good morning.” Zhongli says right back. The sweet smile Childe gives him makes his heart feel so indescribably warm. It's as contagious as his laughter, and Zhongli can’t help but return it.
Illuminated in the morning light, Childe looks ethereal. Even with his unruly hair and a pillow mark on his cheek (one that is only barely visible to Zhongli, though) he is lovely.
You are beautiful , Zhongli wants to say, you are beautiful inside and out and I adore you so.
He doesn’t, only because he knows the compliment will fluster Childe awake, and Zhongli would rather lie still with him now.
“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” Childe asks, stretching one arm high into the air with a muted groan and resting it on Zhongli’s own arm when he’s done. His fingers smooth over the skin there, gently toying with the long dark hair spilling over the man's shoulder.
Zhongli smiles in light amusement.
“What should we do today, Ajax?” He returns instead, dodging the question entirely. If Childe had been more alert, there’s no way he would’ve let something like that slide — but Zhongli knows well what he can get away with when Childe is still this sleepy.
Childe pauses.
“...S’too early to think about that.”
Zhongli can’t help his endeared chuckle when Childe closes his eyes and nestles back into his pillow. In all fairness Zhongli doesn’t particularly want to get up right now, either.
“Come now, we can’t just lie around all day,” He says in spite of that. Childe scrunches up his nose and blatantly ignores him, which, in some part, he’s grateful for.
It is rare that they both have a day away from their duties at the same time. They should make the most of it. However, Zhongli knows that neither of them would particularly mind a lazy day spent at home simply enjoying each other’s company.
“Your hair is getting longer.” He muses, trapping a ginger curl between his fingers.
“I know, I need to get it trimmed.” Is Childe’s sleepy response. Zhongli hums, turning the little lock gently. Ajax would look lovely with long hair , he thinks, a thought he’d entertained a small handful of times.
“Have you considered growing it out?”
“I tried once, but long hair is a pain to take care of.”
“I see.” … and then, “I don’t mind trimming it for you.”
There’s an inexplicable familiarity in the softness of his hair, fluffy and freshly washed from the night before. He smells vaguely of glaze lilies, infused in the soap they’d used — and also of rain, something Zhongli has come to associate with Childe as it is a part of his natural scent.
Childe opens his eyes once again, and neither of them say anything, nor do they need to. They gaze at each other for a long while, bathing in comfortable silence, until Childe breaks it with an unexpected question.
“...Do I remind you of her?” he asks, voice hushed. He doesn’t elaborate, nor does Zhongli need him to, they both know who he’s talking about. There’s not a touch of jealousy in his tone or on his face, only a gentle curiosity that makes Zhongli’s heart ache.
Childe’s lovely eyes — framed with auburn lashes just like Guizhong’s, although her irises had been closer to the blue of a glaze lily rather than the deep, vast ocean — blink slowly. Patiently. While he has enough self control to act the part, Childe is not usually one to be patient as far as Zhongli has seen (and even less so in the heat of conflict; bloodlusting Tartaglia wouldn’t know the meaning of the word), but for his loved ones, it is abundantly apparent that he tries.
In short, yes.
In many ways, Childe couldn’t be more different from Guizhong. And in many more, they are very, very alike. Whatever differences or likenesses they may share, Zhongli is certain of one outstanding fact. Behind his battle-starved eyes and the fight in his heart, Childe is kind to the core. Just as Guizhong had been.
Zhongli, for all he loves to talk, chooses to remain silent. Given the way Childe watches him, however, he’s sure the young man already knows the answer to his question.
Instead, Zhongli brings a hand up to cup the length of Childe’s face. His skin is a little warmer now, but still cool beneath Zhongli’s fingers. He runs his thumb along the soft planes of his lover’s cheek, once again admiring the cute honey-dotted freckles he’d never quite grown out of.
“What brought this up?” Zhongli murmurs.
“Just… something in your eyes, I guess.” Childe looks a bit off, like even he doesn’t know why he’d asked. Still, his expression is light and understanding.
Zhongli brushes his thumb up near Childe’s eye, close enough to feel the instinctive flutter of his lashes at the proximity. His eyes are so very beautiful.
I love you , Zhongli thinks. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.
And then quieter, somewhere deep within the back of his mind, I miss you.
His hand leaves Childe’s face and he pulls Childe close to his chest again, where he knows his beloved is safe. Zhongli would fight the heavens and the earth to keep him safe.
Childe doesn’t seem to mind being caged in at the mercy of the former Archon’s arms. (He never minds it, really). He lets his cheek rest easily against Zhongli’s bare chest and his own hands move down to wrap around Zhongli’s waist.
Zhongli knows it’s nearly impossible for Childe to see anything other than skin in this position, and yet the way Childe fits in his embrace so comfortably, so willingly… is a sign of his complete and utter trust in Zhongli.
Trust that Zhongli still isn’t certain he deserves after having seen and used Childe as a mere pawn in a greater scheme so long ago. Childe had only been fulfilling his duties the in best way he knew how then, a cracking chess piece haphazardly moved onto the wrong square at an even worse time.
Zhongli never wants to see that look of dismay, of equal parts betrayal and (somehow) knowing on Childe’s face again. He hadn’t realized how truly and irreversibly fond he’d grown of the mortal until the very bitter reveal in the Golden House.
He’d hurt what little, already fragile trust Childe had put in him, and yet… Childe had come back to him. Had given him another chance. Has given him another chance, has placed his trust and now even his life in Zhongli’s hands multiple times over.
Zhongli vows he will not break that trust ever again. An unspoken contract locked only in his thoughts, forged in body and mind by the God of Contracts himself.
“I love you, Ajax.” He says into soft ginger curls, so quiet he’s not even sure Childe had heard him — but Childe doesn’t need to hear him to know it perfectly well.
Loving Childe is his everlasting contract. The spoken phrase, his signature.