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Maybe Lumine should have thought things through a little more before marching to the Golden House already covered in soot and scratches. That—certainly couldn’t have hurt. (Not any more than the hits those Treasure Hoarders had managed to land before she dealt with them, at least.)
Nothing could have prepared her for this. Childe looks as eager for a good fight as any other day. There is a—visible difference, though. He might not look any worse for wear, but the change is still impossible to miss. Literally.
Two fluffy, ginger cat ears poking out between unruly bits of hair. Lumine swallows. All the anger she’d been happily planning to punch out on the way here dissipates. Because—the thought is foreign, brings a strange heat to her cheeks—Childe looks adorable.
“Comrade,” he says. “You came.”
Lumine can make out the swish of a matching tail behind his back as he speaks. She closes her eyes tightly. This is horrible.
“Childe,” she says. “Are you—are you alright?”
“Why, I’m feeling terrific,” Childe says. “Just dying for a good fight.”
The look in his eyes should terrify her. He’s scarier when he’s toeing the line between human and not-quite than he is when he completely loses himself to the thrill of battle. Or, at least, that’s how it always feels to Lumine.
Still, she can’t help but walk closer to him, sword clutched loosely in hand. Childe could swipe it away easily if he wanted, could end the fight before it even began with a single, well-timed hit.
And yet.
“Do you know you have ears?” Lumine asks, peering up at him.
Childe looks taken aback. “Yes,” he says, the slightest tremble in his voice. “Most habitants of Teyvat are, in fact, aware they have ears. Did you hit your head too hard on the way here?”
“I meant cat ears,” Lumine says. He’s unreasonably tall, so she has to get on the very tips of her toes to manage it, but she carefully brings a hand to the tip of one fluffy ear, and runs a finger along the edge.
Childe shivers. A full-bodied, visible shiver that should just be ridiculous instead of reminding Lumine so painstakingly of an actual cat.
“Oh,” he says. “You meant those.”
Lumine isn’t used to hearing him sound so off-kilter. “Yes,” she says, stifling a laugh. “I meant those.”
“They’re a—recent development,” Childe says, like Lumine could have somehow missed this, despite the numerous fights that have ended with one of them pinned to the ground, barely inches between them.
(The strange heat is persistent today, it seems.)
“You don’t say.”
Childe gives her an awkward laugh. “The range of what can be accomplished with alchemy is truly fascinating,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I was trying—you see, cats are Tonya’s favorite animals, and she kept complaining in her letters about how Anthon’s allergies make having one impossible, so—I wanted something realistic. To make her happy.”
Lumine can’t help but laugh at him, this time. “You—archons, you’re ridiculous,” she says. If she were to prod, maybe she’d find out that, deep down, she much prefers this to him kneeling and bloodied. That’s a tangled feeling, though, so she tries to pretend it’s not there. Tries to pretend it’s not the reason he scares her more when he’s human. When there’s still something to lose.
“I will admit that attempting advanced alchemy on my own with no prior experience might not have been one of my brightest ideas.”
Lumine arches an eyebrow at him, and doesn’t speak.
“It might have actually been one of my worst ones,” Childe admits.
“I don’t know,” Lumine says. “I’d say you make a pretty kitty.” This is—definitely not what she came here intending to do, but the temptation is too big. Gently, she pets his ear again.
A sound too much like purring escapes Childe.
Realization hits Lumine like thunder, quick and unforgiving. “Are you—Childe, do you like having your ears touched?”
“It’s—you’re the first one touching them so. I mean, I did mention they’re, uh, recent.”
Huh. Childe gets embarrassed. This is—actually kind of fun. “Did you get them, like, two hours ago and rush here for our fight anyway?” Lumine asks. It’s a joke, obviously. Even he wouldn’t be reckless enough to—
Childe is silent.
“Archons, you did.”
“Do you know how cross Ekaterina gets with me when I miss out on office work?”
“What does that have to do with—”
“If I didn’t come today, we’d have to reschedule, which means I’d have to notify her, which means she might just murder me on the spot for messing up her timetables, so.” He pauses, gesturing around them. “This whole thing would be pointless.”
“Childe, I really don’t think—”
“Also,” he interrupts, “the soldiers guarding this place might not appreciate being knocked out twice in the same week.”
Lumine’s mouth purses. She wants to be mad at him. He’s made that really easy for her, considering he regularly tries to suffocate her with a giant whale made out of water, and still—
He’s got cat ears.
“Can I pet you?” Lumine blurts, which Eula would probably argue is not in the How to Seek Proper Vengeance on Your Enemies for Dummies handbook.
“I have a feeling this isn’t how this is supposed to go,” Childe says. Which. Is not a no. So.
Lumine shrugs. “I have a feeling I was supposed to hate you forever after that stuff with trying to awaken an ancient, vengeful god, but here we are anyway.”
The faintest red colors Childe’s cheeks. “I did express my remorse about that, didn’t I?”
(He’d promised to pay for food whenever she wanted. It had been more than enough to sway Paimon.)
“Look,” Lumine says, “If—if this bothers you, you can tell me, but—”
“It doesn’t bother me.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t bother me,” Childe repeats. “It’s just—I’m not used to—to this kind of touch, from someone besides family. And I don’t—I’m not certain how these new appendages are supposed to work yet, so it’s—it’s, um, overwhelming.”
Oh, Lumine thinks. Yet another surprise. Yet another irreconcilable, paradoxical bit of him to try and live with. He keeps doing this to her. Bearing himself in ways that convince Lumine he can’t see her as his enemy. It would be stupid, if he did. Foolish.
She brushes a thumb along one of his ears again. It’s soft, warm to the touch. “We can start slow,” she says. “If it gets overwhelming, tell me and I’ll stop.” She watches Childe gulp, only to follow it with a nod.
“That—doesn’t sound too bad.” His smile is tentative. Boyish. Lumine wishes, suddenly, that she could keep it.
“Okay, uh, how do we—do this?”
There’s a glaring logistical issue here.
“Maybe I should sit down,” Childe suggests.
And yeah, okay, fine. That would help. If the Golden House had anything besides piles of Mora inside, that would help.
“Sit where?”
“The ground?”
Lumine blinks. “You—wouldn’t mind that?”
There’s something truly indescribable about watching a Fatui Harbinger joyfully take a seat on the floor with his legs crossed under him. She tries to picture Scaramouche or Signora doing the same in front of her and just—can’t.
(Maybe she shouldn’t think too hard about that.)
“Do you do this a lot?”
“Kind of?” Childe says. “When she was little, Tonya wanted to learn how to braid, so I spent a lot of time sitting still and letting her practice on me.” He smiles, fond, and Lumine could swear she sees something too much like a sparkle of life in his gaze. “Of course, it’s been a while since I—it’s been a while since the last time I was home.”
“I’m sorry,” Lumine says.
Childe smiles at her. It’s the same smile he’d given her back at that ruin guard facility right before tearing himself to bits to keep a fragile dream from shattering. “It’s not your fault,” he says. “You make being in Liyue a lot of fun, comrade.”
Lumine doesn’t expect the exaggerated wink that follows, but it manages to fluster her still.
She swats at his arm. “Bad kitty,” she says, and Childe only laughs.
“I thought you liked that about me.”
“I still can’t believe you did this,” Lumine says. “You could’ve asked someone else. You could have asked me. I know alchemists. I’m sure Sucrose and Albedo would have been happy to—”
“Happy to help?” Childe asks. “I don’t know if you happened to notice, but not a lot of people are all that happy to help Fatui.”
“That’s—,” Lumine gnaws at the inside of her mouth. “You’re different.”
“How so?” Childe asks.
“You’re—you’re my friend,” Lumine says. “You’re—” Good. You’re good, despite it all, deep down, and it terrifies me a little, because—
“Careful,” Childe says, still giving her that smile. “I might start to think you like having me around, comrade.”
“Maybe I do,” Lumine says. “You’re not as scary as you like to think you are.”
Not scary at all, with ginger cat ears that twitch like they’ve always been there, a part of him. Lumine reaches, tentatively, to pull the one bent under the weight of his mask free, and, surprisingly, Childe lets her. Lets her touch, lets her push the mask to the side until it falls away, lets her set it aside and give in to the impulse to run her hands through his hair, push it off his forehead.
It’s—too much, maybe, but it doesn’t feel like it. Nothing like baring your neck to an enemy.
Childe doesn’t say anything, for once. Just looks at her. Time seems to move faster and not at all at once. They’re too close. They’ve always been too close, since that very first day. Even before the first time she’d stepped into the Golden House. Even after.
Lumine hadn’t wanted to trust him. Had known, from the very first word he spoke to her, that it would be a misstep.
She hadn’t planned for this kind of falling.
Childe’s breath tickles her cheek.
Close. Too close. She needs to—she needs to run, to flee, to not be here. Anywhere else. Anywhere else would be—
“You have terrible taste in men,” Childe says, a hand cupping her cheek, wiping away the dirt she hadn’t bothered to clean up. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
He’s smiling, so of course Lumine kisses him. Her heart clenches inside her chest, whispers keep this, keep him, don’t—
But she knows she can’t. So she kisses him again. And again. And again. Because it might be fleeting, but it is hers, this moment, the sound of his gasped breaths, the soft, almost gentle way he kisses her back.
Childe is smiling when they break apart, too, self-satisfied and a little teasing. “If I had known me having cat ears was all it would take, I would have done this sooner, comrade.”
“You’re an idiot,” Lumine says, but she gets a feeling Childe hears the words for what they are.