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Zhongli has witnessed, experienced many losses during his life, some more personal than others, some a piercing pain through his heart while some remains a dull stab that lingers even to the present day.
Yet nothing, nothing could have prepared him for this moment.
Childe’s once sharp clear blue eyes now lack their shine, glossed over with a foggy tinge that can only be from the passage of time. His once bright sunset coloured hair painted with streaks of silver. His hand, adorned with wrinkles as his body struggled to maintain its youthful exterior, stretches out gingerly, reaching for the person silently sitting in front of him.
“Xiansheng, I must go. It’s time…”
Slowly, Zhongli takes his hand, with the care to a priceless antique, he places Childe’s palm on his cheeks.
He stubbornly refuses to answer him, as if choosing to ignore his statement would mean the impending doom would not arrive.
He buries his nose in his hand, letting himself drown in the distinct smell that is Childe and Childe alone. Childe, Ajax, Tartaglia. His husband, his lover, his best friend.
Childe manages to stretch a weak smile,
“I guess you finally win this match huh. Although, the whole immortality thing is a bit of an unfair advantage.”
When Zhongli still doesn’t respond, Childe sighs with a soft fondness,
“Xiansheng.. it’s okay. It’ll be alright.”
Zhongli internally curses himself at the irony of the situation, the patient on their deathbed comforting the healthy, fit person. Yet, he still can’t bring himself to speak.
He feels broken inside, like someone is crushing his lungs, each breath grows shorter and more difficult. He suddenly feels weak again, akin to the time long before he was a name widely known to Liyue. When he was a mere nameless rock, residing in the lightless crook of a hill. All he saw was darkness, his entire world the stony grey wall that encaged him. The dreadful sense of loneliness and hopelessness climbing back to him, threatening to swallow him whole.
“Xiansheng? Li! Zhongli!”
It’s the warm timber of Childe’s voice that pulls him out. Of course it’s him, it’s always been him. Hair bright like the sun and eyes clear like the ocean, again and again, he saves him.
“Zhongli.”
Childe repeats his name with a sternness Zhongli rarely hears him use.
He manages to peek up at him through his blurry vision, wait, blurry?
Childe gently sweeps the wetness on his face with his thumb,
“Oh Xiansheng, there is no need to shed tears for me.”
Tears? Oh, he must have been crying.
He glances at Childe’s smiling visage. How is he so strong? He can't even imagine how much pain he must be going through right now. Zhongli wishes, more than anything, that he could willingly take away all of his sufferings and inflict them upon himself. He would do anything, just to make it a little easier for the man he loves. Yet, perhaps even gods have their limits, hardships they must endure, barriers they cannot leap over.
“Promise me one thing, Zhongli.” Childe is speaking again.
“You won’t wallow over me. You won’t mope for longer than necessary. And you will move on, find another, and live a good life.”
If Zhongli’s throat isn’t closing up with increasing tightness every second, he could’ve chuckled. Even in his last moments, Childe is as forceful and strong willed as ever.
“No.”
He finally manages to croak out, his voice hoarse and scratchy like wood on sandpaper.
“What? No, you don’t get a choice, you must. I firmly forbid you to be hung up on me.”
“Childe,” Zhongli says, rolling his name over his tongue delicately, treasuring the last few times he’ll get to say it to its owner.
“I can promise you anything in this world. But I cannot, in any way shape or form, promise that I will let you go.”
Childe opens his mouth to interject, immediately shushed by one of Zhongli’s finger,
“It would simply be a lie. A contract that I know I cannot fulfil. And as the god of contracts, I cannot in right consciousness agree to an obligation I am physically incapable of doing.”
Childe stares at him wordlessly,
“Childe, oh Childe. You must let me mope, you must let me cry endlessly for days. You must, for what else am I to do? Without you by my side, life has no more meaning, no more purpose.”
Zhongli continues on, not daring to cast his gaze on Childe in fear that he will not be able to continue.
“And to force me to look for another? You must be insane. Who else, other than you, could withstand my hour-long lectures on the customs of liyue, or the various rock types a miner could source? Would you really impose that sort of tedious boredom onto someone else?”
He hears a chuckle, “That's indeed true, you are a giant nerd.”
“So,” Zhongli tightens his clasp on childe’s hand, and dares to shift his eyes up to his.
“Let me love you, let me love you now, tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that. Let me love you, always. For my heart knows no other way.”
...
“Okay.” Childe's eyes shine with tears and a familiar glimmer Zhongli has learnt through the years to be adoration.
He doesn't know what tomorrow holds. He doesn't want to, or rather, is terrified to imagine a future without this man by his side. But he thinks, with a faint glowing hope in his heart, maybe it will be okay.
Zhongli focuses on their interlocking fingers.
For he will always live on in his memory, and in all that is beautiful in life, he will reside.
In the majestic mountains casting over Liyue, in the humming bees looming over blooming silk flowers, in the fluttering wings of glowing crystalflies, he sees him.
In the rushing streams of waterfalls, in the soft ringing laughters of running children, in the wild billowing waves on the coast of Yaoguang Shoal, he hears him.
Then perhaps, he never truly leaves him.