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One heavy step after another, Zhongli pants heavily as he struggles to heave each foot forward. He had retired from godhood weeks ago, but he has been feeling increasingly exhausted since. Could it be a side effect of losing his gnosis? There were no such records before so Zhongli doesn't know.
His vision is blurred, his head is in a strange sort of fuzzy woozy. His body trembles from the effort, his stomach, his throat, it feels like the contents are turning in him. He feels hot, like all his layers are sticking to him like glue. It is uncomfortable.
Suddenly, he feels the contents in his stomach churning. Up his esophagus it goes and Zhongli collapses onto the floor, hunches over in half as he spews all over his hand. He coughs once, twice, his throat raw and dry and burning from the acidic liquid. He notices people gathering around him, talking in whispers and horror. He coughs again and pukes once more, throat straining and vision swimming as he sways on the spot.
"Oh dear… what a mess." He hears someone from behind him sigh.
Before he can turn around to look at the person, his world spins in vertigo and his vision blurs as he feels himself being lifted up in the air. It takes a while before his vertigo settles, and when he reopens his eyes, he sees Childe.
"Chil-..." He tries to say, but his voice breaks off as his throat is too raw.
"Xiansheng," Childe starts, lowering his volume to just above a whisper as he moves.
Zhongli instantly holds onto Childe's lapel to keep himself steady, mindfully aware not to let his soiled hand touch the man's clothes.
It's been a while since he had last seen Childe. Not since the incident at Northland Bank where his status as the Geo Archon was revealed. Childe had appeared agitated about the ruse but he hadn't had the chance to speak with Childe privately before said man was whisked away to tie up the loose ends and be interrogated by the Qixing. Last he heard, the Traveller followed him around with his younger sibling to watch him do his job.
"-A human body is weak. Unlike an adeptus or a god, it needs food, water and plenty of rest. You must also consume them regularly and not only when you feel like it."
Zhongli frowns, not understanding how this is related to anything. His head is heavy and feverish, and his mind is working a lot slower than he is used to. It takes him a long while before he remembers that he is a mortal now, after having lost his gnosis, and it will take a while before his previously suppressed adeptal powers return. So right now, he is as weak as any ordinary mortal man.
A look of realisation must have dawned on his face, for Childe sighs again and lifts him up higher.
"What am I going to do with you… If you ask me, I think you are not yet prepared for the mortal life."
Zhongli decides not to grant him a response. Instead, he closes his eyes and gently lays his head against Childe's shoulder, placing his trust in Childe to keep him safe in his current weakened state.
.
By the time they reach Childe's place, Zhongli's fever skyrocketed. The brunet becomes a dead meat, slouching sloppily against the headboard as Childe goes about bumbling in the next room.
The first thing that the ginger does is to offer Zhongli a glass of water. Upon contact with the lips, the sick man immediately down it within seconds, hacking uncontrollably as some of it goes down the wrong tube.
"Oh geez, xiansheng…" Childe exhales tiredly. "Take your time to drink. No one is snatching it from you." He slaps the other on the back, hoping to stop him from choking.
When the coughing finally stops, Childe squats down in front of Zhongli, one hand resting on the other's knee and looks up into his eyes. "Listen up, xiansheng. The way your throat feels before you drink the water, that's called thirst. You need to recognise it. You were thirsty, and when you are thirsty, it's a sign that you are lacking in water. Our body is made up of 60% water so you need to drink to replenish it, understand?" He explains with the patience of a saint, as if he is talking to a little kid instead of a 6000 year old former god.
Zhongli simply nods, and Childe narrows his eyes, wondering whether he really does understand it or if he was merely just nodding along, but ultimately sighs and lets it go.
Crossing the room to the closet, Childe skims through his few clothes before taking a nightwear attire and tosses it in Zhongli's direction.
"Xiansheng, we are about the same size, so wear my shirt for a while, yeah?"
However, gone is the usually dexterous funeral consultant, replaced with a tired man who merely looks on with misery as the clothes soar through the air and land on his head. The sight of the pristine Zhongli covered by his nightwear hanging over his head is so bizarre that Childe can't help the laughter that bubbles out of him. The laughter soon dissolves into coughs as it triggers the pain in his abdomen, the injuries he sustained during the visit to Dottore's ruin guard lab not yet healed. Rubbing his stomach in pain, Childe supposes it's his karma for laughing at Zhongli.
"Come on, xiansheng. Stop sitting there like a shocked bunny, let's change out of your clothes."
Zhongli, as Childe soon realises, is super uncooperative when he is sick. He is deaf to instructions and totally not proactive. This serves as a headache for Childe because oh archons have mercy he needs to get Zhongli out of the dirty clothes to wash. Yet this manchild refuses to move a muscle to aid in the removal of clothes, so poor Childe has to resort to manhandling the other like he is an infant who is still lacking in control over his body. And is that a pout that is slowly forming on his face? Because celestia-shit that's cute as fuck. He thinks Zhongli might be the end of him.
After many physical struggles and mental curses, Childe finally manages to get the clean clothes on Zhongli. He does a victory pose in his head as he looks on proudly at the job he has accomplished. Zhongli looks… adorable… to say the least. Though they are of the same height, Zhongli veers towards the skinny, delicate side, making him look so tiny in Childe's baggier clothes. It makes Childe want to coo at him.
Helping the brunet to lie down on the bed, the harbinger covers the former Geo Lord in his comforter and makes sure he is properly settled in before he leaves to cook some porridge. Going by the tremors in the other's body, the archon probably hasn't eaten for quite some time.
Except… by the time the porridge is prepared, Zhongli looks too comfortable to want to move.
"Psst… Zhongli xiansheng!" Childe calls out, jabbing him on the shoulders. "I got you some porridge! Can you sit up and eat?"
Zhongli slaps his hand away and turns on his side.
"Yoo-hoo~! Xiansheng?" He switches to poking the other at his cheeks.
Zhongli makes some kind of unhappy growl and buries himself further into blankets.
"Okay. That's it." Childe claims with finality. He pulls the blanket off the sick man, places two hands under his armpits and hauls him up into a sitting position, much to the protest of the former god.
Zhongli peeks open an eye, glares accusingly at Childe and growls like a dragon.
Childe growls back. "Don’t act like a kid. You are hungry!"
As if on cue, the brunet's stomach decides to demonstrate the sound of a dying whale.
"See? Even your stomach agrees with me. This is called hunger. Remember that. Now eat!"
Zhongli proceeds to fully glare at Childe.
Had Childe been a lesser man, he would have withered under the intense gaze of a god. But most unfortunately for Zhongli, Childe is the elder brother to three younger siblings, so he has long since developed an immunity to temper tantrums, making his efforts ineffective. On the contrary, Childe thinks that Zhongli's flushed face and glazed over eyes coupled with a messy hair and a grumpy face that is turning into another pout is the cutest thing he has ever seen.
With relative ease stemming from years of practice, Childe scoops a spoon and brings it to Zhongli's mouth.
Zhongli is a martial god, and part of the qualities of being a martial god is to be able to acknowledge a losing battle and retreat till a more opportune time. Zhongli recognises a losing battle when he sees one, and in this case, he deems it a losing battle, so he reluctantly opens his mouth to let the spoon in.
.
Things are going smoothly. But just as Childe thought Zhongli is finally being cooperative, the man stops taking another spoonful of porridge.
"Come on xiansheng, finish up the porridge…" The ginger begs, bringing the spoon close to his mouth.
But petulant recently becomes Zhongli's middle name, and the man resolutely turns his face away from the feeding utensil. Childe arrows the spoon to his mouth again, only to have him turn his mouth away once more.
"Xiansheng, please don't make things difficult for me…"
Zhongli looks at him with an indiscernible expression, before opening his mouth and taking the porridge in…
...Only to lean over the bed to projectile vomit all over the floor.
Zhongli coughs, and then frowns and whines miserably at Childe, tugging on his sleeves incessantly.
"Okay okay, no more forcing porridge into you," Childe quickly soothes, patting the other on his back. He helps him lie back down on the bed before cleaning up the mess.
"You see how weak and fragile the mortal body actually is? I can't believe you would choose this over an immortal body." The Snezhnayan sighs, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Suddenly, he feels strong arms wrapping around his waist, and he barely has time to look down before his world turns and he finds himself with a body full of Zhongli.
The feverish man whines as he buries himself into Childe's chest, letting out a huge sigh before finally settling down below the ginger's chin, falling into a deep sleep.
Fuck. Is what Childe thinks, because he is literally stuck. Though ill, Zhongli still has the strength of a stone, and with his arms wrapped tightly around his waist, Childe can't wiggle out no matter how he twists and turns like a worm.
Stuck on his side facing the former god, Childe resigns himself to the poor fate of a bolster as he mindlessly pats the other's soft, brown hair.
Zhongli might be the death of him some day.
.
Childe wakes up to the sun setting in the horizon. He looks around, dazed as his absently pushes the blanket aside, his mind trying to register his surroundings. Then, when everything clicks together for him, he jumps because celestia-shit Zhongli is gone!
No, it couldn't be a gone to the toilet kind of gone. It's gone as in poof. Dissolved until nothingness. Disappear into thin air. Because nothing would explain why there are Childe's nightwear left on the bed but no signs of Zhongli anywhere.
Childe quickly gets off the bed, only to have something big and slithery swoop up his back and latch onto his shirt. He very nearly screams, scrambling to reach behind him to grab that unknown object and throw it as far away as possible, and he almost does until his eye catches sight of something brown and it takes all of his self control to stop his hand from letting go of that object.
In his hand dangles a brown creature covered in scales and fur and looking so much like a gigantic lizard. Except on closer look, Childe notices two protruding yellow horns on the top of its head and one smaller horn in the middle of its forehead. That creature looks oddly familiar, though Childe cannot put a finger on it until he sees the fluffy, cloud-like tail and it suddenly hits Childe that it reminds him of Rex Lapis' exuvia, and that he is perhaps, holding a smaller version of it.
It dangles in the air, little arms thrashing randomly and body twisting until Childe accidentally loses his grip on it. With its new found freedom, the mini exuvia immediately swoops under Childe's shirt, resting itself against his chest to steal his body heat.
Childe stares, stunned by what just transpired. "Xiansheng…?" He asks, bringing a hand to cradle the bulge in his shirt.
The little dragon responds by opening his eyes, looking at him with mesmerising cor lapis eyes, before closing it and curling around him to sleep.
Yep. That's Zhongli alright. His body may change its shape but his eyes never lie.
He probably changed into a dragon so that he can better recover from his illness. But then, there comes a problem. Childe knows the ins and outs of a human body. But he has absolutely no idea about caring for a lizard dragon, let alone a sick one.
If memory serves, he remembers reading a book about reptiles with Anthon and it mentioned that reptiles eat insects. A dragon is closest to a reptile, and Childe suppose its closest reptilian relative is a lizard? Oh archons, celestia forbid Zhongli finds out that he is being compared to a lizard right now but, hey at least Childe is trying to help, right?
Lizards are cold-blooded so Zhongli is most likely siphoning his body heat to get better. Childe pulls out his red scarf and wraps it around his neck, letting Zhongli hide in it so that he can receive both the body heat and be protected from outside elements. Once he decides that Zhongli is warm and secure enough, he leaves his house to go outside.
A couple of days ago, Childe went with the Traveller to show Teucer his 'toy company'. Along the way, the Traveller was catching whatever fireflies and butterflies she could find. They were needed for some potions, she had said. Either way, he recalls plenty of bugs in that direction, so that's where he is heading. It is also fortunate that it is night time now, so it makes spotting the fireflies a lot easier.
.
Now Childe wouldn't consider himself an expert in bug catching, but he did a pretty good job if he dares say so himself. Considering the fact that he hunts people and not bugs for a living, being able to catch a handful of bugs is really a job well done.
Except… Zhongli does not seem appreciative at all. No, that little dragon is on the bed, glaring daggers at the plate of dead bugs placed in front of him with extreme disgust as though he is offended by its presence. Or at least, his face is as close as it gets to the look of disgust on a dragon anyway. And Childe would have felt insulted for his efforts if not for the fact that he is still worried about Zhongli's illness. A growl shakes him out of his thoughts, and Zhongli hisses angrily at the bowl of arthropods before burying under the blankets and curling up into a ball.
Fuck, that is… so cute he could die.
Anyway, if Zhongli doesn't eat the insects, then he is throwing them away. No way in hell is he going to keep it any longer than necessary.
When Childe returns, the bundle that is Zhongli is moving about, occasionally producing crunching sounds.
"Zhongli xiansheng, what are you doing?" He asks, lifting the blankets up. To his horror, he finds the dragon chewing onto a piece of Cor Lapis.
"Xiansheng! Why are you eating a rock?!" He lifts the dragon up and away from the Cor Lapis, only for it to struggle and slip out of his hands down the bed and starts latching and chewing on the rock again.
"Zhongli xiansheng!" Childe tries to pull the Cor Lapis away, but the dragon latches onto the amber rock with his tiny claws, not letting go one bit as he gnaws onto it. He crushes the rock with his teeth before chewing and swallowing it.
"Wait… don't tell me… you actually eat rocks?" The Harbinger questions, surprised. The dragon does not deign him a response. Sighing to himself, Childe pushes the dragon to one side of the bed as he occupies the other side, laying down to rest for the night.
.
Childe rises to the sound of the little tree birds' singing. He rubs his eyes before opening them to an eyeful of deep amber. The ginger yelps, jumping out of his bed to a very very naked Zhongli.
Said man has the gall to stretch in his bed like a cat before he pushes himself up, blanket sliding down his very naked shoulders to his very naked hips and bunches around his very naked groin. It takes Childe every ounce of his harbinger training to not look down.
"Good morning, Childe." Says the former god as if everything is as per normal and he is not in his gloriously naked self. "If you don't mind me asking, why am I here?"
"A-... …Y-... You collapsed outside so I brought you in. D-do you not remember?" Childe stutters out.
The god tilts his head and thinks for a moment, before shaking his head. "Unfortunately, I have no recollections of it." He stands up from his bed and the blankets cascade down to reveal him in his full naked glory.
Childe splutters, before running to the other side of the room to grab a random pair of shirt and pants and throw it in Zhongli's general direction.
"Just-!!! -Put something on and wash up in the toilet before we talk, okay?!"
The retired archon merely hums, and then strolls into the toilet without an ounce of shame at his state of attire.
Childe sighs and buries his head into his hands and shakes uncontrollably. He really needs to teach the god the ways of a mortal. Really, Zhongli would be the death of him.