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“Tired, huh?” Childe shoots a grinning glance at Lumine, sprawled out across the grass atop the mountains encasing Liyue, stretching out and letting the warm sun enter her system. Up here, the citizens of Liyue that she admittedly loves, can’t find her and pester her to do their menial tasks—day in, day out.
“I’m going to take a nap here. Make of it what you will.” Tired eyes can barely hold his gaze, and she lets them close as he passes, close enough to rustle the grass around her head. She still doubts that letting her guard down to this degree around him is wise, but there’s little to stop her when she’s so exhausted.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he chirps, lying down in an equally sunny spot next to her. Despite her best interests, she rolls onto her side so that they’re facing each other, drinking in his casual appearance. His hair is messier than normal thanks to the altitude breezes, unbuttoned jacket discarded and given away to put under her head like a pillow; his stupid, halfway-done shirt falling over his stomach thanks to the work of gravity. Even with exhaustion clearly mulling her features, Lumine doesn’t bother to attempt closing her eyes. Sleeping out on a field is never really a safe idea, even if she’s so isolated, and she’d really not prefer to wake up somewhere unfamiliar (or not wake up again at all).
“Rest,” he says softly, so gently that it’s nearly hypnotizing. Childe’s ability to read her has gotten uncanny, downright scary, but it’s also oddly comforting to think that someone else might understand the mechanisms of her mind. “You’re safe out here. If you’re not going to sleep, then I am. And no one would dare to lay a finger on me, or the pretty thing curled up at my side, don’t you think?”
She has to laugh at those words, especially when the sheer arrogance of them contrasts with his actions. He reaches out, holding out an arm over her, and stops suddenly with it hovering over her body as if he’s afraid to touch. Afraid to cross a boundary, she theorizes, not without a million pangs of fondness and affection.
“You can touch,” she mumbles, tugging his arm over her securely and curling up a little closer. “You never seem to care about that when we’re sparring.” Her face is mere inches from his, and slowly, Childe’s head comes to lay on the grass next to hers. She can’t help but feel safe against him like this, enough that even her racing heart begins to calm down and allows Lumine to close her eyes, exhaustion quickly overtaking her worries even as she absentmindedly wishes she could have enjoyed this moment more. How such a chaotic man can exude such security, she’ll never understand.
Somewhere along the line, she wakes up a bit, a gentle lift from the guardian arms of sleep. It’s a surprise to see Childe just as asleep as she was, his arm still draped across her waist. The sun blankets everything in a dynamic warmth, fluctuating with the gentle breezes. The Liyue landscape is beautiful at this time of day—the sun has begun to set, painting the horizon in vermillions and salmon pinks and bright oranges. Her eyes meander between the brilliant sky, how it reflects off of the blue waters in the distant harbor—bathing the entire city in saccharine warmth with the wavering reflections—and the force of nature currently dozing in front of her.
She’s never doubted her initial judgement on Childe being objectively pretty. As much as she’d love to claim he makes her see red sometimes, it’s nothing more than the dye of her rose-colored glasses, traitorous things that Lumine blames for the amount of time she can spend daydreaming about him. His hair, which has always looked so soft, falls into his face, wild bits blown around by the constant wind. Without him watching her, Lumine can’t help the urge to brush it back from his eyes a bit, nearly melting as his sleeping face scrunches up at the touch for a quick moment. It’s just as soft as she had hoped, feather-light in her careful touch and she finds herself running a small section through her fingers again, again, again.
He never really stops moving enough for her to really study him, to put him under her metaphorical microscope like she really desires and just observe. Being so close to him, she can make out each of the faint freckles that dot across his nose and fan out gently on his cheeks. They’re darkest across his nose, and each one has an almost artful placement, a reflection of the stars placed by the universe itself. She’s quite glad his cerulean eyes remain closed—first, for the teasing she would certainly endure if he caught her looking at him with such an unguarded expression, and second, for how much Lumine knows she wouldn’t be able to handle their piercing blue at this proximity, not with her exhausted haze now chased by a comfortable rest.
Comfortable—she would absolutely laugh if she heard herself say such a thing out loud. Childe shouldn’t be comfortable—he’s loud, almost reckless, something tumultuous like a tsunami or a hurricane that would so easily smother her flames no matter how tenderly she tries to care for them. Paradoxically, just as water has oxygen, he is the fuel to her fire all the same. Unwavering loyalty, a willingness to help, someone who she can always fall back on, who she would willingly seek out for advice if she found herself in serious trouble—how so many conflicting things can fit one man honestly bewilders her.
A sudden shift of said chaotic entity causes Lumine to flinch, worrying that her touch woke him. However, where she would expect to see a soft, relaxed face, the one of someone just being drawn from the hands of sleep, his expression is drawn into some sort of close-eyed agony.
A nightmare, she recognizes with a pang of sympathy—after all, she’s far too familiar with her own. He’s quiet, and oddly still despite the circumstance, but without her bold thoughts quieting the world she can almost hear his mind whirring away. His hand brushes her back as it curls and uncurls, like he’s trying to grab at something (hold onto it, his desperate grip implies). A soft hum slips out against her forehead, a bit of hopelessness in the barely-there vocalisation.
Lumine moves her hand from where it sits at the ends of his hair to his face, palm resting over the side of his distorted expression. His skin is unfairly soft and smooth that it seems unfair (especially in comparison to the scars that litter his hands and forearms), and she slowly rubs her thumb across the slight raise of a cheekbone. Almost immediately, tension visibly washes away, draining from his body, his cheek turning into her warm touch. Pressed against her, his skin is slightly clammy, too. Nonetheless, it seems that such a soft gesture was able to somehow draw his sleeping brain out of whatever horrors it was producing. He falls silent, and Lumine marvels at how vulnerable he really looks when he’s entirely unguarded.
“Hmm?”
Blue eyes flutter open halfway, and the sharp edges drawn by worry seem to erase halfway when they catch Lumine still next to him. Despite that, his grip tightens even further, and Lumine knows her heart is starting to race. Childe’s arm contracts, pulling her closer in towards his chest, and she accepts the motion even as her heartbeat rocks her entire body.
“You had a nightmare,” she whispers, almost afraid to break the quiet. Time feels so slow, perhaps even unmoving between the two of them and the blazing sky overhead who bears witness to such an extraordinary moment. The hand not still tucked under her head reaches up, running back to his ever-messy hair. It’s soft, so unfairly soft that it doesn’t feel entirely real, and she feels a blush rising on her cheeks as he hums and leans against her palm. She drags her nails gently against his scalp, where a quick glance up reveals his eyes to be sleepily half-lidded and his lips curled into the smallest, most melancholic of smiles.
“I miss being your friend,” he muses in a convenient diversion, twirling a strand of her hair around his fingers lazily. It’s clear that he doesn’t want to talk about the dream—it’s his business, and she won’t press. There’s a million unrealistic comments about leaving the Fatui that swim behind her lips, all of them falling short as her hand falters for just a moment and her eyes suddenly find interest in the ground.
“I miss you a lot,” she responds softly. I care about you too much for what we’ll both have to do, an unspoken addendum, but she wonders if he knows. He probably does. He can read her like a book after they’ve spent so many hours so close together, both on the battlefield and out.
“Did you make any plans for your birthday?” Lumine’s quick to change the topic. Childe shrugs, a bit awkwardly given how he’s lying, and shakes his head no. “Don’t you want to celebrate it? You know, another year of conquering the world and finding yourself in combat?”
“Would you do me the honor of being my date, then?”
“I’ll have to think on that,” she can’t help but tease to hide the lightning that strikes down her spinal cord, laughing at the confusion that appears on his face. There isn’t a universe where she’d turn him down, but such a flabbergasted look is simply too rare to pass up. “As long as you promise not to bring any weapons, I’ll be more than happy to.” As expected, he groans and rolls his eyes.
“How am I supposed to protect a princess without a sword?” Childe complains, burying his face into the top of Lumine’s head.
“P-princess?!” She sputters, unable to hide the incredulity in her voice. Maybe she should regret being so nice to this man—she hates that nickname he uses for her, hates how at first she found it annoying and now it’s endearing, how the lilting, teasing way he says it always lingers in the back of her mind when she should be thinking about something more important.
“You’re my princess, Lumine,” he replies, so easily that for a moment she thinks she’s going to go unconscious in his arms from the pure shock. “I’d do anything for you to be safe and happy. After all, don’t you know that I’m all about protecting dreams?”