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It starts off as a joke, albeit a pretty poor one.
“Zhongli.” Childe saunters onto the terrace in front of Wanwen Bookhouse one day, an easy lilt to his voice.
Zhongli barely acknowledges his presence from where he sits, currently engrossed in the second volume of Legend of the Lone Sword. “Hm?”
“Mind if I borrow your gnosis?”
“Okay,” he says. Turns a page, brings one hand up to his chest. It sinks in as easily as if his flesh were mercury, and comes out holding a distinct little object, shimmering and pulsing in the sunlight.
He holds it out towards Childe, eyes still glued to the novel. “Here.”
For the first time in his life, Childe is lost for words.
Zhongli finally looks up from the page. “Is something the matter?”
“I… It’s... okay. I don’t. I don’t need it.” He replies, like a dumbass.
Zhongli stares at him, tilts his head, then casually slots the gnosis back into his ribcage and resumes reading. Childe quietly walks backwards down the stairs, and that’s the end of that.
He tries again right before dinner, two days later.
Zhongli is holding his chopsticks to his eyes, inspecting the elaborate traditional carvings engraved on them when Childe decides that now is as good a time as any.
“Zhongli,” he says, this time much more warily, “may I borrow your gnosis?”
“You may.” Zhongli replies without batting an eyelash.
Childe’s sane mind instantly goes into hibernation as he watches Zhongli poke his chopsticks into the centre of his chest — through fabric and all — to pull out the gnosis, and then he deposits it right onto Childe’s empty plate like if it were just a crystal shrimp dumpling. The vaguely horrified expression of the whole cooked snapper on their table is a surprisingly good representative for Childe’s current emotions.
“Let us eat.” Zhongli announces, and Childe realises with a visceral sort of horror that Zhongli doesn’t bother to wipe his chopsticks before he reaches for a blade of bok choy.
Zhongli seems to sense his deep unease after swallowing his first mouthful of food.
“It is… sanitary, for the lack of a better term,” he points at his chest while reassuring him (Childe does not feel the slightest bit reassured), “in here.”
That doesn’t make things better, Childe thinks hysterically, staring at the gnosis. The gnosis stares back at him, seemingly equally as confused.
“Are you not going to eat?” Zhongli inquires after watching Childe make little attempt to touch his utensils.
“...I need to use the restroom.” Childe pulls one side of his mouth upwards into what is hopefully a passable smile. He gets up, bangs his shin on the table leg (son of a fuck!) and hobbles his way out of the room like an upset hillichurl and towards the restrooms.
After locking himself in a stall, he sighs, slumps onto the closed toilet seat, and buries his head into his hands.
...What the hell is going on?
Zhongli comes in to check up on him an hour later, fearing that Childe may have developed an unfortunate case of food poisoning even though he hasn’t even touched the food yet.
Upon coming back to the dinner table, he finds himself surprisingly relieved to find the gnosis gone from his plate. They don’t speak of the incident for the rest of the evening.
Childe wonders if he’s losing his mind. When he got assigned to Liyue all those months ago to take its local god’s equivalent of a heart, he was expecting a lot more blood, a lot more betrayal, a lot more… well, you know, angst.
Instead, what he gets is confusion, mental gymnastics, and, apparently, a sugar baby in the form of a fiscally irresponsible trivia maniac.
At this point he’s seriously considering handing over this mission to one of his colleagues for the betterment of his mental wellbeing. He’s all for getting a mission done smoothly, but, well, there are also going to be problems if it seems like he finished it too smoothly.
Casually returning back to Snezhnaya with the Geo Archon’s gnosis in hand without a single scratch to his hair probably falls squarely in the latter category. The Tsaritsa is the type to void people of their heads simply on the grounds of suspicion — Childe knows far too well — and if that isn’t suspicious, then Childe doesn’t know what kind of ground they’re standing on anymore.
But back to the problem; he can’t beg Signora for help — he can already see her cackle in his face and punch him in the stomach and proceed to disregard all his problems, because of course Signora is the type of person to take joy in kicking people when they’re down.
Pulcinella is probably too busy. Il Dottore is basically a cryptid in his labs. Most of the other Harbingers are probably on the other side of the world, so he should stick to someone that’s operating relatively nearby.
Scaramouche it is, then.
Best case scenario, that intimidating little bowl-cutted kid (he’s actually older than Childe, but Childe isn’t exactly known for respecting his superiors) comes and extracts the gnosis himself. Worst case scenario, he won’t respond at all.
With that thought in mind, Childe sits down at the desk and begins to write his elaborate and convincing appeal for help.
S,
This is killing me. Help.
Best regards,
T.
He receives Scaramouche’s heartfelt response five days later, sealed very formally with a traditional wax stamp that carries the faintest scent of Inazuman thunderstorms.
T,
Good. Then perish.
Worst regards,
S.
It only gets worse from there.
For some reason, it seems that Zhongli is now hellbent on getting Childe to accept his figurative heart. The notion would be cute if Childe wasn’t so concerned about the fact that the man does not seem to have a single bone of self-preservation in his whole body.
“Childe, give me your hand.”
“Zhongli we are in the middle of battle why are you asking me to hold your hand—”
Childe finds himself cut off as Zhongli pulls his arm and shoves something into his palms, solid and heavy, before the other man twists himself around and spears two hillichurls straight through the abdomen like a barbeque skewer. Debris flies up into Childe’s hair.
Childe almost drops the gnosis. “What the—”
Zhongli meets his eyes — a mischievous twinkle in there that Childe didn’t think could exist — squares his shoulders and sends a shockwave blasting through the dirt, raising dust and rocks and roots into the air to topple over the enraged hillichurls, before finally piercing his spear in quick succession and raining destruction onto whatever remains from their previous onslaught.
Childe stares, the watery polearm in his hand losing its shape and seeping into the ground.
“Why?” Childe shoves the gnosis into Zhongli’s pocket once the dust has settled.
And Zhongli, the voice of all reason— too much reason, responds, “if I had died, I would have needed someone to carry on my legacy.”
Childe thinks that Zhongli’s line of reasoning stretches so far around the circumference of the earth that it would wind back to its original position and stab itself in the head, effectively rendering it dead.
“But,” Childe says weakly, feeling his brain start to astral project itself, “you wiped the floor with them anyways.”
Zhongli gives him a tiny smile.
Childe’s brain short-circuits. “And wouldn’t you be invulnerable with the gnosis anyways?”
“That is irrelevant,” Zhongli says dismissively as he walks over to pick an arrowhead off the ground. “Now, how many of these do we need again?”
“Mister Zhongli of Wangsheng has left something for you while you were gone.” Ekaterina tells him a few days later whilst in the midst of conducting a preliminary audit for the bank.
Oh no, is Childe’s first thought. And then; oh fuck.
“What did he leave?” Childe leans so far over the reception counter that his feet have practically left the ground. Ekaterina shoots him a withering look before pushing him out of her personal space. She reaches downwards.
“A small pack of glaze lily flavoured sachima,” Ekaterina says, fumbling around.
Childe breathes a sigh of relief—
“And a strange little glowing chess-like object.”
—and shrieks. Apparently Zhongli is not adverse to the idea of handing his lifeline around like a hot potato to just about any random citizen in Liyue.
Childe wakes up one week later to a very suspicious small parcel sitting innocuously at his door. The horsetail fibre wrapping is held together by a red string with a knot style that has gone out of fashion since maybe two centuries ago.
He opens it. He laughs. He drags a hand down the side of his face.
“I need a word with you.”
Zhongli looks upwards from where he’s arranging the flowers on the reception desk of Wangsheng Parlour. “Good morning, Childe.”
“Don’t ‘good morning’ me.” Childe grumbles halfheartedly.
Zhongli frowns in concern. “Is something the matter?”
Childe scowls. He makes sure that there is no other person within their general vicinity before he stalks up to Zhongli and stares him dead in the eyes. Zhongli stares back, as patient and dense as a rock.
“Rex Lapis. God of Contracts. Pure of Heart and Dumb of Ass.” Childe says solemnly, hand reaching into his pocket. “You have got to be shitting me.”
“My rule does not extend to donkeys.” Zhongli points out.
“No,” Childe agrees numbly. He wants a vacation. “It does not. But that’s besides the point. Have you forgotten the significance of your gnosis?”
“I have not.”
“Then why,” he thrusts out his hand, “am I, an enemy of the state, holding it in my hand? Is this some sort of divine joke?”
“I assure you, it is not a—”
“Then tell me why you’re being so careless with it.”
Zhongli pauses.
He proceeds to lean in so close that Childe can see each little strand of the consultant’s long eyelashes, each little shimmer in his rouge eyeshadow. Zhongli closes his hands around Childe’s, and Childe can feel the heat of the gnosis pulse gently within his palms.
“It is because...” Zhongli starts, his voice soft, earnst, heartfelt. Childe holds his breath. For some reason his heart is suddenly pounding a million miles an hour.
“Because?” He asks. A very small, very unhelpful part of his brain enthusiastically tells him that this feels exactly like a scene straight out of one of Tonia’s unbearably sappy romance novels.
“...I want to retire.” Zhongli tells him.
“...”
“...”
Childe executes what he thinks is the only acceptable response. He headbutts Zhongli.
Zhongli yelps, head snapping backwards, and in a bid to stabilise himself he grabs onto Childe’s sleeve and drags them both back downwards and five seconds later the two of them end up lying on the marble floor of Wangsheng Parlour all tangled up in a very disoriented pile of Stupid.
Childe stares at the ceiling, feeling absolutely nothing at all in his brain. Is mental vacancy contagious? He’ll have to ask Ekaterina later.
Zhongli manages to untangle himself from Childe’s right arm, then rolls himself over and gazes fondly at Childe’s dazed expression. One of the dark strands of his hair is sticking straight up into the air.
“And,” he continues, ”it is a gesture of my resolve. I would like to spend the rest of my life with you, if you would accept me.”
“Was that a confession?” Childe brings his hands up to his face. His head hurts from where it had slammed against the ground. “Because that was unromantic as fuck. I want a redo.”
An hour later, after a more coherent exchange in which Zhongli tries to reenact the entire scenario sans the minor head concussions and Childe panickedly tries to backtrack over the fact that he has accidentally let slip of his not-exactly-well-concealed criminal mastermindery, they finally reach the daunting topic of Zhongli’s peculiar romancing techniques.
Childe can feel his blood pressure rise as he childishly and unsuccessfully tries to shove the gnosis back into the other man’s chest. “Why are you like this?”
The gnosis does not budge through the fabric of Zhongli’s tie no matter how hard he pushes. “What do you mean?”
“Sorry, bad question.” Childe slumps back onto his ass, giving up. They’re both still sitting on the floor. “Why are you doing this? I’ve never been able to read you properly, but even I can tell that you can’t simply be doing this out of,” Childe’s tongue tangles up into itself, and his next word becomes garbled. He aborts it. “You know.”
Zhongli blinks slowly from where he sits, kneeled on the floor and looking, annoyingly, far too dignified for the situation. “Yes. It is also out of my respect for the future independence of Liyue.”
Oh. Childe remembers now. “That’s a fancy way to say you don’t want to work anymore, isn’t it? Are you that willing to let Liyue just become a godless nation like that?”
“Barbatos has let his people reign freely over themselves,” Zhongli points out, “and they are doing fine.”
His tone is wise, but Childe can’t help but feel that his words carry an inappropriate amount of naivety for someone of his status and age. Or maybe it’s stubbornness. The two often overlap, after all.
Childe snorts. “Last time I checked, the city of Mondstadt almost got flattened like an urban pancake before Barbatos miraculously woke up from his drunken stupor and helped our dear traveller beat that overgrown lizard.”
That came out harsher than intended. But in his defense, he’s only borrowing the words from Signora’s report. Or, the general gist of it, in any case.
Anyways, Zhongli doesn’t even seem to notice. “I have faith in my people and their self-governance. They have not braved the ferocious mountainsides and inhospitable slopes of this land to be so easily overthrown by adversity in the lack of my presence… it is inevitable that the status quo is to eventually be broken.”
“But I still can’t see how Liyue losing its god will be beneficial for its future, especially when all its people have latched onto your every word for the last four thousand years.” Childe flips the gnosis up into the air, his bad habit of fidgetiness kicking in.
Then he quickly catches it again, because for a hot second he forgot that he was playing flip-the-bottle with what is essentially Zhongli’s lifeline.
“It is for their own benefit. I have never believed in — nor intended to rule — Liyue as a theocracy.” Zhongli’s vivid eyes are pointed at Childe, but they look through him, rather than at him, as if Childe were simply the same as the afternoon rays of light around them. “The Yakshas and I raised this nation atop the corpses of our adversaries... but it wasn’t for our sakes, per se. Rather, it was simply our divine obligation— every god is bound to their duty towards their people. However, there must be people in the first place, otherwise they simply remain as a spirit.”
Childe stares at him with wide eyes. “You keep talking about your people, but what are you hoping to gain from all this?”
“A life of normalcy,” Zhongli immediately replies, “to be one with my people, and to experience existence as they do.”
Childe chuckles. “But don’t you already have that?” He gestures at the rest of the parlour. “Eating, sleeping, mingling, working… all you need now is mora.”
Zhongli pointedly ignores that last jab. “To be human… is not just to simply act like one.” He closes his eyes, and Childe holds up the gnosis in front of his eyes positioned on Zhongli’s chest. Amber against black has always been a stunning combination.
“Then what else?”
Zhongli lowers his head, and for some strange reason, it feels as if he were pleading with Childe.
“Many things.” He answers cryptically. “Things that godhood does not permit us to have.”
Childe frowns, and places the gnosis on top of Zhongli’s hands. Zhongli acknowledges it, but doesn’t accept it.
“I can’t imagine what a god can’t have that we can.”
Zhongli gently pushes Childe’s fingers to curl inwards around the gnosis. “Even with the power residing within us, the greatest adversity of them all… is learning how much remains beyond our control.”
“But even if you’re the Geo Archon—”
“No,” Zhongli places a finger over Childe’s mouth and smiles affectionately. The sun casts them one last glance before it dips beneath the mountains— the end of a long, unchanging day. “The Archon of Geo is no more.”
A week later, Childe reaches into his pocket and places the gnosis onto the table. Zhongli still adamantly refuses to take it back, and at this point Childe has all but given up. So at this point he has finally decided to play along with the other man’s antics.
The traveller finally registers the sight — the little glittering chess piece sitting innocuously in plain sight — and his rice drops out of his mouth and into his tea. His eyes flicker wildly between the gnosis and Zhongli’s bright eyes, no doubt connecting the dots.
He stands up and points at Childe, who is sporting the biggest shit-eating grin ever seen by Teyvat, slamming his thighs into the edge of the table while doing so.
“...You.”
“Me.”
Then Aether swivels around to point accusingly at Zhongli. “You.”
Zhongli points at himself, having the gall to look mildly surprised. “Me…?”
The traveller looks like he wants to say a million things at once, but none of them make the journey out of his mouth in a coherent manner, so in the end he stands there and simply opens and closes his mouth wordlessly like an anaphylactic carp.
Zhongli looks unironically concerned (bless him). “Traveller,” he furrows his brows, “are you choking?”
“Zhongli, you don’t ask an evidently choking person if they’re choking.” Childe points out. “Just go straight to the heimlich and hope they survive.”
Zhongli nods while getting out of his seat, preparing to exert whatever meagre first aid knowledge he has on his despondent guest.
Paimon flies in front of him and smacks herself into his face. “Waitwaitwait!” She yells, “you’re the Geo Archon?!”
Five chaotic minutes later, Aether and his bite-sized companion have fled the room, and Childe is holding his stomach and toppling over with laughter.
“His face!” Childe chortles. “Absolutely hilarious.”
Zhongli quirks his lips up in response, seemingly finding more amusement in Childe’s reaction than Aether’s existential crisis.
“Man... Y’know, I wasn’t expecting everything to go like this.” Childe says, chuckling as he twirls the gnosis on his finger.
(A small part of his mind is relentlessly interrogating him: what are you doing? Why are you waiting? Tonia, Anthon, Teucer, Snezhnaya… they are all waiting for you—)
“What do you mean?” Zhongli asks, his chopsticks hesitating in midair.
“I came expecting a fight, y’know, for this thing,” Childe explains. “Some complications, at least.”
“I would never seek to cause trouble for you.” Zhongli says.
“Liar. You gave me unimaginable stress over the past month. I have evidence in the form of all my white hairs.”
“I cannot imagine that.”
Childe laughs loudly, “Do you find joy in seeing me suffer?”
”I have not known joy in a long time.” Zhongli says somberly, and Childe’s laughter dies down immediately. “Contentment, maybe, but never much more.”
“Zhongli—”
Zhongli’s voice drops down to a whisper. “Yet… I feel as if I will be able to find it with you.”
Childe finally understands then; Zhongli giving his gnosis is not just a show of relinquishing his power, nor is it simply to convey his trust. It is an act of raw, unfettered devotion.
“Then I’ll help you find it,” he reaches across the table to hold Zhongli’s hand, “no matter how long it takes.”
Zhongli looks at him with his eyes wide, and Childe allows himself to believe for a moment that this is it. This is the joyous resolution to their disastrously convoluted plotline.
“Forever?” Zhongli asks.
“Forever.” Childe answers truthfully.
“Forever.” Zhongli repeats softly, even when he knows that his and Childe’s definition of the word has never meant the same thing.
(Forever turns out to be five more months, when icy winds begin to pound at the nation’s doors, and Childe starts hearing the screams of his siblings in his nightmares.)