Work Text:
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Tête-à-Tête
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It’s easier than he’d expected, to give the slip to the tail that the House of Hearth had tried to pin him with. Of course, he knows better than to anger Daddy too much, so he still stays pretty close to a stone laden road.
Look, he can’t help it, okay? He’s been going a little stir crazy being locked up. They’d tried to ship him back to Snezhnaya, something that he’d only managed to evade because he’d literally thrown himself out of a window, mind you, because there was no way in fuck that he was letting either his family or Il Dottore see him like this. He would much rather deal with the Knave and all her little minions.
He knocked an arrow, aiming at a boar.
Simple enough, right?
But his whole body still ached and trembled from his time with the whale, and he swears as his arrow makes its home in a tree, the boar still snuffling at the grass completely unbothered.
He clenches his jaw, waiting until the trembling in his hands is less and pulls out another arrow, a third, forth, throwing the fifth in frustration as he misses each time.
In the end, it is his coughing that scares the damned boar away, running off as he chokes and coughs, falling to a knee and leaning heavily against his bow in an effort to remain upright.
“Please, drink,” a voice reaches him and Childe stiffens, hydro blades forming in his hands as he berates himself for letting his guard down.
He lets the blades dissipate as the world turns blue, the Chief Justice above him, a goblet of water held out in offering.
“Your cough,” Monsieur Neuvillette says when Childe doesn’t move. “Mister Tartaglia, please; drink.”
He banishes the bow and takes the goblet instead, chugging the water down gracelessly and pretending that he hasn’t made a fool of himself twice in a row now.
“Pretty good,” he says, holding the goblet back out to the other man. It tasted like home.
“I am unsurprised you should think so,” Neuvillette murmurs, giving the goblet a glance before dropping it into the subspace and looking down at him again, “They were, after all, waters from Liyue.”
Ah, he thinks, scratch that ‘home’ bit. Never happened, Royal Highness.
Monsieur Neuvillette seems to think something over before he holds out a hand.
Childe glances at it and forces a smile as he shakes his head.
Just as he would in front of anyone else, he dares show no more weakness. Besides, the Iudex has already seen him plenty weak.
He gets to his feet without dirtying the man before him.
“So,” he says, brushing grass off his knees for a few moments and not because his cheeks are warm - they aren’t, he isn’t blushing - and right himself, “What’s brought you out this way, Chief Justice?”
“I found myself with a spare moment and when I saw the rain of arrows,” he gestured towards the distant tree, “I merely allowed my curiosity to get the better of me.”
Childe ruffles the hair at the nape of his neck and chuckles an embarrassed little sound, “Ah, saw that, did you?”
The Iudex gives him a look- No the Iudex studies him.
He wants to say that it’s nothing new, nothing that he isn’t used to. Because Childe can’t pretend that people haven’t been studying him for almost half his life now, whether to determine if there was any humanity left in him or because they wanted to strip that humanity away, whether respect and deference to the mask on his head or the title he carried or fear at his bloodlust, people had been looking at him for a long time now…. But there is something in the way that those eyes seem to peel back his façade and he’s not sure that he likes it.
Not true, he doesn’t like it one bit.
The Iudex had already seen him stripped to the studs after that damned fight, surely there was nothing else that he needed to see, why was he looking at him like that-
“Mister Tartaglia,” the Chief Justice’s voice is gentle as it pulls him easily from his spiral, “I had heard you were still recovering…”
Childe feels himself nod, and carelessly twirls his bow before banishing it once again, “Well, yeah; hence the crappy display just now.”
An amused huff escapes the man in blue beside him, and Childe honestly can’t tell who is more surprised by it.
“You know,” Childe grins, a real one this time, “You can call me Childe.”
“I am not so sure that would be appropriate, Mister Tartaglia,” the Iudex shakes his head, looking back towards the speared tree.
“It’s just us,” Childe shrugs, “Who would know?” He pretends that he doesn’t see the man glance towards Liyue and he certainly doesn’t file that away to think about later, surely it can’t mean a thing. “Besides,” he continues, calling over his shoulder as he goes to collect his arrows, checking for any nicks or dings that will change the way they fly, “We’re friends now, aren’t we?”
“Friends?” The Chief Justice’s timber is quiet with astonishment, and Childe can’t help but laugh at it even as he droops a little.
“Are we not?” he asks, chucking a snapped arrow to the side. “Well, as much as men like us can have friends?” It feels innately… Wrong to put himself on the same level as the Iudex, but that isn’t really what he’s doing. It’s just… As two people on the chess board of politics, aren’t they both mere pieces? Sure, one is more powerful and has a bigger reach - But even a pawn can be promoted.
“I do not have many… Friends, as you call them,” the Chief Justice admits when Childe comes close once more.
“Neither do I,” Childe grins, “But the few I have? I’d do anything for them.”
The Iudex studies him for a long while, that invasive piercing look that seems to see straight through him, “And you wish to count me amongst them?”
“Sure,” Childe shrugs, “After all you know my biggest secret.”
“Your relationship with-”
“No,” Childe interrupts sharply, rudely. Whatever he’ll send an apology gift over later. Anything to make the man stop talking, “My Foul Legacy.”
Chief Justice Neuvillette blinks at him, “You consider that your most closely guarded secret?”
“Yup,” Childe pops his ‘p’ obnoxiously just because he can.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but…
“Did you not attempt transformation at your trial?”
“Well, yeah,” Childe admits, remembering the way the Iudex had so humbly… introduced him to the ground. And unconsciousness. “But I mean you know what it is, don’t you? You saw it.”
“Ah,” the other man breathed, nodding in understanding. “You mean the abyss.”
Childe clicked his tongue, “Got it in one.
“My vision? Everyone knows about that.
“Delusion? It’s assumed.
“Transformation, though?” he spread his hands innocently and shrugged. “Not many people know about it.
“Fewer know the cause.”
The silence between them lingers until Childe gives into his shaking limbs and sits as gracefully as he can upon the grass. He hates how weak this body is at times, how it slows him.
He glares at his visibly trembling hands, shaking them out with a sigh and flopping back prone to the ground.
The Chief Justice stands above him, looking at him now, no longer through him. He makes a quiet sound and slowly raises a hand.
“Friends,” he murmurs, and holds out his hand so that it blocks the sun from Childe’s eyes. “I…
“Believe I would like to call you a friend, yes.”
❆❦❅❦❆
The second time that the Iudex finds him, Childe is debating the best plan of attack against a cryo abyss mage.
“Do you truly think that wise?”
Childe doesn’t jump and he doesn’t take in a calming breath before answering the Chief Justice, “Fighting a battle where you’re at a disadvantage teaches you more than one where you have the edge.”
“Be that as it may,” the Iudex murmurs, surveying the water soaked ground below.
Childe shrugs, “I can’t think of how to do it without upsetting the little guys.”
“Little guys?”
“You know,” Childe gestures towards the roaming vishaps. “The little guys.”
The Chief Justice’s laugh seems to surprise himself as much as it does Childe, for he quickly apologizes, “My apologies, Mister Tartaglia, I simply do not believe that I have ever heard them referred to as ‘little guys.’”
Childe would wonder if he should be insulted by that, but he can’t take the time to consider it when that laugh is pouring across him. It feels like a soft and sacred thing. It reminds him of Zhongli’s in its intangibility. He can’t help but grin at the other man, forcing himself to shrug.
“But they are,” he insists. “Mere babes in the wild.”
“I wouldn’t think that would stop you from striking them down,” the Iudex murmurs, turning his head to study the fatuus.
Childe doesn’t want to admit that it’s because he can still feel a tremble in his limbs, knows that it’s a fight he could win - of course it is - but that it would set back all the meager progress his recovery has made.
“Bit rude with you here,” he says instead, licking his lips and watching the vishaps wander around below, blissfully unaware of their audience. “Besides, they’ve never bothered me.”
“And the mage has?”
“Sure,” Childe shrugs, flashing the other man a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, “They call themselves abyss mages, don’t they?”
The man gives a slightly interested hum, nodding a little.
“If you are not going to engage in battle then,” the Chief Justice pauses, “Would you, perhaps, care to join me for a walk? There is a fine riverbank nearby.”
Childe does his best to hide his surprise, but he’s not so sure he manages, all the same, he readily agrees.
“Sure,” he says, holding out a hand, “Lead the way.”
The Iudex inclines his head and guides them away, Childe easily falling into slow step with the man.
Zhongli, now, Zhongli is a stroller. He will take his sweet time and wander hither and thither and every-wither without a single care as to how much time his companions have. The Iudex doesn’t seem to be the same as this, as every time Childe has seen the man moving about it’s been at a quick pace. It makes him wonder if- Well, perhaps if…
“Are you going slow for me?” he hears himself ask, and he hates himself for it. It makes him sound frightfully young and stupid and weak-
“No,” the Chief Justice shakes his head, “I am merely enjoying the scenery. My apologies if I am going too slowly for y-”
“Not at all,” Childe interrupts, knowing it’s rude, but desperately needing to stop that line of conversation, “Forget I asked, it was stupid.”
“Not stupid,” the other man corrected, a slight smile curling his lips, “I…
“Rather appreciate that you think I would be so considerate.”
“You’re no blockhead,” Childe mutters, glancing at his walking companion with more than a little confusion. “Who told you that you aren’t considerate?”
“Not in so many words,” the other man shrugged, “But I believe it is what many call an ‘open secret,’ my lack of understanding.”
Childe snorts, “Well, that’s…
“Not as uncommon as you might think.
“If there’s anything that you want to know, you can ask me.”
“Anything?” The Chief Justice paused in his steps.
“Maybe not anything,” Childe corrected, with a slight laugh. “I am Her Royal Highness’s Vanguard, after all,” he added, “But, I mean, anything I don’t want to answer I’ll just say as much.
“How’s that?”
The Iudex seems to seriously consider it before he nods, “Agreed.”
Childe grins and they fall easily back into step, but quiet reigns around them once more. He can’t stop himself from looking at the man beside him, wondering if he will ask anything…
But the Chief Justice seems… Content as they are.
The quiet makes his brain itch.
One of his favorite things about spending time with Zhongli was the way that the man never let quiet hang, not ever, not between them. There was a story for every road, every ruin, every rock and creature- And he was more than happy to tell them all to Aj- to Childe. It wasn’t just the timber of Zhongli’s voice, it was the words themselves.
When it was too quiet the abyss seemed to creep up higher, the whispers louder in his mind.
He shivered and shook himself out of his thoughts, focusing on pulling hydro from the air and shaping it into an otter. He liked them, they were cute. And if it took a little more of his brain power to have the little guys toss their shell around? All the better for it.
“Have you always been able to do that?” The Iudex asked, watching the small mimic.
“My master taught me how important it was to have secrets up one's sleeves,” Childe murmured, adding a second otter to the path before them. “And my baby brother taught me how important it was to be able to amuse children.”
The otters fall apart as a tremble rips up his arms and he does his best to play it off as intentional.
“Amazing.”
“High praise,” Childe breathes, eyebrows to his hairline.
“It’s surely not the first time you’ve been told as much, Mister Tartaglia.”
“Childe,” he corrects. “And maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.
“But it is the first time coming from one of your stature.”
“My stature?” the Iudex raises a prim eyebrow, “Only as there are no other courts held in such high regard- What?
“Why are you laughing?
“Tartaglia, stop laughing!”
❆❦❅❦❆
The third time the Iudex finds him it’s after a bit of a, he’s man enough to admit, a bit of a temper tantrum.
The hilichurl camp is emptied around him, not even a single barrel left as witness to his slaughter.
His breathing is heavy, but his limbs trembled now from use and not from weakness.
He’s getting better.
He’s getting better and they aren’t making enough progress.
The ground around him is soaked in blood and hydro and he barely feels sated; he hadn’t even needed to activate his delusion.
“Who tattled?” Childe grumbled under his breath, even as he slapped on a grin and turned to face the Chief Justice, his long blue jacket catching in the breeze as he stood atop the crest of a hill.
“Mister Tartaglia,” the Iudex greets as he climbs to the top of the hill to stand beside him.
“Childe,” he sighs, “Call me Childe.” He looks over the ruination of the camp below.
“May I ask what led to this destruction?”
“Isn’t it better that it isn’t within city limits?” Childe evades, “Or any citizens?”
“So,” the Chief Justice hesitates, “I may not ask?”
Childe blinks at him, “I…” He can’t help but hesitate himself. “It’s not that you can’t,” he finally says, quietly, and for some reason he can’t bring himself to look at the other man. “It’s just…
“Your job is to remain impartial, isn’t it?”
“When it comes to the law… Yes.”
“Right,” Childe forces a shaky, half-hearted grin, “So, ya know.”
“So this has something to do with your…” A beat of quiet, “Work?”
“Ah, no,” Childe shakes his head. “Fair assumption but this is… I’ll call it a pet project.” Monsieur Neuvillette gives him a look and Childe can’t help but laugh; it’s not so unfamiliar a gaze. Quiet judgment and amusement in equal parts, if not infinitely less fond. “If I could tell you without your reputation being on the line, I promise you would.” He shrugged lamely.
“This is more of that plausible deniability, then?” The Iudex murmured, and Childe couldn’t quite determine the feelings behind the tone.
“Something like that,” he nodded.
The other man hummed softly, as if he was turning over the idea over in his mind, before he nodded once, perfunctory. “Very well.”
“That’s it?” Childe can’t help but gape at him a little.
“Indeed,” Monsieur Neuvillette agreed, “You once said that I was welcome to ask but that I was not always welcome to an answer.”
“Well, yeah, but…” Childe frowned, shook his head, laughed, “Most of the time people don’t, uh, just accept a non-answer.”
“Even if they are, as you say, friends?”
“Even then,” Childe laughs, “Maybe even more then.”
The Iudex frowns a little and shakes his head, “I fear I will never understand.”
Childe’s laughter fades, becomes softer. He thinks of his own learnings of humanity, how it was just another mask he wore on most days after his own was stripped from him in the fall. He thinks of the stories of a war torn nation by a blood thirsty god- A god who now so sweetly calls him a rascal.
“You’ve got time,” he murmurs, “Just… Give yourself time.”
The mood is heavy now, somber. In spite of the ruins before them and his own previously bad mood, he doesn’t much care for it.
“Come on,” he grins, tossing a ball of hydro into the air and rinsing himself clean- Well, cleaner. “Ask me something else.
“Try something I can answer this time,” he teases, tossing the grungy hydro away.
“What do people normally ask of their friends?”
“Favorite foods, colours, hobbies-
“I guess you know that one, though,” he admits, waving a hand at the destruction he’d wrought. “Uh, people will ask about your family- That one can be touchy, though.” He taps a finger on his chin, thinking, “I just kinda go with the flow.
“Want to try it?”
The Iudex nods slowly and Childe finds himself walking with the man, turning their backs on the smoking ruins behind them.
“What kind of foods do you like to eat?” the chief justice asks him, frowning slightly, as though he isn’t sure why he needs to know this kind of information.
Childe just smiles as they walk. “I’ve always been a fan of sea food. Probably because when I was a kid that was the easiest thing to get our hands on.
“See,” he decides to make it a little easier on the man, sharing more than he normally would, giving it a more conversational, less interview-y feel. “My family is from a seaside town and my pa always took us out ice fishing.
“Not sure if I love it because I love it, or if I came to love it so I didn’t go mad when he dragged me out before dawn…
“You?”
“I,” the man starts to speak and pauses, as though he hadn’t been expecting the question to be turned back on him, “I rather like consommé.”
Childe doesn’t laugh at that, but it’s a close thing, “I have to admit, that is just about the least surprising thing you could have said.”
“Am I truly so predictable?” The Iudex tilts his head and studies Childe.
“No,” Childe answers quickly, but chuckles this time, “Well, maybe a little.
“Your love of water isn’t exactly a secret.
“So perhaps it is only this that is predictable about you.”
The Chief Justice nods seriously, like he’s seriously considering Childe’s off the cuff statement. The silence between them is comfortable, for now, but Childe still finds himself hoping that the man says something soon, worried the quiet will soon become too much for him and-
“As you advised me that talk of family could get touchy,” the man murmurs, pulling him from his increasingly manic thoughts. “What, then, is your favorite colour?”
“Red,” Childe grinned, waving a hand at his uniform, his mask, his earring. “I think even if Her Majesty didn’t use so much red, I might still like it.
“But who knows,” he shrugs, “Maybe I like it so much because of Her.” Her and the blood he rends from his enemies.
He loses himself to gently sanitized tales, surface level questions volleyed back and forth between the two, and it isn’t until the sun begins to set that he realizes just how long he’s been entertaining the Iudex.
It seems a little less ridiculous to consider just how long they’ve been chatting when the man turns to him and asks, “Do you, that is-
“Would you like to do this again some time?”
Childe doesn’t know why the Iudex looks so…
All he knows is that when he answers, his smile is genuine and his voice is soft.
“Yeah,” he nods, “I’d like that very much.”
❆❦❅❦❆
And so it is the fourth time that it’s Childe that finds him, but when he does Childe can’t help himself from pausing; losing himself in…
Look, it isn’t that he’s unused to seeing incredibly handsome and powerful men get completely lost in thought- You can’t spend as much time with Zhongli and not see that a handful of times a week after all, but there’s something different about this.
The Chief Justice is standing just before him, looking out over the water, posture ramrod straight and he appears completely unbothered by the torrential downpour.
Childe can’t help but frown, what is it that has the man so upset? A silly passing thought that he already knows the answer too. Not enough progress being made.
He throws his hand lazily in the man’s direction, the rain pausing in its descent, catching and forming an invisible umbrella just above the Iudex.
He can’t help but raise an eyebrow in surprise as it takes a long moment for the other man to notice, looking first up and then turning and catching Childe’s eye.
“Ah,” Monsieur Neuvillette nods. “Mister Tartaglia.”
“Come now, Chief Justice,” Childe says, pasting a smile on his face as he moves to join the other man under the umbrella that he’d created, “How many times must I ask you to just call me Childe?”
“A few,” Monsieur Neuvillette murmurs, barely audible over the smattering sound of rain clashing and catching on itself as it hovers above them both and lowers his head in a soft nod of acknowledgement, but he doesn’t offer a different greeting.
Childe follows the man’s gaze and wonders if he can actually see Bayda Harbor or if he’s just pretending as much as Childe is.
“Do you miss him?” he hears himself ask, almost wishing he can reach out and catch the words that have tumbled so uselessly from his lips.
“Every day,” Neuvillette answers, barely a whisper.
Childe feels the muscle in his jaw twitch, anxious energy running along his muscles, twitching under his skin. He hates this.
“He’ll come back to visit you,” he says, not taking his eyes from the imagined harbor, the memory of dropping the Duke and his family off playing through his mind.
“Perhaps,” Neuvillette breathes, taking his attention from the distance and focusing it instead on Childe.
“Not perhaps,” Childe says, meeting the man’s gaze with a smile that looks lazy and confident. “He will.”
“Are you truly so certain?”
“Yeah!” Childe beams, caught in the Iudex’s entrancing gaze and deciding not to think about why it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. “Did I ever tell you about the time Teucer came to Liyue to see me?” he asks, knowing that he hasn’t.
“No,” Neuvillette cocks his head slightly, his gaze tracing over Childe’s face before meeting his eyes again, “Would you entertain me with the tale?”
Childe beams and lets himself get lost in the telling, not noticing for probably longer than he should admit as a harbinger that the rain is slowly letting up.
“And then we played hide and seek and,” he stops himself abruptly, the mirth drying up as he remembered how he hadn’t been able to see his brother off because he’d been so sure of himself, because he’d been so foolish-
“And?” Neuvillette prompts, a delicate frown on his face. It smooths out after a moment and the man continues, suddenly looking away from Childe, “Ah, perhaps I have asked too much-”
“No!” Childe says quickly, throwing his hand out as the man starts to take a step away, closer to the stone balcony. His glove doesn’t touch the man’s sleeve, but it’s a close thing and he quickly pulls it back and away, shoving it roughly through his crazed hair. “I just…
“I used the Foul Legacy,” he admits, quietly. “I never got to see him off.
“That’s all.”
Neuvillette hums quietly, looking contemplative.
Childe gentles his hold on hydro and lets the soft remaining drizzle land upon them. He finds it refreshing and hopes the other man does as well.
“I am afraid I do not understand the choice in telling me this story- As amusing as it was,” Neuvillette says finally, turning again to look at Childe. “Wriothesley is not my brother.”
Childe does nothing to hide the braying laugh that bursts out of him in surprise, “Well, you aren’t wrong!” He shakes his head, still chuckling, and turns to hoist himself up onto the balcony, sitting and facing the other man, “But the way we mortals think,” Childe says with a wink, glad that there is no one around thanks to the previous rainfall, “you two are basically family.”
Neuvillette blinks at him, uncomprehending.
“His grace?” Neuvillette asks, “Family?”
Childe snorts a little, “Come now, you can’t really tell me that you didn’t realize that Kaveh, too, considers you family? Didn’t they both insist on you visiting them?”
“I,” Neuvillette pauses, gaze turning back towards the distant harbor. “Thank you,” he murmurs after a while, “You have given me much to think about.”
“Any time,” Childe laughs, and this time he doesn’t think twice before clapping the other man on the shoulder. He pretends that he doesn’t feel Neuvillette’s gaze on him now, and merely turns his face to the sun, as the last of the rain ceases to fall.
❆❦❅❦❆
It is only on the fifth time that they’ve actually agreed on a meeting place ahead of time and not run into each other by random happenstance.
It’s still another random spot of greenery, away from prying eyes and ears- Though for whose sake, who’s to know. It didn’t stop Childe from clearing out all the nearby treasure hoarders, just to be on the safe side.
Childe is reclining lazily on a picnic blanket he’d picked out, pretending the breeze from Lumidouce carried with it a hint of the scent of Liyue.
He’s in a decent enough mood, knowing that he should be getting news soon from one of ‘the children.’
His mood is decent enough that he’s not even worried about the whispers of the abyss in his mind as he waits for Monsieur Neuvillette to speak.
“Have you noticed," Neuvillette pauses, hesitates, his gaze out over the horizon and distinctly not on him as he clearly weighs whatever it is that he's considering asking. Childe simply waits, letting the quiet wrap around them once more as he shapes water in his palm. The hydro pulls the Iudex's attention, and he watches the small 'swimming' fish in his hand.
"Have you noticed," Neuvillette murmurs, his voice is lower now as he repeats himself, but this time he continues, watching the fish split in two and then three, "That whenever it is that I ask you about yourself, you speak only of others?"
Childe swallows hard, looking down at his wet glove, the hydro mimics gone in his moment of surprise. He can't help but frown.
He'd let too much control slip.
“What do you mean?” he asks, keeping his voice light and casual as he shifts up to lean on his palms, not at all like he’s worried about whatever it is that the Iudex is really asking about.
“Your favorite food is from your father. Colour from your,” the Iudex pauses, continues, “What you know of missing people is from your brother missing you.
“The importance of good penmanship comes from things your sister has taught you.
“Your mastery of weapons from your master and the one you call Capitano…”
“Those are all still things about me, though,” Childe shrugs, “Aren’t they?”
Monsieur Neuvillette frowns slightly, so Childe continues. “Wouldn’t you say that most of the things you care about have come primarily from your love of your nation and all that she is?
“While the waters that you drink come from all nations, and as the Hydro Sovereign, I’m sure it’s not just that you live in the land of Hydro, hasn’t your life here shaped you just as much as mine has shaped me.”
The Chief Justice seems to consider this a moment, conceding. “I suppose that is fair.
“Would you indulge me, then, Childe,” he continues and Childe pauses, the dropping of his title saying more than anything else could.
“Indulge you how?” Childe asks, meeting the man’s gaze.
“If we are to be friends, truly friends, I would like to know you, something about you. Just… You..”
Childe licks his suddenly dry lips and looks away, training his gaze towards Liyue. “I can’t think of anything,” he admits, feeling stupid and abundantly aware of his youth.
“What is the most beautiful thing that you have ever seen?”
Childe blinks, not expecting the question or anything like it.
Two things immediately come to mind and he can’t help the flush on his face.
He debates, for a moment, lying; it would be so easy to say that the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen were the lands of Snezhnaya after his time in the abyss, but… He doesn’t want to have a lie between them, not when the man was trying so hard to know him for some reason.
“I don’t know if I could pick just one,” he says finally.
“Oh?” Monsieur Neuvillette seems pleasantly surprised by that.
“There was-
“Look, you need to know that this is true and not just…” Childe waves a hand, “Something I’m saying to you, because, well…
“Because you’re you.”
The Iudex blinks, but nods, “I believe you will be honest with me.”
“After the fight,” he cleared his throat, pointedly not looking at the other man, never before has the horizon been so interesting. “When I was recovering Arlecchino found out that someone had been recording something or other when everything went down. I’m not sure why,” he shrugged, “But she let me see it.
“The sky was dark,” Childe murmurs, closing his eyes, almost able to picture it perfectly in his mind's eye. He must have watched it a hundred times when he was barely able to move. “Not because it was night, but because it was raining-
“And then suddenly,” his breath hitches as he remembers it, “The burst of blue light shot up into the sky, holding there…” he shook his head, glancing at Iudex beside him, “That was you, wasn’t it?
“The moment… It happened?”
“It was,” Monsieur Neuvillette confirmed, “I was not aware that anyone had-
“I suppose that does not matter.”
“Sorry,” Childe murmurs, looking away and leaving the man to his thoughts, “I know that probably wasn’t too great a time for you personally, but for me?
“It looked beautiful, magnificent.”
“So it is a show of power that you find such beauty in?” Monsieur Neuvillette asks, “Is that why you run wild constantly asking those for spars?”
Childe does nothing to stifle the surprised laugh that bursts from him, and he shakes his head, “No, I ask powerful people for spars because the only way to get better is to fight.”
“So the other things you mentioned?” Neuvillette asks after a moment, “Are they not also sheer expressions of power?”
The other thing that popped into his mind when Neuvillette had asked clouds his memory and Childe flushed.
“Uh, no,” he shakes his head, “Not… So much.”
This time it is Childe who is dragging out the silence around them. He just doesn't know if he can bear to say the words out loud.
“You can’t tell anyone,” he finally grumbles. “I’m trusting you with this,” he says seriously. “As my friend you will be the only person that I have ever said this to.”
Neuvillette blinks owlishly at him, “Surely something of beauty is meant to be shared, but if you do not wish me to speak of it, I shall not.
“You have my word.”
It’s not quite the same as a word as solid as stone but Childe chooses to accept it all the same. What choice does he have, really- They’ve started this foolish friendship, might as well, just-
“So you know who I’m,” he swallows, “Uh, who I’m involved with.”
“I do,” Neuvillette agrees, looking only more confused by the question.
Childe looks back out over the horizon towards Liyue, towards Zhongli, wherever he is.
“I don’t know if it’s the same for you,” Childe murmurs, “But Zhongli he doesn’t, uh…” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “He doesn’t have blood like humans do.
“Which means,” he can’t deny how warm his cheeks are, knows he’s flushed even to his ears now, even the back of his neck is warm. “If he blushes, he doesn’t turn red.
“He glows.”
And what a beautiful sight the man was.
Childe couldn’t even remember what silly little compliment that he’d given the man, only remembered bumping into him slightly with a bravery that had shocked even him, and then Zhongli had turned and smiled at him and he’d been glowing, the golden ichor under his flesh causing his joy to literally radiate.
It had stolen his breath away and Childe doesn’t think he’s recovered from it even yet.
Monsieur Neuvillette doesn’t say anything for a moment, and when Childe looks at him, he adds a third thing to the list.
Neuvillette doesn’t blush like Childe does, nor does he flush a gilded thing, but he does glow. His rhinophores illuminate and there’s a soft blue flush that shines under his skin.
Childe wonders how many people have seen this in the Iudex’s long life, and of those how many are still alive.
“My apologies,” Neuvillette murmurs after a moment, the luminescence of his form fading slightly. “I was not expecting anything quite so…
“Intimate.”
“Wait, no,” Childe is quick to say, grabbing the other man’s arm before he can think better of it. Before he can remember the blood on his hands as he touches a pristine man whose legacy would be that of forgiveness and not of vicious and brutal bloodlust, “I’d just been teas-
“I’d complimented him,” he corrects, almost shaking the arm in his hold, “We were at Yujing Terrace, it wasn’t-
“It was in public!”
“I did not think anything untoward,” Neuvillette murmurs, the barest hint of a glow flaring up again. “But is this not a secret you shared only with him? Does that not imply a certain level of intimacy?”
Childe groans and falls back dramatically on the blanket, “You asked for beautiful things, and I told you.”
“I had thought you would have told me it was the sight of your fatui mask when it was handed to you,” Neuvillette murmured, “I didn’t realise…”
It is only when the chuckle reaches his ears that he realises the Iudex has been teasing him. He’s about to continue digging the hole he’s found himself in when a bird drops a scroll into his lap and he snaps it up, unrolling it.
There is a number on the paper, and a series of drawings. A code.
One he knows well, and one he is delighted by.
He does nothing to stop himself from whooping in delight, “There-
“Another beautiful thing.”
Neuvillette looks at the paper, confusion creasing his face, “I do not understand, but I am pleased you are delighted.”
Childe grins, rolling the paper back up and dissolving it easily into a bubble of hydro.
“I do not believe I should ask after what that means,” Neuvillette murmurs, checking Childe’s reaction to see if he’s read the situation correctly.
Childe nods, grinning a toothy grin, “Plausible deniability, my dear friend. Plausible deniability.”
Neuvillette hums, “That does little to comfort me, I must admit.”
“Aw, come on,” Childe is still grinning, “Would I really risk our friendship and do something that you wouldn’t appreciate-
“Something you’d both appreciate and approve of if you could?”
“Childe,” Neuvillette’s voice is stern, “This is comforting me less and less.”
Childe positively cackles.
Perhaps this is a lesson the Iudex needed to learn sooner rather than later.
Because he won’t do anything to risk his friendships- But he’s been waiting a long time to take care of this problem.
For all of them.
Trust me, Neuvillette, he wants to say, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says nothing more and just gives into the joy. It’s best to indulge in the happy moments- it seems that they are fewer and further between with the passage of each day.
❆❦❅❦❆