Chapter Text
You’ve done well. Rest now.
“Have you memorized it well enough?” Dottore asked, with a grin that could be called a leer if there was even a hint of sensuality to it instead of the cold, clinical detachment in his gaze.
“It’s my soul mark.” Childe rolled his eyes, his tone brittle as he barely concealed the ache in his heart and the sick swoop of fear in his stomach. “Of course I memorized it.”
He was sitting in the doctor’s laboratory, his arm held in a mechanical apparatus that forced his wrist to lay extended and straight. The sterile machinery gleamed under blinding lights, electro crystals running a faint current that Childe could feel buzzing against his skin wherever the diodes touched.
“Good. Because it may not come back, even once the Delusion is removed.”
“I know.” Childe drew in a deep breath. “I’m ready. For Her Majesty.”
He took one last look at the mark, black against his pale skin, and steeled himself for what was to come. Knowing Dottore, it was going to hurt.
He’d spent enough time wondering what to make of the words that had been etched on his wrist from the time he was ten years old. They weren’t all that remarkable, but he had held them close to his heart. He whispered them to himself in the endless darkness of the Abyss, imagining his soulmate’s voice, full of tenderness. He studied them in the barracks while he endured the Fatui’s brutal basic training, dreaming of the day when he would meet his soulmate.
But by the time he became Tartaglia, the Eleventh Harbinger, he knew better. Not even a soulmate could forgive him for the things he’d done. Not even a soulmate could love someone like him. So what did it matter if his soulmark was erased completely by Dottore’s delusion technology? It was necessary for his mission, and nothing else mattered.
A few weeks later, he landed on the docks in Liyue, light on his feet. Like a predator, he was already watching the landscape, the shift and turn of crowds as he pushed his way through. His luggage followed, carried by one of his many subordinates.
From the moment his feet touched the harbor, all Fatui in Liyue answered to him. He wasn’t in it for his ego, but it was a little heady to be the highest ranking officer in all directions. Still, the Fatui was nothing if not a well oiled machine, and ran smoothly with little direction from a Harbinger. Smoother, perhaps, as most Harbingers’ whims were fickle and malicious.
While he sat in the opulent office on the top floor of the Northland Bank, entertaining inquiries from wealthy Liyuens seeking to make investments, Childe’s operatives skulked about the city until they found the final piece of information they needed to bring their plan to life.
“You saved me. I was so afraid.”
Childe raised an eyebrow at the Fatui agent kneeling on the floor. “You’re sure that’s what it says?”
“On my honor and love for Her Exalted Majesty,” the agent promised, fist clutched to her chest. “The trick worked. A little spill and he took off his glove, and I read it clear as day.”
“Well done,” Childe said, and the agent smiled, vicious as an exposed blade. “You’re dismissed. I’ll call you soon with new orders.”
“Yes, Lord Harbinger.”
Childe went to the window, staring out at the bustling street below, merchants hurrying to ready their wares for another long day of trade.
You saved me. I was so afraid.
A fitting soulmark for a deity as powerful as Morax. And the final key to Her Majesty’s plan to take his gnosis. Now all Childe needed was to say those words to Morax, and then Dottore’s technology would inscribe Morax’s first words to him onto his wrist. Tricking the old god into believing Childe was his soulmate was a clever plan, for who could doubt or suspect their soulmate of ill intent?
It was a beautiful day when he put his plan into motion. The summer sun flooded Liyue’s streets with golden light, and a cool breeze drifted in from the Sea of Clouds. Morax’s mortal vessel, a funeral parlor consultant called Zhongli, was wandering through the marketplace with a thoughtful, distant expression.
Childe squared his shoulders and made his approach. Striding purposefully through the crowd, he nearly collided with Zhongli, drawing his attention.
“You saved me,” he said, with his most charming smile. “I was so afraid… that I wouldn’t be able to find you, Mr. Zhongli.”
Zhongli’s eyes widened, as he no doubt was thinking of the words written on his wrist.
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” he said.
Childe clenched his fist and smiled through the searing pain as the new set of words inscribed themselves on his arm where his old soul mark had lingered for so long.
Then he blinked, pretending that Zhongli’s words had given him a great shock.
“Could you… could you repeat that, sir?” he said.
Zhongli studied him for a long, searching moment. “Let’s speak somewhere more private.”
In a private room at Liuli Pavilion, which Zhongli had asked for and immediately been given despite the lunchtime rush, Childe finally broached the subject. He imagined what it might have felt like to discover his own soulmate, how euphoric and excited he would have been. Like the method actor he’d been during that summer with the Snezhnayan theater troupe, he channeled those emotions now.
“I know this is crazy,” he said, with a half laugh. “But could I… could I see your soulmark?”
Zhongli looked at him for a long moment, quiet and assessing. “You may,” he said.
Childe watched with feigned eagerness as Zhongli pulled the ring off his left thumb, then tugged his glove away to reveal an elegant hand with long fingers and pronounced tendons. He turned his arm to display his wrist, and Childe drew in a sharp breath. He quickly tugged his sleeve back to show Zhongli his own.
I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.
“How peculiar.” Zhongli reached out and ran his bare thumb over the words, and it felt like electricity arced between their skin. For a moment, Childe wasn’t pretending at all. He felt drawn to Zhongli, connected in a way that went far beyond words, a bond tied to his very essence.
But of course that was ridiculous. They barely knew each other, and Zhongli wasn’t his soulmate. Still, if that feeling made it easier to pretend, Childe would embrace it.
He lifted Zhongli’s hand to his lips and kissed the back of it, and was pleased to hear Zhongli’s soft intake of breath.
“All these years,” Zhongli said. “I’d given up hope of ever finding you.”
“You have me now,” Childe said, and in a way, he meant it.
The conversation between them flowed like an unfettered river, free and easy. Childe had never had such an immediate rapport with anyone. He barely even remembered that he was pretending, that Zhongli wasn’t his soulmate but rather a mark from whom he would soon steal everything.
Over a cup of tea after the food had been cleared, Childe laughed longer and more heartily than he had since he was a child, revealing his thoughts and feelings and desires too readily because it just felt so right.
Zhongli was more reserved, but just barely. He was leaning forward, their intertwined hands resting on the tablecloth. Every so often he would lift Childe’s hand to his lips and kiss his fingertips, his knuckles, his palm.
“I must return to work,” he said reluctantly, with a glance at the position of the sun in the brilliant blue sky out the window. “I am contractually obligated, or I would while the day away at your side.”
“Can I see you after?” Childe asked eagerly. “Maybe you could come to my place? I’ve got an apartment above the Northland Bank.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Zhongli said, getting to his feet. He leaned over, taking Childe’s chin in his hand, and kissed him gently on the lips. “Until then, my darling.”
As soon as Zhongli stepped out the door, Childe slumped helplessly in his chair, dragging a hand down his face. He needed to get a grip, to remember that Zhongli was not the love of his life but just a god too arrogant to see his own weakness.
That night, Childe planned to order takeout and a bottle of wine, to sit with Zhongli on the balcony and watch the sunset. But as soon as they were alone together in a private place, the air between them became charged and electric, a hunger gnawing deep inside Childe.
He had gone for ten years without an affectionate touch, but he felt that if he were denied one now he would truly shatter.
He didn’t even have to ask. Zhongli crossed the distance between them without a word and put his hands on Childe’s waist, drawing him closer for a soft kiss.
“Forgive me, my darling,” he said, between kisses that became deeper and more passionate as he continued. “I meant to tell you first… But I can’t seem to keep my hands off you.”
Childe pressed his body up against Zhongli, his hands fisted in the fabric of Zhongli’s shirt. “Please touch me,” he whispered. “Please.”
Zhongli began undressing him, his movements frantic like he couldn’t bear to be without the feel of Childe’s skin for a moment longer. Childe did the same to Zhongli, shoving his long coat off his shoulders and letting it fall to the floor without a care before starting on the buttons of his shirt.
Warm lips descended on the curve of Childe’s neck as his coat and shirt were gently removed. He panted into Zhongli’s shoulder as the sensation sent shudders of pleasure through him. No lover had ever affected him like this.
He was used to hurried trysts in semi-private places, or lovers whose name he never learned, who did not stay the night or let their hands linger any longer than necessary.
But when they made it to the bed, when Zhongli fucked him with fingers and then with his cock, the heat and pleasure of it rendered Childe helpless, as the world narrowed down to this single room, this one god, who made Childe feel like he was finally complete.
“I must tell you something,” Zhongli said the following morning, as Childe was discovering just how sweet it was to wake up to someone so dear beside him.
“Sure,” he said carelessly. “I’ll listen to anything you have to say, Zhongli.”
“I am not merely a funeral parlor consultant,” Zhongli said. “I am also Morax, the Prime of the Adepti and the Geo Archon.”
Childe blinked at him, feigning surprise. Why it was so hard to lie to Zhongli, he had no idea, but he pushed forward because he had no choice.
“What, like in Rex Incognito?” he asked.
“While that series takes some questionable creative liberties, in this sense you are correct. It is very much the same.”
“Oh.” Childe drew in a deep breath. “I feel like… somehow I knew you weren’t an ordinary human.”
Zhongli was watching him with uncharacteristic trepidation, so Childe pressed a soft kiss to his lips.
“This doesn’t change anything,” Childe said, intertwining their fingers. “I’m still yours, Zhongli Rex Lapis Morax.”
Every day, Childe spent his free time with Zhongli. He had never been so happy, and at the same time so wracked with guilt. He was waiting for an opportunity to strike, that was all. But he secretly hoped it would never come.
But the growing frequency and intensity of missives from the Tsaritsa and Pierro left him little choice but to act as soon as possible.
He was lying in bed, staring ruefully up at the ceiling while Zhongli slept peacefully by his side. Zhongli rarely slept—as an adeptus he had no need—so this was a chance unlikely to come again. Moving with agonizing slowness and great care, Childe sat up, then leaned over Zhongli.
The technique the Tsaritsa had taught him was simple, like reaching into a pond and dredging up something precious from the depths. Childe wondered if it would hurt Zhongli, if it would leave a scar. Then, using all the discipline he’d learned as a Harbinger, he forced those thoughts aside in favor of decisive action.
It was just like dipping his fingers into warm water, and instead of a heart, his fingers met the fine shape of a gnosis. He curled his fingers around the object—no more than the size of a chess piece—and began to pull it out against a force of great resistance.
A firm hand on his wrist stopped him. Zhongli’s eyes were open, watching him with great sorrow.
“All this, for a gnosis?” he asked.
Childe opened his mouth, but could not think of an answer. Despair sat like heavy iron on his chest, constricting his breathing and weighing him down.
“I have one question,” Zhongli said. His grip was like stone, immovable, impassible. “Answer it honestly and I will give you the gnosis.”
After a moment, Childe nodded. There was no Snezhnayan state secret that he knew that was worth more than the gnosis in his hand.
“Are you truly my soulmate?” Zhongli asked. “Or was that part of the ruse?”
“I’m not your soulmate.” It felt like something in Childe’s chest shattered into a hundred pieces with the admission, but Zhongli had asked for the truth.
“I see.”
Zhongli released the fingers that had been holding Childe’s arm perfectly still. WIthout the restraint, he was able to jerk the gnosis out of Zhongli’s chest and clutch it in the palm of his hand. It was small—too small for the vast power it contained.
“You will leave Liyue,” Zhongli said, speaking as Morax, the Prime of the Adepti and ruler of the land of Geo. Like this he was as hard as iron, as relentless as the very earth. “You have your prize, so take it and go. You are never to return.”
Childe swallowed hard, turning away and wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. He wanted to beg for Zhongli’s forgiveness, but that would be unfair. He deserved Zhongli’s hate, and nothing more.