Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This was a history in the making, the cultivation of true Fatuian diplomacy. 

And where better, you would ask, than in one of Snezhnaya’s most notorious underground fighting rings– that is, The Dumpster, a moniker cutely adopted by those most intimately familiarised with its venue.

That’s right; basement brawls, bare-fisted scrums on a blood-scuffed floor, the dingy undercroft to some shonky bureaucrat’s restaurant cellar. It was subterranean to a fault, disgustingly primitive, lingering with it a scent of toil, kisses of hysteria smattered on the bruising skin of beasts; a scene of infliction so palpable that it wafted with the heat of the room like stinking trash. 

And Tartaglia, the Eleventh member of the Fatui Harbingers, revelled in it.

For this is where he’d had the pleasure of first meeting Diluc Ragnvindr. 

As it goes, everybody knew of the Eleventh– inside, outside, above all else: down in the ring. Bewareth the Eleventh Hour, they'd warn, for you didn’t know what you were really up against until it was almost too late. A mighty swing at the stroke of midnight, chiming the gap in your mouth, teeth spilling out on the floor. 

That was to say, Childe wasn’t what you would call a stranger to the going ons down in The Dumpster. He’d had more than his fair share of enthusiastic participations over the years. It was, after all, no secret that the place was a magnet for the restless, pulling to those fitful brains that needed something to scratch that violent itch; and who better to show for than one of The Dumpster’s Hall Of Famers himself? He moved happily to its ruthless dance, swung his hips with its punch; invited the pain, encouraged the levity, laughed with the crack and crunch of a blow. 

It was a simple pleasure– nothing more, nothing less, a hobby, of sorts, if you had a twisted enough sense of logic to call it that.

For that's what it was: Childe had signed himself up for a good time, and a good time it was– a feeling mutually felt, he hoped, by the decorated faces of his opponents. 

And if not, then, well, you seemed to have found yourself wandering into the wrong establishment.

Now, unfortunately for Childe, as his days as an unassuming, kitchen table Fatuus became numbered, there came a big, fat extra helping of scrutiny in addition with the title Harbinger, one that he detested at even the best of times. He’d had to sweeten the pill– the ugly reality of which it was– to keep some person or another off his ass. That said, if he’d wanted to continue with his so-called escapades, he’d have to do so, but responsibly.

And so, while Childe scratched his head figuring out of what, exactly, that meant, he claimed himself something of a hatchet man, one that kept the not-so-pleasant activities down here in check– so as to avoid an incident that would shut it down permanently. 

Yes, for even the more almighty of the Fatui sneered down at its “heathendom”, but accepted it for its perks. It did wonders for good behaviour, after all, made it so that the troops could beat out all of their frustrations ready for the next day’s worth of gentle consultation and practised savoir faire.

It had, ultimately, come down to that one saving grace– a drawing board with a list of cons and pros– where morale was no doubt scribbled out in large, black letters to counter all of that which was distasteful on the page.

Childe had had to do a lot to keep the place running, had to, ironically, fight tooth and nail just to make it public accessible; for he insisted that the protection of this “pursuit of recreation” as a Fatui exclusive event was as underhanded as their reputation made them seem. He didn’t see how it mattered so long as those contending kept it fair play, Fatuus or otherwise, and came with Childe’s humble opinion that there was no need for scrupulousness when the fighting spirit was indiscriminate. 

It made his job easier too. For when Childe made it so his authority was felt – enforced, even, where necessary– he wouldn't regard much for who you were when the time came for him to step in. No biases, no foul play– it was what just needed to be done, as simple as that. It wasn’t personal. Not until you made it so, anyway. 

Oh yes, because with great power comes greater responsibility, and Childe put it on himself to intervene on the occasion in which someone grew balls big enough to transgress the rules– to weed out the proverbial garden, if you will, even if it meant having to put his foot down on his own associates.

It happened to be that such an evening came about on a day especially slog-filled, glasses topped up with the result of a week’s worth of rigorous work: blizzards, numbing fingers, and stale rations be damned. There was something explosive brewing, a tension in the atmosphere swelling from the rows of fidgeting hands and taut shoulders, agonizing prolepsis, everybody on edge.

Childe was amongst them, slinking his way through the crowd, keeping a watchful eye on those sparks of hostility jumping through the clusters of increasingly shortening tempers. He played with a thought as he caught the irritable gazes of his compatriots– whether or not he should throw himself in the ring this time, for he hadn't for a while– and nodded at their probing faces as he passed. 

Tonight’s first event had already kick-started, with two contestants steeling themselves for a brawl, centre-floor, having the crowd hollering and raving like mad dogs. It was a climate perfect for the Eleventh’s debut. 

Oh how it was going to be eventful.

On approaching, Childe couldn’t say that he recognized either of the contenders. Both men were young, around Childe’s age, with one clad in the doleful colours of the Fatui uniform. His hair was black and pulled back in a ponytail, high-hanging and lustrous, perfect for pulling if your opponent decided to play it that way. The latter, however, looked ragged, frail, a navy-blue fleece hanging threadbare from a small body. He held himself defensively, body braced, and yet it was hard to think that you couldn’t just push him over with a finger. 

Naturally, this piqued Childe’s interest. You had a few brave souls who, despite physically leaving much to be desired, still gave it a decent shot. There were, in fact, occasions that Childe had found himself pleasantly surprised.

Being on the scrawnier side didn’t have to necessarily mean being weak. It had its upsides: being nimble, light-footed, barraging an opponent with needled attacks and a limitless amount in stamina, where it was made easier to take the upper hand with the underestimation that came of having a smaller physique. It was just all about how you utilised what you had.

On the other hand, in all of Childe’s time spent “moderating”, it was exactly one of these types of people that he had learned to be most wary of. It wouldn't be the first time he’d seen the impossible confidence that came from some halt-pint facing off an opponent twice their size. For what, possibly, could it be that they had that would blow away the competition? Turns out, people were desperate to make a name for themselves down here. 

They would smuggle in all sorts: from garrottes to potions to other creative means— Childe had once heard of someone wielding a Hilichurl Shooter’s arrowhead, for Archons sake— and it was cause of some serious headache if they concealed themselves well enough. Crafty, oh yes, that they were, a fact in which Childe would have come to respect if the circumstances had been any different. 

But instead, Childe played the part of parent, dealing with an unruly kid, one that tried to assemble firecrackers using a school’s alchemy textbook– pesky, easy to catch out if you were looking, but dangerous nonetheless. Childe would know, he was that kid.

It became predictable after a while, precisely being for that reason, with this new power of foresight, that Childe held steadfast to his reservations, rushing forward as soon as he spotted the telltale steel-gleam from the inside of the contender's sleeve. 

Pushing through the crowd delayed him, Childe having missed the blur of a clumsy arced brandish in the direction of the other contestant. A ponytail was swinging from a veer, the target having come to the same realisation and anticipated the attack, the blade narrowly nicking his shoulder as he dodged. Childe launched himself across the open ring. Nobody dared to stop him.

“Now, now…” Childe seized the man by the neck, prying the blade from his hand before he could strike out again. “We don’t care for that around here, friend.” 

Childe kept his grip on the man’s throat, keeping his expression in earnest.

The man looked up at him with big eyes, grey, grey as mildew, grey as the dulled out craters of the moon; big, dusty craters. He had also a rectangular-like face, and for some reason it reminded Childe of a chimney. Perhaps it was because his hair looked sooty and mussed, his features dirtied with a layer of grime. He instinctively clawed at the hand where Childe held on his throat, shaking and pale, his nails spotted black with bruises.

Childe kept a firm grip on the blade with his other hand, his stare as unwavering as his hold. The colour drained from Chimney’s face as his eyes grew clouded and pink, his lips blanching, hair glued to his temple with sweat. Should’ve thought about that before you broke the rules, Childe thought, as Chimney made a desperate attempt to gasp out, his chest puffing out an uneven stutter, puffing out exhaust from a chimney top. 

Childe brought the knife up from his side with one fluid motion, pointing it skyward and holding its hilt close to his cheek. “And what’s this?” Inazuman made. A lucky find then; or pilfered, most probably. “A tanto?” 

He made a show of inspecting the blade, rolling its handle between his fingers. It was small and blunted, but it glistened with the light, just like the surface of a grey lake, just like Chimney’s eyes. 

“You hunt much, comrade?” Childe asked, nothing short of being casual. The make of blade was uniquely angular, straight-spined, and perfect for piercing.

Chimney sputtered out something unintelligible, choking on a strained breath, spittle flying from his mouth. How many rats have you had to catch, using this? He’d wanted to add, but decided against it. Rat meat was a Snezhnayan staple for troops down on their luck, as Childe had more than enough been acquainted with knowing. He wasn’t going to hit that low. So instead, Childe dragged the point of the blade gently across the bridge of the man’s nose– a tad crooked, he observed, as if it was broken and never properly realigned. Childe knew the feeling.

Chimney wasn’t going to last long. His eyes were becoming dangerously glazed, and so Childe released some of the pressure from his throat. He wouldn’t want him to pass out before he could really get the ball rolling, after all.

Childe had to act quickly, moving to put the hilt of the knife in his mouth. Chimney took this as an opportunity to break free from Childe’s grip, which was, unfortunately for him, a terrible mistake. He socked him in the stomach to incapacitate him, readjusting his hold on his neck. He then forced Chimney’s chin upwards, swaying it in his grip like a limp fish. 

“Straighten up,” Childe said, mumbling around the handle of the knife. He moved his hand to cup the plush of the man’s ass. Childe made a sound of discontent. “We don't have much to work with here.” 

Lips quivering, Chimney’s eyes widened and he jolted with the touch.

Then, with teasing deliberateness, Childe took the knife from his mouth, letting his tongue drag across its hilt– languid, as if he had all the time in the world. He let a trepidation build, let the thought of what Childe was about to do really sink in. 

He didn’t break eye contact, a moment long, heartfelt, and painfully static– Childe riveted by the sheen of the man’s eyes, this illusion of innocence, leaking silver, meek and terror fraught, as if his irises were melting.

And then one beat, two, and Childe was twisting the blade into Chimney’s right buttock, clutching his shoulders and pushing for him to fall to the ground. It was like watching someone throw away a very sad, crumpled up piece of paper. 

The spectators shared perplexed looks amongst themselves, which was surprising as much as it was rewarding, for it was, for this crowd, normally hard to incite a reaction to this effect.

“And we were doing so well, weren’t we?” Childe rebuked, arms spread out from his sides. Come on now, people. There hasn't been an incident like this for a few weeks now, and left them all with but a slap on the wrist.

He heard a groan at his feet and redirected his disappointment. “Yeah, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, pal.” 

Childe kicked away the hand reaching out to pull out the blade, sticking out like, for all intents and purposes, a broken tibia; a fucked up finger; a tooth through the cheek. Chimney grunted as he crumpled at the contact, Childe making a wry sound, lips pursed. All things considered, he had gone easy on him. He looked back up at his audience.

Shame, he thought, shaking his head. Childe had wanted a real challenge. 

On the bright side, it looked to be that Ponytail had recovered quickly from his shock, sending Childe a pointed look. It was impressively sour, a lot more so than what he thought was warranted, to be honest. Childe had, after all, just done him a favour.

“Do you know him, comrade?”  

“No,” he replied, coldly.

Childe couldn’t get a read on him, not with that terribly dreary expression on his face, Sweet Tsaritsa. But then he’d held his eyes for a moment longer, and it was nothing like Chimney’s grey which reminded him of Snezhnaya’s gloomy winter skies. No, this man’s eyes bled; bled through the canvas of his face, spilling by the dark of his hair and bleaching red the mournful emulsion of a barren wasteland palette– skin unseeing of the sun, clothes washed-out and dour, shadows a hard line on sallowed cheeks– it framed the danger that lurked beneath. It had Childe wondering if that was the trick to it, if that was what gave this man this illusion of such fury.

Curious. As it currently stood though, if there was a story there then Childe knew he wasn’t going to get it. Not right now, anyways. One step at a time. He turned to face the crowd. “Anyone else here know him?”

His voice rang out through a sea of shaking heads and shrugging shoulders. He scanned the crowd for anybody showing signs of piping up, that is, until he spotted a pair of men making a bee-line towards the exit, their guilty scuttling as awkwardly obvious as a troupe of mice pattering across creaking, wooden floorboards. 

“The pair in the back, awfully quick to hide, aren't you?” 

They froze, halting in their panic. Glancing back and forth between themselves, their whispering, albeit not very quiet, echoed with the crowd’s silence.

Childe whistled in a beckon and sighed under his breath, tapping his foot with impatience. “I don’t have all night,” and then, for good measure, pointed at the snivelling man curled at his feet and added, “Neither does he.”

There was a murmur of dissent that followed the pair as they walked up with their bowed heads over to Childe.

“You should work on your poker faces, boys.” The two men– related, he guessed– flinched. They were paler than a babushka’s Easter Pashka, sweating from under their matching, frankly just awful, blonde crooked-cut bangs. 

“And where’s the spirit of camaraderie?” Childe said, patting them both on the back, probably with more force than what was really necessary. “Right? This is what it’s about, helping out your comrades-in-arms.”

Childe kicked the heap on the floor, startling Chimney from slipping into unconsciousness. The knife sticking out of his ass really was comical. “Now come here and drag out our friend if you have to, and don’t make him forget what happened here today. I don’t care much for names, but faces,” Childe raked his eyes over their meek expressions. “I always remember.” 

The pair nodded in hasty compliance and manoeuvred Chimney up by the armpits. His face was puffed out and red, cheeks tear-stained and pooled with snot. His lips trembled out a low groan as they hoisted him up.

“And you…” Childe turned to face the other man, who’d, of course, stood by scowling for the duration.

“Sergei.”

“Sergei,” Childe gestured to the trio, now clambering off to whoever medical professional cared enough to see them in. “You should go with them, get that checked out,” and then indicated to the bristled stretch of fabric on Sergei’s shoulder.

“I’m fine.” 

“Listen, I get it. You came here for something, just like all of us, and you didn’t get it because of someone deciding to break the rules. Trust me, I’m not happy about it either.” He paused, and like a reticle, his eyes sidled across Chimney’s stupefied face. It was rumpled between the shoulders of the bad haircut duo. “But I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it for this.” Childe then motioned to the crowd, sweeping his arms out as if he was introducing the starring cast to a well-received show.

“We teeter a fine line here. An injury like that could get us into trouble. Liability and the like.” Childe shrugged, angling his head towards some invisible thing they all knew was hanging over their heads. It was fucked up in a funny kind of way. The ones upstairs didn’t so much as blink at their boys turning up more splattered than the canvases of an abstract art exhibit; but if there was so much as a whiff of a weapon-related injury outside of the training regimes, well then, suddenly that drew their attention. 

“Contractual pain,” Childe proclaimed. “There are, apparently, terms and conditions.” 

Sergei made a face as if he didn’t quite get it, and then turned away, sneering. 

Childe winced, sucking in air through his teeth. Rude. He was beginning to lose his patience. “I don’t appreciate the disrespect, comrade.” He held himself with a relaxed bearing, kept level-headed, but made no hesitation to invade Sergei’s personal space as he prowled forward. “Let’s not make this any more difficult than it needs to be, huh?”

They were nose to nose now, Sergei meeting his eyes and wow. Archons, could Childe feel the heat in that stare. It was boiling him alive, prickling along his skin like the notes of an indignant sonata. From so up close, Childe could see just how his jaw worked, teeth clamped down in a frown, and where, as if to spit in the face of Childe’s challenge, leaned that ever bit closer and jeered.

“Fuck you.”

The silence that followed was at a calibre of devastating loudness. A mega decibel in hitched breaths, the buzz of anticipation in the room as clamorous as a poorly ventilated fan.

“Fuck you?" Childe parroted. It was local down here, so of course, it was in Snezhnayan, which Childe had been speaking in until now. He couldn’t help but cut through the tension with a gaping laugh. The lilt in Sergei’s accent was, for a lack of a better word, adorable.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” Childe asked, the question inflected with the harder syllables of the common tongue. He grinned as Sergei’s eyes widened, a muscle in his cheek twitching. Childe could see everything, every detail of his expression, and knew at that moment that he'd hit the nail right on the head. 

“You should have just said something, comrade. There’s no need for the hostility over a little miscommunication.” Childe drew back a little, patting Sergei’s shoulder in reassurance. “I get it, the language is a little hard to keep up with at times.” 

But then, as if he was sharing a secret between them, Childe leaned over to whisper in the shell of Sergei’s ear. His words were sibilant, honeyed, a plucking to the strings of a harp. “By the way, I think you should only reserve saying something like that to someone you really like,” Childe all but rumbled with the words, pulling away, his tongue caught between the teeth in his cheek. He switched back from Snezhnayan. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the confidence, but woah! Warn me a little next time.” He squeezed Sergei’s shoulder and gave him a hearty wink.

He was shook off, Childe’s lips quirking up with the confused contortion of Sergei’s face, just before he took a step back and regarded the expectant faces around him.

“How about this…” 

There was a zizz of energy that bounced on his fingertips, tingling in his nerves. His brain was like an electrode titillated by a current. It was the suspense, it made Childe restless; zapping him into action.

“You and I,” Childe drawled, finger pointed to and fro between them. “Will do it the good ol’ fashioned way.” 

Sergei raised an eyebrow.

“If I get you to the ground first, then you forfeit. If you get me to the ground first, then I give you your free rein.” 

Sergei didn’t seem like he’d back down from a challenge.

“Sound good?”

Childe hoped he was right.

“Have at it then,” Sergei replied brusquely.

Childe hummed with approval, hands rested on his hips. He rolled his head with a click, stopped to survey the crowd at his flanks. He made it look as if he was biding his time, being dismissive and overly self-assured. 

Sergei didn’t make a move. 

Childe risked turning himself away, inching the side-lines and leaving himself exposed, where yet, even still, nothing.

Interesting.

Either he was lacking the confidence to take the initiative or he was catching on to Childe’s ruse. He’d be disappointed if it was the former. 

But Sergei remained fixed to the spot, Childe almost thinking him a statue if it weren’t for the way his fists clenched, his eyes darting with every twitch of Childe’s body, every rustle of fabric from his pacing steps. Even for the wrong reasons, the scrutiny worked to excite Childe even more.

Well of course he wouldn’t be so easily thrown-off.

“Let me get to know you a little, Sergei.” 

Childe lunged forward.

He aimed a punch to Sergei’s chin, swift and tight, but was met with the head of an empty space. Sergei swerved, holding his fists protectively over his face, landing himself squarely. Quick to react, Childe thought, bouncing on the balls of his feet; directing a few more calculated hits only to be glanced off. The contour of Sergei’s body was like a protective shell, a face closed-off and cool, peeking from the gap between his levered up forearms like the bars of a prison cell. 

Childe let out a frustrated huff. “So tell me,” he said, and attempted to feint him, to strike out at his abdomen, aim for the ribs, hit by the liver. No openings. Sergei was on the defensive, rolling with the punches. “Anything in the Snezhnayan cuisine that has tickled your fancy?”

Sergei was unresponsive. He moved when Childe did, a shadow, a reflection in a mirror; untouchable, or like those mimes you’d hear about in Fontainian theatres. 

“What do you like to do in your free time?” Childe was orienting himself to Sergei’s sidling, tracking his footwork, lest he’d get jumped on from an awkward angle and immobilised. They prowled around each other like it was the start of a dance. “Apart from frowning all day?”

Childe didn’t want to do anything too bold that could back-fire on him. It may just as well be playing right into Sergei’s hands. And while it wouldn’t be wise to underestimate the dynamic of the fight, he was starting to get real sick of playing the offender. “Creative? Good with numbers?” Childe paced from side to side, shaking out his knuckles.

“Music? Academics? Do you like to garden?” Childe had a tendency to talk through a fight; some vague idea of a strategy that worked to throw off his opponent and skew through their concentration, but found himself, in all truth, genuinely wanting to know the answers. “If you do, please, tell me. I would really like to know how it is you manage that here.”

Sergei looked unperturbed. Frustratingly so. “Come on, give me something to work with here, buddy.” 

While Childe didn’t expect to be humoured half the time, he felt he could squeeze out an answer or two if he tried hard enough. In fact, in his last fight, he’d locked horns with a somewhat demure man that Childe had learned was a bee-keeper. He had a dazzling silver-capped tooth, was picking up playing the organ, and held a fondness for the colour yellow. He had also a nasty left hook. Sometimes it was just all about asking the right questions. 

“I think I got it. You’re more of the business type, am I right?” It was less of a question, more of the set-up to a punchline. “Because everybody here either wants to export their own alcohol or get into the fish market,” Childe said, failing to keep the humour from his voice. He’d heard a few members in the audience groan, for it wasn’t Urban Snezhnaya without hearing of someone’s plans to sell the next best brand of fire-water. Did you want me to be your taste tester? He’d joke. I'd never be short in supply. Sergei did not look impressed. 

So unimpressed, apparently, that he finally decided to give up on his posing as a brick wall. He weaved his feet, scuttled like a spider did from a damned cup, getting the drop on Childe’s left side and lassoing his neck with his arm.

“Sorry, was I not meant to know that just yet?” Childe choked out through the headlock. 

Sergei muttered out a shut up through gritted teeth, straining with the effort of his injured shoulder as he braced against the weight, curved with the arm around Childe’s neck. Childe steered himself inward to Sergei’s body, allowing him enough access to gasp out a no way before he propelled himself upwards. He was trying to straighten out, to disarm Sergei from the hold; keeping himself firmly planted to the floor, leg muscles braced.

He stretched out and grabbed for Sergei’s face, reaching under his chin and pulling his head back. It was enough for him to slacken, to unsteady him, make it so Childe could direct a hit to his gut, or, if he really wanted to be a dick, in the groin. Childe was able to land a messy punch to the stomach, but Sergei recovered fast, prying himself off and pushing Childe away, leaving them both staggering. 

Sergei clutched at his belly, grabbed for his shoulder. He let out a laboured breath, sweat pooling on the bridge of his nose. But was, otherwise, still left standing. 

And so was Childe. 

The anger was rolling off Sergei in waves, Childe looking, no, staring, point blank at Sergei’s fuming face, and it was like being blinded by the sun, like looking in through the window of a furnace, leaving Childe with that gnawing feeling of wanting something more. That while he had wanted to drag it out, provide a little bit of a show and get to know who he was standing off against, it wasn’t really meant to be what he was looking for. 

“Do you have a Vision?” 

The question caught them both off guard, Sergei blinking away as if he had to think about it, Childe unsure of how to proceed.

But then Sergei looked back up, meeting Childe's eyes– muscles seized, bodies braced– and they collided, scrapped, no rhyme nor reason, messy and uncoordinated, reminiscent to that of a pair of teenage boys jostling it out in a school’s courtyard rather than of two Fatui trained soldiers blowing off steam in some musty cellar. But where was that line drawn, anyway?

No, this wasn’t the fight that Childe had sought. He knew that it had the potential to be something better. And while he knew he could be called a lot of things, unfair wasn’t one of them. He would earn his wins, earn his losses; otherwise it just couldn’t be called a fight at all. 

That’s what he told himself as he dug his fingers into the tear on Sergei’s shoulder, followed then by a knee he’d sent flying to the man’s gut soon thereafter. He watched him cave in, Childe grasping his hands on the crumpling peaks of Sergei’s shoulders and pushing him to his knees. It wasn’t a win. It wasn’t a loss. 

Sergei hunched over with a groan, his head bowed in respite and his arms angled out in front of him. His hands shot up, curved from the ground in a quaver as they pivoted from the wrists. A surrender? The crowd booed.

Childe didn’t like that he had taken advantage of Sergei’s weakness this way, but knew that it wasn’t a question of honour, and thus decided to will away the feeling of guilt as he took a step back from what looked like a lump of coal at his feet; a testament to Sergei’s clear affinity to a choice of dress better suited for a funeral reception.

“Well, I guess that settles that. You should hurry up and catch up with them, comrade. I’ll send someone with you to make sure you don’t try to jump ship.” 

If only Childe knew that he was being played for a fool. He found himself on his ass quicker than the time it took for him to turn his head. It was like the strike of a sidewinder, Sergei’s hand curling around Childe’s heel from the leg he had shifted forward. In the same second, he felt the weight of a head pressed against his inner knee, leaving no time for Childe to react– to string together a thought no less– as Sergei grabbed at his other foot and dislodged him, leveraging him from his ankles to stumble backwards, landing him with a thud.

Childe lamented on the fact that he had let his guard down so quickly, yet couldn't help but be impressed all the same, breaking out in peals of laughter as Sergei picked himself up with a derisive grunt. “No best of three,” he said, straightening out his uniform.

“Guess we’ll have to compromise,” Childe replied, holding a hand to his bubbling chest. He peered up at Sergei’s displeased scowl. It wasn’t a terrible view. “Brighten up, sunshine. Smile a little. You took the challenge. You delivered.”

Sergei did not take to that kindly, his grimace a dangerous flash of teeth on an already very angry face.

“And frowning like that isn’t going to change the fact that you still lost,” Childe teased, ignoring the warning. He stretched his legs casually out on the floor. “So no need to keep the claws out, tiger.” He then winked at him for what was the second time that night.

Childe was surprised that Sergei didn’t make to rip his throat out then and there, seeing as he could sear a glare through the moon right now, shatter all the stars in the sky with his twitching fists.

Childe gave only his most charming smile in turn. He then snapped his fingers for the attention of the crowd, raising his voice. “Someone get me Doctor Lavanda,” he said, leaning back on his elbows. 

After a minute or so, a man with something of a rumpled appearance pushed his way through the bellowing masses of the crowd, sing-songing and raucous, a cigarette hanging precariously from his mouth and his aviator-esque glasses knocked askew. There was a crack in one of his lenses, and only one of his sleeves were rolled up, there being a slew of sweat tracking down the other arm in which the sleeve was ripped off entirely. This was one of the most organised men Childe has had the pleasure of knowing. 

“Our compromise,” explained Childe, as the man almost got barrelled over by the belly of a legionnaire. “Our doctor, Nico, for those I really think need it.”  

He stood up to receive him, dusting himself off and catching the discontented look on Sergei’s face.

“What, not happy with that? Want me to give you a free shot inste–” 

Before Childe could finish, could even stand upright for more than one Archon Blessed second, Sergei suckerpunched him right on the nose, and Sweet Tsaritsa, if that didn’t hurt like a bitch. He may have just been witness to the opening of the divine gates of Celestia itself, the oohs of the crowd a chorus of Godly voices seeing him forth as he reeled a little.

“You drive a hard bargain, comrade,” Childe slurred, finding back his bearings and wiping the blood from his nose, the message of Sergei’s wrath now dutifully received on his, hopefully still intact, nasal bones. “Doc, check him over and leave him be.” 

Nico glanced over Childe’s bleeding face, scratching the scruff of his chin, not paying Sergei much mind. Fair enough, it was hard to think Sergei hurt with that small, self-praising quirk of lips he sported as he shook out his knuckles. Thanks to him, it was for the first time in Childe's life that he avoided the attention, turning away and ducking out of view before he could be called out on it, on cue for another fight that was about to break out. He threw a hand up in a half-wave as he sauntered off. “See you around, sunshine.” 

Sergei only cared to shake his head, and yet, Childe still felt the stare at his back, probing at him with the heat of a Natlan hot spring. 

It was funny, he didn't really strike Childe as being a Sergei.

It was even funnier now, in hindsight, when Childe laughed to himself with the thought.

Chapter Text

The second time that he’d met Diluc Ragnvindr must have been ordained; something in the way of Fate, a coincidence, perhaps, or one that, by Childe’s lucky stars, had just been waiting to happen. And yet, no more fitting was it than to just call it for what it was: a golden opportunity. 

There is no one luckier than he who thinks himself so, as they say, and if Childe was brave enough, then fortune might just think to favour him.

First, luck. It presented itself in the form of an apartment, one which sat on the outskirts of the city and was cutely tucked above a laundromat. It hid shy of passing eyes, existing in solemn cohabitation with the rhythmic thump thump thump of the coin washes. 

Opportunity. A man by the name of Sergei Surikov, the innominate; the unknown; the enticing danger. He was the heartthrob of a deliriously sexy mystique.

And Fate to tie it all together, a list.  

A list with the names of lower ranking Fatui– including that one of Sergei Surikov– and their respective addresses outside of the accommodations provided by the Ministry. That is, should someone wish to, there was always the option of an alternative living space to the Barracks.

Now there were a number of reasons as to why someone might choose to live outside of the Barracks. Some more legitimate than others, some less so, the job being precisely that– to figure it out– a task with which had Childe paying each and every single one of them a visit, all to be compiled for that month’s quota. 

The best way to describe it would be as a surveillance thing. And was, apparently, an altogether different flavour to the loan shark persona that the Fatui had carved out from themselves. Though really, if you asked him, the principle was rather the same. It was the kind of grunt-work that Childe only volunteered for once every so often— notwithstanding a now generous bump up in rank and the disputable use of his time— yet found it to be in its own way (even if it was below his pay grade) fulfilling. There was a thrill to it that just never seemed to lose its touch.

That wasn't to say that Childe enjoyed scaring people per se, but rather that he saw a side to them that you just might not otherwise see– and be that for better or for worse, it meant that he could always be just a doorstep away from his next challenge.

It was like this: sometimes it only took for his vaguely threatening presence inside the home of a man’s family, their faces took of their colour, desperate shooing aways of little siblings, anxious mothers and fathers, or whoever else Childe had had the pleasure of extending out his hand to. Of course, he had no such intention of hurting anybody’s family. No, on the contrary, he was doing it for them. 

He learned a lot about somebody just by the way they reacted under the pressure of a threat– to themselves, yes, but also to those closest to them. To preserve that part of your life was to separate that part of your life, and was in its own way a test of that Fatui integrity that seemed to be found so few and far between these days. You had those who would get in his face and try to throw him out, but then promptly moved out the next day and back to the Barracks. Others stood by, let it unfold, and stayed. All Childe did was play his part; the rest was up to them.

But then there were those that Childe had to take more seriously. Those who abused their options, who took advantage, who disrespected the principle of the thing. He remembered a time when there’d been a group of three or four that “roomed” together in an ailing relative’s townhouse. They’d done away with whatever they pleased on his private grounds, whereby the owner, a distant uncle to the one that had threatened him for the place, had built up a life on the property with his then recently deceased wife. There were times exactly like those when Childe didn’t hesitate to take a few liberties, to put people in their place for daring to use the cause as something of a weapon to wield against civilians. 

There were also, less nefarious but all that more irritating still, those who were not cut off from their rich benefactors. Joining the Fatui strived to cultivate discipline and encourage modest-living, for one had to earn their keep and work for the “luxury” that came of climbing the ranks. Most of the time, it was because of the parents. They kept their kids latched to the wealthy surname and a steady stream of bank-breaking numbers, for one glance at a flashy, new house of a 20 something year old new recruit told you half of all you needed to know. It was a pain in the ass to deal with sometimes, yes, but at least quick for the most part. 

And now, as Childe stood facing the doors of the laundromat, reminded by its transparent panes of a display case, folks moving about in its boxy glass belly, he really didn’t know what he should expect. The whole place looked rustic and worn-in, but had something about it, like an old jaded boot, which gave it an appeal. 

A minute passes, and Childe was suddenly startled from his thoughts as a pair from the inside kicked open the door, clothes heaped up in big baskets cradled in their arms. There was a wonder as to why the glass looked like it had seen its better days, with its cracks that resembled wrinkles, creases of an aged face; not unlike the one now, in fact, that peered reproachfully up at him from the window as the storefront shuddered with the impact.

Childe stepped aside to let the couple pass, holding the door open for them before it threatened to recoil, and then hoped for his sake that they didn’t disappoint the granny anymore in the process, otherwise Childe was going to get smacked over the head with a slipper.

The first of the two, a woman around her 30s, peeked around the pile of laundry and regarded him with an apologetic smile. Her hair was twirled up in a bun, sticking out from the top of her head like the cap of a mushroom. The man tailing did the same, but had apparently recognized him if the way that his eyes bugged out was any indication. If Childe kept up with the comparison, he’d say it was like two bulging spots of an agaric. 

Agaric nodded at Childe curtly, quickly hiding his face behind his double stacked baskets of folded clothes; only, it would be hard to hide an agaric, just like it would be hard to hide a face in such a vibrant red jacket.

Childe laughed under his breath and stepped in after them. Then suddenly, just as soon as the door closed from behind him, something dashed through the gap in his legs. Childe halted with the jangle of the door’s bell, letting out a soft gasp of surprise.

It was a cat.

She was small, black, and had a tail curving up mischievously as she scurried by. Her pelt was unkempt in swathes of short, matted fur; Childe’s first thought being of a velcro strap.

It was as if she had escorted customers through there a million times, Childe following her along the peach-cream tile of the laundromat as if she owned the place itself– but herself being, apparently, off-limits, where as soon as Childe caught up and reached out to give her a scratch behind the ears, she’d scuttle off with the bearing of the typical cat-like remorselessness.

Playing hard to get now, are we?

Her head turned, snaking side to side as she prowled next to rows of machines and sought out a target, with one noisy washer that, clinking like someone had left a belt or some loose change in it, growled through its tumbling steel walls like a storm was contained within.

This seemed to be to her satisfaction; her jumping up on it and splaying out her body on its warm surface, the rhythmic lurches of the machine quick to earn her approval.

And it was only then, once perched up comfortably on her pedestal, did she bow her head and let Childe’s hand work through the kinks in her pelt.

She purred happily under the attention, a funny contrast, Childe thought, to the store that was suddenly cleared out of all its customers. He wondered after the people who’d been sitting on the benches in the resting area, or to the abandoned baskets half-loaded with wet clothes. 

“Looks like you scared them off, girlie,” Childe joked to the cat, scruffing the top of her head. 

Well, at least the granny who’d glared up at him earlier was still sitting in the same place by the window, her hands folded in her lap, diligently waiting on her laundry. There was also a group of children nearby, smothered in their puffy winter jackets and pointing over in Childe’s direction. 

It looked to be that the two of them were coaxing a third to approach him, presumably in wanting to pet the cat. And so instead, to spare them from their indecision, Childe smiled their way and gave one last scratch between the cat’s ears before he moved on. 

“See you later, princess.” 

Childe looked around, trying to figure out where it was he needed to go to get to the apartment. He then spotted a woman sitting by a counter up front, adjacent to the entry of a stairwell. Her head was rested on her crossed arms, her face burrowed down into the desk.

It was in the interests of not wasting time that Childe tried to hurry along past her.

Emphasis: tried. It was, of course, wishful thinking. Childe knew that he could only keep his footfalls so muffled.

“Excuse me?” The woman at the desk called out, lifting her head. Her words rasped, like they would be if you had a sore throat. “Can I help you?” 

Childe turned from his beeline towards what he figured to be his way to get upstairs, addressing the woman who he could only describe as looking more tightly wrapped than a Christmas present. 

“Hello, miss. Are you the clerk here?” Childe greeted her with a nonchalance that he hoped took away from the suspicion of his aborted attempt at sneaking by. “I’m just dropping in.” 

The woman, who had at least six layers of clothing on, raised an eyebrow. And though the effect of it was tempered as it lost itself somewhere in the brim of her pink hat, she had still an expressive face to compensate, even if her squinting eyes were overshadowed by the swelling, red centre of her nose. ”And you are?”

“I hear that the owner, a Mrs Eileen Gehring, has recently taken on a tenant for a property here? An apartment?”

She hummed in what Childe assumed was affirmation.

He didn’t say anything beyond that, meeting the woman’s red-rimmed eyes with a polite smile. Childe didn’t want to be intimidating, he only wanted to get straight to the point. He leaned against the desk with a forearm and produced his insignia.

“It’s nothing serious, nobody is in trouble,” Childe said, and even with the yet that threatened to linger, the clerk’s expression was still questioning. It was only when her searching eyes seemed to snap to attention on the motif of the insignia, the emblems affixed to the heavy fabric of his cloak, the mask attached to the side of his head; that an understanding finally dawned on her.

“I see,” and sighed, nodding in the direction of the stairwell without saying much else, save for a cough or two that she couldn’t quite choke down.

“Get well soon, miss,” Childe couldn’t help but add, making his way to the stairwell door.  

Despite what some people may think, Childe didn’t like to cause a panic. Not unnecessarily, anyways. He’d done some digging on the place and found a surviving record of “routine checks” carried out by his superiors in the past. It provided descriptions of a “search” that displeased him far more than he’d care to admit. He was perfectly willing when it came to getting his hands dirty, but when it involved the unjustified harm to bystanders as part of it, then the whole thing was raised into question. And, the owner here, from what Childe could tell, ran a business which made it hard to question its legitimacy. There was something to be said about the longevity of a business in this part of town. Eileen Gehring had built something from nothing, and had continued to do so for almost twenty years. She had then decided, as her son moved out from the laundry, that she’d lease it out at a stab for some pocket change. Not an unusual practice. It just happened to be that some of the tenants had “Fatui” written down on their application forms.

But Eileen didn’t seem to take mind to her tenants and their occupations. So as long as they filled the paperwork and passed the interview, it wasn’t an issue for her. Eileen’s good faith, however, may have not always landed her with the most compliant of residents. It could be more than confidently said that she was no stranger to getting the shorter end of the stick when it came to these types of “investigations.”

And honestly, it was hard to shake that off, Childe clambering up a set of stairs that were, to not mince words, dearly in need of a repaint. His heavy-soled boots echoed with the hollowness that came of builder grade wood; practical, sure, but not very flattering. It didn’t have a lot going for it. And yet, just how he’d stood outside the storefront of the laundromat admiring its rustic charm, Childe couldn't help but smile as he ascended the stairs.

There were two flights, dimly lit, washed out walls and no window to speak of, with a full-panel door that had a poster taped to it. It was vintage, peeling around the corners, something of a film with Fontainian actors’ names he’s never heard of before. Huh. Childe had probably spent way too much time examining it before he actually knocked. 

Once he did, he waited. Nothing. And so he knocked again, this time in the rhythm of an old Snezhnayan children’s rhyme, humming along the words as he rapped on the door. Childe didn’t expect Sergei to scare easily, but had apparently too much faith in that assumption if his lack of an answer was anything to go by.

Childe believed himself considerate in giving Sergei the benefit of the doubt that, just like anybody else, he may just be occupied with something that delayed him from answering the door. A thoughtfulness beget from a questionable conscience, that even with the restless tapping of his foot, a report detailing “lawful” forced entry flashed through Childe’s mind, which had him sighing to the floor in resignation. Patience was a virtue, sure, but Childe wasn’t virtuous– and yet, questionable as his conscience may be, he still had one, and so he waited around with the etiquette that was so clearly expected of him.

He gave it a minute, then two, and then he knocked for the final time– loud, purposeful taps of the knuckles. He wondered if the clerk from downstairs had sent him up knowing that Sergei wasn’t in, or perhaps figured that Childe would give up if Sergei refused to open up; which frustrated him, because how could she be so sure that history wasn’t going to repeat itself? That yet another door wasn't bound to be kicked in?

Childe, again, sighed. No, she’d acquiesced knowing that it was out of her control. Maybe, as he stood here right now, she was waiting with bated breath, waiting on that proverbial pendulum to swing.

Childe leaned against the door, his forehead pressed against the silhouetted faces of the poster. His forearm rested on the lever of the door handle, sad, bungling, as if he was imitating it. 

This was a part of life, Childe's conscience whispered. Where things shouldn’t have to be forced. 

But, what Childe would also add to that delightful piece of wisdom was that, sometimes, it just came to him of its own accord. He would have sworn by it. 

He was kept there by something of a restlessness now that he was at a loss for what he should do with himself. It started with him sulking something fierce– his picking at a sticker gummed around the door’s lever, illegible as it was destroyed by wear, bright colours wrapped around a corroded steel appendage. But then, experimentally, his hand found its way around it, pushing down, a pressure he’d expected to be resisted by a latch, a physical sign that told him that it was about time to fuck off and leave.

That was until the door clicked open.

Childe was, well, surprised. It hadn’t been his intention– not actively, anyway– for this to happen. It was unexpected. And yet…

Opportunity, there she was, and as coy as she may be, just seemed to want to have her way with him.

Remember, he had a conscience, yes, but questionable it still was; so was it really much in a stretch of imagination to have Childe stepping in through to the apartment– a shameless smile, a guilt-free lack of due deliberation– in favour of pursuing what he had initially sought out in the first place? 

The apartment itself wasn’t anything to gawk at. It was pretty much up to par with what was being advertised; modest, basic in its design, perhaps what some may describe as verging on the claustrophobic, to some others, snug. But if it was anything, it was underpriced for what it was. Eileen was rather generous when compared with the prices of other properties in the area– that of a similar calibre, size, utilities– and was honestly hard to compete with if Childe had anything to say about it. Mora-wise, it was rough starting out on the bottom of the Fatui ladder; which made it all that more of a worthwhile find and was as close as you could get to hitting the jackpot. It left Childe that more bitter at the ex-tenants who’d dare exploit Eileen for providing them with such tremendous goodwill.

Childe crossed the threshold, proceeding along the hall of a vinyl sheet floor, a mimic of an ochre-brown hardwood. It softened the harsh lines of the foyer, catching the warmth of the dim, yellow light from a waning floor lamp. Something about it was homely, pleasant; as if inspecting a vase of Calla Lilies– with its peeling, brown leaves and rickety plate-sized table– projected something inviting despite himself.

While he walked, his fingers found themselves trailing along pallid walls, scant of even a generic picture frame painting, as vacant as were its rows of shelves fitted in a precarious hollow in the wall. Childe couldn’t help but think that it shared a likeness to a giant orbital socket.

Then, on its opposing side, there was a set of two closed doors that Childe eyed gingerly as he passed by, presumably bedrooms.

Finally, nearing the end of the foyer, there was a kitchenette to Childe’s right, on his left, a living room. Though most intriguing was the glade separating the two areas– a clearing with a door at its centre that was slightly ajar, the sound of an extractor fan whirring from within. 

Putting aside his feelings of general fascination with the empty planters and bags of potting soil that he saw stacked up in the corner, Childe was still on guard– approaching what he now identified as being a bathroom. He glimpsed a basin through the door’s crack, producing a sound that could be best described as a whooshing, not unlike if a faucet was left to run, water gurgling down the drain in desperate spurts.

Childe paused in front of the door, orienting himself to its unhinged side should it go and fly open. He pressed his back to the wall and slowly peered in. He was careful to be discreet, proceeding as if under the observation of a Ruin Machine’s projectile, as one of his then-superiors had once imaginatively compared. It was funny in a way– one part being it reminded him of his own little brother’s fascination with Ruin Machines, another because of an incident he’d had during his training as a Fatuus. It involved an unstable ice-field and a couple of Ruin Drakes; a mess, quite frankly, an encounter which taught him a lot about the importance of exercising caution. If he had just been more vigilant, he could have prevented the whole ordeal from occurring in the first place. 

And with that lesson there was also the unpredictability of people– as they were– that even those most confident in their combative abilities should know when to stop, think or step back from a situation. Or even, Archons forbid, to negotiate; which, contrary to popular belief, was actually encouraged as part of Fatui strategic training. Don’t get him wrong, Childe loved a fight, it was the best outcome for him– he just didn't care for making it synonymous to stupidity.

But it was easier said than done when putting the theory into practice, he'll admit. Childe surveyed what he could– concentrating, tuning out the distractions, keeping his line of sight open to even the most imperceptible of movements. 

Getting to grips with the idea of taking the direction away from a conflict was a challenge in its own right. After all, to show just how dedicated he was, Childe had promised himself unarmed, unhostile, and unharbouring of any intent to antagonize, ready to face whatever was awaiting him with only his cordiality and, if it were to really come down to it, his fists. He had even retired his Vision as a gesture of his sincerity, having proceeded the day with a surprising lack of problems that had him not too badly missing its presence. 

Right, as if it wasn’t killing him.

From his position, he could catalogue three unusual features to the room: first being that the floor was lined in a spread of polythene bags– something which, if Childe was being completely honest, prompted what were already less than savoury questions. Secondly, there was a collection of bottles dispersed throughout the overlay, with some clustered around in a dangerous teeter along the sink’s rim. The last detail, crucially, was that the shower curtain was closed, casting the room in a shadow that accentuated its dark corners in something of a thinly-veiled warning. 

The arrangement was as comical as it was obviously trying to provoke him– for if Sergei really was waiting to ambush him from the bathtub, Childe could just as well wait him out and disrupt his whole plan. He could look around some more, see what else there was to find– a lot, usually, you’d be surprised– a hypothetical that Childe was almost tempted to entertain. He was, after all, trying to avoid conflict, not engage with it.

Ha, let's not kid ourselves, Childe wasn’t that disciplined. Being as it was there so blatantly mocking him, he would rather take his chances and face it head-on. It must be that Sergei made his own bets on this fact, for surely he wouldn’t think Childe so stupid as to walk in without the slightest clue that he was going to be jumped. No, Childe knew that Sergei was hoping to get the upper hand– and to that, honestly, he'd say fair enough. There was nothing more satisfying than proving that Childe's recklessness was not to be mistaken for incompetence. 

And so Childe thought to make his timing erratic– not giving any indication as to when he was going to come flying in. He had deliberately hung out of the door’s range, quiet as he thought he'd ever be, letting enough time pass to put in some uncertainty as to whether or not he’d moved on. He took a mental breath, tensed his muscles, and decided then that he was going to have to use speed to his advantage. 

And then, just like that, it was over.

Childe had rushed in, kicked open the door, and made for the shower curtain. He had very quickly realised, even before he had drawn the curtain open, that Sergei was in fact not in the tub, but rather in the opposite corner standing atop the closed lid of the toilet. It was conveniently tucked in where the wall dipped into itself, similar to that of the shelves in the hollow, making it a blind spot to anybody who was standing directly outside of the room. Even as Childe made to turn for Sergei’s direction, he was already on the move, slamming Childe into the recoiling door. 

Childe had, through the rush of it all, wrenched the curtain from its pole with the force of Sergei throwing him in a ferocity that could honestly rival that of a Mitachurl. It came down with a crash, knocking down some of the bottles in the process like a sad game of dominoes, rod rings sprinkling into the sink.

And that was how Childe found himself pinned to the door, Sergei crowding him in as everything collapsed from behind them. Childe shifted a strained muscle, cheerlessly whiplashed, the door handle digging painfully into his spine; and yet hardest to ignore of it all was how Sergei’s face blazed, his eyes like pits of flames that licked up from their depths, roaring out at him with all their fury. 

Childe loved every second of it.

Well... With Sergei now clearly more than a little pissed off and the awkward bangs of continually toppling bottles, Childe felt his eyes roaming away sheepishly. He tried to feign disinterest, yet couldn't help but notice how sections of Sergei’s hair were clipped up in swathes, almost balled up in a product of some sorts– dye, Childe's mind helpfully supplied– and smiled surreptitiously.  

“What are you doing here?” 

“Great question,” Childe said, smiling, as if there wasn’t something sharp kissed up to his jugular. “Are you going to kill me before you get the chance to find out?” 

“I can make that decision for myself," replied Sergei, darkly. “When you tell me first," and he locked on, even as Childe raised his hands in a concession of surrender. He still couldn’t, however, help but fan the flames a little.

“And are you sure you want to be making a threat like that,” Childe said, leaning into the danger. “Knowing who I am?”

“I don’t care who the fuck you are,” Sergei snarled back. Truly, it would be an understatement to say just how incredibly tantalising it was.

So much so, in fact, that it was making it progressively harder for Childe to feel guilty about permitting the situation in the first place. It was as if he was a piece of dry wood ready to catch the sparks of a dangerous fire, veins thrumming with the pressure of Sergei’s eyes piercing him like heated needles. It was embarrassing, frankly, at just how his pulse seemed to jump out at Sergei’s fingers weaving through his scarf, leveraging him into the door. 

Childe then, in an attempt to remind himself of the situation he was in, invited the gruesome thought as he glanced the bathtub over Sergei’s shoulder. It was half-way filled with water, a fallen bottle bobbing along on its surface. If Sergei were to really kill him, a tub was the perfect place for him to be dumped into and left to bleed out. 

So it wasn’t ideal, obviously, and nothing short of being undignified– because how disappointing would that be for one of the Tsaritsa’s Fatui Harbingers to have died in someone’s bathtub? 

Imagine that, Childe’s neck like an exploding sap spile, Sergei catching the spray of his erupting arteries, a blood-steeped snapshot of Childe’s final moment as surges of red swirled down the drain.

And yet, even with all its morbidness, Childe couldn't fail to see the humour in the situation; for his eyes had landed on a bottle of wine settled in a far corner of the room, its tipping precariously onto its side, and that, for some reason, amused him. He had wanted to point it out, press Sergei about it, that was until he realised he hadn't responded yet, with Childe staring distractedly up at Sergei, steel pressed cold at his throat.

“I figured as much,” Childe willed himself to reply, collecting himself, albeit trying not to let his eyes linger too long on Sergei’s curling lip– imagining there a claret-stained tongue on the mouth of a bottle. “Listen, I’ll explain everything if you just put down the…” And peered down at whatever it was he was being threatened with. “Razor? A shaving razor?” Childe sputtered out a laugh, caught between something of an impressed sound and a worried one.

Sergei really had the edge of a straight shaving blade pressed at his neck, and though a small, old thing, wouldn't have Childe double guessing it for its efficacy despite the fact. 

It wasn’t, of course, the first time Childe had had something sharp acquainted with his neck. And yet, even for all of his experience, it never got any less gripping– as was very much the case right now. For a second, he’d thought that Sergei wouldn’t let up, his leaning the blade almost a little too much into his flesh than for what was comfortable. It wasn’t until he’d sized Childe up– two very intense minutes– that Sergei gradually eased it off, eyeing him in that ferociously suspicious way that Childe hadn’t seen anybody else come even as close to perfecting.

“Speak,” Sergei ordered, not quite relaxing, but not quite threatening Childe anymore either. He turned to shut off the tap that still gushed out angrily from the sink, almost as much so as Sergei himself was, all but slamming the handle off the faucet. Could have gotten you there, Childe thought grimly. Turning your back to me like that. Sergei then gestured towards the door with a jerk of his head, adding, “And get out of my way, will you?” 

Childe swallowed down on his frustration, patient as he could be, albeit teetering on the very last of his reserves. “Should I be worried about something, Sergei?” 

“No,” Sergei replied. Prompt, too prompt, as frigid as a Snezhnayan lake. “Should you?” 

Childe clicked his tongue, disapproving, anchored to where he was stood blocking off the exit. “Your door was left unlocked, so, naturally, I thought it was an invitation. I’d also given you some notice, hadn’t I? But then you came at me like that! A little unnecessary, maybe, but what do I know? You tell me, comrade.”

Sergei made something of a noncommittal noise in response, glancing off, so of course, Childe took that as an encouragement to continue. 

“I knock, I let myself in, and then you jump out of doing Tsaritsa knows what,” –just a lot of preparation for a dye-job, Childe hoped– “to attack a humbled and, may I add, unarmed guest.”

Sergei made it a point to look down at where Childe’s Vision was supposed to be hanging from his belt. 

“Hey now! Eyes up here, sunshine,” and Sergei’s eyes instinctively snapped back up, his face seized up into something uncomfortable. “You’re just shameless, you know that?” 

Childe doesn’t think he could ever get tired of trying to get a rise out of Sergei.

“Are you going to move?” 

“Not so fast,” Childe said, shaking his head. “I think it’s only fair that we talk out some things first, right?”

“What things?” Sergei gestured wildly between them, razor clutched in his hand. “This? What did you expect I was going to do when you walked in here unannounced?” Sergei was clearly starting to reach the end of his tether, slamming both his palms against the door, on the side of both of Childe’s shoulders. He could feel the force of it shaking along the contours of his back. “And thank the Gods that I had some foresight to do something about it.” 

Childe didn’t know if Sergei was just getting that pissed off or was trying to intimidate him— but either way, the thought of the latter made his fingers twitch. 

“Sure, yeah. But you know,” Childe shrugged. “An overreaction, maybe, wouldn’t you say?” He said, smiling all the while. “Was there, by chance, someone else that you were expecting instead?” Childe tried posing the question innocently enough; though it was clear that the implications of it were definitely not missed by Sergei. 

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Sergei leaned in, firm as he was, even with Childe holding out on his advances. He was so close that the chemical smell of the dye singed through Childe’s nostrils, a chalky, decaying scent that plumed with the heat of their mingling breaths. 

The way that Sergei huffed out at him was like a gust of wind against his face, and Childe really was struggling to remain undeterred. Sergei made it too easy, and to that, Childe could only say that he was disappointed. “It’s exactly what it sounds like it means, sunshine.”

To most of everybody else Childe has had to humble, Sergei did not give the reaction he had been expecting. Which was to say: it was hardly much of a reaction at all. 

Childe had seized Sergei by the forearm, ripping the razor out from his hand. He’d then knocked him into the sink, Sergei wincing with the contact of it against his back, but had not, surprisingly, made any move to retaliate.

Good. He didn’t want him to. The concerning part was how unbothered Sergei seemed by it. Childe didn’t suspect it to be cockiness, no– for nothing changed in Sergei’s expression to indicate as much. In overconfidence there was no subtlety, Childe knew that well. He noticed instead a weariness in place of where the anger was meant to be– and it was all wrong. All wrong. 

He looked put out. Resigned. As if he didn't at all care for the direction the confrontation was going to take, even with his own weapon pitted against him. For the lack of a better comparison, it was a feeling not unlike looking down at the stamped out remains of an extinguished fire. 

Childe did not like that at all. 

“Let’s not be hasty,” Childe said, drumming the blade rhythmically against the hollow of Sergei's chest. "Because I can be stubborn just like you,” and emphasised the words with every clinking tap of the razor. “I'll wait here all day if I have to. And, well, all I can do is guess, but… I don’t think who you’re waiting for will be particularly happy to see me.”

Sergei again, barely responsive, hummed with the dismissive dip of his head. Childe’s smile dropped a little.

“Don’t make me drag in people who shouldn't be involved, Sergei,” Childe warned. Sergei looked back up and met his gaze.

Childe wondered if Sergei realised just how loud his eyes were– of the conflict that plagued him as he weighed out his options, a vicious crashing of breaking waves, churning around in the depths of a tumultuous red sea.

“Yes, fine. I’m waiting for someone,” Sergei conceded. 

“See, progress! Now I would love it if you elaborated on that.” 

He didn’t elaborate on that– at least, not at first. Sergei sharply sucked in a breath, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“My landlady,” Sergei said through clenched teeth as if it was painful for him to say. 

“Well now, that could explain this,” Childe boldly reached out and thumbed off a spot of shaving cream from Sergei's jaw. It was awkwardly sat near the underside of his ear, slathered on in a way that Childe comically thought resembled an unmowed patch of grass. In all truth, it made it hard to take him as seriously. He then wiped it off on the front of Sergei’s black, sleeveless undershirt– which, really, didn’t look all so bad on him. “But this?” Childe held up the razor. "This?" he emphasised again, making a swinging motion with it, as if it was a weapon. “Not so much.” But then Childe leaned back and gave a look of complete and exaggerated awe, waving the blade around like a prize token. “Oh, I get it now! This is how you get your rent in on time, isn't it?” 

“Obviously not.”

“No?” 

“She’s never early, for one,” Sergei said, prompted by Childe as he scuffed a foot impatiently. 

“Really? And what if this is the one time that she was?”

“She wouldn’t be. I would hear her on the stairs or I would hear her calling out for me,” and Sergei pulled a look, as if to say: clue in, for Archon's sake. “She wouldn't be knocking.”

“And what of the young lady downstairs?” Childe asked, idly dragging his fingernail along the edge of the razor. 

“No.”

Childe raised an eyebrow. 

Sergei sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yes, she would knock, maybe she’d shout through the door. But then she would leave if I didn't answer, just like you should have,” and before Childe could interject, Sergei added, with no lack of bite, ”She wouldn’t be making such a racket either.”

Childe hummed, and then thought back to the woman he’d met downstairs, her doleful, pale face peeking from under the brim of her pink hat, and realised, when compared with his own footwear, her comfortable, cotton slippers ascending the stairs doubtful made a noise as formidable as did the thumping of Childe’s bolstered leather boots.

“Alright, and what if it was just one of the customers?” It was a reasonable question to ask, Childe thought, for all that time waiting on a cycle, what else was there to do then look around for a conversation? But Sergei’s glare clearly indicated to the contrary. There was, after all, having to get past the clerk.

“Ok… so you had to leave the door unlocked for Mrs Gehring, is that it?” Sergei’s eyes narrowed, leaden in a displeased kind of squint, as if Childe speaking his landlady’s name was already some kind of crime in itself. “But doesn’t she have her own set of keys?”

“There’s only one set,” Sergei explained. “And I have them.” 

“You’re joking me, right?” 

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Childe lifted his hands up placatingly. ”Easy there, tiger.” 

And Sergei was back to being pissed, his nostrils flaring like that of an angry beast’s, an indignant exhalation of breath sweeping across Childe’s face, who was now, of course, delighted by the fact. He’d happily suck through the deadly, smoking fumes of the flames if it meant to chase away the shadows that swarmed Sergei’s face and threatened to extinguish the heat. 

“And you know,” Childe paused, and then, without thinking much for it, reached out to trace the line of Sergei’s jaw with the blunt edge of the razor. There was a nick on his chin from where he must have cut himself shaving, perhaps from when he’d been interrupted– panicked, maybe– as Childe knocked at the door, for he would assume Sergei a meticulous shaver. “I think we can do better than this.” 

Sergei winced, swatting Childe’s hand away. “Could you keep your damned hands to yourself?” He snapped, clenching his teeth, and then subconsciously went and touched at his chin. How cute.

“Could you?” Childe laughed, wryly, pointing at his nose, wrinkling his face as if he was reliving the memory. Nico had applied strips of adhesive tape to it. “Look, something to remember you by.”

Sergei pulled a look that was probably about as benign as a piece of scrap metal, his opting for ignoring Childe's remark all together. “Ok, how about this, Harbinger. Get whatever it is you’re here for over with, and then you can get out.”

“You want me to leave? Already? But do you know what being put at razor-edge does to a man?”

“You’re pathetic,” Sergei sneered.

“Oh am I?” 

“Yes.”

Childe leaned down, crowding into Sergei’s space, teetering on a hair-width of distance. But about what was expected, Sergei refused to back down. “If you’re so sure of yourself, then at least give me the chance to fight back next time.” Childe then dropped the razor to the floor, letting its clatter fill the fan-whirring silence of the bathroom, but which was, honestly, really underwhelming– the sound of it cushioned by the plastic overlay. Childe sulkily kicked it aside. “I would have preferred a fairer fight, maybe. But I’ll give it to you, it was quick thinking.”

Childe was in a good enough mood to be complimentary, for he knew that he could have turned that razor back on Sergei quicker than before he’d even have the chance to glower at it. But alas, it wasn’t as fun that way– and killing was obviously out of the question, especially since Childe was actually starting to like Sergei. 

“Annnd,” Childe drawled, grabbing for Sergei's wrist. He was trying his luck reaching out for something to use as a weapon, his hand groping for a glass cup with a toothbrush in it. “You would have been much better off doing it like this,” and redirected Sergei’s fingers to the pulse point in Childe’s neck. He pressed them deeper into the skin, somewhere by the carotid artery, and then imitated a sliding motion, guiding him along the base of his throat. It was ear to ear, left to right, a wide crescent shape as if it was one big, gaping smile.

To say the least, it was charming in just how transparent Sergei made himself; it was like a picture book of flitting expressions. He was transfixed, confused, and then he drew away his hand as if he was just forced to stick it in a jar of slime condensate. 

“What is wrong with you?”

“Would you like to find out?” Childe teased, letting his head loll back. It was ridiculously cocky– and stupid too – for the image of a toothbrush speared through his windpipe wasn’t one that was all too appealing. Fortunately, Sergei only took this as an opportunity to brace his palm against Childe’s chest and push him back, his other hand clutching onto the rim of the sink. It’d left a red arching smear on its ceramic lip. 

Childe looked confusedly at it for a moment. “Ouch,” and then asked. “Did I do that?” 

Sergei evaded the question as Childe still refused to move. “How many times do I need to ask for you to get out of my way?”

“Hm,” Childe eyed the hand that Sergei quickly hid out of view, tapping a finger to his chin. “How about asking nicely?”

It seemed that was all he was willing to tolerate, Sergei charging forward and dragging Childe awkwardly from his spot blocking the door, his bloody hand curled into the lapels of his cloak. Childe didn’t resist, feeling like he’d exhausted the fun in keeping Sergei confined.

But before Childe followed him out– with all his huffs and tailwind– he reached out and grabbed for the bottle of wine that leaned dolefully by the wall, hiding tired-like against the worn out grout of the tiles. 

“Well, I see you're serving out only the best quality for your guests,” Childe said, appreciatively, trailing behind in an easy loiter. He held out the bottle in the way he’d seen people at restaurants do, reading out its label. “Dandelion wine, huh?”

Sergei was halfway into the kitchen before he turned abruptly on his heel, his eyes blown wide. “Give that to me,” he replied, with an almost beseeching kind of urgency. He swiped his feet nervously forward and extended out his hand.

“Not going to share?” Childe said, unscrewing the cap. “Not even for a little taste?” And took a mocking sip from the bottle. He couldn’t say that it was great – bitter, yes, with something floral, and it was oaky, as if you could taste that it was aged from a barrel. 

“I said give it to me.”

“Or what?” Childe challenged, all too happy to seal it closed. He let his arm swing by his side, holding the bottle by its neck. The liquid inside swirled as he ambled forward.

There was a dining room table, stocky and splintered-like, one that he saw Sergei discreetly reverse into. He slid a jar over to himself, clutching it to his back as Childe approached. 

“Ah, I see. You’re going to hit me over the head with a jar?” Who was Childe to bar someone from using a weapon of their choice? He wasn’t. But, honestly, even Childe knew that fighting with glass was just a terrible idea. “Hey, go ahead, kill me,” he said, as if it was a sincere invitation to do so, uncanny as it was in its excessive cheerfulness. “Really, find out, because then,” Childe paused, lifting a finger, “You’ll have more problems than you’ll even know what to do with.”

“If it's any way to get you to shut up.” 

“There are lots of ways you can get me to shut up, sunshine. Ways you’ll find much easier than this one,” Childe rebuked, as convincing in its innocence as was trusting anything else difficult to believe.

“For Archons sake.” Sergei’s cheeks reddened, and then said, in a voice gruff with agitation, “Just stop talking already.” 

“I don’t know about you– but what I had in mind was us both sitting down and talking, comrade,” Childe tutted, resting a hand on his hip. “Maybe having a drink or two. You listen to me, I listen to you. Now is that really all so bad?” 

“Unbelievable,” Sergei muttered. “You’ve been goading me on and now you just expect me to sit down with you and talk?”

“I didn’t really start this though, did I? Truth is, I’m not here to fight, Sergei. Not in this lovely home of yours, with a…” Childe trailed off, nodding to the jar in Sergei’s hands painted in its frivolous designs of stars. “Housewarming gift that I’m sure whoever so kindly gave to you would rather remain… Whole.” 

Sergei pulled a face, his eyebrows knitting together.

“What? Come on, there’s no way you were the one who bought that,” and laughed, because even a frilly, pink ribbon tied around it wasn’t enough to brighten up that frown on Sergei’s face– and that’s not to mention those mismatched barrettes clipped up in his hair. “Did you? Well well… And I see you put little cookies in it too, that’s cute!”

Childe put down the wine bottle in a silent gesture of concession, the wood a hollow rap against the glass, and advanced forward, his hands dutifully raised, Childe reaching out and lifting the lid of the jar. Even as Sergei clenched it closer to his chest, Childe was still able to pluck out a cookie from it. It was covered in a glaze and heart-shaped, Sergei muttering under his breath all the while, and, honestly, Childe was going to ignore that for a minute, because it was good, really good; the spices dancing on his tongue, the citrus undertones piquant in a way that washed down the acridness of the wine. It was a perfect blend of sweetness. 

What are these? Childe was about to ask, but then caught the way Sergei was gritting his teeth around an insult.

“Sorry, care to repeat that?” Childe burbled around a mouthful of the cookie, crumbs spilling from his lips. “Because you seriously just love to mumble.” He then leaned forward to grab for another, but was met with Sergei contemptibly turning away from Childe’s overly keen, outreaching hands. “Or are you just afraid to say it to me straight?” Childe said, again, reaching out, swiping for the jar. He was met with a much angrier response this time.

“Woah, now I don’t think so!” Childe narrowly dodged Sergei’s swinging punch, his cradling the jar with his other arm. Thankfully, instead of using it to bludgeon Childe, Sergei put it down before he ploughed forward.

Yikes, Sergei was fuming, Childe dodging angry hit after angry hit. He caught Sergei a few times in the strike, trying to disable him, but was rewarded instead with a particularly nasty slug to the cheek. Better than his nose, Childe thought, counting his blessings. 

“So we’re doing this again, huh?” Childe said, stroking the side of his jaw. Despite the size of the room, he put in what distance he could between them, leaning against the corner of the kitchen sink. “Oh, and sorry for this,” and then spat into it, a glob of red assaulted on the drain, Childe turning on the creaking faucet to wash it down. 

Turning his back, ha, guess Childe should have taken his own advice, Sergei swooping in on him and pinning him to the counter, both his hands tightening on Childe’s collar as he snarled in his face.

“I think I’ve had enough of you.”

Childe smiled. He tongued at the blood stained on his teeth. “You think?” And kicked Sergei in the shins, dragging them further into the centre of the room.

Sergei was landing a few punches to his ribs when Childe got a fistful of his hair, his hand greased wet with Sergei's dye. Fortunately, because Childe was wearing gloves, he grabbed a loose part of fabric with his teeth and tugged it off, throwing it in Sergei’s face. He did the same with his other glove as he wrenched Sergei’s hold off his collar. This worked well enough as a distraction that Childe was able to shrug off his cloak and throw that at him too, blanketing Sergei’s head as he fought disgruntledly with it, some of his hair clips getting tangled in the heavy fabric as he tried to lug it off himself. 

It was hard not to think it was funny, Childe choking back a laugh as he pretended to cough into his arm.  

Yeah, that’s because it was funny, that was until Sergei grabbed the wine bottle and threw it at him. Childe dodged it just as it smashed on the wall behind him, shards of glass spraying with the impact.

“Wow!” Childe exclaimed. He genuinely had not seen that coming. “You’re taking this hard, comrade.”

That most certainly was a wake-up call, and since Childe was there on the pretense of business to begin with, it was probably for the better that he didn't let things get too far out of hand. He’d let Sergei work out his anger– Childe having had some of his own fun with it in the process– but then decided that he ought to reel in the teasing before things really escalated. Well, that was until there was that glint in Sergei’s eye as he observed the broken half of the bottle on the floor. 

It only took Sergei a moment’s worth of deliberation and he made for it. Fortunately for Childe, as he was closest to the bottle, he was able to obstruct Sergei from careening his way to it. Childe had then redirected him by catching him in a tackle and slamming him to the wall, shards of glass cracking from under their feet. It felt as if the whole apartment shook, Childe wondering if, at this point, people from downstairs were privy to the commotion.

“Hey, how about we calm down a little, huh? Save it for another time.” Childe risked taking a hand away from where he had Sergei’s wrists pinned above his head– a painful position for his shoulder, as much as Sergei was trying not to show it– and moved aside the strap of the undershirt that curled around the crook in his bicep. It was bandaged but it was bleeding through. 

“See, you’re not doing yourself any favors here,” Childe said, tracing a finger gently along the stretch of fabric. As Nico had informed following that night after Childe's first fight with Sergei, he had been in need of a stitching up on his shoulder. He must have reopened the sutures. Sergei’s hand was also bleeding, trickling down his arm from a cut Childe could see spanned the length of his palm. He was bleeding fucking everywhere and it would have been beautiful if not for the circumstances, if not for the way Sergei’s eyes blinked away in a flutter of weeping red. 

It didn’t matter, for whatever it was Childe felt: guilt, pity, shame– it costed him dearly, costed him being pushed back and swung into the table, stumbling over the chair legs and scrambling to regain his balance. Childe then heard a loud crash, and he knew it wasn’t just from his hard landing. The cookie jar, the star-covered, pink-ribboned, adorable cookie jar, had fallen, crashed, shattered into pieces; its bow laying sadly out on what was left of the lid, cookies strewn out on the floor. 

This was it, Childe thought, picking up one of the cookies, holding it uselessly out in his hand. Tsarista take him now. 

But Childe was prepared to catch that broken bottle should he have to– act first, think later, even if “later” had to mean explaining as to why, Childe, does your head look like an exploded disco-ball?

Except, thankfully, that didn't happen. Because thankfully, thankful beyond relief, Sergei hadn’t moved.

He just stared, stared out at the mess on the floor, stared out at nothing at all, and deflated, rubbed at his temple, and slid down one of the cabinets with a weary thud to the floor. Childe didn’t get up and remained where he was, grateful, maybe, for the fact that it may just finally be over. 

They both sat there, mirroring each other, surrounded by the product of their fight— a mussed kitchen, disordered, tossed about, Childe’s cloak discarded out on the floor like it was a rumpled up picnic blanket. A date-night that had gone only slightly awry.

Sergei had his head in his hands, elbows rested on his knees. Childe could see just how his fingers shook, how his knuckles bruised; clenching his bleeding hand and curling it away from his face as if there wasn’t already a bloody smear across his cheek.

“Here, use this,” Childe said after a minute, balling up his scarf and throwing it Sergei’s way.

Sergei didn’t take it at first. He was left with the big question: what, in this situation, meant more? His pride? Or his self preservation? With enough consideration, Sergei unballed it and used it to wrap his bleeding hand. He sighed, looking ruined, looking aged, with his hair sticking out at odd angles, trailing down in unruly, wet tendrils where some of the barrettes had come loose. 

It was a moment that, for that rare occasion, Childe let himself be quiet. And maybe it was only for a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, but he let things really settle. He ate the cookie he’d been holding onto in a much appreciated respite.

When some time passed, Childe finally decided to break the silence. 

“You should–” 

But was cut off by the distant sound of a door, followed then by footsteps on a cheap wood. Eileen was coming up the stairs and Sergei was right, you really could tell that it was her. She had a lofty step, her humming out some vague tune that echoed through the stairwell.

It was almost funny, Sergei coming back to life, reanimating. He rushed to get up, tripping over himself, moving around in a frantic attempt to start cleaning up.

“Do you want me to go out and stall?” Childe offered, there was some much needed damage control to be done, after all.

Sergei looked up at Childe with neither an affirmation nor a refusal. Instead, he continued to dump the pieces of glass into a planter pot he’d lugged out. Real classy, Sergei.

“Guess so,” Childe said, half to himself. He got up, dusted himself off, and then grabbed his cloak from the floor and draped it along the back of the chair, straightening out the table. He made his way over to the front door. 

Eileen was just a few steps from reaching the threshold, her stopping short of Childe blurting out, “Well, look at that, just the woman I needed to see!” Before he promptly closed the door and met Eileen at the tail-end of her ascent.

“Ah, yes, hello,” she said, blinking up at him owlishly, her pale hair curved like the rounded head of an arctic bird. “You must be the Harbinger,” and took pause, screwing up her eyes as if trying to read something from a far away sign. “Tartaglia?” 

“Please, just call me Childe,” he said, giving her a friendly smile. “Mrs Gehring, would it be alright if I took you aside to ask a few questions?”

“Oh, yes, of course. But if I may, I was just on my way to see my tenant first.”

Eileen was polite, her words reserved, yet there was still something of an edge to them, as if she had already made up her mind on the matter. He also didn’t miss the way she’d glanced him over, Childe hoping that there wasn’t anything too obvious on him to implicate him. He clasped his arms behind his back as to avoid attention to the fact that his hands were stained with blood. 

“Hey, I’m not one to try and stop you,” Childe said, banking on a bluff. “But when I first walked in there, Sergei was practically naked. I assumed he was getting ready to shower. So alas, I've been biding my time,” and rocked lightly back and forth on his heels as if to emphasise his restlessness. “But he should be done soon, which is perfect timing, Mrs Gehring, because I will only need to keep you for a few minutes at most. Besides, I'll also be needing Sergei’s input, so that all works out, right?” 

Eileen still looked dubious, her eyes flicking to and fro between Childe’s face and the apartment door. “Is it only you?” she asked. 

“Oh yes. That’s the good thing about being your own boss,” Childe replied, meeting her eyes with the hope that it came off more as a gentle insistence rather than a threat. 

Overt friendliness was that perfect middle ground between scaring somebody and having them be too comfortable. It made intentions harder to discern, making people on the receiving end of it not as willing to take risks, but still able to be cooperative. Not that Childe had bad intentions. In fact, he would argue the contrary– Childe was doing Sergei yet again another favour. 

It was all about finding that delicate balance, to tip the scales, if only by a little bit, in favour of a slight discomfort. It may have helped that Childe had no weapons on him and nothing of the cloak that made him look a lot scarier than what he actually intended to be.

“Alright,” is all Eileen said. She then turned and made her way hesitantly back down the stairs, Childe almost thanking the weariness in her that decided to concede. 

But then something caught Childe’s eye as he followed her down. Gleaming from the jute bag Eileen carried was an Anemo Vision, a jade green cabochon that paired with her eyes.

Eileen was a Vision holder. Huh. What about that.

They exited back through to the service, back within the reaches of humanity, back to where people here did normal things, like do laundry, and not swing around a razor-blade and smack the shit out of each other. 

“Welcome back,” the clerk said as they entered, sounding anything but welcoming. 

To add to it, seeing as Childe was now robbed of his other layers, she scrunched her nose with a depreciation in what Childe assumed was for his dress shirt. Fine, burgundy just wasn't her colour. But then, after sweeping him over, asked, “Aren’t you cold?” In a tone so patronizing that Childe almost had the sense to feel embarrassed about it. 

“It's warm enough in here,” Childe replied, and slipped his hands into his pockets. Eileen looked slightly awkward, the lines of her old cheeks pinching around her mouth.

“Right, yeah, go on and make yourself right at home,” she retorted.

“Alana,” Eileen hissed.

“That’s alright, I get it. Heating doesn’t come cheap. Especially not at this time of year.” Childe tipped forward, meeting Alana’s challenge. “I’m just making use of it, that’s all.”

Alana, yes, glared at him– and Childe could wager a guess as to where exactly she'd learned that.

“Where are your manners?” Eileen sighed, and with the kind of exasperation expected of an old woman, decided to brush it over in favour of reaching down through her bag and taking out a wrapped container. It was a soup, or a broth, maybe. She then looked back up at Alana and said something to her. It was in a language Childe couldn’t recognize, not of the Mainland tongue and definitely not of Snezhnayan, an exchange that was kept brief, quick, Eileen snapping back to look at Childe in a way that reminded him of an owl– scary, almost, just how her neck seemed to veer. 

“Sorry, Mr Childe. This is Alana, my granddaughter,” she said, and pulled out a ziploc bag of cookies. A ziploc bag of very familiar cookies. “And she can be a stingy one when she wants to be…”

“No problem. I say that it’s always better to be wary,” Childe said, reassuringly. He was used to being antagonized by now. “With that being said, I'll get straight to the point, shall I? Mrs Gehring– Alana here is one of your employees, correct?”

Eileen nodded.

“And does she contribute to the selection process of your tenants in any way? The same could be asked of any other of your employees.”

“Ah, well, officially no,” Eileen said, waving a hand. “But Alana, she will give, uh… her initial impressions of some of the interviewees. I sometimes bear it in mind.”

“Oh? And what were her initial impressions of Mr Surikov?”

Eileen turned to Alana, and Alana hummed, taking a moment to think about it. “Quiet,” she said. “Kept to his own. It was a little suspicious at first, but then again, it always turned out to be that the least suspicious ones were the biggest assho–”

Eileen cleared her throat. “Reserved. Sergei wasn’t talkative– came off as a little unfriendly. But he provided all the necessary information and was very punctual. It takes getting to know him a little bit, but once you do, then you can start to see him for the mature, young man that he really is.” There was something almost teasing on Eileen’s face when she said, “I’m sure that Alana agrees with that assessment, yes?” 

Alana coughed into a tissue, hiding her face. “Yeah, he’s alright. He helps around sometimes. Doesn’t cause a fuss.”

“He’s a sweetheart really,” Eileen added, fondly. 

A sweetheart? Wow, Sergei, you’re really pulling out all the stops with this one. 

“And if you really want me to be candid with you, Mr Childe, I would go as far as to say he’s been one of our least problematic tenants for a very long time.” 

"I see."

Over the course of the conversation, customers had begun to linger around nearby, and Childe thinks that they were pretending to be occupied, knowing full well that they were trying to eaves-drop. But could he really blame them? Childe knew that he would be doing the exact same thing.

“Shall we go and sit somewhere, Mrs Gehring? There’s no use standing around exerting ourselves now, is there?”

“Ah yes, of course,” Eileen said, catching on right away. “I have just the place.”

She directed them over to one of the store's side rooms. It was about the size of a storage closet, with a brass kettle set on a corner stove, and two chairs set around a crate. It was also a boiler room, the pipes clanging with the pressure of hot water, which was actually a good thing, because it meant that Sergei was showering, and therefore gave Eileen no reason to raise doubt about Childe’s lie.

Eileen then, oblivious to Childe's inner monologue, asked, preparing the kettle, “Would you like something to drink?”

Childe was at first going to refuse, but then remembered that he needed to kill time.

“Sure, what do you have?”

“Tea?” She suggested, pulling out a yellow, jaded box. “Dandelion root,” and knew it without even looking at it. “That’s alright?” 

Dandelion wine, dandelion tea… Yeesh. “Great, thank you,” Childe replied, showing no less in his optimism. 

While Eileen boiled the water, Childe tapped his fingers restlessly along the surface of the crate, arched forward on the footstool he was sitting on. He let a silence stretch out, let it get a bit awkward, watching her as she took out two of the tea bags. A minute passed, and Childe asked, casually, “Say, Mrs Gehring, does Mondstadt mean anything to you?” 

He knew that it did, and she knew that he knew that it did. 

“Mondstadt?”

“Mhm,” Childe affirmed, crossing his arms.

Eileen sighed, and then she turned away, letting her bag fall to the floor; which had, ironically, displayed to him her Vision, as if it was giving Childe his answer. 

“My husband was from Mondstadt.” She took out two cups from the cabinet. “And I had lived there for a time, yes. A long time ago.”

“Hm,” and instead of probing further, Childe asked, with a deliberate ambiguity, “And why is it that you keep taking in tenants affiliated with the Fatui even despite your…” He paused, making a vague kind of gesture. “History?”

“Of past tenancies, you mean?” 

Eileen wasn’t about to be caught out.

“Sure.”

“Well, believe it or not, Mr Childe, and as I’m sure you’re aware– but not all of my problematic tenants were Fatui. I think we can both agree just how unfair it would be if I made my leasing decisions based on that alone.” 

“No doubt,” Childe said, with an all too casual tilt of the head. “And how would you know otherwise, right?” 

Eileen’s brow pinched. “Forgive me, but I’m not really sure what it is you’re trying to imply, Mr Childe.”

Childe could only beat around the bush for so long. “Did you know Mr Surikov before receiving his application?”

Even in her surprise, Eileen still kept her directness. Childe liked that about her. “No. The first time I had met Sergei was, actually, right here, where I had interviewed him." But as composed as she was, there were still cracks– an impatience that started to bleed through. “And even if I had, I don’t see why that should matter.”

“Well, you see, it’s come to my attention that Sergei isn’t originally from Snezhnaya.” Childe tapped his finger along the handle of the cup, the tea steaming, deep brown, with the same bitter profile as the wine. “But, as it turns out, Mondstadt.”  

It wasn’t that Childe was guessing, it just wasn’t a certain fact either. He was partially going out on a limb here, for what little existing information there was of Sergei on record, Mondstadt was mentioned only in passing. Sergei could fool anyone with those cheekbones.

“From what I know, yes, Sergei is originally from Mondstadt,” Eileen confirmed, and looked at him, really looked at him. She had wise eyes, green glades on a foggy morning, sun peaking through the gaps of a grass blade, straight through him. “Is that a problem?” 

“No, not at all,” Childe said, taking a sip from his cup. She tracked his fingers, to the blood crusted under his nails, then to his face, and Childe thinks she was staring at the junction of his eyebrow, and then of course there was his cheek, it felt like it was starting to swell. Eileen squinted her eyes and pursed her lips. She was ruffled. Childe continued. “But you must understand, Mrs Gehring, that part of the reason I’m here today is to make sure things are, as you’ve stressed, fair.” He put down his cup and leaned back on his stool.

“You’ve been doing this for a very long time and so I trust your judgement. In all truth, I commend you for what you’re doing. Giving this opportunity to those who are just starting out in the world.” And Childe smiled, genuinely smiled. “But, the fact is that there isn’t much on paper in relation to Sergei’s history; just a few vague details, nothing to explain why he chose to join— out of all the options there are in Teyvat— the Fatui. And for a new recruit, it’s just the natural course of things that we’d investigate how he manages outside of the job,” Childe explained, shrugging, almost as if he was reciting from a script. “And, of course, all that it entails.”

Eileen didn’t respond. She sipped on her tea, on the handle an almost imperceptible unsteadiness to her hands. Childe’s sure she's heard it all before. He'd even feel bad for subjecting her to it if it wasn’t for the fact that it was the necessary evil.

“What I am trying to get at here is that I’m sure you have more than a fair share of applicants– so Sergei must really be worth his salt if you chose him. I’m only concerned with finding out that it’s all…” Childe paused, searching for the word. “Legitimate.” He swirled the cup around in his hand, eyeing the quavering ring of liquid. “It may even be that you have information that could fill in some of those gaps. Because, really, at the end of the day,” Childe said, getting to the real question. “Is there really such a thing as the perfect tenant?”

There was a less than subtle shift in Eileen’s body language, and then less subtle again when the weight of the accusation, because an accusation, that’s what she seemed to treat it as, sunk in; Eileen becoming guarded, almost protective of Sergei. She sacrificed her professional image as the equitable land-owner in favour of defending Sergei’s honour, and that, that’s when Childe really knew that Eileen's fondness for Sergei was, with no doubt, the genuine thing.

“Well,” she started, her hands tightening around the collar of her coat. “Mr Childe, if there’s one thing I can assure you, then it's that there was nothing dishonest about the process, nor anything of Sergei when I interviewed him. He’s a private person, yes, and I will respect that, but not dishonest.” She met his eyes; open, kindly, truthful. “He is, and remains to be, one of the best tenants I’ve ever had. And so as long as he doesn’t let what he does interfere with the rules of the tenantship, I am happy to keep providing.”

Childe, with all honesty, couldn’t refute. And so he picked up his cup and knocked back the rest of the tea, bitter-tasting as it was, and forced himself to swallow it down. Bottoms up, he thought, and tried to keep the grimace from his face. 

Eileen didn’t take notice. She was looking distractedly away, as if she was deliberating something. Childe wasn’t in any hurry by any means, and so he left her to think uninterrupted, passively combing a hand through his hair.

“I will only say my bias lies in this,” she said, ever so hesitantly, and then took out a photograph, one that was tucked away in that thick, white fur coat that she wore. “You've been one of the kinder ones, Mr Childe, and so I hope to ask for your full confidence if it means that we can move on from this faster.”

Childe nodded, giving his full admission. “Of course.” 

She placed on the crate the photograph, worn at its edges, a picture of a young boy sitting on a tree log, and then tapped a finger to it. “Sergei reminds me of my own son. He too enlisted with the Fatui, and, oh, how that boy had a temper. But he was a hard working boy, and he had a good heart. And while the Fatui wasn’t…” Eileen trailed off, perhaps thinking that it wouldn’t do her good to be too honest. “He really showed the world that there is, and there can be, good. And I see it, I know I do, in Sergei.” Eileen, with unabashed emotion, radiated an all consuming maternalistic pride that Childe found himself thinking simultaneously heartwarming and devastating all at once.

“Thank you for sharing that with me, Mrs Gehring.” And Childe could say, with full confidence, that he really had meant that.

Eileen smiled, and it was contagious, it really was, Childe repaying the favour and realizing, then, that the pipes were no longer clanging. The shower upstairs had stopped running.

Right on schedule. 

Childe went on to ask more questions– information hunting, let’s call it that– satiating a personal curiosity, not just a professional one. How long had Sergei been renting with you for? How was he with affording paying the rent? Did Sergei have a job that you know of? Sergei dyes his hair, why?

Childe didn’t ask the last question, as much as he wanted to.

Turns out, Sergei had been settled in for a few months now, always on time with rent, never short. As for employment, Eileen knew him to work at some local bar, mostly nights, she said, but couldn’t remember the name of the establishment. On occasion, Sergei would help out, staff the store, run errands, or be the handy-man; that even with Eileen insisting that he be compensated for it, had always turned her down. 

By Alana’s own words, Sergei doesn't cause a fuss.

“I guess that’s all the questions I really need to ask… Except, well, one more thing.”

“Yes?” 

“Do you fight, Mrs Gehring?” 

Eileen, looking taken aback, mouthed, “Fight?”

Childe jerked his head over at the Vision clipped to Eileen’s bag. Eileen followed his line of sight.

“Young man, having a Vision does not necessarily mean that one can fight.”

“Most tend to have some way of combat ability,” coaxed Childe. “Don’t you?”

“Perhaps when I was younger,” Eileen replied, wistfully. “I no longer find much use for it these days.”

Childe wondered how old he’ll be when he stops fighting. Probably when it kills him, he thinks, and chances are that’ll be long before he even gets to Eileen’s age.

“Though, it wasn’t until later on in my life that I really discovered my love for one art in particular.”

“Oh, and what was that?”

“Archery,” Eileen said with a nostalgic smile. “First, in my former years spent in Mondstadt, I learned Favonius blade-work. Illicitly, I’ll confess, since it was a ceremony reserved only for Favonius Knights,” then, clearing her throat, murmured, “Of which I was not.”

Childe had heard about the Favonius Knights. He’d heard particularly about the Knight of Boreas, a formidable claymore wielder, and thought him to be a worthy opponent should Childe ever have the pleasure. 

“My husband was a knight-in-training, and so he taught me the sword. We would climb to the cliffs, and we would practise under the stars.” She sighed, a pensive breath worth years of her reminiscing; fermenting memories like they were the juice of an overripe fruit. Childe dreaded the day. "But it wasn't until many years later that I picked up the bow, and it was then that I really fell in love.” 

There came a point where Childe had lost track of time. Eileen had talked about her time spent in Mondstadt, the progression of her life, family tragedy, and how, upon returning to Snezhnaya, she’d spent hours with the larches learning her way with the bow. In turn, Childe had told her of his own desire to pursue archery– his goal of mastering all weapons– and probed her for anything and everything she could provide in way of advice. Childe had found himself engaged, almost on the edge of his seat, listening to the wisdom bespoke of the old owl. Eventually, and with only good humour, the conversation came to an end.

“The tea wasn’t so pleasant, was it?” Eileen teased, as she rinsed the tea cups, stacked them, and put them away into one of the creaking cupboards. “But they say that if you drink dandelion tea, you'll be able to hear the secrets carried by the wind.”

“Was never much of a tea person,” Childe professed. He got up and stretched, his back aching with the strain of having been hunched forward on the foot stool. “That is unless you want to hear what the blizzard outside has to say.”

Laughing, they headed their way back over to the laundry, Childe feeling that, maybe, things might just turn out for the better after all.

Met then by the front-desk, someone from the corner of the store called out to Eileen, waving their hands around and trying to mouth something to her. Eileen excused herself and wandered over, received only with the open arms of all too happy customers.

This had left Childe with Alana, mowing him down with her warbling, brown eyes that were, like a rosy-headed house finch, still obfuscated by her pink hat, there a displeased press of her chapped lips. Childe met her expression with a tilt of his head, probing her to say whatever it was that was clearly weighing on her mind.

"Earlier. What was with all that noise upstairs?”

Now that was surprising. Not of Alana knowing, of course– she was, after all, directly under the apartment– but of her bringing it up while Eileen was out of ear-shot. That had to have been deliberate. Childe smirked, and thought then that maybe Alana wanted to protect Sergei’s perfect image as the tenant who could do no wrong, especially if it was because of the big, bad Harbinger's scheming ways. Nobody wanted to piss off the landlady, Childe got that.

But that still begged the question: how was it that Sergei had so easily, so effortlessly, wormed his way into the hearts of the people here? 

Well… It’s not like Childe could say that he didn’t understand.

“Oh, there was just an accident,” Childe half-lied, waving off a dismissive hand. “I’ve already informed Eileen of it, nothing to worry about.” 

“An accident?”

“Mhm,” Childe shrugged. He refused to elaborate. Luckily, whatever it was that Eileen had been preoccupied with had been swiftly wrapped up, her waving Childe over. “Hey, sit tight, I’ll be gone before you know it,” Childe winked, and then rapped a hand to the counter. Alana rolled her eyes.

As Childe approached, he noticed, in Eileen’s arms, the same black cat that he’d seen from earlier. Eileen was a little out of breath, looking out of sorts but fond at the squirming bundle crushed to her chest. “This one’s been causing some trouble again,” she explained, adjusting her hold on the wiggling cat. “She always finds her way in here, silly girl…” And patted her generously on the head. 

“And who’s this?” 

“Ah, this is Natanya. She hangs around here often, more so now that it's getting colder.” 

“Oh, so girlie has a name,” Childe cooed, stroking her under the chin. “Doesn’t she live here?” 

“No. She doesn’t have an owner that we know of,” Eileen said, making a thoughtful noise. “But I think people here in the laundry have been feeding her. And she’s been going upstairs,” and even as much as she wanted to sound disappointed, she really did not look as miffed as she led on to be. “Perhaps a joint effort,” she added, conspiratorially. “She likes Sergei.” 

Really, at this point, who didn’t?  

“Does she now?” 

“Oh yes. I’ve mentioned to him once or twice before that I wouldn't mind him keeping her up there. But he never really gave much of an answer to that,” Eileen said, and began her way over to the stairwell entrance. “No matter. I think Natanya likes it better this way. She roams as she pleases, comes and goes at her own leisure. I’m happy with that so long as she isn’t causing too much trouble…” Looking down at Natanya, Eileen again patted her on the head. “Isn’t that right, koshechka?” 

Awkwardly, Eileen peaked past Childe and at the customers, working her lip, and then looked back at Natanya, and eventually said, “We might as well take her upstairs with us.” She then looked at the bag she had settled by her feet. “Though, would you mind… Sorry dear,” and passed Natanya over to Childe as Eileen collected her things. 

“Oh no, not at all,” Childe said, even as he caught Natanya’s claws on his arm. “How lucky am I to be the escort to this little lady?”

Not too lucky, it seemed, for Childe wouldn’t come out of it unscathed. 

As they began their ascent back up the stairs, Eileen said, with an almost near-perfect timing to Natanya’s nails raking through the thin fabric of Childe’s shirt, “Don’t let her fool you. she’s a charmer that one, which means she’s always after something.” 

Childe laughed, and yes, admittedly, it was a little strained; a sound reverberating through the stairwell, Natanya held against him as he followed Eileen up. He really would be lying if he said this was anywhere near what he had seen himself doing today. 

Eileen opened the door to the apartment, and strangely, Childe felt an uncharacteristic wave of nervousness overcome him. Here's to hoping that Childe did his part in stalling, putting his faith in Sergei having used that time to sort things out in the meanwhile.

As they stepped through to the threshold, Childe let Natanya jump out from his arms, her scampering off, shaking out her fur. She’d come out of it with messed up hair, Childe’s parting gift, on the other hand, had left him shredded to ribbons.

There they met the same lamp, the same shelves, the same dying Calla Lily in which Eileen looked sadly at; letting her hand brush one of its browning leaves as she passed. And then she called out, “Sergei? We’re here. Are you all done?” 

They approached the glade, Childe noting that the door to the bathroom was closed. There was no light from within, but the extractor fan was still whirring.

Eileen called out again, but will quickly soon realize that she was going to be disappointed. Childe hoped that Sergei was in a right enough mind not to have a repeat of their earlier tangle, for as well-meaning as Eileen was, Childe didn’t think that she would take to being attacked with a razor all too well.

Childe peered around, waiting, watching, as if Sergei was some kind of bogeyman lurking, ready to jump out at them.

But it was only a few seconds later that they turned towards the sound of a door in the foyer hall, Sergei stepping out with a decisive step, refusing to meet Childe’s eyes.

“My apologies, I was just getting dressed,” Sergei said, as cool as a cucumber.

No Baba Yaga then, just a man, and wasn’t she some kind of witch anyway? Gods, forget it.

“If it isn’t the man of the hour!” Childe greeted, having much more to say, but biting his tongue in what was for more than obvious reasons.  

Sergei was, to nobody’s surprise, sporting an outfit that was practically identical to the one that he’d been wearing when he’d first met Childe– that is, the least flattering of the Fatui garb, because nothing screamed timeless more than looking the equal parts pipistrelle and depressed. Though if truth be told, it suited Sergei. It was something about a uniform that just worked on him; dull, dark and drab as it may look.

Sergei’s hair, wet still from the shower, was brushed back, spanning down in a long, curling wave over his shoulders. His hands were now gloved, there being nothing to indicate that he was injured. Well, apart from the hint of a bruise blossoming on his cheek. But if you asked him, it added to the allure— Childe smiling slyly to himself with the thought.

“Sergei, how are you, dear? I only wanted to check up on you," Eileen said, fretting, mother-like, hen-like, having an entirely different track of thought to Childe all together, no doubt.

“Yes, fine, thank you,” Sergei cleared his throat. “I see you’ve met…” and gestured vaguely over in Childe’s direction.

“Yes, Tartaglia. A Fatui Harbinger… Do you know each other?” Eileen asked, oblivious to the way Childe had tipped forward in an earnest to hear Sergei’s response.

“Something like that,” Sergei muttered. “And for what do I owe the pleasure?”

Childe could’ve laughed, really laughed, because it was side-splitting, honestly, at just how obvious Sergei was in trying to keep the strain from his voice. He was avoiding addressing Childe, never mind not looking at him, and that had him curious: just how far did Sergei think that was actually going to get him?

As for answering Sergei's question, Eileen turned to Childe, explaining, “He said that he still needed to see you. Maybe to ask a few more questions regarding your situation here.” 

Childe nodded, and though his tone was casual, there was an edge to his words when he said, “Oh yes, because there’s no avoiding me, Mr Surikov.”

Sergei’s lip twitched. Almost. Childe almost had him. But the tension vanished as quickly as it came, because Eileen, like a great, big beam of sunshine, cut right through that rising, dark fog and chimed, “Ah, Sergei, before that– I have something for you.” 

She turned to ruffle through her bag, and while she did, Sergei finally met Childe’s gaze. Childe took this short moment of eye contact as an opportunity to glance him over, a quick up-and-down shifting of eyes; scandalous, Childe thinks, and makes to fan at his face with a hand.

Sergei crossed his arms, and then he did that thing that he does where his eyes screw up like he was being blinded by a light, blinded by the flash of his absolute disdain. But as soon as Eileen looked back up, he tried to smile. Tried to – that was the keyword, because it came out looking more like he was in pain, the kind of pain that you didn’t want to so readily admit to: runner’s kidney, carpet burns, cat scratches. But Eileen didn’t seem to pay it any mind, and Childe just had to find that hilarious.

“Here you are, dear. Maybe you’ll have better luck with these,” she said, producing a baggie that carried in it a collection of coloured sachets. “I know they don’t look like much but–” 

And before Eileen could finish, Sergei cut in, his face suddenly seized with panic. “Ah, you brought the…” 

“Your–”

“You’re too kind.”

“For–”

“For this. Thank you for this,” Sergei said, and look at that, Sergei had suddenly found his words, had suddenly plucked them out from some desperate place somewhere in order to talk over his landlady.

Eileen tsked in her annoyance.

“What’s going on?” Childe butted in, no better than an eager kid wanting to insert himself in a grown-up’s conversation. 

Eileen was more than happy to explain. “Ah, well, you see, Sergei’s been trying to plant—” But, again, not soon after she started, Sergei interjected. 

“Mrs Gehring, I don’t think that this is information a Harbinger really needs to know— ”

“Sergei, love, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’m only glad that you can make some use out of these planters. Gods knows what I would’ve done with them otherwise.” 

Childe was in awe, fascinated, really, at just how easy it had been for Sergei to be brought to a fluster.

And then it clicked, Childe stealing a peek at the baggie in Eileen’s hands. The coloured sachets were, in fact, seed packets. 

“Hey, look at that! It turns out that you’re actually quite the gardener after all, huh?” A grin split Childe’s face, terribly self-praising, and funny that he talks about face splitting, because Sergei may do just that if Childe didn't decide to tread carefully. “I guess this means that you have to tell me your secret now,” Childe joked, already so burdened by the memory of their last encounter– and his fucked up nose bones, because how could he not miss that?

Sergei grumbled, a sort of growl in the back of his throat. He was like a bear, retreating back to the cave of which he resided to lick his wounds.

Eileen, on the contrary, gave a low chuckle, and Childe thinks that she delighted in exposing her tenants of their secret past-times.

“Chin up, dear. To garden is to exercise optimism,” she said, and without the discretion Sergei so sorely hoped for, handed over to him the baggie. “I also have some cookies. I’ll put them away for you.” 

And of course, by way of that bottomless bag of hers, Eileen pulled out a boatload's worth of cookies, because seriously, that could feed a whole boat crew, and ambled her way over to the kitchen, leaving Sergei awkwardly standing there with the baggie in his hands, a blush dusting high on his cheeks. To add to it, Natanya was there circling him, bumping her head against his legs.

Let’s not kid ourselves, it was adorable, but before Childe could get the chance to make it known to the world, Eileen called out from the kitchen.

“Sergei, have you moved your cookie jar?” 

Oh no. 

The guillotine loomed large over their heads, and solidarity was a very powerful thing indeed, because nothing brought people together like the fear that came of a hopeless situation– that’s what went through Childe’s brain as he met Sergei’s panicked eyes. Sometimes it brought out the worst in people, sometimes the best, sometimes it was all just a matter of principle, really, and not just because Childe had a crush. 

He was ready to pull off the performance of a lifetime.

“I’m so sorry,” Childe cried out, flailing his way over to the kitchen, Sergei hot on his heels. “It was my fault, I got a little overexcited and then–” an unnecessarily dramatic wave of the hands, “Whoosh! There it went. I just couldn’t stop. One after another and then I…” and Childe spread out his arms, letting them fall with a dismal slap to his sides. “Dropped it.”

At any rate, Childe rather admit to raiding the landlady’s cookie jar than to owning up to the fact that he and her tenant had only just tried to beat the shit out of each other earlier, it’s fine, Mrs Gehring, you really don’t have to worry! 

“Which has me wondering, did you make them yourself?” 

Sergei looked like he was struggling to keep up, his mouth opening, then closing again, Eileen’s eyes looking the better part owl-like and wide. 

“Uh…” Eileen looked on, speechless, before she found herself and replied, “Yes, lebkuchen, I learned the recipe from a friend of mine back in Mondstadt.”

Childe had almost expected her to say that they were made of dandelion, only this time, he wouldn’t have complained. 

“They’re nothing like I’ve ever tasted before. Really, what a treat,” and Childe deliberately met Sergei’s gaze, now less confused, more the shade disappointed, if not a touch fed-up. He was everything a cookie wasn’t: sweet, soft, easy to crumble, but no, this lebkuchen had a kind of fierceness to it, not much expressed on the outside, but exploding with flavour on the inside.

“It really took me by surprise.” It did, he wasn’t lying. “Which is how the accident happened.” Uh, well, not quite. “I’m sorry about that, Mrs Gehring. Would you allow me to compensate you for it?” But he would almost be thankful that it did happen, because now Childe had an in. 

“There’s really no need to worry about that, Mr Childe.” 

“No, please, I insist. I’ll be heading off to the market soon anyway. I can pick up a new one for you there. In fact, Sergei can come with me and choose one out that he likes.”

There was always a way to make the best of a bad situation.

“Excuse me?” exclaimed Sergei.

“No? You just seemed so fond of the other one, it’s the least I could do,” Childe said, with an innocence so cloying that Sergei had to stop himself from recoiling.

They stared each other down, a minute passed, and still, they were at an impasse; Sergei refusing to budge, crossing his arms, Childe doing all he could to kick back the life into the conversation.

“Come on, Sergei. You still owe me an interview. I’m here on official business, you know. This way we can get it out of the way. And, well, tradition needs to be upheld– you’ve found yourself last on the naughty list, after all.”

Clearly not a good choice of phrasing if Sergei’s expression was anything to go by. Even Eileen, as familiar with the list as she most likely was, knitted her eyebrows confusedly.

“You don’t know? Well, we have an unspoken rule in the Fatui. The last one on the list has to buy whoever’s carrying out the inspection a complimentary drink after a long day’s worth of work.”

“What?”

“I’m kidding, relax!” Childe laughed, but then said, “Well... I do need to borrow you. There are some errands I need you to run with me.” 

Childe didn't think it was possible for the scowl on Sergei’s face to get any bigger, but it could, and it had, as if spending any kind of voluntary time with Childe was a concept cursed to the human imagination. Eileen glanced awkwardly away.

“Forget it. I have better things to do,” and Sergei scoffed, because of course he did, as if it wasn’t already clear enough of just how repulsed he was by the idea. 

Childe admired the valiance. 

“That’s funny, Sergei, because I don't think I was asking.” Childe made for his cloak, hanging still where he had last left it on the kitchen chair. He looped it over himself, brushing it off of– what he hoped Eileen didn’t notice– some stray glass fragments. Childe knew that all he would have to do is glance over in Eileen’s direction, shift his fingers to the belt of where his weapon would be, and then Sergei tagging along wouldn't even be a question.

Which is why he didn't, because Childe would never follow through and he didn’t like to make idle threats to begin with. Instead, he banked on staring Sergei down, letting his bluff be the unpleasant suggestion that Sergei’s imagination thinks up on its own. For if he really was as much of a sweetheart as Eileen claimed him to be, then he wouldn’t risk putting her in danger even if he did suspect Childe of foul play. Childe was starting to get it. Sergei didn’t have a cold heart. Far from it. Instead, there was something of an explosive righteousness bubbling underneath that aloof exterior, a propensity to protect others, to care for others, and to that, Childe thinks he respected just as much as he did that fearless attitude of his.

But your biggest strength is also your biggest weakness, Sergei. Childe knew it, Eileen knew it— which is exactly why she went and put them both out of their misery. “Sergei, don’t let me keep you. I came only to check up on things,” she said, with the gentle insistence of a grandmother. “You should go, buy something nice for yourself. The market really is lovely this time of year," and as she talked, she brought out one of the bowls from the cabinet and emptied the cookies into it. Sergei really was a lucky bastard. 

“Fine,” Sergei conceded. 

And that’s all it took. Eileen was all it took. It must be that Sergei was as much the player as he was the game-master. 

“See, I knew you could be reasonable!”

Of course, Sergei didn’t look too happy about it, pushing past Childe, and then, with a begrudging gentleness, picked up Natanya from where she was sniffing at a plant pot with a patch of what Childe figured to be, shockingly, cat grass.

Oh, so that’s why she dotes on you so much, huh, Sergei? Why don’t you just move her in already?

Is what Childe would’ve said over the calamitous shaking of the apartment, Sergei stomping his way over to the front door. Rather, Childe trailed from behind, leaning down so that he was practically breathing down Sergei’s neck.

“That easy, huh?” 

Sergei’s teeth gnashed, and he was oblivious, so oblivious, to the fact that all he was doing was just giving Childe exactly what he wanted.

And so, to spite him, Sergei made to pull open the door, angling his elbow in an outward arc as he jerked the handle, intending to catch Childe in the ribs, only to find him throwing the palm of his hand against the panel of the door, slamming it closed once more, and then crowding Sergei up against the door as he whipped back to face Childe. 

“Now I know you’re just raring to go, but we should be respectful and wait for our elders, right?”

And Childe leaned in, if only ever so slightly, Natanya crushed between their chests, held in the front of Sergei’s jacket.

There it was, that’s what Childe wanted: Sergei wincing as the door handle poked uncomfortably into his back, and that wasn’t so nice now, was it?

“I’m only returning the favour,” Childe uttered, before he swiftly withdrew with the sound of Eileen’s approaching footsteps. 

“And hey,” Childe halted, acting overly casual, leaning against the door frame. “Won’t you be cold?” 

Sergei’s eyes were a dangerous flash of red.

“Yes, dear. You should really layer up,” Eileen added, as Sergei turned to open the door.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. Eileen looked ready to argue, but Childe beat her to it.

“Suit yourself. We best keep moving then,” and shouldered his way past Sergei, trying to keep the laugh from bubbling up in his throat. 

As they clambered down the dingy stairwell, close-quartered, dark, all but falling apart, Childe just had to smile, he didn’t really know why– feeling happy, feeling light, and got so lost in his head that he felt someone’s foot skip his heel. 

Childe tripped, barely catching himself as he used his arms to regain his balance, wedging himself like a pair of chopsticks between the walls, awkwardly suspended on the edge of a step.

“Oh dear, are you alright, Mr Childe?” Eileen called out, her worried voice echoing along the tunnel of the stairwell. Sergei had taken a convenient interest in the ceiling.

“All good,” assured Childe, and then turned to Sergei and said, in his sternest voice, “Sergei, try to be more careful next time. What if it had been Eileen that you tripped?”

“Thank Archons then that it was our capable Harbinger who decided to take the lead,” Sergei replied, snidely. 

Childe, under his breath, murmured, “Well played,” and continued down, paranoid that he was going to be playing jump rope with the floor. 

Back to the laundry, they greeted Alana on the way, and she gave Childe a glare that, on Sergei, considerably softened. They nodded at each other in passing, Alana pulling shyly at her hat, and then startled as Natanya jumped up on her desk. Sergei had left her to leap out from her place in his jacket.

“You best behave, boys,” Eileen said as they prepared to depart. She looked at Childe strangely, not suspiciously, exactly, but something knowing, almost amused, as if she didn’t believe that for one one second they would actually conduct themselves, glancing between the pair of them like they were a couple of irresponsible kids.

“Can’t promise anything, Mrs Gehring. Especially not with this wild card here,” Childe teased, lightly bumping his shoulder with Sergei’s, and if he could look any more pissed off then he really might just go and kill somebody. 

“Yes, make sure he doesn’t cause too much trouble now…” and Eileen waved them off, the cold hitting their faces as they pushed open the laundry’s doors.

Chapter Text

The journey itself wasn’t long, though for Sergei it seemed as if the end just couldn't come soon enough. That was, of course, no thanks to Childe; as, while they walked, he decided that the best way to spend that time would be to probe Sergei for responses longer than the curt nos or hesitant yeses he'd only been so far willing to offer up.

It hadn’t been very successful, that was to say the least. 

“Figuring that you are a most enthusiastic gardener,” Childe said, teasingly. “Do you have a favourite flower?”

“Figuring that nobody in your life has ever told you to shut up, I’m asking you to now. Please, shut up.”

Now that's a record high!

But Childe couldn’t complain too much, because it was the most he’d gotten Sergei to say during the course of that entire conversation, if, uh, any conversation with him ever.

“Protective of your flowers, I see,” replied Childe, and in a voice devoted to that air of undeterred chirpiness, because he absolutely refused to be discouraged– and then, fast-approaching, no thanks to Sergei's all too brisk pace, they arrived at the city square. The lights were dazzling, flowing through the market’s stalls like veins, the centre a great, big tree wrapped in bright, winding coils of colour. 

So, in the end, not much was garnered from the interview, if it could even be called that, much to Childe’s dismay, albeit not much to his surprise. 

They entered the market-place, one of the first stalls to greet them being the vibrant vegetables, fruits, and decorative baskets glowing from under a canopy of twinkling faux stars, their beautifully draped from the snow-covered garlands on a wooden overhang, and so Childe exclaimed, with those very stars reflected in his eyes, “But how about vegetables? Do you grow those? Because I’ll tell you, you’ll find these hard to compete with!”

Childe made no hesitation to walk up to the vendor, standing there a woman with her plump, rosy cheeks, an ear-to-ear smile, beaming with the festivity of the market atmosphere. “Oh sweet Dee, happy holidays. How are you?” 

"Ajax, so good to see you again!” greeted Dee, a total power-house of energy, a carbonated drink, a little fizz, a little pop, but under it all there was something of a careful kindliness to her. “I’m well, and how about yourself? How’s the family?” 

"Ah,” Childe scratched his cheek. “I’m on duty right now actually,” he said, and was, quite frankly, a little embarrassed. Dee tipped her head with a knowing smile.

“My sincerest apologies, Mr Harbinger,” she replied, lighthearted as she was, and talked that way a family friend could. It would have been nice, if not for the fact that Childe felt unsettled by the eyes trained on his back. Dee then nodded politely at Sergei and said, “So what is it that you two gentlemen will be needing for today?”

“A few things,” Childe said, and shook off the chill, scanning the contents of the stall.

After some deliberation, he picked out a somewhat generous amount in potatoes, peppers, celery, carrots and a more than generous amount in beets. As Dee weighed them out and bagged them, Childe, recounting the list of ingredients that he needed, then turned towards Sergei and asked, “Do you grow dill?”

“What?”

“Dill.”

Sergei shook his head questioningly, his expression derisive. “Why?”

“So,” Childe pressed. “Do you?”

Sergei only continued to gape at him. 

“Come on, tell me," Childe whispered, loudly. “Hey, if you do, I'll stop pestering you about that secret garden of yours.”

Sergei screwed his eyes closed and sighed, his breath misting into a cool cloud of condensation, a physical manifestation of his frustration. 

With that, Childe realized that it had started snowing, speckles of white settling on the outline of Sergei’s pulled back hair, and he remembered thinking, for whatever reason, that it was picturesque, probably as a result of perusing one too many of the local guidebooks in the tourism section yesterday, bored out of his mind waiting on flushing out a debtor hiding in the city library– and then clobbered him over the head with a particularly thick volume of Snezhnaya’s most picturesque mountainscapes and…

Why was this relevant? Well, really, it wasn’t. Childe had only the time to recount it because it took a moment, it really did, before Sergei finally reopened his eyes, crossed his arms, and looked to a spot somewhere other than at Childe. He then nodded at him curtly, and wow, talk about taking his time. 

“Great. Just make sure you save up some of that,” Childe said, and of course, chooses not to elaborate.

Sergei’s eyebrows furrowed, but in that frustratingly picturesque kind of way– the confusing subtlety that came of a mountain-top peeking through a shroud of mist— that before he could protest, Childe turned back to Dee as she read out the total he owed. He produced a pouch of mora and then exchanged with her the bag of vegetables. 

Dee held the pouch uncertainly, bouncing it in the palm of her hand.

“Darling, I think you’ve overpaid me–” 

“It’s a compensatory fee,” Childe interjected. “I may just need another moment of your time, Dee.”

He had to make it quick. They’d been lucky enough to have caught it so quiet to begin with, because now a crowd was starting to slough its way over. 

“Oh you, there’s never any need to pay me for the gossip. What is it that you need to know?” 

Childe discreetly glanced to both flanks of the stall. Sergei kept a respectful distance between them, reading the market chalkboards, but not so far as to be out of ear-shot.

“I don’t know if you've heard, but a Fatui Vanguard by the name of Roco Ricci has gone missing recently.” 

Mr Ricci– or better yet known by the nickname Bronx, or Bronco, was actually a Vanguard in training; a rookie, if anything, but embellishing a few details was beside the point. He had disappeared under suspicious circumstances, and the market-place had apparently been one of his haunts. 

“Does that sound at all familiar to you?” 

“What does he look like?” Dee probed.

“Hard to miss,” or so Childe had heard. “Crazy hair. Scruff. Loud. He has a missing top incisor.” Whoever had been writing the report had a real penchant for descriptions. “Has also kind of a… thing here, a shoulder guard of sorts,” and Childe patted at his upper arm. He would, according to the report, wear on his right-side a pauldron, even when he was out of uniform, and all Childe could think was that Mr Ricci just couldn’t take a hit, and that was probably exactly how he got that gap in his mouth. 

“Maybe. Rings a bell. Taller fellow? Always with his friend?”

Childe hummed, intrigued. “With his friend, you say?”

“Yes, I’m sure he has his own corner in the market somewhere. Foreign wares, I think. They both pass through here often enough. The taller one has bought from me once or twice.”

“And when was the last time you saw him?”

Dee paused to think, smiling at a couple who’d started to peruse the fruit displays. “I’m not sure, it must be a while now. A week or so ago? His friend though, I just saw him earlier.” 

Childe nodded. “Great, thanks. For these too!” He then raised the bag with the packaged vegetables as if he was raising a glass, giving her a smile. “Until next time, Dee.”

“Take care now, Ajax!”

Childe cleared his throat as they moved on, Sergei not even trying to hide as he stared at him this time, processing, perhaps, that yes, Childe did have a birth name; as much as he didn’t want it being made privy to those he was professionally involved with. But Sergei said nothing, and so Childe put it aside for now, and not with much complaint at that. 

If Childe’s hunch was right then they were about to meet a guy by the name of Alexei Krutov, this alleged friend of Mr Ricci's, as well as someone that Childe already so happened to know.

It was a few minutes walk and a less busy part of the city, that even with the extensiveness of the market itself, Childe knew exactly what it was he was looking for. So did Alexei, apparently, his doing a double take as Childe strolled his way up to a stall so cluttered that he had to question if it was even ethical.

“Look who we have here!” Childe greeted, the first in Alexei’s lineup. The first as a customer entirely, no doubt. “I’m glad to see that you’re able to sit comfortably, comrade.” 

“I’m not your fucking comrade,” replied Alexei, and while his words were clearly pointed, his voice quavered. This guy was the very embodiment of a nervous tic. “What do you want?” 

“Feisty. Glad to see that you still have your attitude too,” Childe said, dryly. “Who would have thought?” 

Alexei was an erratic blinker. It was as if someone was twisting the cord to a window shutterscape. Open, shut, open, shut. He was blinking up at Sergei with his big, spotlight eyes.

Childe turned and followed his gaze. “Ah, so I see you remember our good friend here too?”

Alexei snapped his attention back to Childe. 

“Though I can’t imagine he would be easy to forget,” Childe added, and clasped Sergei by the shoulder. He just loved to drive the point home, even if Sergei had to go and rain on his parade by shrugging him off.

Alexei didn’t respond, and so Childe took to eyeing the stall and its various miscellaneous items; ranging from the somewhat practical, to the vaguely decorative, to the just downright outrageous, because seriously, it was the kind of stuff made of a hoarder’s wet dream. It was looking the better part out-of-place in the holiday market, a fact made only that more depressing as Childe picked up a set of crudely carved nesting dolls. It was painted in the design of the Fatui Harbingers, the mask of ll Capitano peering up at him, which had to have meant that The Doctor, much to everyone’s misfortune, had also made the cut, Childe opening the head to reveal the second doll. It was only a set of five.

Childe sighed. Come on, now that's just not fair, he thought, begrudgingly, as he placed it back down next to a battered-up shoe-box. Don’t ask him what was inside of it, because he really couldn’t tell you– he could only compare it to those wacky kinds of souvenirs, something like a flute made out of the tibia of a cacaua goat, or a Sumeru scorpion lollipop, or those primigenial insects fossilized in the chunks of Liyuan Burmite– and that, that was something Childe just rather not have to think about right now.

But that’s when something else had caught his eye, a familiar item tucked amongst the clutter, one of the few things that had an actual legible price tag attached to it.

Alexei blanched, his googly grey eyes ping ponging back from Childe reaching out for the tanto, up to his face, to Sergei, back to Childe again. “You wouldn’t try something here,” Alexei asserted, bravely, if not like a fish out of water; an entirely unconvincing bluster. 

“No. But even if I did, what would you do about it?”

Alexei’s lips trembled with a quickly diminishing confidence.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Childe said, studying the blade. It really was the same. The one and only. “Because all you are is just a scared small fish in a big, big pond. Isn’t that right? Lashing out, taking it all out on others. With the weight of that blade in your hand, just itching to be used.” Childe then speared the tanto into the counter, mere inches away from Alexei’s nervous, twitching hand. It was the only space of the stall left cleared of its random junk. “Oh trust me, I know.”    

Somewhere a series of rusted pans clanged with the force. 

“You knew that you couldn’t take on just anybody in a fight, and so you chose someone unsuspecting to play as your victim.” Childe’s hand clenched around the handle of the blade, his using it as a purchase to lean in. “And so the question for you is this, Chimney… Was your target random, or was there a reason you chose who you did that night?”

And silence. Silence as much as the white noise of a market chatter allowed, silence as much as Childe allowed, for his tolerance for it was there if not just on that fringe of barely existing. He was about to speak again, that was until Alexei suddenly blurted out.

“A-Are you here just to fucking harass me?” 

It was a desperate manoeuvre, Alexei having timed it so a group of passerbys would overhear. They gave questioning looks but otherwise did not intervene– or so Childe assumed. He hadn’t bothered to look. “You think I’m here because I wanted to see you?” Childe retorted, frustrated, because no, he didn’t have a limitless amount of patience, and Alexei was really starting to try him.

Still, Childe bit his tongue and laid off a little, thinking it wouldn't do good to squeeze Alexei too hard. That was all in due time.

And so he tried again– a different approach, this time. “You know, I knew you looked familiar the last time we met. You know Roco Ricci, right?”

Alexei had even made what was supposed to be a casual shrug of the shoulders look mousy. “Yeah, m-maybe I do. So?”

“So was the second attempt an easier feat for you?”

Alexei tensed. “What?” 

“Well…” Childe clicked his tongue, and then, with the true bearing of a pantomime comic, charaded a stab-like motion with an invisible blade, prodding the air in a series of dramatic strokes. Sergei looked on with disapproval.

“What? What are you doing?” Alexei, first confused, then suddenly jolted, “Wait, are you– a-are you seriously suggesting that I was the one who killed him?” 

“I never said that he was dead.” 

“But you just–” Alexei gasped, recoiling, and he was losing it, he must be, because then he shook his head, and Childe couldn't help but imagine that he was shaking the soot out from his hair. “He’s been gone for almost a week,” he said, eventually, eager to emphasise as much. “I d-doubt he’s still out…” and then, of everything Childe could have expected him to say, “Fishing.”

“He went fishing?” Childe deadpanned.

“Yeah, I think so, or… I don’t know. Like I said, it’s been a week. Don’t ask me where he is.” And somehow Alexei thought he was being subtle when he glanced up at Sergei for what was already the fifth time counting. Archons, why did Sergei always have to get all of the attention?

“Crossing off the days, are you?” Childe said, as he stepped in front of Sergei, blocking Alexei’s view.

“It’s not like that.” Alexei wringed his hands. “Look, he’s my friend– what reason would I have to do something like that?”

“It’s to my understanding that you're not so above killing if you're out swinging a knife around for no good reason. And then your friend disappears around the same time? I don’t know, it doesn’t look good for you pal,” Childe refuted, and then he crossed his arms, because he really needed to give the impression that he was strongly unpersuaded. “Who else if not you?”

Childe will admit, it came off as a little unexpected when Alexei suddenly exploded upwards, practically shaking out of his skin, clenching his hands over his chest, and cried out, “For Gods’ sake, it wasn’t me. I’m telling you, I had nothing to do with it!” 

Ok, well, that most certainly looked guilty. But perhaps the disappearance of Mr Ricci, the loss of a friend, really was starting to get to Alexei. 

And so Childe did what he does best: he pushed, and pushed, and pushed for a little more. “And you’re doing a stellar job at convincing me of that, comrade," Childe said, his hand dangerously gripped on the handle of the blade.

“This is crazy, just, just–” Alexei tripped over his words, blinking up in a rapid stutter; open, shut, open, shut. He was panicking, floundering, and that just had to mean– “You know who you should really be pointing your finger at? Him!” And Alexei waved frantically over at Sergei, standing there like a looming shadow over the shoulder of the stall. “He and Rox were fighting all the time. Everybody knows that they both had it out for each other!” 

Childe supposed that’s true, Roco and Sergei must be in the same regiment.

“And he scared Marta to tears that night just before Rox disappeared.”

“Sorry, Marta?”

Alexei paused, his eyes shifting to the side. “M-my…” He lowered himself back down, and Childe would almost swear that he gulped. “Rox’s sister. I met him through her.”   

Sister? Now that was interesting. As it turns out, Roco Ricci had been on Childe’s list too– flagged, something worth looking into; and happened to be the reason Childe was investigating his disappearance. Roco lived in a terraced house which, as Childe had now learned, must have been thanks to the real owner, his sister, Marta. Childe really wouldn’t have thought them related. Well, that didn't much matter as, during his visit, she’d been rushing out, running late to work, she said, and so Childe didn’t have much of an opportunity to speak with her regardless.

“You said Sergei scared her? How?”

“She turned him down when he started to hit on her, d-didn’t take that too well. Threatened her,” Alexei explained, his tone, by all accounts, of a complete confidence in the crimes of a guilty man.

Sergei had been able to restrain himself this far, but now, hah, as if he was going to be taking that lying down. If his piping up was also any indication, he didn’t look to struggle in keeping up with the frenetic mess of Alexei’s Snezhnayan either.

“What? That’s ridiculous. He’s lying,” snapped Sergei.

“Sergei, wow, I didn't think you the type,” Childe joked, but then pressed a finger to his lips. Stand down, it said. I need the information. Sergei glared at him but otherwise remained silent. “And where did this happen?” Childe asked, turning back to Alexei.

“At the bar he works, the one on fifth. It was late.”

“So you were there with her?”

"Well… N-no. She told me afterwards.”

“Afterwards?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh,” Childe nodded, and thought, maybe, he should at least act the part enlightened. “I see. Yeah, sure, that makes sense." 

Alexei, surprised by this response, didn't really know how to react.

Childe then turned to Sergei and said, in a voice soaked through with sarcasm, "It just makes perfect sense. Doesn't it, Sergei?" 

Sergei only humoured him by sighing. It's better that he got used to Childe's theatrics sooner rather than later. 

"Except, no, it doesn't." Childe again turned back to Alexei. "Because that’s supposed to explain what, exactly? You mean to say that you weren't even there?"

“Uh–” Alexei started.

"Is that really all you have to give me?” Childe clasped his hands together with a resounding clack. “Bravo, Alexei. You’ve really convinced me of your case here. I'm one step closer to finding your missing friend!” 

“N-no, that’s what I'm telling you! If it was anybody, it was him, him who- who–” Alexei was getting so stirred up that Childe could only fear that he was in danger of becoming a flight risk; that is, if Alexei blinked with any more speed then his eyelashes might just catch enough wind to fly him away. “He had something to do with Rox disappearing. I-I know it! I just know it!” 

Childe saw, from the corner of his eye, Sergei clenching his fists. Alexei winced, and then he snapped his mouth shut. There was definitely something going on here, alright.   

“Ok, so let’s say that’s true, I guess this is the part where you tell me that you went after Sergei as revenge, right?” Childe said, tipping forward. “Or, was it more so that you just needed to get your ego rubbed a little? Impress Marta, show her just how capable you are, maybe do something to earn just a little bit more of her attention–”

“Hey! N-now that’s just not fair–”

“And even if Sergei actually did what you’re claiming, where’s your argument, comrade? Your nerve? Nothing but lost credibility here!”  

Alexei’s mouth opened, and yet no sound came out.

“Also, I hate to say it, but thinking about it now, this Marta doesn’t have much to begin with either.” 

If Roco’s sister really was the Marta Childe had heard whispered about during the troops’ late-nights out, then she was definitely not the type to scare as easily as Alexei claimed. He’d heard all sorts about the woman, grifter, interestingly, being one word that jumped out at him especially. Rumour had it that she dabbled in the more illegal side of business, and that, more than likely, made people like Alexei the grist to just one of her many moving mills. “Chimney, what can I say, I’m disappointed.”

Alexei resigned himself, looking, honestly, a little worse for wear, Sergei just a short fuse away from blowing the whole market-place into fiery bits of decorative paper. But that didn’t deter Childe, because Childe wasn’t done yet.

“And talk about disappointment, 800 mora for this? After where it’s been?” Childe pointed to the tanto, purposefully raising his voice and earning what he hoped were a few questioning glances from passersbys. There went Alexei’s prospective customer base. Wherever it was. But that was that, what goes around, comes around. “I’ll buy it for half,” Childe settled. 

“Half? It’s worth way more than half.”

What’s this? It looked like Alexei had some fight left in him after all.

“Alright then. 300.”

“300? N-no– that’s less!”

Childe pulled the blade from where it stuck out from the wood. “Ok, then I guess I’ll just take it for free.”

“Ok! Ok, fine. Gods,” Alexei conceded, mumbling, however hesitantly, his agreement. “300.”

“You really need to work on your bargaining skills, comrade.” Childe ripped the tag from the knife, flicking it mercilessly at Alexei’s face. “By the way, please find me a matryoshka, but in reverse order of the Harbingers, and then I’ll pay you two thirds the price for it next time.” 

Alexei’s eyes grew half the size of his face.

“See you later,” Childe said, but with an unintentional ominosity. Or, well, that was unless Alexei gave him a reason to come back again, which, if truth be told, Childe sincerely hoped he didn't. He thought that he gleaned enough from the encounter as is, even if in the greater scheme of things that hadn't been much at all.

Funnily enough, and as if he read Childe’s mind, Alexei uttered, “I really hope not,” with a grimace that split across his face like a jagged canyon.

Childe only laughed and threw a hand up as he parted from the stall. 

“Charming,” Sergei muttered as a way of farewell, following suit. He looked a little thrown off, but then again, who wouldn’t be after being put in Alexei’s frenzied line of fire. 

And so Childe decided that, with Sergei in tow, they were to make their way over to a kiosk that was selling hot drinks. Because what couldn’t a little hot cocoa fix?

Childe ordered for the two of them, rifling through his pockets for change. He kept his big sums in pouches, but otherwise, his pockets were the no man’s land for his petty cash. Sergei shuffled his feet impatiently beside him. Angry scuttles. Like how a bull pawed at the ground when it was feeling threatened. Somehow Childe thought that his digging for his change– the rummage of his hands, the jingling of loose coins– was only working to rouse Sergei further. Rustle, rustle. Clink. Rustle. Clink–

“Is this fun for you? Dragging me out here for this?” Sergei snapped, at his wit's end; an elastic band stretched to its limits.

“Don’t sound so upset about it, Sergei,” Childe replied, just as well giving something for the bull to charge at. And then, with an exploding handful's worth of coins, Childe paid, stepped aside, and waited on their drinks. He pulled out the tanto from the same pocket he’d kept the change. “We got a souvenir out of it after all!” 

“Put that away,” Sergei hissed. Scuffle. Scuffle. And then he turned on his heel and started to stalk off.

Childe retrieved his order and followed in a half-run, and Archons, just keeping them from spilling over posed as much of a challenge as trying to make it look dignified did. “Let me make it up to you,” Childe puffed, catching up, steering Sergei back over in the direction of the square. “Look,“ Childe pointed over at a section of booths that were selling house-ware. Sergei looked disinterestedly away. “Oh come on, anything you like. You want to make Eileen happy too, don’t you?” And then, he said, with a lack of anything else convincing to add, “Besides, it’s all coming out of my own pocket. Take advantage, Sergei!” 

Sergei didn't respond, and so, Childe, as a peace offering, presented up the cup of hot chocolate, only for Sergei to all but thumb his nose at it.

“No?”

Sergei crossed his arms rebelliously.

“Fine,” Childe resigned. He looked around. There was a woman who was sitting on the lip of an empty fountain. She appeared to be a little affected by the chilly weather, hugging her coat close to her body. Childe approached her. 

“Excuse me, miss. Sorry if this is sudden, but I have a hot chocolate here,” and then he nodded over at Sergei. “My friend over there doesn’t want it. You’re welcome to it if you like.” 

She looked unsure for a second, her face an expression Childe had seen cross countless others’ already: some flavour of recognition– and where, they’d think to themselves, where have I seen this guy before? She mumbled her thanks as she accepted the drink. Childe smiled at her, and then he made his way back over to where Sergei stood– and everything about him, everything, he’ll repeat, cascaded down in a pounding deluge of unbridled judgement.

“Really?” Sergei intoned.

Childe shrugged. “Don't look at me like that, you didn’t want it. It would have gone to waste otherwise.”

“I’m not your friend,” Sergei said, on a point completely separate from the conversation currently at hand.

Childe had never before felt such an urge to roll his eyes. “That’s what you decided to pick up on?”

“It looks like someone who’s trying a little too hard,” Sergei jibed. “What are you trying to compensate for, Harbinger?”

And because Sergei clearly didn't understand the concept that was subtlety, putting a less than subtle emphasis on the less than subtle title that was Harbinger, the crowd around them started to whisper amongst themselves.

And so, in a quick-fire decision, Childe grabbed Sergei by the arm, though not without its fair share of resistance, Childe having to all but wrangle him down through a backstreet, somewhere that was out of the public’s general view.

“Wow, way to cause a scene,” Childe laughed, devoid of any humour. “That’s supposed to be my job.”

Sergei shrugged him off as if he’d just been seared, catching a foot on the corner of a trash bag, cursing at it, and then having Childe prod a finger to his chest, adding, “And behaving like that is a pretty audacious move considering what I just learned.”

Sergei smacked Childe’s hand away, a motion that was less of a spurn, more of a petty play. He did his own bit in pointing fingers. “You and I both know that what that idiot said was untrue.”

“Oh, right, remind me, which part is it that you’re referring to?” Childe said, and met Sergei’s challenge. “Because he said a lot of things. Things that only you and Alexei seem to know whether or not are true, and things that clearly you two don’t want to let me in on!”

Here they were again, staring each other down, sizing each other up, and in an alleyway no less; a pair of street cats arching their backs, showing their claws, getting, for some reason, very up close and personal.

“Hey, listen, I’m not here to force the issue. But if you want me to be completely honest, I don’t know what to believe.” Childe was practically breathing into the hollow of Sergei's cheek, his words ghosting along the underside of his ear, and, wait, did his breath just hitch?

“So just do me a favor, Sergei. Get in the spirit, unwind, do a little shopping.” And then, despite struggling to keep the grin from his face, Childe does the bigger thing and takes a step back, patting Sergei along the shoulder– two hearty pal-like pats, perfectly friendly, perfectly conciliatory. “Oh, by the way, you really need to stop doing this,” he added, gesturing between them, between them being the space that had Sergei so insistent on invading. “People will start to get the wrong idea.” Childe then looked off, catching his tongue between his teeth, and said, “Or maybe I will.”

“Why don’t you start by being less of a pain in my ass?”

“It wasn’t me this time!” Childe retorted, backwards walking, which, as he’d soon find out, was just a terrible decision in itself; Childe stumbling over the same trash bag that Sergei had, cursing at it too, and then, in rebalancing himself, Sergei shouldered past him, toppling him back over and into the side of a dumpster.

“Some Harbinger you are,” he sneered.

Even when Childe wasn’t trying to, Sergei was just so easy to piss off. But as he was also quickly coming to learn, the easiest way to fix that foul mood of his was by giving Sergei the opportunity to square the books. His happiness hinged on the extent of Childe’s humiliation, the punching down of his ego, and that just had to make Childe question if that was a lot more personal than he thought.

Childe wanted to ask but, as anyone else saw it, he preferred to stew it over with the garbage, apparently. 

Later on– and by some miracle– as they headed their way back over to the marketplace, Sergei actually decided to take Childe’s advice. Albeit joylessly and without the ‘getting in the spirit’ part. He took it as a win nonetheless. 

Things were, to put it in the best way, delicate. And so Childe left Sergei to his own devices, doing some browsing of his own.

That’s when he noticed that one of those Fontainian inventions, a Kamera, was sitting by a cluster of antiques on the shelf of one of the stalls. Childe reached out for it and inspected it.

“Try it out if you like, sir,” said the vendor, pulling on the handlebar of his moustache. “There’s film in it already.” 

Childe lifted the Kamera up to his eye and peeked through the viewfinder. “Oh?” 

For a purpose that had been more or less work-related, Childe had only before used a Kamera once or twice in his life. He remembered it to be simple enough to use– or, well, that’s what he so cleverly thought to himself as he aimed the Kamera's lens at his face, a close-up of his good side, obviously– but then, with the flash, blinded himself in the process, and woah, comets in his vision, intergalactic fish and rings of light, all in a day’s work for a very botched photo.

Reorienting himself, Childe decided that this time spent solo didn’t much suit him, and so he walked over to where Sergei was looking intently over at a selection of tableware. 

He was comparing the rows of various containers, his brow pinched with a concentration you’d think be reserved for the likes of a high-stakes situation, not for window-shopping, but found Sergei’s distractedness to be as endearing as it was perfect of an opportunity for Childe to enact his plan.

Sergei was angled away from Childe, and so he didn’t receive much of a warning before he pressed down on the shutter. 

“Give me a smile, sunshine!” 

As the Kamera clicked, Childe gave a cheer as Sergei blinked away from the flash.

“Gotcha!” 

“You just have to find every way to be a nuisance, don’t you?” Sergei huffed. 

“It must be my true calling,” Childe replied, as Sergei dubiously eyed the contraption in his hands. “Having fun, that is. Do you know what having fun is?” He was about to continue, to bounce off of Sergei’s disparaging lour, that was until he heard the crowd gasp.

There was a tinkling, a jingle, and so, expecting the worst, Childe reeled around, only to find that it was a group of performers waving around the sleigh-bells of their ornamental wooden sticks, joined then by the crack of zills of tambourines; claps of castanets; a percussive yawn that boomed through the market-place and stole the gazes of the public.

Every year at the imperial theatre, a troupe of only the country’s best dancers performed the Trepak, a famous Snezhnayan ballet. Events for it were organized for the enjoyment of the public, but also arranged as a soiree for those of the Tsartisa’s inner circle. This year, the invitation would be courteously extended out to her newly appointed Eleventh Harbinger. Although apparently Her Majesty herself had never attended. 

That said, the troupe would be in the city to practice, and so sometimes, if you were lucky enough, you could catch them waltzing by in the markets of the city, both figuratively and literally, to spread a little of the holiday cheer to the people of Snezhnaya.

Some of them smiled, waved, twirled to the crowd as they passed through, beaming up at the children with their dolled-up and sparkling faces, their silk frills like the bulbs of flowers, fur hats like the tops of cotton-grass.

And Childe found himself captivated.

It took him back to when he was a kid again, his parents taking him to the local folk-dance show in his sleepy-side village; nothing as grand as what you’d find in the city, yet it couldn’t compare, it just couldn’t, to anything else that he had ever watched before. The way they'd moved with such grace, artfully, seamlessly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, a young boy taken with the spell-binding silhouettes upon the stage.

The difference was, as a kid, he’d loved it for the story– the characters they played, the colours, the costumes. Now it was about what made the story. The stage was not unlike a theatre of battle, a manipulation of energy, a sequence– the amalgamation of instinct and pain-staking preparation combined; how it was to take a breath of life itself.

Childe watched them leave, awe-struck as he was, but felt a pair of eyes trained on the back of his head. It became second nature to feel it, a thing of a sixth sense, and so he whipped around, confronted by the source of his unease.

It was Sergei. There was that twitch in his eyebrow as if he hadn't expected to be caught, that even with being caught, he still refused to look away, and that must be cause of some serious stubbornness because he was staring, and so Childe gave him a sly wink, offering up the Kamera. “Do you want to take a picture? It’ll last longer.” 

“What I want is a new set of shower curtains,” Sergei rebuked, and with such a seriousness that Childe just couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ok. Deal.” Childe shrugged, a careless toss of shoulders, fanning out the photograph. It was almost developed. “I guess that’s only fair.” 

Sergei, as if he had expected more of a push-back, did only what he could do: grumble. He then went back to whatever it was he was doing.

Meanwhile, Childe raised the photograph up to the light, a laugh escaping his lips; gleeful, uninhibited, because it was perfect, so perfect, catching the split second just before Sergei’s frown had the chance to break.

And his eyes, Gods, his eyes. His eyes were always the first to react.

They had directly met the Kamera. There, in all of their candour, bleeding right through the material of the film, right through to Childe, striking as was the copses of thunder maples on an autumnal Inazuman morning, and Childe had seen a picture of it once, yes, there in those damned tourism books, a long-shot of Inazuma city enwreathed with the crimson maples, and that's what it reminded him of, maple trees, of all things.

And Sergei, with his maple tree eyes, his picturesque face, was still looking conflicted over which jar he should pick out.

“Make sure to choose wisely,” Childe said. “But if you're feeling indecisive, look. The photograph can choose for you.” Childe showed Sergei the photograph, pointing at where, in it, his hand was hovering over one of the jars, a blue one, paisley-patterned. It was kind of ugly, but… “Now isn't that adorable?”

Sergei’s face was red, but whether that was from the cold or from embarrassment, Childe couldn’t say. 

“Get rid of it,” he demanded.

Childe mockingly tapped at his chin. “Now why would I do that?” 

Sergei glared back at him.

“Seriously, you think I’ll just waste a perfectly good wad of film all willy nilly? And in front of the good sir who’d been so kind enough to let me use it too?“ Childe then flicked a coin over in the direction of the vendor. A commemorative coin. It was one of the Tsaritsa, one that Childe could count on one hand just how many there were of them currently in circulation. “Thank you, by the way,” Childe said, as the vendor snatched the coin, nodding his thanks. Moustaches must give good hand-eye coordination. 

Childe turned back to Sergei, only to see that he was no longer there. 

“Blue jar it is! Don’t worry, we’ll find something cute and pink to tie around it,” Childe called out. Sergei had stormed off for the second time that night, abandoning all efforts of entertaining Childe’s attempts at getting under his skin.

He didn’t go after him. Instead, he paid for the blue jar, bought a set of floral patterned shower curtains, and, by chance, happened across a box of discounted seed sachets. He then carried the stuff back to the laundromat, smiling, taking all he had and leaving it in the care of Eileen. She asked Childe what he'd done to leave Sergei in such a tizzy, trampling up the stairs and back to his apartment.

"Mrs Gehring... What can I say, he's just so easy to tease!"

Childe, waving his goodbye, headed his way back over to the Barracks. From his pocket he took out the photograph of Sergei.

He was beginning to understand why it was people loved to take photographs. It was that appeal that came of capturing the uniqueness of the moment, the fleetingness of the memory. There really would be nothing else ever like it to exist.

Nothing else like it. Yeah, that felt right.

And yet Childe also remembered thinking that the photograph was also…

Somehow...

Hmm.

Familiar. 

Chapter Text

It wasn't a third, fourth or even fifth time that Childe could say has anything particularly ground-breaking happen with Diluc Ragnvindr. And no, it wasn't for a lack of trying, of course– but rather because Diluc always had, in some way or another, found any and every means possible to avoid Childe where he could help it. 

And so Childe had decided to take matters into his own hands. He was at one of the local bars, the one that Eileen had mentioned but hadn’t remembered by name– The Skivvy, Childe learns– Sergei’s place of employment. And was that a Kikimora painted on the hanging sign? Childe just had to laugh, both in similar amount at the bar's antiquarianism and because he was yet again strolling in under some guise of business– if not actually just to find an excuse to catch the ponytail that seemed to be veering around every corner.

“Sergei Surikov,” Childe said, no lead-up, leaning against the counter of the bar. He grabbed at its edge like he was a kid peeking over the checkout for a candy bar. “He works here, right?”

“Who’s asking?” replied the guy working the tap. He side-eyed Childe from where he was sliding a pint over to a customer. Quick on his feet, didn’t even have to look, tall, turned his head a little and… Oh, he was attractive, had nice lips, and there was this slope to his nose– one of those unique faces, those ones that were hard to forget, you know.

“A friend,” Childe offered, absent-mindedly, because then he asked, “Hey, do I know you from somewhere?”

“Sergei? Friends?” rejoined Mr Bartender, unafraid to show his cynicism. “He’ll have to forgive me for saying, but that’s a little hard to believe.” 

And Gods, his laugh. It was breathy, but in that sort of way that was wispy, like a zephyr, or like the hiss that comes from the hot coals in a steam-room. He also straight-up ignored Childe’s question, so that had to have accounted for something.

Childe took a moment to think about it, digging into the recesses of his memory and finding that... Yes. Yes he did know him. He most definitely did.

Hah.

From the ring!

This guy kicked the shit out of one of Childe’s pals down there, oh yes, he remembered now, clear as day. Then he’d laughed when someone cuffed him, hard, against the head, like it was nothing. The laugh sprayed out of him like a mist, like a drizzle. Then he’d go and– with a mouth full of blood– spit, and Childe meant that literally, at whoever else wanted to entertain him a swing next.

The man did not respect etiquette, that much was clear. Neither did Childe, but, well, that was beside the point– it's the underhandedness which made people so memorable, what made this guy so memorable. Though audacious, maybe, was the better fitting descriptor, because people down there started fights over much less and this guy clearly thrived on that fact.

Who knew that the barkeeps took their choice of entertainment so seriously.

Which also begged the question: was Sergei’s referral to the ring from this guy? 

Childe’s realization must have shown on his face, because then this bartender– whatever his name was, it’ll come to him– turned to the direction of what Childe assumed was a storage-room of some kind; an opening peeking around the corner of the bar display.

“Sergei!” he called out. “Got someone out front waiting for you.”

Nobody responded. And so the bartender goes over to check. A scent clinged to him, smoke-like, an aroma lived-in and warm and like pencil shavings, like he belonged to a forest ripe with old cedars, not on the musty floor of a fight ring. In fact, the whole tavern smelled like it. Smelled like tree sweat. Childe drummed his fingers along the counter-top while he waited. He’s trying to think up the bartender’s name, but is instead thinking about his smell, for Tsaritsa’s sake.

Speaking of which, a minute later and the bartender finally comes back, playing it cool, maybe a little too cool, and then shrugged, just as he would after being hit by someone’s staggering haymaker. Too casual. Holding back emotion. Childe briefly wonders if he was the kind of guy that asked to get smacked at the start of every morning instead of taking an extra shot of coffee. “Give it a minute,” is all he said, and gave Childe a service smile, a service lean, amping up the charm and the like. “So what can I get for you while you wait, Jack?” 

Jack? That's a new one.

“No thanks,” Childe paused. His name. It was on the tip of his tongue. “Jo,” he settled with. It was Joselyn– a shot in the dark, in all truth, but correct, judging by how Joselyn’s eyebrows shot up. Childe wasn’t the best with names, but this one stuck out to him particularly.

“Whacked ‘em up good, Jo!” Someone from the crowd jeered.

“That’s just what he does,” slurred another. “Josie’s a machine!”

And so Childe, wearily, mirrored Josie’s resigned smile and asked, “Well, since I obviously can’t ask him myself, I’ll just have to ask you. Was Sergei working here on the seventh? That would be exactly three weeks to today.”

“Is that a question a friend usually goes around asking?”

“A nosy friend.” Childe paced around the bar, eyeing the taxidermied animals mounted on the wall. Oh how much easier life would be to lead a life on the wall of a bar.

“An intrusive one even.”

There were heads of deers, warthogs, wolves– normal enough– until Childe caught the beady, pale eye of a Frostarm Lawachurl. “Freaky,” he pointed to the Lawachurl head, bowed, imposing, looking down on them all; its massive ice-like tusks curling out from its face. “That the owner?”

Jo raised his eyebrows again.

Childe smiled. “Intrusive on a good day, you don’t want to have to see me on a bad one,” he replied, as half-hearted as it was. He started to tap a foot.

Childe didn’t think himself that much of an impatient person— not compared to his colleagues, at least— but if he’d had to guess the situation here, then Sergei was probably sneaking out the back right now, and Jo had with due favour the task of stalling Childe as long as he could. 

“It’s a simple enough question, comrade. You do keep tabs on that sort of thing here, don’t you?”

Joselyn barked out a laugh. Though, again, was bark really the word? Childe couldn’t help but imagine it being more the sound a sprinkler makes when it sets off– a chk chk chk of blood every time he opened his mouth to wheeze a laugh. It was a zephyr that picks up speed. The coals that sizzle. “You seem a tad restless, Eleven,” he helpfully not so helpfully pointed out, with his smile lopped to one side. Broken sprinkler. Broken pressure valve. “Maybe you just need a drink, or maybe to talk–”

“You want me to be making speeches?” Childe waved around a hand. “Buddy, look, I'd appreciate it if you just answered the question.”

Joselyn laughed again. It probably was what he wanted. All the more while to keep Childe occupied.

“Sergei. Friday. Three weeks ago. Was he here or was he not?”

“Yeah, sure, he was here,” Jo replied, just shy of letting Childe repeat the question.

“Come on,” Childe sighed, failing to keep the annoyance from his voice. “Are you just saying that? Because now that seemed a little too quick to be sure.” 

Casually, brazenly, as if he had no fucking care in the world, Joselyn leaned forward and Childe, like a physical manifestation of his growing impatience, was careened in the face with yet another gust of cedar smoke. That fragrance, pluming, the bark of some ancient weald, a constant smoulder, and you know what they say– where there’s smoke, there’s fire. “I’m only so sure because Sergei performed that night, Jack,” cocky grin and all, with his stupid damned attractive face. “Every other Friday.”

“Performed?” 

“He sings. Sometimes plays. It was part of the job description, see. When he sings the folk songs, people just can’t get enough of that cute accent.”

“You’re kidding,” Childe said, and a smile split his face. “You’re making this up!”

“Nope. In fact," Jo gestured with his head over at the stage, "It does very well for us.” Childe had seen it on his way in. There was an oblong case leaning to its left; a violin, maybe, but it was a tad larger. A bass? No, smaller. A cello? “I’m not sure what it is you’re looking into Sergei for, but don’t think that just anybody can get a job here.” As Childe was processing this new piece of information, someone approached the bar, and so, while Jo served the customer, he added, and with a rather ominous weight to his words, “We only care for people who add to the good atmosphere, not take from it.”

Ouch.

“I can’t argue with that,” Childe replied, clasping his hands together amicably. “I’m all about a good atmosphere.”

“You and I both know that you’re all about a different kind of atmosphere,” Jo said, leaning in again, speaking in the space between them as if they were sharing a secret. Childe’s lungs were full of this damned tavern scent.

“Why can’t it be both? You clearly seem to make it work,” Childe countered. That is unless you’re spitting into customer’s faces, he thought. 

“As a Harbinger?” Jo said wryly. “Yeah right.” He waved a dismissive hand, and Childe could see the start of a tattoo peeking from under a sleeve. “The stench of your soullessness practically hangs off of you, just stinking up the place.” 

Childe pulled a look. He really couldn’t tell whether or not he was joking.

Well, he knew that he hadn’t exactly smelled good— damp, probably, like leaf rot, the undergrowth, like dirty snow and the larches— the wrong kind of forest, was that it, Jo? Soulless, apparently, like wet pine needles, like sweat. But not like cedarwood sweat, so maybe that’s what the problem was. What brand of sweat did you want Childe to smell like, Joselyn, if it meant sharing with him what he needed to know? 

“Fine thing for you to be telling potential clientele,” Childe remarked.

Jo shrugged. “Just cutting my losses,” and then he crossed his arms. His head was at an angle, just like his smile was, and it was as if he was looking down on Childe– a bartender, of all things, looking down on a Harbinger– now how was that for humbling?

He’s doing it on purpose, Childe mused. And I'll be here a century if I let this keep up.

“Alright,” Childe conceded. “Then I guess I won’t stay where I’m not wanted.” He looked Joselyn dead in the eye, turned around, and then said, with all the nonchalance that he could muster, “Good night, Jo,” as he started to stroll his way out.

“I didn’t think it would be that easy, Jack.” 

“Maybe it is. Or maybe I’m just not the type of person that goes around looking for problems,” Childe retorted. 

Jo shook his head, smirking. He snaked his head in tempo with the tack piano that somebody started to play. “That’s news to me.”

“The more you know, huh?” Childe took to a few paces, but then decided, just as he was about to walk out, to twirl back around and point a dramatic finger over in Jo’s direction. “Hey, by the way, you and I should go sometime!” 

With the hopes of deterring him, Childe had shouted it from across the venue– because sometimes he just liked to cause a scene, especially with people who thought they could outcompete him that way. Unfortunately it didn't have the desired effect. The customers didn’t pay it much mind, and Jo only matched Childe’s sudden declaration with his own enthusiastic response. 

“Only if you really mean it!”

Childe clicked his tongue. This guy.

“I only always mean it,” Childe muttered– a promise– and with a flourish, headed his way out through the tavern door and onto the street. One thing he'd learned: while Childe was making appointments, Sergei was flaking on them.

After some quick scouting of the area, Childe found that there was an alley that connected to the back of the tavern. The Skivvy was an estuary, a mouth to the sea of endless lanes. He suspected it took him in the direction of the laundromat.

Childe had needed to run to catch up, his sprinting through the dark lane, breathing in the crisp air of downtown Snezhnaya, a city musk different to the bottled-up sap smell of the tavern— so how about you patent that Skivvy & co? It dispelled his tension– leaving in its wake that feeling of a clear head, of vigour, of excitement.

Eventually, after he covered some distance, Childe scooped his hand through the snow, cupped it into a ball, and hurtled it at what he recognized to be the start of somebody's waggling outline– a dark form clinging to the shadows of the alley’s dingy fringes– speed-walking, clearly in a hurry, with that pony-tail aloft and mocking, like a mast, giving Sergei away.

“Running from the job?” Childe called out. The snowball just about hit its mark.

“Leaving from my shift,” Sergei grumbled in reply, a brief glance over his shoulder, wiping the snow from his back. He faltered, though slight. “But you, of course, already knew that.”

“I need you for something important,” Childe said, as he fell into step with Sergei’s brisk pace. He was met with silence. The punishment, probably, for pelting him in the back with a snowball. “Not going to ask me for what?” Childe probed.

“No, because I want nothing to do with it,” replied Sergei, as coldly as ever. “Haven’t I dealt with you enough already?”

“The answer is always no.” 

Sergei scoffed.

But the honest answer was always yes. To recount the past week, at the Fatui base, Childe had sat next to Sergei in the canteen and stolen the canned peach from his tray; there again in the court-yard with the juniors, playing in the sports that they were involved in, which Sergei had also happened to be a part of; then again under the heel of Childe’s boot during an exercise drill, his foot planted firmly between Sergei’s shoulder blades as he was propped up in a push-up hold. 

“So you have to harass me on my way from work now too, is that it?”

“I figured now was the best time to catch you,” explained Childe, trying to keep up. Archons, why the rush? He’s only now still trying to catch his breath. “Catch you, literally. Hey, slow down a sec,” he said, and grabbed Sergei by the shoulder to stall him.

Sergei stopped abruptly, prying Childe’s hand away.

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“Exactly!” 

“Exactly what?”

“I’ve been talking to people–”

“Good for you,” Sergei chimed. He didn’t spare Childe a second glance, continuing onward.

“And I’ve learned that, for one, some people question when it is that you even sleep.” 

Childe could be some people. He’d seen Sergei present at all manner of the day– morning and evening drills alike– always at his best, never falling behind, and always just as equally as unsociable.

“And all your commanders agree that there’s one thing that you consistently exceed at.” Childe ran forward and intercepted Sergei, leaping in front of him. “That you’re a brilliant tracker, Sergei.”

Sergei lifted a brow. He side stepped him, but Childe blocked him, matching his movements. Arm out. Foot forward. Hop-scotch of the competitive variety. Eventually, Sergei gave up and shoved past Childe with a glower. Now that was cheating.

“Which is why you’re perfect for the job I have for you!”

“What job?” Sergei snapped. “I already told you, Harbinger, I’m not doing anything for you. Just leave me alone.”

“Oh?” Childe intoned, trailing behind like a spurned lover. “And what if I say that it’s an order, Rookie?”

Sergei stopped. He clenched his fists. Then he swivelled back around and grabbed Childe by the collar, his hands fisting in the fabric of his neck. Gods, it was just so easy. This. Getting into each other's faces. An addiction. Oh, and it was right under the spotlight of a street lamp too. How romantic was that?

“Look around. Do you see where we are?” Sergei sneered. “You’re following me home. Off-duty. Do you think you have the right to be ordering me around?” 

An obvious last ditch effort to try and get Childe off his back because hello, there’s putting aside the fact that he technically does have the right– he’s a Harbinger, lest you somehow forget, Sergei. And even yet, Childe doesn't pull the rank card. He was at least a little better than that— for the moment, that is.

“And what do you have waiting that’s so important?” Childe asked. Not rhetorical, genuinely curious– he’d really just love to know. What does a man like Sergei get up to in the night-time? “Are you going to go sleep, Sergei?”

“Yes,” he replied, so quick as to sound comedic in its dishonesty.

“Can’t say I'd appraise you for your ability to lie,” Childe said. “But everything else will do.”

“You–” 

“You know you can’t shake me,” Childe cut off. His hands made to encircle Sergei’s wrists. He didn’t do anything but hold them there, using the grip to tip forward, to grin that sarky tilt; the cat with the canary, carved in the corners of a wet-mooned smile. Sergei smelled like the tavern, like a depressed cedar. “So why keep trying?” 

It was that same routine. That push and pull. Sergei his tumultuous wine tide, Sergei his weeping red, that crashing wave– Sergei that shoved him off, turned around, agonized over yet another lapse in his judgement, letting others get to him. He was having a moment of deliberation, was dragging his hands through his hair like an addict, because that’s right, he was just as addicted to this back and forth as Childe was–

“Why must you be so difficult?”

And needless to say, Childe felt a little bad.

“Ok– I’ll make this easier for you,” Childe said, leaning against the lamp-post. “A proposition: you come with me, I promise I'll back off. Now how’s that sound?”

Sergei made a displeased sound.

“A month,” Childe bargained. 

“Really?” Sergei half-turned, crossing his arms in a way that screamed, from head-to-toe, ‘I don’t believe you.’ Up there also with 'you couldn't last a day' and 'is this going to cost me an organ?'

“Yeah, I’ll leave you be,” Childe resigned, though still left room for the inevitable ‘but’ that followed it. “For the most part. You know I wouldn’t just completely deprive you like that,” he added, and winked.

Sergei sniffed. He started to walk off again.

“So is that a yes?”