Genshin Impact X BNHA (*Rewriting*)

side stories 3 & 4

(Above is a picture of Osial. Definitely canon)

∙•・◦●♟●◦・•∙

Childe opens his eyes.

It's probably morning but the room remains pitch black. He didn't like waking up with the sun assaulting his eyes so he ordered two layers of thick black curtains the moment he had his first morning in Liyue. His head was throbbing like there was a tiny gnome stabbing his brain and his throat was drier than the Sumeru desert. He wanted to get up and take a shower but his body felt too heavy to even move an inch.

A foot nudges his legs and he stiffens.

' Fuck. Who the fuck is this?' Childe curses and swears internally, he couldn't believe he went home with somebody. He let his hands travel until it reached the other person sleeping so peacefully in his bed. He could feel a sturdy chest instead of a tender breast. ' So, I went home with a man'

He lets his hand travel upwards. He wasn't the type to seek out warm bodies when drunk. He wonders who in Liyue was reckless enough to get with a harbinger. Not that he wasn't popular in the harbor; he had a handful of admirers even after the Osial incident yet no one dares to come close. Aside from the furtive glances and off-hand flirty remarks, no one had approached him so he couldn't help but muse about who'd be so daring.

He feels his fingers ghost over a strong jaw, soft cheeks and a tall nose.

It almost feels like Zhongli if he was delusional enough. A sort of hollow pain echoes in his heart as he remembers the other man. He takes back his hand like he's been burnt. He remembers their fallout after he had found out about Zhongli's archon-sized secret. He was fine with the 'wanting to retire' thing and using Childe as a pawn. Fuck. Childe was so in love with the man that if Zhongli wanted to use him as a puppet to sow seeds of discourse in Liyue, he would have handed his strings to the man himself. He would let Zhongli use him again and again. What hurt him was that the man had not trusted Childe enough to tell him of his plans. Of his identity. That he went to Signora of all people. It hurt. Zhongli's callousness. Seeing the man calmly explaining to the traveler of his plans while not sparing a single glance towards Childe made. He was left to regain the Fatui's footing in Liyue while scrambling for the pieces of his heart.

Thank Celestia that there was no definite proof to link Osial to Childe or else the Fatui would have been kicked out by now (He doesn't know why the traveler didn't tell anyone about Childe but he isn't about to bring it up). The Fatui men who had gone to the Golden House to stop the traveler from defeating Osial were labeled as rouge and rebels that acted independently and were not under any Fatui command. Which was a lie of course but that was the only way the Fatui as a whole could wash their hands off this mess. The Qixing probably knew it was the Fatui but without hard evidence they could not afford to be openly hostile to Snezhnaya lest they strain international relationships and trade.

The picking up his heart after the mess was a little harder. He planned to ignore it. Out of sight out of mind, right? After all, it had worked with his family so surely it would have worked here as well. Wrong. When he heard of how Zhongli was so out of it, Childe had come crawling back. He should have just gone on with his life letting Zhongli torture himself but no, he took Zhongli back into his life. Without an apology. Without asking for a reason or an explanation. He decided that he'd let it pass, let bygones be bygones. One last chance for them. (And when no one's around Ajax would admit to himself that he wanted to spend his last few months in Liyue with him)