Etched In Stone

On Words of Love

Childe reads a romance book aloud to Zhongli, and Zhongli falls asleep.

--

The first time that Childe sees Zhongli's skin melt from pale flesh into dark obsidian is late one night when he falls into a doze on the couch.

Zhongli is reading, legs crossed primly, with an elbow resting against the sofa arm. A steaming cup of tea sits on the table just beside him, the air above it blurry with heat.

Childe watches for a moment too long, leaning against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest as a barrier. This is new. He is unused to relaxing but he's trying. Shedding the tense Harbinger skin he's so used to wearing proves to be more difficult than not.

But moments like this make it easier, firmly set like a boulder into the ground. Childe feels anchored in the roaring river that has always been his life, and Zhongli is that rock.

A sip of his tea. A soft hum, Zhongli's deep voice rippling with approval. The sound of parchment scratching as he drags a long finger down the length of it as he reads and the way it crinkles when a page is turned. It is not that he isn't himself around others; Zhongli is genial, kind, and prone to verbose conversation with all—but politeness is not the same as easing into the company of others. Despite his friendliness, he is still reserved.

It isn't until Zhongli is tucked away into his home that the tense line of his shoulders relaxes and he sighs softly as he thinks.

Childe knows that he thinks of many things. The past, the present, of what is to come. The rest is a mystery. Zhongli is a man of thousands of years, and Childe could know him for a thousand more, and only see a drop of the thoughts that flow through that ancient brain of his.

As soft as these moments are, Childe also feels out of his depth. Too young, too green, too violent when compared to Zhongli's placid nature. But, Childe also sees a different side of Zhongli than others.

"I'd thought he'd forgotten his playful nature," said Madame Ping one day, recently enough. Childe isn't stupid enough to think of her as a mere mortal, not with the way she watches Zhongli as if she's the grandmother and not the other way around.

And it's there, just the barest hint of a smirk when Zhongli looks at him. Those teasing fingers down the length of Childe's arm when Zhongli pulls him close, and how he bites at his lips when they kiss in the corners.

Zhongli can't hide the way that his golden eyes glint with mirth, as old and composed as he is. Even rock wears away, and for all the mutterings of Erosion, Childe would like to think that Zhongli's newfound youth is found in love instead.

He crosses the room quietly but Zhongli hears him, lifting an arm automatically to allow Childe to slot in next to him.

"Didn't even look up," teases Childe, the couch sagging underneath his weight.

"Hm. This book is interesting. I find the prose quite fluid and the story is stimulating—hey."

Childe plucks the book away and holds it out an arm's length, thumb pressed between the pages. He squints and reads, "'They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects'—" He looks at Zhongli, head tilted. "Zhongli, is this a romance novel?"

"I—that is to say—I am broadening my horizons!" Zhongli's face is tinged pink.

Childe laughs, comfort spreading through his chest. It's so easy to love this insufferable, goofy man, and all his weird little quirks. "Better than old texts about rocks—"

"You like those."

"—or boring journals that are barely legible—"

"You like those as well."

Truth be told, he likes anything that Zhongli reads aloud for him, that smooth, dark tone folding over words one by one, wrapping around Childe until he just melts away.

And then, he has an idea.

Childe shifts on the couch, settling in before saying, "Why don't I read to you? This is a good book."

"You've read it?"

"Dozens of times. It's one of Tonia's favorites. We'd sit next to the fire, just like we are, and I'd read until she'd start snoring into a pillow."

Something shifts in Zhongli's expression then, that look he always gets when Childe chooses to share these parts of himself, old memories that are usually left behind in Snezhnaya. Golden eyes that see right through Childe. The way his mouth relaxes and quirks to the side.

"All right then." Zhongli lays out across the couch and settles his head into the dip between Childe's thighs. Now Childe is the red-faced one. Zhongli chuckles, reaches up to tap his nose, and asks, "Is this alright?"

"Yes—yes. I mean, if you're comfortable."

"More than."

And so, Childe reads. He flips through the book, dragging his fingers across familiar words as they tumble from his mouth. Zhongli listens. He rests in Childe's lap, going lax, eyes half-lidded as he hums occasionally. Childe pets through his hair absent-mindedly, lost in the story, familiar as it is.

Later, when Zhongli falls uncharacteristically quiet, Childe looks and is surprised to see him asleep. Relaxed. Loose-limbed and slack. And then Childe notices the blackened fingertips that peek out from his shirt cuff as if they've been dipped in the night sky. How Geo seems to swirl around him in lazy, glittering grains that dot the air.

Zhongli's shirt lays open around his collar, just a slip of his collarbone on display. Childe swallows thickly, his hand tugging it to the side. The pale flesh of Zhongli's shoulder bleeds into black. Gold trails his skin, geometric patterns tattooing it, pulsing with his heartbeat.

Like his statues, he thinks. Like those old history books with pictures, or old scrolls and traditional silk paintings.

Zhongli has mentioned he's dulled himself to better fit into society. This must be what he meant. He's fallen asleep so deeply in Childe's lap that he's lost even the instinctual grip he has on himself.

Childe holds his breath, pressing his fingers to the soft dip of Zhongli's collarbone. Zhongli doesn't stir, just breathes steadily, a whistling exhale escaping his mouth. The pads of Childe's fingers skirt over the edge, just where the black begins to fade away.

He has never seen Zhongli asleep. Even when they lay in bed, he's still mostly alert.

Zhongli is beautiful—he's always beautiful in an unfairly handsome and cultured way—but this is different. Softer. Subtler. Zhongli trusts him enough to entirely let his guard down, a sort of beauty that makes Childe's heart skip a beat.

"'To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love,'" quotes Childe from the book, thinking of that night when they shared their first kiss.

Here, Childe can see the fine lines of Zhongli's face; the gentle creases around his mouth and the crow's feet around his eyes. He can feel the silkiness of Zhongli's hair as he strokes it. He can see the rise and fall of his chest, his heart beating steadily in that one, two, three.

"'You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.'" He sets the book aside in favor of combing his fingers across Zhongli's scalp. And then another soft murmur as he thinks of Tonia's most favorite part of the book: "'There are very few who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement.'"

This is not something that Zhongli does so easily, slipping into such comfort that he dozes about and entirely loses himself.

The den is quiet. The fire in the pit roars, casting the room in a bright orange blaze. Geo still sparkles in the air, hovering about them.

Zhongli is serene and Childe falls deeper in love.