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There are nights Childe feels, very acutely, the strings of his heart snapping. It starts with a gentle touch, a careful sort of prodding, fingertips along the lines and the edges of his body. He inhales, takes it in as best he can— there is no permanence to the dark hours of secrecy, he knows, so at least he will savor it as best he can.
He feels grass at his palm, gentle strands of green tickling at his calloused skin, urging him to return to his senses. Fatui Harbingers don’t sleep with heroes. And if they do it’s because they’ve hidden knives or poison behind their backs. But at the very least, Fatui Harbingers don’t fall in love. Or so he’s heard.
It seems to Childe, as he hovers over you in the grass, carefully committing every breath, every bat of your eyes to memory, that his wretched heart did not get the memo.
(At the forefront of Childe’s mind is the image of you; untainted, untouched, a perfect reflection of the first time he met you.)
Childe is not a very sensitive guy. He’s a Fatui after all, he’s hardened, he’s— no, that’s not true. As much as he would like to posture and present himself a certain way, Childe is still, in some ways, the boy who cried when Teucer lost his first tooth, who beat up the first boy who broke Tonia’s heart. There are these soft parts of him, these reckless expressions of love, that Childe never quite managed to squash. Even if he wanted to, even if he needed to.
The first time — not the first time he sleeps with you, because that’s another story all on its own, but the first time it means something, the first time he hears the echo of his heart beat quite so loud — it catches him by complete surprise. Usually you’d be out of his arms, out of his sight as soon as possible after one of your little trysts, but on that particular night you’re tired. There are blooming purple splotches of paint along your ribs, red cuts and bruises along your face that Childe tries his best not to be conscious of while he’s fucking you into the mattress for your rented bed in your rented room.
He tries his best, but he can’t deny the careful, featherlight way he handles you that night, the way he wrestles against both passion and worry even while having you caged underneath him. He hopes you don’t notice. You probably do. If you do, you have the grace not to mention it. Maybe you simply don’t want to, maybe you simply do not care.
But even when you’re both spent, when the moment comes for you to get up and leave him behind, you stay. For the first time, you do not rush towards the door, towards the roads not taken. Childe is not sure if it’s a calculated move or not, but by the time his brain has caught up to the hurricane of emotion tumbling around him, you have fallen asleep, curled up next to him.
Unguarded. He’s never seen you like this before, stress lines smoothed out in your sleep and expression true neutral. Childe has the distant thought that this is his cue to leave, to get out of there, to be the first one out for once. He brushes stray hair out of your face and you sigh, face following the warmth of his fingertips. Well, he thinks. Just a few minutes couldn’t hurt.
He wakes up alone the next morning and he thinks he’s gotten way over his head with this whole thing.
(It’s a thankful thing, he thinks, smiling through the pain in the way he was taught to, that even if his body feels heavy and his mind hazy he manages to recreate such a pristine image. In his mind you’re smiling, which is strange, because you rarely truly smiled around him.)
“Whatcha thinkin about?”
He finds you near the water, wandering along the beach on bare feet. The sun kisses your face in a way that makes his chest tighten, sunbeams reflecting in your hair so brightly it hurts to look right at you. Or maybe that’s just how it feels to look at you in general, now. Childe hasn’t quite decided yet.
You must be having conflicting thoughts about his appearance, the look on your face hard to decipher as you kick your feet against the shallow water and watch it splash around your legs. Childe has never noticed before, but you have pretty legs. Free of scars, free of worry lines and dark bruises, they seem to be the cleanest part of your body.
And Childe has, after all, seen a lot of your body.
You hum, tilting your head as you consider your words. “I was thinking about you, actually.”
It’s enough to knock the air out of him, but then that seems to be your specialty. He doubts you mean anything as substantial as his mind makes it, but he still repeats the sentence over and over and over in his head until it’s imprinted into his mind permanently, tucking the phrase in the pocket of his heart for safekeeping. Doesn’t really matter what it means, does it? “Is that so?”
“Well,” you shrug. “I was just thinking that,” you pause, clicking your tongue. “Circumstances, I guess. I was wondering about circumstances. What if I never happened to save Mondstadt, what if you never became Fatui. Would we even meet?”
Yes, Childe thinks, because he was destined to meet you. He can’t imagine any life where he’s not in love with you. But he doesn’t say that because that’s not what you’re getting at and he knows that. It’s just the sort of thing you think about sometimes and had he not been the one you were sleeping with you would’ve asked the same question to some other seemingly random happenstance of a person. But to Childe, it is the world, and he cherishes that feeling, letting it fester in his chest.
He doesn’t sleep with you that day, doesn’t feel the need to. He joins you in the water and splashes it all over you in a long arch of his legs. You screech at him so loudly it almost hurts his ears and the sound makes him laugh so hard he has to close his eyes, hunching over to keep himself steady. But you’re quick to recover and you tackle him, pulling him into deeper waters and submerging you both completely.
In the end he’s out of breath and completely drenched and so happy he might burst. He swims over to you with mischief on his mind, pulls you against him and kisses you so fiercely he might as well be underwater for as much as he’s able to breathe through it.
He could get used to this, he thinks, forgetting for a bit too long that happiness is not in the cards for him and that his life is not a love story.
(He takes a breath and finds that it doesn’t come easy. This perfect ghost of you he’s created comes closer, serene and peaceful and quiet on your toes. It’s going to be alright, you tell him, and suddenly there’s a pressure on his chest that keeps him locked to the ground, keeping him from reaching out to you.)
He catches your arm as you’re about to turn the corner, pulling you against him and hiding you both away in the dark alley, a rare quiet spot of the busy Liyue Harbor. His hands are steel grips around your wrists and you exhale loudly, thrashing against him until you realize who he is. You go still in his arms, hands on his chest, a stern look on your face. He hopes you don’t feel how fast his heart is beating, but he leans in to catch your mouth in a kiss just in case. You relent, because you always do, always seem to have at least a sliver of the same weakness for him as he does for you. Only when he lets his hands wander, lower and lower until they’re cupping your ass, pulling you against him, do you push away.
“Someone might see us.”
He hopes they do. He hopes someone stumbles upon you with his cock buried deep into you, that they see what he’s doing to their beloved hero when no one's watching. Would they accuse him of corrupting you, he wonders? Because he wishes to. Wishes to infest your mind as much as you do his own. Greed makes his teeth sharp and his fingers claws and he bites into you as if he means to consume you.
His name comes in a whine of your voice against his mouth as he pushes you against the wall. Truly, he had no intentions when he arrived this evening, but the full moon and Liyue at night is such a picture perfect setting he can’t help himself. You don’t seem to mind, despite your initial apprehension about the open area and possibility of getting caught. In the end you yield to his needy hands and hungry mouth and in his mind Childe concludes that it must mean that you accept him, flaws and all. Maybe he’s just gone mad. If that’s the case he’s happy he could go mad with you out of anyone in the world.
He thinks he would die for you. And that scares the shit out of him.
(And then there’s pain all over, a sudden clash of remembrance intruding on his peaceful fantasy.)
“I love you.”
“That’s not funny.”
“No,” Childe agrees, hears the echoes of his heartstrings clinkering and snapping with each measured breath he takes. “It really isn’t.”
“Then don’t say it,” you mutter, even as you lean into his palm against your cheek. There’s a stark, frightening contrast between the softness of your skin and the cruel, harsh tone of your voice. Your brows knit as your eyes flutter shut and Childe feels his heart stop. “Take it back.”
And he could. He could twist his mouth into a grin and laugh it all off, say he was joking to see your reaction or that post-sex haze clouded his judgment. You wouldn’t believe it, it wouldn’t be true, but he could say it. If he just opens his mouth, curls his tongue around the lies, he could rectify the situation and everything would stay the same. You would get up, get dressed, leave for your heroic duties, whatever they were and Childe would stay behind, nursing his broken heart and wounded pride.
But—
“No.”
Your eyes open, expression sober and guarded as you take him in. At once the night feels very quiet, as if you are the only two people in all of Teyvat, as if the world exists only for the two of you to breathe in it. Childe hopes he doesn’t look as nervous as he feels. There’s not much time for romance in the life of villainy, not much time for sincerity or warmth. But he feels it, beneath his battered ribcage, the blooming sort of dangerous heat that comes with laying yourself bare. It’s not something Childe is used to, not something that he expected, but now that it’s there he finds that it’s kind of exhilarating.
You blink. “No?” The rejection he expected never comes, and Childe feels confidence grip at his muscles, the feeling urging him forwards, breathing air back into his lungs.
“No.”
And when he kisses you then, he swears you’re the one who moves in first.
(“Childe!” Your voice yells in an echo, present and past clashing into a strange creature of complete disarray. The past you reaches out to cradle his face in your hands, thumbs rubbing soothing circles along his cheekbones, while the present presses desperate palms against his chest. He’s wet, he realizes, the sensation more an afterthought than a concrete feeling. Warm tears drip onto his face as he tries to make his gaze focus on you. Past, present, he doesn’t know. All he knows is — )
Childe feels release in a rush of emotion and he can’t contain a laugh, the sound bursting out of his mouth as he twists, almost hurling his body to the side and taking hold of you by the waist to flip you over. He lands on his back in the grass with you straddling his lap and for a moment he just stares up at the sky. He feels like a new person, like he’s just unlocked something kept hidden somewhere he’s never been able to reach. His hands stay at your hips, holding you over him while he organizes his thoughts.
He sits up, his face so close to yours he can see the specks of color in your eyes. Even in the dark you’re an illuminating presence. His heart swells and he feels like throwing up, overwhelmed by the sheer monumentality of it all.
“I love you,” he says, and it feels like breathing for the first time. It feels like the first time he fell through ice and into water, like the first time he wielded a weapon. He feels powerful, powerless, completely at your mercy. “I love you.”
“Don’t overstay your welcome,” you mutter, turning your face away from his. But Childe doesn’t mind; he’s a professional in your expressions and your tells and he sees the embarrassment for what it is. Your hands still come to rest on his shoulders and you still lean into it when he kisses your cheek. It’s fine. It’s all fine. Childe leaves a trail of kisses down your neck that makes you shiver and he sucks skin and flesh into his mouth and hears you groan.
He laughs at your warnings, disregards your comment that this can only end badly, and when you reach your hand down to the waistband of his pants he thinks that he could take on anything in the world. Oh, how wonderful, he thinks, to be so fully and completely in love with you.
(Ah, he’s dying, isn’t he? You — and he’s no longer sure if this is the real you or the one he’s concocted in his mind — lean your head down against his, his face held tightly in your hands. “Childe,” you whisper, and it’s both a soothing and a heartbreaking sound all at once. “It’s gonna be okay. Just hang on, okay?” He wants to laugh, because it’s all kind of funny, isn’t it?
“Hey,” he says, and nudges your nose with his own in a movement that takes way more strength than it ought to. “Tell me you love me.” It doesn’t matter if it’s true, he thinks, all that matters is that you say it.
But when you open your mouth again to speak, Childe can’t hear anything anymore.)