Work Text:
“Do we… do the usual arrangements?” Lumine has a tendency to ask the same question each time, despite knowing that the answer would always be the same. In that matter, she was more of a gentleman than he, wasn’t she?
“Only if you want, girlie.”
The blonde looks bemused as soon as the words leave his mouth, as though she had not been expecting the response.
“You know, you haven’t called me that in some time,” she says with a tiny laugh, “girlie, I mean. It’s always comrade this, partner that nowadays.”
“Ohhhh? Don’t tell me you miss being called that? Girlie, ” he teases, grinning as he watches her roll her eyes at him, “or we could practice your Inazuman language! What do you like, ojou-chan , or perhaps aibou , which do you prefer? If it’s none of those, I’m sure I can think of something in Snezhnayan—”
“Take a guess,” there’s a glimmer in her eyes as she says it, the corners of her lips etched up as if she was playing with him, “feel free to tell me later.”
Later. Really, why did she even ask? It was a given they would sleep together again.
When the thought crosses his head, Childe has to laugh at himself a little, acknowledging that if he had said that out loud, people would have misunderstood big time— Lumine’s sure to jab her sword at him, but if he gets to see the rare flush on her cheeks, perhaps it would be worth it?
“Let’s sleep together tonight then!” he shouts, and though he’s unable to see a sliver of red or pink, the yelp she lets out as she collides with the wooden door was a satisfactory enough reaction.
“Shut up! I’ll pay you back for this later!”
“Just make sure Paimon isn’t in the room when you do so!”
She groans a little in exasperation before trapping him in a geo dome of her creation, and he wonders how far gone he is for her to find the action cute.
Joke as he might about their situation, he still believes that the nights they spent together side by side, enveloping each other with warmth were just as deep-seated as any heated glances and perverse touches they could have shared, that people might believe they have shared.
Intimacy could be found in the midst of innocence, if it was with her. He only wonders how he got to be so lucky to have something as nice as what he has with her.
It was meant to be a one time thing, as per Lumine’s insistence (or perhaps it was Paimon’s, she was always the overprotective sort). At the time, Childe had joked that once would turn twice, and twice would turn thrice, and thrice would become every day, but one thing led to another and suddenly the joke had become a prophecy.
“It takes some time to furnish the place, sorry it looks so barren,” she explained, “but it’s a safe place to sleep the night away. This way we don’t have to take turns keeping watch.”
She was right about it being barren. Though the land was spacious, the beach setting was something he could definitely appreciate, the Mondstadt-styled mansion barely had any furniture— a downright shame, considering the numerous rooms to be filled.
The traveler had not even bothered showing most of the rooms, only guiding him to two rooms at the bottom floor— the kitchen, which was surprisingly stocked with ingredients (he had always assumed she just hoarded everything in her bag), and the room he would be sleeping in for the night.
“It barely looks lived in,” he said in agreement, trailing a gloved finger on a surface and noting that the dining table had gathered dust. His fingers twitched as much as his nose did.
“I’ve never let anyone inside this realm before,” Lumine admitted, as though suddenly embarrassed with his inspection, “it’s just me and Paimon, and we don’t really have the time or reason to rush decorating.”
“Or cleaning.”
“I can’t believe I’m getting scolded by you of all people…” the blonde murmured, “anyway it shouldn’t take that long. Give me a minute, some anemo should do the trick—”
“And have the dust just circulate in the air? You can’t rely on your powers for everything, comrade! I’d clean this place up myself but you don’t even have the supplies for it!”
Lumine looked amused but it was Paimon who spoke up, appearing from who knew where just as he had forgotten her presence, “go buy us the supplies then!”
“Always so demanding,” he chided teasingly, before laughing as the fairy admitted he was right about the place needing some spring cleaning, and furniture to spring clean in general.
“Didn’t you say all you needed was a kitchen?” Lumine said with a huff. Absent-mindedly he found it to be a cute gesture, the way she pretended to be annoyed as she placed her hands on her hips and pouted. He knew it was pretend because she certainly did not look like that when she was annoyed with him, less pouty lips, more toothy snarling.
“Paimon wants the finer things in life!”
“Is there anything finer than my cooking?”
“ My cooking, probably,” he had barely even bragged but Lumine had already raised an eyebrow at him, throwing him a look that he saw quite often. It was by no means as cute as her previous expression, but that competitiveness lit a fire in him. With countless battles fought against each other and shared together, it seemed she had a natural tendency to do so.
“Is that an offer to cook dinner for the three of us tonight?”
“Getting free food from me, are we? Just because you know I can’t back away from a challenge!”
“Consider it payment for having a nice bed to sleep on tonight!”
“So as long as I bring offerings I can sleepover anytime I want?”
“You wish! Now come on, if we take any longer to serve food Paimon will transform into a hungry little monster .”
And that was as eventful as it could’ve been for the rest of the night— or so it would have been if he had stayed asleep. Though it was difficult to tell the passage of time in the realm, his body clock had been enough to tell him it was about time they got some well-deserved rest.
The bed was honestly not very comfortable— the mattress was too thin, and there was only one pillow, but it was easy enough to fall asleep— it was far off from the worst place he’d ever spent the night over.
(Plus, the room barely had any dust when he went inside, and he wondered if Lumine took the time to clean it while he was preparing dinner. He felt a little bad for teasing her, though it was a touching sign of hospitality)
However, just as easy as it was to fall asleep, it was just as easy for him to wake up. The sound of a creaking door woke him immediately, his survival instinct coming into play as water began to manifest in his fingertips. Spring cleaning wasn’t restricted to being dry, so surely Lumine wouldn’t mind some water to-
“Ah! Don’t hit Paimon!” the familiar voice was enough for him to slightly let his guard down and halt his attack, lighting up the bedside lamp just to really make sure of the late night intruder’s identity.
Indeed, the being was none other than Paimon, whose figure was partially obscured by a blanket atop her head, the fabric nearly drowning her presence.
Right. Teapot. If not Lumine or Paimon, then who else could it be? The giant bird outside?
“Just what are you doing here? Did you get a nightmare? Do you want big brother Childe to comfort you?” Even with the raspiness of his voice he found himself able to joke with the small being, even opening up his arms for the full effect. Of course he knew it couldn’t be the case, knowing Lumine would’ve been her first choice to go to.
To his surprise Paimon didn’t seem to be in the mood to respond to his quips, merely gesturing to the open closet as she tried to fold up the blanket in her possession.
“Paimon got an extra blanket is all! We’re cold! Okay, good night! Go back to sleep!”
Now being more than half-awake, he noted there was something suspicious about the way the little pixie tried to rush out of the room. Tried, because that blanket was by no means flimsy— it was clearly the quilted kind, the type he could imagine his little siblings wrapped around in while sipping on a cup of hot cocoa.
“Come on, I’ll take it there,” he chuckled, listening as Paimon fumbled and tried to make excuses as to why he didn’t have to help at all.
“You’re Lumi’s guest! You don’t have to-”
“I already cooked dinner for you, I can also do this.”
“Umm… uh… it’s indecent! Paimon won’t let you see Lumine in her nightclothes!”
That made him cough a little bit (he had never seen her in anything but her usual white dress, so he naturally assumed she’d wear it even in her slumber), but still he didn’t let that deter him, “then I won’t enter the room. I’ll just help you bring it upstairs.”
Paimon scrunched up her tiny face, clearly thinking long and hard about it, and Childe found himself somewhat concerned for his comrade— why was her companion so insistent on him not seeing her?
“... fine, just make sure not to look, okay! Or else… uh… Paimon will eat you!”
He traversed the stairs quietly, following the white-haired being as she floated right in front of a door, exerting all her strength in opening the door, only wide enough to fit her.
“Just put it on the floor! Now shoo, shoo!”
Though he had been warned not to, it was difficult to not peek at the tiny gap of the slowly closing door. There had been nothing indecent, unlike what the fairy seemed to imply, having seen nothing but Lumine’s bare feet on the wood flooring.
Oh, no wonder she was cold.
“What are you thinking of?” Lumine murmurs, and he’s suddenly reminded of the fact that her legs are entangled with his longer ones, under the very same quilt Paimon had retrieved that fateful night. It’s somewhat of a relief that her feet aren’t cold— she wasn’t from Snezhnaya, after all, so he’s always a little concerned if she manages to stay warm in the cooler nights.
“Tartaglia?”
“The first time I slept over in the teapot,” he finally murmurs back, “I knew you were as chivalrous as a knight, but usually it’s the men who give up their spots on the bed for the ladies.”
“You’re not the very noble sort, though.”
“Of course I’m not. What righteous man would sleep in the same bed as someone he’s not even married to?”
Maybe if he was a righteous man he’d feel guilty about the nature of his relationship with Lumine, though he supposes she’s not all that righteous either considering she is just as much of a willing participant as he is.
Some nights, however, he fantasizes being a righteous man, to make it known to the world that she is his, to become the husband to her wife. With the circumstances he knows it cannot come true, but it is harmless to fantasize— many times he has fantasized about conquering all of Teyvat, after all— and he wonders if she’s ever wanted the same thing, too.
“Do you remember? How we first started doing this in the first place?” he asks, changing the subject.
When he catches sight of Lumine’s eyes open again he realizes not once has he ever looked away from her tonight.
“How could I possibly forget?”
“You want to come over to the tea… uh, have tea together again?” Lumine asked him, changing her wording midway, suddenly conscious of the fact that they were in public. She couldn’t exactly say teapot or realm, it was something she’d rather keep hidden, but she couldn’t say house either— misconceptions about the two of them were bound to brew over such a thing.
Childe laughed, he always seemed to laugh— because of her or at her, who truly knew why (it didn’t sound unpleasant to the ears or hostile towards her, so she supposed she didn’t mind), “yes, I have some new tea I’d like you to taste,” he said, going along with her. She knew it was a lie, Zhongli was the one who always had new tea for either one (or both, when schedules aligned) of them to taste.
Suddenly, the Fatui Harbinger leaned in, murmuring under his breath, “ cleaning supplies .”
“You… you seriously brought them?” Lumine didn’t know whether she wanted to groan or… no, she was definitely going to groan. She thought he had long forgotten about it!
Of course, only a few days had passed so unless his memory was that awful… but that was besides the point.
“Come on, I like cleaning! Besides, a clean space will motivate you to decorate, and then you’re not gonna feel embarrassed to invite people over anymore.”
Lumine leaned back with a sigh, “if you keep doing things like this I’m going to feel like I’ll have a debt to pay,” she wouldn’t be surprised if he had suddenly sprout out and asked for a favor, knowing many of the Fatui, particularly the lower ranked ones, were often tasked with debt collecting.
She must have had a certain look in her eyes considering her Snezhnayan companion looked undeterred, as if he knew she would eventually say yes.
“How did we get from cleaning all the rooms to snuggling on a bed?”
Lumine throws him a knowing look, “oh, you know perfectly well how it happened! You started it after all!”
“Ahhh, it seems my memory,” two hands rested on the small of Lumine’s back, but one leaves to rub his head, feigning pain, “has failed me. Oww , how painful… remembering it hurts… Could my precious partner remind me of how it happened?”
The blonde in front of him pouts, and he can’t help but relish the fact that he’s seen more, and more of her expressions frequently. It is an experience he never tires from.
“We spent the whole day cleaning, then spent an hour cooking,” he had thought about it before, but he still finds it bizarre that they had started being a domestic pair so early on, “then I guess I was so tired I walked in the wrong bedroom… then you walked in and decided to just share the same bed.”
“More like you were so used to sleeping in this room that you forgot you lent it to me for the night,” he chuckles, “I swear I remember sleeping on the floor though, but then I woke up on the bed to a Paimon screaming at the both of us!”
“On the floor, huh,” Lumine looks a little thoughtful, but he doesn’t get the chance to question it. “Honestly, she was probably just peeved I left her in the other bedroom all by herself.”
“Ah, yes, the other bedroom neither of us use now,” the two of them had put their efforts in decorating it thinking that either one of them would use it, only to wound up in the same bed every night they spent together.
“Mhmm, even Paimon doesn’t like using it. When she wants to sleep on a bed she usually just squeezes between us, or slinks to my side, or lies on top of me. Sometimes she’s more like a clingy pet than a… fairy, pixie being.”
Tartaglia looks down to find that, indeed, there has been an empty space between them.
The back of his mind supplies that Paimon’s less like a pet and more like a child clinging onto their older sister, or perhaps even a mother, but he doesn’t speak out these thoughts. Maybe it’ll come out eventually in the middle of him teasing Lumine, or him making fun of Paimon, but for now he keeps the thought tucked within.
“Where is she, anyway?”
“Paimon said she didn’t want to interrupt our, to quote, lovey-dovey time ,” surprisingly, Childe feels a smidge of heat creep up his neck at that. It’s the same embarrassing feeling as getting caught doing something bad by your little siblings.
“Ah, I see,” he says with a cough. Why is it that now, he’s more embarrassed by the implications than her, when just a while ago he was teasing her of the very same thing.
“When do you think Paimon found out? That we had become more than friends?”
Lumine’s laughter is tiny, humming as if she was trying to recall something, “honestly, I think she realized before the two of us. She’s not as dumb as people seem to think she is.”
He remembers the watchful eyes the small being had on him every time he stayed close to Lumine, realizing there was definitely a chance she had seen the telltale signs of romantic affection from the two of them.
Never mind the child analogy, Paimon was definitely like a pet— a watchdog, even, ready to gobble him up if he so much as laid a hand on her master or looked at Lumine with ill intent.
Well, considering he got to embrace her quite frequently now, perhaps the watchdog has been tamed?
“Then what about you? When did you find out?”
He doesn’t answer immediately, not when her question was one he had difficulty answering by himself. Lumine does not rush him either, and for a moment he thinks she might be asleep for how steady her breath is, the consistent rise and fall of her chest. Had he taken so long thinking about it?
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, or if you don’t know yet,” Lumine says, amber colored eyes meeting his and he’s amazed sun-like eyes could shine so late at night, “even I’m still unsure. I feel like I just thought about it one night, as we laid together like this, and I realized the extent of my feelings for you.”
“I think… it must have been like that for me too,” Childe admits, feeling uplifted by the fact that he wasn’t alone in that manner of uncertainty. “Honestly, I don’t think there was even a specific moment,” as unromantic as it sounded, it was true. They do things out of order, after all.
He’s written letters about her to his family, even introducing her to his youngest brother. He’s taken her out on dates before either of them even realized they were dates, treating her to every restaurant and food stall in Liyue imaginable. He’s promised to take her to his home, and she’s taken him to her current home, entangling limbs with him before they’ve so much as breathed those three words.
There’s never been one turning point— it has been all of those things added together and what they’ve made him feel for her.
“For some time I just knew what I felt for you, and that you felt the same way, but I can think of the moment I decided I finally wanted to tell you.”
It started with a simple question.
“Miss Traveler, are you seeing anyone?” Childe had half the mind to answer for her, impatience at having this shared, precious free time of theirs interrupted. He contemplated saying yes, too, that he was the one she was seeing.
Of course, he couldn’t do that to Lumine. Even with the affection they shared for each other, one confirmation, one slip-up would be enough to be cause for consequences.
Rumors were handled with grace (or so it was for Lumine, he preferred other methods when it came to shutting up people), but turning a speculation into a confirmation was dangerous.
It’s why he let her take her time answering, even if he wanted to drag her away to anywhere else— a private room in a restaurant, his office in the bank, even somewhere in the teapot.
“Oh, I’m not allowed to date anyone without my brother’s approval!”
It’s a fine excuse. At this point, everyone in Liyue Harbor knew of the traveler’s quest to find her brother, so it was only a given that such a devoted girl would follow the wishes of a missing sibling, even when he wasn’t present to watch over her.
“Ugh, what a shame!”
Was there a shame to that, Childe asked himself amusedly. If Tonia ever wanted to date anyone he’d probably make sure they were a good person, too.
“I suppose it’s only natural,” the stranger continued, “the traveler belongs to everyone, after all!”
Lumine laughed alongside the stranger, as if it was an old joke she was used to hearing, but for Childe, who cherished that woman with all of his being, those very words unsettled him.
He’d always thought the opposite— that the traveler belonged to no one, rather, that no one deserved the traveler. A traveler meant a fleeting presence, a presence that came and went and was impossible to catch for yourself. Even to him, who so often sparred with the traveler, ate meals with the traveler, spent nights lying beside the traveler— even then, he could not keep her forever, only awaiting her return.
It was at that moment, he thought to himself, that he’d take the chance to be selfish. It was a long time coming, anyway.
The traveler was someone nobody deserved, but if she were to belong to somebody, then could she let it be him?
For a few moments Lumine stays silent, one hand caressing his hair while the other traces the curves of his face— the bags under his eyes, the slope of his nose, and the edges of his lips. He gets the inexplicable urge to the very same, instead settling for mindlessly drawing figures on her back. After the fifth heart in a row the blonde smiles softly, her index mapping out the same shape with the freckles atop his cheeks.
“The words you said that night… so that was why?”
He knows she’s not merely talking about his confession, but the words he deliberately chose to say.
“Who knows, maybe it was my possessive side coming out?” it’s a lie, a partial lie, but a lie nonetheless— they both know the truth runs much deeper than that. He does not need to explain further.
“Then that possessive side of yours— could you let me hear it again?”
He’s never been a righteous, noble man but for as long as it was she who ordered it, he’d repeat it for as long as she desired.
“I’ll belong to you until all the stars fall out of the sky,” Childe says, and suddenly Lumine is laughing and never before had he seen her look so encompassed by pure joy, this second confession holding much deeper weight now that she understood what he truly meant by it.
It is here and then, he realizes, that perhaps a star had already fallen out of the sky, and that star is Lumine— bright, sparkling, glowing Lumine who shines even in the darkest of nights, whose eyes twinkle with wonder and gleam with mischief.
A star, he thinks, fondness seeping into his very core, that has fallen from the sky and landed into his waiting arms— this being, so bright and beautiful, encompassing his very existence, cleansing, if only for a moment, whatever remnants of his soul had remained after the fall.
“Even if the brightest star fell out of the sky,” he corrects, “Childe, Tartaglia… even Ajax — he will belong to you and you alone.”
“To whom?” It is at that moment he realizes what she has wanted from him.
“To no one but Lumine .”
He doesn’t need her to respond, just getting the words out of his mouth, rare moments of raw honesty, is enough for him, but his heart swells with what he knows to be nothing but love when she returns his words.
“Even if the brightest star fell out of the sky,” she says, slinking even closer to him until he feels nothing but the warmth of her skin grazing against his, their bodies caught up against one another, leaving no room left in between, “Lumine will be yours and yours alone.”
To some, the traveler belongs to everyone, to him, the traveler belongs to no one, but Lumine is nobody’s but his.