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It starts, as most disasters do, with Childe saying: “Come on, babe. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Zhongli blinks at him across the dressing room of the Zapolyarny Palace, golden eyes slow as sediment. “You are asking me to accompany you to a highly classified Fatui function.”
Childe, already halfway into his third entirely inappropriate suit, grins like a man who has never once considered consequences. “No one’ll know we’re dating.”
“You are wearing a brooch in the shape of my sigil.”
“Oh, is that what it is? I thought it was a very handsome rock.”
Zhongli sighs. Like the sound of every bad decision he’s ever made choosing this mortal life over wine and stardust. Like he’s resigned himself to whatever this is, and whatever this is is precisely how Childe likes it.
There are rules to Fatui events.
Do not ask what the hors d’oeuvres are made of.
Do not look II Dottore in the eye.
Under no circumstances should you let the Harbingers know you’re romantically involved with one of their own.
Zhongli, unfortunately, has never been good with rules. Especially not when Childe—excuse him, Tartaglia—shows up to the gala dressed in dark navy formalwear that somehow manages to look both imperial and obscenely slutty. There’s a slit at the side of the coat. There’s a cravat. There’s a dagger.
Childe looks like he’s ready to either ballroom dance or seduce someone into a blood pact. Possibly both. Zhongli feels… something.
“Are you glaring at me or ogling me?” Childe murmurs under his breath as they arrive at the grand staircase. “Because either way, I’m into it.”
Zhongli’s voice is low, nearly lost beneath the echo of crystal chandeliers and the murmured greetings of Snezhnayan elite.
“You are going to be the death of me.”
Childe smirks. “You’re loitering near the ice sculptures like a very expensive gargoyle.”
They are exactly five minutes into the event before someone suspects something. It’s not because Zhongli’s staring at Childe like he’s personally responsible for the concept of desire. It’s not because Childe keeps finding reasons to lean in and whisper things like you look ravishable in that waistcoat and I bet your gloves hide some very interesting hands, Mr. Morax in his ear.
No, it’s because Scaramouche sees them standing together, eyes Zhongli’s wine glass, and says:
“…You brought your sugar baby?”
Childe chokes on a canape.
Zhongli blinks once. “I am no one’s ‘sugar,’” he says coolly, “nor anyone’s ‘baby.’”
“I mean, technically—” Childe begins, then thinks better of it. “You know what? I love you, but I want to live.”
“Excuse me?” says Scaramouche.
“Excuse you,” Childe retorts, slipping an arm very nonchalantly around Zhongli’s waist. “He’s a free man. He just happens to freely choose to spend his time with me, which I think is very noble and brave.”
“You’re noble and brave for surviving my continued company,” Zhongli deadpans, not removing the arm.
Scaramouche squints. “You two are doing it.”
“No, we’re not,” Childe lies, smiling with the confidence of someone who absolutely is and will do it again.
Zhongli takes a sip of his wine, unbothered. He licks a drop off his bottom lip.
Childe forgets what language is.
“Stop clenching your jaw,” Zhongli murmurs without looking at him. “You’ll grind your teeth into powder. And then how will you threaten diplomats with that boyish grin of yours?”
Childe looks like he’s about to combust.
“I brought you here to behave,” he hisses, voice tight with panic and lust and also maybe some light cardiac distress. “Why do you look like that. You’re going to kill someone. You’re going to kill me.”
Zhongli tilts his head, innocent as a snake in silk. “I was told to wear something befitting my station. Is this not appropriate?”
He’s wearing a tailored black suit with golden accents that glimmer like molten ore, an open collar, and—because the universe hates Childe specifically—a subtle brooch shaped like a coiling dragon. A matching one rests on Childe’s lapel.
He had not planned for this. He had only suggested they coordinate. He had not planned for matching accessories that imply a shared living situation. He had not planned for Zhongli looking like he owns the function and possibly the building and maybe the universe.
And he had certainly not planned for—
“Is that the funeral consultant?” someone whispers from across the room.
“The what?” another says, scandalized. “Is he a diplomat?”
“I thought he was a myth.”
“I thought he was retired.”
“I heard he once stared a Vision wielder into unconsciousness.”
“I heard he makes Childe behave.”
Lies. Rumors. All of them true.
“Sir,” says a very worried junior Fatui agent later, pulling Childe aside.
“Yes?” Childe says, probably glowing. That tends to happen when Zhongli flirts at him in Ancient Liyuean metaphors that translate loosely to I’d drag you into the molten core of the earth and kiss you until you forget your name.
“Who is that man you brought with you?”
Childe’s grin sharpens. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“We ran a face scan. No matches. No Snezhnayan citizenship. And when we tried to access diplomatic channels—well—” the agent lowers their voice—“Tsaritsa’s private seal blocked the request.”
Childe whistles. “Must be one hell of a guy.”
The agent glances back toward the ballroom, where Zhongli is currently engaged in polite discussion with the Regrator—who looks as if he’s aged ten years in the past ten minutes. There’s an entire geological metaphor happening. There are finger gestures. Someone mentions tectonic plates. Someone else faints.
Childe puffs up with pride. “I think he’s doing great.”
“You brought a goddamn national security anomaly to a classified gala.”
“I brought my boyfriend,” Childe corrects. “And he happens to be extremely hot. And possibly several millennia old. But mostly hot.”
The agent stares. “Do you even know who he is?”
“…He pays for dinner sometimes?” Childe offers.
Later, behind a marble pillar the size of a small building, Childe corners him.
“You’re driving me crazy.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“Exactly. You just exist and suddenly half the Fatui thinks I’m being seduced by a stranger.”
Zhongli leans in, voice soft. “Would you prefer I be more overt?”
Childe goes still. “You wouldn’t.”
Zhongli kisses his cheek. “You doubt me.”
Childe opens his mouth to argue and immediately closes it when Zhongli murmurs in Old Snezhnayan—something that sounds suspiciously like I would dismantle a nation to see you smile.
“Sir,” says a passing diplomat, clearly trying not to look.
“Yes?” Childe says, clearing his throat, hands behind his back like he hasn’t just been erotically threatened by his immortal sugar lover.
“I just wanted to say—your date is very well-dressed.”
Zhongli inclines his head. “Thank you. I dressed myself.”
Childe internally combusts.
The party only technically ends when the chandeliers begin to flicker. But the actual conclusion comes when Arlecchino pulls Childe aside and hisses:
“You absolute imbecile.”
Childe blinks. “Love you too.”
“You brought the Geo Archon to a Fatui gala?”
“You make it sound so dramatic.”
“You held hands in public.”
Zhongli appears behind him with a small smile. “It was only a brief gesture of support. Tartaglia seemed tense.”
Arlecchino makes a strangled noise.
Childe shrugs. “Well. You said I should bring a date. I brought one.”
“That man is an Archon.”
“That man makes me pancakes.”
Arlecchino gapes.
Zhongli sips his wine.
Childe beams.
They get banned from three future Fatui events. Not officially, of course. The memos just stop arriving.
Which is fine. Because back in Liyue, curled up on the couch with his very ancient, very dangerous boyfriend, Childe looks over at Zhongli—hair down, sleeves rolled up, a soft little smile on his lips as he reads aloud from some old poetry volume—and thinks:
Totally worth it.
Even if next time, he might ask before inviting him to a function full of geopolitically sensitive idiots.
Just. You know. As a treat.