starry, starry night | genshin impact

childe : give me more (but it's not enough)

[ nsfw ; tartaglia | childe x subordinate!reader ]

...

It always starts the same, this little tango you danced with the devil himself.

Tartaglia would invite you - yes you - to whatever social function he had to show up for under the pretense of business. After all, the Fatui are nothing if not an outfit of diplomats that wish to stake their influence deep into the roots of Teyvat. The natural response is to, of course, accept. You've served as a right-hand woman for several Harbingers long enough to know the scope of your duties, and your superiors are well aware of them, too.

That, however, doesn't mean that the limits are as uncomplicated as you hoped.

"That shade of red really suits you."

Tartaglia - Childe, you remind yourself - whispers the words as one of his hands slide beneath the slit of your dress. Your throat bobs as you attempt to ignore him. You knew something was amiss when one of the chambermaids in the Fatui's lodging brought such extravagant garbs to your doorstep. She presented you with a traditional Liyue cheongsam that had a hollow spot festooned on the bosom area. It's where one's Vision can be stored, the chambermaid said.

Apart from the modified dress, a silk flower hairpin came with the package along with a pair of kitten heels boasting more value than an entire month's salary. You certainly found it odd because typically it was La Signora who gets gifted with this kind of finery by the delegation's clients - not some nobody henchwoman like yourself.

When you brought it up, the chambermaid insisted that she had strict orders to help you dress for tonight's dinner with Lord Zhongli and, not wanting to give her any more trouble, you acquiesced.

...only to realize that you've waltzed right into your superior's trap.

You zone back into the present a little too late. The consultant for the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor himself is in the middle of giving you both a history lesson about the origins of the cheongsam. He seems to have taken a liking to your outfit as well, but not in the same way Childe has. As Zhongli discusses the intricate art of hand-weaving that went into each dress, Childe taints the fabric that Liyue natives take pride in with temptation inked into his fingertips.

For once, you're grateful for the masks that all Fatui members are mandated to wear. You wouldn't have been able to appear as composed as you are if you knew your flustered face was bared for Zhongli's perusal. Childe is doing an exemplary job at being discreet, too - pitching into the conversation with knowledge that could have fooled anyone into thinking he might be a local.

But despite being a nation so close to the sea, no one born in Liyue had eyes quite like Tartaglia's.

Once the dishes are put away and the wine glasses are lined up on the table, you knew it was time for reckoning. Despite the countless delegation dinners you've attended, you never quite got used to the bite of alcohol that your clients offered. Maybe it's because you aren't a big fan. Maybe it's because of some irrational fear that your Pyro Vision might ignite the alcohol in your system - causing you to spontaneously combust. But even if the aversion is there, you would always indulge him when Childe says:

"You look like you're up for another round. Here, drink up!"

Are you obligated to do what he tells you? To an extent, yes. But you know the line that separates duty from desire has long been blurred by the devil pouring wine into your glass and honey in your ears.

Compared to the other Harbingers, Childe is a crowd favorite among the lower echelons of the Fatui. He doesn't make it his life's purpose to intimidate everyone into silence. Doesn't threaten his subordinates unlike La Signora's penchant for cowing the skirmishers into cryosleep should they fail at their jobs. In fact, he's the spitting image of what a Fatui delegate shouldn't be: overtly cheerful, operates by his own rules, and - of course - goes against the ever-so sacred mask protocol.

While you constantly badgered him about his inclination to "forget" about that particular rule, you have your own reasons to appreciate Childe's recurring deviance.

His eyes are so blue.

The thought is as distant as your chances of sobriety as Childe hovers over you like a god pleading mercy to a sinner. You don't remember how you got back to your room or when you even exchanged farewells with Zhongli. But when he smiles, all lazy and handsome, you tell yourself that nothing else matters but him.

His hands trail up your thigh as the crescent of his mouth ghosts across your throat. This time, without any layers to hinder him from staking his claim - no dress, no mask; just a thick cloud of lust sending your addled thoughts into a frenzy. A Hydro user he might be, but Childe's touch ignites a wildfire wherever his touch may glide.

And the Tsaritsa knows just how badly you want to burn.

"You're such a pretty little thing, aren't you?"

Your face is smothered with tears against one of the pillows on the bed - mind all numb with the sensations he's handing out for free. In your haze, you can feel him invading your body in the most sinful yet delicious of ways. It's wrong to be doing such a deplorable thing with your superior. Even more so to let yourself get addicted like a vagrant hooked on opium. But the thing about this suave, smooth-talking superior of yours is that he always gets what he wants.

Each sound that tumbles from your lips as he slides himself inside and out spurs him on more that he's willing to admit. Childe is the type that gets off to seeing you, hearing you all wrecked for him, and you would appease his greatly inflated ego each time. Like a dog so blindly loyal to a wicked master.

He steals the breath from your lungs until all that's left is the scent of seasalt and aftershave. He kisses you in ways only lovers are meant to indulge in - which you know painfully well that you aren't. Because it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's no one Childe loves more than himself. That you're nothing but a temporary fix, a toy he only ever cares to play with once the desires of the flesh begin to whisper in his ear.

Yet you feast on the scraps, regardless.

Childe frames the words, "You're beautiful," across your jaw before biting a, "You're mine," onto the thrum of your pulse. Before you can tell him that you would never belong to anyone else, white, hot pleasure seizes you from every which way - coaxing a garbled rendition of his name from your mouth that he silences with a bruising kiss.

When he's content with swathing your body with reds and blues, with filling you up so much, so well that another man won't even hope to steal you away - Childe places a fleeting kiss across your forehead.

You sleepily blink out the spots in your eyes as he drapes the sheets across your battered body. Though, what surprises you even more is the fact that Childe decided to get underneath them, too.

During these illicit trysts you shared, your superior never once tried to share a bed with you. Sure, he'd fuck you into any solid surface if he felt like it, but Childe is not one to become a humble bedfellow - unlike the man laying next to you in the afterglow of debauchery. The buzz of alcohol clouding your thoughts is yet to dissipate, and you know better than to try and scrutinize his odd choice in this state.

But as you begin to toe the boundary between slumber and consciousness, you feel him swipe his thumb across the swell of your lips - caressing your face with a tenderness that would've alarmed you if you were sober.

"You're starting to grow on me, you know?"

His voice was barely above a whisper; if your quarters hadn't been so quiet, you would have missed it. You look up at him and see his auburn hair falling across the ocean of his eyes, and for a moment, he sounded more sincere than you've ever heard him speak. But putting the words Childe and sincere in the same sentence goes against the natural ways of the world.

You know he knows you heard him, and for that, you spare him a smile that's nothing if not a little impish. You stand corrected. Maybe he isn't all that different from the other Harbingers.

After all, Childe wouldn't be Childe if he isn't the biggest liar in all of Teyvat.