Eyes of Perception

Chapter 12

Surprisingly enough, being in a relationship wasn't all that different from what he was used to. They still met up for their (almost) daily dinners together, and they still took long strolls down the harbor side by side. They still left one another small letters to be delivered to their places of work, and, if one finished the task before the other, it was an unspoken rule to pay the other a visit, to see if there was any way to help out with the workload. They still exchanged stories of how their day went, and Zhongli still went on his long historical lectures as Childe still stared at him in fascination, entranced by that sweet voice and those breathtaking eyes.

If Childe hadn't known any better, he would've thought that he and Zhongli had been romantic partners all along - not that he would've known unless Zhongli had directly told him. Childe wasn't exactly the best when it came to knowing his own feelings, much less the feelings of those around him. Still, despite the familiarity of this 'new' relationship that he and Zhongli had, there was one thing that Childe did notice.

Zhongli was touchy. Extremely so. He noticed it first when they'd been walking back to the city from the clearing they'd been at - the entire (somewhat awkward) walk back, Zhongli's hand kept not-so-accidentally brushing against Childe's his thumb nudging at the back of Childe's hand until Childe had given in and held Zhongli's hand the rest of the way. They said nothing about it then, and even Zhongli had seemingly run out of historical lessons to go on about, at least for now.

Childe liked the touch. It felt like a confirmation of sorts, that yes, it was all real, that yes, Zhongli hadn't run from him and that those warm feelings he had whenever he was around the consultant were normal, natural. Safe. It was almost like an anchor of sorts, tying him down from going into a panic over the fact that he'd let himself lower his guard while he was still on a mission. It reminded him that he wasn't just a weapon, just a tool for the Tsaritsa to use to get her way. It reminded him that he was human, that he was allowed to feel and be happy and not be forced to worry over meaningless things.

Childe had never been too fond of close contact - after all, he was a warrior through and through, raised on stories of adventures and battles. He was the Tsaritsa's Vanguard, a survivor of the Abyss and all of its nightmares. Close contact usually meant danger, meant that he'd lowered his guard down too much and that he'd have to pay the price for it in the form of pain. He'd learned pretty early on that being touched meant being vulnerable, and that only led to his fight or flight instincts being kicked in. Childe rarely ever picked flight.

Still, he found he enjoyed this. When Zhongli's thumb rubbed circles over the back of his hand, he found himself relaxing rather than trying to come up with the best strategy to take the consultant down. When gentle fingers angled his shoulders to face Zhongli's item of interest, he was turning in accordance to what Zhongli wanted rather than shrugging the touch away. When those same fingers hovered over his waist to guide him through Liyue's busy streets, he followed without argument rather than fought it off. 

Childe had assumed that Zhongli, at the very least, knew what he was doing. He was wrong. Zhongli seemed to be just as clueless as he was when it came to these things, from the way that he'd awkwardly refer to them as 'partners' whenever someone asked (hadn't he already done that before? Now wait a sec, had Zhongli seen them as partners even before all this?) to the way that he showed his affection through more  ancient traditions that Childe would later have to either ask about or try to read about in his book of Liyuan culture.

"How about we stop by here?" Zhongli asked one time as they made their way through the street on a particularly busy night, his fingers still gently on Childe's waist to guide the Harbinger through the crowds. He angled them to a small jewelry store that Childe didn't think he'd seen before. At the top of it, in elegant letters, Childe could make out the name Xigu Antiques. For some reason that Childe couldn't quite place, the name sounded familiar.