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It begins, as most disasters do, with hubris. Specifically, Childe’s hubris.
Which, for the record, is more aggressive than a Fatui diplomat in a wine bar, more volatile than a hydro-enhanced melee stance in polite company, and more persistent than the stains he leaves on Zhongli’s 1000-thread-count sheets (both literal and metaphorical).
They are seated—no, posed, like two mythological beings playing at domesticity—at a high-end Liyue restaurant, all polished black lacquer and vermilion curtains and a menu that doesn’t list prices because if you need to ask, you’re not allowed to breathe near the osmanthus glaze.
Zhongli has just finished pontificating, gracefully, about the social significance of tea vessels in the early Qingce dynasty.
Childe, legs spread irresponsibly wide, sipping a bright blue cocktail with a dried citrus twist and an umbrella he already tried to duel, is not listening.
He is observing, which is always a bad sign.
Zhongli should have known.
“I don’t get how your mouth can say things like ‘kiln-fired elegance was vital to the cultural flourishing of—’ and still kiss me like that,” Childe says, far too loud for anyone who wants to live with dignity. “It’s almost criminal. Like, where do you keep that tongue during lectures?”
Zhongli blinks. Serenely. Like a man who has never once blushed in his entire immortal existence.
“I use my tongue for many purposes,” he replies. “Precision articulation among them.”
Childe practically purrs, which would be fine if he weren’t made of elbows and chaos.
“Oh, I know,” he says, leaning over the table, braced like a man preparing to sin in a church pew. “You’ve got the whole package. Ancient knowledge. Smooth voice. Hands that could shatter a mountain or, y’know, press me into a mattress like I’m a treaty you’re sealing with your—”
“Please,” Zhongli interrupts gently. “Not at the table.”
Childe grins. He’s gone too far. He knows it. But does he stop?
Of course not.
He raises a brow and tips his head. Smirks like a man about to lose everything to a single phrase. And then—
“Okay, daddy, whatever you say.”
It’s like dropping a hydro slime into an electro-charged swamp. The air crackles. Time halts. A spoon somewhere clinks. A child at the next table drops her chopsticks and gasps. An elderly couple one table over dies. Not really, but spiritually? Yes.
Zhongli blinks. Once. Twice.
And then, like someone reciting an epitaph:
“…You call me what?”
Childe, very much a man who thought he understood the consequences of his actions, suddenly realizes he is a fool.
“Uhhh—term of endearment?”
Zhongli folds his hands. The air around him grows heavier, like tectonic plates shifting. A waiter trips. Somewhere, a distant stone lion weeps.
“I am older than civilization,” Zhongli intones. “I predate language. I have witnessed the rise and fall of empires. I held the first clay tablet in my hands and taught men to carve laws into stone. Of course I am a—”
Childe slams his hand on the table. “Do not finish that sentence.”
But it is too late.
Zhongli’s eyes glint, amber and immortal.
“—father figure.”
Childe keens. Loudly. In public.
It echoes.
The waiter has to walk away.
“Zhongli,” he hisses through his fingers. “You don’t—you don’t know what it means.”
Zhongli tilts his head, thoughtful.
“I believe I do. In many ways, I have acted as a paternal figure across the millennia. Many contracts were forged in my name. Entire lineages prospered beneath my guidance.”
“That’s not what it means,” Childe croaks, horrified.
Zhongli gazes at him, and smiles. The kind of smile that belongs on a god, or a cryptic poem, or a beautiful knife.
“Then explain it to me, dearest,” he says. “You are, after all, the one who calls me that.”
Childe actually blacks out.
“I am never recovering from this,” he groans, face smashed into his forearms. “My entire body is curling in on itself. I have collapsed like a dying star. I am now a theoretical physics problem. They will teach my shame in Celestia.”
Zhongli lifts his teacup.
“It is not uncommon for mortals to develop… attachments to those who represent strength, stability, and guidance.”
“That’s not better.”
“I am simply stating facts.”
“You’re stating my funeral rites.”
Zhongli hums. He sets his cup down and leans forward with all the composure of a man unaware of human panic.
“So. This word,” he says. “This… ‘daddy.’ It is not merely a paternal term?”
Childe chokes. Audibly.
“No! I mean—yes. But no. I mean—fuck, Zhongli, you can’t just say it like that!”
“I seek understanding.”
“You’re too good at it!”
Zhongli tilts his head. “Then… perhaps you might elaborate.”
“Are you—you—asking me to explain a kink to you over dessert?”
“There is no shame in intellectual inquiry,” Zhongli says, full academic menace. “Surely the Fatui encourage open dialogue about terminology, especially in… intimate partnerships.”
“I’m going to jump into the harbor,” Childe mutters. “You’re going to have to fish me out with a geoconstruct and some dignity, neither of which I have left.”
Zhongli considers him. Then he smirks.
It is a slow, seismic thing. A smile built from stone and silk. A curl of the lip that could cause localized tremors.
Somewhere between the dessert wine and the almond tofu, Childe recovers enough to breathe without shame-induced cardiac arrest. Barely.
He is pink to the tips of his ears. His soul has left his body. His Archon boyfriend is calmly buttering a lotus flower bun like he didn’t just annihilate Childe’s mortal frame with a single sentence.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” Childe mutters.
“Am I?” Zhongli looks genuinely curious. “I simply responded to what I was called.”
“You’re not supposed to say it out loud,” Childe hisses. “It’s a bedroom thing. Like—like when someone calls their partner that, it’s—oh Archons, why am I explaining this to you—it’s—sexual.”
Zhongli pauses.
Ah.
“I see,” he says, and leans in slightly. “You mean to say you desire me in a way that inspires such a term.”
Childe bangs his forehead on the table.
Zhongli lifts an elegant brow.
“I’m flattered, darling,” he adds, voice like silk. “Although I must admit, it’s hardly inaccurate. I have, on many occasions, had to correct your behavior. In that sense, I suppose one could argue I discipline you. Was that not your phrasing last week when I—”
Childe kicks him under the table.
Hard.
Zhongli does not flinch.
“Morax,” Childe growls.
Zhongli smiles.
“I thought we were using pet names.”
Childe squeaks.
Zhongli continues, undeterred.
“You wish to surrender control. To be taken in hand, as it were. Correct?”
“I— You— I—”
Zhongli reaches for his teacup again.
“The term, vulgar as it may be, suggests a dynamic wherein one party assumes command with benevolent authority. I must admit, I find the framing linguistically fascinating.”
“You’re weaponizing academia.”
“I am expanding my lexicon.”
“You’re going to get us banned from this place.”
Zhongli arches a brow.
“I believe the menu said ‘no photography’ and ‘no loud disturbances.’ I am merely conversing.”
“You’re invoking my kinks like they’re legal precedents!”
Zhongli smiles. “Aren’t they?”
Childe flings his napkin at him. It ricochets off a vase worth more than a week’s salary and flutters to the ground like a defeated dove.
---
Some time later.....
Childe has been many things in his life. Assassin. Brother. Weapon. Whore for violence. Flirtatious menace with the libido of a twelve-armed octopus and the emotional subtlety of a collapsing building.
He is not used to being speechless.
But now he lies face-down in his dumplings, wishing death would come swiftly, while Zhongli cuts his meat with alarming precision and comments on the fine balance of flavors like he didn’t just deliver a line that will be engraved on Childe’s tombstone.
“I should clarify,” Zhongli adds after a beat. “I do not object to the role, if that is what you desire.”
“I don’t!” Childe groans into his plate.
“I see,” Zhongli says. Thoughtfully. “Then you merely prefer the aesthetic terminology.”
Childe lifts his head, face flushed to Tartarus. “What—what even is that supposed to mean—”
“You enjoy the concept,” Zhongli continues, calmly, “without subscribing to the functional dynamic. That is to say—you wish to imply submission, to tease me with power play, to provoke a reaction—”
“I am never bringing you to a restaurant again.”
“—but do not, in truth, wish to relinquish control.”
“I will kill us both with the butter knife.”
Zhongli hums. “Do you want me to take your dessert order, pet?”
Childe shrieks.
The waiter returns—tentative, trembling, traumatized.
“Do you, ah… gentlemen require anything else?”
Childe opens his mouth.
Zhongli beats him to it.
“I believe we’re ready for the check, thank you. And could we also request one of your dessert osmanthus tarts to go?”
The waiter nods. Flees.
Childe glares.
“You did that on purpose.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“You’re smug. I can feel it.”
“I am composed.”
“You’re a menace.”
“I am a scholar.”
“You broke me in public, and now you want a fucking tart.”
Zhongli rises gracefully, adjusting his sleeves, smooth as sin.
“Come, Ajax,” he says, with infuriating calm. “We have things to… discuss. In private.”
Childe, for all his bombast and violence and bravado, is still twenty-three years old and catastrophically down bad.
He stands dazed. Horny. Full of regret.
They are banned from the restaurant.
Technically speaking, no laws were broken. But there is a certain vibe one should not bring to a fine establishment, and Zhongli asking, with impeccable politeness, “Would it please my darling if I called him ‘little prince’ in return?” while licking a spoon—was evidently it.
Childe’s face is going to be permanently red.
Zhongli does not apologize.
Zhongli, in fact, does not do anything except stroll beside him down the cobbled streets of Liyue like he didn’t just awaken something dark and terrible and deeply sexual inside his partner.
“You,” Childe mutters. “Are the worst.”
“Is that so?” Zhongli says pleasantly.
“You ruined my dignity.”
“I was under the impression it was already compromised.”
“You called me pet in public.”
“You were mewling,” Zhongli replies. “I did not think it would be inaccurate.”
Childe actually stops walking. “You ancient stone-faced sex god, if you don’t shut the fuck up—”
“You seem distressed.”
“Distressed? I am a shattered man! I will never know peace again! My ancestors are weeping! The waiter called me sir out of pity!”
Zhongli turns toward him. His eyes are agate. Soft. Weighty.
“You called me daddy,” he says, tone gentle as a funeral bell. “I merely responded.”
“You,” Childe breathes, “are insufferable.”
“You,” Zhongli says, stepping closer, “are blushing.”
“I’m not—”
“Your ears turn red before your face does. I’ve noticed.”
“Oh my god.”
Zhongli cups his cheek. Rubs his thumb against the corner of Childe’s mouth. “If it troubles you,” he murmurs, “I’ll refrain.”
Childe swallows.
“No,” he says, quiet. “It’s…not the word. It’s you. You make it sound like something sacred.”
“Is it not?” Zhongli says, and leans in, whispering low, “You did call me that with worship in your voice.”
Childe explodes.
They don’t make it home.
The alley is dark. The wall is cold. Childe’s knees are in danger and he doesn’t care.
“You’re an asshole,” he gasps as Zhongli presses him back against stone, tongue hot in his mouth.
“You’re trembling,” Zhongli murmurs, biting his ear. “What a fragile thing you are, little prince.”
“I will bite you—”
“Do,” Zhongli breathes, lips trailing down his throat. “I might enjoy it.”
Childe is ruined. He’ll never recover.
The word is in his bones now.
And one unspoken, horrifying realization.
Zhongli knows.
Zhongli knows exactly what it means.
And Zhongli is, for all intents and purposes, very much a daddy.
---
Later—much later—when Childe has recovered enough to function as a sentient being again (barely), he makes the terrible mistake of asking if Zhongli actually understood it all along.
Zhongli simply places a hand on his knee, looks him dead in the eyes, and says:
“Dearest. I have always known.”
Then proceeds to whisper something in Old Teyvatian that definitely sounds like either a marriage proposal or a very detailed anatomical thesis.
Childe decides to pretend it was both.
Because there are worse things to be than the Harbinger of War.
Like, say—
Zhongli’s.