CW: Minor mentions of injury and blood, and stitches.

So, Childe has fucked up.

Went out to beat up some baddies and got into a pickle. Made a miscalculation or two, and got a wee bit injured. Nearly dropped kind-of dead before summoning the Sigil that allows him access to Zhongli's home.

Because he lives in a teapot, like the old bastard that he is. Convenient, though.

In a whirl of adeptal energy, Childe feels himself pulled and pushed and punched through a hole in space, before falling to the ground inside the Serenitea Pot with a pained groan. At first, Childe doesn't move. Tells himself that he's resting his eyes for just a moment, that the cool touch of the tile porch feels wonderful against his cheek.

He thinks that he hears the front door open, knocking against his back gently. There might be a warm hand against his clammy forehead and soothing words against his ear. Childe's brain is fogged with adrenaline and pain, his blood coursing rapidly through his veins.

The fight, he thinks, sluggishly, I still feel it in my bones.

Childe doesn't need to look to know the wound is bad and that he's leaking blood everywhere. Still, when Zhongli picks him up like he weighs nothing, his mind just melts away.

#

Childe wakes to Zhongli leaning over him, a terse frown on his face. He mills about Childe's side, his fingers pulling at his skin— and then Childe hisses.

"Fuck," he cries out, wincing.

"Stitches," says Zhongli, the word short and clipped. Childe blinks at that, never heard such a tone from him. It's nearly hostile. "You were stupid enough to go and pick a fight alone—"

"Hey, hey, I invited you along—"

"And I said, 'Not today, Childe. I have things to attend to'. We then proceeded to reschedule, which you clearly have ignored."

Childe scoffs, petulantly. "We'll still honor it. Are you seriously that angry— ow!"

Zhongli pulls at the needle a little too hard and Childe marvels at his behavior. Zhongli is always so soft-handed and quiet. Stern, but quaint. Not— well, whatever this is. "Imagine if I were to show up on your doorstep, half-dead, bleeding and delirious. Tell me, Childe, how would you respond?"

Childe swallows. Zhongli didn't call him by his name, he'd called him Childe instead, and he can't think of the last time he did such a thing. Oh, thinks Childe as Zhongli continues his coddling, fingers sliding against the smooth skin of his side as he knits up a rather nasty wound. Entirely at odds with his spoken tone.

He knows it's probably about as bad as it looks. He also feels the adrenaline of it still simmering in his gut, the high of the fight still churning within him. Only, now it's stoked by Zhongli's quiet and severe attitude instead.

Gods, Childe is an unerringly simple man. Takes literally nothing when it comes to his lover to set him right off because who the hell gets off on being stitched up and yelled at.

Apparently Childe. There's a first time for everything.

Zhongli's hand pauses and Childe realizes he's still waiting for an answer. "Okay, so yeah, I'd be annoyed at you." He shifts in the bed, trying to strategically hide his dick, and how it's slowly filling out.

"Annoyed," repeats Zhongli. Then, he snorts, letting go and grabbing a bottle and some cloth. He doesn't warn Childe before pressing it to the jagged cut, and Childe hisses, his back arching as the pain rises up in his throat.

"Warn a man!" he snaps.

"Warn you?" They meet gazes and Zhongli's eyes are dark like molten gold. "Where was my warning when I opened my door to you bleeding out on my porch?"

Point taken. Childe can't fault him. Childe also can't ignore the burn of the disinfectant because it makes him think of earlier, and how he'd been so close before the Mitachurl clocked him against the side. Or the way that lust starts to boil when he thinks of Zhongli's quiet vexation and clear irritability.

Childe would feel the same if Zhongli went off and did something reckless, but that's the thing: Zhongli doesn't do reckless things and Childe always has. Always will. Zhongli should've expected this.

Zhongli holds pressure to his side firmly, and the sting dulls into a pulsing ache that sinks right down into Childe's cock. So like a battle, so like when he's nearly elbow-deep and a bad guy's guts. Zhongli sighs again, his touch loosening. He always takes such good care of Childe, even when he's fucked things up.

Even after the Jade Chamber fell—

Oh. So maybe it's less about the pain and more about Zhongli, but then again, it always boils down to that.

Childe loves Zhongli in every way, but this new, vexed version of him is rather appealing. Zhongli watches him through an annoyed gaze, huffing slightly— but his hands are soft against Childe's side as they dress the wound properly.

He shifts again, pressing the heel of his hand into his lap, grinding it against his dick as inconspicuous as possible.

This time, Zhongli notices, his gaze dropping straight to where Childe's hand has sunk into his lap. Tilts his head to the side and regards him quietly. Then, Zhongli says, "Please tell me that you aren't getting off on this."

"It isn't the pain." Childe whines softly, because that's only sort of true, it's definitely a part of it. "Okay, not entirely. It's mostly you and that look."

"What look?"

"Gods, you look so frustrated. I've never seen you like that, I've never—" Childe grunts, leaning back against the pillows, hiding his face in the crook of his elbow. "Archons, why are you always so hot? I can't help it!"

"Ah." Zhongli moves then, pulling the compress away from Childe's side and surveying his work.

"What's the damage?"

Zhongli's fingers ghost around the edges of the cut, poking and prodding. Doesn't feel great. Feels quite terrible, in fact. Childe still moans softly, his cock hard and aching against his thigh. He blames it on the fact that his fight never truly ended, that his lust for battle went entirely unfulfilled.

Now it's just lust for Zhongli instead.

"I think that you'll live," says Zhongli, ruefully. "Now, as for the other matter—" Zhongli stretches across the bed and over Childe's lap. Pulls away the blanket and hums as he surveys Childe's tented trousers.

His fingers ghost along Childe's hardened length nimbly.

"I feel like you'd normally say that this is a terrible idea," says Childe with humor. "Something, something, you're injured, and the like."

"You just said you didn't hate the pain, that it was only mostly me."

Childe swallows around the lump in his throat. "And so what, you're going to handle it for me?"

"Not for you," says Zhongli, tugging at the waistband of Childe's trousers, yanking them down. He's settled over him from the side of the bed, leaving Childe with a perfect portrait view of his handsome face.

Zhongli gives him a sidelong glance, tucking his loose hair behind his ear. Takes Childe's cock into his hand and surveys it like it's a fine-dining meal, his eyes like liquid amber and simmering with lust.

Well. Childe isn't the only one, it seems. It only fuels the pleasure coiling in his gut.

"To think," says Zhongli as he turns back to his cock, nosing along the length of, "You very nearly died on my doorstep and deprived me of this in the future."

"You— oh gods—" Zhongli licks a stripe up his cock, his tongue soft and warm. "You said I'd live."

"Yes, well, I'm was a God once, and I know how to fix things." Zhongli doesn't elaborate. His tongue curls around the tip of Childe's cock, lapping at the underside of it. "I also know how to fight— and better than you— which is why you shouldn't go alone."

"Zhongli," whines Childe, his hips back arching slightly and his side burning in protest. "Ah— hah— You'd protect me, eh?" Childe teases as he often does, but when Zhongli looks back at him, he looks deathly serious.

"Always," says Zhongli, his voice quiet and pitched low. Dangerous sounding, just like the way that he gazes at him. And then he swallows Childe's dick, letting it sink into his mouth with little effort.

Childe cries out, his hips bucking slightly, and Zhongli leans over him, holding Childe firm against the mattress. He swallows him down, his cheeks hollowing out as he sucks around his cock. Zhongli's tongue smooths across the underside, teasing the skin there while his hand jerks the rest as his mouth rises and falls against him.

"Oh, oh, my gods." It's a breathy little whine, and Childe can't help but watch the way that Zhongli takes him so well, lips stretched wide around him and obscene.

Zhongli moans, his throat quivering. Childe wriggles in the bed, lost to his touch. His brain fogs in the same sort of way it does when he's dueling, but this is far more preferable, he thinks. Pressed into the bed as his love sucks him down and dry. Less blood and guts, more love, and most importantly— all Zhongli.

"Don't move too much," says Zhongli, pulling off him, licking the precome at dribbles at the tip. Knows just how much it drives Childe crazy. "You might pull out the stitches—"

"That's just unfair." Childe reaches out and presses his hand against Zhongli's face, cradling his cheek. "Babe," he says, "Babe, come on—"

Zhongli nips at the base of his groin with teeth that are a little too sharp to be human. Childe groans, but his mouth twitches. Zhongli hates the pet name but Childe loves the way that it rolls off his tongue.

"Please," says Childe, guiding his head back to where he wants it.

Zhongli smiles against his cock, just a tiny quirk of his lips. Jerks at it with his hand as he turns to look at Childe, his eyes warm as he rests his cheek against Childe's thigh. His hair is now mussed, tangled around his shoulders.

"I think an apology is in order," he says simply.

He thinks what? Zhongli plays with his cock, his hand curling around it just so, enough to keep him hard and aching. Childe doesn't answer immediately, his mouth parting in hazed confusion.

There are far more pressing things on his mind, like Zhongli pulling him right to completion with nothing but his mouth. Childe wants it, needs it, craves nothing but it in that moment— but Zhongli is a cruel man. He doesn't move to indulge.

"For nearly dying," he continues, "For staining my porch red. For making me worry." Zhongli sighs, his eyes slipping closed, almost fearful. "For making me see you like that."

"I love you," says Childe impulsively, "And Archons, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I only wanted a fight, my blood was itching for it. The lust-"

"And you didn't come to me, Ajax?" Oh, there's his name. It sinks right into his groin, the base of his dick. Makes him all hot and flustered.

"Zhongli," he murmurs, his voice soft and wanton, cracked as he keens and writhes against the hold that Zhongli has on him. He hisses as Zhongli takes him into his mouth again and sucks his cock all the way down to the root. Childe yanks at his hair, fingers digging in harshly as Zhongli's throat pulls taught around his cock.

He works his cock so well, bobbing along his length. Zhongli's mouth is warm and wet, the back of his throat blisteringly tight. And the way that he moans; broken sounds that bubble up from the back of his mouth and around Childe's cock.

Childe fucks against him just a little, the barest amount allowed by Zhongli's weight against him. He watches his beautiful profile, that long and elegant nose and those pretty lips. The way that Zhongli's eyes flash to meet his, reddened and teared as he takes him into his mouth deep.

"Gods, I'm going to—"

Childe comes with a shout, crying out his name and spilling into Zhongli's mouth. Zhongli is prepared, swallowing it, not letting a single drop go to waste. Looks far too pleased with himself as he licks around his spent cock, watching Childe shudder in the aftermath of his orgasm, hazed and drunk on the pleasure.

He floats down from it, his blood slowly cooling off. Zhongli moves, pressing back to his side to check the nasty gash and stitches.

Childe hisses, but the pain is grounding in a away. He slowly comes back to reality. "Fuck," he sighs, sinking into the softness of the pillows and blankets. "I'm alive, I'm alive."

Zhongli tips low and presses a kiss against the wound, a soft and fluttering thing that means more than anything else that's happened that night. Childe has been cared for so well by Zhongli's loving hands.

He apologizes again a little bit later, when Zhongli's tucked against his side properly, resting. Presses a gentle kiss to Zhongli's forehead, his lips lingering there. Gods, his side hurts, he's going to feel it for a while. Probably will need to stay in bed for the next day.

"Not that I'm complaining, but I don't think the blow job helped me much."

Zhongli snorts. "It was for me, not you. Seeing you… I just needed to touch you, to feel you respond. Because you didn't before."

"Oh," says Childe, inelegantly.

"There is so little that I have left. This is a partnership. You have to play your part." Zhongli pauses. "I love you." It's a soft murmur against Childe's chest. "But I cannot protect you if you go off on your own. I won't make you promise, because I know that you won't—"

"I will," cuts in Childe. He stares at the ceiling. "I've done a lot of thinking, you know. These last months. It's hard to explain, the need to scratch that itch— but it's been easier as of late. I don't fuck off to pick fights nearly as much. I have a far better outlet."

He can feel Zhongli's sly smile against his pec.

"I did say to come to me."

"And I will." Childe brings his hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles. Nuzzles the back of his hand with loving intent.

A promise that he intends to keep.