A/N: I just think Childe and Thoma would make neat workout buddies.
Dialogue Prompts: "I can do this all day." / "I'm not drunk enough for this conversation."
The air is crisp and cool, a blessed reprieve after a sleepless night spent tossing and turning in his stuffy room. Childe bounces on the balls of his feet, rolling his weight back and forth while he stretches his shoulders. He doesn't know why he couldn't sleep last night. Probably because Zhongli's been out on business for the last week, and the bed feels far too big without him in it. But that's not something he can admit, that co-dependency, that longing and yearning, not even in the comfort of his own head.
Luckily, he doesn't have to. His next stretch falters when he catches sight of tousled, auburn hair bobbing towards him down the path. He perks up, standing up on his tip-toes to stretch his calves, and to wave like a madman in big sweeping motions.
"Thoma!" Childe shouts, scattering a few grazing pigeons. "Over here!"
Thoma stomps towards him across the park, avoiding the damp grass. He's not dressed for a morning jog, wrapped up in a thick, pale blue scarf and a coat that's seen better days, but has been neatly stitched in places. He's also wearing the dirtiest, most unimpressed look on his face that Childe's ever seen.
"You're so loud," Thoma complains, once he's within a foot of their usual meeting spot.
"Good morning," Childe says, beaming brightly. "What a beautiful day! Isn't it a beautiful day, Thoma?"
"You're a sadist," Thoma says, peeking out from behind his scarf. "Why are we here so early? And why are you so… " He makes a vague gesture with a gloved hand, and grimaces, retreating back inside his scarf. "Sparkly."
There's nothing shiny about his black, stretchy running gear, or the dependable shoes on his feet. They're the same auburn colour as Thoma's hair, and not far off Childe's own windswept locks.
"I can only assume you mean my sparkling personality," he says, going back to his stretches. "And it's not early. It's nearly noon."
"On a Sunday."
"Best day for a jog, if you ask me. It's quiet, and all the dog-walkers are out. I think I even saw a Shiba Inu on the other side of the park."
Thoma looks briefly enraptured, glancing hesitantly across the green lawn, only to snap back into action with a scowl. "No," he says. "We're not running. Not until I get some coffee in me. I don't know what's wrong with you that you wanted to get up at this hour on a Sunday, a day of rest, but I need caffeine if you want company."
Childe groans, abandoning a lunge before it can even begin. "Fine! We'll go to the café and pick up some coffee, but you're buying me a biscotti for the trouble."
Thoma refuses to buy him a biscotti, so Childe has to fish out his wallet and pay for it himself. He buys Thoma's coffee too, and some Dango Mochi to share. The Kamisatos have more than enough money to go around, and Thoma isn't exactly hard up, but he did drag his friend out of bed at stupid o'clock on his day off. Dango Mochi seems like a fair trade, and it's not like he doesn't have the money to spare.
"I'd say thank you, but this is setting off alarm bells." Thoma slumps against the counter beside the window, teetering on a high stool. "Didn't you woo Mr Zhongli by paying for everything he could ever want and calling it a first date?"
"Worked like a charm." Childe shoots him a dazzling smile, lounging on his own stool like it's a throne. "I'm pretty sure Ayato tried the same tactic with you, but you were too oblivious to see it."
Thoma drags his cup towards his face, muttering into the surface of the counter. His cheeks are pink. Childe leans back, a little smug, and works on his biscotti. The café isn't too warm, and the music playing on the overhead speakers is soft, lilting, and unobtrusive. It's not too busy, either. A few college students are pouring over a shared textbook, all of them wearing the same deadened expression, and there's a businessman typing furiously on his smartphone across the room, but other than that, it's fairly peaceful.
Peace has always made Childe a little antsy. He endures it for another minute before sighing, throwing his head back in a dramatic, morose fashion.
"I miss Zhongli. Did you know he can do a crossword in two minutes?"
"You've mentioned that before."
"It's amazing. Heh, he's so smart. No wonder so many people want to get their hands on him. You'd think an antiquities consultant could just work in a museum, looking as pretty as all the paintings, but they're always sending him away to deal with some old pot or something. It doesn't seem fair."
A little grunt is all he gets for his whining. Childe sighs again, indulging himself with another bite of his biscotti while he gazes sadly out of the window.
"Not that I want him to be bored! But, if he did stand around in a museum for a living, it'd be nice, that's all. It could be one closer to home. He wouldn't have to go away so often and leave me with nothing to do."
Thoma stares dismally into his coffee. "I'm not drunk enough for this conversation."
"Hush!" Childe lobs the biscotti wrapper towards him, catching him on the ear. "It's alright for you. You get to go home to Ayato after this! I get to go home to my sad, cold, lonely bed."
"Is this a proposition? Because any babies we make are going to have hair red enough to pass for a warning button, and that's just cruel."
"They'd be pretty cute though," Childe points out, and Thoma concedes the point with a tip of his head. "Not as cute as mine and Zhongli's babies though."
"Oh, I spoke too soon." Thoma takes a fortifying gulp of his coffee, and shudders dramatically. "This is the conversation that I need to be drunk for."
"You're a sadist," Thoma gasps, as they ease into their second lap of the park. "An awful, evil sadist."
"You said that already this morning. Keep up, Thoma!"
The dirt path winds all the way around the park, which takes up a huge chunk of the city centre. It's surrounded on all sides by busy streets and bustling shops, but the park itself is usually quiet. It's all the trees, Childe thinks to himself, as they jog through a little grove. It gives the place an isolated, separated sort of feeling.
Of course, it's a little less atmospheric when the quiet isolation is consistently punctuated with wheezing noises and little groans from a few steps behind him.
"You know," Childe muses, easily keeping pace even while he's speaking, "I never pegged you for someone who'd let their physical health get so far behind. I'm surprised the Kamisatos still let you work for them if you get winded from a few measly little miles in a park!"
"At least I never threw up on the step machine at the gym."
"No, but you did drop a weight on Beidou's foot while we were in there."
Thoma groans, coming to a jagged stop and wiping his brow. "Don't remind me. I thought she was going to put me through a wall."
"See, don't you love our little workout adventures?" Childe jogs in circles around him, head cocked in mock-concern. "Oh, do you need a breather? I can call Ayato if you like, have him pick you up. I'm sure he'll only laugh at you behind your back."
"Ha," Thoma says, bending double to put his hands on his knees, breath coming in short pants. "There's no need for that. I'm fine."
"Are you sure? There's no shame in slowing down and admitting that you're weak!"
"Are you kidding?" Thoma stands up again, shaking his floppy hair out of his eyes. "I can do this all day."
Childe jogs backwards for a moment, beckoning him forward. His determination to prove Childe wrong lasts approximately three steps, and then he turns a horrible ghoulish colour and staggers towards the nearest bench, nestled on the edge of the path.
"Aw, you look a little peaky." Childe jogs on the spot, watching him sprawl on his front, legs dangling off one end of the bench. "I told you there wasn't any shame in having brittle bones and the lung capacity of an eighty-year-old asthmatic."
"People don't kick you enough," Thoma mutters, his face mashed into the bench. "It's because you're very charming, but you're also a sadist, so you should get kicked more often."
Childe throws his head back, laughing brightly, aforementioned charm in full effect. He quits jogging on the spot to reach over and ruffle Thoma's hair, only grimacing a little at the sweat. There's a protein bar in the pocket of his jacket; he takes it out and drops it on the small of Thoma's back, then steps back.
"Aren't you glad I made you leave your coat and scarf in the lockers? Heh, I'm going to do another lap while you sweat all over this bench. Don't go anywhere! And if you do, make sure you have emergency service on speed-dial in case your lungs give out."
Thoma flips him off, eyes closed, and Childe jogs away, chuckling to himself.
The third lap around the park is somehow noisier even without Thoma at his side, but that might just be because Childe is left alone with his thoughts and nobody to distract him. He does come across the Shiba Inu—this one isn't as chunky or fluffy as Thoma's own dog, Taroumaru, but it does trot over to sniff his leg and blink up at him, nudging him with a soft, cold nose.
"Sweet dog," he tells the owner, who tips their hat at him with a polite smile.
Childe is secretly more of a cat person, but that's something he simply can't admit without opening the doors to their home for every stray cat that Zhongli can get his hands on. The man is much like a cat himself, and when confronted with his crimes, Childe knows he would play oblivious and self-important, distracting him with indulgent kisses and talk of whatever scroll he found lately in an old vault. It's really no wonder that Childe is smitten with him. Sweet, handsome people with a sly, manipulative streak are like catnip to him.
But yeah, no cats. He has enough trouble making sure that Zhongli gets fed all the time. He's not forking out tonnes of money for vet-approved, fancy cat food that Zhongli would insist on.
Childe nearly whines in the middle of the park. Every thought leads back to Zhongli, and it makes him exasperated with himself. He focuses on his run instead picking up the pace until his chest is burning and there's a light sweat on his forehead, each steady breath chuffing out of him in a puff of cold air. It works, emptying his mind, filling it with nothing but the distant sounds of the city and the sensation of his sneakers hitting the path.
He makes sure to slow down a little before he makes it back to the bench, so that Thoma doesn't have a reason to make fun of his worked-up state.
When the bench finally comes into view, he's surprised to find that Thoma isn't lying prone on top of it. He's sitting on the grass beside it instead, hands buried in the cinnamon-coloured fur of a sweet old dog, and he's laughing. There's a teenager with dark blue hair standing off to the side, holding a slack leash and looking vaguely bemused by the turn of events, like he didn't intend to stop.
"Are you planning a kidnapping or making friends?" Childe asks, as he comes to a stop and sighs, stretching out his shoulders.
"Mm, meet your replacement," Thoma says, scratching underneath the dog's chin. "You're getting pretty old, so I decided to bring in a younger model."
"Hey! I'm not the one who needed an ambulance after two laps."
"It turns out that this lovely thing is way better than an ambulance," Thoma says, scruffing the dog's fur gently.
"I hope you're talking about the dog and not me," the dark-haired kid murmurs.
Thoma laughs, and the dog's tail thumps against the ground. Amused, Childe eventually nudges him into saying goodbye, and sprawls on the grass beside him. The dark-haired kid gives them a little wave before strolling off, one hand tucked around the leash, and the other tapping away at his phone.
"Youths these days," Childe says, settling properly on the ground. "No appreciation for nature."
"Hmm?" Thoma glances up from his own phone, tucked furtively out of sight—or almost out of sight, really, because nobody can hide anything from Childe's keen sight. "What did you say?"
He laughs lightly, shaking his head, and then flops back on the grass, gazing up at the pale sky.
"Nothing. Say hello to Ayato for me."
It's quiet then. Childe tucks his arms under his head and watches a cloud drift by, aimless and meandering. The restless energy from before has finally dissipated, and he feels comfortably tired, his body aching pleasantly. All he needs is Zhongli and something a bit more filling than a biscotti, and his day will be complete.
"How long until Mr Zhongli comes back home?" Thoma asks, startling him out of his peaceful state.
"I'm picking him up from the airport in three days."
"Mm. Could you video chat? Something to tide you over?"
Childe snorts, levering himself up on his elbows. "Heh, you know he's like an old man when it comes to that stuff. He says technology is too impersonal, but it's just because he doesn't understand how it works. But I've seen him play Cookie Run: Kingdom for six hours straight, so it's not like he doesn't like using his phone. I had to pay for him to get a jelly bean house or something. He just doesn't like not knowing something."
It's cute, the way Zhongli frowns and gets all flustered by video calls. They do them sometimes, if he's going to be away for a while, or if Childe's away visiting family. But for the most part, Zhongli prefers to send emails. Like an old man. It's endearing and exasperating in equal measure, but he gets a little rush of fondness every time he opens a new one and sees sixteen pages waiting for him.
"Three days will pass in no time," Thoma says. "We just need to keep you busy, so you don't mope yourself into a black hole of sadness. And so you don't drag your friends out of their beds at the crack of dawn."
Childe rips out a handful of grass and throws it at him. "It's way past noon! And I don't need entertainment. I'm not a toddler or a charity case."
"Ayato said you should come for lunch with us," Thoma says, tipping the phone screen his way. "He's buying. And Lumine will be there. You love making fun of her."
Childe brightens considerably at the prospect, but deflates again immediately, eyeing him with suspicion. "Not a charity case," he says again, a little more pointedly.
Thoma shakes his head, voice purposefully light. "No shame in slowing down and admitting that you miss your husband."
Admitting that you're weak. Admitting that you want company.
It's unspoken, but Childe gets it anyway. And he can't lie; he's a little touched. Especially because all he's done is whine about missing his husband, but it's nice that Thoma can see underneath that, and still afford him the dignity of not calling him lonely and pathetic right to his face, in a soft way.
He sits up properly and ruffles Thoma's hair again, smearing a few blades of grass into the auburn mess. Another dog passes them on the path, led by a white-haired boy who's also on his phone. The dog slows down and veers a little bit towards Thoma, who brightens too, waving at it. The owner offers them an apologetic bow and tugs the dog onward, clearly in a hurry to get somewhere. Childe laughs outright at the crestfallen look on his face.
"I swear you're like a dog magnet," he says, getting to his feet and offering a hand. "Wanna run back to the gate?"
Thoma groans, letting himself be yanked upright. "You know walking is an option, right? That's a thing some people do."
"Boring people—" Childe says, but he doesn't get a chance to finish his complaint before Thoma darts past him, sprinting down the path towards the gate. He stumbles back a bit, taken by surprise, and stares. "Hey!"
"Keep up, Childe!" Thoma bellows over his shoulder. "You're lagging behind!"
A grin spreads across his face. Childe laughs, his spirits buoyed, and takes off at a run.
[Word Count: 2,834]