2 fic i wrote for a genshin exchange
forgot to x-post from ao3. both are sfw & written for the zhongchi/tartali discord server 2021 white day exchange.
1.
“a harbinger's home companion” —2300w. canon compliant, mutual pining, on homecoming.
Between Scaramouche’s first plea bargain in Mondstadt, and the subsequent weeks spent scrubbing the Snezhnayan scent off another foiled terrorist plot on the Inazuma Bakufu, it took Childe three months to feel comfortable petitioning the Tsaritsa for a return voyage to Liyue.
Even so, perched now on a bench outside the Fatui’s Zapolyarny stronghold's debriefing room, he was hesitant to let so many sore spots dangle in plain air. Because there hadn't been any science to what he’d felt, when the doors of Northland Bank closed on his face that day. He’d been sitting here for four hours now, and his ass hadn’t gotten any warmer from brooding over missed conquests.
2.
“Like water for strawberries.” —1600w. salaryman AU, reverse-chronological order, with fruit.
Give him a few more days, and Childe still won’t be able pinpoint when he’d become suspended mid air over two platforms. From this altitude either platform poses a steep drop, postmarked as fallen-out-of-love or not-quite-there-but-close. Across the duvet, Zhongli’s fingers are warm against his. Water from the hotel pool, thickened several centimetres by natural light, skims circles on the ceiling above their heads. Climbing back into his mind he can retrieve each detail vividly. Inciting violence on a Tuesday, laying down on a bed of roses at the tip of the hour. Near the end of each turn is a computable path back to the precise minute he’d last devastated himself.
Absently, he searches for a better way to describe what he’s feeling.
