#rated:t

It is… quite the experience, to visit his home in Snezhnaya. There was no way she was declining the offer now that she was bound for the nation, and not with Childe giving her free pass into the country despite all the atrocities she’s done to Fatui agents across Teyvat. The least she could do was visit their little home, right? Say hello to his parents, his brothers and sisters, maybe stay for dinner, and then go to her hotel…right?

Wrong.

At this point, she is well aware of how Childe can be. Sweet and romantic when something in him softens, when that part of him that is always craving battle dissipates once his vulnerability sinks in. It’s a side of him anyone rarely sees, one she’s so proud of having the privilege to see on occasion. What slipped her mind is that the wall Childe sets up for the rest of the people in his life—other diplomats, other Fatui, other adventurers, the people he comes to just to have a fistfight with—is a wall he didn’t need to keep up with his family.

They arrive sometime past noon, after a long boat ride and a short trek up a mountain slope. The sky is an enthralling shade of blue. Quite like his eyes. It was snowing lightly—“it feels like it’s always snowing in Snezhnaya,” Childe had told her once—but it wasn’t the dreary kind of snow, rather the one that was a little exciting to watch. Childe knocked at the door and opened it with a yell, which she assumed was a greeting.

She mentally prepared herself for it, but she hadn’t expected Teucer, Anton, and Tonia to greet her with “sister!!” just as she walked through the premises.

Just how much had he told them in his letters?

(How much of her that they knew was the Lumine of Childe’s imagination, one that she would have to keep up with?)

She never peeked at the letters whenever he was busy writing them, never bothered because she felt like it would be an invasion of privacy, but now that she was here under the familiar sea-blue gaze of his entire family… she wondered if even just one look would have been alright.

Getting the approval of the younger siblings was an easy task; all she had to do was give them a few of the souvenirs she and Childe had brought over from their travels and promise to sit down and tell them of her adventures for them to give her the thumbs-up. The less impressionable ones, however, were Childe’s older sisters and brothers, who were polite and homely but a lot curter, as if trying to gauge if she were a good match with their younger brother. If the way his eldest sister had gifted Lumine her own set of Snezhnayan clothing even before dinner is any sign, perhaps she had at least passed their preliminary test.

But family time is very important in Snezhnayan culture, and dinner—well, dinner was an entirely different affair altogether.

-

“You’ve known each other for a long time, Ajax has been writing letters about you since.”

Liyue and Osial and Rex Lapis seem so far away now. “It took us a while to get along,” Lumine admits, side-eyeing Childe, “but once we found our footing with each other, it was enjoyable company.”

Childe’s eldest brother laughs. “Ajax. Enjoyable company.”

“You must be one hell of a woman to persist like that,” his other brother jokes.

“Well, that just means he made a good impression on her right away,” a sister muses.

“He got me out of a tough spot,” Lumine answers, remembering Yujing Terrace and the Rite of Descension. “I owed him one for that.”

“Isn’t that sweet!” his mother coos. “Ajax has changed, to be so sweet from the start.”

“Sweet? It was more of Sexual tension and”—Lumine yells, trying to cover him up: “Hey?! There are kids!”—"aggression from the start.”

“Oh, honey, don’t mind him,” Childe’s mother says, chuckling softly. “His siblings are used to him being straightforward like that.”

“I’m not…” Lumine murmurs, slinking back into her seat, causing the entire table to roll with laughter.

Dinner lasts for what seems like hours, and Lumine sits there shyly poking at her food as questions get pelted at her and Chllde about their relationship. The question of marriage is inescapable too, and she and Childe share a glance at each other for the briefest of moments before answering “it’ll come when it’ll come.”

But while it is easy to shrug off the adults’ more serious questions like that, it is the children’s concerns that are harder to ignore. So when Teucer asks—“How did your first kiss go?”

—Childe instantly pipes up and goes: “Oh, let me tell this one, babe. We were at Liyue Harbor together—"

It only takes Childe a few sentences before Lumine screeches, “No no no no please stop!!”, covering his mouth with her hands.

The whole family just laughs.

-

It is only until after dinner, when Lumine is sure that most of her face had already melted off of her skull, when she gets to pull Childe aside while in their (shared!) bedroom and ask: “No, seriously, Ajax. How do you remember our first kiss?”

“Was my storytelling over at dinner not enough, my принцесса? Would you rather I give you a reenactment?”

She blushes fiercely at being called a princess, but she tries her best to ignore it. “What? No, all I’m asking is—”

Childe does not pay attention and holds her in position, pushing her backward until she’s sat on the bed and he’s standing in front of her, towering (and admittedly a little… delicious, now that he’s dressed down and fresh from the shower.) “We’d come from a fight—the best thing to do with you. Or second best thing,” Childe muses, but then shakes his head back into focus. He holds Lumine’s chin with his index finger and thumb and forces her to look up. “I beat you that time.”

She narrows her eyes, staring back at him defiantly. “Only because I was handicapped.”

“Sure, my love. Luck on my part.” Childe grins. “I was trying to get you to stop sulking.”

“‘Warriors must learn to take part in losses,’” Lumine quotes him, and he nods.

He comes closer to her, carefully switching so that his palm is cupping her cheek instead, wiping an imaginary tear or bruise on her cheek. “You were so strong, but I’d tired you out more than usual. You were slumped in your seat, so I went to try and get you to rest, and you closed your eyes and leaned your head on my hand—” Childe smiles, a genuine one, small and sweet it gets Lumine’s heart racing. “I couldn’t help it, you know? I didn’t know what to tell you—how to tell you, so when you opened your eyes, I decided—fuck, I’m going to kiss her right here.”

Childe leans forward and presses a kiss on her lips.

“And I thought, ‘she’s going to hate me after this,’ but you didn’t, and instead you put your hands on your shoulders and then my hair, and you kissed me back,” he sighs. “You should really be cute more often, my sweet. You were so needy. Like this, let me show you—”

And just as Childe is about to press his lips on hers again, she places the palm of her hand against his mouth and pushes him roughly away.

“That is not what happened.”

Lumine is sure and inconvincible.

“What?”

There’s a moment of silence between the both of them that seems to extend for miles.

Childe blinks, his mind finally settling back into place. “That is what happened. What do you mean? Did you forget how our first kiss went?”

“Did you forget how our first kiss went? That was not how it went.”

Irritation clouds Childe’s visage for a brief moment. “Okay, how did it go then?”

Lumine clears her throat. Childe gets off his knees and back to his feet, settling into position. Lumine takes his hand in hers to put it into place—

And squeezes her cheeks with it twice. Childe goes lax. Lumine holds it in place, just open enough so she can talk.

“You were teasing me. We did come from a fight, and I did lose. And you thought I was being a sore loser about it, but the only true part was that I was sore. And tired.” She squeezes her cheeks with his hand another time. “‘Aww, defeat getting in your head?”’ she says, mimicking his intonation. ‘Warriors must learn to take part in losses, you know?’”

Childe tries to pull away. “I did not—”

“You did,” she insists, holding him in place. “You wouldn’t even let me catch my breath. Do you remember what I did?” He shakes his head. “I bit you,” she answered for him, gently digging her teeth into the flesh between his thumb and index finger. “You yelped and pulled your hand back. Do you remember now?”

He blinks, the memory of it slowly coming back. “Oh no.”

Lumine snickers. “Yes, oh no, Ajax.” She takes him by the wrist and pulls him closer to her, back to his knees. “‘Feisty little girlie,’” she says, in his voice, mockingly. “I growled at you. You chuckled, you bastard. And then you pulled me by the chin and kissed me.”

She presses a kiss over his lips, shaking a little from holding back laughter.

And, with her mouth still on his, she continues—“And I bit you—”

She digs her teeth on his lower lip before pulling away.

“And that excited you because of course it did, and then we—”

“Made out on the mountainside overlooking Liyue Harbor. Holy shit,” Childe finishes, face pale. When he collapses onto the bed next to her, Lumine doesn’t even try to stop the full-blown laugh coming out of her.

“I can’t believe you made it into some sweet romantic memory!” she teases him. “That’s your taste, huh?”

“I swear, that is how I remember that moment!”

“Well you remember it wrong,” Lumine notes, grinning. “Since when have we been gentle kisses, Ajax? You said it yourself—it’s all sexual tension and aggression.”

“I can be romantic sometimes.”

“Sometimes. Not that time.”

When Childe sinks further down the mattress, she presses a kiss on her forehead and looks down at him with soft eyes. “But if that’s how you want to remember it, we can always make that how it goes.”

And when he smirks, for the briefest of moments she thinks she sees his eyes light up in a way she’s always wanted to see. “Really?”

“Really, you dummy,” is all she gets to say before Childe takes her lips with his, a slow, decadent kiss of gratitude. All sweet things, but Lumine knows better to believe that’s going to last any more than a minute, his hot breath already against her neck.

You get backstage after your match and immediately Nyla is in front of you. Her face is softer than normal. Reaching out, she pats you on the shoulder. “I’m so sorry about what he said about you. He’s old, stuck in his ways. It’s not true.”

You’re immediately confused. You tilt your head to the side and raise an eyebrow. “I’m sorry? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who said what?”

Nyla pops her lips and sighs. “I didn’t know you didn’t know. Now I kind of feel like an ass. But JR said some things during your match about your size, talking about how you look a little bigger than some of the other girls.”

Your heart is in your throat. You feel like you’re going to cry at any moment. You quickly thank Nyla for telling you, because you are grateful to find out what people are saying about you. You rush past her and try to find a place alone where you can cry.

Nobody knows how much nerve it takes for you to get out there and show midriff, how often you look in the mirror and hate what you see. They don’t know how hard you’ve worked to earn your body and how long it’s taken you to get there. You sit on top of one of the black trunks that the production crew uses to store equipment. You bury your face in your hands and you cry, not caring who hears you at this point.

You don’t stop crying when you feel an arm come around your shoulders and smell a familiar scent of cologne. You don’t even stop when someone kisses your temple. You do finally look up though and see your boyfriend, Chuck Taylor and his friends Trent and Cassidy.

“We heard from Nyla what happened.” He says before you can ask. He leans in and kisses your temple again. “And I hope you know that nothing JR said was true. You’re perfect the way you are.”

You scoff, using the heel of your hand to wipe at your tears. You’re certain you look like a complete mess now. “You’re my boyfriend, you have to say it.”

“I’m not your boyfriend and I think you look fine. JR was wrong.” Trent pipes in.

You turn your glare to him. “You’re my boyfriend’s best friend, you have to be nice to me.”

“I really don’t. He just yells at me when I’m an asshole to you.”

You sigh. “It’s not fair. I’m sure he doesn’t say the same thing about Britt or Brandi. I don’t think I’m fat.”

“Because you’re not.” Chuck sighs, pulling you so you lean against him. “You’re absolutely perfect the way you are.”

“Do you want us to beat JR up?”

“We’re not beating anyone up.” Chuck sighs, shaking his head. “But the point remains, you’re perfect, [Y/N]. We can go talk to JR together and demand an apology because you deserve one.”

“We don’t have to do that.” You say, shaking your head.

“We do. You deserve an apology. It’s not his job to comment on your body, it’s his job to comment on your match. Which you did amazing, by the way. Right, Orange?”

You look over to see Cassidy give you a half-hearted thumbs up.

“See?” Chuck grins and you can’t help but feel yourself smile.