[He should have known from the first reckless smile, from the first impudent gleam of blue eyes across a chessboard, that Ajax would not be the kind to tread carefully. The words are tossed like a gauntlet at Zhongli's feet, careless and gleaming with challenge, and Zhongli, who has worn crowns and buried comrades and carried centuries of grief like a second skin, feels them strike true, deep into a place he had long since sealed away.
It was meant to be a diversion. A game. An indulgence he could afford, precisely because he had grown too old, too heavy, too wise to be moved.
And yet.
The younger man's breath kisses his lips even before the kiss itself arrives, and Zhongli feels something in him tilt, buckle, crack at the edges. His breath stills in his throat, a sudden hitch, an almost imperceptible widening of his gold-lit eyes, as if caught between instinct and surrender.
The chess pieces clatter from the table with all the gracelessness of an avalanche, an uncouth, unrepentant symphony of chaos in the hallowed quiet of the museum, a place built for reverence, for restraint, for stillness, and Zhongli does not so much as glance at them.
Let the relics fall. Let the painted saints and watchful marble gods see him for what he is: a man, stripped of duty for one blinding, reckless moment, and wanting.
Ajax kisses him like the world is ending. Not a careful, courteous kiss. No hesitation. The kind that tears down walls, that leaves bruises in the marrow, that carries with it the taste of hunger and the promise of ruin. It is unpolished, a little wild around the edges, the way the first rains lash against parched earth after a long drought.
And Zhongli has spent years swallowing down the ache of lost brothers, of dead comrades, of cold beds and colder mornings, and he feels himself shudder against it.
He had not touched, had not been touched, in so long.
The kiss finds him open, breathless, lips parted from the sheer shock of it, and when Ajax presses closer, Zhongli leans into him without thinking, the way a starving man leans into the first taste of spring. There is something scandalous in how easily he gives. Something decadent in the way his hands tighten ever so slightly over Ajax’s, a trembling admission that he is not resisting. That he does not want to.
He kisses back with a gravity that belies the stillness of his body, a slow, devastating slide of mouth against mouth, surrender dressed up in silk and smouldering gold. He tastes heat, reckless youth, the burn of something untempered, and it shakes him to his foundations in ways no assassin's blade, no soldier’s betrayal ever had. Zhongli had lived long enough to know that indulgence comes at a price, and he simply no longer cared.
(Or perhaps he cared too much, and that was the tragedy of it.)
When Ajax finally draws back, just a breath apart, the world feels too loud, too bright, too small to contain what is now crackling between them. Zhongli's gaze, heavy-lidded, flushed with something perilously close to wonder, lingers on Ajax’s mouth as if mapping the shape of the loss.
The museum remains hushed around them, scandalized in its silence.
He clears his throat before he even tries to speak. Because he knows his voice will stutter in its effort if he doesn't, untethered and loose.] Lead the way, then. [He holds out his hand for Ajax to take.]
no subject
It was meant to be a diversion. A game. An indulgence he could afford, precisely because he had grown too old, too heavy, too wise to be moved.
And yet.
The younger man's breath kisses his lips even before the kiss itself arrives, and Zhongli feels something in him tilt, buckle, crack at the edges. His breath stills in his throat, a sudden hitch, an almost imperceptible widening of his gold-lit eyes, as if caught between instinct and surrender.
The chess pieces clatter from the table with all the gracelessness of an avalanche, an uncouth, unrepentant symphony of chaos in the hallowed quiet of the museum, a place built for reverence, for restraint, for stillness, and Zhongli does not so much as glance at them.
Let the relics fall. Let the painted saints and watchful marble gods see him for what he is: a man, stripped of duty for one blinding, reckless moment, and wanting.
Ajax kisses him like the world is ending. Not a careful, courteous kiss. No hesitation. The kind that tears down walls, that leaves bruises in the marrow, that carries with it the taste of hunger and the promise of ruin. It is unpolished, a little wild around the edges, the way the first rains lash against parched earth after a long drought.
And Zhongli has spent years swallowing down the ache of lost brothers, of dead comrades, of cold beds and colder mornings, and he feels himself shudder against it.
He had not touched, had not been touched, in so long.
The kiss finds him open, breathless, lips parted from the sheer shock of it, and when Ajax presses closer, Zhongli leans into him without thinking, the way a starving man leans into the first taste of spring. There is something scandalous in how easily he gives. Something decadent in the way his hands tighten ever so slightly over Ajax’s, a trembling admission that he is not resisting. That he does not want to.
He kisses back with a gravity that belies the stillness of his body, a slow, devastating slide of mouth against mouth, surrender dressed up in silk and smouldering gold. He tastes heat, reckless youth, the burn of something untempered, and it shakes him to his foundations in ways no assassin's blade, no soldier’s betrayal ever had. Zhongli had lived long enough to know that indulgence comes at a price, and he simply no longer cared.
(Or perhaps he cared too much, and that was the tragedy of it.)
When Ajax finally draws back, just a breath apart, the world feels too loud, too bright, too small to contain what is now crackling between them. Zhongli's gaze, heavy-lidded, flushed with something perilously close to wonder, lingers on Ajax’s mouth as if mapping the shape of the loss.
The museum remains hushed around them, scandalized in its silence.
He clears his throat before he even tries to speak. Because he knows his voice will stutter in its effort if he doesn't, untethered and loose.] Lead the way, then. [He holds out his hand for Ajax to take.]