Mafia AU

[misfittoys]

[ A tale of two people leading double-lives and the inevitable misunderstandings that follow ]

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Distant Resonance

[misfittoys]

[ Giddy.

It's not a word usually used to described Tartaglia, Vanguard of her Excellency outside the context of bloody and vicious combat, but for the past weeks that is unfortunately how his subordinates would describe their too-young and unpredictable boss. His phone never strays too far from his fingertips, hopeful glance sent to the screen every time he receives a text. Random books and scrolls about Liyue culture and traditions serve as paperweights for various reports and tactical maps that are strewn messily across his desk. And on more than one occasion, he has eagerly pestered the staff for recommendations for flowers, gifts, and high-end ingredients for cooking.

The Fatui's guard dog is in puppy love. But with who? And perhaps even more baffling, how?

Said guard dog is currently using a book entitled "Customs of Liyue: Silk Flowers" as a coaster for his coffee mug as he ponders over his next assignment. While the Tsaritsa had been gracious enough to let him tag-along in missions to expand their territory after the scuffle they had with the Syndicate, his main objective had not changed: find Rex Lapis — an extremely difficult task to do normally, but even moreso as it seemed like he fell off the face of Teyvat after the "incident".

But Tartgalia can be patient. And it's a well-known (not even) secret, that Rex Lapis without fail makes a yearly appear at a gala function with the Qixing that will occur this Friday. It's business and it's a statement, letting everyone know who truly runs the city of Liyue, and who he allows to be figureheads in his city. It's the worst of all options to try to take a shot at the mafia boss considering the security that will be present there, but beggars cannot be choosers.

So Tartaglia flips through the blueprints to the Jade Chamber as he sifts through the latest intel Katya put on his desk. How quaint. By all reports, it seems that Rex Lapis has taken on a new lover, and one that he must be fairly public (or sloppy) about if this information was able to reach his ears. There is no description of the person yet, just a list of sightings the two of them have been seen together: the charity benefit made in his old associate Guizhong's name, the failed meeting (at least from the Syndicate's perspective) between the Syndicate and the Fatui, and —

The Museum of Chess — a few weekends prior.

Childe's blood runs cold as he reads the last location over and over. Five times with one being the name falling in a whisper from his lips and still the letters do not rearrange themselves. Still the name of the place where he and Zhongli had foreplayed a game of chess together before slipping away to where the cameras couldn't see weighs heavy like a noose or a gun pointed to his head.

Mister Zhongli was Rex Lapis's lover.

The more the realization turns over in his mind, the more it made sense. He'd brought flowers to the charity event, completely out of place in the bustling black market made for those who lived more in the darkness than the light. He'd been out of the way in the kitchen, not a part of Rex Lapis's force when Tartaglia had encountered him, terrified and armed only with a serving tray. That night in particular plays over in Childe's mind in perfect clarity.

Did Rex Lapis not care about Zhongli's safety? To leave him unguarded in such a volatile place. To let even this amount of information slip through his fingers to be scooped up by his enemies. The report crinkles in Tartaglia's hands as he sees a flash of red.

Suddenly, this mission was becoming a little. more. personal.

. . .

Zhongli.

Ten minutes and some quick searches later, Childe is glued to his phone with a much more serious expression as he carefully crafts the perfect message: ]

Hey, xiansheng! 😘😘 I got tickets to an art gallery opening this Friday night. It's the same guy who made that tea set you showed me last week. Wanna go?

[ Tartaglia has always been practical. He always prepares (and sometimes even hopes for) the worst outcomes just for the thrill of it. But this— in this, against all odds, he hopes he's wrong in his suspicions and that Zhongli will say yes. ]

[arcaico]

[ The Syndicate moves as all ancient things do: quietly, patiently, and with the illusion of slowness that masks a terrible, glacial inevitability. It has always been this way, long before he wore a name that could be spoken aloud without consequence. Long before the city forgot what it meant to fear silence.

This week, the board reshuffles once again.

Zhongli exhales a thread of steam into the crisp stillness of his tea room. Incense coils upward beside documents folded on his desk like model architecture. Maps marked in invisible ink, manifests rewritten five times, a guest list that reads like the ledger of a kingdom disguised as a city-state. The Qixing gala is no mere social affair, but it is ritual and display, a pulse check on an empire.

And yet, his phone buzzes like a little scarab on top of a pile of gold.

The message arrives like so many others do these days, cloaked in affection and casual suggestion. A ping that slides in beneath layers of encryption and deception, dressed up in emoji and warmth. He reads it once, then again. Ajax's messages pretend not to ask for too much while daring to hope. He texts as though he has all the time in the world, who smiles like he's never known the cost of it. The name glows cheerfully across the screen, accompanied by a pair of emojis as sweet and disarming as their sender.

Zhongli exhales slowly. It would be so easy to say yes. To fold into the invitation, to make a quiet little pocket of time in a life that has never been his own. An art gallery, he chuckles at the softness of it, the civility. As if men like him are allowed that kind of stillness. It doesn’t strike him as odd that Ajax would ask. The younger man is always chasing—beauty, thrill, the curl of a smile not yet earned—and Zhongli, for better or worse, has made himself easy to chase lately. Letting his collar lie just a little looser. Letting his words stretch further than his caution usually allows.

(Sometimes he does dream of it. Those moments in the museum were... very much welcome.)

The Syndicate does not deal in stillness. It is a living thing, sprawling and quiet, its tendrils curled around ports and politics, throats and fortunes. For all its elegance — its ancient customs, its blood-lined oaths and ledgers — it is still, at its heart, a creature of necessity. Survival, after all, requires teeth.

And Zhongli, Rex Lapis to the world that needs him cruel, has not had the luxury of forgetting this. Not in a while. Not since he inherited what was left and shaped it into what could not be taken again.

So he is expected. Expected to make his annual appearance at the Qixing gala, that delicate theatre where the underworld dresses itself in refinement and all the sharpest blades are hidden in teeth. An empire like his survives not through strength alone, but through the belief that its ruler never falters, never ages, never bleeds.

He thumbs the message once more. He remembers the tea set. Zhongli had, after all, admired a porcelain pattern a little too long the other week. The tea set had been blue and broken by time, with repair veins of gold lacquer that gleamed like old scars made sacred. Just the kind of metaphor Zhongli likes. Ajax had admired it with the sort of genuine curiosity that caught Zhongli off-guard — not just politeness, but wonder. As though the craftsmanship moved him. As though he understood that beauty, too, was a kind of endurance.

Middle child, he’d said once, flippant and proud.

Zhongli wonders about the house he grew up in, if it was loud, unruly, full of elbows and forgotten birthdays. If he learned to charm not because he wanted to be adored, but because it was the only way to be seen. The thought softens something in him. Strange, that a man of so many secrets should feel fondness for someone who carries his own in plain sight.

He doesn't know what Ajax does for a living. Only that he sells toys. That he texts too often. That he watches Zhongli when he thinks he isn’t looking, like he’s waiting to be let in.

Zhongli should have known better than to entertain something so...ordinary.

And yet.

He types, as though some part of him still believes that saying no softly will somehow not sound like a rejection. ]

An art gallery… You tempt me with gentler things than I deserve.
I would like that. But I have a prior engagement this Friday.
Another time? I would be amenable to a lunch and a walk.

[ He places the phone back on the table face down.

He will attend the gala. He will smile at the politicians, speak with the heads of the Port Authority, and remind the city that the Syndicate's spine is still unbroken. He will do what is required.

But a part of him, the part that once collected rare minerals for their resonance, the part that loved long walks and poetry, and the shape of laughter shared in quiet corners—

That part hopes the boy asks again. ]