Mafia AU

[misfittoys]

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

Comments

[arcaico]

[It's clumsy. Sincere, blunt in a way that softens something old and coiled within him, because Zhongli knows how to handle elegance, how to disarm a diplomat or outmaneuver a snake. But this is a man who seems like he doesn’t know how to not try, whose mouth runs ahead of his dignity, whose desire is an open book pressed into his hands, this unguarded honesty is a rarer breed of seduction, one that can't truly be faked. The heat behind each adjective is almost boyish, achingly human, after all.

Ah, how refreshing, when one is so often surrounded by cold-blooded killing machines, Childe feels vivid, alive, warm. But before Zhongli can even offer a response, a deflection or a tease or something courteous and soothing, the kiss finds him, not tender, not poised. A hungry, uneven thing, a little rushed, and all the more affecting for it. The hand at the nape of his neck startles a small gasp out of him, the force behind it jarring him from amused composure to something far closer to breathless. Ajax kisses like he’s answering a question that was never meant to be asked aloud, like it’s inevitable.

And Zhongli, in turn, meets it with a sigh, after that first gasp, with a roll of his shoulders, a subtle shift of his stance, parting his lips to let the edge of those teeth graze him, teasing. Like allowing a cub to test their small fangs into flesh.

Still, it’s the words that follow that steal the breath from his lungs more than the kiss ever could. As if Zhongli has not spent years pulling people back from cliffs. As if he doesn’t know how to retreat, how to raise walls, how to silence a battlefield with one low command. As if he is in any danger here, when the only thing pressing at his ribs is the fact that someone asked. That someone offered to be reined in. How beautiful, even if Ajax isn't aware of the ease with which Zhongli can change this situation around. He is undone by courtesy. By Ajax's care.

So he huffs something between a breathless chuckle and a sigh and lets his forehead fall against Childe’s, their noses brushing as he closes his eyes. He feels very young, perhaps even younger than Ajax himself. Like he's back to being a student, still unaware of the full weight and breadth of everything he'd carry, letting his heart flutter at sneaky kisses in a public place.] I will.

But for now, [ He presses a kiss to the corner of Ajax’s mouth. ] you haven’t reached that point yet.