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Zhongli can feel the disruption in the air, the rumble of the earth beneath his feet as Liyue is begun to be put through its paces, to see if the time of the adepti is over. He drinks his tea, nearly choking when the Exuvia, discarded shell of his own form that it is, is breached. Pain blooms in his chest as something reaches for his gnosis in both bodies. It will not find it, the God heart already removed and placed on a high shelf in a puzzle box gifted to him by Guizhong centuries ago. It takes many long minutes to steady himself again after the feeling of something breaching the Exuvia, similar but not the same as when he’d torn out his own Gnosis. He almost breaks open the box that contains when he senses Osial's awakening, when the connection each of his adepti have to him begins to shiver. Instead, he lights incense, having to try thrice before the sheer panic coming off of Xiao that causes his hands to shake doesn’t cause him to snap the delicate sticks. He places them into the small holder that sits on a low table in front of a chipped comb and an amber preserved Glaze Lily. He will not interfere, he will watch and wait to see how these mortals protect a godless home, to see if they’ve grown -
Zhongli's head jerks up from where he'd been lowered in a mockery of prayer at the knocks on his door. They're firm, hard enough to be heard over the pelting rain, and Zhongli, Morax, God of Contracts, the Stove, and War, cautiously summons his spear before opening the door to his home.
"Yo." Childe laughs in front of him, soaked to the bone in both chilling rainwater and stubborn blood that paints his Grey coat a murky crimson. Zhongli has a brief moment to wonder if Childe knows his true name, then to wonder how Childe knew where he lived, before he dismisses his weapon behind his back opens the door wider to let the Harbinger inside.
"You'll catch your death like that." He says instead of a proper greeting, referring to the blood, the rain water, to walking up the three flights of stairs to Zhongli's apartment whilst there is a literal God on the horizon. Childe doesn't do more than laugh though, pulling himself inside before sitting on Zhongli's table. (Something western styled, that had caught his fancy, that Childe had bought for him with a laugh and a story.)
"Yeah, you're right, you're right." He laughs again, holding his side as rainwater and blood drip down the side of his face, and Zhongli is certain that the cuts in the young man's face has shards of his cracked Harbinger mask in it.
"Why did you come?" He asks, in lieu of what happened, knowing that the two questions have the same root but different answers. It knocks Childe off guard, his pained smile drooping into a smaller more wistful expression, eyes darting around to look around the front room, at the shelves of books and knickknacks and anything that is not Zhongli himself.
"Got into a tussle and over exerted myself. Didn't know where to go afterwards, so -"
"You came here?"
"Think of it as payback for the mora I've loaned you Mr. Zhongli." Childe grins again, cheeky. "A little blood on the floor is certainly less than the cost for the Right of Parting." Despite the smile, his shoulders are still set like he expects to be kicked out, his hand still clasping his side despite the lack of blood from underneath, the arm on the same side hanging limp at his side. He makes a pitiable sight.
"Take off your jacket." Zhongli says with a sigh, leaving the room to find his first aid kit. It had been one of the earliest things he'd been gifted as a mortal. The note in a familiar hand still resides in the steel box of medical supplies, and he smiles softly at it before setting it to the side. ' Humans cannot heal their injuries with a snap ' indeed. That woman had always been far too perceptive for his tricks, and he's sure that she'll be along after this to chastise him no matter which way the wind blows.
He brings the box to the front room, doing his best to not smile at the sight of Childe doing his best to shrug off his top without moving his left arm. It's easy enough when he begins to take in the extent of the Harbingers wounds, realizing that moving his left arm must be a near impossibility with how deep the slash goes through his shoulder.
"May I?" Zhongli asks, gently tugging at the wet fabric still stuck to Childe, setting the first aid kit to the side when the other nods.
"I'm kinda useless like this, they got me good." The laugh he gives this time is bitter, and Zhongli pays it no mind as he gingerly prices the fabric first from the wound and then down the limp arm, Childe hissing when he has to move it gently. Zhongli turns with the coat, folding it gently and laying the sopping fabric on the floor to deal with later, giving Childe a moment to save face. It will not do much when he inevitably has to stitch wounds close, but he knows the other is a proud man. Ruined fabric folded, Zhongli turns back to assess the damage as best he can. There's more cuts along Childe's legs, fabric tattered in places, but none of them look severe enough that the other cannot treat them himself, so the Adeptus turns his attention instead to the Harbingers chest. He takes note that the other has a warrior's body in a distant, far removed way, eyes sliding off the scar over his heart that was blackened around the edges and instead focusing on the bruising that lines his sides, the way his right arm is still wrapped around his middle, holding to his left side. This close, he can sense the residual geo energy, can almost picture the young traveler calling upon his blessing to slam into Childe's side, to throw him off his rhythm, and he feels both pride and annoyance at this. There's more cuts along his body, sharp burns around a few that he can place as Anemo burns, but the most concerning is his left shoulder. Childe hisses again as Zhongli gently prods at the slash, but keeps his mouth shut, which gives the Adeptus a better idea of how much it hurts. None of the wounds were meant to kill, but incapacitate, and this was no exception, though the traveler must have been truly desperate to do something like this. The slash is deep, between where the hard jut of Childe's shoulder meets his neck, parts of it electro burned to keep the blood from killing him, but the cauterization and the wound itself had to hurt immensely. It would not heal properly on its own, Childe would likely lose most of his use of his left arm, the muscles and ligaments burnt and torn away. A truly terrible fate for a Warrior who fights as Childe does.
Zhongli moves from prodding the slash, a plan already forming in mind, and runs his hands down the other's side, pressing along his ribs and ignoring the blush coloring the Harbingers face. One, two, three, four is cracked, along with five, he counts the ribs mentally, tracing his hand from one side to the other when he's done but stopping in the center. Here, where Childe's ribs tick up to his heart, he can sense something horrible and wrong.
"Please hold still." He says, hand beginning to glow with geo energy as he presses a little more firmly against the flesh that felt wrong. Childe winces at the pressure but gives a short laugh nonetheless.
"You gonna spear me through too?"
"Geo users can detect internal bleeding, the iron in the blood reacting to the magic when it's in an area it's not meant to be." Zhongli's explanation is not wrong, per se, but it is not what he's doing. His adeptal energy is instead feeling out those traces of wrongness, almost allowing him to see the necrosis eating its way through Childe's insides. The other had done something terribly, horribly wrong, but he could not ask what he'd done without his non truth being brought to light. He resolves to later ask the traveler about their fight, and straightens up again.
"What's the verdict, Consultant? Think I'll live?" Childe laughs when he asks this, but there's a touch of genuine worry around his eyes, and Zhongli nods.
"Of course. Even if I cannot heal you, the doctors in Liyue have millennia of medicine to fall back on." This statement gets what Zhongli has become to recognize as a genuine laugh from Childe, a small high pitched thing that's more an exhalation of breath.
"Always so serious! Well, I have the utmost faith in you, Mr Zhongli."
Zhongli spends a good amount of time first cleaning the wound in Childe's shoulder before rubbing a numbing tincture against the skin before suturing it shut. He'd have gladly discussed the history and medicinal properties of the flower that made up the bulk of the tincture, the historical uses of bone needles for sewing flesh and it's morbidity, but his attention was split between too many things. The first was the way Childe had torn off his glove and shoved it between his teeth when Zhongli mentioned stitches, eyebrows pinched as he studiously stares the opposite direction. The second was the way that Childe's limp arm rested across his thigh as they set side by side, fingers almost unconsciously twitching in pain and discomfort. Third, the howls of the wind and rain as Osial fought viciously outside, and finally the fourth, the prayers of the adepti and the people of Liyue, ringing in the back of his head. Asking for safety, asking for strength, and then the tickling sensation of the Outlander's prayer.
Zhongli, I'm going to throw you off Mount Hulao if you don't show up.
Truly, they were far too perceptive, or, perhaps, his ruse was not as fool proof as he thought it was. It was apparently enough to fool the Harbinger he thinks to himself as e finishes the sutures on Childe's shoulder, thirty two of them, stretching across muscle and flesh. He repeats the process with the red head's face, using a pair of tweezers to pull red material from the wound along his cheek and placing the fragments to the side before cleaning and putting three small sutures in it as well. He cannot suture the ribs, but guides the other to clench the edge of the table instead, wrapping clean cloth around his torso, over the stitches on his shoulder, pressing tight against the shallow breaths the other is taking to avoid disrupting his ribs. He continues like this, during the fight with Osial, listening to too many things at once as he cleans the other, smaller wounds too. A slash across the back of his wrist, electro burns along his palms that receive more of the numbing cream, numerous small cuts that Zhongli cleans as Childe begins to chatter nervously, telling the consultant about Snezhnaya, about his siblings, about how no one had done this for him since his mother. The last part gives him pause, and he decides to do something on pure instinct and lighthearted teasing. He lifts Childe's hand to his mouth, turning over the hand to show the burns across his palm and gently places a kiss in the center. Childe’s hand twitches, almost out of his grip as the red head splutters.
"Wha-What'd you do that for?" Zhongli let's the smile bloom on his face as he lowers the hand and stares at the blush spreading down from Childe's ears, a vicious crimson that betrays his embarrassment as easily as his expression.
"Is that not normally what parents do? Kiss a wound to 'make it better'? I was simply trying to make this exchange more familiar since you said the last person to tend to you was your mother."
"YOU - you can't just -" Childe let's out a noise that's half scoff and half sigh, raising his right hand to ruffle across his bangs in exasperation as Zhongli stands from the crouch he'd been in.
"You have a strange sense of humor, Consultant."
"So I have been told." The ground under Liyue rocks as Osial continues to rage, and Zhongli heads towards the shelf with the puzzle box. He does not grab it, still keeping faith in the mortals and adepti working together, instead grabbing a corked bottle from next to it. It is an old thing, the jade tarnished, the Qingxin flowers that had once decorated the outside nearly entirely faded. Still, the contents sloshed as if they'd been bottled yesterday. He holds it gently as he turns back to Childe, uncorking it in front of the young man and holding it out to him.
"Here, drink." the harbinger takes the bottle, but doesn't drink, inspecting it, leaning to give the mouth of it a sniff before looking up to Zhongli.
"What is it?"
"An ancient relic from the time of the archon war. Many humans were harmed during it, so one of the kinder archons created this elixir to heal mortal wounds." He doesn't mention watching Guizhong test formula after formula, seeking ways to keep her followers safe, doesn't mention leaning against her side as a dragon as she had bottled the finished product. The memories of her are his and his alone now, as are the remaining bottles of elixir, but he has become fond of this mortal.
"None of my wounds are that serious though."
"The loss of use of your left arm would be detrimental to you, both physically and mentally. The wound severed tendons and nerves, you will never be able to duel wield again, to fight the way you're used to. You will go into battle forgetting this or willfully ignoring it and end up another corpse in my place of employment." Childe lets out another one of those huffed laughs, shrugging the wounded shoulder and trying to hide the grimace that follows.
"You've got me there, but then what was the point of sewing me up then? Did you want to get in your own licks?" He hadn't even thought about hurting Childe like this, despite the way his chest still aches from the removed Gnosis his God asked for, and he shakes his head.
"No, it is simply that you will heal better if your wounds are aligned properly. Broken bones will set if left to heal, but not correctly if they are not placed properly." Childe nods, blue eyes drifting to the ancient vulnerary in his hand.
"Makes sense." He takes a deep breath, then, raising the bottle says - "Down the hatch then." he takes a quick swig, like the goddess blessed potion is a fierce drink and shudders like it is afterwards.
"Sevens above, that's fracking rancid." Zhongli smiles at the almost curse, something he'd noticed was a peculiarity of Childe months before, and takes the bottle gently, corking it and moving to return it to the shelf with its twin.
"Indeed. But it is already working, is it not?"
"Yeah, I can feel my ribs healing." Childe coughs, a small 'ow' whispered underneath it, before Zhongli turns back around, coming to sit on top of the table next to the young man. They sit in silence for a while, listening to the pounding rain outside, Childe occasionally hissing, flexing the fingers of his right hand to test it out as the healing takes effect. The silence is comfortable, familiar, the same sort they'd have in a restaurant or when one had invaded the others work space. Zhongli craves a warm tea, a pavlovian response to the silence, and he begins to get up to excuse himself to make them both some until Childe speaks.
"Jax."
"Excuse me?"
"My actual name. It's Jax." Childe laughs, this one awkward and unsure. "Well, it's actually Ajax, but no one's called me that since I became a Harbinger, my family just calls me Jax." Zhongli smiles, warmth in his heart.
"It is a wonderful name. I am glad to know it...Jax." That burning red is back on Childe's - Jax's - ears, and Zhongli thinks it's endearing.
"Well, you can't just go around using it. I have to use an alias while I'm here, but I thought - you sewed me up and used a three thousand year old potion to heal me -"
"Four thousand"
"Four thousand year old potion - to the point I can breathe and can keep my arm so - contracts, right? I should give you something in return." He's adorably awkward now right hand scratching at the back of his head, left tapping a beat on his leg.
"A name is something that should be freely given to those you trust." It makes him think of freeing a Yaksha, of giving him a new name and breaking chains, and Zhongli stands fully.
"Zhongli is a name I gave myself, to leave my old life behind. It is in honor of an old friend who is no longer with us."
"Oh. I'm sorry for your loss."
"Do not be, she passed many years ago and would have jabbed me with one of her inventions if I was still upset over it."
"Ha ha, I like the sound of her."
The two sat together until the rain had long since passed, Zhongli sharing tales of his youth without giving too much away, Childe doing the same, avoiding the topic of how he became a fighter and instead focusing on stories of his siblings. They drink tea, Childe's hands shaky but functioning as he holds the cup like a lifeline. Hours pass, until the mask that Childe wears flashes and his expression does too. It's gone too fast for Zhongli to call it out, the ginger sighing as he stands and places the tea cup on the table.
"I have to go back, business calls, you know?" He snags his coat, still damp despite being hung up to dry in front of the stove, and puts it on with much less difficulty than he had shrugging it off.
"I know well. I will see you later, Jax." And the young man pauses, turning to give Zhongli a slow smile, one where his eyes close slowly like a cat.
"Yeah, I'll see you later."
(He is angry to find out that later is much sooner than he thought.)