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The sun is beaming down onto the pavement, hot and surprisingly dry considering there was a rain shower barely half an hour ago.
Vasari Passage is well-frequented, Melusines go about their daily patrols, occasionally crossing paths with intimidating meka guards, Fontainians hide from the sun under parasols and tourists from all over ooh and aah at the impressive buildings and overall grande atmosphere that engulfs the entire city.
Standing beneath a small canopy near Beaumont Workshop, Lumine watches the passing people with both boredom and curiosity. The continuous clashing of metal against newly forged weapons mixes with the many voices into one blurry background sound, somewhat disorienting.
Lumine feels out of place. She can’t help it, sometimes she just can’t seem to cross the bridge that separates her from those around her. It was no different in Sumeru at the start, as like in every other nation so far, though the friends she made there certainly helped her with feeling like she had a place in this world – now, in a new nation, with barely any acquaintances let alone friends that she could turn to.
Or so she thought as she arrived here, at least.
"It truly is a small world, hm?”
She looks to the side, tilting her head back slightly to meet the gaze of piercing blue eyes.
“It is,” she says, an amused smile flickering over her lips before she shrugs. “What a strange coincidence, don't you think?”
“You sound doubtful,” Childe replies as he settles next to her, leaning back against the outer wall of the blacksmith’s shop, arms crossed in front of his chest.
“I have good reason to, don’t I?”
“You don’t think it’s a coincidence, then? You and I crossing paths here? Other than coincidence, what else is there?”
“I don’t k—”
“Fate?”
Lumine lets out a brief laugh.
“Ajax, you’re so—”
Childe’s eyes, usually so... dull, for the lack of a better word, seem to light up as his name slips Lumine’s lips.
“Come on, be honest,” he says, “you’re happy to see me here.”
Again, before Lumine can reply, he continues – “because I am. I’ve missed you lots, comrade.”
Slightly taken aback by such sincere words so soon after they’ve met once again, Lumine hesitates. She lets her eyes wander – nobody pays much attention to the two of them aside from one or the other curious look that is thrown their way, probably prompted by their unusual attire.
“Better be careful what you say, Tartaglia, I don’t want my reputation to be ruined on the very first day already,” she says, ignoring the blood rushing to her cheeks. “Other than you, I’m here for important business.”
Childe giggles, still looking at Lumine even though her eyes remain focused on the street.
“Hey, Traveler—"
Lumine pulls a face, subtle but noticeable nonetheless, immediately causing Childe to backtrack with a smile on his lips, a smile much gentler than you’d think a Harbinger – even the eleventh one – is capable of.
“Lumine,” he says, now in a softer tone. “Are you free this afternoon?”
“I have a pretty important event to attend to this evening, actually.”
He cocks an eyebrow.
“That blond guy’s magic show? Yeah, I’ve heard. What about this afternoon, though? There’s a café down the street, you know.”
He sounds nervous, suddenly, adorably nervous as if it’s his first time asking someone out when it isn’t – definitely not.
“I’m all yours,” she finds herself saying, cringing at her own words as Childe grabs her hands and pulls her along.
The coffee that Café Lucerne offers is the best Lumine has had in days – though Sumeru’s coffee is a strong contender, the taste that fills her mouth now has just the right amount of sweetness to its taste, just the right temperature, just the right amount of aroma.
Maybe this specific café simply makes such magnificent coffee – or maybe it’s the company.
Childe is talkative as always, as beautiful as always, as well, in a way he doesn’t quite realize. As he’s happy to chatter away, beneath the round table their feet are tangled together.
They order Fontainian sweets, two of each kind – all expenses sponsored by the Northland Bank, obviously – their eyes on each other with each bite to catch the other’s initial reaction to an unfamiliar taste.
Lumine tells him about her strange first meeting with the Hydro Archon, Childe recounts his last adventures since the last parted ways. The initial anxiety that she felt upon arriving, the weight of all these problems that she knows are awaiting her, have disappeared completely, as she realizes mid-conversation. A familiar face in a city of strangers, a familiar voice and laughter, familiar hands that brush against hers as he hands her another piece of pastry for her to try. A piece of home in a foreign land.
“How long are you staying?” she asks quietly.
“How long?” he shrugs. “Depends. Why? Enjoying my company? You missed me too, didn’t you?”
Lumine squints against the sunlight blinding her slightly, lifting a hand above her eyes for some shade. Childe grins at her across the table, and with a sudden, almost overwhelming wave of feelings clashing against her heart, she realizes that she’s missed him more than she thought.
Considering both of their circumstances, this is the best they can do. Leaving their next encounter up to chance each time, never quite sure for how long they could see the other, or how much time would pass before they’d see each other again. Lumine is fine with it – even if she wasn’t, she’d have no other choice. She has too much on her plate, way too much, for anything even remotely resembling a committed relationship, and the same counts for Childe – perhaps it’s preposterous for her to assume so confidently that a committed relationship is what they would have imagine that if their lives were a little simpler, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? It won’t happen anyway, and Lumine is fine with that.
Still, though...
“I did. More than I thought."
With that one answer, the air between them shifts. There’s tension now, undeniable, as if the weather is shifting once again and there’s a hint of an approaching storm hanging in the heavy air. Suddenly the way his legs are tangled up with hers, such an intimate yet innocent and harmless gesture, feels more than just a little inappropriate. There’s something in his eyes, in the way he clears his throat, and she sits up straighter in her chair.
Lumine takes another sip from her coffee and notices that her hands feel just the tiniest bit shaky.
“Oh? You... you did?”
Childe’s cheeks are reddened, all the way up to the tips of his ears. It’s adorable, undeniably so, but for some reason it makes Lumine blush as well.
Stupid boy, she thinks. Stupid, stupid boy. Why does he always seem so surprised? Sure, perhaps she’s a little hesitant to show some emotions at times, mostly for self-preservation, but he must know...
“Don’t pride yourself on that,” Lumine says between grit teeth, but she knows it’s too late. It’s that smile he has, a sudden confidence that is so very different than the cockiness that he exudes usually.
Lumine looks around once more, as if paranoid that someone in their vicinity has noticed their conversation shift to... whatever this is now.
“Childe, I—”
“There’s a hotel nearby,” he blurts out, interrupting Lumine mid-sentence. “I have a room there for the time that I’m staying. So if you—”
“Okay.”
“When does that magic show you’re gonna watch start?”
“... later,” Lumine says, suddenly out of breath, “way later.”
As Lumine stands next to Childe while he asks for the keys to his room at the reception, she finds herself praying to anyone who will listen that Fontainians aren’t prone to gossiping. She can’t help but worry about having to come back here later in another context, perhaps for a commission, perhaps for information, and whatever awkward situation could arise then.
She almost groans out loud as she can practically imagine the situation already; “oh, are you here to see your boyfriend?”.
Besides the awkwardness, which she’d love to avoid, a public relation to a Harbinger, such an ambiguous one at that, would only bring her trouble – if she’s unlucky, she’ll be risking another battle with the hydro archon like the one she just escaped from this morning, or worse, an encounter with that famed Iudex that she has yet to meet.
“Embarrassed to be seen with me?” Childe asks once they’re heading up a flight of broad stairs. He has the keys in his hands, playing with the clinkering set between his fingers and almost dropping it once.
“What gives you that impression?” Lumine replies cooly.
“You’re basically hiding behind me,” he laughs, “and I haven’t seen you avoid eye contact with someone else this intently in a long time.”
Oh, so he did notice. She huffs.
“Mind your own business, Tartaglia – oh, and don’t even think about getting in any serious trouble while you’re here, or I’ll be seen as your accomplice.”
He cackles to himself, giving her a soft smile before continuing down the hallway. The sounds of the rather busy lobby are mere murmurs up here, the heavy walls, lush with decoration, swallow all other sounds. A red rug runs along the corridor, surprisingly clean for so many dirtied shoes that must leave prints each day.
Eventually, Childe stops at a door to the left.
“Here we are,” he says, quietly.
The hallway is empty except for the two of them, and as Childe turns the keys in the door lock, Lumine coils her arms around his back, pulling close into a hug from behind.
Childe lets out a soft sound of surprise – “well, that’s unexpected” he mutters. She can hear the smile in his voice, and at the next moment, the door swings open.
Before the door can even fall shut behind them, they’re all over each other. The storm that Lumine felt coming at the café, seething beneath their skin all the way here, everything that’s been building up since the moment they’ve laid eyes on each other in Vasari Passage, it all bursts free.
Childe’s jacket is half-unbuttoned and the intricate layers of Lumine’s clothes brought in hasty disarray – her sleeves pulled down, the skirt pushed up – when he draws her in for a stormy, open-mouthed kiss.
Childe’s kisses are all-consuming, blinding, mind-numbing. It was like being sucked down a vortex of water, to a place that only he and Lumine know. Oh, how much has she been yearning for this, his touch, his taste.
"This is what you meant all along when you said you missed me?” she asks, muffled against his lips, breathless already.
“It always is,” he replies, a hand running down her side until it reaches the end of her dress, beneath which he reaches for skin, his palms warm against her upper thigh. He’s firm but gentle, confident but so pliable to her actions – like when she pulls towards the bed and he follows docilely, responding to even the slightest motion with the devotion and eagerness of a very well-trained and even more enthusiastic pet dog.
He’s warm and soft and strong, lifting Lumine up onto the bed with ease. He takes his time undressing her, handling the white fabric with care, all while she lets his hands roam. Along the side of his face, thumb brushing over his freckled cheeks, fingers running along his jaw and down his neck, over his chest riddled with scars, down his toned stomach equally as marked by battle, until her fingertips dip beneath the waistband of his pants.
“I missed touching you,” she mumbles, smiling to herself as a shower of kisses rains down the side of her face for an answer, each one gentler than the first, topped off with a long, deep kiss that makes her sink back against the fluffy, large pillow resting against the head of the bed.
“I missed kissing you,” he says then, “missed your taste”, before nudging her arms up to pull the dress over her head, leaving her only in her underwear.
Following Childe’s eyes, she looks down on herself. For a moment, it feels like she can see herself through his gaze.
She feels beautiful. She is beautiful.
Blushing profusely, Lumine doesn’t know what else to do but to pull him into yet another kiss, a messy one this time, crawling into his lap and winding her arms around his neck, coaxing him to put his head back as his lips chase hers. Her torso presses against his, so tight she thinks he can feel his heartbeat, so quick that she wonders if this is how fast his heart beats in the middle of one of the fights that he loves so much, with the adrenaline in his veins running high and the rush of risk and danger rushing through him.
As their lips part, there’s only a split second in which they remain still, looking into each other’s eyes and panting for breath, before he pulls her even closer and presses his lips against the soft skin right between her boobs, a pleased hum escaping him causes a shiver to run down Lumine’s spine.
“Can I?” he asks, barely audible.
If Lumine could blush any more than she already is, she would. She nods frantically, shaky hands finding Childe’s hair where she closes them into loose fists, tugging his head closer, keeping it in place even though moving away is probably the very last thing Childe is thinking of right now. His lips part, his hot breath against her skin makes her shiver again, then inhale sharply as he licks along her sternum. The position they’re in keeps him from moving up his hands, which rest on her hips, so he resorts to trapping the fabric of her bra between his teeth and pulling down sharply for better access.
He's like a starving man, sucking and kissing and biting like he needs it to survive than he needs to breathe. Lumine’s head falls back, the sharp pleasure mixed with a hint of pain makes her tense up, thighs tightening around Childe’s hips.
“Easy there,” she mutters, chest heaving with each breath she takes, as she pries him away eventually, fists still in his hair – his scalp must sting judging by how hard she pulled, but he shows no signs of discontent. The opposite, rather.
His mouth hangs open, wetted lip resting at his bottom lip. His face is flushed red. His eyes are wide as he gazes up at her, leaning back slightly, chin up, the weight of her fists keeping his head tilted back.
“Why’d you pull away?” he asks quietly. “I-is it not good?”
Lumine manages a huffed, endeared laugh. Her chest aches, especially as she leans down to kiss him, but she relishes in the feeling.
“So good,” she then says, cheek pressing against his temple, lip brushing against the shell of his reddened ear. “As always.”
The praise seems to motivate him, and Lumine briefly loses her countenance as his lips crash against her neck. Her vision goes white, and she lets go of his hair, hands flying to his arms where her fingers dig into his skin, deep enough to leave marks.
“Please,” she gasps in between pressing her lips shut to hold back the soft moans that threaten to spill from her lips by now, “please, Ajax, more.”
Her words don’t go unnoticed – if there’s one thing Lumine and the Tsaritsa would agree on, it’s that Childe knows how to obey a command, even if in this case, said command comes in the form of a needy plea whispered behind closed doors.
Childe’s eagerness almost overwhelms Lumine. She yields the fervor of his lips, slowly sliding off his lap as they make for the head of the bed. Her hands fiddle with his belt, and he just about manages to zip open his pants when Childe reaches out for Lumine’s hips, dragging her close again with a single pull that makes her yelp with surprise.
Her eyes widen as her head falls back onto the flat pillow and her legs are lifted off the mattress, the back of her knees briefly resting on Childe’s shoulders before he lowers her hips again. Fingers dig into her thighs, leaving a sharp, pleasant ache. Hands curling around the sheets for stability she cranes her head, barely just catching a glance of Childe – but a glance is enough. A few first love bites grace the freckled skin of his shoulders, the scars coiling around his torso seem to glow faintly in the colored light that shines through the hotel’s mosaic window panels. His eyes are dark, his knees slightly sinking into the soft mattress.
Then he dives in. As soon as she feels lips press against the skin right at the seam of her panties, she lets out half a gasp, half an astonished laugh.
“Archons, Ajax,” she squeals, “where did you learn that—”
“Told you that I missed you,” he says against her skin, “and you said you wanted more. I’m giving you more.” His voice makes a shiver run down her spine.
“You’re so warm,” he adds in a whisper, so reverent that Lumine can feel the blood rushing through her veins. She feels like she’s seriously going to faint when he mutters, “and wet.”
“Shut up,” she groans. She would have pressed her knees together as a wave of abashed embarrassment hits her if it wasn’t for Childe’s pretty head between her thighs.
She picks herself up just enough to prop up her torso at least a little, shifting her weight onto one elbow to be able to reach out and run her fingers through the soft, tousled ginger strands.
Halfway into Childe’s very dedicated mission to strip her panties off, her fingers travel from his hair down the side of his face, to his jaw, tilting his chin up to make eye contact once more. The way he looks at her makes her breath hitch.
As he neither moves away nor opens his mouth to say something, Lumine can’t help but smile.
“What are you waiting for?” she coos.
“For you to tell me what to do.”
She clicks her tongue, ignoring, or rather bearing, the heat coiling in her stomach, the craving for more, the urge to just push his head down.
“Don’t you know what to do?” she asks, brushing her thumb along his bottom lip. “Hm? Don’t you?”
Childe hesitates, then nods. As his lips part, just when he wants to answer, she slips her finger into his mouth. He swallows immediately, eyes widening, struggling slightly as Lumine doesn’t hesitate to add a second digit.
She bathes in the sight in front of her, so dream-like that it almost doesn’t feel real, a Fatui Harbinger so devoted he takes her every word as command, eager to please her and only her, sucking on her fingers, squirming between her thighs.
A string of saliva connects her fingers and his parted mouth once she draws away her hand. He’s breathing heavily, ginger strands of hair have fallen into his flushed face, and in this moment, he looks so stunning, so out of this world, that Lumine starts doubting her own eyesight. Maybe she’s too far gone, she’s too deep in, she wants him too much to the point that she can’t trust what she’s seeing. With that, the thin string from which Lumine’s patience has been hanging snaps.
As one hand travels up to her own chest, the other reaches out to grab the back of Childe’s head, nudging his head down. Obedient as he is, he’s pliant to her every move, and dips lower at once.
At the first feel of his tongue, she jolts against the mattress, like a bolt of lightning shot through her body that leaves her limbs tingling, from the depths of her chest to the tips of her toes.
She’s only vaguely aware of how loud she is, and even though she was so adamant on escaping everyone’s eyes and ears, she couldn’t care less now. The sounds that he coaxes out of her only spur him on, and it doesn’t take long until Lumine has her head thrown back against the pillow, eyes defocusing, every single muscle in her body tense, hands clutching at wherever they can reach.
She feels closer to heaven than she has in a long time, as if she’s floating, reaching Celestia.
Over the course of their time together, Lumine has managed to figure out the patterns in Childe’s behavior fairly well. She knows when he’s dangerous, when he’s docile, when he’s annoyed and when he’s happy. She can read him like an open book, and it’s not difficult to see that at this moment, he‘s as content and peaceful as he possibly could be.
They’re still on the bed, basking in the late afternoon sun falling into the room through the colored windows. The air reeks of sex, but they don’t really notice.
Ajax lies sprawled out on the mattress, rolled to the side, one hand hanging from the bed while the other rests next to Lumine’s thigh, fingers tracing along faint stretch marks.
“Should I wait for you here, hm?”
Lumine looks down at him, arms raised above her head as she adjusts the accessories in her hair that is still way too disheveled. She smiles at the pleading look in his eyes, which look tired yet a lot more alive than earlier this afternoon. His hair, though looking like a ginger crow’s nest, looks so soft that Lumine can barely withstand the temptation to let her fingers run through the strands again.
“Your travel expenses must have been high lately,” he muses, “the journey here can’t have been easy and Fontaine isn’t exactly cheap either. Sharing a room would be a smart move no matter what way you look at it. Besides... I know how lonely nights in a new nation can be.”
“Incorrigible sweet talker. You already got me into bed, what more could you possibly want, hm?”
“Just some more time with you,” he mutters into the crumpled sheets, “I want to cherish every second I can get.”
Her eyes soften, which is enough of an answer for him.
“Also, Lumine…”
“Yes, Ajax?”
“D’you want to spar later? Tomorrow, maybe, or the day after? I miss it. I miss facing a worthy opponent like you.”
The smile on her face lingers, broadens even, as she bends down to press a kiss against his swollen lips. He still tastes like her.
“Prepare to lose, Tartaglia.”