Collusion

Chapter 16: Do You Trust Me?

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Crimson blooms beneath Childe’s trembling fingers as he counts each breath—one, two, three—trying to steady himself against the waves of pain. The rough polyester bedspread grates under him, a minor torment compared to how spectacularly his plans have been backfiring lately. His vision narrows, hazes, but not enough to miss Lumine sifting through the assortment of first aid supplies she’d bought from the corner shop.

His head spins. Blood loss. Not good. The fabric of his shirt sticks to his wounds, and the metallic tang of blood fills his nostrils. He watches Lumine’s back as she organises the medical supplies on the rickety table: bandages, antiseptic, needles.

“You know,” Childe rasps, his usual charm shredded raw, “most women just say no to a second date.”

The joke falls flat. His breath hitches as another spike of pain shoots through him, and he can’t quite hide the tremor in his voice. The bullet wound in his shoulder throbs in time with his heartbeat, and the knife wound in his abdomen burns like fire.

Lumine turns around, arms full of supplies, her face unreadable in the half-light. Their eyes meet across the room, and for a moment, Childe feels the silence swell between them, dense and pressing, the unspoken barbs of a hundred questions prickling at his skin.

“Don’t move,” she says, approaching him with steady hands but wary eyes. Her hands linger above his bloodstained shirt. “I need to check how deep these wounds are.”

“You gonna finish what you started?” He tilts his head back, goading her, or maybe he’s just too drained to care anymore.

Her gaze snaps to his, golden eyes smouldering with something sharp—anger? Guilt? He can’t pin it down, and it frustrates him in ways his wounds don’t. Her lips quirk into a mirthless half-smile. “Don’t tempt me.”

The sting of antiseptic makes Childe grit his teeth as Lumine cleans his wounds. His gaze drifts to a particular spot on the floor—third board from the wall, marked with a faint scratch. The safe. His muscles tense at the thought.

“There’s something you should know.” The words tumble out before he can stop them. She pauses. “Under the floorboards. A safe.”

Lumine’s fingers push against his wound, the motion teetering on the edge of mercy and malice. “Show me.”

Childe pushes himself up, swaying. The room tilts, but he steadies himself against the wall and shuffles toward the spot. His knees hit the floor with an ungraceful thud. Blood drips onto the wood as he pries up the board.

“Help me with this.” The numbers elude him, but his fingers remember, guiding her hands to the dial: left twice, right once, left again. The lock clicks.

Lumine yanks the safe open. Inside lies a stack of cash, bound with elastic bands, and a collection of passports. She pulls them out one by one, spreading them across the floor. Different names, one face—all his. Some worn at the edges, others crisp and new.

His vision blurs at the edges as she examines each document. The room grows warmer, his shirt sticky with fresh blood. Perhaps showing her wasn’t the wisest choice, but something about her pulls the truth from him like poison from a wound.

He takes the stack of cash and the bills slip through Childe’s fingers as he counts, vision blurring. “Five thousand in Mora. Three thousand in dollars. Enough to—” He blinks hard, forcing his eyes to focus. “Get us across the border. Could make it to Fontaine by morning.”

“Us?” Lumine’s voice cuts through the haze. “What makes you think I’d go anywhere with you?” She paces the length of the cramped room, cash scattered at her feet. “Besides, where could we possibly go that they won’t find us?”

The room tilts sideways. Childe’s hand finds the wall, steadying himself. The edges of his vision darken, and the floor rushes up to meet him—

“Ajax!”

Hands grip his shoulders, pulling him back. Her strength surprises him as she hauls him to the bed, his body folding into the sagging mattress like a rag doll. The room tilts and swirls, a blur of peeling wallpaper and nicotine-stained ceiling. A laugh bubbles in his chest at the absurdity of it all. Hiding out in this dump while enough money to buy a suite at the Goth Hotel sits in a hole in the floor. And Lumine, who’d been ready to carve out his spleen, now stitching the lethal wound she caused.

The mattress dips as Lumine perches on its edge. “Why do you have a safe here?”

“Had it installed when they first stationed me here.” His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. “Back when Liyue became my permanent base of operations. Well. Semi-permanent.”

The room spins less when he closes his eyes, but the darkness makes him vulnerable. He forces them open, tracking Lumine’s movements as she sorts through the documents spread across the floor.

“Kat doesn’t know about it.” The admission costs him nothing—Ekaterina’s ignorance of this particular safeguard had always been intentional. “Insurance policy, really.” His fingers brush against the fresh bandage on his shoulder. “When this job finally catches up with me.”

The words hang in the stale air between them. Childe studies her face through his wavering vision, searching for any hint of her thoughts, though her face remained inscrutable.

The mattress creaks as Lumine shifts. Something solid presses into Childe’s palm—cool metal and glass. His phone. His fingers curl around the familiar shape, mind struggling to process this gesture through the fog of blood loss.

His own hand moves without conscious thought, reaching into his pocket to retrieve her phone. The screen lights up, revealing dozens of missed calls from Kaeya. He holds it out, watching her face for any sign of deception.

She takes it.

“Fair trade.” His thumb brushes against her fingers, and the contact sends a jolt through his fever-warm skin.

She could run right now. Leave with his money and her phone. Call Kaeya or Diluc or god-knows-who to finish him off.

But she doesn’t.

The gauze slips between her fingers as she works, wrapping the bandage around his torso. Her hands shake. His breathing comes in shallow gasps. Lumine’s thoughts drift to Aether, to the postcard, to Tartaglia’s confession. Her chest tightens.

But her hands betray her with every gentle touch, muscle memory winning over the rage that demands she dig her fingers into his wounds until he bleeds. Fontaine looms ahead—promise or threat, she’s not sure anymore. She could drop everything now, leave him bleeding to death on the floor. No one would blame her—not that anyone would know. But here she is, tending to Aether’s killer with the same care she once used to bandage her brother’s scraped knees, and the irony tastes like acid in her throat.

“Easy there.” He catches her wrist. “I’d like to make it to Fontaine in one piece.”

She yanks her hand away.

The question claws its way out before she can swallow it back. “Why ask me to help you?” Her voice cracks on his name. “After Aether—”

“You mean after I killed him?”

She finds the tender spot where bandage meets flesh and presses—hard. His laugh comes out strangled, more pain than amusement, but there’s something like approval in his gaze that twists her stomach and thrills her veins.

“You want to know why I didn’t just bleed out in my apartment?” he says, his voice hoarse but steady. “Why I came crawling to you?”

She keeps her focus on the bandage, fiddling with it needlessly. “You’ve made it pretty clear you think I’m predictable. Thought you’d take advantage of that.”

“Predictable? You stabbed me, Lumine.”

“Not hard enough, apparently.”

That earns her a soft chuckle, one that costs him, judging by the wince that follows. He leans back, head tilted as if weighing what to say next. When he speaks again, there’s no jest in his tone.

“I can’t trust anyone else.”

The words land like a stab to the gut. She freezes, searching his face for mockery or manipulation but finds neither. Just that raw honesty she doesn’t know how to handle.

“You expect me to believe that?” she asks.

“I don’t expect anything from you,” he says simply. “But it’s the truth.”

Her laugh is bitter and sharp. “You really think that’s going to convince me not to slit your throat?”

“No,” he admits, meeting her gaze head-on. “And if you did? Fair enough.” His hand drifts toward the bandage she just finished tying off, fingers grazing it. “But then what? You kill me and then what?”

She opens her mouth to answer but falters because then what is exactly what’s been gnawing at her since this all began. He sees it too; of course he does.

“Exactly,” he murmurs. “You’re out of allies as much as I am.”

“I’m not your ally,” she snaps.

“Maybe not,” he concedes, his tone maddeningly calm despite everything. “But like it or not, Lumine—we need each other.”

Her breath catches at hearing her name from his lips like that—too familiar, too… soft—and for one fragile second, she doesn’t know if she wants to kill him or kiss him again.

Or both.

The bandage comes loose again. She grits her teeth, forcing herself to focus on the task. One loop. Then another. Her fingertips brush against his skin, and she pretends not to notice how he tenses at her touch.

“There,” she says, wiping her hands on a towel. “Try not to get shot again.”

“You know, you’re quite good at this,” Tartaglia says, gesturing to his bandaged stomach. “Ever considered a career change?”

“Yes, because patching up assassins is such a lucrative field,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Well, you’ve already got one very satisfied customer.”

A traitorous smile tugs at Lumine’s lips, forcing her to turn away before he notices. Every instinct honed from years of intelligence work warns her to put a bullet in his skull and run. Instead, she’s drowning in the gravity of him—in those knowing looks that make her skin prickle, in the blind trust he shows now, bleeding out in this cesspool of a motel room. It terrifies her how deeply it tethers her here, when the logical choice has long been to let go.

A disgraced Knight and the Twelve’s deadliest, planning their great escape on blood-stained sheets. She’d really outdone herself this time. If Aether were here, he would’ve given her that look, that maddening mix of pity and amusement he’d always reserved for her worst decisions.

She shakes her head, and with it, her thoughts. “We need to make a stop before the train.”

“A stop?”

“Hu Tao. Yelan gave her something. A tracker disguised as a business card.”

Tartaglia’s brow furrows. “Who’s Yelan? And who’s Hu Tao?”

The question catches her off-guard. Of course—he has no idea what she’s been up to since the hospital, working with Yelan and investigating Rex Lapis’s death. A strange laugh bubbles up in her throat.

“Hu Tao’s the funeral director. The one who—” She stops herself, remembering the recording hidden in his phone. “Point is, she knows Zhongli faked his death. And Yelan… Yelan’s bad news.”

“Hold up,” says Tartaglia, “What do you mean he faked his death? I killed him.”

“You did, yes. But before that—Zhongli knew you were coming for him somehow, and so he faked his death and tried to escape to Mondstadt. And my gut says Yelan won’t let that slide.”

“You think this Hu Tao’s in danger.”

“I think—” Lumine stops, running fingers through her tangled hair. “I think I can’t leave knowing Yelan might…” The words stick in her throat. Another death on her conscience isn’t something she can bear. “I have to know she’s safe.”

“It’s too risky.” He pushes himself up from the bed, grimacing. “Train leaves at dawn. Unless you want to stay in Liyue and deal with whoever’s after me?”

“The funeral parlour’s on the way to the station.”

“It’s really not.”

“Well, I’m not asking for permission.” Lumine meets his gaze. “Either you come with me, or I go alone. Your choice.”

“Fine.” Tartaglia runs a hand through his blood-matted hair, leaving copper strands sticking up at odd angles. “But we’re in and out. No heroics.”

“Since when do you care about heroics?”

“I care about staying alive.” He lays a hand on her arm, squeezing, the heat of his palm burning through her sleeve. “And keeping you alive, apparently, since you seem determined to get yourself killed.”

“That’s rich, coming from the man who stabbed me first.”

“That was different.”

“Oh, really? Please elaborate.”

“I was doing my job.” His voice drops. “This is you walking into a trap with your eyes wide open.”

Lumine looks away from him, the silence between them settling like dust. The cheap motel bed creaks as she shifts her weight. Her throat feels tight, the question burning on her tongue.

“Do you trust me?” She keeps her voice steady, refusing to let it waver.

Their eyes meet. Seconds stretch into eternity as they sit there, neither willing to break the silence first. The rattling AC unit, the sweep of passing headlights across the ceiling—it all fades against the thundering of her pulse and the careful rise and fall of his chest. His gaze pins her, butterfly to cork, and the feeling that surges through her veins? She’s pretty damn sure it isn’t fear.

She forces the thought away before it’s fully formed. Doesn’t want to acknowledge the way her skin tingles where his arm brushes against hers, or how her breath catches when he leans closer. He’s an assassin. Her brother’s killer. This isn’t—can’t be—anything more than necessity.

“Of course I trust you,” he says, that infuriating, lopsided grin reappearing. “Takes real dedication to stab someone, then stitch them up just hours later. A woman of principles, clearly.”

Lumine swats at the spark of warmth his teasing ignites, schooling her face into exasperation, forcing her attention to the clock. 11:47 PM stares back in a hellish red glow, as unforgiving as the guilt whispering at the back of her mind.

“We’ll manage an early start if we sleep,” she says, attempting to match his nonchalance. “Unless you’ve got more jokes waiting to sabotage what’s left of my night.”

NOTES

Look who’s back! It’s been a year since, and I’m more than happy to be back writing for this fic again! If you’re still reading this, hello, I am very grateful you stuck around <3 I haven’t played the game since Childe last appeared in Fontaine and tbh I don’t see myself playing again anytime soon? I miss them, tho. :(

Writing-wise, it’s been a tough time getting back to this fic in particular because I’ve rediscovered my love for CRPGs (Baldur’s Gate 3, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, and the very latest Dragon Age: The Veilguard, though that one doesn’t count as a CRPG if I’m gonna be so honest) and all that has wonderfully devoured my time since then. But I won’t leave this unfinished, as promised! We haven’t even gotten to the really good part yet >:)

As always, let me know your thoughts, your feedback is important to me! Happy holidays!

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