Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationship:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2021-01-28
Words:
2,463
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
37
Kudos:
111
Bookmarks:
5
Hits:
2,495

i may not believe in god but i know for a fact that i have sinned

Summary:

Venti is exiled from Mondstadt after defiling his statue and accidentally killing Barbara. Childe just wants a cool theme song to play during his boss battles. They meet and an unlikely relationship sparks with passion.

A story of love, tragedy, murder, dehydration, and piss kinks.

 

(Please do not take anything in here seriously it is horrible and it is meant to be horrible lmao)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Venti had never considered himself a bad person. 

 

He’d done bad things in the past, sure, like getting drunk and starting bar fights, accidentally smiting someone when he got mad… but everyone did bad things sometimes, right? That’s what made them human- granted, Venti wasn’t exactly human himself. But either way, he had strong morals and made somewhat of an effort to watch over Mondstadt as its god should. Doing bad things occasionally didn’t make him a bad person, right?

 

However, one drunken incident seemed determined to prove him otherwise; in the eyes of his people at least. Oh, yes, he’d been at the tavern that night, downing glasses of wine like it was his last night alive. Diluc let him, of course. Diluc, no matter how annoyed he appeared to be, was always surprisingly laid back when it came to Venti paying for his wine. He was their god, after all, and Diluc was one of the few people aware of that fact. 

 

With the haze of intoxication clouding his mind, Venti had a great idea. It was time. Time to reveal himself to his city. The people of Mondstadt would know, once and for all, who their god was. So he had climbed to the top of his statue in front of the cathedral and settled himself on his own giant stone fingertips. “Fine citizens of Mondstadt!” he called, letting the wind carry his voice far and wide. “I am here to reveal myself at last! Bow before your ruler!” 

 

It wasn’t long before people were screaming. The cries of the onlookers alerted others in their homes, quickly drawing a large crowd. Venti grinned as a nun yelled at him to get down. They were so desperate to meet their god! Except for two nuns in particular. Grace glared angrily up at him, screaming about blasphemy and him being a fraud. However, Venti had expected this. If she didn’t believe him when they needed the lyre, why would she believe him now? Unfortunately, without his gnosis, it was incredibly hard to conjure any winds to prove his power either.

 

But what he hadn’t expected, was young Barbara, climbing to the top of the statue, fury written on every inch of her expression. “Get down this instant!” the young nun cried, clearly distraught. “How dare you defile such a sacred relic as our lord’s statue!” 

 

“I am Barbatos! I swear it! I swear it on my lyre!” Venti exclaimed. People were getting restless. The yells were louder and he was beginning to think that they weren’t purely of adoration. “Well, I must prove it then.” He sighed “Could a normal person do this without being smited on the spot?”

 

Venti began to twerk.

 

Barbara screamed in horror, hands flying to her mouth. Venti glared at her, twerking more aggressively with every second in order to prove his point. Then he noticed some pressure in his lower stomach. He drank an unholy amount of wine earlier, and it was finally catching up to him. There was nothing he could do about it. Warmth soaked through his shorts and soon enough, a yellow liquid was pooling in the smooth unblemished palms of his statue’s hands. The scent was extraordinarily strong and the colour extraordinarily opaque - too much alcohol and not enough proper hydration. Oh well, it was more proof.

 

Barbara’s next scream would have completely burst his eardrums had they not already been burst the first time he tried to learn to play the lyre. She stepped back to avoid the puddle as it dripped slowly between the gaps of the statue’s fingers. She stepped back once more, but her feet found only air. Venti, without his powers at their strongest, could do nothing but reach out in a futile attempt to catch her before she fell. If anything, he only pushed her away more in his endeavour to save her.

 

Barbara fell and hit the ground with a sickening splat.

 

The crowd went silent, with the exception of one man yelling “It is he! Lord Barbatos! He makes it rain nuns and gold!” 

 

Then the chaos began. It was clear to Venti now that the screams of his people were of terror, not love, and soon there were multiple guards climbing the statue and then dragging him back down with them. The nuns were in tears. The citizens were retreating to the safety of their homes as fast as they could. Jean was crouched over her sister’s dead body, screaming in anguish as the bloody mush where the girl’s head should have been seeped through her fingers like the liquid gold on the statue.



…

 

Venti had never thought of himself as a bad person, but that was how he found himself exiled from his own city.

 

With nowhere to go, he headed to Liyue. It was Mondstadt’s sister city and surely he’d be able to find some refuge there. Guilt and depression weighed heavy on his shoulders, though, and he couldn’t even bring himself to play his lyre. Deadset on no longer using music as his source of income, he picked up odd jobs wherever he could in exchange for food and alcohol and occasionally mora. Word of his crime apparently hadn’t yet reached Liyue, so he was safe for the time being. 

 

But soon the jobs he took weren’t enough. He was becoming a full-blown alcoholic and he knew it. He couldn’t bear to pass a minute sober, only to be left to the wrath of the images in his head - the crowd of his people, piss on the statue, Barbara, dear, annoying Barbara, falling to her death. He needed something else, something that paid more. Something that could support his habit of wanting to forget his life in Mondstadt had ever existed.

 

Then he met Childe.

 

“Barbatos, that’s you, isn’t it?” Venti jumped, startled as the voice came from behind him. He turned to see a tall, handsome, and unfortunately ginger young man staring at him.

 

There was no point in lying. This man was a harbinger, he knew that much. “I- Yes. Yes it is.” he answered.

 

“Well, my name is Tartaglia, but you can call me Childe.” The man smiled softly, coming to sit down beside the god as he introduced himself. “Word travels fast when you’re part of the Fatui. You’ve got yourself into a bit of trouble, haven’t you?”

 

Venti kept his eyes glued to the ground. He couldn’t trust this man. He wouldn’t. The Fatui were evil and could betray him at any moment. But then… hadn’t he been labelled as evil too now? What truly defined who was evil and who was good? Could it just be the personal perspective of the individual? “...Call me Venti.” he growled. “And if you don’t have a job for me, then leave.”

 

Childe smirked. “Well, as it happens, I do have a job for you.” Venti couldn’t help the way his eyes lit up and Childe had surely noticed it too, the man’s smirk spreading into a grin. “I’ve heard you know every song in existence, past, present, and future. Is that correct?”

 

Venti sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, but I don’t sing or play anymore. I refuse to.”

 

“Oh, that’s terribly sad.”  Venti almost felt bad as the man’s expression turned downcast. “Not even for a million mora each time you play?”

 

A million….

 

The god’s eyes widened. That much could fund his alcoholism for...ever. “Fine. What do you want me to do?”

 

Childe grinned once again and threw an arm around Venti, who blushed at the close contact. “Great! Now, I have this big fight I have to do all the time against Lumine-”

 

“Lumine?!”

 

“-Yes, Lumine, Aether, Xiao, and a bunch of other irrelevant people. I need someone to play music while I fight. It gets boring after a while, you know? And I want my own song, something no one has ever heard before.”

 

Venti raised an eyebrow. “So...you want me to play a theme song during your boss fights?”

 

“Yes.” Childe confirmed. “Can you do that?”

 

After a moment’s consideration, Venti nodded. “I suppose I can.” He studied Childe for a moment, trying to think of a song that would suit him. Something no one in Teyvat had ever heard. “...I’ll need some time.”

 

…

 

From then on, Venti cast aside his piss-and-murder-induced trauma and played his lyre tirelessly. This song had to be perfect.

 

Childe came to check on him multiple times a day, bringing him meals and small gifts, listening to his progress and giving his opinion, and occasionally just staying to chat. Venti slowly found himself looking forward to the ginger’s visits, and sometimes even missing him when he left. The god didn’t dare associate with anyone else for fear of them finding out about his misdeeds, but Childe was different. Maybe it was because he had misdeeds of his own haunting him (namely the thing they bonded over the most, Childe had twerked and pissed on the roof of a church in his homeland, though completely sober), but Childe didn’t judge him. 

 

On more than one occasion the two had gotten drunk together and woken up naked, side by side in the same bed.

 

(“Isn’t this illegal?” Venti had asked. “My body is that of a minor, after all.”

 

“And my name is Childe. There will always be technicalities.” Childe had shrugged. Venti decided to make himself an adult before getting drunk after that. He didn’t want to get cancelled by Liyue too.)

 

Soon enough, the two were spending more time together than apart. Venti even followed Childe around during his missions with the Fatui, because he completely relied on the man for food and money like a leech if it was a twink. It wasn’t long before they just decided to move in together.

 

After many painstaking months, Venti finally found it. The perfect song.

 

“Childe!” He shot up from his seat, smiling widely as he hurried over to where the man was laying on their bed, reading fifty shades of geo slimes. “I’ve got it.”

 

Childe instantly sat up, eyes wide in anticipation. “Can I hear it?”

 

Venti nodded and began to play. There were no lyrics, making the song perfect for playing in the background of a battle. It perfectly captured Childe’s reckless flamboyance and flirtatious but deadly nature. It surely was a song worthy of the gods.

 

“It’s...It’s beautiful.” Childe’s eyes were glassy with tears by the time the song was over. He quickly wiped them on the back of his sleeve. “I love it, does it have a name?”

 

Venti nodded, beaming with pride. “It’s called ‘Hisoka’s theme’.”

 

…

 

Venti played through every boss battle Childe engaged in. His music threw off Childe’s opponents, but only further fired up the man himself. With Venti by his side, Childe’s win streak was endless.

 

Venti liked the moments after these battles the most. He patched Childe up if he was injured, and then they simply enjoyed each other’s company. Sometimes they laid together, limbs intertwined as Childe shared more tales of his misdeeds to make Venti feel better about killing Barbara and smiting that one guy, other times they shared a meal by candlelight, where they both ended up a mess because they couldn’t see properly. Venti found these moments more beautiful than his music could ever be.

 

It was during one of these moments that Childe muttered “I hate that they treated you like that. You’re their god, they should worship you.”

 

Venti sighed. “I know, but without my powers...there’s not much I can do.”

 

“We could take revenge.”

 

“...what?”

 

“Revenge. It’s what they deserve. Show them what happens when they disobey their lord.”

 

Venti mulled over the thought for a moment. It was tempting. Extremely tempting. His morals had relaxed significantly since he began spending so much time with the harbinger. “Revenge. That sounds nice.”

 

…

 

Two days later, Venti found himself in front of Mondstadt’s cathedral with Childe by his side. They were yet to be noticed and all the nuns along with many of the city’s citizens were inside for Barbara’s funeral. It was a late funeral because Jean was adamant about putting Barbara’s head back together first and no one wanted to argue with Jean because she was scary and really pretty.

 

The two began by peeing a circle around the cathedral. Childe, despite wielding a hydro vision, was just as bad as Venti hydration-wise. The circle was so toxic it might as well have been acid, which worked out because they used the piss to melt the lock on the cathedral door.

 

The cathedral went silent as they entered. “I’m back.” Venti announced. “And now, you will pay.” 

 

Screams echoed throughout the building as Venti and Childe pulled out their bows and proceeded to shoot everyone in sight. Soon the floor was littered with bodies, the remaining survivors cowering behind pillars and chairs. Yes, their revenge would soon be complete.

 

“The power of Christ compels you!”

 

Venti felt a sharp pain in his chest. He spun around to see who had spoken such blasphemous words. It was Grace, of course. “Christ?! Who is this man?!”

 

“Barbatos abandoned us so we decided to try this dude.” Jiliana spoke up as the rest of the surviving nuns stood to join Grace. 

 

“The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!”

 

Venti could feel himself fading as the nuns chanted. He had to do something, and he had to do it fast. Panicked, he looked at Childe for help.

 

Childe took his hand gently and looked into his eyes. “If you die, I want to die with you. The least we can do is go out with a bang. Do you trust me?” 

 

With tears in his eyes, Venti nodded. They turned to the group and combined their power, screaming as it released along with more acid gold. An anemo void appeared, sucking in every remaining survivor. It swirled with Childe’s hydro power and within seconds the chanting had stopped. Everyone was dead.

 

Childe and Venti collapsed to the ground. They could feel their life force fading from the overuse of power and additional bladder erosion. “I’m sorry it ended this way,” Venti said softly, squeezing Childe’s hand. “But I will admit, I believe it was worth it.”

 

“Me too.” Childe smiled. “That combination of anemo and hydro was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

 

“What about me?”

 

“Close second.”

 

“Fair.”

 

“Now, I have one more job for you before we die.” Childe pulled Venti’s lyre out of his ass.

 

“Anything.” Venti took the lyre.

 

“Good, then play for me.”

 

As Hisoka’s theme rang out through the cathedral, Childe muttered his last words.

 

“Now, spread those cheeks.”