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He’s too pretty for a Devil. It sets Tartaglia on edge. They tell him such, and he turns his head, facing them.
“Is that meant to flatter me?”
Tartaglia shakes their head, dry laugh tumbling past their lips, leaving splinters in their flesh. Joy, or even a mimicry of it, is a painful process. They stopped trying ages ago. “No,” they say, “I just think you’re hiding something.”
The Devil turns away, hair shifting with the movement and curtaining his profile. Everything seems to swallow him up. Ill-fitted suit hanging off his slight frame. Big, glittering eyes in his face like raw garnets. That ring of light hovering above his head like a lure. Grand wings folded against his back.
“Can you fly?” they ask.
“No,” the Devil responds. “They’re there for decoration.”
“Was that a joke?”
“Is this an interrogation?” He turns again, locking eyes with Tartaglia. The mirth swirling in their lungs makes them feel sick.
“I’m just trying to get to know you better,” they say breezily.
“Careful,” he warns. “Your peers will think you’re fond of my kind.”
“Your kind murdered my family,” Tartaglia spits. “And that’s common knowledge.”
“Then why?” The Devil counters. “Why try to know me at all?”
“We’re going to be working together. I’m trying to keep myself alive.”
Either it’s the afternoon sun playing tricks on them, or the Devil smiles as he ducks his head. “There’s only one thing to know about me, then,” he says, standing from the bench. He ruffles his wings. “Don’t get close.”
Tartaglia stares at his back, worrying their lip. His hair shines strawberry blond in daylight. They wonder if its hue matches a blood splatter once the sun sets.
“So,” they grunt, also standing up. They’re at least a head taller than him. “Do you have a name, or can I just call you pretty boy?”
The Devil turns to glare at him. He has to tilt his head up. “What Devils do you know that care about names?”
Tartaglia shrugs, fishing their lighter and a smoke out of their pocket as they start to walk ahead. “Pretty boy it is, then.” They make it about a few feet before there’s finally a response.
“Diluc.”
They look at him over their shoulder, unlit cigarette between their lips. They stroke the pedal of their lighter, never pressing down. Tartaglia plucks the smoke from his mouth, tossing it into the grass and pocketing the lighter. “Does it mean something?”
Diluc hesitates. “Dawn,” he says.
“And what’s that got to do with you?”
“Death is as inevitable as daybreak,” he replies, almost a recitation. He walks forward, stopping beside them. “Stare at the sun too long —”
“Yeah,” Tartaglia interjects, voice hoarse. They regret tossing the cigarette; it was the last one in the pack. “I get the picture.”
Diluc nods to himself after a moment of terse, stifling silence, turning and walking away. “I see a crepe truck.”
Tartaglia stands there, picking at a hangnail and watching him. Getting smaller and smaller the further he goes. Eventually, they sigh and give a shake of their head, hurried steps following. They slow once they fall in step beside him. There is a careful, almost natural distance between them. Like Diluc always knows just how far he must sidestep to keep everyone around him safe. A Devil, practicing courtesy.
They pay for Diluc’s crepe, and peer at him as he eats. He takes small, measured bites, and though he doesn’t smile (they wonder if he ever does), his eyes glitter with warmth as he enjoys his dessert.
The sun is beginning to set, casting him in rosy hues and adorning him with false halos. Tartaglia scowls, looking away. Really, he’s too pretty for a Devil.
“One,” they mutter under their breath.
“What?”
“You asked how many Devils I know that care about names,” they clarify. “I know one.” Tartaglia turns his head. Diluc is already looking up at him. They both slow to a stop, the crepe truck only a few yards away.
“Do you?” Diluc asks.
“Do I what?”
“Know me.”
A fleeting smile bites at the skin of Tartaglia’s cheeks. Bloody dimples and split lips. “I think I’m getting there.”
Their first day working together, Diluc saves their life.
He spreads his wing in front of them, sending a barrage of bullets back to whatever trigger-happy Devil had fired at them without so much as a grimace. The Devil’s body crumbles to the ground, skull hitting the concrete with a sickening crack. He walks away, towards the corpse, leaving Tartaglia frozen in their spot, trying to catch their breath.
“I had him,” they grit out, hoarse.
Diluc slows to a stop beside the body. He turns the head with his foot, and takes a step back. As he raises his sword, he says, “I don’t like people touching my food.”
He brings his blade down, swift and precise. The sound isn’t foreign to them — cut flesh and broken bone — yet Tartaglia’s stomach still turns. Maybe it’s the blank look on Diluc’s face as he lifts his weapon, raising it to his mouth to press his tongue to the flat of the blade, licking the blood off. They watch him bend down, grabbing the head by a fistful of hair and cradling it in his arms.
“Help yourself to the rest,” he says, walking away.
Their stomach turns with something new.
(Diluc is different, after he’s had a meal. They swear his eyes are redder, his face not as pale. And his strength in combat grows tenfold.
Tartaglia starts to leave bodies whole for him, instead of cutting them up the way they usually would. They tell themself it has everything to do with helping him maintain his strength, and nothing to do with the way he glows after he’s had a drop of blood.)
They work well together. It’s a fact that makes Tartaglia’s skin crawl. To be working so closely with a Devil is already cause for headache, but Diluc gives them no reason to be a prick. He knows how to do his job. Stealthy when he needs to be, fierce when their foes call for it.
Where Tartaglia is frenzied in the heat of a fight, Diluc is always efficient. Not a single maneuver is out of place, not one breath wasted. The sword on his hip might as well be another limb, with how effortlessly he wields it. (Diluc’s appetite also makes it so that Tartaglia very rarely needs to request a clean-up after any mission.)
And when there’s no work to be done, Diluc is quiet, until Tartaglia gets bored of babysitting the kids and starts pestering him with probing questions instead. He rarely leaves them unanswered, humoring them with a deadpan expression.
(“Why a sword? Why not guns?”
“Guns are loud. Bullets poison the body. I don’t favor the taste of gunpowder.”
“Swords are messier, though.”
“You use those flashy daggers.”
“Yeah, well, I’m aiming to make a mess.”
“And I’m just trying to do my job.”)
It doesn’t sate their curiosity. Doesn’t quell their apprehension. They’re so engrossed in figuring him out that they fail to notice how much they enjoy his company.
They work well together. That’s all it is.
One day he asks them, “What’s with you and smoking?”
Ajax doesn’t reply right away, taking another drag. “Someone I care about taught me how to smoke.”
“They must not have cared about you, then.”
They huff out a laugh, vision momentarily lost to smoke. “What do you know, Devil?”
“I gave you a name so that you would use it.”
“Tell me what you’re hiding first. Give me a reason to know you by name, and not blood.”
Diluc doesn’t answer.
“I’m not hiding anything,” he tells them a few days later. He’s slowly dragging a cloth over his blade, wiping away the blood that soaks it. (They wonder why he won’t clean it with his tongue, this time.) His voice is neutral, cloaked in apathy, yet he tends to his weapon as if he is capable of caring.
Tartaglia is sitting on the curb, gazing up at him. “You think you’re not,” they say. “Want me to tell you what it is?”
Diluc’s eyes snap to them, and a callous grin splits their face. His eyes aren’t so much gemstone as they are magma, when he glares like that.
“I can smell the guilt on you, Devil,” they whisper. “You hate yourself.”
Tartaglia sees their own malevolence mirrored in his gaze, as red as the blood that stained his sword. He looks every bit the Devil he is. Terrible. Beautiful.
Diluc blinks, averting his eyes. “That makes two of us, then.”
“The person who taught you how to smoke, who were they?”
“Ex-partner. Ex-something else. We didn’t label it.”
“Why ‘ex?’ They left Public Safety?”
Tartaglia barks out a bitter laugh. “C’mon, Devil. You’re smarter than that.”
Silence stretches thin between them. They feel a drop of moisture hit their cheek, and hang their head to watch the ground as the rain accelerates, darkening the sidewalk.
“Sorry,” Diluc says over the downpour, slowing to a stop, “for saying they didn’t care about you.”
Tartaglia pauses a few feet ahead, looking at him over their shoulder. A raindrop clings to Diluc’s lashes, slipping down his face as if it were a tear. What might be tragic enough to trigger a Devil to actually cry? Would the Devil in front of them still be as captivating, caged in honest sorrow?
“Come on,” they say, hoarse, turning away. “Before the storm gets worse.”
The first time they’re forced to share a room together, Tartaglia is so certain ignoring the other presence around them would be simple. But they’re coming to learn that Diluc is anything but.
For one, he stalks around shirtless, and it makes them hot with anger. It has to be anger.
“Do they not teach you decency in Hell?” They gripe from across the room.
Diluc lazily turns his head, looking up from the book he’s been thumbing through the entire afternoon. A glance at the spine tells them it’s some cheap romance novel. “What?”
Tartaglia rolls their eyes. “Put a fucking shirt on.”
“It’s too warm. And it’s more comfortable for my wings if I don’t wear one.”
“And what about my comfort?” They scoff.
Diluc furrows his brows. “I didn’t think you’d be this bothered,” he says. “Don’t look, then.” With a shrug, he turns back to his book.
Tartaglia doesn’t listen. They look harder, further, gaze tripping over narrow shoulders and prominent collarbones and dusky pink nipples and an infuriatingly slim waist. They keep looking until anger melts under desire’s brighter blaze.
What might a Devil so terribly beautiful look like, held captive by bliss? What sinful sounds would slip past his luring lips? What would happen if they were to find out? How many people have died, just to touch him?
There’s glimpses of a fantasy behind their eyelids when they blink. Bare skin against bare skin. Swollen lips forming the shape of their name. Fingers sinking into red hair. Tartaglia buries their face in their hands with a harsh sigh, then stands from the bed, yanking their shirt over their head as they head for the bathroom. They don’t look to see if Diluc notices them, and slam the door shut.
The hotel’s freezing shower does little to fan the flame growing wilder and hotter in their gut, and they leave just as flustered as they’d been going in. Diluc glances at them as they step out of the bathroom. His eyes linger on their chest, where their proudest scars are, and then blink away. He only looks back when he feels their stare, irritation apparent in his pinched brows and downturned lips.
“If you’re going to tell me to put on a shirt again, lead by example first.”
Tartaglia leans their weight against the bathroom’s door frame, hip cocked as they tousle their hair with a towel. “Actually, I had a question,” they say, schooling their expression into something serious.
Diluc sighs shortly, shutting his book. “What.”
“Have you ever fucked anyone?”
His eyes widen, and he gapes. His cheeks are bright pink. His wings twitch and expand slightly, feathers puffed up. “What?!”
“Or even the other way around, whatever.” Their lips twitch.
“Why are we even talking about this?!”
Tartaglia shrugs, pushing off the doorframe and draping the towel around their neck. They walk over to their bed, pressing a knee into the mattress and keeping their gaze turned away. “You don’t have to tell me,” they say. “I was just wondering because, y’know —” They wave their hand around. “— The touching thing.”
Diluc hesitates, as if steeling himself. “…No, I haven’t. I don’t think it’s worth it, all things considered.”
Tartaglia hums, “That’s fair.” Their smile is sly when they raise their head, locking eyes with him. “Your reaction was enough of an answer, by the way.”
“Fuck you,” he mutters.
Their smirk widens. There’s fire licking at their lungs, red-hot delight in finally seeing Diluc spark. “Are you coming onto me, Devil?”
“Fuck off.”
Tartaglia cackles, collapsing onto the bed properly. They lay on their side, facing him balanced on their elbow, their head pillowed in their hand. The towel wrapped around their waist parts, exposing their thigh. Diluc glances at it and looks away just as quickly, lips pursed.
“Lighten up,” they sigh. “Clearly, even Devils have tension to release. If you ever need a helping hand…” They raise their free one, wiggling their fingers in a little wave.
Diluc scowls, reaching over to snatch his shirt from the foot of his bed. “Even if I did to decide to ignore my ability for something as asinine as sex,” he says once it’s over his head, “you’re the last person I’d go to.”
They turn their head, hiding their grin in their hand. If there’s anything they’ve come to learn about Diluc over the course of their partnership, it’s that he’s a terrible liar.
“Should we break them up?”
Tartaglia puffs out a ring of smoke, following Diluc’s gaze. The other half of their little group is wrestling on the sidewalk. Fischl has Bennett in a headlock. His face is steadily turning blue, and he’s trying and failing to get a good grip on her horns. Tartaglia shrugs, looking away. “Nah,” they mutter, taking another drag. “Let them kill each other, or something. Don’t know what public safety was thinking, giving those two jobs. Way too young.”
“But they have no one and nowhere to turn to, right?”
“…Right.” They glance at Diluc out of the corner of their eye, watching him nibble on the pastry in his hands. There’s a strand of hair stuck to his mouth.
“Y’know, all those desserts will kill you,” they joke.
Diluc scoffs into his crepe, smearing cream across his lip. His tongue dips out to lick it off. Tartaglia isn’t really looking at him out of the corner of their eye anymore, but they can’t recall ever turning their head. “Says the one with the death stick in their mouth.”
“Coming from a walking death stick,” Tartaglia snorts. “That’s rich.”
They watch, rapt, as Diluc hesitates just before a bite. His open mouth slowly closes, and he turns to look at them. Avoids their eyes, stares at the cigarette between their lips, then flits his gaze up after a beat.
Tartaglia’s own words echo in their head, and their lips slowly curve into a smirk. They dare to lean closer, taking the cigarette between their fingers and blowing smoke into his face. Diluc doesn’t blink, doesn’t cough, doesn’t do so much as wrinkle his nose. He holds eye contact. Garnet caged with sapphire.
“What are you thinking about?” Tartaglia murmurs. “Devilish things, hm?”
“Keep back,” Diluc warns, a whisper.
“Relax,” they chuckle, throaty. “I was never meant to live long, anyway.” They lift their free hand, aiming to tuck a lock of hair behind his ear, but Diluc steps back before they can even feel the heat from his skin, let alone touch him. He shoves his dessert into their still raised hand. Their fingers don’t even brush.
Diluc stalks off, barely even sparing a glance at the teens’ scuffle. “Break them up,” he calls over his shoulder, gruff. His wings are pressed tight against his back, feathers flat. “People are starting to stare.”
Tartaglia watches him. That’s about all they can do. Attraction is a fickle thing when it only goes one way, and they’ve been working with Diluc long enough to know that their attraction doesn’t. Not when he looks at them like that. Looks, but never touches.
“You know,” Diluc pipes up on the walk back to headquarters. “You’re kind of a huge dick.”
Tartaglia smiles, light laughter stuttering out of their chest. “I’ve got one, too. Wanna see?”
“That,” he looks up at them, an unimpressed curve to his lips. “That right there is an example. I think I preferred you callous instead of childish.”
“Aw, c’mon.” They sway toward him, bumping their elbows together. Diluc stiffens, shoulders hiking up to his ears. “I think we get along pretty well,” they say, stepping back.
“We’re good partners,” Diluc agrees readily, honestly. Tartaglia’s chest feels tight. “But you’re still a huge dick.”
“What am I gonna have to do to win you over, Devil?”
“The same thing I told you the day we met.” Diluc quickens his pace, catching up with the bickering teens ahead of them. He glances at them over his shoulder, eyes glittering. “Don’t get close.”
Tartaglia swallows. It was easy to do that when they still didn’t know him. Now, it’s damn near impossible.
“What are you doing?! Let go!”
Diluc struggles, wings beating as if he can fly his way out of their death grip. Tartaglia only holds him tighter, pressing his face into their chest. “You would’ve died,” they say, ragged.
“So what?!”
“So, I don’t want to keep watching the people around me die,” they answer, hollow. Blue eyes are in the back of their mind, electric gaze watching their every move. “I’m sick of it.”
Diluc goes slack in their arms, his fight fizzling out. His wings relax, too, wrapping around the both of them. Heaven-sent protection from their hellish reality. Tartaglia breathes a sigh of relief.
They take shelter in a rundown motel, after things have calmed down enough. Tartaglia is bent over the bathroom sink, trembling hands under the faucet’s scorching spray. The water runs red with the blood they’re trying to scrub off. They can’t tell if their hands are clean yet, with how inflamed the skin is.
The door creaks open, and they lift their head to look in the mirror. Diluc stands in the doorway, a towel limp in his hands. They reach for it gingerly, white cotton coming away red under their fingers. Diluc snatches his hand back, and Tartaglia stiffens.
“It got you that worked up, huh?” they croak, wetting the towel. They stare at his reflection in the mirror, watching the muscles in his jaw jump, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows.
“You’re an idiot,” he says quietly.
Tartaglia shuts the water off, straightening up and turning around. They dry their hands off; the towel is as good as trash now. There’s still dried blood sitting under their nails. They lean against the counter, tossing the soiled cloth into the sink behind them. Then, they reach for their nape, undoing their short ponytail, and slip the hair tie around their wrist.
“You could be more grateful,” they say, low. “I saved your life, Devil.”
Diluc scoffs. “At the cost of three years off yours.”
“I told you —”
“You told me bullshit,” Diluc interrupts. “You’re sick of watching people die? Well, I’m not ‘people.’ You forget you’re a Devil Hunter. I’m not who you should be protecting.”
They stare at him for a long moment, slowing their breaths to calm their heart. They know what it’s racing towards. Why his pulse quickened the instant they wrapped their arms around Diluc earlier. Half-fear, half-thrill. The thrill of being so close. The fear of getting closer. Diluc was warm, firm, despite his lithe body. Reminders that he was alive. Reminders of why Tartaglia should never touch him.
They finally ask, “Since when do you care?”
“Don’t play stupid. I am a Devil amongst Devil Hunters. It isn’t about caring, it’s about being careful. I wouldn’t even get a chance to look over my shoulder, should I ever kill a human.”
“But who would know?” Tartaglia shrugs, a saccharine smile spreading across their face. “Three years off my life, so what? Everyone’s carrying on, business as usual — myself included.” They step towards him, and Diluc braces his hand against the doorframe, but holds his ground. “So,” they continue in a murmur, leaning down until their faces are mere inches apart, “why does it matter to you, if I’m three years closer to something inevitable?”
Diluc’s chest heaves with a shaky inhale. “Don’t be cruel,” he says hoarsely, taking a step back, outside the doorway. “That’s my job.”
Tartaglia rolls their shoulders, straightens up and folds their arms across their chest. They lean their weight against the frame. They wonder what they must look like to Diluc, backlit by cheap artificial light and still in their bloody button-up. “You’re not cruel.” Their voice is hollow; an echo of the husk they once were, might still be, are doomed to be. “Dawn is only damning to those who won’t face their sins.”
“Have you, then? Faced yours.”
They hold his gaze. Sky to sea. The horizon is such a heartless thing, fooling everyone into believing such beautiful, terrible things could ever touch one another.
“I face them every day.”
“I’ve killed many Devils.”
“Is this another one of your games?”
“What?”
“Stating the obvious.”
“No, no. But you’re the first one I’ve saved.”
“I guess that makes me special.”
“Does it bother you? That I’ve killed your kind.”
“If it did, I wouldn’t be killing them myself. I hold no sentiment for my kin.”
“What do you feel, when you kill Devils?”
“Am I supposed to feel something? It’s just something I do. Blood is necessary.”
“Fair enough. What about humans?”
“I don’t like the way they taste. Devils’ blood is sweeter, makes me stronger. Humans taste like ash.”
“Good to know.”
“What do you feel when you kill Devils?”
“Relief. Anger. Sometimes I’m having fun. Sometimes I don’t feel anything.”
“Do you not wish to kill me, like all those other Devils?”
“No, fuck — Why would you ask me that?”
“I don’t know. I never know what’s on your mind.”
(You are. You. You, you, you.)
“You’re quite peculiar, Tartaglia,” Diluc says to him one night after they’ve settled into their beds, cheap hotel sheets under their backs. The lights are off, so when they turn their head, they can’t see him.
“Are you only noticing that now?” Tartaglia laughs lightly, and in the pause that follows, muses. The high energy from the day’s events is finally dwindling. Sleep is calling their name, the one stitched into quilts and engraved into music boxes. Drawn on birthday cakes in icing. Hidden between their ribs, tucked into the creases of old letters, yellowed paper and faded ink. Love, —
“Ajax,” they whisper.
“What?”
“That’s my real name. Tartaglia doesn’t exist.”
“I think they do,” Diluc says softly. “Everyone knows the Devil Hunter Tartaglia,” he continues, “I work with them every day. They aren’t so bad.”
“Maybe I just want to be Ajax around you,” they say after a moment, so quiet they almost hope he doesn’t hear it. When Diluc doesn’t respond immediately, they let out a short sigh of relief. Or disappointment, perhaps.
After a long silence, they assume he fell asleep. They can’t hear anything from the other side of the room, so they shut their eyes. And then, in the still, fragile quiet, Diluc finally speaks.
“I’ll only use yours if you use mine.”
Tartaglia smiles.
“You sleep like the dead,” is what Diluc greets them with when they crack their eyes open the next morning. He’s laying on top of his bed sheets, already dressed. His hair fans out against the pillow, and his halo still hovers, at a slight tilt. A streak of light hits his cheek.
Tartaglia sits up, groaning as the kinks in their back pop. They lick over the cracks on their lips and grin at him across the room. “Was that another one of your jokes, Diluc?”
Diluc’s eyes widen in surprise, and he turns his head. The motion tousles his hair and the pillow pushes up against his cheek. Then, he smiles. Just the slightest curve of his lips, the shallowest dimple by the corner of his mouth. Tartaglia didn’t feel anything the day they touched him, no indication of their lifespan shortening, but now, marveling at a Devil’s smile? They feel like dying.
Tartaglia taps their fingers against the steering wheel rhythmically. Diluc is sitting in the passenger seat, head pressed against the window as he watches the world blur by.
“I’ve been thinking.”
Diluc raises his head, turning to them without a second thought. “Hm?”
“About what makes you different from other Devils.”
He looks down at his lap. “Is it that guilt you were talking about?”
Tartaglia’s brows lift in surprise. “You remember that?”
“I remember everything you tell me,” Diluc responds, then hastily adds, “regrettably.”
They chuckle. “Well, yes. That’s one thing. That’s about the only thing I’ve managed to come up with, besides being part-Angel. And your name.”
“Huh.”
Tartaglia glances away from the road to look at Diluc. He’s staring out of the window again. “What is it?”
“I’ve never thought of it as mine. ‘My name.’ It’s just a word I picked out of a book. Devils don’t have names. Not the way humans do.”
“You have a name, Diluc,” they say firmly. “It’s a name you’ve chosen for yourself, so it belongs to you.”
Diluc doesn’t respond for a while. “To wonder what makes me different from others of my kind is to assume that all Devils are inherently the same,” he says eventually. “I am nothing like them and vice versa. Our only commonality is blood; the blood in our veins and the blood we feed on.”
Tartaglia frowns. “Still. There’s a lot more to you.”
“Maybe you should try getting to know other Devils.”
“Fuck no.”
“Afraid you’ll get along with them?”
They shake their head. “I don’t care enough to find out. You’re the only Devil I like.”
Diluc gets hurt. It’s inevitable, and Tartaglia feels helpless, trailing after him, unable to help him walk, unable to do anything but watch him stagger into their room, dripping blood and rainwater onto the carpet.
They shut the door and Diluc sits down on the bed with a reedy sigh, hand still clutching his weeping abdomen. His wings expand behind him, beating once to expel any moisture. His bangs are plastered to his forehead, cheeks sunken and skin sallow. Terrible, beautiful thing.
“Let me see it,” they mumble, shuffling closer.
“Leave it,” Diluc grits out. “It’ll heal.”
Another reminder of the yawning chasm separating them. Diluc will never need them for anything. Tartaglia should never need him, and yet. And yet, and yet, and yet.
“Don’t be stubborn,” they say.
Diluc shakes his head. “I’m not being stubborn,” he snaps, wasting whatever strength he still has to argue. “If you touch me —”
“I know,” Tartaglia seethes, crouching in front of him. They ball their hands into fists atop their thighs. Their nails bite at their palms. “I know,” they repeat, softer. “It matters to you. So just — just let me look.”
Diluc regards them for a moment, body trembling with the effort it takes to breathe, move, speak. He brings his free hand up to loosen his tie, tugging it over his head. He starts unfastening the buttons of his shirt. His fingers are clumsy, weak. Tartaglia grits their teeth, shutting their eyes for a brief moment.
When they open them again, Diluc is halfway done. His brows are pinched together, small noises of distress slipping past his lips.
“Fuck,” they rasp out, reaching for him. “Let me —”
“No,” Diluc shakes his head frantically. His feathers ruffle. “I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”
A raw, pained sound rips from their throat, and Tartaglia roughly drags their fingers through their rain-soaked hair before hanging their head between their knees.
“Ajax,” Diluc calls softly.
(That’s right. They’re just Ajax around him.)
His voice betrays none of his pain. If they focused hard enough, Tartaglia might hear it for what it really is. What their name always is, falling so lovingly from Diluc’s mouth. Terrible, beautiful truth.
They lift their head, gaze locking onto his abdomen. He’s unbuttoned the rest of his shirt, letting one side of it gape open. The other sticks to his skin, and Ajax’s face screws up as they watch him peel the bloodied fabric away from the wound. Diluc hisses as he does, letting out a sharp gasp of relief once he’s separated the shirt from his skin.
He wasn’t lying; the gash already began to heal. The edge of the wound appears pink, fresh skin, and the bleeding has subsided.
“You said it’d heal,” they say quietly. “You never mentioned how it would hurt.”
“Healing always does.”
“There has to be a way.”
“Blood,” Diluc responds. “I need to eat.”
“I can go out and —”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Diluc interrupts, voice breathless and smile shaky. “There’s no point. I just need to wait this out.”
Ajax meets his eyes, returns his broken smile. They briefly consider offering their own blood, but they know he’d refuse. They wonder how far gone they must be, to be willing to sacrifice any part of themself for a Devil.
“How will you sleep?”
Diluc starts to chuckle, then winces, hand hovering over his wound. “I’ll be lucky if I can,” he says shakily. “This isn’t something I can ignore. But I’ll be fine.”
“Bullshit,” Ajax tuts, standing and shouldering out of their suit jacket. “Can you undress?”
Diluc freezes, staring up at him. “…Why?”
“I’m not going to let you sleep in that shirt.” Ajax rolls their eyes, yanking their tie over their head and starting to work on their buttons. “You can have mine.”
Diluc’s eyes snap to their chest once it’s bare. They wonder if he would blush, if he had enough blood in him. “Okay,” he says, slipping one arm out of his shirt. “Okay.” He takes a deep breath, and Ajax stops undressing to focus on him.
He has to twist awkwardly to take the shirt off the rest of the way without pulling at his abdominal muscles too much, and once it’s off, Ajax gingerly takes it from him, bundling the ruined garment in their arms. They dip into the ensuite, tossing the shirt into the bin and wetting one of the complimentary towels with warm water. Once they’re back in the room, they crouch down in front of him again. Diluc makes a small noise of protest when they lift the towel to his wound, leaning closer.
Ajax looks up at him, what they hope to be a coaxing smile on their face. “I won’t touch,” they reassure him in a whisper. “Let me clean you up.”
Diluc nods jerkily, and they shuffle forward a little bit more, bracing their weight with a knee on the ground. They gently pat at the gash, slowly wiping away the drying blood around it. Diluc is tense above them, holding his breath while they work. Ajax doesn't want to prolong his discomfort, but they don’t want to rush this, either.
“I thought Devils would heal faster than this,” they comment once they’re finished, leaning back. They hand him the towel, and Diluc starts to clean his hands. Ajax shrugs their shirt off the rest of the way. “But, then again,” they continue, standing and walking around so they can kneel on the mattress behind him, their shirt open for him to slip into, “I’m starting to think you’re more Angel than Devil.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Diluc murmurs, raising one arm. “I’m Devil first, Angel second. It’s really just my appearance.”
It’s not just that, Ajax thinks. He has but a few moments to stare at Diluc’s back before he’s swallowed up in their shirt. They have to go slow, so as not to aggravate his wound, or risk skin-to-skin contact. Little by little, his skin goes out of sight; beginning from the dimples on his lower back, to the point where skin meets feather, to the light dusting of freckles across his shoulders.
His wings rip the fabric, pressing against his back comfortably once he’s dressed. Ajax reaches for his nape, and Diluc tenses when he feels their hand near his skin.
“Relax,” comes their reflexive response. They gather his hair where it’s tucked underneath the collar and let it spill down his back. (Their shirt is just as bloodstained as his, now.)
Diluc’s shoulders lose their tension once Ajax’s hand retreats, and they push off the bed, walking around to stand in front of him. It’s quiet for another moment, and then, Diluc smiles at them. They swear they can feel his smile pressed against their heart. How many years does that cost them? How many years, to smile back?
There’s nearly a foot of space between them on this bed. Diluc lies on his back, eyes closed and hands folded right above his stomach. Ajax is on their side, eyes traveling over his profile, over the planes of his chest, the highlights and shadows made by his halo.
Nobody can quite touch light, but it sits right there, against Diluc’s cheek. Ajax fists the sheets in their hand. The urge to touch is so maddening, it feels as if they can not breathe. If joy is splinters in their cheeks, then love is barbed wire around their lungs.
Neither of them get any sleep.
“Gloves?”
Diluc looks up, startled, and his food drops from his fork back to his plate. Ajax chuckles, taking a bite of their own meal. They’ve stopped at a diner to rest. Bennett and Fischl are in the booth behind them; they keep their ears trained for any signs of a food fight.
“I thought it’d be more practical,” Diluc says with a shrug, fingers tightening around his fork. The gloves are leather, black with red palms. “I can be more… useful, when I’m not a constant threat just by being near people.”
Ajax pauses, food lifted to their mouth. “It still amazes me,” they murmur, lowering their fork.
“What does?”
“How much you care.”
A traitorous flush overtakes Diluc’s cheeks, splotchy and pink. He ducks his head, pushing his food around the plate. “I’m just trying to be better at my job,” he says, looking up at them through his lashes. ”Avoid unnecessary… entanglements.”
“‘Unnecessary entanglements?’” Ajax hides a grin behind their hand, but Diluc must see it anyway, if his frown is anything to go by. He raises his head.
“What’s wrong with what I said?”
“Nothing, Red,” they wave him off with a laugh, thinking little of their words. Of the nickname, cradled in affection.
“Where did that come from?” Diluc asks after a moment, voice hushed.
“Hm?” Ajax arches a brow, swallowing their mouthful. “Where did what come from?”
He stares at them, brows still furrowed, before he shakes his head, expression smoothing out into something neutral. “Nothing.”
Ajax shrugs. “Alright,” they say, then points their fork at Diluc’s food. “You’re not finishing that, right?”
“No. Dessert is the only human cooking I can stomach.”
“Uh huh,” Ajax rolls their eyes. “I’ll prove you wrong.”
Diluc starts to push his plate towards them, avoiding eye contact. “Are you asking me out to dinner, Tartaglia?”
Ajax’s fork clatters against the table. Diluc startles, the hand pushing his plate starting to retreat, but they reach for him, grabbing hold fast and firm. Diluc looks up, eyes wide. They lean across the table, smiling as they ask, “If I was, what would you say?”
Diluc squeezes their fingers. Opens their mouth to respond, then clamps it shut, looking at a spot above Ajax’s head. They turn around to find Fischl peering at them over the other booth, face cupped in her hands.
The Fiend looks down at them with a scowl. “Who dares disrupt the Prinzessin’s supper?” She sniffs, then her eye lands on their hands, and widens to an almost comical size. “Oh, my God,” she whispers, her accent and theatrics lost to pure shock. “You’re holding hands?!”
“Who’s holding hands?!” Bennett’s voice comes from the other side of the booth, muffled. He must be talking with his mouth full.
Whatever mood had been blossoming between Ajax and Diluc has definitely wilted, thanks to their little interruption. Ajax turns back to him, hoping their disappointment and irritation isn’t apparent on their face. Maybe it is, or maybe Diluc has learned how to read them well enough to see through whatever mask they wear. He pulls his hand away, and gets up, leaving the booth and walking away.
“Angel,” Ajax calls after him, but he doesn’t even look over his shoulder. They sigh, sagging in their seat, and glance back at Fischl. The Fiend has the decency to look a little ashamed, brows pinched and lips downturned.
“The Prinzessin apologizes,” she says, averting her eyes.
“Forget it,” Ajax mutters, standing up. “Let’s go.”
“But I’m not done eating!”
“We have food back home,” they retort, rolling their eyes at Bennett. “Better food,” they amend, a little kinder when the teen’s face falls. “Come on.”
They toss a wad of bills down on their table and make for the diner’s exit, glancing over their shoulder to make sure the kids are following.
Diluc is outside, leaning against the wall of the building. He doesn’t look up when the bell above the door signals Ajax’s arrival. They take their place beside him, a firm distance between them. Out of the corner of their eye, they see Fischl dragging Bennett a few feet away by his elbow, out of earshot. Ajax’s lips quirk up.
“Come home with us, Diluc,” they murmur.
“Why?”
“Why not? I already live with a Fiend, and whatever the hell Bennett’s situation is.” They turn to look at Diluc, their eyes tracing the slope of his nose, the droop of his lashes, the dip of his cupid’s bow. “Trust me,” they continue, hushed, “you’d be a breath of fresh air for our fucked up little family.”
Diluc gazes at them, searching. “You hate Devils,” he says quietly. Uselessly.
“I don’t hate you,” Ajax replies. The admission coats their tongue in ash. They swallow, burying the remains. “You do know that, right?”
“What difference would it make, if I did or if I didn’t?”
“It matters to me. I want you to know.”
“…and you want me to live with you. And Bennett. And Fischl.”
“Yeah. You’d just be alone somewhere else, right?”
Diluc nods slowly. They smile.
“C’mon,” they whisper. “It’ll be fun. You can run away if you really hate it.”
Gradually, he returns their smile. “I don’t think I will.”
Their face breaks into a grin. “Wonderful,” they say, pushing off the wall. “I can cook dinner tonight.”
“I never said yes to that,” he says, and the unfamiliar lilt to his voice makes them pause, sputter. Is he… teasing them?
“Well, think about it on the way home,” they reply.
“Am I allowed to call it that?”
“What?”
“‘Home.’”
“I hope you can.”
They make everyone stop at a department store, and the kids only whine for about five minutes before Diluc shushes them and they quiet down. Ajax makes a beeline for the section they need, leafing through the options on the rack.
They hear Diluc walk up behind them. “Gloves?”
Ajax startles, turning around. They hadn’t expected him to be so close. One more step and he’d be able to perch his chin on their shoulder, if he pushed himself onto his toes.
“Yeah,” they reply, turning the pair in their hands over. “What do you think?”
Diluc shakes his head, wrinkling his nose. “Why do they have fur?”
Ajax barks out a laugh, hanging them back up. “Ask the designer. What about these?” They pluck another off the rack, holding them out for Diluc to see. They’re simple, black leather.
“I like those.”
Ajax beams, putting them on. “Good. Now we match.”
(When Ajax falls into step beside him on the walk to the car, Diluc doesn’t shy away when their shoulders brush. He doesn’t stiffen when they hook their pinkie around his.)
It isn’t as unnerving as they thought it’d be, bringing a Devil into their childhood home. The kids run up to their room, and Ajax hangs back. Diluc looks around the foyer, curious gaze lingering on the family portraits hanging on the walls.
“Are you sure you want me to stay here?” he asks.
“Yes,” they reply, lips lifting. “I’ll even let you pick your own room.”
He blinks his focus away from the wall, staring at them in mild confusion. “Pick?”
“Is that okay? I could pick one for you, if you’d like. Teucer’s is the biggest, but Fischl and Bennett share that one, and —”
“Sorry,” he blurts, a splotchy flush spreading across his cheeks. “I thought…”
Ajax raises a brow. “Yeah?”
“I thought we’d be… sharing one,” he finishes, quietly.
“Ah.” Ajax blanches. Their neck feels hot.
“Only because we always do,” Diluc hastens to add, “whenever we’re on the road. Um, don’t mind me.” He rubs a hand across his forehead, avoiding eye contact. His feathers ruffle, punctuating his embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”
“No, no.” They shake their head, fingers twitching with the instinctive urge to reach out, comfort with touch. Then, they look down at their hands, clad in leather, and realize that they can. So, they do, reaching for Diluc’s hand and giving it a brief squeeze before dropping it. “Um. We can… we can still share, if you’re more comfortable with that. It’s just… Well, I only have one bed.”
Diluc’s eyes snap to them. “Oh.”
“But I could take the floor,” Ajax says quickly, and then, when they see the horrified look in Diluc’s eyes, throw their hands up, as if surrendering. “Okay, no, I’m not going to sleep on the floor. We can share the bed, too, and just be careful about it.”
“I’m always careful,” Diluc says. He purses his lips, looking away once more. “You don’t have to do all of that. I can just — I’ll just pick my own —”
“Diluc,” they interrupt softly, helpless to the smile that tugs at their lips. It’s so rare to see him so flustered. They can probably count all the times he’s blushed in front of them on one hand. Because of them. Such a lovely, human reaction from someone Ajax swore they would hate. Someone they’re meant to hate. But meaning has little significance now. “I really don’t mind.”
Admitting that they want to is another thing entirely. Diluc must already know, if their insistence is any indication; but this decision needs to be his and his alone.
“Okay,” he says eventually, voice hushed. “Just, please —” (Every day, it’s something new with him. Another ingrained expectation shattered. Devils don’t beg, Devils don’t ask before taking. But this one does. Diluc does.) “Promise me —”
“I know.” Ajax smiles. “Don’t get close, right?”
It’s a lot harder to stay on one side of the bed than it is to fall asleep on it. Ajax is a restless sleeper, tossing and turning constantly. The rare instances they have someone else in their bed, they usually wake up tangled with them. (And when they crave Diluc as much as they do, it seems impossible to avoid being drawn to him.)
Now, they wake up to Diluc already sitting up, back resting against the headboard and knees pulled up to his chest. His wings are drawn around him, like a makeshift blanket. He’s spaced out, only startling at the sound of the sheets rustling, the bed shifting as Ajax turns onto their side, facing him.
“Morning,” they rasp.
He looks down at them, and their heart stutters.
Diluc smiles. “Good morning, Ajax.”
They stare up at him, taking in his sleep-mussed hair and pinkened cheeks, the way the sunlight pouring in from the window highlights the silhouette of his body beneath the oversized shirt he wears. The dimple by his lips, his lips, his lips. The crinkles by his eyes. They see every single day they’ve spent with him play out in his garnet gaze, rose-colored memories projected onto gemstone. They see how the distance between them has always been dwindling, even if they can never touch.
At which point did they stop seeing him as Devil, and start seeing him as Diluc?
(“Thank you.”
“What for?”
“Keeping your promise. Not getting close.”)
“There is a thief in our midst.”
Ajax looks up from their phone, taking in Fischl’s folded arms and protruding lower lip. She’s sitting on the other end of the couch, legs tucked underneath her. “And what, pray tell, might this scoundrel be stealing?”
She smiles a little, pleased, the way she always does whenever they play along with her. (They need this breath from reality as much as she does.) “The Prinzessin’s most sacred elixir.”
They bite back a smile. Her grape juice. It’s about the only thing they stock the fridge with, besides blood bags. “We should have them hanged, mein Fräulein.”
Just as she’s about to reply, an offensive slurping sound rips through the air. They both turn their head to the source: Diluc standing in the doorway of the living room, holding a box of Fischl’s grape juice up to his mouth. He’s worrying the straw with his teeth. He only raises his brows at them before walking further in, taking his spot in between the two of them on the couch.
Ajax leans back, looking past Diluc’s profile to check Fischl’s reaction. Her face is red, cheeks puffed out and brows furrowed, but she stays silent. They turn back to Diluc with a grin that only widens when they see the small smile he conceals around the straw.
(“You fit right in.”
“I’m not sure if I’m meant to take that as a compliment or an insult.”
“Oh, please.”
“You live with teenagers.”
“Yeah, and now you. Hey, is that my shirt?”
“Wh-What? No.”)
Sometimes a mission means being on the road for days on end. Bouncing between checkpoints and motels and alleyways dark enough to hide their stained suits. When they do make it back home, Diluc is exhausted.
He doesn’t wake up before them, on the mornings after nights like those. He’s up as soon as he senses Ajax’s movement, snapping his eyes open and immediately bolting upright with stammering apologies spilling from his lips. Sorry, I was too close. Sorry, I need to be more careful.
Today he continues to sleep. Ajax doesn’t want to wake him. There can’t be any more than three inches of space between their faces. Ajax could turn over, widen the gap. But they don’t want to risk rousing him, so they stay as still as they can. Just watching him.
He really is too pretty for a Devil. There are Devils whose forms may be conventionally beautiful, or they may know just the right things to do or say to seduce poor passersby, but Diluc is something else entirely. He’s lovely, and it tears them up inside. He’s soft edges and full lips and soothing tenor and Ajax feels completely at peace by his side.
He also still hasn’t woken up. So, they reach out, brushing the backs of their fingers over his cheek. Push his hair behind his ear like they’ve wanted to do for ages. He’s warm. He’s so warm. Are all Devils like this?
Ajax moves their hand, fully cupping his cheek. Diluc shifts, leaning into their touch with a quiet sound. His nose wrinkles and a faint line appears between his brows. (To think that someone so lovely could never accept physical affection… Diluc considers himself the cruel one, yet it’s something far, far bigger than either of them.)
He stirs a little, groaning softly and turning his face into their hand. Ajax goes still, but doesn’t pull back. Diluc’s eyelids quiver. He blinks once, twice, a flurry of lashes before he finally focuses on them. He doesn’t move, doesn’t pull himself away or push them away. Only says, “You broke it.”
Ajax sighs, unaware that they were holding their breath at all. “Broke what?” they murmur, stroking their thumb over his cheek.
“Our promise.”
“I never promised, technically.”
“Ajax,” he whispers, and he sounds pained. Defeated. His brows are pinched into a frown, and his eyes are misty. His hand comes up and grabs their wrist. His grip is hardly strong, yet it still feels like a brand against their skin.
“Sorry,” they rasp, and lean in.
Diluc was right; Devils do taste sweeter.
(“How many years?”
“Eleven.”
“…I guess you want your own room now, huh?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”)
Diluc doesn’t speak to them unless absolutely necessary for about a week, making himself scarce whenever they’re around. Ajax’s bed feels too cold and too big. They can’t fall asleep easily. The kids must pick up on the tense atmosphere, because they bring their teasing down to a minimum and give them space.
Ajax walks into the living room one night, knowing that Diluc is the only one there. They find him on the couch, chin against his knees, hugging his knees to his chest. His wings are folded tight against his back. A late-night sitcom plays on mute on the TV. He looks up when he hears them come in, and immediately uncurls himself, fumbling to stand.
“Wait,” they say. “Stay. Just — Just listen. That’s all I’m asking.”
Diluc pauses, halfway off the couch, and then slowly brings himself back down, sinking into the cushions. He still won’t look at them. He doesn’t speak, either; just fishes for the remote and shuts the TV off.
Ajax takes a deep breath, and begins to talk.
“I’m sorry. I upset you, and mistreated your trust.”
Diluc remains silent.
“I’m sorry,” they repeat, quieter, “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“You don’t think that,” Diluc says softly, startling them. “And either way, I kissed you back.”
“Do you feel guilty?”
“You know my answer to that, Tartaglia.”
The absence of their true name feels like a blow to their chest. That flimsy alias fractures their ribs, punctures their lungs.
“I hate that,” they mutter. “I hate how far away you are.”
“It’s necessary.” Diluc stands up. “You should’ve understood that by now.”
“I did. I do. It doesn’t make this easier.”
He finally looks at them. “And what is ‘this?’”
A bittersweet smile spreads across their face, and Ajax confesses, “I’m in love with you.” The barbed wire in their chest groans and shrieks with how tightly it pulls around their organs. Every word they utter stains their lips red. “I am in love with you, Diluc. It’s fucking terrible. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced.” They pause, shaky hand swiping at their cheek. Their fingers come away wet.
“I don’t care how many years I lose,” they continue, hushed, taking a step towards him. “I wouldn’t change anything I did. Touching you is priceless. Loving you is the same. And you don’t have to love me back. I don’t expect you to. I am not asking for forgiveness, either, I just want you to know.”
Diluc is crying. Silent tears, glistening trails on splotchy cheeks. He doesn’t wipe them away. Lets them fall, and says, “I know. I’ve known for a while.”
Ajax shuts their eyes for a moment, and when they blink, a fresh stream of tears pours down their face. They nod to themself, turn, and walk away.
It’s been three days. Three days of uncharacteristic wallowing on their end and radio silence on Diluc’s. Today they finally decided to drag themself out of bed to shower, at the very least. They’re standing directly underneath the spray, scalding hot water turning their skin red. The steam fogs up the glass door, but they still notice when the door to their ensuite opens. They turn, and there’s a blur of red past the mist and condensation.
Diluc walks up to the glass. For one, delirious moment, Ajax thinks he might slide the door open and step inside, but he just lifts his hand, knocking his knuckles against the glass.
Ajax frowns, and slowly, wipes the condensation from the door so they can see his face. It isn’t the clearest picture; drops of moisture slip over the surface, painting false tears onto his cheeks.
He flattens his hand, touching it to the surface. They mirror him. Then, he pushes himself onto his tiptoes, closing his eyes as he leans up. He presses his lips against the door. Ajax curls their hand into a fist against the glass. Their heart is in their throat, beaten and mangled and riddled with bullets and shrapnel. Part of them wants to lean down, meet him in the middle. Another part wants to just take him in.
Diluc pulls back. There’s the faintest imprint on the glass where his mouth had been.
“I love you,” he says, muffled. “I‘ve known that, too.”
He’s sitting on the bed they used to share when Ajax steps out of the shower. Knees pulled up to his chest, wings hugging him. There’s a line of pillows down the middle of the mattress.
“I thought it might help,” he says without looking up.
Ajax walks over to sit beside him. A frilly cushion separates them. They’ve never felt as close to Diluc as they do at this moment. Contentment curves their lips into a soft smile, and they sigh.
“It’s a good place to start.”