Chapter Text
Chapter 1
In his younger years, when the grief and despair was fresher, he had often thought: Oh, how painful it was to feel nothing, nothing at all. He scoffed at the thought, the naivety of his youth. Feeling nothing was not a good or comfortable state of existence.
Most of his days in the light of day, when he was wandering around the city, to complete jobs for the winery or on his walk to the tavern for the evening of bartending, he looked at the others around him, feeling completely numb to their expressions of joy, happiness, and mundanity of everyday life. Or at night, when everything was quiet and everyone resting in their beds, the night’s shadow would do nothing to dispel his disquiet.
He looked around from where he perched on the roof and the darkness around him just added to the strange feeling of clawing empty in his heart.
It was so painful to feel nothing…
The nothing was always so close to the verge of dread and despair. He should be able to feel, to be able to breathe without his lungs trying to mould around the big festering ball of painful, twisting void in his chest.
Nothing was not a pleasing numbness that allowed clear and practical thoughts.
Nothing was a big dark lake that surrounded him, and his every movement and thoughts were muddled.
He had not slept properly in months, because whenever he was alone in the darkness of his bedroom and closed his eyes, the nothing would suddenly lift, and the water of the deep dark lake drained, and he fell and fell and fell into a hole of unforgiving panicked desperation. Utter worthlessness accompanied the panic, no one would save him from this. He deserved this. So many had suffered because of him and his deeds and even more had suffered now because he could not manage to control himself enough to be of more help.
Of course, Diluc did the bare minimum. He made sure not to overwork his staff, he took difficult shifts at holidays and weekends at the tavern where he then could easily use that opportunity as well to listen to the chatter and rumours circulating around about any conflicts or nefarious plans concerning Mondstadt and/or its people.
And then, when everyone else retired to rest, he would pick up on the slack the knights had left behind. Like he was now. He was tired, so fucking tired but he couldn’t go home just yet. He just had to make sure than never would a threat go by unnoticed again and could destroy another family.
When he was satisfied, that nothing was creeping around in dark corners surrounding Mondstadt, he decided to head home. This had been a particularly long patrol, as he walked back to the winery, the sun was starting to creep over the horizon. He had to hurry, lest he be discovered by the people of Mond. ‘The darknight hero’… what a fun little title they had chosen to give him…
He climbed back up the stairs to the winery and silently slid inside. Maybe he could try and get a little rest before his day work for the winery had to be started.